Spiritual Perspectives on Material Beauty 1 – Bring out each other’s higher side not lower side

[Bhagavatam class at ISKCON, Soho Street, London, UK]

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Hare Hare Krishna so I apologise for being late we were caught in the traffic unfortunately so I wanted to be here amongst all of you and I will speak today and tomorrow on the topic of spiritual vision of material beauty material beauty which is a very attractive force in this world, how can we see it spiritually now this is a section of Pingala expressing her realisations so she is a prostitute and she is just another day for her at work another night at work but this turns out to be a night where she does not get any business and the Bhagavatam is actually so inclusive in depicting how the spiritual awakening can happen under any circumstance we may not think of a prostitute as a candidate for spiritual awakening or to speak of a prostitute who is at her job but the nature of the soul is that the soul always has a tendency the capacity for spiritual awakening is always there and the Bhagavatam describes the unlikeliest of settings Ritrasir is fighting on the war field against Indra and he is fighting just as a demon destroying the ten gods, just overpowered Indra and as he is speaking, goading Indra, come on fight, I am going to kill you and then at that moment suddenly, when he is speaking suddenly his mood changes, he says I am going to kill you and I am going to destroy I am going to take revenge towards one who is a killer of his own brother who is a killer of my brother, who is a killer of a Brahmana, who is a killer of his guru he is furious, then suddenly his mood changes, he says if however I am not able to kill you then I will give up this body which is anyway described in the actions, I will give up this body in the service of the lord and suddenly he starts longing for the lord so Ritrasir, we know that he is Chitraketu, he is already a great devotee but because of a curse his spiritual awareness had temporarily been covered so at that particular moment, a spiritual awakening happened Gajendra was living just a materialistic life he had his she-elephants he had his children with him and he was enjoying, having a good time and he was caught and then the spiritual awakening happened for him so spiritual awakening can happen to anyone at any time and in this case her frustration leads to realisation so her her verses of realisation are very instructive in fact this section is often in traditional Indian bhakti culture her song is actually sung just like we have verses, the Gopi Gita is sung even these verses are also sung and they call it the Pingala Gita and this is sung and it is considered one of the most illuminating sections philosophically the devotional aspect is not so much there we will see later it is there but it is primarily a realisation a depiction of a journey from frustration to renunciation to devotion frustration is something which everybody experiences in life but most people who become frustrated they give up the enjoyment for some time but afterwards they again take up the enjoyment so to go from frustration to renunciation frustration means I can’t get it renunciation means I don’t want it the two are very different things so in frustration the desire is there but the capacity to get it is not there renunciation means the desire itself is not there so frustration and renunciation are not the same it is like somebody who is fasting because it is a holy day and they want to fast and somebody is fasting because their stomach is upset they want to eat but they can’t eat so from frustration to renunciation that frustration everybody experiences but journey from frustration to renunciation is not so common and from renunciation to devotion is even less common because in that case the renunciation often makes people hard hearted makes people want to aspire for impersonal oneness so her verses describe the journey from frustration through renunciation to devotion and in the previous verse it says that lord he is always close to me he is always there in my heart I gave up that lord who could have given me so many things and I was so foolish that I gave up the lord normally a prostitute engages in her job it’s to get money she wants money but then she was not just looking for she uses the word Ramana throughout she was expecting love she was expecting that somebody I will find who will love me so she was expecting money she was expecting pleasure she was expecting love and she realised that actually all this the lord is ready to give me but I gave him up and how unfortunate I am and I was chasing after looking for man who cannot provide me this they themselves are dissatisfied they themselves are not satisfied how can they provide me this and in this verse one thing is oh I turned away from the lord I left him for something so little so she is now thinking but what did I do after leaving the lord tormented my soul explains in his commentary over here refers to actually the the expertise of a prostitute the politically word today correct word for prostitute today is escort is the art which people have which they have to awaken to arouse desires in them so their gestures their expressions, their body movements everything such a way that they can trigger the lower desires in people so we all live in a community and we all interact with different people in different ways human beings are social creatures and to regulate the interaction of social beings we have