Faculty Lecture at Ambrose Ali University, Ekpoma, Nigeria, by Bhakti Vasudeva Swami. Delivered in June 2010

First, I thank the Vice Chancellor of this university for giving us the opportunity to be able to meet with all of you!  Second, I would like to thank the Dean of the Faculty of Arts for creating an avenue where we could have a rapport with all of you, and of course, I will have to thank all of you and members of staff of the Faculty of Arts for creating this congenial atmosphere for this philosophical and spiritual interaction.

[Applause.]

As you are aware, I am a son of the soil, although I appear in these “abnormal” saffron robes.

As we start this spiritual discussion – I call it a discussion because I am not about to download some audio file or talk from my encephalon to my philosophical audience – there is going to be a lot of interaction, but listen and talk with your ears so that you will be able to hear me and benefit optimally from our discussion.

So, oriental philosophy is something very much in vogue in our modern education system, especially in the departments of philosophy and of course religion.  For this study, people know of oriental philosophy, but in most cases, they don’t know the details of oriental philosophy.  And in some cases, it is just a matter of mismatch or “Yatha matha tatha patha” – anything goes.  The term I just used is “yatha-matha tatha-patha” – it simply means any part you take or follow is okay.  Learning itself is structured, and teaching in our universities is highly structured.  Thus, in all fields, there is a step down system, there are preceptors involved, and there is development.  Since time immemorial, specialists in that area of oriental philosophy have been inundating the world with transcendental knowledge.

First, if you want to define something about your future, you have to define something about yourself.  If you don’t understand why you have come to this university, then you would be miscuing, and you would be misled by the socio-environmental factors; there is so much propensity, so much room to forget why you have come to this campus, because there are so many facilities for gratification of your sensory modalities, and the ordinary student would get ensnarled – would get carried away.  After your four years of study, your parents are not going to ask you how much enjoyment you participated in; they would ask you, “where is your certificate?”  “What is your class: first class, second class, third class?”  They wouldn’t ask you anything besides these.  So, the essence of our being, our existence, is the pivot of oriental philosophy.

First, I would like us to know about our pristine identity; oriental philosophy is about our true identity. Who are we?  Oriental philosophy asks the question of whether we are this physical body only; are we made up of earth, water, fire, air, ether, mind, intelligence and false ego? This body is made up of two jackets: the first jacket is made up of earth, water, fire, air, and ether; and the second body is made up of mind, intelligence, and false ego.  These are the eight elements that make up the body, whether the body is male or female.  It is just a matter of different types of jacket; the male body is one type of jacket, and the female body is another type of jacket.  On this planet, you are either male or female.  The point is that we are not this body; this is the primary understanding in oriental philosophy, and we do have our testimony about this.  We have lots of senses, and a number of people worship the senses. The senses we have can actually mislead us.  Take for instance the mind: if we don’t understand the difference between our mind – our material mind – and our real self, we could be carried away by the impulse of the mind.  Take for instance, we are misled by celebrities. I myself was misled by a celebrity in the past, and his name is Jimmy Cliff.  Jimmy Cliff sang in a musical album years back, “if I follow my mind…”; he was actually talking about the philosophy that, “if I follow my mind, I will never go wrong.”  But oriental philosophy has brought some limelight to this thesis, because if I follow my mind, I will always go wrong.

If you see a beautiful girl and you follow your mind, you will get into trouble and the likelihood of going to jail is high.  Therefore, if you follow your mind, you will always go wrong.  As humans, we are the seeker of who we are by controlling the mind, and if we don’t do that, we would end up living an animalistic life.

