Chaitanya Charan Das on Humanizing Our Outreach

So, some of us ate earlier, and that means you're ready to eat more. The Late Morning Programme with NAMRAS Podcast.

Hare Krishna, everyone. You're listening to the NAMRAS Podcast, the number one Hare Krishna podcast in the world. I'm so honoured to have Chaitanya Charan Prabhu here with us today.

Thank you, Prabhu, for joining us. Really appreciate it. We had Prabhu on for a remote episode.

I remember we did, but we've never had you in person, I believe. Yeah, we haven't. And, you know, it's really nice to have you in person and a little different dynamic.

And as always, thank you to my co-host. Thanks for joining me. Wonderful to be here and special thrill, because Chaitanya Charan Prabhu is a friend.

And also someone that just really one of my heroes. I think, Nam, you feel the same way. Definitely.

One of our heroes in terms of an ability to communicate spiritual wisdom in such a relevant, practical way. And really in your own voice, I really feel like one of the things I appreciate most about you is you really seem to have found your own voice and you're very authentic to that voice. And that's inspiring.

I know years ago, I don't know if you still use this. Maybe we can start here. But years ago, the sort of the branding was the spiritual scientist.

How scientific are you feeling these days, Prabhu? Yeah, that branding is like a jet lag for me now. How does he come up with it? Right, because there's certain things, right, you get like known for, and then you're like, do I really have this kind of the baggage that I want to carry around? I think part of it was you did come from a science background, right? Yeah, definitely. Let's say I was attracted because of the scientific presentation of Krishna consciousness.

I remember the Origins book was a game changer, a mind blower. Both for me. I was amazed to see the amount of rational arguments in favour of the existence of consciousness as an irreducible reality, as well as the existence of God.

And that was one of my services initially, addressing scientific questions and doubts. But over a period of time, I found that that just defined one side of me. And I wouldn't get much spiritual or devotional nourishment from it.

Now, while I have a heavy intellectual side, at the same time, over a period of time, I learned to differentiate between intellectual nourishment, like relational nourishment, spiritual nourishment. Maybe I would differentiate as devotional nourishment also. So I do get still intellectual nourishment.

I'm in touch with science. But right now, I see myself more as three things, like rational, literary, literary in the sense I like to do wordplay, that is, that gives me more nourishment right now than anything else, just playing with words. Sometimes I feel I'm more word conscious than Krishna conscious.

We'll come back to that, I think, because you've gotten a little famous for some of your witty aphorisms. Maybe that's becoming kind of part of your brand, so to speak. But we can talk about that a little bit more.

But you said so rational, and then what's the third? So third would be more of creative. I started using diagrams and using writing and drawing in my classes. I want to, in future, do a diagrammatic explanation of each verse of the Bhagavad Gita.

One diagram for each verse. So let's hang on for just a minute. Actually, the sound carries quite a bit.

So even the soft channel will carry. Yeah, yeah. Sorry, continue.

Let's, yeah, maybe let's back up. Yeah, yeah. And then, I'm sorry, you're gonna have to do some.

Yeah, we'll cut that out. Yeah. So the rational part, I still have that.

And I try to explain, or at least first of all, understand myself, things in a way which can make sense to me. And then I try to help them make sense to others. So I always try to answer questions or address issues from multiple perspectives.

So at least one perspective will click. So in many ways, I try to write articles or give classes, which would have nourished the Chaitanya Charan of 2005 or 2006. So I felt that, say, the first four or five years, I was, 1996, I was introduced, 1998, I joined.

And the first two, four, five years, I was very vibrant. But then I started noticing that I still had a lot of questions. And my questions were not appreciated by others.

So then I started noticing a significant difference that for me, the philosophy was, you know, not just a part of my life. It was my life in one sense. The philosophy was for me, a means for exploring and understanding reality.

But for many people around me, with all due respect to them, for them, philosophy was a tool for preaching. And I realised it's a huge difference in approach itself. That means, okay, I have good points by which you can persuade others.

And then they start chanting, they start becoming initiated. And of course, I feel anyway, Krishna Consciousness adds quality to people's lives, adds value to people's lives. That is good.

But that was not my approach. And so I had to find the like-minded association where the philosophy as a, you could say, search for truth, search for understanding, not just a search for finding attractive ways of attracting people. There are so many things which even we as devotees can explore.

And this is where I started looking at the Bhagavad Gita in a fresh light. In the 10.8, it says that they're already enlightened. But then the next verse, 10.9 says, the enlightened are enlightening each other.

So it's not a static, linear thing. There's something dynamic about that. So Prabhupada says in one lecture that the pure devotee knows Krishna.

They're not pure devotees, but pure devotee knows Krishna. And yet, because Krishna is unlimited, so they keep unlimitedly knowing Krishna for all time to come. So for me, even now, philosophy is much more about discovery than about delivery.

So for most people, with all due respects to them, and they're not that intellectual, and you could say that I have a scarcity of talent, a scarcity in variety of talent. We have these various personality scores, types of intelligences. So my verbal intelligence is very high.

My mathematical intelligence is very high. My intrapersonal intelligence is very high. But my musical intelligence is zero.

My interpersonal intelligence is not very high, in the sense that I'm much more of an introvert. And then my other special visual intelligence, organising, whatever, is very low. So I see many devotees, for them, intellect is just one side of them.

But for me, maybe that's the only side I have, nonsense in terms of connecting with Krishna, serving Krishna. So you're always approaching things in this way of kind of, not through your head necessarily, but through this kind of lens of understanding, seeking, philosophising, if that's a word. In more simpler terms, you're saying that instead of trying to jog your mind or use your brain to primarily try to spread Krishna consciousness or communicate it, you're thinking, why don't I internalise that more or use that philosophy more for myself rather than others? Is that what I'm hearing? Yes.

I know I would say yes, in the sense that yes, definitely. For me, philosophy is about nourishing myself. Right.

But of course, and I would love to share it. That's my life. Yeah.

But it's an ongoing process of learning the philosophy itself. Whereas before it seemed, or it can feel like in a more stereotypical sense, it's like a one and done. It's like a checklist, like learn this, checks, that truth is covered.

Next one. And then if I can cover all my bases, then I can convince someone else, cover all their bases, and we can just keep multiplying that way. But what you're talking about is, it's an ongoing process of discovery.

And even as a teacher, or I don't know if you use the word preacher these days, that's a whole other conversation. But as someone who shares or does outreach, you're also still learning. You're also still… I love that.

That's great. I mean, the thing, I don't want to lose it because I want to, let's go back to it a little bit. But I love this sort of what the idea, if I heard correctly, what motivates your outreach now is kind of what would have nourished Chaitanya Charan in 2005, you said, right? So I was saying that in 2003, four out of five, six years of practising bhakti, I started getting a lot of questions.

And I found that there are not many people who could give answers that were satisfactory. So fortunately, our movement is very big. And there are devotees also who are dedicated to intellectual exploration and intellectual growth.

So I got connected with many such devotees. And that was a lifesaver for me. But that's what I'm trying to do right now.

So sometimes I feel that the… And I have also evolved in my classes. In the past, my style was always analytical. But in the past, my content was also philosophical.

So I would delight and say, for example, what is the difference between Achaitya Veda and Vishishta Advaita or something like that? There's an audience for that, but it's not of much relevance to most people. So now I'm trying to take topics that are practical, but have a serious analysis of those topics. So you're employing the analytical kind of approach, but to practical, lived, experiential type of stuff.

Yes, exactly. So relationships, emotions. I think those things, I'm much better at… I think most of us are like that.

We're all better at talking about relationships than developing relationships. But to some extent, I find that it's nourishing for me also. And I also feel that after I started travelling abroad, I became more of a human being.

