Spirituality and Democracy – The Monk’s Podcast 107 with Shyamananda Prabhu

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This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Hare Krishna. Welcome back to the Monks Podcast. Thank you.
Wonderful to have you here. And today I thought we could discuss a very important topic, which is often understood quite simplistically. That is democracy.
Basically, we could call it something like Gita Wisdom or Spiritual Wisdom and Democracy or Spiritual Wisdom and Forms of Governance. Okay. I thought of a roadmap and you can share your thoughts about how we could do it.
We can look at the purpose of governance in our spiritual texts beyond the specifics of governance, the purpose of governance. Then we can look at how that purpose can be served in today’s, in which forms of government is that purpose being served best today. And then lastly, what would what can spiritual wisdom offer to improve those forms of government in today’s context? All right.
So now, if you consider that as far as governance is concerned, although in the Vedic times there was largely a system of monarchy. But then that seems to be the system everywhere. It is not just in what is in the Vedic culture.
It seems to be almost everywhere. That was the form of government. So whether that form of government is intrinsic or essential to the Vedic teachings, that is a question that could be conceivably raised.
And one reason to consider is that there are just as there are social structures, there are political structures and they have a spiritual purpose. So we consider dharma samsthapana arthaya sambhavami yuge yuge krishna says in the Bhagavad Gita. So his point is he comes to establish dharma there.
It clearly refers to order in society. And then the purpose of establishing social order is that’s that’s 4.8 and 4.9 says janma karma cha me devyam evam yo viti tattvata pehtva deham punar janma naiti mam eti swarjuna. It is ultimately to spiritualise our consciousness to attain and to attain him.
So the ultimate purpose of material governance is to maintain, say, order and virtue so that people can pursue spiritual life. So in that sense, the form of governance, we could say it is more instrumental than essential. The specific form of government.
And any thoughts on this? I very much like this. The root of governance is the Shastra in Sanskrit. From there we have shasan, governance.
Shastra, a weapon. Shastra, the rule book. And shishya, somebody who needs to be governed.
So the whole idea of governing someone as we see today, I think it was Arthur Koestler who coined this phrase that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. In fact, today’s intellectuals seem to be totally mesmerised by this kind of thing. And I say mismanagement in a harmful way that.
Anytime there is anybody showing, anytime power is being exhibited, it will tend towards corruption. And anywhere you have absolute power, then the corruption is absolute. And what you are telling and what we read from our Vedic wisdom text is a very strange idea.
Today, it sounds strange that somebody exerts control on keeping their welfare in mind. And as you nicely put it, what did you say? It is not essential, but more functional kind of. Instrumental.
Instrumental, yeah. Not essential, but instrumental. That was a very nice point.
OK, so the Shastra is very interesting. So ultimately, the purpose is to have some kind of ruling. Now, the rules are essentially or you could say rules are specific.
Rule is overall the rule of law, we can say. So the rules have always rules start seeming restrictive and they are divorced from a purpose. So that is what my point is that we have different forms of administration, but are different rules.
The purpose is important. So now there are some codes of Prabhupada which are used to say dismiss democracy. And so democracy sometimes called as demon crazy or there is a play of words with Abraham Lincoln’s famous statement.
I think it is Lincoln’s isn’t it? Government of the people, for the people and by the people. So that is sometimes played around as government of the Shudras, by the Shudras and for the Shudras. Of course, here the word Shudra is not used in a in a casteist sense.
It is used more in a sense of a person who doesn’t know the values of life. So now I wonder how valid such statements are. They are attractive as soundbites, but are they reflective of a mature position on the issue? So if we consider why did we have to go a little bit into the history of democracy, why it evolved? And as you said that there is the fear.
And I would say that it is not an unfounded fear that that government, sorry, that power may corrupt. And power has corrupted a lot of people in recent, at least in recent recorded human history. So maybe we want to go into that direction that, you know, why, how democracy evolved and how those fears are to be addressed, fears of autocratic power.
OK, let us say these things are very valid that monarchy is absolutely bad. I’m not subscribing to that view. I’m not asking our viewers to subscribe to that view.
But I’m saying let us take that as a launchpad for our understanding. So if we begin with the umbrella concept of the history of the idea of democracy, basically autocrat is a proper word. Of course, autocratic is also used in a little bit of a pejorative sense.
