When bad things happen to good people 1- How NOT to use philosophy Bhag 1.9.12

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Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Hare Krishna. I’m grateful to be here with all of you today.
So we’ll be discussing over these three days how to face difficulty and adversity in life. How Bhishma Dev consoles Yudhishthira. So in today’s, I’ll be talking about this in three broad sections.
And I’ll be using this as a whiteboard to explain what we’ll be discussing. Is the black color clear or should I make it white? So, is it clear? So facing adversity. So I’ll be talking about three broad parts in it.
First is the purpose of philosophy. That is what in the first part I’ll discuss in today’s session. Then second part, in tomorrow’s session, we’ll be discussing about the role of God in suffering.
And third will be the cure for suffering. How we can pursue the cure. So basically, the broad overview of these three sessions is that when we face suffering and we turn to philosophy, what are we trying to do? Then when we are trying to make sense, we try to make sense of our suffering.
Then, okay, how do we, how much do we see God as the cause of our suffering? What is God’s role? And then thirdly, how do we deal with suffering? How do we move forward? So today we’ll focus on the purpose of philosophy in dealing with suffering. Now, one of the key purposes of philosophy, to put it simply, is to make sense of things that don’t make sense. So basically, if things are going on normally, nobody needs philosophy.
If I work and I get money, if I put my hand in fire and my hand gets burnt, then there is a simple, straightforward, causal connection over there. So, in the normal course of life, when there is an action and there is a result of that action, or a reaction to that action. So when that normally happens, we don’t need any philosophy, or at least we don’t feel the need for philosophy at that time.
But, there are times when things don’t make sense. So for example, if we encounter sudden death, you know, a young, healthy person suddenly dies for no cause, apparently for us. What’s happening like this? Or say innocent people are killed in some bomb blast.
Then people start thinking, what is going on? That is the time when most people turn towards philosophy. Now, when philosophy helps us to make sense of things, at that time, we could say so broadly, the purpose of philosophy, why people turn towards philosophy, is to make sense of things. So the purpose of philosophy is to make sense.
Now, in Sanskrit, philosophy is called as Tattva Darshan. So, Tattva means truth. Darshan means to see.
So, Krishna uses the word Tattva Darshinahar, Adhyatma Gyanityatvam, Tattva Gyanartha Darshanam. So philosophy means Darshan. But, Darshan here refers to what? To see, to behold.
What? That which is not normally visible. So, when philosophy we use the word Darshan, Darshan at one level means to see. But, if I can see I am feeling cold, if I am feeling cold because this fan is too much fast.
There is no need to be philosophical about that. No, it’s not. No.
So, when we say see, what do we see? See what is not immediately visible. That’s what in one sense the purpose of philosophy is. Now, the word philosophy in English is a combination of Phili and Sophos.
So, Sophos is truth and Phili is love. So, a philosopher is meant to be a lover of truth. One who wants to understand how things are really.
Now, it’s a seer of truth, it’s an understander of truth, but it’s more of a lover of truth. So, why the love part is important over here? Because when we talk about making sense, there are two aspects of making sense. One is making rational sense and the other is making emotional sense.
Rational sense means it makes sense to our intelligence. Emotional sense means it makes sense to our mind. Both of these need to be incorporated as is indicated many times by Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita when he says, Manna and Buddhi.
So, the Manna is associated with the emotions, Buddhi is associated with the reason, the logic. So, both of them need to be ultimately directed towards the Lord. So, here in this particular context, this is the situation where there is great agony.
So, we are looking now at the broad, after getting a broad understanding of what the purpose of philosophy is. Let’s look at the particular situation. It’s a situation of agony.
Agony means great emotional pain. There is physical pain. Suppose, say someone we love and we care for, now that person has been subjected to terrible accident.
Now, they may be in pain, but we are in agony. Their pain is physical. Agony is more emotional.
It’s emotional pain. So, for example, when somebody in a relationship, when the relationship breaks, breaks, people use the word breakup, but it’s only breakdown, no up in it generally. So, it’s agony.
It’s not that there is physical pain over there, but it’s agony, it’s emotional pain is there. So, it’s interesting over here. Here, if we consider, there is Yudhishthira Maharaj and then there is Bhishma Pitamah.
So, Bhishma is in physical pain, but Yudhishthira is in agony. He is in emotional pain. And, now, Bhishma is going to speak wisdom, philosophical wisdom, to help relieve Yudhishthira of his emotional pain.
That itself is a remarkable situation. See, normally if we go to the hospital where somebody is very sick and is in pain, it is we who are expected to console and comfort that person. And, Yudhishthira has now come before Bhishma Pitamah, but Bhishma is starting right away by speaking about the distress of Yudhishthira.
So, here we see Bhishma’s emotional expertise. Bhishma is a warrior and as a warrior has to be tough and rough. Warriors cannot really give in to too much emotions.
Warriors, even if they feel pain, they have to conceal their pain. Because the opposite side sees their pain, they will attack more. They will exploit that pain.
So, Bhishma Pitamah, although he is a warrior, he is very sensitive, alert to the situation. And, on one side, Yudhishthira is feeling great guilt. And, when that guilt comes, at that time, it is very difficult.
