Mahabharata Life Lessons – Did the Pandavas fight to take revenge?

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This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Hare Krishna.
So, today, I am continuing this discussion on where the Bhagavatam meets the Mahabharata. I have been discussing Arjuna’s memories, where Arjuna is recollecting many of the defining incidents from the Mahabharata. This is the third session, which I took to earlier.
So, today, I will discuss on this theme of revenge, violence and dharma. The verse we discussed talks about how what was done to Draupadi, that was done in far greater degree to the wives of Dushasan. So, there are different perspectives in which things are seen.
Say, in one perspective, we consider hair to be impure. Say, if hair falls in food, that food, it’s difficult to eat that. When we shave, we normally bathe ourselves.
But at the same time, especially for a, Prabhupada writes in a particular lecture that, for a respectable woman, touching her hair is seen as a sign of disrespect. So, when they had dragged, when Dushasan had dragged Draupadi by her hair, that was very disrespectful. And of course, that was not the only thing that he did.
But when that, when he loosened her hair, here it is said that as a result of that, his wives and in fact all the Kauravas and their sons wives also, they became widows because of that. So, this seems to be almost like revenge. You did this, so we will do this to you.
So, was the Kurukshetra war fought to take revenge? So, what was the reason for that war? And when is violence justified? We will discuss that today. So, broadly, generally we understand that revenge itself is not very worthwhile. Revenge can lead to an endless spiral of violence.
I hit you and you hit me and I hit you back and you hit me. So, it’s said that if you follow an eye for an eye and a ear for a ear, soon the whole world will become blind and deaf. So, there is, it is important at one level to not cultivate a vengeful mentality and significantly in the Bhagavad Gita itself when Krishna speaks, he is very clear.
He tells Arjuna to fight the war. 11.33 is Arise and fight, attain victory over your enemies. They have already killed by my arrangement.
So, Krishna is using a very specific word over there. Kshatru. They are killed by me.
But then in that same chapter 22 verses later, which I have quoted over 11.55, Krishna tells Arjuna So, he says work without, work with me as the goal, work for me and have no animosity toward anyone. So, now what does this mean? How can there be no animosity? Isn’t there going to be, if there is going to be fighting, then obviously, isn’t there animosity? So, although they are enemies, then is he not fighting against the enemies? So, how can we fight and not have animosity? So, that is where the purpose of the Bhagavad Gita comes in. That if Krishna had wanted Arjuna to take revenge, Krishna didn’t have to speak the Gita to him.
Krishna could simply have reminded him of the atrocities that Dushyasan had performed, that the Kauravas had performed. And that would have made Arjuna’s blood boil. One of the easiest ways to manipulate people is to activate their irrational emotions.
So, whenever any kind of riots occur, it’s usually their irrational emotions are triggered. So, Krishna didn’t want Arjuna to fight to take revenge. Then, why fight at all? Krishna wanted him to fight for the purpose of establishing Dharma.
So, now, we go to the next slide. So, we have violence. Violence itself is sometimes considered bad.
There shouldn’t be any violence. But, what we call as violence itself can vary from context. So, first of all, not all violence is meant for revenge.
So, violence may simply sometimes be communicating in a language that is understood. Imagine, say, we are going on a road where maybe there are many donkeys along the road. And we tell the donkeys, you know, please excuse me, let me go ahead.
The donkeys are not going to understand that. You know, we may have to yell at them, we may have to push them, you show a stick. Now, that may seem you are being cruel.
But that is the way they communicate. So, if we consider a chariot that is being ridden. Now, normally we often use that metaphor that how the reins are like the mind and the senses are the horses.
Now, actually if you consider the arrangement, if instead of a horse there were a human being like that and you have a rope around your neck and you are pulled by that, it can seem cruel. You know that, just pull it and then, imagine, right now I am looking at you, somebody pulls me from my neck. It’s cruel.
And on top of that, there is also a whip. Now, many animal rights activists say that using a whip is very cruel. And yes, it is when it is unnecessary.
However, you know, life often never gives us the opportunity for satisfying solutions. Life often requires tolerable trade-offs. What do I mean by tolerable trade-offs? Let’s suppose a warrior is fighting in a war and there are enemies who are about to shoot and who would kill if they got the slightest opportunity.
Then, they would not only, they might kill the warrior, they might kill the charioteer, they might kill the horses. So, in that situation, maybe subjecting the animal to a little pain is a tolerable trade-off. If for no reason somebody is whipping a horse, that’s definitely horrible.
But, the point is that, in the world, we live in an imperfect world and there are no perfect solutions. So, often, we have to settle for, as we say, the most tolerable trade-offs. If I do this, this is a loss.
If I do this, this is a loss. Which is the least damaging loss? So, just as using reins or sometimes occasionally using a whip is not considered violence in that context. That is simply communicating in the language that is necessary.
Suppose a chariot is going very fast through a hilly area and a horse is about to go off the cliff. Then, using a whip to sharply hit the horse, that’s painful. But, if that is the way the horse and chariot are saved from going off the cliff to certain death, then that’s what is required.
So, sometimes, what may be called by someone else as violence, may well be communicating in a language that is understandable. So, communication can happen in different ways at different levels. So, what was being done over here in the Kurukshetra War or before the Kurukshetra War as it is described over here? Can you go ahead? So, now, forgiveness is definitely required.
