Mahabharata Life Lessons – How could Jarasandha do human sacrifices?

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This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
the discussion on where Bhagavatam meets Mahabharata. So this is the third part in the series where we are discussing Arjuna’s remembrances of the various incidents throughout his life where Krishna helped him in many miraculous ways.
Some of these pastimes are described in the Bhagavatam itself. But these are being remembered in real time by Arjuna at a time that is described in the Bhagavatam. So today I will discuss three main aspects.
First is they will all be centred on primarily the mentality of Jarasandha. We will discuss about the concept of human sacrifice. It seems quite ghastly.
Then we will discuss about the difference between the mentality of Jarasandha and Yudhishthira. And lastly I will talk about the about how Krishna empowered Bhima. So when we study scripture, it’s vital to always keep one principle in mind.
That is, everything in scripture is not the teaching of scripture. I’ll repeat this. Everything in scripture is not the teaching of scripture.
What it means is there are many things in scripture which are describing how things happened at the particular time when those incidents occurred. And when these descriptive sections are there in scripture, they are simply descriptive. This is how things were done.
They are not prescriptive about how things are to be done now. Or they are not even prescriptive that the way things were done at that time was the right thing to do. A simple example to understand this difference is that during Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’s time, Haridas Thakur was not allowed into the temple of Jagannath.
Did Chaitanya Mahaprabhu approve of it? Was this based on scripture? Well, everybody can, in India, in the Indian tradition, scripture is not a rigidly categorised body of literature. So every tradition can have its own definition of what comprises scripture. So everybody can quote something to justify whatever they are doing.
But overall the point is that is not something which is recommended. That is not something which is prescribed. But is Chaitanya Chaitanya Amrit approving that? There is no section where Krishna Das Kaviraj Goswami or Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu explicitly either approve or disapprove that.
Srila Prabhupada of course disapproved of that. And he said he is Jagannath, why are you making him Bharatanath? But the point is that that is a section in scripture which is descriptive. It is not prescriptive.
So it is just describing how things were at that time. Now when we look at the past, we may often be very vigorous about refuting the idea of oneness as propagated by Mayavadis. But strangely we often have a very Mayavadi idea of history.
What do you mean by Mayavadi idea of history? That everything was one in the past. And what was that one? Everybody in the past was a pure devotee. No, it is not like that.
There was diversity of culture even in the past. If we look at the Mahabharata and in the Mahabharata when the Pandavas go to the forest, they meet sages of different orientations. The same Mahabharata which is celebrated for describing the Vishnu Sahasranama also contains the Shiva Sahasranama.
So the point is that there was a diversity in human culture because people are of different mentalities. And we see this diversity even in the Bhagavatam when the Vrajavasis are about to perform the Govardhan Puja, at that time Krishna asks them is this sacrifice based on scripture or is this something that is done as a tradition? Now this difference is significant. What that means is that deviation doesn’t necessarily have to come from contemporary society.
Deviation can come from tradition also. So sometimes we feel that if our movement becomes too westernised and get deviated. That’s possible but if our movement gets too Indianised also it can get deviated because not everything in India is transcendental.
And a classic example of deviation coming from tradition itself is the caste system or the caste by birth idea which is been the bane of the broad Indian culture. So everything traditional is not scriptural. There could be many things going on in the tradition which may be outside the purview of scripture or may even be contrary to the teaching of scripture.
So with this point, the point I was making is that, does anyone remember the point? Everything in scripture is not westernised. But the main point was everything in scripture is not the teaching of scripture. So scripture contains descriptive and prescriptive.
So it is important for us to understand. So Baldevidya Bhushan in his Govinda Bhashya commentary on the Vedanta Sutra says that scriptural statements in the imperative are generally prescriptive. In the imperative means you should do like this.
You shouldn’t do like this. So for example in the Bhagavad Gita, the 11th chapter is mostly descriptive. Describing the virat rupa as seen by Arjuna.
But for example, sarva dharman pritya jamamekam sharanam vraja. This is a prescriptive statement. So not everything in scripture is prescriptive.
In fact majority of scripture is not prescriptive. There are sections that are prescriptive. So we have to look at context always.
So now with this broad understanding let’s look at the specific point of human sacrifice. So at least in modern society we could say over the last last millennium or two there has been an increasing appreciation of the sanctity of at least human life. And human life should not be taken.
And of course human life has still been taken because of wars and murders and so many things. But at least it’s considered to be a very serious serious crime to kill human beings. So the killing of human beings happens in many horrible ways in war fields and in fact in the last century, the 20th century more people were killed in wars than all the previous 19th centuries combined together.
So why is that? Because one reason is we developed more and more technology for mass destruction. So wars became more brutal and more widespread. But still, despite this increased casualty, the point is that killing of human beings is reproached.
It’s seen as reprehensible. So when modernity looks back at the past, there is a fundamental difference between materialists and spiritualists. And one way we could say is that materialists seek pleasure outward and spiritualists seek pleasure inward.
That is true. But there is another way of looking at it is that quite often people who are materialists, they look at the past with contempt. And in the past people were so primitive.
And primitive not just in terms of technology but many people believe that in the past people were also morally primitive. And they did so many despicable things. For example, there was slavery in the past and now we have outlawed slavery.
This indicates that we are morally more elevated. And yes, we cannot deny that certain things have changed for the better. But broadly speaking, a materialistic attitude is that history is on a linear path of progress and humanity has never been as good as it is at present.
So we look at the past with contempt. Not always explicit contempt. There might be some good things we can learn from the past.
We should. But overall it is the past was lower than us. Whereas spiritualists generally look at the past with reverence.
That people in the past were better than us. Now, which attitude is right? Again, it depends. We cannot have a mayamadi attitude of the past.
The past is not one homogeneous unit. The past, when we are referring to the past, are we referring to 500 years ago? Are we referring to 1000 years ago? Are we referring to 5000 years ago? It depends. What are we meaning by the past? So, both contempt for the past, indiscriminate contempt for the past as well as indiscriminate reverence for the past.
Both of them are myopic attitudes. Myopic means short sighted. We are only seeing certain things.
So, it’s not that we while being spiritualists venerate everything about the past. We understand that even in the past, there were many things that were wrong. That were undesirable.
So, now relatively speaking, see when we talk about our scriptures, when they talk about the past, they are talking about 5000 years ago. And from the point of view of modern history, there is especially history as is studied in modern times using historiographic methods. To know anything about India as it was 5000 years ago is very difficult.
So, it’s almost in the domain of very abstract knowability, very vague knowability. But when most people think about history, they talk about a few hundred years ago or millennia ago or couple of millennia ago. Yes, so we could say that as compared to that, there has been there has been some changes.
And say caste discrimination, today as compared to maybe 100 years ago, it is lesser. So, what happens is knowledge in the mode of ignorance means that we look at only the things that confirm our beliefs. We gain knowledge, but that knowledge doesn’t remove our ignorance, that knowledge reinforces our ignorance.
So, 1822 in the Bhagavad Gita Krishna says. So, the idea is that materialists can look at the past and those who want to find contemptible things in the past, they can look at the past and list all the things that were contemptible. And those who want to venerate the past, they can find many things which they can say this was so good, this was so good, this was so good, and they can venerate the past.
However, the reality is that the material world is always filled with the three modes. And we need to discern what in the past was good and what in the past was not so good. So, Bhaktivinoda Thakur in his essay on the Bhagavad urges his readers to have this attitude when he says that that we need the humility to recognise in the past also people were wise and they have also pondered the same questions about ultimate reality that we are pondering and maybe they have some answers which we don’t have to reinvent right now, we don’t have to reinvent the wheel.
So, why am I talking about this vision of history? The idea of animal sacrifice is considered reprehensible in today’s world and yet now it is, it seems to be a practise prevalent in the time of the scriptures. Here we have Janasandh about to do that in the Bhagavatam also there is one prominent character who encounters, who is about to be sacrificed in a human sacrifice. Who was that? Jada Bharat.
