Understanding religion and bhakti in the three modes

[Bhagavatam class on Srimad-Bhagavatam 3.19.1 at Bhakti House, Jacksonville, USA]

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Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
One of the major themes in the Bhagavatam is talked about about how there is the form of religion and there is the purpose of religion. So, the demons may also adhere to the form of religion.
They may do worship, they may do austerities, they may even give charity, but their purpose is very different. Their purpose is not to go closer to God. Their purpose is to defy God, to try to themselves become God and to usurp the order that is given by God.
And that’s what there is, Krishna talks about this also in the 16th chapter of the Bhagavad Gita when he says that there are some people who in 16.7 he says, yajante nama yajyanste dambhena vidhi purvakam He says yajante, they perform yajna, but yajante nama yajyanste. They don’t do nama yajna, they do yajna for nama. Nama means fame, fame or glory.
They don’t do yajna of the name of Krishna, they do yajna to get a name for themselves. And Krishna says such people are atmasambhavitastabdha. They’re self-impudent, complacent and Krishna characterises them as demoniac people.
Before that towards the early 16.15 he also says, sometimes they may do charity, yakshe dasyami modishya ityajnanave mohe taha yakshe, they may do yajnas, dasya, they may give charity, modishya, but they delight in this what? Thinking I am so great. So when the demons and the devotees or the demigods and the demigods and devotees are in the same category, although they may not be at the same level of consciousness, there is this whole system at one level where we need to see the unity of everyone. But another level, we need to see the diversity also.
At one level, we may say that we should not discriminate among any living beings. That’s true. But if somebody who’s knocking on my house, if that person is a friend or is a criminal, now I have to differentiate that.
So this differentiation is not discrimination. This differentiation is simply intelligence. Now discrimination is when we approach a situation with a bias.
This is going to be like this. But you should not be biassed. That is true.
But if we have no sense of discernment, we don’t read the situation at all. So then I may think, oh, this person is a friend, but that person, I go to hug that person, that person stabs me from behind. Isn’t it? So we can’t have a whitewash attitude that everything is good or everything is bad.
So why I’m making this point is we started with the point that when we talk about religion, religious, there will be activities or forms and there are intentions. So some people may do religious activities, but for a very unreligious purpose. Now the, so this is the difference between the demons and the demigods that at one level, we have a vision of unity where it’s all living beings as spiritual in the sense that they are essentially souls.
And the Bhagavatam at many places, it fuzzies the clear cut classification between demons and demigods because what it does is it shows how Uttarasur, who was a demon, but he’s actually a great devotee. In fact, he’s a greater devotee than the king of the gods, that is Indra. So it does fuzzy this classification.
So it goes from the external family of birth or whatever, the race, to the internal consciousness. But still there is a differentiation. This is how, so the demons and the demigods, we could say, they are in two different categories because demons work against God, the demigods work for God.
Vishnubhaktasmitodeva asuras tattviparyaya and the devatas, they work for Vishnu and the demons, they work away from, against Vishnu. Now among the devatas and the devotees, the pure devotees are often considered higher because the devatas, they work for Vishnu, but they also have their own interests. The devotees work only for Krishna.
So in that sense, there’s a difference. But this difference between the devatas, I mean the gods and the devotees, it is minor as compared to the difference between the devatas and the demons because here both of them are working for Vishnu. So Prabhupada writes in the purport that sometimes they may perform austerities.
The demons may perform austerities. In fact, when Hiranyakashipu performed the austerities, at that time, actually he performed far greater austerities than what even the great sages have performed. And Brahmaji told him that even sages like Dhugu have not been able to commit perform austerities like what you have performed.
So if we look simply at religious forms, austerity can seem to be very religious activity and they may seem to be more religious than even the sages who have devoted their life to religion. So it’s not so much the action, the action is important, but the intention is even more important. So what makes an activity ungodly is not just the action, but the intention.
So austerity, charity, worship, all this may seem to be godly activity. It can be godly, but if it is done with an ungodly intention, then it is ungodly. And this kind of differentiation beyond form to the essence, that is sometimes lacking.
When we try to have a simplistic vision of equality towards everyone, at one level we want to be equal and non-discriminatory. The result of this in today’s world is that religion has become more and more marginal in society. And you say, okay, ultimately all religions are subjective.
And all religions are subjective and it’s just what you want to believe, you believe. And often all religions are lumped together in one group. So we don’t want to claim that one religion is bad and another religion is good.
