The difference between sentimentality and sensitivity – SB 4.8.26

Lecture Summary:

Dhruva M’s intolerance to dishonor appreciated by Narada Muni

Difference between arrogance, pride and honor

Words change meaning with time eg. Cult, rascal, preach

Sensitivity – surgeon doing surgery without anesthesia

vs sentimentality – surgeon chickening out of surgery due to fear of causing pain

Examples:

Arjuna’s many body-related names in the Gita

Loud kirtan near NICU vs stopping kirtan on beach because baby sleeping

Bhishma gives reverse dowry for Madri

Lord Chaitanya avoided taking food at house of non-brahmanas

Social position of women – Prabhupada’s pragmatic engagement contrasted with the Taliban’s disastrous fanaticism

*

Be sensitive while using acharyas contextual examples for eternal principles

Eg. Prabhupada’s quoting from the Aquarian Gospel

Sensitively use whatever people have a sense of honor about to inspire them to honorably practice dharma

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Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
om namo bhagavate vasudevaya om namo bhagavate vasudevaya Kantarashrimad Bhagavatam, canto 4, chapter 8, chapter entitled Dhruva Maharaj leaves home aho tejah kshatriyanam manabhangam amrishyatam balopyayam hridadhate yatsamatur asadvachah Translation and purport by His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta, Swamishila Prabhupada Translation How wonderful are the powerful kshatriyas They cannot tolerate even a slight infringement upon their prestige Just imagine, this boy is only a small child Yet, harsh words from his stepmother proved unbearable to him Purport The qualifications of the kshatriyas are described in the Bhagavad Gita Two important qualifications are to have a sense of prestige and not to flee from battle It appears that the kshatriya blood within the body of Dhruva Maharaj was naturally very active If the brahminical kshatriya or vaisya culture is maintained in the family naturally the sons and grandsons inherit the spirit of the particular class Therefore, according to the Vedic system, the samskara or the reformatory system is maintained very rigidly If one fails to observe the reformatory measures current in the family one is immediately degraded to a lower standard of life Maharaj has left home and Narada Muni by the mercy of the Lord has come to know about this extraordinary event And the event is extraordinary and Narada Muni’s response to that event is also extraordinary The statement he makes over here Aho tejah kshatriyanam Just see the power of the great kshatriyas Man bhangam amrishyatam That they cannot tolerate dishonor That they cannot tolerate dishonor Now, this seems extraordinary because we are meant to actually be tolerant Just tolerate, even if there is dishonor That’s what Chaitanya Mahaprabhu tells us And we will consider tolerance to be a very great virtue But here, Narada Muni is appreciating intolerance to dishonor as a virtue of the kshatriyas Intolerance How glorious are the kshatriyas that they cannot tolerate dishonor That means how glorious are the kshatriyas that they are intolerant to dishonor Isn’t it? How can this sort of intolerance be appreciated? Or how can this sense of honor be considered to be not just a good thing But a glorious thing what is being said over here And he is appreciating this Balopayam Although he is just a child So, not only are the kshatriyas glorious that they have a sense of honor But even a small kshatriya child, 5 year old child He also has such a sense of honor And what is that? Even from his mother, Asadwachaha When they came, he could not tolerate it So here, I would like to talk about three different but related concepts And explain the difference between them There is arrogance, there is pride and there is honor These three in a dictionary may seem to be synonymous But they have different shades of meaning The words themselves change their meaning as time passes Recently on my website, one English professor asked a question Why do you ISKCON people consider the English of the 1920s to be sacred? So, his point was that Actually, all the English that you use, it is 1920s English So why is that? Most of the preachers who speak, they speak in 1920s English So what has happened is Most ISKCON devotees learn their philosophy by reading Prabhupada’s books And Prabhupada learned his English in the 1920s So what has happened is That all of us, especially devotees Who have learned English primarily from Prabhupada’s books You know, there are some devotees like that So for example, somebody will learn Hindi Bhagwan Krishna ke alag alag leela hai So then they’ll say, Krishna has different different pastimes Now somebody who doesn’t know Hindi, who knows English Why do you need two differents? One different is enough, Krishna has different pastimes Krishna has different different pastimes So we just try to put Hindi into English So the point which I am making is That many usages that Srila Prabhupada had They have now become outdated So for example, Prabhupada very frequently uses the word cult Now we generally don’t use the word cult at all Because the word cult has historically acquired a very negative connotation Actually, Bhaktinod Thakur, Bhaktisanshu Thakur, Srila Prabhupada All three use the word cult Because at that time, prior to the 1950s, 1960s The word cult simply meant a group of people But in the 1960s, 1960s, 1970s There was especially one cult by somebody called Reverend Johnson And he actually brainwashed people And they took him and kept them in a secluded farm community And he did a lot of criminal activities And when the US police came to investigate him He had so brainwashed his people That he said that if you have faith in me, you will be delivered And he told all his thousand people to commit mass suicide He gave all of them poison and everybody committed mass suicide At one place So from that time onwards, you know, cults People, the mainstream culture, people started getting paranoia about cult So any group of people which isolates itself from the rest of the world And externally speaking, ISKCON to many people seems very similar You also isolate yourself from the world So that’s why some of the people It’s not that the people who charged ISKCON with brainwashing Being a brainwashing cult, all of them were demoniac Some of our perceptions were also The way we projected ourselves created that perception So the point, I’m not going to do the history of sociology in America right now But the simple point is that the word cult Practically all of ISKCON has now retired from its vocabulary Why? Because immediately it brings some negative connotations So now actually there are many other words Which also gradually we need to retire Now Prabhupada used the word rascal Now actually if you go on the internet There are dictionaries available Which give meanings of words in different times In fact the Catholic Church re-translates the Bible every 50 years Why? Because words change their meanings So they have a whole panel Which translates the Bible according to contemporary language So if you go back to the 1920s English The word rascal simply meant It was an affectionate form of reproach It was an affectionate form of chastisement You know, like a mother may say to a naughty child Badmaaj, kya kar raha hai? So now it is very affectionate But in today’s usage The word rascal sounds a very harsh form of chastisement And not only that Especially if it comes from a spiritualist Then it becomes even more harsh So the words have changed their meanings Similarly the word preaching Personally I wince whenever anybody says that I am a preacher I would prefer to identify myself as a teacher or author Because the word preaching has come to be associated With moralizing Many hardline Christians They have hell and brimstone sort of preaching If you don’t obey Jesus You are going to go to hell forever And burn in the fires of hell That’s why Indiruddin Maharaj had his diary Of a travelling preacher So he changed it to a diary of a travelling monk So Sconville over a period of time Had to retire the word preacher Also from its vocabulary It may not be required right now in India In the West, nobody uses preacher In fact, I am one of the editors for Back to Godhead We don’t use the word preacher at all We use outreach Or sharing Krishna consciousness Why? Because the word preacher conveys the idea Of somebody who imagines I am on a very high pedestal And is instructing all the fallen people And it conveys a very negative picture So the simple point I am making here is That words change their meanings over a period of time And so now the word pride That we use Now generally we consider pride To be one of the demoniac qualities One of the six anarthas But If we see The word pride in today’s language In today’s culture Is often used in a positive sense Now for example There may be hotel pride Or a hotel executive pride You know Now you will see That even today It’s not that people think That being proud is a very good thing So that meaning Which the word pride had earlier Now that meaning Has shifted to the word arrogance You will not find any hotel arrogance You know There will be hotel pride But not hotel arrogance Why? Because if a person is just filled with oneself And always speaks about oneself About how great I am And just puts everyone down Nobody likes that That is a universal feature But the word that is used to describe that Is different So as soon as Radhanath Maharaj When he wrote his journey home So I was helping in the editing So when he wrote about the six anarthas Now first he had put pride And then his editor and I We had discussed And Maharaj changed pride to arrogance So lust, anger, greed, envy Illusion and arrogance Why? Because many people In today’s terminology Don’t think of pride as a bad thing Now for example In a cricket match If there is a five match series And one team already wins After three matches Then it is Often if you see in the newspaper They say Now the opposing team captain will say We will play for pride We will play for pride That means we are not going to play To win the trophy But as a matter of pride We don’t want to have a washout We don’t want to lose 5-0 So therefore we at least So what is the motivation for our playing? We will play for pride That we were not washed out completely So the point is The word pride Often in today’s culture Has a positive connotation So what do I mean by this positive connotation? As I said