How are scriptures relevant today

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
This is a very important course, which enables us to systematically study scripture. And the topic I’ll speak on is about appreciating the relevance of scripture. Relevance, the word in English has the same root as relation.
So, when we see something is related to me, then I feel it is relevant. And many of us may have more or less heard the traditional stories from scriptures, the story of Prahlad, the story of Ram, the story of Krishna, the stories we have heard. And we can see these stories at various levels.
One is, oh, they’re nice entertainment. Other one could be that, oh, they are good stories. Maybe they are religious and we accept God’s existence, and we accept that Krishna is God.
These are pastimes Krishna performed. It’s good, but how are they relevant to me? So, relevance basically involves an understanding of three broad principles. And to understand the three principles, basically, it’s a journey from the specific to the universal, back to the specific.
I’ll explain it. Scripture gives some specific incidents. For example, in the Mahabharata, there is a story of Karna.
Now, there is a specific situation which Karna goes through. There is a difference between the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. In that Ramayana, the characters are relatively quite clearly black and white.
Ravana is demonic. Of course, there are shades of grey in that vibhishan. He is from a demonic family.
But he redeems his dynasty by choosing the side of virtue, choosing the side of Ram. But still, overall, the moral lines and the genealogical lines, they coincide. Moral lines is who’s right and who’s wrong.
And genealogical lines is who belongs to which dynasty. So, in general, the humans are virtuous and the demoniac are vicious. So, in the Mahabharata, things are not so clear.
Because the protagonists, the main characters in the Ramayana, in the Mahabharata, both are humans. We have humans on the side of virtue and we have humans on the side of vice. The Pandavas and Kauravas, both are manavas.
And Duryodhana is demoniac in being, in his mentality. But he is not a rakshasa in his physical structure. So, he is also, he could very well have been thought of as a virtuous person, although he isn’t.
Now, in this whole somewhat confused moral boundaries, Karna falls at a very peculiar level. There is moral dilemma and there is ethical dilemma. Moral dilemma or moral crisis means we have two choices in front of us.
One is moral, the other is immoral. And then, in such a situation, to choose the right thing, requires basically strength of character. So, if one falls in immoral activity, it is because the temptation is too strong or one is too weak.
And when there is a moral deficiency, at least what is right and what is wrong is clear. But the person succumbs to the wrong. Whereas, when there is an ethical dilemma, at that time, there are two things, both of them are right.
But which is more right in that situation? That is what needs to be decided. So, ethical dilemma is actually much more difficult to deal with than moral dilemma. So, for example, if we have, a person says, in the Puranas, there is a story.
And similar thing can happen in our life also. If somebody says that, you are an audible man, clearly. So, in ethical dilemma, we have two choices, both of which are good.
But which is the better one or which is the best one in that situation? So, to give a contemporary example, say, if somebody says, I will speak the truth, that is my principle. It is a good thing to speak the truth. But suppose, we are in a place where some rioting is going on.
And some person is being chased. And that person is our friend. And they come to our house.
And they ask me something other than this. They will lynch me, they will kill me. And then, we hide them in the house.
And those rioters come. Is that person here? Or should he speak the truth? Speaking the truth would mean the death of violence. So, what this implies is, speaking the truth is a good thing, normally speaking.
But there is another principle, that is protecting the life of someone. So, here, choosing involves protecting the life of someone is good. Speaking the truth is good.
Which is a higher principle? Requires not just strength of character. It requires intelligence. It requires wisdom.
This is also a principle. This is also a principle. Which is a more important principle in this situation? So, ethical crises are much more difficult to be solved.
And what makes the Mahabharata and even the Bhagavatam sometimes a little more confusing is that the Mahabharata is clear that morality is not categorical. It is contextual. Categorical means, this is the category of right and this is the category of wrong.
These are two non-intersecting categories. And one should always live in the category of right and never go in the category of wrong. That is the idea of morality as a categorical conception.
But the Bhagavatam explains that morality is not just categorical, it is contextual. That means, what is right and what is wrong, that may vary according to context. In a certain situation, the same thing may be in the box of right and other times the same thing may go in the box of wrong.
And that will be because the context will vary. In the case of Karna, there is a very interesting background because Karna was in many ways a virtuous person. Karna’s dilemma was, should he choose his word of honour or should he choose a life of honour? A word of honour means, I have given my word, this is what I will do, no matter how difficult it is for me.
And a life of honour means that I should act in a way that is honourable. So normally people say, if I give my word, I will always keep my word. That is a good thing.
So Karna felt that, I have given my word to Duryodhana, that I will fight for you. When Duryodhana had given Karna the amladesh, at that time, Karna had said that, I will take you to save my honour, I will do whatever you want. Now, Duryodhana was an excellent politician.
He really had no affection for Karna personally. But he had his own power play going on and he wanted someone to be able to counter Arjun. One of the Pandavas, he felt that, he is no big threat for him.
He is virtuous, but he is not a big martial warrior. But Bhima is a threat, but I can counter him, because I am also good at this. Who will counter Arjuna? So as soon as he saw Karna, he said, I want him to be my man.
And for that purpose, he attracted him. And he said to Karna, what can I do for you, to save my honour to you? So Bhima said, I don’t want anything from you except your permission. And Karna said, yes, that you will have till my dying breath, I will always be your friend.
And now, at that time, Karna had no awareness of the evil nature of Duryodhana. Sometimes somebody may do some favour for us and we will be obliged to that person. And in our time of need, if somebody helps us, definitely we should be grateful.
But later on, as Duryodhana’s evil intentions started becoming clear, initially, Karna did not like those things. For example, when the Pandavas planned, the Kauravas planned to have the Pandavas burned in the forest fire at Varanagar, Karna said, why do you need to do all this? If you want to destroy the Pandavas, call them to challenge them to a fight. You have a fight, I will defeat you.
So Shakuni, he said, you don’t understand that we should not fight against enemies. He had his own philosophy. He said that if you can defeat an enemy without fighting, why do you need to fight? It is outward game.
So Karna did not like this. So initially, whenever the Kauravas did something wrong, Karna opposed them. But Duryodhana was very influenceable by Shakuni.
Because Duryodhana felt that Shakuni is a very good manipulator. See, different people appreciate different things according to what they consider as good. So Duryodhana himself was a manipulator.
He said, Shakuni is a bigger manipulator than you. So he admired Shakuni in that sense. And that’s why he went along with Shakuni.
And then eventually, by that bad association, by the bad association of Duryodhana and Shakuni, Karna also started becoming a wisp. And so much so, normally, we all want to be accepted and respected in whatever social circle we belong. Wherever we are, if we come to a particular place, if we come to a programme, and no one looks at us, no one smiles at us, everyone gives us the cut.
Why am I coming here? Let me go somewhere else. So we all want to be accepted and respected wherever we belong. Now, the social circle to which we belong, it is a circle of morally elevated people.
Then wanting to be accepted and respected in that circle will make us more elevated. But if the social circle we belong to or we want to belong to is of people who are morally degraded, then in wanting to belong to that circle, we will also become morally degraded. So for example, say students go to college.
And if in the college, everyone is drinking, everyone is doing certain activities which are not good. Say there’s a particular circle where everybody drinks. And the student who doesn’t drink, that student will feel left out.
And the student may not even like drinking. But just because of that pressure of wanting to belong, one will end up doing that. So something similar happened to Karna.
And what he did was that actually when the Pandavas in the gambling match lost themselves, it was Karna who suggested that Draupadi be dragged into the assembly and drop him in this room. It’s shocking. In fact, if you look at the whole narrative of the Draupadi Vastraharanila, you will see that the character who emerges darkest in it is not Dushasan.
Although he actually tries to disrupt Draupadi, it is not Duryodhana who manipulates everyone. Actually, it is Karna. Why? Because Karna’s… These other people, Duryodhana and Dushasan, they are known to be wicked.
But Karna is not known to be wicked. And later on, twice in the Mahabharata, when he meets Bhishma, just after Bhishma has fallen on the 10th day of the battle, at that time, Karna also knows Bhishma is going to die now. And he also knows I am going to die.
So, he wants to have an emotional closure with Karna. So, he goes and talks to… At that time, he says, you know, actually, I regret the day when I spoke those words about Draupadi, to let her in this room. Normally, he spoke very offensive words.
He says that, where is Draupadi? What is wrong in disrobing her? She has already married five young men. That means she is a prostitute. So, for an honourable woman to be slurred like this is abominable.
So, how did Karna do all this? It was because of bad association. Because of the association of Duryodhana and Shakuni, what happened is, he ended up getting degraded. So, here, the Mahabharata offers Karna as an example of a good person who became bad by bad association.
And it was not only bad association. It was also a bad decision. Sometimes, we may do something wrong in the spur of a moment.
And that is, that happens as understanding. But sometimes, we go beyond that and our reasoning itself gets distorted. So, before the Kurukshetra war, Krishna came as Shantidukti to try to get peace.
And Duryodhana completely defied Krishna and rejected the peace proposal. So, when Krishna was going back, he told, he sent a message that, I would like to meet Karna. And Karna came to meet Krishna.
And Krishna was going in his chariot. So, Krishna had come with Satyaki. Karna had come in his chariot.
And Satyaki got off his chariot. Satyaki went to Karna’s chariot. And Karna came on his chariot.
Krishna wanted to talk with him privately. And Krishna told him, actually, you are the embassy of the Hindus. You are going to be with me.
And if you stay on the side of Duryodhana, you will be strong. Duryodhana is going to bow. And why do you want to put destruction in this life and put simple reaction next life by choosing this side of life? So, in the elaborate speech that Krishna gives, and I won’t go into the details of that.
