SB 4.6.31–632 – Contemplate Krishna, Forget Maya

Giriraj Swami: 

oṁ namo bhagavate vāsudevāya
oṁ namo bhagavate vāsudevāya
oṁ namo bhagavate vāsudevāya

Reading from Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, Canto Four, Chapter Six, “Brahmā Satisfies Lord Śiva”

TEXT 31

vaidūrya-kṛta-sopānā
vāpya utpala-mālinīḥ
prāptaṁ kimpuruṣair dṛṣṭvā
ta ārād dadṛśur vaṭam

TRANSLATION

They also saw that the bathing ghāṭas and their staircases were made of vaidūrya-maṇi. The water was full of lotus flowers. Passing by such lakes, the demigods reached a place where there was a great banyan tree.

TEXT 32

sa yojana-śatotsedhaḥ
pādona-viṭapāyataḥ
paryak-kṛtācala-cchāyo
nirnīḍas tāpa-varjitaḥ

TRANSLATION

That banyan tree was eight hundred miles high, and its branches spread over six hundred miles around. The tree cast a fine shade which permanently cooled the temperature, yet there was no noise of birds.

PURPORT by Srila Prabhupada

Generally, in every tree there are bird nests, and the birds congregate in the evening and create noise. But it appears that this banyan tree was devoid of nests, and therefore it was calm, quiet, and peaceful. There were no disturbances from noise or heat, and therefore this place was just suitable for meditation.

TEXT 33

tasmin mahā-yogamaye
mumukṣu-śaraṇe surāḥ
dadṛśuḥ śivam āsīnaṁ
tyaktāmarṣam ivāntakam

TRANSLATION

The demigods saw Lord Śiva sitting under that tree, which was competent to give perfection to mystic yogīs and deliver all people. As grave as time eternal, he appeared to have given up all anger.

PURPORT by Srila Prabhupada

In this verse the word mahā-yogamaye is very significant. Yoga means meditation on the Supreme Personality of Godhead, and mahā-yoga means those who engage in the devotional service of Viṣṇu. Meditation means remembering, smaraṇam. There are nine different kinds of devotional service, of which smaraṇam is one process; the yogī remembers the form of Viṣṇu within his heart. Thus there were many devotees engaged in meditation on Lord Viṣṇu under the big banyan tree.

The Sanskrit word mahā is derived from the affix mahat. This affix is used when there is a great number or quantity, so mahā-yoga indicates that there were many great yogīs and devotees meditating on the form of Lord Viṣṇu. Generally such meditators are desirous of liberation from material bondage, and they are promoted to the spiritual world, to one of the Vaikuṇṭhas. Liberation means freedom from material bondage or nescience. In the material world we are suffering life after life because of our bodily identification, and liberation is freedom from that miserable condition of life.

The present verses are especially significant in relation to yesterday’s verse. Srila Prabhupada translates,

TEXT 30

All these atmospheric influences unsettled the forest elephants who flocked together in the sandalwood forest, and the blowing wind agitated the minds of the damsels there for further sexual enjoyment.

COMMENT

In the purport, Srila Prabhupada explains that whenever there is a nice atmosphere in the material world, that atmosphere agitates sex desires. Here we see that Lord Shiva not all agitated being in the same atmosphere, that agitated sex desire in others. From the example of Lord Shiva, we can understand how we can become free from the agitation of material desires, by being absorb in meditation on the Lord or in remembrance of the Lord. In Bhagavad-gītā, Lord Krishna discusses the subject of lust, and He said that one may restrain the senses by force, but one may still maintain the desire to enjoy. In the purport, Srila Prabhupada said that the person who tries to restrain the senses on the basis of rules and regulations is like a diseased person who has to abstain from certain edibles. But he doesn’t lose the desire to eat the foods that are prohibited. He doesn’t lose the taste for such foods even. So, in the beginning stage, one has a desire for sense enjoyment, but on the order of the spiritual master and Vedic scriptures, one forcibly restrains oneself from engagement in sense gratification. Lord Krishna explains that although one may try to restrain the senses by personal endeavor or by artificial means, one cannot be fixed unless he developed the higher taste. So, the secret of success in Krishna consciousness is to experience the higher taste in devotional service; paraṁ dṛṣṭvā nivartate, then one becomes fixed.

