Sumanta-Akrura parallels and ADD acronym for dealing with doubts

​Bhagavatam class at Bhaktivedanta Manor, London, UK

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
So today morning, we’ll continue the discussion on the Ramayana.
And I’ll discuss today and tomorrow two incidents, one of Lord Rama leaving Ayodhya and the other of him returning to Ayodhya. And through that we will discuss some aspects about how the Lord can enter into our heart and the Lord may leave our heart. Ayodhya at one level is a historical reality.
A place called Ayodhya is there. At another level, it actually represents our heart. And sometimes because of our own wrong choices, the Lord may choose to leave our heart or we may constrain the Lord to leave our heart.
And we can also invite the Lord back into our heart by sincere call. So usually when the Lord departs, when Ramachandra departs from Ayodhya, it is primarily Kaikeyi and Sumantra and Mantra. They are held responsible.
Mantra poisons the mind of Kaikeyi. And at that time there are many other characters involved who try according to their capacity to prevent this calamity from happening. One of them is Dashrath’s trusted minister, Sumantra.
Sumantra has been serving Dashrath for decades and he feels the joys and the pains of the king as much as the king himself. So on that fateful night, as morning comes, Sumantra comes to Dashrath’s palace to invite him to come to the Yagyashala, the place where the coronation is going to happen. And he finds Dashrath completely dishevelled, devastated.
He feels alarmed. What has gone wrong? Kaikeyi’s face is taut and Dashrath has no condition to speak. He says that the king wants to speak to his son.
Call him. Sumantra is very uncomfortable. What is going on? Sometimes you go to a place and there is some tension between the two people over there and then somebody tells you to do something.
We are always unsure. Should I be doing this or should I not be doing it? But then Dashrath doesn’t say anything. So he leaves.
And Dashrath is calling Ram to bless him and then accompany him to the palace, to the Yagyashala. But when he gets Ram and then he sees how Kaikeyi very heartlessly tells Ram that he has to go to the forest. At that time, Sumantra is devastated, not knowing what to do, how to deal with the situation.
Then as events transpire, eventually Dashrath’s Ram decides to honour. Ram is firmly resolved to honour Dashrath’s word. And then Ram goes and meets Sita, meets Kaushalya and he gives all his property in charity.
And then he returns to take the final blessings of Dashrath so that he can depart. At this time, Dashrath is beyond himself with grief and he tells Ram that do not go to the forest. You stay here with me.
He says, I am bound by my word to this wicked woman and therefore I have to ask you to go. But he says, you don’t have to obey. What I am doing is wrong, but I can’t give up my world.
So, O son, he tells this in public. You know, you arise in a coup against me, have me arrested and take this kingdom to yourself. So when Kaikeyi hears this, she is alarmed.
Ram says, O father, may you live for a thousand years more and I will soon come back after 14 years and serve you as your assistant in this kingdom. I do not desire this kingdom. I desire only to honour your word.
Seeing this, Kaikeyi feels relieved. Seeing all this, Sumantra gets furious. Normally, there is a hierarchy of power and especially in political circles, if you speak one wrong word against somebody who is in power, that person can crush.
And especially where there is kings, Kaikeyi has already proven herself to be quite heartless and yet Sumantra sticks his head out and he opposes her and he says, Do you have no heart, O lady? Can you not see how your husband is devastated by your evil desires? Do you want to cause his death? Do you want to cause the destruction of your whole dynasty? You who are a mother who has brought sons into this world, do you want to now send into the forest one who is just like your son? One who has never treated you differently from the way he has treated his mother? How can you live? How is it that the earth is not splitting apart and swallowing you? How is it that the sages have not cursed you? How is it that your own heart is not shattered into pieces even before you uttered a word like this? Seeing this, no effect on Kaikeyi at all. Sometimes we feel that when we become detached, we may become heartless, we may become uncaring. It’s possible, but actually what makes us heartless much more than detachment is attachment.
When we become attached to something, our emotions become stuck in the object of that attachment. And we feel emotions only in relationship with that. And we don’t feel any emotion about anything else.
So Kaikeyi, her emotions are completely caught in the idea that my son has to become the king. And because of that she feels no emotion for anyone else. She doesn’t feel the king’s pain, she doesn’t feel the courtier’s pain, she doesn’t feel the Ram’s pain, nothing.
So it is actually attachment more than detachment that can make us heartless. And Sumantra sees his efforts in vain. And then Ram consoles Sumantra.
He says, I will take your leave now. And Dashrath sees this and Dashrath says, Sumantra, get my finest chariot and take him in the royal chariot. Ram has been planning to go on foot, but he decides to defer to this wish of his father.
And then as Ram ascends the chariot, at that time Sumantra is already there and Sumantra starts moving the chariot. And Dashrath is stressed beyond words. He is running after the chariot.
