Chapter 9: The Divine Agent

I have heard that there is one American scientist who is researching, and he says that if he can get one cell from the body of Napoleon, he can make many Napoleons. In a potato many sprouts may come, and if we cut them, one sprout will produce a potato plant. So also in the human body there are many cells, and according to their scientific theory, we can somehow create a man from one of the characteristic cells of his body. The mentality, the vigour, everything is contained in every particle of which the body is constructed.

Brāhmaṇs, Śūdras, and Mlechchhas

In a general sense, there is some importance in bodily or hereditary succession. In India, some recognition is given to the caste brāhmaṇs (those born in brāhmaṇ families). But there are exceptions. So a birth from a śūdra (labourer class) or mlechchha (race devoid of Vedic culture) body is generally considered impure. From their ancestors they do not observe particular rites or pure customs, and the impurity is there. Many of the smārta section and Śaṅkarite interpreters, and some of the Madhva school also, hold that by chanting the Holy Name of the Lord, Hari-nām, the purification of the subtle body is effected, but the karma which is destined to be suffered or enjoyed in this particular body cannot be purified by Hari-nām or anything else.

Karma or the action that we have done in our previous life is classified:

aprārabdha-phalaṁ pāpaṁ kūṭaṁ bījaṁ phalonmukham
krameṇaiva pralīyeta viṣṇu-bhakti-ratātmanām

“The four types of sin known as aprārabdha, kūṭa, bīja, and phalonmukha are gradually eradicated for person exclusively attached to devotion for the Supreme Lord Viṣṇu.”

Grades of Karma

Prārabdha is the karma or action which has been attached to be enjoyed or suffered in this body, and aprārabdha is that which is deposited to be experienced in the future. Prārabdha means ‘that which has already begun’, and aprārabdha is ‘that which has been reserved for the future’. The stages of progress from manifest to unmanifest are classified in three: kūṭam, bījam, phalonmukham.

We can find this discussed in detail by Śrīla Rūpa Goswāmī, with various scriptural quotations, in his Śrī Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu.

Kūṭam means ‘the undetectable portion of our past action’. We cannot read the actions and results contained there, present in a microscopic way. They are undetectable to us.

We are told that in Japan they are preserving a library where the letters of the book cannot be read by the ordinary eye. The letters are so tiny that they cannot be read by the naked eye, but they must be magnified by a microscopic process. So kūṭam is that which is undetectable, like a plane of action, that will gradually manifest and demand its satisfaction.

Bījam or ‘seed’ means something which is more detectable, more clear. We can identify a particular seed and know which type of plant it will produce, and phalonmukham refers to actions that are waiting to achieve their realisation very soon. They are demanding.

In the stage of prārabdha, the previous actions have reached their satisfaction in this body. These are the divisions. The general Vedic scholars are of the opinion that prārabdha or that which has already begun to be experienced in this body cannot be changed. It is out of hand. And reactions that are reserved for the future may be finished by our good activity, and we may not have to undergo them.

Harer Nāmaiva Kevalam

But the Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava school says that this prārabdha can also be removed. What is already destined to be exprienced in this body can also be removed by Hari-nām, and by no other means. Only Kṛṣṇa-nām, Hari-nām, can purify one from that which is already begun to be experienced in this body. He may be purified.

A śūdra or mlechchha properly taking Hari-nām may be converted to brāhmaṇism. It is possible by Hari-nām. The Gauḍīya school has given quotations from different places, and by analysis of the meaning of those quotations, it holds that one may be free from the prārabdha-karma which has already begun to be experienced in this life.

bhaktyāham ekayā grāhyaḥ śraddhayātmā priyaḥ satām
bhaktiḥ punāti man-niṣṭhā śvapākān api sambhavāt

“I, the Supreme Lord and the most Beloved, am attainable by the pure saints, by virtue of the potency of their exclusive devotion born of faith (śraddhā). Exclusive devotion in Me purifies even the lowest outcastes known as chaṇḍālas.”

Śva means dog. Even the dog-eaters, that is, the lower section, can also be purified from their lower birth. Another verse in the same line of thought is this:

yan-nāmadheya-śravaṇānukīrtanād
yat-prahvaṇād yat-smaraṇād api kvachit
śvādo ’pi sadyaḥ savanāya kalpate
kutaḥ punas te bhagavan na darśanāt

[Devahūti said] “O Lord, if he just hears Your Name, then chants it, offers You obeisances and remembers You, even a person born as a dog-eating outcaste instantly becomes eligible to perform the soma sacrifice, to say nothing of the purification of those who see You directly.”

