The essence of offense and its best antidote – The Monk’s Podcast 106 with Garuda Prabhu

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This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Any other questions? Hare Krishna, Guruji.
Thank you very much for joining once again on Emong’s podcast. Hare Krishna. Thank you for having me.
I think today, we are discussing a topic which at one level is so common as to not be thought about in universal terms. You could say. The topic of japa which you suggested.
At one level, we understand the chanting of the holy names is universal. But sometimes, we may not understand its universality as well as the way you titled it. Universal and personal aspects.
So, do you have some structure in mind or should I start with what I have thought of and then we can take it forward from there. I am okay either way. Why don’t we, why don’t you lead the way, Chaitanya Charan, since you always do such a beautiful job.
I don’t know about that. Thank you. So, at one level, we see in Prabhupada’s teachings that he, while talking with people from other traditions, he would say that any sacred name of God or any name of God can elevate people.
So, in that sense, it was very, very inclusive. But then we also have Harer nama, harer nama eva kevalam. And that is now that is also using the name of Hari.
Now does it refer to a specific name? Bhaktivinoda Thakur also differentiates between say primary and secondary names of the Lord. So, is there is there some gradation within the chanting of the holy names based on multiple factors. One is which name we are chanting.
Second is what consciousness we are chanting. And third is also what conception we may have when we are chanting. Now, two people might be chanting the same name Krishna, but we know personalists and impersonalists can have very different conceptions of Krishna.
And even among devotees, not everybody may have the same conception of Krishna. So, I had those few thoughts about chanting, you know, which name and what conception and what level of, what motivation and what level of consciousness we are chanting with. So, so broadly we could say this relates with sammanda, abhidheya and prayojan.
The sammanda is more of the philosophical conception. The prayojan is the motivation. Why are we chanting? Is it out of love or is it of something else? And abhidheya could refer to what name are we chanting? How are we trying to fix the mind on the Lord? So, of course, this is a very rough outline.
But maybe if you like, we could discuss it from this framework. Yes. Very good.
This is a good way to start because I think it’s important to understand the chanting of the divine names of divinity. That’s a little redundant. Divine names of divinity, divine names, the holy names of God, however you want to say it.
First, by understanding the use of nomenclature, period. So, some people call me Garudadas. Now, that would indicate that that would be a devotee calling me Garudadas.
That indicates a devotional relationship. Some call me Garudaprabhu. That’s maybe a little more respect, a little more formality.
Some God brothers of mine just call me Garuda. Hey, Garuda, you know? Some devotees may even sort of have fun with my name and call me Dr. Bird or something like that because Garuda is the name of a bird. Names, what we call other people reflects our relationship with them.
Some people call me Dr. Schweig. Well, then that acknowledges that I’m a scholar or a professor. Sometimes people will call me Professor Schweig and they’re using my legal name.
Some people may call me Graham. Well, then that’s an informal, more informal relationship of someone who may not be a devotee but knows me in the outer world. Some people call me Dad.
That would indicate, you know, or Father. That would indicate, you know, Chaitanya Charanjee, if you started calling me Dad, I would be a little concerned about you because that’s not our relationship, right? Our subtle intentions and understandings behind names, so these different names carrying, in some sense, a particular rasa, relationship with the other person. So just on that basis, we can begin to build an understanding of why anyone chants certain names of the Divine.
And yes, Prabhupada said that if you see God as Jehovah, then you can chant Jehovah. If you see it as Christ, then you can chant Christ or Allah. And there are the 99 names of Allah.
There’s a similar kind of Vishnu Sahasranama, the thousand names of Vishnu. So the idea of a name is very, it’s very powerful. To name something is to separate it from everything else.
If I say Chaitanya Charanjee, you know, then I’m only referring to you, and I’m not referring to anything else. Of course, Chaitanya Charanjee Das, oh, the servant of the feet of Lord Chaitanya. Wow.
Okay, so here’s a devotee who is surrendered at the lotus feet of Mahaprabhu Garunda. Wow. Okay, so that’s a privilege.
So there’s a connection between, I’m acknowledging a connection between you and Mahaprabhu. Wow, that’s a beautiful name. Okay.
My name, Prabhupada named me after a bird. Okay. But a rather unusual bird, I must say.
The carrier of Vishnu. Okay. One who engages in sacred flight, carrying Krishna or Vishnu everywhere.
So these names have different senses and different connotations and so on. And the way we use the names also can be, you know, indicative, again, of a relationship that I have with the person named and the qualities or attributes of the person named. So it can all get very subtle.
Okay, you can get very subtle. But usually the names we use indicate the relationships that we have. What are the meanings of, say, Garuda or Chaitanya Charan? I thought of two things.
One thing is, the name has a relationship with a particular object, a reality. And then the name or the person who is named has a relationship with us. So, as you said, it becomes subtle.
It becomes, so how are we relating with that object or that person? And also how that person or that person whose name relates with reality. Yes. So, I think one aspect of the holy name which we often talk about is that the holy, in the case of the holy name, the reference and the referent are non-different.
Right. So, I think that is implicit. I don’t think there’s much confusion about that, although there is much, I would say there is a lot of depth we can go into that subject also.
But, I think here what you are focusing more on is not the object and the concept. Again, this is all a part of the process of naming. I mean, when you’re not here, and I think Chaitanya Charan Das, there’s a whole image that comes to me about Chaitanya Charan Das.
My interactions with him, my friendship with him, his good intelligence on devotional topics. I mean, so many things come to me when I say Chaitanya Charan Das. Now, does the whole of Chaitanya Charan Das appear? No.
There are parts of Chaitanya Charan Das that I don’t even know. But with the divine names, divinity is in some sense present completely within his name. there’s a it’s sort of an avatar.
The divine crosses over and descends into the very sonic representations of him. So, it’s an avatar. My name, if you say Garuda Das when I’m absent, of course you’ll think of things about me, you’ll remember our relationship, but the fullness of my being is not present in the name.
But with Krishna’s name, the fullness of his being is actually present. That’s a powerful thing, which is what you were just saying between reference and reference. But you also added an interesting qualifier that divinity is in some sense present in the divine name.
So, I think that also brings in something like a Adhikar or a qualification. So, the holy name is non-different from the Lord. However, how much we realize it, there will be a difference.
We may not really feel that non-difference. So, in the case of any ordinary name, any names of those who are not really the divinity, no matter how much be our emotional investment. So, depending on how well we know a person, that much we may remember that person or that much that person will be evoked by calling out their names.
And if you are very close, so the degree of evocation of the person at one level depends on how much we know the person. But no matter how well we know the person, still the full person will never be evoked by their name if they are not the divine. But in the case of the divine, so the experience of the person depends both on, like earlier you said, our relationship with that name or that person and the name’s relationship with the actual person.
That’s right. Yeah. That’s right.
So, you know, it’s in with regard to the divine names, there are really different relationships with the divine names. One can look at the different ways of analyzing these relationships by first understanding the levels of advancement that a devotee may have. So at first, the relationship with the divine names and my perception, my reason for reciting or utilizing the divine names may be merely to become acquainted with those names and to be entering into a contemplative mode by chanting the names.
As a kineshta, we simply will hear the sounds of the names. We’ll focus on the sounds of the names. They become almost an object of meditation.
So in a sense, the names from the start, we can treat as intrinsically valuable sonically and a valuable object of meditation just the names themselves without knowing fully and appreciating fully the way divinity is saturated in those names, the presence and the fullness of divinity is in those names. But as a kineshta bhakta, I’m becoming familiar with those names. I’m in a sense saying, oh Krishna, I don’t know you, but I’m beginning to like chanting your names.
It’s a new relationship. If I’ve never met you before, I would say, excuse me, what is your name? That kind of beginning level of learning the name of a person. Because again, that distinguishes Chaitanya Charan from anyone else that I know.
Otherwise, if I don’t have a name, then in a way, you don’t count to me. But with a name, you count. You matter.
Then at the madhyama level… Are you saying that if I remember someone’s name and I address them by that name, that indicates that I value them and if I forget their name, I don’t value them? Is that what you’re saying? In a sense. One of the reasons I don’t like to go to big festivals is because I have people coming up to me and say, Garuda Prabhu, Haribo. I’m scratching my head like, do I know this person? It’s very embarrassing.
It may be like 30 years since I’ve seen the person, but apparently, I had a bigger impact in his life than he did in my life because he remembers my name. I said, Prabhuji, I am so sorry. I don’t remember your name.
You look familiar, but I can’t place you. Prabhu, you made me a devotee. Oh, okay.
What’s your name? They would say their name. Then I would gradually remember perhaps or hopefully. Again, the impact that I had on him caused him to remember my name.
Even though I may look very different now, 30 years later. Old man. I was a younger man then.
I’m now an older man. The idea of recollection that calling out a name, naming someone, remembering their name, the name that belongs to them. It is, in a sense, it’s an activity of recollection.
Now, with divine names, this is the deepest form of recollection. Deepest form of recollection. This is the deepest form of recollection.
We were once connected to divinity. We became disconnected and now we’re becoming reconnected. The true understanding of the word religion, and a lot of people don’t like the word religion, but I’ve come to like it better these days because it comes from the Latin religare.
Religare means to connect, and re means again. To again connect. If you’re going to connect again to something, that means that you were once connected and that you became disconnected and now you’re reconnecting.
That is exactly our position. We were once connected, we became disconnected, and now we’re reconnecting. Recollection.
It’s powerful. So, now we’re talking about the holy name as a means of both recollecting and reconnecting, in a sense. Yes.
When we talk about this, there is this both, I could say, from an insider concern as well as an outsider concern. For insiders who are practicing the chanting, sometimes it becomes mechanical. And whether actually we are remembering the Lord or not, that becomes a question.
