AN ALTERNATIVE SOCIETY
As a young man Bhaktivedanta Swami was a keen supporter of Gandhi. He admired his idealism and shared his belief that India had the potential to offer something of immense importance to the world, but that in order to fulfil that potential she must first gain her independence from the British.
He was born in a middle-class family in Calcutta in 1896 and received a Western-influenced education finishing at the Scottish Churches College. When the time came to sit his exams, however, he responded to Gandhi's call to boycott the colleges and refused to write anything, joining his fellow-students in the demand for 'Swaraj!', self-rule for India.
He was not a conformist and was always prepared to stand up for his principles. When, at the age of twenty-two, he met the outspoken religious teacher Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati, the man who was to be his guru, he argued with him that now was not the time for religious reform - the priority was to get rid of the British; only then could India have her self-respect in the world. Saraswati, however, convinced him that society's spiritual needs were too urgent to take second place to politics. If the spiritual goal of life could be established, and the rise of materialism turned back, then everything else would follow. Bhaktivedanta was convinced, and this conviction formed the basis for the rest of his life.
Through his guru he was initiated into the Vaishnava tradition of Bengal, centred on devotion to Krishna. The principal historical figure in that tradition was Chaitanya, the fifteenth-century religious reformer. Chaitanya taught that love of God was the universal religion regardless of caste, creed or race. Rejecting the conservative and privileged outlook of the caste brahmanas who dominated Hinduism at the time, Chaitanya travelled all over India, taking religion out onto the street and to the people. Influenced by Chaitanya's spirit of reform and adventure, Bhaktivedanta decided to dedicate his life to presenting the teachings of the Krishna tradition to the Western world. He had been taught to speak and write English by the British rulers of India, and he had been schooled in Western ways in Calcutta, still the second city of the British Empire during his youth. His guru, on the eve of departing this world, blessed him, full of hope, saying, "Teach Krishna consciousness to the English-speaking peoples of the world. That will do good for you and for those who hear you."
In 1965, at the age of seventy, after a lifetime's preparation, Bhaktivedanta finally left India's shores on his lone mission to the West. He was penniless but someone gave him free passage on board a cargo steamer. He chose to go first to America, where he considered his message was most urgently needed. Few would have expected him to achieve much. The odds against him were too great. He was old. He was alone. He knew practically nothing of the West. His message was too spiritual. He would be asking people to give up materialism - which in his book included intoxication, meat-eating and illicit sex - and dedicate themselves to serving Krishna. How could Americans agree to abandon their hard-won lifestyle and worship a god they had never heard of before? Why would anyone listen to him?
But they did - especially the young people in New York and San Francisco. One reason for this was his own complete conviction in what he had to say, and his faultless practice of what he preached. His sheer warmth of personality and strength of character also attracted many to him. Another compelling reason to take his words seriously was that he spoke with such a sense of urgency and addressed the problem that was uppermost in the minds of many of the young generation - the overwhelming materialism of the Western way of life. To those who cared to listen, Bhaktivedanta had a challenging message. He condemned materialism and proposed a spiritual way of life based on simplicity and devotion to God. It seems appropriate to end this book with his ideas, because, addressed to the world as it entered the current period of crisis, they encapsulate the true teachings of the Vedic tradition on the nature of the relationship between human beings and their environment. Few among the twentieth-century teachers of Hinduism, either before or since, have presented them in such a straightforward and uncompromising spirit.
