Appreciating the nuances of words and communicating effectively
Disclaimer: This transcript was generated using AI and may contain occasional errors or inaccuracies.
Hare Krishna. Today morning I'll discuss on the topic of appreciating the nuances in communication. So in discussion, here the topic is going on is that Daksha has provoked Lord Shiva and great danger is about to befall him.
And in that context the word Mahatma is used to describe Daksha. So now the Acharya is commenting on what does the word Mahatma refer to. So as I mentioned that the word Mahatma, here Virag Acharya says that he was so steady that even when his own daughter was killing himself, he was not disturbed.
And the Acharya says that actually the word Mahatma is used sarcastically. What kind of great soul is this that he offends a great soul? He's not actually a great soul. Although some people might consider him to be a great soul.
So I'll talk about this specific incident. But more I'll talk about three broad points that how the context, the tone and the usage and the word usage all can convey a meaning different from the direct meaning. Normally Shri Prabhupada was not very favorable to indirect interpretations.
But it is understood within Mimamsa that especially Mimamsa is concerned with interpretations. So that we have to always look at what a sentence means and whether it makes sense. So for example if we say that they had a river on the house, sorry they had a house on the river.
Now a house cannot be on the river. That means the house is on the banks of the river. This is a straight forward example.
Now if we consider, I can easily think about at least three to five very common context in the Bhagavad Gita where the words do not mean what they literally mean. One example is, यानिशा सर्वभूतानां तस्यां जागति सिञ्यं यस्यां जागति भूतानि सानिशा पश्यतो मुने That is night for all living beings is day for the self-realized. And that is night for the self-realized is day for all living beings.
Now if we consider day and night as markers of time, they don't change for everyone. And that is the normal straight forward meaning of those words. But that is not the meaning that is used over here.
Here day refers to the time of perception and the time of action or the area of perception and the area of action. So Prabhupada makes it very clear in the Purport that materialistic people, people in general are materialistic and they are interested in sensual activities. So that is their area of action and perception.
That's what we see clearly, that's what they want to act energetically. But that is the period of lack of perception and lack of action. Or we can say lack of interest and lack of action.
Spiritually they are not interested in that. So this is an example of non-literal meaning. The literal will make no sense.
Similarly, in that same second chapter itself, प्रग्यस्य का भाषा समाधी स्थस्यकेशेवर् सिद्धी किम प्रभाषेत किमासीत वरजेत कि So how does a self-realized person speak? How does a person talk? How does a person walk? How does a person sit? And now, a self-realized person is not a fashion model. Is it? So how does the person sit? How does the person walk? There are no defining characteristics of self-realized person. So here, आसीत and वरजेत, how does a person sit and how does a person walk, refers not physically sitting and walking, it refers to how the person, sitting refers to the कर्णेन, the इन्द्रिया's being inactive.
That means how does one restrain the senses. And walking refers to the senses being active. So how does one engage the senses? Similarly, later on we see that there is, त्रिविधं नर्कस्येदं द्वारं नाशनं आत्मणः Three gates to hell, they destroy the soul.
Now fundamental teaching of the Bhagavad Gita is, अविनाशितो तद्विधि The soul is never destroyed. And this आत्मः, that comes also in the Ishopanishad. Actually in the 16th chapter, twice Krishna uses this word, that द्वारं नाशनं आत्मणः he comes, and this is 16.21. And before that in 16.9 he says, एताम् दृष्टिमवश्टभ्य नश्टात्मानो अल्पबुद्धयः नश्टात्मानो That they destroy the soul.
Now here the word soul and destruction are used in a non-literal sense. They are saying that, that means one's spirituality, one's ability to pursue spiritual reality, one's spiritual faculty, that gets deaded when one lives. Either it can happen because of either desires or doubts.
Desires come from the mind, doubts come from the intelligence, and both of them can block the soul. So for 16.9 Krishna is talking about how doubt, the materialistic world view can, the atheistic world view can completely cover over one's spiritual intelligence. And similarly, he talks about how the materialistic desires, lust, anger, greed, can cover over a person's spirituality.
So either way, a person just doesn't perceive anything properly. And especially when one starts using intelligence to rationalize what one is doing, then it becomes very difficult for such a person to come out of that illusion. Some people are lazy.