That is a very self-centred claim where I say my way is the right way and every other way is wrong. But that sort of discrimination is biassed because it’s just I’m claiming my beliefs are the best. But to have no discrimination at all, that is also a full issue.
So the Bhagavad Gita offers a system of discernment. Actually the word discrimination also has got a negative connotation nowadays. We should not discriminate against anyone.
So you can use the word discernment. The Bhagavad Gita discerns based on the three modes of material nature, goodness, passion and ignorance. And it’s interesting that the Gita in the 17th, first it introduces the three modes in the 14th chapter.
And then it talks about various objects in the three modes in the 17th chapter. It talks about food in the three modes. And interestingly after that, it talks about three activities which are normally considered religious, yajna, dana and tapa.
Yajna is sacrifice, dana is charity and tapa is austerity. So the soul is situated in three circles. The circle of the body, the circle of society and the circle of nature.
Nature which is said to be controlled by the gods. So we are meant to do something in a mood of worship for all these three circles from which we are getting things. We need the body to survive.
So for the body, we do austerity, tapa. For the society, we do dana. And for nature and for the gods who are controlling nature, we do yajna.
So yajna, dana and tapa are the way by which we reciprocate with the circles, environmental, social and physical in which we as souls are situated. So these are actually very religious activities, very important activities. But they may be done with a biassed intention, with a selfish intention.
Krishna says all these three activities can be in goodness, they can be in passion and they can be in ignorance. So the Bhagavad Gita and the Bhagavatam both share this mood of going beyond the surface of things to their essence. So going to their essence means that it looks at what is the intention.
Somebody is, as I saw a video, somebody, some traditional Indian sadhu, not really a sadhu, but he was dressed like a sadhu. He was doing some yajna, lighting a sacrifice and after he lit the fire sacrifice, he took out a beedi, it was like a cigarette, and lit the beedi with the fire sacrifice and started smoking it. So, so intoxication is activity in the mood of ignorance and fire sacrifice is meant to be a very sacred activity.
But what is he doing is using the fire or the fire sacrifice to light his cigarette. So one may do seemingly a religious activity, but they’re doing it like a profession and they have their own life and their own lifestyle which may be very discordant with their profession. So this level of discernment is important even in the field of religion.
There’s a simplistic tendency to lump all religions, say, as bad because some people from some religious groups engage in religious violence, engage in terrorism, all religion is bad. And if somebody tries to say, no, no, but it’s all religions are not bad, this particular religion is bad because you see so many people in this, from this religion are only terrorists, then others will try to turn around and say, no, but even in this religious history, there are so much bad things, there are so much bad things. So the point is that if we try to be politically correct or politically incorrect, that is a debate that goes on in society.
Our point is not to be either politically correct or politically incorrect. Our point is to be philosophically correct. And being philosophically correct means seeing things in terms of the modes of material nature.
And people who are in the mode of passion and ignorance, they will find some reason or the other to fight. They will find some reason or the other to be aggressive, be intolerant. And religion can become a very powerful, very destructive tool in their hands.
This is technology. Technology can be used to do a lot of good. Today we may blame terrorists for creating, for killing so many people, for having so much hazard, for making life so hazardous for us.
But we could turn that around and say that, okay, if there had been no technology, if there had been no bombs, there had been no machine guns, then how much could the terrorists have hurt people? Not really much, even if they wanted to. But we don’t blame technology for that. So whether it is technology or whether it is ideology, actually it is people who act.
And then people can misuse technology and people can misuse ideology also. So when the modes of passion and ignorance become prominent, people can use various tools for becoming destructive. So we may have people who are terrorists, who use at least ideology to kill others, hundreds and thousands of people.
Or we may have some people who just kill, like happened in Las Vegas, and no one knows why they killed. So we don’t know any specific reason. But basically, if somebody’s conscience is so deadened that a person can ruthlessly kill, just shoot and discriminately kill, that is, from our perspective, very clearly a sign of ignorance.
But we don’t see the life and the emotions of others just have some perverted idea in one’s own mind, whatever it may be. So Ishwara Prabhupada came to America. He, in his song, in Bhagavad Dharma, he says, रजस्टमो गुणेर सभाई अच्छेन वासुदेव कथारुची नहीं से प्रसन He says that all the people are covered over by the modes of passion and ignorance.
And because of this, they’re not able to perceive spiritual truth. So we can go into looking at specific ideologies that people have, specific technologies that are being used. And we may try, this is the problem, this is the problem with this.