Later in the Fourth Canto, Kumaras tells Pṛthu Maharaja that the desires for sense gratification flow incessantly like the waves of the river. Just like the waves of the river flow without the cessation, so the waves of material desires also flow in heart of the conditioned soul. So how to become free from such desires? The Kumaras gives the answer, yat pāda-paṅkaja-palāśa-vilāsa-bhaktyā, that we should engage in devotional service unto the petals of the lotus feet of the Lord, and then the pleasure that one derives from devotional service will overwhelm one with transcendent bliss. And being overwhelm with transcendent bliss, one will give up material desires or desires for material enjoyment. The example is given that, the waves of the river flow without the cessation into the sea. At the time of high tide, the waves from the sea inundate the river, overflood the river, and the waves of the ocean become more prominent than the waves of the river. So in the same way, if our desires to serve Krishna become strong enough, they will overwhelm or overpower the desires for sense enjoyment. Desire itself is not bad. Karma-yogi, jnana-yogis, and ashtanga-yogis, they try to stop the waves of desires by a negative process, so that we should not have desire. But the devotees of the Lord become free from material desires by being filled with spiritual desires for the service of the Lord, and the spiritual desires for the service of the Lord become more prominent than the material desires, and the material desires become most insignificant.

The same fact is confirmed by Yamunacharya. Yamunacharya prayed that “Now that I have become overwhelmed with the pleasure of devotional service and experiencing newer and newer bliss at every moment, I have no desire for sex enjoyment. And in fact, when I think of how I used to engage previously, my lips curl in distaste and I spit.” So we have to develop higher taste and by experiencing the higher taste, we will lose taste for inferior dead material things. So here, Lord Shiva Himself is the example. He is absorbed in meditation on the Lord. Srila Prabhupada explains that for devotee in particular, meditation means remembrance. Jiva Gosvami has given an explanation that the different stages in ashtanga-yoga, also have counterparts in bhakti-yoga, and what is jnana or meditation in ashtanga-yoga, is called smaraṇam or remembrance in bhakti-yoga, and it also has different stages of intensity. So, Lord Shiva was deeply absorbed in remembrance of the Lord, so he was as peaceful as eternal time, completely undisturbed. So if we can also develop such deep absorption in Krishna consciousness, we will relish transcendental bliss and become unaffected or undisturbed by material desires.

In The Nectar of Instruction, Srila Rupa Gosvami says the essence of all of life, there are so many Vedic literatures: four Vedas, one hundred and eight Upanishads, sixteen Puranas, Itihasas, Samhitas, and so on. But the essence of all advice, of all the scriptures is that one should be absorbed twenty-four hours in chanting and remembering the holy name, form, qualities, and pastimes of the Lord. And the goal is achieved by practice. In system of ashtanga-yoga, there is practice beginning with yama and niyama, rules and regulation. One should do this; one should not do that. So in bhakti-yoga, we also have rules of regulations: one should do this and one should not do that. One should take kṛṣṇa-prasāda but should not eat more than necessary. One should associate with devotees, but one should not offend the devotees. So, there is various positive injunctions and negative prohibitions. But the scripture says and Rupa Gosvami cites it, that the basic principle for sādhana-bhakti is that one should always remember Krishna and never forget Krishna, and all other rules and regulations are the servant of the main rule and regulation to always remember Krishna and never forget Him. So there are positive injunctions and negative prohibitions. The positive injunction is to always remember Krishna. If one fulfills the positive injunction to always remember Krishna, he gets the benefits or he gets the same fruits as if he followed all of the regulative principles in all of the Vedas, just by always remembering Krishna. And if he forgets Krishna, he suffers, the same result as if he had violated all of the negative prohibitions in the Vedas. Therefore, one devotee prayed that forgetfulness of Krishna for even a moment is the greatest anomaly and the greatest calamity, the greatest disaster. So remembrance of Krishna is actually the desired goal, and forgetfulness of Krishna is actually the worst calamity. So, the rules and regulations we follow in the practice of the bhakti-yoga or any yoga, ultimately should culminate in the conclusion of always remembering Krishna and never forgetting Him.

Now, all the way of remembering Krishna, the chanting of the holy name of the Lord is considered the best method. And therefore, Srila Prabhupada stated that of all the regulative principles given by the spiritual master, the instruction to chant sixteen rounds daily is the most essential. Although, we may engage in other activities which are meant to help us to remember Krishna and never forget Him, but if we don’t chant sixteen rounds daily, we will have difficulty remembering Krishna, even though engaging in various activities that are supposed to help us remember Krishna. Therefore, we distribute books about Krishna, so distributing books about Krishna is not an ordinary activity, because when we distribute books, we are thinking that the book is about Krishna. And we are thinking, Krishna wants to me to distribute books, and we are thinking that we want to engage the conditioned souls in Krishna’s service. And then we explain the book to the people, we tell them about Krishna. So, we are selling the books but at the same time, we are remembering Krishna. So book distribution is not an ordinary activity. Similarly, when we go to enroll the life members, we try to engage them in the service of Krishna, we are telling them about the service of Krishna, so naturally we are thinking of Krishna.

