Understanding how to understand scripture – Ladder of abstraction and nature of attribution

​Bhagavatam class on Bhagavatam 3.2.42 at Govardhan Eco-village, Wada, Mumbai

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Today morning we are discussing from the Srimad Bhagavatam the pastime of Kardam Muni and he has displayed his extraordinary mystic power by manifesting a magnificent palace whose opulence is compared to or even exceeds that of celestial palaces and then that’s not just a palace but it’s a flying palace. So there is the idea of luxury ships with cruises where people go for a tour but luxury ships like cruises are common but luxury planes where people go on a plane by cruise it’s not all that common.
It’s prohibitively expensive and here he is a mendicant but manifest luxury plane you could say and he is going there or it’s not just a plane it’s a palace which is flying and after describing the extraordinary achievement here, here the Bhagavatam usually alternates between narration and exposition. Narration means describing the events and exposition means explaining the significance of the events. So normally if there is simply narration of a story if it’s related with the Lord that’s purifying but how does scripture become relevant to us? So actually there is in logic there is a principle of ladder of abstraction.
Ladder of abstraction means that there are specifics and there are universals. So specifics I say for example if you describe the culture 500 years ago or 5,000 years ago in the specific description of people were like this, people were doing like this, this is how they would interact, this is how they would worship. Now these specific details and they attract attention, they are entertaining, they are absorbing in one sense but it could just be a story.
So the way scripture becomes relevant is that we climb up the ladder of abstraction and then we climb down. So climbing up the ladder of abstraction means we move from specific to universal. That is so if you consider ladder of abstraction, abstraction means something which is not clear or abstract.
Abstract also means if you have a paper which is written and if some of you are in technical papers then say give an abstract of the paper. Abstract means a summary. So ladder of abstraction means that at the bottom of that ladder are specific details and at the top of the ladder are universal principles.
So for example in a paper they may survey many, many, many, many studies and this study says this, this study says this, this study says this and then abstract will be okay what is the inference from this all these studies. So the principle, so from the specifics when we move up to the universals that is moving up the ladder of abstraction. So if we just hear scripture as a story then we just get the specifics and we are informed, we are entertained, we will be absorbed also but that does not show us the relevance in our life.
So we move up from the ladder of abstraction, from the specifics to the universals. What is the universal principle over here and then from that universal we come down to the specifics in our world. So from this specific what is the universal principle and then that universal principle how does it apply in today’s world.
So it’s only when we move up and down the ladder of abstraction that scripture becomes relevant otherwise it just remains entertaining stories. So narration means giving the specifics. So narration is at the bottom of the ladder of abstraction.
Exposition takes us up to the top of the ladder and then it may bring us downwards. Now Prabhupada does not use these words specifically but the strategy he uses quite frequently and often when he uses the strategy he condenses it. He does it all.
See for Prabhupada his commentarial striving is distinctive. He does not in a sense differentiate between translation and purport. He gives his purport even in his translations.
So for him basically scripture is something which is meant to be explained and he doesn’t make a rigid differentiation between whether the expression coming in the translation and the purport. So it is not that he is doing something inappropriate because he is giving the words. He is giving the word to word translation also.
So people can see what he is doing. So he is not hiding what he is doing. So I will give an example of how Prabhupada moves up and down the ladder of abstraction.
Say in the 7th canto in the prayers of Prahlad there is a prayer which says that oh senses are, the tongue is directing in one direction, the ears are driving in another direction and in this way in this way just like a householder is pulled by different wives in different direction the conditioned soul is pulled over there. Now Prabhupada then he says that the ears are attracted to radio songs. Now somebody who wants to insert a literal translation they say at the time of Prahlad Bala there are no radios and radio songs.
So what is Prabhupada doing over here? See Prabhupada in the translation itself is actually going to the, from the specific, the ears are attracted to sensual sounds. That’s what is well told over there. So Prabhupada moves there from there to the top of the ladder and he, that the general principle is the ears distract us and he comes down the ladder of abstraction also.
How do the ears distract us now? He says it is by radio songs. That time it was radio songs. Now we may have jukebox and so many other things.
So the point is that for any book to become relevant we have to move up this ladder of abstraction and come down the ladder. Then the scripture becomes relevant. So if we see similarly Prabhupada does that, yadadit tigatam tejo jagad bhaasiyate akhilam, ye chandramasi ye chaagnam tat tejo viddhi maham akham, in 15.6. Here Prabhupada adds electricity in the translation.
He says that sun, moon and fire, there is no electricity at all. So what is Prabhupada doing over here? Actually again he is moving up the ladder of abstraction and coming down. The point of this verse is that the spiritual world does not require any external source of illumination.
This spiritual world is self luminous and that is contrasted with the material world which requires external source of illumination. And that Krishna mentions in the same sequence later in 15.12, the same three items he mentions. Yadadit tigatam tejo jagad bhaasiyate akhilam, ye chandramasi ye chaagnam tat tejo viddhi maham akham.
So the sun, the moon and the fire, which are sources of illumination in this world, their illumination comes from me. So the point is the spiritual world is self luminous, the material world requires luminosity. So the point is not the specifics.
The point is the independence of external source of luminosity for the spiritual world and the dependence for the material world. So Prabhupada is presenting that message to people in a contemporary world for whom the primary source of illumination is electricity. In today’s world, most people, whether they have light or not doesn’t depend whether it is day or night.
So for them the primary source of light goes off and power goes off. And electricity is there, power, light is there. So he is translating that into today’s context.
So what is he doing? So the specifics are, at the bottom of the ladder of abstraction, the specifics are sun, moon, electricity. If we go up the ladder of abstraction, the universal principle is that no sources of luminosity are required. It’s self luminous.
And to illustrate that principle, Prabhupada comes down the ladder of abstraction in today’s world. And he says that there is no electricity also. So the point is Prabhupada is making things relevant.
And that’s why in commenting on scripture, the point is not just to get it right. The point is to get it across. It is not just get it right.
I may give a literally entirely accurate translation. But if people don’t get the relevance of it, then scripture will just remain like an ancient historical book of the thought systems of people 5,000 years ago. It won’t be relevant to people.
So the point is not just to get it right. The point is to get it across. And the commentary is required for getting it across means to go across this ladder of abstraction.
So I was talking about this to talk about how when the Bhagavatam moves from narration to exposition. So narration is at the bottom of the ladder of abstraction. Exposition is at the top.
So the narration was how Garuda Muni was doing extraordinary things. The exposition is a broad principle is told that for one who has taken shelter of the Lord, Tirthapada, that Lord and who is the vanquisher of danger, for that person what is impossible. So this extraordinariness, see there is action and there is attribution of the action.
Attribution means what is the cause of that action. So at a material level, you know, if somebody sings very sweetly, that person is a sweet singer. That is one level of attribution.
That is correct. But if a devotee is singing sweetly, we don’t just see that this devotee is a good singer, they are singing sweetly. That’s true.
But then it is also Krishna’s mercy over it. So Prabhupada talks about these two kinds of attribution. He says that Karada Muni’s extraordinariness is not just because he is a great yogi.
He has used his mystic powers to exhibit, to create this palace and make it fly around. But the extraordinariness has not come because of his mystic powers. It has come because of his devotion.
So he did not go about doing yoga to get mystic powers. His purpose of practicing yoga was to realize the Lord. And in the process of realizing the Lord, he got those mystic powers.
And as was mentioned earlier, that when the mystic powers were exhibited, he himself was astonished. What is the extent of these powers? So the powers are a result of his bhakti, not a result of his yoga. Now, the yoga might be the process by which they manifest, but they are not the source.
So quite often, when we analyze things at the material level, there is a causal chain. So okay, this happened because of this, this happened because of this, this happened because of this. So now when we say Sarva Karana Karanam, the causal chain culminates in Krishna.
And that capacity to see that the causal chain culminates in Krishna, that requires spiritual intelligence. So Prabhupada says the problem with modern science is that it does not trace the causal chain to the source. So that means that say Newton saw the fruit falling.
Now, it is intelligent to think, okay, why did the fruit fall? You know, if a monkey had seen a fruit falling, the monkey would have just picked a fruit, eaten and gone away. And most human beings are also like monkeys, they would also be interested in aahar and Indira Bhai method, they would also have eaten and gone away. So to inquire about causes requires some intelligence.
So actually, human beings are meant for doing Brahma Jijnasa. Science is also a product of Jijnasa. In fact, scientists say that, you know, that is animated by the spirit of inquiry.
But instead of Brahma Jijnasa, science restricts to Prakriti Jijnasa. It inquires about matter. And there is a reason for this.
And this is the strength of science and is also the limitation of science. We’ll discuss how. And so I’m talking right now about the attribution.
So how science looks at the wonders of nature, but doesn’t attribute them to God. It’s not because of any specific, any specific malintention, it’s a methodology. See, at the when science progressed 14, 15, 16 centuries, that was a time when Europe was just emerging from the Black Ages.
The Black Ages or the Dark Ages it is called, that is the age of superstition, bigotry. And the church at that time, if some woman would be suspected, then there would be witch hunting and the witches would be burnt at the stakes. So the church had also done, the Catholic church had also done crusades, which were quite bloody wars.
And then they had a whole system of indulgences. We use the word indulgence to refer to sense gratification. But in the Catholic terminology, indulgence refers to the principle that if you have done some sinful activity, and you are meant to go to hell, you give a particular donation to the church, and the magnitude of the donation will decrease the magnitude of your stay in hell.
So it was a totally commercialized idea. And that came into scathing criticism. So the idea was that if you have committed some sins, and then you’re supposed to go to hell, you give this much donation, you’ll be saved from hell.
And then they extended it that actually my ancestors have done that, you can give donation for your ancestors also, and they will come out of hell if you give donation. So the protestants, now we are not here to ridicule the church, because from the church itself, the Catholic church, wherever there is too much institutionalization problems do come up. So then the protestant movement emerged for various reasons.
