4 Gaudiya Vaishnava history – Bhaktisiddhanta S T as systematizer

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Namaste Saraswati Devi, Gauravani Poochari, Nirmishesha Shunyavadi, Pashcha Kitesh Thaare, Ansha Kalpateeshwar, Rupa Sindhu Devichar, Asmitaanam Pavadipu, Vaishnaveeprao Namo Namah, Jai Shri Krishna Chaitanya, Prabhu Nityananda, Yaduraya Sagadadara, Srivasaati Gauravakta Vrinda, Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare, Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Hare Hare. May the Lord preside us all as we try to appreciate the great Acharyas who have struggled greatly to give us your message of love and the path to unending love with you. Hare Krishna.
Today we come to the last session of our 4-6 minutes course on the body evolution of history. And thank you for staying with us for this session. I was talking with Pandu Modi yesterday.
He told me that when he joined this course, he was expecting to hear many unknown stories about the Acharyas and exciting incidents from their lives. Many of you may have come expecting like a T20 match with a lot of success. But what you got here was a snatch.
We are not going so much into larger than life incidents from the life of the Acharyas. But a very grounded analysis of what they did and why they did it. Yes, the Acharyas were larger than life.
When we look at the Acharyas lives, the Acharyas actions, they were larger than life actions. What they achieved by their personal charisma, by their saintliness, by their devotion to Krishna. That is the larger life characteristics.
But then there were very grounded strategies, grounded approaches. What is the challenge that I am facing? How am I going to deal with that challenge? So hearing these larger than life stories, that is like watching a T20 match. There are lots of successes, lots of knockouts.
But this is more like a chess match. Okay, this is happening over here. This move is being made over here.
What is the move to make over here? So that is a different… Talking about larger than life stories, this is a different way of looking at the Acharyas lives. That can also be done. But in this particular session, we are focussing more on understanding how we can not just gain inspiration.
Oh, the Acharyas are so wonderful. What did they do? And what can we learn about what we need to do in today’s lives? In our lives today. So that is the perspective we are taking here.
Now we discussed till now how every Acharya, the Goswamis, faced a distinct set of challenges. It was basically consolidating Mahaprabhu’s teachings. What did he teach? What did he stand for? And how would his movement continue? Then we look at Vashwas Kedapur and Baldevidya Bhushan.
It was more of establishing the Gaudiya Vaishnava tradition’s authenticity. That was from the Ramanandis and basically commenting on the Vedanta Sutra. Then we look yesterday at Bhaktivinoda Thakur and it was presenting Gaudiya Vaishnavism to modernity.
Each of these Acharyas did many other things also. Not only one of these things that they did. How will the modern mind understand it? That was the primary challenge among the other things.
Now today we will be focussing on Bhakti Siddhartha Saraswati Thakur. And here we will be discussing three main challenges. If you consider Shri Bhaktivinoda Thakur in Gaudiya Vaishnavism under him was being attacked by Sahajiyaism.
That was you could say from within the Gaudiya tradition itself. Within Gaudiya Vaishnavism itself it was there. Then there was Mayabad which was from within the Vedic tradition in that sense.
And the third was the attack, not exactly an attack but it was a distraction. The independent struggle. That was from within the Indian tradition.
Indian scenario you can say broadly speaking. So of course apart from that there were also some of the references proposed. We will discuss that also to some extent.
So when Shri Bhaktivinoda Thakur appeared each Acharya was at one level a representative of Krishna who is completely devoted to Krishna. At the same time each Acharya is an individual person in their own right. And they serve Krishna according to their particular nature and their personality.
Krishna Prabhupada said that his books were written by Krishna. And here when Prabhupada published those books Prabhupada did not write the author of those books as Krishna. It is Krishna who is present in those books but Prabhupada is also present in those books.
To say that only Krishna is present and Prabhupada is not present is impersonalism. So it is to reduce Prabhupada to a non-existent person or to a non-person basically. So there is that timeless eternal message of love which is transmitted according to individual nature.
Now by his nature Bhaktisiddhanta Sri Thakur was relatively much more confrontational than Bhaktivinoda Thakur. In some ways Prabhupada was more confrontational than even Bhaktisiddhanta Sri Thakur. But the important thing is whether a person is confrontational or relatively non-confrontational the important thing is that one is actually true to love.
Even if the heart is devoted to Krishna then whatever be one’s nature by which one can not only stay connected with Krishna but connect others with Krishna. So that’s Thakur. While he was the son of Bhaktivinoda Thakur things changed quite rapidly.
As I said, during the time of Bhaktivinoda Thakur Indian spirituality was just being revived especially in terms of the modern presentation. But by the time of Bhaktivinoda Thakur Indian spirituality in whatever ways it was understood by the different leaders of that time was not only very much revived but it was also in many ways utilised or weaponised for various purposes. So it became a major part of India’s independent struggle.
And that started happening. Things started becoming more and more polarised. So let’s look at these three struggles one by one.
And we’ll start from the internal struggle then the struggle within Gaudiya Vaishnavism then the Vedic struggle and then the national level challenge. Bhaktivinoda Thakur determined which were the upper sampradayas which were not representing Mahaprabhu properly and he delineated them. And here many of those teachers remained influential and popular.
And Bhaktivinoda Thakur in a clinical way outlined that this was right, this was wrong but beyond that he did not directly focus on confronting or challenging people at a one-to-one level too much. Bhaktivinoda Thakur did that right from his childhood. You could say from his youth.
