What is loyalty – how does it relate with spirituality?

[Bhagavatam class at Govardhan Eco-village, India]

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Hare Krishna. So, today morning, I’ll speak on the topic of loyalty and spirituality.
So, this is the pastime from the Ramayana, where Vibhishan is now performing the last rites of Ravan. Many times, when we study the epics, we see the, that what is considered by night, by some people is considered day by others. So, radically opposite perspectives of things.
So, some characters are extremely polarizing. So, probably the most polarizing character in our epics is Karna. Karna is considered to be a wronged hero by some people, by most people, you could say.
And he is considered the wrong hero by some people. The wronged hero, that means bad things happened to him. And wrong hero means he was a heroic person, but he made wrong choices.
So, just as Karna is a character like that in the Mahabharata, Vibhishan is also a character like that. But Vibhishan is sometimes considered to be a bratra drohi, that he betrayed his brother. So, now, at one level, we as devotees understand that, that the Lord is the supreme being and what is done for the Lord’s pleasure or what is done for the Lord’s service is right.
And Karna went against the Lord. Vibhishan went on the side of the Lord. So, Vibhishan is right.
Now, that is, of course, the ultimately correct perspective. At the same time, we don’t see in the scripture itself, this reasoning used to avoid serious moral reasoning. That means that when a particular character makes a particular choice, which is, say, from the normal perspective questionable, the answer is not that because Krishna wants it, so I do it.
That is the perspective that the devotees and not only all devotees, some of the Vaishnavacharyas take. But there is a lot of reasoning that goes in. Say, for example, in the Bhagavad Gita itself, Krishna himself is trying to persuade Arjuna and Krishna doesn’t draw on his authority that I am God.
If that’s what he wanted to do, I am God, obey me, fight. The Bhagavad Gita could have ended in six words. But Krishna does elaborate reasoning.
In fact, now, Krishna does talk about his divinity. But he is seeking voluntary acceptance, not just based on fear of the divine authority, but based on intelligence. So, whenever there are serious ethical decisions to be done, at that time, there is discussion, there is reasoning happening.
So, for example, when Karna has lowered his bow, sorry, Karna is off his chariot, trying to pull the wheel out of the ground. And at that time, Arjuna lowers his bow. And then Krishna tells Arjuna, don’t waste this opportunity.
And then Karna tells him, don’t entertain thoughts that are entertained only by cowards. So, remember the codes of morality. Wait till I am ready to fight with you.
So, when he speaks this, Krishna responds. Now, Krishna is responding not just for Karna’s sake, Krishna is also responding for Arjuna’s sake. Krishna is also responding for the world’s sake.
And Krishna says at that time that, oh, Karna, it is fortunate that you today remember the codes of morality. Where were these codes of morality when the Kauravas did so many atrocities to the Pandavas and you assisted them? Was it because of morality that you suggested the Draupadi with his throne? Was it because of morality that you joined five other warriors to slaughter the hapless 16-year-old Abhimanyu? Was it morality because of which you conspired with the Kauravas to have the Pandavas burned in Varanavath? Was it morality because of which you participated in all the atrocious activities that the Kauravas did? If that was morality, then Arjuna will summon that same morality today and kill you. So, of course, we could go into the specific moral reasoning of each case.
But the point is, Krishna is not bringing this reasoning, I am God, obey me. So, there is serious moral reasoning that is done. What is the right course of action? So, now, based on this background, let’s talk about the concept of loyalty.
So, I’ll talk this in three parts. First part is, why loyalty is not as simple as it seems. Then second part will be how loyalty and spirituality can be brought together or rather how spirituality can help us to address dilemmas around loyalty.
And then lastly, I’ll talk about how this applies in our context today. So, if we consider loyalty, the Mahabharata says that Karna was a virtuous person but the problem was he had misdirected loyalty. So, normally when we think about loyalty, what exactly is loyalty? Is it an emotional connection that we feel with something or someone? Broadly speaking, loyalty can be either to a person or to a cause.
Loyalty can be to a person. This is a very inspiring leader. So, suppose, say, now India is currently being threatened by China.
So, there is a heroic leader who is fighting and people join that leader. That’s loyalty to a particular leader. Or it could be that, no, we have to protect our country.
Even if the leader falls, we’ll keep fighting. So, that’s loyalty to a cause. So, generally we think of loyalty either to a person or to a cause.
And loyalty is actually something which is, we could say, foundational for this very fabric of society. So, normally everybody faces temptations or tribulations. See, normally on the path of dharma, there are two deviations.
One is temptation. You just give this up and you’ll get so much pleasure. Or there is tribulation.
