US elections & the defeat of cultural Marxism – Monk’s Podcast 208 with Govinda Prabhu

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thank you very much those who are spiritualists who are playing some role of public intellectuals. How much should they comment on politics? Should we be politically neutral? Should we be politically involved? Maybe we could start with that before we move forward. If you study even in the Bhagavatam when Shri Krishna brought back the Yadavas, Vrishnis back to Mathura, he understands, empathises with them for they not having a place to reside.
So Kshetra is very important. In the Anushasana Parva, the great Bhishma, he explains that the most important part, first one should have a good administrator, second one should have a good wife and third one should start making money. Otherwise if you make money and if you don’t have a good king and good family, everything will be squandered.
So is this three listed a priority or say the administration is the most important? Yeah, Anushasana, Surajya, Arajagata. Arajagata means recklessness in governments. So as I have been also travelling across the world, you also have travelled, the kind of government that is there makes a huge difference in society.
Like say if we consider from a practical material perspective, the western world is fairly well managed, although there is a lot of cultural licentiousness and at a basic level material things are taken care of, things work efficiently. Now it’s interesting in the Middle East, there is a certain level of religious theocracy is there but crime is fairly low, the punishments are quite severe and people at a material level are reasonably well kept. I won’t say this for all, everywhere in the Middle East but some countries.
So from a practical perspective, we could say what you are saying that the kind of rule that is there, it makes an immediate and often immense difference to people. And say if we are to talk with people, to connect with people, then what are their concerns, we need to be able to reflect on them, comment on them. Vishal Prabhupada also says in the first canto that I think preaching with realisation means to take the message of scripture and to consider the interest of the audience and to find some intersection between the two, that to present the message of Shastra in a way that is interesting.
So you can say politics is a matter of interest, interest both in the sense of some people have automatic interest in it but interest in the sense of importance because it has an impact on people. So in that sense, we can say it is important. Therefore again, therefore Krishna, again in the Bhagavad Gita you go back and see, even though material world is supposed to be a place of uncertainty, but still Krishna, he says yada yada dharmaseglani.
Whenever there is adharma, adharma means, another definition of adharma is lack of governance. Even in the tenth canto of the Bhagavatam, Shukadeva Goswami, when he starts narrating the stories of Sri Krishna, the pastimes of Sri Krishna, he doesn’t say oh because devotees are suffering, that’s an internal reality. He says because on the mother earth, many rakshasas in the form of the kings were causing harm to Bhoomidevi and therefore all the devatas headed by Lord Brahma along with Bhoomidevi approached.
So we cannot deny the shastric references in regards to governance. It’s an important people, even those who have no interest to it are benefited by good governance. Yes, true.
So now from a practical perspective, immediately if we consider today’s world, we can have two, three different situations. In England, Hinduism has a voice, maybe not as strong as Islam and the Krishna Iskcon is one of the prominent voices of Hinduism. So we have politicians within the Bhakti Mahant Manor and we are respected over there.
So it’s almost like what they told me is before elections, both parties, politicians, they come on one Sunday and they make their pitch after the Sunday feast and they have one election. The first party, one party will come first, the second election, the other party will come first, then the second party will come on second Sunday. So they are politically involved without being politically, taking political sides.
That’s one way of doing it. Another is what we saw in Bangladesh, that Hindus in general were affiliated with one particular political party. And after that government fell, there’s a lot of violence happening against Hindus.
How much of that violence is because of religious extremism? How much is it because of economic reasons? Because Hindus were reasonably well-to-do, because they’re hardworking or whatever. And how much is it political payback? It may be difficult to find out, but it does seem that getting involved in politics, especially in terms of taking one side, can have a lot of serious consequences. So should one be, if politics is important, but getting, should one stay neutral or should one not publicly take a stand towards one side or how should one be involved? Okay, so an example, just before I complete this, like in America, although they say secular, the church often does take positions.
And it is recently in this election, there was this Al Smith’s dinner where traditionally both candidates go there and the Democrat candidate didn’t go there. And that was seen as a snub to the Catholics. And Catholics seem to have not voted for the Democrat candidate over there.
So it does seem that there is a spectrum of how religions could be involved with politics. So the point is, you know, staying neutral is not possible. Neutral means you’ll always support the negative side, non-Dharmic side.
How is neutral to non-Dharmic? So we’ll discuss in our goal here is not about faith or faithlessness. Here we are discussing in regards to certain conservative values in regards to family structure, the society structure, the structure of empowerment. There are certain ideologies which are unfortunately anti-family, anti-structure.
Their ideas are based upon hardcore leftist cultural Marxism, which has deep roots in disruption. Right. So therefore, when we study, when we study governance in the Dharmic, in the Vedic literature, I would not support a king just because his faith is faith like mine only.
That is very narrow minded because faith, if it is not universal, will always cause destruction and violence. What happened in Bangladesh, what happened in Bangladesh is not because Hindus were aligned to one party, because in Bangladesh, the radical people are allowed to grow to such an extent, the Hindus are whether from this party or that party, they are attacked. So that is the reality.
So in UK, the principle may be a little different. The present political party, which is the Labour Party compared to the previous Labour Party, which lost the election, the previous Labour Party was ultra left. The present prime minister learned the lesson from it.
