Bhagavatam-daily 108 – 11.08.24 – Don’t condemn sinner but don’t condone sin either

Shrimad bhagavatam 11 8 24 so the brahmana is continuing the description of the past time of the story of pingala from which he learned the lesson of detachment so as a prostitute she was pingala was standing outside her outside the brothel and she’s observing marga is a path who all are coming on this path she was looking and purushan purushar sabha purushan she was looking at all the men over there purushar sabha is a reference here by the narrator to the audio to the hearer so that is parashit maharaj speaking to shukadeva swami now tan shulkadan vittavataha tan she so as she’s observing who all are coming on the road she’s thinking tan oh shulkadan that shulka is the price oh this person is capable of picking looks like okay uh looks like he’s capable of picking paying my price he looks wealthy and and surely he will be my lover he will want to enjoy with me with her mind she was considering like this arthakamukhi she was desirous of wealth arthakamukhi now the whole relationship of sex gets reduced down to money when there is no affection now at one level she was looking this verse talks about her conflict to some extent you know at one level she was looking for a kanta she was looking for a lover who would give her affection but at the same time her existential plight was that she needed money she was arthakamukhi so both her need for money and her need for affection she her she was looking for a man and she had both these emotions within her and normally you know in any profession especially in the competitive world there are there is there has to be marketing done and now prostitutes are nowadays called as professional sex workers so there is a stigmatization of prostitutes which has been there in traditional culture and the purpose of that stigmatization is not to so much not to so much as humiliate or denigrate the prostitutes themselves but it is to denigrate the shame the people who go to such people and thereby to minimize the occurrence of such things overall in a respectable society but the point is that often what is meant to protect the overall degradation of society ends up hurting the victims more than the victimizers that means that the shaming of sex outside marriage and those who cater to the search for sex outside marriage that is done so as to reduce sexual infidelity to reduce sexual immorality and to have a greater overall sexual morality in society now this purpose is valuable and it’s important that society take measures to protect sexual morality but in the process of protecting sexual morality the sometimes in doing moral policing you know the word moral policing has a lot of negative connotation nowadays where people it is said that there are some people who want to intervene others private affairs what we want to do is nobody else’s business that’s what people say and moral policing has a negative connotation but then every society has to at some level of the other police morality the morality cannot be reduced entirely to individual decisions even in today’s society where people don’t want morality moral policing but still there are certain forms of things certain forms of even sexual actions which are considered immoral which are not just immoral but illegal and they are considered barbarous so for example incest, rape, pedophilia and so many things like that so the point is some level of policing has to be done and some level of moral decision has to be made so morality cannot be used cannot be reduced only to individual discretion or mutual consensus but anyway the point is that when a society tries to maintain morality one of the ways in which morality is maintained is by shaming those who act immorally and for the purpose of so that shame is meant to discourage immoral action now those who act immorally or those who facilitate immoral action when they are by shaming them to some extent the morality in society can be preserved but here it’s a question who is a victimizer who is a victim and whether the shaming actually helps so there has to be a recognition that no we don’t see in this particular section anywhere any bad words being used for Pingala although she’s a prostitute and in the matter of fact way it is described that she was Arthakamukhi she was desirous for she was desirous of wealth also so although her emotions of wanting a Kanthan is also mentioned but it’s in a non-judgmental way facts are reported that neither is she given she called bad names for being a prostitute nor is she being praised as a saint or something like that she simply is being described she is Arthakamukhi so whenever society affixes labels on someone you know the labeling is some to some extent unavoidable because we cannot legislate everyone’s opinions and people sometimes get a get pleasure in tormenting others and troubling others you know when Jesus discovered a prostitute caught up adulterous woman in the act practically in flag ratio as they say at that time the crowd the mob who had caught her wanted to stone her at that time in that culture at the time of the bible you know adultery was often punished by stoning the adulterous person to death so when the mob became frenzied and they tried they started doing that Jesus stopped them and he told them those among you who have never committed sin you should that person should lift the first stone and throw and at that time all of them slung their heads down and walked away now Jesus did not just condone the sin over there he actually condemned the self-righteous mentality of superiority that the people were exhibiting ending oh she’s a sinner and we are not sinners the prostitutes don’t exist unless there are people who will go to prostitutes now which comes first is a difficult question to answer it requires a lot of sociological factors now are there loose women first who are looking for money from customers and they tempt men or are there men who are of loose morals and who um who want more than what more sexual gratification than what family life can offer them and so they are looking for some women which comes first is difficult to answer but the point is that self-righteousness is not conducive for spiritual growth and it is also not quite usually not rooted in truth so Jesus condemned that self-righteousness and then after that he turned to the prostitute and he told her sin no more and he gave her an opportunity for reformation and seeing his so he did not compromise in terms of condoning her sinful activity but he did not condone the self-righteousness of those who are condemning her also the point is not to condemn the not to hate the sinner but to hate the sin and to help the stop the sin so we see here this uh that this prostitute Pingala she was seeking some man who would be Shulkadan Mittavatah who would have enough money and she would be able to pay her price and she was Arthakamukhi at the same time she was also looking for affection and what happened in her quest for such a man will be narrated in the subsequent verses