Veganism, Animal Worship, Environmentalism, Exclusivism – Bhakti Perspectives

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Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Hare Krishna. Grateful to be here with all of you. And it’s stimulating to see how stimulated all of you were in this discussion.
And several topics came up. So I will try to address as many of the topics as possible. As I mentioned, I was introduced about in 1996, almost 30 years ago.
And right from the beginning, I had a very rational, skeptical mind. I used to have a lot of questions. And there’s some questions whose answers just struck me.
Because they’re so persuasive. And some questions I found that I had to endeavor and struggle to get answers. Because there are two distinct ways in which a tradition may engage with the world.
So basically, before I get into specific questions, if you consider the tradition is something which is coming from the past, and say that we have the contemporary world now. Now, in the contemporary world, there is much of concern. Not everything that is of concern in the contemporary world is necessarily of concern to the tradition.
So there are areas of overlap. And those areas may also evolve as the tradition moves forward. Now, at the intersection of the tradition and the contemporary world is the living movement.
If this movement, so we could say the movement, like I said, now we are a part of the Christian Conscious Movement. All of you are a part of the Pandav Sena. Now, this needs to both connect with the tradition, and it needs to connect with the world.
So it connects with the tradition through faithfulness. It connects with the contemporary world through resourcefulness. And both of these are important for the tradition to be a living tradition.
If it is only faithful without being resourceful, then the tradition becomes reduced to a museum exhibit. Or this is how these people used to live, and they’re almost extinct now. On the other hand, if it is only resourceful, if it is only resourceful without being faithful, then it just becomes a fashion fad.
It just becomes another part of the contemporary landscape. So the tradition has to manage the tension and have both an aspect of being faithful, by which it is connected to the past, and it is also connected to the present. So now, generally speaking, in any tradition, there will be conservatives and there will be liberals.
So the conservatives, they are primarily concerned about maintaining the connection with the past. The liberals are concerned about maintaining the connection with the present. And both these groups of people are required for the tradition to continue.
Now, the tradition can refer to many different things. Right now, we’re talking about the Krishnabhakti tradition. But if you consider something as widespread as, say, the English language.
Now, in English, even if you studied linguistics, there are two broad kinds of linguists. There are prescriptivists and descriptivists. Prescriptivists are, they say, this is how English should be written.
This is how English should be spoken. Why? Because it’s how it has been spoken in the past. And descriptivists are those who say, this is how it is being spoken.
Now, if there are only prescriptivists who are very strong, this is how it has to be spoken, then they become disconnected from how it is actually being spoken. And if there is too strong a prescription, the language starts becoming irrelevant. The language dies out.
On the other hand, there’s only description without prescription. Oh, this is how these people speak. This is how these people speak.
This is how these people speak. Then it just becomes chaos. Because different people can mean different things when they say the same thing.
When they use the same word, they can end up saying different things. So the idea of staying connected with the past and staying connected with the present, that is a universal challenge. It is not just something for a particular tradition.
It is there for everyone. And Shila Prabhupada, he explains realization as the key to this balance. He says, what is realization? He says, if this is the message of scripture, and then these are the interests of the audience.
Interests of the audience means the interest of the contemporary generation. So then Prabhupada says, realization means to present the message of scripture in a way that is interesting to the audience. So that means one should be able to understand scripture.
One should be able to understand the audience. And then one should be able to find out where the two overlap. Now, when this happens, there are, again, as I said, there are conservatives and liberals.
So with respect to a tradition, there could be people who are confrontational and people who are non-confrontational. So when we say we have to get scripture to intersect with the interests of the current world. So now, which part of scripture do we bring in dialogue with which part of contemporary interests? That will depend on the individual.
That will depend on the individual teacher. That will depend, as the individual practitioner matures, it will depend on the individual practitioner. And that’s how.
So for example, if somebody is confrontational. Now, people themselves have their own ethos. And they bring the ethos that comes from their upbringing, maybe from their previous lives.
They bring that into their spirituality also. So if somebody is confrontational, then they will find the most provocative part of scripture. And they will find the most, what the tradition considers, degraded part of contemporary society.
And they will say, the only mode of interaction is, we should condemn this. Just how terrible this is. How terrible the society is.
How terrible the world is. And there are takers for this approach also. But that is only one way to bring the tradition in interaction with the contemporary world.
Somebody who is of a more non-confrontational ethos, they might find out scripture. So they might find out the most appealing part of scripture. And they might find the most reflective, thoughtful part of contemporary society.
And they might try to bring these two in dialogue. So if the first is the case, then it is. Who was it, Mark Twain? Or Rudyard Kipling? Or who said that? The East and the West, Twain shall never meet.
The two are just so different that they will never meet. So like that, the tradition and the contemporary society, they will never meet. That’s possible if somebody is confrontational.
You just have to give one up and take the other. But that’s not the only way to look at things. So the issues which you have brought up, I want to give this background that different people may address these same issues in different ways.
So any questions about what I have spoken till now before we move into some of the specific issues? So let me begin with illustration of this with respect to veganism. Now, whenever we are looking at something, we could look at something as a confrontational perspective or a non-confrontational perspective. So at a positive level, we could say there is vegetarianism and within that there is veganism.
In some ways veganism is becoming bigger, but there is veganism. So vegetarianism, we could see this as a sign of the rising of sattva, that people are becoming more conscious. Sattva sanjayate jnanam.