Yes. So, both in the Bhagavatam and the Mahabharat the sacrifices are described and significantly if you look at the descriptions there is no horror or disgust associated with those sacrifices. So, for example it is not that oh he was such a horrible being that he was doing this horrible practise of animal sacrifice.
Now, I am not saying that it is something which is praised. Definitely not. But the point is that bad things happen and when bad things happen it’s not that so if something is happening repeatedly say for example terrorist attacks happen repeatedly.
Terrorist attacks are terrible. Innocent people are killed in that. Innocent at least from the perspective of this life.
So, it is reprehensible. But if they are happening repeatedly that that condemnation may not come every time the information is given. Yes, okay, terrorist attack happened over here and so many people were killed.
So, it seems that animal sacrifice was or not even animal sacrifice human sacrifice was a part of how the Vedic society was at that time. Now, one more point to understand is here is that Krishna says he descends to correct dharmasya glanihi that whenever there is predominance of dharma and decline of dharma he descends yada yada hi dharmasya glanir bhavati bharat abhyutthanav dharmasya tadatmanam svajamyaham and Krishna came 5000 years ago. That means the time when Krishna came was the time of dharmasya glanihi.
So, the civilisation that is described in the Mahabharata is by no means the ideal Vedic civilisation. It is a civilisation that is demonstrating or exhibiting dharmasya glanihi disorder in ethical and spiritual values to such an extent that God himself had to descend. So, it is not just a minor disorder.
So, that is, so the animal sacrifices may well be a part of the, sorry, human sacrifices again. The idea of human sacrifices is so so reprehensible that even when I speak it the idea of the animal sacrifice is the one that slips out more of the time. But still, this could be a part of that degradation.
Now, that brings us to the, so I was going to talk first about the idea of animal sacrifices and then now I will talk about the second point that is comparing the mentality of Jarasandha and Yudhishthira. So, the Jarasandha had conquered and captured all these kings for the purpose of sacrifice and the sacrifice was to Mahabhairava. Now, it’s interesting that these kind of sacrifices are described usually to Deities other than Vishnu.
When Jada Bharat was about to be sacrificed, who was he going to sacrifice to? Kali, yes. So, generally we understand that the broad gamut of Vedic culture was meant to be inclusive that wherever people are, they can elevate themselves from where they are. So, now is it authorised? That’s something which is open to question.
As I said, scripture itself is not a rigidly defined canon of books for all traditions. what the Vaishnavas considered to be a scripture may be different from what Shaivites consider to be a scripture. Now, yes, the four Vedas everybody accepts.
The apex everybody accepts. But in our tradition we accept Chaitanya Charitamruta and other books also as scriptures. Even other Vaishnava branches may not accept that.
So, every tradition has its own body of books that they consider sacred. So, some might have something like this. But this is definitely Tamasik.
So, how do we know it is Tamasik? One of the characteristics of Tamasik is destructiveness. And this destruction of life which is justified, human life is being justified in the name of religion. So, what was his idea? His idea was that by doing the sacrifice to Shiva, he will become very powerful.
He was waiting for a particular count of kings. Once he had that and once he had a sacred time, then he would kill all the kings. So, it’s interesting that when he was going to do the sacrifice, he had Brahmin priests who were going to help him do the sacrifice.
And he respected the Brahmins so much that he would never refuse charity. And that was his feature, his characteristic which Krishna would use later. So, now when we talk about the Brahmins, what are we referring to over here? In modern society, there are some people who advocate a rigid differentiation between say science and religion.
This is religion which is talking about worship of gods and science is about technology for manipulating and doing things better in the world. So, in many cases in the Vedic times, we could say the Brahmins were more like scientists than religionists. What do I mean by that? Now, the word science and religion are very very broad categories and lots can be included in each of these words.
But broadly speaking, if we consider it in a generic way, religion refers to that body of knowledge, that aspect of human culture, that feature of the human personality that longs for something higher. So, religion broadly refers to something beyond the ordinary world. And how do we connect with that? How do we attain that? So, science on the other hand refers eminently to this world.
How can we understand control and improve this world? And all the knowledge that is associated with that. So, broadly human culture has three features. There could be many, but broadly three.
There is science, there is religion and there is art. So, religion is about conceiving and aspiring for the other world. Science is for understanding, controlling and improving this world.
And art is about depicting whatever the human mind thinks. Depicting through music, through paintings, through literature. So, art could be about religion, art could be about this world or about the other world.
So, now when we talk about Brahmins, not all Brahmins were transcendentalists. In fact, majority of the Brahmins were not transcendentalists. In fact, transcendence is not described even as a characteristic of the Brahmins in the qualities described in the Bhagavad Gita.
So, it is described that they are self-controlled, their minds are peaceful and they are austere. But they have knowledge, they have realisation and the last part is some astikyam. Now astikyam, in today’s world astik and nastik refer to theists and atheists.
But in the Vedic context, astik refers to one who believes in the Vedas. So, the idea is that the Brahmins would have respect or even they would have knowledge of the Vedas. And the Vedas again are a very vast body of knowledge.
And they would use primarily that part of the Vedic body of knowledge which would contain prescriptions of sacrifices for gaining more power and gaining more comforts in this world. So, in the Ramayana it is described that Ravana had his own Brahmins and everyday before he went for war with Ram, these Brahmins would perform yajnas and chant mantras so that he would be victorious. And it’s not that they are condemned, they are not real Brahmins.
Yes, in the ultimate sense we could say when we say brahma jana teeti brahman that’s true, but that doesn’t mean all brahmanas were those who knew Brahma. So, in this sense, Brahmins were more like scientists or technologists. And say if you consider the Second World War, now, in the mainstream portrayal of the Second World War, it is said that the Allies were good and the Axis Powers were bad.
And yes, the Axis Powers did, some German did horrendous things like the Holocaust. So, if we go along that, even if we accept that point that the Allies were largely virtuous and the Axis Powers were vicious, but both of them had their scientists. Both, one of the reasons why America launched the Manhattan Project to develop the atom bomb was because there was great apprehension that Hitler was doing something similar and if he developed the atom bomb first, that would be disastrous for the war.
So, just as both sides had technologies, similarly in the past, whether they were devatas or asuras, whether they were the suras or the asuras, whether they were the virtues of the vicious people, both of them had Brahmins. Because Brahmins, they were more, you could say, scientists or technologists than religionists. So, now we may say, no, but there is a big difference.
The Brahmins were performing worship, they were chanting mantras, they were doing so many religious, sacred activities. How can we call them scientists or technologists? And today’s scientists hardly ever do anything like that. Well, it’s not that simple.
At least in India, every time it launches a space mission, there are scientists from NASA who go to Tirupati Balaji and make some offerings and they chant mantras. So, we can’t make again that rigid division. But the point is, religion or science, they are to be understood not by the actions, but by the intentions.
It is not whether somebody is chanting mantras or somebody is doing some worship. That’s fine. But why are we doing it? So, if the goal is to have better control over this world, better comfort in this world, then that is largely the disposition of disposition of improving this world, which is science.
Now again, this is, I don’t want to throw too many concepts over here. But broadly speaking, we have these three modalities, karma, jnana and bhakti. So, we understand karma means doing activities to improve this world.
Jnana is recognising the temporality and the futility of this world and perceiving something eternal. And bhakti is approaching the eternal devotionally, but that approach can be by turning away from the world or by walking through the world, both ways. So, we could say that, I put it simply that karmis romanticise the world, jnanis demonise the world, bhaktas utilise the world.
So, romanticise, oh, this world is wonderful or it will just become wonderful if you make some adjustments. That’s karmi attitude. Jnani attitude is this world is terrible.
This world is a place of temptation. This is a place of danger. Therefore, just reject this world.
So, then the bhakta attitude is, yes, this world is also part of God’s energy and I need to use it to go toward God. So, now, if you consider these three, karmi, jnani and bhakta attitude, where does science fall? Sorry? Yes. Science, thank you.
Science falls more toward the karmi. Although science involves intellectuals who study a lot, they try to understand things and they, many scientists are extremely, we could say, intellectual people. But at the same time, it’s not just their intellectuality.