But they will never admit that they are lazy. I am in a power-saving mode. Okay, it's good to save power, but you save power for some purpose.
It's a, if you want to make some important phone call, then we don't have enough charge. We put our phone in the power-saving mode. But after power-saving, power-saving is not an end in itself.
Power-saving is a tool by which we can use the power for something else. But lazy people, they don't use their power for anything. So when the intelligence starts justifying things, then it's much more dangerous.
So in that sense, materialistic desires are not as dangerous as materialistic ideologies. Because materialistic ideologies, they subvert the intelligence itself. But anyway, the broad point is through these three examples in the Gita itself.
And there are dozens and dozens of examples in the Bhagavatam, which we could go into. The point is that the literal usage does not necessarily convey the actual meaning. And if we look at our own communication, we often use metaphors.
Metaphors are implied comparisons. Say for example, he walks like a king. Here there is an explicit comparison.
He walks like a king. The word like means this is compared to this. So this is an implied comparison.
This is called a simile. So this is an explicit comparison. It's called a simile.
And when the comparison is implied, it is called a metaphor. Now time is money. Now literally, time and money are not the same.
They are two very different things. But whenever some implicit comparison is done, the idea over there is that to understand that comparison, we have to actually see what is the essential point that is being said over there. So what is the basis of the comparison? On that point, the two of them are equal.
So if we understand that, then the comparison starts making sense. Otherwise, the comparison doesn't make sense. So the literal attributes don't.
So for example, if somebody says, people sometimes have a perverted interest or they sometimes perversely stress something else. So now is not the time to make jokes. So if somebody is having a serious discussion, somebody starts being frivolous, now is not the time to make jokes.
And when is the time to make jokes? The whole point is lost. Then you say that, the point is be serious right now, not ask when to be frivolous. So sometimes the stress of the communication, if it is not understood, then people can take some other meaning entirely from it.
So if you consider the word Mahatma itself, its literal usage doesn't make sense. The Atma is described as Anu. Now that description is also not literal.
Because if you say that the soul is 110,000th tip of a hair, now how do you quantify a tip of a hair? Is it this much? Is it this much? Is it 1mm? Or is it 10mm? Or is it 0.1mm? So how do you quantify? In one sense, there is great precision, 110,000. But the number of which we are talking 110,000, that is not very precise. So what does it mean? It means essentially that the soul is very small, extremely small.
But anyway, whatever the specific dimension of the soul, the point of the soul is very small. So the soul, the Atma is Anu. Then how can the Atma be Maha? How can that soul be great? So here the greatness refers not in size, but in disposition, but in consciousness.
That the greatness is that the soul is living according to great values. The soul is conscious of great things. And ultimately the soul is conscious of the supremely great thing, that is Krishna.
It is interesting that Krishna refers to devotees as Mahatmas in the Bhagavad Gita. The word Mahatma comes twice in the Bhagavad Gita, in Krishna's speech, primarily twice. So those who have surrendered to Krishna, such souls, understanding Krishna to be everything, they are very rare.
This is 7.19. And then, after that again in 9.13 and 9.14, when Krishna talks about the great souls. He says that, 9.13, Now interestingly, after talking about the devotees of the Mahatma, at the end of the Bhagavad Gita, Sanjay also uses the word Mahatma. He says, In this way, I have heard the conversation between the great souls, Mahatmas.
The conversation between, the dialogue between Vasudev and Partha. Both of them are Mahatmas. Now literally we could say Krishna is the supreme being and he is Mahatma.
And Arjun, because in the previous verses he has surrendered to Krishna, he is a devotee of Krishna. And Krishna has said, the devoted are also Mahatmas. So therefore he is using the usage over there.
But the Mahatma, most of the time when it is used to refer to a particular soul, it is not in terms of size, but in terms of conception, of disposition, of values, of consciousness. So those who are Mahatma, those who are great souls, are ones who are devoted to great values. And the greatest value is the supreme being, Krishna.
Now, there are on the spiritual path, two visions of greatness. We could say one is, the vision of greatness comes from detachment from material things. Somebody is very detached from material things, that person may be considered to be great.
But that is the, we could say, material conception of greatness. At one level, if somebody possesses a lot, they may be considered great. On the other hand, if somebody renounces a lot, they may be considered great.
