What is real dharma?

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Thank you Following the principles of livelihood also depend on the principles of devotional service In the Bhagavad Gita it is stated that a person can achieve the highest perfection of life simply by awarding the results of his occupational duty unto the devotional service of the Lord People following the principles of devotional service to the Lord can never be put into difficulty and thus there cannot be any question of Aapadharma or religion in distress As will be explained in this book by the greatest authority Shri Sukadeva Goswami There is no religion save and except the devotional service of the Lord though this may be presented in different forms Second Canto Parikshit Maharaj is practically speaking initiating, starting the series of questions, the answers to which will span 7 days and 12 cantos So here in this particular verse he is asking a question of great importance to everyone at all time What exactly is religion? Are there different religions for different people? Are there normal religions and is there an emergency religion which you have to take shelter of when you are in danger? So what exactly is religion? Prabhupada in the Parpot first paragraph basically Prabhupada is saying that devotional service is the common religion not only for all human beings but even for animals I searched in folio as far as I could find this is the only place where Prabhupada refers to Hanuman as Vajrangji It’s interesting Then in the next paragraph Prabhupada is talking about how people are worshipping somebody else So we say that devotional service is the only religion but we see that so many people are practising different religions So what about that? Then Prabhupada addresses that which we will address in our discussion later In the third paragraph Prabhupada is talking about how we all have our worldly duties and how our worldly duties can be reconciled with our spiritual duties One of Sri Prabhupada’s scholarly disciples Garuda Prabhu has written a very well researched essay on universal and confidential love of God on how Krishna Consciousness is universal and at the same time confidential, particular So I will refer to Prabhupada’s quotes from there and some other points during the class Just recently I was in Baroda where I was blessed with Associate of Bhakti Vikas Maharaj He was giving a class and he was saying Many Indians say And what does it mean to be a Hindu? To hate a Muslim So many times this is the defining identity of most religions What is the defining identity? There are so many Christian missionaries who are acting in India Their idea is what is the idea of a Christian missionary? One who converts others That’s all So if this is the defining identity of a religion then let us see what Prabhupada says Prabhupada says What is Bhakti Yoga? Very interesting To practise Bhakti Yoga means to become free from designations Generally we think of designations Ok I am an engineer, I am a doctor But Prabhupada gives a surprising twist From designations like Hindu, Muslim, Christian This or that and simply to serve God We have created Christian, Hindu and Mohammedan religions But when we come to a religion without designations In which we don’t think we are Hindus or Christians or Mohammedans Then we can speak of true religion or Bhakti So Many times Religion becomes a part of our false ego The purpose of religion is to free us from our false ego The purpose of practising spiritual life is We have this body and we have identification with the body which is called false ego And the purpose of practising religion Is to become free from this false bodily misidentification But Maya is so strong and subtle That she uses the very tool Which is meant to free us from our false ego To tighten our bond to our false ego That is religion So it says in that new book which I wrote about the temple So I mentioned about how I was just glancing through one book So the author introduces himself Says I am a Jew atheist Now a Jew is a person There is a Jewish religion, a Judaic religion A Jew is a person who follows the laws of God as given in the old commandments So how can there be a Jew atheist There is intrinsic incompatibility in that What does this mean? That Judaism, that designation Jew has become simply a bodily designation It’s nothing more than that So Actually most people in this world Have a sort of tribal mentality People who are living in a small tribe in the jungles They think there are so many dangerous animals outside And there are so many other tribes which will attack us And so The tribal mentality is intrinsically divided into two parts We and they And the tribal mentality sees existence As a perpetual battle between we and they And success means We should conquer the they Now Spiritual practise should actually help us To overcome the we and they mentality But many times When this tribal mentality which is there