Should devotees take vaccines. – A Bhagavad-gita perspective – The Monk’s Podcast 109 with Garuda Prabhu

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This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Hare Krishna.
Good to be back always in good kitha with you, Chaitanya Charanjeevi. You have helped me to appreciate how expansive the understanding of katha can be. How expansive, how inclusive it can be.
You’re a good katha partner, Chaitanya Charanjeevi. So you do the same for me. I’m grateful to your service and to Religious Association.
So you could say today’s episode is by popular demand or by popular request. Very good. I thought today we could discuss on the topic of vaccination.
Now, what would be a Gita perspective on that? And broadly, there are some devotees who are opposed to it in a quite strong way with various kinds of concerns. And there are others who are supportive of it. And like in every issue, we have the whole spectrum.
Some are having genuine concerns from both sides. Some are having their extremist shrill voices. So it is somewhat of a polarising topic.
So I thought broadly of a three part framework. You can suggest also how we could go at it. First is that does spirituality or spiritual wisdom provide us instructions on every issue or does it provide us insights for us to decide various issues? That is one aspect of it.
That means can different devotees have different opinions on the same issue and still be devotees of faithfully following scripture? So that was one topic we could discuss broadly. Then we could discuss specifically about vaccines. And then we can talk about how overall we can have a respectful difference of opinion on issues.
So that was a broad framework, I thought. If you have something else in mind, I’m happy to take it that way also. Sounds good to me.
Yes. So regarding the first point, I’ll start with the experience where generally, when we start off in the practise of bhakti, it’s almost as if you’re told, stop thinking for yourself because you are speculating and just follow scripture. And there is also the understanding, maybe the articulated or not articulated, but the understanding that scripture speaks in one voice on all issues.
And there is one true understanding and others are wrong understandings. So I was with one senior Vaishnava and he told me something very striking. This was about 15 years ago.
He said, I’ll be happier if there are more honest disagreements in our movement. More honest and express disagreements. I said, I’m surprised.
But then aren’t we to cooperate? Shouldn’t we be working together? He says, yes, we have to work together, but we can’t work together unless we are honest with each other. And we have to, we can have different opinions. So then he gave me a simple example that.
So at that time, the issue was, actually, the background was that this particular Vaishnava, the senior Vaishnava in our movement, he, so at that time, India was going to go through elections and there was a lot of concerns about protecting Indian national Indian culture and other things. So there was this question, should devotees vote or not? So I had made a video saying that devotees can see voting as a social responsibility. It is not a spiritual responsibility in the sense that chanting Hare Krishna is a spiritual responsibility.
We have to do it. Social responsibility means that, yes, it is a part of our aparadharma and every devotee can use their intelligence and decide how to do it. And then this devotee had made a video saying that elections, voting in elections is not a social responsibility.
Actually, establishing Varanashram is a social responsibility. And to think that we will be fulfilling our responsibilities by social responsibility by participating in elections, this just indicates that one doesn’t understand Shastra at all. So at that time, then some of that spiritual leader’s followers started criticising me, saying that, you know, you are, why are you talking about dabbling in mundane politics? I said, no, I am not dabbling in mundane politics.
I am just giving an informed scriptural vision for devotees to take decisions. So then I wrote to him and he said that, some of your followers are almost haranguing me, saying that you are offending a senior spiritual master and you are… I said, no, I am not opposing him because I spoke first and then he spoke something after that. And that time I found he was remarkably broad-minded.
So then he even made a video about it and he said that, you know, if somebody says tomorrow that meat-eating is alright, then I will say that that is wrong. Meat-eating, especially somebody, devotee practising Bhakti, they say that is wrong. But there are various issues on which different devotees can come from different perspectives.
So even after that video was made, still the idea was that somebody so senior is taking one position, what right do you have to take some other position? So you should just accept that. But I was very appreciative that in one sense, sometimes the followers become more narrow-minded than the leader. And they may think of as normative something which the leader himself may not take as normative.
So that was my first experience. And then as I started travelling abroad and I started meeting devotees from various parts of the world, I just realised it’s one of the adventures to discover how much diversity is there in Krishna Consciousness. So that’s just my contextualisation.
You can share your thoughts. Yes, I appreciate your observations and your remarks. And as usual, I’m getting from you, I think, a very balanced view and appreciative of the very gatedness of views you can get from devotees.
Now, I think there are certain things to consider here. So the Gita, if we start with the Bhagavad Gita, one of the tacit but most powerful teachings of the Gita is that the outer world will always pose conflicts, forms of suffering and painful kinds of situations. I mean, there’s no getting around it.
This is what the outer world is designed to do. There will never be a perfect solution to any social and ethical issues. Never.
Now, and of course, that’s what Arjuna found out. Now, Arjuna himself became so distracted by the painful situation in front of him, he forgot who Krishna was. Oh, beautiful.
Now, this is my concern. In the process of engaging in Shastra Shastra, weaponising Shastra. That’s a beautiful way of putting it, weaponising.
Shastra Shastra. Okay. The weapon of Shastra, the weapon of scripture.
That’s not what scripture is for. We’re not supposed to use it against each other. But rather, we’re here to share different understandings.
And this is what you were saying earlier, too, to share, to come together and explore diverse views, not to use Shastra to alienate one another from each other, to alienate each other. This is not what Shastra is for. And as far as understanding Shastra.
You know, this depends on whether we take to Shastra in a Kanishka approach or a Madhyama approach or Uttama approach. Now, you know, you don’t have to be an Uttama Adhikari to take to Shastra in an Uttama approach, just like when you do deity worship. You’re performing that deity worship as an Uttama.
These are the Uttama actions in relation to a deity. Now, whether you, your person is able to rise to that fully or not, well, that will vary. But we don’t, we’re uncompromising when we do deity worship.
We should be just as uncompromising when we go to Shastra. And we should help one another, just like a more elderly Pujari will help a younger Pujari, you know, rise to the occasion more and take to the practise of deity worship more profoundly, more thoroughly and more accurately. So also older Vaishnavas, more experienced and realised Vaishnavas should lend their own visions and help younger devotees, less experienced devotees to rise to an Uttama understanding.
So don’t think you have to wait till you’re an Uttama Adhikari to have an Uttama approach to Shastra. That’s beautiful. So in a sense, we can go beyond our Adhikar by our association or our guidance.
Yes. And even with our intelligence. So let’s say I come to you, Chaitanya Charan, and I say, you know, no one should, you know, according to Shastra, the way I see it is no one should sit in front of a curtain.
This is very dangerous. It’s very dangerous. OK, you will attract all kinds of pretas and bhutas and paschachas and so on.
And, you know, and this now, let’s say I and then I start judging you. Chaitanya Charan is mixing with the bhutas and the pretas and the paschachas. OK, and then I just go, I just go crazy.
Because I’m very insecure about it. Now, if I can exercise the intelligence and say, look, Garuda, you’re you’re relating to Chaitanya Charan as a Kanishka. You’re very narrow.
So enquire from him why he has a curtain behind. He might have a good reason. You know, so in other words, there’s if something sparks dialogue and enquiry and respect, then this is Madhyama.
This is Madhyama. OK, so then and then beyond that, one can hope for an understanding and and not stop until and keep seeking until one understands something. In in full, as much as possible in totality.
So maybe I need to talk to other people about curtains and the value of curtains and so on. Now, forgive me for the example. OK, but but the idea is that we should be training devotees.
Educating devotees doesn’t mean that we have to understand everything that Shastra says, because that’s impossible anyway. But rather how to approach Shastra, not not give it giving the impression that we now are understanding Shastra at a certain level, not go to another level, but rather it’s how to approach Shastra. It’s a little it’s subtle.
It’s different than knowing Shastra. It’s how to approach Shastra in many ways is more valuable than how much you know of Shastra. In a sense, it is sometimes said that the questions we are asking are more important than the answers we are having.
That’s right. In fact, answers sounds very finite. You know, it’s been answered.
Something’s been answered. But rather there’s something infinite about what we get from Shastra and it’s it’s never ending. And ultimately, this is a sign of prema where it never ends.
The mystery of the other, the mystery of divinity. We are endlessly plunging into that because we’re drawn and attracted endlessly. Now, that’s a very high level.
But but we should be open to that. We should be taught to be open to that, even if we’re not there. Education.
So now just allow this point that in a sense, when you say I have the answer, it is the end of curiosity, whereas questions keep us in the learning mood. But aren’t there some some level of limits, say, for example, that if I consider that Krishna is God. Now, there can be a question of how Krishna is God, how Krishna is so wonderful as God.
But aren’t some questions, don’t some questions have settled answers for one to be to have a to have commitment to one’s spiritual path or to commitment to one’s own social roles and responsibilities? Yes. Yes. Very good.
