Do all paths lead to the same goal? – Ishopanishad 13

So today we will discuss about the two results of the two different paths. itiśu śrūma dhīrāṇāṁ yenas tad vicha cakṣire so anyad evāhur sambhavāt by worshipping their absolute truth, one result is obtained, another result is obtained by asambhavāt anyad āhur āhur means this is how they have said, it is said, itiśu śrūma dhīrāṇāṁ this is what I heard from the dhīras, yenas tad vicha cakṣire so yesterday we discussed primarily about demigod worship, so today we will move forward from there, so this is also a long purport, so in the anyad evāhur vidya Śrīla Prabhupāda focused upon the contrast between material and spiritual life, between materialism which leads to various bad qualities, and spirituality which leads to good qualities, but in this purport, Śrīla Prabhupāda focusses on the idea of various spiritual paths being considered to be the same, so this verse talks about different paths and different destinations, so there it was avidyā, so here sambhavād asambhavāt, so Prabhupāda talks about how all paths leading to the same goal is wrong, dhīra exposes this, and then dhīra teaches śāstra, so Prabhupāda goes into śāstra about yānti devartā devān, how different paths lead to different goals, and then Prabhupāda gives a practical example of that, he says if you accept Krishna as sambhavāt, what is the result? we don't accept Krishna as sambhavāt, how the result will be different in our day to day lives, so we see from the example of Arjuna, when he accepts Krishna as sambhavāt, what happens is he is ready to even kill his, Prabhupāda uses so called relatives, not relatives but so called relatives, for the sake of satisfying Krishna, and then if you don't accept, then there are misconceptions, and Prabhupāda talks about two misconceptions, one is janta hi meri bhagwān hai, there was a popular politician at that time who had made that statement, Prabhupāda was very angry with that, and then I am God, that is a standard māyāvāda conception, and then how does one learn to accept Krishna as sambhavāt, that is by hearing from dhīra, one hears from dhīra, one can attain, one and all can attain perfection, there is no limitation of caste or gender or anything, nationality, so let us go over this purport now, so, now, this verse, this concept of all passing to the same goal, where did it originate from? at a historical level, it originated from the attempt to face religious diversity between Hinduism and other religions, as well as religious diversity within Hinduism, so basically, historically, the Muslims ruled India for almost 700-800 years, but there was not much intellectual dialogue with them, they would attack and destroy temples, and the devotees would try to save the deities, and whenever a Hindu, a ruler who would follow Vedic culture would come, they would again start the Navami worship, but there were not much intellectual debates with them, but when Christianity came, Islam was not something which anybody considered to be intellectually superior to the Vedic culture, liberal and superior was not even considered equal, because people who eat cow flesh, and basically eat cow flesh, so that was really not considered to be even a competitor, but when Christianity came along, Christianity brought with it western science, and actually one of the main reasons why the British East India Company flourished in India was because they had superior technology, they had cannons, they had some sophisticated weaponry, so along with that sophisticated weaponry came the sophisticated scientific worldview, and that scientific worldview, along with the religious worldview, which apparently also coupled with it, so western civilisation when it came along, it brought not just a cultural challenge, but an intellectual challenge, so western science was considered superior, and although at one level, in America, in Europe in the 18th, 19th century, Christian culture was itself at a conflict with western science, modern science, Darwin's theory of evolution was a primary issue of debate, but when they came to India, the whole attitude was, our culture is superior to yours, and the proof of that is our material prosperity, so in Christianity it was Catholic and Protestant, so the two main divisions, so the Protestants are quite this worldly, in fact the Protestant ethic is what led to the development of America, the Protestants say that, we have to be practical, most of the Protestants reject monkhood, as impractical, Catholics still accept it, and they say that, the good Christian life is to enjoy the good gifts of God in the world, some of them will be austere also, but in general their idea is, we have to work hard and make it good in this world, and the material prosperity in this world, is an indication of God's grace on the race, that was their idea, so initially when the Christian reformation movement started taking off, Christian reformation was when several priests reacted against the corruption in the Catholic church, so at that time, they formed the Protestant reformation movement, and Europe got divided into two, so Italy, Spain, Portugal, were the strongholds of Catholicism, and all the other countries, France, and especially England, France, England, Germany, all of them were strongly Protestant, so then the Protestants came to America, they founded the American nation, because there was a hundred year bloody war, the 17th century, extremely bloody, many priests and many lay Christians, being mercilessly killed by other Christians, just because their beliefs were different, so some Protestant Christians, they left Europe to seek relief, and they came to America, and they founded America, so America was originally founded as a Protestant Christian country, and Catholicism actually took root in America only in the last century, but then as Protestants, they got a good amount of success in America, then Protestants started expanding also, their idea was that we should deliver the whole world, so in general, the Protestants came eastwards, and the Catholics went westwards, so Catholics went and took Latin America, and practically all the ancient culture that was there, was decimated, destroyed completely, either people were converted or they were killed, it was like that, total devastation, those 300 years of Spanish rule, that's why even now if you go to Latin America, the main language there is Spanish, because the Spanish rule was there, so basically Spain, Portugal, they got the support of the Catholic Church, you go and Christianise the world, so Portuguese came to India first, but somehow they couldn't make much headway, and after that the British and French both came, and if you know Indian history, British and French also had some fight, but eventually British got control of India, now initially when the British came to India, it was actually a private company which came to India, British East India Company, and it was considered a great testimony to the valour and shrewdness of the British nation, that a handful of people, a few hundred people, not even several thousand, just