How all acharyas preach with realization, Guru Purnima special – Chaitanya Charan

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Hare Krishna. So I’m grateful to be here with all of you today. And today I’ll discuss on the topic of realisation and what preaching with realisation means.
So in this particular purport, Shrila Prabhupada gives a broad understanding of what is realisation. So what he essentially says, we’re trying to set up the projector so that you can explain by displaying. What essentially he’s saying is that whenever we function in the world, this has been explained in different ways by different Acharyas also.
In many ways, Shruti refers to hearing. And while Mati can refer to consciousness, Mati can refer to understanding. Now, in the 13th chapter of the Bhagavad Gita, in verses 6 and 7, Krishna talks about Sankhya.
In the second chapter, he says that consciousness is a symptom of the soul. But in the 13th chapter, he says that consciousness is a product of the transformation of material nature. He says that Mahabhuta, Nihankaro, that whole list goes on.
And So he says that Chetana is a Kshetravikara. Now, Kshetra is the field, the field in which we function. Now, Kshetravikara is the transformation of the field.
So now what does this mean? It means consciousness. So is consciousness a product of material nature? Is consciousness a transformation of material nature? Well, that’s what Krishna seems to say in this particular verse. What he’s overall saying is that there is pure spiritual consciousness, and there is consciousness in the material world.
And consciousness in the material world is naturally affected by the material world. Now, we could call it conditioned consciousness, but it doesn’t have to necessarily be conditioned consciousness. Consciousness that has to function in the material world has to be aware of the material world.
That is, it’s not necessarily a feature of the attachment of consciousness. It is a feature necessary for the functioning of consciousness. So this, I’m starting with a little bit technical.
I’m just explaining the point of the word. Okay, so realisation, we’re talking about preaching or outreach with realisation. That’s a broad topic.
We are trying to understand what outreach with realisation is. So matthihi, as Krishna explains in 13.7, matthihi is a kshetra vikara. What that means is that consciousness, if it is to function in the world, it needs to be aware of the world, and it needs to be appropriately transformed to be aware of the world.
So the soul is in, say, a human body. And the human body, the soul is in the kshatriya body. Soul is in a brahmana body.
The soul is, say, in an Indian body. The soul is in an American body. The soul has to be aware of its embodied condition, not necessarily attached, not necessarily entangled, but aware.
So the point is, when the soul is going to function in the world, the shruti is the timeless knowledge. And matthihi refers to the timely knowledge, the awareness of where I am and how things function over there. So the principle that Srila Prabhupada is giving, so if we consider the consciousness, consciousness has two aspects to it.
One is the spiritual aspect, and the other is the material aspect. Consciousness itself comes from the soul, but consciousness is what enables the soul to become aware of the material world. And to become aware of the material world, it is not that all awareness starts from zero.
So right now you’re looking at me, you’re trying to understand what I’m saying, and I’m trying to understand what I should be speaking. I was figuring that out in the morning. So all of this starts with a huge foundation of knowledge.
We all understand English. We all understand the basics of Vedic scriptures. We all understand the broad dynamics of outreach.
So there is so much knowledge on which we are building it. And that knowledge is a part of matthihi. So now, as I simply calling the word matthihi as consciousness, it’s not a complete description because consciousness can be completely pure consciousness.
But completely pure consciousness can’t function in the material world because it won’t be aware of anything in the material world at all. So for consciousness to function in the material world, we can say it’s pure in terms of motivations. But in terms of awareness, a lot of material things one has to be aware of.
So basically, consciousness has a spiritual dimension to it. And when Krishna is talking in 13.7, he’s referring to that material consciousness. Now, when he talks about, say, in 2.17, then he’s talking about the spiritual aspect of consciousness.
So consciousness itself is essentially spiritual, but functioning in the material world, it requires to be aware of the material. So based on this, what is Srila Prabhupada talking about as realisation? We could say it’s the intersection of two Venn diagrams. This is the message of scripture.
And this is the interests of the audience. Let’s go back and with this visual in mind, let’s read once again what Srila Prabhupada said about realisation. Would anyone like to read this? Is this text visible enough? From personal realisation, who would like to read? Yeah, personal realisation does not mean, oh, what happened? The power went off or what? Okay, you have the phone, you can read.
So maybe one sentence, you can keep reading. You can read one sentence, go ahead. It is 1.4.1. Maybe someone who has it can read it.
Personal realisation does not mean that one should, out of vanity, attempt to show one’s own learning by trying to surpass a previous Acharya. Yeah, just hold on. So if we go back to this diagram, that means that this is the whole tradition.
This is not just scripture. It is Kuru Sadhu Shastra, the knowledge of scripture as we get it. So it’s not that we should be anywhere over here or here to impress people.
One should not go outside what the Acharya has given. Go ahead. Next sentence.
He must have the original purpose. He must have all full confidence in the previous Acharya and at the same time, he must realise the subject matter so nicely that he can present the matter for the particular circumstances in a suitable manner. Yes.
