How can Chrisitan conversions in India be countered – can Hindus be united for this purpose?

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Transcript

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particular position. So, the Britishers, when they conquered India, they exploited the fault lines among the Indian kingdoms and the Christian missionaries are also doing something similar. So how can we counter the Christian conversion, this conversion which happened through allurements and can Hindu forces be united to counter this? There are two different things over here when we talk about convergence.
One is that we can see religion as a marketplace. Whoever markets the best, their products sell. So Christians are marketing their product.
Hindus are not marketing their product. In fact, although the caste system and especially with the metropolitan ethos coming up, the caste discrimination has gone down substantially, still it is there. Even now in many temples, people from the lower caste are not allowed to enter the temples.
So naturally, if people want to have some connection with something religious, something high as a spiritual, you say, why should I belong to a religion which discriminates against me, which doesn’t allow me to enter the temple also? Why not I belong to, take up some other religion where I am respected as a member of the community? Whether they are actually respected in the same way as others, that’s a different question. But the thing is that many times in our tradition, instead of presenting the tradition and attracting people, we often do things which alienate people who are practitioners of our own tradition. So the caste system as it exists today is a great need and it needs to be countered.
And countering is not simply by making reservations. Reservations are actually increasing the fault lines because it is some kind of reverse discrimination. There is more of a spiritual education by which you see the commonality of, especially the cultural commonality of all followers of the Vedic tradition.
So to the extent we can present ourselves best, to that extent people will be attracted. And if we don’t present, people will go away. Somebody who presents better, people will be attracted to him.
So it’s a religious marketplace, we have to do the marketing well. And we are not doing that well to a large extent. Second thing is, as far as exploiting fault lines is concerned, which they are doing.
Yes, see, at a practical level, there are strategies which every religion forms. A religious tradition, every organization forms. Okay, how do we reach this kind of people? And if these are the differences between these people, yes, we will tap them.
So that’s not necessarily evil. It’s just an operational principle. So yes, sometimes they may execute it in an evil way.
They may do some diabolical things at that time. But it’s just religion has, all religions have a spiritual core. But there is economics involved in it.
There is politics involved in it. There is sociology involved in it. There is human ego involved in it.
So all that comes into the picture also. And we cannot expect any religion to be purely spiritual. All the other factors will come into the picture.
The important thing is, all those factors need to be subordinate so that the spirituality goes on. Sometimes the other factors themselves become too prominent. And then the spiritual flow gets choked.
So now with respect to uniting of Hindus, generally speaking, if you see, as I said that among the protestants themselves, there are more than 50,000 denominations. So even if you consider Christianity in India, then the Christians are not united. No, they have some fierce conflicts among each other.
So it’s just that different people have different faith conceptions. And based on that there will be differences. So, but still to some extent because they have a commonality.
Now the present Pope Francis is trying to reconcile the Orthodox Church to some extent, reconcile the protestants also to some extent. So now it depends on what the focus is. Within the broad Hindu tradition if we see ideologically or philosophically there are differences.
Some people are personalist, some people are impersonalist, some people have this kind of belief, have this kind of belief. So if you focus on philosophy, there will be a lot of differences. If you focus on culture, there will be a lot of commonalities.
Now all the people who are Hindus, they have certain common cultural elements. You know, let us say, they worship, they venerate the deity, they take care of the cows. There is some respect for the renounced order, there is respect for the Vedas.
So if we focus on the cultural features, then there is possibility of coming together. Ultimately it is only in the spiritual level that any kind of sustainable relationship can be developed. So now rather than considering ISKCON as one monolithic organization.
No, it is not. Yes, instead of Prabhupada started ISKCON, he focused primarily on the spiritual aspect. You know, raising people’s consciousness on a spiritual level.
At the same time, as ISKCON grows bigger and bigger, there will be different devotees with different interests. And if some devotees feel inspired to network in a particular way, then they can do that. So some devotees, say, may be very scientifically inclined.
They may focus on the field of science and spirituality and try to interact that way. Some people may be more inspired with social causes. So that would mean that they can get involved in more social causes.
Some devotees may be inspired more by humanitarian causes. So Prabhupada encouraged even devotees who wanted to get into politics. Prabhupada started a political party called In God We Trust in America.
But then when the devotees said that, they found that actually to get into politics requires a lot of money. And they asked Prabhupada to fund a political party. So Prabhupada said that this, the resources that we have got from Buddhist tradition, we are going to use that for sharing Krishna consciousness directly.
So Prabhupada said, don’t you support us? You only asked us to start this party. Don’t you support us? Yes, I support you, but don’t ask me for money. Prabhupada was very clear that the primary resources of the Krishna consciousness movement should be used for sharing spiritual consciousness, for helping people to raise their consciousness spiritually.
Because very few organizations are doing this. But that doesn’t mean that other causes cannot be used. Within the broad spiritual framework, if somebody feels inspired to serve Krishna in a particular way, they find like-minded people and they network with them and they can expand that way.
So we can see Krishna consciousness like a broad umbrella. And within that there can be smaller umbrellas with smaller causes which take things forward. Does this answer your question?