How should devotees respond to the threat of brutal religious groups like ISIS?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jIPqr_W6Cac

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Hare Krishna Question How do we see and respond to the threat posed by extremist Islamic organizations like ISIS which publicly behead people and especially if they come next door to India and start threatening India, what can we as devotees do about it? Answer Firstly, when we deal with this sort of extremism we need to see it through philosophical vision and not merely sociological or religious vision The category of religions as we have today say Hinduism, Christianity, Islam, that categorization is not there in the Vedic scriptures and the Bhagavad Gita classifies according to the gunas goodness, passion, ignorance So as soon as we start labeling or linking or assigning certain extremist behavior to certain religion then the whole discussion becomes extremely polarized, extremely charged and then those who try to have this discussion are also get labeled as say in the case of Islam as Islamophobes or as those who brand Islam as evil or things like that. So if we want to we don’t want to be in a position where we are labeling Islam nor are we in a position where we are defending Islam We have to see in terms of Shastra and Shastra describes that there are three modes, goodness, passion and ignorance and people do activities according to these three modes and accordingly people practice religion also within these three modes.
So those religious groups that are violent, that are brutally violent, they are that way because they are in the mode of ignorance and they are in the mode of passion which is largely controlled by their ignorance. So because of that they engage in such brutal activities and now we may argue yes it’s not just ignorance, this sort of violence and brutality is coming from their religious doctrine Now that is not exactly an accurate understanding because there are many people who also believe in that particular religious doctrine who are not violent who are quite peaceful. So to ascribe tamasic behavior to a particular religion is to reduce to oversimplify religion and to misunderstand the motivation that makes people work.
What to speak of a particular religion there have been atheists also who have been brutally violent Hitler, Lenin and so many others Mao Zedong, they killed thousands and thousands of people and often what Hitler did was quite brutal during the holocaust so now the point is firstly avoid labeling certain behavior as stemming specifically from some religion yes it may be that followers of a particular religion may be more violent than others but then to ascribe that to that religion’s philosophy is simplistic and short sighted and overall the important point is that people are rajasic, people are tamasic and or they have psychologies which are which make them vulnerable to rajoguna tamoguna which make them find rajoguna tamoguna attractive and then their psychological tendencies they justify by certain ideologies so it is people who are rajasic and tamasic who does such things so first of all avoid labeling now that doesn’t mean that we can be naive and leave things as they are, the vedic culture is realistic and that means that there is a kshatriya class which deals with law breakers with violent people so now irrespective of whether the cause is religious or not, the violence against innocent people the public beheading of people who are uninvolved in that particular crime at all that is brutal, it is barbaric and it needs to be condemned in the strongest terms and often this sort of thing has been condemned even by other muslims also many of the muslims in fact so we certainly strongly condemn this sort of behavior and we need to be prepared to deal with that so traditionally in the vedic culture there would be kshatriyas now also there is some government infrastructure and that government infrastructure is equipped to deal with these things and it will be beefed up if security threats come up more and more so we as devotees what can we do? Firstly we have to recognize that it is the lower modes that are acting and they are expressing themselves in many ugly ways and this is a particularly ugly manifestation of the lower modes and the solution to it is actually to rise to a higher mode ourselves and to share the knowledge in the process by which others can rise to the higher modes. Now not everybody can become transcendental but if a significant minority of people also can come to goodness influential minority then that can also contribute significantly to improving the individual social and global situation so we need to focus on practicing our own devotion seriously the rigor in our sadhana will keep us at the higher mode in fact when we are in goodness we will be able to see this in a proper philosophical way to the extent we are in passion or in ignorance to that extent we will get unduly agitated by such things and we will see such things also along sectarial religious lines and that will only make us more un-Krishna conscious and make our devotional practice also seem irrelevant oh there are such a real big dangers what am I doing as Chepaswati Chandigarhi Krishna I should do something practical yes we need to do practical things also and there are moves within ISKCON to form some Kshatriya forums, Kshatriya bodies and they can do various Kshatriya duties one of them can also be security so for example when there were riots by religious fanatics which targeted ISKCON’s Mayapur temple, Prabhupada told the devotees to have guards, to themselves train themselves for defense and to even have guns so where it is required devotees can acquire whatever defensive measures are required and if some devotees have a very militaristic tendency, a very strong