Tag: nonviolence

Bodily Consciousness, Miss America, and Suicide

Recently, an accomplished young lady committed suicide. What is the root cause of it? What is the consequence of it? What can we do to stop this?

In recent classes on the Srimad Bhagavatam, my spiritual master mentioned this sad news.

Why did a beautiful, young, highly educated young lady, crowned as Miss America recently commit suicide? Yes, Cheslie Kryst, former Miss America, an attorney, committed suicide on Jan 31, 2022! This was incredibly sad that such a gifted person thought it fit to end her valuable human life in this way.

Not long ago, a young school girl, Mallory, just 12 years of age, committed suicide too.

These are just two sad examples of many, many.

Some people are faulting social media, and Big Tech. The argument goes that these platforms are designed and created to be addictive, and these platforms don’t enforce discipline or proper behavior among the users, and so, harassment from others is the cause of the suicide. There is some truth to this.

But just like all other material solutions to material problems, it is only a partial truth. Partial truths only create more problems further down the road.

It is true that platforms like Facebook and Instagram are designed to be addictive. In Mathematics, there is a concept called “necessary and sufficient condition”… sometimes a condition is “necessary” but not “sufficient”. This means that unless all the necessary and the sufficient conditions are met, a certain statement is not true.

The fact is that there are a lot of different causes that cause this problem. If you start analyzing the problem, you will find that our entire social order, our systems, our institutions, and our societies each contribute to this problem. But how to attack the problem at it’s root?

When we examine harassment on social media, negative body image, resulting depression, and reduction of self-confidence to the extent of committing suicide, the primary condition to cause all the other problem is bodily consciousness.

What is “Miss America”? It is an external material designation, awarded to someone almost arbitrarily, on the basis of their body, and to some extent, their mind. So, the very “achievement” deepens and locks someone into bodily consciousness. So this Miss America thing is a big part of the problem, because of course, every idiot has their own idea of what is beautiful and what is not. Everyone who organizes it, everyone who participates in it, everyone who watches it, and everyone who attaches any value or any importance to it is a victim of this terrible disease of bodily consciousness.

Yes, bodily consciousness. Thinking that we are these bodies is the fundamental root cause of the problem.

We are spirit souls, or “Atma”. We are completely non-material.

In fact, the spirit soul wears two bodies, just like we wear outwear and underwear… The “outerwear” in the case of the spirit soul, is these gross material body. And the “underwear” in the case of the spirit soul is the subtle material body, consisting of mind, intelligence, and false ego.

What is false ego? Exactly the very root of the problem. False ego means “I am this body, I am this mind”. To confuse and conflate the identity of the pure spirit soul with temporary identities like the gross and material bodies is the pastime of fools like Descartes. And due to these very smart and clever fools, innocent people are being misled, even to the point of suicide.

In the material energy, the principal manifestations are eight, as above mentioned. Out of these, the first five manifestations, namely earth, water, fire, air and sky, are called the five gigantic creations or the gross creations, within which the five sense objects are included. They are the manifestations of physical sound, touch, form, taste and smell. Material science comprises these ten items and nothing more. But the other three items, namely mind, intelligence and false ego, are neglected by the materialists.

https://vedabase.io/en/library/bg/7/4/ purport

Spiritual life begins at the point when we realize our identity as spirit soul. Any religious, philosophical or scientific tradition which does not clearly help us understand this is purely material in nature.

It is extremely sad that violence is being committed upon God’s dear souls every single day. And one should be extremely angry with those who are perpetrating this violence?

What is violence and what is non-violence? Violence means denying someone their right. If you have a right to be somewhere, and someone denies you that right, then that is violence against you.

Dear Spirit Soul, you are not this body, you are spirit soul, an eternal associate of God. Why are you accepting this horrible violence being perpetrated on you, making you believe that you are this body, you are this mind?

Wake up! Free yourself from these shackles! And the moment you do, you will no longer be fodder for those peddling sense gratification. You will not be addicted to Wordle, you will not be addicted to Facebook, you will not be addicted to Instagram, you will not be addicted to LinkedIn, and you will never have a negative thought about yourself for all of eternity.

Because you will know who you are, and you will be who you are. Eternal, Full of Knowledge and Ever-increasing Bliss – these are your qualities as a spirit soul.

