Understanding Indian and western attitudes in approaching and practicing Krishna consciousness

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This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
opportunity. Hare Krishna, dear devotees.
My name is Dave Amadava Das. Welcome back to the GBC SPT page. Very happy to have with us today His Grace Chaitanya Charan Prabhu.
He is one of my role models and I dare to call him also a friend. I’m very grateful to have him with us today. Welcome, Prabhu.
Thank you, Prabhu. I’m so happy to be here with you. In fact, I see this more as an opportunity to gain your association.
Whenever we have spent some time, I found that you have very good insights and very attractive ways of articulating your insights also. Krishna. I’m grateful to be here with all of you today.
Well, I was feeling the same. This is a great excuse to get to talk to you. Chaitanya Charan Prabhu is not only deeply thoughtful, but he’s prolific in what he does in sharing Krishna consciousness with many different avenues of people, not only from his kind of native culture, India, but also in the West.
I’ve seen you now many times here in America and I’m always impressed and inspired by the way that you’re able to relate to the local audience here. The same principles and concepts that you kind of grew up with in a very familiar way in India and leave them feeling like, yes, this is valuable beyond just the relative cultural experience that you had as an Indian boy growing up. But this is valuable for me even as a Westerner.
These universal principles that you presented from this culture of the Veda is something that even I can apply in my life. I’ve seen that many times over, so that’s something of the framing we’d like to bring in the discussion today. But I think it might be valuable just to ask first off, and it’s always fun also to hear how devotees joined.
So I’m not sure how many people are aware how you actually kind of became so serious in the practise of your Krishna consciousness. Maybe you could share a little bit of that first. Sure.
Thank you. So I would say that there are broadly three strands of thought which are three strands in my life at large which eventually led to my taking up to bhakti as a brahmachari. First was I always had a lot of faith and knowledge as a means for improving life, not just my life, but improving life of people.
I had a lot of faith in the power of knowledge. And when I started studying, when I started doing my engineering, I believed that the study of, I used to read biographies of scientists and how they came up with discoveries and other things. This is so thrilling.
But then when I actually encountered students, and not just students, even faculty and researchers, I realised that they, for most of them, I’m not generalising for everyone, but for most of them, they seem to be just like another job. And the scientific knowledge had in no way, scientific expertise was in no way a predictor of one’s virtues or even one’s desire to serve society or to contribute to society. So it could be just a tool for earning a living, just a tool to become famous.
And I also found that even top students who were toppers and who were good in research and brilliant in their science, they had self-destructive habits. They were into smoking. Drugs were not so common at that time, but smoking, alcohol, and not just casually, but sometimes quite damaging.
It was also there. So I started wondering what’s wrong. What is missing that knowledge is not necessarily, they had the knowledge to do things well, but which things are really beneficial for them, they didn’t understand that.
So that was one aspect of it. And I felt that knowledge must have some higher purpose. So when I read in the Bhagavad Gita 13, 8 to 12, that knowledge is actually in the form of virtues.
Knowledge is not just in the form of skills. That was quite a revelation for me. In fact, then I came to know that what the Bhagavad Gita is saying has also been a part of the Western tradition that Socrates and Plato and even Aristotle, whatever differences Aristotle had with his previous teachers, they all saw knowledge in terms of virtue.
Knowledge in terms of inner control. From the time of scientific renaissance and thereafter, the renaissance and scientific revolution, that knowledge started becoming equated with power not virtue. That knowledge is power.
Francis Bacon famously said that. And while it is true knowledge is power, but he was using it in a very specific sense. Scientific knowledge will give us the power to control the outer world and thus bend nature to our will and enable us to become happier.
So that shift of knowledge in terms of power has led to a lot of advancement of technical skills. So I felt that I could also become a software engineer. I did my electronics engineering and the general career path for students was at that time become a software engineer because that’s where the prestige and the money was.
But I felt that the knowledge in terms of values is what is needed in society. And I felt that knowledge of the skills, software skills, again not minimising software professionals at all. It’s hard work and it’s important work in today’s world.
The same time I felt that that’s not what I wanted to contribute in my life. Another aspect was also that because of the knowledge only, value knowledge, I was a part of a social welfare organisation where I focused primarily on education. I would go to students who were underprivileged and offer them free tuitions in subjects that were considered difficult.
Math, English, history, something like that. And I found that in many of their lives they were eager to study and learn, at least many of them. But their parents, especially their fathers were alcoholics.
Their home life was a mess. And I started realising that how much can I how much difference is it going to make for these two kids learning some language, learning history. It’s valuable, but it would be much better if we could work on that.