Those dog-eaters and lowest class of people can be immediately purified by taking the Name of the Lord. When the prārabdha has gone, the person becomes like Indra, but not Indra proper, a little less. Savanāya kalpate means Indra-kalpa. Now, please note very attentively Śrīla Jīva Goswāmī’s remark in his commentary.

Entrance to a Higher Family

Savanāya kalpate means ‘he becomes purified to such a standard that he can perform the sacrifice which is reserved only for the brāhmaṇs’. Kalpate means ‘a little difference’. So here, Śrīla Jīva Goswāmī has given his own commentation. What is the little difference? When that person’s prārabdha has gone, he attains the position of a boy of a brāhmaṇ.

But the boy is not allowed to perform the brāhmaṇ yajña until and unless he is given the sacred thread. A saṁskār (purificatory ceremony) is necessary. Janmanā jāyate śūdraḥ — by birth everyone is impure, but by saṁskār they are purified. But who will be fit for the saṁskār? Only the brāhmaṇ boy. Now, he reaches the stage of the brāhmaṇ boy, and not the brāhmaṇ.

He may have come from any caste, but after taking Hari-nām he should be considered to have reached the stage of a brāhmaṇ boy; and again when that gāyatrī-saṁskār or brāhmaṇ-saṁskār is given, he gets the recognition of a bona fide brāhmaṇ and he can perform the yajña and Śālagrām-archan (worship of the Deity Śālagrām-śilā), etc.

So with the Hari-nām, taking the Name of the Lord — in a proper way, of course — the karma vanishes, and with body purified, he is considered to be a brāhmaṇ boy; and when the sacred thread is conferred to him, he will become eligible for all the brahminical activities.

This is the scientific position. So Pāñcharātrikī-dīkṣā may not be necessary. Hari-nām is sufficient. Still, the brāhmaṇ-saṁskār, the gāyatrī or Vedic saṁskār is given, and Pāñcharātrikī-dīkṣā is also given to help him to a greater degree. For example, one may win a university scholarship that comes to help him. The student’s university scholarship is all-important, but some subservient appreciation also comes to somewhat enhance his position.

Circle Within a Circle

The Hari-nām circle is the purifying circle, and it is the greatest circle, extending in circumference from the lowest to highest, and Pāñcharātrika help is a circle within the circle. It will help the candidate in taking the name and other important practices. But without it, one may also practice.

The Divine Dispensation of Śrīla Bhakti Siddhānta Saraswatī Goswāmī Prabhupād

But there are so many brāhmaṇs and karma-kāṇḍīs (fruitive religionists) who will offensively consider that Vaiṣṇavas are inferior because they have not received the sacred thread; those brāhmaṇs, etc., must be saved. Also, a person who is taking the Name may think that brāhmaṇs are superior and the chanter of the Name holds a lesser position.

His abhimāna or ego must be helped to go higher: “Yes, I am said to be more than a brāhmaṇ, so I shall have to become very careful about my movements, my eating, and other practices.” This will help him to know that he must not go below the standard of an ordinary purificatory section. At the same time, society will also be warned to deal properly with these persons who are taking the Name of Hari, by conceiving that they are exclusively given to the chanting of the name of Hari and are therefore superior to a brāhmaṇ. This system was introduced by our Guru Mahārāj. He conferred the sacred thread extensively.

That is to give the position of a brāhmaṇ, outwardly. In calculation from the inner side, a Vaiṣṇava is above a brāhmaṇ. But from the outer side also he created this particular society in which a Vaiṣṇava who is exclusively given to Kṛṣṇa consciousness must be recognised as not less, but more than a brāhmaṇ. He reformed the society to establish the position of the Vaiṣṇava, that also encouraging him: “You must not go down; you are taking the Name of Hari, exclusively given to Kṛṣṇa consciousness, and you must maintain your position in the external way so that even the brāhmaṇs or the vedic school will feel some reverence for the position you hold. You must be cautious in your dealings and in your practices, and also the society will think, ‘Don’t underestimate these persons who are exclusively given to Kṛṣṇa consciousness.’” In this way he reformed the society.

