Vaishnava Sadachara 3 – Acting according to time place circumstance

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Hare Krishna. Welcome to this Vaishnava sadāchārya course. Now we are discussing the consideration of time, place and circumstance in Vaishnava delics.
Now this principle of deśa-kāla-vibhāga-vitta, one who is a knower of time and place and adjusts accordingly. This comes at least twice in the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. First is in the prayers of, in Bhishma’s pastime, when Bhishma is lying on an arrow bed and at that time, when all the sages come, he is unable to offer him obeisances because he is prostrate and the arrows have sealed him to the ground practically.
So then, just by his gestures, he offers his respects to the sages and the narrator that is Śrīla Goswami mentions that actually Bhishma Pitāma was expert and he knew dharma, jñāna, knowing dharma, he adjusted the principle of offering a tikya, of offering respect to sages according to the time, place, circumstance, according to the situation that he was in bed and he was in arrow bed, immobilised. So accordingly, he offered respects but not exactly the same way. And similarly, again, Deśa-kāla-vibhāga, this principle comes in the fourth canto, ninth chapter.
So first is in the first canto, ninth chapter, that is the departure of Bhishma and then in the fourth canto, eighth, ninth, tenth, eleventh chapters are the chapters about Dhruva Mahārāja’s pastime. So therein, when Dhruva Mahārāja goes into the forest, at that time, when he, when Nārada Muni guides him to worship the Lord, now he cannot, he does not, he cannot have proper deity in the forest to worship. So then accordingly, Nārada Muni gives him a method of worship which is adjusted according to time, place, circumstance.
So now, the principle of adjusting according to time, place, circumstance is well acknowledged in scripture. Śrīla Prabhupāda also, in the letter to the Mālakṛṣṇa, Mahārāja states that, this is Titanhurst, 13th October, 1969, Prabhupāda says, so everything should be done very carefully so that the sentiments may not be hurt. According to Sanskrit moral principles, everything has to be acted according, taking consideration of the place, audience and time.
So we will discuss a few reasons why adjustment is required and then we will look at a few factors of what adjust, what should not be done while adjusting. So now, first of all, why is adjustment needed? So as Prabhupāda mentions, so that people’s sentiments are not hurt. Now, why, why should, why is it a matter that people’s sentiments should not be hurt? Sometimes we say that a sādhu, his words are like a knife for a sword and they cut off the attachments of the ignorant conditioned souls.
So shouldn’t a sādhu’s words cut? And cutting will obviously involve hurting. So are we to not speak the truth in the name of sensitivity? No. When we talk about sensitivity, it means not unnecessarily hurting people.
So I would like to here differentiate between sensitivity and sentimentality. By using the example of a surgeon, when a patient is sick and requires surgery, a surgery is quite a painful thing. And the surgeon has to cut the patient to amputate the damaged part or to correct whatever is wrong in the body.
And that surgery is going to be painful. But although it is a given fact that surgery is going to be painful and the surgeons are trained, in fact, it is a part of medical ethics that the surgeon should cause minimum possible pain. And minimum possible pain means that prior to the surgery, usually the patient is given anaesthesia.
Either it will be local anaesthesia after a small surgery, or it can be a whole body anaesthesia, full anaesthesia where the patient becomes unconscious if it’s a major surgery. Along with that, after the patient’s surgery is done, as the anaesthesia’s effects are wearing out, often the patient is given some soporific treatment, some sleep medicine so that the patient just sleeps peacefully. Or the patient wakes up, along with the soporific sometimes pain medicine is given.
Pain medicine also has a sleeping effect. So essentially, during the surgery, the patient is desensitised using anaesthesia to minimise the pain. After the surgery, some pain medicine is given so that the pain is minimal.
So the point is that there is necessary pain, but the necessity of pain is not a licence for maximising pain. It’s not a licence for inflicting unnecessary pain. So sentimentality would mean that the surgeon thinks, oh, if I apply this knife to this person’s body, this person will face so much pain.
So I will not do the surgery at all. We may think that we are not going to cause pain to the person, but there is already the pain because of the disease and that pain will worsen and the patient may even die. So sentimentality means the surgeon abandons the duty of being a surgeon.
That is one extreme. And insensitivity means that the surgeon does the surgery without caring to check whether the anaesthesia has been given or not, without giving the anaesthesia. So what will happen? The patient will be in terrible pain, terrible pain, and the pain is unnecessary.
