Cultivating non-judgmental attitude – Three-part series at Brisbane on Bhagavatam (11.28.1-3)

Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Very happy to be here at the Lotus Feet of Shri Gaur Nithaya And Shila Prabhupada Among all of you So These three mornings Today, tomorrow, day after I'll be speaking In a three part series The topic of Cultivating a non-judgemental mentality Actually I prepared a list of Topics but somehow Almost one and a half months ago I prepared a list of topics But it was not communicated due to some lack of Miscommunication but anyway So I'll be talking about this From three different perspectives From the point of this first panel talks From the point of Jnana and Karma In the next verse we'll talk about from the point of Bhakti and in the last Talk on Sunday we'll talk in terms of Applying this within devotional service In our day to day Realities So here Parasvabhavakarmani na prashamsen Nagarhayet This is the Uddhav Gita The concluding part of the Uddhav Gita is coming So Uddhav Gita is basically The instruction, last instruction That Krishna gave before he departed From this world And Whereas The Bhagavad Gita Is primarily a call for action Arjuna was indecisive And Arjuna was not Inclined to fight And Krishna called upon him to fight Whereas the Uddhav Gita is primarily A call for renunciation Because Krishna is departing From the world, all the associates of Uddhav are Departing from the world And the Lord wants him to perform one mission Of going to the sages In the Himalayas, giving them the final instructions And then Uddhava should also depart So every Every set of instructions Has a contextual part And an eternal part So the contextual part Actually brings about The connection with the immediate circumstances And the eternal part Is what is relevant to everyone So for example Krishna tells Arjuna In the Bhagavad Gita That In 4.1 when he states that I give this knowledge to the Sun God Many millennia ago Now when Krishna says this That I give this knowledge So when he gave this knowledge to the Sun God He would not have said at that time I give this knowledge to the Sun God He just gave the knowledge The reference or the context Will change according to whatever is the situation So similarly Whereas the Bhagavad Gita Is primarily a call for action And Uddhava Gita a call for enunciation Essentially they are both messages of devotion But devotion As expressed through action in the case of Arjuna And devotion as expressed through enunciation In the case of Uddhava So that is the difference And this chapter is actually very similar To another chapter This is called Jnana Yoga And in the 12th chapter I just came from Sydney There I took a four part seminar On what is called Four verse essence of the Uddhava Gita That is In the 12th chapter Of the 11th canto there are verses 10, 11, 12, 13 When Krishna remembers The Vrajavasis So there also the title of the chapter is Beyond knowledge and renunciation So there Krishna talks about How one should go beyond Ultimately to bhakti So here Krishna is talking about Jnana Yoga To ultimately lead the message to bhakti And in that context He is making a very striking declaration Over here Don't praise Don't criticise What is the reason? That See the oneness Underlying all the duality And diversity in this world And what is the Then if we say everything There is an underlying oneness to it Then what is the reason for the duality? This is Prakritya Purushenach That is by the Interaction of Prakriti and Purusha And this interaction of Prakriti and Purusha Of the soul and matter How does that happen? How do people act as per this interaction? People act According to their nature So So One of the easiest Ways to make ourselves Miserable In our lives None of us wants to be miserable But one of the easiest ways To make ourselves miserable Is to submit to the Minds must have narrative Must narrative He must do like that, she must do like that Things must happen like that As soon as we think that Things should happen in a particular way Then that must Must narrative Now we are not the ultimate controllers And as long as we Insist that things have to work according to our way That especially other people have to behave According to our way Then that causes enormous frustration Everybody has their Swabhava Bhava The word has many meanings One of the meanings is nature Another meaning is emotion So actually The word bhava As it is related to the word bhavana Which means emotions Their bhava is not just emotions It is more of emotionality The way we Experience emotions Some people are calm and stoic Some people are nervous and excitable Some people are Aggressive and dominating That is their overall nature So Everybody Krishna says will act According to their nature Para Swabhava Karmani So for example There are say In modern psychology they talk about two kinds of people There are extroverts And there are introverts So introverts are people Who gain strength When they are alone It is not that they are antisocial But Suppose if there is a class In between the class there is a break For 10-15 minutes Or 5 minutes or 10 minutes Introvert Would immediately take a book and start reading The introvert would not Want to talk with others It is not that they dislike others But they need their own space Extroverts are People who delight In talking with others They are What in today's language might be called