One of the reasons was they protested against the indulgences. They said there’s nothing spiritual about it, nothing sacred about it. So within every religious tradition, there are deformations that happen and there are reformations also that happen.
So that’s the course of things. So the point which I was making is, at this church at the time emerged, so there was a lot of superstition and blind faith at that time. So Europe had just been subjected to a black plague.
And in the black plague, it was, according to some surveys, almost one third of Europe was eliminated at that time. Some countries, half of the people were killed because of the plague. So then scientists were trying to find out what is the cause of the plague.
So some people said this is because of some witches, some ghosts, some spirits. And then eventually scientists found that it was caused by some microbes, some germs. So they came to that.
So that time, science as it evolved, it developed a methodological principle. The principle was that we will look only for material explanations for material phenomena. With their ideas, in science they use the word natural.
This is called naturalism. So they use natural as an equivalent of material, that we will look for material explanations for material phenomena. Their idea was that looking for non-material explanations is a progress stopper.
They said, if scientists had believed that witches or ghosts caused the black plague, then we would not have found out the germs and we would not have found out the cures. So bringing non-material phenomena or attributing material effects or material events to non-material causes, that means we cannot study them, we cannot analyze them, we cannot replicate them, we cannot experiment with them, we cannot control them. And therefore, science as a methodology has adopted this that they will look only for material explanations for material phenomena.
And now this is a methodological principle. It is not a metaphysical principle. Say metaphysical principle means science is not, science does not say that there are no non-material causes.
There may be non-material causes, but science will not study those causes. That is how science has developed. And this is fair enough.
So some people say that the Vedic culture has this idea that everything is attributed to non-material things. No, so it is not really like that. If we see Ayurveda, when there is stomach upset, Ayurveda does not say, oh some ghost has caused it.
There is material analysis. This is the Kapha, Vata, Pitta, they are all material elements. And the material elements are imbalanced and the material elements can be, their balance can be restored.
So in one sense, Ayurveda, the analysis and the treatment is pure, is at the material level. There are material causes for the disease and there are material cures for the disease. So it is not that everything material is automatically attributed to spiritual.
There are material causes and we need to recognize the material causes. So the point is that the Vedic understanding is that the material cause and the spiritual cause, they are complementary. They are not contradictory.
They do not have to be contradictory. It is not this or this. It is this and this.
So that means to give a simple example, now you say somebody is playing billiards. Now in billiards, if a ball is hit, if a stick, the billiard stick hits the ball and then another ball by a change of movement of the ball that goes into the hole. Now we can explain that ball going into the hole in terms of the laws of physics.
This ball, the stick hit the ball at this angle with this speed, with this momentum and that is how all of it, the moment went from here to there, there, there. And in terms of the laws of physics, we can explain how that ball went into the hole. And we can also explain that in terms of the skill of the player.
The player is very expert. The player hit the ball at this angle. Now the player may know nothing about physics.
The player may know nothing about momentum and velocity and mass and things like that. We may not be so familiar with billiards. We can say cricket.
A batsman may not know exactly what is the weight of the bat, what is the weight of the ball, how much momentum I should have in the ball for the ball to go to the sixer. But the batsman has to be skilled. If he is skilled enough and he hits the ball well enough, then the ball goes across the boundary.
So the ball going across the boundary can be explained both in terms of laws of physics that the bat hit the ball with this much force and that is why it went across the boundary. And it can also be explained in terms of the skill of the player. So the two explanations, the human explanation and the physical explanation, they are not contradictory.
They are complementary. So similarly, even in the case of physics or in the case of science, when we talk about attribution, to say that something happens by the laws of nature, it is not wrong. So the error of science is not to not study the non-material.
As a methodology, if science, if it studies matter and tries to get material explanations for material phenomena, that is not wrong. That is perfectly fine. Ayurveda also does that.
Although Ayurveda has a different model of analyzing matter, but the principle is same. The problem comes when the methodological is made into the metaphysical. So that means when while looking for material causes, it is assumed that material causes are all that are there, that there is nothing beyond the material causes.
So see the laws of nature do not cause anything. They explain the method according to which causes produce effects. See, if a sixer is hit, the law of gravity cannot explain how the sixer is hit.
The law of gravity does not cause the sixer to be hit. The law of gravity does not explain how the batsman came into existence, It does not explain how the baller came into existence, how the bat, how the ball came into existence. So, after the batsman hits the ball, the law of gravity can explain or the law of gravity and the laws of motion.
They can explain why the ball’s trajectory went across the mountain and why it did not go across the mountain, whatever happened. So, the laws are never causes in themselves. Laws are patterns which explain or determine the correlation between causes and effects.
Laws are basically, they determine how the causes correlate with the effects. So, laws are themselves not causes. So, to say that something happened, you know, somebody falls from a 10 story building, how did he fall down? He fell because of the law of gravity.
That is not the explanation, is it? That is a factor over there, but that is not the cause. You know, was it somebody pushed them down or did that person jump down or that person just absent-minded and slipped off or what happened? So, when we look for a cause, we do not look for the law. The law is not a cause.
The law is definitely a factor and it has to be acknowledged. In certain contexts, it is important. So, the attribution that is there, that will be determined on what is the purpose of one’s study.
So, if science is looking for a material expression or material phenomena, it will actually look for material causes and that is perfectly fine. But the problem comes when it is assumed that there are no non-material causes or nothing non-material exists. And this is, I will not get too much into science now.
I will conclude with this and I will come back to Kardam Muni. The point is that where to say that there are no non-material causes is actually a non-scientific statement. It is not a scientific statement.
It is a philosophical statement. See, science and philosophy are two different branches of knowledge. And whether anything exists beyond matter or not, that is not for science to tell.
That is for philosophy to examine. So, the problem comes when science starts masquerading as philosophy or more precisely, atheists start propagating their atheistic philosophy and garb it in scientific sounding language. And then people start thinking that actually atheism is a scientific philosophy or atheism is to be atheistic is to be scientific and to be religious, to be spiritual is to be non-scientific.
But that is not true. So, science is an operational tool and it has a strength that by looking for material causes, there is a capacity to analyze, to control, to predict, to replicate. All that would not be possible if we consider non-material causes alone, if we stick to only non-material causes.
So, it is its strength, but it is also its limitation that science cannot understand the non-material very easily. And there are, of course, areas of interface where subtle material or non-material factors now may also affect material things. And in these cases, science itself has to adopt a different methodology.
So, it is not that science does not look at non-material causes at all. Now, for example, if there is a murder, if there is a person who has been killed and there is a knife in the stomach, the person lying on the ground, a knife in the stomach. Now, science can analyze, okay, the knife might have been hanging over here, if it fell down, if it fell down, would it have entered the stomach with this much force, would it have caused this much wound, would it have killed the person? So, a knife going to a stomach can be an accident or it can be an intentional attack.
And science can give some explanation of that. The researchers can say that, okay, if a simple knife had fallen, it would have not hit with so much force, it would not have gone so deep inside, it has been forcibly sent inside. So, that means, even in scientific research or using scientific factors to analyze, there are times when scientists also look for non-material explanations.
Now, if scientists see a pot under the ground in archaeology, say, okay, this pot is shaped like this, it has these patterns, could these have come by natural causes? Or do they require human causes? Then they can infer, okay, there was an ancient civilization who had made these pots. So, even in science also, it is not that science always sticks to material causes only. Science also recognizes when material causes are not enough to explain and they look for other causes.
So, here, coming back to the point of attribution. So, the problem is when science moves from methodology to metaphysics, and then instead of looking for material causes, it assumes that material causes are all that exist, then it errors, then it blunders. So, yogis, they may say, I did this particular thing by my yogic power, by my yogic power.
When they think like this, at that time, that is their illusion. So, they have that power and they are the cause. We can’t deny that they are the cause.
See, when prakrteh kriyamani gunaih karmani sarveshah, ahankara gudatma kartaham iti mannate, when we say that those who think themselves as the doers are an illusion, as I was giving a class, I asked this raises many questions. When we say that we are not the doers, what question does it raise? So, there is one devotee, he said, if I am not the doer, why should I do anything? No, I will not do anything, but still I want to eat, I want to sleep, I want to do so many bodily things. So, the point of the Bhagavad Gita is not that we are not the doers.
Tatraivam sati kartaram atmanam kevalam tuya. Pashyati akrutabuddhitvan, this is a pashyati durmati. So, the mistake in the 18th chapter, the same factors are analysed and it is said that atmanam kevalam tuya, to think that I am the only doer, that is the mistake.
Now, we are doers, there is no doubt about it, but we are not the only doers. So, yes, the yogis have manifested, the yogis have done some yogic excellence, yogic practices by which they have got some mystic powers. Credit is to be given to yogis.
If scientists have done something remarkable, credit is to be given to scientists. If a cricket batsman is a very good batsman, then credit has to be given where it is due. But the mistake is to attribute the whole event to that one person, to think I am the only doer.
So, here the Bhagavad is that it is not just his yogic powers that enabled him to do these things. Rather, it was his devotion and in that way, the attribution is given that for those who are devoted to the Lord, what is impossible? The principle is that Krishna can empower people and when he empowers people, then even the extraordinary can become possible, even the impossible can become possible. Now, I will shift to another subject over here and I will talk about how, what does empowerment mean? And what is the, again, the scope and the limit of empowerment? Does empowerment mean literally that an empowered person can do anything and everything? See, there is the idea that by Krishna’s empowerment, Krishna is omnipotent.
So, Krishna can do everything. That means even the empowered devotee can do everything. See, that is not necessarily the case.
The soul always remains finite. You say Prabhupada was an empowered devotee and Prabhupada achieved astonishing things in the last 10-11 years of his life, the way he preached and the amount of results he produced, that was incredible. But then, we can also say that, if somebody else wants to look at it another way, for 40 years Prabhupada preached in India and there was not much effect.