Stop! Stop! Slow down! Slow down! And if he is running so fast, he is elderly, he is overwhelmed with grief and falls down. No, never before have the citizens and the queens seen the king whose embodiment of power and grace has fallen down in public. And there is a cry of alarm, alas! And they all run.
Now Ram sees this and wants to stop, but realises that stopping will only agonise the pain. And therefore he tells Sumantra, move on. The king has fallen to the ground and there he says, stop! Stop, Sumantra, I order you, stop! Now Ram says, move on.
Sumantra says, you know, he is my king, you are my future king, whom should I obey? So Ram says, oh, you should understand what is good for everyone. The pain is unavoidable. Don’t prolong this unavoidable pain.
Later on, if the king asks you why you didn’t stop, tell him that there was so much noise all around, I did not hear your words. Please move on. And Sumantra moves on and eventually takes him to the forest.
He takes him to the… they go across the river and then they come to the place of Guha. And there Ram spends a night on the forest floor itself. And then the next morning Sumantra returns.
There is much more that happens. Before this, the Yodhyavasis, many of the Yodhyavasis want to follow Ram. And when they all want to follow Ram, Sumantra, Ram is told by Sumantra, you take the chariot inside the water and outside the water and they wake up early in the morning and they depart so that they can’t detect where he has gone.
So now in many ways Sumantra’s role in Ram Leela is similar to Akrura’s role in Krishna Leela. Just as Akrura came in a chariot and took Krishna away from his most intimate devotees, the Vrajavasis, similarly Sumantra came, Sumantra had to take Ram away from the Yodhyavasis. In one sense Sumantra’s task was even more difficult.
Because Akrura never had to go back to the Gopis and face their anger and anguish. But Sumantra had to go back to Yodhya and he had to face the anger of the citizens. Why did you deceive us? Why did you let… why did you go away like this and not allowing us to follow him? And then he had to report the news of the austere condition in which Ram was living to Dashrath.
And Dashrath’s agony increased more and more through all this. So actually sometimes we may have to do some service which is actually very difficult to do. And that service may cause us distress, that service may cause others distress.
But then you have to know that more important than the immediate emotions are the ultimate purpose. Actually Prabhupada when he went to America, it was not a pleasant thing either materially or spiritually for him. Materially he was old, he had no security, he had no money.
Spiritually his heart longed to be in Vrindavan. And the first time when he… first Gaur Purnima that he celebrated in America. Prabhupada writes in his diary that actually all my God brothers, they will be in Vrindavan, they will be in Mayapur, there will be beautiful celebrations of Gaur Purnima, there will be Kirtans, there will be Kathas, there will be Deities.
And he says I am all alone over here. Especially festivals of the time when we come together as devotees and our devotion becomes a collective celebration. And for Prabhupada to be away from it all, all alone in 1966, at that time there were practically no followers.
And even if there were followers, Prabhupada was just talking very basics about body and soul. So they would not have understood his celebration of Gaur Purnima. So in fact there was no one with whom he could share it.
And Prabhupada took up that very difficult service. It was not just physically difficult, it was also spiritually difficult. Of course he had that purpose that I have to carry out the instruction of my spiritual master.
And Prabhupada writes in his diary that when he was going on Jal Doota, what sustained him was two things. Remembering the instruction of his spiritual master and he says reading Chaitanya Chaitanya Amrit. He was reading Chaitanya Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’s pastime.
Meditating on Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’s prophecy. In every city and town and village of the world the names of Krishna will be chanted. So sometimes difficult services need to be done and Suvantra he demonstrates for the service of the Lord.
Even very great not just material difficulty but spiritual difficulty in terms of agony may have to be accepted. Now when Suvantra speaks these words to he tries to dissuade Kaikeyi from her evil design. And yet Kaikeyi is completely blind.
She is deadened. She is deafened. And I said that’s because of her attachment.
So internally there are two main obstacles that come on the spiritual path. One is desire and the other is a doubt. Now we may have desires for many other things and that and that.
And those desires may distract us from the spiritual path. And the other is doubt. Doubt about what we are practising.
Doubt about Krishna. And that may also dissuade us. So if we consider a spiritual path to be a straight path in this journey.
Now desire takes us away from that path. And doubt slows us down on that path. Doubt takes us away.
Why do you want to go here? There is nothing worth over here. So desire takes us away. Doubt slows us down or stops us or even takes us, pushes us back.
So I’ll talk about these two obstacles on the spiritual path. Today I’ll talk about doubt. And tomorrow when Ram returns to Yogya and that is the past time in that connection, I’ll talk about desire.
For Kaikeyi, actually when Mantra first comes and tells that Mantra is in a bad mood and she’s a hunchback lady and for her to be in a sullen mood is normal. So initially Kaikeyi doesn’t take it seriously. Mantra is very upset.