He is not openly, consciously anti, you know, anti capital, not hardcore left liberal. He is centric. Therefore, it is easier to entertain.
Otherwise, imagine somebody is coming to your institution. You know very clearly the ideology is there to destroy your institution. How in the world you can entertain him or her? It is not possible.
OK, I think you made a lot of points. Let me just try to unpack them one by one. So so you are saying that there are certain fundamental institutions or structures, like, say, the family itself, which are which are foundational for the functioning of society.
Yeah. Any government is run by an ideology that attacks that. Yes.
And it has to be opposed. It has to be in this case. It’s almost what you’re saying is that you always said to support somebody just because they share the faith would be narrow minded.
Yeah. So are we to somewhat differentiating between faith and ideology over here? Yeah. Yeah.
Here I’m talking about see governance, the governance. If you study Mahabharata, Mahabharata doesn’t focus so much on faith because faith is very private. The Mahabharata focuses on certain universal values, which is called as Dharma.
Right. What happened in Bangladesh was not connected to governance. It was connected to radical faith.
If you do not believe in my faith, I will destroy you. So you’re saying radicalism is what caused the violence and the change of government basically led to that radicalism getting some free rein. Yeah.
It is not so much the political affiliation. Yes. Yes.
OK. But then. So, again, in one sense, we could say faith and radicalism are two different things.
Not all faith has to be radical. Like, say, if you go to the Middle East, you know, the same religion might be there. But that kind of radicalism that are getting a minority, there’s some restriction of minority rights, but that kind of targeting is not there.
So it’s almost like radicalism is it’s like a mentality which can infect any faith, although it may infect particular faiths in particular ways. Yeah. OK.
So in Dubai, in the U.S., some of the countries, Dubai specifically, everyone thinks that everyone feels everyone is experienced. It’s the safest place. Yes.
And therefore, if you study carefully, the Dubai kings, even though they are extremely staunch about their own religion, but they are not necessarily imposing upon others who are not practicing it to the extent they are allowed to build a temple. OK. So there is no threat for those minorities.
Yes, they certainly cannot openly preach or do anything. But to practice and to grow financially, culturally has not been stopped. So is there something like radicalism mentioned in our Dharmic texts? In the nearest, I could come to that idea is what Krishna says, knowledge in the mode of ignorance in 1822, where you take one thing and make it into everything and then you reject and destroy everything which does not agree with it, reject it.
But is there something like Sankiranavada or whatever? Is there some mention of something like that? In Shastras, you never find that. In Shastras, up until whatever scripture, once the Sampradayas came into forefront. Right.
We see sometime isolated events happening in Kumbh Mela where the Shaivites and Vaishnavas fought. But these are not regular occurrences. It happened once in a while.
But in Shastra, you don’t see the followers of Vasishta for the sake of ideology fighting with the followers of Agastya Rishi. It doesn’t happen like that. There are intellectual debates, but they don’t generate into practical.
It would never generate into battle through the support of the king. That is unheard of. That is not possible.
You know, I read one interesting differentiation between philosophy and ideology. Philosophy is aimed for understanding. Ideology is aimed for changing and not in a positive sense.
Philosophy, because it is aiming for understanding, it takes into consideration nuances that things are complicated. But ideology, it shuts down nuances. These are good people.
These are bad people. So we could say that ideology itself, any kind of extremist or radicalist ideology, that is a challenge. That is a threat.
And then that has to be stopped at one level by the government. Individually, people have to stop it, but the government also has to stop it. Just like Singapore.
Yeah, Singapore has that idea. You practice whatever you want to practice. But if you’re trying to undermine others, slander others, it is a legal implication.
You’re not allowed to do that. Legally, you’ll be implicated. That’s a very interesting point.
Maybe they will have to come to this. That means, is criticism itself not allowed? Criticism is fine, but criticism leading to physical assault, physical aggression. That is not allowed.
See, in a public spot, the king says, the ruler says, in a public place, you do not do comparison. Because the public is a novice, public is innocent, public is basically naive. So, therefore, they are impacted by fiery presentation.
That gives rise to disturbance. Again, if you go back to study Sanatana Dharma, the debate would only happen with the educated people. Not with ordinary people.
With ordinary people, it’s more like you inflame their passions. And then they will lead to aggression and destruction after that. So, let’s put it conceptually, we can say, there is governance, which is like one circle, we can say.
Then there is ideology, that is another circle. And faith is the third circle. So, now ideology can be associated with particular religious faiths.
Ideology can also be atheistic or non-atheistic, like say Marxism is. But when any ideology starts influencing the government. Or starts attacking society or starts using the government to attack or control society.
Then that becomes a big threat. Yeah, that becomes a big threat. Therefore, in Sanatana Dharma, Shraddha is always there for testing yourself.
Not judging others. That’s beautiful. Yeah, okay.
You go deeper in the 12th chapter of the Bhagavad Gita. When Krishna said, You don’t see others whether they are Nirmama or not. You see yourself.
It’s a self-assessment. Yes. So, the way I sometimes put this is that, when you talk about Shraddha, I use religion also.