But the spiritual or devotional understanding of greatness is determined not by how much materially detached we are, but by how much spiritually attached we are. At one level, we could say that spiritual attachment will naturally lead to material detachment. But there can be exceptions in the sense that, we say, Puntarik Vidyanidhi lived in opulence.
But still, he was greatly devoted to them. So, sometimes there might be a pauper who lives in, who might be greatly devoted. And there might be a wealthy person who might be greatly attached.
But it could be also very opposite. The wealthy person might be detached and the poor person might be attached. So, these both, in some people or in the standard spiritual path, both will go together.
There will be material detachment and there will be spiritual attachment. But sometimes, apparently there is no material detachment, but still there is spiritual attachment. And sometimes there is material detachment, but there is no spiritual attachment.
So, if you consider the combination, if you would have a diagram with four parts in it, we could say that the materialists are materially attached and spiritually detached. The sahajiyas are materially, they are spiritually attached and materially attached. The devotees are materially detached and spiritually attached.
And the mayavadis are materially detached and spiritually detached. So, I will repeat this, in case of material attachment and material detachment, spiritual attachment and spiritual detachment. So, material attached, spiritually attached, that is sahajiyas.
Materially attached, spiritually detached, that is materialists. materially attached, spiritually detached, that is materialists. Then we have materially detached, spiritually attached, that is devotees.
And materially detached, spiritually detached, that is Mayavadis. So now what happens, why we are talking about this here is that although sometimes a person might appear to be materially detached, but they may not be materially detached. So here when the word Mahatma is used, V. Raghavacharya is saying it in the sense that he is so indifferent to worldly things that even when his wife, his daughter is killing himself, he is staying equipoised.
So in that sense someone might consider him to be a Mahatma. But actually, there can be material detachment or there can be appearance of material detachment, not because the person is materially detached, but the person is detached from one material thing because they are so attached to another material thing. So in this case, Daksha was so attached to considerations of honour, to considerations of honour that I have been dishonoured and how dare anybody dishonour me.
That even if his daughter was killing himself, it is not that he was detached, materially detached. His emotion was so caught in his prestige considerations that he felt no emotion towards his daughters. So one of the common complaints, if you interact with Western world, I have been spending almost 7-8 months, last 2-3 years in America and Western world.
So there are some conceptions about Indians in India. It is very striking, in the West, people have a very good opinion of Indians and a very low opinion of India. Indians are hardworking, responsible, talented, successful.
In fact, one of my friends, another person who came to one of my programs, he is a traffic cop. So he is telling that if we catch an Indian speeding, we normally just let them off with a warning because Indians in general are law abiding. But India people have stereotypes.
India is a very unclean place. India is the land of snake charmers. It is very strange.
I have lived in India for more than 40 years. I don't remember seeing more than 4 snake charmers in 40 years. And to say India is the land of snake charmers.
India has more software engineers than America, Europe, Australia combined together. But anyway, so one such stereotype here is of honour killings. That Indians are so conscious of honour that if in their family, if their daughter marries somebody outside their family, then these Indians, they will even kill the girl and kill the boy because they consider the honour more important than the life.
So they are so conscious of their honour that they cut off all connection, all affection for their daughter also. Now this can happen and this sadly does happen. But if you consider the sheer population of India, as compared to that how many such incidents happen, it is infinitesimal.
But there is a tendency that just now we have taken a group of about 25 youths to Vrindavan, 25 western yogis, they are here also now. So after our trip to Vrindavan, we asked them their experience. And one of them said that he thought that India, everyone lives in slums.
And that was the idea. India is a poor country. Yes, there is poverty in India.
There are so many stereotypes that come up. So yes, poverty at least you could understand because large number of people are poor. But this kind of honour killings, they happen, but there is a very very small percentage.
It is like suppose some kind of caste violence happens somewhere in Bihar or UP. And you say India is filled with caste violence. Well, you see Mumbai, Pune, there are so many metropolitan cities, where so many times people work with each other, especially in private companies, where people don't even know each other's caste.
So it is a stereotype. So now this is, if you see Bhagavatam talks about, this is not honour killing, in the sense that it is not that Daksha had orchestrated the killing of his daughter. But the point is, some cultures are so honour centred, that all ordinary human affection also is forgotten over there.
So in this case, he was not detached. He was attached, but he was attached to something material. And because of that, he became apparently detached from something material.
