TLC – The Teachings of Lord Caitanya—Part 07b VIHE

Giriraj Swami:. . . Gopal, and he immediately condemned himself for being so lusty and so offensive. So it’s true one is at the stage of bhajana-kriyā, and if he finds minor faults with other devotees, it’s probably not going to make him fall down. But if he is on the higher levels, then any slight offense, or resemblance of offense may be taken very seriously by him, and it may actually disturb his meditation on Krishna.

To give one example, Rupa Gosvami was sitting under a tree and meditating on Radha-Krishna’s līlā, and one old man who was deformed passed by. So in his meditation on Krishna’s pastimes Rupa Gosvami saw something humorous, and he began to laugh but the man who was passing by thought that Rupa Gosvami was laughing at him and the man took offense and as a result Rupa Gosvami’s meditation became disturbed, he couldn’t enter into the pastime anymore. The meditation was disturbed even though he didn’t willfully commit any offense at all but because the man was disturbed, it affected his meditation.

So as the devotee becomes more advanced and more actually beginning to enter into Krishna’s pastimes, then even a slight offense or not even an offense but something like an offense can disturb his ability to enter into the pastimes of Krishna. So he is very careful.

Devotee: I was just going to ask you that we know that the effects of nāma-aparādha, they may remain till quite an advanced stage so after a person is passed through enough and everything more or less then generally like the gross effects of sinful activity would be gone. So then how might these the results of the nāma-aparādhas manifest themselves in the higher stages?

Giriraj Swami: Rupa Gosvami has composed a verse in Upadeśāmṛta that one should utilize his time nicely chanting and remembering of the holy names and qualities and pastimes of Krishna, and in this way one should follow a dear one. One should live in Vrindavan and follow a dear devotee. And in the purport Srila Prabhupada quotes a verse from Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura about anusmṛti because the word in Sanskrit is anusmṛti and there are different stages of remembrance which correspond to different stages in the eightfold mystic yoga process as well.

So now of course first there is. . . Anyway so just coming to the point. There is pratyahara means fixing the mind at one point. Generally, we are struggling to come to the stage of pratyahara. When we chant our mind wanders, we have to bring it back to the point of chanting. Sometimes we forget to bring it back to the point of chanting and we just go on and on. And in the meantime, everything’s going on and we are not conscious of it at all. So more advanced than that is pratyahara where one tries to bring the mind to one point, and when the mind deviates one tries to bring the mind back. Then higher is dhyana which means meditation and even the same thing is used and the same word is used in bhakti. Dhyana means that basically you are fixed on the point but there may be some disturbance.