And then that’s when I talked with the leaders of our organisation and then we decided to also offer some talks on helping people get free from alcohol, things like that. And a small locality we adopted and invited specialists to give talks and talk with people. And those people became free.
We could say all the people in that particular small locality, they gave up alcohol. But then the local municipality election, local political election, the candidate in order who voters brought two truckloads of free liquor for everyone. And not only the fathers but even their sons.
They all drank. And I was quite dismayed at that time, but that time started making me think that actually there is something self-destructive within us. It’s like an instinct or impulse for self-destruction within us which works against us.
So education, whether it is a technical education of math or English or education about the dangers of alcoholism or whatever, that may open new doors for us. But it’s like there is something inside us which sabotages us, which prevents us from walking through those doors. That’s when I read the Bhagavad Gita and I noticed that it’s self-destructive.
When Krishna, Arjuna asked Krishna, Atha kena prayukto yam papam charati purushaha What is it that makes one act self-destructively? I felt this is what I was wanting to know. And I felt that a very relevant and empowering section in the Gita. So then how the Gita talks about self-destructive desires being there as impressions within us and how they need to be purified.
So I felt that that’s what I would like to contribute. So those are two broad thoughts. I could go further but I think I made my point here.
I don’t want this topic to monopolise the discussion. Sometimes we hear it said nobody comes because of the philosophy. It’s because of Prashadam.
It’s because of association but it might not be surprising for an intellect like yourself that you are actually attracted by the philosophy and that’s what drew you into seeing the value of Krishna consciousness. So thank you for that. That’s an interesting point.
Yeah, I was definitely Prashadam was not my top priority. That’s very sweet. So now let’s transition into today’s service that you have going on.
You’re kind of really moving between these two. What some people see as divides, the East and the West. And you’re demonstrating the ability to impact both those realms.
And I think you’ve gained some insights from that work. So talk about maybe your first time coming to the West as a travelling monk, Brahmachari preacher. What was that experience like? You know, Prabhupada came and he had no idea what he was going to touch and what he was going to eat and where he was going to go.
I don’t know if you were in that kind of darkness about what your experience was going to be or something a little different. Okay, maybe before I come to the first American visit, I’ll just give you a little background. So I was introduced in 1996.
Then for about 12-13 years, I was in one of the most conservative Brahmachari ashrams in India. It’s Karnat Laj. And I followed the disciplines and everything very strictly.
So then after that, my guides encouraged me to to diversify. From 2015, I have been travelling. 2014 actually was the first year I travelled first to Australia and then to America.
And since then, before the pandemic, I have been spending almost nine months outside India, mainly in America, about five to five and a half months and then Australia, UK, New Zealand and some other parts of the world. So even before I started coming to the West, I noticed a significant difference in terms of how devotees interact with each other. So I had been in Radha Gopinath temple.
I was at that time based in Pune, but I had been in Radha Gopinath temple. And there was a senior Prabhupada disciple who is also a spiritual master in our movement, very intellectual. And I had come to meet him and he had his so I talked with him and I asked him some questions.
He says, you know, my assistant will know about it. And then normally if there’s a spiritual master and the assistant, the idea would be if the spiritual master has a kind of bell, they will ring and then their assistant will come. But here this particular Vaishnava, he himself got up and went Are you becoming a little glitchy? I’m not sure if that’s just me or I’m going to take Prabhu off and maybe add him again, see if that helps us out.
Can you hear me now Prabhu? Okay, now that’s better. We got just to the point where the spiritual master was going to ring the bell to summon the disciple. That’s what you were expecting.
And then something else happened, but we don’t know what that is yet because it grows up. The spiritual master got out of their room and went to the next room where their assistant was staying. And they started talking and the assistant was sitting on the chair and the guru was standing and they were talking with each other.
I was a little taken aback. At least you should stand up. You should offer your guru a seat.
So that was their first interaction. And nobody, neither of them, the guru was not taking offence and the disciple was also answering the question properly. It seemed like a completely normal interaction.
So then I wondered what was happening. And that was probably the first inkling I had that overall, the culture of interaction in India is quite vertical. This is the person’s authority, this is the person’s subordinate.
It’s not just spiritual master and disciple, but it’s all interactions, there is a certain level of verticality in it. So whereas in the West, the culture is significantly horizontal. At least in terms of externals.
Now I had some idea about it when I was working in a software company, they encouraged us to call our bosses by their first name. That was unheard of. Normally we would use our boss as sir or ma’am.
But they just used first name. So I knew that was there in the professional world. But that, it was there in the devotional world also.
This was my first experience of that. And that is something which has repeatedly been experienced by me, whenever I have been in the West, right from my first trip. So actually I was one of the devotees, one of the contributors in editing the Journey Home book before it was published.