That when there is a rising of the mode of goodness, then there is clarity that comes. The word jnana is used in many different senses in the Bhagavad Gita. But one of the common senses, jnana is not just knowledge, it’s perception.
It’s how we perceive the world. So sattva sanjayate jnana means when the mode of goodness rises, one starts perceiving things more clearly. And then we start perceiving the cost of non-vegetarian food, not just the financial cost, the cost at the level of ecology, at the cost of the level of world hunger, the cost at the level of the pain caused to the animals.
So when we see this, we feel, okay, I don’t want to be a part of this. So that awareness is a very positive thing. Generally speaking, any movement that arises in the contemporary world, and the contemporary world can refer to what is contemporary today.
Five years down the line, it may become old. So anything that arises in the contemporary world, some part of it will align with what the tradition says, some may not. So now with respect to veganism, so vegetarianism, you could say it broadly arises out of three concerns.
Environment concern, primarily the environment concern is not that much in most people’s minds. Although it’s a significant concern. Even when that movie, The Inconvenient Truth was made about the, have you heard of The Inconvenient Truth? That was a sensation when I was studying in here.
That is about how the ecology is in big, big trouble. But that was made by an ex-American presidential candidate. So, but for him that, that meat consumption is causing huge ecological problems.
What’s too inconvenient at truth to include is inconvenient truth. So he skipped it. Ecological costs are there.
The cost in terms of, as I said, the pain to animals is there. The cost in terms of human health is there. So basically because of certain concerns, this movement arises.
Now, veganism is something which is arising further from there. Now, what happens with veganism is that the human vision of the animal world, or you could say of the non-human world, the previous vision was exploitation. Previous means before the evolution of, for the arising of the vegetarian-vegan movement.
The idea was, OK, animals are just for being eaten. The whole natural world is for our exploitation. Now, that we are realizing is quite inhumane.
But now the pendulum is going to the other extreme where there is segregation. We are against segregation by gender or race. But the idea is that it’s humans should have nothing to do with the animals.
So that segregation, when it comes up, we have no right to any of the products from the animal world. And this is not the way nature exists. In nature, if you study biology, there is so many different ways in which different organisms live together.
Plants take in carbon dioxide, give out oxygen. Other life forms, humans and other animals, they take in oxygen, give out carbon dioxide. So if the two of us were told we have nothing to do with each other, neither would survive.
So the veganism’s instinct that we should not be exploiting nature, exploiting non-human life forms, especially animals, that is a good instinct. But it can go towards the reactionary extreme where because we should not exploit, we should not have anything to do with it. But if we consider in between, there could be cooperation.
In fact, there could be not just cooperation, there could be synergization. So humans and non-humans could live together. And this is where, say with respect to cows, a significant difference comes up.
Traditionally, if you consider at least Indian society, not just Indian, I would say most of the Indian subcontinent, the cow was actually like a part of the family. And the cow would be taken care of. And the cow would give milk.
Prabhupada would often compare a cow to a mother. If a mother gives milk, a cow gives milk. So now if we consider the example of a cow, a cow is a very gentle animal.
Now its gentleness, it can sometimes be large, certainly large as compared to a cat or a dog, especially a small pet dog might be there, but it’s very gentle. While its gentleness makes it relatively easy to domesticate, its gentleness also makes it quite vulnerable. Cows generally will not survive in nature if they are left on their own.
There are some animals which would survive, which survive when they are wild. They domesticate, they can also survive. But cows need humans for their protection in many ways.
And when we say we have nothing to do with cows, the end result of that would be that this cooperative bond that is there between humans and non-humans. So why do we need to differentiate between, say, the physical products that we get from animals as compared to the psychological products that we get from animals? What do I mean by psychological products? Now, people have pets, dogs and cats. And we centre so much, we shower so much of our love and affection on these pets.
Why not say that we have nothing to do with them? They are a different species. We have no right to claiming their affection. Why not? I was in California.
There was a car ahead of me and the car bumper had a sticker. And there’s a quote over there. The more I get to know people, the more I love my dog.
So the idea is that we all may have bad experience with people. We think, OK, I just trust God. Trust? Not God, I trust dog as a human being’s best friend or maybe a cat.
Cats have their own aloofness, which is endearing to some people, not to others. But either way, there we are getting something. So we actually don’t.
Nobody is recommending that humans should not have cats and dogs as pets. So now we say, no, no, but when we have cows, we take their milk. Yes, that is true.
So that’s why there has to be a proper understanding of the tradition and a proper understanding of the contemporary culture. So in the tradition, cows were a part of the family. No cow or milk was not a business.
Now, when we have dairy farming, milk becomes a business and then cows are exploited. And often their milk is taken from them to the extent where they cause great pain. And that’s something which we certainly do not support.
But the principle is that the tradition operated on certain other dynamics, which are not similar to what the dynamics are here. Now, how exactly does human non-human cooperation would manifest in today’s world? That is something which will evolve with time. So we try to have ahimsa milk, where we have cows who are not subjected to violence, either in the production of the milk or even after they stop producing milk.
Is that economically viable option? How exactly will that work out? In the past, the cows were a part of an entire ecosystem. One of my friends in India is working, doing a lot of research in traditional India before India was colonized by the West. The cows were a part of the ecosystem.
