Does beauty lie in the eye of the beholder – A Vedic Perspective
Hare Krishna I am honoured to be here with all of you at the Gopi Street of Radha Govind and visiting the Divine Presence of Jagannath Gopi Samudra and Manifest Presence So, Radha Govind is among the most common names of deities in Sikon Temples all over the world I went to at least 5 Radha Govind Temples when I was in Andhra Pradesh So, Radha Govind and Radha Shamsundra are the most common names for deities in Sikon I am happy to be here and a gentleman who kindly engages me in some way So, today we are discussing in this 8th Canto 9th Chapter The Lord's Incarnation as Mohini So, I will speak on two themes primarily The inclusiveness of the Bhakti conception of God and the privacy of intention in our life So, Inclusiveness of the Bhakti conception of God God, here we see He is manifesting in a feminine form and when He is manifesting this very attractive feminine form that actually His beauty exceeds even the beauty of the Goddess of Fortune So, here there is a play over words So, Shri Sakhi Actually The Lord is Shri, if at all we want to say He is Shri Patti or we could say Shri Sakha but He has manifested in the feminine form So, it's Shri Sakhi So, although He is compared to the Goddess of Fortune He appeared as beautiful as the Goddess of Fortune In this world actually whenever we want to describe something we need some reference point for describing it Say, if somebody says that America is a huge country or India has a huge population Huge is a very indefinite word What do you mean by huge? It's huge as compared to something else So, whenever any description has to be given the human mind needs some reference point Without the reference point we can't perceive, we can't quantify, we can't conceive So, traditionally in the Vedic culture at the time when the Bhagavata was spoken the paramount symbol or the paramount reference point for beauty is the Goddess of Fortune The Lord is the supreme enjoyer and His consort is the supreme enjoyer She is all-attractive So, there are verses for example in the Radhika Ashtakam which compare how the Apsaras in heaven are far far more beautiful than the women in this world but far more beautiful than the Apsaras is Lakshmidevi and far more beautiful than Lakshmidevi are the Gopis So, now the reference point for comparison starts from what people are familiar with So, yes, women in this world, attractive So, then more and more and more So, like that in a pious circle say the Goddess of Fortune is considered to be the summit in attractiveness and thus here the reference point is given He appeared like an associate of the Goddess of Fortune so beautiful However, Chakravarti Parthi's scribe was committed that He is far far more beautiful than the Goddess of Fortune also Why? Because He is the Lord of the Goddess of Fortune The beauty of everyone comes from the Supreme Lord Now, when we talk about the six opulences of Krishna one of the opulences is beauty So, we say that Krishna is all-beautiful Now, what does all-beautiful mean? It means that many things it means One thing it means is that all beauty that is present in anyone it actually comes from Him If it had not been for Him being beautiful nothing else could be beautiful He is the source of all beauty More and more than that actually, ultimately when there is some beautiful object that we see the beauty there is a saying in English Beauty is in the eye of the beholder That means that depending on how a person sees the person sees something as beautiful So Shri Prabhupada gives the example that say in every species there is the male-female attraction and say that female of a particular species will look very attractive to a male So, for example, for a male cockroach you see a cockroach, you look very attractive Now, for human beings they are not going to notice the difference also What is a male cockroach? What is a female cockroach? They are not noticeable at all So, what does it mean over here? The point is that at that level beauty is in the eye of the beholder because based on the vision that we have based on the conditioning that we have we see particular things as beautiful and we see particular things as not beautiful However this has to be qualified Beauty is not only in the eye of the beholder If we say beauty is only in the eye of the beholder that would mean that beauty has no objective reality apart from the beholder Beauty is the opulence of Krishna and because it is an opulence of Krishna Krishna possesses it and Krishna is the supreme objective reality that he is the supreme reality So, just as Krishna exists independent of our beholding him Krishna's reality is not dependent on our perceiving Similarly, Krishna's beauty is not dependent on our perceiving So, when it is said beauty lies in the eye of the beholder what it means is that there is a subjective conception of what is beautiful but that does not mean that there is no objective reality of beauty Subjective conception means what a particular subject a particular observer pursues So, for example say somebody has just had a big stomach upset and they have just thrown out their entrance and they are just in bad shape and then if they see food they get nausea when they get food I don't want to see it Somebody else when they see delicious food they get saliva I want to eat it So, now food is the objective reality but the reaction that food has in different people will depend on their particular conditioning their particular conditioning not conditioning, their conditions only their particular conditions if somebody is in a diseased condition food produces nausea if somebody is in a hungry condition the food triggers saliva So, now food is an objective reality and the food's taste is also an objective reality the taste is an objective feature that exists in some way in the food I will come to what I mean in some way a little later but at this stage the point which I am making is that food is objectively real and food's taste is also objectively real now subjectively how I perceive it depends on my condition So, this is very easy to understand at a physical level but similarly if we apply to apply to say beauty now beauty is usually associated with the fair sex or the feminine gender now the same person say there may be a young beautiful woman who is a mother and they are in a market and the child has got estranged from them and the child is running here the mother is running there as soon as the child is worried child is crying child is fearful and the child sees the mother child feels relieved child feels joy child feels great peace coming over him so now on the other hand there might be another young man who might be just sensually agitated that person sees the woman that person may get sensually agitated so now what happens is that child for him on seeing the same person the child feels relieved child feels comfort child feels safe so we could see seeing the same person actually brings the child to goodness tranquilly, security but seeing the same person some other young person might go into the mood of passion now if say that that same woman and her husband have had a quarrel with each other and then when that same woman is seen by the husband he might get angry and want to quarrel so the same person