What is dharma and how can it be protected part 1 The Monks Podcast 173 with Govinda Prabhu

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This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Hare Krishna, going through. Thank you very much, once again, for joining for the Monks Vodcast. My pleasure to be here with you.
We’ve been long awaiting your association. So, today I thought we could discuss something which is, which is a broader issue, but there is an immediate stimulus to it. The things that have happened in Bangladesh recently, they have created a significant level of, you could say, agitation or ferment on a positive side.
So, how do we function in the broader world as a movement, as a tradition? So, there are some questions about, say, what we can do to protect ourselves, protect other practitioners. And another aspect is that what can we expect from the government? So, largely the world is moving towards secularism, but not all countries, but many of the countries are moving towards secularism. But then in secularism, sometimes at least secularism doesn’t end up equal to all religions.
Sometimes it becomes biased towards certain religions. I’d like to talk about three aspects. One is secularism as it is present in India.
Now, then the broad is how secularism, is the idea of secularism compatible with our traditions, teachings, and then how we can interact or we can function in the world today where in secular settings, non-secular settings, in Indian settings. So, that could be a broad topic overview of discussion. So, regarding India, it does seem secularism has worked out to be something which ends up not neutral toward all religions, but almost partial toward the minority religions and unloaded against the majority religions.
For Hindus to open schools is difficult. Hindu temples are controlled by the government. So I read a little bit about why this has happened.
I’d like to from historical political perspective. So, it seems that because there was partition and there was a lot of riots and other things, a lot of bloodshed. So, the Indian government leaders decided that we, in order to have a political, not have a reputation of such violence, the government should steer away from religion in every way.
And they, of course, adopted a socialist model of governments, which was not openly atheistic. Some leaders were openly atheistic, but it was definitely not favorable toward religion. And because then after that, Gandhi’s assassination was associated with Hindutva, although it was more of a, not exactly an organized Hindutva conspiracy at all.
But slowly that bias towards Hinduism started coming up. And in the name of secularism, everything associated with Hinduism, Sanatana Dharma is almost locked away and said that we will not even discuss about it. So, any further reflections on this? There are two things.
One is always how Sanatana Dharma presents as a group and as an individual. When it comes to what we can expect from the government, what we can expect from our own selves, whether it is control of the temples, whether it is teaching at the educational institution. Individually, when we see, you know, the followers of Sanatana Dharma for whatever reason in the present world, they are more fearful of greater commitment of their children to Dharma practice.
So, it all begins from the family only. They discourage their offspring from becoming serious in spiritual practice. Are you talking about them becoming Brahmacharis or in general? In general, in general, in general, they fear that they might become withdrawn in regards to growth.
I think in Maharashtra they are saying, Shivaji is a janma dhala bhaiye, but maja ghar hi nahi. Something like that. Yes, yes.
So, in every aspect, whether it is Ramdas Swami, Shivaji Maharaj, Tukara Maharaj, everything, appreciation is there, but there is a fear that my children should not become like that. So, therefore, consciously or consciously, the ritual is connected to growth in materialism, a pious materialism. When there is a pious materialism, the consequences of such pious materialism is increased small mindedness and selfishness.
So, when there is a small mindedness and selfishness and you are practicing a little ritual and outburst against, when there is oppression against Sanatana Dharma, is a short lived, hoping that the government has to do something about it. Okay. So, therefore, the first principle is, the first principle dharma is asking everybody what you can do in regards to transformation, because anyone who expects the government to change, because we have a secular constitution, we will not discuss about that, any government which comes to function, they will focus on winning the next election and therefore, they will not take challenging decision, which is overall helping the society to grow with equality, fraternity, harmony.
They will not do that. Especially, it is going to be politically expensive for them. Yes, it is very expensive, they would not.
So, therefore, what I have learned, I would not expect anything from any of the government in regards to their taking responsibility of spreading dharma. Yeah, of course, spreading dharma is not likely, so protecting Indian interest or protecting the interest of Sanatana Dharma. So, the protecting Indian interest, again, it is also basically flavoured with politics only, you know.
Okay. So, therefore, it is the duty of the people, the society, when they show strong depth in their commitment, a deeper commitment in understanding your dharma gives rise to greater impact on the external level. Okay.
So, where are you investing your resources? No. Okay. So, therefore, therefore, whatever I have learned from the deeper people who practice Sanatana Dharma, they said don’t be panicky for this kind of attacks.
It should not be reactive. One should understand one’s own self and understand the religion of the people who are oppressing. When you understand each other, then you realize how important it is for everybody.
Like I would say, any autocratic religion, more than oppressing other religious people, they oppress their own people only. Yeah. So, you are talking about autocratic religion or autocratic government or both? Both.
Any autocratic systems, whether it is government or religion, you know, will oppress their own people. Therefore, Chanakya said no system should be designed in such a way that it gives greater power to the system over people. Oh, I think it should be more powerful.
Yeah, that’s true. I think in the last part, one of the last part, you mentioned that the government is meant to make the citizens powerful, not make itself powerful. Yes.
So, even the same thing with the religion, you know, that is so. If you consider, sorry, just to interrupt you. You might immediately say tomorrow we have a government which is, you can say, going to protect Sanatana Dharma.
But even if you say that, it’s always going to be like, Sanatana Dharma has so many different expressions. Yes. Which one? And if it starts protecting one, then it will start going against somebody else.
So, in that sense, what you’re saying is so true. And if we can see this in Islam, that we don’t want to, what to say, pinpoint one particular religion. But in one sense, the Shia-Sunni conflict itself is so bitter.
