What is the most common thing that makes the people in this world to feel their living very interesting?
It is politics and gossipping. These two are twin sisters going always together. We cannot separate them. Without politics, gossiping won’t have the feed. Without gossipping politics won’t be developed. The proverb says, “Gossip is petty, but in the world of politics it is also essential..” So, politics and gossip are made for each other.
The demoniac Hiranyakashipu wanted his son Prahlad to master in politics.
yat tatra guruṇā proktaṁ
śuśruve ’nupapāṭha ca
na sādhu manasā mene
sva-parāsad-grahāśrayam
“Prahlāda certainly heard and recited the topics of politics and economics taught by the teachers, but he understood that political philosophy involves considering someone a friend and someone else an enemy, and thus he did not like it.”
“Politics involves accepting one group of men as enemies and another group as friends. Everything in politics is based on this philosophy, and the entire world, especially at the present, is engrossed in it. The public is concerned with friendly countries and friendly groups or enemy countries and enemy groups, but as stated in Bhagavad-gītā, a learned person does not make distinctions between enemies and friends. Devotees, especially, do not create friends and enemies.
A devotee sees that every living being is part and parcel of Kṛṣṇa (mamaivāṁśo jīva-bhūtaḥ). Therefore a devotee treats friends and enemies equally by trying to educate them both in Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Of course, atheistic men do not follow the instructions of pure devotees, but instead consider a devotee their enemy. A devotee, however, never creates a situation of friendship and enmity. Although Prahlāda Mahārāja was obliged to hear the instructions of Ṣaṇḍa and Amarka, he did not like the philosophy of friends and enemies, which forms the basis of politics. He was not interested in this philosophy.”
Even if we take the organisations that are supposed to be spreading this same philosophy of Krishna Consciousness consider themselves enemies to each other, and there are so many gossips about blaming each other!
However, a pure devotee of Lord Krishna should not differentiate between an enemy and a friend. While Dhuryodana always saw Pandavas as his enemies, Yudhishtira never considered Kauravas as his enemies.
The gossiping is complementing with politics and make the life of non-devotees so interesting and let them waste their valuable time and life and dragged to the hell. That is the reason Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu strictly warns us through the advice to Srila Ragunatha Dasa Goswami about the danger of gossiping.
grāmya-kathā nā śunibe, grāmya-vārtā nā kahibe
bhāla nā khāibe āra bhāla nā paribe .. (CC Antya 6.236)
“Do not talk like people in general or hear what they say. You should not eat very palatable food, nor should you dress very nicely.”
If we do not follow the advice and the sastras, but to heed our attention to politics and gossiping, our bhakti the topmost jewel will run away. Instead of gossiping on politics, it is wise to talk about Krishna Katha, not gramya-katha. Let us not lose the most valuable jewel of Krishna Bhakti.