Today on the sacred of teaching, I will speak on the topic of Krishna’s or God’s love for us and our love for us. Specifically, I talk about the topic of, does God care? There are so many things that go wrong in the world. So many things go wrong in our own lives. And when such things happen, it’s natural to get this question.

That even if we accept that godliness, does god care? And oh, lord. He is god in whatever manifestations, conceptions of god are there across the world. For god Nasimuddin, they are one of the happiest manifestations. So the lord, his anger is actually a demonstration that he cares.

So, generally, we get angry about things that we care about. And his his very anger at every form that is manifesting on the Bible, that indicates that he cares, and he cares deeply. So the Lord in his form of Nasimadev is half man. He’s half loyal. He’s half man, half loyal, and full God.

He’s fully manifesting divinity, especially in the divine manner, matter of divine power and divine, specifically, anger. So I recently written a small book on the Bhagavad Gita. It is praise inspired word. Can all of you see this? Yes.

So we will read something from this book and how it relates to the theme of how the lord cares and what does it mean. So basically, in this book, I have taken verses from the Bhagavad Gita and we use them as inspirations for offering prayers to the lord. The Gita is not just a source of wisdom. The Gita is not different from Krishna. The Gita’s verses are like mantras.

They are also like Krishna. So you can offer prayers inspired by those verses. So I’ll take one such one such verse, and then we talk about the Lord’s so basically, in this book, there’s one beautiful picture of deity of Krishna on each page. Then there is one prayer which is like a spiritual or emotional affirmation. Then there’s the Gita words, and then the translation of the Gita words in a poetic form, so that you can feel a more emotional connect with Krishna and with the words of the Gita.

After all, the Gita is a song. But sometimes the philosophy of the Gita, we may forget it’s a song. And then there is a prayer offered based on that. So I will talk about this. So let’s so I’ll read something out.

Do we have a second mic for any chance? Second mic for people to ask your reader or facilitate it. I’ll need to set one up with you. No. It’s okay.

No. It’s okay. So anyway so you can repeat after me. You just repeat. My dear lord My dear lord.

Let your smiling amid my suffering strengthen my faith, not weaken it, This is the context of the Bhagavad Gita. Krishna is just beginning to speak to Arjuna. Krishna starts speaking from 2.11. This is 2.1. So those of you comfort with Sanskrit can decide the words after me.

The Lord of the senses spoke with a gentle grace. A doming smile playing upon his divine face. Between the eyes, standing calm and bright, he so laced Arjuna was blending his bride. So this is Krishna and Arjuna in the battlefield. And the key point in this verse is that the contrast.

Arjuna is crying. Arjuna is tears. And Krishna is smiling. The different, people are born in your own families unless they have different reason. What what is the reason?

This is, I have so many problems in my life. Whenever I go to temple, Krishna is smiling all the time. So, yes, it can appear that we are facing so many challenges in life. And does Krishna care? Now we may have some challenges.

If you look at the story of Prahlad and Nasim, Prahlad faced far more challenges than what he faced. It was not just challenges, it was threats threats to his life. And if you see, Prahlad could have had the reason to ask this question even more than us in many ways. Because for him, Sikhiweg, our problems may come from many sources. Generally, when we face problems in life, the problems are broadly because of three factors.

The problem will come because of just the nature of the world. Nature of the world means that if we live in a place which is very cold and it complains so cold, it’s so cold, it’s so cold. Now let’s just say what you’re saying is so old, so old, so old. You get used to it. That’s how it is.

Sometimes the problems may come because of the nature or more precisely it could nature or behavior of the Mhmm. So nature of the world that blocks broadly in many contexts is called as Adi Dahi Klish. Just the nature of the world. Then there is Adi Bhauti Klish. Nature of people or the behavior of people.

So there could be mosquitoes which bite us, and there could be human beings who bite. There are mosquitoes, there’s and then there’s mother-in-law. So we have problems coming from people around us. The nature of people or the behavior of people. And then the third source of problem is the nature or behavior of ourselves.

This is sometimes a hard pill to swallow, But many times, if you see the problem that have come in our life, they have come because of our own actions. Sometimes we get angry over trivial things. Sometimes we end up indulging in things we should not be indulging. Sometimes we make some rash moves, and then we get into trouble. So these are broadly they are are the ethnic.

So now when the sufferings come in life, naturally, we may not miss God. Please help me. Please help me, oh lord. So when sufferings come because of the nature of the world, that’s one thing. You just have to okay.

I’ll look with it. It. Now in the case of Prahlad so this boy has talked with him afterwards. I don’t know what it was typical, teenage adolescence is just going through that phase. The hormones are growing, one is trying to deal with peer pressure, trying to find one’s place and buy.

It’s a difficult phase. I once I did I have done some writing seminars, attended some, I have conducted some also. So many times people say that, I would like to write, but I don’t have ideas. Where do you get ideas to go? Some people have too many ideas, but they don’t have the patience to translate the ideas into reality.

So this is a so one of the answers I give is if you have survived image, you have enough stories to tell for a lifetime. Especially if you have survived image in a culture that is radically different from our traditional culture, our family culture. This is a very tough period. But there are just a group of pains that are there. But if you consider the situation of Prahlad, his pains, we could say, among these three which are the category of the pains you said?

Was it because of nature of the world, nature of people, nature of others, his own behavior? Which was it? The nature of the people. People. Sorry.

How the Bhagavad Gita is depicting this or how the story unfolds that his own father is out to kill him. And this is about to happen. It is probably for the child who is growing up. It’s the most psychological scarring thing that can be imagined. The person who’s supposed to be a protector.

Now, sometimes the parents are just negligent. That itself is a problem. But if the parent is violent, now it is violent because of okay. He will drink alcohol, and we are alcohol abuse, these domestic violence, something like that. That’s terrible.

But this is it is not, like, anger that is causing come from somewhere else, and this was the child gets caught in the crossfire. It is anger directed at the child itself. And it’s knowingly it’s not just like a rush of temper. We’ll talk about why it is not. It it can be enormously scarring for a person, for a child who is growing up.

The very person who is supposed to be a protector is out to destroy me. What kind of world is this? What kind of god would be there who would allow such a thing to happen in the world? So he could easily have asked this question. And now, is it now why was his father angry with him?

Because of his devotion. So he could say that Prahlad could have said that it is not because of the nature of the world that the problem is coming my the problems are solely because of my devotion to you. Isn’t it? It’s all not all, but the main thing Hiranyak Kishipu wanted was that, Prahlad, you stop worshiping Vishnu. He considered the one point of Vishnu to plead like a disease.

He says, this is a terrible thing. Stop it right away. See, for us, most of the times, we consider the relationship if we are practicing devotion and our situation in the world. So whatever situation you’re going to do, if you practice devotion, we expect that the devotion should improve our situation. Now that in many ways, we expect it to improve.

We may in the past, it was more of a karma kanda where God, that, oh, father, thou art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, givers are dealing with them. So people in the past will look for physical needs, physical improvement, to all in daily rains so that any harvest is bound in. And now people may turn towards god, not so much for physical needs, but more for psychological needs. Oh, god. Please give me peace of mind.

One of the most common reasons that we ask people, why do you come to a temple? It is not many people come because of the love for god. Nothing wrong with it. It’s to appreciate whatever reason we come. We come for peace of mind.

And that’s also improvement. It’s a big improvement. Now it’s, it’s very you can’t just buy peace of mind with a pen. So we expect that our devotion should improve our worldly situation. Now in the case of Prahlad, his devotion itself is the cause of the worsening of his worldly situation.

Now when this happens, you know, we practice bhakti. Use a very wonderful, definition of Krishna consciousness. It’s how he says he asked, how will you know that we are Krishna conscious? So he says, if you come in from the temple, come in the temple, come in from the deity. And if you feel that deity is asking us, Krishna is asking us, what are you doing for me?

What are you doing for me? We are all meant to be of loving service to the lord. So, naturally, the lord will ask, what what service are you doing? So if you have that mood, if you feel that, that Krishna is asking, what are you doing for me? That is Krishna consciousness.

Now many times when people come to a temple, their question is, God, what are you doing for me? I have this problem. I have this problem, and I did this pooja, and I did this tapas. It’s time for you. It’s time for you to pay up now.

Come on. Do something. So So, normally, we expect our devotion to improve our situation. And if even the situation does not improve, we get agitated. We start thinking, should I be worshiping god?

Okay. Well, I think this is not working for us. So so now but if our situation starts worsening because of our is natural for any person when they practice in bhakti to get the question. So let’s look a little bit at the prayer order. So do we have another mic?

No. It’s gonna take some time. No. I’m not touching one. So maybe someone has a mic in their throat.

Somebody will hear it loudly. Oh, yes, sir. Please. Can you read the first paragraph? Oh my lord.

Many are the times when I feel lost and lonely, confronted with the perplexities of life. At those times when nothing I do seems to be working, I cannot help but wonder, do you, oh lord, know my plight? Yes. So now we will theoretically know if Krishna is commissioned. Krishna knows everything.

But does Krishna know my situation right now? But does Krishna know how to cope with the situation right now? And does Krishna knows that he came for the situation. So Prahlad is being threatened. He he was practicing his devotion, and he was not even trying to impose his devotion with his father.

It was only his father to ask some questions. That’s the time he would speak. He wanted to learn in your school, and he would speak sublimely sweet points, And those sublimely sweet points would drive his father into a wild rage. So and his father, it’s like the the story that he undergoes, we will go over the story and especially focusing on the climax and on the simulated audience. So how things evolve at that particular time.

So essentially, we see the descent into into depravity, into brutality. Redekashiko is a brutal person, but even everybody, no matter how bad they are, they have some boundaries. That, say, if somebody’s a criminal, they say, I want to rob, but, you know, I don’t want to hurt anyone. Or even somebody who’s a Okay? I will kill, but I am not gonna be killed.

You know, so everybody has certain boundaries. So initially, when Hiranyakashipo sees that his son is, is talking about bhakti, He, Hiradevan Shubhas defined his life by being anti God. He’s not just an atheist, he’s a anti theist. Antitheist. His purpose of life is to destroy Vishnu.

He’s teasing that I will perform more and more austerities, and by the power of Tapasya, I will destroy an issue. And he thinks that, okay, he thinks that Vishnu is so scared of him, Vishnu has disappeared. So I can’t find Vishnu anywhere. If I find him, I’ll destroy him. But till I can’t destroy him, I will destroy all signs of worship of him.

And that’s why he sends his demons to destroy all the sacred releases, all the Yedgesthales. Right? Yedgesthales over here. So, watching that again, remembering this past in this past, what he said is, destroy all signs of worship of him. That and, like, eight people he he has a great ego, and people who have a lot of ego, what happens is the one thing they cannot tolerate is being ignored.

You have a person who has a lot of ego and they come to a particular place, and nobody notices them. They are enraged. So he now he has a lot of ego. He wants to throw around this weight and dominate people, so he thinks Vishnu is like that. So he thinks that if I stop the worship of Vishnu, if I completely end the worship of Vishnu, then Vishnu, because of his ego, will come out from where he is.

And then I can catch you and I can kill you. That’s why he stops all worship. And then his situation is he stops the worship of Vishnu practically all over the universe, and then he finds that very worship of Vishnu which is stopped all over the universe, that worship is happening in his own home. So this is infuriating for him. He thinks that so, he thinks, okay, my child is a small child.

So, normally, what we try to do is that if we like someone, then even if they do something bad, we try to give them the benefit of the doubt. And that’s how it should be, that if we like someone and, say, they eat too much food. Maybe we have prepared meal for four people, and they eat the meal of three people. And then one person has to the remaining three people have to share one person’s meal. Or maybe they have a special dessert and they eat two of the dessert.

Then if we dislike that person, we’ll say, so what a clatter? No sense control. But if we like that person, we’ll say, oh, maybe maybe he was very hungry. Maybe he didn’t do little limited food. We’ll try to give them the benefit of the doubt.

So generally, what happens, we try to find the blade somewhere else. So like that, Virani Krishu says, okay, my son is nice, but maybe some of these Vaishnavas have somehow come and infected. So although he has tried to remove all devotion, but he still know that some people still are practicing Magdi. So he first warns his students, his teachers, you should watch out. You should not let my children, my child associate with bad people.

So for him, devotee the bad people. Not associate, not let them associate. And then he let them off with a warning. Second time it happens. Again, Maharaj said the same thing.

This time he’s angry here. This knocks for a lot of time. Oh. And then he again calls his teachers. He says, okay.

Okay. Now we’ll take care of it. So now that the sequence that is described in different narrative, there is a, there is the Mahabharata, there is the there is Simma Purana, there is the Vishnu Purana, there are other Puranas where some is some narrative is the sequence is described slightly differently. This could refer to how different Kalpas things happen. But the point is that slowly, he starts recognizing first he gets he get he blames the Vaishnav also coming.

Then he blames his teachers, his students’ teachers. You are not taking care of him. And then finally, he says the act, this child, this child is the problem. And then, there is a difference between anger and danger. So anger generally is hot headed.

When we are angry about something, it arises from the circumstances and it stays for some time. Anger is hot headed. But what Hiranyakashipu exhibits is not anger, it is hate. Hate is cold blooded. It is not just one moment of anger that is, oh, this Palla needs to be killed.

We always speak like that. I’ll kill you if you do this. One devotees suddenly showed me, that that child had run up run away, and then the child came back. And then I was talking with the child. It was just a small misunderstanding.

The child had just taken too seriously. The parents but the parent, the father showed me a small clipping, and they were laughing. So there’s a there’s a mother. Her daughter has run away. And she’s a Christian.

She’s praying to God. Oh, God. Please let her be please let my child be safe, and let her come home safely so that I can kill her. So the idea here is that sometimes you may use the word and kill you. So that’s in a very nonlitrous sense.

It’s an expression of anger. But in this case, it was real. He said that, you know, if a part of the body gets infected, then we need to cut out the part, otherwise everything will get infected. So he said like that, and therefore, I need to kiss him. So see, here, what he’s doing is, sometimes when we do something bad, we might just do it in a rage.

So when anger comes up, anger just sidelines our intelligence. No? Sidelines means this put pushes aside. But when hate comes, hate doesn’t sideline the intelligence. Hate recruits the intelligence.

Recruit the intelligence means we use our intelligence to make a plan how to do it and how to justify it or stop it. This is where we rationalize. And if you heard the word rationalize? So when we rationalize, what happens? We tell rational lies.

And when we rationalize, we tell rational lies. So he’s justifying the killing of his own son by saying this is like a seizure, the disease has to be removed. So then, it tries to kill I was talking earlier about boundaries. Even bad people have some boundaries. One of my friends is awarded for a jail.

So he says, even more prisoners, if the prisoners come to jail because of some child abuse, even prisoners look like children. Then the child those child abusers are kept in some kept in some they’re kept in seclusion, solid confinement. Otherwise, prisoners will harm the person there. So everybody has boundaries. So even Hirany Kishipu has some boundaries initially.

He thinks this is my son, I cannot kill him. So he tells others to do the dirty work. He says he has assistance. You kill him. Now they all try to kill him, but none of them succeed.

And often, this is seen as a miracle. And yes, it is. That the miracle is he’s thrown down a mountain and nothing happens to him. He’s kept at a burning fire. He is bitten by snakes.

He’s put in the path of trumpeting elephants. And none of those efforts, they were injured. So that is a miracle. However, if you look at Vaishnavacharya’s commentaries, look at the commentary, that is not the biggest miracle. See, miracles are basically broadly, they could be of two kinds.

One is things that happen to us. Things that happen to us. To us means that something as she happens. So here, he’s threatened, and he’s he’s no power, Prahlaj, just a small five year old boy. As a five year old boy, how can he defend against anyone?

He’s cut. He survives. So that’s a miracle. But if you look at the Bhakti tradition’s commentaries, the bigger miracle is not his safety. That his safety is definitely miracle.

But the bigger miracle is the things that happen through us. That the bigger miracle is his his purity, his determination, his devotion. The technical word is fidelity. Fidelity is faithfulness. That despite all this happening, his devotion is not cheap.

And that is the bigger miracle. Srila Prabhupada would sometimes be asked, can you perform some miracles? And Prabhupada would often point to his some of his disciples, and he would say, these are my miracles. But what is the miracle over here? The biggest miracle that matters is the change of the human heart.

There can be many miracles that you can have. Somebody can make somebody can make an object disappear, somebody can make an object appear. Many different kind of miracles can happen, and they have some bad now. But the biggest miracle is the change of the human heart. The change of the heart means what?

A person’s heart is directed towards selfishness, towards ego, towards dominating others, and that person becomes selfless, gentle, caring. That’s the change of heart. That’s the miracle which will actually make bring real happiness in our hearts, and that’s the miracle that will bring happiness in the world. So the miracle from the Bhakti tradition is not just that Prahlad survived all these attacks. That is true.

It’s also that Prahlad’s devotion survived. Prahlad’s fidelity to the Lord, his faithfulness to the Lord was unshaken. Not even once did he have second thoughts that I should worship the Lord a lot. And and that is the glory of Shivrabhu bath also. Shivrabhu Bhat came to America.

In many ways, everything that could go wrong went wrong. You know, if some people believe a lot in fate and some people believe in science, you know, okay, this is educated that God wants to do this is educated that God wants to do that. Now, sometimes that’s a science can tell us something, but if you look at the science of what happened, there’s so many signs for Prabhupada. Right on his journey, he got a heart attack. Hey, this is why God doesn’t want me to do this.

And then after that, everywhere he went in Pennsylvania, people the his host treated it like a curiosity object, not a spiritual teacher. He don’t want to give it from me. Then he got to pure heart, and there the person said that, okay, he didn’t say it but he can’t speak, because then his philosophy was different. And finally Prabhupada came to counter culture and just when something good seemed to be happening, there’s one person David Allen who seemed to be about to And then what happened, this person went on he took he had a he used to take drugs before he had a, drug and relapse, and he went crazy and came to attack the robot. And well, is this mission gonna work, ma’am?

These people ever change? No. The fact that Bhopal did not give up his mission, that itself is an error. Even if Prabhupada had not succeeded, the fact that Prabhupada built hundred day temples and all 70 boats inspired millions of people to become devotees, that is definitely miraculous. But the fact that Prabhupada’s devotion survived all their tests, that is also a miracle.

So Pradhalad’s devotion surviving is a miracle. And when the threats come in our life, the question comes, does God care? So when the whole world seems to be screaming to us, no, he doesn’t care. If God had been caring, why would Pranlal be subject to such a danger? Why would Prabhupada have his prospective disciple turn against him and ready to attack him?

So when the world’s world’s evidence seems to be screaming to us, no, God doesn’t care. At that time, are we ready to turn away from the world? Are we ready to hear a source beyond the world? So that is what Purna loves to me. Let’s look at the next paragraph.

Will anyone else like to read? Sure. Yes, please. Yeah. Go on.

If you if you do know is that the one you want me to read it? Yes, please. Yes. If you do know my suffering, then why do you not step forward to stop it? If instead of stepping forward to help me, I came to know that in those moments, you were smiling while I was suffering.

Oh, lord. How would I be able to maintain my devotion to you? Thank you. So basically, here, Arjuna is suffering and Krishna is smiling. So if we come to know that when we are going through something terrible, terrible situation, then the lord is smiling.

Can you even get it? How can you be smiling with this situation? If somebody goes to a therapist and the person is breaking down and the therapist is smiling, you know, probably, the client will sue the therapist for emotional wounds, emotional injury. Isn’t it? How can the child smile, mister Chaim?

So the so at such times, you know, when the world’s evidence doesn’t seem to support our emotion, at the time we need to look beyond the world. We need to look at scriptures. We look at the times in scriptures when there have an interaction between the things in the law. Because Krishna has arranged this world in such a way that the evidence of the world will always be mixed. That sometimes the evidence of the world will strengthen our faith in God.

And sometimes the evidence of the world will question our faith in God. Why? Because this world is made for those souls who do not want to become anything to do with God. Now when I was introduced to Bhakti about thirty years ago, I started, actually, I was introduced to Bhakti my childhood, but I was reintroduced to the philosophical dimension of Bhakti, I’m happy here. So, Satapur, I don’t have anything to do with God.

I don’t need God for anything. So for people that, if this God came Yeah. I don’t care if God cares or not. This we can be apathetic towards it. But for those who are a bit devotionally minded, so so people may come to such conclusions because the world’s evidence will never be completely unambiguous.

So that it’s saying that believers need no reasons, non believers accept no reasons. So the word is such that believers, those who have faith, they will have experiences from within their hearts and confirm their devotion to them. And those are non believers that will come up with some explanations for somehow that actually just takes explanation how this doesn’t go anything. So that’s how things will go on. So that’s why we cannot rely on our eyes alone for the evidence of God’s presence, God’s training, God’s love.

But in history, there are some times when this veil of Maya rings, and then the Lord appears. And the Lord’s love manifests in the world. And those are the times that we need to dwell on. Those are the times which should become the homes for our heart, the homes for our thoughts. And it is by remembering those incidents that we gain strength, we gain perspective.

Now hybrid tradition has such powerful founding stories. So for example, the Jewish tradition, the the journey of the people to the chosen land, that’s the story that they enter it derives straight from. In our tradition, it is the Ramayan, the Mahabal, it is the Mahagotam. Why? Because in daily history, we may not see God’s hands all the time.

But there are some times in history that God’s hand is seen. And those who are to be devoted, they need to be able to remember those times. And that’s how our beings are staying our way. So can we go to the next part? Yes.

Oh, like today? Any other lady? Question, Navees? Yes, please. What is this?

Bless me, darling. Bless me to remember, oh lord, that you are never smiling because I am suffering. It is through my suffering that I’m becoming more open to your calling. So Krishna is not suffering smiling because we are suffering. Krishna is smiling because, say, a a a if there’s a doctor.

And sometimes the doctors, they can they can observe someone, and gaze, you got this disease, you got this disease, but the patient is in denial. I don’t have any disease. So then, the if the disease symptoms are more so slightly, And that’s when the patient comes to doctor. Please, I need your help. So the doctor smiles not because the patient is okay, but because the patient has come to a place where they will get cured.

So it is that when we are going through difficulties, it is not that Krishna doesn’t know our difficulties. We can read this once again. You, my lord. You know my pain. You know my pain.

You feel my pain. You feel my pain. And you want to heal my pain. And you want to heal my pain. So the lord is there, not just somewhere up there, high in the sky, far away.

The lord is in here with us in our own hearts at the bottom. So he knows what we are going through. And if he’s not intervening, then that there’s a reason for that. Now what is that reason? We’ll talk about that, and I’ll conclude.

So this last part will take two hours. So basically, now what we’ll talk about is this one graph which is four quadrant diagram, which explains this concept. That is love and then it’s anger. Now, love and anger, can both of them go together? There are four possibilities.

If there is no love at all and there is no anger, then there is simply apathy. You know, I don’t care for you, and because I don’t care for you, I don’t care what you do also. Once I’ve tried to do mediation between two people, and one of them said, I know you are handling it to other person. No. I’m not handling it.

But if you don’t care for a person at all, it’s apathy. Now if there is no love and there is anger, then that is envy. So there is love no love at all. There is hate. The opposite of love would be hate.

Especially if there’s anger, then that is envy. Now as far as Krishna is concerned, Krishna is never in this category. Krishna always loves everything. So we are talking not from our love perspective. We are talking about the lord’s love.

We are talking about the does the lord care? Does the lord care? So this I can tell you your interpretation. I’m the beneficiary of all many beings. We’ll talk shortly about how.

He’s the beneficiary even of inner. Now now if there is love and there is no end, No. That is sweet expressions of love are there. So when we are someone who cares for us, celebrating these cool sweet ambiance. Now we could talk about romantic love, where there’s a lot of, emotions and hormones and all that.

But when there is not not those hormonal kind of infatuation, but here, there’s a deep sense of ease that is there. We call it serenity. When there is love, and there is nothing to agitate the mother. We’re just being we are happy with being with that person. So that is serenity.

And there are times when there is love and desire. And that actually shows the intensity of the love. So now love can be seen in both ways, through the absence of anger and through the presence of anger. Say, for example, somebody has done something which hurts us a lot. But because we care for that person, we don’t yell at that person.

We try to stay calm. That shows love. Normally, we’ll get very angry and yell at the person, but because that person is very important for us, we try to stay calm. So that’s one aspect. Now suppose somebody is an suppose a child is Mother will give a scolding to the child.

But that scolding is also an expression of love. Now scolding should never be the only expression of love. Then what happened is love is not seen at heart. But the thing is that it is only because I care for you that I’m angry. So sometimes you’ll be angry with the child, you say, for I’m not some mischief or if somebody’s hurting our child.

You know, we will anger that person. That would also be a sign of love. The point is that in the world, that Krishna’s love is there, Krishna when a devotee is going to suffer, it is not that Krishna does not care. So most of the times, that love is seen through the serenity of Krishna. Most of the times what happens is Krishna is severely.

Now now we talk about Krishna and there are a few times in history when Krishna’s anger comes out. That Krishna’s love is expressed through his anger. So now when Krishna is serene, Krishna is peaceful, that doesn’t mean Krishna never cared? Well, not exactly. Krishna cares, and Krishna shows his care by enabling us to also experience serenity even in the middle of the air, even in the middle of the pain.

So this is the amazing thing of bhakti that in bhakti, you will say, what is God doing for me? Does God care? If by bhakti, it’s not just emotion, it’s not how much we dance in khipus. It is not how much we roll in ecstasy. A bhakti is actually how much is our heart centered Krishna.

How much do our thoughts find their own in Krishna? Our thoughts’ own is in Krishna. What does it mean? See, we may for various jobs, we may go to various places, but yeah. You can.