Like I talked about, if you just are revengeful, it will be a never-ending, ever-escalating cycle. However, there is a difference between forgiveness as an individual principle and forgiveness as a state policy. Why is there a difference? That brahmanas are usually not in charge of states.
And brahmanas, if they are insulted, if they are disrespected, they are enjoined to be forgiven. So, forgiveness at an individual level is important. But at the same time, if we consider at the state level, imagine if the government says, we are going to abolish the police system, we are going to abolish the court system.
Why? We are forgiving everyone. Well, that will not work. That will not work because there are people who are wrongdoers and the state cannot adopt forgiveness as a default policy.
In fact, because of the COVID crisis in some parts of America, the government decided to free all the criminals because they felt that in the jails we need social distancing. But how can we have social distancing inside the jail if we have so many prisoners? So, they decided to release the prisoners. But then they had some category that those who have not committed severely violent crimes, those who have committed minor crimes, they can be released.
But then what happened because of that was the crimes started increasing in the cities. forgiveness cannot be a state principle. Sorry, it cannot be a state policy.
It can be an individual value, it can be an individual principle. And in fact, that is the confusion that arises at the start of the Bhagavad Gita. Arjuna says that let’s forget it, let’s forget and forgive.
Why should I kill my loved ones? Why should I fight and have so much bloodshed? So, Krishna tells Arjuna that you are a Kshatriya and you have to act according to your subhava. So, forgiveness is definitely vital. At the same time, forgiveness is important as an individual virtue.
It cannot be a default state policy. And the Pandavas, when they are rulers, then they are acting on behalf of the state. So, they are a part of the royal family and as a part of the royal family, sometimes they have to take strong actions.
every question has to be, or every problem has to be addressed at the appropriate level. So, imagine if we are sitting right now and a snake comes in over here. And somebody says, actually, you know, maybe the kind of vegetation we have over here that is attracting too many snakes.
So, we will have to cut the vegetation. We will first deal with the snake right now over here. Then we can look at the vegetation.
So, sometimes a problem has to be dealt at the level of the immediate cause and later on we can look at the remote cause. So, if somebody is a wrongdoer, somebody is a criminal, we can address, okay, what is the root cause of crime and how can that be dealt with. That’s important.
But if somebody is doing wrong right now, they have to be stopped. And if that is not stopped, then things will escalate. So, a part of dharma is punishment.
And punishment sometimes involves violence. Can you go ahead? So, why is punishment administered? In the Dharmashastras, it is said there are basically three purposes for administering punishment. Basically, if we see there is a, when we live in a society, say, person A and person B are interacting with each other.
Say, person A commits a crime against person B. So, at that time, B is the victim and A is the victimiser. So, it’s an interaction between A and B. But it’s not just an interaction between the two of them. They are in a society.
And their actions, at a smaller or bigger level, affect the broader society. So, without bringing transcendence into the picture, when Krishna comes into the picture, then their dynamics change. So, Krishna can purify, Krishna can forgive, Krishna can liberate.
We’ll talk about the Krishna factor a little later. At this stage, what is the purpose of punishing? The first purpose is to deter the victimiser that you cannot do this. Oh, God! Was it a honeybee or something? Okay.
So, the first purpose is to deter the victimiser that you cannot do this again. The second is to demonstrate to people in general that justice has been done. And the third is to deliver compensation for the victim and their pain.
Let’s look at all these three. Can you go ahead? The first is to deter the victimiser. See, for most people, the fear of punishment or fear of consequence is one of the biggest deterrent from wrongdoing.
At a higher level, one understands that maybe I should not do wrong because it hurts people. Maybe I don’t do wrong because it harms my spirituality. But for most people, if there is a consequence, that’s what stops them from doing wrong.
Now, if you look at the world history also, till around 1970, 1980, there were many wars that were happening. But around 1980s onwards, many countries started getting nuclear weapons. And after that, at least overt wars have gone down substantially.
So, whether it’s India or Pakistan, India or China, there have been hostilities. And there have been some conflicts. But what has happened is overt wars have not happened after the 1970s, from 1980s onwards.
Now, of course, nuclear weapons came a little later, but after that. See, what happens is, there is the fear of consequence that there may be far greater consequences if weapons are used. So, we might want to rely on civility, you know, we should all live together harmoniously.
But the real world doesn’t work like that. Quite often, fear of consequence is what stops people from doing wrong. Whether it is individuals or whether it is states.
And that’s why, similarly, fear of punishment for crime is what stops people from doing wrong. So, deterrence is, of course, we can say before. Deterrence is that you should not do this.
If you do this, there will be consequences. And if consequences come, then that is a deterrence from future misadventures, future wrongdoings. So, if somebody has done wrong already, then when they get the consequences, at least they may not, that will deter them from doing the same thing wrong again.
And if no consequences come, they will do it and they will do it more. So, of course, right now I am talking primarily from the perspective of Kshatriyas. It is not that each individual has to take up the responsibility of giving others the consequence of their actions.
That can lead to lawlessness. That is called as vigilante justice, where somebody feels that I am going to take the law in my hands and I am going to destroy everyone who is a wrongdoer. That might, many movies are based on the idea of vigilante justice and it can look very attractive and sensational and give people the consequence of their crime.
But in real life, vigilante justice can lead to chaos in society. Because anybody can assess, okay, this person is a wrongdoer and this person needs to be punished. And if everybody starts taking law in their hands, there will be complete chaos in the world.
