Should we avoid debates with argumentative people who believe that technology is beneficial?
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Hare Krishna. Question from Nikhil Kulkarni Prabhu. Should one try to convince one's colleagues and friends about controversial subjects like say technological advancement has not led to any progress but has caused more problems or should we avoid confrontations because those people are just in an argumentative mood.
Sometimes when we have such debates they become very heated and people are not convinced even when they are given proper arguments. They just become irritated and they give statistics about how many dams have been constructed and how much there's water supply for irrigation and they try to give facts like that. So how should we respond in such situations? Answer, first and foremost as devotees we have to know that our goal is to connect people with Krishna and we are pro-Krishna.
We are not anti-technology per se. Yes, there are many people who even in the material even who are non-devotees they feel that the modern way of technocentric living has created a lot of problems. In fact, there are some people who call it technopoly.
It's like monopoly is there. So technopoly, the monopoly of technology on human lives and human civilization. So there are secular thinkers also who may not even have religious inclination but they from material point of view have seen how technology has problems, has created a lot of problems.
But our primary purpose is to help people become connected with Krishna. So now keeping that in mind we should discuss things with people. So at least from a visible perspective technology does seem to have improved things.
So there is a proper lecture with the PPT on technology blessing or curse and there elaborately I have discussed this topic. How technology has visible benefits but it has invisible harms. Of course, now many of the harms are also becoming visible but in general visible we can see benefits.
We can have air conditioners, we can have fast cars, we can have airplanes, we can have laptops and emails and mobiles but below that a lot of problems come up which are often not so easily noticed. So the point is that this is an issue on which we can make solid arguments and we can present a sound case that technology does lead to far more problems but the biggest problem from the spiritual perspective is not just technology in and of itself. It is the effect of technology on people's spirituality.
Many people feel that technology alone will solve their problems and spirituality is not required and that's why that infatuation which happens. So there is an article also on the website called where technology falls short. So basically our focus is on making sure that people do not go away from God because of infatuation with technology.
So our primary focus in interacting with people should be to connect them with Krishna. So if we tell them about the benefits of spirituality and if we get them to especially experience the benefits in some way then that is a very good way to get them to open their minds. Generally often if the communication itself starts in a hostile way then that hostile communication degenerates into an endless inconclusive conflict but if we can logically experience to people explain to people the benefits of spirituality for example we get peace of mind we get purification we are able to understand the purpose of life and harmonize ourselves with it and there are many benefits like that.
For example there's an article on website called three benefits of meditation peace purity and pleasure. So like that when we get the benefits of spirituality and when we explain the benefits of spirituality to people and then we explain to them and give them an opportunity to experience the benefits for themselves then what happens is there the obsession with the technology the infatuation with technology and its promises decreases a little bit and then they become open-minded. So in general in our outreach we should be careful to choose which battles we fight you know we can there are hundreds of battles to fight we can fight against the wholesale technology spread of technology we can fight against the say commercialization of society we can fight against sexualization we can fight against westernization so there's so many things we can fight against and our primary purpose is not to fight against various material phenomena our primary purpose is to help people to become Krishna conscious.
So yes in a technology in a technocentric world it is relatively more difficult to practice Krishna consciousness than it is in a natural setting but it is possible everywhere and Srila Prabhupada himself used technology in Krishna's service. So our primary purpose in interacting with others should be to try to connect them with Krishna and generally as long as people may use logic but most often the head follows the heart so if in their heart people are feeling the benefits of technology and have not experienced the benefits of spirituality then the head doesn't listen to logical arguments to the contrary but just continues with the continues somehow or the other with sticking to whatever one's gut feeling is. So that's why along with logic we should talk about along with logically presenting spirituality and its benefits we give them experiential opportunities to verify for themselves those benefits so that should be our primary focus in general.
The Buddha Vedam Janaye Dhyanam Karma Sanghinaam. Krishna says in 3.26 don't disturb the minds of people don't engage them somehow or the other and in activities that will gradually elevate themselves. So our principle with respect to technology is Yukta Vairagya and our principle with respect to debate is also Yukta Vairagya.
Yukta Vairagya means whatever can be used in service we use it so that way we can present use debate when it is uncool to bring people to Krishna and there are several books also which we can share there are books written by ISKCON devotee scholars and there are books written by secular authors also but which talk about this but that is not our primary thrust if we ourselves want to study and then we want to present. Then there are devotee scholars there is Mr. Sahadeva Prabhu has written a book series of books on the end of modern civilization which talk with you a lot of statistics and talk about how there are almost insurmountable problems facing modern society and then there is a book Researching for Vedic India written by Devamrith Maharaj which describes at least the initial chapter describe the formidable problems of misdirection which are present in modern society and so like that there are books which talk about this also then we can study and become more equipped to answer these questions. If we want to become specialized in this field of say if as a service we want to may become a campaigner for campaigner within the devotional ambit for simple living and for say less technology centered living then that is also fine that one can take that as a service and that will can become a part of the re-establishment of Varanashram that Srila Prabhupada wanted then one can study become more equipped and then one will be having the resources to do this sort of discussions and have the knowledge as well as the as well as the resources like books and contacts with other learned people who can help us substantiate the points.
So as a specialized service if we want to do this we can do it but for the general devotees the primary focus should be on how best we can connect people with Krishna and that is generally by talking about the positives of spirituality. Thank you.