Vedic Prosperity vs Modern Scarcity

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Rantraj Srimad Bhagavatam ki I have a simple powerpoint presentation which basically contains the outline of what I am going to speak Yeah So I will speak four main points here when we compare Vedic Prosperity versus Modern Scarcity.
These four points I will discuss is sustainability simplicity, sufficiency and spirituality. So now how do we compare or evaluate the situation of society Today it is primarily done in terms of say gross national product or per capita income or say the deficit management for the annual budget or maybe by number of people below the poverty line so all these are valid economic parameters at the same time all these parameters are extremely human centric human centric means they focus on what is the condition of humanity the human population in a particular country none of these parameters say gross national product per capita income which is normally used, they don’t consider what is the toll on nature being taken ok a country may have a very high GNP, a country may have a very high per capita income but how much is it consuming natural resources and how long will those natural resources be available this is largely not considered and certainly not highlighted in our evaluation of prosperity today so the first world, the first world refers to Europe and America, second world used to refer to ESSR the third world is other countries non-aligned countries so the first world has had a lot of prosperity but high per capita income, high GNP whatever, that has not taken into consideration the first point of sustainability how long can it go on so the documentary which we just now saw about pesticides may underscore this point that sustainable development is not possible by tampering with nature to try to make things better using chemicals and insecticides and fertilizers and things like that, especially artificial chemicals, so much of the world is enamored by the prosperity that is there in the west but how much is it sustainable that is a very serious question which ecologists are now beginning to ask and the politicians will have to ask in the near future although they are pushing it off right now sustainability requires that there should be you know, every economy, it will take in some resources, it will give out some resources some products basically so if this is a linear process, if what it takes in and what it gives out if it’s just a linear process then what it takes in will run out and what it gives out will pile up if the economy is based on a linear model then eventually the raw materials that are desirable will run out and the waste products will pile up yesterday when I showed the documentary about the garbage dump outside New York, that was a glimpse of thousands of tons of waste products being produced just piling up and up so much of it is non-recyclable so largely the modern economy is based on a linear model so one of the most defining resources in the linear model is oil oil and associated chemicals like diesel or LPG they are all associated with that, so now our economy takes these in and we take it in in huge quantities and through that when we use it, there is pollution, there are raw materials there are waste products which come out but once this runs out so sustainably requiring of renewable, recyclable resources and that was used in the renegade culture as well as in general in the cultures all over the world before our culture became so techno-centric and materialistic, godlessly materialistic, so currently what we are using is non-renewable non-recyclable resources non-renewable means once the oil supply runs out from underground even if we discover a few more new oil wells, ultimately the earth’s capacity to hold oil is not unlimited, it is finite and it is going to run out, so some thinkers, some researchers are saying we have already come to the peak, we call it peak oil we have already come to the peak and once we go beyond it then the amount of oil that the earth can produce is going to decrease, whereas our requirements are going to increase more and more people are using vehicles, more and more people are using various gadgetry which requires oil, so then what will happen? It is going to be a disaster that will come up of course the human mind is resourceful enough to find out some way out or the other and people will surely find out something, but the key point over here is if the alternative that we find is also non-renewable then we are only shifting the problem, we are not solving the problem so much of modern economy runs on non-renewable resources it is not only oil in the traditional economies whether it is India or the West, the normal sources of fuel would be wood, so especially in India it was cow dung now cow dung is, from that you can get biogas and it is such a natural resource, it is called also, we have associated sister operation called ISCOP International Society for Cow Protection and there are many people who are trying to work towards traditional living so there is much research which shows that actually a cow, even if the cow is not able to give milk just by the dung that it gives if we have effective systems by which we can use cow dung as a fuel maintaining a cow just for the dung is financially not just viable but prosperous it is prosperous why because the dung is a precious fuel resource, the cow may not give milk when the calf grows up or when the cow grows old but it will give dung as long as it lives so now currently the dung, because we don’t have a system to use it we have it in the villages to some extent but elsewhere we don’t have it so the dung disposal takes water, takes resources and requires energy elsewhere we put it in a drain and to purge the drain we need water and then to clean the drain we need chemicals so our modern society actually that is a source of energy, we are wasting energy we need to dispose it off that is how it is happening so the natural way of living is naturally recyclable, a cow will eat grass and will give dung similarly if we use wood as a fuel then the wood is also recyclable, trees will be cut trees will grow so now when we have deforestation that is different we are not cutting trees primarily for fuel we cut them for paper which is ok, we need paper but not in mass quantities trees have to be sorted for that most often deforestation happens to expand industrialization and the industries won’t use wood as a fuel so certainly we may feel from the superficial point of view that oil makes things more convenient cow dung is more messy wood is more messy but there are many traditional farmers and traditional workers who can actually devise a system in which we can use dung and wood also in a very clean and hygienic way a non-messy way so here the point is the moral civilization is not sustainable even the countries that have prosperity that prosperity is not going to last for very long the fuel will run out our civilization is also very much metal-centric metals are naturally required but we use metals in far greater quantities compared to what we used earlier again metals are a finite resource we see now most of the time in our camps we try to use potholes, we try to use pots so these potholes they are naturally going to grow on the trees they are clay pots they are also naturally available resources but when we use too much metal metal may be used for heating but when we use metal everywhere then it becomes a extremely unsustainable and one of our devotees she is a doctor in Bakhtiyar hospital she has made a very beautiful movie it is called Plastic Asur Plastic Asur so like we have Vakasur, Adhasur so Plastic Asur so she goes to schools and presents this and they have created a big propaganda for awareness so there is this PPT which I don’t have time to show I have it with me but basically how we use plastic so extensively now and it has become a part of life. Plastic firstly derives from petrochemicals and secondly it is very difficult to destroy it is not biodegradable leave alone recyclable recyclable means the same thing we can use again biodegradable means even if we can’t use we can destroy it in a way that doesn’t cause any harm plastic is generally not very easily recyclable once you have used it nor is it biodegradable so what they go to schools and then they create awareness and they tell