Philosophy

Here is today's effort: a recording of Om Namo Shivaya. I've mashed up two different Jai Uttal melodies here. I'd like to have spent more time on recording the vocal, but it's gun and run in the lead-up to the Insync kirtan on Friday.

• Om Namo Shivaya (mp3, 5.2MB, 3:05)

A little bit of the tattva of Shiva, for your entertainment and edification:

In today's modern scientific culture we treat mythology, history, and metaphysics as separate things. The Vedic culture, in contrast, sees these three things as inseparable aspects of the same thing - reality.

Shiva-tattva (the "truth" about Shiva), and in fact any Vedic tattva (understanding) is impossible to grasp using the Western approach. Very quickly one becomes overwhelmed by what seems like contradictory statements and frankly unrelated material.

Let us examine these different aspects of Shiva - historical, mythological, and metaphysical - in isolation, as the Western approach would have us; and then examine them in the integrated Vedic worldview.

Shiva - mythological

In Hindu mythology Shiva is the destroyer god. He is in charge of universal devastation as well as any principle of deterioration or disorder during the lifetime of the manifested universe. He is depicted as covered in crematorium ashes, carrying a trident and playing a drum, dancing the Tandava-nrtya - the dance of destruction.

He has two wives - his first Sati, immolated herself; and with his second wife, Parvati, he had a son Ganesh, whose head he severed and then replaced with an elephant head.

Shiva is worshiped by yogis and others who desire liberation (kaivalya) from samsara, the cycle of birth and death.

Shiva - historical

Presented by Bhaktivinoda Thakura as a western understanding of Shiva's history: as the Aryans drove down from the North of India they encountered many indigenous peoples with their own modes of worship. In one area Shiva was worshiped.

The cultural dynamic of the Aryans, which gave rise to the Vedic culture, was to assimilate other religions and cultures. We see the same thing in modern Western culture, much of it arising from the expansion of the Roman Empire. Think about it - what do the Crucifixion of Christ, bunny rabbits, and chocolate eggs have in common?

The story of the assimilation of Shiva worship into the Aryan culture is told in the Srimad Bhagavatam 4th Canto. Daksa is an Aryan noble who performs the regular Vedic sacrifices. The word has gone out: "Shiva is in". Daksa, as a light-skinned Aryan is a little racist and says: "We ain't having no black-faced fella here!"

According to the story, he has his head chopped off and replaced with the head of a goat as the result - a clear cautionary tale that Shiva is bona fide and discrimination against him will result in dire consequences. Around this time Shiva's black skin becomes covered with crematorium ash, conveniently making him white.

Shiva - metaphysical

Shiva the metaphysical principle is described as the aggregate consciousness of the living entities trapped in samsara. If you imagine a multi-faceted jewel, each of the individual faces is a jiva - an individual soul; that's you and me. The whole jewel, however, is Shiva.

In this way, metaphysically Shiva is a superset identity that includes all of us. Shiva is described in the Brahma-samhita as "Vishnu transformed in contact with the material nature". Just as milk turns to yoghurt when curdled with an appropriate agent, similarly when the jivas come into contact with the material energy, maya, their aggregated super-identity is transformed - from Vishnu to Shiva.

Shiva is therefore one aspect of brahman, the sum total of reality.

The idea that the soul exists and is separate from the body is an interesting one, and one that is easy to understand on reflection. My body and my mind are changing. The hands on the clock turn, the pages of the calendar turn; time passes, day follows night - and yet I remain somehow suspended in one eternally present moment watching all of this happening, just as someone may stand on a river bank and watch the water flow past, carrying so many things with it.

So it is with the soul - it is the witness, the observer.

The idea, however, that the individual souls have aggregated identity, Shiva - and further, Vishnu - is a novel one. In the Vedic culture it is explained by reference to introspection through the practice of mystic yoga and the experience of elevated states of consciousness, and to divine revelation. In the end both are one: Tattva-darsibhih, those who are seers of the truth become speakers of truth.

Reintegrating Shiva

These three different things seem like quite a mash-up, from a contemporary perspective. Allow me to show how these three things flow seamlessly together in the Vedic approach to reality:

In AD 820 a celibate monk who became known as Adi Shankaracarya [wikipedia] left his body at the age of 33. Historically his existence is certain, although the exact date is unclear. The Vedic approach to history doesn't fixate on, and hence record dates the same way the Western approach does.

In his short life he had established a powerful new religious philosophy, and a monastic order with centers across Southern India.

He was considered to be an incarnation of Shiva, whose appearance and mission were foretold in scripture. Shankara is a name of Shiva; acarya means teacher. In one Purana (metaphysics presented as historical/mythological stories) Shiva is recorded as telling his wife Parvati that he will appear as a teacher and present a confusing philosophy that will contain some elements of truth and some misdirection.

Shankaracarya taught that the soul is different from the body, and that there is ultimately an underlying reality of oneness between all souls.

One of the best-known songs that he wrote expands on the words of an Upanishad: "Shivo 'ham" - I am Shiva - pure, blissful consciousness (Click here to hear Dave Stringer singing this song).

