The Monk’s Podcast 81 with Shyamananda – Social Justice and Spiritual wisdom 1

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churning the nectar.
Yes, Maharaj, definitely. Thank you for joining today. As I was thinking we could discuss today on the topic of social justice and spiritual wisdom.
And we could talk about this in broadly three topics, three sections. What is right about social justice and where the drive for social justice sometimes can become deficient and how spiritual wisdom can complement it. So, the word social justice is different from just justice or individual justice.
Normally, we may use the word justice in the sense that if somebody has done something wrong to me and I get some reparations from a court or so that would be specifically with justice. We talk about just in the sense that there is a verdict that comes out or a system that is there is fair. If I want to go to university, there’s no discrimination against me to get admission in the university.
Now, social justice holds the idea that individually, sometimes people cannot get what they deserve even if they try as much as they try if the system itself is rigged against them. And social justice in one sense is strongly opposed to the western idea of meritocracy where the idea is that if you work hard then you will succeed. But here the idea is that rags to riches stories are there but social justice holds that they are so rare as to not be relevant for most people.
And in fact, rags to riches stories are often touted so that any system systemic change is avoided. So, that means if somebody is born in poverty, somebody is born in the locality where there is high crime and there is a low education available, then if you work hard enough, you will succeed. So, the endeavor is left primarily on the individual.
And social justice holds that this is unfair to the individual because sometimes even with your best efforts, society is unfair and rigged against you, then you will never succeed. So, it will be almost impossible for you to succeed and that’s why so the idea is we need to do some social engineering. Society itself has to be modified at a collective level and often it is at the level of political change done by the government so that justice can be established.
Any thoughts on this? Is this connected with the Greek thinkers and their idea of like, I mean, the practice Plato Aristotle, how things should be governed, how a city should be organized, how there should be opportunities for everyone to express themselves? Is it something to do with that particular soil of thought? Yes, partially. But in some ways, I think Plato’s Republic was the primary book for Western administrative systems and many things have evolved from there. In general, in modern times, social justice has arisen from Marxist ideology.
Social justice is often associated with socialism, which is a milder form of Marxism. So, Marxism had the idea that there are two kinds of socialism. Marxism and socialism.
Marxism was more the political theorist, communism was what was implemented, and many people say that it was a misrepresentation or misapplication of what Marx thought. And then there is socialism which is still considered widely appealing. The idea that the world is divided into hierarchies, There are haves and have-nots.
There are the wealthy, the powerful, the influential and there are the deprived. So society is arranged this way and that needs to be fixed. And so broadly it’s more from a political left side of the communism and that kind of ideology from what I understand.
Okay. Maybe you can go forward so that when we come to the point where we look for Vedic solutions, we can compare that with the situation in India. That’s true.
Yes. So now in social justice, while the facts of social justice are true, that it’s not always possible for an individual to fight against the whole system and rise. So there is this one thinker who gives a thought experiment.
He says that suppose before you were born, you had the facility to wander around the earth in outer space and choose where would you like to be born, in which family, which country, which society. So what would you want? And are there certain places, certain settings which you would not want to be born in? Then this is that is where it’s indicative that some amount of social justice is needed, that there is discrimination, there is disparity in society and that needs to be fixed. So we might want to be born in a place where broadly there is good education, there is a good medication, there is good system of justice and there is an overall possibility for growing in your career and in your life.
So are there places where we would not want to be born? That’s one thought exercise to drive home the reality that there is disparity and that needs to be fixed. So once we feel, okay, this is where I would not want to be born, then, oh, okay. That means something is wrong over there and that needs to be fixed.
So that’s how we can develop some amount of empathy for this. Now, with respect to the second point, my understanding is that now it goes wrong in both in its theoretical foundation and its practical application. So in practical application, if you look at it, we do know that the attempts for social engineering led to disaster in Soviet Russia and in China.
In Soviet Russia, especially, after the Bolshevik revolution, all those who were wealthy farmers, they were destroyed. Many of them were sent to the Gulags, which were like the concentration camps in Soviet Russia. And then their wealth and their property was given to the poor people.
And especially in Ukraine, there was one of the biggest man-made famines in the late 1920s because all the wealthy farmers who were in some ways hardworking, they knew how agriculture worked and they knew what to sow and how to manage it. They were all either killed or sent to the concentration camps and people who were incompetent, they were given the wealth and property and they just couldn’t manage it. So basically, there is the presumption over here that the victims are virtuous, that those who are deprived are good people and they are deprived.
And those who are successful are bad people. They’re bad because they must have exploited, they must have gamed the system. Now this, yes, we could say in human society, there are good people and bad people.
But Dostoevsky, the prominent Russian thinker, he said that communism draws this line or communism or the ideology underlying social justice, draws this line very neatly between those who are powerful and those who are powerless. The powerful are good and the powerless are evil. However, he says this line between good and evil, it goes through every human heart.
And that means that people who are deprived, people who are in a difficult situation, it could be that because of their vices, they are there. And people who are successful and powerful, it could be because of certain virtues that they are there. By virtues, it’s not necessarily morality, it could also be simply ability.
