Thought of the week: Spiritual vision to material tragedies

[Guest guest]

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.

 

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