A later song, Bhaja Govindam, advocates devotion to a transcendental personality, and Adi Shankara's statement "Narayano paro 'vyaktat" supports the idea of transcendental personality. However, he is best known for the "not this, not that" (neti neti) approach to establishing the difference between purusha (soul) and prakrti (matter). Also, in the philosophical system that has been propounded by his followers up to today involves the idea that contact with the material energy (maya) is not just the cause of the transformation of the aggregate identity of the jivas from Vishnu to Shiva, but is also the cause of the appearance of individuality.

The idea there is that upon liberation individual existence ceases, and the individual identity is merged back into the totality of transcendent consciousness. This doctrine bears a remarkable similarity to Buddhist doctrine of nirvana, where the individual existence ceases, and the individual identity is simply extinguished - "like a candle going out".

At the time that Shankaracarya presented his philosophy Buddhism was the dominant school of thought in India. After Shankaracarya, Buddhism spread to Asia, where it remains a significant force today, specifically because Shankaracarya's school of thought expelled its influence from India.

Some people say that this historical context is the cause of Sankaracarya's presentation of a post-liberated state that bears a remarkable similarity to the Buddhist idea, and that his songs such as Bhaja Govindam reveal his true stance on the matter. The Bhagavat Purana proclaims: "Vaisnavanam Shambhu" - (and) among Vaisnavas (devotees of Vishnu), Shiva is foremost.

So, hopefully that goes some way to showing how these things - mythology, history, and metaphysics - are all intertwined in a Vedic approach to reality.

Three Points in Response to my Last Post

First Point

In response to my last post, someone asks:

"Prabhupada may have come from Goloka but did every other jiva?

Maybe. Who can say? The spiritual world is a big place.

I say this to reflect the inherent unknowability of this "every" thing. You say "may", then ask for a statement of certainty. There is none. I also want to counteract the implication in this statement that "there is one black and white statement for the origin of all jivas". There are at least as many individual situations as there are individuals, possibly more!

There are two classes of beings, the fallible and the infallible. In the material world every living entity is fallible, and in the spiritual world every living entity is called infallible.

- Bhagavad-gita 15.16

Nitya-siddha jivas in this world are those who descend to canvass amongst the fallen souls (nitya-baddha jivas).

Within this view of reality, in the view of a number of people Srila Prabhupada came into the material world from Goloka Vrndavan.

As for "everyone else", according to this view they are a mixture of nitya-baddha jivas, along with a smaller number of nitya-siddha jivas.

So according to this, only the nitya-siddhas have come from a situation of liberated existence in the spiritual world, and the rest are, up to this point, eternally conditioned.

Second Point

"It cannot be a question of raga if one's origin is different to Prabhupada's."

This statement is ambiguous, so I will address two possible interpretations:

1. That it is not a question of raga, or feeling, if one is a nitya-baddha jiva, an eternally conditioned soul.
2. That it is not a question of raga, or feeling, if one has an origin in a liberated state of existence that is different from Srila Prabhupada's.

With respect to the first one: of course raga is a means for eternally conditioned souls to achieve liberation. I have given the verses that explain this in the previous post. Pay especial attention to "sadā tad-bhāva-bhāvitaḥ" .

"Back home, back to Godhead"

If you get the feeling, then you will go there.

That is the feeling: that our home is in a different soil, not here. With this feeling, one can go there. As Srila B.R. Sridhara Swami put it: "Home-going requires a home-knowing person".

With respect to the second interpretation: that it is not a question of raga, or feeling, if one has an origin in a liberated state of existence that is different from Srila Prabhupada's.

First of all, nitya-siddhas are eternally liberated, by definition; so those with their origin in some eternally liberated lila are exactly that - eternally liberated.

Perhaps you have confused raga (feeling) with rasa (flavor of spiritual relationship)?

There is a closely related argument to the "origin of the jiva" argument that underlies the original question about Prabhupada's motto. One version of the argument goes like this: the vast majority of jivas in this world are nitya-baddha. Since they have not come from the eternally liberated realm in a "previous existence", they have no standing there. Their identity in that realm must be imparted to them via siddha pranali - a mystical initiation in which they are given the seed of their spiritual identity - their passport to the eternal world.

In this view, a difference in rasa is not an issue, since the nitya baddha jiva has no inherent eternally liberated identity.

Another view is that the liberated spiritual identity of the jiva is intrinsic (svarupa-siddhi), although it has not been expressed before. This identity does not need to be implanted, but can be revealed from within.

This was the view of Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura. Sarasvati Thakura's father and guru, Srila Bhaktivinode Thakura, took siddha-pranali initiation from his guru Bipin Bihari Goswami. However, Sarasvati Thakura did not take siddha-pranali initiation, instead emphasising the chanting of the Holy Names as the means of revealing one's intrinsic spiritual nature.

In this view, the implications of a difference in rasa between the spiritual master and disciple arise.

If your intrinsic internal spiritual identity turns out to be something significantly different from that of Srila Prabhupada, even contrary in many respects, does that change the fact that his statement "back home, back to Godhead" is an expression of raga. No.

Does it make it irrelevant to you? No, because it's not "back home, back to Goloka Vrndavan", it's "back home, back to Godhead".

As a side note, a notable historical clash of intrinsic spiritual identities is recorded in Gaudiya history in the case of Syamananda Pandit (initiated as Dukhi Krishna das) and his guru Hrdaya Caitanya.