You see, enquiry. Put a pressure, put a pressure, not just pressure, put a pressure. All kinds of enquiry.
Is an extension of Shravanam. If you’re not asking questions, you’re not hearing deeply enough. A symptom of.
Of of. Lesser Shravanam is that you’re not is you’re not asking questions. That’s amazing.
So by way of extension, Shravanam, even though you’re speaking Shravanam, the extension of Shravanam is to enquire, as in the verse, you know, 434. Pariprasna. Pariprasna.
It’s absolutely necessary. So you’re saying that even if there are settled answers to some issues, but still our process is hearing, say, even if you accept Krishna as God, our process is to keep hearing about Krishna. And if you’re hearing, then naturally questions will come.
Right. And if the questions are not coming, then we are not really hearing. If all you’re doing is chanting, if all you’re doing is preaching and you’re not hearing, something’s very off.
Every bit of preaching has to be counterbalanced with hearing. If your hearing has stopped, if your enquiring has stopped and all you’re doing is preaching. Be careful.
That’s so true. And even in a practical sense, actually, I have found that after that, if I give a class before the class or after the class, when I hear from the organisers and the audience, then I understand how well I did my service or how I can do my service better. So even if I’m not learning philosophy from them, but hearing from them actually helps me.
And if I say I’ll only speak, then I really may not be able to do my service better, improve my service. That’s right. So now this, this is beautiful and we discussed this to some extent in an earlier talk, when we mentioned that how the enlightened keep enlightening each other in that Chatur Shloki, Mudha and Bodhayantaha.
That’s right. Going on. Now, this is, it’s clear to understand that this is about spiritual subject matters about Krishna and about devotion and Krishna Tattva, Krishna Leela.
Now, when we talk about more matters connected with the world, so how do we approach this? Because in one sense, these issues are quite, at one level, every issue can be very complex. We may say that a particular issue is, this is an easy answer, but like say for some people, they may say vaccines. Yeah, if you have a vaccine, take it.
You will be protected from the disease. But if you go deeper into it, then there are many issues. So even every subject in the material world, once you start studying it, it becomes more and more complex.
And as devotees, we have finite time and energy. How much do we get involved in issues like this? Say, for example, if there are elections is coming up, then which party should we vote for? Now, we want to enquire about that. But then there is a whole universe of politics which can become like a black hole and consumers.
The black hole is what I was referring to earlier by Arjuna’s quandary. In the second half of the first chapter of the Bhagavad Gita, Arjuna shows how complex that issue was. He talks about what will happen if we win the war, what will happen if we lose the war.
Maybe I should die. I’m not sure I want to live. Maybe I’ll let them kill me.
What use is there a kingdom? He went into all the complexities in light of Western philosophical categories. He suddenly went through and wore out the four major positions, ethical positions in Western philosophy of ethics, which is the utilitarian ethics, virtue ethics, intuitionist ethics, and deontological ethics. All four types of ethical positions were worn out.
And this is the point, Chaitanya Charanjee. This world will never have perfect answers. That’s the whole teaching of the Gita.
Arjuna, I’m going to translate in a few words the whole teaching of Krishna to Arjuna in this regard, though, on this level. Arjuna, you’re trying to figure out a perfect solution right here in this battlefield, this battlefield of the outer world. There are no perfect solutions.
Be a yogi. Go inside. Address the outer world issues with what you most sincerely and truly and deeply understand is the right thing for you to do.
Notice that Arjuna didn’t go to the rest of the Pandavas and say, oh, you know what? Here, you should do it this way because I realised that I should that I should do it this way. He wasn’t he wasn’t imposing his own yogic exploration into himself on others. It was what was the right thing for him to do.
So that’s what we devotees do. I love this idea of, you said, go deep within to explore what you truly understand. What you deeply, sincerely, truly understand is the right thing to do.
And then do that. That’s quite, we could say, a very attractive reading of 1863, where Krishna tells Arjuna, deliberate and do as you desire. Yes, but notice going up a note, Chaitanya Sharma noticed that it was it took Krishna all the way to the 18th chapter to tell him, now you choose.
Because he was extremely well informed for 16 other chapters. He was in a place of knowledge, but he was in a place of realisation. But here you are referring to Arjuna.
Yes. So, in other words, Arjuna received 16 chapters of teachings first. And then Krishna could say, now you choose.
You see, you can’t choose if you’re ignorant. You will be forced to act according to your conditioning. You’ll be forced to act according to the gunas.
But now you can choose. Let’s say, you know, I’m drinking alcohol. And I’m drunk.
How much choice do I have of even how to walk? When we get drunk with outer world events. So drunk and intoxicated by outer world events to the point where we lose our inner world of devotion. We don’t have any choice in the matter.
We’re acting according to or by the force of the gunas here. And a sign of that force is by judging others, being forceful, being insistent and not engaging any kind of real spiritual knowledge. That’s beautiful.
You know, I never thought of the Gita in this perspective. So. If I may just re-articulate what you said.
So Arjuna, he analysed how complex the situation is and he got lost in the complexity. So when that happened, Krishna helped him figure things out by giving him, not just specifically addressing the issue, but by giving him resources to go deep within, understand himself, understand what really matters in life, what really matters for him. And then after providing him those resources, he told him, now you can make a decision yourself.
Yes. Two hours, two hours of teaching from the Lord himself. Beautiful.
I mean, Arjuna even forgot who Krishna was. He fell into a stupor. Yes.
I love it. On his chariot. He sat on his chariot, threw his bow down.
And then, you know, in the beginning of the second chapter, he began to consider, oh, you know, I mean, I’ve been, you know, Krishna’s been a dear friend. He’s been my confidant, hearing the contents of my shattered heart. Maybe he can guide me.
And then it’s not until the fourth chapter. That Krishna says, by the way, you know, you do know that, by the way, let’s. He didn’t start by saying, oh, by the way, I’m the Supreme Lord and you do what I say to do.
No. Krishna’s not a dictator. He wants to bring out of us what what our true hearts desires are.
Beautiful. So he didn’t write, you know, the Chaitanya Charanjee, you know, the Gita up and down. Chapter four is where he really starts talk declaring himself as the divinity.
The very divinity about whom he’s speaking. And the different levels at which divinity works, the Ishwara level, the Paramatman level, the Brahman level and so on. So Krishna is reminding Arjuna of these higher states.
Of his inner world and innermost world of the heart. Now you make a decision. Now that you’re no longer distracted by the two armies assembled.
On the battlefield of Kurukshetra. Now you make a decision. It’s significant to know that to make a decision about the issue, in a sense, Krishna took Arjuna away from the issue.
Because that’s right. Very little discussion about the ethics of the war directly. That’s right.
So the decision is not just based on a situation, but decision is based more on self-understanding. That’s right. The Gita focusses on that.
That’s right. And there’s a reason why Christians didn’t dwell on the outer world situation in which they found themselves. Is because that situation repeats itself over and over and over and over and over and over and over.
It never stops, Chaitanya Charanjee. This is we’re always left with irresolvable ethical dilemmas in everything we do in the outer world. There are always, you know, you know, disadvantages and advantages.
There are always pros and cons. It’s never perfect. Krishna says it’s either, you know, like fire covered by a little smoke as beautiful as fire is.
There’s a little bit of smoke there, right? And then, of course, dust on a mirror or, you know, of course, it can get very dark as an embryo in a womb. So, I mean, just that’s the way things are in this world. Different levels of light and darkness.
And that’s always going to be the case. But the one thing we can do, apart from the shades of light and darkness, is go inside. Find the purity.
Know ourselves. Work from a place of knowledge. Act from knowledge.
And I mean not just knowledge in general, but I mean self-knowledge and divine self-knowledge. Beautiful. So, now, quite often within the way Bhakti is understood, the Gita is understood, the focus is more on seeking outer instruction and less on seeking, say, our innermost core.
Although we say we have to go to the, we want to realise our soul, but we also understand that in between them is our mind. And our mind is untrustworthy. It is the enemy.
So, often the idea is that you just follow instructions. You will become purified and then eventually you will be able to connect with yourself. That’s right.
But that eventually sometimes gets postponed almost to a level where it never comes. But that has to, ultimately we all have to live our own lives. We can’t have guidance from somebody else all the time.
So, yeah. Well, there is the Guru. There is Guru.
There is the external, the Bahir Guru. And then, of course, the Antar Guru, the Chaita Guru. So, in one sense, a Bhakta is different than other people because there is guidance all the time.
It’s a question of whether we take it or not. When we leave that guidance, it’s like Sita. When we step over the line like Sita did in Lakshman’s circle, then we’re going to be, we’re going to be fooled.
