Sweet Speech

Right Speech

सत्यं ब्रूयत्प्रियं ब्रूयन्न ब्रूयात्सत्यमप्रियम्

प्रियम् च नानृतम् ब्रूयादेश धर्मः सनातनः

satyaṁ brūyatpriyaṁ brūyanna brūyātsatyamapriyam

priyam ca nānṛtam brūyādeśa dharmaḥ sanātanaḥ

Shankar Acharya: Expert in rhetoric

Śankarācārya here has given us some advice about dharma: “Speak the truth that is sweet,” he says. “Speak the truth in a pleasing way. Don’t speak the truth which is not sweet. Never speak untruth, even if it might be pleasing. This is sanātana dharma.”

There is a paradox here. Everyone likes pleasing words, “Speak the truth that is sweet.” We all agree that honesty is best: “Avoid speaking untruth.” But what happens when the truth is not pleasing? Sometimes we must speak truths that are not pleasing. In the world of exploitation we are surrounded by lies. Worst of all, we are constantly lying to ourselves.

Once Buddha was asked, “What is the most amazing thing?” He replied, “The most amazing thing is that while everyone is mortal, no one believes that he is going to die.” We lie to ourselves about the most fundamental things in life. And yet the truth is often painful.

When he was living at Gaya with a thousand of his followers, Buddha pointed out that this entire world is on fire.

In his famous Fire Sermon, he said, “All is burning: the eyes and ears are on fire with visual and sound sensations. Your consciousness is burning; burning with the fire of lust, with the fire of hate, with the fire of delusion."

Your body is burning in the fire of birth, age and death, burning with sorrows, and lamentations, with pains, with griefs and despairs. Your senses are on fire: the nose is burning with fragrance and aromas, pleasant or painful; the tongue is burning with flavours and the stomach burns with digestion. Everything is burning, and it will burn to death. You are all burning to death in the fire of lust and desire.”

Buddha is known for gentleness, and yet his speech here is anything but gentle. These are harsh words. But if a man is asleep in a burning house we may use sharp words to awaken him. And in an important sense, as we live in self-denial and pretend that we will live forever, we are all like that man in the burning house; we refuse to wake up to our mortality.

Śrīla Prabhupāda questioned the value of Śaṅkara’s advice on social conventions in speaking the truth. Commenting on the above verse, satyaṁ brūyatpriyaṁ brūyanna brūyātsatyamapriyam, he often pointed out that it is necessary to speak plainly: "According to social conventions, if you want to speak truth, you must limit yourself to truths that are palatable and flattering. Don't speak unpalatable truths. But we are not meant to merely follow social conventions. We are preachers and servants of God." (A.C. Bhaktivedanta Svami Prabhupada, Bombay, January 3rd 1977)

Prabhupad spoke plainly, but with great personal charm and compassion

And yet, if the goal of “preaching” is to convince someone through argument that he needs help, we cannot merely shout at people. While preachers may feel urgency to spread their message, social conventions can be ignored only at great peril to the mission they hope to advance.
Truth told gently is persuasion. Fire and brimstone is usually effective only when preaching to the choir. Strident preaching defeats its own purpose when people turn a deaf ear. To scream “fire” in a crowded theater is an act of speech punishable by law even in a society where free speech is valued. To accost others and argue the superiority of one’s faith is offensive in any society.

Prabhupāda himself spoke with such charm and erudition that he was forgiven his frank and candid speech. Extremists who have adopted his style without his charm often find that their preaching falls on deaf ears. And yet many religious extremists feel that all they need to do is to scream louder. Perhaps if people would lower their voices they would be able to listen.

Śaṅkara traveled around India for years defeating the sādhus of the Buddhist school. When he gives us advice on rhetoric, we may take it as coming from one the most successful debate experts of rhetorical history. He tells us to avoid extreme speech; to be convincing without offending. In an age where one’s shoes and socks are scrutinized for explosive materials every time one travels on an airplane, one would do well to heed such timeless advice.

Many of my adolescent students refine their argument to one word: “No!” They seem to feel that by repeating this argument louder and louder they can win all debates through shouting. But as Dale Carnegie once said, “The man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still.” Rhetorical argument, as conversation, is still an art.

The Great Conversation between King Pariksit  and Shukadev 

Those who would insist on constant and charmless argument to push their ideas run the risk of being identified as extremists. Religious extremists especially are being criminalized everywhere around the planet these days, so especially strident preachers might take this into consideration to moderate their style.

And yet, loud and aggressive fanatics continue advocate an agressive spirituality. They feel that the only remedy to counteract the belligerent spirit of the times is a still more aggressive spirituality. Where politicians have declared a war on drugs and a war on terror, these acolytes would declare a “war on māya.”

So should we speak truth boldly, whatever the consequences? Or should we sugar the pill, honey the medicine, and speak sweetly? Sometimes it is impossible to honey the truth. Truth is often painful and cutting. In India holy men are called “sādhus.” Some afficionados of yoga teach that “sādhu means one who cuts.” They follow the preaching style of Prabhupāda in “plain speaking.”

But the true meaning of sādhu to be found is speaking “cutting” words? Perhaps. A sādhu or holy man may heal as does a surgeon, by cutting removing the cancer of materialism, by severing the falsehoods and denial of illusion. But I think the meaning of this word sādhu is deeper. A sādhu is one who reveres the truth (sat). Truth-tellers defy social conventions by acting as gadflies and telling uncomfortable truths, as did Socrates in the Greece of Alcibiades. But Socrates paid with his life for his truth-telling.