Yes. The mechanics of chanting, if I’ve never met you, and I don’t know anything about you, saying Chaitanya is going to be sort of abstract. I don’t know the qualities.
I don’t know Chaitanya Charn’s squared off glasses. He’s got sunglasses and he’s shaven and he wears a saffron shirt. I don’t know these things about Chaitanya Charn.
He sits in front of a curtain wall. I don’t know these attributes. I just know the name.
Someone says Chaitanya Charn. But who is Chaitanya Charn? Well, you’ll get to know him as you chant. Well, chanting is not an isolated activity.
We read in the Shastras. We study the Shastras. Even in the Vedanta Sutra, it says, what is the phrase? What’s that? Those are very well known.
This is a less known one. It’s something like Shastra Bhavanat. Shastra Yonitvat.
Shastra Yonitvat. Yoni is like the who. Yeah, but that’s another one.
There’s another one where it indicates that Bhava, we attain the feelings for the Lord through the Shastra. I’ll have to look that up for you, Chaitanya Charnji. But in any case, the idea is that it’s, or maybe it’s Shabda.
That’s what I think it is. That it’s through sound that we arrive at the feeling. So is this another piece of that? No, no, no.
That’s the last. That’s the last of the Yeah. Let’s see here.
I’m just looking up my translations of the Vedanta Sutra and going through them. Here it is. 3-4-22 Bhava Shabacha So there is devotional feeling on account of the sound of sacred revelation.
Oh, okay. There’s devotional feeling, Bhava, on account of the sound of sacred revelation. Indeed.
The idea here is all manner of sacred sound, sound coming from the Shastras, sound from repeating the names of divinity. It’s all based on sound. And through sound divinity is revealed.
It’s a powerful statement in the Vedanta Sutra. I love that one. Bhava Shabacha It’s beautiful.
Yeah. So here we are. When we talk about the divine names at first it may be mechanical.
That’s the mechanishta approach. Madhyama indicates that there is a connection. There is a connection between the chanter and the chanted.
That there is an appreciation of my relationship with the divinities about whom I’m getting to know and to love. The uttama level of chanting is one that’s totally saturated with love. So you see the kanishta is more mechanical.
It’s an introduction. The madhyama is more knowledge of the very divinities about whom I’m invoking or evoking. And then the uttama level of chanting is about lovingly calling out to the divine.
And that’s when you know I’m a professor as you know Chittendrajanji. And every once in a while I see a student in class and I can kind of tell that they’re in love. They’re in love with someone.
And I’m sure you know if you know it’s like I’m sure they’re taking notes from my lecture but there’s another part of them that’s going George George Oh George you know just right using the evocative case George or if it’s a man maybe Georgette or whatever Georgette or whatever I don’t know. Just making up names now. But the idea is that that’s the way lovers call out to one another.
The Maha Mantra is a mantra of names comprised of lovers. It is the mantra of love. It’s you know Chittendrajanji the Maha Mantra first of all it’s called the Maha Mantra the greatest mantra.
Why is it so great? First of all there is no mantra that I have ever seen or I know of that it doesn’t have a syntactical structure or that stands alone is simply a bija. This is a mantra that has repetitions and it’s all in the evocative case in Sanskrit. So this is a completely unique mantra.
om namo bhagavate vasudevaya There’s a syntactical structure there. Right? Vasudev bhagavate vasudevaya but they’re both in the dative case. Unto the Bhagavan Unto Bhagavan who is the son of Vasudev So the idea here is it’s in the dative case.
There’s an invocational bija mantra at the start with the omkar, the pranava omkar. Okay. This is a very common structure for a mantra.
Very common. There are loads of mantras. Many, many, many mantras and each of these mantras are generally utilized at different times for different places and in different circumstances just as the Gayatri mantras are meant for sunrise midday and sunset You’re not really supposed to chant those mantras any other time.
So there are specifications and these kinds of specificities are just all over the place with mantras. I mean certain mantras are meant for invoking certain sub-divinities, not the supreme divinities. So there’s the ultimate divinity of Krishna and Aradhana and Krishna.
But then there’s the penultimate divinity such as Shiva. And then there’s the quasi ultimate divinities of Indra and so on. Vayu, Agni, etc.
You know, I like the word quasi ultimate divinities. Somehow the word demigods have acquired a certain negative connotation. It appears to be almost like demeaning those personalities.
And I usually when I talk, I prefer the word devatas. Quasi divinity sounds better than the word. Sometimes words change their connotations over time.
Upad would use the word cult. Cult of Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu is spreading all over the world. We won’t use it now.
That’s right. Well, you know devata, the word divinity comes from devata. It’s a cognate.
And then of course the divine is a broader way perhaps to refer to divinity and so on. And then there’s Ishwara. We have so many words really that can refer to divinity but different aspects of the divine.
Different aspects. The Bhagavat is different than Ishwara. Ishwara is different than Brahman.
But one may contain something of the other and it can get kind of complicated. I maintain that Ishwara is a combination of Bhagavan and Brahman. Isha, Isha meaning the governor, the ruler, the lord.
And vara meaning circumference. So the center, the circumcenter of a circumference rules every point in the circumference. This is getting a little Euclidean within the field of geometry.
But the idea is that Bhagavan is at the core and Brahman is the all. So at the core of Brahman is Bhagavan. Ishwara is connecting Bhagavan with Brahman.
That’s a beautiful metaphor. There are many metaphors to talk about the idea of the three aspects of the absolute. We talk about sunlight and sun rays and I use the example of say some delicious edible food like gulab jamun.
So first we may experience its fragrance. And then we go closer and we see its shape. And then we experience its taste.
So like that, I think Jeeva Goswami talks about this in his Sandarbha that how when people are experiencing Brahman, they are experiencing only the Sat aspect of the absolute truth. They are only experiencing Chit and Ananda. And when they experience Brahmatma, it is Sat and Chit.
And then when they experience Bhagavan, it is Sat, Chit and Ananda. So it’s like the object is the same, but are we experiencing its fragrance and its beauty, aesthetic shape? Are we experiencing the fragrance shape and taste all? I like this gulab jamun example. This is very good.
Of course, we’ve all heard the example of the train at night. All you see far away is the light and when it comes closer, you see the actual engine car. And then when it stops, you see the engineer in the train.
I like the gulab jamun thing better. That makes sense because it’s rasa. It’s taste.
I like that. I like the Euclidean example also, what you said about circle because what it also conveys the idea is that in one sense the circle is everything, but there is a center of the circle and the center has its importance. That’s right.
In terms of the visual imagery also, Bhagwan as the center of Brahman works perfectly well, like the sun and the sunlight. Yes. When you say Parmat or Ishwara links are you equating Ishwara with Parmatma in that sense? Parmatman really is sort of you could also use the example of Ishwara with instead of Bhagavan at the circumcenter, you could say Parmatman.
Okay. Because, of course, Parmatman is on the way to Bhagavan. And we know that within the devotee’s heart where Parmatman resides, that ultimately a devotee sees not Parmatman, but Bhagavan in the heart.
They’re very closely linked. Hmm. It’s beautiful.
Yeah. We were talking about the divinity and various levels of the manifestation of the divinity and the names which you refer to. In relation to the names.
Yeah. Right. Our chanting reflects our relationship with the divine.
If we chant mechanically, then our relationship with the divine right now is simply introductory and mechanical. I mean, when I meet someone for the first time, or not even meet someone, I hear about them and I just hear their name. That’s all I know.
It’s kind of abstract. It’s kind of abstract. But when I meet them, I go, oh, look at him or her.
Look at that. What a fine-looking person. I see that they actually have a form, not just a name.
So, Nama Rupa, right? Nama Rupa. And then, oh, they like to play tennis. Oh, my gosh.
That’s their Leela. So, Nama Rupa Leela. And where are you from, anyway? Oh, you’re from New York.
Okay. Nama Rupa Leela Dhamma. Okay.
So, in other words, just to know Nama. Now, although, you know, Rupa Leela Dhamma is all collapsed in the name of divinity, whereas it’s not collapsed in my name or your name. This is the difference.
The difference between names in this world and then names for divinity. There really is quite a bit of difference between the reference and the referent. So, with divinity, this is the marvelous path of bhakti to enter more and more and more into Krishna’s divine being, as it’s stated in the Gita.
One enters into his divine, his being. It’s wonderful. And part of that being is, of course, his name and his form and his Leela and his Dhamma, and so on.
And, of course, you can add in there the guna, the attributes, and so on. But, yes, I mean, the name, of course, you know, we are when the Maha Mantra, I’d like to, okay, Chaitanya Charanjee, I’d like to point out some special qualities of the Maha Mantra in the Upadesa Maritam. Verse 5. This is the first place in the short 11-verse text of the Upadesa Maritam that the holy names are mentioned.
And it first starts out, O Krishna, when one calls out and sings this name, one should honor such a person within one’s mind. Now, it’s interesting. We can sound the name of Krishna by ourselves in japa, in the ostensibly lone activity of japa.
But we can also do this in kirtan. Now, at times we do japa together with other people doing japa. And this is one way one can be a little bit more electrified in one’s practice, especially if it’s more mechanical in the beginning.
But in kirtan, one of the things that enlivens devotees in kirtan and uplifts one’s practice of the chanting of the holy names in kirtan is that other people, other devotees, are relating to the holy names perhaps at higher levels. And so one is kind of drawn into that in kirtan. Now, you don’t measure this.
You can’t say, Prabhu, before you chant, which level are you on in the chanting of the holy names? Are you chanting purely? No, this is not a concern. The holy names are always pure. The question is whether our relation to them is pure.
So holy names are pure. So I can hear someone mechanically going, you know, Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna, Krishna, Hare, Hare. The names, I’ve just chanted it mechanically, but the names themselves are pure.