the children that don’t use plastic and instead use paper bags and what paper paper also you have to recycle the newspapers so what the children do is quite a successful campaign in Mumbai they do the seminars and tell the children that you, whatever newspapers are there at your home, you get them to school once a month and in the school the devotees near Mumbai, they have got a farm community and in the farm community they have employed the local villagers to make paper bags so in general, so the paper that would go as a waste that comes to the schools from the schools the Scottish industry devotees, they collect it and then they make it into paper bags and then they sell it, so that way what happens they stop using paper and we start regenerating and reusing stop using plastic and start using paper more and more so depending on the whole symbiotic field that is growing up, so in a small way this is happening and this can increase, so it’s not very complicated to move towards a sustainable economy even today but in principle we need to recognize that even if there is some prosperity that prosperity is not sustainable, whatever is there in the west, it is not sustainable and that’s with respect to the, I could go I could have a whole seminar on this sustainability itself, but I feel that I have conveyed adequately on this point let’s move forward, second is simplicity, simplicity one of you mentioned about how there was the gurukula system of education so actually in the varanashram system, the varana provides arrangement for the body and the ashram provides arrangement for the soul what does it mean? a person who is in a particular varana, person is a brahman a person is a kshatriya, vaisya, shudra then that becomes that person’s career so the advantage of the varana system is the professional life of people becomes very simple why? because right from the childhood, a person gets training in a particular field and he goes forward and specializes in that field so if a person is you know, we generally say that in the caste system, in the varanashram the division was not by birth but actually it’s not that birth is inconsequential, birth does matter, birth plays a significant role if suppose somebody is supposed to is to become a doctor and his mother is a doctor, father is a doctor then the atmosphere of childhood is conducive somebody is supposed to become a a weaver then right from the childhood he sees the mother and father weaving, he learns weaving right from the childhood it’s a head start over competition so actually today many people have so much career anxiety so there are two aspects one is career anxiety and second is unemployment career anxiety is what? what career should I choose? what vocation should I choose? so because of the because of the glamorization of certain professions like engineering and medicine, most people come into engineering but according to a recent survey something like 70 to 80 percent of students in the top engineering colleges they don’t continue in the engineering career after their education they go either mostly they either get into software, there’s a lot of money there or they go into management so IIM or something like that or they go into finance so then what happens by this? first people work so hard to get an education almost 16 years is spent in studies 10 plus 6 whatever is there and after that again we go into some other field where we have to learn a substantial amount of things new so there is so much anxiety in the process so much so much loss of time and resources and mental energy now we are not saying that this thing can be changed overnight but at least identifying the problem over here so the problem is that in the Varana system if a person knows okay this is my vocation then right from the childhood the career chart is clear for a person not only is the career chart clear actually the person gets a head start in the career because right from the beginning he can learn those skills from the family environment itself so by simplicity we are talking about the simplicity of decision making, the simplicity of the career chart, the simplicity of the overall methods means of earning livelihoods so today one is career anxiety second is unemployment what happens is because people are so dependent on the social economic system that is so complex that is so unsustainable that people get 16 years of education and after that if there is a recession with all the knowledge that they have it is very difficult to start off becoming a independent entrepreneur so one has to depend on for employment in a setting which is very unpredictable and uncontrollable on the other hand if a person is engaged in necessary professions then those necessary skills are required in every situation every society and that is why things keep moving forward so I will talk about simplicity a little bit more the opposite, if there is no simplicity there is anxiety so who would like to read this? do we have a mic? yes please, where is the mic? ok here it is not working try the other one ok ok so just look at the statistics 1 in 5 comes from anxiety disorder see anxiety disorder is different from anxiety everybody has anxiety but when the anxiety becomes chronic and the anxiety becomes uncontrollable that is called anxiety disorder so 1 in 5 people are suffering from this and 1 in 10 people are suffering from depression so this is quite a large percentage so both kinds of people go to psychiatrist also because of loneliness so anxiety can have many reasons one of the main reasons is finances because of financial insecurity relationships so basically when the life is simple the anxiety is much lesser when the life is complex the anxiety becomes so much more further the USA is the world anxiety champion so yes who would like to read this? where is the mic? somebody else? ok here it is you can read this quickly Hare Krishna ok now yes two points he is making Americans are financially better off than Nigerians or other countries since they are more anxious 5 times the anxiety level is higher for Americans and these third world countries people when they come to America they also become anxious that means this anxiety is not related with genetics it is related with lifestyle what are the characteristics of lifestyle? that lifestyle is actually it is complex it is so much insecurity with the modern way of living things can go wrong anywhere you could say that is natural to the material world but it is to some extent much more aggravated when we live in an artificial economy so looking at it further is it the anxiety caused by the state of the economy? no even when the economy was in great shape as it was in 2004 Americans spent 2.1 billion dollars on anti-anxiety meds almost double the amount spent in 1997 now we know 2007 was the big recession so even when the economy was booming still the amount of money spent on anxiety was far far greater so actually speaking this anxiety is indicative of something endemic, something internally wrong and one critical factor is complexity as Krishna describes in the Bhagavad Gita here you can recite after me chintam aparimeyam cha pralyantam upashritah kamopbhog parama etavaditi nishchitah so chintam aparimeyam cha immeasurable anxiety pralyantam till the moment of destruction or death why? kamopbhog parama because of the determination I use sponsors gratification I don’t care for anything else etavadi nishchitah so now this is a very interesting thing we are talking about simplicity and complexity so who would like to read this yes please is it working yeah so so what does this mean too much choice for example what happens is when the social culture is too materialistic too external too external focused then everything that a person does becomes a statement about that person look at this so basically what happens is so if I choose a dress then if I am going to choose a jeans jeans is not just something I wear but it’s a statement about who I am if I am using a cell phone it’s not just a utility device it’s a statement about who I am so everything so if I come in a class if I sit ahead sit middle, sit behind so culture is very external centric everything becomes a very loaded decision every single decision so for example if I am going in a class if I speak something people are worrying what will other people think about me what will the girls in the class think