The Monk’s Podcast 8 with Shyamananda Prabhu – Rituals – what they are and why they matter

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Disclaimer: This transcript was generated using AI and may contain occasional errors or inaccuracies.

So, thank you very much for joining once again. And so, today I was thinking, if we discussed earlier about work and how conceptions about work have evolved. So, one aspect, a related aspect is that of rituals.

Now, by rituals, we don't just mean religious rituals only, but basically there are certain activities that are done regularly in various traditions. So, what are rituals? What is their significance? And what has happened as society has progressed or developed or modernized in terms of rituals? And what do we in the bhakti tradition offer to modernity, offer to people today? Okay. I will begin with some gagged humor.

I don't know how far it will go with everybody. Imagine the Republic Day parade in Mumbai or a Victory Day parade in Moscow or some of the dictators, they use the military and instead of bands playing and soldiers marching in formation, left, right, left, right, absolutely harmoniously doing the marching step. You have someone wearing sleeveless t-shirts with all kinds of slogans, somebody wearing baggy shorts, somebody wearing burbudas, all kinds of different shoes, chappals, same soldiers and somebody's whistling, somebody's singing, somebody looking here and there.

What could be the impression upon an observer? The understanding could be that, can I trust my life with this bunch? I mean, where is the discipline? Now, so even if you show that these soldiers are highly trained and they are sharp shooters and they are patriotic, why is the need for the same uniform? Why everything has to be pressed, all the buttons, all the brass? In fact, brass has become so familiar with military rituals that the top officials are called the top brass. So we cannot afford to see a whistling type of a hippie, kind of a rock band, kind of a crowd marching on. We insist on a particular way of being dressed.

So for example, our school uniform, I went to a school where it was insisted that the shoes have to be polished black, hair has to be trimmed, particular color of shirt, particular color of trousers, a small tie. We can begin with the fact that society kind of partially depends upon a particular way of doing things. And this is the basic meaning of what a ritual is.

Okay. Okay. That's a good way of looking at it.

If I look at from a bit of a Gita's perspective of three level reality, physical, mental and spiritual, then at least the physical and the mental are very strongly connected. And if certain emotions are to be triggered in people, then they have to be associated with corresponding actions. And those set of actions, which are intended to be associated with certain emotions, they can be broadly called as rituals.

So for example, if the national anthem is being sung, then you stand up or at least you sit in attention if you can't stand up or if the national flag is being waved, you salute. So the idea is that to evoke the emotion of patriotism within the heart, then there have to be certain external actions. So the rituals are basically ways in which actions and emotions are linked together.

And like you talked about the Republic Day Parade or the Victory Day Parade in Russia, wherever. So the idea is that is the time when not only patriotism, but also respect for one's country or confidence about one country's defense capacity or whatever. If that emotion is to be triggered, the appropriate externals are required.

So now those specific externals may be different in different situations. It could be for different context, different cultures. But the point is, life is extremely complicated and the unpredictables can be many.

So within the unpredictables of life, when there are certain predictables, they give us a sense of structure and a sense of stability in life. And rituals in many ways serve that purpose. I agree with this.

If I am in a foreign city or some foreign place and I know what exactly is the uniform of a cop and if I have been threatened, I have been robbed, mugged, seeing such a person even 40 feet away will give me some hope. Now, this is Kali Yuga, I could be cheated. That person may not be a cop.

But as you rightly said, it gives me confidence. Just having a stethoscope and a white apron guarantee that the person is a doctor. Okay.

Not necessarily. Yeah, not necessarily. Right.

Yeah. But it evokes that feeling. I will, I will tackle this subject later in our discussion as to how in Kali Yuga the rituals have eroded the confidence of the general populace.

And we will take that later. But right now, let us establish the fact as to how do we see rituals like you, like cutting a ribbon, like does cutting a ribbon actually inaugurate a museum or a highway or a mall? Not exactly. They could have already started functioning.

They might do it later also. Yeah. But the museum will say the actual time for inauguration was when the president came and he cut the ribbon.

Yes, that's true. So, okay. I like to think in terms of quadrants.

Okay. If we think of make four quadrants, see there are no internals, no externals. Internals, but no externals.

So internals is the X axis, externals is the Y axis. Externals, but no internals and internals and externals. So if there are no internals, there are no externals.

Of course, there is always something in the external and something in the internal, but if there's no correlation between the two, then What exactly, what exactly do you mean by internal and external? By internal, for example, internal, like you say, you can see a cop and internal feeling of safety and the external is the external uniform of a cop. So on the Y axis, I have put upper side internal or Either way, Y axis you have put external or internal, whatever. I had put internal.