in everyone Which is often the cause of conflict And bloodshed and warfare and genocide When religion becomes superimposed On this tribal mentality Then not only does it become we versus they It becomes the good we Versus the evil they And that’s why many of the Abrahamic religions The Abrahamic religions means Those religions who trace their ancestors to Abraham That is Judaism, Christianity and Islam They all have this particular mentality of we versus they And they think That everybody who does not practise our religion Is evil And Christians, those who don’t practise their religion Don’t accept Jesus Christ as their only saviour Are called as pagans And Islam, those who don’t follow except Mohammed They are called as kafirs And the only hope according to traditional Not scriptural According to traditional Islam or according to traditional Christianity Is that the only hope for the pagans Or the kafirs is to either get converted Or be exterminated So this sort of mentality and the tribal mentality Is superimposed with religious zeal Then that leads to often Terrible violence and not only is there violence But one thinks that one is righteous One is noble in doing that violence So sometimes when we practise Krishna Consciousness We also talk about devotees And those karmis So are we also subjected to the same we they mentality We they duality We the good devotees and they the evil karmis Is Krishna Consciousness also doing that to us No, if we understand Krishna Consciousness properly It will not do that to us In the 16th chapter of the Bhagavad Gita Krishna talks about, does anyone know what is the 16th chapter Yes, divine and demoniac natures Daiva, Asura, Sampada, Vibhaga, Yoga So there Krishna talks about how those with the divine qualities Will be elevated and those With the demoniac qualities will get degraded Then 17th chapter first verse Arjuna asks an interesting question He says He says Krishna you have talked about two categories of people Those who are divine and those who are demoniac Those who follow scripture with faith and those who reject Scripture out of envy. But what about A third category of people Who have faith but who are not following scripture properly How do we categorise those people And in answer to that Krishna gives An elaborate analysis of the three modes of material nature Actually Krishna has already completed the analysis of the three modes of material nature In the 14th chapter which is Three modes of material nature But on being asked this question by Arjuna Krishna goes back again to the analysis of the three modes Which continues throughout the 17th chapter And through a large part of the 18th chapter also So Krishna essentially what he says That how can you understand Where people are It is not just by the religious designation that they have Stamped themselves with.
It is based on Their qualities. He says you can see The food they eat, the kind of knowledge they have The kind of work that they do The kind of determination that they have The kind of austerities that they perform The kind of sacrifices that they do So all these are external objective parameters Based on which Krishna says you can decide That a particular person is in goodness, passion or ignorance And accordingly he gives He has mentioned earlier in the 14th chapter That Those in goodness will be elevated Those in passion will stay where they are And those in ignorance will be downgraded So that means This particular analysis Does not apply only to Those who accept the Gita or those who don’t accept the Gita It applies to everyone So Krishna does not differentiate Based on this we versus they Krishna says there is an objective criteria for deciding So once when his Maharaj was preaching in the colleges in America At that time one Zealous Christian protestant, Christian preacher came And there were some students around Maharaj So he started telling them He is possessed by the devil. Don’t go close to him He is possessed by the devil So the students started looking at him.
Maharaj didn’t speak anything So he further shouted He is going to go to hell and he will take all of you to hell. Don’t go with him So the students got excited This confrontation between Hare Krishna and Christian They were watching what Maharaj will do So Maharaj said So you think I will go to hell? Of course Why is that? Because you have not accepted Jesus as your saviour Jesus said that I am the truth and the light and I am the only way to God and none shall go to the father Except through me So Maharaj said but Mohammed also said the same thing in the Quran And Krishna said the same thing in the Gita So how do you understand this? So he was a little surprised. He didn’t know what to say So by this time a large number of students were all gathered around So Maharaj said The word of God is the only way Now in this particular verse which is originally there in Hebrew There is one particular word I don’t remember exactly.
