02 – Presenting Krishna’s message to a contemporary audience

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This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Welcome to our Sunday Morning Inspiration. My name is Sabyasa Chidas.
I am your host today, and we’re very, very happy to welcome His Grace Chaitanya Charan Prabhu to give us a second part of this wonderful discussion on sharing Krishna’s message to a Western audience. So, what I’ll do, I’ll just introduce His Grace Chaitanya Charan Prabhu by reading his bio, and then we will have some house rules, and we’ll hand over to Prabhu to speak. His Grace Chaitanya Charan Prabhu is a monk, mentor, and spiritual author.
Seeing the current problems of stress, depression, addiction, and overall misdirection, he felt inspired to dedicate his life to the cause of sharing spiritual wisdom. He travels all over the world, from Australia to America, giving talks on spiritual subjects in universities such as Princeton, Harvard, Stanford, and Cambridge, and companies such as Intel, Google, Amazon, and Microsoft. He’s a prolific writer.
He’s the author of the world’s only Gita daily feature, wherein he writes daily a 300-word inspirational reflection on a verse from the Bhagavad Gita. Up till now, he has written over 4,000 Gita meditations that are posted on his website, GitaDaily.com. His articles have been published in many Indian national newspapers, including Indian Express, Economic Times, and Times of India. If all of this is not enough, he’s also an author of 25 books, and I’m sure he’s working on some currently, some more.
So before we begin, just to let you all know that if you kindly switch your videos on, keep your cameras on, this would improve the mood of the programme, make it more personable. All the mics will be muted until about 10.45 South African time, when we will open for questions and answers. Feel free to write your comments and questions in the chat box.
Also, welcome to those who are watching the stream on Facebook. Also, you can type your questions there, and we will pick them up from Facebook and post them to Prabhu when the time comes. So thank you very much, dear devotees, for coming, and thank you very, very much, Chaitanya and Prabhu, for spending your time with us.
Please, the floor is yours. Any questions? Or Prabhu, we will maybe unmute you. And just one small thing before Prabhu starts.
I’m sure you noticed we had the same poster from last time and the date and everything. We’ve been in a power cut for the last week, and so we couldn’t really use any machines to do much, and by Krishna’s grace, we’re back just almost last night to be able to do the programme. Chaitanya and Prabhu, how are you, Krishna? The power cut was because of a storm or something? Power cut? Oh, sorry.
Okay. Gauravani Pracharine Nirvishesha Shunyavadi Vashchatya Desha Tharine Vancha Kalpataru Bhyascha Kripa Sindhubhya Evacha Patitanam Pavanebhyo Vaishnavebhyo Namo Namaha Jai Shri Krishna Chaitanya Prabhu Nityananda Shri Advaita Gadadhara Shri Vasadi Gauravakta Vrinda Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare Hare Krishna I’m grateful to be here with all of you today, and before I start, I would like to know, say, how many of you were there for the previous session, or you heard the previous session, because this is a series which I suggested that we take. So those of you who can, from your Zoom, you can raise your hand, so that I know how many of you were there last time, and how many of you are, okay.
So, yes, true. Okay, so two of you, Savyasachi Prabhu and Shri Nanda Prabhu, both of you are there. So, now, Savyasachi Prabhu, so how should I do this? Should I take a quick recap of last week’s concepts and then take it forward? Or should I start the topic which I was planning as a build-up based on last week’s session? Since most of the participants are different, so that is some factor we need to consider.
I think, Prabhu, you can start with your topic and then build from there. Yeah. Okay.
And we can refer to the devotees to the page where the class is posted to catch up with last week’s session. Okay, right. Thank you.
So, last time, so basically, I discussed in my own with my small understanding of what it means to share Krishna’s message with various audiences. And the first thing I mentioned was the need to respect people where they are. So, we had this very important quote of Srila Prabhupada, where he talks about how, because some people may be educated, they have some wealth or fame ability, they will be sometimes little puffed up.
But that is alright. They deserve it. So, Prabhupada is talking about respecting people where they are.
And Prabhupada says, not that we have to teach them, but we have to learn the art of how to approach such higher class of men and attract them. So, we have to learn the art. Not that simply we have a message and we teach it.
Yes, that is true. But we have to learn the art of how to approach them. And then this requires tact, not just purity.
Prabhupada says it requires tact. And we should meet all challenges. And then he says we should follow Krishna and Lord Chaitanya.
And then the key point here is that being tolerant of others. And what does tolerant means? Appreciating their points of view. So, not just dismissing them that this is the way, we know the truth and everything that you have is false.
So, just give up all your nonsense and take up bhakti. Their points of view also need to be appreciated. This is a letter to Balwant.
And then in that connection, I talked also about how one aspect of Krishna Consciousness is seeing how God acts in everyone’s life. What God is doing in their lives and what they are doing or not doing in relationship with God. We often focus on this.
This person is eating meat, this person is doing this activity, is engaged in unrestrained sexual activity, this person is doing that, that. We focus on that. But what is God doing in their lives? How God is still there in their hearts as the Paramatma, as a super soul and is still acting.
We see that and then we analyse this quote quite a bit. And then especially I talked about how tradition and contemporary world is connected. So, the living tradition connects with the past through faithfulness, through fidelity.
And it connects with the contemporary audience through flexibility or resourcefulness. So, we need both faithfulness and resourcefulness, fidelity and flexibility. So, those who focus only on fidelity without flexibility, they are to some extent the liberals.
Sorry, they are the conservatives. And if there is only conservatives, then there is no connection with the contemporary world and then the tradition becomes like a museum exhibit. Nobody is practising it in real life.
In contrast, if there is flexibility without fidelity, then it becomes a fashion trend. It just becomes a part of the contemporary world. So, if there is only liberals or only conservatives, the tradition is lost.
So, there is a pendulum in between. There is a balance of fidelity and flexibility. When there is a honest discussion between conservatives and liberals, then the tradition can be continued on.
When we discuss about examples of innovations in our tradition in previous times. So, I am not going over everything, but I am just talking about the important points which I will be building on today. So, we talked about is address non-negotiable and adjustment is not compromise, it is compassion.
Krishna talks about this in the 12th chapter of the Bhagavad Gita. And Krishna’s inclusive mood is there in the Gita that he is saying that from your place, at your pace, access my grace. And then we talked about our spiritual centre.
