Attitude in outreach 2 – Explain the philosophy before the morality – Be respectfully compassionate

[Bhagavatam class at Port of Spain, Trinidad]

Thank you very much.
Hare Krishna. Actually misleading. And those who have entrusted themselves to you for you to punish them, and they deserve protection, that is grievously culpable.
And Shri Prabhupada reveals his genius in making scripture relevant to us all by talking at this and today’s contemporary situation of political mismanagement. When we talk about scripture, as for example here, the theme is of how the citizens are considered. Two examples are given, they are sleeping peacefully and they are like animals.
So, when we are interacting with people, initially there is a very strong we versus they mentality. We have become devotees now and all of them, they are karmis, they are demons, they are non-devotees. Now, this kind of we they mentality, we versus they, this kind of mentality, initially may be helpful for protecting our own faith.
Where sometimes when we are becoming devotees, people criticize us, and then we have to understand that actually their values and our values are different. So, we need to distance ourselves. Krishna talks about this repeatedly in the Bhagavad Gita.
For example, he says that in the second chapter, 69th verse of the Bhagavad Gita, he states that that which is night for all living beings is day for the enlightened and that which is day for all living beings is night for the enlightened. What this means is that actually we say chronologically, cosmologically, day and night are same for everyone. But day refers to the time of interest and activity, the time of perception, time of vision.
In day we can see things and that is the time when we are active. Night refers to the time of we can’t see anything and we are inactive. So, materialistic people in the activities in which they are active, devotees are inactive.
So, for example, they are passionate about sense gratification, about money making, about worldly things. Devotees are not very interested. Devotees are interested in Krishna and relishing the mellows of Krishna Bhakti.
So, that is like day for them and for the non-devotees that is like night. So, there are clearly two different value systems and Krishna talks about this repeatedly also. For example, 13th chapter he talks about the characteristics of knowledge.
At that time he says that one should stay in a secluded place and one should stay detached from the general mass of people. So, this is one school of thought or one strand of thought, not school, wherein the focus is on distancing ourselves from the materialistic people. They are different and we can’t mix with the people in general.
We should keep a distance from them. Along with that the Gita also has another strand of thought where the focus is on, one is on distance and separation, the other is on connection and compassion. So, where Krishna says, the devotees, how are they? He says, in 12.13 in Gita he says that the devotees who are the well-wishing friends of everyone, they are very dear to me.
Twice he says that those who are transcendentalists, he says that that the living beings, the transcendentalists, they are engaged in the welfare of all living beings. This comes in 5.25. This also comes in 12.5. Now, what is the point over here? At one sense we have to have a distance from them. For another sense we have to actually be kind to them, be gentle with them, be courteous with them, try to help them.
In fact, a key verse in a transcendentalist attitude towards Krishna, towards devotees is 6.32. He says, One who sees all living beings equally by comparing with oneself. Sukham va yadi va dukkham, in happiness and in distress. That yogi is a topmost yogi.
That means Krishna is saying that when we compare other living beings, if it is too hot, I feel discomfort. So, if others, it’s very hot for them, they also feel discomfort. If I am hungry, it causes distress.
Others are hungry, it causes distress to them. So, that capacity for sympathy or empathy. Sympathy means to some extent we put ourselves in a safer, superior position.
Empathy means we actually put ourselves in their shoes. We feel their pain. As Bhagavatam says, that the Vaishnavas are para dukha dukhi, that when the distress of others causes them distress.
So, this is not an attitude of, oh, you are separate, I am separate and I don’t care for you. Attitude is, oh, if you are in distress, I want to help you. I also feel distress and I will see if I can help you in some way.
See, in bhakti, there has to be the harmonization between our ultimate values and our functional values. Ultimate values means we understand that we want to devote ourselves to Krishna and we want to develop our love for Krishna and we want to attain Krishna. That is the ultimate value.
Functional values means how we function in this world. Kindness, courtesy, sensitivity, gentle speaking, all these are basic human values that are appreciated in society. Sometimes, we emphasize on the ultimate values so much that the functional values we neglect.
And sometimes non-devotees may be better than devotees in terms of functional values. Non-devotees may be more kind, more gentle. So, now what happens is that if we need to not only have the ultimate truth in life which we want to share with others, but people are not so much interested in the transcendental before they are interested in the human.
If at the human level we can connect with people, the human level they appreciate, this is a nice person, then they will appreciate whatever transcendental we have to say. Otherwise, in today’s world, there is a lot of antipathy about anything, any other worldly thing because there is so much religious violence in the world and people say, you know, you religious people, you argue about what is there in the other world and you create trouble in this world. So, you say, you know, forget about the other world, you know, do not create trouble in this world.
