Take a look at this November 17th, 2008 article from the NY Times:
Found: An Ancient Monument to the Soul
November 18, 2008
Pointing
The following article was first published in Back to Godhead magazine in 1991.
Sometime in the 1730’s, a young Scottish philosopher tried, and failed, to find himself. David Hume reflected upon this experience in his first book, A Treatise of Human Nature (1739). The passage is much quoted and anthologized. I encountered it frequently as an undergraduate philosophy major, for my teachers regarded it as a watershed in Western philosophy. They revered David Hume—progenitor of the hard-nosed, no-nonsense style of empiricism they professed—and they amused their classes by reproducing in a Scottish burr a famous remark by the great philosopher’s mother: “Oor Davie’s a fine, good-natured crater, but uncommon wake-minded.”
Well, sons are sometimes hard on mothers, too. That was why I had the afternoon last fall to take my two grandsons in a search for the self, some 260 years after Davie had looked in vain. This Saturday my harried daughter needed a break, so my wife and I were at her house trying to load Paramesvara (age five), Bhaktivinoda (three and a half), and all their weekend gear into our car. In the midst of a great deal of coming and going, Paramesvara and I found ourselves at one point alone together in the car. We chatted. I was struck once more by how bright this lanky, tow-headed boy was, and I wondered how much of the philosophy of Krishna consciousness he understood. I decided to begin with what Srila Prabhupada called the “first lesson.”
Making sure I had his attention, I said, “Paramesvara, do you know you’re not your body?”
“I’m not?” he exclaimed in amazement. He looked at me expectantly, awaiting explanation.
“That’s right. You’re not. You’re the soul, the spirit soul.”
He knew plenty of Krishna stories, but, it seemed, no philosophy. Was he too young? His astonishment told me he was ready—my statement didn’t just go past him or bewilder him. Yet how could I get him to understand the soul? I did not want him simply reciting stock, catechistic responses that had no meaning for him.
Before I could go any further we were interrupted: “Jaga! Jaga! Help me!”
This was Bhaktivinoda, stranded on the sidewalk with a spill of paraphernalia, calling his older brother, whose in-house name is “Jaga” or “Jaga-bear.” (I can’t tell you why.) After we had packed the trunk and settled back-seat territorial disputes, Jaga went back inside to look for the trip snack-bag, leaving me alone with Bhaktivinoda, or, conveniently, “T-Node.” T-Node is a rolly-polly kind of kid with a pale, circular face that’s surrounded by a sunburst of curly hair so blonde it’s nearly white. A toddler’s lisp overlays his low, gravelly voice.
I had him alone: How would someone this young respond? Would he be interested at all?
“T-Node,” I asked in a serious voice, “do you know you’re not your body?”
“I’m not?” he exclaimed at once, his eyes wide with astonishment. He looked up at me, waiting.
“No, you’re not. When Jaga comes back I’ll explain it.” I began making plans.
My wife agreed to drive, and by the time we made the turnpike I was ready. I had remembered how Srila Prabhupada had taught some schoolchildren and decided to try it.
I twisted around to face the boys in the back seat. “Now I’ll show you that you’re not your body. First stick your pointing finger out straight, like this. OK? Good. Now just do what I tell you. Ready?”
They were; they were into it.
“Now: point to your nose!” I pointed to my nose, Jaga to his, T-Node to his.
“Now point to your belly!” We all did. I led them through a sequence: elbow, eye, foot, knee, chest …
(Once they got going I stopped pointing.) I hammed it up a bit and gradually gained speed until I reached the punchline: “Now point to your self!” Consternation. Pointing fingers waved about aimlessly, eyebrows knit together in bafflement. They laughed … “What? What?” Jaga said, his finger looping around like a bottled-up fly.
“See!” I said. “You can’t point to yourself. That’s because you are not your body! You’re the soul.”
T-Node was thunderstruck; he had clearly undergone an intellectual breakthrough. His face was lit up with the wonder of discovery.
“Do it again! Do it again!” T-Node begged. We went through the sequence a few times, and each time it worked to both boys’ satisfaction. “I’m not my body,” I heard T-Node saying to himself. “I am the soul.” It seemed to sound right to him.
But I felt an unease, a mental chill, almost a presence. It was the ghost of David Hume. With suave, measured tones that nicely set off a hint of contempt, I heard the words of the Treatise announcing the position about to be demolished:
“There are some philosophers who imagine we are every moment intimately conscious of what we call our self. …”
But where, Hume asks, could we get the idea of a self from? All real ideas are based on “impressions”—on sensations, passions, or emotions. We must be able to analyze or dissect ideas down to show ultimately the impressions that produced them. If we cannot, then the so-called idea is meaningless. What impression, Hume asks, is responsible for the idea of a single, simple, enduring, changing self?
If any impression gives rise to the idea of self, that impression must continue invariably the same, through the whole course of our lives; since self is supposed to exist after that manner. But there is no impression constant and invariable. Pain and pleasure, grief and joy, passions and sensations succeed each other, and never all exist at the same time. It cannot therefore be from any of these impressions, or from any other, that the idea of self is derived; and consequently there is no such idea.
Yet don’t we need a self to possess or unify all our particular impressions? Well, where is it?
For my part, when I enter most intimately into what I call myself, I always stumble on some particular perception or other, of heat or cold, light or shade, love or hatred, pain or pleasure. I never can catch myself at any time without a perception, and never can observe anything but the perception.
A person may attest that he perceives “something simple and continued, which he calls himself,” Hume says, “though I am certain there is no such principle in me.” Setting such “metaphysicians” aside, Hume affirms that humans “are nothing but a bundle or collection of different perceptions, which succeed each other with an inconceivable rapidity, and are in a perpetual flux and movement.”
Haunted by Hume, I kept on conversing with the metaphysicians in the back seat while the Pennsylvania croplands poured away behind them. They were learning to discriminate between matter and spirit. I held a rubber ball in my hand and beat it with a fist.
“See? I can hit it over and over again—hard—and it never goes ‘Ow!’ It never cries. But if I hit you”—they bobbed away from my slow-motion punch—”you’ll feel it. You’ll cry. That’s because there is a soul—you—in your body. But there’s no soul in this ball.”
“This morning Jaga hit me and made me cry,” T-Node said.
“If you hit a cat or dog, it feels it,” Jaga quickly put in. “It is also a spirit soul.”
“Even ants or spiders,” I added.
T-Node looked down guiltily. He’s been known to step on ants on purpose.
How could Hume have missed himself? Was he being willfully obtuse? Imagine him conducting an inventory of his mental contents, like an auctioneer appraising the contents of an estate up for sale. He walks through each room, examining each object. Picking it up, setting it down. Looking for something in particular. “Is this myself? Is this? Is this?” After an exhaustive search, he reports—truthfully enough—that he didn’t find it.
But who is looking? Who is inspecting this memory, this joy, this love, this fear, this regret, this ambition, this or that train of thought? David, you could not find your self in all that because none of that, taken separately or all together, is your self. The self is not the seen but the seer, not the experience but the experiencer. You are not even David Hume, but rather the experiencer of being David Hume.