So when Mr. Zoland Swadhanath Maharaj, my spiritual master, had given me that book, and I went through it and he asked, what did you like about it? So now most devotees, they like the adventurousness, the many remarkable experiences. I said, that is remarkable. I said, Maharaj, I like the tone of the book.
He said that you don’t seem to be like a teacher telling students. You seem to be more like a seeker sharing your experiences with others. And Maharaj appreciated that part.
He said, that is the exact tone you need for Western outreach. And he said that if you learn that, India is also becoming Westernised. So you will be able to reach out to a significant number of people.
So in one sense, it’s a tone in writing and speaking, but also the mood in interacting, not the mood, the mode of interaction you could say, so that verticality and horizontality is a significant difference. And that, so when I went to the West also, during my first trip, I met many, in one sense, the Prabhupada disciples are a rarity in India, whereas there are many Prabhupada disciples in the West. But when I interacted with them, they were so down to earth, so friendly, so approachable, and even sannyasis and gurus also, not just Prabhupada disciples who may not have those designations.
Everybody was quite approachable that way. So, and I realised that is the ethos. So, this shapes, this leads to a lot of differences in the way Krishna Consciousness needs to be presented, in the way certain activities are perceived.
So I’ll come to that, but that was my major point of differentiation. Then I studied a little bit of the intellectual history of the West. It seems that because of many instances of abuse of power by those who were in power, whether it is the Catholic Church doing inquisitions, or even those in Reformation, they got power and they persecuted those who were not following their particular version of Christianity, or whether it was Hitler and Mussolini or whoever else.
There is this history and it has almost scarred the collective memory of the West, where there is a great fear of the abuse of power. Whereas in India, what is ingrained more, and I would say this is also in China and Russia, Eastern cultures you could say, the chaos that will result by not having authority. So, what is prominent is very different.
The dangers of the abuse of authority, is what is prominent in the minds in the West. And the dangers of not having an authority, of rejecting authority, that is what is prominent in India. And that’s what leads to significant differences in how Krishna Consciousness needs to be presented and perceived.
That’s one major point I would like to say. Yeah, that’s a really beautiful characterisation. And yet, on both sides, whether you’re coming from East or West, there’s a need to come into this appreciation of the eternal hierarchy that Krishna Consciousness plays out.
And we even see that this deference to authority is sometimes gets in the way for Indians who don’t invest or people in the East in general, who just kind of defer to authority out of tradition and habit rather than from a place of real heartfelt fidelity. And on the Western side, I often tell my peers who after two or three years, they look like fireworks, they do this great big entrance into Krishna Consciousness, shave the head, change the clothes, surrender their life for two or three years. And then after two or three years, they kind of fiddle out and they don’t look so inspired or developed anymore.
I often tell them what brings you to Krishna Consciousness is what keeps you from really going deep in it also, which is that your need to reject authority and to kind of go against the grain. And once you’re a part of the Krishna Conscious community, then that need to reject authority is no longer very helpful because the need is to surrender to the absolute authority. So how does ISKCON as an organisation navigate these tensions and you could say cultural proclivities to bring people to the authentic experience of authority that’s supposed to be had? Very good point.
We reject authority to come to ISKCON and then we have to accept authority. That’s true. In one sense it’s true in India also.
At one level, if you have young people, they are more or less following the authority of their parents. So that rejection is required. But what has happened is there is overall an understanding also that authority has to be accepted.
Okay, I mean I reject this authority and I accept that authority. But I would say even in the West there are, of course the West is such a big word, whom are you referring to in the West? Even in America, you could say Texas and Florida are very different from say California and New York. So what are we referring to is relative but still broadly speaking even if there are authority structures, they are still quite vertical.
They are quite horizontal. They are definitely not as vertical as they are in India. So even if a young children are growing up being raised by their parents, the parents don’t exert authority the way Indian or Chinese parents might do.
So that also is a factor. How this leads to the next step, do you want to add something to this or should I take the next point over here? No, yeah, I would like to hear from you. Okay, thank you.
So what this leads to is that now it’s not that in the West also there are people who respect authority and want to follow authority. They are there. In India also there are people who strongly question authority and reject authority.
They are also there. But what happens is both of these people are outside the main demographic for ISKCON. If you want to talk in terms of say right and left, if I may say so that now the words right and left in different parts of the world also can mean different things.
But I try to put it simply as the right refers to those who emphasise what is right about existing systems and structures in the society or in the world. This is the hierarchy and this is how it’s working and this is what it’s doing and therefore respect it. Whereas the left refers to those who are concerned about those who are left behind by the existing systems and structures of society.
