Preaching sensitively

Lecture ppt

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
to Krishna’s lotus feet.
Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Ghoram.
It’s a very fierce way of Prabhupada translating Ghoram in a limb-tolerant way. So, I’ll discuss more about this in a moment. What limb-tolerant specifically means.
Churuchya durvachopayi. And the focal point of our class is this point. That durvachopayi, the words are like arrows.
So, once my heart is pierced by those harsh words, my heart is incapable of holding anything else. If the heart does not expand, it’s like a pot. A pot is meant to hold water.
So, the water of truth, the water of wisdom, is to be contained in the pot of the heart. But, if the pot of the heart is pierced by arrows, then those arrows cause the pot to crack and break. And, whatever water comes in, it will just seep out.
Nothing will stay over. Now, we name Churuchya durvachopayi, because my heart has been pierced, holes have been put in the heart. So, whatever wisdom you are giving, I am not able to hold it.
We also observe in our life, if someone speaks very hurtingly to us, then that thought, what is he going to say? It just relieves us so much, that nothing else stays in the mind at that time. Now, we have the word, mind and heart interchangeably. Because, for all practical purposes, the mind is involved in the heart.
The heart that we normally use, normally, in devotional circles, we use the heart in a metaphorical sense. When we talk, my heart has been opened, there is no heart attack physically in the heart. So, physical heart, we don’t talk about normally.
We talk about metaphorical heart, the heart and the seat of emotions. As the centre of our capacity, our capacity to experience emotions. And, how do we experience emotions? Suppose, you know, I am sleeping, and somebody comes and insults me.
What happens? My mind is not there at that time. My mind is in some dreamland. So, all the insult has been spoken.
The mind is the doorway to the heart. So, because the door is closed, the insult doesn’t come in. So, for all practical purposes, the emotions that we experience, they are experienced in the doorway of the mind.
And, this doorway, right now, points only to the material level of reality. Largely to the material level of reality. And, because this doorway doesn’t point to the spiritual level of reality, that’s why we don’t experience much emotions in relationship with Krishna.
So, we experience only material emotions. Because that’s from where all perceptions are coming to us. Now, the meaning shall we take? So, here, it’s an interesting analysis of Prabhupada Yudhisthira.
Because of which, for the Kshatriya, I do not tolerate insult. And, Prabhupada not mandating here that, therefore, you, what will you do? Actually, you will be awana-nawana dekha. No, just a few words in this.
Before this, Narad Bhoomi is saying, how Kshatriya Krishna mara bhuna amrishitam. How great is the effulgent Kshatriya that they cannot tolerate insult. That they cannot tolerate insult.
So, now, we are not speaking of this in a negative or a critical way. It’s an appreciative way. That inability of the Kshatriyas to tolerate insult is what enables them to actually live honourably.
I would like to make a subtle difference between three words. Honour, pride and arrogance. Honour, pride and arrogance.
So, Radhanath Maharaj in his book, Journey Home, when he talks about six anarchas, lust, anger, greed, envy, and doesn’t use the word pride. He uses the word arrogance. Now, words change their meanings as time passes.
Not all words have the same meaning at all times. For example, the word rape. In today’s world, it’s a very harsh word which indicates forces of physical violation of a woman.
But that was not the meaning 100 years ago. There was a famous translator of the Ramayana who translated the Ramayana. And there the chapter where Rama kidnaps Sita, that whole chapter he translates it as the rape of Sita.
And now, just a few years ago, normally any book that is written, copyrights are there for 75 years. After that, it comes in the public domain. So, recently when that book was put in the public space, many Hindus protested.
How can you use the word rape of Sita? It was not physically touchable. It was not physically violated. So, now, there are online dictionaries available which actually trace meanings of words at different times in human history.
So, if we go back to 100 years ago, at that time, rape simply meant abduction. It didn’t mean violation, not physical violation. So, sometimes people misunderstand what Prabhupada says about women like men who are expert at rape.
That he is not referring to physical violation. He is simply talking about a man who is aggressive within God. So, the words have different meanings.
And unless we understand the meanings of the words, in fact, the Catholic Church has a whole body of scholars which retranslates the Bible every 50 years. And they have, because words change their meanings. And because they change their meanings, therefore, what was the word used 50 years ago? That cannot be suitable.
Everything is conveyed completely differently. For example, Prabhupada used the word rascal. If you go back to Vishneri in the 1920s, that was the time when Prabhupada learned his English.
Recently on my website, one person asked a question. He was an English professor. He asked this question, that do you people, does Descant’s philosophy consider the English of the 1920s to be sacred? And so, he said that you know, he is an English professor.
