How to disagree without disrespecting

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Jai Om Vishnupad Paramahamsa Parivraj Yagacharya Ashtotarsha Shri Shrimad His Divine Grace Abhaya Charanarvinda Bhaktivedanta Swamishla Prabhupada Ki Anantakoti Vaishnavrinda Ki Granthraj Shrimad Bhavatham Ki Uday Gaur Premanande Om Namo Bhagvate Vasudevaya Om Namo Bhagvate Vasudevaya Om Namo Bhagvate Vasudevaya Granthraj Shrimad Bhagavatam Canto 1, Chapter 11 Chapter entitled Lord Krishna’s Entrance into Dwaraka Text 21 Bhagavam Tatra Bandhunam Pauranam Anuvartinam Yatha Vidya Upasangamya Sarvesham Manam Adadhe Bhagavam Tatra Bandhunam Pauranam Anuvartinam Yatha Vidya Upasangamya Sarvesham Manam Adadhe Bhagavam Tatra Bandhunam Pauranam Anuvartinam Yatha Vidya Upasangamya Sarvesham Manam Adadhe Bhagavam Tatra Bandhunam Pauranam Anuvartinam Yatha Vidya Upasangamya Sarvesham Manam Adadhe Bhagavam Tatra Bandhunam Pauranam Anuvartinam Sarvesham Manam Adadhe Bhagavam Tatra Bandhunam Pauranam Anuvartinam Yatha Vidya Upasangamya Sarvesham Manam Adadhe Questioner is? Bhagavam Tatra Bandhunam Pauranam Anuvartinam Yatha Vidya Upasangamya Sarvesham Manam Adadhe Bhagavam Tatra Bandhunam Pauranam Anuvartinam Yatha Vidya Upasangamya Sarvesham Manam Adadhe Bhagavan Shri Krishna, the personality of Godhead Tatra, in that place Bandhunam, of the friends Pauranam, of the citizens Anuvartinam, those who approached him to receive and welcome Yatha Vidhi As it behoves Upasangamya, going nearer Sarvesham, for each and everyone Manam, honour and respects Adadhe, of God Translation and purport by His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Shri Prabhupada Translation Lord Krishna, the personality of Godhead approached them and offered due honour and respect to each and every one of the friends relatives, citizens and all others who came to receive and welcome him Purport The Supreme Lord, personality of Godhead is neither an impersonal nor an inert object unable to reciprocate the feelings of His devotees Here the word Yatha Vidhi or just as it behoves is significant He reciprocates just as it behoves with His different types of admirers and devotees Of course the pure devotees are of one type only because they have no other object for service but the Lord and therefore the Lord also reciprocates with such pure devotees just as it behoves namely He is always attentive to all the matters of His pure devotees There are others who designate Him as impersonal and so the Lord also does not take any personal interest He satisfies everyone in terms of one’s development of spiritual consciousness and a sample of such reciprocation is exhibited here with His different welcomers Om Gyanatimirandhasya Gyananjunushalakaya Chakshurunmilitamena Tasmai Shri Krishna Shri Gurave Namaha Nama Om Vishnupadaya Krishna Prashtaya Bhutale Shreemate Bhaktivedanta Swami Itinamine Namaste Saraswati Deve Gauravani Pracharine Nirvishesha Shunyavadi Pashchatya Deshatarine Vanchakalpatarubhyascha Krupasindhubhyavecha Patitanam Pavanebhyo Vaishnavebhyo Namo Namaha Jai Shri Krishna Chaitanya Prabhu Nityananda Shri Advaita Gadadhara Shri Vasadhi Gaurabhakta Vrinda Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare Hare Krishna So I am grateful to be here with all of you today It’s been almost 2 years, more than 2 years actually So I get strength by hearing the classes Radha Gopinath Temple whichever part of the world I am in and I will try to contribute in some small way to that shower of strength that is going from here to all over the world So today I will speak on the topic of appropriate respect Subtitle will be like Respect that respect doesn’t mean agreement and disagreement doesn’t have to mean disrespect So I will speak on this broad theme. Let’s look at what is going on over here.
This is the entry of Krishna into Dwaraka and as he is entering the various citizens are coming and receiving him and the word used over here is Manam Manam Adadhe that Krishna offers respect and what kind of respect? Yatha Vidya as is appropriate So as the various citizens come and welcome him Pauranam Anuvartinam as they come and approach him he offers appropriate respects to them and this theme comes in the Mahabharata also among the Pandavas Yudhishthira and Bhima are slightly senior to Krishna and Nakula and Sahadeva are junior to Krishna So although all the five Pandavas are broadly in Sakhyaras with Krishna but still there is a slight difference and Krishna in that sense is a little more deferential little more respectful to Yudhishthira and he is a little more offering blessings and guidance to Nakula and Sahadeva but even when he is in a superior position in some way he is offering respects the significant point over here is that generally the understanding is God is the object of respect that the whole purpose of spiritual life and especially of devotional life is to learn to respect God because he is the supreme Akeleshwara Krishna Arasabha Vritya so that is one understanding, it is an important understanding that we learn to respect God understanding his position but when we are understanding God there are two aspects one is understanding his position and the other is understanding his disposition his disposition so actually understanding his position can bring submission can bring humility and that is important but understanding his disposition is what brings affection it actually helps us see that person as a warm loving person, say if somebody is the head of state or a very powerful government officer or a powerful military position something like that its ok knowing about that person may bring some respect but when we see how they personally deal with others that is their disposition oh this person is such a powerful position but still that person