So we have confidence that the previous Acharya’s teachings are right. But at the same time, we need to be able to present it in a way that is interesting for the audience. That means that the audience interests and the teachings of the previous Acharya, the teachings of Shastra, we need to find the intersection of the two.
And so impressing others could mean that, OK, I’m going to teach something which actually overrides or contradicts the previous Acharyas. No, that’s not what is to be done. And then it’s interesting.
I talked with the editors of the Srila Prabhupada’s works, Jaya Dvait Maharaj and Pratyumna Praveenadar. They said that at least in the first canto, which Prabhupada published himself, so what is given in italics was italicised by Srila Prabhupada. In the subsequent cantos, we don’t see so many italicizations simply because Prabhupada simply dictated and then, simply is not the way to minimise, but Prabhupada dictated.
And Prabhupada did not have the time to look through everything. So the italicizations in the first canto which are there are quite important. Yeah, can you read the last sentence? Original purpose of the text must be maintained.
So obscure meaning should be screwed out of it. No obscure meaning should be screwed out of it, yet it should be presented in an interesting manner for the understanding of the audience. This is called realisation.
Yes. So this is called realisation. So basically, finding this intersection between what is of the interest to the audience and what is the message of scripture, that is realisation.
So if we consider this is realisation. So what I’ll be doing today in the time that we have, I’ll give a couple of examples of this dynamic in operation among the previous Acharyas. And then I’ll talk about how this dynamic has been applied by His Holiness Radhanath Maharaj in his outreach.
So if we look at the principle of realisation itself, and to present the message in a way that is interesting for the audience. Now, if we look at the Gaudiya Vaishnava history, there’s Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and then there are the six Goswamis. Now, apart from six Goswamis, this was in Vrindavan.
Apart from that, we had followers in Mayapur itself, which was in Bengal and in Odisha. So at a basic level, when the books were written, the books that were written in Bengal were largely about Gaura Leela. And these books were written naturally in Bengali.
Because Mahaprabhu had just been there and Mahaprabhu’s wonderful deeds were made memorialised by putting into writing. And Bengali was a local language at that time. But if you look at the Goswamis, most of their books are about Krishna.
Their books are about Krishna Leela, like Gopal Champu. And then there is Bhagwat Tattva, there is Shat Sandarbha, which ultimately concludes in Krishna and Krishna Prema. And these are written in Sanskrit.
Why? Because while Mahaprabhu visited Vrindavan for two months, and he created a sensation during the duration that he visited. But he left after that. And people over there did not really know Mahaprabhu so much.
So writing about Mahaprabhu would not be relevant in Vrindavan. And Vrindavan is not a place where people speak Bengali. There were a few Bengalis over there.
So this book in the language and the topic, they spoke, I mean, wrote about those topics. So almost all, not almost as well, whatever recorded works of the Goswamis we have, they’re all in Sanskrit. And none of the Goswamis have written anything about Gaura Leela directly.
Now, of course, we can say Raghunatha Goswami gave something, and he was there in Puri. And from there he came to Vrindavan. And then Krishnadas Kaviraj Goswami wrote Chaitanya Charitam.
That is true. But I’m focussing right now on the Goswamis. So what is of interest for the audience? Now, if we move forward, if we consider the time of Baldev Vidya Bhushan.
Now, Baldev Vidya Bhushan had to apparently do something that was opposite to what Mahaprabhu had said. Mahaprabhu had said there is no need for a commentary on the Vedanta Sutra, because the Vedanta, Bhagavatam is a natural commentary. But the idea that this is a natural commentary was seen at that particular time in Jaipur.
By the Ramanandis, as they portrayed it as simply an excuse for not having your own commentary. Because the Bhagavatam, we can say it was a very respected book. But the Bhagavatam is not directly teaching Gaudiya Vaishnavism.
So what is the Gaudiya Vaishnav traditions commentary on the Bhagavatam? Now, the threat was not just ideological. It became ideological or philosophical threat for the very authenticity of our Sampradaya. But that started with basically when the Govinda Deity, because of the Islamic invaders, was moved to Jaipur.
The Govinda Deity became favourite for the king over there. And the king started shifting his patronage to the Govinda Deity. And that’s why the Ramanandis became very threatened.
So there’s a European sociologist, he said, when it comes to money, everybody belongs to the same religion. So Victor Hugo said that. Anyway, so it was a financial threat for them.
So when the Gaudiya Vaishnav traditions started challenging, started becoming a threat for them, they decided to attack. And the one front they found to attack was the ideological front. And therefore, what Valdividya Bhushan had to do is, again, applying the same dynamic.
This is the message of scripture, and this is the interest of the audience. So if you go over here, in Vrindavan, the audience interest was, if you consider this is scripture, this is the interest of the audience. So the interest of the audience was there, was in Krishna and in Sanskrit.