It’s more for improving and not proving. Yes, very good. You could say philosophy, we can have the debate.
Yes. But ideology will need to disrupt this. So, we could say that a government, there are three levels.
A government opposing ideologies. Any narrow radicalist ideology. A government letting the ideology continue on.
And the government being used by the ideology. So, both the second and the third are dangerous. The first is what is a healthy situation.
Yes. Okay. That’s a good way to see it.
Therefore, if you study, if you talk to anyone, The American election was not about whether one candidate was better than other candidate. We are not discussing about this person winning or that person losing. The victory of person called as Donald Trump, is not caused by his excellent performance.
Nor it is caused by the bad performance of the other party. That is, I cannot prove because I don’t have the statistics. Because every party will prove their statistics.
How they have done better, how other person has done bad. If you study carefully, the reason why the particular candidate lost the election, because imposing certain ideology, which was disruptive to the upkeep of a nation, a community and a society. Pope culture, disruptive, feministic idea, and gender neutrality, so-called gender neutrality, and cultural Marxism.
Okay. There are a lot of terms. Let’s unpack them one by one.
Yeah. So, cultural Marxism. I’ll just tell my understanding and then you elaborate it.
So, Marxism is basically the ideology that everybody should be equal. Equality is the highest value. And what ends up is state or the authority gets, the governing authority takes all the power, so that they can bring about equality.
But to do this, often they take tyrannical power. And then often the result of that is those people who are competent, those who are capable of rising, they are pulled down. And then those who are not qualified, they are raised up artificially and then society goes down.
So, that’s Marxism is basically trying to forcibly bring equality. Yes. Originally, it was economic equality.
But now, historically, this was through political means. That was what was tried in Soviet Russia and China. So, after that, slowly the strategies changed toward cultural Marxism rather than political Marxism.
But what I understand is Marxism, right? Or you would like to add something to it? Yeah, exactly. When Marxism basically started failing politically, they went through the whole principle of attacking through the education system, through the gender system, through the race system. That’s why it became a cultural Marxism.
And therefore, you see Marxism rather than, see there is a huge difference between liberals and Marxism. Liberals want to unite however they want. Marxism wants to create a division.
They want to make a category. Oppressed and oppressor. All the white, doesn’t matter whether you are oppressing or not, they are oppressor.
Black or oppressed, it doesn’t matter what they are, when they are. Similarly, Brahmanas, even he might be or she might be working in an ordinary family, earning very less. But because they are Brahmanas, they are oppressor.
And those who are so-called lower caste, it doesn’t matter whether they are prime minister, chief minister, CEO of the company, they will continue to remain oppressed. So, Marxism divides into two categories. So originally, when Marxism was fighting capitalism, it was wealthy and poor.
Those who own the means of capital and those who are not. But that fundamental categorization of victim, victimizer, or oppressor, oppressed, that is there. But now, the basis for that categorization has changed.
It’s like say, in America, it is whites and blacks. In India, it could be, the way it is coming is Brahmanas and non-Brahmanas, or whatever. So, cultural Marxism, what it tries to do is, use these boundaries or use this division to dismantle all social structures by saying that this structure is supporting the oppressors.
And therefore, this structure has to be destroyed. And then you said there is a difference between liberals and leftists or Marxists. The Marxists are concerned with equality at all costs.
Whatever be the expense for that. But the liberals are more concerned with autonomy. You have your right to express your opinion.
You do your thing, I’ll do my thing. You don’t harm me, I won’t harm you. So, America originally was functioning on this value of autonomy.
Like, let us do what we want to do. That’s how they broke away from the United Kingdom also, Britain. So, now you’re saying that the leftists, the cultural Marxism, that was the ideology that was defeated in this particular election.
So, can you explain further how that was the ideology that was at stake? If you study, there is a very nice book called Asteroids. I like to quote that book, written by Abhijit Jog. So, wherein he systematically explains, as you mentioned in the beginning of the talk, America, however many people hate America, but everybody wants to stay in America.
Whether the religious people or the leftist people. The Islamist or the Hindu leaders also. If there is an opportunity to settle in America, people from Vrindavan also will go to Texas and Dallas.
That’s an actual reality. That’s an actual reality. More people from these places have gone to West, rather than from the West, people have come and settled in Vrindavan or Mayapuram.
Statistically, when we see that. Even in the Second World War, when the Holocaust was happening, many people went and found shelter, like Einstein went to America. So, even there also.
So, therefore, and what is the principle of America as you mentioned? Yes, it has its own dirty hands, because of the original story, Native Americans. But at the same time, they created certain structure after that bloodshed, which empowered the people who stayed there and which also empowered the people who are coming from other parts of the world. One may say, but that empowerment has nothing to do with spirituality.
Of course, we are not saying it is to do with spirituality, but it has to do with proper lifestyle where people got to live, got to eat, got to educate, got to create some resources, you know, allowed them to do what they want to do. You know, compared to any other country in the world, you know, any organization, whether it is even the Islamist or Iskcon, they can openly practice their style of ideas, compared to any other country, right? So, that was basically… Sorry, Prabhupada could barely just go for 5 days to USSR, and there also, secretly he could just meet one person and do something. And it’s only after that Marxist ideology fell that Krishna Consciousness spread there.
