PK and the criteria for finding the right path

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
So, I will be speaking today on the validity, on evaluating the validity of a spiritual path.
And, I had a particular outline in mind, but since this is a distant class, which is where we are on Skype, and, because, as many of you may be aware, recently there was a Bollywood movie PK, which was a critique of religion, and I also wrote a book in response to it called GK for PK. So, I will make, adapt this presentation, in the light of some of the things that were stated in that movie, and, even if you have not seen that movie, doesn’t matter, you will be able to more or less understand the context without the movie. And, if you have seen the movie, you will be able to correlate it.
Now, there are, in this world, always, people, of different kinds, whichever field we take. So, if we take the field of medicine, there are doctors, the majority of the doctors in the field of medicine, are out there to earn a living, and while earning a living, they also want to make a contribution to society. A few doctors at the top of the spectrum, may be those who are there for selflessly contributing to humanity, and they may go to great personal risks and inconveniences to help their patients, and there are no doubt some doctors, may be a significant number, those who are out there to exploit patients.
So, this spectrum is there in every human field. And, beyond that, not only there can be the doctors of different category, different levels, there can be medical treatments also of different calibres. That, there are many treatments, which are basically quack treatments.
They don’t work, but somehow they are popular, and people sometimes, by taking quack remedies, make their conditions worse. So, a patient, when is supposed to take a treatment from a doctor, has to use intelligence. Now, suppose a patient has bad experience with a few doctors, and because of that, the patient decides that, better let me not get involved in this business of doctors and medicine at all.
Just let me stay as I am, not bothering about this at all, this business of medicine and doctors at all. Now, this scepticism might seem to be a safe policy, but actually, it’s a dangerous policy, because the disease is there and the disease is going to grow, not going to go away, it’s going to grow with lack of treatment. So, there is a trend of increasing trend in the modern world, what nowadays many think is called as the post-modern world, wherein people are sceptical about religion and they practise what is called as, they recommend and they practise what is called as apotheism, not atheism, where people don’t believe in God, but apotheism, I don’t care about it, I’m apathetic to this, and the movie PK is representative of this trend of thought, that religious rituals don’t make sense, there are conniving God men and therefore don’t get into this business of religion at all.
So, this is a prime example of what can be called as apotheism. Now, the problem with a patient not getting involved with any doctor is that the patient is likely to stay a patient for a long, long time and over a period of time as the disease worsens, then that person is going to become impatient and once a person becomes impatient then that person will eventually fall for whatever treatment is available when situations become desperate and at that time one may not have the faculty, the facility or the faculty, facility refers to externals, faculty refers to internals, the person may not have the facility or the faculty to discern carefully about which treatment I should take. Similarly, at a fundamental level, a serious person, a person who is serious about life recognises that faith, apathyism is also a faith choice.
Sometimes people say, how can I put faith in this religion or that religion, how can I put in this path or that path, this book or that book, this organisation or that organisation, better let me not put faith in anything, but not putting faith in anything is also putting faith in something, what is that? It is faith in faithlessness, it is faith in the irrelevant, in the idea that religions and they are all irrelevant, now that is also a belief system, just like if someone says that I don’t know even one word of English, that person has already spoken seven words, so you have to know English to say that I don’t know English, so any absolute statement which is made, any statement of absolute rejection that is made, that is always prone to self contradiction, or if somebody says I don’t exist, well you have to exist to say you don’t exist, so somebody says don’t put faith in anything, that statement requires putting faith in the statement, don’t put faith in anything, so there is no choice for us, but to put faith, so PK may say that a PK or what PK represents, school of thought may say that don’t bother about the stuff God, all numbers are wrong number, all rituals are wrong numbers, so just don’t get into this business at all, but that is also a system of thought, that is also a philosophy in itself, and that eventually becomes a religion of its own kind, it is a religion of materialism, and the results of that religion, of the religion of Godless materialism are there for the world to see, if there are eyes to see, here in Australia, I gave several seminars, so in one of the seminars to some company executives, titled the anxiety epidemic, so I was quoting from several books, that how people in the developed world have far less to worry about than people in the developing world, so India is going from developing to the developed stage, Australia is in the developed stage, so in the developing countries, there is greater anxiety for even basic necessities of life, food, clothing, shelter, water, electricity, in the developed countries these anxieties are not there, so these are fairly secure, so although people in the developing countries have more reasons to be worried about, it is people in the developed countries who are more worried, anxiety disorders and the number of statistically determined people who are anxious, people who themselves admit they are anxious and people who psychiatrists and psychologists diagnose as anxious, both numbers are far more in developed countries than in developing countries, not only that, going beyond that, people from developing countries who come to developed countries, they also become more anxious as they migrate from a developing country to developing country. So, if there are no external sources of anxiety or the external sources of anxiety have lessened, then why is the internal anxiety increasing? That is because there is greater internal instability. Anxiety is caused not so much by outer uncertainty as by inner instability.
Inner instability means when there is excessive materialism, then what am I ultimately living for? What is the point of my life? Then there is no point of life left beyond the acquisition of material things. So, psychologists have said that when people in the developing countries, they buy a dress. A dress is simply a dress.
But, that’s not how it is in China, India, and other places, especially where the traditional culture is still there. But, in the developed world, every single dress that you wear, it is a statement about yourself, because the whole culture is externally driven, it is status driven. And, there is a record of one person who spent three months morning to evening just trying to decide which jeans to purchase.
Can you imagine ninety days, eight hours every day, trying to decide which jeans to purchase? So, because so much attachment is, so much importance is given to externals, then naturally every small thing becomes very consequential, at least people think it is consequential, and they become extremely anxious about it. So, the point is that, when we say the spiritual dimension of life is not important, then that is also a philosophy, and that philosophy often ends up making trivial things very, very important. And, when trivial things become very important, then, we court unnecessary anxiety over trivial things.
So, it is important not to succumb to blanket scepticism of life’s spiritual side. And, apathism is actually a recipe for courting misery in the long run. Now, there are many valid critiques of religion in general, which are offered by atheists, and they are true.
Now, interestingly, if we study the religious traditions of the world, or for that matter, instead of going all over the world, we can just focus on the Vedic tradition, we will see that if we study religion carefully, such critiques of religion are offered not just by atheists. Now, there is a healthy tradition of self-criticism within the religions of the world itself. The Bhagavatam, the third canto, talks about bhakti as ultimately transcendental, but then it also says there can be bhakti in goodness, there can be bhakti in passion, there can be bhakti in ignorance, and it says that bhakti in passion, bhakti in ignorance, it can cause distress to the person who is practising and to others also.
So that means, it is not that somebody just, the Bhagavatam believes, or teaches, that somebody just takes a bead bag and starts uttering Hare Krishna, then everything that person does is right and wonderful. No, there is a tradition of self-criticism within the religion itself and that helps us to discern the right from the wrong. Just like I started the example with the medical profession and even in the medical profession, if a doctor does a malpractice, there are medical bodies which are there to correct that and further there are doctors who create forums by which patient’s awareness is increased.
So, just as in every field, there will be exploiters and there will be upright people and there will be reformers who help people to understand, to bring out the best and to drive out the worst, whatever is there. So, now the movie PK, it shows through the romance between an Indian girl and a Pakistani boy, how we should not stereotype all Pakistanis as bad, as cheaters and yet that same movie stereotypes all religious teachers as cheaters. So, Pakistanis can have shades of, there can be good Pakistanis and bad Pakistanis.
We should not think all Pakistanis as bad, but the same movie tells us that there can be no Godman that can be good, no religious teachers can be good, all of them have to be bad. So, it actually succumbs to the same error that it claims to want to correct the stereotyping mentality. So, in this talk, we will focus on what are the criteria by which we can avoid such stereotypes.
Now, the stereotypes can go in both ways. So, through movies like PK, there can be stereotypes where everything and everyone connected with religion is rejected either as meaningless or exploitative and the other stereotype can be that anybody who claims some sort of connection with religion is considered to be holy and any ritual that seems to be religious is accepted as good. Both are extremes.
If we envision a pendulum, then there can have two extremes of pendulum. So, one is blanket rejection and the other is uncritical acceptance. So, interestingly, the Bhagavad Gita itself says that actually deliberate deeply and then decide what you want to do, Arjuna.
