178 Gita & political philosophy series 1: Freedom & State Power, The Monk’s Podcast with Govinda Prabhu

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Hare Krishna going through. Welcome back once again to the Wong's podcast. Today I thought we could discuss on a topic which I know you have a lot of interest in and probably in the pandemic I also developed a lot of interest.

This is political philosophy and Bhagavad Gita. Broadly there is this notion I also had that politics is just mundane, it is worldly, like they say politics is the last resort of scoundrels. But then I somehow started reading a little bit about this and I realized that we may not care for politics but politics cares for us in the sense that politics affects us, everyone.

And there has been a lot of philosophical thought also that has gone into political philosophy. So, broadly speaking political philosophy is about that how much power should an individual have and how much power should the state have. So, how much is the, how much can the person, individual have freedom and how much can this, there is state but you know in the history of the world, the nation as we have defined it has not always been there.

So, there have been different central figures, whatever it is. So, how much power do they have, how much obligation does the individual have to them and how much right do they have to control. So, when I thought about from that perspective, in one sense Arjuna was also torn in the Bhagavad Gita.

His conflict is also somewhat similar. He is not sure, okay, how does he decide what he is supposed to do. So, there is also a political conflict at one level which is the cause of Bhagavad Gita s war.

So, in that sense, first of all maybe we would like to comment on say, relegating politics to irrelevance for spiritualists or just calling it as a resort, as they say politics is the last resort of scoundrels. I think that is a self-destructive approach. It is not a very constructive approach at least, isn t it? So, therefore again we will have to go back to the foundational psychology of avatara tattva.

Avatara tattva does not come here to establish a philosophy. Philosophy is there. He usually comes to establish dharma.

Yada yadai tattva glani. He does not do yada yadai dharmase glani. You know, wherever there is glani in dharma, then he comes to establish.

Okay. And what is dharma? Again, dharma is all connected to whenever there is incoherency in regards to the functioning of the world. Whenever the rakshasa forces, the wrong political power, Shukadeva Goswami begins by speaking that Krishna Lila in the 10th Canto, you know, he, what does he speak about? Yes, love is the highest, but he speaks about because of the oppressing forces, the rakshasas disguised as the rajas and therefore Bhoomidevi approached Lord Brahma.

So, Bhoomidevi s concern is not what you do privately. Bhoomidevi s concern when there is exploitation of the resources through political power, that is the time she goes to Lord Brahma. These two greatest avatars, Krishna and Lord Ramachandra, you know, they are the heartbeat of all philosophers, whether you are Vaishnav, Shaiva, Shaktas, it doesn t matter and their core contribution from the external perspective to establish proper governance.

So, therefore, when we reject politics, we consciously or unconsciously reject Krishna and Ram. My God, that is amazing. Yeah, this is dharma samstha panartha, yeah, it s clearly Vinashaya cha dushrtaam and then Paritranaya sadhunam, that is clearly at least the impetus as well as the solution.

The impetus is external disorder. Now, we can say external disorder is caused by internal disorder. That is one way of looking at it.

But in another way, external disorder, at least at one level has to be stopped at the external level. You can say, we all have lust in our heart, we all have greed in our heart and we need to purify it. But if somebody is lusty enough to go and force themselves on others, somebody greedy enough to go and rob and kill, then that person cannot be asked, you have to change, you have to convert your heart.

First, there has to be the rule of law. So, in that sense, so Krishna s purpose, we could say that first purpose we can say is that it s establishing dharma. And then later on in 4.9 also, he says that janma karma cha me devya evam yottita kodaha.

That prema is also there, that bhakti is there. But in one sense, that is afterwards. If you understand my ultimate purpose, you will become attracted to me and you come to me.

They are integrated. Dharma and prema, they are not separated. You know, it is like fire and heat.

You cannot say first comes fire, then comes heat. Whenever the fire, the heat comes. Whenever the sun rises, there is sun also.

They are not disconnected. There has to be affection. You are born with affection.

You experience affection of mother. You experience the affection of father. You experience the affection of your family members.

And you also experience discipline in life. As a crawling baby wanting to go near the well, the mother will grab the child. So, there is a discipline along with affection.

So, they are very interconnected, prema and shraddha. Gopis, they came to Krishna out of love. And Krishna entertained them.

And Krishna sent them back to their respective home because of dharma. Dharma was not compromised, prema was not compromised. It's beautiful.

And it's also said that Krishna arranged in such a way through yoga maya that their families didn't feel that they had gone away. There was no disruption. Yes.

So, okay, beautiful. So, we could say in one sense, the avatar's purpose in the outer world is to establish dharma. And the purpose in the inner world is to establish prema.

And as far as dharma is concerned, it does involve, you could say, correcting political disorder. So, in that sense, politics is… So, can we say that politics has always been, in one sense, a dirty business? If you want to look at, you can use that terminology, that there is conspiracy and there is backbiting, and then there is killing and all that. There is lying.

And now, in one sense, it's there in modern politics. But if you look back at Mahabharata itself, or even Ramayana, that Lord Ram is for no flaw exiled or the Pandavas are persecuted. So, in one sense, is that an innate feature of politics itself? So, we have to learn to accept that and not be appalled by it and just turn away from it because of that.

Politics is unavoidable. Politics is some of the political, you know, the politics exist in the spiritual world also, spiritual circle also. Some of the institutions, you know, you can't avoid.

When you become too naive and too puritarian, that is the time you are exploited to the highest degree. Oh, okay. Because then it is easier to make politics out of you.

Because you are totally submitted to the the laws of political reality. Oh, so in one of your earlier podcasts, you had made something like, be, be like socially aware, politically alert and spiritually absorbed. Yes, yes.

Yeah. So that applies. So here we could say, now the word politics often has multiple meanings.

And quite often the negative connotation is with politics as politicking, like backbiting and manipulating and something like that. But politics itself is basically, you could say, the study of governance or the art of governance. And that is required in society.

