Brutal hell & loving God How can both go together part 1 Chaitanya Charan Prabhu SB 3 30 25 4

So since I got this verse, I was told this three, four days ago, I’ve not been able to sleep very peacefully. These are these are in many ways a very difficult section of the Bhagavatam to explain, first of all, to understand and to explain. So today and tomorrow, I’ll be discussing this theme of how the such a brutal hell or a brutal description of hell, how can it be reconciled with the idea of a loving God? That what is described over here, sometimes if we don’t know the language, then sometimes if we don’t know the language when what two people are speaking, we can only make it out, we can only guess it, infer it And India itself is a very multilingual country. So sometimes when somebody is angry, you can make out even if you don’t understand the language by their gestures, by their expressions, by the volume, you can make out they’re angry.

But among the various Indian languages, Bengali is a very sweet language. And I was once in Mayapur and two devotees talking and the whole language sounded very sweet But then after that, the devotee who whom I was talking who was talking to some other Bengali the other day, he after he finished the talk, he was very disturbed. I said, What happened? He said that this devotee, he just spoke so this other person was not a devotee like a person who’s coming to the temple, they’re working some contract on land with him, it’s favorable like this. He spoke such harsh language and such foul words, very shaken.

So I he was speaking in a very plain tone and Bengali is a little sweet language. So sometimes the language might be very sweet but the words might be horrible within it. So like that, you know, if we just come and recite the verses and we don’t know the Sanskrit, this verse can seem like any other verse. Sanskrit is is is a exalted language and if you know how to recite, it can be very sweet to recite also. But what is being talked about over here is is the punishments that are described in hell for those people who have indulge unrestrictedly in sensual pleasures.

So how do we understand this? So today and tomorrow, I’ll talk about this and I’ll broadly use the same approach, use three points, you know, the approach that we take, the context in which this is spoken and T will we’ll talk about transcendence, what the essence of the Bhagavatam is. This is the acronym I’ll use. Now because this is I’m giving class tomorrow also, I’ll have a little time, so I’ll go backwards and rather than focusing on this particular verse itself, we’ll look back at our tradition. And Bhaktivino Thakur was the first person in our tradition who had to encounter modern sensibilities.

If you consider the tradition, the tradition has been going on for a long time if you consider you know, and if you consider tradition to be like lineage, spiritual lineage, then every Acharya does outreach to their particular audience. So for example, Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu did outreach to the people at his times, then the six Goswamis, they were in Vrindavan and they did outreach to their particular audience. Now it’s interesting, the Goswamis hardly wrote any books about Lord Chaitanya because they were based in Vrindavan. In Vrindavan, Mahaprabhu had come and Mahaprabhu had created a sensation. But like any other visiting guest, when the visiting guest come, they say, Oh, huge, I’m Philip, but after the visiting guest goes back, things literally go back to normal.

So Vrindavan was a land of Krishna not of Lord Chaitanya. So they wrote books about Krishna, Krishna Leela, Krishna Attua and they wrote mostly Sanskrit because Vrindavan nobody knew Bengali. So every Acharya speaks to their audiences. So then after that we have Vishnu Acharya who is also in Vrindavan, but he was restoring Vrindavan after it was devastated by the intolerant Islamic ruler Aurangzeb. And then after that we have Baldevidya Bhushan.

Now Baldevidya Bhushan was speaking to a broader audience of the Vedic scholars because what happened was during Aurangzeb’s time, there are many of the deity like Radha Govind deity in order to be protected had to be taken to Jaipur. And in Jaipur there is already an existing religious group, the Ramanandis. And when Radha Govind came he stole the heart of the king over there. And actually the king started giving more patronage to Radha Govind and his worshipers and the previous group that was there, they started becoming very upset. And in order to try to gain back the patronage, they started to challenge the very validity of our tradition itself, the very validity of the worship of the way we are doing it.