Although Mahāprabhu had not indroduced this, our Guru Mahārāj, Śrīla Bhakti Siddhānta Saraswatī Goswāmī Prabhupād, adjusted the society to bring Mahāprabhu’s teaching to the world in a broad way.

Previously, Rūpa, Sanātan, and followers did not care to take any sacred thread. Also, in the sannyās system of the varṇāśram, Śaṅkar and others give up the sacred thread to the fire when they take sannyās, showing that they have no necessity of a sacred thread; they’re above that, above brāhmaṇs. Yet their creed is ‘we are one with brahman’ — and here is the infinite difference. The higher a Vaiṣṇava is, the more he will say, “I am the slave of Kṛṣṇa.” But the māyāvādīs identify themselves with the highest Entity. They have fallen prey to complete misconception of the revealed scriptures or Veda. This is the position.

In Manu-saṁhitā we find three classes of births:

mātur agre ’dhijananaṁ dvitīyaṁ mauñji-bandhane
tṛtīyaṁ yajña-dīkṣāyāṁ dvijasya śruti-chodanāt

Mātur agre ’dhijananaṁ: first we take our body from the mother, or the parents. Dvitīyaṁ mauñji-bandhane: the second birth is by receiving sacred thread in a brāhmaṇ family. Tṛtīyaṁ yajña-dīkṣāyāṁ: again, the third is to take this Pāñcharātrikī-dīkṣā, to help for further progress. This is in Manu-saṁhitā. A brāhmaṇ man has three births.

The second mauñji-bandhane is gāyatrī or Vedic dīkṣā. It teaches us: “Try to have your reading from the example that has been set by Veda. Don’t believe what your experience tells you, but try to follow how the revealed truth wants you to read the environment.” Don’t survey your environment with your own fleshy eye and ear, but with a more scientific education try to see things beyond that.

Of course, science is also generally mundane, but revealed truth tells us to see things in another way: nothing is for me, but everything is for the Supreme Authority. We are particle of that. Try to read your environment in this way. Everything belongs to the centre, and we are a part of that organic whole, and our duty must be ascertained accordingly.

This is the Vedic process of reading the environment. And ordinary vision is, “I am monarch of all I survey.” We want to utilise everything for our purpose. This is mundane.

Initiation — the Imparting of Divine Knowledge

divyaṁ jñānaṁ yato dadyāt kuryāt pāpasya saṅkṣayam
tasmād dīkṣeti sā proktā deśikais tattva-kovidaiḥ

What is the meaning of the word dīkṣā? Dīkṣā is the process by which divya-jñān or transcendental knowledge is imparted to a person. Upanayana means that a new eye is given to the person: “The eye with which you now see cannot see correctly. But the eye is given from the Vedas, as gāyatrī. From this time onwards try to learn your environment in a different way.”

Bhūr, Bhuvar, Svar, Mahar, Janas, Tapas, Satya — these planets of the world of your experience evolve from consciousness. Bhū means the world of this fleshy eye, ear, etc. Bhuva means the mental aspect of the same. In this way, there are finer and finer conceptions of things. And what is the cause of such experience? Our consciousness — soul — the light within us. So only with the help of that we can read things around us impartially.

Savitur vareṇyam — and there is another realm that is venerable to this gross world of conception. Another worshippable and finer realm is there. There is another plane: God with His entourage lives there. All serve Him, the centre, and that is the norm there. It is perfectly known to the members of that world that the centre is all-in-all. We must obey central authority, and there we can thrive. That is proper life.

There is another world in the subtlemost area. The gāyatrī mantra comes to help us with all these things. It teaches us: “Don’t think what you read by the experience of your fleshy senses is all-in-all. There are other planets of life and you must recognise them, and prepare your life’s programme accordingly.

“You cannot divorce the possibility of these different planes of existence. Prepare yourself properly for the great task. Although at this moment you cannot have any experience of it, there is a super-experience world, and you must prepare yourself for that; otherwise, you will have to end your life in failure. You can attain good success in this life.”

This is the purpose of dīkṣā. Transcendental knowledge, divyaṁ jñānaṁ, is imparted to the man who would otherwise depend on his experienced knowledge or the knowledge drawn from his perception.