I was going to talk about three words Pride, arrogance and honour So now arrogance is definitely undesirable It just alienates people Because the person is always filled with oneself And arrogance is distasteful But if you see The word honour That is used So Prabhupada also quotes In the Paripurva Qualities of Kshatriyas Tejah kshamadhati shouryam Yudhe chaapya palayanam Daanam eeshwarabhavascha Kshatram karmasubhavajam So eeshwarabhav Eeshwarabhav Actually we would consider that To be a defect The desire to be a controller But this is considered to be One of the laudable qualities of a Kshatriya Yudhe chaapya palayanam A Kshatriya will never run away from a battlefield That is a laudable quality And in the same vein In the same verse It is talked about Eeshwarabhav Now eeshwarabhav we can say it’s a controlling mentality But the Kshatriya is controlling On behalf of the supreme controller On behalf of God So essentially The point here is That the sense of honour Is something positive A sense of honour Inspires people To act honourably Now Prabhupada Would also speak You know some devotee took initiation And then after that Somehow broke regularity principles There are letters of Prabhupada Where Prabhupada says that You have given your word Before the deity You have given your word before the Lord Before the sacred fire Don’t you have a sense of honour? How can you break your word like this? So the point again is that A sense of honour Is not necessarily bad In fact It is desirable A sense of honour Not in the sense that the whole world should respect me But a sense of honour means That I am an honourable person If I give my word I will keep my word I will act in honourable ways And for a Kshatriya The sense of honour is very important Because the sense of honour Enables people Enables Kshatriyas To act in honourable ways Otherwise The Kshatriyas can become completely Distorted because of power You know power corrupts Absolute power can corrupt absolutely So what protects them Is their It’s ingrained in them You have to have a sense of honour A sense of honour means what? This is the way a Kshatriya is supposed to behave If somebody asks for shelter A Kshatriya must give shelter If a sage comes A Kshatriya should offer respect Somebody asks for charity A Kshatriya should give charity So by all this By this sense of honour being drilled in a person That person Is inspired to act in honourable ways And Now Now at one level we could say That actually we are not Kshatriyas Whoever it is We are not Brahmin, Kshatriya, Vaishya, Shudra We are just souls And we are meant to be servants of Krishna That is true But We cannot Immediately Artificially Reject our bodily identity I may understand I am a soul But still I have to live in this body for my life And I have to purify myself We cannot wish away our bodily identity We have to work our way through it We can’t wish away means I am not the body, I am the soul So I just understand that And that’s all Now it doesn’t happen like that Still I will have The bodily nature Certainly the bodily urges Whenever they are sinful we have to give them up But the bodily The bodily nature The bodily identification We can’t give it up so easily And we see this in the Bhagavad Gita itself You know In 2.13 Krishna tells Arjuna You are not the body Now he tells him you are not the body And in fact this is one who thinks that one is the body He has told in the previous two verses 2.11 That you are You are actually Speaking very learned words but you are a fool And a sober person does not identify with the body But yet In just the next verse after that Now Kaunteya Is told you are not the body But immediately what is the connection with his mother is told Sheetosha sukha dukkha daha Agama apayino nityas Kamsitikshasva bharata Now we may say Kunti is a great devotee So connection with the devotee is good But it’s also talking about dynasty It’s not all the people in the dynasty were all great devotees So Just the previous verse Rejects the bodily identity And the next verse Talks twice about the same bodily identity In fact the Bhagavad Gita contains Something like 25 names of Krishna 25 names of Arjuna And out of those 25 names More than 50% Are related with the body And you know not just about Kshatriyas Some places the names are like Purusha vyagra You are the tiger among men Now you know this is such a Bodily misidentification Tiger among men You may imagine a man with a moustache You know It’s such a bodily identification So why Is the Bhagavad Gita which is telling Right in the beginning that you are not the body Why is it Repeatedly using so many Names related with the body Now we may say Actually ok I know that I am not the body I am the soul But I don’t know who I am as a soul I don’t know my name as a soul Therefore you have to use my name at a bodily level If that Functional usage was only required Then one name would have been enough But actually Krishna uses Almost 15 names And all related with the body Purusha arshabha Kurnandana You are expert at arrows Now being expert at arrows Is a bodily faculty So Why are so many names Related with the body used The point is That in 2.13 Krishna Tells Arjuna you are not the body you are the soul Arjuna gets a question Ok I may understand that I am not the body I am the soul but still I experience bodily Emotions So what do I do about it Krishna says the next words Tolerate Tolerance is very difficult I know tolerance is difficult But you are from a glorious Dynasty and Being a glorious Member of a glorious dynasty You should be able to Do difficult things So what is Krishna doing Krishna is dovetailing Arjuna’s bodily Identity To inspire him to follow The path of dharma By which he will realize his spiritual identity So At a philosophical level we understand I am not the body At a philosophical level we reject the bodily identity and accept the spiritual identity But as a matter Of realization that doesn’t happen Overnight this is the bodily identity this is the spiritual identity Now as a matter of Realization it is going to take a long time To go from here to there To realize that I am the soul Now To persevere on the path By which I can come to the level of realizing My spiritual identity For persevering it requires determination It requires inspiration It requires motivation It is a difficult task So Krishna says Remember you are a glorious person You belong to a glorious family You are a person who has done Herculean deeds Therefore do this deed also Do this deed of Marching ahead on the path of dharma So What is Krishna doing The sense of honor That comes from Arjuna’s Honorable bodily connections His connection with his Glorious mother His connection with his illustrious dynasty Krishna uses that sense of Honor Coming from his honorable connections To inspire Arjuna To Follow the path of dharma So The bodily identity is not rejected But it is harmonized With the spiritual quest And it is not just Krishna who does that Even Prabhupada did that When Prabhupada was in America and his American Disciples came to India And they were going to Organize the Hare Krishna festival in Mumbai So Prabhupada told them What is the use of you being Americans If you don’t do something wonderful Now Prabhupada told them you are not Americans But what is the use of You being Americans You cannot wish away the American identity They have that American identity And Prabhupada used them Yes you are Americans The whole world thinks you are leaders of the world Indians have such a huge Glamorized conception of what Americans So therefore you should do something extraordinary And the devotees did that Practically starting with no resources They organized a Magnificent festival Every day 20,000 people 30,000 people would come for the program And it was there in all the news at that time So Prabhupada used Their sense of American identity To inspire them To follow Dharma And to propagate Dharma And Prabhupada would do the same thing to Indians also One of the Lectures he gave in the Jew temple when it was not yet constructed He said to most prominently Indian audience He said this Is actually Bhagavad Gita is your tradition But To teach Bhagavad Gita I have to get people From all over the world He says Why don’t you study the Bhagavad Gita Instead of people from the world coming to you To teach Bhagavad Gita You should be teaching Bhagavad Gita to the whole world So what is the use of you being Indians If you don’t teach the Bhagavad Gita So the first thing Bhagavad Gita teaches is You are not an Indian But what is Prabhupada doing Using the bodily identity To elevate people To the spiritual level So This was the background for my main topic The point which I was making is That our bodily identity cannot be rejected It has to be dovetailed So that we can follow the path of Dharma And eventually rise To the level of our spiritual identity So now While talking about Practicing Krishna Consciousness With ourselves Sharing Krishna Consciousness with others We Also need to be sensitive About what People’s Identity is And present Krishna Consciousness Accordingly So First I’ll just explain In principle what is the difference between Sensitivity and sentimentality So With the standard example we often give is A sadhu’s words are meant to cut And That cutting is like a surgeon’s knife Which cuts to heal That’s true Now sentimentality means If a surgeon sees Oh if I cut this person So much blood will come, so much wounds will happen I cannot tolerate this height of blood So I’ll not do the surgery So sentimentality Means One doesn’t do the duty of Sharing Krishna’s message Because one is afraid that people will get angry People will get hurt, people will get irritated So it’s like a surgeon Not doing the surgery only That is sentimentality But sensitivity means That If a surgeon knows If I have to do a heart surgery and this person We have to open the heart But Imagine The surgery is going to be painful Anyway it’s going to be painful But suppose Take some hand surgeries to be done Something like that So suppose the surgeon says That I will Anyway it’s going to be painful So why should I give anesthesia I’ll do the surgery without anesthesia only Anyway with anesthesia also it’s going to be painful Without anesthesia also it’s going to be painful So actually About 3-3.5 years ago I had a fracture in the leg After which my Mobility became quite less So at that time I had to do an operation So Giriraj Prabhu told I was going to do the operation And it didn’t