about me so when every small small basically when a culture is very fashion centric very external centric, very status centric then every statement every decision becomes a statement it’s a statement that creates anxiety so we do the same things for example if I am sitting in a class should I make notes or should I just hear when people are going to judge me by that then what will happen that will become such a big issue so should I do that or should I not do that now this may seem trivial but that is what happens in materialistic society every single thing you do do you wear goggles or you don’t wear goggles do you keep curly hair or straight hair do you keep a beard or you don’t keep a beard so all these actually are trivialities from the absolute point of view or even from the materially worthwhile point of view but all when in a fashion centric culture where there is no simplicity, there is complexity then these take up so much of the mental nerves that it causes anxiety so I talked about simplicity in two terms here one is in terms of lifestyle career choosing and second is in terms of the fashions so when there is no simplicity it makes simple things complex and complex things cause anxiety so as devotees we may not be able to go back to simplicity of the Varna system, we socio-economically can’t do that but from the other point of view, we can at least minimize the complexity of the choices as devotees all of us have the same Nruti Kurta, so there is no anxiety what dress I will wear for Brahmachari there is no hairstyle or at least there is a particular hairstyle that does not require much anxiety because there is no hair only so if we have too much complexity then every small fallacy will take so much mental energy so to the extent we do simply we will find that our life will become free from anxiety it’s not certainly free from all anxiety but lot of anxiety will become free from cause every single thing if it becomes a fashion statement then people think so much about it so people especially those who are too much into fashion for example women who are very fashionable sometimes just to dress they will take hours and wear this, how does this look how does this look it’s actually a trivialization of the precious time which is there for human beings did I tell this joke about the lift when I was there with Kanchipriya there is one lift, it’s a real life there is one building where there is a tall building several stories, so the lift was very old fashion, so the lift would go very slowly up and all the tenants in the building complained he said you should make the lift faster, it goes so slow and the owner of that building was a miser he was thinking I don’t want to spend money because you have to change a lot of machinery and everything to make the lift faster what is the way out so he called a consultant, he said I will give you a solution, he said you what you do is you put mirror on all three walls inside the lift, he said how let’s solve the problem, he said just try it out so what happened, when he put the mirror as soon as people enter what happens is they look at the mirror and the hand goes in the pocket start combing, start looking how I am looking and they forget the time so he just put the mirror and the complaint stopped completely so actually people are so bodily conscious so bodily conscious there is a devotee doctor in America he is a professional doctor earlier he was, now there is a whole field where actually people who don’t have hair, they want to grow hair or their hair doesn’t grow properly so actually he is a hair specialist doctor, so he got into this field because there is a lot of money in this so what you do is actually you treat the hair medicinally by which a person straight hair will become curly, curly hair will become straight, white hair will become black black hair will become blonde, blonde hair will become black and all this this is normally done in the boutiques, but you can do it medically also and he said this is the most paying of all medical professions most paying, why because people who come to this field, they have a lot of money anyway and they are concerned with fashion so it is one of the most paying, the point again I am making is trivialities become big issues when we are in an external centric culture and then the trivialities take up so much of the mental management, simplicity is a virtue which we can adopt in our own lives and that will make our life more peaceful and happier and sufficiency sufficiency is the third point which we are talking so actually today every city has slums and what are the slums the slums are filled with development refugees what is a refugee when there is some disaster then the people who are victimized by disaster they are called as refugees but normally we would not use the word development refugees because we think development leads to improvement of things but actually all these people most of the people who live in slums in the cities they are development refugees what does development refugees mean that they were living in villages and they just couldn’t farm either because of the glamour of the city life or because their land was taken over by the government because they wanted to convert into industrialization or their land became unfertile because of too much use of pesticides or their land they had to convert to make a dam over there now dam seems to be a quick solution where there is no water we can get water but again it is not a sustainable solution because what happens when the river water is coming down it comes down through the mountains it brings slits with it it brings soil, top soil with it so a dam may be say 500 meters, 300 meters, 900 meters so you can control the water that goes out of it that way you can direct the water but every year when the river comes the river brings slits with it and that slits keeps piling up piling up and as the slits piles up within sometimes 10 years, 15 years 20 years, 25 years the slit becomes so tall that actually the dam can store lesser and lesser water at the end of it the dam just becomes an artifact the dam becomes functionally useless and this has not happened in India because dams are not so old India started making big big dams not so long ago but it happened sooner or later and then actually to make a dam the river has to be so many villages have to be disrupted so basically when we try to it’s not saying that no dam should be made at all but the point is when we try to go in for quick fix solutions it leads to problems so the village economy was sufficient what do we mean by sufficient it was self sufficient every village it would produce its own meat and other people it would produce grains other villages would take it that’s why we will see that in India so many conquerors came to India and they devastated India they plundered India as well Alexander was one of the biggest ones, 324 BC round about he came but before him also there were a few and after him there were many more now all the Islamic invaders they came to India because India was a prosperous country how many countries want to raid Somalia there is no money over there actually to raid Somalia to take a military expedition we will spend more money than what we will get by raiding so the thing is if anybody attacks a country it’s because there is some value in that country so Afghanistan is a poor country but America wanted control because geopolitically it is strategically important but India from the point of view of the old world it was very prosperous that’s why so many conquerors were attacking but the remarkable thing is if you look at the history of India the Muslims came first time in 1000 and even before that there were invaders and generally actually Muslims also came from when I am talking about Muslims we are not just branding Muslims as invaders in a generic sense I am just talking in a broad sense that they were invaders so there is not one Muslim dynasty some Muslims came from Turkey some came from Iran area some came from Mongolia side they themselves came and they would invade and sometimes they would fight among the Muslim rulers although the country was devastated again and again still the country became prosperous why? because the wealth of the country was in the villages not in the cities the cities were the visible symbols of prosperity and naturally the invaders would attack