All the preachers of Descant, they all seem to use outdated English. The way they, the words they use, the language, sentences they construct, the way they convey their meaning, it is Victorian 1920 English. So, why is that? That is because most of the scholars who have learned their English, especially the English that they use for preaching, Prabhupada does.
Prabhupada learned his English in the 1920s. So, Swarthra Maharaj told me that he was from the 1950-1960 generation, but somehow he loved the books that were written in the 1920s. And when he found Prabhupada’s books written in the 1920s English, that was something to be proud of.
Prabhupada’s books all the way. So, the point is, English changes. Now, we may not see much difference.
But, say, we can all make out the English 200 years later, where you know, the and thou and thou and all those words come. So, English changes. So, what happens is, when Prabhupada used the word rascal, actually, at that time, the word rascal did not have a very, most derogatory, negative connotation it had.
Today, the word rascal has a very strong insulting connotation. At that time, the word in rascal was basically an affectionate form of reproach. So, it was an affectionate form of reproach.
That’s why, there is one lecture where Prabhupada said, my glorious master, he says, Prabhupada is in a lecture, a beautiful praise to Krishna. Krishna, all these rascals are suffering from your existence. Please give them the intelligence to understand your rascal compadre.
So, the rascal is just a word which is passing through the vocabulary without any insulting or derogatory connotation. It’s an affectionate form of reproach. So, basically, words change their meanings over time.
And that’s why, we need not stay frozen, and especially those devotees who are trying to reach to contemporary audiences. They also need to read, not necessarily contemporary literature, but at least be aware of the way words are used. For example, now, Prabhupada gives you the word fight very frequently.
But, it’s gone as, for all practical purposes, you know, a retired Kite, he commits a proper capital. Are you being unfaithful to Prabhupada by that? No. Because, when Prabhupada used it, Kite simply made a group of people.
But in the 1960s, 1970s, there were many brainwashing groups of leaders who came up. There was one person, Reverend Jim Jones, called himself a Reverend, and he built his own farm community, something similar to what Prabhupada built in the Gurudwara. But he had a completely different philosophy.
And, you know, he was like the king, and monarch, and god, and everything for his people. And he did lots of criminal activities. And, when a senator came to investigate him, because there’s a lexicon, senator came from America, and then his followers, you know, they attacked the airport, took over the airport, and murdered the senator.
And in fact, America sent its army. And when the army came there, so at that time, he told that, you know, now soon deliverance is going to come. He thought of, he abused, misappropriated Christian philosophy in the idea of deliverance day going to come.
And he said, all those who have faith in me, all of you will be delivered. And everybody should go to heaven. And how do you prove your faith in me? Take poison.
And 1,000 people committed mass suicide along with him. And it was horrible thing. And that scarred the American psyche at that time.
And that’s why people became paranoid about guns. And what happened is, especially, you know, this journey of, externally speaking, is consigned exactly to Jim Jones. Because they had no idea of the ancient and glorious Indian culture.
But what happened? Jim Jones also said, you should not read any books except my books. So he basically cut off all channels of communication except what he was giving. And that’s how he thoroughly brainwashed his followers.
And that’s why, when people started becoming, you know, you know, we talk about how devotees, by the brainwashing movement, they were persecuted. But the brainwashing movement also had its rationale. That rationale was that they were allowed, and there were indeed a lot of religious groups that were there.
And externally, we seem similar to those people. So, in general, as devotees, so since that time, the World Cup was such a terrible negative connotation that we wanted to stop using the World Cup. We just can’t use it.
So, why? Because we immediately get mentally numbed with certain groups which we have nothing to do with. Now, even I’ll come to this point a little later but this is a good point over here. That, you know, there are some hardline Christian groups which are fanatically anti-science.
And they have the idea, now mainstream Christianity is quite sober and intellectual respectable to some extent. But as hardline Christians, they are vehemently anti-science. And, in general, we all try to make sense of people by placing them in some mental categories.
Let’s say somebody walks into this room and there, that person has a particular physiognomy. This seems to be from the records of a human artist. Or somebody has a very dark complexion.
Seems to be an African. Like that, when we see people, in order to make sense of them, we try to put them in some pre-existing mental category within our mind. So, when we call out to the sky, then immediately people put us in that category.
Similarly, if we start criticising science and scientists so much, then, especially in the West, not so much in India, but it’s a coming slowly. So people, who are the people who criticise scientists? So, there are groups of hardline religionists. Now, there are many people who criticise scientists.
