Role of religious leaders in taking India forward
Transcript
Disclaimer: This transcript was generated using AI and may contain occasional errors or inaccuracies.
Hare Krishna. Today we will discuss on the topic of the role of religious leaders in taking India forward. India is a name that is synonymous for spiritual seekers all over the world with a land of ancient and profound spiritual wisdom and culture.
What is this spiritual culture that has attracted seekers to India from various parts of the world throughout history and continues to attract seekers even today? That spirituality which is universal in its appeal is also actually universal in its essence. The Srimad Bhagavatam, one of the most respected among the ancient Vedic scriptures of India, describes in non-sectarian universal terms the characteristic of the best religion. So in 1, 2, 6, Srimad Bhagavatam says that that religion is a supreme religion which enables human beings to develop love for the transcendental absolute truth.
Love that is unmotivated and uninterrupted. Love that is pure. So here the Bhagavatam does not identify any one particular religion as the supreme religion based on any superficial sectarian characteristics.
It gives a non-sectarian criteria that if it helps one to develop love for God, then that is the supreme religion and this love for the absolute truth is based on a vision of profound union and compassion. We see all living beings related with us as members of the one divine family, as sparks of the one supreme spirit, as relatives in an eternal family and this vision brings a sense of compassion and connection not just with people who are fellow believers in one's own chosen spiritual path but with everyone. In fact the Bhagavad Gita offers such a universalist vision that it talks about seeing all living beings equally.
So in 5.18 the Bhagavad Gita says that the learned person sees an educated spiritually evolved person and a spiritually underdeveloped person, a human being as well as an animal like an elephant or a cow or a dog, all of them with equal vision because all of them are seen as spiritual entities. So this is a vision which can take not just India forward, it can take all of humanity forward, not of all of humanity forward, it can do good to all living beings. Today our culture is increasingly becoming aware of animal rights but these animal rights themselves were talked about in the Bhagavad Gita long ago when it recognized every living being as a precious integral part of the supreme absolute truth who is entitled at a spiritual level to an equal vision along with human beings also and this vision extends not just to animals but also to plants.
The whole all living beings, Bhagavad Gita says that Krishna is the seer giving father of all living beings. So today our planet is in a great state of crisis because of environmental issues, the environmental threats which have been caused by indiscriminate exploitation of natural resources and the disruption of the ecological balances. So to restore this we need to reform the situation, we need to restore within ourselves a vision of the sanctity of nature and that can be very much restored if we see nature as sacred, as a manifestation of the divine, as an expression of the supreme's energy.
So this vision is ecumenical. So by this we will, by the spiritual vision that the Gita is offering we can see all religions as authentic expressions which are meant to help people develop love for God, which are meant to help people move forwards on a journey towards increasing spiritual awareness and spiritual connectedness and compassion with not just other human beings but all living beings, animals as well as plants and this is the vision that the Vedic tradition of India has to offer and this vision is profoundly universal. Instead of claiming in an exclusivist way, my way is the only way, the Bhagavad Gita makes a remarkable description.
In 4.11 it says mamma vartamanu vartante manushya partha sarvasya. It doesn't say that my way is the only way. The Bhagavad Gita says all people are on my way.
All people are on my way. That means at different people everybody is on the same one spiritual journey. Whether they know it or not they are all seeking spiritual truth, spiritual substance, eternal lasting happiness and that is ultimately the quest of God, quest for God and in that sense everybody is in the quest for God and the same verse describes that what makes one person superior or inferior is not just affiliation with any particular religious system or any external ostentation of any belief system.
It is inner surrender, inner devotion that as all people surrender God rewards. So God is not partial as is revealed in the Vedic tradition. He is not partial to any particular person but is reciprocal.
Whoever surrenders the Lord reciprocates. Now what does all this mean in today's situation? Today India is faced by two dangers. One is the danger of fanatical religions and the other is the danger of fanatical materialism.
Now fanatical religion means we have had unfortunately in the last recent history many incidents of communal violence and these are based on a improper understanding of religion and an exploitation of religious sentiments by people, by power hungry leaders and other such people with vested interests. So if there is to be religious harmony then the universal vision that has been offered in the Bhagavad Gita where rather than claiming superiority based on adherence to some particular religious system, the spiritual advancement is credited to the devotion of the heart to God and the connection and compassion of the heart to all living beings. This non-sectarian vision can help free India of the menace of religious fanaticism.
Shrila Bhaktivinod Thakur who is a great saint in the Vedic Vaishnava tradition describes this universalist attitude. He says that when we go to a place of worship or belonging to some other tradition where God is worshipped in a way different from the way we have known him to be worshipped normally, whether the way we worship him, then what should we do? He says not that we think that this is a false God and we destroy this God. No, he says that we should think how merciful is God that that one supreme Lord has taken on many different manifestations to attract different people of different mindsets so that my one supreme worship of the Lord has manifested here in a way different from what is familiar to me, different from what is even comprehensible to me.
But I bow down to the Lord for I appreciate how merciful he is, how kind he is, how extending he is in reaching out to all these people. And as I approach, as I bow down to him, my devotion to him increases thinking how merciful and how accommodating and how extending he is. And by this, my attraction to him in the form in which I am familiar with him increases.