But sādhus are not merely tellers of painful truths. Sādhus live by a code. Honesty may be a part of that code, but so are gentleness and compassion, nonviolence, charity, and kindness.



If people are suffering physically and mentally, why should a holy man cause them more physical and mental suffering in the name of giving them “spiritual” relief? One may argue that spiritual relief is everything, that the absolute consideration trumps the relative consideration. In that case anything can be justified as “spiritual” and sādhus are not bound by any social conventions.

There are many pseudo-sadhus who defy all social conventions in the name of their precious spiritual “truth.” Oddly, many of them end by leading lives whose practice is contrary to their principles.

Cannabis-smoking "Sadhus"

If we look through the history of spiritual teachers, the best of them had a particular gift for speaking not only clearly, but sweetly. From Buddha to Christ to Shankara to Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, we find that they are not only expert in speaking the truth, but in speaking sweetly.

What exactly is a sādhu? The term sadhu (Sanskrit: साधु) appears iin the ancient Vedas, where it means "straight, right, leading straight to goal", according to the Sanskrit dictionary of Monier Monier-Williams. The traditional meaning of sādhu or “holy man” in India is one who is "well disposed, kind, willing, effective or efficient, peaceful, secure, good, virtuous, honorable, righteous, noble." References to sādhu in Mahābhārata describe a "saint, sage, seer, holy man, virtuous, chaste, honest or right."

Nārada and Vyāsa

The word sādhu derives from the root sādh, which means "reach one's goal", "make straight"The word Sādhu in a more literally may mean one who practises ″sadhana,″ one trained in the path of spiritual discipline. This discipline includes humility and tolerance as a matter of course; not agression and violence.

Conversations in Kyiv with Asutosh Krishna

So while a holy man may sometimes speak plainly and cut to the truth, the true sādhu rarely takes to the sword. While in ancient times, the brahmin son of Jamadagni took up arms to punish the fierce Kartavirya Arjuna, I find no examples of violence by sādhus against others in any of the histories of Bengali Vaishnavism that flow from the Chaitanya Charitamrita.



In conclusion, I think it is important to choose our words carefully, to do our best to avoid offending others by our speech, but to try to speak correctly. Sweet discourse is not always possible, but will be especially esteemed and may even lead to persuasion when it is to the benefit of all.

Desire and Anger

THE AGE OF ANGER

and the Culture of Hatred

IN a previous post we discussed the idea that mercy is above justice. The opposite of mercy and tolerance is not merely justice, but also anger and hatred. Forgiveness is a divine characteristic. A saintly person is naturally humble, merciful, and tolerant. Often wisdom is seen as weakness by materialists: "Tis folly to be wise where ignorance is bliss."

The idea of mercy would seem to be self-evident as a principle of religion. It is an important aspect of the perennial wisdom wherever it has been found. And yet, if mercy is divine, revenge is a particularly human attribute.  Revenge is a carefully premeditated act of anger found only in the human domain. Animals do not lie in wait to avenge wrongs done them by other animals in the past. While a hyena is sure to know which tiger is his enemy, the idea of an “eye for an eye” does not occur in the animal world. Beasts understand threats, but have no tendency to avenge a particular slight. Humans, on the other hand, store up vengeance for years.

Anger, then, is an even more a primitive emotion than revenge, for it is felt even at the animal level.

It seems that we live in a culture of hatred and revenge. We live in an age of anger. But how did we get here?

According to the ancient wisdom traditions of India anger is a function of desire.

ध्यायतो विषयान् पुंसः सङ्गस्तेषूपजायते ।

सङ्गात् सञ्जायते कामः कामात् क्रोधोऽभिजायते ।। 62 ।।

dhyāyato viṣayān puṁsaḥ

  saṅgas teṣūpajāyate

saṅgāt sañjāyate kāmaḥ

  kāmāt krodho ’bhijāyate

In Bhagavad-Gita, Krishna says, “While contemplating the objects of the senses, a person develops attachment for them; desire is the result of attachment, and from desire, anger is born.”

Anger is a product of desire. We want something, we can’t get it, we become angry. It’s a simple analysis. And yet, we can’t connect the dots. We don’t make the connection between desire and anger.

One reason for this is that we are taught that desire is a good thing. The more we desire and want, the more we create our personal “dream.” And we should sacrifice everything to reach that dream, to “go for the gold,” according to modern commercial mythology.

After the Second World War, America set about transforming its own culture through a hard-won peace that took advantage of its new military dominance of the world. The pressing question of how to deal with a labor market engorged with unemployed soldiers was solved by putting Henry Ford’s economic model to work. The consumer society was put on a war footing. To be patriotic was to buy more, eat more, and consume new commercial products.

The boost in consumption would fuel the economy and put people to work. The “madmen” were at the forefront. They rebranded army surplus K-rations and sold canned goods to an enthralled public. Cans of tomato sauce and spaghetti became “Chef Boy-Ar-Dee.” Wives eager to offer French cooking to the men who had seen the chic bimbos of Paris wore Chanel No. 5 and read Julia Child’s cookbook.

My father worked as an ad-man on Madison Avenue in New York, back in the 1960s, the age of the Madison Avenue Ad-men or “Madmen.” In Post-war America, the genius of admen and madmen created the commercial America we know and love. Their genius drove millions to smoke Lucky Strike cigarettes and drink Coca-Cola.

Before the “madmen” created plastic packaging, housewives would bring a basket to the market for shopping. The “madmen” invented our plastic bag culture and fed it to the world. Today there are islands in the Pacific awash with plastic trash, in part, thanks to the vision of the 1960s "madmen."