Swamiji, did I discuss this part? About how we may approach spirituality from different perspectives? Yes. Okay. So, this was the point I think I should have stopped.
I think, did I mention this pre-modern, post-modern also, little bit? No, we didn’t get here. Okay. So, this is, so basically the point, so two things I talked about till now, if you look at this.
One is that being compassionate and reaching people where they are at, appreciating their points of view, this is very much a part of our tradition. So now, if you want to understand where people are at today. So, to some extent, we need to understand the contemporary mind.
So, we could say broadly in history, in recent modern history, there were three epochs, three historical phases and each of them has its own ethos. So, in the pre-modern times, people had faith in scripture. So, whether it is the Bible in Europe, whether it is the Vedas in India, whether it is the Quran in the Middle East, or every particular tradition, every particular part of the world has its own, what would be considered as sacred texts.
So, now that is the pre-modern times that people largely believed in God, believed in some higher reality, believed in some revelations that came from that higher reality and they tried to mould their life accordingly. Then a significant bridge, not bridge, but breach, a breach is a break between the pre-modern and the modernist, not just the presence of technology and things like that, but it’s faith in science, where the source of authority, source of authority and knowledge was not scripture, but science. Now, this conflict played out, I think, at the dawn of the age of science, when there was a conflict between Copernicus and then Galileo, between Galileo especially and the Catholic Church about whether the earth moves around the sun or the sun moves around the earth.
But since then, overall, it is science which earned people’s faith. So, now, while modernity is still coming in some parts of the world. So, for example, in India, it’s the cities, the major cities have gone beyond modernity to post-modernity.
I’ll explain what it is. Most of India, the towns and others are coming towards modernisation and many of the villages are still in the pre-modern. So, I presume something similar might be there in Africa also.
So, what is the post-modern idea? The modern idea was that science is the source of all good. That by science, we will bring, through by science, by technology, we will improve the lot of humanity and the promise was we will bring paradise on the earth. We will make life so comfortable.
Why do we need any religious paradise? But as time passed, more and more people started realising that science is not the source of unadulterated good. The Second World War and especially toward the end, the dropping of the atom bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, that was a movement that brought this very strongly into the modern human psyche. That science can, science is not the cause, but science can lead to immense destruction through technology.
So, even now people are very much enamoured by technology and everybody looking for the latest smartphones, latest gadgets, but still people don’t think that science alone is going to solve all our problems. So, in the pandemic, we are naturally looking for vaccines or cures or preventive measures. At the same time, we recognise that maybe it is science which is a part of the problem.
Maybe there’s a lab leak which caused the pandemic and maybe it is the political or the managerial, administrative oversights or neglects by people which led to the pandemic. So, the idea is that people recognise that science is important, technology is important, but there’s not that unquestioning faith also. This is the postmodern ethos.
Postmodern ethos is you don’t accept scripture as authority, don’t accept science as authority, but accept experience as authority. Experience means if something works for me, if something feels good for me, if something does good to me in my life, then that’s when I will accept it. Otherwise, I will not accept it.
So, a typical example of say the postmodern ethos would be that, or let’s consider how the authority would work in pre-modern, modern and postmodern times. So, for example, if say somebody is, I was at an interfaith conference in America and Washington DC and I had some interesting experiences. So, we’re talking about how to reach out to postmodern audiences.
That was the topic. So, one Christian pastor made the point that, you know, in the past, say, if a pastor was offering some marriage counselling and he told couples that divorce is a sin against God and if you separate, then you will not be saved, you will not be delivered, you will not go to heaven. It’s a sin.
Then, oh, we cannot do this. So, if a pastor said, if in today’s world, if the pastor says that, you know, if you separate, if you break your family, you separate, you will go to hell. People will tell them that you go to hell.
We have no interest in hearing from a person like you. On the other hand, that same pastor, he says that, you know, he comes with us, maybe he is a married pastor and he says, you know, I and my wife, we have been married together for 25 years and we would like to share with you how the wisdom from the Bible helped us to stay together, to make this relationship work. Oh, yeah, and people are interested.
So, if we just say that this is what the Bible says, that’s not interested. But how we made it work, this is our experience. So, that is important.
That is what persuades people in today’s world. And that brings us understanding the ethos will also lead to the approach. So, when you do outreach, there could be broadly three ways of doing outreach.
It’s prescriptive, normative and descriptive. So, prescriptive is like a doctor giving prescription. Do this and don’t do this.
And yes, now there are in the Bible, there is this thou shalt not and thou shalt. So, there are commandments. One way is prescriptive outreach.
The other is normative. That okay, that this is the right way to live, this is the wrong way to live. These are the norms which we need to follow.
But the descriptive is that this is what I do and this is why I do it. So, yes, we may say that this is taught in scripture, but that is not the thrust. Why? See, somehow a significant difference between say pre-modern and post-modern is, in the pre-modern times, if somebody quoted scripture, that would give them a lot of authority.
Oh, what you are speaking is not just your wisdom. It is based on scripture. But in the post-modern times, if a person quotes too much scripture, can’t you think for yourself? Are you just going to repeat your party line? You know, I don’t want just a mouthpiece.
I want a real person. Tell me what you have experienced. So, the values can be radically different.
So, what happens is descriptive means, how does it work for me? This is what I do and this is why I do it. So, in general, the modern mindset, the post-modern mindset is where the descriptive approach works the most. And prescriptive and normative, it just alienates people.
Prescriptive, who are you to tell me? One of the main characteristics of post-modernism is that there is a systematic questioning and erosion of authority. Authority figures, in broadly you could say in the pre-modern, even modern times, if somebody is an authority figure, then the presumption is this person must have some experience, some expertise. So, let me listen to them.
And if there is something questionable, I’ll doubt them. But by default, there is some respect for authority. We are talking especially in religious and spiritual circles.
But in circles, in general, in various circles also. So, broadly in the pre-modern and modern times, there is a respect for authority. And if the authority acts in a questionable way or doesn’t do right things, then maybe the authority is questioned, maybe doubt is there.
But in the post-modern attitude, anybody who is in authority position is by default considered worthy of suspicion. That you must have done something unscrupulous to grab power. And you are here just to lord over others.
So, you could say there is a default suspicion of authority. And then you have to actually earn trust. And this translates also towards a suspicion of institutionalised religion.
If somebody is an official leader in an institutionalised religion, then they think, oh, you are just a part of a system that controls people. So, what happens is, even today in the post-modern ethos, people are interested in spiritual teachers. But they are not interested in religious heads.