and plunder the cities but the city’s prosperity was coming from the villages the villages were self sufficient they would grow graves and that would keep producing prosperity year after year decade after decade, generation after generation but today’s society its prosperity doesn’t come from the villages it comes from the industries in fact farming is actually in many ways financially very difficult to sustain because of today’s economy so because there is no sufficiency in today’s economy not only are the villages not sufficient even countries are not sufficient much of a country’s wealth comes from outside the country and if there is any political upheaval the country’s resources can become very short so when there is no sufficiency when there is dependence there is more precariousness, more uncertainty prices shoot up when Britain was ruling India at that time the Japanese were attacking from the eastern front so when they were attacking from the eastern front the Britishers realized that we don’t have enough military resources to resist them and he had joined the Axis forces so here in Bengal they were not ready to resist the Bengalis were not cooperating with the Britishers so what the Britishers did was they just captured all the crops in the country, especially in this area and they thought that we are going to retreat and first they wanted to force the Indians to join the army, they captured all the crops and removed all the crops from the market and the only way people could get grains was they had to go to the Britishers and the prices went up and the Britishers said we will give you money if you join the army so they forced people to join the army but after this all you cannot win then they just captured all the crops whatever they had in the godown, just burnt it completely, burnt it and that the famine that resulted in 1943-44-45 that is one of the greatest man made disaster almost 4 lakh Bengalis died at that time and actually it was not because of drought or something like that it was because entirely man made entirely man made and so at that time the Indian governor, he was there British governor, so he sent a message to Churchill he says you know people are dying in the streets of India please send some food so actually food supplies were going from Australia to England but Churchill said no food supplies will go to India he said Indians are dying so he sent a telegram thousands of Indians are dying the streets are littered with corpses so Churchill sent a telegram back why has Gandhi not died till now so this total brutal indifference my emphasis here is not going to politics the emphasis which I am making over here is that when the sufficiency model that was there that was disrupted either by artificial political developments or by a lopsided model of economics that caused disaster so most of the modern economy is not based on sufficiency model it cannot sustain so till now again like in our technology discussion we did not discuss spirituality we discussed material harms so till now we have not come to spirituality at all the first thing we discussed was sustainability, simplicity, sufficiency now let’s come to spirituality I won’t go too much into this but when a society is arranged according to spiritual principles then the education for people the upbringing of the generation and the ethics in society all of them are maintained because when there is no spirituality then the education becomes grossly materialistic when the education becomes grossly materialistic when children are taught that they have come from monkeys then what will stop them from behaving like monkeys isn’t it so there is no moral or spiritual or ethical imperative for the children to discipline themselves essentially when the education is materialistic that’s what results so there was an article in New York Times about rotten spoiled kids so there was a so basically there was a sociologist a lady she went from she wanted to compare how children are brought up in first world countries and third world countries they said in first world countries children have a lot of prosperity they are the thing so she went to Africa to one tribe in Africa they had a very hard life so they were theistic people they had belief in the tribal religion but quite devoted so when they went to this village they had to go from one village to the forest to search for honey and other things which they would collect from the forest so now she said I will go and observe how these people live and then one small 4 year old girl she said I want to travel with you so she traveled with all of them and she was observing her focus was on how community lives and how upbringing happens so this 4 year old girl she had no role in the party that was going to the forest but she herself took up some so when all the villagers would come and bring some resources from the forest she herself took up the role of arranging things in stacks and keeping them order nobody told her to do it and nobody instructed her and every day several hours she would spend on doing this and he said that as compared to this they showed sorts of parents in America and children in America children all day playing video games, watching TV they are forced to go to school and then the child is coming and the father says you have to go to school now the child is telling the father tie my shoes the child is telling the father tie my shoes the father says tie it yourself so you tie it the child is shouting at the father and the father just ties it and then the child just moves like right in the face of the father he says put this also put it yourself and he says practically speaking between the child and the father there is like a civil war going on a civil war going on and he says what is happening actually this is not just one incident it’s a common incident that children are completely out of control children are pampered and it just can’t be controlled we are given so much facility there is so much prosperity there actually the children are living in adversity but still they are becoming responsible here children have prosperity but they are becoming so irresponsible not just irresponsible not doing studies but irresponsible in terms of basic civil behavior so they said the reason is that there are no deeper values there are no deeper values because the whole culture is materialistic children are just thinking material enjoyment is also watch video games watch TV and boss around that is the idea there is no culture of service whereas in all traditional societies there is a culture of service the children are contributing members right from the childhood so with respect to education, with respect to upbringing there is this culture of service which is there so this is actually the most important defining difference between modern society and traditional society all traditional societies are more or less centered on a culture of service that means if I am taking something from someone I should give something in return if I am a receiver I need to be a contributor also in the modern society a cause of contributing is very little there certainly there is no idea of contributing to nature nature is meant just to be like a cake of pie which you just have to take and consume and that model doesn’t work so as devotees how does this matter to all of us practically practically speaking you know we cannot go back, most of us will not be able to practically able to go back to traditional lifestyles we may still have to live in cities and we may have to work as a part of the modern socio-economical structure itself at the same time, firstly in principle we understand that the spiritual way of living with a traditional way of living it is enormously natural and prosperous and secondly within our lifestyle as much as natural elements that we can bring in, we can bring it and India’s prosperity was based not just on these principles the ultimate principle is that actually when there is harmony with God, then nature showers her gifts so when we today try to bring in harmony with God if we start chanting Hare Krishna performance in Kirtan Yajna that is one day we harmonize ourselves with God once we harmonize ourselves with God nature will bring its prosperity so we may not be able to conceive how the socio-economic wrongs will be made right now but there are deeper forces involved the deeper force