How to live materially to grow spiritually Chowpatty Mumbai – Chaitanya Charan

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Hare Krishna. Thank you for coming today. This morning we are discussing from the third canto of the Srimad Bhagavatam, where the verse itself is telling about how the four varanas, ete varanaha svadharmena, that each of these varanas gives us our svadharma, our particular role.
yajanti svagurum harim. What is the purpose of the svadharma? The svadharma is not an end in itself. It is valuable, but the svadharma is meant to help us worship Krishna through the spiritual master.
yajanti svagurum harim. And how do we do it? Shraddhayatma vishuddhyartham. That we do this with faith.
For the purpose of artham, is purification. For the purpose of purification, yajjatah sahavrttibhi. That as we have been born with yajjatah, or as we have been given by our Lord, sahavrttibhi.
So, I’ll be writing and drawing some things over here. So, let’s look at what the verse itself is saying first, before we go into the class. What it is saying is that, we are here in the world.
So, if this is the world, and we are all at different places in the world. Now, at each of these places, we have our svadharma. Svadharma could refer to our particular role in our family, may be mother or father, brother or sister, son or daughter.
It could refer to our particular role in society. May be a teacher, may be a software engineer, may be a lawyer. So, we have our svadharma.
Now, ideally speaking, svadharma should be according to sahavrttibhi. That whatever role we are playing, it is according to our nature. Now, this role we are performing, say we are, in a home we are performing a particular role, in a company we are performing a particular role, in a community we are performing a particular role.
So, we have particular roles. Now, the purpose of this is, that above is Hari. Hari is the Lord.
And, whatever role we are doing, the purpose is, that we should be able to, yajanti, we should be able to worship Lord Hari. And, atma shuddhi, that what should be happening is, that we should be able to be worshipping Lord Hari, and we should be purifying ourselves. So, the idea here is, the verse is telling that, from the material place where we are in the world, we should be able to reach the spiritual.
So, however, Nakshila Prabhupada, in the parpot, he is talking about many things. One thing he talks about is the varna ashram. Then he talks about how, ultimately, all of this is meant to worship the Supreme Lord.
So, we are to ultimately reach the Supreme Lord. bahunam janmanamante janavan mam prapadyate That’s the last verse of Nakshila Prabhupada’s quotes. So, I’ll talk about this particular verse, and three main points today.
I will broadly summarise these points using an acronym, AIR. We all need some breathing space. We need some air to breathe.
So, first is APPRECIATE. What do we appreciate? The relationship between the material and the spiritual. What is the nature of the relationship between the material domain where we are at presently and the spiritual domain we wish to reach? Now, often there is one conception of spiritual life that, say, we are here in the material world, and the purpose of life is to leave the material world and go to the spiritual world.
And, say, here in the spiritual domain, at the topmost level is Krishna. So, for example, we may say, I am not the body, or you are not the body. And the idea is that we are souls, the soul has an eternal relationship with Krishna, and we wish to develop that relationship.
Now, while in principle it is true that we are meant to reach Krishna, at the same time, it’s not this simple. For many people, the bodily identification, the bodily role, are very important. Not just for many people.
For everyone, we have a particular role to play in the world. One of my friends in Russia was telling me, he was giving a class there, he was making the point, you are not your body. And one person from the audience raised his hand, and he asked, OK, if I am not my body, then whose body am I? So, for some people, the identification of the body is so strong, that if I am not my body, then am I somebody else’s body? What is going on? So, for most of us, we are not our body, but at present, we live through our body.
We experience life through our body. So, the way we go to the spiritual world is through the material world. Now, this may be possible for someone who is, say, very, very close to death, or who is extremely renounced, and doesn’t care for the world.
But even then, even if somebody renounces the world, after renunciation, probably they have to live for 20, 30, 40, 50 years, whatever. And, they have to live through the body. We serve Krishna through our body.
So, the relationship between the material and the spiritual, it is, the principle is that, we go through, it is through the material, to the spiritual. Each one of us has to use our particular body that we have, and the body represents one fundamental material reality that we are in. But, along with that, we live in a particular society, a particular family, a particular culture, a particular economy, a particular political situation.
So, we have to go through that to the spiritual. So, the principle is, we go through the material to the spiritual. Now, if we consider Shrila Prabhupada’s own life, when Shrila Prabhupada was in India, at that time, what happened? He was for more than 40 years, from 1922 to 1965, trying to share Krishna Bhakti in India.
And, it was just not working. So, then Prabhupada, we consider this to be India. As you can see, my drawing is very good.
so, this is, now of course, if this is America, now this is, now Shrila Prabhupada was, in many ways, if you consider this, let me just move it. Above this is the spiritual domain. Now, Shrila Prabhupada was trying, from India, in India, to inspire people to become spiritual.
It was not that India was not religious at that time. India was religious. If you look at the religious history of India, post-independence, certainly the government was socialist, not communist in the sense of being aggressively atheistic, but it was certainly, for various reasons, non-theistic.
So, Prabhupada was trying, and it just did not work. Now, Prabhupada could have thought of various reasons. He could have said, maybe, you know, my classes I am giving are too philosophical.
I should tell Katha, and that will attract people. Or, he could have thought, actually I am writing mostly in English. Very few people understand English.
Maybe I should start speaking in local languages. Now, Prabhupada wrote one book, Gita Argaan. He did compose in Bengali.
Maybe I should do that. Prabhupada could have thought of various strategies. But Prabhupada’s spiritual master had told him, share Krishna Bhakti in English.
So, Prabhupada decided to go from India to America. And then, there he found people who were interested in spirituality. Now, then after that, we could say 1922 to 65, Prabhupada was here.
Now, 65 to 70, he was primarily in America. Then around 70, he came back to India. 72 to 77, he was based in India, although he was travelling.
Now, he, the reason that he came up with was that Indians are infatuated by the West. Indians are infatuated by the white skin. And therefore, if Westerners become devotees, and Indians see that, then Indians will also be inspired to practise Bhakti.
Now, if you look at this carefully, Indians not being interested in serious philosophical spirituality is Maya. Indians being attracted by the white skin and the Western world is also Maya. So, what is Shri Prabhupada doing? He is using one form of Maya to counter another form of Maya.
Isn’t it? The Bhagavatam gives an example that, use a thorn, if a thorn has gone in your leg, use another thorn to take out the thorn. So, he found at that particular point, the counterculture was there in the West. Prabhupada probably did not know about the counterculture when he went there.
But he observed that, he saw that was opportune, that was receptive, and thus, he encouraged people to practise Bhakti. So, the idea is that, we cannot go to the spiritual by completely rejecting the material. It is through the material that we go to the spiritual.
So, whatever is the material reality at a particular place, we need to acknowledge that. And, so the idea is, this relationship between the material and the spiritual, we are trying to appreciate the complexity of the relationship, relationship of the material and the spiritual. So, one is that, we reject the material.
The material simply does not matter, only the spiritual matters. Now, that is one way of looking at it. At the same time, this just won’t work.