It is called Ezekiel or something like that in Hebrew language So that word translates into English as None shall go back presently That means none shall presently go back to the father Except through me But conveniently the Christians have completely deleted the translation So it is as if eternally Jesus is the only way So Maharaj said The word of God is the only way So at the time of Jesus he was giving the word of God At the time of Mohammed he was giving the word of God And Krishna himself is God So he is giving his word So anyone who follows the word of God he will go back to God And there is no other way except following the word of God So all the students were impressed And this Christian missionary got very angry He said oh the devil has captured you so much That he is speaking this beautiful philosophy to delude all of you My dear students don’t get deluded by him So Maharaj said So according to you I am going to hell and where are you going? Oh I am going to go to heaven Because I am preaching the message of God Maharaj said then I would like to go to hell What? If going to heaven means Staying with a fanatic like you for the rest of eternity I would prefer hell So all the students clapped So Modern thinkers Have analysed different religions Into three categories They call it as exclusivism Pluralism and inclusivism So exclusivism is what This particular missionary was Embodying. Exclusivism means God is exclusively available Only through this religious path And to no one else It’s like on television if there is a cricket match they will say Exclusively covered by so and so channel So nobody else is going to cover it We have exclusive coverage for taking you to God And nobody else can take us back to God So now this raises an obvious question Who are we as tiny living beings To restrict God’s love To only those who follow one particular path How can we human beings Put restrictions on God’s love Who gave us that right Why should God’s love be limited So the exclusivistic Idea often leads to religious fanaticism And unfortunately Many of the religions in the world are exclusivistic So now The other extreme is pluralistic And that is what characterises today’s Hinduism The word plural means many So pluralistic means there are many paths to God And this thought That there are many paths to God Was further expanded During the time of Srila Prabhupada By one of his contemporary predecessors Who also went to America and told My dear brothers and sisters and everybody clapped So he said Actually there are as many religions as there are people There are as many religions As there are people Because everybody Has their own idea of God And according to their idea of God they will pursue God And the favourite word that these people use is 4.11 from the Bhagavad Gita Now this part is conveniently skipped Srila Prabhupada Looking at the logical structure of that verse Translates it as All people are on my path So now if you see Follow So according to the rules of grammar The adjective describes The noun that is closest to it Sanskrit is not as easy to understand as English The delicious halwa was cooked by a devotee So now obviously the delicious Refers to halwa not to the devotee Unless of course one is a cannibal Cannibal is one who eats humans Prabhupada mentions in this purport that Cannibals have also taken to devotional service So one of our devotees was doing restitution in Africa And suddenly some tribals came and caught him And they said our king has invited you for lunch Now if the king of a cannibal community has invited for lunch Whether he has invited us to have lunch with him Or to be his lunch So Normally the adjective will describe the noun That is closest to it Similarly So Is close to manushya So Prabhupada therefore logically translates it as All people are on my path However many of these Translated as All paths followed by all people lead to me All paths lead to me However if we take this verse Then we just cannot reconcile this particular translation With 9.25 Or for that matter 16.23 There are so many places in the Bhagavad Gita Where Krishna gives a contrast He says if you do this you will get this If you do this you will get that So 18.58 Krishna says 18.58 is a verse which is very close to Krishna consciousness Directly If you become conscious of me You will pass over all obstacles by my grace However you act out of false ego not hearing me You will be lost So Krishna is giving clearly two alternatives Therefore this translation If we accept this particular translation Which is so common in all the Gitas nowadays And many times even Hindus portray this translation To show how our Hinduism is so broad minded As compared to your narrow minded Christianity or Islam or Whatever However this is not The essential teaching of the Gita Certainly the Vedic teachings are more broad minded But actually that broad mindedness has to be carefully understood This particular idea that All paths lead to God Although they appear Broad minded And although they appear to promote tolerance They actually cultivate Impotence Impotence means actually they lead to people following nothing And they lead to no transformation So once Prabhupada was asked the same question A young boy in a college programme asked Prabhupada Swamiji I don’t know the verse but I heard Krishna says in the Gita That whatever you do you will come back to him So Prabhupada replied Then why does Krishna have to speak the Gita Simple question isn’t it If whatever you are going to do you are going to go back to him Then whatever you do you do Why does Krishna have to bother to speak the Gita If you look at the Gita Arjuna was asking should I do this or should I do that Krishna said do this specifically So it’s really Just either the The height of unintelligence of people who accept this Or the height of the manipulating ability Of those who teach this That people accept that all paths are right Now Actually we are The Vedic philosophy Krishna is certainly broad minded But what is that broad mindedness It is based on an understanding that One has to develop a relationship with God Which Prabhupada writes Let’s see what the broad mindedness Means Real civilisation is not concerned simply with man’s animal needs