culture now what exactly does culture mean, culture often people every country every city even every group of people they have their own culture people often associate the word culture with the language with the dress, with the food with the mannerisms yes these are what comprise culture but if you look at it in a more expansive sense we look the word culture is also used in biology say for example bacteria culture or yeast culture that means what biochemical medium where bacteria can grow or yeast can grow so similarly human culture is that environment where people’s humanity can grow that culture that social environment where people’s human side can grow that is human culture wherever people are they are going to dress, they are going to eat they are going to have some language for communication they are going to have some modes of some manners that’s fine but human culture will be that which brings out the human side of the people now we all have a higher side and lower side we have we have a Hiranyakashyapu within us we have a Prahalad within us and the human culture is that which actually brings out our higher side so we are born human beings we are born in human bodies but it is not automatically that we act like human beings animals are simply driven by instincts so if a cat sees a rat the cat cannot think today is ecology I should be fasting today the cat will just pounce and eat that so the animals are simply governed by instincts we human beings also have instincts but along with the instincts that push us to act in particular ways we have intelligence and with our intelligence we can choose which instincts to act on and which instincts to resist and to the extent we can do that discipline when we say human discipline essentially means to resist our instincts based on our intelligence what I want presently versus what I want ultimately say somebody is dieting what I want ultimately is I want a healthy fit body what I want presently is I want a taste of this good food so discipline means I am able to subordinate what I want presently to what I want ultimately and how do I know what I want ultimately that is with intelligence so the human culture is that environment which nourishes people’s intelligence which helps out to bring out their higher side to decrease their instinctive actions but when there is an excessively materialistic culture that materialistic culture focusses not on bringing out people’s higher side it focusses on bringing out their lower side so say as human beings we are born with human bodies we have instincts we have intelligence now if the intelligence is best used the humane side within us increases and it rises ultimately to the spiritual level so if the humane side if we don’t have a spiritual culture if we have a materialistic culture then the human side in that the intelligence is not nourished the instincts are triggered and then people regenerate from the human level to the bestial level to the animal level so in that sense human existence is at a junction at a cross section and if you consider three modes of material nature goodness, passion and ignorance the essential characteristic is that there is in goodness there is contemplation before action I think should I do this should I not do this then I act it’s contemplation before action and then that action is purposeful it’s quite often fruitful in passion there is action before contemplation I speak why did I do that why did I say that and in ignorance there is neither proper action nor proper contemplation just driven here and there sometimes we are just paralysed not doing anything sometimes we just act in a frantic way frantic frenzied way panicky way so basically if you consider from the perspective of instinct versus intelligence intelligence is strongest when there is the mode of goodness there is contemplation first and there is action instinct may push me to act in a particular way but I say no I will not act this way so the intelligence is strongest there and ignorance is just instinct sometimes people are ignorant they do action they don’t complete even one action go to next action next action third action they just can’t do anything properly so Krishna says that prakasha illumination is the characteristic of the mode of goodness 14.11 pravati is action I have to do this I have to do that that is the characteristic of the mode of action and moha illusion is the characteristic of the mode of ignorance so now in human culture the truly human culture is that which increases the goodness dharma itself has various meanings the bhagavatam is primarily a book of transcendence and the bhagavatam defines dharma as paradharma paradharma is transcendental dharma which helps us to develop love for Krishna the bhagavatam is considered to be the natural commentary on the vedanta sutra and the vedanta sutra begins with the question athato brahma jijnasa just as there is vedanta sutra vedanta is one branch of knowledge within the six its six systems of philosophy evolved in India one of them was vedanta so another was what was written by Jaimini mimamsa and the mimamsa sutra begins with the question athato dharma jijnasa now let us enquire what is dharma and in that context many different definitions of dharma are discussed one definition of dharma is that which increases the sattva within people and decreases the rajas and tamas so those activities that increase goodness and decrease passion and exuberance that is dharma this is not transcendental it is material there is dharma at a material