Somebody is just good at doing certain things and somebody is not good at doing certain things. So the default suspicion of hierarchy itself could be a problem in social justice. Just like if you want to cook food and you want to eat, we have 10 people in the house, then there might be one or two who are good at cooking.
And if they are in charge and they tell, okay, you cut the vegetables, you go and buy this and you do this. You are the boss, you’re just sitting here and you’re just mixing a few things. You’re telling everyone to go and do all the hard work.
But no, if they are good at it, that hierarchy is good for everyone. Because if the food that is cooked is good, everybody will get the good food. But if you say, let everybody cook equally, but then if there are 5 people instead of 10 and you’re going to cook 5 items, not everybody might be equally good.
So the default suspicion of hierarchy often makes social justice go over the top in terms of its implementation. The first implementation is let’s challenge and destroy all hierarchies. And this is permeated and this could be a whole different subject.
But this has permeated into gender theory, where quite often women are portrayed as the victims and men are by default the exploiters. This has even permeated into parenting, where it is said that parents are sometimes abusive to the children, which is true. It happens sometimes, but the children need guidance and mentoring.
So the idea of complete coddling of children and almost no disciplining of children. Because parents are in a powerful position, children are in a powerless position. So this default suspicion of hierarchy can lead to a completely dysfunctional society.
And that is what has happened, broadly speaking, in communist countries where social justice attempts were made at a societal level. And the result was disastrous. It was not that by the social engineering alone, society could be brought to a proper state.
It led to discrimination, exploitation and destruction in a scale that has not been seen otherwise in human history. A hundred million people were killed in the communist governments. And one argument which is given often here is that it was misimplemented.
The problem is that Stalin or Lenin were vicious people. But the problem is in this system. If there is a virtuous person, that virtuous person could be killed and somebody else’s wishes will come up.
And if there is ideological justification for the social engineering, then it may often very well go by that person’s biases and whims of who are to be considered the exploiters and who are to be considered the exploited. And anybody who is considered to be opposing one could be called as the opponent of the state, which is actually out to do good. And we see this happening today.
Now, often those who favour social engineering are people on the left. And they are claimed to be liberal. They claim themselves to be liberal.
But often they are extremely illiberal toward anyone who opposes them. And so liberals are illiberal towards anyone who is not liberal. So that is where social justice often goes into exorcism.
The effort for social justice can go into exorcism. Any thoughts on this? Two thoughts. One is that this thing that poor are poor because they have done something wrong.
And we see in the teachings of Jesus Christ, this thing of blessed are the poor. So they inherit the kingdom of God there. Or they are chosen favourites of the Lord.
So this seems to have something of a kind of a point to stabilise society during that time. Because Jesus was preaching not to intellectuals, not to elite. He was preaching to people who are oppressed.
And you need to give them some sort of confidence that what is happening to you is actually not bad. You can still rise from this current state. That is one point.
Secondly, as you told about in China and Russia, in the previous Soviet Union, how the rich landlords, they were called kulaks. And kulaks is actually, it became a bad word. They made every kulak an enemy of the state and enemy of the people.
So something similar was attempted in India, but not with force and not with a kajal or not with AK-47. But Vinoba Bhave tried to persuade the hearts of rich landlords that on your own you give something so that you can improve the condition of the poor. And it was called the Bhudan movement.
And the slogan was Jai Jagat. So there is something like a movement, there is something like a mantra to chant. But the Jai part was just for this whole planet, Jai Jagat.
Unfortunately or whatever, most of the land which was something like, I don’t exactly remember, but about 500,000 acres were given to these volunteers when they toured all of India. They would go, they would hold meetings and they would then exhort the rich people that from your heart, no force, from your heart, all they got was barren land. Was barren land donated or? Yeah, barren land donated.
Oh, okay. So mostly that was given to, I don’t know what kind of disbursement method was devised. But practically we don’t see, it was not a successful experiment at all.
So point is, at the point of a bayonet, this kind of social justice doesn’t work. And by kind words, it doesn’t work. That’s interesting.
I once saw a slogan outside a church, you know, give God what is right, not what is left. So sometimes charity, when it is not given wholeheartedly, when it is, what is the 17th chapter? The third verse over there is that when it is done with resentment, when charity is given with resentment, then that is charity either in the mood of passion or ignorance. Yeah.
And that doesn’t work. That’s a good point. So if people’s hearts are not really into it, they will, it will not work.
So that is true. So one side is that in terms of its social excesses, you brought that point that in some ways, social justice movement considers that religion perpetuates social injustice. Because religion is often an instrument for the status quo to be maintained.
That you are told if you live a virtuous life, then you will have a good life in the future and in the future world, in the next life. So you live a good life means that you don’t create disruption in society. You just do the duties of where you are and whatever role you have in society.
And Marx had the idea that throughout human history, injustice, unfair systems in society were maintained by this kind of religious justification of existing inequities. For example, the aristocracy, what we call the royalty, and there was a royalty and there was a gentry. So the general people were there in the medieval world.
So the idea was all those who were aristocrats, they practically never worked. They would just have their seasons where they would meet potential partners and they would have parties. And they would just have their land holdings by which they would get money and they would simply enjoy life.
So if one was born among the aristocracy, then their life was great. If one was a lord or a earl or whatever. But if somebody was born among common people, the lot was very difficult.