We do have desires, but these desires may not be in consonance with our academic, cultural, and economic pursuits.  If we don’t act in consonance with the essence of our academic goals, we would actually be misled by the imports of the senses, and the mind.  Therefore, oriental philosophy’s basic theme is that we are not this body, made up of different elements; but we are spirit souls, and that spirit has basic characteristic features, and one is that the spirit is ever blissful, full of knowledge, the spirit is eternal; that means the spirit has to be engaged in activities that would enable its consciousness of these traits.  Therefore, we should ask the question, who am I?  Where am I coming from?  How did I get here?  The Vedanta, or the literature that encompasses oriental philosophy, teaches that we are all parts and parcels of the Supreme Being, and this same Supreme is present in this body; this is the rudiment before we bring to bear how to apply spiritual solutions to global problems.  This Supreme Being could be realized whether you call Him Jehovah, Allah, Olorun, Chineke, Abasi, whatever – basically He is the Supreme Being: this Supreme Being can be realized in three phases.  As Brahman – spirit, this means He is all-pervasive; that is why they say God is omnipresent, He is everywhere.  This is the concept of Brahman, or the light emanating from God.  Beyond this level of realization is Paramatma, as He is located in each and every living being – whether you are black, yellow, green, or you are a Caucasian, the point is He is there in your heart region.  The spirit actually is not different, but the bodies are different.  So we have it that the Supreme Being is present in each and every tabernacle, and that is technically referred to as the Supersoul or the Holy Ghost.  For instance, if you murder somebody, it means you are forcing the Lord out of the body; it is like if you illegally evict a tenant, you have to go to court. You have to get papers from the court to evict the tenant from the apartment, or you would be dragged to court.

Beyond the Supersoul, or the Holy Ghost, we have the Supreme Lord residing in His own personal abode; He is not compelled to be only He; He is He/She because if man and woman are both emanations from the Supreme Spirit, then He must be the embodiment of the male and female genders.  The women would agree that God cannot just be a man alone, which is correct. The Lord is in His eternal abode, which is beyond this cosmic manifestation, and this is where we can enjoy marvelous life, because there is no death, old age nor disease.  I was on the BBC some time ago; people were complaining that there was no peace on this planet, and they wanted to know if there is a place where there is no death, disease, old age, famine, HIV/AIDS, wars, etc.  Yes!  There is such a place, but you need to be certified to go there.  To go to another country, you need to get an invitation from someone, your visa, before you go into the airplane. You don’t just walk to the airport and say, “I am going to America,” without a visa; they will check you out.  This place is where we are coming from.  What will oriental philosophy do in proffering a solution to the problems of the world?

Now let us take one of the problems.  The world lacks nothing. The world is full of resources: natural and human resources. We don’t lack natural resources, but we lack people to manage these resources properly, for the benefit of the whole members of the community.  Take Nigeria, for instance: there is so much money in terms of oil, and if the money is distributed to everybody, every Nigerian will be a millionaire.  Therefore, you can’t say we are not blessed by God, if you believe that there is a God; and if you don’t believe that there is a God, we are blessed by natural resources.  The leaders don’t manage the resources properly, so our number one problem is leadership!  Leadership does not mean the President of Nigeria only; there are different categories of leaders.  A mother is a leader; a father is a leader; a teacher is a leader; a spiritual master is a leader; a worshipable demigod is a leader.  In a sense, either we are potential leaders or we are already leaders.  More than a few of you would be getting married after finishing your university programme.  This means that you would be raising children; it means, therefore, that you are a leader.  A leader means he who shows the way and goes the way.  It is different from being a manager.  Of course, it starts from the preparatory level.  It is like a thief: a thief sees the whole world as not to be trusted, because he cannot trust himself; if someone has an inclination, he likes to see things from that point of view.  Leadership has to do with every one of us, so we should think about it positively; sometimes, we say and perceive our Nigerian leaders as so corrupt, but who gave birth to them?  We!  We have a chance to transform our families, but how can we transform our families if we don’t transform ourselves?  Someone is asking, “what is that stick that he is carrying?”  This is my staff of office; it symbolizes a life dedicated to the service of humanity and God.  It means body, mind, and words are dedicated to the service of humanity and God.  It reminds me all the time.

I am just coming from South Africa, where I met with the Director of the African Leadership and Development Institute, at the Institute of Social and Industrial Research in Pretoria.  One of the issues he raised was that on the African continent, there are so much of resources, but there is so much misuse of the resources.  I agreed with that idea, but what are you people doing to change the situation?  People should see their problems and not complain about the President being a thief.  If we claim that there is a problem here, so what is the solution to that problem? It is very easy for you to complain about everything as the future leaders of this country, but if there is no proper tutoring, in time, you would become another failure if you are put in a position.  Let me explain what that implies: sometimes people get confused by what it means to be cynical; it is just like we have indicators: if you are sleeping in your house, how do you know that it is dawn?  There is sunlight!  For someone to be reckoned as a good person, there are symptoms: the person is highly spiritual – it does not mean that he has to walk on water or on air, or if you open his mouth, there is fire.  No!  Being spiritual means that you are conversant with the Supreme Personality of Godhead and the symptom is that you are always talking about Him.  You are able to elevate people’s consciousness.

