In2-MeC

Wroclaw, Poland
13 October 2003

Today I will discuss "revolutionary morality. " This is a sort of continuation of yesterday's In2-MeC entry, which was about the Jekyll-Hyde duality of the Persona and the Shadow.

Every human being has a Shadow ego, which is hidden from society and even mostly hidden from one's own self. Within that shadow lurk desires that are an embarrassment to the Persona, the public ego. The Persona tries to enact the moral individual that society expects each of us to be. But the Persona is troubled by the Shadow, who taps the Persona on the shoulder to remind him that the act he is making is not the truth.

In the Western world a concept of "revolutionary morality" has come into being within the last two centuries. I will let Arthur Koestler explain it. This quotation is from his article in the book entitled The God That Failed, published in 1949. He is decribing the moral code of the Communist Party.

. . . bourgeois morality was a Bad Thing. But promiscuity was an equally Bad Thing, and the only correct, concrete attitude towards the sexual urge was Proletarian Morality. This consisted of getting married, being faithful to one's spouse, and producing proletarian babies. But then, was that not the same thing as bourgeois morality?

"The question, Comrade, shows that you are thinking in mechanistic, not in dialectical, terms. What is the difference between a gun in the hands of a policeman and a gun in the hands of a member of the revolutionary working class? The difference between a gun in the hands of a policeman and in the hands of a member of the revolutionary working class is that the policeman is a lackey of the ruling class and his gun is an instrument of oppression, whereas the same gun in the hands of a member of the revolutionary working class is an instrument of the liberation of the oppressed masses. Now the same is true of the difference between so-called bourgeois 'morality' and Proletarian Morality. The institution of marriage which in capitalist society is an aspect of bourgeois decay, is dialectically transformed in its function in a healthy proletarian society. Have you understood, Comrade, or shall I repeat my answer in more concrete terms?"

ISKCON devotees sometimes slip into similar revolutionary jargon when discussing moral questions. Instead of the word "dialetical", we use the word "transcendental. " We say the karmis engage in duties impelled by the mechanistic logic of karma, but the devotees are free of karma. Still, following Transcendental Morality, the devotees perform duties that may be externally indistinguishable from the duties of the karmis. But these duties are transcendentally transformed because we do them for Krsna. Such duties become yukta-vairagya, or renunciation of material things by engaging them in Krsna's service.

But sometimes the yukta-vairagya argument is used to justify nonsense. One ISKCON leader famously used it for giving up Krsna consciousness altogether.

What I wish to focus on here is that one can fall into a trap by relying on stock phrases, not considering what the words he is using really mean. This trap can easily catch people of the "revolutionary" mind-set. Because they are revolutionary, they think it's OK to not adhere closely to traditional definitions. Their intelligence (i. e. their line of discrimination) becomes dizzy, moving to and fro at a moment's notice. It is an interesting way to come to the demoniac conclusion that there is no permanent reality (asatyam apratistham). Reality becomes the strategy of the moment; it has no fixed position. In the article I quoted from above, Koester traces out how revolutionary morality put the Communists into grave danger.

In 1931, Koestler was a newpaper reporter in Berlin for the Ullstein chain of newspapers. He was also secretly a member of the KPD, the German Communist Party. He would feed news tips that he'd get as an Ullstein reporter to the Rote Fahne (Red Flag), the Communist newspaper. At this time the Communist parties of the West were directed by Josef Stalin in Moscow. Stalin bitterly hated the Socialists, who considered themselves Marxists but refused to follow Moscow's direction. Thus under Stalin's orders, the KPD was completely at odds with the SPD, the Socialist party of Germany. In 1931 the Socialist party was in power in Prussia, the eastern portion of Germany that included Berlin. The Nazi Party was also coming up in Germany at this time, but the Communists saw Hitler's Brownshirts as the lesser enemy. The editorial policy of the Rote Fahne was to depict the Socialist government of Prussia as being tolerant of and lending assistance to the Nazis. One day Koester learned that the Prussian police would raid the Nazi headquarters the next day to seize weapons and archives, and to arrest anyone wearing a Brownshirt uniform. He passed the tip onward to the staff of the Rote Fahne.