So Bal Devidya Bhushan had to respond to that and that’s why although Chetan Mahaprabhu had said that the Bhagavatam is a natural commentary on the Vedanta Sutra, Baldevidya Bhushan had to write a commentary. So it is almost as if Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu said that there is no need for Vedanta Sutra commentary. Vedanta Sutra because he said the same author who wrote the Vedanta Sutra also wrote in his full maturity the Bhagavatam and therefore the Bhagavatam is a natural commentary. But during Bhakti Nota, during Maldive Devotion’s time, this same statement was seen simply as an excuse for not having a commentary because whenever we are discussing or debating with someone, we have to have a common basis of authority. If they don’t accept the basis of that that common basis, so if we are going to debate with somebody who is scientific and we quote the Bhagavita and say the Bhagavita says that we are not physical we are not physical beings, we are souls.

I don’t care what Bhagavita says, we may have to use some scientific evidence, something which they will accept. So the point is that had to write. He felt a strong need for a Vedanta Sutra commentary and nobody considers him in the tradition a deviant for writing such a commentary. Why? Because it was the need otherwise our Samprada itself would have lost its credentials.

So people who did not accept Lord Chaitanya Mahap’s authority, who were challenge challenging him and his tradition, we cannot argue with them by quoting from him. So therefore he had to write a commentary. So why am I giving this background? It’s like in the tradition each Acharya has to fight the battles of that generation and the battles of that generation may be very different from the battles of the previous generation. So if you consider the First World War and the Second World War, in the or we consider Second World War and the and the Cold War, in the Second World War we have Russia and America fought together against Germany.

But as soon as the war got over or even before the war was over when it was clear they were going to win, then there’s a competition between Russia and America who would have more power. So people who were ally allies can become enemies. Similarly, not everybody who were on the one side in the first world war were on the same side in second world war. So basically the battle lines change. In the material world, avidya ignorance always has to be fought.

But just as Krishna takes many Avatars, similarly Avidya also takes many Avatars. Avidya, ignorance also comes in different ways. And the principle in the tradition is that the current avatar, the current incarnation of avidya, of ignorance has to be fought. So each Acharya has to do that. The current avatar of Avidya has to be fought.

And the Baldevidya Bhushan fired the last salvo in the traditional battles. The traditional battles were basically everybody accepted the authority of the Vedas, but they debated fiercely about what was the meaning of the Vedas. The Vedas authority, but what does what the Vedas actually teach, that was the debate. But by the time it was Bhaktivinod Thakur’s time, What happened was the whole battleground had changed because westernization had come to India. And along with the westernization came, it was more of Europeanization if you want to say, you can call it the West or and because of that people were not really so concerned about what is the meaning of the Vedas.

The question was do the Vedas even matter? Do the Vedas even have anything of value? Are the Vedas just old fashioned, outdated, superstitious, irrational, primitive works of works that have no relevance of value today? So, Bhaktiv No Thakur had to fight a different battle and one of the battles that he had to fight was for explaining the Bhagavad. So what is it?

What is this? The, rational presentation of Vedic wisdom and especially of the Bhagavat. Oh, when did it stop? That’s funny. Oh, thank you for informing me.

Okay. Let me see what can I do over here? It got disconnected somehow. Maybe I just have to keep writing, otherwise, it gets disconnected. It’s come.

It’s come. Okay. Of the Bhagavatam. So he was the first person who had to give a rational presentation of the Bhagavatam. And Prabhupada in one of his talks on the while celebrating Bhaktiorn Thakur, his appearance disappearance days, he says, Bhaktiorn Thakur is the founder or the father of the modern day Krishna consciousness movement.

What he meant was that it is Bhaktirath Thakur who set the example in the standard of how to engage with modernity, how to engage with modern modernity and specifically the challenge of modernity was rationality. So modernity came with its own sensibilities and these descriptions of hell in one sense in pre modern times were not that provocative for many reasons. One reason was in the pre modern medieval times in general punishments were quite brutal. We know in France there’s a guillotine where people would just be killed. Even in Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’s time they did this guy the Changa, Changa was like swords are kept upside down, swords kept up and somebody is thrown on top of that and that is what happened in Bengal.

So the medieval and the they were physically quite brutal times and there were ways in which people were punished. So but in the modern time, the sensibilities changed and when the sensibilities changed, there are many questions that came up. So I so at that time, Bhaktivinath Thakur wrote an essay called the Bhagwat. And in that essay, he talks about what are the difficulties in understanding the Bhagwat, and he primarily talks about three difficulties. So in fact, he almost takes an autobiographical role over there.

