Using English to glorify Krishna

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
So, we have this intoxicating display of Sanskrit poetic artistry and mastery from Hilparshik Prabhu, where he gave us a glimpse of what is there in the tradition and also what is there in the living tradition now. So, Krishnavashik was talking about, actually he cut down his time quite a bit, but Dattatreya Goswami gives a very important book, which in this time Bhaktivinoda Thakur shows how the traditional and the contemporary can be married together in the service of the transcendent.
It’s not that the contemporary has to be rejected, Bhakti is not just traditional, Bhakti is timeless. And because Bhakti is timeless, yes, there is a tradition of Bhakti which we follow, but Bhakti is also a living tradition. That means the tradition links with the contemporary and the linkage of the contemporary with the traditional, they help us achieve the transcendent.
So, this is enshrined in our philosophy in the principle of Yukta Vairagya. So, Sri Prabhupada writes in 1.5.22 in the Bhagavatam that, इदमि पुम्सा तपसाशुतस्यवा सुष्टस्यसुप्तस्चिगुणित्यो अवच्चुतार्था कविवीदिरूपितो तमश्णोखम्नानुवरणा where he says that all branches of knowledge can be used in Krishna’s service. So, I would like to show in a small way how we can use the language that is the mainstream language in the world today, that is English, in the service of Krishna.
So, I try to write in Krishna’s service. Now, writing is both a craft and an art. As a craft, there are tools.
Now, how we construct a grammatically correct sentence, how we do the parts of speech together so that the grammar is sound. So, along with the craft, there is the art to it. So, Mishra Prabhupada himself used the English language.
Not this one. I want the whole document. So, certainly, some of us may be very special and expert, wherein we can learn to do Sanskrit poetry.
But it’s a very rare and rarefied talent. Rare means very few people have it. Rarefied means very few people will actually be able to relish it.
Of course, as more popular than Sanskrit, then they will be able to appreciate it also. Now, this what I talked about, the marriage of the traditional and the contemporary, this has been done very well by the Christians. There was one Christian scholar who alone translated the Bible into 33 Indian languages.
And now today, the one person, he learnt 33 languages and he translated the Bible into 33 languages. And today, the Bible has been translated into more Indian languages than the Bhagavad Gita. So, this is, they work very hard.
Pope John Paul II had come to India, he said that the Catholic Church should become more Christian in essence and more Indian in form. So, more Indian in form means that they have adopted the cultural forms including the languages. So, sometimes some devotees minimize English as a Mleccha language.
Yes, it is true, it is a language which has emerged in the western countries. But, you know, values with respect to the material world are not eternal. When Prabhupada is speaking to his western disciples, janmaiswara-sutra-shridhir-idhaman-madhah-puman, he is talking about this verse.
And then he says, all of you Americans, you know, have birth. You are born in this prosperous country of America. And then he talks about you have Aishwarya, you have Shri, you have all this.
But without Krishna it is all useless. Add Krishna to it and you will become wonderful. Now, from the traditional point of view, birth in America is not a high janma.
It is a Mleccha janma. But Prabhupada is very pragmatic. In today’s socio-economic situation, many Indians aspire to be… If they are not born in India, they want to go to America.
If they are born in India, they want to go to America. And they want their children to be born in America. So, they will be American citizens.
So, the values we… and Prabhupada noticed and Bhakti Sahasrani Mahaprabhu also appreciated that Prabhupada was fairly good in English and he asked him to share the message in the English language. So, I am just giving English as an example. All of us may be from different languages.
And we can use, try to share Krishna’s message in that language, not just as a craft or as a tool. See, language is a tool for communication. And we use that as a tool for communication, no doubt.
But that tool can also be made artistic. Wherein, people when they read spiritual literature, it should not just be for the knowledge purpose. They should be able to read it to relish the artistic literary value of that literature.
So, my primary, among all the scriptures that I love the most is the Bhagavad Gita. So, I have a project where I am… like he talked about literary ornaments. So, what all are the literary ornaments in the Bhagavad Gita? So, there are many.
So, for example, there is, what we talk about alliteration, we have na sato vidyate bhavo na bhavo vidyate sakaha. So, this is in… I don’t know what is the alankara in Sanskrit. It is called in English as chiasmus.