Then make your decision. So, Krishna is not calling in the Bhagavad Gita for blind faith. Krishna is asking for informed decision making.
Krishna is asking for informed decision making. He is providing the information and then he is placing the onus on Arjuna, now you make your decision. now, what is the information that the Bhagavad Gita provides us? We cannot go here into the details first principle to recognise is that just as in any field, in a broad level, if we consider medicine, we may not know the specifics of allopathy, we may not know the specifics of Ayurveda, we may not know the specifics of homoeopathy, but we have an overarching understanding that a treatment is good if it improves the health of the patient.
So, we have at least that broad understanding when we want to evaluate some treatment. What is the purpose of the treatment? Similarly, if we are approaching any spiritual path, the first thing that we need to know is know what is the purpose of it all. The purpose of religion in general is two-fold.
There is a this worldly purpose of religion and there is the other worldly purpose of religion and these two purposes in ideal situation work harmoniously. So, the this worldly purpose of religion is that it helps bring morality in people’s lives individually and in society collectively by mandating that this is what we should do, this is what we should not do. It contributes to the building the ethical and moral fabric of the individual and social structure.
Now, some people think that this is all that there is to religion. So, within this conception, the purpose of God’s existence is to help us live good lives. So, God exists as a provider and protector of our life in this world.
So, if we live good, then God is the guarantor that we will get good results. If we live bad, then God is the judge who will punish us for the bad. Now, this conception of religion has its utility, but it is incomplete where God is reduced primarily to two roles.
One is a shopkeeper and the other is a bodyguard. So, shopkeeper means that I go to a temple or a church or a mosque like I would go to a shopping mall with a shopping list and God is supposed to provide me for the price of worship and the price of worship and God supposed to provide me for worship and God is supposed to provide me for worship God is supposed me for worship and God is supposed to provide worship is supposed to me for and God supposed to provide me for worship God is supposed to provide me for worship and God is supposed me for worship and God is supposed to me for worship and God is supposed to provide me for worship and God is to provide me for worship and God is supposed provide me for God is supposed to provide me for worship supposed to provide God is supposed provide me for and God supposed provide me for worship and is supposed to provide me for worship and is supposed activity in isolation. Because we see love, we see God as connected with all living beings.
So, loving God also helps us to learn to love other living beings. And so, we see all of us as members of one family together. Now, these different religions have a common path.
But at the same time, there is variety. So, in PK, it is depicted as if different religions are different companies. And they are all marketing their product.
And they have their own gods to market. But actually, this is a misrepresentation. Because there are no different gods.
There is only one God. The very conception of God as a supreme being implies that there is only one God. There cannot be many gods.
And different religions, rather than being seen as different companies who are marketing their products, they are like different hospitals who are offering treatments. Or we could say they are like different universities that are offering education. So, the university metaphor conveys one function of religion, that is to provide education, to provide knowledge about God.
And the hospital metaphor conveys another purpose, that is to bring about transformation. This is a hospital that cures people. Similarly, the purpose of religion is to cure our desires from selfishness to selflessness.
Now, the world’s religious paths can be broadly classified into three categories. There is inclusivism, there is exclusivism, there is inclusivism and there is liberalism. So, the exclusivism, as you know, exclusive, sometimes, if say the recently World Cup was there, so some company, some broadcasting company may advertise, we have got exclusive rights for broadcast of the World Cup.
So, exclusivism takes that sort of concept into the realm of religion. And it states that we have exclusive rights to God. No one can go to God except through us.
And all paths other than our path are going to lead to hell. They are all false paths. Now, this is illogical and anti-devotional.
Illogical because if God is unlimited, then why should the paths to him be limited? Why should one particular religion have monopoly on God? And anti-devotional because it limits the mercy of God to particular situations or particular group of people. So, unfortunately, in their mainstream versions, the Abrahamic religions of the world are largely exclusivistic. So, Abrahamic religions are those religions which accept Abraham as their founding, one of their founding prophets and those religions are Judaism, Christianity and Islam.
So, once I was on a flight and there was a Christian preacher. So, we started talking and he said that Jesus is the only way. Then our discussion went on and then finally I said, okay, what is the destination of those who don’t accept Jesus? He said that is their misfortune because they are not accepted Jesus.
They are going to go to hell forever. Then I asked him that, okay, what about children in the womb? Now, if a child in womb is aborted, then what happens to those children? They didn’t accept Jesus as their saviour. Will they all go to hell? He said, no, no, because they are innocent, they will not go to hell.
Because they are innocent, they will go to God. I said, what is the purpose of life ultimately? To go to God. Then I told him, then why not abort everyone? Then he was shocked.
How can you do that? Abortion is murder. How can you kill babies like that? I said, see if you let the children be born, they may or may not accept Jesus. If they don’t accept Jesus, then they will go to hell.
But if they are not born, they are just aborted before birth, then you are saying they will automatically go to Jesus. So, isn’t that better? So, he had no answer. So, the problem with exclusivist paths is that my goal here is not to criticise Christianity.
I have many good Christian friends. And many of them are broad minded. I have been to interfaith conferences.
And I know some very good Christian scholars who have deep respect for the Bhakti tradition in Hinduism. So, I’m not criticising Christianity per se. But there are many, many versions of Christianity or I would say not just many, majority versions of Christianity are exclusivist, although not all.
So, my point is, and not to criticise Christianity specifically, my point is to point out the limitation of exclusivism as an approach to God. So, now some people, so if you consider exclusivism to be like one extreme, then we can go to the other extreme. And some people say all paths are right.
All paths are right. So, there are as many religions as there are people. Because every person has his or her own path.
Now, this seems very broad minded. Wonderful, you know, all paths are right, then there will be no conflict between anyone. Everybody can do whatever they want.
Now, if we consider the university metaphor, now one extreme, suppose, say, some college in India, say IIT Mumbai says that, you know, only we offer engineering degree. Anybody else who claims to offer engineering degree, they are cheaters. You say, why should you have monopoly on engineering degree? Now, that is like exclusivism.
But pluralism, which is the other extreme, pluralism means all paths are right, that is like saying, you know, every building everywhere is an engineering college. So, that is absurd. So, just as you know, anybody who comes up with any path and calls it religion, you can’t call it religion.
You can’t accept it as religion. There has to be some objective criteria. Religion itself is a very complex phenomenon.
But if you study it in an overall sense, as I said, there is worldly goal and the other worldly goal. So, does it bring about transformation in people? That is very important to understand. So, pluralism sounds very tolerant, but actually it makes religion important.
Important means, let’s say, if I say every building is an engineering college, then the whole concept of engineering education will become pointless, because every building cannot offer engineering education. Similarly, if you say every path is right, then the contribution in terms of individual and social transformation that religion can offer, that will not be offered. So, if inclusivism and pluralism are two extremes, the balance stage is inclusivism.
Inclusivism means that not that there are many paths, there are one path, in which are included many levels. And these levels are broadly classified as fear, desire, duty and love, as we discussed earlier. So, Shri Bhaktivinod Thakur says, the absolute truth is like one huge mountain peak, like say the Everest.
And Patanjali, who was the seminal teacher of yoga, he has viewed that mountain peak from one side, from the say the East. And Plato has viewed that same mountain peak from the West. So, Jesus has revealed that mountain peak in one way, Mohammed has revealed it in another way.
So, the absolute truth is one and different people have pursued it differently, with some differences, or different people have different seers, or different saints, different messengers of God, or sons of God, or representatives of God, have revealed it in different ways. So, inclusivism does not simply equate all paths as right, nor does it say that only our path is right. It says that whichever path raises one to the level of love of God, that is the right path.
Whichever path, like I started by talking about how, you know, which is the right medicine, whichever cures the patient, is the right medical therapy. It is a bona fide medical therapy, it is a therapy which works. Similarly, whichever path helps people to develop love of God, that is the right path.
When Shri Prabhupada was in Iran, at that time, he was discussing with some devotees, and suddenly in the background, the namaz prayer started getting recited. And immediately, Shri Prabhupada actually folded his hands, closed his eyes, and very prayerfully heard the full recitation of the namaz. And then one devotee was there, he was really surprised, and he said, Prabhupada, wouldn’t it be better if they were chanting Hare Krishna? Prabhupada looked hurt, and he said, why are you making me sectarian? They are worshipping God in their way, and we are worshipping God in our way.