We’re going to have the Ravana’s come in disguise. Yeah. And you can say that actually when stepping over the line, one aspect of it could be also just discontinuing the process that connects us with ourselves.
So, staying within the line just doesn’t mean external conformity. We could say staying inside the line means more of, we could say, inner connectivity. We are connecting with ourselves.
Beautifully put. Yes. With our true selves.
And the reason why the mind can be an enemy is because it’s the repository of all this conditioning that we’ve had. The stuff that you had and I had before we became committed devotees. All the stuff, the conditioning of society, the conditioning of brothers and sisters, of parents, conditioning of schools, conditioning of the social norms in which we found ourselves within a culture and all this stuff.
But who are we as bhaktas? Who are we with purified hearts? Who are we when we feel the love and desire of Krishna for our hearts? Who are we when we actually respond to Krishna’s embrace? That’s the person that needs to move out into the world and make a decision from that, rather than from the mind’s thick walls of conditioning. That’s beautiful. And to some extent, till we get there, we need guidance.
Yes. But simultaneously, we should be striving to think for ourselves. Yes.
Can you just differentiate roughly between the thinking for ourselves and what is called speculating? Right. Right. Yeah.
So speculating is to work from a place of a conditioned understanding and to suppose things from it, to work out of, to act out of realisation and to act from true guidance, means that you’ve gone through the very process through which Arjuna himself went. Arjuna did this for all of us, not just for him. He did it for all of us.
So before you tell me, take the vaccine, don’t take the vaccine, read all 16 chapters of instruction or 16 and a half, 17, whatever, however you count all the verses, read all 575 verses of Krishna. OK, read all 575 verses of Krishna and then come back to me and tell me what you really, really think. And if after that two people come with opposing opinions, that is fine.
But without that, then it’s just and it’s just going to be increasing acrimony. Well, you see, they won’t have opposing opinions. If they are.
As you said at the beginning of our session, if they are truly being honest, now part of honest discussion is asserting things that you can truly assert with certainty and not and without exaggeration and hyperbole. And and, you know, when this this expression that Prabhupada used puffed up. Well, you know, I don’t know exactly how that expression came into being, but let me tell you how I interpret it.
When an animal like a cat is in a corner and the cat is feeling fear and like anticipating attack. The fur of the cat. Stands on end at a fear and puff.
It gets puffed up and makes you think that it’s a much bigger animal than it really is. The devotees do this with the philosophy. He’s a demon.
He’s trying to destroy that. I’ve heard devotees say this, but other devotees. He’s a demon.
He’s come to destroy the movement. He’s a Ravana in the guise of a mendicant. You know now you see that that’s that’s puffed up.
You see, first of all, somehow they have this incredible knowledge of who exactly this devotee is and what his secret mission is and how, you know, demonic forces have sent him. Wow, that’s an incredible vision that he does not have. It’s out of fear and that’s the puffed up.
The cat is not actually that big. But he wants to appear that big out of fear. That’s puffed up.
Beautiful. I never thought of it that way. Puffed up.
I think there is a vivid image. There are some things which we hear and we struggle to remember. And there are some things which we hear and then we can never forget them.
So this image of a cat expanding. That’s amazing. So Chaitanya Charanjee, you know that whenever you agree to talk with me in your forum here, that you’re going to hear things that are going to be a little new and challenging, but hopefully helpful and illuminating.
And, you know, again, devotees have to be concerned that we don’t get puffed up out of fear and then try to make grandiose statements that are frankly dishonest. Chaitanya Charanjee, they’re dishonest. Even in appreciation, there can be dishonest statements.
Rather, an honest statement is, I have such affection for Chaitanya Charanjee. I experience such pure dealings with Chaitanya Charanjee. Now, that’s honest.
That to say that Chaitanya Charanjee is, you know, a pure devotee, you know, should have bucked up or to say that he’s a demon because I don’t like his views. He is a demon. This is puffed up.
I am saying more than I can actually say. I’m trying to expand myself like that cat. Beautiful.
Making my enemy think that I’m bigger than I am to scare them away as a defence. Puffed up. Actually, it’s a paradigm altering understanding of puffed up.
So you are saying it need not be just out of ego. It could also be out of fear. So usually puffed up is associated with ego.
And if there is an ego in it, certainly that I think I know more than what I do. But why am I claiming like that? It is because of fear. That’s right.
And I have seen this that for some devotees that if there is something which is the foundation of their faith and that may not be exactly the core of the faith in an objective sense, but when that is questioned, they just can’t deal with it. And so we can, I think there is a quote attributed to Bhakti Sahasrathi Thakur, which I have not seen it till now. It’s something like aggressive intellectualism even in the service of Shastra is a form of atheism.
So that means if somebody is like just out to dismiss everyone, it’s echoing what you’re saying, what you said in the beginning Shastra Shastra, weaponising scripture. That’s exactly what he’s saying. So now going back when you said that if somebody actually studies the Bhagavad Gita and then approaches the issue of vaccine, so are you saying that two devotees may not have different opinions or those different opinions will not lead to them attacking each other? Because they won’t be making unwarranted claims.
That’s right. If they’re honest, they will say, well, I’ve come to the decision that not getting the vaccine is my most sincere move in relation to this issue. But I cannot honestly say what is best for you.
Oh, for me, I know what is best that you cannot speak absolutely in a non absolute realm. That’s that’s a fallacy. You can’t you can’t speak absolutely.
And I absolutely mean this. So you absolutely cannot speak absolutely about things that are in a non absolute realm. OK, I’ll just summarise it that way.
So, OK, let’s put it this way, two ways. So I I can make a decision and maybe I can communicate my decision to others also. And I can explain how I have arrived at this decision.
Yes. If somebody asks, what is the reasoning I have used? But I don’t have the right to insist that this is the only understanding. That’s what I mean by absolute.
That’s right. And then I can also oppose if somebody claims that their understanding is the absolute understanding. But if somebody if they just take this is what I am going to do and this is what you are going to do.
That is that is fine. This is my reasoning. That is their reasoning.
And we may even question each other’s reasonings. So we may question each other’s reasoning, but in one sense, we want to avoid, say, ad hominem attacks over here. That’s what happens when you said earlier about this devotee is Ravana in the garb of its.
We’re not actually dealing with the argument. We’re just demonising the person. That’s right.
That’s right. So when a person arrives at this position, there is at a particular position by one’s understanding. So are there some demarcations about if we are a part of a movement? Now the movement can mean many things.
It can be referred to an institution specifically. It can also refer to a broader tradition that we are a part of, whatever we want to be. Then what all things can we expect it to tell us if I am an individual member of a devotee, in the devotee community? So the GBC past, GBCEC made a statement where they were, where it is more or less non-committal.
They said, Prabhupada asked us to take care of our health and everybody can deliberate and decide what to do. And we asked devotees to be well informed about it. And there is no injunction from the GBC in this regard.
So before this had happened, the GBC SPT, the strategic planning team, they had hosted a couple of devotees, and I know both of them very well, who were pro-vaccine. And they said, we are not pro-vaccine, I am only telling the facts. So, which is fine, but then there are always arguments on the other side.
So now, I would say that, that seemed to create the perception that the GBC was saying that we have to take vaccines. But then the GBC qualified that, GBCEC made that statement. And overall, it’s ultimately up to a devotee to decide.
So, but in general, are there some decisions that are more or less given for us? Say for example, if I go to a place where meat is being served, I’ll say, no, I won’t take that. That’s my decision. But more or less, you can say, I don’t even have to think much about the decision.
It’s something that is given to me. But where do these boundaries lie? And does each individual decide those boundaries? Or how does one move ahead? Is it too vague a question? No, we can take it a bit at a time. Of course, in practical ways, each devotee will want to be as knowledgeable as possible on a practical level.
When you purchase a car, you know, you want it to work. I mean, no one purchases a car, no matter whether it works or not. Now, for a car to work, we’re, of course, trusting, well, science.
Science has found a way to make, in my case, I have an electric car. I’ve gotten away from gasoline cars, electric. So, you know, I’m riding in the car from here, point A to point B. I’m trusting science that it will carry my body safely from point A to point B. We do this when we get into a plane.
That is true. Now, Prabhupada would often tap the microphone. See this microphone? This is spiritual.
Because we’re using it in Krishna’s service. This is spiritual. You turn the material into the spiritual.
This kind of spiritual alchemical process, so to speak, so to speak, right? So it’s a transformational process. We turn things in this world into something that is spiritualised by virtue of the fact that we have chosen to use it in the service of Krishna. If someone doesn’t believe that they can make use of a vaccine in the service of Krishna, then they’re not qualified to even get it in the first place.
Or they’re just not. I mean, look, Chaitanya Charanjee, there are things in this world that I don’t know how to use in Krishna’s service. But there are things, so I use them.