Yeah. Various, jobs, we may go to various places, but as soon as the job is done, we come back home. So like that, we may have to think of various things in the world, but as soon as the things are dilute, our thoughts come back to each other. So for us, when we practice bhakti, what happens is almost mystical, there’s an internal effect of bhakti, and there’s an external effect of bhakti. The internal effect of bhakti will be that we will find that we are peaceful even in chaos.

That if we start practicing bhakti, how do we know Krishna is carrying the external problems are there? But in the past, those problems would have shaken us, shattered us. Now, when you start practicing those problems will seem to affect us so much. And that is Krishna acting from within our heart to calm us. Now Krishna can do that, Krishna will do that, but we need to turn towards him.

We need to fix our memories. We need to remember him. And that’s what I said is the miracle. So was Lord Nrsimhadev not helping Prahlad till all the time when he was being prosecuted? Yes.

Dhanushimade was there. And it was because of the Lord’s presence in Prahlad’s heart that Prahlad would stay calm. Prahlad was not affected. So this is something which I I earlier I said people feel peaceful when they come to the temple. How does that happen?

Actually, we’re coming closer to the presence of Krishna. So essentially, when we grow spiritually, when we habituate ourselves remembering Krishna, Regularly, we practice Bhakti. We come to temple. We do our mantra jamba. We do our kija.

What happens? Initially, for us, the world is very big, and Krishna is very small. And in fact, this is what Indra says in his prayers. He says, we used to worship you before, but this Hriday Kashi was terrorizing us, and that’s why we had to stop worshiping. But as we grow spiritually, as we become advanced devotees, the world becomes small and Krishna becomes big for us.

So this was the situation of Indra, and this was the situation of Prahlad. And so although there was a huge threat for Prahlad, for him the world was small. Krishna was pleased with him and he was worshiping Krishna. So if if the world is big, then what happens? The world’s ups and downs, they also become very big.

Sometimes our mind makes them even more big. But if the world is small, then the world’s ups and downs also become very small. So that’s how, as devotees, if we practice Bakfi regularly, we will find that our resilience will increase, that life will still batter us with problems, but we won’t be that affected by the problems. The problems will not shake and shatter us to that degree because we will have a connection with our lord. And that, the lord is the bigger reality.

The lord has a bigger plan for us. So when we understand Krishna is the bigger reality, Krishna the world is smaller, Krishna will take care of things that the world will do for us. When a devotee if we have the devotional vision, what happens is, I understand that my vision is a finite vision. And this finite vision is not the final vision. The finite vision is not the final vision.

So right now, within my finite experience, I may not be seeing Krishna intervening and helping me, but this is not the final vision. There are times when Krishna is helping the past. There are times when Krishna will help me in the future. Right now, let me not make my present experience the basis of all my decisions. So Krishna, when he doesn’t seem to be active, he doesn’t seem to be doing anything.

He doesn’t seem to be concerned. He’s still active, and he’s giving us strength and certainty from within. Krishna says, if you become conscious of me, you will pass over the obstacles of the world. What does that mean? The world along with its ob along with its obstacles will become smaller.

And by my connection with you, you will become big enough to go over those problems. So Krishna’s love is seen by the peace that we experience when we go through the difficulties. When you you know that I have both here. So in February I was at 11, I was once really chanting in one of the temples in India. And when I was chanting, I didn’t notice, because somewhere, at those times, I I would not use crutches.

I used to wear a brace. My the brace had a walking stick. So I was walking, and I didn’t notice that there was a little water over there somewhere. And my leg went under the water, and I slipped. I slipped, and I completely fell.

And this leg was already very weak because of, polio, and I had osteoporosis and other things. And I felt it was a minor fall, but a severe fracture. Yes. Several hours of surgery had to be done. And I have an old friend who’s named East.

He said to me, he wrote the name and said that he was in, you were in the temple of God. You were chanting the news of God. And at that time, you had an accident. So what is the use of your worship in God? So, actually, that was one of the most transformative spiritual experiences for me.

I I fell out of this terrible pain. I tried to chant, but I just don’t focus on the chanting. See, Bhakti is our mechanic. So, one month, what the way I connect with Krishna the most is through the Bhagavad Gita. Reciting the Bhagavad Gita’s words says, remembering the Bhagavad Gita’s words says, contemplating.

So I thought Gita’s also were not just source of wisdom. They are, like, personal friends for you. So somehow, at that time, I started reciting the Gita’s verses. And I started reciting the verses of the Gita, and I felt as if the pages disappeared. I said, what happened?

Then I stopped chanting, again the pages came back. And initially, we thought it was not a very big fall. We thought it got a problem. But, the pain kept persisting. Then we went to, doctor.

The doctor’s we need his excellency, and he said, hey. This is you’ve almost been severely ill. I said, time. And I found that I was almost lifted above the fever. When I finally I came to the hospital where we have the only hospital in Mumbai, I was chanting the verses, not out of devotion to Krishna, but out of wanting to avoid the pain.

I hope one day I’ll chant my devotion. But the point was, and I told him this, see that same experience which from an atheistic perspective will be, what’s the point of worshiping God? In the temple of God, while chanting the ring of God, you fell down and you had an accident. But that same experience from an external perspective and internal perspective. Is there any doubt?

No. That was one of the experiences that convinced me about the reality of Krishna consciousness to elevate oneself, elevate us above our body situation. That doesn’t mean we get ourselves into pain unnecessarily. It’s not that we put ourselves into pain and see, let us see if I can remember it, so I can go walk. No.

Not like that. But the point is that Krishna may not seem to be intervening, but Krishna is intervening. So, Pabralla, the fact that Krishna was there was what enabled him to stay fixed in his devotion. And there are times when Krishna manifests his anger. So finally, when Hiranyakrishiko decided enough is enough, what happened?

He sent the sun back to school, and he said, let’s see. Maybe this is just a phase that can go through. Some people think when you practice Bakhtin’s satisfaction, they go away. His father said, now I will take matters in my own hands. He wanted to not just kill Prahlad himself, he first wanted to kill Prahlad’s spirit.

And therefore, he said, where is your Vishnu? You claim to worship him, Dimuganar Singh, saying he’s everywhere? Is he here in this pillar? And that’s it. Very noisy, I’m thinking.

Like, almost a matter of yeah. Of course, he’s there. And then, Hiranyakashi was fully confident that he will now prove to Allah to be false. Which the problem with the world is that often the foolish people are super confident. And the bigger problem with the world is that the wise people are super doubtful.

So atheists are confident there is no God. And thieves are worried when God is in the God, really there will God help you. But this sound was so scary. And this time when the Lord manifested, that form that had never been seen before, that form was seen. Namroka Namahamushan.

Not an animal, not a human being. Hiradekashipu had many blessings by which he thought he would never be killed. But in every blessing, there is some room bone. He could have immediately hurt Hiranyakashipu apart. But he was waiting.

He was waiting till it was sunset. And then it was sunset. Hiranyakashipu thought that, you know, see, in this particular battle, Hiranyakashipu was smaller. Normally, the odds are against the devotees. But in the similar way, he manifested it in giant form.

And Hiranyakashipu thought, I’m still winning. But then within a few moments, when the Lord saw the sunset, the twilight, he just grabbed Hiranyakashipu, dragged him to the place between the inside and outside of the room. And there, just now he was dragging an a knock and he was just trying to get out. Now Viranya Kashipu had wanted to break the spirit of her, and the Swindale broke the spirit of Viranya Kashipu. Because for her dedication, she knows, I am so powerful, I can control everyone.

And the Lord came there, but before he came there, he was completely dominated. It’s like, you know, sometimes two boxer, somebody I’m a charpit boxer, And there, one boxer catches the other boxer in one deadly group. Then I’ll go away. I can’t do anything at all. It’s reduced to complete helplessness.

And then Lord, this is what they Europeans go to India for health tourism. They get surgery done over there because it’s cheaper there. So an American came there. He said, what is this? This is the original subject.

So were they successful? Yes. Operation successful? Patient. So now lord Nasimuddin, but he was very angry at Tiranakashipu, but that anger was not towards the soul of Tiranakashipu.

And it was Prahlad also, he he saw his father being killed. He did not he did not feel joy. Oh, you tried to kill me. Now you have been killed. Nor did he feel remorse.

Oh, my father has been killed. Dad, what is his emotion? His emotions concern. Because there could be joy, but you tell it now, you try to challenge me, my devotion, that’s not what happened to me. Sometimes some devotees get pleasure in some bad happening to those who are forced to doubt.

The father was not getting that joy. And the same time, his emotion was said, oh, people will think because of me, my father was killed. His emotion not at all self centered. The emotion was centered around his father’s. He said, he did a pray to him, Narasimhadev.

Please deliver my father. And what did the Lord say? That actually, that 40 generations of a devotee’s family are all amplified because that person becomes a devotee. So for the lord, although he was angry with Rendi Gashibbu, that anger was not a when he was basking and bathing in the Lord’s presence, the Lord smiling joyfully on him, the Lord listening profusely, the Lord seeping him on his lap, the Lord putting his hand on his head, So for him, even after he got the word, the word did not suddenly come big for him. He still remains small, the Lord remains big.

So there are times in our life when we will see Krishna’s end in our life. We’ll see things happen in such a way, yeah, this this good can happen without Krishna. There is synchronicity, there is what we call serendipity. Things do happen. And there are things like that have happened in history.

So when those happen, we gain conviction from those vapes that actually Krishna is there and Krishna cares. And because Krishna cares, that is why he is he it’s not that he cared at that time, he doesn’t care now. He always cares. So let me remember your smile, Amit, I saw to him, as a sign of your confidence and competence that you can tackle in any and every problem no matter how gigantic it seems to be. So last sentence, who would like to read this?

Yes. Not that the Lord doesn’t care. If we are suffering and the Lord seems to be smiling, that doesn’t mean he does not recognize, he doesn’t care. It just means the Lord is having some plan. He’s taking his time.

He is capable. The Lord could have been killed in a negative way. The Lord let this time pass so that the world would know the glory of the beloved. And how glorious is the devotee that Sometimes it is seen through the actions that happen in the world. Many times it is seen through the actual changes that happen within our God.

In how our hearts stay steady in the love of our Lord. So let’s summarize. I talked about three main points. I talked about how we understand that Lord’s love as does Krishna care, does the Lord care? That was the compliment that.

Yes. When we were discussing this, normally, when we practice bhakti, you know, we have a certain expectation. What is God doing for me? When we go through life, we practice devotion, and we expect it to improve our worldly situation. And that’s a reasonable expectation.

But sometimes, instead of improving the worldly situation, what happens is our situation may worsen. And at that time, how do we process? So if we look at the world itself, the world’s evidence can sometimes strengthen our faith, because some things happen which can strengthen our faith. But many things can happen in the world which can weaken our faith. So that’s why we cannot rely on the world for our faith.

Then what what do we do? We turn towards scripture. And there we discuss the divine dynamic that there is the dynamic of love and anger. So the lord is never having apathy that there’s no love and no anger. The Lord never has enmity towards anyone.

So these two are not true at all. And what is true? That the Lord when his love is there, but there doesn’t seem to be any anger, there doesn’t seem to be any concern, that is where the Lord gives us serenity. The Lord helps us to experience an almost mystical calm, even when the world is a permanent place. So this is where what happens, we are here and initially the world is big and God is small for us.

But eventually what happens? The as we grow spiritually Eventually, what happens is that the world becomes for us, the world becomes small, and Krishna becomes big for us. So, this is the situation of Hralal. This is a a serious devotee. This is the situation of Indra who represents more of a materialistic kind of devotee.

So, now this serenity comes because Krishna has become bigger than the world. And we see the last part. So when there is there are times when Krishna experiences expresses intensity. Intensity is where the lord’s love becomes manifested in his word. So the lila that is performed over here, this lila and such lila, not only lila, these should become the home of our hearts.

It is by remembering these things, these past times that the lord intervened, that the lord protected devotees. The lord’s protection became manifest at a material level. Like, the he was Jagra Upadam is Jagra America, is this, like, it is written in the nectarian pastor in Jagra Jedda that is giving me strength, so this becomes the home for our cause. And then, with that, what happens? We accept that my finite vision is not the final vision.

So we, with faith, with patience, we wait. We keep maintaining our devotion to the Lord and that devotion will be vindicated. He said, Prahlad was glorified. The Lord had a bigger plan, but he did not intervene at a particular time. So maybe the Lord will intervene in this time.

And the miracles that the Lord does and miracles can sometimes be external where the situation just changes dramatically. That the miracle can also be internal, where we can be peaceful even amid the chaos. The external miracle is the chaos just disappears, the trouble disappears. The external miracle is that the trouble may remain, but we don’t really trouble. We may have it with trouble, but, you know, we live with pain rather than pain rather than in pain because we now live with our Lord.

So let us pray, you are the simile that, my dear Lord, the day you have demonstrated your Prahlad’s love for you and your love for Prahlad, Let this Ghela become the home for my heart. Let me remember that this historical evidence of your love for for those who are devoted to you, and let that remembrance sustain me In times when I feel the load, when I feel the problems are overwhelming, let me remember you, oh lord, and find serenity and shelter in strength in that remembrance. Let’s recite this once. My dear lord, can you repeat after me? My dear lord, lord.

Let your smile in. Let your smile in. Amid my suffering. Amid my suffering. Strengthen my faith.

Thankyou.

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Transcript:

So, during, it was one to two weeks ago, and we mentioned that everyone should have a service, and not having service is an issue. So, in our temple community, we find that devotees are naturally attracted towards different types of services, and for my sake of understanding and realization, I have categorized them into intellectual and physical services.

And I see there is a phenomenon that sometimes some devotees are naturally enthusiastic about intellectual engagements, such as kirtan, preaching, studying, discussing scriptures, when others take up physically demanding some devotees, like teaching, healing, deity worship, and maintenance and so forth, and so on. But there is sometimes imbalance, like physical services are often undervalued or neglected, leading to disorganization, payouts, some mismanagement, and sometimes even uncleanliness in the temple. And also it leads to unfair distribution of services, like some devotees have a heavy burden of physically demanding services, and I am not saying that intellectual services are not demanding physically as well as intellectually, but I feel there is unfair distribution.

And also, there is also limited opportunities for mutual growth in both categories of services. So I feel how can we, my question is how can we cultivate a more balanced and respectful culture, where all types of services are valued equally, and where devotees are given great opportunities to participate in both physical and intellectual services for the holistic growth and smooth functioning of the temple. Sorry, I just asked Chaitra to make it better, whatever I want to talk.

That’s all I am getting at. So, I don’t know how much I am qualified to answer this question because I have not done many physical services, there are few physical services I can do physically because of the situation. But, I would say that, I don’t know whether kirtan can be called as an intellectual service, but I appreciate the broad classification.

See, there are some services which are more visible and even glamorous. There are some services which will be less visible and less glamorous. Now of course there are some services which are more intellectual, intellectual can be glamorous also.

Now some intellectual services are not very glamorous also. Somebody becomes a preacher who is a crowd puller, that is much more glamorous. But somebody is a preacher who becomes a shastra teacher, you know, that person doesn’t really get new people to come, that person is cultivating devotees.

Then that’s also glamorous to some extent. But it also depends if somebody is a nice krishna katha, then that person is a crowd puller, but somebody is going to siddhanta, teaching bhakti shastra, bhakti vaibhav, there is not so much glamour in that kind of service. But broadly I appreciate the question that there are certain services which people may want to do, devotees may want to do more.

Other services devotees may not want to do. So what do we do in such situations? See there is at one side the individual and the other side is the institution. So now one principle of dharma, the word dharma has many different meanings, but one simple meaning of dharma is that harmonious belonging, that we all belong to the larger roles.

If you are travelling, if you are driving a car on the road, then we belong to the road transport system, we are participating in that. So then we are taking the facility from the road transport system and we have to do something for that road transport system, that is follow the rules, pay the taxes, whatever it is, follow the rules. So dharma essentially is harmonious belonging.

So if you are sitting for this class, if somebody sits right in front, then they are back towards the speaker. So that is just harmonious belonging. Let me disrupt you for a second.

So this harmonious belonging is dharma. So when we belong to an institution, then we also need to learn to belong harmoniously to the institution. Now harmonious belonging has to happen in both ways.

And Krishna uses the word dharma, he uses it both at the individual level and the institutional level. At the individual level Arjuna is asking, vichamiton dharmasamudhichitah, see what is the right thing for me to do? And Krishna says, dharmasamsthapanarthaya sambhavani. At that time he says, I come to establish dharma.

What does that mean? I come to establish the social order. That is virtues, that is guru. So for example, now when we are being a part of the road transport system, say if the road transport system is also just and fair, that means whoever follows the rules, they are allowed to go peacefully.

Those who break the rules, they are pulled over. They are penalized, they are fined or whatever. But if the road transport system, the legal system in this case, the law and order system is personal and partial.

Say people from one community are allowed to go free even if they break the rules. People from other community are pulled over more. Then what happens is the dharma has to work both ways.

The collective has to take care of the individual and the individual has to contribute to the collective. That’s the ideal way to practice dharma. But then it’s a dharmic society with dharmic individuals in the society.

Now from our perspective, what happens is that we are individuals, some of us may also be leaders. Then we have to play our role in contributing to the community. But then we may also be leaders who are upholding the community.

So it depends a lot on the community leaders. If the community leaders show favor or especially praise certain services, then what happens? Everybody wants to be appreciated, recognized. And that’s not a part of the ego.

That’s just a human need. The world is so big and our existence can seem so tiny even within the movement. We all want to be valued.

So whatever is the ethos that is built in the community, then that is what everyone else will want to do. So if some communities are focused very much on say, fundraising for building a temple. And then fundraisers are constantly glorifying.

Or some communities focus only on food distribution. Then food distributors are glorifying. Some communities focus on youth outreach.

Then only those who do youth outreach are glorifying. Others are not. Then what will happen is, it’s like the rewards from the community are coming especially for one group.

And everybody will want to belong to that group. And other services will get neglected. And I’ve seen this happen in almost every community.

Now naturally, the leader of the community or the leaders of the community will have certain inspiration themselves. And they’ll prioritize some things. But the challenge is when prioritizing some things, other things should not be devalued.

All of this is valuable. This is what is most valuable for us right now. So that is one big aspect that what is the dharma of the community that is being followed.

So if all these services aren’t recognized, there will be appropriate forums for recognizing those services. Say sometimes, after the Super Marathon, there may be some, or after fundraising or whatever, there’s a celebration. And there’s a, for everyone, not just for the big fundraisers, but all those who contributed to the service.

Then what happens is everybody feels valued. So that harmonious belonging requires that the harmony also come from top to the bottom. That’s one side.

The other side is from the bottom, the individual towards the institution. Within that, there is a, there is, you call it dharma and then apad dharma. Apad dharma is emergency duty, emergency emergency.

So in general, one principle of foreign ashram is everybody serve according to their nature. Now, of course, what is whose nature? That’s also, it takes some time to figure out. And if we leave it completely to individual, individuals leave it to their mind.

So what is your nature? The mind will say, whatever service you are doing right now, that is not according to the nature. But the mind always keeps us dissatisfied. There will always be some, even in the services that we like to do, there is something which we don’t like.

Isn’t it? So there’s never an ideal situation in the world. Even if somebody likes to preach, but then along with preaching, you have to make sure the logistics are right. I don’t want to arrange the logistics.

I only want to preach. Okay, then you can become a travelling preacher and others will arrange the logistics for you. But then you have to arrange the travelling.

Isn’t it? So now, even in the services, if somebody thinks I’ll only do whatever I like, then that is not the spirit of dharma. What Krishna says to Arjuna is that, sarvaarambhahi doshena dhume naagme. That every endeavour is covered by thought.

So individuals also need to recognize that we cannot just be doing what we like to do with advantage. Because even in what we like to do, there is something which we don’t like to do. And we are belonging to a community.

So sometimes we may need to do things which we may not like to do. So which we may feel is not our nature. So in general, in the initial stages of a community, devotees need to be trained or in the initial stages of spiritual life also, devotees need to be trained to do whatever service they are called to do.

And that way, that mood of service attitude is inculcated. However, as time progresses, each devotee, because we don’t just want devotees to serve, we want devotees to sustain themselves in service. And for that purpose, if a devotee can understand that sabhaav and serve according to sabhaav, then that ethos is healthy.

Because if we are serving according to our nature, we will be self-motivated in that service. Nobody else needs to push us. If somebody likes to study shastra, they will study shastra.

Nobody is watching them, so they will be studying shastra. Somebody likes kirtan, even though nobody is watching them, they will be learning new tools, they will be learning new things, they will be improving their kirtan skills. Somebody likes to keep.

Even if there is no big service, no senior devotee coming to college, they will be honing their skills. So for the purpose of longevity of a devotee, we need to eventually engage devotees in services according to their nature. What they feel naturally drawn to do, whatever they feel inspired, whatever they are talented in doing.

So one system that I have seen work in certain communities is that for the first five years, for the first three years, for the first ten years, whatever, for the first few years, the devotees are trained to do whatever services. And then after some time, by mutual discussion between the authorities and the subordinates, the devotees move towards the service of their own. And that becomes an understanding within the community.

That initially you learn service attitude, and as you grow senior, then you also understand your subhava better. And then you move towards the services that you naturally feel inspired to do. So if that principle is applied fairly, then what happens is everybody accepts that principle.

And then afterwards it moves forward. So then what happens is we give room for individuality. So like I was in Radha Gopinath community, we asked Radha Gopinath Maharaj.

Some devotees are introvert. For them to be together with people is very exhausting. Three, four of us had gone to Radha Gopinath.

Coming for the morning program, it’s like emotionally draining. It’s spiritually energizing, it’s emotionally completely draining. Just meeting people, Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna.

So we asked Maharaj. Maharaj said that if that is really the case, you have been practicing bhakti for 15-20 years, you have to assess what gives you spiritual strength. Because if you don’t want to come for the morning program, you know, I trust you.

We won’t go enforcing it for those who are practicing. But if we don’t enforce it for anyone, then nobody will be trained. So there has to be some accommodation for people according to their nature.

Nature is not just permanent. Nature can be made in different ways. So the thing is that, but that cannot be made the norm right from the beginning.

So in the Radha Gopinath temple, for the first 5-10 years, devotees should be very serious about their morning program attendance. For the first 3-4 years, I am talking about the Brahmacharya Ashram family, they do whatever service they are told to do. And as they move forward then, they find themselves according to their Swabhava and they engage accordingly.

So that’s one system that has over collapsed. So the other way is that, some way, the other thing is that, when we are talking about Artha, that was the theme over here. See either the devotee has to find Artha naturally in a particular service.

For some devotees, visible services are overwhelming for them. I would much rather be in the background. That could be humility, but that could also be their nature.

They just naturally like to be in the background and do some services. Some devotees may like to do physical services and that’s great. So either the Artha comes naturally for them or the Artha has to be created.

Created means what? You have to show them the Artha. That what is the Artha over here? This is how this is. So maybe in the classes, those themes are emphasized.

Or there are some other ways in which those devotees are recognized and valued. So when that is taken care of, then it happens that both the individual and the collective. The individual training has to be there and the collective managerial vigilance also has to be there.

So that then, there are different kinds of Artha that will take us towards Paramartha. So it’s like, we can say this is Paramartha and this is Artha. So if people start thinking that there is only one path from here, that say for example, during Prabhupada’s time there was a notion that who distributes for peace, Prabhupada not.

That is true. When Prabhupada was asked, what pleases you the most? He said, Love Krishna. So it is not that there is one path from here to here.

And then everybody, whichever service and only then you can grow towards Krishna. That’s not the understanding. We have had some very moving stories of devotees who were never visible and very prominent features and then the last moment they had some extraordinary experience of Krishna and they were all in the background doing some small services.

So the idea is, it is from wherever you are, wherever we find Artha, from there we can move towards Paramartha. So there is a story of Prabhupada’s in Vrindavan and there was one widow. Prabhupada would see from her window that every morning she would go and pluck flowers even if it was cold and she would go and sometimes she would wake up the Pujari and tell these are the flowers for the ladies.

And Prabhupada said that because she is doing this service, she will go back to Krishna. So it is not, if we create that ethos that every service can actually take you closer to Krishna and that we value you for the service. Naturally based on the phase in which the community is, some services will be glorified more than others.

So generally in the morning program we glorify the book distributions. That itself leads to that book distribution being glorified as a very important service. We don’t mention any other services.

Now other services are also quantified. In some temples they don’t just glorify the book distribution, they also add fundraisers. They say this person raised this much funds, this much funds.

Now okay, that was not the tradition but maybe that is required at that particular time. But then we can’t make a list of all the services that are done throughout the day and make it less glorified. Within the existing system, some services may be glorified.

But then it is important to create the system for appreciating and valuing other services also. So it’s like that Artha has to be going back to this particular diagram. So it is that individual should feel the Artha in that thing and the collective should also create that sense of Artha.

When both happen, then it will move forward very nicely. So I was once a judge with Maharaj and we were talking various things. I said Maharaj, what has given you faith in Krishna Consciousness? We often ask questions, what brought you to Krishna Consciousness? So once I was trying to start a podcast, what kept you in Krishna Consciousness? I am going to talk about all the skeletons in our closet for that.

So I often ask this to devotee at an individual level. So Maharaj was amazing. He said that there is a Pujari in Vrindavan.

He first departed. He said that Pujari whenever I go to Vrindavan, I see him. He is an elderly devotee.

Sometimes he does Pujari service. He is there Sarvanchana. So he said that he has been there for years.