So prestige can be a great intoxicant. Just like when a person becomes intoxicated, the person forgets everything. Similarly, when a person becomes very conscious of prestige, prestige can be a great intoxicant, which makes people forget everything else.
So a devotee from Russia was telling that at a time when there's a lot of people were getting hooked to vodka in Russia, in USSR. So they had an awareness campaign. And there was a short video clipping they had made.
So there was this, the news was showing, the video was, the news was showing that the vodka prices have increased. So then a son of an alcoholic, they are sitting in a family together and he says, oh dad, now that the prices of alcohol and vodka have increased, will you drink less? And his father says, no, you will eat less. That means somebody can become so desensitized.
It's not that they're so attached to their alcohol, that normal human affection for the child can also be lost. Just as somebody might become attached to alcohol like that, somebody can become attached to intoxication, to prestige like that. So yes, being so indifferent, even to one's own daughter's death, that is a sign of detachment.
But it is not that all detachment is desirable. There are times when we should be emotionally involved. We should be concerned.
If you're not concerned, then that is a concern. If we are not concerned, sometimes it's a concern. So when Narasimhadev gets angry on seeing how Prahlad has been tormented and threatened by his father, that anger is an ornament.
That anger indicates that the Lord loves his devotees. Similarly, if devotees are blasphemed, other devotees get, they say, we should not just stay indifferent over there. Now, how we express our anger, whether it is arguing with them or countering them or clarifying, that will vary from situation to situation.
We can't just impulsively act on the anger. In fact, in this particular situation, at one level, when Shiva was offended or disrespected, for the followers of Shiva to get angry was understandable because their guru has been offended. But even anger needs to be expressed in a way that makes things better, not worse.
So if somebody has spoken something wrong and we lash out at them and they lash out at us, and we make things worse, then that anger is not solving the issue. The principle is not just get angry and go on a tirade against somebody who is offending a devotee. But rather, don't be emotionally uninvolved, thinking that nothing matters.
We should be emotionally connected with devotees, with Krishna, and we should feel concerned, agitated, and we should take some constructive action. What that action will be, will vary. So, in that sense, in some cases, detachment may be undesirable.
Just like the Mayavadis, detachment from Krishna is undesirable. So, detachment can be undesirable. And in this case, the other Acharyas explain that the word Mahatma is used in a sarcastic sense.
That he was such a great soul that he couldn't even see his own daughter dying. He was such a great soul that he could not see the greatness of Lord Shiva. So now, we may say that we may do something wrong and not care.
Sometimes when our vision becomes captivated by something, then we don't see other things. We are so captivated by prestige consideration that we do not see that it is offending Shiva. But there are laws that act in nature.
And we may forget gravity, but gravity won't forget us. If somebody steps out of a 10-storey building, forgot about gravity. It's going to crash.
So, like that, when he offended Lord Shiva, now the reaction came. So, when the reaction came, at that time, even Daksha is disturbed. So, actually, what we get disturbed about also reveals what we consider as valuable.
In the Mahabharata, when Draupadi is being dishonored, Vidura repeatedly warns Dhritarashtra, stop this calamity, otherwise your whole dynasty will be destroyed. But time and time again, Vidura goes to Dhritarashtra and Vidura does not listen. Even after the attempt to disrobe Draupadi has been baffled mystically by her robe expanding unlimitedly, still, the Kauravas' evil determination doesn't stop.
And then the Kauravas say, okay, take her to our inner chambers and she will like a maid, sweep our floors. And at that time, Vidura tells Dhritarashtra that, okay, disaster is about to befall you now. He said, that sacrificial fire which you had lit and which you always kept lit throughout your life, that has suddenly gone off.
And that shakes Dhritarashtra. What? How did the sacrificial fire get extinguished? And then he says, stop this. And then he tries to seek, he tries to mollify Draupadi by saying that, I had called this match only to test the skills of the two families.
And if Gandhari and I have done any good to you, please overlook the actions of my sons. And he gives the whole kingdom back to them. Of course, Duryodhana comes and pressures him again.
And then they have a gambling match. And at that time, everything is lost. But the point is, what causes a person an alarm also reveals what they consider as valuable.
Now, what we consider as a danger reveals what we treasure. So, he did not treasure his daughter. He allowed his daughter to die.
