Brutal hell & loving God How can both go together part 2 Chaitanya Charan Prabhu SB 3 30 26 5

Hare Krishna. So today, we’re continuing this discussion on the topic of the punishments in hell. How many of you were there yesterday? Okay. How many of you were not there yesterday?

Okay. How many of you are not there today? Okay. So I’ll do a quick recap of what I discussed yesterday, and we’ll move forward from there. Broadly, discuss the topic was how do we reconcile the idea of a loving god with such brutal punishments in hell that I described over here.

And I talked about how within the tradition itself, there is a contextual emphasis or contextual presentation. I talked about how Mahaprabhu said there’s no need for Vedanta Sutra commentary, but Bal Devidya Avushan recognized that there is an absolute need for the commentary. So that depending on the sensibilities or the concerns of particular people at particular times in history, the Acharya has to reach out to contemporary teachers, contemporary people. And so each generation is presented here by circle. So Bhaktivinath Thakur was the Acharya who had to who focused on tackling modernity.

And we discussed our challenges in presenting the message of the Bhagavatam and one of the aspects is this cosmology. And there I talked about how the principle he says, Srila Prabhupada and Bhaktina Thakur had discussed their approaches and I would like to elaborate on that today a little bit. So Bhaktivirath Thakur used a somewhat non literal reading. And Srila Prabhupada, if you see, there’s a non emphasis. I’ll come back to he does not really focus on the principle of health so much.

So but when Bhakti Vinod Thakur says it’s non literal, what does he mean? He focuses the principle, the principle that we are accountable for our actions. However, in his later books like the Jaiva Dharma, he also talks about hell. So he’s not simply dismissing hell as non literal. I’ll talk about that dimension.

And then lastly, I talk about the difference between hell in the Abrahamic traditions and in the Vedic tradition. Two main differences, that in the Abrahamic tradition, hell is eternal whereas in the Vedic tradition, it is temporary. It is like a it is like a learning place, a tough classroom in the university. And secondly, that hell is there for non believers, anybody who does not believe say for example Jesus is going to go to hell. Whereas in the Vedic tradition, hell is for wrongdoers.

One may not be a devotee of Krishna but still if a person is not harming others, they are not going to go to hell. They may stay in the material existence, they’re not necessarily going to go to hell. So this is not a personal vendetta of God. You didn’t worship me so I’m going to send you to hell. It’s not like that.

So there’s a very significant difference in although the term is same, the conceptions are different. So now I will I’ll talk about three main points. I’ll talk about the concept and then I’ll talk about the principle of consequence and largely I’ll talk about compassion. So now it’s interesting when you use the word concept of hell. Sometimes we may use it in a literal sense and sometimes we may use it in a experiential sense.

Now the word literal itself is a little confusing word. What do we mean by literal? Now, but let me start with first with the experiential. Right in the very next verse in this very chapter, what will Kapila tell his mother? You say, what does he say that?

My dear mother, it is sometimes said that we experience hell or heaven on this planet for hellish planets are sometimes visible on this planet also. So yesterday, I had given the example of how Prabhupada said in concentration camps, people had to eat their own refuse, horrible. So now somebody might draw particular implication from that. So is God like a concentration camp creator? No, that’s not the point of the world.

The point is just as in some places in this world there could be heavenly enjoyment if somebody goes to a five star or seven star Hill Station. So we might say for somebody who maybe has lived in poverty where they don’t even get one proper meal in an entire day, For them, if they go to luxury where there are maybe 50 items for every meal, and they sleep in a comfortable bed and there, so that can seem like heaven to them. So the point Prabhupada was making is not about the cause. The point Prabhupada was making was the varieties of experiences that are present on this planet also, and sometimes we may not see certain experiences within our paradigm or our range of experiences, but that’s like Prabhupada talk about doctor frog, the frog in the well. Just because we have not experienced something does not mean that there’s not it’s not there at all.

So Prabhupada is giving a possibility over there. There’s a difference between explaining possibility and explaining causality. Now why someone goes to hell is a different thing. Possibility means that okay this can happen. So we can say if we have varieties of experiences in the world, so we experience comfortable situations, we experience uncomfortable situations, We experience highly very comfortable situations.

We sometimes we experience unbelievably comfortable situations. So like that, the variety of experiences, this might be the range which we have experienced. But it’s possible that based on what we have experienced, we could say that the reality could be much bigger beyond the range that we have experienced. So that is the point, the possibility is what Prabhupada is emphasizing over here. Now not the causality.