So now if we want to take things further, now the patient considering the amount of pain that he or she goes through, the patient may eventually do a case against the doctor or at least will give bad press to the doctor saying this doctor caused me so much pain and did not give me anaesthesia. So the doctor’s reputation will be spoiled also. So like that when we are sharing Krishna Consciousness, what do we mean by surgery? Or the sadhus words are like a knife that cuts.
It means that we have to actually definitely counter people’s misconceptions. And many times people have conceptions which they are very attached to. And when they are attached to those conceptions and they have to give up those conceptions, it’s painful for them.
It is like a surgery. And sometimes through logic, through argument, we may have to show them how what they had believed in the past is wrong. So when this has to be done, we cannot avoid doing this.
At the same time, we cannot at the same time take that as a licence for hurting them unnecessarily. So what do we mean by hurting them unnecessarily? That certain misconceptions have to be countered, but that doesn’t mean that basic respect for their feelings is not to be shown. So if we hurt them, if they have certain things which they consider important, which about which they have a lot of sentiments, then speaking harshly about that can unnecessarily hurt and alienate them.
So going back to surgery metaphor, the patient may just go away and go to another doctor. So like that, people are not bound to come to us. And if we do surgery without caring for the pain of the patient, then they will go away.
So when we talk about giving anaesthesia, what does that mean? Usually, even if some strong words have been spoken, if they are spoken within the context of a loving and trusting relationship, where we have invested enough time, energy and thought in the person whereby that person has become convinced that we are their well-wishers, then that relationship of trust acts like the anaesthesia where the pain is minimised when the actual countering is done. So therefore, the, now again, if we go back to the surgery metaphor, surgery is never the first line of treatment. It’s not that as soon as the person comes into a doctor’s clinic, the doctor takes out a knife and starts cutting up the person.
No, the doctor normally tries milder treatments. There can be tablets, there can be pills, maybe the patient is admitted and given a more intensive round-the-clock treatment or there may be an intravenous treatment and normally when the milder forms of treatment fail, only then surgery is another treatment. So the point is that, if we want to take the metaphor further, people are not bound to practise Krishna Consciousness.
Even if they are initiated devotees who have taken vows, still they are ultimately volunteers. Now in this kind of society that we live in, if people feel hurt, people feel insulted, people feel alienated, they can go away and they will stop practising Krishna Consciousness. So unlike a patient who feels sick and feels the need for a doctor, most people in this world don’t feel the need for practising Krishna Bhakti.
So that’s why when they, if they find that there is too much pain involved in the practise of Krishna Bhakti and the pain is coming from those who are supposed to care for them in their practise of Krishna Bhakti, then they may just give up and it is to some extent for various reasons, whatever it may be, but it is a story of a movement that many people have left Krishna Consciousness and one of the reasons for them is they found insensitivity among their leaders, whoever the leaders may be, at different levels. So we don’t want to lose devotees and we don’t want to alienate new people. That’s why sensitivity is important.
So now, I repeat, the difference between sensitivity and sentimentality is that sensitivity means we don’t cause unnecessary pain. V.C. Chaitanya Mahaprabhu was sensitive to his context, cultural context. So that’s why even when he was travelling, he actually would not eat in the house of anyone who was not a Brahmin.
So Chaitanya Mahaprabhu himself was so transcendental to caste distinctions and he considered Bhakti also to be transcendental to caste distinctions. That’s how we see that he made Shri Haridas Thakur as a Namacharya. At the same time, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu did not disturb the minds of people.
As Krishna says in the Bhagavad Gita, that those who are attached, those who have certain preconceptions, don’t agitate their mind unnecessarily. Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, he would stay at the house of, he would take prasad only at the house of Brahmins. So we have the example when Chaitanya Mahaprabhu was in Varanasi.
At that time, he had two intimate associates in Varanasi and a place which was actually filled with Mayavadis and both of them had come there on his instruction. So he wanted to give the association to both of them. But at the same time, it was Mayavad and the Mayavadis would critically observe and everyone, and especially a person who was a sannyasi, this was being observed.
So now he stayed at the, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu stayed at the house of Chandrasekhar Acharya, but for prasad, he would go to the house of Tapana Mishra. So to some extent, he pushed the envelope. Now he went and stayed at the house of a non-Brahmin.
Chandrasekhar Acharya was not a Brahmin, but when it came to prasad, taking prasad, he actually went to the house of Tapana Mishra and every day for the duration that he was there in Varanasi, he took prasad at the house of Tapana Mishra. So here, now Chaitanya Mahaprabhu did not have to do that. He was not going to get contaminated by taking food from anyone.
