By Kesava Krsna Dasa
Should devotees rejoice at the pregnancy of a royal couple? Should they express revulsion at crimes committed against defenceless people or animals? If devotees are the nicest people around, how do they react to the world around them when they are supposedly detached from all things?
“But why be concerned about sinful meat eaters and illicit sexers… they are simply enjoying or suffering the fruits of their karma…” might be a common response. If devotees express these sentiments, is it a sign of real detachment? Or does it reveal an aversion, which is another form of attachment?
What if, instead of seeing people as evil and immoral, we see them as suffering and potentially good – as devotees? By changing our perspective from “you are this” to “you can be that,” from accusation to possibility, from disdain to compassion, we can more fit the the claim that devotees are genuine friends of the world and its creatures. Now, that would be nice.
Devotees are primarily preachers, and preachers cannot preach effectively if they lack feelings for the suffering of others. To apparently preach while retaining disproportionate detachment will not help raise Krishna conscious awareness in others. What is this disproportionate detachment? What does this have to do with being nice?
It is where we allow Krishna conscious philosophy or tradition to override our application of that philosophy on a devotional and personal level. Dos and don’ts, rules and regulations become more important than the human expression of Bhakti. We can literally lose our humanity on the jnana platform. We can also fear getting too personal because it might expose our weaknesses.
This becomes an unfriendly form of Krishna conscious practice. Inner detachment becomes outer hardness expressed as indifference and preservation of self-righteousness, instead of outer friendliness. We need to turn our out-of-this-world eminence into an in-this-world affability. In the Sri Gitamrta, chapter six Krishna encourages Arjuna to broaden his outer reach:
Krishna: …but the yogi should also practice feeling for others’ welfare through his own experience of happiness and distress. He is the best yogi because he does not desire perfection in yoga for his personal benefit only but tries to benefit others as well.
Arjuna: He Madhusudhan, I cannot do this yoga that You’re speaking of because the mind is restless and unsteady. You say I should empathise with the happiness and distress of living beings. I can empathise with friends and relatives, but not with those who are envious and criticise me. I cannot feel for both Yudhisthira and Duryodhana. And if You tell me to use discrimination, knowing that the Supersoul is in all beings, You should know that my mind is flickering and hard to control. It’s impossible for me.
While we ourselves discriminate and avoid the envious, we may extend such discrimination too far, so that it interferes with our friendly relations between devotees, let alone being friendly towards suffering none-devotees. We can implant so many misconceptions within our minds that we forget what Krishna consciousness is all about.
For instance, we are encouraged to avoid mayavadis, jains, sensuous people, sahajiyas, karmis, atheists, none-devotees, fringe devotees, the fallen, the inimical, the unfavourable, and the rest. This sounds like avoiding the whole world. Little wonder then, why some devotees appear to be erroneously aloof from the world and its people in an imbalanced way.
We can forget who we really are. Whatever ‘mercy’ is bestowed, whatever cultural magnificence is being restored, we may think the whole Krishna conscious thing was about… something else. Trying not to sin. Going to the temple. Being nice. Lord Chaitanya says it is about cleansing our heart, setting it free, restoring our splendorous self. A religious fog has tried to veil all that, put us under some sort of spell or amnesia, to keep us from coming alive.
While ‘fighting’ Maya in a self-declared war, along with self-defence of purposeful disdain for material things and people, this will not enable victory against her. So long as ‘religious’ disdain manifests as indifference felt as slighting and impoliteness by other devotees and jivas, the war will be self-defeating, and Maya shall ensure this. We remain un-alive in Krishna consciousness. From this, deviations begin to manifest.
The Lord’s mercy is required for victory, and humble and realistic appraisals of ourselves are helpful. Sometimes neophyte devotees think that a natural friendliness developed by mature, experienced devotees, might indicate a slackening of their inner spiritual conduct. They do not realise that experienced devotees have inner self-strictness but with a soft and friendly outer shell.
A Vaisnava is the highest personality in this world. Vaisnavas create possibilities for the suffering, for they are like desire trees. Their hearts and minds are open, which grants access to Bhakti – this is not easily imitated.
The fog of our thinking how a Vaisnava should be, and emulating that, makes us far more proud than a conceited egotistical “I am the Greatest” claim found in materially successful people. The jnana method of devotion can cause us to think we need to contrive a front in order to be a devotee. How wrong we can be. This contrived frontage is not very nice.
