If temple management uses philosophy to explain away wrong actions of devotees, what should we do?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
if somebody is doing something inappropriate somebody is acting lustily or greedily or whatever and we report to the management they simply say that actually even greed suggests fall prey to temptation so this is simply a struggling sadhaka so we should just be understanding so does so how do we see such an answer see there is hmm in general in our movement we have sambandha the philosophical understanding you are not the body you are solely a part of Krishna and we have prayojan where we develop love for Krishna the abhidheya in terms of practicals is not explained much for example hmm we just throw principles at problems which doesn’t work if two people have conflicts chant Hare Krishna and the conflict will be solved well both of them are chanting Hare Krishna but their mind is yeah this person this person they need to sit and maybe they need to have mediation they need to have proper discussion so philosophical principles are true at the same time this philosophical principles have to be translated into practical actions also so there can be three broad situations in which a practical problem we get a response with a philosophical answer to that so one is that that is a indication that you know there is no philosophy there is no practical action that can be taken so just accept it philosophically so tam sthithi subharta we can say and there are so sometimes basically we have jnanendriyas and we have karmendriyas so Bhaktasanshu Thakur says in one of his early books Bangale Samajikta that the western civilization focuses more on karmendriyas acting in the world and changing the world and those who have this definition of success they see those who don’t act in the world and change the world they see them as very passive very fatalistic, very lethargic but he says in the Indian civilization traditionally the focus has not been on changing the world but on understanding the world ultimately this world is dukkha le so don’t try to change it so much basically try to transcend the world so we could say in the Upanishads broadly speaking and the Upanishadic mode of wisdom is focus on the jnanendriyas and understand the nature of the world not so much on changing the world but on understanding the world and learning to accept its nature now so bhakti actually is a combination of both because we do understand philosophically but at the same time we also want to change practically Arjuna did fight the war to change things practically so now depending on different devotees particular natures particular priorities particular situations sometimes they may just focus on the philosophical vision this is what happens for example if many devotees I was in NIT Rao Kela I gave a class over there some students they came and told me when we go to some christian church lot of missionary work happening over there the pastors and the christian staff they talk so nicely answer our questions, greet us politely respectfully but when we go to Jagannath Puri temple the pandas simply they hound us for money so then in this I have nothing that I can do in this situation so I will just give the philosophical perspective that the pandas traditionally there was a system for maintaining them and the Indian government had a land resettlement act by which traditionally the deities had lot of temple land and that was used to maintain the priest families but that land was all taken away by the government and now they don’t have anything so now that might be one reason, there can be other reasons also they might just be habitual or whatever but in this case just I try to give a philosophical perspective and end that so same even within our movement if something is happening in Mayapur something is happening in the west I don’t have any power to change that so at least help people to make sense of it so that is also a valid way of dealing with situations especially situations which are little far away on which we have very little control if we can’t even make sense of things then it’s very disturbing so we could say that that devotee who is giving us a philosophical answer is helping us make sense of it but if it’s in our immediate vicinity we don’t want to make sense of it we also need to deal with it so we don’t have to deal with Jagannath Puri Pandas or we don’t have to deal with something which is happening in some remote places so then something about the Karmendiles also comes in what can we do with this situation so then as I said three approaches could be that some devotees just tell us see it philosophically and leave it at that if we are not satisfied with that then we have to find out some devotees who can give us practical answers because different devotees are of different natures and recently in Canada I gave a class on what is maturity humility, self pity and maturity so my understanding is maturity means to understand that no one is obliged to fulfill my needs like a child cries and the mother, the father come and run, come running and take care of the child and adults cry, nobody may come adults may also be hungry adults may also be distressed and they need to address that but adults can’t demand that the world has to come and satisfy me if I am hungry I have to earn out of one money I have to borrow, I have to get something by which I can address my hunger so maturity means to not to not understand that nobody is obliged to fulfill my needs so if I have a need for a practical solution also that’s my need and maybe they don’t feel that need they just see it that way and they leave it at that so then rather than saying that oh they just give a practical answer that is not their need but this is my need so then we have to have some devotees who can address our need so then they may tell you practically ok you know you just you know you ok if you find it very disturbing you just take up some other service don’t do that or as I said practically sometimes we just some devotees may be behaving in a particular way but that fault is there but they have some other good and with that whatever valuable service they are doing that is so much important that this particular thing you can overlook it so Prabhupada was also like that some of Prabhupada’s disciples they would not chant sixteen rounds but they had a lot of vigor to do big outreach and Prabhupada did not keep harping on them you know chant chant chant Prabhupada just accepted whatever service they were doing so chanting sixteen rounds is a serious fault but Prabhupada accepted that he accepted whatever service they were doing not that he condoned that he just did not harp on it continuously so moving on so if we need a practical solution then we have to find out devotees who will give us a practical solution or we have to ourselves learn that if I want a practical solution I don’t shouldn’t go to this person I have some different senior devotees with whom I take guidance so there is one senior devotee who told me you know if you want to get something done come to me if you want to discuss something go to that person don’t discuss anything with me so I was little taken aback initially but I was happy I did the clarifying like that otherwise if they want to discuss something they just keep saying no no no I don’t have time what do you mean it’s an important thing we have to discuss it they have the mode of doing things that’s their nature so now the third would be we get some philosophical sense both the Jnanendriya and the Karmendriya both are helpful we get some sense of things and we also get some things to adjust so you have to find out who will give that kind of perspective to you and just take inputs take guidance from them no need to this kind of philosophical principles in response to practical problems it can be very frustrating and if it happens like that I remember I had some doubts about 5th Canto cosmology and little technical doubts how do you understand this how do you understand that and one devotee told me one who has implicit faith in Guru and Krishna he quoted that verse for them all questions are answered well ok what do I do my questions are not answered that would mean I don’t have implicit faith I don’t have that what do I do that is not the answer to the question so I would say that we have to find out who will answer our questions and sometimes if you don’t have the answer then just put it in a put it like in a car park just keep it there and eventually it will get the association of some devotees who answer those questions just keep it suspended till then