He is not a very well-known devotee. He is not a world-famous devotee. That the devotee has been able to do this service year after year after year is the proof that Krishna Consciousness is there.

That without any recognition by the world that he is getting some satisfaction. That’s why he is doing the service. And now that is a remarkable level of recognition.

There is no recognition in the institutional apparatus. But one particular institution is recognizing this is important. So we need to have that system of Artha.

Infusing Artha or infusing value and meaning to his services. And of course devotees need to be encouraged to see the Artha in the service. So both may happen.

It is possible that the community can be properly taken care of. And so the temples or the organizations needs, the devotees needs and the community needs. Both can be harmonized.

So tension, it needs continuous monitoring and discussion and negotiation. But it is possible.

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How would you respond to a person who says, well, I like your conception much better than the Christian conception, but, you know, here in America, in Western countries, they have a saying, if you give a fool enough rope, he’ll hang himself. So it seems like Krishna is giving people a lot of rope. Why doesn’t he, you know, in the Bhagavad Gita it says, savastha cahamrti sannivishtho mataksmati agam Why doesn’t he, you know, cut us off at the pass, so to speak, before we hang ourselves?

Well, I would say hell is the way he cuts us off the path.

So it’s like when actions have consequences, that’s what brings us to our senses. So in general, one person can guide another person only in three ways. Like many times when parents ask, you know, how do we guide someone? How do we guide our children? There are broadly three ways.

First is conscience. That now conscience is like an innate voice. Something just cannot be done.

If we grew up seeing our parents never doing something, it’s out of question. No matter however angry you are, you don’t hit anyone. Then we ourselves start feeling it’s wrong.

So conscience is like the voice of emotion. But it’s not just emotional. It’s that innate sense.

This is like an inner compass. Now, if the compass is not there, then there is intelligence. Intelligence is where we appeal to a person.

We tell him if you do this, this is what is going to happen. Intelligence is where you give the person a vision of the consequence that is going to come. And if intelligence doesn’t work, then there is the experience.

Experience of what? Experience of the consequence. So broadly speaking, we cannot force anyone to do anything. Conscience is they just innately feel it’s wrong, so I can’t do it.

Intelligence is, okay, I see this is bad, so I’ll not do it. If somebody just feels, I don’t want to kill animals. I don’t want to hurt animals.

If I eat red meat, I’ll get a heart attack. I don’t want to do that. Somebody gets a heart attack, I say, okay, now no more eating red meat.

So basically there are three ways. So in one sense, hell is the way by which God is ensuring that the rope is not too long. So hell is where God is giving experience to people so that they can reform.

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Hare Krishna. So today, we’re continuing this discussion on the topic of the punishments in hell. How many of you were there yesterday? Okay. How many of you were not there yesterday?

Okay. How many of you are not there today? Okay. So I’ll do a quick recap of what I discussed yesterday, and we’ll move forward from there. Broadly, discuss the topic was how do we reconcile the idea of a loving god with such brutal punishments in hell that I described over here.

And I talked about how within the tradition itself, there is a contextual emphasis or contextual presentation. I talked about how Mahaprabhu said there’s no need for Vedanta Sutra commentary, but Bal Devidya Avushan recognized that there is an absolute need for the commentary. So that depending on the sensibilities or the concerns of particular people at particular times in history, the Acharya has to reach out to contemporary teachers, contemporary people. And so each generation is presented here by circle. So Bhaktivinath Thakur was the Acharya who had to who focused on tackling modernity.

And we discussed our challenges in presenting the message of the Bhagavatam and one of the aspects is this cosmology. And there I talked about how the principle he says, Srila Prabhupada and Bhaktina Thakur had discussed their approaches and I would like to elaborate on that today a little bit. So Bhaktivirath Thakur used a somewhat non literal reading. And Srila Prabhupada, if you see, there’s a non emphasis. I’ll come back to he does not really focus on the principle of health so much.

So but when Bhakti Vinod Thakur says it’s non literal, what does he mean? He focuses the principle, the principle that we are accountable for our actions. However, in his later books like the Jaiva Dharma, he also talks about hell. So he’s not simply dismissing hell as non literal. I’ll talk about that dimension.

And then lastly, I talk about the difference between hell in the Abrahamic traditions and in the Vedic tradition. Two main differences, that in the Abrahamic tradition, hell is eternal whereas in the Vedic tradition, it is temporary. It is like a it is like a learning place, a tough classroom in the university. And secondly, that hell is there for non believers, anybody who does not believe say for example Jesus is going to go to hell. Whereas in the Vedic tradition, hell is for wrongdoers.

One may not be a devotee of Krishna but still if a person is not harming others, they are not going to go to hell. They may stay in the material existence, they’re not necessarily going to go to hell. So this is not a personal vendetta of God. You didn’t worship me so I’m going to send you to hell. It’s not like that.

So there’s a very significant difference in although the term is same, the conceptions are different. So now I will I’ll talk about three main points. I’ll talk about the concept and then I’ll talk about the principle of consequence and largely I’ll talk about compassion. So now it’s interesting when you use the word concept of hell. Sometimes we may use it in a literal sense and sometimes we may use it in a experiential sense.

Now the word literal itself is a little confusing word. What do we mean by literal? Now, but let me start with first with the experiential. Right in the very next verse in this very chapter, what will Kapila tell his mother? You say, what does he say that?

My dear mother, it is sometimes said that we experience hell or heaven on this planet for hellish planets are sometimes visible on this planet also. So yesterday, I had given the example of how Prabhupada said in concentration camps, people had to eat their own refuse, horrible. So now somebody might draw particular implication from that. So is God like a concentration camp creator? No, that’s not the point of the world.

The point is just as in some places in this world there could be heavenly enjoyment if somebody goes to a five star or seven star Hill Station. So we might say for somebody who maybe has lived in poverty where they don’t even get one proper meal in an entire day, For them, if they go to luxury where there are maybe 50 items for every meal, and they sleep in a comfortable bed and there, so that can seem like heaven to them. So the point Prabhupada was making is not about the cause. The point Prabhupada was making was the varieties of experiences that are present on this planet also, and sometimes we may not see certain experiences within our paradigm or our range of experiences, but that’s like Prabhupada talk about doctor frog, the frog in the well. Just because we have not experienced something does not mean that there’s not it’s not there at all.

So Prabhupada is giving a possibility over there. There’s a difference between explaining possibility and explaining causality. Now why someone goes to hell is a different thing. Possibility means that okay this can happen. So we can say if we have varieties of experiences in the world, so we experience comfortable situations, we experience uncomfortable situations, We experience highly very comfortable situations.

We sometimes we experience unbelievably comfortable situations. So like that, the variety of experiences, this might be the range which we have experienced. But it’s possible that based on what we have experienced, we could say that the reality could be much bigger beyond the range that we have experienced. So that is the point, the possibility is what Prabhupada is emphasizing over here. Now not the causality.

So now when we say possibility of a particular kind of experience being there, in general, in philosophy, there is the standard especially historical investing that is the standard principle called absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Just because we don’t have evidence of something does not mean it is not possible. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. So what Srila Prabhupada is saying is that we have experiences in that direction. And yes, now for most normal people to think of the idea that they would have to eat their own refuse, it’s horrendous, revolting idea, but it has happened in the world, horrible, unfortunate and tragic, horrendous as it is, it has happened.

So Shraddha Prabhupada is expanding the range of our conception of what is possible. Now when we talk about hell, let’s try to understand some key points over here. The hell is now we may have a very simplistic idea that hell is a location. Well, that’s one way of looking at it. It’s actually much more of a condition rather than a location.

It is a location, but it is much more a condition. Just like we may think of the spiritual world, what I’m doing over here now, I’m trying to explain the concept over here. And start by saying, if you use the word non literal, what does non literal mean? Because if you go to if you equate literal with physical and that’s very simplistic, is the soul a literal thing? Yeah, soul is real, it exists, but is the soul physical?

No. It’s not physical. Sometimes we think of going to the spiritual world means, okay, the particular place and we go to that place. Yeah. That’s one way of looking at it.

But say this is America and this is Canada, please forgive my drawing. So this is America and this is Canada. Now now we may think, okay, you said you cross the border and you go from America to Canada. But is it like a spiritual world like that you cross a border and you go there? Now there are illegal immigrants who go from one country to another.

Can you be an illegal immigrant to the spiritual world? Bhakti Siddhanta says Thakur would say that you cannot gate crash into the kingdom of God. So the spiritual world is not just a location, it’s also a condition. One condition of what? It’s a condition of heart, it’s a condition of consciousness and that applies even to the idea of hell.

So hell is not just a physical place, it’s a state of mind, it’s a consciousness. And that’s what the next one is saying, we may experience hellish suffering even in this world also. And one of the things that has happened as modern society has progressed is that things at the physical level have become significantly more comfortable as compared to the past relatively speaking. So physical suffering is something which is quite shocking for us to think about and that’s why the idea of capital punishment is now revolting to most modern or post modern sensibilities. So what has happened is we as a society at the physical level, we have become more and more comfortable.

And say even the prisons in country like America or UK, they are not you go to prisons in India unless we go for prison outreach and the prisons for a person who is from India, some of the prisons in America seem better than many of the homes in India. The idea is that there’s a lot of physical comfort that’s why the idea of physical pain seems very revolting for us. However, pain is not just the physical level, it’s at the mental level also. And this is the paradox in today’s world, many people are increasingly comfortable at the material level, but they are miserable at the material level. As I can say, many people are comfortably miserable.

You know, all mental health problems, there are some people who may end their lives because of physical physical pain or physical discomfort, but most of the people who for example commit suicide is because of mental anguish, a sense of loneliness, abandonment, hopelessness. So now for most of us if we have not been through that much suffering, everybody has known pain, but if we have not been through that much suffering, we might not even be able to think why would anyone want to end their life. But if we go through a situation of terrible pain and then we can identify sometimes the mind might bring up some thought, if a person has certain cultures, certain nature, certain boundaries they won’t do it. But the point is that suffering can be unbearable and there can be unbearable suffering at the physical level and that may be a little unfamiliar to us in today’s world, but there is unbearable suffering at the mental level. I just want to end my life so hell suppose somebody is addict and they’re legally trying to get rid of the addiction but they’re just not able to and they’re feeling the withdrawal pain and it can be like hell for the person over there.

I don’t want to do this but I just can’t live without doing this. So that’s an addict to I wrote a read a book on addictions and addict one said that describe the conditioning, like he says, relationship with the addiction, he says, you treat me badly, I trust you madly. So it’s a very terrible, it’s like a typical definition of abusive relationship. You treat me badly but I trust you madly. Each time somebody indulges they suffer but after that next time the temptation come they just can’t say no.

So that is a hellish condition. So at a mental level, we could say addiction could be an extreme sense of suffering which can seem hellish. So the point of hell is not the specifics of the kind of physical suffering that is being inflicted. The point of hell is that there is a state of suffering. So in scripture, when the language is given, so I’m building on this point of concept only.

See, sometimes the language is descriptive, but quite often, the language is indicative rather than descriptive. Now what is the difference between descriptive and indicative language? Descriptive is what a place is, you describe what it is. Indicative is what it feels like what it feels like. The Garuda Puran is a place where in one of that’s that’s a book where lot of description of hell is given.

The post life journey is described and hell is described. Now you’ll see Nagarapurana is described hell is a place of darkness and hell is also described is said as a place of unbearable fire. Now if if we think of this simply as descriptive language, now fire and darkness don’t coexist, isn’t it? Fire means there is light, so hell is a place of darkness and hell is a place of fire. So now we could go and say we could say no these are two different hells, one is a dark place, the other is a place of fire.

But the Garabhupurana is not literally describing two different hells at many places. So the darkness and fire, they are indicative of what we will experience. So darkness is a place of of loneliness, of abandonment, of feeling completely lost, and fire is a place of agony, it’s a fire of some we can have the fire of guilt, we can have the fire of regret, we can have there is fire, so it indicates different kinds of sufferings. Now if we consider that this is literally a descriptive it’s a literally a description of the conditions, then the question comes up, the Prabhupada is saying over here somebody engage in illicit sexual activity and that’s what the Bhagavatam says. But then we’ll see how are we going to define illicit sexual activity.

Is it a one time indulgence, is it a multiple indulgence, a lifelong indulgence, is it two people coming voluntarily and consenting, is it one person forcing the other person? There’s a whole spectrum and if this was supposed to be a literal description then it wouldn’t be that anybody suppose somebody eats eat months in their life and somebody else doesn’t eat a meal even once in their life which does not have meat. Now can you say both are culpable at the same level? No system of justice would accept that principle. So this is clearly not a literal description of who will suffer how much.

And we see this in Prabhupada’s purport also that if you go back the previous verse, yeah, that Prabhupada is nuance and qualifying certain things. So the Sanskrit is Bhunkte Narova Nariva Mitha Sanghe Nandir Mitha. That this is what the man or the woman will be subjected to if mitha sangen and nirmitha, if they indulge in sexual pleasure, mitha is sexual pleasure nirmitha it is caused by. But Prabhupada is nuancing and he’s saying that those whose lives were built upon indulgence in illicit sexual life. So he’s not just talking about a one time indulgence, the lives are built upon that.

Now that is very different from a one time indulgence. Sometimes somebody may not want to indulge but the temptation may overpower them. Sometimes somebody may indulge but then they may repeatedly but then they may reform afterwards. So this is not so much a quantity another way to understand the difference between this the descriptive and indicative is it’s not so much a quantitative language as a qualitative language that there is consequence for our actions. So when the Bhagavatam describes hell, what is the it’s it’s not describing geography as it much is describing gravity.

Now gravity is not the pull of gravity, but gravity is how grave the situation is, that actions have consequences. So it’s not that when the Bhagavatam describes hell or for that matter it describes any of the places in the cosmos, It’s not like a Google map pin drop. You put the pin and you’ll Google map will take you there. It’s not exactly describing geographical coordinates. It’s describing the principle of gravity.

Gravity is that there are our actions, we are accountable for our actions and therefore, we need to be careful. So the so going back to what Prabhupada said, Prabhupada is not talking about causality over here. He’s talking more about the possibility and the possibility is that even in this world there can be terrible suffering sometimes at the physical level, sometimes at the mental level. And that principle just as in the heavens, there can be pleasure that we can’t imagine. Similarly in health, there can be there can be pains that we may not be able to imagine.

So that the first point of the understanding the concept. Now, let’s talk about compassion. So yesterday I mentioned about how Shluprahipad does not emphasize so much that if somebody engages in it does not emphasize health so much in terms of that being the consequence of wrong actions. Now if you look at the Vedas, there are hundreds of references to hell in Prabhupada’s works. But it’s interesting where does Prabhupada refer to hell?

He’s referring to the conversation between Parikshit Maharaj and Shubhadeva Goswami that follows this description. And Parikshit Maharaj asks how can people be saved from the chilly conditions and that’s the start of the sixth canto and there it is said that you know atonement will not work, it said that ultimately Bhakti will work and then the story of Ajamal is told. And when the story of Ajamal is told, the point is that a devotee when a devotee sees such suffering, such descriptions of suffering, devotees focus is that how can such suffering be prevented for others. The focus is compassion, the focus is not condemnation. It is not to scare people, you’re going to go to hell and scare them into compliance, that is not the point.

A devotee’s mood is always compassion. And this is this compassion is actually Krishna’s mood and this also needs to be a devotee’s mood. Now what do I mean by Krishna’s mood over here? In the Vedic tradition, it’s understood that God is present in our heart and God is present in our heart wherever we go. The verse in the Bhagavad Gita says, so that that on this we are, like, on the vehicle of the body and we wander all over.

So if you seek the Vedic conception of God as Krishna as contrasted with, say, the conception of God in any other tradition, the Abrahamic tradition, So it is not Krishna who sends people to hell. That is not at all the Vedic understanding. It is Krishna, he goes with people to hell. Krishna does not send people to hell, he goes with people to hell when their karma sends them there. People go to hell not because they reject Krishna.

That’s what I’ll send you to hell. No. It is when actually people live in a way that is destructive, in a way that is disruptive and destructive for others, their karma sends them to hell. So now we may say, but karma is also arranged by Krishna only. So it’s Krishna who is sending people to hell.

Well, it’s not that simple because Krishna in the in the Brahmasamita is described, he is the cause of all causes. He is not the cause of all effects. Now again, what do you mean by the difference? Cause of all causes and cause of all effects? Like, say, if you consider rain or clouds, the rain is the cause of all vegetation.

Without this is an example in Vedanta Sutra that without rain, there’ll be no vegetation that’ll grow anywhere, but the rain is not the cause of which vegetation grows where. So the rain is not the cause of, say, a flourishing harvest growing at one place and weed is going somewhere else. That is determined by the kind of seed that are sown over there, kind of care that has been taken over there. So Krishna has created a system of karma, but saying that Krishna sends people to hell is like saying suppose there’s a pilot and the pilot makes a mistake and the plane crashes. And why did the plane crash?

We have to make an investigation to find out what went wrong. If the pilot made a mistake, why did the pilot make a mistake? If the airplane malfunctioned, why did the airplane malfunction? Now some people some person with a half big knowledge of physics comes and says you people, why are you wasting some so much time in making a committee and doing some investigation? I already know what caused the plane crash.

Really? Tell us, do you have some secret intelligence information? What caused the plane crash? He says, No, it’s simple. The plane crashed because of gravity.

Now did the plane crash because of gravity? Well, yes and no. Without gravity, the plane would not crash. But we cannot hold gravity responsible when the plane crashes because the planes are designed to fly in spite of gravity and if a plane crashes and the question is not gravity caused it, why did that mechanism malfunction And that malfunctioning of the mechanism is what is responsible. Was it the aircraft manufacturer’s mistake?

Was it those who are supposed to do a pre flight check, they didn’t check properly? Was it a pilot’s mistake? So we cannot blame gravity for that. That’s why it is not Krishna who is sending people to hell. Krishna has created a mechanism but Krishna does not force anyone to make any choice.

The Bhagavad Gita in four thirteen and fourteen says Tasye kartaram apimam vidya a kartaram avayam. Tasye kartaram apimam Krishna says in four thirteen in the Bhagavad Gita that I am the maker of the whole system but it is not that I place different people at different places in the system, that is by their choices. So Krishna’s compassion is that even if our actions send us to hell, Krishna is there with us in hell. Krishna is the Paramatma never abandons us, and Krishna is always eager for us to be elevated. So Krishna’s love is the biggest reality in the world.

And for us, as we grow spiritually, what happens is this, if if you forget everything else from this talk, you can just remember this one thing. Now for us, initially, the world is very big and God, Krishna, is very small. When I was introduced to Bhakti, I started talking about it with my friends and colleagues and relatives. One of my uncles he told me, yeah, I have a very good relationship with God. He said, really?

I said, what what is it? Just mutual non interference. He said, he’s happy there, I’m happy here. So some people feel that God is completely relevant. Now when we think God is irrelevant, then what happens?

The world is very big for us and the world’s ups and downs also become very big for us. So the world’s ups and downs, they come they impact us a lot on mental level. But as we grow spiritually, the world becomes small and Krishna becomes big for us. So for a devotee, the physical suffering, it’s real but Krishna’s love is a bigger reality. So when Parikshit Maharaj saw that the snake was going to come and bite him and kill him, he knew the snake is going to come, but he also knew that it is actually Krishna’s arrangement.

So for us, what happens is if you the spiritual growth means we see physical reality, we don’t deny okay, it stopped. Okay. It’s interesting. Not seeing anything here. Okay.

So if we say that there is physical reality and there is spiritual reality, the physical reality is important, but for a devotee, the spiritual reality is much more important. And yes, hell may have terrible kind of suffering, it could be at a physical level, it could be in this world, it could be next world, it could be, at a jog at a geographical, the psychological level or at a physical level, but whatever be the suffering, Krishna’s love is a bigger reality. And that will bring me the last point. I think that it’s saying no displays are visible. Okay.

That’s definitely not distracting. Anyway, I’ll I’ll continue without this. Let’s see. And that brings us to the last point that is correction. So if there’s compassion then our focus, compassion is not just emotion, we need to after that do something tangible.

And what is the Bhagavatam’s mood? It’s a mood of correction. So the whole story of the Bhagavatam is told so that people can actually turn toward Krishna and they can they scum? Okay. Good.

So spiritual growth means the physical reality is not as important as the reality of Krishna’s love. So that brings us compassion is yes, a person may suffer in hellish conditions also, but Krishna’s love is the bigger reality and that correction means that we focus not so much on the reality and the gravity of hell. We talk about it but none of our Acharya’s has written a commentary on the fifth canto of the Srimad Bhagavadam specifically. Many of the Acharya has written commentaries on the tenth canto of Shmita Bhagavadam. Now Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu would love to hear the pastimes of Prahlad Maharaj and Dhruva Maharaj, that it does not describe that he love to hear the description of hellish planets.

No. So our focus is on how to help people experience Krishna’s love, how to invite them into that world of Krishna’s love and once they experience that, that is what will protect them from hell. And so ultimately Prabhupada started the International Society for Krishna Consciousness. It is not the International Society for Hell Consciousness that that there is hell and you’ll go to hell if you don’t do this, this, this. No.

That’s not the point. So what our Acharya emphasized that is what we need to emphasize and this correction happens by inspiring others to also develop love for Krishna. So broadly, you know, that the principle is you know. Means somehow or the other fix the mind on Krishna. So each one of us based on our particular background and the kind of background that our audience comes through.

So for some people, hell as a literal description, That can create fear and that fear can inspire people towards correction, towards correction through connection with Krishna and that’s perfectly fine. Now I was in India, there’s a temple in a small in a small village. We have one of our spiritual leaders in India who was born in that village. And in that village, when they build a temple, they’ve actually depicted the depicted the suffering in hell for the four regrettable principles. They made dioramas of how a person who eats meat will have to suffer in this way, how a person who doesn’t eat meat will have to suffer in that way.

Now, when I talk with the devotees who are making the Vedic planetarium, they have decided the Vedic planetarium in in Mayapur to not depict the Hellish planets. So now what is the point over here is, yes, people who may live in villages, they are still in a little bit of pre modern times and idea of a hell may may act as a deterrent for them, oh I don’t want to suffer like this. But for some people the idea of hell if it is what kind of God will create something like this? If that’s the idea then we focus on the idea of hell as a condition rather than a location and the focus is on redirection, yes. Now when we are in a state of godlessness, we suffer and therefore we should turn away.

And for many people, life in this world may itself at a psychological level can be like hell. So the point is we don’t get too caught in whether such descriptions are literal in the sense of being physically exactly the same details happening or whether they’re not happening. What will be foster Krishna consciousness That is what is important. So this is this is the level of Krishna consciousness and different people at different places. So some people in today’s modern sensibilities and there are pre modern sensibilities.

For some people considering the hell to be more of a literal description, this is what happens and this is what we will you will be subjected to or we will be subjected to if we do these things. If that’s what or as I say, whatever floats your boat, you accept that. For some people, this kind of descriptions may not be at all fathomable, acceptable, then we could say, as I said, it can be indicative language. The point is not where we start from, the point is that where we take off. So in Krishna consciousness, often there can be an acceptable range of meanings.

Now if somebody goes outside the acceptable range, that means they start saying that no matter what you do, you’re not going to suffer. This is all just meant to scare and there is no suffering because of, unrestricted indulgence. No. The specific of how suffering may come will vary. But if somebody starts saying that there’s going to be no suffering at all, then that would be outside the range of accepted meaning.

So we focus on cultivating Krishna consciousness and that’s how we grow in our lives and we inspire others to grow. So I quickly summarize what I discussed, three main points in talking about the concept of hell. The first about hell and how to understand, first of the concept. In the concept, I talked about how hell can be seen as a location, but it can also be seen as a condition. And condition means that it’s not just a state of play, it’s not just a physical place, it’s also a state of mind.

It’s not describing geography as it’s describing the gravity of the choices and the consequences. The language can be descriptive, but it can also be indicative. So we can understand this. It’s more a description of not so much of quantity as it is of quality. The specifics are not mentioned over here.

So the concept of hell can range from both ways. Then I talk about the principle of compassion that how what Krishna’s mood is Krishna doesn’t send to hell, He goes to hell with us. So he goes to hell not to suffer but to save us from suffering and that is Krishna’s love for us. So Krishna is the cause of all causes, not the cause of all effects. It is not Krishna who sends people to hell, it is karma which sends and Krishna who saves.

And when the correction our purpose should be correction just as Parikshit Maharaj on hearing this is focused on correction. So Srila Prabhupada’s mood was also on correction. So Srila Prabhupada also sensed the kind of audio that people were there today and then lastly we discussed for us our mood should also be how can I connect people with Krishna and thus there can be an acceptable range within which such statements can be seen? So some people, the literal meaning may inspire them to take to Krishna consciousness. And for some people, it may be a less literal meaning.

So rather than mandating necessary this is the only meaning that has to be taken, we understand that ultimately everyone has to go on the journey toward Krishna consciousness. Everybody needs to recognize that actually Krishna’s love is a far bigger reality than this world, whether it be this world’s pleasure or this world’s pain. And whatever way a person can actually be inspired to perceive Krishna’s love as the bigger reality, we encourage them in that way and move help them move towards Krishna. Thank you very much. Yes, miss.

Guru Maharaj, I’m going to the hell right now. Hell, Maharaj, servant’s just behind me. What should I do? What should I think? I’m very scared.

It’s, like, a dark time for me. Please give me advice. What should I do? I, like, had bad life all my life. I did bad things and now I understand that.

Yeah. What should I do? I think the key point is we need to experience Krishna. We experienced the world and experienced how painful the world is, but to see what gives us experience of Krishna. We have tried the experience of this world, tried displeasure, tried the solution, and it’s it’s really not all that great.