I’m focussing on the principle of relevance of scripture here. So, the thing is that Karna at that time, he came in on the reasoning. And his reasoning was that I have given my word to Duryodhana that I will fight on his side.
And it is because of Duryodhana’s confidence in my power that he has chosen to start off this war with the Pandavas. And if I back out now, he will be left in the lurch. And I will be deemed as a coward.
So, I have given my word. I cannot back out. So, at one level, we may say that which is a very honourable thing.
It is true, but it is honourable in short sentences. Because what is he being honourable for? To state two to one’s word is good. But if I state two to one’s word, one is engaging in horrible activities.
That is bad. I will give you a contemporary example. So, let me come to this point now.
That this is a specific incident that is shown in scripture. Where we have an ethical dilemma. Where a person makes a wrong choice.
So, now, if you just hear the story, it might be an interesting story. But that will be the end of it. So, from this, whenever we hear a story or hear anything, from the specific, we need to hear the universal.
Okay, what is the universal principle that is being taught in this story? So, I talked about the universal principle in terms of how ethical dilemmas are more difficult to decide than moral dilemmas. Ethical dilemmas involve two choices, both of which are good. And then from that universal principle, we come to again a contemporary specific.
So, this is from specific to universal, we climb down. From universal to specific, we come down. So, this specific is what is related to us.
So, for example, say I came today and I started saying that today I will give a class on the demographic trends of polar bears in Alaska. What is going on? There is a specific detail and it has no relevance to us. Suppose then I say, okay, I am going to speak about demographic trends of polar bears and by these demographic trends, we will understand how climate change is taking place and what that climate change means for the future of the city.
Then what has happened? From the specific, we move to universal. Universal is climate change. And from the universal, we come down to specific once again.
So, then things become relevant to us. So, if we only hear specifics, we get lost in it. We just get lost in it completely.
So, if we hear only principles, then everything stays only in the head. Both ways, if we do not move the journey from specific to universal back to specific, then we do not see the relevance. So, sometimes in some classes, we may have only, so there are three possibilities.
Somebody tells only the scriptural specifics. So, it becomes a very nice story. Okay, I was entertained.
That is at the end of it. Somebody speaks only the universal principles. Now, after some time, it becomes intellectual overdose.
What is going on there? It all sounds good, but how does it apply in my life? It all sounds very abstract. And if somebody speaks only the contemporary specifics, then there is no scriptural connection left to it. So, all these three are ways in which in our classes, we can be less than effective.
If we speak too much about contemporary situations, sometimes some classes just become like, they are supposed to be spiritual classes, but they are more sociopolitical analysis. Then spiritual teachers, their classes are supposed to be spiritual, but they will give ayurvedic advice, they will give this advice, they will give that advice. Health is important, but there is a different forum for health classes.
There is a different forum for spiritual classes. So, if it is one part of it, that is fine. So, if you only speak of contemporary specifics, then the scriptural connection is lost.
If you only speak of scriptural specifics, then the audience connection is lost. So, basically, if you consider, say, this is the tradition, and this is the today’s audience. So, that tradition, which is going back into the past, and the audience is there today, the teacher has to connect with it.
So, from the scripture, we get the specific details, and we also get the universal principles, or sometimes we have to infer the universal principles from scriptures. And then after that, we come to the specific details in today’s lecture. So, for example, Sri Prabhupada translated many times in his lectures, the word yajna as taxes.
Now, if you look at the Sanskrit history, no one will translate yajna as taxes. A Sanskrit scholar will get a fit, you know, how do you translate yajna? There is no word, no translation like this. What is Sri Prabhupada doing? Sri Prabhupada is actually making things relevant for us.
So, yajna is the act of sacrifice. Today, we associate yajna primarily with the fire sacrifice. But yajna is, so fire sacrifice is a specific, it’s a specific what? That a particular ritual in which we offer various ingredients into the fire.
Now, fire sacrifice is a specific. From that specific, the universal is the principle of sacrifice. Principle of sacrifice is what? Something which is dear for us, we give it up for a higher cause.
In sacrifice, we give up something dear for something else that is more dear to us, that is more important to us. And how will that apply today? So, for example, now we give taxes to the government. So, the purpose of the taxes is what? We give the taxes and the government provides us some facilities.
So, the connection may not be immediate. It’s not that I give this tax and then I get this facility. Some cases it may be there, but we give taxes and then say, then there are various facilities that come to us when we need them.
So, we may give health tax and the government provides health care if we have health demands. So, what Prabhupada is doing is, in today’s area, in today’s world, or when Prabhupada was in America, the first time the devotees did a fire sacrifice, that was in New York. So, the neighbours called the fire engines.
They had no idea, why do you light a fire in your home? Because their only idea of lighting fires was in two cases. One was in the past, before we have modern technology of heating the rooms, there would be a fire area, which you would have the hearth, where you would heat. But at the time New York was warm, there was no need for that kind of fire.
So, they thought there must be a fire in the house. They called the fire engines. They had no idea what the fire is for.
So, fire sacrifice is a specific that will at best to see, at best, it will seem exotic to me. So, it is some strange specimen of some ancient culture. So, it will not seem any particularly relevant to me.
But Prabhupada takes that as a principle of sacrifice. And the principle of sacrifice, he applies it to today as giving the contemporary example of a text. So, another example is in the 15th chapter, in the sixth verse.
So, Krishna says, na tad bhāsyate sūryo na śaśāṅko na pāvakaḥ yad gatvā na nivartante tad dhāma paramamma mām He says, na tad bhāsyate sūryo That abode is not illumined by the sun, na śaśāṅko, nor by the moon, na pāvakaḥ, nor by fire. Now, Prabhupada adds his translation, not by electricity. Now, the question is, where is the electricity over here? You look to Sanskrit anyway, you won’t find any electricity.
na tad bhāsyate sūryo na śaśāṅko na pāvakaḥ Only three words over here. So, how can Prabhupada add electricity? So, again, Prabhupada, when he does translation, he is not an academic scholar doing an academic translation. He is a living teacher giving a living translation.
So, again, there are three examples Krishna used. That if somebody wants to do a literal translation, a literal translation may sometimes be completely irrelevant. Sometimes, in computers, you have Google Translate.
So, if you don’t know some word, you can just put in Google Translate and do the translation. Now, one word, two words, three words can be a precise translation. But, you know, if you give a whole book and try to translate with Google Translate, it doesn’t work.
So, there’s a classic example in the history of computing of how language translation can completely miss the point if it is done without cognition, without understanding. An example is, in the Bible, there is saying that spirit is willing, the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. So, what it means is that we want to do something, but our bodily desires, they pull us down.
We want to be pure. So, the spirit, we have the spiritual desire to be good, but the flesh is weak. That means our bodily desires, they pull us down.
So, they did an experiment to translate this into Russian and back from Russian into English. So, the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. So, this was translated into Russian automatically by computer and it was re-translated into English.
And the English translation was, the vodka is good, but the meat is rotten. The spirit is willing. So, the spirit became, I’ll go, I’ll eat vodka.
So, we may get a, from the point, this is, of course, from the meaning point of view also, it’s not right. But without understanding the principle, translation loses its purpose. So, when Krishna is saying, Krishna’s point is not just to give a list of three things.
Krishna’s point there is to say that the spiritual world does not require any source of illumination. It is self-luminous. It does not require any source of illumination, it is self-luminous.
And this point becomes clear because a few verses later, in 15.12, Krishna uses the same three elements again. There he is talking about the spiritual world. And six verses later, he talks about the material world.
In this world, this world is illuminated by these three things, the sun, the moon and fire, and their illuminating capacity comes from me. So, the point of this is a contrast between the spiritual world and the material world. The material world is not self-luminous.
It requires illumination. And that illumination comes from Krishna. Whereas the spiritual world is self-luminous, it does not require illumination.
The point is not to list three elements. The point is to illustrate that the spiritual world is self-luminous and the material world is not. So, when Sri Prabhupada is speaking to a modern audience, for many modern people, when Krishna spoke the Bhagavad Gita, the primary source of illumination was the sun, moon and fire.
But for most people today, the primary source of illumination is electricity. So, Prabhupada is making the scripture relevant. So, that word is not illumined by electricity.
This is not there in scripture. But scripture is not just a book. Scripture is a book that is to be lived.
And it is to be lived by people who are living in the present culture. So, Prabhupada makes it relevant. Relevance means, again what has Prabhupada done over here? There are specifics listed by Krishna.
The specifics are sun, moon, fire. The universal principle is what? The spiritual world is self-luminous. It does not need anything for illumination.
And Prabhupada translates it to today’s world. And what does he do? He adds one more specific. That is electricity.
And by this, he makes it relevant. For many people nowadays, if the sun does not rise, it will not matter as much as the power does not turn on. Because even if the sun rises or sets, it does not make much difference.
If power is not there, what can I do? So, Prabhupada makes things relevant for us. And this is what we all, when we study scripture, to the extent you can see scripture’s relevance to us, to the extent we will want to read it more, and we all want to live it more. Now, when we talk of, I was giving earlier the example of ethical and moral crisis.
I gave the example of karma. Today, the specific detail was Karna’s example. Universal principle is ethical crisis.
Now, a moral example I read about recently, that especially in the Middle East, the Middle East is relatively well-to-do. But there are Pakistan and Afghanistan, these are Islamic countries which are relatively poorer. A lot of poverty over there.
And those are the places from which a lot of terrorists are recruited. So, the terrorists get the money from the other countries which are relatively well-to-do. So, now suppose there is a poverty-stricken orphan boy who’s in the verge of death.