is so warm so polite so what happens is that brings affection so understanding position brings submission understanding disposition brings affection and so here in the Bhagavatam here from the 7th chapter onwards to the 15th chapter there is a glimpse of Krishna given as a precursor to what will be given in the 10th canto just like movies before they are released like a trailer so you could say the first canto is offering a trailer of what will come in the 10th canto and here also Krishna’s disposition is what is being focused on so normally God is considered to be the object of respect and he is but how God offers respect is being demonstrated over here Manam Adade so from that perspective the principle of devotion is understood by contemplating God’s position ok I have to become a devotee but the practise of devotion is better understood by contemplating his disposition how does he act so even though Krishna is not really acting as a devotee Mahaprabhu comes and acts as a devotee but even when Krishna acts he is a part of a brahminical culture and he is not always I am God obey me that is not his mood even in the Bhagavad Gita Krishna’s focus is not on his own divinity Krishna talks about his divinity primarily to persuade Arjuna as a part of the development of his argument if that was his sole argument Krishna could have finished the Bhagavad Gita in six words I am God obey me fight Gita over now but Krishna doesn’t do that so even through the Gita actually Krishna’s disposition is revealed Manam Adade so from this example of how Krishna is offering appropriate respects so even when we bless if we are in a position where we bless someone even blessing is based on a foundation of respect because who is considered worthy of being blessed there is some good in you and I want more good to come in for you so even in blessing it’s not a position of superiority that it’s actually from a position of appreciation for the other person so appropriate respect is important now we could go into different levels of devotees and how to offer respects to them that is talked about in Act of Instruction but I won’t go into that direction I’ll talk about situations where it is difficult to offer respect and how do we go about offering respect when it is difficult to do so and one of the situations where it is it becomes difficult to offer respect is when there is lack of agreement so quite often when there is disagreement what happens is it leads to disrespect so what happens if suppose we are saying something another person is not agreeing with us if there is not a foundation of respect then what happens is we start raising our voice but if there is a foundation of respect we won’t raise our voice we will refine our argument how? because it is not that this person is a fool this person is not dumb or stupid or mad or evil if what I am saying is not making sense to this person then maybe I don’t understand their perspective or maybe I have not considered the full picture so let me refine my argument so when there is disagreement if we go into raising our voice that will only worsen the disagreement that is a Rajasic response and then from Rajasic it will go to Tamasic and that will lead to disagreement will lead to dissension, it can lead to violence it can even lead to destruction on the other hand this disagreement is there how do I deal with it? if you focus on that part instead of raising our voice we try to refine our argument that is a more Satvic response and by that it is not just that the other person will understand us better but we will also understand the other person better we will also understand our own argument better in the sense that sometimes we think we understand what we are saying but actually when we communicate to others and then we say hey, you know why is this not being as impactful so maybe I have not understood the subject better maybe I have not understood the subject better one of my main services is writing so especially if I have strong disagreements with someone before I try to present that I try to write things down what are the points I want to say and I find that writing brings about at least for me personally it brings about two precious gifts humility and curiosity because what happens is once you start writing things down writing helps us discover that the things we thought we understood we have not understood actually there are so many things which I thought hey, this is so simple and so clear but you start writing it down and then you re-read it hey, you know this point doesn’t link with this point, this argument is not as strong as I thought this I wrote down I myself can refute it, others will be able to refute it even more strongly so writing brings humility I know everything, but I don’t know really so much so writing brings humility and writing also brings curiosity because when we are writing what happens is we are also refining our thoughts hey, this is not the right word this is not the right construct, this is not the point I am trying to make so we learn about the subject more so writing is basically one form of introspection it is more systematised introspection with external tools of language but the point is that’s one way to refine our argument so if we are not getting along with someone then instead of raising our voice and worsening the disagreement try to refine the argument so this is one way a respectful way to deal with disagreement but unfortunately there is the other way the respectful way of dealing with disagreement and curiously this seems to be more in religious organisations and religious people than in non-religious people so disagreement is just a part of the world but one of my friends is doing his PhD in in schisms in religious organisations