The following SB lecture (1.5.22) was given by Srila Acharyadeva at the ISKCON Gainesville Preaching Center on December 4, 2008.
Gainesville Renunciation – Selflessness or Selfishness? SB 1.5.22
idaà hi puàsas tapasaù çrutasya vä
sviñöasya süktasya ca buddhi-dattayoù
avicyuto 'rthaù kavibhir nirüpito
yad-uttamaçloka-guëänuvarëanam
>>> Ref. VedaBase => SB 1.5.22
TRANSLATION
Learned circles have positively concluded that the infallible purpose of the advancement of knowledge, namely austerities, study of the Vedas, sacrifice, chanting of hymns and charity, culminates in the transcendental descriptions of the Lord, who is defined in choice poetry.
lecture:
Rupa Goswami talks about two kinds of vairägya or detachment. One is spiritual, yoga, and the other is trivial or faulty.
When people are eager for their own salvation it is still selfish, because they want to benefit themselves. There is a dawning of spiritual understanding where one is still moving under the momentum of one’s previous selfish life and yet one is going toward the spiritual, so that when one approaches spiritual life one still sees it as a means to benefit oneself, to make oneself happy, which it is. For a person who is immersed in selfish activities, the best they can do for themselves is to recognize that their rational self-interest is Krishna Consciousness even though emotionally they are still attached to certain things.
At a stage where one is not able to act in perfect unselfishness, the best one can do is to pursue one’s enlightened self interest. However, you always have to remember where you are going, and not reject things that are useful in Krishna’s service or perform acts which hinder your service in the pursuit of your own salvation and enlightenment.
Rupa Goswami talks about a case where one chooses ones self-interest over and against Krishna’s service.
However, when one actually becomes Krishna conscious one gives up all selfishness and spontaneously and ecstatically dedicates oneself to satisfying Krishna.
Yuktavairaghya: “yukta” means linked, connected like in yoga. It is detachment from selfishness, which is inspired by being connected to Krishna.
So there are two kinds of vairägya. The real vairägya is to give up my selfish interest in a particular object, but to engage it in Krishna’s service.
There is an ontological reason why everything can be engaged in Krishna’s service. Ontology is the branch of philosophy that studies the nature of existence. The Vedanta tradition is highly ontological. The different Vedanta positions (like that of Çaìkara, Rämänuja, Madhvacarya) are defined by their ontology. Çaìkara’s advaita, non-dual, which refers to the relationship between the Absolute, Brahman, and ourselves. Çaìkara says there is no difference, but still he is talking about the nature of existence, the relationship between our existence and the existence of the Absolute.
The great Rämänuja says the relationship is Viçiñöädvaita, a differentiated non-dualism. There is a oneness, as Krishna says (väsudevaù sarvam iti sa mahätmä su-durlabhaù), but that oneness contains distinctions. So it can all be one team but there can be different team members that play different positions. We play the jéva position and Krishna plays the Vishnu position.
Madhva’s famous work is dvaita philosophy, he came down heavy on the point that we are different from God.
There is a sankrit word which means an ontological category, which is tattva, as in Vishnu tattva or jéva tattva.
As the Upanisads say, everything is brahman. Sarvaà khalv idaà brahma (Chändogya Upaniñad 3.14.1), but there are distinctions. There is a Supreme brahman, paraà brahma, and the ordinary garden variety brahma which is us, the jévas. Because there is this oneness everything is ultimately spiritual. Therefore everything can be engaged or reinstated in its proper relationship with God. In a sense everything is connected with God. The whole universe has its telos, its purpose, therefore the whole universe is meant to help to work through our lesser desires and gradually become enlightened. So even when the material energy is acting to bewilder the living entity, it is still serving Krishna and serving us. I try every possible stupid act and then finally realize that this is not going to make me happy. So if stupidity didn’t make me happy maybe intelligence will work, and at that point one will take to spiritual life.
The Bhägavatam is coming from a culture when people didn’t write because they used to be very intelligent. Due to poor memory you have to write things down. The more powerful your memory, the less you have to write down. If we study the psychological conditionings which lead to writing, one is that you cannot remember things. Another point is that the amount of information required to perform a task increases proportionately to the ignorance of the person receiving information. Let’s say I am from Gainesville and you drove a taxi in Gainesville for 30 years, I could probably tell you in three or four words how to get to my house. If you have never been to Gainesville before, how much information will it take? Let’s say you grew up in a jungle where they have no streets with names on them and you didn’t even know about things like traffic lights. In other words, the more someone is ignorant, the more information is required to explain the same thing. Let’s say you’ve never studied engineering in your whole life and I say, “Build a bridge over this river.” You would need a whole library of books. If you are a leading engineer you may ask a few questions like, ”How much weight do you want it to carry, how many lanes?” Literally in one little paragraph, that would be all the information you’d need to build a bridge.