Our interaction with the names may not be pure. So it can be more like the Tamasaguna. That’s the Kanishka start.
It’s dark. It’s mysterious. I don’t really know exactly what I’m doing at this point.
I haven’t realized it. It’s not a natural process for me yet. I don’t know the person whom I’m invoking.
I don’t know that person yet. How strange is that? Of course, a Kanishka in the temple setting will know that this is Krishna. You see Krishna in the Archa-Vigraha form.
This is who you’re invoking. That’s an excellent introduction to the names. You’re just being introduced to Radha and Krishna.
You want to get to know them more, so you call out their names. When one is living their whole lives on the devotional path, then calling out their names takes on different dimensions. One of the things I’d like to point out about the Ma Mantra is not only that it’s a unique mantra among all other mantras, but as Mahaprabhu himself says in the second verse of the Shikshamritam, he says there are no hard and fast rules for chanting.
That’s one of the things about Krishna’s names that make chanting his names different than chanting all other names. That on the one hand. On the other hand, we have ten aparads.
Wait a second. I’m getting jerked around here. There are no hard and fast rules.
Now I’ve learned there are ten offenses. The ten offenses are not rules. They’re things that we tend to do.
Every one of the ten aparads, and we call them offenses, but what is an aparad? Aparad means moving away from the proper mode of worshiping and loving the Divine. Aparada. Rada means worship or love, loving, and apa means away from.
To move away from. What does that directionality consist of though? In every case, what is implied in all ten aparadas is a form of reductionism. Reductionism.
Beautiful. I never thought of it that way, but yes, that’s exactly what it is. Each form, each aparad, is to reduce something very special to something not so special.
Look at the first one, to blaspheme the devotees. Blaspheme means to make something much less than what it is, to discount it. To consider the names of the demigods, like Lord Shiva, etc.
To be equal to. Well, again, you’re reducing the holy names to something less than what they are. It’s not that chanting the names of the penultimate deity of Shiva is a bad thing.
No. But to reduce Krishna’s names to that is not a good thing. It’s moving you away from the rasa with Krishna.
To disobey the orders of the spiritual master. Well, I mean, okay. So why would someone disobey? Well, because one is simply reducing the requests of the spiritual master as something that’s not important, when they’re extremely important.
In fact, Prabhupada says the instructions of the spiritual master is the life and soul of the devotee. So, if it’s not your life and soul, then what are you doing? Why do you have a spiritual master? Right? So, again, another form of reductionism. Right? Then, of course, to blaspheme the Vedic literature.
What does that mean, blasphemy? See, blasphemy and idolatry are two ends of the same spectrum. Idolatry means I make something more than what it really is. And blasphemy means I make something less than what it really is.
Human beings are forever caught between these two. So true. So, if I say Chaitanya Charanjee, he’s nothing but a brahmachari.
That’s blasphemy. Chaitanya Charanjee’s much more than just a brahmachari. Brahmachari is a secondary concern.
Ashram is a secondary concern. Chaitanya Charanjee is a wonderful bhakta. Now, that’s more powerful.
See, that’s truer. Chaitanya Charanjee, ah, he’s just a brahmachari. So, you are, in a sense, talking about blasphemy and idolatry have very strong religious connotations, but the underlying principle applies everywhere.
Say, it’s either we overvalue things or we devalue things. That’s it. So, we, we can overvalue things, we can value things, and we can undervalue things.
That’s the spectrum. I think undervalue is more precise than devalue over here. It’s like conscious act is done over and under.
That’s right. You know, if somebody says, Garuda Prabhu is just an academic scholar. That’s right.
That’s one part, but that’s far from the most important part. And to reduce it to that one part. Hmm.
Yes. In fact, you know, is there any way, I never thought of, I thought of idolatry primarily as a Abrahamic concept. Is there a, is there a Vedic or Sanskrit word for something like idolatry? Even blasphemy? I don’t know, aparad is not exactly blasphemy.
No, it’s not. Yeah. Even the word offense is still a connotative sense of what aparad means, literally.
You know. But I never heard offense in literate. Aparad is being translated as blasphemy.
It’s not exactly the same. It is. That’s right.
Okay. So I think those words. But in a sense, it’s closer to blasphemy than offenses.
Yeah. Offenses is almost like the after effect. I mean, look, blasphemy, look, aparad, to make less than loving.
To perform things, to do something that makes something less than its true loving intent or true loving function. Aparad in a way is reductionism. It’s not a pretty word.
It’s not an easy word. Among all the things I’ve heard, reductionism, we may use the word materialism or material vision, but reductionism conveys actually it very precisely. What’s happening? It conveys what’s happening.
Yeah. In fact, it conveys everything. The attitude of the person, and the consequence of that action.
So reductionism conveys a, it’s almost like the word reductionism is a more inclusive word. Yes. Which doesn’t convey just the action or the, like offense conveys more the consequence, as you said.
Take offense or don’t take offense. That’s right. But it’s not that Krishna personally takes offense.
It’s just that our action itself is offensive because we are undervaluing Krishna. That’s right. Krishna is a vengeful God or the holy name is vengeful.
It’s just that we when we undervalue, then we deprive ourselves. It’s not that somebody is depriving us or somebody is punishing us. It’s by our undervaluation we are depriving ourselves.
That is correct. Yeah. That’s a very beautiful explanation.
See now earlier, maybe we want to go to this later or we can just mention this. See, we had a whole podcast on please criticize me. So we discussed that how criticism can help us to improve and it is important for all of us to have that.
Now, in that we had a brief discussion on Aveshna Aparadha in terms of offending people, offending devotees specifically or even offending in general human beings also is an offense. So there, what it would mean is, criticizing is, okay, this is what you are and this is what is not being done right and you can improve this or that is the whole attitude in criticism, the way you used it. But in offense, it’s not the mood is not to help a person improve.
The mood is more to make a judgmental pronunciation of what the person is. Yeah. Is that what would the difference be or is there something more to it also? Yes.
So constructive criticism is one thing and it doesn’t, if it’s constructive, then it is avoiding reductionistic kinds of claims. And of course constructive criticism implies necessarily dialogue. If I’m constructively criticizing something you’ve done, Chaitanya Charanjee, I never tell you I’m doing this behind your back.
Yeah, if I’m unwilling, right, then it becomes what may have been intended to be constructive can also be destructive because what you’re doing is you are convincing others of what you’ve done that is worth criticizing. If I say, well, I’ve actually spoken to Chaitanya Charanjee about this and he agrees that blah blah blah and so on. But it’s another thing, if I do this behind Chaitanya Charanjee’s back, maybe with the best of intentions, but one has to be very careful.
One has to be open to dialogue. Most importantly, dialogue is the place for constructive criticism to be transacted. Now, that said, when others refuse dialogue, Others means the giver or the receiver or either of criticism? Either.
When either one refuses to engage in dialogue, namely the person who is criticized for doing whatever or saying whatever and the person doing it, if either one fears dialogue, does not see the value of dialogue, that itself is a reductionistic act and blasphemous. Criticism itself can become reductionistic and blasphemy afterwards. It’s not that criticism intrinsically can be.
So we could say there are two, three possibilities. One is if somebody criticizes with no intention of having a dialogue and then it is problematic. I think like the way you mentioned the incident, that is somebody speaking something about you on Facebook, you know, why speak it over there? You know, I’m ready to talk with you.
You approach them. So that means if A goes and speaks about B to C or D or E without ever trying to seek any dialogue with B any kind of response from them also, then that would go in the direction of destructive criticism and that would be blasphemy, that would be apartheid. So if A, if say, also we could say if A does this and then B refuses to respond, then is it, then who is committing apartheid over there? Is it, I would say B responds and then A again refuses to engage.
Then I think once we get into technicality, it may become a little complex but I understand your overall point that if there is no scope for the criticism to be made constructive, then it is more likely to go towards offense. Yeah. Yes.
And the word offend, to offend is to hurt. Is to hurt. Again, the word offend is used all the time and it’s merged with all kinds of stuff.
So let’s not use that word. Let’s just say what it is. When constructive criticism is offered but there’s refusal on the part of the other person to engage in dialogue, then in effect, ironically, it’s not the person who offers the constructive criticism that’s hurt, that is hurting the person criticized, but it’s the person who is criticized but within all good intentions, but the person refuses to engage in dialogue, in that regard, he or she is hurting the person offering constructive criticism.
Ironically. So, you know, it’s all about dialogue. It’s all about samvadham.
You know, it’s like if Arjuna and Krishna on the battlefield, you know, Krishna offers some sympathy, as he does in the beginning of the second chapter, and there are seven verses before, you know, six verses before Arjuna says, shishyas teham sadhimam aham prapannam, something to that effect. He said, I am your student, please instruct me, I submit myself unto you. I mean, he could have said, you know, I’m not your student.
I’m not going to learn from you, and I don’t consider you my teacher. So, I’m bowing out. I don’t want to hear from you.
But Krishna had some constructive criticism. He said, hey, this is not too becoming for a kshatriya, by the way. You know, even laughed a little bit in a loving sense, not a mocking sense, a loving sense.
And Arjuna had a subtle criticism of Krishna when he was complaining about what was going on in front of him. He said, you know, he addressed Krishna as madhusudana, implying, hey, you kill demons, but even you don’t kill people you love. When have you ever killed anyone you love? You’re asking me to do something that even you don’t do.
So that was a little bit of a dig. You know, Krishna was, I mean, Arjuna was upset, but he did not bow out of dialogue. Not only did he not bow out of dialogue, he saw it as the only way out of his irresolvable ethical dilemma that caused him so much pain and suffering and hopelessness.