So, so that's, so it's not only not, you could say, politics is not only not like opposite to or to be kept away by spiritualists, but in one sense, that the political change is the central purpose of our scriptures. Therefore, the whole concept of a governing body commission, it is all connected to, it is all connected to administration only. Yes.

How you put your words, how do you communicate when there is a Bangladesh violence, you know, you have to see so many perspectives, you can't be emotional, right? So governance is all about, you know, maneuvering in such a way that you maximize the benefit, minimize the loss. It's all about profit and loss. That's why in one sense, in the qualities of Kshatriya described, one of them is described as resourcefulness, dakshyam.

Yes. So it's not just valor. Valor is there, that iddhechaapyapalayanam and abhayam, all those are described, but it's not just fighting, it's also expertise, which, so if you consider sam, dam, bhed, danda, you could call that as, some people have negative perspective, might call it manipulation.

So, so just to make a slightly provocative point, we often say that the British, they ruled by divide and rule. They conquered by divide and rule. So in one sense, while we can call that a sinister, but that's just a way of doing politics and maybe they did it better than others.

From their perspective, of course, as an Indian, I will always condemn them, but from their perspective, that was a smartness. So Krishna will not only tell you to condemn, condemn, condemn, you become smarter than them. The game of life is not to condemn somebody, but to become smarter than themselves.

By condemning Kauravas, the Pandavas will not rule. Along with condemnation, you learn the game better than what they played. Therefore, when Krishna speaks, I am the cheat among the gambler.

It is all connected to politics only. It is all connected to smartness of life. When you say, dhyutam chhaleta masmi, dhyutam doesn't necessarily have to refer to gambling as a sport.

Politics itself involves gambling. When you practice, you learn, you align with this country. In your house, when you are living in a joint family, the head of the house, if he does not know the dynamics of how his three sister and daughter-in-laws and then his two, three daughters, how they function, so he is not always transparent to bring all the news to the forefront.

No, it doesn't bring the fact as it is. Therefore, in the Bhagavatam, Shukracharya mentions, for the sake of life, life means living. A lying is not a sin.

Okay. Yeah. Okay.

So that's amazing. So now, so we can say politics is a part of life. So now we come to most, for most people, even the idea that political, there's something like political philosophy itself is a strange thing.

So, so now political philosophy, maybe I'll just introduce that concept a little bit and then we can talk about, about how the, so then we'll talk about a Gita and political philosophy. So first of all, is there a philosophy underlying politics? For most people, it is just like we say, real politic, to deal with the real world. But still, how we, in one sense, nobody is, nobody acts without a philosophy.

This for most people, you could say that they are not conscious of their philosophy. So I read a very nice definition of philosophy. One definition of a literally is that it is the philisophos, the search for lover of truth and the love of truth.

But basically, one understanding of philosophy is that it reveals us the hierarchy within reality, so that what is the most important, what is the highest. So we study reality to understand what is most important. So for some people who say pursue wealth at all costs, then their philosophy is that wealth is the most important thing.

They may say now in the West, it is called mammonism. Maybe in our tradition, we call it Charvakism or whatever. So that's also philosophy.

So they may not even know it's a philosophy. They may say I have no interest in philosophy, but everybody in one sense has a philosophy and they're driven by that philosophy. So that way we can say, we'll be driven by some philosophy or the other.

Yes, very good point. Diya, makes sense. So then, so when you say political philosophy, that would mean that by what is the value system, not just the value system of philosophy is more like a conception of reality, which leads to the value system, because the value system is often associated more with ethics.

But then philosophy and ethics are related based on what we think is real. Then we decide what is the right thing. So political philosophy is basically an understanding of what is the right use of power by the head of state? What is the role of, what is the scope of liberty? Basically, they talk about three things in political philosophy.

They talk about freedom, justice, and welfare. So that is the broad, that you have to give people the freedom to do what they want to do. At the same time, you have to do good to the large number of people and wherever bad is happening, you have to fix it.

So which is prioritized when? That creates sometimes problems. So the idea is that sometimes some people feel by prioritizing freedom, there will be welfare. Some people feel that by prioritizing justice, justice means, okay, let me put it more than just by fairness, equality, it's more of not just equality, but prioritizing equality, there will be welfare.

So in one sense, capitalism and so communism are these, both want welfare ultimately. But then capitalism says by giving freedom to people, let them exhibit their talents and then there will be welfare. Whereas, so communism says that we focus on equality, focus on equality, establish equality.

So the state's role is to create equality, whereas the capitalism, the state's role is to provide freedom. And then that's how they seek welfare. So we could say a political philosophy itself is a big subject.

We could go into that. But does the Gita have a political philosophy? Or is it implicit in the Gita? Or is it like present in the broader culture around the Gita? And the Gita operates with that assumption, even if it doesn't explicitly state it? Very simple. Gita is part of Mahabharata.

One of the thing what has happened, Gita has been separated from Mahabharata. Yes. You know, when you separate Gita from Mahabharata, you make it only purely philosophical book.

And it is but natural to say, Gita, there is no politics, there is no such thing as Rajakaran. But in the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna does speak. When he talks about Varna Dharma, very precisely as you.

So just one point. You made this point about separating the Gita from the Mahabharata. But that has a lot of consequences.

Like I was just recently talking with one devotee who was trying to talk with one Western philosopher. And he said, I read the Gita. He's quite influential person.

He was trying to have a discussion. He says, I read the Gita and the first chapter, I liked Arjuna. He made so much sense.

And the second chapter when Krishna started speaking, I felt Krishna is just such a bad guy. He's forcing Arjuna to fight. So in one sense, the rationale for the fight, at a philosophical level, the Gita explains that.

But if philosophy takes time for people to understand, the circumstantial rationale for the fight doesn't come in the Bhagavad Gita. And the circumstantial rationale is what people can register immediately. So in that sense, divorcing the Gita from the Mahabharata actually makes it more difficult for people to understand the value of the Gita.

The Gita is not a book simply calling for violence. Yes, that is the very important point. Very important.