Teaching my grandsons had given me a new insight into the Treatise. Like T-Node and Jaga, David Hume had been playing the pointing game. T-Node and Jaga played by pointing to different parts of their bodies, while David played by pointing to different parts of his mind—the subtle body. I could take Davie through it point by point, running through the inventory of mental goods, until: “Point to your self!” And the indexical Human finger wavers, finding no object. “See!” I’d say. “You’re not your mind. You’re the spirit soul.”
For we are no more to be identified with our minds than with our bodies. The mind belongs to the category of the not-self as much as the body does. Both mind and body are material, the former being merely finer or subtler than the latter. Vedic seers know this, but Western philosophers have conflated the spiritual and the mental; “mind” and “soul” are synonymous. David Hume discovered in the Treatise that the mind was not the self, but he drew a false conclusion: there was no self, no soul, at all.
My grandsons were doing better:
“What happens if I attack the soul with ninja swords?”
“Nothing! It can’t be cut!”
“What happens if I drop a huge rock on it?”
“It can’t be smashed!”
“What happens if I put a blowtorch to it?”
“It can’t be burnt!”
“How can I kill the soul?”
“You can’t! You can’t kill the soul!”
They were good students. They made me wish I had Davie in my class along with them. I thought about that. Since the presence of such a great philosopher might intimidate me, I would want his mother along too. She sounded like a formidable woman, and she seemed to know her son.
November 12, 2008
A Personal Note
I am still convalescing from pneumonia. On October 27th I flew back to JFK from Mumbai nonstop aboard Delta, and my first night in Philadelphia spiked a high fever accompanied by violent vomiting and chills. I feared I had malaria. (Mumbai records 6,000 cases this year.) The next day fever continued, and I began bring up rust colored goop from my lungs. My doctor immediately diagnosed bacterial pneumonia:
At least I tested negative for malaria:
He confirmed it with a chest x-ray and blood test and prescribed a ten-day course of antibiotics. I weakened steadily until the fourth day, on which vital energy made its slight, but firm, reappearance. I finished the antibiotics last week; still I find myself exhausted after even a little effort and I sleep a lot. My strength returns, but it seems to take its own time.
On the Vaishnava Care website, I see many compassionate devotees have been praying for my recovery. Thank you all. I hope to repay you with service to Srila Prabhupada.
A Welcome Note from Jayadvaita Maharaja
PAMHO.
I’m reading and appreciating your blog.
One point (from an old e-mail exchange):
“Shri” is needless–and antiquated.
Further:
Two of my dictionaries–American Heritage and Random House–list
“Sri,” not “Shri.” The third–Merriam-Webster–does have “Shri.”
Definition? “variant of Sri.”
And since it’s “Sri,” then “Srila” and “Srimad.”
Cheers.
–ys, js
November 4, 2008
Munchies for the Mind IV
Divine Biology
“…the hills and mountains are the stacks of His bones.”
-Shrimad Bhagavatam 2.1.32
“…the rivers are the veins of the gigantic body…”
-Shrimad Bhagavatam 2.1.33
“the trees are the hairs of His body…”
-Shrimad Bhagavatam 2.1.33
“…the clouds which carry water are the hairs on His head…”
-Shrimad Bhagavatam 2.1.34
“…the terminations of days or nights are His dress”
-Shrimad Bhagavatam 2.1.34
Idolatry
Then…
Exodus 32-New American Standard Bible
(1)Now when the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people assembled about Aaron and said to him, “Come, make us a god who will go before us; as for this Moses, the man who brought us up from the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.” (2) Aaron said to them, “Tear off the gold rings which are in the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters, and bring them to me.” (4) He took this from their hand, and fashioned it with a graving tool and made it into a molten calf; and they said, “This is your god, O Israel, who brought you up from the land of Egypt.” (5) Now when Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it; and Aaron made a proclamation and said, “Tomorrow shall be a feast to the LORD.” (7) Then the LORD spoke to Moses, “Go down at once, for your people, whom you brought up from the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves. (8) “They have quickly turned aside from the way which I commanded them. They have made for themselves a molten calf, and have worshiped it and have sacrificed to it and said, ‘This is your god, O Israel, who brought you up from the land of Egypt!’” (10)”Now then let Me alone, that My anger may burn against them and that I may destroy them; and I will make of you a great nation.” (11) Then Moses entreated the LORD his God, and said, “O LORD, why does Your anger burn against Your people whom You have brought out from the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand? (14) So the LORD changed His mind about the harm which He said He would do to His people. (15) Then Moses turned and went down from the mountain with the two tablets of the testimony in his hand, tablets which were written on both sides; they were written on one side and the other. (19) It came about, as soon as Moses came near the camp, that he saw the calf and the dancing; and Moses’ anger burned, and he threw the tablets from his hands and shattered them at the foot of the mountain. (20) He took the calf which they had made and burned it with fire, and ground it to powder, and scattered it over the surface of the water and made the sons of Israel drink it. (26) then Moses stood in the gate of the camp, and said, “Whoever is for the LORD, come to me!” And all the sons of Levi gathered together to him. (33) The LORD said to Moses, “Whoever has sinned against Me, I will blot him out of My book. (35) Then the LORD smote the people, because of what they did with the calf which Aaron had made.
Now…
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/10/30/145245/63/817/647006
(Thanks to Rupa for the link.)
October 28, 2008
Three Architects of Lord Chaitanya’s Movement
The following is an excerpt from Ravindra Svarupa dasa’s 1995 Vyasa Puja homage to Shrila Prabhupada.
The triumph of the modernized West binds the world more and more together by means of continually improving technologies of transport and communication. When traditional cultures and civilizations gathered within the prodigious octopus-grasp of Modernity, they began to intermingle and interpenetrate, even as Modernity engaged in dissolving and digesting their ancient substances. This event set the stage and prepared the means for the “breakout” of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’s movement, for its setting forth into the world from its maternal home, India.
To retrofit Lord Chaitanya’s movement for its setting forth became the task of three empowered spiritual architects and renovators of three generations: Shrila Bhaktivinoda Thakura, Shrila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Prabhupada, and Shrila Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada. When finally the story of the progressive achievement of these three geniuses is fully told, it will form an epic narration, a saga of spiritual adventure to place on the shelf beside the Ramayana and Mahabharata. It will fascinate the world for centuries to come. I can only give the barest hint here.
Shrila Bhaktivinoda Thakura:
He rescued Lord Chaitanya’s movement. Bhaktivinoda Thakura had the power to discriminate the genuine flowering creeper of Lord Chaitanya’s movement, which was nearly lost among the rank growths of well-established weeds of various apasampradayas. These mimics displayed perversities that had brought Lord Chaitanya’s very name into international disrepute. Shrila Bhaktivinoda Thakura uncovered, rejuvenated, propagated, and defended the authentic teachings and practices of Lord Chaitanya.
Moreover, Shrila Bhaktivinoda Thakura profoundly grasped both the challenge and the opportunity presented by the world-dominance of the modern West. He studied Western thinkers and confronted their ideas with the teachings of Lord Chaitanya. He envisioned the movement of Lord Caitanya acting on a global scale. In this way Bhaktivinoda Thakura effected the intellectual transfer of Lord Chaitanya’s movement into a radically new cultural context. He did this because, above all, he was possessed by an unrelenting drive to deliver pure Krishna consciousness to all people, by all means, and at any cost.
