Avoiding verbal violence in bhakti
Disclaimer: This transcript was generated using AI and may contain occasional errors or inaccuracies.
One example you gave was that sometimes people will have some kind of pre-existing belief, religious, spiritual, even just a regular belief. And if we hear that, oftentimes we want to just crush that. In my most cynical moments, sometimes in my experiences, I thought if we didn't have all of Prabhupada's written word and his recordings and things, that if it was simply according to what people remembered and practiced, that the three things that we have seen Prabhupada taught us, three things, smash, defeat, and kick on the face with boots.
Because those things, sometimes we take that up. So we want to immediately tell them the real truth, that this is nonsense, this is this, and this is this. But that's the one thing that's sustaining them.
And as soon as you attack that deeply held belief, it hurts them and it makes them feel defensive. Because it's not only challenging their belief, but it's also saying something about them. That you're a fool because you believe something that's ridiculous.
It carries both of those things. It's not only just attacking the foundation of their intellectual existence, but it's also a personal attack. They'll take it as such a personal attack with you.
And sometimes we meet it that way. Because we think, I'm a great knower of the truth. And so they feel that, that's true.
There is a verse in the Bhagavad Gita, 3.26, na buddhi-bhedam janayet ajnanam karma-sanghinam joshayet sarva-karmani vidvan-yuktah samachar So, Krishna is saying over here, do not disturb the minds of less intelligent people. ajnanam karma-sanghinam He's giving two disqualifications there. Ajnan, they are ignorant, and they are attached.
And even if you are knowledgeable and you are detached, still don't disturb their minds. joshayet sarva-karmani Engage them to gradually, as Prabhupada says, develop their Krishna consciousness. So, one significant point is that, you mentioned the word intellectual existence, the foundation of their intellectual existence.
The Sanskrit word is buddhi. Prabhupada uses the word mind over there. na buddhi-bhedam janayet Prabhupada said don't disturb the mind.
But the technical word there is na buddhi-bhedam. Bhedam means to create holes. Don't create holes in their intelligence.
That they have an intellectual foundation or intellectual structure. Don't create holes in that. So, in a sense, so, my understanding would be, Prabhupada using the word disturb, don't disturb the minds, he's not using mind in the technical sense to differentiate mind and intelligence.
Just don't agitate people, basically. That is what he is saying. So, people, I have found that especially in the post-modern world that we are living in, you can't really definitively prove anything.
Because every argument, you can come up with a counter-argument for that. So, ultimately, what will sustain people is whether they experience something. So, they experience a human warmth with us.
They experience a spiritual warmth by their practice of bhakti. And sometimes, if we are too confrontational or dismissive, then we do deprive people of the opportunity to experience that warmth. And then, I was in Detroit in on Prabhupada's sufficiency day, so I was asked to speak over there on that occasion.
So, I spoke on that. There's a truth that lights the way and there's a truth that warms the heart. So, we sometimes emphasize so much on the truth that lights the way.
This is the right way, this is the wrong way. But people don't care really. If only the truth that warms the heart, that inspires them, that encourages them, that connects them, that's what will inspire people to move on.
And if you look at, like you said, we would remember, if Prabhupada's prominent memory for most people would be that smash, defeat and kick on the face. Now, that's true. I mean, Prabhupada didn't make a statement like that.
But if you look at Prabhupada's memories, as told by his followers, by his disciples especially, most of those memories are about their personal interactions and how Prabhupada touched their hearts. So, Prabhupada confronting and defeating misconceptions, okay, that's nice. But that's not what attracted people primarily to him.
It was his personal warmth and personal care, which they felt in his presence. So, Prabhupada offered a truth that lit the way and also warmed the heart. Sometimes we just focus on the part of the truth that lit the way.
And we don't talk about the truth that warmed the heart. So, we have to have a balance of both. And especially in today's world, I feel the truth that warms the heart is even more important.
And then the truth that lights the way, people will want to go along the way. Otherwise, even if they know that this is okay, this is the right way, but still they will say, I don't want to go along this way. I don't really care about it.
So, I have had some, maybe all of us probably have had some experiences of people getting fried out because of excessively strong, strong preaching. One of my godbrothers, he says that when devotees come new to our movement, we feed them fried pakodas. And then, when they become regular devotees, we fry them like pakodas.