Philosophy means the love of wisdom.  One of the Vedic philosophers says you know a spiritual person by how much control he has over himself: he doesn’t eat anything and everything, he doesn’t talk about everything, and he doesn’t give in to anger.  Beyond that, a spiritual person has control over his genitals.  In other words, touching him or her does not make him get carried away by impulses.  The question becomes, how does one cultivate that kind of trademark?  Another Vedic philosopher says that until philosophers become leaders, and leaders become philosophers, the world will not experience sustainable and dependable leadership.  Therefore, it is important that we know that reconnection with the Supreme Being is the only way we can relate to people with eloquence, and see them as our brothers and sisters.  It means we all have the same spiritual essence; hence, there would be no room for exploitation.  As a result, if someone lives like this, he will (when he becomes a leader) provide for all the members of his constituency before his personal needs; but a situation where a person does not imbibe these higher principles, higher philosophy, and higher sense of responsibility, he is bound to steal public funds – to become a corrupt leader. Thus, it behooves us to understand the practice of spirituality.

We should therefore strive for reunification with the Supreme Being, and the symptom of this reunification is a higher sense of value and the ability to relate with anybody peacefully.  If one sees the whole community as his family, can he go about exploiting the mother?  No!  Therefore, the society should come to the platform where we see one another as brother and sister.  Therefore, from the Vedic philosophy, we have this higher sense of understanding for values, and we understand these values, and we have a higher sense of value for ourselves.  The process of attaining these values in this present dispensation is what we call in our philosophy, “Sonic Therapeutic Intervention”, because it is the remedy of this therapy that brings about a revolution that creates a viable future, not only for us, but for the society as well.  This is why the Bible tells us that, from the rising of the sun to its setting of the sun, we should call on the names of God.  The Hadith of the Quran posits that the most beautiful names belong to Allah.  In the Vedic philosophy, in the Vaishnava tradition, we have a series of therapeutic intervention.  This is why you find the Hare Krishnas – you see them on the road when you go to London, Washington, New York – anywhere in the world you go.  They are always embarking on this sonic therapeutic Intervention by reciting the names of The Absolute Truth, and it goes like this: Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare / Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare.  It is not an Indian Language; it is Sanskrit.  “Hare” means the devotional energy of the Lord, and “Krishna” means God who is all attractive, and “Rama” means God who is the reservoir of all pleasure.  This can be practiced by anybody; the person standing before you has been a celibate monk for twenty-six years.  He can be seen with a woman, but for the past twenty-six years he has not known a woman in that sense. [Exclamation from audience.]  Not only that, I am a scholar of leadership and organizational change, and I teach Vaishnava Vedanta or oriental philosophy.  I travel all over the world, and I am based in Washington D.C., United States of America.  This very mantra is what transformed my life.  Can you ever imagine that a Bayelsan can be a celibate for twenty-six years?  The best bet for us is to devise a means to become spiritual, and we will not be lured into temptations, and if we do that, we would have a stable life rooted in God consciousness.  We would be able to see each and every one as a well-wisher, and we would be able to act in ways that are favorable for the upliftment of our community instead of exploiting our community.  We are all coming from one God, so let’s see ourselves as brothers and sisters. It is only spirituality that can take us to that level, and it can revive us from corruption and bad leadership.  You should know that the past governor of New York was kicked out of office over lack of control over the senses; are you aware of that?  He was a very prominent lawyer in the whole of the United States; he has a beautiful wife, and nice children; he made so many stringent laws that everyone was shaking.  He became a victim of his own laws, and he went after a prostitute; unlike our country here, in the United States, if you are a big man, you’re monitored and accountable. He had an affair with a prostitute and was caught; hence, he was kicked out of office.  Tomorrow, you might be in position of authority, you could be the change you so desperately desire in your country, but if you have no control over yourself, you would be unable to effect any change. You might blame someone today, but tomorrow could be your turn; you should learn these things and we would experience a better country.

Thank You.

[Applause.]

Questions and Answers Section

Q: That was a beautiful lecture; thank you very much, sir.  In your discourse – your talk – you made mention of the body, the soul.  What is the essence of that body, and how does it have a check on our desires and what we do, and… If the essence is the work we can do and the input of our efforts, then what is the essence of this super-spirit that you talked about?