So, before people can appreciate the other world, people need to see what we are contributing in this world and if our behavior, if our actions are such that they can be appreciated in terms of this world. Now, the other worldly contribution or other worldly devotion that people will appreciate, by seeing devotees, associating with devotees, they will appreciate, you know, there must be these intelligent people, these nice people are so devoted to some other world. It means that other world must be really wonderful place.
It must exist and it must be a wonderful place. That supreme being God, he must be a wonderful being and I should also devote myself. But there, our other worldly devotion needs to be seen through our this worldly interaction.
So, how we interact with people in this world, that is important. And here, here it is Yamaraj who is speaking. Now, Yamaraj’s jurisdiction is over the sinful living beings.
So, it is actually, it is not Yamaraj speaking, rather it is the Mishrutas who are speaking. But the point is that the living beings who are being discussed about are sinful. Ajamila is a sinful living being and generally Amruta as their jurisdiction is over sinful living beings.
But even then, the example that is used is, oh, people in general are like, are sleeping peacefully. They are like ignorant animals. So, and they need to be protected by their master, not punished by their master.
So, what this means is, when we are trying to interact with people, we have to have a proper attitude. You know, if internally we are thinking, oh, this uncle is so degraded, so useless, so fallen. And we are, if externally also we show holier than thou attitude, then people will not come on.
Nobody likes to feel devalued, demeaned. And so, people will not come if they feel that we have a holier than thou attitude. But even if they don’t sense it through our direct actions, our holier than thou attitude, but internally, okay, we feel these people are so degraded, then what will happen is that will come out in our actions.
Now, at an objective level, it may be that they are engaging in some activities which are bad. But at the same time, we as the spiritual vision, we need to focus on the good within the bad. Whatever bad they are doing, still they are souls.
And they are also parts of Krishna. Krishna loves them so much that Krishna is there with them in their hearts also. And Krishna has not forsaken them.
Krishna is there with them all the time. So, I am not just speaking to this soul right now. I am also speaking to Krishna who is in their heart.
Krishna is watching how I am speaking. So, we have to be sensitive. So, if our attitude is, oh, these people are demons, then we cannot be compassionate.
Even if our attitude is these people are so fallen and ignorant, then also we will have a holier than thou attitude. Our attitude can be that, no, these are all parts of Krishna. So, I am a lost soul who is a part of Krishna.
And how can I help this soul to come closer to Krishna? Actually, Prabhupada, even to his young disciples, just been a few years practicing, he would say that, all of you have been sent by my spiritual master. To assist, my spiritual master gave me an impossible mission, such a difficult mission, I couldn’t do it alone. And so, to assist me in this mission, he has sent all of you.
Now, it is not that all disciples were always assisting him wonderfully. Many of them created a lot of troubles. But still he had that vision.
He did not see, he did not focus on their past background. He did not also focus on the mistakes that they were committing. He focused on the fact they were trying to serve.
Chanakya Pandit, Prabhupada quote Chanakya Pandit saying that, how we can look, see, take gold from a filthy place. So, like that, in every living being that we interact with, we need to look at what is the gold. Externally, behaviorally, that person might be filthy.
But within them, there is some gold. And to the extent we look at that gold, even if somebody is doing a lot of terrible activities, a lot of wrong activities, still what should we say? Actually, this is the culture that they were born in. Because this is the culture they were born in, so naturally, what option did they have? If I did not, if I had not got the knowledge which I had got, probably I would have been doing the same things.
Maybe I would have been doing something worse. So, actually, whenever we see somebody, even if they are doing something wrong, it is good to give them the benefit of the doubt. That it is rather than they being wrong, it is circumstances which have made them do wrong things.
And that way, if we do not have this filter of, this is a degraded person. And what happens in today’s world, especially, what is considered right and what is considered wrong, that is people have no absolute standard. People do not accept scriptural values.
So, when they do not accept scriptural values, how can they, how can we expect them to understand the value judgments we are making about them, based on values which they have neither understood nor accepted? So, like that we see in every religious tradition or practically every culture, there is a way of looking down at those who are not practitioners. In the Christian tradition, those who are non-Christians are called as pagans and they are considered degraded. In the Islamic tradition, those who are considered non-Muslim, Muslims, they are considered kafirs.
So, that kind of value judgment is there in every tradition, where people who are non-insiders, they are often seen in negative terms. And because we live in a multicultural world, there are different people with different value systems. So, no value system is accepted as absolute in today’s world.
And because of that, when people see that we are judging them based on values which they may not even know about, not to speak of accepting, then we just come off as narrow-minded. We just come off as narrow-minded, just for judgmental kind of people. So, you know, if people do not know about Krishna, that is our problem.
