How do we reconcile the conflict of values in the Gita and the Chaitanya Charitamrita?

Why does the Gita ask Arjuna to do administrative responsibility whereas Chaitanya Charitamrita ask the Goswamis to renounce similar responsibility?

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Great question. How do we resolve the conflict between the values of the Bhagavad Gita and the values of the Chaitanya Charita Amrit? The Bhagavad Gita talks about Arjuna, who wanted to renounce the world, but Krishna did not let him renounce the world. Whereas, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu encouraged Rupa and Sanatana Goswami to renounce the world and focus, and they were actually playing a very important role in Naga, Saini, Saha’s kingdom to protect the Vaishnavas.
So, that means, actually, Bhagavad Gita talks a lot about social responsibility, even of spiritualists. Whereas, the Chaitanya Charita Amrit focuses much more on transcendence without really focusing on social responsibility. In fact, the Goswamis are glorified for the renunciation.
So, how do we resolve this conflict between the values of the Bhagavad Gita and the Chaitanya Charita Amrit? Answer, it is not a conflict, it’s a context-sensitive response. We have to understand that values do not exist in isolation from their contexts. So, one of the fundamental teachings of the Vedic scriptures is that morality is never categorical, it is contextual.
That means, you cannot say that in all situations, this is right and this is wrong. No. Things, what is right and what is wrong often will depend on circumstances.
So, if rioters are about to kill a person and that person takes shelter in our house and he’s hiding in our house and the rioters come and ask, is there a person hiding? I say, I’ll speak the truth always. The result of speaking truth will be murder. And the result of not speaking the truth will be the person’s life will be saved.
So, what should we do in such a time? We cannot just blindly adhere to the principle of truthfulness. There can be other principles involved also. So, now, if you look at the Bhagavad Gita social context and when you look at Chaitanya Charita Amrit social context, you will see the differences.
Arjuna is directly a member of the royal family and they have a direct responsibility because of being members of the royal family to ensuring that the rule of dharma be present in society. And Duryodhana was the personification of adharma, of envy, of arrogance, of self-righteousness. And he was so totally recalcitrantly without any intention of changing at all, absolutely stubborn.
He was so stubborn. So, the Pandavas tried their very best to avoid any conflict, but eventually it did not work because of Duryodhana’s stubbornness. And that’s why the fight had to take place.
The fight was not just to give the Pandavas back their kingdom, but it was to ensure that dharma ruled the world. And Yudhishthira was the ruler of the dharma raj. Now, this was what Lord Krishna wanted them to do, establish dharma.
Now, in the case of the, of Urup and Sanatana Goswamis, we see that they actually did not themselves take any decision independently. Now, they were definitely playing very important buffer roles in Abhishek Inshaa’s administration, protecting the Vaishnavas from his atrocities by being in his administration and by endearing themselves to him by their competence and thereby dissuading him from doing anything destructive to the Vaishnavas and to the Vedic culture during his times. But Mahavacharya Mahaprabhu had another mission for them.
That mission was not just renouncing the world and demonstrating the glory of renunciation, but also ensuring that Vrindavan, which had to be revived because it had been practically lost over the centuries and which had fallen to the ruins and for reviving which he needed people with competitive leadership qualities. So, Urup and Sanatana Goswamis actually, they used all their diplomatic skills in making sure that the Mughals who were right close to Vrindavan. Delhi is not very far from Vrindavan, just a few hours.
So, the Mughals did not become aggressive and destructive in Vrindavan and that’s how that Vrindavan which had become so obscured that Radhakund had been reduced to just a puddle in the neglected area of a farm. That, Mahavacharya Mahaprabhu discovered, somebody had to reclaim it, restore it to its glory and that’s how the Goswamis took up the project. So, the Goswamis, they had done a service and they had ensured that Navabhasu Nisha would not be particularly vindictive towards the Vaishnavas.
They had created an adequate enough buffer by their presence and even after they left, that did not create a vacuum because by seeing their example, other Vaishnavas had also learned how to deal with the situation and others filled in the gap. But there was no one else with that kind of skills who could go to Vrindavan and do those things. The similar things were acting as a buffer between the ruling Nisha Monarch and the sacred places and the sacred paraphernalia associated with those places.
So, protecting them. So, they acted as a buffer over there. So, the Goswamis did not just renounce the world for the sake of demonstrating renunciation.
That was true. But if you look at their lives and we see from their actions, what they did was this also that they oversaw the re-establishment of the holy place of Vrindavan. One of the missions that Chaitanya Mahaprabhu had given them was apart from writing books was to construct temples at all the holy places where Lord Jai Krishna had performed pastimes.
So, in that sense, it is not an ethos of social irresponsibility, what Chaitanya Mahaprabhu is espousing. Rather, it is an ethos of embracing the higher social responsibility. So, restoring Vrindavan was something which nobody else could have done and they did it and they did it gloriously.
Now, along with that, we can also look at the higher principle that as devotees, we are concerned not primarily with social responsibility or responsibility. We are concerned with our spiritual responsibility to do Krishna’s way and we see that in the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna asks Arjuna to fight. In the Chaitanya Mahaprabhu asks the Goswamis to renounce.
So, what they are doing is not just demonstrating social responsibility or social irresponsibility. They are demonstrating divine surrender. So, in that sense, there is no conflict between the values of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and Bhagavad Gita because both Krishna, Arjuna, when he wants to renounce the world and he does it because Krishna tells him to do, that is Sarvadha Mahaprabhu Pujya.
And the Goswamis have such fabulous wealth and opulence and power and then they renounce it for the sake of Krishna. That is also Sarvadha Mahaprabhu Pujya. So, both are in that sense on the same continuum with the specific actions that are done being a reflection of their specific social context.
And because those contexts were different, the specific actions that they did were different. But the essential principle is common of surrender and a social responsibility in and of itself or social negligence in and of itself was the predominant theme of Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’s teachings. Then we would not see Bhaktivinoda Thakur working in the government administration.
Now, why did he work over there? Because again, by working in the government administration, he was able to bring respectability to the principles of Gaudiya Vaishnavism because he himself was in a respected position. So, it was not that Bhaktivinoda Thakur thought that, oh, as soon as I discovered Lord Chaitanya, it is Lord Chaitanya’s instruction to me that I should renounce the world. No, he doesn’t think like that because that is not the primary instruction of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu.
And we have Chaitanya Mahaprabhu himself demonstrating it that when he goes to South India, he meets the Kurma Brahmana and the Kurma Brahmana says that I want to join you and renounce the world because the waves of miseries and family life are tormenting me. So, what does Chaitanya Mahaprabhu respond? Chaitanya Mahaprabhu says, no, not think like this, stay, chant Hare Krishna, remember Krishna as Hare Krishna, you will transcend the miseries of material existence. Chaitanya Mahaprabhu does not condone approach of social responsibility that way.
Therefore, what we should focus on is understanding the underlying principles and not get carried away or caught by seeming contradictions. So, both Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and Bhagavad Gita demonstrate the same principle of surrender or to Krishna and not that either of them talk about social responsibility, but social responsibility done according to time, place and circumstances. Thank you.
Hare Krishna.