Say, if somebody comes to our temple, and they don’t know English, they don’t know Hindi, they don’t know Marathi, but they have South America, and they speak Spanish. And, they are giving the class in Spanish. Now, they say material doesn’t matter.
If they give a class in Spanish, nobody will understand the class. Isn’t it? Does the material matter? Yes, we can say that the class, we can be purified just by the sound vibration. But, that is not the purpose.
When we are attending a class, we want to be purified, but we also want to be educated. And, to be educated means, we want to understand what is going on. So, to say, I will reject the material and go to the spiritual.
Now, is the language being spoken material? Yeah, it’s the language spoken at a particular place. But, if we reject the material, that’s not sustainable. And, no.
Now, the problem is that it is not sustainable. Occasionally, for some time, one may just reject the material and go towards the spiritual. I will talk about this a little bit more later.
But, one extreme is to say the material doesn’t matter. And then, the other extreme will be that we connect only with the material. That means, we make the material so important that unless material things are in a particular way, we just cannot move towards the spiritual.
We make the material all important. Everything has to be arranged in this particular way alone. Now, what may happen over there is, this may become unconnected.
So, what do I mean by this? Material has to be in a particular way. So, the material is utterly unimportant. The material is supremely important.
The material is the only important thing. Of course, is the material particularly important? Well, it depends. For example, when Prabhupada went to America, now, the way Krishna arranged things is remarkable.
Now, some of you may be aware that the current American government is trying to curb immigration over there. They are targeting illegal immigration. But along with that, illegal immigrants are also being targeted in some ways.
There are some horror stories of students from India going to America for higher studies and then suddenly their research grants are cut off and their PhD guys say that we just can’t do anything for you. I met so many young people like that. Very difficult situation.
So, just as there is this local immigration situation is there right now. So, it was till 1965 that in America, the immigration rules were very strict. And practically nobody could go to America and stay for long.
So, just two months before Shri Prabhupada landed in America, in 1965, the American government changed its immigration policies. And that’s how Prabhupada went for a two-month visa, but he was able to keep extending his visa. For two months more, two months more, two months more, eventually the government said we will not extend your visa.
So, then Prabhupada told one of his disciples that Prabhupada is actually planning to relocate to Montreal. He said I will make Montreal my base and from Canada I will keep visiting America. But when he was trying in various ways to get his visa, he told one of his disciples, you adopt me as your son.
They were at the age of his biggest granddaughter and grandson. So, but finally, there was a popular musician, Alan Ginsberg, he appreciated Prabhupada’s Hare Krishna mantra teaching and then he had a very good attorney and through that he got the extension. But my point I was making is that when Prabhupada went there to America in 1965, there were very few Indians.
There is one lecture in 1968 where Prabhupada is saying, in 1969-70 I think, he says, this movement is from India and practically I am the only Indian in this movement. So, initially when the Indians started going to America, before 1965 there were a few who were going, but very few. Many of the Indians who were there were basically Indians who had been taken during the British colonial rule as indentured labour.
They were working on the plantation farms and stuff like that. They were more in western days, from there they went to America later. But anyway, so when they started going, naturally they started exploring, what is there, how can we practise our Indian culture over there and they came to ISKCON.
And when they encountered ISKCON centres, there were some encounters, some meetings which Prabhupada had with them and many of them would say, ok Swamiji, you call this a temple, but there is no traditional architecture over there, there is no tower at the top, there is no Garuda Stambha, the Deities are not facing in the eastern direction, nothing is according to traditional architecture. So, now Prabhupada sometimes expresses some annoyance at this narrow-mindedness. His focus, he said, is that ultimately the temple is meant to inspire people to remember Krishna, to connect with Krishna.
So now, when there is a facility, now when we are constructing temples, we try to conform with as much of the traditional architecture and traditional formulation as possible. But at that time it was just starting. So, does the material have to be in a particular way? Say, if we have an extension centre somewhere, we have a youth centre somewhere, imagine if the Deities are not facing in a particular direction.
Does that mean there will be no Krishna over there? Does that mean we cannot worship Krishna over there? No, we can, isn’t it? So, to insist that the material has to be in a particular way, that, instead of connect only with the material, let’s put this as, insist on a particular material, insist on a particular material way, that this is the only way to the spiritual. So now, actually Prabhupada would say sometimes, Indians, they are only good at giving suggestions. They don’t do anything beyond that.
Now, that was not true when he came to India. Prabhupada appreciated how much the life members and others helped him. But the point is, that we can insist on a particular material, and I will talk about the importance of the material, but to say that without a particular material reality, one cannot connect with the spiritual, is to give too much importance to the material.
So, the principle is what? We need the material, for what is the relationship? That the material is a means to the spiritual. So, should the material be in a particular way? That’s the question, but the key point is, I will talk about that, but the key point is, that we have to have, the material to go towards the spiritual. So, because we live in the material world, and we have to function in the material world.
When Arjuna was studying at his Guru’s ashram, at that time, there was this test for all the students. There was a target on top of a tree, and all the students were asked, what do you see? And finally, what did Arjuna say? I see only the eye of the bird. Now, it’s interesting, Arjuna did not say, I see Krishna.
A devotee is supposed to see Krishna everywhere. And yes, but your service at that particular point, is what? You are an archer, and you have to see the archery target. Now, the archery target is the Artha.
And in Artha, Artha is the material means, the material value, and the Artha is meant for Paramarth. So, we can say material is Artha. And Artha is meant for Paramarth.
Paramarth is ultimately Krishna. So, the material also has some value. It is not zero.
Yes, it is zero ultimately at the time of death. Nothing material will be there with us. But while we are here in this world, it has value.
So, it is through the material that we go to the spiritual. We don’t reject the material. Yes, for example, there is the story of Chitraketu and his son Harshashok, who says, which mother, which father? And he may say, okay, all these relationships are temporary.
But you see what is significant is, when is that son saying that? It is after death. After the relationship in this particular life is over. Then, he has gone to a next, he is on the way to the next life, next lifetime and the next place.
From that perspective, when this life’s relationship is over, then one can ask, okay, which mother, which father? But while we are in this relationship, while in this world, the particular relationship is important. And we have the contrast in the tenth canto, when Krishna meets Vasudev and Devaki, after the killing of Kamsa. So, Krishna says over there, son is meant to serve his parents.
But because of me, you had to suffer so much. Even before my birth and after my birth. And yet, you saved me.
I was not able to do anything for you. But in future, I will try to make up for this. So, he basically is very humble, acknowledges the importance of the relationship, he apologises that I was not able to do anything.
So, of course, we understand that the material has to be a means to the spiritual. The idea is that whatever relationship we have, actually, Prabhupada says one of the purposes of ISKCON is to bring all people closer to each other and closer to Krishna, the ultimate reality, the prime entity. The idea is, get closer to each other.
It is the international society for Krishna consciousness. It is, why society? Because while we are in the world, we need to be together. We need a sense of community, we need a sense of bonding.