And at that time, he is saved by a group of terrorists, a group of jihadis. And at that time, they feed him, they care for him. And at that time, you will not even know what is jihad.
You will not even know what these people are actually doing. So, he was saved from a life of starvation. And for that, he can and should be grateful.
But if in the future, he grows up and these people, they’re bombing him, you know something? And then, if he thinks, oh, because they took care of me at that time when I was starving, so now, I should go and bomb and kill thousands of people. Is that the right thing to do? Gratitude is true. But there is ultimately a purpose of life.
And all virtues have to be seen in the context of the ultimate purpose of life. So, Karna’s situation is similar. Not exactly same, but similar.
That Karna, when he was young, he was near Gurudwara Himachal. But eventually, when Karna understood Gurudwara’s nature, what should he have done? He had broken the balance. But instead, he caught his own distraction.
And actually speaking, if Karna had not fought on the side of Kauravas, the war would maybe not even have taken place. Because among the warriors on the Kaurava side, Bhishma, Drona, Kripa, they did not want to fight. Ashwatthama also did not want to fight.
Ashwatthama became very furious with the Pandavas. After the death of Drona. And then he became very vicious.
But he also did not want to fight. And most of the other warriors who were there on the Kaurava side, they had come more for political alliance. They had no animosity against the Pandavas.
They basically felt that these are big groups, they are fighting. And we should align with the group that is most likely to win. Otherwise, those who win, they will exploit us afterwards.
That was their plan. So, Pandavas would not have done that. But most of the groups aligned with the, many soldiers, warriors aligned with the Kauravas, not so much because they had anything against the Pandavas.
It is more political expediency. If the Kauravas had called off the war, then these other warriors would not have fought at all. And Duryodhana, he would not have fought the war, if he had not had the backing of Karna.
Because he knew that there was no one else who could match Arjuna. Of course, even Karna could not match Arjuna. But the point here is, Karna’s wrong choice is wrong, not in the sense that being faithful to a friend is bad.
Being faithful to a friend is good. But at what cost? One of the problems in being ethical, is that sometimes we may elevate one virtue above everything else and neglect everything else. So, friendship is good.
But friendship also has to be seen within a broader context. Now, if you look at the 16th chapter of the Bhagavad Gita, in this chapter, Krishna talks about the divine and the demonic natures. And in the 16th chapter, some of the verses is directly spoken.
Krishna says in 16.8 and 9, He says, there are people who think this world is unreal, there is no God, that there is no purpose of life except enjoying senses. And such people, such people destroy that world. So, Krishna is talking about people who are materialistic.
Most of today’s civilisation is materialistic civilisation. Now, material things are important for us. We all need material things for living in this world.
But the problem is, materialism implies that material things are all that matter. So, materialistic people are also devotees. They are devotees of matter.
Devotees of matter. And they are fanatical materialists. They are pure devotees of matter.
Pure devotees means material things. That’s the only thing that matters. Nothing else matters.
Now, if you see, the problems in materialism are many. But first, I’ll discuss from a philosophical perspective, then I’ll discuss from a practical perspective. So, Krishna says, A soul will be destroyed and converted.
So, now, sometimes people see that if you are spiritual, aren’t you being unscientific? So, you live in the age of science. So, shouldn’t you be scientific? Yes, you should be scientific. But we can turn around and ask, if you are materialistic, are you scientific? What does that mean, if you are materialistic, are you scientific? Actually, if you look purely at a materialistic perspective, then from a materialistic perspective, you and I, we are all illusions.
What does it mean? It means, hey, the mother sees her baby. According to materialism, if we, we just, most of us, or most people in today’s world, use materialism as a way of living. Get more and more better things.
Have a lot of material possessions and be happy. But if you take materialism down to its logical consequences, that means matter is all that exists. Nothing more than exists.
So, if your mother sees her baby, the mother feels love for the baby. So, according to materialism, what happens? A mother should not say, I feel love for my baby. A mother, whenever she sees her baby, she says, serotonin is flooding in my cranial cells.
Why? Because the whole idea, there is nothing apart from matter existing. That is the implication of materialism. There’s nothing apart from matter existing, then who is experiencing love? There is no one to experience love at all.
The feeling of love is an illusion, and the feeler of love is also an illusion. So, materialism has this consequence of making everything meaningless. So, people think that materialism means, yeah, I can enjoy whatever I want.
But materialism, if it is taken as a philosophy, it means that there is no one to experience emotions. Because if there is no, all that is there is matter. All that is there are my brain cells.
And there are brain cells. And in the brain cells, what is going on? The brain cells are basically like other body cells. The other body cells just have some chemicals in them.
So, the brain also has some chemicals in it. So, all our emotions are nothing except some chemicals going on in the brain. Suppose now water is being passed out.
So, instead of saying I am thirsty, I should say that the sea cells are fibering in my throat. All of life will become completely meaningless if we take materialism down to its consequences. Albert Einstein is considered the biggest scientist of the last century.
And he himself was profoundly conflicted. Einstein intuitively he felt that there must be something higher here. In the many course of years, in which he says that there is a higher intelligence in the world.
And he says, I simply trace the lines that come from God. So, he had some misconception, some conception something higher. But at the same time, the conception of God that he had got from his religious tradition is from a Jew background.
He found that conception very intellectually unsatisfactory. And that’s why he did not accept God in a religious sense. And he recognised the implication that if everything is materialistic, then there is no such thing as right or wrong.
Why? Because everything is just chemicals firing. Suppose, somebody comes and cuts my nail. What has that person done? He has stopped the flow of chemicals up and down the body.
What’s wrong with that? Is that all there is? There is something more to it. So, these are profound moral issues. So, I’ll just, I won’t go into the technicality, but I’m just giving the implication here to illustrate how when Krishna says, नश्टात्मानु अल्गुद्धे प्रभवन्दि उद्र कर्माने क्षिराये जेगे तोलता The whole world will be destroyed when we accept the unspiritual world.
So, what Einstein said is that if one accepts a totally materialistic world view, then there is no such thing as right or wrong. Because ultimately, everything is just an interaction of chemicals. Everything is just a flow of atoms and molecules.
So, he said, now he was in Germany and because of the Nazi persecution of Jews, Einstein had to leave Germany and come to America. So, he said that if I accept purely a materialistic world view, then a Nazi who has been a killer of thousands of Jews, I would not be able to judge him as wrong. Because the ultimate implication of materialism is that we are totally programmed creatures.
Whatever way our impulses run, we act accordingly. So, free will becomes an illusion. Free will becomes an illusion.
Why? Because I am just a product of chemicals. And whichever way the chemicals move in my body, I am compelled to act accordingly. So, a person who has killed thousands of people, why did that person kill him? Oh, because the chemicals in the brain told him to kill him.
So, if you don’t want to be a servant of God, you become a servant of chemicals. This is where materialism comes down to. So, Einstein said that a murderer of thousands of people, I would be revolted if I have to sit and have dinner with him.
How can I have dinner with you? But he said, within the world view of science, or just drawing from science itself, I will not be able to find anything wrong. Therefore, his conclusion was, our sense of right and wrong comes from somewhere outside of science. So, he says, we can talk about the moral foundations of science.
Moral foundations of science means, is science used for the right purpose or wrong purpose? That we can decide by morality. There is a young man, he has a grandmother, who has a lot of money, a lot of property. And his grandmother has given the property to him in inheritance.
This young man may think, if I put arsenic in my grandmother’s breakfast, you know, I can get the inheritance. Now, science can tell him, I will get the inheritance if I put arsenic. But should I put it or should I not put it? That science itself cannot tell.
It is something which is not science. So, I am not criticising science here. I am simply pointing out that science is a body of knowledge which teaches us some things and which does not teach us some things.
So, our sense of right and wrong will ensure that we use science in right or wrong ways. But our sense of right and wrong does not come from science itself. When we accept a purely materialistic worldview, then there is nothing left to say as right and wrong.
Because I am just a product of chemicals. I am just, the way the chemicals are generated in my body, I act accordingly. My free will is an illusion.
I have such an idea, my free will is an illusion. That would mean that a person who is a criminal, why is that person a criminal? Because that person’s chemicals are made in a different way. What can you do? By your chemicals, you are a good person.
By his chemicals, he is a bad person. Can you say like that? All of us, when we deal with each other, we understand that there is a right course of action and a wrong course of action. And we all should try to act in the right way.
We may not always be able to act in the right way, but at least there is an understanding that there is a right and there is a wrong course of action. And we have the capacity to choose between right and wrong. Sometimes when a person becomes addicted, that person may not be able to choose.
Because of repeated wrong choices, the capacity to choose has become very weak. But we have that capacity. And that capacity actually is simply an illusion if we consider the materialistic world.
The spiritual world view actually is more life affirming. It is more dignity producing, rather than telling us we are just machines. Scripture, the Kavita tells us, we are beings with machines.
I am a soul, I have a machine. And the machine is programmed to act in a particular way. But I can resist the pushes of that machine.
It’s like if you click a link on your computer, then depending on whichever the default browser that you have chosen, you click a link, say Google Chrome opens. And somebody says, I don’t want to use Google Chrome. Then we have to go back, change the default browser setting, and then open another browser.
So if I set a default setting, then whichever link I click, automatically that browser will open. But I can change that. The machine will behave in a particular way, but I can change the way machine behaves.
I can change my default browser. So like that, we have certain tendencies. But we can change those tendencies.
I use a word processing programme for writing. Then after writing an article, I often have to proofread it. I have it read out by the computer.