So, their idea of religious head is there is a power structure and you are at the top of the power structure. But their idea of spirituality is that you are open-minded, you are thoughtful, you experience higher things, you have some meaning and purpose in life. I want to learn that.
So, I will talk a little bit more about this later. But such people in the post-modern ethos, people want to be spiritual but not religious. They want to be spiritual but not religious.
Now, their idea of spirituality is, I want to be open-minded, I want to explore, I want to learn, I want to grow, I want to find meaning. And their idea of religious is, you have to follow certain dogmas, you have to do certain rituals and that they are not interested in. So, to some extent, our traditional approach in outreach has been prescriptive and normative.
Prescriptive and normative. So, for example, if you talk about chanting. Now, we can quote, Oh, in all these scriptures, chanting of Mahamantra is being talked about and therefore we should chant.
That would be normative, that would be prescriptive. But what will work? Okay, there are so many books across different traditions, why should I care for your book? But if you tell them, okay, I had all these cravings earlier, I was very short-tempered and since I started doing this mantra chanting, I found my anger has gone away, my cravings have decreased. I have become so much calmer and that’s why nobody is forcing me to do this, but I do it because I feel so connected, I feel so composed.
That’s why I want to do this. That’s descriptive. So, this is what works in today’s world.
Prescriptive and normative are not important. They also have their place. But we need to know to which audience how to speak.
So, first of all, how does the audience see us? Do they see us as a person who has some knowledge that they treat as authority? Are they treating us just as, okay, you have your idea, I have my idea. Then maybe we have to, by our words, by our actions, earn their respect. And one of the best ways to earn respect is not by being prescriptive or normative, but by being descriptive.
So, quite often, the descriptive way of outreach is associated with being authentic. Now, people want to be, people want somebody authentic. Authentic means, actually what you are saying, you are not just repeating the party line, you have lived it.
You learned it and now you are sharing it with me. You are doing that, then I am very interested in it. So, this is with respect to the broad ethos.
So, before I go to the next point, now I would like, and since this is more of a sharing kind of discussions, I would like to know from your experience, the typical audience in Africa, where do you feel they are at? Are the audience that you connect with, are they at a postmodern level, modern level, a pre-modern level? Or any other point that you would like to reflect on, on what I have discussed? Then I can take this forward from there. OK, there’s one comment here. OK, Shardir Hassan Amin.
Yes, I’m happy to be of service. But, Sabyasachi Prabhu, you have anything to say about this? Yes, I would say it really makes it very clear, the categories. And what you are finding is that if you go more to rural areas I have found, is that they want to find out if you believe in God.
And then they say, oh, you are a priest. They may not know our church or our religion as Hare Krishnas. But as soon as they hear that you are religious, you are a priest, they are willing to hear you.
In the cities, in the universities, they are interested mainly in you. They want to know your life, what you have been through. And by relationship with you, then slowly they are willing to accept the knowledge that you live by.
But generally they want descriptive than prescriptive. Oh, OK. So in one sense, the same as in, I would say, in India also.
In the rural areas, there is definitely piety is there. And people respect if somebody is from a spiritual background. But beyond that, in the cities, it’s very different.
Thank you, Sabyasachi Prabhu. Would anyone else like to share something? Any comments, reflections, questions? Yes, Shardiya Rasmataji. Hare Krishna Prabhu.
Thank you for coming back and continuing this very enlivening seminar. So one reflection that I had is when I was involved with university outreach, I mean, I didn’t kind of, I didn’t have this concept as well crystallised as you have now presented it. But I kind of also picked up that the students didn’t appreciate when we presented Krishna consciousness as like the ultimate answer or the absolute truth.
So I remember having a conversation with the other devotees and saying that I think that the students accepted better if we just said this is a view of, you know, of life. And this is a way to live, you know, just kind of presented as an option. But then there was a lot of resistance because the devotees said that’s not how Prabhupada represents it.
Like Prabhupada is very like, you know, like this is it. So I was just wondering how you, if you can say something about that tension we often experience where people emphasise that Prabhupada was very direct. And then saying that if we, you know, present what you classified as like the more, was it normative approach where, you know, that is then seen as a deviation.
Descriptive approach, yeah. Yeah, descriptive. Because I’ve often encountered like people saying to me, if I say, let’s do descriptive, then people tell me that that is a deviation.
Okay, that’s a good point. Now, I would say three things about this. First is that if we are presenting things in a descriptive way, isn’t that a deviation from Prabhupada’s presentation of normative or prescriptive? Well, we have to see where Prabhupada is presenting things.
If we read the book Easy Journey to Other Planets, that’s the first book that Prabhupada wrote and that book is dedicated to the scientists of the world. And the tone in that book is very different from, say, what you might see in Life Comes from Life or other books where Prabhupada seems to be critiquing science and scientists quite strongly. And in that book, Prabhupada is saying we would like to present for the scientists of the world to reflect on this.
So Prabhupada had different moods at different times. And that’s first thing. Continuing that, I’ve talked with several of Prabhupada’s senior disciples who were doing college outreach in America during Prabhupada’s times.
And at least two of them have personally confirmed this. I’ve asked them to send me the letters. But Prabhupada personally told us this, that the worst thing that you can do in your college outreach is present Krishna Consciousness as a set of do’s and don’ts.
Nobody likes rules. Prabhupada said present Krishna Consciousness as a philosophy, as a worldview. And now Prabhupada wouldn’t so much appreciate it as a view, but the point is this is a worldview.
So help people rather than saying this is the reality, what we do is we help them that this worldview, let’s see how it helps you make sense of reality. So there’s a slight but significant difference in the two. Instead of saying this is the truth, we don’t say this is not the truth, but we say, okay, whatever you are experiencing, whatever your life is, see this worldview can help you make sense of it.
So, you know, the jigsaw puzzles, why do bad things happen to good people? Why are we not satisfied even when we gain the things that we long for? What will bring meaning, true meaning and fulfilment in our life? So there are fundamental questions that are universal in their answer. So if you present it as a resource to people for making sense of their own experiences, for placing their own life in a broader framework, then that is very powerful. So now there is a slight difference between being descriptive and being relativistic.
Relativism means that now there are two different things between I have my view and you have your view. That is everybody is an individual free person and we can’t control people’s views. We are not thought police.
