ast updated 30th July 2008
Sivarama Swami: Regularly watching TV and movies: there are two main defects in this activity, whether they’re done regularly or even occasionally. The first is that this media always includes intoxication, graphic sex life, violence, and gambling. Therefore watching it means to break the regulative principles. What reason do we have that we would go out of our way to observe and watch these activities of Kali-yuga when already it’s difficult enough to stay away from it, when even walking down the street, going into a shop or going out on harinama or sankirtana, these things are bombarding us and challenge the consciousness of a serious practitioner. So why would I want to bring these things into my own home, to give ideas to children? Answer: because people have material desires and they give into them. I’ll come back to that in a moment.
The second defect is that anything you see makes an impression in the heart. So the rampant violence, sex, intoxication, bad language, immoral behavior, irreverence for the real values of life, and fairytale worlds like Spiderman jumping off buildings and flying through the air, these make an impression in the heart, and when they do they become a source of meditation, something to meditate on, because these impressions will come out at a later time. Not only as a reflection of the mind but something that creates seeds of material desires in the heart and which will also water existing seeds of desire in the heart.
So it is a very detrimental practice. But back to the first point, breaking principles. Initiated devotees vow to follow regulative principles. When referring to brahmacaris and sannyasis in this regard, we say that even in the mind if one contemplates these things he is breaking the principles. But while grhasthas might have license, they only have that within their own marriage situation. They don’t have a license to view sexual activities or these other things. So for them to contemplate it, to view it, to enjoy it: it’s all breaking the principles. How then can an initiated devotee do these things with a clear conscience?
And what is the effect of breaking the regulative principles? We commit sin. And by committing sin, we complicate our spiritual lives, entangle ourselves in material existence, and suffer from the results of that sin.
By committing sin there’s an effect in the mind, and that is that sinful thoughts linger in heart. They come up like bubbles from the mud and become the source of other sinful desires, which then become the result of further sinful acts. Ultimately what devotees see on TV and in movies, they’ll end up doing. If they see infidelity, they’ll end up doing it. If they see violence or other activities, they’ll do that. When they become bewildered thinking materialism, egoism, pride in the material body is the ultimate goal, they become more body conscious and egotistical.
All these things strangle the creeper of devotional service and make one’s devotional life more or less null and void. Why do they do this? Well, obviously because they’re not doing what they should be, which is chanting Hare Krishna and hearing Srimad Bhagavatam and Caitanya-caritamrita. They’re not doing those activities without offense and they’re not doing them enough. And so they don’t have enough spiritual strength to resist the social pressure from those who are doing these things, nor do they have the strength to resist the inner desires that are still there in conditioned souls.
Transcription of a podcast given some months ago by Sivarama Swami
It’s a shame that these questions need to be addressed, but there’s a need for it because the phenomena exists, and devotees become bewildered when they see this inappropriate conduct from Vaisvavas. But then, that’s variety in Krishna consciousness. Krishna consciousness doesn’t mean that there are only pure devotees. Srila Prabhupada gave us pure devotional service, as did Caitanya Mahaprabhu, but it means there will also be a whole spectrum of Krishna consciousness practiced by different types of devotees, from very strict and conservative, to the very liberal, accommodating, or those not very faithful to the main principles Srila Prabhupada gave in terms of sad-acara and sadhana.
And that’s to be expected. People are individuals, they have different modes of nature, association, goals in life, and the result is that when they come in contact with Krishna consciousness they will practice differently. The objectionable thing is that devotees should not rationalize that a lower variety of Krishna consciousness is OK and is acceptable, no big deal, and we should therefore not change those standards.
Rather, we accept that a variety of practice will be there, that some will follow 4 regs, others 3, others 2, in the same way some will be more strict with these things like no TV, no movies, forbidden foods, coffee, etc., and others won’t be.
How can we avoid that? We can’t just force that only one type of Krishna consciousness will be followed. But based on Srila Prabhupada’s teachings and books, we should readily accept what the standard is.
But regularly watching TV and movies: there are two main defects in this activity, whether they’re done regularly or even occasionally. The first is that this media always includes intoxication, graphic sex life, violence, and gambling. Therefore watching it means to break the regulative principles. What reason do we have that we would go out of our way to observe and watch these activities of Kali-yuga when already it’s difficult enough to stay away from it, when even walking down the street, going into a shop or going out on harinama or sankirtana, these things are bombarding us and challenge the consciousness of a serious practitioner. So why would I want to bring these things into my own home, to give ideas to children? Answer: because people have material desires and they give into them. I’ll come back to that in a moment.
The second defect is that anything you see makes an impression in the heart. So the rampant violence, sex, intoxication, bad language, immoral behavior, irreverence for the real values of life, and fairytale worlds like Spiderman jumping off buildings and flying through the air, these make an impression in the heart, and when they do they become a source of meditation, something to meditate on, because these impressions will come out at a later time. Not only as a reflection of the mind but something that creates seeds of material desires in the heart and which will also water existing seeds of desire in the heart.
So it is a very detrimental practice. But back to the first point, breaking principles. Initiated devotees vow to follow regulative principles. When referring to brahmacaris and sannyasis in this regard, we say that even in the mind if one contemplates these things he is breaking the principles. But while grhasthas might have license, they only have that within their own marriage situation. They don’t have a license to view sexual activities or these other things. So for them to contemplate it, to view it, to enjoy it: it’s all breaking the principles. How then can an initiated devotee do these things with a clear conscience?
And what is the effect of breaking the regulative principles? We commit sin. And by committing sin, we complicate our spiritual lives, entangle ourselves in material existence, and suffer from the results of that sin.