In the sense of? In the sense that… I'm grateful for the training that I got as a strict brahmachari. But then in the pursuit of having high standards of renunciation, sometimes we can trivialise and dismiss human concerns just as mundane or a science of attachment. But then as I started, especially travelling across the world, meeting different devotees, so I would say that there was a phase when I was concerned more with deepening my Krishna consciousness, studying scripture, reaching Aryani Acharya's commentaries and deepening.

But now I'm trying to do that. But now I feel it's equally important to broaden my Krishna consciousness. So sometimes if you're only deepening without broadening, then we may well connect with Krishna, but we may actually become very dismissive of devotees with other concerns if they're valid.

So it's actually, you know, I appreciate grahasthas more. I appreciate even our managers more. Although as an intellectual, I always have some concerns about the way the institution functions.

But still, you know, I understand the challenges that they face. So it seems like there's just much more scope for human empathy. Oh, definitely.

And I do feel that things have changed substantially, positively over the last one or two decades. It's a lot of recognition of the human needs of individuals. And mental health is no longer stigmatised.

Leaving the idea that we're talking about, like human needs in relation to devotees, right? Because I think for so long, there was an idea like, that's for those non-devotees out there, karmis or whatever pejorative language we would use. But the idea was, no, once you become a devotee, you know, all of that is, you can say goodbye to it, right? Because just by being a devotee, obviously, you've now magically cultivated all the good qualities. Which, I mean, obviously I'm being facetious because in real life that wouldn't happen.

But because there was no scope for many of us, even speaking personally here, because there was no scope to talk about it out loud, you felt like, well, maybe I'm just not doing Krishna consciousness right. So I secretly have all my human needs and issues and concerns, but I have to present like, oh, yeah, everything's blissful. And of course, you know, but that seems to have changed.

Oh, definitely. And I think the kinds of teaching that you're doing now is very much a part of that change. Yes, I hope that I'm a small part of that also.

So that brings me to the way my way of studying scripture and sharing scripture has also changed. If you consider three circles, there is quite often when we talk about practical application, that's ABCD, you know, association, books, chanting, and diet or deity worship, whatever. And that's true.

That's definitely something which can a person can practise in life. But especially when I started travelling outside India to the west, and I started seeing what are the, when people are looking for spirituality, what are they looking for? You know, they're looking for the more meaning and purpose in their lives. They're looking for maybe becoming more steady and composed.

They're looking for more mind, becoming more mindful. And they're looking for being more grateful. So for most people, when they think about spirituality, they think about these values, which will actually bring greater value to their life, you can say in one sense.

Yeah. So if you consider there is a textual study of scripture as one circle. Why does this verse follow this verse? What are the different commentators saying about this particular verse? That was the kind of study I did.

And that's very sort of typical of like a Bhakti Shastri course. Exactly. Yes.

Okay. So that's one. And now the second circle is you could say, what was I thought practical application of scripture earlier.

But now I call it more like traditional application of scripture. That means, you know, not traditional. In other words, this is how you follow the scripture or you study the scripture to be a part of the tradition.

And that's important, no doubt. Hmm. But practical application means not just how I align with the tradition, but how it helps me live my life here and now.

So that is what I think. That's its own circle, you're saying. That's its own.

There are definitely intersections in these three circles. So practical application of scripture, say, for example, in the past, we were quite dismissive of human relationships. Yes.

Now, but if you look at for most people, social need is important. And can we learn from scripture how to avoid misunderstandings? How can we be more empathic in hearing from others? So now we may say these are all mundane values. Well, somehow I have developed a little bit of hesitation to even use the word material and spiritual.

I prefer the word maybe more like selfless and selfish. Because, you know, material, you could have sattva guna, rajo guna, tamo guna. And there's a huge difference between the three.

Bhaktivinoda Thakur said in Chandrasheksha Amrita that, you know, we shouldn't even conflate rajo guna and tamo guna. But to speak of sattva. Sattva.

So that's that. He actually says that. Yeah.

He, in fact, says that rajo guna can sometimes be like an antidote for the toxicity of tamo guna. Which is a very strong statement. Yeah.

That if somebody is tamasik, they just have, they're just playing video games and drinking and taking drugs and wasting their life. Maybe that person enters into a relationship, has a family, has children, starts taking care of those children. It's a job.

Starts earning a pay cheque, right? Like it's not spiritual necessarily, but it's something more constructive is what, you know. And it's going to make a significant difference for that person's life. From at least from that perspective, from where they were.

Yeah. So in that sense, sattva, rajas, tamas. So rather than seeing this is material and this is spiritual.

You take people from material to spiritual. I see it more like a continuum. Sattva, rajas, tamas, rajas, sattva.

And then you go higher and higher towards the spiritual. So the way I try to share wisdom now is that, and I try to apply it myself also, not just share, is that, you know, that we provide people resources for raising their consciousness. And it's up to them which resource they want to take and how much they want to take it.

Hmm. So if somebody just rises from tamas to rajas, that's also good. Yeah.

If somebody rises from tamas all the way to sattva and shuddha sattva, that's great. But we want to add value to people's lives. And in one sense, that is also the mood of the Bhagavad Gita.

So many places Krishna says, you can't do this, do this, can't do this, do this. Yeah. The 12th chapter especially, even while talking about bhakti, is giving multiple levels.

And now, of course, Krishna does say sarva dhaman parityajya. That's how we will come to that, how I see that verse now. But that's the conclusion.

That's not the only teaching of the Gita. So in all aspects of the scripture, you feel there is ways to look at it in a perspective of that I can add value to my life with this. Oh, yes.

Every aspect. Oh, yes, definitely. Say, for example, you know, there's a churning of the milk ocean, that pastime is there.

Now, you can go into the allegorical symbolic aspect of that, but just look at from what happens over there. Devatas are energised by sattva guna. The asuras are energised by rajo guna.

And both of them are churning. And both of them are able to balance. So the energy from sattva and energy from rajo, in this case, is equal.

It's interesting, isn't it? So there's two different modes, but two people can be two different modes can work together. For one, that's so good. He's doing this in real time, right? So you like, I mean, sorry to like, you know, they say, like, the worst thing, the most unfunny thing you can do is explain a joke, right? So probably the worst thing I can do is try to dissect this beautiful, like, but it's like exciting.

I can actually see the wheels turning almost. So you take a story like the churning, right? Sea Journey. That's a whole other topic.

Do you know about this thing? When Shilpa Upad was dictating the sea churning pastime, or it was in some other book, when they were listening to it, the people who were typing it, they wrote sea journey instead of sea churning. Prabhupada says sea churning. They heard sea journey.

This is like one of the book changes arguments that, oh, like, what do you do? Do you keep it sea journey? Or do you keep it sea churning? Because we know what Prabhupada meant, but he didn't say that. Or he did say that, but the devotee who was typing it was typing something else because that's what they heard. Anyway, it's a real side discussion.

It's also a side discussion we disagree on very much, because he's sea journey and I'm sea churning on this. I'm not sea journey. No, you're not into the book changes, right? I mean, there's different ways of looking at it.

Annotations, no annotations. I'm all about annotations, book changes. I think the change of fonts, for sure.

I have some suggestions of some good fonts. Anyway, let's not… If I ever see a BBT book in Comic Sans, that will be the end of my… No, okay. Anyway, going back to… Back to… Going back to… But just because it's so… I don't know, I'm almost getting chills, right? Like you're taking that story, you're seeing it, and then you're looking at kind of what's going on.

And it's almost like almost organically a kind of a very applicable lesson starts to emerge. That's what it feels like. That two people can work together.

