How can leaders be both secular and spiritual?
The section of Bhagavatam, which is basically introducing us to the characters. Bhagavatam, as we know, is a conversation between Parikshit Maharaj and Shukdev Goswami. And this conversation, the Bhagavatam’s conversation actually begins the core conversation begins from the second canto. It goes to the around twelve point four. So that is the conversation.
Now the first canto, basically, the people who are conversing are being introduced. And it’s interesting over here, the way the Bhagavatam does this, for the speaker, there’s a very brief introduction. It’s only five to six verses in the first chapter in seventh chapter of the first canto. Mhmm. That is where how Shrutadeva Swami was the son of Vyasadeva and how he was so detached and how he was so realized as described.
And from there onwards, the listener, his introduction is being given from 1.7 to 1.19. And that is, how great a person was he? So, how great were his poor fa his ancestors? What is the great dynasty he was born in? And what was the adversity in which he appeared?
How the lord protected him at the time of death? And now, specifically, the prophecies that were made at the time of his birth, of what all illustrious qualities he would have, those are being displayed through his actions. So here, he’s vigilantly traveling in his kingdom to see what is going on. When he hears that there is some disturbance, he travels around. It’s like, if a city is, well managed by the police, then they don’t just wait for somebody to report crime.
There are petrol cars, which are constantly going around to see if there’s any crime. So that’s proactive detection and prevention or at least minimization of the crime. So like that, he is not waiting for someone to come to his kingdom, to his court, to tell him there’s a problem. He hears there’s a problem, and he himself goes out to see what is the problem. And now he’s countering the crime that is happening over here.
So, basically, in this section, the character of Parichit Maharaj as a responsible leader is being described. And I’ll talk about this with this initial context. I’ll talk about this session and there are three parts and then we’ll have some questions. First is, so I’ll use the acronym act for this. So is analysis.
We’ll talk about what is going on. The broad topic we’re discussing is the role of government in spirituality. What is the role of the king? What is the role of the ruler in fostering spiritual values or spiritual culture? So we’ll talk about analysis of what was there in the Vedic context.
Then after that, we will talk about the can I have some water? Yes. I have a mic. Okay. So what is the underlying concept?
And lastly, how does it apply today? So nowadays, there is, whenever people talk about, say, any kind of religion and the association of that with the government, there is that fear that are you talking about theocracy? Are you going to impose your faith on everyone else? So in the vedic context, there are two distinct terms. There is dharma and there is shraddha.
Now shraddha can be translated also as bhakti. Now dharma, while sometimes, nowadays it is translated as religion. Dharma actually refers to order. Dharma refers to, basically, law and order. Now, sometimes people say that, you know, religion should never be mixed with politics.
And God and politics keep it all separate. Well, Krishna comes to this world specifically for political purpose. What do you mean by political purpose? Krishna comes to disempower and neutralize those rulers who have become disruptive. Krishna fights and, dethrones Karna to Kamsa.
Ram, he removes Ravan. So now when we use the word politics, there are many meanings to the word politics. But I will first, let’s do this analysis. If you see what Krishna is telling in the Bhagavad Gita, it’s 4.78 are well known verses. Where Krishna says that, He says whenever dharma goes down, dharma comes up.
I descend personally. And what do I do? I establish that, ma’am. Dharmasam sphaapna aartaya. Sambhawami, you gay, you gay.
I come to establish dharma. That is in 04/1978. And then after that, in the next two verses, it is 4.91. This is where he’s talking about Bhakti. Should the proppa would put four general Hindu community often quotes 4.78 quite a lot.
Proppa would put 4.9 much more. Those who understand the transcendental nature of my appearance and activities, they become attracted to me, they become devoted to me, and they attain me. And Krishna says, for this, you need to become free from Become free from anger. Become free from, attachment. Become free from apathy.
And then you’ll come to me. You can take shelter off me and come to me. So in one sense, I’ve drawn this as a as a funnel. See, dharma is mandatory. Dharma is law and order.
Somebody cannot say that I won’t follow the traffic rules. That is mandatory. Shraddha or bhakti is voluntary. Stopped. And then he says, just by seeing me here, by seeing my activities, there will be people who will get attracted to me and they’ll come to me.