You see, there’s a spelling mistake. So once I wrote, the soul is Sat-Chit-Anand. And the computer was reading it.
The computer read it as, the soul is Saturday-Chit-Anand. So for the computer, SAT was a short form for Saturday. Soul is Saturday-Chit-Anand.
So here, what has happened? The computer has got a default script, which is wrong. And I need to correct it. But I have the capacity to correct it, isn’t it? I do have that capacity.
I have to be careful, but I can correct it. So I am a person, and I have a machine. The machine has a particular default choice.
But by conscious exertion, I can change the default choice. If the default choice is faulty, then I can correct it. So like that, materialism says that there’s only the machine.
So if my machine gives me the product, the soul is Saturday-Chit-Anand, well, that is what it is, because that’s what my machine says. But no, spirituality tells us that we have machines. The machines have certain things.
Our bodies are like machines. The machines have certain default settings. But we have the capacity to understand those default settings, to evaluate whether those default settings are right or wrong, and then to change those settings.
So science can make things better. But spirituality can make people better. Science can make good people better and better machines.
But it is spirituality that enables us to understand what is right and wrong, and can enable us to change ourselves, our tendencies from the wrong to the right. That’s how science and spirituality are contradictory and complementary. And Krishna says, that the foolish people who accept matter to be everything, they destroy themselves and they destroy the world.
That is what is increasingly happening in today’s world, when people become more and more materialistic, and they lose sense of the purpose of life. They lose sense of what is right or wrong. And the probably the biggest, most well-known tragedy of this is, in America, there are many people who are trigger-happy.
You just take a gun and go and shoot people. In schools, this happens. In public places, it happens.
And there is alarming phenomenon. So what is happening here? Here, with technology, people have more and more powerful weapons. But without spirituality, people have lesser and lesser capacities to make right choices.
And so that’s why we have people victimising hundreds and hundreds of innocent people. So many of these people who act as killers, if when their neighbours intervene, they thought, hmm, what a nice people. We never thought they would act like murderers.
So what happened is, each particular case may have specific causes. But there is an underlying principle. The underlying principle is that materialism, it takes away our capacity for self-control.
It takes away our capacity for self-discipline. It takes away our capacity for self-improvement. And without those capacities, our society moves towards elimination.
Whereas spirituality, it enhances our capacity for self-observation and self-correction. And that way, we can move towards self-improvement. Whatever we are meant to do, whatever talents we have, whatever abilities we have, if we are spiritual, we will be able to use all those abilities better.
Because we will be more constructive, more productive. Our energies will be less dissipated. And we will be more focused on our body.
Sir, there is a fan over there. The fan is moving. It’s okay.
The fan is moving, moving, moving. But it moves round and round and round. But it goes nowhere.
If you consider in terms of kinetic energy, so much kinetic energy is spent on the fan. Moves round and round. It goes nowhere.
So when we don’t have a spiritual orientation, our mind keeps going round and round and round like that. But it doesn’t do anything constructive. It doesn’t go anywhere.
So maybe I should do this. Maybe I should do that. Maybe I should do this.
Maybe I should do that. Maybe I should do this way. This goes on.
Anek chitta vidhraanta mauhajal samavata sattvaaka bhokeshu tatantum erate shukhyam Krishna said the mind gets lost in many hundreds of things. And the person becomes self-destructive. But when we are spiritual and our whole life is in the right direction, and by that direction when we move, then we become more and more productive.
If there is activity, there is productivity, there is connectivity. Now that we have internet, so we have connectivity. So all these are good.
We need to be active. We need to be productive. We need to be well-connected.
But all these have to be on the foundation of activity, connectivity, productivity, connectivity. They all have to be on the foundation of spirituality. With spirituality in our life, our activity, our productivity, our connectivity, all of that we need to put good use.
Because we will have a clear sense of direction. By which we will be able to move forward. So I’ll summarise.
Then you can have your question and answers. I started by talking about the understanding the relevance of scripture. So it involves three steps.
Understanding the specifics that are told in scripture. Moving from the specifics to the universal principle. And then coming from the universal principle down to the contemporary specifics.
So I gave various examples. Prabhupada translating the Advaitic texts. Or Prabhupada including in the list of earth, sun, moon and fire.
Also electricity. Prabhupada is making scripture relevant to us. Elaborately I gave the example of Karna.
To illustrate the point of how bad association can make a good person bad. And the good person becomes bad not because of moral weakness. But because of ethical weakness.
Not being able to understand which is more right among two things is similar. Faithfulness to a friend is good. But fighting on the side of virtue is more important.
So Karna, instead of choosing a life of honour, he chose a world of honour. And he was honourable to his friend. But in the end, the result of that was he fought on the side of vice and destroyed himself.
And then we discussed in the later part of the class about how in the 16th chapter Krishna talks about the result of a materialistic worldview is that people destroy themselves. And in the materialistic worldview, people may adopt it because they think, oh, I can enjoy whichever way I want. But consider the implication of materialistic worldview.
We are nothing but chemicals. In our emotions, our feelings of love, we are nothing but chemicals. And if everything is just chemicals, in a mother’s love for her baby, that’s just a few of chemicals in the world.
And if a person does some, whatever we do, it is just result because of the chemicals doing in our body. If I beat someone, I’m going to beat him. The adrenaline in my body told me to beat him.
The adrenaline is telling me to beat him. So, you know, the whole concept of free will will become an illusion. And we discussed about how Einstein suffered from this profound dilemma.
He said, intuitively, I know. The person I am asking is a killer of Jews, is a terrible person. But from a purely scientific perspective, I can find nothing wrong with him.
Because purely scientific worldview, materialistic worldview would say that, if this person is chemical, then that person actually kills me. So, materialism actually takes away our freedom by reducing us to simply programmed machines. And spirituality tells us that we are the operators of programmed machines.
That is programming. But we are the operators, we are different and we can change our programming. So, materialism is something which actually takes away human freedom.
And spirituality restores human freedom. And we discussed how science can create things better, but spirituality will make people better. Spirituality helps us to understand what is right and wrong and when to make the right choices.
And lastly, I can conclude that, with a pure materialistic worldview, because there are so many desires which keep coming, and they keep driving our mind round and round and round and round, endlessly. There is spirituality in the understanding of the path of love and when to love and serve. And whatever talents and abilities we have, we use them constructively, purposefully in the service of God.
And so, there is self-observation and there is self-correction and then there is self-realisation. We realise our potentials, we can speak to actions. Thank you very much.
Are there any questions or comments? Yes. Any questions or comments? I had a couple of questions. The first one is about, you spoke about when Karna was there and he was the one who asked if this wrote properly.
That was bad because, he also said that Karna had given his word to the real man. So, that’s why he, because the real man helped him, Karna couldn’t say anything. And he should have chosen the higher principles instead of sticking to his word.
So, what about Bhishma, who was also there during this writing? So, he also gave a similar, I don’t want to say excuse for you. So, Bhishma, if Karna is culpable at that time, in the opportunity to slow down, isn’t Bhishma also culpable? Yes, Bhishma is also culpable at one level. But Bhishma was not the instigator, it was Karna who was the instigator.
So, essentially, the way the sequence of events happened is that Dhritarashtra was persuaded by Shakuni and Duryodhana that let’s have the gambling match. Vidura, Bhishma, all of them opposed it. But Dhritarashtra was the king.
So, his will prevailed. When the gambling match took place, Shakuni kept inciting Dhritarashtra to gamble more and more. And eventually, he gambled a lot.
He gambled and lost his brother and he lost himself. And then, Shakuni instigated him to gamble droppings. And Drishti, he knew that Shakuni was a better gambler player than him.
And right at the beginning of the year, he had, where he opposed, Shakuni had made gambling practically like his profession. You know, let’s say in some sports like, let’s say boxing or even tennis, there are amateur tennis players and there are professional tennis players. So, amateurs play with amateurs and professionals play with professionals.
So, actually, the original gambling match was supposed to be between Drishti and Duryodhana. But to have Drishti pitted against Shakuni, that itself was like having an amateur play with a professional. It doesn’t, it was unfair.
And another point was that, further, it was wrong in the sense that, it was not just, okay, an amateur play against a professional is also okay. Sometimes it may happen like that. But here it was a match between amateurs and the professional play instead of the amateur.
So, it is like, you know, two friends decided, let’s have a boxing match. And his friends come here. And suddenly, one of the friends, you know, there he gets somebody like Mike Paxson, in his place to fight.
It had to be a real match. So, it was an initial objective. And then the point, the cover was, he has jeered and said, if you are afraid to play with us, don’t play with us.
You don’t need to play. But Drishti’s point was not that a matter of fear. It is a matter of what is right or wrong.
But throughout it all, Dhritarashtra remained silent. And then when Draupadi was gambled and lost, and that time Draupadi, Maharishi raised the question that if Drishti had already gambled himself and lost himself, how can he gamble now? If he is not his own master, then how can he be my master to gamble me? And at that time, she raised this question. The question should have been answered by Dhritarashtra.
And Dhritarashtra, he remained silent. So, then the responsibility fell on Bhishma. Now, Bhishma, he replied that, Oh, Draupadi, that you are amidst such a crisis.
You are recollecting Dharma. And you are reminding this family of the principles of Dharma. This shows how glorious your character is.
He appreciated her. And then he said, actually, there are two principles here. And I am unable to decide which is the higher principle.
The first principle is that a person who has lost himself is not his own master. That person cannot gamble. At the same time, he is a husband.
The wife belongs to the husband. So, I don’t know which is the higher principle. That’s why I cannot do it.
