Article on recent targedies in USA

[Guest guest]

Following is a note by H.H.Hridayananda Goswami on the recent tragic

incidents in USA. It was mailed in another forum and I presume some of

you must have already read it.

 

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By His Holiness Hridayananda Goswami

 

I am writing to comment on the recent terrorist attacks in New York and

Washington, which you must have heard of by now. I am aware that some

devotees take a casual or dismissive attitude toward these events,

declaring that "It's just a fight among the karmis." Or, "People are

just suffering their karma." etc.

 

If this is the full extent of our response to these events, I think that

we are somehow deficient as devotees. My logic is as follows:

 

Lord Krishna states in the Bhagavad-gita 6.32, that a devotee should

possess universal empathy. A literal translation of this verse would

read: "O Arjuna, I consider the supreme yogi to be one who, by

comparison to the self, sees everywhere the same, whether happiness or

distress." This verse, among other meanings, recommends a kind of

universal empathy. In his own translation of this verse, Srila

Prabhupada stresses this universal empathy: "He is a perfect yogi who,

by comparison to his own self, sees the true equality of all beings, in

both their happiness and their distress, O Arjuna!"

 

In his purport, Srila Prabhupada continues to stress the point of

empathy: "One who is Krishna conscious is a perfect yogi; he is aware of

everyone's happiness and distress by dint of his own personal

experience. In other words, a devotee of the Lord always looks to the

welfare of all living entities, and in this way he is factually the

friend of everyone."

 

This is how we can apply such empathy in the case of the terrorist

attacks on New York and Washington: First, we can imagine what it would

have felt like for us to have been on one of the four planes that were

hijacked and destroyed, or in one of the three attacked buildings. There

is ample information available so that we can be quite specific and

explicit in imagining the experience. Second, we will probably have to

honestly admit that we would feel significant discomfort, pain, or

anxiety in such a situation. If we are capable of deep empathy, if we

are able, as Srila Prabhupada states, to understand the experiences of

others by comparing them to our own experiences, and we are "factually

the friend of everyone," then we experience true Vaishnava compassion.

 

In other words, we should not be more detached toward the suffering of

others than we are toward our own suffering. We should not arrogantly

dismiss the anguish of others, as if we are beyond anguish. A devotee

who is truly transcendental to material suffering, and who would not

have suffered at all in one of those four airplanes, or in one of those

three buildings, would be a most exalted pure devotee and as such would

feel great compassion for the fallen conditioned souls. Those who are

not compassionate, and who dismiss as trivial or unimportant such great

suffering, are not actually demonstrating advanced detachment in Krishna

consciousness, but rather they are demonstrating a disturbing lack of

common empathy, and are in fact embarrassing our movement by their

neophyte response.

 

ISKCON devotees oppose animal slaughter. How can we not oppose human

slaughter? If one says, "it's their karma," then we reply that the same

is true for cows and other animals who are slaughtered. If one says,

"this is just a political fight among materialists," I would reply that

in the Bhagavad-gita, Lord Krishna clearly distinguishes between acts in

the different modes of nature, and He specifically describes certain

acts as not only materialistic, but as evil and demonic. It is surely

evil and demonic to murder thousands of innocent persons. Let us

remember that in Vedic culture, we are required to treat people

according to their innocence and guilt in this life. God will take care

of their past karma. We are not allowed in Vedic culture to abuse

people, harm or kill them, and then say, "It must have been your karma."

Vedic culture is not moral anarchy in the name of karma. We should be

above mundane morality, not below it.

 

During the Bangladesh War in the early 1970's, Srila Prabhupada strongly

condemned the Muslim atrocities against the Hindus, and indeed against

other Muslims, in Bangladesh. Of course in every country on earth there

are tragedies, and the devotees will benefit themselves personally, and

greatly enhance their preaching, if they are able to achieve a real

state of deep empathy, not in the cause of materialism or the bodily

concept of life, but as a symptom of a budding self-realization that

leads one to feel liberated compassion for all suffering beings.