What’s the matter? Don’t you know? Why can you live so peacefully here while Ram is going to be coronated as next king? Actually when Kaikeyi hears this, she’s delighted. She takes out her jewel necklace and she says, Oh, this is the best news that you have ever brought for me. Here, have this reward.
And Mantra, she just flings the jewel necklace on the ground and she says, Now, don’t you understand? Now you are being deprived of everything. Actually it is Mantra who feels she’s going to be deprived of everything. What has happened is that Mantra, because she is hunchback and she’s of a sullen nature, often she would be, she was a butt of jokes from others.
And when Kaikeyi became the favourite queen of Dashrath, her position in the royal assembly had become elevated in the royal palace. And Mantra was her favourite servant and therefore Mantra’s position had also become elevated. And nobody dared to now make jokes at her.
But she was fearful that if Ram becomes the king, then his wife and his mother, they will get the special position. If Kaikeyi doesn’t have a special position, then I won’t have a special position. And because of that, she felt extremely agitated when Kaikeyi was no longer going to be the favourite queen of the king.
And that’s why in order to secure her position, she wanted to maintain Kaikeyi’s position. And one way to maintain the position was to have Kaikeyi’s son installed as the king. So at that time, Kaikeyi just did not take her at all seriously.
She says, No, Ram and Bharat love each other. So Kaikeyi said, No, don’t you understand? If Ram becomes the king, he will see Bharat as a threat. And once he sees Bharat as a threat, he may have Bharat exiled or he may just frame Bharat and have him executed also.
She says, What nonsense are you speaking? Ram will never do this. Then why do you think that this whole coronation is happening while Bharat is not present here? What is the hurry? The very fact that this coronation is happening in the absence of Bharat means that Bharat is being sidelined. It’s a systematic conspiracy to sideline Bharat.
So actually that is not the case at all. But Dashrath Maharaj, he has been contemplating. He has been contemplating handing over the reigns of the kingdom to his son for a long time.
And one particular occasion that Vairagya rises in his heart. Now it is said that once he was combing his hair and he saw white hair on his head. Now most people when they see white hair, they want to get a hair dye and make it black again.
But Dashrath Maharaj saw white hair and he says, I am becoming old. Old age is proximity to death. Therefore, I have to give up my attachments.
Let me give up this kingdom. Let me entrust this kingdom to my son. So he gets that inspiration at that time and that’s how he takes the action.
So there is no conspiracy over there. But this is how doubts get planted. Now at this point, when Kaikeyi hears this, you know, why? Why is it happening in such haste? Maybe there is a conspiracy.
And then he starts, he starts hearing mantra. And the more she starts hearing mantra, the more the doubt starts becoming bigger and bigger and bigger. So now actually Kaikeyi, she makes two mistakes because of which because of which this whole calamity happens.
First is that she hears mantra very submissively. You know, mantra we could say, it represents our mind. She represents our mind.
So we are meant to hear Krishna and Krishna’s representative submissively. But instead we hear the mind very submissively. And that is, okay, the mantra was there and she might not have realised that, okay, something terrible may happen through this hearing because mantra was a trusted aid.
She could have, she heard, she heard of her. That is understandable. But her second and graver mistake was that she never consulted anyone else.
She never clarified with anyone else. She could talk with Sumantra, she could talk with her co-wife, she could talk with the priest, Vashishtha. Vashishtha had been there for many, for a long, long time.
And he had no vested interests over there. So she did not ask anyone else. And this is how actually doubt can ruin us.
First, we hear some source of doubt. We just keep hearing it uncritically, submissively. And then afterwards, we don’t seek clarification from anyone else.
That happens. Then our bhakti can get destroyed. Ultimately, of course, bhakti is imperishable.
It’s not destroyed. But for a long, long year, for many, many years, it will just get so covered up that it may be as if destroyed. So we live in a world where doubts are very much prevalent.
And especially, say, with the Internet giving a big mouth for big mouths. You know, people are there, people who want to talk a lot. And you get a big, big forum.
Anyone can say anything about anyone. And it can get circulated practically all over the world. So once a doubt is planted, the doubt starts growing, growing, growing, growing.
And sometimes we just, we just read one, I never knew about this. Is this really true? And then we just go on and on and on. And we just, hey, this is what I got into.
I don’t want to be a part of this. Sometimes some people may read something and just decide, I don’t want to be a part of this. I don’t want to practise bhakti at all.
Just give it up. But what has happened over here is there is only one side of the story. And often it is not even one side of the story.
It is a distorted side of a story. It is because at one level in the Bhagavatam, the third canto, it said doubt, samshaya, is a function of the intelligence. The capacity to doubt signifies intelligence.