Their vision was to get people to want things; to promote desire. After the Great Depression in the United States, austerity was a virtue of necessity. It was considered rude to flaunt one’s wealth. Hard work, family and clean living were valued. Lust and desire were vices. But the values of the “Greatest Generation” were challenged by their children, the so-called “Baby-boomers.” The new vision had an ally: Television.

In the 1960s television beamed TV commercials out to millions of homes. The best American writers wrote for TV dramas like Twilight Zone, Star Trek, and Batman, with the goal of having eyeballs glued to TV screens to watch the advertisements that would promote the culture of desire. The more desire they could create, the more people would want and buy the products that would drive the new prosperity. The saturation bombing of TV programming would create a generation of sociopathic individuals called “Baby Boomers.”

The post-war generation of boomers would suffer none of the privations of their parents. After spending thousands of hours internalizing desire as a social value, they turned out to be incredibly selfish.

According to Bruce Cannon Gibney in A Generation of Sociopaths:

“The Boomers suffered virtually nothing of the Depression that shaped their parents and, unlike their European peers, did not have to confront the suffering and guilt that marked Europe for decades after the war. With the exception of Pearl Harbor, where 2,471 Americans died, the homeland escaped the war basically unscathed. Japanese subs blew up an oil derrick and destroyed a baseball field in Oregon, and the Empire dispossessed America of a few Alaskan islands for a time, and that was about it. A childish mind might have been inclined to view one of the greatest of wars as something of a game.”

As the Post-war “madmen” gave way to the baby boom generation, the psychology of desire became wed to the American psyche. While the Rolling Stones cautioned, “You can’t always get what you want,” “You can have whatever you want,” became the watchword. It was, of course, a lie. The baby boomers displayed a near sociopathic disregard for the values and traditions of their elders. The hippies declared new values. Among their heroes, counter-culture figures like Timothy Leary and Abbie Hoffman popularized ideas “turn on to drugs, tune in to sex, drugs, and rock n roll, and dropout of the establishment society.”

Bruce Cannon Gibney continues: “Despite rising prosperity and expanding civil rights, the Boomers found much to dislike about the America they inherited, from Vietnam to the restrictive set of cultural and social assumptions held by earlier generations. They duly attacked, using as their weapon the aptly named counterculture, which was above all a doctrine of opposition. The Leftist version is well known: antiwar, antistate, anticonformity. Rather surprisingly, the Right had its own version, a rebellion against a big government and a regulatory/welfare orthodoxy that many midcentury Republicans had helped build. The Right’s counterculture gets forgotten, paradoxically because it achieved greater success becoming not so much a counterculture as the culture, and perhaps also because of its shared and inconvenient origins with the Leftist version. But before the revolution would be political, it had to be personal, fashioning a template of sociopathic improvidence that would provide the policy agenda once Boomers gained control of the state."

Nixon’s Amerika opposed the selfishness of the Baby boom generation with corruption, militarism and the Church. The unbridled desire and sociopathic selfishness of young people who wanted a “sexual revolution” was opposed by the selfishness of the wealthy with their military industrial complex.

The Reagan generation began to buy off the so-called “idealists” of the Baby boom generation, pointing out that “Greed is good, Greed is beautiful, Greed will set you free.” Reaganomics played on the fantasy of greed that drives the Amerian psyche. “If the rich get richer,” he declared, “The poor will thrive.” A rising tide raises all boats. If the business of America is business, let the businessmen do their thing. We will all benefit. The organic marijuana dreamers became Cocaine businessmen whose “dream” would gradually transform Latin America’s drug trade into the world’s most violent multi-billion dollar industry after arms trafficking.

And yet if the baby-boomer “hippies” were selfish fools whose fantasies of bliss and brotherhood were soured by selfishness, drug addiction, and violence, the reaction to the “hippies” was even more strident. Armed racist militia groups, and neo-nazi groups made common cause with right-wing gun groups.

The baby-boom generation gave rise to the “Me Generation” and Generation X. And so the current of individualism running through American society created a number of subcultures or “tribes” which, while apparently opposed, really coincided in selfishness, desire, and violence. When desire is the basis for society, society dissolves into crass individualism. As individuals, we may form alliances in families to get what we want, our alliances are tribal.

And with the “globalization” of the 90s and early 2000s, selfishness, individualism and desire have become globalized. Trotsky’s idea was that revolution can only succeed if it is globalized. Unlimited growth in consumerism cannot succeed unless we export it to other countries.

But now that we have globalized individualism, racism, xenophobia, and ever-increasing desire, we are facing “blowback.”

In the “Age of Anger,” social critic Pankaj Mishra paints a grim picture:

““Hate-mongering against immigrants, minorities and various designated ‘others’ has gone mainstream – even in Germany, whose post-Nazi politics and culture were founded on the precept ‘Never Again’. People foaming at the mouth with loathing and malice – such as the leading candidates in the US Republican presidential primaries who called Mexican immigrants ‘rapists’ and compared Syrian refugees to ‘rabid dogs’ – have become a common sight on both old and new media. Amid the lengthening spiral of ethnic and sub-ethnic massacre and mutinies, there are such bizarre anachronisms and novelties as “Maoist guerrillas in India, self-immolating monks in Tibet, and Buddhist ethnic-cleansers in Sri Lanka and Myanmar. Grisly images and sounds continuously assault us in this age of anger; the threshold of atrocity has been steadily lowered since the first televised beheading (in 2004, just as broadband internet began to arrive in middle-class homes) in Iraq of a Western hostage dressed in Guantanamo’s orange jumpsuit. But the racism and misogyny routinely on display in social media, and demagoguery in political discourse, now reveals what Nietzsche, speaking of the ‘men of ressentiment ’, called ‘a whole tremulous realm of subterranean revenge, inexhaustible and insatiable in outbursts’.