And sometimes at a specific level, we have to do that. But we also need to go to a more fundamental level and recognise that as long as people are in their lower modes, whatever is provided to them, they will misuse it. So the Bhagavatam itself depicts that even if there are religious activities, there are forms of worship, there are forms of austerity, the demons abuse that.
And they abuse it for what purpose? To destroy. The Bhagavatam depicts a demon, Rukasar, who is so brazen, he worshipped Lord Shiva and he got a benediction that whoever I touch, I’ll destroy. And what did he do after that? He actually wanted to take away Shiva’s wife for himself.
And he had to touch Shiva’s head, destroy him. So this is, there is no devotion there at all. There is simply a selfish interest which is covered over by devotion, a facade of devotion.
So many times people also who practise religion, they have no spiritual interest. They are interested in power, they are interested in prestige. And there are few things which can evoke people’s emotions as powerfully as can religious sentiment.
So if the religious leaders are themselves dominated by the modes of passion and ignorance, then they can trigger the masses to enormous amounts of destructive actions. So when we talk about demons and devtas, the demons may also appear in religious garb. They may also appear to be religious doing, austerities, giving charity, but they are still demons.
So similarly in today’s world, there are many people who may belong nominally to a particular religious denomination. And again, there is the modes of passion, ignorance and goodness. They are not limited.
Krishna is giving universal psychological types. He’s not talking about religious categories here. So there can be in each religion, there’ll be people in the mode of goodness, there’ll be people in the mode of passion, there’ll be people in the mode of ignorance.
So I have a Muslim friend, he told me that it is easier for me to talk with moderates of other traditions than extremists of my own tradition. So what happens here is that there are people in goodness, people in passion, people in ignorance in each religion. And people in goodness in various religions can see each other, and can see each other’s point of view, they can connect.
But people in goodness and people in ignorance, they can’t get along. And they just can’t connect. This is where if we have a, if we have, not going to religion, come to religion later, if we have a country, and in a country, in general, the majority of the people are in the lower modes, it’s passion, it’s ignorance, usually.
But if the leaders of that society, of that country, are in goodness, at least in relative goodness, then they can keep some order in society. Just to become a leader in today’s world, passion is required, cannot do that without. But if there is some level of goodness, some level of culture, some level of sensitivity, some level of respectfulness, then there is some level of sanity in society.
But when the leaders themselves are in the modes of passion, or in ignorance, then society becomes completely overwhelmed. Then they use all the resources of the state to destroy. So if you consider what happened to Nazi Germany, it’s not that Germans were bad, but somehow or other, a person who was dictated, who was dominated by a very dark ideology, that person grabbed power.
And that person poisoned the whole nation and misled the whole nation. The same can happen in religion. So what can happen in the nation can also happen in the religion, or it can happen in the religious subgroup.
Where some people just take over. Some people, if the leader is in passion, leader is in ignorance, then that person, they become influential, and they can poison the whole religious community. And then people who are in, people who are out to search for God, or at least they thought they were searching for God, they can become people who just become destructive.
And when this happens, then religion becomes a force of great danger. But it is not religion alone. As I said, even a nation can become a source of great danger for others.
Even a racial group can become a source of danger for others. So there is a mode of passion and ignorance are dangerous enemies. And they, when they take charge, they can actually distort anything in society, including religion.
And all this is not meant to just point fingers at the whole world and say how it is in passion and ignorance. Now we ourselves may be in passion and ignorance. The Bhagavad Gita, the Bhagavatam in the third canto talks about bhakti in the three modes.
It talks about bhakti being practised in the mode of goodness, bhakti being practised in the mode of passion, and bhakti being practised in the mode of ignorance. And now when it talks about this, bhakti being practised does, it’s interesting bhakti is transcendental. It’s the connection of the soul with Krishna.
The soul is spiritual, Krishna is spiritual. So in that sense, bhakti itself has to be spiritual. But the soul is present in the material world.
And the soul has a body and a mind which are material, which are affected by the modes. So that’s why when the soul practises bhakti, in the soul where in the spiritual world, bhakti would be purely transcendental. But when the bhakti is practised with the material body and the material mind, then it will be expressed in a particular way.
It’s like sometimes, if we are going to an area where there is a lot of pollution, or there’s a, we fear that there’s a lot of toxic gases or something like that. So then we may put some cloth around our mouth or a nose to protect ourselves. Now when we speak through that cloth, our voice may come out muffled.
Now I may have a thinner cloth, you may have a thicker cloth. We may all have different kinds of cloths around us. And then the kind of muffling of our voice that may happen, the kind of muffling that may happen for your voice will be different from the muffling that may happen for my voice.