So therefore, Gita, like somebody mentioned, one Vaishnava scholar mentioned that Mahabharata is the commentary for Gita and Gita is the sutra for Mahabharata. Beautiful. So therefore, when we say in the 18th chapter when Krishna talks about Swadharma, then he speaks about different propensities of Brahmana, Kshatriya, Vaishya, Shudra.

Right? Not running away from the battlefield. But more than that, as you mentioned, Dakshata, ability to handle conflicting situation and reconciling them is the ability of Kshatriya. Trying to create the maximum good to the people and minimize the violence.

He doesn't have that stupid idea that I will create a system where there will be no violence. He knows very clearly violence will be there. But my goal and my role is to minimize the violence and maximize the stability of society or a state.

And therefore, if you study Ramayana, the most interesting part is when Lord Ram and Bharat meet with each other. They don't discuss about their father first. The mourning and lamentation happens afterwards.

Lord Ram only speaks about governance to Bharat, how to govern, which includes giving salary at the right time to the worker. He said, however, good workers are there. If you don't give them timely salary, they will rebel.

Affection is not of the essence. Efficiency is of the essence. And then there is an entire volume in the Mahabharata called as Anushasana Parva.

It is full of politics and within that there is Rajadharma. So, entire Anushasana Parva is not Rajadharma. Rajadharma is one part of it, you are saying? Yeah.

Anushasana Parva is basically, you know, Stri Dharma, Varana Dharma, then all that Dharma and within that there is the Anushasana for the Raja, the Rajadharma. Oh, okay. So, the question I had asked was, is there political philosophy in the Gita? So, you say that if you look at the Gita as a part of the Mahabharata, in the Mahabharata there is Rajadharma.

Can we broadly translate, equate, not translate, equate it with political philosophy? Yes, very much. Very much. Okay.

Yeah. So, now, if you consider the point that in political philosophy, so, as I said, the balance of power between the individual and the government, whatever it may be, it might be a king, it might be whatever, there could be city states, there is kind of thing there. So, in the modern times, there is the idea that individual, that say, the freedom or like the, as the American constitution says that the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

So, they say that these are God-given rights. These are not government-given rights. These are inherent in all people and not the government grants them, but the government protects them.

So, is there any similar conception of, sometimes I've heard that Western culture is about rights and Indian culture is about duties or responsibilities, but sometimes it seems a little oversimplistic. Yes, there would be excessive emphasis on rights in the West, but that doesn't mean that rights were not talked about in the Vedic tradition. So, any thoughts about this? Well, therefore, the whole concept of dharma, artha, kama, moksha comes.

The whole concept of kama is centered around freedom, happiness, pleasure. And then raja, the word raja is basically simple, one who entertains. Ranjati praja eti raja.

One who entertains the praja is raja. In what sense is the word entertain here? Entertainment again, that when Narad Bani came to Yudhishthira Maharaj, just before the Rajasuya sacrifice, he brought the message of Yudhishthira's father that your father wanted to perform Rajasuya sacrifice. There Yudhishthira Maharaj, you know, heard from Narad Bani in the form of questions.

He listened to certain values of life from Narad Bani in the form of question. So, then Narad Bani asked him, are you, you know, sevan kar rahe ho na, are you, sevan, sevan is basically, there is a connotation of seva there, not enjoying, honoring. Are you honoring dharma, artha, kama at the right time or no? Oh, that's amazing.

So, kama is also in one sense. So, somehow the word kama has both a very reductionistic and a negative connotation. So, when the Gita uses the word kama, it is like a krodhesha.

So, it is using it in a particular sense, but that sense is very different from the dharma, artha, kama. Yes, yes, yes, yes. So, that kama is, you could say, that which makes one that which makes one do wrong things.

So, then in the dharma, artha, kama, moksha, you are saying the kama means basically fulfillment of desires. Now, we can say they are desires based on dharma and you have earned artha to fulfill those desires. But still, you should have, that the individual has the right to fulfill the desires as long as they are within the boundaries of dharma with one's artha that you have earned.

Yeah. So, therefore, Lord Narasimha Deva in conclusion of his teaching to Prahlad, you know, is so fascinating. He says, bhogena punyam kaushalena papam kalavaram kaala jyavena hitva.

He says, in the conclusion, after discussing all the pure philosophy of bhakti, what is the conclusion, instruction of Lord Narasimha Deva? He said, enjoy your punya and deal with your limitations by proper, the expertise, dakshata, kaushalena papam kalavaram kaala jyavena hitva. In this way, you actually exhaust your bodily, you know, the conditional state of life. So, you cannot avoid whoever you are if you have certain piety and certain papa.

While living in this world, you can transcend not by rejecting, you can transcend them by not being obsessed with either one, for rejecting or accepting it. If there is an obsession for rejecting, you know, you are so conscious about I need to avoid, I need to avoid, I need to avoid. It is unnatural.

Your mind is so absorbed in rejecting rather than thinking naturally of Krishna, you are obsessively focused on giving up things. That's why in the sense, the Bhagavad Gita doesn't talk so much about sannyas as it talks about samatva. Yes.

Time and time again, sannyas is maybe talked a few places, the sixth chapter and other places, maybe 18 chapters in between, when it talks about jnana yoga before that, but samatva is talked about much more. Because that is the reality for most people. Hmm.

So now, going back to that question earlier that, so, like, is our rights, say, given by the government, or are they ingrained in the person that is given by God? So when we call it, it is a calm is also purushartha. So purushartha means we can say that it is what gives or it is a purpose of life, what gives purpose of meaning, what gives purpose to life, you can say purushartha. Artha can mean meaning or purpose.

So then we could say it is also ingrained in one sense, it is ingrained or innate with the given by God. So the government is in one sense meant to help people pursue dharma artha kama and ultimately moksha also. Yes, if you perform your trivarga properly, then moksha is the consequences of that trivarga.

Dharma artha kama, if you do it properly, balanced, integrated one, then that gives rise to natural moksha. Because the element of nishkama karma is there while performing dharma. When you're performing dharma, you're not simply performing action.

That is a nishkama karma. I do my duty. Whether there is good result or bad result doesn't matter.