And Bhaktivinoda Thakur in some ways worked from within the system. He was a part of the British government and he used that position for bringing respectability. But Bhaktivinoda Thakur decided relatively speaking to not be a part of that system.
He studied the mainstream education system but then he decided that there’s not much point continuing the studies. So he had an opportunity to become a professor in a mainstream university but he decided there’s no need for this. So he, rather than working like his father from within the system he decided he could have much greater influence from outside the mainstream system.
At the same time he didn’t become a vocal critic of the British government or what it was doing. His focus was on how Gaudiya missionarism was being misunderstood or misrepresented. So in the Vedic tradition there are broadly two ways of approaching the spiritual.
These can be called as Vedanta and Tantra. So this is the spiritual level this is the material level. Now people want to go from the material level to the spiritual level.
So how do we go? So one is separation and rejection. Separation means separate matter from spirit and reject matter and spirit. And then reject matter, focus on spirit.
So in some ways the second chapter of the Bhagavad Gita 2.11-30 manifests this Vedantic approach that the body is different from the soul. The body is destructible, the soul is eternal. Matter is temporary, the soul is everlasting.
To differentiate between matter and spirit. This is the approach of Vedanta. Now the opposite approach is taken by Tantra.
The word Tantra means many different things to different people and often has negative connotation. But essence of Tantra is that use matter to reach spirit. Now within Tantra there are broadly two schools of thought.
So one is that selected matter can be used to reach spirit. The other is all matter can be used to reach spirit. Selected matter means, for example within the Bhakti tradition we offer food to Krishna.
We can say at one level food is material. It grows at a physical level in the environment and it is taken in by the body. Whether it is prasad or non-prasad it is excreted from the body eventually after we transmit.
So it is matter. But some special kind of matter in special ways which is offered to the divine it can bring us closer to the love. So like that selected matter and selected ways of interacting with matter can spiritualise our consciousness.
So when we take charnam, charnam is tasty. But we don’t say that every tasty drink is charnam. Some special liquid.
So selected matter can help us approach spirit. Whereas tantra says that any and every matter can help us approach spirit. It is only a matter of consciousness.
And tantra in its extreme says that the very thing that binds most people to matter that is sense pleasure that can also take one to spirit. So the idea is sensuality to spirituality. The idea is that some hoax is emerged.
Now there is some snag to this. If we consider okay some way this is some kind of it looks like a tree but assume this is like a fire. It’s a flame starting from some log over here.
Now if we put a giant log over here on top of where it falls the flame will get extinguished. So their idea is that this is a huge amount of sensuality. If we indulge it then if this is the fire of desire fire of lust but enormous indulgence we become so fed up with it.
We realise that okay I got everything that I wanted and there’s nothing in this. There must be something more to life. And we look for something.
Now he talks about this approach but it’s very dangerous. Why? Because first of all how much will be too much? How much will be too much? We don’t know. And we can’t know.
Because first of all we don’t know how strong Kama is. How much is the fire of Kama? Kama Agni. How big is it? And then the Bhoga.
How much should it be so that it is bigger than this? So this quantity we don’t know. And therefore this quantity we don’t know. And therefore if the log is not big enough put the log actually the fire will get extinguished for some time but still it will blaze even more.
And then what happens to us most of the time whenever we have some craving at that time I want to read this I want to watch this I want to touch this I want to do that and then we do it and after that we feel some relief the fire goes off but the fire is not gone the fire gets recovered and afterwards the fire starts blazing again over. This approach was there and there is a remote possibility of this approach working but it’s very unlikely and it’s very dangerous. So anyway this was one school of thought and it is related to Dharmasekha but somehow over history this Tantra started coming into mainstream more Sattvic forms of Vedic spirituality including Vaishnavas.
So now Sahajiyism itself is a complex subject but I’ll go over a quick history of Sahajiyism without going into specific details Sahajiyism So Sahajiyas what does it mean? In the time of Mahaprabhu it actually had a positive meaning Sahajiya means natural So Ramananda Rai is described in some Gaudiya Vaishnava literature as a Sahajiya Bhatta What it meant was that his devotion was so natural that even when he was doing things like decorating young women so that they could dance for Mahaprabhu’s pleasure he was not happy. So God’s devotion was so natural that no other emotion was there. But soon the meaning became negative meaning became negative It started meaning cheap So cheap means those who start taking that which is a very exalted emotion very cheaply So at one level cheap could mean sentimental Somebody starts saying that Oh Darshan of Krishna today some tears came from my eyes therefore I have become purely good I have achieved love for Krishna That is sentimental Not all sentiments make one sentimental And not all sentimental kinds of bhakti make a sahajiyak Everybody can make any kind of sentiment But the key point is that it’s not just sentimental Sentimental is considered more important than consistent or dedicated So anybody can have sentiments in bhakti We all want to have sentiments in bhakti But in bhakti we are not dedicated Bhakti is not just about experiencing ecstatic emotions Bhakti is about developing a real relationship with Krishna And developing that relationship means that we need to ourselves focus on doing as we would do in any relationship steadily serve Krishna So over time achievement not just it became immoral What is immoral? There are many aspects to it Immoral was that if you chant the holy names you can be purified from all sins Therefore it’s natural for us humans to do sins So what is the big deal? Even if you eat meat Even if you chant Hare Krishna you will be free from all sinful activities So the idea was that the holy name was used as an excuse for continuous sinful activities So in Bengal in those times it was very common for people to have a meat bag in one hand and they would go to the market and they would come