is that there is God’s will through which nature acts so if we start living in harmony with nature, there will be a significant minority of people who start living in harmony with nature then that will lead to adequate prosperity coming out by God’s grace how that will happen, we are not able to conceive it right now, but actually as shown in the documentary, the people who shift to organic means now, even now they are able to produce adequately and more than adequately globally now, there is the vegan movement which is coming up which is talking about vegetarianism as a more natural way of living so there is to some extent shifting of consciousness towards a more natural way of living and as devotees we understand the natural way of living is not just harmony with nature it is harmony with God who is the creator of nature and that is what Krishna consciousness ultimately contributes to the prosperity, the real prosperity is not just by living in harmony with nature, that is important but real prosperity is by living in harmony with God, so when we do that then we are contributing to solving the problem by going to its roots thank you very much are there any questions about this topic I will go to the questions about the previous topics whatever I have questions in mind any questions ok why in some temple example Puri, there are some sculptures carved on every temple building showing union of men and women so there are it is not just Puri, there are many places where they are like this and we have to understand that the Indian culture everything that is there in the Indian tradition was not necessarily according to the sculptures India as traditionally there were variety of people, we should not think that everybody in traditional India was pure devotees there is variety, so there can be it is not that for all cultures of this kind, there is one reason there are variety of reasons I will just mention a few of those reasons so one reason is that there is in the Vedic tradition first let’s see by the temples, the clear understanding that there is a hierarchy in the cosmology we are in the earth’s planetary system then there are, through the seven lokas when we go up, through the heavenly planets ultimately we come to Vaikunthi so now most temples have seven gates so why the seven gates? the seven gates represent the seven planetary systems through which we go ultimately there is the altar where the deity is there so we have to go to the seven gates, that means we have to go to the saptalokas seven planetary systems, we come to Vaikunthi see temple the temple architecture is a replica of the cosmological structure and it is described in the scriptures that when we go through towards the spiritual world all of us we will go through the heavenly planets and in the heavenly planets there is a lot of sensual enjoyment available there are the apsaras and people are enjoying with the apsaras so if the soul who is on the way to the spiritual world gets tempted by that the soul will get distracted the soul has to be there is no pleasure in this I have to keep going straight forward so similarly that universal architecture is replicated, that’s why generally all these sensuous depictions will be in the outer walls of the temple you won’t find them directly near the altar anywhere why the outer walls? because those outer walls represent the heavenly planets so when the person is going towards the temple, the person should not get attracted to the pleasures that are depicted over there but go straight to the darshan floor that’s the first point second point is that there was a there was a sort of distorted understanding of Vedic philosophy which came up in the form of Ajrayan Buddhism, Buddha taught celibacy but later on some Buddhist literature came up which had the whole idea of Tantra Tantra was that, actually there is no basis of this historical Buddha but these writings started saying that actually you don’t have to be sense controlled to go beyond the world my early disciples were not so advanced so I taught them sense control but now I will tell you a secret you can go beyond the world through sex in fact the more sex you do, the more you will advance so the idea of Tantra is it’s a strange idea and the idea that through sexual union one can make spiritual advancement actually that doesn’t work like that, because it makes one bodily conscious, but there is since that time, people want to justify themselves by all possibilities so this is also one way which has come up so Tantra has a tradition that sex will lead to spiritual advancement it doesn’t really have a scriptural basis, it’s a distortional scriptural there are many temples which are based on Tantra ideas that’s why Dajanta, Ellora caves are there there also this sort of depictions are there they are results of the Vajraya and Buddhism and Tantric ideas so this sort of ideas are not coming from the Vedic means, they are coming from the fringes which are the distortions within the Vedic means, so this is the second reason Tantra might be depicted and Tantra, so there are there are actually temples related to Tantras but those are not those are not actually talking about the Vedic confusions at all but this tradition is also there, so that’s why some depictions might also be there in the Vedic tradition also there is Kama Sutra Kama Sutra is a book which is written by Vatsyayana who himself was a celibate, now why do you write about sense gratification like that then in the Vedic tradition Dharma, Artha, Kama, Bhoksha is a normal procreation so this is the Karma kind of procreation, you do Dharma for Artha and Artha we do Kama, so in the start of the book itself Vatsyayana describes clearly that this should not be considered the ultimate goal, this is a transitional goal of life, most people need Kama, so how that Kama can be enjoyed that is described in this book so there are certain places depictions of Kama Sutra also that’s one more reason why there can be these depictions fourth is that there might be in some places depictions of Radhakrishna’s pastimes also so actually speaking as I told earlier Radhakrishna’s pastimes are transcendental entirely but in general in the Indian culture there was there was for example Geet Govind is a book which describes Radhakrishna’s pastimes and when people have a background understanding of holiness then even if Radhakrishna’s pastimes are depicted people understand that this is transcendental but however when the when the Europeans came to India in the 18th and 19th century there was what is called the Bengal Renaissance so the Christians came with their ideas of morality and they said your temples are filled with such dirt and then they had their ideas of morality so when they came they did not consider Krishna to be a god so they brought their ideas of morality on Hinduism and they judged us wrong and many Hindus also became embarrassed by that and because of that the Hindu sensibilities were shaped by Christian moral conceptions then Hindus started becoming embarrassed and as a response to that also in general the Vaishnavacharya said that because we are not able to see these things in a transcendental way we should not talk about them but traditionally when people had an understanding that there is the male-female relationship in the sacred realm also then that relationship was seen in a different light but when that is seen materially today so many people today perform their own illicit activities like there is this whole in Navratri there is Garbha and people often perform Raas dance also at such times and they imitated Radha Krishna and then what happens there are women who become pregnant by that and then they do abortions after that so it is a very demoniac misrepresentation so in the tradition Raas Leela was celebrated, Raas Leela was depicted Raas Leela was never imitated even now in Vrindavan they pop up Raas Leela but they have children doing it there is a small boy, actually Radharani is played by a small child Krishna is also played by a small child and then both the child generally it is played by males only so that is a tradition there because it is understood that we will not be able to see it purely so they maintain the tradition they depict Raas Leela but they do it in a pure way but the sensuality period comes everywhere and that comes in this sort of imitation of Raas Leela and the perversions