But when this disastrous omen started coming, he became extremely agitated. So, his material attachment is revealed when he becomes very disturbed by all this. Now, going back to the point of use of the word Mahatma, See, scripture always has to be understood in context.
If you don't consider context, then the same meaning, the same words can be used to mean very different things. If somebody says, I love you, that has one meaning. And somebody says, I love you, and puts a question mark behind it.
The whole meaning changes. First is, I love you is a statement. Second is, you think I love you, but I don't love you.
It's a completely different meaning. So, this is an example of how one punctuation can change meaning. And sometimes, if you see Sanskrit, the language becomes a little ambiguous, because there are not that many punctuation marks in Sanskrit.
Of course, that is a sense of its efficiency. The more punctuation marks are required, that indicates that the innate construction of the language does not have that clarity, because of which the punctuation marks are required. But, the example of our punctuation can completely invert the meaning.
A standard example is given in English texts. For example, there are these six words. Woman, without her man, is incomplete.
Now, a group of men and a group of women were asked to punctuate the sentence. And all the men punctuated it as, woman, without her man, is incomplete. That means, a woman is incomplete if she doesn't have a man with her.
And the men punctuated it as, woman, without her, man is incomplete. So, first is that a man is incomplete without a woman. The second is, woman is incomplete without a man.
It's completely opposite. So, the punctuation can change the sense of something. So, punctuation is a part of the context in which a statement is being made.
The context, the tone, tone in which something is said also conveys whether you are being sarcastic. So, if somebody is very manipulative, somebody is very cunning, somebody is very self-serving, and then somebody tells, you are a genius. Now, you are a genius.
Hey, you are being sarcastic, isn't it? So, initially we think, oh, I am a genius. But, somebody may say that, you are such an evil person. You are an evil genius.
So, we have to look at the tone in which something is spoken. Now, this is a challenge. When we read scripture, what we have is the text with us.
And in the text, the tone is often not conveyed. So, this is also something very important when we study Prabhupada's books. I was with His Holiness Giriraj Maharaj.
He is writing a book on the Juhu project now. It's a magnificent book, almost 800 pages. The full biography of how the project started and how it culminated, Prabhupada wanted him to write that.
So, we have been discussing about Prabhupada. I have been helping in some way in editing that book. So, we have been discussing various things about how the book is, how Prabhupada's mood was.
And he said that, for example, Prabhupada sometimes seems to have made some strong statements about women being less intelligent. Now, of course, if you see the total number of statements he has made, as compared to that, these are not that many. If you look at the sheer number of words Prabhupada has spoken, these are relatively few.
But still, they seem to be significant. Now, he said that, wherever Prabhupada said these things, he said, I went back and heard the audio recordings, wherever it was available. If it's a conversation which Prabhupada said, I heard the conversation.
If it was a purport, relatively speaking, purport also Prabhupada has spoken a few times. I heard the dictaphone recordings of the purports. And he said, after hearing this, not once did I notice that Prabhupada had this sense of negativity, of derision, of condemnation, of minimization, when he was saying these things.
And he said, then it struck me, when I looked at the context and understood, he said that, actually, Prabhupada is not saying this to women, he is saying this to men. And the idea is, Prabhupada often compares women are less intelligent and they are like children. The idea is, men should become more responsible and men should take up the responsibility of taking care of women, of protecting women, of doing whatever is necessary to protect and facilitate women.
So, the statement is, you hear the tone and the context, the meaning becomes very different. Otherwise, it seems to be like a minimization of women, but it is a call for men to take responsibility. And unfortunately, in much of today's analysis of Prabhupada's statement, there are hardliners who use it to try to push women down to particular stereotyped roles.
They say they should not be doing anything else. And others who are critical of our movement, they use it to say that how Prabhupada was against women, was almost misogynistic against women. Now, neither of those is true, because none of Prabhupada's female disciples, I have talked with many of them, none of them said that they felt that Prabhupada discouraged or minimized them in any way.
So, if you just look at the statement in isolation, without considering the context, the tone, it's so critical. It's so critical of women. In fact, this can become a big issue.
Now, if you see, Prabhupada has made some statements about Negroes. Now, the word Negro itself has become like an untouchable word today. You cannot use that word.
Now, if you consider thousands and thousands of words that Prabhupada has spoken, the word Negro hardly ever uses the word. And Prabhupada actually was the first person to make an African-American into a prominent leader in our movement. And our movement as a person has got African-American gurus also.