Shrila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Prabhupada:
He inherited from his father, Shrila Bhaktivinoda Thakura, the same drive to preach. He was animated by his father’s realization of how Krishna consciousness could—and would—spread throughout the world. Therefore, Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Prabhupada gave concrete form to the vision of Shrila Bhaktivinoda Thakura by creating the Gaudiya Matha as a practical instrument for active preaching in the world.
In so doing, he became a religious revolutionary. His father had uncovered the authentic Krishna consciousness movement in the shape of a religion of reclusive, maha-bhagavata babajis. Now his son transferred the elixir of this authentic Krishna consciousness into a new container. He transposed a religion on the platform of maha-bhagavatas to one on the platform of madhyama-adhikaris and thus produced an active preaching mission directed toward all people, whatever their class, caste, or cultural level. This entailed practical adjustments in sadhana and ritual. It was a transformation, but it was, as they say in philosophy, salve veritate: it preserved truth. The established groups of compromised, parochial, or merely complaisant Gaudiya Vaishnavas naturally could not see this. They criticized Shrila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Prabhupada. He took them on. He challenged all the apasampradayas and defeated them.
He embraced the most practical means of spreading Krishna consciousness. Book distribution was the foremost of his endeavors to engage modern technologies, especially of transport and communications, for preaching. Modern, secular things should not be rejected if they can be used in furthering Lord Chaitanya’s mission. To drive the point home, he drove up to Radha-kunda, the holiest of holies, in a Jaguar sedan, scandalizing the scandalous babajis there.
He also had the insight to realize that for a unified preaching institution to operate effectively in the modern world, on a global scale, and in a stable and enduring manner, it needed to be managed in the modern way, by a board of directors, rather than in the more traditional manner of a sole autocratic acharya. Unfortunately, the failure of his leading disciples in the Gaudiya Matha to understand this point led to the disintegration of the Mission after Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati’s disappearance.
Shrila Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, our spiritual master and founder-acharya:
All of Shrila Prabhupada’s achievements demonstrably rest on one prime quality: He fully embraced his spiritual master’s order and made it his “life and soul.” As a consequence, Shrila Prabhupada was given the confidence, courage, and stamina to take that great leap of faith. All alone he crossed the dark waters and brought Lord Chaitanya’s movement to America. In reciprocation, Krishna sent thousands of lost souls to him to save. It was hard work; it was suffering: “I have to shed my blood three tons to make one convinced in Krishna consciousness. That is my experience … especially these Europeans and Americans.” Shrila Prabhupada shed his blood endlessly.
Shrila Prabhupada was empowered with the vision, the knowledge, and the compassion to fulfill the innermost desires of Shrila Bhaktivinoda Thakura and Shrila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura. He worked only for twelve years, with crude and unmalleable material (us, his disciples), and yet the whole world heard the Hare Krishna mantra, and the Bhagavad-gita and Shrimad-Bhagavatam found their way into every nook and corner of the globe. Carrying Lord Chaitanya’s mission as far as he was able, Shrila Prabhupada broke new ground practically every day; consequently, he was challenged repeatedly to make the correct decision. At stake was the vital issue: how to preserve and perpetuate unchanged the teachings of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu in unprecedented circumstances. By virtue of his faithful following, Shrila Prabhupada was given the intelligence to meet these challenges.
He worked hard to set up his preaching institution, the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, formed carefully after the directions of his Guru Maharaja. He set up and trained a Governing Body to continue ISKCON after him. He called ISKCON his body, and it indeed continues after him, still animated by his indwelling, ever-watchful spirit. He will remain thus with us as long as we ourselves make his order our own life and soul.
October 21, 2008
Rights
During my initial encounter with Krishna consciousness, I was puzzled, and then troubled, by the absence of any consideration of “rights”—human rights, civil rights—in the social teachings of Shrila Prabhupada, who took great pains to elucidate an ideal “Vedic society.” It seemed to me that rights ought to be a central concern of this or any other social ideal.
Moreover, the social order he extolled as exemplary—indeed as divinely ordained—was unapologetically hierarchical. All the more need for rights, I thought. Isn’t respect for rights the greatest safeguard against the abuse of power?
My typical American education had glorified the eighteenth century discovery of “the rights of man” as a supreme achievement of Enlightenment thinking. To that revolutionary historical breakthrough we owed that bold assertion in our “Declaration of Independence” every school child was made to memorize: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
The polity promoted in Bhagavatam could hardly be more different from that advocated by the so-called Enlightenment. One of its foremost ideologues, the philosopher Denis Diderot, said: “Mankind will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest.” Bhagavatam, in contrast, teaches that a society lead by priests and kings best facilitates human freedom.
Bhagavatam at once challenged my received ideas. It would require me to unlearn a great deal—the consensual reality I had unquestionably accepted with uncritical faith. Reposing my faith in Bhagavatam, on the other hand, could hardly be uncritical. And so came my misgiving concerning rights.
As it happened, my first readings of Bhagavatam were confined to the second canto, which, in 1969 and 70, ISKCON Press published serially, chapter by chapter, in thin paperbacks. The volumes of the first canto, published in India and trunked to America by Prabhupada himself, were long sold out. Only after I moved into the Philadelphia ashram, in January of 71, was I able to read the temple’s copy of the first canto. I discovered a crudely bound work, printed on cheap paper, each page bristling with typos. It was written in Prabhupada’s idiomatic, “babu English,” yet his distinctive voice—not yet editorially planed and sanded like the second canto—spoke out all the more powerfully.
It was here I encountered a text that resolved all my worry about rights. In the fourth verse of chapter twelve, I read about the exemplary King Yudhisthira, who cared for all of thoses born in his kingdom. Prabhupada comments:
Herein the word ‘Prajah‘ is significant. The etymological import of the word is that which is born. On the earth there are many species of life from the aquatics up to the perfect human beings and all are known as ‘Prajas. . . . . As such the Praja is used in a broader sense than it is now used. The King is meant for all living beings namely the aquatics, plants, trees, the reptiles, the birds, the animals and the man. Every one of them is a part and parcel of the Supreme Lord (B. G. 14/4), and the King being the representative of the Supreme Lord, he is duty-bound to give proper protection to every one of them. It is not like the presidents and dictators of the demoralised system of administration where the lower animals are given no protection while the higher animals are given so called protection. But this is a great science which can be learnt only by one who has learnt the science of Krishna as already refered to above by us.
The king, as God’s representative, is “duty-bound to give proper protection to every one of them.” I gave some thought to this idea: The king is the head of state, the government. And all living beings, even the animals, are citizens. This means that they have (as we would put it today) civil rights. And the government must guarantee those rights.
In 1971, the idea of animal rights was “way out there,” a notion of the lunatic fringe. Yet this highly radical extension of civil rights to animals was contained within Prabhupada’s exposition of monarchism—a most conservative political philosophy, to say the least. Bhagavatam was destroying the standard conservative-liberal typology.
From that moment I understood that modern, enlightened “rights” were no innovation; they had somehow been implicit in the entirely old fashioned, conservative, pre-enlightenment idea of duty.