schisms means when religious organisations split apart so I was having an elaborate discussion with him so he says that in general if there is a secular organisation and there is a religious organisation here I am using the word religious and spiritual interchangeably the difference is there but it is not relevant for us so he says quite often people are able to live with differences much more not necessarily cordially but it’s like live and let live in secular organisations but in the religious organisations it doesn’t work when there are differences often they get escalated so what is the reason for this so what happens is there could be many reasons but one major reason is that when we become a part of a religious organisation it’s not just a functional thing okay I am a part of this particular social group or I am a part of this company or whatever we have put our faith over there and we may all say for example we may all come to the Krishna consciousness movement and we may say we have faith in Krishna but all of us don’t have faith the same kind or same level of faith in the same aspects about Krishna bhakti somebody’s faith may be more in the deity worship somebody’s faith may be more in the philosophy somebody’s faith may be more in the chanting somebody’s faith may be more in the seva somebody’s faith may be more in the in the association of devotees just spending time with devotees so there are different aspects of bhakti the nine limbs of bhakti and different people may have faith in different aspects of bhakti more in fact those things may be the foundation of their devotion so what happens is in the secular world disagreement is just disagreement difference of opinion intellectual disagreement but in this religious organisations disagreement is immediately seen as not just a difference of opinion but as a deviation why because if my faith is founded in something and if somebody else does that thing differently then you are not just having a difference of opinion you are actually challenging the foundation of my faith challenging why because ok what happens is to get to the bhaktivinoda thakur says to get to the essence of things is very difficult it takes time so for most of us we want even if we are sincere we want to approach that essence but it takes time so till we get to the essence we often hold on to something external and it’s not wrong because we can’t hold on to the essence immediately and we want to hold on to the external so that we can get to the essence and that is good if that external is helping us to progress towards the essence so for example somebody may say that they may get a lot of strength in memorising verses and pronouncing verses properly and they love that and they will if somebody doesn’t know many verses if somebody doesn’t pronounce verses properly they say you know is this person serious in bhakti if they were serious why wouldn’t they put some time and effort to improve this now yes verse recitation is important and Krishna says it is worshipping me with the intelligence to study the conversation but it is actually worshipping Krishna we have examples of people who might be great scholars in the Gita but they may have no devotion to Krishna so it’s an external recitation of verses memorisation of verses it is an external which can take us to the internal suppose somebody’s faith primarily comes from ditty worship so one of the schisms the big schism that happened now I don’t want to criticise any particular organisation but what happens is that the examples make some things clearer so there is a there are religious organisations for example in the Christian tradition in the pre-scientific pre-reformation times that means 13-14 centuries there is like a big scholastic debate on the topic of how many angels can dance on the tip of a needle now why should angels dance on the tip of a needle and whether one angel or ten angels what is the difference but on that issue there was a schism now you may say what can I fight on this but actually if you go into theology it is based on the idea of God’s omnipotence and how God’s omnipotence manifests through angels what angels can what God can do to angels what God can’t do to the angels similarly there is a in India there was a there was a religious group they had different forms of wearing tilak and they had a royal elephant which would go in front of the deities wearing a particular tilak and the two groups started fighting which tilak should be worn on the elephant and that case went up to the supreme court and before the case was judged the elephant died so now this may hit again I don’t want to make fun because sometimes the differences we have among devotees for outsiders they also feel why are you making such a small thing into a big thing so what happens is when we say focus on the essence and not on other things see there is a small thing and there is a big thing and for all of us there are certain small things which take us to the big thing and that’s why that small thing is also a big thing for some people but that small thing may not be that big a thing for somebody else I hope that small thing and big thing is not becoming a confusing thing now so for somebody you know the idea how many angels can dance that is a very very important thing because it is all centred on the idea of God’s omnipotence how a particular ritual is performed how a particular tilak is worn that is very important because they feel this is how God’s presence is manifesting we mean a visible form so what happens is these small things we cannot consider them unimportant but if we make them all important that is the extreme if you consider a pendulum one is it is unimportant why are you fighting over small things but just because