How do we present bhakti wisdom to moral relativists?

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This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
So, what does it mean to say intelligence is to see things in the right perspective? Yes.
Now, this idea of moral relativism is quite common nowadays, where people say that actually morality is completely just subjective. What you feel is right is right. What you feel is wrong is wrong.
But we could turn this question around and ask such people who propagate moral relativism. Do you think that there is somewhere in this world, someone is doing something wrong? So, of course, there are terrorists which are killing innocent people. There are perverts who are abusing even small children.
But then those terrorists, they do not think they are doing anything wrong. They think, yeah, we are doing the right thing. So, are they doing wrong? No, no, but they are killing innocent people, that is wrong.
But if morality is simply decided by one’s own thinking, then they are thinking it is right. So, actually, nobody in reality is a moral relativist. Because we all have a sense of right or wrong.
And there may be differences about some specific things. But you can turn this question around to anyone. And nobody will say that, okay, that child abusers are doing the right thing.
Terrorists killing are doing the right thing. No, they are doing wrong. But then they are thinking it is right.
Okay, I want to enjoy. This is what gives me enjoyment. Why can’t I do it? But, so, at one level, moral relativism is not sustainable.
Nobody actually in real life is a moral relativist. But the idea of moral relativism has come because people feel that religion or tradition that is prohibitive. We want to do some things and religion stops us from doing these things.
So, don’t impose your morality on us. So, rather than thinking in terms of imposition of certain moral codes, that is not so, that is not at all appealing in today’s world. So, we say that, is it what is right or wrong? It is not just based on some moral code that somebody has given.
It is based on the reality of who we are. So, first point is nobody is moral relativist. Then how do we decide? If we accept that there is some objective morality is there, which everybody should accept, that okay, killing innocent people is bad, abusing children is bad.
On what basis are we deciding this? So, the objective basis is that when we understand that we are spiritual beings. We can present this as a hypothesis. Nobody doesn’t have to accept the Bhagavad Gita for that.
But we have a spiritual side to us. And that spiritual side is actually our essence. And the actions that help us to realize our spiritual side, to evolve spiritually towards self-understanding, they are what are good.
And anything that takes us away from and obscures us from our spirituality, that is what is bad. So, rather than using the words good or bad, especially with postmodern audiences who don’t like these words of good or bad. There was one postmodern thinker, he said, it is forbidden to forbid.
So, he says, you should not forbid anyone from doing anything. You should not forbid anyone from forbidding anyone else. But you are forbidding, isn’t it? So, we can’t have absolute, we say moral relativism, but then we make moral relativism into an absolute doctrine.
So, it is forbidden to forbid. That means you are already, you are forbidding something, isn’t it? So, moral relativism is not sustainable. It is self-contradictory.
But if we present it from the perspective of that there is a spiritual soul and whatever promotes the spiritual evolution, that is what is to be chosen. Whatever obscures the spiritual evolution, whatever obscures a person’s self-understanding, that is to be avoided. Then that understanding is something which people can digest.
And then eventually we can say, okay, this understanding of what is right and what is wrong or what will help our spiritual evolution, what will hamper it, that is explained in certain spiritual texts. So, then we go forward over there. But if we start with the morality, this is what you should do, this is what you should not do, then people get alienated.
But if we start with the spirituality, start with the philosophy which explains the spirituality and then bring the morality later, then it works. Unfortunately, we often do the opposite, especially when we are interacting with people. People ask us, what do you Hare Krishnas do? It’s like we tell you, no, we don’t do this.
No meat-eating, no gambling, no intoxication, no illicit sex. No Krishna consciousness. It’s like any product, if a new iPhone is released, no advertisement will start with the price.
First they will tell, oh, this has this camera, this has this memory, this long battery, this, this, and somewhere in the bottom, oh, this is the cost. So, when we are presenting Krishna consciousness, if we start talking about morality right in the beginning, people feel it’s too much a price to pay. First we have to present, it brings meaning to life, it gives higher joy to life, it opens a higher world for us to experience.
So, when we present the product first and then present the price. So, the spirituality is in the product and the morality which you have to follow is the price. But if we present the price first, then what happens? It’s like some people, they want to flaunt, you know, I purchased this new phone, it’s so expensive.
Be impressed, how, how, how, how wealthy I am, what a phone I buy. Now, others may get impressed, but others, I can’t purchase this phone. Sometimes when we do that also, we flaunt, you know, I follow these principles, these principles.
You keep following that, I don’t care. It becomes like that. So, we present the spirituality first and then the