So this, that the social, existing social order was a divine dispensation. So by this idea, the social injustice was justified and perpetuated. And this critique is extended further within the Indian context.
Because in the Indian tradition, the idea of reincarnation is accepted. And this is their idea that if somebody is born in a deprived condition, that is because of what you have done in your past lives. So it’s because of your karma, you are born poor, you are born disempowered, you are born deprived.
And you have to live out the way you are. So both from the way of future, not in this life, you can’t move, but in the next life you can move. And if you are here, it’s unfair.
So Christianity had the idea that it was a divine dispensation. But they say Hinduism had the idea, it’s your own karma because of which you are here. And either way, religion becomes a deterrent for social justice.
And it becomes a justifier of the unfairness in society. So any thoughts on this? As we were discussing this prior to our recording, I would classify the religion which Marx was against or anybody else as that side of organized religion which was corrupted, to put it more clearly. Because we also see, and maybe we will talk about it in our solution part, that there existed, at least we see through the pages of Vedic text, a state where disparity, inequality, and some people are highly skilled, some are not so skilled, all existing harmoniously.
Where nobody was an exploiter and nobody was a perpetrator, nobody was a victim. That existed. It just requires that bit of spiritual training as to how we can do that.
So the idea that I was born, as you talked of the nobility, many of them felt that if we bring these people to somewhat better level, then who will serve us? So any point of equality was always put down very harshly. And then, like this is the kind of thing where with every passing decade or every passing century, the divide became more and more solidified. And Marx was not alive to see what his teachings have done.
But through his pen, he told the world that unless there is a violent overthrow of the entire system, you cannot have justice. Because these people are all rotten to the core and they would always look at the society. This is one thing, the Vedic texts tell us to see society not through the current lens of just the 21st century or 20th or 19th or 18th.
We get so many lenses. We can use certain things, certain things cannot be used. All the great Acharyas have always said that this is good but not practical today.
So the combination of rigid religion but corrupted by elite and then the social system where some people had to be kept down because otherwise they fear that who will drive the carriage? Who will sow the seeds? Who will cut the harvest? So this is kind of the no compassion, no mercy is also at the heart of the elite behaving like that. Yes. So this is a very important point which you made that the vice that can corrupt the powerful, the vice that can corrupt the powerless, which will make them do self-destructively, but that same vice can also corrupt people who are within religious hierarchies also.
And when that happens, then that can lead to the abuse of the religious ideas for justifying iniquity. But if we consider within communism or within social engineering, there is no system to itself foster virtue or to remove vice. And unless that is done, so vice could be self-destructive habits where people are smoking and drinking and things like people are into substance abuse.
And then that is terrible. So no matter how much they have helped, they cannot actually help themselves because of those self-destructive habits. So unless there is some way to foster, nurture virtue and to remove vice, any system can fall apart.
And I would say that this is where spiritual wisdom can play a part. So I would like to show a four point diagram, four quadrant diagram. Is this visible now? Yes, now it is visible.
So if there is no social justice and there is no spiritual wisdom, then life becomes unbearable. Because I can see the blatant unfairness that is all there all around me. And I think, why should I be the victim? And this can lead to violent, violent, uprising and destructiveness.
So this is unbearable. Now we have to get out from there. Now once you get out, where do we go? If there is only social engineering, that means we bring out social justice, but there is no spiritual wisdom.
Then the problem can happen in two ways. In any society, there will have to be for functioning some hierarchy. Even those who are sometimes called as social justice warriors.
They, for example, hold the idea that society needs to be rearranged and who is going to rearrange it? They will rearrange it. They have the wisdom, they have the maturity, they have the compassion. And what happens? Inevitably they become powerful.
And everybody else becomes powerless. So this is unsustainable. I’ll talk about each of these later.
But briefly, and you can also add in this, that sometimes those who become powerful in doing social engineering, they might develop voices or they might be succeeded by someone who have concealed their voice till now. And then they can brutally exploit society. On the other hand, so through social engineering alone, if the people in general who are benefited, it may well happen that somebody instead of, they were poor.
Why were they poor? Because they were doing substance abuse and they were not able to hold a job. And then you say that, okay, you will get money from the government as welfare because your life has been unjust to you. But then they might just live like that and not actually do anything to improve their lot.
So from both ways, it could be unsustainable. And this could be, there could be a critique of this, which could be discussed. Now, spiritual wisdom with social justice, it at least makes life bearable.
Why bearable? Okay, that even if you consider just the Christian worldview, okay, there is a better future for me, if not in this life, in the next life. So I can accept my lot. And from what I have read about medieval times, although there was a huge difference between, say, the nobility and the general people, but it is not that, say, if there was a lord who had a butler, that the butler and the servants, you know, they are constantly resentful and envious.
They accepted their place in society and they were relatively, they were able to live their way. Now, if you consider the Vedic perspective of there is a previous life also. So rather than only considering that by way of previous life, you are born into certain level of poverty and certain level of wealth.
But that sense of karma can give us some acceptance of it. Now, I would like to differentiate between acceptance and passivity or acceptance and resignation. That this is how it is.
I accept it. Now, this is how I am meant to for the rest of my life. That would be resignation.