So, was it that he was not empowered at that time and he was empowered later? Or was it that empowerment didn’t work here and empowerment worked there? So, it is not that, or was it, it is, you have to understand that empowerment is also within the scope of Krishna’s plan. And it is not that when Krishna empowers someone, that means that that person can do anything and everything. It is also within the scope of Krishna’s plan and Krishna has a particular plan by which empowerment may come in a particular way at a particular time.
And it may not come at other times. So, there is one devotee, he loves English very much and he read Prabhupada’s books. So, he had a habit earlier that whenever he would read any famous author’s books, he would find mistakes in all those books and he would send the mistakes to the publisher and he would get a sense of joy, you know, I can find so many mistakes in even the big, big author’s books.
So, then he became a devotee and he said that, I read Prabhupada’s books, I couldn’t find any mistakes in English grammar. So, he said, I searched and searched. Jaydev Maharaj, the leading editor for this, for Prabhupada’s books, he was along with that whole team.
So, I told this, Jaydev Maharaj told me that, you know, for every Bhagavatam volume that we produced, you know, we had 10 sacks of proofread matter. Now, we would proofread every Bhagavatam volume at least 25 times. So, at that time, it would be a hard copy.
Computers are not so common. So, they would print out the whole Bhagavatam, proofread it, mark it, incorporate the changes, again take a printout, proofread it and like that they did 25 times. So, they had sackfuls.
So, he was very impressed that there were no mistakes. But then he heard about the editing and then he got the original transcripts. And then he heard the transcripts and he said, Prabhupada’s English, there are so many issues in that English.
Prabhupada’s grammar is not right. Jaydev Maharaj also admitted, Prabhupada’s grammar, if you read Prabhupada’s lectures, grammatically it’s not correct. So, he said, what do you mean that he is a pure devotee? If he doesn’t even know basic English, what do you mean he is a pure devotee? So, then on top of that, some devotees told him, that you know, actually Prabhupada’s books are written by Krishna.
Then he said, does that mean Krishna doesn’t know English? So, he went to some devotee and asked this question and that devotee told him, Samshayatma abhinashyatan. Naayam lokostinaparodasukam samshayatmana. Doubting soul will be destroyed.
You will not find happiness in this world other than don’t doubt. You know, when somebody has doubts, telling don’t doubt is not an answer at all. It’s like somebody has a cough and you tell them, don’t have a cough.
The cough is already there. Help them to cure the cough. We can’t tell people don’t doubt.
If they are coming up with these doubts, our duty is to tell them how to deal with the doubts, how to address the doubts. Yes, doubting as a habit, that has to be avoided. Now, we shouldn’t always have a critical attitude towards everything that is being studied.
Now, we should always start with the default attitude of doubt. But if somebody has doubts, you cannot tell them the dangers of doubting. We have to actually help them address the doubts.
Otherwise, you know, it appears if somebody has a doubt and we, instead of addressing the doubt, simply talk about the dangers of doubting, then it appears as if we don’t have answers. And we are simply evading the absence of answers by just talking about doubts. It’s not like that.
So, we have to understand again what this means. See, Prabhupada said that Krishna wrote these books. Now, at the same time, Prabhupada, when the books were published, he put his name on the books.
He did not put Krishna’s name as the author of the books. Isn’t it? So, when we say Prabhupada, Krishna wrote the books, does it mean that Prabhupada did not write the books? So, again, it is not this or this. It is this and this.
So, it is Krishna who gave the thoughts. It is Krishna who gave the ideas. And Prabhupada put it in his own words.
It is Prabhupada who put it in his own words. So, now, if we say that Prabhupada did not know French, is that a deficiency? Now, where does it say that a pure devotee has to know all languages? It’s not said in any way like that. So, Prabhupada learned English at a particular time in Indian history, 1920s.
1910-1920, Prabhupada learned English, Scottish Church College. And at that time, if you see English, it is a significantly different language from the Indian languages. Rules of grammar and the way of its sentence structure and everything, it is significantly different.
That’s why, if you see Europeans, even if English is not their native language, for them to get the rules of English grammar is quite easy. And even if English is their second language or third language, they are quite fluent at it, not just in terms of speaking, but also in terms of grammar. But because the Indian languages are largely a different family.
Although, if you go back to the root, there is an origin, but now they have developed in very different ways. So, many Indians find it difficult to get the rules of English grammar. And that’s why the English in general among Indians is not all that very good.
So, Prabhupada learned his English and Prabhupada never claimed to be an English professor or English specialist. As a matter of fact, Prabhupada is so candid that right in a Bhagavatam paruppu he says, that verse is there, that, नामान्यन्तस्यश्वान्किराणिश्वान्ति तद्वान्दुस्यर्को जलता अगुलको यस्मिन्प्रतिष्लोकम् अबद्वत्यपी। That in the words that glorify the Supreme Lord, even if every line is filled with the verb, यस्मिन्प्रतिष्लोकम् अबद्वत्यपी। So, what to speak of Prabhupada, even the Bhagavatam itself is telling this principle. That as long as the word is glorifying the Supreme, it doesn’t matter whether there are defects in it.
The wise people accept it and delight in it. And Prabhupada writes in the paruppu, he says, our attempts to present this message in a foreign language will certainly fail. He doesn’t even say that it will be difficult for me, he says, it will fail.
But he says still, he says, that wise people will see the essential message. And Prabhupada gives a standard example of when the house is on fire, we have to communicate to the people the house is on fire, it doesn’t matter whether they know the language or not. So, Prabhupada never claimed to be an English perfectionist and he told his disciples that you edit and correct the English.
So now, to say that we should not look that Prabhupada’s English is faulty, that’s not possible. It is faulty and we have to accept that. Or to say that Prabhupada’s English is not perfect, that is a doubt.
No, that’s not a doubt, it’s a fact. But to say that because Prabhupada’s English is defective, therefore, he is not a pure devotee or therefore, that it is not written by Krishna, that is also a mistake. So, this is again attribution.
The divine and the human causes work together. So, Prabhupada was very candid about it. When Prabhupada came to Mumbai, the head of the VHP at that time, he came to meet Prabhupada and he said, Swamiji, you pronounce the Sanskrit shlokas in a very Bengali way.
Prabhupada said, what can I do? I am a Bengali. So, Prabhupada is nonchalant about that. You cannot expect a Bengali to sing verses in a South Indian way or in a Maharashtrian way or whatever.
It’s just different. So, the material factors. So, what it means is when we say that the pure devotee should not be seen materially.
Narakal, what is that? A hellish mentality. Gurushu Naramati, the famous verse from the Puranas says, what it means is not that we shouldn’t see the spiritual master as a human being. We should not see the spiritual master only as a human being.
The spiritual master is a human being. He is definitely a human being. Just like the deities are made of stone.
The problem is to think the deities are only in stone. So, it’s not that somehow when we come from the deities, we are not to see that they are made of marble or they are made of stone or whatever. They are transcendental.
They are transcendental, but they manifested in the material world and they manifested in a particular material manifestation. So, the problem is if we demand that people don’t see the material at all, that’s not possible. But at the same time, if we say the material is all that there is, both are wrong.
So, to say that when the transcendental manifests in the material world, it is going to manifest through a material medium. So, the problem is to say that it is entirely transcendental is a mistake. To say that it is entirely material, that is also a mistake.
So, the transcendental and the material go in parallel. Go in parallel. And when the transcendental and the material go in parallel, that means that there are at times the material laws will also apply.
The deities are transcendental. But if the deities are exposed to water, if deities are exposed to weather, there may be deterioration. If the deities are carelessly handled, they fall, they may break.
So, just because the transcendental is manifesting through the material does not mean that the material laws will not apply. Material laws will apply. The transcendental manifests through the material for raising our consciousness to the transcendental level.
The deities do not manifest to exhibit Krishna’s omnipotence. The deities manifest to give us an opportunity to serve. So, similarly, when the spiritual message comes to the pure devotee, the purpose is not to exhibit omniscience or perfection in all subjects.
The purpose is to actually give a transcendental message. And that’s why when we study Prabhupada’s books, we have to be saargrahi. We cannot get caught in irrelevant details.
And irrelevant details shouldn’t be highlighted also. Irrelevant details means there are many things that are there in the purpose and not everything is relevant to the audience. So, I’ll give three examples of this where I conclude this that how we have to, when we attribute everything to transcendental sources, that can become a problem.
So, for example, there’s a conversation in the Leela Amrit where Prabhupada says that the pollution is going to increase so much in future that by 2000, no one will be able to stay on the land and everybody will have to stay underground like rats and mice. Now, 2000 has come and gone. So, when I first read it, I was shocked.
Then I asked the senior devotee, what is this? How do you understand? He said that I had gone to America recently and I heard about one city which is entirely underground. See, Prabhupada’s prophecy is coming true. That is, they have gone underground not because there is so much pollution on the earth because they want to avoid congestion, like there are subways and everything.
That’s not because of pollution. That’s their understanding of progress. So, you cannot really say that that prophecy is coming true.
Then I did a little bit of research. So, then I found that Prabhupada spoke this in 1975, in I think October and then I went through Prabhupada’s conversation before that. Just two days before that, some devotee in a morning walk was talking with Prabhupada and I do not remember the exact dates but that devotee told Prabhupada about the prediction of some meteorological society which was talking about how there is so much pollution in the world and they had said that by 2000 nobody will be able to stay on the surface of the earth because there will be so much pollution.
So, now when Prabhupada is speaking this, Prabhupada is actually simply quoting that source. So, now it is not that Prabhupada is making a prediction which is based on shastric authority and we have to somehow imagine actually we are all underground right now because 2000 has come and gone. No! It is not like that.
So, I talked with Jayadvait Maharaj and now they are trying to remove that from Leela Amrit. No, in editing, there is no need to keep that over there. It is unnecessarily, there is a lot of editing that is happening in Leela Amrit because many things were not known.