And even apart from the milk, the other products that would come from a cow, they would actually make them still economically viable. And cow patty was used as fuel and so many things like that. So right now, how exactly that will work out? That is something which has to be evolved.
That is something has to be thought about. So veganism, we appreciate the point that there should not be any exploitation of animals. But we also recognize that it is going towards another extreme.
And there are specific issues we could discuss further. But somebody could take, you know, a confrontational approach could be that those who are veganists, they are against the consumption of milk. And this is a cardinal principle of our Vedic tradition.
So therefore, these people should be rejected. Now, if we look beyond the specific positions of people to their underlying concerns, we will discover that people are not that different from us. Even the specific positions they have, they are quite different from us.
Similarly, if you look at the contemporary, for example, someone looks at the tradition, oh, these people used to exploit cows. They are just using cows for their benefit. No, not really.
That was not how it was. So this is one principle that people may have positions that are different. And those positions, if you only look at the level of positions, there will be conflicts.
But if you go deeper below the position to the concerns that they have, the concerns we’ll find are often similar. And this is where there can be some dialogue. There can be some reconciliation.
Any questions or comments at this point? Now, the theme about animals or plants being worshipped. I’ll take that and then it continues in this theme itself. If we consider the Vedic tradition from the lens of the Western tradition, that’s how it has been studied most of the times.
Till recently, not many people who were actually followers of the Vedic tradition gave sufficiently aware contemporary presentations of the Vedic tradition. So what happened was we have across the world, from a Western perspective, there are the Abrahamic religions. Now the Abrahamic religions, Judaism, Christianity, Islam.
Now, whenever I’m going to be an analyst like this, there will be a certain level of generalization. And there will, of course, be nuances. There will also be some exceptions.
But I’m talking of the broad principles. So the Abrahamic religions had this idea of a rigid separation between the divine and the human. So that God exists separate from this world.
And this rigid separation is what leads to the idea in the Old Testament that thou shall not worship any graven images. And God is so transcendental. God is so divine that we cannot impose anything material on him.
We cannot have anything material associated with it. Now, this is emphasized most aggressively in Islam with the idea of the shark. You put anything in association with matter.
But the Abrahamic religions, they were, historically speaking, a reaction to the Greco-Roman tradition. And the Greco-Roman tradition had a lot of different schools of thought at different times. And most of them, the Greeks are known for the philosophers.
Socrates, Plato, Aristotle and all of them. But apart from these philosophers, they also had their system of gods. And their worship, the system of worship that they had was involving a great deal of pantheism.
Anyone know what is pantheism? Yes, please. Worshipping nature. Yeah, that’s true.
Anything more to it? It’s nature. But it’s not just worshipping nature. It is basically equating nature with God.
It is God is the sum total of all material things. And God has no self-existence apart from nature. So, that’s why in their tradition they had what they call as natural deities.
The opposite of natural is not unnatural deities. The opposite of natural here is supernatural deities. So, the Abrahamic God is supernatural, is transcendental.
But many of the gods in the Greco-Roman tradition were associated with nature. And it was this worship that the Vedic, that Abrahamic religions reacted to and rejected. That you just take anything from nature and start worshipping that.
Moses took the Egyptians or at least some part of the Egyptians, the chosen people with him, to the chosen land. And he had gone up the Mount Sinai to get the Ten Commandments. And by the time he came back, his followers had taken whatever gold they had and made that into a golden calf.
And they started worshipping that golden calf. When Moses saw that, he got so enraged. He charged down and smashed that golden calf to pieces.
He said, you should not worship anything other than the one true God. And from that time onwards, this idea of rejecting any worship of anything other than the one true God became very prominent. So, that’s how there is this extremism where temples are destroyed, deities are destroyed.
So, this is not just, if we take the historical tradition, this is not the fringe extremist idea of some fanatical elements. It is quite central to the theology itself. Now, how much that teaching of theology will be implemented by different people at different times, that depends on the particular time and the particular teachers of those times.
But why I am talking about all this is that in their conception or the conception that they are reacting to, oh, you people just worship nature, you equate anything in nature that you like and make it into a God and start worshipping God. And then you don’t worship the one true God. So, when they look, when this western lens looks at the Vedic tradition, they largely equate it with the Greco-Roman tradition.
And then they say, oh, this is all pantheistic. If we consider the teachings of the Bhagavad Gita in their own right, or for that matter, Bhagavatam, even the Upanishads, the Upanishads are quite complex. But if we consider the Vedic teaching, the Vedic teaching is quite subtle and sophisticated.
Does it involve worshipping aspects within nature? Yes, of course it does. But there is no such thing as considering that this is all that is worshipped. There is a deity who exists beyond this world.
So, what happened was pantheism to some extent made nature itself into God. Now, the Abrahamic religions to some extent, they de-sacralized nature. De-sacralized means more or less removed the sacred from within nature.
And now this to some extent led to the exploitation of the environment. If there is nothing sacred within nature, then it’s just for us to pick. Again, this is a, I said, when we are going to talk about broad principles, there is a certain level of simplification.
It’s not that all Abrahamic religion followers were unconcerned about nature. But that is a broad implication of the theology. Now, in the Vedic tradition, actually there is, there is God who is transcendental.
