How can we present shastra in a contemporary way?
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This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Acharyas are presented in a contemporary way. How can we present in a contemporary way? Sometimes we tend to make things very complex.
Yeah, that’s why we need guidance. You know, it is not that you know, when say when even an Acharya, it’s not that today they are introduced and tomorrow they start writing books. No, they study for sometimes decades and decades and then after that they write books.
So we also, we are in a situation of spectacular spiritual ignorance. Today’s culture. So even if we have like very little knowledge, as compared to what people have, that is such profound ignorance that even our little knowledge seems to be a lot of knowledge.
So because of that, because there is an emergency, just like normally there is a sickness, people go to a hospital and there are trained medical staff who administer the medicine and then treat. But when there is an epidemic, then to assist the trained medical staff, there are other people who may also not be so well trained, but they also go there, take this medicine, give this to them. But while we are doing that, it is not that a person who is just who is just like a semi-trained assistant in the medical staff, that person starts going and doing a complex surgery.
No, that person should just deliver the medicine and that person should connect. Okay, this case seems to be serious, then connect it to some other doctor, take it to some other doctor. And unfortunately what happens is that the newer we are, the more confrontational we are.
Because when you are new and you have come to some path, yes, I am right and you are wrong. And we want to prove I am right and you are wrong. So it’s like the kind of sensitivity with which advanced devotees deal with certain situations.
That means if there is a senior surgeon, that surgeon knows if I do the surgery, I have to take care of so many things and after that the surgery is done. But we are like new people and we think I have to do the surgery. That’s all.
So often, our surgery causes more damage than good. So that’s why we have to learn that we are just like secondary tertiary assistants of the doctors. And we should just be their messengers, try to give their message in a palatable way.
So we can use some small books such as Prabhupada or we can use, many of Prabhupada’s followers have written books, Prabhupada’s disciples, Prabhupada’s grand disciples and some small books. Nowadays on social media also we get lot of nice articles. So which articles are suitable for new people, we can send those articles to people.
We don’t have to give the whole philosophy to all of them. I had asked once Jai Gurudev Maharaj, Maharaj, how do I preach to my parents? Maharaj said, by letting everyone, by letting them be preached to by anyone except you. I said, you don’t preach to them.
Because he said that they have seen your small children, they feel difficult for them to learn from you. So, if we rather than taking a superior position and this is not right, this is right, you should not do this, you should do this. No, we just behave nicely with them and let them come to temple, let them meet other devotees and let them learn from there.
So, again it’s a matter of first of all sensitivity. For ourselves if we see it took so much time and effort for us to accept Krishna. For others also it will require time, effort.
They need their room to make the choice. So we shouldn’t accelerate the process, hasten the process. And it is good to basically act as connectors between Krishna’s devotees and them.
Rather than thinking that we ourselves have become the transformers. And presenting according to the circumstances requires time and maturity. So by seeing how, especially if you want to do that, whenever we see senior devotees, those senior devotees who are good at speaking to new people, how they speak, how they write, how they present themselves, we should read, we should read that kind of books, hear that kind of lectures and collect those points and then speak that kind of points.
For new people if you just speak whatever you heard in Bhagavatam, it will just not make much sense to them, quite often. So, by first of all recognizing our limitations and recognizing our role as connectors with senior devotees and by focusing on presentations which are done by devotees for new devotees and selecting points for them to speak that way we can learn to become sensitive according to time and circumstances. So when we have