You want to say something? If you look at 17.15, which I quoted on that day also, Krishna says, He talks about austerity of speech. And the first thing he says in austerity of speech is, speak non-agitatedly. So, Bhishma gives some instructions on dharma to Yudhishthira in the Mahabharata.
And there, he says, what are the characteristics of speech, of an ideal kind of speech? So, he says, first is, it should be encouraging. Second is, it should be truthful. It's interesting, he places being encouraging before being truthful.
Because, again, there was some, there was some survey done in, I think it was Wisconsin University. There was a group of students who were learning writing. And there were boys and there were girls.
So, the boys decided to come together and they said that, whatever all of us write, we will review it and we will find out what are the faults in each other's writings. So that, we can all improve. Now, the girls, they just came together and decided to do the opposite.
They said, whatever you write, we will find the good points in it and we will appreciate those good points. And then, 20 years down the line, researchers observed this group of students. And they found among the boys, not one of them had become a published writer.
And even in general, none of them were in their normal correspondences known as good writers, articulate writers. Even normal emails or something like that. And majority of them expressed that whenever they had to write, they would get overcome by fear.
Whereas among the girls, two of them had become published writers. Almost all of them were known as articulate writers in their social circles. And most of the girls said that when they sat down to write, now they were women of course, when they sat down to write, they loved writing.
So, the point here was that, in some activity especially, if it's seen as a voluntary activity, then sometimes we may give corrections to inspire improvement. I'm nothing against you, I only want you to become better. But, when we especially are sharing Krishna Bhakti with people, it is that people don't see that as a necessary activity.
It's voluntary. So, in voluntary activity, we don't have to just give people knowledge of what to do. We also have to give people encouragement and inspiration to do that.
So, most often, if somebody is given some negative feedback in a field which they feel is not mandatory, then most of them quit in that field. We are working in a job, and our boss gives us some feedback. We may still feel bad, but we will work to improve it because the job is a matter of bread and butter.
But, with respect to voluntary activities, we are not like that. And that's why it's vital that we recognize that devotees are here as volunteers. And even those who are actually, even if somebody say, living in a temple, still they are volunteers.
And nowadays, our whole movement is mostly congregation-based. So, if they are congregation-based, it means they have their own families and jobs, and their own life. For them, they are almost entirely congregation-based.
They are almost entirely volunteers, I would say. So, for us, if we push them too much in the name of giving them feedback, they will just leave. And it will be sad.
A famous letter that Prabhupada wrote to Karanda in Los Angeles. At the same time, just before that, he was mentioning how he was seeing that the people were not following the process very strictly. He mentioned this almost in the same sentence.
First of all, he mentioned that he saw that there was some weakness in the movement because people weren't following very strictly. They should make sure that they are chanting their rounds and following the regular principles and such. And then, very quickly, he transitioned into this other thing.
And then, later on, he kind of shows how those two things are reconciled. He said, the devotees should be given some fresh challenge. And that will inspire them.
He said, that takes expert management. Where are the expert managers? So, when you hear the management chanting their rounds, it seems like you should be very heavy. You're not doing this, you're not doing this.
But what Prabhupada was saying, because it's spontaneous, individual, and voluntary, you should inspire them. And I heard this one madhuji, we were having a discussion in Hawaii, was saying that she remembered one of the early days when there was always that, when Prabhupada was coming to visit, there was always this frantic activity. Oftentimes, some people said that Prabhupada always had the smell of fresh paint when he was coming to his quarters.
There was always this. And she says, well, I think I must have slept, she said, but I can't remember doing it in the three days before he came. Because it was so exhilarating.
They had this challenge to try to, after being ready for Prabhupada's visit. And she said, I must have slept, because how could you stay up? But she said, I can't remember doing it. It seemed like we just continued.
And it was a positive experience. It wasn't like, oh my God, it was so difficult. It was an experience.
When there's an inspiration, then it becomes more the experience of the heart, and more what bhakti is really about. It's supposed to be something we want to do. It's actually something that's exciting, something that's desirable.