The amount of information that is found in different chronological levels of the Vedic literatures, mundane scholars interpret this as meaning that in India people didn’t know this and then discovered that. Whereas if you take the Vedic version itself at face value, it describes a declining of humanity, that with the advent of kali yuga humanity itself was declining and with this decline more and more information is necessary to communicate the same thing. If you consider that people’s memories are also decreasing, that’s another factor.
Prabhupada explains here that education is good if it is used in Krishna’s service. The first letter I wrote to Prabhupada was in September in 1969. I had joined a center in Berkley, California, where I was a student. I didn’t know whether I should drop out of school. In those days there was noting even remotely like mature counseling available, it was more like the Vaishnava “Lord of the Flies”.
I was a senior with a scholarship at Berkley, and I was quite zealous. I went to my physics class, and the teacher gave a little test to see where we were at. One of the questions was “what is energy?” Basically I quoted from the 7th chapter of the Bhagavad-gita, “the potency of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Krishna - the superior and the inferior potency”, and then I was outraged when the question was marked wrong. I was 20 years old, so I can plead insanity on grounds of youth and recent conversion. So I had this long argument with the teacher, half an hour, trying to explain that this was the right answer. Nowadays I would just give him the real answer, “the ability to perform work.”
Then I went to my French class. We had a teacher from Paris who met and exceeded everyone’s stereotype of a lusty Parisian man. There were no sexual harassment laws in those days. So he would explain all the points of French grammar by calling out what he considered the prettiest coeds and literally taking their hands and waltzing with them around the front of the room. And here I was, this newly minted brahmacari, and I considered this to be an offense against the universal moral law. So the teacher said that he wanted us all to give a little 5-minute talk in French so he could judge how much we knew. I immediately volunteered. No one else volunteered. First rule in the army and in school is, “never volunteer”. So I wanted to speak against this outrage. I went home, got out my French dictionary, and looked up hogs, dogs, camels, asses. I came back the next day and gave this blazing little talk about dogs, hogs, animal life and human life, sense gratification. The teacher liked it. He said, “That was really great.” Anyway. I was, “No, you are supposed to dislike it so that I can vent on you.”
So there was no one there to just take me aside and say, “That’s not the way you do it.” So I eventually dropped out, and then I had to go back later and finish up. But all these things can and should be used for Krishna appropriately. If you study the spread of spiritual movements in terms of the history of religions, spiritual teachings always and inevitably are expressed, preserved and transmitted in cultural vehicles. You have to dress a certain way, you sing certain songs, you have certain melodies, you use certain musical instruments, you cook a certain way. Most importantly, we express ourselves in a certain language.
Prabhupada is saying here that culture has to be engaged in Krishna’s service. So to say that culture is maya or is material is obviously wrong headed and not at all what Lord Caitanya, Rüpa Goswämé or Prabhupada are teaching. There are cultural languages and we have to be able to communicate effectively with the people around us.
In the world we live in we have to present Krishna Consciousness effectively without changing it. We have to preserve and adapt at the same time. If we don’t preserve the sacred heritage we’ve lost or we fumbled the ball. On the other hand, if we don’t adapt it becomes an endangered metaphysical species. So historically, an inability to preserve or adapt both threaten the survival – not to speak of the flourishing – of a spiritual movement. So there has to be a balance where the adaptation does not damage the preservation or the preservation is not so conservative that it actually prevents true adaptation requires spiritual intelligence.
From Q & A:
ISKCON is definitely going in the right direction. It is an inevitable transition that began as an almost exclusive monastic little community which creates a certain psychology and sociology. Sociologically, when you get enough people together so that you really have a society, if you think of the simple distinction between a society and a community – in a community people are in direct contact with each other, therefore you get this homogenizing effect, like in a small town, whereas as a society they are not. When you become large and diverse enough, you become a society like ISKCON which is a group of many communities. Inevitably there will be a certain irreducible diversity.
So if you look at ISKCON or any society at any particular time, you can see, here is the extreme left, here is the extreme right and here is the middle. The middle shifts over time. So what used to be the ISKCON middle in 1972 or 1973 nowadays would be the extreme right. And the same thing with the American society in general.