See, basically what happens is in life, there are two levels or you could say there are three levels of pain we may have. Pain is when bad things happen. So, bad things happen, that is basically, say, because of floods, because of heavy rainfall, there is a flood.
People’s homes are swept away, the crops are swept away. That is an adversity. So, the word over here is Kashta.
But, even worse, then that thing is bad things are done to us. They don’t just happen, they are done to us. So, this is atrocity.
Atrocity is Anyaya. So, So, for example, if terrorists deliberately blow up a dam and then floods occur. So, that is, is that Kashta or is that Anyaya? What do you think? It is Anyaya.
It is adversity. No, it is atrocity. Atrocity means something is intentionally done by someone to hurt the other person.
Now, among Kashta and Anyaya, among adversity and atrocity, which is more difficult to bear? Atrocity, yes. Now, among the bad things that happened in Pandava’s life, which was an adversity, which was an atrocity? Can you say? Yes. Yes.
Yes. His father’s dying was an adversity. Just there was an unfortunate curse and that curse got actuated at a particular time.
What were the atrocities? Almost everything else that happened. So, Bhima being poisoned, the house of Lakh being burned and then Draupadi being destroyed. All of these are atrocities and both of them so their life was filled with atrocities being done to them by the Kauravas.
The Pandavas were in the forest and the sages told them, told Kunti that the forest is no place for a woman like you with small children now that your husband is no more. This forest is filled with dangerous animals. Better you go back to your kingdom, go back to the palace.
Little did either the sages or Kunti know that in those palaces were beings more dangerous than the dangerous animals in the forest. Isn’t it? So, this is what happens to them. Now, the Pandavas have been afflicted by both.
Actually, both of these are difficult to bear but at this particular point when there is a third pain and this pain is especially felt by a person who is responsible. Who is responsible means that a person who has a sense of responsibility. What is that? Bad things have to be done by us.
When, say for example, one of my friends is in the army and he was telling me that sometimes when a war is going on they have fighting on two fronts and both sides say it happened and then the Galwan thing in China it happened. That attacks on two places and you have only limited forces. Either you send support on this place or you send support on that place.
Now, we don’t know how strong the enemies are on either side. So, if we send support on one side the people on the other side are definitely going to suffer. They may be imprisoned, they may be massacred and if the enemy is strong on this side even our support here may not be enough.
So, what happens is it’s a very difficult decision that here we have to do something which is bad and at that time there is guilt. Now, what happens is that this pain if we call this as this is the pain of agony for a responsible person. When a person has to do something that hurts someone we don’t want to do it but we just have no option.
And now, this is the key difference between a person of say a Daivi Prakriti and a person of Asuri Prakriti. There are people who are wise and there are people who are otherwise. So, now the wise people they always remember wise what happens is the wise, the Daivi Prakriti they remember more the bad they have done and they remember less the bad done to them.
On the other hand those who are Asuri Prakriti those who are of the demoniac nature this does not mean that they have to be people who have horns coming out of their head and teeth coming out of their mouth. It’s a Prakriti. It’s not a Sharir.
A demoniac mentality. So, what happens is for them they don’t remember the bad they have done they remember much more the bad done to them. So, bad things happen to everyone but what do we remember? The wrongs that have been done by us or the wrongs that have been done to us.
See, whenever there is a conflict between two people each side tries to prove how they are right and the other person is wrong and that’s why it’s very important that decisions by those in authority not be taken by hearing only one side of the story. Because what happens is there is one side of the story then there is the other side of the story and then there is the story. There is the story.
Neither side actually has the full story. And in one sense trying to do conflict resolution is like being a detective. You try to find out this is what this person is telling this is what this person is telling what is the truth, what is the exaggeration what is the distortion and then we try to piece together what actually happened, who did what it’s not easy.
So, now why am I talking about this over here that we have to consider I said that when we are talking about philosophy one of the things which topics we are going to discuss is how is philosophy to be handled. So, the purpose of philosophy always has to help people make sense. That’s the first point I made.
Now when we are trying to make sense help others make so if I am doing some philosophy it is I do the philosophy to make sense of situations. If I am speaking philosophy to someone else it is to help them make sense of the situation. And that’s why if we don’t consider the person then the philosophy can be misused.
So, basically person means we have to consider both three things when philosophy is involved the speaker and the listener the hearer. So, who is speaking why are they speaking whom are we speaking to and what are they looking for. It is based on that that philosophy the communication of philosophy will be effective.