Shyamananda manifested a spiritual identity in the srngara rasa, as a helper of Radharani. Hrdaya Caitanya was in the sahkya rasa of the cowherd boyfriends. This lead to some apparent misunderstanding and difficulties between them, but does it change the fact that is based on raga? No, in fact it reinforces it.

Third point

"Surely there is a correlation between raga and tattva?"

Yes, too much preoccupation with tattva means you miss out on the raga, and in my opinion historically a lot of the discussion around "Back home, back to Godhead has done that. Reality is ultimately a feeling. Chant and be happy!

Someone asked the other day: "Why do Srila A.C. Bhaktivedanta Prabhupada Swami and, following him, ISKCON members say "Back home, back to Godhead", when the nitya-baddha jivas have been tatastha-shakti predominated by maha-maya eternally?"

If that question makes no sense to you, skip this post. :-)

Otherwise, read on:

The answer to this question is very simple. Our path is raganuga-bhakti.

Raganuga bhakti is described in Bhakti-rasamrita-sindhu as follows:

Devotional service in spontaneous love is vividly expressed and manifested by the inhabitants of Vrindavana. Devotional service that accords with their devotional service is called raganuga bhakti, or devotional service following in the wake of spontaneous loving service.

- Bhakti-rasamrita-sindhu 1.2.270

Following the spontaneous emotion of eternally liberated nitya-siddha residents of Goloka Vrndavan is the essence of raganuga-bhakti.

Srila Prabhupada is an eternally liberated soul, a nitya siddha. For him, "Back home, back to Godhead" is simply a statement of fact.

Even if one considers that he is not a nitya siddha, he is in the line of Caitanya Mahaprabhu, the Gaudiya Vaisnava sampradaya, a raganuga line descending from the Kali-yuga pavana incarnation.

In either case, the emotion that he expresses, that of "Back home, back to Godhead", is the emotion of the eternally liberated resident of Goloka Vrndavan who comes to this world to canvass amongst the nitya-baddhas. By imbibing this feeling, raga, one develops this identity - from raga to bhava, and thus one becomes one's conception:

Whatever state of being one remembers when he quits his body, O son of Kuntī, that state he will attain without fail.

- Bhagavad-gita 8.6

That is the reason why followers of Srila Prabhupada repeat his phrase "Back home, back to Godhead". It is a question of raga, not one of tattva. That is not to say that it has no philosophical coherence with the Vedic statements, as I have clarified above.

Back home, back to Godhead. See you there!

The saintly person is described in Bhagavad-gita 18.54 as samah sarvesu bhutesu - this means he or she is equally disposed (the "same") to all living entities.

In Srimad Bhagavatam 7.1, King Pariksit asks how the Supreme Lord can be equal to everyone, and yet side with the demigods against the demons.

The response that Sukadeva Goswami gives reveals that however you fix your mind on the Supreme Personality of Godhead, whether affectionately or inimically, you get the same result. Even though Krishna "kills" the demons while fighting on the side of the demigods, the demons are actually benedicted by this, and achieve the same destination as the demigods. For example, Putana achieved the position of Krishna's mother in the spiritual world, even though she approached him with the intent of killing him.

Srila Rupa Goswami therefore makes a distinction between what he calls pure devotional service, and the form of devotion practiced by Putana, even though they lead to the same result:

anyabhilashita-sunyam
jnana-karmady-anavritam
anukulyena krishnanu-
silanam bhaktir uttama

"One should render transcendental loving service to the Supreme Lord Krishna favorably and without desire for material profit or gain through fruitive activities or philosophical speculation. That is called pure devotional service."
- Bhakti-rasamrita-sindhu 1.1.11

The title of the book "Bhakti-rasamrita-sindhu" means "the nectarean ocean of devotion". Visvanatha Chakravarti has written a commentary on Bhakti-rasamrita-sindhu called Bhakti-rasamrita-sindhu-bindu, which means "a drop from the nectarean ocean of devotion". You can download a translation by His Holiness BV Narayana Maharaja from here.

In this commentary Sripada Visvanatha explains the meaning of the term "favorable" in Rupa Goswami's definition of pure bhakti. "Favorable" means "executed with the desire to please Krishna". Everything pleases Krishna, including the verbal attacks of demons like Sisupala and the physical attacks of demons like Putana and Kesi - but some things are done with the desire to please him, and other things please him irrespective of the intent of the performer.

Putana's devotional service is pleasing to Krishna, but is not pure because her intent is not to please Krishna. The other important point here is that after she attains liberation and the position of Krishna's mother in Goloka Vrndavan, the nature of her service changes. Her service as a mother in Goloka is favorable, in the sense of motivated by the desire to please Krishna, whereas her motivation prior to that was not to please Krishna.

So pure devotional service is the same before and after liberation.

Baladeva Vidyabhusana was the successor to Visvanatha Chakravarti. In his Bhagavad-gita commentary, entitled "Gita Bhusana", Baladeva explains that when the Lord kills someone with his chakra, the chakra not only kills the gross physical body, but also the subtle body. In the 15th chapter of Bhagavad-gita, Krishna describes the subtle body as the vehicle for both transmigration of the soul and karma, in the sense of both residual desires and reactions. So with the destruction of the subtle body the karma of the living entity is ended, and no rebirth in the material world takes place.