Satyarupa Mala did a lot of research when he wrote the book but many details were not known and those details have been added so editing is happening. So, this is going to be removed in future, hopefully it will be removed. So, the point is that actually we don’t have to make every small detail that is there in Prabhupada’s books as a matter of faith.
It is not that Prabhupada never claimed that he had any astrological knowledge or he could make prophecies and when he is saying that something is going to happen by 2000, he is not quoting Shastra over there. See, our methodology, our epistemology, our method of acquiring knowledge is Guru, Sadhu, Shastra. So, Guru’s words are authority.
But that authority doesn’t come from the Guru just because he is the Guru. It comes from Sadhu and Shastra. Prabhupada never claimed that he had any supernatural visions because of which he got some knowledge and he was revealing that knowledge.
Now, Prabhupada said that Krishna wrote these books but then Prabhupada also would travel around with the Acharya’s commentaries. He would read the Acharya’s commentaries and he would write based on the Acharya’s commentaries. So, for him, again it is complementary, it is not contradictory.
It is not that when something comes from Krishna, it does not mean that it cannot come from the Acharya’s. So, Prabhupada is writing the books, he is taking the points from scripture. So, the point that Prabhupada was making over there is that the earth is getting polluted and pollution is going to cause problems.
So, again we have to go up the ladder of abstraction. The specific prediction that Prabhupada made, that may not have materialized. But the principle that Prabhupada is saying is that there is so much pollution, humanity is living and exploiting the earth and that is creating problems.
So, therefore, that should be removed. So, therefore, we have to live in a more harmonious way and Bhakti is a way of living more harmoniously. That is the principle.
And we may apply it in different ways today. We may give different statistics about how there is so much problem in the earth. So, the devotees produced a book called Divine Nature where they give different predictions or prophecies or surveys about what all are the problems that are coming because of excessive pollution.
So, the point is we don’t have to get caught in specifics. So, it is not that every specific detail that is there in Prabhupada’s books that is coming from some omniscient source. So, one more example of this is that say, I think this comes in the 8th canto.
There is, Harisharipur told this to me personally when I had met him in Mayapur and we had a long discussion about how to understand Prabhupada’s books. So, he said that that there is a there is a fight between the demons and between the demons and the devatas going on and at that time as the fight goes on further and further so, they said that the blood that was coming from the flight from the fight that went up to the sun and then Prabhupada writes in the purport over there but it is said that the blood goes up to the sun but not up to the moon therefore, the moon is further than the sun. Now, Harisharipur, he was Prabhupada’s servant at that time and then he would, after Prabhupada would do the commentary and then he would hear it.
So, the next morning he heard it and he said Prabhupada he went to Prabhupada and said Prabhupada he said I found a mistake in your purports. So, I told him you are very courageous in saying like that. So, he said that he said no, I had a relationship with Prabhupada and Prabhupada was very approachable that way.
He said what is it? So, he said Prabhupada you said that you said that this proves that the earth is that the moon is further than the earth the moon is further than the sun from the earth but Prabhupada this battle happened on the banks of the milk ocean on the coast of the milk ocean. It did not happen on the earth. He was like oh, I didn’t think of that.
So, Prabhupada said you have it removed. So, have it removed Prabhupada said. So, then when he said that so, then Harisharipur wrote to the BBT and he told the trustees they should remove it.
He said no, Prabhupada said we have to keep it. So, that was there for 30 years in the purpose. And finally, he tabled a resolution in the GBC and the GBC after a lot of heated discussion they made a resolution and now in some of the recent versions of the Bhagavatam it has been removed.
So, the point here is that it is we if we have this idea that every single thing that is there in Prabhupada’s books is absolutely transcendental and perfect. Prabhupada himself never claimed like that. Prabhupada never claimed to be omniscient.
Prabhupada never claimed that he himself is free from the four defects. There is an essential message and there are many details but the details may or may not be true in the sense that Prabhupada see there is when an Acharya gives a message the Acharya gives a message the central message comes from from Shastra but along with that the Acharya also uses one’s own knowledge which may be acquired from Pratyekshana and Hanuman and knowledge acquired from Pratyekshana and Hanuman is never reliable, is never definitive. So, sometimes if an Acharya uses some like Prabhupada quoted from the Meteorological Society’s prophecy that is knowledge acquired from Pratyekshana and Hanuman so to illustrate or to make some message more accessible for people the scriptural point may be illustrated using some sources from Pratyekshana and Hanuman and then what is we don’t have to assume that Pratyekshana and Hanuman is also equally accurate that Pratyekshana and Hanuman it’s like the deity is spiritual but the matter in the deity the stone or the marble that may get deteriorated that is going to follow the laws of material nature so similarly, what is there in scripture the essential principles they are timeless, they are eternal but specific examples specific details they may not be so Prabhupada may have got them from different sources which will not necessarily be scriptural so he got the essential point from scripture but to illustrate that point Prabhupada may use other points so the point of the Bhagavatam says this that there is a vertical dimension to the cosmos which is not understandable from our modern perspective from our scientific perspective and within that vertical dimension the distance of the moon, sun and earth that is what the Bhagavatam is talking about so Prabhupada is giving some empirical some other support for that that is not a scriptural point so Prabhupada himself was very candid about this and he did not make it into a very big issue so sometimes we may end up taking the most confrontational attitude towards things which are not really worthy of confrontation so one last example I’ll conclude now so Prabhupada sometimes would say that you know that the female brain is smaller than the male brain and he would say based on that he would sometimes make the statement that women are less intelligent than men now first of all when Prabhupada says women are less intelligent than men he is not quoting Shastra he is quoting Chanakya and Chanakya also says it only once and when we talk about intelligence what are we talking about first of all the main point itself is are we talking about the body or are we talking about the soul at the level of soul there is no male or female soul at the level of the body the men and the women are different and there are many things which men are good at there are many things which women are good at and they have different kinds of intelligence so it’s not that Prabhupada never made it made anyone feel less intelligent so Prabhupada quoted this that according to some statistical surveys some scientific surveys he quotes it in 3rd canto also the female brain is smaller than the male brain and therefore women are less intelligent than men but now actually speaking the size of the brain is not talked about in the Bhagavatam so Prabhupada heard this from his professor in Scottish Church College and there he told it and Prabhupada just uses it over here and that is completely now that was talked about now presently the idea is there is a lot of problems with that idea first of all whether brain size correlates with intelligence that itself is one issue second issue is brain size cannot be seen independent of body size so how much size of a brain a person will have depends on how much the body of a person is and usually female bodies are smaller than the male body so naturally all parts of the female body most parts of the female body are smaller than male parts so even the brain size will be smaller so it’s not a shastric argument and today there are surveys which may not support that so it’s something which has come from Bhaktiksha Hanuman we don’t have to get shastric authority to it we don’t have to make it into a shastric truth and Prabhupada one time Yamuna Mataji she was in Philadelphia Prabhupada was giving a talk and after that she came and she told Prabhupada Prabhujis are telling us that we are less intelligent because our brains are small so Prabhupada said oh when you chant Hare Krishna your brains grow now if somebody again takes a sceptical attitude is it that chanting Hare Krishna expands the brain size let us see we chant for this much time we will see how much the brain has grown no Prabhupada is actually see Prabhupada was a warrior he had a kshatriya spirit for fighting and when he would fight he would use whatever weapon was available at that time and he would not absolutize that weapon so Ravindra Sarupu has given a nice series of lectures on Prabhupada hermeneutics Prabhupada hermeneutics means how Prabhupada’s books are to be understood hermeneutics is the art of studying scripture or understanding scripture so he says Prabhupada’s mood was that whatever argument it is like when a debate is going on whatever argument works he will use that but he would not absolutize that argument he would not use that argument all the time so at one time you know this whole question of Sunday that the moon is further than the sun and some reporters were asking Prabhupada Sunday comes before Monday and the sun is closer than moon and the reporter was so flummoxed he just didn’t know what to say he said now so Ravindra Sarupu said that I cannot use that argument if I use it the obvious question will come in what is the sequence of the days in a week got to do with the cosmological distance so isn’t it in logic this is called as a logical error it’s called a non sequitur non sequitur means you give a second point which is not related to the first point at all so the two are irrelevant but Prabhupada used it that time he had such a personality that the reporter was completely overwhelmed he didn’t ask that question but that is not a shastric argument sequence of Sunday Monday and correlation of that with cosmology is not something which Shastra has talked about so we don’t have to absolutize every statement that comes in Prabhupada’s books we have to understand that ultimately sharing spiritual knowledge is like administering medicines and you know for every disease there can be sometimes 50-60 medicines and the doctor knows which medicine to give for cough itself you can have so many syrups or so many tablets but there are different medicines which may work in different situations some patients may have certain backgrounds certain complexes and certain complications they may have then a particular medicine may not be advisable for them another medicine may be advisable for them so that’s why the living representatives of tradition are very important and when they are living they have to take from Shastra the medicine that cures people’s misconceptions if we take from Shastra the things that are the most difficult for people to digest then we are giving them the medicine that is going to aggravate their disease we are not giving them the medicine that is going to cure their disease so in general when we present from Shastra we should focus on the principles that are there in Shastra don’t go too much into the specifics of things and specifics may be important in a particular context but we have to see the time, place, circumstance so in terms of attribution it is not that a pure devotee becomes perfect in terms of becoming omniscient or free from all faults Maharaj asked Prabhupada that Prabhupada how do we understand when the spiritual master commits mistakes so Prabhupada said that the spiritual master never commits mistakes we see sometimes that the spiritual master forgets the words or sometimes quotes the words wrong Prabhupada often quotes Mame what is that? so Prabhupada would quote like that so Prabhupada would quote sometimes some verses wrong so Prabhupada that means that is material emission so then Satsvarupa Maharaj also says Prabhupada that means our conception of perfection is wrong yes Prabhupada said it is not that a pure devotee is the perfection of a pure devotee is in the intention to serve Krishna it is the intention to share Krishna’s message there is no selfishness there is no ulterior motive but when that intention is transformed into execution