When famous religious teachers are accused of crime, how can we expect people to keep faith in religion?

From Pancha Pandava P

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Question from Pancha Panda Prabhu when spiritual teachers who are followed by thousands of people are accused of serious misconduct then people in general lose faith in all spiritual teachers so how should we respond when people reject all spiritual teachers as false, how can we help them to still have faith in such situations Answer it is certainly extremely sad when such situations happen when those who are seen as representatives of God by thousands of people are accused of sexual misdemeanor so the first point is that we shouldn’t necessarily assume that a person is guilty unless the crime is proven but at the same time we don’t have to call anything as a framing unless there is evidence in support of that either and it is definitely true that even if one specific incident proves to be wrong still there are other incidents where such things have happened so it is actually violence against the faith of faithful people when those who are meant to uphold and strengthen their faith attack and violate their faith by their misconduct so while it is certainly sad and people are justified in being angry and skeptical at the same time we also have to recognize that skepticism can never help us if it is a blanket skepticism just like in the medical field we see that there are some doctors who exploit and fleece people and it is good to have some skepticism when one goes to a doctor and the doctor recommends some expensive procedures but at the same time if one becomes completely skeptical about those doctors in general then one will lose out on the benefit that those doctors can offer actually we can be healed physically and we need doctors for that without that our disease will stay on and we will suffer so now spirituality is actually the cure for the disease of the mind the mind is contaminated by various negative factors, fears anxieties irrational desires and self pity depression addictive urges so these are the kind of thought patterns that make us sick internally and proper practice of spirituality as given in the scriptures purifies us of this negativity because it connects us with the supreme positivity of God and God’s love for us so when a place is dirty at that time when we flush it with clean water the dirty water goes away and clean water comes similarly our mind is internally contaminated by various negativities that come from the excessive materialism that is there in surroundings today as well and it purifies us from our own past actions so when we clean ourselves, when we expose ourselves to God’s love through meditation through prayer, through devotion then the God’s love acts like a river the Bhagavatam describes that the remembrance of Krishna acts like a fresh river water it cleanses away Shamalam, Krishna, all the dirt is cleansed away so like that we become internally cleansed and this cleansing power of spirituality holds true irrespective of what anyone has done or not done just like if there is a medical process for curing a disease now even if one of the doctors maybe even if the doctor was a prominent practitioner if that doctor has abused certain patients exploited certain patients but that doesn’t mean that the process of the doctor was the process for curing patients is false so now same applies to spirituality spirituality offers us a process for inner purification and millions of people throughout history have benefited from that process and we don’t have to deprive ourselves of that benefit just because some people have done something wrong so we need education and discrimination to understand how to approach spirituality in such situations so education means we understand what is the purpose of spirituality and how is it going to benefit us and who are the people who are actually genuine to Jesus spirituality that we learn from discrimination that’s why studying scripture is extremely important and that takes us from the surface of spirituality to substance of spirituality from the things which often people consider as religious to what actually is the essential transformational power of God manifest through religion so therefore at such times if there is proper education so rather than rejecting everything connected with spiritual teachers in a blanket way if a person gets education, studies the time honored scriptures and through those scriptures understands what is spirituality for example Bhagavad Gita is a book that has been revered by millions throughout history and has been referred to by thousands and thousands of people even today millions even today also all over the world so it is a book of wisdom and if you read the Bhagavad Gita the Bhagavad Gita describes the characteristics of true saintly people so spirituality is a science in which there is philosophy and there is religion so both of them when they are balanced together then spirituality acts as a science of inner transformation it’s a higher dimension science because the subject it deals with soul and the purification of the soul that is beyond the perceptions of our senses and beyond the range of modern science that’s a higher dimensional science it’s a higher dimensional science of inner transformation so the philosophy tells us how the process of transformation works and who all will get and how people can get transformed by that and the religion helps us understand that this is the process by which the transformation will happen. Philosophy tells us we are not the body we are the soul and so as souls we are parts of God.
