Bhagavatam-daily 15 – 11.07.05 – Today’s culture aggravates, rationalizes and exploits people’s lower side

Namastavyam Tvayaiveha Mayatyakte Mahitale Janobhadra Vichirbhadra Bhavishyatika Lauyuge 11.75 Krishna is speaking to Uddhava. Namastavyam. Do not stay over here.
Tvayaiveha. In this place. O Uddhava, Mayatyakte Mahitale.
When I give up this earth, you should not live here. Why is that? Janobhadra Vichirbhadra. Janobhadra Vichirbhadra.
That actually, the people have vichir, attraction, addiction, taste for abhadra, inauspicious things. But on the other hand, you are bhadra. You are a holy person.
You are attracted to auspicious things. Bhavishyatika Lauyuge. This is what is going to happen in Bhavishya, in Talyuga.
That future is, of course, come here already in this world. We are living in that dark future that Krishna is talking about. So, what Krishna is telling essentially is that we are all, especially in Talyuga, trapped in a very spiritually incompatible and hostile situation.
So, this line, Janobhadra Vichirbhadra, that we are trying to lead auspicious lives. We are trying to cultivate auspicious morals and principles and values. But people around us, Janobhadra Vichirbhadra, people are attached to all kinds of inauspicious things.
And this says Krishna Srinimodha, don’t live here. No, this does not mean that he’s telling you should commit suicide. But he says that you should cultivate knowledge by which you can rise above the consciousness and the circumstances of people around you.
Rise above the mentality of the general people. And then you take shelter of me and you will eventually come back to me. That instruction applies to all of us also.
So, if we see in today’s culture, there has always been sin. No, there has always been the path of sinful, sinful people and virtuous people. And what makes Talyuga especially dangerous is that sin is glamorized as fashionable, as cool, as not just enjoyable, but also progressive and intelligent.
Nowadays, when people are, say, people drink and smoke, they think we are becoming modern. We are shedding off past inhibitions and we are enjoying life. And few things express this perverted understanding of progress as do people’s attitude towards sexuality.
People think that acting and engaging in sex in whatever way one feels enjoy, whatever catches one’s fancy. Doing that is actually our inviolable individual right. We can do it and nobody should stop us from doing it.
And because of this, decency is being increasingly pushed back and obscenity is being depicted as if it is artistic expression. It is a right to artistic expression, people call it. Now, some people may say, for example, that when hundreds and hundreds of sexually suggestive or explicit images are depicted publicly, now people say that, OK, this is just artistic depiction.
And there are somehow there are many surveys which say that actually people don’t watch, after watching this, don’t do anything bad. It is just they’re watching. But these are all misleading because if watching alone were not leading people to do anything, then why would so many companies spend millions and millions of dollars into advertisements? People watch something and surely they do something after that.
So why is it that after watching the advertisements about production, purchase of products, people act, but by after watching sexual obscenity, sexual violence, people do not act on that. Actually, here, those who are making such products are not concerned with how people act. They’re simply concerned with making money and they are capitalizing on people’s abhadra ruchi.
That people have abhadra ruchi is unfortunate. And actually, we ourselves would probably have been among those people who had abhadra ruchi, inauspicious addictions, before we came to Krishna consciousness. And sometimes even though that those abhadra ruchi may be continuing on to some smaller extent even now, but at least we also have developed some abhadra ruchi.
We have developed some devotional attraction and that’s what is enabling us to continue on devotional service. But it’s one thing to have abhadra ruchi, but it’s quite another thing to create a whole industry that exploits people’s abhadra ruchi. And on top of that, to create a whole ideology that rationalizes such exploitation as artistic freedom and then denies its destructive consequences in terms of, say, sexual infidelity where marriages fall apart or sexual violence where women and children are victimized.
So, all this results when abhadra ruchi is aggravated, rationalized and exploited. And all in the name of progress and those who oppose this are actually simply asking for basic decency, basic morality, basic sanity. But they are condemned as regressive.
So, this is the plight of Kali Yuga. Of course, even in such an age, there are sensible people still. And if spiritual principles are presented sensibly to them, they will accept it.
And there is still hope because Krishna never puts any soul in an utterly hopeless situation. There is hope at an individual level for all of us because we can ourselves practice bhakti and raise our consciousness and get out of this world. As Krishna is telling, namastavya, not stay here.
So, we can make that as our mission by wholehearted practice of bhakti. And we can also try to share Krishna’s message with others so that others can also get that shelter. And that way we can at least to some extent bring back sanity in the social discourse and in social culture.
But ultimately, we understand that in Kali Yuga, things are dark at the material level. And rather than lamenting or resenting that darkness or worse still, rather than succumbing to that darkness, we should gratefully embrace the path of light and the path to light that we have been given in the form of bhakti yoga. Bhakti yoga is the path of light in the sense that we are given a way which is lighted by the guidance of the acharyas about what we should do and what we should not do.
And it is the path to light in the sense that ultimately, it will take us back to Krishna, the dhami buddhi yogam, tam yena mam upayanti te, mam upayanti, we will attain Him. And He is the eternal abode of light and love. And therein, we will get the complete bhadras, eternal auspiciousness in our life.