party animals They delight in the party The more people they can meet The more people they shake hands with The bigger their smile becomes Whereas those who are introverts The more they have to meet people They feel as if they are being starved of oxygen And Now This is just their nature It is not that Introverts are anti-people They also like to meet people But they like to meet people in moderate quantities And Our society today Is largely Driven by the extrovert model The person who is the go-getter The person who is very sociable Very Aggressive in presenting oneself And promoting oneself And achieving things So With this model of success For example Any promotion, any marketing Requires the person to be very aggressive And with this model When this extrovert model Is held as the ideal For everyone Then we see that People who are introverts They feel sidelined They feel suppressed Actually there are these differences Which we see in Practically everything in life Within culture also Say for example Two people are talking to each other So in different countries People will stand at different distances So in some countries people stand at significant distances And they talk with each other In other countries if you stand so far People will think Don't you like me? Why are you standing so far away? So this of course is also very much true With respect to gender roles How close and far men and women stand When they talk with each other But the point is There are things which arise from nature And there are things which have become our nature Because of our culture So when I talk about introvert, extrovert That is not something which is acquired by culture The parents may be extroverts And still the child may be an introvert And sometimes the children The parents get anxious You know my child doesn't mix with other children The child is happy Maybe doing his own art Or doing his own things And my child They go to a psychologist She doesn't mix with others No, as long as the child is happy That social mixing will happen at their own pace So that is Introvert, extrovert This is a nature which arises By our own It's natural from birth It's inborn to us That comes from our past life's karma Whereas there is also some kind of nature Something which becomes natural to us By our culture So for example How much people Stand close or far from each other While talking with each other How people greet each other So all these So for example With respect to greeting Say in some traditional cultures Just bowing down from a distance That's considered a sign of respect But in many cultures Unless you embrace each other You are not very affectionate So we have to hug each other So this is How different people Perceive things as natural According to their innate What comes from their past life As well as their upbringing So in such a situation When people of one culture Judge those of another culture That or people of one nature Judge those of another nature That is Actually the next verse will say that We are subjecting ourselves to the Duality of illusion So people are going to act according to their nature There is no use criticising them Nor is there use praising them So Now why is that Ultimately Wherever we go It's all Krishna's energy The whole world Is ultimately belonging to Krishna Prabhupada when he went to London There he established duties and he gave them the name Londonishwar Now there is no Sanskrit dictionary ever Which had a word called Londonishwar This is in English Neologism Logo is words And neo is new So neologism is a new word So Prabhupada coined a new word over there Neologism and not just a new word A new name for Krishna That is quite a Quite a Daring Level of devotional innovativeness So fortunately Prabhupada Now what was the idea Prabhupada Wanted to convey to the world That in a very Immediately accessible way That Krishna is the lord Of all the worlds Everywhere in the world So he used the word Londonishwar Now similarly Vishwam Ekamakambhushan There is one god who is in control of The whole world That one thing which we understand Vishwam Ekamakambhushan So a wise person sees that Initially Prabhupada went to Africa He was asked Swamiji what is your message for Africa So Prabhupada says my message for Africa Is the same as the message for the rest of the world It is that as long as you forget Krishna God you cannot be happy So a devotee doesn't See necessarily there are definitely differences In different countries but underlying it all It is the same lord who is in control It is his jurisdiction alone And whatever variety Is seen in different places that is Prakritya Purushya nature Prakriti is material nature Purushya Is the soul So the interaction of Prakriti and Purushya That causes the variety Of manifestations in this world So for example in a rural setting Prakriti and Purushya They may interact A person may construct A house made of wood or clay In an urban setting Purushya and Prakriti will interact And a person may consider A house made of cement, concrete And other such elements But both those things are essentially Prakritya Purushya nature They are resulting from the interactions Of Prakriti and Purushya So now when we see From this perspective How does that help us To avoid judgmentality Now judgmentality Actually is the result Of Putting oneself in a superior position Thinking that My way is the right way and other ways Are wrong So when we Put