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bhakti shastri class 1-introduction to sri ishopanishad

In the introduction to our bhakti shastri course, at first we are tought, the broad understanding of the Vedas & different schools of thought, that are prevalent in india, these are classified as Indian thoughts, because not all of them are vedic. So, we have philosophies like nyaya, vaisesika, sankhya, yoga, purva(karma mimansa), uttara(brahma mimansa) propounded by gautam, kanada, lord kapila, patanjali, jaimini, and vyasadev respectively. So, we have two kinds of Indian thoughts, those who have faith in vedic scripture( astika) and those who have no faith(nastika). Buddhisism, Jainism, charvakism, are some of the nastik school of thoughts. Thoughts like nyaya, vaisesika, yoga, karma mimansa, are vedic in a sense that they take the authority of Vedas, but they are not vedantik, they donot teach us the conclusion of Vedas. Rather they take the help of Vedas in a way that proves their own philosophies, that’s why they cant be taken as entirely correct.

So in Vedanta school of thought , we have advaita vad, propounded by sankaracharya, speaks about nondualism,i.e there is no difference between soul and Brahman. And we have dvaita vad, speaking that there is difference between soul and Brahman. And then comes, acintya bhedaved tatva, propounded by lord caitanya, which includes both the above school of thoughts,i.e inconceivably simultaneously oneness and difference.

We have three primary source of authority for acquiring knowledge(prasthana traya). So they are SHRUTI, SMRITI, NYAYA.

Shruti- literal meaning is aural reception, that which is heard, directly from god. Shruti refers to Vedas, which are again divided into(1) samhitas-dealing mainly with karma kanda, contain verses that glorifies demigods, for seeking their blessings.(2)aranyka-which begins philosophical discussion, talks about renunciation. (3)Upanishad-which are solid philosophies.

Smriti-literal meaning is remembrance, that which is remembered and explained..in other word it is an elaboration of shruti, in a way in which the great sages assimilate, internalize and elaborate shruti. So in the smriti we have puranas, which are compilation anthology, centred around a particular conversation, then itihaas, like mahabharat and ramayan, it reflects narration of one particular person or group or lineage, then we have pancaratras, which deals with deity worship.

To clearly understand above fact, lets take example of a mother who instructs her child ‘do not touch fire’. And because mother is busy in other activity,she left. Now the mothers sister who also heard that statement, elaborately explain to the child, why not to touch fire, what will happen if he touches it etc. so here the mothers statement is shruti and sisters is smriti. Factually both are correct and complement each other and not contradict.

Nyaya-literaly it is logical understanding. Although nyaya is a separate school of thought, but nyaya can also be utilized to establish the teaching of vedantas. Vedanta sutra and commentaries on Vedanta sutra like srimad bhagavatam are example of nyaya.  Vedantasutra are very abstruse body of thoughts, extremely difficult to understand. And it does not explain clearly what is the absolute truth. It uses very intricate system of logic, which our kaliyuga mind cant understand.

So we have,ishopanishad as shruti. And bhagavad gita as smriti, as gita also is the direct word of god, it is shruti also. Actually gita is shruti within a smriti, and its position is very special in vedic literature. Then we have srimad bhagavatam as nyaya.

In a bonafide spiritual path we have two objectives-sadhya(goal) and sadhana(means). Like if we want to go to Bombay, then our goal(sadhya) is Bombay and mean (sadhana)  is through train. So the sadhya or goal of our spiritual path is krsna and sadhana or mean is bhakti.

Sadhya and sadhana both are established by bhagavad gita and ishopanishad.  Ishopanishad establishes the absolute truth is a person but don’t give the identity, where as bhagavad gita establishes the identity of that absolute truth as krsna. Ishopanishad points towards bhakti and gita establishes bhakti.

Sadhya and sadhana then are both explained through NOD and NOI, goal is explained thoroughly and means are explained practically.

The introduction to ishopanishad is a lecture given by srila prabhupada in London. In this lecture, he first tells us what is the need of Vedas, why we need Vedas. Some people argue that scripture are some absurd thoughts written by some sages long long ago. But we must know that scriptures as a word of god, are eternally relevant. Like, wheather it is past ages or current time or time to come, we need sun for illumination, independent of time.

