When modern civilization collapses in future, should devotees have a Vedic alternative ready?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Some people say that the current socio-economic model of the world is unsustainable because it is based on oil and when it falls apart people will look for an alternative. And if we have developed an alternative based on our traditional way of living then people will embrace that alternative.
So how do we understand this? Yes, there are two different things being discussed over here. One is that as a matter of spiritual practice we have to practice in whatever situation we are in. That means most devotees in today’s world are living in cities and irrespective of whether the current model is sustainable or not most devotees are not going to leave cities and go to villages.
See, it’s just the way we are. Living in villages may be very simple but for those who have lived in cities a simple life is not so simple. Simplicity can actually become a very big austerity.
There is no flowing water, there is no electricity, there is no internet. So it will seem very difficult for people to live. That’s why we don’t have to make bhakti more difficult than what it needs to be.
It means wherever people are, people can practice bhakti. Wherever you are situated, here Krishna comes. So we need to provide bhakti to people within their comfort zones.
People have no impetus to come out of their comfort zone necessarily. So that comfort zone may mean, traditionally people would go to the forest and in the forest they would meet some sage and with that sage they would hear spiritual philosophy. But now today there are very little forests and there are practically no sages in the forest.
And there are practically no people who want to go to the forest to look for the sages and hear from them. That’s why we may have a city where we have fans or we may have air conditioning and under there we sit and hear Krishna Katha. So it is our responsibility to make bhakti as easy as possible.
Not compromising the essential principles. But not adding superfluous things that are not essential for the practice of bhakti. So we should make bhakti as easy as possible.
At the same time there are different people with different inspirations. So there are some people who may already have an inspiration for living simply. For exploring alternative ways of living.
And those who have this, they can be inspired to go ahead in that direction. And they may inspire some other people also and they may create a group who is going to do that. But everybody doesn’t have to do that.
And to say that anybody who is not living in a farm community, they are not serious bhaktas. No, that is not true. Somebody can be in a city and they can be serious devotees.
For that matter, Prabhupada himself never lived in a farm. Prabhupada was born and brought up in Calcutta. He lived in Calcutta and that’s how he went all over the world.
So Prabhupada knew a lot about living in farms and he inspired people to live in farms. But neither Bhaktaswami Sri Thakur went about establishing too many farms. So those who are inspired, they can do that.
Now with respect to the future of the world, whether say the economy is running by, the economy may fall apart when fossil fuels run out. If you look at history, there have always been doomsday prophets. Doomsday prophets means that all the world is going to fall apart.
Just do this, do this. It’s not going to work. Now there have been religious doomsday prophets and there have been non-religious doomsday prophets.
Religious doomsday prophets means, whether Christians, there is a book called Millennials. Millennials means that they say that the world is going to be destroyed and at that time the world is destroyed, only those who have given their lives to Jesus, they will be redeemed by Jesus. There is going to be a second coming of Jesus at that time.
And that time of the destruction of the world, 25 times it has come and gone. 25 times it has come and gone. Each time, what do the Christians say? No, not all Christians.
There are also different kinds of Christians. Christians say, oh, after a time comes and goes, nothing happens. Jesus is so merciful.
He has given us one more extension. So, nowadays in the western world, those millennials, Christian millennials who talk about doomsday, they are simply a laughing stock in society. So, that is religious.
Now as far as secular doomsday prophets are concerned, secular means non-religious, there also people have been prophesying. For example, there was the Y2K. There was the whole idea that at the time 2000 comes, there is a bug and all computer systems will crash and the whole economy will fall apart.
Well, that didn’t happen. So, there have been economists who have been prophesying the doom of things and there have been people who have been doing that all the time, throughout history, practically speaking. It is not just modern history.
It has been when science started spreading, there was a moment in European history called Romanticism and the Romanticist says that we are using so many machines. Human culture has become mechanized and people will not be able to live. So, doomsday prophets have always been there.
Have things become worse? Yes, in some ways things have become worse. In terms of say psychological problems becoming much more, things are worse. But in several terms, things are better.
Relatively speaking, as compared to 100 years ago, there are many diseases because of which people don’t die. Of course, there are other diseases because of which people die. But the point is, we cannot by looking at sociological trends, very clearly or authentically say that everything is going to be destroyed.
See, there is fossil fuel exhaustion, but there is also a vigorous attempt for alternative forms of energy coming in. And nuclear energy is for example, increasingly tapped now. So, our purpose is to offer spiritual wisdom to society.
You know, some devotees may expand the scope of the Krishna consciousness movement and try to offer material alternatives. But our primary purpose is not to offer material alternatives. Our primary purpose is to offer spiritual wisdom.
So, if somebody wants to demonstrate alternative living through eco-friendly ways, modes of living in farms, that’s fine. But we have to clearly differentiate between the material and the spiritual. And every material problem has a material solution.