You continue on this, you’ll get so much trouble. Get off this path. So, pleasure and trouble are basically the two ways by which we can be diverted from the right path.
And if you study Indian history, it’s one of history’s greatest paradoxes, how India is such a large, resourceful and powerful country, but it was again and again conquered by invaders. And many times in the world history, it has happened that India is among the few countries which has been repeatedly conquered by invaders who were far lesser number than the defenders. Not always, but many times.
And one reason for this was because of internal dissension. The invaders, the divide and rule is not a British policy. British did it infamously, but it was done before that also.
In fact, we see at the time of, even, unfortunately, we see that even when there are dharmic kings, even dharmic kings used to have fights among each other. Even Krishnadevaraya and Maharaja Prataparudra, they had a severe fight among each other. Both of them were Vaishnavas.
So, it’s unfortunate that this happened. But the point is that, when there is no clear understanding of a higher cause, then what do we mean by loyalty? Is it to a particular kingdom? Is it to my kingdom? Is it to a larger Aryavarta? So, loyalty was not very clear. And that’s why what would happen is that if my loyalty is only to my state or my family or my community and not to the larger concept of dharma, then somebody else can manipulate me.
We will promote your family, your community, your state. But then the whole Aryavarta goes down because of that. So, when you talk about loyalty, what exactly is it? First, you talk about it is directed.
Generally, loyalty is relational. It is in relationship with something or someone. It’s a cause or a person.
Then, once we understand, loyalty is related with something external, it’s relational. Now, what is the nature of that relationship? Is it an emotional connection or is it a moral concept? Now, what is the difference between the two, an emotional connection and a moral concept? So, an emotional connection means that it’s more of a affection or attraction or devotion that we feel. So, it’s more at the level of emotion.
Whereas, when we talk about a moral concept. So, is loyalty, if you want to translate this into Sanskrit, emotional connection means is it a bhavana, is it an emotion or is it a moral concept? Moral concept means is it like dharma? Now, when you talk about a moral concept, see, morality is foundational for society. And it’s one of the ironies that today in society, there is a materialistic worldview.
But within a materialistic worldview, actually, there is no basis for morality. What it means is that say now, some of you may be aware that there are a lot of protests going on in America, because blacks feel discriminated against and they are protesting for equal rights. So now, equality is considered to be almost like a sacrosanct, extremely sacred virtue in modern society.
And yet, within materialism, there is no basis for equality. Because you take any material metric, people are unequal. Now, whether it is height or weight or IQ or EQ, or whatever you take, people are unequal.
So, what is the basis for equality? So, our very equality, our very longing for equality points to something non-material. So, our longing for equality points to our spirituality. That there is something within all of us, which transcends all the material metrics that we may use, whether it is IQ, EQ or whatever metrics we may use, by which we are all varied.
But beyond these material metrics, there is something non-material in all of us. And that is the basis of equality. So, morality in general, so equality is just one aspect of morality.
We feel if somebody is treated unequally, somebody discriminated against, we feel that is unfair. So, that is the aspect of morality. But where does morality itself, what is the basis of morality? See, we can have physical facts, this is this height, this is this weight.
But when we say somebody is moral or somebody is immoral, that is not a physical or a material fact. So, when we talk about loyalty, is it simply an emotional connection or is it a moral fact? Or is it a moral concept? Now, when we talk about moral concept, the rough equivalent of that could be dharma. Now, when we talk about moral concept also, further it comes to two more things.
Is it a virtue or is it a duty? Now, dharma, it can be translated in many different ways. By virtue, it means that it is an innate quality, it’s a quality that someone has. So, on the other hand, when we say it is a duty, it means it is something we should do.
So, is it morality is something that people are born with? Or is it morality something that we exercise? So, now, when we talk about the Bhagavatam, the Bhagavatam often personifies various qualities. And the idea behind personification is to actually take these things seriously. Just like when we say the mind is our enemy, the mind is not a conscious being with agency.
We say the mind acts like our enemy. So, this personification is done so that we take it seriously. If we knew that there is an enemy who is out to get us, then we would be cautious.
Right now, there is a great apprehension because of the COVID crisis. So, now, whether viruses are living or not, that’s a philosophically debatable issue. It’s like viruses exhibit actually Achaitya Bheda Veda.
That means, as long as they don’t have a host, they are non-living. As soon as they get a host, they start becoming living. So, how do we ultimately know whether something is living or not? It’s based on whether they exhibit the symptoms of life or not.