If you have a house. Okay. You know, it’s possible for a homeowner to experience termites.
Termites, okay, yes. Now, termites can literally eat away at the foundation of a house where the whole house collapses. Now, I either have an option to ignore the termite problem.
And say, that’s not so bad. The termites will get, you know, discouraged or turn away. Or I can address the termite situation and say, I’m going to have to get rid of the termites.
Because it will destroy my whole home. And believe me, they do destroy all homes. Well, the vaccine is like a termite problem.
You can either hope that you won’t get termites, so you can do without the inspections. And you may never get termites. Or you can prevent termites from coming, which could be devastating to your house.
And be secure in the idea that the house will never be destroyed by the termites. You might have a little termite problem, but nothing much. So it’s a gamble either way.
You know, you can go ahead and say, look, I’m not going to do anything for termite prevention. Or I’m going to do some things for termite prevention. Because I can see how prevalent termites are in homes.
So, you know, you can either, you see, it’s a choice. And if you never get termites, well, fantastic. So I’m trying to understand.
So the two things you said, one is the principle of Yukta Vairagya that we need to have enough knowledge at least to know how to use something in Krishna’s service. And then you’re talking with example of termites to say about how, you know, our actions do have consequences and we need to be informed. So you deal with the problem of termites or you can just presume that it won’t be there.
And if you’re lucky, good. If you’re not, then it’ll be a big trouble. Yes.
So here’s the problem, Chetan and Charanji. To pretend that termites don’t exist. Now, that’s a problem.
Now, that’s a problem. See, now you’re not in the real world. Okay.
So how are you relating this with vaccines or are you just laying a background? So in other words, if you pretend that, like, for example, I’ve heard one devotee’s characterisation of the pandemic as scam-demic. It’s a scam. The whole thing is fake.
There is no virus. That’s like saying there are no termites, but there are termites. Darn it.
There are termites and there are houses that have been destroyed by termites. Now, if you understand realistically that there are termites and they are dangerous. And they can literally topple your home.
Or in the case of vaccine, you know, take your body away from you. If you understand that and you understand that, well, maybe if I build my house in an area where there are less termites. Or that I could do certain things that would prevent exposure to termites.
Like put, you know, salt around the house or like wear a mask for the vaccine. One has to be real about what is there. The fact is hospitals are overflowing with COVID patients.
I mean, that’s a fact. Now, you know, if you don’t believe it, then go visit some of these hospitals. And go see the makeshift, you know, tents that they have for sick patients.
I mean, go see it for yourself. Now, if you want to just pretend that now the whole thing is fake and I’m not going to check it out. See, but that’s ignorance.
You are literally ignoring reality. So, Prabhu, I appreciate the reasoning. If you will allow me, I’ll play the purvapaksha over here a little bit.
Please, please be the purvapaksha. That if you say go and see the hospitals, see the extent, well, ultimately we are trained that prateksha pramana is not reliable. And there could be an elaborate conspiracy to deceive us.
So the very idea that you’re saying go and see that indicates deviation from scriptural norm. So, now, of course, I can myself argue against it. It might seem ridiculous.
But nobody lives like that. We do rely on scripture, rely on our eyes also, at least for the basic function of surviving. So my understanding is that prateksha pramana is not reliable for getting transcendental knowledge.
But for basic survival and functioning in the world, it is essential. Yes. I had an argument with a devotee.
If you don’t, if you say your senses are not reliable, then just make yourself blind. There you go. That’s right.
So that is that is not true, of course. But the point is that. So what you are saying is, OK, let me put it this way.
That sometimes when we turn toward Krishna and we, in a sense, reject the world, the rejects the world’s promises, the world’s pleasures. So that can lead to overreaction in terms of not just rejecting the anti-spiritual parts of the world, but rejecting almost everything in the world. And we may think of that rejection, that aggressive rejection, condemnation, demonization as a sign of our faith in Krishna.
You know, I don’t believe in the scientists. I don’t believe in these people. I don’t believe in this.
I believe only in Krishna. So it is in one sense, it might be seen as a sign of it might be a person. I think it is a sign of my firm faith in Krishna.
But isn’t there something else going on psychologically over here? Yes. Yes. See, this is puffed up.
What’s happening is they are puffing up their level of faith. Because they’re lacking it. Oh, OK.
So lacking faith in what in this context? They’re overcompensating. You know, there are there are some churches in the Appalachian Mountains here in the US. There’s some, you know, these are very, you know, old time mountain folk that are kind of out of touch with reality.
And they have these Christian churches and they go through these these frenzied services and they take poisonous snakes. And the priest takes a poisonous snake and but allows it to bite one of the the congregants. And if the congregant survives the poisonous snake, that means they had faith.
And if they died. And that means they didn’t have enough faith. Is this legal? My God, it’s in the country.
You know, who’s going to follow up on it? You know, my God, that’s. Yeah. Yeah.
So, you know, I say if you have faith, I say run in the middle of a busy four lane traffic. The street and see if you get hit. If you have faith.
That surely you will not get hit. You see the. You see, you see, this is.
You’re using the outer world. As something that starts pushing toward an impersonalistic conception of divinity. Let me put it this way.
Shankerites ignore the validity of the physical world, the phenomenal world. They say it doesn’t exist. Oh, OK.
So to to to to sort of discount. The outer world of any kind of veracity of this is simply hypocritical because on the one hand, they are they are driving in vehicles. They are flying in planes and they are making sure they don’t have termites in their house.
Yeah. No one wants to live in a house of termites. Believe me.
So when when there’s a bug attacking this house, this is a house. This is a temple. Oh, now I’m getting the example.
Beautiful example. This is the temple. So the Corona virus is a termite for the temple.
Not the temple. That’s beautiful. That’s right.
So obviously we want to sustain the temple as much as possible, even though it’s it’s in the phenomenal world. So, you know, you need to decide. But with practical and realistic understanding of what’s going on out there.
Science. The fact is, we live with science all over the place. Right now, I’m talking to you through science.
True. So you know what? Chaitanya Charanji, I don’t actually believe you’re at the other end of this. I think this is a hoax.
I think science has intervened and put something over there that looks like Chaitanya Charan, responds like Chaitanya Charan. But it ain’t Chaitanya Charan. But this is not.
Come on. Science has, you know, Prabhupada says, you know, kick boot on science. He does only with regard to the scientific worldview that thinks that everything is material.
But we’re making the same mistake when we say everything is spiritual. This is ridiculous. This these material concerns don’t exist.
We’re doing exactly what science is doing. In the bad sense. OK, yes.
So I appreciate what you’re saying in principle. So certainly I just try to flesh it out a little bit. We can say in principle that there are scamsters and we could say going back to the pandemic as a scamdemic.
Yeah, there can always be self-interested people who will be trying to make money out of the pandemic. They may be trying to grab power out of it. So that there might be scams associated with the pandemic.
It’s almost inevitable because in this world there will always be exploitative people. And the scams can happen even in good things, what to speak of in disasters. That’s right.
So maybe there could be some questions about the extent of it, some questions about the right approach to deal with it. So one thing. So, OK, whether vaccine is the best way to deal with the pandemic, that’s a valid question.
But to say that the pandemic itself is not there, the whole thing is a scam. That is just, you could say, almost putting the blinders on oneself. That’s right.
It’s like saying General Motors doesn’t really make cars. It’s interesting. And they’re making money on those cars.
Darn it. You buy into the car thing, you’re going to be charged all kinds of money. Look at that scam.
It’s they make cars just to get your money. Oh, yeah. It’s called business.
Of course, they’re going to make money. But you do get a car to suddenly when it comes to covid and the vaccine, suddenly that’s not real. Suddenly it’s a huge rip off.
So let’s try to put it to say if we consider the issue of covid and ways to deal with it. So one extreme is to say that it is the whole thing is a scam. It’s a whole rip off.
I think that is something which doesn’t really deserve much intellectual analysis because I don’t think thoughtful people are going to accept that. And those who accept that are not going to listen to anybody else. That’s right.
So beyond that, often there is a tendency. And I think this is like an intellectual, it is an intellectual shortcut to simplify or even to caricature the opposing position to the most, to the weakest position or to the weakest limb in their position. So, for example, right now, say, if overall our tenor is that, yeah, science does work in its own ways.
And if there is a vaccine, there are means to treat termites and so there are means to treat the virus and we take it. Now, this can very easily be characterised or caricatured as an uncritical endorsement of science. So somebody says, I saw a cartoon on Facebook where somebody says, you know that Prabhupada said that scientists are XYZ.
But these devotees are saying that scientists will save you. So follow the scientists. So we are not saying that, isn’t it? We are not recommending an uncritical acceptance of scientific authority also.