My duty is to be dharmic. So naturally there is an inherent intellectual detachment and eventually that becomes your culture also, that becomes your behavior also. So therefore when they enjoy based upon this principle, kama, at the right time they develop not anger towards each other.

You know, I remember one devotee saying that West is Mahapap and India is Mabap, which is a problem for growing in spirituality. And the Vedas, the Vedas, the five yajnas, the Praja Yajna, Deva Yajna and the, what is that, Adi Vidya, Adi Praja, Adi Loka, these, this kind of yajna, there are five kinds of yajna. So Adi Praja, the act of procreation, you know, along with that pleasure is considered as yajna.

It is not considered as abomination. No, the, unfortunately the Christian world, you know, they did not consider marriage to be a sacred sanskara. When you consider material world itself as a prison house rather than a beautiful creation of God, then everything what you do here in dharma centric is becomes divine only.

So there is no separate endeavour about Moksha. Okay. See, in the Christian world view, if you say that they do consider marriage to be sacred, maybe Catholics at one time, they emphasise Monkhood quite a bit.

The Protestants actually rejected Monkhood entirely. So, and they consider marriage and even right from the Old Testament, there is the idea that reproduce and flourish, that is a duty, that is duty given by God to you. But what you could say that, yes, within the history of Christianity, at least Christian Catholicism, there was a time when I think the monks or the priests basically looked down upon marriage.

And so what you are essentially saying is that just the world is not just a prison you get out of, but rather the world is a place where we do our duty and just doing our duty eventually takes us out. Yeah, because it has to be integrated. Therefore, dharma principle is there.

In dharma, there is sadhana is there for your spiritual sadhana is there. Then your material sadhana is there. What is material sadhana? Means if you are a warrior, you need to put that bunch of efforts to become a good warrior.

Okay, makes sense. If you are working for a company, you can't say most important is sadhana and you do shabby work in your company. Krishna will say, you are using my sadhana to do stupid work in your place where you have been provided.

So, there is a sadhana on the Andamaya platform, there is a sadhana on the Pranamaya platform, there is sadhana on the Manomaya platform, there is sadhana on the Vijnanamaya platform, and there is a sadhana on the Anandamaya platform also. So, here you are using the word sadhana in a generic sense of repeatedly doing something to improve so that we can be the best at it. Yeah.

Andamaya means you could say that we have to eat, but over a period of time, we understand what kind of food works best for our body. We know how much to eat, when to eat. And that way, the body functions harmoniously.

Yes. Is that what you're referring to? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay.

Whatever is consistent, there is a rhythm and you're doing it regularly. That is sadhana. Oh, okay.

That's beautiful. So now, of course, we could also take it from sadhana will lead to sadhya. So, in every area, there is sadhya.

So, in our body, when you take food, health is a sadhya. So, in our profession, we can say earning is a sadhya. So, sadhana can be there everywhere.

So, now, coming back to this question of, say, there's basically individual autonomy, and we could say state power. So, in the, so, we talked about individual autonomy being there for the pursuit of, within the boundaries of dharma. So, kama is there, you have the, generally, most people will not equate, say, autonomy of freedom with kama.

But that's probably because we have a, we have a very negative meaning of the word kama. So, but what would be the swatantrata or like freedom would be swatantrata, that, that word, or that concept, is freedom, that much, or freedom or autonomy or liberty. These words seem to be used more in a specific context.

Like in the West, the idea is liberty in terms of, we get the freedom to do what we want to do. But in the Indian context, it's more than liberty is liberation. So, the idea is, it seems that, to some extent, it is understood that, now, this is a criticism, and maybe it's not a valid criticism, we can discuss that, that one, people say the Indians never, never really concerned about liberty, because liberty at the material level, at the political level, because their focus has always been on liberation at the spiritual level.

So, how valid is that? Because again, it, it, it fails the logic. It may have not been implemented properly, properly, but the foundational principle, again, as you said, life builds based upon philosophy. And what is the philosophy? Like, I remember there was a discussion one time, that freedom, is it a privilege? Is it, is it a, is it a destruction of the individual soul? Or is it my right? Freedom is not my right.

Freedom is not my privilege. Freedom is not reckless. Freedom is my constitution nature.

Beautiful. So, if Krishna is Parameshwar, we are, Krishna also refers to the Jeeva as Eshwar in one sense. So, yeah.

Okay, freedom is our constitutional nature, which is, is, oh, beautiful. So, if Krishna is free. I am also, that is my constitutional nature.

It is not Krishna's gift. It is not even Krishna's gift. Therefore, he doesn't demand, hey, I have given you this, you know, he doesn't demand you to serve him.

He said, it's your choice. Love can never be demanded. Therefore, Sarva Dharma Parityaja, it is more than demand, it is an assurance of being there for Arjuna.

It's fascinating. So, you are focusing on Mahaswitcha has the assurance over there. Yes.

Yeah. But then it is also a call, isn't it? That there is, there is a reciprocation over there. You do this, I'll do this.

So, the demand is also there, isn't it? Or no? Again, let us go back and see whether Krishna demanded this from Duryodhana. Because there is a relationship, Krishna said to Arjuna, just forget about it. I am there for you.

Just surrender all your dharma. I am there for you. The Lord does not go around demanding everybody to surrender.

Because if you study carefully, the Prakriti is so designed, if we actually tap the Prakriti properly on the platform of Sat and Chit, eternal existence and eternal awareness, you don't need God. But only when you want to experience love and happiness, then you need God. So, when you say don't need God, what you are saying is, we may not need God as the object of love.

Yes, object of love. Our existence does not require God to contribute. But our relationship, we need God.

Prem karne ke liye, to love God, we need God. Because that is the greatness of Prakriti. You know, Krishna's Prakriti is eternal.

Shiva is eternal. You know, therefore, you know, if you see generally a father or a teacher, they consciously create certain limitation for the student to grow on his own. To tell him or tell her, you know, you need us.

The father withholds the resources from the son. To tell him without me you cannot grow. A musician teacher, music teacher does not immediately give certain secret to the student so that he can keep coming to me or he is not mature to handle it.