It is for what are we using it? So, if the purpose, how many scientists are renounced sages who are pursuing something beyond this world? Well, not all of them might be materialistic, sense gratifiers. Some of them may be facilitating that. Some of them may be doing that.
But broadly, not many scientists are involved in actively pursuing transcendence. So, although science and technology may involve a lot of sophisticated intellectual work, but as I said, these are defined not by actions but by intentions. And the intention, if the intention is primarily to improve this world, then the methodology we use may vary.
So, the karmakand of the past, which is what most of the brahmins would do, and that’s why we see that the Mathura brahmins, we might find it absurd, how could they not recognise Krishna? When Krishna comes, how could they forget it? So, actually it’s not surprising because they were brahmins who were working for Kamsa and Kamsa was interested in material power. So, even when they theoretically had an understanding as Vishnu is the ultimate Yagyeshwar and Vishnu descends to this world and all that, but their interest was, okay, okay, that’s alright, but how do I get power in this world? So, it’s only, Vishwajith Raghava describes that when they performed the sacrifice, after their wives had gone, then the devatas came and the devatas told them how foolish you have been. He said that actually the person whom we also worshipped, he had come here, he had sent his messengers to you.
And then they realised what they had, how they had erred so grievously. So, this is the example I am giving to illustrate the point that the brahmins were mostly involved in karmakant sacrifices. So, they might invoke some higher powers, they might invoke some, they might chant some mantras, do activities that seem religious, but their intentions were largely similar to the intentions of scientists or more precisely technologists today.
So, just as both parties, the allies and the axis powers, had scientists, no specific technologists. So, similarly, in all the wars that are described in the epics, both sides, the virtues and the vicious, had brahmins on their side. And when we see Jarasandh respecting brahmins, that respect was not so much because he was a virtuous person.
Yes, we could say respecting brahmanas itself is a virtue. Yes, that’s fine. But, why are you respecting those brahmanas? In the Nazi constitution camp, there was one particular doctor, infamous doctor, who was very respected.
Why? Because he developed more and more efficient ways of killing the Jews. Because after the Jews were killed, either in the gas chambers or wherever, after that their corpses had to be disposed. And then you have to dig the trenches to bury those corpses.
So, those who were the guards, they considered that to be too much work. Even though they would get other Jews to bury them, but even to supervise them, they considered that also too much work. So, this particular doctor, he invented more and more efficient means of simply incinerating the bodies, just burning them so that nothing needed to be, or very little needed to be buried or disposed of otherwise.
So, now he was respected. But now, is that respect because he is doing something good? Not necessarily. So, similarly, the Gerasenes’ respect of the brahmanas was not because he was virtuous or necessarily because even those brahmanas were virtuous.
It is because those brahmanas were tools for power for him. And his understanding was that brahmanas in general are gateways to some higher power. And that’s why he gave charity to the brahmanas.
He would not refuse charity because he thought by giving charity to the brahmanas, I will gain the pious credits which will help me to gain further power. So, we cannot look at one activity of a person or one quality of a person without considering the overall context in which that quality comes up. So, yes, he respected brahmanas.
But why? He gave charity to the brahmanas. Why? Because he thought by that, I will gain greater power. Now, there is another significant difference between Gerasenes.
So, the Pandavas performed Rajasuya Yajna. Just contrast the Rajasuya Yajna with the Mahabhairava Yajna which is being described over here. The central part of the Mahabhairava Yajna was that all these kings would be killed.
And only when he had a certain number of kings who would be killed at a certain point, certain time, which was considered auspicious. Now, God knows what is auspicious about killing human beings en masse. But his idea was that will give him power.
Contrast that with Rajasuya sacrifice where the shedding of even one drop of blood was considered inauspicious. And that’s why when Shishupal had to be killed, that’s why Shishupal was so fearless. He thought that I can go on insulting Krishna because if they attack me, there will be bloodshed and by that bloodshed, the whole sacrifice will be nullified.
But Krishna, he used Sudarshan Chakra to do bloodless decapitation. He lopped off his head but there was no bloodshed over there. So the point I am making here is that look at the contrast.
Both are sacrifices but if we have this Mayavadi attitude, how does it sacrifice? Well, no. We cannot have the idea that everything in the past was one. Both are sacrifices but one was centred on killing human beings, the other was centred on the idea that even the slightest amount of bloodshed would violate the sanctity of the sacrifice.
So we have the word sacrifice but it is completely opposite spectrums of the kind of activity or the kind of mentality that went into that activity. So apart from that, Yudhishthir and Jarasandh, they had another significant difference in mentalities. Their activities were similar.
Jarasandh had subordinated, had subdued these large number of kings and when Yudhishthir, he had to perform the Rajasuya Yajna, for that also he had subdued many kings. In fact, the whole premise, premise means the starting assumption for doing the Rajasuya sacrifice was that the king has to have subordinated all other kings. He did that.
However, in no place did Yudhishthir impose his own rule. What do I mean by this? Even when Jarasandh was killed, Yudhishthir did not annex Magadh and make that into a part of the kingdom of Hastinapur. What did he do? Does anyone remember? Yes, Sahadev.
He made his son Sahadev as the king. So the idea is, if you see the similar thing in the Ramayana also. Ram defeated the king of Lanka but then he made another member of that Lanka, of the Lanka’s ruling family as the king.
So why is this significant? That there is in the broad Vedic culture there was an overall emphasis on decentralisation not on centralisation of power. That people are different in different places and say Yudhishthir Maharaj ruling from Hastinapur will not know the specifics of the culture, the habits, the living conditions of people in Magadh. So let somebody who knows that rule that place.
So the idea was not to concentrate power at one place. There was some amount of harmonisation so that if somebody starts doing terrible things, outright horrible things, then they need to be curbed. But the idea was not, Jarasandh he had arrested all the kings and he was going to kill them.
Why? Because he wanted to centralise all power for himself. Now why is this so significant? See because there is a quote of Prabhupada where he says that there is no use of crying for world peace unless there is awakening of divine consciousness in the individual. There is no use of crying for world peace unless there is awakening of divine consciousness in the individual.
So Prabhupada is saying that world peace is a very big thing. But we will not have world peace just by having one leader who is very powerful and very virtuous. It is individuals who have to develop divine consciousness.
Many times people have the idea that if only there will be one virtuous leader the whole country will change. Well, maybe. Yes, virtuous leaders can do good things.
But concentrating power in one hands, in one place, too much power is always dangerous. Because what if that virtuous leader is killed and then a vicious leader comes up over there. And all the concentrated power will be used by that vicious leader for vicious purposes.
So the traditional Indian culture was not about centralising power. It was about largely decentralisation. Every village was self-sufficient.
Self-sufficient in the sense that it was economically self-sufficient, it was professionally self-sufficient, in every way it was self-sufficient. So, to think that one person should concentrate all power and then that one person will do very good things, it doesn’t work like that. Individually the hearts have to be reformed.
So it’s not that in our tradition we don’t have the idea of that some Messiah will come and that person will save all of humanity. Even when God himself comes, it is God plays some roles but he has other spray roles. And the real purpose of God’s descent is not just to establish dharma in the world, it is actually to establish dharma in the human heart so that people live virtuously thereafter.
So Jarasandh’s mentality was very different. Although he respected Ramanas, although he performed sacrifices, so Yudhishthir Maharaj’s mood was that he wanted everyone to live dharmically but that does not mean that everybody has to, everybody has to give up all their power and simply he has sole power. No.
After all these kings were released by Bhima, he gave their kingdoms back to them and then it is said that they came to Maharaj Yudhishthir to sacrifice and they offered Bali Madhvare, they offered him tribute. So this regional variation is an integral part of broad whatever we call as Vedic culture because people at different places are different. We see that when Bhishma went to get a bride for the ruling kings for Pandu especially, he went to the kingdom of Madra and there Shalya, the ruling prince who’s sister, Madri was wanted, whose hand she wanted, he wanted Bhishma.
So he said in our family the tradition is that we don’t give dowry, we accept a bride, what is called as bride price. Dowry is where the girl’s family gives something as a gift to the boy’s family. But bride price is where the boy’s family gives something to the girl’s family for giving the bride.