So Krishna does want, we could say spirituality in the sense of bhakti. That Krishna wants that. But Krishna does not impose that. That is something which Krishna inspires. So, you know, following the traffic rules is mandatory.
Okay. A, the police say, every morning you have to come to Krishna House for attending the morning class. That would be forcing a faith on someone. You know, where you drive on the road, that is up to you. But following the rules when you’re driving on the road is not up to you.
So dharma, although the word sometimes is translated as religion, dharma is basically, order. Srila Prabhupada would explain dharma as an inherent property of an object. Now that which makes a thing what it is. So another way to understand dharma is it is harmonious belonging. That we all belong to certain larger units.
So when we belong to some larger units, we get something from that and we need to give something to that. Mhmm. See now, all of you sitting for this session and some of you sitting close to other people. Everyone of you is quite confident that the person sitting next to you is not going to suddenly turn on you and punch you in the face. Is that possible?
You could say anything is possible. Isn’t it? But if somebody is coming for a spiritual talk early in the morning, we understand they must have a basic level of discipline, a basic level of culture, a basic level of self restraint by which they won’t do something so disruptive or crazy. Isn’t it? So this is if you’re coming for a class, there’s a way to harmoniously belong to the class.
Now, if somebody sits right in front and sits with the back of the speaker, that would be disharmonious belonging. Or if somebody is sitting and talking loudly on phone with someone. Then that would be disharmonious belonging. So whichever unit we are belonging to, belonging to that is the essence of that. Mhmm.
So if we are going on the traveling or driving on the road, then we are belonging to the road transport system. And then we need to belong harmoniously. If we are part of a family, then we get something from the family, we’re expected to give something to the family. If we are in university, if we are having a job, we’re getting a salary, we’re expected to make a contribution out of it. So dharma is basically harmonious belonging.
And this maintaining basic harmony is essential for the functioning of society itself. And this ensuring that harmonious belonging occurs is the responsibility of the rulers. That ruler if somebody is a ruler of a country, then they have to make sure that the citizens follow the rules of the country, and the citizens are protected while they are within the country. So here Prabhupada is giving the example that even the animals are considered citizens, and they also need to be protected. So we won’t go into that direction of animal killing.
I will focus on this basic principle of dharma that harmonious belonging. So now dharma in that sense has two aspects. So, harmonious belonging, there is an individual level to it, and there is a social level to it. So, at an individual level, we should follow the traffic rules. That’s individual dharma.
But social dharma would be that the cops should not be corrupt. And the cops should not target members of a particular community because they dislike those members. A small a small crime by a small I may say, what are the two kinds of a larceny and felony? A small larceny, a minor crime by people from one demographic is a huge charge against them. And a big crime by someone else from another community, and it’s just overkill.
It’s downplayed. So dhar so so dharma means it is the individual has to belong harmoniously, but the social unit also has to perform perform harmoniously. So both of these together are dharma. And maintaining the order of the larger units that a person belongs to is the responsibility of the head. Whoever the head of the state may be.
Whoever the and this applies not just to kings. The the word as I said, the word politics, it has two different meanings. There is a neutral meaning, and there is a negative meaning. The neutral meaning is politics is basically the art of the science or the system of administration. So every every place will have to have a political system, like political science.
It’s a field where we study. We will study democracy. We will study monarchy. We will study communism. So neutral, it is a system of administration.
So we cannot live without some kind of political system of administration management. The negative sense is manipulation. No. Don’t be bring politics into this, you know. Don’t be don’t do politics over here.
We’re not here for politics, sir. Don’t be angry for power and don’t backstab, don’t manipulate. So when, we are using the word politics here, it is more that neutral sense. That every society or every group, everything, every unit where people belong, every unit that is bigger than an individual will require some managerial system, some administrative system. And that administrative system would be the political system over there.
The political system could be we have democracy. Sometimes we may have, multiple admins, but one person may have veto over there. Now all of you can vote, but I will veto. Again, the UN UN Security Council, there are five members who have the veto power. So this is how things are managed.
So it is both the individuals should be law abiding, and the system should be enforcing the law in a fair way. It should not be discriminatory. It should not be disproportionate. So dharma refers to both these things. Now if you see the war that was fought after the Bhagavad Gita was spoken, that was between two parties.
