Taliban’s conquest of Afghanistan A dharmic perspective-The Monk’s Podcast 150 with Hridayananda Maharaj part 1

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This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Now in the past we have discussed several contemporary volatile issues.
So I thought we could continue that tradition today. And we could discuss an issue that is very prominent in the media now, in the news, that say the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan. And broadly since you have written, spoken extensively in the Mahabharata, I thought we could take this, you have also the quest for Dharma, that quest for justice, you have written that book also.
So now today’s wars, how much are they comparable with say the wars in the epics like the Mahabharata? So one attitude could be that those are fought for transcendental purposes. And today’s wars are fought for mundane purposes. So we have no parallel.
But if you say no parallel, then there is very little we can learn from those wars. I wouldn’t say there is no parallel. I think we have to take a realistic and not an idealistic view of what was actually going on back then.
When Krishna appeared, let’s say 5000 years ago, and there are other avatars, but let’s focus on the situation 5000 years ago, roughly. Those were special times. There were special Asuras, demonic forces on earth, that normally would not be there in such strength and numbers.
And they were countered by special godly forces, devas and great Bhagavatas and so on. And then Krishna himself came. So we also have to recall that we have evidence in the Bhagavad Gita that Vedic culture, if we want to use that term, goes through boom-bust cycles.
Boom-bust. So for example, Krishna declares in the Gita, everyone knows this first, yadā yadā hi dharmasya kāṇḍhir bhavati that whenever virtue, justice is declining, and avyutānam, and there is sort of an aggressive rise, that’s why I translate avyutānam, an aggressive rise of adharma, injustice, tadā, then, ātmāna-sajāmiho, I manifest myself. So, I mean, sajāmiho, you could also translate literally, I unleash myself on the world.
And so, yeah. So there are different meanings for that verb. But in any case, so Krishna tells Arjuna that sakāleneha mahātādyoga-naṣṭa-parāntapa, that the spiritual science or even dharma have declined.
And so, and Krishna says yadā yadā, whenever. I mean, surely he’s not just referring to every bad Kali Yuga. So that means Krishna is talking about ages, historical ages, long before 5,000 years ago.
And he says whenever, which means it happens. When Krishna says whenever dharma declines, that means it happens. So sometimes we tend to take this sort of very idealistic view.
But in the real world, there are boom-bust cycles. You know, sometimes it’s up, sometimes it’s down. To give an example, Mahabharata tells about Orva, who was this sage, who became, as a child, he became very angry because the Kshatriyas were slaughtering the Brahmins.
And so there’s conflicts because the Brahmins were accused of hoarding wealth and not sharing it with the kings. I mean, whatever was really going on, there was violent conflict between Kshatriyas and Brahmins. So this idealistic picture where the Brahmins and Kshatriyas always cooperate together, yes, when the system was working well, it was like that.
But periodically, it didn’t work well. And further, if you look at, say, we have to remember that the situation in Afghanistan was a direct response to 9-11, in which, you know, the whole country, America, was sort of traumatised. And so in ancient India, if some people came in and just blew up or slaughtered a lot of innocent people, yeah, there would be a response.
You know, if the king was capable, he would march on the enemy, whoever did that, and there would be hell to pay. So we shouldn’t think that everyone back then was just acting for the loftiest spiritual motives. I mean, there was law and order.
And there was crime and punishment. And if you look at the Dharma Shastras, say Manu Smriti or just, you know, there’s so many Dharma Shastras, so many law books, you know, very little of it is talking about transcendence. It’s talking about down-to-earth human crime and punishment.
It talks about, you know, how human beings should marry. Because, anyway, there’s so many things. Yeah.
So, yeah, we shouldn’t falsely think that unlike today, back then, everyone was a devoted transcendentalist. Yes, Maharaj. That is true.
Krishna also talks about, if you see the context, when Krishna is besieged, Kamsa is performing atrocities. And, so, in some ways, Dharma does refer to more of social law order than legislation. Dharma is a word for justice.
Justice, okay. So, it’s not so much the legislation of faith. No, no, no.
That’s translating Dharma as a sectarian religion, sectarian in the sense that you make specific claims. If you look at the Mahabharata, for example, or the Bhagavatam, one thing which, amazingly, is not present, as far as I can tell, anywhere in the Bhagavatam or Mahabharata, is a religious institution. Yes.
So, when you think of Dharma meant the law, for example, for example, we have this belief nowadays that everyone’s equal. And, of course, there are some ways in which people are equal and there are obviously some ways in which people are not equal. So, but that’s a metaphysical claim.
That’s not an empirical claim. So, we claim that in a just society, in a society that promotes justice, there should be equal justice under the law. That’s metaphysical.
So, is that religious? No one thinks that democracy is based on a religious claim. But it is. So, democracy is not a, let’s say, just a belief that a type of utilitarian belief that we should promote the greatest good for the greatest number of people and, therefore, let’s use social science, psychology, economics, and neurology and everything and let’s try to build a society which brings the greatest happiness to the greatest number of people.