A few years later, browsing a used book store, I happened to pick up a volume by the French theologian Simone Weil. I’d learned about this extraordinary person—”a modern saint”—in a graduate religion course, and I was curious to know more.
The book, translated from the French as The Need for Roots, opens on the first page with a brilliant and penetrating discussion about rights and obligations (or duties); it grealy helped me to understand Prabhupada’s Bhagavatam.
Simone Weil begins:
The notion of obligations comes before that of rights, which is subordinate and relative to the former. A right is not effectual by itself, but only in relation to the obligation to which is corresponds, the effective exercise of a right springing not from the individual who possesses it, but from other men who consider themselves as being under a certain obligation toward him. Recognition of an obligation makes it effectual. An obligation which goes unrecognized by anybody loses none of the full force of its existence. A right which goes unrecognized by anybody is not worth very much.
To say that a king like Yudhisthira has duties or obligations toward the living being in his realm is another way of asserting that those subjects have rights. But Weil asserts here that it is better to think in terms of obligations than of rights. Why? Because the idea of rights is subordinate to and depends upon the idea of an obligation. I may assert that I have some right, but that recognition becomes effective only if some others recognize that they have obligations toward me. So it is better to be concerned with obligations.
Moreover, an obligation remains in force even if it is unacknowledged. An unrecognized right by itself has no force. It gains force only when the corresponding obligation is recognized.
Weil continues her analysis, showing that the difference between rights and duties is simply a difference of point of view:
It makes nonsense to say that men have, on the one hand, rights, and on the other hand, obligations. Such words only express differences in point of view. The actual relationship between the two is as between object and subject. A man, considered in isolation, only has duties, among which are certain duties toward himself. Other men, seen from his point of view, only have rights. He, in his turn, has rights, when seen from the point of view of other men, who recognize that they have obligations toward him. A man left alone in the universe would have no rights whatever, but he would have obligations.
Imagine, for instance, the relationship between a good master and a good servant in Vedic culture, or, for that matter, in medieval Europe. There will be no talk of rights; there are no labor unions, no social security system. Still, just as the servant has duties toward his master, the master has obligations toward the servant. The master, having received years of faithful service, knows he is obliged to care for his servant in sickness, in the infirmity of old age, in death. The servant has, in effect, all the rights promised by modern “cradle to grave socialism.” But in this case, both master and servant know their obligations, and neither has to ask for his rights.
Weil goes on to point out an important difference between obligations and rights. The former are absolute, or unconditioned, and the latter relative and conditioned:
The notion of rights, being of an objective order, is inseparable from the notions of existence and reality. This becomes apparent when the obligation descends to the realm of fact; consequently, it always involves to a certain extent the taking into account of actual given states and particular situations. Rights are always found to be related to certain conditions. Obligations alone remain independent of conditions. They belong to a realm situated above all conditions, because it is situated above this world.
The sense of obligation is expressed in English by the verbal formula “ought to.” In Sanskrit, there is a special verbal form, called vidhi-lin, that conveys injunctions, that is to say, what was enjoined or directed by Vedic authority. Weil understands that obligations are unconditional. They derive from a transcendent realm.
She continues:
The men of 1789 did not recognize the existence of such a realm. All they recognized was one on the human plane. That is why they started off with the idea of rights. But at the same time they wanted to postulate absolute principles. This contradiction caused them to tumble into a confusion of language and ideas which is largely responsible for the present political and social confusion. The realm of what is eternal, universal, unconditioned is other than the one conditioned by facts, and different ideas hold sway there, ones which are related to the most secret recesses of the human soul.
“The men of 1789″ are the architects of the French Revolution. Since they rejected divine injunctions, they had to forgo talk of duties or obligations. They could adduce only the cognate “rights.” Those they could simply assert, without grounding or foundation. Yet, as Weil has pointed out, “rights” by themselves are impotent. To be effective, they require someone else to accept the corresponding obligations.
It is a commonplace in philosophy that it is not possible to derive an “ought” from an “is.” They are two different realms. “Ought” requires an authority. Ultimately, I will argue, an absolute one. For a person becomes an authority only by being authorized by another. Hence there emerges a sequence of authorizing agents that can only end—where? If the chain has an anchor, a foundation, it ends with the unique self-authorizing authorizer of all others. In other words, God.
Or, of course, with a god-surrogate, an imitator. Your idol du jour.
In the Bhagavatam, the kshatriya kings are guided by the brahmanas, those who are able to know transcendence and who have the skill to apply that knowledge correctly to concete affairs. In such a society, people are trained from childhood in a culture of obligation.
The results may surprise us.
If we search though Bhagavatam for statements of the obligations of a king, for instance, we discover a citizenry with far more rights that most of us have today.
For example, Prabhupada writes in the purport to Bhagavatam 4.17.12
It is the duty of the king to see that everyone in the social orders—brahmana, kshatriya, vaishya and shudra—is fully employed in the state. Just as it is the duty of the brahmanas to elect a proper king, it is the duty of the king to see that all the varnas—brahmana, kshatriya, vaishya and shudra—are fully engaged in their respective occupational duties. It is here indicated that although the people were allowed to perform their duties, they were still unemployed. . . . . When the people are perplexed in this way, they should approach the head of government, and the president or king should take immediate action to mitigate the distress of the people.
In other words, everyone has a right to full employment. If people cannot find work, then the state is obliged to arrange for their employment.
Bhagavatam (1.14.41, purport) speaks of the rights of those who are weak, diseased, or old or otherwise helpless:
The brahmanas, who are always engaged in researching knowledge for the society’s welfare work, both materially and spiritually, deserve the protection of the king in all respects. Similarly, the children of the state, the cow, the diseased person, the woman and the old man specifically require the protection of the state or a kshatriya king. If such living beings do not get protection by the kshatriya, or the royal order, or by the state, it is certainly shameful for the kshatriya or the state.
Bhagavatam recognizes (5.15.7, purport) even a universal right to happiness:
As a representative of the Supreme Lord, the king had the duty to protect the citizens in a perfect way so that they would not be anxious for food and protection and so that they would be jubilant.
Of course, governments today do not represent the Lord, nor are the citizens jubilant.
In the eighteenth century, Europe was completing the turn from a God-centered to a human-centered world view. With the triumph of humanism, obligations lost their force, and talk of rights began.
After so many years of humanism, we still hear that the most basic of human rights—food, clothing, shelter, physical security, health—go scandalously unfulfilled in most places in the world.
And the rights of the mute, nonhuman populace are only beginning to be acknowledged.
Yet, for all the handwringing over rights, there is precious little action. Simone Weil put her finger on the problem: “A right is not effectual by itself, but only in relation to the obligation to which is corresponds.”
Thus, to be effective in bringing about full social justice to human and animals alike we must return to the culture of obligations. Shrila Prabhupada’s presentation of Bhagavatam is intended to effect that return.
We should now recognize that the only way to go forward is by going back. We progress by returning.
October 14, 2008
The Miracle of a Vaishnava Part II
The following is part II of the essay, The Miracle of a Vaishnava, originally published in 1997 as part of Ravindra Svarupa Prabhu’s Vyasa Puja homage for Shrila Prabhupada. Part I can be found here.