And what are the symptoms of life? We could say it’s consciousness. But consciousness, now, how do I know whether somebody else is conscious or not? Say, if I speak something, how do I know that you are conscious? I can know my own consciousness. But how can I know your consciousness? Well, you could say that I can see your expressions.
I can see your emotions. I can see your choices. And based on that, I can understand your consciousness.
But then how do we, that’s reasonable. Although that’s, you can always say, if somebody could make a robot, which could exactly imitate you, then how would I know whether you’re conscious or not? So, it’s a difficult question. But especially when we can’t see something, when we can’t see a virus, how do we know it’s conscious or not? So, the understanding is that when there is life or when there is, we could generally talk about embodied souls, we could also talk about ensouled matter.
Ensouled matter means matter in which soul is present. So, the internal or other internally experienceable symptom of that is consciousness. The externally manifest symptom is that normal matter, that means matter without any consciousness within it, it undergoes only three changes.
There is creation, deterioration and destruction. Just like any house we construct, it is there for some time, it will get deteriorated and it will get destroyed. But when there is consciousness present within it, then there are three more changes over there.
It’s apart from creation, there is growth, there is maintenance, there is reproduction, and then there is deterioration and destruction. So, if these three changes are happening, that there is growth, deterioration, growth, maintenance and reproduction, then we can understand that there is a soul over there. So, virus, normally without a host, it simply exists and will die out.
But as soon as it gets a host, then it starts exhibiting the symptoms of life. So, in that sense, it is on the border of life or non-life and from a spiritual perspective, what we understand is that the soul gets different kinds of bodies based on its own past karma. The body is like the Kshetra for the soul.
So, how much of a Kshetra or how influential that Kshetra is, a soul might get the body of a tiny ant and the soul might get a body of a huge elephant. And the difference is based on karma. The soul has done the karma to get the body of an ant, then it will have very limited influence.
So, the viruses, they have this peculiar karma that their Kshetra is conditioned, that their Kshetra is very conditional. That means, certainly wherever there is virus, there is a soul. But that soul doesn’t have a body like we have.
Rather, we could say its body is passive till it gets a medium. So, in that sense, its very existence and its activity depends on externals. So, the point, that’s an entirely different question, but the point I was making here is that, see, at least when we know there is an enemy, like there is this danger of a coronavirus infecting us, then we are alert.
So, I was making the point of personification, that just as we personify the mind, so that we take it seriously. The virus, is the virus out to get us? Well, the virus is simply out to survive. And its survival requires that it get us.
So, jivo jivas te jivanam, that is the feature of material existence. Now, so, personification is often done to make us take things seriously. So, even virtues and vices are personified in that sense.
So, when we talk about loyalty, I talk about three things. Is it an emotional connection? Is it a virtue? Or is it a duty? Actually, it is all three. In the sense that some people, by their past karma, may be born with that virtue.
That means that they are naturally, whichever relationship they form, whatever larger hole they are a part of, they are naturally loyal. So, that’s a virtue which they are born with. Now, loyalty is also an emotional connection.
Now, our emotionality itself is a result of our past karma. As we know, some people are more emotional, some people are more rational. So, it’s that some people’s loyalty may be manifest more explicitly through their emotions.
Some people’s loyalty may not be manifested through those emotions, because by nature, they are not emotional. So, there is an emotional connection also. But most importantly, from our perspective, loyalty is duty.
That dharma can mean virtue, dharma can also mean duty. So, for example, the first chapter of the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna talks about, or rather Arjuna talks about various levels of dharma. And he says that if I do not do my dharma, to my, I do not do my kula dharma.
Then, So, the same dynamic of dharma and adharma, which Krishna talks about later in more celebrated verses like, So, when dharma goes down, adharma goes up. So, Arjuna is also talking about the same thing in the first chapter of the Gita. But he’s talking it from the perspective of kula dharma.
And he says, if I do not follow, if I do not do my duty to my dynasty, the result will be chaos in society. So, here dharma is talked about in terms of a duty that I have to do. If I don’t do this duty, then it will be wrong.
So, dharma can be all these things. And so, loyalty can be all these three things. And we can talk about loyalty more in terms of a duty.
So, we may feel loyalty, we may have a natural inclination toward loyalty, or we may not with respect to these things. But we can act loyally. Now, this is the first point, what is loyalty? Now, if we move forward, how are loyalty and spirituality related? That is, basically, I talked about how Karna, his weakness or his mistake was misdirected loyalty.
So, loyalty, in a sense, leads to partiality. Loyalty, in a sense, not always, in a sense, it leads to partiality. That is, if I have to make a choice between two, and if I am loyal to a particular cause, I will choose that cause.