So now when we say possibility of a particular kind of experience being there, in general, in philosophy, there is the standard especially historical investing that is the standard principle called absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Just because we don’t have evidence of something does not mean it is not possible. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. So what Srila Prabhupada is saying is that we have experiences in that direction. And yes, now for most normal people to think of the idea that they would have to eat their own refuse, it’s horrendous, revolting idea, but it has happened in the world, horrible, unfortunate and tragic, horrendous as it is, it has happened.

So Shraddha Prabhupada is expanding the range of our conception of what is possible. Now when we talk about hell, let’s try to understand some key points over here. The hell is now we may have a very simplistic idea that hell is a location. Well, that’s one way of looking at it. It’s actually much more of a condition rather than a location.

It is a location, but it is much more a condition. Just like we may think of the spiritual world, what I’m doing over here now, I’m trying to explain the concept over here. And start by saying, if you use the word non literal, what does non literal mean? Because if you go to if you equate literal with physical and that’s very simplistic, is the soul a literal thing? Yeah, soul is real, it exists, but is the soul physical?

No. It’s not physical. Sometimes we think of going to the spiritual world means, okay, the particular place and we go to that place. Yeah. That’s one way of looking at it.

But say this is America and this is Canada, please forgive my drawing. So this is America and this is Canada. Now now we may think, okay, you said you cross the border and you go from America to Canada. But is it like a spiritual world like that you cross a border and you go there? Now there are illegal immigrants who go from one country to another.

Can you be an illegal immigrant to the spiritual world? Bhakti Siddhanta says Thakur would say that you cannot gate crash into the kingdom of God. So the spiritual world is not just a location, it’s also a condition. One condition of what? It’s a condition of heart, it’s a condition of consciousness and that applies even to the idea of hell.

So hell is not just a physical place, it’s a state of mind, it’s a consciousness. And that’s what the next one is saying, we may experience hellish suffering even in this world also. And one of the things that has happened as modern society has progressed is that things at the physical level have become significantly more comfortable as compared to the past relatively speaking. So physical suffering is something which is quite shocking for us to think about and that’s why the idea of capital punishment is now revolting to most modern or post modern sensibilities. So what has happened is we as a society at the physical level, we have become more and more comfortable.

And say even the prisons in country like America or UK, they are not you go to prisons in India unless we go for prison outreach and the prisons for a person who is from India, some of the prisons in America seem better than many of the homes in India. The idea is that there’s a lot of physical comfort that’s why the idea of physical pain seems very revolting for us. However, pain is not just the physical level, it’s at the mental level also. And this is the paradox in today’s world, many people are increasingly comfortable at the material level, but they are miserable at the material level. As I can say, many people are comfortably miserable.

You know, all mental health problems, there are some people who may end their lives because of physical physical pain or physical discomfort, but most of the people who for example commit suicide is because of mental anguish, a sense of loneliness, abandonment, hopelessness. So now for most of us if we have not been through that much suffering, everybody has known pain, but if we have not been through that much suffering, we might not even be able to think why would anyone want to end their life. But if we go through a situation of terrible pain and then we can identify sometimes the mind might bring up some thought, if a person has certain cultures, certain nature, certain boundaries they won’t do it. But the point is that suffering can be unbearable and there can be unbearable suffering at the physical level and that may be a little unfamiliar to us in today’s world, but there is unbearable suffering at the mental level. I just want to end my life so hell suppose somebody is addict and they’re legally trying to get rid of the addiction but they’re just not able to and they’re feeling the withdrawal pain and it can be like hell for the person over there.

I don’t want to do this but I just can’t live without doing this. So that’s an addict to I wrote a read a book on addictions and addict one said that describe the conditioning, like he says, relationship with the addiction, he says, you treat me badly, I trust you madly. So it’s a very terrible, it’s like a typical definition of abusive relationship. You treat me badly but I trust you madly. Each time somebody indulges they suffer but after that next time the temptation come they just can’t say no.

So that is a hellish condition. So at a mental level, we could say addiction could be an extreme sense of suffering which can seem hellish. So the point of hell is not the specifics of the kind of physical suffering that is being inflicted. The point of hell is that there is a state of suffering. So in scripture, when the language is given, so I’m building on this point of concept only.

See, sometimes the language is descriptive, but quite often, the language is indicative rather than descriptive. Now what is the difference between descriptive and indicative language? Descriptive is what a place is, you describe what it is. Indicative is what it feels like what it feels like. The Garuda Puran is a place where in one of that’s that’s a book where lot of description of hell is given.

The post life journey is described and hell is described. Now you’ll see Nagarapurana is described hell is a place of darkness and hell is also described is said as a place of unbearable fire. Now if if we think of this simply as descriptive language, now fire and darkness don’t coexist, isn’t it? Fire means there is light, so hell is a place of darkness and hell is a place of fire. So now we could go and say we could say no these are two different hells, one is a dark place, the other is a place of fire.