In a lecture on Shrimad Bhagavatam 1.2.11 given in Vrindavana on October 22, 1972, Prabhupada again refers to Visvanatha Cakravarti’s commentary on Bhagavad Gita 2.41. Prabhupada begins by telling us we should act so that we will attract Krishna’s attention. How to do that? The answer: Serve Krishna by following His representative, the spiritual master. Anyone who does that thereby becomes himself a representative of Krishna. And how is that? One simply has to transmit the message of Krishna without any adulteration. This leads Prabhupada to cite Caitanya Caritamrta, Madhya 7.128:
Just like Caitanya Mahaprabhu said, amara ajnaya guru hana, “You become a spiritual master under My order.” So if you carry out the order of Caitanya Mahaprabhu, Krishna, then you become guru. Amara ajnaya guru hana. Unfortunately, we do not wish to carry out order of the acaryas. We manufacture our own ways. We have got practical experience how a great institution was lost by whimsical ways. Without carrying out the order of the spiritual master, they manufactured something and the whole thing was lost.
Let us reflect on this passage. Here, Prabhupada cites amara anjaya guru hana as conveying the essential qualification for becoming a spiritual master: to obey the order of the acharyas. When Prabhupada remarks, “Unfortunately, we do not wish to carry out order of the acaryas. We manufacture our own ways,” he is alluding to Srimad Bhagavatam 4.18.5: “A foolish person who manufactures his own ways and means through mental speculation and does not recognize the authority of the sages who lay down unimpeachable directions is simply unsuccessful again and again in his attempts.” To illustrate the failure that attends disobedience to the order of the acharya, Prabhupada then refers to the break-up of the Gaudiya Matha (“a great institution was lost”) after Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura’s departure.
As we have seen, in his lecture on the anniversary of Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura’s departure, Prabhupada had invoked Visvanatha Cakravarti’s direction as the key to his success. Now, he will go on to cite the neglect of that same direction in explaining the the failure of other disciples of his Guru Maharaja:
Therefore Visvanatha Cakravarti Thakura stresses very much on the words of the spiritual master. Vyavasayatmika buddhir ekeha kuru-nandana. If you stick to the order of spiritual master, without caring for your own convenience or inconvenience, then you become perfect.
yasya deve para bhaktir yatha deve tatha gurau
tasyaite kathita hy arthah prakasante mahatmanah
This is the confirmation of all authorities. We have to carry out very faithfully the order of the bona fide representative of Krishna. Then our life is successful. Then we can understand Krishna in truth.
In the above passage, Prabhupada alluded to Shrimad Bhagavatam 4.18.5 itself. In his purport to that text, Shrila Prabhupada brings Visvanatha Cakravarti’s direction and Caitanya Mahaprabhu’s together in a way that further elucidates the potency of strictly following the spiritual master’s order:
At the present moment it has become fashionable to disobey the unimpeachable directions given by the acaryas and liberated souls of the past. Presently people are so fallen that they cannot distinguish between a liberated soul and a conditioned soul. A conditioned soul is hampered by four defects: he is sure to commit mistakes, he is sure to become illusioned, he has a tendency to cheat others, and his senses are imperfect. Consequently we have to take direction from liberated persons.
Prabhupada is going to tell us how to discriminate between a liberated and a conditioned soul, so that we can know from whom we should take directions. In fact, he tells us that ISKCON is guided by Krishna through such liberated souls:
This Krishna consciousness movement directly receives instructions from the Supreme Personality of Godhead via persons who are strictly following His instructions.
This sentence contains two surprises. First: Prabhupada says that our movement is “directly” receiving instruction from Krishna “via” other persons. This is paradoxical on the face of it. Since Prabhupada would not state an absurdity, we have to conclude that although Krishna’s instructions may come via the medium of another agent, the instructions are nevertheless direct and unmediated. In other words, the proper medium is entirely transparent to Krishna (and the previous acharya as well) so that the intermediary is not really so. The question about how a disciple of Prabhupada’s disciple can have a relation directly with Shrila Prabhupada is answered herein.
Second: Since the previous sentence enjoins that one has to take direction from liberated souls, we are primed to expect this sentence to end “via persons who are liberated.” Prabhupada upsets that expectation by saying “via persons who are strictly following his instructions.” The next sentence addresses this subversion of our expectatons:
Although a follower may not be a liberated person, if he follows the supreme, liberated Personality of Godhead, his actions are naturally liberated from the contamination of the material nature. Lord Caitanya therefore says: “By My order you may become a spiritual master.” One can immediately become a spiritual master by having full faith in the transcendental words of the Supreme Personality of Godhead and by following His instructions.
It is a clumsy error to interpret this passage as implying that a bona-fide spiritual master may be a conditioned soul. Rather, this passages tells us what “liberated” effectively means: it means to strictly follow the orders of the spiritual master.
Prabhupada makes this even clearer in his purport to Shrimad Bhagavatam 4.20.13, a verse that quotes the orders given to Prithu Maharaja directly by Lord Vishnu. Prabhupada remarks:
One has to execute the order of Lord Visnu, whether receiving it directly from Him or from His bona fide representative, the spiritual master. Arjuna fought the Battle of Kuruksetra under the direct order of the Supreme personality of Godhead, Krsna. Similarly, here Prthu Maharaja is also being given orders by Lord Visnu regarding the execution of his duty. We have to stick to the principles stated in the Bhagavad-gita. Vyavasayatmika buddhih: every man’s duty is to receive orders from Lord Krsna or from His bona fide representative and take these orders as his life and soul, without personal considerations. Srila Visvanatha Cakravarti Thakura states that one should not care very much whether he is going to be liberated or not, but he should simply execute the direct order received from the spiritual master. If one sticks to the principle of abiding by the order of the spiritual master, he will always remain in a liberated position.
Our concern should therefore be single: stick to the order of the spiritual master. That principle is sufficient of itself to answer the questions of securing liberation and direct guidance from the Lord. Prabhupada makes this point with equal directness in his purport to Shrimad Bhagavatam 4.24.15:
This is the secret of success. After being initiated and receiving the orders of the spiritual master, the disciple should unhesitatingly think about the instructions or orders of the spiritual master and should not allow himself to be disturbed by anything else. This is also the verdict of Srila Visvanatha Cakravarti Thakura, who, while explaining a verse of Bhagavad-gita (vyavasayatmika buddhir ekeha kuru-nandana, Bg. 2.41), points out that the order of the spiritual master is the life substance of the disciple. The disciple should not consider whether he is going back home, back to Godhead; his first business should be to execute the order of his spiritual master. Thus a disciple should always meditate on the order of the spiritual master, and that is perfectional meditation. Not only should he meditate upon that order, but he should find out the means by which he can perfectly worship and execute it.
If we look back at Prabhupada’s various presentations of Visvanatha Cakravarti’s understanding of vyavasayatmika buddhi we find that the instruction that we should simply fix our entire attention on the spiritual master’s order and forget all personal considerations becomes explicated in greater and greater depth: “We should try to carry out the instruction, the specific instruction of the spiritual master, very rigidly, without caring for our personal benefit or loss. “ And: “If you stick to the order of spiritual master, without caring for your own convenience or inconvenience, then you become perfect.” And then: “Although a follower may not be a liberated person, if he follows the supreme, liberated Personality of Godhead, his actions are naturally liberated from the contamination of the material nature.” And again: “Srila Visvanatha Cakravarti Thakura states that one should not care very much whether he is going to be liberated or not, but he should simply execute the direct order received from the spiritual master. If one sticks to the principle of abiding by the order of the spiritual master, he will always remain in a liberated position.” And in the last purport: “The disciple should not consider whether he is going back home, back to Godhead; his first business should be to execute the order of his spiritual master.”
