Bhakti Shastri (017) – Sri Isopanisad Mantra 13 (Part 02)

Podcast

Hare Krishna. Welcome back to our Vishupanishad course. We are discussing the 13th mantra purport.
So today I will focus on one theme from this 13th mantra purport, which we have not discussed till now in a systematic way, although we have discussed it in an overview way. So here I will be, the topic that I will be discussing is that the people who do not accept Krishna as sambhavat, for them, they say that people are my God. So people are my God.
This was when Srila Prabhupada had come to India with the western disciples. At that time, there is a famous politician. He had said that people are my God.
And at one level, that had given a lot of popularity because the idea that I am the servant of the people and just as some people worship God, I will worship the general people. That had attracted a lot of public appreciation. But Srila Prabhupada excoriated that person.
He said that we cannot make people into God. God is God and people are not God. So this idea is quite deep-rooted that serving people is service to God.
So today we will explore it first from a sociological perspective, and then from a philosophical perspective, and then from a practical perspective, where we integrate the philosophical analysis with the sociological analysis. So this is actually a separate presentation that I give on Manaseva Madhaseva. And because this topic is important, not just from the point of view of this purport or this book, but it is important in terms of how we present Krishna consciousness in the world and how we ourselves understand the importance of Krishna consciousness in our lives.
We will discuss this topic in detail. So this is Manasevahi Madhasevahai. So is Manaseva not Madhaseva? That is what we will try to discuss here.
So this is the overview. It is a PowerPoint I prepared long ago. So let the facts speak.
We will discuss what the facts are. Then we will look at greed causes starvation. How can greed be removed? The secret of compassion are good, you know, good enough.
So now, why do people think that Manaseva is Madhaseva? So Manaseva means service to human beings. Madhaseva is service to God. So people say service to man is service to God.
Or in today’s gender neutral vocabulary, service to humanity is service to God. Now, this seems to be a very popular idea. But if we look at it objectively, what is the reality? At first glance, many movies talk about this, many social critics talk about this.
They say that the people are spending so much money inside the temples, on the stones in the temples and outside there are poor beggars who are starving. Why don’t you use that same money to feed the poor people? So certainly, poor people should be fed, no doubt. But is it that the money being spent inside is the cause of the starvation outside? At an immediate superficial level, we could just say that, oh, instead of spending money there, spend money here.
But beggars are not just starving outside the temples. Beggars are starving in the slums, on the streets everywhere. Beggars would be starving outside the houses of the billionaires and trillionaires also, but quite often they have security around them to drive the beggars away.
So it is not that beggars are only outside the temple. And if you ever look at starvation, why emotionally manipulate people by contrasting the starvation outside the temple with the opulence which the Judis worship inside? Why not contrast the starvation of the beggars with the thousands and thousands of dollars that are spent on cricket, on movies, on so many frivolous events? We have nothing against cricket or movies per se. Of course, they are mundane, they are passionate, they are distracting from spiritual life.
But the point is, if we compare, comparatively speaking, you know, spending millions of rupees on just watching one cricket match, in that much money, how many poor people could have been served? How many poor people could have been fed? How many starving people would have got so many meals? As a matter of perspective, actually the UNHCR studies show that all the starving people in the world can be fed if just the money that is spent by the European Union and America on perfumes were used for feeding starving people. So actually speaking, if you want to contrast, why not contrast this way? So that contrast, what does it mean? People, I want to smell good so that I can attract others. Even for the sake of my smelling good, other people have to starve to death, it doesn’t matter.
This contrast is very uncomfortable for us because it interferes with our sense gratification. Whereas when you contrast, you know, people, starving people outside a temple with the people who are worshipping the temple inside, what does it do? It makes us feel in some way superior to those who are going to the temple and worshipping, and it exempts us from the responsibility of going to the temple and worshipping. So certainly the goal is not that people, not justifying people starving at all.
No, it is the duty of those who are prosperous to help those who are poor. But to manipulate in this way, the emotions of people against God is misleading, it’s profoundly misleading. Not only is it misleading, it doesn’t solve the problem fundamentally.
So let’s look at the facts. As I said here, these statistics might be a little old, the figures might change slightly, but the point remains the same. And to satisfy the world sanitation food requirement cost US$13 billion, what the US and EU spend on perfume each year.
So actually speaking, we see that this cause of starvation is not so much the money that is spent on temple, the money that is spent so much on frivolous activities. So when people identify with the body, they want to decorate the body. When people identify with the mind, they want to titillate the mind.
And for the sake of titillating the mind, they will watch sports, they will watch movies, they will spend millions, billions on entertainment. So if people rose to the spiritual platform, then they would not identify so much with the body or with the mind. And then they would not have to spend so frivolously and excessively on pandering to the body and the mind.