There is a pervasive panic, which doesn’t resemble the centralized fear emanating from despotic power. Rather, it is the sentiment, generated by the news media and amplified by social media, that anything can happen anywhere to anybody at any time. The sense of a world spinning out of control is aggravated by the reality of climate change, which makes the planet itself seem under siege from ourselves”

The culture of desire that began to be spread through the visual medium of television in the 1960s and intensified through the internet age, has morphed into the culture of anger, hatred, bigotry and bullying. Unsatisfied desire leads to rage, says the Bhagavad-gita. A collective unconsciousness saturated in desire has exploded into hate-soaked societies filled with rage.

Extremists preach that the sin of anger can be a virtue when engaged in the service of God. We are lost in an aggressive world; the spiritual solution must be aggressively promoted, by any means. Promotion of spiritual life through violence, therefore, is a virtue: the Koran or the sword. This is wrong-headed. Anger and violence only beget more anger and violence. Those who aggressively promoting their religion will find that the reaction will be more agression. As Kennedy put it in his first inauguration address, those who would ride the tiger of violence will find themselves inside the tiger.

Commercial propaganda saturates consciousness at all levels. Anyone with a cell-phone is subject to constant advertising to the point where it becomes subliminal. We no longer see the constant ads, we think. We don’t pay attention to such things. But advertising is powerful and works. It legitimizes absurdities. How else can we explain the election of a Trump as leader of the free world?

Through constant propaganda, humans are socialized to see themselves as individuals only. We belong to “brands” and “tribes,” like Apple or Samsung. Apps and bots identify our demographic and group us according to algorithms that display tailor-made ads to us to control and manipulate our consuming power. And above all we are constantly encouraged to “desire.” We are cajoled to aspire to the wealth, status, fame, and power on constant display not only via mass media, but through social media, and constant internet advertising, by brand names and celebrities.

And constant desire must end in anger. The culture of desire means leaving tranquility behind. The culture of desire and anger means giving up meaning as meaningless, forsaking all that was once sacred. While we are encouraged to believe that everyone can reap the rewards of the system, cruel experience will teach that when the rich get richer, the poor do not necessarily thrive, and the middle class is left to stagnate.

In a world of diminishing resources, where desire and greed are virtues, the promise of economic growth and well-being is not what it seems. Developing countries and emerging markets don’t really reach the unrealistic growth targets they were promised at the cost of their traditions and cultures. While the rapacious corporations that promote lust, anger, and greed as the new values had promised that the future would be better, the reality is different. After 30 years of neo-liberalism in developing countries many nations have little to show for globalization but a wrecked environment, industrialization and impoverished culture.

Still, few challenge the idea that greed is good, that desire should drive the economy and that anger and revenge are important for security. Secular rationalism promises equality for all and delivers racism and anti-immigration witch-hunts. Western free market culture promises opportunity, but with strings attached. Democracy promises dignity and reduces people to alienated freaks in a robot society.

The modern commercial and consumerist society is as hollow as an abandoned shopping mall. It’s culture is devoid of any meaning except an ironic wink and nudge that we’re all having a good time being cynical. The values and traditions that once sustained culture have been data-mined by Disney and Pixar for the “stories” that might drive a bloated entertainment market. Culture or spiritual practices that cannot be monetized are valueless according to the magnates governing the industries of film, art, and books. Such worthless ideas must be abandoned as failures. If sacrifice has any purpose it is for getting money. But when one has finally attained the dream of endless wealth, what is there? Does wealth really equal moral and spiritual superiority?

We are led to believe that it does, and so we are shocked by the divorce of Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt, the abject stupidity of Donald Trump, the moral vapidity of Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg and other self-made billionaires.

Oddly it was the iconoclast French philosopher, Jean Jacques Rousseau who foresaw “the moral and spiritual implications of the rise of an international commercial society” As Mishra writes in Age of Anger, Rousseau worried that the cult of individual freedom and desire would give rise to “the modern underdog with his aggravated sense of victimhood and demand for redemption.”

One consistent manifestation of this ressentiment across many seemingly different ideologies is an insistence on the retrenchment of gender roles by angry men who feel emasculated by having to compete with, and sometimes lose to, women. Another is the rancor of provincials toward rootless cosmopolitans.

Among Rousseau’s followers were Thomas Jefferson and Tom Paine, but in Europe his ideas about the Social Contract not only spawned the French Revolution but encouraged generations of anarchists and bomb-throwers. The ideological children of Rousseau went on to assassinate tsars, kings, and presidents.

“History does not repeat itself,” Mark Twain observed, “But it rhymes.”

“Then, as now,”Mishra writes, “the sense of being humiliated by arrogant and deceptive elites was widespread, cutting across national, religious and racial lines.”

Stoked by the flames of desire and the fire of anger and hatred, the current climate of “cultural supremacism, populism and rancorous brutality” has transformed the globe. The virus of desire was carefully cultivated in the cultural laboratories of the 60s “madmen.” The virus of lust, anger and greed has been globalized in the hopes of creating a world-wide consumer culture. To the extent that this virus has become endemic and the promise of unlimited economic growth has been accepted, we now see a crisis in anger and hate, provoked by the virus of desire.
Opposed to the virus of desire is the culture of spiritual wisdom. The idea of self-restraint has fallen out of vogue. Self-restraint is seen as useful only if it ends in wealth. We respect football players who torture their bodies in training when their hard work ends in championship. As long as self-discipline has material rewards it may be included in the new commercial mythology. Anger and revenge can be channeled into success in sports and other areas where hard work pays off. But the idea of self-restraint in the achievement of a spiritual goal is anathema to today’s culture of desire and anger.