Who were those two parties? You know the names? Pandavas. Pandavas. Pandavas.
And the? The Kurus. The they know the Kauravas. The Kauravas. Now interestingly, was it that the Pandavas were devotees and the Kauravas were non devotees?
Yes. No. This devote was happening. Yeah. So it is it is not a war between devotees and non devotees.
It is if you see among the Pandavas now, specifically, when we talk about the word devotees, we refer to Vaishnavas. We are in the Vaishnavas tradition where we worship Krishna Krishna. Now it’s interesting that on the Kaurava side, there were Vaishnavas. That who were the Vaishnavas on the Kaurava side? Bhishma.
Bhishma himself was there. Dronacharya was not a Vaishnava. Oh, sorry. Dronacharya was a Shaivite. Yeah.
But there was another king named Bhushrwa. He was a Vaishnava. Now on the Pandava side, there were Shaivites. Shaiwites are those who worship lord Shiva. And so Drupada himself, his family deity was lord Shiva.
So it was not a religious war. It was not that Krishna devotees or Vishnu devotees were imposing Vishnu devotion on everyone else. It was not that when Krishna went as a peace messenger to the Kaurava, he said, you all start chanting Hare Krishna, and there’s no war in there. So it was not for religious imposition. Duryodhan was such a terrible ruler that he tried to dishonor and disrupt Draupadi in public in the royal assembly.
There will always be in the world men who will be predators. It’s an unfortunate reality it is there. But such predatory men generally would prey on some woman in some lonely street where there is no evidence, no eyewitnesses. They have some fear of the law. But if somebody does something like this in public, then that means they have no fear of the law.
But if somebody goes to a police station or somebody goes to a court and commits a crime over there, then that means not only do they have no fear of the law, the law has fear of them. And such people would be brazen and brutal, and they need to be stopped. So Duryodhan’s actions against Duropathy fell in this category. He was not ready to reform at all. So the war was fought to establish dharma.
It was not to impose bhakti. It was not that Yudhishthir told the drashtra, if you don’t chant Hare Krishna, it’s only. After now that I have defeated you, I’ll force my faith on. He did not do that. So dharma is basically the you could say law and order in a broad sense, but it is basically the system by which harmonious belonging is possible.
So for harmonious belonging to be possible, it’s both ways. That at an individual level, the individuals should be responsible to follow the rules that are expected of them, and the administrators should be fair. So when Krishna says, I come to establish dharma, what he means by that is he is changing those who are ruling the system because they are not fair. They are exploitative. They are they’re manipulative.
They’re evil. So that is one aspect. Now so the analysis I talk about here is that that the Gita and our the broad Vedic tradition is that dharma is to be established by the king. It is not that bhakti is to be imposed. There are many kings in history.
There was a famous king, Krishnadevaraya. He held, built a Jainagar empire. It’s one of the most prosperous kingdoms in the medieval times. And, you know, he belonged to a particular faith. He was, he was a Vaishnav.
From the he was following the Madhu Sampradaya. Then one of his descendants, he started following the, Shiri Sampradaya. And one of his successors started following the Advaita Sampradaya. He became a he will follow the impersonal spirit. But it is not that when the when the personal faith of the ruler changed that the king king decided, you know, okay now I’m away because I’m a Vaishnava, I will destroy all my bodies.
Now that or I’m a Mayawadi, I will destroy all Vaishnavas. He didn’t do that. That, it was his personal faith and naturally because it was his personal faith, he would give more donations, he would facilitate, he may build maybe temples or provide educational support for that particular tradition. But he would not impose his faith on others. That’s not a king’s job description.
So that brings me to second part. I said, first of all, about analysis. And now what is the concept? The underlying concept is basically with with with sort of free will. Now, with respect to free will, there are two distinct aspects to it.
On one side, the free will should always be respected. Everybody has freedom. Krishna has given everyone free will. Krishna does not impose his will on everyone. Now Krishna could have if he had wanted, if you are not ready to become my devotee, I’ll destroy.
Krishna does not do that. That on one side, even when Krishna speaks the Gita, not even once does Krishna use his godhood to impose his will on Arjuna in the Gita. If that’s what Krishna wanted to do, he could have finished the whole Bhagavad Gita in six words. What were the six words? I am God.