So Bhishma said yes, I know about this and I have brought lots of gifts. This is my offering. So Bhishma did not say this is a deviant thing.
No, local custom respected that. So the difference, so why would somebody want, what is wrong with centralising power or what is good about decentralising power? The idea is decentralising is it leads to individuals taking responsibility. Centralising means all the responsibility falls on one person.
Bhaktsaraj Thakur famously has said that the world does not need any reformer. One who thinks that the world needs a reformer, it is their thinking that needs reformation. The world already has the most competent person in charge.
All that we need to do is learn to listen to him more. And that listening is not meant to be done only by the king or the head of state. That listening has to be done by every individual.
So when there is not too much centralisation, then even if one person goes wrong, that leads to problems at that place. It doesn’t lead to problems everywhere. That is the second part and I’ll conclude with the last part now.
So I talked about first the idea of human sacrifices. Second I talked about the difference between the mentality of Jarasandh and Dishdasha. So lastly, we’ll talk about how, what Arjuna is remembering specifically here is how Krishna empowered or Krishna guided Bhima to win against Jarasandh.
So Jarasandh was extremely powerful and Krishna had fought against Jarasandh many times and each time Krishna defeated Jarasandh but released him. Now what was the reason? At one level we understand that Krishna wanted all the demoniac forces who would ally with Jarasandh to come to him and he could finish them. So Jarasandh was we could say like a efficient demon gatherer.
So who were demons from various places, they would ally with him and they would come and attack Krishna and Krishna would destroy all of them but he would let Jarasandh go. And Jarasandh would go and gather more demons and again Krishna would kill them. So that’s one reason of course.
Another was Krishna wanted his devotees to get the credit. Krishna wanted Bhima specifically to get the credit. And Jarasandh it seems had a significant amount of leadership qualities.
Now leadership itself is a virtue but for what one is leading is even more important. Hitler is considered one of the best orators of the last century but his oration was not to illuminate people, it was to darken people’s minds with hatred and bigotry. So Jarasandh by this time had assembled such a huge army that Krishna felt that confronting him on the war field would lead to an enormous amount of bloodshed and Krishna felt that even with that bloodshed it would be difficult to actually win because his army was so large.
So he decided that let’s avoid that and Krishna said we will go more discreetly inside and they acted as Brahmins and they went in there. So now if you see every war it’s not, wars are never won simply by force. Yes force is important but it is said that more important than the weapons that a warrior possesses is the mind or the intelligence the warrior possesses and intelligence is used to formulate strategies.
So what are the strategies that Krishna formulated over here? In the Mahabharata the Mahabharata reveals Krishna to be the strategist par excellence. What does it mean strategist par excellence? It means that that we need to understand what is the best way to penetrate the enemy. So what is the best way to get the results without causing any unnecessary damage.
So Krishna knew that he respected Brahmins. So they took on the garb of Brahmins. Then Krishna also had Bhima fight.
Now what happened? In general if anybody is good at something, there is a tendency to become proud of that. So Krishna could have told Bhima on the first day itself you know you just ripped apart. But Bhima did not ask and Krishna did not tell.
And the fight went on for one day, two days, three days, four days. It went on for 28 days. And finally Bhima thought what is this? Why am I not able to win? Why am I not able to win? And that’s when he turned to Krishna.
And he asked Krishna what should I do? And Krishna immediately told him you have to tear him apart from the middle. So actually what happens is I’ll conclude with this last point that spiritual life is not so simple or black and white. In spiritual life sometimes our strengths can become our weaknesses.
And sometimes our weaknesses can become our strengths. How is that? If our strengths some of us may be very good speaker, some of us may be good singer, some of us may be good managers. We can use all this for serving Krishna.
But if our strengths make us feel that we don’t need Krishna. That just by using those strengths I can do whatever I want to do. Then our strengths will become our weaknesses.
And contrast if we have certain weaknesses something we are just not able to do. And that makes us call out to Krishna more. That makes us feel the need for Krishna more.
Then those weaknesses may well become our strengths. Because spiritual life is not so much about what strengths we have or what weaknesses we have got rid of. Spiritual life is mostly centred on how much we long for Krishna.
Now of course through our strengths if we serve Krishna and we experience Krishna and we enable others to experience Krishna then that can also increase our longing for Krishna. So that’s the healthy way to do it. The test of any service, if that service is done properly, properly in the sense that service is done in a devotional disposition then yes we will have if we are good in that service we will get good results in that service.
But through that service we will experience Krishna. We will please Krishna and we will experience the enrichment of the heart. And that is what we will long for more.
So the test of our service is not so much in how much the results of that service manifest in the world. It is how much our longing for Krishna increases through that service. So for Bhima till he turned toward Krishna Krishna did not speak to him.
You think you are strong? Try it out. And then finally I can’t do it. What should I do? Then Krishna told him.
And then the next day both of them were fighting and while fighting just Bhima just ripped Yajarasand apart. And that was the end of the fight. And Arjuna is remembering over here how gloriously Bhima was empowered by Krishna to win this war.
So it’s significant that in this whole series of remembrances Arjuna is not just remembering the times when he was empowered. This was a time when Arjuna was mostly like a bystander or a spectator. But Arjuna is remembering this also as a manifestation of Krishna’s prowess.
And because he centres on remembering Krishna, he is remembering the times when he was at the centre and he is also remembering times when he was a bystander. But sometimes he was empowered by Krishna and then he was at the centre. Sometimes he was just a bystander.
But it was Krishna’s empowerment, it was Krishna doing his magic that Arjuna is cherishing over here. And he is describing that to Yudhishthira as a part of his lamentation at the departure of Krishna from the world. So I’ll summarise what I spoke today.
Broadly, I spoke on the theme of understanding the Jarasandha pastime. So first I talked about the concept of here Jarasandha was going to do human sacrifice. So to understand human sacrifice, first point I said is that everything that is in scripture is not the teaching of scripture.
We need to understand what is prescriptive and what is descriptive. And everything that is traditional is also not scriptural. Deviations can come from the contemporary culture, they can come from the tradition also, like the caste system.
So Krishna also asks the Pandavas, the Rajavasis, is this Indra Puja scriptural or traditional? And then in that we discussed another point that Vedic culture or whatever was happening in the past was very inclusive. We cannot have very broad, we cannot have a mayavadi idea of history. So the materialistic way of looking at history is to look at it with contempt.
And sometimes the spiritual way of looking at it is with reverence. Those broad mentalities they describe, at the same time it is not that we have uncritical reverence. And we also have to consider which aspect of history are we referring to.
So, we have to look at the specific aspect of history and the specific feature within history that we are looking at. So it seems human sacrifice was prevalent at those times, just like say terrorism is prevalent at this time, at today’s times. No means is it something which is recommended or desired but it was there.
And then I talked about the presence of, we discussed after understanding how that was the time of Dharmaseglani when Krishna appeared. So it was a part of the much of what is described over there could be a part of the decline of religion, not the presence of religion. The second thing I discussed was the difference between Jarasandh and Yudhishthira’s mentality.
So Jarasandh also had Brahmins and he respected Brahmins so much that he would never refuse charity. But why was that? Because the Brahmins were gateway to power for him. So the rigid differentiation between science and religion that some people talk about nowadays, that is not there in the Vedic times.
The Brahmins were more often scientists or technologists rather than spiritualists. So in general we could say human culture has three aspects. Science is about how we can make this world better.
Religion or spirituality, whatever that is about the world beyond this world and what is it and how we pursue it. And art is how we use our human creativity to depict what we experience with respect to this world or the other world. So most Brahmins were Karmakandis and their concern was to do some sacrifices by which they could improve this world.
And although in terms of specific actions the Brahmins were worshipping, doing sacrifices, chanting mantras and modern scientists don’t do any of these things. But the intention is what defines them more than the actions. So science is from the Vedic categorisation it is Karma, it is not Jnana.
Karma is not just rituals but Karma is the driving motive, Karmakandis to improve this world. Karmis romanticise this world, Jnanis demonise this world thinking that it’s a terrible place we just have to get out of it. Bhaktas utilise the world.