back buying fish with the other hand to cook and eat So meat bag in one hand fish in the other hand and Vaishnav Tilak on the forehead So this was using the holy name for justifying one’s sins This is not bad news This is not the worst of it There are something far worse is now in the bhakti tradition there is the understanding that the divine can come to the material domain The divine comes to the material domain and then departs from the material domain So this is the idea of avatar So avatar is the lord comes from the spiritual level to the material level and goes back But apart from that there is also something which is much shorter which is called as Avesh Avesh means the divine manifests in the human It is said in Chaitanya Charitambul that when Nakul Brahmachari would speak people would feel as if Mahaprabhu is speaking through him Now this Avesh is known in some other tradition that’s possession In Maharashtra when I used to grow up we used to say the Ahangathiyari So especially this happens to worshippers of the goddess They suddenly start dancing and singing and the dervishes round and round and round and round It’s like the goddess has entered into that person Now of course many people imitate this It’s possible that many might be imitations but they have their own tests that if you actually if the goddess has entered into a person you do Aarti and bring the Aarti we are very close to the eye of the person and if the eye doesn’t blink then actually the goddess is there If the eye blinks this person is just taking it So this idea that the divine can enter something higher can enter into human that’s fairly it’s a fair enough idea Now In the first session I had mentioned how that in the Gaudiya tradition there was an emphasis on Natya Now in Natya especially in Natya it became mixed with Bhakti Then the idea of Avesh became even more prominent So even now if we go to places like Varanasi where the Ramlila is done where say around the time of Ram Navami there is the entire life story of Lord Ram that is depicted If a young boy is playing the role of Lord Ram then for that day even his father will come and offer pranams to him and this boy will bless his father The idea is for that day that boy is not treated as his son the boy is treated like Lord Ram And in our situation it is possible that somebody with great earnestness trying to depict the pastimes of the Lord and is trying to enter into that room then some manifestation of the Divine can enter into that person and help that person experience those emotions and enable others to experience those emotions So now this concept of Avesh has its role in the Bhakti Tradition especially it is there in the Bhakti The Sahajiyas took this idea of Avesh to a perverse degree What did they do? They would say that actually I am Krishna They were devoted innocent gullible women I don’t see you as a woman I see you as Radha It’s not I don’t see you as Radha It is Krishna within me who is seeing you as Radha So Krishna has entered into me and Radha has entered into you So Radha and Krishna wherever they are there what happens? Raas relax So let us do Raas So it was not just an imitation of Krishna’s pastime It was definitely an imitation It is much more It was a rationalisation of that imitation It’s not that I want to enjoy with you and with that It is actually Krishna who wants to enjoy through us If you say no you are truly rejecting Krishna You are disobeying Krishna It was such a way of manipulating people Recently there was a movie Maharaja which depicted something like this Something like this happened at one time The British government tried to ban this particular form of worship and a lot of complicated things happened Now that movie also went into controversy because it was seen as targeting a particular sampradaya Although it was meant to depict only how a particular teacher from a particular sampradaya had tried to do like this So the thing is that it was horrendous So many people were misled and polluted and this was what Thakur fought against and that Vishak Sain was there So what he was doing He was somebody who is a representative of God somebody who becomes very close to God and that person is telling us that God is speaking through me and this is what God wants you to do It is very difficult for a person who has great faith in God and great faith in sages to do something like this Now Thakur came in the time of Ram and he didn’t try to abuse Sita like that expose Sita like that So this was ghastly because this was happening for the people in general Yesterday I had mentioned how during Bhaktivinoda Thakur’s times from that time onwards the Christian attack on Hinduism now we know as Hinduism was basically it was Krishna who is so immoral Kali who is so brutal How can you worship How do you people know even about God if you worship such a peculiar and horrible characters of this God So this was very severely criticised by Christian missionaries and Christian missionaries who said that there is no deity who has spoken so lofty a philosophy and engaged in such so filthy an activity as Krishna in the entire Jesus history of the world There is another Christian missionary who said that there is this idea that you can chant the name of God once and be freed from all sins This idea is the cause of all the immorality in the name of religion that is present in Hinduism Indians are to be saved from such immorality Hinduism has to be destroyed Only the morality of Christianity and the moral life of Jesus can save Hindus from the immorality of false gods like Krishna There are very severe criticisms that happened over there The procurers and all these things are very exalted and they can and need to be explained But when the ground level reality is such latent immorality happening It is very difficult to explain anything at all We may give all high level explanations What is the ground level reality? The Bhaktisthan staffer was obsessed in wanting to protect the revolutionarism from such allegations And thus we did something which was almost unprecedented in our tradition The Raga Marga in Bhakti which was very much an emphasis in the time of the Goswami It was an emphasis in the time of Chakravarti It is not much of an emphasis in Bhaktividya which is writings which is also a significant emphasis in Bhaktividya writings Bhaktisthan staffer said that this is worshipable for us but this is very exalted for us We should not get involved in it We should focus on serving the Lord or chanting the Holy Lord practical service and this way he accepted Gaudiya Vaishnavism and it taught by him and his followers through the Gaudiya mantra This is something which is exalted but it is not for us Again simplifying a very complex territory over here So Sahajaism the way to deal with it was at one level to condemn it but when the justification for it is coming from our own tradition then this is one aspect of the tradition we explain