The next day the police action took place exactly as Koestler had been told that it would. All the regular newspapers were discussing the open conflict between the Socialists and the Nazis. But the headline of the Rote Fahne announced that the SPD was, as usual, tolerating the Nazis. This, naturally, made the Communists look rather foolish.

Koestler asked Edgar, his "authority" (in the same sense as we use the word in ISKCON: "I'll have to ask my authority, Prabhu") in the KPD, why the Rote Fahne had not commented correctly on the police raid. Edgar replied that the KPD's policy toward the Socialists was a long-term program that could not be reversed by a small incident.

"But every word on the front page of the Rote Fahne is contradicted by the facts," I objected. Edgar gave me a tolerant smile. "You still have the mechanistic outlook," he said, and then proceeded to give me a dialectical interpretation of the facts. The action of the police was merely a feint to cover up their complicity; even if some Socialist leaders were subjectively anti-Fascist in their outlook, objectively the Socialist Party was a tool of Nazism; in fact the Socialists were the main enemy, for they had split the working class. Already convinced, I objected--to save my face--that after all it was the Communist Party which had split away from the Socialists in 1919. "That's the mechanistic outlook again," said Edgar. " Formally we were in the minority, but it was we who embodied the revolutionary mission of the Proletariat; by refusing to follow our lead, the Socialist leaders split the working class and became lackeys of the reaction. "

Gradually I learned to distrust my mechanistic preoccupation with facts and to regard the world around me in the light of dialectic interpretation. It was a satisfactory and indeed blissful state; one you had assimilated the technique you were no longer disturbed by facts; they automatically took on the proper color and fell into the proper place. Both morally and logically the Party was infallible. . .

Moscow had decreed that Communism would come to power in Germany by 1932. To that end, the Communist Party and the Nazis began to cooperate against the Socialists. But the actual outcome of this cooperation was that in 1933 the Nazis came to power and liquidated the Communist Party in Germany. A few years later, just before the outbreak of the Second World War, the Soviets signed a treaty with Nazi Germany called the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. The Soviet government was anxious not to offend the Germans, so by signing this treaty it practically abandoned the remaining German communists who were hiding underground.

All right, so these are interesting lessons of history, but what do these lessons have to do with Krsna consciousness? Well, as I stated earlier, there is a danger in surrendering one's intelligence (i. e. discrimination) to revolutionary jargon. The word jargon is defined so in the dictionary:

1. Nonsensical, incoherent, or meaningless talk. 2. A hybrid language or dialect; a pidgin. 3. The specialized or technical language of a trade, profession, or similar group.

By the word jargon, I am mostly referring to definition 3. In ISKCON, we have words like "transcendental", "engaged", "dovetailed", and so on that we use in a specialized manner. Such words could be called "ISKCON jargon. " But the first definition also plays a part when the specialized language of a group becomes separated from reality. Now, what do I mean by reality? Words have their material definitions that are accepted by people in conditioned consciousness. That is one kind of reality: a lower, conventional reality. The Vedantic term for this is vyavahara. The higher reality, in which words find their definitions in spiritual truths, is paramartha. The danger of jargon is that words take on meanings that are in fact disconnected from both vyavahara and paramartha.

yathasatodanayanadya bhavat
samula isto vyavahara-margah

A waterpot is made of earth and is temporary. Actually there is no waterpot; there is simply earth. However, as long as the waterpot can contain water, we can use it in that way. It cannot be said to be absolutely false. (From Bhag. 5. 10. 22 and Purport)

The paramartha reality is that the earth or clay of a waterpot belongs to the totality of earth. Thus it is false to argue that the earthen pot is different from the earth itself. The vyavahara reality is that the waterpot is useful in holding water. Thus it is false to argue that the waterpot, as a thing separate from the earth, has no reality at all, just as it is false to argue that the waterpot has its own reality completely different from the earth. Notice that the false arguments fall inbetween the two realms of truth, connected to neither.

"Revolutionary jargon" is that use of words that tries too hard to be revolutionary, to be different, to be unique. For example, someone may argue that devotees should not worry about the moral codes of the karmis because devotees are transcendental. When it is pointed out that acaryas have given us moral codes by their own example, the revolutionary may switch to this argument: "But we can't imitate, Prabhu. We have to be practical. " Thus the line of discrimination in revolutionary jargon is "wavering dizzily", to use a phrase of Koestler's.