In truth, anger is a corrupting emotion. Anger and hatred have no place in the psychology of a true holy person or sādhu. 


While it may be true that even Jesus Christ showed anger when he threw the money-changers from the temple, anger is not considered a divine quality by any of the teachings that constitute perennial wisdom. In 16th Century Bengal, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu counseled.

tṛṇād api sunīchena taror iva sahiṣṇunā
amāninā mānadena kīrtanīyaḥ sadā hariḥ

The Lord’s Name is always to be chanted with more humility than a blade of grass, tolerance like that of a tree, respect for everyone, and without desire for respect from anyone.

Commenting on the above, Bhaktivinoda Thakura explains in Bengali poetry

 গুরুদেৱ! কৃপা-বিন্দু দিযা, কর’ এই দাসে, তৃণাপেক্ষা অতি হীন

gurudeva! kṛpā-bindu diyā, kara’ ei dāse, tṛṇāpekṣā ati hīna
(Sharanagati: Bhajana-lalasa, 11.1)

"Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur showed us how to pray to our Gurudev: “Please mercifully give me the power to be humble, to be tolerant, and to honour others.”

Humility gives us the strength needed to practice Krishna consciousness. Tolerance gives us the ability to adjust with the environment. Honouring others is the main way that we can avoid pratishtha. If we attain these powers by the mercy of Gurudev, then we can properly chant the Hare Krishna mahamantra. (Bhakti Sundar Govinda Maharaja, lecture)

Some religious people advocate an agressive spirituality to counteract the aggressive spirit of the times. In India holy men are called “sādhus.” A sādhu is one who reveres the truth (sat). It is said that one must speak the truth, but one must also speak sweetly. Sometimes it is impossible to honey the truth. Truth is often painful and cutting. In this regard, I have heard some devotees teach that “sādhu means one who cuts.”

There is some truth in this. A sādhu or holy man heals as does a doctor, by surgically removing the cancer of materialism. Sādhu literally means one who practises ″sadhana,″ one trained in the path of spiritual discipline. This discipline includes humility and tolerance as a matter of course; not agression and violence.

What exactly is a sādhu? The term sadhu (Sanskrit: साधु) appears in Rigveda and Atharvaveda where it means "straight, right, leading straight to goal", according to Monier Monier-Williams. The traditional meaning refers to one who is "well disposed, kind, willing, effective or efficient, peaceful, secure, good, virtuous, honorable, righteous, noble" depending on the context. In Mahābhārata the the term implies someone who is a "saint, sage, seer, holy man, virtuous, chaste, honest or right". The word sādhu derives from the root sādh, which means "reach one's goal", "make straight"

The true sādhu never takes to the sword. There are no examples of violence by sādhus against others in any of the histories that flow from the Chaitanya Charitamrita.

A true holy man teaches by example; and anger is anathema to the true sādhu.

To Err is Human...

Revenge vs. Forgiveness, Tolerance and Humility

It has been said that “Revenge is a plate best served cold.” Revenge follows the idea of justice. The law of the Old Testament was “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth,” meaning when injury is done, justice dictates that an equal punishment is merited. Justice is served when the punishment fits the crime.

Revenge is an attractive proposition. Our modern society thrives on the idea of revenge and justice. Most action movies turn on the idea of revenge and justice. The comic book version of the Justice League has recently been turned into a blockbuster film. But this is nothing new in Western society: our drama since the at least time of Shakespeare’s Hamlet has revolved around the idea of justice and revenge.

We live in a culture of revenge and hate where everywhere citizens demand vengeance. Angry voters want revenge against “liberal morons” and support a truly corrupt man who promises to jail his opponent. Opposition voters want revenge against the “right-wing maniacs” who elected the new tyrant. Mexicans want revenge against the Gringos who stole Texas and California. The Gringos want revenge against the Mexicans who steal their low-paying jobs.

Wars and conflicts rage around the world where mass genocide is practiced in the name of revenge. Violence is an epidemic, spread by the virus of anger and intolerance. On an average news day in Mexico, journalists are gunned down in the street in broad daylight. A doctor on an airplane who refuses to give up his seat is dragged away by armed police who break his teeth. Simply every day events, but we are accustomed to the brutality.

Everywhere the culture of hatred and anger stokes fear, intolerance, and even war and havoc. Fear and hate coupled with impatience and intolerance drive road rage, civil unrest, drive-by shootings, and terrorism. And if we turn to popular culture for relief we hear the same message repeated again and again from superhero movies to trash TV shows: “Violence is good; Violence is beautiful; Violence will set you free. Don’t get mad--get even. Revenge is a plate best served cold, but is also delicious refried or microwaved.”

By constantly seeking more and more violent solutions to every day problems we contribute to the prevailing atmosphere of violence and revenge. Tolerance and respect are no longer valued by society. One who shows respect to others is a fool, a buffoon, a “hippy,” a naive moron. We worship the slick, the hustler, the “winners.” Tolerance and respect are for “losers.” We live in a world of exploitation. Cheat or be cheated. Eat or be eaten. The law of the jungle is the law of the land. In today’s world we value the hustle, the sharp angle, the con, the “art of the deal.” Tolerance and respect are for fools and idiots. In the jungle only the strong survive.