That two… Well, on so many levels, right? On a very practical level, two people can work together, two very opposing elements. There's a very practical takeaway there. But then even going more subtly of like, well, what does it mean to have sattva and rajas in balance, right? Because that's not usually how we talk about the gunas at all.

Exactly. At least when I was coming up. You just have to be in sattva.

If you're even going to allow the gunas into the conversation, actually to transcend even sattva. But maybe, you know, a soft-hearted liberal speaker, maybe will allow sattva, right? But the idea of sattva and rajas in some kind of dynamic balance, like, I don't know, I don't really hear classes on that. But you took a very traditional Shastric story and just in a matter of like less than a minute, this theme kind of emerges.

Is that what happens when you're preparing a class? Some of Krishna's mercy is there, yeah. I see things that are controversially uncontroversial. That's another one of his… That's a Chaitanya Charanism.

What do you mean by controversially uncontroversial? Well, they're uncontroversial in the sense that they're obviously there. Okay. But they're controversial in the sense that that's not the way we look at things normally.

Yes, yes. For example, he says that, which mother, which father? Now, but when does he say it? After this life has ended. And now he's honest, that soul is on the journey afterwards.

So those relationships cannot be devalued while they are existing. When he has gone from there, now he's had so many lives. And at that time, you can ask which father, which mother? But while we are in a relationship, it's important to function in those relationships.

We have the same Bhagavatam, 10th Canto. Krishna is telling Vasudeva and Devaki, as a child, I should be serving you. But because of circumstances, as a way, I couldn't do anything for you.

Yeah. So I'll try to serve you now. It's the duty of a child to serve the parents.

So in that instance, there's a valuing of the parent-child relationship. Exactly. In the Chitraketu… But the devaluing, when it is happening, it is not when.

The way sometimes it's presented, all relations were temporary. They had so many relationships. But while we are in a relationship, it's important that we take it seriously.

So I think there's so much… And that insight came about by just noticing the context. Exactly. Yeah, context is, I feel, critical.

So one of the things which I really relish doing in the Gita, in fact, I've written a book called Relishing Bhagavad Gita, which is basically see the Gita's verses in the context of the Kurukshetra battlefield in the Krishna-Arjuna conversation. So, for example, now, if you consider the verse, let's take, Sarva Dharmaan Parityaj. Now, what does that mean for Arjuna over there? At a philosophical level, what it means on the battlefield? What does it mean? That there are very different questions.

So now we could say immediately it means Arjuna was pulled by two dharmas. His Kula Dharma and his Kshatriya Dharma. And Krishna is telling him, just put aside all your conceptions of dharma and the highest dharma is surrendered to me, Maa Mekam Charanam Rajyam.

So now this is what that verse means for Arjuna over there. It means that we just do God's will. But doing God's will does not mean abandoning his dharma.

Because eventually he takes up and he fights him. Right, it would be absurd if it meant, don't do this thing I've been trying to convince you to do and that he ends up doing, right? Yeah. So the thing is that when we give up all dharma and surrender to Krishna, after surrendering, we have to do one of the dharmas in this world.

Then Arjuna takes up the Kshatriya Dharma. But he's not doing it as Kshatriya, he's doing it as a devotee who's serving Krishna through his Kshatriya role. So, you know, one of the things, so like we always say we are parts of Krishna.

Now what does it mean practically? This was when I first got this insight, I myself was thrilled. If we are parts of Krishna, that means we have parts in Krishna's plan. If somebody is a part of a cricket team, say Indian cricket team, that means you have a part in the cricket team.

Are you a bowler? Are you a batsman? Are you a wicketkeeper? What are you? So we are parts of Krishna, it's a philosophical truth. And we often use it to refute impersonalism, which is good enough, no doubt. But that means Krishna has a plan for us.

If we are parts of Krishna and in one sense bhakti is, we say Sir Krishna, what Sir Krishna means is we try to discover what is the part that Krishna has for us and then play that. So this idea itself that if Krishna has a part for every one of us and it's always going to be there because we are parts of Krishna eternally. I mean, no matter how many mistakes we make, is that we never lose the status of having a part in Krishna's plan.

Wow. That's amazing. That's an amazing insight.

So you've done that with like all the main topics? Well, not all. I mean, still it's an ongoing process of discovery. Yeah, but I am doing that.

So Dhyayato Vishayan Pumsa, this could be controversial, but Dhyayato Vishayan Pumsa, what does it mean for Arjuna? You know, he is on the battlefield. So Arjuna is, relatively speaking, he is, you know, he's a very sense control person. Noor Vashu offered herself to him and he said no.

So my understanding is that this Dhyayato Vishayan Pumsa, of course, it applies to us for sense objects. For Arjuna, it applies in the sense of contemplating the warriors on the other side. It's when he comes in the middle and Bhishma Drona Pramukh Taha, he sees Bhishma Yadura prominently.

And from the Dhyayato, from that contemplation, Sangha, oh, they are my relatives. They are my elders. How can I fight against them? And then Buddhi Nashad Pranashyati.

That whole sequence goes down. And you see that, actually, a very drastic shift. Before Arjuna goes in the middle of the battlefield, he says, I want to know who are helping Dharatarashtra, Siddharvudde, Yudhepinechi, Girishabha? Who are out there helping the evil-minded son of Dhritarashtra? And as soon as he sees them, so that's 120, 120, 23.

And as soon as he comes in the middle, 124, 125. After that, 126. The first was his swajana.

These are my people. They're not supporters of Dhritarashtra. They're my people.

So subtle, right? It's subtle. And once you get it, it's so significant. And this is something that I've really come to.

I mean, maybe it's a mini version of what you're talking about. But like you said, when it kind of bubbled up for me, you know, I found it thrilling. But even just reflecting on what Krishna is doing with that Bhishma Drona Pramukhata.

Of all the places, Krishna draws the chariot. Yeah, exactly. Right, Pramukhata.

Like my understanding, I don't know if this is, and I'm taking liberties with the translation, but like we have this expression in English, right? When something's in your face. And there's something that feels, right? Like there's a kind of in-your-face confrontation in that moment. That Arjuna needs, that we need.

Like, you know, I can think of, and then for me, this brought up, even in my work as a chaplain, counselling. So many times it means really kind of being in an uncomfortable place, bringing, helping the person that I'm attempting to counsel to see what they need to see, to confront what they need to confront. Because unless it's in the face, they're not going to be able to go through it.

They're going to try to go around it, right? True, it's very true. So, there are two meanings. It could be that he just brought him in a place where Bhishma and Drona were right ahead.

You know, the armies formed in many ways. He could have got in middle here, middle anywhere. He could have, Krishna could have brought him in middle where Dushyasana and Duryodhana were visible.

He brought him where Bhishma and Drona were visible. That's one, that Krishna did that. The other is that Krishna pointed.

They were in the middle, but he says, So, it's like one part of that verse, 125, it is Sanjay speaking or it's the narrator speaking. And the other part is Krishna speaking. So, he came in the middle where Bhishma and Drona were prominent and just see.

So, it could be that he brought him right in front of them or Krishna pointed toward them. Just see, what do you want to see over here? So, yeah, sometimes Krishna exposes us to the most provocative situations to help to force us to confront the issues. Have you ever had that where it's like, like you have an issue with someone, you're feeling some envy, you're feeling some there's some dissonance in the relationship and you're like, you go to a festival or something, I'm making this up, but you go to a festival and you're just like, this is like the very last person I want to see.

And then you just like run into them or like Krishna's like, putting you in that situation. So, this is also the Gita, I feel is. So, the Gita is one example, but other scriptures also, like we talked about some examples from Bhagavatam.