We are talking right now of the Kshatriyas. So, that’s the first point. For the Pandavas, if they did not stop the Kauravas, the result would be, if the Kauravas can be abusive towards a royal lady like Draupadi, what can they do with common people? And if the Kauravas don’t have the fear that the Pandavas may come back, then there is no deterrence, then they might do even more brazen things.
So, that’s the first purpose where punishment needs to be administered. So, now, the way I am going forward is that violence is not always for revenge. Violence can be communicating in a language that is understandable.
And for some people, the language that is understandable is the language of consequences, the language of punishment. So, punishment, if A has victimised B, punishment serves the first purpose of deterring A from further wrongdoing. Then, what is the second purpose? That, for the society in general, justice has to be demonstrated.
One of the principles in the system of justice is that justice should not just be done, but it should also be seen to be done. Because otherwise, we all are social creatures, and there are many people who have lower desires within them, and often they control those desires because of the fear of consequences. And when they see, okay, this person did something wrong and they got the consequence, then they will stop.
I won’t do it. So, broadly speaking, we could say that there are some factors which stop us from doing wrong things. Internally, it is conscience.
Externally, it is consequence. That conscience means internally, I should not do this, this is wrong. We all have conscience at some level, but not everybody’s conscience is equally strong.
Not everybody’s conscience is similarly developed because we all have different upbringings, we all have different backgrounds we bring from our past lives. So, conscience alone is not enough. Similarly, consequence alone is not enough because eventually people also have to develop a conscience.
But for many people, the sight of the consequence coming, that’s what is deterrent. Oh, I cannot do like this. If I do this, this will be the consequence for me.
So, justice has to be demonstrated. And people act not just based on realities but on perceptions. So, in general, it is found that when people see that there will be consequence of their actions, they will be very careful.
So, for example, it has been observed that, I travel across the world, Indians all over the world are highly respected immigrants. Whichever part of the world we go, Indians are very respected. Indians are hard-working, they are law-abiding, they are tax-paying, they are well-educated, they are responsible.
In America, now there is a big homelessness crisis because of the COVID and other factors. But, I have a police person in America who is becoming a devotee. So, he said that, he has been the police for 30 years, he said, I have never seen a single Indian who is homeless in America.
Of course, that’s because well-educated people go there. But the point is, there is also the ethos of taking responsibility and working hard. India is not a welfare state.
So, in some countries, some parts of the world, if you don’t have a job, the government will give you unemployment dole. So, there is not much impact. And in some countries, it’s so much that if you don’t have a job that you like, then also the government will pay for you.
So, what happens is, people tend to become lazy because of that. So, the point I was making is, Indians are generally considered to be very good citizens. But, so, the same Indians in America, they will never throw anything out of the car.
But when they come to India, they will throw something out of the car. Why? Because there is no fear of consequence over it. So, the point I’m making is that, when justice is seen to be done, that itself makes people more law-abiding.
That’s the second point. Now, for the third purpose of justice, that there has to be, so, we talked about A, we talked about the other people around and we talked about B. B is the victim. Then, if somebody has done something wrong, then if somebody has been subjected to something wrong, their pain, their suffering needs to be taken seriously and some compensation needs to be given.
Now, we can easily understand compensation in financial terms. If somebody has stolen some money from someone, then you have to pay that money back. If you have squandered the money, you’ll have to sell something or you’ll have to arrange the money from somewhere else.
So, with respect to finance, it’s easily understandable. But when somebody causes pain to someone else, how do we compensate for that? That’s where things become fuzzy. So, can pain be compensated in financial terms? Should pain be compensated by pain itself? Say, if somebody is a murderer, should that person also be given life sentence or rather should be hanged? So, these are difficult questions.
But the idea is, if somebody has suffered terribly and then you tell them, just forgive the other person. We are dehumanising the victim of the suffering. That somebody has suffered terribly, they have gone through a lot of pain and they need to also feel the confidence that I live in a society where that is taking my pain seriously.
So, it is not just that the Pandavas are thinking that this is Draupadi, it is my wife and you have dishonoured my wife, so I will do the same thing to your wives. It is not that simple. Although it might appear like that, the idea is that when somebody has gone through pain, their pain has to be taken seriously.
Now, how exactly that has to be done and how compensation has to be delivered, that may vary from situation to situation. But one way the compensation is delivered is by getting the victimiser to suffer some consequence. You stole this much money or you caused this much damage, you will have to pay this much.
So, nowadays, protesting has become almost like a fashion. All over the world, it has become like a cool thing to do, to protest against injustice, protest against this, protest against that. So, in America, people cannot go for jobs because they are locked down, but people can go out and protest, because protesting is a fundamental human right.
And now thousands of people are protesting for various reasons and protests are supposed to be peaceful, but when hundreds and hundreds of people are assembled, it’s mass psychology. One or two people start rioting and then others start rioting. So, it just escalates out very soon.
So, what happens is that when people start rioting, in Delhi also, because of some perceived laws against minority, they started rioting. So, then now riots, when protests become riots, protests are supposed to be non-violent, but once they become riots, then the amount of destruction, some survey said that just a few days of protest in Delhi led to 150 crores worth of damage. So, and in America they have said that last few months protests have been going on, the protests, there is like, something like 3.5 trillion dollars were lost because of the riots that resulted from the protests.