And we will see everywhere that most people who do wrong, especially when they are committed to a particular cause, they don’t think it is wrong. Occasionally, we might do something wrong. And then you may think, oh, I shouldn’t have done that.
That’s when our conscience is still active. But if somebody is committed to doing something wrong, then they are so convinced about it, that their conscience itself becomes perverted. See, one thing is, sometimes our vices, they force us to do something wrong.
And then we feel bad about it. But sometimes the vices themselves go so completely off that the vices take so much control that we start feeling that the wrong thing is right. Say, for example, this has happened in the Western world, where now, during this current corona pandemic, all non-essential services were closed.
But only essential services were allowed. And in America, as well as most of the Western world, they considered abortion to be an essential service. And all abortion clinics were on.
And when this was opposed by some people, New York Times published an article as, abortion is an absolute moral good. Not only is it a good, not only is it a moral good, it’s an absolute moral good. Now, we may wonder, how can somebody think that killing an unborn child is good? What to speak of absolute moral good? So, they consider it to be an essential service.
So, now, if you go into their reasoning, it just, from an outside perspective, it makes no sense at all. But the sheer amount of vehemence, the sheer amount of hatred toward anyone who opposes abortion, if you see it, it is unbelievable. So, anybody in the Western world who opposes abortion, they are considered to be enemies of women.
Why enemies of women? Because now, generally, when somebody controls language, control of language is the way to control thought. Or rather, change of language is the way to change thought. So, it’s like, adultery.
Adultery is a word for immorality, sexual immorality. But now, adultery sounds a bad word. But now, what is called as adulterous enjoyment is treated as adult entertainment.
Now, what does adult mean? Adult sounds like a very mature word. So, they change that word and what happens, the thinking underlying is changed by that. So, in movies, when sexually explicit scenes are done, they use the word bold scenes.
So, what is the implication of that? Anybody who doesn’t dress that way, they are cowardly. So, control of language is the way to change thinking. So, abortion has now been portrayed as female reproductive rights.
See the usage, it’s a right, it’s a female reproductive right. The woman should be able to decide when she wants her body to be a vessel for reproduction or not. So, anyway, the point I’m making here is that when somebody starts championing a cause, they become so loyal to their cause that they start thinking that anybody who is opposed to that is evil and their conscience itself gets perverted.
So, did Karna, when he was fighting for Duryodhana, did he have any reservations? There is no, actually, if you look at the dialogue between Karna and Krishna, before Krishna departs after his proposal, Shanti Doodh fails, at that time, Krishna tries to persuade Karna and Karna also says that I know that I’m going to die. I had a dream and it was not just a dream, it was a premonition. It’s indication of what’s going to happen in the future.
He says, I’m going to die, but I will not give up Duryodhana’s side. So, now, even if he knows what is right, there’s an American comedian who said that I have already made up my mind, don’t confuse me with the facts. So, don’t confuse me with the facts.
So, going back to the abortion issue, Bhaktira Samut Maharaj is writing a book on abortion and I’m assisting him, so I’ve been studying that subject. So, in America, there’s pro-life and there’s pro-choice. So, pro-choice is that people should choose, they have the right to choose.
Pro-life means, no, it’s not a matter of choice, it’s a matter of life. So, what the pro-life lobby tried to do was, pro-choice says, okay, you want the woman to choose, let her choose, but let the woman see what the embryo really is, means that the abortion clinics should show pictures of how the embryo is, and if after seeing that the embryo is a life, is a life form, after that, if she decides, I want to still abort, that should be okay. But then, what the pro-choice lobby said is, this will emotionally distort her ability to make decisions.
So, things have become so bad now, that in America, when I’m using America, I’m just using that as a metonym to refer to the Western world, broadly speaking. Now, if a child has to get a, if a young boy has to get a license, if a young child has to get a license, they have to normally go with an adult, who will take responsibility. But if a girl has to get an abortion, she doesn’t have to tell her parents.
Not only does she not have to tell her parents, if she simply tells that my parents are opposing me in doing this, then the parents will be arrested. So, what has happened is, this has been a complete distortion. So, loyalty can make one do some, sometimes makes people do terrible things.
And we see this in the form of especially child indoctrination that is done. Say, in the Islamic world, we see some, the Middle East is because of petrol. But Pakistan and Afghanistan are relatively poorer.
And that is where most of the terrorists are bred. And what happens over there is, there are poor children, and they are just indoctrinated into just hating those whom they are taught to hate. And they think they are being loyal.
They think they are being loyal to their cause. But because of loyalty, they are being hateful. Some of our devotees are preaching in Pakistan.