Prabhupada says, In that he says, That is so important. That we need to, he says, especially the six-fold loving exchanges nourish the life of the Krishna consciousness movement. So, what that means is, if we are here, and say somebody else is here, now we may have a material relationship with them.
The material bond with them. So, now the ideal situation, which Prabhupada is saying is that, we come closer to each other and we come closer to Krishna. So, he says that we come closer to each other and closer to Krishna.
Now, of course, we may say we don’t always live in the ideal material situation. That is true, and we have to deal with that. But the principle is, the material is not simply to be rejected, but the material is to be utilised in such a way that we move towards the spiritual.
So, now, why are we discussing all this now? I will take Varanasi as an example, but I will take some other examples also. Anyone remember the acronym I was discussing? AIR. So, I will talk later about why I am talking about AIR specifically.
A was what? Appreciate. So, appreciate that the material is taking, material is meant to take us towards the spiritual. We use our material body, and the next part is inspect.
Inspect means, we will have to inspect whether a particular material thing is taking me towards the spiritual or not. So, when I am playing a particular material role, when I am acting in a particular material capacity, is that taking me closer to Krishna or is it not taking me closer to Krishna? So, I will take 4-5 different examples to illustrate this principle. There are many places where Srila Prabhupada talks about material education, for example.
And he sometimes compares schools, or today’s schools to spiritual slaughterhouses. And yes, this was what I grew up in my Krishna consciousness. The education is like a slaughterhouse.
And if we look at Srila Prabhupada’s own approach, when Prabhupada met scholars, and he had very respectful, thoughtful dialogues with the scholars. Now, who has designated these people as scholars? It is the same material education system. Isn’t it? It is that there is a very insightful letter of Srila Prabhupada, where Prabhupada started a Bhaktivedanta Institute.
And the Bhaktivedanta Institute was that meant especially to reach out to more academically orientated people, scientific people, or studies of religion, philosophy, and all those. So now, if I consider the inspect, that is education. So, if we consider education, it is we reject the mundane means, we say it is a spiritual slaughterhouse.
So, that is the same principle of how we use the material for the spiritual. We say this education is mundane, we call it a spiritual slaughterhouse and reject it. Now, that is one way of looking at it.
Now, unfortunately, but we look at, the other side is that Srila Prabhupada said that, but I said, Prabhupada also appreciated scholarship. So now, if there are material scholars, material scholars, Prabhupada had, as I said, in his letter which Prabhupada wrote to the B.I. scientists, he said that when you are approaching people who are material achievers, he said they will be a little puffed up. And they have a right to that.
It is interesting, they have a right to that. They have achieved something substantial in this world and he said, we should learn the art of presenting Krishna consciousness intelligently to such people. We should appreciate different points of view and present Krishna consciousness in a way that will relate with them.
So, I have a whole three-part seminar on how to present Krishna consciousness effectively just based on this one particular letter. But the point is, Prabhupada, he is saying two things. That they may be proud, but we recognise that.
We accept that. They deserve it. So, we may say the educational system is mundane, but suppose somebody actually becomes an IITian, somebody goes to IIM, somebody goes to Ivy League, they require a certain level of, first of all, talent, and then the commitment also.
It’s not easy. And we could say, at the very least, the people who get to the top in the educational system, we can look at the content of the educational system and lament that there is nothing spiritual in it. But we can also look at the principle over there.
Whatever is being in the syllabus, people have to study to get through that. Now, of course, you can say there are exceptions where you can just buy a certificate. But that’s not the way majority things work.
So, to rise to material success also requires some effort, and that has to be valued. And those people will be valued in the material world. And so, we just get very impressed by material scholars, and if a material scholar says that there is no God, oh, there is no God.
No. That is taking things too far. So, we don’t want to connect with the material scholars.
We consider them as the ultimate authorities. We don’t want that. So, what do we do? So, what is the idea that it is again through the material to the spiritual.
So, when I am in America, many times devotee parents ask me that, generally I spend almost five to six months a year outside India in various places doing western outreach or outreach in the west, more precisely. But many times devotee parents ask, should we get our children back to India? Should we relocate to India for continuing, for making sure that our children get good values and good education? Now, that’s a valid concern. I have talked with many spiritual leaders, including Zola Swaradhanath Maharaj about this, how to answer such questions.
So, Maharaj told me that I have seen all combinations. Like there are devotee parents whose kids in India become devotees, and there are parents whose kids in India don’t become devotees. And there are devotee parents in America whose kids become devotees.
And there are devotee parents in America whose kids don’t become devotees. So, what he told me is that basically it will depend on time, place, circumstance. It is something which each individual has to decide.
So, now we have tried to create various support systems. We may have some devotee schools. I have seen that there are four broad approaches that I have seen in the western world.
One is we start our own schools. And we have our schools which more or less teach. So, the thing I am talking about now is that if we consider the material and the spiritual.
So, if we consider the education. So, one option is say we are in the mainstream educational world. Let’s put it this way.
This is the mainstream world. So, mainstream educational world. So, now one is we try to create some gurukuls.
So, we send our children to the gurukuls and there they learn. They learn some academic knowledge also and they learn something spiritual also. Now, that is one thing.
Now, in depending on the particular place, some places have a lot of autonomy available where as long as the students pass particular exams, what exactly you are teaching them doesn’t matter. So, gurukul could be one thing. And then we could have another model could be homeschooling.
Now, homeschooling has become very popular in the west and even Christians see for Indians often we think of America as Hollywood, America as materialistic. But actually among the western countries, America is the most religious country. I was in New Zealand and one Kiwi person was asking me, okay, where all do you travel? So, I spent a lot of time in America.
He says, oh, America is filled with those religious nuts who elected Trump. So, in the western world, America is considered a very religious country. And, yes, if you consider the southern side, the midland part of America is quite religious.
So, a lot of Christian conservatives who also feel the education system is not good. So, they are sending, they are supporting homeschooling. They have created a lot of good systems.
Devotees are also using homeschooling. Homeschooling is not as developed in India as it is in the west. But then there are concerns that there are Muslims also using this.
And then there is a fear that they may indoctrinate their children in certain radical and extremist portions of the Hadith and the Quran and that will prevent cultural integration or assimilation. So, there are some concerns about homeschooling. But homeschooling is one way where a lot of devotee parents are adopting, not a lot, but some number of devotee parents are adopting that.
Now, another could be that we have a devotee school. Now, this devotee school is teaching the mainstream education, but it is also having some devotional principles. In UK, we have the Krishna Avanti school where basically, in many western countries, education is considered to be like a fundamental right and the government supports education.
So, we don’t, parents don’t have to pay anything for their educational child unless they send their child to a private school. They go to public school, then there is nothing to be paid. So, in UK and some European countries, the system is that you can teach your children your religious and cultural values and the government will fund that education also.
But as long as certain academic standards are met. So, it is not just for Hindus, but for Muslims, for Christians, for everyone that is there. So, we have a school within the mainstream educational system, but we are also having some spiritual values.