What if it turned out that democracy doesn’t do that? Of course, no one’s willing to even talk about that. There are no serious discussions about that. Everyone just says, well, democracy is not very good, but history is the best system that you’ve ever seen in history.
And, of course, the people that say that generally what they all have in common is they’ve never seriously studied history. So, Maharaj, when you said that democracy is based on a religious claim, you’re using the word religious in the sense of metaphysical. There’s no way we can empirically demonstrate everyone’s equality.
It’s more of a conception or intuition that we human beings have. It’s a metaphysical intuition. Now, Krishna and the Gita speak very strongly about our equality.
But in a special sense, it’s not an equality that destroys hierarchy because if you destroy hierarchy, it leads to chaos and then generally you get tyranny. So, generally, when you try to smash hierarchies, you generally get worse hierarchies. Anyway, So, that’s a very striking point that today’s equality, rather than focussing more on gaining equality, focusses on destroying hierarchy.
Yes. But it’s… Thomas Jefferson in the DOI, the Declaration of Independence, he stated that he and his fellow authors that we hold these truths to be self-evident that people are created equal. Created and endowed by the creator.
So, Thomas Jefferson directly bases his theory of democracy on a you could say a religious fact or metaphysical fact because if you say there’s a creator and the creator has given us certain rights and therefore no king, no tyrant can take those rights away because they’re given by the creator. That was the point. It may not be a sectarian religious claim, but I think it’s arguably a religious claim.
So, if you take away the goose that laid the golden egg, if you take away a creator and you say we’re equal, what does that even mean? We live in a time when thinking is really an endangered activity. People don’t think. And so, everyone says, okay, we’re equal, but how do you know that’s true? That’s my simple question.
You say we’re all equal, how do you know that? Empirically, you can’t prove it. So, how do you know it? So, Maharaj, this idea of the inherent equality of people as you could say a political right, are there some parallels to that in the Vedic tradition also? We understand the Bhagavad Gita acknowledges the free will of the living. Yeah, where Krishna says samoham sarva bhutesu.
Every king or every leader is representing God. And if they don’t, then they’re probably going to just make a big mess. And there are many pseudo-religious leaders who do make a big mess because they have no idea what God really is and they have no idea how to represent God even though they flaunt their religiosity.
So, the point is if Krishna, if God says I’m equal to everyone, what right do you have not to be equal to everyone? And so, yes, the Bhagavad Gita teaches that every living being has to be seen as a divine soul. Okay. Because generally whenever Indian social structures are talked about, the caste system is talked about and hierarchy is talked about and that is said to lead to discrimination.
So, what you are saying is that… But is it discrimination that certain people get into IIT and some people don’t? That’s the Indian Institute of Technology. Is it discrimination that certain people, let’s say, succeed in athletic competitions, other people lose? Is that… There are different… So, we could say that the caste system is like a meritocracy, but considering previous lives also. In today’s meritocracy, we just focus on, okay, this life and that’s why… I don’t think the past life really matters for this context because, let’s say, I go to a doctor.
Prabhupada gave this example. He said, if doctors are designated by hereditary rights, then you’re going to get some really, really bad medical programmes. And so, if someone is a competent doctor, if I go to a dentist or a doctor and they’re… he or she is just really good at what they do.
I mean, I don’t care what their past lives are and I don’t care what their religion is. I just want a good doctor. You know, when you want a good doctor, you really want a good doctor.
Yes, Mara, that’s true. That point is perfectly well taken, but it does seem the way society was in India, a person was largely presumed that if you’re born in a Brahmana family, you will be a Brahmana. If that person does some egregious activities, then they may become a Brahmabandhu.
So, conversely, if somebody is born in a Shudra family, if they exhibit some exceptional qualities, then they could be considered to be part of another Varna. So, in one sense, equality as conceived in the modern context, equality as a political right, that may not have been there, but equality as a principle which was instantiated in a different way is there in Varanashram. Yes, but also everyone had equal right, for example, to protection from a king.
Whether you were a very humble member of society or elite, you had a right to protection, you had a right to live in peace. Yes, we have an example of Rantideva and Shibi. Even non-human livings are going to the king and the king is able to sacrifice himself for his own bodily parts and his own personal comforts for the welfare.
So, that is a very striking example. Yes, Pandita Samadarshanam. Yes.
Why see everyone equally? So, Maharaj, Afghanistan, should we get back to poor Afghanistan? Yes, of course, I was going to get back there itself. So, while we discussed about equalities, on one perspective, the fight over Afghanistan was to set up democracy and bring the Afghan society and culture in some way in conformity with what was there in the West. But you started from another perspective.