the pure devotee is also acting through a material body and that material body will have its specific limitations Prabhupada is a Bengali body he is not going to pronounce words in South Indian he has got a Bengali body he will learn English at a particular time in Indian history his English will have the particular idiosyncrasies of that time so we don’t equate the material with the spiritual and at the same time we don’t reduce everything to just the material one extreme is to make everything spiritual the other is to reduce everything to the material both are wrong so there are some issues a small percentage which is there which when we read Prabhupada’s books some people get very worked up over that and when they get worked up we have to understand these are details which are not all that important there is an essential message which is what is more important and that is what needs to be communicated and that requires us to intelligently understand what is to be attributed where then we can move onwards in making sure that Krishna’s message is transmitted and we make it easier for people to take Krishna’s message not make it tougher for them not make it more difficult than what it needs to be so I’ll summarize I started by talking about how to understand scripture we need to move up and down the ladder of abstraction scripture gives some specifics so the specifics they may just be interesting but how are they relevant? It’s just some story which is told at some time so from the specifics when we move to universals that means we are moving up the ladder of abstraction and then we bring the universals down to the specifics how that universal principle applies in terms of the specific situation today we climb down the ladder of abstraction and then that’s how scripture becomes relevant so the Bhagavatam gives narration which is at the bottom of the ladder of abstraction and then it gives exposition so this verse is moving from narration to exposition Dhruvasabha, Kartam Muni has done extraordinary things and then Bhagavatam is saying what is impossible for a pure devotee it’s moving up the ladder of abstraction Prabhupada in his purport moves up and down the ladder of abstraction very nimbly very quickly, very briskly I’ll give you two examples of Prabhupada adding in the seventh kind of Bhagavatam that the ears are attracted by radio songs and there is no electricity in the spiritual world in the Bhagavatam 15.6 so basically he integrates the translation purport together while giving the message and then we move forward we move this ladder of abstraction up so what is the principle that the Bhagavatam is giving what is impossible for a pure devotee for one who is devoted to the lord so Dhruvasabha Muni has exhibited his mystic powers has brought about the palace by his mystic powers but the Bhagavatam doesn’t attribute that to his yoga practice it attributes it to his bhakti and ultimately to Krishna then we discuss elaborately about science how science the error of science is that while attributing backwards it doesn’t go to the root it looks for only it attributes all material events to material causes and we discuss that is not wrong the black plague if it is attributed to supernatural causes a cure could not have been found so attributing it to germs and looking for material causes that can lead to progress but when even science when this is a methodological principle it is not a metaphysical principle so to say that we will not look at non material causes that is one thing to say that there are no non material causes that is another thing that is not a scientific statement that is a philosophical statement science doesn’t have any jurisdiction on that science also looks for non material causes say in crime or in archaeology at that time so it is not wrong in principle to look for non material causes in specific situations the non material and the material are complementary not contradictory we discuss Ayurveda it acknowledges material causes but in archaeology also Vishnu is the ultimate curer and I gave the example of billions or cricket where the laws of physics laws explain the method by which causes will produce effects the laws themselves don’t cause anything so they are not the complete explanation that is why we need to trace the chain of attribution to what is happening if you want to go to the root we will have to go ultimately to Krishna and then here it is Prabhupada says in the paraphora that Karda Muni was liberated from material limitation let me discuss what it means for a pure devotee to be liberated from material limitation that means that the intention is not conditioned by anything there is no selfishness there is no anartha the intention is completely pure the pure devotee when they give a message of Shastra they are giving it a pure intention but at the same time they are having a particular bodily instrument and that instrument is going to create certain things so I discussed the example of how Prabhupada’s English was not perfect but then to think that because his English is not perfect the message is also not of more use that is to equate everything with the material to say that the English itself to claim that the imperfect English is perfect and to say that you are doubting by saying that it is not perfect that is also unreasonable so the understanding is that whenever the spiritual manifests through the material at that time the material limitation may be there in terms of the manifestation but the essential message remains spiritual like we discussed the example of the deities material laws may apply on them the deities won’t manifest to show Krishna’s omnipotence they give the opportunity to serve similarly the scriptures are not revealed the commentaries are not written to demonstrate the omniscience of a pure devotee they are meant to give us the knowledge by which we can turn towards Krishna so I gave examples of how Prabhupada may have taken points from other sources like the prediction that everything will be underground by 2000 or that the battle which was fought near the milk ocean or that the female brain is smaller than the male brain Prabhupada said that material vision means to see that the material faults whatever might be there in devoting they make the whole world faulty the devotee’s intention is perfect and when we are studying scripture and sharing scripture it is not that we have to absolutize every single detail and we have to repeat every single detail what we need to do is it’s a medicine it’s like a bank of material medicine we have to give that medicine which helps people to be healed so giving people things which they are going to doubt which they can’t believe that is actually we are not giving medicine that aggravates the disease and that’s why the living representatives of tradition are important to make sure that the message is presented in a way that attracts people to the essential message thank you very much we have time for questions ok I have one question which has two parts so for the first part can you talk about the specifics of the universal principles now many neo Vedic academic scholars when they look at especially bhakti scriptures they undermine all of the bhakti components as specifics like example, classical example they call this Deity Worship Mahabharata itself says that the concept of Deity Worship was introduced because the neophytes in the Treta Yuga started fighting with each other and they wanted somebody to preach and therefore this concept of Deity Worship began so it’s actually not universal principle is to kind of meditate on the absolute but is like secondary so then it requires a great level of maturity to differentiate between specifics and universals that brings up the second part of the question as we understand this then Acharyas are the ones who tell us what are the specifics and what are the universal principles then from the second part of the class that we gave the ideology presented may convey that Acharyas words can only be used to certain aspects of our daily life like for example we cannot use Prabhupada’s words for say management we need to contact experts in their respective fields we cannot use Prabhupada’s words for say taking care of health for that I need to go to an Ayurvedic Acharya I cannot use Prabhupada’s words we are restricting the application of Acharyas words to only a certain part of our life so I have multiple Acharyas in my life so from morning 5 am to 9 am my Acharya is Prabhupada but the rest of the day my Acharya is somebody else so somebody can actually make a draw conclusion so so sorry the first part was about specifics so many scholars they try to reduce the specifics in scripture especially in Bhakti tradition there is a specifics and they are not important so yes it’s a very important point which you made actually that the Bhakti understanding is that there is a spiritual world which is also very specific so we move from the specifics of the material world which are illusory to the universal of Brahman which is generic there is nothing specific in it but the bhakti when the Bhagavad Gita says it’s like an upside down tree it’s a reflection that means there are specifics in the spiritual world also so the ladder of abstraction is primarily in terms of understanding principles for applying in this world but specifics when you talk about specifics directly connected with Krishna they are we understand a part of Krishna’s self existence in the spiritual world so Krishna wears a peacock feather you know is it that it was that because at that time in that country 5000 years ago people thought that peacock is beautiful that’s why peacock feather is there no that’s there in the spiritual world eternally the specifics directly connected with Krishna they are the details of the spiritual world and as I said it is specifics which evoke emotion universal principles they don’t attract so much emotion the universals appeal to the intelligence specifics appeal to the mind or the heart whichever way you want to put it but the point is so Krishna then the bhakti scriptures are also rich with specific details at the same time there is an understanding that the specific details are indicative they are not exhaustive so it is that when you say Krishna is blueish black you know it is not that I can take blue and black and combine them and say this is Krishna no that is the indication the experience is much richer the experience is much deeper when you actually experience Krishna so the specifics are given in scripture and the specifics are depicted in the bhakti tradition to attract our attention towards Krishna the specifics don’t necessarily exhaustively or entirely depict Krishna but there are specifics in the spiritual world also so the bhakti philosophy is very clear that there are specifics in the spiritual world and that we have to understand not just in terms of the contextual application but the essential message of bhakti Krishna’s form is specific isn’t it Krishna’s form is not then what are you going to do in the bhakti world so there are specific details and they are transcendental specific details also but my point is that every single detail in scripture is not transcendental so there is sometimes description of heavenly opulence in scripture that heavenly opulence that is a specific description it is not necessary that everything in Golokundan is going to be like that so there are specifics now with respect to deity worship is it a specific thing actually there is a is deity worship something which was later introduced for less intelligent people see the Bhagavatam as far as I have seen the verses it doesn’t say that deity worship is only for less intelligent what it says it is for less intelligent but it does not mean that it is not for more intelligent when something is accommodated that does not so for example the way Krishna presents it in the Bhagavata he says that bhakti is so inclusive that even those who are low born can practice it but then what is the next verse that therefore what to speak of the Brahmanas and the righteous Kshatriyas they can definitely practice it and attain perfection so that means it is so accommodating that even people at this level can practice it that means when people who are already elevated it will be much easier for them to practice it and to become elevated so deity worship accommodates those who have material consciousness but that does not mean that deity worship is not for those who are in world consciousness so there is no specific verse in the Bhagavatam which says that the advanced yogis may start meditating on the super soul in the heart but it does not necessarily mean that they reject deity worship the same lord who manifests as the super soul in the heart of the yogis that lord manifests as the deity also so even the advanced yogis keep worshipping the deity but for them the manifestation of Krishna is not only as the deity they can see him in the heart also so now for us to prematurely assume that I am more intelligent and I don’t need to see the lord as the deity I can see him in the heart everywhere that is actually that may well be presumptuousness so we have to