DEVOTIONAL ETHICS IN USING HAND SANITISERS
By : Madhavananda Dasa,
Bangalore, India
As the covid related regulations, practices and norms are getting deeply entrenched in the psyche and daily affairs of the populace, including that of devotees, there is a great need to evaluate these practices in terms of devotional ethics and principles. The basis of all devotional principles is the authority of guru, sadhu and shastra, the Scriptures, the instructions of the Spiritual Master and the great saintly persons. Has the devotional community verified the credentials of Alcohol Hand sanitisers? Or have we just blindly accepted the convoluted modern science (that had always been referred by Srila Prabhupada to be the greatest rascaldom, deceit and cheating) and global elitist thrust to use hand sanitisers? Almost all ISKCON Temples including Vrindavan Dham and Sridham Mayapur have mandatory hand sanitization before entry. Millions of devotees use these sanitisers multiple times daily. All Temples and religious institutions across the world have made hand sanitization mandatory and are also actively promoting it. People even use sanitisers and directly eat with the same hands. Now, let us consider what sashu, shastra and guru have to say about hand sanitisers.
The main ingredient in Hand sanitisers is Alcohol and a cocktail of toxic chemicals. Hand sanitisers were invented in the 1966 by an American Nurse, Lupe Hernandez. The word Alcohol should have alerted any devotee to at least try to check if it was approved by scriptural injunctions to use sanitisers in any manner. But, with it’s prevalent use, either we have become neglectful or have been completely enamored by modern science.
The Srimad Bhagavatam, 1.8.52 says,
yathä paìkena paìkämbhaù
surayä vä suräkåtam
bhüta-hatyäà tathaivaikäà
na yajïair märñöum arhati
As it is not possible to filter muddy water through mud, or purify a wine-stained pot with wine, it is not possible to counteract the killing of men by sacrificing animals
In the lecture to this verse, Srila Prabhupada has specifically explained,
“Now, here it is said that suräkåtam, a drop of wine makes the whole thing impure… So the example is given that suppose here is one drop of wine, and the place has become impure. So if you bring another gallon of wine and just sweep over it, mop it with wine, that is not the process. So the Vedic conception is completely different. The… According to modern science, they put things into alcohol to sterilize. Is it not?
Svarüpa Dämodara: Put alcohol in things.
Prabhupäda: Yes. But it becomes more impure. Anything you put into alcohol, that becomes more impure”
Lecture, 1.8.52
In the purport to Bhagavad gita, 17.10, Srila Prabhupada categorises Alcohol as UNTOUCHABLE.
They are quite distinct from untouchable things like meat and liquor.
Purport, Bhagavad Gita, 17.10
Whenever we contact any untouchable thing, the scriptures have often compared that contact to madya lepa, smearing wine over the body.
In the Purport to Sri Chaitanya Charitamrita, antya 12.108, the contaminating effect of madya lepa, contact with alcohol is mentioned as,
According to Raghunandana Bhaööäcärya, the spokesman for the smärta regulative principles:
prätaù-snäne vrate çräddhe dvädaçyäà grahaëe tathä
madya-lepa-samaà tailaà tasmät tailaà vivarjayet
“One who smears oil on his body while observing a vow in conjunction with a ritual, while bathing in the morning, while performing the çräddha ceremony, or on dvädaçé day may as well pour wine over his body.
Manu Samhita 9.225 states that a seller of wine should be instantly be banished by the king from the city dwellings.
Therefore, the use of hand sanitisers is a clear breach of the teachings of Srila Prabhupada, Srimad Bhagavatam and our Acharyas. We are supposed to enter Temple in a clean or shuchi state, but Temples compulsorily putting alcohol sanitizer is like forcing temple visitors to defile themselves with impurity. Even in Islam, Alcohol is prohibited as haraam. Islam not only prohibits consumption of alcohol, but even usage of alcohol based perfumes.