It can be terrible. So how do we experience Krishna? We come in the association of devotees, we participate in Kirtan, we chant the holy names. It like tell such a person give Krishna a chance, try Krishna out. Try to try Krishna out means not just chant the Holy Spirit, it’s important, but try to do something which actually gives you the experience of Krishna.

So maybe come and stay in the association, go to a holy place, take up some spiritual practice that the world is going to be there, it’s not that the world is going to fall apart if you turn away from the world for a few days. Try to immerse yourself in Krishna for some time. So give give yourself an opportunity to experience Krishna and once we do that we’ll get some strength and then greater than the world’s power to hurt is Krishna’s power to heal. But we need to give ourselves the opportunity to be healed by Krishna. And then once we are healed, then we can decide whether we want to go back into the same situation and deal with the situation, we just want to walk away from that situation, But give yourself an opportunity to experience Krishna.

That’s the key answer. Okay? Thank you. Yes, Bhupati. Thank you for two wonderful classes.

And if you asked me this morning what did I like about it, I took notes so I’d be able to not look stupid. I actually But the question I wanna ask is this there’s a famous picture, well it’s famous to Proud Pod Disciples, of Proud Pod being handed the fifth canto. And it’s open to the pictures of the hellish planets. And Prabhupada’s got a big smile on his face. You know that picture?

So as soon as possible? You remember that picture? All the Prabhupada disciples would know that picture. I don’t know if it’s still in circulation. How do you understand that?

Because that’s a lot more than non emphasis. I mean, that Yeah. You know, how do we understand that picture? Would anybody give me a good explanation? I also remember that.

I was thinking about it today. See, what happens is that personally, I’m not saying that the understanding that I have or the understanding that I shared is necessarily the conclusive, the definitive understanding. These are difficult subjects and, we all try to understand them according to our capacity and try to share that understanding. What in the Bhagavad Gita As I have, I think with Madurai and Maitreya, I have a conversation they say, as much as I have heard and as much as I have understood. So now considering that particular picture, I’d say two things.

You know, obviously Prabhupa definitely had a big smile. Now was that smile where just the fact of having the Bhagavatam published already or was it specifically because of that picture? That’s very difficult to say. You know, it could be that Prahopa was smiling throughout and maybe that picture was clicked when incidentally Prabhupada was on that that photo was given, Prabhupada was looking at that picture. So whether it is the description of the hellish planets that pleased Prabhupada, I doubt that very much.

So that’s one point. The second point is if we look at Srila Prabhupada’s overall writings. So when I said non emphasis, see, the the nature of the human mind is to go towards extremes. When you say something is important, we make it all important. And something is non important means we make it completely, utterly unimportant only.

It’s not it’s not utterly unimportant but there is a greed of importance. Say for example, now if somebody is in a place where maybe they are in the they are in a very high demanding job, some emergency duty in medicine or something like that, and they have barely the time to chant their rounds or cook food and offer bhoga and take bhoga. Now if they if they say I will cook bhoga, then they won’t have time to chant their rounds. Now what should you do at that time? Now both is important, we don’t want to take outside food, we also want to chant our rounds.

In that particular situation what will be more important is we need to do our chanting and then adjust, maybe we offer some food in the mind whatever. Now is that the standard? No. But there is a degree of importance. There’s a hierarchy of importance.

In Sanskrit this is called as Taratamya. Taratamya is hierarchy. So my concern when I present such sections is that nobody should leave Krishna consciousness because they find such sections difficult to accept. This is not such a non negotiable part of Krishna consciousness. There are there are two ways to present Krishna consciousness, one is it’s like a digital presentation, the other is an analog presentation.

What do I mean by digital? That you have to accept the whole package. This is Krishna consciousness is a package deal, you accept everything or you are out. It’s one or zero. But the analog is, it’s like Krishna consciousness there is a aspirational level.

Aspirational level means, say, we would like to have altar at our home, we would like to offer Bhogan nicely to Krishna, we would like to chant our rounds in the morning and then maybe you would like to go for a job, whatever job, whatever work you do. That’s aspirational level. But then from aspirational, there could be a non negotiable level. If somebody says that, you know, I’ve got such a busy job that the only food that is available for me in the vicinity of my job is meat, so I’ll eat meat. No, that would be something just seriously non negotiable.

So what happens is Krishna consciousness is a spectrum. So my understanding is at least the way way I’ve seen it, this fifth canto should not lead people to give up Krishna bhakti because they feel this is irrational, this is unacceptable. Either the it doesn’t make sense logic is I can’t accept this in light of science or I can’t accept this in the light of a compassion idea of a compassionate or loving God. So that’s my primary concern. Now can there be other concerns?

Of course, there are other concerns. So I would say Srila Prabhupada, from the seven purposes of ISKCON that he gave, from the name of the society that he gave, from what he expected in these ancient vows, Prabhupada didn’t give us like a 10 summary of Krishna consciousness, like some churches have creeds, this is what I believe in. Prabhupada didn’t give us like that. So therefore there’ll be some room for discussion and ambiguity about what is essential to Krishna consciousness and what is not so essential to Krishna consciousness. So some people may say, no, this is you have to accept Bhagavatam literally.

Every single word of the Bhagavatam has to be accepted literally. Otherwise, you don’t have faith in Krishna. Well, yes, that’s one way of looking at it. But then, do we want people just because they find certain sections of the Bhagavatam difficult to accept, do we want them to leave Krishna consciousness? Like yesterday we discussed that conversation, Prabhupada said if was that the only thing you could present to scholars?

So I think we need to be able to have a big umbrella in which a lot of people can take up Krishna bhakti and then each person will commit to Krishna consciousness in a way that works best for them. Everyone has to become serious about the relationship with Krishna. But what does the seriousness about the relationship with Krishna mean? Does it have to mean the exact same thing for every single person? Maybe, maybe not.

For somebody like even in the practical aspect of Krishna consciousness, for somebody, seriousness in Krishna consciousness means that if you do deity worship, if you fast but that may not be the definition of seriousness focused on much of other people. So you know with respect to practice, we often give people somewhat a flexible rope, you can’t chant 16 rounds, chant four rounds, if you can’t do this, you do this. But with respect to philosophy, why can’t we give people a little bit of a breathing room? If you consider there is a karma marga and there is a jnana marga from both people can come to bhakti. So from karma marga when somebody comes that means these are the rituals to be practiced, these are the rules to be followed, we give people leeway in the rules.

So those who are thoughtful, those who are analytical, they come more from the jnana marga. Now for them they will also need some breathing space. Now this is the exact way, there’s a range of what is acceptable. So in general my experience is that people who come from India, most of them come from the karma marga. Karma Marga means these were the rituals, these were the culture that most of them were practicing.

And they just learn more about the philosophy and they become more reinforced in practicing that. But most non Indians, most especially western people who come, they come more from the Gyan Marga. That means they have existential questions, and they find that their particular tradition did not give them answers to those questions, and that’s why they come. And so for many people from an Indian background or from a more ritual background, these specific descriptions of hell may not matter so much. Okay, let’s tell his description, I’ll just chant Hare Krishna and be happy, what’s the big deal?

For some people who have come from the philosophical direction, we know this whole question, how can a loving God do something like this? That’s a very serious question. So we need to give breathing just as we give breathing room, as we give space for people in terms of what they can practice, can we not give people space in terms of how they understand certain things? So Prabhupada in my understanding gave that space, that’s what Prabhupada called as philosophical speculation. So there is one past and I’ll conclude with this that I think, this is described of Maharaj in one of his vast offerings.

So he said the only difference, so two devotees were having some debate, they said the only difference between Radharani and between Krishna and Balaram is in complexion, other they both same. So one group of devotees said yes, that’s right. And then another devotee said, no. But only Krishna is the lord of Radharani, not not Balramji. That’s right.

Now both these devotees, the debate became very heated so they both went to Prabhupada. And now Prabhupada said, only both sides are presented. Only Krishna, the only difference between them is the complexion. Yes. That’s right.

But only Krishna is, only Krishna is the Lord of Radharani. That’s right. But Prabhupada, both of these can’t be right Prabhupada said, that’s right. And then what is the truth? Probably that you decide.

Now the point over here is there are very advanced truths and we don’t have to adjudicate them right now. So I’d say that’s my understanding over here. Let’s not make this a non negotiable aspect of Krishna consciousness which may make people have to decide to make or break their bhakti. Okay. Thank you.

You want to add something? Okay. You must ask questions. Thank you, Pabhuji, for a wonderful class. One thing that I kind of realized in this what your presentation was that realistically in this world, there is no real retribution.

In other words, if you perform that simple activity, you know, it’s it’s like, that’s it. What what what retribution is there? If you if you don’t really, become Krishna conscious in our particular philosophy, then you’re a lost soul, Literally. I mean, right? Because we’re saying we’re talking about simple activity.

You know, how if you commit this simple activity, what you know, even in the material world, if if you murder somebody, you know, you think you’re getting away with it. But really, if you you you you’re not. You you killed someone, and that’s simple. And that’s even against the law. So even in this country, you can kill somebody if they catch you fifty years later to still put you in jail.

So here we are in a material world and we’re committing so many simple activities knowingly and unknowingly. You know, what’s the repute you know, what what can they do in terms of they’ll be constantly in this cycle of birth and death? Yeah. And that’s exactly the it’s a nice way of articulating this point I’m making, you know. In our tradition, the specifics of how somebody is suffering is not as important as the principle that there is suffering in the material world.

So as long as somebody is in the material world, they will be suffering. And the key point is get out of this material world of suffering. So rather than getting so caught in, you know, this is hell and this is a place of severe suffering, no, the whole world is a place of suffering and unless we get out of that what is the point? It’s like Prabhupada would say there are golden shackles and there are iron shackles. It’s it’s still shackles only.

Thank you, Prabhu. So, Prabhu, my question is in regards to the physical location of health or the spiritual world and the importance. In the other side, we also have the conditional conditioning of the living entity. And that brought me to, some memories about I was reading a book where in the early days, one devotee was, complaining or having a difficult time to understand the the situation of Brindavan and, you know, finding all the different discrepancies. So proper answer is actually, Vrindavan is a state of consciousness.

You can create Vrindavan anywhere you are. So my question would be, it doesn’t necessarily diminish the position of the sacredness of the place. On the other side, my question will be also, is it sometimes more important the condition that you the kind of mentality that you have? Because if I bring it to another like another question, you can be in the presence of the Paramahansa, a great master, but you condition it or you’re you’re not able to, how do you say, take advantage of it? Can you speak?

Good point. See, that’s what I was trying to draw over here. See, if you consider Vrindavan as a place, now it’s is it important to go to Vrindavan and pilgrimage? That’s considered one of the key limbs of Bhakti. So the location is important.

But then our tradition it is also said that what is the use of going to a holy place if you don’t associate with holy people over there. It is like even bathing in a river, it’s like a like a cow or a a donkey. So there’s location without condition. Now this is undesirable or at least not the not the best you can put it that if we are just in the location but not in the condition, in the condition of state, condition of mind, now can there be condition without location? It is said yes that wherever Krishna is glorified that is Vrindavan.

So if a devotee is going on a morning walk with, with Srila Prabhupada, they might be going through some ghettos that will be like the spiritual world. So this is also glorious but the problem is that this may not be what we can experience all the time. So we can be in the condition say we could say that a devotee goes out into the world to distribute books, if they’re fixed in serving Krishna, wherever they’re going that’s a spiritual world only because they are glorifying Krishna, they’re sharing the glories of Krishna. But still can that devotee stay in that location twenty four hours a day and not be affected? No it’s not.

So you know ideal is by the location and the condition both are there. So the physical location matters, but it is not the physical location alone that matters and the state of consciousness also matters. So Vrindavan is a state of consciousness, Vrindavan also place. Ideally, by going to the place we can develop the state of consciousness more easily and we can carry the state of consciousness outside that place also. So what applies to Vrindavan also applies to the spiritual world, so the hellish mentality like a pure devotee may go to hell but a pure devotee may not be suffering in hell rather the pure devotee go there to save people from suffering.

Can be in that condition, can be in the location and not be in that condition. And somebody can be in this world and they can be in a hellish condition. Even if this world is spiritual world itself we have that conception. There is Jeevan Mukti and there is what is called as Atyantika Mukti or final Mukti. Jeevan Mukti is somebody is in this world, in this body, but they are they have no desire to enjoy this world.

So they are as if free from the body. And there is the ultimate liberationist and they give up the body and they go to the spiritual world. So spiritual world is the location as well as the condition. Okay? Thank you.

Thank you so much.

The post Brutal hell & loving God How can both go together part 2 Chaitanya Charan Prabhu SB 3 30 26 5 appeared first on The Spiritual Scientist.

So since I got this verse, I was told this three, four days ago, I’ve not been able to sleep very peacefully. These are these are in many ways a very difficult section of the Bhagavatam to explain, first of all, to understand and to explain. So today and tomorrow, I’ll be discussing this theme of how the such a brutal hell or a brutal description of hell, how can it be reconciled with the idea of a loving God? That what is described over here, sometimes if we don’t know the language, then sometimes if we don’t know the language when what two people are speaking, we can only make it out, we can only guess it, infer it And India itself is a very multilingual country. So sometimes when somebody is angry, you can make out even if you don’t understand the language by their gestures, by their expressions, by the volume, you can make out they’re angry.

But among the various Indian languages, Bengali is a very sweet language. And I was once in Mayapur and two devotees talking and the whole language sounded very sweet But then after that, the devotee who whom I was talking who was talking to some other Bengali the other day, he after he finished the talk, he was very disturbed. I said, What happened? He said that this devotee, he just spoke so this other person was not a devotee like a person who’s coming to the temple, they’re working some contract on land with him, it’s favorable like this. He spoke such harsh language and such foul words, very shaken.

So I he was speaking in a very plain tone and Bengali is a little sweet language. So sometimes the language might be very sweet but the words might be horrible within it. So like that, you know, if we just come and recite the verses and we don’t know the Sanskrit, this verse can seem like any other verse. Sanskrit is is is a exalted language and if you know how to recite, it can be very sweet to recite also. But what is being talked about over here is is the punishments that are described in hell for those people who have indulge unrestrictedly in sensual pleasures.

So how do we understand this? So today and tomorrow, I’ll talk about this and I’ll broadly use the same approach, use three points, you know, the approach that we take, the context in which this is spoken and T will we’ll talk about transcendence, what the essence of the Bhagavatam is. This is the acronym I’ll use. Now because this is I’m giving class tomorrow also, I’ll have a little time, so I’ll go backwards and rather than focusing on this particular verse itself, we’ll look back at our tradition. And Bhaktivino Thakur was the first person in our tradition who had to encounter modern sensibilities.

If you consider the tradition, the tradition has been going on for a long time if you consider you know, and if you consider tradition to be like lineage, spiritual lineage, then every Acharya does outreach to their particular audience. So for example, Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu did outreach to the people at his times, then the six Goswamis, they were in Vrindavan and they did outreach to their particular audience. Now it’s interesting, the Goswamis hardly wrote any books about Lord Chaitanya because they were based in Vrindavan. In Vrindavan, Mahaprabhu had come and Mahaprabhu had created a sensation. But like any other visiting guest, when the visiting guest come, they say, Oh, huge, I’m Philip, but after the visiting guest goes back, things literally go back to normal.

So Vrindavan was a land of Krishna not of Lord Chaitanya. So they wrote books about Krishna, Krishna Leela, Krishna Attua and they wrote mostly Sanskrit because Vrindavan nobody knew Bengali. So every Acharya speaks to their audiences. So then after that we have Vishnu Acharya who is also in Vrindavan, but he was restoring Vrindavan after it was devastated by the intolerant Islamic ruler Aurangzeb. And then after that we have Baldevidya Bhushan.

Now Baldevidya Bhushan was speaking to a broader audience of the Vedic scholars because what happened was during Aurangzeb’s time, there are many of the deity like Radha Govind deity in order to be protected had to be taken to Jaipur. And in Jaipur there is already an existing religious group, the Ramanandis. And when Radha Govind came he stole the heart of the king over there. And actually the king started giving more patronage to Radha Govind and his worshipers and the previous group that was there, they started becoming very upset. And in order to try to gain back the patronage, they started to challenge the very validity of our tradition itself, the very validity of the worship of the way we are doing it.

So Bal Devidya Bhushan had to respond to that and that’s why although Chetan Mahaprabhu had said that the Bhagavatam is a natural commentary on the Vedanta Sutra, Baldevidya Bhushan had to write a commentary. So it is almost as if Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu said that there is no need for Vedanta Sutra commentary. Vedanta Sutra because he said the same author who wrote the Vedanta Sutra also wrote in his full maturity the Bhagavatam and therefore the Bhagavatam is a natural commentary. But during Bhakti Nota, during Maldive Devotion’s time, this same statement was seen simply as an excuse for not having a commentary because whenever we are discussing or debating with someone, we have to have a common basis of authority. If they don’t accept the basis of that that common basis, so if we are going to debate with somebody who is scientific and we quote the Bhagavita and say the Bhagavita says that we are not physical we are not physical beings, we are souls.

I don’t care what Bhagavita says, we may have to use some scientific evidence, something which they will accept. So the point is that had to write. He felt a strong need for a Vedanta Sutra commentary and nobody considers him in the tradition a deviant for writing such a commentary. Why? Because it was the need otherwise our Samprada itself would have lost its credentials.

So people who did not accept Lord Chaitanya Mahap’s authority, who were challenge challenging him and his tradition, we cannot argue with them by quoting from him. So therefore he had to write a commentary. So why am I giving this background? It’s like in the tradition each Acharya has to fight the battles of that generation and the battles of that generation may be very different from the battles of the previous generation. So if you consider the First World War and the Second World War, in the or we consider Second World War and the and the Cold War, in the Second World War we have Russia and America fought together against Germany.

But as soon as the war got over or even before the war was over when it was clear they were going to win, then there’s a competition between Russia and America who would have more power. So people who were ally allies can become enemies. Similarly, not everybody who were on the one side in the first world war were on the same side in second world war. So basically the battle lines change. In the material world, avidya ignorance always has to be fought.

But just as Krishna takes many Avatars, similarly Avidya also takes many Avatars. Avidya, ignorance also comes in different ways. And the principle in the tradition is that the current avatar, the current incarnation of avidya, of ignorance has to be fought. So each Acharya has to do that. The current avatar of Avidya has to be fought.

And the Baldevidya Bhushan fired the last salvo in the traditional battles. The traditional battles were basically everybody accepted the authority of the Vedas, but they debated fiercely about what was the meaning of the Vedas. The Vedas authority, but what does what the Vedas actually teach, that was the debate. But by the time it was Bhaktivinod Thakur’s time, What happened was the whole battleground had changed because westernization had come to India. And along with the westernization came, it was more of Europeanization if you want to say, you can call it the West or and because of that people were not really so concerned about what is the meaning of the Vedas.

The question was do the Vedas even matter? Do the Vedas even have anything of value? Are the Vedas just old fashioned, outdated, superstitious, irrational, primitive works of works that have no relevance of value today? So, Bhaktiv No Thakur had to fight a different battle and one of the battles that he had to fight was for explaining the Bhagavad. So what is it?

What is this? The, rational presentation of Vedic wisdom and especially of the Bhagavat. Oh, when did it stop? That’s funny. Oh, thank you for informing me.

Okay. Let me see what can I do over here? It got disconnected somehow. Maybe I just have to keep writing, otherwise, it gets disconnected. It’s come.

It’s come. Okay. Of the Bhagavatam. So he was the first person who had to give a rational presentation of the Bhagavatam. And Prabhupada in one of his talks on the while celebrating Bhaktiorn Thakur, his appearance disappearance days, he says, Bhaktiorn Thakur is the founder or the father of the modern day Krishna consciousness movement.

What he meant was that it is Bhaktirath Thakur who set the example in the standard of how to engage with modernity, how to engage with modern modernity and specifically the challenge of modernity was rationality. So modernity came with its own sensibilities and these descriptions of hell in one sense in pre modern times were not that provocative for many reasons. One reason was in the pre modern medieval times in general punishments were quite brutal. We know in France there’s a guillotine where people would just be killed. Even in Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’s time they did this guy the Changa, Changa was like swords are kept upside down, swords kept up and somebody is thrown on top of that and that is what happened in Bengal.

So the medieval and the they were physically quite brutal times and there were ways in which people were punished. So but in the modern time, the sensibilities changed and when the sensibilities changed, there are many questions that came up. So I so at that time, Bhaktivinath Thakur wrote an essay called the Bhagwat. And in that essay, he talks about what are the difficulties in understanding the Bhagwat, and he primarily talks about three difficulties. So in fact, he almost takes an autobiographical role over there.

He says that when I grew up, you know, I had an aversion to the Bhagavatam and he said I felt there’s nothing of value in it. So he’s talking to people of a similar background who have all been educated in the Western, the European way of thinking and he’s empathizing with them. He says that, Yeah, I was also like that. And he says there are three challenges, the first challenge is based on cosmology. So the second challenge is based on morality and the third is based on philosophy.

So he says the cosmology, the time scales, the description of the planets, all this just seems utterly irrational. It just seems what science has revealed is totally different from what the Bhagavatam is telling. Then with respect to morality, he focuses primarily on the morality of the character of Krishna and he says that many people considered at that time, especially Christian missionaries in order to target Hinduism, the religion of that country at that time, targeted on the immorality of the characters. So basically, when when the British infiltrated into India, initially the East India Company which was ruling did not allow missionaries to come in because they said that we are here for business and they saw that Indians are very religious, so let’s not mess with their religion. And they also saw that the last Mughal king was Aurangzeb and the main reason one of the reasons one of the main reasons why he just fell was that he just persecuted Hindus a lot.

And that’s why the Hindu just relentlessly fought against him, so they decided let’s not mess with these people’s religion. So, at that time many of the missionaries, the protestants, the Anglican church mainly, they would stay outside India in Burma and they would come Bangladesh was the border state, they would come in illegally, they were illegal immigrant preachers, they would come in and go back. But then, in Britain also, there were two political parties and they were just like here, one political party goes, another political party comes. A lot of policy changes happened. So there was one political party which was more on the rational side, scientific and scientific progress, the other was on the more religious side.

So in the British elections, when the party that was more on the religious side, the Tory party, they won. They said that that so the the Christians who were supporting them they said that, We’ve got this huge unchurched land, This is our duty to Jesus, we have to church them, we have to civilize them. And then that’s when the missionary work started very heavily. So basically both so the the rationalists, those who wanted scientific progress they criticize Hinduism as irrational and the Christians criticize Hinduism as pagan. So both were criticizing and their criticism was basically they talked about how every deity in the Vedic tradition, Krishna is so immoral.

And at that time the other deity that was very popular in worshiping in Bengal was Kali. So Kali is so brutal. So Kali is brutal and Krishna is immoral and Nabaktino Thakur was us living and teaching and trying to present body of Vaishnavism at a time when this came up. And now what happens is that this to the modern sensibility, the description of hell seems both, It seems brutal and it seems immoral. So this is the cosmology, the morality, and the philosophy.

So the description of hell as it is given in the Bhagavatam. Now the Christians did not critique that much because even in the Biblical tradition there is similar description of hell. The specifics may vary, but there is quite a brutal description of hell. Now when the cosmology is concerned, at that particular time, now also we are facing this challenge when we are building the planetarium, how do we actually explain the fifth canto, how do we depict the fifth canto? So these are challenges, it’s not like a one and done thing.

One Acharya gives an explanation and everybody accepts the explanation. It is an ongoing challenge that we face. So it is to address some of these challenges especially the challenge of cosmology, Bhaktivinath Thakur wrote a book called the Krishna Samhita. Now this is among his more controversial books because in this he took a somewhat of a non literal approach to the Bhagavatam and many traditionalists did not appreciate that approach. And Bhaktivedanta Thakur in his own writings later says he wrote his own autobiography in the form of a long letter to one of his sons Lalita Prasad and there he says many people misunderstood this book.

Nobody understood what I was trying to do with this book. So there we see even nowadays also in our movement there’s a debate between conservatives and liberals and people feel misunderstood, people feel attacked. So Bhaktivirath Thakur himself went through all that. He felt attacked. But anyway, I’ll talk about how he has dealt with this and then we will move forward and we’ll talk about this.

So in one sense Srila Prabhupada is trying to in the purport make this relatable for us. He says that in the holocaust terrible things happened, the concentration camps people were forced to eat their own refuse and so it’s no wonder that in hell something like this happened. But then while Prabhupada is trying to make it, you know, these things happen in this world also, they will happen in hell also. But for some people instead of making it relatable, it makes the whole idea of God unrelatable. That means what happens is that I was just talking with one American devotee, he said that when he read this he says that the thought that came in his mind is that what this purport is saying is that Krishna is like Hitler, that Krishna is a creator of a concentration camp worse than what Hitler created.

So sometimes what happens is intent is one thing but what the intent completely backfires. So how do we explain this? So I’ll talk about a lot of things, but first I’ll go into the approach that Bhakti Vinod Thakur takes. So specifically with respect to the descriptions of hell, Bhaktivinath Thakur seems to take a fairly non literal approach and he says that it is the principle of accountability for our actions that is vital that each one of us for whatever we do we will be held responsible. Beyond that the specifics are not that important.

The specifics are given to create fear so that people will stay moral, that people will do the right thing. Now this is not an unfamiliar approach. Bertrand Russell was a prominent atheist and when he would have discussions of atheism, he would have them in his library and he would lock the doors so that none he would have his intellectual friends come and discuss, but he would not want any of his servants to hear his discussions of atheism. Why? He said he felt that if the servants start believing that there is no God, then they will start stealing my silver and my gold from my house.

