Jagat

The other day I saw an orange robed sannyāsī in Vrindavan, tall and strong looking, fit and wearing bright new cloth. He was about 55, with salt and pepper hair. His face was lined and extremely grave. And then I looked at the other sannyāsīs I saw sleeping by the Parikrama Marg, beggars, at best living in jhopris, shuffling along the road to the next khattri for kitcherie. And I thought, "They are MEANT to look mean and miserable. They are meant to frighten you. They are meant to be the bogey man." A sannyāsī is serious stuff. He denies the world. Just think of Vyasadeva appearing to Ambika and Ambalika to sire the royal children of the ironically named Vichitravirya ("Wondrous Virility"). One queen was so frightened at Vyasa's ascetic appearance that she closed her eyes and gave birth to a blind Dhritarashtra, and the other to an albino because she was white with fright. If a sannyāsī does not frighten you, he is not a real sannyāsī, and it is not too ...

Many people criticize and condemn religions and religious institutions because of the evil done in their name. This is often based on a predisposition to anti-religious sentiment. One should recognize that religion is a human institution and subject to the same frailties as all human institutions. Those who are in such institutions should recognize these frailties and take steps to control and counteract them. According to Patanjali's Yoga-sūtra (4.7), there are four kinds of people. Patanjali does try to estimate what percentage of human society fits into each category, no doubt since modern ways of enumerating populations was not yet devised. In any case, such percentages no doubt change as societies change. Patanjali divides people according to the kind of work they do in relation to the goal of enlightenment. The first three are (1) kṛṣṇa (black, or dark karmas), which are the actions performed by the evil; (2) śukla-kṛṣṇa or mixed karmas, which evidently are the kinds...