He says that when I grew up, you know, I had an aversion to the Bhagavatam and he said I felt there’s nothing of value in it. So he’s talking to people of a similar background who have all been educated in the Western, the European way of thinking and he’s empathizing with them. He says that, Yeah, I was also like that. And he says there are three challenges, the first challenge is based on cosmology. So the second challenge is based on morality and the third is based on philosophy.

So he says the cosmology, the time scales, the description of the planets, all this just seems utterly irrational. It just seems what science has revealed is totally different from what the Bhagavatam is telling. Then with respect to morality, he focuses primarily on the morality of the character of Krishna and he says that many people considered at that time, especially Christian missionaries in order to target Hinduism, the religion of that country at that time, targeted on the immorality of the characters. So basically, when when the British infiltrated into India, initially the East India Company which was ruling did not allow missionaries to come in because they said that we are here for business and they saw that Indians are very religious, so let’s not mess with their religion. And they also saw that the last Mughal king was Aurangzeb and the main reason one of the reasons one of the main reasons why he just fell was that he just persecuted Hindus a lot.

And that’s why the Hindu just relentlessly fought against him, so they decided let’s not mess with these people’s religion. So, at that time many of the missionaries, the protestants, the Anglican church mainly, they would stay outside India in Burma and they would come Bangladesh was the border state, they would come in illegally, they were illegal immigrant preachers, they would come in and go back. But then, in Britain also, there were two political parties and they were just like here, one political party goes, another political party comes. A lot of policy changes happened. So there was one political party which was more on the rational side, scientific and scientific progress, the other was on the more religious side.

So in the British elections, when the party that was more on the religious side, the Tory party, they won. They said that that so the the Christians who were supporting them they said that, We’ve got this huge unchurched land, This is our duty to Jesus, we have to church them, we have to civilize them. And then that’s when the missionary work started very heavily. So basically both so the the rationalists, those who wanted scientific progress they criticize Hinduism as irrational and the Christians criticize Hinduism as pagan. So both were criticizing and their criticism was basically they talked about how every deity in the Vedic tradition, Krishna is so immoral.

And at that time the other deity that was very popular in worshiping in Bengal was Kali. So Kali is so brutal. So Kali is brutal and Krishna is immoral and Nabaktino Thakur was us living and teaching and trying to present body of Vaishnavism at a time when this came up. And now what happens is that this to the modern sensibility, the description of hell seems both, It seems brutal and it seems immoral. So this is the cosmology, the morality, and the philosophy.

So the description of hell as it is given in the Bhagavatam. Now the Christians did not critique that much because even in the Biblical tradition there is similar description of hell. The specifics may vary, but there is quite a brutal description of hell. Now when the cosmology is concerned, at that particular time, now also we are facing this challenge when we are building the planetarium, how do we actually explain the fifth canto, how do we depict the fifth canto? So these are challenges, it’s not like a one and done thing.

One Acharya gives an explanation and everybody accepts the explanation. It is an ongoing challenge that we face. So it is to address some of these challenges especially the challenge of cosmology, Bhaktivinath Thakur wrote a book called the Krishna Samhita. Now this is among his more controversial books because in this he took a somewhat of a non literal approach to the Bhagavatam and many traditionalists did not appreciate that approach. And Bhaktivedanta Thakur in his own writings later says he wrote his own autobiography in the form of a long letter to one of his sons Lalita Prasad and there he says many people misunderstood this book.

Nobody understood what I was trying to do with this book. So there we see even nowadays also in our movement there’s a debate between conservatives and liberals and people feel misunderstood, people feel attacked. So Bhaktivirath Thakur himself went through all that. He felt attacked. But anyway, I’ll talk about how he has dealt with this and then we will move forward and we’ll talk about this.

So in one sense Srila Prabhupada is trying to in the purport make this relatable for us. He says that in the holocaust terrible things happened, the concentration camps people were forced to eat their own refuse and so it’s no wonder that in hell something like this happened. But then while Prabhupada is trying to make it, you know, these things happen in this world also, they will happen in hell also. But for some people instead of making it relatable, it makes the whole idea of God unrelatable. That means what happens is that I was just talking with one American devotee, he said that when he read this he says that the thought that came in his mind is that what this purport is saying is that Krishna is like Hitler, that Krishna is a creator of a concentration camp worse than what Hitler created.