intellectually but we are not following this because it is so exalted It is a part of this approach of this that it was exhibited in extremely dramatic ways He would go to Radha Kund which is where people are all talking about Radha and Krishna and Radha Bhav and there he would give long classes series of classes on just the words Janma Dhyasya those who were tending to be renounced Babajis and they were engaging privately in the morality now just to speak against just to make a very strong statement against them sometimes would wear western clothes expensive clothes he would go to to a place and then he would basically subvert expectations on the foundations of the philosophy so he in one sense subverted the expectations of people the educated people were looking at Gaudiya Vaishnavism as if as if it is a beggars or a loser I think it was Los Angeles the devotees had gone to Vrindavan seen Krishnadeela being depicted in Vrindavan through dramas they came back again they performed a Krishnadeela drama one devotee was playing the role of Krishna being all alone in Vrindavan the other devotees came there and before the drama the other devotees started coming and worshipping Krishna with Aarti not Krishna worshipping the character who was playing like Krishna who was playing Krishna’s role and Prabhupada said we don’t need to do this Prabhupada knew the dangers and he protected Krishna consciousness as manifested in Escon from those dangers in the way his Guru Maharaj did so Sarvajayasam was a terrible danger Baksa Thakur had many ways to take a radical radical step to protect Vaurya Vaishnavism itself from the highest to be misused to do what is the lowest now he did not in any way disconnect the tradition of Vaurya Vaishnavism or the subsequent what came out as Escon but he decides that we have to hold him sequentially step by step some people consider because of this that actually Vaurya and Escon were all lumped together and they are called as Neo Vaurya Vaishnavism and they say this Neo Vaurya Vaishnavism is actually not actual Vaurya Vaishnavism because we don’t meditate on Krishna’s intimate pastimes and this is what Vaurya Vaishnavism is all about Vaurya Vaishnavism is all about is about fulfilling the heart of the human being the one side was to understand what is love for Krishna the side was that what they are really more in love so Bhaktivinoda Thakur predicted that this would happen all over the world so Thakur focused on this fringes of society of certain of the fringes, but almost if that same thing would have gone on, this would have been a big problem.
So Shankaracharya brought Sanatana Dharma to the mainstream of India and intuited Jainism and especially Buddhism by his teachings of the one unifying reality of the Sanatana Dharma that is Brahman. Now he solved a big problem, but that solution created another big problem and that big problem had to be dealt with for centuries together. That was that one unified reality of Brahman, the actual ultimate teaching of the Vedas or was there something else? So the Vaishnavacharyas fought against that, Aghavacharya, Madhvacharya and all of them.
Now, by the time the British came, the relevance of what was the ultimate meaning of Vedanta Sutra became very little and thus Bhaktivinoda Thakur did not feel the need to write any commentary on the Vedanta Sutra. Impersonalism started becoming popular for another reason. That was the utilisation or the mobilisation of the weaponization of Indian or Vedic spirituality for the Indian independence struggle.
So the spirit, the leaders of Indian independence struggle, it is a complex blend. Those who led the struggle, whether it’s Arvindanath Thakur or Raja Ram Mohan Rao, whoever else was there. So these people, they definitely had some spirituality to them and they also had a certain level of rationalistic forwarding pride to them and they tried to bring it together.
Now Ramakrishna, after Ramakrishna started, he was more of at least aspiring for trans-Indianism. Now his disciple Swami Vivekananda was much more focused on the world. His thought process was that more Indians becoming westernised, well Indians going away from the tradition.
So many Indians were being converted to Christianity and other things. He said that actually Indians do this, Indians worship so many gods because of which we are divided. Indians mix Hindus, follow Sanatan Dharma.
We worship so many gods that we are divided and then also that we think we worship God only in the temples and don’t see God in people’s hearts and that’s why we will give lots of charity in the temples but don’t give charity to the people who are outside, who are beggars outside. And what happens after that, the Christian missionaries, they come and give food to the poor people and the poor people become converted. So his concerns are all valid but the way he tried to address those concerns, he created far greater concerns.
So he created what was called as Neo-Advaita Vajra, Shankaracharya’s Advaita Vajra was basically world transcending, world rejecting and this whole world is Maya and we just have to go beyond this world, Brahman. But what these modern spiritual national leaders thought was that yes, seeing God in the temple, it’s good, seeing God in everyone’s heart is better, serving people, seeing them as God is far better than serving God in a temple. So that’s why the idea that there is a Narayana Sivaki.
Now if we want to offer compassion to poor people, it’s perfectly fine, it’s a very major part of the tradition. We have examples of Maharaj Shakti Dev and Maharaj Shibi offering even their own body’s flesh to people, to people whom they didn’t even know who were their citizens or who sought protection from them. Maharaj Pruthu also as an avatar of the Lord, exercised himself to provide relief to his citizens from famine.
So giving charity and taking responsibility for materially helping people, it’s very much a part of the Vedic tradition. However, it’s one thing to serve people and it’s another thing to think that social service is actually superior to devotional service. And only 8-10 billion people see God only in the temple, more evolved people see God in the poor person’s space.
And therefore, those who feel a starving person should be greater than those who worship a deity in the temple. So the idea was one who plants a baingan tree and waters the baingan tree is far better than somebody who waters a tulsi tree. By watering a tulsi you get nothing, by watering a baingan you get something which you can eat.
Studying Bhagavad Gita, what do you get? You get something. But by playing football you become strong and you can fight against warriors. But this was not a rejection of Bhagavad Gita.
But it’s a provocative way of trying to make people take action in this world. The intent may have been good, but the strategy device was highly problematic. It’s one thing to say social service can also be done along with devotional service.