The envy of the Supreme Lord that manifests as the inimical stance of the demon is found within the subtle body, according to Baladeva, but the original nature of the living entity is one of pure love of God. This is like a cloud covering the sun - when the cloud is removed, the light of the sun is revealed. So when the subtle body of the demon is destroyed, their original love of God is revealed, and their devotion again becomes favorable and pure.

This line of reasoning seems to me to lead to the conclusion that indifference to the Supreme Personality of Godhead is the only problem. Whether you are inimical or favorable to the Lord, His name, form, qualities, and instructions, you are headed to the same place. The role of the material energy is to give you a million other things to focus on, so that your meditation on the Lord, of whatever nature, can never become sustained.

...because, you know, that's one of the things you lie awake at night wondering about, right?

Here is a question that I asked H.H. Tripurari Swami, along with his reponse:

Q. It seems that later followers of Jesus, principally those who had
never personally met him, deified him in a way that was not done during his lifetime and was not explicitly taught by him. Has the same thing happened with Caitanya Mahaprabhu? In Gaudiya Vaisnavism the Caitanya-caritamrita by Krsnadasa Kaviraja is the lens through which Mahaprabhu is viewed, but do all those mentioned in the book share its vision? Does Jiva Goswami speak about Mahaprabhu's ontological status in the same way as Krsnadasa Kaviraja?

A. It is abundantly clear from the writing of the associates of Sri Caitanya that Krsnadasa Kaviraja, although coming a generation later, has represented not his own ideas regarding the divinity of Sri Caitanya but those of the immediate disciples of Sri Caitanya. Raghunatha dasa Gowami, who lived for many years in the personal association of Sri Caitanya writes in his Saci-suta Astakam, "Will Lord Hari, who upon seeing his own incomparable sweetness in a mirror in Vraja and desiring to become like his dearest friend Radha manifested an incomparable golden form and took birth in Bengal as the son of Saci, again walk on the pathway of my eyes?" In this prayer Raghunatha dasa Goswami identifies the son of Saci, Sri Caitanya, with Krsna (Hari) and furthermore with the sentiment and complexion of Radha. Dasa Goswami's siksa guru, Svarupa Damodara, who was the personal secretary of Sri Caitanya in Puri, also wrote about Sri Caitanya's divinity and identification with Radha's bhava, and a significant verse of his has been included in Sri Krsnadasa's text as one among four verses through which Sri Krsnadasa seeks to establish the theology of Gaudiya Vaisnavism with regard to Sri Caitanya's divinity and devotion in the ecstasy of Radha.

In this verse Sri Svarupa writes, "Radha and Krsna's love is a transformation of hladini-sakti. On earth, the one, Krsna, has become two, Radha and Krsna, eternally. Then, as Gaurasundara, these two formed a dynamic unity. Pranam to that Krsna endowed with Radha's countenance and personality." It is principally from the notes of these two, Svarupa Damodara and Raghunatha dasa Goswami, that Sri Krsnadasa has developed his treatise. It is also clear that his Sri Caitanya-caritamrta draws heavily on the earlier works of Rupa, Sanatana, and Sri Jiva Goswamis. Texts such as Bhakti-rasamrta-sindhu, Laghu-bhagavatamrta, Hari-bhakti-vilasa, Sat-sandarbha, and the Vaisnava-tosani Bhagavata commentary are well represented in his work. Regarding Sri Jiva Goswami's opinion, we find this in his Sat-sandarbha, perhaps the most important text in terms of Gaudiya siddhanta and the tradition's understanding of the Srimad Bhagavatam, so dear to Sri Caitanya. Jiva Goswami begins this sixfold treatise with a citation from the Srimad Bhagavatam that speaks of Sri Caitanya's
divinity:

"In Kali-yuga, those who possess very fine theistic intelligence worship Sri Krsna who has appeared in disguise as Sri Krsna Caitanya . . . "

Sri Jiva's understanding of this verse is derived from Sri Sanatana Goswami's Vaisnava-tosani. Following his citation of this verse is a well-known verse composed by Sri Jiva himself, a verse intended to explain the implication of the Bhagavata verse first explained by Sanatana Goswami with regard to the divinity of Sri Caitanya. Such explanations, both those of Sanatana Goswami and the corroborating explanation of Sri Jiva appear more than once in Sri Krsnadasa's treatise.

Finally, regarding the authority of Caitanya-caritamrta, Srila Sridhara Deva Goswami emphatically has this to say, "The Caitanya-caritamrta, the gift of Kaviraja Goswami, is the highest wealth of our sampradaya. With great authenticity we can rely on Caitanya-caritamrta on every point. Every part of Caitanya-caritamrta represents Mahaprabhu completely, because the source is Rupa-Sanatana and Raghunatha. They all came into direct contact with Mahaprabhu and were inspired by him. He empowered Rupa Goswami to reveal, in a scientific and exhaustive way, the shastras of divine love--the love of Vrindavana. Mahaprabhu said to Svarupa Damodara, 'I have given my all to him--you also grace him. He (Sri Rupa Goswami) is the fittest person to deal with this science of divine love. You can put full confidence in him.'

