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Our spiritual practice has two components: chanting the mantra and other practices, and spiritual culture, which includes standards of behavior, personal habits, and even external aspects such as clothes and food. We can see that although Śrila Prabhupāda emphasized spiritual practice as essential, he also encouraged his disciples to adopt the spiritual culture as much as possible. He was not forcing anyone to change his dress and style of food, but he was encouraging those who showed this desire, and in this way, most of his disciples decided to at least give it a try. Sixty years later, we can see that it is still strong in our movement.
How can the way one dresses or the type of food he eats affect his spiritual practice? Is there any difference in chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa in a dhoti or in shirt and pants?
In principle, there is no difference. The spiritual process doesn’t depend on external factors. One can remember Kṛṣṇa in any situation and thus make advancement. A lot of times devotees practice in adverse situations and have to just tolerate the situation and practice the way they can. To say nothing about clothes or other superficial circumstances: Bharata Mahārāja had to practice in a deer’s body because that was what he had at the time. However, if we have a choice, the spiritual culture can help us to gradually ascend to the mode of goodness, which brings us closer to Kṛṣṇa. Ultimately, our spiritual success is measured in terms of how well we can apply the principle of always remembering Kṛṣṇa and never forgetting Him, and this fixed meditation starts when we become fixed in the mode of goodness. Much of the modern culture is based on reinforcing the modes of passion and ignorance, which can create many obstacles. The spiritual culture Prabhupāda taught his disciples helps us to break with that.
One important point we can mention in this connection is the power of repeated impressions imprinted in the mind, or saṁskāras. Everything we see, hear, speak about, etc., leaves an impression in the mind, and these impressions gradually accumulate. If our day is filled with materialistic impressions, these impressions will naturally be replayed when we sit to chant. This is where spiritual culture can help us, pulling us in the opposite direction, filling the mind with impressions that are connected with Kṛṣṇa. Temples, for example, have the goal of offering a complete spiritual environment, with Deities, kīrtanas, prasādam, paintings connected with Kṛṣṇa, cleanliness, and so on, which work as a platform for the association with devotees. The idea is that while many of the details may be individually dispensable, together they create an environment in which remembering Kṛṣṇa becomes much easier. If we can do the same to a certain extent in our own homes and other environments we spend time in, this can be helpful to our practice.
One mistake we can make here, however, is to create a distorted historical image and try to implant a caricature. We should, instead, understand the purpose. For example, historically, Vaiṣnavas did not use dhotis and saris. Over the centuries, Vaiṣnavas used different types of clothes, according to their different social positions and ways of life. However, when Śrila Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Thākura established his movement, he encouraged devotees to use dhotis and saris as far as possible, because these are clothes that are simple, clean, and chaste, and thus calm our minds and help us to focus on the spiritual practice. We don’t need to use them all the time, of course, but they can help to set up our minds in the right mood when we go to the temple or perform other spiritual activities.
The same principle can be applied to many other aspects of our life and practice. The external forms may change according to time, place, climate, and social circumstances; however, the general principles remain constant. Values such as simplicity, cleanliness, modesty, respect, restraint, etc. are more fundamental than superficial standards of dress and social etiquette. The purpose of a spiritual culture is to assist us in our practice of devotional service, not to turn us into actors reproducing a caricature of how someone imagines Vedic life.
Diet is also a factor worth mentioning, because it also affects our consciousness. There is a particular diet recommended to us that includes simple and nutritive foods, like rice, lentils, and vegetables, milk products, and so on, which also diverges from a modern diet based on processed foods. Food is especially important because it has a direct effect on the body and mind. The effect of preparing clean food, offering it to Kṛṣṇa, and honoring it as prasādam is very different from entering a store and buying a pack of chips. When properly performed, even eating, which is ordinarily an activity performed for the body and senses, becomes a reminder that our life is meant to serve Kṛṣṇa.
