plastic surgery

[Guest guest]

> Dear Devotees,

>

> Please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada!

>

> I would like guidance on the following point: if a devotee wants to

> undergo plastic surgery to change their bodily features for asthetic

> reasons, does Vedic culture allow this taking into account that happiness

> & distress have been allocated to us according to our past & present

> karma?

>

> Does it (ie having plastic surgery) increase our bad karma, because we are

> playing the controller & enjoyer, and not accepting what Krsna has given

> us in terms of our bodily features?

>

> Your servant,

>

> Sundari Radhika dd

 

>Since the aim is "bhoga", the answer would have to be, yes, it increases

>bad

>karma and bodily attachment.

 

>Bhagavad-gita explains and expands on that in several places.

 

>das

 

Constantly lamenting about the deficiency of one´s own physical appearance

("I am so ugly") is also a type of bodily attachment. If plastic surgery

frees a devotee from this chronic lamentation it is a means to get the peace

of mind reuqired for focussing on spiritual life

 

ys Anantarupa

[Guest guest]

PAMHO AGTSP

 

No from Basu Ghosh and Yes from Anantarupa. Interesting!

 

I think I am going to go with "Accept everything favorable to

devotional service and reject everything unfavorable to it. These two

principles are the basis of all rules and regulations."

 

There are many types of plastic surgery. People who are disfigured in

disease, accidents or war have reconstructive plastic surgery. Many

women have breast enlargements but some also have reductions to help

with chronic back pain and spinal problems. So I don't think that one

can make a blanket statement that all plastic surgery is a bad thing.

The original email mentioned asthetic reasons only and that is why I

understand Basu Ghosh's point. However there are many things that we

do to make our bodies more aesthetically pleasing which are accepted

by Vedic culture. Fine clothes, jewelry, ear piercing, perfumes,

cosmetics are all accepted in Vedic culture. The real question is,

what is the ultimate purpose of such things. If it is ultimately for

the pleasure of the Lord then it certainly can be accepted, however

if it is simply a vain attempt to enhance bodily beauty with the

ultimate aim of simply attracting other materially vain persons

(specifically of the opposite sex) then it should be rejected as not

important.

 

Let me tell you a story from my own life. I had a broken right thumb

in Vrndavan many years ago when I was Srila Prabhupada's Samadhi

pujari. The local Ramakrishna Mission Hospital set the bone wrongly

and I more or less ended up with two left thumbs (one on each hand).

The doctor at RKM Hospital told me to "just accept the deformity". I

however went to the Christian Hospital in Mathura and had the bone re-

broken and re-set correctly. I now have a functioning right thumb. Of

course this is clearly not a story about aesthetic only surgery, but

it was elective as I could have just "accepted the deformity".

 

ys

 

Gaura Keshava das

[Guest guest]

Dear Gaur Keshava Prabhu & readers,

 

Namonamaha. Jaya Srila Prabhupada!

 

Prabhuji, I like your analysis and agree with you: and from what I read I

think you agree with me!

 

Any attempt to increase sense gratification by whatever means increases

bodily attachment and is thus "sinful", in as much as increased attachment

leads to "vikarmas" - "bad karmas", that ultimately lead us on the path of

"repeated birth and death" in the material world.

 

Isn't that taught in Bhagavad-gita?

 

ye hi samsparsha-ja bhoga

duhkha-yonaya eva te

ady-antavantah kaunteya

na teshu ramate budhaha

 

"An intelligent person does not take part in the sources of misery, which

are due to contact with the material senses. O son of Kunti, such pleasures

have a beginning and an end, and so the wise man does not delight in them."

 

That does't mean that there isn't any provision for "enjoyment" in the

material world:

 

ishavasyam idam sarvam yat kincha jagatyam jagat tena tyaktena bhunjitha ma

grdhah kasya svid dhanam

 

"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."

 

If plastic surgery is "necessary": say for instance someone's face or some

other bodily part becomes deformed due to accident or fire, well, that might

be some justification for it's use.

 

But if it is for simply to increase bodily "beauty", well, that seems to

come into a different catagory!

 

das,

 

Basu Ghosh Das