require full body anesthesia I just required local anesthesia So But local anesthesia also It doesn’t put you unconscious, it puts you to sleep So I was reciting Bhagavad Gita verses I told Giriraj Prabhu Don’t give me anesthesia I’ll just recite It’ll take me 1 hour 45 minutes or something like that So I said I’ll complete all the 18 chapters in that much time So I started I came to the 5th, I remember 6th, 7th, 8th 8th chapter I came And then suddenly I just went to sleep And then Afterwards I woke up, the whole surgery was over Then so Giriraj Prabhu told me I will not give you anesthesia But then I asked him, did you give me anesthesia, he said yes I asked why did you give He said I wanted to experience The transcendental potency of Krishna Consciousness How Krishna Conscious lifts us above the pain For whatever 7-8 chapters I was reciting I was awake It was literally like And the surgery was being done, it was practically It was the kind of sound that you hear At a construction site So literally the bone was being opened And it was being sealed and all that was being done Of course they had put a cloth So that I could not see what was happening, I was lying down But still The point I was making is, he told me That according to a medical code Even if you want Not to have anesthesia, as a doctor Who follows medical code I have to give anesthesia I have to give anesthesia So the point is that Actually a surgeon is not just Meant to cure the patient But a surgeon is meant to cure the patient As painlessly As possible Pain is inevitable But the pain should be minimized And the anesthesia that is given That is meant to minimize the pain So now A surgeon If the surgeon doesn’t give anesthesia Then what is happening? The surgeon is causing unnecessary pain And that unnecessary pain Is actually violence It’s cruelty So when we are Insensitive in our preaching We cause We are like surgeons Who do not give anesthesia We cause Unnecessary pain to people Unnecessary pain And actually If you just take the metaphor further The situation is even more complex When we are insensitive At least in surgeons case The patients know That I am sick And I need to go to the doctor Because the doctor is going to cure me Otherwise I will continue to be in pain But with respect to people in general They don’t even know that they are suffering in material existence So if we start doing surgery And we do surgery without anesthesia They will just go out of the surgery room only They will just go away And they will never come back to Krishna So when we are insensitive We may say I am presenting the philosophy as it is Undiluted, pure philosophy I am giving Yes, but Prabhupada says The purpose of preaching is to get people closer to Krishna If we drive people away from Krishna That is not preaching That is anti-preaching Now there are two different things over here One is the mode of presentation The second is the content of presentation So it’s not that The sensitive surgeon will not do the surgery It’s not that the sensitive surgeon will not do the cuts The cuts have to be done So like that people have misconceptions And those misconceptions have to be countered That’s a part of the necessary Philosophical education that we have to do But while doing that We don’t have to cause people More agitation Than what is necessary Sometimes if our presentation itself Is provocative right from the beginning Then Unnecessarily people get alienated So I will give a variety of examples Of what I mean By insensitive preaching Or insensitive outreach in any way Insensitive mode of practice of Krishna consciousness So Anupama Prabhu Is our communications director And he is very kind to me, very close to me So often we have long discussions So he told me how he started the communications department So at one level We do outreach So we directly want people to become devotees But at a larger level Not everyone will immediately become devotees But we want a broader society To have a positive perception of Krishna consciousness So For that we should be able to present Ourselves properly And that is the purpose of communication department To create a positive Atmosphere for our direct outreach Programs So he told me several incidents which inspired him To do all this Sometimes when devotees do Harinam Kirtan So At that time We may use these big vampers And loud Kirtans we do So Now we may say louder the Kirtan The more people get purified And anyway people are in ignorance People are wasting their time People are in illusion So louder the Kirtan the more they will be jolted out of their illusion So Now So Anupama Prabhu told that Once they were doing Kirtan somewhere in America And at that time They were going by a hospital And when they were going by the hospital The hospital staff told You know here there are sick people Please don’t do loud Kirtan Devotees were very young When there is When somebody is new to Krishna consciousness One gets in one sense Arrogance that I know the way And everybody else is illusion And I am going to show all of them the way So they said anyway if they are sick Actually everybody is sick in material existence And we chant the holy name They will get benefited by that So actually they did They were going by the hospital Loud Kirtan they did And unfortunately Actually in that hospital Just by the pathway of the Kirtan Just outside there was this NICU You know the ICU for small infants Which is born and sometimes they are prematurely born And when they are prematurely born They have to be kept in special ICU So that they are careful And actually the devotees did such loud Kirtan That three babies Had their tympanic membrane permanently damaged And fortunately They did not lose hearing completely But it was severe damage And then Even after that these devotees were doing Kirtan They said People came and told you stop After that the hospital authorities went to the temple And then they contacted the Anutama Prabhu And then he offered his apologies And actually It became a very Not just bad press We are not just concerned about our perception We are actually concerned about the substance also It was a very undesirable thing to do So recently I read a Travelling Preacher’s Diary of Indra Duryodhana Maharaj And so he was doing His beach Kirtan In Poland he does a lot of Kirtans So he has his festival of India And they do Kirtan To attract people to come for the festival And they do Kirtans especially in the beaches Where people are assembled And they give the posters So he was leading Kirtan for a group of 20-30 people And as they were doing Kirtans Suddenly one young lady She came running to them And says please please please stop Don’t make this noise He says my baby is taking an afternoon nap And if she wakes up Then she will start crying And then it is very difficult to pacify her So actually Along with Indra Duryodhana Maharaj one devotee was there So he said anyway They have the whole rest of their life to sleep Now maybe this is the only time That we will hear Hare Krishna So let’s continue Kirtan So Maharaj says stop the Kirtan And then everybody was surprised Suddenly Maharaj says stop And then they just silently Walked around Almost 10-15 yards away And then Maharaj said now you start the Kirtan And then they started the Kirtan And then just observing these devotees There was another couple Young couple Husband and wife And as Maharaj was doing the Kirtan The husband said to his wife These people are sensitive people Let’s accept their invitation and go to the festival So now philosophically Yes it is true that Kirtan Benefits everyone But then We should not be So concerned About people’s future Destination That we become blind to their present Emotion Or their present condition Because What happens is This person if he doesn’t hear the holy name will go to hell So even if something goes wrong At least he will hear the holy name No what may happen is If we are insensitive That person may hear the holy name once But that person Because of our insensitivity May get such a Negative perception of bhakti That person even comes to know the holy name But decides I will never chant this holy name I will never practice bhakti So when we are living in the world If we can’t get people to Krishna At the very least We should be able to give people Ajna Sukrti Ajna Sukrti means what? Positive, favorable impression about bhakti Yes these devotees Are good people They are sensitive people, they are intelligent people And I like them, I may not become like them But they are good people It’s interesting now in this connection That eventually Prabhupada was asked How do we recognize your devotees? What did Prabhupada say? They are perfect gentlemen and ladies Now Prabhupada did not say My devotee is constantly chanting Hare Krishna Dancing in Kirtan Following four regulative principles Yes these are also qualities of devotees But Prabhupada gave a definition as They are perfect gentlemen So what does this mean? We say that actually as devotees At one level we should be transcendental We want to be transcendental But Actually speaking Though We Ultimately want to be transcendental But even those who are Uttam Adhikaris They also come down to the medium level So that they can share bhakti And at least I am not Uttam Adhikari So it’s not that I have to come down Most of the time I have to go up even to come to the mode of goodness So what happens is I am in passion, I go towards ignorance And I imagine I am in transcendence So See often we are insensitive to others Not because we are so Absorbed in Krishna But we are so absorbed in thinking My way is the right way And everybody else is wrong So I must do the right thing So I must do whatever I am doing I don’t care what anyone else does So So insensitivity means That people Have certain things About which they are sensitive Which matter to them Which are important to them And if we Don’t care for those things Or rather we deliberately Provoke them on those things Then they get provoked They get alienated And then it becomes very difficult To bring them closer to Krishna So If you look at the Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’s example Chaitanya Mahaprabhu Was very very Ecumenical, ecumenical means Universal In embracing Everyone through the path of bhakti Not only did he accept Haridas Thakur, he was born As a Mleccha, not only did he accept Him as a Vaishnava but he made him a Namacharya But that same Chaitanya Mahaprabhu When he would travel Wherever he went in India He always