And when the government is theocratic with one particular system, it just persecutes groups of the other people, even if they are of the same broad religion. And therefore, it is so sad. Like, for example, Pakistan, you know, they don’t have the opportunity to become good in their own field of expertise.
If they’re a good sports person, they have to bring religion into that. It becomes so tasteless. Yeah.
So, recently when they won against India, they said this is the victory of Islam. Yeah. So, just imagine.
So, basically the good human beings, you know, because they are in some Islam or Christianity or Sikh or radical people, radical religion, the every reference point will be based upon their religion rather than the skills, their expertise and their commitment to it. So, what the religion does, unfortunately, religion does not appreciate the growth of an individual for his own efforts and contribution. They have to drag somebody else to prove that his growth is only because of his connection to religion.
Yeah. I think this is something similar to what happened under communism in Soviet Russia. Also, they had to make the sure that because you’re representing Russia.
So, that’s why you’re successful. You’re successful. And there was like international doping scandals where in order to force this to succeed.
So, they not, they had to dope them against the wishes of the participants also at times. So, yeah. So, then this, this goes in one sense beyond religion itself.
It goes more to the principle of centralizing too much power anywhere. Yes. Any ideology.
Any ideology. You know, why? Because people are sensitive about religion because, because again, the very interesting principle, like if you’re actually a practitioners of Sanatana Dharma, you know, if I was, if I’m going to the government, you know what I would say? I would say that let there be no public display of any of your spiritual practices in a large group. Let the Bhagavatam class, let the Mahabharata class, let the Ramayana class, let the Gita class be in a school like environment, not inside the school, not regular school.
If they ask me, okay, should we have Bhagavad Gita, Ramayana, Mahabharata in the government school? I said, no, there should be no Bhagavata, there should be no Ramayana, there should be no Gita, there should be no Quran, there should be no Bible. Teach people human values. Well, I mean, this is a little provocative, what you’re saying.
I get what you are trying to say. So, of course, we can say that at one level, even for the Mahabharata and the Bhagavatam, Ramayana also we can teach human values. If I understand what you’re saying is that? Yeah.
But the point is, let us begin with this. First of all, let us see, let us begin with this. Do everybody have the courage to make this statement? Because the Vedic path, it begins with the human values.
Shraddha is there, but Shraddha again, the whole concept of your faith is very private. You cannot take Shraddha for your success. You cannot take Shraddha as a reference point in regards to contributing to the society’s growth or society’s lack of growth.
If the rice lentil has increased, that has nothing to do with Shraddha. That has to do with corruption in human values. So, when Yudhishthira Maharaj had Krishna for the Agra Puja, that was more like an honour.
It was not like a state imposition of Krishna Bhakti. That is nowhere it is mentioned like that. For him, for him, it is devotion to Krishna.
But for the society, he deserved Agra Puja for his position. When Krishna came to peace as a peacemaker, not even once he told Duryodhana Sarva Dharma Paritaja. He did not teach him his devotion.
He taught him common sense. He taught him cooperation. So, that is what we call as Dharma.
So, Dharma has the courage to be so indifferent, you know, so fair without having any prejudice. Because Dharma is a universal principle. So, there is no conflict in regards to Dharma.
If you are a follower of Shankara, Madhva, Ramanuja, whatever path you want to follow, there is no conflict. The discussion happens when there is Tattva. Okay.
So, so in one sense, we could translate Dharma more as like, say, basic law and order and basic human values. Yes. When Krishna says Dharma samsthapanarthaya sambhavami yuge yuge.
He’s not there talking about establishing Bhakti. He’s talking about establishing order in society. Yes.
And part of that order in society that you also have a private life. And in that part of it, in your private life, you need to have connection to divinity. How do you define divinity? Nirgun, Sakar, you know, Vishnu, Narayan, Krishna, different feature of other Devatas also.
How do you do it? That is your outlook. That will not become cause of changing laws in the external world. You may be a Vaishnava king, but you’re dismantling the Devata puja, you’re dismantling Shiva puja, you’re dismantling any other non-Sanatana Dharma.
You become radical yourself. So what is Hitler or a bad Hitler? Hitler is Hitler only. Yeah, it is undesirable.
So if I understand right, then what you’re saying is secular. The word secularism has many connotations, but the idea of broadly separation of faith and state, original state, that seems to be like an intrinsic part of Sanatana Dharma. Whereas in the West, it is more of a reactionary because of too much violence and oppression.
So as a result of that, it arose at a particular point in history. Is that a proper understanding? And also one biggest flaw in secularism is that when it is on a public space, secularism is good, but that same secularism also makes your belief system internally. Atheism, you know, giving to lot of liberal values at the cost of calling family tradition to be patriarchal.
So then it starts breaking the family tradition, it starts breaking the foundation principle of life. They cannot preach atheism. Dharma doesn’t preach Shraddha, but it gives importance to Shraddha.
Beautiful. You know, I read recently an article that how exactly what you’re saying, secularism started off promising to be a political methodology, but eventually it has become like an overarching ideology now. So it’s not just a way of functioning in the state, not the methodology, but as you said, it permeates into one’s private space and shapes one’s entire worldview.
Yeah, that becomes, that is the conflict with Dharma with secularism. Dharma can see some good points in secularism, and Dharma can give some suggestion. How can secularism be more, made more and more refined? We are not interested.
Oh, you, we are not interested. Dharma is not interested. Okay.