The spiritual culture also includes standards of behavior that are favorable to our spiritual practice. For example, one important point for one interested in practicing spiritual life is to avoid promiscuous relationships. One can choose between having a stable partner in marriage or being a celibate, since most situations outside of it will be negative for his or her spiritual practice. If one has the habit of talking loosely with any single man or woman who appears, this will make this restraint harder; therefore, we have a certain code of behavior that is based on mutual respect and the avoidance of loose talk with the opposite gender. One may, of course, still practice spiritual life without following it; it’s just that it will make things a lot harder for both the celibate and the married.
In the Bhagavad-gītā (6.3), Kṛṣṇa explains that “For one who is a neophyte in the eightfold yoga system, work is said to be the means; and for one who is already elevated in yoga, cessation of all material activities is said to be the means.” For devotees who are genuinely advanced in the practice of Kṛṣṇa consciousness, no external activity is necessary. Unless they are preaching, they may just sit somewhere and chant, doing everything else inside their minds. They achieve the perfection that is always remembering Kṛṣṇa and never forgetting Him, and can control their minds to such an extent that they can spend their time performing nirjana-bhajana, serving Kṛṣṇa inside their minds. Devotees on such a platform don’t need to follow general standards of social behavior, because they can cease their external activities. For them, as Kṛṣṇa mentions, cessation of all material activities is said to be the means.
However, when one is just starting in the process, such constant and fixed meditation on Kṛṣṇa is not possible. As Kṛṣṇa explains, at this stage “work is the means”. The only way to affect our consciousness at this stage is through our external activities. In other words, at this level we can’t directly control the mind, but it’s possible to gradually steer the mind in the direction we want by changing our external activities. That’s the reason Kṛṣṇa dedicates so many verses in the Bhagavad-gītā to explaining the three modes of nature, so we can understand how to identify activities and standards of behavior connected with the mode of goodness, the material mode that gives us the best chance of spiritual realization. When we follow a culture that stimulates such a code of behavior, we strongly increase our chances of going back to Godhead, and that’s what Vaiṣnava culture is all about.
This, however, leads us to yet another problem: often, people have stereotyped ideas about what Vaiṣnava culture is, and this leads to many problems and misunderstandings, sometimes with disastrous results. Vaiṣnava culture means a practical implementation of the system of daiva-varnāśrama, where the social and spiritual orders are organized around devotional service to Kṛṣṇa. It is very different from mere Vedic culture, which is still a materialistic system. There is also the problem of caste brahmanism, which is a deviation introduced by demons taking birth in brāhmana families in Kali-yuga, as predicted in the Varāha Purāṇa:
rākṣasāḥ kalim āśritya, jāyante brahma-yoniṣu
utpannā brāhmaṇa-kule, bādhante śrotriyān kṛśān“In Kali-yuga, rākṣasas take birth in brāhmaṇa families and harass saintly persons engaged in spiritual culture.”
We can see that this explains many problems we had and still have in our movement, especially connected with the treatment received by women and children in many places. Real spiritual culture is sāttvic, while the deviations introduced by rākṣasas are tamasic or sometimes rajarsic. Once we understand the difference between the characteristics and results of these two modes and the mode of goodness we try to cultivate, we can easily recognize these deviations.
At the same time, however, we should not throw the baby out with the bath water. The fact that a tool is sometimes misused doesn’t make it any less useful. Useful things can be fixed. Some will argue that clothes, standards of behavior, food, and so on are external and don’t have anything to do with our devotion to Kṛṣṇa. This is true for one on an elevated platform but is not correct from the perspective of a neophyte. One of the problems we have in spiritual life is that we often overestimate our own platform and thus try to apply standards and ideas that can actually be harmful at the stage we really are.
When we are at a lower platform and refuse standards that are useful for us at the stage we are, considering them mere rules for neophytes, we may inadvertently create problems for ourselves, rejecting tools that can help us to progress. When we are sick, we should not refuse appropriate medicine prescribed by a competent physician. Similarly, when we desire to progress in spiritual life, we should accept the standards given to us by superior authorities, who can understand what we need to progress from the stage we are. Prabhupāda gave us the general standards, and experienced devotees who are close to us can help us to understand and apply these standards in our practical lives to the extent they can effectively help us.
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