By Jagabandhu das
Dear Guru-Krishna Prabhu,
Dandavatts! All Glory to Sri Guru and Gauranga! All Glory to Srila Prabhupada!
Many thanks for your well said contribution on Dandavats Re: Srila Prabhupada’s own views on voting (as so nicely phrased by both your Grace and Madhavananda Prabhu)! I’m also quite surprised to see that rather than follow Srila Prabhupada’s perfectly wise and clear instructions in this regard, some have considered it appropriate to engage in mundane politics under the pretense (or auspices) of real Krishna Consciousness.
Personally, I joined the ISKCON Chicago (Evanston) temple at the age of 17 (before I was old enough to vote). Shortly thereafter, Srila Prabhupada’s supremely gorgeous Srimad-Bhagavatam Seventh Canto was published and released. Within it we found the story of Sri Prahlad who did not care for the fundamental idea of politics wherein one is encouraged to pursue the mundane duality of friendship and enmity, rather than trying to become a kindly friend to all through the genuine elevation of true spiritual consciousness. I was very affected by Sri Prahlad’s mood and thoughts and so have never voted in the 33 years of my adulthood. And like Srila Prabhupada I do not believe real authority or leadership may be mandated or legislated. In his beautiful Bhagavat speech Srila Bhaktivinode Thakur himself also discourages the idea of automatic popular consensus. Popular consensus is widely over-rated as a means for accurately selecting or promoting actual quality in regards to anything substantially significant.
Perhaps it may prove useful to consider that America’s founding fathers developed the electoral college they also did not believe in popular consensus as a means to choosing the country’s topmost secular leader because they did not consider the masses intelligent enough to wisely select their own leader. However, not unlike the Roman oligarchic, aristocratic autocracy (who distracted the masses with wine, bread and circuses) the electoral college panders to the collective false ego by allowing the masses to believe that their dissenting voices really count within the “electoral” process. In reality, all the world’s current governments (regardless of whether “democratic” or “communist”) are corrupt self-serving oligarchies. Whoever controls the wealth makes all the rules (which control the people). It’s called the golden rule. In terms of the mundane realm, whoever has all the gold makes all the rules.
Politics (not unlike spectator sports) seems to be the new opiate of the masses, especially in America. Every four years the general public is given a chance to delude themselves into believing they have an opportunity to once again deaden the pain of their discontent by promoting a brand new cult of personality as the “savior” of the masses (while they are grossly exploited by the politicians from behind the scenes). Mass hysteria amongst the herd of sheep is more like it. And sheerest mundane illusion. But sheep would prefer even a poor shepherd to having no shepherd at all.
Doubtless, real leadership is important. But my experience in this life is that if you “settle” for less, you’ll be “lucky” to get it. And you’ll have to “fight” to keep it. Genuinely Krishna Conscious true leadership is the only real solution for the actual benefit of all the people. Same as it ever was.
Institute alone (of any type) cannot be an automatic substitute for the real inner pursuit of the Absolute by the truly spiritually astute.
Humbly with affection,
Jagabandhu das
PAMHO AGTSP, I would agree with you if our movement ,after Shrila Prabhupada’s departure,had proved its maturity with at least an attempt to pratically apply Varnashrama Dharma to society,but it seems to me that this did not happen.All systems applied to the material world are flawed because man that apllies them are limited by their material condition.This goes for politics and religion,but we must make choices and partecipate in active evolution for humanity.Sometimes,in Kali Yuga,this means choosing the lesser evil but as responsable human beings we must exercise our discrimination,tolerance and most importantly our compassion.
Haribol!!
Y.s. Naradamunidas
It does seem really wild the way we do elections in the U.S. The campaigns go on so long, and spend so much money. Obscene! This presidential election cycle was the longest and most expensive in history, and the 24-hour cable TV news coverage makes it seem to be endless, and not very intelligent.
Imagine if we could spend that much money and air time and public interest in sankirtan! Instead of having the so-called “pundits” speculate endlessly about what might or might not happen, we could have real pundits describing the glories of the Lord on TV all day and night, and people talking about it at the water coolers during the day.
“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.” (S.B. 1.5.22)
It may happen someday. We have to be enthusiastic and patient.
Naradamuni, well said. Please do not give up hope that varnasrama dharma will practically be applied in society. After all, it is the natural condition of human beings, designed by Krishna, who created the four varnas.
Of course it can happen over night, but I rather expect it may take decades or even centuries before real solid and large scale Krishna-centered varnasrama societies emerge in the major industrialized nations of the world. I have no idea how this will come about.
We just have to go on chanting our rounds, doing our duties, and distributing and discussing Srila Prabhupada’s books, as we are doing here, and Lord Caitanya’s unfathomable plans will unfold. Sankirtan yajna kijaya!