level also so and that is also important for the conduct of society properly so here Pingala is lamenting what did I devote my life to sanketya vrityadhi vikarya vartaya that is an abominable profession now today’s politically correct culture is that we should not have any value judgments if something feels good to you it is good to you something feels bad to you it is bad to you but not make any value judgments in general about it it may be yes we don’t want to be judgemental in terms of looking down at others demeaning others that is not good and that really alienates people I was in Texas and I saw one car with a bumper sticker on it it says oh god please save me from your preachers now god actually saves us through his preachers but the preachers are self righteous holier than thou condescending people say I don’t want to have anything to do with these people oh god please save me from your preachers this typifies today’s mentality that nobody likes judgemental people and the very word preaching is associated with judgemental you are putting yourself on a high platform and you are looking down at others yes we should not be judgemental but at the same time judgments are simply a fact of life even the person who is a complete moral relativist says you know morality is completely subjective completely relative and if we ask them do you believe do you think that somewhere in the world someone is doing something that is wrong of course there are terrorists killing innocent people there are child abusers there are rapists they are doing wrong things so now if you ask the jihadis who are killing innocent people they don’t think that they are doing wrong they think they are doing the right thing so when you are saying that they are doing something wrong what are you doing you are actually imposing your moral standard on them you are judging them by your moral standard so judgments are simply unavoidable and we all instinctively understand that there are certain things which are right and certain things which are wrong I was in America and I was giving a corporate seminar was talking about moral relativism and after that one person came he said that he was an Amazon employee and he said in Amazon they have apparels where they depict dresses and mostly it’s female dresses and they often depict females in seductive poses over there but they said we have a policy that it’s only for the apparel of women not for the apparel of girls because we do not want to promote any abuse against girls against small children so here their goal is to sell products but even then they also draw a limit now this is something which we will not do so nobody can actually be a complete moral relativist all of us have an understanding that there are right things and wrong things some of us may have differences about what is right and what is wrong but we all have that abominable profession somebody may say no prostitutes they are just for whatever reason maybe they had no other alternative that’s why they got into that profession so why are we calling that abominable yes it’s not so much a judgement of the prostitute it is what is the effect now as it says prostitutes often they bring out the lower side so lower side within people that means as I said there is instinct and there is intelligence so when people want to succumb, indulge in their instincts without any consideration of dharma that is when they go to prostitutes and then prostitutes are trained there are different kinds of prostitutes also some are trained in such a way that they know how to seduce people they know how to turn on people so this is where this is where instead of bringing out people’s higher side people’s lower side is being brought out and when this happens then collectively society gets degraded so in today’s world there is this idea that there should be freedom of expression whatever you feel like doing you should be able to do it yes when they say there is freedom of expression but the same thing of bringing out the lower side within people that is done in today’s world as probably the biggest industry today the pornography industry so what is it doing in America there is baseball there is basketball there is soccer football so these three are the biggest games and huge money is involved but the franchises of all these three games combined together is less than the revenue from the pornography industry it’s huge so now what is it doing essentially it is bringing out the lower side within people the basis impulses within people are brought out and when this happens collectively society becomes degraded so human interactions should be in such a way that we help bring out the higher side in people not the lower side we should all interact with each other in a way that we all have a lower side we all have a higher side so we help each other to bring out our higher side now to dress attractively to look good that’s a natural human instinct but when people do that in a way that they want to seduce others they want to bring down the lower desires in others then that becomes a big problem this is not a female versus male issue it’s a psychological issue now males may also want to flatter women so that they can do all kinds of things with them so whichever way it is, it is basically in human interactions we have to see how, what is the result, what is the result of our interaction with others is my relationship with someone bringing out their higher side or is it bringing out their lower side so we should act as agents so that we can help