that we have so as Prabhupada would say if an ordinary man and woman start doing nonsense and they call it Raas Leela it is not Raas Leela, it is Raas Kann Leela so in a few places the Raas Leela would also be depicted but actually Prabhupada told that we may have Radha Krishna together on the altar and in some pictures but because we are unable to see things purely so that is why we avoid these things in the depictions that are there within ISKCON, in the books or in the architecture and even when we go to such temples we should avoid seeing these because they will agitate our minds so it can be because of there are multiple reasons that are possible so each specific temple what was the reason, that will vary according to time, place and circumstances but in general it was understood that sensuality is not the goal of life sensuality has to be transcended and how that is to be transcended that will vary according to individual’s determination, is this answer clear any questions on this fine after watching documentaries on environmental issues one becomes pretty sure that world is going to end or there will be scarcity of appropriate drinking water by 2015 but according to Vedas Kaliyuga still has lakhs of years to end so should people who have faith in Vedas need not worry ok well maybe saying that scarcity of drinking water by 2015 may be too specific a prediction to come true, you see the Vedic philosophy is not a doomsday philosophy you know what is a doomsday philosophy by this time the whole world is going to get destroyed so and therefore you surrender to Krishna otherwise you will also be destroyed and that is not the Vedic philosophy Shri Prabhupada, in the Vedic scriptures there is a description of hellish planets, Shri Prabhupada did not emphasize that to me, that is there but we want people to understand through philosophy and practice Krishna Consciousness so environmentally there may be problems but there will be solutions which will also come up the human being is not strong enough to destroy the whole world we can harm significant parts of the world but we are not enough to destroy the whole world and things will go on but does that mean that as devotees we should not worry no, actually as devotees we need to be concerned because we are living in a society and if the society economy becomes more takes a downturn, we will be affected and not only that we don’t want to just ourselves become purified and go back to Godhead, we also want to enable others to go back to Godhead so both attitudes are unbalanced, to think that oh everything will be destroyed actually we are just helpless or because the Vedas say that Kali Yuga is going to end after a long time, there is no need to worry the understanding of the Vedic culture is that things may go in a particular way but all of us have our individual responsibility so yes, Kali Yuga things may go worse and worse but it’s like rains are going to come, the prediction of Kali Yuga is like a prediction of inclement weather, hostile weather so rains may come but that doesn’t mean that we have to become that each of us can get an umbrella and we can share umbrellas with others but presently, why are we talking about these things? Because most people don’t even see the rains coming so we tell them these rains are coming and you need an umbrella, take these umbrellas so we should equip ourselves with an umbrella and we should share the umbrellas with others that’s why we can’t be indifferent about material things, material applicable, at the same time we should emphasize the material problem so much that we think that is the basis of the preaching that will not lead to sustained preaching when in the 1970s there was a fear that there is a third world war and because of nuclear weapons everything will be destroyed so Prabhupada said no even if there is a war that will not necessarily force people to become devotees because there is danger always in this world, actually people have to become devotees, they need to understand the principles of life and harmonize themselves with the principles and that will come through education what is 786? what do you mean by 786? oh ok I am just looking for all these questions see different religions have different symbols I don’t want to go into symbolic significance of every single symbol but basically certain numbers are considered sacred in certain traditions, so there is some kind of story, I think I’ll not get into that story, maybe I’ll answer this separately individually later, the important point is different religious traditions have certain symbols which they consider important and those symbols are used to connect they are used as tools for connecting our thoughts with transcendence, so in Islam they may have that half crescent shape moon, in Vedic traditions they may have om in Christianity they have cross so each symbol has its significance and story but the broad principle is that it is used to connect the human thought with the divine what is the relationship between Mahamaya and Subhadra ok sorry, Subhadra Maya and Srimati Radharani Srimati Radharani is the source of all goddesses, she is the Avidevi Devi Krishnamai, Drupada, Radhika Paradevata Sarvalakshmi Mai, Sarvakanti Samohipara Sarvalakshmi Mai, she is the source of all the goddesses, she is the original goddess, now Subhadra as you know is the sister of Krishna she is the wife of Arjuna and she actually plays a role in the Jagannath Masters so she is also ultimately an expansion of Radharani but her relationship with Krishna is different and her role in Krishna Nilay is not directly in Goloka, it is in the other pastimes of Krishna in Jagannath pastimes as well as in Mahabharat pastimes and Mahamaya is a much much more distant expansion of Radharani, she looks after the material world, so because all of them are connected in one sense, they are coming from the same source, so there is a connection but Subhadra eventually, one of her expansions is Mahamaya, so they are three individuals who ultimately are expansions of the same individual, Radharani but they all have different roles Radharani plays a central role in Goloka Subhadra plays different roles in Jagannath pastimes as well as in Mahabharat and Mahamaya supervises the material world Radharani is internal potency Maya is the external potency see, Radharani she is the source of all goddesses but then she plays one specific role she is the source of all the roles that are played by feminine personalities but then she takes one specific role among that, that is the internal potency but she is the source ultimately of all potencies all feminine potencies come from her but during the source of the emanations she plays one particular role that is of the internal potency of the lord are all religions related to Krishna yes, in absolute sense all religions, bona fide religions they are revelations which are given by God and God in the highest manifestation is Krishna so in that sense they are related what about Sikhism? Sikhism was a response to the bloody conflicts that were happening between Hinduism and Christianity sorry, Hinduism and Islam and Guru Nanak, he had some mystical vision, but essentially after the mystical vision, he brought a syncretic a combined version of Hinduism and Islam so Islam was very strongly against deity worship and against the concept of incarnations and against the concept of sanctity of the Vedas which talk about deity worship so, in Sikhism he removed all these three things from Hinduism so that the Muslims would be peaceful and then he also brought in things which were important reincarnation, accepted and then the potency of the holy name was accepted and the concept of the worship of the saintly persons as a way to God basically, he brought the two together and Sikhism that way was able to in one sense protect Hindus later on Sikhs were also Sikhs, Kshatriyas were also protected Hindus, but at that time also by syncretizing, by combining these two things, the Islamic attack on Hinduism was checked by Guru Nanak and some sort of harmony was brought in so, Anshul Prabhupada appreciated the Sikhs for especially their, in Amritsar they knew this charity profusely and also that many of them during the historical period they acted as Kshatriyas and they protected many temples also because basically from the historical point of view, although Sikhism brought both Hinduism