There was also a punitive aspect of it. Yes, that’s what you mentioned. 9-11 was an outright terrorist attack and any government has to take punitive action over there.
externally speaking, the maintenance of law and order for one country in another part of the world, which is a very remote and different part of the world. So, we know Yudhishthira was said to be the world emperor and there were many states or we can say kingdoms within him. So, how much was the governance during the Mahabharata times centralised or decentralised? In one sense, for America to legislate Afghanistan was always… You see, I think what we’re forgetting here is that I think the general rule in political history is that political entities tend to amalgamate to the extent that the current technology allows it.
So, for example Yudhishthira became Raja Raja king of kings and other people before him had held that position. Vasu of Chedi held that position. That’s another story.
We use four generations before Krishna where imperial power was transferred from Hastinapur to Shaktimati, capital of Chedi. But in any case, I mean, take United States. United States if we can put aside and I don’t mean put it aside as a moral consideration but just put it aside so that we can… We can put aside slavery just for the moment so that we can just talk about political philosophy.
As the constitution was being written, there was a great debate going on in America which was eventually published as the Federalist Papers. And basically there was one group represented by Alexander Hamilton and James Madison who’s very brilliant, wrote a lot of the constitution and they were saying that for America to survive it must be a federation which means that power is in the centre originates in the centre then power is distributed or delegated regionally from the centre. And the other view was confederation which means that power originally and primarily resides in the various members of this confederation and they delegate power to the centre Okay as opposed to the centre delegating power to the perimeter and to give one example the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley is a confederation because the power is in the members and they delegate power to the centre which is the GTU so anyway this was a big political debate so eventually of course they had a civil war over it and obviously there were other issues involved like slavery but so if you look at India India is an empire because if you look at Gujarat I mean the very name Gujarat and Maharashtra they were for thousands of years these were kingdoms Tamil Nadu they are fiercely proud of their own regional they had their own little mini empires yes so the idea that Maharashtra, Gujarat, Punjab just go down the list the four states in southern India Tamil Nadu and Kerala Karnataka well now there’s five actually West Bengal and all these things the idea that these are states in a country that’s an empire I mean there is in India an empire with its capital in Delhi I’m not saying this is bad I’m just saying it is it’s a fact so if you so you are saying India functionally is more like a confederation although technically legally it might be a federation well the centre still has a lot of power so here’s my point if we look at world history we find all different levels and sizes of political unification for example you find city states such as in Italy the political opposite the Romans were the great unifiers and team builders and imperialists and then you get the equal and opposite reaction you know this atomisation of Italy into these little city states so from the point of view of the city states Italy as a country is an imposition if you look at Germany if you look at a map of Germany before the German unification in the second part of the 19th century there were just dozens and dozens of little principalities and many of them resisted unification because they thought it was imperialism so you can get much smaller sizes of political entities city states or little kingdoms and some of the kingdoms in the Mahabharata were very small by our standards you could drive a car across them probably in an hour or two hours and then you get larger entities you get nationalism nationalism at least in many countries in Europe was a movement which kind of rejected the freedom and independence of all these ancient principalities and insisted, no, you’re just a member of a larger entity and so so then what I mean to say is in order to control a political entity in order to control a state I don’t mean like American states I mean a political entity in order to control it you have to have certain levels of communication you have to be able to deploy you have to be able to force you have to be able to manifest force that’s why the Romans one of the first things they did when they went into a new place in Concord is they built great roads and bridges because if you want to extend your power you have to be able to technically do it and so that’s why the British also made railways in India oh absolutely they made railways and that’s why they were so deeply committed to naval technology oh naval, ok yeah just to get to these far away places so if you project if you want to project power there’s all this there’s a lot of engineering required to project power so nowadays when we have so much more technology, power can be projected over much larger areas and plus if you look at the earlier world people in remote parts of the world never really had anything to do with each other but now with international commerce I mean it’s a general principle that people who are regularly interacting and affecting each other there are two choices it’s just the law of the jungle or that interactive relationship be regulated by reasonable laws and so because the level of global interaction has exponentially increased the level of global interaction has exponentially increased therefore there’s a greater need for international law or for the United Nations and so on and so therefore political size and so when you say you could ask the question what is the most legitimate size for a sovereign state is it the city state how do you justify let’s say political sovereignty that includes many cities and therefore strips city states of their power I mean you saw this very clearly when the Romans took over the Greek world because I mean especially before Alexander I mean Alexander was kind of you know one of a kind phenomenon but if you look before