Does religion cause war?
Gaur Bhaktavrinda ki Jitai Gaur Premanand Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare Hare Krishna I welcome all of you for today's programme and I'll speak on this topic of does religion cause war in four parts. We'll talk first about this argument itself.
Then we'll talk about from the argument, from the historical perspective. Then I'll talk about from the philosophical perspective which the Bhagavad Gita gives. Then I'll talk about it from the application perspective at a social level and finally application perspective at an individual level.
So, now if does religion cause war? If this were true, if religion would be causing war, logically this would imply two things. Non-religious regions of the world should have no violence. Religion were the cause of violence.
And the religious regions of the world should constantly have violence. Now, the question that religion causes war does come because we have seen some conflicts which go on in the name of religion but there's a tendency for over-generalisation. Now if you look at the history itself of the last century so, Lethal Politics is a book written by social historian R.G. Rommel and he said that if you compare non-religious parts of the world and violence the biggest level at the governmental level where non-religion was tried was Marxism in China and Soviet Russia.
And without any war being fought the number of people in these two countries who were killed by the government themselves were more than the number of people killed in the first world war, second world war and all wars in the 20th century combined together. So, the number of victims of all wars were 35,700,000 whereas the victims of Marxist government were 95,200,000. So, here we see that violence is caused equally if not more in non-religious settings also.
If you consider religion and violence you will see that more than 90% of the world's people are religious and if religion was the cause of violence then practically everybody will be fighting with everyone else at a physical level. The world should be filled with wars but again we don't see that as the case. So, war is there and religion may be a contributing factor to it but the idea that religion causes war is basically a convenient way to scapegoat religion.
As the world became more multicultural we started having secularism and secularism originally meant freedom for religion. Whichever faith you want to practise, you practise that. But increasingly secularism is being interpreted as not freedom for religion but freedom from religion.
So, we don't want any religion we simply want atheism and for this school of thought or for this idea to propagate itself religion is made into a convenient scapegoat for causing violence. Better let us have no religion. But as I said, it is not religion alone that causes violence.
Let's see what it is that causes violence. Does religion cause war or cause violence? Let's look at religion. First of all, the word religion itself is such a broad word that considering it as a causal factor is sometimes unhelpful.
Is all religion the same? We may have jihadi terrorists who kill children and who use children to kill children also. Teenagers who are made into suicide bombers. And if they are what is called as religion and then we have also the Amish school shooter came and killed children in their school and there is a movie called Amish Grace which describes how those Amish went and forgave the shooter and they went and also offered condolences to the widow of that shooter.
And they offered support to them. So, now both of them are religion. But the word religion is used in such a broad sense that classifying people simply as religious or non-religious is not very helpful in understanding how people will behave.
So, the Bhagavad Gita offers us another classification. That is the classification based on the three modes of material nature. Three modes are goodness, passion and ignorance.
Sattva guna, Rajoguna and Tamoguna. So, this is talked about throughout the Bhagavad Gita but especially in the 14th chapter Krishna talks about how these three modes shape everything that we do. So, for example, right now we all observe things, we respond to things.
How I see something and how you see something same thing will be different. So, the modes are subtle forces that shape the interaction between matter and consciousness. Suppose people are in a crowded place, say a movie theatre and suddenly fire breaks out.
Some people just rush to the nearest exit and many times when some accident like this happens, more than the casualties caused by the accident are the casualties caused by the panic, the stampede that happens after the accident. So, some people just get petrified. Fire, just not know what to do.
Some people think, oh, there is a fire, there is a fire extinguisher. And they go to the fire extinguisher and extinguish the fire. So, the people in the mode of passion, which is what the majority of the people are, in the mode of passion is characterised by action before contemplation.
They sort of act, oh, something has happened, I have to act immediately. Action before contemplation is a characteristic of passion. In the mode of goodness, it is contemplation first and action later.
So, some people speak to express their thoughts and some people speak to discover their thoughts. They speak, I didn't mean to say that. So, what happens is action before contemplation, speech comes before proper thought.
That's the mode of passion. Mode of goodness is contemplation first, action later. In the mode of ignorance, there is neither action nor contemplation.
Just petrified. It's just delusion. Ignorance, mode of ignorance.