The Hari-nām-dīkṣā is the most central and simple. There is one sound aspect of the Lord, and you may come in touch with that and go on cultivating the sound aspect of the Whole, in Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Only with the connection and cultivation of His sound aspect, you can go to the centre. That is Hari-nām, and in the case of the mantra, the Name is couched in a particular way to give the meaning, “I am casting myself unto Him, for His satisfaction”.

The mantra is couched in such a way that we pray: “I am throwing myself for the satisfaction of my Supreme Lord.” That helps us to take the Name with the proper attitude. Sevonmukha — we are dying for real life. Sacrifice means ‘die to live’. It is to throw oneself. The process of surrender has been given in the mantra.

How should you advance in taking the Name? What is the process? You must throw yourself and your ego of experience to the fire. That will be destroyed and the inner ego will emerge, and that will be more beneficial for you to take the real Name and to approach the real plane where Kṛṣṇa, your Lord, is living. This is to go home. These are the points in dīkṣā.

Back to Home, Back to Godhead

Devotee: Sometimes my Dīkṣā-guru (initiating Spiritual Master) used to say that within this lifetime one can be perfected and then, at the end of this lifetime, go back home, back to Godhead.

Śrīla Guru Mahārāj: It is very rarely found that in this one life, in a single life from this plane one can reach the highest life. But generally it requires lives together, if in a real process. There may also be setbacks. If one commits Vaiṣṇava-aparādh or Nām-aparādh (offence to the Vaiṣṇava or the Holy Name), he may be detained again and again. It is not such a cheap thing. Still, there is the possibility that when properly guided a proper soul may attain the highest position in a single life. It is not impossible.

Devotee: Sometimes he said that a devotee could take birth where Kṛṣṇa is having His pastimes within this material world, and he will be trained according to his given service to Kṛṣṇa, and after that go to Goloka.

Śrīla Guru Mahārāj: What do you think? That is to live in Vṛndāvan. That must be helpful, but this Nabadwīp is more helpful. There is the possibility of committing offences. We can be misled by taking lust as love. We can misidentify our enjoyment as devotion or prema. The possibility is there. In that case we would become sahajiyā. They imitate everything. What is the value of only living in the land of what we see by our senses? It has been told that the Dhām is aprākṛta, not material, not to be experienced by our senses. We must try to live in that Dhām — the chinmaya, that is, the fully conscious area.

So if we really do not want do deceive ourselves, we must not ignore the steps by which we may go there. With proper help and inspiration we may know that Vṛndāvan is for the higher. We may get some inspiration. Caution is needed in attending Kṛṣṇa-dhām, as much as it is required for attending Kṛṣṇa-līlā. But if we are not sincere, we may commit offences, and that will hurl us down.

The Glory of Śrī Nabadwīp Dhām

Rather, Nabadwīp Dhām is more accommodating. There also aparādh is possible, but it may be minimised. Nabadwīp will help us, as sādhakas (aspirants) to feel, “I am not so high; I am not holding such a high position as those of Vṛndāvan.” In chanting the Name or residing in the Dhām — with everything there is consideration of offences, and less consideration of offences is found in Nabadwīp Dhām. It is more liberal. Still, the most important factor is sādhu-saṅga — the superior guide.

Śrīla Narottam Ṭhākur has written:

tīrtha-yātrā pariśrama kevala manera bhrama
sarva-siddhi govinda-charaṇa

Śrīla Bhakti Vinod Ṭhākur has also written:

ye tīrthe vaiṣṇava nāi‘ se tīrthete nāhi yāi
ki lābha hā̐ṭiyā dūra-deśa?
yathāya vaiṣṇava-gaṇa sei sthāna vṛndāvana
sei sthāne ānanda aśeṣa

The Divine Agent

Where is Vṛndāvan? We may only reach Vṛndāvan at the proper stage of realisation. If we take Vṛndāvan in the physical sense, we will commit so many offences according to our habit and we shall have to mentally go downwards. So the illumination given by the sādhu and śāstra should be our guide. Only by that way can we go to Vṛndāvan, or anywhere and everywhere. But the guiding star must always be our Guru, to guide us and show us what is what. As long as my self is not rising to that stage, I am always in need of a guide to show me what is what, what is Vṛndāvan.