But the Garabhupurana is not literally describing two different hells at many places. So the darkness and fire, they are indicative of what we will experience. So darkness is a place of of loneliness, of abandonment, of feeling completely lost, and fire is a place of agony, it’s a fire of some we can have the fire of guilt, we can have the fire of regret, we can have there is fire, so it indicates different kinds of sufferings. Now if we consider that this is literally a descriptive it’s a literally a description of the conditions, then the question comes up, the Prabhupada is saying over here somebody engage in illicit sexual activity and that’s what the Bhagavatam says. But then we’ll see how are we going to define illicit sexual activity.

Is it a one time indulgence, is it a multiple indulgence, a lifelong indulgence, is it two people coming voluntarily and consenting, is it one person forcing the other person? There’s a whole spectrum and if this was supposed to be a literal description then it wouldn’t be that anybody suppose somebody eats eat months in their life and somebody else doesn’t eat a meal even once in their life which does not have meat. Now can you say both are culpable at the same level? No system of justice would accept that principle. So this is clearly not a literal description of who will suffer how much.

And we see this in Prabhupada’s purport also that if you go back the previous verse, yeah, that Prabhupada is nuance and qualifying certain things. So the Sanskrit is Bhunkte Narova Nariva Mitha Sanghe Nandir Mitha. That this is what the man or the woman will be subjected to if mitha sangen and nirmitha, if they indulge in sexual pleasure, mitha is sexual pleasure nirmitha it is caused by. But Prabhupada is nuancing and he’s saying that those whose lives were built upon indulgence in illicit sexual life. So he’s not just talking about a one time indulgence, the lives are built upon that.

Now that is very different from a one time indulgence. Sometimes somebody may not want to indulge but the temptation may overpower them. Sometimes somebody may indulge but then they may repeatedly but then they may reform afterwards. So this is not so much a quantity another way to understand the difference between this the descriptive and indicative is it’s not so much a quantitative language as a qualitative language that there is consequence for our actions. So when the Bhagavatam describes hell, what is the it’s it’s not describing geography as it much is describing gravity.

Now gravity is not the pull of gravity, but gravity is how grave the situation is, that actions have consequences. So it’s not that when the Bhagavatam describes hell or for that matter it describes any of the places in the cosmos, It’s not like a Google map pin drop. You put the pin and you’ll Google map will take you there. It’s not exactly describing geographical coordinates. It’s describing the principle of gravity.

Gravity is that there are our actions, we are accountable for our actions and therefore, we need to be careful. So the so going back to what Prabhupada said, Prabhupada is not talking about causality over here. He’s talking more about the possibility and the possibility is that even in this world there can be terrible suffering sometimes at the physical level, sometimes at the mental level. And that principle just as in the heavens, there can be pleasure that we can’t imagine. Similarly in health, there can be there can be pains that we may not be able to imagine.

So that the first point of the understanding the concept. Now, let’s talk about compassion. So yesterday I mentioned about how Shluprahipad does not emphasize so much that if somebody engages in it does not emphasize health so much in terms of that being the consequence of wrong actions. Now if you look at the Vedas, there are hundreds of references to hell in Prabhupada’s works. But it’s interesting where does Prabhupada refer to hell?

He’s referring to the conversation between Parikshit Maharaj and Shubhadeva Goswami that follows this description. And Parikshit Maharaj asks how can people be saved from the chilly conditions and that’s the start of the sixth canto and there it is said that you know atonement will not work, it said that ultimately Bhakti will work and then the story of Ajamal is told. And when the story of Ajamal is told, the point is that a devotee when a devotee sees such suffering, such descriptions of suffering, devotees focus is that how can such suffering be prevented for others. The focus is compassion, the focus is not condemnation. It is not to scare people, you’re going to go to hell and scare them into compliance, that is not the point.

A devotee’s mood is always compassion. And this is this compassion is actually Krishna’s mood and this also needs to be a devotee’s mood. Now what do I mean by Krishna’s mood over here? In the Vedic tradition, it’s understood that God is present in our heart and God is present in our heart wherever we go. The verse in the Bhagavad Gita says, so that that on this we are, like, on the vehicle of the body and we wander all over.

So if you seek the Vedic conception of God as Krishna as contrasted with, say, the conception of God in any other tradition, the Abrahamic tradition, So it is not Krishna who sends people to hell. That is not at all the Vedic understanding. It is Krishna, he goes with people to hell. Krishna does not send people to hell, he goes with people to hell when their karma sends them there. People go to hell not because they reject Krishna.