We can’t determine or control what people are going to think. So everybody will have their view. But are we saying that your view is the ultimate reality? We are not saying that.
What we are saying is this is my understanding. And we don’t have to present initially that this is the ultimate reality. Prabhupada himself, did he do that? Prabhupada didn’t introduce Krishna or Lord Chaitanya during his western outreach till quite late.
Prabhupada just introduced the Hare Krishna Mahamantra, introduced Prasad and he talked about our non-material identity. And even that non-material identity people didn’t understand much. So any education is progressive.
We don’t present say for a kindergarten student of math, we don’t present them triple integral calculus. That will come later. So that this is the ultimate reality, that this is the truth coming from the revealed scriptures, the Vedas.
If that is going to help people develop faith, then that is how we present it. If that is not going to help people develop faith, then why present it? So I would say Prabhupada was very resourceful. That means what would help people come closer to Krishna, he would do that.
So then going back to the point of authority, once now in the temple when a speaker comes and speaks, we have a Vyasasana for the speaker. Speaker sits on a quite an elegant seat. So once during a college programme in France or something, the devotees had arranged a big seat for Prabhupada on a stage.
And the students started jeering and mocking that. Why do you need to sit on such a high seat? And Prabhupada was so annoyed with this. The seat is not important.
I can sit on the floor. I just want to talk with you. And then after that Prabhupada told the organisers, whenever you organise college programmes, there’s no need for such a seat.
So if certain external forms of respect are doing disservice, then we don’t have to necessarily present them. Suddenly we want to be faithful to Prabhupada. But what is faithful to Prabhupada mean? It means that we fulfil the purpose of Prabhupada.
And Prabhupada’s purpose was to help people come closer to Krishna, to help people raise their consciousness. So now which particular way of presenting we do, whether the speaker sits on the Vyasasana or not in a college programme or something like a Vyasasana, that’s irrelevant. If the message of Krishna consciousness is going to the college audience, that’s excellent.
So I would say that we again have to differentiate between what is essential and what is contextual. So Prabhupada also talked about principles and details. So the mode of approach is something which is the way we present, I think that’s something which is to be understood that it will be different at different times.
So Prabhupada, when he was in America, in the early days, he stayed at the Mishra Yoga Studio. And instead of the Mishra Yoga Studio, there was this Dr. Mishra, he was a yoga teacher. And he was a proponent of the philosophy of impersonalism.
And Prabhupada and he would often have quite vibrant arguments, vigorous arguments. And many years later after the Krishna consciousness movement had spread, he came to meet Prabhupada. And then Giriraj Maharaj was there at that time and he saw they had a very cordial discussion.
And then he asked Prabhupada, isn’t he an impersonalist? And Prabhupada said, yes. So Prabhupada then added something, see philosophically we argue like anything, but culturally we are friends. This is an amazing point.
Prabhupada was able to differentiate between the two. It’s not that just because I sit and talk with you nicely, that doesn’t mean I agree with your philosophy. Just because I disagree with your philosophy doesn’t mean that I don’t treat you like a human being, that I don’t act in a cultured way with you.
So Prabhupada is saying that there is philosophy and there is culture. So even the philosophical differences are there, the culture still has to be maintained. So this is a good example of a difference between what is central and what is not central.
So when a person has just come for like a courtesy visit or just a friendly visit, at that time we don’t have to load on them that their philosophy is wrong to be polite, be cultured with them. So we have to consider in each interaction that we have with someone, what can I do to raise this person’s consciousness? So if that is by quoting scripture and speaking in a prescriptive way, that is great. If it is quoting experience and speaking in a descriptive way, that’s also great.
So this is where we have to, faithfulness to Prabhupada is not just doing what Prabhupada did, but it is fulfilling the purpose that Prabhupada wanted to be fulfilled. Does that address the question? Any other comments or questions? So now I would like to give some examples of. OK.
Yeah, OK. Yes. Yeah, please.
You have the floor, Tato. We cannot hear you. I think I can’t hear you.
Maybe your connection is not good. We’ll maybe pause for now and give Snazo a call while you sort yourself out. My question is about science.
OK, thank you. Engagement and about the social science and the literal science and the social science. OK.
Snazo, you can unmute. Yeah, I read the question. So you’re asking that how do we deal with devotees who disagree with the approach we choose to take? Yes, I think the world is big enough for devotees with different approaches to do outreach.
And we’re not going to do it in the same programme. Maybe they go to different colleges or have different programmes. It’s not that Prabhupada didn’t speak in the normative way or the prescriptive way.
But that’s not the only way he spoke. So if some devotees feel convinced that that’s the way to do, then we don’t have to make it our mission to oppose them. But at the same time, if we based on our understanding, our consultation of senior devotees and our experience, have decided, have inferred that a particular approach works best, then we can work with that approach.
So there are certain core truths to Krishna consciousness which we cannot, on which we cannot have disagreement. If somebody says, actually you are not the soul, you are the body. Well, that is a core principle.
Our core essential identity is spiritual. Somebody says, you know, actually Krishna is just a conception. There is no such thing as God.
Then obviously that person can’t be Krishna conscious. But apart from those core truths, there are many other things over which there can be diversity of opinion. And according to the diversity of opinion, devotees can function in different ways.
So I think it’s important that there be space for different approaches. And it’s not that we are saying that the prescriptive approach is the only right approach. We are ready to learn.
So if tomorrow it is, no sorry, the descriptive approach is the only right approach for today’s audiences. Maybe it is that even in today’s world, it’s not that everybody is postmodern. Maybe some people might still like a pre-modern approach.
When I do some college outreach, I ask in India, what attracts people, I ask students what attracted people. So at least 10-15 years ago, several students would tell me, and these are students in some of the top colleges in India, they would say that Krishna consciousness made my life so easy that I just got a set of, this is what I should do, this is what I should not do. So much of my confusion is gone now.
My life has become clear for me. So I was quite surprised to hear that. So these students were in engineering colleges, top engineering colleges.
But still they came from good backgrounds. They had a virtuous religious upbringing. And they had learned something from their parents.
And in some ways, the moral values of Krishna consciousness reinforced what they had learned. So for them, a prescriptive approach was helpful. So I wouldn’t say that the prescriptive approach won’t work at all.
Because even today’s world, not everybody is postmodern. The point is that we have to see which approach works for whom. And accordingly, if somebody, it also depends that different devotees who do outreach will also attract different kinds of people.