But at the same time, there is no rigid separation that separates God from nature, that separates God from humans, God from the world that we experience. And thus, there are many aspects of nature, many aspects within nature, be it particular plants or particular animals. They are seen as historically and theologically connected with the divine in particular ways.
So, now, generally speaking, the word worship, we can conclude this point and we can have some questions. The word worship in the Western tradition is used generally specifically for God. Now, in the Vedic tradition, the word worship, whatever word we could say, equates with worship from Sanskrit.
I’ll not go into the technicality right now. But the idea of worship is a very inclusive idea. So it could be respect.
It could be veneration. It’s more than respect. It could mean surrender.
It could be total supplication of one’s being. All these ideas are included in it. So, for example, in the Vedic tradition, say we may do aarti to the deities.
But then we do aarti, if some guest comes to our house, we do aarti of the guest also. Now, in some ways, the ritual may seem the same. But that does not mean that we are equating the guest with God.
There is the idea, atithi devo bhava. Now, the guest is God. Now, this is a non-literal language which is used.
In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna uses it many times when he says, among mountains, I am Meru. Among immovable objects, I am the Himalayas. Among rivers, I am the Ganga.
Among animals, I am the lion. So, he uses very direct language. It seems as if this is all there is to it.
But then, in that list, he goes on and he says, among the Pandavas, I am Arjuna. Pandava na maham dhanam jaya. And when he speaks this, what is Arjuna’s reaction? Arjuna doesn’t say, does he? No, Krishna, if you and I are one, then why do you have to instruct me? Whatever you know, I know.
Just shut up now. I am as enlightened as you are. He doesn’t say that.
So, there is a conventional way of speaking. But what it means is to be understood from the context. So, it’s not just that, say, the same activity, worship is done for guests.
It’s done for animals. What is the use of animals? It is even done, if you consider artisans, they worship their tools. They worship their tools.
But does that mean the tools are God? No, that is not the idea. The idea is, this particular thing is a blessing by which I am able to do my dharma, I am able to do my responsibilities. And therefore, I respect it.
When Prabhupada had come to America in early days, 1966, when the devotees had just started connecting with bhakti. So, there was one, one of the early disciples of Prabhupada was Haigiri Bro. And he had a bit of a rebel streak within him.
So, he, he was an English teacher, English professor. So, he was editing Prabhupada’s manuscripts and typing out some of his handwritten books. So, once he was typing, he was typing the typewriter and Prabhupada came to the room.
So, this is where guru comes, he wanted to offer respects. So, at that time, the typewriter was in the way for him. So, he pushed the typewriter away with his leg.
The typewriter is sacred. Don’t touch it with your leg. And he said, Swamiji, do you mean that my leg is not sacred? Only the typewriter is sacred? So, Prabhupada said, yes, you are a devotee, your leg is also sacred.
However, there is a way we show our respect to sacred objects. And the way we show it is, we don’t touch them with our feet, we move them with our hands. So, sometimes the philosophical point that is conveyed through a cultural practice may be missed out if one doesn’t know the philosophy.
So, it’s not that in the Vedic tradition, any plant or any animal is taken up in worship. Does it happen? Yeah, there are some people who do that. But they don’t represent the tradition.
That is not the teaching of the tradition. So, cultural practice and philosophical conception. So, the link between them has to be understood carefully.
Otherwise, what happens? We have, somebody has their own philosophical conception and then they impose that on the cultural practice. So, it’s not that there is an indiscriminate worship of anything and everything in nature, any plant or any animal is being worshipped. Now, we could go into the specific theological and historical aspects of why particular aspects of nature, why particular forms are worshipped.
Say, why Tulsi is worshipped, why Hanuman is worshipped, why Ganesha is worshipped. So, that specific history, specific theological points we can go into. But the principle is that this is not an indiscriminate worship of plants or animals as if they are all God.
Any reflections or questions on this? Yes, please. Sometimes we hear different stories from the same creation or the same, like they say how Ganesha is created. Different parts of India will have different stories.
Because we can’t read those scriptures ourselves directly, how do we best understand it or explain it to other people who struggle with understanding it like that? When there are different origin stories for particular deities or for particular worship of the deities or particular conceptions. See, the Vedic tradition is very inclusive. Inclusive means, see, now again I am going to speak in generalization.
But generalization, generalizing is not absolutizing. It’s not everybody has this idea. See, in the Abrahamic religions, it’s something like either you accept God or you are going to go to hell.
It’s a broad idea. So, there is God, there is God’s way or there is the way to hell. So, there are exclusivists who say that they in theory, in thought, they have the idea that if you are not following my way, you are going to go to hell.
But there are extremists. So, extremists are actually kinder. They say, anyway you are going to go to hell, why delay it? We will help you get there faster.
So, they bring it into action. But the Vedic tradition is not that, oh, you don’t worship God, you are going to hell. Actually, in the Vedic tradition, there is Tamas, there is Rajas, there is Sattva and then beyond that there is Kshut Sattva.
So, these are three modes. These are three modes, they can be understood in different ways. But broadly speaking, they refer to different ways of living, different ways of existing, of perceiving the world, of functioning in the world.
And accordingly, there is accommodation made for people according to the modes. So, that’s why sometimes even the same deity will be appreciated differently by those who are in Tamas, will be appreciated differently by those who are in Rajas, will be appreciated differently by those who are in Sattva. So, now the problem with inclusivism, the problem with being exclusivist is, of course, it can become very narrow-minded.