Why are you making me sectarian? So, the point here is, you know, if somebody is approaching God and is moving closer to God, then we appreciate that, whichever religious denomination it may be from. That criteria is not the external form that people are following, the criteria is whether the purpose is being served. Just as there are Muslims who may recite the namaz, and then their love is only for power and position and prestige, and they may even go to the level of becoming suicide bombers and terrorists and exploiters.
So, such people are not really religionists, and there can be similar people in our own tradition. In the introduction to the PK book, I wrote how, you know, when some Hindu groups did violent retaliation against the movie by vandalism and by breaking down things. So, I gave a podcast and I strongly disapproved that.
And I have a Muslim scholar who is my online friend on Beliefnet. So, he shared a very interesting thought with me, which I have written in the introduction of the book also. He said that it is easier for me to communicate with moderates of other tradition than to communicate with extremists of my own tradition.
It is easier for me to communicate with moderates of other tradition. That means, he is telling that I am a Muslim and a moderate Muslim, and you are a Hindu, you are a moderate Hindu. So, it is easier for me to communicate with you than it is to communicate with Muslim fanatics, who think that terrorism and barbarism are the way to solve problems.
So, again, the point which I am making is, we don’t blanket say that any particular path is right or any particular path is wrong. There are objective criteria. Objective criteria is that we should develop love for God.
And if love for God is developed, then that love for God transforms into love for the children of God, the love for the family of God. So, where that is not there, then it is a serious question whether there is actually love for God and whether there is actually transformation, elevation towards love for God. So, inclusivism means that there is one path and just like, if you consider going back to the example given by Bhaktivinoda Thakur of a mountain peak, different people may see the mountain peak differently, and they may start climbing up the mountain peak from different pathways.
So, now, there may be different ways to approach the same mountain peak. And it’s not necessary that everyone has to go up to that mountain peak in the same way. So, climbing up the mountain peak is like raising our consciousness.
The purpose of religion is to change materialists into spiritualists, to change lovers of matter and material things into lovers of God. And this change, whichever religion brings about, that is good. When Prabhupada went to America and Europe, many times some Christian priests came to meet him, and they would ask, what is your opinion about Jesus? Prabhupada said, Jesus is our Guru.
They are shocked. Hindu Swami is saying that Jesus is our Guru. Prabhupada said that Jesus had so much love for God that he was ready to give up his life for the sake of God.
A person who has so much love, we accept him as our Guru. So, the criteria that we follow is universal. That wherever love for God is developed, that is a bona fide path.
Now, although the same mountain peak can be climbed up from different ways, there may be, say, eight paths of the mountain peak, one from the four cardinal directions, East, West, North, South. And there may be North, East, North, West, South, East, South, West. There can be eight different paths of the same mountain peak.
So, like that, there can be different religions which are ultimately meant to raise people towards love of God. But, just as it is not necessary that all the paths that are meant to take a person up the mountain will be equally easy to navigate. Some paths may be steep and slippery.
Some paths may have a lot of dead ends which will require, maybe steep rocks are there and may be difficult to rise up. So, like that, there can be variety in different paths. Just like there can be various treatments.
There can be allopathy, there was a Ayurveda hemopathy. All of them are meant to cure the patients and all of them have the potency to cure the patients. But that does not necessarily mean that all of them are exactly the same, are having the same potency.
So, as a representative of my tradition, I will present what I find attractive in the path of Krishna Consciousness. This does not mean that I disrespect or reject other paths. Although, there are certain strands of thoughts in other paths which I find unacceptable, logically or devotional.
As I gave the idea that anybody who does not accept Jesus as their saviour has to go to hell. That reduces God’s grace to a very limited group of people. So, there are certain thoughts which we don’t accept because they militate against the universal nature of God’s grace.
So, in this talk, I will give five broad criterias and then I’ll tell about how in Krishna Consciousness, I find these criteria fulfilled. This does not mean that they are not fulfilled in other paths. They may be, they may not be.
But I’ll come back to this point at the end of the class once again. So, the five criteria which I am going to talk about is, it is TESTS, the acronym TESTS, T-E-S-T-E-S. So, T is Time Honoured.
Time Honoured means that if you basically understand the principle underlying creation, if you look around the world, our basic necessities are provided for. Earth, water, air, food, light, heat. No, we need earth for irrigation, we need earth for staying.
So, all these things are provided for. Now, along with these necessities of living, there is also one more fundamental necessity, that is KNOWLEDGE. What is the purpose of life? Now, suppose it’s your birthday and a friend gives you a very expensive gadget as a gift on the birthday.
And you have never seen that gadget, you have never heard that gadget, heard about that gadget and your friend just drops it in your lap and goes away. You wonder, what am I supposed to do with this gadget? You will try to find out, is there some manual, is there some guideline, is there some letter by which I can figure out how this gadget is to be used? If that friend is intelligent and if that friend considers you as an intelligent person, surely some guideline will be provided. Similarly, this world is providing for our necessities, it’s complex, our body is complex.
So, if God has created the world and provided for our necessities, will God not provide another necessity? What is the point of it all? What is the purpose for living? So, that knowledge surely God will provide, otherwise the whole purpose of creation would become pointless. So, this universal understanding can give us the rationale for accepting the principle of revelation, that God reveals knowledge so that we can learn to achieve the purpose of life. And when does God give this knowledge? This knowledge is co-eternal with creation.
The moment creation manifests, God shares this knowledge. In the Vedic account of creation, it is described that the first created being, the moment Brahma was created, immediately Krishna gave knowledge to Brahma. And similarly, in human tradition, Krishna again gives a universal principle.
Krishna says, He says, by the power of time, this knowledge will get lost. And therefore, He says, I will come again and again to sambhavami yuge yuge, to give this knowledge again and again. And significantly, Krishna says that I provide this knowledge again and again.
And in our tradition, Bhaktivinoda Thakur explained that this means that Krishna is giving a universal principle. Krishna is saying that not just that this knowledge is limited to a particular point in history alone. No, this knowledge, whenever it is required, whenever it is not, Krishna comes again and again.
So, He says, from this perspective, we understand that even Jesus is a message, is a son, has come from Krishna, even Mohammed has come from Krishna. And so, the first stew which I’m making is time-honoured. Time-honoured means that Krishna gives this knowledge right from the beginning of creation, and it keeps coming back to us, even when it gets lost.
If we, if we consider from the perspective of the purpose of life, no, the purpose of life is something which needs to be known right from the beginning of life itself. It’s not something that is where newness is very much needed. That means, it’s not like some new scientific invention or new scientific discovery that has to be done for us to find something which is not known till now.
No, this was known, it’s lost, then again we get to know it. Now, if you look at all the various world’s traditions, the Vedic tradition is the oldest. Certainly, just something being oldest doesn’t make it right.
But the fact that it has survived for so long, and not just survived, but flourished, and not just flourished, but spread in different parts of the world, which I’ll talk about later. So, it is gone on for millennia, not just one or two, but so many millennia this tradition has gone on. So, people must have found some benefit because of which they continue practising and living it.
The Bhagavad Gita has been existing for thousands of years, and it has guided people for thousands of years. Why did people take guidance? Because it must have given them something. It must have benefited them in some way.
So, if a path is time-honoured, that itself is a good starting point for its credibility. That is not an ending point, just because something is old doesn’t make it right necessarily. But if something has survived the test of time, then in principle, considering that God will give knowledge right from the beginning of time, so surely a spiritual path that has been going on for a long time, that is fairly likely to be an authentic path.
So, in the Bhagavad Gita itself, Krishna gives a further history of the knowledge of the Bhagavad Gita being given beyond what is knowable by our modern methods of historiography. So, Krishna says how right from the beginning of creation, that person who gives light to the whole world, he says, I give the light of knowledge to that person. That person is the Sun.
So, Sun gives the light to the whole world, but Krishna says, I give the light of knowledge to the Sun. So, this knowledge has been there, even if from the point of modern historiography, Bhagavad Gita has been there for thousands and thousands of years. It is definitely older than the Bible, older than the Quran, older than the Dhammapada of Buddha also.
So, older than that of war or any other books that people might consider sacred. It is an extremely old book and it has been practised by people. So, time-honoured is the first point.
Then, the second is explanatory. T-E-S-T-S we are going to. Explanatory means the fundamental questions about the purpose of life need to be answered in a tradition, in a system of, in any thought system that claims to offer us ultimate knowledge.