And every material solution creates its own topics. So, even if we demonstrated Varnashtra, we demonstrated eco-friendly living. Now, eco-friendly living is not necessarily easy living.
You go to devotees living in farms and they have their own varieties of problems. So, we should not get too caught in offering material solutions so much that we forget the purpose of providing spiritual wisdom. Those who are inspired to do that, that’s perfectly fine.
But we should not associate ISKCON and the message of Bhakti Yoga with some particular doomsday prophecy. Every doomsday prophecy, there are enough skeptics of that. And there are models of ways of living within the current way of living itself.
Certain adjustments will go on. See, what happens is, my middle nature, Maya Devi, will never make people hopelessly frustrated. Maya makes people frustrated, but she always makes them hopefully frustrated.
Oh, this didn’t work, this didn’t work, this didn’t work, this didn’t work. Hey, that will work. And that’s why people will keep finding some way materially to move onwards.
And that is their industry, their intelligence and that is also the arrangement of Maya. So, Prabhupada was asked at the time in the 1970s, at that time there was a fear that third world war will take place. And because there were WMDs, weapons of mass destruction, he thought that the whole world might be destroyed.
So, at that time, devotees asked Prabhupada, that if a third world war takes place, and a lot of suffering, will at that time people become devotees, people take the bhakti more seriously? Will people become devotees when there is this global catastrophe? Prabhupada said, no, catastrophe is always there. He says, if people become devotees, it is not because of the world war. If people become devotees, that will become our future, our shared Krishna bhakti.
So, material circumstances, some material circumstances may be more conducive for bhakti. Some material circumstances may be more hostile for bhakti. But bhakti itself is transcendental.
And if people come to bhakti because of materially adverse circumstances, then that is not even very sustainable bhakti. They will go away when the material circumstances become more conducive. For example, when Russia, after Operation Perestroika in USSR, USSR became more liberalized.
Then after that there was a huge boom in bhakti. At one time the Newsweek magazine said that Hare Krishna was the fastest growing religion in the religious group in Russia. And it went on for several years.
But after Russia and economy became liberalized, and then western prosperity came to Russia. Then people started chasing after the dream of prosperity. And even now there is a vibrant devout community in Russia.
But it was not as much as it was in the initial days after communism fell. And there was a lot of poverty at that time. So, the thing is, material circumstances can impel people to come towards bhakti.
But it is not necessary that they will come towards bhakti. They may go towards other things also. And we have to be careful that in trying to provide material alternatives to people.
Let me see. First I talked about Varnashra means what? There are devotees who are already practicing bhakti. And for devotees, we create a material arrangement by which they can practice bhakti in a favorable way.
But here we are talking about something else. For non-devotees, we try to demonstrate a more sustainable material way of living. That is a much bigger challenge.
And if devotees are inspired to do that, that’s wonderful. They can do that. But that is not the primary focus of bhakti.
Our primary focus of the Krishna Consciousness Movement and primary focus of devotees who come to Krishna Consciousness Movement should be the raising of consciousness towards Krishna. So, it’s like we conceive a pyramid. In a pyramid, there are those who are serious practitioners of bhakti or at the top.
And around them, there are expanding concentric circles. That means there are some devotees who may have nationalistic interests. And yes, they may have nationalistic interests.
And if that is suppressed, that is undesirable. Because that’s what they feel. And protecting Indian culture, protecting Indian territorial integrity, that is also important so that we can practice bhakti.
But that is not what the whole Krishna Consciousness Movement has to do. And it is not that those devotees who don’t feel interested in that, they should not be made to feel that they are lesser devotees because they are not concerned about that. So, that is a bigger circle in which some devotees will be involved.
So, like that, with Krishna, with a favorable attitude towards Krishna, we can have concentric circles of bigger and bigger radii. So, the attempt to demonstrate a sustainable alternative way of living, that is another circle outside the circle of bhakti. So, our focus is the circle of bhakti.
And those devotees who are inspired, they can do that. And they can network with others who are doing that. And that way, they can also help those people who are in sattva hona, gain appreciation for bhakti.
So, it’s basically like, there are people with different interest groups. And devotees can penetrate in different interest groups and attract people towards Krishna. So, there are social workers, there will be some devotees.
So, social workers, if they come to a temple, then if in this temple, what is this, doing practical. But if there is a devotee who is a social worker, and social workers interact with the devotee social worker, they basically say, oh, I am doing social work. They are also doing social work.
And they are also having spirituality. They are inspired to practice spirituality. So, like that, devotees need to penetrate into different interest groups and present spirituality within those interest groups.
But those are, we could say, they are like special operation forces. That’s not what all devotees need to do. Did I answer your question? Thank you very much.