And then that money could also be redirected to the service of God. So it’s very superficial and misleading to say that because people are doing Madhava Seva, people are doing service to God, that’s why people are starving outside. This is a misleading propaganda at the very least.
Now if you look at it deeper, there are several issues involved. If people became God conscious, what all would happen? If people became God conscious, one aspect of God consciousness would be they will see all living beings as the children of God. Many people say that, why do you see God only in the temple? Why don’t you see God in the beggars who are all around? Fine, we can tell them, okay, believe it or not, seeing God in the beggars outside the temple, why don’t you see God in the slaughterhouses where all the animals are being slaughtered? Is God not present there with them in their hearts? If God is everywhere, is he there only in the human heart, not in the heart of the animals? He’s there everywhere, why not see him there? And actually if people were truly God conscious instead of just minimising God consciousness in the name of serving poor people, then the true God consciousness would reflect the change in their diet.
They would not be non-vegetarian, they would become vegetarian. And if they became vegetarian, what would happen by that? A lot of difference would happen. When large percentage, in many countries more than 50% of the land that could be used for growing grains for feeding human beings is used instead to grow fodder to feed the animals who are then eaten by human beings.
Now the problem with this is it’s a very inefficient process. This much grains if human beings eat it, human beings can be fed for a good amount of time. But that much grain, say if it is used to feed an animal, then that animal, most of it will be eaten and most of it will be passed out as it’s refuse.
And a little from this much grain, maybe a little bit of flesh will be increased. And then that flesh human beings will eat. So on an average, the researchers have said that the amount of land that is required to feed one non-vegetarian person, that could be used to feed so many vegetarian people.
So many, statistics vary from 5 to 15, but all statistics agree that the same amount of land can feed many, many more vegetarian people. So the implication of this is, if you are serious about removing starvation, become vegetarian. If people become vegetarian, then the immediate result of that will be so much of the land which is used to feed animals can be used to grow fodder to feed animals who are slaughtered, who are artificially raised and fattened and then slaughtered.
It could be used to feed human beings. And so much starvation could be avoided. In fact, according to some statistics, several times the planet of the population can be fed if all the land available for irrigation would be used for making grains for human beings.
Similarly, so people drink. Now they think it is modern and it is fashionable to drink and those people who drink don’t drink alcohol. These people are so primitive, so prohibitive.
Enjoy life. But have these people thought, those people who drink, who say cheers, have they thought that their cheers are the cause of tears in the eyes of the starving people? How? Because when they drink alcohol, what happens? Alcohol doesn’t pop out of the air. Alcohol comes from sugarcane and sugarcane has to be grown in the fields.
So many fields all over the world practically, it is used to grow sugarcane or other kinds of elements that are used for various intoxicating drinks and that land could have been used to grow grains. So because that land is not used to grow grains, so therefore people starve. So if all the people in the world stopped drinking alcohol, so much of the land could be saved from being used for sugarcane farming.
It could be used for grain farming and people could be fed again also. So and we see when people become truly God conscious, they will stop eating meat and they will stop drinking alcohol. So at a much deeper level, God consciousness solves the problem of starvation in a far more fundamental way, in a far more far-reaching way than just asking one person who is worshipping God in the temple to feed the poor outside.
It’s a very superficial, simplistic sort of point the finger at other solution which doesn’t solve any problems. So therefore we have to understand the issue seriously. So yes, it is not that God should not be, that God should be worshipped and God’s children should be neglected.
An ideal culture would be where God is also glorified and his children are also cared for and that is possible if people become more selfless, become more spiritually minded. It won’t happen if people become more selfish and more mentally minded. So now, here again we see greed.
The real problem is not any kind of God consciousness or shortage of natural resources. Nearly 1 in 4 billion, 1.3 billion, a majority of humanity live on less than $1 per day. This is few, as I said, while the world’s 358 billionaires have assets exceeding the combined annual incomes of countries with 45% of the world’s people.
This money is concentrated among people. The problem is greed. So there are some people who are just chopping off the earth and eating it, while others are getting just some uchisht, some refuse remnants from the dirty mouths of greedy materialists.
Now, sometimes people say there is starvation because of droughts and thermites. But the problem is that much of the world’s best land is being misused for the production of cash export crops. A study of famine in Africa showed that on every occasion the affected nation had, within its boundaries, the food resources to feed its starving citizens.
But relief was unintentionally withheld due to economic or political motives. So this is from book Food First by Francis Lapis Moore and this is quoted by devotees Aditya Karmaprabhu and Mukunda Maharaj, Michael Kramer and Michael Grant in their book Divine Nature. So again, why are we discussing all this in Isha Upanishad? Isha Upanishad says that when we worship anything other than God, one result comes.