Just like, again going back to the medicine metaphor. Now, if a treatment claims to offer a cure to a particular disease, at the very least, the treatment should be able to tell us what is the cause of the disease. That this particular thing is the cause and we do this, this, the problem is solved by that.
So, now, one of the fundamental problems which often makes people go away from God is the problem of evil. The problem of evil means that if God is good, why is there evil in this world? So, there are different religions which try to answer it in different ways. I will answer this in a, by taking a more specific example of the problem of evil, we can say that let us consider different people who are born in different conditions.
Some children are born poor, some children are born wealthy. It is showing over here that my internet connection is unstable. If the internet goes off, please send me a message.
Then I will shift off to an alternate, I will shift to an alternate internet immediately. So, now, so, we were discussing about the explanatory aspect, just as a treatment should explain how it is going to cure a disease. Similarly, a religious-based philosophy should be able to explain what is the cause of suffering and what is the solution.
So, I was talking about the problem of evil. And if you consider that different people in this world have different starting points. Some people are born wealthy, some people are born poor, some people are born good looking, some people are born with mediocre looks.
Why this diversity? So, I will use a metaphor of cricket to explain this point. Suppose we went to watch a cricket match. And we found that the scorecard read score as 0 for one team and 200 for another team.
The score should be starting point should be 0, 0 for both. So, if you see 0 for one team and 200 for another team, you may rightly question what is going on. So, similarly, there are now in this situation, there are three possibilities.
One possibility is that the scoreboard works by chance. So, some people, it does not work by any order, any system, it just works by chance and by chance one team got a higher score than the other. The second possibility is that the scorekeeper is biassed and has favoured one particular team.
And there can be a third possibility. What it is, we will discuss later. So, similarly, now we see this diversity in the world.
Now, the first reason is everything happens by chance. And some people are lucky, some people are unlucky. That is the atheistic explanation.
Why there is diversity of talents, of abilities, of gifts. It is just chance. No explanation beyond that.
It is a philosophy of helplessness. The second is, again, the philosophy that is offered by the, when God is added to this equation and it is said that the inequities of life are ultimately the will of God. So, why are some people poor and why are some people wealthy, born poor or born wealthy? It is God’s will.
Now, you say, but why does God discriminate like this? I say, oh, you know, we cannot understand God’s will. We cannot understand God’s will. So, now God justice is different from our justice.
We say that, okay, God justice is different from our justice, but God justice should be different in terms of being better than our system of justice, not worse than our system of justice. And some people say, no, no, no, actually, this is the test of God. So, some people who are poor, they are going through the test and if they pass through the test, then they will be acquitted wonderfully.
That is fine. We are not questioning the principle that God tests us. The question is, why does God test different people differently? You know, if in a class at the end of a semester, the teacher gave question papers to students and different students had different papers.
Some people had easy papers and some people had difficult papers. Then the problem would be, the question would be not why there is an exam, why there are different question papers? That is the question. So, you know, then the answer is usually that God’s will is not comprehensible to us.
God’s will is not comprehensible to us. This is what the answer, most of the Abrahamic religions in the world give. And you know, when God is portrayed as an arbitrary being who chooses to make some people wealthy, some people poor, some people good looking, some people mediocre looking, then it becomes very difficult to make such a God who seems so arbitrary as the object of our love.
So, actually, if people have to choose between these two options of chance as the causative factor, or God as a causative factor, then many people would choose, choose chance, not because chance offers a more satisfactory explanation, but because God is a more unsatisfactory explanation. Now, why should one devote oneself to a God who is so arbitrary? Now, going back to the cricket scoreboard example, that there can be a third possibility. Why one team starts with a score of zero and another with a score of 200? Because it is the second innings of the match.
And one particular team has scored more than the other team. So, the Vedic worldview explains that we go through multiple innings during material existence, each inning is like a lifetime. And our starting points are determined neither by chance nor by God’s arbitrary caprice.
They are determined by our own actions in our previous lives. And this explanation of multi-life progression, it reconciles God’s goodness with the inequities of the world. And it offers a reasonable explanation, which is not present, which is not there when reincarnation is not accepted.
And unfortunately, although there are references to reincarnation in both Christianity and Islam, and just soon, I finished writing a book on reincarnation, it will be published soon, that I have given elaborate references, many references from both religious traditions, but unfortunately, the mainstream versions of these religions don’t accept reincarnation as of now. And that’s why they find it very difficult to explain why God does arbitrary things. And when people don’t get explanations, then people turn away from God, people become atheistic.
So, the Vedic explanation of evil is the most satisfactory explanation. But we are getting the consequences of our own deeds and God is just because he does not discriminate, he reciprocates. The Bible says, as we sow, so shall we reap.
But it does not explain how that is so. It cannot explain how, it cannot explain or it does not explain how exactly a person who does live sinfully throughout his life and never suffers, how is he going to reap what he has sown? Or if a person is born itself poor, how is he reaping? When has he sown anything to reap? That poverty throughout his life, his or her life. So, now, the explanatory power of a tradition is very important if it is to attract intelligent people.
Many of the religions of this world, again, this is we are doing an objective analysis and the point is not to criticise, but it is to educate ourselves. So, if you look at the various books of the world, religious books, the book, the holy book of the Jews is called as the Old Testament. The holy book of the Christians is called as New Testament or it is often called as the Bible and the Old Testament is called as the Hebrew Bible or the Jew Bible.
Now, if you look at the Old Testament, it is primarily an account of the travels of the people of God, the Jews, how they went from Egypt, they came to Jerusalem, the promised land and how they lived and suffered and flourished there ultimately. So, it is primarily a description of the activities of God’s chosen people and God intervenes periodically through miracles. But God is never directly described, not never directly revealed and overall it is not, its focus is neither on God nor on philosophy.
Its focus is primarily a narrative of events in which God’s intervention is depicted periodically. So, there is no direct positive knowledge about God in these traditions, in the Jewish tradition. In Christianity, the Bible, in the Bible there, what is called as the Bible, there are a wide variety of books, different Christian sects include different books in the Bible.
But the primary among them are the Gospels which are come from Luke, Matthew, Mark and so there are four Gospels which describe the life and teachings of Jesus and the major part of the Bible is Paul’s epistles. Paul was a prominent follower of Jesus and he wrote various letters, those ten letters were called as epistles. So, he wrote various letters to different Christians about how they should live.
They are the major part of the Bible. Now, if you see both these, Jesus’ instructions as well as Paul’s epistles, they are mostly moral parables. There is no positive knowledge about God given there.
It is primarily moral course about how we should live and how we should not live. They are valuable, there is no doubt in terms of guiding human conduct. But they do not give knowledge about God.
They again do not go into philosophy. Now, what is called today as Christian philosophy comes not so much from the Bible but from the synthesis of biblical thought with pre-existing philosophy, that is the Greek philosophy. So, St. Augustine was a prominent saint in the Christian tradition who tried to integrate Christian theology or the Bible’s teachings with the Greek philosophy of Plato and later on Thomas Aquinas was a mediaeval scholar who tried to integrate Christian biblical thought with the Greek philosophy coming from Aristotle.
So, Christian philosophy, what is called Christian philosophy, is largely not biblical philosophy. It is Greek philosophy integrated with biblical ideas. So, again the point is there is not much knowledge about God per se given in the Bible and again not much philosophy is there directly in the Bible.
Now, if you look at the Quran, till the age of 40, Muhammad lived a normal life. He was born in a poor family. He was serving as an assistant of a widow who was a businesswoman.
She was almost 15-20 years older than him and then they developed a relationship. He married her and his fortunes changed. He became wealthy and at the age of 40, when he had gone to a secluded place in a cave and suddenly he heard a voice.
He says, write. Now, Muhammad was illiterate. He said, I cannot write.
Write. And then he understood that it was Gabriel, the messenger of God, who was telling him and then like that periodically he would hear the voices and then the words that would come out, they would be written down by his followers and they later became the Quran. Now, at one particular point, he spoke something and then afterwards he said, oh, that was not God speaking to me.
That was Satan speaking to me and remove those verses. So, those are called satanic verses which were removed from the Quran and based on those satanic verses, Salman Rushdie wrote the banned novel called Satanic Verses, taking that theme basically. The point which I am making here through this is, Quran is a very unilateral or unidirectional mode of communication or revelation.