So sometimes what happens is intent is one thing but what the intent completely backfires. So how do we explain this? So I’ll talk about a lot of things, but first I’ll go into the approach that Bhakti Vinod Thakur takes. So specifically with respect to the descriptions of hell, Bhaktivinath Thakur seems to take a fairly non literal approach and he says that it is the principle of accountability for our actions that is vital that each one of us for whatever we do we will be held responsible. Beyond that the specifics are not that important.

The specifics are given to create fear so that people will stay moral, that people will do the right thing. Now this is not an unfamiliar approach. Bertrand Russell was a prominent atheist and when he would have discussions of atheism, he would have them in his library and he would lock the doors so that none he would have his intellectual friends come and discuss, but he would not want any of his servants to hear his discussions of atheism. Why? He said he felt that if the servants start believing that there is no God, then they will start stealing my silver and my gold from my house.

So the idea that fear will keep people in line, that is not an uncommon idea. And in many ways every country has this that if there is no fear of the law, then people will just there’ll always be criminal elements and they will just run wild. So Bhakti Rudhakur says such descriptions are given to create fear, not fear in the sense of terror, but fear for the sake of what is called as deterrence. Fear can be I’m sorry. Fear can be either for the purpose of creating terror and keeping a person to live in fear forever or fear can also be for deterrence.

Deterrence is where a person is just like you know India and Pakistan and China, these three countries have had lot of wars before. But now every one of them has has nuclear weapons. And although there are many confrontations there, it has not been outright war because there is deterrence. So this is these are meant to be deterrence, that’s what his mood is. So now Prabhupada did not quote Krishna Samhita much, he mentions this once or twice, he did not quote explicitly from Krishna Samhita so much except for one theme, but he did not reject Krishna Samhita directly.

At the same time, Prabhupada, while he did not directly say that the description in hell of hell are non literal, he certainly did not emphasize them too much. He did not emphasize them too much. If you for example, in the Christian outreach, often they start with if Jesus is the only way, if you don’t surrender to Jesus, you’re going to go to hell and you’re going to go to hell forever. So that God loves you so much that if you don’t love him back, he will send you to hell forever, you know. And unfortunately, this is not a caricature of Christianity.

So Bhakti Vinod Thakur himself talked about four levels at at which people can approach God. There is fear, there is desire, there is duty, and then there is love. So fear and desire is the level of karma kanda mostly. If you don’t do this, you’ll be punished by God. If you do this, you’ll be rewarded by God.

The fear and desire is the level at which most of the world’s religion operates. At the level of duty, it is more of karma yoga, nishkam karma yoga. When one understand that God has already done some so much for me, I have a duty to take care I have to serve him. Now love is the primary level at which we approach God in Bhakti Yoga. So now what Bhakti No Thakur states, I’ll talk about one last point and then we’ll have some questions if there are and we’ll continue tomorrow.

The key difference, the first point in reconciling, the idea of a loving God with the brutal descriptions of hell is that our while the term hell is the same, but the conception in the Vedic tradition is very different from what is there in the Abrahamic tradition. What is the difference? There are two main differences, the first is in the Abrahamic tradition hell is eternal, we go to hell and stay forever. In the Vedic tradition although hell is described it is temporary. It is when Srila Prabhupada was asked, Is hell eternal?

Prabhupada replied that, Nothing except ecstatic loving service to Krishna is eternal. So hell is temporary. So hell is in one sense if you can say in the Vedic tradition the whole universe is like a university. We are all meant to learn lessons, learn ultimately what matters and go towards that. And so within this university, hell is like a tough classroom.

Sometimes some kids are very very unruly, maybe they are sent to something which is a like a very difficult or something like a boot camp, they’re sent over there. So hell is like a tough classroom. So no society can actually flourish, even survive without a certain level of law and order and discipline. And if God does not have that system of disciplining people, then where is the question of justice and without justice where is the question of love? So it is not a condemnation.

So what is the implication of this that it is eternal, it is temporary? The implication is hell is for condemnation that you didn’t love God so you’re going to go to hell. But if hell is temporary, it is not for condemnation, it is for reformation. So it is not that God has permanently condemned us, it is that God wants us back and God wants us to reform. And another critical difference is that in the Abrahamic tradition, hell is for non believers.