And Prabhupada's deity was Galagraha. It's Vigraha, not Galagraha. This is a challenge now for us, that when Prabhupada was a charismatic leader, when he was there, he was a charismatic leader, who could inspire many, many devotees with enormous amount of energy.
But now we feel that we don't have that inspiring leaders. And that's why we don't feel that inspired. So in a sense, I read about a Nobel laureate author, Somerset Maugham.
He was asked, do you write every day, or do you write only when you're inspired? So he said, I write only when I'm inspired. And I make sure that inspiration arrives every morning at 9 o'clock. So in a sense, sometimes we may refuse to take up responsibility for our own inspiration.
That means, there's no one inspiring, that's why I'm not inspired. Well, it may be true, but then our spiritual life cannot be dependent on whether there's an inspiring person in our vicinity or not. As Gandhi said, be the change that you want to be in the world.
Be the change that you want to see in the world. So we may not be able to inspire others, but at the very least, we can try to stay inspired ourselves. And that will inspire others.
So I think that then comes down more to understanding our own individuality and contributing according to that individuality. Because what is going to inspire me? If I love someone, then whatever they tell me I'll do, because I just love them and I want to please that person. But when I don't have that much of an inspiring person in my life, then what is it that I can be committed to? It has to be something which connects with my deepest self.
So if somebody is of a Kshatriya nature, or somebody likes to write, somebody likes to sing, somebody likes to study scripture, we need to give people the space to bring out their best self. That's individual. That's the individuality part.
So to some extent, when the charismatic leadership goes down, or the charismatic leader is not present to that extent, then the inspiration has to come through individuation. Each of us has to understand ourselves as an individual and how we can contribute to Krishna. And this is where encouragement is very much needed.
Prabhupada was quite resourceful and dynamic in terms of engaging people according to their natures. But sometimes we may become a little stereotyped. This is what Krishna consciousness means.
You do this, you do this, you do this, you do this. But there are many different ways in which people may contribute to Krishna consciousness, contribute to their own Krishna consciousness and to making others Krishna conscious. Again, we need an encouraging attitude for that.
If somebody has a talent for a particular field, say they want to go into scientific research, they want to go into software development or robotics, if we have devotees who are competent in those fields and we encourage devotees to go in that field, they may not be Krishna conscious in the external sense of the word, but just to have devotees of that level of competence in prominent fields, that will itself in a subtle way shape society. When Bhaktivinod Thakur said that he longs for the day when high court judges would be Vaishnavas, I used to think what is the way in which it will happen, if it is to happen. Broadly we could say there are two ways.
One is that devotees form the government and then devotees appoint other devotees as high court judges. That doesn't seem to be a likely possibility in the near future at least. Even if somehow in some place, part of the world, we got power, political power also.
We are struggling to manage our own status. It's a frightening thought actually, in some sense. We are struggling to manage.
We are not ready for it, even if there are opportunities, we are not ready. Exactly. We are not ready.
So the other way could be that devotees while practicing their bhakti are so competent in their respective fields that the government or the authorities in those fields appoint devotees in top posts. That's our Bhakti Mod Thakur. He is so competent.
In fact, his position was extraordinary because it was British India. They were impressed with him. And they normally look down upon Indians.
Yes, besides the racism. In spite of the racism, they thought he was brilliant. In that sense, if some devotees want to excel in their own professional fields and they take Krishna Consciousness at some level in that field, then we need to encourage that also.
Otherwise, it's very difficult to… You can't at all legislate inspiration. Each of us has to find something that inspires us. That point which I made about taking responsibility for our spiritual advancement.
Taking responsibility to be inspired. So that sort of… Sometimes, in saying that we should follow the instruction of the spiritual master, we might just outsource the responsibility for our spiritual advancement. Oh, whatever our spiritual master tells me, I'll do that.
But the spiritual master is not there really to tell you anything specific right now. And what do you do? Then I just glide along in my life doing whatever little I can do. So, in a sense, it has to be clear that the responsibility… Sometimes, the responsibility for spiritual advancement for each person is with that person alone.
It's not the Guru's responsibility. It is not the temple leader's responsibility. They are also there, but the primary responsibility lies with that soul itself.