may trigger ignorance in the husband so the same person may trigger different emotions in different people like anger in one person sensual desire in another person and relief and joy in another person so the object is the same but the subjective effect of that object now by object I am not using objectification I am just saying the person we are seeing over there the person is the same but the effect seen the person has depends on specific persons and what they are thinking where they are coming from so now there is a reality and there is a subjective perception of the reality so when it says beauty lies in the eye of the beholder what is being talked about is that beauty actually what is perceived as beautiful will depend on the beholder but that does not mean there is no such thing as beauty beauty is objective reality and now on the spiritual path I was at an interfaith conference in Washington DC and then it is a Christian Vaishnav dialogue which is there and after that there was a monk from the Christian tradition so he we had a long talk after that and then he was telling that he had just interacted with a monk from a Buddhist tradition and then they were talking about monkhood in different traditions and how it's practised we consider traditions like say Buddhism which are largely negation of the material there is very little description of positive spiritual reality so of course when Buddhists talk about void their conception is not simply non-existence Buddhists also had very very brilliant intellectuals in their fold and they say the state of void is actually the existence beyond existence now what that means no one knows that you know so if you read Buddhist literature it is intellectually very titillating all kinds of word jugglery is there now they say existence and non-existence both are states of consciousness so when you go beyond all states of consciousness you come to the existence beyond existence and non-existence now the Bhagavatam actually refutes this in the 11th canto in the Uddhav Gita where it says that actually they say that there is no such thing as a soul because their argument is just as a lamp when there is a candle we see the flame but there is no such thing as a flame actually what we call as a flame there is no continuous entity the candle is material the wax burning and that is coming as flame so the flame is a continuously changing thing there is no such one thing as a flame so they say there is simply the ever changing impressions so these two traditions Christianity and Buddhism they have their paradoxes Christianity accepts soul without reincarnation they accept the soul without reincarnation but mainstream Christianity does not accept reincarnation and Buddhism accepts reincarnation without soul so you ask them what is it that reincarnates they say that is inconceivable so they say there is no such thing as a soul because their idea is it is just like a flame now in the flame there is no continuous thing so all that is there is the problem with this metaphor is that see the consciousness is like a flame we can compare it like that but that the flame is ever changing is perceived by someone who has to be unchanging to perceive that it is ever changing isn't it? see if I am seeing someone if one person is sitting here I look after two minutes somebody else is sitting here now to perceive that I have to be unchanging if I am also changing then I would perceive that that is changing so there has to be an unchanging locus of consciousness to perceive that there is change of consciousness change of things so actually the soul is an unchanging locus of consciousness so why I was talking about Buddhism is that in Buddhist now whenever I am talking about any religion is has almost unlimited varieties so Buddhists also have many many different kinds of Buddhism as is Christianity as for that matter is Hinduism so I am talking about a particular monastic tradition with Buddhism where they say that everything that we see in this world is an illusion so one of the meditational exercises that they do the monks in order to visualise how to de-infatuate themselves is that they get an anatomy text book now an anatomy text book where there is a figure of a woman and there is a figure of that same woman with all her visceral organs in the skin removed they say what is the beauty it is simply skin deep so now if you look at any person with all the skin removed it is quite a ghastly sight no matter how beautiful they are so this beauty is simply skin deep and there is no need to get it right so now this is one way things are trying to cultivate detachment but this is focused too much on negation now yes at one level we could say that the beauty is skin deep but the important thing is that we also understand that all the opulences that are there in this world they are manifestations of Krishna's opulence so now somebody sings very nicely we could say what is this singing you know it is just a vibration ether if you want to deconstruct we can deconstruct everything you know what is this sweet taste you know it is just a combination of some saliva with some chemicals if you want to deconstruct the sense objects we can deconstruct everything now the purpose in bhakti is not simply to deconstruct matter the purpose in bhakti is to reconstruct our relationship with Krishna now our focus has to be very clear our interest is not in deconstructing matter our interest is in reconstructing our relationship with Krishna and sometimes when a person is very infatuated by worldly things one may think like that one may use the strategy of deconstruction what is this beauty what is this taste what is this sweet sound it is all just some material particles interacting with some other material particles you may think like that but a more devotional vision is to see that actually this beauty this taste this sweetness of sound or whatever this is a spark of Krishna's splendour so we understand that say somebody sings very nicely now that singing ability is a result of past good karma so similarly if somebody has good looks those good looks are a result of past good karma and the results of past good karma are ultimately given by Krishna karmana daiva netrena so now at a materialistic level we may say I want to enjoy it this is one level of self-centredness but this is all illusory I want to stay away from this this can also be another level of self-centredness where the focus is on this will cause me enjoyment this will give me enjoyment this will put me into illusion therefore I am simply concerned about myself now yes to think that this will put me into illusion that I have to stay away from it that we can say is karmically less entangled but that is not necessarily devotionally more enhancing because devotional service is ultimately about relationships and if we focus too much on deconstruction, negation, rejection then that makes us hard hearted that makes us over analytical and hard hearted and when we become hard hearted at one level in our relationship in this world our relationship with Krishna is there so now at one level we can say that we have to give up the relationship with this world and we have to take up the relationship with Krishna but that is not how it practically works we relate people in this world and