a few hundred people, could make, could conquer a country that was several million people, even at that time, so that was a few thousand maybe later on, but most of the people who staffed the British East India Company, the British government in India, were Indians, and the British realised that the only way we can rule India, the Muslims, they had a way that they forcibly converted many Indians, and they also have a simple formula for expansion, that is reproduction, is reproduce and expand, the average Muslim reproduction rate is around 8, so that's how Islam is the fastest growing religion in the world today, but the Britishers realised, even if we bring all of Britain to India, still our population will be insignificant as compared to the population of India, and most Britishers considered India to be such an underdeveloped country, they felt like coming to India is a punishment, even if there were rulers over here, they thought it is punishment, so they decided the only way we can rule India is, if Indians cooperate with us, the Muslims did not really care much for Indian cooperation, because they had muscle power, and they used to subordinate the Indians, although of course there was some cooperation between rulers and rulers, but the cooperation was based more on terror, but as far as the Britishers were concerned, they brought about corruption not based on terror, but based on voluntary submission, and how could Indians, even Britishers used to eat meat, they also used to eat cow flesh, so how could these Britishers be considered more intellectually respected, there are books written about Christianity in India, 7-8 books are there, so they are discussing how will we Christianise India, so they say that the only way we can actually have political and religious strongholds in India, is by changing the values of Indians, because if they evaluate us from their values, they will never consider us superior, so the Christian culture, British rule in general, had the advantage of sophisticated technology, had scientific appeal, and then they used that to criticise Hinduism, criticise Vedic culture as unscientific, as superstitious, as polytheistic, as idolatrous, as violent, as immoral, and some of the statements of these people if you read, there is a book called Elements of Vedic Thought by Satsvarupa Maharaj, and in that he talks about, one British governor generally comes, he says that the Hindu is practically reduced to nothing but animal functions, and even in that he is totally unintelligent, and he says, the story of the so-called Hindu God, the story of the so-called Hindu God named Krishna, is nothing but a story of lust, deceit and violence, and similarly the target was Kali also, such a bloody goddess, how can people worship like this? So what happened, they started English education in India, and in general, the Muslims were still reacting, from the idea that they were the rulers at one time, and now we are not the rulers, so for them, the Britishers were the people who had ended their rule, all the Marathas were also there, so the Muslims did not at all cooperate, with the European rule, but the Hindus started cooperating, Hindus took English education, they became educated, and they formed what is called as the Bhadraloka, so Bhadraloka is the high people or the good people, and Uttin and Thakur belong to Bhadraloka, so these are the people who started later on what is known as the Bengali Renaissance, the Christians were hoping that when we educate the Hindus, and make them see their own tradition, through our eyes, then they will realise how ridiculous this tradition is, and they will give it up, but what happened was, starting from Ram Mohan Roy, Dayanand Saraswati, then Keshav Chandra Sen, and Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, and all these people, Rabindranath Tagore, all these people, rather than, they accepted Christian education, Gandhi was Christian educated, Radhakrishnan was Christian, I mean Christian and Western educated, which was largely same as Christian educated, even Srila Prabhupada had to go to a Christian college, now almost for 4 years, Prabhupada everyday had to hear Bible classes for, within half an hour to one hour, compulsorily, so that was the way people could get respectable education at that time, so, all these people, rather than becoming Christians, they started reforming Hinduism, now Hinduism had become quite, inward looking, because of sustained Islamic persecution, or whatever other reasons, the casteism had become very rigid, to some extent, Sati had become forced, and widows were in, those widows who lived, they were also in lot of trouble, so, there, no doubt, there were some social ills also, serious social ills were there, so, these Hindu leaders decided to reform Hinduism, and while reforming Hinduism, actually, they, unfortunately, maybe unintentionally, ended up in deforming Hinduism further, what happened was, because they were not connected with any Acharya in the Sampradaya, in fact, they were like Prabhupada, self appointed Acharya, sort of, they themselves were teachers, so, they tried to use their own sense of logic, their sense of intelligence, to try to present a respectable face of Vedic culture, of Hinduism, so, basically, Christianity had three main critiques of Hinduism, one is polytheism, second is the caste system, and third is idolatry, so, polytheism means you worship so many gods, don't you have any common sense, it's only one god, how can you have so many gods, it is, because what had happened, their idea of polytheism came from, before Christianity started ruling Europe, before that, there was Roman polytheism, the Greeks ruled first, and after that came Romans, and the Romans were polytheists, and Roman polytheism, unfortunately, it might have been an offshoot of Vedic culture, there are some similarities, but it was quite unphilosophical, and basically Roman polytheism grew from the idea of nature gods, so, historians of religion currently say that, people look at sun, and they think, oh, there must be a god on the sun, people look at rain, and they think there must be a god in charge of rains, so, they were sort of personifications of natural elements, and so, with that frame of reference that the Christians had, and Hindus are also like that, primitive polytheists, but the difference is that, there is a sophisticated and coherent worldview behind it, which was not there in the Roman tradition, so, they had the same dismissive view towards Hindu religion, and all these Hindu leaders had to react to that, so, one of the reactions they did was, they said, actually, you say there is only one god, we say there is only god, so, the Hindus tried to take a morally superior position, philosophically superior position, there is only one god, no, there is only god, we are all god, and all these different devatas are just faces of that one god, and therefore, ultimately whichever devata you worship, you will go to him only, so, actually, historically speaking, impersonalism had received a strong critique, which had caused it to subside.