We have four inherent defects. our senses are imperfect(karnapata), according to science also we can see in a limited spectrum of wave length of light. We commit mistakes(bhrama),i.e conscious errors, like while counting money, or typing words etc ,that’s why there is the saying ‘to err is  human’. Then we are subjected to illusion(pramad),i.e unconsciously error prone,we don’t  realize it, for example, after taking gulabjamun, another sweet substance wil taste less sweeter etc. then we have cheating propensity(vipralipsa),i.e twisting reality to suite our own notion or doctoring fact,  so that we can justify our own shortcomings. A famous western comedian in this context quotes “I have already made up my mind, don’t confuse me with facts”, so in this statement he points out the hypocricy of the people, who are severely narrow minded, and donot broad there views to accept reality.

So, a nice example can be given like- due to our limited sense, we fail to see the intricacy of the creation, so we conclude that since we cant see god or the creater , so he does not exist. Then we commit mistake by saying that, human and monkeys are similar,they look alike.  we think that probably they are related. But this is a speculation which is based on external perception, but anatomically and intellectually there are such such differences. Then in illusion, we unconsciously , go on finding similarity  like monkey scratches, we scratch; monkey winks,we also do; so monkey became human when it tries to walk on two foot. So because we conclude that there is no designer, so we assume that everything has come about by chance or natural selection. Then there is the cheating propensities, even when there is evidence to contradict our assumption, we deny that evidence. We conceal the evidence against the antiquity of human races, to maintain faith in our pet belief. Dyutakarma prabhu has pointed out lots of evidence against evolution ,in his research work, and how they are concealed.

Here also srila prabhupada gives the contextual example of mahatma Gandhi, how he commited mistakes, to demonstrate eternal principles of our inherent defects. So, from the above discussion, it is clear that we by ourselves cannot acquire perfect knowledge, we require some other source of knowledge, and  they are the Vedas. Prabhupada has used the term Vedas in its most expansive level to include all knowledge. In an average level Vedas include the vedic literatures, and discard other literature like quoran and bible as non vedic. And in the most restrictive level, some schools of thought, they only consider the four Vedas, are Vedas and rest puranas, itihaas etc are nonvdic. Vedas are universal which are applicable at all time and the knowledge of Vedas are axiomatic which are implicitly true. We may not understand it sometimes, but that is only limitation of our knowledge, not of Vedas. Vedic knowledge is superior to both pratakshya or empirical knowledge and anumana or rationalistic or speculative knowledge. Both pratakshya and anumana knowledge are defective because it is a product of human intelligence which is finite and falliable, where as vedic knowledge is god given, and the intelligence of god is infinite and infalliable.                           Vedas talk about a transedental realm which lies beyond the material manifestation. And Vedas are the only mean to know about it. We can perceive material things with our limited senses,  but we cannt perceive the spiritual world with our senses, for example if we put a microscope in the region of our heart, it will fail to see the soul, not because it is defective but because microscope sees only material things. Therefore we need a spiritual perception which happens through purification and awakening of our spiritual faculties. But before that scripture or Vedas help us to see the reality.  In the veda itself there are certain facts which agrees with our anumana and pratakshya knowledge like vedic mathematics and there are certain facts which disagrees. But our focus is on the transcendental knowledge, because we are interested in going beyond the material worldto the spiritual world. And for this the only way is scripture, which is beyond material proof or disproof. The description of spiritual world, where krsna , a 16 year old boy, playin with cowheard boys, wearing peacock feather and playing flute, is not just some knowledge, it is knowledge transcended. We must know that krsna is the ultimate goal of Vedas. Which is repeatedly being proven in bhagavad gita, where krsna says that through the study of Vedas I am to be known and at other places he says ‘a person who understands and study the Vedas and come to know that I am the person to be known, such a person is sarvagyon’.