How strange then that it is not always the strong who survive, but the cunning and deceitful. The law of the jungle doesn’t always hold true. Ecclesiastes says, “I have seen something else under the sun: The race is not to the swift or the battle to the strong, nor does food come to the wise or wealth to the brilliant or favor to the learned; but time and chance happen to them all.”

And even if the strong survive by the law of the jungle, there is also the law of action and reaction. Normally we think of karma in an abstract way: “Something I do now might affect me later.” But there’s also instant karma. What you do affects who you are. By following our animalistic tendencies for revenge and instant gratification, we are gradually transforming. We become what we hate. Revenge infects at an existential level. The virus passes from one enraged soul to another.

Anger contaminates the soul and the revenge virus passes from one soul to another in a raging epidemic. We’ve all seen the meme where an angry boss rebukes his employee who goes home and shouts at his wife. The wife punishes her child who hits the dog with a stick. The dog runs into the street and bites the angry boss on his way home from work. What’s round and extremely dangerous? A vicious circle. Revenge solves nothing, only continuing the chain of action and reaction, promoting the spread of the anger virus and contaminating souls in an epidemic of hate and fear.

Forgiveness on the other hand, breaks the chain of action and reaction. It is said, “To err is human, to forgive is divine.” Forgiveness is divine because it exists outside the circle of crime and punishment, action and reaction. There is no reason for forgiveness. Mercy is causeless. The apostle James teaches, “Judgment has no mercy for those who show no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment.” James 2:13

When the enraged Parashuram revenged himself upon the military kings and princes called kshatriyas that terrorized the earth, his father Jamadagni counseled forgiveness, reminding his son: (SB 9.15.40)

क्षमया रोचते लक्ष्मीर्
ब्राह्मी सौरी यथा प्रभा
क्षमिणाम् आशु भगवांस्
तुष्यते हरिर् ईश्वरः

kṣamayā rocate lakṣmīr
brāhmī saurī yathā prabhā
kṣamiṇām āśu bhagavāṁs
tuṣyate harir īśvaraḥ

“The duty of a brāhmaṇa is to culture the quality of forgiveness, which is illuminating like the sun. The Supreme Personality of Godhead, Hari, is pleased with those who are forgiving.”

When Shridhar Maharaja counseled us in the summer of 1981 that mercy was above justice, he was not merely speaking about divine mercy. He was asking us to be forbearing with our friends, with our brothers, with our spiritual brethren. He was instructing us to forgive our brothers and sisters their trespasses against us.

It’s funny, but when we hear about mercy as a divine attribute we naturally think that it should be applied to us. Mercy is fine as long as we’re on the receiving end. I intuitively understand why God should forgive my sins just as easily as I understand why the bank should forgive my credit card debt and why the government should forgive my taxes.

The difficulty is when I am told to apply mercy to others. Why should I forgive? Why should I be merciful to others?

Forgiveness is divine since it stands outside the balanced paradigm of crime and punishment, of action and reaction. In the natural order of things, if someone insults me, I insult them. If they slap me on the cheek, I slap them back.

IN Christian theology, in the book of Matthew, Christ says: “You have heard the law that says the punishment must match the injury: ‘An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.’ I say, do not resist an evil person! If someone slaps you on the right cheek, offer the other cheek also. If you are sued in court and your shirt is taken from you, give your coat, too. If a soldier demands that you carry his gear for a mile, carry it two miles. Give to those who ask, and don’t turn away from those who want to borrow.”

This is incredibly difficult to follow and easy to forget. It may be thought that this sort of sentimentality is rejected by the followers of Vedanta and the ancient wisdom traditions of India. But Chaitanya Mahaprabhu goes even further. He avers that in order to properly honor the holy name of Krishna one must be humbler than a blade of grass and more tolerant than a tree.

In his book of songs called Sharanagati, in the poem called vijñāpti, Bhaktivinoda Thakura sees forgiveness, respect, humility and tolerance as valuable goals to be achieved:

তৃনাধিক হীন, কবে নিজে মানি’,
সহিষ্নুতা-গুন হৃদোযেতে আনি’
সকলে মানদ, আপনি অমানী,
হোযে আস্বাদিব নাম-রস-সার্

tṛnādhika hīna, kabe nije māni’, sahiṣnutā-guna hṛdoyete āni’
sakale mānada, āpani amānī, hoye āswādibo nāma-rasa-sār

“Lower than a blade of grass, more tolerant than a tree. When will my mind attain this quality? Respectful to all, not expecting their honor, then shall I taste the name’s nectar sublime? When, oh when will that day be mine?”

Mercy over Justice

On Mercy and Justice

Portia: Mercy or Justice?

IN Shakespeare’s play, The Merchant of Venice, When Shylock demands justice for his pound of flesh, the fair Portia disguised as an advocate counsels a plea for mercy:

The quality of mercy is not strained;

It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven

Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest;

It blesseth him that gives and him that takes:

‘T is mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes

The throned monarch better than his crown:

His sceptre shows the force of temporal power,

The attribute to awe and majesty,

Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;

But mercy is above this sceptred sway;

It is enthronèd in the hearts of kings,

It is an attribute to God himself;

And earthly power doth then show likest God’s

When mercy seasons justice.

Of course, Shylock demands the fulfillment of his contract.

 He is a man of law and contracts. But the rule of law is against him. To demand a pound of flesh is to conspire against a man’s life. Accused of murder he loses everything.

Shylock would have been better off pleading for mercy. Shakespeare’s point? Mercy is above justice.