Impersonalism, Mayavadi started from 7th century Shankaracharya, they drew out Buddhism from India, and gradually Ramacharya came 11th century, 12th century was Madhavacharya, and then Adalacharya was also there, and 15th century was Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, and actually, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu's appearance led to what you can call the crest of the Bhakti wave, so, the Bhakti wave spread all over the country, Rasim Ameta in Gujarat, Mirabai in Rajasthan, then Shankardev in Assam, then Chaitanya Mahaprabhu in Orissa, then there was Tulsidas in North India, so, all these were very very influential poets, and all the saints, Tukaram Maharaj and others in Maharashtra, they created such an emotional fervour, that Mayavada was practically swept off the Indian territory. Still, Mayavada had its strongholds within the Brahminical class, if you notice in general, most of the Bhakti saints did not belong to Brahmin classes. So, because of that, Bhakti also had a larger appeal.

So, the official office holders of Hinduism might have been Brahmins, but the mass appeal, at the mass level, Bhakti had practically defeated Mayavada. And Baladevidya Bhushan was the last among the Vaishnavacharyas, belonging to the four Sampradayas, who wrote a commentary critiquing Vedanta Sutra. Critiquing Shankaracharya's Chaitanya Mahaprabhu commentary on Vedanta Sutra.

And by that time, he fired the last salvo, Mayavada had become not just popularly displaced, but also intellectually dismantled. So, in that sense, all the Vaishnavas, 600-700 years of work was highly successful. So, Baladevidya Bhushan lived around the 1750s, roughly in that time he wrote the commentary.

But, although Mayavada had become a spent force to a large extent, at least at the popular level, and also substantially at the intellectual level. Another thing that happened was, that through devotee poets, through devotees who were apparently Mayavada Sampradaya, like Seshwajar Swami and others, Mayavada also acquired a strong Bhakti element. That's how the whole Mayavada went back.

But what happened is, as Bhakti had its mass appeal, to some extent, the mass appeal of Bhakti led to a perception of its non-intellectuality. You know, if somebody's first introduction to Krishna Consciousness was people dancing on the streets, they really don't think that, they may be happy people, but you won't really think of them as philosophical people or intelligent people. So, when the Britishers critiqued Hinduism, they critiqued the popular Bhakti expressions a lot.

And at that time, all these Hindu intellectuals in their own ways, Hindu spiritual leaders, reformers, they decided to take shelter of Jnana. Because Jnana was more intellectually satisfying, and they felt this could unify everyone. So now if you see, all these leaders, I mentioned all of them, they were all Mayavadis.

Starting from Ram Mohan Roy, then Saraswati, Swami Vivekananda, and then Dr. Radhakrishnan, Rabindranath Tagore also. Not few had Bhakti elements also in him, but to a large extent. So what happened, these people gave a tremendous boost to impersonalism.

But their brand of impersonalism was substantially different from traditional Mayavada Shankaracharya. Because traditional Mayavada Shankaracharya was totally world-rejecting. Because it was a response to Buddhism which was also world-rejecting.

Shankaracharya was also quite world-rejecting. But this modern brand of Mayavada, in fact, historians call it as Neo-Mayavada, Neo-Advaitavada. Neo means Neo-Advaitavada.

So this was quite socially, politically and nationalistically active. Socially and politically and nationalistically active. And their idea was that if we want to reform Hinduism and we want to eventually overthrow British rule, then a powerful galvanising force is religion.

But Hindus are religiously divided in so many ways. How can we unite them? It is through creating a unifying platform within the religion. And the only way to create a unifying platform is they felt if we accept Krishna as God, then all the Shiva, Shakti, all the other worshippers will feel limited.

But if we accept Brahman as the Supreme and bring all the other gods as manifestation of the Supreme, everybody will be satisfied. So it was not so much shastrically based as utilitarian in its approach. So that's how this idea came up.

All paths lead to the same goal. And now some of their statements were quite damaging to Vedic culture. For example, out of their notion that everyone is God or God is all that exists, then they said they had the whole idea that there is the Narayana Shiva.

So we'll discuss about that in our social service maybe in the next class, tomorrow's class. But let's focus right now on this. All paths lead to the same goal.

So now if you think of the mountain climbing analogy, you can say all paths lead to the same goal. We can refute this at various levels. Anyway, this is all there now.

Maybe I can just talk about this first. So what is Mayavad? Mayavad is a khichdi. Khichdi of four components.

Grains of impulsivism drawn from the Upanishads, the sugar of social service taken from Christianity, the spice of nationalism taken from the Indian National Movement and the envy of Krishna taken from the hearts of the conditioned souls. So it has tremendous mass appeal. So there is surely some basis to impersonalism.

Many of the Upanishads are impersonalistic. But they are impersonalistic not in their conclusion but in guiding people from material life to spiritual life. So they drew on this Upanishadic literature and then they had a nationalistic appeal which came from the Indian Independence Movement.

And then what happened was, the Christians, they found that although they criticised Hinduism a lot, the Hindus did not, the upper class Brahmins never got converted in general. Few of them might have got converted. But instead of converting and rejecting Hinduism, they started reforming Hinduism.

So they decided the only way we can change Hindus is by leaving aside the upper caste, go to the lower caste. And they started doing a lot of social service. And they were very successful at that level.

So some of these impersonalist leaders felt that okay, why should people just get converted because of social service, because of getting their material needs fulfilled by Christians. So to keep them within Vedic culture, they started introducing social service. Now social service in and of itself is not bad.

But when it is portrayed as a spiritual activity, as a superior form of spiritual activity, then it becomes detrimental. So that's how, now for example impersonalist slogans like maanav sevahi, madhav sevahi nara sevahi, narottam sevahi jana sevahi, janardhan sevahi like that. So now, what are the actual dangers of impersonalism? This is what I spoke earlier.

Upanishads are the stepping stone in the Vedic master plan. You remember that I talked about negative axis to positive axis. They are basically at the origin point.

So where impersonalists are right and where impersonalists are wrong. So material forms, their idea is what? That there are material forms and varieties. Those create material desires.

And material desires create material miseries. Therefore if we don't want the miseries, we should not have the desires. And if we should not have the desires, then there should be no forms and varieties to create those desires.

So all this is true but it is true only for the material level, not for the spiritual level. But they generalised and absolutised it. So now, there are a large number of statements in the scriptures which talk about bhakti.

Which talk about there being a bhakta and there being a bhagwan. So how will they get rid of these statements? So they very conveniently divided scriptures into two levels. Vyavaharik and Parmarthik.

Vyavaharik means practical, Parmarthik means transcendental. And anything that talks about impersonalism is Parmarthik. Anything that talks about bhakti is Vyavaharik.

In this way they relegated everything that was about devotion to a lower realm of bhakti. So I discussed a mediaeval spread of Mayavada was as a response to Buddhism and modern boost and twist. That was what I talked about exhaustively.

But what spread Mayavada in present time, it was a reaction to Christianity. So now, what is the disaster caused by Mayavada? Two main disasters. I gave a class on twelve disasters of Mayavada once.

That's all. Two hours of Bhagavatam. Eventually I cut it in two minutes.