What do I mean over here the person who is speaking different people whether the speaker or the hearer can be of different orientation different mentalities and if philosophy is in the hands of the wrong person then philosophy can actually be misused to increase the suffering of the person or basically there are two things something bad has happened to us or something bad has been done by us. So, now philosophy what should it be doing the bad has been done by us let’s try to minimize it let’s try to not do it anymore and if bad has happened to us ok let’s act in a way that its impact becomes lesser let’s try to get a sense by which the distress becomes lesser. So, now when a person’s agenda is ulterior so, if we consider the speaker we have Hiranyakashipu who speaks philosophy after the death of Hiranyaksha to Hiranyakashipu’s sons and wives and what is the purpose of that philosophy he speaks Atma Gyan similar to what Krishna speaks in the Bhagavad Gita second chapter but Krishna says that there are three things there is Gyana Geya and Gyanagamya Gyanam Geyam Gyanagamyam Vidhisarvasya Vastitam so, now what is the difference Gyana is knowledge itself Geya is the object of knowledge and Gyanagamya is the objective of knowledge now objective of knowledge means what is the purpose we are speaking something so, Gyana can be of any subject we can have knowledge about history, geography, sociology, psychology so, there is the knowledge there is the object of knowledge what is the subject we are speaking about so, in this case the object of knowledge is Atma but when Hiranyakashipu is speaking it he is speaking it so that he says that Hiranyakashipu has been killed by Vishnu instead of saying that ok, whatever God does is for our ultimate good we should try to see how we can come closer to God he says, you know Vishnu has become corrupted says that Vishnu is like a small child and because the Devatas have performed lot of sacrifice to him so, he has become corrupted by the sacrifice and he has given up his neutrality and instead of thinking that maybe we have done something wrong because of which God is punishing us he is thinking that God has done something wrong and we have to punish God now he says that actually punishing Vishnu is very difficult but don’t worry if you perform austerities you can become powerful and even if in this lifetime I don’t become strong enough don’t worry, the soul is eternal so, in future life I will perform austerity so, objective of knowledge is what? to punish God punish God for wrong doing and I will become strong enough by performing austerity for many many lifetimes till I get enough strength to be able to punish God so, this is a complete distortion of philosophy isn’t it? so, philosophy will be spoken but who is speaking the philosophy is very important people can have their own agendas in speaking philosophy and if a person is selfishly motivated then philosophy can become a tool in the hands of people to manipulate others so, that’s why who is speaking that is something important to consider also, who is it being spoken to that is also important to consider because different people are in different situations in life so, I will talk about who is it spoken to but the point over here is the person who is speaking and if we consider from practical perspective in our situation in today’s world there are there are religious teachers religious in double codes who have their own agendas and just yesterday there is a news there is a preacher Christian preacher he is like among the top 100 wealthy people of America and he has something like 7 private jets of his own and he says you know I have so much service to do that why should I waste time going to airplane and waiting in queue I just have my plane and one plane is order of 7 private jets and this person he says he made a tweet about how God wants us to be satisfied with the simple joys of life so now is it true that God wants us to be satisfied with the simple joys of life of course but his agenda and he was just trolled on twitter for that his agenda was you enjoy the simple joys of life and you profuse charity to me so that I can buy one more private jet and fly around in the world so yes somebody will speak about simplicity but then why are you speaking it isn’t it if the person who is talking about simplicity is living in luxury now there is certain utility if a person has a particular service then Prabhupada initially when he didn’t have Lakshmi he went to America in a ship now Prabhupada could have kept travelling all over the world in ships but he didn’t have that much time because Lakshmi was elderly so he travelled by planes for a functional service purposes certain level of utilities or comforts may be required but there is a reasonable limit to that and when somebody uses philosophy to just fulfill their own agendas now that is called as weaponization of philosophy you know weaponization means philosophy Shastra becomes a Shastra Shastra and Shastra are two different things but philosophy can be weaponized for what beating others into submission into doing our will into compliance into submission now should people now should we be submissive to authority of course but then that authority has to be serving the lord and we need to be serving the lord this is not a criticism of Christianity every religion can have things like this the point I am making is that a philosophical teaching a spiritual teaching a scriptural teaching can be weaponized this is not just Hiranyakashipu doing it in the past it can happen now also so the purpose of the philosophy is important it is to help people make sense the the person who is speaking the philosophy they should have the attitude of the service to the lord and the last point we will discuss is position position means what is the position of the hearer what is that person going through in their life to the extent we understand that then the philosophy we speak will help that person so at this at this particular point for example now it’s remarkable throughout this whole section when Bhishma is consoling Yudhishthir he does not mention the philosophy of karma even once now of course we can say that Yudhishthir is a pure devotee and these are eternal associates of the lord yes but if you are going to take that perspective then why even try to make sense why would if they are eternal associates of the lord why is Yudhishthir even having this kind of overwhelming crushing feeling of guilt so sometimes when the concept of Leela it is used when some see what happens is when something doesn’t make sense Leela is just a ready made answer available for everything Leela is a scripturally correct and intellectually unsatisfactory answer for many people Leela seems