There are scientists also who criticise scientists. But, especially when religionists start criticising science, then people take it very offensive. Because often religion is portrayed as anti-science.
So, there are the religious groups who say that we are the 6,000 year old. And then, I was talking about this extremist religious group, which says that actually, if you surrender to Jesus, then you become free from all sins. All sins.
What does that mean? This means that actually, there should not be any suffering here. And they say, all suffering is because of the original sin. If you are free from the original sin, then you surrender to Jesus.
And therefore, there should not be any problems. And, according to some extremist group, they say that all your problems will go. So, suppose now, I have weak eyes.
I need spectacle system. You don’t need spectacle system. You don’t have to see.
That’s just because you don’t have faith in Jesus. If you have faith in Jesus, Jesus made the blind to have eyes. So, why can’t you just decrease your low vision to a higher level? So, poor people there in college, they can’t do it.
They say, oh, this will create a guilty consciousness. Why would I even have faith in Jesus? That’s why I got into this. So, the problem became so alarming that the American government had come to a rule that any religious group makes any claims that interfere with normal medical treatment, then that religious group can be banned.
That religious group can be banned. And, it’s an intelligent group. So, the point is also, when we hear, when we talk about spiritual promises, there’s a Narasimha Kavachak Moksha because Narasimha Kavachak, all your digestive problems will go away.
You know, it’s not that we stop taking your treatment because of that. We understand. But the treatment is also one way which Krishna can.
So, the point which I am making over here is simply that when we present ourselves in a certain way, people put them in certain ways and put us in certain categories. And if they put us in categories to which they are already hostile, then we make our work of sharing Krishna’s message more difficult than it needs to be. Therefore, there’s an article in fact about it Don’t lump us with them.
Don’t lump us with them because it’s not considered to be cultural. There are several differences. You’re not trying to be a Kavachak.
There are thousands of years which has been going on. And then many scholars also came into our life. And they talked about how our culture has been there long, long time in India.
And their fathers are representative of a very respected tradition. So, coming to our discussion over here, that I’m expanding the ambience of the discussion here. Here, the Durvachyaman the harsh words came and penetrated Guru’s heart.
And then some good instructions also come. But this good instruction he’s unable to receive because of the harsh words he has heard. Similarly, I’m saying that we may want to give Krishna Maharshi a message.
But if we use words like cult, if we use precise scientists, then people’s intelligence has already become biassed because of past things that they have heard. So, what does the word cult mean? Oh, people who commit mass suicide. So foolish.
So, because of past conceptions, people’s intelligence has already been skewed in a particular way. And that’s why even when they hear the right thing, they are no longer ready to hear that. And now here, Guru Maharaj, although he’s saying, I’m not humble.
But still, actually he’s humble. In the sense that, he’s at least admitted that I don’t, that I can’t accept this instruction. He’s actually saying, I can’t accept this instruction.
Please give me some other instruction. So, this made a few points which we can have a look at. So, 17.3 in the Bhagavad Gita is a famous verse, अनुद्वेग करंवाक्यों सत्यान्त्रियं दान्चे, पाधाया पिसंभुचेव, वाद्वयं तप उच्छे थे। So, Krishna says, first principle is to speak in अनुद्वेग करंवाक्यों, speak in non-agitating ways.
Why? Because thoughtless words can do it cureless wounds. Cureless wounds. Prabhupada’s example, when a thought has broken, it’s very difficult to heal it.
So, thoughtless words. Now, I’ll explain this with a real-life experience. When I was in college, at that time, there was one boy who was in a social field.
He was not very good in studies, but he was quite a good speaker. He was a little spiritually inclined, more of a nationalistic than spiritually inclined. And then, I started working in my hostel room, which is old town, and it was a nice class.
So, I invited this boy to come for a few classes. Then I invited him again for a festival. Now, when he came for the festival, somehow at that time, Poonam’s house was small, and we didn’t have cell phones at that time, old and old.
So, he came to the temple and he couldn’t meet me. And he met some other devotee. And then, he used to read the books of a famous non-religious spiritual teacher.
Now, practically, everybody in India reads his books if they are in spiritual interest. And, what happened is, he asked the pramachari, what is this? What do you think about this? And that pramachari he said, he said, and he said, what happened? He thought, yeah, I have been faithful, I have been uncompromising, chopping technique. What happened? And God just waved out of his own hand and went straight to that organisation.
And, he eventually joined that mission. He became a sanyasi. Now, he is one of the most prominent younger generation leaders in that mission.