If people do not come to Krishna after knowing about it, that is their problem. We have to give them the opportunity to know Krishna. If they do not know Krishna and we condemn them for not knowing Krishna and not coming close to Krishna, then we are being unreasonably judgmental.
And then that will prevent people from coming closer to Krishna. As devotees, you know, we are meant to build bridges for people to come to Krishna from where they are. Unfortunately, we build walls by which people find it more difficult to come to Krishna.
Sometimes devotees are so judgmental. Devotees, what happens? These fallen people, okay, they are fallen. But even if we say objectively, they are fallen.
But so what? Are we going to see the body or are we going to see the soul? At the body level, they are fallen. And the soul, even now the soul is pure. The soul is a part of Krishna.
If we focus too much on their fallen condition, if we look down on them, then how are we going to elevate? When Shri Prabhupada, he first time took devotees from the West, especially from America and also from England, back to Vrindavan, you know. The second time he came to Vrindavan, he had brought a full busload of devotees, you know, two or three busloads of devotees. And it was, they were all there in Dhruti Guta, chanting Hare Krishna, dancing and singing.
It created a sensation in Vrindavan. Like, you know, Prabhupada had lived in Vrindavan for some time. So, for the Vrajavasis, it was like their hometown Swami had now become a big person.
He had got international disciples. So, they were very proud. At that time, the municipality head of Vrindavan, he organized a function to invite Shri Prabhupada, to fetch Shri Prabhupada, to felicitate him, to welcome him.
And at that time, some other people over there who were considered conventional religious authorities, they tried to pass some snide remarks. They said, you know, one of them said that, Bhaktivedanta Swami, he had been a businessman before. So, he knew how to deal with all kind of money-minded people.
All of us, we have been pure sadhus throughout our life. You know, we don’t mess with such material-minded people. And somebody else said, actually, because he was a businessman earlier, so, he had run some business.
So, he had some skills of organization. And that’s why he was able to attract these people in Vrindavan. So, you know, we are brahmanas, we don’t get involved in any of these things.
So, now this was actually, instead of appreciation of Prabhupada for something so glorious that they had done, they were trying to say that, you know, we are too pure to associate with these people. But the test of our purity is not seen in our aloofness. It is seen in our compassion.
It is not seen in how high we hold ourselves up above others. It is also seen how low we are ready to go down to lift others up. You know, there are different kinds of compassion.
There can be a compassion where, okay, you are down there, you know, if a person has fallen in a well. Somebody may be that you fall in the well, and the person try to come out. When they come out, you bang on their hands, you know, wherever they are, push them back in the well.
That’s terrible. Somebody is down there, you fell down because of your own foolishness, stay there. Somebody else is, you are down in the well, I’ll put my hand, I’ll help you come out.
But there are other people, you are down in the well, I will go down in the well, and I’ll lift you up and help you come out. So, actually Prabhupada’s compassion was like that. He went from the capital of devotion, Vrindavan, to the capital of degradation.
That was New York, Lower East Side. That is the place where, and then he went to Hattiesbury in San Francisco. These were the capitals of people who were hippies, totally degraded.
In fact, from the Vedic perspective, from the spiritual perspective of ancient India, traditional India, the western countries were considered degraded. And the hippies were considered degraded even from the western perspective. So, Prabhupada went to those who were considered degraded by the people who were considered degraded by the west, by India.
So much compassion was there. He went down. So, Prabhupada, literally, Prabhupada’s going from the capital of devotion to the capital of degradation was like a person from outside the well, comfortable, safe, clean place, jumping into the well, going deep down to lift people out of that well.
Such was his compassion. Now, of course, when we go into a well, it’s possible that we may also get dirty. We may also sink in the well.
We may also get trapped in the well. So, we have to be careful. So, it’s not that when we go into the well, that doesn’t mean that we engage in degraded activities.
Rather, it means that we don’t, even while helping others, we don’t have an attitude of superiority. I am better than you. You are ignorant.
I am in knowledge. I am going to enlighten you. No, it is not my knowledge that I am giving to you.
Rather, I was an ignorance like you. Somehow, I have got some knowledge and now I am giving it to you. So, actually, suppose, I was a part of a group of people who were starving before.
And now, suddenly somebody has given me a lot of food, more than what I can eat. Now, I eat the food which I can eat. And afterwards, the remaining food I give to others.
And when I give to others, I can become very superior. You are starving. See, I am so kind to you.
I am giving food to you. But if I think about it, it’s not my food. It’s somebody else gave it to me.