not an explanation it seems to be an excuse excuse that there is no explanation so now is it the Leela of the lord yes it is the Leela of the lord but within the Leela also there are things which happen for a particular reason and as which is possible we try to understand the reasons so looking at things from Leela perspective that’s wonderful that’s relishable at a particular level but then if we want to make sense of things then the Leela perspective is not very helpful so there are different perspectives different levels for example Prabhupada does say that Arjuna’s illusion right at the beginning of the Gita was an arrangement by Krishna so that the Gita’s message could be spoken so this is Arjuna’s illusion Prabhupada is saying it’s a Leela of the lord it’s an arrangement of the lord by which the Gita could be spoken but then Prabhupada also goes in to analyse in the first chapter how Arjuna is thoughtful how Arjuna is reflective and his thoughtfulness and reflectiveness where Arjuna is not just rushing into action that shows his qualifications for receiving the knowledge of the Gita that a person who is thoughtful reflective will be capable of assimilating spiritual knowledge when it is given so Madhusudana Saraswati who is a prominent Gita commentator although he is a impersonalist but still he is his commentary is sometimes quoted by Chakravarti so he says the whole purpose of the first chapter of the Gita is to demonstrate Arjuna’s qualification for receiving knowledge so that is here the Acharyas are not taking the Leela perspective why is Arjuna hesitating oh because he is thoughtful he is considering what is the right course of action so now what does a person need so when we look at the position of a person where are they and what do they need at that time so when something bad has happened Arjuna is here so not Arjuna sorry Yudhishthir in this context Yudhishthir is crushed here by guilt it is guilt can be a crushing burden guilt means that I have done something bad I have done something terribly bad so what are the yeah agony is there of course see agony is basically emotional pain but emotional pain can be of various things various causes oh just say like I said if a parent’s child parent is there and a child is caught in an accident the parent may just feel agony because of helplessness I can’t do anything my child is suffering but you say if the parent had by mistake kept the door open and the child went out to play on the street and child was hit by a car then it’s not just helplessness it’s guilt I kept the door open because of me this happened so basically in emotions which causes pain there can be many different emotions which can cause pain so here there is guilt so what are the reasons for the guilt at basic level as Prabhupada mentioned it’s a massacre it’s the sheer of death toll that has happened so many people have been killed and he thinks all this bloodshed all this massacre happened just to make me the king and what is the need for all this now it was not just this it was there of course but beyond that if you look at the Mahabharata’s narrative there was some hesitation that all of them had before the fight it’s going to be a terrible fight Duryodhana is not going to listen easily so in one sense they were mentally prepared that this is going to be a bad fight and so Yudhisthira felt that he is my nephew like my son I was supposed to protect him but I send him to his death so that was terrible now then after that there was Ashwathama’s killing Ashwathama’s night massacre where all the remaining soldiers and remaining sons were killed although he was not responsible here it’s the next generation is gone the next generation is completely gone what is he going to do now so now of course they knew by this time that Uttara was pregnant but still there was no parents work hard to get a kingdom get a property get some wealth so that they can pass on to their children and there are no children at all children die it’s the worst kind of pain that someone can face and as if that was not bad enough then there was Karna’s relationship with him Kunti she had kept her relationship with Karna hidden throughout her life but finally she told Yudhishthir that you should perform his last rites also and at that time Yudhishthir was completely broken he thought that this was the person about whom I had nightmares because he felt that he was more or less confident that Bhima will deal with Duryodhana and he had that hope that Arjuna should be able to deal with Karna but still Karna was a formidable opponent and he had constantly this hope that somehow Karna will be killed and then when he came to know two occasions Karna had an opportunity to kill Yudhishthir and Karna did not kill Yudhishthir so for Yudhishthir this was unbearable that the person whose death I was fervently hoping for the person whose death I celebrated that person was my brother and the person whose death I sought so much that person had an opportunity to kill me but he didn’t kill me triple person I am so the combined emotional impact of all this was crushing and crippling for him what have I done and he felt I just cannot be the king at this point so now when he is Yudhishthir knows the philosophy Yudhishthir knows about karma none of the verses that Bhishma will speak subsequently are things that Yudhishthir has never heard of before but he is in a particular predicament at this time and when he is so occupied emotionally with all the bad things that have been done by him and on top of that now he has to face his Bhishma on a arrow bed where Bhishma is the grandfather he is supposed to protect his grandfather and it is that grandfather is in immense pain because of him now we use the word arrow bed very non nonchalantly but an arrow bed is the entire opposite of what a bed is meant to be on our bed even if there is a little bit of a lump nothing pointed just some lump then we try to flatten it or we try to find some place where we can sleep without that lump affecting us but here imagine instead of a lump if there is a thorn or a nail and how much more uncomfortable it would be and ok if we have to lie on that for even 5-10 minutes it is difficult ok one night it is unbearable but imagine for days and weeks one has to lie on that bed and it is not just one nail on it the whole bed is only made of nails that was the bed of Bhishma and coming to see Bhishma in that situation it’s alright philosophically to know that actually we are all souls and Bhishma is spiritually realized also he knows he is a soul but still why when we are in relationship with someone we interact with them also at the level of the body we care for them also at the level of the body and to see their body in pain causes us