Right. And ultimately, I like the point also that everything is material if we say, everything is illusion. If Krishna acts, if Krishna’s jurisdiction is everywhere, can’t Krishna act through the scientists? Can’t the Paramatma give the scientists some insights about how to cure people? Krishna also says in the Bhagavad Gita, I am the healing herb.
Yeah. So in a sense, so two points I made. One is that we are not uncritically endorsing scientists.
At the same time, it is not that to say that, to take one statement of Prabhupada and use that to absolutise condemnation of science, that is actually not just misrepresenting Prabhupada but also that indicates the absence of Krishna consciousness, to not see Krishna’s jurisdiction. Yes. Yes.
It’s contradictory and even hypocritical to go on the web and say that science is demonic. Because you’re using science to say that. Prabhupada did not criticise science in its creative material facilitating.
In fact, he said, we can use these things. Fine. It’s only when science claims to know God, claims to make or makes claims on consciousness, the nature of life and consciousness, it’s only when they reduce everything to the material realm.
That’s when he criticises science. Not other, in no other ways does he criticise science. He criticises science for trying to usurp the job of theology.
Beautiful. So in a sense, he’s criticising scientism, not exactly science. That’s right.
You got it. We use science all the time. Like I said, right now, you know how much science we’re using right now to talk to one another? It’s unbelievable amount of science.
And if the whole of science were a scam, this wouldn’t work. And despite all the moral failings and other problems that we have, we do have a world that works. We do have a civilisation that works and works in remarkably efficient ways.
Oh, but science is letting you and I talk to one another, you know, and they’re making money because they charged us for the computers. They charge us for the Internet service. They’re just they’re making money.
That’s all they want. This is not real. No, it’s real.
It’s called business. You’re paying for a service. I mean, you know, I worry about devotees when they get so out of touch with reality.
And even we Bhaktas say that this phenomenal world is real, relatively speaking. It’s only the Advaitins or what is commonly called the Maya bodies in the movement. That say that this world is actually not real.
Brahma Satyam Jagan Mithya. Mithya doesn’t say Jagan Maya. We are actually the Maya bodies.
We’re the school of Maya. We accept that there’s Maya, Mahamaya and Yogamaya. But they are Mithya bodies.
Mithya means false. So how are you between Mithya and Maya? Maya means illusory. Illusory means it is not what it appears to be.
That’s right. But something is there. But something is there.
Mithya means it is not there. Mithya means there is nothing there. Oh, OK.
Very profound. Actually, they’re Mithya bodies. We’re actually the Maya bodies.
You just flipped the script around here. I flipped it around. But, you know, I’m a scholar.
That’s what we’re here to do. We’re here to give fresh understanding so everything doesn’t stay rote. Devotees are so used to throwing out formulas.
We have to think about what we’re saying. Mithya means false. Illusion, it comes from the Latin word Illudo, which means to play.
It’s the play between the object and what we think the object is. What we mistake the object to be. The rope and the snake is the classic example, of course.
Beautiful. But you know what? But you know what? The snake has qualities of the rope. And the rope has qualities of the snake.
They both can kind of, you know, curve around. They’re both long and thin. So it’s not absolutely false.
It’s illusory. I’m mistaking one thing to be another. But as you said, the object is there.
That is mistaken. Mithya, the Mithyavadis, if I could call them that. The Mithyavadis say the object didn’t exist in the first place.
It’s delusional, not illusional. Oh, OK. Delusion versus illusion.
Yeah. So using delusion to characterise Mithya and illusion Maya. Yeah.
If you see me jump over an electric cord, say, oh, my God. Chaitanya Chandra, I thought that was a snake. You’re not going to say, Garuda, you’re crazy.
But if I say, Chaitanya Chandra, above your head, right, don’t move, don’t move. There are snakes right above your head. Don’t move and you may not get bit.
Just keep looking straight ahead of me. Don’t move. Don’t even move your mouth.
OK, good. OK, they’re gone. They’re gone.
You’re safe now. You might want to end the interview early. I mean, you really may want to just say and then write me a private email.
Dear Garuda Prabhu, I think you may need some help. Now, the thing is this, we as devotees must be careful that when dealing with the outer world. That we’re not falling into a place of delusion.
And really imagining things to be there when they’re not. And to know the difference between that and mistaking something, not having enough knowledge about something, suspending judgement until we have enough knowledge. Anyway, this is a sign of maturity, period, and maturity in devotional service itself.
OK, so I think what I hear you saying is that a complete rejection of the world in the name of devotion or the name of faith is actually more impersonalistic than devotional. And as devotional, as devotees, we understand the world is real. Now, when we say the world is real, of course, we also say it is illusory.
We misperceive it. So again, when we say misperceive it, there’s accommodation. That we are not recommending, say, uncritical faith in science, uncritical endorsement of everything that science does.
That’s right. So, yes, for example, somebody says science is good, but the whole big pharma has commercialised everything. Well, yes, as you said, there is business over there, no doubt.
That’s right. Just because there is business. Greedy people.
There are greedy people in there. That’s right. Yeah.
So, but I like the example of the car is they’re making money out of it, but that doesn’t mean they’re not delivering a car. So, yes, there are greedy people out there to make money, to profit from people’s suffering also, people’s misery. But there is something being delivered over there.
That’s right. Now, we could debate about how well a particular medicine will work and maybe some other form of medicine will work better. There could be various debates about that.
But one thing we can say that complete condemnation or rejection. So condemnation of the pandemic itself as a scam or condemnation of the whole medical approach to solving it as just a business, money making endeavour. That is something which we can, going back to our, we can say that is almost acknowledging the mode of ignorance or its ignorance itself.
So now beyond that, there could be ethical concerns. There could be health concerns. Somebody may feel that, that, no, this is a hastily made vaccine.
We don’t know what its effects will be. And maybe the media is media is media is furthering a particular narrative. So even if there are side effects, side effects are not being reported.
So I don’t want to take this vaccine. So in one sense, this is a personal decision. And that is not something which as our spirituality provides us the room to arrive at such a decision without necessarily imposing it on anyone else.
Is that right? Understanding this case? Yes. Yes. I like the way you’re summarising things.
I think it’s very, very sound. So, so we can say there are medical concerns. Now, there is no, I won’t get too many technicalities.
There’s some ethical concerns that say some aborted foetuses, their cells, their cells were preserved and they were used. And that’s how all vaccines are made. So, yes, that is there.
But then as we say that there is, you quoted earlier was everything in this world is covered by fault. So there is smoke, smoke around fire. So as devotees, there is no, it is not a sign of faith to reject.
It is not a sign of faith in scripture or God to reject vaccine. And it is not a sign of lack of faith in Krishna to take a vaccine or to accept the authority of science. Because in a sense, even the capacity of scientists to do things that also comes from Krishna.
Isn’t it? That’s right. Yes. The ability to prevent termites in my home comes from science, but which comes from Krishna.
Yeah. I mean, how often do you go to a doctor and they say, look, you know, you could, you know, use a little more potassium, you know, so take some potassium pills. And then, you know, I start, I get up and I start accusing him of just trying to make money off of me.
He’s, he’s paid to do a job. You know, I mean, OK, medical doctors make a good bit of money in this country. No question about it.
Devotees have accused me of making money off of Krishna to teach Krishna Bhakti in the university. You’re just trying to make money. You know, you could just accuse everyone.
You know, you’re a devotee because you’re, you know, you want an easy life and you want to just live off the fat of the temples. And, you know, you don’t want to do anything in society. So you’re a lazy bum.
Is that what you is that what all devotees are? No. Some maybe, OK, be hiding out in devotees. Hey, devotees have used the movement for criminal activities.
They’ve abused other devotees. Oh, yeah, that has to be condemned for sure. But, you know, if you start, you start questioning the motives and intentions of everyone, you’re going to live a very paranoid life.
Assume the goodness of people until they show you otherwise. Assume the good intentions. I know that that person who the company that made my car wants to make money.
I know that. Does that mean, OK, I’m not going to buy a car. I’m never going to buy a car because they’re all making money.
It’s a scam. This is a you can’t live that way. No, we use things.
We use things in Krishna’s service. Prabhupada, when tapping on the microphone. He didn’t say, where did you get this microphone? How much did you pay for it? So this is a good point.
So there is intrinsically nothing wrong with using vaccines. Contextually, we can make a decision ourselves about how particularly effective it is. Now, I like this point which you made that assume good intentions of people unless we get evidence to the contrary.
And what I have seen is that sometimes when we start becoming devotees, then it’s like we are here and that is a big bad material world. And often that’s Kanishka. Oh, that’s Kanishka.
Yeah, that’s good. So we against the world. Yeah, that’s right.