took prasad Only at the house of a Brahmana He would not take Prasad at anyone else’s house And When he goes to Varanasi There are two of his devotees over there Tapanmishra and then there is Chandrasekharacharya Chaitanya Mahaprabhu He stays at the house of Chandrasekharacharya but takes prasad At the house of Tapanmishra Now why is this? Because at that time It was the social expectation That sanyasis Are meant to be pure Being pure means That they should take food That is cooked at the house of people Who are living purely And at that time the idea was Those who are Brahmanas, they are the people who are living purely So Chaitanya Mahaprabhu Gave due deference To that social custom He actually stayed at the house Not just in the name of completely Accepting the social custom He did not reject Those devotees who were from lower castes Or those who were outcastes He accepted them also But Chaitanya Mahaprabhu did not go about Disrupting the social order Even when that social order was not necessarily right Why? Chaitanya Mahaprabhu was sensitive So sensitivity Means that now he himself was Giving quite at that time also to the radical Message that the principle Of bhakti was very much prevalent But chanting and dancing and singing Although that was also there But Harinam Sankirtan was widely propagated for Chaitanya Mahaprabhu And he focused on that essence And while propagating that essence Other things If the social culture was slightly Off the mark He did not go about Being a very forceful social Revolutioner He is definitely a social reformer Reformer means you bring about small small small changes If there is a house And some building is a little bit Some wall is weak Or some paint is poor Change this style Or change this wall or change something like that That is a reformer Make small change here And if you So then if you keep making small small changes Eventually the whole building may be changed Over a period of time So reformer means slow slow slow changes But if somebody is a revolutionary He says hey This building Just blow it away We will build a new building So Chaitanya Mahaprabhu was a reformer Not a revolutionary That means Yes see People already have Just by being in the material world We already have so many anarthas Which make it difficult for us To practice bhakti Which make it difficult For us To take shelter of Krishna To follow the principles Now on top of that If we make further mandates Further mandates means what? This is wrong That is wrong Everything that people have held as cherished We start saying right from the beginning it is all wrong Then we make people’s path to Krishna More difficult than it needs to be So for example If somebody is Proud of his country Now we can say India India is the land where Krishna bhakti has been Given by the lord So India is already a glorious country But say somebody is in China Now at one level we could say China, there is no culture over there No Krishna bhakti, nothing over there, all nonsense But if you read Tamal Krishna Maharaj He wrote a very beautiful book A novel about how a Chinese Young man who goes to America For education, just like Indians go to America For education, Chinese people also go to America So he wrote a book called The Science of Yoga, the story of Lee Kong Shi And in that What he does is He blends Chinese Chinese patriotism And Krishna bhakti together And then he shows how this Chinese boy Who has gone to America, just like many Indians Who go from India to America They just go to America They just go to America and settle over there So now Now of course NRIs are in some way A resource for India even now But the point is that If they come back to India They can contribute so much to the growth of India also Chinese people also feel like that So many young people go to America for education They never come back So he depicts how in this novel This person becomes a devotee And then his guru tells him, you should go back to China So he has done a genetic research You go and become a genetic scientist in America And don’t just teach about Genetic science Teach about spiritual science also So basically The local sentiments that are there Of people based on their region It’s not that We have to go about disrupting or rejecting them Within that we present Krishna bhakti In the Mahabharata also So this respect for variety In culture In tradition Is appreciated The Mahabharata has this very special feature Normally When some couple is married Especially in material circles One favourite game of people Is to play matchmaker Okay maybe this person can get married to this person This person can get married to that person So now in the Kuru dynasty Bhishma was a celibate He had to play the role of matchmaker For all his nephews So he went around Now he went to Shalya To the kingdom of Madra And he wanted Madri To become a bride For Pandu Now when he went there At that time The Madra prince Shalya told that Actually according to our custom Normally in Indian culture There is the system of dowry Now of course today The dowry system has become very distorted And it has become so distorted That it’s often a business And often there are Bridal burnings and dowry deaths It’s ghastly But the original system was out of affection Even there was no necessity There was nothing mandatory So the king of Madra He tells Bhishma That according to our system In our culture When we give a bride to some family Actually that family gives us gifts So it is in one sense like a reverse dowry So now what does Bhishma say Bhishma says this is all deviation He says yes I already know about that custom And I already brought gifts for you And he brought practically a whole chariot of jewels And so many other gifts he has brought And then he gives that And then he takes Madri So now even within the Mahabharata That means what we are saying There are varieties of culture So the standard culture might have been that When a girl gets married Then the girl’s family gives gifts to the boy’s family But if a particular family Had a different culture Bhishma did not go about disrupting or rejecting that culture He respected that culture So wherever there are some Cultural differences Now there is the transcendental point of Krishna consciousness To which we want to get people That is true But it is not that people can come there immediately And for them to come there gradually We need to provide them support systems Now for example Coming to the Indian context Today’s context If somebody is worshipping some goddess Worshipping some Devi Or worshipping some Devata Or has some Kuldevata Now you know The system of Kuldevata Is there in the Indian tradition But how many of the Kuldevata The deities that are worshipped Are Kuldevata’s today How many of them are bonafide according to scripture How many of them are not bonafide It is very difficult to know that So now it is not that In principle we can say that If somebody comes to Krishna Sarva-dharmaham sarva-dharmaham sarva-dharmaham That one should just simply surrender to Krishna But in practice How a person may act Will vary according to the circumstances If somebody is living in a family Somebody is living as a grahastha And then that person Actually goes for some family function Now if the family function Is say worship of some Devi It is not that time we have to impose Devi is not supreme, Krishna is supreme There may be a different forum For doing that At that time we can just offer respects Whatever is required Don’t unnecessarily Disturb the minds of people So now It is not that If everybody says Devi is supreme We also have to say Devi is supreme It is not that we have to start propagating falsehood Nor is it that we have to Speak the absolute truth at every forum Yes, where we get a proper forum We should But being sensitive means recognizing That people come from different backgrounds And we need to present Krishna consciousness accordingly So that it becomes Easier for them to accept Not difficult for them to accept Now Prabhupada Was very very pragmatic Especially if you look at When Prabhupada was in India His experience was mostly with Indian women And Indian women were traditionally reserved And they would do home duties And when Prabhupada went to America And especially in Europe, he found the women there very different They were almost like the males And they would do practically all the activities That the men could do So then he engaged them accordingly He engaged them accordingly And Prabhupada writes in a CC purport also That some people Prabhupada again uses the word rascals over here Now actually this rascal he is using for whom? These are the Deacons of Hindu culture How in your society Women are also doing all these activities Women are not going to do all these activities Like say distributing books Actually in traditional culture Whether it is in India Or even if you look at Europe Women generally would not go out Especially if a woman is unmarried She would not go out in public without a chaperone Without an older woman As an older married woman Or somebody as a guide, as a supervisor But Prabhupada Sent young women, even unmarried women Out for book distribution So now, Prabhupada saw the principle That everybody is ultimately a soul They are meant to be engaged in Krishna Bhakti And whatever way they can be engaged in Krishna Bhakti That is wonderful So some of the people The Hindu leaders, they criticized So Prabhupada says that Actually, men and women Ultimately we are all souls We are meant to serve Krishna So how best one can serve Krishna If somebody is brought in Indian culture They cannot suddenly be expected to follow western culture If somebody is brought up in western culture They cannot be immediately expected to follow Indian culture The principle is According to one’s upbringing According to one’s nature One has to practice bhakti And now when there is no When there is no sensitivity to social context Then one becomes fanatical When one becomes fanatical It can have disastrous consequences Now In Afghanistan there is a Taliban The Taliban has that idea That Which is not necessarily a wrong idea That women should primarily do the work at home And earning the livelihood Should be done by men So now when the Taliban grabbed power In some parts of Afghanistan They banned all women From working Now because of the war In many houses There were No men who were earning the bread So the women were the only people Who were earning the bread And at that time What happened If the