So somebody who has a prescriptive approach will probably attract people who like the prescriptive approach. And in future also, they will, if they do outreach, they will also attract people who need a prescriptive approach. So I think there are different ways in which outreach can be done.
So we can have, we can try to create the space for our way of outreach while giving others the space for their way of outreach. Thank you. Any other comments or questions? If you want to type, then maybe you can type and we can discuss also.
So we discussed about the descriptive way of doing things. Now, as I said, there is a difference between being descriptive and being relativistic. So relativistic means entirely that, you know, that you have your way, I have my way and all these are different ways which are going on.
But we are not talking that way. What we are talking is that ultimately we all want to move in our spiritual life. We all want to grow in our spiritual life.
And for that purpose, we have to reach people where they are and raise them upwards. I think last time I talked about this, the going up the mountain from different paths, that various religious traditions are like, if you consider the top of the mountain and the bottom of the mountain, top of the mountain is spiritual consciousness, bottom of the mountain is material consciousness. So there are different ways to go up the mountain.
Did I show that diagram and last time we discussed that? Yes, Param. Okay, good. So I will just show that once again.
But the point I was going to make here is that in general, when we do outreach, there are broadly two things to be considered. That there is, okay, I don’t think I discussed this last time. So when we talk about consciousness, so there is expansion of consciousness and then there is elevation of consciousness.
Now what do I mean by this? Initially the consciousness shrunk. So you can see the small circle over here. It is a very self-centred consciousness.
So my desires, my needs, my moods, it’s I, I. So people with shrunk consciousness are I specialists, not I specialists, but I specialists. For them, they are quite a sense of narcissists. So now people with such consciousness, they really can’t do much in their lives.
For them, the whole universe orbits around them. So now from here, consciousness can grow in broadly two ways. One is what we can call as, there is expansion of consciousness.
So expansion, now I’m using these words in a particular way. I’m talking about expansion means in the horizontal dimension. That means they are thinking of something bigger than themselves.
They are thinking of their family, they are thinking about country, they are thinking about their ethnicity, they are thinking about their community, they are thinking about their race, they are thinking about their something bigger than themselves. And this Krishna appreciates, Krishna talks about this in 12.8 in the Gita, sorry 12.11. He says that if you cannot absorb yourself in me, then at least think of something bigger than yourself. Had I shown this last time? So expansion of consciousness means that a person may do some humanitarian work for poor people, a person may work very actively for helping others.
I was born and brought up in India and for many Indians going to America is like going to the spiritual world. So the purpose and perfection of Indians is to go to America, get a job over there and earn a lot of money and become well respected. So I had a maternal uncle who after great struggle rising from poverty went to America and he started his own business, he was quite successful.
So he had such enthusiasm to take all his relatives to America, all of us. And now it was not that he was selfish, he was really selfless. He put a lot of endeavour going through a lot of legal loopholes because he felt that your life could be better over there.
Now whether the life was better or not, that’s a different question. But the point is he genuinely felt that. So he could have gone to America and he could have remained an eye specialist.
I am successful, I am glorious. He wanted to share with others. So he had a great concern for the relatives.
So that’s one example of expansion of consciousness, not just the immediate family but also the relatives. Now on the other hand, there could be elevation of consciousness. Now elevation of consciousness means one moves from matter towards spirit, one moves towards God.
Now normally you would think of elevation of consciousness as good. It’s my religion, my spiritual path and in one sense this is good. But if there is only elevation without expansion, what happens by that is it’s narrow-minded.
That means a person thinks this is what all that matters. As long as I am going spiritually, everybody else let them go to hell. I don’t care for them.
They are after all suffering their own karma. So this is, a person is going spiritually but they are very narrow-minded, very calculative, very sectarian. So what happens is it’s my religion and my religion is only religion.
So all of their consciousness is going towards God but it is not really, it is not expanded. So we may think I am becoming spiritual but what are we doing is we are becoming sectarian. And sectarianism is not at all something which is desirable.
It’s intrinsically not desirable but especially in today’s world, if people are alienated by something, they say that, that sectarianism just says they are fed up of it. In fact, we often think about atheism and atheism and that’s true. But there are increasing number of people who say if you ask them for their religion, they say nuns.
In America and Europe, nuns. I don’t follow any religion. Why? It’s not that they are actively atheists.
They are basically apathetic to religion. Because they say there are enough problems in this world. Instead of solving those problems, you people argue about what is there in the next world and you increase the problems in this world.
So I don’t want anything to do with this. So if there is sectarianism in the name of religion, then that simply alienates people. So now what is ideally required is this.
Both elevation and expansion of consciousness. This we can call as evolution of consciousness. Now when Krishna talks about this evolution of consciousness, when he is talking about the devotee, those devotees, the first characteristic of a devotee, he says, adveshta sarva bhavtanam maitra karunai vaca.
He says my devotee is the non-envious friend of everyone. Now what is non-envious friend of everyone means? That is somebody is following some other religious path. Somebody is having some other belief system and maybe they have more followers, they have more influence, they have more wealth.
A devotee is not envious of that. A devotee is not trying to pull them down saying that, you know, you are wrong and I am right. A devotee, of course, tries to help them rise to a better understanding.
But a friend of everyone. So okay, they are following a particular path. Maybe by following that path, they may not be coming to Krishna, but maybe by following it, they are coming from the modes of passion and ignorance at least to some level of goodness.
Something good is happening in their life. Appreciate that. So the most effective outreach can be done when there is both elevation and expansion of consciousness.
So, for example, more and more in today’s world, there is environmental consciousness. People are worried that the way, because of industrialisation, we have exploited nature. We have disrupted the ecology.
Future generations may not have a habitable earth. So now that there may be nothing intrinsically spiritual in what they do, what they are talking about. Their consciousness may not be elevated, but their consciousness is definitely expanded.
And that is good. And they are thinking of something bigger than themselves. So as devotees, what we talk about is we want an elevated consciousness, but we also want an expanded consciousness.
So we can see the good in others. So if somebody is having a very shrunk consciousness, then what happens is even if they come to Krishna consciousness, their consciousness may just go upward vertically, but their consciousness may not expand. And such devotees may become very narrow-minded, very self-centred, very judgemental.
And then that’s not very advisable because they may not be able to reach out to people. They may not be able to appreciate people where they are. So we want, if people have expanded consciousness, if somebody already is very eco-conscious, environmental conscious, or if somebody is very much concerned about poverty.