And in a sense, when I talk about violence, that sometimes we may just thrust Krishna Consciousness, thrust ideology around people's throats. I post my talks online also. I make a Facebook video.
So one devotee commented that he said that he had thought that not giving people Krishna Consciousness is violence. Because if people are in illusion, and if we don't enlighten them, then that is violence. That is also true, but then is it that we have to enlighten people in a way that is enlightening for them, not alienating for them.
Exactly. Prabhupada would say, phale na parichayate. You know by the fruit.
You know a tree by the fruit. So if somebody goes away, then what is the use? So Prabhupada said that, I was talking with Giriraj Maharaj, Giriraj Maharaj said that, he had asked Prabhupada that, how do we know the fruit of our preaching? Because especially in America, when the devotees were preaching at that time, lot of people were becoming devotees. Becoming devotees in other definition of the word, devotees.
But in India, nobody was joining the temple. Nobody was moving into the temple. So they asked, how should we know, that they are, that our preaching is successful? So Prabhupada said, that people, if people are inspired to make some contribution, then they are, then the preaching is successful.
So what does he mean by contribution? In India at that time the primary definition was, people become life members, and give some money which Prabhupada was using to build the temples. But Prabhupada also said that, if people appreciate us as good people, that is also, that is also a service. so Giriraj Maharaj has given me the example that, that is of course well known, that when the devotees were not allowed in the Jagannath Puri temple, even now they are not allowed, many of the non-Indians, so at that time, Prabhupada had gone, Prabhupada asked his disciples, to go to Swami Chinmayananda.
And Swami Chinmayananda was considered to be, he is a prominent leader, primarily for the Advaita tradition, but he is considered a prominent Indian leader. And the devotees talked with him, and they presented their case, and he gave something like a certificate for the devotees, saying that they are very, they are authentic Vaishnavas, they have dedicated their lives to the practice of bhakti, and they are following these principles, and I feel that they should be allowed, I recommend that they are allowed in the temple. So now for somebody who is an established spiritual leader, of another tradition, preaching to them doesn't mean that they are going to get converted, they are going to give up their tradition and come to our tradition.
But they appreciating us, is also a success of our preaching. So we can have, different definitions of success, for what is the effect of preaching. Or what is effective preaching.
And I think a major, major amount of intolerance or criticism, or disapproval, which comes in devotee circles, is because devotees are operating with very different definitions of success. If somebody's definition of success is that we should be distributing books, and then if they go to a place where somebody is building temples, or somebody is focused on building communities primarily, they say, what are you doing? You are not doing any service at all. Somebody who is building temples, they go and see somebody who is having nice educational courses, teaching bhakti shastra or something like that.
What are you doing? When I was a fairly new devotee, in America, I saw this phenomenon quite frequently, where somebody, a devotee would meet somebody, another devotee, and it was almost with a certain level of aggression. They would say, nice to meet you, So, what's your program? What's your program? And it was said with a certain tone, that was, justify your existence. You have to justify your existence.
You're here, you're breathing. At least justify your existence. That's a strong way.
That was the underlying vibration. You feel it. So, what's your program? It was a challenge.
You're breathing air. Are you worthy of that? Please tell it to me. And the same thing, if you were doing the wrong thing, of course, that wouldn't be very… And wrong according to their definition.
Yeah, yeah, of course, of course. Justify… You've got very clever phrases. Justify your existence.
Oh, God. There's one senior leader, I was working with him for some time, and he told me that he sees himself as a self-appointed watchdog of his con. Oh, yes.
Oh, my God. So, people out there, it's interesting. Justify your existence.
One challenge with… At one level, we need certain objective parameters for… for defining whether somebody is practicing bhakti or not. In mainstream society, there is this whole debate that there's a whole group of people who identify themselves as SBNR. This is spiritual but not religious.
So, now, they define spiritual as open-minded, compassionate, sensitive, and overall, they define spiritual in terms of consciousness. And they define religious in terms of dogmas and rituals. You know, you believe this, you believe that, you believe that.
And you follow this, you follow that. So, Prabhupada wrote a letter once to devotees, a group of devotees, Rudranath Maharaj and others, who were preaching to colleges. And Prabhupada said, don't present Krishna consciousness as a set of rules to people.