and Christian Islam together, but they were almost like a cousin branch within Hinduism so there are lots of similarities so we published a back to God issue about Vaishnav teachings in Sikhism, so in Sikhism there are so many Vaishnav references to the names of Ram and Krishna and to the glorification of them, so actually it’s very natural for Sikhs if they understand the philosophy properly to take up the Krishna consciousness so again it was a historical transitional traditional religion that was there for that particular purpose, according to some people their parents are God for them they don’t want to know about Krishna and always try to serve their parents so how to convince them and bring them to Krishna consciousness ok ok so in general there is there is Adharma there is Aparadharma and there is Paradharma Adharma is irreligiosity Aparadharma is non transcendental religion, that is material religion and Paradharma is transcendental religion so ideal union society is where Adharma is rejected and Aparadharma and Paradharma are harmonized that means the parents are devotees and they teach the son to become a devotee the child obeys the parent and then the Aparadharma and Paradharma go together that is the ideal situation now when that is not there if there is a conflict between Aparadharma and Paradharma we need to arrive at a balance we cannot reject the Aparadharma but we cannot reject the Paradharma also since it is a paradharma because yes, now Matrudeva, Bharaputradeva was talking about in the Vedic tradition in what sense is it is it that if we understand the word Matrudeva as God, God is the source of everything and everyone, surely the parents are not the source of everything and everyone, they are my parents but what about others have other parents so philosophically this idea that my parents are God does not stand in any support to me so the parents are God is actually in the sense that the parents are representatives of God so if they are representatives of God they need to connect me with God and if they are not connecting me with God then I should connect them because ultimately our relationships will become eternal only when they are connected with the supreme eternal so in general we should not disrespect or provoke our parents and we should discreetly practice Krishna Consciousness understanding that we have to walk this balance between Aparadharma and Paradharma and generally speaking our parents are mostly concerned about our career and our health so if you if we do these two things we do our studies nicely and if we take care of our health then apart from that what we do the parents don’t mind so much and of course we can take guidance from our seen mentors and seen devotees about how to specifically how to go ahead in dealing specifically with parents but parents need to be respected and overall we need to recognize that both dharmas can and should be balanced and most devotee parents over a period of time devotee children’s parents they also become not only favorable they become devotees and not only for those boys who become girastas even some boys become brahmacharis over a period of time the parents see that my son has become a better person, a better human being and they appreciate so we shouldn’t be too we should be careful to learn how to balance the two and we can learn it by guidance from seen devotees so there is a religion called brahmacharis they also need pure life of celibacy, no onion, garlic good character only their ultimate goal is wrong but how are they able to maintain this purity so blissfully and easily though there is no devotional service and higher taste to it so brahmacharis have a the culture is to some extent good but their philosophy is little too far off they have the idea that bhagavad gita was spoken by brahmabhava, there is no way historically to maintain this it’s absolute absurdity tell them that actually it is spoken by krishna, there is no krishna was sent by brahmabhava which is a really perverted idea because brahmabhava was a historical person maybe a few hundred years ago less than a hundred years ago so as far as philosophy is concerned it’s quite off track but in general sattva guna lifestyle does not require a extreme higher taste if people have a culture of being in sattva guna then they can just continue in sattva guna irrespective of what their beliefs of transcendence are see somebody is in rajo guna and tamo guna for that person to give that up and come to sattva guna that will require some effort so what shila prabhupada did in that sense he went to hippies and transformed them that requires really a strong higher taste but you will see in traditional Indian society there may be many people who just don’t get married, they stay lifelong unmarried they are not living as brahmacharis, they have a job they have a home but they don’t get married so how is that possible we say we require a higher taste well sattva guna to some extent leads to freedom from the craving for self gratification so if somebody by the past life sanskaras and this life’s upbringing is inclined towards the mode of goodness, the person can become a god in the mode of goodness so mode of goodness does not necessarily indicate the correctness of one’s philosophical beliefs and the practice of the mode of goodness does not necessarily require a higher taste so relatively speaking from a transformational perspective we can say that the higher taste will bring about transformation but there can be atheists who can be living in the mode of goodness also but that doesn’t make atheism right so it’s possible to live in a higher taste, live with a higher taste, without a higher taste but in the mode of goodness, if that has been one’s past life sanskara and this life’s upbringing, are the number of souls constant? No actually the number of souls are infinite so we can’t really apply the word constant over there they are eternal so you could say that every soul is eternal so in that sense the number of souls is constant but that number is infinite so putting a number on that is a little inappropriate so but because the soul is eternal so in that sense, there are no new souls which are created new souls may come from the spiritual world to the material world, souls may go back from the material world to the spiritual but the number of souls is infinite and that stays infinite that doesn’t change is this clear or there is some question on this? is this earth, dukkhalayam, ashatam real or is it a dream? it is real it is a real dream what does it mean, real dream? actually this world is real this is what Prabhupada, in the early days, he spoke once he gave a class, you know how this world is not real and one young disciple, he thought is this wall not real? ok, this wall is not real he said, maybe, I can just think that it is real if I think it is not real, it will not be real this wall is not real, he thought, and he walked into the wall bang! and he went and told Prabhupada Prabhupada, you said this world is not real and I got a real bump on my head so what happened? Prashila Prabhupada said that when we are talking about real real means that which is eternal real means that which is eternal anything that is, in the philosophical terminology, anything that is non-eternal is considered to be unreal, why? because, for example, I have a dream at night, in my dream I see a tiger chasing me, I consider that unreal, why? because when I wake up, I see there is no tiger but from within the dream perspective, the tiger is real for me I may sweat, I may get frightened, I may cry, all the things may happen to me when, say, boys see some sexually provocative scenes in dreams that has a real effect on the body there may be some nightfall or things like that also, so within the phase of the dream, it is real so we can’t say that it is false, but when we wake up, there is nothing is there so actually our consciousness has four stages that we go through the present stage that we are in is called as Jagruti the awake stage then there is a stage called Sapnuti, that is the dream stage then there is Sushupti, that is the dreamless deep sleep stage and beyond that is Samadhi stage where we perceive spiritual reality so Samadhi alone is eternally real it is eternal, in that sense it is absolutely real now the Jagruti stage has greater reality than Sapnuti stage, because Sapnuti just ends so