people to bring out their higher side and in the Bhagavad Gita it says the madhyamadhikaris the madhyamadhikari are the intermediate level of people so they discern between different kinds of people so those who are madhyamadhikari, those are middle level devotees they worship the lord and they make friends with the devotees they are kind and compassionate to the innocent and they stay away from the envious so they differentiate between different people now why are they not kind and compassionate to the envious they want to be but the envious is such that the more they hear about Krishna, the more they hear about Krishna’s glory the more they see Krishna’s devotees they start offending more and more then that offence they are cursing God they are cursing Krishna’s devotees that is bringing out their lower side and a devotee doesn’t want to bring out one’s lower side, the devotee keeps a distance from them we serve such people through our prayers offered from a distance so in our interactions with others we are meant to bring out our higher side others higher side not others lower side so when the interactions are specially designed to trigger people’s lower side and this is done not just at an individual level, it is done at a social, cultural level today it is done using the best of technology then collectively society starts getting degraded and then when people’s lower side is triggered then it is it is not so easy once the instincts are triggered to change the instincts once the instincts start getting activated then our lower instincts are like a sleeping tiger suppose a tiger is sleeping and we are walking along we just move along the tiger sleeping will go on but if I think is this tiger really asleep we go and pinch the tiger we go and pinch the tiger we think is this tiger asleep or is this tiger dead well, if the tiger is not dead then soon I will be dead so let sleeping tiger sleep so like that we all have a lower side within us we don’t have to trigger that and in society becomes a large part of social society’s resources are dedicated to triggering people’s lower side whether it be lust or whether it be greed or whatever else then it becomes the society just goes wildly out of control because once people’s lower side is triggered then that takes over and then that makes them do things which they themselves would not normally do in their normal course of actions so the the whether it is lust or whether it is greed often when people say who are people who are not so financially well to do they are living in their own society they, not that they are happy but they are ok but when people who are not well to do are constantly exposed to all the wealthy and luxurious things of life through advertisement, through television then their desires within them get fuelled so much and they feel I just have to get these things by hook or by crook so Krishna talks about this in the Bhagavad Gita that from 16.11, 16.15 he talks about how when somebody is very strongly attached that when they are determined that I want to get material pleasures then what happens is Asha Pashistha Irvadha Kama Krodha Parayana Ihante Kama Bhogartham Anyayen Artha Sanchayan so they are bound by desires, I want this, I want that and then that leads to Anyayen Artha Sanchayan Anyayen means injustice, atrocity so basically what Krishna is saying over here, sensuality leads to immorality it leads to, not just immorality it leads even to people doing atrocities the next person he says how such people may even turn murderous Asvamaya Hatha Hrishatrur Hanishecha Paranapi I have eliminated this rival, I will kill this person also Idhamadhyamaya Labdham Imampraabse Manoratham I have got this much money, I will get more money and I will get more money so basically when people’s desires are triggered then even if they have some moral sense, that moral sense gets cast aside and then the beast within them gets awakened and when the beast within them gets awakened then they just end up doing terrible things sometimes when that beast becomes silenced they get, why did I do that but over a period of time when that beast gets awakened again and again and again then their conscience also becomes deadened and they start doing the same thing again and again and again so human culture is meant to bring out the best within not the beast within the best within we are all parts of Krishna and as parts of Krishna we all can be godly, we all are meant to bring out our godliness and when we interact with each other, we interact in a way that we help each other to rise upwards in our spiritual life and this is not even a spiritual principle, even for the material well being of society if people’s desires are triggered in an inordinate way Kama, Kama is Krishna uses the word Kama both in a positive and a negative sense Krishna uses the word Kama to refer to lust in a negative sense when he says Kama is the enemy he says in 3.36-43 he talks about how there is an inner force which makes us do terrible things he talks about Kama in a negative sense but then in the 7th chapter also in the 10th verse he also talks about how I am Kama Kama can be specifically translated as sex desire Kama can be generically translated as desire, as ambition so I am desire which is not contrary to Dharma so it is not that we while we are living in this world, it is not that we can be expected to be free from all desires, there are going to be desires in us and that’s why in every society there is some cultured way in which desires can be fulfilled so Vishal