And when we worship God, another result comes. Anya devahu sambhavat, anya dahura sambhavat. So a popular asambhavat, a popular object of worship today, at least notionally, as a substitute for God, is people, is humanitarian work.
So we are saying now the real problem is not just shortage of natural resources, it is not wastage of natural resources on God, it is actually mismanagement caused by greed. So now, actually speaking, so many more people can be fed if life is taken, if people are truly taken care of in a proper way. How are they taken care of in proper way? By providing them God Consciousness.
If they are provided God Consciousness, then they will not be so self-centred, they will not be so short-sighted and they will care for others. And that was actually the culture that was there in India thanks to its spiritual foundation that was there. So when we move forward, what is the cause of starvation? It is greed.
When people become godless, they concomitantly become materialistic and greedy and so exploit nature and their fellow human beings for selfless enjoyment. So yes, we are looking now that starvation is a problem, but what is the cause? The cause is greed. And what is the cause of greed? It is godlessness.
Similarly, we can look at it from another way. We may feed a few hungry people, but till we remove greed from wealthy people’s hearts, hunger will continue to torment millions. So the problem is not so simple that some beggars are starving and we give them food.
And that will be a little bit of helping, but a little bit help for a very little time. A far more fundamental solution is purify people’s heart of greed. When their hearts are purified, naturally they will be able to do much more for humanity.
The problem in this world is not shortage of food, it is shortage of compassion. And shortage of compassion is there because there is an excess of greed. And excess of greed is there because people think that material things will make us happy.
So I want to accumulate more and more and more material things. When people understand that actually it is my connection with God that will make me happy and therefore I need to connect with God as much as possible, then that is what will actually make me happy. And then I won’t run after material things so passionately, so insensitively, so recklessly and not mindful of the cause that it is inflicting on others.
So now how can greed be removed? When people are offered spiritual education and experience, they understand that their real happiness is in loving God, not in accumulating material things. Then they give up greed. So this is what spirituality offers.
So actually speaking, when each of us, when we are chanting Hare Krishna and then we are sharing Krishna Consciousness with others, we are not just doing some religious ritual. We are actually participating in a process that is transforming us positively and is going to transform others positively when we share it with them and by that we are making tangible contributions in this world also. And this is how we are helping in solving the problems of the world through the practise of God Consciousness.
So let us move forward now. How do we actually develop compassion? By going closer to God. Because when you go closer to God, then naturally what happens? As here we see, Mother Teresa was asked, what is the secret of your compassion? She pointed to a rosary bead and said, by praying I feel love for God and all the children and so I want to help them as much as I can.
So the vision of a true spiritualist is that a spiritualist sees God in all living beings, but not as an idealistic way that everybody is God, but everybody is a child of God. Krishna says in Bhagavad Gita in the 6th chapter, 32nd verse, he says, He says that by comparing all people with oneself, one sees the true equality of all living beings in their happiness and their distress and thereby a person wants to help them. So this is compassion and this comes when one becomes spiritually evolved.
So spiritual advancement is a way of not just doing good to oneself, but it’s also doing good to the whole world. Because we are helping remove greed from the hearts of people. So now, there are many people who may want to help.
Okay, now we discussed from one perspective is the perspective of, so there is a problem of starvation in society. What is the cause of starvation? One cause is that there are greedy people who are exploiting others. How do we remove the greed from their hearts? By offering them spiritual education experience by which they will decrease their infatuation with material things and find non-material enrichment.
The other is that there are poor people who are starving, but often these poor people are starving, they have their own set of inadequacies, not just the shortage that they are having because of what they are starving. Sometimes they are addicted to bad, they are addicted to liquor, they are addicted to other bad habits and even if they get money, they often misuse the money. Now before I was introduced to Krishna Consciousness, I used to, I was quite interested in social service.
So when I was in my college at that time, just near our college, there were some slums. So I would go there and I would teach to the slum children. So I would teach them English, Maths and other subjects.
The idea was that literacy is the key to a good future for our fellow citizens. So I was going there for some time and I had a friend who was much more into this and he would go to a village and in that village he went and did education for the children. And when we were discussing and we realised that the children, we are coming once a week or twice a week or whatever and we are educating them, but the children are influenced much more by the culture around them, most of all their parents.
And generally their parents, especially the father would be a drunkard. So then we started talking with their parents. And my friend especially, he went to this village and he talked with so many of the villagers and he inspired them all to give up drinking.
And they gave up drinking, they became sober and I was also doing something similar and we felt elated that we were working. And then the elections came up and the local politician, the next day of the election, the previous night, he sent three trucks in the village, trucks filled with liquor bottles, free liquor for all those who will vote for him. And what happened? The next time my friend went, next time I went to the slums, you know, everybody practically was drunk.