Yes. As a Sanskrit language, Dharma cannot be translated, but Dharma is no problem. You call by any names, as long as it fits into the universal principle of life.
Okay. Yeah. It is not, it is not, it is, when you are discussing Sanskrit language, then it may say, I don’t translate like this because it doesn’t fit in.
But if you’re applying the principle of life, calling it by any name, then it doesn’t matter. Okay. Okay.
So just going back a little bit now, is there any Sanskrit term or concept which is roughly analogous with secularism? There is, I think, Sarva Dharma Sambhava, but that is a relatively recent term. I think Gandhiji and others propagated that. Traditionally, or Dharma itself has a secular connotation, so that’s why it doesn’t need any separate term.
Naturally, because in Dharmic civilization, I think we had discussed this here before, Brahaspati is the Deva Guru, but he also wrote a very good book on Atheism. Is it the same Brahaspati? I know about this. Same Brahaspati.
Oh, okay. So people practicing Atheism, like what you discussed in the beginning, that in the Western world, there are different layers of Atheism. Yeah.
Who are just passively against God. People just don’t care about God. Not that they are against God, but it’s not a part of their life.
Yeah. Yeah. So such people were not condemned.
They were not ridiculed. They were not destroyed. So when Lord Ram speaks against Jabali, it is not primarily for his Atheism, it is more for the abandonment of duty and the selfish choices that he’s recommending based on Atheistic holdings.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
As a king, as Ayodhya people, the king, the Raghu Kula was consciously practicing Atheism. So in that Atheist government, how is that such an Atheist has been given a position? That was Ram’s, Lord Ramachandra’s contention. And then for this, how did my father appoint such a person? Sri Ramachandra doesn’t have a problem with Jabali’s life, but he has a problem, how could this person fit into our system? Because our system is based upon tradition of Raghu Kula.
It’s beautiful. It’s a serious, subtle, but very serious difference. So if we consider that, you know, one of the things which, which say, if you consider Western thinkers, when they came to India or European colonialists, they came to India, they said that often they differentiate that Hinduism is not a religion, it’s a way of life.
And it had permeated every aspect of life. So, whereas, maybe by that, because of the Renaissance and other things in European history, religion had become more like a private affair. Even by the 18th, 19th century, it has become more now.
But as it has become privatized, it has become, it has become sidelined more and more. So, whereas, we see that, although it was private, it was not sidelined in India. It was still almost like a universal way of living.
So, how did this, you mentioned earlier that, that dharma was not imposed by the state, but still there was space for it. And we see that it was a vibrantly practiced. So, was it due to, because people themselves were enthusiastic about it and this, this, what you talked about, pious materialism or narrow-mindedness was not there.
See, again, if you study from the principle of time factor, whether it is Satya, Treta, Dhaupar, Kali Yuga, the human narrow-mindedness is the foundational principle, right? Whether it is Hiranyakashyapu or somebody like Hitler, you’ll find them in all the yugas. Okay. Yeah, in all the yugas you’ll find.
You know, Kamsa, basically Kamsa, Hiranyakashyapu, they had a conscious organization against practicing any spirituality, breaking of the temples, breaking of the, killing of the sadhus, destroying their yajna kundas, you know, organization was there. Now, even though Hiranyakashyapu himself cannot be called as atheist, he’s a Rakshasa, because he worshipped Lord Brahma. You know, Duryodhana, was Duryodhana Gnastik? Not at all.
Duryodhana is not Gnastik. If he was Gnastik, how could he do Vaishnava Yagya as against Pandavas doing Rajasuya Yagya? Okay. It may sound for the devotees, Rajasuya Yagya is mundane, Vaishnava Yagya is devotional, because Vaishnava name is there.
Yeah. So, he did that. So, therefore, respecting the Brahmana, doing the cultural context to whatever he was doing, he was not an atheist, but he was a Rakshasa.
So, Dharma as a problematic, demonic nature. The difference between the two is, you are using the word atheism in the sense that not believing in any higher powers or higher principles governing the universe. Whereas Rakshasa is more of whatever one may know or believe, one has a selfish exploitative mentality.
Yes. So, one is why you could say one’s belief system and the other is more of one’s way of living or broadly attitude towards life, a way one interacts with others. Yeah.
So, Rakshasa, Rakshasi person creates an obstacle on every level, on an individual level for faith he creates an obstacle and Rakshasa creates an obstacle on a community level. Rakshasa creates an obstacle on the functioning of the Devatas also depending upon how powerful he is. Okay.
For a Nastik, one who does not practice Atheism, he may have a trouble in regards to achieving ultimate perfection of Mukti. That doesn’t matter to the universe. One person getting Mukti or no Mukti or people like him, hundreds of people not getting Mukti, doesn’t matter because there is a progression of their life.
They go through the 84 species of life. So, at least they are part of the organic movement of the universe, either reversal journey or forward journey. Okay, both you are calling as organic movement of the universe.
Yeah. Forward and backward. Forward and backward.
So, isn’t the organic movement ultimately meant to be forward but depending on free will it can be backward also. Yes. So, therefore, the Prakriti is functioning very systematically.
That does not matter to Prakriti because a person who has become an Atheist, he is not causing any violence to anybody physically. He is not creating a system. Whether it is Theist or Atheist, when he creates a system and starts causing violence towards other for his selfish end, then he is a Rakshasa.
You can be a Theistic Rakshasa, you could be Atheistic Rakshasa. But the consequences of Rakshasa Vritti is basically dislodging people’s stability in life. Oh, dislodging stability.