So the idea that fear will keep people in line, that is not an uncommon idea. And in many ways every country has this that if there is no fear of the law, then people will just there’ll always be criminal elements and they will just run wild. So Bhakti Rudhakur says such descriptions are given to create fear, not fear in the sense of terror, but fear for the sake of what is called as deterrence. Fear can be I’m sorry. Fear can be either for the purpose of creating terror and keeping a person to live in fear forever or fear can also be for deterrence.

Deterrence is where a person is just like you know India and Pakistan and China, these three countries have had lot of wars before. But now every one of them has has nuclear weapons. And although there are many confrontations there, it has not been outright war because there is deterrence. So this is these are meant to be deterrence, that’s what his mood is. So now Prabhupada did not quote Krishna Samhita much, he mentions this once or twice, he did not quote explicitly from Krishna Samhita so much except for one theme, but he did not reject Krishna Samhita directly.

At the same time, Prabhupada, while he did not directly say that the description in hell of hell are non literal, he certainly did not emphasize them too much. He did not emphasize them too much. If you for example, in the Christian outreach, often they start with if Jesus is the only way, if you don’t surrender to Jesus, you’re going to go to hell and you’re going to go to hell forever. So that God loves you so much that if you don’t love him back, he will send you to hell forever, you know. And unfortunately, this is not a caricature of Christianity.

So Bhakti Vinod Thakur himself talked about four levels at at which people can approach God. There is fear, there is desire, there is duty, and then there is love. So fear and desire is the level of karma kanda mostly. If you don’t do this, you’ll be punished by God. If you do this, you’ll be rewarded by God.

The fear and desire is the level at which most of the world’s religion operates. At the level of duty, it is more of karma yoga, nishkam karma yoga. When one understand that God has already done some so much for me, I have a duty to take care I have to serve him. Now love is the primary level at which we approach God in Bhakti Yoga. So now what Bhakti No Thakur states, I’ll talk about one last point and then we’ll have some questions if there are and we’ll continue tomorrow.

The key difference, the first point in reconciling, the idea of a loving God with the brutal descriptions of hell is that our while the term hell is the same, but the conception in the Vedic tradition is very different from what is there in the Abrahamic tradition. What is the difference? There are two main differences, the first is in the Abrahamic tradition hell is eternal, we go to hell and stay forever. In the Vedic tradition although hell is described it is temporary. It is when Srila Prabhupada was asked, Is hell eternal?

Prabhupada replied that, Nothing except ecstatic loving service to Krishna is eternal. So hell is temporary. So hell is in one sense if you can say in the Vedic tradition the whole universe is like a university. We are all meant to learn lessons, learn ultimately what matters and go towards that. And so within this university, hell is like a tough classroom.

Sometimes some kids are very very unruly, maybe they are sent to something which is a like a very difficult or something like a boot camp, they’re sent over there. So hell is like a tough classroom. So no society can actually flourish, even survive without a certain level of law and order and discipline. And if God does not have that system of disciplining people, then where is the question of justice and without justice where is the question of love? So it is not a condemnation.

So what is the implication of this that it is eternal, it is temporary? The implication is hell is for condemnation that you didn’t love God so you’re going to go to hell. But if hell is temporary, it is not for condemnation, it is for reformation. So it is not that God has permanently condemned us, it is that God wants us back and God wants us to reform. And another critical difference is that in the Abrahamic tradition, hell is for non believers.

If you don’t believe in Jesus, you don’t accept Jesus as your savior, you’re going to go to hell. In the Vedic tradition, hell is not for non believers, it is for wrong doers. It is not that just because you don’t worship Krishna you want to go to hell. Somebody may not be worshiping Krishna and if they are living in Sattva Guna, in the mode of goodness Krishna says, So somebody is charitable, somebody is kind, somebody is polite, and maybe they don’t believe in God, they’re a good person. They won’t they’re not good enough to go back to Godhead, but they’re just being good, But they won’t be sent to hell.

So this is not the personal vendetta of God. You didn’t believe me, so I’ll send you to hell. No, it is not like that. That is this actually when when you say have the implication that hell is for non believers, so these together are one point and this is a second point. When you say hell is for non believers, it is for almost like a vengeful God.

The idea becomes that God is vengeful. But whereas here, it is not a vengeful God, but a lawful God that if you create trouble for others, if you hurt others, if you harm others, then you will be punished. So the conception of God itself is very different and therefore can we reconcile the idea of hell with a loving God? Yes, it is possible because hell is not eternal and God does not send people to hell just because they don’t love him. It is because they are causing harm to others that they go to hell.

So I so I’ll continue this tomorrow and I’ll talk further about what is the specific bhakti wisdom about it. So I talked till now about the broad Vedic challenge and the Vedic wisdom. So I’ll summarize what I discussed today. We’re talking about hell and God’s love, can the two be reconciled. So I talked about how first there is the challenge that is there for the tradition always that always there will be ignorance and every has to face the current incarnation of avidya that is there.

And then within that we talk about how Bhakti Vinod Thakur faced the challenge for the Bhagavatam at three levels. And three levels is that it’s it’s cosmology, it’s morality and it’s philosophy. And within that the approach that he takes for this is to say that this is non literal, that the principle is that hell that we are accountable for our actions. Now Srila Prabhupada does not take that approach but Srila Prabhupada, this is non important in the sense that Prabhupada did not emphasize it. Prabhupada did not start by saying that don’t worship God or you’ll go to hell.

Prabhupada’s approach was much more at higher level. We’ll talk about Prabhupada’s approach tomorrow. And finally, we discussed about the difference in the conception of hell in the Abrahamic traditions versus the Vedic traditions. The Abrahamic traditions, it is eternal and that’s why it makes a serious difference whether it’s temporary, it’s eternal, it’s for condemnation of a reformation and the Abrahamic traditions, it is for non believers. So it’s almost like God is out to take revenge against those who don’t love him.

But in the Vedic tradition, it is for wrongdoers, those who hurt others. So this is what gives the idea of a lawful God. Now after talking about a lawful God, tomorrow I’ll talk about how it can be reconciled with the idea of a loving God also. Thank you very much. Hooray Krishna.

Any comments from? Okay. Okay. Yes, from here. Yeah.

Yeah. So how would you respond to a person who says, well, I like your, conception much better than the Christian conception. But, you know, here in in America and Western countries to have a saying, if you give a fool enough rope, he’ll hang himself. So it seems like Krishna is giving people a lot of rope. Why doesn’t he, you know I mean, the Bhagavad Gita says, why hasn’t he, you know, cut us off at the past, so to speak, before we hang ourselves because you know Well, I would say hell is the way he cuts us off the path.

So it’s like when actions have consequences, that’s what brings us to our senses. So in general, one person can guide another person only in three ways like many times when parents ask how do we guide someone, how do we guide our children, there are broadly three ways. First is conscience, that the conscience is like an innate voice, something just cannot be done. If we grew up seeing our parents never doing something, it’s out of question, no matter however angry you are, you don’t hit anyone. Then we ourselves certainly it’s wrong.

So conscience is like the voice of emotion, but it’s not just emotional, it’s that innate sense this is like an inner compass. Now if the compass is not there then there is intelligence. Intelligence is where we appeal to a person, you tell him if you do this, this is what is going to happen. Intelligence is where you give the person a vision of the consequence that is going to come. And if intelligence doesn’t work, then there is the experience.

Experience of what? Experience of the consequence. So broadly speaking, we cannot do anything, we cannot force anyone to do anything. Consciences, they just immediately feel it’s wrong, so I can’t do it. Intelligence is, okay, I see this is bad, so I’ll not do it.

Like somebody just feels, I don’t I don’t wanna kill animals. I don’t wanna hurt animals. He says, oh, if I eat red meat, I’ll get a heart attack. I don’t want to do that. Somebody gets a heart attack, he says, okay, now no more eat meat, red meat.

So basically, there’s a three way. So in one sense, hell is the way by which God is ensuring that the rope is not too long. So hail hell is where God is giving experience to people so that they can reform. Okay? Thank you.

Thank you. It’s true. Yes. All through. After thank you for a wonderful class.

What what comes to mind when you’re reading things of this this stature is that it it’s so phantasmagoria practically. I mean, it’s like not it’s like a movie or something. How how how do you get the living energy to understand these principles of freedom like Krishna conscious when you have to read these kind of descriptions which how many people would really believe. In other words, if you’re out there, you’re talking to a normal person and you know, he’s eating a hamburger and you said, well, if you continue eating that, you’re gonna have to take a you know, somebody’s gonna eat you or you’re gonna have to eat something else. So how how do you how do you take that particular idealism and and give it to someone to make them sincere or, help them understand these these principles from the Bhagavatam?

It’s tough. That’s why the principle which I find is best is choose our battles. There’s a very almost humorous conversation when Prabhupada was in Hawaii, some devotees came and told him that Prabhupada, when we try to talk with the scholars and we tell the scholars that that in Dwarka the king Ugarasen had some astronomical number of bodyguards. It’s quite a phenomenal number. So they started laughing at us.

They said where were their toilets, where are their homes, how could they live in Dwarka? Now Prabhupad could have Dwarka, so does he hear really? Or maybe it is two different places also, maybe there’s So anyway Prabhupad took different approach at different time. Prabhupad here, he said that in this conversation, among all the sections of the Bhagavatam, was it the only thing you found to speak to the scholars? So it is what is one of the one of the choosha battles means what?

Krishna’s Prabhupada himself says intelligence means to see things in their proper perspective. That’s what he said in the tenth chapter of the Bhagavata Purport, Buddha, Gyanama Sam, Mohan at ten point three four five. So that means we ourselves need to know what are the big things in our philosophy and what are the not so big things. So from Srila Prabhupada’s example itself we know how often did Prabhupada talk about hell. Generally when he talked about giving up sense gratification, it is not that you’ll go to hell if you do sense gratification, that is the general Christian version of they use the word adultery, adultery or fornication, you’ll go to hell and you’ll suffer in hell.

Prabhupada’s approach was this pleasure is so insignificant, you are meant for far greater pleasure. So Prabhupada took a particular approach. So my understanding is first is we don’t talk about it ourselves and we don’t this could work as a deterrent at a particular time. Now it doesn’t work as a deterrent and that’s why we are having this discussion about how to explain it. So to some extent it is possible although there is so much propaganda about sense gratification in the world today, many people soon realize that there’s nothing so great about it.

It’s just that because they don’t know any alternative they keep trying it and they keep trying it in new ways sort of hope that they’ll get some pleasure. But for many people if they they can be presented Krishna consciousness in an attractive way and they experience the happiness of Krishna consciousness then okay you know this you know there is better way to live and that’s how they give up sense gratification. So I think that’s the much more healthier approach rather than so I think this is the approach of intelligence rather than experience. You know, there is a better way to live, there is a better way to enjoy life and so we nowadays so there is enough arguments like we can make health arguments for giving up meat, we can make arguments based on environment which is a big concern for people. There’s also an argument based on I I talk about meat eating and talk about help the world with your food.

Well, I had all four things. One is at a health level it is beneficial, at the environmental level it’s beneficial, at the level of livestock, you know, so many people are killed just for your food. And then at the level of poverty itself, global poverty, That is if the amount of land that is used to make meat is used to raise grains for human beings, then far more people can be fed. So poverty itself then, that is not just us, UNESCO has said that. So this is basically there are different ways that’s why I said I give the example of what Chetanya Mahaprabhu said there is no need for this and Balibayash said we have to do this, we have to write a comment to the Midland Sutra.

So I think the same purpose but different approaches to that purpose. I personally wouldn’t use hell at all to talk about it to people. Okay. Thank you. Should we yeah.

There is one statement that says that whatever is written in the verus has to be taken as true. Either you like it or you don’t like it. So I try to understand in the Srila Bhakti Vinodakur statement and Srila Prabhupada in which take it literally and the other one is not that important. See, actually whatever is written has to be taken as truth that is that is there is a statement like that. At the same time there is a clear understanding of context.

So for example, in the Bhagavad Gita itself in 2.17 Krishna says Avinashita tadviddhi, that the soul cannot be destroyed, the soul is indestructible. And yet in the same Bhagavad Gita in the sixteenth chapter ninth verse, sixteenth chapter 20 verse, Krishna says that these things will destroy your soul this will destroy your soul So these will these are soul destroyers. So now there’s just no way both of these statements can be taken literally and they will be true. So then we have to look at the bigger picture. So So what is Krishna saying that here it’s non literal that Krishna is saying the souls spiritual tendency, the souls spiritual awareness that will be destroyed.

So we have to look at the context and that’s why while Shabda is the highest but pratyaksa and Anuman are also required. Yuga Swami used the example of Sandarbas that if somebody says that he lives that his house is on the Ganga. Nobody can house a house on the Ganga unless we are going to make a whole stretch of imagination and say this person is a mystic yogi who has built a house which floats on on there. Okay. This is the way to tell me to finish the class now.

Okay. So the thing is that we have to use our intelligence. So pratyaksha and Anuman, so by pratyaksha we know that there cannot be any house on the Ganga then it means it’s on the banks of the Ganga. So we have to propach and we have to make do we don’t want to do mental speculation but philosophical speculation is required. So there are clearly sections in the Bhagavatam which are in the scriptures which just cannot be taken literally.

So I would say it is that’s why studying scripture requires faith but also requires intelligence. And if it were only based on faith just take it literally true everything as it is then why do we even need commentators. I just this is it that’s all there is in fact that is one of the big split between the Catholics and the Protestants Some at least some of the Protestants say that the scripture is self evident, we don’t need any commentary. But then when it’s self evident which part is are you going to accept? Because in the Bible also there are contradictory strict ways.

So we need an approach that’s why when we would say whatever is said in scripture is true, that is true. But there are two ways to approach, one is with faith and the other is with intelligence and both are important. It is not only faith, if you have only faith we can become fanatical, if we have only intelligence we’ll become skeptical or even cynical. So we don’t want to go in either directions. We want to have a balance of faith and intelligence.

Okay. Thank you. So I think, should we continue tomorrow with any other questions or? There’s more question. Okay.

Do you have a question? Please take yours. I’ve been trying to find, because sometimes when speakers speak about this subject matter in class, they say that the soul the subtle body in the hellish planets when he’s being punished, he experiences it as being a long, long period of time. But we know it’s not eternal. But we also hear speakers say that, it’s actually just a flash of time, but his experience of it is very a long time.

So I haven’t been able to find that anywhere in the fifth kendo or the, third kendo. Do you do you know where that’s? Yeah. I mean, I also not heard about it. Is it?

Yeah. But they just talked about the traveling, it didn’t talk about the punish Okay. So what she is saying is suffering in hell. I’m talking about the suffering, not the traveling. So I think two things over here that, like, it is said in the in the that he has to pass 900,002 and then he’s at once engaged in tortures of his village.

Then he’s at once engaged in the torturous punishment which is just trying to go to hell. So so what does say that? Within a few moments, so it doesn’t does it say over here that it feels like a long time? It doesn’t exactly say that. But my point is that, you know, I, this notion that suffering that that the relativity of time, that something can be very short time but can feel very long, No, that that is not something which is completely outside our domain of experience.

Even Einstein talked about relativity of time, that’s how he explained that. Now if you’re sitting on a hot if you’re sitting on a hot, hot pan somehow, then in a few moments will feel like hours. And if you’re talking with somebody attractive whom you love, even several hours will feel like minutes. So it’s like sometimes we have a nightmare and it may just be for a few minutes, but when every nightmare we feel it’s very long. So the experiential level, pain doesn’t seem to be short, pain does seem to go on for a very long time.

So I think even if there’s no explicit scripture for that, it’s it’s something which is a reasonable inference from our own experience that what could be a short period could also seem very long, okay. So thank you very much.

The post Brutal hell & loving God How can both go together part 1 Chaitanya Charan Prabhu SB 3 30 25 4 appeared first on The Spiritual Scientist.

Hare Krishna. I’m grateful to be here with all of you today. And today, I’ll speak on this verse from the Bhagavad Gita. This is 2.14. So am I audible clearly?

Oh, okay. It’s gone. It had connected just now. Okay. Thank you.

This one? Okay. Thank you. So the topic I’ll speak on today is tolerance. Now what does tolerance mean and how to tolerate?

Recently I have been in a tour of America for about one and a half one and a half months now, the part of a three month tour and I was asked this question that this idea that Krishna tells in the Bhagavad Gita tolerate and this won’t that lead to some people doing abuses and we thinking that oh I’m just meant to tolerate and we continue tolerating. So what does tolerance mean and how tolerance is actually a great power provided it is understood properly. That’s the theme I’ll discuss. So when something bad is happening to us, when do we tolerate it and when do we decide not to tolerate it. That’s the broad topic I’ll discuss.

So this is extra from my latest book, this is for prayers inspired by the Bhagavad Gita. So in this I have taken each key verse of the Gita and there is a small poetic rendition of the Gita’s verse and then there is a prayer inspired by that verse. So let’s recite the words. So the theme I am talking about is that what you talk let tolerance increase my intelligence, oh lord, not my importance. Tolerance is not meant to make us powerless.

So let us look at these words, Those of you who are familiar with the font can recite after me. So once more we’ll recite. One last time now. This time we decided together all of us, not responsibly but together. Together.

So I tried to do a poetic translation of the verses over here. From the contact of senses with their objects comes joy and pain. These are time bound like winter’s cold and summer’s rain. They come and go forever, they never stay. Tolerate them all, march firm on your way.

So they never stay, march firm on your way. So this is the key over here that Krishna is telling us to march ahead. We’ll read one or two sentences from here. So when we are going through life, how do we decide which battles to fight? We’re all fighting some battle or the other.

So right now, you’re sitting here. Maybe there’s a battle in your mind. You know, you have got so many things to do at home. You hope this class won’t go too long. Maybe you’re hungry and there’s a battle.

Maybe if I go right now, can I get food in advance? Or maybe you want to focus on this class, but sitting on the floor is not so comfortable. So constantly, there are many things going on in our head and like that many things are going on in our world. And we cannot fight all the battles that are happening in the world. So in one sense when Krishna talks about tolerance, the key to tolerance is choosing our battles.

That means we decide which battles I’m going to fight and which battles I’m not going to fight. So I was in Australia and I gave a class over there one sitting in a temple. And there’s one young man who comes for my classes there regularly every year when I go, and he gives after my class, we have an intelligent discussions with him. He gives some thoughtful points how he appreciated. So my class topic was tolerance.

And so after the he he came a little late, so he’s sitting behind it. After the class, I asked him, so what do you like about the class? So he said, see, normally your classes are very intellectually stimulating. He says, but in today’s class, I got to practice what you taught. You know, my class was on tolerance.

So I was thinking you had to tolerate my class? So there’s a Jewish saying, have your ears heard what your mouth has said? So that he saw my expression. Yeah. And he said, no, no.

Actually, I was sitting behind. And when I was sitting behind, the person next to me was constantly talking on phone. His phone was not silent, phone was beeping, and he’s also talking quite loudly on the phone. I was annoyed with that person. But then I thought the class was on tolerance, so I tolerated.

But then because I was tolerating, I couldn’t hear any of the class. So I told him with all due respect, whenever somebody uses the phrase with all due respect, what is going to come after that is not going to be very respectful. So I told him, with all due respect, that is not tolerance, that is importance. So now, what does it mean that it’s not tolerance but importance? You see in this particular verse, which we are discussing right now, this is two fourteen in the Bhagavad Gita, This is well known as Tam Sitiksha Sabharata.

Here Krishna is talking about tolerance. And so I’ll be talking about tolerance in three broad perspectives and using the word acronym called WIT, w I t. The three aspects of tolerance. Now before Krishna cues a call for tolerance, there is the words So before that Krishna is giving intelligence. So we need to have intelligence, a synonym for intelligence is wisdom.

So that’s the first w, but first we need to have wisdom or intelligence. And what is wisdom about? Wisdom means to know which are the big things in our life and which are the small things in our life. So when there’s a lack of wisdom, what happens is we need to make small things very big. If somebody has to go somewhere urgently and they drive, although they they are driving a car, although they know there are no brakes in the car.

I want to get there very fast. Will you get there somewhere else very fast? Isn’t it? So what is the big thing? Okay.

Going to a particular place is important, but surviving is much more important. So which thing is more important and which thing is less important? Which is a big thing, which is a small thing? Understanding that is wisdom. And without wisdom, tolerance has no meaning.

Now if you go forward, this is going to be the key of our talk, but what is tolerance? Tolerance is basically that we are able to keep small things small. Tolerance is where we keep small things small and we keep thereby big things big. We keep small things small and we keep big things big. What does this mean?

That in this case of this young man I was telling him, say, if you come for a talk, the big thing is to hear the talk. Now while getting the talk, we may want to sit on a chair, but sometimes all the chairs are occupied, so to sit on the floor. That may be a little inconvenient. But, okay, the talk is going to go for me forty five minutes, one hour. I can tolerate that discomfort of sitting on the floor.

So relatively speaking that’s a small thing so that I can do the big thing of hearing the class. But if I’m coming for the class and I can’t hear the class only and that interference, that distraction, that noisiness if I tolerate that, then what is happening is I’m not able to do the big thing. So tolerance is actually about keeping small things small, when you keep small things small, you can actually keep big things big. And conversely, when you keep big things big, you can also keep small things small. So but tolerance cannot be exhibited unless we have the wisdom of the intelligence to know what is a small thing and what is a big thing.

So here itself in the Gita Krishna is calling Arjuna to tolerate. Now does the tolerance mean that oh the Kauravas the opposite side in the army has done horrible atrocities. They tried to kill his brother, they tried to assassinate him, burn him and his entire family alive, they tried to disrobe his wife, they cheated and defrauded them of all the property and on top of that they had no remorse, no repentance. The way they try to humiliate Draupadi eventually in the same place in a similar way they try to dishonor Krishna. That’s when the Pandava decided enough is enough.

So when Krishna is telling tolerate is he telling okay you know just accept all the atrocities that the Kauravas have committed, just tolerate it and live with the injustice. Is that what Krishna is implying? Actually Krishna is calling upon Arjuna to fight. So what to tolerate is important to understand. When Krishna is telling Arjuna to tolerate it is not tolerate the Kauravas atrocities.

The Kauravas have committed many atrocities and they are not to be tolerated. Now what is it that Krishna is telling Arjuna to tolerate? Here it is, the pain of fighting against his elders. He has to fight against Bhishma, he has to fight against Drona. These are the people from whom he learned archery, these are the people for whose pleasure he learned archery.

But unfortunately, now duty is calling him to fight against them. It’s very difficult but Krishna is telling him, yes it’s difficult but you need to do it because this is the way you’ll be able to do your duty, you’ll be able to establish Dharma. So the bigger cause of establishing a virtuous order in society is important and therefore tolerate the pain of fighting against Vishnu Mindrula. So before we can actually tolerate we need to have the wisdom to know what is a big thing in our life and what is a small thing And then we can keep the small thing small and then we move toward the big thing, we can focus on the big thing. When Srila Prabhupada was in India, not many people were coming for the outreach that he was doing from 1920 to when he met his spiritual master.

From that time he was trying in various ways to reach out to people and especially after 1940 he started focusing more and more on outreach and till 1965 he was trying many things and somehow there was not much success. Various reasons Prabhupada was primarily preaching in English. Most people even those times did not really were not really comfortable with English. Prabhupada was giving a more philosophical spirituality. Indians at that time were more interested in Katha centered, story centered spirituality.

And India was very much infatuated by the West. So now Prabhupada could have said, okay, you know, maybe people are not coming, what can I do? Maybe this is Krishna’s plan for me, let me accept it. Nobody is coming, nobody is interested, what can I do? I’ll accept it.

No. Prabhupada didn’t accept. Prabhupada tried to change things. The change he did was he came all the way from India to America. Now why he came?

We’ll talk about that as a part of later strategy. But the point is when something bad is happening, something unwanted is happening, it is not an automatic virtue to simply tolerate it. First we have to see what is the big thing in our life and what is the small thing in our life. So now after we have decided this, then the next point that comes up is does anyone remember the acronym? WIT, yes.

WIT. So W is wisdom. We need to know what is the big thing. So the whole point of tolerance is that keep small things small so that you can keep big things big. Otherwise, what happens is if we lack tolerance, sometimes we may life is always filled with ups and downs.

So there’ll be good times and there are bad times. In any relationship, there can be good times, there can be bad times. You know, any job we are having, sometimes the boss may just ease us, sometimes somebody may be rude to us, sometimes it may be very pleasant, we may get a lot of success. Now, often what happens to us if we do not have the capacity to tolerate, then when we go through ups and downs, our mind goes way up and way down. So this is what makes people very unstable.

So nowadays this is becoming more and more. Sometimes when something good happens, you know, two people meet each other and they have some pleasant interactions. One person says, I love you. I can’t live without you. And a couple of days later, we had one unpleasant interaction, I hate you, I can’t live with you.

So it is just we become very very unstable and what happens is these phases will come and go. So if we lack tolerance then we all have emotions that are often reversible, we often have emotions that are reversible. But if we don’t have tolerance, now tolerance means what? Yeah, this is the bad phase we are going through and this phase will go. I’m feeling terrible right now, this phase will also go.

But if there is no tolerance, then due to reversible emotions, we end up making decisions that are irreversible. So this is a great danger. If we lack tolerance, see when we are going through a bad phase, we’ll feel terrible. And in that terrible phase, what is the point of all this? Oh, when people when the people in the relationship they say it’s a break up.