Obey me. Fight. Bhagavad Gita completed. So Krishna does not do that. Krishna builds a reasoned argument for Arjuna to understand and accept what Krishna is saying.
So the other aspect of free will is needs to be guided. It needs to be refined. We have free will, but that doesn’t mean that we allow that free will always knows what is good for us. So you could put this as a pendulum. At one exit, it is the free will is only respected And not guided at all.
Then, okay. You can do whatever you want. Does that mean that, you know, I wanna kill myself. Let me kill myself. I wanna kill you.
I’ll kill you also. I respect your free will. No. Free will always has to have some boundaries. With respect to free will, it’s only respected.
Then, it can become very destructive. Disruptive and destructive. It has to Now, on the other hand, if it is only restricted. Now when when I say restricted, it’ll be no. You cannot do this.
You cannot do this. You cannot do this. You cannot do this. In in the bible, there are 10 commandments. So there’s a atheist spoof against the bible.
So in the it said that that in the beginning was the word and the word was God. So that is the saying that’s sitting in the bible, but how they it is it. In the beginning was the word and the word was no. The word was no means you cannot do this. You cannot do this.
You cannot do that. You cannot do that. So if religion and spirituality are seen as just no. No. No.
People they’ll they’ll be rebellion. People will become rebellious. And will not be able to sustain it. So, with respect to free will, what has to be done is, at one level, you know, it has to be appreciated. That everyone has free will and we cannot impose anything on anyone.
But at the same time, it also has to be elevated. K. What is really good for you? You can say it’s elevated or educated. So, we need to accommodate the free will has to be accommodated.
We cannot impose anything on anyone. But at the same time, what is the best use of the free will? That also has to be done. Done. So this is the broad way Krishna himself manages the material world.
And how does this what does this mean for in terms of the government? We have the head of state, you have the ruler. Whatever it is. You know? The one extreme would be imposition of one’s faith.
In European history, this happened that there was a hundred year war between the protestants and the Catholics. And both were trying to impose their faith on others. So if the head of state would become in the history of England, it happened that when the when the king was a protestant, the person will persecute the Catholics. And the king became Catholic, then the Catholic would produce to protect would persecute the protestants. So now this the king is not meant to impose faith.
The king is not meant to punish people who who who follow different faith. In India, when there was Islamic rule, apart from the many much destruction of the temples and other things that happened, that was intermittent. It was severe when it happened. But for a large period of Islamic history, there was a tax called jaziah. That was a discriminated task.
Anybody who was not Muslim was had to pay that task. Pay that tax. And if you just became Muslim, that tax will be go up. We would have complete. So now this is discrimination.
It can be at various levels. But one cannot the king cannot impose based on faith. But on, the other side, one is imposition. That cannot be done. But the other side is condemnation.
The king is the head of state is not meant to impose one’s own faith, but the head of state is also not meant to condemn faith. It is not meant to reject faith. So this is what happened, say, in France when the French revolution happened. After that, it went France became aggressively anti religious. They had the Notre Dame was renamed as a as a as a temple of reason.
And they started rejecting religion and they persecuted religious people. That’s what was tried at a mass level in communism in China and Russia. China and Soviet Russia, USSR. So people often say religion is the cause of war. Well, Soviet Russia and China are examples of, states that were administered without any religion, not other official rejection of religion.
And what is the result? The result was a hundred million corpses. The number of people killed during the communist regime was more than world war one and world war two combined and doubled also. And so that was the state persecuted. So the state becoming officially, aggressively atheistic is also not healthy.
So in between is, the state should have provide inspiration. Not imposition, but inspiration. Inspiration to follow a particular set of values, a set of principles. So dharma needs to be established. It needs to be enforced.
But spirituality has to be inspired. It cannot be it cannot be forced for people. So now that brings us to the context today. What do we do today? So now if we look at history of the world, secularism that is prominently there.
Now, sec as the idea of secularism is said to have evolved in Europe and secularism is at one level, humility. Humility in the political domain. What do I mean by humility in the political domain? It is not the business of the head of state to legislate faith. It is it is to a large extent when this humility was accepted.