Not only the father, but some of the children were also drunk. So at that time we realised that just offering material literacy is not enough. We have to find some way by which people can be changed internally.
And these were not bad people. It’s not that they were evil people. They knew their duty to their family members, they knew how much their drinking was going to hurt their family members, but just they couldn’t, they couldn’t control themselves.
So at that time I realised that we have to do something which will truly transform people internally. It was soon after that, that I was introduced to Krishna consciousness. So when I was introduced to Krishna consciousness, I shared it with many of my college friends.
And I saw, not only was I free from whatever bad habits I had, but many of my other friends were much more into some bad habits. They all became free from those bad habits. And it was not that they were struggling and fighting to cure the bad habits.
Many of the bad habits just fell off directly. So we saw here that there’s a very powerful means, a very potent process for self-transformation, because it gives a higher taste. So this self-defeating mentality that is there, which results, because of our inability to control ourselves, this is going to hurt people.
So even if you offer help to people, if they are not in a position to be helped, in the sense that they cannot take the help naturally, they will misuse the help because of their own inability to have self-mastery, then helping them is like putting water in a licking jug. No matter how much water I put, it’s just going to drain away. So quite often, this is a sad reality, let’s say if you give money to a beggar, what do you think he will do with it? Some beggars are truly hungry, but many beggars, if you give them food, they say, I have had practical experience in the trains, that when you give money to a beggar, when you give food, as devotees we give prasad, many of them say that we want money, we don’t want food.
Why? Because with money they will smoke or drink. It’s sad. We want to help, but they often don’t want to be helped in the right way.
What they want is not food, because food will just satisfy them for some time, they get, will just quench their thirst, will satisfy their hunger for some time, but they think that smoking or drinking will take us high, so they will misuse the money. So we may have good intentions, but are good intentions good enough? Are they producing a good result? If a person with a venereal disease is offered, if you have a hospital where a person with venereal disease is cured, what will you do afterwards? Unfortunately, that person is likely to go and get the same disease once again. Similarly, if we offer free treatment to an alcoholic, what do you think he will do? Unless he is cured of his alcoholism, he is going to succumb to it again.
So often the road to hell is paved with good intention, is paved with good intention. That means that we want to go and do good, but we end up being bad. Actually, Prabhupada, with the example that once he was, he saw that in his neighbourhood the mother was shouting and somebody was screaming, and he went there and he saw the mother was severely chastising her daughter, and she had a younger brother, and what had happened was that her younger brother had typhoid, and he had been told not to take any oily food, and he was feeling a strong hankering for oily food.
So when his mother had gone out to the market, the brother had said, please, I want some pakodas. So then his sister had gone outside to a shop and got a big pack of pakodas and given to him, and that child had eaten all of it, and he had almost, while he was eating he was enjoying, but after he started vomiting and he was almost half dead. When his mother came, his mother was shocked, he rushed him to the hospital, and somehow he survived.
The mother was chastising the daughter, what did you do? So the daughter had no bad intentions, but the effect was nonetheless bad. So here the point is not to say that all poor people are going to have bad habits or all poor people are bad, but the point is that mere good intentions are not good enough. We need a process, just as we need a process for transforming the greedy, we also need a process for transforming the needy.
The needy, if they are not able to use what they have for fulfilling their needs, because they think that their psychological needs are more urgent and important than their physical needs. Psychological need is for the alcohol, physical need may be for food, clothing, shelter, but often they put that aside to fed a conscious psychological need. Therefore we cannot, we are not really helping people at this time.
So now all this, what does it mean? As devotees, is social service to be condemned? Not exactly. The point is we should not make people into a false God to replace the real God Krishna. We shouldn’t put social service in such an exalted platform that we think that it is not only equivalent devotional service, but it is superior to devotional service.
Why? Because social service in and of itself, divorce from spiritual service will not work. Akshila Prabhupada himself was very compassionate. That’s why he travelled all over the world.
He went right to the hippies and actually speaking from the historical record point of view, the hippies were such a nuisance from the American government’s point of view, but it was unsolvable nuisance. They didn’t know what to do with those people and Akshila Prabhupada went there and he inspired them and he enabled them to transform themselves by chanting Hare Krishna and practising spiritual life. So it was remarkable what Akshila Prabhupada did.
Was this not humanitarian work? Was this not, did this not make society contribute to the world in a positive way? It did in a remarkable way, in a way that even the US government with all its nuclear power could not do. So it’s not that devotees are against the welfare of others, but the important point is that we are not here to start, let Krishna get supplanted, supplanted and substituted by something else as the object of worship. So we have to use social service with the attitude of yukta-vairagya, if we are going to use it.