You will then participate in the most enlivening, adventurous, loving interactions, together with other spiritually perfected beings, in the service of God.

Are you struggling with any negativity because of being misled like these unfortunate souls? Do you know someone suffering like this? Send them this article! Let me know, I will gladly point in the right direction, and you will be ever-increasingly happy.

To the gross materialist who cannot see anything beyond the gross material body, there is nothing beyond the senses. Therefore his occupational activities are limited to concentrated and extended selfishness. Concentrated selfishness centers around the personal body—this is generally seen amongst the lower animals. Extended selfishness is manifested in human society and centers around the family, society, community, nation and world with a view to gross bodily comfort.

https://vedabase.io/en/library/sb/1/2/8/ purport

At the minimum, you should know the consequence of committing suicide… when someone kills their gross material body, they are not released from their subtle material body. So, the soul, because it is not yet time to acquire a new gross material body, has to remain in the subtle material body till the allotted lifetime is finished.

This is called, remaining on as a ghost. The ghosts, they do not possess a gross material body or senses, though they have many material desires for sense gratification. Just imagine how frustrating it is to want to drink water but have no hands, no tongue, no throat, and no stomach! Such is the fate of the ghost. In order to enjoy material experiences, ghosts have a need to inhabit other material bodies… and this happens when a person becomes intensely angry, or unspeakably morose, drunk, drugged, or otherwise inebriated. When this happens, a ghost finds it easy to enter such a body, and act through that body.

Ghosts are bereft of a physical body because of their grievously sinful acts, such as suicide. The last resort of the ghostly characters in human society is to take shelter of suicide, either material or spiritual. Material suicide causes loss of the physical body, and spiritual suicide causes loss of the individual identity. 

https://vedabase.io/en/library/sb/3/14/24/ purport

This is why we find instances of perfectly normal people doing things they would have never dreamed of doing. For example a gentle schoolteacher might murder someone, a devoted mother might abuse their child, a policeman may end up committing a most heinous crime. Of course, the ghost cannot be punished in a human court of law!

So it is all very very sad. This intense bodily consciousness and the resultant side effects must be stopped.

How can you stop this? First you have to perfect yourself. How can you do it?

Here is a start, chant this Mantra as much as you can:

Hare Krishna Hare Krishna

Krishna Krishna Hare Hare

Hare Rama Hare Rama

Rama Rama Hare Hare

The Hare Krishna Mahamantra

And to understand who you really are, read this book carefully The Bhagavad Gita As It Is. To be free is your right, don’t surrender it! I can help you get your own copy!

Pursuing the Highest Instruction of your Scripture

Every scripture has higher and lower instruction. Pursue the highest instruction always. The lower instructions are for animal-like humans… we should strive to go deeper, higher.

I was out a couple of days ago, looking to meet people interested in spiritual life. I do this often, and especially in December every year, I’m in marathon mode.

It was in Kensington market in Toronto, I was out with my son.

We met a gentleman who introduced himself as Altaf. Altaf Bhai is from Pakistan and also has some Agra connections. He told me he is a yogi, even though he is a Muslim. I thought why not, yoga means to reconnect to God, so why can a Muslim not be a yogi. He started speaking some intricate philosophy. But I could see that there were many gaps in his knowledge. He was secretly trying to convince me to become a Muslim. I’m OK with that, but I’m not OK with ignorance.

As the conversation progressed, however, he began to say things that were insulting to another very very great personality, Lord Shiva. He said that Lord Shiva was actually satan. I had to stop him there. It is one thing to not know something, but for someone like me who knows better, it is a crime to stand there and listen to such things. According to the Vedic texts, the personality known as Satan in the Koran and Bible is actually the personality named Kalipurusha. Not to be confused with the goddess Kali devi, this personality is in charge of the current age of quarrel and hypocrisy. But I couldn’t get in a word edgewise with Altaf – he just didn’t want to hear anything.

He then mentioned sacrificing cows. He said that the Quran does permit sacrificing cows. He said that Allah gave us all the animals for our enjoyment.

A yogi who recommends cow slaughter? A yogi who does not know the basics of yoga? Hmmm… this was very fishy.

Every scripture has higher instructions and lower instructions. The lower instructions are meant so that humans who are on the level of animals may find something to adhere to, and rise higher, and when they do rise higher, then there are higher instructions to follow.