And I met one devotee who is like the regional head. He is from Australia, but he goes to Pakistan to preach. So, he is a professor.
And while as a professor, he does spiritual teaching also discreetly. So, he was telling me that in the urban cities, there is not much problem, because actually there is some level of law. But you go into the rural areas, things become very problematic.
So, now, finally, after a lot of effort, the government, Pakistani government allowed a Hindu temple to be built. The first Hindu temple in Pakistan to be built, apart from what were existing. And then, just that decision, as the construction started, then there was so much vehemence.
Then there was some security, but at night time, people came and destroyed the walls of the temple. And then there is a video of a small boy. And he is spewing such hatred, such hatred.
And you can’t imagine. Generally, we think of small children as tender. Now, if you remember in Journey Home also, Radha Maharaj writes about how when he was passing through the Middle East, I think through Afghanistan, he saw this boy and was looking at him with such hate.
Because often they think of America as the personification of the devil and Americans as many representations of that. So, what happens is, loyalty can make people do terrible things. So, then, that means, in the name of loyalty, people can do terrible things.
So, what happens over there? Any virtue, if it is made into an absolute, then it becomes problematic. So, morality or loyalty itself has to be subordinated to life’s ultimate purpose. And what is life’s ultimate purpose? Life’s ultimate purpose is that we all are meant to grow spiritually.
We are all ultimately meant to connect with Krishna. So, we all have our particular causes and those causes are important. But if those causes come in the way of the ultimate cause or those causes make us do something that is militantly opposed to the ultimate cause, Krishna says that knowledge in the mode of ignorance, in 1822, he talks about it.
So, when we start making one thing into everything, that Krishna says is perception in the mode of ignorance. So, it’s actually, it’s an ironical idea. It’s like knowledge in the mode of ignorance.
Normally, we think of knowledge and ignorance as opposite things. So, you say, you know, now if you tell somebody, that was a brilliantly stupid statement. What do you mean by that? Either it is brilliant or it is stupid.
So, that means that the reasoning behind the statement was brilliant, but the conclusion is stupid. So, knowledge in ignorance, what does it mean? You, person has knowledge, but that knowledge doesn’t counter ignorance. That knowledge reinforces ignorance.
That means one has one’s own perspective and one has only the knowledge that reinforces one’s perspective and no other knowledge. So, somebody can remember, somebody who is hateful, they know everything about one side of the story and nothing about the other side. So, this getting caught in small, small, small things and making them very big.
This is the problem that can come to loyalty that is divorced from ultimate reality. The ultimate reality is Krishna and service to Krishna. So, that was second part.
Now, third part is how all this applies to us. When Srila Prabhupada was preaching in India, initially he tried his best to cooperate with his God brothers and work with them. So, when he was in the Delhi-Agra area, he was working with one of his God brothers and he was staying at his ashram and then at that time he would go and give classes.
Somehow at that time the vigor for outreach had been lost because everybody got caught too much in internal dissension. So, Prabhupada himself was still going out and doing classes. So, he gave a class and after that some people came and said to him that, can I become your disciple? And Prabhupada said, yes.
And then Prabhupada was a part of the matha of one of his God brothers and some of his disciples were there. And that disciple just in front of Srila Prabhupada and this person, he exploded. He said, out of question.
He said, everybody in this matha should become the disciple of my Guru. And Prabhupada was trying to signal to him and said, we will talk about this later. But he had such a self-righteous rage towards him.
He felt as if this person has come and taking away those who are meant to be my Guru’s disciples. And when Prabhupada saw that, Prabhupada just walked away from that. Not only from that program, Prabhupada just walked away from that place.
And so what happened over here? Prabhupada was actually sharing Krishna consciousness. But quite often, even while we are trying to… and Prabhupada was sharing Krishna consciousness, his God brothers were sharing Krishna consciousness. But even while sharing the ultimate reality, we can get too caught in our own reality.
And then when we get too caught in our own reality, then there is… see, all of us, if we are having a particular service, a particular project, a particular spiritual master, a particular guide, there is a need for a sense of emotional connect, a sense of duty, a sense of loyalty to that. But that, if it blinds us to our ultimate purpose, then it becomes counterproductive. Now, many of Prabhupada’s God brothers were themselves very exalted devotees and there is absolutely no intent to disrespect them.
But just from the perspective analysis over here, when Prabhupada came to Mayapur, at that time, some of his God brothers criticized him because he did not… he did this in a particular way, he did that in a particular way. And they said, this is not how Bhakti Sansthaka did things. Or they had other kinds of criticism.