So, sometimes I meet him in conferences. So, he has become completely committed. So, what happened? Okay, somebody spoke faithfully, but he said, I think he spoke faithfully, uncompromisingly.
What was the result? Yad gatva nivartante. Straight away, never to come back. So, ultimately, we have to understand that the purpose of preaching is not just to speak the truth.
Even a tape recorder can speak the truth. The purpose of preaching is to speak the truth in a way that attracts people to the truth. The purpose of preaching is what? To speak the truth in a way that attracts people to the truth.
And, if we speak the truth in a way that repels people away from the truth, then we are actually doing a disservice to the truth. We may think that we are doing a disservice, but what we are actually doing is a disservice. So, now, this is an important point.
Now, what people may resent is not the truth itself. We may think, that was a nonsense message. He was envious.
He was a rebellious soul. That’s why he went there. No, actually, whether that is so or not, we don’t know that.
That is between that soul and Krishna. What is between me and Krishna is how I present Krishna’s message. So, generally speaking, the words that come from the ego trigger the ego tolerance.
The words that come from the heart trigger the heart tolerance. So, now, I would, for myself, when I speak strongly, I would assume that my strong words are coming from the ego. My fathers are so advanced that they can speak strong words coming from their heart.
No, I don’t have that basis. But I am not at that level. And, more importantly, even if my words are coming from the heart, actually, Prabhupada spoke very strongly.
First of all, it is not that Prabhupada spoke strongly all the time. See, Prabhupada is a warrior. And a warrior knows which weapons to use when Prabhupada was talking about food and rascals and this and that.
But then, Bhakti Sultana was completely sick. And once in a meeting, he told one of us that he did not like this book, Life comes from Life, to be distributed to the people in general. So, he said that was a private conversation among Prabhupada and his disciples.
And in 1976-77, when Prabhupada organised the first world Life comes from Life conference, so at that time, Bhakti Sultana asked Prabhupada, what should we do with the scientists? So, he said, let us be politicians, be gentle, be gentlemen. And, in fact, just quote the scientists. He also gave some quotes.
So, he said, the big Prabhupada dream which would yield very courteous results. In fact, there is one letter, 1975 or something, one devotee wrote a letter to Prabhupada saying that, actually, I would like to transcribe all your lectures, so that I can better understand your message. So, Prabhupada surprisingly replied, that will be a trials, it is not required.
He said, actually, all the matter I want to give, I have given in my proposal. So, there is no need to transcribe the lectures. Now, you wonder, why are lectures being transcribed? The point is Prabhupada has been making over the years, that the books are far more important than Prabhupada.
And if we see in the books, Prabhupada has made it very clear. So, right in the Vedas itself, Bhakti Sultana, Jaya Vrindavan, and Pramukhe in the Vedas, he says, that Prabhupada has given us his mind in four ways. His purports, his lectures, his room conversations, or conversations, and his letters.
And he says, although all four are pramanas, the highest pramana is his purports. Because, purports is actually addressing the world. He is addressing the world.
And, in the lectures, he is addressing a particular audience. And there are some lectures in a restaurant who say that, if you want me to give a candidate a class, stop recording my class. Because, if a class is being recorded, I am always worried, that what I speak may be taken out of context by others.
And therefore, they often hesitate to have their classes recorded. But, often when we give a class, we speak to a particular audience, a particular audience in mind. And room conversations are often even more visible.
And letters may even go by better. So, therefore, it’s pramana also. Now, the thing is that, Prabhupada, strongly speaking, that was a strategy.
And it was just one of the strategies. It was just one of the strategies. And I was talking to him about this.
So, he told me that, you know, Prabhupada has preached in a way which is very… Prabhupada has preached at different times in the way I am preaching and Prabhupada has preached in the way at different times, in the way another Swami has been preaching. The point is that Prabhupada helped people to come close to Krishna. So, whichever way we can help people to Krishna, that is the way we do.
And by doing that, we are faithful to Prabhupada. So, I’ll give an example of this. Now, we say that… Okay, I’ll give two points in this.
First is, that Prabhupada himself used different strategies. In the western world, Prabhupada met two relatively famous people. Of course, many, but from the early, in the decade of the 60s.
He first met, when he was in New York, he met Allen Ginsberg. And then, when he, just in the turn of the century, turn of the decade, he met John Hansen in London. Now, both of them were famous people who were already somewhat spiritually inclined.
And, because they were spiritually inclined, so they had already familiarised themselves with many of the spiritual teachers from the past who had come. So, now, when Allen Ginsberg met Shankar Prabhupada, at that time, what happened? You know, Allen Ginsberg found out about a particular Indian Swami who had come and he was very influenced by that. And, Prabhupada spoke very cuttingly about it.