Some people may say that we have very little if at all description of krsna in vedas, so we have to understand that each book has its particular focus. So the Vedas generally deals with karma kanda or materil religiosity(dharma, artha,kama,moksha).so, it usually tells about the demigods. Although, there is hint towards krsna or visnu worship in Vedas also. Like in a jail manual, we maynot find the name of PM of india, if at all we will find, we will not find the nickname of PM. Krsna being a very sweet and personel name of god is not highlighted in these kind of scripture. But , bishnu ,the official and administrative form of god, we find in the Vedas mainly. So, then jnana kanda tells people about the need of philosophy, it tells the futility of material religiosity, and talks mainly about absolute truth in negative terms. It completely rejects the karmakanda and focuses on detachment. But ultimately it leads to upasana kanda, where bhakti is the ultimate path, and teaches pure unalloyed devotion to krsna. Scripture gives us material knowledge so that we do develop faith in scripture, but we must progress, and come to the level of bhakti. Vyasadeva after writing all the vedic scripture, he was unsatisfied, then narad muni, told him, you have written all the things, but you have forgotten to glorify the supreme lord krsna. Then, vyasadev writes srimad bhagavatam, and after that he was completely satisfied. So, bhagavatam, is called, amalam puranam, the spotless purana, essence of all vedic knowledge.

Srila prabhupad ki jaya

Nitai gaur premanande haribol


summary study of bhakti shastri class-2 invocation to sri ishopanishad

                                        

INVOCATION

                                 om purnam adah purnam idam

                                 purnat purnam udacyate

                                 purnasya purnam adaya

                                 purnam evavasisyate.

TRANSLATION
The Personality of Godhead is perfect and complete, and because He is
completely perfect, all emanations from Him, such as this phenomenal
world, are perfectly equipped as complete wholes. Whatever is produced
of the Complete Whole is also complete in itself. Because He is the
Complete Whole, even though so many complete units emanate from
Him, He remains the complete balance.

The invocation prayer is a standard vedic saying, which profoundly convey, a message, that is very consistent with the theme of ishopanishad. Although this verse is a admiration or glorification of the absolute truth, but the verse itself doesn’t specify what is the ‘purna’ thing, it uses terms like adah, idam etc, which in one sense donot directly tells us about the whole matter. So, this is a typical style of descriptions in Upanishads, which are not straight forward, they are primarily for intellectual people who love to speculate like the jnanis.

The verse says that,’that which is object(supreme personality of godhead) of meditation or contemplation or admiration ,that is complete. From that complete this complete(the phenomenal world) has come out, and even though , from that complete this complete has come out, the complete remains complete itself. We  can use the mathematical concept of infinity to understand the absolute truth, as described here. If we take set of all natural number which is infinity, along with set of odd number and prime numbers, which are also infinity. So, the set of all natural number, is the primary set, to which, other sets are subset. Even we substract the subsets from the complete set, still the set of natural number remains infinity. From infinity, if we take out infinity, still infinity remains, that’s how we understand the absolute truth.

Bhagawan or supreme personality of god head is the complete manifestation of  absolute truth. In the Upanishads, the absolute truth is not directly , reffered, by a personal name, because Upanishads are transitional body of knowledge, and it takes a person from karma kanda towards bhakti, so if karma kanda and bhakti are to be considered as negative and positive axis , Upanishads stands at neutral point. Srila prabhupada also follow this strategy of Upanishads, by not using the word ‘krsna’, throughout his purport to ishopanishad, rather at one place he has used the term like ‘family of param brahmans’, which is paradoxical. So prabhupada has used the concept of impersonalists to take them beyond impersonalism. The impersonalists they think that Upanishads teach about impersonalism- that the absolute truth has no form , personality, activity etc. the absolute truth is pure consciousness, nothing else. If we take the example of a normal conversation, in which there is the speaker who is the perceived object or object of consciousness, and we have the hearer who is perceiving object, or the subject of consciousness and  there is stream of consciousness which is communicated in form of words and gestures, so we have the whole conscious experience. According to the impersonalists, both the subject and object of consciousness are illusory, so what exist is only pure consciousness. There is no being who is conscious.