Chiasmus means the second part of a line is inverted in the first part. So, for example, we have John F. Kennedy’s famous saying that, ask not what the nation has done for you, ask what you have done for the nation. So, the second part is inverted in the first part.
Na sato vidyate bhavo na bhavo vidyate sakaha. So, na bhavo. Similarly, we have several others.
We have vaite teshu chaapyaham. Vaite, I am in them, they are in me. What is 7.12? Vaite, I am in them, they are in me.
Vaite, I am in them, they are in me. The 9.30 is also there. Samoham sarvabhu teshu, na me dveshu uski na priya.
Ye bhajinti tumam bhaktya, mil te teshu chaapyaham. So, these are examples of chiasmus, wherein Krishna is inverting the words. And Krishna also does alliteration in several places.
For example, we have purusham purushar shabha. We have that, yamin avifem dete, purusham purushar shabha, sama-tukka-sukham dheeram, saundhu-tattvai kalpate. Or we also have, dehe dehe deha-britambhara, in the 13th chapter.
So, deha and deha is repeated. So, like that, there are many small, small alliterations and small poetic devices. So, I have started a series of articles, where I am explaining the poetic ornaments in the Bhagavad Gita, in Sanskrit.
And then I am rendering that in appropriately poetic English. So, actually, there are devotees who have translated the Bhagavad Gita into poetic form in English. But most of them, most of the devotees who have translated, they have not actually looked at the literary ornaments in the Bhagavad Gita.
So, that is of course an ongoing project. I don’t have that here right now. Maybe in future, with the blessings of all of you and especially Hariparshit Ruhu.
Brahma-arpanam brahma-havir brahma-gna brahma-naam tam brahmaiva te naga-tavyam brahma-karma-samadhi-naam We have six times the same word. Which one? Apane, jyoti, prane, paane, dha-pare, prana, paane, gati, rupa. Of course, we have those two words also, which are almost repeated.
Man-mana-bhav, 9.34 and 13.35. And then we also have chreyans-vadhir-moh-mikuna, that is 3.35 and 18.47. So, almost identical. It’s the fourth of the verses repeated. So, along with that, I also write one article in the Bhagavad Gita every day.
I have written around 1600 articles till now. So, in my each and every article that I write, I try to have at least one or two ornaments. With some literary devices.
So, I have made a list of 108 verses. So, I see each article that I write as a service to that verse of the Bhagavad Gita. So, some of the verses which I feel very inspired by, I try to serve them by writing more and more articles.
So, this is krishna-tisva-karma-natham-abhyaya cha. You worship with your work. So, for a writer, the words are the tools.
So, we try to worship Krishna through our words. So, this is one article in which I just illustrate some of the literary ornaments. Which can be used.
So, this is just an example for how all of you, in your writing, in your speaking, you can try to have some literary ornaments. So, this is not just for religion. This is primarily for outreach.
So, this is a… You can zoom in. And you can just remove the brackets. I will explain the bracket myself.
So, this is an article about… sarvathana-pritamsya-buddhita-dharmakamasi Krishna says that how? When the intelligence is in the mode of ignorance, then whatever we do, our intelligence is misused to arrive at conclusions that are opposite of intelligence. So, how the moral values are skewed, and how this distortion is justified by the misuse of intelligence. That’s what is analysed over here.
So, when the conscience is dumped and numbed and dumped. So, I will come back to all this. I will just quickly explain the article.
Maybe I don’t need to read the article. So, the article basically… A security provider who has protected us for millennia from ourselves has now been branded as outdated and unneeded. Its very right to existence is being questioned.
That beleaguered bachelor is of course our conscience. The voice within who cautions us when we do wrong and comments us when we do right. So, today now in this world people say that there is nothing right or wrong.
So, any voice that speaks that this is right, this is wrong, don’t bother about it. So, its very existence is being questioned. And then three phases in western history of cultural degradation they talked about.
When we blatantly displayed sexual obscenity on TV, our consciousness protested. We hit it on the mouth with a rock on which was emblazoned the right to enjoy beauty. The impact made the conscience dumb.
