How can we share bhakti wisdom with the non-religious?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
If somebody doesn’t go to a church or temple how can we interact with them? There is there has been a lot of abuse that has happened in the religion.
And of course abuse has happened because of atheism also. The USSR and China were officially atheistic. And still the number of people who were killed in state administered violence is actually three times more than the number of people who were killed in all forms of religious violence including World War I and World War II.
The point is that there is a lot of negative press, negative propaganda associated with religion. Many people prefer to be atheistic. So, if actually more than atheistic there is a whole idea called apatheism.
Apatheism means I just don’t care. I am apathetic about whatever all this is. So, for such people if they are interested in rational discussion then we can talk about universal principles.
We can talk about how consciousness just cannot be explained materialistically. We can explain how the the explainability of science requires an explanation. Science explains nature but why is it able to explain nature? Explainability requires an explanation.
Basically, there are rational ways in which we can present universal spiritual principles to them. So, for them if we present specific cultural details, present Krishna as God, they will be put off. But if we present universal spiritual principles that make sense rationally then they can become attracted.
More importantly as I said again if people see that our spiritual practices, whatever they are, they make us better human beings. So, you know what is it that makes you tick? They will become more open at that time. There are some people who are not going to be interested.
So, we just keep a distance from them. But others we can find out even if they are not interested in in religion they all may have some openness towards something spiritual. If they are interested in experiential spirituality then we can try to present, we can try to give them books about Krishna consciousness that focus on the experiential aspect.
A major way in which outreach is happening in today’s world is through memoirs, through autobiographies because people are not interested. If this is the truth people don’t accept it. This is what you should do.
Get lost. They people don’t accept that. But this is what works for you.
It works? Please tell me how it works. So, the idea is that you know there is so much chaos and confusion that people want to know if something works for you. But as soon as you make it dogmatic, this is the way it is or this is what you should do and people are alienated.
So if a couple comes and says to a group of young couples, we have been happily married for the last 30 years. Young couples how do we do it? We want to know about it. But if that same couple comes and says we have been happily married for the last 30 years and we believe that divorce is a sin against God anyone who is divorced is condemned.
Say you are condemned. Get lost. So we have to we have to present Krishna consciousness in a non-dogmatic experiential way.
This is what has worked for me. There are many devotees who are writing in that genre. When we present it that way then even such people can become attracted.
Does that answer your question?