it is a small thing doesn’t mean it is unimportant but it does not mean it is all important also one thing is don’t fight over it at all you are just making a small thing into a big thing the other is this is a big thing how can you call it a small thing so the point is there is subjectivity in how Krishna reveals himself to different devotees if Krishna is a person we have that beautiful verse in the 10th canto when Krishna enters into the Mathura arena the different people see him differently that is not just the young women saw him like Cupid and the Kamsa saw him like that personified that is a vision but that also is a universal principle that Krishna reveals himself in different ways to different devotees different people and even to different devotees so Krishna’s sweetness Krishna’s greatness Krishna’s attractiveness may manifest for someone through the precision of the rituals that are being performed to somebody else it may manifest the precision with which verses are being memorised and recited for somebody else it may manifest to the precision in which the temple hall is cleaned for somebody else it may be manifested to the precision in which the food is cooked and served now all these are important but all of these may not be equally important for everyone so the the problem when something which is a big thing for me I make it into a big thing for everyone and when I see that that person is not doing that thing then what happens is then I start thinking that person is a deviant because they are not doing properly the thing which is the foundation of faith for me but that may not be the foundation of faith for that other person so because of this what happens is in religious organisations it’s not just a matter of difference of opinion is not just a matter of intellectual disagreement it becomes a matter of spiritual deviation so one devotee was telling me that sometimes some devotees you go in front of them when you talk with them you have to justify your existence as a devotee to that person ok if you are a devotee what are you doing are you doing this ticking this bullet if you are not then what kind of devotee are you? you are not a devotee so what is happening over here is in bhakti in religious circles and bhakti also that when there is a difference of opinion there is disagreement but disagreement very easily degenerates to disrespect because disagreement is not seen as a simple difference of opinion it is seen as a deviation from the process it is seen as a person having gone off track and that makes it very acrimonious sometimes the attacks become much much more vehement much more fierce than what they need to be so so I will take one area where this often happens within our movement where disagreement very often leads to disrespect and how we can avoid that and then we have some time for questions so among the various spiritual organisations which are representing say Indic wisdom, Vedic wisdom Vishal Prabhupada started the Krishna Consciousness Movement and he emphasised philosophy relatively much more than most other widespread organisations there may be localised organisations in sacred places which may go very deeply to Shastra but among the widespread organisations that are there not many have the ethos of daily class and an emphasis on studying scripture now because of Prabhupada considered philosophy to be important but the nature of the conditioned mind is to go towards extremes and something is important we make it all important so what happens is within our movement there is a pitfall that philosophical disagreement can lead to personal disrespect that when we disagree with somebody philosophically we immediately start disrespecting the other person so this is due to not due to philosophy it is not that philosophy is not important philosophy is important but it is not necessarily all important so I was once talking with Giriraj Maharaj when he was writing this book on Juhu so I was helping in editing some of the books so we had a lot of discussions about his experiences with Prabhupada so he recorded many of them but there are many which couldn’t make it into the book so he is telling one particular experience that there is Dr. Mishra of the Mishra Yoga Studio with whom Prabhupada had stayed when he had gone first to New York and because Prabhupada was speaking personalism and he was a follower of impersonalism so initially he was very warm and hospitable but then he told Swami you just do kirtans you can’t speak and Prabhupada said that’s not my purpose so he went into the Lower East Side afterwards so their parting was not on the best of terms because Prabhupada was in one sense not allowed to speak over there and he left over there but many years later when the Krishna Consciousness movement had spread widely Dr. Mishra came to meet Prabhupada and when Prabhupada came to know Prabhupada asked him would you arrange lunch and they had lunch together and they had a very cordial pleasant discussion and after that Giriraj Maharaj was there at that time so Maharaj asked Prabhupada Prabhupada I thought he is a Mayavadi you said he is a Mayavadi Prabhupada said yes he says philosophically we argue like anything but culturally we are friends so philosophically we argue like anything we are not dissolved our differences we are not considered insignificant but philosophy is not everything philosophy is one part of who we are and one part of who the person is so culturally we are friends so Prabhupada could differentiate this and how was he able to differentiate it because he didn’t reduce he didn’t reduce the other person to just their philosophical orientation people are multifaceted beings so people have their philosophical beliefs people have their cultural practises