Now, another could be that we have a mainstream school itself. We can say we have a mundane school, but not all mundane schools are the same. So, if we focus on a mundane school, some schools, they are focussing more on, relatively, there is more emphasis on study culture.
There are academic achievers over there. So, generally speaking, yes, there might be some materialism, there might be some mundane enjoyment, but the focus is on studies. And we might have that kind of school.
Sometimes devotees find that we send our children to some Christian schools over there. In India also, convent schools are there. For the academic standard, they are reasonably respected.
Sometimes we may decide, especially once you go to college, we may decide, which college do I go to? It will depend primarily on the material calibre of the college. So, we can say in schools, children are much more influenceable. As they go to college, they are also influenceable, but if they have developed a culture of studying and achieving, then that’s what we hope they will focus on.
So, now, should ISKCON be in the business of insisting on a particular way that devotee parents should educate their children? Is there only a particular material way by which people go to the spiritual? Not necessarily. Yes, if we could create gurukuls, if we could create schools which are helpful for growing. Now, running a devotee school is not easy.
It requires a huge amount of effort, huge amount of dedication, and then also the problem comes up, in the school, how much devotional element do we bring in? I know one devotee who was in a particular school in North America, who relocated from one end of North America to another end, just so that he could send his child to devotee school. But in this devotee school, what happens is there were Indian kids and American kids, American devotee kids. But the American devotee kids grew up in a different culture.
I mean, their home culture is different. They are devotees, but still their home culture is different over there, because they are born in American household. So the devotees are telling me, actually I feel as if homeschooling is better than the school for this reason.
Because here, they say that, if the other kids are non-devotees, they say, this is our principle, we don’t do those things. But then these are devotees and they are doing all those things. Then what happens is it becomes more difficult to explain.
So now, can a particular thing be mandated? No. We create as many options as possible and it’s up to individual parents and individual children to decide. Now, I know a couple of devotee parents whose child was super genius.
IQ is about 160 or something like that. And there was a devotee school and he found that in this devotee school, he was just getting bored. Because not everybody has that level of IQ.
So there are schools for kids who are specially talented. And if you go to these schools, I was invited to give a talk in one such school. And it’s amazing.
It’s like, you go through the park or the garden or whatever. There, nobody is fooling around. All the students are with books.
Studying. Even if you see the kids gossip, they are not gossiping. They are talking about what do you think about this concept and that concept.
And it’s amazing. When I gave a class, this was a school kid, 9th, 10th standard, but I felt as if these are philosophy doctorate students. Brilliant questions.
So now, there are some places like that. So we have to see. Going back to the shloka, that what will nourish a particular person at a particular point? That is something which is, we need to inspect what works the best.
So, that’s why there has to be a certain level of autonomy. Which material will help a person to go toward the spiritual? So, for example, what kind of job should a devotee take? Now, that depends on the individual. In a house, should only the father work or the father and mother work? Well, these are things which have to be individually decided.
Now, it depends. Certainly, parenting is a very important responsibility, and especially in the early years of a child, a mother’s role is very important. So now, ideally speaking, the mother, if she’s available at that particular time, that’s vital.
But at the same time, there are individual situations. So, we need to inspect how the material helps a person to reach the spiritual. And, I just gave education as a big example, but the same principle applies to various things in life.
So, it could apply to our job, it could apply to the place where we stay. Like, should we stay in America or India? In India, should we stay here or there? That’s something which individuals need to decide. Now, of course, this does not mean that every material thing is just the same.
There is anukulyasya sankalpa, pratikulyasya varjanam. So, we have to decide the principle what material situation is more favourable and what material situation is less favourable. And accordingly, we adopt that situation which is favourable for us to go closer to Krishna.
But, that could also mean that, like a child who gets very good education and child becomes materially very influential, that child may be able to serve Krishna much more in the future. Now, it may also happen that in pursuing the child’s material, influential career, the child may get so caught in that, the child may go away from Krishna. So, in the material world, there are no guarantees of what will work and what will not work.
But, the principle is that, the principle itself is that there are principles and there are details. Shrila Prabhupada said that there are principles and there are details. And, we need to inspect what is the principle and what is the detail.
And, Shrila Prabhupada himself asked about this. That, what is the principle and what is the detail? So, he said that, it requires intelligence. It requires some intelligence to understand the difference.
So, we could say that, if we, when we are trying to cultivate Krishna consciousness, when we are trying to approach through the material to the spiritual. So, we are trying to cultivate Krishna consciousness. So, here, I am going to the last part now.
How do I want to talk about? AIR. So, I talk about inspect. We need to inspect the material to see whether it takes us towards the spiritual.
So, the last part, R, would be reformulate. Reformulate means that we need, because time changes, the world changes, we change. What might be particular at a particular time to bhakti may become uncool later on.
It depends. When I studied my engineering at that time, I had done, I had given GRE. I had done fairly well in GRE.
So, I had opportunity to go to several American universities. And, that’s the time when I was introduced to bhakti also. So, when I was in Pune, Radheshyam introduced me to Radhanath Maharaj and he said that, you know, he has an opportunity to go to America for higher studies.
He is deciding what to do. So, I had two interactions like that with Maharaj. So, Maharaj gave different answer at different times.
First time he said, you know, if you want to go back to Godhead, stay in India. If you want to go to hell, go to America. Laughter So, Laughter Laughter That was quite strong.
Second time again, after a few months, I had not yet decided. Radheshyam Brogan introduced me to Maharaj. I said, you know, see America, you can go to get higher education.
In India, you can get the highest education. Raj Vidya, Raj Goviyam. Laughter So, now, then, now, at that particular time, Maharaj himself was not focussing much on western outreach.
So, Maharaj’s focus was on India. And, the idea was that Indians who go to the west, they will get caught in materialism and they will lose their spirituality. But, now, Maharaj himself is focussing on western outreach and many devotees who go to the west, Maharaj encourages them to help over there.
He encourages them to come to New York, where the Bhakti Centre is there. And, even devotees, students also who go there, he encourages them to help in the local temple outreach. Now, what has happened is, Indians are playing a very vital role in our temples abroad.
And, Indians who come, they are already trained in Bhakti over here and they go to America, often, they get lot more responsible services in the west than they might get in India. Because, in India, we have hundreds and thousands of devotees. So, it may be difficult to get very responsible services.
If somebody is serious, they can grow over there. This is not a recommendation to go to America. That is not the point.
But, my point is, things change. So, that Indians are playing a very significant role in our movement, sustenance and expansion in the west. And, India is also rising on the geopolitical stage.
Indians, now, if you have seen the recent elections, the number of Indians on both sides in the American political divide, who were political candidates over there. So, the idea is that, sometimes, what might at one particular time be unfavourable, may at a later time become favourable. So, we need to reformulate, according to what material will take us towards the spiritual.