Vṛndāvan is not a physical eye-experience. It is not in the world of our flesh experience. It is highest of the high. Through śraddhā, faith, we must begin our journey beyond the subjective, towards the supersubjective area. That is Vṛndāvan proper, where we can find Kṛṣṇa proper.

It is not to be found in any physical plane. He can come here; the higher plane can come in the gross, but it is not easy for those who are living in the gross plane to rise up to the higher. They can come, an agent can come, and they can take us there. But without the help of the agent, it is not easy to go to that highest plane by our own experience. So our own necessity is always sādhu-saṅga. To go to Vṛndāvan we must have a guide. He will always caution us to see things with the proper angle of vision. A guide, sādhu-saṅga, is the most important factor in the life of a bona fide seeker of the truth. And next is śāstra, revealed scriptures.

In Bhagavad-gītā there are classifications in three classes: sattva, raja, and tama. The lowest kind of knowledge forcibly says that things are not what they are. This is tamo-guṇa. Such as thinking, “I am this body.” In rajo-guṇa there is doubt, “Oh, this may not be that. My conjecture and experience may not be perfect.” And sattva, the last, is of course to understand things properly as they are. So knowledge is of different stages.

To think that Vṛndāvan is in our mundane eye, ear, and touch experience can never be Vṛndāvan. Vṛndāvan proper is in the supersoul area, and only our ātmā, soul, can go there, not this body, mind, etc. Otherwise, what is the necessity of spiritual practices or sādhana, the means to the end?

Thus dīkṣā is to throw oneself to the Vedic doctrine; to give up one’s own knowledge of experience and invite the revealed estimation of the environment. It is to leave this world of mundane experience and to go to the transcendental world.

Somehow we must effect that journey. There is no short cut without that journey. Of course, with the help of proper guide we may have a short cut in the sense that we do not waste valuable time. Also, if we had some experience of the way in a previous life, that may help us to shorten the journey of this life.

Devotee: I went to an ashram where they said that without directly receiving the siddha-praṇālī or revelation of one’s internal identity as a gopī, etc., spiritual perfection is incomplete.

Śrīla Guru Mahārāj: Let them do so. They are representing the sahajiyā school. Our Guru Mahārāj wrote several poems, one of which is Prākṛta-rasa Śata-dūṣaṇī — ‘a hundred defects in the Sahajiyā conception’. The defects are innumerable, but our Guru Mahārāj put forward a hundred points of the defects in their process of ‘advancement’. Mainly they are very easy purchasers. They are not prepared to pay the real price.

But the death blow to them in this:

upajiyā bāḍe latā ‘brahmāṇḍa’ bhedi’ yāya
‘virajā’, ‘brahmaloka’ ‘bhedi’ ‘paravyoma’ pāya
tabe yāya tad upari ‘goloka-vṛndāvana’
‘kṛṣṇa-charaṇa’-kalpa-vṛkṣe kare ārohaṇa

One must first cross the different gross and subtle layers of brahmāṇḍa (mundane universe); then Virajā, the extremity of the jurisdiction of māyā or misconception; then the Brahma conception, the halo of the real or transcendental world; then Vaikuṇṭha, which is Paravyoma, a sphere of consciousness.

The jīva comes from taṭasthaloka, the marginal position or the abscissa, and he must go through higher planes where the soil is more valuable than he himself. Can you follow?

Devotee: Yes.

Śrīla Guru Mahārāj: Vaikuṇṭhera pṛthivy-ādi sakala chinmaya. What is Vaikuṇṭha? There the soil, earth, water — everything is of purer consciousness than the person who is going to enter there. Can you imagine it?

Devotee: In one of your books you mentioned a ‘land of Gurus’.

Śrīla Guru Mahārāj: Yes. They are all Guru; they are all of superior value by nature, yet we have to pass over them. I sometimes give an example that if it is necessary for the service we may even put our foot on the throne of the Lord (for example, to place His crown on His head, etc.) and afterwards come back down, offer our obeisance, and then come out from the Deity room.

Entering the Land of Gurus

So we must enter and stay in a soil which is made of a stuff which is more valuable than our own selves. A slave when serving the emperor may come near the emperor’s bed where even his near and dear cannot go or hesitate to go. He can, only for serving. So it is only for the divine service, for the necessity of the highest, that we can pass through that soil. It is not an easy thing. It is inconceivable. The fools rush where angels fear to tread.