So, I'm currently working on a book on the Ramayana. So, then I was talking about the Wali-Sugru relationship. There's this whole misunderstanding that happens between them.

And then Wali thinks that Sugru tried to overthrow me and trap me in the cave. So, then after that, he comes back and he beats Sugru and Sugru runs away. And Sugru thinks, you know, that let me wait, his temper will cool down.

Wali is so caught in his head. Everybody else tells him, you know, he thought that you were trapped and you had died. He says that you, he'd fed you a lies and you believed him.

Sometimes we say, when you let time go, anger cools down. There are two trajectories, you know, anger with time can become cool or it can become cold. And nobody can stay at a high temperature for a long time.

Right, it's got to go somewhere. Yeah, but if you become cool, then you become sort of reasonably peaceful, you know, you become open to reason. But when it becomes cold, you become very hatefully peaceful.

Your heart becomes harder. Hatefully peaceful. Hatefully peaceful.

That's a good one, hatefully peaceful. Wow, that cold that you're talking about. Yeah, you're calculating how to hit back at that person and that's angrily waiting.

Right. So you're calculating. So revenge is a dish best served cold.

That's what they say. Yeah, and then that's what he, that's when, you know, he decides, he cannot, he tries to assassinate Sugru, you can't do that. He says, you betrayed me, I'm going to punish you.

The way I'm going to punish you is, I'll take your wife for myself. And then that literally ruins the relationship. And there are certain boundaries you just can't cross, no matter what happens.

So, so I've prepared a whole anger management seminar based on this past time itself. And I gave it to actually a Western audience, you know, I didn't mention they were monkeys, I just talked. Hello there, how did you mention they were monkeys? Footnote.

Because it's a very human relatable thing, ironically. Yeah, exactly. Not quite humans who are displaying it, but.

You already gave, you already gave that seminar? How was the response? Oh, it was, it was very good. So do you start with like, do you start with anger and then go, what, what, what Leela can I turn to that? Or do you start with the Leela and then. That's a good question.

No, I started concepts. You start with concepts. Yeah.

So I really liked the concept today in today's Sunday feast class about boundaries and about. Like, yeah, let's talk about it. Yeah, it's, it's very relatable.

If you have some issue with some devotee, how do you deal with that? And all those different things. It was a very, it was a very relatable concept. We should talk more about that.

Maybe we can get an overview of that. If you have some issue with a devotee and then from the Ramayana, how we, you know, can learn from that. Yeah.

Like in that instance, if I remember correctly, you started with talking about what you've seen in your travels and like issues among devotees, and then you brought in the Ramayana, right? So. Yeah. So it's interesting.

I have got some pushback for this kind of presentation. So it's an interesting pushback also. He says, we are here to tell people how to become better devotees, not how to become better human beings.

There are so many books telling them, but then we tell them don't read any other books. That's a bit of a catch 22 there, right? Yeah, it is. Totally.

Don't read other books, but we're only going to tell you a very narrow thing. Very narrow. Not that it's narrow, but not that it's in a bad way, but it's just very specific, subject specific, not broad.

Well, it's very subject specific. And it's also very, I don't know if idealistic is the right word, but it's, I think it's beautifully aspirational is the word that I would use. It's aspirational, but it's not always relatable.

Yeah. That was my attempt to try to do a Chaitanya Charanism. I love that.

What was your response to whoever told you that? So I said that I thought I get three ways of looking at it. First is that there are a lot of people, let's start with outsiders. There are a lot of outsiders who are looking for wisdom.

And if they can find wisdom that adds value to life, their life, where they are, they are going to get attracted to scripture. Isn't that good for them? So if they feel, oh, this kind of wisdom is in scripture. And, you know, Jordan Peterson is a person who gave a series of talks on psychological significance of biblical stories.

At that time, he was an atheist. Now he says, I'm no longer an atheist. But if you see the comments on his videos, there are people who are saying that I'm an atheist, but I see there's so much value in the Bible.

It builds a kind of faith. Yeah, it's at least something of value in this book. Maybe I don't believe in God.

So that's the first audience. If people, where they are at, they can get some value in our Shastra, why not? Second is that we look at devotees. Most of the challenges the devotees face, we may say it's because, you know, you're not chanting Hare Krishna attentively, you're not doing this.

But, you know, they're very practical challenges. And they need practical solutions. So if, yes, this may not necessarily help devotees grow in their spiritual life, but it can help remove the things that are distracting them from focussing on the thing that will help them grow in their spiritual life.

If I am very, if I'm not able to have a good relationship with my family, my friends, my other co-devotees, then that's going to affect my chanting. That's going to affect my Shastra study. So that is also there.

That we may not be telling, say like in the class which I gave today, I didn't really tell, oh, we have to chant Hare Krishna attentively. But I did say that then, you know, ultimately, when we practise bhakti nicely, Krishna gives us buddhi yoga. And then the dhammi buddhi yogam tam, and that will help us deal with the issues.

So we do talk about bhakti. But it's that there are practically issues which have to be dealt with. And if you have wisdom from scripture, then why not have that wisdom? I'm just, I'm curious why the person who was pushing back, it almost feels like there's an assumption that it's an either or.

So I'm just wondering why that assumption? I mean, why can't you have, let's say, 45 minutes to give a class. In 45 minutes, why can't someone who is an adept speaker, adept enough to be invited to give a talk, you know, to begin with, why can't they do both? Which, I mean, I feel like at least this evening, I feel like you did both. Maybe it was the majority of your focus was on more of the practical, but it wasn't like it was absent of bhakti.

It wasn't like, you know. So it's like, I feel that we need wisdom to even rise towards sattva. We can't assume we are already in sattva or to speak of shuddha sattva.

So maybe 50, 60, 70% of the class could be wisdom drawn from shastra, maybe phrased in contemporary ways, like the term boundaries may not be there in Prabhupada's purpose, but it's a very relatable term. And I use it and 50, 60, 70% is sattva, which is pointing towards bhakti. But the last part is bhakti.

So it's only from a few people I've got to push back. I think most people are just getting used to it. I guess, I mean, and maybe this is a bit of a tangent, but I guess something that kind of, um, that bugs me, it's like a pet peeve is, um, what feels like, you know, that kind of when I say either or it almost feels like constantly framing bhakti in opposition to everything else, rather than in a way that actually can integrate with and even, yeah, can.

So good harmonise, integrate whatever words you want to use. That's what I said, you know, he says we equate sattva, rajas and tamas as one whole and material versus spiritual. Yeah.

But instead, rajas, tamas, rajas, sattva and spirituality and bhakti, it's one continuum. Yeah. It's the, that's why I prefer the word selfless and selfish, more to spiritual and material, because in one sense, when you move from tamas, rajas to sattva, we are moving towards a higher level of higher degree of selflessness.

And bhakti is the highest level of selflessness. Yeah. So that idea that it's a continuum, it's a spectrum, it's not a polar opposite.

And that's how we grow in our spiritual life. Yeah. So, yes, maybe it's a result of the first generation that most of the devotees were counterculture and then they rejected the mainstream culture to practise bhakti.

Right. And then Prabhupada also, either Prabhupada presented things like that, or the devotees gravitated towards those aspects of Prabhupada, which were like that. Yeah.

Years ago, we had a, you and I had a conversation. And I'm not sure if you remember, but we were riffing off of the analogy of which, which you used a lot. I don't know if you still use it of the sort of the runway and like sattva being like a runway and right.

And one of the things in that conversation that that stuck with me was we kind of tweaked the analogy to say that in emergency cases, you have a helicopter. Yeah. Can you just share that? Because I think it was so, do you know this? It was, I thought it was such a, like an insightful, it just clear up so much for me, as far as just understanding sort of dynamics in ISKCON and yeah.