And nobody else spoke about it. So, from the scriptures itself, there is a mistake or a blemish which is called as Niyamagraha. Niyamagraha means sticking to the letter of the law while forgetting the spirit of the law.
So, actually, Draupadi, she was somehow, she used a technicality to try to put off a travesty. To put off something like atrocity. So, it was not whether Dhrishti was his own master or not.
It was that how could a full assembly not see something wrong in the dishonouring of a honourable woman like her. So, Bhishma definitely was at flaw. But the magnitude of the flaw was not that much because he had instigated it.
So, he, because he had chosen long ago that he would remain faithful to the monarchy. So, that he remained faithful. Now, was it wrong? Yes, it was wrong.
But again, there is a wrong of which we are a part and there is a wrong of which we are a cause. The two are different. So, Bhishma did commit an error over there.
His error of judgement. But he was a part of it. Whereas, Karna was the true cause of it.
He was just a drop in line. And so, this is from the point of view of ethics. From another perspective, this whole pastime was done by, was arranged by Krishna to demonstrate how in this world, we have no protector ultimately except Krishna.
So, at Draupadi, she had five protectors. And here, she has only nine protectors. So, life is so complex in this world.
That no matter how many material elements, protection we may need. It is our duty to make material elements of protection. That no matter how many elements we may make, three things can go wrong.
And we have ultimately no protector of our compassion. That is the lesson which is taught from this pastime. That is from the transcendental perspective.
And for teaching this lesson, Krishna arranged for the characters to act as vertical lines. Otherwise, how do we reach to Jambul’s reach? Now, how could Bhishma, who is so learned in morality, how did he get caught in a technical or did not understand the basic principle being violated? That is from the transcendental perspective. So, we can, when there are great characters involved, we don’t judge them as right or wrong.
We focus on what we learn from them. So, for a character like Bhishma, who is a great devotee, we understand that Krishna obviously did not. But still, what was done over there from a circumstantial perspective was definitely not right.
Is the answer to your question? You had one more question? The other one was that, when you said, if the body is just a bunch of characters from a material perspective, then there is no right or wrong. But actually, the fact that we feel something, the classical, is something more than just the chemicals reacting, that the emotion exists, not because of the chemicals, but because of the person that there is. Exactly.
So, how do I understand or how do we understand that sometimes when people are depressed, it is because there are neurotransmitters that are not transmitting between the things. And so, that’s why they feel depressed. And when they take certain pills to enhance those neurotransmitters, they start feeling happy again.
So, if our feelings are because of, our feelings and happiness capacity comes from the person, the soul, then how is it that sometimes, because of certain problems in brain function, people become depressed. And when those problems are corrected by the presence of the chemicals, people’s depression goes away. Yes.
See, from a philosophical perspective, we are not the body. But from a practical perspective, we are an opposite unit. In the soul, there is a mind in the body.
And all three are together. Right. So, any phenomenally experience, that experience will have a physical component.
So, there is the spiritual, which is the source of emotions. There is the mental, which is the root to which the emotions are coming. And there is the physical, where most of the emotions are expressed.
So, let me take a simple example, that the way we experience emotions right now, that can be changed by physical stimuli. So, for example, if we eat a lot, we feel sleepy. So, this is my feeling of sleepiness, that is the feeling, whereas the food is physical.
And the physical affects the psychology. This is very easy to understand. The further, let’s take an example of the painkillers or anaesthesia.
You hear what is happening? In the physical input, certain chemicals are being input. So, what do they do? We have a capacity for consciousness, which comes from the soul. But that capacity requires certain physical channels for expression.
So, you say my hand, there is surgery to be done. Then I am given anaesthesia, local anaesthesia. When a hand is cut, what is happening? I would feel tremendously, but anaesthesia is given, then the physical channels through which consciousness transmits, those channels are interrupted.
And when those channels are interrupted, then I don’t experience anything. So, there is the capacity for consciousness, which is independent of the body also. But the expression or experience associated with certain physical parts, that will depend on whether the channel is active or not.
So, the channel is important. Now, going further backwards, say now when people have depression, there are different kinds of depression. In the past, mental health and mental diseases were often stigmatised.
If somebody is depressed, then you almost thought that there is a moral deficiency. What is this? You can’t face problems in life, you got depressed. No, it is not always a moral deficiency.
Yes, in some cases, some people are very pessimistic, they are very moral, they tend to get very depressed very easily. But we don’t have to stigmatise people, we need to help people. See, for us, our feelings are facts.
You know, suppose, say, somebody insults me and I feel angry. Somebody will tell me, that person has insulted you, why do you bother so much about it? But the fact is, it is bothering you right now. So, we can’t wish away our feelings.
Our feelings are facts. We will have to work our way through these feelings. And working our way may require different kinds of things.
Maybe sometimes, somebody has insulted me, I just have to keep away from that person, then I calm down, then I myself realise, this is not so much to be worried about. So, the feelings, when they are there, they are real. So, we need checks and balances so that we can immediately act on those feelings.
But we can’t just deny those feelings. You know, if I am feeling angry and I say, I am going to go away, it is not going to go away like that. So, as long as the feelings are there, they are facts.
So, when somebody is depressed, that person should be helped in coming out of depression. Sometimes, just feeling of being cared, valued, appreciated, encouraged, within that, the depression goes away. Sometimes, depression can also be a chemical kind.
So, we have casual discussions about different kinds of depression. And chemical depression, in the brain, certain chemicals are not secreted or secreted excessively, depending on which kind of depression you are talking about, because of which, a person tends to have a certain kind of emotions more. This is also one way in which, that is the result of our past karma.
Just like by past karma, some people will be tall, some people will be short, some people will be well built, some people will be very thin. So, like that, just as our physical build may vary according to our past karma, similarly, our mental build may also vary according to past karma. And when we say mental build, it is not just an intuition of the mind.
It can also refer to the nature or the structure or the function of our brain. Just as some people may just have no RBC count. They may have anaemia.
And then they have to take some RBC chemicals. Sometimes, for some people, there may be a certain part of the brain, or certain chemicals may be less in the brain, because of which they are more prone to depression. So, it is not that the soul is depressed, but the soul’s consciousness is expressed in the body and through the body.
And the channels through which the consciousness is being expressed are included in certain way. Then, that is where consciousness will accordingly get affected. So, just as this happens at the physical level, we easily accept it.
I eat a lot. As an example, if I eat a lot, I feel heavy. If I’m insulted, I feel disoriented.
The same thing happens at the level of chemical levels. So, depending on the nature or the structure of the channels of consciousness, the expression of consciousness changes. And that can happen at the physical level.
It can happen at the psychological level. It can also happen at the mental level. Is it understood? So, in such cases, even devotees, if they meet the architectures in place, we can and should take it.
But there is a tendency nowadays among many people to try to find chemical solutions to life problems. Life’s problems need spiritual solutions. We don’t have chemical solutions.
Every time something goes wrong, I start taking antidepressants. That’s not going to work out. In some cases, when there are serious problems, we should not think that because I’m chanting Hare Krishna, I should never take antidepressants.
It’s not necessary at all. If there are serious problems, let’s say if I have got a fracture in my leg, you know, chanting Hare Krishna can help me tolerate the fracture. But chanting Hare Krishna will not cure the fracture.
You don’t expect Krishna to do that for you. Krishna is a transcendental Lord who raises above sufferings. We shouldn’t make him, reduce him to a magic fracture cure.
That’s not Krishna’s idea. Similarly, if there is a clinical problem in the brain, even whatever problem is there, if we take shelter of Krishna, we will be tolerated better. But see, sometimes we use spiritual solutions to material problems.
It’s not exactly true. Material problems need material solutions. But there needs to be a spiritual motivation while applying those solutions.
If there is no spiritual motivation, then people who are solving the problems, they will act with a selfish mind. And that will create further problems. Arjuna won the war against Kurukshetra, not just with the knowledge of the Bhagavad Gita.
He won it by the knowledge of Arjuna, which he had acquired through a lifetime of practising. What the Bhagavad Gita did is, it gave him inspiration and the wisdom to use that knowledge. The spiritual is not a substitute for the material.
The spiritual is the director of the material. Whatever material resources I have, where do I use them? How do I use them? That guidance will be provided by the spiritual. The spiritual is not a substitute for the material.
So if I have a health problem, Chanti Hare Krishna is a substitute for that. But Chanti Hare Krishna will help me to stay positive, stay tolerant, stay patient, while I am taking the medicines and I am getting cured. Thank you for the wonderful lecture.
The question is around, you explained that Krishna called Dharma before, when he went to the Shantipura and tried to convince him that he should not be a party to Duryodhana’s side. At the same time, in the Bhagavad Gita and in the third chapter, when he shows the Bharatanatyam, he shows that he killed everyone in his life for Arjuna. So how do you explain these two? Because it does not happen before, and when he killed them, or everything had happened in this India Leela that you explained in the first chapter.
So we see in the bookshelf that in Krishna Vendhya Shantipura, he invited Karna to come over on his side, on the Pandavas’ side. And yet, the Vishnu Purusha shows that Krishna had already killed Karna. Karna was already killed, including Karna.
So chronologically speaking, the Shantipura episode happens first. Then after that, Bhagavad Gita is written. And after that, the war takes place in which Karna dies.
So, we human beings always have freedom. We have the capacity to make choices. But choices are inextricably linked to consequences.
Once I make a choice, I have to bear the consequences. So for example, if I am at a 10-storey building, I have a choice whether to step off the building or not. But once I make a choice of stepping off, then I don’t have a choice whether my limbs will be broken or not.