ourselves in a judgemental Situation Then we start Criticising others Making them think that Because they are not like us They are lower People think the whole world Should be like me Or the whole world is the way I think Or it should be the way I think This judgmentality Is a universal tendency We see That America is Considered a superpower in the world today So Americans often think that the world begins From the east coast and ends in the west coast And whatever is happening in America That's what everything in the world is about Or for that matter If you read The history books of Pakistan Actually Pakistan They hold that Pakistan was created in the 12th century And their idea Is that In their historical narratives Actually India is a country Which never existed So India is just a small fragment Which is broken Away from Pakistan And it needs to be reclaimed with Pakistan So they have their own Narrative of history Wherein They consider their country to be the greatest And similarly in Germany When Hitler was ruling With Nazis He had a whole historical narrative Wherein he wrote He retold history To prove how the Germans are supposed to be the greatest races And the Germans are the Aryans The original Aryans Who had populated the whole world according to the Aryan immigration or Aryan invasion theory So basically he reinterpreted history To try to prove how the Aryans Are the greatest And in that way he tried to denigrate everyone else One of the main reasons That Bakhtisarjan Sivitakur's mission To Europe did not succeed Was because at that time Bakhtisarjan Sivitakur's Followers went to England and they went to Germany But both these countries were On the throes of the Second World War And Germany especially Bakhtisarjan Sivitakur's followers Initially they were interested because Germans were interested in India But when Bakhtisarjan Sivitakur's followers They explained that actually The concept of Arya Is Not According to one's Genealogy or one's physical race It is a matter of spiritual culture Then one of the Most prominent scholars of Hitler he wrote that This Propaganda Is extremely dangerous For the Nazi Purposes And so many of those devotees who are preaching over there They are persecuted And then Basically the mission in Montreal collapsed at that time Whatever they were trying to do The thing is that everyone Can become very self righteous and think that My country is the greatest My race is the greatest My dynasty is the greatest And in this way We may judge others So this is material conception This is bodily conception And Bhagwatam is urging us to go Beyond such bodily conception So to judge everyone From our own standards Or our own conceptions And to say This is bad this is bad and I am the best This is Actually just the Human ego Acting in the realm of this world Trying to put others down So when we say that Whatever I think is mine My country My nation Even Indian nationalism also People can have Now why is India great Their idea is India is great because I am born in India So Most people don't even know about Anything about the spiritual greatness of India But their idea is India is great because I was born in India So then this is This is just the extended false ego We have a false ego which Makes us identify with the body Further we identify with other things connected with our body And this leads to judgmentality And few things Gaunitai Bhagwan ki Chai So few things are as Alienating to people As is judgmentality Chaitanya Mahaprabhu Told us the exact opposite Trunad api sunichena taror api sahishnuna Be humbler than a blade of grass Be more tolerant than a tree So that Chaitanya Mahaprabhu went so far To an extent where he said Naham Vipro He said that I am not a brahmana I am not a kshatriya, I am not a vaisya, I am not a shudra I am not a sanyasi I am not a grahastha, I am not a brahmachari I am not a vanaprastha Anything So he said what am I Gopi bhartur padakamalayo dasa dasan dasa So there is The devote Bhakti is transcendental To everything material, to all varanas And all ashramas and actually Varanashram is fairly conducive for spiritual advancement But still Chaitanya Mahaprabhu is Insisting that the Bhakti is beyond the varanas Beyond the varanas, beyond the ashramas And our essential identity is spiritual So This judgmentality comes from Our bodily misidentification And that for spiritual growth needs to be Given up Now this is only one half of the story The other half of the story is that When we understand our Spiritual identity We do not Suddenly give up our Material identity, material identity means That I have a particular body And I have a particular nature So when I understand I am the soul That does not mean my body's nature is going to change If I am a kshatriya At a most graphic level, if I am in a female body Just because I understand I am a soul, my body is not going to become a male body So it is going to remain the same Similarly, if I have a Vaishya nature Where The brain works very fast when it comes to Money Then suddenly Just because I start chanting Hare Krishna I am now going to develop a brahmana nature Now these natures Are innate to us, so for example If a person Of a brahmana nature Is told That We need to raise a million dollars To build a big temple For Krishna A brahmana will say Just study scripture, teach scripture Ultimately what do you need a temple for? Just do that, why spend so much time Earning