So, it can become devastatingly destructive. So, in one part of the world, in one part of India, in fact, the government made a rule that, okay, you want to protest, it’s your right, it’s your right to protest. But if the protests become riots and if that leads to any destruction, every single protester will be charged to compensate for the destruction.
The protests stop within 2-3 days after that. So, the point is, not that there shouldn’t be protesting, there are wrongs and sometimes people need to protest. But the point is, there has to be compensation for those who are victimised.
So, these three purposes, from the perspective of the victimiser, to stop them, from the people to give them, to demonstrate that justice has been done, and for the victim to take the pain seriously. These are the three broad purposes where punishment needs to be administered. So, administering punishment and sometimes doing it through violence, that is also dharma.
That is also a duty. Now, all over the world today, there is a great opposition to capital punishment because they feel that, you know, it’s brutal, it’s barbaric. And, of course, there are other reasons that often the legal system doesn’t work flawlessly and quite often if people have very good attorneys, then they get away with big crimes and those who are poor and those who can’t get good lawyers, they get punished.
So, if somebody is wrongly convicted, then at least later on the sentence can be reversed. But if somebody is wrongly sentenced to death, you can’t reverse that. So, there are genuine concerns against the application of capital punishment.
But at the same time, there are certain extreme situations where people are such wrongdoers that capital punishment may be required. So, now, there is this whole tendency to soften things down. So, in America at least, capital punishment is, at least in some parts, given in a very instructive way.
Instructive not for people who are watching, instructive about the psychology. See, there are sometimes when people would say, in some countries, people are hanged, sometimes people are gallant, sometimes they are beheaded, sometimes they are shot. So, now, in the western countries, they have a three set system.
What is the first thing? First thing is a person who is going to be, they give poison to kill him. But first is, that person is given a sleep medicine, the person goes to sleep. Second is, the person is given a muscle relaxant, so that anybody who is watching, they also don’t see anything suddenly happening.
And third is, that person is given poison. So, the person peacefully dies. So, for onlookers also, it’s like a very peaceful experience.
So, now, the point is that, there may be different ways in which capital punishment is administered, but sometimes compensation for wrong has to be done in a particular way. So, can you move ahead? So, now, I earlier talked about forgiveness, then I talked about punishment. Now, what is forgivable and what is not forgivable? So, for this, there has to be a difference to be understood.
There are immoral actions and there are illegal actions. Now, what is immoral? So, for example, speaking lies is immoral. But is speaking lies illegal? Well, it depends.
If somebody is standing in a court of law and they have taken a vow to testify truly and then they speak a lie, that’s illegal. So, we could say that if there are circles, the circle of what should be done, what should not be done, that morality is a smaller circle, legality is a bigger circle. That means there may be things which are immoral, but which may not be illegal.
So, if somebody has done something which is immoral, then that person might be forgiven individually. But if somebody has done something illegal, then that becomes a different issue. Once it becomes, so, once it becomes illegal, then it becomes a governmental issue.
So, the brahmanas may forgive somebody who has acted immorally, done something wrong, it’s But if somebody has done something which is illegal, then are there, the point which I am discussing over here is, are there limits to forgiveness? That means, are there certain things which are not forgivable? So, why is this important to understand? Because again, we are discussing the subject that why are the epics talking about violence and such strong violence in a way that almost seems vengeful. So, the point is, sometimes some actions are not forgivable. And not understanding this difference between, say, what is forgivable and what is not forgivable, what is illegal and what is immoral, that can have catastrophic consequences.
So, if you look at a contemporary example, can you go ahead? We had this in the Catholic Church. Some of you might be aware that there is a huge, thousands and thousands of cases of child abuse in the Catholic Church. Now, this is a phenomenon which is there all over the world and religious organisations are not exempt from that.
But it became especially aggravated in the Church for various factors. But one factor was that, say, if a priest has abused a child, sexually abused a child, it was mostly homosexuals, men abusing minor boys or children, kids, youth, whatever. So, what happened was, it was not just that the abuse happened, but there was a lot of cover-up by the Church.
And eventually when it was detected, it became a huge scandal. In fact, according to some surveys, in the last, say, last 30 years, the single biggest cause of religious people going towards atheism is the child abuse in the Catholic Church. This we are talking about the Western world, Europe and America, even Australia.
It’s happened in India also. But it’s not that widespread. Or at least it did not come out in the media that much.
But, now, why did the Church cover it up? Now, we could say that there was a sinister, they didn’t want to admit their crimes. Well, that’s possible. But there was another reason over there.
You know, the idea was that if somebody has committed a sexual crime, is that a sin? I talked about the illegal-immoral difference. So, if something is immoral, then that is sinful. So, is that a sin which the Church can forgive? Or is that a crime that the state has to persecute? So, by default, what the Church adopted is that it’s a sin which we can forgive.
And the priests who did something wrong, they were forgiven and it just went on and on and on and on. And things became terrible afterwards. So, there are situations where certain things might be so seriously wrong that they cannot be forgiven.
That there has to be consequence. So, now, what is illegal and what is immoral? There is always going to be tension between that. Some things in certain societies may be considered illegal and immoral both.
Say for example, stealing is illegal and it is immoral. But, say for example, sexual promiscuity. It is immoral, but it may not be illegal.