through every relationship if we want that relationship to sustain then we have to to some extent put that other person before us and that is an exercise in becoming selfless and the ultimate of that selflessness is our relationship with Krishna so in that sense it is not so Prabhupada talks about devotional introduction that actually the loving propensity as it expands more and more the culmination of its expansion is when it reaches Krishna so that is why if our focus is too much on rejection then we will not be able to have proper dealings with each other if somebody cooks nice food for us and now somebody says this food is all maya the taste of food is all maya and no Bhumte Bhojate Jai Bhojate Rupa Goswami says that actually taking prasad and receiving prasad giving prasad and receiving prasad this is one of the ways of reciprocating love so then we have to the bhakti vision is based on our attraction to Krishna so it is Krishna so the attractive objects of this world we can see them as pointers to Krishna so if we are not Krishna conscious then we can see them as competitors to Krishna oh this is so attractive why do I need anything else so now beauty lies in the eye of the beholder that was the topic I was talking about now the word lies has two meanings first one lies means to speak an untruth so beauty lies in the eye of the beholder what that means is that if the beholder is a conditioned soul then beauty lies to him what is the lie the lie is that this alone will make me happy to that all this beauty is so wonderful this will make me happy I don't need anything else in my life but it is a spark of Krishna's Supreme Attractions and if we are in cold and we need a fire now spark cannot provide us adequate warmth a spark may attract us when we are shivering and we are in cold and dark but the spark cannot provide us adequate illumination or adequate warmth it is the whole that will provide us adequate warmth so beauty in that sense this is so beautiful this is what will give me pleasure I don't need anything else in my life then that is the way beauty lies in the eye of the beholder through the eye the illusion goes into the beholder and the person becomes deluded however this is not what has to necessarily happen this is what happens to the especially we will see in this Mohini Murthy past time it is what happens to the demons they get deluded the difference between demons and devotees demons and the devatas is not that the devatas don't have material desires both the devatas and the demons have material desires to be free from material desires even 5000 years ago when the Bhagavatam was spoken is a very rare thing that's why the Bhagavatam also says that those who are completely devoted to Supreme Lord Vasudev Supreme Lord Narayan they are very rare souls so even at that time the devatas have material desires so the problem is not having material desires the problem is how one fulfils the material desires whether one does it by dharmic ways or whether one does it by adharmic ways the dharmic way of fulfilling it is dharma artha kama moksha the adharmic way is grabbing, exploiting, abusing so now the demons what happens to them is that they get wounded by the demons now in the Bhagavatam here if we look at the description of Mohini Mukti that is given it seems to be quite explicit it seems to be physical parts are described how her saree is moving when her bodily parts are described it may just create some I am hearing the Bhagavatam to become purified now why is such explicit description given in scripture so actually I will talk about it at three levels first is that scripture is a timeless revelation at the same time it is spoken in a particular time in a particular format so for example Ramayana is a cow Mahabharata and the Bhagavatam are also similarly poetic literatures now just like in English there are different poetic forms if there is a sonnet if somebody writes a sonnet then there are particular number of lines you have to have if you write in a particular format if somebody is writing a poem there has to be some kind of rhyming in the poem so every literary construction has certain rules so now similarly there has to be some description of Shringar Shringar means beauty Shringar means beautiful decoration and Shringar is usually associated with feminine beauty so there has to be some description of Shringar and that is when literature qualifies as cow so whether it is Valmiki or Vyasa when they are writing and actually they when Vyasa is writing it is a cow so Shringar is essential as a characteristic of a genre of cow now even in even in when we talk about say beauty there is sometimes the aversion that comes and anywhere anything anything physically beautiful to describe we think this is this is bad but it is not like that there is if you look at art as it is described there are different genres of art so for example there is romantic there is erotic and there is pornographic now romantic what it means is that the primary focus of the story is in describing the interaction the attraction between the male and female how they form a relationship whatever happens in the story so that is romantic genre in erotic the focus on sexuality is much more although there is a story line there is romance but on physical description of sensuality is much more except to trigger people's sensual desires so there is a difference in intent so it is not that every description of sensuality is necessarily pornographic it is a lot depends on intent now Chaitanya Mahaprabhu says that even seeing a wooden effigy a wooden doll of a woman can agitate sensual desire in someone now that is possible in anything for that person they don't even need anything to get agitated so that is different but when artistic depiction is done when we go to many traditional temples also we may see that there is some imagery that is there and that imagery may seem very sensually jarring for us so although it may seem to be explicit it is not pornographic because what is pornography the intent is to trigger sensual desires when something is produced with that intention it is classified as pornography but if we see in the scripture wherever beauty is described there is a purpose for that the purpose is to advance the storyline so if we look at the whole story of the Mohini Murthi that the demons have fought a long war they fought and they got the upper hand and the devatas came and formed a treaty with them to get the nectar and now they have got the nectar and now they want to grab it so at this time for them to just give the nectar to someone and not even someone they trust someone they have never seen before you know there is I read a fiction author the difference between fiction and real life is that fiction has to make sense the difference between fiction and real life is that fiction has to make sense sometimes real life may not make sense why did this person do this how can this person behave like this in real life things may not make sense sometimes but in fiction if something is too implausible people just stop reading it although fiction is not reality it is a story but it has to be a simulation of reality if somebody in fiction starts describing totally unrealistic things people just drop it because they want to enjoy a story which has a some