Why are many people attracted to spiritual organizations that have no philosophical substance so much that they even dedicate their lives?

From Panca Pandava Pr

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
We see that many organizations have no philosophical existence, yet they attract people who even dedicate their lives and they also attract people in large quantities and often these people also follow some regulative principles. So, what is it that attracts people in these organizations? Answer, ultimately, everybody wants to live their life for some cause. So, whichever cause within their social, cultural, intellectual understanding, they find attractive.
Some people get attracted to that cause. So, we have to understand that there are people living in goodness who want to live in goodness, but the overall culture is in passion. So, when these people, within their limited experience, find out some organizations that offer values that are in goodness, they become attracted.
So, when they have no real reference point to compare what they are currently getting to what is the highest available within the spiritual arena, then whatever they get, they take it up. See, it’s just like when a person doesn’t know, doesn’t have much choice of what food to take, whatever food is available, the person will take that. Similarly, people who are the host of the society are raised in passion, where passion is people are just concerned with one’s own individual gratification and possessing more and more and enjoying more and more.
Now, those who are in goodness, they feel, they recoil from such a lifestyle and they want some kind of social and cultural environment where they can live in goodness. So, now, when there are such people, there can be people who are intellectually in goodness, and there are other people who can be culturally in goodness. Intellectually in goodness means people are very serious intellectual seekers.
Culturally in goodness means that they are more of people who have regulated lifestyles and they may not be very intellectual or philosophical, but they like to live a regulated life. So, people who are primarily culturally in goodness, for them, intellectual substance is not the primary thing that attracts them to any spiritual or social organization. What attracts them is the cultural aspect.
So, if some particular organization offers a culture that is relatively better, more in goodness than the surrounding culture of mainstream society, and if that organization also offers something philosophical, which also seems to make sense. Actually speaking, if you see, most organizations focus, even if you look at their books and their teachings, they focus on moral values which are in goodness. Be sensitive, be forgiving, be kind, be good.
And these are values which people in Buddhism naturally like. And for most people, they don’t even realize what the metaphysical teachings of an organization are. There are many people who practice Buddhism for years without even knowing that actually Buddhism is an atheistic religion.
They’ve been practicing Buddhism themselves for so many years, but they think that Buddha is God or they think this is our culture. The idea that Buddhism is atheistic is not something which is prominently taught of within the Buddhist culture. The culture that Buddhism offers is in goodness and in Hollywood and in America, Buddhism is spreading also because as compared to the passionate culture of mainstream western society, Buddhism seems to offer a culturally appealing alternative.
That it is intellectually, not without much substance. It doesn’t seem to alienate people who are more looking for culture and who are more culturally in goodness than intellectually in goodness. So, many people become attracted by something culturally and they feel benefited.
Actually, for one who is in passion, when a person comes to goodness, they feel benefited. Especially, if that person had an original nature of wanting to live in goodness, but was dragged into passion by the pressures of the surrounding culture, then coming to goodness can seem to be a big relief. It is a return to one’s normal state.
And there is definitely a change, there is definitely a benefit in such coming to goodness. And when people come to goodness, they feel benefited. And when they feel benefited, they want to share that benefit with others.
And that’s how some of them may even dedicate their lives. So, when we talk about dedicating, we have to understand not just the primary person is dedicating, but also what is the reason the person is dedicating. So, there are some people who, as the Bhagavad Gita says 7.14, different people come to God for different purposes, which is bhaktu, jijnasura, bhakti and jnani.
These are the students, inquisitive, these are people of knowledge, and those who are seekers of knowledge. So, the lack of philosophical substance will definitely alienate those who are the seekers of knowledge. And it will certainly also put some kind of brakes on those who are inquisitive.
But those who are in distress, that distress doesn’t necessarily mean that those people are sick. Distress can also be that distress of being in a, of living in an incompatible culture. So, when they come to goodness, naturally they feel benefited by that culture and goodness.
So, now, within this organization, there may be claims like the founder of that organization is God. And these two outsiders, also seem questionable. And for those who have the wisdom of the parampara, the philosophical wisdom, it seems not just absurd, the claim of some person to be God, we understand it is not only absurd, it is also in some way offensive.
But still, because people have no philosophical reference point, philosophical standard, by which to compare what they are getting within a philosophical organization, with what they are getting, with what they could be getting if they understood the scriptures properly. So, it’s like say, there is 24 karat gold, and there is impure gold. And if a person doesn’t even know about 24 karat gold, and this person has always been living with iron, whatever quality of gold a person gets, or even if a person gets actually this iron that is coated with gold, that will look better than just mere iron.
So, for people who are in passion, anything that helps them to live, to come culturally to goodness, seems like gold. So, whether it has philosophical substance or not, doesn’t matter so much to me. Therefore, if we see what Srila Prabhupada said in the Gondal Vinayal program, he said that we will take, that Krishna consciousness will spread all over the world by the Krishna culture.
The philosophy is no doubt important, philosophy is like the foundation, but most people are not philosophical, in the sense that they may understand the philosophy, but it is not philosophical conviction that attracts people, it’s culture that attracts people. So, when we talk about philosophical conviction, that sustains people for a long time, to do the ups and downs, to the challenges of faith, philosophical conviction is important, it sustains people. But generally, when people are attracted by the culture, then their metaphysical beliefs are not really much.
What happens is they are, they are centered on, okay, this particular person was very charismatic, very impressive, whatever that person says, that must be right, and they accept whatever that person is right, and they just continue following, because they have an attraction to that particular founder, and they like the culture that is based on. So, that’s how we see many of these organizations, often they attract followers, but especially if the founders have some problem, the founders pass away then, many of these organizations, although they were impressive, really impressive also, looking at this, they collapse thereafter, because what is continuing them is not necessarily a tradition, it is actually, it is actually basically some circumstantial attraction based on cultural factors. So, that’s why, as devotees, when we present both the philosophy and the culture to people, then people will be attracted.
Just like, I often give the example that science is like the philosophy, technology is like the culture. So, many people, they use a mobile, very few people know how the mobile works, but just if they see the mobile, they use the mobile, and they find they can contact with anyone, anywhere, just by clicking a few buttons, they become impressed. And then when they become impressed, when they get that practical benefit, naturally they become attracted to all of science, and even when science makes claims like man has come from monkeys, or Venus has come from Big Bang, they don’t question that very seriously, because science has benefited them at a level that is practical, from technology, that they are able to contact their relatives and loved ones, and the philosophical implications that there is no God, there is no soul, does it make sense that everything has come by chance, these don’t seem very relevant to people.
If I make a video and cry, anyway it doesn’t matter what matters is that I have my TV, I have my phone, I have my video games. So, like that, this is at a gross physical level what technology offers. And similarly, the evolutionary level offers some comfort, which relates at an emotional, spiritual level.
Of course, they offer, many of them offer support at a physical level also, the humanitarian relief and similar things. But again, the point is that when people are attracted culturally, often they don’t examine intellectually what they are getting into. That’s why, that’s why some of them are able to spread even when they have closer intellectual substance.
So, now, we have intellectual substance within the Vedic tradition, within Gaudiya Vishnu’s and S.V. Indrajitha’s Mahaprabhu, created, powered by Vishnu’s constitutional view. But we also need to present the philosophical substance, along with the attracted culture. When both come together, many, many people will be attracted.
And there will be, fortunately, they will be attracted to something that is not just in goodness. There is something which takes them to goodness and through goodness, we move to transcendence and eternal life, eternal happiness.