In the practice of surrender this is an important point. In Hegel’s famous master-servant dialectic the problem of thesis-antithesis-synthesis is worked out through the process of “Die to live.” By giving oneself fully in surrender, one lives anew.

In Hegel’s analogy, complete self-consciousness is impossible for either master or servant unless they come to terms with the relationship that exists between them. In Hegelian language “Master” is an analogue for Thesis and “servant” is analogous to Antithesis. Their self-realization through complete consciousness is Synthesis, according to Hegel’s philosophical system.

As the great German transcendentalist saw it, the master is incomplete in his role as master without the antithesis of a servant. The servant is incomplete without a master. The master needs service or he is no master.

By the same token, the servant needs the master or he has no existence as servant. Lack of a master is an existential threat. And yet, through the submission of the servant the relationship changes.  Why the servant must “die” through submission, what he loses through surrender is regained by way of self-transformation and realization.

The master's self-consciousness, on the other hand, is dependent on the servant for recognition. Without the service of a subordinate he cannot properly exist as master. The master is existentially dependent on the servant.

Furthermore, as the servant serves the master with greater and more intense love, the servant achieves self-consciousness and perfection; self-mastery. The servant becomes master.

On the other hand,the master has become wholly dependent on the service offered by his servant. In Hegelian language, the master is enslaved by the labour of his servant. In the end the servant, through service comes to dominate the master; the master becomes enslaved through service. The roles of master and servant, of thesis and antithesis have become modified, even reversed through self-realization. Hegel calls this synthesis.   http://www.gwfhegel.org

Sri Krishna, Reality the Beautiful

Sri Caitanya

Shridhar Maharaja

Hegel’s analogy was especially appreciated by Shridhar Maharaja who saw in his analysis of the master-slave dialectic the profound relationship between soul and God discovered through bhakti: “According to Hegel, the Absolute contains both the conditioned and unconditioned. The finite and the infinite combined is the Absolute. The infinite in itself is not sufficient. There will also be finite in relativity to it.”

Many examples are given in the ancient wisdom scriptures of India of how one is transformed through divine love. But the idea that God Himself is transformed by the love of his devotees is a singular proposition advanced through the rupanuga school especially as seen in the writings of Kaviraj Goswami. His Chaitanya Charitamrita reveals how Krishna, the Supreme Godhead, descends in the mood of his own devotee to experience the rapture and passion of pure bhakti, krishna-prem.

Chaitanya Mahaprabhu embodies the Hegelian dialectic of “Die to Live.” He is God the Master, living as “servant of God,” experiencing the supreme transformative of self-realization at the highest level of reality.

The dynamic dialectic of surrender is at the heart of bhakti. And yet, sometimes the followers of bhakti entertain a misconception about the nature of that dynamic. They feel that bhakti is really a technique. Since we so often talk about bhakti-yoga, the idea of practicing bhakti as a form of yoga or technique becomes enfolded into the concept of surrender.

Self-Interest and Yoga techniques

This kind of self-interested point of view interferes with the true purpose of surrender. In devotional circles, surrender is its own end. Devotees are not Machiavellian. On the path of surrender, ends are not different from means. If the means are the different forms of surrender, the ends are also surrender. The transformative character of self-realization is a side-effect of the process of surrender. But one may not indulge in the process as a means to effect the end of self-realization. In this sense, the idea of bhakti as a yoga technique is misleading.

If we could use bhakti as a way of forcing ourselves into the kingdom of heaven or the devotional plane of Vrindaban, it would be a process more resembling something like karma-kanda where God only exists to satisfy the law of karma.

Once upon a time a businessman, upon dying, found himself at the pearly gates of heaven before Saint Peter himself. Saint Peter was locking up for the day, but patiently attended the spirit of the recently deceased businessman.

“Yes?”

“Is this heaven?”

“Yes it is,” said the saint. “How can I help you?”

“Well, you can let me in.”

“Name, please?” said the saint, opening his book.

“Schwarz,” said the businessman, wiping his forehead with a linen handkerchief.

Saint Peter paged through the book patiently.

“Hmm....Schwarz... Sorry. Name’s not in the book.”

“What? That’s impossible.”

Saint Peter looked up over his horn-rimmed glasses: “Excuse me?”

“That’s impossible. I gave ten dollars every Sunday in the church.”

“So?”

“Talk to Him!” said the businessman, indignant now that his time was being wasted.

The saint smiled. “I’ll see what I can do.” And leaving aside the book, he went upstairs, closing the gate.

“Excuse me,” said the saint, addressing the almighty.

“What is it? Can’t you see I’m busy?” said God, who was listening to the prayers of thousands of supplicants.

“Sorry to interrupt,” said the saint. “But there’s a businessman at the gates.”

“Is his name in the book?”

“Well, his name’s not in the book.”

“Send him to the other place.”

“Well, he says he gave 10 dollars every week at the church.”

God looked up from the prayers he was reading. He said: “Then give him his money back and tell him to go to hell.”

If we demand justice, we may find like Shylock and the businessman at the pearly gates that we have no rights to anything. Simply by practicing prayer and following rules and regulations, simply by doing certain rituals we have no right to claim that we have conquered God with love and therefore deserve the highest kingdom. Surrender does not guarantee our place in heaven or Vrindaban.

If we place our demand in the department of justice, we may find that we haven’t followed the law perfectly. There may be some indiscretion. No one is perfect. Our only hope is for mercy.

The French essayist Michel de Montaigne records an instance of mercy. The Emperor Conrad III, having besieged the city of Weinsberg, was determined to kill all its citizens as revenge for the rebellion of the Duke of Bavaria. His thirst for blood was not slaked by all the terms and conditions that were offered to him as he began the final onslaught.