Dialogue is the answer. Dialogue is the answer. As soon as we refuse dialogue, we are severing ourselves from the greater reality and from other relationships.
This actually brings us again to the, I’m just bringing this, I love this point about how sometimes I have experienced that somebody offers, says something very scathing, but then if somehow we are able to get beyond that initial negativity or resentment, then we find that sometimes some of our deepest relationships happen because there is scandal in the relationship. Like what Krishna says, that which tastes like poison in the beginning tastes like nectar in the end. So if that is, so that means if we don’t penetrate through that, there is a tendency to, if somebody criticizes us, to go on the defensive.
And I think we discussed that elaborately in our earlier session. But this point about dialogue being the basis, so the refusal to dialogue, we can say that is in one sense, is likely to cause hurt, either to the receiver of criticism or even to the giver of criticism. If a person is giving criticism also, they also put in some thought.
They also put in, sometimes devotees ask me to review their writings, and I offer some review and sometimes that devotee never gets back to me after the review. They don’t speak one word about it, you know, thank you, or I felt bad about it, or I become worried, you know, what happened, did I hurt you about it? That’s right. That’s right.
Well, a few months ago, I wrote a leading devotee in the movement, a leading devotee in the movement who produces some books and I questioned why does he do what he does? Is he not distracting devotees from doing this or that? And I was rather pointed about, like, please explain how we should understand what he is doing. I didn’t hear from him. I resent it.
I said, in case you didn’t get this, I look forward to your response. I was very systematic in my letter and then I sent a third letter which said, you know, hey, I don’t know why I’m not getting a response from you. Perhaps you could let me know.
But I am sincere in my inquiry and others are as well. We want to know, blah, blah, blah, and so on. And he still did not respond.
Now, I don’t know him very well. He doesn’t know me very well. In fact, we hardly know each other at all, but we certainly know who each other is.
And he is a leading, very prominent devotee, which means that he has a responsibility to respond. That’s interesting. How do you correlate that? He’s a leading devotee.
Sometimes somebody might say that, you know, that, you know, I get, of course, you are also a leading devotee in our movement. So in that sense, it’s you raising a concern is different from, say, some, you don’t want to devalue any devotee. But somebody who just picks up a keyboard and writes something, there’s a difference.
So in some ways we say that if somebody’s criticizing, one of the ways is just neglect it. It’ll go away. Because sometimes it may happen that, you know, two people are so unlike-minded that the other person is not going to understand what we are doing.
So when you say that you have an obligation to respond, can you explain that? Yes. Okay. Well, I practice what I preach.
I happened across a… I don’t know if I said this in my last talk with you, but I happened across a thread, Facebook thread. Right? Remember I mentioned this? They were criticizing me like anything. Now, these sound like very disgruntled devotees, very, you know, nothing good is in ISKCON, blah, blah, blah.
And so they decided one day to pick on me. I could have just said, you know what, Chaitanya Chari? I’ll just throw that out as, like, these devotees are so troubled and so negative and they just want to tear everything down. I could have said that and just dismissed it.
But I didn’t. Why? And even though none of these devotees were well-known, if someone mentioned their names to anyone, no one would know who they were. Right? I didn’t care about that.
I didn’t care that they were nobody devotees. Okay? Because to me, there are no nobody devotees. So if someone is criticizing me, I want to learn from them.
Interestingly, of course, none of them wrote me back. So you see, they were never intending constructive dialogue. When they had the opportunity to engage in constructive criticism and dialogue, they didn’t take it up.
Their intention clearly became known to me as simply wanting to hurt me. And that, Chaitanya Charanjee, is what is the nature of envy. See, jealousy and envy are not the same.
If I’m jealous of you, Chaitanya Charanjee, because I like your shape of glasses better than mine, and then my wife goes out, I say, I’m jealous of Chaitanya Charanjee. He’s got a beautiful shape of glasses, and mine are not so nice. She goes out, gets identical pair of glasses, then my jealousy is gone.
But if I’m envious of you, if I see you happy with your shape of glasses, and even if my wife gets me a hundred pairs just like yours, I’m still not happy. I’m only happy when you lose your glasses. Oh, okay.
Jealousy, you can say, is more centered on particular objects, whereas envy is directed toward persons? Yeah, but it’s more than that. Jealousy is… I might be jealous of you for being, let’s say, so learned in Bhagavad Gita. So, if I become learned in Bhagavad Gita, then I’m no longer jealous of you.
But if I want you to be hurt, over the head, and then lose your great memory, this is evil, Chaitanya Charanjee. Okay, that’s a very categorical difference, yeah. This is evil.
Yeah, this is evil. If my intention is, I want to say things about Chaitanya Charanjee, that will hurt him. No.
To do that is evil. To say, I want to offer constructive criticism to this devotee, because I see him actually hurting other devotees. And I want to make sure that one, he’s aware of it.
Two, that maybe he could correct it and not hurt other devotees. And then, you see, everything gets elevated to a higher level. So, the idea is dialogue.
It’s all the locus of truly constructive criticism of true evolving and upliftment is dialogue. It’s only when we become at odds with each other and we don’t engage in dialogue and we simply complain on the side and we convince others that in something that will hurt someone, then that’s evil. Our intention is to hurt.
So, you know, this is the hatimata offense. The hatimata aparada, the first aparada of the chanting of the holy names. To blaspheme means to make them less than who they are.
If I see a devotee accidentally stepping on the toes of other devotees as he walks, well, if I simply call him, he’s nothing but a toe-stepper. It’s a stupid example. But the idea is that that one offense, that one not good thing that he does, I see that as the whole person.
That’s a problem. So, again, this is a form of reductionism. I take the weakest part of a person and take that as the whole person.
That makes sense. That’s reductionism. And then, to go further to our topic, to give some interpretation on the holy name.
There we go. Now, there’s the aparada of giving some interpretation. And here I am today.
I could be looking like I’m giving some interpretation on the holy name. Okay? So, what does that mean to give an interpretation? What this means is to take a universal mantra, the Maha Mantra, and say that it means this, as if it only means this. I like this whole reductionism because I was recently asked this question that there is some study done by Dr. David Brian Wolf about mantra chanting leading to helping people decrease their depression and negative habits.
So, this question came up. Isn’t that a mundane interpretation? So, I corresponded with that devotee also. He said that apparently Prabhupada in BDG was, when BDG was being published, devotees talked about how chanting changes the brain states, something similar to what psychedelic drugs do.
Now, I don’t remember the exact specifics, but Prabhupada was not very very approving of that kind of explanation at that time. But, we can say that chanting has say, social dimensions, physical dimensions, neural dimensions, but to say that that is all that chanting is, that is where it will become a problem. That’s right.
Just like when I have colleagues telling me that the Gita is about offering the fruits of your activities, or not being attached to the fruits of your activities. I’ve actually heard academic colleagues say that’s what the whole Gita is about. And I say, you’re kidding.
You’re kidding. They’re kidding. Yeah, I mean, no.
Come on. Maybe in chapters 3, 4, and 5, maybe there’s, but even those chapters say much more than that. So, I mean, you know, they’ve reduced the whole Gita, but then one colleague of mine came up to me after reading my translation of the Gita several times.
He said, Graham, I think I’ve got it. I think I see what is being said in the Gita. That the Gita is ultimately, the Gita is saying that the universe is ultimately a loving place.
I said, wow. I said, that’s pretty good. I like that.
That’s not bad. See, he’s moving in the right direction. That the universe is ultimately a loving place.
I thought that was a beautiful way of putting it. Beautiful, really. I like it.
Yeah. So, it is also so non-sectarian in a way that is harmonious with the principles of bhakti. That’s right.
Yeah. Universe is ultimately a loving place. I mean, one could fill that out, you know, and go crazy with that statement.
So, it’s a, by some, one thing we learn in graduate studies is how to summarize things, and by the way, you do this beautifully in each of your presentations with your interviews, but how to summarize things without reducing them. That’s hard. That’s hard.
How to summarize things without dumbing it down. Again, another form of reductionism. Yeah, you know, I’m thinking about this universe as a loving place.
We as devotees might also reduce the Gita. This world is a place of misery. Yeah, there we go.
The Gita says that this world is a place of misery, but the Gita doesn’t just focus on this world. Yeah, and also, in a sense, gives us a way to live in this world so that we need not be that miserable. That’s right, exactly.
Arjuna is crying at the start of the Gita, and Krishna doesn’t say, Arjuna, you’re crying now? You realize this world is miserable. No need for me to speak anything more. Yeah, that’s right.
You’ve reached perfection. Your state of hopelessness is exactly where you should be. You’re hopeless? Good.
Stay there. That’s not what happened. That is not what happened.
Not at all. And when dialogue, I mean, the whole Gita is a dialogue. And when this dharmam samvadham, this sacred dialogue that phrase is used, dharmam samvadham is used by Sanjaya.
At the end, Sanjaya is in a fit of ecstasy when he thinks about this dialogue. So dialogue also has the effect of uplifting others even when you’re not a part of the dialogue. When you refuse dialogue, it also not only hurts you, hurts the other person, but guess what? It hurts others too.
It hurts others who are connected to you and connected to them or connected to the other person. Yes. Going back to your earlier point about obligation to respond, maybe it also depends on if the other person is just not ready to see reason, then stopping the dialogue or not engaging in dialogue any further is fine.
But if the other person is actually genuinely with concern and some level of openness enquiring, then it’s a part of the Vaishnav Bhakti process to say that because sometimes it is said that what is it saying that the dogs will bark but the caravan rolls on. Prabhupada would talk about that with respect to some criticism that he would get at times. But also Prabhupada would respond when people said that there are some critical articles about devotees in Indian newspapers.