Okay. So, I'll give a bigger picture for this. So, there are two visions.

But as I said, one is tamas, rajas, sattva, then shuddha sattva. It's like a ladder. The other vision is that all of them are at this level.

And from anywhere, you can take a bhakti. So, rajas, tamas, sattva, wherever you are, it just, bhakti is vertically up. Yeah.

So, now, both visions have validity. My understanding is that you can take off in bhakti, start off in bhakti from anywhere. If somehow somebody might be an alcoholic, a drug addict, if somehow they get attracted to holy name, they get attracted to some devotee, especially some powerful, pure or charismatic devotee, whatever, they might be able to take a bhakti.

However, to sustain bhakti, sustenance is a function of sattva guna. So, the take off can happen from anywhere, but the sustenance requires this incremental approach. So, now, the example is that, that normally if you want to fly a plane, you need to come to the airport and there is the runway and from there the aeroplane flies.

And so, if somebody is far away from the airport, that's like the person in Tamoguna, somebody is very close to the airport, that's in Rajoguna, somebody is in the airport, that's in Sattvaguna, and they start practising bhakti, that's like taking off the plane. So, now, in emergencies, wherever a person is, you might take a helicopter over there, and you start off from there. So, in many ways, our first generation was like that emergency, from wherever you are, you start off bhakti.

That was like Prabhupada's mood, or necessarily, situationally necessarily, right? It's not ideal, necessarily, but it's what Prabhupada was dealing with, and it was like, from wherever you are, whoever you are, let's go, take off. So, I doubt to use the example for a long time. Thank you for reminding me of that.

So, the helicopter is not something which we can, the helicopter was not what we can use all the time. In fact, there's a one conversation of Prabhupada, where he says, we have been operating in a kind of spiritual emergency, Prabhupada says. But now, we have to come out of this emergency.

Now, of course, somebody would say, that means we have to go back to strict Varanashram, and everything else is emergency. That's a different opinion. But if we put aside the specifics of Varanashram, again, the principle of Varanashram is an incremental approach of rising up.

So, yeah, so I feel that within our scripture, if we don't put them, as you said, in opposition to everything else, there is some merit in that approach, no doubt. But we are not going to not just attract a large number of people, but we are also not going to benefit a large number of people. Like I'll tell you one real incident, there's one boy from one top university in India.

I met him in Silicon Valley. And he is a follower of another spiritual organisation now, one of the biggest patrons, sold out follower, and he's a big one of another organisation. Another organisation.

He told me that he was introduced to bhakti through a one time programme, which I had done in one of the IITs. You had done? Yeah, I mean, the devotees had organised for me. So he said, I like it very much.

And he joined. He started coming to the youth centre, staying there, coming regularly. And then he said, I love the philosophy, but I just found that the practical expectations were very high.

And finally, I decided I had so much conflict with myself. I felt this is the right thing to do, but I can't do it. I felt guilty.

Finally, I just gave it up. But I had spiritual inclinations. So I found, I looked for a spiritual path that could accommodate me where I was.

So then I asked him, what was the demand that you felt that you just can't give up? He said, you know, there's something which you asked for me, I just couldn't give up. And what he told me just killed me. Literally, he said, since the age of seven, every week, I read two books.

So the year I read 100 books. And when they told me, you cannot read any books apart from Prabhupada books. I said, I can't do that.

And he asked me, what kind of books you read? I read like self-help kind of books. It was biographies, not just like novels and something like that. I don't want to use like super mundane, not super mundane, not just trashy, not just trashy kind of things.

Yeah. If somebody has a capacity to read 100 books a year. That's already a very special person.

And you tell them. So now what would have been lost if we had been reading those books and reading Prabhupada books? We would have had such a wonderful devotee. So I feel this confrontational approach sometimes makes Krishna consciousness more difficult than it needs to be for many people.

And we only hear the success stories of our outreach. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

Yeah, totally. We don't hear the victims, the casualties, the collateral damage. But there is a lot, unfortunately.

So now I don't, I don't blame the devotees who told him that because I understand they were trained in a particular way. But somewhere, that's a question which I recently gave a devotee, a young devotee gave a class. And after that, he asked me, how do you find a class? I told him, you know, the whole class was good, but that point was a little harsh.

Then he gave me a strange look. So what happened? He says, oh, that was the point I had heard in your class only. That was 20, 25 years ago, almost 20 years ago.

He heard an old class of yours where you made a point that you now find harsh. I winced. I winced at that point.

That's humbling, right? It's very humbling. So then I started thinking that, you know, that, okay, a misguided might be a strong word, but let me use that word right now. So if I misguided others or is there like under guided, not misguided, you know, or didn't guide adequately probably, I misguided others because I was misguided.

Then to what extent am I responsible? The chain has to stop somewhere, had to take, someone has to take responsibility. So I won't say misguided is the best word. But it's just that often seriousness in Krishna consciousness is equated with certain kind of extreme things.

Yeah. They don't read any other books. Okay, yeah.

I would say that it is valid advice for someone who anyway does not have interest in reading. And for them, it's difficult to read anyway. And then if they are, you know, they only have the stamina or the capacity to read for a short while, and then they're going to read many other books, then better read only Prabhupada books.

But for somebody whose life is books, tell them don't read books, they'll feel choked, they'll feel suffocated, they'll feel starved. It's like deprivation, just almost, it feels like deprivation for the sake of deprivation to that person. Yeah, exactly.

The other thing, I mean, you know, if you don't feel comfortable going in this direction, we don't need to, but I'm just struck by how now, like when I was younger, I probably would have heard a statement like that and would have kind of been like, yeah, that's like so hardcore, that must be like, you know, that's like pure Krishna consciousness. And now I hear that. And not only do I not feel that way, but I also wince, you know, to use the word that you just used, because it also sounds very culty.

It sounds very, it sounds like a totalitarian thing, like any organisation that, you know, is telling you, like, you are forbidden to read books by authors other than our founder, like, if you just take it out of the context of Escon, and put it in the context of any other organisation, it would sound so scary to me. But somehow, because it's within my tradition, I don't feel like, like I was okay with it for a long time. Right.

And so I don't know. So I, you know, I mean, I know, it's going a little far field from the point that you were originally making. But there is also something that it's not just about, you know, sort of a statement being harsh or, or hardcore, but like, like, is there a point where it actually does start to feel like something cultish is going on here? Huh, that's a question I have wondered quite a bit.

I'd say three things about it. First is that it's like education. If you're a small child, you're educating the child in colours, education has to begin in black and white.

You start telling the child, right at the beginning, there are shades of grey, child will get completely confused. So in one sense, maybe in the initial years, there is some advantage for a person to get grounded in one perspective. And now, of course, you could say in today's world, it's very difficult because with the internet and social media available, anybody can hear from anywhere.

But there is some virtue to that. But the challenge is that when does a person go ahead from black and white to shades of grey? So I feel that often does not happen. And that's where what you earlier said, we reify the black and white as the yeah, exactly the all end all standard.

So that's where I feel that context. That's where everything I try to look at the context that helps in removing that black and white kind of things. So that the next stage of shades of grey has to be given.

So maybe in the initial stage, you get yourself grounded in this perspective. That's OK. But then it's important, very important that the subsequent education also be given.

Another point is that with respect to this not reading other books, like I said earlier, that some people are just not into reading much. So not everybody is very, very intellectually inclined or even intellectually endowed. So, OK, I remember one devotee told me, I come to Krishna Manjula, I'm so happy.

Wonderful. What makes you happy? He said, in the past, I had such overthinking and decision paralysis. Just now, I just follow what devotees told me to do.