Now here, the interest of the audience was on a Vedanta Sutra commentary. They needed that. So what happened, this interest became so important that although Mahaprabhu had said there is no need for a commentary, they realised that it is not only needed, it’s vitally needed at this particular time.
So, now, interestingly, Valdividya Bhushan’s, when Bhanu Maharaj translated it, I was doing the editing of that book, and the Vedanta Sutra itself is a very complicated commentary. And Valdividya Bhushan’s is probably one of the last traditional commentaries. So he’s drawn from all the previous commentaries in his commentary, and that’s why, without knowing the previous commentaries, it’s very difficult to understand what he’s saying.
So it was probably, in my entire life, the most difficult book I have read is that Govinda Bhashya, and to try to understand the translation, what is going on. But significantly enough, the Govinda Bhashya did not become a very influential book in our tradition. In our tradition itself.
That means, it’s not that Bhaktivinoda Thakura quoted Govinda Bhashya, or Bhaktisandha Thakura quoted Govinda Bhashya, or for that matter, how much it’s Prabhupada quoted Govinda Bhashya. It was very important at that particular time for establishing the authenticity of our tradition. But immediately after that, Bhaktivinoda Thakura came.
And by that time, the whole dynamic had changed. The dynamic had changed means what? That previously, the main challenge for our tradition was the impersonalists, or others, Vaishnav branches, or other schools of Indian philosophy, who may not accept the authenticity of our tradition. So Islam, although it was a political conqueror, Islam was never an intellectual competitor for the Vedic.
It was not an intellectual threat at any time. But when the British conquered, at that time, the Western way of thinking became an intellectual threat. And that’s from Bhaktivinoda Thakura’s time onwards, the primary focus was presenting the Vedic wisdom in a rational way.
So when Bhaktivinoda Thakura, for example, he took the Vedic message and he adopted the form of a novel. So he wrote Prema Pradeep, he wrote the Jaiva Dharma, which are in the form of a novel. And he wrote some of his books in English.
He got some of his books he wrote in Bengali, partly English. His focus was more on a rational presentation. And that is what has been the primary requirement.
Now neither Bhaktivinoda Thakura’s phenomenal learner, neither Bhaktivinoda Thakura nor Shila Prabhupada felt the need to write a Vedanta Sutra commentary, because that’s not of interest to most of the audience. So the question, since modernity came up, since Western influence came up, is not what is the actual meaning of the Vedas? The question is, do the Vedas have any meaning at all? Does the meaning of the Vedas matter at all? So that’s why the focus shifted substantially. So this intersection of what is the message of scripture and what is the interest of the audience, that intersection, that is a dynamic operating principle.
And I’ve done a three-part. What I’m doing is very brief. I’ve done a three-part course on the history of Gaudiya Vaishnavism.
So I’ve gone deeper into each of these aspects. But I’m here doing a quick overview to show what Prabhupada is telling is a universal principle. And now if we come to Shila Prabhupada himself.
Let’s look at a few examples from Shila Prabhupada. Before we move on to His Holiness Radhanath Maharaj. So Shila Prabhupada, Shila Prabhupada named the society as International Society for Krishna Consciousness.
At the same time, if we look at one of Shila Prabhupada’s books, that is Isopanishad. Now in the Isopanishad, there is practically no mention of Krishna. There is God, the Lord, the Supreme.
It’s practically no mention of Krishna. Now why is that? Prabhupada is writing the Isopanishad to reach out to particular audiences. And those particular audiences are the Upanishads are considered to be the forte of the playground of the Mayavadis.
And for the Mayavadis, as soon as you start invoking a personal divinity, they just close their mind that you are a sentimentalist. So Prabhupada talks about personal philosophy. In fact, every purport talks about it.
But Prabhupada does not use a personal name for that divinity. So in the Isopanishad, there is no Krishna referred to over there. Similarly, if we consider the easy journey to other planets.
Now I was talking with one devotee. He is doing extensive study of Srila Prabhupada’s books. His focus is to see if there is any evolution of thought in Srila Prabhupada’s works.
That means the way what Prabhupada is writing in 1940, what Prabhupada is writing in 1950, what Prabhupada is writing in 1960, what Prabhupada is writing in 1970. Is there a difference? Are there some new point that Prabhupada is teaching? Are there some new point that Prabhupada is emphasising? So we often look at Prabhupada’s books in a very ahistorical way. We don’t consider the time when something was written.
Now something is we clearly know the historical context. If we know, for example, when the 7th canto of Prabhupada, when the 8th canto he talks about the Gacchandra pastime. And he says if one cannot fight in water, then one should get out in a place where one can fight.
And that we understood Prabhupada wrote when one of his leading sannyasi disciples was having problems. And so Prabhupada was addressing the timely through the timeless. So anyway, in the easy journey to other planets, there is very little reference to even the word like soul.
Prabhupada uses the word like antimatter. Because at that time, the whole idea of antimatter was being proposed. And Prabhupada was saying antimatter, if it is really antimatter, it should be the opposite of matter.