In 1967, in 1968, really, our movement took off. And, that time, Prabhupada made huge plans for expanding Krishna Consciousness. So, one of the things he started was a political party.
It was called, In God We Trust. And, Prabhupada said, one advantage of being a politician is that you can liberally criticise everyone else. But, then, there was one devotee, in fact, Prabhupada even said that, you can become the next president of America.
But then, after some time, this devotee, he came to Prabhupada and he said, Balwantru, and he said, Prabhupada, are you no longer enthusiastic about the political party? I am very enthusiastic. But, don’t ask me for any money. What happened was, initially, the idea of political party was what Prabhupada encouraged.
But, eventually, although we said, democracy, everybody has equal rights. But, actually, funding a campaign requires astronomical amounts of money. And, Prabhupada felt, at that particular time, whatever resources we had, they were better utilised for the direct propagation of Krishna Consciousness than for effecting political change and promoting a particular candidate.
So, Prabhupada didn’t reject the idea itself. But, he didn’t emphasise it. So, reformulated it.
Is this important? It’s important, but that’s not going to be our emphasis at a particular time. So, eventually, Prabhupada came back to India. What happened? So, this reformulating means what? Basically, according to Desha Kaala Patra, according to time, place, circumstance, we need to evaluate that which material is favourable to the spiritual at a particular time.
So, when Prabhupada went to America. Now, in America, there are many demographics. And, particular demographic, demographic is the population group.
That is, we consider this to be USA. The particular demographic that resonated with Prabhupada’s teachings was the counterculture. The counterculture was a group of young people, primarily, who basically were disillusioned with the idea of the great American dream.
You know, you have a career, you get education, you have a career, you have a job, you have a nice white house with a picket fence, and you have family, you have children, and your life is successful. They saw that. Their parents, their other elders, they had a successful life, but they were not really happy in life.
So, this counterculture was the demographic that Prabhupada found was what connected with him. Within the counterculture, the very small demographic was hippies. Not all the counterculture people were hippies.
So, Prabhupada found that was receptive, and Prabhupada presented Krishna Consciousness to them. But then, eventually, Prabhupada says, we shouldn’t be preaching only to them. We don’t want to be identified as hippies.
We are devotees. So, there was this movie, Hare Krishna, Hare Ram, that came up, where it was talking about the hippies, but they mixed the hippies with Hare Krishnas. So, now when Prabhupada came back to India, now, in India, something interesting happened.
If you see, that in India, Srila Prabhupada, coming with his western followers, created a sensation. But at the same time, while there was a sensation, there was no substantial transformation. What do I mean by that transformation? We don’t have lots of Indians who became initiated by Srila Prabhupada.
Now, there could be various reasons for that. What happened was that many people were attracted to Srila Prabhupada. But, many of those people who were attracted to Srila Prabhupada were well-established in society.
They were influential business people, they were influential government officers or whatever. And they were established in society and because they were established in society, many of them were also established in their own culture and their own spirituality. So, many of the prominent life members who helped, for example, in the Juhu temple, they were often, many of them were initiated disciples of certain Mayavadi gurus.
And, when Prabhupada saw that these people, they were appreciating but they were not really committing, then that’s when Prabhupada created the life membership programme. Now, if you consider among the Indian demographic, the life members, now the amount for life membership is not huge, but it is not a small amount also. At that time, it was not a small amount.
In fact, one devotee showed me a picture, he is writing another life story of Srila Prabhupada. So, he showed me, there was one lawyer in his nameplate. Now, people have their nameplates and they have their degrees.
So, he had LLB and below that it was ISKCON life member. So, at that time, because ISKCON just created a sensation that, oh, this Swami has gone to America and has made western people into devotees. See, before Srila Prabhupada also, others had gone to America, other gurus from India and they had had some influence.
But, it was Srila Prabhupada alone who brought about a cultural transformation. I mean, appreciating Vedantic thought is one thing, but adopting the cultural elements, like say, wearing dhoti kurta or saree or some of these externals, that creates a sensation, that creates an impact. So, his life members, we see, first of all, many of them were well-to-do.
They were wealthy and they were already spiritually inclined or spiritually committed. So, for them, it was mostly the cultural national pride that attracted them. Oh, our Indian culture is so great and this Swami, he has gone to America and made Americans into devotees.
So, Prabhupada tapped that. And, in one sense, if we look at Prabhupada’s writing in 1960s, there is no much mention of building giant temples. In the back to Godhead, when he visions of a Gita community, he doesn’t mention temple as a very big thing over there.
But, when he came to India, if you look at Prabhupada’s writings also, Prabhupada does not really talk a lot about building grand temples. He talks about temples, but there is not a lot of emphasis on building grand temples. But, when he came to India from 1970 to 1977, it was all about building grand temples.
In the entire volume, let there be a temple. So, Prabhupada saw this as a way, like say, Indians are attracted because of the cultural national pride. Oh, this Swami has got western disciples.
So, what is the icon that the cultural national pride will want? Some temples. Now, if you look at, there is one devotee friend of mine who is doing his PhD in temples in North America. So, he said that Swami Prabhupada is one of the pioneers, not one of the.
Now, of course, Swami Narayana has built much bigger temples and they have focused only on temples. They don’t focus no criticism of them here, but they don’t focus so much on other missionary activities. They are mostly reaching out to people from their particular community.
But the idea of building big temples in modern times is something actually Prabhupada pioneered in India. So, what happened was, Prabhupada reformulated, okay, if people are not becoming dedicated disciples, that does not mean we have to reject them. We can engage them.
So, we engage them in not just giving a financial contribution. The idea was that you come to a temple, stay in the temple, experience the temple environment and by that you move toward Krishna. So, the idea is which material is favourable to the spiritual.
That is something which every person, now he says, under the Guru, under the Guru’s guidance, we have to develop our intelligence and we have to decide what material will be favourable for the spiritual. So, now we consider Varanashram. Prabhupada did not start the International Society for Varanashram Re-establishment.
International Society for Krishna Consciousness. Now, is Varanashram material or spiritual? We could say it’s spiritual in the sense that it’s created by Krishna. It’s material in the sense that it is an arrangement in the material world based on material propensities.
It is not that the Atma is Brahmin, Kshatriya, Vaishya, Shudra. Categorical Mahaprabhu says, Naaham Vipronachanarpatir Naapi Vaishyona Shudro Gopi Bhartur Padakamalayor Dasa Dasa Anudasa. So, now, we could look at it from both ways.
Now, we say Krishna has created Varanashram. Krishna says that we have the 4.13 in the Bhagavad Gita where Krishna says that Chatur Varnam Maya Srishtam. Now, he has created the system but what does that he has created the system mean? It’s not that when a baby is born, on his forehead baby is written Brahmin, Kshatriya, Vaishya, Shudra.
No. So, these are natural divisions in society but who falls in which division? That is something which a lot of careful observation is required. And it’s now which particular job today falls in which division? That’s also not that simple.
Now, sometimes somebody may be a faculty and because a faculty is Brahmana work. Well, true. But as a faculty, their main role might be admin.