And that is unhealthy. But at least spiritual wisdom has the virtue of, has the strength of making one’s condition bearable. But now, if we had both spiritual wisdom and social justice together, that would be sustainable.
In the sense that people wouldn’t just be focusing on social engineering, but we could say also on spiritual engineering. Spiritual engineering means that everybody actively works to cultivate virtue and curb vice in their own time. Both the powerful and both the empowered and the disempowered.
And then society can be more, society can be transformed and sustained both. So I just want to add a small point here that the sustainable thing, basically we talk of power. We talk of privileges.
When the lower echelons of society, they don’t have power, therefore there is resentment and there is animosity or there could be outright revolutionary attitude. When this class or these classes, they see that somebody in the upper echelon in two scenarios, scenario one, they exhibit the power and that power is visible, that power is palpable, it can be felt. So it is not like people want to do away with power, but actually they want it for themselves.
Because the whole idea is, unless I have power, I won’t be happy. Unless I have power, I won’t be creative, I won’t be satisfied. So when they see a voluntarily giving up of the power and privileges by the elite at a proper time, so they come to know that this power and privilege doesn’t define this person.
And I can’t see any more example, any better example than the behavior of a spiritually evolved personality. Like in my small experience, what I hear about Prabhupada, but I can say that about any spiritually evolved person. For example, one Hong Kong incident where the devotees were not very financially resourceful, but they still took on rent a suite at a very expensive, on the last floor of a skyscraper hotel.
And the reporter came and started asking questions about who are you, what are you doing, what is the purpose of your spiritual movement? And after a few questions, a few pleasantries, he came to the main thing which he had in his mind, that he said, look, we are talking of spirituality and education and everything. And we are sitting in this plush suite of a skyscraper hotel. And Prabhupada was quick to reward that.
I can have this dialogue in an open field in India, but are you willing to come there? So the point is, someone spiritually evolved is finally focused on the transmission of the message, the transmission of spiritual wisdom. So when somebody is focused only on the wisdom part, then they may use power, use financial resources, use privilege to be accessible to whoever they want to. And if that purpose is not served, they are willing to give it up, relinquish it.
So, like we have the French Revolution, equality, liberty and fraternity. Egalité, egalitarian comes from the French word égalité. So, how to dispense social justice? Well, there was not that term at that time.
But how to dispense justice at least? Do away with the nobility. All the crooks, all the people who have amassed wealth at our expense, do away with them. How do we shoot so many hundreds and thousands? Or how do you kill them in a way that it will make a big impact? So the guillotine was invented.
The name of the fellow was guillotine and the instrument was also called the guillotine. It stopped only with the head of the revolution, Robespierre, that only when he was finally guillotine, that thing stopped. So, initially it was known criminals.
Then it was unknown criminals. Then it became anyone who has any connection, any connection with nobility. So, this kind of thing the world has seen, that those who claim power on the basis of injustice emitted out to them, grab that power and exhibit the same arrogance which they were fighting.
That’s a very powerful example of French Revolution. Because it led to indiscriminate bloodshed. And somehow that lesson was not learnt in some way by history and that was repeated.
So, the French Revolution, probably the unrest was there for maybe 10-15 years and Napoleon Bonaparte came up after that. Again in some sense there was hierarchy, but Napoleon Bonaparte recognized the cause underlying the French Revolution and then he tried to, although he was the king, and in some ways his system was similar to the earlier system, but he tried to institute meritocracy. It’s not that by birth you will become a lord or a commander or a leader in my government.
You can do it by merit also. But now that same thing was tried for 60-70 years after the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia and China. And I think you quoted, was it Gorbachev who said that this should have been done in a small area before? Yeah, I told you about that.
It was Boris Yeltsin. So, when you mentioned about the willingness to give up power if required, that will come only when there is an understanding that there is some gain greater than power. Some gain greater than power, some gain greater than worldly power or worldly pleasure and that is where spiritual wisdom is required.
So without spiritual wisdom, sooner or later the lure of power can become irresistible. And even if there could be people who seek social justice right now and they might be genuinely compassionate. That they genuinely want a change in society.
However, the problem is that not everybody is like that. And sooner or later when that power comes up, that power will be taken over. So, two thoughts on that.
One is that in some ways social justice and social engineering tries to get the state to play God. The state, Friedrich Nietzsche, he had this idea that when the death of God happened, he said it has happened that God is dead now. In the sense that there is no rational basis for accepting the idea of God.
He said as a result of this two things may happen. One is obsessive individualism or totalitarianism. So if there is no God, then either I become God and I decide whatever I want to do, I’ll do it.
Or the state will become God. Some kind of totalitarian regime will come up. So to some extent when the idea of meritocracy is taken to its extremes, it is like I am the determiner of my destiny.
So basically I am God and I can make the world the way I want it to be. And if we can broadly associate meritocracy with capitalism, then the opposite of meritocracy is society is unmeritocracy, it is unfair. So then communism has the idea that the state will be God.
And the state will rearrange everything in such a way that everything is benevolently and equitably arranged. But the problem is that if someone tries to be God, it’s extremely high probability that basically they will end up becoming the devil. Because that power can corrupt in a very dangerous way.
So when we think that we can shape people’s destinies, that means the idea is the way the world is, it’s unfair. And if you say it is because of God, we will change it. Either I am God, that is meritocracy, or the state is God.