But he deferred to the social custom of his times. He did not unnecessarily agitate the minds of people. Now in today’s cultural context, we may think, what is such a big thing you take prasad at? Is somebody a devotee? Isn’t a devotee transcendental to all social distinctions? Why did Chaitanya Mahaprabhu not take prasad at the house of somebody who was a sincere devotee, dedicated devotee, was his own associate? But while our objections may seem true to us, seem sensible to us, we are not living in that cultural context and we don’t know what ramifications that would have had in that cultural context.
Similarly, when we live in today’s cultural context, where the Krishna movement has spread all over the world, and different parts of the world, there are different things that set people off, that agitate people. So we have to be sensitive to our cultural context. And just as we might find, of course, we consider Chaitanya Mahaprabhu to be God.
And in that sense, we consider whatever he does to be perfect. But still, if we had a sceptical attitude, we could say, why did Chaitanya Mahaprabhu have to pander to the sentiments of some smart, caste conscious people? That was what was required. So Chaitanya Mahaprabhu in his times was sharing Krishna consciousness according to his time, place, circumstances.
That was what was required and that’s what he did. So that’s why in today’s cultural context, what will be required for sharing Krishna consciousness where it cannot be said very easily by us. So some devotees may do some things in one particular place.
That’s what is required at that place. And those who are in another place, they start judging by their cultural context, thinking why is this required? It’s not needed. But then we don’t know what the cultural context of that place is.
So we have to recognise that there is a need for adjustment. Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’s purpose that some people criticise that in our movement, men and women are both engaged in preaching and that men and women both do this book distribution and men and women both do various kinds of devotional service. So Prabhupada writes that these people don’t understand that actually upbringing cannot be changed overnight.
And the women in the West have been helped, have been brought up in a different way and they practically in most ways deal like men only. So we are very strict about the fact that there are no illicit relationships. But as far as doing preaching activity and book distribution, the women are as good as their brothers, as their male partner.
And we can see that both of them are preaching and the Krishna consciousness movement is spreading wonderfully. So Prabhupada himself had to do a remarkable number of adjustments and he kept the essence, core substance of the same, but he adjusted the presentation. They adjusted the format so that people would not be unnecessarily alienated.
So in the West, I’m talking about from Indian perspective, in the West, the cultural context is different. And Prabhupada’s godbrothers who were in India who criticised him for some of the things that they had never been to the West, they did not know the cultural context of the West. So the first reason, as I said, why we need to adjust according to time and circumstances, so that we are sensitive, so that we don’t alienate people unnecessarily.
So if Prabhupada told Western women that they have to just conform to the standard prototype of a stereotype of a traditional housewife, if they want to become devotees, most of them would not have become devotees. But Prabhupada channelised their energy in bhakti and they did lots of wonderful services for Krishna. So the point is we don’t want to alienate people and that’s why we have to adjust according to time and circumstance so that whatever are their sore spots, we don’t hurt, we don’t tread on them unnecessarily.
Just like if a doctor is treating a patient and the doctor knows that, okay, at this particular point, maybe the doctor is treating the patient and doing surgery in the hand and the doctor knows, okay, at this particular place, the hand had been cut earlier. So there’s some weakness over there. The doctor will be careful not to cut it again over there.
Similarly, people, according to their cultural upbringing, according to their situation, have certain sore spots. And if we touch them, they just become excessively agitated. So knowing their sore spots and not doing anything to unnecessarily provoke their sore spots is a part of our responsibility for preaching as responsible preachers.
Actually, Prabhupada himself, when he went to America first, when he was staying with Sally Agarwal and Gopal Agarwal and their family, so they write how Prabhupada was constantly eager to learn everything. Now Prabhupada would ask how the washing machine works, how the vacuum cleaner works. Prabhupada was interested in practically everything.
Now we wonder, Prabhupada has gone there to preach Krishna Consciousness. Why is he interested in learning this? So Sally Agarwal writes in Leela Amrit that Prabhupada wanted to learn how American culture worked because Prabhupada knew that if I have to present Krishna Consciousness to these people, then I have to understand how they think, what they do, and then I can find out how to present Krishna Consciousness to them. So for a preacher who is preaching in a particular place, being sensitive means not hurting people unnecessarily and not hurting people unnecessarily means taking time out to come to know those people and to know what are their sore spots, what are the ways in which they may get hurt unnecessarily and then to avoid doing those things, avoid speaking those things or doing those things.
So one reason why we need to be sensitive is to avoid hurting people unnecessarily. Second reason is to adjust according to time, place, circumstance. Second reason is so that we can present Krishna Consciousness in an appealing way.
