NOD – VIHE Nectar of Devotion—Part 03

Giriraj Swami:

kleśa-ghnī śubha-dā mokṣa-laghutā-kṛt su-durlabhā

sāndrānanda-viśeṣātmā śrī-kṛṣṇākarṣiṇī ca sā

So, yesterday we discussed kleśa-ghnī which means that devotional service reduces or nullifies all kinds of suffering. Now we are going to discuss śubha-dā. Srila Prabhupada says the word śubha-dā indicates that devotional service bestows all good fortune on the world, on every living entity.

So good fortune has different ingredients. One ingredient of good fortune is that the preacher, or the devotee bestows good fortune on the world. Another meaning is that the world appreciates the preacher because they are made fortunate by the preacher. Another meaning is that devotional service bestows all good qualities on the devotee. And another feature is that it bestows all happiness on the devotee. But we won’t discuss that now, because happiness is also mentioned separately, as one of the six characteristics.

Srila Prabhupada in The Nectar of Devotion defines all auspiciousness as meaning activities beneficial for every living entity, and one of the best examples of such auspiciousness is Lord Chaitanya, when He passed through the Jharkhand forest and all the wild animals like lions, tigers, elephants, deer, and so on, they also joined the saṅkīrtana movement and chanted and danced in ecstasy.

And in many places like Mauritius when Srila Prabhupada was there, he said that Krishna consciousness can bring benefit to every living entity. So one of the devotees asked Srila Prabhupada, “How?” I mean, we can understand that it brings benefit to the human beings, but how does it bring benefit to the animals and plants, because Srila Prabhupada mentioned the animals and plants. And Srila Prabhupada said, “Because when you do Hari-Nāma-Saṅkīrtana, the animals and plants also hear the holy name and they also benefit.”

The six Gosvamis are also good examples of auspiciousness. They are described in the prayers to the six Gosvamis, dhīrādhīra-jana-priyau priya-karau nirmatsarau pūjitau, that they are dear both to the ruffians and to the gentle, because they are not envious of anyone. Dhīrā means sober. Dhīras tatra na muhyati. . . someone who knows that he is not this body, is sober or dhīra. He is not bewildered by the changes of the body. And people who identify with the body are adhīra, they are the opposite. In fact, the scriptures have said that people who identify with their body are animals. But the six Gosvamis were so auspicious that they were loved by everyone, and they gave service to everyone, the sober and the adhīra.

And then, in the second verse also which appears at the beginning of The Nectar of Devotion: lokānāṁ hita-kāriṇau tri-bhuvane, that they were engaged in welfare activities meant to benefit the whole world because they compiled transcendental literature on the subject of Krishna consciousness.

And Srila Prabhupada was the same, being the perfect representative of Lord Chaitanya and the six Gosvamis. Once on a morning walk, Srila Prabhupada was dealing with all sorts of people in Los Angeles. And somehow or other, Srila Prabhupada was able to please all of them. There were the temple devotees, there were some scientists, there were some devotees’ parents, and all different ages, and all different backgrounds, and at the end Srila Prabhupada’s secretary commented that, “Srila Prabhupada, everyone loves you,” and Srila Prabhupada said, “Yes, because I love everyone.”

So śubha-dā means that the devotee gives benefit to the whole world and the whole world loves the devotee. And the devotee develops all good qualities. So this is mentioned in Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu with a quote from Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. In Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu it´s 1.1.29:

yasyāsti bhaktir bhagavaty akiñcanā
sarvair guṇais tatra samāsate surāḥ
harāv abhaktasya kuto mahad-guṇā
manorathenāsati dhāvato bahiḥ 

Very famous verse 1.1.29. “In one who has unflinching devotional faith in Krishna, all the good qualities of Krishna and the demigods are consistently manifest. However, he who has no devotion to the Supreme Personality of Godhead has no qualifications because he is engaged by mental concoction in material existence which is the external feature of the Lord.”

So sometimes devotees question whether a neophyte can be engaged in pure devotional service, but actually the whole subject of Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu is pure devotional service, and according to one’s eligibility to render pure devotional service, one is categorized either as a kaniṣṭhādhikārī or madhyamādhikārī or uttamādhikārī, which we’ll discuss in the Third Chapter. But the good qualities begin to manifest even in the stage of sādhana-bhakti, and Srila Prabhupada gives examples in The Nectar of Devotion about the devotees, that even though someone might be highly educated in the material sense, but he may have bad character and not be able to give up meat eating, intoxication, illicit sex or gambling. Whereas a devotee who may not be so qualified in the material estimation, but if he has the qualification of being Krishna’s devotee, he can give up all sorts of sinful activities.