That is social engineering. So either way, the key thing is society has to be changed. There is injustice and definitely there is unfairness and there is exploitation that has to be corrected.
At the same time, it is God whose presence in the heart, the invocation of genuine spirituality that can actually transform the heart. And then there can be virtue. And when virtue is fostered within the heart, that’s when the social justice can be sustained.
So if we have spiritual leaders who manifest virtue and who inspire others to manifest virtue, then that is something which can take social justice to a level that is sustainable. Otherwise, it will be problematic. It will create a revolution.
As we say, there is a resolution, revolution, dissolution, but no solution. Prabhupada would say that. So any thoughts on this? This thought came about long ago when a student told me that, isn’t Krishna ashamed of saying so many big, big, high-falutin things about himself in the Gita? Like I have never seen somebody without being embarrassed talking about himself in such a blatant way.
So I tried to explain, but of course, he was not that satisfied. So the minute that happened, so once I was talking and I said, do you know that in the Rajasuya sacrifice, whose job was to wash the feet of every guest who came in the pavilion? And they said, no, I don’t know. I said, Krishna did that.
So he said, so? I said, what do you mean so? Normally somebody who is accused of being full of himself, as they say, also has the courage or the willingness to give up that power all the time and do such a simple menial thing like wash the feet of everybody who was coming to visit the Rajasuya sacrifice. Now, since this is our Kali Yuga age, we also have Machiavelli, our Italian philosopher friend, who would say that in case you want to have that power, sometimes you should show that you are willing to relinquish it just to pacify the masses. In your heart, you have no desire to do that.
So there are a few countries where they are under totalitarian regimes and the dictator, every two or three years, he says, I think I should resign. And then the whole cabinet, who are nothing but his stooges, they all make a whole melodramatic performance saying, no, please don’t. You are the father of the nation.
You are this, you are that. And then he says, all right, if you insist, I’ll stay on. So not only, like we say, Genghis Khan or Taimur or Attila the Hun, these people could be tyrants, like being a tyrant is a 24 by 7 job.
They never have any humility. They have never shown any humility. What is more dangerous is the apparent show of humility, where the intent of latching onto power is still there.
So for a common person, like I would say from my own point of view, I am attracted to pomp and luxury and celebration. So the Soviet Union, what they would have is, they would divert the attention of people into sports. And then they would tell the world that because we earn so many medals, therefore there is justice, people are happy, everybody is contented.
Otherwise, how can you have such physically fit people? Look at our sports record. It says for itself. We are superior.
We are breeding a superior race of human beings under the socialist banner. When the whole system collapsed, there were so many state-run laboratories who were using their sports stars, their athletes as guinea pigs for a higher and higher and higher variety of anabolic steroids, which would improve their performance. In fact, there is one lady from East Germany.
She was a world record holder of something like three or four Olympics in succession. She won the gold medal in the women’s athletes. And the kind of medicines which were given to her, possibly by the state, made her realize that she is actually changing her gender.
Oh my God! It was pitiless, merciless, and they were all thinking about one thing only. We have to show the world how we are a happy population. So, as such, there is injustice.
As such, there is no willingness to give up power. And Kali Yuga adds a dollop of hypocrisy. And now you have a fine mess.
So, you don’t even know when somebody is taking the banner. Like there is some population and somebody is writing article after article about the abuse done by a political party. Or you don’t know whether this person is actually a warrior or he has been paid by someone to only focus on this particular thing and not some other particular thing.
So, to add to the mess that is today, there are people who say that, Okay, this person will only speak about this particular thing, but not about climate change. Why? Well, because their thesis or grant could be in the hands of some multinational. So, it is a difficult subject to comprehend.
Yes. At least there are two distinct points you made that if there is a desire to appear successful, then the idea if somebody has the power of social engineering, of being God, then they can do quite a lot of harm while appearing to do good and covering up the harm that is being done. They could do a lot of harm.
And another point I had in mind was that when there is both ways, this virtue and vice, which are inherent human conditions. So, rather than looking simply at the social situation in which somebody is born and saying this is unfair and this is fair, we could also look at the psychological disposition with which a person is born. By psychological disposition, I mean the combination of virtue and vice.
And that also is different for different people. And that also results from one’s past karma. I would like to talk about two distinct experiences I had.
When I travel abroad, I often meet different people and I have stayed with some devotees and some people who are extremely successful. So, what I have observed is that there is one devotee at whose place I have stayed. He told me that he is a big doctor and he has six secretaries.
And he says that his schedule is… He works with six different hospitals and each hospital has its own secretary. And he says his schedule is planned for at least six weeks in advance. If he has to attend one program, he has to plan six weeks in advance.
So now, he actually showed me his schedule. It is, I would say, it’s almost merciless. It’s almost every minute of the day, right from waking up to sleeping is planned.
And he said, if I don’t get any sleep, if I don’t get enough sleep for any reason, he is going from one hospital to another hospital, he goes and sits in the parking lot and he says, I take a three minute nap before getting out of my car and going to the next. And he has to do surgery and stuff like that. So, the point is that when I saw his schedule and then I talked with him about, now, is this what you’re doing exceptional? He says, no, he says, people who are at my level of success, everybody does that.