If we are truly having a devotional service attitude, we can also do social service. Bhagavad wanted us to feed poor people and that’s why we have the Food for Life programme. So it’s one thing to do social service.
But the problem became that social service and devotional service are two things. Social service is seen as superior to devotional service. Not just superior in terms of material effectiveness, but superior in terms of spiritual realisation also.
This is where it was seen as toxic by our churches. So we could say actually if a person is doing devotional service, then social service will fall within devotional service. If we see people, all people as parts of God, we will also serve people.
Some people may feel inspired to do missionary activities for direct preaching. That’s wonderful. Some people may feel inspired to do humanitarian activities.
In a moral service to the Lord, that’s wonderful. What happened was that it was seen as if devotional service is lower and social service is higher. Higher not just in terms of material effectiveness, because of course, who is being helped by pouring water on, pouring milk on a deity? You pour milk into a starving child’s mouth, somebody is benefited, material effectiveness is much more, but even in terms of spiritual realisation.
It was in this context that Bhakti Shankar Thakur was quite strong in challenging and condemning Advaita Vata. But this was not Shankaracharya’s Advaita Vata, this was more like a new Advaita Vata that had come from those who claimed to be the followers of Shankaracharya, but they actually instead of focussing on world transcending through spirituality, they focused on the whole world transforming. So spirituality became a tool for unifying Indians, and not only unifying Indians, but unifying them, trying to get them to work for material benefit, material improvement, who neglect spiritual growth.
In general, there have never been criticisms. Many devotees feel that Islamic invaders destroyed so many temples, and yet our Acharyas, whether it is Prabhupada, Bhakti Shankar Thakur, do not have the mildest of criticisms for Islamic invaders. Even Prabhupada describes the great Mughal king, or the great Islamic invader, whatever, how they have destroyed many temples.
Prabhupada’s description is very almost objective and dispassionate. Prabhupada is not condemning all the Islamic invaders, how terrible and this and that and that. Prabhupada used strong words for impersonalists much more than he would use for people who destroy the peace.
He never destroyed the peace. So why is that? Generally, whenever there is criticism, the criticism can be constructive, it is for protecting somebody from going on a wrong path. But criticism can be based on two broad factors.
How wrong an idea is and how likely an idea is to take us on the wrong path. The two are slightly but very significantly different. How wrong an idea is and how likely an idea is to take us on the wrong path.
The Pakistan Stalker was focused, in one sense, in Bengal. And from Bengal, it was Orissa, then there were movements spread all over India. But still it was concentrated in Bengal.
Here, the challenge at that time was that people were so enamoured by the Satvaitic idea that if anybody was interested in spirituality, that person was most likely to go towards this new Advaitavad, what we call as Mayavad. Therefore, if something is likely to take a person away from pure Vedic spirituality while making them believe that they are following Vedic spirituality, then that is actually far more dangerous for that person. Now, has Islamic extremism been destructive? Of course, it has been destructive.
Have Christian missionaries done a lot of harm to the Vedic tradition? Of course, they have. But, at that time, there was the Narakshi Arya, Pakistan Stalker, Bhaktivinoda Thakur, Pakistan Stalker, and especially Prabhupada’s preaching. These ideas were not competitors for their target audience.
That, as I mentioned, Islam was not, through most of its history in India, was not an intellectual competitor to Sanatan Dharma. So, there was no need for the Narakshi Aryas to point out how wrong the Islamic ideas were. Because, it is not that a person was going to enter the Gaudiya Mutt or enter Iskcon Temple or like to read Prabhupada’s books.
That person would say, okay, maybe I should stop reading this book and start practising Quran. It was not likely to be a major obstacle. So, the Acharya’s emphasis often comes from what is likely to mislead their followers or their potential followers.
And that, we sometimes need to very strongly condemn. So, that’s why, if we look at it only from one perspective, how strongly our Acharya condemns some of these ideas and the people who are propagating these ideas. Then, we may go towards two extremes.
We may go towards, so, decontextualised. Decontextualised means without looking at the context. Decontextualised repetition of criticism.
If you consider the criticism that Acharya has done, without containing the context, one would, that we may start thinking that all the Mayavadis, the Yadvataris, they are actually terrible, terrible people. And the other is, we may start thinking, or we may start speaking in a way that people think that we are, people’s perception would be, that we are terribly intolerant. And then people will also, we, if we get too influenced by that, we may also start thinking, this is all too intolerant.
The same people who at one time strongly criticised the way they were, and after some time they will go, they need to criticise all this, they can go towards other extremes also. Some do, some don’t. If we understand that there are dangers, and then there is protection from the dangers.
So, we will see what are the dangers now, and what are the protections now for us. In that way, we will be able to see what is required for us to hear Krishna Bhakti. For example, in today’s world, we don’t have to tell people how, say, Vaisheshika, or Sankhya, or Nyaya, how all these philosophies are wrong interpretations of Vedanta, of the Vedic scriptures, and the Vedantic interpretations are only right interpretations.
So, why? So, we have to see what were the Acharyas facing at that particular time? What were they relating by their statements? And then today, whether that is required or not, we have to know that little is to be said. So, we can’t absolutise the statements of the Acharyas, but at the same time, we can’t relativise the statements. Or, you know, answer just their opinion.
But we need to contextualise their statements. So, contextualise means what? We understand their purpose as much as we can. And then, we reflect how we can fulfil that purpose now.