But here the Parabrahma has given you constitutional freedom. Okay, this is a little, you could say radically contradicted to what we normally study. So, we can, when we say that, say for example, 15th chapter, that I am the digestifier, I am the light of the heat and sun.

So, when he's describing how he's sustaining even material existence, that is more to make us conscious of him everywhere. Yes, we want to. But the fact is that even if we are not conscious, we will exist.

The body will digest food. Even if I don't know, I'm not conscious that it is Krishna who is the digestifier. So, what you're saying is the two things.

We could say at a ontological level, at a philosophical level, nothing can exist without God. There will be no oxygen. There will be no, there will be, how we cannot exist without God at a philosophical level.

But at a functional level, very good, a person can exist without necessarily caring for God. Yes. You know, a simple, simple example, if you are a spiritualist, eating at 12 o'clock in the night, sleeping at 3 o'clock, your affection for God, you know, you're recklessly traveling here and there everywhere, saying that God will take care of you.

It is very soon that you'll be object of, you know, medical treatment. On the other end, there is a man or a woman. They are not defying anything in regards to God.

It doesn't matter to them consciously or unconsciously, but they are very disciplined in his life, their life. Their eating habits are disciplined. Their sleeping habits are disciplined.

Their communication habits are disciplined. They experience greater self-satisfaction than somebody who is claiming a loyalty in the name of connection to active personal God. That's amazing.

Okay. So we could put it this way that, you know, in some ways you like to make provocative statements and I try to reconcile them. What you're saying is true.

Let me try to put it this way that we can say that at the embodied level, we have a material side and we have a spiritual side and it is very, very few souls very spiritually evolved souls who can become completely indifferent to the material side and be absorbed and happy at the spiritual level, even if everything is falling apart at the material level. So if my body is sick and in great disorder and at the physical level, there is pain to say that I'm happy in remembering Krishna. Well, for some people it might be possible, but for most, it's extremely difficult.

Therefore, it is not an operating principle for the life that is an operating principle only for extremely elevated soul who is isolated from the society. Okay. He does not come to the real world.

Shukadeva Goswami was not there in the world always coming, you know, he only came to speak the Bhagavatam to Parikshit Maharaj and he did not even wait to see Parikshit Maharaj lose the body. He was not obliged to stay there. Oh, because I've spoken Bhagavatam now, I need to stay there to chant in front of him because he's about to die now.

You know, it's my duty as a teacher, you know, I have to see him die. Spoke the Bhagavatam. He told him don't be on the bodily concept of life, rise beyond that and he walked away.

Amazing. So I was thinking this Krishna says Yukta Ahara Viharasya first he talks about Yukta Ahara and then he says Yoga Bhavati Dukkaha. So he says that at one level regulation is required.

Then your yoga practice will free you from misery. Yeah, it's talking about both regulation at the material level and say you can say connection with the spiritual. Then he says among such yogis, one who always remembers me internally, he's the best.

He is not cancelling yoga in Yogi Namapi Sarvesham. It is not cancellation of yoga. You cannot practice affection to God in a reckless platform.

So we can say that even when Hanuman single-handedly went into Lanka, that was not recklessness. That was, you know, he was confident of his prowess and he also first hid initially, went discreetly inside, only when required, then he confronted. So we can say Daksham was there over there also.

Yeah, very much. Therefore, if you study 12 chapter of the Bhagavad Gita Bhakti Yoga, normally what ordinary, you know, naive, you know, the new devotees, what they discuss about what is bhakti is not presence in what Krishna is speaking as bhakti in the 12th chapter. Yes, it's amazing.

Krishna doesn't mention even a single devotional activity as a quality of a devotee. Yeah, the whole and unless we are on that platform of 12th chapter, you know, 12th chapter is basically making you understand what is Krishna's definition of bhakti and then comes the aspect of getting lost your heart in Vrindavan. Then it comes the concept of, you know, spontaneity of Gopi's bhakti, all that.

You know, Lord Chaitanya for that matter, if you see, was very disciplined. Unlike Krishna, Lord Chaitanya was a sanyasi born in a Brahmin family. Krishna was born in a covered, raised in a covered family.

So Krishna could pull out food from the other friends. Okay. But you cannot feed Lord Chaitanya, I'll feed him from Govinda's restaurant today.

You know, I'll feed him from this house. Oh, I have cooked for you. It was not about pleasing based upon the emotional sentiments of the devotees in regards to his eating habits.

Hmm. So what you're saying here is that even Krishna in Vrindavan is different from Krishna in Dwarka. Krishna in Vrindavan is much more playful.

But Krishna in Dwarka we have his daily routine and it is quite in one sense regulated and predictable at one level. And even we are talking about Lord Chaitanya who presented Raga Marga in his real day to day life in Varanashram Dharma is extremely regulated. You cannot, if you are not born in a Brahmin family, you cannot feed him.

Let us accept this truth. So I thought that was primarily because he was like deferring to the castes, the Varanashram constitution at that time, wasn't it? Whatever the reality in sannyas order is, you know, because the Brahmana worships, again it is not Jati Brahmana, you know, he would not even eat in the house of Sanodaya Brahmana. He only ate because it was done by Madhavendra Puri also, previous Acharya.

So it is more of consciousness. There were the standards which was practiced by Brahmanas in regards to their lifestyle and being a sannyasi, the outburst of devotee is between him sharing the knowledge of devotional service with others. That was indiscriminative.

Giving affection was indiscriminative. Giving love was indiscriminative. But receiving food, certain social behavior was not indiscriminative.

He was extremely conscious. This you cannot do, this you can do. Okay, and you are saying this discrimination is not meant to like look down or condemn or demean some people.

It is meant for his own expression of regulation at the physical level. Yeah, for it is not for, it is not. He also is acting as a sadhaka.

Recently, there was a controversy raised by one so-called musician in Karnataka questioning Peja or Swami visiting Dalit family. He said, oh you went to Dalit family but did he eat chicken soup there? Oh God. So there was an outburst by even common sense people and of course there are political people who still supported such a statement and this poet beg forgiveness, sorry I didn't mean that.