That means that just as what is yukta-vairagya? Yukta-vairagya means that whatever can be engaged in Krishna’s service should not be renounced. But at the same time, we say that we will not renounce it, but that doesn’t mean that automatically it will get engaged in Krishna’s service. We have to be cautious about it.
So let’s look at the overall Vedic system. So social service can be used to attract people to Krishna. How is that possible? If we distribute food, we are distributing prasad, so we are distributing Krishna.
But people see that as humanitarian work and they start thinking that they are good people and they get positive perceptions about devotees and that enables them to eventually come to Krishna. So attract people to Krishna through it. Now, this is not just a tool for attracting people.
Actually, material welfare is also not unimportant. It is important. Now in the fourth canto of Srimad Bhagavatam describes the story of Pruthu Maharaj when the citizens in his country were starving and they were all suffering at that time.
What happened? They came to him and said, we are starving. Just as a forest fire burns the entire forest, our digestive fire is burning us. Please help us.
Now what did Pruthu Maharaj say? Oh, you know, all of you are suffering your own past bad karma. Just keep suffering. No, he didn’t say like that.
He immediately took emergency action and he made sure that the citizens’ needs were provided. Now, actually, if you look at the whole pastime, there is nothing directly spiritually involved in it. It is not specifically said that all of them were devotees of God and they were praying to God.
Pruthu Maharaj is, of course, a shakti avijayavatar of God. But here what he was doing was, there is nothing directly spiritual in it. Or is it? Actually, the whole culture was spiritual.
Pruthu Maharaj himself is Supreme Lord. The point is here he took care of material needs also. So we can’t just somehow reject material needs.
However, there is a division of labour within Varanashram. And the division of labour involves, the, it is the primarily Kshatriya responsibility to provide for material welfare and Brahmana responsibility is to provide for spiritual welfare. What is the difference between the two? Material welfare means socio-cultural political arrangements for taking care of the material needs of people.
Spiritual welfare means making the arrangements for providing and directly providing also spiritual education and spiritual experience to people. Both are important, no doubt. Now, when both the Kshatriya and the Brahmana work together, the material and spiritual welfare are taken care of.
Eventually, Prabhupada went to America. He said, I am looking for Brahmanas because he felt that the social body lacked the head. The Brahmanas are the head in society.
Brahmanas, of course, as we know, are not by birth. They are by qualities. They are spiritual intellectuals, spiritually inclined human beings who also have a love for knowledge and a love for sharing that knowledge with others.
So he primarily wanted to create Brahmanas. He wanted to have Brahmanical society. But along with having Brahmanical society, Prabhupada eventually wanted full Varanashram.
So when he wanted full Varanashram, that means that he wanted that within the Varanashram framework, people’s material needs also be taken care of. However, our primary goal is not to offer material welfare to people. There are many institutions doing that.
Of course, more institutions are also needed for that. But there are very few, if any, institutions offering spiritual welfare to people. This is our distinctive contribution.
And we will focus on doing this. But at the same time, if some devotees feel inspired to open some hospital, to do some charitable food programmes, to do other some sort of humanitarian work, and they integrate devotional service in it to various extents, then that is wonderful. Why is it wonderful? Because they have to do for their living.
And if they do it in a way that also brings some public appreciation, what is wrong with that? When we talk about how social service should not be made into a false god, that does not make social service a sinful activity. When we take initiation, do we take a vow that I will not give charity to anyone and anybody except the temples of ISKCON? That would be foolish. We don’t take a vow like that.
I will never give any charity to any beggar. We don’t take a vow like that. So the point here is, the overall propaganda that was there is, Shri Prabhupada, at this point, the propaganda, when he’s making a statement like this, that the idea that people are my god is false, on an ideological level, replacing God with people as object of worship, and redirecting the whole social energy in a wrong way away from God, that is what is to be strongly refuted and condemned.
But that doesn’t mean that we have to become insensitive human beings in the name of being spiritual. Where there is suffering, a devotee wants to offer help. At the same time, a devotee thinks deeply.
What is the best way to offer help? A devotee knows the best way is to practise Krishna Consciousness and share Krishna Consciousness with others. While doing this, a devotee also takes care, as much as possible, for making sure that other people are attracted to Krishna in every possible way. That includes Varanashram also.
So now, we see here, this is Bhakta Sudhanshu Thakur had once gone to the Sakshi Gopal temple, and Sakshi Gopal temple is a famous temple in Bengal, and when he was there, when he came out, there were many beggars who were asking for charity, and he had gone there on a yatra with his Grihastha disciples, and his Grihastha disciples did not give charity to anyone. So immediately, they were only outside the temple, Bhakta Sudhanshu Thakur sat down, he got his Grihastha disciples to sit down, and he gave the scoop. So what is it? If married men think, I must not give any of my money, which I consider reserved for Krishna to the poor and deprived, then they are really showing symptoms of wretchedness, cruelty, and lack of compassion for others.