pain so this is the situation and in this situation what does Bhishma do the first thing Bhishma speaks is not how much pain I am in but how much pain you have gone through so when somebody goes to a hospital to meet someone and that person is in great pain but the first thing the person on the hospital bed says maybe they are having terminal cancer you look quite disturbed it’s a remarkable level of concern for the other person that’s the concern that is being shown over here so the purpose of philosophy when I said the position of a person if the person is already feeling afflicted then they need to be comforted if that person is feeling nonchalant nonchalant means no big deal no problem things happen at that time if that person is feeling comforted then philosophy is to be they need to be afflicted now somebody has done something terribly wrong what type of devotee many years ago one of my services was looking after Sankhya one devotee went for Guru’s tuition and he came back he lost he was in charge of the money and it was like a group of devotees had gone and he had lost the money and he came to me and he said Prabhu I have to tell you something and don’t be disturbed I said ok when somebody says don’t be disturbed that itself will be like a disturbing warning and then he said what had happened how could you lose the money he said don’t be no Krishna says we equipoise loss and gain you should stay equipoise now this is what this is using philosophy for one’s own purposes so if somebody is being complacent then he says Krishna says Krishna says be equipoise about the results not about the activities is it it it like if we cook food and instead of sugar we put salt and the food is terrible what happens why are you so disturbed well I am disturbed not because of what happened I am disturbed because you are not disturbed so if somebody is comfortable sometimes they have to be afflicted but if somebody is afflicted then they have to be comforted what we are trying to do with philosophy is extremely important so here Yudhishthira is already afflicted and whole purpose of Bhishma is to comfort him sometimes if somebody is afflicted and we afflict that person further it is utterly crushing once it happened that one person I was cultivating he came to meet me and he was completely disturbed what happened he said I am never again going to come to the temple what happened I knew him he was doing a lot of service so he said my mother had been sick for quite some time she passed away and I came to the temple and I was talking with one devotee I told him my mother passed away and he told me actually this is the nature of the world today your mother passed away tomorrow your father is going to pass away day after tomorrow your brother is going to pass away everybody you love is going to pass away this world is get used to it this is violence in the name of preaching isn’t it see when somebody is in distress philosophy should be to comfort that person not alarm that person further we have to understand where the person is at what is the position of the person so at such times what do we need to tell the person actually the soul is eternal and the soul’s relationship with the lord is also eternal now wherever your mother has gone your mother is with Krishna as the parmatma and Krishna will guide her and that same lord is in your heart also whatever love you got from your mother it is Krishna who is giving that love to you through her mother through her connect with Krishna Krishna you will feel comfort you will chant some holy names offer the results of those to offer those holy names to your mother so Krishna will be the medium by which that love will reach your mother so depending on what that person is going through the appropriate philosophy has to be spoken otherwise philosophy can completely backfire I was in Australia in Perth and one after I gave a class over there one mataji came and met me young mataji she said you know I want to talk with you I said ok I will talk privately so I told her I had a lot of fear especially fear of death she said that she was in a house and she was just outside the house and at that time lightning had fallen on her house and several of her family members had been killed in front of her eyes in the house she said I don’t want to talk with you I don’t want to you I don’t want to with you I want to talk with you I don’t want to talk with you I want to I don’t want to talk I don’t you I don’t I And then immediately I had to go to a therapist.
So when I told the therapist what had happened, a therapist said that, hearing these kind of classes are toxic for your mental health, stop hearing this. So she asked me, is Bhagavad Gita psychologically damaging? I said, no, not at all, but certain aspects of the teaching of the Gita, presented in a particular way, can damage particular people. So we have to be careful about whom we hear from, and rather than saying you should not hear the Bhagavad Gita itself, try to get a sense of which speakers speak how, and then you hear from the speakers who are sensitive, who’s hearing whom doesn’t further agitate your mind.
So we have to understand the position, our purpose is not to scare people into submission, it is to inspire people. The fear of death, can it make people spiritual? Prabhupada was asked this, when there was a fear of third world war in 1976-77, will that make people more spiritual? Prabhupada said, not really, there is always danger in this world. So yes, temporarily it can make people more serious, but that’s not the purpose of outreach, when we are doing outreach, it is never to scare people into Bhakti.
Can that happen sometimes? And one level we can say, that if it happens, on its own it is good, any way a person comes to Krishna, that is good, so if a person is scared and they take shelter of Krishna, that is good, but if somebody uses systematically fear mongering to make people surrender, that is not a healthy thing to do. So there was several years ago this movie PK, which talked about religion in a critical way, and one of the themes there was, jo dar gaya, so mandir gaya, well is there truth to that? Yes, there is truth to that, but people do so many things because of fear, there is so much anxiety in life, people seek so many different ways of remedying themselves from anxiety, also jo dar gaya, wo PK dekhne gaya, one who is filled with anxiety and they want relief from that anxiety, so they go and watch a movie. So people do many things out of fear, and yes watching a movie is not as good as coming to temple and participating in Kirtans, but it is one thing for people to take shelter of God in fear, it is quite another thing for the preachers of God to create fear, so that people take shelter.