There is just God revealing through Gabriel, through Muhammad. There are no questions asked. There are no elaborate philosophical discussions.
There are again largely moral codes, which are good, but again, they don’t give philosophical answers. So, the kind of serious philosophical questioning that is seen in the Bhagavad Gita or in the Upanishads or the Vedanta Sutra, that is not found in the holy books of the other traditions. And that’s why the explanations that are there, they are not very deep.
Now, I am not saying that there are no deep Christians, there are no deep Muslims, there are no deep Jews. No, there may be very deep thinkers, but their thoughts have not come from scripture. The thoughts have come by their own thinking.
So, the answers to philosophical questions are really not there in these books. And this is not a statement said because we belong to a particular tradition, we are saying our tradition is the best. No, that’s not the point.
It’s just objective content. You can read those books, I have given a very brief history and you will find that the way the books evolved, the way their audience were and the way their content is, there is not much room for deep philosophy in those books. So, the explanatory value, the explanations offered by these books are not much.
So, there is one devotee in Guyana, West Indies, that area. Now, I answer questions on my website and he takes my answers, he takes my articles and he writes articles in newspapers. And various questions that people have, they get published in newspaper over there.
So, there was one Christian pastor, very famous Christian pastor in that area. He saw that many people were getting attracted to Hare Krishna. So, he gave a public podcast, a public video cast, where he said, his basic theme was that everything that does not come from Jesus comes from the devil.
And in that, he said, he took various names of various religions and various groups. And then he said, even if there are the Hare Krishnas, who can answer every question that you have, still that answer is coming from the devil. So, the point is, even those who criticise the Hare Krishnas, they also acknowledge that we have answers.
This is not a matter of pride for us. Now, this is not a matter of pride for us. This is a matter of responsibility for us.
Because we are not here for to compete against other religions. No, religion is ultimately a gift of God to humanity. And we are meant to share if God has chosen to reveal more through the tradition which we happen to belong to, then it is our responsibility to share the wisdom of that tradition.
Not to consider that we are greater than others, because we have more knowledge than you. No, it is our responsibility to share that knowledge with others. But unfortunately, some people are sectarian, and they don’t accept the knowledge, because they say it has not come in our tradition.
But the point is, going back to the earlier metaphor of the university, or we could say college, you know, if a student is studying in say, MIT in India, and then that person wants to study computer engineering, or computer science, the best college for computer science is MIT, Massachusetts in America. Now, would that person say that, you know, I will study computer science only in my college. I won’t go to any other college to study computer science.
If somebody says that, then we will actually ask that person, are you interested in college? Or are you interested in knowledge? So similarly, if somebody says that, you know, I will accept knowledge only from my tradition, and I will not expect explanations from other traditions. And the problem with that is, is am I interested in religion? Or am I interested in God? If I’m interested in God, then I will seek answers wherever they are available. So Srila Prabhupada asked, you know, isn’t the conception of Krishna as God sectarian? It is Krishna is a Hindu God, and not only Hindu God, Hindu has so many gods.
So just one God among the Hindu pantheon. Why should he be considered to be the God of all people? So Prabhupada gave objective criteria for who is God. Now he said, God is a person who has six opulences, beauty, strength, knowledge, all of you have studied that.
So he said that we give you an objective criteria for who is God. Do you accept that this criteria apply to God? No religion will say that our God is ugly. No religion will say that our God is foolish.
So God is the wisest, God is the most beautiful, God is the strongest. These are universal attributes of God accepted by all religions. Then Prabhupada said, okay, here’s the definition of God.
And you accept that definition also according to your own religion. Now here we present you a person who fits this definition. So why not accept it? And if you say that this is sectarian, you present as a better conception of God.
If there is truly a better conception of God, then we will give up Krishna and will worship that God. But there is no clear conception of God. One of Shri Prabhupada’s early disciples, I agree with Prabhu, is Professor Howard Wheeler.
He was teaching in Ohio State University. He was an English professor and he would talk about philosophy and he would talk about Krishna Bhakti also in between his classes. So some of his students complained.
And then the complaint went to his principal and the principal summoned him and he said, I heard that you are talking about a strange conception of God. So then this high group was a little you, young and brash, audacious, you could say. So he said, Sir, what is your conception of God? Now this professor, this principal was agnostic.
He said, I have no conception of God. Sir, then if you have no conception of God, then how can you consider my conception strange? So then he said, no, no, no. But you worship a black God? He said, no, Krishna is not.
Because, you know, the whole idea was at this, this was 1960s and the civil rights movement had just come to its peak. And there was this discrimination of black and white. So, you see, Krishna is a black God? So, high group said, no, Krishna is a blue God.
It was just a cycle of blue God of all things. He says, your God is a cowboy? If you have seen western movies, you know, cowboys are people who move around on guns and you hear ass. So he says, no, Krishna is not a cowboy.
He’s a cowherd boy. So the point we are making is that people have no conception of God at all. Even if they are agnostics and even if they become theists, most religions don’t give them proper knowledge of God.
So when I talk about explanatory potential, it’s about two things. Explanation of the nature of the world, why it is, and explanation of the nature of God, who he is and how he is lovable, how he is worthy of being the supreme object of our love, that we come to know in the tradition of the Gita. Now, this is the second part, explanatory.
Then S, we are going through T-E-S-T-S. So now, when we come to the, I will have to go through this a little fast, the remaining parts, because we don’t have time. I have another meeting coming up, but I just mentioned the remaining briefly.
So, third S is scripture-based. Actually, I talked already about scripture-based in terms of the content of various scriptures, briefly, but scripture-based means that our age often values newness. Now, come up with something new, come up with something new, but if we understand that scripture, as I started by talking about how scripture is the revelation given by God to guide humanity, then scripture is like a road map, or we could say that it’s like a road guide.
Sometimes the road map can be something in our hands, or the road guide can also come in the form of signals. Okay, there is a speed breaker here, turn left, turn right, go slow, there are various signs. Now, for safe and smooth travel on the road, the driver doesn’t need expertise in coming up with a new interpretation of the signals on the road, of the symbols on the road.
There is no creative interpretation required. The driver’s education has to be what? To know the meaning of those traffic signals, say the road signs, turn left, turn right, speed breaker ahead, his expertise is to be used to understand the meaning that was originally meant by the road builders who put those signs there. So, similarly, when we come to scripture, understanding scripture does not require the creative ability to come up with an interpretation that nobody has come up with in the past.
New interpretation of road signs on a road will not lead to progress, it will lead to accident. So, similarly, we don’t need new interpretation of scripture, we need an understanding of scripture as it was originally intended, as it was originally intended by the speaker of scripture. So, now, this is where it is very important for a parampara or a tradition, a disciplic lineage to be present, because in the disciplic lineage, the meaning is preserved carefully.
So, how exactly is the meaning preserved? So, when I talk about scripture-based, I am talking of two things. First is, it has to, we should understand the meaning as was given in the scripture by the giver of scripture, not a new interpretation. But how can we know that a particular meaning has been preserved in a particular book? So, for that purpose, we can look at the effect.
Just like, if I go to a doctor and doctor gives me a medicine, I take the medicine. Now, how can I come to know whether that medicine is authentic medicine? If I want to retrace back and find out the journey of the medicine, how did this come into doctor’s custody? Maybe a medical representative gave it. How did that medical representative gave it? Okay, got from the plant.
Where did he get from the plant? Okay, it came by truck. And in a truck, I go back and trace, did the driver put some counterfeit medicines over there to increase, to maximise the profit? Now, it is practically humanly impossible to retrace the path of every drug to its source to ensure its authenticity. We cannot do that, although we know there is a possibility that some drugs may be counterfeit.
But still, if we come from a reliable store, we take it and the way we check the authenticity is by taking the medicine. If it produces the desired effect, we say it is a proper medicine. If it does not produce the desired effect, it is not a proper medicine.
So, similarly, some people ask, how can you know that the message of the scripture has not been changed over hundreds and thousands of years? Now, if you want to do a historical reconstruction, it is nearly impossible. If somebody asks for the original manuscript of the Vedas, that cannot be preserved. The Indian weather is very hot and papyrus or whatever is used for preserving manuscripts.
These are not just a few carvings that can be put on stone. The Vedas are an elaborate body of knowledge. And whatever medium was used for preserving them, that medium does not last for long.