Prabhupada: “But it is a fact that anyone who takes to Kṛṣṇa consciousness, he doesn’t require to endeavor for becoming a good man, I mean to say, separately. That Kṛṣṇa consciousness will help him to be the best man in the world. Api cet su-durācāraḥ.” (New York, July 22, 1966)
Vaisnava are the best persons in the world and they possess qualities highly sought after. A hardened Ajamila came to his senses and said: “I shall become a merciful, well-wishing friend to all living entities and always absorb myself in Kṛṣṇa consciousness.” (A second Chance) See how being friendly is equal to absorbing oneself in Krishna consciousness. How nice this is.
On the same jnana and hardened level, we think we become Vaisnava and have the highest philosophy, the highest culture, and become so blindly convinced of ourselves, that we become exclusivists even among fellow devotees. Every Srila Prabhupada quote of ours, and every sastric citation becomes ‘infallibly absolute.’
Instead of continuing of path of learning, even from ‘wretched and suffering victims of Maya,’ people, creatures and world situations, our amnesia convinces us that religiosity means Krishna consciousness. We become obtruders, in that we impose restricted ideas of devotion onto others. We forget that we can reconcile matters in a Vaisnava way.
Prabhupada: “There are, in the material calculation, there are so many things which are the list. One list is for morality, and another list is for immorality. I do not wish to discuss this list because in, for a person which is immorality, for another person, it is not immorality; it is morality. Just like according to our conception, Hindu conception, drinking of wine is immoral, whereas in your country drinking of wine is not immoral. It is common thing. Of course, so according to time, class, place, the conception of morality and immorality are different. But there is a, a sense of immorality and morality in everywhere. That is a fact.” (New York, July 22, 1966)
Reconciling our practice of Bhakti means to be practical in every situation with a freedom not found in conventional self-imposed strictures. On morning walks Srila Prabhupada would greet, “Good morning” to passer-by’s. He could appreciate beauty with knowing observations:
Prabhupāda: …the sound of the church bell very much. It is very attractive.
Brahmānanda: You want one like that for Vṛndāvana.
Prabhupāda: Yes. (July 18, 1975, San Francisco)
Prabhupāda: Yes. [break] …can be solved by understanding these three items: God is the proprietor; He is the enjoyer; He is friend of everyone. They are acting just the opposite way: “I am the proprietor; I am the enjoyer; I am the friend. Because I am God.” This is their… Everyone is becoming friend—ultimately proves to be enemy of the country because he is not friend. President Nixon took votes by pretending friendship, and later on, he proved enemy. This is going on. Everyone knows. Gandhi pretended to become friend, but he proved to become an enemy. Otherwise why he was shot down? Unless one thought him as enemy, why he was shot down? This is going on. Nobody can become friend except Kṛṣṇa.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: But a pure devotee is a friend to all.
Prabhupāda: Because he carries the message of Kṛṣṇa. Kṛṣṇa is friend, and he is carrying the friendly message. Therefore he is friend. If there is a nice friend and if somebody gives information of that nice friend, he is also friend. Therefore nobody can become friend except Kṛṣṇa’s representative. The material world is: “I am your enemy, and you are my enemy.” This is the whole construction of the material world. So how the enemy can become friend? It is pretension, cheating.
Devotee: When we go out to distribute books, we try and show the karmīs that the devotee is actually their friend also.
Prabhupāda: Oh, yes, certainly. That is the real friendship work. Just like Caitanya Mahāprabhu says,
kota nidrā jāo māyā-piśācīra kole,
enechi auṣadhi māyā nāśibāro lāgi’ hari-nāma mahā-mantra lao tumi māgi’
This is friendship. “You are sleeping under the spell of māyā, and how long you will sleep and suffer in this material world? So I have brought this medicine. You take it and you will no more sleep.”
enechi auṣadhi māyā nāśibāro lāgi’ hari-nāma mahā-mantra lao…
“Now take Hare Kṛṣṇa mantra, this medicine.”
hari-nāma mahā-mantra lao tumi māgi’
Bahulāśva: So all relationships in this material world are…
Prabhupāda: Inimical. (July 18, 1975, San Francisco)
If devotees are the only really nice friends of this world, we cannot allow our obtrusions to wreck devotee relationships, or to create antipathy with the public. There is such a thing as being naturally nice, from a humble and realistic base. Other than this, our niceness can be unreal.
We all perhaps know of some nice and young and naïve devotee who does not know what “Off the altar” means yet. Among devotees, we find that those who are down-to-earth and realistic are more friendly and approachable than those who are either too busy, important, or have a high estimation of themselves.
There could be a problem of devotees being too nice, then end up being with people they don’t want to be with. There are devotees who are especially nice and polite to senior devotees, but at the same time rude and insolent towards their contemporaries or less-than-equals. This is not really being nice.