But with enabling man To understand his relationship with God The Supreme Father One may learn about this relationship with God by any process Through Christianity, through the Vedic literatures Or through the Quran But in any case it must be learned The purpose of this Krishna consciousness movement Is not to make Christians into Hindus or Hindus into Christians But to inform everyone that the duty of a human being Is to understand his relationship with God One must learn this Otherwise he is simply wasting his time By engaging in animalistic propensities We must all try to love Krishna or God Now this is the important part If one has a process He should practise it Or he can come and learn the process from us So here Srila Prabhupada is making the point That religion is meant to help us Develop a relationship with God And the fruit of that relationship Is to develop love for God So if there is a religion Which does not talk about God Like I saw one book written by one famous yoga teacher Yoga for atheists Now yoga for atheists The purpose, the word yoga means to connect So if you are an atheist whom are you connecting with How can you have yoga for atheists Enlightenment without God So what is that enlightenment That enlightenment is just An increase of illusion It’s not enlightenment at all So Veklova makes it clear that there has to be God Who is the centre and the goal of the particular process And when that is there then that process can be accepted as one of one So this pluralism That there are many paths What does that lead to? If all paths are right then an atheist will say my path is also right Now if the atheist’s path is right That means there is no God And if there is no God then all paths will become wrong So now people say you should be broad minded When in the American schools They stopped the prayers in the schools What was their argument? They said we should not hurt the sentiments of the atheists By imposing religious rituals on them Very interesting logic isn’t it But what about hurting the sentiments of the religionists By not allowing prayer No no we are broad minded So broad minded means favouring atheism That is not broad mindedness That is animal mindedness That is animalistic mentality What differentiates humans from animals is the spiritual enquiry So sometimes this idea of broad mindedness And tolerance can be misunderstood So let’s take some examples to understand this Say suppose A student wants to select an engineering college Which college should he go to So if a student from one particular college If a person who is either studying in that college or has graduated from that college Say from a particular college called Annamala University or something like that So he comes and says My college is the only engineering college in the world All other colleges are bogus So what is this? This is exclusivism And it’s fallacious, it’s fanatic How can you say that only your college will teach engineering alone On the other hand if somebody says All buildings everywhere are engineering colleges That is Pluralism So now we need some criteria For deciding And what is that criteria? That criteria is whether that particular college Is teaching knowledge of engineering And the people who are coming out of it Are having the skills of an engineer Similarly Religion is like a pathway It’s like an institute to help us develop Two things, knowledge of God and love for God So therefore Depending on whether a religion is teaching Knowledge of God and love for God We can accept it or not accept it And suppose the government declares The government has its own Vigilance committee This engineering college is not up to the particular standards And therefore it cannot be registered as an engineering college Now is the government being intolerant Oh the government is not being broad minded It should be broad minded and accept us also as an engineering college Yes if you become broad minded and accept you as an engineering college Then all the bridges that your civil engineers will build will collapse And so many people will die So broad mindedness doesn’t mean Intelligence less Acceptance of everything That is not broad mindedness There has to be objective criteria based on which we decide That this is accepted, this is not accepted Therefore Srila Prabhupada would say that yes Those religions which talk about God And talk about developing love for God They are genuine So the third category of path is called as Inclusivistic path So inclusivism means that Actually there are not many paths, there is only one path And there are different levels on that path Different levels on that path And now Just like there is an engineering college Now some engineering college may have some basic facilities Some engineering college may have further facilities Some engineering college may offer facility for doctoral research Some engineering college may offer facility for post doctoral research But the path to become an engineer is one That is to get knowledge of engineering and to develop the skills of an engineer Similarly the path to become Religious, becoming spiritual is one You have to get knowledge of God and develop love for God If that is not happening it cannot be accepted as a religion Therefore Srila Prabhupada says That we do not accept Buddhism as a genuine religion Although in the western world The Buddhist religion is portrayed as the best religion Why? Because it doesn’t talk about God Because as soon as God comes in You have to talk about surrender to God Obedience to God So We are not intolerant Buddhism also brings about At least the way Buddha taught It would bring about some good qualities of non-violence Of detachment So we don’t consider Buddhism as atheistic But we consider it as pre-theistic Just like you have a pre-school That means the students learn something so that eventually they can go to school Similarly in Buddhism and also similarly in Jainism People learn moral qualities To a large extent if those religions are practised properly Then people will come to sattva guna And when people learn sattva guna Then they can actually take to spiritual life very quickly So these are pre-theistic religions So notice here again the criteria is what? Not that because we