Now we come to the next characteristic which is happiness. Rupa Gosvami explains that there are three types of happiness. Can any of you say what the three types of happiness are? There is the material happiness, there is the spiritual happiness of merging into Brahman, and there is the spiritual happiness in Krishna consciousness. And in material happiness, the mystic siddhis also come, and Srila Prabhupada very nicely explains how many of the same perfections that the yogis have are also achieved by the materialistic scientists. Like one of the perfections is that one can fly in the air, but the material scientists have achieved the same perfection in airplanes or another, one can float on water, so they’ve achieved the same perfection with boats.

Another perfection where one can enter into stone, so they have also done the same thing with machines that excavate to make subways under the ground and so on. So they are all material. But still they are quite wonderful in terms of ordinary people, like Srila Prabhupada told the story of one yogi who used to sit on the street of Benares naked during British rule. So the British constables came to him and told him, “You can’t just sit naked on the street. If you do that, we’ll arrest you.” So he didn’t move. He just remained sitting there. They warned him again. He just remained sitting there. He wasn’t bothered. So finally, they arrested him and put him in jail, and by his mystic power he reduced himself to a very minute size, and he came out through the keyhole in the prison door and the next thing they knew, he was sitting on the street naked again. So, again they got very heavy with him, they arrested him and threw him in jail and again he came out by the same method. Then after the third time they decided, “We can’t do anything with him. Just let him be.”

Srila Prabhupada told another story about one of his teachers that he had. His teacher was a follower or admirer of some yogi in Calcutta. And once the teacher told the students how he had gone to the yogi, and the yogi had asked his admirers what they would like, anything they wanted he would get them. So they said, “We would like a nice pomegranate.” So at the time there were no pomegranates available in Calcutta. It was not the season. So by the mystic siddhi known as prāpti-siddhi, he brought one freshly cut branch of a pomegranate tree into the room, and they all had nice ripe fresh pomegranate. Srila Prabhupada mentions it indirectly in The Nectar of Devotion. He mentions the incident. But actually, we are not interested in material happiness at all. But even if one is interested in material happiness, he can get more from Krishna than from mystic perfections because Krishna is yogeśvara. He has all mystic powers.

And once another friend in Calcutta came to Srila Prabhupada and he had also just been to some yogi who had produced an apple, he produced an apple, and then he cut up the apple and gave little slices to his admirers. So the Bengali gentleman named Tarun-kanti Ghosh told Srila Prabhupada about what the yogi had done, and Srila Prabhupada said, “We are not impressed. We are not impressed by his magic. We are impressed by Krishna’s magic. Krishna is yogeśvara, and He is producing so many apple trees, and each apple tree is producing so many apples and, in each apple, there are so many seeds, and within each seed there is another apple tree with so many apples. So if we make friends with Krishna, He can give us as many apples as we want, not just one apple.” And then he said, “Practically we have experienced it. We went to America without anything and now we have so many centers all over the world, and in every center, we are distributing so many apples and where are the apples coming from? We are not going to the office to work or going to the factory, but Krishna is supplying the apples. So if we make friends with Krishna, we can get every benefit.”

Now we come to another important verse which is 1.1.35 in Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu which corresponds to page fourteen in The Nectar of Devotion, “Devotional service is very rarely achieved.”

Devotee: What was the Sanskrit term for happiness. . . [Unintelligible]

Giriraj Swami: Yeah, that is sāndrānanda-viśeṣātmā. Now here is a quote from Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu:

sādhanaughair anāsangair alabhyā sucirād api

hariṇā cāśvadeyeti dvidhā sā syāt sudurlabhā 

Sudurlabhā means very difficult to obtain. Now, the translation of the verse is, “Devotional service is very difficult to attain for two reasons: First, unless one is attached to Krishna, he cannot attain devotional perfection, even if he renders devotional service for a long time. Second, Krishna does not easily deliver perfection in devotional service.”

Now in the original verse, Rupa Gosvami uses the word sādhana, sādhanaughair āsanga, activities of devotional service, aughair by masses of anāsanga without attachment, alabhyā, is very difficult to achieve perfection. Now here, but in The Nectar of Devotion, Srila Prabhupada refers to other types of practices outside of devotional service like penances and austerities and other things. So the meaning. . . because sometimes sādhana also. . . sādhana means practice, so sometimes sādhana applies to practices outside of devotional service. So in The Nectar of Devotion, Srila Prabhupada says that by other practices outside devotional service, it's very difficult to attain devotional service and this is confirmed by Prahlada Maharaja, matir na kṛṣṇe parato svato vā, that by one’s own endeavor or by the endeavor of others or by a combination of one’s own endeavors and the endeavors of others, one cannot come to Krishna consciousness. One can only come to Krishna consciousness if he is blessed by the mercy of the devotee.