So, there has to be a certain level of competence to be successful in society. Now, even if we consider in the past, there were kings or even when the aristocracy was there, nobility was there, some of them might have been wastrels. But for anyone to be in a position of power and to maintain that, some level of competence, some level of commitment is required.
So, the presumption that those who are successful are so simply because they have, because the system was rigged in their favor, that actually doesn’t do justice to the reality that they are working hard. So, that whether everybody, if anybody who’s given power like that, whether anybody and everybody can do that, that is something which is open to question. So, for people who are successful and powerful, they have certain amount of virtue.
And in our tradition, there is the idea that if somebody is a king, the king should be respected. There’s a story of Prabhupada, where some devotees had gone to some circus and people were poking a tiger and making fun of it. And some devotee also started doing that and Prabhupada said no.
Prabhupada quoted from the Bhagavad Gita that Pruganam Rugendroham. I think it was a lion, not a tiger. It was a zoo.
It was a zoo, yeah. So, I got a circus, zoo, right. So, then Prabhupada said that, this animal is meant to be like a king.
Don’t humiliate him like that. And it’s also there, Sanatana Goswami, when Nawab Hussain Shah came to their place, they all got up to respect him. And the idea is that if somebody is a king right now, the king could be brutal, but even if somebody is not having, if somebody is in a particular position, that position should be respected.
So, that, to be successful in the world, it’s not just because you are power hungry and you are exploitative, but also you have to be competent. That’s one side of it. Any comments on this? Yeah.
I feel very empowered when I access this particular piece of information from the Vedas, that power, influence, intelligence, or cutting edge prowess, success, ability, compare that with like a big bank, or a big ocean of ability and success and cutting edge intelligence and everything. And if somebody comes with a spoon, somebody else comes with a tumbler, a third person comes with a bucket, another one comes with a tanker, they all will be given, compared to the receptacles they have brought with them, that will be made full. So, somebody with just a spoon will see that, okay, this he has given me one spoon full of water.
A tumbler is a tumbler full of water, a bucket is a bucket full of water, or a tanker is a tanker full of water. Now, whether somebody can swim in that spoon full of water, absolutely not. It is meager.
But meagerness on whose part? You did not bring a proper receptacle, otherwise the stock is there. So, nobility or being a king, or all these kind of things, the Vedas tell that there is a huge unlimited stock, God is the proprietor of that, you do something to merit a higher position in your society, you get that, you abuse it, it is taken away. You use it, it can be kept or increased, or as a part of the justice thing.
Somebody may say, I don’t need it now, because I am no longer a king. Somebody was born in a high lineage, he ruled like a king, he had enormous power, but because of the training and culture at a particular time, he said, now it is time for me to move into another state of mind, which should be another state of environment. I cannot practice that while I am sitting on the throne.
So, voluntarily they relinquished that. So, the moment people below understand that it is not this person who is ruling, but it is God who is ruling through this person. So, therefore the idea of calling a king Naradeva, he is Nara, he is not God, he doesn’t become God.
Unfortunately, today we find like many dictators, they actually some crown themselves for life, for fear that if I come down, I have no future in this country at all after that. My enemies will hound me and kill me basically. In order to keep everything under sway, I remain.
So, as I was telling you that they are removed either by death or by assassination. There is no third alternative for this. So, when you have a system where the top leadership is so insecure, first of all, illiterate about wisdom and insecure emotionally, the situation will prevail.
We will always have people like they say about the Chinese history, say there is a Ming dynasty and there is Ming I, then his son and his grandson, most probably the grandson, that means after 60 or 75 years of this particular family ruling, the grandson is a westerner. There is a farmer’s son somewhere, he takes 200-300 peasants, then they band up, they go from village to village, they become 20,000 strong. The fourth Ming dynasty king is simply assassinated and now this farmer’s son says that from today onwards, equality, liberty, justice, certainty for everybody because I know what hardship is.
His son slips down a little bit. The third, fourth generation. So, basically their whole history has been about 140-175 years of dynastic rule and everybody repeating the same pattern.
Oh God! That means even if somebody is virtuous, afterwards somebody comes up who is not that virtuous and then that person is overthrown. Yeah, so when you get that virtue, it’s like they say, if you have done tapasya, then you are at a particular stage but if you have fulfilled your tapasya, now you have the credentials, now you don’t have the maturity and the humility to carefully protect those credentials, you will be in a worse state because now you start offending others. Oh, okay.
Like the Nahusha king who became Indra, so Indra-hood is good, you can enjoy the kingdom being the administrator of everything. Then he wanted the seven sages to actually take him on a palanquin. Yeah, that is the height of the Nadir of arrogance.
He was telling Sarpa, Sarpa. And they said, okay, if Sarpa is what you want, become a Sarpa. And he said, if I am Indra, that means Sachi also will be my queen.
So, Sachi was saying, well, you have deposed my husband, but that doesn’t mean you owe me also. He said, no, no, no. Once I come here, everything is mine.
So, this is used as an example of pride. It can also be used to show how and why mere virtue is not enough. You have to have a classical, I don’t know if it is Maharashtrian folklore or Indian folklore, that power is like Tigris’ blood.