money And On the other hand if a vaishya is told You have to give a class And there is some scripture In which a verse is there That verse states that how In some situations Telling lies is also alright So can you find that reference? And the vaishya will say There are hundreds of scriptures There are thousands of verses in those scriptures Why do the headache? Just give the class without the reference So the idea is That according to different people Different things are considered Considered Burdensome And are considered relishable So the brahmana is told Can you find a reference? A brahmana will take a dozen books That's where the rasa comes in life Let's find this verse Let's find this reference So the expertise of Varanashram In this world There will be problems for everyone We cannot be free from problems in this world No one can be free But the expertise of Varanashram Is that people Varanashram allocates to people The kind of problems That they like to face That means A vaishya likes to earn money So Varanashram tells a vaishya You go out and earn money A brahmana likes to study So it tells a brahmana study Now if a brahmana judges a vaishya You are a lazy irresponsible person You don't study at all What is the use if you don't study scripture? Then that is judgmentality Similarly if a vaishya says You just study Without money What will you eat? How will the movement go on? We have to raise funds And what you are doing is studying scripture What is the use of that? So this is There are different people Who have different natures And when we act according to our nature We serve Krishna the best Krishna says By acting according to your own karma You can attain perfection So there is Swabhava and there is Swakarma Swabhava is our nature Swakarma Is our natural duty One of the biggest Causes of dissatisfaction In today's world Is that People's Swabhava and Swakarma Are not matched People May have the inclination And the talent to be an artist But because of social pressure They become engineers And they are Tormented engineers Just don't like it at all So when the Swabhava And the Swakarma don't match Then that causes frustration And even within Bhakti also If we associate with devotees Who are very judgemental If we associate with devotees Who Are very convinced that What I am doing is the only right thing And everything else is wrong Then that judgmentality Makes us feel Insecure and worthless So for example if everybody is raising funds And somebody is studying scripture deeply What are you doing? You are simply wasting your time What is going to happen by studying scripture? So the person will be completely disheartened What is the use of studying scripture? And then that person will also try to do Something of Vaishya nature which is not their nature And then they will be frustrated They will be frustrated because of being discouraged In doing what they could have done well And they will be frustrated because of not being able to do something Which is not their nature to do So Srila Prabhupada While sharing Bhakti He was very Universalist So for example Srila Prabhupada explained He emphasised book distribution a lot And told if you want please distribute my books Now There were book distributors Some book distributors who took this instruction See Our spiritual masters Srila Prabhupada was at a transcendental level But just because we are Connected with him doesn't mean that we are transcendental So many of the Devotees who were doing book distribution Developed a material Conception of superiority We are doing book distribution we are the best Those who are doing Pujari services Those who are doing temple cleaning We are all useless Now book distribution is the thing to do So at one time many devotees were assembled together So at that time book distributors Came and asked Sometimes if we are doing something And we are doing something glorious And if we are driven by ego Then If others don't know our glory We feel what is the use of my doing it Suppose we want to look very attractive And we purchase a new dress A very expensive gaudy dress And we comment that dress And nobody comments about the dress We feel what is this Have you gone blind So Some of these devotees who were Actually they were very proud Of their book distribution And they wanted everyone to know So when there was a large gathering of devotees Then they asked Prabhupada Prabhupada what pleases you the most And Prabhupada They expected that Prabhupada would say yes book distribution And everyone will know we are doing the thing That pleases Prabhupada the most Prabhupada looked at them and says I will be most pleased when you love Krishna So Prabhupada did not just come here to tell us to distribute books Distributed books is important But that is a means The purpose is to love Krishna Now if by doing book distribution We start loving our own ego Thinking I am so great Then we are not fulfilling the purpose For which Prabhupada came to us So We are meant to love Krishna And different people can practise bhakti And move towards loving Krishna In different ways And therefore That don't criticise anyone Don't judge anyone as lower And don't judge anyone As the only way Now Prashyam Sena doesn't mean One should not have normal human appreciation But where there is over glorification By which that person's ego becomes inflated And others feel disheartened That sort of disproportionate Glorification