   The absolute truth is always sat-cid-ananda, but the absolute truth is not always perceived  as sat-cid-anand. When only the sat aspect is perceived , then the level of realization is Brahman, i.e the jnanis. They consider that the body is temporary, still I am longing to live for ever, since I have this longing, there must be some place, where existence will be eternal, it is that place, that I  must belong. So by thinking in this way, we slowly come to the Brahman platform. Lets take the example of a gulab jamun, which is being cooked in a kitchen. It is a sweet delicacy, which is soft to touch and have a sweet fragrance also. If I am in another room, at a particular time the sight and taste of gulab jamun are not accessible to me, all that is accessible is fragrance, similarly when the absolute truth is not fully accessible to us, we only partially perceive the absolute truth, then we perceive the ‘sat’ aspect. But the Brahman aspect is not ‘sat’, it is sat-cid-anand. According to SB 1.2.11, the same absolute truth, which are known by Brahman, paramatma, and bhagavan, all are sat-cid-ananda.  So there is no difference between them ,from the perspective of absolute truth, it is the perceivers perspective by which different people perceives the absolute truth at different aspect. So,the jnanis when they progress, then they perceives the ‘cit’ aspect(yogi)., its like after fragrance, one perceives the sight of gulabjamun, so one moves closer to gulabjamun, similarly one moves closer to the absolute truth when one realizes the ‘cit’ aspect . perceiving ‘cid’ means, one understands that the super soul is everywhere and the supersoul is conscious of me and of my activities. So, here the both the object and subject of consciousness, both are conscious and real, not illusory unlike the concept of jnanis with Brahman realization. At this level,  one doesnot contemplate the supersoul as object of devotion, but as object of meditation, and admiration, in a sense there is no reciprocationin the form of service to the absolute truth., that happens to the bhaktas, who perceives the absolute truth as bhagavan, with all the aspect of sat-cid-ananda. So bhakta perceives the supreme absolute not only as an eternal conscious entity, but also entity who is full of joy, which is expressed with the performance of various dynamic activities(lila). This is complete realization, like the taste of gulab jamun make the perception of gulab jamun complete.

There is so much debate around wheather the phenomenal world  is complete or not. The theist sees there are so much right in this world, there must be god. Like, the how the cloud forms, then rain, which produce grain, which sustains life, so there is a plan, it cant happen by itself, so there is god. The atheist also  claims that there are so many wrong in this world, like they argue, if there is a plan maker, why there is rain in the ocean, why there is flood, drought etc. so the fact for that matter is, the evidence of design is undeniable, in this world. Taking the example of clouds, they are so complex, people may say that it happens automatically, however when we say something automatic, that does not mean there is no existence of a designer .  automatic means there is no awareness, or direct intervention of the creater on the designer. For example, if a child who is playing, an automatic toy. From the observer childs point of view, there is no operator seen, and from the toys perspective also, no operator directly or constanly intervening. So, we see, there is no such thing which doesn’t have a controller or designer, there  is a designer or controller, but that control can be delegated, and made in such a way that , it does not require constant supervision. Similarly the lord has made this world in such a way that nothing extraneous , is required for the control of material world, so that it is self sustaining. In the managerial form also,the perfect management is that which require minimum or no management. Things are structured in such a  way, that things go on well with least supervision. The absence of need of constant supervision is not a proof that there is no designer or intelligence behind it, actually it means that there is such a perfect intelligence, that there is no need for  constant supervision. As we know, the super soul is constantly observing , but it does not need to constantly act or intervene in this material world which goes by the material nature, which is confirmed in bhagavad gita 3.27, under the supervision of krsna as in BG 9.10. the above discussion shows how the phenomenal world is complete with respect to function.

Now, coming to the purpose, whenever we have to evaluate a design , we have to evaluate it according to its purpose. Lets take the example of a cell phone, now if we try to type a book using a cell phone, then it will be almost impossible, now we have every reason to curse the company for making such a worthless device in which we cant type a book, but actually, the purpose of the phone is not book writing, although we can write small messages. So we can a take computer for book typing, which can serve our purpose. So, we should not impose our own purpose on the design. Similarly when we evaluate  design of this world, it has to be evaluated based on its purpose. If we  think that the purpose of this world is for our enjoyment, then definitely this world is improperly designed, because there is not enough enjoyment available, or there is only flickering momentary pleasure available. Ultimately we got to have disease then old age and die. So, there is somuch suffering. So according to my purpose, we find the world is deficient. So,then what is the actual purpose of this world. The theists and atheists both are true when they say that there is provision for substinence and suffering also, available in this world.  In this world where do we see this kind of situation, one is jail, where we have food, clothing, and shelter for substinence and also the authority give some punishment also. Does this mean, the design of the jail is imperfect, no there is a purpose to it, the designer wants to punish and reform the prisoner. Similarly in hospital also, we see , both suffering and substinence, but the purpose is to cure the patient. So, the scripture says that the world is both a hospital and prison. Prison for those souls who rebelled against god, who wants to enjoy separately and hospital for the souls who want to rectify  and go back to god. So, material world is complete in the sence that it fulfills its purpose, its not perfect for enjoyment, its perfect for renunciation.