Alexander the Great you know for God only knows how many centuries Athens was a state Sparta was a state you know Thebes and you know all these different and of course I would say a little city anyway there’s so many of them and not to speak of what is now Northeast Greece Thessaloniki or Macedonia and so on and so forth all the islands were states independent states and so sometimes of course they were forced into alliances like with the Peloponnesian War but basically for the Greeks the basic reality the basic political legitimacy fundamental sovereignty was the city state and then Rome came along and just sort of swallowed it all up and so even the modern city of Greece the modern country of Greece is a radical departure from the way the Greek world operated for many many many centuries I mean the idea that Athens or anyway so what I mean to say is on what grounds this is my question then I’ll turn it over to you as I hear I’m hijacking your programme but so my question to you would be on what rational grounds on what objective grounds do you say that the city state or just the regional state or the nation state which was kind of a later invention you know the nation state or the empire or an international coalition on what objective grounds do you say that this size this size and level of political amalgamation or this size of sovereignty is somehow objectively more legitimate that’s the way things should be what’s the criteria there yeah I think that’s a complex question I think one would be pragmatic whatever works and like earlier you talked about technology that if you have whatever technology whatever technology we may have based on that it will work now if I understand right in the Mahabharata even when Yudhishthira was the ruler it seems more along a confederation because there seem to be independent kings and I would say it’s in between because it’s in between a federation and confederation because if you look at Yudhishthira for example as an emperor there’s no evidence anywhere that Yudhishthira interfered with the internal management of any country and and each country did have it’s own flag by the way and so even post even post Kurukshetra after the battle of Kurukshetra where the world was just really changed forever I mean the way the world is today is still the consequences of Kurukshetra which is an interesting topic oh really ok but in any case what did Yudhishthira do as the emperor he sent his brothers again for the second time in the four directions it’s very convenient four directions four brothers and basically the demand was that they acknowledge Yudhishthira as the central authority and basically they pay their fair share to maintain a central military force that could protect weaker kingdoms from stronger ones and just ensure justice there’s no indication anywhere that Yudhishthira or his brothers got involved I mean it’s not that Arjun for example who went I think to the west it’s not that because he went to Sindhu Sindhu it’s not that Arjun said ok I want to see your books I want to talk to your finance minister and from now on before you make any decisions in terms of how you manage your kingdom I want you to first get it authorised by Yudhishthira there’s nothing like that basically there’s dharma follow dharma pay your federal taxes that’s what the tribute was because you need a federal army and that’s it yes ma that seems I think even when Krishna goes and kills demons like demoniac kings it’s not that he instals Yadus as kings over there he usually replaces the king and finds a virtuous son when Jarasandha was killed Sahadev even Lord Ram does that in the Ramayana Lanka he doesn’t annex he makes Vibhishan the king yes so this also seems to indicate that black and white was not genealogical in one sense no you can’t go with the Hollywood version of political theory the Hollywood version of political theory is that empires are always bad and democracy is always good let me give you an example in the century before Christ Rome the Roman was suffering from just a series of civil wars and to some extent it was because of a very bad decision the Roman Senate made normally the system was that the generals would go out take their Roman legions fight for Rome and then Rome would pay them but then they had this really bad idea that rather than Rome having to pay the generals would pay their own troops which would motivate the generals to win battles and get a lot of booty so what happened is soldiers started becoming loyal to their generals not to Rome and therefore you had all these warlords that descended on Rome and tried to take over and so the century before Jesus in the Roman world is really a century of civil wars between warlords it was pretty miserable and of course because they had this empire dragged everyone in so the world was just constantly being it was a really bad situation so finally one of the top Roman generals decided enough I’m going to stop all this, I’m going to stop these civil wars and so he marched into Rome and took over to stop all the civil wars and of course his name was Julius Caesar but in any case he’s an interesting figure I won’t go into the details of his life but in any case when he was assassinated his adopted son became the emperor, Imperatore they used the term Imperatore because you couldn’t use the word king because the Romans wouldn’t accept a king so Imperatore is more like the administrator but of course it took on historically a very different meaning but in any case I’m skipping a lot of what I find to be interesting historical details but in any case the point is that Augustus Caesar established what was called in Latin the Pax Romana, the Roman Peace all the civil wars ended, all the regional wars ended and basically just like in America let’s say if you, you know for the most part you can travel all over the country like I’m doing and it’s the same basic laws and the same rules and everything and you’re not really in great fear, you stay out in certain neighbourhoods, you know, you’re not really in serious fear for your life and so it was the Pax Romana so you could argue that when Augustus Caesar took over life became much better for most people now that’s not, you know, Hollywood version is, you know, empires are always evil and so and I think that’s sort of a comic book Hollywood version of things but, you know, sometimes they’re evil and sometimes they’re not so you have to look you have to actually study history, you can’t just, you