Need not be done So when we understand the principle that bhakti Is the universal longing Of the human heart Every heart Has a longing for God But that longing Of the heart will be Expressed according to one's Svabhava and one's Svakarma So That means There is oneness in the sense That everything is Krishna Because everything is Krishna's energy We are all as souls We are one But while being one as souls We are also individuals In our own right And as individuals Everyone of us will express Our soul's longing For Krishna in our Individual way And The bhakti Is in that sense Like a house with a million doors There are many many ways In which people can enter into the house of bhakti They can according to Whatever their talents may be They can express those talents And move closer to Krishna So I'll conclude with one example That Ishwara Prabhupada was in North India And at that time he had been invited To give a talk at an akhada At a traditional Wrestlers training place So Now the judgemental mentality What is this? The body is temporary Why waste so much time in exercising And building the body So Prabhupada went there And he was giving a class in Hindi So he said You are making your body healthy All of you are making your body healthy It's very good Now they were pious people actually And they had a deity of Hanuman over there So he said Hanuman ji was very strong And he was serving Krishna And then he said We need protectors in society And they need to be well built So what you are doing is very good So Hanuman is your model Then Prabhupada brought the spiritual part So Hanuman would always Chant the names of Ram So when you sit down And you get up When you are sitting down and getting up And you are doing exercise Chant Ram Ram Ram And in this way spiritualise What you are doing So the people Who are of a Kshatriya bent They cannot be told to become Brahmanas They will be Kshatriyas But they can be encouraged to become Kshatriyas In a way That can Harmonise with their devotion And that requires Expertise You know it is very easy To reject people You are not doing, this is not devotion That is not this, that is not that To criticise and reject is very easy But when we do that Then we alienate A lot of people Unnecessarily To the extent we engage people Whatever be their desire Whatever be their inclination Whatever they want to offer to Krishna We try to somehow connect them with Krishna And encourage them Gradually they will get a taste in serving Krishna So initially Suppose somebody is an intellectual That person likes to read And now They will read whatever content they get And whatever they find good But somehow they are given spiritual books Spiritual books Which present spirituality in an intellectually appealing way Then they start reading that They are reading that initially Because they are intellectually interested But gradually They will start noticing That when I read ordinary intellectual books When I read devotional intellectual books There is a difference I feel very fulfilled So for example There is an ordinary singer That person is just an ordinary singer But that person comes to a temple and sings for Krishna And they will experience over a period of time That the satisfaction when I sing About Krishna And the satisfaction when I sing about ordinary songs There is a difference And then gradually By doing what they like to do For Krishna Their connection with Krishna will develop And then that connection will become Solidified and strengthened And they will become firm devotees So judgmentality This is material This is mundane Judgmentality can alienate A lot of people from Krishna Whereas seeing that People are simply acting according to their nature And the principle in bhakti Is that We serve Krishna according to our nature So we try to facilitate people Within their own nature How they can connect with Krishna How they can serve Krishna And When that is done Then they can First they will do what they want to do for Krishna But gradually they will see That Krishna is special When I do it for Krishna I get some higher happiness And then when they see that They will want to connect more with Krishna They will start practising the other limbs of bhakti And they will also march onwards towards transcendence So I will summarise I started by talking about This is the first part of a series on Cultivating non-judgemental mentality And that connection I discussed about How The material vision Makes us Judgemental So spiritually we are all souls We are all parts of God And there is one supreme being Supreme being God But at a material level Different people can Claim superiority based on Their own mode of thinking So for example extroverts may think that Introverts are antisocial They are good for nothing Introverts may think extroverts They are so aggressive Can't you be a little gentle Can't you be a little refined They are both judging each other So we acquire our nature sometimes from our past life karma Or it may be from this life's upbringing A person People who come from a culture where People stand at respectable distance and talk Those who come from a culture where they stand very close to each other They may say Why are you so Standoffish They may judge others like that So we have to not impose Our own conception on others And this mentality of considering My way is the Best way That is present in every nation Americans think like that Pakistanis