people have their personal behaviour so there are many aspects to individuals when we reduce somebody to just one aspect then we are manifesting what the Bhagavata calls as knowledge in the mode of ignorance in 1822 when Krishna says that that you take one thing and make it into everything that Krishna says is knowledge in the mode of ignorance that means we take one aspect of a person and make that into the whole person what is this person? this person is a Mayavadi ok then philosophical beliefs might be impersonalist but culturally that person might still come and appreciate kirtan or worship deities or respect cows or go to holy places so are we to not look at the cultural aspect at all are we to neglect that? we see Mahaprabhu did say but every statement has a context the context is that if we are not mature enough grounded in our faith then if we hear Mayavadi then our faith may get damaged it may get destroyed also but there has to be Mahaprabhu himself heard Sarvambhattacharya for 7 days and he was very personally respectful he didn’t agree with Mayavadi philosophy but Mahaprabhu is an excellent example especially his dealing with Sarvambhattacharya of disagreement without disrespect he disagreed but he didn’t, there was no personal disrespect at all very personal warmth was there respect was there all the time so why is that because Mahaprabhu saw other aspects when Gopinathacharya he is treating you like an ordinary person, he is saying you are not God, he is disrespecting you but Mahaprabhu what did he say he looked at another aspect he said he is speaking out of concern for me although we have just met he is like a father figure and he is concerned about me and my protection and my welfare as a renunciate and that’s why he is speaking things so he appreciated that part so what is Mahaprabhu doing if he had wanted he could have said he is a Mayavadi, I don’t want to associate with him but he looked for something to appreciate and he found something to appreciate so just because somebody is a Mayavadi doesn’t mean that everything that they speak is going to be Mayavad isn’t it it’s not that philosophy is everything in their lives, they also have various aspects and they will speak various things at various times so there could be cultural similarities, there could be in terms of temperament there could be similarities so when we what is knowledge in the mode of ignorance generally knowledge removes ignorance tamasoma jyotirgama we go from darkness to light, we go from ignorance to knowledge, so what is knowledge in the mode of ignorance what it means is it is knowledge that doesn’t remove ignorance but reinforces ignorance that I gain the knowledge but whatever ignorant conception I have I only reinforce that with the knowledge that I gain so it is like again very selective information so if somebody is a Mayavadi then what happens then we will look for everything bad about that person there was this issue and that issue and that person did like that they may have done some good things also why not look at that, no because we have put a negative label on that person so all the information that we will get is further going to reinforce that negative opinion only in such situations our own intelligence is no longer clear where information is ending and where opinion is beginning one of the if we actually want to communicate effectively, we need to ourselves be clear, what are the facts and what are the feelings both have their importance but if I get confused between information and opinion, if I myself equate my feelings with my facts then I cannot make a coherent argument so what happens is knowledge in the mode of ignorance means we can’t differentiate between information and opinion we can’t differentiate between facts and feelings and we look for only those facts which reinforce our feelings we look for only that information which boosts our opinion this happens in every field there is a philosopher of science who said that in science the theories that we like we call them facts and the facts we don’t like, we call them theories so this is just human bias again this is not a criticism of science this can happen in every area of life so the point is that when we have this reductionistic vision we reduce people down to one attribute of theirs then that is where we exhibit knowledge in the mode of ignorance and that is where our philosophical disagreements will degenerate to personal disrespect Prabhupada could be very philosophically strong but he was not personally disrespectful when he met with people he was warm with them he was cultured and caring with them so Prabhupada knew how to engage with whom so when Prabhupada, we know that he wanted to build a Juhu temple he worked with many life members now most of these life members they are very appreciative of Prabhupada but they never became committed disciples of Prabhupada what was the reason? many reasons, but one of the reasons was that many of these life members were already committed followers of other spiritual teachers they were already influential in society and if they are spiritually inclined what happens is that they usually find some spiritual organisation to align with so Giriraj Maharaj was telling me and I had talked about this with His Holiness Radhanath Maharaj also he also said the same thing he said, I visited the houses of many of these prominent life members especially in their last days and if you go to their houses big pictures of their Mayawadi gurus were there in their homes, on their altars and I asked him, did Prabhupada ever bring that up? he said, I don’t remember even one incident where Prabhupada brought that up what did he say? ok, they may have that philosophical belief but they are willing to do seva