Vaikuṇṭhera pṛthivy-ādi sakala chinmaya. We must understand the conception properly. The jīva has emerged from the taṭastha-śakti or marginal potency. He is a part of marginal potency, and he must enter into the higher plane. This gross world is of gross potency, aparā-śakti; the jīva, although marginal, is of a potency superior to this gross world, or parā-śakti; and above both is the Internal Potency or antaraṅga-śakti. We have to enter into antaraṅgā-śakti. This marginal potency is to enter into antaraṅgā-śakti, and that is Paravyoma, and the highest quarter, Vṛndāvan, Goloka. It is not a light matter. It is the fact.

So we must serve. In this world there is exploatation and renunciation; beyond them is dedication. Dedication is the proper and normal world. There are gradations according to our inner tendency of serving a particular calling. We may be allowed to enter that plane where all around is reverential soil. We must go there. Apparently, it is impossible, but it is possible by grace, kṛpā. That is called kṛpā — His grace, His free will. He is autocrat. Affection (rāga, anurāga) does not differentiate between great and small. It is very generous. Only through affection and love it is possible to expect to go there one day. But it is not so easy. When one young devotee began to show so many (apparently devotional) sentiments, others came to me asking, “He is showing so many signs of higher bhāva (sentiments); are they real?” I said, “Never!”

“I Have No Love for Kṛṣṇa”

Mahāprabu says, “I am hankering for a drop of real prema; I have not yet got that. Still, I am weeping, shedding tears so much, crying ‘Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa’, but that is all hypocrisy, because the positive proof is here — without Him, I am living. I did not disappear, dissolve. I am living, I am eating, I am taking bath, I am sleeping. This is positive proof that I have no genuine love for Kṛṣṇa.” Mahāprabhu Himself says that. It is such a valuable thing, and we think ourselves masters of it overnight! Fools, deceivers, self-deceivers! In the positive way it can never be attained. Only in the negative way we can have some conception. Śrīla Bhakti Vinod Ṭhākur says,

vichakṣaṇa kari’ dekhite chāhile
haya ā̐khi-agochara

“Suddenly a flash came, but when I tried to see that, it disappeared. It was withdrawn.” In this way, in a negative way, we can have some idea. Whimsically, He may come, and suddenly I may feel, “Oh! some experience of the higher kind of knowledge and love — but if I try to cast my eye, that eye? Nothing...”

Sacrifice — Wholesale Dissolution of the Mundane Experience

Do you want to die? Then come to live. We shall have to invite wholesale dissolution of everything in our experience. Hegel’s words help us: ‘die to live’. What is generally considered a concrete, valuable thing must be cast into fire, for some hope which is ‘un-understandable’, uknown and unknowable. Sacrifice means that. Sacrifice gives that suggestion. It may be thought that we pour such a valuable foodstuff, ghee, into fire; that ghee is burnt in the fire and smoke is produced, and that will create a healthier atmosphere, a kind of filtering that we invite for our benefit. Of course, to say such a thing is improper and ridiculous, yet the benefit from the unknown quarter is there. Unknown. Be disgusted with your known world, knowledge, pleasure — everything. Die to live. All risk, no gain. And when the destination has been reached to a certain extent — all gain, no risk.

Actually, what we risk is all concoction, the misunderstanding aspect. We only need to throw our misconception into fire to gain a proper conception of reality. When the unreal is put into fire, we gain the real. To die to live means this.

Here, in this world, we are habituated to think, “I am monarch of all I survey.” We want to become a monarch. Whether we are monarch or not, our tendency is to want to be monarch. All of us want to be monarch. And there is another reactionary school that says, “I do not want anything; I want nothing but dreamless sleep. Cessation is the most valuable thing in our experience — complete cessation of this life.”

Both these aspects of enjoyment, or exploatation, and renunciation, must be eliminated, and a third plane should be found to live in. That third plane is the life of a gentleman, the life of dedication. A life of duty, not to any part, but for the whole: “I live for the whole, and that whole is a part of Lord Kṛṣṇa.” This is to be a lover of the beautiful. In that way we have to understand, and march onward.

Infinity — a Negligible Aspect of the Lord

athavā bahunaitena kiṁ jñātena tavārjuna
viṣṭabhyāham idaṁ kṛtsnam ekāṁśena sthito jagat

“Arjuna, the infinite of your conception is in my one negligible part. I am so great that the infinite of your conception is contained in only a fraction of Me...”