But then the governance of the mass kleptocracy, government of thieves or all those other bureaucracy, everything is just managed by bureaus and so much of red tape. Of course, red tape also is the red tape is to tie those files. And if something is tied in that, it is never going to be unearthed.
So that’s why the red tape means just a strategy to delay something. So we have the Greeks who as philosophers would like to tell us or the Western philosophy historians would like to tell us that Greece, Athens is the place where this idea took root. And I think about three centuries or so, that sapling was nurtured and nourished.
And that became the founding ground for democracy or democratic ideas in other places. I think it is a 13th century document where the then great people came together and they curtailed the power of the king. Excuse me.
Of course, you have Oliver Cromwell and I’m just taking a very sweeping kind of a look at things. So the idea that somebody comes to remedy the abuse of power and then starts abusing power himself. So that was seen here in Great Britain.
Then we have Julius Caesar, who said that there will be no more emperors. But then started behaving like one. We have Napoleon in France, where the German composer Beethoven, he was although they were not exactly.
At that time, there was no Germany and no France in that sense. I mean, France was there, but Germany was more like provinces, Prussia and other things. So he actually composed a piece glorifying Napoleon that here is an ideal European statesman, not any power.
He’s not willing to abuse power at all. By the time he finished making that piece, Napoleon had proclaimed himself emperor of France and was about to conquer parts of Italy. And then, of course, 1812 or so, his march towards Moscow, that fatal thing.
And then he came back, repeated, and then about eight or ten years, that was the end of it. So historians are afraid of power being concentrated in the hand of one person. That one person could be the well-wisher of everyone.
It is simply not a tenable thing. People are not just ready to accept that. Alternatives and especially the biggest experiment against autocratic rule was the 1917 October Revolution in Russia, where a small group of ragtag revolutionaries, they overthrew the czar.
And 1980, when communism itself collapsed, the prime minister, Boris Yeltsin became the prime minister and he said, this experiment should not have been done on such a big country. Ideally, if it was done in some few villages, a cluster of provinces or districts, then we could have known whether it works or not. So this is the checkered history of this idea that it is seen as not very tenable, not very productive.
But as they say, if I can be allowed to use a word, the best of the worst options. Okay, that’s the best of the worst. So now you’re saying checkered history of the ideas.
Are you talking about checkered history of various forms of political rules or specifically checkered history of autocracy, autocratic rule, monarchy? Yeah, more or less the idea is how to avoid monarchy so that we don’t have the same abuses and same ills. Only to find that even in a so-called democratic setup, the human mind is such that it can still have a group of people trying to do that. So instead of one person doing the abuse, it could be a small coterie of people doing that.
Okay. So the fundamental question that comes down is that how can abuse of power be avoided? In fact, so in political philosophy, actually what you gave was a very good overview of starting from the Magna Carta. Magna Carta is considered to be the foundation for the conception of individual rights that defines much of Western forms of Anglo-American forms of government.
So in political philosophy, there are several defining questions. And one of the questions is that how much power should a government have? So whether the government is, whether it is monarchy or democracy or oligarchy or whatever it is, how much power should they have? So that is the defining question. One of the defining questions of political philosophy.
And if we consider even both the quotes, whatever I mentioned about what is attributed to Prabhupada and what is otherwise used, in both cases, the concern is the abuse of power. So if there are demoniac people who gain power, then they can abuse power in terrible ways. So from one perspective, earlier I talked about from the scripture that the purpose is spiritual.
Spiritualization of consciousness is one aspect of the purpose of governance. But another aspect we could say that even if the government is not very spiritually conducive, at least let it not be materially destructive. Because some people may say that politics doesn’t matter.
I don’t care about politics. But we may not care about politics, but politics cares about us. In the sense that political changes can affect us and they can affect us in catastrophic ways.
I met some devotees from parts of Europe, Yugoslavia, former Czechoslovakia and all those places. They said that it is just like within a matter of weeks, things change so terribly. And we were living peacefully and suddenly things are going downhill and all normal life gets suspended.
Something similar has happened in Myanmar now. We have, I’m in touch with a few devotees there. Of course, it’s not a major thing right now.