Following the order of the spiritual master is the same as attaining not only liberation but also the direct association with the Supreme Personality of Godhead. We should therefore fix our attention exclusively on that order: all success is thereby obtained. Prabhupada makes this brilliantly clear when he explicitly discusses how the disciples should keep faith with the spiritual master after the master’s physical departure. Prabhupada says (S.Bh. 4.28.47, p.):
The disciple and spiritual master are never separated because the spiritual master always keeps company with the disciple as long as the disciple follows strictly the instructions of the spiritual master. This is called the association of vani (words). Physical presence is called vapuh. As long as the spiritual master is physically present, the disciple should serve the physical body of the spiritual master, and when the spiritual master is no longer physically existing, the disciple should serve the instructions of the spiritual master.
This vani-seva is further explain in the purport to S.Bh. 4.28.51:
When one becomes serious to follow the mission of the spiritual master, his resolution is tantamount to seeing the Supreme Personality of Godhead. As explained before, this means meeting the Supreme Personality of Godhead in the instruction of the spiritual master. This is technically called vani-seva. Srila Visvanatha Cakravarti Thakura states in his Bhagavad-gita commentary on the verse vyavasayatmika buddhir ekeha kuru-nandana (Bg. 2.41) that one should serve the words of the spiritual master. The disciple must stick to whatever the spiritual master orders. Simply by following on that line, one sees the Supreme Personality of Godhead.
Prabhupada goes on to say that there may be different ways of associating with the Supreme Personality of Godhead. “Nonetheless,” he continues
if one sticks to the principles enunciated by the spiritual master, somehow or other he is in association with the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Since the Lord is in the heart, He can advise a sincere disciple from within. This is also confirmed in Bhagavad-gita (10.10):
tesam satata-yuktanam bhajataà priti-purvakam
dadami buddhi-yogam tam yena mam upayanti te
“To those who are constantly devoted and worship Me with love, I give the understanding by which they can come to Me.”
In conclusion, if a disciple is very serious to execute the mission of the spiritual master, he immediately associates with the Supreme Personality of Godhead by vani or vapuh. This is the only secret of success in seeing the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Instead of being eager to see the Lord in some bush of Vrndavana while at the same time engaging in sense gratification, if one instead sticks to the principle of following the words of the spiritual master, he will see the Supreme Lord without difficulty.
Srila Bilvamangala Thakura has therefore said:
bhaktis tvayi sthiratara bhagavan yadi syad
daivena nah phalati divya-kisora-murtih
muktih svayam mukulitanjali sevate ’sman
dharmartha-kama-gatayah samaya-pratiksah
“If I am engaged in devotional service unto You, my dear Lord, then very easily can I perceive Your presence everywhere. And as far as liberation is concerned, I think that liberation stands at my door with folded hands, waiting to serve me—and all material conveniences of dharma [religiosity], artha [economic development] and kama [sense gratification] stand with her.” (Krsna-karnamrta 107) If one is very highly advanced in devotional service, he will have no difficulty in seeing the Supreme Personality of Godhead. If one engages in the service of the spiritual master, he not only sees the Supreme Personality of Godhead but attains liberation. As far as material conveniences are concerned, they automatically come, just as the maidservants of a queen follow the queen wherever she goes. Liberation is no problem for the pure devotee, and all material conveniences are simply awaiting him at all stages of life.
In conclusion, it is our duty—we are so ordered on highest authority—to perpetuate the miracle of Shrila Prabhupada, just as Prabhupada perpetuated the miracle of Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura. Prabhupada has given us everything we need to do that, patiently and clearly spelled out to us “the only secret of success.” Now let us resolve to take that priceless gift to heart, cherish it and nurture it. Let us make his order or life and soul, and let us live our lives solely for the sake of others. We owe this to Prabhupada for what he has done for us.
October 7, 2008
The Miracle of a Vaishnava Part I
The following is an excerpt from Ravindra Svarupa dasa’s Vyasa Puja homage to Shrila Prabhupada in 1997.
We are all agreed that Shrila Prabhupada was a miracle: someone supernatural who entered in our mundane affairs and altered the normal course of nature. The laws of nature—our karmic destiny, and, by extension, the destiny of the world—have been broken.
It is essential to the nature of that miracle that it keep on going, perpetuate after Shrila Prabhupada’s physical departure. After all, the miracle of Prabhupada lies precisely in his supernatural ability to create similarly miraculous persons. He was a devotee who could make others into devotees, who could in turn make others into devotees and so on and on.
The archetypical Vaishnava miracle is thus beyond your ordinary wonder-working: It’s miracle is to miraculously create more miracle-creators. The Vaishnava miracle is one that perpetually grows.
Consequently, those of use who aspire to be the heirs of Shrila Prabhupada need to make this our study: How does this miracle come to be made? It is our obligation to be able to answer, scientifically, these questions : How did Shrila Prabhupada come to be a miracle-creator? And how do we do the same?
Miracles are mysterious because, according to Prabhupada, miracle means simply that “you don’t know how it is done.” So miracles are typically surrounded by secrets. Thaumaturges guard their secrets in order to bedazzle the many. But Prabhupada abhorred mystification. He kept nothing back. He gave away his secret.
In 1968, while speaking in Los Angeles on the anniversary of the disappearance of his guru-maharaja, Prabhupada looked at the rows of American faces lifted up to hear him, and he was lead to contemplate a miracle: how, by the will of Krishna—not the ordinary course of karma—the spiritual master and the disciple come together:
I was born in a different family; my Guru Maharaja was born in a different family. Who knew that I will come to his protection? Who knew that I would come in America? Who knew that you American boys will come to me? These are all Krishna’s arrangement. We cannot understand how things are taking place.
But then, Srila Prabhupada goes on to explain how, by the grace of Krishna, the miracle of his presence in Los Angeles came about. This is Prabhupada’s “course in miracles.”
In 1936—today is ninth December, 1968—that means thirty-two years ago, in Bombay, I was then doing some business: All of a sudden—perhaps on this date, sometimes between ninth or tenth of December (at that time, Guru Maharaja was indisposed little, and he was staying at Jagannatha Puri, on the seashore)—so, I wrote him a letter: “My dear master, your other disciples—brahmacari, sannyasi—they are rendering you direct service. And I am a householder: I cannot live with you, I cannot serve you nicely. So I do not know. How can I serve you?” Simply an idea: I was thinking of serving him, “How can I serve him seriously?”
So the seed of the miracle is the desire to serve. Discontent with his occupation in business, feeling himself incapacitated by the obligations of his ashrama, on an impulse (“all of a sudden”) Prabhupada wrote his guru-maharaja with a plea, a cry from the heart. He felt himself locked in a position which made proper service impossible, yet still the desire to do it was there. So he confessed his desire and his frustration to his spiritual master.