Prabhupada would say that there is marriage and within marriage the desires can be fulfilled, similarly there is ambition, we all have ambitions in life I want to achieve this, I want to get this, I want to earn this, I want to do this, now the test is the Kama the ambition should not be at the cost of Dharma when it is not that while living in the world we have to give up all ambitions ambitions we all have naturally, but when the ambitions make us give up Dharma then that is where it becomes a problem so naturally the very nature of existence is that we want to grow, just as we physically grow, we want to socially grow we want to economically grow, we want to culturally grow, but there is growth that is balanced and there is growth that is disproportionate, all the cells in the body they are growing and that’s how a child grows from the childhood to adulthood but this growth is proportionate and balanced growth, when there is a cancer cell in the body that cancer cell when it grows, its growth is disproportionate and disastrous the cancer cell grows and its growth causes the other cells in the body to get destroyed, causes the whole body eventually to get destroyed so the material growth when it is proportionate with our all round growth when Kama is growing it is managed within the precincts of Dharma and that’s proportionate growth Dharma, Artha, Kama, Moksha these are these are Purusharthas they are what human beings are meant to aspire for, this is what people live for but its proportionate but when only one thing is growing, when only one cell is growing at the cost of the growth of other cells then that is cancerous growth so cancerous growth destroys the body so Kama is a natural aspect of the human condition but in the balanced trajectory of human life there is Dharma in the beginning then there is Artha, there is Kama and there is also the ultimate pursuit towards Moksha but in today’s society Dharma has been removed and Moksha has been removed all that is there is Artha and Kama, people want money and people want material enjoyment and people want often if they can get the material enjoyment without having to work to earn all the money, that’s all the better for them so this is disproportionate so when people pursue Artha or Kama without Dharma and without any ultimate aspiration for Moksha, then that is like cancerous growth and just as cancer destroys the body a cancerous culture in the sense that a culture which induces the growth of cancerous desires in people disproportionate growth of certain desires whether it be anger, whether it be lust or whether it be greed, in such a society it destroys itself and for the society to move upwards, for the society to grow the specifics of the culture may be different in different parts of the world whether it is in India or whether it is in UK or whether it is in the West, in America or wherever it is the specifics of the culture will vary, but broadly all over the world people have understood this principle that there has to be some kind of regulation in the society some kind of regulation by which the people’s lower side is not intentionally triggered lower side is not intentionally triggered a western culture is now considered degraded by many, but actually West was not like this even 100 years ago 150 years ago even 100 years ago, the culture was quite conservative one devotee sent me some accounts of when the Britishers first came to India they considered so the British women who came to India they considered that the Indian women because India is a hot country so they would just wear footwear, chappals and move about they would not cover their legs with any socks and they say, you know, how can you go out in public with your legs bare and so the Britishers considered Indians uncultured Indian women uncultured because they were going around with bare legs so now it is not just bare legs, people go around with practically very little clothes, so even 100 years ago, whether it was the West or the East there was an understanding of chaste dressing, chaste culture but many things have happened especially the free sex revolution that came up and among many factors there was this psychologist Sigmund Freud, who had this idea that actually all mental problems that people have, they are because of their repressed sexual desires he was brilliant in his own way, but he was a pervert so in his childhood, he had sexual attraction for his mother and he generalised from his experience and he said actually, all boys are sexually attracted to their mothers and all girls are sexually attracted to their fathers but social taboos prevent us from acting on this and because social taboos prevent us from acting on this, that’s why there are so many mental problems so subsequently his idea has been completely discredited although he himself is respected, many of his ideas have been shown to be not at all scientific but the point is, so when this whole idea came up, oh, mental problems are because of repression, so what is the solution? End all repression just do what you want to do so there is philosophy there is ideology and there is culture so once ideology comes into the realm of culture then it becomes almost irreversible once certain ideas gain currency in people’s minds and that’s how this whole idea of free sensuality free interactions, all that gain popularity and once it’s gone into the popular culture, it’s although many of his ideas have been discredited it’s too late now society has become very licentious in its overall ways and