So just as what scientists do to try to make things happier and happier in this world, that’s what most of the Karmakandi Brahmins would do. And Jarasandh had Brahmins to help him gain power. Although he himself was demoniac just like even countries which are outright ruled by dictators or demoniac rulers, they may have scientists to develop their technology.
Allied powers had scientists. Axis powers also had scientists. And then we discussed another difference between the mentality of Yudhishthira and Jarasandh was Yudhishthira’s sacrifice, Rajasuya was a bloodless sacrifice whereas his sacrifice was centred on killing humans.
And Yudhishthira was not was concerned that overall dharma be maintained but he was not about centralising all power to himself. He appointed Jarasandh’s son as a king over there whereas Jarasandh wanted to kill all those kings and be the ruler of all those kingdoms himself. The problem with centralising power too much is that a lot depends on the character of the central person in power and today that person might be virtuous but next time the next person who comes there either by killing this person or succeeding this person that person is vicious then all that centralised power can be abused.
So if there is to be spiritualization of society it is primarily by individual, by awakening divine consciousness in the individuals from the top to the bottom. And decentralisation in the form of self-sufficiency was what was quite central to the broad Indian culture. And then lastly I talked about the principle of how Krishna helps.
So Krishna was a strategist and in order to, initially he used Jarasandh as a demon gatherer to efficiently eliminate demonic forces but when he felt that there was too much bloodshed, so he went in using the very thing which could be used as a weakness for Jarasandh and that was he went in the Brahmin and Bhima was powerful but he was so powerful he think I didn’t need Krishna. So the bar went on for 28 days till he turned toward Krishna. So we talked about how if our strengths make us feel that we don’t need Krishna, they can become our weaknesses.
And if our weaknesses make us feel the need for Krishna, then they can become our strengths. The central point in spiritual life is not how, what all we are able to do or what we are not able to do. It is how much we call, feel the need for Krishna and how fervently we call out to him.
Thank you very much. Hare Krishna. So any questions or comments? Yes.
What do you mean by globalisation exactly? The culture of local, like regional preferences are being erased and one holistic culture is being appreciated. So people travel, people settle and migration is encouraged, they are encouraged to integrate with the country they are in. So are you talking about this from a simply socio-economic perspective or spiritual perspective? is the attempt for globalisation more likely to succeed or better, the localisation is what is more likely to succeed because that was how it was historically.
My general understanding is that we shouldn’t pit bhakti too strongly in favour of or against any material ideology. So as bhaktas do we support communism or capitalism? Well historically communism has been much more hostile to religion than capitalism. But we don’t have to go on a war against communism.
Now is bhakti in support of feminism? Well, we are not in support of feminism but again we are not in support of male chauvinism also. So if we condemn only feminism without seeing that feminism was a reaction to male chauvinism, so then we are being imbalanced in our understanding. So yes, there is urbanisation and there is urban society, there is rural society.
We see in Krishna Leela, there is Mathura and there is Vrindavan. So there is urban and rural. Now of course we could say the urban in Vedic times was much more close to nature and harmonious with nature.
That’s true. But the principle is urban and rural were there. So overall as devotees, we don’t have to aggressively pit ourselves for or against anything material.
Even Prabhupada’s conversations in Life Comes From Life, if we see actually, Prabhupada’s actual transcripts are much more revealing. Because what happens anytime the conversations are compiled into a book. The conversations themselves were very long.
Some things were put into the book, some things were not put into the book. So a lot was left out of the conversations from what came in the book. So there, after the conversation as it is recorded in the book ends, Prabhupada says, if the scientists reject God, then we reject them.
But if they accept God, then we are not against their spirit of knowing. We don’t deprecate their quest for knowledge. We are not against science.
We are against Godlessness, their Godlessness. So Prabhupada was not particularly against science or any particular scientific theories. He was against Godlessness.
So can God consciousness be pursued in a scientifically advanced society? Can it be pursued in a scientifically not backward society? Well, in both it is possible. Is it easier in a society with less technology and tougher in a society with more technology? Well, it depends on what we mean by technology. Somebody who has lived with say many technological comforts such as we have flowing water, we have electricity.
So those who have lived with that, if they don’t have it, that might cause so much difficulty for them that they will not be able to focus on spiritual life. So the we have to recognise that different people will flourish spiritually in different material situations. It’s like the whole idea of an ashram was not division of society but it was more about providing people the right to compatible engagement.
Engagement that is compatible with their psychophysical nature. So we can say everybody deserves a right to similarly have a socio-economic environment, socio-cultural, socio-economic environment that is the best for the most harmonious with their nature and that is the best for their spiritual growth. So we don’t have to go on a campaign against globalisation.
But does that mean that we shouldn’t try to localise? Yes, of course. We can, we should. So we can we can focus on demonstrating a particular value without demonising its opposite.
So there will be places where there will be places where we will have local communities where many of the local practises are preserved and say for example, if you consider Mizoram, Manipur, Manipur was at one time a Vaishnava state and when Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’s followers went to Manipur, they had the local people become Gaudiya Vaishnavas, not just Vaishnavas, but they preserved their culture, they preserved their dance form, they preserved their music, they preserved their dress and then when ISKCON went there and ISKCON established centre, ISKCON started telling them unless you adopt these practises, you wear this dress, you are not devotees and those people had been devotees from birth. They might not have been sadhakas like what we have in ISKCON, but still they were devotees. So we don’t have to impose things from elsewhere at one particular place.
At the same time, in some ways, what the overall mood is So if some people are already in a globalised kind of ethos, say for example if we have Mayapur, which is going to be a global headquarters for our movement, it is naturally going to be multi-ethnic. So for Mayapur to work, the dynamics will be very different from say, for the Govardhani Kovilage to work. Although in some ways, some things are similar, but the dynamics will be very different.
So rather than focussing on localisation or globalisation, our attitude could be like utilise. Where localisation is useful, use that. Where globalisation is useful, use that.
And our focus is on what is the best way to take people toward Krishna. So is localisation going to be helpful? Yes, lot of people are interested in that, the preservation of local values and in fact, when Bhaktapurush Chaturthi Maharaj who is now doing tribal outreach. So initially, several decades, maybe a decade ago or something, devotees started doing tribal outreach.
They basically, in the name of preaching, caused the tribals to give up all their culture and start becoming Hare Krishnas. And then some of the local political leaders, they said, you Hare Krishnas are no different from Christian conversionists. Because when people get converted to Christianity, they lose their local culture.
And they can convert to Hare Krishna, they lose their local culture. So what is the difference? Then, after that, when the devotees realised that they were getting this backlash, they became a little more mature. And then they said that now they are encouraging them to have their cultural practises.
And when the local tribals from various parts, they come to Mayapur, they do Kirtan in their own way. They exhibit their culture and through their culture they express their devotion for Krishna. So, what applies to local cultures in India, we need to recognise that may apply to local cultures in the west also.
We don’t have to, earlier we often talk, I used to talk about Indian culture and western culture. And used to glorify Indian culture and demonise western culture. But now I talk about more in terms of material culture and spiritual culture.
So materialistic and spiritual culture. So there is some amount of spirituality even in the west and there is a lot of materialism in India. So we could say India is being westernised and is becoming materialistic because of that.
But it’s not just that. Because there is a materialistic mentality in India, that’s why we are receiving the materialism from the west. There is a significant amount of spirituality in the west also.
So, basically, we utilise what works best. And in some places globalisation might still work, some places localisation might work. But the before the pandemic there was an increasing attempt by the elite to try to globalise everything and to dissolve all expressions of localisation.
Like the European Union was an expression of trying to dissolve all national boundaries. But suddenly with the pandemic, all countries over the world have discovered the importance of boundaries. We cannot allow free people from coming from another country to our country because they will bring the pandemic.
So, definitely that unblinkered or we could say, yeah, that uncritical embrace of globalisation that is happening in the past that has been checked. It needs to be checked. But also we can’t have an uncritical embrace of localisation also.