So, there's no discrimination. But if you just look at Prabhupada's statements, especially if you go on Veda Vais and just search for the word Negro, then such statements come up that they completely give a very racist understanding of Prabhupada. So, in fact, now the devotees are working so that if anybody… The statements are such that… I talked with leaders from South Africa and they said that those statements come out, our movement can get banned in Africa.
So, they are now trying to do it in such a way that if somebody logs into Veda Vais and we can find out they are logging in from Africa, then we block out all the search for Negro over there. It's difficult to do that, but it's possible with technology. So, the point is that decontextualize… So, what happens when you do a search, then we just look for those statements, this is like this, this is like this, this is like this.
So, then we are not looking at the context. Even if you look at one sentence before, one sentence after, just reading one sentence before and one sentence after is not the context. It is actually to understand the context, you have to read the whole… Read Prabhupada systematically, otherwise we can misunderstand.
So, context is critical for comprehending content. And especially in today's world where we have sound bites. Sound bites can be taken and they can be circulated.
Somebody can just take one sound bite from some talk and circulate it on social media. This person is like this, this person is like this, see this person is doing this. It can become bad.
So, today is the age of decontextualized communication. And it can be very, very dangerous. But in general semantics, the study of meaning requires understanding context.
And there is stone, as I said, which also conveys us, which is the part of the context. And of course, there are figures of speech. Sometimes it's spoken, something is spoken in a rhetorical way.
So, Prabhupada also had a great sense of humor. And because of his sense of humor, sometimes he would make certain statements, which were not meant to be taken literally. Prabhupada was just making them in a lighter way.
But sometimes those taken statements are taken literally. And then we end up misunderstanding or misconstruing what Prabhupada said. So, this purport helps us see how the context is.
So, important for us to make sense of the word that is being used. And when we consider the context properly, then we can comprehend the content properly. And then we can apply it properly.
So, for us, when we study or share scripture, it is important that we carefully consider that, I conclude this point, that detachment in speaking. Detachment in speaking doesn't mean that you speak whatever you want and be detached from that. Not like that.
Detachment in speaking means to give up our attachment to what we think we are saying and to become open to understand what others are hearing. That is detachment in speaking. That means, what I am saying, we think we are saying something.
But we may be actually saying something else and others may be hearing something else. So, detachment in speaking means to give up our conception of what we are saying and to become open to understand what others are hearing. When we learn this, then we actually become responsible in our speaking.
And when we become responsible in our speaking, then we can get the response that we desire. That Krishna's message deserves. Otherwise, we can speak in a way that will alienate a lot of people.
Sometimes some devotees are very proud. Not proud necessarily, in a bad sense, but I made so many people into devotees. So many souls came to Krishna because of me.
You know, we have a track of that. If somebody takes initiation, somebody starts coming to the temple, somebody starts connecting regularly, chanting, we can have a track of that. But we have no track of how many souls did not come to Krishna because of me.
Because of the way I spoke, because of the way I conducted myself, because of these things. So, there might be so many casualties who we never come to know about. So, detachment in speech means that we take responsibility not just for what we speak, but also for trying as much as possible to ensure that what we speak is heard and understood properly.
Then we will find that Krishna consciousness' attractiveness will be attractive for people. And then they will be more and more attracted towards Krishna. So, I'll summarize.
I spoke today on the theme of appreciating the nuances of communication. And I talked about how the Bhagavad Gita itself has many non-literal usages. I talked about three things.
Three examples. So, here the word Mahatma is used also in a non-literal sense. The word Mahatma itself is non-literal because the soul is Anu, is not Maha.
But Mahatma, non-literal refers to the conceptions, the values of the soul, not the size of the soul. And then we talked about how here the word Mahatma doesn't refer to a great soul in the right sense. It is sarcastic.
Because some people may perceive greatness in terms of material detachment, which is okay. But a more holistic understanding of greatness is in terms of spiritual attachment. Attachment to great values.
Attachment to the one who is the greatest value, that is Krishna. We talked about those four levels of material attachment and material detachment. And when some people appear to be materially detached also, they may actually not be materially detached.
They may just be detached from one thing because they are attached to something else. It's like an alcoholic may be detached from whether their children are eating or not. That's not because they have detachment.