"First was Rupa Goswami and then there was Raghunatha dasa Goswami, who
also had direct contact with Mahaprabhu. Kaviraja Goswami was a disciple of Raghunatha dasa Goswami and he came in close association with Rupa-Sanatana and got their blessings. So what Kaviraja Goswami has given is unparalleled. Our Guru Maharaja (Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakura) wrote in a letter that every part of Caitanya-caritamrta can be taken as fully bona fide, both from the historical and ontological point of view." (Encounters with Divinity)

Thus it is the insights of the direct disciples of Sri Caitanya that are represented in Sri Caitanya-caritamrta and these insights remain the heart and soul of Gaudiya Vaisnavism today.

Recently a god-brother of mine, Vidyapati (Mikey), has been writing about his experience of Krishna Consciousness in ISKCON over the past 7 years. His blog is at xkrishnax.blogspot.com.

I find his writing lucid, reflective, insightful, and respectful.

I would like to point out here that ISKCON is a federation of allied local communities, and is by no means a homogenous entity, so his experience is the personal experience of one person in one particular situation. It has been very useful as a topic of conversation here, and I have had several in-depth discussions about issues around it with my friends here, especially with David Jorm and Vrajadhama.

I posted a comment on a recent post of Mikey's, one in which he talks about difficulties that he and others experienced in reconciling the hermeneutical approach (that means how scriptures are interpreted) advocated in their community, with their own independent thinking and intellectual integrity.

I'm reproducing my comment here on my blog to put it front of a wider audience. Understanding the philosophy of Krishna Consciousness to this level is what works for me. My realization is that to stay interested and engaged in Krishna Consciousness over the long term, you have to find out what works for you. Krishna Consciousness is simple for the simple, but if your intellectual capacity is more complex, then Krishna Consciousness does not lack depth of philosophy; and I wouldn't let someone else harangue you into thinking that it's just for dummies and that intellectuals are evil. When this starts to happen we end up with an organisation that runs on a personality cult (religion without philosophy + guru), and would resonate with statements such as: "When I hear the word intellectual, I reach for my Luger". Just to further invoke Godwin, I'd like to point out that Nazi Germany also ran on the twin principles of guru-bhakti (Heil Hitler!) and "Purity is the Force". It is a very dangerous dynamic - a razor's edge. Independently thoughtful, intellectually honest philosophers loyal to the core values of Krishna Consciousness (brahmanas) are necessary to keep it real. These people derive their validity from their own internal conviction, not from social convention, and thus can be a real pain in the ass, and a valuable counter-balance to excessive swings due to group think.

Below the line is my comment from Vidyapati's blog:

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In terms of epistemology, we had some interesting discussions at our recent retreat, where we discussed the six philosophical systems over three days. One point that came out is that Prabhupada's explicit hermeneutical strategy ("As It Is") is largely rhetorical. For example, he contradicts it in Bg. 3.29, where he renders a purport practically in contradiction to the verse, using an interpretative strategy other than "As It Is".

His rhetorical choice of hermeneutic is linked to a previous philosophical interpretation that he is seeking to refute - Advaita Vedanta. Advaita Vedanta had in turn refuted a previous school, Karma-mimamsa, which used exactly the hermeneutical strategy of "As It Is". The Karma-mimamsa epistemology was that scripture was of divine origin, and so everything in it was literally true. Thus, if you perform the rituals in there, since the scripture must be true, the result must come.

Everything there was literally true: "as it is". They de-emphasised metaphysics by saying that anything that wasn't an instruction on how to achieve a result was not important.

To undermine the influence of this school, Sankaracarya accepted the Vedic scripture, but introduced a different hermeneutic.

Sankaracarya stated that pramanas (epistemological sources) have their domain of authority. The authoritative domain of scripture is transcendence. In other mundane areas, such as cosmology, if sastra-pramana (scripture) contradicted pratyaksha and anumana (empirical observation and logic), the description of scripture could be retired. Sankara called these paramarthika (the transcendental part), and vyavaharika (the mundane part)

With this hermeneutical strategy many modern-day ISKCON controversies, such as the relative distances of the Sun and the Moon, or the structure of the universe, disappear.

However, Sankara then applied this hermeneutical strategy to descriptions of Brahman, designating some of them as saguna (mundane) and others as nirguna (transcendental). I personally feel that he overstepped the mark with this, and I'm not the only one.

Rather than quibble over where this distinction should be applied, Prabhupada has opted for the Karma-mimamsa hermeneutical approach. This gets rid of some problems - such as Sankara's characterisation of some descriptions of Brahman as mundane, but introduces others - such as cosmological controversies, and instances where Prabhupada violates his own stated hermeneutical strategy.

Once you understand that, it becomes possible to consider the Bhagavatam using Sankara's hermeneutic, but without his fault of over-extension (ativyapti in Sanskrit - where a definition is so broad that it includes within it things that should not be included). This is precisely what Bhaktivinode Thakur does in his book Sri Krishna Samhita. Bhaktivinoda Thakura also uses Sankara's terms paramarthika and vyavaharika often, while you won't find them at all in Prabhupada's writing.

You can understand why this approach isn't a standard practice amongst ISKCON devotees too - most people would be thoroughly confused just reading this, what to speak of trying to apply it.

However, it is also part of the tradition.

Keep it simple for the simple, but remember - Krishna Consciousness is also complex for the complex.

I have to say that in a number of cases of my godbrothers who have given up on the philosophy, my feeling is that it is because they didn't go deep enough into it. Of course, that is discouraged in some circles, but at some point we have to own our own relationship with the tradition.