And if matter is temporary, it should be eternal. Science defines antimatter in a different way. It says matter and antimatter come together, both get destroyed.
But Prabhupada was using that opportunity. Now when Srila Prabhupada went to the West, the audience that he got was the counter-cultural audience. So if we consider in the West, this will be a huge subject, but just quickly, the counter-culture audience was an audience that already rejected mainstream society.
And when that mainstream society had been rejected, what happened was Srila Prabhupada’s confrontational approach gave them philosophical basis for their rejection of mainstream society. So it worked very well. Now, if we look at Srila Prabhupada’s Hindi classes, which he gave in India, he’s not that confrontational.
Now, how to know whether he’s confrontational or not, that’s a subjective assessment. But the Hindi lectures were not yet, they’re not been all fully translated and kept in the Vedas, included their translation in the Vedas. But in the Hindi lectures, Prabhupada doesn’t use the word fools and rascals, Prabhupada doesn’t use those words so much in his Hindi classes.
It’s not that Prabhupada is not confrontational, but Prabhupada’s focus in general, again, I’m making very broad sub-evaluations. So, but I’m talking about principles, so the exact evaluation may be debated and that will require a lot more study and research. But Prabhupada’s focus, one theme that comes repeatedly in his lectures in India is that move from a para-dharma to para-dharma, that don’t look for material prosperity, look for spiritual growth.
So it’s not so much in India in his lectures, Prabhupada doesn’t take the names of Mayavadis and condemn the Mayavadis. It’s not that he never does that, but that is not his focus, especially in his public talks. So my point is, Prabhupada is speaking in a way that links with the audience.
There was one devotee who told me, one Prabhupada disciple, he said that when we were in America, Prabhupada would tell us, we are not Americans, we are not Indians, we are souls. And when we came to India in 1971 and this grand Maidan festival was to be done, so the first thing Prabhupada said, what is the use of your being Americans if you don’t do something wonderful? So he said, I went and asked Prabhupada, Prabhupada you said we are not Americans, and now you are telling us we are Americans. Prabhupada said you should do wonderful, something wonderful for Krishna.
So the idea is that Prabhupada used the timely in the service of the timeless. So especially in India, Prabhupada used, see if you look at it from another perspective, in 1960s and 1970s if you consider, 60s and 70s. Now before 60s we have the 50s, it’s when Srila Prabhupada was in India, Srila Prabhupada did not get many followers.
He did not get many followers in terms of disciples. But now in the 70s when Srila Prabhupada came, even then he did not get disciples. If you see our movement, if you look at the history, we really started growing from 87, 88, 89 onwards.
Now we could go into reasons why that happened, but basically at that time he didn’t get disciples. So Srila Prabhupada created a new form of followers, that is life members. And the life members, Bharat of course, I am talking, I have shifted from America to India now.
I am talking about how Prabhupada presented in a way that is interesting to particular audiences. So you know when Srila Prabhupada, it was not so much Srila Prabhupada’s message that attracted Indians, it was more the impact of his message that attracted Indians. That you see before Srila Prabhupada also many Indians, not many, but a few Indian Swamis had gone abroad and they had also had an impact.
But none of them had brought about a cultural transformation. None of them had got their followers to wear dhoti, kurta and saree and come back. Now it’s interesting, Bhaktisiddhanta Thakur himself at one time wore a shirt, pant and in Radha Kuni he went there and he gave classes.
Now Prabhupada emphasised the cultural aspect and that cultural aspect was what captivated the Indian mind, the Indian imagination. We have been colonised by the West for so long, now these Western people are taking up our message, our culture primarily. So in many ways, Srila Prabhupada’s focus in India was on cultural nationalism.
The cultural nationalism means, he said that, he said at one time, many places, but if you look at his Hindi lectures, he would have things like, So now the Bhagavad Gita itself doesn’t have the word India or Hindu anywhere and there are places where the universal aspect of the Bhagavad Gita can be explained. There are places where the specific contextual origin of the Bhagavad Gita can be emphasised. So Srila Prabhupada’s appeal at that time was on the cultural nationalism, that that’s how people became life members.
You know, one devotee is doing research on this vocation, there would be a picture of a nameplate and then people write, you know, I am a LLB and this and that. So there was LLB, the B.A., M.A., M.Ed., LLB is called life member. That time it’s called life member, it was such a glamorous thing because the idea, oh, this Swami has gone and made disciples all over the world.
So Prabhupada used whatever interest was there and it’s not that Prabhupada to the life members is constantly telling them, oh, you have to chant 16 rounds, you have to become initiated. No, he’s engaging them at whatever level they are ready to take up and they are ready to take up in a very dedicated way. But for them, it was not that they accepted Srila Prabhupada as their guru.
They accepted Srila Prabhupada as an extraordinary Indian Swami and he’s spreading India’s glory. So in India, in many ways, so if we consider two demographics for Srila Prabhupada, there’s the western and there’s the Indian. Now I’m putting the western above simply because chronologically that was first.