So Prabhupada said, you know, why are they not able to see that actually I am carrying on their spiritual master’s mission, our spiritual master’s mission. It’s not that I am doing something separate. In fact, Prabhupada actually never saw ISKCON as anything radically separate from Gaudiya Math.
Prabhupada saw ISKCON as a separate entity, they named it a separate entity. But Prabhupada saw it as an extension of the Gaudiya Math. And that’s why when first he came to India, he brought his disciples and he had them associate with his God brothers.
But then what happened? Some of his God brothers tried to poach his disciples. They tried to tell him, you know, this is not right and you come to us and we will tell you more advanced things. And when Prabhupada heard that, Prabhupada became very protective.
Became very protective. Now protectiveness can sometimes seem like sectarianism. Why? Somebody might say that, you know, why did Prabhupada say that don’t associate with my God brothers? Prabhupada did not literally say that, but Prabhupada did not disrespect his God brothers, but Prabhupada didn’t want his disciples to get confused.
So when we are practicing a particular, when we are connected with a particular cause, then we also need to be aware of the ultimate cause. If we forget that, then what happens? Then we can also get caught in our own divisions. Is this right? Is that right? So, generally in any religious organization, there will be liberals and there will be conservatives.
The extreme liberals are relativists. The extreme conservatives are, we could call, fanatic or very conservative, the fanatics on this side. So what happens? There will always be polarization between the two.
But most devotees are somewhere in between. So it’s like there are 5% extreme liberals, 5% extreme conservatives and 90% are in between. But these 5% extreme, they make more noise than the remaining 90%.
And sometimes that conflict can get, that can consume everybody so much that the big purpose is forgotten. In Catholicism, the current Pope, Pope Francis is considered by many to be quite liberal. So in Christianity, they have a concept called the lost sheep, that we are all the lost sheep and Jesus was the shepherd who has brought us all back, who is taking us all back.
So we are all the lost sheep of God and God sends its messengers. So those who are priests are like also the shepherds. So Pope Francis is criticized very severely and there’s a conservative who has written a book called Lost Shepherd.
So you have lost sheep but he says, Pope Francis is a lost shepherd. So now it’s like a massive 600 page book. So people spend so much intellectual energy on things like this.
So what happens, we take one cause and there might be virtue to that cause and if that cause is there, it’s fine. But if we get so caught in our particular cause that we start defeating the big cause that it is a part of, then that is misdirected loyalty. So for all of us, we may not have the kind of ethical questions that say Vibhishan had over here or Karna had.
But we all also have to have the sense of loyalty but our loyalty needs to be subordinated to our spirituality, to our bhakti, to our ultimate purpose of serving Krishna. There are many manifestations of Krishna which could be our particular project, our guru, our spiritual guides, our spiritual friends. At the same time, Krishna is the ultimate reality and we have loyalty to our particular manifestations but beyond that, we have loyalty to Krishna and it is that loyalty to Krishna that is the most important thing.
I’ll conclude with one incident. I was in America and I met Radha Maharaj in Chicago and there are many devotees who are doing western outreach in America and most of the western outreach is done largely independent of the temples because most of the temples are filled with Indians and they focus more on maintaining the temples and taking care of the temples because in the early years, we built a lot of temples and we had lot of deities and maintaining them itself is taking a lot of energy. So when devotees are doing western outreach, then sometimes those devotees may not always work under the temple authority because what happens if they work only under temple authorities, so then what happens, they will get caught in the temple services and the temples focus is not on western outreach.
So when I travel, I also try to do some western outreach. So I also go to the temples. So I was in one particular place and then what happened over there that I heard from the devotees who are doing temple outreach and then I heard from the temple leaders who are complaining about these devotees.
Then I met Maharaj and Maharaj knows both of them quite well. So I talked with Maharaj and Maharaj said something very profound. He said that we have many empowered devotees in our movement but we don’t have enough empowered leaders to engage with these empowered devotees.
I asked Maharaj, what do you mean? I said that Maharaj said that empowered leaders are those who can see beyond their own particular project. So he said this particular temple leader was very dedicated and I know them, very sincere, very dedicated but they think of success and service only in terms of their temple and if somebody is not serving their temple, they think that they are not doing anything. So he told me that if Prabhupada had been there and these devotees were doing western outreach, if Prabhupada had been there, Prabhupada would have told these devotees, you start your own temple and you become a temple president.
So he said Prabhupada’s mood was not to constrict devotees. It was to engage devotees. Now of course this is not an absolute, this is not a license for being independent and doing whatever we want.
