The following is a lecture given by Ramesvara Das in December 1983 at the Los Angeles ISKCON temple: Practically all of America has been forced to think about the
likelihood of nuclear war. Of course, our materialistic leaders have
tried to convince us that there is really nothing to worry about,
because they have this wonderful materialistic formula that prevents
nuclear war by making it too horrible. If you happen to watch any of
these leaders making their presentation, it is somewhat convincing.
However, it is fully convincing only to one who has a very limited
vision of material existence and the laws of material nature.
Our materialistic leaders don't search for the root cause of quarrel
and war. Instead, they try to cure this ever-spreading disease by
treating some of the external symptoms, by making some superficial
adjustments. But from India's Vedic literature, like theBhagavad-gita and Srimad-Bhagavatam, we learn the root cause of quarrel and war. Let us examine the Vedic version.
Each of us has a permanent and real self the atma, or soul
that is within the temporary material body and that uses the body to
fulfill its desires. Unfortunately, in this materialistic society our
desires focus not on satisfying the real, inner, spiritual self but on
exploiting the material world's resources and so gratifying our material
body the outer, illusory self. In other words, right now our desires
are based on illusion because they're based on an illusory concept of
self, the bodily concept. Now, from this false, bodily concept springs
false proprietorship. Simply because my body has some little, temporary
sway over some part of the material world, I desire to be the owner of
this part of the material world. But the material world existed long
before I had this body. And after my material body is finished, the
world will continue to exist. Yet in the interim, I desire to be the
owner. This desire for false proprietorship again, based on the false,
bodily concept of who we are causes quarrel and war.
The people in Russia and the people in India and the people in the
Middle East and the people in America more or less, all have this false,
bodily concept of self. So all of them are desiring to use the world's
resources for their bodily gratification desiring to lord it over the
world and make it their own. In spite of the different political and
economic systems, people all over the world are the same. They all have
the false, bodily concept of self, and so they all are desiring false
proprietorship over the body's "domain."
As we would expect, people who have the bodily concept will do
virtually anything to gratify their body even to the point of inflicting
pain and suffering on other creatures. If your body is the most
important thing in the world to you, then logically, to gratify your
body you'll even do something that may harm someone else. And to extend
your bodily gratification, you'll work to gratify the bodies of your
"fellow citizens," people who sport the same national bodily designation
even though you may bring harm to "foreigners," those of other bodily
designations.
Now, from the sages of India and from the Vedic literature we learn
that the creator and director of the material world has established laws
that govern the world. And these laws are inviolable. But just for
their bodily gratification, people have engaged in tremendously harmful
transgressions of these natural laws. And so these transgressions must
bring reactions. The laws of physics, we know, are based on this
principle of action and reaction. And the same principle governs the
interaction of living beings. We call this principle the law of karma.
To sum up what we've touched on thus far, the human beings in today's
world have the bodily concept of self, which forces them to try lording
it over the earth's resources and use these for their own bodily
gratification which forces them to engage daily in a whole series of
very violent and condemned activities that bring severe karmic reactions
down on everyone.
More about those karmic reactions in a moment. But first,
specifically what are these condemned activities? For example, most
Americans are flesh eaters, most Russians are flesh eaters, most Muslims
are flesh eaters, and unfortunately many Hindus are becoming flesh
eaters. People all over the world are flesh eaters. They don't even give
it any thought at all. However, if you do think about it, you will
realize that in order for people to be flesh eaters, each year almost
ten billion animals have to be murdered. This is one example of how in
the pursuit of our sense gratification, we've become callous and
indifferent to the pain that we cause to other living beings.
And even if we do not notice our transgression of Nature's and God's
laws as we go to the local steakhouse or cook flesh in our homes, Nature
notices and God, or Krsna, notices. Nature is noticing that though she
has worked so hard to produce these material bodies so that certain
souls can live in certain species of life, nonetheless the humans have
organized gigantic concentration camps in which thirty million animals
and birds are systematically exterminated each day our "final solution"
for these inferior races of creatures. And this is happening on a global
scale. Nature is producing these material bodies, and humans are
disrupting Nature's work by yearly destroying so many of Nature's
creatures.