That is so true and that happens sometimes. Religion does that quite aggressively when it destroys whoever seems to disagree with them, refer to them. So, sometimes I use these words, maybe I don’t know there are some traditional words for this.
In the Bhagavad Gita, there are two ways of looking at things. One is based on the three modes and the other is based on Bhakti to Krishna. So, Krishna in one sense doesn’t really very strongly overlap the two.
When he’s talking about the demoniac people in 16th chapter, he’s not defining them simply based on their disbelief in me. His focus is more on how they’re functioning in a way that what you’re talking about is destructive. So, if we consider the modes as a functional value, it’s like somebody’s driving a car.
How well do they drive the car? Do they drive it in a way that they’re smooth or are they driving it in a way that they’re coming in other’s way, hitting others, creating disruption to others. So, person who is a Sattva Guna, his basic Sattva Rajatama is how they drive the car. Whereas, their knowledge about Parmartha, that is about where they are going in the car.
Very good. Functional value and you could say fundamental values. Immediate values and ultimate values.
I don’t like the word immediate, but are there any words? So, if I understand what a forward-backward movement, organic movement means, if you are in the traffic, you should follow the rules of traffic properly. So, whether you’re going in the right direction or the wrong direction, that is not so important for the traffic itself. Yes.
It’s important for you. Got it now. That is what dharma is.
Very clear. One famous scholar, he mentioned dharma is for the external reality. And bhakti is for an internal reality.
Oh, okay. And the external reality also has an impact in regards to internal reality. Hmm.
Because if you are practicing spirituality, but your external reality is disruptive and the rickshaw is coming from your, you know, over your car also, rickshaw is coming from the front side also, come every side. So, naturally, you’ll be dysfunctional. Your internal system will be dislodged.
It will be disturbed. No. That’s beautiful.
I think. So, I may be going to the temple, but that doesn’t give me the right to drive a car so far that I knock over other people. So, therefore, whether the crusaders and jihadis created violence or Hitler created the violence, the consequences of both of their, you know, the power has caused violence to the society.
Hmm. One cannot debate in this regard, no, no, but Hitler’s violence was also there. Religious people are not violent.
Religion does not create violence. No, the fact is religion does create violence because imposition. Hitler did create violence because of imposition.
Communists did create violence because of imposition. No. So, this is a very important point.
When you talk about imposition, so, again, we are going back to the point of some authority having power to override people’s free will. Yes. And so, that in that sense is dangerous.
So, now, often traditional societies are talked about in terms of, they are considered quite hierarchical, where obedience to one’s elders is emphasized. And we see that as a quite an important value that even when Ram is exiled to the forest. So, Lakshman tries to oppose him and he says, you know, he is captivated.
But he says that he has been captivated by lust because of the attraction to Kaikeyi. So, he has lost his good sense. You should not follow him.
So, now, in some translations of Ramayana, it is said that Ram says that, no, it is not for me to question my father’s intention. It is only for me to follow his instruction. So, is that just more indicative of Lord Ram’s virtue over there? How important is obedience if central authority is not that important in, say, the Vedic tradition? I always tell children, you have a right to disagree with your parents, but do not deny their existence in your life.
So, what does the modern society does? You know, either accept because you agree with them or reject their idea along with themselves, throwing the baby out of the bath water. So, therefore, the whole principle, if you see, Lord Ramachandra also eventually spoke this principle what Lakshmana was speaking. And then again, there are many nuances in Ramayana.
Like I recently was listening, some scholar asked this question. Lakshman went along with his brother, neglecting his wife. Was it right or wrong? So, this question was raised.
Okay. Can this example be followed? So, then he immediately answered from the Sharanagati perspective what Lakshman did was right. But from the social life perspective, what he did was wrong in regards to Urmila.
So, we will not use Lakshman as an example to tell the younger brother to follow his, you know, what is that, what do you call the elder sister-in-law? You know, what do you call in Hindi? You know, they call Bhabhi, Bhabhi, you know, some other more respectful word. So, you cannot do that at the cost of neglecting your wife. That becomes Adharma.
Okay. Only if you are on the level of Lakshmana, which 99.99% are not. So, this example only has to be done by Lakshman.
Nobody else. Okay. Now, it’s again in one sense, when the scriptural characters act in particular way, it need not be that that is the only way everyone has to act.
There is a particular virtue they are displaying at that particular time. Yes. That virtue that is to be learned.
It is not the event which is important, but the philosophy behind the event has to be captured. Beautiful. So, we may not necessarily, it’s not that we have to follow that same choice which they made, but the reasoning behind that choice that can help us to learn and then choose wisely in our particular situations.
So, going back to this point, so you are saying that more than obedience to authority, what was emphasized was learning from authority. Like you said, you can disagree with your parent, but don’t deny their existence. Don’t deny their contribution means.
So, we follow our authority, our guide, but eventually we learn from them how to choose wisely. Yes. So, that is how that over-centralization is avoided then.
Yeah. And therefore, no relationship in the Sanatana Dharma, including the relationship between, again, it could be controversial, a relationship between a teacher and a student. I will not say guru and disciple.
I’ll say teacher and the student. The relationship was not physically binding. The teacher would tell the student, now you’re done with your education here.
Now you go, go to the world, you know, learning has become your conditioning. And there is no question of guru controlling the disciple. What are you doing in the class? What are you speaking in the class? Because there is no connectivity physically, you know, there is no email.
There is no FaceTime. There is no, you know, WhatsApp. So, the technology has taken away people’s independence in regards to traditional relationship.