That's because they are so maddened by attachment to alcohol. Similarly, Daksha was indifferent to his daughter's dying, killing herself because it was so infatuated with prestige. Prestige is also an intoxicant.
And yet when this disaster started coming upon him, he started becoming agitated. So what we consider as a danger reveals what we treasure. So Dhritarashtra did not consider disrobing Draupadi and angering the Pandavas as a danger.
But his extinguishing of the fire, that he considered a great danger. It's a sacrificial fire. And then I talked about how we need context to comprehend content.
So one part of context is punctuation. Punctuation, if it is put in a particular way, one meaning can come. Another way, entirely opposite meaning can come.
And languages that have less punctuations, they are at one level efficient in conveying meaning through the words itself without relying on punctuation marks. But to people who are used to punctuation marks, for them those languages may seem to feature a lot of ambiguity. And I talked about how if we decontextualize Prabhupada's statements, the tone is also part of the context.
So spoken words have a particular tone to them. And that is never reflected in the transcript of those tones. So what Prabhupada says about women is actually a call for men to take responsibility, not a mandate to deny women opportunity.
And similarly Prabhupada's statements about certain other contexts, other situations also, decontextualize can be misunderstood. And I concluded that if we want to be effective in our outreach, we need to become responsible in our speaking. And becoming responsible in our speaking means that we take the responsibility not only to take a quote we speak, but we detach ourselves from what we think we are saying and we open ourselves to understanding what people are hearing.
Otherwise, by our speaking, we may be actually bringing a few souls to Krishna, but we may be sending a lot of souls away from Krishna also. When we learn to be responsible in our speaking, then Krishna's attractiveness will manifest through us, through our words and actions and many, many souls will be attracted to Krishna. Thank you very much.
Hare Krishna. Do we have time for questions? Thank you once again for another very wonderful class. My question is in the context of use of non-literals, analogies, similes in the Vedic narrative, because we see that it has created a scope for a lot of potential misunderstanding.
How much are we to use those in our own narratives in the modern world today, in this particular age? Because it seems like in the end of the class, you actually mentioned how as a communicator, we need to be conscious also of how the other person could potentially interpret our statements. So, in our own narratives, how conscious do we have to be and why then do the Vedic culture promote this kind of narratives? Because we see even the modern spiritual world, which I like to call this kind of confusing Zen talk, seems to be like a very spiritually appealing way of presentation. So, how do we learn to be faithful to the Vedic narrative and the style of Vedic narration and still be presentable and committed in the right way? So, since non-literal interpretations are popular in today's world, and spirituality often is filled with Zen-like things which can be interpreted in multiple ways, and that creates confusion.
So, how much should we use it? And why do the Vedic scriptures contain it at all? It's not that inherently multiple interpretations are bad. In fact, if something can be understood in multiple ways, that can also convey the richness of the writer's thoughts, or the richness of the text itself. So, for example, one reason why poetry is very attractive to some people is that, as compared to prose, poetry can have multiple layers of meaning.
Even prose can have, but poetry all the more so. Poetry conveys things in an indirect way. The opportunity for using alankaras for ornaments, literary devices, figures of speech is much more in poetry.
So, this is a feature of language itself. And we cannot minimize it or deny it. It's just a fact of language and it conveys the richness of language.
In fact, according to linguists, it's almost like every five to ten sentences we use a metaphor. So, that's why metaphors are just a part of our life. And metaphors are one example of non-literal usage.
So, when they are present in scripture, they're just reflecting the reality of how we communicate, and they're also reflecting the richness of scriptural communication, of scriptural wisdom basically. As far as multiple interpretations being concerned, there is a modern school of thought called deconstructionism. Now, deconstructionists argue that actually a text has no inherent meaning.
And the entire meaning of the text depends on who is reading it and how they're interpreting it. Now, of course, the standard reputation of this is, well, your assertion itself has no inherent meaning. When you say that the sentences have no inherent meaning, they say this sentence has no inherent meaning.
So, that is the extreme. And there is a strong reaction to that, response to that also. Deconstructionism is being opposed, not even just by theists, but even atheists.
Because atheists also want to categorically say that God doesn't exist. So, if the statements have no inherent meaning, then it's almost like nobody can have any philosophy at all. So, that is the extreme.