Okay. So okay, X axis is internal, Y is external. X is internal, Y is external.

Okay. So we have the first quadrant, which has external, but no internal like that. Yes.

If you have no internal and no external. Okay. And what happens? That means you, there are no internal emotion of patriotism or no internal emotion of safety and there's no external symbol of safety.

And life becomes completely unpredictable and anarchic. Now, if we have the internal, but no external, then there might be secure, there might be something like you, there is a cop, but I don't see the cop. So then I still feel insecurity.

Okay. Now, if I have the external, but not the internal, then what I have is hypocrisy. Can you just explain that? How come hypocrisy? Hypocrisy means somebody is pretending to be.

Okay. So from their side, it's hypocrisy. From my side, it's I get cheated.

Correct. The word would be not so much hypocrisy, it would be deception. I'll be deceived.

Yeah. Deception. And here I could say, here there is security.

When I see a cop, I feel security. So I see a cop positive. He also is a cop positive.

Yeah. So I see the cop and actually he's a cop. So then I feel security by that.

Yeah. So he's not a cop in deception. I don't see a cop and there is no cop is anarchy.

And I see a cop, but I want to see a cop, but there is no cop is insecurity. Yeah. Okay.

Okay. So if you put this this way, then then if there are no rituals in society, then people just don't know what to expect. Maybe as monks, we can give this example that sometimes when I do go for outreach programs in the West, then if there are some ladies coming for the program, now when they want to talk afterwards, now they don't know whether they should shake hands with the monk or they should fold their hands or what should they do? So if there is no guidance, then it becomes a little unpredictable.

What are they going to do? From our side, it can be uncomfortable. From their side, it can be uncomfortable. So it's a, it's just anarchic if there is no structure in society for interactions.

So now when we want to shake hands, the idea is we want to express some cordiality, some friendliness, just a greeting. So the shaking hand is a ritual, but if there are no shared rituals, then we just don't know what to do. Now, somebody might be shaking hands, but they're in their mind.

They're thinking that the first opportunity I want to backstab this person. Then it's deception. Now, if that is the person is cordial inside, but if they don't shake hands, then I start wondering, is this person, is this person angry with me? Because I'm insecure.

I don't know what the other person is thinking. But when the other person comes and shakes hands warmly, firmly, and I feel good, then we can take the interaction forward. So if we have this, then this helps us create some kind of structure for ourselves.

So if there are no rituals, now the word ritual might have some kind of negative connotation. I have seen another word used for it. Not exactly the same.

They call it rites of passage. Yes. So this is more in terms of time and transition through time, but there are rites of passage and they are meant to symbolize things.

Psychologists have found one interesting thing that we humans need symbols as anchors for thought, anchors for emotions, anchors for memory. So, for example, if I want to remember my country, what do I remember? Now, do I remember its map? Do I remember its flag? Do I remember its national anthem? Do I remember the father of the Karnation? Or what do I remember? We need something tangible to be. Are you there? Yeah.

So we need something tangible. So in one sense, rituals link the physical and the mental levels of reality. Rituals or rites of passage are structures that link together the physical and the mental level of reality.

So that's some thoughts from my side. OK, just to take things forward. How does one understand that this is a typical Western philosopher's point of view that almost all the rituals are based on the agrarian model of society.

And because of the Industrial Revolution, most of the things are either obsolete, archaic, or to be very prudent in today's words, downright unproductive. So, for example, in Maharashtra, Mumbai Municipal Corporation, there is a half day off for Shravan Mass for municipal employees from British times. Oh, OK.

So I don't know whether they still have it. Mostly they have it. But this was done by the British to help the Hindu population, who follow Shravan Mass rituals, go home early and do things.

So in Shravan Mass, there can be some kind of Vedic Anushthan, some kind of ritual every day. So they don't want to unnecessarily antagonize them and therefore they allow that. That School of Life video talked about the Governor of the Bank of England.

He shred the whole calendar. I mean, he cut off out of 37 holidays in a year. He brought it down to four.

Why? Because how do you manage an economy with these kind of holidays? Every other day there is some patron saint of wheat, some patron saint of agriculture, some patron saint of planting crops. So what has happened is, in the pursuit of sole economic gains, people have been robbed of their rituals. Right now, I'm not saying it is good or bad, but that vacuum being filled with so many rituals gone, is now rapidly being filled with either sports, they whip up such kind of frenzy.

For example, one of the biggest soft drinks manufacturers in the world says that one billion hearts beat for the men in blue, which means the Indian cricket team. Yeah, I've seen that slogan. Yeah.