The second is not at all healthy, the second can very well be manipulative, so actually our purpose should be to inspire people to bhakti, Prabhupada practically never in his outreach talked about hell, although in our tradition in the fifth canto hell is described, but Prabhupada practically never spoke that if you don’t worship Krishna, if you do sense gratification you will go to hell, therefore give up sense gratification, that was not the mood of Prabhupada, Prabhupada said you are a spiritual being, the pleasure from the senses is so little, you are meant for such greater happiness, focus on spiritual growth and you will get greater happiness, Prabhupada didn’t tell us we should have a healthy fear of maya, but Prabhupada did not scare people into practicing bhakti, so the point is that we need to understand the position of the person and in today’s world most people are already in anxiety, this has been called by sociologists and psychologists as the age of anxiety and if the presentation of philosophy that we give is something which is causing more and more fear in people, then people will not become attracted, they will become alienated, so how to talk about philosophy is by understanding what the person is going through, so in general in our classes at the end of a session a person should feel encouraged that Krishna is above all, Krishna cares for us, Krishna’s love for us is the ultimate reality and if we connect with him, he will guide us toward a path by which things will become eventually alright, so how that kind of presentation can be made, we will discuss in our future sessions, I will summarize what we discussed today, broadly today we discussed the theme of philosophy, how to presenting philosophy, so I discussed three main points, purpose, person and position, so purpose of philosophy is to help people make sense, when especially things don’t make sense and make sense means both there is rational sense for our intelligence and emotional sense, so that is the broad purpose of philosophy, if that is not there then the opposite purpose can also be served, so a person who is a speaker, who is speaking, what is their agenda for speaking, we discussed how Yanya Kashyapu spoke about Atma for the purpose of punishing God, for the purpose of destroying Parmatma, here before this we discussed about Yudhishthira, his, we discussed there are different kinds of suffering, there is adversity where bad things happen to us, there is atrocity where bad things are done to us and there is agony where bad things have been done by us, so Yudhishthira is facing the agony because of guilt and when we talk about person, I talked about a super wealthy preacher talking about simple living, that is so that a person can get more charity and live with more luxury, that is weaponizing philosophy, so if a person is weaponizing philosophy they are actually, they will take people away from God, position refers to the hearer, what is the level of the hearer, generally most of the time people are afflicted, people are in distress and philosophy should be that which comforts them, the opposite may also be required but it depends on the context, look at this where the person is at, which one is required well and in that connection I discussed about Yudhishthira, he was in immense guilt because of multiple reasons, the bloodshed itself, the Abhimanyu’s death, then the killing of other sons, then Karna’s death and then finally Bhishma’s pain, so he is in immense agony at this time and the first thing that Bhishma does is shift the focus from what he has done to what was done to him, we discussed about how those who are divine they focus on their wrongs, but the demoniac focus on the wrongs done to them, so Bhishma is of, know that Yudhishthira is of a divine prakriti, so death, I talked about how death and fear mongering, that is something which we need to avoid, it can bring people to Krishna, then it is good, brings naturally, that is okay, but if we use intentionally then that is not healthy, that will be manipulative and a few people might be attracted, but that will actually end up alienating a lot of people, afflicting a lot of people. Thank you very much. Hare Krishna.
Are there any questions or comments? Do we have time? Thank you so much for a wonderful class. I have one question, as you said that we should choose a specific speaker, whose voice, whose speech inspires us, but as we have seen our scornful scenario that we have to attend daily bhavatam class, so what can we do in that particular situation? Now in that particular context I was telling her, that particular Mataji that you hear those who are not agitating for you. Now it was the situation where she was about to stop hearing all Gita classes.
So see we cannot always say that we are agitated and we always need to be comforted. Sometimes we are also too comfortable and we need to be agitated a little bit. So I think we will have all kinds of speakers and we try to hear and there is a hearing of the various speakers that we do as a duty and there will be some speakers whom we will be able to connect with.
So those we can hear more. Apart from our regular hearing we can hear those more. So there is, you could say, hearing as a duty for our purification we are serving that speaker by hearing, but we are also serving bhavatam by hearing regularly the bhavatam class.
But beyond that when we have to hear for our own understanding, for our own inspiration, then we can select. There is the principle of Sajatiya, that we find out like-minded associations. That means also those speakers who are like-minded, we hear from them when it is our particular choice to hear, when it is apart from our regular classes hearing.
Thank you. Hare Krishna, Proji. Thank you for blessing us with such deep purpose, person, position, speaker and hearing everything, Proji.
Proji, we are seeing that the honesty factor among the speakers as well as the hearers is very drastically going down. Like even recently I was hearing His Holiness Radhago and Swami Maharaj, some question was asked which was very much out of context and with outmost humility and honesty he said, I don’t know, so maybe I can tell you later. But nowadays we are seeing that just to, just to give an answer, like the leela part, from explaining to excuse.
So there are certain questions which leela part cannot justify even that part. So something is just said and which is creating actually havoc in deviations in right philosophies. So how to address that? Because it is very much concerning that because of social media, the deviations in philosophy is very imminent, Proji.
It’s going very high. So how to address this deviations? Yeah. See, every situation will bring its own opportunities and challenges.
So for example, in Europe, when the first printing press was made, at that time the first book that was widely printed and distributed was the Bible. And the Catholic Church was vehemently against it. They said that, you know, people will read the Bible in their own way and take their own imports and they will misunderstand, misapply.
So they were opposed to it. But then it was also true that the Catholic Church was using the Bible for their own purpose. So rather than using the Bible for Bible’s purpose, everybody was doing their own thing.
So the Protestants came up and the Protestants started saying that every reader has the right to interpret the Bible the way they want. And the result of that is now there are something like 60,000 Protestant denominations. Because everybody keeps interpreting the Bible in their own way.
In fact, there is one Protestant denomination called Quakers. Their idea is that when you come in front of God, you quake in the presence of God. So in the Quakers, they don’t have any fixed speaker.