I sometimes jot down thoughts while on retreat. Here are some from last weekend's retreat. Looking forward to this weekend's one!

Retreat Realisations 2010

athato brahma-jijñasa
Vedanta-sutra 1.1.1

Attaining the human form and utilising its energy and abilities only to satisfy the urges of the mind and body, as all other lifeforms do, is like going to Italy, only to eat at Pizza Hut.

Attaining the human form and not utilising its unique intelligence to understand the nature of the self, the observer beyond the body and the mind, and the nature of reality, existence and being, is like going to Perú and not visiting Macchu Picchu.

Therefore, having attained the very rare human form of life, you should utilise it to inquire into and understand BRAHMAN.

So comes the question: What is Brahman?

janmadyasya yatah
Vedanta-sutra 1.1.2

Brahman is the original source of everything.

sarvam khalvidam brahma - everything is brahman.

What then can we say about Brahman? Since everything is composed of Brahman, Brahman must impart some quality to it. Just as everything that is composed of sugar is sweet, and everything that is composed of water is wet - what is the essential quality of Brahman that is imparted to everything? This we can understand by analyzing the common denominator of everything. Since everything is composed of Brahman, the quality imparted by Brahman must be shared by everything. What is the common denominator of everything? It is...

This is the fundamental quality of Brahman: Existence. Everything exists. It is. Brahman is the substance that imparts existence.

This is confirmed by the following description of Brahman: om sat-chit-ananda para brahma.

Sat - existence - is the quality of Brahman.

Indeed:

Sastra yonitvat
Vedanta-sutra 1.2.3

Scripture describes Brahman in this way.

This is the fifth post in my series on Building a Krishna Conscious "Mega Church". See also the previously published Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, and Part 5.

Note: Since I wrote this a couple of weeks ago, I've been thinking about various programs that we are doing here in different venues. In the case of the temple I think Children is Function 2 after sound. In the case of the Sunday Feast and Krishnafest at our house I think that Presentations is Function 2. This doesn't mean that one is more important than the other, it's just the order of implementation. In the case of the Sunday Feast, for example, Presentations is a low-hanging fruit. On the other hand there are not facilities for easily spinning up a Children's Program there. In the case of the temple, there are plenty of children, and potential facilities for a Children's Program, so there it's both easier, and a greater imperative.

Also, someone mentioned a kitchen in response to an earlier post, the one about Sound. I have put a kitchen in a separate category of functions, and we'll come back to it later. OK, on with today's show...

Function 2 - Children

I'm going to go out on a limb here and put Children as function 2, rather than Presentations. In places like Gaura Yoga [website] and the Loft [website] in New Zealand they focus on Sound and Presentations, and have no facility for children. That works fine as center for young, single people. But eventually those young, single people are going to become married couples with children, so they will need some facility.

That doesn't mean that Gaura Yoga and the Loft will have to transform, but the organization will have to build out its capability to service those needs in some facility.

Personally, in working within an existing community, I'm focusing on sound first, then children second, rather than presentations.

My friend Krishnapada put it like this: "If McDonalds have facilities for children I think we should too".

Think about this. Let's say that you have a facility to which 400 adults and youths will come at a time. Let's say that half of them are married couples. So that's 200 people, or 100 couples. Let's say that on average they have 1 child - some will have none, some will have two or three. That's 100 children for 400 people.

Of course you could have a facility that is not child-friendly, but that's hardly making it easy, is it?

Here are two other points:

1. People sometimes ask me why I am so enthusiastic in Krishna Consciousness. It's simple. When I was a kid my mother raised me reading the Bible, and then sent me every weekend and every school holiday to a Bible camp, school holiday program, or youth group event, where they poured resources, attention, and intention into the program and the children on it. If you want to influence the value structure of a generation of devotees then you have to look after the kids. If you want to keep recruiting first generation devotees who were raised as atheists, then don't worry about them.

2. If you want parents to come back, then you provide something for their kids. McDonalds understand this. Krishnapada told me that his 4 year old son Shyam points to McDonalds and says: "I want to go there", just from seeing it from the outside - he's never been in. It's so attractive. McDonalds understands: get the kids, and you get the parents. Now, if you can give the children a valuable formative experience based on solid moral principles and values, what parent is going to say no to that?

For children's facilities you actually need more personnel, energy, money, and planning than you do for the adults. Children require more diversity of activities and facilities. You cannot put 400 children together in a big room for an hour and deliver one experience for them all. They need to be segregated and provided with an age-appropriate experience.

At Buckhead Community Church, which has facility for 3000 adults, they have one auditorium for the adults, and four floors of facilities for the children.

Each of those floors contains age-appropriate facilities for children from toddlers through to teenagers. On the first floor for the younger children they have a small stage/auditorium area where they do a Wiggles-type presentation [wikipedia article on the Wiggles], before splitting the children into groups in rooms where they play with toys and do other activities. In this way they have both a large group experience and a small group experience each week.

You can see a bunch of pictures and a video that I took of the young children's facilities when I visited this church in 2007 here.

At Buckhead, which is one of Andy Stanley's churches, along with Northpoint Community Church, they understand that people have different needs at each phase of life, for example, as a child, as a new believer, as a newly-wed, as an adult, as a father, etc. They distill this down to three essential messages that they repeat the these people over and over again in a variety of ways. For the youngest children it boils down to: "God Loves Me. God Made Me. Jesus Wants to Be My Friend For Ever".