So now in general in India the people whom we attract are the people on the right. And in the West the people whom we attract are people on the left. So it’s not so much my understanding.
The cultural issue is very much there. Is it Indian culture or Western culture? I feel it’s also an issue of the kind of demographic we are attracting. So in India it’s a right in the sense that we attract people on the right.
Now again often the word right has a negative connotation. I’m not talking about right wing extremists. Just people who recognise the value of structure and tradition.
So for many Indians taking up bhakti, seriously bhakti, it’s more or less aligning with their own tradition. And this tradition has sustained India for millennia. India is probably the only surviving ancient civilisation which still has a tangible link with its ancient civilisations.
China is also there. But there is very little of say immediate influence of ancient Chinese religions or belief systems in modern day China. But in India, again no minimising any country, but in India there is a significant link between what was there thousands of years ago and what is there today.
There are variations also. But the point is that it’s like aligning with something that has sustained Indian society and Indian culture for millennia. So the people who are likely to do that are people who are on the right.
In general. So we have quite a aggressive leftist intelligentsia in India. But those people who are of that nature, they don’t even consider coming to ISKCON.
We are going to very very elite institutions. We have youth centres in IITs and other top institutes in India. And we are attracting intelligent people, no doubt.
But we are attracting intelligent people of a particular nature. On the other hand in the west, if somebody would be more aligned toward the right, then they would, even if they have a spiritual thirst, they would most likely affiliate with the religion of their birth, with something which is a part of their tradition. So in that sense, it is people who are going to reject the existing power structures.
They feel that I don’t belong over here. This doesn’t seem right to me. So we attract that kind of people.
So I feel it’s the divide if we emphasise so much on the culture, it’s India and west. I think we may miss out on the point that it’s not so much cultural as you could say more of psychological orientations innately. Yeah, that’s a beautiful point.
And I wonder is there, do you see a potential for attracting the opposite spectrum, the opposite side of the spectrum in the different societies that we see? Is it possible to bring in an intellectually leftist Indian? Is it possible to bring an intellectually rightist American over to Krishna’s camp? That’s a good question. And I have talked with different devotees in the west and again I have talked with a lot of devotees and I have interacted with people also when during my classes I have given, especially after the classes when I spend time with people. In general many senior Prabhupada disciples have told me that we have never really attracted people who were established in mainstream society in the west.
So we have of course attracted very many talented, intelligent, brilliant people. But it is before they were on the chart, they were young and before they became established in top positions in society. Yeah, that’s right.
So it’s like Bhakti Tirtha Maharaj was in Yale? Princeton. Princeton, sorry, Princeton, yeah. So there are people like that.
Devanath Maharaj was also in a top university. So we attracted people like that. So they could have gone on and become established in society in big positions.
But in general, people who are established in the society in the west, we don’t attract them so much. And with respect to India I would say that, see the left is a vocal, is a highly vocal and highly visible minority in India. They shape the intellectual landscape significantly but I don’t know whether they have an influence on people at large.
So is it possible to attract a person who is a leftist? Ultimately Krishna can do anything. we have to depend on him for that. Yeah.
I would say that the existing way ISKCON is in India, it’s very unlikely that somebody from the left will will consider becoming a part of a movement like ISKCON. So incidentally now as ISKCON is spreading in India that we are gaining, ISKCON is very highly respected in India and not, even if we don’t have people becoming, we have a lot of people becoming devotees but we have a lot of top politicians, business leaders, social leaders and others appreciating ISKCON quite well. And they are often well-wishers of our movement who help us in various ways.
So we are an established part of the, you could say the Indian religious as spiritual cultural landscape. We may not be the top religious spiritual organisation in India but it is, we are a part of the, quite a respectable figure in the landscape. So why am I making this point? The main reason for this is that each because in our own way India has been successful in reaching out to significant number of people.
So the mode of outreach that is being used as long as it is successful then there is not much need felt to explore something else. To investigate something else. So as long as direct preaching is successful how do we really need forms of indirect preaching? Well the only major indirect preaching we have in ISKCON India is in the form of self-help where you get, you self-help topics to bring people to spirituality and then people take up serious spirituality.
And of course we have social initiatives like a tribal care which is more humanitarian, humanitarian comes spiritual. But these are considered supplementary. The major is where there is direct outreach.