What is the first thing? That it deprives the soul of its natural taste of bhakti. Because if there is no Bhagavan, then where can I get taste of a certain Bhagavan? And the form of bhakti, the form of spirituality that the Mayavadis practise, actually what is there? Ultimately you have to become free from all desires, all activities, all attractions, and just merge. So this can appeal only to the most burnt out victims of material life.

Most burnt down victims. Otherwise, it is such a dry and rarefied idea that it does not have much either mass appeal or even sustained appeal. Little bit it might be appealing.

It doesn't have much mass appeal. So people feel, okay, material life is miserable, but if I go and merge over there, then what is there? There is practically nothing over there. Ultimately one of the questions that comes up which Mayavadis don't understand is, if I myself don't exist, then how will I actually unleash my liberation? Who is there to rejoice the fact that I have become liberated? Because I myself have dissolved.

So in that sense there is practically no liberation also. So therefore the spiritual life appears so stark and dry, and in contrast material life appears more attractive. In material life there is variety.

You know they have this, at the end of many yajnas, or many Hindu functions, they have, Om Shanti, Shanti, Shanti. They say Shanti three times. Why three times? Because there is a prayer, there is a thrivid tap.

Stop. Om Adivautikle Shanti, Om Adivautikle Shanti, Om Adhyatmikle Shanti. That is the idea.

So that they think is the purpose of spiritual life. Just becoming peaceful, becoming peaceful, becoming peaceful. But peace does not have much long-term appeal.

And this is real. That's why you will see something very interesting within Hinduism. If you see India, there is a huge religious fervour even today in India.

For example, there are so many godmen who attract, or sometimes Siddhi Vinayak is there, or Sai Baba is there. Thousands and thousands of Indians go to these places. In fact according to the Maharashtra tourism department, Shirdi is Maharashtra's number one tourist spot.

Above Pandharpur also. Pandharpur may be seasonal, but Shirdi is regular. It's like that.

So what has happened in Hinduism today? Hindus are very religious and very materialist. Religious and materialist. This to some extent is the result of Mayawal at a mass level.

Because Mayawal, it talks about Gyanakand, but Gyanakand appears so dry, that most people come down to the level of Karmakand. Dharma artha kama. And most people don't go to Moksha at all.

So, those who try to practise spiritual life don't get higher taste. And that's why most people say that hey, go and practise spiritual life, there's no happiness there. It's so difficult.

And let me continue materialising. This is how the spiritual culture of India got subverted because of Mayawal. And Krishna Prabhupada, Bhaktiswami Thakur, both of them, at Bhaktivinoda Thakur's time, Mayawal was not so strong.

Bhaktivinoda Thakur met Ramakrishna Paramhansa once. They had a good talk. Ramakrishna Paramhansa had become quite famous at that time.

And he was not in the position to be influenced. He appreciated Bhaktivinoda Thakur as a great Vaishnava. He said something like that.

Bhaktivinoda Thakur and Swami Vivekananda were cousins. Bhaktivinoda Thakur was Kedarnath Dutta. Swami Vivekananda was Narendranath Dutta.

But they were distant cousins. And Narendranath Dutta, he was searching for God. But for him at that time, Bhaktivinoda Thakur was not… Bhaktivinoda Thakur, if you read his life, he started off after being born in Shakta family.

And he studied western philosophy. Then he was very attracted to Unitarian Christianity. There is Trinitarian Christianity and Unitarian Christianity.

Trinitarian means they accept Trinity. The father, the son and the Holy Ghost. Or the Holy Spirit.

So, when Prabhupada was asked about this Holy Ghost. Prabhupada, what is the Holy Ghost? Prabhupada replied, all ghosts are unholy. So, Prabhupada did not go too much into their philosophy over there.

So, this Trinitarian Christianity is not as intellectually applied as Unitarian Christianity. So, Bhaktivinoda Thakur was attracted to Unitarian Christianity. And after that, Ram Mohan Roy had tried to unite Christianity and Hinduism in his Brahmoism.

So, Bhaktivinoda Thakur was attracted to Brahmoism for quite some time. And then later on, if you see Prema Pradeep and Jaiva Dharma. Prema Pradeep is a very interesting book.

It talks about two Brahmos, they come to Gaudiya Vaishnavas. Vaishnavas have a lot of mass appeal because they sing songs very nicely. So, he told the people to go as spies.

And you act as if you are Vaishnavas, you want to learn about Vaishnavism. And then you learn all the songs and the tunes and the kirtans that they sing. And you come back and then we will have our Brahmo philosophy according to those kirtans.

We will attract the people to us. So, these two people come and they meet Vaishnavas. And they have had this caricature of Vaishnavas and unintelligent sentimental people.

And they meet Vaishnavas and they are so amazed. These are so intelligent. So, they come to the Vaishnavas.

Yad gathva nani vartante. They all become Vaishnavas. Then the Brahmo sent a letter.

It has been a long time, so please come back and also your monthly donation is overdue. So, there this Naren Babu and Vijay Babu are there. Naren Babu is there.

He said that you need not expect any more donations from me now. So, they get converted and transformed and they become Vaishnavas. So, that is how Bhaktivinoda Thakur, he presents his, in one sense, his own spiritual evolution from Brahmo's to a Gaudiya Vaishnava through that novel.

And this is how these people also get converted. Now Bhaktivinoda Thakur actually is a Nitya Siddha devotee. But when the Lord had him manifest his pastime in this world, the Lord can arrange for him and his Nitya Siddha devotees to manifest their Krishna Consciousness at a particular time in their lives.

So, Bhaktivinoda Thakur grieved in his life in such a way that he was a member of the Bhadraloka, a respected member of the Bhadraloka, and after being among them when he became a Gaudiya Vaishnava, he could relate to all of them and present Krishna Consciousness in a very appealing way to them. So, among the modern presenters of Gaudiya Vaishnavism, Bhaktivinoda Thakur is considered to be the most intellectually sophisticated. His presentations are classy because he is appealing to a mass audience, not a mass audience, a class audience, the Bhadraloka primarily.