But all our voices are muffled by the cloth that is around our mouth. Similarly, the soul is pure. But the soul’s actions are muffled, you could say, by the kind of covering that is there on the soul.
So when this covering is there, the soul practises bhakti in a way which is according to its nature. So the soul is in the mode of passion or ignorance, the soul will practise bhakti accordingly. And when we practise bhakti accordingly, then there are consequences of that also.
At one level, we are serving Krishna, that is transcendental. But another level, how we are serving Krishna, that is also important. So in our moments, early days, most of the devotees were very much in the mode of passion and ignorance.
It’s Prabhupada’s genius that he actually engaged them in bhakti and uplifted them. But still, in the mode of passion and ignorance, sometimes they would do certain things which the intention was great, but the execution was not so great. So for example, if you have to distribute books, and distributing books is sharing Krishna’s message.
And while sharing Krishna’s message, the purpose is that we want to help people to come closer to Krishna. But if you become too pushy, if you become a little shifty, telling some things about the books which are not actually there in the books, and try to get somehow people to take the books, just voice them on people, then the result of that is that we may think that I’m serving Krishna. But the result is because that service is in the mode of passion and ignorance, mode of passion, because I just want to get more books out than anyone else.
I want to be the number one distributor. Or in the mode of ignorance, I was told that one time, there was a December marathon was there, and there are two bus parties in a temple. And both of them wanted to be the number one in distributing books.
So what happened, one of the bus party members, they woke up early, and they punctured all the tyres of the bus of the other party. So what is happening over here, the purpose of serving Krishna is becomes, the purpose is still there, but it has become so captivated. It is so dominated over by the modes that we just do terrible things.
Now, we may say that puncture is a lot of delusions. Yeah, Chandravali and Radharani are both doing for Krishna’s pleasure. And I am puncturing somebody else’s tyre.
Am I doing it for Krishna’s pleasure? Of course, we may not do it in that gross way. But sometimes we may also disparage others a little subtly. If I’m a good speaker, and if somebody else is also a good speaker who I see as a competitor, then what happens? Somebody starts praising that speaker, my heart starts burning.
Yeah, he’s a good speaker, but he is simply a populist. He doesn’t speak much philosophy. He just speaks panders to the public.
Whatever I may come up with, all kinds of subtle or not so subtle criticisms. So when we are ourselves in the lower modes, even if we practise bhakti, we’ll practise it in a way which centres on… which is not very constructive, which often centres on pulling down others or pushing oneself up instead of pushing Krishna up, instead of promoting Krishna. So even when we are practising bhakti, I’ll conclude with two points now.
First is that when we are practising bhakti, our modes do come into the picture, and we can’t deny them. So if I have a lot of mode of passion within me, then I feel I have to run around, I have to do this, I have to do that. I want to get some things done.
And if while we are in the mode of passion, if we are told to practise bhakti in the mode of goodness, it becomes very difficult. So if I told, okay, just sit and study shastra, just sit and chant 64 rounds every day. I just sat and do simple activities in bhakti.
It becomes very difficult. So our mind is very cunning. When we have a lot of services to do, the mind says, you don’t get any time to study scripture.
And then when you have time to study scripture, the mind starts saying, come on, this is too much. Let’s do something practical. What are you doing? So the nature of the mind is, it will always keep us dissatisfied.
Whatever we do, whatever we are doing, it will find some reason to keep us dissatisfied. Many devotees like to want to find out what is their nature. What is my nature? I want to serve according to my nature.
That is good. But if we ask our mind, what is my nature? Whatever you are doing, that is not your nature. The service you are doing is not your nature.
So that way the mind just keeps us dissatisfied. So the point I’m making by this is, that we can’t wish away our nature. But at the same time, we can’t just be whisked away by our nature.
We can’t just let ourselves be whisked away by our nature. We can’t let ourselves be carried away by nature. At the same time, we can’t wish away our nature.
So if I’m in the mode of passion, I will need services which are involved with some activities and dynamism. So doing certain things practically. And we have to ourselves look for services which are broadly compatible with our nature.
But at the same time, there has to be some consistency. Today this service, tomorrow that service, the day after tomorrow that service. It will not grow anywhere.
So we ourselves need some level of goodness to be able to persevere. Passion means I just keep starting new things. And ignorance means I just criticising and ending things.
But goodness is required for sustaining. And this goodness often comes by associating with devotees in goodness. That at least we need to have some devotees in our life who are themselves situated in the mode of goodness and they can guide us.