Beautiful. Okay. And it has given freedom to become reckless.
See, this irony is that you are controlled in regards to what you’re doing externally to show your loyalty. So, the same technology has disrupted you internally in regards to what you do actually. Hmm.
We have the culture. I think overall distraction has become a big problem. Yeah.
That’s a nice way of putting it. What helps us to do something externally stops us from doing things internally what we are. Yeah.
So, therefore, therefore, therefore, Sanatan Dharma doesn’t fear losing its footprints. Foundationally, foundationally doesn’t worry. Oh my God, my temple is being destroyed.
Oh my God, my people are being killed. Why they are being killed? Who is responsible for that? You know, I said because we were discussing how can we protect Sanatan Dharma in regards to what we expect from the government. If you become strong, your family becomes strong, your village becomes strong, your community becomes strong, then it doesn’t matter who is the king, what kind of system you have.
So, therefore, I think that we’ll have our own systems to protect your Dharma. Yeah. Yeah.
And nobody can touch you. Even the large number of, you know, like if you have a big balloon, you know, the balloon looks very big. But if you have a very powerful needle, it has the power to blow it off.
OK. The very strong practitioner of Dharma, Yada Yadai Dharma Segalani, Yada Yadai Dharma Segalani is what? Simple. Either avatar will happen or avatar will empower.
And avatar’s empowerment is not only to teach philosophy. Avatar’s empowerment can happen in the management level also, in the prosperity level also, the work level also. He could be coming from the background of labor class.
He or she could be coming from the background of prosperity principle. Suddenly somebody comes, like recently I was in one place. This man came from America to India, you know, immediately within one or two years, came back to India.
He said he wanted to do something in his village. So, he was hoping because he was come back from America, people will respect him. Instead of respecting, they ridiculed him.
Something wrong must have happened. Therefore, they’ve kicked him out. Therefore, you have come back to village.
He said, I did not get respect. And he said it is important to influence, to have respect. So, what are you trying to say by this example? I’ll tell you.
So, what he did was, what he did. So, then he came back and he started catching snake. So, in the village, when you catch snake, you become respected.
Oh my God, because it is relevant to them. And then he started extracting poison from that snake and started selling. And now at this stage, he is the founder of agro-tourism in India.
You know, he has created a revolution in his own level, clean three rivers. He is planning to clean the lake in our IIT, near IIT. So, one man has the power to transform so much.
That is the point I was making. The power of one human being is so great. That’s beautiful.
Rather than a huge mob, you know, running around, you know, they will be reactive. How long you will go holding a flag in a Hindu lives matter? That is a very reactive one. Oh, okay.
So, ultimately, there has to be a very interesting way of. So, let me try to retrace or re-articulate what I understood you’re saying is that, that within every system or every social group, they have their own, they have their own structures by which you can say there’s some kind of organic hierarchy and how one can gain power and influence in that particular social grouping. And you don’t bring in, you give the example of somebody coming from America to talk as an illustration of like gaining power from outside to bring credibility here.
So, whether it is your wealth or standing outside that community, or whether it is the government position in the overall society, what you’re saying is that if somebody has to become influential, then within that systems or within that social structures hierarchy, that person has to naturally contribute and they will grow. Yes. Yeah.
And therefore, the teacher, the education would create a cooperative life based upon what you contribute. Like tomorrow one may say, because Hinduism is in danger, so we want 50 warriors. Doesn’t work like that.
You know, it works. Are you a warrior? You cannot become a warrior if you are not. You know, we don’t believe in a protest on the road like the Abrahamic religion.
That’s just, you know, one of the most tragic things in Western history is there is something called a crusade of children, where one Pope said that it is our religious duty to defeat Islam. And they had thousands and thousands of children who didn’t even know how to hold weapons. And they marched across Europe to march on to Palestine, march on to Jerusalem and everything.
And this is all ruthlessly slaughtered when they came there. So what you’re saying is that just by situational provocation, we cannot create Kshatriyas. It is better that you withdraw, you go to the forest like the Pandavas went.
Like in the Mahabharata, when Bhima, even if there is atrocity against you, very interesting point. This is what Bhima and Yudhishthira Maharaj dialogue is there in the Mahabharata. Bhima was extremely reactive.
He said, what the hell are we following this 13 years of exile and incognito? Why should we do it? And then there is a long discussion about ultimate conclusion of that discussion between Bhima and Yudhishthira. Yudhishthira said, whatever you say is all right. The atrocities has happened against us.
Then we have been cornered and you know what, you want to attack them. But for attacking, where is your preparation? He said, listen to me what I say. He said, Bhishma, Drona, Kripa, they will not stand neutral.
They like us but they will be active against us. So, therefore, my dear brother, you have to have your resources. If you have your resources when you go and ask for your bargain, then if they don’t agree, then we have the power to dislodge them.
So, Yudhishthira Maharaj is not at all like Gandhi. His ahimsa is a strategic. His himsa is strategic.
He has a tool of himsa. He has a tool of ahimsa, but it is all for creating a stability in their life and helping the society experience stability. So, what is the reality now? The reality now is… I just want to interrupt you.
So, just like secularism instead of being a methodology can become an ideology. So, similarly, ahimsa is a methodology. It is not meant to become like an ideology to be applied all times or even himsa is not meant to be an ideology to be applied all times.
It is more strategic. Okay. So, therefore, matha, the philosophies are always discussed privately and dharma is always discussed publicly.