today I wake up I had a dream of a tiger when I wake up, when I go back to sleep again tonight, it is not that the same dream will continue over again, isn’t it? but when I wake up from a dream, I wake up the same dream seems to be continuing over again you know, I wake up the same person and I continue the same lifestyle, okay I sleep on this bed, I wake up on the same bed this work I have said incomplete, I complete it so it is described that among these four fields of consciousness self-realization is possible only in Jagruti because in Jagruti, there is a continuity within the temporality in Swapna, there is no continuity within temporality, it is temporary but there is no continuity I cannot consciously exercise my free will and purify myself so the idea that this world is false is not correct in the sense that it’s all useless or it’s all illusory it’s real, I have to make real endeavors to purify myself I have to make real endeavors to purify myself and when I become purified then when I depart from this world and go back to the spiritual world, this will just be like a dream I was there, it’s over so in that sense, we can say it’s false but for us, we consider it real because we have really worked to purify ourselves and because it is temporary, so sometimes it may be called unreal in philosophy but from a practical point of view, it is real from an existential point of view the material energy will continue to exist forever, so in that sense also, it is real there is a question about Parvati, Parvati is one of the expansions of Radharani who looks after the material world so Parvati and Mahamaya are more or less the same personalities same persons before I go, there is one question yesterday that was left unfinished that was just asked by that devotee when the presentation was going on is Krishna envious of us? you remember when I asked that question yeah, is Krishna envious of us? Krishna tells us that he created this world so that we can enjoy separate from him, but then he doesn’t allow us to enjoy over here this world is temporary so actually speaking Krishna is always compassionate towards us definitely not envious but it is an important question when we say why does Krishna not allow us to enjoy separate from him, we have to actually understand what is the definition of enjoyment we think of enjoyment in terms of getting things happening according to our plan I want to come number one in class, I want to get this I want to get that but actually that is very external real enjoyment comes from love imagine if every one of you there is a special IIT for every one of you and every one of you becomes a topper in that IIT but the condition is you are not allowed to tell anyone you are the topper will that have much value or meaning? material achievement and material things give us happiness only when they enhance our relationships I come first in IIT, I go home and tell my parents and my parents say, I am proud of you I come and tell my friends and my friends glorify me actually all material things they have value only when they are a part of a relationship and so if you think deeply what gives happiness is not the material things, it is the relationships and we hope that my relationship will improve when I acquire the material things say a boy is attracted to a girl and he thinks if I come to the college in a new car then the girl will get attracted to me so the car is a tool to develop the relationship so at a deeper level what brings happiness is not things and achievements but relationships and we want to have a relationship with better and better persons and nobody will offer a valentine’s day car to a 70 year old woman because that person will not look attractive so you want to have a relationship with better and better persons so actually we had a relationship with the best person that is Krishna he is all attractive, he has all six opulences and after tasting love for him we cannot be satisfied in any other relationship, no matter how much we love him so now if you say Krishna should make me satisfied in this world then Krishna will have to create another person who has six opulences isn’t it and we love that person and we will become happy by loving that person but if there is another person with six opulences because if we love somebody else who is not as beautiful as Krishna after having tasted the beauty of Krishna and the joy of loving such a supremely beautiful person we will not be satisfied by loving anybody else so Krishna will have to create another Krishna in the material world for us but if there is another all attractive person in this world that person will be the center of attraction and this world will become like a spiritual world are you understanding this point you know Krishna by definition cannot create a substitute for himself because he is unique but even if somehow he creates expansion just for us then we came to this world we want to be attractive but if there is another person who is all attractive whom we want to love, that person will become all attractive so essentially it is not Krishna’s problem it is our existential situation so Krishna gives us facility to enjoy but along with giving facility to enjoy he gives us the scope to realize that actually I cannot be happy so what could Krishna have done Krishna can just you don’t want to love me, you suffer for the rest of eternity I will put you in a place where there is permanent suffering and for rejecting my love you are eternally damned Krishna could have done that where we suffer eternally, Krishna doesn’t do that then Krishna could have created a place where there is some kind of happiness where it is happiness but actually that happiness would never have substituted or equally satisfied us as the happiness of loving you so we would not have been satisfied there we would not have been satisfied why, because actually speaking we have tasted Krishna’s love so therefore what Krishna has done in this world is he has created this world where there is there is a lot of suffering but along with that there is a little happiness if he had made permanent suffering it would have been very cruel of him to make us permanently suffer eternally but along with that also if it had just been constant suffering we would have got used to it if a person doesn’t have eyes, if a person is blind then when we see that person we feel oh this person doesn’t have eyes so difficult for this person to move around but imagine a civilization where everybody was blind nobody would feel that they are missing the eyes isn’t it so if Krishna had created a world which is full of suffering people would just have got used to the suffering and they would have lived on without experiencing the joy of loving Krishna so Krishna, if you suffering over here he has created a place where there is suffering so that we realize I don’t belong here but along with that he gives some happiness why, because that happiness creates hope for us oh I want to be happy, I will chase after that I will become happy I didn’t become happy, what happened why didn’t I become happy then I search for happiness somewhere else and then gradually in this way I come to Krishna and Srila Prabhupada when he was in America in Rath Yatra festival in 1968 he said many hippies were there he said all of you hippies in America you are not appreciated very much you are considered frustrated people but I appreciate you he said that all of you are frustrated human life is meant to become frustrated human life is meant to become frustrated why, because only when a person becomes frustrated in material enjoyment we look for something higher we should inquire about spirituality but why will we inquire about spirituality if we are satisfied with material enjoyment we will not so Krishna gives material enjoyment by which we get the hope for happiness and when that hope is frustrated we say ok I want happiness but happiness is not coming here where will happiness be then I search for happiness then if I am sincere no matter where I will be Krishna will send devotees over there Krishna will send his representatives and we will be redirected towards him this is how what Krishna has created is a perfectly balanced system by which we are allowed to try out our attempts for enjoyment but when they don’t work Krishna is ready to help us return back to him so we will continue later thank you very much