So for the west, the intersection was the counterculture and in India, it was the cultural nationalism. So Srila Prabhupada was remarkably successful in both areas in different ways, through different definitions of success. So now with this context, let’s briefly talk about what Radhanath Maharaj has done.
So broadly, if you look at Radhanath Maharaj’s life, now till 71 was his, you could say, search. Then till 79, he was in New Vrindavan. Then approximately 79 to 87, he was doing western college outreach.
Then broadly till 2004, it’s 2004-2006, whatever specific you want to say 2006, you can put it. Till then he was doing community building in India. It’s probably Mumbai, other Gopinath community and there’s a lot of things in that happened.
And then from 2006 till 24, it’s western outreach. Now that does not mean he was not doing community building, but that was his focus. So if we consider these various phases, in each phase, what happened? So if we look at the western college outreach, now there at that particular time, this was a very turbulent phase in ISKCON’s history.
Now we were getting a lot of bad press because we had often used ethically questionable means for book distribution. So in America, a lot of people live on live on welfare. They are drug addicts and stuff like that and they are given welfare.
And what happens when they get the welfare checks, they are supposed to last for them for a month. But many of them, wherever the welfare checks come out, there itself the drug peddlers are there. So as soon as people come out of the welfare office, they go and take drugs.
So what happened? Our devotees found that if you go there and distribute books, so people come out with these big checks, they take some drugs and they are high on drugs and that time you distribute a book and they will take one Bhagavad Gita and give $100 for the Bhagavad Gita. And what happened was, devotees thought, oh we are making a huge collection and devotees started going everywhere. And then after that, for the whole fortnight or month, these people would not even have food to eat.
And some of them unfortunately died because of starvation. And they started investigating, this was not happening before, why is it happening? And then they found that these Hare Krishnas are going there and they felt they are fleecing these drug-addled brains of their whole allowance. And we got such terrible PR at that time that we had to, at least in some parts of the world, stop down, some parts of America, stop book distribution.
Tamal Krishna Maharaj stopped book distribution for some time completely to try to repair our reputation. But anyway, so when Maharaj, this was in 79-87, when he was doing college outreach, his focus was not book distribution primarily. He adopted a different strategy.
And the strategy was, as we know, at this particular point, if we consider, his focus was on cooking. Now why it was cooking? It was not book distribution. Although the rest of ISKCON was focused on that.
Now, it was not that cooking was not an outreach before, but Maharaj focused on it. Because in many ways, at that time, since Shri Prabhupada introduced vegetarian cooking in America, the vegetarian cooking had started becoming attractive. Somehow, like Chinese cuisine has become popular in the West, Indian cuisine has not become very popular, because in the West, it’s like a go-to culture, you know, you can have a takeover and take it home.
So Indian cuisine, we have dal and we have sabji, it’s not very easy to pack and take it. but the point is still, cooking was popular, cooking was non-threatening. So Maharaj used that and from what I have talked with devotees in America, he had like 15 places where he would go.
So two to three days, he would be in one place and he would travel to a different place, he would travel to another place, he would travel to another place. So when my first, first or second trip, I had gone to America, I told Maharaj, I visited Columbus, Ohio and Maharaj said that, actually the deities over there, I had brought them. So he actually drove and brought the deities and now they are going to a new temple.
So Maharaj promised the devotees that, he will drive the deities from their old temple to the new temple. So basically, Maharaj was quite successful over there through his approach. I talked with one devotee, who is preserving the archives of Sadaput Prabhu.
Sadaput Prabhu is one of the most influential scientific preachers in our movement. So he told me that for almost two and a half years, Sadaput Prabhu and Radhanath Maharaj would travel college to college together. And Sadaput Prabhu would give a scientific presentation, Radhanath Maharaj would give a direct Krishna conscious presentation.
And Sadaput Prabhu found what Maharaj was doing so influential that he also wanted to travel and do some things, not continuously for two and a half years, but whenever they could. So that was presenting according to the interest of the audience and many of the centres that were established in America, after Srila Prabhupada’s departure, especially the university centre that were established in around New Vrindavan. So Maharaj was the pioneer in that.
Now, when he came to India. In India, if you consider… So what happened? Two main things. It was the Indian audience that we were attracting young people.
We were attracting a good quality. I was talking with one devotee from Juhu. He was telling in the 1980s, we had no people at all.
So we had no staff. We had no recruitment policy. We had no recruitment methods.
So often they would just go to the railway station and tell people who were sleeping in the railway station, you come and stay in the temple, you do some seva, we’ll give you some food. And that’s how we got people, unfortunately. So the strategy for getting people in the West was, we go to the colleges, we do kirtan and people join.
No Indians were joining by that strategy. What happened in India, we all know that in the Lamas described, when the devotees were going on to Harinam, people would throw coins at them. And Prabhupada said that, we stop kirtan at that particular time.