It’s only an intelligent person who can doubt. A foolish person will believe whatever they hear and they may just, they may just get carried away by that. So to doubt what we hear, that requires intelligence.
But at the same time, while doubt is a function of the intelligence, doubt is not the only function of the intelligence. Or rather doubt is a symptom of intelligence, but doubt is not the only symptom of intelligence. In spiritual circles, doubt is considered a weakness.
Faith is considered strength. But in intellectual circles, in today’s academic world, we could say, in general intellectual circles, doubt is considered a virtue. Whatever you hear, you shouldn’t believe uncritically.
Learn to doubt it. And they consider faith a weakness. But faith, it says, it distorts your perfection.
Because you have faith, so you’ll believe whatever they say. It’s not so simple. Doubt can be a virtue, but doubt can also be a deficiency.
Because doubt can only tell us what is wrong. Doubt can never tell us what is right. Doubt something, this doesn’t make sense.
The school of thought that grows from doubt is scepticism. Scepticism can tell us what is wrong. We can become, whatever we hear, we can be sceptical of that.
And we say, hey, this is a problem. This is a problem. This is a problem with this.
But scepticism can never tell us what is right. It can only show what is wrong with what. So if somebody is sceptical, actually if they are sceptical, they should be fully sceptical.
To be fully sceptical means to be sceptical of scepticism also. That means, if I am sceptical of every philosophy that I hear, let me be sceptical of scepticism also. And recognise that scepticism itself is a problem.
The problem of scepticism is, it can only tell me what is wrong. It can never tell me what is right. It’s like a patient goes to a doctor.
And suppose the patient also has some medical knowledge. The patient says, you know, this doctor has this problem. This doctor has this problem.
This doctor, this diagnosis, this is this problem. This is this problem. Now I may have doubts about, I may go to allopathic doctor and I can Google and find out, oh, all problems are allopathic.
And I go to Ayurvedic doctor and I find out all problems are Ayurveda. Criticisms of Ayurveda. I go and look at homoeopathy, there are criticisms of homoeopathy also.
I may go into naturopathy, there are criticisms of naturopathy also. So if I just find criticism of every possible treatment that is there, the end result is if I have a disease, my disease will stay with me. It’s not going to get cured.
So scepticism can only tell me what is wrong. It can never help me understand what is right. It cannot help me to set things right.
So we need to not just doubt our beliefs, we need to doubt our doubts also. We need to doubt our doubts. Now doubt can never tell me that which is right.
It can only tell me that which is wrong. So when it comes to doubts, there are three broad ways in which we can deal with the doubts. I often use the acronym ADD, ADD for dealing with three ways in which we can deal with the doubts.
This is where we add to our faith. First A is ask. If you have some doubts, you have to ask.
And generally, if we have doubts, we have to ask some devotee, some person who is capable of answering those doubts. Because different devotees have different natures. And some people may be more intellectual than others.
And some people have a more logical, rational mind. They may get more doubts and more questions than others. Now if we start raising these questions and doubts in the general community of devotees, most people may not be getting that kind of questions.
So then what happens? Our questions, they may actually, if we ask some devotees some questions and they are not really analytical, intellectual, rational, that’s not a deficiency in them. Just different devotees have different natures. But asking questions in inappropriate forums can end up, you know, creating a negative perception about ourselves.
People starting, you know, this person is a doubter, this person is a jnani, this person is not a bhakta. It’s not like that. Some different people have different intellectual needs.
And we have to get our intellectual needs fulfilled by finding an appropriate intellectual forum up, by getting appropriate association. Rupa Goswami, the Bhakti Rasamrita Sindhu states that we need sajati ashe bhagwat bhaktasangam. That means we need like-minded association, association of devotees who think like us.
So if we are more intellectual, we may need the association of intellectual devotees. So in the right forum, we ask the questions. Keeping the doubts inside us is often like hiding a wound.
Now hiding the wound can often aggravate the wound. We don’t need to hide the wound, we need to heal the wound. So by asking in appropriate forums.
Now when there is a wound, you know, if I show the wound to just people around me, what a terrible wound it is. And if I am feeling bad, I may feel, I got a terrible wound. Better show the wound to a doctor and the doctor will treat it properly.
So like that we need to ask proper devotees about the question-answer, about whatever doubts we may have. That is, A is ask, D is delay. Delay means that we have to, we could say more than delay, we could say differ.
Differ means push to a later time. Why? Because there are some questions which may need us to grow intellectually and spiritually before we can understand the answers. In any field of knowledge, we don’t understand everything overnight.
In quantum physics, if we see, quantum physics is one of the most baffling forms of knowledge that is there today. It is so baffling that even Einstein couldn’t get it. In fact, there in the history of science there were conflicts between Einstein who was a pioneer of relativity and others like Neil Bohr and others who were pioneers of quantum physics.