Coming to specific discussion on human form and human rights,. Human rights are not limited only to basic needs, but also the right  must extend to understand the purpose of life. Purpose of world, living according to the purpose, and right to enlightenment. It is only in human form that we can perceive spirituality, so, it is very special.

Our completeness is dependant, unlike of the absolute truth krsna, who is independent. For example, although , the hand is well equipped to perform its activities, but if it is severed from the body then it becomes useless. So, we are also complete as an emanation from krsna, but our completeness is dependent upon our connection to krsna. When we are in this in complete condition, we seek completeness in two ways- materialy and spiritually. Materialy we seek for sensegratification, which keep us incomplete, trying to fulfill the minds foolish fantasies  and draconian demands. Sense gratification promises us completeness, but because the pleasure is so little, we again feel incomplete, so, we keep on trying to fulfill foolish demands of mind, like a child keep on changing his toy,but is never satisfied.

Devotional service makes us complete , by connecting us perfectly with the complete whole. We are tiny, our pleasure is tiny or it is limited, but because krsna is unlimited, when we connect to him, our happiness become unlimited. So, by connecting with krsna, we get our completeness. The way to completeness is devotional service.

Hare krsna

BASED ON SRILA PRABHUPADS PURPORT AND FURTHER ILLUSTRATION BY H.G CAITANYA CARAN PRABHU.

SUMMARY STUDY OF BHAKTI SHASTRI CLASS 3-MANTRA 1

  

                          

ésäväsyam idam sarvaàm

yat kinca jagatyäà jagat

tena tyaktena bhunjéthä

mä gridhaù kasya svid dhanam

   TRANSLATION

Everything animate or inanimate that is within the universe is controlled

and owned by the Lord. One should therefore accept only those things

necessary for himself, which are set aside as his quota, and one should not

accept other things, knowing well to whom they belong.

At first, the overview of sri ishopanishad,-it can be divided into five parts depending upon a particular theme or message, it wants to convey. we have from invocation to mantra 3, it talks about living in harmony with ishvara. Mantra 4 to 8 teaches us that, ishvara can be understood by spiritual vision, and developing spiritual vision has two part, first, cultivating the proper knowledge, then,developing the right disposition of the heart. So, mantra 9-11 talks about Cultivating the right knowledge,i.e right and wrong vidya for understanding ishvara. Then, mantra 12-14, speaks about , right and wrong upasana, for worshipping the ishvara. Understanding supreme lord is not an intellectual exercise, but we require to give our heart, along with head. Then,15-18, talks about prayers to ishvara, to reveal himself. So,our endeavor is a part of our journey towards god, but it is not complete in itself, ultimately the supreme lord has to reveal himself, so we pray to him, to reveal himself to us.

Now, coming to the first section,which involves invo-mantra 3. It talks about the ishavasya principle.  Invocation says how everything is perfect. Then mantra 1 tells us  how everything belongs to god. Mantra 2 teaches us how living in harmony with it benefits and then mantra 3 tells us how living in disharmony with it will harm us.

Prabhupada translate matra 1 as follows,’everything animate or inanimate, what is within the universe, is controlled and owened by the lord. One should therefore accept , only those things necessary for himself, which are setaside as his quota, and one should not accept other things, knowing well to whom they belong’. Scripture do allow us to enjoy, but it should be what is given to us, so scripture don’t deprive ourselves of happiness.

Ishopanishad is one of the principle upanishad among 108 upanishad, and it is the last part of shukla part of yajur veda. Ishopanishad - prayer offered by Manu to Yagnavatar.