This is a quote of Srila Prabhupada. So this is a letter to Rupanuga, November 4th, 1917. So a letter to Karandhar, November 13th, 1917.
He says, we should tax our brains as to what is the best way to present Krishna Consciousness to particular people at a particular time and place. So Prabhupada is saying we should tax our brain, tax our brains, really think seriously. So he is not saying that, oh just chant Hare Krishna and the streets and people will come and we’ll be happy.
Certainly we should do that and we have done that in broad people also. But Prabhupada is also saying that take responsibility, tax your brain. So as to what is the best way to present Krishna Consciousness to particular people at a particular time and place.
So again this is a matter of presentation according to time, place, circumstance. Now Prabhupada was an expert in this. So for example, once he was asked that, a hippie asked him, Swamiji, what is Vaikuntha like? Now what is the happiness of Vaikuntha like? And what did Prabhupada reply? He said that it is like a ocean of LSD, an ocean of LSD.
Now the hippie was very happy, oh ocean of LSD, that’s what I want, I want to go there. What do I have to do to go there? And he started practising Krishna Consciousness enthusiastically. He was inspired to practise Krishna Consciousness enthusiastically.
Now one of the offences to the holy name is to not give a mundane interpretation of the holy name. Now he is comparing the goal that we go to, the goal to by chanting the holy name, the spiritual world, comparing the happiness of Vaikuntha to an ocean of LSD. Is it giving a mundane interpretation? There is a difference between giving a mundane interpretation and giving an intelligible explanation.
Mundane interpretation is usually a reduction. That which is spiritual is reduced down to the material. So for example, in one of the early Back to Godhead magazines, so initially when Prabhupada started Back to Godhead magazine, he alone was writing articles.
Then when he entrusted his disciples in 1968, that he would run the Back to Godhead magazine now, then they were writing articles. And sometimes they asked some other people who are not devotees also to write articles and those people were favourable. So Allen Ginsberg, who was a popular poet at that time and he was favourable to Bhakti, he was asked to write an article on the holy name.
And then he wrote that the chanting of the holy names, the pleasure that we experience, he started comparing it with the pleasure of orgasm. And he said just as in sex there is pleasure, intense pleasure, like that in chanting there is pleasure. And he started giving a neurological, psychological explanation saying that when we chant, some people started giving explanation like that, that when we chant, then there are certain vibrations that are set off and those vibrations activate certain chemicals in the brain.
And because those chemicals are activated, we feel happy. Now Prabhupada did not approve of this at all. Both the Allen Ginsberg explanation in terms of sexuality as well as the neurological explanation, Prabhupada did not approve of this.
This is speculation. This is mundane interpretation. That means if something which is spiritual is reduced down to the material and people start thinking that this is what it is, then that is a mundane interpretation, which should be avoided.
But when we talk about intelligible explanation, that means now Prabhupada is trying to explain or has the challenge, when a hippie is asking him the question, what is the happiness of Vaikuntha? Prabhupada’s challenge of, there are scriptural descriptions of the happiness of Vaikuntha, but they are in a completely different cultural context. The hippie is not there at a level where he can comprehend that. So Prabhupada gives him an intelligible explanation.
He’s not reducing the transcendental down to the material. He’s not saying, oh, you just keep, if you take a, he’s not implying that if you take an ocean of LSD, you’ll go to Vaikuntha. No, he also tells the process.
There is an ocean of happiness in finite, like an ocean of LSD, but to get there, you need to practise your, you need to purify yourself. You need to practise chanting Hare Krishna. You need to follow the regulative principles.
That means the presentation is not a reduction. It is a appealing way of speaking so that people can understand what is being said. And people not only understand it, people understand it and feel attracted to it.
So it’s an intelligible explanation where the spiritual component is not reduced down to material. Rather, those who are at the material level feel inspired to rise to the spiritual level. That is the idea of giving an explanation according to time, place and circumstance.
So that is a presentation. So we should tax our brains as to what is the best way to present Krishna Consciousness to particular people at a particular time and place. So how to present Krishna Conscious appealingly is very, is a very central challenge of outreach.
So when we understand this, then we can use our knowledge of time, place, circumstance and present Krishna Consciousness appropriately so that people feel attracted. So one is to not alienate people unnecessarily. That is why we need to be sensitive and adjust according to time, place, circumstance.
And second is we need to adjust according to time, place, circumstance so that people are positively attracted. So to avoid the negative and to bring about the positive. Now in this, there is a danger.
The danger is that when we are in the name of adjusting, we may end up deviating. We may end up changing something which is substantial. So in the tradition, there is a central core which is unchangeable and there is a periphery which is changeable.