So then, what is illegal, what is immoral, there is always going to be tension between that. It may not be clear, but it needs to be clarified. Especially if somebody is living in a say society where we are part of a broader community, then there has to be that understanding which has to be clearly communicated.
All over ISKCON now, ISKCON has also created child protection offices because it is a problem everywhere and many people in India especially, there is a strong opposition to this. People come to the temple because they want to come close to God. They feel it is a sacred place.
And there, if you tell that we have a child protection office to prevent child abuse, people think, what am I doing coming here to the temple? Such things happen over here. But the problem is, the human mentality is there everywhere. And, so there has to be.
It may not be prominent for everyone to know, but it has to be active. So, this is not something which can be overlooked. So, the point which I am making over here is that when some things are illegal, then they cannot simply be forgiven.
Can you go ahead? So, now the Kauravas had committed many atrocities. So, when it is said that because they touched the hair of Draupadi, so, they loosened her hair and that’s why all their queens became widows, their hair got loosened. So, now it is not simply this action leading to that action.
It is that action of pulling the hair of Draupadi was the tipping point. Tipping point is where the things just escalate that indicates that things have come to a level which is intolerable. So, before that, the Kauravas had done many other things.
As we know, they tried to poison Bhima, they had tried to burn the Pandavas alive. Not just the Pandavas, they also tried to burn Kunti alive. Kunti was with them.
So, that was brutal. So, they were, the Kauravas tried to murder and there was not even the slightest tinge of remorse or guilt. Far from offering any apology, what Duryodhana said is even if I do great introspection, I don’t see even the slightest wrong in anything that I have done.
So, a person who has no conscience internally and the only language that they can be taught through is consequence. So, ideally speaking, conscience should guide us and stop us from doing wrong. But for most people, it’s a combination of conscience and consequence.
And for some people, it may be consequence which is what is required primarily. So, it was not just simply because Draupadi was insulted, so this whole war took place and everybody was killed because of that. Yes, the insult was the most brazen action.
It showed how completely defiant of any principles of law or even principles of morality the Kauravas had become. And that’s why they had to suffer the consequences. Can you go ahead? So, now, I talked about conscience and consequence as a spectrum.
So, similarly, whenever there is a conflict, so, it can be resolved through aggression or it could be resolved through discussion through negotiation. So, if you put this as a spectrum, aggression and discussion. So, aggression should never be the first course of action.
And aggression can never be the last course of action. What do I mean? Aggression should never be the first course? No, first try to discuss, first try to resolve through peaceful means. And the Pandavas tried that in every possible way.
They even had Krishna himself go as the Shanti Doodh. So, aggression should never be the first course of action. And again, aggression is not the last course of action.
What does that mean? That means that even after somebody wins, well, there are always going to be some survivors and how do we deal with them? There has to be some discussion, there has to be some negotiation, there has to be even after victory has been done, those who have been defeated also need to be treated with a reasonable degree of fairness. Just because somebody is defeated, doesn’t mean the defeated people can be exploited completely. In fact, many historians say that this was the cause of the Second World War.
In the First World War, Germany was defeated and there was a Treaty of Versailles which was heavily, which heavily penalised Germany for everything that went wrong in the First World War. So, the terms of the treaty were very humiliating and that became the reason which Hitler used to evoke nationalistic sentiments and then he got whole Germany burning with anger against the rest of the world. So, the point I am making is, even after victory, even if aggression is used, victory is attained, that doesn’t solve the problem.
After that also discussion is required. But sometimes, just by discussion, negotiation, we resolve the problem. We activate people’s conscience.
Of course, our own conscience needs to be attracted and then there is a reasonable solution to the problem. Sometimes, discussion alone is not enough. So, aggression is required.
But after aggression, what? Then again, there has to be discussion. We see that the Pandavas, they fought, they killed the Kauravas but the war never went beyond the war field. The Pandavas remained respectful to Dhritarashtra.
So respectful that Dhritarashtra continued to believe as if, I am still the king. It was not, but Yudhishthira said he should be honoured the same way. So, it was not that the Pandavas got back against everyone and destroyed everyone.
Now, who were in the war field, who were opposing them, who were supporting the side of wise, they were punished. But eventually, there was conciliatory relationship that were established, even in Dhritarashtra. Dhritarashtra had his son Yudhishthira.
So, he performed the last rites for his brothers and he was given respectable position in the kingdom. So, there has to be discussion and a peaceful resolution also. So, the Brahmana way would be just discuss, negotiate and try to resolve.
Kshatriya way is sometimes aggression is required. But aggression alone is not the solution. So, we could say that for resolving conflicts, there is a spectrum from discussion to aggression and in which situation, where in that spectrum the most effective course of action will be, that will vary.
So, the Pandavas tolerated as much as was possible. Lord Ram tolerated as much as was possible. But beyond a particular point, when war was fought, violence is fought, violence is sought, that is not for taking revenge, but that is for establishing dharma.
So, I’ll summarise what I spoke today. We discussed on this topic of revenge, violence and dharma. So, did the Pandavas fight to take revenge against the Kauravas? So, I discussed first, revenge is destructive, it leads to endless spiralling of violence.
An eye for an eye will make everyone blind. So, revenge is not what the Pandavas are seeking. Krishna also says, have no animosity.
Then, why did they fight? The fighting was to establish dharma. Establishing dharma involves communicating with people in a language that they understand. So, what can be called as violence will vary.