semblance with reality so now this idea that that the nectar which they have fought for for so long suddenly they will just give it up it will make no sense why would anyone do like that it is like to give an analogue that somebody has fought a long time to find some hidden treasure somewhere and now after fighting they have got the treasure and some unknown person comes and they just give the treasure to that person why would anyone do like that so for this dramatic twist to make sense why is it that they do it because they are so captivated by the beauty of Mohini Murthy and without Mohini Murthy being so beautiful the they would never have done such a thing and because they do something which is so implausible then to make the implausible seem plausible the description of the beauty of Mohini Murthy is void so the purpose here is not at all to trigger sensual desire in you the purpose is to show how the storyline is plausible and without the description of the beauty that plausibility of the storyline will not come now of course in the scripture it is not just a story being told it is much more than that it is Krishna Leela that is being described so when Krishna Leela is being described that means that even the description of Mohini Murthy if we can see this is Krishna then we will marvel at how beautiful Krishna is so now if we see this is what happens to her the same Mohini Murthy has appeared now this is the 8th chapter she appears again in the 12th chapter where she deludes Lord Shiva and now initially Lord Shiva gets deluded but afterwards he praises the Lord how extraordinarily is your potency O Lord that means that the focus when we are studying scripture is that is remembrance of Krishna now we have to be clear that why am I studying scripture now why is Parikshit Maharaj hearing scripture now he is hearing scripture so that he can remember Krishna that is what has been told to Krishna and Prabhupada was so clear about this that's why Prabhupada said that if we read the last Leela and if that starts agitating our mind then don't read it that means you are not impure enough Prabhupada did not say never read it but Prabhupada said that the last Leela is very confidential and he said that Bhagavatam should be read same way Prabhupada gave Krishna book and he wanted very much that Krishna book should be for mass distribution street distribution so now what is it it's not that we want to hide Krishna but rather we want to present Krishna in a way that people's remembrance of Krishna is enhanced so if people come with materialistic conceptions and then they hear Krishna's pastime in the Gopis they will not be remembering lust they will be remembering karma that will not trigger their attraction to Krishna that will trigger their sensual agitation so that is what is our demand but it is not that we have to disconnect ourselves from Krishna itself so what Prabhupada does in his 10th canto so many study Krishna book is that he gives abandoned philosophical buffer so a buffer when there is a storm is there and when the buffer is there buffer adds weight and then if the boat is there the boat will not shake so much so like that our mind shakes a lot but then the philosophical buffer comes in the mind the philosophical buffer stabilises the boat of the mind so when we study Krishna leela as is given by Sri Prabhupada in his Krishna book or we hear it from devotees with proper philosophical understanding then that philosophical buffer prevents undivagination and then we can actually understand how we become attracted to Krishna and when I talk about the primacy of intention we will see that in the 10th canto when the description of the Rasagulla is given the phalashruti is given at the end in the last verse of the 32nd chapter and the phalashruti is that VIKRINITAM PRAJAPATUMHIRITAM JAVISHNUM SHRADDHAANVITAM ANISHUMAYATHA VARNAHEKYAM BHAKTINPARAM BHAGVATI PATILAM KAMAM VIDROGAMAHASHIVAPANNOTI ACHIRENYA DHIRAH says that actually by hearing about these pastimes bhakti will arise in the heart and then kama will subside kama will be conquered so how will this happen? this will happen because if we study the proper philosophy like a philosophical understanding then we will understand that Krishna and Gopis their interaction is a reality the main theme and attraction in this world is simply a small spark like reflection so then we know the Bhagavad Gita 15.1 talks about this metaphor of an upside down banyan tree so now when this kind of description say for example Rastila is described here in the 10th Canto and then it is further described in the Goswami's literature so now the point is that if we read it we may get agitated we are getting agitated because right now that is not triggering the remembrance of Krishna that is triggering the sensual desires of this but if you understand that this is the description of the reality there is a real mango and there is a reflection and if we are philosophically sound then we will understand that is the reality and this is the reflection and when we see how beautiful is the reality then our desire for the reflection will go why do I care about the reflection? let me aspire for the reality but if we are not philosophically convinced then we think this is not really Krishna is good but Maya is also not bad so if you are thinking like that then the real mango the purpose is that if we see the false mango it should remind us of the real mango and the real mango we see it we want to become attracted to the real mango but if you are not understood that this reflection is like a false mango the false is not unreal the unreality is that it will not provide us the kind of pleasure we think it will as an object it is real but it will illusion is in the quantity of pleasure that is there it is just a drop but we think it will be an ocean so if we are not convinced about this then rather than the reflection reminding us of the reality the reality will remind us of the reflection when the reality reminds us of the reflection then what will happen? we will get agitated with sensual desire so therefore the philosophical clarity is very important without philosophical clarity we may get deluded by reading such descriptions but with philosophical understanding we see the purpose the purpose of everything that is there is to help us absorb the mind of Krishna and even while we are studying Shastra everything that we do in Bhakti has to be driven by these two principles Anukulyase Sankalpa Pratikulyase Vajra I conclude with this point normally when we think of surrender the standard image of surrender is Draupadi she raises her hands up and she surrenders to Krishna now yes she is one example of surrender but surrender has many forms at the end of the Bhagavad Gita Krishna tells Arjuna surrender to me sir and Arjuna tells Krishna yes I will surrender but Arjuna doesn't surrender by raising his hands up he is ready to fight yatra partha dhanur dharadha that Partha would put aside his bow vishuddhiya sasheram chaapam shobh sabhvi iknamaham in 1.46 it is told put aside his bow he picks up his bow in readiness to fight so sometimes surrender can be just raising our hands in helplessness sometimes surrender can be raising our bow in readiness raising our bow means being ready to do whatever it takes to fight for