Prabhupada continues:
So the reply was dated 13 December, 1936. In that letter he wrote, “My dear such and such, I am very glad to receive your letter. I think you should try to push our movement in English.” That was his writing. “And that will do good to you and to the people who will help you.” That was his instruction. And then in 1936, on the thirty-first of December—that means just after writing this letter a fortnight before his departure—he passed away. But I took that order of my spiritual master very seriously, but I did not think that I’ll have to do such and such thing. I was at that time a householder. But this is the arrangement of Krishna. If we strictly try to serve the spiritual master, his order, then Krishna will give us all facilities. That is the secret. Although there was no possibility—I never thought—
It was a startling, an unexpected, an incongruous, an entirely improbable order. Prabhupada took it “very seriously” nonetheless, even though he could not envision any concrete circumstances in which it could be realized. He was then doing business in Bombay, entangled in household and commercial affairs, so the order seemed remote from reality. At the same time, it was the last direct communication he received from his spiritual master. That gave it even more weight. So he understood he must take it seriously, even though he was initially baffled. How in the world will it happen? As it turns out, it happened by a miraculous, divine intervention: “the arrangement of Krishna” Prabhupada says.
Yet something more is still required. For what prompts Krishna to make such an arrangement? The seriousness of the disciple. “If we strictly try to serve the spiritual master, his order, then Krishna will give us all facilities. That is the secret.”
Now Prabhupada goes to tell us how—again by Krishna’s arrangement—he learned this secret:
Although there was no possibility—I never thought—But I took it little seriously by studying a commentary by Visvanatha Cakravarti Thakura on the Bhagavad-gita. In the Bhagavad-gita there is the verse, vyavasayatmika-buddhir ekeha kuru-nandana. In connection with that verse, Visvanatha Cakravarti Thakura gives his commentary that we should take up the words from the spiritual master as our life and soul. We should try to carry out the instruction, the specific instruction of the spiritual master, very rigidly, without caring for our personal benefit or loss.
Here is the immediate source of Prabhupada’s inspiration. The realization he acquired from reading Visvanatha Cakravarti Thakura’s commentary on Bhagavad-gita 2.41 became the cornerstone of his life and achievement, the only secret of his success. Again and again, Prabhupada directly and indirectly refers to this defining moment of his life, when he was granted the realization to make the firm commitment that, come what may, he would make the order of his spiritual master his life and soul. Because of that commitment alone, Krishna has brought him to America and given him success:
So I tried a little bit in that spirit. So he has given me all facilities to serve him. Things have come to this stage, that in this old age I have come to your country, and you are also taking this movement seriously, trying to understand it. We have got some books now. So there is little foothold of this movement.
Now Prabhupada requests his followers to enact the same commitment to his order that he has evinced to that that of his guru-maharaja:
So on this occasion of my spiritual master’s departure, as I am trying to execute his will, similarly, I shall also request you to execute the same order through my will. I am an old man, I can also pass away at any moment. That is nature’s law. Nobody can check it. So that is not very astonishing, but my appeal to you on this auspicious day of the departure of my Guru Maharaja, that at least to some extent you have understood the essence of Krishna consciousness movement. You should try to push it on.
“Execute his will” is a play on words. The expression means, of course, to carry out the order of someone, but it is also the formal legal term to refer to the process by which a person’s assets legally become those of his heirs. By his commitment to execute Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati’s will, Shrila Prabhupada inherited from him his specific potency to spread Krishna consciousness. On this occasion Shrila Prabhupada is now making his will: “I shall also request you to execute the same order through my will. I am an old man.” By his will, Prabhupada has made us his heirs. He gives us the instructions which, if we accept them as our life and soul, will transfer to us the same potency to make people devotees of Krishna.
What specifically are those instructions? Prabhupada is very clear:
. . . . at least to some extent you have understood the essence of Krishna consciousness movement. You should try to push it on. People are suffering for want of this consciousness. As we daily pray about devotees:
vancha-kalpatarubhyas ca krpa-sindhubhya eva ca
patitanaà pavanebhyo vaisnavebhyo namo namah
A Vaishnava, or devotee of Lord, his life is dedicated for the benefit of the people. You know—most of you belong to Christian community—how Lord Jesus Christ, he said that for your sinful activities he has sacrificed himself. That is the determination of devotee of the Lord. They don’t care for personal comforts. Because they love Krishna or God, therefore they love all living entities because all living entities are in relationship with Krishna. So similarly you should learn. This Krishna consciousness movement means to become Vaishnava and feel for the suffering humanity.
And what does “feel for suffering humanity” concretely mean?
So to feel for the suffering humanity—there are different angles of vision. Somebody is thinking of the suffering of the humanity from the bodily conception of life. Somebody is trying to open a hospital to give relief to the diseased condition. Somebody is trying to distribute foodstuff in poverty-stricken countries or places. These things are certainly very nice, but actual suffering of the humanity is due to lack of Krishna consciousness. These bodily sufferings: they are temporary; neither they can be checked by the laws of nature. Suppose if you give some distribution of foodstuff in some poverty-stricken country, that does not mean that this help makes solution of the whole problem. The real beneficial work is to invoke every person to Krishna consciousness.
In short, Prabhupada’s order to all of us is: Become a Vaishnava yourself, and make other people Vaishnavas. Not all of us have received some specific, tailor-made order from our spiritual master, and we may feel that we have failed to receive the spiritual master’s gift, that we may have been left out of his will. That is not so. Here Prabhupada very clearly delivers his order to every one of us. It has two parts. One, we should become Krishna conscious, and two, we should give Krishna consciousness to others. Our full commitment, our single-minded intelligence dedicated to this order will itself make the order achieve fructification by the will of Krishna.
—To Be Continued—
September 30, 2008
Communism
My beginning association with Krishna devotees offered me an extended sequence of astonishments. It amazed me, for example, to discover that a group of enthusiasts encountered on sidewalks jumping and singing wildly to a pounding drum would be absorbed in a deep, comprehensive, and highly sophisticated theology. Another surprise revealed that this theology, filled with subtle elucidations of ultimate issues of transcendence, engendered a practical, down-to-earth political philosophy.
This political philosophy itself amazed me.
It was like nothing I had seen before: much further to the right than any contemporary conservatism, it was simultaneously much further to the left than any contemporary radicalism. These two apparent extremes met and blended together without incoherence. Astonishment gave way to fascination.
I have come to see that the power to unify or reconcile opposites is a salient characteristic of transcendence in thought and action. This fact has been reported by a variety of spiritual researchers. Nicolas of Cusa described the divine as the “coincidence of opposites.” The Tao Te Ching (40) says that “reversal” or “return” is the movement of the Tao. The Bhagavad Gita teaches us how to act without acting, just as Tao Te Ching advocates “wei wu wei” “doing-not-doing.” Jesus Christ proclaimed that the last shall be first. Lord Buddha directs us to The Middle Way.
Mundane thought and action shows an inability to find the transcendent center. Consequently we are always swinging from one extreme to another, and never pass through real wisdom. We never find the center.
The center I refer to is not the mundane middle—the cautious “center” of the political or social moderate. I refer to the transcendent middle which is able to absorb fully and synthesize the apparently conflicting opposites. The mundane middle has always proven anemic and unsecured, and it generates yet another opposition to the power and firmness of either extreme. The mundane middle is a washed-out reflection of the real thing—the real thing that eludes us.