they are helping in building the temple not just giving funds, but providing contacts and clearing the obstacles so engage them in seva so Prabhupada focused on that we say one of the fundamental criteria of bhakti is Sarvopadi Vinirmuktam so we strive to become free from all labels but the irony is in following the process which is meant to free us from all labels we impose a lot of labels on everyone else this person Mayawadi, this person Karvi this person atheist, this person meat eater, this person like this well ok, they may have those behaviours but are all Mayawadis exactly the same? among Mayawadis also there may be different categories are all meat eaters the same? no ok, if you want to consider are all vegetarian people the same? no, there are people who may be very pleasant and well behaved and there are vegetarian people who can speak obnoxiously and may be very rude and cruel so same way what happens is when we take one label and make it absolute this person is a meat eater ok, that particular habit may be problematic but their other behaviour they might be cordial, they might be generous they might be environmentally conscious they may be having many other good attributes but if we don’t see that then that label starts restricting us restricting our capacity to appreciate how Krishna is acting in their life and what we can do to bring people closer to Krishna and that’s how what happens is philosophical disagreement degenerates into personal disrespect but it doesn’t have to it doesn’t have to because whatever be the label and even however valid the label may be people are bigger than the labels that they have it’s ironic that we say I am going to refute Mayavada but when we apply one label to everyone without considering any other factors we are actually practising Mayavada because what is Mayavada? Mayavada is the refusal to see variety to reduce everything to oneness so if I don’t see that ok, all meat eaters are not the same so I reduce all meat eaters to one then what am I doing? I am actually practising Mayavada because I am refusing to see variety I am reducing everything to a non-differentiated oneness so sometimes in the name of refuting impersonalism we may increase our impersonalism I mean not philosophical impersonalism but relational personal impersonalism personal impersonalism what does that mean? that in our personal interactions we are very impersonal so to avoid getting caught in this I conclude with this point how do we avoid letting personal disagreement degenerate sorry philosophical disagreement or any kind of disagreement degenerate to disrespect we try to see beyond whatever labels we have applied to the people it is just subconscious that the world is very complex and that is why to function in the world we may need some labels, ok this person is a male, this person is a female this person is English speaking, this person is Hindi speaking for all practical purposes it is not that we can wish away labels but, so Prabhupada also used labels and used strongly like fools and rascals but the difference was Prabhupada didn’t reduce people to those labels in Guruji’s book My Glorious Master there is a very beautiful passage when I first read it thunderbolt struck me Prabhupada is saying a pure devotee prays to Krishna Krishna, all these fools and rascals are suffering in the material world Krishna, please deliver all of them so he is using the word fools and rascals but he is not that fools and rascals is not coming in a sense of condemnation, he is not losing his compassion amid that point so he is not reducing people to fools and rascals yes, the way they are behaving right now may be foolish, may be worse than foolish but still they are souls Krishna, they are your precious parts you want them to be delivered so please make me an instrument in that please deliver them so Prabhupada did not reduce people to labels even when he used the labels but unfortunately what happens is we only use the labels and we forget the purpose Prabhupada’s purpose was actually to elevate people elevate people so we try to see beyond the label, our mind will by default put some labels on everyone and functionally sometimes it is required but if we want to have a deeper interaction with others then we try to see beyond the label in fact if we try to do that our every interaction with others can become exciting because we all have certain labels this person is too intellectual, this person is too critical this person is too sentimental and if we are simply if we are going in default mode then our interaction will reinforce the labels yes, this is against sentiment but if we actually explore can I find something about this person which will challenge the label I have for this person then we will find the relationship, the interactions will become exciting because we will be learning something about that person and our own understanding will also grow by that we will also become more broad minded so broad minded how do you become broad minded don’t be narrow minded but what is narrow minded narrow minded means, in one sense our mind produces some label and we reduce the reality down to that label we narrow the reality down to that label that is narrow minded so broad minded means what our mind will produce a label but we using our intelligence see that reality is broader than the label and when we see that that is the way to become broad minded to challenge our labels and to see how reality is bigger than our labels and that’s why the characteristic of pure devotee is no desire, no inclination to criticise others that aversion to fault finding as I said Krishna himself is God he is the absolute authority and he is discussing in the Bhagavad Gita about what is the right course of action