Although he wrote a lot of Vaishnava songs which are for mass singing. So, anyway, the point which I was making here is that Bhaktisiddhanath Thakur and Shri Prabhupada, when they were there, that was the time when Mayavada had become very strong. So, Bhaktivinoda Thakur, his spiritual evolution as it grew, grew, grew, he was born in 1838, around 1870, he wrote his first Vaishnava book.

And then, from that time, he started writing more and more Vaishnava books. And then, slowly but steadily, he became very prominent. 1895 was the year when he discovered the Yoga Peetha.

So, by this time, parallelly, Swami Vivekananda had gone to Chicago and had given that speech. And when he came back, he was seen as a person who brought glory to Hinduism. And after his time, Mayavada spread very rapidly in India.

Now, when he came back to India, he became quite an ardent nationalist. And his idea was that he made a lot of unfortunate statements. I mentioned some of them last time, didn't I? Not last time means when we were having classes downstairs.

So, he said, for young people, he said, India has to develop materially to be able to confront the world. So, he says, what is the use of watering Tulsi? If at all you want to water something, water a banyan tree. You will get something to eat by that.

Tulsi will not give you anything. He said, for practical people, for a school going child, one football ground is more valuable than a hundred Bhagavad Gitas. So, he made a lot of statements like this, which were denigrating Vedic culture.

Now, his intention, whatever they might have, his intention was, ideas were that, Prabhupada quotes about him. He said that actually, if you want to grow strong, you have to have Bala. And Bala comes by eating meat.

So, therefore, somehow they had this whole perverted idea that the Indians have always fallen to foreign rulers because the foreign rulers are stronger than Indians because they eat meat and Indians didn't eat meat. Actually speaking, this doesn't have much basis. But somehow, all this was the propaganda.

So, actually meat might give, a person eats meat, it might give slightly more surge of energy. But it doesn't give more stamina. And Kshatriya Yoga is not just about surge of energy, it requires stamina.

Anyway, so they had this whole idea that Hinduism, India needs to progress materially. And for the sake of progressing materially, we need to downplay all our differences and downplay the devotional culture which creates differences. Their idea was devotional culture, you have so many deities, you have so many Kathas, you have so many Devatas, it will create differences.

Downplay the devotional culture. And that's why our Acharyas, Bhakti Sanath Thakur, Bhakti Nath Thakur reacted against it quite strongly. Because they realised that if this sort of idea has come up, that Manav Seva hi Madhav Seva hai, or Dharidhar Narayan Seva, all this has come up, then what will happen is, see, Rantidev and Shiv Maharaj take care of the, they are doing at one level material service, humanitarian service.

It's not in humanitarian, it is for animal service also. But still, they are not considering that this is a substitute for devotional service. But what these people said is, instead of spending so much money on worshipping the deities, on building temples, use that money to feed the poor.

And if you can, what is the whole idea, they distorted the whole philosophy, that if you can see God in the deity, that means you are less intelligent. And if you can see God in the poor, that means your spiritual evolution is more advanced. Because you have become advanced now, you can see God everywhere.

So, Prabhupada in an earlier purport talked about false philanthropists in verses 6 and 7. So, this was attacking at the roots of Vedic culture, Vedic devotional culture. And our Acharyas responded to it by strongly critiquing the idea that, it's not that poor people have to be starved, but certainly taking care of poor people is not devotional service in and of itself. And surely it's not a superior substitute to devotional service.

Now, how it happened was, that to some extent, Hindus had become a little fatalistic. Fatalistic means what? Fatalism is the idea that everything is just time. And nobody can do anything about it.

So, when floods would come, when invaders would come, when injustice would happen, Hindus just, oh, it's just our karma, so we have to deal with it. So, the Sisters of Charity, led by Mother Teresa, they propagated the notion in the West, that the Hindus are so fatalistic in their beliefs, and the Brahmanas have brainwashed them so much into believing that their sufferings are the result of their past bad karma, that if we go and feed them, and when they are starving and dying on the streets of Calcutta, if we go and feed them, they say, actually it's our karma to starve and die. And if we eat this food, it will interfere with our karma.

Therefore, the only way we can do humanitarian service is by converting them to Christianity. So, without converting them to Christianity, we will not be able to do any service to them. And therefore, to save people's bodies, we have to save their souls.

So, this was a terrible distortion. Now, I don't know how much truth there is to it, this particular propaganda, but it worked. It worked in a very big way, and that's how… So, why I am talking about all this in so much detail is, that we need to understand two things.

If we have had nationalistic sympathies, or we have broad cultural or Hinduistic sympathies, then sometimes we may wonder, why our Acharyas are criticising Mayavada so strongly? Why is there such strong criticism? And one devotee was asking me recently, and he said that, if my daughter gets married to a Shakta or a Shaiva, still we can go on with our life. But if my daughter gets married to a Muslim, our whole life will collapse. We can just go on.

So, in one sense, because the culture is different, everything is different, we just cannot live together. So, he said, that way, if you see from a practical point of view, Islam is a far greater threat for Vedic culture, than, say, other sects within Hinduism. But we see that Prabhupada doesn't criticise Islam much, doesn't criticise Christianity much.

Why does Prabhupada criticise Mayavada so much? So, I was explaining to him that, Mayavada creates a misunderstanding of what the Vedic message is. Mayavada creates a misunderstanding of what the Vedic message, what the Vedic process is. Those who are within Vedic culture, if they follow the Vedic culture, they will make dialogue which will advance it.

If somebody is following Christianity or Islam, they are not mistaking, this is the Vedic message. So, in one side, why all these Mayavadi ideas originated, and why our Acharya spoke so strongly, when we understand the historical context, then we can not just understand the gravity of the situation and the strength and the strongness of the response that was required, but we can also understand how presenting Krishna Consciousness is a challenge in each age. And in every particular age, Krishna Consciousness is presented accordingly.

It is presented accordingly, then it spreads. So, in general, what happens to people when they misunderstand the absolute truth? For example, from even the material point of view, giving food to the hungry seems to be much more compassionate than giving donation for the needy worship. It seems more practical, more utilitarian, more tangibly visible and beneficial.