The fascination of Krishna conscious political science to me lay in its uncanny synthesis of opposites.
Srila Prabhupada neatly captured this feature of Krishna conscious political philosophy by calling it “Bhagavata communism.”
It is “communism” because in it there is no personal ownership. The famous slogan of the anarchist Proudhon—“property is theft”—also holds here. It is Bhagavata because all property belongs to Bhagavan or God. The Bhagavata recognizes that Krishna is the supreme enjoyer of everything, the supreme owner of every place, and the supreme friend of everyone. Knowing this, any apparent owner or controller in this world acts only as an agent of God, and acts for the welfare of all beings.
Here is Prabhupada discussing Bhagavata communism in a lecture in London in 1973:
Isavasyam idam sarvam. Everything belongs to God; nothing belongs to us. This is Bhagavata communism. As the communists, they say, “Everything belongs to the state,” we say “Everything belongs to God.” We never say that anything belongs to anyone. No. This is Bhagavata communism. So everything belongs to God. So one can utilize God’s property as much as he requires, not more than that. Then he will be thief, he will be punishable.
Here, Prabhupada is explicating the first mantra of the Isha Upanishad. This is his translation of the entire text:
Everything animate or inanimate that is within the universe is controlled and owned by the Lord. One should therefore accept only those things necessary for himself, which are set aside as his quota, and one should not accept other things, knowing well to whom they belong.
From this text we can understand that God provides the necessities of life for each and every creature on earth. Like everyone, I am entitled to my alotted portion—which is sufficient for my needs. If I take more than my share, I violate the divine law, and in so doing I deprive a fellow creature of its allotted portion. Because this divine principle is the real antecedent of the Marxist principle of “to each according to his needs,” Prabhupada calls it communism:
We cannot take more than what is necessary. This is actually spiritual communism. If everyone thinks that “Everything belongs to God and I am son of God, so I have got right to enjoy the property of my Father, but as much as I require, not more than that,” this is spiritual communism, Bhagavata communism.
(from a lecture in New Vrindavan, 1976)
Speaking in a San Francisco storefront temple in March of 1967, Prabhupada drew out another implication of Bhagavata communism:
There are millions and billions of living entities even in this store[front]. If you find out a small hole, you will find millions of ants coming. They are also living entities. And who is arranging for their food? You are not very much busy to [do it.] Although it is your duty. That is also Bhagavata communism. Bhagavata communism says that even if you have got a lizard in your room, you must give him something to eat. If you have got a serpent in your room, you must give it something to eat. Nobody in your house should starve. You see? This is Bhagavata communism, not that “Only my brother and sister will not starve, and other animals should be killed.” This is not communism. Here is communism. This is Krishna consciousness communism, that a Krishna conscious person is thinking even for the ant, even for the lizard, even for the serpent. That is real communism. . . . Not that, “Oh, my brother is good and I am good, and my father is good or my countrymen is good, my society, and all [others] are bad.” This is not communism.
Here is a truly comprehensive welfare state. It is delimited by no border, no boundary, nor is citizenship restricted to the human inhabitants. So Prabhupada tells devotees who rent the storefront, that they have duties toward all the creatures—like the ants in the kitchen—who share it with them. They have a right to their place too.
Here is a far more radical communism than any we have encountered in this world.
“These things will be explained in Shrimad Bhagavatam,” Prabhupada told the representatives of the Dai Nipon company in Tokyo in 1972,
that anything, wherever it is, on land, on the air, sky, within the water, everywhere, God’s kingdom; and all living entities, they are God’s sons. So everyone has got the right to take advantage of his father’s property. This is Bhagavata communism. The communists are thinking in terms of their own country. But we, a devotee, we think in terms of all living entities, wherever he is, either in the sky or in the land or in the water. These things are explained in the Shrimad Bhagavatam.
In a conversation about Marxism, Prabhupada explained the difference:
If the communist idea is spiritualized, then it will become perfect. As long as the communist idea remains materialistic, it cannot be the final revolution. They believe that the state is the owner of everything. But the state is not the owner; the real owner is God. When they come to this conclusion, then the communist idea will be perfect. We also have a communistic philosophy. They say that everything must be done for the state, but in our International Society for Krishna Consciousness we are actually practicing perfect communism by doing everything for Krishna. We know Krishna is the supreme enjoyer of the result of all work . . . The communist philosophy as it is now practiced is vague, but it can become perfect if they accept the conclusion of the Bhagavad-Gita—that Krishna is the supreme proprietor, the supreme enjoyer, and the supreme friend of everyone. Then people will be happy. Now they mistrust the state, but if the people accept Krishna as their friend, they will have perfect confidence in Him, just as Arjuna was perfectly confident in Krishna on the Battlefield of Kurukshetra. . . . So if Krishna is at the center of society, then the people will be perfectly secure and prosperous. The communist idea is welcome, provided they are prepared to replace the so-called state with God. That is religion.
In this election year in America, we witness the tumultuous clash between a religious right and a secular left, locked in the agony of cultural and political war. Yet each party is incomplete, and each needs something its opponent possesses to complete itself. Bhagavata communism is the synthesis both sides unknowingly seek. I am convinced that this synthesis is Srila Prabhupada’s gift to us, pointing the way to the fulfillment we desire for ourselves and for our world.
September 23, 2008
Munchies for the Mind III
RECENT ADDITION TO THE DICTIONARY FOR KALI YUGA
truthiness (noun) Truth coming from the gut, not books; preferring to believe what you wish to believe, rather than what is known to be true.
Steven Colbert: “Truthiness is ‘What I say is right, and nothing anyone else says could possibly be true.’ It’s not only that I feel it to be true, but that I feel it to be true. There’s not only an emotional quality, but there’s a selfish quality.”
OH . . . .
Oxford Concise Dictionary of Proverbs: “With base and sordid natures
familiarity breeds contempt” (1654, T. Fuller, Comment on Ruth, 176).
HAPPINESS
“There ought to be behind the door of every happy, contented man someone standing with a hammer continually reminding him with a tap that there are unhappy people; that however happy he may be, life will show him her laws sooner or later, troubles will come for him—disease, poverty, losses, and no one will see or hear, just as now he neither sees nor hears others.”
—Anton Chekhov, “Gooseberries,” in The Wife and Other Stories, translated by Constance Garnett (Ecco, 1985), p. 283.
BEEN THERE, DONE THAT
O MY AMERICA!
16th Century
Licence my roving hands, and let them goe
Behind, before, above, between, below.
O my America, my new found lande,
My kingdome, safeliest when with one man man’d,
My myne of precious stones, my Empiree,
How blest am I in this discovering thee.
from “To His Mistress Going to Bed,” by John Donne (1572-1631)
21st Century
THE LOVE/RESPECT AXIS
“Lovemarks are super-evolved brands that forge lasting emotional connections.”
Check out the Love/Respect axis at Saatci & Saatci’s “Lovemarks:”
The Love/Respect Axis
“A fast and intuitive way to give any brand or experience a reality check”
What about: your work? your family? your country? your school? your religion?