And I was, I was suspicious. And I was not at all surprised when I saw something like 220 million hearts beat for the men in green, the same company selling their soft drink in Pakistan. So whether their heart beats for any one of us in the planet or their heart only beats, beats for every customer who buys a can of their soda or whatever.

So they want to make an image in the public that come on, come together, cheer for your country, cheer for the team. And so either sports and especially football in Europe is practically divided on tribal lines as they were in the medieval ages, where gangs discuss hooligans. They fight with the other members of now, there is no other reason why they should be having that kind of violence.

But the people say that, no, there has to be some reason why we shout, why we come together for something. So nationalism is down. There is nothing, no respect for the country's flag or whatever.

So your football team is the only place where you can get some satisfaction of being belonging to a particular group or aligning your values with something. Okay. So now maybe we have graduate or we have expanded the ambit of the word rituals before I respond to that.

So rituals, if you consider it can be three things, I can use the screen again, if you want. Rituals can refer to at one level manners when I talked about it initially. Okay.

How do I get a new screen now? Or can I just move this down? You can just delete it. Okay. Is there a eraser there? There has to be eraser somewhere.

Yeah. Okay. There is.

Okay. Okay. So rituals can refer to manners, which is a shake hands or so rituals can refer to manners.

It can refer to customs. It can refer to manners. It can refer to a custom, the same thing.

Practices. Okay. So there are two, three different things now.

There are social manners. There are religious practices. That's the most common word people associate with.

And there are, we could say what you are talking about is so communal event. The word communal has a negative connotation nowadays, but in terms of community. Okay.

We could put it this way. Interpersonal manners and then social events. So now there could be ritual, the social event can still be a ritual.

So, for example, if you want to take it further, this is so all of these can be rituals or they can be broadly called as rituals. So it's a ritual to shake hand. It's a ritual to maybe light a lamp on Diwali.

It's a ritual to raise the flag on the independence day and come together, maybe assembly and recite national Anthem. So what you would. Ritual of abusing each other on Holi.

Signify that all your abuse should be burned in that fire. And from next day onwards, you should be having a squeaky clean. It's like controlled or delete all your negativities.

And it should be friends. But hardly happens like that. That particular thing may actually ignite another round of animosity for the next year anyway.

Amazing. Yeah, that's true. So now in modern times, like as rituals, as far as some basic, basic manners that is still there in society today.

How do we greet each other? You might shake hands. Some people might hug each other. Some people might bow from their waist.

So whatever now rituals in terms of religious practices, which is where we use the word rituals quite often. Well, some people practice it and rituals in terms of social occasions, social occasions, they have become like you use the word tribal more than they bring people together. But it's, it's quite passionate and violent in times.

So if the favorite team loses, sometimes riots break out between opposing teams fans. Sometimes if your favorite team loses, people might just burn things. And so in that sense, the rituals that people do, do they really uplift the morale? So in sports, there is a huge amount of unpredictability.

And as if the team loses, then sometimes before the team is, the match is actually lost, the team seems to be losing, spectators start going away before only. And then you see that the stands are getting empty. So when we talk about rituals, are we including all these three or are we going to focus on something particular? What our plan is in our short time together, take rituals as people see today.

Talk about the ramifications, positive, negative, whatever. And then kind of segway to the Vedic cultural rituals or what Prabhupada talked about in Purva Gita. And generally we see that Vedic rituals is almost equal to a fire sacrifice.

Okay. So when we say Karmakand, that means fire sacrifice, Karmakand is fire sacrifice. And then jump from that particular point to how are they valid today? Or what exactly, if somebody is a follower of Krishna consciousness, how are they actually fulfilling the purpose of these rituals? So maybe it is a big jump, but I would like to take it from that angle.

So we started with a simple ritual like a uniform for a cop or for an army. And then the internal, external quadrant. So that was brilliant.

And we talked about how we cannot give them up the social events, especially our Holi festival experience in India. Many devotees from India can relate to that. So now it is a good time to think about, can a ritual actually link you up with divinity? That's beautiful.

So it's a, there's a connection between physical and mental. We more or less established that physical and emotional, but will ritual connect us with the spiritual level of reality also? Could it be dependent on the externals significantly? Because in one sense, the inner world, the emotions that come up over there, they could be just psychological emotions coming from our, or material emotions coming from our various attachments, aversions, or they could be emotions connected with our core, our soul. So in the inner world, it's difficult for us to differentiate where emotion is coming from.

But we could say that if the physical stimulus, if it is associated with some spiritual reality, then there is a reasonable possibility that the emotion it awoke, awakens, is divine. So if somebody goes to a temple and then they have a ritual of moving down before the image in the temple. Even before that, ringing the bell, what does that ritual signify? That I'm entering a sacred space.