all the thoughtful people all over are recognising there’s something wrong something wrong in the way people are people are living there was a survey by the Harvard Medical School about people who have what they call as free sex or free love, they found that these people they all live to be sexually attractive to others, they try to attract as many partners as possible and then they found that although these people they have free relationships with others although they call it free love they all feel unloved they feel lonely their bodies are coming in contact with many other bodies but their hearts are not touched, it’s not from a spiritual perspective even from a material perspective they know that they are using others and they are being used by others, so all there is there is loneliness, there is guilt there is the feeling of insecurity, profound insecurity so where we think that our and when we think that our self worth is determined by how much we can trigger desires within others then that is a very unstable way to live and that is something which after the attractiveness goes away what will one do after that and even when the attractiveness is there, it’s there for a short time so that way of living where one thinks that I have to trigger others lower desires in order to live, in order to be happy, in order to be successful that is a very fundamentally wrong premise on which to live most people may not consciously think like this but subconsciously they are part of a culture like that so we as we are practising bhakti, it’s not just about chanting Hare Krishna or coming to a temple it’s about changing the fundamental purpose of life the fundamental purpose of our interactions with others as devotees it’s not necessary that everyone we interact with will become a devotee, it will be wonderful if they do, but in our interaction with others we can at least try to help them bring out their higher side and specifically with respect to beauty, what are the different visions of physical beauty and how that was understood and practised in in the culture of they describe in bhakti texts that I’ll discuss in tomorrow’s class so I’ll summarise I spoke today about spiritual vision of material beauty that was the theme, within that I focused first on how spiritual awakening can happen at any time even to the most unlikeliest of candidates in the unlikeliest of settings a prostitute who is just out on her job at night can get profound realisations which are sung by generations of spiritual seekers and devotees thereafter that’s what happened to Pingala as it happened to Gajendra or as it happened to Vritrasul so her realisation described the journey from frustration to renunciation to devotion, so I don’t I can’t get it, I don’t want it, and devotion means I want only Krishna and in this particular case she is, I left Krishna who could give me wealth, who could give me pleasure, who could give me love, and I was seeking it in these other people who were themselves materialistic who were themselves asleep so he says that he laments about, I was engaged in such an abominable profession, what was the abominable profession, that I was bringing out the bestial desires within people, so we are born human beings and that we have a conflicted existence we have an instinct which we have instincts which tend us to impel us to act animalistically we have intelligence which can guide us to act in a divine way in a spiritual way so from the human level, if the instincts are too much triggered, we will go down to the bestial level, if the intelligence is nourished we will go to the divine or the spiritual level, and the three modes can also be analysed in terms, in goodness there is contemplation before action in passion, there is action first, contemplation later in ignorance, there is simply delusion either proper contemplation or proper action so Dharma is ultimately that which helps us to develop love for Krishna in the material sense, Dharma is that which helps bring out people’s higher side not their lower side in today’s world there is a whole industry which triggers people’s lower sides and that’s how millions of people, millions and literally billions of dollars are being made by triggering people’s lower side, and when people’s lower desires are triggered it’s like the beast within them comes out and they themselves do terrible things Krishna talks from sensuality to immorality and atrocity, all kinds of terrible things happen, and it’s not just at an individual level, which was always there throughout history, some people were in that kind of professions, but now it is at a collective social level where people’s lower sides, lust greed are being dragged out and to say that a prostitute’s profession is degraded it’s abominable, you may say it’s a value judgement, so we discuss value judgments in the terms of being judgement and looking down at others, that is not good, but judgments are inevitable, everybody does judgments and judgments we do based on what we think is good, what we think is bad some things are universal, child abusers murderers they are revived so the point is that we all have an innate moral sense, the specifics may vary, but there is a universal moral sense and in bhakti, in bhakti literature we consider something good or bad based on whether it brings out our lower side then it is bad, if it brings out our higher side then it is good and the karma itself is not bad karma when it is triggered in such a way that it brings out our lower side, then it is bad but if karma is