Taking a cue from this, each year since he turned 5, I've taught Prahlad an additional prayer that we recite each night before sleeping. We now recite four prayers together (actually 5, because I also taught him Our Lord's Prayer from the Bible). In these prayers I have encapsulated what I discern as the essential devotional philosophical underpinnings that are most appropriate for him to imbibe at that time.

The Maha Kirtan for Kids program [poster | program] here on September 13 is the beginning of this. We've got the sound system to a certain level now, and it's time to put some energy into our program for the children.

The current temple design that we are working with has zero, as in no facility for children. It's based on a design for a bunch of single people to cram into an ashram and go out until they flame out.

A purpose-designed facility has sufficient spaces to facilitate age-appropriate programs for the number of children who come based on the number of adults who are facilitated. The program that goes on in that facility needs to dedicate sufficient resources as in personnel and money to that program to make it work.

For the older youths there is a section upstairs, as mentioned previously, with their own sound system and stage, and also break out rooms for small group discussions. It's an expanded version of a Loft preaching center, like Gaura Yoga or the Loft in New Zealand.

Conclusion: Invest heavily in children's facilities and programming.

Next: Function 3 - Presentations.

This is by Ed Gungor and appeared in Relevant Magazine. Apart from not being into "belief" personally, I think this is a good piece.

Can we believe in evolution and a Creator?

Arguing for God being the Creator of the universe doesn’t necessitate an attack on the theory of evolution. Don’t misunderstand me; some evolutionists (particularly some of the neo-atheists like Richard Dawkins, who argues in his new book people who don't believe in evolution are on the same level as Holocaust deniers) have gone ape over their theory (forgive the pun) to the point that they seem to forget it is a theory, and refer to it as if it is an undeniable scientific fact. (Please note: when I speak about evolution, I’m referring to Darwin’s macroevolutionary theory: life began millions of years ago from a kind of primordial ooze that gave rise to single-celled creatures, which then evolved into more complex ones, all the way up to we humans.)

Is the theory of evolution true? It definitely has its problems, but whether it is or isn’t true doesn’t impact the notion that God is the Creator of the world. Scientific theories about origins simply talk about how things came to be, not whether God was behind it. For Christians to argue about scientific theory—any theory—because they think it attacks the notion that God is the Creator seems silly.

What if the point of the creation narrative in Genesis was more poetic than literal? Historically, the Church has always held this position about creation. The Church’s take was simply that God created the world. That’s it. Before the nineteenth century, the Church never tried to specify how or when God did it. Those in the ancient world (to whom the text was written) did not think in literal or scientific terms, nor would they have cared about such notions. The big news of Genesis to the ancient world was that ONE God, not many, was responsible for all we see. That radical, salient point rang through that world which believed in many gods—not one—and had absolutely nothing to do with science.

A belief in God does not necessitate that a person accept the position that the earth is just six thousand years old. The historical, theistic argument is simply that we believe God is the why behind what is here, whenever and however it got here. Scientists may ultimately tell us how and when everything happened in ways not articulated in the biblical text, but science will never be able to tell us why. Why is the stuff of belief. Understanding this helps us be open to the research and questioning of science, while recognizing such questioning is not an enemy to faith.

Science does not have to be an enemy of faith. Nanoscientist James Tour, a professor at Rice University, spends his life building molecules in the lab. He says, “I stand in awe of God because of what he has done through his creation. Only a rookie who knows nothing about science would say science takes away from faith. If you really study science, it will bring you closer to God.”

One could say that the order of non-living things—the laws that govern physical objects, the earth orbiting the sun, the seasons coming and going, the laws governing atoms and the subatomic universe—is enough evidence to assert that there is a God who designed things to be the way they are. But the most compelling evidence—the evidence that seems to scream: THERE IS A GOD! — comes from things that are alive.

Dr. Walter L. Bradly, an expert on polymers and thermodynamics, says, “Ice crystals have a certain amount of order, but it’s simple, repetitive, and has a low amount of information, sort of like filling a book with the words, ‘I love you, I love you, I love you’ over and over again. In contrast, the kind of complexity we see in living matter has a high information content that specifies how to assemble amino acids in the right sequence, like a book being filled with meaningful sentences that communicate a story. Unquestionably, energy can create patterns of simple order. For instance, you could see ripples on the sand at a beach and know they were created by the action of waves. But if you saw the words, ‘John loves Mary’ and a heart with an arrow drawn in the sand, you know that energy alone didn’t create that.”

Even the smallest, single-celled organisms have more complexity within their cellular walls then anything scientists have been able to recreate using huge supercomputers. What guides the process in all living things is DNA, which regulates every cell of every plant and animal. The DNA molecule is like a tiny microprocessor that controls everything a living cell does. The data encoded on the DNA inside every cell of every living thing is a kind of written language. The English language uses a twenty-six-letter alphabet; DNA uses a four-letter chemical alphabet. As the chemicals are arranged in various “lettered” sequences, they form what amounts to words, sentences, and paragraphs containing all the instructions needed to guide a living cell. The DNA molecule instructs cells on how to make proteins, what and how to eat, how to get rid of waste, when to divide, how to repair itself, and so on. So, where did DNA come from? How was the code “written?” Was it written by chance or was there a Designer?