Let me awaken, let me become alert now. Okay. It could be, of course, that it's said that the sound of a bell, there is a whole form of, I thought it was a Tibetan Buddhist meditation, but it's quite universal.

It was there in Italy among some Franciscan friars also. They take a bowl and they move a handle along the bowl. And they just move round and round and round and round and round.

And you just hear the sound and it says, you calm you down. So that sound is slightly different from that of a bell. But the idea that sound can affect our consciousness.

I think this is called a gong therapy also. So use gongs to calm yourself. So bell is something like that.

You ring a bell to awaken a higher level, awaken awareness of a higher level of reality. Perhaps the most striking and very much seen practically all over the world, ritual is the baptism in, I mean, I'm not so adept at the whole process, but it is a real Jordan, which is a very pure river associated with Jesus. And it was, I think, somebody who was Jesus's apostle or his, or a saint, Saint John or someone.

John the Baptist, they say. Yeah. So he would dunk somebody in the water and say that.

So now there is a ritual cleansing. So this water should cleanse you. And after you come up and you breathe, you are kind of given a new body, a new way of life.

So, of course, the flip side of it was there is a certain branch of Christianity, which is everything else is lost if you didn't do this first important step. And of course, there are the opponents who say that this is just a ritual. What you need is to be accepting Jesus in your heart.

So religions are perennially in this struggle. First is how to keep an age old ritual intact. And secondly, is to convey its meaning to contemporary audience.

Yes. The word ritual itself has acquired a negative connotation nowadays. You are just being ritualistic.

So I think ritualistic has a connotation even more. Now, when you say it's a ritual, it's something like it's a formality or something like that. So there is if there is some amount of education of why it is being done and then it is done with that awareness and rituals do serve a purpose.

And a society that is without rituals, like going back to the earlier point of not having many holidays, not having many occasions for people to bond together, then that could be one reason why modern and postmodern societies are so lonely. Because there are hardly many occasions when people can come together and bond. I was talking with one American friend.

I met him in some program and we were staying in touch. So he told me that we go to bars not to drink. We go there to bond.

Yes. So many people drink because they are what is called social drinkers. Not because they are interested in drinking, but they are interested in bonding.

So there are not many places. The typical places for people to bond are bars or discos or maybe beaches or something like that. So quite often these are places filled with explicit sensuality.

Now it is not everybody who goes there is going there only for the sensual purposes. They might even be going for social, emotional purposes. So because many of the traditional rituals or occasions or celebrations or festivals, whatever word we want to use, because they have been lost, so society has become quite lonely.

So it's lonely and it's also quite insecure because how do you, if there is some structure, people can connect with each other through that structure. Otherwise it becomes difficult. So one funny thing I realized recently is that nowadays many people are using Internet to help them, not Internet, digital technology to help them find their dating partners.

Not just that you have an app by which you connect with each other, but let that app decide who will be potentially interesting for you. Okay. That means you set up your interests and then the app will tell you.

Now these people are maybe 10% interest, 70% interest, 80% interest, 80% similarity, like that. So basically, earlier they were, at least in India, there were traditional arranged marriages. And they said, no, we want to choose on our own.

But once you have to choose on your own, it's such a big burden. So again, we are going towards some structure. You don't want the structure to be done by your parents or elders, but then some structure you're trying to have, maybe Google created for you or your digital technology created for you.

So this is not exactly a ritual, but the point of the ritual is that we need some structure for directing our actions in life, for directing our actions, for directing our interactions, for directing our life at large. And without those, we end up, one psychologist has called this as the burden of choice or the paradox of freedom is that freedom becomes a burden. When you have too many choices, it just becomes unmanageable.

Okay. Here is an interesting anecdote. With 650 channels to watch and only an hour and a half of leisure time.

I don't remember which particular journal, but 650 channels to watch and only an hour and a half of leisure time for this person. So he goes from one channel and the thought nagging him is there could be something very interesting in some other channel. So full one and a half hours is spent only in channel surfing and then he realizes he now has to go back to work and he didn't entertain himself for even a single minute.

Amazing. Very good example. Yeah.

So when people say ritualistic, I don't want to do this. I just want to be free, which is fine. But then free means if you will go to the first quadrant of anarchy completely.

So now maybe this would also apply to if you are talking earlier about this connecting the spiritual, there is an increasing number of people who want to be spiritual but not religious. So quite often what they reject is two things, rituals and dogmas. Don't tell me what to believe and don't tell me I have to do this.

Just I want to be open to experience. But even when they want to be open to experience, meditation has become popular. But now another form of meditation that has become popular is called guided meditation.