If you don’t believe in Jesus, you don’t accept Jesus as your savior, you’re going to go to hell. In the Vedic tradition, hell is not for non believers, it is for wrong doers. It is not that just because you don’t worship Krishna you want to go to hell. Somebody may not be worshiping Krishna and if they are living in Sattva Guna, in the mode of goodness Krishna says, So somebody is charitable, somebody is kind, somebody is polite, and maybe they don’t believe in God, they’re a good person. They won’t they’re not good enough to go back to Godhead, but they’re just being good, But they won’t be sent to hell.

So this is not the personal vendetta of God. You didn’t believe me, so I’ll send you to hell. No, it is not like that. That is this actually when when you say have the implication that hell is for non believers, so these together are one point and this is a second point. When you say hell is for non believers, it is for almost like a vengeful God.

The idea becomes that God is vengeful. But whereas here, it is not a vengeful God, but a lawful God that if you create trouble for others, if you hurt others, if you harm others, then you will be punished. So the conception of God itself is very different and therefore can we reconcile the idea of hell with a loving God? Yes, it is possible because hell is not eternal and God does not send people to hell just because they don’t love him. It is because they are causing harm to others that they go to hell.

So I so I’ll continue this tomorrow and I’ll talk further about what is the specific bhakti wisdom about it. So I talked till now about the broad Vedic challenge and the Vedic wisdom. So I’ll summarize what I discussed today. We’re talking about hell and God’s love, can the two be reconciled. So I talked about how first there is the challenge that is there for the tradition always that always there will be ignorance and every has to face the current incarnation of avidya that is there.

And then within that we talk about how Bhakti Vinod Thakur faced the challenge for the Bhagavatam at three levels. And three levels is that it’s it’s cosmology, it’s morality and it’s philosophy. And within that the approach that he takes for this is to say that this is non literal, that the principle is that hell that we are accountable for our actions. Now Srila Prabhupada does not take that approach but Srila Prabhupada, this is non important in the sense that Prabhupada did not emphasize it. Prabhupada did not start by saying that don’t worship God or you’ll go to hell.

Prabhupada’s approach was much more at higher level. We’ll talk about Prabhupada’s approach tomorrow. And finally, we discussed about the difference in the conception of hell in the Abrahamic traditions versus the Vedic traditions. The Abrahamic traditions, it is eternal and that’s why it makes a serious difference whether it’s temporary, it’s eternal, it’s for condemnation of a reformation and the Abrahamic traditions, it is for non believers. So it’s almost like God is out to take revenge against those who don’t love him.

But in the Vedic tradition, it is for wrongdoers, those who hurt others. So this is what gives the idea of a lawful God. Now after talking about a lawful God, tomorrow I’ll talk about how it can be reconciled with the idea of a loving God also. Thank you very much. Hooray Krishna.

Any comments from? Okay. Okay. Yes, from here. Yeah.

Yeah. So how would you respond to a person who says, well, I like your, conception much better than the Christian conception. But, you know, here in in America and Western countries to have a saying, if you give a fool enough rope, he’ll hang himself. So it seems like Krishna is giving people a lot of rope. Why doesn’t he, you know I mean, the Bhagavad Gita says, why hasn’t he, you know, cut us off at the past, so to speak, before we hang ourselves because you know Well, I would say hell is the way he cuts us off the path.

So it’s like when actions have consequences, that’s what brings us to our senses. So in general, one person can guide another person only in three ways like many times when parents ask how do we guide someone, how do we guide our children, there are broadly three ways. First is conscience, that the conscience is like an innate voice, something just cannot be done. If we grew up seeing our parents never doing something, it’s out of question, no matter however angry you are, you don’t hit anyone. Then we ourselves certainly it’s wrong.

So conscience is like the voice of emotion, but it’s not just emotional, it’s that innate sense this is like an inner compass. Now if the compass is not there then there is intelligence. Intelligence is where we appeal to a person, you tell him if you do this, this is what is going to happen. Intelligence is where you give the person a vision of the consequence that is going to come. And if intelligence doesn’t work, then there is the experience.

Experience of what? Experience of the consequence. So broadly speaking, we cannot do anything, we cannot force anyone to do anything. Consciences, they just immediately feel it’s wrong, so I can’t do it. Intelligence is, okay, I see this is bad, so I’ll not do it.