In Krsna consciousness, the proper line of discrimination separates subjective impressions from objective reality. I thought it might be useful to quote Koestler above so that we might see that others, like the Communists, also distrust subjective impressions. A subjective impression is how a thing looks to you, the individual. For example, suppose you've gone to visit the home of another devotee. Just after you arrive there that devotee gets a phone call. "I have to go out for 10 minutes," the devotee tells you. "Just wait here til I return. " During that time you look around the house. You find in the kitchen a freshly baked cake. Your subjective impression is that this cake would be very good to eat. But you do not know if it has been offered or not. If it isn't offered, then it is not good to be thinking about how the cake must taste. The answer to the question, "Is this cake offered?", belongs to objective reality. You can't know that answer on your own. In this way, the philosophy and values of Krsna consciousness oblige us to be distrustful of subjective impressions, and to look to others with superior knowledge for learning what the objective reality is.

This is a simple explanation. But life is never so simple. Often our subjective impressions are in natural agreement with objective reality. For example, it is a natural human response to be disgusted by stool. One does not have to be initiated by a spiritual master and to have studied the sastra to know that stool should not be eaten. But then again, we have the case of cow dung, which sastra says is pure. Some devotees even use a toothpaste made of cow dung. From the platform of higher discrimination, there's nothing wrong with that, even though our subjective impression would be that it's disgusting.

We may say at this point, "All right. Then proper discrimination means that we shall not trust what our senses tell us, we shall trust only what the Vedas tell us. " But remember that the acarya sometimes bends Vedic principles to fit them to relative circumstances. Speaking in a Srimad-Bhagavatam lecture in 1968, Srila Prabhupada said:

Chant Hare Krsna and gradually realize. So at the present moment we cannot strictly follow; neither we are strictly following; neither it is possible to strictly follow. As far as possible, that's all. Our conception of brahmacarini is in the Krsna society, because. . . Especially in India, there is no brahmacarini. But here, in your country, the boys and girls mix very freely, but just to restrict such free mixing, we think that the unmarried girls should remain separately. That is the contemplation. Actually, in the Vedic system there is no brahmacarini system. Or get yourself married. That is our proposal, that we do not allow illicit sex life. That is impediment. That will not enhance your spiritual interests.

We learn here that Srila Prabhupada created a brahmacarini-asrama for ISKCON when in fact it does not exist in Vedic culture. His goal was to prevent the illicit sex that is common in Western culture where unmarried men and women mix freely. It was not feasible to match up all his female disciples in marriages with male disciples. Thus he devised the brahmacarini-asrama to keep the women who could not or would not be married from close contact with males. In this case, one Vedic truth--that there is no such thing as a brahmacarini-asrama--was given up for the sake of another Vedic truth--that illicit sex is contrary to the spiritual interests of the soul.

Sometimes we become a bit bewildered by these adjustments. It may seem tempting to just conclude that Srila Prabhupada's was a "revolutionary" and therefore he did whatever he liked. It's quite OK for him to do what he liked because he is Srila Prabhupada. On the other side of the coin, Srila Prabhupada was criticized by his Godbrothers for the same thing--being "too revolutionary"-- and so authorizing things like a brahmacarini-asrama that are in conflict with Vedic culture.

But Srila Prabhupada was not being revolutionary for revolution's sake. For example, in authorizing a brahmacarini-asrama his aim was to uphold the Vedic purpose: that illicit sex must be stopped. To authorize a thing that is different from the norm just to be different is demonic. "The demigods are devotees of Lord Visnu (visnu-bhaktah smrto daiva), whereas the demons (asuras tad-viparyayah) are always against the visnu-bhaktas, or Vaisnavas. " (Bhag. 6. 7. 39p) The word viparyaya means "reversed. " The demons do things that are reversed from the demigods because they just want to be different.

So, getting back to the point of revolutionary jargon: one has to careful that he is not hypnotized by the call to revolution, to merely being different from the norm. A great saintly person may make a change in some rigid scriptural standard so that he may deliver souls who are too fallen to follow that standard strictly; but we should not think that his one change is an invitation for us to make "radical," "revolutionary" changes.