It can become very intolerant. But now the problem with being inclusivist is that it can become very confusing. That, okay, what exactly is going on? So, now, one of the aspects of the Vedic tradition is that there is comfort with complexity.
There is comfort with a certain level of uncertainty that comes because of the complexity. The very philosophy that Chaitanya Mahaprabhu taught is Achintya Bheda Veda. So, Achintya is inconceivable.
So, inconceivable, why? That means you cannot really know. So, there is a comfort with uncertainty. Uncertainty because there is a certain level of complexity associated with it.
So, in general, if there are different origin stories, that doesn’t necessarily mean that they are all right. But that doesn’t mean necessarily that only one of them has to be right. There could be different ways in which the origin happened at different times in different millennia.
It could be that different origin stories are told to attract different kinds of people. Even if one of those is necessarily historically true in this particular epoch in history. But the point is, the focus is not so much on what is right in the factual sense.
It is more what is right in the affective sense. In the affect, what will elevate people. Any other questions? Just to get a perspective in terms of how you are distinguishing specific or contextual reasons versus the generalizations.
So, if you take India for example, one of the most polluted countries in the world. Some of the cities are the most polluted. The largest exporter of leather.
Lots of stuff coming out of India which goes against. So, you could make the argument, I suppose, that theological implications of Hinduism have led to all of these things. How would you answer that? By parity of reason.
If we say that the environmental pollution or the leather export, the theological implication of Hinduism, then we should say that all terrorism, majority of the terrorism, whatever is there, it’s the implication of Islam. Most people don’t agree with that. They say this is a fringe.
It’s an extremist fringe. So, the relationship between theological propositions and say sociological conditions, it is complex. Is there some connection? Of course, there is some connection.
Now, we could say that Islamic extremism wouldn’t exist without Islam. Yes, that is true to that. But extremism would still exist.
And people would find some justification for extremism. So, now, if we go to the Vedic tradition, is there, as you said, it’s a disorganized country, polluted country. Specifically with respect to the leather export, it is mostly buffalo.
It is not cows. India has a huge amount of market with respect to buffalo. This is not to say that killing buffalos is right.
My point is, it is not, it is not necessarily religiously inconsistent. Because within the tradition, cow is considered especially sacred. And there is a reason for that, historically speaking.
Krishna is Gopal. He is not Bhaispal. That does not mean he is the enemy of buffalos.
So, swarudham sarvabhutana means evolution of everyone. But leather that is mostly manufactured in India, this is something India is the largest beef exporter. Well, the word beef is a little bit of a too inclusive a word.
And most of it is not cow flesh. So, having said that, within the Indian tradition also, it is not that everybody necessarily worships Krishna and Satyaguna. There are Rajasik and Tamasik also.
So, those people are there and they have their own ways of worshipping. As far as the pollution is concerned, to what extent is it a result of religious practice or religious conceptions? To what extent is it a result of, say, the western model of economic development? Being adopted by India or imposed on India? I don’t want to consider Indians to be blamed or westerners to be blamed. It is, India had a very high level of population density.
Or rather population was high. And when urbanization happened, the population density became very high. If we consider before the colonial age, there are many many invasions by various Islamic kings.
In fact, there are different Islamic dynasties who fought among themselves over India. In India also. So, but through it all, the prosperity of India didn’t really decrease substantially.
Because they came and they sacked the cities, they plundered the cities. And the cities were the, you could say, the centers of prosperity. But the sources of prosperity were the villages.
That’s where the grains and everything was produced. And so, in that sense, it was very decentralized. So, the attacks did not devastate the economic system itself.
It devastated particular cities, definitely there was a big toll, but it did not destroy the system. So, even a person like Macaulay, when he had come to India, he travelled across India, he said that, I have not seen a single beggar across India. It’s a remarkable statement for him to make.
So, India, as you all know, was quite a prosperous country before the colonial age started. Now, again, this is not to necessarily blame colonialism alone. But the point is that, is the pollution and disorganization a result of the theological systems that were prevalent in India? Could they contribute a part to it? Definitely.
But I would say that, in many ways, the recent 200-300 years, if you see, basically, before 200-300 years ago, there was a very different economic system in India. And that had survived for a long, long time, for many individuals. So, the biggest new influence that came in 200-300 years was the import from the west in terms of the westernization, industrial centre, industry-centred urbanization and everything like that.
So, how much has that contributed to the disorganization, the pollution? I think that will require some careful sociological investigation. This is, of course, not to say that the theology, as it has been understood and as it has been applied, has no problems with it. Definitely there are problems.
But I don’t think these particular problems can be traced back to the theology itself. Any other questions or comments? How do we become comfortable with complexity? Yeah. In the Mahabharata, when Bhishma seeks brides for Pandu and Dhritarashtra.
So, he goes to the Madra kingdom. And there, the Madra, the father is not there. Shalja is the prince over there.
He is a ruler also. So, he says that it’s an honour for us to ally with the Kuru dynasty. But in our tradition, in our culture, you know, we don’t give dowry.
We expect a bride price. That if a daughter is going to go from our family, we are losing. You should be giving us something.
And Bhishma says, yes, I know this. I honour that. And I have brought gifts for you.
And then Madri’s hand is given to Pandu. So, now, this, India has often equated the dowry and the exploration that goes on because of dowry. Is that true? Is it happening? It has happened.