But so we could say abuse of power can lead not only to people being spiritually stagnant or spiritually misled, but it can also cause enormous misery at the material level in terms of horrendous amounts of exploitation. Like what you said about the communist rule, even in China, in Russia primarily, but Russia and China in those two countries, a hundred million people are said to have been killed without any war. It’s just the government killing people who are suspected to be opposed to the government in any way.
So the amount of devastation that can be done is, can be colossal. So we could say that the main concern is the abuse of power. So it could be demoniac people.
If you consider demoniac, not simply in religious terms, the Bhagavad Gita talks more in terms of behavioural terms than religious terms of the demoniac people. And even Shudras, when somebody is using that word, that’s also in terms of behaviour, not in terms of caste. So the concern is for the abuse of power.
So now the abuse of power can happen in two ways. One is that there is somebody who is out to abuse power and there is somebody who lets the abuse of power happen. So if the system of government is such that those who are governed have very little or no say in the governance, then it’s almost as a second factor becomes a non-entity.
There is an abusive person, abusive person who has abusive tendencies and those who are subordinate have no capacity to resist. Then it can become disastrous. So now from our scriptural perspective to nuance or complicate things a little bit, is that abuse of power is considered not only probable but we could say almost predictable in Kali Yuga.
Rajanya Dasyu, what is that word? The kings will become plunderers in Kali Yuga. That’s one of the symptoms of Kali Yuga. So the kings will become plunderers.
So they will become thieves and robbers. So now if that is already predicted in Kali Yuga as something which is likely to happen, then maybe it is advisable to have a form of governance with some checks and balances to prevent the abuse of power. And in today’s world, maybe the democratic form of government is the one which provides some checks and balances.
In the traditional form of government, maybe the Brahmanas had the capacity to provide checks and balances. When Dhruga started becoming abusive, the Brahmanas stopped him. Not Dhruga, Vena.
Vena became abusive and if someone becomes very abusive, then people can call the sages and the devatas, they call even the lord to dissent. So there is the possibility of abuse of power and there is the need for checks and balances to prevent that abuse of power. So what form of government can provide that today? We don’t have Brahmanas who have that much power to stop kings, stop heads of state and we really can’t invoke the lord’s presence that easily as is described in scriptures.
So any thoughts on this? Yeah, I am tempted to delve a little bit more deeper into Vedic history. Two examples of how power is sought by individuals and once they get it, even they cannot control to exploit it. One is a fully qualified king, he becomes a Indra and Navusha and as soon as Indra, the previous Indra’s wife, he says that since now I am the head, so whichever is the Indra’s wife, she should be my wife.
And Shashi, that’s the name of Indra’s wife, she said that well, I can’t be unfaithful to my husband and he doesn’t seem to accept that. He said no, no, no, just be ready to receive me, I am coming. And who are his palanquin carriers? He uses the seven great sages who have a very important role again in governance.
The Bhagavatam, that’s another topic, we’ll take it some other time. He tells them you have to carry my palanquin and in haste, he tells them go faster, go faster. The Sanskrit word is Sarpa, Sarpa and that’s what they were waiting for.
Okay, you are saying Sarpa, you become a Sarpa. And then he falls down in our middle planetary system, completely bereft of all his good fortune, his bodily beauty and he becomes a serpent. And secondly is Srimad Bhagavatam’s example of Vena.
How if you read carefully, the arguments of Vena are all very astute. He’s telling those sages that I am the representative of Vishnu. I am above sacrifices.
I am above rituals. I alone have to be the centre of attraction. You should worship me.
Now that cannot be denied because a Vedic king would be glorified. But as you rightly said, the sages understood that as such, this person is, I mean, the way he is abusing and now he’s having that knowledge. So just like a simple person, if he is corrupt, he can damage somebody in one particular way.
But if a politician, a minister or a head of state or a nuclear scientist or an expert doctor, if they become abusive, the damage is large, humongous. So how does one utilise that understanding in today’s time? I am really, previously I was intrigued, puzzled. But then as the days go by and keep on discussing the topic, things get clear.
Shila Prabhupada’s guru who founded a movement just like Shila Prabhupada did, although it was to some extent largely confined to India. There was something in Rangoon, but that time Rangoon also was part of the British Empire. And then missionaries were sent to England and to Germany.
