Does love exist in the material world? (video)

“Does love exist in the material world” is another extremely important topic discussed in The Monks podcast by Chaitanya Charan Prabhu and Garuda Prabhu.

Garuda Das Kavirāja is Professor of Philosophy and Religion at Christopher Newport University, Virginia and Director of Studies in Religion. He is also Distinguished Research and Teaching Faculty at the Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley. Garuda Prabhu lectures around the world on his translation of the Bhagavad Gītā, on the philosophy of Yoga, as well as on the teachings of the Krishna Bhakti tradition. When he is not lecturing, he guides, counsels, and mentors students on living the life of the heart or bhakti.

Love , we are told is all we need. It is the most deliberated topic of countless movies, articles, songs, poems, books and discussions. The ultimate purpose of our life is to develop love towards the Supreme Person- Lord Krishna. This podcast discusses amongst other things, how to appreciate love in this world to appreciate Krishna’s love for us.

As one listener insightfully commented:

“This is profound discussion, much-needed topic within communities and societies worldwide 🙏.

The perspective resolves the dichotomy between the emotion of love in living entities on one end and the nature of divine love on the other. The mature contextualization of the former in the context of the latter is very appealing, resulting in a broad-minded discussion on a much-needed topic.”

Here is the link to the intellectually stimulating podcast, made richer due to the thoughtful questions and different perspectives put forth by Chaitanya Charan Prabhu. It is a must hear::

And transcript of the various topics perfectly summarised by Chaitanya Charan Prabhu from @1.47.38:

So we discussed today if there’s love in the material world, and I shared my experience of my parents’ love. And you said that in one sense it’s obvious that this is love. But why is there this understanding there’s no love? Because of the nature of Prabhupada’s discourse and our understanding of Prabhupada. So Prabhupada had a dramatic way of presenting things where sometimes he made one statement where he was quite extreme, but then he would make another statement.

Then I think this “kanistha madhyama uttama; this is the most distinctive thing which stands out in our conversation. So the kanistha mode is just taking one statement and absolutizing it. But the madhyama is more inductive; trying to make sense of various statements one by one. But deductive is understanding the whole purpose. And then he said “a most natural form of intuition”; where you see the part in the context of the whole; and that was profound!

Then you discussed where there is no love in the world. So, those kind of statements are primarily delivered in a particular context. As devotees, Prabhupada also said in The Nectar of Devotion, that there is nobody who can live without loving. So, we discussed further also how in Prabhupada’s statements, sometimes he talked about how condemning people is Kanistha mentality; trying to understanding people is Madhyama mentality and trying to see how these people are already connected with Krishna and connecting them further, that is Uttama mentality. So that was beautiful again.

Another striking point point discussed was that of thin, finely veiled form of lust. So in the name of love and conforming to standards there, somebody might be exercising it. So somebody might say “I am protecting you from lust”, like an authority might be saying that to a subordinate, “I am protecting you from lust”, but they might themselves be in lust. So lust means basically wanting to control others. Or rather you put it that when “our need for the other person is more than our caring for that person”. So “I need you to maintain my image and I am such a great trainer of devotees and then you are spoiling my image then and that will not work”.

Then you talked about humility and passion; you mentioned that humility means to accept people where they are at, and passion means that we want to help them and one way we help them is to help them grow to elevate to come to the standard. Then another striking point in that connection was that, when we try to help, when we think we are helping people, we may end up hurting them.

You talked about being:

Narrow minded
Open minded
Broad minded

That was also beautiful. So many devotees may get hurt if the authorities are in a narrow minded phase, narrow minded frame. We then discussed also how the movement is meant to nourish the devotees through the six full exchanges, but sometimes the movement may mandate at who is a devotee, who is a non-devotee. And then if we are relating with people based on only the institutional norms, that’s not real love. We accept the person for who they are; and if somebody goes off, go understand them and then see how we can help them.

You spoke about this spiritual guidance when you do “pariprasnena”. That is , it is not just about giving standards, but dealing with the nitty-gritties of how those standards are to be implemented and then having the vulnerability sometimes, that we may not know how to implement certain standards. Hence depending on the particular ashram, so, we can focus more on universal principles, than specific technicalities, specifics of the applying. So, love now exists everywhere, but love in its fullest exists in Krishna. And our challenge is not to reject all the other loves, but to help people grow from where their love is, toward loving Krishna.

Garuda Prabhu : “Beautifully put, yes.”

CC Prabhu : “Any concluding words prabhu? This is so amazing.”

Garuda Prabhu : “ I think that you if you were a university student of mine, I would have just given you an A.”

CC Prabhu : “Haha Thank you, maybe in a future lifetime. I’ll have that thought too.”

Garuda Prabhu : “No, in a the future lifetime, I will be your student. But no, you’ve, I think you’ve summarized beautifully. I appreciate so much how you are really tuning into these ideas. And that makes our conversation and dialogue very enjoyable for me. So I appreciate the opportunity, Chaitanya Charan ji. That’s all I have to say.”

CC Prabhu : “ See, I have two regrets after this discussion. First is that it’s not long enough. And second is I wish I had this kind of discussion 10 or 15 years ago, I would have learned so much and I would have also caused less damage to others.”

Garuda Prabhu : “Ha ha But still I am afraid I can say the same for myself.”

CC Prabhu : “ Yeah, maybe we have to go through kanistha to come to madhyama We cannot just jump to madhyama. So maybe that’s a part of our growth.”

Garuda Prabhu : “A child has to be a child before he can be an adult.”

CC Prabhu : “ Yes. The problem when comes in the child……..”

Garuda Prabhu : “ The problem will be yes. Yeah, that’s a big problem.”

CC Prabhu : “ Yes. So thank you, everyone. And I look forward to having you in future also for more discussions. Thank you very much.”

Garuda Prabhu : “ Yeah. Thank you very much. Radhe Radhe Hare Krishna”