We need to see our focus on spiritualization. And most frequently we could say spiritualization is better than through localisation than through globalisation. But we don’t have to become campaigners against globalisation.
Our focus has to be campaign for spiritualization and whatever is appropriate we use that. Does that answer your question? Thank you. Yes.
It was a very clear cut idea about pristine and discrete. You quoted like you know, imperative and discrete. That again depends on the circumstances or is it always like that? A very part of the script is cannot be followed.
So, he is basically giving an indication. It’s not, again, you cannot absolutise that one statement because Desikala Patra is a principle everywhere. So, that is one indication of what is imperative and what is not.
What is descriptive and what is prescriptive. But there could be other indicators also of what is descriptive and prescriptive. Thank you.
Yes. Yes. Okay.
The concept of sacrifice where some humans, some animals also. So, is it like these emigres, like Karl Reiner or is it like they have any role in understanding? Will they actually enjoy that the animals sacrifice? So, So, did the Devatas enjoy the animal sacrifices per se? When the animals were sacrificed and that? There are 2-3 things over here. See, there is a basic understanding that in the Bhakti Rasamrta Sindhu it is there.
One of the aspects of Bhakti is to offer to Krishna that which is the dearest to us. So, the basic principle of sacrifice is to give that which is very dear to us. That is the basic principle of all sacrifice.
So, now in different conceptions, in different cultures what is dear will vary. We often hear about the prodigal son story of how that in the Old Testament it is described how there was a son who was very wasteful and he went away from his father and then when he came back his father was so happy to have him back. Now that’s true but what comes in the story immediately after that is that his father says my son is back, let’s kill a pig today and we will have a big party.
So, what is the idea over there? That was the idea of celebration over there. And in fact his other brother who has been very dutiful he becomes resentful. My father has never killed a pig to celebrate my being here.
So then he becomes jealous of his younger brother. Why is he being so much appreciated, I am not being appreciated. That’s a whole different dynamic of the story.
But the point I am making is in different cultures different things will be considered valuable. And the idea of sacrifice is that we give up for a higher principle that which is dear to us. So, so in a culture where say which is largely based on cattle rearing then a cattle is very valuable, any cattle.
Then sacrificing that is indicating that which is dear to us, that is valuable to us, we are ready to give it up for something higher. So that principle we need to appreciate. That which is valuable for me, I am ready to give it up for a higher cause.
Now how that principle is expressed that some of the expressions might be healthy, some of them might not be healthy. So instead of say nowadays there are movies in which they say you are pouring so much milk on shivling instead of that give that milk to poor people. Well, yes and no.
We don’t have to we don’t have to let the milk go waste. At the same time rather than thinking that milk is simply going waste, we need to appreciate the principle. That here that milk we could have enjoyed it but we are ready to offer it to the deity.
So we appreciate the principle of sacrifice but we have to consider the specific forms of the sacrifice. Whether that particular form is healthy, desirable, based on scripture, applicable in current situations, all those factors we need to consider. So are the devtas pleased by animal sacrifice? The devtas are pleased by the principle of sacrifice.
devan bhavayatanena te deva bhavayantuha parasparambhavayantah shreyah paramavapsithah That we satisfy the god and the god satisfies us in this way by mutual reciprocity everybody can be happy. That’s Bhagavad Gita 3rd chapter 12th verse. So now in some cases some sacrifices are not pleasing to the gods but still they get the desired results which the particular sacrificer wants.
So for example is it the story of Narakasur? Vrukasur. So he is offering his own body, he is about to offer his own head and Prabhupada says that any considerate person will not want anybody else to kill. So when he comes there he is not pleased because he is offering his head but he is constrained by that situation.
So the specific forms of the sacrifices may or may not please the devatas. The principle of sacrifices pleases and when something is practised often it is a combination of scripture and tradition and then which scripture is being followed, which tradition is being followed. Based on that whether a particular sacrifice is desirable or undesirable it is spiritually uplifting or not that has to be decided.
So our acharyas for example Madhvacharya and Ramanacharya, there were animal sacrifices in the past and they were considered integral part of the yajnas. So then they said that actually you can just make a animal shaped out of dhow, say wheat flour or something like that and sacrifice that animal. You don’t have to actually kill an animal for that purpose.
So the idea is especially if it’s a grain that is valuable then we make a dhow out of that and offer that. You are giving something valuable. So they said there is no need to do animal sacrifices.
So we would say that the principle of sacrifice is important and rather than going too much into an analysis of whether this sacrifice is authentic or not we can focus on how that sacrifice can be practised, how the principle of sacrifice can be practised in a way that is relevant in a particular society’s context. Okay. Thank you.
Yes, last question. Thank you. You gave a class which made us to think a lot and that’s the reason so many questions.
So the question I had is, I see a contradiction in the whole thing and this needs to be resolved. When we hear Maharaj, Maharaj always says that we have to be instrument of compassion and love of Krishna. Now what does this mean is also responsibility that we have after that realisation and all that mercy coming from the God, we have to help out, bring good wherever possible.
We also see at the time of Bhaktivinoda Thakur that where he felt that there was some wrong thing happening he personally went into it and corrected it. So the Baba who was into the tantric this thing, he personally went into it and corrected it. So as a spiritualist and with that actual compassion, we cannot sit thinking that you know someone else will do it and we have to just be in this world and finish and then go back.
So how do we you know, and then the contrast is like where we say Dr. Siddhartha Saraswati Thakur said, there are a lot of reformers already there. So how do we resolve this particular conflict? So Bhaktivinoda Thakur has said that we don’t, the world doesn’t need any reformers but we see that we are meant to be instruments of Krishna’s compassion, Bhaktivinoda Thakur himself when there were deviant forms of religious worship, he aggressively acted against those. So aren’t we meant to change the world for the better? Yes.
Bhaktivinoda Thakur’s stress of the court is to think that I am the reformer. It is to understand that Krishna is the ultimate reformer and I need to connect with Krishna first and then on behalf of Krishna I act. So otherwise if people in a sense become self-appointed reformers, they may have very good intentions and they may do good work also, there is no denying that.
However, the amount of lasting good that will result is questionable because ultimately one person can bring about some change but what happens after that person departs? Unless that person creates a legacy of not just changed systems but changed hearts which will run those systems and quite often that is not so easy to do. So the best, there are many ways people’s hearts can be changed but the best way we could say is by connecting with the Lord who is all pure. So when we connect with the Lord in our hearts and then we act on his behalf in a mode of service, then whatever we do, it is going to improve the world.
It’s not that we are against improving the world. It is not that we are against doing something to reform the world. The point is to think that I am the reformer or rather I am the only reformer or I alone am going to reform.
It is rather I on behalf of the Lord will act in a mode of service and Bhaktivinoda Thakur, he chose his battles. We know that British government itself was doing a lot of lot of disruption of things. They were destroying, economically they were destroying Indian society.
They were in some ways culturally, religiously colonising the Indian mind. Bhaktivinoda Thakur chose not to fight that battle. He was in the British employ and he felt that he could use this position for inspiring the Bhadraloka, the respectable people of that time, to start respecting Gauri Vaishnavism and his party Indian spirituality.
So everybody has to choose which battles to fight. So that doesn’t mean that we are against fighting for any causes. What when I earlier said also that localisation or globalisation it’s not that a devotee can’t be a campaigner for localisation.
But devotee doesn’t reduce bhakti to that. In a particular context this is what is important and we should do that. So if we are giving a class, the whole class shouldn’t be centred on just how terrible globalisation is.
The class has to focus on how important spiritualising our consciousness is and then how globalisation can be detrimental to that, how localisation can be helpful for that. So if we want to, there are many things in society that need to be reformed and devotees may also work to reform it. But devotees focus is not on condemning that particular thing.
Devotees focus is on actually helping people raise their consciousness. So Chaitanya Mahaprabhu did not strongly oppose the existing Jagannath temple administration when they were stopping Haridas Thakur from entering the temple. But Chaitanya Mahaprabhu did not let that stop him from associating freely with Haridas Thakur.