When I was in my college, I had great faith in the power of education since my childhood. I loved to study and I loved to teach. So when I was in my college, I joined a social welfare organisation and I would go to the slums near my college, just behind my college.
And I would try to offer some free tuition classes in English, math, history, some subjects like that to the kids over there. And over a period of time, we became friends. And then I thought that actually I was helping them and I genuinely wanted to help them.
But after some time, it struck me. As the kids started opening up, I came to know that their homes were dysfunctional, primarily because the parents, especially the fathers, were alcoholics. And when they would drink and come, there were domestic violence.
And as they start telling their stories, I started thinking, how much am I really helping them by teaching them something about math or history or who lived when and what they did. When their lives are so dysfunctional, their homes are so dysfunctional. Now, when I talk with their fathers, I had this theoretical idea of an alcoholic as a person who is irresponsible, a person who is rude and a person who is just dysfunctional.
But I found that many of them were quite courteous, friendly. They were appreciative that I was coming and teaching their children. But then those kids told me that after they drink, it’s like something changes within them.
They become like a different person entirely. So at that time, I started thinking that maybe we should do something to help them come off alcohol. So we connected with some experts in that field.
And our organisation decided to diversify into helping people detox, to get off alcoholism. So we had some experts come and give some talks and we also offered some support. And it was a small community, a small slum.
And one of my friends was going to a nearby village. And there also, he managed, it’s a small village, but he managed to make everybody give up alcohol. And it was a big victory for us at that time.
But then one evening he came back after visiting that and he looked crestfallen. I asked him what happened. He said that there’s a local elections for the municipality, the local government and all the politicians in order to woo the voters, he came with truckloads of alcohol and gave free alcohol to anybody who would vote for him.
And not only the fathers, but even their kids, even their sons had taken alcohol. And then that was the time I really started doing some soul searching. So it struck me that, yes, we are offering external support, like we are opening doors for people by offering them education.
For the kids, it was education in academic studies. For the parents, it was education about, say, alcohol awareness and alcoholism. But I said that it struck me very powerfully that we may open doors for people externally, but there is something inside people that sabotages them, that stops them from walking through those open doors.
And that is when I started searching to try to understand what is it that can actually transform people. And then I read in the Bhagavad Gita about, in the third chapter, how there is an inner enemy which can devour us, a self-destructive desire. Krishna talks about kama.
I mean, he’s talking about kama, it’s not just lust. He’s talking about self-destructive desire in general. So that was a revelation for me.
And that’s when I felt that the most valued knowledge that can be shared for transforming society is actually spiritual knowledge. The knowledge of bringing about inner transformation. So the idea is that, I told this for two points, that if somebody who already has some zeal, somebody has some environmental zeal, somebody has some humanitarian zeal, and if they understand how Krishna consciousness can actually deepen the transformative effects that they are seeking to bring about, then if such a person takes up Krishna consciousness, then they will grow.
They will not only themselves do a lot, but they already have that expanded consciousness. They’ll be able to reach a lot of people and transform a lot of people. So in general, we need to, if somebody has expanded consciousness, they might not be thinking of something spiritual, but we can’t dismiss that.
We shouldn’t dismiss that. Sometimes we just dismiss humanitarian work, this is just mundane. It may be mundane, but still the person is thinking of something bigger than themselves and that is valuable.
So again, this brings us to the point that when we are doing outreach, appreciate where people are at. So if somebody already has expanded consciousness, such a person, just add Krishna. Prabhupada in the Isopanishad purport says that whatever ism somebody is following, if they add Krishna to it, then that ism will become perfect.
So this was one important point about expansion of consciousness and elevation of consciousness. And understanding this can help us become a little more appreciative of what others are doing and then help them also appreciate Krishna consciousness from that perspective. So any reflections or questions about this? Yeah, if you have anything, you can unmute yourself and speak.
There was a question that we saw from Omkar. Okay. It says, is Krishna West a form of the descriptive approach? It is from the previous segment.
Okay, is Krishna West a form of the descriptive approach? Well, I would say before I answer this question, first of all, what do we mean by Krishna West? Krishna West is a particular initiative started by Hridayananda Maharaj. And there is something which he is doing and there are a lot of conceptions about what he is doing. So I have visited some of his centres and I have talked with Maharaj also extensively.
I have some podcasts with him also where we discuss and personally also talk with him. So descriptive approach is one part of it. But there are many other aspects to it also.
So yes, definitely the way of presenting is not very didactic. By the same time, I don’t think they don’t talk about philosophy. They talk about philosophy.
So I wouldn’t want to equate say one specific initiative within ISKCON with one particular approach. Their descriptive approaches have been used by different people also. So when my spiritual master, His Holiness Radhanath Maharaj wrote the Journey Home, at that time I had already published a few books.
So one of my senior brothers gave me Maharaj’s book before it was published. He said, read it and tell Maharaj your thoughts about the book. So I met Maharaj and that book itself is quite adventurous and the stories are what captivate many people.
So Maharaj asked me, what did you think about the book? Maharaj said, I told Maharaj, I love the tone of this book. So in this book you are not speaking as a spiritual master on the Vyasasana giving a class. No, you are as a seeker sharing what you learned with others.
Maharaj nodded and said, this is exactly the approach you need for reaching out to western audiences. It’s an experience, it’s a journey. So that book also has a descriptive approach.
And it has inspired many people who would not normally read a prescriptive or normative book. They read that book and they at least get some appreciation. So generally if somebody is writing their life story, their memoir, that would largely be in a descriptive approach.
Although of course that could also be written in a prescriptive approach. So, it depends. I would say there are many people who can use different approaches.
And I said, Radhanath Maharaj, he is giving a Bhagavatam class on the Vyasasana in a temple. He is not going to use a descriptive approach so much. He may give some experiences, some realisations.
But there is going to quote Prabhupada, going to quote Shastra. So I would say that it depends to whom we are speaking, in what forum we are speaking and then which approach can be used at that time. Jagadananda Prabhu, you can unmute yourself.
Jagadananda, you have your hand raised. Oh, now they are. Sorry, the admin hadn’t allowed us to unmute.
Hare Krishna Prabhu. Thank you so much for the class. I only quoted about halfway.