women were forbidden from working Then the family started starving And then this came in the news In the west and elsewhere And then This was brought to the point of Taliban People are starving You should let the women work Allah will take care Now yes Allah will take care But the way he takes care Is by giving intelligence Through scripture to those who are in power to take care So we cannot Artificially take One principle from some social context And impose it on somewhere else Now Prabhupada If we see in Krishna Bhakti There is a particular standard But then we cannot artificially Impose the standard So for someone Who has been brought up In a culture Where the person has always been outgoing Doing various activities, pursuing a career, doing a job It’s not that that person Suddenly after becoming a devotee has to give up that career It will depend on individual to individual The principle of Krishna Bhakti Is universal The practice of Krishna Bhakti Will be specific The principle of Krishna Bhakti Is universal Every soul, whatever be the background The soul has a nature to serve Krishna ultimately And that nature Has to be expressed, purified Facilitated But how that will be done practically That will vary according to time, place and circumstance The important point is That we be sensitive If suddenly we start imposing Like now most of us are going to book distribution So one devotee One of my friends He has done his PhD In University of America In Religious Studies So he gave Bhagavad Gita To one of his friends One of his colleagues, this colleague was a lady She was also a PhD scholar And somehow She opened the Bhagavad Gita That went right to the purport 1.383940 Where Prabhupada says women are less intelligent And you know This woman She got so angry She just took the Bhagavad Gita, threw it in his face And just charged away from there Says don’t ever talk to me about these things You believe in this stuff Now, actually speaking Now we may say This is the absolute truth If you don’t care for the absolute truth, get lost Somebody can say like that But you know, if we look at the broad Philosophy Ultimately Ultimately the first thing we have Is that we are not men or women We are souls So now Prabhupada did not make that As in any way An important point Actually what do we mean by women are less intelligent First of all the goddess The deity of intelligence is a goddess It’s not a god Saraswati is a Devi, it’s not a Devata So it’s not a simplistic assignment Of a particular gender Being less intelligent Actually Now if we say This has to be properly philosophically understood So is it that at the level of a soul A woman is less intelligent No, the soul of a man The soul of a woman is essentially similar So that women are less intelligent Is not a spiritual statement It’s not a spiritual truth Then is it a material truth Now materially somebody may say that Oh, actually So many girls They get much better marks than boys in exams So how can you say that Women are less intelligent So actually Prabhupada makes a very simple point He is talking about intelligence Neither in a spiritual sense of Practicing of Krishna Bhakti Nor in a material sense of getting marks in exams He is talking here about Intelligence in terms of bodily Misidentification To misidentify with the body Is a sign of lack of intelligence Now actually All souls in this world misidentify with the body But in general In the female body In most cultures For a woman, her sense of self-worth and identity Often comes from her body From her bodily beauty, from her bodily charm And in that sense For a soul in a female body To understand that I am not the body Is more difficult And of course the female body May be a little more susceptible to emotions Than is the male body So the point is Now when people hear Women are less intelligent And if you present that statement without giving the context Without giving a broad understanding Then what happens Then people get alienated So it’s not Now this is by no means a very important point in our philosophy And when Prabhupada is using the word intelligence Remember what I said Words have different meanings So when they think When a woman When a modern or post-modern woman I am less intelligent I get better marks Or I can do any job as good as a man can So they have a particular set of conceptions When they hear the word intelligent And unnecessarily We alienate them So Prabhupada When he would preach Prabhupada was a warrior So as a warrior Sometimes you just use whatever weapons are available But that does not mean That the same weapons have to be used all the time So what it means is Sometimes Prabhupada would quote I’ll conclude with this point I’ll make one important point based on this point But I’ll conclude with this Prabhupada would sometimes say that Actually the female brain is smaller than the male brain And that is why Women are less intelligent Sometimes Prabhupada would say that So one time Prabhupada was in Philadelphia So he gave this class Now what happens is when Prabhupada says something Most of the Mataji disciples Of Prabhupada They said while dealing with him We never felt That Prabhupada was treating us In any lesser way Prabhupada loved us like his daughters And we never took that We never felt hurt by that statement at all But what happened He said that other devotees When they started repeating the statement All of you are less intelligent Now that is very hurting So Vishakha Mataji She went to Prabhupada And she asked Prabhupada Prabhupada had given just an interview To some people Prabhupada, is it that women are less intelligent Because their brains are smaller So Prabhupada just smiled and said When you chant Hare Krishna your brain becomes bigger Now We may wonder What is Prabhupada trying to say over here Is it that It is not that Biologically or anatomically Or structurally The brain size is going to become bigger by chanting Hare Krishna Prabhupada is not making a scientific Claim over here Prabhupada is simply making the point That material considerations Are transcended When one Practises Krishna Bhakti And even that material consideration Where does that come from See whenever an Acharya Also speaks, an Acharya Gives us knowledge From Shabda But when the Acharya gives knowledge from Shabda It is not that everything That the Acharya speaks has come only from Shabda No To give knowledge To make the point from Shabda The Acharya may also use examples Coming from Prateksha and Andaman So Prabhupada Learned certain things from certain sources And he used those as examples to teach So for example Now There is A book called the Aquarian Gospel That is not considered a part of the Biblical Gospel But is considered sacred by some people So Now in that book That book also has many manuscripts and many versions In one version of that book It is said that Jesus came to India Now whether Jesus came to India That is a whole different question I am not going to go into that But once Prabhupada was giving a Ratha Yatra lecture And So Prabhupada quoted in that You know how all of you respect Jesus But Jesus also came to India and he worshipped Jagannath That is said in your Your sacred book, the Aquarian Gospel So now Actually no serious Christian Takes the Aquarian Gospel as the actual Gospel So then after that Ravindra Swaroop Prabhupada Prabhupada, is this Aquarian Gospel bona fide? Is this a good book? So Prabhupada, what is the problem? It is a Gospel, isn’t it? No Prabhupada, it is not a Gospel And then he told about how that book It is a recent book, it is not a Biblical revelation So Prabhupada said okay So then again Ravindra Swaroop asked Prabhupada So is this book good? That part of Jesus going to India is good So So So after that Prabhupada never quoted From that book Never again Prabhupada quoted from that book So the point is An Acharya can also use knowledge from Prateksha and Hanuman To make some point coming from Shabda So now The nature of Prateksha and Hanuman Is that the knowledge is changing So it is not necessary that What an Acharya has learnt from Prateksha and Hanuman Is going to be always authoritative And that does not make The original Shabda point wrong So for example this idea that The female brain is smaller than the male brain Prabhupada studied In Scottish Church College And in Scottish Church College he had a Christian professor Who Based on the science at his time At that time there was this idea that the female brain Is smaller than the male brain Now that is no longer That is no longer the scientific Consensus now Because there are many problems First of all you know you have to compare Between a female brain and a male brain It depends on first of all you have to compare the male bodily size To the female bodily size Then you can do a proper comparison And on top of that there is a bigger question Whether brain size is actually Indicative of intelligence Isn’t it? So The point is that there are many occasions When Prabhupada used a particular argument When devotees told An argument not based on Shastra Now here this is an important point There is some knowledge which comes from Shastra And to support that knowledge Which is coming from Shastra Somebody may use some Prateksha and Anuman sources So when the knowledge from Prateksha and Anuman Is used To establish a point from Shabda The knowledge from Prateksha and Anuman Can turn out to be wrong When it turns out to be wrong The point from Shabda does not turn out to be wrong But just that That point from Prateksha and Anuman we will no longer use it So now An example I’ll conclude with an example for this That See suppose I have to go for a program And then I use a car The temple provides me a car to go for the program When I am going by that car The car is not very important for me For me the important thing is to go for the program The car is simply a means by which I can go to the program Now while going along to the program The car breaks down I have two options Either I can get the car fixed Or I can just get another car I can hire a cab and I can go for the program So The car Is like the arguments Based on Prateksha and Anuman Going for the program Is helping people understand Shabda So we Basically we want people to understand Scripture But while helping people to understand Scripture We will use sometimes knowledge from Scientists So for example Einstein Saying that I only trace the lines that come from God So See a scientist like Einstein also believed in God So therefore You should also