What does seeing but not acting with equal vision mean?
Answer Podcast
Transcript
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I said we should see everyone with equal vision, but then I said we cannot act with the same vision. What does that mean practically? I think Prabhupada gives the example that a soul in a tiger is also like the soul of a human being.
When the soul is a human being, we can embrace that. But the tiger we can’t embrace. The tiger will devour us.
So, that body determines how we respond. It’s a practical, functional meaning. So, basically our understanding is that everybody is a soul and everybody has a relationship with Krishna.
And in a sense if I am the servant of Krishna, then I am the servant of everyone. But how I serve whom, that I have to use my intelligence. So, some people will be very spiritually interested, then we give them time, we give them attention, we share Krishna conscious knowledge with them.
Then they grow by that. Some people, they may just not be ready right now. They may be just too apathetic, too envious.
And we might just serve them from a distance by offering our prayers to them. So, we see that everyone is a soul. Everyone is a soul who needs Krishna.
But we also have to note their present situation and then decide how best we can serve them in this situation. So, equal vision doesn’t necessarily mean equal action. We understand that everybody is a soul.
But because they are in different bodies, different bodily situations, how best I can help this soul come close to Krishna that will vary depending on the bodily situation. So, the whole principle of Varanashram is different people are engaged differently because from their bodily situation what is the best engagement for them. So, in principle, so we say there is spiritual equality.
But there is material diversity. The problem comes in today’s world many times people want material equality. But it doesn’t work because different people have different talents.
In communism they try to have, everybody should be equal. But what happened was that later said about communism that all people were equal but some people were more equal than others. So, we can’t have material equality.
But we need to have spiritual equality and material diversity which is acknowledged and engaged accordingly. Did I answer your question? Any other questions?