The word proprietorship fascinates people, we all want to be proprieter of atleast something. How to understand that god is the proprieter of everything, srila prabhupada quote from bhagavad gita,7.4 &5, where it is described as earth, air , fire etc are the apara shakti of lord and soul is the para shakti of the lord, and both of these are energies of the supreme lord. Srila prabhupada would give the example of speaking, the speaker is in control of what he speaks, so the energy belongs to energetic.so, everythin that exist in this world, either matter or spirit or combination of both, belongs to god. Logically speaking, when we say that I owns this land or flat, but how long, till we die, we may say, it wil be taken by the descendants, but there may be natural disastars, or somebody may encroach upon our property, and everything will be lost. Because our ownership is transitory ,so it is illusory. Despite all our effort, it can be arbitrarily taken away from us. Its not that we don’t have control, but we have limited or partial control. Like, in a kingdom, the king is there who is the proprieter of all the land, but there will be farmers who will be owning, some land, but they are the subordinate owner. So, we are actually tenants, what to speak of property, even our body, is not in our control,we can be evicted from our body, when death comes. Then, one may say, even if I am not the controller, the nature is controlling everything, but where does the nature come from, everything has a sourse, and that source is god. Atheist can say that everyrhing has come upon by chance, but the fundamental mistake in this hypothesis is that, it does not have any support. In our practical experiences things donot come upon by chance. Suppose, if a bridge collapses and the engineer says that it happened due to chance, then will it be accepted, No. the word chance is applicable when there are pattern of events that are likely and there is a certain probability of each of them. Like throwing a dice, and getting a result. There are six different pattern of result possible and each have one sixth  probability ofone happening. So when there is no pattern of possibility given neither any probability assigned, than to say that it happened by chance, is to cover up  our ignorance. To use the word chance as a causal principle is definitely misleading. But even if we say , things come somehow, but where they originally belong. Everything comes from something or everything comes from nothing. We have no experience of things coming from nothing, neither in our day to day life or in the history, so logically speaking , everything comes from something. Now that something something from which everything comes, is beyond the scope of science but scriptures tell us that something is god & he is krsna. So,everything is coming from something, and that something is krsna who owns everything and also controls everything. So only devotees use the word  ICO(in care of), which means the supreme personality has entrusted me  to take care of certain thing, for which he is the primary controller.

So, if everything belongs to God, is it that ,we are not supposed to take ,NO, we are meant to take, not only we but all living entity for that matter. Prabhupada gives the example of a cow, who produces milk, but don’t drink that herself, instead she eats straws and grasses. Similarly lion they don’t eat grasses but they take flesh. Now, one may argue that cows milk is only for calves, we human beings are intruder. However, that is not true, cows give sufficient quantity of milk which can nourish the calve and remaining can be taken by human. But, that may not be true  always, because cows are not milk producing machine, they are loving and living beings. If we keep them in friendly environment, and take care of them in a very personel way, then cows bodily metabolism act in such a way that it produces plenty of milk. But, if we keep  the cows in an artificial  condition, unhealthy and fearful condition, cow may not produce so much milk. If we take our artificial defective set up as standard and say cows give very less milk, therefore cows milk cannt be used by human, that is wrong, because our experience is limited. Such is the arrangement of lord, we should be satisfied with those thing he has kindly set aside for us. Prabhupada also gives the example of oue own dwellings, we claim it to be our own , but the ingredients or raw material, we take from nature, which belong to god, so factually god is the owner of everything, because he controls everything. Just like if we appoint a carpenter, and we provide all the ingredients, just because he manipulated the ingredients to a shape, does not prove his owner ship, we still remain the owner. So, god’s, proprietorship is unequivocally a certainity, which we all have to accept and acknowledge. After giving this example at a individual level, prabhupada goes broader to accommodate the prevailing political scenario at that time, that is the fight between capitalist and communist which he compare as a fight between cats and dogs. Both of them are claiming to own over the land according to their ideology, but both of them are fundamentally incorrect because both are godless. Coming to how the ishavasya principle is applied according to Vedas. Krsna, the absolute truth, resides in the spiritual realm, then comes the brahmanas, they are considered to be closest to God, because they study shastra, teach shastra and live shastra. They are also called as bhudeva, god present on earth, because of their activities, they are always absorbed in god. They gives the principle But they don’t entangle themselves in the administrative process, which is taken care of by the kshatriyas, or ruller class, and they are also called nara deva, god among human, and they use shostro or weapons for establishment of dharma, because not everyone are intelligent enough to take shastra,and live accordingly. God s propritership is directly understood by the brahmanas, they study it, live it and then teach it to khastriyas, who are the rulers,the khastriyas then publicly and privately remain devoted to lord. Like today also, the king of Puri, sweeps the road infront of the lord, in the rathyatra, this is a public demonstration of devotion as a subordinate to the supreme lord, who is the owner of everything. So in this way the general public also follow the path of king, and ultimately the whole society remain god conscious. This is the ideal vedic system. So, there has to be a evolution of consciousness, where people donot have to become greedy or lusty over propritership, but understand thing in a broader prospective.