So they don’t see how Krishna’s working through the world, but they haven’t read seriously. Chapters seven, nine and ten in the Gita. The I am declarations.
Yeah. The Virata Rupa, the Vishwa Rupa. Krishna is not absent from this world.
He’s there in the extraordinary things of this world. But here’s the thing, Chaitanya Charanjee, there is nothing absolutely perfect in a non absolute world. But this phenomenal world is one fourth of creation.
You know, a cup of Vibhuti, right? A cup of Vibhuti is part of Krishna. So, yes, there’s a lot of darkness in this world, but there’s also light. There’s also light in this world.
If anyone thinks that the vaccine is going to be an absolute problem to a problem in this world, they’re absolutely wrong. I love the way you’re playing with the word absolute throughout. Yes, it’s characterising the word while using the word in a valid way.
Yeah, because everything in this world is imperfect. It has its imperfections. The point is, we do the best we can.
When a devotee complains about the material world and how bad it is and I don’t want anything to do with it. So I asked the devotee, so do you have a bank account? They said, yeah. I said, do you know what the bank’s doing with your money? Well, no, I mean, I just put my money there for them to hold on to it.
I said, they’re not holding on to your money. They’re lending money to other people like pig farmers and slaughterhouse builders. There’s a fraction of your money that’s going to extremely sinful stuff.
Do you like that? Well, no, but I mean, I have to have a checking. Well, you know what? Welcome to this world. Nothing is perfect.
Now we do. That doesn’t mean we don’t do the best we can. We try to do the best we can.
I have my house is solar energised. The whole house, I’m talking to you right now on solar energy. Oh, and it’s it works.
It’s reliable, consistent. Yeah. Oh, that’s remarkable.
So right now, in fact, when there’s a blackout in my neighbourhood, I don’t black out. Because I’m getting light from the sun. When I drive my car, I’m riding on sunshine.
It’s electric car. I plug it into the garage. Now, is this a perfect form of technology? Is this the solution to all the world’s problems in terms of, you know, the fossil fuel problem and so on? Well, it’s better.
It’s in the right direction. And that’s one of my expressions, Chaitanya Charanjee. It’s direction, not perfection.
Beautiful. You know, one way I really like this example of direction, but perfection. And you could flip it around.
If we say this world is terrible and we can’t do anything about it. We can never make anything better than this. That’s right.
That is the attitude. Can we make things worse? Yes. Maybe we can make them much, much worse.
And that’s a bad direction. So we can be in the direction of perfection, but don’t expect perfection. So now, being in the direction of perfection, that means whatever problems we are facing in particular context, we try to find the best solutions.
And don’t expect perfect solutions. I think Prabhupada said, make the best of a bad bargain. That’s right.
And the Gita implicitly teaches that. It never solves the problem of the war on an external level. It never produces an ethical solution.
Because in ethics, there is no perfect solution. That’s the nature of this world. It’s absolutely not perfect.
So we have to look inside. The world is designed to have us take shelter of what truly is perfect. That’s beautifully put.
So even we could say the whole controversy around vaccines. Ultimately, the way to resolve it is by taking shelter of the perfect Lord and then we will get guidance from within. That’s right.
Instead, devotees can be, not always, but can be too quick to jump to the outer world and make decisions there and forget about, just like Arjuna. Arjuna was trying to figure out. In the second half of the first chapter, what can I do here? What can I do? Well, if I kill them, if I win this war, then what will I be left with? Well, oh my gosh, that doesn’t work.
Well, you know what? Maybe I should let them kill me. Well, wait, but that doesn’t work. Then evil will prevail.
My gosh, I don’t know what to do. I mean, you know what? Just forget it. Hopelessness.
Sometimes, Chaitanya Charanjee, human beings need to reach this state of hopelessness and despair. And that itself can become a yoga. If that takes us to Krishna.
Arjuna Vishadha Yoga is the chapter title. The Yoga of Arjuna’s Despair. Now, notice it wasn’t called Vishadha Yoga.
The Yoga of Despair. Because not all despair will get you to union. So it’s Arjuna.
The modifying word here is Arjuna’s despair. It’s his own particular journey. But we, that conversation was for all of us.
Beautiful. So Arjuna’s, you know, the teaching that Arjuna received is the teaching that we all need. But the outcome will be personal and will be individual.
And I’m going to respect that from a thoughtful, considerate devotee who’s not puffed up. If I come across a devotee working from a place of fear and having to make grandiose statements and grandiose claims and dishonest, you know, sort of statements. Then I’m going to try to help that devotee get to a more honest place.
If I can’t, then I back off. But if I can, then I’ll try and say realistically, what is your problem with the vaccine? Or what is your problem with not taking the vaccine? Or whatever the issue is. Why are you speaking so extremely about this? And why is this preoccupying you for like forever? Do you have enough engagement in Krishna Bhakti? Maybe you’re not engaged enough.
Maybe you don’t have enough seva. Maybe this is preoccupying you because you have nothing else to do. What I say, the devotee says, you know, when I was a child, I lost a sibling because the vaccine went wrong.
And nobody empathised with me. The medical company didn’t provide insurance. They all blamed us.
So from that time, I have, you know, I have extreme scepticism about all this. Yes. So you can use that scepticism to sharpen your intellect and your buddhi to be discerning.
And yes, that bad experience could influence you. That’s part of your conditioning. But go beyond your conditioning.
And be thorough. And the outer world is possible. But go to the inner world, which is the most important thing.
The outer world, you don’t take with you. The vaccine or no vaccine at the time of death doesn’t matter anymore. I’m on my deathbed.
Okay. And you come visit me. I’m dying of COVID.
And you say, Garuda Prabhu, would you like the vaccine? It’s too late. I mean, yeah. In other words, you wouldn’t do that.
You would sing to me. You would read from Shastra. You’d read, you know, from the Rasa Panchayati, perhaps.
You’d read from the Chaitanya Charita. That’s what you would do. You wouldn’t say, would you like the vaccine now? Or, you know, no.
So now what am I trying to say here? What I’m trying to say is that we have to live with our decisions, whether they were wrong or right on an external level. We have to make those decisions, ideally, from within. Because whatever the result, we can take with us.
The result. Because it comes from the heart. If we ignore that, then we will not leave this world in a happy way.
The devotee leaves this world because his or her heart becomes so abundantly filled with Prema that they can’t stay in this physical form anymore. It’s like being in a home, whether they’re termites or not. If you’ve outgrown the home because you’re filling it with so much Krishna Bhakti, so many books, so much Shastra, so much celebration, and so many Bhaktas come and you have no more room anymore, then you get rid of the house.
That’s death for a Bhakta. We don’t die because of COVID or not COVID. Because of the vaccine or not the vaccine.
If we do, that’s sad. That’s very, very sad. We leave this body because it no longer can contain everything that’s in our heart.
That’s why we leave the body. That’s an amazing understanding. The devotee’s desire to serve Krishna becomes so strong and the body is no longer an adequate instrument for that.
That’s right. Krishna will give them a spiritual body then. I’ve worn out the possibilities here.
Vicharu Swami, my dear and beloved friend, whom I miss terribly, by the way. He apparently died of COVID. But you know what? He was doing so much to expand Krishna Bhakti here and so much to accommodate his loving heart in so many different ways and save us.
I easily can see, easily can see how he just needed a different body. So externally it was one way, but internally it’s another way. That’s an amazing way of looking at that.
Especially it’s, so the external cause or external setting in which a devotee may depart doesn’t matter so much. Ultimately we are all a process of Krishna consciousness. We are trying to develop that.
That’s right. And for devotees to get into debates about COVID and vaccines is just an extraordinary waste of time. That’s amazing.
So it’s a personal decision. Take it and focus on serving Krishna. Take whatever decision we want.
And when you said we have to live with our decisions. That’s right. So then what you are saying is that if we have taken the decision after due consideration from a place of self-understanding, then we won’t be filled with regrets or resentment about our decisions.
That we did it in a mode of service to Krishna. And yeah, external world sometimes the consequences may be positive, they may be negative. But because our attitude was to serve Krishna, we will move on.
Yeah, so there are three levels, Chaitanya Charanji. Three levels. There’s the outer world and hopefully we will use the tools of discernment, buddhi, and the gunas.
Are we actually in the dark about what’s happening in the external world? Or is there a little light or is there much light? You know, tamasa, rajasa, and sattvika. So we are given that tool. If you don’t use that, well, I mean, Krishna spends a whole chapter and other parts of chapters explaining the efficacy of the gunas and discerning things through the gunas.
And so on the one level, that’s the one level. So we should be as discerning as possible on the external level. On the internal level, we should know what is truly in our hearts.