Just present it, it's a profound philosophy. So, if we start presenting it as a rule, then, why do I need to follow this? Just feel alienated. So, there's a… a… people who leave Christianity.
There are lapsed Christians, they call themselves. They give it up. So, they said, there's a joke about priests.
So, they say, who is a priest? A priest is a person who is constantly worried that someone is having fun somewhere. So, the point is that, that at one level, if we become too rule-bound, then we start appearing religious but not spiritual. We have to follow this rule, follow this rule, follow this rule, follow this rule.
And sometimes, people who are very strict in following rules, the externals of Krishna Bhakti, they are also very judgmental about others who do not follow those externals. So, then they don't come off as compassionate, they don't come off as loving, even if they might actually be concerned in their own way. So, then they just reinforce the stereotype that people who are religious are not spiritual.
So… There's a poem by William Blake that my Guru Maharaj likes, and I can't recite it exactly, but the idea was, he says, there used to be this beautiful green area, like a park area, where they used to come and enjoy themselves. And one day he came there, and there was a church built there, and a cemetery near the church, and on the door of the church, it says, was, Thou Shalt Not, was written on the door. And the priest, he says, were walking in their rounds, and binding with briars, those thorny plants, the stick of bushes, my hopes and desires.
Oh, God! Krishna! Similar type of… That's true. Now, William Blake has said this, no? Yeah, yeah. Oh, OK.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I have the poem someplace, but I can't remember what it's called. Binding with briars, my hopes and desires.
Oh, Krishna! So, when we are spiritual, we understand the rules of rituals, the rituals and the beliefs are important, but consciousness is even more important. And the purpose of the practices and the philosophy and the beliefs is ultimately to enhance the consciousness. So, you see, there are two extremes.
Somebody is so religious that they miss out on being spiritual, in the sense that they just become so externally obsessed. You're doing this, this, and if you're not doing this, you're wrong. If you're not doing this, like you said, justify your existence to me.
But on the other hand, there's also the other extreme that if somebody says, I'm spiritual but not religious, that means that they say it's all a matter of consciousness, but then there is nothing in their life which has been transformed by their spirituality. So, if somebody is being unethical, somebody is being cruel, somebody is cheating on their partner, somebody is embezzling money, and then they say, I'm spiritual. That also doesn't work.
So, there has to be an ethical standard also. But Prabhupada's definition of Niyamagraha is related to something like that, where we have some good intentions, but we don't take up any of the discipline, or we take up the discipline thinking that that's an end in itself. So, I'm doing this, I'm chanting this, I'm checking off my list of things, I'm doing my dandavats, I'm doing this, but it's not affecting my spiritual growth.
It could actually refer to both aspects of Niyamagraha. So, you could say religious but not spiritual is following the rules but forgetting the purpose. And spiritual but not religious is just neglecting the rules entirely.
Saying that they are irrelevant. So, we could say that we want to be religiously spiritual. We want to follow religion and religion is the means to become spiritual.
But Niyamagraha is a brilliant point. You could connect it. This whole analysis can be made more shastrically based.
Then it becomes much clearer. It's an interesting point that going back to that point of volunteers, people are volunteers practicing bhakti. So, there are two broad understandings in spiritual circles or in a in a spiritual, in something spiritual that we practice in the material world.
There is the conception of equality and there is the conception of hierarchy. This is important. So, in the spiritual level, everyone is equal.
But for an organization to exist of any kind, for even a religious organization to exist, there has to be some kind of hierarchy. So, if an army decide that we all have patriotic sentiment, we will all fight for the war. Why do we need any general, any commander? They will be killed, they will be slaughtered.
It will be terrible, yeah. So, patriotic sentiment is definitely required for an army defending a country. But the patriotic sentiment also has to be channeled according to the authority structure of the of the army.
So, similarly, there has to be in principle equality where even the disciple, the Guru understands that actually the disciple is also a soul. And I am maybe in the role of the teacher of the Guru. But on another level, I am actually also the servant.
It's not that, you know, one very nice reflection I read recently is that the spiritual master thinks that the disciple is more important than me. Even when the spiritual master is taking a more authoritative position. And the example that of a parent and child.