Now, what happens with respect to spirituality? Because for many people, spirituality cannot have any empirical evidence like what you can have from science. So, that's why spirituality is often the domain of greater vagueness. So, most post-modern people are very interested in what is called as pragmatic spirituality.
Pragmatic spirituality is not philosophical spirituality. Philosophical spirituality is what is the nature of reality. Pragmatic spirituality is what works for me.
So, whatever works for me, I'm fine with that. And then if it has some logical, intellectual understanding, that's an add-on. But that's not the basis.
So, I'll say that about 5-7 years ago, I was very, very categorical about right and wrong interpretation of scripture. But now I've understood that sometimes even a wrong interpretation of scripture can create interest in scripture among the audience. And then people are more open to right understanding of scripture.
When I was editing Radha and Maharaj's journey within book, there's a section where Maharaj talks about a spiritual master. And then I had suggested that Maharaj, you can add something a little more clear over here. That one should not approach a spiritual master like a shopper.
One should be a seeker. Not that I like this, I like that, I like that. You should be like a seeker.
So, Maharaj told me, I cannot write that. Because most of the people who will be reading this book, will be reading it because they are shoppers. That shopper means, okay, I try a little from here, I try a little from there, I try a little from there.
And then whatever makes sense, I take that. So, I would say that when the siddhant is to be conveyed, we have to be clear that this is right siddhant, this is wrong siddhant. But for people who come to a particular path, the siddhant, the philosophy is only one part.
And that too a very small part of why they come to a particular path. It is because what kind of people they meet, it is because of what kind of atmosphere they perceive, it is because of what kind of experiences they have. And even before they consider a path, they actually have certain preconceptions about that path.
And because of that itself, they decide whether to approach that path or not approach that path. So, at one level, yoga in today's world has been completely misrepresented, you could say. Traditionally, yoga was practiced by male ascetics for renouncing the world.
Now, most yoga practitioners are females who want to make their body more healthy and attractive so that it can attract attention in the world. So, you could say the purpose of yoga is not only different but it's opposite. But in spite of that, whatever reason they practice yoga, that has created some appreciation for yoga and that has created some openness for the tradition from which yoga has come.
And that's how they have come towards spirituality. So, I would say that when there are forums for systematic philosophical education, at that time, clear-cut understanding of siddhanta is important. But even if because of some non-literal meaning, somebody gets an appreciation for a text, and that is also good.
Because at least they become a little interested, they become a little open. And because most people are interested in pragmatic spirituality, not philosophical spirituality, so even if they get a non-literal meaning of the text and later on they are told a literal meaning, they are quite open to giving up the non-literal meaning and accepting the literal meaning. But if that non-literal meaning was never there at all, then they might never even be interested in the text.
So, I would say that there is a forum for clear-cut emphasis on siddhanta, correct and wrong understanding, and there is a time for just encouraging people to become interested in spiritual wisdom. And if by that gradually they come, then eventually they will get a clear understanding. So, certainly we cannot have unlimited interpretations of scriptural text.
But at the same time, we don't have the resources to police society at all. If somebody is giving an interpretation that is, you could say, wrong, but then what can we do about it? Do we have the resources to go about refuting it? And how many wrong things can we refute? So, if something creates, makes people favorable to scripture, that is good. They may not necessarily, all of them come towards Krishna because of that, but at least they get a favorable conception.
And it is also true that not everybody is likely to practice bhakti sadhana as seriously as we would like them to. It's manushya, naam, sahasra, ishu. So, it's better that we have a pyramid where some people are serious practitioners and others are favorable.
Instead of some people practicing seriously and other people thinking that this is just crazy. What are these people doing? I was at a conference. There was this Christian monk, I was at an interfaith meeting and this Christian pastor was telling me that how the situation was about 15 years ago and how it is now.
So, he said that he had done a survey, just like sometimes we have icebreakers. So, in his pastoral meeting, he said, what is the craziest thing you have ever heard in your life? So, he said, three of my congregation members came and told me, Hare Krishna approached me and told me on the street that Krishna is God. This is the craziest thing we have heard in our life.
So, that is where people are coming from. So, now at least people don't think like that. The Krishna Bhakti tradition is recognized as a valid tradition within Hinduism.
And in that way, things are changing. Thank you. We have time? Last question? So, thank you very much.