So, this takes away the focus of people from devotional service, and makes them do social service thinking that it is devotional service. That's what creates the complications. So, let's look at, are there any questions about this till now? Was Swami Vivekananda Shastric in his view? Surely, he quoted from Shastras on a few occasions, but in general, his talks are more inspirational than scripture.

We'll talk about the glory of India. He was an eloquent speaker. But he just takes a few things from scriptures and he focused more on the glory of India and the glory of Indian culture, glory of Vedic culture.

Several of his critics say that he did not read the Upanishads very systematically. So, if you look at, before I was introduced to Krishna Consciousness, I used to read Vivekananda quite extensively. So, in his books, the scriptural quotations are occasional, not like as much as there are in Prabhupada's books.

Only a fraction would be there. So, basically, in one sense, Ramakrishna Paramahamsa was a transcendentalist. And he did not do any social service also.

He was just going out to transcend and experience God. But Swami Vivekananda, he was his disciple, but he not only brought social service to the forefront, but he made social service appear as if it was an expression of transcendental realisation. So, that certainly is not Shastric.

When you talk about, say, compassion to people, that is not at the material level, that is spiritual level. So, in that sense, most of his views are contextual, historical, nationalistic, with only a few things from scripture, but not much from scripture. How did Swami Vivekananda become so famous among the youths among India? Because he seemed to salvage the nationalist pride of Hindus.

Because when he went to Chicago for the World Religions Conference, and he was very well received at that time, and actually that event was planned by the world religions, they were mostly Christians over there, and they thought, let other religious representatives come here, and they will not be able to speak nicely, our people will speak very nicely, and then people who are getting attracted to various things will see the glory of Christian truth. But then his speech, to some extent, stole the show over there. And when he came back, Prabhupada received a hero's welcome when he came back with western disciples.

So, he was the first person who did that to some extent. And when he came back to India, he became an inspiration for all subsequent Indian leaders. So, Dr. Radhakrishnan writes, I used to get a thrill when I used to read the speeches of Swami Vivekananda.

So, subsequent leaders sort of increased his respectability more and more in the eyes of people. And his quotes were inspirational. And when India became independent, they decided to make Swami Vivekananda's birthday as the National Youth Day.

So, it's celebrated quite extensively at the official level. And then Indian government decided that the post-independence history should not be studied much. Because what happens is, post-independence history is mostly a history of the Congress mystics, blunders.

So, they actually skim over it very quickly, in a few chapters. And that's why, actually speaking of the transformational point of view, several spiritual teachers went abroad and came back and they had significant influences. But Prabhupada had the greatest transformational influence.

You know, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi was successful in the west. Then Paramahansa Yogananda was also successful in the west. But the greatest transformational influence, in terms of people adopting Vaishnav values, Vaishnav culture and becoming Vaishnav preachers, that was Prabhupada.

Because Prabhupada's preaching happened in the post-independence phase. The post-independence phase is not talked about in the Indian textbooks. Whereas Vivekananda is talked about in the Indian textbooks.

And he is talked about in very positive terms. So, that's how, both because of the reinforcement of his success of his salvaging Hindu national pride by subsequent leaders, by the textbooks and by the government's declaration of him as a youth icon. One of the things which Ramakrishna Mission has been able to do, which ISKCON has not been able to do is to elevate Swami Vivekananda from not just being the leader of an organisation to a universal Indian leader.

People still think of Prabhupada as an ISKCON founder-acharya. But Prabhupada's vision is applicable to people who are not even ISKCON followers. It's very broad in vision.

So, that is something which they have been able to do very strongly. That is a matter of propaganda. Historians say that, although Ramakrishna Mission never gained a large following, but they influenced a lot of people because of their universalisation of their appeal and their teachings.

That's why he is very popular. Any other questions? At the time of Mahaprabhu, all these other Vaishnavi leaders who appeared, did you perceive more of sentimentalist rather than religious? At when? All these parallel teachers. At Mahaprabhu's time? Like, concurrently, like Kulkarni Das or Meera Bai.

So, in more of a continuity, so I've seen that they've done more of… In department, I've seen practitioners perceiving themselves as more sentimentalistic. Are other teachers who appeared at the Mahaprabhu's time, did they create sentimental perspectives? I'm not hearing, when you look at Tugaram Maharaj, Abhangas, they are quite philosophical. Philosophy present in the vernacular language.

Similarly, Tulsidas Ramsheth Manas is also having a lot of philosophy. I've seen Mehtas, I've not read any writings. Shankardez also is quite philosophical.

Yes, philosophy. I don't think that was the point. These future teachers were quite powerful.

But subsequent generations, just like, even within Gaudiya Vaishnavism, how it happened was, there was a philosophical intellectual Gaudiya Vaishnavism, which was shastrically faithful. And there's a popular mass Gaudiya Vaishnavism, which was shastrically deviant. That happened within Bengal itself.

That's why Bhaktivinod Thakur, he saw Gaudiya Vaishnavism from his childhood. But he did not find them intellectually appealing. So only when he eventually… See, you can think, Bengal is the place where Chaitanya Chaitanya Tamrath's author originated.

And, although Chaitanya Chaitanya Tamrath was written in Vrindavan, he wrote it in Bengali. Because at that time, his primary target was Bengalis. And even the Gaudiya Devotee knew Bengali.

And it was such an important book that it is among the very few books in the history of Indian literature, and the book is in vernacular, and there's a commentary in Sanskrit. Chakravarthi Padra's commentary on Chaitanya Chaitanya Tamrath is in Sanskrit. So it was such a significant book.

But such a significant book was not available for Bhaktivinod Thakur for six years. Although all around him there were Gaudiya Bhaktas, but such a book was not available. It was to that extent that the philosophical side of Gaudiya Vaishnavism had got obscured.

Chaitanya Bhagwat is available. Bengali is also sweet. Chaitanya Chaitanya Tamrath's Bengali is a little more stylised.

But more importantly because it is philosophical. So Chaitanya Chaitanya Tamrath is not so much of a biography as a book on theology in the mode of biography. It's quite a philosophical book.