A: That was a very nice question.  The idea that The Supreme Being can be felt and localized in each and every body tabernacle or within our heart region is because He cares.   I remember a young couple; the man asked the wife if I can drop Vasudeva Swami at his apartment? The wife said, “no, no, no; let us go with him.” It has to do with friendship; if you have a friend on campus, you would be worried if you don’t see him in a day. The Lord loves us, so He wants to be with us.  Also, He wants to stimulate us to have a higher understanding of values, to be able to decipher between what is right and what is wrong.  In most cases, when He gives us advice, we don’t even hear Him; rather, we choose the impulse of the mind; the Supersoul, we don’t listen to, and that is the difficulty we have.  This is what has led to our being covered by different layers of illusory energy, and so it is difficult for us to get a connection properly.  The more we become involved with reality, the more we become purified, and the more we would be ready to hear the instructions directly from that essence (the essence of the Lord) within us, the Supreme Being. We would be able to listen to the instructions within.  Otherwise, it becomes a mismatch, because we have the senses pulling us this way, the mind pulling us that way, and we end up with a foggy weather: during a heavy rainfall, you can’t drive; put on your headlight, you can’t see. This is the nature of our condition; we are so conditioned that even though the Supersoul is within us, we can’t even hear. Therefore, we need to be involved in spirituality to cleanse us of all the foggy things in our environment, in our body.  In this way, we would be able to have a connection with the Supersoul, and take instructions from Him. The Lord loves us so much that even when we go to the toilet, He is with us.  If someone loves you, he would be with you, but the toilet! No one goes with you to the toilet.  Even your best friend will not follow you to the toilet; he would say, “alright go, I am waiting for you,” but the Lord is in our heart, he accompanies us anywhere, even though we go to prison.  Why? This is out of that unmotivated, selfless love.  The ideas is to create an awareness somehow or the other to listen to our ideas to connect back to the Supersoul within so that our life will become successful.  He doesn’t force us, because if someone loves you, he will only advise you, suggest to you.  If it is force, then it no longer becomes love; it becomes a military regime.  The Lord allows us to take decisions ourselves, and do the things we want to do.

Q: I loved your lecture so much, but there are two questions I would love to ask.  To me, there are two Supreme Beings; we have the higher one and the lesser one – that is, Jesus and the Satan.  You said something that Jesus is both male and female.  You said those that walk through fire or on air are not necessarily spiritual but those that have a connection with the Supreme Being are the ones that have power.  Are you now trying to say that those that walk on air are carriers of good spirit?  My second question is, how do you know that Jesus or the Supreme is both male and female?  [Applause from audience.]

A: Thank you very much.  I want to be snappy.  There are what we call mystic potencies or mystic powers, and exhibiting these mystical powers doesn’t make you devotional.  It simply makes you metaphysically powerful, and it does not make you a son of God.  Some people exhibit these powers and fall into anger, and are lured into some inclinations.  In Nigeria, it is very prominent. I know of some churches; the pastor touches somebody, and the person falls off, and everyone will say, ”Ah!  He is very powerful!”  As someone in the field of spirituality, I know that is secondary; they don’t necessarily make you spiritual.  The idea is that having metaphysical powers does not make you genuine or a good person; it depends on how you use them to create a better image for the society.  If the society in general understands, that God (whatever you call Him) is the Father of us all.

We don’t have to discriminate against one another because of our tribes.  We normally believe that our mother’s soup is the sweetest.  Philosophy is variant in various societies, like in India, Russia; if you come back from the university, you don’t go and ask a kindergarten pupil, “what is dy/dx?”  The child would not understand what you have asked, but he is a student.  He will gradually come to the stage when he would understand.  It is not our duty to condemn those with low awareness of higher principles.  Essentially, we should encourage people to come to this higher understanding.

Published in the Fall 2010 issue of Sanctum: The Undergraduate Journal of Religion at Columbia University.

There are a number of varying ideas on what constitutes social justice, some of which conflict with each other. What is true social justice and how is it best achieved?

It is a very important issue in social justice. Rudimentarily, social justice refers to the idea of creating an egalitarian society or institution that is based on the principles of equality, justice, and solidarity that understands and values human rights and that recognizes the differences of all. It is easily achieved when we understand our pristine identity—that is, the fact that, despite our differences, in bodily designation like race, gender, age, etc.,we have a common spiritual essence, and, based on that spiritual essence, we can value people instead of trampling their rights. So [social justice] can be achieved very easily, if we recognize, first of all, who we are and who others are—despite the color of their skin and despite their gender and despite their age, etc. That’s why I call social injustice…being rooted in an “identity crisis.” That is ignorance, ignorance of our true identity.