I have a question generally about, you were speaking earlier about Srila Prabhupada and how he dealt on different levels with different people, culturally, spiritually, whatever the case may be. So my question is, you find sometimes in the West that, at least the way I’ve been taught is that if you go to someone’s house, let’s say, if you maybe haven’t, in one way or another, let them know about your cultural or spiritual inclinations, let’s say in regards to food, and they prepare you a meal, and that meal is as a host to a guest, in the way I was brought up, that you must accept it, even if it’s just to honour it, so to speak. Because to refuse it is to refuse the host’s hospitality.
And of course, we’ve read in the Nivamrita where once Prabhupada visited, I don’t know, maybe it was a life member’s house, and they somehow cooked onions. And Srila Prabhupada’s servant at the time came to warn Prabhupada, no, there’s onions in the food. And Srila Prabhupada chastised the devotee for not having given prior notice to the host.
So my question generally is, if, let’s say, we haven’t given these kind of notices, and we are, let’s say, visiting people, sometimes people would like us to visit them, and how to get them to share Krishna consciousness in their own homes, in their own comfortable spaces. And they’re also trying to be hospitable by catering for people and things like that. How do we deal with those situations where people don’t always meet our standard of cultural living, in terms of food, dress, whatever the case may be, against what we’re really there for, which is to preach the essential spiritual knowledge of Krishna consciousness.
How do you balance those two? Thank you. It’s a very important question. So related with this same approach of descriptive and prescriptive, there is another way of looking at the same things.
So that we could say there are two approaches in which we may envision spirituality ourselves, or we may share with others. The question is that when we go to somebody’s house and we have to share, they offer us some food and we haven’t been able to give advance notification, intimation to them. So then it’s courtesy to take whatever they’ve offered.
So then should we or should we not? So the approach I call is a digital and analogue. Digital means this is right and this is wrong. So on the other hand, analogue approaches, things are on a spectrum from rightness to wrongness.
So for example, digital means this is like one zero logic, one or zero. Either you are Krishna conscious or you’re not Krishna conscious. Now, there are some aspects about which we can be digital.
But in my understanding, Krishna consciousness also, its things are analogue. So it’s not one zero. If somebody, there can be a big spectrum from black to white.
So what this means is that we can see that with respect to food, it can be a spectrum. We could say the highest level of prasad would be that we not only of one devotee is very, one of my friend is very insistent. He says that what is prasad? He says it is not food offered to Krishna.
It is food cooked to be offered to Krishna. So it is only when somebody has cooked in proper conscious, offered to Krishna, only then it becomes prasad. Now, okay, so what do you do if you’re travelling and you buy something from outside and that’s the only thing I have to eat? Is that prasad or not prasad? Well, it’s one zero.
So you could say that there could be various levels where the thing is not only cooked to be offered to Krishna. Then I asked him, why not cook to be offered to Krishna? Why only cook to be offered to Krishna? We could say it could be sown to be offered to Krishna. It could be harvested to be offered to Krishna.
So we have our own farms where it is devotee farmers who cultivate them. Then they send it to maybe devotee households where devotees cook them and offer them. So we could have at one level food sown, harvested, cooked, offered, honoured in Krishna consciousness.
You know in KC, all this happens in KC. Now beyond that, there could be just food that is offered to Krishna. Then there could be food which is, okay, we are in a situation where we can’t offer the food to Krishna.
And we take that food in spite of that because that’s just the context we offer it in our mind. Sometimes the food may contain something which we can’t take. Then if it’s meat, I think it’s reasonable enough to tell people that I’m a vegetarian, I don’t take meat.
This is my, this is what my tradition follows. That’s okay. So my understanding is that there are primary and secondary things in Krishna consciousness.
So I live in a part of India called Maharashtra and here there is a huge worship of Ganesh. Ganesh is one of the prominent devatas in the Vedic tradition. So he is usually worshipped.
And Ganesh Puja is a time when the worship of Ganesh is done, his deity of his is invited into the homes and people came in the home for 10 days. So it’s a time for lot of socialisation. So people go to each other’s homes, people talk with each other, people’s hearts and minds are very open at that time.
And then there is a particular food item which is called as Modak, which is standard what is offered to Ganesh and people distribute to each other. So now on those days, if somebody goes to somebody’s house and they offer that particular item, now that’s a sweet, but it’s not offered to Krishna. So should a devotee take it or not? Now I have talked with many different preachers and they have different opinions about this.
But one of the most effective, one of the most successful, one of the devotees who does most successful outreach in rural areas, he says that if 365 days a year or 364 and two-third days a year, we are taking normal prasad cooked for Krishna and then taking it. And one day, it’s not even one meal. It’s one morsel of food if we take, which is not offered to Krishna.
But by that, just by going there, when people greet us, they chant Hare Krishna. Then we can invite them to our programmes and they invite us to create forums for us to share Krishna Bhakti at their forums. So we have to see the bigger game.
So now we’re not saying every day just go to anywhere and whatever they are offering, they eat it. But as compared to the benefit that we are doing by sharing Krishna consciousness in those occasions, if we are just eating some food which is not according to the ideal standard of Krishna consciousness, I would say that it’s not a big loss. Now, of course, I say this with caution.
I said I would say it because different devotees get strength and conviction that Krishna consciousness from different ways. So for some devotees, they feel, say, if I don’t wake up in the morning at four o’clock or three o’clock or whatever time it is that they regularly wake up, they feel guilty throughout their life. They feel my spiritual life is completely disoriented.
I’m useless. For others, it may be, if I don’t read scripture every day for one hour, what am I doing with my life? For somebody else, it may be, if I don’t worship the deities, for somebody else, if I don’t go and speak about Krishna, encourage people to come to Krishna, then they feel their life is valueless. So, you know, we all have certain things which give us strength in Krishna consciousness, which give us that conviction that, yeah, I am earnest, I am serious, I am pursuing, I am doing that which is truly valuable.
So for some devotees, that sense that I am serious about my spiritual life comes by the strictness with which they follow certain rules. So Ekadashi means I am going to fast, absolutely. And when they do it that way, they feel, yes, I am being serious.
I am showing my seriousness to Krishna. So if somebody has that feeling that this is the way I get the conviction that I am serious, not that I show the world that I am serious, but I myself get that conviction, then fine. They don’t have to adjust that part.
But if somebody doesn’t have that, they don’t consider that as a central aspect of their Krishna consciousness. Relative hierarchy, I would say, getting somebody to become favourable to Krishna consciousness, helping them to appreciate a devotee by being nice and cultured and polite with them, that is more important than occasional meal which we might take which might not be exactly according to prasadam standards. So I would say that it depends a lot on both on the context, the intent and the nature of the person, all of those.