know yes so I think I was just so regarding the Afghanistan issue so why is it such a matter of concern, I think we discussed two things till now, one is the law and order issue and the there is a more you could say they becoming a terror state that will sponsor terror all over the world which is what had happened in Afghanistan I mean obviously that’s not impossible it would surprise me, I mean I’ve been surprised before because I think what they’ve seen is that if they do start sponsoring terrorism that they’re going to be very very severe consequences and so so as far as sponsoring we will discuss the issues but I just want to outline the issues, what are the issues of concern, one is that they may create trouble across the world as had happened in some ways in 9-11 and India is geographically much closer to Afghanistan so in India also there is a lot of concern that Pakistan may use Afghanistan as a to continue its proxy war against India so one is the disruption of law and order the second is what they wanted to create a more modern state in terms of democracy and human rights as envisioned by the west, now the third aspect is that Afghanistan seems to be motivated more by at least Taliban claims to be motivated by religion so we could say the administrative aspect, the law and order aspect and the religious aspect so as far as the the law and order aspect under the American supervision the so called democratic Afghanistan was disgustingly corrupt and so to say that the Afghan people had justice under these democratic leaders or that Afghanistan would necessarily be a better place with democracy I don’t know, I don’t say it’s better under the Taliban, that’s not my point but trying to impose, I mean democracy works in certain places it doesn’t work so well in Mexico Mexico has an extremely high murder rate it has an extremely high femicide rate killing women Where? In Afghanistan Mexico Mexico, oh okay so to say that and the corruption the corruption of the government is legendary so to say that Mexico is absolutely better off with the extremely corrupt extremely dangerous government, you know, society they live in, maybe but what I to me it’s not ideological to me it is if you really studied history, if you really know what you’re talking about and you can present, you know, not ideology or trying to you know, confirmation bias trying to bend all the facts so they fit your ideology so this idea that somehow I mean if you look at the western world democracy works well apparently in some places, not so much in other places it tends to work well where you have a relatively high level of public education and it tends to work very poorly when you don’t have that, so that’s why in America founding fathers, one of the first things they did after they kind of got the country going you know, within 10 years or so they started these land grant universities, you know, these state universities because they knew that unless people are educated democracy won’t work and in a sense in America it’s not working so well because there are just too many ignorant foolish people who vote and so so the idea that ignorant foolish people that don’t know what the hell is going on they have no idea about international affairs they have no idea about how complicated large scale economies work and they’re just going to vote so the idea that because knowledge is like a pyramid I’m not saying we should get rid of all the democracies I’m just saying though let’s be honest that knowledge education is like a pyramid, people who are very highly educated are a very small number and then as you go down less educated less educated you get more people so basically democracy means the most ignorant people make the most important decisions oh okay, that’s why sometimes devotees rephrase that democracy is a government by the shudras, of the shudras, for the shudras, by the shudras instead of I mean but then again it’s Kali Yuga so what I mean you can you can take any form of government you want, tyranny, democracy you know constitutional monarchy, absolute monarchy oligarchy you name it and we can see examples where it worked well and examples where it was a disaster hmm and so you know Hitler took power in a democratic Germany so it’s and Mussolini I think won some elections too so it’s systems don’t make good societies good people make good societies and so there’s no system there’s no political system ever conceived that has not at times fallen into the wrong hands and been weaponised as a way to oppress and torture and you know oppress, suppress is an evil thing so power has been used you know you take power and you put a label on it like okay democracy or monarchy or this or that and power corrupts and people in every system known have used, leaders have used that power to cause horrible suffering horrible horrible suffering loss of life so therefore I don’t know I’ve come to a point in my life where I don’t have so much faith in systems I mean in America there’s just incredible corruption I just drove today from sort of the far eastern end of state of Colorado into Denver area and yesterday I drove from Kansas and as soon as I went from Kansas to Colorado the roads were terrible and so there’s a major, of course they got better as I got closer to Denver but there are major infrastructure problems in America I mean there are major so many problems in America and so many problems in other countries and yet so much money is wasted, just an obscene amount of money is wasted and pilfered and you have the richest people not paying taxes all kinds of just grotesque obscene corruption and that’s in America which is not the worst country in terms of its political transparency, there are better countries in America in terms of having honest government and there are far worse countries so I am not convinced yet that that democracy is I don’t know I think unless there is a Krishna conscious revolution unless people really become God conscious, I don’t think a political system will save the world Yes that’s quite true, one more point about democracy, what you are saying is that it seems that when we emphasise democracy it also leads to the excessive politicalization of society that people become identified by their political orientations and then debates can also become too much, Prabhupada mentioned in a lecture in the past that when one king would conquer another kingdom ordinary citizens there would be hardly any difference that these soldiers went here