But in America, not only could he preach, but also he got devotees from there who preached all over the world. So, resources, yeah. Therefore, the point is, when America was functioning like that, which was mostly whether you are republic or democrat, yes, republics were more conservative and democrats were more liberal.
But last 4 to 5 to 7, 10 years, if you study carefully, American institutions, American educational center, American schoolings, are heavily influenced by left, liberal, woke and radical feminism. Okay. So, let’s go over these terms one by one.
So, like left liberal we have discussed. By woke, now I’ll explain again what it means, you can add to it. So, woke was a term originally which had a somewhat positive connotation that somebody who is awake to the inequalities and injustice in society and that person is active to try to correct it.
But now it is mostly used by conservatives as a derogatory term. Like they say, go woke, go broke, companies which are subscribing to ideology. So, this ideology basically is something of radical equality that any kind of hierarchical structure is, traditional hierarchical structure is something which is problematic and that has to be disrupted and that has to be destroyed or even inverted.
So, for example, even in movies where there is a lot of woke ideology, traditionally somebody was a very powerful hero because that hero is a man that is shown as weak and powerless and a woman is shown as far more intelligent and more smart and physically also more capable of beating up opponents and it’s just unrealistic. So, woke basically is like, I’m saying it’s the same as cultural Marxism or are you using something else to mean wokeism? Cultural Marxism divides into feminism, wokeism and radical gender neutrality. So, that is the, yeah, it’s cultural Marxism is the philosophy which basically creates this sub-categories.
Now, with respect to radical feminism, I’d say that from what I have read, there are multiple generations of feminism also and the first generation was more like women should have basic rights, they should be able to hold money and they should have children, right to property or whatever. The second generation, now this generation is not very clear water kite, but second generation was that women should also hold jobs and not just traditional jobs but some other kind of jobs also which were not so traditional. Third was that women should be allowed to do everything that men are allowed to do.
I think the second, third generation started in more or less after the second world war when men went out to fight, so women had to take a lot of other roles. But the fourth generation or fifth generation, whatever it’s sometimes called, that is where it’s like women are not only equal to men but women are better than men at everything and men are trash and men should feel guilty for being men itself. Men are continuously demeaned and the success of women requires the demonization of men.
That is radical feminism. Okay. Yeah.
And specially last 5-6 years America was basically hounded by these ideologies to the extent where 8 year old child can decide about gender identity. For you to buy a paracetamol, you need a doctor’s prescription. But to decide your gender, you don’t need anybody’s support or guidance.
You know, I just couldn’t understand what was the rationale for this and who is benefited by it. But I read an article which said that basically because of this radical feminism which the left supported, the end result was that women are not having children. And how will the leftist ideology move onwards? So the way it will move onwards is through education and by freeing the children from the control of the parents.
Because in one sense, the education was quite indoctrinated by the left. But the parents will prevent too much of the indoctrination from coming on their children. So then it’s almost like the parents are seen as oppressors and the children are seen as oppressed.
So the children should be allowed to be free from the control of the parents. And one way they can achieve that freedom is through this whole gender ideology where a child can claim that, or a child starts feeling that I’m of a different gender. Not only can the child do that, but the child doesn’t even need the parents’ consent for doing that.
And in fact, if the parents don’t give their consent and the parents are opposed in any way, the child can be taken away, the parents can even be fined or jailed for that. This happened in California. They actually passed that kind of law also.
Yeah. So basically this is, in one sense, to continue the generations, to have future generations of people coming in. Because how would they, if they don’t reproduce.
So that was probably one reason why they’re targeting the children. And then they became arrogant about their idea. See, if you study Marx in his original psychology, what was the psychology of Marx? If you study Karl Marx’s life itself, Karl Marx was not an atheist.
He was a consciously hater of God. An anti-peace almost. He said, I’ll hate anything which is positive.
That’s his world. I hate anything which is positive. And his inspiration was a Lucifer, who was a satan.
It is not even ok in Vedic Sanatan Dharma. There are people who follow the Vedas but they are Anishwaravadis. They do not believe in God but even they are called as Astik.
But they are not disruptive element in the society. You know, they never want to destroy the family tradition. One of the greatest concern of Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita, in the first chapter, is all about family tradition.
Right? It is not generally considered important because it is just Arjuna’s concern initially. But it is a significant concern. It’s a very significant concern.
And Krishna does not dismiss that. Krishna just says that the way you are thinking it is going to be addressed, it won’t be addressed that way. Krishna did not debate with Arjuna’s reason.
Krishna was only debating with Arjuna’s decision. Decision regarding the strategy of how to address the concern. Not to fight the war.
Krishna had a problem in the third chapter. He says, I think that Varna Sankara will happen that He says that if you don’t do our duty even in our difficult times then society will get disrupted. So protection of the family tradition is important but what is the way to do that? That is the issue of deliberation.
It’s an important point. And therefore again to go back, so therefore if you see the people did not mind someone who is boastful. People did not mind someone who is aggressive.