Somebody said your food habits, you know, does not make you less available to those who have a different kind of food habit. Like Peja or Swami was a vegetarian and others were non-vegetarian. That does not mean that he was less available to them.

You can't judge him based upon he did not eat their food. Oh, so he could be there for them. There could be like affection or reciprocation or whatever even if he is not eating.

Yeah. Okay. And just I mean to clarify now, we seem to have wandered off a lot from the topic of political philosophy, but I was trying to understand.

We're talking about the idea of liberty and then we talked about how you said that even the right to freedom is not given by Krishna. It is ingrained within us. Yeah.

And then we were talking about how Krishna is that the awareness of Krishna is not necessary for a soul to function harmoniously in the world. In that connection, we talked about how that somebody who might be in one sense aware of Krishna, but they are not following the rules of material harmony, then they will be in trouble. Yeah.

And in that connection, now we talked about how Lord Chaitanya followed the principles of harmony and then we came to Peja or Swami from that. Yeah. So, therefore, it is very important, very important to understand.

Again, if somebody is practicing the regulation of life, he knows that freedom philosophically or from the technical perspective that the mechanistic perspective of the creation, he knows that Krishna has not given me independence. But in his devotional consciousness, he always been grateful for Krishna to giving him the freedom and he repeatedly misusing it. So, they are not mutually exclusive.

They are mutually inclusive. Oh, so when you're saying mechanistic perspective, you're talking mechanistic, not just in terms of the mechanical, but in terms of the functioning of the world, functioning of the functioning of the world, freedom is an innate attribute of the soul. Yeah.

And then the soul gets a particular body and that body gives a particular set of amount of freedom based on karma. Yeah. That is innate to nature.

Yeah. But a devotee feels that ultimately my existence is due to Krishna. So, when I go away from Krishna, I'm misusing my freedom.

Yeah. So, he says that it's your gift. So, his consciousness is very pleasing and his understanding has to be based on this principle only.

I know from the mechanistic perspective, freedom is my constitutional nature. But when I offer myself to Krishna, then my freedom is also a gift only. I'm not sure.

I understand your point, but I'm not sure the mechanistic is the best word because generally the word mechanistic is used in terms of simply like mechanisms devoid of any consciousness. So, therefore, the word prakriti is different from nature. You know, it's called a shakti.

Okay. Shakti is operating so fine, so beautifully with the spirit of God. Right.

Okay. But the inherent nature of that prakriti from the working point of view, the functional point of view, she is eternal. The Lord is eternal and the Jeeva is eternal.

Okay. So, when you're saying mechanistic, you are using maybe the one word for the operational perspective. Operational perspective.

Yeah. Yeah. So, when you say that, say, we can, at one level, and there's many questions which come up, but I'll try to redirect the thoughts though.

So, if we talked about, so the soul has freedom and of course, the freedom is regulated, regulated by one's own karma and then regulated with the boundaries of dharma by, so we could say at one level, the soul is expected to regulate the freedom within the boundaries of dharma. And those boundaries of dharma are set by the, they are at one level universal, at another level, they're set by the state. If anybody's violating dharma to pursue karma, then the state has to take them in, control them.

And then within the boundaries of dharma, the person has to also individually work and earn artha. So, I may say that, you may say that, okay, drinking is legal. It's legal right now, but I have to earn the money to drink.

I cannot just, because it is legal, that doesn't mean I can go in. So, even if something is legal, dharmic, but still it is for me to put an endeavor, then karma is allowed. Yeah.

So, so we can, this is one aspect of individual autonomy. Now, if you go to the other side of the state power, so there is this, where does the state get its power from? In the West, especially because of the Christian tradition, there was the idea that the divine right of the King, that the idea is that the King is made so by God. And that's why for the Kings, it was quite important to be coronated by the Pope or the Bishop, whoever is prevailing.

And of course, there's always politicking between the two of them also. But does the King get the right to be the King by, by God's arrangement? So, in our tradition, we could say there is the idea of the King as Naradev. And in one sense, this, this idea that, that the divine right of King, that King is a saint, that is what was the justification for genealogical succession also.

In this dynasty, only the King will come. So, what is the Vedic understanding of where does the power of the King come from? The very Vedas, as much as they call King Naradeva representative of Vishnu in regards to governance, the same Vedas, one of the greatest scholars of the Vedas, our Bhishma Dev speaks to Yudhishthira Maharaj, very interesting point. He says, just see how much freedom and power is bestowed upon the Praja.

What does he say? He said when the King becomes Adharmik, when he gives up Dharm, then that very Praja has the power to bring the King in the public place and kill him. The Praja can kill the King? Praja can bring him to the public place and slaughter him because he is becoming redundant and he is becoming useless and he is becoming violent. So, the balance between making the King as good as the representation of Lord Vishnu and also making him accountable and if he does not remain accountable, then the Praja has the power, at least the statement is made and there is a story of the Praja, the Brahmanas, they had the power to kill Vena.

They killed him through Omkara Mantra. So, the idea that say the King is above the law, that is not in the Vedic tradition so much? That is not in the Vedic tradition. So, therefore Dharma, even Avatar consciously subservient himself to Dharma principle.

To establish Dharma, he submits to Dharma most of the time but to sometime to experience the Avatar Tattva. What is Avatar Tattva? Avatar Tattva is the harmony between humanness and divine activities. See how much Krishna gave emphasis to giving time to his wife.

That time he exhibited his supernatural power of being God. There was no compromise. You cannot say I will spend time with you.

With every wife he was available. That is the only way you can please them or that is the process of pleasing. That is the process of pleasing.

He expanded, not even one day he did not expand. That was the rule of life. When he had to be with his wife, 16,108 wives get equal, same amount, a different flavour of association with him.

But when he would come to Sudharma Sabha, then he would become a follower of Dharma asking Uddhava, what do you think we should do? Should we go to attack Jarasandha and Uddhava is saying no, no. For that you have to go to Hastinapur. Anyway, if the Brahmana has come to invite you, because Yudhishthira Maharaj has a letter for you, then Krishna comes to Hastinapur.