All my anxiety is gone now. Now when I hear it, I started getting some anxiety. Now from his perspective, it is a game.

But how long can a person be dependent like that? So in some ways, some people just need clarity. And they just don't want ambiguity. And if you tell those people to look at shades of grey, not only will they not look at the shades of grey, they will look at you with black eyes.

I think the problem also comes when there have been devotees that have been practising for a long time, and it's continuing to stay black and white. There's no grey. That's where I think the problem lies and where that cultiness might come from.

Someone has been a devotee for a long time, but still there is that black and white, which in one way is also good, but also then you get weird behaviour that could turn someone off and say something to someone like that, the person that you spoke about, someone says something to them and they get turned off completely. So one of the verses which I especially like in the Bhagavad Gita is 326. Krishna is saying, don't disturb the minds of others.

There are two levels. One is where you are detached and you are enlightened. The other is somebody else is attached and that person is ignorant.

So Krishna says don't disturb their minds. Rather, he says give them a pathway for gradual elevation. So sometimes we just focus on destroying a person's worldview.

But you know, whatever the flaws of that worldview, that is giving them some shelter. And from there, they need some shelter. You can't leave them shelterless.

That's a disservice. So incrementally, the Gita's approach, I do see there's a lot of accommodation, a lot of places where, say for example, when Arjuna says the mind is very difficult to control, the first thing Krishna says is empathy. Yes, it's difficult.

Asamshaya Mahabhava. But he doesn't jump to, you know, just be determined, control your mind. It's asamshaya, undoubtedly it's very difficult.

In one sense, Arjuna is, he feels understood by Krishna. So that is understanding. It's almost like psychological oxygen.

Without that, psychologically he suffocates. Some people are actually looking though for their worldview to be destroyed and to be rebuilt. Yeah.

So that's why I would say that for confrontational outreach also, there is a space. And I think there is always an audience for that also. Yeah.

But the challenge is that when that is seen as the only way to do outreach faithfully. And yes, faithfully, yeah. Yeah.

And when everybody who is doing everything else is considered compromised, diluted, contaminated. Yeah, yeah. Some of the word bridge breaching has got a significant negative connotation now.

Yeah. Well, for this reason, right? Because it's sort of become like a euphemism for, or it's assumed to be a euphemism for something that's watered down or that's, you know, less than in some way. Yeah.

True. And to be fair, I mean, I think a part of it in a valid criticism is if that bridge preaching is in, and this might be something that we've talked about in the past as well. Um, if it's being done in a mood of like, sort of, let me say the, like the kind of most politically correct, like, you know, happy, shiny, friendly thing I can say to pull you in.

Right. It's like a bait and switch, I think we call it, right? Yeah. I mean, that I think should be criticised and critiqued.

Um, and I think, unfortunately, a lot of sort of bridge preaching has become that, or it's some, yeah, it's some kind of like, oh, hey, you don't talk about Krishna or bhakti at all until the person is like, you know, sort of coming around enough and then you just spring it all on them. Yeah. Like we don't want them to know that.

We don't want them to know. Right. Right.

Yeah. Which that feels just very different than what, what we've been talking about and what you're describing. Right.

Yeah, definitely. See, you know, I talked with Radhan Maharaj about this and I said to Maharaj that I tried travelling across the world and many times some devotees tell me that your classes are too intellectual. So I said, Maharaj, it's not that I'm intentionally intellectual.

That's just the way I think. It's difficult for me to change. So Maharaj said that you don't have to change.

He said that if Gaur Gopal Puru tries to be intellectual like you, it won't work. If you try to be humorous like Gaur Gopal Puru, it won't work. He said, as far as I'm concerned, I'm neither humorous like Gaur Gopal Puru nor intellectual like you.

Then I said to Maharaj, Maharaj, whatever abilities we have, it's by your mercy. When Maharaj became grave, he says, but Krishna has gifted me with a deep concern for people. And with that concern in my heart, whatever I speak, it seems to inspire others.

That's pretty amazing. He says, you don't have to change yourself, but increase your concern for your audience. I found that a profound statement.

And that's, I mean, that's how I started doing this writing and drawing it because I used to speak so many concepts. That's one of the ways I discovered to make things easier to explain. But my point is, sometimes we are so caught in trying to faithfully reproduce what we have been taught or what we think is taught in scripture that we are not concerned about the audience much.

Yeah. Oh, totally. It's almost like the audience is an afterthought.

If even a thought at all. Yeah. The audience's only role is to be like compliant players in the script that we have been given.

Yeah. So, yeah. So if we increase our concern for the audience and where they are from there, let's take them forward.

So compassion, of course, we talk a lot about compassion, but compassion doesn't just mean giving, dumping Krishna on people, helping them take the steps by which they can come towards Krishna. So can I tell you something that I mean, you may be already familiar with this, you know, the philosopher Kierkegaard existentialist. Yeah.

So you just said the thing about audience. It just reminded me something that he said that I remember reading years ago and just always stuck with me is we tend to think like if we're I mean, he was speaking from a Christian context, right? So like if we're a preacher or a minister or whatever, the person giving the sermon, we think I'm the speaker or I'm the, you know, the actor, so to speak, and my audience is the audience and I'm performing, right? But he says, if I remember this correctly, he says that the speaker is like the like the speaker in our case, right? Like the preacher, the minister, the speaker is like a prompter. So in these old fashioned plays, they would have someone waiting in the wings who would give you your lines in case you need your lines.

So the person sitting on the Vyasasana, to use our language, is the prompter. Oh, wow. The people sitting, the devotees or the people sitting in the audience are like the actors and God is the audience.

God is the audience. Yeah, yeah. Wow.

That's Kierkegaard? That's Kierkegaard. I hope I got it right. Someone can correct me in the comments if I didn't.

But that's essentially saying that you as the prompter or the preacher should be just prompting the actors to continue what they're doing. You're prompting them to act in bhakti, so to speak, right? Your words, the class that you give, you know, the classes you and I give are meant to be just reminding our audiences. For the audience of God.

For them to perform, we would say, to act in bhakti. That's so nice. And then for the pleasure of the real audience, which is God.

You know, if you look at Krishna Consciousness, we often define it in terms of what is Krishna Consciousness? What is this person doing in relationship with Krishna? Or this person eating meat? This person is not chanting. One chanting this many rounds. That's one parameter of Krishna Consciousness.

But another parameter is, what is Krishna doing in this person's life? That person may not be doing any of the activities we think are Krishna Conscious. But that does not mean Krishna is no longer in their hearts. So where is this person? What wisdom, what realisation has God this person to? God is acting in everyone's lives.

And you say they are foolish or whatever. But even just to survive in this world is difficult. You need wisdom.

Not just spiritual wisdom, but some level of wisdom you need. So God has only provided that wisdom. So in one sense, where the person is at, we help them move forward from where they are at.

So that is, God is already acting in that person's life. And so they are playing their play. They are playing their parts.

And we have to understand what parts they are playing, what parts God is getting them to play and help them forwards. So I find that approach is, it's definitely gradual. It's not going to give you a large number of people.

But I do feel that it'll get people who are more put together. People who are more at peace with themselves. Like what they say, you know, at home in your skin.

We say we are not the body, but this is the body we have for this lifetime. We can't be in a state of constant conflict with this body. So people who are at peace with who they are, and then they're moving forward from there.

So there's one more point which I had in mind. So when we talk about sharing bhakti with others, one of the challenges I feel is that we have a lot of self-referential comparisons. That means, say, for example, somebody has a dog.