So, we cannot literally, historically or by manuscript trace the original Vedas. But we can look for their original effect. In the Bhagavad Gita itself, we can see, if we continue the doctor-patient metaphor, that Krishna gave the message of the Gita and some change happened in Arjuna.
And we can see today when people study the Gita, does the same change happen? That means the doctor gave the medicine to an original patient and that patient was cured. Now that medicine has come to me, the same effect happens to me, the same cure happens to me, then I understand the medicine is authentic. So, if we see, what is the conclusion of the Gita? The conclusion of the Gita can be understood by Arjuna’s understanding and Arjuna’s actions.
So, Arjuna’s understanding, which is confirmed by Krishna, Arjuna says, after hearing the Shatrishloki Bhagavad Gita 10.8-11 and 10.12-13, he says that, Krishna, I accept you as the supreme truth, param brahma param dhama, pavitram paramam bhavam. So, he says that I accept you, Krishna, as the supreme absolute truth. And today we will see that by Srila Prabhupada’s mercy, people all over the world have accepted Krishna as the absolute truth.
So, by reading Srila Prabhupada’s Gita, by understanding the message of the Gita as he has revealed, they are coming to the same understanding as Arjuna came to. And at the end of the Bhagavad Gita, what does Krishna tell Arjuna, or what does Arjuna tell, now what are you going to do? He says, karishye vachinam tava, I will do your will. Now, doing the will of God, this is not Jnana Yoga, this is not Ashtanga Yoga, this is Bhakti Yoga.
And we will see that people all over the world, by reading Srila Prabhupada’s Gita, have come to the same conclusion. They are ready to do Krishna’s will, they are ready to devote themselves to Krishna by practising Bhakti Yoga. So, whatever effect was there on the, of the Gita’s knowledge, on the original student of the Gita, that same effect is coming to people today.
So, we can infer that the path of Krishna Bhakti that we are following today is scripture-based. Then, T-E-S, T-S, T, the next T is transformational, transformational. That means, I gave the example at the start that the validity of the medicine is that it should cure us.
So, similarly, the Bhagavad Gita and the broad Gita-wisdom tradition offers us a process for inner transformation. It is not just a matter of some dogmatic acceptance of belief, but it is a matter of open experience of transformation. So, what the Bhagavad Gita tells us is, this is an elaborate subject and there are whole books written about what all progressive stages the inner transformation will go through.
But suffice it to say that two main things are there. Bhakti leads to, when there is practise of Bhakti Yoga, it leads to paraisha-anubhav, experience of the transcendental Lord. And when there is experience of the transcendental Lord, the result of that is one becomes detached from everything else.
Everything else means, one no longer craves for other pleasurable experiences. Why? Because one experiences such a higher happiness by connection with God, by the experience of God, that itself is so fulfilling, one doesn’t crave for any other experiences. So, here in Australia, I was talking, in Melbourne, I was talking to the temple president, the devotee who has been the temple president for 25 years and been practising for almost 40 years, 35-40 years.
So, I asked him what attracted him to Krishna Consciousness. So, he told me, normally we would say that most people, if they hear about the four regulatory principles, they will get alarmed. They will think that, no, everything that is there to enjoy in life, you are banning that.
What is the point of life? What will be left in life to enjoy? But he said that what attracted me was the four regulatory principles. Not that I love to follow restriction, but what it implied. It implied that if you are serious about God, naturally, you will give up things which are not connected with God.
And that’s the first point that if you are serious about God, we will give up things not connected with God. And secondly, if you are truly experiencing God, then you should be able to give up those things. So, the fact that Sri Prabhupada went to America, you know, from the from the devotional perspective, the Western world is a place of degradation.
Of course, there are religious people in the West also, everywhere there are religious people. But overall the culture, there is a lot of immorality, a lot of loose relationships. So, there is a culture of degradation.
But the hippies were considered degraded even by Western standards. So, Sri Prabhupada went from Vrindavan, which was the capital of devotion, to New York Lower East Side, which was the world’s capital of degradation. And after going there, you know, he told those hippies who could well be called as the champions of degradation, you know, he told them to follow regulative principles, which not regulative principles of the kind that what to speak of mainstream Americans, even mainstream Hindus don’t follow.
And the amazing thing is that these hippies were so degraded, they followed it. So, they must have got something higher, which enabled them to follow it. So, that higher was through the remembrance of Krishna, through the chanting of the holy names, they got experience of God.
So, transformational means that our dependence on worldly things decreases, because we get taste in God. And we all can experience at our level, that when we start practising bhakti, our lust, our anger, our greed, it will decrease. It decreases and the more we keep practising, the more it will decrease.
So, this is a transformation that can be experienced by anyone and everyone who practises bhakti diligently. And this is one of the characteristics of a process that is scientific or universal. Scientific process means, but one of the reasons why science is very appealing is that science is universal.
Newton’s laws of motion apply everywhere. So, anywhere we throw an object, it will fall down. That is the principle of gravity that applies everywhere.
So, similarly, the process of bhakti yoga applies everywhere. Now, wherever we practise bhakti, wherever we chant the holy names, wherever we remember Krishna, whichever part of the world we may be in, we will be transformed. We will find our ungodly cravings becoming more resistible, more give up, more we will be able to give them up.
And we will give them up eventually. So, this is a transformation. And the transformation is also in terms of maturity, sensitivity, development of good qualities.
God is the source of all good. And the more we connect with him, the more the latent goodness of the soul starts manifesting and we develop godly qualities. So, this is a transformation which we can experience when we come in the association of devotees.
We can see it in devotees and we can see it in ourselves. Just like when we start taking a treatment, now we want to consult, check other patients. Now, have they actually been cured? And am I myself being cured? So, we can see it both ways.
You can see the potency of Krishna bhakti working in the lives of those who are guiding us, those who are giving us knowledge, who are inspiring us. You can see that they are following principles which are normally not considered easy to follow. And rather than these principles creating fear in us, oh, bhakti is so strict, I have to give up so many things.
You know, we can turn that same reasoning around and say, yes, giving up those things is difficult. But the fact that some people are able to give it up and they are not miserable, they are not always with a fallen face, oh, I am not able to enjoy this, I am not able to enjoy that, I am not able to enjoy that. They are happier than most other people.
What makes them happy? They must be getting something higher. So, let me explore what that is higher, what that higher is. That way we can get inspiration for transformation.
So, transformational potency is quite a remarkable feature of the path of bhakti. And bhakti offers a direct connection with God. Other paths offer indirect connections with God.
And that is why the transformation does not happen as quickly. There are many people who practise nominal religion, what they consider their traditional religion, but their life is largely materialistic. And God is just nothing more than a social cosmetic.
Social cosmetic means something, cosmetic is something that we wear to look good. So, many people wear God or practise, worship God or practise religion as a social cosmetic to look good in society. So, when they go to the temple, they go not to take darshan, but to give darshan.
They want people to see, how many people know that, oh, I have come to a temple, I have come to a temple. But often their lives are not transformed. So, bhakti yoga does not talk about that kind of religion where it is just a nominal or superficial, it is bhakti yoga is transformational.
And lastly, S is successful. Now, how do we measure the success of a spiritual path, of a particular path? Is it in terms of number of followers? Yes, that could be one thing. But then if we decide that alone to be the criteria, consider that there are say, two doctors who prescribe treatment for diabetes.
And one doctor says that there is no need for you to give up sugar, just take my medicine. Another doctor says that you have to give up sugar if you want to be cured. Now, who will become more popular? Obviously, the doctor who does not prescribe any prescriptions.
Prescription is do this, prescription is don’t do this. So, a doctor who does not give any prescriptions will become more popular. But that does not necessarily mean that that doctor will be more effective.
So, success cannot be judged only in terms of number of followers. It cannot be just a number of in terms of external numbers. Although, even in terms of external numbers, what Shrila Prabhupada achieved in this brief period that he was there and manifest with us, that is extraordinary.
Because Krishna Consciousness, Bhakti Yoga is so attractive, that it attracts people in large numbers even today and attracted all the more during the counterculture time of Shrila Prabhupada. So, even on the numbers point of view, Shrila Prabhupada in 11 years, literally attracted, built 108 temples, wrote 70 books and attracted literally millions of people towards Krishna. That was phenomenal in its own way.