So, another way to understand is some people make things happen as people in the mode of goodness. I'll do this, you do this and we'll make things happen. Some people watch things happen.
They start out one thing but they do it so impulsively that one thing goes wrong, second thing goes wrong, third thing goes wrong. Everything becomes a mess. Some people make things happen, some people watch things happen and some people wonder what happened.
That is the characteristic of the mode of ignorance. So now, these three are non-sectarian characterisations of human personalities, of human beings basically. So, a person may be a Hindu or a Muslim or a Christian or an atheist or an agnostic.
There will be people in these three categories. Goodness, passion and ignorance. These are basically we could say human typologies.
And the Srimad Bhagavatam, which is an ancient scripture which continues the wisdom here in the Bhagavad Gita explains that even bhakti can be performed in the three modes. In goodness, passion and ignorance. So, how does this relate to our discussion on religion and war? The point is that what we claim to believe doesn't define us as much as how we live.
What we claim to believe is our ideology. But how we live is determined primarily by our mentality. And ideology may be I am a believer, I am a non-believer.
But there might be a person who is a believer who is a theist who believes in God but that person might be in the mode of ignorance. And there might be a non-believer an atheist who might be in the mode of goodness. And usually whenever this idea is brought about that religion causes war.
What happens is people focus on, zero in on the behaviour of religious people who are in the modes of passion and ignorance. And so the non-religious may say, oh religious people just see what they have done here, what they have done there. Religious people are so bad.
And conversely, religious people can also criticise the non-believers. Just see, there are non-believers also who can be in the mode of goodness, passion and ignorance. And when there are non-believers in ignorance, they will also do terrible things.
So, there are some Marxist thinkers who say that actually Marxism was not responsible for the genocide that happened in Soviet Russia. It was actually the misapplication of Marxism by the leaders, Lenin and Stalin. So, that is one theory.
But the point is that in whatever be one's ideology, one's mentality will shape how one acts. I may believe whatever I want or whatever I claim to believe. But how I act at a functional level will be determined by the modes that I am in.
So, broadly speaking, these three modes affect our behaviour in three different ways. When we are in the mode of goodness, we are wisdom seekers. It's better now? So, in the mode of goodness, wherever we are, whatever be our ideology, we will be seeking wisdom.
We will act in a way in which we can learn and understand. If we are in the mode of passion, our primary purpose is to seek power. Power may be political power, it may be physical power, or it may even be intellectual power.
Some people discuss to understand what is right. Some people discuss to prove that they are right. So, those who are in goodness, they will discuss to understand what is right.
But those in passion, they will discuss, somehow or the other, I want to prove that I am right. And when this happens, when people are in the mode of passion, and religious people can also be in the mode of passion, and the religion becomes a tool not so much for gaining wisdom, but for gaining power. And then power becomes the motive.
Then, for pursuing power, one may do various unethical things, violent things, atrocious things, because power is the primary motive. And people who are in the mode of ignorance, they can't do much, neither action nor contemplation. So, there is this delusion.
So, they are always seeking for scapegoats. Oh, that person is the cause of my misery. That social group is the cause of my misery.
That religion is the cause of my misery. So, in the mode of ignorance, we do not want to do the hard work of trying to understand complex issues. So, we want to find quick explanations for complex problems.
So, for the religious people, they may say, oh, irreligion is the cause of all problems. And religious people may say, religion is the cause of all problems. It's not ideology alone, it's the mentality.
I have a Muslim friend and he told me that I can communicate better with moderates of other traditions than fanatics of my own tradition, than extremists of my own tradition. So, extremists, so, moderates would fall broadly in the mode of goodness. They understand what they are practising and they understand what others are practising.
At least they try to understand. So, communication is possible. But, the extremists, they are not interested in wisdom at all.
Somehow, I prove myself that I am right. If they are in a mode of passion. Or, they are just out to blame others.
No matter what explanation is given, blame, blame, blame. So, most of the world is in a mode of passion, going towards ignorance. And because of that, there are wars, there are conflicts, there is violence.
And this, this can be rationalised in many different ways. And one rationalisation for the violence is, is religion. Religion can be very easily used to whip up people's emotions.
But, it is not religion alone. The emotions of people were whipped up by Hitler using Nazism. Nazism.