When there is no up actually, it’s a break down most of the time unfortunately. The thing is that we don’t want reversible emotions to lead to irreversible decisions. So for example, there are some people who are very emotionally unstable. So when something good happens to them, they go way up and they think, now I can I have so much energy, I can shake the whole world? So it’s like this is a manic they have a manic level of energy.

And then something bad happens and they go so down that they go into complete depression. Psychology calls this the manic depressive personality. So one day they seem to have so much energy they can shake the whole world. Next day, when something goes wrong, it seems the whole world can’t shake them out of their bed. They just want to pull a blanket over their face and stay there.

So now this is if okay these faces will come they will go, don’t take them so seriously. Sometimes when something goes wrong in the people’s lives, this is terrible, I’ve lost everything, not everything. But, starting I’ve lost it, this has gone wrong, that has gone wrong, that has gone wrong. Our mind starts replaying everything that has gone wrong in our life, starting if my life itself is wrong. And that’s how sometimes people may try to end their life itself and that’s totally irreversible decision which arises from a reversible situation.

So what happens is that if we don’t have tolerance then we make a small thing very big. Yeah, it was a loss but it’s not the end of the world. So when there is no tolerance, what happens that we all will experience loss in our life, but we all will process loss differently. The loss could be loss of a job, loss could be loss of our savings, maybe a stock market crashes, loss could be loss of a relationship, a loud one may pass away, relationship may break down, losses can happen. Now there are three ways we can process loss.

I have lost. This is the most objective, the Bhagavata calls this as the Sattvic way of processing. In Sattva, this was the opportunity, I lost it. I have lost. But if we are in rajas, it might become much more I am lost.

Now I am lost is far more disorienting. I don’t know what to do. Sometimes somebody has invested a lot of time and energy in a particular career and then maybe somebody wants to become an athlete and they get a career ending injury. I don’t know what to do in my life. I’m lost.

This is far more damaging. But the most damaging is I am a loser. Now when somebody starts interpreting it like that, that can be devastating and this is Tamas, this is the mode of ignorance. So if we start interpreting it like that, suppose we were in a relationship with someone who we thought was a loser, then what would we do? We want to end that relationship as quickly as possible.

But if we thought that we ourselves are losers, then what are we going to do? Can we end our relationship with ourselves? Can we break up with ourselves? Well we can’t but many times suicide is like a desperate attempt to try to break up with ourselves. So tolerance is a great virtue that enables us to keep small things small.

Somebody said this is not a small thing, this is a terrible thing. Yeah it’s terrible but it will pass, don’t overreact to it, don’t let reversible emotions lead us to irreversible decisions. So tolerance is a great virtue, it’s a very important power and each one of us we need this power because we live in a world which is very very volatile and we live with minds which are even more volatile. It’s a deadly combination. So tolerance is very much a virtue.

At the same time, what is it that we have to tolerate that we have to understand with wisdom. And then I was talking about the WIT, I is influence. Okay, I may decide that this is a big thing for me and this is a small thing for me. So now once I decide something is big and something is small, then I have to check. I wanna work on this big thing, but do I have the power right now to work on that big thing?

Or if you don’t have that power, what do we do? We have to work each one of us has a certain level of influence in our lives and we need to work with the influence that we have. So I’ll explain what this means that some of you may notice that I need crutches for walking. So when I was one, I got polio. That I my mother took me to a we used polio to a physician.

We were staying in a small town in Maharashtra in India. And she took me to a physician to get a polio vaccine. And unknown to that physician, because it is a small town, that clinic had had a power outage the previous night. And the fridge in which the clinic had been kept, the clinic had kept the vaccines had got disconnected from power. So the temperature had increased.

And the attendant didn’t notice that, neither the finished physician noticed that. So they gave me that vaccine, but because the temperature had increased, the germ percentage had increased within it. And the vaccine, instead of preventing polio, ended up causing polio. So now I don’t remember any of that, but I was about one and I was just learning to walk and I fell down and I could not walk afterwards normally. So and this happened, I had a maternal uncle here in America.

And he was among the first in our family, extended family, who had come to America. And when he heard this, he immediately said, you should you should sue the doctor. Now, my father is among the calmest persons I have known. His favorite verse in the Bhagavad Gita is of the section on Stitha Pragya, bistoik. So he told my uncle, my maternal uncle, he said that the Indian legal system is such that if you see sue them in court, probably we’ll die before the case comes for hearing.

Anyway, the thing has happened, what can we do about it now? So he accepted that. Now a few years ago, I was talking with a friend of mine, and he told me that this happened in America, in Florida. He said he he he was expecting a, a daughter, his wife was expecting, and, there was some complications, so she was rushed to the NICU and then they had a baby that was somewhat premature. But in the whole process, the the the medical staff did some multiple mess ups.

And because of that, when the baby was born, she had cerebral palsy and number of other issues. And now, then this devotee, he wrote to his spiritual master, spiritual master is also my spiritual master, Radhanath Maharaj, and he asked Radhanath Maharaj that should I accept this? This has happened, we’ve got a baby like this. Should I accept this as my karma or should I sue the hospital for it? It was their negligence.

So basically Maharaj replied to him saying that, it is what has happened, it has already happened, it is you have to accept the responsibility to take care of your daughter now. At the same time, it is your when it is your dharma to take care of your daughter, if you can get some support, some assistance in doing that dharma, in doing your duty, then you should seek that assistance. So he he sued the hospital and because it was a clear case, not a medical malpractice but medical negligence. So the hospital settled out of court and he’s got a fairly decent financial support for the lifelong care of his daughter. Now that does not change the fact that she is tragically physically damaged, but the fact is that it is not that tolerance means that something bad has happened, it’s my own karma accepted.

No, it is that we have to see what influence do we have. The focus is not on why something happened. The focus is on the cure. The focus when we are trying to deal with any problem in life. The focus always has to be on not whether it is karma.

Oh, is it my karma? Is it the baby’s karma? Is it this person’s karma? Our focus should not be on the cause. Whose karma is it?

Our focus needs to be on the cure and the cure is what is my dharma in this situation? What is my duty in this situation? And for the sake of my duty, I will do what is best for me. If we start focusing too much on karma, then where will we stop in that case, isn’t it? Say, if there’s a newborn baby, say, if say a guest comes to our home and the guest says we give them we have we have a guest room, say, and the guest says, oh, it’s so cold over here.

Can we tell them it’s your own karma that you are feeling cold? No. It is. What? If they have come to our home, it is our duty as hosts.

It’s our dharma to take care of our guests. So our focus should always be on our dharma, not on someone else’s karma. If we have a newborn baby and the baby is crying, and should the mother think, oh, the baby is crying because of her past karma? No. It is your present dharma to take care of the baby.

Now sometimes despite our best efforts to take care of the baby, sometimes there might be some disease that might take some time to heal. And that time the baby might be crying, we feel very bad, we see the baby is in pain. But then, if after doing our dharma according to our influence, according to our capacity, still if the problem remains, then we need to tolerate it. So our focus is not meant to be on the cause because we don’t know what whose karma is, what is known for us is what is our dharma. So we focus on our dharma and that way we see, okay this is my dharma, but how much influence do I have right now to do my dharma and we act accordingly.

So now what I understood, my my father when he was in India, the Indian legal system and the American legal system are quite different. I traveled all over the world, only in America have I seen ads of lawyers. Just as I was coming along, I saw, who hurt you? So, in each country, what what billboards are there, that does indicate something about the culture. I traveled all over the world.

Only in India have I seen jewelry ads. Huge ads of jewelry. It’s not generally for brides, but it’s for all occasions. So anyway, so America is a much more litigious country than India. And in India, my father didn’t have much influence.

So he took care of me and my parents, they I’ll talk about them a little bit forward, but we have to see what our influence is. It’s a big thing if a child is damaged in some way. But do we have the influence to choose to do something about it? If we don’t, then best to tolerate it and move on with life. If we have, then we should make a change to it.

So we look at our influence. And then the last part is what are the acronym once again? Wait. Wait. Yes.

Thank you. So now T is transform. Now transform can mean multiple things. Sometimes it can mean various kinds of transformation. So here once we have tolerated, so there is a very big difference between tolerate, to tolerate is not to suffocate.

Sometimes we are angry with someone, somebody is doing something, she’s annoying us, irritating us, and we keep burying all those feelings underneath us, and we keep tolerating. And then what happens is we keep tolerating tolerating tolerating but it’s all suffocated. And one day that person does something and we explode. And then when we explode what that person at that time has done might be very small but we explored for all the seventeen thirty six things that they had done before. And we didn’t do anything about that.

So tolerating is not about burying our feelings and living in a suffocated way. Tolerance is a much more resourceful way, like I said of choosing our battles. Which battle am I going to fight and which hurdle I’m not going to fight? So we need to transform something, either transform ourselves internally, transform ourselves externally. So this is where that way we transform is in three broad ways.

This is the concluding part. I use the acronym here for act. Sometimes we accept what has happened. So broadly speaking, what can we do? Say, if I am here and there is a big bully who is tormenting me.

Now what can I do? There are there is a person situation that is troubling me. So either I can just accept it, I can accept that it is there like that, or I can counter or I can transfer myself. Transfer myself means I go away from there. And all three options are perfectly valid.

The focus for a devotee like I said for others, how can I do my dharma? How can I serve Krishna in this situation? Ultimately, our dharma is to serve Krishna. So let’s take two sets of examples and I’ll conclude with that. See when the Pandavas came to the kingdom, they were born in the forest and their father unfortunately passed away and that’s when they were told by the sages, go back to the kingdom.

They told Kunti, you’re a single mother now and the forest is a dangerous place filled with deadly animals. You better go back to the kingdom. Little did those sages know that in the kingdom, in the palace was a far more dangerous animal in two legs on two legs. That was Duryodhana. So now when when they tried to poison Duryodhana tried to poison Bhima.

Bhima was Bhima somehow survived and he was enraged. He said, I’m going to trip this Duryodhana apart. I’m going to beat him to death. So at that time, Yudhishthir told him, you know, it’ll you don’t have any evidence that it was Bhima who did this. It’ll be your word against his word.

And we’re just new over here, we don’t know who in the family will support us, who will not support us, we don’t want to rip the family apart. Maybe he’s just a little insecure, maybe he could not Yudhishthir was a good reader of people. He noticed that Duryodhan had a lot of power. So but then when the Pandavas came, Bhima was much more powerful than Duryodhan. So naturally, Duryodhan might have felt a little insecure.

So Duryodhan Yudhish still wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt. That is even people hurt us, there can be broadly say when some someone hurts us, there can be broadly two kinds of reasons, many, but broadly two kinds of reasons. The most positive explanation is that they are just insecure. They are not hurting us because they want to hurt us, but they’re just insecure. And if you pacify them that I’m not a threat to you, and they will support us.

The other is that they have envy or even enmity towards us. Maybe envy is in between. From envy, when it becomes active, it becomes enmity. So now, Yudhish still gave the benefit of the dog. He said, let’s accept it.

Let’s not do anything. But then what happened was, unfortunately, it did not work. What did they have to do? That they had actually, he started doing worse things. Initially, he had tried to poison Bhima, then he tried to kill the entire family including their mother also.

See, among all the ways in which you can kill an enemy, burning them is the most painful. Sometimes if there’s a big building on fire, people prefer to jump and die because in one moment it will be over. They’re burning, they’re burning for several minutes and a long time, it’s very painful. So he tried to do that. Now at that time, all the Pandavas said, okay, you know, let’s not confront them.

So they decided to remove themselves from the situation. They transferred themselves, okay? They stayed incognito for some time. Later on, when they got the kingdom, they also decided they they got half of the kingdom which is barren, they said let’s accept it and let’s live separately. So they transferred themselves away from the situation.

They moved to a different situation, let’s forget it. But then, Duryodhana was such that he kept persecuting them. He tried to dishonor their wife, then he after forty, thirty years of exile, he tried to dishonor their Krishna also. Then the Pandava decided, this person is never going to learn. So then if we are truly protectors, we are Kshatriyas, we need to protect not just our family, we need to protect society, protect humanity from this tyrant and therefore we have to fight.

So we need to fight against them. So basically there are different choices in different situations and in all of them the focus of the Pandavas was on how to serve Krishna. How can we best serve Krishna? If you look at Srila Prabhupada’s life, when Srila Prabhupada was in India, there’s a place called Jhansi, where Prabhupada has tried to start an organization. He called it the League of Devotees.

And this was between the first World or second World War at that time, there was a League of Nations that had been established. So Prabhupada had that grand vision that this would actually unify the whole world. So he started that and it was it seemed to be going well, but then suddenly there was a clique against him and the very property on which he was going to have his temple, that property was the deed to it was challenged. Now Prabhupada could have legally challenged that, fought the battle, but but Prabhupada decided to leave. He so again, if you look at this act what is act?

Remember, a is accept, c is counter. Counter. And t is? Transfer. Transfer means go somewhere else.

So when Shlupra was in Jhansi, what did he do? He transferred himself. Okay. Now why did Prabhupada transfer himself? He is reasoning, he tells in some of his talks afterwards, he said Jhansi was a small place, the people also were not so serious at that time, they’re more religious than spiritual, and they’re more ritualistic.

He said they’re not really interested in seeing seekers. So Prabhupada left for there. He said fighting this battle is not that big a thing. Now, when he came to America, he was staying, he was first staying in Butler, Pennsylvania. He was staying at the house of the Agarwal family who had sponsored his visit.

And they used to eat meat, even beef. And then would offer the proval of have his bhoga which he would cook for Krishna. He had to keep his bhoga in the same fridge. And now the hostess, she was was an Indian man who had married American women, just Gopal Agarwal and Salia Agarwal. So she she had some sensibility because her father-in-law would sometimes come to America, so she said that, Swamiji, I’m sorry, I have only one fridge over here.

And what does Prabhupada’s reply? Think nothing of it. Think nothing of it. Now, if in, say, five years down the line, ten years down the line, if in a temple, if something like that have been found, would Prabhupada say think nothing about it? Prabhupada would have said think nothing except about this.

How did this happen? Isn’t it? So at that time, Prabhupad in Butler, he accepted that. Why did he accept it? Because he knew he is not gonna permanently stay there.

These people are they are hosting him. They are not themselves. Prabhupada could make out very quickly that these people are they’re doing this as a courtesy for their father-in-law. They’re themselves not interested in becoming devotees. So Prabhupada is not interested in imposing his principle on people who are not interested.

So he said, okay. So the temple, they accept it. But then afterwards, when, around in the 1970s, when Prabhupada started working on a big project in India that was in Mumbai, in Juhu, Now there, there is a person who tried to, there’s a politician over there, he tried to take the money and not give the land. And when that happened, Srila Prabhupada, he wrote a letter to one of his supporters, he says, if he wants to steal Krishna’s land, he will have to go over my dead body. So Prabhupada fought over there, Prabhupada countered And why was that?

Prabhupada felt that Mumbai is a very important place, that Juhu is a prime property, we have already invested time, energy and money in the project. We want this for the service of Krishna. So Prabhupada was choosing his battles. So sometimes Prabhupada accepted, sometimes Prabhupada has transferred himself, Prabhupada sometimes countered. So in this way, tolerance is one virtue.

But the biggest virtue for a devotee is not tolerance, the biggest virtue is transcendence, being dedicated to the service of Krishna. And how do we serve Krishna? Sometimes we accept the situation we are in, sometimes we change the situation, sometimes we change ourselves and go to some other situation. Now most of the times, our tendency might be to fight, but that’s not very healthy. Sometimes our tendency might just go away from that situation.

But no. What is healthy is see, accepting, as I said, accept is not to suffocate. To counter is not to retaliate. It is counter means we are trying to fix the situation. We don’t hate the person.

The the person who was trying to take the money and the land from Srila Prabhupada, he passed away because of a heart attack. And then his wife tried to fight and she sent some hoodlums, some thugs to try to attack the devotes and intimidate the devotees. But then Prabhupada and the devotees were very courageous, they fought and finally she realized this is a battle I can’t win. She came to Prabhupada and then they signed the land deal properly and she says, Swamiji please forgive me for what what I did. And Prabhupada was completely saintly and ferocious, you are like my daughter, I’ll take care of you.

So countering is not retaliating. It is not that we we treat the other person as enemy and we have a vengeance. Countering is this is a wrong situation, I want to fix the situation. And transfer is not running away. Or in psychological terms, this is not that it is fight, flight, or freeze.

We’re not talking about any of these things. When we when we are talking about learning to tolerate, we’re not freezing, we’re not fighting, we’re not flight we’re not flighting, what we’re doing is we are focusing. We focus on what is the best way I can serve Krishna in this situation. And when we have that vision, that’s how we can move forward. So my parents, they didn’t just, okay, this is he’s got polio, we can’t do anything about it.

Now I what I remember when I was about two and a half or three, one of my relatives, distant relatives had come to meet us and she was consoling my mother saying that it’s so sad your son got polio. And I remember my mother’s voice very calm, clear, confident, She said, whatever he lacks physically, God will provide him intellectually. So, I don’t know why she said that, what ability she saw in me, but somehow that part stayed with me. And, yes, as I grew up, I couldn’t play outdoor games like other kids could play. And I part of me felt, you know, why why why is this happening to me?

This is unfair that I have this physical disability. But when I started studying, I noticed that, I could read rapidly, I could remember well, I could articulate clearly. And then somewhere in the back of my mind, it settled down that, okay, what did I do to deserve this intellectual ability either? Isn’t it? So life is unfair.

We all sometimes get things that we don’t deserve, but in the big picture, life is fairly unfair. Life is fairly unfair. Sometimes we get more than what we deserve and sometimes we get more than what we deserve. So the unfair part we want to tolerate, so that the fair part we can transform, we can tap that for the service of Krishna. So in this way tolerance can be very empowering for us.

I summarize what I discussed today, broadly speaking, mention three points that we’re talking about what is tolerance and how to tolerate, how basically the theme was how can tolerance be a power for us, how can tolerance give us strength and not be lead to importance, not make us weak? So I talked about three points. What are the first, what are the acronym? Weight. Weight, w I t.

W was? Wisdom. So wisdom is to know what are the big things and what are the small things. And the purpose of tolerance is to keep the big things big and the small things small. So tolerance is a great virtue because without tolerance, when life’s ups and downs happen, we will go way up and way down.

And what will happen is because of emotions that are often reversible, we will end up taking decisions. If there is no tolerance, then we’ll end up taking decisions that are irreversible. So that could be a disaster. And that’s why when something is going back, we’re going through a bad phase, tolerate it. It’s not going to last forever.

So it is meant to help us avoid irreversible decisions and that is a power. But we also need to recognize that it is not the big things that we should be tolerating against. So now if we decide, I is influence. Now what is it that we can do in a particular situation? So our focus should not be on whose karma is it.

Oh, this is this person’s karma, this is that person’s karma. Our focus should be on our dharma. What is my responsibility? What can I do in this situation to fix the situation? So when we are dharma focused, if we have the power to fight, we fight, if we have the power to we don’t have the power to fight, we accept, but then we fight in some other direction.

So the essence of tolerance is we all have to fight, but we need to choose our battles. So each of us in different situations will have different powers. So I give the example of, you know, my polio versus the cerebral palsy in America. This is the. In one case, they accepted, my father accepted.

In another case, you accept the response to find the situation because the we need to do our dharma and we do it in the best possible way. And last, he was transform. Now how do we transform? That means tolerance is not passivity. We can transform broadly.

You know, if there is somebody or some situation that is terrorizing us, they are persecuting us, then we have three options. We accept it, we counter it, or we transfer ourselves from that situation. So all three options can be done in a mood of service. So this is it is called the acronym act. Now the key difference for a devotee is how can I do my dharma?

How can I best serve in this situation? How can I serve Krishna in this situation? If we have that consideration, then we will decide what is the best thing to do. So transferring is not running away. Accepting is not suffocating.

It is not that we encountering is not retaliating. We are not focused on the situation, we’re focused on fixing the situation. So it is not fight or flight or freeze, it is focus on our service to Krishna. In this particular situation, how can I serve? So ultimately, when we chant the holy names, it is not just a utterance of a ritual, it is a prayer to Krishna, please engage me in your service.

So Krishna is actually guiding us that means, Krishna, please give me the intelligence to know which battles to fight. Krishna says I’ll give you the intelligence by which you can come to me. So let us pray to Krishna that He help us to choose our battles in the tolerance, helps us to keep small battles small and focus on serving Him in the best possible way in all situations according to our capacity whether it is by accepting, countering or transferring ourselves. So let’s repeat this prayer once, My dear Lord, can you repeat with me, My dear Lord, let tolerance increase my intelligence increase my intelligence not my importance. Thank you very much.

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Thank you very much for coming today. Today, I speak based on the Bhagavad Gita, and we talk about the principle of how God and God’s actions in this world when we say God protects. So how does Krishna protect? What does God protection mean and how does that protection work about? So many times if we look at scripture, we look at Shastra, there are two kinds of stories that are discovered.

There are some stories in scriptures. There are some stories which majority are those which are remembered are the stories of protection to say how Draupadi was protected by the Lord or how Arjuna was victorious in the crucial war. But then in the scriptures, there are also stories where there is devastation. Arjuna, although surrendering to Krishna and although being faithful and devoted still lost his son, Abhinav. So where what does Krishna’s protection mean?

And how does Krishna protect us? So I use three principles over here to explain that there is there is Prakruti, then there is Vikruti, and there is Sanskriti. So prakriti, vikruti, and Sanskriti. Prakrti means what does the word prakriti literally mean? Nature.

What does Sanskriti mean? Sanskriti is sanskar culture. And what is vikruti? So we have nature, we have culture, and we have culture. Well, yeah, so it’s perversity.

So the vulture sometimes it’s like a vulture culture is the word that some values. Vulture may go high up, but from there it just looks for corpses. It doesn’t look for any beautiful sight that can be seen from high up in the sky. It looks for where I can find it dead flesh so that I can eat it. So now when we use the word like in the Mahabharata there is a sentence that those who are followers of dharma will be protected by that.

The Bhagavad Gita is also a search for dharma. Arjuna is asking Krishna, Ruchami Tlam Dharma Sammoog Jethaha. So asking what is dharma? So now dharma has many different meanings. And I’ll focus on one meaning, and then we’ll see how other beings fall within that.

Dharma essentially means harmonious belonging. That whatever we belong to, we belong in a harmonious way. So in every situation, we will all will have some dharmon. For example, if say now we are having a spiritual talk so when we’re having this talk at that time my dharma the way I belong harmoniously if I am playing the role of a teacher is that I prepare the subject and I am ready to speak it properly and the dharma for those who are participating over here is that they come and join that they participate in a say you’re attentive you’re participating now if suddenly somebody’s phone starts ringing very loudly Then that’s an annoyance. Now if all of you are sitting together, now right now, now many of you may know each other, some of you may not know each other, but all of you are reasonably confident that the person sitting next to you is not going to suddenly turn upon you and slap you in the face.

Don’t look at the person next to you. Now is that possible? You could say anything is possible, but we understand that if somebody has come here for a spiritual talk they will have enough discipline enough awareness of situation and they will behave in a proper way. So whichever larger unit we belong to, there has to be harmony. So we need to belong in a harmonious way.

So for example, if you’re driving on the road, then we are being a part of the road transposes. Our dharma will be to follow the rules of the so we belong in a harmonious. So dharma in that sense has two components to it. There is individual and there is social. So individual Dharma means that I need to belong in a harmonious way and when I belong in a harmonious way, the society, the larger unit to which I am belonging should also reward me appropriately.

So there we follow the traffic rules, but then those who are overseeing the traffic rules should also be just. That means if somebody breaks the law, then they should pull them over, they should fine them, they should maybe take away their license, arrest them, but if somebody is not breaking the rules and still there is it, that will be a problem. Sometimes discrimination happens against certain groups of people. So dharma is both individual and social. For harmonious belonging to be possible, there has to be the all the components the individual and the collective should work properly.

Now if we consider in the Bhagavad Gita itself both meanings of dharma are seen. In 2.7 Krishna is asked being asked by Arjuna, I want to know what is dharma. It’s interesting he is not just asking what is mama dharma? What is my dharma? That’s of course the implied question, but he is asking a more universal question.

What is dharma? What is the right thing to do? Now when Krishna later on speaks in the Bhagavad Gita in the fourth chapter in the famous verses which describe the avatar, So now when he says I come to establish dharma, what does that mean? Does it mean when Krishna comes everybody will follow dharma at that time? Well, no.

There will always be people who will misuse their freedom. But at least the social order is made in such a way that those who are just those who are virtuous are rewarded and those who are vicious are punished. So, when Krishna comes to establish Dharma, that’s at a collective level. Now, even Krishna does not force Duryodhana to become dharmic. He persuades and doesn’t listen.

So dharma has a voluntary aspect. If the police cannot force people to follow the traffic rules. They don’t follow the traffic rules, there’ll be consequences. So there are in general, in life there are choices and there are consequences. Now, normally speaking if there is Dharma in society, if there is virtue in Buddhist society then positive choices will lead to positive consequences.

If somebody is helpful, kind and then they will be appreciated, they will be praised. If somebody is mean, somebody is cruel, they’ll be criticized, they’ll be content. So negative actions will have negative consequences. But when there is Adharma in society, what do you think happens? What do you think happens?

Positive actions lead to negative consequences. Somebody who is kind and helpful, that person gets exploited. That person gets abused, mistreated, taken for a ride. On the other hand, if there’s negative, then what happens? There are positive results of that.

Somebody, for example, is mean and cruel and exploitative, they say, you know, it’s clever. That’s not clever. That’s terrible. Isn’t it? So sometimes, you know, if we all know there are certain destructive habits, if taking drinking alcohol.