The Buddhist text Vibhanga says,
“even as little as a drop the size of a dewdrop on the tip of a blade of grass of alcohol is enough to constitute a violation.”
The alcohol in hand sanitisers in fact percolates into the skin and even enters the blood stream in quantities large enough to fail in a drink driving breath test. Check these links for more details –
1) https://www.ashmanssolicitors.
2) https://www.livescience.com/
3) https://www.
We are thus inadvertently becoming first class drunkards and breakers of regulative principles by the use of alcohol hand sanitisers.
Srila Prabhupada has innumberable times stressed that the best purifiers and sanitisers are Sunlight, Fresh air, Clean water, Cow urine, Cow dung, Neem etc. These are Brahminical sanitizers approved by Guru, sadhu and shastra, since time immemorial. And how can some sinful alcohol sanitizer invented by some yavana mleccha woman supersede the wisdom of all scriptures and acharyas?
Srila Prabhupada even mentioned Dettol to be a rascal dirty thing. And we can just imagine what name Srila Prabhupada would have given for alcohol hand sanitisers.
“The brähmaëa’s name is çuci. He is always cleansed. Everyone will see, and he’ll immediately feel how cleansed he is. What is the difficulty? God has given sufficient water. For cleanliness you simply require water, that’s all. No antiseptic bottle-Dettol, this, that, so many. You are manufacturing so many rascal things, but ultimately unclean. Ultimately unclean.” (Room conversation, 11/12/1971)
These are ethical and devotional principles that prohibit use of alcohol hand sanitisers. As far as health perspective is concerned, it is a great misfortune that in the name of protection, we are practically killing our REAL protection. Hand sanitisers kill our own Dendritic cells, that are the first line of our immune defense mechanism. And about 50 ml of hand sanitizer is sufficient to kill an adult. Thousands of people in 2020 have died after consuming hand sanitizer. Many Sanitisers that contain Methanol and Triclosan are banned by US FDA and many other countries. sanitisers basically contain alcohol (ethanol , methanol, isopropanol or n-Propanol ) and a cocktail of harmful and toxic chemicals like Triclosan, chlorhexidine, quaternary ammonium derivatives, hydrogen peroxides, emollients and gelling
Please find extract from medical journal about the effect of sanitizer ingredients on human health
|
Acute and chronic toxicity by active ingredients of hand sanitizers |
|||
|
Active ingredients |
Acute toxicity |
Chronic toxicity |
Source |
|
Ethanol |
Central nervous system and respiratory depression, Lactic acidosis, Ketoacidosis, Nausea |
Cardiac arrhythmia, Acute liver injury, |
|
|
Isopropanol |
Similar to ethanol including central nervous system and respiratory depression, skin and mucous membrane irritation |
Death, |
Zaman et al., 2002 |
|
3% H2O2 |
Mild gastrointestinal and mucosal irritation, vomiting,skin irritation |
Air embolism |
Moon et al., 2006. |
Below are some links about the highly adverse effects of hand sanitisers.
1) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/
2) https://www.msn.com/en-us/
4) https://www.thestreet.com/
5) https://time.com/96112/why-im-
8) https://www.popsci.com/is-
Please see Srila Prabhupada's shopping list from when he worked as a pharmacist, where he has written, "ethanol".
In the absence of Srila Prabhupada's divine vani, one of the greatest challenges for us, his disciples and followers, is to be able to take his directions and the scriptural injunctions without turning them into a recipe for closed minded, closed hearted fanaticism. This is something Srila Prabhupada never did. Hence, we can sometimes become confused in certain situations, what he would want us to do, and we often see many years are spent studying his words, to try to understand a particular topic, and even then, sincere and intelligent devotees will still often come to different conclusions.
We can humbly pray, to somehow or other, walk in his footsteps, that some day we might have the vast broadness and immeasurable depth of his vision, that the rules and regulations will serve us in our spiritual maturity, that rather than binding us to rigid thinking and condemnation, they become for us, in truth, as Srila Prabhupada has described, the "regulative principles of freedom".