Can devotee children become sensually agitated by reading some pastimes from Krishna book?
Okay.
Question, can people, can children especially, after reading Krishna book and seeing some of the sensual pastimes within it, can they also become agitated with sensual desires, especially in their teenage years and that they may engage in wrong things because of this? Answer, as far as possibility is concerned, anything is possible. A person may come to a temple and may look at the deities and by looking at the female deities, a person may get agitated. When we consider possibility, for the human mind, anything can become a stimulus for sensual temptation.
So, let's not go into possibility. Let's focus on probability. Probability indicates likelihood.
Possibility is something, we just focus on possibility, we will not be able to live. We don't just stop doing things only because there is a remote possibility. Every time we travel in a bus or a car or a plane, there is a possibility that there can be an accident and there can be death, but we don't stop traveling because of the possibility alone.
Now, as far as probability is concerned, sensual temptations are likely to come far more because of TV, because of billboards, because of nowadays internet available everywhere, because of various such things, rather than because of reading Krishna book. Even if somebody is a devotee, has been brought up in a devotee family, a child of a devotee, for them also, even if there is a relative insulation from more such sensually titillating stimulus, still there cannot be complete disconnection. There will be some amount of exposure and that exposure is bound to bring about some agitation and especially that exposure will cause greater agitation if there is greater stimulation.
Sorry, if there is a lesser indulgence. If a person is especially in a pure life and then they come towards the teenage years, then because they never explored anything and because there is that excitement which comes because of hormonal stimulation in teenage, so a person may likely to explore. So the point here is not possibility but probability.
And in such times, reading Krishna book can also cause some things, but the probability of that is very less. And Krishna book, it has to be understood and read in a culture which is devotional. That's why Prabhupada gives a lot of philosophical context to explain what is happening in Krishna book.
And when we read the Krishna book along with the philosophical context, it's much easier to understand things without getting unnecessary misunderstandings. Further, Krishna book contains a lot of things apart from sensuality also. Actually, even if you go to Kanta, Vishnu and Bhagavatam, the sensual content is less.
And when Prabhupada was asked about this, if we read Krishna book and we become sensually agitated, what should we do? Prabhupada said, don't read it. That means you are not pure enough to read it right now. Don't read it.
So the point here is that there is no need to become paranoid about the whole concept of Krishna Leela just because of some things which might be titillating, which might be agitating. And if the parents are mature, the parents can also explain things in a reasonably balanced way so that the children don't get agitated further. And that way, they can clarify things.
Our last point we would say is that there is an ultimate effect and there is an immediate effect. So in the ultimate sense, exposure to Krishna Leela is purifying. In an immediate sense, not all forms of exposure to Krishna Leela will be equally purifying.
And we have to individually check and decide if we find that my child, by reading this, is exhibiting certain things which are counterproductive. So we understand one thing that rather than reading Krishna book being the cause, reading Krishna book is the trigger. Cause means that sort of sensual tendency is already there and reading of the Krishna book is simply a trigger for that to become manifest.
And of course, we have a duty to purify the cause and to minimize our exposure to the triggers. So certainly, we can and should try to check if certain sections, if we find that certain sections are agitating, we can minimize exposure to those sections, we can avoid exposure to those sections also. That is not a problem.
But there is no need for being paranoid about the whole culture because of some stray incidents which might happen here or there. Thank you.