That’s what I’ll send you to hell. No. It is when actually people live in a way that is destructive, in a way that is disruptive and destructive for others, their karma sends them to hell. So now we may say, but karma is also arranged by Krishna only. So it’s Krishna who is sending people to hell.

Well, it’s not that simple because Krishna in the in the Brahmasamita is described, he is the cause of all causes. He is not the cause of all effects. Now again, what do you mean by the difference? Cause of all causes and cause of all effects? Like, say, if you consider rain or clouds, the rain is the cause of all vegetation.

Without this is an example in Vedanta Sutra that without rain, there’ll be no vegetation that’ll grow anywhere, but the rain is not the cause of which vegetation grows where. So the rain is not the cause of, say, a flourishing harvest growing at one place and weed is going somewhere else. That is determined by the kind of seed that are sown over there, kind of care that has been taken over there. So Krishna has created a system of karma, but saying that Krishna sends people to hell is like saying suppose there’s a pilot and the pilot makes a mistake and the plane crashes. And why did the plane crash?

We have to make an investigation to find out what went wrong. If the pilot made a mistake, why did the pilot make a mistake? If the airplane malfunctioned, why did the airplane malfunction? Now some people some person with a half big knowledge of physics comes and says you people, why are you wasting some so much time in making a committee and doing some investigation? I already know what caused the plane crash.

Really? Tell us, do you have some secret intelligence information? What caused the plane crash? He says, No, it’s simple. The plane crashed because of gravity.

Now did the plane crash because of gravity? Well, yes and no. Without gravity, the plane would not crash. But we cannot hold gravity responsible when the plane crashes because the planes are designed to fly in spite of gravity and if a plane crashes and the question is not gravity caused it, why did that mechanism malfunction And that malfunctioning of the mechanism is what is responsible. Was it the aircraft manufacturer’s mistake?

Was it those who are supposed to do a pre flight check, they didn’t check properly? Was it a pilot’s mistake? So we cannot blame gravity for that. That’s why it is not Krishna who is sending people to hell. Krishna has created a mechanism but Krishna does not force anyone to make any choice.

The Bhagavad Gita in four thirteen and fourteen says Tasye kartaram apimam vidya a kartaram avayam. Tasye kartaram apimam Krishna says in four thirteen in the Bhagavad Gita that I am the maker of the whole system but it is not that I place different people at different places in the system, that is by their choices. So Krishna’s compassion is that even if our actions send us to hell, Krishna is there with us in hell. Krishna is the Paramatma never abandons us, and Krishna is always eager for us to be elevated. So Krishna’s love is the biggest reality in the world.

And for us, as we grow spiritually, what happens is this, if if you forget everything else from this talk, you can just remember this one thing. Now for us, initially, the world is very big and God, Krishna, is very small. When I was introduced to Bhakti, I started talking about it with my friends and colleagues and relatives. One of my uncles he told me, yeah, I have a very good relationship with God. He said, really?

I said, what what is it? Just mutual non interference. He said, he’s happy there, I’m happy here. So some people feel that God is completely relevant. Now when we think God is irrelevant, then what happens?

The world is very big for us and the world’s ups and downs also become very big for us. So the world’s ups and downs, they come they impact us a lot on mental level. But as we grow spiritually, the world becomes small and Krishna becomes big for us. So for a devotee, the physical suffering, it’s real but Krishna’s love is a bigger reality. So when Parikshit Maharaj saw that the snake was going to come and bite him and kill him, he knew the snake is going to come, but he also knew that it is actually Krishna’s arrangement.

So for us, what happens is if you the spiritual growth means we see physical reality, we don’t deny okay, it stopped. Okay. It’s interesting. Not seeing anything here. Okay.

So if we say that there is physical reality and there is spiritual reality, the physical reality is important, but for a devotee, the spiritual reality is much more important. And yes, hell may have terrible kind of suffering, it could be at a physical level, it could be in this world, it could be next world, it could be, at a jog at a geographical, the psychological level or at a physical level, but whatever be the suffering, Krishna’s love is a bigger reality. And that will bring me the last point. I think that it’s saying no displays are visible. Okay.

That’s definitely not distracting. Anyway, I’ll I’ll continue without this. Let’s see. And that brings us to the last point that is correction. So if there’s compassion then our focus, compassion is not just emotion, we need to after that do something tangible.

And what is the Bhagavatam’s mood? It’s a mood of correction. So the whole story of the Bhagavatam is told so that people can actually turn toward Krishna and they can they scum? Okay. Good.