Communism- it says everything belongs to people, so it imposes artificial material equality, where talented are not rewared, like in a classroom the teacher announces, everybody in the class will get pass at the end of the year, because we want equality in the class, so what happens is the talented are not rewarded, and the lazy they stay lazy, and ultimately everybody becomes lazy.

Capitalism- whichever person is qualified enough or intelligent enough, he will get the power.so wealthy started exploitating the needy,and there is cut throat competition and insecurity. So, although talented are rewarded, but they became exploitative. Because, everybody is greedy, the poor and the rich, all pf them remain dissatisfied.

Varnashram- it integrates absolute spiritual equality of all people with their relative material diversity. Idealistic understanding is that we are all chidren of god, but the realistic assessment is that, we all are materially different. All of us can best contribute to the society created by god according to our existing material talent. As everyone is engaged according to their natures, they work diligently and happily, and the society gets the maximum benefit. So the principle of ishavasya is implemented through varnashram system, where everybody works for their ultimate spiritual goal,while also taking taking care of bodily necessities.

Then srila prabhupada talks about the quota in human diet. Today non veg food has become a standard of life. But if we think in a objective way then we are not meant to be carnivores because like carnivores we don’t have jaws protruding neither we have sharp nail, so that we can catch and tear animals and eat them. That’s why we have slaughterhouses or butchers who factually do the job of an animal for the meat eaters. The point is we have to have our quota of diet, i.e vegetarian food. Some people may argument that even plants have life and they also feel pain. So, scientifically, trees have less developed nervous system, but they feel much lesser pain. And the principle is as a sensitive human being we should cause as less pain as possible to others. Now, thinkin naturally,  plants or crops are hervasted  at a time, if not done at that time they will simply dry and die, but in case of animals they are not generally killed when they are about to die but at a time when they are fleshy and at their prime. Fruits, they just fall from plant, and are meant for human consumption, but animals they are grown in artificial , fearful condition, and are generally brutally killed at the prime of there health. Intuitively also, the scene of harvesting, is a jubilant atmosphere, everybody are there in a festive mood. Where as if we go to a slaughterhouse we see animals are crying,screaming and there are blood everywhere and it s a horrific site. If a school authority decides to take the students for a visit to a slaughterhouse, how many parents will agree!!!Which unconsciously also, we don’t want to see. So there is huge difference in terms of everything. So vegetarian food is much much better . but srila prabhupadas point here is deeper, not only he is speaking about veg diet but he goes deeper to say that our diet is Prasad i.e food offered to krsna. We are prasadian. Because the perfection of life is not just to avoid entanglement-less or more; it is to acknowledge and love god. At that time we live in harmony with the lord, my dear lord you have given me this time, and I thank you for what you have given and please accept my gratitude through this prayer, I am offering. Let me serve you with my life. The point of offering the food to krsna is to acknowledge that krsna is the ultimate enjoyer of everythin, and the food has been cooked for his enjoyment. And when we offer the food to krsna, then we take the remains, that purifies us also from all the sinful desires in our heart, because krsna is supremely pure, so by his potency the food become spiritualized. So Prasad is not only karma free but also bhakti filled.

This ends an elaborate description to the purport of srila prabhupada.

Thank you caitanya caran prabhu.