Are we naturally inclined toward establishing and maintaining social justice or are we more naturally inclined toward destroying it, due to our inherent or developed qualities?

Let me explain it this way: the degree of our inclination to maintain social justice is directly proportional to our social insight and our social insight has to do with our moral reasoning. And, of course, our moral reasoning is, to some degree, rooted in the purification of our consciousness. For example, if someone has a pathological state of consciousness, there is no question of him or her striving for social justice. We need to understand that, in the present era, many people are imbued with so much hypocrisy, quarreling, and agitation that their consciousness is not purified. There is a time-tested and definite methodology of becoming purified in consciousness, and that methodology is given practically in all sastric literatures, or bona fide scriptures. I call it “sonic therapeutic intervention,” or audition and recapitulation of the names of God. Basically, we understand that God has multifarious names—such as Jehovah, Allah, or Krishna—and dedicate time everyday to Him through these repetitions. If we don’t take care to give some quality time to God, we may have good intentions about social justice, but our intentions may be thwarted because, if we don’t have that purified consciousness, it is very difficult to strive for social justice.

We’ve seen in the past that many people who champion social causes are very eloquent speakers and very scholarly people, but we can find, even in the history of this country, that they have fallen right in the noose. So we need some purification. We need to purify our consciousness to stand firm in the pursuit of social justice.

This practice of chanting the holy names of God as a method of purification of consciousness implies belief in a God and, thus, holds little meaning to the faithless. Is there a way to purify the consciousness without such a theistic or religious practice?

Firstly, if we discuss consciousness, we should also understand what essentially consciousness is because, if we don’t understand that, we will be led astray. To answer your question, yes, we can also purify our consciousness by transcendental austerities,by diet therapy, by abstinence from intoxication and lies, and, of course, by sexual restraint. We can also purify our consciousness through spirituality. You may say that spirituality and religion are the same, but there is a difference between spirituality and faith—your faith can change, but your spiritual identity does not change. Research shows that the sustainability of the purification of consciousness is more prominent with the audition and recapitulation of the names of God.

What is the ideal connection between faith and social justice? To what extent should faith in general be connected with social justice?

When you talk about faith, it is a very broad concept. Basically, we have to understand that we are all children of one Creator; therefore, we should uphold human rights with impunity and we should respect and honor everyone, because we are all essentially spiritual beings–parts and parcels of the Supreme Being. You call Him God, Jehovah, Allah, etc; we call Him Krishna. When our eyes become anointed with the salve of love or when our eyes become anointed with transcendental love, we will be able to have a universal vision not based on color, gender, race, age, etc., but based on the fact that everyone is a spark from the Creator. Therefore, in a sense, faith has a very vital role to play in originating social justice or even in the execution of social justice. Faith, in essence, implies that we believe in something and everyone believes in something—in fact, the variable is the object of our belief. And so, the very prosecution of social justice is faith—because, in a literal sense, faith implies conviction or belief and each and everyone has a belief in something. And so, yes, faith has some major ingredient or significance in social justice,based on the concept that we have some conviction and we have to fulfill that conviction. If someone is really spiritually inclined, they need to be inclined in social justice because the whole concept of social justice is that people should not be dehumanized or people should have equal treatment. If someone claims to be a member of a faith and that someone is not inclined toward social justice, it [is problematic] to me. Because, if we love God, we should love His parts and parcels.We should love the people around us. Social justice should begin with our families because our family is a microcosm of society. We should not abuse our children and our spouses and then go out to champion the cause of social justice.

As Your Holiness has clearly explained, there is a strong connection between religion and the establishment and maintenance of social justice. However, despite this connection, in the past, religion has been misused in a number of ways for the obstruction of social justice and the detriment of the well-being of the people. What is the root cause of these problems?