But the fact is that a person like Bhishma, who is considered one of the Mahajanas, he respects the local custom over there. And he doesn’t say this is a deviation or anything like that. So, the idea is that complexity has always been a part of the tradition.
And the reason for the complexity is, it’s a multi-level approach. Different people are at different levels. Different people come from different backgrounds.
But they will pursue things differently. They will progress differently. So, are there some fundamental truths of the Vedic path that are broadly accepted? I think soul and reincarnation is one thing.
That there is a reality beyond this world that has to be pursued. The nature of the reality, is it personal or impersonal? What is the nature of that person if it is personal? There is some where I vary a little bit about that. But what Prabhupada talks about, based on Baldevidya Bhushan, idea that Jiva, Ishvara, Kaala, Karma, Prakriti.
These are five truths which more or less all followers of the Vedic tradition accept. The exact identity of Ishvara, the nature of Ishvara, there is a variation about that. Say, the exact implications of Karma.
So, in the Bhakti tradition, Karma can be said to overrun by Bhakti. That may not be the exact idea within the Jnana tradition. But the principle of Karma is that our actions matter.
And that is the principle of Bhakti also. These our actions matter, not just because they have some intrinsic potency, but because they attract the Lord’s mercy. So, in that sense, these five truths, there is similarity.
The problem is that the visible aspects of Hinduism, they are so diverse and that leads to complexity. So, we need to first come down to the philosophical essentials and then go to the visible diversity. Any last question before we stop? I know there are several other issues to discuss, but we don’t have time for that now.
Environmentalism and the rise in that. But it’s based on secular principles. So, I just wondered if you have a viewpoint in terms of where that falls short over time, because it’s disconnected with, I guess, the Bhagavad Gita.
OK. See, with respect to the environmental movement, I would say, or other environmental concerns, I think there are three different things over here. One is the underlying worldview.
The second is the current practices. And the third is the proposed solutions. To some extent, the proposed solutions have been implemented.
So, are there, if we consider the Vedic tradition, before this, at present, in the last five years, seven or ten years, you could say environmentalism has almost become like a religion. It has gained a very strong fervency to it. And just as within religion, anything that is considered offensive is to be destroyed.
So, that same intolerant ethos comes and environmentalists will go and destroy some sacred, it’s not sacred, destroy some cherished paintings and do this and do that. That’s of course, you could say an extremist fringe. But it is there.
It’s basically disrupting anything. So, now, it’s very disruptive to some extent. So, from the Vedic, so, before five or ten years ago, about ten, fifteen years ago, there was a, was it Rio de Janeiro or somewhere, there was a big conference on environmental issues.
At that time, the scientists of the world, they came together, they had this statement issued, not all scientists, but many of them, they said that if we are to protect our ecology, we need to infuse our vision of nature with the sacred. They said that just telling people that, oh, if you, if you consume this kind of soft stuff, if you eat this kind of food, if you behave in this way, it’s going to cause problems. That alone, we have done this awareness, but it’s not bringing about change.
So, I said now there’s this whole genre of FBOs, faith-based organizations, NGOs and FBOs, and they are working quite influentially in some areas. So, among all the world’s theistic traditions or even spiritual traditions, the Vedic tradition is the only one, as far as I know, which has the idea of the universal form. That if you want to infuse nature with the idea of the sacred, the universe as the very body of the divine.
This is not pantheism because in our tradition, the soul, the person is different from the body. But from that perspective, there is the potential for this vision being used to ground the environmental concerns with a philosophical foundation. That’s something which our tradition can definitely offer.
Now, with respect to the current practices that have led to environmental problems. Now, Prabhupada did talk about simple living and high thinking. Now, exactly how that is going to be implemented, that’s something which will vary according to the circumstances.
But the Vedic tradition, it is not just that, oh, everybody has to go back to the villages. In the Vedic tradition itself, there were villages and there were cities. Vrindavan was a village, Mathura was a city.
And there is no demonization of Mathura over there. Just because Vrindavan is idyllic. The Pandavas were living, they were given a barren, they were given an overgrown, utterly unproductive patch of land as their half of the kingdom.
And they converted Khandavprastha to Indraprastha. And that is considered to be the mercy of Krishna on them. The Krishna system miraculous transformation happened.
So, the idea is that it’s not that urbanization itself is bad. But how is urbanization bad? So, to what extent current practices are contributing to the environment, rather than seeing this to environmental crisis rather, it’s a matter of analyzing into sattva guna, rajoguna, tamoguna. And sattva guna, there is more of clarity.
And with that clarity, there is a greater level of analysis. So, there are environmental concerns and there are many valid concerns. I won’t say all are necessarily valid.
But many are valid. And these could be actually addressed by sattva guna. If sattva arises, then consumerism will itself decrease to some extent.
And also, there will be a greater chance of people finding some non-material enrichment. And then they will not chase material agronomy so much. Now, the proposed solutions, this is where basically it’s like the environmental agenda.
So, there are certain parameters decided. If we deal with this, this, this, this, then we’ll meet our environmental goals. And that will solve the problems.
Now, exactly the climate is a very complex thing. And whether particular solutions that are proposed will lead to actual solution to the problems. Because environmentalism has also become a big business now.