So, if somebody gives a big amount of charity to me, and they tell, okay, you take what you need, and you give the remaining to others. I give that money very proudly as if I am giving charity. Well, it was not yours to give in charity.
So, it is somebody else who gave it to you so that you can give to others. So, similarly, for us as devotees, if we think that this is my knowledge, and I am enlightening others, that actually, we are in ignorance. You know, Maya is so subtle, that our sharing of knowledge can increase our ignorance.
I’m sharing knowledge. I am in that sense, I should be an agent of knowledge. And I am an agent of knowledge.
But if I sharing knowledge, if I think I am so learned, I am so enlightened, then what is happening? I am sharing the knowledge of how we are all servants of Krishna. But I am thinking I am the controller, see how much knowledge I have. I am giving to others.
So, our sharing of knowledge can increase our ignorance. If we think I am the doer, if we take credit for giving what does not belong to us. So, having a compassionate attitude, having a considerate attitude, not seeing others as low, seeing them just as like children, like people who are sleeping.
When we are sleeping, we are not even aware what is happening around us. So, like that when people are spiritually asleep, even if things around them are degraded, they are spiritually asleep, they just don’t know what is happening. So, when we say people are jiva jago, jiva jago, we talk about Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, Prabhupada Thakur and Vijini, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu saying, wake up sleeping souls.
So, sleeping person doesn’t even know what is happening. So, like that, when people are sleeping, they don’t even know what is right or what is wrong. So, at that time, if we condemn them for the wrong, then how are we being fair to them? We have to give them knowledge in a compassionate way by which they wake up and then they see that actually it is not, you know, we telling them this is wrong and this is right.
That will just come off as moral judgmentality. But instead, if we give them the specs, see, you know, with these eyes, with this scriptural knowledge, with this jnana chakshu, this is how I see things. And now please wear the specs and see.
You offer them the specs to see. You know, this is right. This is bad.
I shouldn’t be doing this. I shouldn’t be doing this. So, what happens is that there is some philosophical understanding based on which we make some moral judgments.
So, from the soul’s perspective, that okay, if I am the soul and the soul is going to find happiness and lasting service to God, then from that perspective, doing this thing is bad, this thing is bad, this thing is bad. So, when we give the philosophical without, when we give the moral without the philosophical, it is like telling them this is wrong, this is right. But they are seeing things from a different perspective.
They are not, they don’t have the specs that we have. Rather than telling them, so we should introduce the philosophy before we give the morality. Before we tell this is right, this is wrong.
Why is this right? Why is this wrong? That philosophy we have to give. And that philosophy has to be given in a compassionate way, sensitive, not in a judgmental way. So, that is the theme which we can learn from this verse.
I will summarize what I spoke today. I focused on the principle that when we are sharing Krishna and Narasimha with each other, initially we may have a we versus they mentality. And Krishna supports this point when he says that we should understand that their materialistic values and our values are different.
We have to keep a distance from them. But that we versus they mentality needs to eventually be transcended where we see they are also like me. No.
Spiritual vision means to see the brother in the other. To see the brother in the other. They are also souls like me.
They are also like me. And then Krishna says that we should be compassionate. The highest yogi is not one who just renounces the world and sits in majestic isolation.
The highest yogi is one who sees the commonality of all living beings and sees that the things which cause them suffering cause me suffering. Things which give me happiness, give them happiness, give me happiness. Empathy is a sign of yogic realization.
And empathy means we don’t judge others as fallen. We don’t call them demons and reject them. We don’t judge them as fallen.
The holier-than-thou attitude will lift them up. Rather, we sensitively, respectfully from where they are, like going inside the well and lifting them up from there. So Prabhupada did that.
Went from the capital of devotion to the capital of degradation. Not seeing the dirt around, he saw the spark of gold within. The body condition will be degraded, but he saw the spiritual interest within, the spark of spiritual interest within.
And if we make moral judgments without giving the philosophical basis for the moral judgments and just come off as judgmental, people will not appreciate our otherworldly devotion. Because they have seen many examples of otherworldly conceptions causing this worldly conflicts. So they will see our this worldly interaction.
So we should be seen as sympathetic, gentle, kind, courteous in terms of our interaction in this world. And rather than being proud that I am enlightening others, we see, we feel humble. What I am sharing is not mine to give.
It has been gifted to me. I am sharing it to you. So we are all together in this journey towards inner enrichment.
And with this attitude of respectful compassion, we can actually attract people to Krishna. Instead of building blocks, building walls, which make it difficult for them to come to Krishna because of our judgmental, holier than attitude, we build a bridge by which our kindness and sweetness, we help them come smoothly towards Krishna. Thank you very much.
Hare Krishna.