So quantum physics actually is completely counterintuitive. According to quantum physics, if you see, there is no such thing as this Mike existing. All of the universe comprises of his waves.
And when there is an observer, at that time the waves collapse. There is a quantum mechanical equation according to which the waves collapse and certain forms and certain objects appear. So it’s only when I am looking that this Mike exists.
If I am not looking, this Mike doesn’t exist. That is the implication of quantum physics. Now, of course, I am making things very simple.
It’s a bare bones explanation. But this is what Einstein, one of his most famous quotes about quantum physics is that I would like to believe that the moon continues to exist even if I am not looking at it. It’s obvious, but actually according to quantum physics, it doesn’t exist.
So famous quantum physicist, when a student asked him, you know, how do I make sense of this? How do I picture what quantum physics is saying? So his reply has become immortalised in the textbooks of quantum physics. Stop thinking, start calculating. Stop thinking, start calculating.
What that means is that quantum physics basically is all about mathematical equations and those equations work phenomenally well. Using quantum physics, a satellite can actually measure the size of a coin on a street in New York and precisely it can measure it. So as far as mathematics is concerned, it’s very precise.
But as far as making sense in terms of getting a visual picture of what the world is, it just doesn’t work. So now, broadly speaking in science, there are two fields of knowledge. In physics, there is relativity which Einstein pioneered and there is quantum physics.
So relativity deals especially with cosmic bodies and cosmic objects and cosmic distances. And quantum physics deals with subatomic particles. So currently these two branches of knowledge are almost irreconcilable.
There have been scientists who have been striving and striving to get this done, to reconcile the two. But they just failed. Stephen Hawking, after several decades of trying to come up with a unified theory, finally he just gave up.
Now of course, when he gave up also he gave a positive spin to it. He announced, you know, I am happy to announce that humanity’s quest for knowledge will never end. That means he is actually masking up the inability to know as a positive thing.
But that’s how it is. So now how does science work today? You know, how do scientists work? Whichever theory works, they use it and move on. So where quantum physics works, they use quantum physics.
Where relativity works, they use relativity and they go on. So even in the field which people think is very intellectual, which is based on logic and scepticism, there also scientists, they differ answers. When it comes to what is the nature of reality, we don’t know.
So basically now the mainstream understanding in science is science gives us not reality, but science gives us models of reality. So quantum physics offers us one model of reality and relativity offers us another model of reality. We could say model is like a map.
Like in Britain you may have a political map, you may have a topographical map. So they have different features. So like that there are different maps.
And how to bring those two maps together, that’s almost something which is very, very difficult. And even scientists don’t do that. They say we can’t do it.
They just differ it. So maybe in future we will get a theory which will explain these things. So like that, if scientists who are in a field which is supposed to be very sceptical, there also they recognise that we cannot get all answers.
They differ certain questions. Similarly, sometimes we may not be able to reconcile some features between, say, the scientific worldview and the scriptural worldview, what the scriptures say about cosmography, what science says about cosmography. So we can differ that.
It is not that every question has to be answered right now. So by recognising that certain questions may require certain goals, the scientists, they have this faith that in future a theory will come which will be able to reconcile them. So they are also living on faith.
A pig and a future theory reconciling. Till then, OK, whatever works, we use it. So same way for us, it’s not two scientific theories, but maybe it’s science which we use for our functioning in our day to day life and scripture which we use for our spiritual growth.
So we may not be able to reconcile everything. There are devotee specialists who may help us to bring a better sense of, better understanding of both. But the point is, we don’t need answers for everything.
There are some questions which can be deferred. Yes, later. So when we are practising bhakti, if we just start getting caught in every detail, if I’m studying scripture and if I start making every detail as important, I have to get an answer to this.
No. We sometimes have to delay things. No, defer.
OK, this is a question. Maybe if the question is pressing, I can just write it down somewhere and keep it and keep reading, keep moving onwards. And the third is downplay.
Defer means to push forward and downplay means to recognise that when we study scripture also, certain things are important and certain things are not all that important. So in the first canto of Srimad Bhagavatam, in the 10th chapter, when Krishna is, Krishna leaves, leaves Hastinapura, Indraprastha and comes to Dwarka. At that time, the path by which he comes is described.
So he went to this city, this city, this city, passed by this river. And Prabhupada writes in the purport over there that some scientists may try to retrace the exact path by which Krishna came. And Prabhupada says that is practically an impossible task because the surface of the earth keeps changing.
That is the nature of geology. I’m paraphrasing all this over here. And he says as far as we are concerned, we are simply satisfied that Krishna has reached Dwarka and is going to perform pastimes with his devotees.
So when we study scripture, Prabhupada is downplaying it. This is not all that important. One time one devotee asked Prabhupada that, now if we go to the scholars and we tell the scholars that Ugrasen had millions and millions of bodyguards.