You know, you each individual can have their own faith. That is accepted. That’s where to some extent peace has been there. Now if this changes, then there will be there’s there’s disruption. There is violence.
So in India, we we did not have, say, Christianity, Islam, and other such such these faiths were not there traditionally in the Vedic time, but still, there were Shaivayat, there were Vaishnavayat. There were different faiths in that sense. And the kings were actually secular. Now so now secularism can mean three different things. It can mean neutrality towards faith, shraddha or bhakti.
Neutrality. But, historically, this was what secularism was intended to be, neutrality. But afterwards, it became apathy. Neutrality means that the state will not impose any particular faith. But if you don’t care about it at all, that is bad.
And over a period of time, in some places at work, it has become hostility. Become hostility or antipathy towards faith. So neutrality is good. Apathy is worse. Hostility is by far the worst.
The state should not be opposed to people in spiritual. So, like, Marxism, their ideas is religion is the opium of the masses. So why so now that’s why he was aggressively against religion. That’s what communism tried to do. And that has not worked at all in history.
It’s not just from a spiritual perspective and from a, as I said, from a law and order perspective. If people do not have some higher purpose for their lives, as a higher sense of meaning, then the craving for worldly things will become excessive and destructive and destructive. So what can we we do at our level today? It is you know, for all of us, when we are individual citizens, most of us, we live in democratic countries. So we have, to some extent, some power, some ends of agency by the votes we give.
So broadly speaking, when we look for a head of state, the first criteria should be dharma, and the second can be shraddha or ba. Say, it is not that just because some head of state is of my faith. That’s why I will vote for you. That’s an important consideration. But that should not be the sole consideration.
Why not? Because politics is serious work. If I got a heart attack, now would I go to a devotee heart surgeon or non devotee heart surgeon? Whichever one’s better. Yeah.
Whichever one’s better. I do only heart surgeon, I promise you that when I will do when I do surgery, I’ll chant Harishna. That’s nice. But will you do the surgery properly? I can’t guarantee that, but I will do I’ll chant Harishna on that.
Because I want to go back to audit, but not so early. So just as in any field when we function, material world, functioning any field is a serious business. And it requires competence. It requires competence to function in that particular field. And if somebody doesn’t have that competence, having that person as a leader will lead to chaos.
Most of the problems that are there, if you consider the African countries, have not progressed so much. And is it because of religion? Actually, among all the continents, you could say Africa is the most religious continent. Half of it is Christian, half of it is Muslim. And both of them are quite aggressive with that.
And you see, most of the problems are not because of religion. They’re, of course, problems because of religion, but it is because of bad leaders. And bad means they’re bad simply in material terms. They are progressive, more than panasic leaders who will just who will just earn a lot of money, who will just aggrandize a lot of money while the people are starving. People are suffering.
So it is not to pile on Africa. I’m just giving this as an example that, you know, religious affiliation is not as important a qualification for a leader as material competence. Now of course, if there is material competence and there is a spiritual inclination, there’s a religious, alignment. That’s even better. So Arjuna succeeded in the Purukshetra war not just because he was a devotee, also because he was a great archer.
His son was a great devotee. But his son was not that great an archer. And Abhimanyu got trapped. And he died. So, in the material world is a harsh place.
And we need competence over here. So when we are exercising our political discretion, we wanna consider both these factors, that the capacity of the leader to establish dharma, and the capacity of the leader to inspire bhakti. However, even if the government is completely non theistic, but if they maintain basic law and order, we can practice our faith and we can inspire others to practice. We can share our faith with others. But if there is complete law and order chaos, then you might be sitting in a class like this and somebody throws a bomb from the window.
You know, a sudden some bomb explodes. We won’t be able to function. How much can we function? So in that sense, we need to be clear. Krishna calls upon Arjuna to do his duty, which in this case was to fight a war to establish that.
And the Gita has spoken so that he would do it in his spiritual consciousness. And in that sense, we for each one of us, there is dharma so I’ll conclude with this point now. There is dharma is we belong harmoniously. Each one of us will belong to various units. So for example, you know, we are in this class.
We belong to this class. Now we are in the city of our Gainesville. So there are some rules of Gainesville. We are in Florida. We’re in America.