So we have passion. We have ignorance. We can’t wish it away.
But we need to regulate it with the goodness that we ourselves cultivate through our sadhana, through our scriptural study and through the goodness coming from devotees who are relatively more situated in the mode of goodness. So they are our spiritual mentors, our spiritual guides. And they help us to regulate the forces of passion and ignorance that are there within us.
And the second point is that even while associating with devotees, it’s like earlier I talked about discerning. One is uncritically thinking everyone religious is good. Other is indiscriminately leaving all religions as bad.
So we need to discern according to the level of consciousness. Similarly, in devotee association also, we need to discern according to the level of consciousness. Just because somebody is dressed like a devotee, just because somebody is practising bhakti, that doesn’t necessarily mean that they are devotees whose association will be beneficial for us.
Vishwanath Chakraborty Thakur says that if some devotees, they are having the garb of devotees, but they are not acting in a devotional way, then we can respect them from a distance. So then I’ll, this is a big subject, but I’ll just talk about three things quickly. Now what if some devotees are simply on a mission to criticise all other devotees? Oh, this is wrong, that is wrong, that is wrong, that is wrong.
Then sometimes criticism can be constructive, but many times criticism is destructive. So it’s very easy to criticise what others are doing. It’s much more difficult to do something constructive oneself.
So if we find that some devotees are very critical, then we won’t, you don’t have to judge that they are in the mode of ignorance. But what we have to see is associating with them will increase the mode of ignorance within me. Because ignorance means destruction.
And if the criticism is destructive, it will be destructive how? It will be destructive to my faith. It will be destructive to my faith in Krishna. It is destructive to my faith in devotees, in the practises that I am doing.
So then if some devotees are unduly critical, then it’s best to keep a distance from them. This doesn’t mean that we have to live with blinkers. Sometimes people do have genuine grievances that need to be addressed.
But some people are just critical and that becomes their mentality. So then we have to see that, we don’t judge that these devotees are in the mode of ignorance, but we have to discern that this will have an effect of increasing the mode of ignorance within me. And I don’t want to do that.
Similarly, the mode of passion is characterised by competition. So in competition, some devotees are always comparing. Oh, okay, you distributed so many books, I distributed this many books.
You made this many devotees, I made this many devotees. You did this much, I did this much. Now this competition can again be constructive if it inspires both of them to move towards Krishna.
But if the competition is simply to try to make a name for oneself, then again the competition can become destructive. Now in trying to distribute more books for Krishna, if my consciousness is that Krishna’s message should be broadcast more and more. So then that is very auspicious.
And in the early days, in 1997-98, there was one of our spiritual leaders, that the project started getting into book distribution in a big way. So the devotees said, Maharaj, that the temple till now that had distributed maximum number of books, at that time was something like, in the marathon, they had distributed 40,000 books. I said, Maharaj, we want to distribute 45,000 books this year.
Maharaj, I said, Maharaj, please give us your blessing. So we want to distribute 45,000 books so that we can distribute more books than everyone else. Maharaj said, I pray that you distribute 45,000 books and you come last.
What that means is that we distribute a lot of books and we inspire others to distribute books more and more. So the message of Krishna, the message of Prabhupada is spread more and more. So there can be destructive competition where we want to put ourselves above everyone else.
But there can be constructive competition in which we try to rise up and we inspire others also to rise up. So if we find that the competitive mentality is inspiring us to deepen our devotion, to increase our commitment, then that is good. But if the competitive mentality is just making us think of how much he is doing, how much she is doing, how much I am doing, then you have to say, this is not very favourable for my bhakti.
I’ll just keep a distance and practise bhakti in a way that is conducive. For our own spiritual growth. So similarly, in the mode of goodness, it’s characterised more by contemplation.
Now contemplation is good because contemplation enables us to think deeply and understand how best we can serve Krishna. So contemplation helps us to see beyond life’s appearances and see the substance of spirituality. But even in contemplation, the danger is that we may just get so caught in the head that we don’t do anything.
Some people are so contemplative. This is like this, this is like this, this is like this. Yes, analysis is important, but analysis has to be followed by action.
And if some people just too much caught in analysing mode and not doing anything practical, then there’s one challenge with the mode of goodness that it makes us feel intellectually superior to everyone. That’s how it binds us. This person is like this, this person is like this, this person like this.
There’s not so much criticism of others where it’s just analysis of everyone else. So we are caught in just contemplation, but we don’t do anything practical. So Prabhupada writes in the Nectar of Instruction that devotional service, its substance is practical activity.