believe in God If you are a scientist you should believe in God Now some atheist may come and say There are some quotes of Einstein Where he says I don’t believe in God Now Einstein basically Actually his position was that He could not accept the Judeo-Christian conception of God So from his religious cultural background He could not accept the idea of God That his religious cultural background Had taught him But by his study of science He felt that there has to be an organizing Intelligence There has to be an intelligence So his atheistic statements come from what? His conception of God That he got from his religious cultural background But his theistic concepts Theistic statements come from his From his scientific study So the point is If somebody says oh Einstein you say that he believes in God But there are so many quotes that he doesn’t believe in God And if that person makes a very forceful argument Okay leave Einstein There are so many quotes of Newton and Kelvin and so many others who believe in God So the point is If the car breaks down Either I fix the car Or you use another car So if I make a quote that Einstein believed in God Then somebody says no but there are so many quotes Where Einstein doesn’t believe in God So then I can either If I have studied the subject adequately Then I can explain why Einstein made those statements And how those statements don’t prove that Einstein is an atheist That means I counter that Argument using another Or I just abandon that argument Okay forget Einstein Newton, Kelvin, Galileo All the pioneers of all the scientific branches They believed in God So pratyaksha and anuman Is what comes from the context It comes from the culture And that is going to change The principles which are given in scripture They never change And that is what we focus on How different people will practice those principles It will all vary according to time, place and circumstance And presenting Krishna consciousness sensitively means That we don’t agitate people More than what is necessary Certainly Certainly just Telling them that you are not the body or the soul That you are meant to serve Krishna That is something which you have to do But it can all be done in a very intelligent way So Bhakti Tirtha Maharaj Has written some very nice books Leadership for an Age of Higher Consciousness and things like that So he is very good at presenting So one lecture One essay he wrote About how we need to control lust And how we need to Have Have Sexual regulation Sexual discipline So that essay he gave it a title Harnessing Sexual Energy for World Peace Harnessing Sexual Energy for World Peace And the whole Now what he was talking about He gave a historical analysis about how The uncontrolled attraction of say A king for some woman How that led to so many wars And in so many ways Individual peace And world peace was threatened And so now instead of saying that Scripture says don’t engage in sinful activities So don’t engage in this I don’t believe in your scripture But present it in a way people are concerned about world peace Now another extreme This world is never going to be peaceful It is going to be always Dukkhalayam Yes that is true but that doesn’t mean that We have to make it more Dukkhalayam Isn’t it? This world is Dukkhalayam But the whole purpose Of Dharma Is to make it stable So that we can get out of the world And that means having a proper socio-cultural administration So socio-political administration So the Being sensitive Means if people are already agitated About certain things Then we don’t agitate them further On the other hand if people are proud of something Now for example we are in Maharashtra We are Marathas Yes So Shivaji Maharaj protected the Indian culture So you can also protect Indian culture How? You don’t have to take up a sword and fight against enemies But you can take the sword of knowledge You can also share Krishna Bhakti And by that you can counter knowledge So whatever people may have a sense of honour about People may have a sense of pride for We use that To encourage them to practice Bhakti And by that They will be inspired To practice Bhakti not just because Scripture says this That is the ultimate motivation But they are not at the level of accepting scripture as a final authority We will be able to channelize their sense of honour Because I am so and so I belong to so and so family This is a respectable family This is a respectable nation Therefore let me do this And that way we can inspire people To practice Bhakti And move onwards towards Krishna So I will summarize I started by talking about How There is a difference between Arrogance, pride and honour Arrogance is undesirable The meaning of pride is changing Increasingly from positive to negative In that connection I discussed how Many words have changed their meaning Cult Preaching Rascal And we need to be sensitive So the word honour Is not just having a positive connotation But it also conveys something positive That the sense of honour Inspires people to act in honourable ways And that’s why Narada Muni is appreciating Dhruva Maharaj’s sense of honour And Narada Muni will use Dhruva Maharaj’s sense of honour To inspire him to practice Bhakti So then we discussed About how we can also Being sentimental means Like a surgeon not doing surgery Because of the fear of blood But being insensitive means That not giving anesthesia And doing the surgery and causing unnecessary pain So we should Present the truth We don’t sentimentally stop from speaking the truth But we are sensitive means We don’t unnecessarily alienate people And then I gave various examples of how Shri Jaitan Mahaprabhu was sensitive Shri Prabhupada was sensitive And how we can be sensitive And then we discussed especially about How in different cultural contexts People may have different hang-ups So For example Somebody may be a feminist They may get wild on seeing Words like less intelligent So we have to be sensitive in presenting Krishna Consciousness And lastly we discussed about how An Acharya’s scriptural statements are authoritative But an Acharya uses arguments based on Pratyaksha and Hanuman We don’t have to repeat those arguments Because they may not be even logically sound They may not even be sound Because Pratyaksha and Hanuman keeps changing We understand the essential principles And share those principles sensitively To attract people to Krishna We use their sense of honour To inspire them To wholeheartedly embrace Krishna Bhakti Thank you very much Pranthraj Srimad Bhagavatam ki Jai Are there any other questions? Ok yes While this comes along If you know that when a devotee Becomes mature in Bhakti Automatically behaves sensitively And in the beginning stage One needs to be a little fanatic Just to protect himself Knowing that it’s not a higher standard Please clarify So is it that when we are new We should be fanatical And we become sensitive afterwards It depends on what we mean by fanatical I’ll give an example from my life Atleast not I There are several of my brahmachari friends When we look back at our life And the way I joined my temple One of my devotee friends He told me Now that I have a child The way I behave with my parents If my son behaved with me like that I would be totally heartbroken So now he is a devotee And he wants his son to become a devotee But he says If I had behaved like this If my son behaved like this The way I had behaved with my parents I was terribly insensitive So then I talked with several of my Brahmachari friends also And I also looked back at my life I realized that I was very very insensitive In the way in which I dealt with my parents With my father, with my brother So about a Maybe a month or a year ago I actually went and apologized to my father Not that I regret Becoming a brahmachari But I regret the way I did that Another of my friends, he actually went to A whole assembly of all his relatives And all his relatives, he collectively Apologized to them And he said that you all loved me so much But I just rejected all of you It’s not that we are saying that we regret Becoming a brahmachari Another devotee, his father Was having Was almost like On the verge of death So at that time, he went and apologized And then his father told him That actually Now I can have emotional closure He says now I can die peacefully He says my heart was burning Not because you became a brahmachari I thought that how could A son whom I had raised Be so Heartless As to have Rejected us like this Do you know how much hurt you caused your mother So He said that now that you apologized Now I can die Peacefully So it’s not that Why am I giving all these examples This is actually to illustrate that We may say that For our practicing of bhakti That we may have To be hardline But in the process of being hardline We often end up hurting a lot of people And it’s not just hurting people Actually people may also Counterback and hurt us Actually I am writing a small book about Why I became a monk And the reason I wrote this book is That when we are insensitive People also become insensitive So I was in one temple And there was one brahmachari Who was very jittery Very insecure So I wondered what had happened Why he was so jittery and insecure So when I found out I talked with the other senior brahmachari in the temple They told me that he was a very dynamic Student in college And he became a devotee and he became a student preacher And then when he decided to join the temple His parents were so upset That actually They hired some gundas Had him kidnapped And not only they had him kidnapped After that they took him to a psychiatrist And the psychiatrist started giving him shock treatment And actually For this brahmachari One year he was given shock treatment And that one year Is a complete blank for him Total blank He doesn’t remember anything But after one year He suddenly remembered I was a brahmachari, I joined the temple And when he got back, the first opportunity he got He ran away from his home And he again joined the temple And then his parents realized That now he is not going to come back So they never came back But when he came back to the temple At that time What happened is The devotees were happy to have him back But then they found his personality had significantly changed And then they took him To a devotee psychiatrist And the devotee psychiatrist said that Actually That shock treatment that he was given That has caused permanent psychological damage Not that he has become Not that he has become