and okay now this person is our king, we have to pay taxes over here so in one sense people’s life But that’s because of the mode of passion Krishna explains in the Bhagavad Gita chapter 18 20-22 30-32 about Jnana and the modes of nature and modes of nature so when people are just like nowadays this incredible proliferation of pornography and even soft porn that’s used to sell products I mean it’s and there’s so much passion there’s so much passion that people in the mode of passion just want to go out and kill each other so if there’s an increase, dramatic increase in the polarisation of society and just public discourses become more and more polemical and just vulgar and hateful I think that it’s a natural outcome of a society which has forgotten the mode of goodness and now glorifies passion they have these incredibly vulgar expressions like they say a particular person is hot which means that that person somehow has the ability to arouse or to agitate other people’s reproductive organs and so it’s so gross, it’s so disgusting it’s not that this person is virtuous or this person is wise or learned, they’re hot and the media of course, they’re complete prostitutes they’re just street walkers from the word go and they whatever sells they have all the most vulgar yeah it’s just because and so really I think what’s really the question here is that what is the it’s sort of a referendum on secularism I mean I certainly believe in freedom of religion and but again America started a time just after the Revolutionary War when around the year 1800 which is you know right there was this what they called the Great Awakening people just like this fanatical religion and we have to serve God and we have to obey God and so when you have a society that’s almost you know that’s religious sometimes almost too much when you have a society like that then you know you need you need the idea of imposing a secular state I know for example Thomas Jefferson founded the University of Virginia, Benjamin Franklin the University of Pennsylvania one an official Ivy League school the other what they call a public Ivy two of the world’s great universities and both of them sort of established that you know over my dead body this is going to be a Christian school because I think we have to look at the secular, the movement to secularise society including just you know anecdotally evidence, anecdotal examples Jefferson and Franklin their respective universities because there was so much fanaticism going on and because in Europe everyone was very conscious that Europe had gone through this diabolical orgy of violence over religion you know Protestant-Catholic wars just the most horrible horrible violence God only knows how many people were killed and tortured, slaughtered and so therefore you have people coming to America saying okay we’re going to serve God but we don’t want a state religion we don’t want that kind of fanaticism but taking but then you see over time they took secularism to a level beyond anything the founding fathers could have imagined and so it’s one thing when you have a basically religious population and just to keep everyone from attacking everyone else, it’s secular there’s no state religion separation of church and state did not mean a separation of country and God, it meant there’s no state church because every country in Europe had a state church okay yeah but just to wrap this up and then I’ll turn it over to you and so it’s gone but now it’s gone way beyond that so secularism means that any vulgarity any, you know, just offence against the sacred, anything is fine because the state cannot even protect even the, anything and so it’s gone to the other extreme not an extreme of excessive religiosity producing wars and madness but it’s so much secularism the collapse of any moral standards and so I think it’s also a referendum on what kind of secularism do we want thank you, this is very insightful, in one sense secularism itself has the idea has degenerated from neutrality toward religion to almost apathy or antipathy toward religion so what you are talking about if I understand is there was opposition to one religion being imposed when America was founded but underlying there was a acknowledgement that there are certain religious values which are universal and those need to be practised and it seems that was also there in the Mahabharata times because from what I have read, I think Drupada was a Shaivite king and the Pandavas were more Vaishnavite but that was never a cause of dispute among them no, I mean you could make an argument I’ll try it out here and see how you can respond to it, that India or Bharat to be more precise under the Pandavas was to some extent a secular kingdom because if you look at the great state religious events such as say Rajasuya sacrifice or other the Soma Yajna which is basically the subject of the Vedas, the Rig Veda so I think you could argue that these great state events, these great Yajnas were not seen as religious because they were seen as simply complying with the laws of nature and the higher order you could say bureaucracy of the universe and so if you and so for example Yudhisthira did not force everyone to become a Vaishnava so even when Krishna was established as the Agra Purusha that did not necessarily reject all other systems of worship that might have been it was just a state honour oh okay it was a state honour like for example at the Rajasuya sacrifice when Shishupala both figuratively and literally lost his head um yeah Krishna was declared to be simply the most honourable person, it’s like nowadays let’s say for example uh you know who has a right to address the joint houses of congress the senate and the house of representatives and so it’s an honour that’s given for example very few leaders are invited foreign leaders are invited to address the joint houses of congress it’s a great honour but it’s not religious and so Krishna people were simply saying that Krishna is the greatest person in terms of his measurable power and so if you understand that the Vedas, the sacrifices are simply um responding to and dealing with the objective laws of nature then it’s not, I mean in what sense religious, again there were no there wasn’t like a Vaishnava church back then it’s not that okay everyone has to join the Vaishnava church or for example even later when Buddhism was spreading in Jainism in Indian you see like in Kashmir many other places if a Buddhist king took over then