So we need to do tangible services for Krishna. Some devotees who may be more contemplative, they may contemplate and then they may act and their actions may also be effective. Some devotees may be less contemplative and they may act more, which is also fine.
But the challenge in the mode of goodness is that we just get caught in analysis and not do anything. So if we find that the same devotees just talk a lot and when they talk, it makes great sense. But then when it comes to doing something, their enthusiasm just goes off.
Just don’t do anything. Again, we will have to find out that association which stimulates us in our bhakti. So devotional service is, in that sense, ultimately an individual responsibility.
It is not a personal responsibility. It’s not that just by being a part of a group or being a part of an institution or even being a part of a tradition, we’re not going to automatically advance. It’s our individual responsibility.
Krishna concludes the Bhagavad Gita by saying to Arjuna, now you deliberate and decide what you want to do. Vimrishchaitadashieshene Tejasatago 18.63, he says. So that means that it is for Arjuna to decide what he wants to do.
So similarly for us in our spiritual life, it is for us to take responsibility for our advancement. And we have to find out what association inspires us the most. We have to find out what service inspires us the most.
And we have to find out what is it that brings out our higher consciousness. It is doing the religious forms is important. Chanting is important.
Associating with devotees is important. Studying scripture is important. But all this, the result should be that our higher consciousness is being awakened.
Otherwise, I may read scripture, but I may read scripture to simply reinforce the conceptions that I have. And I’m not really learning scripture. I’m only reinforcing my own ideas.
So that way, I have to make sure that I rise higher in my consciousness. And with this attitude, when you practise bhakti, then bhakti becomes very fruitful. Bhakti is not in that sense an automatic activity.
Just like if somebody goes to a stock exchange, people go to a stock exchange to increase the money that they have. And naturally, if the money is invested properly, it will increase. But it’s not going to be automatic.
And people can lose money also in the stock exchange. All the purpose of the money, purpose of the stock exchange to help people boost their capital, boost the money that they have. But that doesn’t happen automatically.
That happens intelligently. It happens through intelligent action. So we can say that the devotee association, the devotee movement is like a stock exchange for our bhakti.
So we have to invest our bhakti wisely. Whatever little bhakti we have, I have to invest it wisely in those places where the stock of bhakti rises. So sometimes in the devotee association, if I become offensive, if I become critical, then I may lose my bhakti also.
So just going to a stock exchange does not guarantee that my stocks will rise. I have to intelligently invest. Similarly, just doing religious activities as the demons are doing, that doesn’t necessarily mean that their godliness is increasing.
It’s what is their intention. Are they using their intelligence for doing it properly? When we do it with the right intention and with the proper intelligence, then bhakti is a very powerful process for elevation of consciousness. It can dramatically transform us, taking us from the wherever more we are in to goodness and then ultimately to transcendence, where the bhagavad-gita says, su-sukham kartum avyayam.
Bhakti becomes constantly joyful. So I’ll summarise. I spoke about how the Bhagavatam depicts that more than the religious actions of a person, their intentions are important.
So the demons and the demigods both may worship and both may do religious activities, but their purposes are radically opposed. And what makes the demons demons is not just that they’re doing ungodly activities, but that they’re doing godly activities with ungodly intentions. So one extreme would be that we say, we should not discriminate against anyone and we look at everyone with rose-tinted eyes.
Everybody is good. But somebody might be coming into my house and murder and I’ll be killed. If I embrace them as I would embrace a friend.
So rather than, so we don’t want to discriminate in the sense that we don’t use some external to label everyone negatively. Like some people say, all religions are just for fools. They are for sentimental people.
They are for weak people. Religions are bad. That’s one way of looking at it.
The other is, look, all religions are good. No, we don’t want to be politically correct or politically incorrect. We want to be philosophically correct.
And that means we recognise there’s goodness, passion and ignorance. And depending on the modes, people will find within, be it scientific technology or religious ideology, they’ll find ideas that they will use to justify their intentions and to do what they want to do. So just as it’s not that a whole nation is filled with people in ignorance, say Nazi Germany, not that everybody in the world that was in mode of ignorance.
But people in general are going to be in passion and ignorance. But if the leaders become people, people who are in mode of passion and ignorance, they become leaders. They can corrupt and mislead a whole country.
And similarly, religious leaders can also have that influence where they can pervert and take a whole religion off course, or a large religious group off course. And a few things may trigger people’s sentiments as much as religion. So we need to firstly look beyond the external to the intention.