Because if I just sit down and meditate, I don't know what to do. So people want to be guided. Okay, close your eyes.

Take a deep breath. Visualize this. So we again need some guidance.

So if you consider the religious rituals, not exactly as guided meditations, but something similar over the millennia, there have been spiritual seekers who experienced higher reality and they have created some forms by which others can also experience higher reality. So we do need rituals even in the spiritual path. And if there are the appropriate physical stimuli externally, and if we approach them appropriately, then we can experience those emotions.

So I have some kind of launchpad statements from Prabhupada's Bhagavad Gita purports. Like number one, rituals are meant for increasing a person's interest in self-realization. I'm paraphrasing a little bit here and there.

But so the sum total, the sigma of so many rituals, like let's say, take off your shoes. Mostly the rituals are in Indian context, based upon tropical atmosphere. So you take off your shoes, you ring a bell, you bow down, and then you take this holy sanctified charnamrit, or you do not show your legs in this way, do not touch anything with your legs that way.

You touch anything to your forehead first. So these are all the rituals and in one place Prabhupada explains about three times bathing. Now suddenly you can just see the ritual is meant for a tropical land where there is a flowing river nearby.

And that could be true for almost all of the Indian temples, like people still go to Vatilnath, Kedarnath, and they take their ritual bath. But in freezing cold at Gangotri, it's like just quick one, two, three and you're out. That's for the normal people.

But it is done just as a matter of respect. So now we are into the territory of rituals, basically in Vedic cultural context. So they are meant for gradually increasing, progressing in self-realization.

Most of the rituals are not possible in today's age. That also is an accepted fact. That there has to be this, the most beautiful thing is Desh Kala Patra.

The things are decided as important or unimportant depending upon the time, the region, Desh Kala time and the recipient, Patra. I especially like the word Patra because it conveys the idea of a pot or a container. So receptacle.

So a ritual is given or withdrawn depending upon the, should be called SQ. We are not using IQ here. Spiritual quotient of the person.

So that way Patra. And I'll end with this last statement. It is important for a neophyte or a new practitioner to actually concentrate on the rituals, at least in the beginning.

I remember my driving lesson. I asked my instructor that there are three controls. One is a brake, one is accelerator, one is a clutch.

And like driving is eye, hand and leg coordination. So how will I actually, I didn't have any confidence that this could be done subconsciously or automatically. So he said, look, if you don't hold the steering wheel and if you hold it too tight, that's wrong.

And if it's too loose, I know that's wrong. But you just focus on your eyes should be focused ahead and automatically your legs will respond. So, so in the beginning, I cannot kind of not obey the instructor.

And I always give this humorous thing, an example that what if I told him that, could you teach me how to whistle and drive from the very first day? Because I saw a movie where the hero was whistling as he was driving with one hand. So that's like somebody who is adept at doing that. And I should not be attempting that on the very first day.

I would neither learn whistling nor driving. Yeah, sometimes some cyclists just let go of their both hands and they're waving with their hands and they're driving. If somebody else tries to drive like that, disaster.

So what do you think of these four kind of statements where they are important in your spiritual progress? Most of them are not possible in this age. And this idea of being indifferent to rituals. Like we have this famous example of Marudu Puri.

He's saying bathing three times a day on his prayers. My obeisances to all of you. I may not be able to do that.

But that, that is taken, that statement comes from a very high vantage point. It is certainly not meant for neophytes. Yeah, that's a lot of territory.

As far as the rituals are meant for spiritual growth. In some ways, we are creatures of habit. And we don't always feel the right emotion in appropriate situation, in a particular situation.

But the rituals, this is how things are done. Then that creates some pattern in life. Okay, if you go in front of the temple, you do this, this, this.

Or you do this kind of prayers or whatever. So in some ways, when we say the external and internal are together. So rituals could be at one level ways to express the internal when it is present.

Or they could also be the ways to experience the internal or to excavate or to activate the internal when it is not present. That means I don't, I naturally feel some reverence and I offer my obeisance to the deity. Or I offer my obeisance and then I start feeling some reverence.

So in that sense, in the ritual, external internal, sometimes internal may come first and external later or the external may come first and internal later. And so if somebody makes a regular habit of doing a particular ritual, then that discipline itself is an indication of one's seriousness, one's commitment. And in that sense, rituals, which are connecting us with the divine, with some manifestations of the divine in this world, they can help us advance spiritually.

Because they create a pattern of regular connection with the divine. And what do you think about this? Yeah. So this is an important thing.

However, disconnected, the practitioner may be from the ritual. Repeatedly doing it will connect him with the Supreme Lord. Eventually, because the seeds of connectivity are embedded in the ritual.

