Does watching TV and reading newspapers comprise breaking the regulative principles?
Purushottam Kumar Prabhu, does watching television, example news channels, discovery of history channels or reading newspapers and magazines mean breaking the four aggregate principles? Answer, not necessarily. Ultimately, we want to practice spiritual life seriously and we don't want any distractions in our practice of spiritual life. We have limited time and we have a long way to go to purify our heart.
That's why devotees want to use all the possible available time for focusing on purifying their hearts and increasing their love for Krishna. So, that's why devotees generally are discouraged, are not encouraged to spend time on activities that are not related to Krishna. And while such discouragement is being given, sometimes some extreme statements may be used like, watching TV means breaking all the four aggregate principles.
So, we have to understand the context and the intent. The intent is that we don't want to be distracted from devotional service. But these statements are not literal.
The four aggregate principles are vows that we take and those vows are focusing on specific activities. So, watching TV is definitely not breaking the four aggregate principles in terms of the statement of the vows that we take at the time of initiation. Beyond that, there is much in TV programs and even in newspapers that provokes us.
Nowadays, sexually explicit imagery is all pervasive in the media. And once we get exposed to such things, then it may provoke us further to break the four aggregate principles. So, therefore, we have to be cautious.
Now, when we are living in the world, we need to have some general knowledge about the world. And depending on our specific service, that level of general knowledge that is needed may be less or more. And this is something which every devotee has to decide individually, based on one's nature, based on one's service.
Naturally, we know that everything that we read or hear that is disconnected with Krishna, that is not necessarily helping us in our spiritual life. That is not helping us in our spiritual life, definitely. But that doesn't necessarily make it bad.
It's something which if we are going to utilize it for our material life, for our material career, then that is good. But beyond that, how much we are able to utilize it, we have to decide ourselves. And we have to be honest in evaluating this.
So, sometimes reading newspapers and watching TV, there is a lot of interesting, but ultimately irrelevant information. So, some devotees may say that I can watch some Discovery Channel programs and I can see how animals are also intelligent and therefore I can understand how God's creation is so wonderful. Yeah, if that is what is happening, that is good and we can use it in our outreach in some cases.
But often, in general, when we are looking for informational content, the extent of the Krishna connection that we are able to see or experience internally is dependent on our own Krishna consciousness. So, what we see depends, what we can know depends on what we know. That means that to the extent our Krishna consciousness is deep, to that extent we can be conscious of Krishna even while we are perceiving things that are not related with Krishna.
Actually, Prabhupada could watch a Charlie Chaplin movie and say that Charlie Chaplin's humor comes from Krishna. Most people would just be laughing at the humor and not think of Krishna at all. So, what we can know depends on what we know.
So, if our core Krishna consciousness is deep, then it is easier for us to see Krishna conscious truths in worldly events also. But if our core Krishna consciousness is not very deep, if we are just new in Krishna consciousness and just barely finding our bearings, then the more we read or see things which are not necessarily sinful, definitely things that are sinful which provoke us to break the four regulative principles should be avoided. But things which are just material information, if we can use it in our material life for our career and that is required, that is fine.
Then it just becomes a part of our occupational duty. If beyond that we have a general intellectual curiosity and we want to satisfy that, then we have to see how much time are we spending on it and how much are we able to use that eventually in Krishna's service. So, in the early days of our spiritual life when our faith and our Krishna consciousness is unstable, it is best that we minimize our exposure to other things.
Of course, minimization has to be done in a gradual way. Over a period of time, we will ourselves be able to decide what are my priorities in my life, where do I want to invest the limited time that I have and then accordingly we can make a decision about watching TV or reading newspapers. But devotees shouldn't be entirely disconnected from the world because then through that total disconnection we will do anti-preaching.
Because if I am living in a particular country and I don't know who is the Prime Minister or President of the country and somebody refers to that person and I have a blank look, people will start thinking that we are cultists who live in their own isolated world and have nothing to do with the real world. So, we don't want to create the perception of ignorance among people and that's why we should be aware of certain things, certain basic things. So, having a daily feed that gives newspaper headlines, that is generally good enough to be aware of the situation.
But beyond that, getting into it more will depend on the needs of our service. We shouldn't feel the need to be materially knowledgeable of everything among our material colleagues. People have a desire to show off their knowledge whenever they are having talks with others.
So, a devotee shouldn't be in that mood of trying to show everyone else how much I know or in a perverse way how I am utterly unconcerned about the world. We should be able to act in a balanced way where we are not trying to impress people with our material knowledge nor are we trying to perversely jolt them by emphasizing our material ignorance. So, some basic awareness is good and beyond that we want to focus on our Krishna consciousness.
But this is not breaking of regulative principles. If we watch TV or read newspapers for information of general events and general knowledge. Thank you.