And they'll give example, "Christ ate fish" somewhere; therefore we have to maintain the slaughterhouse. Because Christ ate fish, therefore we have to maintain slaughterhouse. (Conversation, 2 July 1976)

I want to look once more at something Koestler said that was quoted above:

What is the difference between a gun in the hands of a policeman and a gun in the hands of a member of the revolutionary working class? The difference between a gun in the hands of a policeman and in the hands of a member of the revolutionary working class is that the policeman is a lackey of the ruling class and his gun is an instrument of oppression, whereas the same gun in the hands of a member of the revolutionary working class is an instrument of the liberation of the oppressed masses.

A gun is a deadly weapon. It is no less a deadly weapon in the hands of a policeman, a criminal, or a revolutionary. The danger of the above argument, which Koestler took from the mouth of a doctrinaire Communist, is that it persuades one who is not thinking carefully to conclude that a gun in the hands of a revolutionary is no longer a deadly weapon, a potential destroyer of innocent life.

This means that the argument neither fits the paramartha truth nor the vyavahara truth. The paramartha truth is, as we see in Gita, that no weapon can kill the soul. The vyavahara truth is that a weapon is dangerous because it can take the life from a body. The revolutionary argument is that when a gun is held in the hand of a policeman, it is a danger to life, but when it is held in the hand of a revolutionary, it is an instrument of liberation. Now, a gun certainly may be used for a good cause: to defend oneself from six kinds of aggressors, for example. But that good use does not change the fact that a gun is a deadly weapon that one has to be very careful of.

The revolutionary argument generates a false conception of objective reality; consequently, a false subjective impression of reality must also be created along with it. To argue that a gun is no longer a deadly weapon but an instrument of liberation is to create a false objective reality. What follows that is the false subjective impression that killing another person is a satisfying experience, something to be enjoyed. . . as long as the killing is for liberation.

suta uvaca
iti bhitah praja-drohat
sarva-dharma-vivitsaya
tato vinasanam pragad
yatra deva-vrato'patat

Suta Gosvami said: Being afraid for having killed so many subjects on the Battlefield of Kuruksetra, Maharaja Yudhisthira went to the scene of the massacre. There, Bhismadeva was lying on a bed of arrows, about to pass away.

Prabhupada: So the most important point is that the king was, he so responsible, he became afraid, that "I have killed so many praja. " Praja. It is not said there, "human being. " No. Praja.

Praja means the living entities that have taken birth in the domain of the responsible person, the king or other administrator. Maharaja Yudhisthira and his brothers were not at fault for having defended themselves with weapons at Kuruksetra. But Yudhisthira did not exult in the death of so many soliders and animals on that great field of battle. He felt soiled by pollution and sought a way to be cleansed of sin. That is why he came before Bhismadeva, who was lying on a bed of arrows.

The revolutionary becomes intoxicated by his justification of killing as a good thing. He goes from thinking "Killing is good" to thinking "Enjoyment of killing is likewise good. " But Maharaja Yudhisthira thought, "While killing may be necessary, it is not good. " In this way there was no scope for him to think, "Enjoyment of killing is good. "

The urge to kill is a desire of the Shadow that must be sublimated. When ksatriyas fought, they could release this desire in a manner that did not contradict dharma (moral and religious life). Saintly persons among the ksatriyas, like Maharaja Yudhisthira, did not exult when an opportunity for killing presented itself. They performed their duty soberly.

Devotees in the present-day sankirtana mission also have a kind of killing to do. They are deputed to kill the demoniac mentality by preaching Krsna consciousness. There is a joy in preaching, and a joy in watching a conditioned soul give up his material convictions and surrender to Krsna. But a preacher must be careful about exulting as he dismantles the ideology of materialism. The demons enjoy destroying the establishment. But they are unable to construct anything of real value in place of what they tear down.

The Russian Czar Nicholas II and his family were killed by drunken Bolsheviks--but for what? The Communist thought they were justified by revolutionary morality to commit these and many millions of other murders. But they had no means of elevating the moral standards of the population. Communism came to be known as one of the most morally corrupt systems of government in the history of the Western world.