The parents, they will be ready to lay down their life for their children also. But they will be controlling their children. Do this, don't do this.
Not controlling in a robotic sense, but controlling in an educational, protective sense. So, similarly, this idea that we, if we don't give philosophy to others, if we don't educate them, then they will, then we are doing violence. That idea stems more from the hierarchical conception.
Hierarchically, I have knowledge, they don't have knowledge. Which at one level is true. But at another level, it's not that people feel they don't have knowledge.
People feel, yeah, my life is going on well. And people will not even necessarily accept us as authorities. So, therefore, in a sense, when we are approaching new people, we have to approach them like equals.
At the level of the soul. This is, I'm a soul, you're a soul, and I'm trying to help. Even more so, right there, the soul is always accompanied by a super-soul.
To guide them. Because, you know, if we make that decision, that we don't want to be with Krishna, that's our decision. And Krishna respects that decision.
But, in the Bible, there's the story of the prodigal son. Now, Krishna is even better than the father. Because the father lets the son go.
Krishna also lets the son go, but he also comes with him, secretly. He's not going to let him go alone. That's true.
There's such love there. And so, not only are we souls, but we're beloved by Krishna. We and they are all beloved by Krishna.
And he never rejects them. So, there's Bhakti Tirtha Maharaj. He wrote in one of his books.
Based on Shastra, where is it? In Chaitanya Charitamrita, I think, where it says that you can tell your level of envy by how you treat others who are lower than you on the hierarchy, and how you treat inferiors. And so, he said, if somebody is very envious, they may not want to help others. Because they may feel they may become rivals to them.
Someone is, say, very intelligent. So, you're teaching somebody who's a very intelligent person. And if you're very envious, you may think, well, I don't want this person to develop so great that he'll supersede me.
So, you may want to neglect them. Or if somebody is a great kirtan person, you're a kirtan person. Then he made this statement.
He says, if somebody is just a little envious, he says, they will help people even to the point of having them surpass themselves. And I thought, where's the envy there? And then he said, in the third case, he said, if somebody is not envious at all, he says, they will go underneath them and push them. Even at the risk of their own position.
And so, from his own stuff, I kind of got the understanding. I kind of knew what he was talking about. That if we think of ourselves as superiors, then we have a little bit of ego.
There's a little bit of ego in our help. And this is the mode of goodness, right? You have that notion of superiority. They're very compassionate.
In the Satya Loka, the only miseries they have is the thoughts of the pain and suffering of the other beings. But they feel that they're superior. And so, by helping people, I'm in some way also asserting my superiority.
I'm showing how compassionate I am. Our compassion can be an expression of our passion. Exactly.
So, some of my services, there's a feedback loop. Some of it comes back to me and massages my ego. Some of my happiness.
Even though I'm helping them in a very real way. So, it's a little envy. So, this notion that you were talking about, seeing them really as souls.
I asked some of his disciples to explain it to me. One of my dear friends is Ekavir Prabhu, one of his long-time students. So, I knew he could answer it.
So, I asked him to tell me what that is. So, he told me a story. He said, when he was with Maharaj for a couple of years, it was when they had the institute in Washington.
His job was to greet people and meet people when they would come in. And so, he said, one time he mismentioned Maharaj. He said, offhand, Maharaj, some of the people that are coming here, they're better than I am.
And Maharaj said, yes. He says, they all are. And he wasn't trying to put Ekavir down, but he was trying to reinforce his understanding.
That these people are so… So, that our help of people is a privilege. It's not an act of our compassion and superiority in some ways. It's not a part of our… Because we're so good that we're helping people.
But because these people are so valuable, that it's my privilege if I could do anything to help them. Beautiful. So, you hit right to the bottom when we talk about that.
And people will feel that. People will feel that. The people that are saying, justify your existence, they felt that.
That's how they were treated. Just like we say that… that how we had our upbringing in our childhood, that shapes who we become. The same, I think, applies in our spiritual life also.
The kind of devotees through whom we are introduced, that is like our devotional upbringing. And that will shape how we perceive bhakti thereafter. So, if we see ourselves as… If the only spur that we got in our early days to practice bhakti was the negative spur, that you are such a fool, you're good for nothing, you have to do this, then that's what we will give to others.