And once something becomes commercialized and politicalized, then how much is, what is that, there is one saying that, what begins as, it’s like, forget the four stages, something begins as a cause, at the level of cause, it is noble. Then it becomes a movement. No, then it becomes, it becomes, it’s a cause, then it becomes an institution.
After institution, it becomes a business. And after business, it becomes a racket. So, this possibility is there everywhere.
So, my understanding right now is that the environmental movement is not immune to it. Are there people who are deeply concerned about the environment who are wanting to do something good? Definitely there are. But are there people for whom it’s just a racket by which you can just make some money and also do some virtue signaling? There are definitely people like that.
So, it’s, that’s why this vision of sattva rajas tamas, it’s very helpful to have a more nuanced look at things. So, thank you very much. Shri Ram Bhagwan Gita Ki, Shri Ram Prabhupada Ki, Gaurav Mahaprabhu Namaha.
It’s great to see so many terrible people. Thank you. We could thank Prabhupada with raising our hands in the air once more.
And we’ll say Haribol and then give him a massive round of applause afterwards. Haribol! Thank you so much. I have no idea what the plan is.
Ram? Yes? I have some more questions. Do you have time for other questions? Yes. I thought nobody had questions.
Ten minutes more. So, does anyone else have any questions? You have a question? Earlier you were kind of comparing the Abrahamic religions. Sometimes other religions have more kind of strict enforcement.
Kind of what metrics do we use to see how well we’re following something. There’s no kind of restriction as to what we can and can’t do. I know we have our principles, but what else can we provide? Can you give an example of what you mean by strict enforcement and no judgment? Can you give an example of something specific? So, for example, other religions have a strict conversion procedure.
And you have to be able to have a place of worship. Is that as long as you have or is it like you give as much as you want to? And there’s another kind of cycle. Yeah.
In the broad Vedic tradition, there is, it’s almost like you could say a pyramid. So, the idea of a pyramid is basically something like at the top, it’s very narrow. There are few people.
At the bottom, there are many. So, you could say it’s like a mountain, but I’m using the idea of a pyramid specifically. That if we talk about the principles like no meat eating, no gambling, no intoxication, no unrestrained sexuality, those ideas, they are there in the Vedic tradition.
But is it that they were imposed on everyone? No. There were people who used to eat meat. And that is a part of people who are Tamasic.
And they were given that space for that. So, the idea is Krishna says in 4.11 in the Bhagavad Gita, All people are on my path. Sometimes this is translated as all paths lead to me.
But that doesn’t make philosophical, logical or contextual sense. Because contextually, Arjuna has a question, what should I do? If Krishna is going to say, okay, whatever you do will come to me, why does Arjuna have to worry? Why does Krishna have to speak the Bhagavad Gita? And clearly, so that’s not what the Gita is saying. But what it means is that there are, Krishna says all people are on my path.
It’s from your place, at your pace, access my grace. That is Krishna’s moral. That he wants to provide everyone the path by which they can come to us.
But that does not necessarily mean that whatever everybody does is equally potent. It’s going to take everyone equally fast. Some people can rise to a spiritual level in one lifetime.
Some people may take many lifetimes. But nobody is rejected just because they can’t do X, Y, Z. They can be accommodated. Some people may just want to be completely anti-spiritual and demoniac.
That’s different. But, so, is there a basic minimum? Well, there is the idea that if somebody is Tamoguna, they are given facilities where they can rise towards Rajoguna. If somebody is Rajoguna, they can get facilities to rise towards Satoguna.
Somebody is Satoguna, they rise further up. So, one of the things that Krishna says in the Bhagavad Gita is that don’t give instructions that are disruptive. Na buddhi-bhedam janaye ajnanam karma-sanginam.
He says there is people who are attached. For example, somebody is here, somebody is here. Now, the person who is high up, he says, you know, okay, from here, you just have to take a high jump leap and come over here.
And that person tries to do that and all that happens is they try to take a high jump and they go further down. So, Krishna is saying that don’t do this. 3.26, he says, don’t disrupt the minds of people.
But what should we do instead? He says, joshyet sarva-karmani vidvanyukta samaj. Is the colour visible? So, gradually create a path by which people can rise upwards. So, the problem is that sometimes because there are multiple levels and multiple pathways given for people at different levels, some people start thinking that all these paths are just equivalent.
No, they have levels. And there is a higher level and there is a lower level. And everybody is meant to rise towards the higher level.
Like some of the, especially, sometimes you see the Christ incarnation, you know, Prophet Muhammad said, my God, like in the TV, like they take this kind of art and they express it a bit like that. Should there be, would you be doing that or like, you know, when sometimes I hear about some of the behaviour of Prophet Muhammad, I kind of doubt that and think, OK, is it OK to say that? In basic, basically. Generally, whenever there is any comparison to be done, the comparison has to be fair.
And fair means the best of one person should be compared to the best of another person. Not the best of one person is compared to the worst of another person. Or when that happens, then that’s not, that’s not fair.
So, for example, if somebody compares an ordinary Hare Krishna devotee with Jesus Christ, you know, what kind of devotee are you? What kind of love of God do you have? Well, that’s not a fair comparison. So comparisons have to be fair. And quite often it’s very difficult to do fair comparisons because religion evokes a lot of emotion.