okay it’s a Buddhist kingdom now if a Buddhist king took over but it’s but didn’t mean everyone had to become a Buddhist it wasn’t forced conversion who can’t so obviously you could say ancient Bharata was not secular exactly in the sense that modern states are but in some senses they were there was some state patronage of a particular religion so for example we have the Rajput kings when they became Gaudiya Vaishnavas during post Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’s time they funded or promoted the Govinda temple instead of the Ram temple but that was not that’s also much much later in history because you actually don’t find temples very much in the Mahabharata for example in the Chaitanya Charitamrita there are explicit descriptions like the Gundicha temple or the Jagannath temple there aren’t you don’t find major events taking place in temples people go to shrines which could just be a little like for example Rukmini went to offer her respects to the to the goddess before her wedding but it’s not described as a big building I’ll tell you the big buildings there are certain places in the Mahabharata that are explicitly described as big buildings and basically there are two or maybe three categories there’s palaces residential areas like in Dwaraka and so people had beautiful homes which are described as very opulent there were you could say almost like legislative assemblies like in Dwaraka it was called the Sudharma Hall and the Pandavas I forget the name but there were great halls for basically for the elders, the seniors, the powerful people gathering there were palaces for kings so kings had palaces, other very prominent people, usually royalty had their own beautiful mansions and then you had assembly halls but what you don’t so what I’m saying is there are explicit descriptions of magnificent buildings in Shastra but never a description of a great building which is religious centre that’s striking as you’re telling this Maharaj, it struck me that when we talk about Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’s pilgrimage it’s primarily he’s going to holy places and visiting deities but if we talk about Ram’s journey during his exile or even Pandava’s journey, it’s primarily meeting sages, it is not like visiting temples Ram meets Agastya and he meets Sarabhanga or even Vidura or Balaram’s pilgrimage oh yes if you look at Vidura’s pilgrimage Balaram’s pilgrimage Arjuna’s pilgrimage when he has to leave for a year he has to leave because he entered upon Yudhishthira and Draupadi so we have descriptions of pilgrimages to holy place but not once in any of these Balaram’s pilgrimage Arjuna’s pilgrimage Vidura’s pilgrimage we never hear about them visiting a big building now if you look at Lord Chaitanya’s pilgrimage in South India, he’s going you know there’s Ranganath there’s magnificent South Indian temples and then under Lord Chaitanya’s authority the six Goswamis built beautiful temples, Mandirs in Vrindavan, I mean the Kusum Sarovar which is I think the most beautiful swimming pool on earth and so this type of monumental architecture, you know the magnificent temples in South India and all over South India and so but none of that, none of that is described 5000 years ago so therefore I’m saying in some ways not in every way you could argue that Yudhishthira had a secular kingdom in some ways, not every way but in some ways so here we are using secular in the sense that the state does not promote any particular religion or oppose any particular religion when the state intervenes it is primarily because a person is or a particular king is disrupting the law and order so for example when Jarasandha is attacked it is not because he is worshipping Shiva but because he is slaughtering kings in a sacrifice supposed to be for Shiva.
Yes, so for example when Yudhishthira becomes king I don’t recall, you probably know better than me I don’t recall any way in which Yudhishthira specifically tried to impose Vaishnavism in the kingdom I mean clearly he worshipped Krishna and everyone in his kingdom, you know Krishna would travel or come to the capital and everyone would honour him in so many ways and he had, obviously Krishna had extraordinary influence in those kingdoms where the kings were Vaishnavas but in terms of state ceremonies state edicts that were specifically aimed at converting people to Vaishnavism it’s never talked about you know we don’t have you know we have limited information about the reign of Yudhishthira because it comes you know toward the end of things at least in the Bhagavatam but it just never describes Yudhishthira engaged in explicitly missionary work or government programmes to promote Vaishnavism maybe I’m missing something maybe you could say okay he did this and that amounts to doing that but yeah in India often the term Ram Rajya is used to invoke idea of virtuous rule but if we look at the description of Ram Rajya it is not said that everybody was worshipping Ram, it is more that everybody had their needs taken care of everybody lived for a long time, there were no premature deaths, there were no natural calamities, I mean Yudhishthira’s rule it harkens back to what you said earlier that the yajnas are the state religious events were more, were not so much religious as they were harmonising with the laws of nature and they had sometimes very heavy political consequences like for example the Rajasuya I mean Krishna was picked to get the first honour but Rajasuya is not a Vaishnav sacrifice it’s a Vedic sacrifice it’s not, it’s a Vedic sacrifice, of course, Yajnava Vishnu, all the sacrifices ultimately are to Vishnu which is true so in that sense you could say it’s Vaishnava but not explicitly, I mean it’s not it is and it isn’t again I don’t want to go too far to one side or the other because I wrote about this in my dissertation at Harvard that that in the Vedas themselves you find these statements that Vishnu is the sacrifice and ultimately ultimately it’s about Vishnu but not not so much in an explicit Bhakti sense, it’s not like we go out and preach, if you look at the hymns that you chant, the Rig Veda if you look at the hymns that are chanted at Vedic sacrifices Vishnu is mentioned Vishnu is mentioned in a very special way, such as in that verse, tad vishno paramam padam sadapa shanti suraya that the godly people are always looking toward that supreme abode of Vishnu but even the Rig Veda, I mean Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita, here’s