They should not consider that giving charity to the poor is a fruitive activity. This kind of mentality will make their hearts hard, and they will suffer from greed. They will suffer from greed.
So this is very significant. What is he saying? That, no, even if somebody thinks my money is reserved only for Krishna, actually they will become hard-hearted. This kind of will make their hearts hard, and they will suffer from greed.
So if we don’t show compassion for fellow human beings, actually we will become greedy. And then, what does he say further? As a result of this, they shall not want to spend their money, even on the devotional service of the Supreme Lord, which is the ultimate goal in life. This will invite offences in service.
So if we can’t show kindness to those who are suffering around us, then how can we show affection to God who is beyond our visibility? So we will not be able to give money to God also, and this will invite offences in service. And then, to save us from this kind of deceit and sinful concept, Sri Goswami used to give money and other things to the poor people during his pastime as a married man. Chaitanya Mahaprabhu gave charity.
The Supreme Lord, he’s teaching us by example. And the money we have, we have only gotten by the Lord’s grace. If we give some of it to the mendicant poor people, then it is not a waste of money.
Rather, it is its correct use. Serving prasadam to others is the necessary duty of every married Vaishnava. So giving some money to poor people, it’s not a waste of money, it is correct use.
And further he says, now he takes the issue of karma now. Even if these people have become poor by their karma, even so they are still a part of the Lord’s family. Therefore, it is definitely the solemn duty of every honest married man to help them.
This is a profound point he’s making. And even if they have done some sinful activity, even if the people have become poor by their karma, even so they are still a part of the Lord’s family. We are not here to judge people on how they have acted in the past.
Whatever way they have acted, Krishna has not rejected them out of his family. They are still members of his family and we have to take care of them. So therefore, it is definitely the solemn duty of every honest married man to help them.
So now, you wonder what is going on here. First I said that the social services, we use the social service doesn’t solve problems. Greed is a real problem.
Lack of self-control is a real problem. And then therefore, we should actually help transform the people’s hearts. And now I’m saying that is the duty of people to, duty of, say, grahastha to be charitable to poor people.
And otherwise their hearts will become hard. So what are we talking about here? The two are not contradictory. They are complementary.
How? The essential idea is that a devotee’s heart should be soft. And soft heart means a devotee feels for other sufferings. You know, essentially a soft heart means, a hard heart means one’s emotions are restricted to one’s own interests.
A hard-hearted person cannot think about others. Others in terms of their emotions. A soft-hearted person, for soft-hearted people, their emotions are not restricted to their own interests.
They, their emotions expand to encompass other people also. And that’s why when other people are in pain, then they feel pain also. So now our goal is ultimately to expand the soft-heartedness of our heart so that it reaches Krishna.
And we feel for Krishna and we feel like Krishna. We feel for Krishna means we feel emotions. Krishna, I love you.
Krishna, I want to serve you. I want to return to you. We feel for Krishna and we feel like Krishna.
Feel like Krishna means not that I am Krishna, but feel like Krishna means we feel emotions the way Krishna feels emotions. That means Krishna feels sorry to see his own children suffering and he wants to help them. So we feel for Krishna, we feel like Krishna.
That means we feel that if Krishna’s children are suffering, why should they suffer? They should all be taken back to Krishna. So we are talking about same soft-heartedness expanding to other people and expanding through other people further beyond to Krishna. That means we do feel for the sufferings of those who are around us, even the material sufferings, even if they are because of bad karma.
But we want to remove those material sufferings at the deepest possible level. And the deepest possible level removal of suffering happens by the purification of the heart. And purification of the heart means practising devotional service.
So when we practise devotional service effectively, we are actually purifying our heart. And when we practise and encourage others to practise devotional service, we are helping them to purify their heart. At the same time, if our heart is getting purified, then we should be becoming more soft-hearted, more sensitive, more concerned about the suffering of others.
And that’s why we should want to help others. And how will we help others? By giving them Krishna in various ways. So for a poor person, if we give them some charity, and we also tell them, please chant Hare Krishna, then we are spiritualising the charity also.
So essentially, let’s look at this from a conclusive point of view. What about social service? Don’t exalt, don’t denigrate. Utilise in Krishna consciousness.
Don’t exalt means, don’t think that social service itself is the best thing in life. And devotional service is useless. Don’t denigrate means, it’s all mundane, it’s all material.