So like that, we all belong to larger and larger units. So the ultimate unit that we belong to, that all units are rested in is God. So Krishna is, in that sense, we’re following all of these is dharma. From each of these, we’re getting something, and we need to be giving something. But all of them ultimately culminate in Krishna.
And that’s why bhakti is the highest dharma. Krishna says harvardharma, pririti, jama, and kamisha, namtha cham. So it’s not a Dharmi and Bhakti are unrelated. The highest Dharma is Bhakti, and that’s what is ultimately to be practiced. But that has to be individually practiced because it’s it’s a matter of the heart.
Matters of the heart cannot be imposed by the law, nor can they be legislated by the law. They have to be so all the other dharmas should be arranged in such a way that a person becomes inspired to follow the highest dharma. That so the family the the parent should be in such a way that they inspire children to become devotees. The school should be such that they inspire students to become devotees. The social culture should be such that they inspire people to come to.
But nobody can impose. If our child does not become a devotee, that does not mean to stop loving our child. As a parent, our dharma is there. We should take care of the child. If our parents are not become devotees, no.
They should not be opposing our devotion and crushing our devotion. Then we have to draw some warnings. But just because they are not devotees does not mean that we reject them. We would like to inspire bhakti, but dharma is something which we all need to follow. So I’ll summarize what I discussed.
Broadly, we discussed three points. The topic was the role of the head of state, role of king, or role of politics in spirituality. So or rather, to put it that way, how what is the what is the head of statement to do with respect to spirituality? So I talk about first of all, I give context that this is Parrishit Maharaj’s qualification to describe. So a was the analysis.
The analysis was Krishna comes to to establish dharma and inspire bhakti, not to impose bhakti. So it’s like a funnel. Dharma is something which everybody has to follow. This is 4.78 in the data. And then Bhakti Krishna himself said that very few people, one among thousands will actually practice Bhakti.
This is something which is to be enforced. It’s law and order. This is to be inspired. And we discussed how the Kurukshetra war was not a war between devotees and nondevotees. It’s a the Pandavas.
It’s not that they were all devotees, and the Kauravas were all nondevotees. It is a war over a law and order issue, not a devotional issue. So then we talk about the concept over there. I spent a lot of time in the analysis part itself. The concept was what?
The free will is to be respected. Now free will is to be respected, but if it’s only respected, then there will be a problem. If it’s only restricted only respected, then people will abuse it. Only restricted, it will be cause suffocation. So what it is?
It is to be it is to be refined. Refined means how do you refine it? In one side, it is to be appreciated, but it’s also be elevated or educated. Everybody has freedom, and we wanna and they elevate their freedom. So like that, the head is not meant to imposition of faith is not to be there, but nor is there meant to be the rejection of faith.
So, unfortunately, what has happened with respect to secularism. In in between is inspiration. The faith has to be inspired. Last part I talked about was today. So what has happened is secularism is largely present in most parts of the world.
Secularism originally started as what? Neutrality towards religion. But from neutrality, it became apathy. And in some parts, it has become hostility. Now that is unwanted.
And then when we are trying to select a leader, we would like to see both, you know, material competence, that is the capacity to establish dharma. And we have to we’ll say the spiritual spiritual devotion or spiritual inclination. That would be bhakti. So while both are important, but actually, material competence is much more important. And when we have this, then at a basic level, the king will maintain order.
So the king is not Parikshit is not punishing Kali because he’s a non devotee. Parikshit is Kali punishing Kali because he is being cruel. He’s disrupting law and order. Thank you very much. Hooray, Krishna.
Hooray, Krishna. Do we have time? So my my question is in regard to thank you so much. This is so brilliant. My mind is totally blown.
I’m like, I’m going to just, like, turn this over a thousand times to really understand it. But my question is actually within the context of, of ISKCON and Bakhti. What, I would just love you to speak on this concept of free will and what what to do when those who are your authority restrict free will within with specifically within the ISCOM context and and the fact that there is, like, a clear hierarchical Yeah. See, in general, there are two distinct things. One is autonomy and the other is facility.
Now in general, nowhere in the world, in any institution, will we get both of those together. Now if I come here, if I come here to give a talk, I want a facility. There’s a system over here. There’s a there’s an audience over here. So now if I come here and if I say I’ll I wanna speak with politics directly.