look at the sadhana of a person we have to look at the overall realization of a person and then we can actually infer whether that person is always seeing Krishna everywhere so just because one is seeing Krishna everywhere one is seeing Krishna in the heart that does not mean one stops seeing Krishna as the deity it is that it’s like initially we can’t see Krishna anywhere so at least see Krishna as the deity and eventually when one starts seeing Krishna everywhere that does not mean one stops seeing Krishna as the deity so it’s inclusive the deity worship is meant for the less intelligent but that does not mean that for the more intelligent they have to give it up or they have to go beyond they don’t depend on it for their god consciousness in the neophytes we depend on the deity worship for our god consciousness advanced yogis don’t depend on it but that does not mean it is only meant for less intelligent so it’s not a specific in the sense of something which can be given up because the deities manifest the specific form that is there in the spiritual world so this specific is not to be transcended then if somebody thinks this is specific to be translated then that means that they have to be actually explained about how the impersonal and the personal both manifest in the spiritual world and the impersonal comes from the personal so once that understanding is given then it can be broadly understood properly so third question about if the acharya’s teachings are for a particular aspect of our life then will we need other acharyas for other subjects yes Prabhupada never claimed that he is going to give knowledge about physics or architecture or mathematics or whatever in fact what to speak of all these other subjects even for the Bhagavatam when the Vedic planetary was to be made when the devotees started asking many specific questions Prabhupada said you find a Vedic Pandit and ask him so Prabhupada it’s only later that we have put a hallow of almost like omniscience around Prabhupada Prabhupada never claimed that that he was omniscient or anything like that Prabhupada so it’s not that we have one acharya in one part of our life and another acharya in another part of our life we have one acharya who tells us the purpose of our life and once we have learned that purpose to do the practical things of fulfilling that purpose we may have to learn other things from different people you know there were devotees who were Prabhupada’s servant and they would draw Prabhupada now Prabhupada did not teach them driving they may have learned it from someone else so now that devotee one devotee knows driving or say one devotee has learned computers and then somebody using computers in our temple so that devotee teaches computers to others now how did that devotee learn computers it was not from Prabhupada the spiritual master so if that devotee had learned it before coming from bhakti from a non devotee and is now teaching devotees and now we go to non devotees and learn from non devotees what is the difference we cannot really artificially equate the material and the spiritual even the Bhagavad Gita Arjuna did not win the Kurukshetra war because of the knowledge of the Bhagavad Gita alone he won the Kurukshetra war because of the knowledge of archery which he had learned from Drona and he had perfected through a lifetime of practice but the inspiration to fight the war the motivation for fighting that war that direction was given by the Bhagavad Gita so the Bhagavad Gita does not claim to provide material knowledge it provides spiritual knowledge about the purpose of our life but how to fulfill that purpose we require material knowledge now what the problem can come if we are taking knowledge from material sources and then we start learning from them not only about how to do things but which things to do if we take from them the knowledge about the purpose of life that will become a problem but Jiva Goswami also says right in the Tattvasandarbha itself that a large part of the Vedas is lost today so normally when we talk about the material knowledge in the Vedas we talk about Karmakand and it is for less intelligent people and we derive that quite often but the fact is we have to live in the material world and material knowledge is required so much of the knowledge for functioning in the material world that was given in the Vedas that is not available today so we may have to use other material knowledge so material knowledge is not a replacement for spiritual knowledge so whether we use Ayurveda or if we have to take treatment it doesn’t matter whatever I take I move forward in my life so we have to be if I consider health, if I consider finances, if I consider say cycling or vehicle riding or building, construction nobody expects that the pure devotee will give knowledge of these things sometimes the pure devotee may also give some insights but it is not that they are going to give exhaustive knowledge of these things but when we come to subtler things say like money management or relationships or say speaking at that time we may say can we get spiritual knowledge can we take this knowledge from other sources then it is we have to be little more careful, we can take say for example if you want to learn about sensitive speech so now what is the matter of sensitivity in different ages may be different so we have to learn about the current culture to know what are their what are their blind spots and then we don’t have to unnecessarily trigger their blind spots so we don’t have to unnecessarily provoke them so that knowledge we may not get from so some aspects of what sensitivity means that we have to learn from the contemporary sources so it is not wrong in principle but usually this has to be done cautiously under guidance from seniors and we shouldn’t confuse the means and the ends we get the ends of what we are going to do what is the purpose of what we are doing that from the Acharya but the means we may take from different sources now if I am going to do online preaching I am not going to learn about how to set up a website for Prabhupada’s books I may have to read some books for that purpose so the more subtler the knowledge becomes they can become knowledge of relationships or about speech good speaking or sensitive speaking or that then the subtler it becomes then often we take not only the techniques but we may also take the goals so we have to be more cautious so the grosser the material knowledge the easier it is to differentiate what is the means and what is the end but the subtler the knowledge becomes then the means and ends become often more tightly interwoven and we may get a little confused so never while taking material knowledge from any material sources we shouldn’t let our faith in those material sources supersede our faith in the Acharya with respect to the goal of life now if I start learning English from Prabhupada’s books well that’s fine if Prabhupada’s books are edited but if I go to conversational English you know one time when devotee Satsvarupa Malar writes in one of his books that when Prabhupada used a word that was not there in the English dictionary only so then one of the devotee editors he said if a pure devotee has used the word we should not change the pure devotee’s word we should change the dictionary and get the word included in the dictionary so then so then what happened is they said ok sentiment is fine but let’s go and ask Prabhupada they asked Prabhupada and Prabhupada was very practical he said change the word so we don’t have to over exalt Prabhupada in a sentimental or a in a way that is not according to our tradition itself so nowhere does our tradition say that an Acharya gives exhaustive knowledge about everything you know Vishwanatha Kritaguru was living at a time when Muslims were destroyed but his Bhagavatam commentary doesn’t talk about how we should combat the Muslims it just focuses on giving Bhagavatam so that other knowledge can come from other sources so Prabhupada is among the first Acharyas who integrates social commentary with scriptural commentary and that is required to some extent because his audience is living in a society which is very different from the traditional society so he has to do some social commentary but a social commentary is contextual and we don’t have to absolutize that so we can learn from other sources but we can learn the means not the ends does that answer your question? I think we should stop here it’s quite late, we can talk personally after that thank you very much Jai Jai Jai Jai Jai Jai Jai Jai Jai Jai Jai Jai Jai Jai Jai Jai Jai Jai Jai Jai Jai Jai So how can Chakravarty Path say that said verses in the Bhagavatam spoken by Krishna this is a poetic license or this is not grammatically correct or something like that see first thing is Sridhar Swami, I think at the start of his Bhagavatam commentary he states that scripture does not necessarily give a literal account of the exact conversations And it’s, in one sense, common sense.
If you consider Chaitanya Charita Amrit, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu met Prakashananda Saraswati in Uttar Pradesh, no, in Varanasi. Now, they were not speaking Bengali at that time. Kutushananda Saraswati did not even know Bengali.
Or when He met the Brahmanas in Udupi. They were speaking Sanskrit. They were not speaking Bengali.
But the conversation is reported in Bengali. So, scripture does not give a literal account of everything that has happened. Or for that matter, if you see, the Mahabharata is full poetry.
Now, we may say, Bhagavad Gita, Krishna can speak poetically, Arjuna can speak poetically. But is it that all characters throughout are speaking poetically, you know, where they are not having any verbal conversations at all? And then if you go further in the Ramayana, okay, Ramayana is also poetry. So, it’s not only humans, or even the Rakshasas speaking poetry, or even Jatayu speaking poetry, even Kabaddi speaking poetry.
Is everybody speaking poetry? No. So, He says that actually, the essential message is assimilated by Vyasadeva and it is put in a poetic form. And because Vyasadeva is a literary incarnation, so nothing is lost in this transition.
But it is not that scripture is a literal record. It is not like, you know, we record a lecture and replay the lecture. It is not like that.
It is, events are historical, but they are presented in a poetic format. And that is a part of what makes literature. Literature is presented according to literary formats.
So, now, according to literary formats, even if it is Vyasadeva or Valmiki or whoever it is, it is not that everything that they are going to do is going to be grammatically perfect. Grammar is such a thing that, now, I know more about English than Sanskrit, but in English, even there are people who find issues with the way Shakespeare has written something or Wordsworth has written something. Now, that is just the way it is.
So, sometimes, when we say something is a poetic license, it need not necessarily be a wrong thing. A poetic license can also become, it has become ornament. It becomes a beautiful thing.
So, sometimes, many idioms or phrases that come up, they may not be grammatically correct, but they convey something in a very powerful way. So, a poetic license is not necessarily a defect. Sometimes, it can itself become a trend.
This is how it is done, it is done afterwards. Or that was what was done at that time, but later on it has fallen out of place. And that is why we feel this is not right now.
So, it is not that even the scriptures have to be have to be precisely accurate grammatically in terms of the rules of grammar today or at the time when Acharya wrote a comment. See, language is also in a state of flux. So, the scripture is written at a particular time in history and Vishwanath Chakravarthy is commenting, and Sanskrit has also evolved over thousands of years.
So, he is explaining that in terms of the Sanskrit of his times. So, it can very well be that it can be an ornament or it can be something which was thought right at one time and is now thought right at another time. Or in an extreme case, it may also be a small minor defect.
So, again we see the Ishwara Puri pastime with Shetan Mahaprabhu. There is a grammatical mistake. First he said there is a mistake and then he said no, there cannot be any mistake.
No, first he said there cannot be any mistake, then he pointed a mistake and then he again accepted that there is no mistake. The point is, we cannot have a material conception of perfection when we approach scripture. So, that was the question.
Oh, that is because the events themselves are different. It’s not just a… Sometimes, things can be told from a different perspective. But the way Parikshit Maharaj responds in the Bhagavatam and the way Parikshit Maharaj responds in the Mahabharata is entirely different.
So, it’s not just a matter of perspective over there. It’s a talk about different kalpas. When we spoke about the ladder of upspirations, where you climbed up the ladder and touched upon the universal principle and then bring it down to explain to people according to the examples that are relevant at that time.