Just because people have their bad karma, they are suffering, you cannot interfere with the bad karma. Or you will get the karmic reactions. These are concentrations which are philosophically true, but they are devotionally very insensitive.
Don’t denigrate. But utilise in Krishna consciousness. Utilise in Krishna consciousness means, see how a devotee is not primarily concerned with karma.
A devotee is primarily concerned with Krishna. That means, how can I move closer to Krishna? How can I help others move closer to Krishna? That’s what a devotee is concerned with. And accordingly, a devotee acts.
So now, let’s understand this from two, the social service now, from two perspectives. One is the material perspective and the other is the devotional perspective. There are ordinary materialistic people who are concerned with themselves alone.
They are simply concerned with their own eating, sleeping, mating, defending and making better and better arrangements for that. These are self-centred materialists. Now, these mostly will be in passion.
Above them are in goodness. Those people who are, say, social welfare workers, they’re humanitarian workers and they want to help others. So these people, they are as compared to the materialists, selfless.
Why selfless? Because they are thinking beyond their own body and mind, beyond their own family members. They’re thinking of the larger society and community and they want to help them. So they are in goodness and goodness is higher than compassion.
And actually, pure goodness or transcendence, where the pure devotees are and where we are aspiring to go, what is that? That is actually the place where we feel compassionate for people constantly. And when we are compassionate for the soul, it is not that I’ll take care of your soul, but I’ll not only look at your body. That is not my problem.
We don’t separate the soul and the body like that. We take care of the complete person. So actually speaking, pure devotees are compassionate at every level.
Actually, Prabhupada himself would cook prasadam due to the people who were not even his disciple, not even practising devotees, not even following the regular principles, but they had just some interest in Krishna consciousness. So now you could say prasadam is spiritual and prasadam was going to purify people. That is true, but still Prabhupada was offering what could be seen as bodily service at that time.
He was even washing their plates. Why? Because that was the way he could approach Krishna. He could bring Krishna into their hearts.
He could get them to approach Krishna. So in this case, there is a hierarchical selfish materialist, relatively selfless materialist, selfless social welfare workers, and then devotional activists. Those are pure devotees or spiritual activists working for all round benefit of people.
So in this hierarchy, social welfare workers are definitely better and social work is definitely better than sense gratification. So social work is better, but then there is a problem if this social work creates a wrong attitude towards devotional work. That means this is social work, this is sense gratification, and this is devotional work.
But if social work makes a person think that actually devotional work is lower only, what I am doing is higher, what do they do? They just chant and dance and sing, nothing practical they are doing. I am doing much better. In fact, some social workers are not just condemnatory of religion, they are not just critical of religion, they are outright blasphemers of religion.
There is one social welfare organisation whose slogan is God in double quotes. God sends disasters, we send relief. So this is a demon, God doesn’t send disasters, it is our own karma which causes disasters.
So this is a very demoniac idea and this kind of thing is definitely condemned. So similarly, some people who say that just taking care of poor people is better, they don’t need to worship God, what are they doing? They, from the material point of view, may be concerned for more people than are sense gratifiers, but because of their negative attitude towards devotional service, they actually become lower. They become less receptive to devotional service than even the materialists and they can mislead people more.
So from the material point of view, those in goodness, those who are concerned with humanitarian work are higher, but from the devotional perspective, because of their criticism and condemnation of devotional service, they actually go lower. So these two hierarchies of materialists being lower and social workers being higher, this can get reversed. Materialists will become higher because they are at least more open to devotional service.
Those who are social welfare workers, they can become less receptive because they are critical. They feel that these people are just wasting time, wasting money and doing nothing. Now, people who have this kind of critical negative attitude towards religion again are not many.
There are a few people like that, but not many. So, there are many social welfare workers who are actually concerned with people and want to help people. So then such people, if we can just expand their vision, their understanding, expand their circle of compassion and help them become God conscious, then they can help so many people actually.
So, our goal is to not just condemn or denigrate social work, it is actually to integrate social work with spiritual work. With spiritual work being like a superset, social work being like the subset within it. In India, year or two ago, there was this very, there was a wave centred around the Lokpal movement.
Lokpal movement was the idea that there should be a strong judicial body which will punish the guilty because the guilty are doing a lot of corruption in society and corruption is eating up the social body, like termites from within. So, they said that we should have a strong judicial body to punish. So now, this is important at a material level.
The Kshatriyas should have the authority to punish and they should have the capacity to punish. So, having a Lokpal to punish the guilty is important. However, just by punishing the guilty, do we change the hearts of people? Some people may become a little more fearful and be more cautious about doing corruption or still what will happen is those people who have more power, more influence, they still keep doing corruption and they will keep escaping.