Krishna whatever it takes for service to Krishna we see Prabhupada when he is coming to America what does he say nachao nachao prabhu nachao sevante kashtera puttanijata nachao sevante just make me dance like a puppet so Prabhupada when he says make me dance like a puppet dancing is an activity but when a puppet is dancing the puppet doesn't know how I am going to dance whichever way the strings are pulled he doesn't know how to surrender Prabhupada his surrender was just like Gopini raising his hand and Prabhupada was just like Krishna wants Krishna Prabhupada had taken great risk to come to America so his surrender was dynamic he was active but at this particular point he did not know how to be active Prabhupada said when I landed in the Boston fire I didn't know whether to left or right I was in a state of determination and dependence dependence I don't know what to do I don't know how I am going to serve Krishna determination but I am going to serve determination and dependence so Prabhupada writes in a purport that a devotee can be perplexed but a devotee is never discouraged discouraged means we don't feel like serving Krishna perplexed means it can happen to all of us that we may be put in a particular situation what am I to do now I did this for this intention this is what happened this backfired like this what should I do now surrender means whatever happens Krishna I am your servant I am going to serve you and that's why if you look at the six elements of surrender Anukundasya Sankar, Pratikundasya Vajanam Rakshashidhi Vishwaso, Gopitre Varnaprata, Atmanikshepa Karmanya, Sarvidha Saranam out of these the last four are dispositions Krishna is my protector Krishna is my maintainer without Krishna I have nothing my everything is for Krishna now all these are dispositions and they will come they will take time to acquire but the first two are actions so when surrender is defined over here surrender is defined as a dynamic responsible choosing we accept that it is favourable we avoid that it is unfavourable so even while we are studying Shastra sometimes studying some sections may trigger sensual desire within us then we understand Shastra is pure but this is having an unfavourable effect on me therefore let me not read this right let me put this aside similarly sometimes you may read some section in scripture say many devotees read the 5th Canto Cosmology they just can't understand it that triggers doubt Pratikundasya Vajanam put it aside because the purpose of 5th Canto Cosmology is not to give an exclusive or exhaustive description of cosmology you know Shukdev Goswami is not a PhD guide for Parikshit Maharaj who is doing a PhD in cosmology there is cosmological description is incidental central is remembrance of Krishna so the purpose of cosmology is to enhance remembrance of Krishna so we respect whatever is given in the Bhagavatam we study the spiritual that's why Srila Prabhupada also in his purports doesn't go too much into the technicalities of the 5th Canto Cosmology but his principles of spiritual life Prabhupada is very consistent in his purpose so if we keep that in mind that Anukundasya Samkal Pratikundasya Vajanam then we will actually whatever we read, whatever we hear whatever we study we will ensure that it takes us towards Krishna and such descriptions we understand that they are ultimately meant to take us towards Krishna but if right now they are not taking us towards Krishna then I will be cautious I will keep a distance from them I will focus on how can I serve Krishna right now see there is a why question and there is a how question once we start asking the why question now we put ourselves in a difficult position we start asking why is this there in the Bhagavatam why is this description there why is this like this now we are not as included as the sages who have recited the Bhagavatam they are from a different cultural context we are from a different cultural context so as soon as we go into the why question many statements in scripture will be very difficult to understand but if we come to the how question okay, how can I serve Krishna how can I remember Krishna how can I move closer to Krishna if I keep focus on that question then scriptural study will never deviate us we will say okay this is the purpose this section right now it is not favourable for my remembrance of Krishna let me move sometimes some classes become too technical we just hear them I don't want to go into this technicality it is not favourable for me on the other hand some people they are intellectual and they need intellectually stimulated stuff and for them very simple stuff may not seem very stimulating so if that is what they need they keep that but you keep the focus on moving towards Krishna on remembering Krishna on attaining Krishna and then such descriptions even if they don't in the specific description still don't make sense their ultimate purpose will make supreme sense and that is how a life for a devotee is it is not that even when we become even when we become pure devotees it is not that we don't know why this is happening even a pure devotee may not know why this is happening when Prabhupada was knocked down by a cow at that time in Delhi when he was distributing back to Godhead Prabhupada tells the Maharaj why did this happen Prabhupada asked this question why did this happen but Prabhupada did not get carried away whatever has happened let me serve Krishna let me find out how I can serve Krishna in this situation so asking the why question if there is darkness if you are going on the road and suddenly the street lights go off it is completely dark I don't know what to do so asking the why question why is this happening why are the street lights gone off when you are in the middle of the street you can't know it at that time what we can do is the street lights have gone off is to take out mobile and turn on the flashlight and keep taking one step one step forward eventually we will cover a significant distance and then by that time the street lights will also come back so sometimes in our life we are planning to do something this is what my plan this is how I am going to serve this is what I am going to do and we have our plan for life made and suddenly the lights go off everything is a topsy-turvy what am I to do at that time we ask the why question that's not in our control but turning on the flashlight is like asking the question how can I serve you so if I ask the question how can I serve you there is something I can do maybe I can consult some senior devotee maybe I can just do this one thing I can do this next thing and that how can I serve you it will show us one step ahead the flashlight will show one step ahead but when we take one step ahead one more step ahead is shown it will understand it is appreciating the beauty of the supreme lord it is understanding his plan it is taking one step forward one step forward and then eventually we will find that we have covered a significant distance through that service attitude and when the lights come back it won't just be lights back as normal we will also have the lights within us because we will have deepened conviction that connection with Krishna service attitude towards Krishna can help us to weather through the toughest of storms because we will have