And then, a whole country started believing that we should rule the world and for that we should exterminate the Jews. So, hatred can be fomented by any ideology. And, if people, the people fomenting that have a particular mentality, they will use that ideology accordingly.
So, by ideology, I refer to what one claims to believe. By mentality, I refer to how we function in life. Now, moving on.
So, here at Tilna, what I talked about is that in goodness, we seek wisdom. In passion, we will seek power. In ignorance, we will seek scapegoats.
So, now, if we say, okay, this kind of people are good among believers also and non-believers also. So, what is the difference? What practical difference does religion make to anyone at all? Yeah. Actually, we will all be in different levels of modes.
But, religion, if understood properly, can become an agent for individual transformation. It can become a force for individual transformation. Now, how does that happen? For that, let us compare.
Yeah. So, spirituality is a higher dimensional science. This is in science, there is theory and experiment.
Similarly, in spirituality, there is philosophy and there is religion. So, theory proposes, okay, this may be like this, this may be like this. So, and the experiment examines.
Is it really true? Newton proposed the law of gravity. And we do experiments to check whether it is really true. Similarly, the theoretical branch of spirituality is philosophy.
Philosophy gives postulates about the nature of reality. For example, the Bhagavad Gita begins by telling that there is an irreducible spark of consciousness within us. We are at our core, our souls.
So, there is a supreme being. The purpose of life is for the finite soul to harmonise with the infinite soul. These are philosophical postulates.
And then religion is meant to be like the experiment in science. Religion is meant to have involved practises that help us to experience what the philosophy is teaching. In the 9th chapter of the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna says राजविध्या राजविध्यम् अवित्रमितमुत्तमं प्रत्यक्षावगमं धर्म् सुसुखं करत्तुम अवेञम् He says that राजविध्या राजविध्यम् He is the king of knowledge.
He is talking about the philosophy aspect. But the analysis also says प्रत्यक्षावगमं धर्म् प्रत्यक्षावगम् One will experience this. So, the philosophy tells us we are not the body, we are the soul.
The religion, for example, involving the chanting of the holy names. That is a process by which we can raise our consciousness from the material level to the spiritual level. And by that we can experience the reality of what the philosophy is teaching.
Another example could be like a mountain. The top of the mountain is spiritual consciousness. The bottom of the mountain is material consciousness.
And the process of religion is meant to take us up from the bottom of the mountain to the top of the mountain. And from the bottom of the mountain there will be different paths, different trails of the mountain. So, those different trails are like different religions.
The purpose of the religions is to raise one's consciousness to the spiritual level. Spirituality can trans… So, the philosophy tells us, there is a better place, there is a better way to live at the top of the mountain. Spiritual consciousness is what we should try to achieve.
And religion gives us the process by which we can do that. And as philosophy and religion are both together, then it becomes a potent force for inner transformation. However, many times one of these limbs gets amputated.
So, Shri Prabhupada says that philosophy without religion is just mental speculation. That means if I just theorise, oh, it may be like this, it may be like that, it may be like that. And I don't practise anything.
Then the result is, I may say, oh, maybe there is a top of a mountain over there. Maybe it is like that over there. Maybe it is like that over there.
But I never go up the mountain. Then I will never know what is there. It is just my imagination or my speculation.
We want experience in a transformation. So, say, two armchair speculators may discuss, you know, maybe God exists. There is so much design in the world.
No, maybe God doesn't exist. There is so much suffering in this world. Anyway, there is a bottle of alcohol in front of me.
The pleasure in it exists. Let me just drink it. So, what happens? All that philosophy, it doesn't lead to any practical transformation or elevation of consciousness.
So, philosophy without any practise is just mental speculation. It is just different propositions offered by different people with no opportunity or avenue for either confirming or disproving anything. Actually, Prabhupada was in New York once.
After a talk, one young hippie asked Prabhupada, Swamiji, your philosophy sounds like that of the Buddha. Prabhupada said, Do you follow Buddha? No. Prabhupada said, Follow Buddha.
Follow Jesus. Follow Krishna. Follow someone.
Don't just talk. Don't just talk. There is blind faith and there is reasonable faith.
Blind faith is just anybody does anything and you start following it. Reasonable faith is sensible and verifiable. When I go to a doctor, I have to put faith and the doctor prescribes something.