So, Prabhu, two, three different questions now, but maybe I’ll come to dharma a little later. So, in today’s world, so where did we go wrong? It does seem that the dharma was resilient even when the British came to India and before that we had a lot of Islamic rule and there was persecution, but it seems dharma, the dharmic culture, the dharmic values, they survived it all. So, you mentioned that in one sense, the selfish mindedness, that exploitativeness is always there in all yugas, but it does seem that in the past, previous yugas, it was more isolated pockets of some people being very demoniac, but in today’s world, it does seem that a lot of people, people who are born in sanatana dharma or people who may have some appreciation for it, they tend to be quite passive.
So, not really working, taking initiative to do things. So, did this happen primarily because of the British colonial rule, which created apathy or antipathy toward the traditional values or how did that happen? That is all again, again, more than the politics, it is economic. It’s a capitalism.
Okay. Because in the capitalism, it’s all about market, like recently the Indian cricket team, you know, they kneeled down supporting the Black Lives Matter. Yes.
Right. When a sports person starts becoming activist, they are like hypocrites there also and they are not professionally displaying their real dharma or playing properly. Yeah.
If you study 30 years ago, that would never happen like that. The sports people would be very clear, like I give the example recently that the film actor left his body, Puneet Kumar. Right.
So, because I come from that state, you know, so they lived a very private life in regards to their spirituality. They never made that into a, you know, tool to undermine others and tool to glorify themselves. They did not stand for active, you know, Hindutva policy.
But in every of their movie, very clear ardent devotees of Raghavendra Swami did whatever they could do very clearly in regards to teaching the values of spirituality, teaching the values of human sensitivity. Right. Only because of the social media, they got to know about his connection to taking care of 1800 girls.
This was happening since his father’s time only. Right. So, the first principle is, I was discussing, understand who you are.
If you understand who you are and be determined in doing what you are, then the Sanatan Dharma individually became strong. And if you are strong in your own self and there are many more people like that, then from the village perspective, it becomes very strong. It takes one person, like in some villages in Maharashtra, one or two people came together.
They decided that they will not allow anybody to drink. The entire village follows. I was in one village in Karnataka.
So, in that village, in the village itself, one lady was telling me, she was saying, she said, you know what, in the daytime, there are two, three families, they openly sell liquor close to a junior college. She said, it breaks my heart that children coming and buying it. So, nobody is stopping them.
If one person takes the responsibility, suddenly, you know, it will take some time, but the entire village will become good. So, one person spoils and one person actually makes it right. So, depending upon your power and resources, you can change the village, you can change the state, you can state the, you can change the national consciousness also.
If I understand right, you’re right, what you’re trying to say is that, that the people, if they give the example of the South Indian actor Puneet. So, what you’re saying is that somebody becomes, they understand who they are and they excel in their particular field, then they will organically get some influence and they can use that influence to do good in society. Yeah, it happens only, they don’t even have to try, it happens only, it happens, the good happens in the society.
So, rather than like protecting dharma becoming a cause in itself, that’s what like, like doing protests or something like that, which is a more reactionary thing. You see that it is the way dharma is protected in one sense by individuals developing their own potential while being guided by dharmic values. Yeah, and knowing who you are, what is your resources, if you’re a chief minister, if you’re a head of the country, if you have got greater power.
So, when you make a statement, it will influence millions of people. But if you’re a head of the family, when you speak, that will influence your family. So, it’s more of again, rather than trying to protect dharma as a separate entity, and this is dharma and this has to be protected, dharma permeates into the values of people who become influential in society and actually as a result dharma becomes protected.
Yeah, so therefore and therefore, therefore it is important, the battle of dharma is not against belief system. Okay, you know, we are not fighting against a belief system. We are fighting against adharma within us.
You know, what is my adharma? My adharma is basically not recognizing myself and if you recognize yourself, don’t impose your own self to somebody else’s self. If I were, yesterday somebody asked me this question, you know, I love peace, I try to be activist, but then I realize I love peace, you know, peace is, I will compromise with somebody cheats me to experience peace. I said, absolutely okay.
When you are practicing peace, that is all right, but when you impose the concept of peace on your children who want to be violent in regards to fight for the cause of nation, become a warrior, become a soldier, then your peace becomes cowardice. Beautiful. You know, in 16th chapter, no 18th chapter when Krishna talks about the qualities, he says shama is a quality of a brahmana, but yudhe chaapya palayanam is a brahmana.
So, that is individual. So, the problem what happened? I remember some spiritualist, they told, what is the point in teaching wrestling to the children? What is the point in teaching, you know, sports to them? Because this is not part of devotion. No, devotion is so broad, you know, dovetailing any of your, every propensity can be spiritualized.
So, when you make a category, don’t do this because it is violent. No, that is violence against that person. You know, he is meant to bleed.
He is dying for the higher cause. You know, if a police officer, if he is told, oh, what is the point in being a police officer everywhere, corruption, what will you do? And if he says, no, I don’t mind dying, fighting for establishing administration, proper system, I don’t mind, you should glorify that. Wow, you are willing to die because death is not significant compared to your propensity.
But now we give so much of importance to life over your propensity. We say it is better to live rather than to die and Krishna is saying it is better to die while performing your duty. You know, see, we are giving so much of importance to just existing.
So, when such people talk about peace, they will give the number of so many people died for this kind of cause. So, they are basically, they are defining everybody’s life based upon their cowardice. And somebody who loves peace, he should not be condemned by the people with valor.