So this is a vision by which when we see diversity of religious expression, rather than wanting to stamp out diversity, rather than letting diversity create insecurity within us, we let the diversity shift our vision to the glory, the magnanimity of God and thereby increase our appreciation for God and increase our commitment to the tradition in which God has given him access to us. So this is the universal vision that the Indian wisdom tradition has to offer in countering the menace of religious fanaticism. So we often talk about religious fanaticism, but we often don't talk about the menace of materialistic fanaticism.
What is materialistic fanaticism? The idea that life has no higher dimension. The idea that this world is all that there is, that this life is all that there is, that there is no meaning and purpose beyond this world. This is not a scientifically proven idea.
Science cannot talk directly anything about this because this is not an issue of science, it is an issue of metaphysics. And atheistic materialists, they misappropriate the authority of science to try to propagate their atheism. And what has been the result of materialistic fanaticism? The result is etched in blood in recent human history.
People often talk about religion inciting violence, but how often do people talk about atheism inciting violence, materialistic fanaticism inciting violence? The materialistic fanaticism as right-wing atheism was accepted as the mainstream religious ideology in the communist countries. And what was the result? In the around seven decades that communism reigned supreme in Russia and in USSR and then China, seven times more people were killed than in World War I, World War II combined together. Now the 100 million corpses that littered over Russia or USSR are evidence to the terror that is materialistic fanaticism.
And this materialistic fanaticism will uproot India s culture, India s foundation. Because what happens when there is materialistic fanaticism? People feel that there is no need for any higher values. People feel that there is no need for any concept of accountability to anyone, any higher principle or any higher being.
And it just unleashes all the lower desires within people, meaning that beg, borrow, steal, kill, but enjoy. And the result of this is devastation. So the spiritual tradition of India stands firm to offer people authentic spiritual education and profound spiritual experience by which they can be saved from the vicious but alluring clutches of materialistic fanaticism.
This materialistic fanaticism which is spreading its clutches across India rapidly is something which needs to be countered. If it is not countered, it will lead to poor becoming poorer and poorer and the wealthy becoming wealthier and wealthier and the wealthy exploiting the poor. And India s progress will remain hallucinatory.
It will continue to go into deeper and deeper regress. So the religions of India need to unite. When Srila Prabhupada, the founder of ISKCON was traveling all over the world, he wrote a letter to Pope John Paul II.
He said that actually the way atheism and fanatical materialism is spreading all over the world, the religions of the world need to unite to counter this. And if this is what we can do rather than actual what is happening when people are materialistic, they don t have any inner shelter. The mind remains restless.
If a boat is in an ocean, then the waves keep making the boat restless. And the stormier the boats, the greater will be the So like that, when the mind is left with a materialistic worldview, it has no transcendental shelter. It is left in the ocean of this world where there are dualities of success and failure, happiness and distress, honor and dishonor, uncertainty, tension, stress, all these hit the mind.
So the mind is like a boat which gets rocketed, rocked and rocketed. And the result is a person remains extremely disturbed. So the result of materialism is extreme mental agitation, depression, and eventually self-destruction.
So rampant materialism is also present in the western countries. And what has been the result of the rampant materialism? The suicide rate by 2000 as compared to 1950s was 6 times more. The teenage depression rate was 10 times more.
The divorce rate was 4 times more. So actually, just indiscriminate acceptance of materialistic values will take India down the road of chaos. We need a balance of the material and the spiritual.
And that balance is what the Ishopanishad talks about. It talks that when there is a balance of material and spiritual values, then there will be proper spiritual advancement. So today we need religions which offer systematic spiritual education and experience by which people will raise from material to spiritual values.
Just as we have hospitals for curing the body, we need hospitals for curing the mind. For curing the mind means people's minds are restless and they're making people restless, miserable, sick even physically in the form of psychosomatic diseases. So unfortunately when religions try to convert people from one religion to another religion, what is that like? That is like a person is admitted in one hospital where the person is getting treated and cured and some people come and drag that person out of the hospital and sometimes destroy that hospital in the process and take that person to their own hospital.
No, the hospitals have to be made functional and it has to be ensured that they are working properly so they cure people. So we don't need a horizontal conversion from one religion to another religion. If there is any conversion that is needed, it's a vertical conversion.
A vertical conversion is a conversion not from one religious designation to another religious designation but it is a conversion from materialism to spirituality, from lovers of material things to lovers of God. That is the transformation that will make India progress because that will bring within Indians an ethos of selflessness. Now today there is a great agitation for the Lokpal to be passed and in some level it has been passed.
Now the Lokpal is good, is an important step in the right direction but it will punish the guilty. But along with punishing the guilty, we need to purify the greedy. If we want to uproot corruption, we need to purify the greedy and purification of the greedy happens when people can experience higher non-material enrichment.
That non-material enrichment takes place by authentic devotion, by rising from the material level to the spiritual level of consciousness. And in the Vedic tradition, God is known by the name Gopal. Gopal, the word Go means cows, it also means senses, it also means the mind is also included among the senses.
So the Lord is the protector of the cows and the Lord is considered protector of the mind in the senses also. So Gopal is one who protects the mind and senses by giving them higher happiness so that they don't go in selfish directions for materialistic pleasures. So Lokpal will punish the guilty and Gopal will purify the greedy.
And in this way, when people rise from materialism to spirituality, when the religious leaders of India work diligently to help people get authentic spiritual education and experience and experience non-material enrichment, then that ethos of selflessness and service that will result will create a foundation which will take India rapidly forward and make India an all-round superpower in the upcoming millennia. Thank you. Hare Krishna.