A Place from Which to Grow
Human life is meant for growth. Although physical growth
stops before several decades, emotional, psychological, intellectual and
spiritual growth can and should continue throughout every person’s life. In order to grow properly however, we need a
proper place. Place means not only a physical place such as household, but
proper relationships with others and proper activity. All three of these are
essential aspects for optimal growth. This paper addresses the question of
people’s place in modern society and contrasts it with place in the varnashrama
culture and the different results in society and people’s lives.
A potted plant offers a very good example of having a proper
place. The pot is the physical place where the plant lives, but beyond the pot
alone the plant also requires a proper environment in terms of soil conditions,
atmosphere, temperature, water, and sunlight. When these conditions are minimally
met the plant can live, but when they are optimal the plant can thrive.
Likewise we are meant to thrive, not just live. We need a properly
clean house and environment where we can care for and give rest to our body, along
with nourishing food. This alone will allow us to survive, but not thrive for
as it is said, man does not live by bread alone. More than mere survival we all
desire to have interesting and meaningful activity appropriate to our nature.
In the modern world we generally call this “work.” Ideally that work will be a
bit challenging so that we may make use of our faculties of understanding,
ability, and reasoning. The challenge helps us to grow. If the work is too easy
we will be bored and unengaged, and if the work is beyond our capacity or
ability we will be overworked and stressed.
And we also need a place in relationship to others. These
relationships must be appropriate to our respective stages of life and theirs.
Thus we will have different relationships with those senior to us than we have
with our peers or with our juniors. Having a proper place according these
criteria will help us to be happy and balanced individuals. Like the potted
plant without water, or sunshine, if any of these aspects of life are meager or
missing, then life can run the gamut from drudgery to torture, conditions under
which growth of any kind is difficult or impossible.
Place is so important in society that the war at Kurukshetra
was fought to give the Pandavas a proper place. The war could have been avoided
if Duryodhana would have allowed the Pandavas one village each, but he denied
the Pandavas any land whatsoever, not enough for a single needle! The proper
dharma of a ksatriya requires them to provide a place to others in his village
or kingdom, and this is such a necessary and essential requirement that a ksatriya
is forbidden any other engagement, even in times of emergency. The Supreme Lord
Sri Krishna came to establish the principles of religion (paritranaya sadhunam)
and to this end He admonished Arjuna to fight the battle to properly establish
the .
Place in Ancient Cultures
Historically one’s place in society was both fixed and
rigid. In both Western (Feudal society) and Eastern culture place was generally
assigned according to one’s birth. Males generally did what their fathers did
and females naturally became mothers and caretakers. You would become an
aristocrat if your parents were aristocrats, and if they were peasants you
would remain a peasant. The world was fairly well fixed at those times and there
was no upward or even lateral mobility for the vast majority of people. In one
sense this was bad and in another it was good. Bad in that if you had a
different nature than your father you were unable to be fulfilled, but it was
good in that a strong social contract existed. Every person had a definite
place in society with well understood rules of behavior, knowing what they
could expect of others and the expectations of themselves. In this sense nobody
was alone in the world. Whatever their fate might have been, they were joined
together with others of their kind with whom they would share their miseries
and joys. For further insights into these types of culture and the differences
before and after the introduction of Western influences read for example, Bhakti
Vikasa Swami’s “Glimpses of Traditional Indian Life,” or Helena Norberg-Hodge’s
“Ancient Futures: Learning from Ladakh.”
Finding Our Place in Today’s World
Modern society is just the opposite—we are not given a place
in society—we have to find it, beginning even in childhood. Parents, pressed
for time, find it much easier to do everything themselves rather than taking
time to teach their children and guide them in building their skills, so that
many have never washed a floor or even a dish by the time they leave home. Children
lack a place even within their family. They are told to “go play,” or they
entertain themselves with television and electronic games. Although they do not
have an active role in life they are somehow suddenly expected to fit right
into the adult world upon graduation from school. However they often cannot and
it is taking increasing years for them to find their place in the adult world.
Today most people do not marry until they are almost thirty years of age, indicating
that this is when they are able to find their place in society; whereas just
two generations back they would marry and begin their family lives just after
high school.