Those are two notable places. I don’t know if other places in Europe they were sent. I think there are 67 centres, 64 in India and 3 abroad.
Rangoon, London and Munich. So he not only toyed with the idea, he implemented it. Although historically speaking, it could not be made fully functional.
But of all models, he used the railway system of democratic top management. It was called incidentally Governing Body Commission. So straight away from that leadership model, he suggested that the Gaudiya Mutt be run like that.
There should be a Governing Body Commission. There could be Governing Body Commissioners appointed. So right from the beginning, autocratic rule or there’s a very popular phrase word used in ISKCON circles.
It’s called the self-reflection. Somebody would be seen as by his own potency, by the power of preaching, means project, finance, funds managed or so and so. But this democratic leadership was suggested by Prabhupada’s spiritual master himself.
And as early as the beginning years of 1970, the 70s decade, Prabhupada, learning from the previous experience, started implementing that. And it is so farsightedness, you can see the difficulties which Prabhupada must have faced. If the senior most people under him are no more than six or seven years in the movement, this is what Prabhupada had.
If he starts the movement in 65 or 66, by 71, he doesn’t have anyone, even near six years experience. Yeah, but he implemented this. And it is fairly democratic.
Prabhupada instituted the voting system, sometimes majority vote, sometimes four-fifth majority. Those are the details. They could change over a period of time.
But since we are now slowly going from a very macro view of the world, democracy and the implications of thought to one of our core subjects, that is democratic thought in a spiritual movement. So this is some historical overview of what has happened in the last, say, from 1920 till about 2020, for 100 years or so. This is very interesting.
It’s also a good example of how we will not be representing Prabhupada. We may not be representing Prabhupada appropriately if we reduce him to some soundbites. Because we have to also look at what he did.
So also, I’ll come back to the point of the GBC. One argument I have heard that this doesn’t necessarily endorse democracy is that this is a democracy of brahmanas. So that is fine.
And I have heard this again. I have not seen an explicit statement in Chanakya’s Niti Shastra or anywhere else. Artha Shastra also that the council of brahmanas who would be advising the kings in the Vedic times, they would function democratically.
So that council worked on a democratic basis. Now, again, generally what I have seen is in the Ramayana, the Mahabharata, there is one head priest. And the head priest gives decisions.
If you look at, say, the assembly of Ravan, which is not exactly representative of the Vedic culture. Or we look at the assembly of the Kurus where Dhritarashtra is on the head. It doesn’t seem that anything is happening by majority.
There is no majority in the sense of the ministers. Now, none of the ministers are usually brahmanas. There is a council of brahmanas who are advising.
But whether the king, whether they would be like the decisive authorities, that seems to be unlikely. They seem to be more of advisory authorities rather than decisive authorities. The king was the ultimate decider.
So the point I’m making is that even if we draw a precedent from the brahmanical authority, from the way brahmanas advised the king, that doesn’t necessarily apply to the GBC, which is not an advisory body, which is an administrative body. So what Prabhupada has done is, and what Bhakti Sahasrathi Thakur did, was significantly resourceful. So I read one, Pranav Prabhu has done a PhD thesis in Prabhupada, in Bhakti Sahasrathi Thakur rather.
And he makes this point that Bhakti Sahasrathi Thakur was theologically conservative and institutionally innovative. Very good point. So he says many things, even the Bhagwat Guru Shishya Parampara, the idea of non-brahmanas giving initiation to brahmanas.
So with many things he was, institutionally he was quite innovative. Although theologically he was conservative. So in that sense, we can say, at least from the recent traditions perspective, openness to forms of governance that work.
That is what, there has been an openness to that. So these are some thoughts and one more thought I’ll make about this and then. Now, why did they choose this? I can think of three reasons.
One is that maybe there is no one Acharya whom everybody would be able to accept. Another could be that just the Hinduism didn’t really have a very organised institutional structure. So when there is a nationwide movement or as they envision future, a global movement, for one leader to oversee everything would be difficult.
And third could be that, again, the checks and balances. So it’s not just that even if there is one person who is pure enough, they will not be accepted by others. For one person to manage everything might not be so easy because it’s just so big.