Seeds of connectivity, yeah. Slowly, slowly, like a daily visit or daily taking charnamala, daily taking your prayer beads and chanting. Immediately you don't be an expert or adept at that.

You may not even get the ecstasy which is promised or which is advertised or which is exhibited by some. But you have the faith that I do it. And distance, not a very appropriate comparison, but drilling for oil.

If oil is at 3000 meters below, then all that you do is simply like a ritually going down, down, down, down. There is no result. When you kind of drill the last foot and then there is only whatever you want coming out of that particular drilled hole.

So there is this, as you rightly said, repeatedly doing something will lead to that connection with God. Oh, so you are comparing the ritual with the drilling and we keep the drilling even when we are not experiencing anything. Because eventually the drilling will lead to the oil.

Yeah, because the results are there somewhere, but you are not given access just because it's like your personal path of discovery. Okay. So I have one last statement here from my side and then whatever you want to take it.

That rituals. Okay. But just a minute for that.

There are a few other statements you made about rituals being like they are adjustable according to time, place, circumstance. Yeah. That is very important because in some ways trying to recreate a particular ritual in another place might itself create so much antagonism or struggle that it might make that particular practice impossible.

We see this, now I am generalizing, but broadly Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, he had followers in Mayapur, in Vrindavan and in Puri, Utkal Desh. So he asked his followers in Vrindavan to build temples, to rediscover the holy places of the Goswamis and to build temples. But there is no instruction as far as I have seen to his followers in Bengal to build any temples.

And even now when we go to Bengal, apart from the big temple that have been recently built, Mayapur Chandodar temple we are building, there are no major temples there. There are many holy places associated with the great saints from our tradition. There are no temples.

So Nawab Hussain Shah and his associates were quite relatively intolerant. Chaitanya Mahaprabhu did not ask that you build a temple and worship, have a temple in your home and you do congregational chanting, you do Harinam Sankirtan. So in trying to build a temple at a place where there is huge political opposition or something like that, that might become so much of a conflict that the purpose of the temple, the temple is external, it's important, but the external is meant to cultivate the internal.

And if that doesn't happen, then let's not divert the energy. Similarly, I've heard that Shivaji Maharaj, he also, he uses energy to establish Dharma and encourage people to create a Dharmic culture for establishing Dharma, but he did not spend too many resources on building temples. Because the idea was that he was just starting the Swaraj and he needed resources to defend himself for his campaigns and other things.

So there is a certain amount of flexibility with awareness of time and place about which rituals are to be emphasized and which to be de-emphasized. Nice historical examples. So lastly, I have this one thing about this statement by Prabhupada that rituals, like seeing the whole picture, they are still to be considered lower than meditation and cultivation of knowledge.

So, rituals… Is it the translation of the 1212? Is it that verse? This is a favorite example of rituals, comparing that with an envelope, which has a message of love. So, the envelope on its own can go from one place to another, it's a stamp on it. But if there is nothing inside, that's like an empty ritual.

And that's a very commonly known phrase. But a simple piece of paper with the most loving sentiments cannot go on its own. It needs an envelope.

So, rituals kind of protect or convey, carry your sentiments. So, meditation, where you concentrate your mind upon Krishna, or cultivation of knowledge, where there is a concerted positive effort in trying to understand who am I, what is the goal of my life, how do I achieve Krishna consciousness, or spiritual knowledge. If these two are made possible by a particular ritual, I imbibe it, I accept it and I use it.

What are the two things once again, these two? So, rituals should always be subservient to meditation upon God and cultivation of knowledge about God. Oh, beautiful. Then we can have the idea again of the letter of the law and the spirit of the law.

Correct, correct. And then what is the? So, Niyamagraha, we could read it two ways, the two meanings. That you have the envelope, but you don't have the letter in the envelope.

This is the rule. But in imposing the rule, you are hurting people, you are alienating people and nobody is in any devotional consciousness. That's just the external.

And then the, so I have the envelope without the, without the letter and the other Niyamagraha is rejecting the rule. That would mean that we say that there's absolutely no need for the envelope. But then how do you send the letter? The letter might get spoiled on the way.

It might get lost on the way. So, so the, what we are saying, what we are trying, what we are seeking is a connection with God. Connection through our intelligence and a connection through our heart.

We want to focus in a loving way. So you could say knowledge and meditation. So knowledge and meditation in this context can be both seen as elements of devotion.

We cultivate knowledge of knowledge about him because we want to know him more and love him more. And we meditate on him because he's because we love him. And again, we want to love him.