British chemist Leslie Orgel once said, “Evolution is smarter than you are,” to which atheist Christopher Hitchens responded, “But this complement to the ‘intelligence’ of natural selection is not by any means a concession to the stupid notion of ‘intelligent design.’”

Why not? Why couldn’t evolution have an intelligence that was put in it by God? That Hitchens (along with the other neo-atheists) can make no “concession” to the possibility of God being involved is evidence of a silly prejudice. It is not a logical observation.

This is the fifth post in my series on Building a Krishna Conscious "Mega Church". See also the previously published Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4.

Function 1 - Sound

The first function that the facility has to facilitate (that's why it's called a facility - it's a form that makes a particular function easy) is the chanting of the Holy Name.

The environment must be designed around sound vibration - after all, this movement is meant to be all about sound. Forget about turning to India for state-of-the-art sound design. You can get your subject matter from there, but delivery is a Western contribution.

The main space has to be acoustically designed. This is a science, but it's not rocket science. Auditoriums are tuned for sound. The space needs to be designed from the get go for acoustics, or it needs to be repurposed with acoustic materials, such as baffles and acoustic panels.

Next, it needs to be wired for sound. The model here is any environment which is purposed for sound, such as an auditorium, a concert hall, a nightclub, etc. There needs to be a multicore running down the length of the facility, either under the floor on in the wall. A multicore is a huge snake cable with thirty or forty cables inside it.

You need a massive mixing desk, multi-band graphic eq for the room, compressors and multi-effects units, and a number of wireless rigs. Sound is what it's all about.

The thing about technology, and this is from years of personal experience, is that there is a sweet spot that you have to reach to take advantage of it. Before you get to that sweet spot the technology creates as much interference as it does benefit. Let me give you some examples: When your microphones keep feeding back, or the cable malfunctions unless it's held at an angle, or the output of your power amp doesn't scale sufficiently, your technology gets in the way as much as facilitates. When you lay down the bucks and have a graphic eq, noise gate, a compressor, and a wireless hypercardioid mic, all that goes away, and all you get is the crisp, clear sound of the message, with no distraction by the medium. When your singers can't hear themselves and strain to sing and miss notes, when your mrdanga player can't hear what's going on and misses a change, when there is too much treble in the sound reinforcement and not enough power (bass), when the sound distribution is uneven (loud at the front and inaudible at the back), when there are speakers or ugly stands between the people and the kirtan party, technology is not helping you. When you lay down the bucks and mount speakers out of line of sight at front and back with a 180 degree phase difference, with distributed subwoofers, and provide foldback for the performers with in-ear monitors with dedicated mixes, then all that goes away and all you get is the experience of the kirtan, with no distraction by the medium.

You have to spend big on this to make it happen, and when you do, the results are awesome. No-one but the most observant goes away saying: "Wow, did you see that they were using in-ear monitors?" The technology has reached the sweet spot and become transparent. They just go away saying: "That was the best kirtan ever!" If you introduce a low level of technology then people will notice it. They'll go away complaining about the microphone or the sound.

The facility needs a dedicated sound mixing area and sound engineers. I visited Buckhead Community Church in Atlanta, Georgia, where I participated in their morning worship service (you can check out my photos and videos of the opening service here). They had two engineers working a desk halfway back in the auditorium. Basically the design there was like any number of dedicated auditoriums that I played in in bands as a teenager. In a tour of the facility afterwards I was shown an area on the third floor where the youth have their own worship service with their own band. They had their own stage, own PA system with mixing console (all smaller than the main one, but much more developed than ISKCON temple I've seeen), and their own lighting rig.

I got my start in audio engineering at the Sandringham Baptist Church on end of my block on Mt Albert Rd in Auckland, New Zealand. The church sound man, Clem, gave a number of training sessions for interested persons in the congregation, to develop a sustained sound engineering capability for the church. When you see me rolling cables using that particular technique, that's his training.

Now you can say: well, there is no way that we can do all that. But guess what: it can be done, and I'm going to prove it.

A Culture of Music

Above I mentioned getting the subject matter for the sound. Of course, any sound system is going to be worthless without something to put through it. A zero amplified even a million times is still zero. Something out of time and out of tune just sounds worse when it's miked up.

In order to field a powerful experience for people, it's necessary to have a vibrant culture of music. This takes investment of resources - time, energy, and money.

Where you spend your money and time is where you will see growth. Creating a long-term culture of music takes short to medium term investment with no immediate return.

Quality instruments need to be purchased and maintained. Events and artists need to be sponsored. Cultural exchange needs to take place. Seminars need to be held.

Australia's biggest Christian megachurch, Hillsong [website], started life in 1983 as Hills Christian Life Centre. In 1986 they started an annual music conference, called Hillsong. By the early 90s this music conference had reached a stage of momentum where CDs were released. These CDs became wildly popular and the church rebranded itself as "Hillsong", since that was what they were known for.

When I visited Buckhead Community Church in Atlanta, Georgia in 2007 I met with the music director, a hip young guy in jeans carrying an electric guitar. When I told him I was visiting from Australia he revealed that he and three other members of the church band had just returned from a visit to Hillsong.

Conclusion: Invest in sound.

Tomorrow: Function 2 - Children.