So, in one sense, if dharma is not just about protecting one particular cause, but you act according to our nature and by acting according to nature, ultimately, we all contribute to protecting the cause. Yeah, different ways. Like for example, when, you know, I’ll give you this example, when Aurangzeb killed the great Sambhaji Maharaj, the son of Shivaji Maharaj.
So, he considered, this is very historical point, he considered that the death of Sambhaji will destroy the Maratha empire, Maratha spirit, Maratha tradition, Maratha legacy. So, there was a celebration after the death of Sambhaji Maharaj and to see that the son of Sambhaji Maharaj does not become like him, he captured him and he did not kill him. No, he removed all the valor in him because he never got to experience the mountains of Sayadri, never got to stay with the Marathas, walking in the fields, fighting, but he was kept in a homeschool atmosphere.
Homeschool means what? Nobody interacts with him. All the facilities are there, but he never experienced any valor. Right.
So, then what happened after the death of Sambhaji Maharaj, the spirit of the Marathas and this is the words of Aurangzeb, he says Marathas have become like a rainwater in the mountains. The Marathas have like a wind. Where do they come? How do they come? What do they do? He said, I am not able to understand.
So, he saw Sambhaji as the potential enemy who could destroy his kingdom, but the death of the great Sambhaji basically created millions of Sambhaji in the heart of Maratha pride and that is how Aurangzeb’s empire collapsed. The Mughal empire collapsed not because there were no great kings. The Mughal empire collapsed because they kept on fighting the spirit.
So, when Dharma becomes the principle centric rather than a government centric, Dharma becomes, you know, the entire community centric as against the guru centric or a messiah centric or a king centric, then that Dharma can never be controlled by anybody and positively takes over the entire creation and that is how you experience Satyagraha. When there is a harmony, that is Satyagraha. When there is a disharmony, that is Kali Yuga and Kali Yuga means reacting wrongly always, you know.
You know, there is what is striking. There is a popular book in the West called, it’s called Starfish and the Spider. It’s the power of leaderless organizations.
So, what they say is that there were, when the British or Europeans came to America, they basically, the Portuguese and others, the Spanish, they came to South America and they wiped out practically South American civilization. But there were some South Native American tribes which were very centralized and they got wiped out like 2000 years civilization got wiped out within 20 years. But those tribes which were very, they didn’t have one central authority, they were decentralized.
But they couldn’t wipe them off actually. So, they continued to exist. And that is the beauty of Sanatana Dharma because same principle because the South America and North America, the Native Indians, they did not had the knowledge bank which was given by the Rishis.
The knowledge, the Shastra was not there. Only the Shastra, the primitive Shastra was there and therefore they couldn’t handle the onslaught on a political level, social level, cultural level, language level, belief level, everything they were wiped out. So, English language, English culture, English psychology, English mindset was imposed upon them or the Portuguese.
But with India, because by very nature, your foundational principle, you’re taught, you’re full of knowledge, full of bliss and full of eternality. So, therefore, we have a fierce independence nature. We cannot be united centrally and that is not a bad quality.
That is the strength of Sanatana Dharma. That is not divisiveness, that is a diversity. That’s a beautiful point, Rohan.
So, there are two ways of looking at this. One is, sometimes people say that India was overrun by aggressors because Indians were never united. But another way of looking at this, because Indians were not necessarily like under one authority.
So, although aggressors ran over India many times, they could not actually eliminate the spirit of India. Yeah. And if you see when Sambhaji Maharaj was there, in one sense, Marathas were united.
In the passing of Sambhaji Maharaj, even amongst them, there was a conflict. There were two people, Santaji Ghorpade and Jadhav, I forgot his name. They killed each other.
One of them was killed, not that both of them were killed. One was killed by other because of certain conflict within each other. But even though there was divisiveness amongst themselves, that created an advantage for the Marathas in regards to fighting the Mughals.
Ghorpade is dead, but Jadhav was there. So, what I am saying, now it has become an unconscious reality and therefore we experience divisiveness. So, that diversity is experienced consciously when it is not division, but it is a great strategy and diversity and when outside force cannot break through the layers of that diversity and when they come to break, like many people came, like this person, you know, you see, like I like that.
Let the modern dharmic Islamist, let them fight the radicals. The battle against Islam, the radical Islam, has to be fought by the Muslims only. Yes, that is true.
As soon as other religions criticize them, then it becomes like they have an artificial unity which leads to hostility against other religions. And we have to play in such a way, follow the, understand the simple thing. We are always be reactive.
No, therefore you have to understand the concept what I speak, you know, which was given by Ramdas Swami, politically alert, not only reactive during when your temples are broken. No, political alertness is a foundational principle of life. You don’t have to be politically absorbed.
You have to be politically alert. If you are politically alert, you are socially sensitive. You cannot be socially sensitive because other organizations are socially sensitive and therefore, you know, you’ll stay behind.
No, social sensitivity is a character in regards to your dharma and be spiritually absorbed, involved, interested. When this triangle is there, that is called as, that is called as yantra. Like how we have dig bandhan, you know, and when there is a dig bandhan, the snakes, when they try to come inside or you make the snakes your friend, like how the wealth of Jagannath temple and the Anant Padmanabh temple is protected through dig bandhan.
Any outside forces come, they’ll be destroyed. So, you create a dig bandhan, which is coming from the inner growth to external and in all Sanatan dharma, their growth happens from external to superficial internal. Okay.
If you want to be deeply spiritualist, then as Buddha said, you have to transcend your own belief system. You have to transcend Buddhism to become better follower of Buddha. Okay.