Like somebody just feels, I don’t I don’t wanna kill animals. I don’t wanna hurt animals. He says, oh, if I eat red meat, I’ll get a heart attack. I don’t want to do that. Somebody gets a heart attack, he says, okay, now no more eat meat, red meat.

So basically, there’s a three way. So in one sense, hell is the way by which God is ensuring that the rope is not too long. So hail hell is where God is giving experience to people so that they can reform. Okay? Thank you.

Thank you. It’s true. Yes. All through. After thank you for a wonderful class.

What what comes to mind when you’re reading things of this this stature is that it it’s so phantasmagoria practically. I mean, it’s like not it’s like a movie or something. How how how do you get the living energy to understand these principles of freedom like Krishna conscious when you have to read these kind of descriptions which how many people would really believe. In other words, if you’re out there, you’re talking to a normal person and you know, he’s eating a hamburger and you said, well, if you continue eating that, you’re gonna have to take a you know, somebody’s gonna eat you or you’re gonna have to eat something else. So how how do you how do you take that particular idealism and and give it to someone to make them sincere or, help them understand these these principles from the Bhagavatam?

It’s tough. That’s why the principle which I find is best is choose our battles. There’s a very almost humorous conversation when Prabhupada was in Hawaii, some devotees came and told him that Prabhupada, when we try to talk with the scholars and we tell the scholars that that in Dwarka the king Ugarasen had some astronomical number of bodyguards. It’s quite a phenomenal number. So they started laughing at us.

They said where were their toilets, where are their homes, how could they live in Dwarka? Now Prabhupad could have Dwarka, so does he hear really? Or maybe it is two different places also, maybe there’s So anyway Prabhupad took different approach at different time. Prabhupad here, he said that in this conversation, among all the sections of the Bhagavatam, was it the only thing you found to speak to the scholars? So it is what is one of the one of the choosha battles means what?

Krishna’s Prabhupada himself says intelligence means to see things in their proper perspective. That’s what he said in the tenth chapter of the Bhagavata Purport, Buddha, Gyanama Sam, Mohan at ten point three four five. So that means we ourselves need to know what are the big things in our philosophy and what are the not so big things. So from Srila Prabhupada’s example itself we know how often did Prabhupada talk about hell. Generally when he talked about giving up sense gratification, it is not that you’ll go to hell if you do sense gratification, that is the general Christian version of they use the word adultery, adultery or fornication, you’ll go to hell and you’ll suffer in hell.

Prabhupada’s approach was this pleasure is so insignificant, you are meant for far greater pleasure. So Prabhupada took a particular approach. So my understanding is first is we don’t talk about it ourselves and we don’t this could work as a deterrent at a particular time. Now it doesn’t work as a deterrent and that’s why we are having this discussion about how to explain it. So to some extent it is possible although there is so much propaganda about sense gratification in the world today, many people soon realize that there’s nothing so great about it.

It’s just that because they don’t know any alternative they keep trying it and they keep trying it in new ways sort of hope that they’ll get some pleasure. But for many people if they they can be presented Krishna consciousness in an attractive way and they experience the happiness of Krishna consciousness then okay you know this you know there is better way to live and that’s how they give up sense gratification. So I think that’s the much more healthier approach rather than so I think this is the approach of intelligence rather than experience. You know, there is a better way to live, there is a better way to enjoy life and so we nowadays so there is enough arguments like we can make health arguments for giving up meat, we can make arguments based on environment which is a big concern for people. There’s also an argument based on I I talk about meat eating and talk about help the world with your food.

Well, I had all four things. One is at a health level it is beneficial, at the environmental level it’s beneficial, at the level of livestock, you know, so many people are killed just for your food. And then at the level of poverty itself, global poverty, That is if the amount of land that is used to make meat is used to raise grains for human beings, then far more people can be fed. So poverty itself then, that is not just us, UNESCO has said that. So this is basically there are different ways that’s why I said I give the example of what Chetanya Mahaprabhu said there is no need for this and Balibayash said we have to do this, we have to write a comment to the Midland Sutra.

So I think the same purpose but different approaches to that purpose. I personally wouldn’t use hell at all to talk about it to people. Okay. Thank you. Should we yeah.