But before putting faith, I evaluate if I have stomach pain and the doctor tells me we have to do a surgery to cut off your leg. I say, What? That doesn't make sense. But the doctor says, OK, you have got some indigestion in your stomach and this acidity is there because of that.
So, we evaluate whether what the doctor says makes sense or not. That's sensible part. And the doctor says, take this medicine for a few days.
You'll get cured. That's verifiable part. I take it for a week and see if I'm cured or not.
So, similarly, spirituality calls for reasonable faith. How philosophy is sensible, how spirituality is sensible is explained by the philosophy. If you study the philosophy, at the end of it, Krishna doesn't call for faith.
Krishna calls for deliberation. Deliberate and then do as you desire. So, the Bhagavad Gita is not so much a book of commandments as it is a book of choices.
You do this, this will happen. Now you decide what you want to do. The second part of reasonable faith is verifiable.
Religion is like the practise which is meant to help us become elevated. So, if I just go to hundred doctors and hear from them, this is the problem, I don't practise anything. I don't take any medicine, it won't benefit me much.
Similarly, if we have religion without philosophy, then that is either sentimentalism or fanaticism. Religion is oh, this feels good to me, so I do it. And whatever it feels everyone may do that.
So, then religion becomes mostly a pious form of entertainment. Religion becomes a pious form of entertainment. I am based in Mumbai, Maharashtra.
So, in Maharashtra there is often a big festival of Ganesha. So, Ganesha is one of the devatas. And I was invited once to speak on the Bhagavad Gita.
So, I went to the Ganesha itself and there they were having, there was a Gita of Ganesha and they were having Bollywood movie songs going on. Right next to, in the loudspeaker that was next to Ganesha. Then I asked them that why don't you have some bhajans about Ganesha? He says no.
He says Ganesha is bhakta vatsala. He loves his devotees. So, whatever his devotees love, he loves that.
Now, this is a perverse logic. We don't use God as a tool to just rationalise our entertainment. So, we, actually for us, God is a name not to entertain them but to enlighten them.
So, it's sentimental means whatever feels good, I will do that and that becomes religion. Or it can become fanaticism. Fanaticism means my way is the only way.
So, going back, there are some religions which have statements. This is the only way to God. Now, these statements have a context and a purpose.
A, a patient has gone to a doctor and doctors are saying, ok, take this medicine. But the patient says, no. Oh, I went to this doctor and this doctor said this.
I went to that doctor and he said that. I went to that doctor and she said that. Doctor will say, just forget what other doctors have told me.
Just told you. Just do what I am telling you. You will be cured.
Now, when the doctor is saying, just forget what other doctors have told. Just do what I am saying. That doesn't mean the doctor is saying all other doctors are wrong.
The point is, this statement is to create focus. Similarly, in every religious traditions, there are statements, just follow this. They are not meant to reject other paths.
They are meant to create a focus. But some people who want to use religion as a means to gain power, they will say, this is an absolute statement and everybody else is wrong. Some people say that if you don't follow my religion, you are going to go to hell.
And there are some extremists who say, not only are you going to go to hell, we will help you get there faster. So, this is philosophy. This is religion without any philosophy.
It can become sentimental or fanatical. But when philosophy and religion both come together, then they can become a very powerful tool for transformation. As I said earlier, in the mode of goodness, we seek wisdom.
So, when we practise religion, the focus needs to change. We focus on practising religion, not to prove, but to improve. Not to prove that I am right and you are wrong, but to improve myself.
To become a better person. So, if we practise religion with this purpose, religion can raise our consciousness. So, if we come to the mode of goodness, then we will be seeking wisdom.
Okay, how can I improve better? How can I become a better human being? How can I become a more spiritual person? So, people in the mode of passion will use religion to prove that they are right. And for that, there will be intellectual polemics, there will be physical confrontations, there will be political wars. All these will come as long as the consciousness is in the mode of passion.
But if somebody practises religion diligently, they will rise from the lower modes, from ignorance or passion to goodness and thus, they will become agents of positive change. They will promote understanding. Self-understanding and social understanding.
So, if we focus more on inverse, using religion as a means to improve rather than prove, then religion can actually raise our consciousness and decrease conflicts. Now, I conclude with one last theme of the Bhagavad Gita itself talks about war. So, is violence always evil? The Bhagavad Gita is spoken in battlefield where after the Gita is spoken, war happens.