That choice is linked to a particular consequence. So here, when Krishna told Karna, why are you going to fight on the side of Dharma? That is, he was giving him a choice. And after he made a choice of fighting on the side of Kauravas, then that choice was going to bring a particular consequence.
That is, it was going to be destruction. And that consequence of the choice was shown by Krishna to Arjuna and then showed him. So now, what was Krishna’s purpose in showing in the Vishwaroopa that the Kauravas are going to die? The point was to encourage Arjuna to make the right choice.
Krishna was telling Arjuna that whether you fight or not, they are going to die. They are going to die. But if you do it, if you fight, if you make the right choice, you will get the credit.
So God never takes away our freedom. At the same time, He doesn’t break the chain between choice and consequence. So in that sense, we always have free will, but there is also destiny.
If I have done something, I am destined to get the consequences. But I have freedom by which I can make choices. So broadly speaking, what Krishna was telling Karna is that, if you make a choice, then by destiny, the consequences of that wrong choice will come to us.
So what we do or what happens to us is our destiny. How we respond to it is our fate. So Karna’s being born and then being born in nakshatriya family, but being grown up as a sutra, being known as sutra, all that was his destiny.
He had to grow up. But even within that destiny, he had choices. Krishna was given an opportunity to make the right choice.
But he failed to make the right choice. Is that the situation? Yes. Thank you so much.
Maybe if you said like, you know that spirituality is a director of whatever the material world, but it should not be a substitute. Like, suppose I have a chronic disease, should I need to spend my time on spirituality or do I need to spend my time on developing, looking for that spiritual solution? So I said the spiritual is not the substitute for the material. So then if I have chronic disease, should I try to cure it by looking to the material means to cure it or should I just focus on spiritually growing it? This will vary upon time, place and circumstance.
Basically whenever we are facing material problem, we have broadly three options. One is counter the situation, you know, cure the situation. Second is walk away from the situation.
Third is tolerate the situation. For example, if I have a boss who is very expert in me, then I have one option, I might change my job. Another is maybe, you know, I might refer to his boss or whatever and try to correct the situation.
Third is I might tolerate the situation. So broadly, we have these three options. So correcting, tolerating, walking away.
And which we will apply, that will be a coin time. Sometimes even in some autistic or chronic disease, there might be some other material situation also which we have to tolerate. So tolerance is a virtue.
But the Bhagavad Gita is not a book which calls for blanket tolerance of all situations. But then if that was a blanket call for tolerance, that would have meant just tolerate the government’s injustice, why are you fighting this war? No, there it was a duty as the warriors or the protectable citizens to ensure that there is a dharmic rule for them, for the citizens. And there, we have to do the acting.
So it’s not that this tolerance is necessarily a higher virtue than action. And all that renunciation is a higher virtue than action. So toleration, renunciation, action, all three can be options.
And which will work? That we will have to see from the broader picture of how we can best. So that way, now, if we have a chronic disease, it is difficult to say. But usually, if we can, we have to see how much that disease impedes our functioning and how much, either in our material life or in our spiritual life, the curing is going to help us or the trying to cure is going to cost us, not just in financial terms, in time terms, in various other terms involved.
And then we can make a decision. So we shouldn’t make only one particular course of action among various material actions as necessarily a course of virtue. And the other is false.
No, it can vary according to time, place, circumstances. So we have various different situations. Say, Parichit Maharaj is cursed.
And he decides to accept the curse. He absorbs himself in chanting the holy names, in hearing Bhagavad Gita. And he absorbs the curse that way.
And he gives up his life. On the other hand, we see that when Arjuna went to the heavens, at that time, Urvashi proposed to him. And when Arjuna refused, saying that you are like my mother, you are my ancestor’s partner, you are his partner.
She felt very rejected. And she cursed him that he will become impotent. Now Arjuna said, oh, I have become impotent.
Let me renounce the rest of my life only because I am your ancestor. He didn’t do that. Because he knew he had a particular responsibility for that.
So then he went to India. And India assured him. It was one workout right from India.
And then eventually, he had to go for a period of impotency for about one year. And he used that period of impotency during the Virat. During when he was in the King of Virat, he acted like a Yogi.
You know, so at that time, he used that. So here, we don’t see any passive exit with the curse. But rather, he was following a certain course of action.
And within that, he kind of integrated the effect of the curse. So for a devotee, what may be the right course of action at a particular time, that will be called an implicit curse. So we can pray to Krishna, introspect ourselves, and consult our senior devotees.
And then take a decision. Is that a question? Yes. Yes.
Any other questions? The title which you have started with was Word of Honour. And on the other end was Life of Honour. Word of Honour was purely linked with Karna.
Because he has led a life of honour. Now, we have also the other enlightened, elevated souls, like Krishna Pitamah, like Pranacharya. Now, coming back only to Krishna Pitamah, it was not only during the Vastu Haram, but also during the Ambika-Ambalika marriage, he had, in fact, abducted these three ladies.
Now, there again, how do we understand this aspect of Bhishma, when we try to plot against Word of Honour and Life of Honour, taking all the incidents of such an elevated Bhishma Pitamah? Thank you. So if you consider that Bhishma abducted his sister Amba, Ambika-Ambalika. And how do we understand that from the point of view of Word of Honour or Life of Honour? Firstly, the Kshatriya morality at those times, it’s from a different cultural context.
So we have to try to simply understand, enter into that cultural context to understand the values of it. So at that time, for a woman, for a Kshatriya, if you look at history, many times marriages would happen primarily as alliances between families. And even now they happen like that.
So at that time, the whole idea for a princess to be so desired that somebody is going to fight a war for her, now that is also honour. The idea is that the suitor, whoever it is, and he brings calibre of fighting against her protectors or defenders. And by that, when he shows his prowess, then we can have those princes.
Now in the case of Bhishma, it’s a unique situation because he was himself a celibate. And here he was tasked with the responsibility for arranging the marriages of his nephews. So they were fatherless.
His uncle was the father, and he had Bhishma as his first son. And then he had two sons, Chitravediya and Chitrangada. Chitrangada died.
And Chitravediya, then he had Dhritarashtra, Pandu, and Vidura. So Bhishma was their uncle. So actually, we often say grandfather Bhishma, but Bhishma was not the grandfather of Pandu.
He was like a, you can say, grand-uncle of the Pandus, technically speaking. So he had this very peculiar situation. And Dhritarashtra did not have eyes.
And Pandu, initially, he was a little weak. Afterwards, of course, by Kshatriya practise, he became very strong. So Bhishma felt that it was his responsibility to have his nephews married.
And that’s why he went there, and he fought a war. And he got those three queens as brides. So now at that time, in that fight itself, Shalya also tried similarly.
So it was not only Bhishma who tried like that. Basically, it was more like a contest in which Bhishma defeated Shalya. So there are certain situations in our life when things do not work according to our plan.
And we do have to move the best into the other boundary and move on with life. So for example, we may want a particular career, students, but then you don’t get enough marks for that. And you can go in that career also.
So in that sense, there, Amba, she did not get what she desired. She had given her heart to Shalya, but she did not get Shalya. So in those times, for a woman to have that sort of relationship with a man before marriage, that was quite unusual.
So we can’t expect that Bhishma would have known anything like that. These were princes, they were expected to be honourable girls. Not that Amba had done anything dishonourable to them back then, but just that she had a relationship.
So Bhishma would not have any premonition of this. So then when he did what was done, there are six kinds of viraha mentioned in the Purva Samhita and other inscriptions. That is, the different kinds of viraha.
So one of them is called as Dandarva viraha, another is Rakshasa viraha. So the virahas are like, where a suitor pulls his strength and by pulling the strength, he attains the hand of the bride. So Bhishma did something like that, but he did vicariously, on behalf of his nephews.
So now when Amba, Amrita and Amalika, they were coming, so at that time, Amba confessed his heart, her heart to Bhishma. So Bhishma consulted the Brahmin, what to do now? So he said that, if you do not want to marry, if I had known, I would not have done it. But you have already given your heart to someone.
So there is no point in forcing you to marry. So you can go back and then you can marry Shalya. Now, often in this Purva Samhita, Bhishma is blamed.
But if you see in the complex circumstances, Shalya made it into an honour issue. He said, you are a woman who has been seen by someone else. So how can I marry you? Actually, Shalya did not have such a vision, because Bhishma was a celibate.
So there was no question of her being dishonoured in any way, just because Bhishma had added to her. So Shalya, if he had, Amba, she was ready to give up her match with the Kuru king, who was actually more powerful than the Madra king. Shalya was the king of Madra.
So Amba, her heart was in that relationship. She was ready to give up even an alliance with the Kuru family for Shalya’s sake. But Shalya considered his honour more important.
And he said, I have been defeated in seeking your hand. So how can I accept you? So you have two reasons, basically. One is that you have already been adopted by another man.
And second is that I was defeated, so I cannot accept you. You are dishonoured. It is like he used offensive words.
He said that I cannot accept another man’s romance. And you know, Amba, because she was in some ways blindly in love with Shalya. So she saw no further chance.
Shalya rejected her and she did not want to give up. And she felt that Bhishma was responsible for her predicament. And she decided that Bhishma had it.
And she tried through Bhashuram to compel Bhishma. And Bhashuram and Bhishma had a fight. And Bhashuram was unable to defeat Bhishma.
And finally, he told Amba that I have done what I can. I cannot do anything more. So here, it is, the whole situation is very unfortunate.