So you can understand this happened in Gaudiya Vaishnavism also. And if you see from that way, from Chakravarthi Padra's time to Bhaktivinod Thakur's time, Bhaktivinod Thakur's time, it's only 100-150 years. That is the power of time.

So I would say that subsequent generations that the problems came up. Vallabhacharya also wrote a commentary on the Vedanta, Bhagavatam. Also wrote on Vedanta Sutra also.

So they are quite philosophical that way. So now we will quickly discuss these points of the folly of same goal. This can be looked at in three ways.

Do all paths lead to the same goal? We can look at it from a grammatical, logical and scriptural perspective. So which is the verse in the Bhagavad Gita that lends credence to the idea that all paths lead to the same goal? Which is the verse which directly refutes this? Prabhupada's most often quoted verse? All paths don't lead to the same goal. Yes, very good verse.

That is यान्ति देवर्ता देवां यान्ति पित्रवता And what is Prabhupada's standard example for this? All paths don't lead to the same goal? All of you know it. What is the example? If you take a ticket to Delhi, you won't go to Calcutta. Let me play the Mayavadi role.

Do you think the absolute truth is a small place like Delhi or Calcutta? The absolute truth is everywhere. Therefore whichever path you take, you will go to the absolute truth. Don't limit the absolute truth by comparing it to a small geographical place like Delhi or Calcutta.

Whenever there is an analogy given, the analogy has a purpose. So here the focus of the analogy is on the path, not the destination. If we say that the absolute truth is everywhere, then what it would mean is, if we say that because the absolute truth is everywhere, so everywhere that we go we will get God, then there will be no meaning to Shastra telling do this and don't do this.

Somebody can do sinful activity and still that person can say that is also a way to God. And that has absolutely no basis in Shastra. What is the use of Shastra? It will be against even ordinary moral behaviour.

So even in scripture it is said that you do this, you don't do this. There was a conversation of Prabhupada where one young man asked him in America, Swamiji, I don't know the words, but Krishna says in the Bhagavad Gita, whatever you do you will come to me. Prabhupada says, if whatever you do you will come to Krishna, then why does Krishna have to speak the Bhagavad Gita? Because whatever you do, you do anyway.

So it is very clear, Krishna, there are so many verses in the Gita, he teaches by contrast. Do this, you will get this. If you do this, you will get this.

3.30, 31, 4.39, 40, 18.58, 16.23, 24, so many places actually. I have written on this, how many verses are in contrast. Do this, you get this.

So this analogy is primarily for the path. It is not for the destination. This path will take you here, this path will take you there.

And if we say the absolute truth is everywhere, so Prabhupada writes in CC Purport, yes, the bliss one person gets when one drinks wine, is also Brahman realisation. The bliss that one gets when one dances in Kirtan, that is also Brahman realisation. But these are all extremely different levels of Brahman realisation.

Ultimately, anybody who gets some happiness, that happiness is a spark of Krishna's supreme happiness. Everything that is attractive comes from the spark of Krishna's splendour. But it is not a question of whether it comes from Krishna, the question is whether it takes us to Krishna.

Even when a man has sex with a woman, that pleasure, ultimately Krishna, all pleasures ultimately come from Krishna. But does that pleasure take us to Krishna? Somebody may say that a woman's beauty is also coming from Krishna. So, I am admiring Krishna's creation by relishing a woman's beauty.

Yes, a woman's beauty comes from Krishna, but does that take you to Krishna? No, it doesn't awaken remembrance of Krishna within us. It awakens materialistic, godless desires within us. The issue of debate is not whether everything comes from Krishna, but whether everything takes us to Krishna.

The focus of the analogy is on the path, not the destination. So, logical level. Then you can go to the scriptural level.

The scriptural level, it very clearly talks about do this, don't do this. And then it is taught by contrast. There are so many verses in the Bhagavad Gita.

Then there is the grammatical level. So, which is the verse in the Bhagavad Gita that gives, that seems to give credence to the idea that all paths lead to the same goal? 4.11 4.11, Prabhupada quotes the second part, the Mayavadis like to quote the first part. Prabhupada quotes the first part, Mayavadis quote the second part.

What is the second part? So, Vartama is path. Mama, my. Anuvartante, to follow.

Mam vartmanuvartante, manushyaha, people. Partha sarvasyaha, all people of Partha. So, now if you look at this verse, from a grammatical point of view, then, so here, normally you know that an adjective comes to the noun, close to the noun that it describes.

So, sarvasyaha, sarvasyaha is all. So, where does sarvasyaha come close to? It comes close to manushyaha. It doesn't come close to vartama.

Vartama is path. Manushyaha is people. So, Prabhupada explains, all people are on my path.

It's like the mountain climbing analogy. All people are on my path. But what the Mayavadis do, they take the sarvasyaha and they apply it to vartama.

They say, all paths followed by all people come to me. So, we could refute it another way. Okay, all paths take us to God.

But all paths don't take us all the way to God. All paths take us to God. Okay, jnana also takes us to God.

It doesn't take us all the way to God. Your materialism, if it is arvajas, it takes us towards God. It doesn't take us all the way towards God.

It takes only part away, maybe till swarga. Till some realisation that there is a higher religious authority. That's why all paths don't lead to the same goal ultimately.

So, that is the point which Prabhupada strongly refutes in this purport. And actually this purport is extremely heavy. No where in the authentic scriptures is it said that one will ultimately reach the same goal by by worshipping in whatever way one worships.

Prabhupada says, such mundane and compromising offers attract many foolish creatures who become puffed up with the manufactured methods of self-realisation. So, these are, the ideas that all pass into the same goal are mundane and compromising. And then, so page down.

Prabhupada talks about various interpreters who interpreted wrongly. And then, So, how does one get the conviction? Krishna is all established when one hears the transcendental message from the undisturbed acharyas. This undisturbed acharyas is Prabhupada's translation of dheera.

So, Arjuna wanted to become a philanthropic. Prabhupada said, no, don't become a philanthropic. So, here is what Prabhupada is telling.

This is very representative of what I was telling. In modern times, the number of such pretenders Ok, go back. Who would like to read this a little bit? Mental speculators, you would like to read this.