That our right started eroding, erasing the difference between human society and animal society didn’t matter. The right was what mattered. When we piled up tons of explicit content on the internet, our mute conscience expressed shock with its eyes.
Not tolerating its audacity, we gave it an injection on which was embedded the right to sexual freedom. The jack left it numb. That our right led to the skyrocketing of horrendous sexual abuses like rape, incest and pedophilia didn’t matter.
The right was what mattered. When we legalized the murder of the infant by the mother, our conscience though dumb and numb still shuddered. Not wanting to see even its face, we threw it out of the door using a bouncer on whose t-shirt was enshrined our right to moral relativism.
That our right to choose which morality if any to follow. Psychopaths whose morality told them that nothing was wrong in murdering innocent people didn’t matter. The right was what mattered.
The Bhagavad Gita indirectly predicts our getting the rights wrong when it states that intelligence in a mode of ignorance perceives everything topsy-turvy. Sarvata nipali tamasya. Does our dumb, numb, dumb conscience have any chance of survival? Only if we dare to ask ourselves a hard question.
Without it, do we have any chance of survival? Let’s go back up. Just as there are literary ornaments in Sanskrit, there are literary ornaments in English. So, I have not used the Sanskrit terms over here.
I used the English terms because they are more intelligible for most people today. So here, if you see, the metaphor, the literary ornament that I use the most in this article is a form of alliteration. Alliteration is same.
If you see, the sound is repeated. The same sound is repeated over there. And that, when the alliteration occurs at the beginning of a sentence, it is called anastrophe.
When the alliteration occurs at the end of a sentence, it is called epistrophe. When it occurs in the middle of a sentence, it is called semistrophe. So, now, the same thing, outdated and unneeded.
We have ED, then DED, TED. The sound is similar. EDED is identical.
That is a parallel structure. You can just go to the right. Now, if you see in this structure, next line, just go here, towards the right.
It is, of course, our conscience, the voice which, within, who, I can see the full line. So, now, it cautions us when we do wrong and commends us when we do right. So, here you can see, there are different words could have been used, but caution and commend.
So, both start with C, both end with S. And right and wrong, they are opposite words, they are different words, but they are semantically connected. They are opposite to each other. And like that it goes on.
Now, if you see in the middle of the sentence, each of the three next paragraphs, was emblazoned. The word starts with E, ends with D, and the right to enjoy beauty. Go to the next paragraph.
Was embedded, the right to sexual freedom. So, was, a word starting with E, ending with D, and the right to. These three are symmetrical in all the three lines.
Go to the next line. Was enshrined, go to the bottom, and if you see all these three paragraphs, just go up, all the three paragraphs end with the same sentence. The right was what mattered.
The right was what mattered. Go down. The right was what mattered.
These are all examples of epistrophe. Epistrophe is, where the last part of a phrase or a sentence or a paragraph is repeated. Now, getting the right wrong, this is what is called as oxymoron.
Oxymoron means when two opposite words are brought together. One side is an act of courageous cowardice. So, it requires courage to end your life.
But, if you are ending one’s life because of frustration at the problems in life, that is cowardice. So, it’s an act of courageous cowardice. It’s an oxymoron.
The most famous oxymoron in our philosophy is Yoga Maya. Yoga is that which takes us closer to Krishna. Maya is that which takes us away from Krishna.
So, what is this Yoga Maya? So, Yoga Maya is normally illusion takes us away from Krishna. Yoga removes illusion and takes us closer to Krishna. But, Yoga Maya is the illusion that takes us closer to Krishna.
Normally, illusion takes us away from Krishna. But, Yoga Maya is the illusion that intensifies the devotional affection for Krishna. So, Yoga Maya is oxymoron.
Similarly, when two opposite sounding words are brought together, that’s called oxymoron. Now, if you see, the start of the the top of the article we started with, the conscience is dumbed and numbed and dumped. And if you see, go at the end, we use it without does our dumbed, numbed, dumped conscience.
So, there, see normally if you know the grammar rules, if we have a list, we put a and just before the last item in the list. That is the normal way of writing. Sometimes, at that time, for emphasis, put a replace the comma with a and.
That is called a polysyndeton. So, that slowness, it triggers thought. And it brings about contemplation.