Some people say, this is Bhagavad Gita calling for war. So, first of all, violence is bad, but it's not always evil. Sometimes, in some places, when violence is there, the United Nations may send a peacekeeping force.
Now, force means what? Aggression, violence. So, to prevent violence, sometimes you may have to do violence. So, violence itself, it's not good, but it's sometimes necessary.
In the real world, it's just unavoidable. There are some religions which say that oh, we should never be violent. Non-violence is the supreme religion, supreme propaganda.
But then, when the followers of this religion, they want to protest against something which is going wrong, they immolate themselves. When they are immolating themselves, they are burning themselves, what are they doing? They are doing violence to their own bodies. So, okay, you are not doing violence to others, but you are doing violence to ourselves.
So, sometimes there are situations in the world where opposition has to be made. And sometimes the opposition may require assertiveness or even aggressiveness. The Bhagavad Gita is spoken in such a setting.
So, does the Gita call for war? Not exactly. The Gita is a part of the Mahabharata and the Mahabharata prior to that describes how many atrocities the good people in the Mahabharata, the Pandavas suffered and the hands of the bad people, the Kauravas. So, they were tried to be burnt alive, tried to be poisoned.
The Pandavas wife was publicly attempted to be disrobed. They were maligned. They were discriminated against.
And one after another, everything the Pandavas tolerated. But, at a particular point, tolerance becomes importance. Tolerance becomes a licence to atrocity.
Rather than becoming a tool for peace. So, after they were dispossessed of their kingdom by unfair means, they were exiled, they did it all and then they came back and they asked for their side of the kingdom, their part of the kingdom. The Kauravas were remorseless.
Sometimes we say, I have done everything humanly possible. The Pandavas did everything humanly possible and everything divinely possible. To try to get peace, the Pandavas were ready to settle with only 5 kingdoms, 5 villages.
They were the rulers of a huge kingdom. They were ready, just give us 5 villages. And Krishna himself went as the peace messenger.
Krishna was the most powerful of all powerful warriors. There was a war between India and Pakistan. And, suppose the Indian Prime Minister goes to seek peace, goes to Pakistan to petition for peace.
And Pakistan instead of accepting the petition tries to arrest the Indian Prime Minister itself. It would be outrageous. That's what the Kauravas tried to do.
Krishna himself went, they tried to arrest Krishna. So, the Pandavas said that we will not give you enough, Kauravas said rather, we will not give you enough land even to put the tip of a needle through. There is a way of saying no, which is, in a way, they say no to a particular request but not no to a person.
Like if somebody invites us for a programme. We invite someone for a programme and they say, yeah, I would like to come but no, I have got this engaged. So, I can't come.
So, they are saying no. Why are they saying? It's not a no to a person. Somebody says no.
Even if I die, my corpse will not come to your programme. That is saying no, not just to the request but to the person. Like banging the door in the face of someone.
So, that's what the Kauravas did. When they tried to say that we will not give you enough land even to place a tip of a needle through. So, at that time Krishna said, war is inevitable.
The Bhagavad Gita's war was fought not to seek revenge or to seek power or property. It was fought to establish virtue, the rule of virtue. People who were ready to disrobe a woman publicly, poison their own opponents, if they got understated power, they could have great havoc.
So, to curb them was essential for social harmony. This was the context of the Gita. More than that, if you look at the content of the Gita, although the Gita is spoken just before a war occurs, within the Gita, there is no war rhetoric, there is no war strategy.
We should attack the enemy like this, we should do like this. There is no hate speech. Oh, those people are so bad, we should kill them.
In fact, Krishna tells Arjuna, you should fight but fight without any attachment, without any animosity. You should fight nirvairah sarva-bhuteshu in 11.55 the Bhagavad Gita says, fight without having animosity towards anyone. The purpose was not to attack anyone or kill anyone.
The purpose was to create social harmony. And, even if you look at the conclusion of the Gita, at the end, Krishna completes the Gita and what does Arjuna say? Arjuna doesn't say, I will fight. He says, karishe vachmukhtava I will do your will.
So, the essential message of the Gita is that we should harmonise with God. In that specific context, harmonising with God meant Arjuna had to fight a war. But that is not the universal application.