It's almost like… There are some people who are abused in their childhood. And it's ironic that sometimes these people, when they grow up, they become abusers. It's more likely to happen.
It's strange because one would think that they would actually not want anyone to go through them. But it is… I don't know how much it is in India, there is this whole concept of ragging in college. Ragging means… We call it hazing here.
Hazing? Hazing, yeah. I think it's the same thing. Same thing.
So, ragging is basically… you deal with new students very roughly. Hazing? Yeah, hazing is what we call it here. That means make them do kind of terrible things, force them to do things against their will, humiliate them in various ways.
So the idea is that those children, those kids who are ragged, often they become the raggers after 3-4 years. Now it's my turn. Yeah.
So sometimes it may become like we might create a tradition of ragging within our movement. So I was ragged, I was hazed and that's what I'll do to others. It may not be conscious.
It may just be that this is the only way we know to practice, to teach bhakti or to train people in bhakti. That's the only thing we know. We don't know anything else.
It becomes a big challenge. And if we're made to feel that we're useless, that unless… Because we have this situation where we have the ultimate… My Guru Maharaj, he says that Srila Prabhupada convinced his students that sainthood was a viable career option. That's how he puts it.
Sainthood. Beautifully put. So we have this high aspiration which is reachable.
Pure devotion, Krishna prema. But yet here we are in our current state. Most of us are in some other position on the spectrum.
Very far away. And so if we're made to feel that because we have so many faults and so many deficiencies that we're worthless, it causes us to take unhealthy… especially that we don't want to acknowledge them. It puts a very strong pressure on us.
And so… One of the big processes is anarthana-vritti. Actually, pure bhakti, the seed takes root in unclean soil. The first two leaves, kleshagni and shubhda, they're removing all the negativities that are there.
So there has to be something… So it means that it's not like pure person bhakti which takes roots in it. It takes root in unclean soil. And it can purify.
So it means that it's expected that we have things in us that are unwanted or harmless, that are present, that's normal. In the early days, especially in America, people were thinking… Because Prabhupada used to say how easy bhakti was. And my Guru Maharaj says, maybe Prabhupada didn't understand that what Americans thought of as easy.
The American definition of easy is like, really easy! You put something in the microwave for five minutes and you've got dinner, you know. That's easy! Prabhupada came from a very different reference point. Even today, if you tell people Krishna Consciousness is easy, if you consider… We will compare then what was practiced in Satyuga, what was practiced in Tenth Ayurveda, Aparigraha.
Yes, of course it is. But then, if you consider, today where people are coming from, what other spiritual organizations are offering them, as compared to that, what we are offering is quite difficult. So people were thinking that they were going to become pure devotees.
They had the… What is it? Utsahamayi. Utsahamayi, yes. Very powerful, by the way.
And you feel, they feel the transformation. And so then when they encountered their anarthas, then they felt that now they are fallen, or now that they are not useful. And so they became very hard on themselves and each other.
So when you are in that mood, you are feeling like you are a failure. There are feelings of failure. Understanding that anarthas are natural, and the process of working through them is normal.
So there could be two… You said about unhealthy approach to our anarthas. There could be two unhealthy approaches. One is to cover them up.
Yes. The other is to just beat ourselves down with hopelessness and self-discrimination because we have them. Yes.
So both are bad. As I first said, anarthas, instead of anartha nivrtti, we become busy doing anartha avrtti. Avrtti means covering it up.
Avrtti is covering. So just cover it. Often times the feeling of depression leads to the wanting to cover it up because you don't want to sleep.
Because the one makes you feel like you are a failure and you don't want to be. So there are different concealment devices. You find fault with others.
My Guru Maharaj did this whole presentation called the cure of souls. Yes. About how these unhealthy responses to our own weaknesses.
That's true. And if you see it, you can almost recognize that I have done that or that you have seen the effects of it. There are different unhealthy ways.
So how we can… And if we indoctrinate people right from the beginning that now you are a worthless human, but if you take up Krishna consciousness you will be somebody. Then that puts them in that space of seeing all their weaknesses as horrible failings. That means that they are worthless.
Instead if we treat them as that they are valuable but they have so much potential. They are valuable right now. They are dear to Krishna always.