regulated by dharma then that is considered, Krishna says I am that ambition is not bad but when ambition is within the factors of dharma, then it is good then it is like a proportionate growth, like the body’s healthy growth, but when karma grows alone at the cost of morality, at the cost of civility, at the cost of law then it is like cancerous growth it is disastrous so there is the normal human progression was dharma, artha, karma, moksha, in today’s society dharma and moksha left out, there is only artha and karma and this kind of growth is cancerous, so we as devotees when we interact with each other we, our interactions we try to do in such a way that we help people to bring out their higher side and the whole principle of bhakti is ultimately meant to bring out our higher side, to connect us with Krishna to bring out, not the beast within, but the best within, thank you very much Hare Krishna any time for questions or comments yes bro any time thank you wonderful to have you here thank you, an honour to be here your podcast is very inviting I am very pleased to have you here I have one question in regards to speaking about the professional prostitution can you help to explain how you know when Krishna came back when the prostitutes approached to greet Krishna that there were prostitutes in that society prostitutes help keep this sanctity of society so perhaps you can help us to understand how that’s a fact how to explain that to someone prostitutes even in Dwarka how to understand so how do you understand that there are prostitutes even in Dwarka and now there are three different things going on over there the first is that the bhakti literature is very specific or very unabashed in describing the inclusiveness of bhakti that means anybody from any background can practise bhakti that inclusiveness is there there is a verse that even those who are low born 9.32 in the Bhagavad Gita that even those who are low born Vaishya, Shudra, even they can practise bhakti, Kira, Kunandra, Pulinda Pulakasha, all kinds of people from all backgrounds can practise bhakti so the inclusiveness of bhakti is often unabashedly talked about in the bhakti literature and if you see the mood of that particular section when Krishna is coming and when Krishna is coming to Dwarka after a long time, everyone is attracted to him and Prabhupada says that one can even be a prostitute but if one is a devotee of the lord that is the important thing so this means that devotion is so inclusive that nobody is left out that is the important thing that is stressed over there we should whenever scripture speaks something we have to focus on where scripture is focussing otherwise we may miss out on the main point that is being made so the main point is that actually bhakti is so inclusive that even people who are of a profession that is normally considered to be degraded, even they can practise bhakti and this is how all attract to Krishna this is how accommodating bhakti is that is the thrust if you see the point of that section is not to give a description of of say of the social cross section of any particular place. Bhagavatam is a spiritual book while conveying a spiritual thrust there is this description also that is given so the thrust is on how everyone was attracted to Krishna even prostitutes were attracted to Krishna so having said that first point the second point to understand is that the word prostitute itself can have many different meanings so sometimes a woman who does not have a husband she may be she is not under the shelter of her husband women who were artists artists in the sense that they would dance in public during celebrations and festivals it would not be that cultured women would do that there would be women who would do that so in the Vedic culture there were women who were called Devi Dasis Devi Dasis now some of the people some of them in the westernised media they are depicted as prostitutes temples were like places where all these Devi Dasis were there and it was a place of prostitution that’s completely wrong there were some women who would want to be completely devoted to God and then they would come to the temple and they would dance for the pleasure of the Lord and they would be devoted to the Lord so now they were by some people because they were not not under the protection of some man they would be called as prostitutes specifically women who were devoted to God but also there were artists so the word prostitute can have many different meanings it does not necessarily have to mean a woman who trades her body for money so specifically what that word means that particular word means there can be different meanings of that thirdly even if we say that actually the prostitutes refer to women who were doing a business with their bodies still the point remains that even in a place like Dwarka isn’t it a place where Krishna is there that there are all pure devotees there yes there are pure devotees but when the spiritual manifests at the material level then there is there is always a complex interaction that happens the spiritual manifests at the material level then in the ultimate sense there is, it’s all a leela of the Lord but in the intermediate sense sometimes there are some things which are right some things which are wrong just like Dwarka was, they are all pure devotees of Krishna but at the same time they all got into a drunken brawl and they fought with each other and they killed each other that’s how the whole thing ends over there so there is a deeper explanation for