Mental speculators. In that the activities of the Lord are imaginary. Therefore, we refrain from hearing of them and invent some word jugglery without any substance to divert the attention of the innocent masses of people.

So many mantras they have created themselves, you know. Like, there is this, Actually, this is not a scriptural mantra. Anybody can give some interpretation.

Oh, this gana refers to body, that gana refers to soul, gana refers to this. They will give a direct interpretation. But where is the scriptural basis? Instead of hearing of the activities of Lord Krishna, such serious spiritual masters advertise themselves by inducing their followers to stay in the body.

In modern times, the number of such pretenders has increased considerably and has become a problem for the pure devotees of the Lord to save the masses of people from the unholy propaganda of these pretenders and pseudo-incarnations. And the transformation is, the person changes from a materialist to becoming a spiritualist. Whereas, when a person follows gyana, the person may think that I am very intellectually sophisticated.

But that person just continues to stay at a material level. Obsessed with material concerns like philanthropy or nationalism but doesn't move much forward in the spiritual direction. So, that's why Ayeshwara Prabhupada, when he wrote his pranam mantra, he had this.

strong… strong… contextual, geographical, philosophical purpose wedded into the mantra. nirvishesha shunyavadi pashyatya desha tarane So, nirvishesha shunyavadi is actually the philosophical aspect. Pashyatya desha is the western aspect.

So, Ayeshwara Prabhupada had to face this in the western countries. Initially, when Ayeshwara Prabhupada went to America and started preaching in America, at one point he had thought that in India, he had not got any reception. Good reception.

So, he said, he was thinking that I'll just stay in America and preach in America. Let America only become my base. But over the period of years, he felt that actually, although America was receptive, but see, the culture was so degraded, that for devotees to stabilise and actually become Vaishnavas would take a long time.

You see, in the 1966, 67, 68, when Ayeshwara Prabhupada gave lectures, he said, there is no need for Varanasi. You can just chant Hare Krishna and become Vaishnavas, become transcendental to Varanasi. But as the devotees started having more and more problems in maintaining the principles of Vaishnavism, Ayeshwara Prabhupada recognised that the purification of the devotees would take a longer time and therefore, they would need Varanasi.

And once the concept of creating Varanasi came up, he realised that America is not a place for that. That's how he started focussing on India. And he came once in 1967, 68, stayed for a few months because he was sick.

That time, just he had brought Kirtan Mahaj only with him, so that did not create much of a sensation. But next time when he came with a several busload of disciples to Vrindavan, it was a huge success. For the Rajivasis, like a hometown boy become world famous.

Although Prabhupada was not a boy, he was a sannyasi, old man, but he was a hometown person, became world famous. And as Prabhupada travelled all over the country and preached, he had a tremendous impact. But still it took time.

During Sri Prabhupada's time, Krishna Consciousness became very visible and famous. But it did not take roots in India. Because although Sri Prabhupada was available for people, they knew at a practical level, they would have to interact with Prabhupada's disciples.

And for them to accept Prabhupada's disciples as spiritual teachers was very difficult. Because for them, the western Hare Krishna devotees were more museum objects for parading the glory of their own culture. They were not spiritual teachers.

You see how great our culture is? Western boys have become devotees. They are more like exhibition pieces, not actually sources of instruction. But over the years, as Krishna Consciousness movement took root, and many of these young devotees became older biologically and more mature spiritually, then the whole foundational strength of Krishna Consciousness shifted to India.

In America there were some problems, but as of now, India is the powerhouse of ISKCON. Powerhouse in terms of money, funds raised, in terms of books distributed, in terms of temples built, in terms of devotees made. That is actually the vision of Srila Prabhupada.

So, of course, Prabhupada's disciples who have done that in India, they also deserve our great gratitude for that. But the point is, Srila Prabhupada saved all of us from his unholy propaganda. If any of us had become interested in spirituality, if it had not been for Srila Prabhupada's disciples, Srila Prabhupada's grand disciples coming in our lives, we would generally have gone into maya.

And if we had gone into mayavad, we might have made some limited spiritual advancement, but mostly we would have got entangled in material causes. So, it is actually Srila Prabhupada who has saved us, through his institution, through his followers, and through his books, from the unholy propaganda of these people. Thank you.

Sri, what you heard that made you change? I was impressed by the devotees' commitment, their understanding, their ability to answer questions. And to some extent, I was frustrated with the success of material life. Frustrated not with the failures of material life, but with the success of material life.

So, Krishna timed it like that. You know, I was quite successful academically, but somehow I got, I was first in GRE in my, I gave GRE, generally people give GRE in the fourth year or third year, second semester. I gave it in my third year, first semester only.

So, after I gave my GRE, I was first in Maharashtra at that time. And I found that, I had thought that this would make me extremely happy, to become a topper. It was my dream.

And here I was a straight topper. But I found there was no happiness in my life. All my happiness depended on, I told others, others coming and congratulating me.

You are so great, you are so good, you are so good. And when that didn't happen, and that didn't last for long, at that time I started searching for something higher. And somehow, that time Krishna sent some devotees in my life.

So, it took me, I remember, I came to something like the eleventh chapter of the Bhagavad Gita, when I understood that there are two souls in the heart. You know, that there is a soul and a super soul. Prabhupada did it so many times, but the vayavada was so deep, that I came to my eleventh or twelfth chapter, even when you see the two birds in the figure, still that didn't register in my mind.

So, in the Radha dasa Rupa says like that, you know, when he saw Krishna deity also, so he said that, you know, ok, this Krishna is the manifestation of Brahman. But one day he heard in a conversation, one day I was just telling somebody, Krishna is not the product of that light, Krishna is beyond that light. So he said, as soon as I heard that, my whole edifice of impersonalism came crumbling down.

So for me it might not, it was not so dramatic, but that whole, there are two souls in the heart, not one. I was shaken by that. So maybe that was the moment when, when the change took place at intellectual level.

But at a cultural and practical level, I was fortunate that I met devotees first, before meeting any impersonalists. And by Krishna's mercy, he has accepted me somewhere to speak. Thank you very much.