People did mind in regards to those people who sounded very empowering but destructive of their tradition because human being when he is sober he is always conservative. That’s interesting. I read one place that almost everybody in youth is more left leaning but as they become older they become a little more right leaning.
Because you could say liberal or conservative whichever way. Because maybe in youth we have the idea that there is so much wrong in the world and I will fix it all. And this is wrong, we will disrupt this.
But as we grow older, I think two things happen. On one side we realize how limited is our capacity to change things for the better actually. If we are realistic, we realize that we are not God and we can’t change things so much.
And we also start seeing that there is much that is right about how systems are working. So in that sense you are saying that a sober person will be conservative or you are saying in some other sense? No, from that sense only because a sober person will realize unless I take responsibility what is Marxism and socialism? Basically making always somebody else responsible for their pain forever, eternally. They have to fix my problem because they caused it.
Marxism is a I read one place Marxism is a story which cannot survive without a villain. It does not need a hero but it needs a villain. Earlier you were saying about Marx saying that I hate everything positive.
One way I understood that is that he considered religion to be false. There is no God. But he thought that as long as people have hopes that their future life will be better then they will not work in this life to change things.
And that’s why they will not become aggressive. They will not become violent. In that sense he said religion is the opium.
So religion has to be rejected. I think it was Napoleon who said that it is religion that has stopped the poor people from cutting off the throats of the rich people. So in that sense can we say that religion or conservative social structures can perpetuate the inequality that is there in the society and there is a concern about that.
There is a difference. Here I am talking about conservatism is not connected to your faith. Hierarchical faith.
Here we are discussing about conservatism means ability to empower yourself. A discipline. Certain structure of life.
That is the definition of conservatism. Here Krishna is not speaking about I am superior, you are inferior. I am man, you are a woman.
You are a Brahmana, you are a Kshatriya. You are a white, you are a black. He is not talking about that.
Anyone who follows this principle he will be empowered. That’s interesting. So when you are using the word conservative you are using it for not a particular social structure but the basic social infrastructure that allows people to act responsibly to grow up and become responsible.
I think that is what America is a dark patch. I am not a fan of America. I will never become one.
America doesn’t fascinate me. But at the same time when you do critical thinking if you see anyone, whether it is spiritual community or a traditional Indian community or even the hardcore traditional people or the left people or the Chinese people or even the Islamists, why the hell they want to always go and settle in America? Because they can grow over there and they can get influence and they can come back and grow everywhere else also. It is a global trendsetter.
American founder fathers however good or bad in regards to their personal life they created a system where there was a greater transparency in regards to your physical growth your financial growth your prosperity. In this regard I cannot not give that credit to them. That is not the goal of life for sure 100% but still you have to live a life.
There is a gap between living a life and goal of life. Because to achieve that goal of life at least you need to have some space to live a life. So you can’t expect people who are basically recklessly governed badly managed they have nothing like in South America one of our IIM professor he visits regularly he was telling me when I go to South America I see two things, Jesus and poverty.
Everywhere statues of Jesus but at the same time such a poverty. So then the question is raised was Christianity responsible for prosperity? One may say by seeing America but the same Christianity is there in South America also in Africa also why that Christianity has not given them prosperity? The people are ruling also Christians only in fact most of the time the Popes they have come from Europe and South America also why there is no prosperity because there is a problem of governance. That’s a good point that there is this idea of what do they call it? Prosperity gospel that religion will lead to prosperity but it’s not a simple correlation there are many countries in Europe where protestant but only Britain became colonizing the world other countries did not succeed that much so you are saying that when we are talking about the politics in the sense of what is the system that is governing the society then that needs to be in such a way that it facilitates the basic needs of people then people can think of higher things in life and that does not intrinsically have anything to do with one’s faith in the sense of one’s religion the religion may influence it positively negatively or neutrally that depends so if we come to India to what extent was India’s prosperity because of its faith and to what extent was it because of say what would be the dharma or the virtuous kings or whatever so therefore the king is not defined by his faith.