There is one statement that says that whatever is written in the verus has to be taken as true. Either you like it or you don’t like it. So I try to understand in the Srila Bhakti Vinodakur statement and Srila Prabhupada in which take it literally and the other one is not that important. See, actually whatever is written has to be taken as truth that is that is there is a statement like that. At the same time there is a clear understanding of context.

So for example, in the Bhagavad Gita itself in 2.17 Krishna says Avinashita tadviddhi, that the soul cannot be destroyed, the soul is indestructible. And yet in the same Bhagavad Gita in the sixteenth chapter ninth verse, sixteenth chapter 20 verse, Krishna says that these things will destroy your soul this will destroy your soul So these will these are soul destroyers. So now there’s just no way both of these statements can be taken literally and they will be true. So then we have to look at the bigger picture. So So what is Krishna saying that here it’s non literal that Krishna is saying the souls spiritual tendency, the souls spiritual awareness that will be destroyed.

So we have to look at the context and that’s why while Shabda is the highest but pratyaksa and Anuman are also required. Yuga Swami used the example of Sandarbas that if somebody says that he lives that his house is on the Ganga. Nobody can house a house on the Ganga unless we are going to make a whole stretch of imagination and say this person is a mystic yogi who has built a house which floats on on there. Okay. This is the way to tell me to finish the class now.

Okay. So the thing is that we have to use our intelligence. So pratyaksha and Anuman, so by pratyaksha we know that there cannot be any house on the Ganga then it means it’s on the banks of the Ganga. So we have to propach and we have to make do we don’t want to do mental speculation but philosophical speculation is required. So there are clearly sections in the Bhagavatam which are in the scriptures which just cannot be taken literally.

So I would say it is that’s why studying scripture requires faith but also requires intelligence. And if it were only based on faith just take it literally true everything as it is then why do we even need commentators. I just this is it that’s all there is in fact that is one of the big split between the Catholics and the Protestants Some at least some of the Protestants say that the scripture is self evident, we don’t need any commentary. But then when it’s self evident which part is are you going to accept? Because in the Bible also there are contradictory strict ways.

So we need an approach that’s why when we would say whatever is said in scripture is true, that is true. But there are two ways to approach, one is with faith and the other is with intelligence and both are important. It is not only faith, if you have only faith we can become fanatical, if we have only intelligence we’ll become skeptical or even cynical. So we don’t want to go in either directions. We want to have a balance of faith and intelligence.

Okay. Thank you. So I think, should we continue tomorrow with any other questions or? There’s more question. Okay.

Do you have a question? Please take yours. I’ve been trying to find, because sometimes when speakers speak about this subject matter in class, they say that the soul the subtle body in the hellish planets when he’s being punished, he experiences it as being a long, long period of time. But we know it’s not eternal. But we also hear speakers say that, it’s actually just a flash of time, but his experience of it is very a long time.

So I haven’t been able to find that anywhere in the fifth kendo or the, third kendo. Do you do you know where that’s? Yeah. I mean, I also not heard about it. Is it?

Yeah. But they just talked about the traveling, it didn’t talk about the punish Okay. So what she is saying is suffering in hell. I’m talking about the suffering, not the traveling. So I think two things over here that, like, it is said in the in the that he has to pass 900,002 and then he’s at once engaged in tortures of his village.

Then he’s at once engaged in the torturous punishment which is just trying to go to hell. So so what does say that? Within a few moments, so it doesn’t does it say over here that it feels like a long time? It doesn’t exactly say that. But my point is that, you know, I, this notion that suffering that that the relativity of time, that something can be very short time but can feel very long, No, that that is not something which is completely outside our domain of experience.

Even Einstein talked about relativity of time, that’s how he explained that. Now if you’re sitting on a hot if you’re sitting on a hot, hot pan somehow, then in a few moments will feel like hours. And if you’re talking with somebody attractive whom you love, even several hours will feel like minutes. So it’s like sometimes we have a nightmare and it may just be for a few minutes, but when every nightmare we feel it’s very long. So the experiential level, pain doesn’t seem to be short, pain does seem to go on for a very long time.

So I think even if there’s no explicit scripture for that, it’s it’s something which is a reasonable inference from our own experience that what could be a short period could also seem very long, okay. So thank you very much.