Going back to the years when society was more formally
structured and there was a subsistence economy children had a part in adult
society and could take responsibility at much younger ages. For example, David Farragut (later Admiral Farragut) was a mere
12 years old during the War of 1812 when he was given his first command. Those
who have visited India have undoubtedly witnessed children of very young ages
taking responsibility to manage the shop of their father, the care of their
siblings and even carry on entrepreneurial activities without any adult
supervision. When I see such things I try to imagine any American boy or girl
of the same age doing similar things. I cannot. Anthropologist Joseph Campbell
also observed that many young men have great difficulty finding their place in
modern society, to which he attributed the attraction of gang membership, and
later involvement in the mafia, whose “codes of honor” do provide a place along
with attendant duties and relationships. He suggested that until adult society
finds some way to provide a place for young men they will naturally continue
their involvement in gangs.
For most people their work provides their place and their
orientation to the world—a way to think of themselves and their relationships
with others. It provides the income with which they pay for their home, another
aspect of place. Work is therefore an essential element of finding one’s place.
Although we now have the freedom to choose our work, to be and achieve anything
to the limit of our ability, this is a challenge that many people struggle with.
Despite the many books to help people find the right job or occupation, despite
the many career counselors and job placement companies, some 80 percent of
workers are still unsatisfied with the work they do. This indicates that their
work is not according to their nature, their guna and karma. Being improperly
situated they can make a mess of things, especially in positions of leadership
or management, and it is almost certain that in such situations they cannot
grow.
The Consequences of Loss of Place
The sense of place, the psychological support that comes
from it, and the result of losing it was studied by the pioneer sociologist,
Emile Durkheim. Observing the rapid changes in the social and economic
conditions of society during the industrialization of the late 19th
century, he found that in rapidly changing environments people became unsure of
what was expected of them, and what they could or should expect from others.
These expectations, known as social norms, are the basic rules of the culture.
Durkheim observed that without having a place where they know the norms to
guide them, people become dissatisfied, purposeless and alienated which leads to
conflicts, crime, suicide and other social deviancies. He called this condition
anomie, and wrote about it in his
books “The Division of Labor in Society” and “Suicide.”
One of the great tragedies of the modern era is the lack of
place for the hundreds of millions, even billions, of “unnecessary” and
“unwanted” people—the unemployed, the homeless, street urchins, and
slum-dwellers. Modern society affords them little if any place to give them
even the simple honor of living. Who gets a place in modern society?
Increasingly only those who can earn a profit for others, or provide money for
others, that is, those who have employable skills for which there is a market. However,
the need for employable people is diminishing with a diminishing economy. In
the1930s some 60 percent of Americans lived on farms and could provide for
themselves. Over the next 50 years 2,000 farms every week went under or were sold, their occupants moving to the cities.
Today those remaining on farms number less than 5 percent of the population, and
the other 95 percent require jobs that produce money in order to get their food.
Because of the loss of manufacturing jobs to southeast Asia and service jobs to
India and elsewhere there are simply not enough jobs available. The official unemployment
figures are in double digits, but the real figure counting all people who would
like to work if they could is more than 20% in America. That figure is similar
throughout the world.
Worldwide more than 50 percent of the people now live in
cities and the prediction is that by the year 2020, 90 percent of the people in
large metropolitan areas will be slum-dwellers. This is almost half of the
entire global population! By definition slum dwellers do not have sufficient earnings
with which to properly maintain themselves. Either they are wage slaves that
are forced to work long hours at wages insufficient to live on, or they have no
regular job. In either case they have no place that allows them to grow. Wage
slaves generally have no money and no time for anything else that might
contribute to their growth. And no job means no place, no place means anomie, which
means increased theft, crime, drug use, prostitution and suicide. This is what
is meant by nirvishesha and sunnyavadi, the voidism and
impersonalism of the Kali-yuga. What can we expect when half of humanity has no
place? It is a house of horror. This is seen as such a problem that there is
serious discussion at high levels of “culling” the human race to what is “needed,”
and eliminating the “useless eaters.” (This is actually not new. The ideas of
Thomas Malthus and eugenics have been around for several hundred years). These
problems could and should be fixed by society’s leader but the policies of
government only seem to make them worse.