That’s not my point over here. My point is only that sometimes we get so caught in a project that we may start thinking that somebody who is not contributing to that project is just being whimsical or independent or going against us but it may not be going against us. So there can be loyalty to our cause but there can be also respect for other causes which are also furthering the bigger cause.
So that way we can ensure that our loyalty, I said loyalty can sometimes lead to partiality and can lead to sectarianism but loyalty will not lead to sectarianism if we see the bigger picture and see our loyalty to our particular causes or particular people as a subset of the loyalty to Krishna. So I’ll summarize. I spoke today on the topic of loyalty based on this verse from the Ramayana about Vibhishan.
Vibhishan was considered to be a betrayer by some people but he is loyal to Lord Rama. So I talked about this in three parts. First is what exactly is loyalty? So it’s slippery.
Is loyalty just an emotional connection, emotional feeling that we have? Is loyalty a moral concept? I talked elaborately about how morality itself has no explanation within the materialistic framework, how our longing for equality points to our spirituality. And what is loyalty? We talked about if it’s a moral concept, is it a virtue that we already have or is it a duty that we need to do? Then I talked about how all three are there. From our past karma we might have that emotional connection easily or not so easily.
From our past karma we might have that virtue or we might not have that virtue. What is in our control is loyalty as a duty. Then I talked about how in our tradition there is a tendency to personify things so that they can be more easily understood, they can be taken more seriously.
So the mind is personified. Similarly, in that connection I talked about how coronavirus is it living or non-living. And then morality, the virtues and vices are often personified.
Then how is loyalty related to spirituality? That loyalty can sometimes cause us to get misdirected. Because if we just get caught in loyalty to that particular cause, we may become blinded to everything else. So those who are who are passionately loyal to the cause of abortion start claiming that it is absolute moral good.
Those who are loyal to their religion start demonizing people of other religion. Why? Because they are loyal to a cause but they have forgotten the big picture and that is knowledge in the mode of ignorance. And the big picture is we are all ultimately parts of Krishna, the ultimate reality and our loyalty has to harmonize us with the ultimate reality.
Then the last part I talked about is how does it apply to all of us? That I gave some examples from Sri Prabhupada’s life, his interactions with God brothers and disciples. How sometimes they became narrow-minded and it resulted from loyalty because they didn’t see that what Prabhupada was doing, what they were doing, what the spiritual masters were doing ultimately for Krishna’s pleasure. And in our case also, we are all connected with particular manifestations of Krishna’s love, Krishna’s grace and naturally our loyalty will be to those but that loyalty shouldn’t blind us to the bigger picture.
And if we can see the bigger picture, then we can be loyal to our particular cause or person whom we are connected. At the same time, we can be respectful for others and that way we all can move forward harmoniously. Thank you very much.
Hare Krishna. Any questions or comments? So whenever we talk about a particular duty, some people may perceive that this is a particular social construct based on which you are imposed, you are told to do certain things. So how do we counter that? This is basically moral relativism that if something feels right to me, it’s right for me.
Something feels right for you, it is right for you. So I was speaking in Amazon and after my talk, somebody asked this question in Seattle. So then I said, ultimately, what you think is right for you, that same thing, moral relativism.
I asked him, so right now, is there anyone in any part of the world who is doing something that is wrong? He said, yes. Can you give an example? He said, you know, there are child abusers, there are terrorists, so many innocent people. He said that, do the terrorists think that they are doing something wrong? So he said that, so he agreed to this point that there are some things which are absolute wrongs irrespective of whether we think of it as right or wrong.
So moral relativism is, it’s, there is a universal moral sense. See, there is rationality. Okay, I would put it this way.
See, we talk about emotions as coming from the mind and reason as coming from the intelligence. That’s true. But there is a fundamental moral sense that, or rather, if we talk about conscience, conscience is also more of an emotion.
I feel something is wrong or I feel something is right. I might not be able to give proper rational explanation of why this is wrong or why this is right. In fact, if you consider the definition of Madhyamadhikari is that, a Madhyamadhikari knows that this is right.
Although the Madhyamadhikari may not be able to give proper reasons based on scripture why this is right. So, the idea is that there are, we all beyond our subjective feelings have at a foundational level an agreement of what is right or wrong. Now some people might get very indoctrinated and they might not accept that.
But those are extremes. After the Second World War there was what is called the Nuremberg Trials and most of the Nazis who survived, Hitler killed himself because he said, I will not give my enemies the pleasure of killing me. Perverted reasoning, I will not give my enemies the pleasure of killing me.
I will have that pleasure myself. That is a pleasure, we don’t know. But anyway, many Nazis were caught and they said that we were simply following instructions.