And third is that maybe that one person, for whatever reason, there could be abuse of power. So having a democracy could prevent that. So any thoughts on this? Okay, so I think one discussion many days ago.
Now I would like to turn my rudder to the opposite angle and try to say some good things about a democratic setup. So Bhaktisiddhanta Thakur preached in British India, not very bothered with who is ruling. His famous statement to young Abhay Charan was politics can wait.
Krishna consciousness cannot wait. And this is more urgent than even the independence movement. This is a big game changer in young Abhay’s life.
He is wearing khadi. That’s a statement. And he didn’t go to London to study higher law, become a barrister.
That also is a statement. And here is somebody who is saying that Lord Chaitanya’s movement is more important. So Prabhupada, those seeds are sown in Prabhupada’s mind.
I mean, Prabhupada had very little experience of institutional management because he had his business. He would just preach very nicely. And there was this combination of Abhay Babu, as Prabhupada was called in his yesterdays and Bhakti Rakshashridhar Maharaj.
So they operate in Mumbai. In fact, not very far from our Chowpatty Centre was the August Kranti Gowdiamant Centre. Forty years Prabhupada kept that small flame burning in his heart that he needs to fulfil the words of his spiritual master.
When he was asked that why did you choose to go to America instead of England? And his simple answer was, well, the members of the Gowdiamant, they tried their best, but they could not succeed so much in England. And I had no chance of great success or something. So I thought if I have to fail, let me fail in a new place.
That was a brilliant answer. Shows his humility. But choosing America also shows his pragmatism.
In some other conversations, we come to know that, Prabhupada said after Second World War, the British hold on world politics was over. In one place, Prabhupada praises the British public that when Churchill became Prime Minister, now he practically was an autocrat. He comes from the nobility.
So he has a royal blood in him and he has made a Prime Minister. And one of his thunderings, I mean retorts was, I have not become the Prime Minister in Her Majesty’s government to preside over the liquidation of the British Empire. He was very clear that Britain will retain its colonies.
But in 1946, the people were aware that we are not in a position to become the boss of the world anymore. So he lost the election. And Mr. Clement Attlee became the Prime Minister.
And he was writing on the wall, we cannot afford to have this empire. And then within a few weeks, the divide and rule thing came up. India became independent in August.
Pakistan was formed. So many things happened. And within two or three years after that, Churchill again won the election.
So the thing is, people need to be politically alert in order for some kind of democracy to actually function. And we see that abysmally low coefficient of alertness in Asia and Africa. And therefore, we have these sham democracies or ballots being stuffed.
Some politicians are in jail and they win elections. And I mean, the whole litany of abuses which people keep on the current democratic setup. Coming to my main point, Prabhupada choosing America because the freedom to preach freedom to your faith.
In his own mindset, America afforded the maximum potential for doing that. And in 75, when ISKCON was proclaimed as bona fide religion, the New York City Court and Prabhupada, as a Vaishnav, as a pure devotee, expressing gratitude to everybody, Prabhupada would say, I love New York. The city always helped me.
I love America. He would tell you Americans, you become Krishna conscious and then one can touch your hair. So, I mean, these are from an Indian sentimental point of view.
You can easily understand that no one touches your hair. That’s not a figure of speech you wish. But we understand that.
Japan, a big industrial power, but reduced to ashes. There would be a land. Australia, New Zealand, same British people, but so far away.
That time the Middle East was not so rich at all. South America. Russia, communist.
No way in the 60s Prabhupada could have. I mean, the way they got permission to go there for only three days. So much of documentation and the paucity of resources there.
So Prabhupada did go to the behind the Iron Curtain. But that was safely going on the resources which he got from preaching in America. And when we say America, we say England also.
And India, too, when he decided to come back, there were made the only major issues in the Indian democracy. There were hurdles to be scorned where the Americans were seen as members of CIA and not exactly sadhus. And some opposition from the smarter Brahmanas give them Brahmana thread.
But otherwise, USA, Europe and Asia. It was the call it sham democracy or call it to whatever democracy. But that set up helped ISKCON to lay its foundation in a very firm way.
And only when the Iron Curtain was destroyed, did ISKCON actually start flourishing in the previous USSR and other places. So this could be seen as some good points about democracy today. So I think there is a lot to cover, a lot of territory you covered here.