Dear Narada Muni Prabhu,
Hari! Hari! Dandavatts! All Glory to Srila Prabhupada!
Is it really too late to prove the necessary maturity of realization and deep insight required to pragmatically promote Vanashrama dharma? Instead of settling for the lesser of two evils why not take an uncompromising stand for sincerity, truth and honor? Must we tolerate mulitfarious abuses in the name of good governance and religion? How is that compassionate to the suffering masses?
Srila A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada’s heart was filled with loving compassion for the suffering of all jivas, as was Srila Saraswati Thakur before him. However, this did not mean abandoning reason or common sense when extemporating on the basic cheating tendency of the spiritually rebellious. Their hearts were completely devoid of hatred, yet their perceptions remained scathingly uncompromising in their constructive critical observations about mundanity and illusion. Simultaneously, by objectifying their luminous perceptions they also gave no dishonor to anyone who might require personal refinement of subjective individual ideological misconception.
Compassion might be simply defined as when my own selfish concerns are eclipsed by a very real concern about the suffering of others which can cause my own ephemeral/illusory/temporal sense of self to become greatly diminished and eventually evaporated in the awakening luminosity of genuine desire for the true well-being of all others. Or in other words, when the suffering of others becomes more important than my own petty perceived misery and I cannot therefore bear to see the suffering of any other embodied being. Ever.
This subsequential abandonment of false ego will make it possible for us to be able to segregate the mind from bias and duality while simultaneously retaining luminous discernment of the actual brutality of mundane reality without acrimony. Otherwise the brilliant light of the Krishna sun will be obscured by clouds of my false egotistical confusions and delusions and my consequential perceptions will be proportionately diffused or impaired.
Humbly with affection,
the lowly Jagabandhu das
It was interesting to see how emotional people got about the fact that an African-American was for the first time elected U.S. president. A lot of prominent black Americans were saying things like, “I never thought I would see it in my lifetime”, or “I only wish my father had lived to see this day.”
Not just in the U.S., but many people in Africa and even in Latin America and elsewhere were celebrating, teary eyed, jubilant.
When Theodore Roosevelt invited Booker T. Washington to dine in the White House barely 100 years ago, many Americans expressed outrage. It was still taboo for many to even have a black man visit the White House through the front door as a guest.
Later, Woodrow Wilson, who is famous for his “14 Points” and his efforts to create a rational (if idealistic) international legal framework for a world without war after WW I, was a staunch segregationist when it came to race relations at home in the U.S.
Obama’s acceptance speech, while borrowing from Lincoln and FDR, owed its central theme to R&B singer-songwriter Sam Cooke: “It has been a long time coming, but change has finally come.”
My point is, that if the U.S. can wait 221 years from the time the Constitution was ratified until a black man could be elected president, through all the struggles of the Civil War and Reconstruction and Segregation, the integration of the armed forces (after WW II!) and of Major League Baseball, the bus boycott and voting rights struggles and lunch counter sit-ins and all the violence and murders of Medgar Evers and Martin Luther King and the bombing of the Birmingham church that killed 4 little girls, etc. — if the U.S. can take that long for something so simple — then the devotees can wait at least that long before the U.S. becomes a fully Krishna conscious nation organized along daivi varnasrama principles, and we might expect to have to experience some bumps and struggles along the way.
Not that we have to just sit back and be patient. We have to vigorously study and distribute Srila Prabhupada’s books, and we have to embody the ideals and “walk the walk” of saintly devotees in our own lives.
Far from being “too late”, the task of rediscovering natural, God-centered (Krishna-centered) social relations, both within and outside ISKCON, and within and outside India, has hardly just begun, it seems to me.
Sorry to sound especially critical of the essay, but …. many of these issues about democracy are nothing new, or even particularly spiritual. They were current thousands of years ago in Ancient Greece as well as were issues debated when the US founded it democratic republic. Much of the attractiveness to holding the government accountable to its citizenry stems from centuries of grossly inept performance by what passed for the brahmnical and ksyatriya classes. In large part the move towards modern republicanism became an issue of picking the best card still available in the deck, so to speak. I would also add that the above critique of the history of the electorial college is a bit simplistic.
Anything can be engaged, even if its not to the highest standard. That is something most of the architects of modern democracy (what to speak of modern academics & intellectuals critiquing it) would readily admit to as being an issue part and parcel of the system – that it is hardly anything close to being flawless.