And there are many historians who have acknowledged this. There was one Professor Stilson Judah. He wrote a book about Shrila Prabhupada in the Hare Krishna moment.
And he said, imagine a story like this. Suppose an old man comes to a distant land where he knows no one, where he does not know the culture of the people, he does not even know their language properly. And the people he meets are people who are the rejects of society.
They do not have proper education, they have no experience. And imagine with such people, this man starts a international organisation. And that flourishes all over the world.
He said, if a fiction writer wrote a novel like this, most publishing houses would reject that novel as unrealistic. But he said in the case of Bhaktivedanta Swami, facts are more astonishing than fiction. Bhaktivedanta Swami came at an advanced age to people who were hippies, and he transformed them into spiritual leaders.
And he made them, he made a vibrant organisation based on that. And he says in the history of the world, where do we have any parallel like this? Of one person bringing about such a transformation, without using of any politics, without using any military, just by the power of his person and by the power of his words. Says perhaps we can have one parallel in Jesus.
He says, Jesus, he did not use weapons, he did not use political power, but he attracted a large number of followers. But he still said, yes, Jesus did that, but still there are differences. You know, Jesus largely preached in the area where he had lived throughout his life.
And Jesus was young. Bhaktivedanta Swami had neither of these advantages. And therefore, we can conclude that what he did has no parallels, no precedents in the history of the world.
So, now, even in terms of numerical achievements, what Srila Prabhupada did is extraordinary. And he was able to do it because he loved Krishna and he wanted everyone else to be happy by loving Krishna. And he offered Krishna to people.
So, even that level of success is there. But the success for a spiritual organisation goes much deeper. As I said, religion has a worldly and otherworldly purpose.
The otherworldly purpose is ultimately to help people to attain God, to learn to love God and to attain his eternal kingdom. Now, we cannot with our eyes see who has gone back to God and who has not gone back to God. But what we can see is how people face the final situation of death.
So, when Srila Prabhupada travelled all over the world, in his final days, he came back to Vrindavan. And although he had a terribly debilitating disease, which wracked his body for seven, eight months, Srila Prabhupada was serene, even till the last moment, dictating his Bhaktivedanta purports, instructing devotees, inspiring them. And when he was asked, you know, do you have any last desires? Prabhupada says, kuch icha nahi hai.
I am satisfied. I have no desires. Prabhupada departed from the world serenely, hearing Krishna’s name chanted, chanting Krishna’s name himself.
And he departed from the world very graciously. And this was a lesson that he gave to his disciples. And now, Srila Prabhupada’s disciples, many of them have become elderly, and many of them have started departing.
And the way many of them face the final, final, what could be a traumatic situation of death is extraordinary. So, there are many books written about how devotees have departed in inspiring ways. For example, Giriraj Maharaj has written a book called Many Many Moods.
So, how Srila Prabhupada’s disciples were like moods, and how they illumined the world with their devotion and their dedication. So, I would like to just share one story here about the inspiring way in which devotees face the final exam of death. So, there was one Srila Prabhupada’s disciple, Sanyasi Sridhar Maharaj.
So, he was born in Canada. He read Ishopanishad and he became attracted. And he heard that Prabhupada had a lot of desire to preach in India, to share Krishna Bhakti in India.
So, he came to India. And although he was a very serious renunciate, you know, to be renounced, you have to be serious about at least the ultimate purpose of life. But still, he was very cheerful.
He would make lots of jokes. And at that time, for many Indians, the idea of a sadhu making jokes was very unusual. So, many of his Indian admirers, they nicknamed him as a jolly Swami.
And then, he got a terminal liver disease. And the doctor said that you will die within 6 months. Somehow, he had such a strong desire to serve Krishna that he lived for 12 years after that.
And he kept travelling and preaching. But eventually, the body didn’t take its own course. It broke down.
So, he was in Canada at that time. And then, one of his godbrothers, another sannyasi, Indra Dundu Maharaj, they were close friends. So, Shri Dundu Maharaj decided that many of my disciples are here.
I will spend my last days with them just as Prabhupada spent his last days with his disciples. So, I will set an example and then I will depart from this world. So, Indra Dundu Maharaj called him and he said that, Maharaj, you should go to either Vrindavan or Mayapur.
Your whole life, you are given to others. Now, at the last moment, you should be in the abode of Krishna. And if your disciples want, they can also come there.
So, Indra Dundu Maharaj requested, he agreed. So, Indra Dundu Maharaj was in South Africa at that time. So, he said that I can come to London.
You can also come from Canada to London and we will go by flight together. So, then the both of them met in London. They both came to London and they met in the London temple.
And then, Shri Dundu Maharaj and Indra Dundu Maharaj, they were about to travel. Shri Dundu Maharaj had gone to take bath. So, when he came out of taking bath, his whole body was discoloured.
Discoloured because some vessels had, it was alarming sight to see actually. So, Indra Dundu Maharaj was very concerned and Shri Dundu Maharaj very calmly said, the small vessels have broken down. When the big vessels go, then I will go.
He was completely calm, nonchalant about it. And then, normally, just before they were about to travel out, they decided to, they decided to check the luggage. So, Indra Dundu Maharaj checked the luggage and he checked the tickets.
So, normally, whenever devotees come to India, usually, they take a round ticket. Like, I came to Australia. So, I had a round ticket.
It’s more efficient, more economic. Normally, whenever devotees come from west to India, they have a round ticket. So, Indra Dundu Maharaj noticed and he just spoke to him.
He said, Maharaj, your ticket is wrong. It’s only a one-way ticket. And as he spoke that, he realised that Indra Dundu Maharaj, Shri Dundu Maharaj is actually going to India and he is not going to come back.
He is going to leave his body. So, it could have been a very, it could have been so gaffing, it could have been embarrassing. But Shri Dundu Maharaj just stopped.
Yes. He says, Krishna has given us a one-way ticket to him. So, once we go to his abode, we never come back.
So, he took it very jovially and then they went on the flight and then they were sitting. At that time, suddenly, when they were in the flight, the pain for Shri Dundu Maharaj became a lot. So, he said that, he said a moaning.
So, the air hostess suddenly came over there and at that time, Indra Dundu Maharaj put a painkiller in his mouth and then the air hostess came, is something wrong? Shri Dundu Maharaj opened his eyes and says, look at that air hostess. There is always something wrong in this material world. And he started preaching to her.
And then finally, he preached to her and he said, therefore, the solution is that we should get out of this world by becoming devoted to God. And he said that, is that what you are doing? Shri Dundu Maharaj said, that is exactly what I am doing. And then at that stage, he just took out a book from his bag and he gave it to her.
He said, read this book. So, even in the last stages of his life, he was in pain, but he was preaching about Krishna. And then finally, he came to Calcutta.
From Calcutta, he came to Mayapur. On his way to Mayapur, some of his disciples were with him in the van that they had got, where he was lying down on a stretcher. And Maharaj expressed his gratitude to his disciples.
He said, when I became a sannyasi, you know, I thought that the normal joys of having children, I would have to forsake them. By Shri Prabhupada’s mercy, I got so many children. And so, all of you are so dedicated to me.
I am so grateful for the service that you have done. And finally, when they came to Mayapur, at that time, the international GBC, Governing Body Commission meetings were going on. So, devotees from all over the world were there.
And that day, he came in the morning to Mayapur. So, devotees cancelled the Bhagavatam class. And the whole temple community was there in Mayapur to welcome the warrior in Krishna’s army, coming back to Krishna’s abode.
And then Shri Dharam Maharaj said that I have three desires. He said, I want to reach Vrindavan. I want to be there for the Panchatattva installation.
And I want to be there for Gaur Purnima. And Krishna arranged for the fulfilment of all three of his desires. So, finally, he came to the temple.
He took darshan of Panchatattva. And Mayapur is a big temple. And just going around was exhausting.
And finally, they took him to his room. And he was completely exhausted by the flight, the car journey, and then the walk around the temple. So, then they immediately called for a doctor.
And the doctor came. Everybody was anxious, grave. And his stomach had become bloated because of the liver problem.
So, the doctor came and started touching the stethoscope to check. And Shri Dharam Maharaj opened his eyes. He had almost like gone into a faint.
But he opened his eyes. And he looked around and saw all the sombre faces of everyone. Then he looked at a doctor.