The point is that whether we look at the institutional engagement of how Prabhupada instituted the Krishna conscious movement or how Prabhupada engaged with the world, it was a democratic form of government where he was successful, not just in sharing Krishna Bhakti there, but also in gaining resources for sharing Krishna Bhakti elsewhere. So this is a very valid point. When Prabhupada met with the Prime Minister of India, Indira Gandhi, and he had his disciples meet with Murari Desai.
And although with respect to the meeting with Indira Gandhi, he had a list of suggestions, which he never really could talk because she was under a murder threat at that time. But with Murari Desai, he sent his disciples to meet and it was more of a getting together, getting to know each other sort of meeting. So Prabhupada, it seems that going back to that point of Prabhupada’s pragmatic choice of America, so we can also say Prabhupada would have been pragmatic in his choice of, if at all somebody had consulted him about a government, form of governance, he would have been pragmatic.
So democracy, now to move forward, if you consider the challenges in democracy, can I move to the third part now about what we as a spiritual tradition can offer to, if we say that more or less democracy is the de facto form of government now. So what can we offer, say, from our tradition? So first is, is it compatible? Well, we could say broadly it is compatible. We may not necessarily say that that is the recommended form of government by scripture, but it’s definitely compatible.
And we could also use the principle of Yupta Vairagya that, OK, whatever is there, we engage with it, we use it. So now we could say that this is the spiritual movement and this is the political government. So at one level, at the very least, what we would want is that the political government not interfere with the spiritual movement, provide the freedom to do our spiritual outreach.
So beyond that, we can say that maybe the ideal situation, this is going to become a more expansive discussion and you can decide whether you want to go in this direction or not. There is apprehension always that in the ideal situation as described in the Vedic texts, the spiritual movement would be facilitated actively by the political government. Say like Chaitanya Mahaprabhu was facilitated by Pratap Rudra.
Now in today’s world, where we live in a secular world with a multicultural environment, that immediately raises spectres of theocracy. And to have a government which will actually support a spiritual movement explicitly, that is going to be very improbable, we could say. So we could say that the ideal where spirituality as explained in the Vedic scriptures is not sectarian.
It is universal and it will help everyone. That’s true. But the fear of theocracy will make this a very difficult proposal to even explain what to speak of establish.
So we can keep that aside and then look at the interaction between the two. At the very least, we can say that the spiritual movement should not be impeded by the political government. Beyond that, we can say, what can the political government provide to the spiritual movement? It can, as I said, provide freedom, provide protection, basically.
Not in the sense that protection to have one’s religious rights. I remember Shri Dharmaprabhu. He was quite a pioneer for our movement in making ISKCON, in one sense, the mainstream voice of Hinduism in UK.
And he told me that he was invited to the Diwali festival and he was asked to give a talk. And it was a very brief talk because they are multicultural environment, they celebrate various festivals. The Prime Minister and many other politicians were there.
So he was asked to explain the spirit of Diwali. He said that there I just have 2-3 minutes. So he just spoke something like, I’m paraphrasing, he said, Diwali is the festival of lights.
So light signifies wisdom, light signifies growth, light enables growth. So he said, and for the wisdom and the growth that is possible, we are grateful. So I’m oversimplifying what he said, but the essential point he said that Diwali is a celebration for gratitude.
That traditionally, when the citizens came back, the citizens of Ayodhya, they welcomed Ram. But what can we be grateful for? So one of the things he said, we can be grateful for our country, which is provided as the religious freedom to practise our faith. And he said that many of the politicians were very appreciative of that statement.
So we could say that the government can provide us protection and facilities for practising our faith. And what can the spiritual movement offer to the government? So we could say that. Should I go to that point or do you want to add something at this point? And then.
No, no, no. This is where we conclude that how we can. Is it that we can if we expect some kind of benefits from a democratic setup, what is it that we can offer in return? Since gratitude is the theme, please continue on that.
Yeah. So we could say that at one level, the members of the spiritual movement can be socially conscious, socially responsible, make informed choices and not just ostracise the political form of government, but engage with it. And we see that that sort of engagement has become more prominent.
