Is Manava seva not Madhava Seva? (With over 25 QA)

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
So, I talked on this topic of Manose and Madhuse many times, but this is a very interesting, thoughtful and thought provoking set of questions. And so, basically, in this class, I will primarily discuss the question answers one by one. And we will have a flow within itself of the thought.
So, let’s start with terminology. Manoseva and Madhuseva. So, Madhuseva refers to the service of God.
Manoseva refers to the service of man. Now, are the two essentially different? We may say they are one, but then how are they one? Or can they be made one? So, that means, what we are exploring is, if all of you have studied math, so are they entirely non-intersecting sets? Or are they identical sets? Or is there some intersection between the two? So, what we are exploring is, some people say that actually, those who do Madhuseva are simply wasting their time. They are not doing this chanting, dancing, not doing anything practical for the world.
And there are so many people suffering, poor, hungry, sick, they need help. That is practical. So, this idea is that the two are entirely non-intersecting circles or sets.
The other idea is that they are identical sets. That means, actually, whatever we do in the service of humanity, all human beings are the children of God. Therefore, whatever we do for human beings, that itself is service to God.
And therefore, although the two are identical sets, there is essentially Madhuseva is nothing but Manoseva. And there is no need for any Madhuseva separate from Manoseva. Or third is that there are two sets and there is some intersection between the two.
So, if there is an intersection, what is that? The first idea that the three of them are entire, both of them are entirely disjoint sets. That is untenable, because we see at a very basic level, what are the causes of suffering in the world? On my website, there is a full article on this topic. And I also have POPPT, which I may show towards the end of the class.
But here, primarily, when we look at suffering in the world, it’s easy to see the immediate causes. But often the solution comes by going beyond the immediate causes to the actual causes. For example, if a person is sick, and that person is having chills.
Now, the chills are certainly a matter of concern. And for that, we may offer the person sweater, blankets, and help to relieve that chill. That is an immediate solution.
But along with that, you also have to explore what is causing those chills. Maybe the person has got a type of malaria. And if that is the cause, then just putting blankets around the person is not going to solve the problems of chills in a lasting way.
Then we have to explore, investigate, and then find out, okay, if it is malaria, then maybe a chloroquine or some other tablets we have to give, maybe some injections, and then the chills will go away. So, the difference between the first and the second approach is essentially of knowledge. Both people, the people who offer blankets and the people who offer medicines, both aim to relieve the person of the chills.
However, because of the difference in their level of knowledge, the measure that they adopt are different. And both do offer relief to some extent. But the extent varies in the two cases.
In the first case, there is some temporary relief. But in the second case, when the disease is treated, then there is more lasting relief. There is an actual cure to the disease that happens.
So, similarly, when we see the sufferings that are there in this world, it is natural to want to help, to want to be a part of whatever relief can be offered to others. But the question is, what is the cause of the suffering, and how can that suffering be alleviated? Now, for example, if we see that there is a beggar who is starving, and we want to give some food to that beggar. Naturally, if the beggar is starving, any sensitive human being will want to relieve another human being of hunger.
So now we give food to that person, or we may give some money so that the person can get food. And we will be helping that person to some extent. At the same time, we will see that there are so many people in the world who are starving.
And if we want a sustainable solution, we will also have to explore what is the cause of the starvation. Now, we could say these people are starving because they are poor. Yes, that’s true.
So, hunger is because of poverty. We have gone one step further. Okay, then how do we relieve poverty? So, some people may say that, don’t just give fish to people, teach people how to fish.
That is, of course, we are not recommending eating fish over here, but this is just a saying that don’t just give food to people, tell people how they can earn food. So, we can offer some people a job. We are going to a deeper solution, not just hunger, but poverty.
Now, if this were actually a solution, yes, hunger and poverty are causes of misery. And say food or employment are sources of relief. However, if they were complete sources of relief, then all the people who are employed should be happy.
Isn’t it? If an employment is resulting poverty and hunger are the cause of suffering, then all employed people should be happy. Are all the employed people happy? No. That means the cause of suffering is something deeper.
Now, we may say that, okay, employed people don’t suffer from hunger. That is fine. I agree.
But still, they do suffer from something else. So, now a person who has malaria, you put a set of series of blankets on top of that person, the chills go away. But then after some time, the chills come back.
So, we have not found a lasting solution merely by offering blankets. But similarly, if we have offered a person relief from poverty, from hunger, still the person doesn’t remain satisfied. So, if we look at the cause of say poverty or starvation, the causes are primarily two.
The causes are greed among the wealthy and lack of self-control among the needy. These are the two causes of poverty. Now, if you ask sociologists, there are studies done on this subject.
And for example, say Frances Lopez Moore wrote a book called Hunger, Food First. And she did a research of the various famines all over the world, especially she focused on famines in Africa. She found that almost in every incident where people died of starvation in Africa, there was adequate food available within the same nation for mitigating the hunger problem.
But because of political or economic purposes, that food was holding. And there was food in the godowns that was rotting and outside people were starving. Maybe in the same city, maybe in the same country, in other cities.
And this is an oft-repeated phenomenon. So, the problem in the world is not a shortage of, if we say hunger is the problem, it’s not just poverty. There is greed among the wealthy, and that greed causes them to exploit others.
Now, in India itself it happens so frequently. That there are so many godowns where the food is stored and it rots. But because of the corruption within the system, the food doesn’t go to the needy.
So here, if we go deeper and we recognise the problem is that there is greed among the wealthy. Actually, when India became independent, Mahatma Gandhi was asked, will India develop the way Britain has developed? So, Gandhiji replied that for one small Britain to develop, the way it developed, it had to rule and exploit practically the rest of the whole world. If India has to develop that way, we will need several earths and we have only one earth.
So, if you see today, the way the economy is geared it is based on disproportionate exploitation of natural resources. And this is not a sustainable model. And one out of every six rivers in the world doesn’t reach the ocean.
It just dries and dies along the path. Why does this happen? Because the water is channelised by industrial plants or it is flooded with effluents which are all noxious and then they cause the river to dry up, they cause the vegetation around it to dry up and it causes a whole ecological imbalance. So, water shortage, which is a big problem, is caused not just because there is less water, it is because of mismanagement of water.
So, we have to look deeper to try to understand what causes starvation. So, according to the United Nations, according to UNESCO, the amount of money that the European Union and America spend on perfumes, that money is enough to feed all the hungry people all over the world. It is spent just on perfumes.
So, here what is happening? Now, we are not saying that using perfumes is bad. The simple point that is made over here is that here we see that people are spending billions on perfumes and elsewhere people are starving. So, the real cause of the shortages in the world is not shortage per se, it is imbalance, it is mismanagement, it is misdirection.
So, one is greed among the wealthy. The other is lack of self-control among the needy. Among the needy means now, I have several friends.
In fact, before I was introduced to ISKCON, I was associated with a social welfare organisation and I along with a friend, we would go to the slums. I was studying in Pune at that time. So, we would go to slums behind our college and we would teach to the children of the slum, English, mathematics, science, subjects like that.
So, the idea was literacy will create brighter prospects for the children and they will have better jobs and then they can grow out of poverty. So, one of my friends was even more involved in this and he would go to a nearby village and he found that just teaching the children was not enough because he would teach the children, but most of the parents, especially the fathers, were alcoholics and whatever money they would earn, they would just splurge it on alcohol and not only would they waste it, after that when they would just go mad because of that alcohol, they would come and abuse their wives, abuse the children also sometimes. So, then he got some group together and he started making an anti-alcoholic drive and he got many of the people in that village to give up alcohol.
And he worked for almost two, two and a half years and got a large part of the village to give up alcohol and then the elections came and the local politician wanted to be elected. The day before the election he brought four truckloads of free alcohol bottles and the next time and this friend went there, you know, it’s the same story which is there two and a half years ago and what happened was not only this time the parents were drunk but even the children were drunk. It was so terrible.
So, at that time he realised that the solution has to go somewhere deeper. We have to go deeper to find out how we can equip people so that they won’t fall prey to such things. So, there are many people who have the ability to earn at least a basic living but often they fall prey to bad habits like alcohol or smoking or worst in drugs and then whatever they earn they waste it on this.
You know, the European Union, many of the countries are what they’re called as welfare states. So, in a welfare state, the state considers that it is its responsibility to take care of the citizens. So, if a citizen is unemployed then the state gives the citizen some allowance till citizen gets the job.
So, many young people take this doll, take this allowance which they get from the state and that is actually meant for them to get food, to have some shelter, maybe get some training and education so that they can get a job. But what they do is they take their allowance and then they get stoned with drugs. So, instead of using it for food, they use it for drugs.
So, the money that is offered for welfare, what is happening? It’s like, you know, if we have a bucket, you want to pour water from above but there’s a big hole below. No matter how much water we pour in, it’s all going to get drained out. So, similarly, unless people have some level of self-mastery, they are just going to not be able to use whatever help is offered to them.
Now, we are not saying that everybody is like this but there are a large number of people who are like that. And now, right now, we are trying to look at the deeper causes of the problem. Certainly, offering food will help but how much will it help? So, another even more tragic problem because of misconceived welfare is what happens with the phenomena called a single mothers.
The single mothers means, in the West, sexual promiscuity is quite common. In India, also, it is coming up. So, boys, girls, they come together and then sometimes there’s unwanted pregnancy.
Now, quite often, there is abortion. But when there is no abortion, then there is a mother, a young girl who has become a mother now and say the boyfriend doesn’t want to get married. So, she’s left alone.
She was earlier going to college and she probably wanted to have good education and a career but now she has a child. So, what will she do? So, in such situations, for single mothers, the government offers some maintenance as a part of its welfare measure. But the result of this is, let’s say, there are two girls who are going to college.
And the girl who plays around with boys and becomes promiscuous, becomes pregnant, gets a child, she gets a maintenance from the government. And the girl who tries to maintain virginity, she has to struggle on her own. She doesn’t get any support from the state.
Now, she has to maybe do some odd jobs to go through her education. And then, although from the long-term point of view, the prospects will be different, what the system ends up is, promiscuity becomes rewarded. And many girls feel, if I just have a child with me, I’ll get so much support from the state.
Now, we’re not saying that this causes that, but the whole thing contributes to each other. And the whole system is a mess. So, when welfare is offered without empowering people with the capacity to benefit from that welfare, then the welfare may be well-intentioned, but it does not make things better.
So, when we look deeper, these two causes, the greed among the wealthy and the lack of self-control among the need, these are the fundamental causes of starvation. Now, going further, what causes this? So, till now, I have not explored the subject of Madhyam Seva. We’re just talking about Mano Seva, and we’re trying to explore what is the best way we can do sustainable Mano Seva.
We can help people in a way that will lastingly solve their problems. So, now, if we want to help people become free from greed or help people to develop greater self-mastery, what is the way to do that? A one-time tested way is spirituality. Spirituality enables people to experience a higher happiness.
That higher non-material or spiritual happiness enables them to break free from the shackles, from the pulls of the lower material happiness. So, it is an experience all over the world that when wealthy people become religious-minded, they become spiritually-minded, they do become more charitable, because at a very fundamental level, they understand that I am going to continue to live after death. If I understand spirituality, I understand that I will not die when my body dies.
And the wealth I have attained is not going to go with me after death. So, if I give the wealth that I have got for some good cause, then that credits which I get, they will benefit me in my post-mortem life, in my life after death. So, at this basic level, even if they don’t, this is only a basic level, at a higher level, spirituality enables us to see the connectedness among all living beings.
We understand that all of us are the members of the same one family of God. We are all brothers and sisters in God’s family. And naturally, this is a more selfless motive, where we want to help others, because we see the connectedness with them.
And this connectedness is actually deeper than the connectedness that we may see because, oh, we are all Indians, we are all Maharashtrians, we are all human beings. It’s actually deeper because we are all spiritually related as God, as the children of God. And that also invokes compassion.
So, among, there are many people who have done welfare work in the world, and probably among the most famous persons, one of them is Mother Teresa. Now, there’s a question here, have any Madhavsevaks won the Nobel Prize? So, Madhavseva is not just something just to do as a Vedic religion. It is the idea of helping others is something which is common to all living beings.
So, when Mother Teresa was once asked, you know, what is the secret of your compassion? She pointed to her prayer beads, and she said, actually, because I love God, and I see that all the people around me are the children of God, and actually feel empowered to help them. Srila Prabhupada, the founder of ISKCON, you know, once he was in Mayapur, and there’s a beautiful festival in the temple, and then he just looked outside from the temple balcony, and he saw that there was a poor child who was rummaging through the dustbin, because there the pattals had been thrown after the people who had come for the festival had taken the meals, and he was looking for food over there. And Srila Prabhupada saw that tears came from his eyes practically, and he said, these are the children of God, we should give them food.
He said, nobody ten kilometres around our temple should go hungry, should go hungry. And that desire of Srila Prabhupada has led to the development of the Food for Life Global Programme, and the Food for Life Global is now the world’s largest vegetarian relief programme, and literally millions and millions of plates of food have been distributed. You know, every second of the day, several plates of food are distributed all over the world, and all this is done with not just humanitarian intention, yes, but it’s also spiritual intention.
So the people who are doing this are volunteers, and they are doing it because they see the connectedness of all living beings as the children of God. So on one side, if you want to help people to become free from greed, spirituality is a very powerful way of doing that. So we want to replace greed with compassion.
See, greed means what others have, I have to get it. Compassion means what I have, I should give to others. So we want to replace greed with compassion, and that will happen through a spiritual transformation.
So when we think of Madhavseva, it is not just an isolated activity. It is not just chanting some mantras or doing some puja in the temple. Those are parts of Madhavseva, but actually Madhavseva is a holistic culture of God-centred living.
Madhavseva is a holistic culture of God-centred living, and in this culture all aspects of living are spiritualised. So because of this conception of life as being connected with God, it naturally evokes compassion. So certainly if we think of Madhavseva only as an isolated activity, somebody just chanting and dancing in a temple, and there are few beggars who are starving just across the spiritual field, what is this wasting so much time and money and energy dancing in the temple? But Madhavseva is a complete culture, and the culture brings about a transformation of the heart.
So when we are chanting, when we are dancing in the kirtans, what are we actually doing? We are purifying our hearts. We are transforming the greed into compassion. So this is a means for inner transformation.
And again we need education to understand this. Many times right next to a hospital there is a medical college, because then the medical students can also get, to put it not so charitably, live guinea pigs. They can observe actual patients and see how they fall sick and how they can recover.
So now if there is a medical emergency, then even the students will stream out and help in the hospital. But the students in the medical college will spend hours and hours studying. At the same time, especially if there is a government hospital, there is so much understaffing.
And there will be patients who are neglected in the hospital. But can these medical students who are studying in the college, they give up their studies so that they can go and pay attention to the patients who are neglected in the hospital? No, they can’t. They may do it on an emergency basis sometimes, but on a regular basis they need education.
Because when they are properly educated, then they will be equipped to offer proper help to the patients. So at a superficial level, there may be a patient who is lying in the hospital bed and he is crying, doctor, doctor, please come. And nobody seems to be coming there.
And you see just a few hundred metres away, there is a room, maybe an AC room, where there are a hundred students with doctor’s cloaks sitting and just staring. So just one of you go there, why are you wasting your time like this? No, here there has to be a proper education that has to happen. So if a surgery is needed, an ordinary medical student cannot go and do surgery.
The medical student will have to study for years and may practise for years also before he or she will become equipped to do surgery. So the intention to help is good, but along with the intention, one has to have the capacity to help. And the capacity to help in the case of the surgeon comes through education and training.
Similarly, we may feel that we want to help the poor, but in the case of the wealthy people, the capacity to help will come when their hearts are transformed from greed to compassion. They have the financial capacity to help, but they don’t have the heart to help on many occasions. So when we are chanting, dancing, singing, it’s a part of a holistic culture that transforms the heart.
And just as the surgical students study their preparation for their surgery, similarly, say for example, the kind of discussions that we are having right now, or the practise of meditation, the practise of deity worship that we do, temple worship, all this is a means of purification, by which our hearts will become compassionate, and we’ll be able to help more and more. So let’s look now at the second problem. First, we look at how do we remove the greed from the wealthy.
One way, very powerful way, time-tested way is by offering them experience of spiritual happiness and giving them spiritual wisdom. That is what the culture of Madhavseva does. Now what was the other problem? Lack of self-control among the needy.
Now how do we counter that? Spirituality plays a critical role even in that. Again, if we think of spirituality just as an isolated activity, then we will feel it is irrelevant. However, when we say chant the holy names of Krishna, we are connecting with the supreme power of Krishna, and that power enables us to overpower our bad habits.
And this is not just a religious claim, it is a fact that has been confirmed by hundreds of studies all over the world. For example, alcohol addiction is a big problem, and the most successful group for countering alcohol addiction has been Alcoholics Anonymous. And one of the first principles is that we need the help of a higher being or power to enable us to break free from the evil grip of alcohol, and then they submit to that power.
So it is immensely successful, and there are statistical surveys that have been done. In general, one of the best predictors of if a person has become an addict, whether that addict will be able to break free from the addiction or not, one of the best predictors is the level of religious commitment of the addict. If the addict is religiously committed, the percentage of the person breaking free from that addiction is far greater than otherwise.
Not only that, in general, in my book Recession, which I wrote a few years ago when the recession was the global recession at that time. So there I’ve quoted a survey which describes that, this is based on a New York Times article, which in turn was based on a survey done by an American university, I think it was Harvard. So what they said is that if we want, this was on the New Year’s Eve, if you want to keep your New Year resolutions, what you should do is add one more resolution to your list of New Year resolutions.
And what was that addition? He said the resolution to increase your religious commitment. Why? From 1920s onwards, sociologists, psychologists and general social scientists have been doing research and they have compared say children with a religious temperament and children with a non-religious temperament. Youth with a religious temperament, youth with a non-religious temperament.
And they have found decade after decade, study after study, university after university, the same pattern, that the determination and the willpower of religiously committed people is far greater than that of the religiously uncommitted. So the conclusion has been that if you want to have greater determination and willpower, become committed to religion, become committed to God. So how this happens philosophically, the science cannot, social science cannot tell us.
But we understand that actually we access the power of God and that power enables us to break free from the power of our own lower desires, lower habits, which can be addictions of any sort. So actually speaking, if people who are needy had self-mastery, they would have far lesser problems than what they would otherwise have. What are the biggest? This is universally observed whenever there is an earthquake.
So at that time, for example, one of the questions here was, when there’s an earthquake, people need food and shelter and clothing. They don’t need kirtans over there. Yes, we can say that’s true.
No doubt, they need food, clothing, shelter. But is that all that they need? Normally speaking, when the government or other charitable institutions offer some support, they offer money. It’s universally observed that whenever there are disasters, at that time, near the disaster areas, liquor shops brew up in dozens.
The people who are afflicted, they are often afflicted by the earthquake, they get quick money and that money is meant to help them to rebuild their homes and rebuild their lives. But instead of using that money for its intended purpose, they use it to just drink and they lose much of that money, unfortunately. And there are always opportunistic businessmen who come along and peddle liquor over there.
So yes, we don’t want to say that people don’t need food, clothing. They obviously need it and that should be provided. But the idea that that alone is enough is false.
Because at that time, people need higher wisdom. People need inner strength by which to cope with the trauma. When such sort of calamities happen, it’s not that people are responsible that they’re drinking.
It’s just that they’re so traumatised that the task of rebuilding their whole life seems like a crushing burden and they seek relief from that. So actually, when people have spiritual wisdom and they understand that God is with them, that they are eternal beings and beyond this destructible world, beyond this perishable body, they are at their core, immortal beings. And that gives them tremendous spiritual strength.
So when the tsunami occurred about a decade ago, at that time, several ISKCON leaders, they decided to go to South India and Sri Lanka to offer relief. So one of our leaders was Indra Dundar Maharaj. He went to Sri Lanka and then ISKCON Food for Life had also got a lot of food and he said we can offer food.
And then the Sri Lankan in charge, he said that actually, we have got so much food from all over the world that we are not in shortage of food. He said what we need right now is trauma therapy. And he said we cannot get trauma therapy is actually quite an intensive form of therapy and there are to specialise psychologists who have to have long-term sessions with people.
He says we just cannot do that in this situation. There are hundreds of people, thousands of people have been traumatised. He said do you have some trauma therapy? So Maharaj said yes.
And then they went to the refugee camp and Maharaj went there and he started to feel this. And people just were glum, dark-faced, desolate. But anyway, something was happening.
They came around and sat down and Maharaj was singing Hare Krishna mantra. And then nobody was following. And one of the devotees got up and he spoke something to Maharaj.
Maharaj was absorbed in kirtans. The people here, they know only Ram. They don’t know Krishna.
So Maharaj said Sri Ram, Jai Ram, Jai Jai Ram. And then Maharaj closed his eyes and started praying and prayerfully started singing. And he could slowly hear the people singing, singing.
And then almost after an hour of kirtan, he opened his eyes. He saw these same people whose face were glum, not a ray of light in their eyes, completely devastated. They right now, their faces were bright, they were smiling, they were clapping, there was light in their eyes.
And although in the background, there’s the same ruins, the devastated houses, the overthrown trees, the broken pillars, but still in that desolate background, these bright-faced people were a heart-warming contrast. And what had happened was, the power of the holy name, which had provided the grace of God, had uplifted their spirits. So this is also an invaluable service.
So often, when it is portrayed as if this is a substitute for that, that is wrong. We’re not saying that kirtans substitute for food, clothing, shelter. But food, clothing, shelter alone are not enough.
There is more that is needed. And that also has to be offered. So there are many institutes in the world, which offer humanity aid.
And of course, the extent of humanity and suffering is such that there are many more institutes that are also needed. But at the same time, there is also aid that is needed at a mental and spiritual level. And that is offered through Mahadhar Seva.
That is offered through spiritual culture. So the spiritual culture offers aid, not just at a spiritual level, not just at a mental level, but also at a physical level. How? As I said, people become more charitable.
People become more self-controlled, by which they are able to accept the help. So in this way, when we talk about Mano Seva and Mahadhar Seva, we are not talking about two disjoint sets, talking about an intersection. Now, the current propaganda is that there is no need for any kind of Mahadhar Seva.
As I said, Mahadhar Seva is a part of a spiritual culture. It’s a holistic spiritual culture. And if you just look at one part of it, it might seem unproductive, useless.
But when we understand the whole thing is an interconnected web, all of it contributes to the uplifting effect that it has on society. Then we understand that it is not dispensable. It is vital.
Now, let’s look at some of the questions. So, if there are humans, they will serve Mahadhar Seva. Yes, definitely.
Human beings have to be there. Then only then they will serve God. But there are many human beings.
Let’s say, since Prabhupada was addressing a big programme, and in India he brought his western disciples, and he was talking about how the spiritual culture of India is being accepted by people all over the world. So, one person got up and he said, Swami, India is a poor country. He said, there are so many starving people over here.
What is the use of this bhakti, chanting Hare Krishna? Sri Prabhupada said, all the starving people in the country, let them come to our temple. Now, if they are ready to chant Hare Krishna and give up sinful activities, we will feed all of them. What to speak of all of them? We will feed you also.
Can you give up meat-eating, gambling, intoxicant-less sex, chant Hare Krishna, I will feed you for the rest of my life. The person sat deeper. The problem is, actually misdirected desires.
And those desires have to be purified. So, people are there, but people need proper direction in their lives. So, we are not saying that Madho Seva should be done while people are starving.
There has to be both which have to be done. And both have to be done so that there is a holistic upliftment of humanity. Then, even devotees depend on medicine to get cured, and not on Madhav.
No, Madhav acts through the medicines. It is not that Krishna is disconnected from the world. Any doctor, if the doctor has worked for a few years in the medical field, will admit that the ultimate cure is not in his or her hands.
Sometimes you can administer the best medicines, you know clearly that these are the symptoms, this is the disease, and this is the medicine. But nothing happens. The person doesn’t get cured.
On the other hand, there are people whom the doctor says that, you know, you are going to die within six months. And that person goes on to live for six years after the doctor dies. So, there are spiritually wise doctors, often they write in the hospital, you know, we treat, he cures.
So, actually, it is not just the physical treatment that cures. Ultimately, there are higher elements that are involved. Physical treatments are important.
So, again, this whole question is based on the idea of disjointed sets. When we seek help from Madhav, it is not that Madhav’s help will not come by material means. It can come by material means also.
So, yes, devotees take medicines and devotees offer medicines also. We have Vaktyavant Hospital here in Mumbai itself, which is a devotee run hospital and which offers medical care at a concessional rate in many places where relief is needed in the midst of disasters, offers free medical care also. So, actually speaking, a part of Madhav Seva would be offering whatever is required to people.
That is one part. Another part is also doing worship. So, society’s money should be used in the service of society.
Well, the money doesn’t belong to society, it belongs to Krishna. You know, society also belongs to Krishna, society’s money also belongs to Krishna. So, Krishna’s money should be used for Krishna’s service and Krishna’s service includes Krishna’s children.
So, where does, we could say society’s money, but where does society’s money come from? In a science magazine, about a decade ago, it had a cover article called Bill from Nature. And it is a, I had written about the details in my article Artificial Reins, Imaginary Pains, Real Gains. So, there, what the researchers did was, if we had to pay a bill to nature for all that we take from her, you know, we take fruits, we take vegetables, we take lumber, we take minerals, we take flowers, he says the bill would be astronomical.
It would be bigger than the, the bill for one month would be bigger than the budget of the whole world. And if we add the bill to the sun, the bill for one day would be bigger than the bill of the, the budget of the whole, whole world, practically speaking. So, you know, we may say that this is society’s money, but actually where is society’s money coming from? The fundamental resources are coming from nature.
And nature is ultimately God’s energy. So, we human beings cannot monopolise nature and say that everything that is here is ours and we should use it. Yes, God wants everything to be used ultimately for the well-being of everyone.
So, when we think it is society’s money, we are fragmenting society from the totality of nature and the master of nature. So, God’s money should be used for God’s service in all possible ways. So, Dali Madhava Seva and Dali Mana Seva also.
Now, are spiritualists parasites? It depends on what do we mean by the word spiritualist. There are many people, if you, who in the name of spirituality are indeed parasites. They are using, they just use a religious garb to get a quick way to live and to fleece people of their money.
Such people are definitely parasites and they are undesirable. But if we talk about spirituality in terms of those who are practising spirituality as is given in the scripture, then they are actually contributing to society in a way that nobody else is contributing. What is that contribution, as I said? That is actually spiritual education, spiritual culture, inner transformation.
The kind of transformation that can happen in people’s lives and hearts by spiritual practise, that is very difficult to happen by other means. Now, where our most powerful countries with their biggest defence budgets, they can make bombs that can blow up a whole city in one moment. But even the most powerful nuclear bomb cannot blow up the bad habit of one person.
Even the most powerful nuclear bomb can’t do that. So, the power of the holy name of God, that can blow up the bad habit of anyone, everyone, who will take shelter of that power. So, that inner transformation is an invaluable service to society.
And very, very few people are offering that service today. So, actually, if we think of spirituality in the sense of what contribution is offering, it’s a very special and rare contribution. And that’s why people all over the world are turning towards spirituality.
And India is the heartland of spirituality, the motherland of spirituality. In America today, almost one out of every three or four people is a registered yoga practitioner. And why do they practise yoga? It’s not just for physical health.
They also are interested in something spiritual from it. And not only that, actually, millions of people explore spiritual wisdom. America is far more materially prosperous than India.
But there are people who are spiritually hungry even there. And they are turning towards Indian spirituality in unprecedentedly large numbers. It’s because spiritual hunger is not satisfied just by material things.
So, actually, the idea of a parasite is something that just takes away. Now, what spiritualists are contributing something whose need is felt even by the world’s most prosperous countries, or to speak of other parts of the world. Now, if you have any questions on what I’m saying, you can raise your hands, we can discuss now.
Or otherwise, if you have any further questions, we can discuss at the end of the class also. It’s true, you know, we don’t say that everybody has to starve and do bhajan. As I said, anybody who comes to the temple, they can have nice prasad also.
But there are so many people whose stomach is full, but they don’t do bhajan. So, actually speaking, the whole idea is that if we think of these two as disjointed sets, it’s not that we are saying that we have to stop all material necessities so that people will do madhava sattva. No, both have to be done.
Both play indispensable roles in our existence in this world. So, both contribute and both need to be taken care of. So, there are institutes which offer material relief, and there are institutes, far lesser institutes that offer some spiritual relief.
So, both are needed in society. And we shouldn’t think that those are institutes offering some spiritual relief, they also have to start offering material relief. If that is the idea of mana sevaya and madhava sevaya, that is wrong.
But this is also not the idea that all the institutes that are offering material relief, there is no need for them to function. No, that is not the idea. Both play distinct and critical roles.
Madhava sevaya is for rich people. Actually, it is for everyone, because all of us are ultimately souls, and all of us are connected with God. And without that connection, we cannot be happy.
Now, the idea could be here that madhava sevaya is a luxury. When people are hungry, they can’t practise it. When they become wealthy, when they have all their material needs taken care of, then they can practise madhava sevaya.
If that is the idea, then people are never rich enough to practise madhava sevaya, because the greed is such that it will never be satisfied. No matter how much a person has, the person will want more and more. A person in the village wants to come to a city.
When he comes to a city, he wants to come to a metropolis. When he comes to a metropolis, he wants to come to America. He wants to come to America, he wants to go to the moon.
There is no end to it. So, yes, certainly basic necessities have to be taken care of. But are we talking about here people of… how many people are here, at least in the audience, whose basic necessities are not taken care of? There are many people in the world whose basic necessities are not taken care of, no doubt.
But are those people in a situation that their basic necessities are not taken care of because they are working 15, 16, 17 hours a day? No, actually it is not that madhava sevaya has to be done throughout the day. Even poor people, they can work and they can do some amount of madhava sevaya. So what is required for madhava sevaya is a proper understanding, a proper culture, and a proper desire.
So, the desire has to come from the individual, individual, that person has to have that desire. The understanding has to be provided by those who are the teachers and the culture has to be created in society at large. So, all these three are required and this is not only related among the wealthy.
Yes, wealthy people can practise madhava sevaya and poor people can also practise. In many ways, wealthy people may find it more difficult because they are under the illusion that we are happy, why do we need God? Poor people can feel that we need God’s help. But it’s neither, it doesn’t matter whether the person is wealthy or poor.
Everybody, if they want to be truly happy, they want to be satisfied in life, they need to practise madhava sevaya. Otherwise, they may have empty stomachs or hungry stomachs. Their hearts will always be hungry.
They may have empty stomachs or full stomachs, but their hearts will always be hungry and they will never be satisfied. Okay, special quick darshan for the rich. Okay, I have written a book on the movie Oh My God, re-answering the questions, there I have addressed this question.
The idea here is that Krishna says, As all people surrender to me, I reward them accordingly. So, Krishna accepts different things from different people according to what they can offer. So, the whole idea again that there is quick darshan for wealthy people, that’s why there is partiality.
This is based on a very limited understanding of Krishna bhakti that only those people who get darshan of Krishna, they get the benefit and others don’t get the benefit. And if you get quicker darshan, you get greater benefit. That’s not right.
That’s a very material, that’s a very misleading conception of spirituality. Actually, those people who are getting quicker darshan, if they’re wealthy, they have offered more money, they get darshan. Now, it’s not that because they get darshan, they get Krishna’s blessings.
They have offered some service to Krishna. Some people may offer service in terms of money. Others may offer service in terms of time.
Now, standing in the queue to take darshan of Krishna is also a form of service to Krishna. If you think that’s only when I take darshan of Krishna, I want to get some blessings. No, the time that we spend in the queue, we are offering that time to Krishna.
So, some people have money, they offer money to Krishna. Other people have time, they offer time. Those who don’t have money, they may offer time.
And now, what will determine the blessings that we get is not how quickly we get darshan, but how sincerely we offer our devotion. So, if somebody is offering money and is proudly going ahead in front of everyone else and thinking, I have offered so much donation, that person is unlikely to get much blessings from the Lord. On the other hand, somebody humbly stands in the queue and then takes darshan even for a few moments.
That person will get far greater blessings from God. So, at a material level, within a material structure, there have to be some limitations. There will be some arrangements that have to be made.
So, these facilities which will have certain limitations, certain adjustments, they don’t restrict the spiritual grace of God. Whatever we offer, God accepts. And it is not that this specific… Again, the whole idea is, we often consider Mahadevas to be an isolated activity.
The activity is just taking darshan of God. No. The whole process of going to the temple, standing in the queue, it’s all a part of the process of getting the blessings of God.
So, work is worship. Yes. If work is worship, then the donkey is the greatest worshipper.
Isn’t it? He does more work than anyone else. So, certainly, work can be worship. But work in and of itself is not worship.
Why? Because work is material, worship is spiritual. Actually, this is a mistranslation of the Bhagavad Gita. The Bhagavad Gita verse, I think, 18.46 is, It is, By your work, worship him.
It is not work is worship. The verse is what? By your work, worship him. So, what the Bhagavad Gita is saying is, not work is worship.
By your work, that is, make your work into worship. So, how does work become worship? Work becomes worship when we offer the work in a spirit of devotion to God. And when will we offer that work in a spirit of devotion to God? When our heart is devoted to God.
And for our heart to be devoted to God, there has to be time for exclusive worship. So, when we come to the temple, when we understand the philosophy of life, when we chant the names of God, then our heart becomes connected with God. And then when our heart is connected with God, after that, when we do the work in this world, then that work also becomes offered to God.
And then that work becomes a worship. Work automatically is not worship. But work can be made into worship.
And for work to be made into worship, we need time to worship God exclusively. Because that, and that alone connects our heart with God. Otherwise, our work will just stay material.
There will not be much spiritual element in it. Because, actually, if we are honest with ourselves, we may say work is worship, but how many times do we really think of God while doing worship, while doing our work? Practically, the only time when we think of God in our work is when our work doesn’t work. Isn’t it? So, if we spend time in worshipping God specifically, then when we do the work also, we will be able to do the work better.
Because our mind will be clearer, our heart will be purer. We will be able to work much better. If we had said that, Krishna is saying in a poem that, you know, that, If we offer our mind to Krishna, chanting his holy names, then our mind becomes clearer, purer.
Then, actually, we work better. So, if you think that you will just do your work, you don’t need to be. Fine, I won’t intervene.
You can just do your work. So, then we cut ourselves off from God’s help. Poverty creates crime.
Therefore, poverty has to be removed. Yes, poverty is a contributor to crime. At the same time, you know, all the big scams that are there, are they caused by poor people? You know, the whole Lokpal agitation that is there, you know, that is not so much to check the poor people, isn’t it? The biggest scandals, the biggest crimes are not caused by poor people.
They are caused by greedy people. And greed can be there among poor people, greed can be there among wealthy people also. So, poverty is a contributor to crime, but there can be poor people also who can be honest, and there can be wealthy people who can be terribly criminal.
In fact, what we see is that the more people have wealth, the more they want wealth. And because they have wealth, they also feel that we can break the law and we can get away with it by using our contacts and our bribery and things like that. So, it’s not just poverty that causes crimes, but it’s also greed primarily that causes crimes.
And greed needs to be cured. In fact, as I discussed earlier, if greed were cured, then much of poverty would be removed, because the resources that are consumed by a small quantity of the people, they would be available for the larger society. So, that’s why what spirituality does is, it works to purify people of their greed.
Now, there was this Lokpal agitation, and again, it’s important. We need to have an official mechanism, a system, a disciplinary body with teeth, which can correct people, which can punish people when they do wrong. At the same time, the Lokpal, it can punish people when they act on their greed.
But Lokpal cannot remove greed. For that, we need Gopal. So, for that, we need Lord Krishna and his bhakti, which gives higher days to people, which gives higher happiness.
So, Lokpal acts at external level, Gopal acts at internal level. So, traditionally, the Vedic culture had these two aspects for controlling society. One was Shastra and the other was Shastra.
So, Shastra was exercised, was used by the Brahmanas. The Brahmanas are not just caste-born Brahmanas, they are actually those who are having the qualities of spiritual intellectuals. So, Brahmanas use Shastra, they give people proper education, how you will find real happiness in life, what are the things that you should do.
You are not the body, you are the soul, you are in happiness in connecting with God. And people, by hearing this, those people who are virtues or inclined toward virtue, they would learn and they would live in harmony. And of course, there are going to be people who are not going to listen to good instruction, good counsel.
So, for them, there is Shastra. Shastra is used by the Kshatriyas. So, Shastra and Kshastra combine together, bring about order and well-being in society.
So, in order to correlate this with our discussion here, a Manoseva is done by the Kshatriyas. Madhavseva is done by the Brahmanas. Madhavseva is done in the sense that Madhavseva is the teaching and creating the culture about Madhavseva is the responsibility of the Brahmanas.
And taking care of the material facilities for people, that is done by the Kshatriyas. That is also important in the Srimad Bhagavatam, in the fourth canto, when there is a devastating famine that is created in the kingdom and Prithu Maharaj, who is the Kshatriya, ruling Kshatriya at that time, he takes the personal responsibility for ensuring that the starving people are taken care of. But that is his responsibility.
So, he doesn’t say that, oh, we’ll just do Madhavseva, forget the starving people. He doesn’t say that. He takes the responsibility to take care of the people.
But at the same time, in the name of taking care of the starving people, he doesn’t say, there is no need for any spiritual culture. Stop all that nonsense. We just have to feed the poor people.
No, he does take the responsibility of feeding the poor people. And he also contributes to the spiritual culture. He contributes to the culture by which spiritual wisdom will also be provided.
So, God himself requires protection. How can he protect us? The deities of Krishna were taken to Jaipur from Vrindavan due to fear of attack of Muslims. Actually, every manifestation of Krishna comes for a particular purpose.
When Krishna manifests as the deity, he manifests to give us an opportunity to serve him. Krishna is manifesting as the deity not to prove his omnipotence. Every manifestation has a particular purpose.
For example, certain people with certain religions, they don’t believe in deity worship. They consider deity worship wrong. So, that’s why they go about breaking deities.
But they also consider their holy book to be sacred. If they consider their holy book to be sacred, now if somebody decides, I’ll burn this holy book. And as I say, I’ll burn this holy book just like any other holy book, any other ordinary book.
Therefore, what is the holiness in this book? It’s just an ordinary book. That is not the way to demonstrate or understand the holiness of that holy book. It’s not by checking whether it is burn proof or not.
You know, that is not the way. The way is by opening it and submissively reading it. So, the book has manifested so that people who want to have spiritual intelligence can get the spiritual intelligence.
So, that is a manifestation of God for a particular purpose. Similarly, the deity is a manifestation of God for a particular purpose. That purpose is to give us an opportunity to serve him.
And so, the devotees don’t think that Krishna needs our protection. They feel it that way. They know that ultimately, Krishna is only our protector.
But, we have invited Krishna to come here as the deity and it is our responsibility to serve him. As a part of our service, we will do whatever is required to protect him also. So, we have to understand the purpose of every manifestation and then see how that purpose is being served by that manifestation of Krishna.
So, Krishna doesn’t manifest his omnipotence in this world through any of his manifestations except death. Normally speaking. So, even the atheists may say there is no God.
But, at that time, eventually, the atheists will say God is nowhere. When death will come, God is now here. You know, nowhere, now here.
Same words. Difference will become. So, God will come and take them at that time.
The Lord is Atmaram. Why to make him happy? Let us make those who are unhappy, happy. Yes, we make the unhappy happy by engaging them in the service of God.
So, actually, Krishna is self-satisfied. No doubt. Krishna doesn’t need anything from us.
But, we need to connect with him to become happy. Without connecting with him, we will forever stay unfulfilled. So, yes, we want to make unhappy people happy.
But, how do we do that? By truly connecting, by actually connecting them with God. Prabhupada would give the example. If there is a wealthy father’s son who has got estranged from the father and is now wandering on the streets as a beggar.
The father is wealthy enough. The father doesn’t need anything from the son. But, this child is suffering now.
Somebody may say, oh, this child is hungry. Let me give him some food. Somebody may say, give him some clothes.
Give him some medicine. Fine. But, still that child will be lost.
If somebody connects that child back with the father and takes him back home, then he is being truly happy. Similarly, people in this world are suffering. They are suffering because of lack of food for the child.
And, that needs to be taken care of. But, even for those for whom these things are taken care of, still they are also suffering in their own way. So, the cause of the suffering ultimately is disconnection from God and reconnection with God is the way we will make unhappy people happy.
So, love is in the heart. Why to make temples? Yes. If a baby is crying and the mother is sitting next to her.
Mother is just looking at the baby. Baby is crying. Hey, don’t know, some neighbour comes along, some relative comes along and says, do you love your baby? I love my baby.
Baby is crying. Yes, love is in my heart. Where else in the world do we see love is only in the heart and it is never expressed? If love is in the heart, it will always be expressed.
So, the way we express it is different depending on different situations. So, just as, say a man who loves his family, may want a big house for the family. Similarly, a devotee who loves God wants to build a beautiful temple for the Lord.
Now, the temple is not only for the Lord. When the temple is built, it benefits all of society also. You know, I have written a book called Why Do We Need a Temple? So, there I explain how the temple offers various precious things.
So, T-E-M-P-L-E is acronym. So, T is temple offers tranquilly, a peaceful atmosphere. E is education.
A temple is a place for higher education. Then M is medication. Actually, it cures the desires of the heart.
That’s the way it helps people become free from addiction. P is purification. It enables people to become better and better, more compassionate, more loving, pure hearted.
L is love. Here we learn what is real love. Love for Krishna, love for all living beings relationship with Krishna.
And E is engagement. Now, we get positive, fulfilling engagements over here. So, temple offers a variety of services to society.
So, temple is the way we express our devotion to God. And then when we express our devotion by building temple, that also helps people in various ways. Madhava Seva breaks irresponsibility.
Brahmacharis don’t contribute to society. All the education is a waste. So, I had gone to a college.
After I gave a seminar, the director said, so, you were from an engineering college. He says, because of you, India lost to engineering. I said, India didn’t lose, America lost.
So, what happens? How many engineers who become engineers, they stay in India? Most of them go to America. A large number, probably most of the best people go to America. So, if you see India, what is India just its engineering colleges or its medical colleges? Is India just its mountains and rivers? India is essentially India’s culture.
And the culture that has been going on for thousands and thousands of years, that is also an essential part of India. So, preserving this culture and sharing it with India and with the world is also an important contribution. So, even from the nationalistic point of view, what the Brahmacharis are doing is a contribution.
It’s a contribution to a culture. Now, there are people who build museums to try to preserve what was there long ago. And those museums, they say, we are preserving the culture in that way.
What was there? Okay, but the museums are preserving the culture in a dead form. The temples with the Brahmacharis, with the devotees, they are preserving the culture in living form. So, even if we don’t say, don’t believe in God, don’t believe in spirituality, even from material point of view, it’s not a waste.
It’s a contribution. It’s a contribution. And actually speaking, you know, in our society, there are this, we could say there are two, these two summits, two mountains of knowledge.
There is spiritual knowledge or scriptural knowledge and the scientific knowledge. And personally for me, I studied science, I did my engineering, and I was quite attracted and impressed by science in many ways. But then I also saw how there is much that science can’t provide.
That’s how I got introduced to spirituality. What can science not provide? It’s a different subject. But essentially, science cannot do much to deal with our emotions, you know, to treat our emotions.
With all the best medicines in the world, there is no medicine to cure anger. The person becomes angry, all that the best scientists can do is just give some sleeping medicine. Wake up, all the anger is there again.
But I found that this inner transformation happens with spirituality. So, I felt that there is, science is contributing a lot to society, spirituality is contributing a lot, but these two are like two different universes. There has to be a bridge between the two.
So, that bridge is what, say those who are educated in the modern society, in the modern way of thinking, and then they study and they present the spiritual culture, then it becomes intelligible and applicable for us. So, that is also a very valuable contribution to society. Technological advancement is by Manavas.
Actually speaking, most of the technological advancement that has happened, has come by observing nature and imitating nature. So, it is not just by Manavas, it is by observing the gifts that God has provided. And yes, technological advancement has been there, but it is not always a blessing.
For example, I have a whole seminar on technology. We have cars, cars are certainly convenient and they will be used. But if you look at it, a technology provides luxuries for a few, but takes away necessities from many.
For example, a car provides comfortable travel for a few, but if the car gives out smoke, now all the people who are in the streets, they have to breathe that inhaled smoke. So, technology alone can’t solve problems. Technology can create many more problems also.
So, yes, we need technology, but we also need spirituality. I say that technology improves things. Spirituality improves people.
We need both. We need to improve things and we need to improve people. Otherwise, what we have is, for example, now one of the biggest problems, one of the biggest causes of avoidable diseases is obesity.
So, we have technology improves things. So, we have weighing machines. Now, earlier we had those weighing machines on the railway station where people stand on it.
And then there is a display where the ticket comes out. And we have smaller weighing machines here than doctor’s clinics. Now, there are portable machines, like a brick.
You stand on it for a few moments and the weighing machine comes up. And the weight comes up. So, the weighing machines are becoming smaller and smaller and smaller.
And the people on the weighing machines are becoming bigger and bigger and bigger. So, we don’t just need technology to improve things. We also need spirituality to improve people.
Spirituality gives people the self-control. Once the Prabhupada was going for a morning walk and he saw some very heavy, very excessively obese people jogging along, trying to jog along. And they were going through slums, some slum areas.
So, Prabhupada said, just see, you know, in these slums, the children don’t get enough to eat. And these people have eaten so much that they are now to run to eat, digest what they have eaten. So, we need self-control in society and that’s what spirituality offers.
The only basis for Madhya Seva is so-called mythology. Actually, the idea of mythology is based on a very limited conception of history. If you study history carefully, beyond 2000-2500 years, we really don’t know what happened.
Even the date of Buddha, when he appeared, that is still a debated date. So, to say what has happened before that is mythology, is just overconfidence in the knowledge that we have from history. And there is much that is in history that we don’t know.
And that’s why, rather than, if the history of ideas is taught as anything, it is humility. That there is so much that we don’t know. So much has happened in history, which from today’s point of view might seem like mythology, but it is not mythology.
Simple point here is that, actually, there are many things in nature, which we don’t understand. I suppose, what exactly is the meaning of this question? That God doesn’t exist? Scriptures? There is no authentication of whether the scriptures are true or not. Well, there is scientific evidence for the existence of God.
There is scientific evidence for the existence of soul. There is scientific evidence for the transformation that happens through spirituality. So, even if somebody is a sceptical, they don’t bother about everything that is there in scripture.
There may be certain facts, certain actions, certain figures, you may feel are unbelievable, put them aside. Don’t bother about them. Focus right now on what spirituality can offer us to benefit.
It can transform us. It can purify us. So, that is something which all our modern science, it doesn’t offer us.
So, okay, even if somebody feels that some part of it is not believable, it doesn’t matter. Take what is beneficial and use that. Madhavseva philosophy is lofty and impractical.
Well, actually, materialism is impractical. You know, seriously, we can’t, the way society is going right now, we are consuming up natural resources. And there can be an oil crunch, all the oil will run out.
There can be a water crunch where all the water will have no drinking water remaining. There can be devastation of natural resources that can happen over the next century or a few centuries, even a few decades also it can happen. So, the way we are going is simply unsustainable.
So, practical way of living is living in harmony with the reality of who we are. And who we are, our souls. So, we have to live in harmony with our actual nature.
And that is the only way to live practically and sustainably life. Human society is based on love and compassion, which is to be given through food, shelter and clothing. Yes, this love and compassion, as we discussed, the desire to give food and clothing and shelter also comes when people have a spiritual vision of life, then love and compassion is sustained more.
The term human denotes charity, food, etc. Yes, it denotes charity, but it is not just a food. That is, as I said, if the son is estranged from the father, the greatest charity that a friend can do is take the son back to the father.
That is also an important charity. And then the Quran says Manu Seva is topmost. It doesn’t exactly say that.
There are five pillars of Islam which are talked about in the Quran. So, the first is acceptance of God. Then there is doing a performance of namaz.
Then there is fasting in Ramadan. There is going to Mecca. And then the fifth is giving charity.
So, all five are important. If anything is more important, they say acceptance of Allah as God is the most important. The idea of humanitarian work being the most important is a misrepresentation of the Quran.
But it is true that humanitarian work is emphasised in Quran. And as I said, it is talked about in the Vedic culture also. Krishna talks about So, helping at a humanitarian level is talked about in all cultures of the world.
But what is distinctive in the Vedic culture is that there is a clear explanation of spiritual reality by which one can become purified, one can become elevated, one can become liberated. So, the kind of inner transformation that happens by the practise of bhakti yoga that is given in the Vedic culture that doesn’t happen with anything else in the world. No, there are millions of people who become transformed, who give up all bad habits.
So, just if somebody just practises nominal superficial religion, then the person doesn’t become transformed. So, all the religions have bona fide ways of reaching God. However, the Vedic culture offers us clear knowledge of God, offers us a clear understanding of the means to go to God.
So, sadhya and sadhana. Sadhya is the road, a clear understanding of God. Sadhana is the path, the clear pathway to reach back to God.
And that’s why when we are practising spirituality and learning spirituality in the Vedic culture, that sadhya and sadhana is emphasised. But along with that, there’s also the talk about how while we are in this world, we should contribute to this world. So, that is not denied or rejected.
Whereas in Quran, in the Bible, there is not much description of God per se. What God looks like, what he does. And the pathway to go back to God is also not very clearly delivered.
The general understanding is there that we should devote ourselves to him. But the process is not so clearly given. And because of this lacking of a clear understanding of the spiritual path and goal, much of the spirituality becomes reduced to a material level.
And that’s why, many times, these religions become less a spiritual search for God and more a political search for power. And the acquirement of political power is considered to be a spiritual success. So, this is a complete misdirection that has happened because there is not much clear spiritual understanding.
So, yes, imagined work is talked about in all religions, even the Vedic religion. But an emphasis on that, excessive emphasis on that, is because of a lack of spiritual understanding. And we don’t have to make that mistake.
We should correct that mistake by having a proper balance between spiritual relief and humanitarian relief. Are there any other questions? Yes. Yes.
So, poor people don’t have money or time. How can they come to take darshan? See, again, the principle is that Krishna is accessible to everyone. His specific manifestations may not be accessible to everyone.
So, even the poor people can chant the holy names. They may not be able to come to a temple for darshan. But often, almost all the temples have some kind of processions where they can take darshan when the Lord is coming out in the processions.
So, it is true that at a material level, there can always be certain limitations. Somebody might be, say, so physically sick, the person is hospitalised or is immobilised, crippled, the person cannot come to the temple. But does that mean that this person is spiritually deprived? No, certain material conditions may deprive us of access to certain manifestations of God.
But God himself is never inaccessible to anyone. Somebody may be blind. So, even if a person comes to a temple, he cannot take darshan.
But still, that person can hear the holy name, hear Krishna’s message. So, God is always accessible to anyone who wants to access it. But if we think that access to God means access to a specific manifestation of God, then we are mystic.
Any other questions? Yes, please. What is the purpose of this book? Because of? Yeah, okay. No, okay.
So, I was mentioning an article about artificial rains, imaginary gains, and real pains. So, a few years ago, the Indian government, Maharashtrian government, more specifically, it tried to get artificial rains where there were clouds, where there was no rains, but there were clouds overhead. So, they tried to do cloud seeding.
And the politician and scientist went with a helicopter and injected some seeds, hygroscopic chemicals, into the clouds. And then the rains were supposedly shot down. So, it was basically a political stunt for media coverage.
So, then I had done an analysis over there. This sort of weather modification has been a longtime human dream. And it was tried in America.
And after trying for decades, the American government decided to give it up because they found it’s not productive. Because what happens is, even if you have a cloud and cause it to fall, first of all, it’s not artificial rains because we have not made the clouds. The clouds have to be there already.
But when the clouds are there, but they’re not giving rains, then we put some hygroscopic chemicals in it. The silver iodide is what is normally used for that. But then there are three problems with it, among the many problems.
First is that we can’t control where the rains will fall. So, if the rains fall in the river and the river water just flows away, then what is the use? Second problem is that even if the rain falls, often the amount of expenditure that is required to actually inject the chemicals, it is so much that it doesn’t really, it’s not really financially viable. And third is that the silver iodide that was used, that has, it has not been well tested.
It is well known that the sort of hygroscopic chemicals can have health hazards. And without proper tests to do that, so there is imaginary gains and there are real pain. So much of the public exchequer was being squandered on what was basically a PR exercise.
Okay, any other questions? Yes, please. Okay, yes. So when Krishna needs patram, pushpam, phalam, toyam, as he says in the Bhagavad Gita, then why are people giving gold and so many other precious things? Actually, what Krishna tells in the Bhagavad Gita in the ninth chapter, where this verse comes, Krishna in 9.26, he’s contrasting his worship with other forms of worship.
And he’s telling that, actually, even if you offer me simple things, I’ll accept it. Even if you offer me simple things, still I’ll accept it. So that is actually the glory of devotion to Krishna.
But at the same time, we also have to understand that it’s Krishna’s heart. Even if you offer simple things, I will accept it. But what is our heart? Sometimes if a mother is very fearful about what the child will do, the child is not studying, the child is not doing things properly, and the mother is very afraid, that the child will just run away.
And the mother will say, If you come home, I’ll be happy. Just come home, don’t run away from home. Don’t get lost.
So now, what the mother wants, if the child can do more, certainly the child should do more. What the mother would want, if the child should go to school, get good marks, have a good career, mother will be much happier by that. But at that level, so if the mother’s heart is coming out, just come home.
Don’t stay lost like this. But what is the child’s heart? Mother, you told me to come home, I’ll come home. No.
If the child loves the mother, the child will want to do the best that he can. Similarly, there, Patram, Pushpam, Phalam, Toyam, is an expression of Krishna’s heart. That is, the extent of his love for us, is he just offers something simple, I’ll be happy with that.
But that doesn’t mean that we should restrict all our offerings to the simplest things. No, the love of our heart will be that we will want to offer the best to Krishna. That is how we express our love for Krishna.