seen that manifest in our own life so I will summarise I spoke today about the inclusions of the conception of God in Bhakti and the primacy of intention so some people especially say in the nihilistic traditions like Buddhism they try to reject all beauty as false and they say beauty is skin deep and they try to see beyond the skin to de-infatuate themselves from beauty so the Vaishnava understanding is that beauty lies in the eye of the beholder but beauty doesn't only lie there there is a subjective perception of beauty which is based on what a person's consciousness is so a female cockroach will appear beautiful to a male cockroach but the same person will be perceived differently based on the eye of the beholder so a beautiful young woman is a mother and a child sees her who is lost child will feel peace a young man who sees her may go into Rajoguna her own husband is quarrelling with her may get into Tamoguna so the same object is perceived differently but the object itself is real the beauty is also real Krishna has six opulences his beauty is real and he is the supreme object of reality by his blessing some people by their past karma get certain attractive attitudes in this world so it can be beauty, it can be taste, it can be melody whatever it is so our purpose is not to deconstruct matter to say that this is all material vibrations or material phenomena our purpose is to deconstruct our relationship with Krishna sometimes we may deconstruct matter just for the sake of detachment but a more healthy attitude is to reconstruct our relationship with Krishna focus too much on this deconstruction and we will become depersonalised we will become hard hearted in our relationships and if we become hard hearted in relationship with others we will find that that hard heartedness will extend towards Krishna also because bhakti is ultimately a growth in selflessness and every relationship is an opportunity to grow in selflessness so we can see the expansion of love that happens and culminates in Krishna so beauty lies in the eye of the beholder in the sense that the beholder gets a false conception that this beauty is all that I need for happiness and I don't need anything else then that is a lie so the beauty of this world should not be a competitor to Krishna it should be a pointer to Krishna but it is Krishna's beauty which is manifested everywhere in this world rather than getting attracted towards the spark which can anyway not give adequate illumination or warmth we become attracted to the holy fire and then while reading scripture we discuss that we, when we see descriptions of explicit beauty like was given over here they may agitate our mind and we think why is such explicit thing described in scripture there is a purpose you know that all physical beauty is not necessarily sensualic there is romantic where the primary purpose is to describe the romantic attraction and within that beauty is just an incident description there is erotic physical beauty and sensuality there is pornographic where simply the intent is to trigger sensual desire in people so when scripture is describing certain stories so in the stories there may be romance there may be particular story line that is required so here the implausibility of the demons giving up so easily that which they had fought so long for that implausibility is made plausible by describing the stunning beauty of Mohini Buddha so scripture is written the genre of Kavya and Kavya has to have Shringar Shringar is description of beauty but scripture does it does the description of Shringar in such a way that it enhances the story line now when we are studying such section of scripture we can understand we can see our level and the purpose is to help us remember Krishna but if we are getting agitated then we can avoid focussing on such sections that purpose is told in the 10th Canto when Gopi's pastimes of Krishna are described and it is said that this will remove lust from one's heart how will that happen because if we have proper philosophical understanding and we will understand that Krishna Gopi Veda description of Krishna Gopi Veda is the real mind what is there in this world is the false mind reflected mind and then we will become re-attracted from the reflected to the false redirected from the real to the false to the real but if you are not philosophically convinced then the reality may remind you of the reflection and the last time you trigger desire then better keep a distance and the driving principle in Bhakti can be Anupu what is favourable except what is unfavourable reject surrender can have many forms so for Draupadi the favourable form of surrender was just raising her hands in helplessness for Arjuna the favourable form was raising his hand bowing in readiness to fight for Srila Prabhupada Anjala Dutta the favourable form of surrender was a combination of determination and dependency I don't know how I am going to serve Krishna but I am going to serve him similarly for us sometimes the street lights of our life spark just go off we have a plan and everything gets disrupted what do I do in that situation so if we ask why is this happening we will get no answers at least not immediately many times but how can I serve him that's like turning on the flashlight and it's a one step forward and with that gradually as we keep taking steps forward we find that not only will the external street lights come back eventually but the lights will go on brightly within our heart because our faith in Krishna and his shelter giving potency his guiding potency the capacity to weather the toughest of life storms by having an attitude of service to Krishna all that faith will be strengthened in our heart and that faith is the greatest thank you very much do we have time yes can you speak directly I can't hear you I will repeat the question why is remembrance of Krishna focused on so much somehow or the other remember Krishna yes that's because remembrance is our primary connection with Krishna so to the extent we are remembering Krishna to the extent we are connected with him so that's why now of course we can be connected through service also practically so even if there is no remembrance at least we should do service but remembrance is at the level of consciousness ultimately if we consider for the soul in the material world everything is external I have a body but actually the body is not in my control right now I am speaking about Krishna but tomorrow if my throat becomes sore I am no longer going to speak about Krishna so I will be doing various services if I can do them I should do them but the capacity to do service in this world depends on factors that are not in our control so I may want to preach but then something goes wrong and I am not able to speak I am not able to do something I am not able to preach the service that does not depend on anything external to us is remembrance the soul has its innate feature and the consciousness the soul has free will about where to direct the consciousness so when we grow old when we get diseased when we are about to die at that time physically we will be incapable of anything but this is one thing we are capable of directing our consciousness towards Krishna so ultimately remembrance of Krishna is what the soul can offer if somebody sings