We were obeying orders. And they claimed that we are not responsible for the Holocaust and all that they did. So, the Nuremberg Trials said that, yes, in the normal military you are meant to follow orders.
But there is a foundational human sense where if you are just killing innocent people for no reason at all, that is wrong. So, now there are certain things that are called as war crimes. Even if the war is happening, certain things are not to be done even in war.
So, we could debate about specifics. If you consider a spectrum, there is black, there is white and there are shades of grey. Now, what all is placed in black and what all is placed in white and what all falls in the shades of grey, that could be a matter of debate.
We could say that is the debate between conservatives and liberals. Conservatives will put a lot in the shades of black and white and liberals will put a lot in shades of grey. But either way, neither denies that there is black and white.
So, moral relativism, it just doesn’t work. It is not experientially vindicated. Say, for example, cannibalism.
If somebody kills and eats people, that is revolting to us. How can anyone do that? So, child sexual abuse, that is revolting. So, there are things which we all agree are revolting.
So, there is black, there is white and there are shades of grey. Just the relative composition of that may vary. So, I feel that generally when we are presenting concepts, we need to acknowledge that there are shades of grey.
But that doesn’t mean that everything is a shade of grey. Or you could say that black is also a shade of grey and white is also a shade of grey. If you want to argue like that, all colours are related.
But still there is black and white. The real problem comes up when we start placing into black and white things which people may not agree are black and white. So, if we acknowledge the flexibility of the placement of black, white and grey, then things become relatively easier to digest for people.
So, last couple of months, I have started this Monks Podcast where I have discussions with senior Vaishnavas on various issues and then we publish it on Facebook. So, I had a recent discussion with Hrudayan Maharaj. So, he told me one very striking thing that when he started doing college outreach, Prabhupada told him that in college outreach, the worst thing that you can do is present Krishna Consciousness as a set of rules, as a set of do’s and don’ts.
If you do that, then you simply alienate the youth. Just present it as a philosophy. And then, once the philosophy is understood, then the reasoning behind particular do’s and don’ts becomes more intelligible.
So, I say we don’t have to place things in moral categories prematurely. But we don’t have to deny the name, deny the presence of moral categories also. So, I’ll conclude with this.
Bhaktivedanta Maharaj in one of his books talks about abortion in a very either you could say sensitive way or a controversial way. So, normally we would say abortion is terribly wrong. But the way the debate has been framed is, by the way, I like to qualify, I did not say that those people are horrible.
I just said that because the people who do abortion, they are actually normal human beings. It’s not that they are perverted kind of people. What I was saying is that how distorted their reasoning has become.
So, what has happened in today’s world is that things are very complex. So, rather than saying that abortion is bad, we need to consider why is it that people, especially women, come to a situation where they have to consider abortion. And what can be done to fix that? So, of course, now we could say just control your senses.
But that is too, that seems too utopian for most people and again too rigid. So, the way Bhaktivedanta Maharaj explains it is that he said that we all need to recognize the sanctity of life and then he says even the sanctity of sex because it is the source of life. And based on this, in our particular situations, we need to contemplate what is the right thing and then do that.
So, what happens is, essentially, if you actually contemplate the sanctity of these things, we will come to a particular decision. So, the idea is, rather than telling somebody, don’t go here. We have a particular vision by which we see why going there is wrong.
So, just, okay, these are the glasses with which I am seeing it. And then just look at these glasses. Just take these glasses and see.
Does it make sense to you? Now, somebody could say that, okay, but I have my glasses, you have your glasses. So, that means you have your kind of, as you said, there is an institutional construct. So, I have a social construct, you have an institutional construct.
Yes, you could put it that way, but you could also put it this way that we already have a conditioned vision and there is some kind of education that helps that, that worsens our conditioning and there is some kind of education that weakens our conditioning. So, now, is it that everything that is taught by institution is always going to weaken the conditioning? Maybe, maybe not. But we can’t per se, just because something is being taught by an institution, call it an indoctrination or reject it.
We can evaluate it based on merit. So, we all have conditioned vision. But we all can come out of our conditioning.
Say, for example, if I have a conditioning to think of, say, people of a particular religion as extremists, then what is the way to get out of it? It is through education. Education means I read more about that religion, maybe I meet people of that religion and see that not everybody in that religion is that way. There is some like that.
So, the way we get over our conditioning is by education. So, just because that education is being offered by a particular institution, doesn’t necessitate that it is indoctrination. So, I think those two steps, don’t impose the places in the moral categories, but don’t deny moral categories.
And then rather than like, rather than telling people what to do and what not to do, just try to share a vision which can help them work their way through their conditionings. Okay. So, thank you very much.