Basis of Any Culture
Any culture, or way of life of people, is based on the worldview of that people, or the philosophical outlook of that people.
Lecture on "Vaisnava Culture" – 13th Oct 2000
Vaisnava Culture
Vaisnava culture is based on the philosophy of understanding the Absolute Truth as described in the Vedic literature, that human life is meant for God-realization. That’s Vaisnava culture.
Lecture on "Vaisnava Culture" – 13th Oct 2000
Mother – The First Guru
Srila Prabhupada told how even his own mother used to eat with her left hand. In Indian culture you only eat with your right hand, but she took a vow that she would use her left hand until her son notices-means he himself, when he was a young boy. So that may seem like some superstition, but in the Vedas it's said that the first guru is the mother.
Lecture on "Vaisnava Culture" – 13th Oct 2000
Teaching The Children
The mother is the first to teach and the teaching begins very early in life, even before the children can comprehend. I’ve seen this in Bangladesh. The Hindu women bring their little children—they can’t even walk or talk—and they will bring them and physically bow them down. They [the children] don’t know what they’re doing; they have no idea what’s going on. They [the mothers] touch their [the children’s] heads to the ground in front of the Deities, or they would come up to a sadhu and touch the baby’s head. So at the very beginning of life they will start teaching these things, and then what happens is that by the age of five years old they [the children] automatically know. As soon as any sadhu comes, they will automatically bow down.
Lecture on "Vaisnava Culture" – 13th Oct 2000
Principles for Auspicious Life
In the Vedic culture there are different principles for auspicious life. One should rise early in the morning. Rising after dawn is considered sinful, because early morning is the best for spiritual advancement and human life is meant for spiritual advancement. So if you rise late, you are spoiling your human form of life.
Lecture on "Vaisnava Culture" – 13th Oct 2000
Sati Rite
Now the British stopped this [sati rite] when they were ruling, because sometimes it was being misused. In the Western world no one can understand; it's just considered like murder, or something like that. But they don't understand that people had so much faith that the soul continues to live after the death of the body, so they don't feel that the destruction of the body is something very bad. They consider, "Anyway, we have died so many times, but the wife's duty is to follow her husband throughout life and even to the next life. So they are trained like that at a very young age, and that's the whole meaning of their existence-the women-how they serve their husbands and help him to advance in spiritual life and whatever destination he gets they follow him, like a joint effort.
Lecture on "Vaisnava Culture" – 13th Oct 2000
Vanquishing The Dirt of Material Life
One may cleanse himself daily by taking a bath in water, but if one takes a bath even once in the sacred Ganges water of Bhagavad-gita, for him the dirt of material life is altogether vanquished.
Cultivation of Spirituality
Bhakti is a sort of cultivation. As soon as we say “cultivation”, we must refer to activity. Cultivation of spirituality does not mean sitting down idly for meditation, as some pseudo-yogis teach. Such idle meditation may be good for those who have no information of devotional service and for this reason it is sometimes recommended as a way to check distracting materialistic activities.
Introspection
Look within. Amend yourself, rather than prying into the frailities of others.
Supreme Occupation
The supreme occupation (Dharma) for all humanity is that by which men can attain loving devotional service unto the transcendent Lord. Such devotional service must be unmotivated and uninterrupted in order to completely satisfy the self.