Is it that when they are a faculty, they are a Brahmana. When they take an admin role, then they become a Kshatriya. Or say somebody is a doctor.
Doctors traditionally, Vaidyas are considered Brahmanas. But somebody becomes a surgeon, then they are dealing with the body. Because you are dealing too much with the body, so you are a Shudra.
So, like you study and you study for so many years, you become a Brahmana. You study a little more, you become a Shudra because of that. How does that work? So, then the question comes up that is the Varna determined by the vritti or the job? Is it determined by internal tendencies that we have or is it determined by a particular job we have? How many people can say that the jobs they have today are according to their tendencies? Not many people can say that, actually.
That’s one of the unfortunate situations in the world today. So, how exactly is Varanashram to be implemented? What does implementing Varanashram mean? Some people say it means okay, everybody should live in a farm. But, it’s not that everybody in Varanashram lived in a farm.
The Pandavas actually were given wilderness, Khandava, and they converted it into Indraprastha. So, basically converting something rural or even pre-rural into urban is seen as Krishna’s mercy. Isn’t it? That is seen as Krishna’s mercy.
So, it is not that everybody has to go to a rural place to practise Krishna consciousness. So, the idea is which material will be favourable for whom? For somebody who has lived in a city throughout their life, they go to a they start going and living in a farm. Some people may just be fried out by a city and they may like it.
But, sometimes even the basic amenities are not there in a farm and you don’t have running water and you don’t have this and you don’t have that and then, sometimes that going to that material and adjusting to that material can itself become a material tension. And then, practising spirituality may be very difficult. So, it becomes many devotees who work in farm communities.
Prabhupada said you will get more time to chant Hare Krishna. But, many places I have seen, you build farm communities, you cannot do sadhana in the morning because in the afternoon the sun becomes so hot, you cannot work in the fields. So, you wake up and go and work on the fields.
And you come back and then, maybe in the wake up you do some Mangal Aarti. But, most devotees who work on the farm, especially if you are actually working in the heat, in the farm, they do their japa in the afternoons. Now, is that really favourable to bhakti? Who knows? We can’t really make a categorical claim.
This is not a criticism of farm communities at all. It’s very important in their own way. But, my point is to insist that a particular material is the way to the spiritual.
Not necessarily. For somebody who is young, maybe they want to live in the city, they want to grow materially and that’s what is favourable for them. But, maybe when they go 50, 60, they feel, okay, I’ve had enough of this.
Maybe then they want to go to a more secluded place. And that’s where they want to practise bhakti. So, that’s why, reformulate what is favourable for my Krishna Consciousness.
What is anukun? So, Tamal Krishna Maharaj, I’ll conclude at this point. I talk about Varanashram. So, what would Varanashram mean? How would it apply? It will vary.
But, the principle is that our material life should be in such a way that it’s favourable for our spiritual growth. So, how will that work out? The Bhaktivant hospital is an example of how devotees are working together in a particular profession. And they’re also practising spirituality and they’re sharing spirituality.
So, it can vary according to time, place, circumstance. So, now, with respect, Tamal Krishna Maharaj wrote, one of the last articles that he wrote was about culture and Krishna. So, this is for, against or beyond.
What does it mean is that if this is Krishna and now, across the world, there are different cultures. So, there is Indian culture, there is European culture, there is American culture, there is, say, Japanese culture. There are many different cultures in the world.
So, now, broadly, if this is Indian culture. Now, this could be a bit of a controversial point and I could get into trouble. So, please don’t quote me out of context over here.
Whatever I say. There are two broad conceptions. One is from whichever culture you are, you have to come to Indian culture and then you can go to Krishna.
So, this is conception one. Now, the other conception is that from whichever culture you are, you can go towards Krishna. So, it is not that an American has to become a culturally Indian person to practise bhakti.
You can. So, there are some devotees who say, this is the second point. They say, ISKCON is meant to be a path back to Krishna, not a path back to India.
Now, who is right? Let’s take a, when we talk about culture, there are three different things over here. We can talk about clothes, the dress that we wear. We can talk about food and we can talk about, say, nomenclature.
I’ll explain each of these. So, now with respect to clothes, Srila Prabhupada did recommend, some people may say insist, but Prabhupada at least recommended that devotees adopt a particular set of clothes. And he was, he often spoke very proudly that western devotees, they are wearing dhoti, kurtas and sarees and they are practising bhakti.
Now, there are also other sections where other passages, the cloth in the dress is immaterial. You can wear whatever dress you want, but you can practise bhakti. There is a conversation between Allen Ginsberg and Srila Prabhupada in New Vrindavan.
So, when I started focussing on western outreach, that was, Radhanath Maharaj told me, read that conversation very carefully. So, therefore, Allen Ginsberg, he was a famous musician at that particular time, not as famous as George Harrison, but fairly famous at that particular time. So, he is telling Prabhupada, Swamiji, your movement will not grow much in the West.
So, Prabhupada says, why? He says, because you are too Indian. And he gives this example about the clothes and he says, Prabhupada says, no, actually, you can wear whatever clothes you want. But then Prabhupada recommended, he could say, may insist that devotees wear particular clothes.
Now, how important are the particular clothes? There is a certain level of difference of opinion among the devotees across the world. Those who are culturally conservative, they say, we have to wear a particular set of clothes to be, if you are a serious devotee. Others may say, no, it’s not required.
Now, we could say that in clothes also, there could be a particular dress that we wear or there is a particular kind of dress that we wear. I was in a community where there is, near Brisbane, we have a New Govardhan community and there they have the Bhufa, people who volunteer and they come and stay. So, there is a Krishna village below the hill.
On top of the hill, they have the temple and around the temple, they have the devotees staying over there. So, now, for those people who stay at the bottom, these are western people who just come to have a spiritual experience, work on the farm and they want to live close to nature. So, for them, there is no dress code over there.
But they are told that if you come up to the temple, temple is a sanctified place, so they tell that whoever is coming, from your shoulders to your knees, your body should be covered. And it’s interesting, they say that emphasise this for everyone, not just for women. And this is a sacred place and we would request you to respect the sanctity of the place.
And people accept that. Now, in ISKCON there is some proposal that should we impose a particular dress code for people to come to our temples. Now, some people say, yes, we should emphasise.
But then, others say that we are having preaching mission. Now, if at least young people are coming to the temple, however dressed they might be here, what is more important, that they wear a particular dress and come to the temple or at least they come to the temple? It depends. Now, we say, coming to the temple is more important.
Prabhupada wanted temple to be in a particular way. So, now, how important is a particular dress? Well, it depends. We could say, certainly a sattvic dress is important.
That there could be Rajasic and Tamasic dress. Tamasic dress may be no dress. So, sattvic dress is important.
Now, does it have to be in a particular way? Well, it depends on deshi kalapatra. So, that sense of modesty does not have to be equated with a particular set of clothes. There could be modest dressing in various ways.