This is just the nature of society. There are certain people who are really inspired by preserving and who tend to be conservative. Other people are inspired by adapting, they tend to be more liberal, and some people are sort of moderate. So the question is, where should the middle, the center be?
In order to be able to adapt it requires making a crucial distinction which Rüpa Goswämé lays out in chapter six of the Bhakti-rasämåta-sindhu, the Nectar of Devotion. It is the distinction between general principles and details. Rüpa Goswämé says that his brother Sanatäna Goswämé wrote a book giving all the details, the secondary rules, in the Hari-bhakti-viläsa, and that he wants to focus on the general principles which are not negotiable. If you look at them, there are five general principles which are, chant Hare Krishna, read the Bhagavatam, associate with devotees, worship Tulasi and so on. Then there are things like learn from a bonafide guru, which is a simple point.
So we confuse details with basic principle if we think dressing a certain way is eternal Vedic Culture, even if it involves wearing a kurtä, which is a Muslim contribution to India.
Prof. Nilas was making an interesting point. Among the classical Indian dance styles there is one that is called Kathak. What is interesting is that I have seen this several times at major Ratha Yatras, presented as taste of Vedic Culture, and then it turns out that the Kathak style really was a result of the invasion of India by the Huns. You can imagine that they were somewhat crude, passionate people and they had this passionate dancing. It is kind of comical that people think naïvely that this is Vedic, when it is really coming from the Huns. So we have to make this distinction between basic principles and details.
I don’t think there is anything we can do to prevent our children from having a good laugh at us. I think eventually ISKCON will have to make a more clear distinction between Indian and Vedic. I am not recommending any specific changes because that gets into management. I am more interested in the philosophical, historical concept as opposed to getting involved in all kinds of debates about practically doing this or that. In general we have to get past a - on the one hand very understandable but on the other hand quite naïve - belief that all Indian things are Vedic.
If you look at the history of India, it is a large civilization. There are lots of intelligent people in India. It has always been a country as far back as we can go, that was culturally sophisticated. If you take away the Americas and look at a map – without the Western hemisphere – India is actually in the center of the world. There is significant evidence that India has always been interactive with other regions of the world. The picture that Prabhupada gives us - and if you take seriously çästra - Vedic Culture was not simply Indian. It eventually became confined to India, and that is the picture that Prabhupada gives, but actually Vedic Culture was around the world.
So there is this very unfortunate confusion of ethnic details with cultural principles. We say Vedic Culture a lot, but there is no such thing in Sanskrit. The word Vedic is there, vaidika. It is so close to English. You make the adjective by adding the k-sound after the word.
What you find is a culture of principles; let’s say that people dress chastely. Men tend to be visually aroused, more then women, therefore there is a principle that women dress chastely. What is chaste dress? What parts of the female anatomy are erotic? Beautiful and erotic are not the same. A woman may have a beautiful face, but she doesn’t have to wear a mask to be decent – at least in this country. If you look at the history of the world, you find that the notion that the erotic zone of the female anatomy moves around a lot. The lower part of the body is covered in all civilized societies, so we are talking about the torso.
As far as the upper part of the body there is overwhelming evidence that a woman’s chest at many times and places in history was not considered erotic. It’s a fact that in many parts of India before the Europeans came, most respectable women, brahmaëés etc., were topless. It doesn’t mean they were always that way, but you see it in temple sculptures. I have seen it myself in rural West-Bengal especially in the 70ties and 80ties and to some extent even today, that women typically wore just saris – no blouses – and were not particularly concerned about covering their chest. Even in very conservative periods in European history. You see paintings of queens and noble women who have plunging neck lines but their necks are covered, because a woman’s neck in those times was considered more erotic than her chest.
So what is Vedic dress? What I would argue is that I do not find anything in any Vedic scripture that is Vedic dress in terms of a specific dress style. There is a principle, a dharma of dress, which obviously is that one’s dress should be clean and appropriate in whichever culture. We live in a culture in which men have been deeply conditioned to become even crazier than they normally are when they see certain parts of a woman’s body. So obviously, if a woman’s mission in life is not to make everybody forget Krishna and think of her dying body instead which is not going to do much for anyone, she will dress appropriately. So we should dress in a way that we are not making people forget Krishna and not strongly encouraging them to think of ourselves as mere objects of sense gratification. You literally degrade yourself in the mind of the other person and perform a disservice.
So there is a principle and in different climates in different times in history, in different historical circumstances, different parts of the body are considered somewhat erotic, very erotic, indecent etc. The principle is, in the socio-psychological reality that you live in, dress in a way that is appropriate. To me, that is Vedic Culture, but instead teaching, no, in Vedic Culture everyone should wear this specific dress style, I think, is absurd and there is no evidence for it in any Vedic literature.