And they have huge potential. Yes, I think… Then it's a different attitude. There are two different visions also.
That is our past something to be rejected for practicing bhakti? Or is our past something to be connected with our bhakti practice? Is our past just a waste that we have to give up? Or is the past our take-off point? Yes. It is, no matter what we say, it is our take-off point. Because we can't… Whoever we are, even if you see that sometimes some people may be very well-educated, not necessarily educated in the sense of material education alone, but people who are well-educated, they are professionally committed, and they are talented, they are successful in their lives.
If they take up bhakti, if they take it up, then they are quite successful in their bhakti practice also. Because they bring an ethos of commitment to what they are doing. On the other hand, if some people are… We can't really equate material success with spiritual success.
But in some ways, the character that is required for material success is also required for spiritual success. The only difference is that material success can possibly increase the ego so much that one will not want to surrender to Krishna. On the other hand, material failure may cause the weakening of that ego and open oneself to surrender to Krishna.
But if material failure has been… Because one has been uncommitted, irresponsible, and reckless overall, sentimental, then if they bring those qualities, that is going to obstruct them in their spiritual growth also. I met one devotee in England, he was telling me that something like Greg, and he became somebody, Gaurahari or something like that. So, I renounced Greg and became Gaurahari at the age of 18.
And at the age of 40, I suddenly found that Greg had come back. He said, maybe for the first few years of our Krishna conscious practice, we are so enthusiastic that if yes, everything, I'll give up. But I am who I am.
I can't deny that. So, in a sense, maybe I'll conclude with this, that there are only two verses in the Gita which are almost repeated twice. Not entirely, but we could say 70-80%.
One is the verse about fixing the mind on Krishna. That is 9.34 and 18.65. man-mana-bhava-mad-bhakto mad-bhajani-mam-nas-kuru mam-e-vaishyasi yuktvayi-vam-atmanaham-parayanah mad-parayanah is 9.34 mam-e-satyam-tepat-jani-priyosini is 18.65. Essentially, Krishna says, fix the mind on me, become devoted to me and that way you will come to me. And the only other verse that is repeated is shreyan-sva-dharmo-vimuna-paradharma-svanushtitat that is 3.35 and 18.47 is so basically, do the work according to your nature.
It is far better to be, to meet even with destruction while doing the work according to your nature rather than doing some other work in nature. So then, the first shreyan-sva-dharmo-vimuna-paradharma-svanushtitat sva-dharme-nidhnam-shreya-paradharma-bhaya-bhava We should combine those two understandings. We could say that those two we could say because their verses are repeated they are the two most emphasized teachings of the Gita.
I love that. So one is that we have to become devoted to Krishna. But the other is that we have to work according to our nature.
So, shreyan-sva-dharmo-vimuna-paradharma-svanushtitat sva-bhava-nidhnam-karma-kurvan-napno-ti-kilvisham Krishna says if you work according to your nature there will be no contamination. So, that means, of course there is some conditioning of contamination but the further negativity that comes into our life because of working at something which we are incompatible with that negativity can be avoided. It's beautiful.
So it's a So helping people to to be who they are at their best not necessarily conform to certain stereotypes of how they should be but just be who they are at their best so that they can offer their best to Krishna. That I would say it's ultimately ultimately the purpose of of an expert outreacher whereas violence would be that we force people to become what we want them to become or what we think they should become then it becomes so much problem. In India especially parents are very education conscious so many kids feel burdened by the expectation of the parents and sometimes similarly so parents have a certain stereotype idea if the child is in this career is an engineer, is a doctor then his life is set and I as a parent have been successful if I make my child like this so similarly when we are preaching we may have certain set paradigms this is how a person whom I preach to this person should become like this or this person should become like this and if they become like this then they are successful if they don't become like this then they are failures and then that pressure can be disproportionate then because of that pressure people either try in vain to do something which they are not equipped to do and they become disheartened by that or they just become alienated from us because they feel that we are not really helping them much we are only pressuring them that was Prabhupada's expertise that he could you know Prabhupada inspired people but hardly Prabhupada hardly micro controlled anyone he just encouraged everyone and people did wonderful things.