And that’s determined by the level of consciousness, whether they’re in goodness, passion or ignorance. And when we come inwards towards our own spiritual life, we also have to cultivate the right intention. But along with that, there’s the intelligence.
So one is the intention, which we use for analysing who is in what mode. But while practising bhakti, our own intelligence has to discern. Otherwise, in the mode of ignorance, I may practise bhakti destructively, while I’m trying to denigrate others, obstruct other’s service, so that my service can go forward.
Or in ignorance, there’s criticism. In passion, there is competition. In goodness, there is contemplation.
All three can be in their own way helpful. But if they’re not regulated, then they can become very destructive. So our own passion and ignorance, we can neither wish it away, nor can we let ourselves be whisked away by it.
We have to have goodness within us to regulate that. And we have to have guidance from those who are in goodness, who will help us to regulate our lower modes. And then we can practise bhakti constructively.
And while practising bhakti, we need to associate with those who raise our consciousness upwards. Otherwise, if we associate with those who are in ignorance or those in passion, we’ll be practising bhakti externally, but our consciousness will not become devotional. So the association of devotee is like a stock exchange, where we need to put our stock wisely, so that the stock of our bhakti rises, not that it decreases.
So when we just check the intentions, and we use our intelligence to practise bhakti in a proper way. If I find that I don’t have the best intentions, or some unwanted intentions are creeping into me, or by some other associations, some unwanted intentions are creeping into me. With our intelligence, we can rectify our intentions.
And then when we practise bhakti with positive intention and positive intelligence, and bhakti becomes joyfully practised. Thank you very much. Comments, questions? Do we have a few minutes? We have about 15 minutes.
Okay, sure. You came just now? You came just now? You look great in your schmocks. Thanks.
So I understand you’re going to be able to participate next week? Finally. Everybody can take a risk. Participate in what? She doesn’t have to work next week, so she’ll be able to take part in the workshop.
Wonderful. Happy to have you. Yes, Pru, you wanted to say something? Oh, you know, the question I have is, 721? Yeah.
Demigod worship, I make them fixed. Make them fixed in demigod worship. So, the devotees situated in their service in the mode of prudence, passion, or ignorance, or their mindset is in the service of prudence, passion, or ignorance.
Would it apply, I’m assuming, I haven’t seen scripts in the back, I haven’t heard much conversation about applying that, and then in 721, as Krishna says, he makes those who worship the demigods fixed. So, even though it’s improper, it isn’t in the full picture, he’s so caring, he’s fixing it, right? So, as devotees, we can become so fixed, like original book distributors, the original book. People are convinced, you look on Dandavats, on these different sites, everyone’s, so many of us are convinced that their service is what they’re doing is proper, but other devotees would say, oh, that’s, that’s, you know, you’re belittling everybody else’s service, maybe you’re not distributing the original books, maybe they’re doing exactly the books that Dravid and Maharaj has been talking, you know what I’m saying, about.
Yeah. And we become, they’re convinced, and they’re convinced that Krishna’s so kind, and yet it’s all service. Yeah.
Yeah. They’re not offensive. Exactly, yeah.
I get everything, see. Just as it is said that Krishna gives the worshippers of the Devatas conviction to worship the Devatas, so can it also be said that when different devotees become convinced about doing a particular service, then that conviction is also coming from Krishna. Some devotees feel we should distribute the original unedited books, but in doing that, they may criticise others who are distributing the edited books.
So, how does one see this? Yeah, there are three different aspects to this. There is that well-known incident about Shri Prabhupada, where Prabhupada, he went through three different places, and each of those places he said that, he would say, for example, he came to a farm community in Nivrindav, and he says, there’s nothing more important than this service. But then he went to Buddhist school, there’s nothing more important than this.
And then he went to Gurukul, there’s nothing more important than this. So, in spiritual life, to be convinced that what one is doing is the best is not wrong. In fact, in the Brihad Bhagavata Amrit, it’s described that when the Gopakumar goes to the spiritual world, he goes to Ayodhya first, this is Lord Ram’s abode.
Then he goes to Vaikuntha, which is Vishnu’s abode. Then he goes to Dwarka, which is Dwarka Krishna’s abode. And finally, after that, he goes to Vrindavan.
It’s interesting, in each of these places, in Ayodhya, in Vaikuntha, and in Dwarka, the residents think that the Lord whom they are worshipping is the highest. And they think that Ram is the supreme, Ram is the original supreme personality of Godhead. And they think, actually, okay, Vishnu, Krishna, they all come from Ram.
Ram is the highest. And similarly, same with Vaikuntha, where they think that Vishnu is highest. And the Dwarkavasis think that Dwarka Krishna is highest.
And there is no reference anywhere that Sanatana Goswami is trying to say that they are wrong. So there is transcendental subjectivity, which is actually, which enhances the flavour of devotion. So at one level, to think that my service is the best is not wrong.
Because that is what will bring out our inspiration to offer our best. But it is a subtle line that while considering myself as the best, I don’t criticise others. So the challenge in doing that is that somehow, as long as we are insecure in our own devotional practises, we tend to feel that for my service to be the best, others cannot be the best.
So it’s like if I am to come number one in my class, then somebody else cannot be the number one. Somebody else is number one, that means my number one is being displaced. But the point is, in Krishna’s abode, Krishna is unlimited.
And Krishna can fully reciprocate with you from your heart and still be fully available for me in my heart. So Krishna, in that sense, He can be with one Gopi and He can be with another Gopi also. So that conviction that my service is the best, if that is a conviction that is formed with spiritual understanding, then I won’t have to put down other devotees’ service.
But if that is not accompanied with spiritual understanding, in order to prove my service is the best, I may have to put down, I may be consciously or subconsciously putting down other services. Saving them out of ignorance. Yeah, that’s not exactly what… Back to the blessing from the Maharaj, by giving me 45,000 books.
So he says, okay, I give you the blessing to be 45,000 books, but you come back to me with the rest. That’s beautiful. That’s exactly what we’re talking about.
Exactly. So… Same with the Gopis too. Each one was spiritually puffed up.
Oh, I am so fortunate. I am with Krishna. They don’t feel bad for the other one.
No, not at all. They don’t at all feel bad for the other ones. Spiritually, but they are individually have that reciprocation with Krishna.
See, he is saying that the ego kicks in. Yeah. Yeah, because then at that point, Krishna says, I am proud, and he’d be like… And he’d disappear.
Exactly. Even he says that the book distribution, oh, the edited books aren’t as good as the original books, and this is the… And you have a pissing match back and forth. One denigrating the other.
To what point? You want to distribute books? You want to distribute the original books? Be the best at distributing the original books? Yeah, a lot of expense. A lot of the expense of that. The feeling like you have to puff yourself up by… See, any… Which means that you don’t truly, fully believe you wouldn’t do it, is what I think.
Yeah, that’s true. Second point I wanted to say is that there can be something which is the best for me, and it may not be the best for someone else. Because we are all individuals.
So we all can have different definitions of success in our spiritual life. But when we make one definition of success as the only definition of success, then we become fanatic. So for me, being a brahmachari might be good, but that doesn’t mean I should have everybody else becoming a brahmachari.
For me, being a writer may be good, but that doesn’t mean everybody has to become a writer. For me, just because something is good for me, that doesn’t mean it has to be good for everyone. So when we take one definition of success and make that the only definition of success, then we become fanatical.
Prabhupada was very, very big, very inclusive. And he encouraged different people to do many, many different things in their own ways. So the same Prabhupada has inspired me in one way.
He can inspire somebody else in another way. I know one very senior devotee in our movement who’s known to have been very critical. of others for many years.
And then, now he’s become quite old, he’s become a little sickly, so I met him a couple of years, met him some time ago. And he said that, I feel the most important instruction that Prabhupada has given us that we should cooperate. That’s what he told in the line.
So he said that, if somebody who has served Prabhupada for 30-40 years, if that person feels inspired now to serve Prabhupada in a way that doesn’t make sense to me, then rather than criticising him, I should see that Prabhupada is bigger than my understanding. And Prabhupada is inspiring this person in a particular way. So many times, much criticism happens because, you know, as devotees, we talk about each other instead of talking with each other.
This person like this, this person like this, this person like this. Actually, if you just go in front and talk with them, you’ll understand why they’re doing what they’re doing. So, if at all we feel the need, if we don’t feel the need or don’t have the opportunity, we just don’t, we give them the benefit of doubt.
Somebody after serving for so long, if they feel inspired, they feel convinced, there must be some way Prabhupada is inspiring them. Even if they are somehow off track, they have a relationship with Prabhupada and Prabhupada will protect them, Krishna will protect them, get them on the right track. I don’t have to do the job of appointing, of considering that I’m a self-appointed watchdog to correct everyone else.
So, that way we can be fixed in our service while at the same time being not just tolerant but respectful of other’s services. Thank you very much. Thank you.