If you want to be a good, deep Islam, you know, then you’ll go deeper. When you go deeper, when you realize, hey, I need to transcend the superficiality. When they transcend the superficiality, they become dharmic, whether they call it dharmic or not, doesn’t matter.
Okay. The word of dharma, they may use or they may not, doesn’t matter. They’ll stand for it and they’ll fight their own people, not just to be PR exercise, but they’re willing to lay down their life, fighting for that principle, you know.
So, maybe two, three more questions, if I can take, you know, what we could do, we’ll meet again. Yeah. Tuesday only I’ll meet.
Sorry. Wednesday, Wednesday. Okay.
So, should I try to summarize what we discussed quickly? Yes, yes, yes. So, broadly, we discussed today in the theme of what can we expect from the government in protecting dharma. And then the main thing you mentioned is that we shouldn’t be expecting too much from the government.
Rather, it is, it is more of artificial thing to outsource power to the government is dangerous. One sentence robs people of their own initiative and Hitler is a Hitler, whether it’s a good Hitler or a bad Hitler. So, putting too much power externally will create is a recipe for trouble eventually.
So, that people taking initiative is lost today because of certain small mindedness that has come and dharma has become rather than treating it as one aspect of life, which needs to be protected. The dharma is more of understanding one’s nature and acting accordingly. And then some people will naturally become protectors.
Not that you become Kshatriya, but Kshatriyas follow dharma. Those who are Kshatriya nature follow dharma, they will protect. And others of other natures, like there will be some, some, some influential movie stars, influential businessmen, influential leaders.
If they also become dharmic, then they will also embody those values which protect dharma. And overall, when we discussed about Yudhishthira Maharaj, we discussed Lord Ram’s example also, that while there is a principle of obedience, but obedience is not just meant to be like unthinking accepting of everything that somebody else says. It is more of we learn the values from that particular situation or instruction.
And then we learn to ourselves take responsible decisions. And then even Yudhishthira Maharaj, when he went to the forest, that time it was mainly he, Bhishma wanted to immediately fight back. Why is it? Why take this exile? Sitting down.
So, Yudhishthira Maharaj was strategic in going through that exile. So, violence and non-violence, whatever it is, it can be more of a strategy rather than a principle. And in one sense, dharma itself is secular because dharma is more about social, about social law and order and shraddha or bhakti or tattva.
These are more individual and private. So, the difference between secularism and dharma is that in the West, secularism came as a reaction to the state religion overreaching and imposing and causing violence. And secularism came up as a methodology and then it became an ideology which changes people’s worldview and makes them completely materialistic and godless.
Whereas in the Vedic tradition, dharma is secular in the sense that it does not impose itself on people, but it respects shraddha, it respects bhakti and it gives it space to flourish. So, the way secularism is coming about in India right now, we can’t expect too much from the government because the government is going to be making decisions based on political calculations. But what we can do is, we say encourage our children and our future generations to take up dharmic values, not that that means they become otherworldly, but rather with dharmic values they succeed and become influential in their lives.
And as they do so, then they will eventually protect dharma organically without having to do protests and agitations. So, the overall theme is that rather than reacting to particular incidents and then condemning a particular religion because of that. So, violence comes because of, not because of nastikta, but rakshasiya pravrtti.
So, it is like a person may be a believer, but if they are going to drive a car like a drunken person, they are going to disrupt everyone. So, similarly, if people are in the lower modes, then whether they are religious or whether they are following a religious ideology or non-religious ideology, they are going to disrupt society. And if that is to be stopped, that kind of fanaticism, it is there in every religious group.
And say, if they are in a particular religious group, then that is best dealt with by the moderates, the provocative or dharmic Islamists. Many people would think of that as a contradiction, but if you consider dharma as values, then they can engage and they can deal with it. Whereas we can focus on creating systems natural systems for our own protection.
So, like Sambhaji Maharaj was killed, but because the Kshatriya spirit was not restricted to him, the Marathas were not just waiting for one saviour figure to come, but they took the cause of dharma. So, many other Kshatriyas came and many other people fought on and actually Aurangzeb did not crush the Maratha rule, but Aurangzeb crumbled because of the repeated guerrilla kind of attacks of the Marathas eventually. So, for us, you could say in conclusion, it’s more of we take initiative to know who we are and then grow and contribute in society guided by dharmic values.
And then that is the most sustainable way to protect dharma. So, if we become influential, then we will have, whether it is government, whether it is culture, you talk about this triangle, what is the big bandhan? There is the spiritual, social and political. So, it will all depend on people who are having dharmic values, growing influentially, growing spiritually in their own, in their personal relationship with transcendence, but also growing with social and political influence by their contribution society.
And then naturally, the dharma will be protected. So, in India, despite aggressions by so many people, dharma was protected because it was not, dharma was not dependent on one particular guru or one particular king or one particular institution. It was within, you could say, the cultural DNA or the spirit of people all over.
So, that is that spirit that we need to revive and activate if we want to protect dharma. Anything more you want to add? Fantastic. That is.
Thank you. This is a very, I’d say, not only thought provoking, but it is like individually encouraging rather than simply blaming the system. This is bad.
That is bad. It’s a very well-grounded, practically things we what we can do. That is how, that is how we can contribute.
Yes. Because one may say then, wish I could be a prime minister. No, you are, wish you be what you are.
Grow in that only. Why wishing something which is not reality? Yeah. Even if I don’t want to, only if the prime minister were a devotee, then he would protect us.
Yeah. That is rather than dependence on somebody else. It’s more that we create, we grow influentially.
Thank you.