How does the hierarchy in bhakti differ from mundane hierarchy?

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Transcript

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is the hierarchy different from the hierarchy at a social level? Today we have these two schools of thought. One is that we just rigidly stick to some hierarchies or we just blindly reject all hierarchies and claim that everyone is equal. In Bhakti the essence is service attitude.
A service attitude. Everybody wants to serve Krishna and if we consider the five rasas, all the five rasas, they are all eager to serve Krishna in different ways. Those who are in Shanta rasa, they serve Krishna just through admiration.
Now that is not a deficiency from the Ambed perspective. They just feel God is so great, what can I do for him? I can just admire how great he is. In Dasya rasa they feel that yes Krishna is great but I want to do something for him.
So there is this hierarchy. Chaitanya Chaturthama in the instructions of Sanatana Goswami talks about this in quite detail. How each of these has something more in the relationship.
But the point is even those in Shanta rasa are completely satisfied. Hanuman doesn’t desire that I want to be Sita because she is in a more intimate relationship with Krishna. Love is not wrong.
No, he is completely satisfied. So this is the speciality of Krishna. When we relate with Krishna, whatever position we are in, if we are connected with Krishna, Krishna can make us fully satisfied even in that position.
In fact the Gaudiya Vishna or Siddhanta is that there are Sakhis and there are Manjalis. So when Krishna performs pastimes, intimate pastimes with his Sakhis, with Radha, Anita, Vishakha and others. And there are the Sakhis who perform this pastime with Krishna and there are the Manjalis who observe these pastimes.
So they observe how Krishna is relating with the Gopis, how the Gopis are relating with Krishna. Rachara has described, I will talk more about this later, get the time. But actually the Manjalis get greater ecstasy than Sakhis.
They are not directly participating in Krishna Leela, they are observing. But in that, they are getting greater ecstasy. Why is that? Because the Manjalis, it is said, they are able to relish the reciprocation of love from both sides.
The Manjalis, because they are not directly involved, they can see how much Radharani loves Krishna and they appreciate how beautiful Krishna is from Radharani’s perspective. And they relish the sweetness of Krishna as perceived by Radharani. And then, because they are observing, they can perceive from Krishna’s perspective also.
Now Krishna is saying how beautiful Radharani is, how much she has love for me. So basically the Manjalis, if you look at this appearance, then they are not participating in the pastime, they are simply assistants. So in the hierarchy we could say they are lower, but actually they are relishing also.
So in Bhakti, the primary point is our connection with Krishna. And somebody can just be a new Bhakta. One time I gave a class and after that one devotee came and spoke.
And he spoke such amazing devotional understanding from that class. And I could see that he really was very entrenched by that class. And I started thinking at that time that it can happen that sometimes a speaker may give a class and the audience may make more advancement by hearing the class than the speaker may make by speaking the class.
Because the speaker may be thinking, oh I am so clever, I am speaking such good points. The speaker may not be that absorbed in Krishna in that devotional mood. The speaker may be more intellectual mood, I have to connect this point with this point and I have to give this example.
It is good we are connected with Krishna at that point. The point is in Bhakti, although far-functioning either in this world or in the spiritual world. In the material world, it is a replica of the spiritual world.
It is a distorted but it is a replica. So the spiritual world is a society. And any society there has to be some system of hierarchy.
The hierarchy becomes discriminatory when certain people are deprived of certain things based on certain considerations, which are unfair. Then it becomes discriminatory. In Bhakti, the primary thing is connection with Krishna.
So there is a speaker who can speak and connect with Krishna. The hearers can hear and connect with Krishna. And sometimes the hearers may connect with Krishna more than the speaker.
So from the external perspective, the speaker is at a higher position than the hearers. But from the internal perspective, the hearer may be making more advancement. The hearer may be more intimately connected with Krishna also.
So for the purpose of functioning in a practical way, hierarchies are required. Even in societies which are supposed to be completely classless, communism was supposed to be classless. So George Orwell said that all people are equal, but some people are more equal than others.
That is how it happened in communism. There were the rulers in the rule and the rulers had enormous facilities. So absolute equality is not possible.
Now, the one extreme is just try to absolute equality, it is not going to work. There has to be some social structure which requires some hierarchy. But there can be the danger, there can be a rigid adherence to hierarchies.
So if somebody is really spiritually advanced, if somebody is really spiritually dedicated, then we have to recognize their spiritual advancement and we have to value that. We have to appreciate that. And unfortunately, when that was not done, then that led to excessive materialism in the name of religion.