By committing sin there’s an effect in the mind, and that is that sinful thoughts linger in heart. They come up like bubbles from the mud and become the source of other sinful desires, which then become the result of further sinful acts. Ultimately what devotees see on TV and in movies, they’ll end up doing. If they see infidelity, they’ll end up doing it. If they see violence or other activities, they’ll do that. When they become bewildered thinking materialism, egoism, pride in the material body is the ultimate goal, they become more body conscious and egotistical.
All these things strangle the creeper of devotional service and make one’s devotional life more or less null and void. Why do they do this? Well, obviously because they’re not doing what they should be, which is chanting Hare Krishna and hearing Srimad Bhagavatam and Caitanya-caritamrita. They’re not doing those activities without offense and they’re not doing them enough. And so they don’t have enough spiritual strength to resist the social pressure from those who are doing these things, nor do they have the strength to resist the inner desires that are still there in conditioned souls.
So this may be the way of mixed devotional service. OK, so maybe we can say that is the way of broad-based preaching and Krishna consciousness spreading to all kinds of people. What can be done? Some will be like that. But it shouldn’t be passed off as ok, desirable, that it’s no big deal, that it’s conducive to pure devotional service. Otherwise in due course of time we’ll become like other religions whom we criticize for compromising their own values, religions for whom eating cows is no big deal.
Recently when I was in the UK there was this issue in the media where some Hindu organization was objecting to the proposal that Hindus don’t eat meat. They were publicly arguing that Hindus are meat eaters. Now maybe it is a fact that Hindus do eat meat, but still to be in a situation where we are publicly standing up in the media and saying that in Hinduism you eat meat when less than 30 years ago 80% of Hindus didn’t eat meat, it’s an indication of how people are willing to change a standard.
Everyone has their own choice, but it should be very clear that it’s against Srila Prabhupada’s instructions, that it’s not ok, it’s a compromise and a lowering of standards. And it should be clear that a lower standard indicates a different type of devotee than one who is practicing a higher standard. Even if that devotee who has made so many compromises in his Krishna consciousness is nicer, more polite, and so many other things, at least that’s something on the behavior of sad-acara, and that’s one thing, but where does the mixture of TV and movies and devotional service lead?
Krishna says, yam yam vapi smaram bhavam. When you fill the mind with superfluous things, when they’re rampant in the heart, it is inevitable that this will be our consciousness. We won’t be Krishna conscious, we’ll be Spiderman conscious. We will not be Krishna conscious. What will happen? At the time of death we won’t be able to think of Krishna. We haven’t practiced, and our thoughts of Krishna have been subdued by such an oppressive, fast-moving, violent and aggressive media that locks these things in the mind like a Xerox. They’re not just going to go away, they have to be purified and only pure devotion will purify them.
So, yam yam vapi smaram bhavam, devotees will think of these things. And what will happen? Devotees will go there, to where these things are. Spiderman-loka. Great. You go there.
But how can a real devotee, a real follower of Srila Prabhupada, conscientiously sit and spend his time watching these things, knowing that Srila Prabhupada rose at 1am and toiled in the early hours to give us Srimad Bhagavatam and Caitanya-caritamrita, he sacrificed his life, shortened his life, just so we could purify our consciousness, to put Krishna in our hearts, that we’d be ale to think of Krishna while living in this world and when we leave this world, that when we leave our bodies we will ultimately go to Him.
I really hope I never become entangled in such compromising acts: I would consider that I was being unfaithful and ungrateful to Srila Prabhupada, and I hope I am never in a situation where I try to rationalize my illicit and foolishly materialistic behavior in the name of Krishna consciousness. I would not consider that if I was doing these things that I was a Prabhupada man, or the type of man that Srila Prabhupada wanted his followers to be.
Hare Krishna
http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1650352,00.html?cnn=yes
UNITED STATES, August 7, 2007: The claim always seemed too good to be true: park your infant in front of a video and, in no time, he or she will be talking and getting smarter than the neighbor's kid. In the latest study on the effects of popular videos such as the "Baby Einstein" and "Brainy Baby" series, researchers find that these products may be doing more harm than good. And they may actually delay language development in toddlers. Led by Frederick Zimmerman and Dr. Dimitri Christakis, both at the University of Washington, the research team found that with every hour per day spent watching baby DVDs and videos, infants learned six to eight fewer new vocabulary words than babies who never watched the videos. These products had the strongest detrimental effect on babies 8 to 16 months old, the age at which language skills are starting to form. "The more videos they watched, the fewer words they knew," says Christakis. "These babies scored about 10% lower on language skills than infants who had not watched these videos."
It's not the first blow to baby videos, and likely won't be the last. Mounting evidence suggests that passive screen sucking not only doesn't help children learn, but could also set back their development. Last spring, Christakis and his colleagues found that by three months, 40% of babies are regular viewers of DVDs, videos or television; by the time they are two years old, almost 90% are spending two to three hours each day in front of a screen. Three studies have shown that watching television, even if it includes educational programming such as Sesame Street, delays language development. "Babies require face-to-face interaction to learn," says Dr. Vic Strasburger, professor of pediatrics at the University of New Mexico School of Medicine and a spokesperson for the American Academy of Pediatrics. "They don't get that interaction from watching TV or videos. In fact, the watching probably interferes with the crucial wiring being laid down in their brains during early development." Previous studies have shown, for example, that babies learn faster and better from a native speaker of a language when they are interacting with that speaker instead of watching the same speaker talk on a video screen. "Even watching a live person speak to you via television is not the same thing as having that person in front of you," says Christakis. This growing evidence led the Academy to issue its recommendation in 1999 that no child under two years old watch any television. The authors of the new study might suggest reading instead: children who got daily reading or storytelling time with their parents showed a slight increase in language skills.
hinduism today
See more articles regarding watching television HERE:
