Is there one standard way to apply scripture at all times?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Just moment, is there like one answer about how scripture is to be applied in today’s world? See, there is always the temptation to reduce the complexity of life to a simplicity of bullet point that we can tick.
And actually, that is the great appeal of religious extremism, and not just religious extremism, any kind of ideological extremism. See, why do, if you see some people, I was in America, Pakistani Muslim senator had come to meet me when this whole Kashmir article 370 had been abolished. He was very shrewd, he said, whenever anything goes wrong in my religion, I have been at the forefront of criticizing it.
So, he says, religions need internal criticism. If there is external criticism, then immediately it becomes religious polarization. So, he was saying that human rights are being exploited in Kashmir, so you should criticize it.
I will not criticize it. So, then I explained it is more of a political issue, law and order issue. It is not a religious issue.
It is, in Kashmir, it is not just, it is not a question of Muslims being restricted. Actually, Hindus were driven out, Sikhs were driven out, there were Christians who were there, they were driven out. So, it is basically a law and order issue that is being restored.
But anyway, that point what we discussed is in this context that when we take, so why is it that say, there is one idea that people who are uneducated, people who have no options in life, they become religious extremists, they become terrorists. And it is true to some extent in Pakistan, Afghanistan, many people who are having no other options in life, for them, this seems like a glamorous option. But quite often, the top leaders of terrorists are not uneducated people.
They are, like Bin Laden was educated, even Gaddafi was quite educated. So, many of them, when say in Sri Lanka, when those attacks happened, all of them were like, they had degrees from UK and other things like that. So, what happens at one level is that life is very complex in general.
And now today, with many of the structures that gave order and meaning to life collapsing, say the family as a unit is collapsing. If you had a family, then you have Boris’s idea. No, this is right, this is wrong.
You get some map at least. Okay, if something is going to hurt my family, I cannot do it. But when many of the structures that gave meaning, now in the postmodern deconstructionist way, nationalism itself is considered to be very bad.
No, you are very narrow minded, you think only of your nation. But then at least you have some structure to think about. Reality can be endlessly complex.
So, what happens when, because of extreme relativism, when all the structures of meaning are brought down, then some people just take one structure of meaning, one structure and reduce all of reality to that. That’s how fanaticism is not necessarily because of a fervent religious devotion. Fanaticism is also because of intellectual escapism.
That I just don’t know how complicated, how do I deal with it? Okay, this book says this, let’s do this, this, this, this, that’s my life is going to be perfect. So, that and this can happen not just because of religion. It can happen because of any ideology.
If you see, in today’s world, religious extremism is talked about quite heavily. But communist Marxism, when it was applied in China and USSR, actually 100 million people were killed. 100 million is more than the number of people killed in World War I, World War II and all the World Wars of the 20th century combined together.
And these are people killed because they had the idea that we want to distribute wealth equally and anybody who has more wealth than others, they are exploiters and they need to be eliminated. So, people lost their basic moral sense, their basic intelligence. From this, if we apply this Marxist ideology, we will create paradise on earth.
So, in many areas, there is the temptation to reduce the complexity of life, the simplicity of bullet point that we can take. And it doesn’t work like that. So, even with respect to gender roles or anything else in society, we need to recognize that life is complex.
So, the Bhagavatam also says repeatedly, Mahabharata also says that, Dharma is complex. And Dharma hides, understanding of Dharma is very, very difficult to get. And then it says, Mahajano yena gata sapanta.
Look at how the great souls have lived and by looking at their lives, you can learn what is Dharma. So, it doesn’t say that, just read scripture and you will know what is Dharma. Read scripture, look at the examples of people who have lived according to Dharma and from that you learn.
So, broadly, I talk about three ways. It’s like, it’s a big subject. See, when we see something in scripture, there is, we can ask, what did this specific rule mean in its original context? Say, for example, women should not worship, women should not do yajna or whatever.
What did this rule mean in its original context? Then, what is its context? What is the context-independent principle underlying this rule? And then, how does that principle apply in today’s context? So, this is called broadly the ladder of abstraction. Ladder of abstraction is that at the bottom of the ladder of abstraction, there are specifics. At the top, there are abstract principles.
Say, if somebody says that, I am giving a talk and I say, today I will speak on how the population of polar bears in Alaska is decreasing. What? Why should I be interested in that? Say, something is very specific, it might be interesting for some people but not relevant for many. But then if I say, by that, by changing the population of the polar bears, we will talk about how climate change is affecting our planet.
How? Then that becomes more relevant. So, specifics come at the bottom of the ladder of abstraction, universal specific practices come at the bottom of the ladder of abstraction, universal principles come at the top of the ladder of abstraction. If somebody talks only in terms of principles, then people cannot relate with it.
It is too abstract, too vague, not concretized. So, basically, when the first question is asked, what did this mean in its original context? That is, at the bottom of the ladder of abstraction, say, 1000 years ago, 5000 years ago, whenever scripture was spoken. Then what is the time-independent principle underlying this? That is, at the bottom of the ladder of abstraction, at the top of the ladder.
And again, we come down, how does this principle apply today? Then if we do these three things, then we can broadly understand how scripture is to be applied. See, one misapplication of the Bhagavad Gita, which at least critics of the Bhagavad Gita says that the Bhagavad Gita is a violence-inducing book. There is an attempt, see what has happened, there is an attempt by some scholars, especially the leftist scholars, to say that, okay, Islam has been, Islamist extremism is widely known in the world.
And some people try to say, actually, every religion has extremism. So, Hindus also have extremism. If you look at the historical track record, there are not that many incidences of Hindu extremism.
But one way they try to portray it is that the Bhagavad Gita is a book for violence. And actually, a peace-loving person was incited towards violence by the Bhagavad Gita. Now, if we consider it that way, okay, at the specific ladder of abstraction bottom, yes, Arjuna was told to fight.
But if you see, Arjuna’s conclusion also is not, at the end, not I’ll fight the war. He says, karishye vachanam tava, I will do your will. So that, if you come to the top of the ladder of abstraction, the essential message of the Bhagavad Gita is not a message of violence, nor is it a message of silence.
It is a message of transcendence, that have a higher understanding of life, live in a transcendental way. And in that specific context, the call for transcendence required fighting a war. But the core message of the Bhagavad Gita is not violence.
In the Bhagavad Gita, not even once Krishna mentions all the atrocities that have been done against the Pandavas. There is not even a single reference to, say, the disrobing of Draupadi, attempted disrobing of Draupadi. If somebody was going to incite someone for violence, why do you have to speak so much philosophy? Just remind them of those incidents.
Yeah, I’ll fight. But Krishna doesn’t remind those incidents even once. So he’s not calling for violence.
So that is, go to the top of the ladder. And then again, if you bring down the ladder, throughout history, if you can bring down the ladder, we consider Ramanuja. When Ramanuja was living, at that time, the Islamic invasion had started.
Madhavacharya had come, it had become even more. Vishwanath Chakradhakur, another commentator at that time, he had just come after the Islamic invasion had ravaged Vrindavan. But in his Bhagavad Gita commentary, nowhere does he mention that, you know, we have to rise against all these Islamic invaders.
And that is the call of the Bhagavad Gita. Nothing. So none of the traditional commentators have used the Bhagavad Gita’s message to call for violence in their cultural contexts at all.
So if we look at the, if we use the ladder of abstraction, then we’ll see the Bhagavad Gita as, Bhagavad Gita using a battlefield as an extreme setting to draw attention to its core message of transcendence. It is not you calling for a replication of that action for all time to come. So that’s how we can understand what is to be done where.
So what is right? It’s very difficult to know that this is, so that this is the right way to apply scripture. Rather than thinking of scripture as like one core that we have to follow, it’s more like one compass we have to develop. And the compass will point in a particular direction.
But how, now you might take this road, I might take this road and somebody might take that road. So rather than thinking of following scripture as following one code of conduct, it is more like one direction to be pursued. The direction of raising one’s consciousness.
The direction of growing spiritually. And how different people in different places will do that, that will vary. Okay, thank you.
Okay, one last question. One last question you can have. Which one? You’re asking why Prabhupada seems to be exclusive.
No, but that’s not the most important. Okay, sure. If we have only one, like I’ll spend it on rather an operational one now.
Just maybe, maybe this is the most important question I have. So Sri Krishna talks about do your duty. Right? So this is the, he says do your duty.
Yeah. So now there is like, so he just talks about.