So spiritual growth means the physical reality is not as important as the reality of Krishna’s love. So that brings us compassion is yes, a person may suffer in hellish conditions also, but Krishna’s love is the bigger reality and that correction means that we focus not so much on the reality and the gravity of hell. We talk about it but none of our Acharya’s has written a commentary on the fifth canto of the Srimad Bhagavadam specifically. Many of the Acharya has written commentaries on the tenth canto of Shmita Bhagavadam. Now Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu would love to hear the pastimes of Prahlad Maharaj and Dhruva Maharaj, that it does not describe that he love to hear the description of hellish planets.

No. So our focus is on how to help people experience Krishna’s love, how to invite them into that world of Krishna’s love and once they experience that, that is what will protect them from hell. And so ultimately Prabhupada started the International Society for Krishna Consciousness. It is not the International Society for Hell Consciousness that that there is hell and you’ll go to hell if you don’t do this, this, this. No.

That’s not the point. So what our Acharya emphasized that is what we need to emphasize and this correction happens by inspiring others to also develop love for Krishna. So broadly, you know, that the principle is you know. Means somehow or the other fix the mind on Krishna. So each one of us based on our particular background and the kind of background that our audience comes through.

So for some people, hell as a literal description, That can create fear and that fear can inspire people towards correction, towards correction through connection with Krishna and that’s perfectly fine. Now I was in India, there’s a temple in a small in a small village. We have one of our spiritual leaders in India who was born in that village. And in that village, when they build a temple, they’ve actually depicted the depicted the suffering in hell for the four regrettable principles. They made dioramas of how a person who eats meat will have to suffer in this way, how a person who doesn’t eat meat will have to suffer in that way.

Now, when I talk with the devotees who are making the Vedic planetarium, they have decided the Vedic planetarium in in Mayapur to not depict the Hellish planets. So now what is the point over here is, yes, people who may live in villages, they are still in a little bit of pre modern times and idea of a hell may may act as a deterrent for them, oh I don’t want to suffer like this. But for some people the idea of hell if it is what kind of God will create something like this? If that’s the idea then we focus on the idea of hell as a condition rather than a location and the focus is on redirection, yes. Now when we are in a state of godlessness, we suffer and therefore we should turn away.

And for many people, life in this world may itself at a psychological level can be like hell. So the point is we don’t get too caught in whether such descriptions are literal in the sense of being physically exactly the same details happening or whether they’re not happening. What will be foster Krishna consciousness That is what is important. So this is this is the level of Krishna consciousness and different people at different places. So some people in today’s modern sensibilities and there are pre modern sensibilities.

For some people considering the hell to be more of a literal description, this is what happens and this is what we will you will be subjected to or we will be subjected to if we do these things. If that’s what or as I say, whatever floats your boat, you accept that. For some people, this kind of descriptions may not be at all fathomable, acceptable, then we could say, as I said, it can be indicative language. The point is not where we start from, the point is that where we take off. So in Krishna consciousness, often there can be an acceptable range of meanings.

Now if somebody goes outside the acceptable range, that means they start saying that no matter what you do, you’re not going to suffer. This is all just meant to scare and there is no suffering because of, unrestricted indulgence. No. The specific of how suffering may come will vary. But if somebody starts saying that there’s going to be no suffering at all, then that would be outside the range of accepted meaning.

So we focus on cultivating Krishna consciousness and that’s how we grow in our lives and we inspire others to grow. So I quickly summarize what I discussed, three main points in talking about the concept of hell. The first about hell and how to understand, first of the concept. In the concept, I talked about how hell can be seen as a location, but it can also be seen as a condition. And condition means that it’s not just a state of play, it’s not just a physical place, it’s also a state of mind.

It’s not describing geography as it’s describing the gravity of the choices and the consequences. The language can be descriptive, but it can also be indicative. So we can understand this. It’s more a description of not so much of quantity as it is of quality. The specifics are not mentioned over here.

So the concept of hell can range from both ways. Then I talk about the principle of compassion that how what Krishna’s mood is Krishna doesn’t send to hell, He goes to hell with us. So he goes to hell not to suffer but to save us from suffering and that is Krishna’s love for us. So Krishna is the cause of all causes, not the cause of all effects. It is not Krishna who sends people to hell, it is karma which sends and Krishna who saves.

And when the correction our purpose should be correction just as Parikshit Maharaj on hearing this is focused on correction. So Srila Prabhupada’s mood was also on correction. So Srila Prabhupada also sensed the kind of audio that people were there today and then lastly we discussed for us our mood should also be how can I connect people with Krishna and thus there can be an acceptable range within which such statements can be seen? So some people, the literal meaning may inspire them to take to Krishna consciousness. And for some people, it may be a less literal meaning.