King is always defined by his dharma right? In the Bhagavatam third canto when we read dharma when it is married to shraddha then only it gives rise to shubha you know faithful king without dharma is extremely radical and dangerous and dharmic king will have a faith because one of the components of dharma is shraddha but that shraddha will be helping him to grow not imposing others he will tell them to be faithful but he will not impose his faith on them you don’t see you don’t see that Vijayanagar kingdom are known for calling as they are Vaishnava kings. No some of their kings were Vaishnavas I think in our previous discussion you mentioned that over the generations the kings their ideology also their faith changed one king was a Vaishnava another became Madhava Vaishnava but that did not lead to any kind of persecution of the previous group that was their personal taste the personal taste did not become the system of the state ok so just to clarify dharma and shraddha just to make it more clear the difference between the two shraddha you are using it in the sense of one’s relationship with the divine it can have a particular conception of the divine and a particular conception of how one worships the divine so that is you are saying it is more private not in the sense that it is hidden but private in the sense that it is not what is imposed on others you do not as a governor as a king of the state or the prime minister of the country you cannot impose your personal faith into a state faith that could never happen the king may use the royal treasury to build grand temples that is not forcing people to go to the temple and worship deity that was not a legislation of the state ok and by dharma you are referring to how the values or the virtues by which society is organized and run yes so when we have this conception of Ram Rajya does it refer to dharma or does it refer to shraddha or is it a combination of both Ram Rajya refers to dharma Ram was a great king happened to be the avatar but if you study Valmiki’s Ramayana very clearly Valmiki’s Ramayana explains Sri Ramachandra consciously wanted to hide his identity as God to show people how much human being can grow the potential of the living entity could be realized through the stories of Lord Ram because he wanted to act as a Nara right therefore when he spoke to Bharat in Chitrakoot one of the most important discussion between Bharat and Ramachandra one simple logic Lord Ram says it doesn’t matter however much loves you unless you pay them their money at the right time they will rebel how practical and how realistic Lord Ram is imagine imagine you dedicate yourself to someone and that person who sees that you are dedicated he is being unfair to you not reciprocating with you you may not immediately rebel but in your heart there will be some kind of bitterness or I am doing so much but he is not reciprocating so that dedication is used for exploitation therefore Lord Ram is saying it doesn’t matter however close they are if you do not reciprocate with them it will give rise to rebellion eventually this is Dharma Dharma is common sense, Dharma is transparency Dharma is reciprocation Dharma is not exploiting others in the name of Guru, in the name of God in the name of religion, in the name of culture in the name of authority this is a fairly you could say a radical understanding of Dharma it’s not so much commonly talked about so when we say in this sense Dharma becomes almost you could say faith independent that the values of Dharma now specifics we could go into it but it’s interesting the way you are talking about it’s not specific that one should not there should not be any intoxication or corruption or things like that, sorry intoxication those specific behavioral aspects they are important but Dharma what you are referring to is more of what is required for people’s upkeep that will lead to the maintenance of society at a basic level and because that is there by nature a pious living entity, a Dharmic living entity will explore what is beyond this you know he or she will explore beyond the basic stability of life that gives rise to greater exploration but if you are if you are only struggling with basic necessities you are struggling with the mundane realities constantly, oh you abuse me, you abuse me you abuse me, you abuse me, so such people first of all they are not accepting the conservative values for them 2 plus 2 is equal to 4 also becomes an imposition they will say, we have seen many many young people they said 2 plus 2 is equal to 4 is nothing but racism, it is not subjective reality, why you are making it objective reality it should be a subjective reality Maths is racist was such an outrageous statement when I read it but their idea is that anything in which there seems to be greater capability of among some group of people and lesser capability in some group of people that itself indicates that this metric is created to ensure the superiority or the power of one particular ethnic group but who created it, that is the question we have to ask who created it it is a basic fabric of reality and we need to be able to function it’s a nature India doesn’t have a system where the Gujaratis, Sindhis and Marwadis should make money and rest nobody should make money it is there in their genes it is not law, prakriti the 70 to 80% of Indian army is all coming from those families whose ancestors died in the battlefield so this is considered a very politically volatile statement and I tell why it is but I appreciate what you are saying what you are saying is that particular groups of people may naturally be good at particular things and they may not be good at particular things so Thomas Sowell he writes about if a group of people have lived near a coast then naturally they will be good in maritime activities in making boats and shipping somebody has lived inland they will naturally not have developed that ability so what you are saying I understand what you are saying that genetically certain races or certain groups of people they will be good at certain things and this can lead to destructive interpretations if like say Nazism happened to do that we Germans are the best race we are the Aryans and the Jews are the scums of the earth and they need to be destroyed but we don’t have to go to that level of destruction that’s what they started making a system unfortunately they are making a system here they do not have a rule if you are a Maharashtrian you want to be a businessman nobody is telling you don’t do like that sometimes you are on family may discourage you it is not your job but the rule is not there if he chooses to do that he can break the so called belief system and prove otherwise even I can make money I can be a businessman I can be a warrior also so that opportunity the society the state and the Prakriti provides you may have to work little harder there is no rule made by God there is rule no rule is made by the Shastras but as you say when there is a large number of people coming from the same background they choose to become expert in that pool whether it is making money or giving up their life on the battlefield it is not convenient centric it is a disposition centric giving up life is not convenient there is no pleasure in that but still they will do the same thing so then the Varana system when it became by Janma was that more like a solidification of something which became too conservative and too rigid whenever people try to make that as a system when a human being interferes when he makes it a law only such people can do this that is a destruction of human empowerment so basically Dharma is that social arrangement by which people can make choices that enable them to live and then eventually enquire about the purpose of life it could be that certain groups of people genetically may be good at certain things and if they are they should be allowed to do that but that doesn’t mean that every member of that group