very nicely somebody speaks very nicely somebody manages very nicely that's also an offering to Krishna but how is that offering done? that is Krishna only by past karma has given the soul that ability to sing nicely speak nicely, manage nicely and the soul is using that ability but it is the soul may be doing it for one's own fame and pleasure also we don't know that but what we offer to Krishna is our consciousness everything else also we are meant to offer but actually it is not ours it is under our custody and we may be externally offering it to Krishna but internally we may be remembering ourselves only we may be thinking I am so clever, I am so great so then that is not really a high level offering that's why the important thing is we stay connected with Krishna because our mind is too agitated but by the practise we keep doing the practise of trying to fix the mind on Krishna then our mind becomes inclined towards Krishna and as it becomes more inclined towards Krishna then its remembrance will become more natural more habitual and that's how we will be able to remember him even when we are not able to do anything else did I answer your question? can you come back to me? I will repeat the question the mic seems to be coined what was the purpose of this? did it get to mind? did it get to 7? so nowadays in India there is often violence against women and some people allege that this culture of violence against women comes from the Indian sacred literature the Vedic literature because there women are objectified as a means to sensual gratification women are not treated as questions and because of this sensual gratification now there is exploitation of violence against women firstly we see Vedic culture had 5 sections of society of women and one of them is women so protection of women is considered to be a very important thing and the Pandavas tolerated the atrocities of the Kauravas for a long time even Bhima was poisoned he had to burn them alive and Draupadi was dishonoured they did not tolerate so the point is that protection of women is very important so to say that women were objectified is to have a very selective or distorted vision of scripture first of all if you look at other religions if you look at several centuries ago just a few centuries ago some Christians claim that women don't have a soul also only men have souls only men are going to be liberated so if we see that there is a particular ethos that is given in scripture and unless we understand the ethos unless we understand the way the worldview that is there without that if we just take selected parts from it then that will not work prior to say 30 or 40 years ago maybe 20 years ago also the masculine was considered inclusive for example God proposes, man disposes sorry, man proposes, God disposes now here man is used to refer to humanity in general now it doesn't say women proposes, God disposes man includes man doesn't it but now in today's culture man is seen as a as just a sectarian reference to one gender and wherever you say he or she so sometimes even there are some feminists who say not even he or she why he first she or he so this is now this is a particular trend which is very recent and in fact there are some feminists which accuse English language itself of being gender biassed because in English there is no gender neutral plural there is he or she but there is no gender neutral singular if I want to refer to another person how do I refer to them without referring to their gender so people use they sometimes so the point which I am making is this whole obsession with gender dynamics it's a very recent phenomenon and when we use that as a filter to look at scripture then we get a distorted vision of scripture so in scripture it is clearly stated that the same soul that is present in the male body and a similar soul is present in the female body so souls can go from female bodies to male bodies from male bodies to female bodies so in that sense at a spiritual level there is equality at a material level because like I said in the past the man was inclusive so not just Vedic scriptures all literature in the past were written with a masculine reference point so it is always going to be described from a male's perspective scripture was spoken by a male and the primary audience was the males and that was just the way the reference was it was not that females were not included but the reference was primarily males so Parikshit Maharaj is a male who is hearing that so because he is a male who is hearing that for a male the temptation was a female and that is why at that particular time when he is being spoken to at that time he is told that avoid attachment to wife like if the audience had been a female then it was avoid attachment to husband in fact the fourth canto there is a section very clearly which says that just as third canto yeah just as the Muni and Deva yeah so just as just as the man is a temptation woman is a temptation for man man is a temptation for woman and woman has to avoid the temptation so there are metaphors also given for that so the scripture is given as a spiritual message from the spiritual perspective both men and women are at the same level they are both souls they are both meant to go towards Krishna and both are given an opportunity to go towards Krishna at the same time scripture is eternal spiritual message spoken at a particular time and things will be presented according to that time say for example if we are going to speak right now so if you are going to write an article I am going to write a book somebody is going to give a class if you are going to speak in English we are going to speak in the English of the 21st century we are not going to use that is the 19th century English there is a timeless message but the timeless message is delivered to a timely medium the medium is determined by the context so there is a particular social structure in society at the time scriptures are spoken and accordingly the message will be given the core message is universal it is transcendental but the Vedic society was patriarchal and that is not just Vedic society most societies before the postmodern were patriarchal societies so then actually the message will be given in that medium so we have to that's why if we want to demonise anything so one of the easiest ways to demonise something is to cherry pick sections this is like cherry pick means just take one section one word out of context and say look at the overall message the overall message is universal spiritual whenever comparisons are made comparisons have to be fair so unfair comparisons are simply tools for emotional manipulation unfair comparison means what let's say somebody compares say the saintliness of Jesus Christ and they compare that with a sadhaka like you or me and they say you know these Vaishnavas they are so attached see Jesus he was so devoted and Jesus is at the summit of saintliness so if you want to compare compare Jesus with somebody like Haridas so if we compare the best in a particular tradition in a particular category with something average or something worst in a particular category another category it is an unfair comparison so if we take sections or passages from scripture where there is seemingly women are treated as temptations or women are