But the point is that there are differences of opinion and there could be some people who say that this is the way. You have to come to Indian culture and move towards Krishna. That’s fair enough.
Some people may say, no, this is not required. That is also fair enough. Prabhupada built a house in which the whole world can live.
And what that means is that there are many rooms in this house. And not everyone will be able to live in every room. That sometimes when you say, Prabhupada said, cooperate.
So, cooperate can mean work together. But cooperate can also mean co-operate. You work here, I will work there.
So, you work in a particular way, I’ll work in a particular way. I know one place in America where the father is the temple president of a particular temple. And that’s where mostly Indians come.
And the son is also a dynamic devotee. But the son does not like to go to his father’s temple. The son goes to a western outreach centre.
And he is born in America. And the western outreach centre has a slightly different mood over there. So, we say that these Indians who are born in America, they are like coconuts.
You know, they are brown from outside but white from inside. So, now, they are interested in practising. This kid, he is very interested in practising.
He has taken quite responsibility. His father was very unhappy initially. Why are you not coming to the temple in which you are born and you grew up? But then, now his father is quite happy.
I talk with him that he is going to this particular western outreach centre. And he feels, you know, I meet people who are like-minded over there. And they are able to move forward.
So, in the Krishna consciousness movement, there can be many different rooms. And not every room has to have everything in a particular way. Now, if you consider with respect to food, now, Srila Prabhupada actually taught even western devotees how to make Indian, you could say more, specially Bengali cuisine.
But didn’t Prabhupada insist on that? Now, is it that in ISKCON, say, an American devotee has to start eating Indian food to become a devotee? In many ways, we can say the opposite has happened. Like western cuisine has come to India through ISKCON. Isn’t it? It was after I came to ISKCON, I came to know what is chowmein.
I didn’t know about that. So, now, is that a bad thing? Well, yena kena prakaar yena manna krishna niveshe So, it is that whatever food we are offering, in our Govindas, often we have different kinds of cuisines and people come for that and they get some favourable devotional impressions. So, some devotees may say, if you are a serious devotee, you should eat traditional food.
Okay, that’s their way of functioning. But does it have to… So, there are certain aspects of Krishna consciousness, there are principles and some are details. So, what happens is… So, if we make everything into a principle, if everything becomes a principle, then we become fanatical.
Everything is a principle, then we become fanatical. So, I was in a particular community. Actually, I have a website, I do online outreach also.
So, one devotee told me, connected with my question and answer. Then I encouraged him to go to local devotee community. And then I was doing a youth retreat in Eco Village.
So, he had come there for the retreat. And then I asked him, how is he connected with local community? He said, there are two communities over there. And there are two groups.
And he said, there is a Kurukshetra going on between the two groups. I said, okay. I have heard of a lot of things.
I said, what was the reason? He said, there are two… Both of them are congregation groups. There is no temple over there officially. And they meet on the weekends.
And on weekends, on Saturday, Sunday, they have Mangala Aarti. As a community come together. I said, that’s good.
He says, one group has Mangala Aarti at 4.30. And the other group has Mangala Aarti at 5 o’clock. And the group which has Mangala Aarti at 4.30, they said, Prabhupada said, Mangala Aarti means 4.30. We are doing Mangala Aarti at 5 o’clock, it is not Mangala Aarti, it is Amangala Aarti. Krishna is not going to accept that Mangala Aarti.
We have to follow Prabhupada. You are deviating, you will be lost. So now, okay, whether you have 4.30 or 5, the point you have that Mangala Aarti is very important.
Now we have a temple which is in the heart of the city over here. And we had some concerns with the neighbours. So that’s why we have Mangala Aarti at 5. But the same spiritual vibrancy is there whether it is 4.30 or 5. So we make everything into a principle, we become fanatic.
But on the other hand, we make everything into a detail. Then what happens is, we become sentimental. We start thinking, oh, you know, whether whether we chant Hare Krishna or not.
Ultimately, it’s a matter of bhav. All these, you know, why do you keep chanting a mantra so much again and again and again? It’s all external. Why do you have to meet a particular count? It’s all material.
Just want a bhav. The problem is bhav ka bhav hai. So we can’t make everything into a detail that can be adjusted.
So therefore, what we need to do is, we need to emphasise. Emphasise the principles. And then, we need to adapt the details.
Now, within our movement itself, different devotees may, to some extent, have different ideas about what are principles and what are details. And that is okay. We cannot really mandate that.
Time will tell if somebody considers this to be a detail. And then, do they eventually start developing love for Krishna? Do their people who are cultivated by them, do they eventually come to the level of loving Krishna? Or do they at least become favourable to Krishna? We’ll have to see. Different projects may have different definitions of success also.
So I’ll conclude this last part about nomenclature. I’ll mention three things. I was talking about clothes, food and nomenclature.
So for many westerners, our Indian names are very difficult to pronounce. So I had a devotee whose initial name was Supratik Ghosh. So he thought that I will use my initiated name in my workplace also.
So he showed me a letter. He was a faculty in college. So his student wrote, Dear Dr. Ghosh.
So then he replied back saying, you know, always ready to haunt you, Dr. Ghosh. So now, Ghosh is not really a very difficult name to pronounce. But sometimes some of our names are quite difficult to pronounce.
Now see, some Russian names are also long. But in that, there is the name Caranova or whatever. These are straight names.
The Indian names somehow are quite difficult for the western tongue to pronounce. So when I started going out to the west, devotees would introduce me as Chaitanya Charan Prabhu or Chaitanya Charan Das. People would not get it only.
So I was going on a, I was leading a group of devotees on a trip of India. These were mostly yoga students from the west. Most of them were women.
So finally, one of those Mataji, she said that, you know this woman, she said, Chaitanya. So, Shamanand Prabhu and I, we were going together. So initially, they would not get our names only.
So they would call us as Tall Monk and Short Monk. So, anyway, finally one of those girls got, she said, Chaitanya. So, I asked her, wonderful, how did you get the name? She said, I thought of Tanya taking Chai.
So, I was thinking, this is no Sanskrit scholar will write a Sandhi Vigraha like this. So, I talk with Maharaj, I talk with senior devotees. Now in the western outreach, I introduce myself simply as Charan.
You know. So, it’s a straight forward way. Many devotees who do western outreach, they have to shorten their names.
Now, there is one spiritual master, it is gone, who went way too far. He would give initiated names which would be western names. The three sisters who got initiated and when they were initiated, they got the names Rose, Lily and Aphrodite.
That was their initiated names. Now, that didn’t work. That spiritual master is no longer in his coin.
So, we respect the tradition, no doubt. But then, we also have to live in the world. So, I’ll conclude this.
What is the operating principle for doing this? Srila Prabhupada says, what is realisation? He says, if you have realisation means that there is scripture. Now, scripture can mean also the broad tradition, the culture from the tradition and there is the audience interest. He says this in the first canto.