Prabhupada had Giriraj and others write responses and Prabhupada himself went over those responses and edited. So it’s not a one-zero thing. Not that we should never respond or not that we are always obliged to respond.
sometimes some people, especially when somebody gets to a leadership position, sometimes there’s just so much coming up that so many people may say so many things that it’s difficult to respond to all of them. So I think a lot depends on the context or the tone or the candidate, we could say. Some of the criticisms may not be genuinely true, constructive criticisms, whereas other criticisms can be a kind of clothed expression of one’s own hurt and dissatisfaction and state of misery.
So when I’m hurt and I may start lashing out and hurting others and that can come in the form of excessive and harsh and name calling and this and that and the other. This can go on. Again, truly constructive criticism is so terribly valuable.
It really is. And yet there can be those who run from it. Now you say maybe they’re not ready for it.
So yeah, one has to gauge receptivity. When I wrote this leading devotee, now see my point is don’t be a leading devotee if you can’t answer these questions. These are reasonable questions that many devotees have been asking, but they haven’t had enough.
I’m someone who doesn’t maybe I need to have a little more fear in me, but I just don’t have any fear. When something’s worthwhile to ask, I ask it. I have no fear.
When something has to be challenged, I challenge it. I have no fear, especially when it will help and protect other devotees. I don’t care so much about myself.
I can handle things. I’m fine. I have my little bubble.
I’m in my little world. But when I see other devotees hurt and confused, I have to come to their aid. I just cannot not come to their aid.
So when a leading devotee is simply unwilling to engage in dialogue, when he or she is doing things in their Seva that affect a lot of devotees but are puzzling and perplexing them, many of them, then I speak up. Your position, you are very much a part of Prabhupada’s movement. At the same time, you have a position and an identity which is not dependent on the movement.
So that also helps you to be a voice of challenge when necessary. Apart from that, I would say your nature and your intellectual calibre also plays a role. Yeah.
And one other thing is that you are not going and putting this on social media. You’re actually giving that devotee an opportunity to respond. But on the other hand, many people, they don’t deal with, they don’t talk with that particular devotee.
Rather, they just put everything on social media. You know, this person is like this and that person is like that. And then there is, it is, we could say it is the opposite of engaging in dialogue.
It is almost like a monologue or a rant which is done in public. Right. Actually, that is the most destructive because people get confused.
That’s right. And if there is a discussion online in some kind of format, a blog or Facebook or whatever, at least it should be conducted and if a party does not respond, but yet other parties who are being hurt and perplexed by someone’s behavior or someone’s activities, then at least it should be done in the most gentlemanly manner and one should avoid reductionistic statements. Even, you know, you can be reductionistic even with not intending to.
I mean, even when you are talking very positively about someone. He is a pure devotee. You know, someone comes along and asks me, so what do you think about Chaitanya Charan? I say, oh, Chaitanya Charan, he is a pure devotee.
My God, so yet we are reducing the idea of pure devotion then. We are not reducing the person. Well, first of all, who am I to declare Chaitanya Charan as a pure devotee? So, I am reducing the vision of pure devotion to what I can perceive.
Now, what I can say, and no one can argue with this, when I interact with Chaitanya Charan, I feel a lot of purity of intention and understanding and he is a perfect delight with whom to engage in dialogue. Now, no one can argue with me on that because that is my experience. Now, if I say that everyone will find Chaitanya Charanji a perfect, you know, interlocutor, you know, a perfect person in which to engage in dialogue.
Well, that is not true. Not everyone is going to like you the way I like you. Again, reductionism.
Even though it is a positive statement. How is it a reductionism? Reductionism of what here? It is a distortion, but I mean, it is not an accurate representation of reality, but is it a reduction? So, if you consider like say a person is multidimensional, you are seeing, say you are seeing me from a particular perspective or I am seeing you from a particular perspective and say I am reducing the person to whom I am speaking that your experience should also be like this. Is that where the reductionism is coming? I am reducing the reality of the situation to something according that matches.
In other words, I am playing God. So, I am saying the way it is for everybody. But that is just not true.
That is amazing. We are maybe going a little off track, but I think it is a very important exploratory discussion. In general, I remember one of my early formative experiences was there was some controversial issue and there is a senior devotee who has asked this question.
So, Maharaj, what are your thoughts about this? So, he said, this is not the question you should be asking. I am just a tiny Jeeva. Who cares what my thoughts are? The question you should be asking is what is the Shastra vichar on this particular issue? What do scriptures say on this issue? And at that time, everybody had applauded.
But then later on, I thought about it. Okay, Shastra can say many things on this issue. Ultimately, you are giving your take on the issue.
So, there is almost like a devaluation of individual opinion. If I am saying this is how I have experienced this or this is how I have seen it, sometimes within the movement, there is a… there is a… It’s considered to be too self-centered. You know, how you experienced it.
It’s almost like we want to make sure that I am speaking the absolute truth and I am not speaking my opinion. Which is okay. We don’t want to just give our speculative opinions.
But I think there is a difference between a speculative opinion and a subjective realization or subjective appreciation. And we are almost afraid of that. So now, you flip the script that instead of saying that something when I am expressing my understanding of the situation, it’s not that I am putting I in the center.
It’s not a sign of arrogance. It’s actually a sign of humility. And if I don’t bring the I into the picture, then I am actually playing God.
This is how it is. So, not bringing the I can actually be a sign of arrogance. Of course, everything depends on context.
If it’s too I-centered, then it’s a problem also. But we needn’t be afraid of bringing the subjective into our discussion of reality and even philosophy. Isn’t it? Yes.
But actually, I like what you’re saying. That ironically, by trying to erase the I, you might be more subjected to the false sense of I than you would have if you had been genuinely just being an I. Here’s the thing. That devotee with perhaps all the best of intentions by saying don’t ask me what I think.
Let’s just go to Shastra and see what it says. That assumes that statement that he made by saying he goes to Shastra to see what it says. That assumes that he knows all Shastra and that’s reductionism.
What does Prabhupada say? Prabhupada says there’s no love in the material world. So, there you have it. Wait a minute.
Prabhupada says other things about love. Oh. Oh, well.
See, now we’re raising it from a Tamasaguna interpretation or understanding of Shastra or Prabhupada’s statement to maybe more of a Madhyama or Madhyama understanding instead of Kanishka, more of Rajasa interpretation rather than a Tamasa interpretation. So, oh, well, there are these other statements. Oh.
So, maybe going to Shastra is not just that simple. Again, reductionism. And then the uttama vision, the sattvika vision of Shastra is to gain, is to have in one’s possession an extraordinarily powerful understanding of the whole that does not reduce but can shed some beautiful light on this statement as well as that statement as well as the other relevant statement.
So, it’s not, see, it’s not just about going to Shastra. It’s about what level of understanding are you having in relation to Shastra, which says a lot about what kind of adhikar you have. Adhikar is about devotional development.
Can you even see what this says? Beautiful. So, this idea of the subjective, the word subjective may, it has a somewhat lack of authority to it. But I think the word adhikar is very clearly within the tradition.
And we all, now we may classify adhikar into simply three levels Kanishta, Madhyama and Uttama. And that is valid but adhikar is in one sense subjective. And even at the Madhyama level, there can be different levels, there can be different understandings.
In Uttama level also there can be different understandings. So, the word adhikar is I think very shastrically grounding the idea of sub, of, maybe not subjective, of individual appreciation of scripture. Or as Prabhupada said, examine things from different perspectives.
So, adhikar determines our perspectives, isn’t it? Yes, okay. So, guru, sadhu, shastra. So, let us see what shastra says, this devotee says to you.
Well, what about guru? How how much guru are you, my dear devotee, sir? In other words, to this devotee that is speaking to you. Let’s go to shastra. Well, no one just goes to shastra.
It’s a question of what you bring to shastra. And guru means heavy. So, if we are teachers and we are teaching what is in shastra, you had better be gravely grounded in shastra as much as you can be to be able to speak shastra to perfectly sadhu.
So, in other words, there are various ways to understand these epistemological correctives. We don’t just separate shastra from guru and sadhu. So, I love the statement of yours that no one just goes to shastra.
We have to consider what we bring to shastra. Yes. So, recently I had a, just a couple of weeks ago I had a podcast with Yogeshwar Prabhu on some of Prabhupada’s difficult statements.
He had written an article on Prabhupada’s statements about Jews and he brought this in that if certain statements somebody highlights or if certain statements of Prabhupada trouble us then it actually speaks more about us than it speaks about Prabhupada. Why do we consider these statements so problematic or why do we consider these statements so important that we have to fight to establish their authority. So, both ways.
So, now I’m just trying to place this epistemological correctives within guru, sadhu, shastra. What we bring to shastra that will be are you placing that in ourselves that we if we are teaching then we are taking the role of a guru? So, where does this come in guru, sadhu, shastra? What we bring to shastra or is it something else? That’s right. That’s right.
So, you know, when he was being again as well intentioned as he easily might have been. I’m not important. Let’s see what shastra says.
Well, that’s just not a fact. Yeah, we can also say that there are so many gurus in our movement, so many teachers and they all are studying and teaching the same shastra but they have their own way of teaching. They have their own way of Absolutely.
So, where is that coming from? That is not coming from shastra. That is coming from their individuality. That’s what they bring.
That’s what they bring. It’s what they take from shastra. It’s what they bring to shastra.
It’s a dialogue or a lack of. Lack of means? It’s an increasing dialogue or a lacking of dialogue. Okay.
What we bring and what we take. That’s true. So true.
I mean, if somebody has If somebody has studied Sanskrit before and they come and study shastra, then they will teach much more based on Sanskrit, quoting a lot of Sanskrit verses and explaining things. Somebody has come from a very analytical kind of background, then they will also analyze scripture elaborately. So, what we bring to scripture determines what we take from scripture.