mentally disturbed In a sense of being Deceased or something like that But that has become very jittery and insecure So now when I heard about this Whom do we blame for this? Now parents Love their children And no parent will want A son to become Permanently psychologically damaged But what is happening? Why did the parents do something like this then? Because they felt That my son Becoming a brahmachari Is such a disaster That even risking shock treatment Is okay It’s worth it I have to save my son from this disaster And whatever it takes I will do for that So now whatever it is Becoming a brahmachari is not such a disaster So now the problem is Why do parents think like this? My understanding is It’s simply lack of communication Many times when parents Actually come to ISKCON temples And they see what brahmacharis are doing And how they are living And how they are actually doing something constructive for society also So then Certainly they are disappointed because Their sons are not pursuing the kind of career That they had dreamt for them But they accept it So the point is Our insistence on following strict standards And our becoming fanatical It unnecessarily creates Too many misconceptions in people’s minds And then Either we can become too hard hearted Or others can become too hard hearted And that is undesirable So personally I am afraid of this word fanatical So I would say that How Yes we want to protect our bhakti And how we protect our bhakti Will vary according to time and circumstance But in general it is good to communicate What we are doing We cannot obviously go around And tell everyone why we are doing what we are doing But people who are important to us We should In trying some way See there are three levels There is intelligible, there is acceptable And there is laudable Laudable means people appreciate us for doing something Now say for most of us Whether we become brahmacharis or grahastas Our relatives may not praise us Oh you have become a devotee If they are from a very cultured background They may But laudable, it may take a long time for them They have to actually understand devotional values Then they will appreciate Then there is acceptable Means they accept it Ok this is what you want to do, you do it But intelligible means I don’t accept what you are doing But I at least understand why you think like this I don’t accept it But I understand what you are doing So actually we cannot get people As devotees When we become devotees We cannot get people To laud us for what we are doing Their values are often very different But at least we can try to be intelligible That means At least explain what we are doing Some people may not be ready to understand at all Then that is their problem But at least we should try to explain Sometimes we may be writing a letter Because sometimes in speaking it becomes very difficult There is too many heart emotions Or in some cases speaking might be better than writing Whatever it is So on one level we want to follow bhakti strictly But following bhakti strictly Doesn’t necessarily mean That we have to go about Unnecessarily hurting others So we can at some level Try to explain to people what we are doing And in general Over a period of time People don’t trouble us too much If people see that this is what you are going to do And you are happy in doing that You go ahead and do it So I would say that We can be strict But being strict doesn’t necessarily mean Being insensitive Strict means it refers to our practice Insensitive means It refers to our behaviour with others So we can try to explain As much as possible to others What we are doing And that way We can at least Our practices can be intelligible to them And that way We can avoid an unnecessary Rupture between us and them And there will be at least some relationship And eventually maybe later the relationship will improve Actually for many brahmacharis Over a period of years Their parents become devotees Or at least they become favourable So in that sense Things change over a period of time When they see that Actually this is not such a disaster But initially also We can try to communicate As well as possible But without compromising our principles So we can be We can be sensitive but we don’t have to become sentimental Sentimental means My relatives, my colleagues They don’t want me to practice so I will give up the practice That will be being unnecessary sentimental Sensitive means we try to explain what we are doing Does that answer the question? Yes Thank you very much For such an enlightening class I had a question that if you come across somebody Who has actually faced an insensitive behaviour For example Ketan is going on somehow So how do we deal with these people Who as in We personally have not had any insensitive behaviour But they have seen on their own And then they are less commenting negatively about that So how do we deal? So if people have seen People have been hurt by insensitive behaviour From some other devotees Then how do we deal with such people? In general We have to tell that ISKCON is an open organisation And different people People are at different levels of spiritual growth So We have a particular standard And actually The standard is Devotee is the well wishing friend of all living beings So very sensitive Very kind Very gentle But different people are at different stages in that So in general What we observe is that In any movement There will be four different kinds of people Many but four broad categories Now people who are Who have actually nearly reached the standard So that means for us pure devotees They are exemplary in practically all ways Then second is Those who are serious sadhakas Who are trying to imbibe that kind of behaviour And to some extent Their behaviour is also attractive Third is Those who are Really very struggling sadhakas And often Because of their conditionings They behave insensitively And one big problem is That sometimes the whole idea That I am right And I am pure and I am uncompromising Now what happens is Our religion Our religion Becomes the inflator Of our ego Our religion becomes the inflator Of our ego I already have an ego that I am a great person And now when I understand Yes I have got the truth from the parampara Then I will speak the truth All of you are in ignorance So what happens actually It boosts our ego further So then the third kind of people are those Whose anarthas And whose religion is all mixed up And that’s why often They end up misrepresenting Their religion And the fourth category are People who actually Have come to a path Not to practice the spiritual path But to just misappropriate the facilities And they have come itself with ulterior motives Now in general Because in Krishna consciousness the standards are quite high So the fourth category of people Don’t survive for very long When you know falling 400 times Chanting 16 rounds That is itself quite difficult So now when I say these four standards These are not four categories These are not watertight categories Today I may be in second category Tomorrow I may fall to third category If I don’t If I don’t guard myself from pride Or arrogance then I may fall back So the point is we have a standard And we have devotees who are Aspiring to be according to that standard So we can tell people also That yes there are different kinds of people And some people may Misrepresent And actually we can apologize for that We can apologize for that It is not wrong In that sense So But even if some people are behaving like this We have our scriptures And we have our standards And you can meet other devotees And you can try to connect them with other devotees So it is not that Actually what to speak of New people getting hurt by Insensitive behavior Even devotees get hurt by insensitive behavior Isn’t it? Devotees Sometimes even within the devotee community also We may find that there are some devotees Whose association inspires us And other devotees we find That association just Takes away our enthusiasm Devotees like this Do I really want to be a devotee? Sometimes we start feeling something like that So we need to understand when such a thing happens That different people come from different conditions So therefore What the background of a particular person is What the situation of a particular person is We don’t know So if we find that certain devotee’s behavior Is too insensitive That devotee’s behavior is not very Not inspiring for us Then we keep a distance from that devotee Now if we have to work With that devotee only If we have to work with that devotee Then we may have to bring that To the attention of some senior devotees And make some arrangement by which we can continue So in general We have to protect our bhakti And we have to give a positive Presentation of bhakti to others And if some people have got some negative perceptions Then we can do what we can to correct it But recognizing that One or two impressions Coming from devotees Do not represent the whole gamut of devotion And we can’t expect That every devotee In a devotee community is very gentle Sensitive, loving Nor can we say that Every devotee can be insensitive and still we have to practice bhakti That will also not work So we find out which Sangha inspires us And we keep ourselves in that sangha Bhaktivinoda Thakur says in Jiva Dharma And Rupa Goswami also says in Bhakti Samasindhu that We should associate with Sajatiya Asha Snigdha Sangha Sajatiya Asha means Those devotees who have the same category of desire That we have So those devotees Who inspire us, we associate with them And we share their association with others And that way people can come towards Krishna Thank you One last question Yes Sanatan Prabhujita, first of all Thank you for the class This is regards to the book distribution Monthlets You described how the Christians Are updating the Bible So that it is Conforming to the contemporary times Every 50 years they do like that And we also talked about how we speak The 1920s English And we have certain things written In Bhagavad Gita as it is That a person who comes in contact For the first time, I feel offended Many times it happens that people To whom we approach to give the Bhagavad Gita Don’t have the facility of coming To a temple or contacting Many of them are not inquisitive In the first place, somehow they Purchase the Bhagavad Gita from us So Has the time come in Escon also Where we either Of course I am not saying Even suggesting that we Edit the Bhagavad Gita as it is But do we