and Krishna in the 18th chapter talks about those whose recommendation is opposite to his so he says he is talking about some people say that these should be given up and others say these should not be given up and Krishna says later on these will purify even the great souls so these should be practised but significantly here what is that there are some people who think that these should be given up because they are faulty so Krishna is using the word for those people whose opinion is different from his opinion he is saying should not be renounced and he is saying those who say that should be renounced they are also those who have controlled their mind they are thoughtful people they are not just driven by the chariot of their mind they think so now if their opinion is different this is a classic example of Krishna himself demonstrating respect amid disagreement he says their opinion is wrong but he is respecting why? because among the millions of people in the world at least these people are thinking about how to become disentangled and most people are so entangled that they don’t even know they are entangled but these people are thoughtful enough to think about the way to disentanglement even the path that they have chosen that may be wrong their purpose is to be appreciated and Krishna appreciates that purpose and therefore he calls them Manish so if we learn to look for something to appreciate in others learn for something to challenge the negative labels that we tend to apply to others then we will be able to prevent disagreement from degenerating to disrespect and that is how we can live cordially even amid disagreement Prabhupada has built a house in which the whole world can live that’s what we often say now does that mean the whole world is going to agree about everything? No the whole world different devotees will come from different backgrounds different natures there will be disagreements but we will be able to live together if we can learn to not see disagreement as deviation I am not saying that all disagreements are acceptable some disagreements can be deviations of course but the point is that if we default as you this person is disagreeing that means this person is deviating then we will fight and we will not be able to live together in Prabhupada’s house but if you want to live together in Prabhupada’s house this virtue which Krishna is exhibiting here in terms of his relationship which Krishna is exhibiting in the Bhagavad Gita of learning to respect even those whom we disagree with that is vital not just for our outreach to the world but also for the maintenance even of our movement that’s how we can have six-fold loving exchanges which Prabhupada said is the lifeblood is the nourishment of the Krishna Consciousness movement so we can learn to disagree without being disrespectful by contextualising the disagreement that this is just one part of who I am not the whole of who I am or the whole of who this person is so I will summarise, I spoke three main points, first point I discussed is that quite often respect, sorry disagreement leads to disrespect when we are in Rajoguna or Tamoguna because then we start raising our voice but sattvic response is refine our argument so for doing that what do we need we need to actually consider that this argument or this difference of opinion not everything, so knowledge in the mode of ignorance means we reduce reality to whatever is our preconception and in religious organisations disagreement can lead to disrespect much more sometimes than in secular organisations because disagreement is seen as a deviation so what is something what is like the external that is taking me to the internal I may equate it with the internal and then if somebody is not valuing that external so much I may start thinking that this person is a deviator but this external is important for me because it’s taking me to the internal but for somebody else some other external may be taking them to the internal so to avoid these negative disagreement going to disrespect what we need to do is not reduce people to labels but see that they are bigger than their labels just because somebody is a Mayavadi or somebody is a meat-eater doesn’t mean everybody is one they also are different so find something to appreciate in others we discussed how Prabhupada differentiated between cultural and philosophical how Prabhupada appreciated even those whom he was calling fools and rascals he was still having compassion how Mahaprabhu appreciated Sarovam Bhattacharya and how Krishna himself appreciates those who say we should renounce the world so by such examples we also can learn this art of disagreeing without becoming disrespectful. Thank you very much. Hare Krishna Nitya Upadhyay Is there any one question? Yes Thank you Prabhu for the super excellent class now you know if you trace back to Krishna consciousness coming into India we see that people who had this culture of being respectful to their elders and who were trained in that particular way for them to take up to this process of Krishna consciousness became relatively easier not to say that others did not take but just to make the point that respect was such an important aspect of our cultural upbringing even say 30-40 years back but now because of this advent of social media and the lack of training to the new generation on this very important aspect of respecting elders respecting the others when they are making a particular point accepting that without really even you may have a disagreement but still you be respectful so this is all a part of the training that we all got and we imbibed from our elders and unfortunately this is lacking in this present day and age so moving forward how do you feel that the preaching of our