No. We don’t talk politics over. Here, if I say that I want to speak with Vedan Sutra. So now we speak with the Bhagavad. So I might just by using this facility, some of my autonomy is going to be restricted.
Like, if I want the autonomy, if I want to do Vedan Sutra, then I have the facility I have the autonomy to do that, but I cannot demand facility. So if I want a particular facility, that will require me to sacrifice some of my autonomy. So now each one of us has to decide based on our individual needs, our individual needs and our individual inspirations. Now which one do I need more, or which one is more important for me? So when you say the historical authority restricting our free will, at least the way I’m understanding it is that there are certain things within any institutional framework.
There’ll be some restriction of autonomy. If somebody says I want to become a devotee, I want to be initiated in this con, but I don’t wanna chant Hare Krishna. At least you have the free will not to chant, but then if you want to be a part of this community, this is what is required. So I would say, each leader will have a particular vision, and they may insist on certain things. And the advantage of the way the Prabhupada made the Krishna consciousness movement was that he made it like a a nuclear joint family.
What it means to that? It’s a we are all a part of one joint family, but each is a nuclear family. Each center is like a nuclear family. In the sense that if we can’t gel with at one particular place, if we find that the rules are too strict over here or that ambiance atmosphere is not that good, we can always go to some other place. So we may have we have that autonomy.
Now can we change the place itself? Well, it depends. So I would say this is a broad we cannot expect that there won’t be some regulation of our autonomy when we take some facility. Now is the leader becoming exploitative, destructive? If that is happening, then we may have to escalate the matters to the GBC or to SCOND resolve.
We have mediations, forums. We have ombudsmen. And then we can take care of it. So that is, I would say, the exception that can if that can happen. That’s unfortunate.
But, again, the principle is that if we want autonomy, we may have to forward the facility. Okay? Thank you. Yes, please. Yeah.
Yeah. I have a question about dharma. So I understand the dharma as a as a generic thing where lord Krishna has given us some drama for to follow. So that is a generic part. But if you come as a as a Yeah.
The whole of Mahabharata is basically a search for understanding what is dharma, and it’s not easy. That’s right. So it’s not and it doesn’t that doesn’t mean that nobody should we should not care for dharma. It’s like, say, if we have to make a decision that I want to offer the best for my children. But maybe one place, we have a good culture in the school, but maybe the education is not very good over there.
Another place, the education is good, but the overall campus culture, the student college school culture is not very good. Now which is the child which is the place where we should admit a child? Is there a right answer? No. Each person has to deliberate and decide.
So even when Krishna is with Arjuna, after speaking the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna does not microcontue Arjuna. It is not that before every arrow that Arjuna is shooting, Krishna, should I shoot the arrow? Do I have your permission? No. He’s he’s his own person.
So we have to use our best intelligence. Now the more we pray to Krishna, the more we are serious in our spiritual practices, the more it is likely that that we will get guidance from within to make good decisions. But, ultimately, there is a certain level of uncertainty that’s going to be there. And it’s like a the compass will get more and more refined by practice. That’s why talking with senior devotees, having some spiritual guides, and basically, aligning our spiritual compass through purification association is very helpful.
Thank you, professor. Yes, ma’am. You had it. Yeah. I want a second presence.
This was absolutely amazing and mind blowing. Thank you so much. My question is because you talked about how, the qualifications of a leader is first and foremost Dharma and second Shraddha, and that the leader also never, you know, forces forces the faith on someone. So, thank you. That’s so important.
And also we hear, that Srila Prabhupada’s books will become the law books for the next ten thousand years, and that the golden age of Krishna consciousness is is coming. And Srila Prabhupada also, he actually did encourage devotees to run for political office. So I was wondering in the context of is Khan expanding and growing in the golden age, like, what exactly does that golden age look like in terms of your presentation today? And and, although Dharma, you know, is, like, the first qualification of the leader, we also hear in the Srimad Bhagavatam how, when when the ruler is God conscious, you know, and is a devotee, then all good fortune comes. You know, they’re not forcing it on others, but their example, and because they are Krishna, connected to that highest dharma, then everything flows nicely.
