What is the difference between bhara-vahi and sara-grahi Vaishnavas?

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
question what exactly does when he refers to answer he refers to the primarily the difference between the essence and the form and the appearance so at one level you can say look at kanishka adhikari and devotees above that we know kanishka adhikari is quarrel and their conception of god depends largely on the temple image temple on temple worship they think god is here and god is in this form only and they feel other forms are not the forms of god and they quarrel because of such externals saragraha means those who understand the essence and they focus on the essence so at one level those beyond the kanishka stage can be considered to be saragraha but with respect to specifics the meaning can vary according to time-place circumstance so for example bhakti nothapur uses it a very broad level in his chetan shikshamrut especially to refer to how followers of different religions quarrel because they see the difference in the external rituals that they are doing and they don’t understand that these differences stem from unnecessities not unnecessary rather from these differences are unnecessary or rather quarreling on these differences unnecessary because beyond these differences there is a central core that is actually common so this does not mean that bhakti nothapur simplistically equates all forms of religion to be the same or that he doesn’t consider subtle significant differences no he does consider but his essential point is that an intelligent person intelligent seeker should be able to focus on the essence and not get caught in the appearance and get and not let the differences in the appearance cause any cause any unnecessary quarrels so the primary point is that devotees always try to learn and focus on the essence and see to it that they not lose track of the essence because of that which is it may be important circumstantially but not is not necessarily essential from the transcendental perspective so according to the circumstance Prabhupada gave the example that is rearing the devotee essential or non-essential that will vary if it’s going to create a negative perception then it can be avoided if it can enhance one’s reaching then definitely it should be adopted so for the sake of outreach sometimes that dress can be avoided and somebody says that dress has to be adopted that may be focusing on something which is exoteric and making that exoteric exoteric means external exoteric means internal to the contrary if you want to if you think that oh ultimately we as gauri avastha sadhakas we chant the name of god but we can chant any name why do we need to chant the Hare Krishna Mahamantra we will chant jesus jesus that would not be appropriate because there’s the principle to chant the names of god but when we follow a particular path then it’s vital for us to recognize the necessity to follow the path that we are following properly and following that path involves adopting also the specific names that we are chanting so if we are gauri avastha sadhakas then we cannot say the holy name Hare Krishna Mahamantra is irrelevant we can chant any name as in principle we can chant any name but in practice once we adopt the particular sampradaya we have to follow that particular sampradaya so what will be the saar and what will be the bhaar on the other hand if we are interacting with christians who are devout and we chant the jesus have mercy on me or hail something like that on their beads and at that point we say no you have to chant only Hare Krishna that would be inappropriate that’s famous quote of bhaktivinoda thakur where he says that actually when we go to places of worship of others and we see that they are worshipping in a way different from what we are worshipping and then worshipping a manifestation of god that is different from the manifesting we are familiar with but bhaktivinoda thakur says in chaitanya mood thinking about how the same god whom we worship has now manifested in a different form for attracting these people how merciful is the lord and how fortunate i am that i know him in the form that i am comfortable with and let and by such meditation we can increase our devotion the form that we are comfortable with so in this way we shouldn’t we can avoid the danger of alienating ourselves alienating others by using insider terminology or by using inappropriate words but at the same time we can also use the right word and attract people who may otherwise be repulsed by our normal usage of words