So, is using reins to pull a horse neck or a whip, is that violence? Well, yes and no. Yes, it is violence if it is unnecessary, but if it’s a war or if it’s a situation of big danger, then life often requires, doesn’t provide a satisfying solution. It only provides us tolerable trade-offs.
So, to save life, maybe that much pain for the horses, okay. So, similarly, when there are wrongdoers, it would be an ideal society, no violence would be required, but we don’t live in an ideal society. So, when violence is done as a punishment, why is it done? Discussed about how? At an individual level, the Brahmanas may forgive.
At an individual level, people may forgive. But the state has to maintain overall law and order. And in that, punishment, which involves violence sometimes, may be required.
When I talk about violence, three reasons why violence is required, violent punishments may be required. One is to stop the victimiser from doing the same thing again and again, deterrence. And second is to demonstrate to people that justice is done so that they don’t start acting according to their lower nature.
And third is that to display to the victim that, to deliver compensation to the victim that your pain, we take it seriously. Society will not tolerate this kind of pain. So, for financial fraud, there can be financial compensation.
But when there is emotional pain, when there is physical injury, then how exactly compensation can come, that will vary. So, then I elaborated on these points. And then we discussed that, on this, when punishment is to be given, are some crimes unforgivable or some actions unforgivable? So for that, we discussed the difference between illegal and immoral.
And so what is immoral, what is a sin, may be forgiven by a religious authority. But what is a crime has to be processed by the state authorities. And not understanding that difference can lead to a lot of complications.
So, now where exactly the boundary of immoral ends and where illegal begins, that is something which has to be clarified consciously based on various contextual considerations. But overall, for resolving conflicts, discussion and aggression form one continuous spectrum. So best is through discussion, people’s conscience gets activated and both do the right thing and the issue gets resolved.
But for most people, conscience alone is not enough. And again, in general, for resolving conflicts, consequence alone is not enough. So, aggression is never the first solution, but it can’t be the last solution also.
Even if aggression is used, eventually there has to be discussion so that there is a reasonable resolution. And we see the Pandavas, they fought not just to take revenge because the Kauravas touched the Draupadi’s hair, that was the most brazen expression of a series of atrocities that the Kauravas had done. And they punished the wrongdoers, but they never let the war spill beyond the war field.
And the Pandavas treated Utsu, Dhritarashtra, Gandhari, all of them respectably. And eventually dharma was thereby restored. So, thank you very much.
Are there any questions or comments? Yes, Adhikishan, go ahead. Thank you very much So, I mean, it’s a topic. My question is about complications and other things.
So, I want to know from people. So, I want to know, when you said that there is a complication, I don’t know what is the consequence of that. I think children, the place where they came to get shelter, it’s a place where it’s like hmm So, what is happening? What may have been complicated? Has it come back to mainstream? Are they perusing the devotional practise? Or they are learning? I don’t know.
It’s a question I want to know. How are you handling them? And in terms of current practise, how are you handling it? Are they practising? Even though they have a complicated place, what are the complications? I hope I answered the question. In this time, what have you learned? Yeah.
So, how is the child, how are the victims about child abuse in our movement being dealt with? Well, first thing was that we, one of the biggest things that we ourselves came out and admitted that we had the child abuse. So, ISKCON had ISKCON communication journal and in that we ourselves, we deputed a academic professor to do a research and the article was published there itself. Now, this was, this created a lot of opposition among many of the leaders in India because why should we wash our dirty linen in public? That was the idea.
But again, there are civilisational values. You could say Indian, Chinese, Eastern cultures are often very face saving cultures. Face saving culture means that even if somebody has done something wrong, make sure help the person save face.
So, in general, if one senior has done something wrong, one doesn’t point out the fault in public against one senior. So, that’s culture and that’s important. But, in the West, it’s not like that.
So, in fact, in the West, for, not only in the media, but in general in the religious and legal circles, ISKCON was held in positive contrast to the example of the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church covered things up till they could never cover it up. It’s like sometimes you put something under a blanket because you don’t want to see untidiness.
But then, there is no blanket, there are only lumps all over, everything under the blanket is just lumps. So, when it became like that, at that time the Catholic Church actually came out of it. Again, I am not demonising the Catholic Church because this scale of abuse is unprecedented and how to deal with it was difficult to say.
But at least, our movement was seen in positive light that we ourselves admitted that there were problems. Now, after that, various things happened. Some of the children, they were approached by lawyers who also wanted to make money out of it and then they took up the case and it became very big.
So, a fund was set for providing compensation and you know, how much compensation to give, that is complicated and a substantial amount of compensation was given. Now, whether that can actually heal the trauma that they have gone through, obviously not. One of the sore points for these children was that not much legal action was taken against either those who perpetrated it or those who let it happen.
Maybe they knew it to different degrees and they let it happen. So now, there are many reasons for that, why that particular thing happened. But in general, now things are much much stricter.
So, we as a movement also learnt what to do, how to deal with such situations. This doesn’t mean that we don’t commit mistakes now, but at least we have awareness and there is adequate measures in place. So, as far as the children of the first generation are concerned, it has been a it has been a very difficult experience for them.
So, in general, studies have been done of, in general, how many people who are born in a religious organisation, take on the culture of that organisation in the next generation. So, what has been found is most, practically nobody is aggressively averse to Srila Prabhupada, to Krishna, to the practises of Bhakti. But there are different degrees of discomfort, from discomfort to hostility towards the movement.