They come for the church and whoever is inspired by the living spirit, that person gives the discourse on that day. It’s a formula for spontaneity, but spontaneity usually leads to chaos in the situation. But the point is that, so at that time, that particular, when the book of Pilate started, the church said, no, we shouldn’t do this.
But no, technology is like a genie which you cannot put it back into the box again. So it has come out and we have to deal with the ramifications. And some ramifications are good, some are bad.
So I would say, sometimes devotees who are at one particular place, they get only one version of Krishna Consciousness presented to them as per their leader. Now with the availability of classes online, devotees can say, okay, this is like, okay, this is not the only way of looking at things. There are other ways of looking at things also.
So in that sense, there is an advantage. There are people who may have felt intellectually suffocated at a particular place, they get some breathing space. But then the problem is that now anybody can speak and there is very little regulation.
So can we as a movement try to regulate what goes on social media? It’s going to be very difficult because, okay, we can regulate what is spoken in our temples. But if somebody hears the Bhagavad Gita, learns it and they speak in their own understanding, how much can we control that? And even if we try to control, some people may not listen to authorities and there are other people who just don’t care for authorities also. So what are we going to do? So I think the solution is, if somebody that there are serious deviations and there are minor deviations.
So there are serious deviations that the speaker has to be confronted and that has to be done by the proper authority figures at that particular place. But in general, we have to train devotees to become more discerning. And telling devotees don’t hear from everyone, that is also not going to work.
Just hear only from me or us or that is, we can tell that but it’s not likely that people are going to listen to that. But we can try to equip devotees to be able to evaluate. So broadly we can tell that, if you are going to hear from different devotees, at least inform your authorities, consult with your authorities and then you can take guidance.
It’s not that you can say, you hear only from me, that is not going to work very well. But if some broad framework is given, you know, okay, these devotees, they speak in a particular way and this particular devotee should not hear or if we hear this is what is going to be consequence, that kind of education can be given. So it’s more of creating education and awareness among the devotees, they can choose whom to hear from wisely.
I think that’s what is going to work. Okay, thank you. Yes, sir.
Okay, you have a question? Hare Krishna Puroji. Puroji, Srila Prabhupada said that religion without philosophy is a sentiment or sometimes fanaticism, while philosophy without religion is a mental speculation. So can you please explain philosophy without religion, how can it be mental speculation? So when Prabhupada uses the word philosophy without religion as mental speculation, he is using religion in the sense of practicing sadhana by which we get realization of what we are talking about.
So if one is not doing any practice, then what happens is, I hear this philosophy and then, okay, it makes sense, but some part of it doesn’t make sense. And tomorrow I hear some other explanation, hey, that makes sense, and that makes sense. So tarako apatishtha shudayo vibhinna.
If we just focus only on logical level for making sense of things. Yes, it is important that those who are the teachers of spirituality, they try to present things in a way that makes logical sense also. But if we are going to make logic as the highest praman, I will only follow that which makes logical sense.
Then it will all depend primarily not on how true the philosophy is, but how expert the presenter is. See, logic can be used to prove anything. When, for example, in the history of science, and this is not to criticize science, but it is just to illustrate the point, that initially when smoking was going on, if you see even 30-40 years ago, all the movie stars used to smoke.
It was considered very fashionable thing to do. Then it became very clear with time that smoking was causing cancer. But the tobacco companies were extremely insistent, they wanted to protect their market.
So they funded some research and they paid some big scientists and big universities in America and these scientists they published a paper. They said actually the link between smoking and lung cancer is not causation, it is correlation. Correlation means what? It is not that smoking is causing cancer.
Actually there is some unknown gene inside people which makes people smoke too much and which also makes them likely to get cancer. So we need to find treatment so that that gene is brought under control. Now, there is no evidence of the existence of such a gene.
So the point I am making is, now if somebody doesn’t know enough about science, they will say, hey, maybe it is true. So some big journal publishes it, some big scientist makes a paper. So logic can be used to prove anything.
If we are going to focus only on logic, then what will happen is, hey, this makes sense, we go here. That makes sense, that goes there. Then we start mentally speculating to find out just whatever makes logical sense.
But when you practice religion, this sadhu sadhana, then we start getting realization. Then by logic it is still important, but it is for a devotee who is advanced. Their faith in God does not depend on the logical argument that they can use to prove the existence of God.
Even if tomorrow a very aggressive atheist comes and refutes whatever argument they are making for the existence of God, their faith is not shaken. So it is more a realized faith. So that is why philosophy without religion will be mental speculation.
That means we will be only looking for logical sense and will be shaky because of that. Yes, Prabhuji. Hare Krishna Prabhuji.
Your third point about the hearer, the comforting the hearer, like assuming his suffering and showing concern first about that suffering. So since you are very expert in intellectually explaining things, so suppose a situation where a person does not understand or does not have faith in the rebirth or people, generally people have said that there is a one birth and if God is very all-knowing and very powerful and he is very kind, then why is he giving suffering to me? So is there a way that we can explain intellectually that how God can be very kind without the rebirth concept? Well, I don’t know any religion that talks about only this life as being the only reality and also accepts God. If this world is the only reality, then it is very difficult to have any kind of faith in God because this world is very often not a fair place.