But as a part of a formal response, there could be added consideration to the idea that there is more to establishing the culture of varnasrama then griping about the alleged ineptitudes of democracy, or even the GBC for not authoritarian-ly establishing varnsasrama via administrative power. Without a mature bramanical culture, there will be no mature varnasrama society. And our shared reality involves, after all, a very young social institution, albeit one dedicated to very high ideals, while one not having all that much to work with in very difficult times. Obviously, the vision needs to be retained as we take our progressive steps forward.
But without a mature society of realized brahmanas (something that cannot be “manufactured” with good intentions alone) what could unfortunately get established might be a quasi theocratic political autocracy, and there is no guarentee how favorable such a system of government would be to the principles of pure devotional service.
Hmm, for example, how many Vaisnava temples might we expect to count in large swaths of the middle east?
Yes, the virtues of Anglo-American-South Asian style democracy has often been oversold by those with a political agenda. That point is also well taken. But then neither is pure devotional service established through political prowess.
Well said! I agree with your heartfelt impressions. And I do not consider that the establishment of Daivi-varnashram requires the “Vedicanization” of civilization. Rather, the essential consideration would be the pragmatic progressive awakenment/God-centralization of the totality of human society along with comprehensive avocational engagement. A symphony that makes “heavenly” music can be comprised of many instruments individually playing diversely, but in concerted harmony. And genuineness of individual participation would certainly be a necessarily integral component of the functional totality.
In order to achieve this goal of harmony amongst all variety of Divine faith it would be mandatory to rise higher to a much higher level of discernment. Or perhaps deeper. Much deeper.
Srila Saraswati Thakur was widely known as the “Harmonist,” for his ability to harmonize apparently opposing ideas. Thesis. Anti-thesis. Synthesis. Progress.
This same “harmonization” is required of his noble succession.
In his limitless compassionate outreach, Srila Saraswati Thakur was so broadminded that he considered that Mahaprabhu’s mission should be extended even to the vegetables and the stones. That each soul must be thought of as potentially a service asset to Sri Guru. And that each soul was potentially each a temple themselves. This type of expansive mood of consciousness has much potential to destroy divisive ideological demarcation points (or ecclesiastical boundaries) between all souls, without homogenously sacrifing the autonomous dignity of each bonafide religious conception, tradition or sacred lineage. And thereby simultaneously encourage mutually harmonious social-spiritual upliftment for all humanity. At the same time free will or individual choice is still preserved within the protective constraints of actual divinely prescribed standards.
Possibly, it might be generously considered that if souls of all diverse colors of faith focused more on their shared commonality as souls, rather than divisive conceptual distinguishments, there could be more peace in the world. And a real chance at achieving true social harmony without homogeny by Daivi-varnashram intelligently implemented by real brahmanas (those have actually realized brahma-bhuta prasannatma…) for the real benefit of all the world’s inhabitants. Regardless of specific individual concerns of either particular contemporary secular dominion or ecclesiastical subjective preference.
One thing we can put forward, following Srila Prabhupada’s lead, is that government, with its huge access to resources, should actually step in and support and encourage the sankirtan yajna, because this will increase the welfare of all the population.
The problem is, most people have this idea that religion is very sectarian and that government cannot have anything to do with religion or else it will unavoidably seem to be siding with one sectarian religion against another.
Another problem is that secularism has gone to such extremes that there is even a notion that atheistic materialism has to be given at least an equal station as yet another belief system. (One U.S. Supreme Court decision from the 1960s, involving teaching evolution in schools, written by Justice Fortas — I forget the name of the case — actually explicitly said that atheism is also a belief system entitled to religious freedom as with other belief systems).
At least in the U.S. we do still have the benefit that religions and churches are not taxed (much to the consternation of the anti-religionists). That is a huge benefit.
But how can we convince the people in general that there is a spiritual “science” so to speak, in the sense of being standard, systematic knowledge (as opposed to mere belief or superstition), and that those who know this subject matter agree that the nonsectarian glorification of names of God is highly beneficial in every respect?
In distributing books, I usually appeal to the value most people put on knowledge. They may believe or not believe, but at least they should understand this important cultural material, “Who is Krishna and what did He do and teach?”
Or some people are interested in yoga, and I tell them that Krishna is known as the “Master of all Yogis,” and Bhagavad Gita is His great explanation of the complete philosophy of yoga (not so much the asanas, but what is the soul, the mind, karma, the gunas, and the authentic goals of yoga practice.)
The genius of book distribution is, for one thing, they get to hear the direct and perfect explanations of Srila Prabhupada, but also that people still value books as symbols of knowledge and education.
Many Christian groups have little tracts meant to provoke a devotional sentiment, but we have vast encyclopedias of spiritual philosophy, full of descriptions of the qualities and names, forms and pastimes of Krishna who, though unborn, appeared to take birth and walk on earth.