I think in the last political elections in India also, there are pictures on social media of the Brahmacharis voting. So irrespective of whom they vote for, we got to speak of Brahmacharis and Grahasthas also. So at one level is we don’t be apathetic.
We be socially conscious and we act as responsible law abiding citizens. Beyond that, we could say that if the spiritual principles are understood more and applied more, whether it is by the leaders or by the followers, by the citizens, then that can be one of the best insurances to prevent abuse of power. Because usually abuse of power comes when one thinks that this life is everything and I want to be at the top in this life.
But you understand that we have an eternal life and we are accountable for our actions. And there are greater things to be higher than power in this world. Our life is meant for something more than power in this world.
Then the likelihood of abuse of power will be much lesser. And so that will be from the point of view of if we can offer some input to the leaders. And if the citizens also become a little more spiritually minded, even if they don’t become spiritually minded, even if by some spiritual practises they rise to the mode of goodness, then they can also make more informed choices.
Otherwise, to the extent somebody is in the mode of passion or ignorance, they are more likely to be manipulated and abused, manipulated and exploited, emotionally manipulated. We have vote bank politics. We have so many ways in which people can get misled.
So that way, spiritual wisdom can contribute to enhancing or making more effective the existing form of government also. Your thoughts on this? Yeah. So basically, this is the last point from my side, that spiritual institutions like this is not the head of the complete Buddhist world.
There could be 40, 60 denominations. He’s seen as a figurehead. He’s seen as somebody symbolising the pacifist, nonviolent.
His people are persecuted, but he’s not causing an armed uprising. Rather, he’s spreading wisdom, he’s spreading ideas, spreading peace. So I’m just using that as an example.
So when Prabhupada was there, the world also knew him and Prabhupada would say, I am the founder Acharya. But many of his disciples in their private memoirs are now revealing numerous occasions Prabhupada would consult them. Now, that was like a dual purpose.
Was it to train them for their future role? Or he actually trusted them that you are also experienced, you can also contribute something. Now that, as I have heard from Harishori Prabhu and Prabhu, that gave them tremendous confidence. And so whether a spiritual is governed by one person, which kind of resembles a theocratic rule or an autocratic rule, or it is managed by collective wisdom, like we have, as you rightly said, GBC is more like a brahminical body.
But at the same time, it is described as the ultimate management authority. Brahminical body also has a management role. Now, they may engage Kshatriyas or Kshatriya-orientated devotees to help them.
They may have a Shastric body to help them with theological issues. And they may also have, like this thing was passed with a simple majority. But to make somebody into a renunciate, a sanyasi or not, there could be a four-fifth majority.
That depends on time, place and circumstances. So if we are also following what the world outside is following, so we prevent theocratic abuse or abuse of funds within the spiritual movement, that could be a bigger preaching to the outside world where we can also share our wisdom. Otherwise, outside people say, hey, if one industrialist is abusing power, somebody has purchased hectares and hectares of land and has removed the indigenous people.
And that’s the kind of abuse we see from multinational companies being here. Or you heard of the term the sweatshops where people are, labour is used, they are paid miserably low wages. So these are the kind of abuses with people are angry when trade and commerce based units do that.
But when people are there, their faith is being shattered or their funds are being misused for something. So or worse, physical, emotional, that kind of abuse takes place. So the outside world is concerned that we may not be able to trust somebody, even in a so-called spiritual organisation where shows whether you have any democratic set up where.
And Emily means just my two cents understanding. Is there a chance for a debate? Is there a chance for some review? That is one major thing. Do you have the freedom to speak your views? Am I am I going in the right direction? Or you would have some other rights also? That’s a very important point that how is dissent dealt with? How is the very difference of opinions dealt with? Are they crushed or are they engaged with? That’s a very important parameter today.
And one more point we could say in some ways is that the world today is far more complicated than what it is and what it was in the past. And the forms of governance which are there in today’s complicated world, they are also much more complicated. So it would even if we presume that there would be one well-intentioned and virtuous head of state who would not abuse power.
But still, for one person to run everything, there would be there would be the need for a competent team. And that competent team would eventually need to have power. So in one, I mean, I would like to summarise this by saying that in one sentence is that ultimately.
The purpose of the government is not to empower the head of state. It is to empower the citizens. Empower the citizens to make wise choices.