But there is a significant difference between, say, Karna’s choosing to fight on the side of the Pandavas, of the Kauravas, where he was going to become an active instrument of which he was going to fight against Ayodhya and he was also going to kill Ayodhya. So, whereas Bhishma feels he had taken a vow that I will not marry. And now, Amba was rendered helpless.
In this situation, firstly, he had been a part of a complex set of events which had caused it. And he was not the sole cause of it. Amba’s own relationship with Shalya.
Shalya’s refusal. And then Amba expressing her desire. Amba could very well, she could not, she also could not have known that Shalya was going to reject him.
So, it’s like there are two complex and you can’t bring Bhishma around. So, was it that Bhishma should have given up his celibacy to marry Amba? Not exactly. Because here, his giving up, his sticking to his vow was not only cause of whole Hindu’s destruction.
Not only cause the death of thousands of humans. Yes, it is tragic what happened to Amba. But even within, within this space, there are levels of mistakes.
It’s like, if a doctor is doing surgery and while doing surgery, unintentionally a doctor comes to the scene. And a patient suffers. A patient loses the organ.
It’s a culpable offence. But, as far as you can remember, there was a doctor who deliberately gave doctor medicines so as to earn more money. So, yes, Bhishma was also in an unfortunate circumstance.
And as I said, everybody, everybody had some wrong in that. But in the case of Karna, the situation was clear. He had a clear choice and he could have undone the wrongs he had done.
So, it was Karna had made many wrong choices. Bhishma did not do anything as atrocious as suggesting that woman be disrobed or dishonoured. It was, he was caught in a web of circumstances.
When Karna was not only caught in a web of circumstances, he created, by his choices, a very tight web that trapped him. That’s right. There is a difference in the scale of the indiscretions of women.
Does that address your question? Thank you for this very nice lecture. I had a practical, ethical, logical question. Let’s say, for instance, like there is a devotee who’s, say, for instance, their son is about to die and if we see a situation there, okay, if we do a bit of a support and there’s a possibility of saving, saving the… If you do what? There’s a possibility that if you do a surgery or if you do, if you go to do a particular procedure, the life can be saved.
Now, this is like a spiritual and a material ethical dilemma. As a devotee, for me, looking towards the other devotee, should the help from a devotee’s perspective be encouraging them to seek spiritual solutions or should it be that you should… Should we say that, okay, like the material solution lies in the hospital, so the devotee should try to sit in the hospital and with his child or should it be that the… there should be… Is the devotee… Should he be allowed to, like, seek both spiritual and material support in this context? It’s a very practical situation. Yeah.
Let me see if I understand the question. Suppose a devotee has a child who is very sick and that surgery may be safe. Yes.
Then, should that devotee just be in the hospital, look at the child and fully try the surgery to save the child? The situation is that the surgery is not possible till some steps are taken. So, it’s an art and work. It has… there needs to be some effort to do that surgery.
Just making very close to my camera, it was… It’s a situation for my son. He’s got a rare genetic condition. I’m like, once he’s in materiality and spirituality, mostly materiality, it feels like there is a material solution for this problem.
And I’m very conflicted in my own personal situation that I’m not sure what should be the… What should be my ethical… What is my ethical answer? Like, should we be going outside for material support and inside for spiritual support? So, if there is a lot of background work required till the surgery can be done and it requires time to eventually come to the level of doing the surgery, should we prepare ourselves to do the surgery for our son? So, in this particular situation, if we… We’ve spoken to scientists and they say that, okay, like, if we raise some funds, if we are able to start research on this, there is a cure that’s happened to blindness. Like, there’s a skill that is possible for this particular condition. Should I be trying to pursue this particular cure for this particular situation? Or should it be that we depend on the Lord? Like, it is a bit out… Yeah, I understand.
So, if there is no cure right now, but maybe a cure will be developed, and can we put in a lot of resources for the development of a cure? Or should we just let nature take its course and we focus more on spiritual side? May I answer your question, I think? Could I say, like, not a lot of people, a little bit of people, yeah. Okay, a little bit of people. See, there is a very important principle of responsibility that is often minimised or neglected when we focus too much on education, when we focus too much on attachment or devotion or emancipation.
See, at one level, someone could say that, okay, family life is entanglement, and ultimately we have to renounce family life. Now, are you with me? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, family life is entanglement, I’ll renounce family life ultimately.
So, now, when Sita was abducted by Ravana, Rama could have said, ultimately I’ll renounce family life, but only when Ravana has taken Sita, let him take her away. He didn’t do that. Why is that? Because as a husband, it is his duty to protect you.
So, we cannot, in a sense, we cannot neglect our responsibilities in the name of spirituality. Spirituality is about doing our responsibility with full spiritual motivation, seeing our family members as people who are the source of interest in our family by Krishna. And we have to do our best to care for them at all levels, at the level of the body, at the level of the mind, and at the level of the soul.
So, if a little effort can be put for caring for someone, definitely an effort should be put. At the same time, we cannot invest all our hopes in material development. Prayer should also be there.
And we can also try to benefit our loved ones, spiritually, in whatever way we can. So, we don’t see Krishna as acting only through prayer. When Krishna acts through chanting of the holy names, Krishna, the same Krishna can act through medicine also.
So, Krishna is not restricted to the realm that is only directly. In the past, I used to think that, okay, Ayurvedic medicine is traditional, it is good. Allopathic medicine is modern, it is more inclusionary or whatever.
But, it is ultimately, if Ayurvedic medicine has a potency, where is that potency coming from? It is coming from Krishna. It is coming from Krishna. So, we have to see Krishna’s actions through the realm.
Prabhupada writes in his own chapter, that the jurisdiction of Krishna consciousness extends ahead. So, it says, as devotees, we see Krishna’s actions, Krishna’s scope of action is ahead. So, without knowing the further details, I cannot give a specific answer.
But, I can give you another example. In Mumbai, we have a hospital run by devotees called Bhaktivedanta Hospital. And there, one of the founders of that hospital was a doctor.
He had, his wife had cancer and she recovered from cancer and then she had a daughter. And during the, when they had the daughter, she went through some, the baby went through some prenatal problems. And she was born with terrible health.
And the prognosis was gloomy. She was delivered before for a few days. And the doctor was constantly crying.
And the doctors told that, no matter what we do, she will not live for very long. And she will not live for very long. And whatever life she will have, I should not hurt her.
And this devotee, he is himself a doctor. He is a counsellor in Radhava Prakash Temple. And, he is a doctor, he is not medically cured.
So, he and his family, their whole life was disrupted. There was constant pain and constant agony. So, he went and met his spiritual master, Arnab Maharaj.
And Arnab Maharaj helped him talk to him and explained what all had happened. So, Maharaj told him that you have two choices. You can see that everything happens by chance.
And you have just been unlucky by chance. Or everything happens by plan. And there is some plan of Krishna.
Krishna is right. Because as soon as Maharaj believed that Krishna has appeared, he was just not able to understand what Krishna’s plan is. So, then Maharaj told him that, so Krishna told him a story.
So, Maharaj told him that in life, we all, our purpose in life as devotees is to learn selfless love and to learn selfless service. That even any service that we do in life, there is always some amount of selfishness associated with it. The love of a mother for a child, love of parents which you know, that is among the most selfless loves.
But even there, there is some selfishness. Oh, my son or my daughter will become great, will become famous, will become this and then, that will add to my glory. So, there is some selfishness associated with it.
If you want to become pure boy, you need to develop selflessness. So, Maharaj said that, this child, this daughter, you will, she will never become, she will never grow up, she will never become famous. The normal joy that a parent gets in taking care of a child, you never need to give it.
So, Krishna has sent this daughter in your life to teach you the virtue of selfless love. In loving her, you have to learn to be selfless. So, if you see this daughter, as Krishna has specially sent in your life, and you can see that everything that you do for your daughter, Krishna is accepting through her.
And you should have the courage just that one minute, completely change the person. Before that, they were teaching you all, you know, counsellors, you know, preachers, they had so many services they were doing. But now, so many of their direct help and services are decreased.
But Maharaj says, this is the way Krishna wants you to serve. And then they start observing, they start thinking that, now, whatever, every soul who is born in this world, comes with some karma. And then the soul in this world, like, acts in a particular way, which can either add to the karma or can eliminate the karma.
So, now this, this soul has come in this world, she is not going to do anything to add to the karma. And if we can do spiritual vibrations, we can do spiritual impressions, then we can actually prepare the soul to become liberated from material existence. And then, they saw, they saw that, oh, whenever deity will come to me, they pray for that, that girl.
And they saw that she was surrounded by spiritual vibrations. And the whole, not just the family, but the community came together. They designed a train for the girl, actually.
And she was there, she had an older sister. So, this younger brother, he was probably crying. And then they noticed that anytime she would hear birds chirping, the baby would become, would become silent, he would become happy.
So, the older sister, she thought, my sister is crying all the time. So, she went to a Nirvana Ashti Park. And there, early morning, she would go and she would hear the sound of birds chirping, and she would imitate that.
And she would come and imitate those sounds for her sister. And her sister would start smiling. And just by doing that, she would do it every day for many months and years.
And she had beautiful voice. Now, she has become one of the best kirtan singers in the whole community. In fact, made audio CDs and DVDs of her kirtan.
So, she would never have put in that effort. And so, science and technology, it can reach within the body and cure the body. But spirituality can go deep into the heart.
And although the baby’s pain was there, still, she felt the love. And that’s why when the mother would be there, although she would be crying, the crying would be listened. The sister would be singing, the crying would be listened.
And in that way, although science has no solution, spirituality has one solution. Not in terms of knowing the problem, but in terms of combating the problem. So, the important thing is that from history, we shouldn’t see the attempt to get medical care as something separate from spirituality.