So rather than mandating necessary this is the only meaning that has to be taken, we understand that ultimately everyone has to go on the journey toward Krishna consciousness. Everybody needs to recognize that actually Krishna’s love is a far bigger reality than this world, whether it be this world’s pleasure or this world’s pain. And whatever way a person can actually be inspired to perceive Krishna’s love as the bigger reality, we encourage them in that way and move help them move towards Krishna. Thank you very much. Yes, miss.

Guru Maharaj, I’m going to the hell right now. Hell, Maharaj, servant’s just behind me. What should I do? What should I think? I’m very scared.

It’s, like, a dark time for me. Please give me advice. What should I do? I, like, had bad life all my life. I did bad things and now I understand that.

Yeah. What should I do? I think the key point is we need to experience Krishna. We experienced the world and experienced how painful the world is, but to see what gives us experience of Krishna. We have tried the experience of this world, tried displeasure, tried the solution, and it’s it’s really not all that great.

It can be terrible. So how do we experience Krishna? We come in the association of devotees, we participate in Kirtan, we chant the holy names. It like tell such a person give Krishna a chance, try Krishna out. Try to try Krishna out means not just chant the Holy Spirit, it’s important, but try to do something which actually gives you the experience of Krishna.

So maybe come and stay in the association, go to a holy place, take up some spiritual practice that the world is going to be there, it’s not that the world is going to fall apart if you turn away from the world for a few days. Try to immerse yourself in Krishna for some time. So give give yourself an opportunity to experience Krishna and once we do that we’ll get some strength and then greater than the world’s power to hurt is Krishna’s power to heal. But we need to give ourselves the opportunity to be healed by Krishna. And then once we are healed, then we can decide whether we want to go back into the same situation and deal with the situation, we just want to walk away from that situation, But give yourself an opportunity to experience Krishna.

That’s the key answer. Okay? Thank you. Yes, Bhupati. Thank you for two wonderful classes.

And if you asked me this morning what did I like about it, I took notes so I’d be able to not look stupid. I actually But the question I wanna ask is this there’s a famous picture, well it’s famous to Proud Pod Disciples, of Proud Pod being handed the fifth canto. And it’s open to the pictures of the hellish planets. And Prabhupada’s got a big smile on his face. You know that picture?

So as soon as possible? You remember that picture? All the Prabhupada disciples would know that picture. I don’t know if it’s still in circulation. How do you understand that?

Because that’s a lot more than non emphasis. I mean, that Yeah. You know, how do we understand that picture? Would anybody give me a good explanation? I also remember that.

I was thinking about it today. See, what happens is that personally, I’m not saying that the understanding that I have or the understanding that I shared is necessarily the conclusive, the definitive understanding. These are difficult subjects and, we all try to understand them according to our capacity and try to share that understanding. What in the Bhagavad Gita As I have, I think with Madurai and Maitreya, I have a conversation they say, as much as I have heard and as much as I have understood. So now considering that particular picture, I’d say two things.

You know, obviously Prabhupa definitely had a big smile. Now was that smile where just the fact of having the Bhagavatam published already or was it specifically because of that picture? That’s very difficult to say. You know, it could be that Prahopa was smiling throughout and maybe that picture was clicked when incidentally Prabhupada was on that that photo was given, Prabhupada was looking at that picture. So whether it is the description of the hellish planets that pleased Prabhupada, I doubt that very much.

So that’s one point. The second point is if we look at Srila Prabhupada’s overall writings. So when I said non emphasis, see, the the nature of the human mind is to go towards extremes. When you say something is important, we make it all important. And something is non important means we make it completely, utterly unimportant only.

It’s not it’s not utterly unimportant but there is a greed of importance. Say for example, now if somebody is in a place where maybe they are in the they are in a very high demanding job, some emergency duty in medicine or something like that, and they have barely the time to chant their rounds or cook food and offer bhoga and take bhoga. Now if they if they say I will cook bhoga, then they won’t have time to chant their rounds. Now what should you do at that time? Now both is important, we don’t want to take outside food, we also want to chant our rounds.

In that particular situation what will be more important is we need to do our chanting and then adjust, maybe we offer some food in the mind whatever. Now is that the standard? No. But there is a degree of importance. There’s a hierarchy of importance.

In Sanskrit this is called as Taratamya. Taratamya is hierarchy. So my concern when I present such sections is that nobody should leave Krishna consciousness because they find such sections difficult to accept. This is not such a non negotiable part of Krishna consciousness. There are there are two ways to present Krishna consciousness, one is it’s like a digital presentation, the other is an analog presentation.