In fact, we look at the Gita, there are many traditional commentators of the Gita who have written, the Gita is a book we cherish for thousands of years. You've got Ramanujacharya, Madhvacharya, even Shankaracharya, they have written commentaries and none of the commentaries talk, call their followers, come on, you're going to fight against your religion. No, they're all talking about inner transformation.
So, the Gita is a book not about violence or silence. Its essential message is transcendence. We learn to raise our consciousness upwards from the material level to the spiritual level.
And for that purpose, the Gita's message offers us both philosophy and religion. So, to the extent we understand spirituality as a force for individual transformation, to that extent, we will find contentment internally. Because we transcend the worldly desires and cravings that cause conflict.
And we will become agents of peace externally. So, I'll summarise. I spoke today about, does religion cause war? If religion were causing war, then religious places would always be violent and religious places would have no violence.
But we saw religious places have more violence than anywhere else in the whole world. Marxist countries. Then I talked about what causes violence actually.
Religion is simply a scapegoat used by those who want to change secularism from freedom of religion to freedom from religion. And our actions are determined not so much by our ideology but our mentality. Not what we claim to believe, but how we live.
And how we live is shaped by the modes. Goodness, passion and ignorance. In goodness, we'll seek wisdom.
In passion, we'll seek power. In ignorance, we'll seek scapegoats. And whatever our ideology, we'll use it for these purposes.
So, religion, if people are in the mode of passion, they will use it for seeking power and they may do hell for that purpose. And the Bhagavad Gita gives us spiritual knowledge by which we can rise from the lower modes to the higher modes. So, spirituality is a force for inner transformation.
Just like in science there is theory and experiment. In spirituality there is philosophy and religion. Philosophy without religion is just mental speculation.
It's like a patient analysing different treatments without taking anything. There is no benefit. And religion without philosophy is sentimentalism or fanaticism.
It either becomes a pious entertainment or it becomes my way is the only way. It's like a patient considering that this doctor is the only doctor and all other doctors are false. But ideally, philosophy and religion are meant to take us from the bottom of the mountain, which is material consciousness, to the top of the mountain, which is spiritual consciousness.
And if we practise, understand philosophy and practise religion properly, then we can rise from the lower modes to the higher modes. And thus, we can become agent, we can find peace internally at the spiritual level and we can become agents of peace externally. The Bhagavad Gita doesn't call for violence.
It calls for transcendence. In its particular setting, the context was that innumerable atrocities were performed. The antagonists were remorseless.
And everything humanly and divinely possible was done to avoid war. But when it was unavoidable, it was what was done not in a vengeful mood but for the mood of establishing social order. So, the Gita's essential message is not of violence or silence but of transcendence.
Thank you very much. Thank you. … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … So, how do we respond to them? Broadly speaking, whenever we face any unpalatable or unpleasant situation, we have three alternatives.
I put this as tolerate, mitigate or immigrate. So, if I find that the weather is very cold in a particular place, either I try to tolerate it or I get a lot of warm clothes, ensure that heating is there everywhere I go, mitigate it or I immigrate, go to some other place. So, similarly, when we find something going wrong in our community, then we have to see what is our position, what is our role, what is the influence that we have.
Sometimes some things may be small, everybody has some limitations, everybody has some weaknesses and we may decide that this is not such a big thing. Tolerance simply means to keep small things small so that we can focus on big things. So, when I see it that way, okay, this person has this problem, but then somebody else may come and that person may also have some problem.
Everybody has, none of us is perfect, so we may decide it can be tolerated, if it is a small thing. Otherwise, we may decide I want to mitigate it, I want to do something to deal with it. And we can do it in a proper respectful way, talk with the concerned authorities or those who are senior to the concerned authorities.
Sometimes we may be perceiving something as just the abuse of power, but we live in a real world and that means there are limited resources, limited time and those who are in a leadership position have to take decisions. This is where we invest our time, energy, that may not be abuse of power. It may just be that some people do not get facilities, there is no discrimination, it is just we have to prioritise the issue.
So, what happens sometimes when we see something wrong, we talk about others instead of talking with others. You know, oh, he did like that, oh, he did like that. And I am talking, A feels B has done something wrong, but instead of going and talking with B, A talks with C, C talks with D, D talks with E. And it just becomes an atmosphere of negativity.