There is some figure given in the Bhagavatam about how Ugrasen had so many bodyguards. So they laugh at us. The scholars laugh at us.
They say how is it possible? Where were their houses? Where were their toilets? How could they all live in a small city like Dwarka? No, Prabhupada could have given any answer. Prabhupada could have said Krishna has infinite power. Krishna can do anything.
Prabhupada takes a very pragmatic approach. Prabhupada says, among all the thousands of verses in the Bhagavatam, was that the only thing you found to speak to scholars? Was that the only thing you found to speak to scholars? So we have to know that we have a purpose. Our purpose is to share the essential message of scripture.
And while sharing that essential message, there are other details. It’s not that we deny or reject those details. But we have to know what is more important and what is less important.
In our own practise of bhakti and in our sharing bhakti with others. So one of the offences to the holy name is to instruct faithless people in the glories of the holy name. One understanding of this offence can also be to instruct people in things that they can’t have faith in.
If a person has come from a particular background, then if we tell them to believe in certain things, this is, if you don’t believe this, then you are a doubter and you are going to go to hell. It’s not like that. There are certain things which are important.
Certain things are not all that important. So certain things, when in our study of scripture, in our outreach of scripture, we need to downplay certain things. This downplaying is simply so that our purpose as sharers of Krishna bhakti is to make the path of people to Krishna easier.
But when we share with people things that are not very important, that are not central to our message, then instead of making the path easier, we are actually creating hurdles in their path. So as preachers, we may end up doing disservice instead of doing service. So by recognising what is the essential message of scripture, if you look at Shri Prabhupada’s presentation of scripture, it’s very clear.
He often emphasises our spiritual identity, emphasises the practise of bhakti, emphasises chanting of the holy names. Actually, our central process of bhakti, it not only makes great sense, it also brings about tangible transformation. And once that transformation comes in the heart, then other questions become irrelevant.
So when actually one experiences the change in one’s life, then one says, this works. Let me practise this more and more. So I’ll conclude with one example of how Bhaktivinod Thakur deals with this in his book about Lord Chaitanya.
He uses preface in English and there he writes, you know, as far as the question of Shri Chaitanya’s identity is concerned, we leave that for our esteemed readers to decide. He says, for the Vaishnavas, they have accepted Lord Chaitanya as an incarnation of Krishna, as God himself. And they often cite the many miracles that Shri Chaitanya performed as the proof of his divinity.
Nonetheless, miracles are not the proof of divinity. Even demons like Ravana perform miracles like changing his form. So the real gift of Shri Chaitanya is the process of divine love that he offers and the flood of love for God that comes in the heart by following this process.
So irrespective of how our readers resolve the question of Shri Chaitanya’s identity, we urge them to follow his message of love and experience the flood of love in their own hearts. So sometimes we may be philosophically correct in giving a particular point, but we may be practically or compassionately totally wrong. When somebody asks, you know, Shri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, how can you say he is God? Somebody from a Hindu background comes and says that.
I’ve heard that. I’ve always heard about Krishna, but I’ve never heard about Shri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. So how can you say Shri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu is Krishna? And suppose I quote from some Puran, anybody who sees a difference between Krishna Chandra and Gaurachandra, he is going to stay in hell for 10,000 years.
Now, even if there is a quote like this, then that is not what we need to speak over there. Now, where people are, we help them to take one step forward. You know, if somebody is climbing up a mountain and we are their aid, then we have to show them the path by which they can take one step forward from here to here.
Otherwise, they say they are here and they have to take a huge leap to come to the next step. And if you say this leap is the only way you can come ahead. And they say, I can’t take this leap.
Then they stay where they are. They get lost. So we don’t have to make progress in bhakti more difficult than what it needs to be.
There is already some difficulty because of having to battle with our senses, battle with our mind, control ourselves and practise the core principles. And that difficulty is animated. But by bringing irrelevant points and highlighting those points, which are not really important for one’s spiritual growth, then we end up making bhakti more difficult than what it needs to be.
By downplaying that, those aspects which are not central and emphasising those aspects which are actually transformational in people’s lives, then they can grow. And by that transformation, their faith develops. And then based on faith, they can themselves deal with other peripheral issues in a way that is best for their growth.
So I’ll summarise. I talked about the character of Sumantra and how he stuck his neck out in trying to stop Dashrath and Lakshmikai from having Ram exiled. And after that he had to go through a very painful task of taking Ram away.
And when two authorities, Ram and Lakshmikai, gave two different instructions, the resolution was focus on what is beneficial, what is the essential purpose of what I’m doing. And he resolved that. And he had to come back actually, back into the same kingdom where he had taken Ram.
In that sense, his service is more difficult than that of Akrora’s. But sometimes if a difficult service is required for our purpose, we do that. Prabhupada did that when he went to America, leaving the devotional land of Vrindavan far behind.