So, what happens? We focus more on Krishna's supernatural activity rather than focusing also in his human activities. Yeah. So, when he is saying Yajadacharati Shresthas and then he says, I very attentively do my duties also.

So, that is there. So, then if there is no such thing like the king has a divine right, then what was the rationale for say dynastic succession of kings? How could we guarantee that in this dynasty only and that to the oldest son would be powerful enough, would be virtuous enough, would be capable enough to actually be the king because that is a big issue in today's political philosophy that who is qualified to be given power over others? So, there is no question of when you understand, when you are explaining, you have to choose the qualified, the most qualified and therefore the Rishis through Gotra, they had their own system of making the queen procreate the best of the breed we can say, who would actually exhibit those qualities in that dynasty, that family, that royalty. So, there was a greater chance of creating the rhythm or rita of bringing forth that kind of child who would represent that dynasty and contribute to the growth of the kingdom.

But that was not black and white and hard and fast rule. If somebody would not stand by that principle, like in the Pandavas we see Bharat, the king Bharat, you know the son of Dushyanta. In fact, the B. R. Chopra's Mahabharata begins with this, that Bharat, his family, his wife or himself, whatever it is, they drowned their nine asaras and useless son and he actually had a Dattakutra, adopted somebody else's son.

Uska vamshka nahi thao and therefore when Vidura made this statement to Dhritarashtra, kill your son, sounds very cruel. But there was a precedent in the Bharatakula, you know. If there is a choice between your state, your praja and your son, focus on your praja at the cost of your son also.

But the human tendency, whether it is now or then, is generally attached to the biological reality. So, these are an exceptional quality where, no, I would not care for my family, I will care for good governance, I will employ, appoint this. So, that is the foundational philosophy.

But they also created such a beautiful coherency that generally, now also in India, for example, forget, we talk about, you know, you see the institutionals, educational institution, the professors, you know, mostly people come from Brahmin family. Even though there is hardly any chance for, there is no reservation for them, but still they prevail. Now, is it God made? He is partial to the Brahmanas? In every Brahmana's brain is fixing differently? No, because they follow a certain protocol of life.

Therefore, they bring forth some kind of living entities who are born in Brahmana and Brahminical quality. But that does not cancel others from becoming Brahminical. Similarly, in the Indian army, for example, nobody talks about that because army means you have to lay down your life.

70% or plus, those who join army, they generally come from a Kshatriya family only. Now also, now also. Amazing.

Why? Are they forced to join? No, they are inspired to join based upon their psychophysical upbringing. Is our Indian state has stopped doing business other than the Gujaratis, Marwadis, Sindhis? A Maharashtrian cannot do business. Can he not become Ambani? Now, Sharad Pawar has been one of the most powerful ministers.

But I have heard, I have heard, I don't know how far true. For managing everything in regards to finances, everything, he has Marwadis, Gujaratis and the business people only. Okay, so now I am just trying to understand the claim.

So, you are saying that even today we can see the power of genealogy in terms of certain groups of people being good in certain professions. And say now because of geographical migration or something or whatever, it might be that those groups of people like Gujaratis and Marwadis are saying that you can say that those for some reasons the Vaishyas may have accumulated in a particular part of the country more. The point is not that you are talking about a geography but you are talking about the principle of certain psychophysical nature or certain qualities to be successful passing down in genealogy.

Yeah, so they maintained it. They maintained it systematically. So, when that maintenance is based upon only Barto, because he is born here only, therefore only he has to be, that is not only destroying the society's function, it also destroys your own family also.

For example, Congress party, why it is getting destroyed? We may not like their ideology because focused on, how can they be so illogical? You know, why not all these years beyond the Gandhi family, why not Shashi Tharoor? Yeah, I was thinking of the same name when you mentioned that. Yeah, exactly. He is a dumb only, I don't accept him as a very intellectual person.

He has very prejudiced but compared to others, you know, why not Jai Raman? Why not Sanghvis? Why can't they be president? Why only Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi when they prove again and again failure in efficiency, the liberal media when they are condemning the system of India and they are actually criminal for the very objection they are raising. That's an amazing example of double standards. You know, and all this dynastic political party in India, they are proving and they are the one who always makes slanderous remark of Varanashram Dharma without understanding it properly.

Amazing. Whether it is Sharath Pawar, whether it is Ullam Singh Yadav, whether it is Lalu Prasad Yadav, whether it is Shiv Sena, they are the one who condemn Brahminical. I am not a Brahmin.

I am not in a Brahmin born family, you know. So, I can stand by saying that I don't support the biological dynastic politics, you know, but what I say genetically it is a proven fact repeatedly again and again. Okay.

So, there are two things now. At one level, we give contemporary examples of genealogy having competence and another level, another example. Just before that, just before that, I want to make one more statement.

If Sonia Gandhi and Congress people are extremely wanting to be transparent in Congress party, they should actually dump Rahul Gandhi like what Bharat did. No need to kill him. Give him some nice chocolates and chewing gum and keep him in a nice retreat place and let him enjoy life.

He is a good guy. Yeah, in many ways, he himself doesn't seem to be interested. He has no enthusiasm.

He has a little no drive. He has to force himself to get into it. And that's what I say.

Why can't people see this? Liberals who are intellectual, why can't they see when you are focusing only something what happened 5000 years ago, which did not understand properly also, this was the reality, oh this was the reality, this was under your very nose, there is Jativad, there is Parivarvad and there is Murkavad is going on. That is called as Pashyati na Pashyati, you know. And it is making them redundant.

It is making BJP powerful. Right? I want from the Mahabharata perspective, I would not want the Hindu party to become supremely powerful without the proper, you know, Dharmic opposition. Because however good king is, if he doesn't have right people to critically analyse him, it is only a question of time he becomes so powerful and that power has a problem for the governance of the country.

Therefore, king was never given a supreme power over the citizen. No question of that. So when you say that's a very striking point, king was never given supreme power.