Actually, Prahlada Maharaja spoke these verses when he was asked by Hiranyakasipu how he became Krishna conscious because nobody could understand how. Hiranyakasipu thought that the teachers were responsible for him being spoiled. But the teachers said, “No, we are not responsible. We never allowed any Vaishnavas to enter the school and contaminate him.” So then, Hiranyakasipu said, “Then how did he become Krishna conscious?” And the teacher said, “Well, why don’t you ask him? We don’t know.” So then, Prahlada replied this way, that one can’t become Krishna conscious by his own endeavors, by the endeavors of others or by joint meetings between oneself and others. Then how? Then how does one become Krishna conscious? Urukramāṅghre—that the Lord who performs wonderful activities, matir na kṛṣṇe. . . we discussed, one can´t develop Krishna consciousness by one’s own efforts, but if one is favored by the dust of the lotus feet of the pure devotee, then one can take to Krishna consciousness. So indirectly Prahlada Maharaja was telling his father that, “You do not have to worry about becoming Krishna conscious because you are so proud, you’ll never bow down to the lotus feet of the pure devotee. So you do not have to worry about becoming Krishna conscious.”

One disciple asked Srila Prabhupada that Lord Chaitanya wrote Śikṣāṣṭaka which is so important, and the spiritual master is also so important, but is there any mention of the spiritual master in the Śikṣāṣṭaka? Prabhupada replied, “Yes,

tṛṇād api sunīcena

taror api sahiṣṇunā

amāninā māna-dena

kīrtanīyaḥ sadā hariḥ

That if we actually become humble then we can surrender to the lotus feet of the spiritual master and get his mercy and make advancement.”

So now we discussed one explanation of the word sādhana which means practices outside of devotional service. That’s one explanation. And the other explanation given in the translation of Srila Prabhupada in Caitanya-caritāmṛta is that if one performs masses of devotional service without attachment to Krishna, he cannot attain bhāva-bhakti because specifically bhāva-bhakti is what is being discussed, which is very difficult to attain and very rare.

So, Visvanatha Cakravarti Thakura explains that there are different stages in devotional service beginning with, adau śraddhā tato sādhu-saṅga tato bhajana-kriyā and so on. And attachment to Krishna really begins later in the stages of ruci and āsakti. So, Visvanatha Cakravarti Thakura says that unless one develops some attachment for Krishna in the form of taste, real taste for Krishna’s service and real attachment for Krishna and Krishna’s service, one cannot attain bhāva. And one may have to practice for some time in the lower stages before he comes to the higher stages of ruci and āsakti, and then it’s easy to come to bhāva from there.

So here we have an example of a difference of opinion between acharyas. Actually. Jiva Gosvami says that sadhana refers to non- devotional practices because if one was engaged in pure devotional service, he could quickly attain bhāva. So he says sadhana refers to things like jnana and karma or devotional service mixed with jnana and karma but not pure devotional service. Visvanatha Cakravarti Thakura says that even if one engages in pure devotional service, he has to pass through so many stages and come to the stage of ruci and āsakti before he can attain bhāva. And Srila Prabhupada accepts both in different places. Vaidhī-bhakti is part of sādhana-bhakti. There are two divisions in sādhana-bhakti: vaidhī-bhakti and rāgānugā-bhakti.

So, all of these stages up to attachment come in sādhana-bhakti and then one can go to bhāva-bhakti. But actually, just to come to Krishna consciousness and engage in sādhana-bhakti, you need mercy. You need the mercy of the devotee. So the mercy of the devotee also comes in installments, and you also need the mercy of a devotee to come to bhāva-bhakti and to come to prema-bhakti. So, there is one nice example about mercy, about the relationship between mercy and spiritual practices and that is Mother Yasoda when she tried to bind Krishna. She wasn’t able to bind Krishna, no matter how many ropes she brought, she couldn’t bind Him. Even though she brought all the ropes of Vraja which were miles and miles and miles of ropes, she still couldn’t bind Krishna. The ropes were always two fingers too short. But then when Krishna saw she was perspiring, and she was so earnest in her endeavor to bind Him for His own good so He wouldn’t get into any more trouble, He allowed Himself to be bound by her. So, we have to engage in our spiritual practices and at the same time pray for the mercy of Krishna and the Vaishnavas. And when Krishna and the Vaishnavas are satisfied with our endeavors, then they’ll show mercy and allow us to come closer to them.