Like, how can I fulfil that purpose now? So, is criticising IAMs required for fulfilling people and bringing people towards Krishna? That depends. On what is the major obstacle for people in coming towards Krishna. But sometimes the criticism of IAMs was very strong.
And that brings us to the third part of what Bhaktisanth Thakur was doing at once. Now, before we move towards the third part of the independent struggle, Bhaktisanth Thakur was actually very significantly successful. If we consider from the level of success that Prabhupada achieved in ISKCON or through ISKCON rather.
We may say that Gaudiya Mata was not very big but to build 64 temples all over India, we will have some kind of outpost outside India. There was in Burma, someone was there. Then in Germany, something was there.
In London, something was there. Nothing huge, but something was there. It was not a small achievement for Bhaktisanth Thakur.
It was very significant in many different ways. Now after this, when we come to Bhaktisanth Thakur’s main thing we saw in the independent struggle that from the time of Bhaktisanth Thakur, the Gaudiya Vaishnava tradition didn’t have a very positive affiliation or view of the Indian independent struggle. Bhaktisanth Thakur gave an example which infuriated his peers like Banke Chandra Chatterjee or Bipin Chandra Pal who were very much passionately seeking independence for India.
He said that after all Bhaktisanth Thakur said we are like brothers. The western people, the British have shown that they are good at material management. Suppose there are two brothers and they have merited a bigger estate and the younger brother is actually very good at managing the estate.
Then the younger brother can focus on spiritual pursuits and let the younger brother take care of the middle man. And in the same way the British are like our younger brothers and we are like the elder. So let them manage the country and we will focus on spiritual growth for the good of everyone.
So there is westerns and Indians as brothers and this was and the idea was that not so much that Indians can’t do material management it was not so much that Indians can’t that westerns, we should leave all management to westerns. The focus was Indians should focus on sharing spiritual. Now Bhaktswana Thakur carried it forward and he also focused on there is no need to get involved in the independent struggle and that’s why Prabhupada’s emphasis was material fact we need to we need to focus on sharing spiritual consciousness.
Now were they unconcerned about who was ruling the country? Was it just political indifference to the politics of the world? It’s not that simple. Bhaktswana Thakur writes that in the past before the Islamic rule was there, we had many obstacles in worshipping Krishna and following our dharma. Now those obstacles are not there under the British rule.
So if we consider the reference point as compared to what had happened in Islamic rule in terms of the freedom to practise one’s religion the British offered more and from that reference point it did make some sense and now is this an absolute stand for every single follower of Gaudiya Vaishnavism for rule of eternity? Well it depends. The Acharyas give timeless spiritual teachings but at the same time in each time that they encounter, they emphasise certain things so Bhaktswana Thakur didn’t really empathise much with the independence struggle. He instead of entertaining anecdotes of Sivachandra Bose came to meet him and he said you are taking so many young men and making them Sanyasis we need young people for fighting and Bhaktswana Thakur said actually all these young men are just they are quite weak and they are not very strong they cannot be a part of their army so he basically dodged the question and he did not go out of the way to antagonise people too much the independence struggle but he did be emphasised so in many ways the Advaitins had become strongly identified with the independence struggle and he decided that the Gauri Vaishnavas did not jump on that same bandwagon now did the independence struggle help India grow spiritually? well it certainly didn’t happen independence came with partition and partition led to partition and Gandhi was assassinated and after Gandhi was assassinated basically two things happened because of the partition it was seen that if religion comes in the central stage of India religion will cause conflicts and division and dissension and therefore religion should be from the central stage of India and after Gandhi was assassinated and he was assassinated by a person who was a Hindu and who was seen as a Hindu extremist Hinduism became an extremist and as part of the protection of India from fanaticism Hinduism absolutely has to be removed from having any political influence and thus what happened was almost like a reverse discrimination against Hinduism for quite some time now things are changing to some extent for incidents anybody who suppress for a long time they will start rising again now is it that with the mainstream culture, the mainstream political establishment more receptive to dharma is it making a difference for us positively yes it is but is it making the ultimate difference certainly not it is not just Krishna consciousness that is facilitated, there are many other groups that are facilitated that okay it is a good thing it is not a good thing these are decisions that we made in time, place and circumstance and whatever the reality of the political economy it is that reality the Bhaktisthan was very strong in countering what we saw was an obstacle for the sharing of Krishna Bhakti and regarding regarding I will take one more point and then we will open for question answers that among the many things that he did was what Bhaktivinath Thakur had said the western people in that time western meant British British people are very good actually the word western was never used in India the gori, the white people was used, western is being used now only in the last few decades basically, the white people basically they were good at management and Bhaktivinath Thakur actually took quite a few things from them so the idea of creating a proper organisation for teaching to some extent the Ramakrishna Mission adopted that from protestant Christianity and Bhaktivinath Thakur he adopted something we need to have an organisation if we are together generally speaking there is, if you consider organisational structure there are three categories there is hard medium and soft now soft means that there is a broad agreement of of whom we worship and what we believe of if you are wrong in religion but with respect to practises and even beliefs to some extent there is wide variety there is no one authority who will officially declare that this is right and that is wrong Gaudiya Vaishnavism was for a long time like this, it was soft organisational structure Gaudiya Vaishnavism means what? we worship we follow and follow teachings what exactly are the teachings? what exactly are the practises? we see Narottam Das Thakur and his Kirtan style was different from the Kirtan style that was developed in other parts of Bengal Manipuri Vaishnavism was different from Bengali Vaishnavism so there was always some variety so that’s how the soft organisational