If you look at the way we dress the Deities, one thing that is irrefutable is that it is ahistorical. It is not wrong; it is also a matter of the artist’s conceptions.
One of my godbrothers went to a major American city with the determination that ISKCON had “gone astray” – too many modern adaptations – and that we needed to do things precisely as we did them back in the good old days, the roaring 60ties and early 70ties. Everything, from the drumbeats, to the dress, to the recipes, now needed to be reverted back to exactly what it was, to a “T”. He thought that this was what we needed for a true Hare Krishna renaissance. You were not allowed to wear “fruitive worker garments,. So he went to this major city and did it and it was basically a complete failure. This leader abandoned the project.
Precisely because it is a delicate operation I prefer to give the general points and not try to dictate what the practical application should be, leaving it to the Vaishnavas in general and practical circumstances. However cautiously we proceed, certain things are just facts. Historically, certain male and female dress was notconsidered devotional dress in India.
Nowadays there is a whole concept of uniforms. However there is no evidence that that when Lord Caitanya took His naga sankirtan party out that He or His followers were dressed in uniforms. All the evidence seems to be that they were dressed the same as everyone else.
There was a time in our ISKCON history when it was much more open and not fanatical and zealous. At a certain point we militarized the book distribution etc. When I joined it was still much more open. I got the last wave of the early period. In the 60ties the movement was not fanatical. There was no heavy sankirtan, no heavy book sales, and we very much fit in with the whole 60ties scene. We were perceived as being very much part of that scene. Devotees would chant at those ant-Vietnam protests.
They had these huge ballrooms in San Francisco, which were the crucibles for all the new music and all the big bands – Jefferson Airplane, Jimi Hendrix, The Doors – all these big bands would come. It was the Avalon Ballroom which was at the Philmore West. It was one of the cultural centers for American youth. I remember one time we were chanting in San Francisco and we went to the Avalon Ballroom, and because we were so much part of the scene they let us go on stage. It was actually one of the most astonishing, amazing kirtans. It was so ecstatic. We were chanting and there were thousands and thousands of young people wildly chanting with us with complete abandon. It was like being transported to a different world.
When devotees go and chant like they do on campus (in Gainesville) and they are dressed, “come as you are”, that is in my view, much more historically authentic and much more what Lord Chaitanya was doing.
In terms of dress, Rupa Goswami says that none of these things are basic principles. Krishna is infinitely creative. He has infinite artistic ability. So do we really believe that in the infinite spiritual world where you have an infinite number of super-creative souls and Krishna Himself, there are less dress styles than on the earth in Kali Yuga? I think the first question is not, what is the rule? The real question is, is there a rule? Prabhupada says in his purport to Bhagavatam 4.8.54[i] that there are no such rules. This is from Narada’s instruction to Dhruva, where he tells him to worship Krishna deça-käla-vibhägavit – knowing distinctions of place and time. Prabhupada says:
“The method of worship—chanting the mantra and preparing the forms of the Lord—is not stereotyped, nor is it exactly the same everywhere. It is specifically mentioned in this verse that one should take consideration of the time, place and available conveniences. Our Kåñëa consciousness movement is going on throughout the entire world, and we also install Deities in different centers. Sometimes our Indian friends, puffed up with concocted notions, criticize, "This has not been done. That has not been done." But they forget this instruction of Närada Muni to one of the greatest Vaiñëavas, Dhruva Mahäräja. One has to consider the particular time, country and conveniences. What is convenient in India may not be convenient in the Western countries. Those who are not actually in the line of äcäryas, or who personally have no knowledge of how to act in the role of äcärya” – this included many ISKCON devotees. They are in the line of äcärya but they don’t know how to act in a way to really open up the world - “unnecessarily criticize the activities of the ISKCON movement in countries outside of India. The fact is that such critics cannot do anything personally to spread Kåñëa consciousness.”
There was one sannyasi who was a major critic of all kinds of innovations and adaptations and went to a major American city and could not do anything to spread the movement.
“If someone does go and preach, taking all risks and allowing all considerations for time and place, it might be that there are changes in the manner of worship, but that is not at all faulty according to çästra.”
In my view there is a type of South-Asian chauvinism where if it is Indian, it is ok. If it is Western, it is not ok, even if both are a-historical. To give an example, there is one very popular painting of Krishna which you see in many temples where Krishna is dressed like a Mogul prince. He is wearing a little miniskirt and those tight pants which was considered attractive at a certain point in history. Even though this is Mogul dress, Muslim rulers used to dress that way. It is appropriate for Krishna. Why? Is it historical or Vedic? No, it is Indian.