Why a person is doing it, what is the way the person themselves think and what is the context in which they are acting. Does it answer the question? I think it does. In the interest of time, maybe I’ll just offer up Fred’s question in the comment section and then probably we’ll find a way towards a conclusion.
Fred asks, Hare Krishna, sometimes someone with a shrunk consciousness may come in contact with devotees with some sense of wanting to advance himself. How to engage with this person to bring expansion to their consciousness? That’s a very important point. So how can we help a person with a shrunk consciousness, who has come to bhakti to expand their consciousness? It’s generally, I would say there’s devotional service.
So devotion is we could say about elevating the consciousness. Service is about expanding the consciousness. Devotion is expressed in relationship with Krishna.
The devotion is we behold the deities, we chant the holy names, we study scripture. So devotion helps elevate the consciousness and service helps expand the consciousness. Okay, you know that these devotees are working so hard.
Let me assist them. When I read Prabhupada’s Leela Amrit, when I completed that book, actually I got up from my chair and I just offered obeisances to Prabhupada’s picture in that book itself. And I said, Prabhupada, you worked so hard.
Let me assist you in your mission. And that was the time when I started thinking that I should become a brahmacharya monk. So the idea is that if you just associate with devotees and especially if somebody associates with dedicated devotees, then they see these devotees are doing so much, they’re carrying so much of a burden.
Let me carry some of their burden. So I would say that if somebody new has come with shrunk consciousness, if somehow they develop some appreciation for some devotee, some attraction to some devotee, and that appreciation they can develop if the devotee is kind, the devotee is nice, polite and helpful, then what happens is they will want to assist that devotee. And in assisting that devotee, their consciousness will expand.
So I would say service is the way we can help a person with shrunk consciousness to expand their consciousness. So I think Jayanand Prabhu was an expert in this. When he would organise rathiatras, then almost anyone and everyone, he was just so friendly with them that just where he would go, people would come.
And people, he would just engage them. Why don’t you do this? Why don’t you do this? And not only would they come and do it, they would all feel a sense of ownership in the festival. You know, this is our festival.
We played a part in it. So in many ways, for people to elevate their consciousness, it requires effort. Sitting down and chanting the holy names.
Kirtans are nice, but japa is quite difficult. Even hearing philosophy, not everybody can do that. But many people have that spirit of volunteering.
Especially in postmodern youth, one advantage is that they have a strong activist spirit. They want to make some change. They want to make a difference in the world.
So if somehow we can engage that, it’s wonderful. I was in a temple in America. And this is the temple of Indians.
But these are Indians who had settled in America for a generation almost. And their kids had mostly been born and brought up in America. So they would sometimes come to the temple out of cultural deference.
But they didn’t seem to have much spiritual interest. So then the temple leaders, one of the temple leaders got the idea that we want to make our temple eco-friendly. We want to make our temple green.
That means have separate trash cans for eco-recyclable stuff and other things like that. So what all can we do for this? And now they asked their teenage kids for that. Being green in today’s colleges in America is considered very cool.
So then the kids started coming to the temple, not because they were interested in hearing the class, or they were interested in taking darshan of the deities. But they said we want to make this temple green. And they would come regularly, set the systems in place.
And then they presented it as a project in their college. And then they had their other students come there. They had their faculty come there.
And they automatically became a host for the temple. And when they started explaining the philosophy, they started explaining the culture, the practises, they came and they wanted to show the eco-friendly project that they had. But along with that, their other friends and colleagues, they were not necessarily Indians.
They were mostly Americans in other places. They had to explain the other things also. So their own connection with their tradition, with their temple increased, not because they were interested in Krishna, but because their interest in environmental consciousness was channelled.
So I would say that is the expertise of a devotee, that not many people will want to elevate their consciousness. But if you can help them engage in some seva, then their consciousness can be expanded. And by that, gradually, they’ll become more receptive to the elevation of consciousness also.
So I’ll quickly summarise, Swamiji, if that’s okay with you. So we discussed three main points today. I talked about, first is that we talked about how the ethos changes according to the epoch.
That in the pre-modern times, scripture was considered to be the authority. In the modern times, it is largely science and post-modern, it is experience. And depending on the audience, we may have to use either a prescriptive, normative or descriptive approach for reaching out to people.
So that was the first point. Second point I talked about is the elevation and the expansion of consciousness. Our purpose is to elevate people, but if there is elevation without expansion, that can make someone very narrow-minded.
So when there is both, then the person not only takes people towards Krishna, but also has human concern for others. And that’s what many people are attracted to. And that connection I talked about, digital and analogue spirituality.
Rather than seeing that if somebody has to be Krishna conscious, they have to do all these things, they have to tick all the boxes. Whatever boxes they tick, that’s wonderful. So we need to be able to navigate.
This is more important, this is less important. And sometimes the less important needs to be subordinated, so that the more important can be pursued. So thank you very much.
Hare Krishna. So would any of you like to share some concluding reflections, Mr. Vaisakhi Prabhu? Or anybody, something that they carried home from this, we can take it in 2-3 minutes and we can finish. Is that okay? I think because of the time, we’ll just request that the devotees maybe can text in some of the things.
I’d like to share the feedback also with you, some of the points. And hopefully, hopefully, we can get another session with you in the coming month to continue. And we’re happy to be of service to you.
Thank you for this opportunity. So thank you so much, Chaitanya Chai and Prabhu. If you would like to keep up with Chaitanya Chai and Prabhu, please visit his website, www.gitadaily.com. You can read many wonderful articles that Prabhu writes and publishes every day.
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Shri Prabhupada Ki Jai. Jai. Jai.
Very well. This is a small video to show. I think I came into bhakti through my first meditation at BYS, the Bhakti Yoga Society at Wits Campus.
And it made such a huge impact because I had never felt as peaceful, as clear-headed, as calm, as sober as I did after that meditation, after chanting the Holy Name for the first time. And it’s something that was so impactful for me because it was a real life experience of the spiritual world. It was a real first contact with something beyond the physical, which was something that I was looking for, something that I was searching out for and I hadn’t found in my previous religious experiences.
So, chanting the Holy Name literally quenched my spiritual thirst. And it’s something that I’ll never forget and I will always be grateful.