That’s amazing. Even with knowing Sanskrit, that doesn’t mean and people confuse this, because you know Sanskrit, does it mean that you have more authority on what shastra is saying? Yes, that’s so true. Actually, this is such a simple point, but sometimes because Sanskrit is seen as a sacred language, it’s misunderstood.
Just because, say, if I know if I’m good at English, doesn’t mean I’m an authority in quantum physics. It’s just because quantum physics is written in Sanskrit. It’s written in English.
Exactly. I mean, there’s also oversimplification of the reality, which is so much more. So, in a sense, Prabhu, we have focused our discussion more on the topic of reductionism.
Exactly. And I think it’s also a very important topic, which organically emerged, and it’s a very valuable discussion. So, for the time that we have, can we just go in this direction instead of trying to come back to the holy name? Maybe we can have a look at the holy name a little later.
There are two or three points I wanted to ask, or to discuss, with respect to reductionism. Is that okay? Yes, perfectly fine. Perfectly fine.
The fact is, Chaitanya Charanjee, when you and I engage in dialogue, there is absolutely no predicting what direction it will go in. It takes on a life of its own. Yeah, that’s so true.
I fully agree with you. When I get on with you, I’m totally… I just have no idea where we’re going to go. It’s like getting in a car together, and who knows where we’ll end up.
You know? But wherever it is that we end up, it’s always good. Yes, there’s no doubt about that. We’ll end up enriched.
I think our audience also will end up enriched. We hope so. Yes, true.
So, at one level, we are all finite beings. So, for finite beings, isn’t reductionism in one sense inescapable? Or what is escapable is the admission of our reductionism. Because we can’t avoid our finiteness.
We will never become infinite. So, is it that just by acknowledging that this is my perspective, that’s the way we deal with reductionism, and then maybe we consult others who see things from other perspectives, and say, hey, that also makes sense. So, how do we actually avoid reductionism? Because isn’t that, in one sense, an entailment of our finite condition? Yes.
Beautifully put. Your question also makes a declaration which is very true. We are very small, and reality is beyond anything we can possibly comprehend.
So, when these infinitesimal jivas come together, the way to overcome reductionism is to engage in dialogue, true dialogue. Dialogue is the antidote to reductionism. It’s the antidote.
Because, you see, Chaitanya Charn has a perception of one part of reality. He has his own experiences. He comes from a certain place.
He’s got certain conditionings. And he has a transcendental experience of bhakti. He has transcendental experiences.
So, all of that can be so valuable to me, who has his own conditionings, and has his own perspectives, and has his own experiences in bhakti. So, we come together, and we see what we can learn from one another. Oh, okay.
That’s beautiful. I mean, for example, Chaitanya Charn might say, Garuda, you’re being reductionistic by saying that we’re being reductionistic. Okay? So, I mean, you could very well challenge me.
Garuda, you know, by claiming this whole thing about reductionism, by saying all the ten aparads to the Holy Name is different forms of reductionism, which I still believe is, you know, you’re being reductionistic about the aparads. About being reductionistic. So, you know, you could argue that, you know, and then we would have a discussion.
Is Garuda being… So, that would be a criticism. Is Garuda being reductionistic in claiming that the ten aparads are different forms of reductionism? Beautiful. Okay.
So… So… So, dialogue is critical in that sense. Antidote. It’s the antidote.
Antidote. Okay. You know, this is, in the Gita, one of my, one of my favorite realizations, maybe not favorite, but how Krishna in the Chatur Shloki, first he says that, those people are Buddha.
They are enlightened. And yet, in the next verse, he says, they discuss and they enlighten each other. So, if they are enlightened, Buddha, how are they doing bodhayantaha? So, one way of understanding it is could be that, they are enlightened in the sense that they know Krishna is the ultimate reality.
But how wonderful Krishna is, how he is perceived from different perspectives, that we can always keep enlightening ourselves. So, we see that even in the perfectional stage, also there is dialogue. And that dialogue is considered to be the highest relishable activity.
It gives what to Krishna teacher, Aman teacher. There is great joy in that. So, we can say dialogue is for both understanding at, say, at the level of seekers and it can be also for relishing.
So, I don’t want to say that it’s only for understanding at the level of seekers and relishing at the level of seers. But understanding and relishing both happen at all levels. And nobody can say that, now I am enlightened, I don’t need dialogue.
In fact, if you are enlightened, we will look forward to dialogue all the more. That’s right. Ultimately, one’s dialogue is with the divine personages in the holy Vraja Vraja Dham.
We are always engaged in dialogue. Bhakti means dialogue. Bhakti means sharing.
And the Chhatra Shloki about the shlokas, the four verses that you point to in the Gita, they are all about our epistemology, which is an epistemology of the heart. Buddha Bhava Samandita Buddha Bhava It’s the intelligence is within the Bhava. So, Gitti Matwa Bhajante Mam, when you love me when you love me then you will find within the heart the way to know me.
And then of course, what is the next one? Machitta Machitta Prana Give your Chitta, your heart to me. Once having given your heart to me, even your very life breath, Madgatta Prana to me. The life breath that even allows you to be sustained.
Then, Bodhayanta Parasparama and that’s a causative. Then I can cause you to be enlightened and you can cause me to be enlightened. Why? Parasparama One another.
And then what happens? You and I can talk endlessly. Katiyantas Chamanityam We’ll never stop. And that’s you, Chaitanya Charan.
You never stop. You’re talking to everyone in every way and all the time. So, you’re all about dialogue.
That’s you. That’s what you’re about. And then what happens? Tushyanticha Ramanticha I’m not only completely satisfied, but I’m in ecstasy.
Ramanticha Great pleasure is derived from this. Oh, Tushyanticha satisfaction, Ramanticha ecstasy. Pleasure.
Great ecstatic pleasure. Oh, beautiful. Yeah.
Yeah. Epistemology of love. Epistemology of the heart.
That of the heart. And then the next verse does the same thing. Tesham satata yuktanam bhajatam priti-purvakam bhajatam priti-purvakam Look, when you love me you get to know everything.
Premanjanacharita bhakti-vilocanena santa-sadaiva hridayeshu vilokayanti hridayeshu vilokayanti Beautiful. Seeing within the heart what happens? Achintya guna swaroopam Things you things that are inconceivable you can now know. Chaitanya Charanjee, this is the essence.
This is the essence. So, in that state there is no reductionism because in love you take in the whole. Take in the whole.
You embrace the whole. So there is no reductionism. In love dialogue is a loving act, by the way.
At least it’s an act that’s open to love. And ultimately, when one attains shravanam kirtanam and we trade off shravanam kirtanam sometimes you speak, sometimes I speak, sometimes I listen, sometimes you listen, shravanam kirtanam shravanam kirtanam whatever. But then, Chaitanya Charan and Garuda find themselves Vishnu smart about.
We’re both lifted up into the being of Vishnu. This is our process. It’s anti-reductionistic.
What is anti-reductionistic? Love. Actually, in a practical sense also, if we really love someone, we love the whole person. We may like some aspects, we may not like so much aspects, but we love the whole person.
Which means that you’re open to anything in that person that you don’t even know and the things that you do know. Yeah, okay. There’s liking and disliking.
There’s also knowing and unknowing. Knowing and not knowing also, yeah. That’s right.
That’s what actually makes a relationship also a discovery then. Exactly. Sometimes people feel, oh, you are different now, you were different in the past, you have become different, so I don’t love you anymore.
Now it is like, the difference is only going to happen in any relationship. Then we go along with the ride and we try to explore. Even Krishna wants to understand the mystery of Radha’s love for him.
Even that baffles him. And so he has to come as Chaitanya. And we take shelter of Chaitanya Chara.
You can say, we take shelter of Garuda to fly high into the sky towards the Lord. See, all the names work. All the names work.
We are very fortunate to have beautiful names. One more point about reductionism, if you don’t mind. I don’t want to take too much of your time.
How much time do we have? Well, give it a few more minutes. We can naturally wind down as you see fit. Okay, sure.
It’s also, dialogue is important. At the same time, I am not sure whether dialogue is possible with everyone. Even if everybody is a devotee.
There is also that saying that sa jati asha bhagwat bhakti sangh, like-minded devotee association. And to some extent, I have found that very important. Because even in bhakti, although we may agree that Krishna is the ultimate value, along the journey to Krishna, we all may value different things.
Somebody who’s defining value is say, building temples or distributing books, they may think that what we are doing is basically a waste of time. Why don’t you do some service? And it’s not that they are wrong. They are valuing things differently.
So, they are valuing Krishna, but they are valuing Krishna differently. So, this question has two parts. One part is that it is, at one level, dialogue also needs to be done with like-minded devotees so that it becomes relishable.
Otherwise, it becomes too incompatible. But at the same time, this is happening more and more in our politically polarized world, in America, especially even in India, that people start living in their own echo chambers. Where we only hear things that reinforce our worldview.
So then, the end result of that is we start demonizing others. If someone doesn’t agree with me, they are either stupid or they are evil. That’s right.
That’s what I think. Either you agree with me, Chaitanya Charanjee, or you’re just dumb and evil. That’s my attitude.
That’s my attitude. But you know what, Chaitanya Charanjee? Dialogue. Let’s say we are dialoguing about some difficult issues.
And you just say, you know what, Garuda, I don’t want to talk anymore. But I said, Chaitanya Charan, please, let’s continue. These are hard subjects.
Let’s continue. Let’s go through this together. And you refuse.
Now, someone else will say, well, Chaitanya Charan broke the dialogue. Garuda was not clever enough or knowledgeable enough or attractive enough to Chaitanya Charan to get him to stay in the dialogue. So here I am without Chaitanya Charan.
