dogma

[Guest guest]

spoken by HH Hrdayananda Maharaja, Märch 2006

 

In order to take a soul that is very fallen and to come to the point of

pure love of God, it takes a little time.

If God is all-merciful then, I mean, is there anyone here in this room who

would sort of give your kid one chance and if your kid fails you'd just

set him or her on fire? I mean isn't that kind of absurd? What would you

think of a human being if you heard that this human being gave their child

some instructions, the kid was kind of rebellious, you know kids are, and

ran away from home and so therefore the parents took out a contract on the

kid? And they didn't kill him, they didn't put him out of his misery, but

actually decided to torture him, like bring him back home and for the rest

of his life torture him. What would you think of parents like that? I

mean, evil. And the worst thing is this, how could any mother or father

punish a child, not to correct them, I mean I know I've benefitted from

certain punishments I've got and I can't say punishment is evil

necessarily, but how can you punish your child not to correct the child

but just because you want the child to suffer? It's not to correct the

child, it's just to make the kid suffer.

 

But if you ask the child some things, that's what they think.

 

They may think that.

 

Let me just...

 

No, no, no, that's true, but what is actually in the mother's heart or in

the father's heart?

 

Correction

 

Yes! Any good, any decent father and mother, if you have to punish your

child, all you want is for the child to be good. You have no other

desire. So how can you punish a child when there is no intention of

correcting the person? It's just to make them suffer. Forever. In the

most excruciating, horrible, tortuous ways, forever. Your own child.

That doctrine I think is actually evil. That's my personal opinion. I'm

not quoting any scripture I just think it's evil. I mean I think Jesus

Christ was a great spiritual figure, I think he's had many sincere and

wonderful followers, but that particular doctrine, which I don't blame on

all the christians, but that particular doctrine I think is simply evil.

And it was because of that doctrine that it became obvious that, well,

it's perfectly justified to burn people alive on earth because you're

doing God's work. You're actually doing God's work, as in heaven so on

earth. If we like in the centre of Oxford, England, where the university

is, in the centre of town there's a monument of three Oxford professors of

theology who were burned alive who were burned alive by the queen of

England because of certain somewhat subtle and technical theological

disagreements. She burned them alive. Why? Because 'that's the will of

God'. That's who God is, God is a person who tortures and burns people

alive if they make some mistake. That's what God is. I think this is not

only wrong, I think this is evil. It's not something that Jesus taught,

by the way. It's not only wrong, I think it's evil, because it describes

God as frankly the most evil monster ever conceived.

 

 

That's what muslim's believe too, that after death you feel somewhat

cremated, that is the greatest punishment that can be blessed out upon

you. When you're condemned.

 

Um-hmm. So... (laughter) Yeah, I know what you mean, it's like, yeah,

it's counter-intuitive.

 

Very primitive thinking.

 

So this tribal idea of God, if you look at societies that were divided

into these violent tribes, and they kind of imposed this whole social

structure on religion where there's, you know if you're not in the right

religious tribe then God will get His revenge on you. So now you have a

situation in America, and one of the biggest problems in the world right

now, in America and western Europe is that so many people have had a very,

very bad experience of religion. There's huge numbers of educated people

in the west who have been turned off big-time. They've been turned off to

religion by this fanaticism. I'm serving Krishna, now some... What's

amazing about Bhagavad-gita, if you want to talk about an advanced

culture, is that when Krishna talks about whether you go up after death or

go down, or stay where you are, it has nothing to do with accepting

Krishna. Let's stay in this world, Krishna clearly says, 'urdhvam

gacchanti sattva-stha', those who are sattva-stha, those who live in

goodness, morally good, you know like Jesus said, you're kind to people,

you help people, those who are morally good, sattva-stha, urdhvam

gacchanti, they go up. They're elevated after death. And yet when

Krishna talks about the religion, the dharma of those in goodness, He

says 'yajante sattvika devan'. This is a brilliant point about the Gita

that people don't notice, Krishna says in the Gita, that those who are

sattvika, those who are in goodness, those who live in goodness, they

worship devan, the plural, the gods. You know, small 'g'. Now Krishna

says elsewhere in the Gita that those who worship 'the gods', meaning

those souls who are serving God, capital 'G', by superintending the

universe, elsewhere in many places Krishna says that those who

worship 'those gods', actually they don't quite get it. Like for example

Krishna says that 'ye 'py anya-devata-bhakta', those who are devoted to

other deities, yajanti, and they worship sraddhayanvitah, with faith,

Krishna says 'te 'pi mam eva kaunteya

yajanty avidhi-purvakam', they actually worship Me alone, but avidhi-

purvakam, they didn't get it right. They didn't get it right. So here

Krishna says that you can do something which is not spiritually in focus,

worship the gods, plural, it's not really the right path but if you do it

you can still be a good person and still be elevated. In other words

there is no doctrinal requirements, exactly what Jesus taught actually,

because despite the later theories that you have to believe someone's

interpretation of the death of Jesus to go to heaven, what Jesus actually

taught is, one very, very famous little talk he gave, is that the son of

man will come, which is a sort of jargon in the bible for representative

of God, son of man will come and divide all people into two groups, one

will go to heaven, one will go to hell, and those who go to heaven will

say 'why are we going up?', and the son of man will say 'because when I

was hungry you fed me. When I was tired, when I was lonely you comforted

me,' and so on. And they will say, 'we never met you before, son of

man.' But the son of man, representative of God will say, 'No, whatever

you did to the least of my people, you did to me.' Manav-seva, Madhava-

seva. So, in other words there is a moral requirement, it wasn't about

BELIEVING in something about someone dying for your sins, it was about

being a good person in the world. And that's what Jesus taught, love God

with all your heart and love your neighbour as yourself. Be a good person

and you'll go up. It's exactly what Krishna teaches, it's not about, this

idea that you have to accept a certain 'dogma', and if you don't accept a

certain dogma, God will literally torture you alive, forever, or He'll

just burn you up forever alive, if you don't get the DOGMA right. In the

Bhagavad-gita and in the real teachings of Jesus it's not about dogma,

it's about being a good person. It's about treating people properly. So

actually the Bhagavad-gita is revealing even the real Jesus, who had

wonderful common sense about these things, Jesus. So he was actually

quite, I mean that was a brilliant insight he had, that you just love God

with all your heart and love your neighbour as yourself, that's it, you

win the game. So, how do you say, this kind of religion where it's not

about being a good person, so if you're a good person whether you're a

hindu or a buddhist or christian, if you're a good person, then you're a

good person. And God will be pleased with you and you'll be rewarded. It

doesn't matter what doctrine you accept, if you're a good person. That's

the real dharma. That's vedic culture, that's what Jesus taught. But

these other religions that teach, 'no, it's about dogma, if you got the

wrong dogma God will torture you.' If you get the wrong dogma? It's

madness, actually. It's madness. So, anyway, vedic culture is what they

needed. Now I will stop. (laughter and applause).