For example, there is also an instruction in the Quran that one should not have sexual relationships with one’s mother, or with the father’s wife. Why was this instruction present? Because at that time and in that place, there were men who did not hesitate to do so. So the Prophet had to include that instructions, just to civilize those animal-like men.

The highest instruction, of course, is to see every woman who is not your wife as your own mother. It does not matter if she is younger or older or what – if she is not your wife, she is as good as your own mother. Treat her with respect. That will resolve a lot of problems at one stroke, but that is another topic for another day.

Similarly, the instruction about ritual sacrifice of animals was in a place where food was hardly available – it was the barren desert after all. The instruction of ritual sacrifice and to cause the least amount of pain to the animal was there because there were people who took sadistic pleasure in torturing animals. This does not mean that the Quran encourages opening of slaughter-houses and killing of animals on a large scale. I couldn’t convince him, but this message is for him and other Altaf’s of the world.

It is not necessary to be a bloody thirsty animal killer to follow Islam, to be a Muslim. Meat is not for spiritualists, unless it is a question of absolute necessity.

I did not have the heart to tell Altaf about the hellish punishments given in the Vedic scripture for killing a cow. And I don’t want to shock my dear readers too. But it is not good, not in this world, nor in the next.

One of the greatest Muslims in the history of the world was Haridas Thakur. Born in Bengal, he is recognized as one of the greatest spiritual leaders of the world. He chanted the Hare Krishna Mahamantra constantly, and was able to convince Muslims with arguments from the Koran that he was doing the highest thing. If you want to read about Haridas Thakur, this book is highly recommended. http://torchlightinternational.com/shop/namacarya/.

Haridas Thakur was disliked by both the Muslims and the Hindus, because he knew both scriptures better than most and he personally followed both scriptures perfectly. Indeed, a Qazi had him whipped in 22 marketplaces, and while most people would die after 1-2 such beatings, Haridas Thakur felt no pain. He was praying for his assailants to be forgiven all the while!

In every scripture, including the Bhagavad Gita, there are higher and lower instructions, for example in the twelfth chapter of the Gita, Krishna says the following:

But those who worship Me, giving up all their activities unto Me and being devoted to Me without deviation, engaged in devotional service and always meditating upon Me, having fixed their minds upon Me, O son of Pṛthā – for them I am the swift deliverer from the ocean of birth and death.

Just fix your mind upon Me, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, and engage all your intelligence in Me. Thus you will live in Me always, without a doubt.

My dear Arjuna, O winner of wealth, if you cannot fix your mind upon Me without deviation, then follow the regulative principles of bhakti-yoga. In this way develop a desire to attain Me.

If you cannot practice the regulations of bhakti-yoga, then just try to work for Me, because by working for Me you will come to the perfect stage.

If, however, you are unable to work in this consciousness of Me, then try to act giving up all results of your work and try to be self-situated.

 If you cannot take to this practice, then engage yourself in the cultivation of knowledge. Better than knowledge, however, is meditation, and better than meditation is renunciation of the fruits of action, for by such renunciation one can attain peace of mind.

https://vedabase.io/en/library/bg/12/ texts 6-12

Do you see how the highest goal may be unattainable for most? So Krishna gives alternatives. But those alternatives are not the highest thing. The highest thing is what Krishna mentioned first.

Similarly, in the Quran also there are lower and higher instructions, meant for people of different kinds.

I have many Muslim friends who are both Muslim and Vegetarian. In fact, many are vegan. See https://veganmuslims.com/ for a more background on that.

As I told Altaf, I was neither rejecting him, nor was I rejecting Prophet Muhammad, and I certainly am not rejecting Allah. What I am emphatically rejecting is his ignorance, and I am even more strongly rejecting words that are supposedly sacred but are actually meant to spread ignorance around. This applies to anyone from any tradition. I could not give him anything else except a vibration of the Mahamantra – Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare. May Altaf find peace in this life and the next.

My plea to all my Muslim brothers and sisters is this – please dear souls, please go higher in your knowledge and adherence of your own scripture. Follow the highest instruction of your scripture. Continuously chant the names of Allah with pure love and devotion, and you will find you will lose all taste for blood and flesh.

This is my prayer to everyone else, to Buddhists, to Christians, and to Jews. Thou Shalt Not Kill.