That is also a part of our spiritual service to our family members. There is some, in terms of analysis, we should understand something is spiritual, something is material. So, for example, we come to the temple, we chant the holy names, we come for satsang.
This is spiritual. And then we have our job, we have career, we have family, we have our relatives. That is material.
So, in terms of analysis, we need this kind of analysis so that we do give some time, some quality time for directly spiritual activities. But having done that, we should not think that our spiritual side ends with the temple. Our spiritual side ends with the directly spiritual activities.
No, from the directly spiritual activities, we get a spiritual orientation, we get a spiritual motivation and we infuse our entire life with that spiritual motivation. So, you know, if we have a sick son, we should see that somehow this is a plan of Krishna. It is not happening by chance.
And we know that rather than seeing this as something negative, Krishna has got some plan by which I can render some service to Krishna. Your service to Krishna is not just going to the temple and doing that devotional service. Yes, they are important.
Because if we just, whatever our material responsibilities are, if we just focus only on them, gradually they will start stealing like a bird and drain our energy. So, we need to replenish ourselves by connecting ourselves with Krishna. But once we have connected ourselves with Krishna, we should not just minimise our responsibilities or our job or whatever it is, this is all material and important.
No, that is also the way we can serve Krishna. So, it says, sva-karmaṇātma-madhyakṣu siddhi-mūḍhaṇi-mṛti-māyā When Krishna says in the Bhīṣākara Upanishad, for example, he says that, yatha pravṛtti-bhūtānāṁ nīla-sarvaṇu-gantapam sva-karmaṇātma-madhyakṣu siddhi-mūḍhaṇi-mṛti-māyā It is that Supreme Lord from whom everything has come. And that Supreme Lord who pervades everything.
Him we can serve through our work. That means Krishna is not just our temple, Krishna is not just your spiritual home. Krishna is present in the heart of your souls.
Krishna is present in your heart. So, when we are serving our family members, we are actually serving Krishna according to whatever situation we are in. We don’t see it as effort.
Now, how much effort to put in? We should definitely put in effort. And maybe we can consult somebody who is expert in that field. Maybe some devoted doctor.
Because sometimes it may also happen that our desire for healing a child is naturally very strong. But some people may exploit us and just send us on a wild goose chase. Where there is actually no cure available and people just do this, do this, do this.
So, we also have to have some hard-eyed realism in terms of not getting befooled or exploited. So, how much effort to put in? See that as a practical decision. Practical in terms of what is realistically possible.
Don’t make that as a spiritual issue. Spiritually, as a matter of principle, we should do all that we can. For taking care of our loved ones.
At the same time, we shouldn’t think that just this material alone is a solution. In the Bhagavatam, it is stated that the body is like a tree. The body is like a tree and dharma and mukti is the fruit that comes from the tree of the body.
But the tree cannot give its fruit if it is not alive. The tree has to be alive so that it can give its fruit. Similarly, the Bhagavatam says that for us to get even spiritual growth from our body, we have to take care of our body.
Similarly, for the sun, at this stage, the free will is not much. The spiritual growth of the sun primarily depends on the balance. So, is humanity more important or is spirituality more important? Actually, it is not a matter of more important.
It is a matter of how we can best see. So, spirituality is considered as a bigger circle. Humanity is a circle within that.
So, it is not that to be spiritual, we have to become inhuman. Rather, our spirituality can and should enhance our humanity. And there are many devotees who feel more and more inspired to serve selflessly.
Like Prabhupada himself, when he started the Food for Life programme, where now it is the world’s biggest vegetarian food relief programme. Millions and millions of people all over the world are being fed free food. So, now there are people who are contributing to that.
They are spiritually orientated, that’s why they are contributing. So, our spirituality should enhance our humanity. It is not that the two are contrary.
But it is if you consider, so ideal situation is that spirituality is a bigger circle and humanity is a circle within that. The more spiritual we become, we also become human. So, Bhaktisiddhanta Siddhartha once he had taken a pilgrimage to Vrindavan.
And at that time, outside the temple there were some beggars. And some of the devotees who were there, just neglected the beggars and did not give them anything. Bhakti Siddhartha said, You know, my brothers, this is the Vrindavan.
You should not think that I will give my money only for Krishna and not give it for Indians. The point is that we want to help the people. We have limited capacity, so we have to select whom we can help.
But we can always give prasad. You may not want to give money, but you can give little prasad to them. The idea is that we should not think, Bhaktisiddhanta Siddhartha’s point over there was that, we should not think that because I am spiritual, I have no need to be human.
We shouldn’t think like that. That’s wrong. At the same time, the ideal situation is that humanity is a circle within spirituality.
But suppose there is a situation when these two are circles, which are distinct circles. Then, ideally, we situate ourselves in the intersection of the two circles. So, if there are beggars, sometimes we give money to the beggars and they may misuse the money.
They may use it for smoking or drinking or just taking drugs or whatever. It happens. Then we may give them help in a way that is not misusable.
We give them prasad, which they will use for eating. Therefore, we can keep ourselves in a circle of intersection between spirituality and money. Now, sometimes it happens that some people are humanitarian and they are rabidly anti-spiritual.
There is one food relief organisation. They say the slogan is God in double quotes. God sends calamities, we send relief.
This is a monstrous misunderstanding. So, this is where people make their humanity into a sense of their own arrogance and ego. Where they think that we are better than God.
But there what has happened? Humanity has dragged them out of the circle of spirituality. So, on the other hand, sometimes, what Bhaktsaraj Uttapur was saying is that if you go so much into the spiritual circle, basic human emotions will be filled. That is also not true.
We are, instead of Prabhupada would be in America, we would go on morning walks. You know, when people would just say good morning, Prabhupada would also respond good morning. Or somebody would say good morning, this is a mundane greeting.
He would say Hare Krishna. No, Prabhupada would reciprocate and take it in a way that they will understand. So, it is not that in the name of being spiritual, we just become completely insensitive and neglecting to others.
So, we, ideally, situate ourselves in the intersection between the spiritual and the human. And overall, our spirituality enhances our humanity. So, when Prabhupada was asked, how do we know you are disciples? So, Prabhupada, he said, we are perfect gentlemen and ladies.
We need not say that they are constantly chanting Hare Krishna. They are constantly going to satsang programmes. Now, those are important things, but they should be used to enhance the qualities which are human.
So, overall, our spirituality and humanity go in combination. And we practise our spirituality in such a way that our humanity gets enhanced. And if there is a specific situation, there seems to be a conflict, then we can consult some senior devotees who know our situation and guide accordingly.
So, when Indra Dunda Maharaj had gone to Sri Lanka after the tsunami attack, tsunami devastation. So, he had coordinated ISKCON’s food for life efforts. He had gone there.
So, when he went there, the Sri Lankan government said that from all over the world, food relief has come to us. So, actually, we don’t need food relief. We have got so much food here.
But what we need is trauma therapy. So, he was traumatised. He was just living an everyday normal life.
And suddenly, his home is gone. Half of your family is gone. He says, we actually, we have some means for trauma therapy.
So, he said, yes. Then he went to that. There is, in fact, a picture of complete devastation.
So, he went there, amidst the mess of the refugee camp where people are there, and started doing pilgrims. He started chanting Hare Krishna. Nobody was following him.
He asked everybody, what happened? He says, you know, it’s Sri Lanka. Here, nobody knows Krishna. People know only Ram over there.
So, then Maharaj said, Shri Ram, Jai Ram, Jai Jai Ram. And slowly, people just sit. You know, just moving between themselves.
So, he sat around. And slowly, the sun was setting. So, Maharaj writes in a journal that, just close your eyes.
Just go to the holy name to give shelter to Krishna. To give some shelter. And kept chanting.
And slowly, you could hear the people picking up and responding. You could see, you know, half of the body part, you know, open your eyes. And soft, you know, in the background, you could still see the shattered houses and the overthrown cars.
And here, you know, people were there. People were clapping. You know, they were singing.
And there was a smile back on their faces. So, there, the devotees are relaxed, looking. Devotees could offer the United Religion.
If we can offer something more to the United Religion. We can offer spirituality. But just because we can offer spirituality, doesn’t mean that we consider the United Religion to be unnecessary.
Bhakti is our programme for offering completely at the physical level, mental level. And thank you very much. Thank you very much, Chetan Jambu.
That was a very brilliant class. I wish we wouldn’t stop. We have material bodies.
Thank you very much. That was very insightful. Please thank Chetan Jambu with a big Hari Bol.
A few announcements to make. I’m sure you all enjoyed today’s presentation of Chetan Jambu. He has more programmes today.
At 6 p.m., there’s a programme at Hornsby Community Centre. If you are able to come, please come. And tomorrow morning, Sunday, at 7.45 a.m., at the temple, there’s Shiva Bhagavatam class.
And then, there is a youth programme for youth. Is it for everyone? No, just for under 30. Under 30, okay.
Young adults are also included. I have to prove. Then, at the temple, there is a second part of the seminar that Prabhupada did yesterday, Gaudiya Vaishnavism Part 2. And similarly, on Monday, he’s got a Shiva Bhagavatam class at the temple at 7.30 in the morning.
And 7.30 in the evening, there’s Part 3 of Gaudiya Vaishnavism. So you’re welcome to attend all the classes. And Tuesday morning, Bhagavatam class as well.
Okay, so we can go home and see. Same 7.30 in the morning. And also, you have enjoyed today his presentation of books as well.
Books are for sale. And our lovely sales girl is…