Bhaktivedanta believed that nature could provide humanity with all its needs if only we would live more simply. He regarded industry as unnecessary; it disturbed the balance of peaceful life:
These words, written in 1962, before the modern environmental crisis had become generally apparent, foresaw the consequences of exploiting nature's resources. According to Bhaktivedanta modern industry was a source of evil. It polluted the atmosphere and promoted inequality, injustice and poverty. In particular, it deprived the people working in it of the natural beauty of God's world which could help them to develop their finer spiritual instincts, which Bhaktivedanta saw as the greatest need in human society:
Prosperity in human society, Bhaktivedanta taught, depended ultimately on receiving the blessings of God:
Bhaktivedanta saw our relationship with God, nature and other creatures in an intensely personal way. God was our father, nature our mother, and other creatures our younger brothers and sisters. It was our responsibility to the rest of the family not to create chaos by our own greed:
Modern technology was an instrument of exploitation and disaster. "In modern civilization," he wrote, "on account of too many machines there are so many unemployed people. Technology is not freedom, rather, it is a free way to hell. This factory system is most demoniac. It is not required at all. For the interests of a few persons this device has been invented. The discovery of nuclear energy has been disastrous to people in general because demons all over the world are manufacturing nuclear weapons. Demoniac persons act in such a way that ultimately their discoveries will be inauspicious for everyone."
However, he was not so impractical as to expect the world to immediately renounce technology. Therefore, in accord with the philosophy of devotional service to God, he recommended that if it must be used, it should be used for the right purpose. In the absolute sense a machine was neither good nor bad. The way it was used was what mattered:
Bhaktivedanta's alternative vision of how human society ought to live could be summed up with the twin concept of protection of brahmanas and protection of cows. Brahmanas are the spiritual teachers of society. Vedic culture teaches that society must give protection and support to them so that they can carry on their most important function - to guide people on the spiritual path. Without proper guidance and instruction from religious teachers, (who must have no professional motivation) people will naturally be misled. So much energy is put into modern education even though it has no spiritual dimension. Bhaktivedanta believed that the most important education was the spiritual one; other forms of education were only valuable if they were related to it.
To ensure spiritual well-being, brahmanas must be protected, and to ensure material well-being, cows must be protected. In a simple agrarian society it is easy to see the value of cow protection. The cow eats grass which humans cannot eat, and turns it into the 'miracle food' of milk, which is versatile and full of nutrition. From milk comes yoghurt, cheese, butter and ghee (butter-oil). In return for her milk, the cow is protected and cared for as a member of the community, and she and the bull are never slaughtered. The bull cannot give milk, but he can be just as valuable because he likes to work hard in the fields, ploughing, grinding and pulling carts. While the bull helps to produce grains and vegetables, the cow gives milk. Milk products combined with grains and vegetables produce the perfect balanced human diet. The protection of the cow and the bull is therefore the basis for a simple and prosperous life:
To protect the cow is more than good economics, it is a matter of principle. In the Vedic tradition she is one of the seven mothers: the real mother, the wife of the spiritual master, the wife of a brahmana, the wife of the king, the nurse, the earth and the cow. All of them should be respected and cared for. Bhaktivedanta explains our moral obligation:
It is a tragedy that modern society does not appreciate the significance of caring for cows and bulls, but instead exploits and kills them:
Nowadays there are many countries whose economy is based on animal slaughter, and the eating of meat is taken for granted as civilized human behaviour. Despite today's trend towards vegetarianism, such a diet is still regarded as extreme and unreasonable by the majority. Bhaktivedanta saw it the other way. Quoting from the Manu-Smriti, the basic law-book of Hinduism, he writes:
The karmic result of indiscriminate slaughter of animals, warned Bhaktivedanta, would be continued suffering in human society:
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As is clear from all the above, Bhaktivedanta's concept of human life was very different from that of Western civilization. Some would find his judgements harsh and his prescriptions extreme. However, no one can deny that today's world is desperately in need of some extreme medicine if we are to survive the crisis we face. Taken in the context of that crisis, and placed alongside the opinions of environmentalists and alternative thinkers the world over, his statements are not so extreme and deserve to be taken seriously.
The last twelve years of his life, from 1965 to 1977, were spent ceaselessly travelling the world, broadcasting his message to anyone who would listen. During this time he established the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, dedicated to practising and spreading the message of Krishna. He gained many followers and initiated over 8,000 disciples. To them he was known as Prabhupada, 'master among masters'. He founded twelve rural communities in Europe, North America and India where the way of life he taught could be demonstrated. In 1976 he wrote to one such community:
Om Tat Sat