Now you should be attached to God. Why are you attached to dog? And then we tell the Bharat Maharaj story or whatever. Bharat Maharaj story, the devotee parents have been using that on their devotee kids.

So like, you know, squash their dreams of getting a pet dog for years. Now, I'm not supporting a pet dog here, but my point is something else. Often for where most people are at, especially in the Western world, God is not even in the horizon of their consciousness.

And you know, when they are dealing with issues, maybe they're getting drunk, they're taking drugs, they're just on social media all day. If they get a dog, at least they take the dog out for a walk every day. You know, if they are depressed and they're just taking pills to try to fight depression, from where they are at, a dog might be the most sattvic way of coming out of their tamoguna.

From where they are at. So quite often we don't consider where they are at. So another example of self-referential comparison is say, that 16 rounds, you know, chanting is so easy.

In the past, you know, there were 60,000 years of tapasya, elaborate yajnas. You know, it's like we have only created this comparative scale, means our scriptures are there. But the audience is there comparing 16 rounds chanting with 20 minutes sudarshan kriya.

Isn't it? Or maybe 10 minutes of this mantra chanting or 10 minutes of doing this or doing that. So the demands that we make from people are quite high. Of course, there is a reward for all that thing.

But the point is that we are so caught in our own reference points and then patting ourselves on the back. Oh, we are so good. But the world is at a very different place.

And that's why being aware of where the world is at. One of the points about reading other books, it's not just cultish, it's just we are not aware of where the world is at. And then we may still reach people, but a lot of people will not reach Krishna because of the way we present Krishna.

So there will always be serious spiritual people, people who are from their previous lives, have some level of spirituality. And they will, however, we present Krishna consciousness, you know, it's like sometimes it's people come to Krishna in spite of us, not because of us also. But… In spite of us.

Sorry? In spite of us. Yeah. But the thing is that there are so many more people who can be benefited by Krishna's wisdom.

Yeah. But then when we present it in a very black and white way, very confrontational way, very self-referential way, then they just feel that this is just impractical. It's just irrelevant or impractical.

What do you mean by self-referential? No, you know, our process is so easy. You don't have to go to a forest and renounce the world and do the pasya for 60,000 years. Just add Krishna to your life.

Just chant 16 rounds. It's so easy. Well, 16 rounds is like all due respects.

It's not easy. It is challenging. So by self-referential, you mean we are so locked into kind of our scale of things.

Yeah. That we've lost the ability to empathise with what most other people are, how most other people would hear or think about things. Yeah.

Yes, exactly. Right. I see what your point is, but I feel that could be said about anything.

Like you can say that about, okay, this person eats meat or something. And then you're like, that's, you know, we don't support that. But at least they're not, I don't know.

Eating people? I don't know. I'm like waiting for non-defendant. At least they're not animals.

I was thinking that. Do you see what my point is? You could easily just not justify, but maybe justify anything. Okay.

For the sake of just saying, oh, there's always better than whatever they are. Yeah. At least it's better than that.

No. Yeah. So that's possible.

But I am saying here that people have hundreds of options. Yeah. And when I'm not, all that I'm saying is the psychology where a person is coming from, are they doing it for the motives which we are ascribing to them? I'm not saying whether that is right or wrong.

I'm saying that people are doing that. Somebody says this particular just because of lust. Yeah.

Is that the reality? The motive that we are ascribing to people, is that the motive that is driving them to do that? Or is that just our standard projection of something? So I'm not saying that anything could be justified. I'm not talking about the rightness or wrongness of this. I'm the right, there is the rightness and wrongness of the activity that is being done.

But I'm talking about the rightness and wrongness of the motive we are ascribing to that activity. Yeah. We are saying it's just lust.

But from their point of view, it may be something more than lust. Right. In fact, if it's just lust, then no, people can gratify their lust much more by being with new people every day.

So it's a more reasonable, like if you have to assume a motive one way or the other, it's more reasonable that it's not just lust, that there's something else going on. Okay, all I'm saying is that, the point I was making is like, we are self-referential. I'm really trying to pin you into saying something about… Okay, all I'm saying is that it's just a self-referential frame.

From our perspective, it's just lust. Oh, yeah. But from their perspective, it is not.

Let's say the abortion issue. Right. You know, okay, you're killing a child.

Okay. Yeah, that's a good example. Yeah, that is true.

But then, you know, we also have to consider why a woman is brought to a place where she has to even consider that decision. Right. If you don't want to address that issue and say just killing of a child, then we're not saying in any way that abortion is right or abortion is good.

Not at all. I'm just saying that, you know, people have become so heartless. People have just become so dead into their conscience that they kill their own babies.

That's it. End of story. That's like, you're saying that's when we're doing the self-referential ascribing motive.

We just, we leave it at that. We just say, yeah, it's killing. It's murder.

People are so heartless. Just see how demoniac, Kali Yuga, the end, period. Is that the reason why people are doing it? One reason, maybe they just don't know.

Many people just think it's just like a tissue removal or something like that. That's that good one thing. Another is that maybe they're economically, psychologically, sociologically at a place where they feel that is the only alternative that they have.

Right. Now, does that mean that alternative right? Well, from one, it's still killing. But, you know, it's not heartlessness that is putting them there.

Right. Of course, what to speak of if somebody has been violated and then they're put in that situation. So my point only is here.

One thing is examples of provocative, but we, when we are self-referential, we see certain actions and ascribe certain motivations for those actions based on our understanding of the world that we have got from the way we have been taught Shastra. Yes. But that may not at all be the reason why that person is doing that thing.

Or maybe it may be a part of it. Only one part of it. What's wrong with doing that, though? Well, we just alienate people.

So practically, it's not very helpful to build any kind of connection to anyone, right? So those people will just say, no, you just don't get me. I don't care to get you. So we're just losing a lot of people.

So I saw. So just to hang on, but please don't lose the point that you're about to make. So I think one thing that is wrong on the practical level is it's just it's not effective.

It's not effective to relationship building. It's not effective to connecting with people. It's not effective to building trust and faith and all these things, right? But I'm wondering, even beyond the sort of practical, because what I'm hearing is when we do that, we're sort of denying complexity.

Nicely put, yeah. We're only ascribing, right? So if we're denying and the world is actually complex. So am I reaching too far to say that beyond even just the sort of practical effect of alienating people, which is bad, but even beyond that, there's something that actually is like there's something that's incomplete when we do that.

We're not actually fully understanding or appreciating the way the world works. True, very true. You know, it's like I see two trajectories.

Some is a strong devotee. So devotee means strong faith. Strong faith means certainty.

This is right. This is wrong. You could take completely with the same strong devotee means deep humility.

Humility means there are many things that I don't know. Humility means comfort with complexity, comfort with uncertainty. That's interesting.

Those are two distinct trajectories. Right. And they can at one level go completely divergent.

Somebody may be very gentle in evaluating or judging, not because they're compromised, but because they just try to understand the complexity of the situation. And somebody else may say, you know, you're just watering down everything. You don't have the courage to speak though.

This is right. This is wrong. So in general, in our moment, this trajectory, strong devotee means strong faith.

Strong faith means certainty. That's what has been generally seen as the characteristic of strong devotion. But strong devotion could also mean humility.

The world is far bigger than me. And God is acting in this world in far more complex ways than what I have figured out. So let me try to understand what is going on.

Beautiful. I feel like you're about to say something and I cut you off. Oh, yeah.

There's a lot of thoughts going on, but I would say just maybe one or two points. We're coming to that black and white kind of Sarva Dharmaan Parittaji, you know, where somebody said that this is the conclusion of the Gita. So Krishna says in 1863, he says that deliberate and do as you desire.