structure was what was there in Gaudiya Vaishnavism that was what was also there broadly in Sanatan Dharma India was too big for any one king or any one Brahmin, any one sadhu any one Mahanta to officiate and tell everyone this is what is the right thing but a broad understanding of what is right now from this soft at a medium level means that there is one authority for major details the major details are if this is the thing we practise what should we be practising? identification and this is finalised this is what is to be done this idea is another idea when you consult the authority this is what is accepted so major details in terms of both beliefs and practises generally any tradition has these two things what we believe and what we practise so he brought Gaudiya Vaishnavism the soft organisational structure to the medium organisational structure now the challenge with the medium organisational structure is that there will always be people who are who are you can say from negative perspective power hungry from the other perspective they are overprotective now what will be the motivation that there is tendency towards controlling too much and that can come at a positive level because they are protective but they are overprotective the negative level they are power hungry so many times specific specific enforcing rules can become a very righteous excuse for the ego to act out means this is the rule to be followed and if anybody is not following this rule you are condemned actually right and noble and glorious and courageous to condemn you because it’s all for your good and you are so foolish that you don’t understand that it’s all for your good this could be actually done from a very compacted place by those who are truly evolved but for those who are not evolved this can become a very unique excuse for trying to control and belittle and dominate others so when things start going towards a higher organisational level it can become very easy that today at a higher organisational level means what that everything is controlled by one central authority and when this starts happening then that authority gets very excessive power and even if that authority is very noble hearted what about the person going to come after that maybe there is one successor who is noble hearted but there are others who may not be and the others who are more manipulative and cunning and politicking and they may actually sideline this noble hearted person and take against them so while he started the organisation he also said that the organisation can be like Putana it can suck out the spiritual substance just like Putana came or even Krishna packing the organisational structure can be like Putana with poisons Prabhupada was also very very careful about that at one time the GBC decided that we will centralise all the finances of this god we will have all that money that is collected from all temples will come to one central committee and that committee will allow funds to people groups of people there is a lot Prabhupada heard this so angry he sent a letter to all the temple presidents saying that I have suspended the GBC until future notice you consult me for all decisions but said this centralisation business will destroy our movement this has not been a free for all Prabhupada did not also solve organisational structure medium how much should be controlled how much should not be controlled the letters of Prabhupada where Prabhupada says that the purpose of the organisation is to inspire the service spirit of the devotees it is not to increase the autonomy of people it is to inspire people so organisation was introduced like a serious organisational structure was introduced in Gaudiya Vaishnavism by the Gaudiya and in some ways this was to respond to other organisations which were also using that organisational structure and when we adopt organisational structure one extreme is to say that the organisation itself is transcendental Prabhupada said that ISKCON is my body Prabhupada said ISKCON is my body Prabhupada also taught that we are not our body that we are souls so organisation itself everything about it is spiritual nothing can be questioned that is one extreme when we have organisations and the other is that it is entirely everything about it is spiritual that means nothing is questionable and that is one extreme to go to the other is that everything is corrupted so everybody out here is over hungry and all the decisions are made simply based on how much money is earned there is no no spirituality at all in between is our own traditions understanding of yukta vairagya yukta vairagya means organisation to the extent it helps we use it when it stops helping we use it so I’ll talk a few words about Shri Prabhupada how Shri Prabhupada actually preached what strategies he used that could be an entirely different course in itself because for Prabhupada it was not just Bengal or India it was the whole world but Prabhupada started on the mission of Bhakti Sastra and Mahaprabhu in a way that nobody did but Prabhupada was a grahastha for most of his life did not hear of sanyasi but Prabhupada worked very hard to try to support his Guru Maharaj mission by establishing his business and for his business he travelled across the length and breadth of India and it was during those travels in the train that Prabhupada studied Shastra most of the time and Prabhupada travelled his travel trunk had more books than clothes or anything else and he read and was preparing at the right time and finally I’ll talk about three quickly about the three strategies of Prabhupada and I’ll conclude by that because in Bhakti Sastra it was not very particular about that about what he wore and even when he sometimes would wear western clothes when he sent his missionaries to America it was actually understood that they would all be in western clothes and they would be in western clothes to people that they would consider respected but if he chose to wear dhoti kurta and he inspired others also to wear dhoti kurta even westerners to wear dhoti kurta so Bhakti Sastra would ask his disciples to present themselves as the messengers of Shirdi presenting his message of love of God but Prabhupada very rarely talked about Shirdi or focused on using Bhagavad Gita as the basis of his book Prabhupada focused much more on Krishna than on Mahaprabhu Prabhupada he, while he did not get into political nationalism in terms of saying that we should fight for independence or independence is so great Prabhupada did use cultural nationalism many spiritual leaders from India who had gone to the west and some of them had got sensational success some of them had become a part of India’s folklore because of the applause and admiration that they got in places but none of them had tried to bring about a cultural change so they had followers Americans and those who became their followers even their disciples came but their followers continued to wear western clothes Prabhupada’s focus was on keeping the cultural and ritualistic pride of Indians so Prabhupada very consciously not only wore traditional Indian clothes but also inspired western people to wear those clothes and when he came back to India it was before Prabhupada went to America Indians were not really taking Prabhupada seriously