So that was the culture which might have well considered somebody who is born in Leccha family as untouchable. But Chaitanya Mahaprabhu accepted the one part of the culture don’t let him come into the temple, I won’t fight against that. But he fought against another side.
Not only did he accept Haridas Thakur, he positioned him as Namacharya. So we choose our battles. The important thing is that we connect ourselves with the lord and depending on how we connect ourselves with the lord, the lord may inspire different devotees differently.
About what should we work for? What should I try to change? What should I become an instrument of the lord in trying to change? So if we have that inner connection, then we will naturally be guided about where our outer contribution can be. Thank you very much. See sometimes overall in our scriptures, especially in the Puranas, the Devatas don’t seem to always act in a very godly way.
The gods themselves, like we see Indra becoming very power hungry and trying to demonise the, trying to destroy the Vajivasis. So I don’t know whether that is the ideal behaviour of Varuna. Some Devatas are of a strategic purpose.
Varuna, Indra, Chandra, all these religions come into that. Varuna is a pure devotee? All these major Devatas, particular Devatas are that. They are exalted devotees.
They are great devotees. I don’t think pure. I don’t think Indra is considered to be a pure devotee at all.
They are definitely special souls. But even they may, in general, they may have, what is the word for it? They may have their bad moments. Just like even sometimes we may see, even some devotees are very senior, sometimes something may disturb them.
Now if you just consider that as the, as their defining character, that would be a misrepresentation. So in general, the Bhagavatam’s mood is to focus on Goloka and in that sense, Swarga is shown as not very special. The Devatas are shown as not very special.
So you could say that in general in the Bhagavatam, the portrayal of the Devatas is not very charitable. At the same time, the Devatas are like the Brahmanas also. How many times the Brahmanas do something wrong in the Bhagavatam? Right from Durvasa Muni to Shukracharya and so many.
At the same time, the Brahmanas are respected. So it’s like that with the Devatas also. They have to be respected but especially when the Bhagavatam wants to show how without Bhakti, even the Brahmanas can go wrong.
Similarly, are those Brahmanas intrinsically non-devotees? Not necessarily but at least at those times, they are acting in a non-devotional way. Same way with the Devatas also. It’s not that they are non-devotees but it’s not that they can’t have non-devotional movements.
They may also have those at times. You mentioned that Lord Kamsa in the history point of view, when the Lord appeared, there was like a dharmasya glani where it’s peak, highest amount of brutality and other things were happening. Do we see the kind of rulers we had? Like Srinapuri, centralised power and they were controlling everyone and then there was, before Kamsa, there was Kubera Sena, he was considered to be biassed.
Lord made him rule the Mathura later on. This kind of small, small pockets were there and who were ruling properly. So, what went wrong or what was the point we considered because today’s time we can see the worst in that.
Okay, so what are the dharmasya glani because there are so many virtuous rulers also. Well, in general there were some vicious rulers who had gained immense power. If we see before that when the Mother Earth goes along with the Devatas to Brahma and they all appear to Vishnu.
The point is that they are saying that there are monarch rulers on the earth. They are not saying that in general human society has become corrupted. They are saying the society’s rulers have become corrupted and we see Ravana was extremely powerful.
Ravana or so was Kamsa and others, they were extremely powerful. So, it is, when I said that centralisation is not, decentralisation is important, that doesn’t mean that who is in power doesn’t make a difference. It makes a big difference and having a virtuous ruler is important.
But thinking that that virtuous ruler alone will solve all problems, that is the mistake. But having a virtuous ruler is important and having a vicious ruler can create a lot of problems. So, when there is a vicious ruler traditionally at least not just in the past but even if you see prior to the British rule, although we had many tyrannical Islamic rulers, still even they didn’t disrupt the socio-economic structure of India.
As long as they got their taxes, they would come and they would often plunder the cities, they would plunder the temples also. They tried to impose their religious forms on our religious, on the Vedic traditional religious forms. But overall they did not disrupt the socio-economic system and that’s why that did not significantly affect Indian society so much.
The villages were still sufficient. Cities were not the centres of prosperity and the cities were often sacked by the invaders. But the cities were not the sources of prosperity.
The sources were the villages. From the villages people would produce grains and other things and those would come as taxes to the cities, to the capitals. That’s where the wealth was concentrated but that was not where the wealth was generated.
That’s why even if one city was sacked within a few years or few decades, the economy would spring back. But when the British came, they changed, they disrupted the socio-economic structure itself. Because they wanted that goods manufactured by them through industrialisation should be sold in India.
So then they started disrupting. Now Bangladesh, the whole Bengal area, what is now Bangladesh and everything, they had a very prosperous handloom industry. And then the British soldiers when they conquered Bengal, at that time the estimates varied between 1 lakh to 1 million.
There were handloom experts were there. The British soldiers went to all their houses, just cut off all their thumbs. So, why? Because they didn’t want them to compete.
So it was a big industry that was destroyed. I am not saying that the British were more brutal than the Islamic invaders. Islamic invaders were also brutal in their own way.
But the point I was making is that there could be large scale devastation without having mass disruption. Temples being destroyed and cities being destroyed is large scale devastation. But that doesn’t mean everybody had become religious.
It doesn’t mean that everybody’s life at a mass level was disrupted. So, the Dharmaseglani at that time which is talked about in the Vedic scriptures is very disruptive rulers gaining inordinate amount of power and Krishna comes to remove them. I mean today’s world at one level, because it’s Kali Yuga, it’s predicted.
So, it’s like a cosmic season. So, if in summer it rains, that’s unnatural. But if rainy season it rains, that’s natural.
So, Kali Yuga, their being wise is natural. Dharmaseglani is in a sense expected in Kali Yuga. So, we could also put it this way that those souls who have a desire for living immorally, those souls who have a lot of vices within them and unless they can play out those vices, they will not realise the futility.
And they cannot really turn themselves towards spirituality till they experience the indulgence and the futility of their indulgence. So, those souls are given a facility in Kali Yuga. Kali Yuga is a facility for them.
So, if the Lord comes and establishes Dharma immediately in Kali Yuga, then what happens to those souls? So, they also, if the world is a place for souls who want to live godlessly, then the amount of godlessness that is possible in previous ages was relatively limited. So, this Kali Yuga is an age where godlessness, those souls who want to be godless are provided an abandoned facility for that. So, we cannot really change the trend of Kali Yuga too much.
But what we can do is that souls who don’t want to be godless, we provide them that facility. And there are significant number of souls who might become godless simply because they see that is the natural way to live. There are some souls who are inherently godless and there are some souls who are circumstantially godless.
So, those who are inherently godless, we can’t do much about them. Like we say, प्रेम्मैत्रिक्रोपोपेक्षा इश्वालिष्यविदुश्यत्सुच्य उदुश्यत्सु, those who are inherently godless, they have to learn in their own way. So, our outreach is primarily to reach out to those who are circumstantially godless.
That’s what they see in society, that’s what they see in culture, that’s what they see in, even through the education to some extent. And provide them an alternative. So, when the level of inherent godlessness will become, will come to a particular tipping point, which the lord decides.
We may feel already it’s some tipping point. But, tipping point. So, I think that is tripping point, not tipping point.
Anyway, whatever it is. So, but when that comes, then Kalki will come. Thank you.
Yeah. Yeah, I mean, see, there is that quote by one social critic, that he says that when it comes to money, everyone belongs to the same religion. So, it applies, is using religion in the sense that an object of devotion.
So, even these big, big companies, they have some values, but it is open to question whether even they actually knew the extent of, barcodes were there, but whether this was actually being used for what exactly, they might not have known. And especially many of these companies have become so big now, and even at that time they were big, now they are even bigger, that no one person knows also what something is being used for. Ok, I just designed this codes for this particular function, but in the bigger programme, what is this code going to be used for? We may not even know that.
So, we will have to see. Even if they knew, it’s not surprising because that’s where the money was and they would do that. But it’s quite possible that they might not have known at that time.
At least when Churchill and others, they came to concentration camps and they saw that. They themselves, the reporters, they were horrified. And they felt that we should have stopped this much, much earlier.