So, how do we, when we climb up the ladder and touch upon the universal principle, should we stick to the principles that the Acharya has spoken to or many times it may happen that we many times it happens that, you know, we have some universal principles in mind and we choose the details. Yeah, that’s true. How do we protect them? So, how do we draw that universal principle from scripture? Should we stick only to Acharyas or should we use our own intelligence or our own analysis to look for certain principles? It is natural that as we study scripture more and more, we also will, scripture is a living book.
So, no Acharya’s commentary is exhaustive. So, we can always find inferences and principles which may not be given by that Acharya, by a particular Acharya, which is perfectly fine. And it’s not that we are more intelligent or anything like that.
It’s just that we live in a different context, we come from a different background and from our context, certain things may strike us. So, what we have to be careful is that that principle should not, I would say two, three things. First is that principle should not contradict any other detail in scripture.
I draw a particular inference on something. Like I remember, I had one class where evening one devotee gave a class, morning another devotee gave a class and the same pastime, two entirely different analysis. So, that was I think Draupadi, when Draupadi is grief struck in the seventh chapter of the first canto and Arjuna says that, Arjuna says, I will pacify you.
I will bring his head and pacify you. So, what happened is, this evening devotee gave the class, this devotee was coming from a counselling person. He says, see Arjuna is such a good counsellor.
But Draupadi was so disturbed and he spoke words that completely pacified her. And next morning another devotee, he was probably coming from some mediation meeting or something like that. He said, actually the sequence of I will take revenge, this will lead to never ending violence.
We should not do like this. So, now what I had to do is, I think this is, sometimes what happens, some devotees, almost from every action in scripture, you try to draw a principle. Then it becomes too subjective.
But there are certain principles which can be easily drawn out. It’s like a rubber band. A rubber band is stretchable.
But if you stretch it too much, it just breaks. So, sometimes we can draw certain lessons from scripture, but we have to use our intelligence. If you are drawing some very radical or new lesson, then better to consult some senior devotees.
It’s to some extent unavoidable that we read from scripture and we read into scripture. That means we read what is there in scripture, but when we come from a particular background or we are thinking about particular things, then we read our thoughts into scripture also. That’s not wrong.
But the point is that we shouldn’t be reading into scripture what is not there at all. Or what is actually quite different from or contradictory to what is there in scripture. So, drawing inferences is fine, but if it is a very radical inference or if it is contradicting some other principle or some other detail, or I can draw some inference and somebody else can draw an entirely different inference, then things go into a very subjective mode.
So, this is a problem among Christians. They say they are the elastic Jesus. So, there are Christian homosexuals, they say that Jesus’ relationship with the apostles, it is an example of homosexual relationships.
This is intolerable, this kind of love. So, the thing is that there are limits to how much scripture can be analysed and stretched and that comes by maturity. It’s not that right at the first day we start reading scripture, we start looking for principles.
Initially, we study the Acharya’s commentary and that’s why actually we learn not just by studying books, we also learn a lot by hearing. By hearing. Because hearing also helps us to see the relevance of scripture more.
And then, in learning it is said that what we can know depends on what we know. What we can know depends on what we know. Somebody might just say my fingers and they say, oh, you have got white nails.
Somebody else may say, a doctor may say, you have got anemia. So, now they are saying the same thing but what we can know depends on what we know. So, like that the more we study scripture, the more we are able to study scripture and understand and infer from scripture.
That’s why in the initial year, it is better not to try to draw any principles. But as we study scripture more and more, we also understand the mood of scripture, we understand the essential message of scripture, we understand the context and then we can draw lessons more maturely, methodologically. Non-method.
What about this tantra? This is a metaphysical science or non-metaphysical. There are myths also people. So, what exactly is… See, what exactly is tantra? Is it material, non-material? See, basically tantra, there is left-hand tantra and right-hand tantra.
Both are there. Tantra basically is Vedanta and Tantra. These are two broad approaches.
Many approaches but these two. Vedanta focuses on a radical separation of matter and spirit. Now, Krishna says you are not the body.
Basically says the spirit is different from matter. Bhagavad Gita’s focus is on Vedantic or Upanishadic separation of matter and spirit. And that’s why the Bhagavad Gita doesn’t talk about deity worship.
Krishna is not giving an exhaustive description of bhakti anyway. He is just talking about which method, which practice to follow. But the Bhagavad Gita’s focus is more Vedantic, which focuses on separation of matter and spirit.
Whereas Tantra is actually the joining of matter and spirit. So, what is the purpose? The purpose is that matter can be used to access spirit. Matter can be used to access spirit.
That is the basic principle of Tantra. So deity worship is actually a part of Tantra. We use the word Tantra for a particular meaning quite often.
But there is a book, Sattva Tantra, in the Bhagavad course that Vishnu Sthitrini Rupani, that the Purusha Avatars are talking. That is again the Lord manifesting in the material world. So, basically Tantra talks about how matter and spirit are harmonized together.
So, matter can be used as a tool for approaching spirit. That is the methodology of Tantra. And deity worship comes in that.
And many of the bhakti rituals, they are also part of Tantra. Where we use material manifestations for remembering Krishna or going closer towards Krishna. Now, there is… This is the white Tantra or the bright Tantra.
There is the dark Tantra also, where the whole thing is misused. So, when we talk about matter being used to approach spirit, in matter also there is subtle, gross matter, subtle matter and spirit. So, in black magic and Tantra, basically more than the spirit, it is the dark, subtle matter that is used to influence gross matter.
So, subtle matter… So, for example… And this is there not just in Indian tradition. It is there all over the world, black magic. In Africa, there is the voodoo magic.
So, all this is what… Basically, there are ways in which certain people have the skills to tackle, to get access to subtle powers, to get access to subtle matter. And through subtle powers, they can influence the gross matter. Now, it is not that everybody who claims to do black magic, they are actually doing black magic.
So, it is not that every problem is because of black magic. One devotee wrote to Prabhupada, Prabhupada, I am feeling very weak and fearful. I think a ghost has haunted me.
Prabhupada said, no, it is not a ghost. You are simply Maya. So, it is not that we have to jump for a supernatural explanation for every problem.
That is not our tradition’s idea. There are problems. We look at the problems and try to solve them in normal manner.
If I have got a disease, I try to solve it by taking medicine. Whatever it is. But there are possibilities when there can be supernatural phenomena also.
Which may be, some people may put some spirits or some ghosts or something like that. So, that is a part of black magic. So, that is also within the broad Vedic tradition.
But that is not considered Sattvic. That is usually Tamasic. We have it in the Bhagavatam also that Dakshinagini was sent by the Kashi Raj to kill Krishna and then he turned around and burnt Kashi only.
Or in Bhaktivinoda Thakur’s time, there was that Ghisak Singh, he tried to attack him by subtle means. So, these are there in our tradition. And they are basically… So, the whole Tantra is that matter is used for various purposes.
So, we use matter as a means for approaching spirit. But there is in black magic, subtle matter is used to try to control gross matter. That is a part of the broad Vedic tradition.
But our Acharyas don’t focus much on that. Just like we have Siddhis, which is more through… The Siddhis are not considered Tamasic. They are not transcendental.
But they are a result of Sattvic austerity. So, even the Acharyas don’t… Even if they have Siddhis, they don’t use it. Only rarely use it.
So, what to speak of these Tamasic skills. So, now if some devotee is affected by that, then we have to see practically what is to be done. Usually, it is recommended that chanting some Narasimha Mantras or reading 7th Canto Bhagavatam, praying to Narasimha Dev, that acts as a protection.
But in some cases, if that doesn’t happen and if a devotee feels very strongly that I should go to some exorcist or something like that, we don’t have to make it a matter of faith and obstruct that devotee. So, whatever is required, they can do. But in general, by specific practices within Bhakti, not just Chant Hare Krishna, but specific practices related with specific manifestations of Lord Narasimha Dev, that can be done to help if some devotee is affected by that.
No, I mean, it is… Whom does black magic affect or Tantra? It depends. You see, usually, if it is cast by someone who has some powers on someone, that’s one way of it happening. It’s also dependent on, to some extent, on karmic vulnerability.
By our karma, just like we have different dispositions, some people get very upset by small things. Other people don’t get upset by small things. It’s just the nature of a person.
It’s not necessarily a weakness. It’s just a character. That’s the way the person is.
Personality, not character. Personality, that’s how it is. So, like that, depending on individual nature, some people may be more vulnerable to such influences.
Usually, if you practice bhakti diligently, most of the times, you will not be affected. But in some situations, it may happen. It may happen and then we see it as an arrangement of Krishna.
Just like, usually, one who practices bhakti never falls below a human form. But it’s exceptional that Bharat Maharaj fell to a deer’s body. But he still had spiritual consciousness in deer’s body.
So, like that, usually, these sort of spirits and things don’t affect devotees. But even in some cases, they affect. Still, that spiritual consciousness is there and the devotee will go closer to Krishna even through that spiritual consciousness.
So, there was one devotee who told me that they were taking somebody for yatra and there was this Mataji who seemed to be, the devotee seemed to be haunted by a ghost. And then they were chanting and they were exercising and then suddenly that Mataji spoke in a male voice. And it was almost not her natural voice.
She said that, you know, I want to go to Mayapur and after I go to Mayapur, I will leave her. Don’t drive me away. So, actually it happened.
She was still, her behaviour was abnormal. But when actually she went to Mayapur, it became normal over there. So, what can happen is sometimes, say, if a devotee commits suicide for some reason, then there is the spiritual principle that spiritual consciousness is never lost.
But there is the material law that if a person commits suicide, they may get a ghostly body. So, it may be that a devotee can also become a ghost sometimes. But that spiritual consciousness, that devotional consciousness is still there.
If it’s a ghost, but a ghost wants to go to Mayapur. So, there may be some exceptions in some social situations. So, we don’t have to worry too much about it in Jainism.
If you practice Bhakti diligently, you will be protected in most situations. Where does the ghost reside in the body? See, basically the ghost becomes… I have a whole seminar on ghosts, you know. Yeah.