Kshatriya tendency then they can dote on Krishna’s service they can try to create a Kshatriya forum within the movement or if it’s a very strong thing and nothing seems to be happening in the movement as an individual, a devotee may just as some devotees have different professions some devotees may even choose as a profession some Kshatriya forum where they can channelize their passion that way but important point is that overall unless the world returns towards goodness this sort of violence is going to be there as it degenerates more and more towards passion and ignorance it’s horrible but it is going to be there so we need to take practical steps to deal with that and those devotees who are inclined towards that, they can do whatever they find appropriate according to their situation according to the guidance of their seniors but overall as devotees if we cultivate the mode of goodness we will see this more philosophically in a more educated way and we will also not get unduly agitated along sectarian lines and this sort of manifestation of ignorance need to be strongly crushed and strongly condemned at a physical level also but along with that there also has to be education and purification by which people in general come to goodness and we can lead that by ourselves striving to come to goodness and then by sharing the processes of process of bhakti yoga by which others can also come to goodness so overall rigor in our own sadhana and vigor in our outreach these are what devotees can do to deal with threats like this and specific devotees with specific interest can take up something more if that suits their interest but by highlighting these threats by repeatedly talking about them one shouldn’t polarize the devotee community or sidetrack the devotee community discussions and focus from devotion and purification because the ultimate solution lies in those itself so if we envision Skaun as a not just one line but as a river so then in that river there will be many tributaries and there will be many distributaries so the main river of Krishna consciousness of Skaun which is meant to transmit the current of Krishna consciousness should focus on the process of hearing and chanting and when there are emergency measures the devotee community will come together and try to deal with those emergencies now in Ukraine there is a crisis at present because of the warfare that is happening and the devotees from other parts of Ukraine and other parts of the world are taking practical measures to help them the devotees who are under threat directly so that sort of measures under emergencies can and will be taken now the but overall the basic river of Krishna consciousness should flow in the direction of Krishna through the process of devotional service now in this river there will be many tributaries which will come in and there may also distributors which branch out slightly so some of the tributaries I refer to people with their own inclinations who may come in so there may be some devotees who come in with a highly Kshatriya bent of mind or they may come from backgrounds where their world views were highly nationalistic highly Hindutva oriented and now such devotees if they find that the devotional activities are too passive they feel that nothing much is being done that’s not necessarily a wrong feeling but it’s just that it is their individual passion they don’t have to they don’t have to expect the institution to do that if they have that passion they can find some way to utilize that and also practice devotional service according to whatever balance they find suitable but it’s not that because they feel a need for doing something practical to deal with this they start labeling the general the overall Krishna conscious philosophy as impractical or something like that and they can’t they shouldn’t expect the overall river of Krishna consciousness to divert its course from Krishna to dealing with political religious social or whatever kind of turmoil but certainly it’s not that devotional devotees are irrelevant we are aware of real problems and wherever real solutions are required devotees will take care of those solutions many escorted ones have high quality security system because the threats are real and the security is there now of course we cannot have security like the parliament or any other government we don’t want to convert temples into fortresses where people rather than feeling sanctified and serene people feel as if they have come in a danger zone that’s why we don’t have very high security but still there is it’s not that devotees are utopian there is also security for the temples and similarly whatever security measures individual devotees feel necessary in their situation they can take those security measures and also after having security measures what are the temples focus on? focus is on transmitting spiritual sound vibration by which people will be elevated from the lower modes to the higher modes and that is what should be the primary focus of devotees Srila Prabhupada also if we see when he went to America he was penniless and he was contactless and in one sense he was prospectless he did not know what was going to happen but then what is his meditation his meditation is not in thinking of okay getting up food, clothing, shelter or thinking of any of the dangers I have to go to a doctor because I had a heart attack he is thinking that Krishna and these people in America are covered over by the modes of passion and ignorance and please let them understand your message so that they will become free from the modes and they will become elevated thereby so Prabhupada even in an emergency situation focuses on the message of Krishna Katha so as to elevate people from the lower modes and similarly following Prabhupada’s footsteps ISKCON’s main focus should always be that. Thank you.