think like that Germans think like that Indians also think like that So there is All of us are souls And the soul spirituality When it comes in contact with matter It expresses itself in different ways So bhakti does not mean imposing One stereotype on everyone It doesn't mean everyone act like a brahmana Or act like a vaishya We have our sabhava So the atma is here Our sabhava is here, Krishna is here So the atma will act According to its sabhava So what it does according to its sabhava That should be done for Krishna So Varanashram's expertise is that Everybody has to face problems in life But Varanashram allocates to people The problems that they like to face That they find stimulating And in that way When their sabhava is matched with their Swakarma Then they get what in today's language Is called job satisfaction Otherwise people feel frustrated In their lives So Prabhupada was also expert In engaging devotees according to their natures So devotees Sometimes we may be doing an important service And if we develop a material sense of superiority My service is the best therefore I am the best So Prabhupada deflated that Among the book distributors when he said I will be pleased most when you love Krishna And we as devotees Rather than becoming judgemental This is not bhakti, this is not bhakti, this is not bhakti We recognise that whatever people are doing We try to get them to do it for Krishna And according to their sabhava Initially we facilitate them to come to Krishna And then once they start tasting Service of Krishna Then they will want to connect with Krishna more and more And then they will start practising bhakti seriously So thank you very much Are there any questions? Or comments? The devotee was sitting here And he showed me a question What he wanted to ask And then you already had given the answer He wanted to ask Obviously There are so many devotees doing wonderful Services And a lot of them are Very sincere, very great So why should we Ignore them? Ok Then you also said that Praise is there but not full Glorification so that The ego Gets better Yeah So Why does the verse say that We should not glorify anyone Because if the devotee is doing wonderful services Shouldn't they be glorified The Bhagavatam at different levels Speaks according to The level at which it is speaking So this chapter is called Gyaana Yoga And In Gyaana The primary process for Sadhana is Unemotionality So there are material emotions Which we consider the negative axis There is zero That is the Brahman realisation Or that is the path of Gyaana And there is the positive spiritual emotions Which is the path of bhakti So Gyaana Takes us from material emotions To neutrality And bhakti takes us to positive emotions So here Krishna is Instructing primarily at the level of Gyaana And that's why He says Don't get involved in Liking things too much Don't get involved in disliking things too much So if we see In the Bhagavad Gita also Krishna repeatedly talks about being equipoised Don't be Delighted when you get something Which you like And don't be Dejected when you don't get what you like Or when you get something that you don't like So the idea is that For most of us Spiritual emotions are not easily accessible So Material emotions make us Go up and down a lot This was what had primarily happened to Arjuna Material emotions had overwhelmed him Because of which He was about to give up fighting the war And Krishna's Consistent message was Avoid material emotionality So here also Krishna is talking in those terms At the Gyani level Avoid material emotionality But if you see other sections of the Bhagavad Gita where Krishna Focusses on bhakti We do see a culture where the devotees are Glorified profusely In fact we see bhakti culture Is a culture of mutual glorification We have Suta Goswami He is speaking to The sages of Naimisharan And the sages are in one sense like his students And Suta Goswami is the instructor But when he is speaking To them at that time Suta Goswami says Atah kumbhir dvijas reshta varanashramubhagasa So therefore Dvijas reshta Means best among the brahmanas So now he is not considering That I am the teacher so I am the best among the brahmanas He is referring to somebody who is a student And he is referred to as the best among the brahmanas So that itself indicates that it is a culture of appreciation Mutual appreciation So certainly if devotees are doing services We should appreciate them And At the Gyani level When Krishna speaks he says Na prashamsena na gharvaye Don't praise, don't criticise But while Glorifying devotees also We have to do it in such a way That others don't feel minimised Now glorification doesn't have to Be by comparison with others If somebody is doing something well They can be They can be appreciated And sometimes some people deliberately do it in such a way That if there are 2-3 people over here They glorify someone But the purpose is to criticise someone else You know So we have to be careful In how we glorify others So that it is not intended Or implied or inferred So we glorify If somebody is doing a good service That's wonderful We don't have to compare them with others Just how wonderful they are doing the service So that way We can definitely glorify In bhakti And actually by glorifying devotees We encourage them in their bhakti By glorifying devotees We appreciate Krishna who is manifesting Through their laudable activities And that way