Devotees can find comfort in being nice when expecting nothing in return. Others may be so happy making others feel good, it can be selfish. Being nice can be a form of compensation when one has failed at everything else.
There are many reasons to be nice, especially on behalf of Srila Prabhupada and the Lord. In an inimical world such as ours in which people think, “No one’s being nice enough to me!” we have to try and fulful the highest and nicest, most friendly role of Vaisnavas. If the world comes to appreciate us on this basis, that would be really, really nice.
Ys Kesava Krsna Dasa
Congratulations Kesava Krishna Prabhu you are really addressing some very important considerations here.
I cannot help but thinking your observations may be relevant to the ongoing varnasrama dharma and treatment of women discussions, which can seem divisive at times, with devotees of good faith and understanding apparently reaching diametrically opposed conclusions.
Of course it is relevant to the issue of how devotees should react to disasters, crimes and injustices of this world. All these discussions on Dandavats seem related and connected.
What is Sri Gitamrta? I recognized the quotation as a paraphrasing of B.G. 6.32-33, supplemented with the realizations of the author. Who is the author? It seems very nice.
I have been thinking lately of the phrase “upadharma”, which Srila Prabhupada has (I think) translated as “sub-religious principles”. For example, when degraded Kali-yuga brahmanas were misusing Vedic teachings to sell meat to a decadent populace, the Lord appeared as compassionate Buddha Avatar and taught a heterodox philosophy to restore people to at least basic decency.
“Never mind about your so-called learning concerning detailed scriptures and rituals, if you cannot even avoid gross cruelty what good are you deriving from such authorities?”
Of course, we are not Buddhists. We revere and respect the authority of Vedic literature. However, we understand that the rules and regulations and truths disclosed therein serve a purpose, in order to make the world go on in accordance with Krsna’s will while giving all living beings the opportunity to advance towards life’s ultimate goal of genuine Krsna prema. In this age we practice harinama sankirtan and study of Gita and Bhagavata, and are not so much concerned with yajnas and rituals meant for a different age. We follow the simplified pancaratra system rather than Vedic daily fire sacrifices, etc.
There is a lot more to varnasrama dharma than keeping women in the home and preventing sudras from learning to read. Real dharma means to know how to properly act as a friend to all people, and to all living beings.
It also means knowing how to be patient and tolerant and to discriminate properly regarding what rules and concepts to emphasize in accordance with the situation of one’s audience. A wise physician knows how to use different prescriptions and dosages for different patients, although the ultimate prescription for everyone is harinama maha mantra.
At some point in life, you realize that there are many different types of people in the world. They are not homogeneous, but are each unique. Hopefully, when we arrive in the spiritual world, we will discover the same reality of unique personalities. Srila Prabhupad identified what it is to be nice…to not do violence to another soul, ie to bring the message of Krishna.
I have met disciples of Srila Prabhupad with hard exteriors, with soft hearts, with all different kinds of personalities. And, I have seen Srila Prabhupad react warmly to all of his disciples, so long as they came to love Krishna. If, as one disciple said, that he did not want to go back to Godhead but rather to the heavenly planets, then Srila Prabhupad replied, “then you do not need a spiritual master.” Such disciple was rejected, because love is a two-way street.
You will not find closeness with each and every aspiring vaishnava, but there is every reason to honor each and every one…because they are related with Krishna consciously. They made some decision to return to Krishna, even if it is at a beginning stage, or at a later stage in their development.
Look within…Krishna says the best of all yogis is one who is meditating upon Him within his heart…Krishna consciousness springs from within.
Pusta Krishna das
Part One:
Thanks Akruranatha Prabhu. The Gitamrta is accredited to Srila Visvanatha Cakravarti Thakur. What one reads in there are ‘goings-on’ in between the official verses of the Gita. Wait till one reads the 9th chapter and see how the Lord defends His devotees. Witness the dialogue ‘off’ the official version.
There is an audio rendition of this work by the late HH Purnachandra Swami. The Gitamrta is excellent for putting different concepts into categories like sakama-karma-yoga and niskarma-karma-yoga without being technical. It is both dramatic and moving in some parts, hence the word Amrta is used to describe the nectar’like flow. Highly recommended…
Discussions of VAD and womanhood – dominated by the males – are sensitive issues. I’m beginning to think sometimes that the best input for these discussions should come from steady, fixed-up devotees. Why?