So, talk with people instead of talk about people. And sometimes if we communicate our concerns properly, things can get clarified and rectified also. And sometimes some people may just be too fixed in their way of doing things.
And if we find it unbearable, then we immigrate. Immigrate does not necessarily mean we have to relocate somewhere else. Rather, we have to focus our energy on something else, focus our attention on something else.
There are so many things wrong in the world and Krishna's movement is also part of the world. So, there will be so many things wrong here also. So, we have to focus on how I can be an agent of positive change.
So, if I focus on doing a particular service and I do it well, then we are setting a positive example and we will be creating change. It is easy to curse the darkness. But it is much more effective to light a candle.
Do you want to say something? I propose to you a very good, a very nice lecture, you know. You explain that purpose of, central purpose of Gita is to transcend from material conscious to the spiritual conscious. Could you throw a little bit light on what the process is and what the spiritual conscious look like? Okay.
So, what is the process from material to spiritual consciousness and what does spiritual consciousness look like? The Bhagavad Gita describes in the 12th chapter as well as in several other places, how those in spiritual consciousness are adveshta, sevabhutana, maitha, karuna, evacha, nirmamondi, ahamkara. So, not envious of anyone, the beneficials of everyone, non-possessive, satisfied, selfless, diligent in serving Krishna and serving others in relationship with Krishna. So, there are virtues which can be universally seen as laudable, which are seen in spiritual people.
And the Bhagavad Gita says this is the characteristic of one who is spiritual. And broadly speaking, as Prabhupada defines, spiritual means one who seeks happiness internally. And material means one who seeks happiness externally.
So, internally means we connect with Krishna in our hearts and in that connection we get satisfaction. Then we want to share that connection with others, so we will act externally also. But we are not dependent on the externals for our satisfaction.
So, spiritualists, they are characterised by inner satisfaction and the zeal to share that inner satisfaction with others. And the process of Bhakti Yoga is the recommended process in the Gita for raising oneself from material consciousness to spiritual consciousness. So, it involves one aspect of studying scriptures.
The Bhagavad Gita says that those who study the Gita, they are worshipping Krishna with their intelligence. Just like we may do aarti with a lamp, we can do aarti to Krishna with our intelligence if we diligently study the Gita. So, we generally put it as the process for raising to spiritual consciousness is ABCD.
A is association of devotees, we come to temple, we come to programmes. B is books, we read Bhagavad Gita and other scriptures. C is chanting the holy names.
Chanting is like an elevator for our consciousness by which we can rise upwards. And D is deity worship. We offer food to the deities and take their prasad and worship the deities.
And make the Lord the centre of our heart and the centre of our home. That way we can spiritualise ourselves. Any other questions? So, I'm thinking about social harmony and trying to bring it back to the individual in terms of behaviours.
I'm thinking about the four regulative principles. And I'm just wondering what you have to say in terms of how you could relate the individual four regulative principles towards the communal social harmony aspect. You could say something about that.
So, how do the practise of the four regulative principles help in promoting social harmony? Basically, if you consider no meat-eating. If you consider society as not just humanity but the whole of living world, no meat-eating means we decrease violence against animals substantially. Now, gambling and intoxication, these are often the cause of disruption, violence.
People drive drunk, whereas people when they are drunk they attack each other. Most of domestic violence happens after people are intoxicated. And a lot of breakdown happens because of illicit affairs.
So, broadly speaking, the four regulative principles bring us to the mode of goodness. And to the extent we are in goodness, to the extent, even if there are conflicts, we will resolve them in amicable ways. Not in aggressive or violent ways.
So, these four regulative principles help us to come to the mode of goodness and thus they promote harmony. Does that answer your question? Thank you. There's a question.
Yeah. This gentleman first and then we'll come to you afterwards. It's short so we can fit in a few more questions.
Who am I? Who am I? How do you go? How do you go? You can speak out and repeat the question. So, I just wanted to follow up on the first question where she was talking, you know, talking about, you know, how to make a judgement call. I wanted to stand up.
Love your response. Tolerate. So, the Pandavas had done those three things.
Oh, yeah. And that's what their story is. Exactly.