In fact, which quite often needs to be changed. So or we could say that there are principles which are unchanging and there is, there are details which need to be changed. So they need to be adjusted according to time, place, circumstance.
Now while adjusting according to time, place, circumstance, when we are trying to change the details, details could mean that some small, small things which are not important, they can be adjusted or the presentation, that will be the packaging, the packaging can be changed. So now actually the core preaching, the main change of heart of people will not happen by the packaging. It will not happen by the presentation.
The main change of heart will happen by the pure substance that we are given, by the purity of our intention and the purity of the message that we are given. That is what will transform people. So if adjustments are done in such a way that the core substance gets diluted, then people will not be able to be benefited.
Even though they may get attracted, even they may start practising, but they will not be benefited. The core substance cannot be changed. So there is a letter from Prabhupada to Yogeshwara in December 28, 1971.
So he said, I have seen you as advertisement as shown to me by Shyam Sundar and I think you have made the thing less important. This kind of ad is not good and it is not grave. Our process is to show Krishna consciousness as it is, not as others want to see it.
So now this is again a very deep point. We do not know exactly what was the ad that Yogeshwara Prabhu had prepared and what exactly was the point that Prabhupada was not pleased with. But the point is that when we talk about a presentation, in the name of presentation, there should not be misrepresentation.
So we are providing them one thing and we should not give up image as if we are providing something entirely different because then people will come with a different set of expectations. They will become frustrated when they do not get what they want or they will make us keep changing things so that we will end up without a substance at all. So for example, when we are presenting, when we are distributing Sri Prabhupada’s books, so some devotees in order to distribute books, they try to say all sorts of things about the books which are not there in the books.
So now if you start making claims about the books which people will not find if they purchase the book and read it, then they will get alienated. So that is how a presentation should not mean a misrepresentation. So we should not change the substance and we should not give people a misleading idea of what is the substance.
So now when not giving a misleading idea of what is the substance, that means that in the first impression, we want to give the first impression in such a way that people do not get psyched out. What are these people? What are they doing? Nothing makes sense to me. We do not want people to get psyched out with their first impression.
So we want to give a positive first impression. But eventually we have to give them substance of Krishna consciousness and for that we have to make sure that the core does not change. That there is the core, that means there are two dangers.
One is that in the name of presentation, we do a very distorted presentation so that it is actually a misrepresentation. Or the other extreme is that in the name of presentation, we adjust not only the periphery according to time and place circumstances, but we start adjusting and changing the core also. So this is a complex subject and there are no hard and fast rules about how to adjust things and how much to adjust, what not to adjust.
So these are subjects which have to be carefully thought of by every devotee and based on our understanding of Shri Prabhupada s books, we understand what he has consistently emphasised in his books is what is important for him. And we take that as the central thing and then of course we need to, if we are adjusting according to time and place circumstance, now we can, if it is going to be a major adjustment that is going to affect many many devotees as leaders, then it is best to consult many other senior devotees, at least some other senior devotees whom we trust, who are our guides and we consult with them and then we make a decision after that. Or if we are just doing something as a one-off effect to see how it goes, we can do that, but afterwards introspect carefully, see the effect and then decide whether to continue with that or to not do that anymore.
So adjustment according to time, place and circumstances is needed so that people are not alienated unnecessarily and it is needed so that people are attracted to Krishna Consciousness and adjustment, I mean, our presentation, there are two dangers in it is that we should not become a misrepresentation where people start thinking of us just as something else entirely. Are you simply a humanitarian organisation or if somebody says the Bhagavad Gita helps you to live in an eco-friendly way, now that is true, but that is not the focus of the Bhagavad Gita. If you sell Bhagavad Gita just by saying that and people find that nothing eco-friendly in it, at least at a level where they can immediately perceive it, then if we are going to talk about it, we have to explain a bit more to them how the Bhagavad Gita is eco-friendly and then we can tell them that it gives a broader philosophical picture or whatever.
If we misrepresent it, then people again get alienated and go away. They may initially be attracted, but after attraction, they will be alienated strongly, they will feel misled and cheated. On the other hand, in the name of pandering to people, if you start changing the substance, then they may get attracted, but they will not get connected to Krishna and they will not be benefited and we will ourselves get disconnected from our tradition and the current of mercy that comes in the tradition.
So, this is how by ensuring that we present the substance itself, but present it in a way that does not alienate, but attracts people, we can adjust according to time, place and circumstance. Thank you. Hare Krishna.
Hare Krishna. So, we continue with our discussion on Vaishnava