Still more, human beings have decided, for economic reasons, business
reasons, personal reasons, that it has become largely incompatible with
their "lifestyle" to bear children. In other words, people want to have
unrestricted sex without having to accept the natural consequences.
Engaging in sex almost inevitably results in children, no matter how
hard modern science tries to find ways to prevent children from being
conceived. So scientists have been called upon to alleviate this messy
problem. And these learned men have invented the methodology by which
the child can be killed while he's living inside the womb of the mother.
And this technological breakthrough has been exported to practically
every country in the world. Each year, all over this planet, nearly
sixty million of these child murders are taking place. And these child
murders have been endorsed by nations all over the world, even India.
We could go on to discuss what humans do to plants and trees, and what they do to the soil, the rivers, the oceans, the air. But
for now, just consider the animals and the babies. Over a span of ten
years, our modern civilization kills more than one trillion animals and
six to eight hundred million babies. Today if someone is conceived in
America, the chances of his dying in the womb are more than thirty
percent. It's getting risky to be in your mother's womb. In Japan the
chances that you'll be killed in the womb of your loving mother are
about fifty percent. In Russia you're in an especially unfortunate
situation, since the chances that you'll be killed in the womb of your
mother are more than sixty-five percent. The average Russian mother will
have at least eight abortions.
So here we have the root cause of quarrel and war. Due to our false
bodily concept and our desire for false proprietorship, the human
society resorts to violence, and by the higher laws of Nature, known as
the laws of karma, society has to undergo similar violence. There
cannot be peace. There has to be scarcity, and epidemics, and war, and
tornadoes, and earthquakes. And although modern man would like to regard
these things as accidents, he should know better. Human life is meant
for understanding that these things have a cause that the entire
universe is based on the principle of cause and effect, or action and
reaction. Any educational system, however grand and elaborate it may be,
is a failure if it doesn't impart this understanding.
So when we hear our materialistic leaders saying, "There couldn't
possibly be a nuclear war because we've made it just too horrible," we
know better. "We've made so many weapons that nuclear war would be just
too horrible," our leaders say, "so therefore there won't be a nuclear
war." This type of reasoning, which sounds so sophisticated when
you hear the Kissingers and the rest mouthing it on television, is
actually very naive. As we've noted, it comes from a limited vision of
life and the universe and the laws that govern the universe. "We don't
have to stop our sins; we have this theory that we can stop the
reactions of these sins from coming." Anyone with any real knowledge of
God's laws knows that if a person is engaging in violently sinful
activities, these will create reactions that no material formula can
stop.
If you break the law of the State, you will be punished. Now,
wouldn't it be foolish to think that the law of God is weaker than the
law of the State? "We humans can punish the lawbreaker, but God cannot."
That would be very foolish. Of course, in a society where people are
systematically taught there is no God, they soon forget about the law of
God. After all, in our "secular society" you cannot teach anything
about the law of God in any school. It is against the law to teach about
the real law.
And to keep it that way, our "modern thinkers" are very busy
concocting theories to convince people that there's no God and that man
is just the material body not the inner soul, not the servant of the
Supreme Soul. "Everything is happening without any need of a God. . . .
Life is caused by matter, not God. . . . The various species have
appeared by chance evolution, without a God. . . . The creation of the
universes, the stars, the planets is caused without a God." As a result,
if you go through the school system in any country of the world, you
come out thinking that God is irrelevant and that you are this body. The
main thing is to get you thinking that you are this body the bodily
concept. When you're finished watching TV, you think you're this body.
When you're finished reading Time magazine, you think you're this
body. When you are finished listening to popular tunes and their
lyrics, you think you're this body. When you're finished watching a
movie, you think you're this body.
At present the whole society is organized around this: how to get you
into the bodily concept, how to get you very attached to it. And when
you're attached to it, what do you do? Engage in sinful activities.
You're going to control the world for your bodily gratification. You're
going to murder your baby. You're going to eat flesh. "It's very
important to kill those babies, and it's very important to kill those
animals. Because that's how we gratify our bodies." This is the way a
person in the bodily concept thinks.