Then what is our chance of approaching Him? We may think, “Kṛṣṇa is only a reflection of a picture in my mind. There is Kṛṣṇa. The whole forms His one part, and I am approaching Him? My only solace will be that I am going through His agent. He has sent His agent to recruit me, and that is my hope. He has sent His agent to recruit me, and that is my hope. He has sent His men to recruit me. He’s so kind and benevolent, and that will be my hope. I must be thankful for that, and not be a traitor to His agent.” We must be cautious to see that we do not play treachery with His agent for thereby we commit treachery against ourselves.

Oṁ Viṣṇupād Śrīla Bhakti Siddhānta Saraswatī Goswāmī Prabhupād kī jay! Śrīmad A.C. Bhaktivedānta Swāmī Mahārāj kī jay!

Divine Tribute

You are all his contribution. Swāmī Mahārāj brought you here, attracted you to this side, and I have been given some opportunity to serve you in this way (by speaking to you). Willingly or unwillingly, I am forced to do some service in that line.

It was so wonderfully and tremendously done by Swāmī Mahārāj. His preaching to the foreign countries is an inconceivable thing, so I say śaktyāveś-āvatār: some supernatural transcendental power, the grace of Nityānanda, entered into him, and as an instrument, he has done for his Lord a tremendous work to attract your attention towards the culture of Mahāprabhu Chaitanyadev. Śrī Gaurāṅga’s gift attracted your attention. Bhakti Vinod Ṭhākur could see this, and our Guru Mahārāj began in his mild way.

Bhakti Vinod Ṭhākur saw it as self-evident that intelligentsia could not but be attracted by such a plain, simple, and dignified gift: the gift of Mahāprabhu, the conception of Mahāprabhu. Such a magnanimous conception of their position, as foretold by Mahāprabhu, could not but be accepted by the sincere intelligentsia of the world. He could see this general truth. Guru Mahārāj began, and Swāmī Mahārāj successfully completed that work. After all, the divine will was fulfilled. It is not in the jurisdiction of the lower agents of this world, the subordinate gods or agents.

We are attracted by this — die to live, reality is for itself. We are to sacrifice everything ‘for Himself’. We are ‘for Himself’. Our prospect is in His service. All our prospect is in His service, but in the highest degree it is loving service: service of affection, without any calculation of loss and gain. It is above that, in the area of love and affection, beauty, and charm. We are members there. Our prospect is there. It is offered to us. Above justice, above knowledge (jñāna-śūnyā-bhakti).

Śrī Chaitanyadev — Inconceivable Self-forgetfulness

Even if Chaitanyadev is considered as a human being, we have never seen in any history of the world such intense affinity for the highest as was seen in Him, such an intensified mentality towards the highest conception of absolute, such self-forgetfulness. There is self-forgetfulness in Socrates, and the Christians also speak of self-sacrifice in Christ. But the degree of self-forgetfulness that was shown in the life of Śrī Chaitanyadev was never to be conceived of or seen before, even if we think of Him as a human.

Bhakti Vinod Ṭhākur mentioned in his autobiography, “When I first came to study Bhāgavat and Śrī Chaitanyadev, I thought, why did an exceptional scholar like Śrī Chaitanyadev support the debauchery of the Supreme Lord in Vṛndāvan as the highest end of life? What is the reason? He was one of the highest and greatest scholars, and He ultimately supported the debauchery, stealing, etc., of the Absolute, as being the highest conception. How was this possible? Then I began to pray to the Lord to reveal the fact to me. I couldn’t follow it.”

Then he said that the flash came, and with that, it also came to him that Chaitanyadev is Kṛṣṇa Himself. He is revealing Himself, giving the clue to the scientific position of His own identity as Kṛṣṇa. Why? In the highest sense He’s Autocrat, above law. He’s the owner of the whole, above law. He’s absolute good.

We must not forget that He is absolute good, with everything belonging to Him. We put forth that we have claim over the environment or over ouselves. ‘I belong to me’ — this is false. I am not an independent factor in this world. I am a part and a parcel. I belong to someone; I have got my master. Everything belongs to Him and without any condition. Unconditionally, every atom belongs to the controlling centre. And that is love and goodness. Where is the objection? Where is the cause for objection? No cause for objection can evidently stand if we can really find what is the real position and nature of the Cause — absolute good, love.