What do I mean by digital? That you have to accept the whole package. This is Krishna consciousness is a package deal, you accept everything or you are out. It’s one or zero. But the analog is, it’s like Krishna consciousness there is a aspirational level.

Aspirational level means, say, we would like to have altar at our home, we would like to offer Bhogan nicely to Krishna, we would like to chant our rounds in the morning and then maybe you would like to go for a job, whatever job, whatever work you do. That’s aspirational level. But then from aspirational, there could be a non negotiable level. If somebody says that, you know, I’ve got such a busy job that the only food that is available for me in the vicinity of my job is meat, so I’ll eat meat. No, that would be something just seriously non negotiable.

So what happens is Krishna consciousness is a spectrum. So my understanding is at least the way way I’ve seen it, this fifth canto should not lead people to give up Krishna bhakti because they feel this is irrational, this is unacceptable. Either the it doesn’t make sense logic is I can’t accept this in light of science or I can’t accept this in the light of a compassion idea of a compassionate or loving God. So that’s my primary concern. Now can there be other concerns?

Of course, there are other concerns. So I would say Srila Prabhupada, from the seven purposes of ISKCON that he gave, from the name of the society that he gave, from what he expected in these ancient vows, Prabhupada didn’t give us like a 10 summary of Krishna consciousness, like some churches have creeds, this is what I believe in. Prabhupada didn’t give us like that. So therefore there’ll be some room for discussion and ambiguity about what is essential to Krishna consciousness and what is not so essential to Krishna consciousness. So some people may say, no, this is you have to accept Bhagavatam literally.

Every single word of the Bhagavatam has to be accepted literally. Otherwise, you don’t have faith in Krishna. Well, yes, that’s one way of looking at it. But then, do we want people just because they find certain sections of the Bhagavatam difficult to accept, do we want them to leave Krishna consciousness? Like yesterday we discussed that conversation, Prabhupada said if was that the only thing you could present to scholars?

So I think we need to be able to have a big umbrella in which a lot of people can take up Krishna bhakti and then each person will commit to Krishna consciousness in a way that works best for them. Everyone has to become serious about the relationship with Krishna. But what does the seriousness about the relationship with Krishna mean? Does it have to mean the exact same thing for every single person? Maybe, maybe not.

For somebody like even in the practical aspect of Krishna consciousness, for somebody, seriousness in Krishna consciousness means that if you do deity worship, if you fast but that may not be the definition of seriousness focused on much of other people. So you know with respect to practice, we often give people somewhat a flexible rope, you can’t chant 16 rounds, chant four rounds, if you can’t do this, you do this. But with respect to philosophy, why can’t we give people a little bit of a breathing room? If you consider there is a karma marga and there is a jnana marga from both people can come to bhakti. So from karma marga when somebody comes that means these are the rituals to be practiced, these are the rules to be followed, we give people leeway in the rules.

So those who are thoughtful, those who are analytical, they come more from the jnana marga. Now for them they will also need some breathing space. Now this is the exact way, there’s a range of what is acceptable. So in general my experience is that people who come from India, most of them come from the karma marga. Karma Marga means these were the rituals, these were the culture that most of them were practicing.

And they just learn more about the philosophy and they become more reinforced in practicing that. But most non Indians, most especially western people who come, they come more from the Gyan Marga. That means they have existential questions, and they find that their particular tradition did not give them answers to those questions, and that’s why they come. And so for many people from an Indian background or from a more ritual background, these specific descriptions of hell may not matter so much. Okay, let’s tell his description, I’ll just chant Hare Krishna and be happy, what’s the big deal?

For some people who have come from the philosophical direction, we know this whole question, how can a loving God do something like this? That’s a very serious question. So we need to give breathing just as we give breathing room, as we give space for people in terms of what they can practice, can we not give people space in terms of how they understand certain things? So Prabhupada in my understanding gave that space, that’s what Prabhupada called as philosophical speculation. So there is one past and I’ll conclude with this that I think, this is described of Maharaj in one of his vast offerings.

So he said the only difference, so two devotees were having some debate, they said the only difference between Radharani and between Krishna and Balaram is in complexion, other they both same. So one group of devotees said yes, that’s right. And then another devotee said, no. But only Krishna is the lord of Radharani, not not Balramji. That’s right.

Now both these devotees, the debate became very heated so they both went to Prabhupada. And now Prabhupada said, only both sides are presented. Only Krishna, the only difference between them is the complexion. Yes. That’s right.

But only Krishna is, only Krishna is the Lord of Radharani. That’s right. But Prabhupada, both of these can’t be right Prabhupada said, that’s right. And then what is the truth? Probably that you decide.