the proof Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita Veda Vada Ratha Partha Krishna criticises those who just get into the language of the Vedas Yaya Mang Pujyam, the flowery words of the Vedas and Krishna tells Arjuna that Trigunya Vishaya Veda that the Vedas are concerned with the three modes of nature and how to prosper in these modes and therefore Nishtrigunya Bhava Arjuna go beyond the three modes, which means go beyond the Vedas Krishna talks about in Chapter 9 that chai vidya soma pa putha pa pa that those who are engaged with the three Vedas and their soma pa drink the soma, which comes from the Great Rig Veda Soma Sacrifice and putha pa pa are purified of their sins Swarga because they aspire to go to the material heaven having reached the pious world of Indra they enjoy the pleasures of the gods having thus experienced the vast resources of Swarga that piety is exhausted you save your money, you work hard you go on a trip, you go to some beautiful place, you spend all your money, you go home when the piety is exhausted you come back to the world where you die very soon so by all this Vedic stuff and so Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita, most of what he says about the Vedas is negative Vedas refer more to ritualism or material religiosity and what Krishna is talking more about is spiritual values or spiritual purpose of life but therefore when we say Vedic civilisation the word Vedic comes in the word Veda and the Vedas are you know, they’re problematic that’s a whole big discussion we could have Maharaj, you had mentioned that you’d prefer to have a one hour discussion and continue I would just like, if you don’t mind I mentioned that you mentioned one point, maybe that could be the focus of our discussion tomorrow that there is like at the founding of America there was respect for religious values we could use the word religious or spiritual values but without imposition of a particular particular system of worship or a particular religious denomination and that seems to also have been there in Yudhisthira’s role or also in the broad Indian history Yes, therefore I said in some ways not in all ways in some ways, Vedic culture also respected a certain type of secularism Yes Maharaj, so maybe tomorrow we could discuss about say the Taliban itself claims to be a religious organisation they claim to be teaching or even they claim to be following Islam very strictly but in one sense the challenge would be how do we foster values conducive toward God consciousness without exposing a particular religion the idea of holy war that you kill other people because they won’t accept your religion, that is demonic that is a surabh that’s a surabh Okay and that’s quite a radical declaration so in that sense we cannot really call the Mahabharat war or the Amman war as a holy war in that sense it’s more of a law and order kind of Dharma, no, what it is is right in the first verse of the Gita, Dharmakshetra it’s a Dharma Yudha it’s a war it’s fighting for justice and for the rule of Dharma not the rule of human appetites and lust and greed but the rule of Dharma which Dhritarashtra and his sons violated Yes, Maharaj, so when the Pandavas and Krishna were negotiating with the Kurus trying to avoid the war they didn’t say that okay, we can avoid this war if you all become Vaishnavas and put on tilak that wasn’t the point they said we can avoid this war if you follow the law Amazing point, yes, Maharaj so maybe we could explore this I don’t want to hold you too much explore this tomorrow, if I can quickly summarise what we discussed today, if you don’t 2-3 minutes so basically we try to gain a Dharmic perspective or whatever word you use Dharmic, Vedic perspective on the current Taliban the Afghanistan issue basically so we discussed two main points today, one was in terms of punitive purpose yes, if a particular state attacks another state and creates disruption, that has to be punished that has to be disciplined regulated, but how it is to be done, so the major topic we discussed was democracy is democracy the way to prosperity that’s like an unspoken or almost unquestioned dogma in today’s world, but you gave historical examples of how even in the founding of America what shape of or what shape or size of political entity would be having legitimacy that has been historically a big, there has been lot of flux and discussion on that right from the city states which were then in Greece to the way Romans removed the city states and India was more like an empire, so you talk about difference between confederation and confederation and India seemed to be somewhere in between during Yudhishthira’s kingdom so the point was that there was Dharma, if we translate Dharma as justice rather than as religion then the king’s duty was more to establish justice, it was not to impose any particular religion and although there were rights which were considered religious like the fire sacrifices, the yajnas, but they were more for harmonising with natural laws and higher order bureaucracy rather than say, forcing people to convert to a particular faith and even Krishna’s being accepted as a parampura, as the that is more of a state honour rather than a spontaneous, rather than an imposition of a state of a reversal of a particular being, so secularism in that sense, the state not imposing any religion, we could say Yudhishthira’s rule in some ways was secular but today secularism which was originally started to avoid state violence, mindless orgy of violence in the name of religion, but that secularism has gone to the opposite extreme where where there is rampant materialism the mode of fashion and sensuality and all that so then, if the people are not having any sattvic values then no form of government will actually be workable and you said that rather than focussing on systems that democracy will solve problems, it is more that any system can be weaponised by those in power to exploit others, what is more important is that good citizens have to be created and one aspect of creating good citizens is to have some level of God consciousness so how God consciousness can be established without needing a theocracy maybe that is something which we could discuss in tomorrow’s session yes, you summarise my points much better than I could no Maharaj, you articulate I just tried to speak, thank you very much Maharaj, look forward to our second session tomorrow, thank you thank you very much, Hare Krishna