Krishna conscious philosophy would need to take in order to get such people also into the fold of Krishna consciousness ok so the culture of respect is increasingly lost in today’s world so how can we continue our spiritual outreach in such situations let me start from the opposite perspective that how while respect is important sometimes the hierarchy of respect can become an obstacle I was just talking with one devotee scholar he is a bhakti yoga scholar and he is appreciative of his con so he told me that he came to a temple and he liked the philosophy and he said that this was in America and he liked the chanting also everything he liked and he started practising and he says one day he just came and he asked the question Prabhu can you explain this and suddenly the devotee next to him slapped him and said you are committing an offence he is not a Prabhu he is a Maharaj now he knew nothing about it and this devotee was not even discreet in that he was like quite overt in that so he felt that you know ok this whole process seems to be very complicated so I don’t know when I will do what wrong and he says because of that for six months he stopped coming to the temple see so my point is that sometimes the path of the heart bhakti is the path of the heart we may put such a power structure and hierarchy within that and somebody does one thing wrong now I would say it’s also a problem not with the I am not saying the problem with the culture of respect but how that culture of respect is to be taught so this devotee you are not respecting that Maharaj he was making a point but he was not respecting this person when he was speaking that point so see the irony over there so you are not respecting but in that process I am not respecting you so what happens is the expectation of respect can become a problem it’s not that there should not be respect but what does Prabhupada say about humility to not be anxious to have the satisfaction of being honoured by others so my understanding is that it’s not that respect is lost if you see even in today’s world somebody who becomes expert in a particular field they are respected it’s not that say if you consider social media also it’s not always true but if there is a particular video which has got a lot of views some of them could be artificial but quite often the content in that video is good if somebody has music which is good quality people appreciate it I am not saying that just the number count is necessarily an indicator of quality I am not saying that but quite often if there is quality that is also respected but the difference is that with respect to especially the postmodern or egalitarian western culture is that respect cannot be assumed it has to be earned and that is a big problem so if you see our movement wherever there is the hierarchical vertical culture in India, in China, in Russia, in the CIS states, Krishna conscious movement is flourishing even in China although Hinduism itself is not legal but a lot of people are becoming devotees discreetly but wherever the egalitarian culture is there hierarchical culture is not there we are not able to reach out to a large number of people so why is that because we go expecting respect we assume respect should be there but respect has to be earned so yes should elders be respected traditional culture is that elders should be respected but the contemporary attitude is just because you are older doesn’t mean you are intelligent, doesn’t mean you are wise if you show me your wisdom then I will respect you so it is not that respect is not there but of course I am saying that yes it is overall the way respect was given in the past it is not being given and disrespect is also very much there, I am not denying that but to assume that there is no respect at all, it is not true respect has to be earned it cannot be assumed that’s why just because that’s one of the difference I didn’t highlight, the difference between say religious organisation and spiritual groups or spiritual people just traditionally even in India if somebody is say wearing saffron or somebody is a leader of a spiritual organisation or in some influential position that will bring some respect but in the west it doesn’t matter in the west I am not only talking about America basically wherever there is a galatian kind of culture you have some post I don’t care, show me your wisdom, if you have wisdom then I will respect you so religious hierarchy will not be respected but spiritual calibre will be respected but spiritual calibre people cannot see that directly they can see their position in religious hierarchy but that will not give them respect but if somebody actually has spiritual substance that will be respected so respect has to be earned and that is even among teenagers if you consider they actually need guidance but what they feel is that my parents or my elders are from a completely different generation and what they speak doesn’t make any sense to me if somebody gives guidance in a way that is sensible they take it, it’s not that they don’t take it unfortunately many of the people who make sense to them, don’t give good guidance that is the problem but if we can understand their way of thinking and then try to present it in a way that makes sense to them so respect will have to be earned Mark Twain he said that when I was 17 my father was a fool now I am 25 and I am amazed how much my old man has learned in the 8 years so what happened is by the time he became 25, he also became mature so he started thinking, he started appreciating that wisdom so it takes time so I found that if we don’t assume respect but we act as I answer questions politely, deal with people with respect in a respectable way then respect can be earned thank you very much