And so can be also going back to the earlier point you mentioned about somebody who has transcended rituals. We could even have different hierarchies of rituals. Rather than saying that rituals are rejected.

So devote. So there could be rituals which are, say, at a preliminary level required. And those may not be required at a higher level.

But then maybe something else is required at a higher level. So a devotee might give up the rituals of Karmakanda, but a devotee might very rigidly stick to the rituals of Bhakti. So we have Madhavendra Puri saying that I won't do Sandhya Vandan or I won't bathe three times a day or whatever.

But then we have Haridas Thakur saying that even if I have no strength, I will chant my name. Or we have Sanatana Goswami, even in old age, wanting to circumambulate Govardhan. And then the Lord creating, Lord providing him a small Sheela.

You circumambulate around him. So in a sense, humanity never transcends rituals. They may transcend rituals at a particular level.

I would put it like this. Rituals are not like wholesale useless for everyone. That particular person doesn't need them.

But somebody below him is still using the same thing. So if Madhavendra Puri is saying that I don't need that and he is my worshipable authority. But that doesn't mean I also can give it up.

Once Radhagopinath Maharaj gave a nice example. So if rituals can be seen as a car going from say Radhagopinath temple to Meerahoor. So it has to follow red, green, blue, red, green, yellow signals.

And because it is a part of the road traffic. Let us say you are dropped by a helicopter from Chowpatty to Meerahoor. So you can't hear the driver saying, so now it is red.

I need to stop. I need to take a left turn here. It's a helicopter.

There is no right turn, left turn and signals here. So although the process is going from place A to place B and the destination is the same. But because of a superior mode of transport, the lower rituals are simply insignificant now.

They have lost their meaning. Okay. That means we could put it this way that there is a purpose and there is a process or a path.

And each process or each path will have a set of rituals associated with them. Exactly. Those may not be needed for somebody who is taking another path.

Say somebody is going by a plane, then they have to go through the ritual of having security checkup. You have to have their body tapped. If I'm going to go in my own car, I don't have to go to that ritual.

Now, can we call that as a ritual? In a sense, it's serving a practical purpose. But yeah, it's a repeated routine which is being done. So in that sense, it could be called as the most people whose security check can you do.

Most of the time you don't find anything objectionable. Probably it's maybe one in a thousand. You find some one in a much more.

You might find something, but it has to be done. So the rituals will be associated with each particular path. So I thought of just one thing.

One way to depict this is that some nowadays there is this tendency. Either we relativize everything or we absolutize everything. So if we have a pendulum and then we have something in between.

So one extreme of the pendulum is to relativize. The other extreme of the pendulum is to absolutize and in between is to utilize. So very good.

Very good. So each of we have to know why we are doing the particular ritual. So if I absolutize it and sometimes I might defeat the purpose.

But if I relativize it. Oh, you know, I don't need this. Well, don't just say that this is don't just dismiss it by calling it relative.

We have to see what purpose it is having and then serve it. And if it is serving the purpose, then it is not only essential. It is not only important.

It may be indispensable. So one of my favorite metaphors is for spiritual growth is that. It's like we are trying to go up a mountain.

Now, if you want to go up a mountain on one side of the mountain, it might be. It might be rocky. And I might need a particular kind of support equipment for going up.

Other side, it might be very slippery, maybe kind of marshy. I might need another kind of support equipment. So another side, it might be very windy.

And I might need other kind of support equipment. But the idea is my purpose is to get to the top of the mountain. Now, if I use the gear, which is if I use the gear, which is meant to go from the slippery side of the mountain for the time, and I'm going up the rocky side, it will be a disservice for me.

So we need to understand the process that we are following and then see how the rituals that we are doing are serving the purpose of that ritual. If the purpose is lost, then the following of the rituals becomes empty. And perhaps the best example of this could be the, are you there? Yeah.

Okay. The best example of this could be the Yagi Brahmanas and their wives. Yes.

They were so strictly following the rituals that they forgot the purpose of Krishna. You know, there's a story of a woman whose husband had to go on a business trip. So he gave her his photograph that you can worship it every day.

You can decorate it. So instead of four weeks, the husband came back in three weeks and he's knocking at the door and he's telling his wife that I have come. She says that you have to wait because I am worshipping your photograph, as you told me to do.

Okay. So this is absurd. But she says that I'm just following what he told me that every morning I should look at it and I should decorate it.

But hey, when the real person is knocking at the door, you cannot be absorbed in something which is in lieu of his absence. So that could be a mistake. As you said, either absolutize or minimize.

But most of the time we have to. And basically that's the role of an Acharya. This is a very beautiful pendulum which you do.