So, that doesn’t mean that Kshatriya body is not important, it is important. See, Lokpal can punish the guilty, but only Gopal can purify the greedy. So, Gopal can purify the greedy means that when people get connected with Lord Gopal, then they become purified by their contact.
Krishna is called as Gopal. Go means cow, pal means protector. So, go also means senses.
Krishna is a protector of the senses. How does it protect the senses? When the senses are using Krishna’s service, the senses experience a higher, richer happiness. Then what is provided by the sinful allurements of this world, by the selfish, greedy, lusty allurements of this world and then by this higher happiness, Krishna protects our senses and when people experience happiness in relationship with Krishna, then they become free from greed.
So, there has to be a Kshatriya level of administration offered and there has to be a Brahmana or a devotional level of, educational and devotional level of administration also offered and then the social body will be cured holistically. So, the best Mano Seva is to connect Mano to Madhav and to make Madhav accessible to Mano. So, Mano means human being, Madhav means God.
So, the best service to man is to connect man to God and to make God accessible to man. So, what are the two aspects of this? To connect man to God means that, say we go, Vishal Prabhupada encourages us to go out and do distribution. He encouraged Prasadam distribution.
He encouraged Harinam Sankirtan. He encouraged outreach programmes. By all these, we are giving people an opportunity to connect themselves with God and also to make Madhav accessible to Mano.
So, now in one way, how do we make the Lord accessible? Book distribution and other things are there, but along with that, the temple. Vishal Prabhupada wanted big beautiful temples. Why? Because in those temples, when the Lord is glorified majestically, befitting His glory, His position, then that attracts people.
If there are some small temple, not many people will come. But if there is a big temple, then many many people will come. Thousands of people will come.
Even millions of people will come over the years. And when they come to the temple, they take Darshan of the Lord, they take Prasad, they may take some books, they associate with devotees, they hear the holy name and their spiritual life begins. So, temples, when big temples are there, they make the Lord accessible to the people.
Because the Lord is manifested in a majestic building and people are attracted to the building. Recently in Pune, we built a big temple, NVCC, and the President of India came for the inauguration of the temple. And then hundreds of people come to the temple.
What is their idea? If the President came to see this temple, we should come to see. So, this is the material mentality. God is there, I should go to see God, is not the idea.
If the President came to see the temple, let us come. So, people are attracted to materially big things and providing materially big things for God is a way of attracting people to God. So, similarly, Vishal Prabhupada at one time was in Hong Kong and then he had a press conference in a very big 5-star hotel, Hilton Hotel.
And one of the reporters asked, Swamiji, you are a nunciate, why are you having a press conference, a 5-star hotel like this? Why are you living here? So, Prabhupada said that, you know, I can sit under a tree and be happy remembering God over there. But if I had called for a press conference under a tree, would you have come? So, he understood the point. The point is that we have to present God consciousness in a way that will attract people.
At the same time, we do not become insensitive to people’s material sufferings. Even people’s material sufferings should inspire us to do all that we can to share God consciousness more vigorously and help people get rid of their suffering at all levels, material and spiritual. So, tato bhuya eva te tamo yau sambhutyam ratah.
The Isha Upanishad says that those who worship something else other than God which they consider to be sambhuti, consider to be absolute truth, they can go into darker regions or darker regions. Why? Because they mislead people. So, to summarise, we discussed today about how service to man, service to God.
We discussed that the cause of starvation in society is not just because so much money is being spent on God or because natures are so short. It is because the sources of mismanagement are mismanaged because of greed in people’s hearts. And that greed can be removed only through purification, through experience of higher happiness and that is what spiritual education and spiritual experience offers.
So, on one side, we have to remove the greed among the wealthy and we also have to remove the lack of self-control among the needy. We discussed about alcohol, alcoholism and other problems among the poor which prevent them from taking help even when it is offered. And they can also be empowered if they get spiritual opportunities and they get empowered by the power of God to overcome the evil powers in their hearts that are dragging them down.
Then we discussed about how to make social service itself into a God will not work because people in and of themselves are not God, they are part of God. So, just we should not make that into a God and think that there is no need to worship God. At the same time, we should not become utterly heart-hearted towards people.
We look at Bhakti Sankhya Dacoit’s quote elaborately and then how he says that a devotee should be soft-hearted and soft-hearted means he should give charity to the poor people. Spiritualise the charity by giving prasad or making them chant Hare Krishna, that is the best. The point is we should feel soft-hearted and soft-heartedness should expand till Krishna.
And the last conclusion we discussed, the best Mano Seva is to connect Mana to Madhava and to make Madhava accessible to Mana. Thank you very much. Sri Ishopanishad ki jai.
Srila Prabhupada ki jai. Gaura Bhakta Vrinda ki jai. Nithaya Gaura Prema Anande.