Psychologically speaking, what the Communist revolution was all about was the releasing of pent-up forbidden desires (for murder, robbery, rape and destruction) from the Shadow into the Persona. "Revolutionary morality" made it possible for a person to commit terrible crimes in the name of liberation of the oppressed masses. Yet this did not in fact liberate the masses. The revolution was just a convulsion of demoniac sense gratification.

Krsna consciousness is not a license to enjoy killing, or to enjoy destroying traditional morality. Morality always has the same final goal: to curb down the propensity for sense gratification, which is extremely dangerous to the real welfare of the living entities. Moral systems, even the most genuine ones, do in time become corrupt. Therefore, as Krsna Himself says in Gita 4. 7, He comes from time to time to restore dharma. That restoration may seem to be revolutionary; but bhakti-yoga is not a "revolutionary morality" that has a some completely new, completely different purpose from the previously established morality. It is not that by "becoming a devotee" (i. e. by putting tilaka on the forehead and wearing kantha-mala around the neck) that suddenly one becomes a New Man or New Woman who has no personal need of following moral codes any more. (The Communists used to speak of the New Soviet Man, Homo sovieticus. ) It is not that Krsna conscious morality is a revolutionary stratagem that can be changed at whim. It can be changed to fit time, place and circumstances. . . but not in blatant contradiction to the objective reality, the Absolute Truth. Krsna affirms in the Gita, for example in 7. 14, that maya is formidable, not to be trifled with. One can cross beyond it only by surrendering to Him. Surrender to Krsna is the actual aim of morality, religion, law, and all methods of disciplining the self.

vasudeva-para veda
vasudeva-para makhah
vasudeva-para yoga
vasudeva-parah kriyah

vasudeva-param jnanam
vasudeva-param tapah
vasudeva-paro dharmo
vasudeva-para gatih

In the revealed scriptures, the ultimate object of knowledge is Sri Krsna, the Personality of Godhead. The purpose of performing sacrifice is to please Him. Yoga is for realizing Him. All fruitive activities are ultimately rewarded by Him only. He is supreme knowledge, and all severe austerities are performed to know Him. Religion [dharma] is rendering loving service unto Him. He is the supreme goal of life. (Bhag. 1. 2. 28-29)

Thus Lord Krsna is the ultimate purpose of moral principles. Thus morality is not just a game of words, a strategy of justification. It has a permanent basis that is evident in the behavior of a truly God conscious person.

A devotee sees any system of established morality as indicating the authority of Lord Vasudeva, even if the moral codes are technically "non-Vedic. "

Sanatana Gosvami wanted to resign. He wanted to join Caitanya Mahaprabhu's movement. So when the Nawab understood that Sanatana Gosvami. . . His name was Dabir Khas. He changed his name. So he said, "No, you cannot resign. Then my whole kingdom will be topsy-turvied. I completely depend, dependent on you. " So Sanatana Gosvami said, "My, Your Majesty, I am no more able to serve you. Kindly excuse me. " Then the Nawab said that "Then I shall punish you. I am Nawab. I am king. " So Sanatana Gosvami said, "Yes, you can punish me because you are representative of God. " He never protested "Oh, you are Mohammedan, I am this, Hindu or. . . " No. He accepted him, that "You can punish me. " So the idea is that formerly the monarch, the king, was actually representative of God. (Lecture in Ahmedabad, 11 December 1972)

The "revolutionary" argument would be that the Nawab is a Muslim, thus he has no rightful authority over a devotee of Krsna. The devotee, on the other hand, has a right to defy the Nawab. For the time being he may appear to follow the laws of the Nawab, but that is only a strategy. In point of fact, the devotee is ever opposed to the non-devotee establishment, and works to overthrow it by any means necessary.

But as we see from Srila Prabhupada's explanation, this was not the attitude of Sri Sanatana Gosvami. Nor did Sanatana Gosvami surrender to the Nawab's desire that he continue on in government service. Sanatana Gosvami found it impossible to go on serving the Nawab, but he acknowledged the Nawab's authority. Thus he did not resent the Muslim king's placing him under house arrest. He depended upon Krsna to decide the issue.

In short, Sri Sanatana Gosvami was not a "revolutionary. "

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