Is humanity more important or is spirituality more important?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
the question? So, is humanity more important or is spirituality more important? Actually, it is not a matter of more important.
It is a matter of how we can best serve. So, spirituality, if you consider, is a bigger circle. Humanity is a circle within that.
So, it is not that to be spiritual we have to become inhuman. Rather, our spirituality can and should enhance our humanity. There are many devotees who feel more and more inspired to serve selflessly.
Prabhupada himself, he started the Food for Life program where now it is the world’s biggest vegetarian food relief program. Millions and millions of people all over the world are being fed food. And there are people who are contributing to that.
They are spiritually oriented, that’s why they are contributing. So, our spirituality should enhance our humanity. It is not that the two are contradictory.
But, it is, if you consider, ideal situation is that spirituality is a bigger circle and humanity is a circle within that. The more spiritual we become, we also become humane. So, Bhaktisiddhanta Sri Thakur once, he had taken a pilgrimage to Vrindavan and at that time, outside the temple there were some beggars.
And some of the devotees who were there, they just neglected the beggars and did not give them anything. Bhaktisiddhanta Sri Thakur said, you know, they are beggars, this is the holy dham. You should not think that I will give my money only for Krishna and not give it for anything else.
The point is that we want to help everyone. We have limited capacity, so we have to select whom we can help. But we can always give prasad.
We may not want to give money, but we can give a little prasad to them. The idea is that we should not think, Bhaktisiddhanta Sri Thakur’s point over there was that, we should not think that because I am spiritual, I have no need to be human. We shouldn’t think like that.
That’s wrong. But at the same time, the ideal situation is humanity is a circle within spirituality. But suppose there is a situation when these two are circles which are distinct circles.
Then, ideal is we situate ourselves in the intersection of the two circles. Say there are beggars, sometimes we give money to the beggars and they may misuse the money. They may use it for smoking or drinking or just taking drugs or whatever.
It happens. So then, we may give them help in a way that is not misusable. We may give them prasad which they will use for eating.
That way we can keep ourselves in the circle of intersection between spirituality and humanity. Now sometimes it happens that some people are humanitarian and they are rabidly anti-spiritual. So there is one food relief organization.
They say their slogan is God in double quotes. God sends calamities, we send relief. Now this is a monstrous misunderstanding.
So this is where people make their humanity into a sense of their own arrogance and ego. Where they think that we are better than God. But there what has happened? Humanity has dragged them out of the circle of spirituality.
So on the other hand, sometimes what Bhaktsan Suttakur was saying is that if you go so much into the spiritual circle that basic human emotions we neglect, that is also not proper. We are, initially Prabhupada would be in America. He would go on morning walks.
You know when people would just see an elderly man and say good morning. Prabhupada would also respond good morning. Now somebody will say good morning.
This is a mundane greeting. You should say Hare Krishna. No, Prabhupada would reciprocate with them in a way that they would understand.
So it is not that in the name of being spiritual, we just become completely insensitive or negligent to others. So we, ideally we situate ourselves in the intersection between the spiritual and the human and overall our spirituality enhances our humanity. Now initially Prabhupada was asked how do we know your disciples? So Prabhupada, he said they are perfect gentlemen and ladies.
They are constantly chanting Hare Krishna. They are constantly going to satsang programs. Now those are important things.
But they should be used to enhance the qualities which are humane. So overall our spirituality and humanity go in complement. And we practice our spirituality in such a way that our humanity gets enhanced.
And if there is a specific situation, they seem to be in a conflict, then we can consult some senior devotees who know our situation and guide accordingly. So when Indra Dunda Maharaj had gone to Sri Lanka after the tsunami attack, tsunami devastation, so he had coordinated ISKCON’s food for life efforts and he had gone there. So when he went there, the Sri Lankan government said that from all over the world food relief has come to us.
So actually, we don’t need food relief. We have got so much food here. But what we need is trauma therapy.
People are just traumatized. You are just living everyday normal life and suddenly you find your home is gone. Half of your family is gone.
What to do? Do you have some means for trauma therapy? So he said yes. Then he went into that. There are pictures of complete devastation.
So he went there amidst the refugee camp where people were there and he started doing Kirtans. He started singing Hare Krishna. Nobody was following.
So he asked the devotees what happened. He said Sri Lanka, here nobody knows Krishna. People know only Ram over here.
So then Maharaj started singing Sri Ram, Jai Ram, Jai Jai Ram. And slowly people just sit there. They sat around and slowly they started singing.
So Maharaj writes in his journal that just close your eyes. Pray to the holy name to give shelter over there. To give some shelter.
And he kept chanting and slowly you could hear the people picking up and responding. And he kept singing for almost half an hour, 45 minutes. Then I opened my eyes and saw here a miracle.
In the background you could still see the shattered houses and the overthrown cars. And here people were clapping and they were singing and there was a smile back on their faces. So where even material things are devastating, devotees go and offer humanitarian relief.
But we can offer something more than humanitarian relief. We can offer spiritual relief. But just because we can offer spiritual relief doesn’t mean that we consider humanitarian relief to be unnecessary.
So bhakti is our program for offering complete relief at a physical level, mental level and spiritual level. Thank you very much. Prabhupada ki Gaura Bhaktarindu ki Gaura Premarindu ki.