They are the ones who take a stock. They have the bird's eye view or you can say in Isaac Newton's language, like every Acharya owns a big debt of gratitude to the previous Acharyas. So you can say that all that I know is because I'm standing on the shoulders of giants.

So I like this very much. So every Acharya, every revolutionary spiritual authority, they take a stock. They allow something if it is useful.

They cull some that these are not to be done because they have lost their purpose. And in fact, we have this. So what is part of culture at a particular time? It is explicitly said, don't do it.

It has lost its significance. So rituals can be compared. In my mind, I compare them to a Microsoft program where I don't need somebody who is a Windows 95 gold medalist.

He may not serve any purpose in my office today. I need somebody who knows Windows 10. So although the basic DOS system is the same, a lot has changed.

So one who knows the purpose. One who knows the purpose behind the Vedas can understand the rituals behind the Vedas. If you don't know the purpose behind the Vedas, the rituals may just, as they say in Hindi, it's called a bulbulaiya, it's a maze.

In anger, you might give up the entire process of spiritual growth because a particular ritual doesn't make any sense. Yes. And I think that's what has happened in modern society.

We have what we could call as a significant number of people are nihilistic. Just reject everything. But then what are we left with? We need something to hold on to.

And people create their own rituals. So, for example, people who don't believe in God, they have, like we're talking about social bonding. There are these comic-con festivals.

Comic-con, they call it, comic hero conventions. And people just go mad. They spend so much money.

They buy those get-up and then they go there. And for many of these Marvel Comics heroes, the movies don't make as much money as the merchandise that comes from the movies. So, these are some ways in which people are trying to fulfill their need for community, for belonging, for bonding.

And if this is done in a spiritual context, that is not just socially binding, but it's also spiritually uplifting. And that's where, so we could say that human society in general needs rituals. And if those rituals are within a spiritual context, then they will serve the all-round purpose of society, of people.

Not just their physical and emotional needs, but also their spiritual needs. If we could summarize now, right from your matrix. Yes, that's true.

So, we started by talking about, do we still, do we need rituals? If that, we call it the title of our discussion. Then the rituals, they bring a structure so that the external and internal can be coordinated. When I see a flag, when I want to feel the emotion of nationalism, patriotism, then saluting the flag is how I get it.

We discussed the four quadrants. There's no internal, no external, then it's a problem. Then it's complete unpredictability and chaos.

I don't know what, it's an arc. I don't know what to do, what I should not do. If I meet someone and there's no way to greet them, what do I do? There's only internal, no external, then that leads to insecurity.

What is the other person thinking of me? If there is a plainclothes cop, that cop is there competent enough to protect, but I don't know he's a cop. So I don't, I still feel worried. So then external, but no internal.

There's a cop, but the cop has no, actually the cop is a thief or the cop is a pathetic and he's not going to protect me. Then I feel deceived by that. There's external, internal, then there is proper security.

So then we discussed after that about rituals, let me three things with respect to manners at a individual interpersonal level. Then rituals as religious practices and rituals as social festivals or social occasions. And in the modern industrialized society for financial purposes, I would say on one side for financial purposes.

Now there is also at a level of skeptical, being skeptical about religion or higher things. Many rituals have been rejected, but people feel lonely. And I said, they create some other rituals for bonding on their own.

And those rituals, unfortunately not lead to any spiritually uplifting thing. In fact, say sports matches and people coming over, they can sometimes lead to degenerate to violence also. Then you talk about spiritual ritual, spiritual, can rituals have a spiritual purpose? Yes, if they're connected with a spiritual object, manifestation of the divine.

And rituals can either express the emotion when it is present or they can activate the emotion when it is not present. That's why rituals can be a part of a discipline and rituals are contextual. We talked about don't relativize simply saying that I don't need it because it's just your thing.

Don't absolutely saying that it's for everyone. It's utilized. See what is the purpose? So there is a purpose to go up the mountain and then find out what gear helps you to go up the mountain.

And then lastly, you concluded some people may transcend the rituals. And you give the beautiful example that somebody is going by helicopter. They don't need to follow the rules of road traffic, but they do need to follow the rules of helicopter traffic.

So if we keep that purpose in mind and then we infuse, so rituals are like the envelope and what they convey is the letter. So, for example, in religious rituals, you want to convey, we want to awaken knowledge, awaken, meditate, activate, cultivate meditation, ultimately express devotion to those rituals. So rituals, if they are, they are going to be there in society.

But if the rituals are in a spiritual context, then they can fulfill all the needs of the human being. Is it clear, Leelav, anything? Yes, yes. Very nicely covered everything.

So thank you very much for your attention and for your participation. Thank you. Same here.

Thank you.