Now just to bring a very significant dynamic to this I have talked with many devotees who are doing western outreach and my spiritual guides have encouraged me to try to spend time with those devotees who are doing western outreach, learn from them and assist them in whatever I can. So I have heard that many devotees who do western outreach they feel uncomfortable getting inviting people from western outreach to come to a conventional ISKCON programme so that they feel like okay this is a little different and especially two religious, we are joining a Indian religious sect or something like that. And there are various reservations they have but the point and this is well known and I understand the reservations but what is significant is at least at four places in the western world where there are vibrant centres for western outreach and there are of course Indians also, Indian devotees who are assisting and supporting those centres those Indian devotees told me that we feel uncomfortable inviting our colleagues to these western centres.
So it goes both ways. So why? Because they said that our colleagues, these Indians who have gone to the west, they are usually well established in society, they have some good positions and their colleagues are also in similar positions so for them I would say not just the pious families is one thing of course but it is also that they are socially in a respectable position so they feel that if they come to a western outreach centre they feel that okay these are not the kind of people I usually mix with so it’s not just that they are of a different ethnicity, it’s just that they are different, many people who will be exploring spirituality may not necessarily even be worried too much about a career yeah that will take care of itself I am on the search, I want to find some meaning in life, I want to find some purpose in life so that distance and the discomfort because of the distance runs both ways so that’s also I would say just a further illustration of this the difference not being so much cultural as more of I don’t know what is the word for right and left I don’t want to use the word political it’s more psychological ideological okay, but in this case it’s more of psychological orientation when we are using the word right and left it’s more in the psychological orientation yeah I think that’s fair to characterise it that way and it leaves our society in a bit of a lurch as we would say here in the west lurch, okay things are there’s a kind of stalemate happening I see that in many places and there’s this adversarial almost attitude, the Indian devotees versus the local or western, however you want to characterise it and there’s a kind of subtle antagonism and in some places it’s an overt antagonism so what can you do to share especially in India it’s not as much of an issue because you don’t have the two populations so close but in the west most of the temples were rescued by the Indian congregation in the 80s and 90s and without them we wouldn’t have those temples so anybody that’s silly enough to try to dismiss that community and their efforts that’s a different issue but after, you know, now things have settled out and there’s this subtle or overt antagonistic mood what can you say to those communities to try to help massage that out and come to a healthier way of relating to one another okay that’s it’s always easy to suggest what to do actually doing it and dealing with the issues is tough but just to nuance the point you see India is also very big and India is also culturally very diverse so when you talk about India what are we referring to in India so for example I’m quite closely connected with one temple and they focused on English outreach, they had their main classes in English and then I had gone for one, I think it was 2018 or something I had gone for international tour and came back and they said that we have decided to make all our Bhagavatam classes in Hindi now I said, why is that they said that we got a consistent feedback now you can use two words, congregation and community. Congregation is broadly the devotees for a certain temple and community is the larger system of well-wishers that are there.
So the community gave the feedback that if you have classes in English we don’t really feel that you belong to us or we belong to you so they said that they had to it was a big temple and the temple needed the broader support of the broader community also and they wanted to connect of course they wanted to do outreach but the point is that they needed to do multiple they needed to do what was required to cater to that audience they still have English classes but the main classes, the Sunday class and most of the Bhagavatam classes they have chosen to have in Hindi because that’s what connects with the it’s a metropolitan city so it connects with the broader audience over there now we see this in Mayapur also which is our international headquarters, we have English Bhagavatam class we have Bengali Bhagavatam class so we need diversity even within within India so I would say that recognising the need for diversity in different parts of the world is important and in providing space for that so we don’t have to have like watertight or absolute category like Indians and Westerners sometimes some Indians might also be attracted to a more horizontal ethos, it depends on which Indians they are I would say that let’s say the Indian youth, they are almost like one generation younger to me now and I interact with them but they are very different from my generation usually different so which Indians we are talking about also varies but if we if we have broad modes of outreach different modes of outreach for different audiences I think and recognise that different people need different ways of presentation so that is where things could become much we could have we could say diversity then we could have cultural again I feel more than cultural it’s psychological diversity rather than cultural it’s psychological diversity while sharing spiritual commonality we all want to ultimately develop love for Krishna but our minds are made in a particular way that we need a presentation in a way that makes sense to us so that I would say recognising the need for psychological diversity would be very important and it is happening gradually, the challenge I feel is that maybe there is a again a vocal minority of those on the extreme left and those