He said, we should be able to present the message in a way that is actually interesting for the audience. So, we have to, Prabhupada says, we cannot take something which is not given in scripture just because it is interesting to the audience. But the same thing, it is not that everything in the scripture will necessarily be relevant to the audience at a particular point.
So, we need to find out what in scripture is relevant to the audience today and we need to present that. That is realisation. So, when India, the operation was going on, I was in America at that time and I noticed quite a bit of polarisation.
Indian devotees were very much involved because there is our own country, some devotees are in Punjab, their relatives were in the war or their relatives were attacked and their western devotees they were mostly being, means devotees who were born in the west. They read mostly mainstream media and there is the tendency to equalise India and Pakistan. This is all mundane.
We should not get involved in this. Wars keep happening over there. Ukraine, Russia, there has been a war.
We have had devotees in Ukraine, we have had devotees in Russia and the devotees have not made any specific political comments. Now, some devotees have made comments, Russian devotees have made some comments which have hurt Ukrainian devotees, Ukrainian devotees have made comments which have hurt Russian devotees. So, it’s kind of the policy said that whenever there are wars, we will not make any comments.
But now, in this particular case, Indian devotees are really concerned. So then, I was talking with one particular place, I told the devotees that we can have different opinions on these things. Now, ISKCON itself may not make an official statement on that in North America.
But if ISKCON decides to take a particular position in India, North America should not be stopping them. And ISKCON devotees at the individual level, if they want to be involved, it’s not that they have to be stopped for that. Now, sometimes devotees may be told that you don’t present yourself as a devotee.
You present yourself as a human being. So, that’s perfectly fine. So, what happens is that we play many different roles.
And we have to decide which role is favourable for our spirituality, which role is where how we go through the material to the spiritual that will vary. And that’s why the principle is the Guru. The Guru is not just the spiritual master, the Guru is the Diksha Guru.
Eleventh Canto says eventually each one of us has to become our own Guru. Prabhupada said we have to become independently thoughtful. So, we understand our situation and see what material will help me reach the spiritual.
And we adopt that material situation and that we may have to reformulate in a way that helps us move closer to Krishna. I’ll summarise what I discussed today. The broad theme was that from material to spiritual.
That is ultimately what we want to do. But how do we go from the material to the spiritual? I talked about three points. What is the acronym? Air.
So, basically why I used the word air is that everybody needs some breathing space. And what might give conservative breathing space may cause somebody who is little more liberal suffocation. What may give a liberal breathing space may cause a conservative suffocation.
Now, Prabhupada’s moment is big enough that both can be accommodated. So, we have first was appreciate. Appreciate that we can’t just reject the material to go to the spiritual.
It’s not that we can directly go like this. This is very rare. For most people, we go through the material to the spiritual.
And that means we have to evaluate that we can’t reject the material nor can we insist on a particular material. I gave the example of when Prabhupada went to America. He and the temple that were built initially were not necessarily according to traditional architectural ways, but the temples were vibrant spiritual centres.
The point is through material to spiritual. So, we appreciate that the material is necessary. We have a particular body and it is that body that we need to use in Krishna’s service.
Then I was inspect. Inspect means we have to see for ourselves which material thing will help us to go towards Krishna. So, I talked about the example of education over here.
How should we educate our devotee kids? So, we could quote from Prabhupada. Prabhupada called them as modern education spiritual slaughterhouses. But then Prabhupada also respected scholars.
So, for both perspectives we can get support. But the point is that again the material education should facilitate spiritual growth. Now that can be that the content of the education is spiritual growth.
The culture of studying and applying oneself to cause that can be applied later to spiritual growth or the consequence that you get a job, you get social respectability and financial stability and that facilitates spiritual growth. So, what will facilitate that will vary. So, I talked about if you want to go to the spiritual, there could be whole spectrum.
That we could have our own gurukuls. We could have home schooling. We could have devotee schools.
We could have relatively speaking high performing schools. They will not be spiritual but at least the emphasis on studies is there in it. Or there could be different kinds of schools.
So, which one will work that is each person will have to inspect. Inspect what material can help me go towards the spiritual. And I discussed also last part was reformulate.
Reformulate means that according to time, place, circumstances things may change. So, we discussed how Srila Prabhupada himself in the west and in India. In the west, he focused on the counterculture.
And that was what was more receptive. Now, in India it was not counterculture. It was actually cultural pride.
National cultural pride. That’s why he saw that those were the kind of people who were coming towards him. And he appreciated them and he connected them with Krishna.
So, then we discussed about how with respect to the culture itself, with respect to Varanashram I talked about, how it’s very difficult for us first of all to know what is Varanashram exactly and whether it will be favourable for a particular person. So, again we have to reformulate. Varanashram means going to a farm.
Varanashram means having a devotee entrepreneurial community. Varanashram means having an individual job that is favourable to bhakti. Whatever.
It may vary from person to person. We cannot really very easily decide that this particular job is Brahminical, this particular job is Kshatriya or Vaishya or whatever. So, we see what is favourable and we move forward.
Then I talked about culture. So, there is a spiritual and in the material world there are different cultures. So, if this is the Indian culture and the conservative view is that everybody has to come to the Indian culture and then they go towards spirituality.
So, we could say one is the more conservative view. Now, the more liberal view is that whatever be your culture from there you can move towards Krishna. Then we explored how there is diversity within our movement with respect to say clothes, food and nomenclature, names.
So, the key principle is anukulyasya sankalpa, pratikulyasya varjanam. That we see, we use our God given intelligence, we consider our spiritual guides, we consult our spiritual guides and then we learn to be independently thoughtful to see how I in my particular situation can help myself, my family and my community to move closer to Krishna. That’s how we can each, Prabhupada said we have to fly our own plane.
We have to decide what is the kind of opposing fire that is coming where we are and how we can dodge that fire and how we can move towards Krishna. So, thank you very much. Does anyone have any questions? Quickly, one or two questions.
Any comments? Yes. Hare Krishna. Prabhupaji, while inspecting what is favourable to bhakti and what is not, you gave example of education.
So, what factors do we consider while inspecting that which education would be relevant for a child, that which education should he brought up to? It’s difficult. Generally, you would say that we have to see, Prabhupada would often say. Generally, there is an ethical reflection to determine what is right and wrong in the Mahabharata and broadly three factors are to be considered.
The content of what we are doing, the intent with which we are doing it, why we are doing something, what we are doing and what is the result of what we are doing. So, what is the consequence? So, now, we may say, okay, the content is, okay, this particular school is in content a devotee school. Now, we have deities, we have kirtan, we have shloka recitation.
In content, that is true. But now, what is the consequence? Is going to that school actually making children favourable to bhakti or not? That’s something which we have to see sometimes. So, I think all three factors need to be considered and in many ways, Prabhupada was a pragmatist.
Prabhupada said, phaley na parichayate. What works? So, now, we can look at, in a particular school, there are children who have gone, what has happened through that? Have they become favourable to bhakti? Are they themselves practising bhakti? So, I think all three factors need to be considered. So, thank you very much.