treated as as you said tools for getting people to do some things well and you say now we don't do like that well now if you want to at all compare have a fair comparison today what is happening in advertising are women being objectified in pornography what is happening are women being objectified so if you want to compare compare the best of one category with the best of another category not the best of one category with the worst of another category so when that is done and that is what is done in the extreme media the best of western culture is compared with the worst of Indian culture so yes in India there is reprehensible violence against women that is happening and it is terrible violent it is not that the west is free from violence in this way in the west also there is terrible violence in fact there are in the west there is a huge amount of human trafficking and it is mainly women's trafficking there are waves of women who are purchased or kidnapped and then sold to prostitution in the west terrible exploitation is there so people are people everywhere there will be good there will be bad so their unfair comparisons are simply emotional manipulation so it is not that women are objectified within the culture because the scripture is speaking from the point of view of male audience primarily so for male audience women are temptation that's why women are taught in that way but the spiritual message is there forever and we have to point out the unfairness in the comparisons now of course you know in ISKCON also we do unfair comparisons we also have to be careful we take the best of Vedic culture and compare it with the worst of western culture say the west is so bad no people everywhere and some places may be more but we have to compare the best of one category with the worst of another category so the culture of violence against women that is there in India it is for there are many reasons for this the main reason as compared to west yes in the west if you go in general say women can go out at night relatively much more safety is there than men not complete safety there is a lot of danger also but the amount of grouping and exploitation and unwanted male attention unwanted advances that happen in India they don't happen in the west the reason for that is that in the west the culture is openly licentious that means people have have no sexual morality practically speaking you know it's it's I was in general you know when we preach to students you know we ask what does your father do what does your mother do in the west it is considered impolite to ask anyone about their father or mother because most people may have two fathers and three mothers it often triggers unpleasant memories for them so there is a lot of there is no so what happens is sensual gratification is very easily available for people and that's why because it's so easily available they don't need to do any violence against anyone to get that it's just easily available India Indian culture is conservative but Indian media is provocative so the culture does not have so much opportunity for unregulated sensual gratification but the media is so provocative so what happens is there is so much frustration people want to enjoy but there is no facility to enjoy and then that repressed desire it comes out as violent attacks so this what is the solution the solution is in one way the mainstream society is also becoming more and more licentious so you will see that there is this kind of violence against women it doesn't happen in the upper classes of people so much because there there is not much sexual morality so people just do whatever they want to do but what has happened is the poorer people who are there the lower class they see all these media they get agitated but they have no facility and then they come in terrible violence so actually what we need is we cannot change the direction society is going but we need a revolution of consciousness with a spiritual understanding so the violence against women in India is not because of Indian culture if you see Indian culture it was very protective the violence against women that is there in India is primarily because of this frustration caused by a conservative society and the purification comes through spiritual knowledge but purification will take time and not going to get what is required so then protection is required so there has to be definitely better legal measures for protection and there is an increasing awareness of the ghastliness of crimes against women and there are more measures being made for protection so the lived reality in India is a difficult reality so what has happened is in many ways modern India has got the worst of the west and the worst of India the worst of the west is what if you go to America the kind of explicit billboards that are there in India you don't see those here in America they are not there at all but in India the sensuality the advertisements are so in your face so explicit so that explicitness from the west has come to India but from India from the Indian tradition there is the philosophical wisdom that is there the spiritual higher days that is there that is not there only the cultural conservativism is there you should not do this you should not do that you should not do that the rules are there why this is so restrictive why should I not do it people rebel against it that's why it is so important to provide proper spirituality in the Krishna Conscious Movement Prabhupada tried to offer the best of the west and the best of India the best of west means we have technology we use contemporary facilities but the best of Vedic culture is the message of pure life which can lead us to higher consciousness and there are people who are being transformed all over the world so purification through education and protection through legislation both have to go in parallel in Vedic culture there was Shastra and there was Shastra Shastra is weapons that are used by the Kshatriyas to punish the wrong people and Shastra is used by the Brahmins to educate people so in the Krishna consciousness movement Shri Prabhupada focused on Shastra teaching spiritual knowledge by which people will learn to act rightly to make wise choices but there will be people who will not be successful in that and then for that we need better legislation we need better protection so that is unfortunately lacking so you know to the legal situation in India is so the admin situation is so bad there is a joke in India if you order a pizza you will get a pizza faster than if you call an ambulance so it is a bad situation it is overall bad management that is there it is changing gradually but this poor management leads to poor efficiency of the police and that leads to violence there are always going to be people who are going to be exploited who are going to be violated well there has to be the legal means to combat violence but the legal means is not there so conservative culture the provocative media and a pathetic police that is a deadly combination so we have to look at the current situation and see the cause in the current situation and to ascribe that to India's past depiction of women that is to have selectively read those texts simply for emotionally manipulating people against that culture thank you very much thank.