And the movement also is very peculiar. There was some survey done about perceptions of the GBC in Escon. So, what happened was, when devotees were asked about individual GBC leaders, almost every leader was very positive.
Some extremely positive. But, about GBC as a body, it is generally negative. It is perceived negatively.
Because as soon as you have a body, it becomes almost somewhat depersonalised. So, most of them are vegetarians. They chant Hare Krishna to some extent, especially Kirtans.
A few of them have overcome that. I know one devotee who is now a prominent second generation leader in America. He went through very difficult times in the Gurukul.
But, he’s recovered. So, everybody has their individual journey to go through. And, at least in the second generation, we are learning to be much more cautious.
So, Jaidat Maharaj gave a series of talks called, Unity in Perversity. Not unity in diversity, unity in perversity. So, right in the start of this talk, he says, if any of you have come for inspiration, kindly leave right now.
So, what he meant by that is, he talks about how after a charismatic leader departs, every religious tradition has had chaos. So, after Jesus departed, for four centuries, Christians couldn’t decide who was Jesus. And, there is violence and there is not just the Roman Empire doing violence against Christians, but even Christians against each other.
Because, this doctrine is right, this doctrine is wrong. Now, after Mohammed died, next five, six of his successors, they were all brutally killed, the caliphs. None of them lived full life and they were murdered.
Some of them were murdered in prayer meetings. And then, if we consider, even within our tradition, after Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu departed, there was chaos. There was, we hear about how Advaita Acharya’s son became a Mayavadi.
Now, what was this Mayavad? He became Mayavadi means that, actually he started believing that and propagating that Advaita Acharya, because he called Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and Chaitanya Mahaprabhu came. Therefore, Advaita Acharya is greater than Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. And therefore, Advaita Acharya is the real incarnation, not Chaitanya Mahaprabhu.
And although Advaita Acharya rejected him, because he was his son, there was a whole other group of Vaishnavas who blamed Advaita Acharya for this. And then basically, there was a significant split. But things recovered.
We see the same thing after Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu departed. In the Gaudiya Math, there was problems. So, in one sense, what happened is terrible.
But in another sense, unity in perversity means that this sort of things do happen. Prabhupada also writes in Bhagavatam, that when the Acharya departs, there is chaos, at least for some time. So, it has been a painful chapter in the history of our movement.
But we can say with the reasonable objectivity that that chapter is largely over. And we have grown beyond that. Does it answer your question? Yes, Swamiji.
Thank you. Any other questions or comments? Yes, Swamiji. So, in the story of Durga, we see that he was a very biassed person.
He made fun of Swamiji, because he was a supra-Corsican. He used to just look down the stairs around his room. He was like that.
And on the other hand, we see that there are attempts for certain activities. There are certain karmic activities which are mentioned. If you do this, you attempt for this particular thing.
So, once they are promulgated, our sins cannot be tolerated. Only the bhakti can tolerate the sins. So, this principle of karmic activity which is mentioned in Vedas for attempting What is the mechanism behind this? Okay.
So, Karmakanda is given in the Karmakanda gives atonement, but then we can say that only bhakti leads to atonement. Karma can’t be atoned for. Well, it depends.
See, there is context is very important. Generally, the Bhagavatam is very clearly establishing the primacy of bhakti as the best means for spiritual growth, for spiritual redemption. So then, when there is a focus on one particular path, other paths are compared and often unfavourably in that light.
That doesn’t mean other paths are useless. Other paths also have their value. They also are important.
So, now how exactly does atonement work? When it is said that from the bhakti perspective it is said that only Krishna consciousness is atonement, what it means is that there are three things. There is a wrong action, there is a consequence for the wrong action and there is the motivation or the mentality that led to that action. So, when somebody does atonement, what are they doing basically? They are voluntarily accepting some consequence for that action.
So, now that itself is the way their karma is coming to them. So, karma itself cannot be cancelled. Once the action has been done, its consequence is going to come.
But, the way the consequence comes needn’t be fixed. We say destiny is fixed. That is true.
But that doesn’t mean specifically how that destiny is going to come upon us is fixed. So, sometimes if we are careless in a particular situation, then a small problem can become very big. If you are careful in that situation, a small problem can stay small.
So, we could say that somebody is driving through a storm on a slippery road and maybe by destiny they are meant to be to the accident at that time. But if they are driving drunk, they are driving very fast, they are talking on phone while driving, then the accident could be much worse. If they are driving carefully, slowly, attentively, then again accident may occur but still it might be less consequence.
So, the point I am making is that destiny is fixed. But the way destiny unfolds is not fixed. That depends also on how we act in our present situations.
So, atonement doesn’t cancel karma, rather atonement channels karma. Channels karma means I already did a wrong action and through the principles of karma, a consequence is going to come for me. But when we do atonement, we are voluntarily accepting some suffering.
So, atonement becomes the channel through which the karma comes for us. So, now when it is said in Bhakti tradition that nothing can cancel karma, the point is that our actions have irrevocable consequences. We can’t turn the clock back.
We can’t undo what we have done. That’s why we have to choose very carefully. And even getting the consequences or even choosing to get the consequences voluntarily, that may not transform the heart.
Deterrence is important, but deterrence doesn’t necessarily mean that the heart has been transformed. It is only that I have fear of consequence, so I don’t do the wrong thing. Which is also good, which is also necessary in society, but that’s not sufficient.