Finally, he relented, thinking it unmanly to kill innocent women. He allowed that the ladies of that town might escape without violation of their honor, on foot, and with only such possessions as they could carry with them. Upon hearing this, the humble ladies of Weinsberg made their escape carrying upon their shoulders their sons, husbands, fathers, and even the rebellious Duke of Bavaria himself.

Having granted mercy, the Emperor was moved. Montaigne reports: “a sight at which the emperor was so pleaed, that, ravished with the generosity of the action, he wept for joy, and immediately extinguishing in his heart the mortal and capital hatred he had conceived against this duke, he from that time forward treated him and his with all humanity.” (from William Hazlitt’s translation)

According to Shridhar Maharaja, both justice and mercy are found in the divine nature, but mercy is better. He makes this point when commenting on the verse satya-vratam satya-param... from Srimad Bhagavatam: 10.2.26

“He sees us not only with an attitude of justice, but also through His other eye, that of mercy. Rta can mean that which can attract mercy, that which is deduced from the fundamental truth and can attract mercy; the deduction that can produce mercy in Him. So, He sees with the eye of affection and the eye of justice. According to the circumstances; He may have to distribute justice, but that is not vindictiveness; it done with mercy. So, He is rta-satya-netram. He sees everything with justice and affection, mercy.

Satya can mean impartial estimation, equity and good sense, justice, and rta can mean mercy. He sees things in two ways: impartially and practically, theoretically and practically. This also may be a good interpretation. (https://premadharma.org/the-eyes-of-truth/ Transcript 31 August 1981 )

Elsewhere he has also said:

“On the order of Gurudev Devarsi Narada, the scripture Srimad Bhagavatam was given by Vedavyasa as the conclusion of his teachings. After giving the Vedas, Upanishads, Puranas, Mahabharata, Bhagavad-Gita, etc., the last gift of Vedavyasa in the world of scriptures was Srimad-Bhagavatam. And the message of the Bhagavatam is that beauty is above all; not knowledge or justice. Mercy is about justice. Affection, love, beauty, charm, harmony; these are above all, and this absolute conception of the ultimate reality is in the Krishna conception.”

“Beauty is above knowledge and power. Knowledge is above power, and above knowledge is beauty, charm and love. That is the supreme. Srimad-Bhagavatam has declared krsnas tu bhavan svayam: the Krishna conception of Godhead is the most original conception of the Absolute. This is the prime declaration of the Bhagavatam: the Lord, as Beauty, is above all. And below Him is awe, reverence, power, etc.

Mahaprabhu Sri Chaitanyadev pointed out, “Go to the beautiful, Reality the Beautiful.” This is the highest realization. Don’t waste your energy by engaging yourself in any other pursuits, but go straight to jnana-sunya bhakti (devotion devoid of the covering of knowledge). By the help of sadhu sanga (association of saints), take the name of the Lord and try to march straight onwards to the Krishna conception of Godhead. Krishna consciousness is our highest achievement, and this is given by Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and Srimad Bhagavatam.

Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu recommended, “Don’t waste your energy for anything else. Utilize your energy for the Krishna conception of Godhead.”

http://www.sevaashram.net/3184/grand-victory-of-love/

In connection with this idea of mercy, Shridhar Maharaj liked to tell the story of Queen Victoria’s first act in power, just after her coronation.

Queen Victoria wearing her coronation gown

When Queen Victoria got the empire, the first case brought before her was a death warrant for th execution of a deserted soldier. And the Duke of Wellington presented her with the death warrant to sign. But Victoria was reluctant to s8gn the death warrant, thinking “The first case dealt with, that will be of punishment, and not of mercy?”

She was reluctant, and pushed back: "Is there nothing you can say for the soldier?" The prosecutor general replied, "Thrice he committed this offence, so this time, the law cannot give any forgiveness for him."

But Victoria continued pushing back: "You are always speakin against him, but can't you say anything in his favor?"

Then, perhaps knowing about the heart of the queen, the General said, "His private life, his charcter, is very good."

"Then I forgive him", Queen Victoria said.

"He is pardoned. The first time I have come to judge, and that will be an instance of punishment?" She did not like that.

King Puru and Alexander

So forgive and forget. The principle of love and affection, that should be the greatest consideration. Another example of mercy is that of Alexander and Puru. Now I shall say, you know perhaps Alexander, when he came to conquer India, he conquered the then King of Punjab, Puru. And Puru was taken captive before him, and Alexander asked him, "What sort of treatment do you expect from me? How should I treat you?" Puru told him, "Like a king." Alexander was very impressed and satisfied, and he released him, saying, "Yes, I'll treat you like a king. You are at liberty to go." That is a famous story about Alexander and Puru.

http://www.vrindavan.org/English/Books/search-for-purity.pdf

Shridhar Maharaja’s message on mercy and forgiveness is clear. On the one hand, our only position with divinity is one of expecting mercy like the chataka bird who holds his beak out expecting rain. The chataka bird will not drink any water from the ground. He will only drink rainwater. The quality of mercy is not strained. It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven. Our only hope for deliverance is the mercy of God.

Why, then, should we not demonstrate mercy in our dealings with others? A saintly person is gentle, tolerant, humble, and merciful. Shrila Prabhupada showed gentility and tolerance by example. So did Shridhar Maharaja and Govinda Maharaja. The teachings of gurudeva are not merely theoretical but also practical. Mercy and forgiveness are important values to be treasured. Mercy is above Justice.