Allen Ginsberg was shocked. And, he said, there is no doubt about it also. And, he says at one level, he appreciates it, he says, till then I had a very naive vision that every spiritual teacher must have been, should be good.
But, Dr. Jhanswami gave me a critical vision of him. But, then he says, that critical vision I use against him also. And, that’s why, although Allen Ginsberg became favourable, he never gave up.
He never, there is a whole chapter in the Hare Krishna explosion, which is called the, this is something like the poet and the seer. So, there was like seven days, you know, Allen Ginsberg and Prabhupada, they would meet and almost like several hours they would have a session. And, all the devotees in the middle town were waiting with bated breath.
At one point, it was just as Prabhupada was supposed to be, he fell at the feet of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. Allen Ginsberg fell at the feet of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and surrendered to him. But, that never happened.
And, then, he finally said, I like your message and that’s why I shall give it to you. And, he left with it. So, he, now, Prabhupada met George Harrison.
Now, we have one conversation of Prabhupada and George Harrison in Chandni Nihar. If you go to Veda way, it’s a part of a much longer conversation. And, some extracts from that are put in Chandni Nihar.
So, now, at that time, George Harrison spoke. Now, he was eclectic. Eclectic means to draw from various sources.
So, he said, Swami, you know, this is the same place and that is the same time. And, what did Prabhupada do? Prabhupada did not comment on that. Prabhupada, he, let him speak and Prabhupada continued to give me a message.
Prabhupada did not speak one word appreciated nor one word criticised. And, then, overall, George Harrison was like, don’t bother me. And, then, he did not comment.
Then, he funded Krishna, George Harrison, Hanshin, and most importantly, he made the Hare Krishna so popular. So, now, what do we see over here? Prabhupada is just using different strategies at different times. And, now, he interacted with different people.
And, even as he spoke, he became completely, he was appreciative and he acknowledged Prabhupada George Harrison has much more of this. The point is that Prabhupada is a general and a general can use different strategies at different times. And, the point is that we need to find out what works.
So, now, another important point is often we take Prabhupada’s strong statements out of the culture within which those statements are made. What do we mean by out of the culture? First of all, Prabhupada, you should also remember, when he was at the Mishra Yoga Studio in New York, he had strong differences of opinion with his Mayawati teacher. You know, when Prabhupada went to America, he was staying at Mishra Studio, at his place, because he could not have another place to stay.
And, Prabhupada had strong differences of opinion. But, still, Prabhupada was cooking for an MPP. He was cooking for an MPP, he was feeding him.
And, despite that, what did Mishra say? He says that, I was so busy in my work, that was my unrelenting time. Bhaktivinoda Swami would make me eat little bit. Now, what do you mean by make me eat little bit? He would not only cook for such a person, he would make all the food done.
So, there is an overall culture where humility is valued, but the opinions are opposed. What happens is, we just take Prabhupada’s statements out of the culture, and the result of that is, we just come out as very insensitive, very harsh, and sometimes, even, people get stressed, they can have curious moods, just become alienated. So, Prabhupada is a warrior, and another important part I will take over here now, that strategies have to change according to time and circumstances.
And, if the ground reality changes, the strategies also need to change. Yesterday, I was telling you about the First World War. It was characterised by trench warfare.
Trench warfare means, both the armies would dig trenches, and they would bury themselves under the trenches, and then, they would just shoot arrows from out. So, if anybody comes out of the trench, that person would be shot dead. But this strategy became useless in the Second World War.
Why? Because, by that time, aeroplanes had come. So, if somebody would put themselves in trenches, those trenches would become their graves. Because a bomb will come from above and destroy them.
The same strategy that worked very well at one time, may not work at another time. And Prabhupada himself cautioned us about this. When he was asked, should we speak like this, the way he was speaking? Prabhupada said that, I am a heavenly being.
And, even Prabhupada himself added some authority to his presentation. So, Prabhupada said that, you have to be careful. You have to be careful.
So, the point is that, times have changed. So, what are the ways that times have changed? That’s what we’ll discuss now. The self-righteous make the right seem wrong.
Self-righteously they say, I am right and I am proud of being right. I am proud of being right. So, people today come from a culturally and intellectually authority-defining background.
Authority, culturally and intellectually. Culturally, we see that in the West, as well as now in India, the children don’t respect the authority of their parents. Children don’t respect the authority of their teachers.
And, in general, authority-defined