You see, in the western world, the general idea is that drink but don’t become drunk. That’s the idea. In fact there was a western thinker, European thinker who said taste of wine is the proof that God loves us. If God did not exist and God did not love us, how could something as tasty as wine exist? There are so many tasty things in the world.

Why fix it on that? But the point is that normally if a person is disciplined, regulated, if somebody says, you know, oh, I don’t drink, then, yeah, you’re a disciplined person. You’re a good person. Regulated person. That’s how society should be.

But if somebody doesn’t drink and say in college sometimes kids tease each other, you know, you are just, baby drinking your mother’s milk. When will you grow up? As if growing up means, drinking alcohol. So when somebody is doing something good and they are mocked for it, they are ridiculed for it. That is one sign of other.

Similarly, if somebody does sometimes people have drinking competitions. Now who can drink more? And if you drink more and more and still you act as if you are sober. Wow. Drink doesn’t affect you at all.

So that’s drinking you’re taking poison into your body. So Adharma is not just some religious morality given by somebody and if you don’t follow that, that’s Adharma. Yes. Religious morality is there, but Dharma is a universal principle of existence that we all need to belong to whatever unit we are a part of. And we need to belong in the proper way.

And if we belong in the proper way, then we should be rewarded for that. So, that is the principle of that. So, now if we look at this, Dharma means harmonious belonging. Now, let’s go back to three terms I use Prakriti, Sanskriti and Vikriti. Now what is Prakriti?

Now each of these levels have dharma. In Prakriti, the dharma. Dharma means the harmonious way of belonging. His mind is right. This is the rule of nature.

The rule of nature is survival of the fittest. Now, of course, it is true even the fittest don’t survive. Everybody dies eventually. However, what Darmaine talked about is not entirely wrong. It’s and it’s not what he talked about.

It’s a basic fact of nature that in nature, might is right. So in nature, if a deer can’t run as fast as a tiger kissing it, what will happen? The deer will die. Now the deer may say, you know, I’m harmless. I’ve never hurt anyone.

Yeah. It doesn’t matter. That this is the mind, relevant bite is speed. Now if the tiger or the lion doesn’t run fast enough. The deer speaks, You dear, how dare you run away from me?

I am the king of the forest. You are the king but I want to run away. Krishna says nuganam rugesh broham. Among animals I am the king. He talks about lion.

But still doesn’t matter. In nature the rule is might is right. So whoever has strength, that person wins. In the there is a saying jiske lathi, buske beis. So the idea is this is a basic rule of nature.

So prakriti that’s why we said there’s a law of the jungle and especially now if in a society law and order breaks down. If say the the police stop function. If in a society the criminals take charge then what happens? There’s a law of the jungle. Then there are criminals in charge in society.

They will not care who is who is law abiding, who is law breaking, all that they will say is who has well, let’s steal the intro. So so basically society in can also degenerate to the level of animal world. That is human society can also become existing at the level of the jungle. At the level of the jungle, it is might is right. So this is prakriti.

In prakriti, the dharma is might is right. As in the language of our old friend, it’s survival of the fittest. So now interestingly there is sanskriti. Sanskriti means culture. Now sometimes you say Sanskriti means wearing a particular kind of clothes, eating a particular kind of food, putting particular kind of markings on our head.

These are all parts of Sanskriti but they are not the essence. The essence of Sanskriti is that the Dharma here changes. Dharma means the harmonious way of belonging is here might plus virtue is right. Mind plus virtue is right. Now, it’s interesting that here also might is important.

See, Sanskriti is built on Prakriti. Sanskriti does not reject Prakruti. So, what does it mean? Here, it is not survival of the fittest, it is often sacrifice by the fittest. Sanskriti means sacrifice by the fittest.

So, what does sacrifice by the fittest mean? That it means that if say there’s a fire, in Los Angeles, there’s a horrible fire month or a couple of months ago, devastating loss happened. Now at that time, there are trained firefighters and they are expected to be fitter than everyone else and then they could say that, you know, there’s fire happening in their home. Let me go. No.

They are fit. They’re expected to run into the fire and save those who are and save those who are in danger. So, in Sanskriti, we don’t leave it to survival of the fittest, if you are unfit you die. Even if you are unfit, the fit will come to help. In Sanskriti means say, if a person is blind, he is trying to cross the road.

It is not that people with eyes push that person, get out of the harbor. Sanskriti means those who have eyes will help that person. It is maybe they’ll be in a hurry, but no. Okay. This person is not as fit as I am.

Let me help this person. So now still the law of nature is still there. What is the law of nature? That the stronger people will be stronger. The stronger people might will still be right.

If a person is very weak and that person goes into a burning fire to save someone else, that person will not be able to lift anyone. That person will not even walk out themselves. If a person can’t swim and the person says I will save someone who is drowning. They will not save someone who is drowning. Somebody will have to save save them when they start drawing.

So might remains the defining reality in the world. The might can be different kinds of might. It can be it can be physical strength. It can be skill. It can be intellectual power.

So for example, if terrorists have AK 40 sevens and the police have simple pistols. Now what is going to happen? Who is going to win? The terrorists are going to win. So might is still going to be right.

Nobody can change that principle in life. Might is right. Even the Pandavas in the Mahabharata as long as they didn’t have power they suffered. When they didn’t have power Bhima was poisoned. When they didn’t have power then they were attempted to be born alive.

It was eventually when they married Draupadi when an alliance was formed with another powerful king And that’s when Dhritarashtra had to take their claim for kingship seriously. And even then Dhritarashtra tried to whistle away out by giving them a barren half of the hill. But the point is that might is right is a fundamental principle of existence. But cultured society will be where there is sanskriti. It is not just might is right.

It is might plus virtue. That is why Krishna says two things indicating the seventh chapter and the tenth eleventh verse he is talking about. And he also says that Balam balavatam cha kam raaga vivarjita. So, Bala will be there everywhere, but that Bala is to be recommended which is not driven by selfish desire. Kam raaga vivarchita.

So, Sanskriti is where might plus virtue is right where those who are virtuous are protected by those who are might. Where the strength is used in the service of Marjana. Now as contrasted with this so there is prakriti and there is Sanskrit. Now if we had survival of the fittest as the rule in human society, it is partly a rule in human society. No doubt.

But it cannot entirely be the governing principle. In a family, say if one child is not very intelligent, maybe the child is not very competent. Then what happens? Other family members take care of that child. We say that cannot be cannot take care lifelong and each each person has to learn to be responsible.

But the idea is that in any group of people where there’s a sense of community, if one person is in trouble, we don’t say that’s oh you are unfit. Yes. It’s your problem. No. Others come to me.

That is Sanskritly. So, now as contrasted with this, there is Vikranti. Now in Vikranti what happens? Might plus wise is right. When there is difficulty in society, might and strength is used for the innate protection and perpetuation of vice for selfishness, for anger, for greed, for lust.

So, that is Vikrant. So, when Krishna said dharma a viruddho hute shu kamosmi vraddarsha. This is kama that is that can mean desire in general and it can be sexual desire in particular. Now kama needs to be in the pursuit of that. Karma should be engaged in in a way that a person can belong harmonious.

Belong harmoniously means what? Right? Karma is directed within the institution of marriage. But when that is not there? Vikruti is that a person who has who has lust, that person gains might and that person that person does anything in empathic.

Now that might could be physical power by which they overpower others. That might could be charming words that they speak that might could be the looks that they have by which they seduce others, renewed others. So, Ravana’s abduction of Sita that is Vikruti where might plus vice becomes right. Now when there is Vikruti in society then the vicious are rewarded. Like I said here what happens is dharma is when we do positive we get positive and we do negative we get negative.

Adharma is when we do positive and get negative. We do negative and we get positive. So this is the situation of Adharma. And this Adharma is where Vikruti becomes dominant. So now in every society we consider that Prakruti is the default reality and from Prakruti, we can rise to Samskruti or we can go down to Vikruti.

Now, this is a so so site choice for society, but this is a choice for every individual and at every moment sometimes it’s in a big way sometimes it’s a small way say no we are hungry And say, there are gulab jamuns. There’s there are 10 guests, and there are 10 gulab jamuns. Now we all want to enjoy good food. So for kruti means I’m hungry, I want to eat. Sanskriti would mean, okay.

Even if I get first to the fridge, I can’t eat all the gulagins. I should divide it. Vikruti means that I gobble down as much as I can and I hide the remaining and say, oh, there’s no gulagas today. So that would be Vikruti. So basically, for us at each moment, each moment there is a choice.

For example, the words we speak. Sometimes if we have power, we can dominate others and we can force them to do what we want them to do. Now that we that having that power that authority that is that is prakriti but we could use it to educate others. Okay. This is the right thing to do.

Therefore, you should do it or we could use it to exploit others. If you don’t do this, I’ll destroy you. So this choice between from prakriti to sanskriti or vekrti. That is a choice we have to make at every moment. Now Dharma as I said Dharma means harmonious belonging.

I’ll make two more points and then we’ll open for question answers that and each of these points will take one and a half hours each. So the Dharma as I said it means harmonious belonging. So each one of us belongs to many units. So for example we belong to a family. From a family we get something and we are expected to kill somebody.

So similarly we may be working in a company. We work in an office. So when we belong in the office we get salary from the office and we are expected to do work as the way to belong to our movies. We belong to a community. We belong to a country.

So each of us belong to many larger units and thus we have many different dharmas. For each unit that we belong to we have a dharma over there. So if we are in driving in America we drive on one side of the room. If we go to India we drive on another side of the room. The specifics of Dharma may have any but we are meant to belong to whichever whole we belong in a harmonious way.

And like this if we consider there are larger and larger wholes and then the largest whole is God is Krishna. So, when Krishna says, so, he is not telling that you give up Dharma. The emphasis is take up the So say if we are working in a company and sometimes if you are working in software company, you might be a part of we might be a part of two teams. In one team, we are expected to do one thing, another team we are expected to do another thing. And now if both team leaders want us to work at the same time, what do we do at that?

That is a Dharma Samgata. So we are belonging to two holes and two holes are pulling us into different directions. If say there is a deadline in our workplace and we have to be there in office at the same time maybe our child has got into trouble in school and we are as parents have come into the school in which I have met with the accident or child has got in some kind of trouble. Now okay should I go to school or should I stay at work? That is Dharma Samkut.

When there are two dharmas pulling us in two different directions so which hole do I belong to? That is something which has to be decided and we all need to be able to decide that care And this can be a tension this can be a cause of tension. For those of us say who have come from India to America then for us our identity still we are Indians. Although we are born in America, we live in America, we may have American citizenship. I have seen that Indians, they live for thirty years in America, but they are much more interested in Indian politics than they are in American politics.

Now American politics affecting them, so they are more alert to it. But we all have a certain sense of belonging. Now children, if they are born here, then what happens is they have two dharmas. As well as children who are born in America, they are like coconuts. What do you call coconuts?

They are they are brown from outside but white from inside. So what happens is that when the skin is brown, so you could say genetically or genealogically or ethnically they’re Indian. But psychologically, culturally often they think like Americans. So then what do you do? You know which identity do we highlight?

That becomes the conflict. It’s a Dharma Sankat. There’s a term called ABCD. Have any of you heard of this? Yes, American born confused they cease.

Some people are confused. That’s a Dharmasankat. What do we do? In today’s world for example, women face this competing dharmas especially. See, one of the big emphasis of feminism is, oh women should have a career and it’s fine.

It’s like women having a job is nothing against traditional culture. The in the gopis used to sell butter. There’s a fruit vendor over there in Krishna Lila also. But there’s one dharma is okay I want to have a job, I want to have a career, I want to have my own identity. Now other dharma is, I want to be a mother, I want to take care of my children.

Now these two dharmas, sometimes they pull us in different directions. Now which dharma is important? What is happening is that while both dharmas may be important biologically there’s a choice is do I want to be something to someone or do I want to be everything for some? You know, like, if somebody just goes into a career, okay, you become a software engineer, you become this, you become that. No.

We become like an interchangeable or replaceable unit in a large associate. Nothing bad about that. But for a month, for a child, the mother is not interchangeable or replace. To some extent that we can apply the same thing to the father also, but specifically nature has arranged that the mother is the primary caregiver, not just biologically, but even psychologically. Mothers are much more attuned to be able to take care of children.

So now what happens is two dharmas may pull us into different directions. So which dharma do we decide to belong to more? In the West, it has happened that more and more women choose career and then often the propaganda comes that marriage and motherhood are like traps. And then the result of that is they by the time they were 35, 40 or some 45 income, they feel very lonely and empty and they’re like, what am I doing? What do I have in my life?

And it’s another big problem is sociologically population is decreasing in the Western. The population will decrease enormously unless if there had been no immigration. Only immigration that is keeping the population balanced to some extent. Immigrants generally bear bear more children than the than the what they call the Vast, right? Anglo Saxon protesters, Americans, Caucasians.

So in many of the big cities in America among the white population, the number of pets is more than number of children. So what happens is that the need to nurture is there and we don’t have a need to nurture, we don’t address the need to nurture by taking care of a baby when we get a pet. I was at the Govardhan Eco Village and it’s a place in India where there’s a lot of spiritual opportunity and atmosphere for for people for anywhere but especially for westerns. And lot of yoga teachers come over there. They come to learn yoga, the yoga students come, their teachers come to learn to further deepen their practice, they bring their students.

So I met one person over there, I said, yes, I asked him what do you do? American person, he said I am a yoga teacher. And what? Yoga? He said, no, dog teacher.

Says, what is dog? Doga is yoga with dogs. I want to do everything with my dog so actually if you see Google there are pictures like you know the person will be doing yoga stretching and the dog will be searching its paws and the person that shifts us and I don’t know how dog will do shifts us but whatever so there is dooga and then there is koga what is koga Yeah, cats. So basically the need to nurture is there and that is now missed there is elected elsewhere. So but the point is it’s attention is the concept of dharma and dharma samovar different dharmas pulling us in different directions.

That is something which is universe. Universe, we cannot avoid that. So when I was in, when I think I started coming to America for twenty fourteen. So 2015, I came by the coast of actually. 2060, ’20 ’70.

So I was once in Texas. I was giving a class, and after in that class, an American girl asked a question, why don’t religions fight among each other? And I gave an elaborate answer. And I could say I talked about three more. They talked about extremism and everything.

She was quite satisfied with the answer I could see. Then after the class, I was talking with people, and then she came forward and said this question had been burdening me for a long time. You have relieved me. I’m so grateful. Can I give you a hug?

Now I’ve been told that this possibility is there. And in the western culture, hugging is just a normal expression of affection. That doesn’t seem like that for us and certainly as a Brahmachari. So now what happened for me that as a Brahmachari obviously I have to say no. But as a teacher of Bhagwadida, as a preacher, I should not discourage it.

So I had talked with my spiritual guides and they said that for them, that’s an expression of their appreciation and attention. We cannot reject that. So then I just look at the devotee was with the host over there, organizing the provost. I figured, please help me. So he helped me, but in the most unexpected way.

He said, he’s a monk. On his behalf, you can hug me. And his wife was next to him. When the wife said, I’m his wife on his behalf. So I told this incident to my spiritual master, Raghav, but he was laughing and he said that.

No. We cannot accept the expression of affection, but we cannot reject the affection that has been offered. So we have to find a sensitive way in which to deal in such situations. So the point is that we all have multiple identities, multiple roles, multiple dharmas we have and often there will be a tension between them. So when Krishna says Sarva dharman parit jama mekam sharanam raja what does he mean?

He means that when two dharmas are pulling us into different directions, should we do this or should we do that? Let us focus on Krishna and let us think of how best can we serve Krishna in this situation. So ma ekam sharanam ji. For Arjuna, the two dharmas that were pulling him in two different directions were at that time Arjuna was a Kshatriya and Arjuna was a Kuru Nandena, he was a Kuru Mancha leader. So as a Kshatriya as a Kshatriya dharma was fight.

Anybody who is a aggressor, anybody who is a aggressor, that person needs to be killed. But now he was not just he had a he belonged to the Guru Amisha he was a Guru leader. He was a Guru. He had a Kula Dharma. Kuladharma is if we are belonging to a particular community, a particular race, a particular dynasty, a particular family, we are going to protect the Hinduism.

So Kshatriya dharma told him fight. And Kuladharma told him, both fight. So does he had a what do I do in such situations? So now what does Krishna tell over here? That if two dharmas are pulling us in opposite directions instead of looking here and looking there and getting confused look upward look upward to see ultimately I belong to Krishna.

I’m a part of Krishna and in this particular situation, how can I best search? How can I best search? So there Krishna wanted that Dharma we established in society and for that purpose Arjuna needed to fight. So when Arjuna says I will fight, how did he fight? He is not saying I look I am Kshatriya and therefore I am fighting.

He says Krishna, I will do your will and if your will means fighting, I will fight. So going back to the earlier example I gave that somebody is working in the company and they have two team leads. They belong to two teams and each team lead wants them to do the same something at the same time. What can they do? I suppose that they have access to the CEO and the CEO they write into there is two projects whatsoever the CEO says you know okay you work on this project but what about the other team that team need to get get angry with me I’ll take care of him.

I’ll deal with him. So the idea is that Krishna is not telling Arjuna to give up Dharma. Krishna is telling Arjuna to have a higher vision of a bigger belonging, a bigger belonging. For example, in the Mahabharata said that for the larger whole, sometimes the smaller whole is being supervised For the sake of the family, one member will sometimes be sacrificed. For the sake of a village, one family will be sacrificed.

For the sake of a country, one village will be sacrificed. Now, of course, ultimately, it says for the sake of the soul, the whole world can be sacrificed. But the idea is that there is higher dharma and dual dharma, and the highest dharma is our dharma for Krishna, belonging to Krishna. Having said this, so what are we discussing over here that how does Dharma work in this world? So sometimes there will be tension between Dharma.

Dharma basically is might is right. So, but might with virtue is right that will be sanskriti. That is the kind of dharma we want in society. Not that the law of the jungle. So, now that brings us to the last call Janik that when Arjuna won the Kurukshetra war did he will because of the knowledge of the Bhagavad Gita or because of the knowledge of archery that he had learnt throughout his life?

What do you think? Both. Sorry? Both. Both.

Yes. Now both. Why both? Because the knowledge of the Bhagavad Gita gave him a purpose. Okay, what am I meant to do?

And the knowledge of Archery gave him the tools. So we need the purpose. What what am I meant to do? Why am I meant to do it? And then we need tools for it.

So if Arjuna had not been that great in Archer, he could have fallen to the fox. Karna could have killed him. Dhruva Pratyakshmi. So Abhimanyu was not that great messenger. Of course the opponents resorted to Adharma.

They fixed up the attacker but eventually he was killed. So in this world for us if we want to do some service, so I’ll close with one diagram. This is epitomized by Hanuman. It is actually also Hanuman like Arjuna, he’s a great devotee, he’s also great warrior. So Hanuman’s folded hands, they signify bhakti.

Now bhakti in one sense is the ultimate dharma. We want to belong to Krishna. So that is dharma taken to his ultimate. Hanuman, the mace that he hands is in his hands that signifies Shraddi. So for us to succeed in life, we need Shakti and we need Rakti.

We consider four quadrant diagram. We need Shakti and we need Rakti When both are there then there will be success. Now suppose somebody is asked to cook for a festival and they have bhakti. They cook in a very devotional prayerful mood, they have they have nice picture of deities, the kirtan is going on, they also pray to Krishna, they will start cooking but they just don’t know So they have bhakti, but they don’t have shakti. When they cook, Krishna will be pleased by their cooking, and only Krishna will be pleased.

Isn’t it? So bhakti without shakti, there will be spiritual but there’ll be material failure. There is spiritual success but at a material level, there will be success. So if you want to be successful in the material world, we need to acquire the required shunt, whichever field that might be. If somebody wants to lead a kirtan, they may have a great devotional heart, but if they don’t know how to sing, they may sing off off tune, and Krishna will be pleased with the singing, but you know others will not be.

So the idea is that if there is no bhakti and no shakti, you know that there’s only failure, material and spiritual failure. Now if there is Shakti but no Bhakti then what will happen? Like industrial success. Shakti there’ll be material success but there will be spiritual in it. So now what we want is both bhakti and shakti in our life.

So through our practice of, the sadhana we do our chanting, we do kampasat samura, we all try to increase bhakti. But by all this we can also develop our shakti. Sometimes we have particular Shaktis already. We can use them in Krishna. Sometimes the practice of bhakti uses clarity.

K. These are the gifts that I have been given. These are the gifts that I can use. And then we can use those in Krishna’s sense. So if you see Arjuna Shakti was different from Bhima Shakti.

Bhima had great physical prowess and Arjuna did not have. Now Yudhishthira Shakti was different from Yudhishthira Shakti. If you consider the perspective of character, you cannot think of two brothers who are as different as Yudhishthira and Bhima. Yudhishthira was a Kshatriya, but he was almost like a Brahminical Kshatriya. That bend backwards and but try to avoid conflict.

Bhima was a Kshatriya Kshatriya He was not like Duryodhana. He was not out to abuse his power for selfish purposes. But still he was different. So the point is that we all will have different kinds of Shakti. And when Krishna says Maa Anusmarat Yudhye Chah.

Maa Anusmar is our bhakti. Yudhye Chah is with our particular skills, with our particular strengths we fight in this world for whatever service we are called upon to whatever dharma we are called upon to do. And when we do both that’s when we’ll be successful. Srila Prabhupada’s life if we consider he had always great Bhakti who read his writings written in 1940s the way back to God that he published over there. He is filled with profound realization.

However, at that time he did not have any followers. He did not have any references. His message did not go very far. The message was potent. When he came to America, he got followers.

When he had that shakti, then Shakti I am talking into the material manifestation of the Shakti. When that happened the Prichy ex now this is expanded. So this is the principle each one of us when we want to serve Krishna, we want bhakti and we also want Shakti. Shakti means whatever particular service we want to do we need to have the appropriate skill set for that sense. And when Srila Prabhupada asked how will the Krishna conscious movement spread?

He said it will be by organizational intelligence. One of the questions he was asked towards the end of his life. Now he did not say you should wake up and attend mughalati every day. He did not say that you should charge him to stay in a hotel. Of course, all those things are important.

But if the Krishna conscious movement is to spread in the material world, we need the appropriate material skills. We need the appropriate material skills. What is material skills? We need to plan properly, we need to follow-up properly, we need to organize properly. So if we are not doing that then we won’t reach.

One of my friends, he has now become a devotee. He he told me that when he was searching for his path, he wrote he wanted to this was before the Internet 02/2007, ‘2 thousand and ‘8. Internet and email had not become that big. So he said they were there. He said he wrote through 25 temples, big temples in India.

He does an email, send physical mail asking what what you know I want to learn more about Hinduism. I want to learn more about Bhagavad. I want to learn more about Dharma. Can you teach tell me some things? Said I wrote to 25 temples and I wrote to 25 churches.

And among the 25 temples, not even one temple was put. Not all of them were called temples. You know the way these temples. Among the 25 churches, there was not even one church that did not respond. He said all of them responded within one week, ten days.

He said five of them, they send me free Bibles. And two of them actually send a representative to give a Bible to me at my home. So now in this world, might is right. Those who market themselves better will reach better even if there’s some substance is not not that great. So might is right will always be a truth.

Now it is this is not to criticize Christianity as adharma. I’m just talking about a principle over here that those who are competent, those who are at a material level having the appropriate skills and working appropriately, they will reach more people. That’s just a fact of life. So when the war started, when the Islamic rulers were attacking India, Indian Kings would fight on elephants and the Muslim kings would come on chariots. Now the elephant has a certain level of majesty but just because you are so high up makes you also vulnerable.

So if one Muslim king would shoot one arrow and a king is killed, the whole army would collapse. Shivaji Maharaj changed the complete dynamic. If you see Shivaji Maharaj, the famous king in Maharashtra, you will not see a single image of him on a chariot. He is always on horseback. The Muslims would come on chariots.

Now horses without chariots run much faster. So he was outnumbered. The strategy he used was sudden attacks. Guerrilla warfare. As nowadays they call it asymmetric warfare.

So it was Asymmetric. He just did not have the forces. So what did he do? He used the Shakti of speed. So the Shakti we all whatever battles we need to fight we need to acquire the right Shakti.

To the extent we acquire the right shakti, to that extent we will be success. So shakti and bhakti are both required. At the end of the Bhagavita, Krishna says Yatra Yogeshwara Krishna, Sanjay says actually. Where there is Krishna and where there is Arjuna? There there will be victory.

So there there will be glory. There there will be happiness. So in this way Krishna and Gita calls all of us to actually grow in our lives in both Shakti and bhakti. Well, someone writes what I discussed today. I talked about the Gita’s teachings three principles how we can apply them in our life.

So I talked about first is that there are three terms. The first is prakriti. I the first the first part is I basically introduced terms. Prakriti means might is right. Now on that basic truth, we can move in two directions.

Sanskriti means what? Anyone remember? Yes. Might will always be right, but it is might plus virtue. So it’s Sanskriti is the rule of the jungle.

In the jungle, if an animal animal becomes weak, animal becomes, become develops, becomes lame or blind, They just fall prey. It will just be devoured by others. But in human society, if somebody is weak, it is not sacrificing, surviving of the fittest, it is sacrificing of the fittest. That is Sanskriti. As compared to that, Vikruti is what?

Might plus wise. Might plus wise is right. That means though might is right will always be a truth, but above that we can have various truths. And then I talk about Dharma means harmonious belonging. So Dharma has two aspects.

There’s individual aspect that I do my part properly. If I am driving, I follow the rules of traffic. And then there’s a social part. Social part is where that I do my part rightly, and I’m not pulled over because I belong to a particular community and I’m not just allowed to go scot free just because, I belong to a privileged community. So there’s individual dharma and the social dharma.