need to give a supplementary book along with that Or how do we ensure That people who read the book Are as touched by it as they were 50 years ago So yes, the question is that People because of their conceptions And today’s notions They often get alienated Or agitated by reading something In the Bhagavad Gita as it is So how do we deal with it There are different strategies In general Just getting in contact with Bhagavad Gita At a spiritual level is beneficial Just people getting Bhagavad Gita Keeping it there at their home Having that book is sacred And sanctified That will benefit them at a spiritual level But the Bhagavad Gita is a spiritual book But it also has to be approached intellectually And they need to understand it So Now There can be three possibilities People get some misconceptions Some questions They come to us and ask questions Then we clarify naturally But if they don’t come to us They just put the book away And don’t care about it Third is that they read something And they get agitated by it And they become anti-preacher sort of thing That is most detrimental So in general The ways in which Different devotees Devotee leaders in different communities Deal with it will be different But there are many different strategies One is as you said we can have a Supplementary book with that Another is that We can have widely available courses Which So the BBT has made a separate site Called BBT edit Where the standard misconceptions That people have They have answered all those questions So and then So if anybody gets some questions people can just go And now they are trying to optimize it in Google search engine So that people can read When they search that site will come on the top And they will get the answers Apart from that also I would say More important than what people read in a book Is their interaction With devotees So if the interaction With devotees is positive Then that will create a far greater impression Than what they read in the book And even if you see in the book Most of Bhagavad Gita Is filled with pure message And just a few places here and there There might be some problems So if overall they get a positive impression These will not have a very serious problem And depending on time, place, circumstance How to deal with that The individual devotee leaders They will decide how to deal with that But there are various strategies Which the international leadership Of our movement is also considering So having courses Having online sites Having supplementary books That all that These are various strategies which can be done But the important principle is We shouldn’t forget that there is a spiritual potency Which is there in the Bhagavad Gita And that spiritual potency is what we are sharing At the same time as I said The spiritual potency will benefit them in the long run We want to benefit them not only in the long run But in the short run also So for that we also need to create systems By which we can clarify and educate people This is one last question Because it is related with the class If people say that Aquarian Gospel Is not bona fide Then when we say this Prabhupada quote Then how do we answer them? No, Prabhupada as I said Prabhupada could use different things From Pratyakshana Hanuman So when Prabhupada was in America Somebody gave him a copy of the Aquarian Gospel And they said Prabhupada in that Jesus is talking about Jesus came to India So Prabhupada read that and he used it Now Prabhupada never claimed That he was a Biblical scholar He never claimed that he has done Exhaustive study of Bible He learnt Bible based on what he heard from Scottish Church College And most of the quotes which he uses from the Bible Are from there And Prabhupada did not learn Quran It was not taught there So Prabhupada practically never quotes from the Quran So you know And actually Prabhupada never claimed That he is omniscient So based on the knowledge that he acquired He gave certain He gave He gave certain Arguments and principles When that knowledge which has come from Pratyakshana Hanuman Was turned out to be wrong Then Prabhupada said that don’t use these arguments There is that book Dialectic Spirituality So that book Now it is a Condensed version of it is produced as Beyond Doubt and Illusion So Prabhupada’s original idea Was that He wanted to show how the Krishna Conscious Philosophy is the highest philosophy And there have been many western philosophers In their own way great philosophers So Prabhupada wanted to show how their philosophy Is inadequate and Krishna Conscious is the Upmost philosophy So there were some discussions I agree Prabhupada had some discussions And they presented those philosophies Then Prabhupada responded to the philosophies Now when the devotees were about to publish that book At that time Ravindra Siruprabhu has a doctorate in philosophy So they showed this book to him And then Ravindra Siruprabhu wrote a long letter to Prabhupada He said Prabhupada actually You know these philosophers Their views only Have not been presented properly to you Because you can’t blame Shamsundar Prabhu or I agree Prabhupada They were not philosophy scholars So they just took some standard Philosophical reference and based on that they presented The arguments. So what happened here is That means Prabhupada wanted to Counter the misconception of those philosophers But then to counter Their misconception those philosophers Points have to be presented properly So if their points are not presented properly Then their refutation will also not Be proper So now those who don’t know Anything about those philosophers And those who don’t know anything about Krishna Conscious They may read this book and think All philosophers are defeated over here Krishna Conscious philosophy is right But if somebody is a serious philosopher And that person says You are misrepresenting Socrates You are misrepresenting Freud You are misrepresenting Kant You are misrepresenting all these philosophers Because they never made these arguments The point here is what? That Krishna Conscious philosophy can respond To their arguments also But their arguments have to be presented properly If their arguments are not presented properly How will Prabhupada respond properly? Because he is responding to the argument That has been presented to him So when Ravindra Sabhgu wrote this letter Prabhupada said don’t publish this book He said you study those philosophers And then you present them to me And then we will do another book So then they decided not to publish the book But then there was some Group of devotees who were outside ISKCON They said we will present Prabhupada’s message Prabhupada smashed all those philosophers We will present that So then that book was given to one Philosophy scholar in America And he said this is an Unscholarly punch on the nose He said two scholars Are having a discussion And when they are having a discussion Suddenly one scholar just picks up And instead of having a discussion Starts punching the other scholar He said this is not a scholarly book at all So that’s why that dialectic spirituality is a book The BBT did not publish it Then they edited all those conversations And then whichever arguments of those philosophers Had been presented properly They kept those arguments And published a condensed version Called Beyond Doubt and Illusion So why am I giving this example? To illustrate the point that Prabhupada himself was sensitive That if he came to know that some argument Had been presented wrong to him He did not insist on carrying on with that argument And continue with the counter argument He said correct it and present it appropriately So an Acharya Is not omniscient The Acharya’s perfection Is that the Acharya repeats the message of Krishna So once Jayadvait Maharaj He was the editor of Prabhupada And as editor often he had to Point out sometimes some grammatical mistakes Were there, some different kinds of mistakes were there So One time he asked Prabhupada Prabhupada, if a pure devotee commits mistakes If the spiritual master Commits mistakes, how do we understand it? So now we know One of the four defects is committing mistakes So scripture is free from those four defects So then Prabhupada said Pure devotee, the spiritual master never commits mistakes So then Now Jayadvait Maharaj They were on a morning walk The other devotee said to Jayadvait He was not a Swamiji at that time, he was just a Brahmachari Keep quiet, don’t ask such impertinent questions But he wanted to ask But Prabhupada, we see practically That the spiritual master sometimes quotes the verses wrong Now Prabhupada So there are many cases where Prabhupada Sometimes seems to quote the verse wrong So then he asked Prabhupada Sometimes the spiritual master quotes the verses wrong So And then Prabhupada Just look at him, that is material vision That is material vision On the other side, Satsvarupa Maharaj was there He was also an editor So Prabhupada That means that our conception Of the spiritual master’s Perfection is wrong Yes So the spiritual master is perfect In that the spiritual master Repeats the message of Krishna So in repeating The message of Krishna, in giving the essential Siddhanta, the spiritual master is perfect But it is not that the spiritual master has to be A perfect historian, a perfect geologist A perfect grammarian Perfect in all fields It is not expected. See what to speak of from a spiritual master The Bhagavatam says The Bhagavatam itself may have grammatical Imperfections In each word there can be imperfection In each word there can be imperfection But still This sound will bring about Revolution Revolution Why? Because this sound is glorifying Krishna And Prabhupada himself Writes in his purport over there He says our attempt to present this great Literature in a foreign language Will surely fail Prabhupada doesn’t say it is likely to fail Will fail he says But still after all it is a science of technical It is a spiritual science of technical values And we hope That people will focus on the essential message And then Prabhupada gives the example of If a house is on fire Other people go, even if they don’t know the language They want, there is a house fire, come out So what is Prabhupada saying? Prabhupada is telling us, focus on the essence And he admits In the things which are in the context There may be some mistakes But the essence is what is important And by focusing on the essence We keep moving steadily onwards towards Krishna And we enable others also to go on towards Krishna