When we see inputs from younger devotees who are in the prime of their ‘youth’ and wish to portray Krishna consciousness with pristine ideals worthy of brahmacari vigour and energy, it is mostly an inconsistent and temporary enthusiasm expressed for now. Many will get married, and along with that comes different perspectives than displayed during brahmacari times. There is a married-with-kids perspective, and the budding brahmacari perspective – both are different and inconsistent.
The niceness I refer to also aims at ‘wiseheads’ who do have a consistency and are more suitable for discussing such sensitive topics. We will more likely get balanced views. Long standing brahmacaris, sannyasis and steady grhasthas can meet these criteria. “Nice” is really a metaphor for balance and acceptability.
On the other hand – as Pusta Krishna Prabhu mentioned – that all devotees are eligible for Godhead, including those with ‘hard exteriors’ is not in doubt. However, we need to be mindful of how different soft or hard exteriors fit into the whole scheme of presenting Krishna consciousness for the world.
Ys Kesava Krsna Dasa.
Part Two:
For instance, to deploy a ‘hard exterior’ devotee to the position of Conflict Resolution between devotees, that calls for understanding and patience, might be inconsiderate. To have a ‘hard exterior’ devotee not known for public sensitivity would be out of place on Iskcon News.
Yet, for contentious issues that affect our Iskcon world we somehow have to strive at ‘nice’ balances. This is part of being an adult. Whatever we cooperate on will ultimately be projected outward into the public domain. Right now, our projection is not wholly consistent on social and gender matters.
Ys Kesava Krsna Dasa.
The Christian teaching “Love God with your heart and soul and love your neighbor as yourself” is a basic and essential Vaisnava perspective. If we actually see ourselves as loving servants of Krsna, and see all living beings as Krsna’s parts and parcels, His amsas (mamaivamso jiva like), naturally we will be very nice to everyone.
How that niceness is manifest may be different. A devotee can be “hard like a thunderbolt or soft as a rose”. I was reading yesterday how Lord Caitanya left for His tour of South India and when Sarvabhauma Bhattacarya fell unconscious out of ecstasy of impending separation from the Lord, Lord Caitanya proceeded to leave without staying to revive him and make sure he was alright. (Of course, being God, He completely understood everything about Sarvabhauma’s condition).
In ISKCON we emphasize becoming pure devotees rather than being “good” mundane actors. We remember verses like “yasyasti bhaktir bhagavat akincana sarvair gunais tatra samasate surah” (one who loves Krsna will have all the divine qualities), or “titiksava karunika suhrdam sarva dehinam…” There are so many verses that talk about the great daivi sampat character of pure devotees, how kind and friendly they are to all, how tolerant and humble and compassionate toward the suffering of conditioned souls.
Yet I sometimes feel we should teach more about good manners, just as we teach children to say “please” and “thank you” and to share, to chew with their mouths closed, and so on. Details may differ but the underlying principle is that there are rules of etiquette people follow in order to be courteous and considerate and show respect in ordinary social discourse.
My fear is that by emphasizing the importance of pure bhakti over independently learning to be well-behaved, good, kind people, we may fail to train our members in proper etiquette and other moral considerations that are appreciated by all civilized people. Devotees in ISKCON are ambassadors of Lord Caitanya, so if people see devotees whose morals and behavior is even a little crude or rude, it gives them a bad impression of devotees and undermines the preaching efforts.
We know the most important thing is how we are developing Krishna bhakti, but being patient and tolerant, but being kind and patient and considerate, etc. are part of bhakti. Such training is worthwhile.
Thank you for this, Kesava Krsna Prabhu. And thank you for sharing this mature and compassionate approach to living as a devotee in the real world – heartfelt and much needed.
I think the following quote is apropos:
“Those who think that devotion to God and kindness to the jivas [souls] are mutually different from each other, and perform accordingly in their life, such persons will not be able to follow the devotional culture. Their performances are only a semblance of devotion. Therefore, all the types of beneficence to others — like kindness, friendliness, forgiveness, charity, respect, etc., are included in bhakti. Among these, according to the triple catagories of the recipients. viz., high, medium and low, the actions of respect, friendliness and kindness are the very form of love and the characteristic portion of bhakti: Charity of medicines, clothes, food, water, etc., shelter during adversities, teaching of academic and spiritual educations, etc., are the activities included in the devotional culture.”
–Tattva Viveka-Tattva Sutra-Amnaya Sutra- A Comprehensive Exposition of the Spiritual Reality by Bhaktivinoda Thakur [Tattva Sutra portion (sutra 35)]. Sree Gaudiya Math, Madras. English translation by Narasimha Brahmacari. pp. 185-6.