that, actually Krishna wanted things to end in that way so that he could delude the demons, that is called as Asura Mohan Leela so to delude the demons Krishna sometimes acts in such a way which can lead people to conclude to come to counter devotional conclusions but the important thing is that in the ultimate sense everything that happens in the Lord’s immediate circle that is transcendental but in the immediate sense there can be right or wrong Yudhishthira is gambling Draupadi, that’s wrong but then through Yudhishthira’s gambling Draupadi, the pastime of Krishna coming to the rescue of his devotees that is enacted so his decision from a moral point of view is wrong he should not set a stake with his wife but then from the ultimate perspective is Krishna orchestrated at all so that he could demonstrate a lesson so like that we say at one level the devotees in in Ayodhya the people of Ayodhya described initially in the Ramayana that they were so heartbroken when Ram left they all wanted to come out with Ram and Ram had to actually trick them that night when they were sleeping Ram woke up early in the morning and he left in the chariot otherwise they would all have come with him they were so devoted to him that they were ready to take up with Ram the sentence of exile but then yet some of those they ended up criticising Sita and they were criticising her so much that Ram had to be separated from Sita so you know when we have the when the Lord resides in this world in a particular place in a particular context it’s not necessary that everybody in that setting will be acting devotionally so so everybody will not be acting devotionally means that there is there is a there is a dharmic there is a principle of dharma but the principle of dharma also vary for different people for the kings especially no they are expected to be subordinate to sages that is the principle activity of dharma for them but along with that they have royal opulence they often had polygamy they had many queens with them and sometimes they might unite with their maidservants also but the idea was they would take responsibility they would maintain that Dhritarashtra he got Vidura when Gandhari was pregnant for a long time he got Vidura as her maidservant but then that maidservant was also maintained so the the perimeter of dharma dharma is a principle which regulates but the circumference of what comprises dharma that varies for different people so that varies for different people means the principles of dharma at a material level for brahmanas are different from that for kshatriyas and they are different from that for shudras so actually Prabhupada says that at one level there are people who are going to have unwarranted who have excessive sensual desires and for such people within the now they rather than they contaminate society the culture women society there is a facility provided for them so that means that the principle of dharma is not monolithic it’s like concentric circles it cannot fit at this level cannot fit at this level but stay within some kind of regulation so that way if at all we have to argue that the word prostitute there refers to women who were engaged in prostitution then also we understand that this could have been a part of the lord’s plan because when the lord descends in this world not all associates all the time act in the mode of transcendental devotion so the lord would be demonstrating how the through such people that the principles of there may be people who are devoted to the lord but still that devotion doesn’t necessarily lead to renunciation there is devotion that devotion does not necessarily immediately lead to attachment and that very life so even those people are accommodated many of the kings they would be dharmic but that dharma doesn’t mean that they were going to live life like monastics they would be living in an opulent way and as long as they had that intention for devotion as long as they were doing it due to protecting dharma they had the different degrees of life within which they could work does that answer your question? thank you so can we stop here? ok sorry ok yeah I’d like to thank Krishna for flying me here ten hours two days ago so I could hear you speak hello hello I thank you very much I read something online from the Bhagavad Gita a couple of weeks ago one devotee said that there’s always gossip at the shallow end of the pool and someone else said well there’s gossip at the deep end of the pool also and I like poetry and I would like to read this real quick to you and this has a lot to do with me also it’s called the tongue I never get tired of moving along the winding road here there and everywhere our gossip with them all is told it is heard at the shallow end of the pool as well as the deep travelling faster than the speed of sound through miles and miles I see I can raise you up and I can cut you down your smiling face I can turn into a frown how can you say yes when you mean no tell me the truth in this material world show just thinking about pleasure is enough to believe in this world even if it’s false our mind accepts it ready to be unfurled our habits must change with the connection to enjoyment of the past pain has locked us in our Krishna he told us it won’t last I’m as free as a bird as Krishna has broken the material shell always with me now the Lord knows I know very well the fresh air I’m breathing keeps me worried about my mind absorbs Kapapa’s purports no more do I twist and shout Thank you Thank you very much Hare Krishna Shri Mataji