We should know ourselves. Use this outer world to even motivate us to be even more internally absorbed as ultimately Arjuna was. And that’s the second level.
The third level is our relationship with Krishna and his embrace. How are you differentiating the two? Inner means you are talking about the mental level. That’s right.
Well, there’s the inner and the outer. So the inner level is the faculty of discernment for the outer level, right? And then there’s the innermost, which is our hearts. And we must know our true hearts and our true heart’s desires in bhakti.
And then our relationship with Krishna, who is even beyond our innermost heart. And he’s beyond it and within it. So we have to connect and we have to align these elements.
We have to align them. When there’s a disalignment or when things are unaligned, then all kinds of imbalances will show. Too much attention to the external level.
Too much absorption. Too much fighting and debating on an external level. Tulsi Gabbard, you know, is a devotee.
She could be the next president. No, she’s a demon. She accepts abortion.
She allows abortion. No, she doesn’t allow abortion. She just says that we shouldn’t interfere with it.
Back and forth, back and forth. And you know what? You and I could take up a whole afternoon doing that. Why would we, Chaitanya Charanjee? If I know you well enough, you and I are going to dive into Bhagavad Gita.
That’s what you and I would do. We’d show each other things that we each didn’t see in the Bhagavad Gita. We would enjoy giving those gifts to one another.
And frankly, it wouldn’t be just for an afternoon. It would not stop. Unending, unendingly.
And it would be extremely satisfying and very pleasurable. That’s what we would be doing. We would sit here and argue about Tulsi Gabbard, whether she should be president or not.
My God. I mean, it could be an interesting discussion for a certain amount of time, and that’s it. To vote or not to vote.
Again, what happens in the external world is really something that should be more, I don’t know, it should be a private decision. To plaster it all over the place and to make this a big campaign is anathema to Bhakti. The big campaign is sankirtana, not sanjalpana.
Sanjalpana, okay. I come up with these neologisms, you know. Yeah, I realise that.
So, I love this three level. So, ultimately all of us at the innermost level, all devotees are united in their aspiration to love Krishna, to serve Krishna, to attain Krishna. And we could say we all have gone, we have all faced different situations in the world before our coming to Krishna and even in our life in Krishna consciousness.
And accordingly, so that is the outer world, and then accordingly we may have developed discernment in particular ways. Some of us may have developed more, some of us may have developed it less. But based on our discernment, so you could put it this way, the innermost world, based on the interaction between our inner and outer world, using our discernment, we can arrive at our own decisions about these issues.
And there is no real focus. It is not that these issues are not important. They have their importance and we deliberate duly, as you said, we use our discerning faculty.
But we arrive at the decision and there is no need to make that into a philosophical issue. Or not make it into an issue for confrontation among devotees. You arrive at your understanding and move forward based on that.
So it’s more like a functional approach to the world, where we all can use our intelligence to understand and act accordingly. Yes. So, for example, if somebody prefers Ayurveda to Allopathy, that’s okay, if that’s what works for you, that’s wonderful.
But does that mean that say somebody who is taking Ayurveda is a better devotee than somebody who is taking Allopathy? I think that is some, which is where we may be extending the limits too much. So rejecting the world is not a sign of faith. Accepting some of these other world is not a sign of lack of faith.
So our relationship with Krishna transcends these things. That’s right. And just maybe one or two last questions before we finish.
So we didn’t get too much into technicalities of, say, the specifics of some medical or ethical concerns about vaccines. And I also didn’t want to because our purpose is like Arjuna, like in the Gita metaphor, Krishna’s purpose was not to give Arjuna a decision for that situation. Krishna’s purpose was to give Arjuna a worldview, a self-understanding that could help him take that decision and take other decisions.
And that can help us also to take decisions. So I think we are also doing something similar. We are taking vaccination more as a departure point to have a discussion about how we approach such issues.
So I had started by talking about, earlier I mentioned, are there boundaries? Do we get certain straight do’s and don’ts from the tradition? And do we, there are some areas where it’s up to us. So we could say the core limbs of bhakti, they are something which we get from the tradition. And of course, even they are voluntary, we have to practise it by our free will.
But if we want to stay connected with the tradition, we have to follow those. Otherwise, we are not really connected. So is there a demarcating line which is well defined between what the tradition gives and what we use our discernment to decide? Or even that demarcating line will be not one line, but it will be a zone which will vary from person to person.
Right. It’s subtle stuff. The more we take shelter of Guru, the more we take shelter of Shastra, and the more we take shelter of other guiding voices in our lives.
Sadhu. The more we will have the strength of a decision to be made, the more realisation we will have in the kinds of ways that we decide to act in this world. Ultimately, the real test is whether we are acting out of love.
If getting the vaccine is simply an action of fear and not an action of love, then it’s mundane. If not getting the vaccine is an action merely of fear, but not an act out of love, then it’s mundane. The idea is that everything we do as bhaktas needs to be tethered to our heart’s true desires in relation to divinity.
When that disconnection is there, then there’s a kind of cognitive dissonance in devotees. They’ve got their devotional world, they’re chanting their japa, and then they go out and they argue about COVID. It doesn’t make sense.
This is not the devotional life. The Goswamis didn’t go into their bhajan kutirs, write transcendental literature, and then argue about the various Muslim leaders. They didn’t do that.
They acted in ways in the outer world that would be conducive to their devotional service. Whatever is conducive to our devotional service, whatever helps us remember Krishna and never to forget him, these are the bases on which we make decisions. Not whether something’s a scam or whether something isn’t.
That’s irrelevant. And too often what we accuse of being a scam starts getting really paranoid and you become a mundane person again. Really mundane.
Okay, this is profound. So, in one sense you are shifting the focus from what the reality is to what our motive is in interacting with whatever the reality is. Yes.
So, it is that when you say that if, oh, I don’t want to get sick, I don’t want to suffer, and that’s why I’ll take the vaccine. Or I don’t want to get sick, I don’t want to suffer, that’s why I will not take the vaccine. Both are acting out of fear.
But if my purpose is to serve Krishna and I’m acting, this body as you say is a temple or a vehicle for me to serve Krishna, and with that motive I may decide, okay, taking this vaccine will help me to serve Krishna better. Or not taking this vaccine will keep my body, I’m taking otherwise care of my body, that will help me to serve Krishna better. So, if we act out of love, then that is where we are in Krishna consciousness.
That’s right. If we lose our Krishna consciousness over this issue, then what is the point? Then either person might as well die of COVID. What life is worth living if we’re simply bickering about a topic? That ultimately both sides are frankly ignorant about.
The only way you can be knowledgeable of it is by aligning your own, your best level of discernment with the help of Guru, Sadhu and Shastra, right? And then find out what’s in your heart and connect with Krishna. Okay, so first offer your heart to Krishna. It starts there.
Why did Krishna start off that verse with machitta? Because that’s the first thing we are supposed to do. He didn’t go, No, he didn’t give that in reverse. We can’t enlighten one another.
We can’t cause each other to be enlightened if there is no offering of our hearts first to Krishna without giving our life breath. You realise that our hearts, our biological hearts, is the most vital organ in the body, more than even breathing. Because you can hold your breath for two or even three or four minutes.
Some people can’t. But the body cannot afford to skip one beat. Even the physical heart.
So in the same way, the spiritual heart, that has to be attended to first. It is the most vital organ of the spiritual life. Machitta, machitta, then madgata prana, then our life breath.
That’s the second most important function in the physical body. Well, our breath, our breathing in devotional service is the second most important thing. So these things have to take place first.
Then I can come and, ah, my dear brother in bhakti, Chaitanya Charanjee. Beautiful, beautiful. I’m not so big on the uncle and the nephew thing and all that.
You’re a brother to me. I don’t like hierarchies. We’re all here as children of Srila Prabhupada and his movement.
We’re here to serve the bhakti movement, the Sankirtan movement. And this is where we have the true shelter. So machitta, madgata, prana, and then bodhiyata paraspada.
Then we might be able to enlighten one another. Beautiful. So to the extent, if our heart is placed on Krishna, then these issues, we won’t make them over important.
And if you are making them over important to the extent that we are criticising each other and fighting with each other, that could be a fair indication that our heart is not placed on Krishna. So fix the heart first and then you can address this issue. It’s a beautiful thing.
The verse is not, you know, covid chitta, covid madgata, prana. It’s not that stuff, but that’s what devotees are doing, I fear. They’re going there.
They’re preoccupied with that. And they’re using science to condemn science. That is true.
So, you know, the last point about this probably, using science to condemn science. In the Bhagavatam, there is an example of using a thorn to remove a thorn. I think that’s Chanakya.
