How can we share scriptural wisdom in today’s secular government?

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Hare Krishna question how can we share Krishna consciousness in colleges schools, universities when there is secularism in the world in India today doesn’t it create a big obstacle for us to share India’s traditional wisdom how can we deal with this? answer every culture presents its own obstacles and we have to intelligently pass our way through the obstacles and present Krishna consciousness so secularism is sometimes misrepresented or misinterpreted as meaning rejection of all religions or apathy towards all religions but actually secularism means that there is no impartiality towards all religions or neutrality towards all religions neutrality means we don’t favour any particular religion, apathy means we don’t care for any other religion, antipathy means we oppose other religions so there is a often secularism is misinterpreted as apathy or antipathy towards religions whereas actually it is meant to be neutrality or impartiality now if we look at the history of how the Indian constitution was made we see that there was a time when there was a huge communal violence with the creation of Pakistan and large number of casualties from both the Hindu as well as the Muslim side and naturally for the integrity of India the framers of the constitution wanted India to be non-sectarian so now in 2002 there was a court case in which the attempts to teach the traditional Vedic texts and their wisdom in universities and colleges, schools was challenged and the case went up to the supreme court and the supreme court passed a judgement at that time stating that religious education cannot be banned entirely in the name of secularism so there was a very well reasoned statement presented by Chief Justice Dharmadhikari which I have attached along with this answer as a PDF so essentially there is article 28 in the Indian constitution which says that in governmental institutes which are run by the government at that time there cannot be any religious education so now the question comes up what does religious education mean so so Justice Dharmadhikari he goes back to the conversations that happened at the time of the framing of the constitution and B. R. Ambedkar who was the primary framer of the constitution he was asked this question say there are universities which are funded by the government and which teach say the Vedas the Puranas, the Itihasas so will these universities have to be stopped so he made the point that actually there is difference between religious education in terms of dogma and religious education in terms of value addition to life so there are different approaches in which the religious education can be present scriptural knowledge can be presented so as dogma means that this is the absolute truth and you have to accept it as an act of faith so for example in Islam it is said that there is Mohammed is the last prophet the seal of all prophets or in Christianity it may be said that Jesus is the only way so these are articles of faith which go against the pluralistic spirit which is essential for survival in a multicultural multireligious nation so these absolutist claims these exclusivist claims cannot be taught in any religious institution that is any educational institution that is funded by the government exclusively funded by the government now at the same time these books, the scriptures can be studied for their wisdom for the philosophy for the learning of values and that is not meant to be stopped at all so that is very clear so in the constitution itself in the discussion of the constitution the point comes up and then one of the framers of the constitution suggests that let us include this in the constitution so Ambedkar opposes that Ambedkar had some antipathy towards Hinduism he later converted to Buddhism but overall he says that this will and the issue comes up in a court, the court will pass this judgment and there is no need to include this so in 2002 the supreme court actually passed the judgment but in the meantime for almost over 50 years there has been systematic alienation and even denigration, alienation means people are not even familiar with their own traditional texts and then denigration and as in the culture and the media overall often these texts are trashed as primitive old fashioned, discriminatory regressive and people get a negative perception of these texts so what we need to do is we can present at multiple levels so if we present the texts as wisdom texts and not as religious revelations so when we go in official channels and we are presenting wisdom it is not that secularism means we are not allowed to quote the Bhagavad Gita or we are not allowed to teach the Bhagavad Gita no, it means that we cannot teach the Bhagavad Gita as the absolute authority because it is the word of God but certainly it is a very important text within the Indian culture and to keep people deprived of that wisdom that very significant cultural influence in our nation’s history that would be to deny and reject our own history so that would be a very unfortunate unintended and perverted interpretation of secularism that we because our large part of our tradition has been of our history is associated with what has later become a particular religion that means we cannot quote from that religion at all we cannot quote from those texts at all in no country anywhere in the world is secularism defined in this way secularism it is not that in say in America there can be no teaching no mention of the Bible because America is a secular country no, so Bible can be taught but Bible is not taught as an absolute truth so firstly if we present the text as wisdom texts which have had very significant influences in our tradition in Indian history and we present them for the wisdom insights that they have and if you present them with say quotes from people all over the world who have appreciated these texts that is Einstein Emerson, Thoreau, Herman Hayes and so many other thinkers Aldous Huxley, so many other prominent thinkers have actually appreciated the wisdom of the Bhagavad Gita and when we present it as a wisdom text from which we can learn values for improving our life, for developing character, for strengthening the ethical and moral fiber of the future leaders and members of society then that way in a non absolutist way if we present the Vedic wisdom then we cannot be debarred from presenting it and of course we should not criticize other religions or compare other religions because the point here is not to put any other religion down the point here is to help people rise up by empowering them with the time honored spiritual wisdom that is there in the text of ancient India so if we if we impose, if we present religious education as education in say rituals or dogmas which are sectarian to a particular group then that will not be allowed but if you present it as wisdom so for example when we talk about say the soul now we don’t present it as an article of faith saying that because the Bhagavad Gita says you are the soul so you accept it no we present it as a reasonable hypothesis and then we give scientific evidence to support it so that way when we present then we will be able to gain a foothold and actually if somebody opposes that in the name of secularism then that can be countered because article 28 is not meant to make India into atheistic or or a completely godless country, non anti spiritual, anti religious country it is meant primarily to not have the state promote any particular religion so now if an individual has his own faith so there is another fundamental right within the constitution, that right is to practice one’s own faith and also the right to share one’s faith with others now that sharing can be done at individual level and at the level of institutions which have been made by particular individuals, so there are many Hindu schools many parents and many Hindus they want to ensure that their younger generation gets the culture so they start their own Hindu schools and in the Hindu schools there is freedom to, in addition to the college subjects, or to the subjects which are there prescribed by the education system, they can teach additional subjects also, so there we have much more freedom to present wisdom from our texts directly but where there is government funding there we can also present it but in a non-absolutist non-confrontational way as wisdom texts that add value to our life thank you so we spend a substantial part of our