They had no idea what was happening, to the extent to which it was the torture and the systematic killing of people was going on. So, like you were saying about leading a spiritualist organisation, we should not take a, we should not go against or for any materialistic agenda. Ok, yeah.
If it means a communist also. Yeah, my point was don’t make that a defining thing. Like I said later, if that’s what is useful, it’s fine.
But don’t position Krishna Consciousness as intrinsically anti-urban or anti-rural. Don’t position Krishna Consciousness intrinsically as anti-communist or anti-capitalist. So, yeah, what was your question? Sometimes, there are certain events where that actually means we should not take a stand.
But sometimes, as a global institution, ok, agreed that on certain issues, we should not take a stand. But even then, there is a lot of things comes out. Ok, I will clarify this.
So, when we say that, is it that individually devotees should not take a stand? No, I am not saying. As an institution, I think it’s a little, we have to be careful. So, we don’t want to get in.
Because even when there are some noble causes, often the noble causes get mixed with some ignoble, wasted interests. So, in America currently, there is a strong agitation going on against racial discrimination. But then, the Black Lives Matter, which is the slogan, so now nobody is going to object to the idea that Black Lives Matter.
Because all lives matter. Black lives also matter. But Black Lives Matter is also an ideological body.
And it’s a leftist body and Black Lives Matter ideology includes late term abortion. It includes so many other things which are strongly against devotional principles. So, should as a movement we support Black Lives Matter, for example, well, different devotees may be inspired in different ways.
Which is fine. So now, even if we as a movement take a particular position, that doesn’t necessarily mean that Krishna Consciousness is identified with that. Because ISKCON and Krishna Consciousness are also two different things.
So, somebody might be a Black Lives Matter activist and they might be Krishna Conscious. Somebody might be anti-Black Lives Matter campaigner and they can also be Krishna Conscious. So, they are individuals.
So, now is it that we should never take a stand? I wouldn’t say that also. Like when the 9-11 happened, our Ambedkar Commission issued a strong statement condemning that. So, there are certain things which are clearly Black and we need to condemn that.
But my point was sometimes we just get swept up by certain social issues and we may identify with that very strongly. So, especially for our devotees in Africa. Again, we can’t generalise.
Africa is a big continent. But still, there are lot of coups over there. One person is a ruler and is uprising and another person becomes the ruler.
So, our devotees do a lot of food for life and other things over there. But they can’t very strongly identify with one government. As soon as they identify with one government, then the next government comes up and they think you are a part of that government.
Then it will become a problem. But like the current issues which are happening in India, let’s say for the Palkar Minching case or even the Ayodhya temple, where devotees were not, they were expecting certain thing that the institution should take certain stand on those things. But like it was like a institution was taking a back foot on it.
And there was like lot of things. But at last, communication has to issue some statement on the Palkar Minching case. So, did we issue? Yes, we did.
G.E.V or ISKCON? No, ISKCON. ISKCON Communications. But on other issues like Ayodhya temple or some other temples, they are expecting that you identify at least with the other Hindu societies.
So, that becomes quite a dicey. And there is lot more within also, within the institution also, there is lot more like an uproar. Why are we not at least, you know, go for this kind of things? Somewhere, some stand has to be taken.
Well, just for the Ayodhya temple, the issue was definitely there is a core of writing historical wrongs and the core case was definitely grounded in fact and virtue. At the same time, it had become heavily politicalised. So, I think the main concern was the politicalization of the issue.
We also have to consider that we are an international movement. And then, what happens is, we are a minority religion elsewhere and we need the support of majority religions over there. We often hear about the cult movement.
ISKCON was called as a cult and devotees were charged with brainwashing. So, Anuttama Prabhu told me that what helped us win the case was the help of the Christians at that time. Because many prominent Christian leaders, they came and said that these Hare Krishnas are actually an ancient culture.
They are not a cult. Now, why did they say that? They had their self-interest. Because they felt that today, if this religious expression can be called as a cult, tomorrow we might also be called as a cult.
So, tomorrow somebody practising Christianity might also be may be called as brainwashing. So, they had their concerns, but still the fact is that they came and supported us. So, we need to consider that from that perspective also.
So, can we identify with particular issues? As individuals, certainly can. Now, as an institution, overall, we are not socially very active in general. So, it is more a matter of overall approach of the institution rather than specific issues.
If we are regularly taking stands on particular issues, on various social issues, then a stand on one issue won’t stand out so much. The Catholic Church has a whole body of Jesuit scholars who formulate the Catholic Church’s stands on various issues. And we don’t have anything like that right now.
So, then if we are regularly taking stands on various social issues, then we become a resource for the media also to know what is the Hindu perspective on this or what is Iskcon’s perspective on this. But right now, we are not active like that. So, we will, as a movement, as we grow, we will become more active.
And yes, so then, if we and what one of the fears is for at least the western devotees is that Iskcon doesn’t become identified in the eyes of the media with the Hindu right wing. So, there is much that is again right in what is the Hindu right wing. There is much that is right about it.
And in some ways, we could say that the Hindu right wing, wherever there is a violence, it is more sporadic. Sporadic means it happens occasionally. And there is no systemic that there is no thrust on that we should be violent.
Whereas some other religions quite often, at least in their extremist expressions, violence is systemic as an instrument of that religion, the tool for that religion. But still what happens is, the way things are portrayed, even something sporadic is portrayed as systemic. So, as devotees, we want to be careful that we don’t identify with the Hindu right wing.
We don’t get identified with the Hindu right wing in the public eye. So, that’s why it’s important that devotees, there is that devotees are cautious about this. So, now there is some kind of proposal, it’s still very vague, that we as a movement can have different orders.
The Catholic Church has Franciscan order and Thomasian order and like that. So, each of these orders, they are following the broad ambit of the Catholic Church. But there are particular specific emphasis, specific moods.
So, there is a proposal like that. Now, is this going to be centred on the Guru? Is this going to be centred on the temple? Is it going to be like, in one project itself different devotees can be associated with different moods but not in the mood of the temple. It’s quite complicated to implement that.
But if that happens, then it may be relatively easier. So, in Bengal we might find that one particular political party is quite supportive for us. But it’s not that same political party elsewhere might be supportive.
So, we cannot really affiliate with that way openly. It is a challenge. It’s a challenge that we can’t be socially completely isolated.
We can’t live in our own like a transcendental bubble without being concerned about society. By the same time, we don’t want to get too caught in society and its ups and downs or its various trends. So, if as a movement we start commenting regularly on issues, then if we are commenting on issues concerned with Hinduism, then that won’t lead to the perception that we are associated with Hindu right wing.
But if those are the only issues we comment on, now this sadhu lynching is nothing to do with Hindu right wing. It could be simply a matter of human concern and human shock at what has happened. But, there is a particular perception that comes in the media.
And Chaitanya Mahaprabhu was also concerned about perceptions, especially for spiritual leaders, he said that. He said, what do people think of me if I associate with Chaitanya Mahaprabhu? So, perceptions do matter in that sense. It’s tough.
We need to be definitely more socially engaged, but from where to start and how to move forward, there is a lot of questions going on. And what I found is that even if we don’t make official statements, if local leaders express empathy for the cause, express understanding, express empathy, and sometimes may offer not public but private assistance in some small ways, then that does contribute also. We don’t want to, we can’t afford to have or at least we can’t be perceived as affording to have a use and throw attitude towards other religious groups.
That is often a criticism of ISKCON that we call ourselves as Hindu when we need the support of Hindus. Other times we call ourselves as transcendental. So, that doesn’t work very well.
We can’t be like that. At the same time, that doesn’t mean we have to be, we have to fully affiliate. There could be various ways in which we work.
Braj Hari Prabhu told me that there was some Hindu conference or like Hindu sadhus, they wanted to come together and they wanted our Juhu temple auditorium for that purpose. So, he said that they have been quite supportive of our temple. So, he said, as a movement, we cannot support this.
So, he said that you can have the auditorium and he said, he came there and he spoke, but he spoke purely transcendental message and then he left and they continued their discussion and they were quite happy with that because they felt that we gave them the space