on the extreme right those on the extreme left they seem to reduce what happens in India this is simply mundane Indian culture that has nothing to do with Krishna consciousness and those on the extreme right in India they reduce what is happening in the west to this is simply this is simply the influence, the contaminating influence of the Tamasic and Rajasic western culture and this is not conducive for Krishna consciousness so I would say that reductionistic tendency that is a challenge that if you can avoid that and the need for diversity can be accommodated if that reductionistic tendency is avoided I really want to highlight that point that the tendency to see the need for diverse environments as a problem in and of itself as some kind of indictment of a lack of Krishna consciousness in that community I think that’s part of the problem that it’s seen as a problem instead of just a natural phenomena within human society I can remember a letter Srila Prabhupada wrote to one of his disciples, a leader in a local kind of metropolitan area and the black community in that area had started to have their own programmes basically for their people and the devotee was writing saying, Prabhupada, this doesn’t seem healthy, this doesn’t seem right and Prabhupada wrote back, birds of a feather flock together what’s the problem if they feel comfortable in their own community with people that look and feel like them socially and they’re chanting Hare Krishna then that’s the real goal and we don’t mind that they need to feel that kind of comfort from the external level and so that allowance of that need for most people who are not yet on the Paramahamsa platform I think is a really beautiful point to kind of bring to communities in general that it’s not necessarily something wrong that there’s these different divisions it’s quite natural yeah it’s true and I don’t think that there is aggressive opposition to that by anyone it’s just that the the most extreme examples of both get highlighted so for example those who are from the west they may often highlight the the problems associated with the Indian culture and you know this is this problem you can easily give a list of problems and those who are on the right in India they can highlight all the problems of the west and you can also easily highlight those problems so I feel if we could avoid those and especially if those who are actually tangibly moving towards Krishna consciousness, helping others to move towards Krishna consciousness, if they could come together a little bit more and talk with each other then it helps a lot I have interacted with many Indian leaders and I talk based on my experience in the west what the situation is, how things are I find that many many of them are understanding not that I know everything about what is happening in the west, not that I can I can I can address all issues but to the extent where I have interacted and explained I feel it’s possible it’s just that we need more guhyam akhyate pruchyati I think that’s the single biggest thing which is lacking in our movement right now is that guhyam akhyate pruchyati sitting down and talking and sharing one’s heart’s concerns and sharing one’s heart’s aspirations without understanding that heart, if you just look at each other’s actions and often we look at the most objectionable actions of each other it just becomes unfortunately polarising Yeah, you’re reminding me when I first started coming to the temple as you know, you can’t even call me a bhakta yet but all the all the Indians were either Prabhu or Mataji, that was it just Prabhu or Mataji, I didn’t know anyone’s name, and then this devotee, Jugul Kishore who was a brahmachari he was from Detroit, he’s black-bodied and he was running a little bhakti riksha and so he invited me there and he knew everyone’s name and it totally transformed my sense of the congregation in Detroit in general because he knew them as people, and I hadn’t seen that kind of interaction yet the West and the Indians kind of relating to one another as people, instead of just the ceremonial kind of Haribol culture of devotees that we see at a Sunday feast and when I saw him in their homes and talking to their children and asking about how work was going it just like turned the lights on I was like, oh yeah, they’re people too and I can have conversations on that human level with them and we’ll find so many things to connect about, and sure there might be differences culturally, psychologically but in the heart of hearts we’re all looking for the same thing, in mostly the same ways so that’s beautiful, and if communities don’t have that example of persons who are making those inroads, so to speak I think it’s very difficult to get out of the secularisation, the kind of stereotyped ideas of one way for this guy, one way for the other So, this is a beautiful point you made, Pooh see, our spirituality is meant to meant for enhancing our humanity not for eliminating our humanity as mundane so that is where I think one big challenge comes up sometimes we have this category of material and spiritual and I feel they are quite unhelpful categories it’s like, in material there is Sattvarajas and Tamas and there is a big difference between the two it’s like, say somebody is categorised as Asian well, what do you mean by Asian? there are Indians, there are Chinese, there are Japanese, there are Filipino there are Middle East, and they are all Asian and they are hugely different yes so, the human the human level of interaction with each other if that is highlighted that is that is what we stress on more and more then things will fall in place because ultimately, we are not right orientated people or left orientated we are human beings at our core we are spiritual beings before we realise that and can live that in our life we are human beings so, sometimes this is my humanity, this is your humanity and on top of that there is my spirituality and this is your spirituality above that, so what happens is if we don’t respect the humanity, the humanity becomes like this the spirituality, and we may see that ok, my spirituality is going to grow as per my humanity my culture, my psychology my upbringing so, if I diminish my humanity and then focus only on my spirituality and I diminish your humanity and focus only on your spirituality then we may see a lot of differences you are doing like this, I am doing like this but if we learn to focus