Finding One’s Place in ISKCON
In the early days of Srila Prabhupada’s movement it was easy
to find one’s place in the society. Indeed, this was one of the features that
made ISKCON so attractive. Expansion was rapid and young people, or anybody
actually, could easily find a place to make their contribution, whatever that
was. Having a place and the opportunity to contribute to the effort gave the
devotees great joy that happiness was expressed on their faces in kirtan, on
harinam and in their service.
However, in ensuing years the social structure of the
movement changed. As the devotees married and began families there was no
longer suitable facility within the temples, and they were forced to live outside.
To pay for that, most, but not all, had to find their work outside the movement
as well. This generally resulted in not having close proximity to the temples,
which meant less association and less service. The result was predictable—unable
to maintain their active involvement in the movement these devotees no longer
had a place. They became the congregation: attending the Sunday program, kirtan
and taking prasadam, but that is not enough to have a place and a feeling of
contributing to the mission, and a feeling of belonging. This trend continued
through the 80s and ISKCON became like any other church, with majority of
devotees participating as the congregation. In the process ISKCON ceased to be a
counter-culture and had gone mainstream where life was compartmentalized—work
in this arena, social life here, family life there, and spiritual life over there...
Today the vast majority of devotees have never lived in a
temple, and never had the opportunity to engage cent per cent in temple
service, harinam and book distribution. This means that many of them have never
had the privilege to experience what it means to find their place exclusively
in Krishna consciousness. It is my experience, having been both part of the
congregation and on the inside, that spiritual progress is much easier and life
is much happier on the inside. We also observe that the devotees who are the
steadiest and strongest in their devotional service are those who have
full-time devotional service that provides for their maintenance, giving them a
place in all respects: the sannyasis, the leaders, the temple presidents,
pujaris, cooks, those working with translation and book production and
distribution, brahmacaris, etc. And even among these only a few are fortunate enough
to have a place inside the movement their entire lives. Unfortunately there is
limited engagement in the temple activities and many are forced to find a place
in the dominant culture. For them Krishna consciousness becomes another of
several other aspects of their life and may not be the most influential.
Place in Varnashrama Culture
The Vedic culture is created and arranged by what may be
called “higher authority.” That is, the Supreme Lord has not only given us this
world for our activities, but has also given instruction how we can live here
happily, having meaningful work, and growing throughout our lives. Through the
hierarchy of this world He has given these principles of living in the Codes of
Dharma, or dharma shastra. The codes
of dharma divide society into four working classes called varnas, and four
stages of life for spiritual purposes called ashrama. Each of these has their
specific obligations as well as defined relationships with the other sections.
This scientifically arranged society is designed to provide everyone a place
that will facilitate lifelong growth in all spheres of life.
In the varnashrama culture occupation is not simply a means
of obtaining as much money as possible, nor is it merely a haphazard job taken simply
for survival. The entire concept of varna is that work must be appropriate to
one’s nature, or guna and karma. Lord Krishna emphatically states in the
Bhagavad-gita that one must work according to their own nature and that it is
dangerous to do the work of others. (3.35, 18.47) Why dangerous? Because by doing inappropriate work and being
improperly situated we cannot fulfill the purpose of human life, which is to
grow.
There are four varnas—brahmana, ksatriya, vaisya and sudra,
or the priests and intellectuals, the political leaders, the organizers and producers
and the workers. All occupations in every human culture can be broadly
classified into one of these four. In the modern culture the relationship
between these four is determined by money almost exclusively, with
corresponding neglect of dharma, but in the varnashrama culture those
relationships are prescribed by the codes of dharma.
In regard to place the ksatriya has a very important role—he
is tasked with giving everyone a proper place in society—both in terms of
housing and work. For his exercise in caring for the citizens as if they were
his own children the ksatriya is considered the representative of the Lord. Not
only is it his duty to see that there is no unemployment in the varnashrama
culture, but everyone must also have work according to their nature. Hence
besides no unemployment there is not even any underemployment. In such a system job dissatisfaction would
approach zero percent.
Neither is there any homelessness in the varnashrama culture.
Everyone has a place to live, a place to work, and proper relationships with
others. This not only includes all human beings, but all species of life,
especially including the bulls and cows, domesticated animals who provide for
the needs of sustainable power and good nutrition.