we Glorifying devotees is also a limbo bhakti So in jnana Because there is a focus on negation of emotions That's why Both glorification and criticism Are to be Are to be Avoided Now in our case usually speaking We live in a very We have critical minds And we live in a critical age So often For us to criticise Is relatively easier and more natural Than to glorify That's why we focused in this class more on The aspect of not judging and criticising Because that is the tendency Which we have more and more Does it address the question? Any other questions or comments? You mentioned that We shouldn't be judgemental Generally It is the nature of us as devotees When we read Shri Ramapal's book The first thing we understand is Wow this is wonderful Even coming from an Indian background This is so much better than what I have known before And the general tendency creeps in I have read Shri Ramapal's book He has been Vehemently critical of Mayavadis He has been vehemently Strongly against Mayavadis So we also This is Mayavadis So we need to be careful We inherently develop that judgement Within us So how do we stop it? So we read from Shri Ramapal's book That many people That he often vehemently criticises Say Mayavadis So we also develop that judgementality So what can we do about it? This is a very important question Tomorrow's class is going to be entirely devoted To judgementality within bhakti What role it plays and what role it should not play But I will answer briefly The important point is That Shri Prabhupada At an individual level Was very courteous with people At one time When Prabhupada was sick in America One Mayavadi sanyasi came to meet him And everybody was surprised Prabhupada told everybody Get a chair for him And Prabhupada offered him a seat And he discussed very courteously Even before he started his mission When he was staying At the Mishra Yoga Studio At that time Prabhupada was cooking They were staying together And Prabhupada could have just cooked for himself But Prabhupada There is There is a culture In any cultured family, if there are two members Staying in the same house, you don't just eat alone So Prabhupada was cooking, he would cook for him also And over their eating They would have vigorous debates But Prabhupada As a culture he was very Very courteous So unfortunately for many of us That The way Prabhupada Spoke That is Prabhupada's Vani is available widely But Prabhupada's behaviour Or Prabhupada's conduct Is often not adequately highlighted And That is the first point that Prabhupada At an individual level was very courteous With everyone including Mayawadis Secondly, many of Prabhupada's Strong statements They come in his conversations Which were primarily meant for his disciples So I just once Went through Veda base looking at Prabhupada's purports Prabhupada's written work And then I searched how many times Did Prabhupada use the word fools or rascals You know and how many times Did Prabhupada use the word Krishna So fool rascal doesn't even come More than a few hundred times Not even a hundred times actually Only in Prabhupada's written works And Krishna comes Thousands of times So in Prabhupada's personal conversations Those words come much stronger The reason for that is That Prabhupada also knew Books are going to go to everyone Whereas now for the devotees Who are very young And they were filled with many different Conceptions So Prabhupada wanted to make things clear for them Categorical for them So often education progresses This is black, this is white That's how you learn And after that you learn There are shades of grey also If you start from beginning itself There are so many shades of grey So Prabhupada had that point He wanted to make things The basics clear to people But after that there were many shades And nuances For example Every person is not a Mayavadi There are Brahmavadis also And most people who even claim to be Following a leader who is Mayavadi They are actually themselves not Mayavadis They are not there because of the philosophy Just because they heard about that leader Maybe they liked some quotes of that leader Or they found that religious organisation Giving them some cultural continuity Some sense of belonging To a larger community And that's how they came there So we don't have to label people Everyone is an individual And by recognising that Just because people are associated With certain organisation Does not mean that they are Following that organisation's philosophy entirely So we need to very much Avoid judgementality So Prabhupada was compassionate Not judgemental And there is definitely an aspect of What we call as discerning Discernment which is required That will be a topic of the future classes So we are not saying that Not being judgemental means Everything is alright That is not the point But judgemental means Conducting us in such a way That people who are not alright Lose all desire to become alright Because they feel You people are so self-righteous I don't want to become like you So that should not be done That's what judgementality Doesn't mean a naive Non-criticality Unthinking acceptance Of everything is alright That's not what non-judgementality is Non-judgementality is actually Sensitivity by which we facilitate People to come to Krishna from wherever They are without expecting them To make radical overnight Changes So that's what non-judgementality is about Does it address the question? Thank