Devotee: Jiva Gosvami said sādhana-bhakti. . .? [Unintelligible 00:26:18]

Giriraj Swami: No, he says sadhana in this verse, that by heaps of sadhana, it’s still very difficult to attain perfection. So he is saying sadhana refers to practices like austerity, penance.

Devotee: [Unintelligible]

Giriraj Swami: She says that she thought that pure devotional service meant prema but here in the discussion of the six characteristics of pure devotional service we see that some appear at the stage of sādhana-bhakti, some appear at the stage of bhāva-bhakti. So actually, the definition of pure devotional service,

anyābhilāṣitā-śūnyaṁ

jñāna-karmādy-anāvṛtam

ānukūlyena kṛṣṇānu-

śīlanaṁ bhaktir uttamā

that is the subject of the whole Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu. And sādhana-bhakti, bhāva-bhakti, and prema-bhakti can all come in the category of uttamā-bhakti if one has no other desire but to serve Krishna. But the other desires in the form of anarthas are not really impediments to pure devotional service unless you act on them.

But if you, as a living entity, have decided that you want to serve Krishna, not your senses, so even if your senses say so many things, your mind says so many things, if you don't listen to your mind and senses but just listen to Guru and Krishna, that’s pure devotional service. But it becomes ripe at prema, then your senses and your mind don’t tell you anything except to serve Krishna.

Every Vaishnava, real Vaishnava, is a spiritual master. He can guide you towards Krishna, and anyone of them or any number of them can help us, give us mercy and the more dust we take from the more lotus feet, probably the better it is. Like Raghunatha dasa Gosvami he used to offer one thousand and eight obeisances every day just to get the dust of the Vaishnavas. So śikṣā-guru, dīkṣā-guru, vartma-pradarśaka-guru, they are all gurus. And any Vaishnava, real Vaishnava who can guide you close to Krishna, he is guru.

Ok we’ll just quickly finish the Chapter.

Rupa Gosvami gives support in verse 1.1.36, which again is in The Nectar of Devotion, page fourteen and then again in 1.1.37, which is on page fifteen, it is a very nice verse. I’ll just read the translations:

“The great sage Narada said, my dear Maharaja Yudhisthira, the Supreme Personality of Godhead Krishna, is always ready to help you. He is your master, guru, God, very dear friend and head of your family. Yet sometimes He agrees to act as your servant or order-carrier. You are greatly fortunate because this relationship is only possible by bhakti-yoga. The Lord can give liberation, mukti, very easily, but He does not give one bhakti-yoga, because by that process He is bound to the devotee.”

So this is another reason why it’s rare. One is, you have to perform sadhana for a long time before you achieve bhāva and the other is, when Krishna gives someone bhakti in the higher stages, He gives Himself to the devotee. So He can give economic development, He can give sense gratification, He can give liberation, but He hesitates to give bhakti because when He gives bhakti, then by the power of bhakti, Krishna Himself becomes conquered and then He gives Himself.

Well Rupa Gosvami says the characteristic of rareness specially applies to the stage of bhāva. We’ll come to that. In the first paragraph of the next Chapter, Srila Prabhupada says that sādhana-bhakti has two qualities; bhāva-bhakti has four qualities and prema-bhakti has six qualities. So the qualities of relief from material distress and auspiciousness, those two qualities are in sādhana-bhakti. Then the next two qualities plus the first two are in bhāva-bhakti. So that’s four. And then those four qualities plus the next two are in prema-bhakti.

Every living entity, being part and parcel of Krishna, has some of Krishna’s qualities and Krishna’s spiritual qualities include eternity, knowledge, and bliss, which are manifested in the spiritual world in different divisions. Just like in the material world there are three divisions, mode of ignorance, mode of passion, and mode of goodness. So in spiritual energy, there are also three divisions which correspond to eternity, knowledge, and bliss. So sandhinī-shakti corresponds to eternity, saṁvit corresponds to knowledge, and hlādinī corresponds to bliss. So these three exist already in a small quantity in the living entity, but when he comes to bhāva he gets more, by the mercy of Krishna and the Vaishnavas he gets more. And when he comes to prema, he gets still more. So everything is already there, but Krishna adds more to it, a bonus for doing devotional service.

Alright, we’ll just finish the first Chapter at the beginning of the next class and by your homework, I feel confident that you have studied the Chapter. We don’t have to repeat things that are in the book. We just discuss things that might not be clear just from the reading.

Thank you. Hare Krishna!