Yeah. Good points. So regarding the Prabhupada’s books becoming law books, as far as I have seen, it was one conversation which Prabhupada said that. It’s not something which Prabhupada said repeatedly. And, now when he mentions the word law books, you know, laws are also they’re also amended according to entry circuits.
In the constitution, they’re amended what to speak of law books. So my understanding I’m not saying the power of parts books will be amended. My point is that, you know, you cannot have one frozen book which can be used for all matters at all times. So you got to speak of managing the whole world according to Prabhupada’s books. Are we able to manage this concept literally according to everything that Prabhupada said?
No. We have to adjust things. Prabhupada said in the books we have on the Ladhi at 04:30. Some places we might at five at five, we might later. We have to adjust it on time itself.
So Prabhupada, in his own books, has given the principle of flexibility, deshika la patra, the time based candidate. That’s also a principle to consider. So it’s my understanding is from Prabhupada’s books, we’ll get the principles. And the specific application will have to be combined with circumstances. When during Prabhupada’s times, different discount centers will do many different things.
And what Prabhupada said happened what happened in in Soviet Russia, for example, or in Pakistan, the way devotees, which is very different from in America or India. So that we we cannot the law books they quote cannot be taken out of context. Now with respect to whether if the leader is devoted, if all things follow, I have not seen that happen even in ISKCON. That means, say, just because the leader chants Hare Krishna tentatively every day, is there for the full morning program, does that mean the project will be wonderfully managed? Somebody can be a very serious sadhaka, and that’s wonderful.
That is a good example, a good inspiration. But just by the leader being a good sadhaka, does that mean everything automatically gets managed? There is now definitely if the leader is a good sadhaka, Niraja is a good example, everybody does sadhana nicely, That will lead to a certain decrease in another cause in everyone. Personal ambition. If everybody’s getting the higher taste, personal ambition will not be that much.
The lust and the anger and all the issues that come because of that, they will not be that much. But beyond that, life itself has many challenges to deal with. And we have to we need expertise in dealing with those challenges. So one of the most frustrating exam experiences for a devotee that I have seen is you go to a leader with a practical problem, and the leader gives a philosophical solution. You know, if you want to do that, then be a brahmana.
Don’t be a. That means what? Say now after this program, there is prasad. Now might suppose there is no prasad. Somehow they forgot to cook or they messed up and didn’t cook.
And you go to the hallway, the in charge says, there’s no concern. There’s a channel, a kitchen, and we’re happy. Now if you want to say that, that’s fine. But don’t be the kitchen in charge of that. Isn’t it?
So if you’re going to be a Kshatriya, then you have to give a practical solution. Now along with the practical solution, you can give a philosophical perspective. This is the Kshatriya’s business. So when the manager avoids doing managerial tasks and just gives philosophical solutions, then devotees get very frustrated. It doesn’t work like that.
If there is some devotee who is who is very abusive or is whatever father is abusive, and that devotee is hurting everyone. You go to the manager and the manager says, you know, beyond chant Hare Krishna, I learned to talk great. See it as your own karma. That will only enable the abuser to abuse one thing. Isn’t it?
Is Parikshit Maharaj shilling the bull over here? No. See it as your own past karma. Tolerate it. No.
He’s taking aggressive action. So when so to conclude complete this answer, what I would say is that the leader having spiritual values and spiritual devotion is important. At the same time, the material world is a tough place. And, see, Prabhupada did not think that, oh, just with my purity, if I just chant Hare Krishna, the whole world will become Krishna conscious. Prabhupada traveled to America A Day or so.
It was a material change that he made in his physical location. And if you see one of the last instructions that Prabhupada said, How will Krishna consciousness spread? He said, It is by organization and intelligence. Now if you see, organizing intelligence, is that spirituality? Well, you could say yes.
But, it is if we are to be effective in the material world, the material world has its truths. And we have to respect those truths. The material world functions according to certain principles. And if we neglect those principles, then things are not going to function. And one of the principles is that we need people who are competent to do the corresponding jobs.
That is the base essence of Varnash. Varnash is not about boxing people into certain categories. It’s basically ensuring that competent people are doing the right the jobs at which they are competent. Okay? Thank you.
Can I take the last question? It came really out of Yeah. Sure. Sorry. You can drop one to one if you don’t mind.
So thank you.