So individual dharma means we make right choices. We belong harmonious. And social dharma means that the right choices will lead to the right results, so the right consequences. So the positive will positive actions will give positive rewards. Now Adharma means the opposite.

Adharma means that those who do positive get negative and those who get do negative get positive. So now how might Adharma occur? Adharma may occur when there is Vikruti in suicide. When those in charge are not concerned about virtue, they become concerned about vice. So might becomes used in the service of vice.

Then I talk about Dharmasanphet or Dharmasanphet. We belong to we have because we belong to many different roles. We all may sometimes feel pulled by different roles. Like a parent may feel pulled. Should I continue working at home or should I go and take care of my child who is having some crisis?

So basically we all belong to multiple holes and we could say each one is larger than others and the largest one is is Krishna. So that is God. So when we feels that means one duty is pulling us in one direction and other duty is pulling us in the opposite direction. For women their maternal and professional roles may pull them in opposite directions. For a preacher culture may impen them to do one thing but compassion may require them to do another thing or sensitivity may require them to do another thing.

So we are pulling in different directions. So what is the solution? At such times we need to look upwards look upward towards Krishna and see how best can I serve Krishna in this situation and then act accordingly? And then lastly we discussed that we should resolve dharma properly and then we talked about the principle that samskrti has to be built on top of pranupati that we all we need to acquire the appropriate shakti in our life. We discussed this diagram that there is shakti.

Shakti is not just physical strength but skill that is required for service and that is good. This is the best situation where there is all around success, material and spiritual success already. So now he if we have Abdi Vadhu Shabdi, we’ll have spiritual success but not material success. Now if we have neither there’ll be no success at all and there can be material success if there’s shakti but there’ll be no spiritual success. So it is our responsibility to develop bhakti by sadhana but also feel responsibility if you want to do a service at bhakti then we also need to develop the right shakti.

So seva if you have a seva vow, if you have a service attitude, that means the Bhakti has not just devotion, but devotional service. So devotion is seva vow means we try to increase our bhakti, and we also try to increase the shakti which we can do our own. So if you want to build a temple for Krishna, bhakti that intention is good. We do nice kirtan, we do nice identity worship but we may also need to raise funds for that. And so Bhakti and Shakti when both come together that’s when we could actually practically transform the world.

And each one of us may have different Shaktis which you can use in Krishna’s Essence. Thank you very much. Are there any questions or comments? Yes. So you’re talking about the response, Kriti.

How would that be applied in a corporate culture? For example, this start helping somebody who does not have correct strength. That would also be leading to, ineffectiveness of the organization that you are spoon feeding somebody in higher that can be solved. How would you worry about this? Good question.

I need to go to get into politics. I understand. Yeah. So this basically this is the fundamental question of conflict between the political left and the political right. You know, what is the idea of the political right?

The right is all about the right are conservative. Those on the left are liberal. So what we can understand is those who are on the right are concerned with what is right in the existing structure. And those who don’t fit in that structure, that’s your problem. You exist.

You settle. So the right are concerned about they see how many things are working in society. Preserve that. Now the left are concerned with those who are missed out by the existing system. So the right and the left both have any concerns say for example if we have say consider credit in India now credit is immensely popular but say probably ten, fifteen, twenty years ago.

The cricket coaching academies and cricket talent scouts they’ll mostly be in the big cities. Mumbai has a disproportionate number of players being a part of the Indian cricket. Is it that Mumbai has more talented cricket players born in Mumbai than anyone else? That could be one possibility. Other possibility could be that that the the support is a supporting environment, is much more.

So now the the right will see, this is working. We are getting so many so many good candidates coming over. But the left will say, oh, good. All other part of the country is left out. We should have coaching and there also.

We should be. So now who is right? Sometimes the right is right, sometimes the left is left is right. What that means is sometimes we need to conscript that this is still and it’s working and we can’t just reject the system because some people don’t fit into it. But sometimes it may be that the left is right.

Okay? Not many people are left out of it or the people who are left out of the system. There’s a they they are suffer severely. So for example, now in in the case of right, they focus a lot on individual response. You know, you work hard.

You raise yourself up by your bootstraps. In the left, there’s a lot of emphasis on social justice, social change, systemic adjustments that so now which is required will interpense. It’s not that there’s one absolute answer. Sometimes so now in the case of your specific question, if people are incompetent, can they become competent? Maybe, maybe not.

So everybody needs a bit of a helping hand sometime or year and we should have an ethos when we offer children a helping hand. But it shouldn’t happen that somebody offers a helping hand and the other person expect that your hand should be there all the time for the rest of my life. Everybody then you can actually take a response. So in general competence is like Shakal. People need to have basic competence.

If people don’t have competence and people don’t have the commitment to develop the competence then helping them is really not helping. Like I think it was in Harvard there’s a big court case There’s an Indian boy. He wanted to get into medicine and he had nearly 3.94 perfect cGBA. He didn’t get it. He was in South India.

So he did some some kind of underhand things and then he brought some kind of genetic connection and he claimed that he is black and he got his meditations from all I believe universities. He actually he entered in and studied for one year and then he just dropped out and he is going to book out with experience so exposing the college. So basically Indian and Chinese students they sued Harvard because they found that now a student with maybe 2.9 c g p a from certain communities could get in and somebody with 3.9 c g p a wouldn’t get in now. So actually in many ways Indian universities are much more transparent about their admission quotas or admission systems. Now if you have what above this much percentage there’s a cut off.

So although the law will get admission, although the law will not get. But many of the big universities in America they don’t reveal their their priority rights. They’re very non transacting. So now America prided itself on being a meritocracy. But you know if say if merit is not there I have a devoted friend who works in in Harvard although the whole environment is a leftist and he said I cannot speak this public name.

He says that when through this diversity quota students come in they just can’t cope. Like some everybody in the class has a IK of 141 student has got IQ of one twenty. Then what happens is you can either you have to slow down everyone to fit that one person or that person’s still are they struggling to catch? And then that often these people just drop out and they feel very they feel I failed with my life. Instead of going to Ivy League College, they could have gone to a middle level college and they would have actually succeeded.

So the point is Shakti will always be required. Now sometimes support is needed. So this giving support cannot change the reality that competence will be required. So a person does not have a basic level of competence then just creating social change is not going to correct those changes. So that’s why the broad answer will be a support should be given but support should be given so that the person starts learning and growing and taking responsibilities.

The person either is not willing to do that or the person is just not able to do that. Then maybe the way support should be offered is give that person some other group or help them encourage them to find some other group. Just a follow-up, probably. So in society, it is different. In, organization, it is different.

Society, we may even the person is not able to raise him up for the competence, we may still help out. Yeah. But in organization, it’s not like that. It it it works everywhere also. Society also to what extent can you do it?

Many countries now especially which is that? There are some countries where the China is facing this problem, Japan is facing this problem. They will have a very large older population and the younger population is not there at all. So there is no very few people who are wealth creators and there are large number of people who are dependent on socials their version of social security or whatever. So So how much can society support image?

I think in Italy, in two countries, I think Italy and Poland, they have arranged that that actually, like, any couple who has more than two children, then the pope will personally baptize their child. There’s that much of a crisis over there. So they release they have they have financial incentives that the government provides some support But the thing is that society can support only up to a particular point. So I think the extent of support will differ from the particular organization that one is part. So especially if one is in a very competitive field.

Say, for example, if somebody in the military, if you don’t have competence, you will be killed. You will cause other people to die. So if somebody in some other field where it’s not so high stakes, then, you know, more support can be given. So I think it which which four you do not also make a difference. Yes, sir.

Okay. I understand. Hello, Krishna, Progy. You said, Progy, when we are in the two dharmas in opposite direction, We need to look up to the lord of Narsisha. Correct.

But in that situation, our mind will not go there. Our mind will go this two situations one. Correct. How can you talk? Well, you have to get frustrated looking in two directions.

So that is one way. The other is we have some devotees who guide us somebody who is looking upward and they help us look upward. See ultimately every one of us has to come to terms with the finiteness of the human condition. That means that we are all finite beings and we cannot do everything that we like. We cannot even do many things that we want to do.

So we have to make choices And the idea is that ultimately when we look up, it is not just in frustration. It will be a lot of frustration. But eventually, it is by the understanding that God has a part for me to play. But that does not mean I have to do the whole thing. Now I have a part to play and I meant to play my part as well as I But then when we surrender depend on Krishna that doesn’t mean you don’t play our part.

It means I will play my part but that doesn’t mean I have to control everything and to make everything else. So that’s why sometimes we have to decide that this if you connect with Krishna we may be able to understand the Dharmi Yogam from Krishna says that we will get a little bit of clarity of confidence that okay this is the part I should play right now I should prioritize right now. Other things will be taken care of afterwards okay I take care later Rokshana will take care things will work out so that understanding that I am a part of a team We say often this we use that as a shloka to beat bioethics. The philosophical implication is that the eternal parts of Krishna do not become one with Krishna. But its psychological implication is that if we are always parts of Krishna that means we will always have parts in Krishna’s plan.

Krishna will always have a part to play for us. Say somebody take a cricket team and now they will only if they are in the cricket team of India, they will have a part in the team. Now what is that part? Are there crit keepers, fast ballers, media pacers, spring baller, and attacking batsmanner, sheet time, middle order batsman, whatever. I think that will be but they have a part.

So we are always on team Krishna. We always have a part. Which part it may be that we’ll gain? Sometimes you may have to accept that this part I can no longer play. And I’ll focus on this part and then play this part.

So the last question before we start with thank you very much.

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For each of us, discipline can sometimes feel like someone else is imposing rules on us, and we just have to follow them. Last year, I was in America, staying with a devotee family. Their son was a young adult—actually, a teenager who had just received his driving license. He was kindly driving me to various programs.

One day, we spent a lot of time talking about different topics. I have a deep interest in English literature, so we naturally got into that. During one of our conversations, he said something very striking: “I feel as if my parents don’t love me at all.”

I asked him, “Why do you feel that way? Don’t they care about you and take care of you?”
He replied, “Yes, they do—but I feel like they love a future version of me. And they’re just tolerating me until that version arrives.”

That was a very insightful point. Sometimes, parents can have high expectations, and while those expectations are meant to inspire growth, they can sometimes make a child feel unloved in the present.

But it’s not that parents don’t love their child as they are, right? And similarly, it’s not that Krishna only loves some future version of us—when we become pure devotees. It’s not that He’s merely tolerating us until then. Not at all. Krishna loves us as we are, right now. Of course, He also wants us to grow and become better, but His love is present even now.

If we visualize Krishna in the center, around Him are many concentric circles of love. At the core, there are the Gopis of Vrindavan, then the Vrindavan vasis, the Vaikuntha vasis, pure devotees in this world, and so on. Ultimately, every living being is within one of these circles. The journey of bhakti is about moving closer to Krishna—into deeper circles of love. But even in our current position, Krishna loves us.

Now, when it comes to discipline, we shouldn’t feel insecure just because we don’t meet certain external standards. Discipline is best understood not as a burden but as a negotiation—a negotiation between the present me and the potential me.

Let’s consider an analogy. Suppose we’re caught in a storm, and all supplies are cut off. We have food that could last for a week, but today, I feel very hungry and want to eat a lot. If I eat too much today, I may have nothing left for the future. But if I eat too little, I may not have the strength to survive until that future. So, we have to find a balanced way to care for both the present and the future.

If we care only for the present, we may stagnate or even degrade. “Let me just enjoy now—sleep in, relax, have fun.” But that might leave us with no future worth enjoying. No degree, no career, no foundation.

On the other hand, if we care only for the future, we may suffocate. That’s what this boy was feeling—his parents cared only for the person he should become, and not for who he was. That kind of pressure can lead to resentment and rebellion.

So, each person has to find their own way of negotiating between their present and potential selves. This balance looks different for everyone. Even parents with two children can’t apply the same disciplinary rules to both—each child is unique. Likewise, each of us must find what works for our spiritual growth.

For example, I may choose to fast one day. But if that leads me to fall sick and go to the hospital the next day, that’s not sustainable. Or I may decide to wake up early, but if I’m groggy and unproductive the whole day, it defeats the purpose. So maybe I need to sleep earlier, or restructure my schedule. If that’s not currently possible, I should ask: What is reasonable for me right now?

That’s why I find it helpful to look at standards in an analog rather than digital way. In digital terms, it’s binary: if you do this, you’re a good devotee; if not, you’re a failure. But in analog terms, it’s a spectrum.

On that spectrum, I can define two key points:

• What is desirable for me (what I aspire to)
• What is non-negotiable (what I will do no matter what)

Maybe I aim to read the Bhagavad Gita for one hour daily. On some days, that’s just not possible. So, maybe I read just one page—that takes five minutes. Or I might say, “If not daily, I’ll read for two to three hours over the week.”

When we see our spiritual life as a spectrum, it becomes more sustainable. We honor our present capacity, while steadily moving toward our potential. And that is a much healthier way to maintain long-term discipline and devotion.

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What is the Bhagavad Gita perspective or the Vedic perspective on IVF? I would say that the Bhagavad Gita offers us timeless principles and it is for us to apply them according to our time, place and circumstance. So it’s more that the Gita offers us a compass rather than a catalogue. A catalogue where exhaustively all choices and all circumstances are described.

So I will talk from both perspectives and then I will give my personal understanding. We could say that at one level it is the dharma of householders to have children and we have a debt to our ancestors and we fulfill that debt by having children, continuing the lineage. And we see that in the Vedic times, kings would often go to great endeavours and even extreme endeavours to try to have children.

Sometimes the yajnas would be elaborate, expensive. We can say that the yajnas also are falling within the purview of dharma and that is true. At the same time it’s an effort beyond the normal process of procreation.

So in that sense if one’s primary consciousness is that I want to do the dharma and therefore if I need some, in today’s world, yajna is seen as religion but yajna also that was technology in one sense. Even demons would perform yajnas and they did not do it in a dharmic perspective. They would perform yajnas to get power.

So yajna was technology at that time and today we may have a different kind of technology and we may use technology to fulfill our dharma. Now if we take it further, we are not just trying to adhere to dharma and fulfill our debt to our ancestors. We are also trying to practice bhakti where we would like to serve Krishna by being a medium for devotionally inclined souls to come into this world and to further facilitate their devotional journey so that they can do good in this world and also attain the ultimate destination beyond this world.

So this is the broadly the pro perspective from the perspective of dharma and bhakti. We take the precedent of whatever effort may be required according to context, we do that effort. Now the other side could be that one definition of dharma itself is boundaries.

The difference between devatas and dhanavas is not that the devatas don’t have material desires. Devatas also have worldly desires but devatas keep their worldly desires within the boundaries of dharma. So dharma means duty but dharma also means boundary.

So even for doing our duty we need to act within boundaries. So that’s why warfare was also meant to be fair. That yes you have to kill the opponents but you have to kill them in a fair fight.

So now from that perspective you could say that what boundaries are being violated over here, transgressed over here. So the main concern in IVF is that there are multiple embryos that are formed and when the embryos are growing it is natural to infer that there is a soul over there. Without that growth will not happen.

So those embryos often get wasted and sometimes they may be destroyed. Sometimes they may be preserved in the fridge for a long time to be used by one person or may be donated to others. But the point is there is a lot of wastage of embryos and sometimes the embryos may be considered unviable because they have certain biological deficiencies, neurological deficiencies whatever.

So there is certain amount of we can call it killing which may be a little harsh word. But certainly there is some damage, some serious damage is there. One may feel I do not want to go in that direction.

Now taking this perspective further we could also say that in every activity there is collateral damage. So even in the process of normal reproduction when the semen enters into the female body there are so many sperms over there. Now do all the sperms have souls? We do not really know.

We could say even normal reproduction itself is a wasteful process. So now we also say that depending on the consciousness of the couple at the time of union that kind of soul is attracted. But then we also heard that the soul is already present in the sperms.

So then one logical inference could be that there are many souls who are present in many sperms and depending on the consciousness at that particular time that particular sperm succeeds in reaching and ovulating eventually, contributing to ovulation. So the natural process itself to some extent involves some level of loss of life you could say or loss of the potential to gain embodied life for the souls who are in those particular sperms but which do not reach there. They perish on the way.

Now beyond that nature also has miscarriages. So now when we say we are interfering with nature or we are disrupting the natural process how do we define that? Because we could say that when it is hot and we use a fan are we interfering in the natural process? If we have got cough and we take a medicine, even if it is ayurvedic medicine are we interfering in the natural process? In one sense the very definition of human intelligence is to interfere with natural process that nature has made humans quite vulnerable and slow. It is by our intelligence that we have acquired, we developed weapons by which we could defend ourselves, by which we could become the most powerful species on the earth.

So is it that passively accepting everything that nature imposes on us is virtue? No it is not. It is said that the Pandavas converted the Khando Prastha into Indra Prastha. That is from a natural forest they made into urban place, not even rural, they made urban.

And that’s considered the mercy of Krishna. So here they were at one level destroying the environment. Of course they were doing something beneficial not just for corporate greed but for dharma and bhakti they were doing it.

So where do we draw the line? This is where interfering with the natural process is something which is objectionable. Now we could say that when our interference in the natural process causes harm to others but then destroying the forest caused harm to the living beings in the forest. We could say that those beings are demoniac living beings and who were killed over there.

That may be true but every single person was a demoniac or some beings were demoniac. There is always collateral damage and some people may accept that this is the collateral damage that I am ready to accept. So now if we take this further, when you go into consideration of karma, now my understanding is it is much more helpful to be Krishna conscious than to be karma conscious.

Of course a part of being Krishna conscious, Krishna conscious is like a big circle with that karma conscious is a smaller circle. We should be so karma conscious that we stop being Krishna conscious. Krishna conscious means how best can I serve Krishna in this situation.

Karma conscious is what are the karmic implications of the actions that I will do in this situation. So sometimes there may be some negative karma but if the service to Krishna is going to be facilitated by that anybody may accept that. So if there are less intrusive ways in which the problem of fertility can be addressed.

Say for example some hormonal treatment can be given and that solves the issue. Then that is definitely better than going for IVF. So now beyond that if there are embryos that are preserved and if we donate them to others then at one level somebody might say that we are failing in our responsibility to take care of that child which is our child.

Another way we could also say it is that we are blessing someone who does not have a child with a child. And generally those who are going to such extremes to get a child through this accepting as donation the embryo given by someone else they are unlikely to be careless parents. The fact that they are going through so much effort means that they are likely to care.

We cannot always control that. But then we can’t control how much caring we ourselves will be. We don’t know what we will be able to do in the future.

What condition we will be in physically, financially, emotionally. We can only based on the present knowledge that we have make certain decisions based on that knowledge. So in many ways let’s say if a couple or even a single mother who is not able to take care of a newborn child gives a child for adoption it’s a painful decision for her to let go of the child but then that may be the best for the child.

If she herself is not able to take care of the child. So I wouldn’t say that that necessarily means negative karma. Freezing the embryo for a long time will delay the souls acquiring a body.

Well yes that is true. But then to what extent do we draw that particular line? We could say that every time a man does not unite with a woman that opportunity for the soul that are there in the semen of the man are not getting the opportunity. We could take that further and say that somebody who is a celibate is depriving all the souls in their semen of having a child.

So once we start going in these directions we can go to any extreme in these directions. So this can lead to paralysis by analysis. Now of course there are answers over here that if somebody wants to follow celibacy there are other dharmas to be followed.

Giving a soul a body is one dharma. There could be another dharma of focusing on consciousness of Krishna and then inspiring others to come towards Krishna. So it’s not just that we are following one dharma.

We live in a world where there are many different dharmas and some dharma may be prioritized above another dharma. So it’s not just giving the soul a body. It’s also we have to take care of the soul afterwards.

And so if a couple decides to not have a child for some time that’s not depriving the soul of the body. That’s equipping themselves so that when they have children they can take care of the child properly. Now beyond all this if somebody wants to consider a more natural way that could be adoption.

With respect to adoption also there are different perspectives. For some people the idea is that we don’t know the karma of the child and therefore it may be very difficult if the child has very negative samskaras to actually take care of the child and help the child to grow up properly. That’s a valid consideration.

Now in the Buddhist tradition they also have the philosophy of karma although they don’t accept the atma but they accept the philosophy of karma. And there they consider adoption to be an act of great negative karma neutralization. That means their perspective is that when you accept a child whose karma you do not know you are taking a risk for the benefit of another living being.

And taking that risk for taking care of another living being is a laudable thing. So ultimately how karma works it could be read in different ways. In the Buddhist tradition as per I have seen the concepts of maintaining genealogical purity have not been emphasized that much.

In many ways Buddhism was a rebellion against the caste system and the caste discrimination. So that could be one reason. So you are saying traditionally it was not there it could have been added later as well.

No. And it became a rebellion toward the caste system. Yeah it was from the beginning itself.

One reason what we learn from the Vaishnava history is that it was to stop meat eating. But if you look at the secular history one of the reasons why Buddhism came separate was that Buddhism did accept the caste system. Oh I see.

So in that sense the idea of racial purity and preserving the racial purity is not that important in Buddhism. So among the various religions as far as I know Hindus have the lowest adoption rate. Christians have the highest.

And even then Hindus try to adopt from their extended family or from something like that so that they know the genealogy. So if that is a major consideration from us then that’s one cross for adoption. But if that is not a major consideration then the Buddhist perspective is not incompatible with the Vaishnava understanding.

It’s a service when we are also trying to do outreach. When we are trying to connect with people we don’t know what their karma is. And we are in one sense if we become mentors, counselors, somebody becomes a spiritual master they are taking responsibility of people whose karma they do not know.

Of course in that case those people have committed to a certain degree voluntarily and there is some indication of their spiritual seriousness. So there is some difference over there. But the point of whether the point of karma should be the sole criteria for deciding whether to adopt or not I would say that not the sole criteria.

Ultimately like I said it’s a compass not a catalogue. And each one of us may have to weigh which factor is most important for us. So there are two more points I will make with respect to this that when we are considering something like IVF it’s apart from the expense that is financial there is also a certain level of toll that it takes on the female body.

It’s not a very easy process many times. Sometimes there are much more complications than others sometimes it’s not that complicated. So I would say that there have to be some boundaries to how much one tries it also.

Otherwise repeatedly trying it can also create problems. And the other is that in general our movement is moving more and more towards a certain level of applicational decentralization. Applicational decentralization means that how devotees will apply the principles of Krishna consciousness in their life is something which devotees are deciding individually.

So for example when we were a monastic movement more or less with everybody staying in the temple. The temple authorities or the spiritual masters they were given guidelines for every aspect of life. But now as our movement is spreading different devotees engage with the world to different degrees.

And different devotees function in different ways. So for example what kind of food do we eat? We always eat food that is cooked by us offered in the deity. And then we eat some outside food which is offered mentally taken.

And we may say there are lower and higher standard that’s true. But it’s very difficult to mandate one standard. And some devotees may have a different priority.

Some devotees may consider the food is very very important. Some devotees may say okay I won’t spend so much time on cooking food. I can read scripture, I can talk with people, I can do so many other services if I don’t spend so much time on cooking.

So again within the bhakti hierarchy which particular principle a particular person prioritizes that may vary from person to person. So some people may adopt a more confrontational approach in their preaching because they say ultimately we want serious people. And some others may adopt a non-confrontational approach and they may say that we want people to at least take some steps towards bhakti.

Let them at least, even if they can’t go all the way, let them at least get some ajnansu, get some positivity towards Krishna. So who is right? I can’t really say only one person is right. It’s a matter of some people want to help people come all the way to Krishna.

Others will say at least let them take some steps. So ultimately I would say that we can consult others but it’s an individual decision. And as of now our movement is not intellectually or theologically at a place where it will come up with one statement on this issue.

I don’t see it happening for several years. And also because we are such a global movement, even if we come with one position paper, whether everybody will agree with that position is also open to question. So that’s why it’s something which we can deliberate, maybe pray to Krishna and write down our pros and cons and see what weighs more for us individually.

So in such situations where it’s not an absolute moral black and white, the moral weight of various parameters may be different for different people. So which parameter weighs how much for us is something which we will have to consider and based on that we can make a decision. Thank you.

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Everybody needs a bit of pushing because spiritual growth doesn’t feel like a need for nuisance. So, that’s why a little bit of pushing is required. Now, we have to see whether the pushing is actually pushing them towards spirituality or away from spirituality.

So, I was in Texas, not this year, last year, few years ago and there was a car ahead of me and the bumper sticker had a quote Oh God, please save me from your preachers. Save me from your preachers. Normally, in the Christian tradition, God saves us through his preachers.

But if the preachers are too pushing, they are too judgmental, they are too fear-inducing earlier than now. So, we also need to recognize that spiritual growth for many people is a multi-lifetime journey and not everybody will grow at the same pace. So, maybe for some people, what may happen in this lifetime is the Gyan Sukhati.

That they get some favorable appreciation for spirituality. So, we would like everyone to go on the entire spiritual journey. This is spiritual appreciation.

Who knows? They may not take it up now, but it may be that it’s not just we are trying to help them become spiritual. Krishna is in their hearts and Krishna is also wanting them to have a relationship. So, if we open the doors for them, they may not walk through right now, but maybe they go through certain things in their life, one year down the line, five years down the line, and then a big thing happens.

And then if we have opened the door for them, they walk through. But if we open the door and drag them through, then yes, they are not worth it. They will have such a bad experience, they will go, and they will not want to come back.

So, I think little pushing is required, but we have to be observing. What is the pushing doing? If the person is becoming alienated, antagonistic, then don’t stop pushing.

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