He said, we don’t want to be mistaken to be the beggars who do kirtan for getting some money. So then it was in the 1980s, late 1980s, that the focus was on appealing to educated Indians. And that required a very different approach.
So this is where the idea of community building started. So here now, I don’t have the time to go elaborately into this, because I want to focus on western outreach a little bit, couple of points. But essentially, when I talk with Maharaja about this particular phase, he said that when he came to India, he tried to get his hands on everything that he could find about how Prabhupada dealt with Indians.
So whatever, not just lectures, lectures were there, but whatever letters Prabhupada did to Indians, whatever conversations were there. And he said, one thing I found is that with respect to Indians, Prabhupada was not giving instruction. Prabhupada was giving engagement.
Now with his western disciples, he would often give them instructions. But these are Indians. They are not full time in the temple.
They are having their own life. They are all having their own family, their own career. So it was a much more like, if it is disciples, it was a much more vertical approach.
With the life members, it was a much more horizontal approach. The authority subordinate is a much more different dynamic. So that particular dynamic, we will see later, much more pronounced in the western outreach.
So that was engagement. And then another thing which he did is for, as we know, the whole consular system came up, sustainable bhakti. That people should be able to practise bhakti lifelong and what all is required for that.
We have relationship among devotees. Devotees feel a sense of belonging and being valued through the consular system, through the Bhaktivant Hospital, through the marriage board, whatever. So all that came up.
Now if we consider the, I’ll give three quick examples and we’ll move on. Now whatever be the particular historical context by which the Bhaktivant Hospital came out, one principle is that there is compassion. You know, when we are trying to do compassion through some form of social service, that is what people can appreciate.
If you remember, that Maharaj says that, you know, the west people are disgusted with sectarianism. And what does disgusted with sectarianism means? So I talked with Maharaj about what sectarianism what is seen as sectarianism. He told me broadly three main things.
He said, if we claim we are the best, that we are the best, he says, if we claim it, it puts people off. Second is that if we criticise others. So one is claiming that we are the best.
Second is putting others down. And third is that we, sometimes we may not criticise others directly. But what we do is, especially what is worse is, this is criticised could be other thoughts, other organisations, other groups.
But what is especially no-no is what in English called as ad hominem attacks. Ad hominem means, we attack the person instead of the idea. So in any debate, this is considered like a cheap strategy.
So when you attack people, attack a particular person, people’s minds close completely. So he said that, if you see in the journey home, he avoids these things completely in his writing. So sectarianism basically means that we try to, so rather than trying to prove that our philosophy is the best philosophy or we are the best, just show what is the difference, show what is the value, show what is the transformation.
So when something like the Bhaktivant hospital is established, okay, based on whatever be your philosophy, what is its impact? It is actually doing something of value to the world. And that is the most important. In America, the fastest growing religious group is what is called a nuns.
Nuns are not the female nuns. Nuns are basically people who say that we don’t belong to any religion. Their common rationale they give us, you religious people, you fight about the nature of the other world and you make life in this world more miserable because of that.
Okay. And that’s why when I asked Maharaj about the Ritwik issue also, Maharaj says so much of our energy is going in, in what are the word he used? In theological and ritual pettiness. He says pettiness.
So theological and ritual pettiness. So that is not, he’s not taking a specifically a position in the Ritwik issue, but he was making a broad point over here. So generally, instead of showing that we are better and they are bad and we are good, just show how, what you believe improves life in this world.
And if you see, even this particular project, the Govardhan Eco Village, one of the biggest concerns is today for people, the environment. That the way humanity has progressed that has led to a lot of problems in society. That is, and that is the future is quite in threat.
So that is something which is addressed through the Eco Village. So the Bakkant Hospital or the Eco Village, it is addressing a particular, not necessarily a particular demographic specifically, but a particular attitude that what is the practical value of what you believe and that’s demonstrated through the hospital and its outreach, through the Eco Village and its outreach. So the last point I’ll conclude with this, this is probably the single biggest contribution of Maharaj to ISKCON outreach is yoga.
So if we consider, yoga has become huge. So, he’s the editor of the International Hindu Journal. So he’d asked me to write an article on the concept of Christian yoga.
So yoga has become so big in the West that Christianity has also adopted yoga. Initially, they said yoga is a heathen practise. It is a pagan practise.
We did not practise it. But in spite of what their preachers were telling, people were still practising yoga. So now they have changed the strategy and they’re saying that yoga is not Hindu.
Yoga is pre-Hindu. That before the group of religions that came to be known as Hinduism has come up, yoga was existing long before. And now they use yoga for Christian purposes.
You know, they have Jesus chants going on. They have pictures of Jesus. So Jesus’ eye is yoga.
And it seems to be a huge, big thing. So anyway, there were different devotees who were doing yoga outreach. But Maharaj has probably made it most systematised and most effective.
So he told me that today yoga is what the counterculture was during Prabhupada’s times. But it is much better. Because he said that the counterculture was very, very big at that time.