We have now fallen out of dialogue, both of us. What can Garuda do who insists on the value of dialogue? He claims that dialogue is the antidote to reductionism. I don’t want to reduce Chaitanya Charan’s viewpoint on something to mere, you know, merely something that he doesn’t even agree with, and so on.
So what does Garuda do? What can Garuda do? He can either feel despondent and, like, disappointed and even maybe a little offended that Chaitanya Charan would leave the dialogue, or Garuda has a choice to still stay in dialogue. Dialogue means to keep the door open whenever the person wants to come back? Or what do you mean? Openness is always good. But dialogue should continue.
Dialogue between the Self and the Supreme Self. The same Supreme Self that is in me is in you. I can continue this dialogue with you unwittingly.
Really? Yes. In fact, this is how we can stay in dialogue with those persons who have departed this world. Tamal Krishna Goswami departed this world 20 years ago, a day or so ago.
20 years ago. He and I became very close friends. Oh, I know he’s controversial.
He has controversial pasts in so many different ways. But I still dialogue with him. The dialogue does not have to end.
So when you say dialogue, is it that you ponder his memories or ponder some of his statements? In principle, it’s fine to understand that the Super Soul is present in my heart and their heart. But how does it is it more like a presence that is experienced? Or what do you mean by that? We can parallel it a little bit with the internet. So I’m speaking to you through the internet.
Now when you get off, the internet stops connecting both of us because you’ve gotten offline. Well, Krishna is like the divine internet that never goes off. It’s impossible to turn off the internet of the heart.
So beautiful, yeah. Okay, so I can offer thoughts and feelings to Tamal Krishna Goswami. Or you know, I could even do this with my father, my mother who have departed.
Whomever, right? Dear devotee friends who have left this world. Bhakti Charu Swami whom I dearly loved. I wrote the preface to his book.
Yeah, I read that. That’s beautiful, yeah. And advised him on writing his book.
He even wanted me to edit his book, but I had to refuse that, but I gave him other options. And Radhanath Swami wrote the foreword. After my preface, I wrote the preface, he wrote the foreword.
And you know, we have a connection. There’s no reason why that connection has to be severed by mere physicality. It’s only through love that the internet of Krishna really can work.
Beautiful. So, we are going beyond here in the technological power or even mystical power. It’s more of a devotional power.
It’s Krishna. Krishna is in your heart in the same way he’s in my heart. And there is a presence that we can perceive through Krishna.
So, it’s, you know, when Prabhupada speaks about the tree, you know, you water the roots of the tree and the tree, you know, the rest of the tree grows. Well, in a way, that’s kind of like a botanical analog to the internet. Okay.
Botanical. Okay. Let’s try this.
I think every time we talk, Chetan and Charanji, I throw things at you that shock you a little bit every once in a while, right? Shock in a very pleasant way. Definitely. You know, it’s you could say the conceptions of bhakti keep expanding.
Yeah. In one sense, I feel the expansion happens in many different ways. One is something we come to know that which we don’t know.
Another is we come to know in a newer way that which we thought we knew. So both are relishable, but the second is, in fact, it has a greater element of surprise and joy. Yeah.
Some aspect of something which we knew, we realized, I didn’t really know, think of it this way. Yeah. So if let me just rephrase the answer to your question, the way you answered my question.
You said that even if somebody, if you always try to have dialogue even with people who are, say, unlike-minded and somebody leaves the dialogue, then also we can continue it within the heart. Yes. Now at the same time, for that continuation of the dialogue, a certain level of say affection is required.
Otherwise, it’s very difficult to actually connect with the person, even in their presence or to speak of their absence. So in some ways, maybe this can be a subject for a future podcast, which is going to take a long time, but there are two things. In one sense, because the world is so big, our movement is so big.
So at one level, we can say live and let live. This is the way I practice bhakti, and this is the way you practice bhakti. You don’t criticize me and I don’t criticize you.
So that is, we could say, an approach of tolerance, inclusion. Prabhupada built a house big enough in which everyone can live. So that’s one way.
Even to come to live and let live, there has to be some level of mutual understanding. That, you know, okay, I don’t necessarily, I won’t do what you’re doing. I may not necessarily agree with what you’re doing, but if that’s what you’re doing, that’s fine.
But that’s different from, say, two people living in hermetically healed chambers where they just don’t understand or appreciate anything at all. So you could say that dialogue can be between people who come very close to each other because of their nature or because of their service, because of their values. Or sometimes dialogue can be just to arrive at a more informed level of understanding between each other.
So do we also need to be selective about with whom we have what kind of dialogues? It’s not reductionism to say that with this person, I can’t really get along. Yeah, it’s being discerning. It’s being discerning.
Some people are not very receptive. You know, when I teach 40 undergraduates in a classroom, I have different levels of receptivity and lack of receptivity. Those youngsters are projecting onto me problems with authority figures, daddy issues.
Who knows what stuff? You know, an old man with a beard and just coming in and who knows what they’re projecting onto me, right? So my task as a teacher, as a professor, is to raise them above those conditioned receptivity filters. To raise them above that. And the way to do that is to connect with them lovingly.
Love is the only thing that can take us beyond our conditionings. It doesn’t dissolve our conditions, but it can free us from our conditionings and we can fly high. But getting back to your point, if I want to talk to you about, let’s say, karma, and you find that, no, I’m really not into that discussion.
I don’t. I’m not. I find it troubling, you know, whatever.
Well, then, you see, the dialogue has already begun. Oh, well, Chittendin Charanjee, I didn’t know that. Would you be willing to tell me what you find? So, originally, I intended to talk to you about karma.
But now, the dialogue, because of my sensitivity to you, I’m trying to understand, why is that a topic that you don’t want to talk about? Now, the dialogue has begun. Well, okay, then you say, actually, I don’t want to tell you why it’s troubling to me. Why not? Now, the dialogue is still going.
So, I won’t let go. Well, why? What is it about me? Perhaps you don’t feel comfortable with me. So, I’m afraid that you’ll tell other people what I think about karma and why the topic makes me nervous.
And I said, well, okay, so here we have confidential dealings. These are two exchanges between devotees. Chittendin Charanjee, I promise you, I will keep this just between you and me.
Now, I’ve pledged confidentiality. I’m making a sacrifice here so you can feel freer to share with me. Now, if I get offended on the way, let’s say before we get to this point, we’ve gone about four different levels, right? Let’s say at the second level, I don’t feel comfortable talking to you about it, Garuda.
Oh, well then, Chittendin Charanjee, well then, I don’t feel like talking to you either. And I start getting, well, okay, then I get indignant, right? You see, ahamkara, ahamkara, ego-centeredness, well, suddenly your comment that you don’t trust me, suddenly I get offended. I said, well, you know what? I don’t feel like talking to you either.
Okay. Goodbye. Goodbye.
Okay, so there’s no dialogue there. Okay? But you see, the whole point of bhakti is to go from ahamkara to anyakara. Anyakara.
To be centered on another. Oh, beautiful. Beautiful.
That’s my own, I made that up. Yeah, I thought, I think last time you had made another word. Transpersonal, no, trans.
Yeah, trans-embodiment. Trans-embodiment, yeah. Right, yeah.
Look, you get a PhD, you can make up your own words too, okay, Chittendin Charanjee? I mean, look, you know, this is what I do. So, it’s a license, you know. PhD is like a special license, you know, like diplomatic license or something like that, you know.
So, yes. Anyakara. I am not centered upon myself here.
If I am, I get offended and say, Chittendin Charan, don’t bother calling me. No, no. I go further.
I keep centered on you. I keep centering myself on you, not myself. Well, Chittendin Charanjee, let’s talk about this confidentially.
See, I’m not, again, a subtle form of reductionism. Oh, you’re offended? Well, so am I. So, you see, suddenly, I’m reducing you to simply a, you know, an ego-concerned person and there’s nothing there to offer to me. So, I’ve reduced you to that, and then, you know what? If that’s all that I see, well, heck, you know, I don’t need to talk to Chittendin Charan.
But in order to not be reductionistic, there’s a good reason why Chittendin Charan is troubled by the topic of karma. There’s a good reason why he’s not comfortable talking about it. There’s a good reason why he doesn’t want to talk to Garuda about it.
There’s a good reason why he might consider talking to Garuda about it if he promises confidentiality. So, you bring it around. I try to serve Chittendin Charan, not my ego.
Anyakara, as opposed to ahankara. I love that anyakara. I love that word.
So, in a sense, if you say the dialogue, it can begin from an issue. And if it is going to be centered only on the issue, the person says, I don’t want to talk about it, it’s over. But if we see the issue as a, maybe the word issues has a negative connotation.
People have issues. We use our topic say. We see the topic as a launching pad for developing a deeper connection.
Then, okay, you don’t want to talk about the topic, then I want to, it’s not that I just want to discuss the topic. I want to understand you. So then, we can always continue the discussion.
It also depends on what the thrust of the dialogue is. Is it the topic or is it the personal bond? And in one sense, in bhakti, the interpersonal connection and interpersonal reciprocation is actually more important than a topic also. Yes.
Exactly. Beautiful. Yeah, I love the way you can explore this.
Yes, it’s fantastic. And of course, anyakara can ultimately bring us into greater appreciation and development of paramanyakara, the supreme other, centered upon the supreme other. Beautiful.
Especially, if we are, if both at least share some devotional values, then definitely they have also experienced Krishna. They are also serving Krishna. And it’s worthwhile for us to learn how they are serving.
Yes. It’s beautiful. And one last question.
Yes. Dialogue seems to be more among equals. Or at least there is some assumption that there is give and take.
Yes. Whereas, it may not necessarily be among equals, but some assumption of like that is there. But in scripture, most of the conversations we see are between, say, an authority figure and a student.