on our humanity first and then our spirituality then things can move forward much, much better so, sometimes we say focussing on the spirituality is unifying knowledge of mode of goodness which is focussing on spirituality is unifying right, you know how do you see spirituality we can’t really perceive spirituality unless somebody is very realised the idea of that somebody is not the body but they are the soul it’s an intellectual abstraction basically very abstracted, exactly it’s an abstraction, so what can we focus on that unifies us at present yes, in principle we can say it’s our spirituality but if we consider the expressions of those spirituality they may be quite different and then the spirituality which is meant to unify us because we can’t perceive the essential spirituality we can only perceive the express spirituality and the express spirituality may be in India we are doing kirtans in a particular way using a particular set of instruments in the west we do use a different set of instruments that express spirituality becomes quite different so in one sense our spirituality in principle can bring us together in practise I feel that maybe it’s we need a little more humanity in bringing us together so if we just started seeing that yeah I recognise I am a disciple, he was in the last days of his life and he had been like an extreme critic of people who he felt were not doing the right things and he told me that a few days before he departed and I got to spend some time with him, very exalted Vaishnava in his own way he said that I have come to realise somebody has been serving Prabhupada for 20, 30, 40 years, 50 years and they feel that this is the way to serve Prabhupada even if that seems wrong to me I need to focus more on what they have learned from their 50 years of service to Prabhupada rather than what they are doing which is objectionable for me so I think that focussing on commonality whether it is the human commonality or the commonality of our intent to ultimately become Krishna conscious and serve our founder Acharya’s mission that is what is important Beautiful I’m going to frame one of the reasons doing that which you just suggested connecting with each other’s humanity can be so difficult especially in today’s 2021 and then I’d like you as a kind of closing because our time is on a crunch today because there is another programme on the page at 10 o’clock, our side could you give some practical advice for devotees who feel inspired and how to connect with the humanity of another person how to bridge those gaps so to speak but I’d just like to frame one reason I see why that’s such a unique challenge especially today and it’s because of the internet the very thing that’s bringing this conversation together today right now the globalisation of culture across the world is actually such an unnatural challenge for most people to have to deal with. The devotees of West Bengal 500 years ago didn’t even have to know about or really ever see the devotees in Gujarat what to speak of the devotees in Paris or Sao Paolo or New York and to have such a confrontational really experience of other cultures on top of trying to assimilate the highest culture Krishna consciousness it leaves people I think feeling under incapable of blending all of that together in a healthy way and so that then it almost necessitates this need to like push away the other cultures because it’s too much to have to deal with and assimilate. It takes a very high level of realisation and intellect with all that exposure to so many other cultures so knowing that most of the people we connect with whatever side they come from have all of this overexposed cultural experience what are some tips you can give to help people start to bridge those gaps locally have conversations with people that they may not otherwise connect with now I have a seminar which I titled as internet in the three modes so it’s actually internet can be used it’s ultimately used by human beings and there is a lot of sattva guna in the internet also you can get so much knowledge about so many fields so easily and the people who have prepared that knowledge say if you have online encyclopaedia things like that there is a certain level of sattva guna for people to make those also so I won’t say that internet itself is the problem the main challenge is that in the physical world if I am in a sattvic place to go to a tamasic place requires some significant amount of at least physical movement if I want to go from a temple to a bar or somewhere like that it’s significantly different I have to go geographically to a very different place but on the internet I can shift from sattva guna to rajas or tamas by just one click so the internet is not the problem it’s that shifting is so easily available so I might be hearing a class which is sattvic sattva guna and the next moment I can shift to some website which is focused entirely on some facebook forum or something like that completely on criticising somebody and demeaning and devaluing so in one sense when we are on social media we don’t know whether the next post that I am going to read is going to be sattvic rajasic or tamasic it’s like a russian roulette every time you scroll down you don’t know if the bullet is going to be there or a blank or something between so because of that while at one level people who are in sattva they can they can connect with each other better and they can actually build bridges so that’s very much possible and desirable but it is like people who are in rajas and tamas now generally we don’t say that devotees are transcendental my understanding is all devotees are transcendental in terms of their ultimate aspirations their ultimate values but in terms of their functional values we all have our modes in terms of how we function in the world so if those who are in rajas and tamas they will often gravitate towards some content in rajas and tamas and that will polarise so if we if we are a little more discerning in what we observe and what we interact, whom with we interact what we get involved with so that helps a lot and if we create more sattvic content what you are doing I also have a monk’s podcast where you also come and you have spoken quite wonderfully over there so if we create more sattvic content where we have discussions and dialogues that will also help a lot and overall shuddha sattva is actually quite far away it is our aspiration it is our aspiration and we want to go there but what happens is that instead of getting to shuddha sattva we presume we are at shuddha sattva and then conflate rajas and tamas entirely so if I think I am in shuddha sattva then I may actually be behaving in rajasic or tamasic way but I don’t realise that and somebody points it out no I am motivated by the desire to serve well maybe maybe not and we can’t know anyone’s heart but let’s say that if we just try to cultivate a little more sattva in the way we function that could be very helpful and as devotees there is this there is Prabhupada there is one of my favourite pastimes is that when Prabhupada asks how do we know your followers Prabhupada didn’t say that they chant sixteen rounds, they follow four aggregate principles they wake up for mangalarthi they are perfect gentlemen and ladies so that is Prabhupada is focussing on sattvic values what is perfect gentlemen and ladies means that means sattvic values so even Krishna in the twelfth chapter of the Gita focusses on virtues virtues that endear a devotee to him it’s significant in 12.13 to 20 there are eight verses there and all those verses end with such devotees are dear to me but not one of those verses is saying who hears about my glories one who chants my holy names he is not talking about that he is talking about almost human virtues one of the beautiful verses yasmana dujate loko lokano dujate chaya one who does not disturb others and one who is not disturbed by others now we see today in today’s world that actually as devotees only we are getting disturbed by other devotees and we are disturbing other devotees actively actively actively trying also that’s true so again if I equate it’s not a perfect equalisation but if it’s sattva with humanity broadly speaking, humane values then little bit more of sattva would be very helpful so in general I find sattva that builds bridges shuddha sattva can ultimately but in general number of people in shuddha sattva are going to be very very few and the bridges between those who are in shuddha sattva may not immediately translate into bridges among those who are not there yes that means there may be two spiritual two exalted vaishnavas who may be very close to each other but their being close to each other may not automatically mean that their followers are going to be close to each other so they may have to develop their own individual relationship by which they come close to each other and sattva can be quite helpful in that I have a part of interfaith conferences so I have a islamic friend and he told me that actually it’s easier for me to have a rational or to have a meaningful discussion with moderates of other traditions than extremists of my own tradition it was such a revealing statement actually for me that we just reduce people to a category they belong to this tradition but it’s not just their tradition it’s their overall psychological orientation that determines whom they can bond with so I would say that will apply to apply within our movement also within the different expressions of the same tradition not just the different traditions but different expressions of the tradition beautiful it’s a very hopeful and practical point that by increasing sattva gun then we become natural ambassadors for Krishna consciousness in the best way with all of humanity devotee or non devotee as you like that’s a really beautiful point thank you Prabhu unfortunately we have to end it feels like we could keep going but I’ll just use the excuse to bring you on again so we get to talk some more is there anything you’d like to leave us with Chaitanya Charan Prabhu yes Prabhu just one last meditation please that when Prabhupada said that I build a house in which the whole world can live maybe what we need is that we stop imposing our expectations on how the house should be so one of the biggest maybe not the biggest somehow Prabhupada talked about principles and details because some aspect of Krishna consciousness works for me there is a tendency to universalise that that this is what will work for everyone but it’s possible to be possible to be completely committed to for some devotees it’s book distribution that is their greatest service for some devotees it is studying Bhagavatam for some devotees it is actually going out and going out and preaching and giving classes for some devotees it is building temples for some devotees like that it could be different things and some things really resonate with us so if you could see this as some way in which Krishna is reciprocating with me but that doesn’t necessarily mean Krishna is going to reciprocate in the same way with everyone else that it is the diversity is not just simply because of individuals are different with different conditionings it is also because Krishna reciprocates different souls differently so it’s not just something which is to be say diversity not something to be accommodated because we are conditioned it is to be also you could say spiritualised and appreciated or even celebrated because it is a part of our understanding of who God is and who we are in relationship with God so the diversity, the cultural diversity the psychological diversity that’s like an ornament which shows how Krishna can manifest in so many different ways so it can be although we talk about sattva guna and humanity but actually there is also the spiritual vision, it’s opulence of Krishna that the devotee can, different devotees can attract, can be Krishna conscious in different ways and can attract people to Krishna consciousness in different ways Wonderful yeah the spiritual world is not just a bunch of robots all behaving the same spiritual way quite that’s a good way of putting it I write on the Gita everyday at gitadaily.com so I wrote an article sometime ago that 411 so I rendered it as what is Krishna saying over here from your place at your pace access my grace so from your place at your place access my grace that’s the best everybody is actually accessing Krishna’s grace only that’s beautiful Prabhu thank you, that’s a very sweet hopeful note to end on thank you Chaitanya Charan Prabhu for coming on thank you Devananda Prabhu for this opportunity for sharing something for watching us here on the SVT page please stay tuned, we always love to have wonderful thoughtful guests like Prabhu to come on, so stay tuned to the page to see who we are able to bring on next Hare Krishna Prabhaji Jai