The cause is polluted consciousness. When people become swayed by lust, their thinking is clouded, and so they subscribe to all of the dictates of the mind and the impulses of the senses. These very instances are being perpetrated by people with polluted consciousness, not with pure consciousness, and this is due to the fact that they don’t practice any genuine religious or spiritual culture to purify themselves. They may even have good intentions, but, if they are under the impulse of lust, they don’t think properly and so they do the wrong things. People abuse religious institutions just to gratify their senses and people are running away from religion because of these nasty activities and they do not really understand the culture of spirituality and religiosity. It is a very sad development. The concept of religious wars is also very sad and very harmful. The plebeians on the street may carry bombs and try to harm people and this is from a lack of social responsibility and a lack of understanding of philosophical concepts rooted in pure spirituality. The best way to avoid these types of social issues is to train these people to read the scriptures. The people at the top– that is, the top religious scholars—are working together in the same schools; they are peaceful and intelligent people. Why is it that those on the street must be carrying bombs to go and kill people?

How does Your Holiness respond to the assertion that, as practitioners of spirituality, we should focus only on the spiritual and reject the material, and, therefore, we should ignore issues related to social injustice because they are on the material platform and focus only on our spiritual practice?

If our philosophies do not have a problem-solving orientation, people will not embrace them, because why would they pray to God for help when the people around us, the children of God, are not caring for us? The International Society for Krishna Consciousness, for example, distributes free food at college campuses, at hospitals, at abandoned babies’ homes, and even to the public in general to practically apply social justice principles.

We should be caring and not just go after our own liberation while the world is suffering. Rather, if we don’t care—for example, if a religious person sees that someone is being raped and he or she just shies away because that crime has nothing to do with his love for God— he or she becomes an accomplice. We should be inclined toward helping people and, at the same time, practicing our faith. We cannot ignore the people around us if we profess to believe in God.

One major problem in the realm of social justice is that of discrimination, particularly against women and minority races. Some religious leaders have chosen to remain silent on such issues, whereas others have spoken strongly against them. What view does Your Holiness hold on the subject?

To deny people opportunities because of race or sex is terribly barbaric. When we find these types of developments and people don’t respond, it’s absurd. The concept of discrimination is all based on the body and disproportionate focus on the material. People need some higher rationale, including transcendental knowledge and culture, to be able to move past discrimination. We learn in the Vedic literature that the whole planet is under the auspices of a woman, Mother Bhumi. And so, for us to say that some people are unqualified to do something is an inaccurate and unwholesome attitude towards life.

Your Holiness is personally involved in the Hare Krishna movement, the International Society of Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON),which is a very large and prominent worldwide organization. What has been its specific role in encouraging the establishment of social justice, in bringing peace and harmony to this world, and in helping the people in general?

We’re doing this practically everywhere. To give you a practical example, I have been preaching for many years in Africa – I happen to come from Nigeria,and, in Nigeria, we have been championing these causes. Social justice is leading by example and that is basically what we do. We don’t just profess “peace.” Whatever we have, we share with the people. If someone comes to our temple, he will get a free meal every morning, afternoon, and evening. This is [showing] concern for our brothers and sisters, for everyone, because we see them as parts and parcels of God or parts and parcels of Krishna. We are also working to help with the transmission of transcendental knowledge to all without discrimination and to spread the message of God to every town and village.

What are the consequences and repercussions of neglecting social justice from a material, as well as a spiritual, perspective?

Of course, materially speaking, if someone doesn’t raise an alarm, he will lend himself a bad name and people will not trust him. If someone is not caring, what is the motive for having a strong relationship with that person? We want our relationships with people who are caring, and so, if someone is not seeing how others can be rectified or how others can be relieved of their suffering, we can’t accept that person. We have to stand firm to be able to help those who are being victimized or those who are being abused. In a sense, just as we experience material effects from neglecting social justice, we experience spiritual effects. The [spiritual] consequences are that we are responsible for the injustice and so we carry some karmic reactions, or consequences [derived from the laws of karma,an individual’s reward for good deeds and/or punishment for bad deeds]. Especially, for instance, as the leaders of society—parents, teachers, the educated, etc—if we see others being treated unjustly and we don’t act, we bear the consequences of our negligence. So negligence of duty or an uninterested approach to duty [are] central problem[s] we all must combat in our social justice work.  —

His Holiness Bhakti Vasudeva Swami (Vasudev Das) is a religious leader of the Gaudiya Vaishnava Hindu faith, a doctoral researcher of leadership and organizational change, and a scholar of the social sciences. He was born in Bayelsa State, Nigeria, and commenced his wide-reaching religious and communal activities there in 1984 with the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON). His Holiness frequently travels around the world to educate diverse audiences on the values of love, peace, unity in diversity, self-realization, positive change, and community development. His Holiness sat down with Sanctum to discuss how he understands the relationship between religion and social justice.