Now, Krishna doesn’t need these things, no doubt. But, we need them, because by that, we will become purified. So, when we offer beautiful things to Krishna, then we may feel that, okay, so much expense is going on.
But, actually speaking, by offering this, we become purified. And somehow people object only when something wonderful is offered to Krishna. But what about so many other places where things are wasted, there are so many millionaires, there are millionaires and billionaires, their houses are decorated in such big ways.
Why not object to that? Why not object, now the IPL is going on, just for the IPL inauguration, such huge amounts of money are spent. I had gone for a conference on Indian progress, and there I was, there was one social welfare worker, he had come and he was telling that, the greatest danger to the Indian economy, and he said that is cricket. He said that every time there is a cricket match, it is as, it is almost as bad as if some political priority has called for a strike.
Now, people stop working. So, people may seem to be in their offices, but they are not attentive in their offices. They say, what is happening in the cricket, what is happening in the cricket match, what is happening in the cricket match? And he says, this is, we are actually ruining our economy, but we are doing that happily.
So, now, again, this is not a forum for anti-cricket propaganda. That is not the point. My point here is, there are so many places where we waste money.
We don’t object over there. So, if somebody wants to offer something wonderful to God, why should we object to that? That’s person’s prerogative. And actually, as I discussed, when something wonderful is offered to God, then that not only purifies that person, but that attracts others.
Actually, Prabhupada was once in Hong Kong, and he had organised a press conference. So, it was one of the five-star hotels, the Hilton Hotel, it was. So, then the reporters came along, and then one of the reporters asked, Swamiji, you know, you are supposed to be, you are a renunciate, then why are you here at this five-star hotel? So, actually, Prabhupada replied, I can sit under a tree also, and I’ll be happy under the tree.
But if I had organised a press conference under a tree, would you have come? So, actually speaking, when the best, materially the best things are offered to God, then people come to see that. You know, this Adhara Svihari temple is so beautiful. It’s a marvel temple.
So, people come to see the temple. They don’t come to see Krishna. But when they come to the temple, they see Krishna also.
So, at one time, I think a couple, two, three years ago, what the devotees had done was, on Janmashtami day, they had got a famous Bollywood dress designer to design a dress for Adhara Svihari. And when that dress was designed, then several newspapers published that dress on their newspaper front page. So, they are not interested in Adhara Svihari.
They are interested in Adhara Svihari dressed by a Bollywood dresser. Now, what does that mean? People are attracted to materially attractive things. So, the Vedic culture says the most materially attractive things should be offered to Krishna.
And by that, people who are attracted to material things will also become attracted to Krishna. Initially for those materially attractive things, but eventually, they will learn more about Krishna and they will become spiritually also attracted to Him. So, that way, that’s why our devotion we express to God by offering the best that we can to Krishna.
And when we offer the best that is there in this world to Krishna, it also attracts others towards Krishna and benefits them also that way. Does it answer your question? So, some people do business deals with Balaji and they give 50% to Balaji and then again they make more money. So, why is Balaji supporting their business? Balaji is not primarily concerned with the business.
You know, he is concerned with the hearts of the people. So, any way people approach God, Krishna reciprocates. So, if somebody wants to offer God money, Krishna accepts that.
Somebody wants to offer time to God, Krishna, as I said, he accepts that. Somebody wants to offer something else, somebody offers dress to God, food to God, Krishna accepts that. So, it’s not that Krishna is primarily interested in money.
It is interest, he is interested in the relationship with people. So, the purpose actually of any form of bhakti is to offer our heart to Krishna. But then the scriptures tell us that when our heart is filled with so many material things, if you can’t offer your heart to Krishna, then you offer what is in your heart to Krishna.
So, for most people, what is in their heart is money. So, when they offer their money to Krishna, what is happening is they are offering a part of their heart to Krishna and they are giving Krishna a place in their heart by that. They are offering, but at the same time, they have an expectation I will get double, double.
Yes. So, if they have expectation from Krishna that I will get double, so what is the benefit from that? Yes, there are multiple levels of worship of God. There is fear, there is desire, there is duty and there is love.
So, fear is if I don’t worship God, he will punish me, then he will let me worship him. And desire is, yes, as you said, you know, you do a good business with God, profitable business. And then duty is, yes, God is my father, he has already provided me so much.
So, let me serve him. And love is the highest. So, now when people do at the level of fear and desire, the ideal Vedic culture is where any way people approach God, gradually they will become elevated.
Like, for example, generally within his conch, the Prabhupada, the way he started is anybody who comes to the temple and gives any financial contribution, we offer something in return. We try to offer them spiritual knowledge, we give them books. If they ask, we give them some counsel, some guidance, some spiritual wisdom.
The idea is, our goal is not to keep people at the level of fear and desire, to help them rise higher. But it is for them to rise. So, generally speaking, anybody who offers anything to Krishna, those who are receiving it on behalf of Krishna, we offer something which will elevate them higher.
So, if we stay at the level of desire, then that is unsustainable. Because it is not that every time we offer something to God, it will get doubled. You know, it may, it may not.
Because ultimately, it depends on our karma. So, whatever karma we have done in the past and combined with whatever is Krishna’s plan, that will be the result. So, we cannot expect material results all the time to come out positively.
Actually, Prabhupada gives the example when the Second World War was going on. You know, on both sides, the allies and the axis, people believed in God. And both sides, they said, that their wives and their daughters and their sisters, please let our sons come back, please let our men come back victorious.
And both sides, people died. And both sides, the women became atheists. So, at a material level, we cannot expect all our desires to be fulfilled.
So, if people stay only at that material level, then their faith will always be shaky. That’s why that is not a sustainable platform. But it is a beginning.
It is a beginning. And it is a good initial step. And it will help them to move forward above from there.
That’s what we should try to do as much as possible, to help them rise to a higher level of understanding. So, Krishna makes himself accessible to us in all forms of relationships. But, he also gives us the knowledge through the Bhagavad Gita, by which we can rise to the highest level in relating with him.
So, that sort of business partnership is one level of relation with him. But, we should rise to a higher level. We should encourage others to also rise to higher levels.
Shall we stop? So, last question. Stop for a minute. Quickly.
Q. I have seen many times on websites, people, they are so much moved by emotions. They don’t really try to explain. Because I have an experience, a number of people like that.
And people start shouting, you know, you are making beggars, you know, that comes from… When they came, they started making issues that you are making them beggars, but they are… Yeah, so sometimes when we try to share Krishna consciousness, people are so emotionally aggressive. They just don’t hear. That’s why the scriptures tell us, the Bhagavatam says that, that we will have to deal with different people in different ways.
So for the Lord, there is Prema. For His devotees, there is Maitri. For the innocent, there is Kripa.
We try to share spiritual knowledge with them. And for the envious, there is Upeksha. We neglect them.
Because not everybody is receptive to spiritual knowledge right now. So if somebody is very aggressive, very offensive, just keep a distance from them. And the only best way we can serve them is by praying for their well-being.
And there are many others who are in a position to be helped. Srila Prabhupada would give the example that, if there has been a war, and there are hundreds and thousands of soldiers who are wounded now. So the Red Cross doctors come there.
Now at that time, they would like to save all the people who are sick, or who are wounded. But they are limited. So generally they will focus, if some cases are terribly wounded, there is not much chance of saving them.
In battling to save them, what will happen is, other people who could have been saved, they will also become more serious. So the Red Cross doctors generally focus on the cases that are most hopeful. And those people as they are healing, they can help others also.
So we would like to help everyone. But some people are very biassed against God. Then we have to serve them best by our prayers and offer practical help to others.
That’s how we can best serve them. So thank you very much. Radha Raas Bihari Bhagwan ki Jai! Srila Prabhupada ki Jai! Gaur Bhakta Vrinda ki Jai! Nithaya Gaur Prema Nandhe! Thank you very much.
Hare Krishna.