Obviously Krishna has to be dressed decently and appropriately, but if you read the Bhagavad-gétä, and had to derive from that what is Vedic Culture, this is what you find: Vedic Culture means to act in the mode of goodness and to offer those actions to Krishna, in other words, çuddha-sattva. So dress in the mode of goodness, cook in the mode of goodness! A lot of the mahäprasäda that is offered is not in the mode of goodness, it is in the mode of passion. Some people think that is what Krishna likes. Krishna specifically mentions in the Gétä that food that is spicy, hot, is in passion. As we know chilly peppers didn’t exist in India during Krishna’s and Lord Chaitanya’s time. Therefore to say it is Vedic is comical. Potatoes and tomatoes were not in India at that time which is also considered Vedic sabji. My concern is simply to be rational.
When Prabhupada came to Gainesville after his talk he was taking questions. There was a kind of challenging female reporter from the “Gator” newspaper. She said, “Why are there mostly young people here?”, as if that was a problem. Prabhupada – who was the best counter puncher as I always say – immediately shot back, “Why are there mostly young people in your university?” He asked so sharply and quick that she dropped her pencil, she was so startled. So when she picked up her pencil and collected herself, she said, “Well, that is the age for education.” And Prabhupada said, “Yes, therefore it is the age for Krishna Consciousness. You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.” So without wanting to offend anyone - you can’t teach an old prabhu new tricks.
Prabhupada would say, “Be a perfect lady or gentleman”. He didn’t bring a hairstyle movement. For brahmacärés who live in an ashram he said have the normal monastic hairstyle, which is not even Vaishnava. The riksha-wallas have a çikhä in India. Prabhupada wanted it under certain conditions but even then, in 1975 in a conversation with Ramesvara, Prabhupada said that the brahmacärés could let their hair grow out a little bit for saìkértana. Then he admitted that the reason why he did all these things was because he was afraid they would have a relapse and become hippies again. One of Brahma-tirtha’s early services in New York temple was to stand at the door with a can of Lysol (disinfectant spray) and spray people before they could enter.
Prabhupada said, “You don’t have to be monastic, but be a gentleman.
It is not that you are either monastic or mainstream barbaric. As Prabhupada said, you can be a lady or gentleman. The neutral gentleman’s dress has not changed since my childhood, in 50 or 60 years.
We have this deep routed insecurity in ISKCON that on a level playing field we cannot compete. If you used a cane for your whole life you naturally believe you cannot walk without a cane. There are religious movements in this country growing much faster than we are that don’t have uniforms. If you couldn’t just recognize a Hare Krishna right off the bat because he is so freaky the way he is dressed – although I think neck beads are a great thing – we would be forced to come up with very attractive ways to interest people. We would be forced to think of how to attract people the same way everybody else does. We do have the greatest philosophy; we do have the most powerful practice. Therefore we can compete and even flourish on a level playing field, but we have a deep insecurity that we can’t.
I did an experiment when I went to San Luis Obispo which a college town at the central coast of California. When people asked me who I was, I told them that I teach and practice Bhakti Yoga, which is the word Krishna uses in the Bhagavad-gétä. I made lots of friends and we were attracting a good level of people. I wasn’t ashamed and I didn’t try to hide the fact that I teach and practice bhakti-yoga, but I wasn’t flaunting Hindutva in their face either. People were very impressed when they found out that we were following these four regulative principles, that we have a disciplined lifestyle and that we are very serious about spiritual practice. My experience is that intelligent people only respect it. When you don’t overmedicate them, they can accept it. I think the problem with the Hare Krishna movement is over medicating. If you just are a normal person, our life-style and the philosophy will speak for themselves.
Prabhupada emphasized that you don’t sacrifice very much, you just add Krishna to your life. So why don’t we make that available to people? All we are sacrificing are activities which are low and inappropriate.
There is a general rule in the world that to achieve excellence, to excel at anything, you have to sacrifice. Without discipline you cannot excel at anything. So to be a good devotee you need as much discipline as you need to be good at anything: athletics, politics, business, education. There are different criteria for judging food. One type is sinful and another type is not sinful. Meat is sinful. There is another criterion which is based on the guëas. It is an Asian thing that the guëa of onion and garlic are not sattvic, but they are not sinful. I think we shouldn’t harass people over details, but we can tell them our standards.