should be forced to do that activity only so we could say a social system should facilitate choices but not force the choices you cannot make a rule it is never a rule if you study carefully even Mahabharata Ramayana there were kings who were not coming from a Kshatriya family because there is no such rule that only Kshatriya has to be a king even though generally it was said a Kshatriya would be a king but it was never a rule the great Nishadaraj he was called as Raj Nishadaraj Guha Guha had an army the king of the Kishkindhas they are called as Vanara they are not even considered as a human being Vanara there is an exclamation question mark what kind of human beings are you they are almost called as monkeys even though they are not monkeys at one point of time mother Sita angrily calls Hanumanji like that but they were powerful kings where Vali Ravana who is supposed to be a Brahmana befriended Vali Naladamayanti story he is not a Kshatriya king if you study carefully the story of Naladamayanti goes beyond Mahabharata also so therefore there was a facility for people to do something beyond so called categorization and again repeatedly what I am saying and in this last because we are supposed to discuss the whole left media the disruptive liberal the destructive feminist gender neutrality they wanted to create a law and a system and they were so arrogant about this to such an extent they did not even a primary contest for the democrat president they thought whatever we choose will be selected will be elected and they were confirmed that she is ahead of the other party candidate also when you become so arrogant about your own conviction and you take the citizens for granted they are hit very hard ya so basically the way you are putting it this election was an attempt by the cultural Marxist ideology to basically weaponize the government to pursue its agenda and the results of the elections are a push back or a blow back against that very much and therefore again you go back to American value system in regards to in regards to living there is supposed to be relative freedom where you can discuss anything unlike the Islamic state unlike the communist states unlike the traditional Christian state also even though apparently many Americans follow Christianity right still there was this facility that see when Hindus complained oh there is so much of racism in America then why the hell are you there in the first place any dominating society will tease you it is a reality of any country wherever you go even if you go to Somalia or if you go to Uganda or if you go to for that matter Cambodia where their resources are very less I am talking from the resources point of view they will also exhibit certain kind of superiority that’s a human nature you are not going to get the resources and treated fairly also all the time you have to fight it out so that has got nothing to do with racism or anything like that anybody who goes there are people who are natively living there and people who are coming from outside there will naturally be a concern so it doesn’t have to be anything to do with racism even if it is not born out of concern especially in the villages when somebody if he is not from that village and tries to settle they will be not welcomed very easily it takes time that is the nature of human existence wherever you go it doesn’t matter wherever you go it doesn’t matter white, black the slaves were also traded by the black people if you read the book black rulers one black tribe enslaved other blacks and then they sold them to the white ships who came and took them that is true so doesn’t this lead to a tribal mentality where one tribe is fighting against another tribe constantly what is the way to prevent that so therefore again in the governance the tribe becomes tribe is in the background merit is in the forefront is it not when the merit is in the forefront tell me how is it possible for the society to function when there is a there is a facility based upon my person I will only use my person in the name of diversity in a professional company in the name of diversity you are compromising with the quality how will that company make a profit very simple right but if you focus now I want people who can perform very well I want people who manage very well I want people who are basically creative it doesn’t matter whether they are man, woman, in between black, white, blue, green doesn’t matter those who follow this principle that is called as a conservative values conservative values is fact based left liberal Marxism is all based upon feelings and imagination it will bound to fail there is not one country where left ideology has survived and flourished it is not possible what about China China is for the sake of controlling the citizen using the communist philosophy but for the progress it uses all capitalistic ideas only interesting I think that’s a whole different question but I agree that China cannot be simply called as leftist absolutely not the system of governance may be leftist but it is not taking any of the leftist ideas like gender all those things which are going to destabilize the social structure China even though is leftist hardcore nationalistic country any other place whether it is India whether it is America once you become a leftist you hate your nation what kind of idea is that when the country which is Russia at any given point of time even the old KGB people are still there but they are not anti-Russians they are pro-Russians why in India why in America when you become a leftist you hate your own country you call I hate America that’s interesting so what is your explanation what is the point why is it that in those particular countries leftism does not lead to anti-nationalism because they have only taken only that much of left ideology which will keep people under their grip while using that for increasing their power of nationhood so then you can say that the ideology is not ruling the government but rather the government is using the ideology right and whatever be the ideology if the government creates the conditions for basic human flourishing then the society will flourish so I think maybe one last point we will discuss and this will be a bigger discussion but it seems that now currently the idea is democracy is the way to go for society to flourish America has tried to bring democracy to Afghanistan to Iraq and it has tragically backfired in many ways so it seems when we talk about Dharma it doesn’t necessarily have to be wedded to a particular governing system it is more in terms of the effect that is coming like you talk about Singapore or we talk about the middle east if basically the conditions for human flourishing are created then that itself is one good thing independent of whatever be the faith or the ideology ruling the people of the ruling people rather ok so what is it that we can most of our viewers are going to be Indians so how does all this matter for us Indians maybe we could discuss this more in a future podcast but broadly speaking is this a concern you feel for India also about the attack of ideology yes very much because if you study you know this could be another discussion in India almost all the Hare Krishna’s are right wing in America almost all the Hare Krishna’s are left liberal yes you know this is the point we can discuss in the future why it is like that because it is but natural for the Indians you know again when we see the conservative values we want our family structure to be maintained we want our culture to be maintained we want our faith to be maintained we want another very important principle which one army officer told me one of the core character of conservative values not talking about the religious faith centric conservative values life centric conservative values is Aditi Satkar the respect of the guest no Matra Devo Bhava, Pitra Devo Bhava Acharya Devo Bhava, Aditi Devo Bhava that is the convocation address given by the