you I struggle from what you said I am 86 and a half now So I feel very black and white about stuff Now he goes to a school Where there is just one other Indian family Where they are educating So I am struggling really hard You know they are wonderful people They are really nice people But every time you go to their parties Or you go to their house They talk about cows and land You know it just disgusts me But I am trying to be non-aggressive Not show my emotions But how do I explain it to my son Sometimes I really struggle with that If you go for a barbecue I cannot stand the stench So I am always usually away He recognises it But the last time he went He wanted to be with his friends So he did not mind being there So I didn't know what to do How do you discern between Showing him what is black and white Right and wrong And not making it clear to the person Generally when you want to educate Our dependents We need to tell them things in terms of black and white At the same time While we tell them We are living in a society Where we cannot be judgemental So we may dislike some things We may feel Even revolted by certain things But we may have to live with those things So how do we At one side Not become Not be revolted by certain things At the same time We educate also This is right, this is wrong That actually requires a lot of maturity Actually Prabhupada When he went to America He was Born in a pure Vaishnava family He had never even drunk tea Never even considered breaking The regularity principle And here he was surrounded by Young American hippies Whose only regularity principle Was to break all regularity principles So Often they would They would not Bathe for days Prabhupada would Go on the streets Sometimes on the streets itself Because these hippies they had no homes to live And they believed in free everything So sometimes on the streets they would be having sex with each other And Prabhupada was just Swami passing by Along the way One time he was going along and There were some people who would just lie on his doorway And when he would knock He would come by his stick They would hear and they would just get up and move One day they just did not move And then he found that He tried to shake him And he found that person had died So he had just taken a drug induced high And in that only overdose he had died over there So actually If Prabhupada had allowed his Surely Prabhupada must have felt Appalled by many of the things That he saw over there But his purpose Was stronger than his emotions Or whatever instinctive emotions That came to him His purpose of serving Krishna was stronger And because of that He stayed in that situation also So sometimes We need So maturity essentially Means that we ensure That our purpose is stronger than our emotions Of course One advantage in today's culture Today's culture is going more towards post-modern So you do what you want to do You don't impose it on me So if we are vegetarian also Some devotees These Prabhupada disciples They said in 1960s The idea was if you had to be vegetarian That means you have to live your life Eating vegetables People had no idea of vegetarian cuisines So Haigiri Prabhu writes that We were delighted to discover That Swamiji's knowledge Of vegetarian recipes Was as vast As his knowledge of Sanskrit shlokas So Now vegetarian has become At least an acceptable Alternative lifestyle If not even a respectable alternative lifestyle So It is not Difficult in that sense To practise our own Principles And if we find certain situations intolerable There is always A way of telling it In a way We don't have to say that I can't tolerate this Meat because it is Sinful or because it is a product of murder Talking about those judgemental terms I have some allergy Because of which I can't stand this And it is in a sense true Allergy is not just a neurochemical phenomenon It is also if you feel something Repelled by sin It is some kind of that So we don't have to blame them for it But that doesn't mean that We have to subject ourselves To unnecessary misery And as far as our children are concerned We can surely Educate them And they will need initially They follow us because Initially children consider their parents to be God Whatever you tell I will do But as they grow up Their intelligence starts working And they will also need to be explained So we talk about The violence that is involved in animal killing The karma that is there As per whatever they can understand So that they know why they are choosing what they are doing And They will That way Learn a lot from our example So if we are also living purely Then they will naturally Want to know why are we living like this And even if sometimes they They don't see things in terms of black and white They may think oh this is also not so bad But even if they explore sometimes Especially in teenage it may happen But if they have got good impressions in childhood That will bring them back As long as They have not been alienated By too much Judgmentality So many times children who Start exploring in teenage Once the teenage years get over Then they start saying actually what I was taught was good for me It's a better way of living So basically if we set an example And we keep our purpose strong Then we can harmonise our emotions Or at least not harmonise Regulate our emotions according to the purpose Does that address the question? Thank you So thank you very much.