for many reasons when he was primarily teaching in English and those who wanted to follow bhakti they were sentimental mostly and they wanted katha not philosophy and they were not interested in English even now in India our outreach is much more in Indian language and going much more than English in the 1950s and 1960s and 1940s when Prabhupada was teaching how much more different it would have been for Prabhupada so Prabhupada was not successful in India much but even after Prabhupada came back to India in 1970s we don’t see large number of Prabhupada’s disciples who are Indians who got interested introduced in India so that didn’t happen although Prabhupada did from 1970 onwards spend a majority of his time in India but what did happen was that Prabhupada’s strategy of stepping into the cultural nationalistic pride of Indians worked dramatically well His Guru Maharaj told him to go to the western preach, Prabhupada fulfilled that instruction but Prabhupada didn’t just want to say oh I did what my Guru Maharaj told me to do, just see what a great disciple I am Prabhupada was not interested in following the literal world of this spiritual master Prabhupada wanted to the first class disciple doesn’t just follow the instruction the first class disciple understands the intent and tries to fulfil the intent he knew that Bhakts and Shankars wanted global Krishna consciousness movement to sustain for many generations and thus around 1970s he told his disciples when he had come to India he said, my Guru Maharaj told me to preach in the west and I have done that now I am going to preach in India just as I helped my Guru Maharaj in fulfilling his desire, you please help me in fulfilling my desire so now what’s Prabhupada’s desire different from his Guru Maharaj’s desire he wanted to create a foundation in India by which generations of devotees wherever they are introduced and wherever they are practising they can come to India and get spiritual enrichment and jubilation in that sense, Hare Krishna can you hear me please yes Prabhu somehow my phone has got disconnected just give me a minute so I will continue till my phone gets connected so Prabhupada saw that in his time what was needed was that he although Indians were not really interested in taking up Gaudiya Vaishnava Bhakti he wanted to engage them in Bhakti and thus Prabhupada’s strategy, see Indians Indians are not interested in their own spiritual tradition but they are infatuated by the west now not being interested in the Indian spirituality was Maya, being infatuated by white skin was also Maya but Prabhupada used one form of Maya to counter another form of Maya Prabhupada used the infatuation of the white skin to get people to become attracted and when he made western people become devotees that’s what was stunning for Indians and Indians took it up not so much in terms of specifically following Prabhupada’s teachings but supporting Prabhupada’s organisation and then subsequently around 1980s, 1985, 1990 onwards Krishna Consciousness started spreading in India now India is a powerhouse of the Krishna Consciousness movement in terms of number of temples, number of devotees, number of books distributed the amount of prestige that ISKCON has so that legacy that all these acharyas have given, that lives on today and we at different places, in different parts of the world, different devotees are facing different challenges and different devotees are coming up with different initiatives even today to continue on the mission of the great acharyas each different devotee preachers are finding out what is the area where we can reach and then what are the things that we need to do to present some devotees are focussing on tribal care, some devotees are focussing on the self-help and corporate outreach, some devotees are focussing on yoga, some devotees are focussing on environment some devotees are focussing on Sanskrit study and connecting with Indian knowledge system, some devotees are focussing on mindfulness and meditation and Prabhupada’s legacy, Gauri Vaishnavacharya, with the blessings of all the Gauri Vaishnavacharya’s blessings lives on and each one of us has an opportunity to become an instrument for Krishna and for all of these acharyas, everybody wants to have some adventure in their lives some people think okay I’ll climb up a mountain, I’ll achieve this I’ll do that, the greatest adventure that we all can be a part of is to let ourselves become an instrument in the hands of Krishna and carry on the legacy that we have got through all these great acharyas if we do that then we will be amazed we all can do some good using whatever abilities we have, but if we let ourselves become an instrument of Krishna and acharyas then how much good Krishna can do to us discovering that can be our life’s greatest adventure and it is to this adventure that we are all called by the Prabhupada, by Shri Krishna when he says Rajanaraya and fight just become an instrument and fight in my cause, it was that instrument that Prabhupada called and he said all of you please assist me in this mission and Chaitanya Mahaprabhu said please distribute the fruits of love of God so we have an opportunity to become instruments in this glorious cause and summarise what I discussed today primarily I discussed four of the challenges or four of the significant things that he did one was the challenge with Sahajiyism and how Sahajiyism was not just a challenge from outside but it was not just tantra challenge but tantra had ideally penetrated within Gaudiya Vaishnavism and it was what was making people think that Gaudiya Vaishnavism is just an excuse for immorality and then we talked about Mayavad and how it may have arisen out of good intentions but it started claiming that social service is actually better not just materially better but spiritually better than devotional service and that’s why it had to be very strongly critiqued it was not because it was so wrong but it was so much likely to lead people wrong and then we discussed about the independent struggle and how the archaryas focused on spiritual improvement or sharing of a spiritual message much more than material liberation or material improvement but then we discussed also about the organisational structure how Bhaktivedanta Thakur used organisation to challenge the other groups which were also organised but at the same time he cautioned that and our approach is Yukta Vairagya and we discussed especially about Shri Nila Prabhupada using the cultural nationalistic pride, he stayed away from political nationalism but cultural nationalistic pride, oh this is our culture and these western people who are dominating and ruling us are now adopting our culture culture is much more visible than philosophy so other teachers may have got western people to adopt their philosophy but Prabhupada got them to adopt the culture, so that’s how he created a sensation and that legacy continues on even today and becoming a part of protecting and propagating that legacy can be our life’s greatest adventure Thank you very much Are there any questions or comments? Why are there different religions? Bhaktivedanta Thakur says in Chaitanya Shiksha Amrit that according to time, place, circumstance different people have different mentalities and accordingly