Creating a Place for Everyone
We often repeat what one astrologer said of Srila
Prabhupada, that he created a house in which the whole world can live. This is
another way of saying that Srila Prabhupada arranged for everyone to have a
place from which they can grow. Everyone means not only the devotees of his
Movement, but all people of the world.
In his last days Srila Prabhupada spoke to Kuladri about
this:
Kuladri das: “I was
the temple president at New Vrindavan for so many years, and Prabhupada had a
vision for a pilgrimage site in North America and a farm community. So he never
emphasized book distribution to us. He explained to me, especially at the end
when I was with him in Bombay and in Vrindavan just before he left, that the
second half of his movement would be dramatically different than the first
half. The emergency tactics that he used to distribute books and give young
people sannyasa and open as many temples as possible would end. He wanted
places like New Vrindavan to establish the culture of Krishna consciousness
with colleges, grihastha lifestyle, all of the things to demonstrate the
philosophy that he was so careful to present in his books. So he right up to
the end he was telling me that the farm communities were so important for the
second half and the vision would be very different than when his movement got
started in the Western world.”
In my way of understanding this statement, Srila Prabhupada
was preparing us to lead a great social movement based on his teachings to give
a place to the millions of people that modern society discards like so much
rubbish. This is where I see the varnashrama culture playing a significant
role. If the world’s unfortunate people are to be saved it cannot be that we
simply help them find a place again in the same culture that spit them out.
There must be something different that will give them hope to have a meaningful
life, and a place from which to grow. That something different is the
sustainable village life where every person has a proper place to live, proper engagement,
and proper relationships.
On various occasions Srila Prabhupada instructed that the
householders should all live on the farms. Why? Because the village can provide
a proper place for everyone to live in the context of Krishna consciousness.
This is due to the fact that agriculture can provide an economic alternative to
the city job in an environment that supports Krishna consciousness, frees the
devotee from having to associate with non-devotees, and helps them to become
free from rajas and tamo-guna and established in goodness—an important step to
rising to suddha-sattva, the transcendental plane of existence. Moreover, the
village offers many different types of engagement and it is much easier to find
work that is according to one’s guna and karma. Although this instruction of
Srila Prabhupada has been neglected, the advantages of the village life remain.
Devotees who are struggling in the cities both with earning sufficient money
and in their spiritual lives may find it helpful to find a place in the
village.
The Result of Giving
the Bulls a Place
Not only does the village provide the devotee with the
necessities of life, but also provides the bull with much needed engagement.
The bull also is given a place in the spiritual culture, but he has also been
rejected from the atheistic, materialistic, dominant culture, and replaced by
oil-consuming machines that wreak havoc on the environment and our sanity. At
our Gitagrad community in Lithuania, New Gaudadesha, Bhakta Petras has taken up
the care and engagement of the bulls. I asked him what he had learned while he
was training them. His reply was profound, indicating that all of human society
will benefit greatly by again giving the bull a place in society. Bhakta Petras
replied that from the bull he has learned:
- They do not learn quickly; one
must go slow as they learn slowly day-by-day
- Therefore great patience is
required. A local man told Petras early on that he would have to be
patient, but that man himself did not even know how patient one must be. Researching Srila Prabhupada’s book
Petras found that that patience is the most important quality and the
mother of all other virtues.
- As you are training them,
they are also teaching you.
- Because they are very
regulated in their actions, they force you to be regulated in yours.
- The bull teaches you sattva;
he is an animal of a sattva nature, and he will not go to rajas—you cannot
make him get passionate. Instead, you yourself must come to sattva if you
want to work with him—he will thus force you to come to sattva.
- Working with the bull may be
compared to working with children or women, in that, if you get angry with
them they will refuse to cooperate with you. If you are calm and
reasonable they will work with you.
- Rajo-guna (increasing speed)
and tamo-guna (negative reinforcement—hitting them) does not work with
these animals.
- Petras recently read from
very old records how if a person had been drinking and the bulls smell
that they will refuse to work with the man. Indeed, they will even try to
gore him. They don’t want to associate with such people in the lower modes
of nature.
- The bulls and man are a team;
they work together. Unlike driving a car or tractor, where the driver
simply controls the machine. With the bulls one must learn to cooperate
and work as a team.