are not following this particular religion Or we are not accepting Krishna consciousness You are going to go to hell No if a Buddhist is living in goodness he will be elevated And accordingly he will get a particular destination And he will of course he cannot go back to God Because he has to know God and love God He is not even accepting God right now But certainly it is true that many Buddhists are relatively in goodness And that’s why people are attracted to Buddhism And unfortunately many religionists Although they accept God as I said in the beginning of the course Their religion is used to increase their false ego And many religionists today are in passion and ignorance And that’s why In the mainstream media people have an aversion towards religion They think that religion means it will lead to fanaticism It will lead to violence Better not have anything to do with religion But no if we have nothing to do with religion Then there will be no way for people to be raised from passion and ignorance to goodness and beyond And society will become more and more materialistic More and more degraded Therefore what we need to understand is This particular logical systematic presentation There is a path to rise from the lower mode to the higher mode And to ultimately develop love for God And whichever path teaches that is the best Now once one Some Christians asked Prabhupada If you say that Christianity and Krishna Was teaching the same thing Then why did Jesus not tell us Jesus said that I am the son of God Then why did he not tell us that Krishna is God So Prabhupada replied You know for the little that he told you, you killed him He said He reiterated the old commandment of Moses Thou shall not kill And he himself was the first person to be killed So Jesus clearly said there is much that I have to say But you cannot bear it now The question is can the Christians bear it at least now You cannot bear it now But Prabhupada said a simple point What did Jesus teach That you should love God They agreed yes Then if you have more knowledge of God Available in some other tradition Why don’t you take it Jesus didn’t teach that Christianity didn’t teach that So Prabhupada asked are you interested in Christianity or are you interested in God It’s a fundamental question That means if somebody is studying engineering in a particular college And say somebody is studying in Say here in Pune in COEP and he wants to study computer science Or computer engineering and he comes to know that computer engineering Is taught much better in say IIT Kharagpur Then if he is really interested in computer engineering He will go wherever computer engineering is taught and learn it Similarly Prabhupada said are you interested in COEP Or are you interested in computer engineering So unfortunately when religion Becomes a part of the false ego Then what happens we become Closed to insights from other religions As against this let us see what Bhaktivinod Thakur said About how a devotee should see other religions I will paraphrase what he says He says that when I see A person of another faith Worshipping God Then I feel thrilled To see how my lord Has accepted this new manifestation Which is unknown to me and which I cannot understand And I feel inspired To see how people are worshipping him in this manifestation And seeing How my lord has expanded his mercy In this new form I feel inspired To re-indicate myself deeper to the form of the lord That I know I will repeat what he is saying Suppose we see a muslim and sometimes muslims are so bold In the train they will sit and offer namaz In his book Journey Home Rahan Maharaj writes how they are travelling in the buses In the desert suddenly the bus will stop In the middle of nowhere And then all the people will get out And then they will all do namaz Now in India if we want to do Gayatri are the trains ready to stop Actually ideally speaking Gayatri should be done Not in a moving place but in a stationary place People do not even think of that So when we see this religious commitment of the muslims What should we feel? Bhaktivinod Thakur said We should feel inspired To see how our lord Krishna has expanded his grace To them in that particular way And we should not feel threatened We should not feel minimised We should feel inspired to increase our devotion To increase our commitment to the form of the lord that we are worshipping This is a big subject We are running out of time But the Vaishnav understanding is very broad minded At the same time very focused By which we don’t get cheated in the name of broad mindedness At the same time we become fanatical in the name of being focused So I will conclude what I said We started first by talking about How religion is so cunning That the religion which is meant to free us from false ego Is used to increase our false ego And when that happens then people become fanatical And violent in the name of religion The we vs they mentality Where we are good and they are evil So Krishna consciousness offers us a much more broader and objective perspective Where it says that Actually we classify people not in we they terms But in terms of their modes, in terms of their qualities And then we discussed about the different kinds of religious path We talked about the exclusivistic path We talked about Zoroastrian Radhath Maharaj interaction with the Christian missionary Then we talked about the exclusivity which is there in the Abrahamic religions Judaism, Christianity, Islam Then we talked about pluralism that characterises Hinduism But we discussed how that is a mistranslation from the Gita And how all saying that all paths are the same Leads to people following no path and having no transformation It’s not tolerance but impotence And then we discussed how Krishna consciousness is an inclusivistic path We have to develop a relationship with God Like an engineering student wants to get knowledge and skills of an engineer So like that we want knowledge and love for God And we stay committed to our path because Here there is a maximum knowledge of Krishna, maximum knowledge of God available At the same time when we see others practising their path We should feel inspired and we should become more committed to our own path Thank you very much