What does Bhaktisiddhanta’s statement “The world doesnt need any reformer” mean?
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Question, what exactly does the statement of Shilbhakti Sahasrath Thakur that the world stands in no need of any reformer mean? After all, don't we have to work to reform the world and bring it back to morality and spirituality? Answer, this quote is a very striking example of an Acharya speaking in a provocative way that jolts us out of people's complacency and makes them think. So certainly Shilbhakti Sahasrath Thakur wanted that society be reformed and that was the whole purpose of the outreach that he was doing. But he was dramatically differentiating between the kind of outreach or kind of reform that people around him were envisioning and the kind of reform that actually the scriptures recommend.
So when he said the world stands in no need of any reformer, it means any reformer in the material sense of the world. So if you read the full course, Shilbhakti Sahasrath Thakur goes on to point out that why does the world not need a reformer? Because the world has a very competent person for guiding its minutest happenings, that is God is in control and the idea that the world is out of control, that is the mentality of a person who is himself or herself out of control, who is not in harmony with God. The person who determines that there is scope for reform of the world himself stands in need of reform.
And then overall the idea is not fatalism that whatever is happening, let it happen. The idea is that there is a plan of God in the world and rather than we trying to create or impose our own plan on God or this world, we need to understand God's plan and harmonize with that plan. So let's look at the full quote, then we will understand it.
So he says the world goes on in its perfect way. No person can deflect it even the breadth of a hair from the course chalked out for it by providence. So here he is talking about how prakrteh kriyamanani gunaih karmani sarvasahah, ahankara vimudhaatma kartaham iti manyate, 3.27 in the Bhagavad Gita explains that everything is happening by the modes of material nature and only ignorant people think that they are the doers.
So this idea that a person instigated a revolution and because of that the government got toppled and then there was a change, all this we can say is true at the relative material level when we don't see how people are actually controlled by the modes. So the modes of passion, ignorance and goodness are making different people act in different ways and those people are thinking that they are the doers and those certain such changes may make some things better. They don't really solve the problems of birth, old age, disease and death and quite often in the long run and sometimes even in the short run they end up making things worse.
So I was at a meeting of the 60th anniversary of the founding of the United Nations in Pune and there the head of the Indian department of the Indian wing of United Nations was explaining that you know all the millions of dollars have been spent and thousands of volunteers and employees have been working to make things better through the United Nations and all its sister organizations. Actually in all those areas whether it is international labor rights or children welfare or trading arrangements or whatever in all those areas the condition is actually degenerated, it is not improved. So the point is that when we try to improve things at a material level that improvement rarely lasts, things over a period of time just deteriorate or rather they go according to the way nature has ordained.
So rather than trying to improve things at a material level and think that we are improving things what we need to do is harmonize ourselves with God. Now the soul has to act either according to material nature or according to God's will. Now when the soul acts according to material nature that is also in a sense according to God's plan but it is not according to God's desire, Krishna doesn't want us to get entangled in material existence but when we let ourselves be controlled by the modes then we become entangled that way.
So bhakti offers a liberating alternative by shifting us from the control of the modes to the control of Krishna. When we start rendering devotional service sincerely then that inner connection with Krishna enables us to resist the pulls and the pushes of the modes and it enables us to act for our best long term interests in accordance with Krishna's will. So when we harmonize with ourselves with Krishna then we stop being a part of the problem and we become a part of the solution because Krishna's plan is the ultimate solution.
To the extent we deviate from Krishna's plan to that extent we become a part of the problem. Now a person in the mode of goodness may think that a person in the mode of passion and ignorance is a part of the problem and a person in goodness may think that I will become the reformer and I will reform those people. So relatively what is happening in goodness may be better than what is happening in passion and ignorance but still overall it perpetuates the illusion of material existence.
So both the reformer and the deformer, deformer means one who is making things worse, they actually both need reform. The deformer is making things worse materially and the reformer is thinking that I will make things better materially but actually better or worse the material platform itself is bad because at the material platform we are ignorance of our spiritual identity and whatever we do we ultimately continue suffering in the cycle of birth and death. So in that sense the real reform is to stop attempting for independent reform and start harmonizing with Krishna's will and to the extent we start doing that, to that extent we become reformers in the hands of Krishna and that kind of reformation is what is ultimately required for the world.
So therefore, Shrila Bhaktisiddhanta Swarup Thakur later on does say that the person who thinks that the world needs reformation is himself needing reform and how will that reform come about that he explains is by hearing from Krishna through his pure devotee and then such a person when he or she understands that actually Krishna is in charge of the world and Krishna is available for guiding every person then such a person doesn't desire to do any independent reform but simply desires that let me become connected with Krishna within and let me connect others with Krishna within and then by Krishna's plan everything will work out for the best. So he says the course of this world is not required to be changed by the agency of any person. So he is not saying it doesn't require to be changed, it doesn't require to be changed by the agency of any person.
Actually the course of the world has to be arranged or harmonized with the will of the Lord. We have to play our role in that. What is necessary to change is to change our outlook to this world.
That means the world is going in a particular way and we are going in a particular way. Our going in a particular way is causing problems. So when we change our outlook to this world, rather than being enjoyers, we agree to be harmonizers.
We agree to become servants of Krishna. Then we become a part of the solution. The scriptures declare that it is only necessary to listen with an open mind to the name of Krishna from the lips of a bona fide devotee.
This is a continuing proverb of the Sanskrit table of sports and as soon as Krishna enters the listening ear, he clears of the vision of the listener and removes from that person's heart so that he no longer has any ambition of ever acting the part of a reformer of any other person. Because he finds that nobody is left without the very highest guidance. So again, the point here is not that people don't need reform, but they all have that highest guidance.
So what we need to do is, we need to get the guidance within us and we need to help others get the guidance within us. It is therefore his own reform by the grace of God, whose supreme necessity and nature he is increasingly able to realize by the eternally continuing mercy of the Supreme Lord. So then what I understand is, when I actually understand that Krishna is in my heart and is the most competent guide for me, then I understand the real reform I need is, I need to properly connect with Krishna and when I properly connect with Krishna, then I will be able to connect others also with Krishna properly.
That's why my most important need is to reform myself and connect with Krishna and similarly help others to connect with Krishna. So this whole passage is not a mandate for rejecting all reform per se, but it is a mandate for exposing the fallacy of material conceptions of reform that are independent of harmonization with God. Thank you.