Now the point over here is there are very advanced truths and we don’t have to adjudicate them right now. So I’d say that’s my understanding over here. Let’s not make this a non negotiable aspect of Krishna consciousness which may make people have to decide to make or break their bhakti. Okay. Thank you.

You want to add something? Okay. You must ask questions. Thank you, Pabhuji, for a wonderful class. One thing that I kind of realized in this what your presentation was that realistically in this world, there is no real retribution.

In other words, if you perform that simple activity, you know, it’s it’s like, that’s it. What what what retribution is there? If you if you don’t really, become Krishna conscious in our particular philosophy, then you’re a lost soul, Literally. I mean, right? Because we’re saying we’re talking about simple activity.

You know, how if you commit this simple activity, what you know, even in the material world, if if you murder somebody, you know, you think you’re getting away with it. But really, if you you you you’re not. You you killed someone, and that’s simple. And that’s even against the law. So even in this country, you can kill somebody if they catch you fifty years later to still put you in jail.

So here we are in a material world and we’re committing so many simple activities knowingly and unknowingly. You know, what’s the repute you know, what what can they do in terms of they’ll be constantly in this cycle of birth and death? Yeah. And that’s exactly the it’s a nice way of articulating this point I’m making, you know. In our tradition, the specifics of how somebody is suffering is not as important as the principle that there is suffering in the material world.

So as long as somebody is in the material world, they will be suffering. And the key point is get out of this material world of suffering. So rather than getting so caught in, you know, this is hell and this is a place of severe suffering, no, the whole world is a place of suffering and unless we get out of that what is the point? It’s like Prabhupada would say there are golden shackles and there are iron shackles. It’s it’s still shackles only.

Thank you, Prabhu. So, Prabhu, my question is in regards to the physical location of health or the spiritual world and the importance. In the other side, we also have the conditional conditioning of the living entity. And that brought me to, some memories about I was reading a book where in the early days, one devotee was, complaining or having a difficult time to understand the the situation of Brindavan and, you know, finding all the different discrepancies. So proper answer is actually, Vrindavan is a state of consciousness.

You can create Vrindavan anywhere you are. So my question would be, it doesn’t necessarily diminish the position of the sacredness of the place. On the other side, my question will be also, is it sometimes more important the condition that you the kind of mentality that you have? Because if I bring it to another like another question, you can be in the presence of the Paramahansa, a great master, but you condition it or you’re you’re not able to, how do you say, take advantage of it? Can you speak?

Good point. See, that’s what I was trying to draw over here. See, if you consider Vrindavan as a place, now it’s is it important to go to Vrindavan and pilgrimage? That’s considered one of the key limbs of Bhakti. So the location is important.

But then our tradition it is also said that what is the use of going to a holy place if you don’t associate with holy people over there. It is like even bathing in a river, it’s like a like a cow or a a donkey. So there’s location without condition. Now this is undesirable or at least not the not the best you can put it that if we are just in the location but not in the condition, in the condition of state, condition of mind, now can there be condition without location? It is said yes that wherever Krishna is glorified that is Vrindavan.

So if a devotee is going on a morning walk with, with Srila Prabhupada, they might be going through some ghettos that will be like the spiritual world. So this is also glorious but the problem is that this may not be what we can experience all the time. So we can be in the condition say we could say that a devotee goes out into the world to distribute books, if they’re fixed in serving Krishna, wherever they’re going that’s a spiritual world only because they are glorifying Krishna, they’re sharing the glories of Krishna. But still can that devotee stay in that location twenty four hours a day and not be affected? No it’s not.

So you know ideal is by the location and the condition both are there. So the physical location matters, but it is not the physical location alone that matters and the state of consciousness also matters. So Vrindavan is a state of consciousness, Vrindavan also place. Ideally, by going to the place we can develop the state of consciousness more easily and we can carry the state of consciousness outside that place also. So what applies to Vrindavan also applies to the spiritual world, so the hellish mentality like a pure devotee may go to hell but a pure devotee may not be suffering in hell rather the pure devotee go there to save people from suffering.

Can be in that condition, can be in the location and not be in that condition. And somebody can be in this world and they can be in a hellish condition. Even if this world is spiritual world itself we have that conception. There is Jeevan Mukti and there is what is called as Atyantika Mukti or final Mukti. Jeevan Mukti is somebody is in this world, in this body, but they are they have no desire to enjoy this world.

So they are as if free from the body. And there is the ultimate liberationist and they give up the body and they go to the spiritual world. So spiritual world is the location as well as the condition. Okay? Thank you.

Thank you so much.