If we consider the Bhagavad Gita, if we consider the Bhagavatam, maybe some of the Upanishads, there are a few more of, we could say, dialogues. Yes. They often go into debates also, not exactly dialogues.
So, this whole idea of bodhayantah parasparam or guhyam akhyati pruchyati. Right. Is it that, I mean that we don’t see so much in scripture itself directly.
Is it that that is, scripture is meant to guide us to that and that’s why scripture doesn’t demonstrate that so much itself? That by learning scripture, we will be able to do this. So that, now, I don’t know whether we could call, say, Shukadev Goswami and Parikshit Maharaj in a dialogue. We can, but then it’s, Parikshit Maharaj is speaking maybe 5%, Shukadev Goswami is speaking 95%.
Same in Gita. Same in Gita also. So, any thoughts? But the Chaitanya Charita Mita is filled with dialogue.
Look at Ramananda Roy and Mahaprabhu Gauranga, he’s, there’s a whole catechism, you know. Yeah. What about, but, you know, it’s interesting.
Mahaprabhu’s dialogues take different shapes, just like you were implying earlier, Chaitanya Charita. Sarvabhauma Bhattacharya, he sat and listened for seven days. Talk about some supreme shravanam.
Wow. You know, again, going to a reductionistic statement, Mayavadi bhashya kaile, sa sarvanash. Chaitanya Bhattacharya is hearing for seven days from a person who has Mayavadi background at that time.
That’s right. There you go. But then, of course, with Prakashananda Saraswati, he engages in dialogue in the shoe room, you know, the foyer of the temple.
And part of his dialogue was to shine so brightly. And to, it was, remember what Mahaprabhu says, many sages disagree on points of philosophy. But it is the behavior of a Vaishnava which establishes religion, right? Shadur Vyavahara, right? Dharma Sthapanahetu Shadur Vyavahara, I think is the phrase, right? So, you know, that’s what we’re all about.
So it’s, like you said, it’s not just the content, but it’s the form that the dialogue takes that is so important. And what you were talking about are not equals, as you corrected, but balance. Balance according to what’s appropriate for the individuals involved.
Oh, I think balance is beautiful. So in that particular situation, Arjuna actually pours out his heart. And for him to get the solution, it is Krishna has to speak much more.
That’s right. We can’t judge whether something in the dialogue is simply based on the percentage of who speaks how much. It is how much the need is addressed.
Exactly. Yeah. And then there can be also… Yeah, go ahead.
Dharmyam Sambhavam, a sacred dialogue. It’s called that, and it is that. Arjuna asks about 13 questions.
Yes. Right? And in the beginning, he pours out his heart, and Krishna hardly says anything. Two or three words in the first chapter.
That’s it. He pours out his heart. Then Krishna becomes his teacher.
What is a teacher? A teacher is supposed to teach. So there’s teaching dialogue. That’s interesting.
Teaching dialogue. That’s interesting. Yeah.
In fact, the best lecturers are those that lecture in a kind of tacitly dialogical fashion, speaking to those in whom one can perceive their reception, and those to whom one can exercise great sensitivity while lecturing. Beautiful. Those are the best lecturers.
Yeah. And that is sometimes it becomes a little difficult when we are giving talks on Zoom, and you can’t really see the audience so well. But it’s true.
Yes. In fact, even now, for the last two minutes or so, your picture has been frozen on my screen. Oh, that’s interesting.
Now I notice my picture is frozen on my screen. Your picture of me is frozen? My picture of me is frozen on my screen. That is strange.
Yeah. Yeah, you’ve been frozen into a particular form by the Zoom. But I don’t mind because I hear your voice.
So… Yes. This has been a very illuminating discussion for me. Yes.
I’m sure we could go on more and more. Yes, yes. We can wind up.
Yes. Yeah. I’ll try to summarize and maybe you can add some conclusion then if you would like to.
Okay. So, we started discussing on the topic of the holy name and mantra chanting and there we discussed about how there is an intrinsic connection between the reference and the referent with respect to Krishna. At the same time, there is our experience of Krishna may vary, of divinity, not necessarily Krishna, divinity may vary, based on our receptivity, our purity.
So, with respect to our names, there is no such intrinsic connection. Although, our receptivity also can determine how much a name manifests, how much we feel the person’s presence when we utter their name. Yes.
So, that’s why chanting, when it becomes mechanical, one reason for it is that we are not connected with the person. The more we connect the naama with the roop, the dhaama, the leela, the guna, then the more it will become personal. That’s right.
And then, I think from that point, we had further discussions, of course, but from that point, we went to the idea of this disconnection or reductionism with respect to chanting. And so, at one level, it is said that the holy name is not different from Krishna. Divinity is fully manifested in their names.
At another level, our consciousness matters. There are offenses. So, the whole discussion took a delightful detour from that point when you redefined redefined aparad as reductionism.
The essence of aparad is reductionism. So, we may overvalue things, and that’s idolatry. We devalue things, and that’s blasphemy.
And then, so there, when you’re talking about to devalue things, we discussed some offenses to the holy name like equating it with the names of quasi- divinities. That is also a nice word. Quasi-divinities, or we are disrespectful to the instructions of the spiritual master.
And then, we came to the topic of offending devotees. That is also reductionism. And then, we went into a different direction.
So, when we offend devotees, criticizing is not necessarily offending. If it is constructive criticism, the key to constructive criticism is the readiness for dialogue. So, divorce from dialogue is make a statement and leave it at that.
So, also, aparad, offense is not a precise translation because offense is more a result of aparad. Somebody gets offended. But it is, aparad is more of the whole mentality of everything that is embodied by reductionism.
It is one’s attitude. It is one dealing with the particular object. And it is a result of that dealing.
Everything that we claim with reductionism. Then, I discussed about when we are looking at dealing with devotees. So, you mentioned this point that if somebody wants to have a dialogue, a person’s leadership position should, has an obligation to respond.
Say, if they are offering some criticism because otherwise they don’t, I mean, they shouldn’t be taking that position. Because if there are concerns, they need to be addressed. So, of course, there are degrees if somebody is somebody is just finding faults for the sake of finding faults.
You are differentiated between jealousy and envy later. But that’s related. Jealousy is more if somebody has something.
I also want to have it. And once I have it, the jealousy goes away. But envy is evil.
Where the only way I’ll be satisfied is when what the other person has is taken away from them and they become unhappy. They remain unhappy. So, when we talk about dialoguing with others, the purpose is, it’s to foster not only a better understanding of each other.
Anyakar, as you said. Ahamka Anyakar and Param Anyakar. It’s also to foster a better understanding of Krishna.
Because we all perceive Krishna from different perspectives. Then, I brought this point about how this devotee said, my opinion doesn’t matter. It is inconsequential.
But it is Shastra which are that matter. What does scripture say? So, I love this phrase. I’ll remember many things.
But this one thing is that no one just goes to scripture. We bring something to scripture. And what we bring to scripture determines what we take from scripture.
So, in that sense, we can say the word subjective might seem unauthoritative. But we use the word Adhikar. So, according to our Adhikar, we will see scripture accordingly.
And in the name of erasing the I, we may actually be emphasizing the I. Because if we say this is the reality, that means I am playing God in one sense. Because what I am saying is that there is nothing more to this than this. So, if I am saying Shastra which are I am presuming, I know all of scripture and all the ways in which scripture can have a bearing on this issue.
So, we can bring the I in a mood of humility. And that actually is essential for you could say authenticity. So, then we discussed about the mood of dialogue in various ways.
How this hermeneutic epistemology of the heart. How the heart opens and there is openness of the heart and Krishna manifests and then two people can discuss. And then there is two devotees can discuss and there is a satisfaction and then there is ecstasy beyond that.
So, at one level, we are limited by our finitude. But the way to come out of our finite perceptions in a sense or the way to avoid our existential limitedness is through dialogue. So, then our perspectives expand.
And while we would like to have dialogues with like-minded devotees, we need to be discerning about with whom what level of dialogues we can have. But sometimes even if somebody is reluctant, we can explore a deeper and the subject can be a launching pad for mutual understanding. And that way, you mentioned about how the scripture, yes, there could be a teaching dialogue which is what is in Bhagavatam and the Bhagavad Gita.
But there are dialogues of very different forms and Chaitanya Charitamruta embodies such dialogues. So, dialogue is the antidote to narrow-mindedness or to limitedness to our conditioned perception, we could say. Dialogue is the antidote to reductionism and the conditioned perception thereof.
Beautiful. Thank you, bro. All our discussions are delightful.
This is unexpectedly delightful. I like the I like the sort of shock value of further bringing us both into wonderful ways of appreciating the richness of our extraordinary tradition. Extraordinary tradition.
So, you’re an excellent person to dialogue with to discover these very rich points. So, I thank you for that, Chaitanya Charitamruta. I’m honored to have your association so that you’re sparing your time and the way I think there are three things.
You love words, I also love words. So, we have that like-mindedness to articulation and you’re also quite inclusive and broad-minded and I also try to do that. And then we also have many things but a significant level of concern for how people pursue Shastra rather than scripture alone.
You know that there are many things which we gel but I think I was thinking, you know, among the many dialogues I have with different devotees, I would say I relish a dialogue probably among the most if not the most. And I love your articulation. I love your broad broad-mindedness you bring to scripture and also I love your sensitivity to you could say humanity or the human heart to the human side of bhakti.
So, thank you very much for your association and I look forward to having future dialogues once again in the near future. You’re a very sweet-hearted and at the same time very knowledgeable and inspiring devotee to so many I’ve heard from. I mean, they just love your dialogues.
I’ve heard nothing from anyone but good things. So, please keep going. Thank you very much.
And then include me every once in a while. Oh, yes, definitely. I look forward to it.