I have a PowerPoint presentation also. So, basically… See, how ghosts work is that… See, this is… How will you… Okay, you can see it here. Three levels of being, the soul, the subtle body and the gross body.
This is normal. So, now what happens normally is that when we die, the soul and subtle body leave. Now, this happens now… If that person after that doesn’t get a new gross body, then they become a ghost.
And now this ghost also craves for a body because they want to also fulfil their bodily desires which require a bodily instrument. So, in some situations what may happen is that ghost may enter into another body. So, that means in one body, there are two souls at that time.
So, there is a dominated person and there is a dominating person. So, when the person is dominated, that means that person’s normal personality doesn’t come out. So, there are well-documented evidences.
Dhritaram Karmapu has written about this in Human Devolution. And there are many other… Researchers also have done research. There are cases where there is a person who was in… A woman was born and brought up in Maharashtra and suddenly started Bengali.
She started speaking Bengali. She had never gone to Bengal. None of her neighbours were Bengali.
She had never known anything about Bengal. Suddenly she started speaking Bengali. And she did that for around 2-3 months and then she stopped.
So, basically that ghost had haunted her at that time. And then they did some research. So, Ian Stevenson who did some research in past life memories, he had done this out of… This is called as possessions.
So, now, it is not necessary that the controlling soul has to be in a particular location in the body. It’s basically the soul takes control of the body. We use the mechanism, we use the car driver example for talking about the soul and the body.
But the driver has to be situated at a particular place in a car. Because there is a physical mechanism that the driver has to control. But the soul’s interaction with the body is not like that.
Prabhupada said the soul is situated in the region of the heart. But it is not that the soul has to be situated in the heart. It is broadly in the region of the heart.
So, the soul’s mechanism of controlling the body is primarily through projection of consciousness, through identification. Misidentification more specifically. So, that can be done by some other soul also.
So, that soul may come in the region of the heart, may be situated in the region of the heart or soul may be elsewhere. But basically that soul takes control of the body. So, it’s like somebody else may take control of a car or somebody else may hijack a plane or whatever.
So, that soul may come in the region of the heart. But it is not specifically… It is not that any soul who comes in the region of the heart can take control. It is that ghostly soul has to have that power and in fact the haunted person, that has to have some karmic vulnerability.
May be they are very tamasic or may be they have a weak mind or whatever because of which they get affected. So, the location is not important. It is the power or the control that is there, that is what is important.
That’s what enables them to do it. So, if they have a very strong desire to do something and then they find that this body is an instrument by which you can do that, then they will do it. Then the first person is conscious of their activity? Usually, what happens is the first person is not conscious at all.
That’s why the person doesn’t even know what happened in the last period. So, what are they doing? Where was I? They don’t even know about it. It’s like almost… Standby.
Almost like an unconscious state during that. How many souls can enter? Well, I think the ghosts have many bodies to enter. They don’t have to fight over bodies, in a sense.
No, the Paramatma… See, He is there with the ghost also, no? The soul… Soul and super soul, they travel together from one body to another. So… We have heard about this Aurangzeb story. Like… Sorry.
Sometimes people criticize that when the invaders come and they destroy the deities. So, at the time I had heard your speech, I have read your idea. And you mentioned that actually… Because the deities come to reciprocate with the devotees, so the deity’s divinity, even if the deity is destroyed, the divinity is not destroyed, but it is on the intention.
So, my question is like… Because it affects my consciousness. Sometimes when I go to… In the back of the mind, sometimes there is not the full faith that this is Krishna. Sometimes that deity is also a stone, like it is matter.
That consciousness is also coming. So, is it only the… the worshipper’s intentions and thought pattern that makes the deity divine? Or actually by doing Prana Pratishtha, the divinity is there? And… Okay, good question. So, is it the seeker’s, it is the devotee’s consciousness intention that is the deity divine or is the deity actually divine? See here, we have to understand what we mean by the word divinity.
Divinity means that whenever there is a manifestation of the Lord in the material world, that manifestation is going to be… It usually doesn’t transcend the material laws. You see, Vrindavan is a spiritual world. But in terms of worldly geography, it is in India.
And we may say, no, Vrindavan is not in India, it is transcendental. Fine, we may say it is transcendental. But we cannot say it is in Pakistan.
If I have to put it somewhere in this world’s geography, I have to put it in India. So, like that, there are… When the transcendental manifests in the material world, it is going to… It usually doesn’t transcend the material laws always. Most of the time it doesn’t transcend the material laws.
So, when we talk about deity worship, the… Krishna who is manifesting through the deity, that is true. When pranapratishtha is done, when Krishna is evoked through bhakti, Krishna manifests as the deity. So, that is the… The thing through which it is manifested, that is material.
This is even more graphic in Jagannath, when they actually change the wood. They change the Navakalivara at the festival of… So, that means it is clear that as long as that particular Buddha in that particular form is there, they worship that form. But there is an understanding that that can be changed also.
So, Jagannath remains the same. So, the wood is… Wood is also, you know, we can say disposed in a proper way, respectful way. But it is not that the wood is preserved for all time to come and worship again.
No, it is understood that Krishna manifested over there, Jagannath manifested over there and now he is manifesting through some other wood. So, we have to understand that we can’t expect the stone of the deity to behave in some miraculous way and then we will have faith. The stone will basically be like stone.
As I said, if water falls on it, there is supposed to be weather, it may get deteriorated. All that things can happen. So, the Divine is manifesting through the deity.
That is a fact. Now, what is dependent on our intention is how much we will perceive that fact. I think Bhaktivinoda Thakur talks about three levels.
He says, for a materialistic person, the deity is a stone. For the sadhaka, it is Krishna manifesting through the deity. For the siddha, it is Krishna Himself.
So, it is Krishna Himself. That doesn’t mean the deity will not… the pure devotee will not see whether it is stone or not. But that will not be at the very background of vision.
We primarily see Krishna over there. So, it is not wrong for us to have some doubts whether this is really Krishna or not. It is natural.
If we are serving the deity and some questions may naturally come up. We don’t have to feel guilty about that. But rather we have to clarify the philosophical understanding that actually what is manifesting? It is Krishna who is manifesting as the deity.
So, now when Krishna manifests as the deity, the manifestation itself is not necessarily going to do something miraculous. So, that’s why we serve the deity, we bathe the deity, we feed the deity, we decorate the deity. And it is our consciousness that will depend how much we perceive Krishna’s presence.
It is not that Krishna’s presence there depends on our consciousness. Krishna’s presence is anyway there. But how much we are able to perceive that presence, that will depend on our consciousness.
So, the two are different things. Krishna’s presence happens the moment it is invoked through worship, through pranapratishta. But our perceiving Krishna’s presence depends on our consciousness.
And that’s why we will see that our own consciousness varies. Some days we feel Krishna’s presence when we are in the retreats and some days we just don’t feel a presence. So, it is not that Krishna is coming and going.
Krishna is always there. But it is our consciousness that is fluctuating based on the mood. That’s why we are not able to perceive.
Is it clear? Regarding this only. So, then how much can we… Oh! Sorry. We are last one.
Connected one. So, last one. Still the question remains, when some people desecrate the deity, as you said that the Lord Himself is the deity, whether the consciousness is there or not, what happens to the deities when they have been desecrated? Like broken or… Yeah, so it is… I said that when the… what happens when the deities are desecrated, actually Krishna manifests for a particular purpose.
And that purpose is not to exhibit His omnipotence. It is to give an opportunity to serve. So, Krishna manifests as a deity and Krishna can become unmanifest also.
So, when somebody starts desecrating the deity, Krishna just becomes unmanifest from there. It is not Krishna is affected by that. So, Krishna doesn’t exhibit His omnipotence over there.
Sometimes in some situations He may do that. But that is not the normal pattern. Krishna is not manifest.
What to speak of omnipotence, you know. As Krishna is the deity, we can say Krishna manifests no potency. You and I can dress myself.
The deity cannot dress themselves. We have to dress even the deity. We have to even dress the deity.
So, where is the potency manifesting there? Somebody may argue like that. So, if somebody is going to have a sceptical attitude, why have that sceptical attitude only in the extreme situation of somebody desecrating the deity? Even the routine conduct of the deity, it is not manifesting God’s omnipotence over there. So, God’s presence is more perceived through the devotion of the heart and through the transformation of the heart, through the purification of the heart.
So, when somebody is not able to approach in that intention, then Krishna simply unmanifests Himself over there. So, Krishna manifests as the deity. Krishna can unmanifest Himself.
So, it all depends on the Lord Himself. Yeah, Lord Himself. So, basically even rather than saying that Krishna unmanifests Himself, we can say more specifically that Krishna is not affected because He is transcendent.
So, like it’s that when that deity of Madhavendra Puri, Gopal, when he is discovered, he says, I have been lying in the forest for many years. He is not saying, I was unmanifest, now I am going to become manifest. But the point is that He is transcendental, so He is not affected.
So, in that sense, there is the Achintya Bhedabhed. Krishna is the deity and Krishna is also His own transcendental person beyond the deity. So, sometimes we may focus on the Abhed part too much.
And it’s not too much. We may focus on the Abhed part so that we get inspired with the feeling of devotion and we serve the deity reverentially. But at the same time, there is the Abhed part also.
Krishna is not limited to the deity. Krishna has His self-existence in the spiritual world and Krishna is transcendental. So, even when the deity is a puja brahmana took the deity away and hid it in some place and then forgot about it and he is saying that Mahagopal says, I was exposed to the weather for so long, that’s why I am feeling hot now.
So, all this is what? Actually, Krishna is there as the deity and then again He is installed. But He is not affected. But the affected is in the sense that He says that I am affected so that He gives Madhavendra Tura an opportunity to serve.
So, I think the whole deity worship has to be seen through the attitude of service. Once we start seeing the sceptical attitude, then we will not be able to understand anything about deity worship. Two analogies are used for deity worship.
One is post-mortem ceremony