So it's not at all reassuring to us in the Krsna consciousness
movement when we see the leaders of the world going on television and
telling everybody, "You don't have to worry about nuclear war, because
we've made it so horrible that there won't be a war." This is not
reassuring to us at all. If only they would go on television and say,
"We're going to stop killing babies, and we're going to stop killing
animals. This is our peace formula. We will not have a nuclear war
because we're going to stop killing all these babies and animals." When
we finally acknowledge the sacredness of all life, the result will be
that God will grant us peace. But if we remain warlike and violent
toward all forms of life, how can the karmic reaction be anything but
war and violence upon ourselves? How is Nature going to let us get away
with murdering six hundred million babies and a hundred billion animals
every ten years? How do we suppose we're going to get away with that?
How dare we think that we can do this with impunity and have our leaders
come on the TV and soothe us by saying, "We've made war too impossibly
horrible that's the peace formula."
Only a fool will accept this type of propaganda. So there is a type
of folly and hypocrisy even, for instance, in the nuclear freeze
movement. These people seem very well intentioned. They want peace and
they're praying for peace and marching for peace. But they themselves
may be murderers of babies and animals. So first they have to make their
own hearts peaceful. First they have to get rid of all the violence
from their own hearts. Otherwise, what is the use of their marching for
peace? God is not going to respond to their prayer for peace, because
right afterward these same people are going to McDonald's or Burger King
or Planned Parenthood or the abortion clinic.
So it's not just our institutions and leaders that bring about all
this murder it's our very selves, "we the people," who are the willing
customers of these institutions and the followers of these leaders.
There is a certain myth that these horrible governments are going to
create this nuclear war, and that we poor innocent citizens who have
nothing to do with it are going to suffer. We call this "the myth of the
innocent citizen," because the innocent citizen is not as innocent as
people think.
To sum up, there is an actual peace formula, and it begins with an
understanding of the difference between the actual self and the
temporary body. We have to become liberated from this bodily concept or there's
no question of peace. We actually have to learn, "I am not this body. I
am not these bodily designations 'American,' 'African,' 'Indian,'
'Russian'; 'black,' 'white,' 'yellow,' 'red'; 'man,' 'woman,' 'child';
'young,' 'old.' I am something more than this. Therefore I should not
act as if I were just this body. I should learn what it means to be a
spirit soul. And what it means to act as a spirit soul." Only then can
we have real compassion and put an end to the gross violence that exists
in this present so-called civilized world.
So this knowledge about the difference between the soul and the body
and how to act as a liberated soul rather than as an illusioned soul
this is the fundamental education that is required if there's actually
going to be peace on earth. And the Krsna consciousness movement is
dedicated to making this spiritual education available to all people
whatever their culture or religion or race or creed or nationality or
gender precisely because we do not see the living being in terms of
these bodily designations.
If people adopt these spiritual principles, they can free themselves from the violent reactions of karma that
are practically just around the corner. Of course, we do not believe in
the doomsday scenario, wherein the human race is exterminated.
The human race serves a purpose in God's plan, and God's plan cannot
be demolished by humans. That's not possible. The human race will always
exist. But without spiritual knowledge, the human race will have not
only a World War III but a World War IV and a World War V, and on and
on. These karmic reactions will go on and on and on until human beings
are given a spiritual education rather than this dull material education
that most of us have been subjected to for most of our lives.
So to start with, we recommend that you read the Bhagavad-gita and Srimad-Bhagavatam. Anyone
who reads this literature will be enriched with spiritual knowledge and
will understand how to act in harmony with the laws of God rather than
transgress them. And not only that. This literature reveals how you can
free yourself from whatever karma you have created before whether
in this life or in past lives. You can learn this ancient spiritual
science of Krsna consciousness through acceptingprasadam, vegetarian foods offered to Lord Krsna; and through reading the Bhagavad-gita and Srimad-Bhagavatam, knowledge
spoken by and about Krsna; and through chanting the holy names of
Krsna: Hare Krsna, Hare Krsna, Krsna Krsna, Hare Hare/ Hare Rama, Hare
Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare. And we invite you to come as often as you
like to these Hare Krsna centers. They are open to everyone, so that
everyone can revive his spiritual consciousness and become free from the
bodily concept and from the karma leading to nuclear war. -From Back to Godhead Magazine 1984