But yoga is there. But yoga is better because yoga already has a certain element of sattva in it. That is, to practise yoga, people have to discipline themselves.
To be a part of the counterculture, people had to take drugs. So that was Tamasic. Now it’s not that the whole yoga industry is sattvic.
But people who come to yoga, see, we may say that, oh, they are just interested in looking better and then finding more attractive partners by looking better. That may be true. But even if their goal is Rajasic, for a Rajasic goal, they are looking for a sattvic means.
Now to look better, they could just use Botox and chemicals and try to pump their body with chemicals and look better. So the idea is, people do have a certain level of sattva guna. And this is probably the biggest demographic that is to be tapped.
So now with respect to yoga, now one of the big, what I would say, ISKCON, what the niche which ISKCON has, or we as a movement has is, that the combination of kirtan and yoga. What has happened is that, ISKCON was the first person, first who introduced kirtan in the western world. Before that, the idea of kirtan was not that big.
But unfortunately, if you look at the big kirtaniers in the secular world, ISKCON is nowhere in that. No, but they’re not that big. We have out here, 4-5 are big.
But if you consider, relatively speaking, how much they are paid as compared to other kirtaniers, it’s not that much. We are slowly coming in. Many reasons for that.
One of the reasons is, that our kirtans are very noisy, with all due respect. So people want kirtan to be meditative, not performative. And that’s why if you see the Shayan darshan, the Shayan kirtan that Maharaj emphasised, soft, gentle tune, soft, gentle tunes.
If you arrange any of the kirtan performances, the kirtan concerts that western people do, people pay 50 dollars, 100 dollars for attending one kirtan session for one hour. So they are very meditative. So people want that kind of gentle kirtans.
Another is that our kirtans can come off as very monotonous. Because we sing only one mantra all the time. People want little more eclectic.
So our devotees in the west have come up with quite an eclectic way, that they will have a series of Vaishnava mantras. So I was in one place in America. They said, we have two things.
We call it Harinam and we have Harinam programme and kirtan programme. So Harinam programme is only Hare Krishna Mahamantra. Kirtan programme is, they will sing Om Namo Bhagvate Vasudevaya.
They’ll sing Om Namo Narayanaya. They’ll have a series of mantras. In fact, they will have like a kirtan sheet.
But these are all the mantras we are going to sing in this sequence. So it’s very attractive. It’s catching up with people.
So the unique blend that we have is, that if we, even when we go to Rishikesh, everybody’s doing yoga, but many people over in Rishikesh are inviting us to come and do kirtan. And then they’re putting it on their social media. Because yoga can make you peaceful.
Kirtan makes you joyful. And if you want to advertise your yoga centre, sing peaceful people, everybody’s showing that. But joyful people, that’s like a unique selling point for them.
So this is where, this is probably one of the biggest opportunities for outreach that we as a movement have and Maharaj has pioneered it. So I’ll summarise what I discussed. Our topic was outreach with realisation.
And I made three main points. First was, I talked about what is realisation. How mati, mati is not just consciousness.
Mati is consciousness that is aware of the material. Consciousness has a spiritual origin, but consciousness is basically, we talk about 13.7. So I talked about realisation, how Prabhupada defines it is, that there is the message of scripture and there is the interest of the audience. So finding the intersection of these is the essence of realisation.
Then I gave examples of, in our tradition, the examples of speaking with realisation. The six Goswamis, they wrote in Sanskrit and they wrote about Krishna, not in Bengali or about Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. Then Baldevidya Bhushan, he wrote a commentary on Vedanta Sutra commentary because that’s what was needed for the audience at that particular time.
Bhaktivinoda Thakur focused on a rational presentation, rationality and he also used, for example, the novel format, which was quite novel at that particular time. We discussed about Srila Prabhupada himself, four different things, his approach in Isopanishad. His approach in Isopanishad, he didn’t mention the word Krishna.
In Easy Journey, he uses the word antimatter. In the West, for the counterculture, he focused more on the aspect of adventure and experience and confrontation. With respect to India, it was cultural nationalism.
That’s where Indians were not ready to become followers in terms of disciples, but they became followers in terms of becoming life members. And with respect to Radhanath Swamy Maharaj, I talked about in the West, colleges, because we had a bad rap at that time with its distribution. The focus was on cooking.
Then with respect to India, I talked about two main things over here. One was the idea of social outreach, social welfare that was utilised as an audience interest. And then there was the idea of community building, where community building means there is bhakti as sustainable.
That in the West, we had many devotees come and go, but how to make bhakti sustainable through having systems. And in the West, in Western outreach, I talked about how we had yoga outreach is very big, kirtan outreach is big, and then especially being non-sectarian. That means rather than trying to show that we are the best or criticise others or criticise people specifically, focus on showing what value we can provide.
And that’s how transforming, attracting and transforming people. Thank you very much. Hare Krishna.
Do we have time? I’m on. Okay. Maybe one question.
Hare Krishna. Okay. Okay.