And if you consider Ayodhya to be like our heart, what may cause Ram to go out of our heart is two things, desire and doubt. When we desire something else, then we displace the Lord from the heart. When we doubt, then also we send the Lord out of our heart.
So we discuss how to deal with doubts is ADD. First is A is ask. Now we have to find out appropriate devotee forums where we can, devotees who think like us, who are, if we are logical, rational, we find out those devotees and ask the questions over there.
Concealing a doubt is like concealing a wound. It may become worse. And doubt is an intellectual virtue in some cases.
But while doubting everything else, we need to learn to doubt, doubt also. Be sceptical of scepticism also. Doubt can only tell us what is wrong, never what is right.
To know what is right, we have to take a leap of faith. So asking is one way. Second way is deferring.
Knowing that certain questions may require certain progress, certain level of progress to answer, we may defer some questions. I discussed how even in science, that’s what scientists do when they can’t reconcile quantum physics with relativity. They just use whatever works and they defer the integration of two, the two to a future theory that may come up.
So like that, when we may have doubts because of, say, not being able to reconcile science which we use in our daily life and scripture which we use for our spiritual growth, then we can defer the answers and focus on using that which helps us move on. And third is downplay. There are details in scripture which are not all that important.
You have two examples, Shri Prabhupada with respect to tracing the journey of Krishna from Dwarka to, from Indraprastha to Dwarka and the specific count of the bodyguards of Ugrasen. That’s not important. So we need to know what is important and focus on that.
Otherwise, by expecting the people to believe that which they can’t believe, then we make bhakti more difficult than what it is for them. Srila Prabhupada, Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakur left, did not insist that people have faith in Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’s divinity and instead encouraged them to practise the process of bhakti as he has given. By that when they experience the love of Krishna in their hearts, then their doubts will get resolved in a way that is best for them and they will move on onwards in their spiritual journey.
Thank you very much. Hare Krishna. Yeah, I understand.
I understand your question. So when the Paramatma is always present in the heart, what does it mean to say that Krishna may leave our heart? See, when we talk about the heart and Krishna leaving or entering, quite often we implicitly use language that is not necessarily literal. For example, even the concept of the heart, when you say my heart is broken.
Well, it’s not that the biological organ heart has been broken, isn’t it? We use the word heart in a literal sense to refer to the biological organ and we use the word heart also to refer to the seat of emotions. Similarly, leaving the heart, Krishna of course never leaves the heart. Sarvasya chaham hrudisannivishthu.
He is always there in the heart. But when we say Krishna leaves the heart, that basically means that, you know, we no longer feel the presence of Krishna in our heart. We are no longer aware of his presence.
So that can happen because of certain decisions, certain actions that we do, certain desires that we let grow. So there is, there are times in our life when we do bhakti nicely and we feel Krishna’s presence. But then if we expose ourselves too much to sensuality or expose ourselves too much to criticism of devotees of Krishna, then our heart becomes, we don’t feel the presence of Krishna in our heart.
So we are talking more in terms of not Krishna leaving the heart, literally, but more in terms of we not being aware, not feeling Krishna’s presence. So that’s how Kaikeyi, by her decisions, by her listening submissively to mantra, she caused Lord Ram to leave Dwarka. So by our, by our listening to doubts, we may also, Krishna may become unmanifest to us in our heart, although he’s always manifest, but he may become unmanifest to us and we may not feel his presence at all.
Not feeling his presence means that even when we practise bhakti, we don’t feel any softness of the heart. We don’t feel any joy. We don’t feel any upliftment of our consciousness.
So basically, we don’t feel Krishna’s presence. That’s what happens when we expose ourselves to doubts or desires too much. Does it answer your question? What was yesterday’s question? So there are always going to be people who criticise.
So we simply have to do what is right, not just do things because we are being criticised. We invited Ram, listen to the criticism and take it so seriously. Yeah, actually, we all need to choose our battles.
Sometimes the criticism may be so much that in trying to counter that criticism itself, it may take so much energy that we may feel, OK, this is better to avoid this whole issue. So we see that at one time, Bhaktivinod Thakur and Bhaktisanshu Thakur, they had significant differences in their moods. Bhaktivinod Thakur was more like a reformer.
Bhaktisanshu Thakur was more like a revolutionary. You know, a reformer means, OK, this paint is not all that good. Maybe we can repaint this.
Maybe we can restructure this a little bit. Reformer, that’s a reformer. Revolutionary is, just blow up this house and build a new house.
So it’s like that. So they had different moods at one particular point when they were in Mayapur. So Bhaktisanshu Thakur strongly spoke against some other Gaudiya Vaishna, who was introducing some practises which were not proper.