And so, you see one of the big struggles as a devotee is when do you actually take that decision? Now it's time for action. Do you have your set of, you know, what those cues would be when to stand up and say, hey, now it's time for action? So, when do we decide? How do we decide when to tolerate or mitigate or negate? When to just take a stand? Broadly speaking, it is purpose that provides perspective. Say, if I am going out of this room, if I have to go for another engagement, another programme, if somebody wants to talk with me, I will talk with him for a couple of minutes and I will move on.
If I don't have any other engagement, I will wait and talk. So, how do I decide how long, how much time I spend on talking with someone? That depends on purpose. So, Srila Prabhupada explains in the 10th chapter of the Bhagavad Gita, that intelligence means to see things in their proper perspective.
So, what is of central importance? What is of peripheral significance? So, that capacity is largely determined by purpose. So, if I have a particular role in the community, if I have a particular service, then I focus on doing that service. Generally, with the three modes of material nature, they also shape our conception of what we can do.
In the mode of ignorance, we underestimate our capacity to control, capacity to change things. So, generally people in the mode of ignorance, whenever they have problems, they just feel sorry for themselves. You know, people are so bad, world is so bad, everything is so bad.
They get into, you can call a pity party. People in the mode of passion, they overestimate their capacity to change things. Go about any problem, I mean, I will fix the problem.
And many times, our reaction to a problem becomes a bigger problem than the problem itself. So, in the mode of passion, we overestimate the capacity. In the mode of goodness, we are able to estimate properly.
This is what I can do, this is how much area I have control over, this is what I don't have control over. But generally, if we feel there is an issue which needs to be addressed, it is good that we try to get ourselves to the mode of goodness. Generally, by praying, by chanting, by studying scriptures, when we come to a reflective mode, at that time we can analyse.
Okay, how important is this? How much capacity do I have to change this? And then, we can take a decision. So, generally, if I have a particular service, all of us should have a well-defined service for Krishna. And that is our contribution to Krishna.
And then, in the light of that service, we will decide. Okay, this is important, this is not that important. So, Prabhupada says, how do we define Krishna consciousness? So, if you come to the temple and if you look at the deities and if you feel that Krishna is asking me, what are you doing for me? Then you are Krishna conscious.
Most people come to the temple and ask Krishna, what are you doing for me? So, to conclude this answer, suppose I am going by a train. And say, in Mumbai, we have crowded trains, the train's capacity is 50, there are 500 people in it. So, people are squeezed together.
And say, somebody starts pushing me. Some people just want to show their power. Now, I will say, I will push you back.
And they push me back, I push them back. And we get so caught in pushing each other, that my station comes and goes and I am still pushing. So, then I will just decide, okay, I am left temporarily.
If this person wants more space, let me just move somewhere aside. So, my purpose is not to occupy that space. I will just tolerate it at that time.
But, if that person starts pushing me out of the train only, then I will have to take a stand. I can't let them push. So, similarly, if we keep this purpose in perspective, if we keep the purpose in the forefront of our consciousness, we will get the perspective of which issues are worth fighting and which issues are worth tolerating.
And how would you correlate that with Arjuna? Okay, how would I correlate that with Arjuna? Basically, Arjuna decided to fight after a particular line was breached with Draupadi Vachaswamy. For all practical purposes, at that time, war became inevitable. But, still the Pandavas tried to avoid it.
And still they sought peace. But, if a person doesn't even acknowledge one's mistakes, or to speak of repenting one's mistakes, Duryodhana, when the peace negotiations were going on at that time, he said, after great introspection, I don't see any fault in what I have done. So, for such a person, there was no way that he could reform.
So, at that time, action was required because that was the only way that things could be brought back to dharmic level. Okay, we're going to have to stop here. But, I'm hoping you have some time to sit at the book area.
Because, he has Chaitanya Charan, who has some books that he's travelling with and invites you to. And they're set up at our visitor's corner. We have some chairs there as well.
I'm hoping perhaps you can sit for a while if people have questions. So, that's something you can consider. You can get a plate, and then you can go sit there and continue the conversation.
He is speaking this evening up in Baltimore. So, he can't stay with us all day. But, we'll try to get him to stay here.
Wonderful, thank you so much. He's so expert at giving great definitions. Did you notice that? Yes, that's exactly right.
So, please listen. All of our talks are recorded and uploaded on SoundCloud. And usually by the end of day today, or certainly by tomorrow.
So, please listen again.