And he said, doctor, the doctor was touching the stethoscope to his stomach and checking. He said, doctor, is it a boy or a girl? So, he was exhausted. He was near death.
He was just trying to lighten up the mood for others. And then, at that time, I had gone to Mayapur for a camp. So, I had an opportunity to have his darshan.
So, when we went to meet him, we asked, Maharaj, how are you? So, Maharaj said, the Indian government should start an ONGC plant in my stomach. Now, that was his way of saying, there is so much gas in my stomach. So, he was very cheerful, very jovial.
And then, he talked a little bit about Krishna. And we did kirtans. The devotees did kirtans.
And then, eventually, he was there when the Panchatattva were installed. He was there participating in the installation ceremony himself, doing aarti, waving a chamar. Then, the Gaur Purnima came.
And then, some devotees said that, Maharaj, wouldn’t it be wonderful if you depart on Gaur Purnima day? He said, no, I don’t want to depart on Gaur Purnima day. Why is that such a holy day? He said, you know, then, if I depart on that day, then everybody, the focus will shift from Gaurang Mahaprabhu to Sridhar Swami. So, it should be the festival of Lord Chaitanya.
It should not be a festival about me. So, then, he was there for a substantial amount of time. And then, eventually, on a very auspicious day, the Dalala Pandit’s appearance day, he, at the early morning hour, around Brahma Muhurta time, with devotees doing kirtan, with him beholding the beautiful form of Radha Madhava, he cheerfully departed from the world.
And just one example, there are many other devotees who have faced life exam, final exam with grace, with dignity and with glory. So, this is the ultimate test of the success of a spiritual path. Not just how it helps us to live better in this world, but how it helps us to live better from this world.
How it helps us to live happily and eventually live happily. So, when we practise, when we choose a spiritual path, ultimately, it is an act of faith, but it can be an act of reasonable faith if we use our intelligence and choose appropriately. So, I will summarise.
I started by talking about how there is, in today’s world, apathism, as represented by this movie PK, where don’t care about any spiritual path at all, don’t care about any religious business at all. But that is also a faith and that is a faith which ruins whatever prospects for ultimate meaning or ultimate happiness we may have in our life. So, I discussed how that sentences us to materialism and materialism causes misery.
How people in the developed world are actually more anxious than the developing world because they don’t have enough stability and they don’t have enough stability because they don’t have spirituality. So, actually, here in Australia, as well as in the West, in America and Europe, people are turning more and more towards spirituality. So, yoga is becoming very, very big because millions of people practise yoga, firstly, because they want healthier bodies and they want deeper consciousness.
Kirtan is becoming immensely popular. Kirtan groups have become so popular that there is increasing demand that Kirtan itself be made into a category for Grammy awards. Grammy award is an award in music and singing and it is likely to happen in a few years because the Kirtan is very big in the Western world and there are thousands and thousands of people who turn towards the traditional spirituality of India because therein they find meaning and fulfilment in their lives.
So, meaning is for the head, fulfilment is for the heart. So, then I talked about how apathism cannot, it will only bring misery, it will not bring happiness. If I turn towards the spiritual path, how do we know which is the path that is right? So, we should know what is the goal.
This is that medical treatment is meant to cure. So, similarly, any path that we follow should cure us from selfishness to selflessness, to love of God and love for all living beings in relationship with him. And that connection I discussed how exclusivism and pluralism are illogical and inclusivism is the right way with levels from fear to love and then I discussed tests starting with T that is time-honoured because this is knowledge given by God to guide humanity.
So, it is available right from the beginning of creation. Then E is explanatory. So, we discussed about how the problem of evil is explained best and knowledge of God, positive knowledge about God is revealed most in the Bhakti tradition.
Then we discussed about S is scripture-based. So, path cannot be just concocted by someone, it has to be based on scripture and based on scripture also does not mean that we take out some new meaning from scripture, but we understand the original meaning that was intended by the giver of scripture, like the understanding of road signs on a road. And we discussed how the same changes that happened in the original student of the Gita are happening in the current students of Gita in today’s Bhakti tradition, today’s living Bhakti tradition.
Then T was transformational. We discussed the inner transformation that happens to whoever tries to practise Bhakti in any part of the world. So, just as material science is experimental, spiritual science of Bhakti Yoga is experiential.
It will give us higher experience of God, it will detach us from worldly experiences. And lastly, successful, we discussed two parts. Although material numbers are not the primary criteria of success, but even from the point of material numbers, Srila Prabhupada achieved phenomenal success.
His story is more astonishing than fiction and has no parallels in the history of the world’s greatest teachers. And further, the ultimate success of the spiritual path is to guide a practitioner to leave this world gracefully, because there is no fear of death, because there is the knowledge that I continue to exist and I am going to go back to God, go to God by the practise of my Bhakti. So, that is what, in connection with that, discuss the story of Sridhar Maharaj.
So, the path of Bhakti Yoga is the path that can very efficaciously, I saw that there are many paths which can help us to go to the mountain peak, but not all paths are equally easy, not all paths are equally accessible. So, we have to intelligently choose which is the path which will take us fastest there. And the path of Bhakti has already taken many people to high levels of love of God.
Sometimes, some coaching, I conclude with this example, sometimes some coaching institutes, say IIT coaching institute or something, they show, so many students, they cracked JEE and they got ranks, they got admission, and therefore, we are a very good coaching institute and you should join us. Now, yes, to some extent, that is their credit, that they had so many students going into JEE from there. But you see, most of those coaching institutes, they have a filtration process while selection itself.
They will take only very intelligent students. And often the top institutes, the top coaching institutes, they may not even take students who are below a particular level of performance. And yes, if you already take intelligent students, and then you make them graduate, that’s also, this credit is there, you train them, but there’s not all that much credit.
But suppose there’s a coaching institute that took students who were utter failures and then made them into students who passed JEE, that would be extraordinary achievement indeed. And that is what Ishwara Prabhupada actually did. Now, it’s not that people who were already spiritual, saintly, advanced, it’s not that he made them further advanced and made them devoted.
He went to people who had no conception of God, who had no conception of even basic human morality. And from that level, which would easily be considered as an utter spiritual and moral failure, from there he elevated them, that the potency of the path of bhakti has that power to elevate even such people to the highest level. That’s why it’s outstanding.
And by seeing, you have heard now eventually, sometime in the future, you will go to places where there are, in some future camps where there are devotees from all over the world, and you will see people from various parts of the world practising and rejoicing in the practise and becoming truly advanced. So universal path that can elevate anyone and everyone. And people who may have had far greater conditioning than us can be elevated.
So surely we can also be elevated. So by, as Krishna says in the Bhagavad Gita, deliberate deeply and decide what you want to do. So that will be my conclusion also.
Now, rather than saying that you have to follow this path, I’ve given you some objective criteria. And you think based on the objective criteria, does the path of bhakti yoga fit this criteria? I’ve explained how it fits, you may have some objections, you can think deeply about it further. And you can get those questions addressed.
But one important thing with which I conclude is we shouldn’t wait for a long, long time. Because at one level, we want to choose a safe path. But at another level, we also know that we don’t have much time.
If we are in a house that is on fire, which is the best way out of the house? Is it a window or is it a door? At one level, we will say, whichever is the easiest to get out, which is the most accessible to us. So it is now you already come to the path of bhakti. It’s not that you have to explore all the other paths to find out whether is there any other path better than this.
If you feel benefited by the path, it’s not that when we take a medicine, we try out all the possible pathies, allopathy, naturopathy, all of you try out and then we commit ourselves to a treatment. So once a devotee, one young man asked Prabhupada, Swamiji, your path sounds like Buddhism. So Prabhupada said, do you follow Buddha? Prabhupada said, no, this recipient was taken aback, said no.
Prabhupada said, that is your problem. Just follow Jesus, follow Krishna, follow Mohammed, follow Buddha, follow someone, don’t just talk, don’t just talk. Because if we just keep talking, we will never realise anything, whether the path is right or whether it is wrong.
Certainly, we should talk to understand, but after understanding, we follow. And by following, we experience the transformation, we can continue on. As Krishna says, we will experience for ourselves the potency and thus in the court of our heart, the evidence of our experience will be the strongest evidence, will be the strongest testimony, which will inspire us to move onwards in bhakti.
So, thank you very much. Thank you very much. Hare Krishna.