So even the Abrahamic religions which hold that they don’t really hold this life is the only life. They have that there is an eternal life beyond this life. But what they say is that after this life, this life is the only chance.
After this eternal life, there is eternal damnation where a person goes to hell. So it’s not that they are also saying that there is nothing beyond this life. That idea is only of people who are materialistic, highly aggressively materialistic.
Now that is the problem with atheistic materialism. That atheism does not remove the suffering from the world. Suffering is going to be there for atheists and theists both.
But atheism removes the hope that our suffering may have some meaning. That through that suffering, some good is going to come. So in that sense, atheism is not at all emotionally comforting.
It is emotionally very damaging. So just because I don’t believe in God, okay fine. But atheism, it does not remove suffering.
Suffering is still going to be there. It just removes hope that suffering has some meaning. That there is some higher plan, some good is going to come through the suffering.
So that’s one thing. Now if somebody is at this stage in distress, I think trying to explain things is not very helpful. I will talk in tomorrow or day after tomorrow session about how Krishna dealt with Arjuna after Abhimanyu’s death.
So that time we will discuss more. But in general when somebody has lost someone, at that time what they need is more support than some kind of explanation. They need to feel that we care for them.
Someone cares for them. Because that sense of loss is what is afflicting them much more. So whether the explanation makes sense or not, that depends.
But we will talk more about, basically at that time when somebody is grieving, people need many things, but people primarily need support. They need to feel cared for. That I am not completely alone.
I am not abandoned. They are bereaved. They have lost a loved one.
Now do they need illumination? Do they need education? Do they need philosophical illumination? Yes, that is also there. But often this may be secondary. We will talk about this in a future session.
Any last question? Two questions, quickly finish. Where is the mic? Yes, we will come to you. Hari Krishna Prabhuji, please accept my humble obeisances.
Thank you so much for presenting such broad vision for various aspects like Big Bang and even organ donation. Thank you for presenting by reconciling everything instead of directly confronting. Prabhuji, my question is that the presentation of philosophy depends upon individual maturity of a speaker.
And I was hearing in one of the lectures by one of the speakers that Chandrakya Pandit mentions that maturity is this one thing that is there by birth. It cannot be developed in due course of time. Although I have not read Chandrakya Niti directly, but I have heard in one of the lectures.
So Prabhuji, is there any hope for us that we can improve our presentation skills or is it just by our maturity that we present it? Well, I would have to see the reference where maturity comes from birth. I don’t think it stands any logical scrutiny. Can we say that some children are more mature than others even in childhood? That’s possible.
But can we say that even a child who is less mature in childhood will not become mature as they grow old? Well, some people remain babies even when they grow old. They are like cry babies. They are babies in adult bodies.
But most people do take up responsibility. They do become mature. That’s a maturity that does happen.
It is a natural process of if we are growing and if we are trying to be learning from life we do mature. So there are times when some devotees some devotees hear my classes and one time I was attending one class and this devotee after the devotee asked me how did you find the class I told him that this point was a bit harsh He gave me a very strange look I said what happened? He said I heard this point in your class only. I said when was that? That was almost 20 years ago.
I said yes some of the points that I spoke 20 years ago that they make me wince now. So hopefully I am matured now. We all mature I would say.
Definitely. So in general we speak classes we talk with others we don’t talk to others we talk with others after we give a talk what points people connect with what points people don’t connect with and we talk with different devotees from different perspectives that helps us to mature especially for me when I started travelling across the world that opened my mind to how philosophy is perceived by different people how it is received by different people What is the ideal way of confronting people when they are afflicted at the same time sensing an opportunity to connect them to Krishna when they are in distress Let’s talk about this when we talk about Krishna, Arjuna after Abhimanyu’s death tomorrow or day after Yes I have a question sometimes people we preach and they ask we want to know about Lord we want to know confidential thing about Leelas or anything because they don’t know, they are in ignorance and they blame Lord why he did like that and sometimes people even don’t believe in scriptures so we have to preach actually to everyone so they are sometimes difficult when they want to know also and they say we don’t believe in scriptures so how to take them so Prabhupada says that we need to be able to present scriptural truths based on not just scripture but also based on logic so for example when he started the Bhaktivedanta Institute that was for reaching out to scientific and scholarly people he said you should be able to become expert to present things from logical perspective so we have to see what is the source of authority for that person right now and we need to be able to present what we are saying in a way that makes sense to that person with their particular source of authority so if they don’t accept scripture what do they accept, logic maybe they accept some respectable people in today’s world so for example when we share Bhagavad Gita then we may quote Emerson and Thoreau and so many eminent people from the west even Gandhi who have quoted the Bhagavad Gita or sought guidance in the Bhagavad Gita so we have to find out what is their source of authority so basically it is like our source of authority is scripture what is their source of authority and where do they intersect that’s where we need to start gradually they will develop faith and then once they develop faith then even if something is not backed according to their source of authority they will accept it so Prabhupada says this is realization realization means to present the message of scripture in a way that is interesting to the audience we present the scripture message only we don’t extract some other message but when you say it is interesting it means interesting in many things one of the things is that it makes sense it appeals to them, it persuades them so we have to find out their source of authority Thank you very much Thank you