So, right at the top, I started with the polysyndeton. When the conscience is numbed and dumbed, dumbed and numbed and dumped. Grammatically, that and between dumbed and numbed is not required.
But, by adding that, that creates a poetic effect which stirs contemplation. Which stimulates contemplation. And if you go at the bottom, now, the article is ending.
The analysis has been done. So, here, an and will slow down the thought. So, removing a concluding and in a series for increasing the effect.
That is called a asyndeton. Asyndeton. Poly means you add a conjunction.
Asyndeton means we remove the conjunction. So, does our dumbed, numbed, dumped conscience have any chance of survival? Asyndeton. the conclusion is, if you see, any, have any chance of survival.
Have any chance of survival. So, that, usually, when, when we want to leave an audience with a message. So, if there is a resonant message, resonant means not just loudly spoken, but that which is echoing.
Then, that carries as a message. So, the critical message is brought there as an echoing sound. Have any chance of survival? Have any chance of survival.
When I started writing Gita Deji, I had planned that every article that I write, I will allocate one hour every day to write an article. And I thought as I keep writing, writing will become easier. Recently, I met Jai Bhedwara.
He told me that the more you write, the tougher writing becomes. Why? Because, you learn to find your own faults. Initially, we think whatever I write, it is very good.
But after we start writing, we start understanding how there are so many problems in this. I try to do something and actually, writing is not just a matter of putting words on paper. Bringing them together in a way that has conveys a message and also, conveying the message is for the head.
But when these sort of ornaments are used, it actually at a subtle level touches the heart. Poetry is not so much for the head. Prose is for the head.
Poetry is for the heart primarily. So, when we use poetic ornaments in prose, then the impact goes to both the head and the heart. So, recently, I was just in America.
I met Giriraj Maharaj over there. Giriraj Maharaj encourages me quite a bit in writing. So, Giriraj Maharaj told me that he had met, he and Bhurijan Pramod do this, I think, camp together in Govardhan.
So, he said that they are usually there. So, I had given one of my books to Bhurijan Pramod and I had given the same book to Giriraj Maharaj also. So, when Bhurijan Pramod and Giriraj Maharaj met, they talked about various things.
So, they talked about my book and me. So, Bhurijan Pramod told this to Giriraj Maharaj and Giriraj Maharaj told this to me. He said that in ISKCON, right now, Chaitanya Chahar is the only person who is pursuing writing as an art.
So, many devotees are writing. But, I hope that in our Vishwaprabhupada himself started using the English language and we have Vishwaprabhupada’s followers who have also written a lot. But now, if we see, ISKCON’s powerhouse is in India.
It has the maximum number of devotees, the maximum number of temples, the maximum number of devotees distributed, the maximum number of preaching. So, the Indian devotees have a lot of responsibilities for carrying on the legacy. Bhaktiri Samut Maharaj told me that on an average, among Christians, for every hundred Christians, they have one writer.
So, with ISKCON, as far as we go, we have thousands of devotees and we have very very few writers. And, our movement needs very much articulate writers. And, writing requires time, but I hope this small glimpse, my intention was not to glorify myself, but my intention was to demonstrate how English or any language that we are using, it can be used in Krishna’s service.
Not just as a tool for communication, but for a tool for touching the heart by using, our Acharyas use literary devices in their Sanskrit works. So, now, English is the final language, so we can use literary devices in whatever we write, in whichever language we are communicating with. And that way, we can not only share Krishna’s message, but we can also glorify and beautify Krishna.
This is the Pujari. Glorifies Krishna with flowers. For a writer, the writing, Krishna manifests as Ittimurta Vidhanina Mantramurthi So, that Lord who is unmanifest becomes manifest as sound.
So, for a writer, Krishna manifests as the sound. Sorry, not as the sound, as the words. So, as the writing.
So, we can beautify Krishna with the words that we use in His service. So, every word that we use in His service, just the Pujari offers flowers and makes beautiful decorations. So, there are certain people who are attracted to the beauty of the readings.
So, that is a visually appealing manifestation of Krishna. Writing is a intellectually and literally appealing manifestation of Krishna. And that can attract a different class of people.
So, I seek the blessings of all the devotees so that I can continue my small service. Very much. Hare Krishna.