- There is mutual dependency
between the bulls and the teamster; the bulls depend on the man to feed
and care for them, and the man depends on the bulls to provide necessary
power for accomplishing things.
Petras’ comments gave me many realizations. The first is
that Petras himself is not just training the bulls, but they are also training
him. By his effort he is receiving valuable personal training in sattvic
qualities, conditioning him to sattva-guna. Such training is difficult to come
by in a world that is driven by passion and ignorance. Srila Prabhupada has
taught us that we must come to the platform of sattva before we can progress to
suddha-sattva, or the transcendental plane. How valuable are the cow and the
bull to help us stay fixed in sattva-guna.
I also realized how our dependence on the cow and the bull
teaches the entire human society sattva, and keeps them in sattva. Having
abandoned the bull we have lost our tether to sattva and are the entire human
race is drifting inexorably to rajas and tamo-guna, with the attendant terrible
consequences that we are now beginning to reap, economically, socially,
politically, etc.
Next I realized that the reason that Petras has had so many
wonderful realizations because he made room for, and a commitment to Dharma
(the bulls) in his life. He gave the bulls a place in his world. Giving them a
place means giving them a duty, and that is the birth of yajna (yajna is born
of prescribed duties). Only interested in what they can take from others, modern man does not realize what the cow and bull
have to give to us. Neither does
modern man understand sattva-guna or the tremendous benefits that accrue to
society as a whole by giving these animals their place in human society.
Indeed, that is the case with all living beings in this world since, Om purnam ada purnam idam, this world is
perfectly equipped as a complete whole and every thing and every living thing
has its place.
Modern man instead thinks he can do better by killing the
bull and exploiting the cow for milk and the earth for oil. There is a very old
bull at New Gaudadesh, Nandi. The neighbors ask why we bother to keep an old
bull. They tell us we should kill him. Such an impoverished mentality of
selfishness denying this living entity his place does not allow them to
recognize the value of the bull, dharma, or reap the benefits of associating
with these wonderful animals.
We Are Missing Parts
of the Social Machine
All devotees, but the brahmanas and ksatriyas in particular are
meant to be the leaders of society meaning that they are concerned with the
welfare of others, particularly those who are suffering:
çiväya lokasya bhaväya bhütaye ya
uttama-çloka-paräyaëä janäù
jivanti nätmärtham asau paräçrayaà mumoca nirvidya
kutaù kalevaram
Those who are devoted to the cause of the Personality of
Godhead live only for the welfare, development and happiness of others. They do
not live for any selfish interest. (S.B. 1.4.12)
To this end Srila Prabhupada had wanted his followers,
engaging what he taught them, to correct the defects of modern civilization by
establishing daiva-varnashrama, or the divine culture of Krishna consciousness.
This daiva-varnashrama culture can give everyone a place to grow and so doing cure
all of the ills of today’s society.
What is greatly needed now are men of ksatriya and vaisya natures
to take their proper place in the spiritual society, for they are essential to make
the whole scheme work. The ksatriyas and vaisyas must perform their dharma as
given by Sri Krishna in the Gita and dharma shastra. For the ksatriya this
means they must establish and take care of a village and provide a place for
the praja and insure that they have work according to their nature. And the vaisyas
are needed to organize the practical activity of day-to-day life to see that
people have food to eat, clothes to wear and the other necessities of life.
This is their dharma. Where are they? Why are they not doing their duty? Unless
and until these qualified men take up their dharma this Krishna consciousness
movement will not be able to show the way out of the darkness of the modern
materialistic way of living. People today are becoming increasingly confused by
the economic and political changes and are looking for leadership. The needed
concepts are given in Srila Prabhupada’s teachings, but unless we put them to
practice they remain nothing more than the study of an earlier grand culture
that has seen its day and remains lost in a bygone era, and this Krishna
Consciousness movement will have missed its calling of showing the way out of
the darkness of nescience in this time of great adversity.
I hope that this has helped you appreciate what place
means in the life of any person and the necessity of establishing the divine
varnashrama culture to once again provide a place for everyone. I encourage all
devotees to cooperate together to create healing communities for the benefit of
all the devotees, as well as all the people of this world.
Posts