So if we sometimes become, when India is often pursued as the land of the caste system, and sometimes people ask, oh, are you trying to, you’re coming from India, you’re teaching Indian wisdom, are you trying to teach the caste system? You want to reestablish that? Actually, if we see, the bhakti tradition was consistently like an inner reform movement against the caste system. Most of the devotees, you see, they were from the lower caste and often they were persecuted by the brahmanas of the higher caste. The Qazi had Haridas Thakur beaten because the brahmanas complained against the Qazi.
So the point which I’m making is that the tradition itself, sometimes people are afraid that we don’t want to deviate and we feel if we mix too much with the modern world, there can be deviation. Yes, it’s possible. The contemporary world can be a source of deviation, but tradition itself can also be a source of deviation.
And the whole caste system, which was made so rigidly stratified based only on birth, that was a major deviation. So if in today’s world, if we try to have a very rigid social hierarchy, then we may end up not giving devotees facilities to practice bhakti. So ultimately, the purpose of our organization, our social structure is to encourage devotees to practice bhakti.
So if we can have a social structure, like say some form of adapted varnashram, which encourages and facilitates devotees in the practice of bhakti, that’s wonderful. But if in the name of varnashram, we start imposing more and more obstacles for devotees to practice bhakti. This is not done in varnashram.
This is not done in varnashram. This is not done in varnashram. Varnashram is meant to be a means to bhakti.
Bhakti is not meant to be a means to varnashram. So if varnashram is favorable for bhakti, we’ll accept it. So now what varnashram means also, there is different devotees have different ideas.
But I’m simply saying that, speaking this point, that social structure is unavoidable. But we can’t get so attached to social structure, that it becomes an obstacle to the path of bhakti. Even within our movement, in the 1970s, when the devotees had formed a GBC, and Prabhupada had formed a GBC, and the GBC at one time decided that we will centralize everything.
All finances from all temples will come to one center. And then that financial, that central body, they will decide how much funds to go to which temples. And Prabhupada was so upset by this, that Prabhupada sent a letter to all the temple presidents saying that I have suspended the GBC now.
I suspend the GBC and you just correspond with me directly. And Prabhupada wrote a very strong letter saying that we don’t want this centralization. He said the purpose of management is, very beautiful letter he wrote to Mukunda Maharaj and he said the purpose of management and administration is to inspire the spirit of service in the devotees.
That is the whole point of this. Different devotees have different inclinations, different inspirations, and management is meant to facilitate that. So sometimes we find that certain management structures can help in, can help in more and more devotees serving nicely.
But sometimes some social structures, some management structures can come in the way of devotees serving nicely. So then if that’s happening, then the devotee and the management have to decide how best can I serve. So our purpose should be to serve Krishna, to connect with Krishna.
And yes, structures are important. Prabhupada also said in one of his last conversations with Giriraj Maharaj that the Krishna consciousness movement is spread by organization and intelligence. So he didn’t want us to be organized.
But the organization is meant to facilitate the service to Krishna. It is not meant to obstruct the service to Krishna. It is not meant to discourage people.
So whatever social structure we may have in our society, the purpose should be that everybody should be facilitated in their service to Krishna. And if a particular structure, a devotee finds this is not really helping me in the service of Krishna, then the devotee may just distance themselves from that social structure and serve Krishna directly. That’s also fine.
It’s not that service to Krishna is not limited to a particular social structure or a particular apparatus. The service to Krishna can be done in many different ways. And in fact the conclusion of the Bhagavad Gita, sarva dharman parityajya mam ekam sharanam vraja, so that can be applied here.
Ultimately dharma is what? It’s some kind of social structure. Krishna is telling that Arjuna you have this dharma, don’t worry about it, focus on surrendering to it. So we have to have social structures for efficient functioning.
But at the same time, we have to have those social structures which lead to efficient functioning, which lead to greater service to Krishna. Not that establishing a social structure itself becomes such a big burden and that creates so much conflict and tension that devotees become disheartened in their service to Krishna. So we have a hierarchy, but the purpose of the hierarchy is that everybody is meant to connect with Krishna through their service attitude.
And that connection with Krishna is not dependent on one’s position in the hierarchy. Anybody can connect with Krishna, anybody can become absorbed in Krishna, and somebody at the lower lungs of hierarchy may actually go back to Krishna much earlier than somebody at the top level of the hierarchy also. Let’s answer the question.