The religion offers us process like chanting the holy names, taking darshan of the deities and these enable us to actually become purified to develop love for Krishna and experience the higher happiness thereof and then break free from the lower impurities this is a process of inner transformation and this process works irrespective of who has done what now we may wonder that you know if this process works then why are people who are claiming to be spiritual teachers not themselves purified. If it’s a process of inner transformation why are they themselves not internally transformed that’s why we need education and followed by education leads to discrimination. There are many people who may quote verses from scriptures, who may dress in a way that appears saintly but are they actually saintly? For that we have to look at scriptural standard and compare their life and their actions and of course their teaching also with scriptural teachings so many times people enter religion not as a means to transform themselves internally but as a means to exploit the faith of others and gain money and fame easily so I’m not making any specific comment about any specific spiritual teacher over here but this is something which does happen in the field of religion and there are self-seeking opportunists who exploit and abuse dharma in this way and the reason they are able to get away is because people in general are not philosophically educated if people were philosophically educated then they would be able to discriminate and understand this is a right teacher this is not a right teacher just like when a person goes to a doctor the patient can never know as much as a doctor but patient needs to have some basic knowledge about medicine so that the patient can consult and recognize can evaluate and recognize whether a doctor is fleecing me or what so like that if I have stomach pain and doctor says you have to cut your leg it doesn’t make any sense, how does God have to do with it so we are all tiny souls and if somebody comes and says that I am God how can anybody be God, only God alone is God so like that if we use our intelligence and we supplement rather complement our intelligence with scriptural teaching then we will be able to ourselves become equipped to understand genuine spiritualists from malified spiritualists and I have written a whole book called Oh My God! Re-Answering the Questions in which I talk extensively about the characteristics of the true spiritual teachers and that’s based on the scriptures and the book is available as a pdf on my website also if you would like to read it but more importantly along with the education and the discrimination that people need to have we as individuals who are spiritual practitioners and some of us may be spiritual teachers also in our own small ways we have to recognize the importance of proper behavior on our part so when we do in spiritual life there is achar and there is prachar so when people see that our achar is proper and then we do also prachar achar is behavior, prachar is sharing the knowledge with others and then we explain properly what is a genuine spiritualist and what is a malified spiritualist then we will be able to discriminate and we will be able to recognize that certain spiritualists are right, certain spiritualists are wrong so now we may say that this sort of it is not that only this sort of problems happen in with some spiritualists who are who are themselves out there for exploiting others now some people may say this has happened this kind of things have happened even within ISKCON at times so the important point to recognize it it is not that any particular institution acts as an insurance against individual misbehavior the institution is a socio-cultural structure that provides the facility for following the process and the process is what brings about the transformation so it is possible that in some occasions that may some devotees also some devotees may also engage in some wrong activities and here we are not claiming that we are all good and everybody else is bad the point is there is a process and those who follow the process and become purified they will become purified and if we follow the process we will become purified if others don’t follow the process then they will not become purified whether they are affiliated with a particular institution or not a particular institution that doesn’t matter what matters is the purity of the heart and certainly there are certain institutions which are out there to actually exploit people alone whereas other institutions are there to good for people so we shouldn’t try to distinguish based on institutions we should distinguish on principles principles principles and processes there is a process for transformation and the people who are trying to live according to principles so generally speaking when people come to Krishna consciousness movement it is very rare because we have such high standards follow the 400 principles chant 16 rounds everyday the whole process of sadhana is so rigorous that people who come with exploitative motives they can’t really survive for very long certainly we are not saying that everybody is a pure devotee definitely not but still people who are out of the agenda exploiting common people through their faith that kind of people are very rare and whenever such things have happened it is ISKCON itself which has pointed it out and exposed those people and ensured that justice was done to the victims it happened when certain child abuse cases were there in ISKCON at that particular time ISKCON itself arranged for we published the article in ISKCON’s own communication journal that this is what has happened and this is what we have done to redress things and then whoever was victimized by that they were apology and compensation and rehabilitation was adequately offered to them so here we are not claiming that we are fault free but there is a process that can make us fault free and there are some people who may exploit the process for wrong purposes and there are some people who may fall victim while they are trying to follow the process that means sometimes devotees may also fall to some misdemeanor so the number of people who come for exploiting may be few but others also may sometimes fall if they are not careful this world is like a epidemic zone and lust, anger, greed these are like the germs the germs that are out there they are out to infect everyone so Krishna Consciousness offers immunization but even a doctor in a hospital who is trying to treat sick people and heal people, if the doctor is not cautious enough to take the immunization then the doctor may get infected and may succumb to that disease similarly in some cases even devotees while trying to share Krishna Consciousness if they are not cautious they may themselves succumb to this so this is different from wanting deliberately to exploit others so that is also what usually happens in devotees sometimes devotees have problems in their moral or spiritual standards so overall our faith has to be centered on Krishna and the process that Krishna has offered and the spiritual teachers who are actually teaching the message of Krishna and following the process given by Krishna they are the teachers whom we should trust and when we get education by studying the scriptures properly and when we develop discrimination by comparing what people, what spiritual teachers are teaching and how they are living as compared with the standard that is given in the scriptures through that education and discrimination we can understand who are the teachers whom we should follow and who are the teachers or self-proclaimed teachers from whom we should keep a distance and then we can maintain our faith and gain the empowerment that genuine spirituality offers us for purifying ourselves going closer to Krishna and becoming better instruments for doing good