teacher students in the Taittiriya Upanishad so therefore one of the most important principle I remember reading somewhere I think Will Durant explains Will Durant or whether in this book only termites that both Christianity and Islam I am talking about that Christianity which focused more on faith rather than human values when you focus on faith then you always give a post dated check so therefore somebody mentioned one western philosopher only Christianity and communism what is the common point in them Christianity is the spiritual side of communism and communism is a communism is the material side of Christianity both are promising a future paradise one in another world but in the future and then another very interesting point he mentioned both when you focus on faith alone then you do not care breaking the families the left ideology breaks the family a radical Christian or Islam also breaks the family therefore again one scholar said that God made family man made religion or systems or organization or institution the purpose of institution is to make family structure stronger not that the family structure are broken by the institutions therefore those values those values if you study now you know what was the main propaganda of the republic party compared to their typical hardcore radical conservative ideas religious conservative ideas there are many people like that any country any community any society will be very radical some people but in this time whatever I studied they were focusing on the conservative values of protecting the family caring for their children caring for their culture and even the Vivek Ramaswamy openly said I am a Hindu otherwise some of the some of the republicans who are Indians have converted to Christianity so that they get a political mileage but this man one may like him or dislike him but he said I am an assertive Hindu he spoke that there are only two genders the parents are responsible for the growth of the children family is important when he said like that even the hardcore Christians were appreciating these values rather than saying he is a Hindu how can we appreciate him yes there are some people who said like that but generally most number of the people they accepted this principle because these principles are beyond Christianity these principles are beyond Islam these principles are beyond Vaishnavism they are rooted in the Dharmic ideas Dharma therefore is universal that’s a good point you know in one of the interviews he said I am striving to be I am seeking to be the commander in chief not the pastor in chief of America there is a clear differentiation between the two just to go back to this point before you conclude what you were saying is that with respect to the ideology that family is something created by God means it’s just naturally going to occur because reproduction and other things are just a way the society survives species survives and then beyond that whatever other systems are created so like a particular form of you could have democracy you could have monarchy you could have whatever form of government we have that is created by human beings and that should empower not disempower or destroy this yes so I will try to quickly summarize and then that will give the trajectory for future discussions so basically we try to discuss about why is it important when we comment on politics it is that there is no such thing as political neutrality because politics affects everyone and in that sense it’s a matter of concern for us and if there is rather than focusing on taking sides with respect to particular parties we need to look at the underlying values and see which are the values which at a basic level lead to the flourishing of human beings like basic living and then looking at the purpose of living thereafter and radicalism is a threat to society and the basic structure of society and when radicalism comes it can come through religion as it might be Islamic radicalism or it could come through atheism like Marxist radicalism but if it weaponizes the government then it becomes a huge threat even if the government allows it to continue that also is a threat in one sense dharma is the set of values that enable people to flourish at a basic level and then seek a higher meaning in life and the government should be such that it protects dharma and one way of protecting dharma is fighting off radicalism radicalist ideologies and then shraddha is personal one can profess one shraddha like the kings would build temples but practicing even publicly one shraddha is different from imposing it on others so when it starts imposing it becomes radicalist so here the ideology that was coming applying all this to the American elections the ideology that was trying to weaponize the government that was the cultural Marxism where you divide society into oppressors and oppressed and see every problem in society as a prism so whether it be the prism of race or in India it could be caste it could be even of parent and child or male female gender or even the very concept of gender from birth and this ideology became a threat to the basic functioning of society like the family is the basic unit and if children the parents don’t have the right to protect and guide their children then that becomes a big threat so these election results independent of what is the personality of particular candidates and whatever particular limitations they might be having what we can see is that this was a pushback against the radical ideologies and within the broad Vedic tradition we have the understanding that in Anutasan Parva you mentioned first there has to be a good king then a good family and then a good source of living so in the Vedic tradition shraddha and dharma were separated and Ram Rajya is more about dharma than about shraddha and for us like you talked about America being sought by people even people who hate it because there dharma in the sense of the basic values for flourishing are created by the government system and that’s why people want to go there and then use those resources so for India also there could be an ideological threat that we need to be aware of and that we need to push back against you know it would be we explore how leftist ideology has affected America it could be interesting to explore how it has affected India also one aspect of the effect you discussed was how in the leftist countries leftism did not make people anti-national in Russia and China but that’s what it does in America or India also so overall what we can see is that family is a basic structure created by God it’s natural people may have natural relations so whatever social structures are there they should facilitate the natural system like family or the natural abilities of people like people from particular communities may have particular abilities but facilitating is one thing, forcing is another so when the government system whether it is democracy or monarchy when it empowers the natural systems that lead to human flourishing then such systems are positive and they can be accepted and they are what will help society to move forward in today’s world any concluding comments you want to add? thank you for a nice summarization because we were too abstract today that’s how next discussion will happen as you mentioned you summarized everything ideology should not be weaponized and Marxist ideology is meant to be weaponized unfortunately so anything which is radical, control freak they will try to control in the name of liberty in the name of empowerment they will take away the human freedom community freedom, family freedom and then make it a machine which will only think what they want us to think and that is what the American election was all about we are not talking from the who is ruling from the ideology perspective today we were only discussing ideology not necessarily the candidate because that is none of our faultier strength thank you so much Hare Krishna Hare Krishna