But that Gaudiya Vaishna was very popular. And the criticism that came up was so great at that time that Bhaktivinod Thakur just told Bhaktisanshu Thakur, you leave this place. You leave this place and go away.
So that’s a matter of strategy. See, we all have to choose our battles. Because in some cases, if something attracts too much criticism, better avoid that and focus on other things and move on in our life.
So that’s in general with respect to criticism. It’s not that we have to necessarily do the thing itself all the time. Sometimes something is attracting too much criticism.
Like one time it happened with Prabhupada that he was in France, if I am not mistaken, and he was giving a class on a, the devotees had made a very elevated seat for him. And the audience was college students and they started hearing, why are you sitting on this high seat? So Prabhupada, he answered over there, no, I can sit on the floor and I can speak to you also. But the people were just too restricted.
They had this whole, they were mostly like communists. All people are equal. They had that idea.
So Prabhupada in the next lecture, he said, don’t have such a thing. Have a simple seat. Sometimes some things we may just decide, it’s not very important.
Just avoid it and move on. That’s in general with respect to criticism. Now specifically with respect to Ram, there is also a story from a previous life.
Now previous life stories, usually they offer explanations. Many of the Puranas, many of the Puranas and Tyasas, if you go, there is always some previous life correlation. I personally don’t like to use the previous life story because sometimes people who do not believe in those things, they think this is just something which is created for rationalising something.
But specifically with respect to this, in the Ramayana itself, it’s described that at one particular time, a demon, there are two different stories actually. There is a demon who comes and takes shelter of the wife of Bhrigu. The Devatas are chasing him.
Vishnu is also chasing him. It’s a terrible demon. Devatas are actually chasing him.
And he, at that time, this demon comes and takes shelter of Bhrigu’s wife. He gives him shelter and Devatas are not able to kill him. And Vishnu comes over there and Vishnu says, you don’t do a right thing like this.
He was a demon. He deserved to be killed. And she insists on that.
Vishnu is very displeased with her and he curses her. And then when Bhrigu hears this, Bhrigu says that just as because of you I was separated from my wife, because of my curse, you will be separated from your wife. So that curse gets materialised.
Now the Lord, of course, doesn’t have to accept anyone’s curse. But he sometimes honours brahmanas by letting their curse act on them. That’s one thing.
And there is another story which is given of, there is a particular demon. Actually, this is not in the Ramayana. This is actually in Madhvacharya’s Mahabharatattva Niranjan, which also gives analysis of Ramayana also in one section.
So there he tells a story about how there is a particular demon who had sought a benediction that that demon could not be killed. He said no demons can acquire the benediction of immortality. But he had asked the benediction that as long as Lakshmi and Narayana are united, I will never be killed.
So he said Lakshmi and Narayana are always together. They will never be separated. So I will never be killed.
So the Lord arranged for this Leela by which Sita and Ram were separated. Sita and Rama, Lakshmi and Narayana itself. And when they were separated, then the devatas were able to kill that demon.
So that’s also another story that is told to explain why Ram had to take this, Ram had to be separated from Sita. Essentially speaking, with respect to dealing with criticism, we have to do the right thing. But while doing the right thing, we have to choose what is important in that right thing.
Sometimes we do something which creates too much controversy. Then we downplay those things and do other things and move on in our spiritual life. Does that answer your question? So why not uphold the truth? See, truth is not just one.
You have to understand that when we talk about life in general and living, living is not like solving a mathematical problem. That there is only one answer to it. Living is more like taking a picture.
The same picture of the thing can be taken from different angles. And the picture from different angles, we are taking the same picture but different things will be highlighted. So the Lord has different purposes at different times.
And according to His purpose, He may deal with certain different things in different ways. So, you know, He could have come and stopped Draupadi from being disrobed but He could have stopped the whole gambling match also. He stops Draupadi from being disrobed but He doesn’t stop the gambling match.
Isn’t it? So Krishna has a particular plan and so by allowing the Draupadi to be disrobed, by allowing the gambling match to go on and the Pandavas to lose their property, He arranges for the Pandavas to go to the forest. By that so many demons are killed, by which Arjuna’s glory in going to the heaven is vindicated. So there are other purposes involved.
So in this particular case, the Lord also wanted to demonstrate the unfailing love of Sita by her faithfulness even after Ram had so seemingly unfairly rejected her. So her faithfulness, you know, actually love tested is love triumphant. And there is no greater test for love than rejection by the one whom we love.
So even when Ram rejected Sita, the world thought that he had rejected her. And even after that, Sita remained faithful to Ram. That is the greatest triumph of her devotion.
And that Ram demonstrated the glory of Sita’s love. And both of them relished love and separation through this pastime. So there are other purposes of the Lord also being served by His having Sita sent away.
Thank you very much. Do we have? So maybe we can talk privately. So thank you very much.