Does that answer your question? Or was your question something else? Thank you. Any last question? Yes, sir. When for example there is practising devotee, we for example, we have been punished by common trials.
So, we may be situated in different levels of devotions. I had an example, we have to tolerate problems for instance. But if he is not able to tolerate, what should we do? Is it like black art, black and white or how he can react to that situation? Individually.
Yeah, well, if individually somebody is not able to tolerate, do they react? Well, of course, tolerance is one virtue. Tolerance is not the only virtue. Bhagavad Gita itself tells Arjuna, But, the Bhagavad Gita tells Arjuna, Fine.
So, tolerance basically means to keep small things small so that we can focus on big things. But if we can’t focus on the big things at all, then tolerance is not useful at that point. Tolerance is basically meant to facilitate our journey toward transcendence.
If you see that series of verses, 214 is But, what is 215? Transcendence. So, if we are just fighting too many battles, Oh, you did this to me, I’ll do this to you, you do this to me, I’ll do this to you, then what happens? We get caught and consumed in fighting battles at the material level and then we have no bandwidth left to focus on spiritual growth. So, tolerance means that, okay, these are small things, just keep them small.
But, some things, either they are not small or some things we can’t keep them small. Because for us, they are very difficult. Then we have to do the needful.
Do the needful means that we may have to Broadly speaking, when we face difficulties, we have three options. I call it as Tolerate, Mitigate or Emigrate. That means Tolerate means learn to live with it.
Mitigate means do something to counter it. Maybe report to some authorities, take some action. So, to counter it.
And then Emigrate is, this is unbearable, move to some other place. So, Prabhupada did all these three things at different times in different situations. Prabhupada was trying his best to share Krishna Bhakti in India and he tried, it was 30-35 years he was doing what he could.
All that he could in fact. But there were not much results. Now, Prabhupada could have said, okay, maybe it is destiny that I am not meant to be successful.
I just accept it and live this way. No. Prabhupada did not tolerate the lack of reciprocation for his efforts for Krishna Panchayat outreach.
What did Prabhupada do? He emigrated. He went to America. So, tolerance is not passivity.
That has to be very clearly understood. Tolerance is not passivity. Tolerance is basically avoiding unnecessary reactivity.
You do this, I will do this to you. But we have to have some necessary or purposeful activity. And if that is stopped, then that’s not of much use.
Prabhupada was in Delhi staying in his godbrother’s ashram and he wanted to do big preaching. So, they had a magazine and he wanted to expand it. And Prabhupada got permission from the printer saying that telling that we will, we got paper, we got printer and he said, we don’t have to spend any extra money till we sell the magazine, then we will get the money, then we can pay all of them.
But still his godbrother said, there is no need to print anymore. Just print this much quantity what I have told you. So, Prabhupada could have said, this was my senior godbrother’s instruction, I have to follow it.
Prabhupada said, no. Ultimate purpose is to follow Bhaktivedanta Thakur’s instruction, to share Krishna’s message and if this situation is not helping me in this, I have to move out of it. So, tolerate.
There is immigrant also. Prabhupada went to the west. But it is, Prabhupada is in Jhansi and when there was a clique against him, he actually put a lot of effort in starting the League of Devotees.
I think he got the governor of that place to come for the inauguration and it was grand. It was covered in the media at that time quite well. But then there was a clique against him and the place which was going to be his international headquarters, he was evicted from there.
Prabhupada could have chosen to fight but he didn’t. He immigrated. However, when something similar happened, when he was in Juhu, at that time a clique happened against him.
The owner wanted to, the owner, the lawyer and they got thugs along and Prabhupada stood his ground. Prabhupada said that you will have to go over my dead body to get that, take the deities away to get the land. So Prabhupada mitigated over it.
Why? Because, now we can’t know a period about his heart but we can infer from what he spoke or what the situations were. Prabhupada felt that Jhansi was a small city. People over there were more pious than spiritual.
So he felt this is not worth fighting over. So it’s a loss but it’s a small thing. The real big thing is I have to share Krishna Bhakti and let me do it elsewhere.
But Mumbai, that time Mumbai was a big place and Prabhupada had a grand vision for what all could be done here. So he felt this is not a small thing. This is a big thing.
So tolerance means to keep small things small so that we can focus on big things. But if we can’t focus on big things then enduring that is not tolerance. That is importance.
That we are acting in a way that is powerless and we won’t grow through that. So, yes, now this is a very big situation but in our situation, if a particular situation we find it unbearable, then what do we do? Ultimately, our spiritual advancement is our responsibility. So, every choice will have its consequences.
If we can’t tolerate a particular situation, we move to some other situation and then we’ll have to maybe start from scratch and there’s a lot required to start from that situation also. It’s not easy. So then, if we are going to immigrate, then we may have to start from scratch.
But we have to be ready for the consequences of the choice that we make. But we shouldn’t think that bhakti means making only this choice. Bhakti doesn’t mean only tolerating.
Yes, bhakti will always require us to tolerate. What to speak of bhakti? Living in material existence will require us to tolerate many things. No doubt about it.
But tolerating is for a purpose and bhakti is not just about tolerating. Bhakti is about pursuing that purpose of connecting with Krishna. So, what to tolerate so that we can connect with Krishna? That is something which we have to decide with intelligence.
Thank you very much. So here we continue today