But the Bhagavatam also says that a bird makes a hole in the tree and then the snake goes inside that hole and then eats the birds. So there is that argument used that we can use the tools of scientists to defeat them. But then when you say defeat them, what? It is not defeating science, but it is using those tools to defeat the atheism that is propagated in the name of science.
That’s right. Our battle, we have to define the targets of our battle. And we can use the resources of science even to counter some truth claims of science, which are actually outside the jurisdiction of science.
That’s right. That’s right. And you were saying earlier, Pratyaksha Pramana, you know, being, you know, somehow not respected, Shabda Pramana as primary.
But, you know, Pratyaksha Pramana is used all the time by the Goswamis, but not independently of a foundation of Shabda Pramana. Philosophy, this is what distinguishes philosophy from theology. Philosophy is that it only has Pratyaksha Pramana.
In the West, I should say philosophy. They don’t work with a theological foundation of Shabda Pramana. The reason why Indian philosophy is called philosophy is because it’s so rational, it’s so reasonable, and it’s based and grounded, based on and grounded in Shabda Pramana.
So Pratyaksha Pramana is one of the three primary modes of cognition, along with Anumana Pramana and Pratyaksha Pramana. But those are based on Shabda Pramana. They’re grounded in Shabda Pramana.
But the reason we could say Indian philosophy is because so much of it is rational. But it adds a foundation. Instead of floating in a possibility here and a possibility there.
So it’s very rational. So you’re saying it is rational because it is in a sense linking Pratyaksha and Shabda. It is experience with scripture.
Whereas if you’re drawing only from Pratyaksha and trying to philosophise, then it’s just a domain of floating in possibility. How can you build a house without a foundation? You can’t. But philosophy in the West tries to do that.
It explores all the different ways that you can build houses in the air. Who lives in a house in the air? That’s a beautiful thought. So although we are.
Well, we have a beautiful philosophy. That’s the point. You know this.
You live and breathe this philosophy every day. I know that about you. I’m trying to.
But I associate with devotees like you. I hope to do it at least a little more than what I’m doing. We’re all hoping that we can get more absorbed.
This is what we are here to do and not to distract one another from that. Beautiful. So that’s amazing.
Should I try to summarise through? Yes, let’s do that. So we talked today about, we took the vaccination issue as a departure point for discussing. Firstly, can devotees have different opinions? Yes, we can.
And the idea is that the scripture gives us broad insights to deal with issues. So he’s talking about how the ethical issue confronting Arjuna at the start of the Gita was so complex and Arjuna analysed it from different perspectives and yet he came to no decision. And Arjuna even at that point he forgot who Krishna was.
And then Krishna gave him almost 17, 16, 17 chapters of instruction. And then he called him to make a decision. So the idea is that the Gita, in this context you can say the Gita’s summary is go within and understand and arrive at what is your truest understanding of the right thing to do.
And then act accordingly. So that is not simply freedom to choose, it is informed freedom to choose. The ignorant person can’t choose.
So similarly, in this world one consistent theme was there are no perfect solutions. So we have to, later you said that we can strive in the direction of perfection even though we will never have perfection. Then we discussed about the various ways in which we approach issues.
So there is the Kanishta, Madhyama, Uttama. So Kanishta issues are, so we just observe something. You have the example of a curtain behind me and start criticising.
But as we move to Madhyama and Uttama, we try to understand and we appreciate. So we don’t have to necessarily be ourselves at the Uttama level to try to act at the Uttama level. Because if we are guided and if we are guided by those who are at the Uttama level, like a devotee might be able to worship deities aided by a senior pujari, even if that devotee is themselves not at that level.
So with guidance and using our intelligence, we can do that. Then we moved on to this discussion of how you made this part of pandemic and scamdemic. So there is this idea that to have faith in Krishna means to reject the whole world as terrible.
But that is this beautiful difference between Mithya and Maya. So actually in a sense we are the Mayavadis because we accept that the world is real, but there is a distorted perception of that. That also that illusion is ludio, that is beautiful, that the play between the object and our perception of the object.
So for us, we don’t discount the world, we accept that the world is real and Krishna’s jurisdiction also extends in this world. So there could be reasonable questions about the magnitude of the pandemic, the utility or the potency, effectiveness of particular approaches to deal with it. But to dismiss the whole thing is not a sign of faith.
It is the example of puffed up, that a cat in fear tries to appear enlarged in size by extending its fur so that it can appear more fearful, but it is actually itself more fearful. So like that when we become puffed up, then we try to Shastra Shastra, we weaponise scripture to try to appear more faithful than what we actually are. So the claim of strong faith may actually be a concealment of weak faith or posturing about strong faith.
And when we talk about faith, what we meant by that is that if a devotee is making aggressive statements based on what they don’t know. So honesty means to, we can only make assertions about things which we know enough about. So we can’t know what other people’s motives are.
And if we make judgments about their heart, then say we are almost claiming omniscience. If I say that a particular devotee is out here to destroy the movement, devotee is like Ravana. So that would be terrible.
That is puffed up. So puffing up can be out of ego, but it can also be out of fear. And when that happens, then we start making unwarranted claims about unimportant issues or relatively less important issues.
So you get the example of a termite. The termites are really there and there is a real danger and you have to deal with it. So for the body, the virus is like a termite and we have to deal with it.
Now exactly how one deals with it, that’s a personal decision. There are various ways to deal with it. But deny the existence of the termite, that is something which is extreme.
And we are not endorsing everything that science says. That there are people with greed, that people are making money, that is definitely true. But it’s not that they are only making money and giving no product.
We condemn science, but then we use science to condemn science. So that is hypocritical. So that is self-contradictory.
You played several times with the word absolute that we can’t make absolute statements in a non-absolute world. And that is the absolute statement we can make. So basically with respect to scriptures, you talked about these three levels of say, the outer world, the inner world and the innermost world.
So the outer world is complex and there are no perfect ethical solutions. The problem of war at the external level is not dealt with by Krishna. It cannot be.
So we use our faculty of discernment, which is at the inner world level, the subtle body at the inner level. And then we act appropriately with respect to the outer world. And with this approach, different devotees may decide different approaches.
But even if they differ, they won’t degenerate into violent disagreements or violent conflicts if their focus is Krishna. So that is the innermost level is, it is our heart’s longing for Krishna, our longing to serve Krishna. And with that longing when we serve, then that is what is the centre of the life of a devotee.
We offer our very consciousness, our heart to Krishna. Then we offer our breath to Krishna. So you said that we can live without breath but not without heartbeat.
So the heart is the innermost core of our being. It’s a beautiful thought. So we offer our innermost being to Krishna and then act appropriately outward.
So with respect, the essential message of the Bhagavad Gita is not so much to debate about the ethics of the outer reality as the motives with which we act. So if we are acting out of fear in taking the vaccine or not taking the vaccine, then we have already lost our connection with the Gita. If we are acting out of love, then this body I want to use in Krishna’s service, I want to protect it.
Then each devotee can arrive at a decision how best they want to protect their body and move ahead. And when you talk about when a devotee departs from the world, it is because their heart is so filled with Krishna that the limited body can no longer accommodate it. So it’s like the body is no longer an adequate instrument, adequate vehicle for serving Krishna.
And thus they get a better body. Yes. Certainly whatever the cause might be of a particular devotee’s demise, but internally Krishna has taken them to a place where they can do more of the service that their heart longs to do.
Yes. And for us to arrive at this discernment about how to act in the external world, the first thing is we offer our heart to Krishna. We take shelter of the guiding lights, the Guru Sadhu Shastra and then that will give us the basis for making a decision.
And when we make the decision this way, we all may make our particular decisions and there can be respectful difference of opinion. But as I said the Goswamis were not arguing about which Islamic ruler is better or worse. They had to deal with it practically.
They did that. But they focused on glorifying Krishna. At the time of death, whether we take a vaccine or not is not a big issue.
It is whether we are remembering Krishna or not. So there is one point which you made towards the end. I had talked about how can we, because we have faith in Shastra, do we dismiss Pratyaksha Brahma entirely? No.
We don’t, if we try to live without eyes, extremely difficult. We need for survival and functioning. And then you made the point about how Indian philosophy is rational because it grounds our analysis of empirical experience in scriptural foundation.
Without that, Western philosophy which is only analysing empirical experience, it is just floating around like a house without foundation. So when we have this grounding in scripture and then we analyse particular issues, say with vaccine or whatever, then with that foundation, our analysis will help us to arrive at understanding that can be anukul to our bhakti, be favourable to our devotion. Yes.
Any concluding points you want to add? Yes. Let’s make sure that we don’t turn the Sankirtan movement into the Sanjalpanam. Sanjalpanam.
That is a new neologism for the talk today. That’s right. Thank you.
Thank you. It was wonderful talking with you as usual. Thank you.
Hare Krishna.