And you need a solid gold receptacle to collect it. Any other metal and it will make a hole in it and drain away. What, Tigris’ blood? Tigris’ blood.
Sorry, Tigris’ milk is so strong that you need a receptacle of solid gold. So, here Tigris’ milk, how can somebody milk a Tigris? That means this person has to be very, very valorous. So, he got the Tigris’ milk, but then in order to gather it, you need a receptacle of solid gold.
Any other metal and it will cause a hole in it. So, Tapasya is the milk, but humility of heart, that is the receptacle. That’s a beautiful example.
Let me try to understand this. It’s quite a vivid example also, Tigris’ milk. So, the golden receptacle is that a person has to have that level of maturity or that level of virtue.
And by Tapasya, you could also say that that is the effort that a person is put in, either in a previous life or in this life also. Tapasya gives you power, but not the art of wielding it properly. Yeah, okay.
That’s interesting. Sometimes I say that for success, there are three distinct components. There is talent, there is commitment, and there is temperament.
So, now, talent is, say, somebody is just in cricket, say, for example, an extraordinary batsman. They’re just very, very talented. But then commitment is when they’re ready to practice, put in the maths as they say, work very hard.
But then beyond that, there is temperament is how do they function in the tense moments or how do they function when they get success. Do they become inflated? Do they become… So, commitment is more of the hard work. Talent is more of what you have naturally got from a previous life.
But temperament is what you need to also cultivate yourself. Then the achievement will be sustainable. So, we could put it in terms of your metaphor.
The capacity to milk a tigress that could fall in the talent or the temperament. But the receptacle, that would be talent or the commitment. You are working hard.
But you have to have the temperament to be able to do that, be able to maintain that. And that is the golden receptacle. Krishna tested me by taking away everything from me.
The opportunity to have a center established in Chassi, to start initiating disciples, students, everything kind of failed. And he said, I didn’t protest. I passed the test.
And post 1967, Krishna gave me so much success, but I just handed it back, everything to him. And again, I was successful. Beautiful.
So adversity, you could say, reveals one’s character and so does prosperity. Or adversity is a test of character and prosperity can also be a test of character, both. Yes, yes.
This is a very beautiful note, I think, to conclude the discussion that we might be in a position of deprivation right now. And certainly, at a level of society, changes do need to be made. And we have, for example, in the past, kings who would have systems, who would themselves give charity and who would have systems for giving charity.
But along with that, we would also have the… So charity was a very, very important principle. And basically, I read one very interesting insight about the difference between charity and government allotted what you could call a dole or subsidy, whatever word you want to use. Subsidy or… Government gives some support.
But what the difference is that when an individual gives charity, that actually leads to first of all, the development of virtue in the heart of the individual. And it also develops some kind of connection between the giver and the receiver of charity. But when the state gives some endowment, the state gives something to people, then it doesn’t lead to… It’s not leading to the sense of charity being developed.
Rather, people… After all, where is the state going to give it from? It’s from the taxes that people have been given. People have given to the country. So, at an individual level, it can even lead to a sense of hard-heartedness.
Now, you are suffering. The government is going to give you grants. I paid my taxes for that purpose.
Why should I give charity in advance? In addition to that. So, you could say the institutionalization of welfare, the institutionalization of social change can actually lead to the hardening of the human heart. So, both… You talked earlier about the entitlement mentality that if I have something, I should be ready to announce it because it doesn’t belong to me.
So, the entitlement mentality can be there among the wealthy who feel that this belongs to me. But that entitlement mentality is avoided by spiritual understanding. And the entitlement mentality can also be there among the poor within the system of social justice where they feel that the government has to give me these things.
And they don’t work for it at all. So, that entitlement mentality can work both ways to harm those who are in power and those who are out of power, those who are disempowered. So, we need to avoid that and one of the best ways to do that is by spiritual understanding that actually whatever I have is not mine.
It is given to me for some time and let me use it as well as I can. If I have wealth, if I have power, let me use it to create some kind of equitability and to help those who are deprived. And if there is spiritual practice, then, of course, spiritual practice will be entirely different subject.
But if there is spiritual wisdom and spiritual practice, the spiritual wisdom can give us acceptance as well as some extent compassion. And spiritual practice can actually transform people so that virtue can rise in their heart and vice can go down. And then the whole system can become sustainable.
So, just a last remark about what could be the mentalities of somebody who is born poor, born without any skills and he sees somebody born talented, born rich, born powerful. And let us say a scenario where both of them are spiritually wise. We began with the situation of the world where this is a solely lacking thing.
But let us take a scenario where the upper class and the lower class both are spiritually endowed with wisdom because they follow an Acharya. So, the lower class, poor, wretched, poverty stricken or whatever, they are empowered with the thought that I have done something to deserve this. And this is the experience which I have to go through.
It is not an eternal situation. It is temporary. And all the help I get is from this upper class who only act as a conduit.
It is Krishna who is giving me through them. So, then I pray to Krishna, let them prosper more and more and more. Now, it is a theoretical situation, but I am just saying that it is a possibility.
So, now if the poor class, they are actually praying for the prosperity of the upper class, the upper class are happy that somebody is praying for my prosperity, but they are also spiritually wise. They know that I can enjoy only my quota. So, there is an example given in Hindi folklore that for a rich person, he is like in a boat and the wealth is the water around him and he is very happy.