To Love Is to Give

The essence of love lives by distribution, not by absorption, but by distribution. That is love. Prema is that which exists by its tendency of distribution, and that is the highest. If a mother forcibly takes her child to her breast, is it bad? The child is crying for milk, but he does not know how to mitigate the pain of hunger in his belly. So is it force, or affection?

We are labouring under so much suspicion; so engrossed in and oppressed by māyā, misunderstanding, the misrepresented part of the world, that we cannot even think of the conception of truth and goodness. We are so far from the standard of goodness and truth; we cannot understand what should be the real symptom of higher existence. So fallen. Satan says, “It is better to reign in hell that to serve in heaven.” That is generally the outcome of our life of experience here. We want to reign in hell rather that serve in heaven. But just the opposite will be really helpful to us. Die to live.

dīkṣā-kāle bhakta kare ātma-samarpaṇa
sei-kāle kṛṣṇa tāre kare ātma-sama
sei deha kare tāra chid-ānanda-maya
aprākṛta-dehe tā̐ra charaṇa bhajaya

Previously, I said that dīkṣā was the process by which divine knowledge is imparted, the knowledge of the infinite world is imparted, to the finite. What is that process? Dīkṣā-kāle bhakta kare ātma-samarpaṇa: the candidate must fully surrender to a knowledge that is coming down and being imparted to him.

Sei-kāle Kṛṣṇa tāre kare ātma-sama: Kṛṣṇa accepts him as His own. It is necessary for him to give up all his knowledge of experience, full, perfectly, and clean-handed. Naked, he will be prepared to accept the higher knowledge, and the higher knowledge will absorb him as his own.

Sei deha kare tāra chid-ānanda-maya: from that time, he gets a conception of another body, not this body of flesh and blood or the mind. His ego becomes coloured by the higher knowledge. He hopes for another personification of his own. And aprākṛta-dehe tā̐ra charaṇa bhajaya: in that body he can serve Kṛṣṇa, not this body of flesh or the mental body which is drawn from the experience of this world. These are unfit. Only the new body, the inner body that comes in contact with that Divinity — that body or ego can enter there and serve, and this is by the grace, always by the grace, and not as a matter of right. Still, the grace is so lenient that a servitor may think, “It is my right.” Really, in taṭastha-vichār (impartial judgement), if from our relative position we venture to tackle the absolute conception, we can only think that we are unfit. Only through grace can we attain a position there.

Absolute and Relative in the Divine

Apparently, Yaśodā is whipping Kṛṣṇa. Her position is superior to Kṛṣṇa. Kṛṣṇa is under her control. This is the relative position. But from the absolute position, Yaśodā is none but a servitor of Kṛṣṇa. Yet, by grace, in the relative position she is superior. The fact is not so different, because the potency is His own.

Sometimes He, Himself, is controlled by that fine potency of pleasure. He says in the story of Ambarīṣ, Ahaṁ bhakta-parādhīno hy asvatantra iva dvija: “I am dependent upon my devotees, as if I have got no independence.”

Iva means ‘as if’. That is His posing. Devotion is such. His Potency, peculiar particular Potency, devotion, is so powerful that sometimes it works beyond His own Will. But that is devotion to Him. Submission to the master is so intense that the master becomes subservient to the servant — through affection: “At My beck and call he can give his life. So how should I deal with him?” Automatically, the master’s heart goes to him. That is love, prema.

Śrīla Rūpa Goswāmī wrote: Śrī-Kṛṣṇākarṣiṇī cha sā. The highest and most excellent capacity and qualification of devotion can forcibly draw Kṛṣṇa towards the devotee, though He is absolutely independent. Bhakti or self-sacrifice to the extreme, sacrifice for serving — loving service — is so powerful that the Lord becomes a friend and in different ways He comes to meet His devotees.

Asvatantra iva dvija: “Although I am free, I depend on my devotee as though I am not. Sometimes I feel like that.”

This is independence proper. Absolute means this. Absolute does not mean that mercilessly He is bruising everything under His feet. There is love. Embracing. All-interest is represented there. He has love. He is the Lord of love. So our fortune, our luck, is represented there in Him; the transaction of love and affection is so great. Hare Kṛṣṇa.