Empower citizens to make wise choices in terms of providing the external resources to make wise choices. So, for example, democracy, like you mentioned, doesn’t work well if the public is not well educated and well aware. If there is not a free and unbiased media, if there is no forum for public discussion and debate, the democracy doesn’t work.
So there are those external facilities which are required and the government needs to empower people for that, especially in today’s complicated world, so that sound solutions will come up. And also the people need to be empowered internally, internally in terms of knowing what are the values worth striving for in life. What is life meant for ultimately? So the way to prevent abuse of power is to actually, in one sense, educate people and empower people about the purpose of power.
So then, if we see most of the, this is going to become a big subject, but quickly, if you see the government, even if the king was autocratic or there’s a monarchy in India, as far as we know, or even in the West, as far as we know, the change of the head of state didn’t really affect people so much. Because authority was distributed, whether there were self-sufficient village systems, and usually the villages would be run by some kind of system of administration. And as long as the taxes were given upward, people would have their facilities.
So if that was there in a much simpler age in the past, in a more complicated age, for even materially competent administration, distribution of power in the way ahead is my understanding. And Rupa did that through the GBC. And to the extent we can empower individuals to choose wisely, both by curbing their internal passions and by providing external resources, to that extent, we can create the best settings for the proper use of power and avoid the abuse of power or decrease the probability of abuse of power.
Any concluding thoughts on this? Would you like to summarise? Yes, definitely, I’ll try. This is a big subject. We talked about three main themes.
One is, the topic was broadly spirituality and democracy, we could say. So the Vedic tradition, what was the purpose of governance? It was at one level to raise people’s consciousness to the spiritual level. And we talked about at one level to raise, at a positive level, raise consciousness to the spiritual level.
At a negative level, don’t exploit and abuse people. So we have examples of that happening in the Vedic scriptures. And when that happens, they give an example of Vena.
And then there are checks and balances to prevent that. And then we also talked about, you mentioned the history of how from Greece to Magna Carta, to the modern times, to Napoleon and then to the American Charter of Rights and other things. How, because of the repeated experience of the abuse of powers, whether it is by a person who was, Napoleon was considered an ideal king by Beethoven.
And then the czars were replaced by communist rulers, which were not exactly autocratic, but eventually it became autocratic under Stalin and Lenin. And that created a disaster. So recent human history does seem to indicate that there is a high chance of abuse of power whenever power is concentrated in one or few hands.
And that is predicted in our scriptures also that kings are likely to become plunderers. So we need a system which checks and balances. And then we talked about how within our own movement, so Bhakti Shankar Thakur and then Prabhupada, in the very early days of his movement, they instituted a democratic form of government through the GBC.
And so Bhakti Shankar Thakur was theologically conservative, but institutionally he was innovative. And Prabhupada was pragmatic in terms of how he did his outreach, how he fulfilled his mission. So it was America, which was a democratic form of government, gave him facilities to spread Krishna consciousness in America and also provided resources for his outreach in other parts of the world also.
So if we consider the political government and the spiritual movement, we could see the interactions at the basic level is that in today’s world, the spiritual movement being fully supported by a political government is unlikely because of the nature of multicultural society and the fear of theocracy. So what we can have is that the political government provides freedom for the practise of one’s faith and for sharing one’s faith in appropriate ways. So that is one mode of interaction.
The other mode of interaction could be that the spiritual movement trains people to be responsible and socially conscious so that they act as law abiding citizens. Beyond that, the spiritual movement can also provide a spiritual vision of life. If leaders assimilate that vision, they are less likely to abuse power.
If citizens internalise that vision, they will also rise to the mode of goodness and then they are able to choose wise, choose better. So for democracy to also work better, if individuals are empowered, then that is the best way ahead in today’s world. And you also mentioned in the interim of how when Prabhupada engaged, at one level you quoted Prabhupada’s conversation that the specifics of the political government, even the independence was not so relevant.
So Prabhupada would be pragmatic. We can say that. And whatever works for taking, we could also talk about the principle of Yukta Vairagya, whatever works for at least preventing abuse of power and for facilitating the spiritualization of consciousness, we can move ahead with that.
So any concluding thoughts? No, nicely summarised everything. So thank you very much. Thank you so much.