But what if he sees a leak in the boat and water is rushing in. So, now he knows that this actually may cause me to drown. So, you don’t take water in one palm and put it away, put it out.
You take with both palms as much as possible. So, the admonition for the rich class is you have done something, that’s why you are in a position. You have the resources, but these resources may drown you.
There is a reason why you have been given that. Your charity should be not with a palmful or a spoonful, but with both palms. So, when you give something to a deserving person of the lower class, you thank him for reducing your burden.
His role is to accept things given by you, originally given to you by Krishna. So, he is also performing his role. So, you eat like reasonably commensurate with your social position.
It is understandable that somebody who serves Khichdi to 10,000 people every day, he may serve Gulab Jamuns and Paneer Sabji to his own children, nothing wrong with that. But he understands that everybody who partakes of my charity is also my well-wisher. So, this kind of maturity on both, on the part of both classes, where Krishna Consciousness is at the center point, I have been deprived of something because of something I did and I am not fretting and fuming and angry at anyone.
I am just working on it. I have been given so much. Well, I must have done something, but now I have a bigger fear.
If this thing goes in my head, I become arrogant. Tomorrow, I may be at the receiving end of the same charitable foundation which I have started last year. Because both states are temporary.
So, this idea that either sufficiently endowed or deprived are basically a temporary material state and the spiritual solution has to be to go beyond them. Only then we can have a situation where as you rightly said, it could be sustainable. Yeah.
That’s beautiful. Actually, I think this whole discussion, this is how karma and the consciousness of karma and the consciousness of bhakti or seva, how it could permeate in and can take the compassion to a higher level. That’s quite beautiful.
Maybe in our next session, we could apply this whole discussion to the existence of the caste system and we could differentiate that from Varanashram as it was traditionally meant to be. And so we could take it forward. So, maybe I’ll summarize.
Please. So, we started with three points. What is right about social justice? What is deficient? And how spirituality complements it? So, the right thing is that we do see inequality in society.
Some people are in terrible deprivation and they need to be helped. And the idea of meritocracy, that if you just work hard, you’ll succeed, that is not always true because for some people, the obstacles are so much that just individual endeavor is not enough. Some social institutions for help are required.
So, in that sense, the idea of social arrangement for correcting injustice and disparity is an important point. It’s not just an individual effort. But where it is deficient is that there is a default suspicion of hierarchy and those who are deprived are virtuous and unfairly deprived and those who are endowed, those who are wealthy, those who are powerful, they have exploitatively done that.
So, the line that separates vice and virtue is simplistically drawn that those who are victims or deprivers are virtuous and those who are powerful are vicious. But it is in every human heart, that line. And the problem with this understanding is quite often that those who are powerful, social revolution might be done, they might be overthrown, but then whoever comes in power, they will do the same thing or their successors will do the same thing.
So, we talked about the Russian revolution and also the French revolution, what happened therein and then we discussed about the four quadrant diagram that if there is no social justice and there is no spiritual wisdom, then it is unbearable. If there is social justice but there is no spiritual wisdom, then it is unsustainable because somebody else will come and they will take over that power. So, then we talk about social justice and spiritual wisdom.
Sorry, there may be no social justice but there is spiritual wisdom. So, now, spiritual wisdom, there are distinct aspects to it. One is that the existing social arrangement is divine providence.
If I accept it and live, so the Christian understanding is that if you live beautifully, faithfully, following Jesus and everything, then you will have a bright future life in heaven. But why the system is unfair right now? Why am I poor? There is no explanation for that in Christianity. But if we take the understanding of the Gita, then where we are presently is determined by our past.
And there is a difference between acceptance and resignation. Acceptance is where I am, I accept. Resignation is I can’t do anything about it.
And this is how I have to be forever. That’s not the idea. So, if it is at this level, at least the religious insights, the spiritual insights can help one gain acceptance of one situation.
The desirable is whether it is both social justice and spiritual wisdom. And for that, what is vitally required is the cultivation of virtue. Whether it is in the people who are deprived or people who are powerful.
And in that connection, we discussed how that when Nisha said that when God is removed, either the individual becomes God or the state becomes God. So capitalism and meritocracy are like the individual is God. And communism and extreme versions of social justice are that the state will be God.
But the state cannot foster virtue in people. And the end result is that instead of God, some people become like devils. So you give the example of tiger, that a tiger’s milk to be taken is a golden receptacle.
That means for somebody to have power, they also need a heart that is pure enough to not get intoxicated by that power. They need a temperament. And the spiritual wisdom wherein we understand that whatever I have is given to me by God.
And it is temporarily with me. And I have to give it up. Sooner or later, that understanding can ensure that one doesn’t develop the entitlement mentality.
And then one can use things equitably. And instead of having the state doing reform, if it’s individuals doing it, then it leads to bonding between the giver and the receiver of charity. It also leads to the development of kindness and compassion in the heart.
If it’s a system doing it, then that doesn’t happen. So overall, spiritual understanding coupled with a charitable instinct, that is the best way to actually correct the inequities in society. Any points remaining? No.
We’ll continue next time. Thank you very much. Thank you.