Sorry. Okay. That’s a good point.
So it is somehow public on the streets is seen as disruptive in the West. Although it’s like, it’s nice, it’s pleasant, but it’s not seen as something which respectable people will join. There are street musicians who go and do street music.
It is not that top musicians will do concerts on the streets. So often what is done on the streets is seen as disruptive. It is seen as, it is not seen as a culturally respectable thing to do.
That’s why when you have a particular venue where you do kirtan, these are controversial. It’s not that I’m saying that we should stop doing that. But I’m just talking about the public perception of that.
It’s not necessarily seen as the, if you are a serious book reader, you know, you’ll go to somewhere like crossword and find books. You don’t expect to find serious books on the streets when somebody is distributing it. Generally, if somebody is distributing books on streets, you expect that to be like propaganda material.
Some politicians are distributing some pamphlets or something like that. Now, we can give great wisdom and people who take it up are fortunate. But my point is, I’m just talking about public perception.
So, because if people want to experience peace and joy, then it’s in an immersive setting where there’s an ambience that is there and there you experience it. Anyway, yes. Thank you very much for the wonderful presentation about the realisation and putting it in the concept of interest of people.
So, that was very appealing concept. I want to understand this with the first canto where Vyasdevji, he is talking in that context, Vyasdevji is talking about when the Mahabharata was written out of compassion for the lower class or the lower audience. But that actually was dissatisfied to him.
And when Narada Muni comes and he says, because you have not spoken about… because naturally the people are… want to have an inclination to enjoy the material world and you have provided them. Now, it is acting as a religion for them. Now, they are like, you know, you certified that as a religion for them.
Now, how do you understand this context in this concept? Good question. Two things. It is not that when Vyasdev says that you have… sometimes the word Yugupasitam, it’s used, you know, it’s like abominable or some strong words are used.
But then Vyasdev is not told by Narada Muni, burn all those literature. If that is something so terrible, why is he not telling destroy all of it? His solution is, although there is some kind of strong words for condemning what has been done, but that is not leading to destruction of that. He’s saying the solution is give something higher.
So, it’s… see, the challenge is, this is always a challenge in any… in any contemporary form of outreach. It’s that when we give people a level that is intermediate, say, for example, this is a non-devotee, this is a devotee. I’m not a great fan of the word non-devotee because it’s difficult to define exactly.
But say, if we have something intermediate, say like Prabhupada had life members. Now, the word life members really never became… it was not a word, it’s not a legacy project that South African generation, even if some people do like members, they’re not really seen as a big part of ISKCON, influencing ISKCON as such. But when we create something intermediate, how do we ensure that that intermediate step, that if this is, you know, this helps people to come till here and from then they can come up till here.
But how do we ensure that people don’t just stay over there? So, then that is always a danger. So, if people stay over there, then is that a bad thing? Well, if they have the capacity to rise higher, then it’s a bad thing. But if not, then maybe at least they’re staying over there.
If you see the worship of the devatas, devata worship, Krishna talks about it both negatively and positively. We often quote the negative references 7.20 to 23 or 9.23 to 25, which are more negative references. But in 17.4 Krishna says, that he’s saying those who are in sattva, they worship the devatas.
So, now the example I like to say that there is one student who gets 90, a parent has two children. One of them gets always 90% marks or let’s make it 100%. One student gets 100% marks and the other gets 40% marks.
Now, results have come and both have got 70%. Now, the student who has the son who has got 70%, the father will say, well done, shabash. And the son who has got 70% from 100% and say, what have you done? Badmash.
Now, is getting 70% good or bad? It depends on context. So, for example, we have we have devotees who do primarily sattvic outreach, where self-help kind of things are being taught. So, now is that good or bad? Well, it depends.
Is it leading to people who had no appreciation and who probably would never come to the level of 100% at least coming to some level of appreciation? So, or is it leading to people who are 100% going down to 70%? Well, it depends. We are falling in a parichayate. So, as far as I can see the falla, it’s not that we have a whole generation of devotees doing sattvic outreach.
It’s not that. Yes, we all that has we have diversified into that area, but that has not replaced our main outreach. And in many ways, monks have become cool in today’s world.
And nowadays, any iskcon brahmachari who writes a book with the mainstream publishers, the publisher wants the monk’s picture on the cover. They insist on it many times. Because somehow monks have become cool nowadays.
Rather than say monks are people who have run away from the world, they say monks are people who have wisdom. So, sometimes when we try something new, whether it will work or how it will work, we can’t always predict that. But in the Vedic tradition, there is always that intermediate levels are being given.
So, that’s my understanding that giving intermediate is also a tradition. If we consider Krishna himself in 12.8, mayy eva manadhatsva, and then he says abhyasa, if you have matkarma paramobhava, if you can’t do matkarma, then you work for some higher cause. Krishna has given multiple levels in the 12th chapter also.
So, in general, the Vedic approach is a multi-level approach. Okay. Any last question before we stop? Thank you very much.