And emotion makes us look at particular things. So as far as the, Muhammad’s actions are concerned, well, certain actions are definitely there which are, which raise eyebrows at the very least, not much more. But then we could say that if somebody were going to look from a critical lens towards our tradition, there are so many actions of the sacred characters within our tradition, characters we consider sacred, they could also be criticized and they have been criticized.
So, in general, we don’t have to have an uncritical acceptance or endorsement of any tradition. By the same time, we can’t take selective things and condemn a particular tradition. You know, for example, there was this, there was this quote, which sometimes devotees will say that in the Quran, it is said that thou should not have sex with your mother or whatever.
Now, you could take that quote. And then if somebody really wants to play that game, you can say the Bhagavad Gita says that you should not sit next to your sister or mother or even daughter. What does that mean? The people at that time were such predators that they could not control themselves in front of such people.
In front of their own family. What kind of society is that? And this is a book which is supposed to be written for people who are saintly. And they need, if your saints need these kind of instructions, then what must have been ordinary humanity at that time? So, this sort of quoting selectively is a sword that can cut both ways.
So, now, rather than focusing specifically on what is there in the text, we need to look at how people live. And are there intolerant elements in any tradition? Yes, there are. So, rather than looking at Islam and Christianity, it’s much more helpful to look at sattva guna, rajo guna, tamo guna.
And I have a Muslim friend who told me that it’s easier for me to actually communicate with moderates of other traditions than extremists of my own tradition. So, if we look at it rather than the current religious designations, we look at from our shastra chakshu that sattva guna has to be empowered. Even rajo guna is better than tamo guna.
If a religion is Rajasik, at least it will look for material prosperity. Tamasik means it will simply look for destroying others. So, what should happen is that externally or internally every religion needs to be encouraged or facilitated so that the sattvic people have a greater influence, a greater power.
Or at least the Rajasik people, not the Tamasik people. Among all the religions in the world, there is a genetic challenge which Islam has which is not so much present in other religions. In general, most religions had a separation of the brahminical and the kshatriya deities, roles.
So, Buddha was the brahmana. Ashoka was the kshatriya who actually popularized in Buddhism. Jesus was the brahmana.
Constantine was the Roman king who adopted and eventually Christianity spread. In our tradition, brahmana and kshatriyas are separate, generally speaking. Now what happened with Mohammed was that he was both the spiritual teacher and the political ruler.
So, at an individual level, now there are, if we read the hadiths, there are many cases where the Prophet was charitable, Mohammed was charitable and kind and many of his teachings are in a similar way. So, for many Muslims at an individual level, they seek inspiration from the example of Mohammed as a spiritual teacher. But at a collective level, when Muslims come together, they seek the example of Mohammed as a political ruler.
So, this mixing of the brahmana and kshatriya roles, what happens because of that? If you consider Islam, at an individual level, for many people, it is a search for God. It is a search for a more pious life which will take one closer to God. But when it comes to a collective level, it becomes a search for political power.
Because what happens here, here is Mohammed’s example, his example as a spiritual teacher is taken. But when it comes to acting at a group level, they take the example of Mohammed as a political ruler. And the nature of politics is that it’s not a dirty business.
At least it’s a business where lot of shortcuts have to be taken. So, many war strategies which he used, they are definitely questionable. But were they meant to be normative? That’s what everybody should be doing.
That’s how it has become. So, how exactly this challenge is going to be solved? That something has to come from within Islam. So, the more there is political power that is mixed with religion, then it is going to become more and more challenging.
So, people, should we identify the portion in that regard? Shaktyavatsa Avatar is that way not a very clearly defined category. Like I said, in the Vedic tradition, the human and the divine, the boundaries are there but they are not completely rigid. They are a bit porous boundaries.
So, traditionally, Avesh and Avatar, they were considered two different things. Avatar and Avesh, they are two different things. Avatar is more like a divine descent.
That the divine comes into the world. But Avesh was more like a divine presence or a divine influence. That Avesh mein aa gaye hai.
There is a force that has come about. Krupaya paraya vishtho. It was said that Avesh or compassion came over Arjuna.
So, in traditional theology, traditional Vedic theology, Avatar and Avesh were two different things. So, the Avesh is that divine presence or a divine influence comes over some person at some times. So, for example, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu said that when Nakula Brahmacharya would speak, he would speak with such eloquence, such spiritual force that people would feel as if Chaitanya Mahaprabhu has come back and is speaking again.
That’s the idea of Avesh. So, traditionally, when dramas were performed in India, if sacred dramas were performed, then the characters, it would be considered that actually the divine whom they are representing, that divinity, Avesh of that comes in the character. Say, for example, in Varanasi, Ramlila is performed.
So, when Ramlila is performed, say, one particular child may become Ram. And on that day when the child becomes, is playing the role of Ram, the father will also offer, do aarti of the child and offer respects to the child. It’s not that the father is worshipping the son.
Rather, the Avesh of Ram is considered to have entered that person. So, the idea of Avesh is very much there in the tradition. But now, when you bring Avesh and Avatar together, so, what exactly is happening? Shaktya, Avesh, Avatar, when you say.
So, two distinct concepts of Avesh and Avatar are brought together. So, it’s not a very clearly defined category. So, the idea that there is some higher power, some higher influence that is coming in people, if you take that, then yes, you could say it’s a very expandable concept.
And you could say many people could be included in that. So, thank you very much. Hare Krishna.