This is where Krishna is respecting Arjuna's intelligence, respecting his independence. Now you do as you desire. But then, as I was talking about this, one devotee said to me, what? Soon Krishna says Sarva Dharmaan Parittaji.

To that? So to that. So, you know. That cancels out.

That cancels it out. So, you know, so that is a that is a previous instruction. This is the real instruction.

Is that now? OK, let's look at the Acharya's commentaries over there. What is going on over there? Krishna tells Arjuna, do as you desire. And then Arjuna starts thinking, what? What does Krishna want me to do? And then Krishna sees that.

Then Krishna, Krishna opens his heart. So we could say in one sense, 1864, 65, 66, they are meant specifically for Arjuna. Of course, they can apply for others, but I'll explain the difference.

Say, if there is a, say, somebody has a child who is very sick, they go to a doctor. And the doctor says, these are your treatment options. You could have got cancer, you could try chemotherapy, you could try radiotherapy, this, this, this, this.

And then now you think about it and you tell me what you would like to do. If at that time the parent asks, doctor, if this had happened to your child, what would you do? Then what the doctor said previously is also valid. But here the discussion goes into a very different dimension.

So it is, it is that way that Krishna, Arjuna is asking Krishna. And that's why Krishna says, you know that. Now I'll tell you the most confidential knowledge.

The most confidential. And then he says, So in one sense, what he's saying over there is that you just surrender to me. It's like a doctor saying, this is the treatment you take.

And if there's any complications, I will take care of it. So it's almost like a doctor saying, I'll take unlimited liability, whatever happens. So it is definitely, it's a riveting expression of Krishna's heart filled with love.

But that is being expressed when Arjuna is, is seeking that. And that's why immediately after the Dharma Pratyajya, Krishna immediately sort of steps back. Idam tena tapaskaya.

Don't tell this to everyone. Don't tell this to those who are not austere, those who are not devoted, those who are not having a service attitude, those who are envious, don't tell it to them. So the point is that this is an elevated level.

And we want people to come to this level, of course. But do we, can we force everyone to get there? No. Do we want to leave no space for people who can't get there? No.

So is there a way, like an express way for everyone to come towards bhakti? There is. But is that what everybody can do? No. Is that, do we want to reject people who can't do that? No.

So. I mean, also, like, don't they have to get there themselves for it to matter, for it to be real? Yeah. For them to really experience, for all of us to really experience that, you know, what happens in those, in those shlokas, that magical kind of space.

So we actually have to get there. We can't just have someone else just, you know, feed it to us. That's true.

Many times you would have said, you know, if only my childhood had come to bhakti, it would have been so nice. Well, maybe. But, you know, maybe at that time you might not have valued it.

Yeah, totally. We have to go through certain experiences to be at the level where we can actually appreciate bhakti. So, yeah.

So it's, so Krishna does not reject those who don't come to that level. Krishna is telling us, don't force everyone to that level. Don't share this with everyone.

So don't force it to everyone. So it's Krishna's loving heart is coming out in the Gita. But Krishna is not insisting that everybody has to be at that level.

So Arjuna is at that level, but others are. And you've seen Prabhupada also in his outreach. He had Indians in India.

Not much change in India between 1960s when Prabhupada left India to come to America and 1970s when Prabhupada came back to India. India was still the same. And was it that India was suddenly interested in serious spirituality? No.

It was most of the interest that people had in India after Prabhupada came back was more of like cultural nationalism. Oh, these people had ruled us for so long. Right.

And now they are taking up our culture. Yeah. And Prabhupada used that.

So if you see among the thousands and thousands of people who became life members whose houses Prabhupada went to, hardly anyone actually became an initiated disciple. And most of the life members, if you look at their histories, they were already well established society. They're already well established in their spirituality also.

And many of them had commitments to other gurus, other lineages. And Prabhupada engaged them. They appreciated what Prabhupada had done and they wanted to assist him.

Prabhupada engaged them. There was one prominent life member. He was one of the leading disciples of a Mayavadi guru.

And so when he was departing from the world, he was well known. So several of our sannyasi leaders went and met him. One of our sannyasi gurus, he told me that when I was there with him, he was so free, but when he saw me, he started glorifying Prabhupada.

He said, Swami, you are so amazing. He did this, he did that. I was sitting and hearing him.

I was thinking that when he departs from the world, is Krishna going to see that he was initiated by Mayavadi guru or is Krishna going to see that his heart has so much appreciation for my pure devotee Prabhupada. He said, in my small understanding, Krishna is Bhavagrai. So the point I'm making is Prabhupada was not just a one zero kind of thing.

Yeah. Prabhupada also, he, okay, this is what you can do, you do that. Would he have loved it if all the life members had become 16 rounders, initiated devotees? Yes, definitely.

But did Prabhupada reject them because they're not ready to do that? No. This kind of dynamic Srila Prabhupada, we speak about that. We've frozen in some ways, Prabhupada in a certain amount of time with lectures or letters or something.

And the dynamic Prabhupada doesn't come out now as much as when we hear these stories like that. It's like a very dynamic personality. But nowadays, it's that he's frozen.

It's almost like we present Prabhupada as this fixed in time embodiment of certainty. And it's very black and white, right? Not everyone, but a lot of times, it's like this kind of like Prabhupada said for all time. And then you hear these stories of this kind of the fluidity of Prabhupada, the flexibility of Prabhupada, the Prabhupada who tries things and then pivots and try something else, right? Yeah.

The Prabhupada who kind of says like the Prabhupada who prays on the Jaladuta, right? Like so much that dynamism. I think we've been talking about this that we worry sometimes that that's something that feels like it's, yeah, like missing from a lot of the glorification of Prabhupada. Nice.

I think we have to end there. But Prabhu, those were really fantastic. Thank you so much for spending time with us and discussing ideas and concepts and your experiences.

I'm happy, Prabhu. This was an amazing discussion. Yes.

And you gave me an amazing amount of trouble, actually. Oh, no. No, come on.

We don't want to put you in the hot seat. I put myself there. Well, you have to be true to who you are, right? Well, thank you so much.

If you get into any kind of trouble at all, please remember Namras is the host. I'm just some guy who hangs out here occasionally. I take no responsibility or liability.

I take full responsibility. I take full responsibility. No, Nam is courageous.

He's bringing it on. No, honestly, I think there can be difference of opinion, and that's fine. But one thing that I really, really appreciate is just the reminder for complexity and nuance and even just thoughtfulness in terms of how to approach these things.

And I feel like, yeah, if there are folks that maybe do disagree with some of the things that you've said here or that feel that there's something that you're saying that's problematic in some way, I would just, you know, hope that they could express whatever they find problematic in as much of a complex and thoughtful way. And we can have just dialogue and conversation about it, right? Like, no one's claiming to be perfect. Exactly.

I'm open to exploring and understanding. So I feel that there's a lot more for me to learn. And life is, in fact, the joy of life is in learning for me.

So I feel this. It's not that. In many ways, what I shared is just some of the things that I've learned.

And we keep learning, we keep growing. In one sense, it's almost like every year you feel, yeah, I'm discovering what is Krishna Consciousness. And then next year you feel, OK, that was not Krishna Conscious at all.

I feel a lot of similarities between Rajabihari Prabhu's discussion we had and Chaitanya Chandra Prabhu, like in the evolution of a brahmachari, like evolving into something that's like really, not that you weren't real before, but like a very real, evolved, wholesome kind of experience that you shared in your evolution as a devotee and as a brahmachari. Rajabihari Prabhu also shared similar things. So I'm really glad to see that.

Yeah, I think we need more of those examples, those narratives of development and growth and authenticity. So, yeah, thank you for that. Thank you so much.

How long do we go? OK.