Vedic Perspective
Editorial Commentary
8-13-87

World Peace and the Krishna Movement

  Thousands of people from all over the world will be coming together in
sacred sites all over the world in an effort to avert the anhillation of
civilization on earth on August 16 and 17 which is this coming Sunday and
Monday.  This special phenomenon is called the harmonic convergence according
to an article from the New York Times.
  Coincidentally, devotees of the Hare Krishna movement and Hindus worldwide
will also be observing Krishna janma-jayanti or the birthday celebration of
Lord Krishna followed by the birthday celebration of the movement's founder,
His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada which also is occuring
on the 16th and 17th of this month.
  When commenting upon the possiblity of nuclear disaster and World War III,
Shrila Prabhupada would sometimes say that such a nuclear war was unavoidable
because of the presence of stockpiles of nuclear weapons.  Then sometimes he
would also say that depending on how effective the devotees of Krishna were
intent on spreading the message of Krishna consciousness, such wars may be
averted if people were seriously engaged in stopping their sinful and godless
behavior.
  Shrila Prabhupada also commented on other attempts at world peace.
Commenting on the hopelessness of godless solutions, he would often use as an
example the attempts of the United Nations organization.  The idea of creating
world peace is certainly a very noble and worthwhile endeavor but Shrila
Prabhupada taught that it is only possible through the Krishna consciousness.
  The fault of attempts at world peace as being done by the United Nations is
that they do not actually have a practical plan to create brotherhood.  As
long as people are very proud of these false designations:  "I am American,"
"I am Russian," "I am Hindu," "I am black," "I am white," then there is no
possiblity for peace.  But when one gets rid of these false ideas throught the
process of Krishna consciousness, he can understand that he is not American,
Russian, Chinese, Japanese, black or white, but he knows that everyone, even
the animals, plants and germs; they are all parts and parcles of God.  The
physical body may be American, Asian, dog or cat, but the soul is the same.
Prabhupada's idea was to kick out this idea of nationality consciousness and
cultivate international consciousness.  Therefore the idea of the
International Society for Krishna Consciousness was developed with the purpose
of getting rid of so-called national pride based on false designations and
develop the idea that everyone is originally an eternal servant of Krishna.
  Now there is a growing movement of people here in America who are looking to
reawaken their spirituality through what is called the New Age movement.  New
Agers will be taking very seriously this harmonic convergence which is said to
be a means of averting such nuclear anhillation.  It is said that New Agers
have adopted an interest in reincarnation, UFOs, and adopted some Eastern
religious ideas which are not in line with traditional Judeo- Christian
beliefs.  So although such New Agers are adopting a variety of metaphysical
ideas, it can be taken as a sign that the world is getting smaller and
distinct cultural and religious lines are vanishing.  There may be only one
world culture in the future.
  Right now, everyone is adopting the American technological culture with its
emphasis on scientific research.  But the devotees of the Hare Krishna
movement after taking note of the limitations of science have taken to the
spiritual culture of Krishna and the Bhagavad-gita and have taken it to be
superior than science.  The question is, when Eastern spiritual culture and
Western technological culture come together, will Easterners lose their
spirituality or will Westerners lose their technology?  That is already
happening that people are coming from places like India to America and they
are slowly adopting the culture of yavanas and mlecchas.  But if Indians
follow the instruction of Shri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, Shri Krishna Chaitanya,
then as He says it is your duty your dharma to know the importance of
Bhagavad-gita and spread this message all over the world.  Not that you lose
your culture and also come to the platform of yavana and mleccha.  By keeping
the spiritual culture very strong with Krishna in the center then that will be
good for everyone and can bring actual world peace which people are interested
in.  Otherwise we have seen how quickly nuclear weapons can destroy cities and
innocent citizens like women and children.

--Vaishnava dasa