So when you talk about giving, who is the withholding authority over here? Is it the Dharmashastras? Is it the, like who is above the king to regulate the power of the king? Yeah, so therefore it was, it was representation of intellectual power. A representation of the sensitive Praja was done by the Mantris and they came from, Bhishma talks about these ministers. There are, you know, the intellectual force, then there is a Kshatriya force, then there is a Vaishya force and there is a Shudra force.

So they represented the cabinet and almost all of them basically, there are more intellectual authority in their particular field. They may not be actively doing, but they knew completely. When I say Shudra, means he knew the entire concept, the psychology of what is workforce, what is, what does it work? So when they would come together and they had the power to unsettle the ruthless king.

Okay. So it's, I remember also in the Ramayana, when Dashrath was thinking about making Ram the next king. So he actually called the assembly and described that the representatives of all four Varanas were there at that time.

That assembly very sought approval. Yeah. And therefore, up until Shivaji Maharaj, there is a big story about that also.

You know, Shivaji Maharaj operated on this principle, respected this intellectual ability of the ministers. He was responsible for all the decisions, but he was respectful for seeking advice from others. So in one sense, if you see in the Ramayana, even Ravana says that good king takes advice from the ministers.

Which he doesn't follow. Which he doesn't follow. Yeah, he doesn't follow.

Okay. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

So now, maybe this is a big subject, but we can just discuss it in a few minutes. It will take five minutes, then we'll stop and then we'll go for the… Okay, then I think we'll just discuss it. We'll keep it because I want to discuss about democracy.

It will take a big time, big subject. So just maybe one last point here. So we talked about, there is the capacity to overthrow the king.

There is the regulation of the power of the king. And when we talk about the, there is no one way of regulating power is through tenure. Now we have five year tenure.

So now in the Vedic context, in one sense, was Vanaprastha, the idea of the way of imposing a tenure on a person? Very good. Very important. Very much.

Okay. Very much. See, from that perspective, I like the idea of the, you know, the American system of eight years presidential.

Yes. Because that, however qualified you are, after eight years, you can contribute differently. You know, there is one American thinker, he said, that the greatness of America was not that George Washington became the president.

He said he stepped down as the president when the time came. Yes. So that is called, even though it's a capitalistic colonized power, you know, there is a lot of ruthlessness.

But when it comes to this one, I would say, wow, that is Dharma. He is forced to be Vanaprastha within eight years. What does it tell us? What does it tell us? It tells us that nobody is indispensable.

There will always be a person who can replace you. Okay. No, always there will be a person who will replace you.

Doesn't matter who you are. So it avoids like a godlines, godlike sense of self-importance in the person. Yes.

Yes. It allows also to prevent corruption in one sense, corruption of power, or concentration of power can be avoided for too long. Okay.

You have to have a limitation in regards to how long you rule. So maybe I'll try to summarize what we discussed today. Yeah.

So broadly we discussed today about is politics mundane and not, is it like a business of the dirty? So first it started is that the very avatar comes to restore political order and Dharma is basically order in the outer world. And the key to maintaining that is through politics. So the politics as politicking, manipulating, that might have a negative connotation, but politics as maintaining government or many governing that is essential.

And the law, the Lord himself, it's so important the Lord does that. And Bhoomi Devi doesn't go to the Lord when, Lord for help when people are privately misusing their resources, but in the publicly creating problems. So, so the domain of public life, what happens is important.

And then we also discuss Dharma and are related that one way both go together. It's like the heat and light or heat and fire. And then from there discussed about, so does the Gita have political philosophy? So like everybody has philosophy, political science, philosophy, philosophy means that what is the most important thing in our, in that one should be valuing or pursuing.

So with respect to the Gita's, Gita's political philosophy on understanding to look at the broader picture of the, of the Mahabharata, because the Mahabharata has a commentary on the Gita and the Gita is like the sutra of the Mahabharata. And in the Mahabharata, there is a whole set of instructions by Bhishma on, on Anushasan Parva out of which Rajadharma is there. So Rajadharma can be equated political philosophy.

And within that political philosophy, then we discussed two main questions that individual autonomy and state power. So the individual autonomy is basically, it is, it is within the pursuit of karma. So karma is not the sensual desires or, or the, or the thing that makes us do acts self-destructively.

Karma is basically, you could say pleasure, pleasure within the boundaries of Dharma and Artha. So the, it is a Purushartha and that means it is, if you consider freedom, that is, that is not even a gift given by Krishna to us. It is innate to us.

And that's why Krishna can never take it back. He doesn't take it back. So, so that is not even, that is like the constitutional nature of every living being.

And that freedom is meant to be operated within the boundaries of Dharma and one's own Artha. And the state is meant to facilitate that. So that was with respect to freedom.

And then we did the state power. We discussed that there is the idea that the king is Naradeva, but also that the king can be overthrown. So that indicates that, that just because the king is representative of God doesn't make the king infallible or irreplaceable.

And then, although there's genealogical succession, if you consider the perspective of multiple lifetimes, then the Brahmanas, by doing right, right samskaras could, or right rituals for the could attract the child who would be a worthy king. And even a, and that was not a foolproof method. So if there was not, then there would be, there would be measures.

So like Vena was overthrown. And then even it's mentioned about Bharat, Dushyant's son, he actually put aside his eight Asar sons and he took it up so that there could be a worthy king. So, so the king is, king's power is, first of all, it's not just from genealogy, but genealogy matters.

Like we discussed, even particular 75% of Kshatriyas, 75% Indian Army are Kshatriyas from Kshatriya lineage. So even now, there is certain psychophysical nature is associated with certain races, certain, certain group dynasties, you could say. So then there is always also regulation of power from the perspective of there are, there is a cabinet of, there is a cabinet of ministers from, who represent each of the Varanas and there the king's power is regulated through that.

And then further there is regulation through time in the form of the king also is expected to take vanaprastha. So in this way, there is a balance of power between the state and the individual. So any points you would like to add in conclusion to it? Thank you.

That is wonderful. Thank you. We will meet again.

Yes. Thank you.