I remember when I went to present a paper at the Pennsylvania Political Science Association annual conference in 2005. The introduction of my paper was imbedded with political humor. Here is part of it:

Little Joe approached his father Ben and inquired, “Dad, what is politics?” Dad said, “Well Joe, let me try to explain it in this way: I’m the breadwinner of the family, so let’s call me capitalism. Your Mom, she’s the administrator of the money, so we’ll call her the Government. We’re here to take care of your needs, so we’ll call you the people. The nanny, we’ll consider her the Working Class. And your baby brother, we’ll call him the Future. Now, think about that and see if that makes sense.” So the little boy went off to bed reflecting on what Ben had said.

At midnight, Joe heard his baby brother crying, so he got up and went to check on him. He found that the baby had severely soiled his diaper. So little Joe went to his parent’s room and found his mother sound asleep. He decided not to wake her and went to the nanny’s room. He found the nanny’s door securely locked, and so he peeked in the keyhole and found his father in bed with the nanny. He gave up and went back to bed. The next morning, little Joe told Ben, “Dad, I think I understand the concept of politics now.” The father said, “Great! Joe, tell me in your own words what you think politics is all about.” Then little Joe replied, “Well, while Capitalism is screwing the Working Class, the Government is sound asleep, the People are being ignored and the Future is in a deep mess.”

A good follower should have mastery over his/her sensory modalities in order to excel in executing/implementing organizational/institutional policies without fear or favor. One’s good intentions crowned with success will know no bounds if the sensory modalities, including the mind, are monitored and are under check and balance. More than a few employees/leaders have been victims of the unruly and impetuous sensory modalities that have resulted in job loss, judicial action, embarrassment or a combination of these.

Broadly, there are two sides of this bad coin of not thinking deeply. There are sociological and organismic factors which inhibit managers from thinking deeply. By sociological factors, we would be referring to those forces outside of the embodied soul that impinge on him/her and checkmate him/her from thinking deeply; and by organismic factors, we would be referring to those forces within the living being that inhibit him/her from thinking deeply. The sociological factors include our educational methodological paradigm, societal needs and interests, attachment to sensory objects, lack of motivational incentives, and artificial lifestyle. The organismic factors include the inability to control the mind and sensory modalities; influence of the gunas, or “modes of material nature” – namely, goodness, passion and ignorance; influence of endogenous lust; lack of awareness of our pristine identity; lack of analytical skill; disdain for introspection; Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), etc.

There are organismic and sociological factors which militate against ethical decision-making. Discernibly, endogenous factors such as bias, anger, greed, lust, the mind’s demands, integration of the three gunas or qualitative modes of material nature (namely, the modes ignorance, passion, and goodness), identity crisis, pathological state of consciousness, low self-control, phenomenological mindset, and maladjustment play some role in ethical decision-making.

Essentially, it is germane to be sure that our decision-making process has passed the litmus test of social and psychological sanity so as to be effectively positioned on the pivot of ethical thinking inasmuch as decision-makers imbued with phenomenological mindset, maladjustment, pathological state of consciousness, bias, identity crisis, etc. may not facilitate ethical decision-making in organizations.

His Holiness Bhakti Vasudeva Swami: The ISKCON philosophy, which hinges on the Bhagavad Gita as its primary book of wisdom or spiritual literature, with all of the Vedic literatures, brings to bear that we are creatures of God, or parts and parcels of God. We call God Krishna. Krishna means the all-attractive Personality of Godhead. The relationships we find in this world—like the parent-child relationship, friendship, the servant-master relationship—these are all relationships that exist between the living entity (the creation of God) and God. Through the process of devotional service unto God, unto Krishna, we become purified and we are able to become reinstated in those—our original relationships with God, with Krishna.

So relationship is a fundamental principle; the variable is the object of our relationship, or the type of relationship we have. Relationship is intrinsic value of spirit souls, that is why we are all struggling to have sustainable relationships in this material world; but the original relationship exists between we the living entities, or creatures of God, and God. We are spiritual sparks, parts and parcels of Krishna, or God; and we have relationships with Krishna or God, such as conjugal love, parenthood, friendship, servitorship, and neutrality; and the point is we can realize these relationships, in this life, by engaging our senses in the Master of the senses—Krishna, or God; that is, by engaging ourselves in devotional service unto Lord Krishna. This has a purifying effect, and we can very easily realize our original relationship with God.