But even though we are engaged in the service of Krishna through distributing books, making life members, doing deity worship, still we have to adhere to the basic principle of chanting the holy name of Krishna in prescribed number. One European [Unintelligible 00:26:10] in India in the early days, and he questioned Srila Prabhupada that, “If all service is absolute, why do we have to chant sixteen rounds? Because all service is absolute, so we can do any service any service is as good as other service. So, why do we have to chant sixteen rounds?” Srila Prabhupada explained, but the boy was not satisfied. He kept insisting that if all service is absolute, why do I have to chant sixteen rounds? And finally, Srila Prabhupada became little stern and he stood up very straight and answered the question. “Why do we have to chant sixteen rounds every day? Because Supreme Personality of Godhead wants us to chant sixteen rounds.” And then just to make the point stronger, Srila Prabhupada said, “If you want, you can eat and sleep rest of the day, I will give you my special blessings but you much chant sixteen rounds.

Now, of course, the idea is not to chant sixteen rounds and eat and sleep for the rest of the day. But idea is that we should not think that we have so much important service that we don’t have time to chant the holy name, to chant sixteen rounds. Even if you do no of service and just chant sixteen rounds, that is better than doing so much big service and not chanting Krishna’s name. Because again, the principle behind everything that we do is to always remember Krishna and never forget Him. And if we don’t chant the holy name of Krishna, we won’t be able to remember Him, even though we may do so many activities. Once Srila Prabhupada commented that one of the big guns or leaders of ISKCON would leave. So, devotees were surprised; they said “Srila Prabhupada, why do you say that?” And Srila Prabhupada replied, “Because he doesn’t chant sixteen rounds.” And again, coming to back to the point of higher taste. If we do not develop the higher taste, we will not be able to maintain steadiness in devotional service, we will be disturbed by the urges of the senses. And Srila Prabhupada has determined that sixteen rounds, the minimum number we have to chant daily in order to develop the higher taste. And when we develop the higher taste. . . [Break in audio]

If he was offered all the opulences of the entire universe in exchange for forgetting Krishna for a single moment, he will not be able to do it. He can’t forget Krishna even for a moment. Somebody may say that, “Well, why doesn’t he just forget Krishna for a moment, then take all of the opulence of the world and offer it to Krishna?” The answer is that he can’t forget Krishna even for a moment because when he sees the opulence of the world or considers the opulence of the world, he sees that it is the energy of Krishna. He cannot see it separately from Krishna, and therefore he cannot forget Krishna even for a moment under any circumstances even in the exchange of opulences of the world. So, this is devotee. He cannot forget Krishna even for the moment, even if he tries. Just like when Krishna left Vrindavan and went to Mathura, the gopīs were very upset with Krishna. And when Uddhava visited Vrindavan, he saw the mood of the gopīs in separation from Krishna, they were saying that Krishna is not good. Of course, we should never think that Krishna is not good, but when they reached the exalted level of mahā-bhāva, the gopīs thought that Krishna is not good, “Because we have given everything to Krishna and He has left us.”

At that time, a bumblebee came, mistaking the lotus feet of the Radharani to be a lotus flower. And bumblebee wanted to take some nectar from the lotus. In her ecstasy, Srimati Radharani took the bumblebee as Krishna’s representative, that just as Krishna is black, so the bumblebee was also black. Just as bee goes to flower to flower taking nectar, Krishna also goes from place to place. And Uddhava, who is actually know about Krishna, sent to Vrindavan by Krishna was seeing the whole thing. And there is some parallel between the bee as Krishna’s representative and Uddhava. In the ecstasy of separation from Krishna, the gopīs were saying to the bumblebee, “You are the unreliable servant of an unreliable master, and you should not try to make some reconciliation between us and Krishna because we will never agree to any reconciliation because we know the nature of Krishna. We know that Krishna is the way He is, not only in the present life, but even in past lives because Paurnamasi has warned us that, “Previously, He appeared in another darkish form, in a greenish hue, and He was also very cruel. When Shurpanakha approached Him, He as a noble person, should have satisfied her. But He is so cruel that He never satisfied her but to the contrary, He disfigured her so that no one would ever accept her. Then again, for the sake of His friend Sugriva, He killed Bali, not as kshatriya should but by hiding Himself and without knowledge of Bali, shooting him and killing him. So he is a very cruel person.” “And we have also heard that He always cheats. He also came as Vamana deva and ask Bali Maharaja for three steps of land. And when Bali Maharaja agreed, He expanded Himself into a huge form, and with two steps, He took away everything from Bali Maharaja, although Bali Maharaja agreed to give three steps of land, he was giving the three steps of land according to the person’s that he first saw. He never agreed to give three steps according to that measurement. But He cheated him, and even after cheating him and taking away everything from him, He arrested him, bound him with ropes, and insulted him and pushed him down to the lower planet. So we know what kind of person this man is, not only in this life but for so many lives, so we don’t want any reconciliation with Him.”

They were saying that if Krishna can live without us, we can live without Krishna. So then, bee said that, “If Krishna is so bad, you don’t want any reconciliation with Him. If He can live without you, you can live without Him. So, I have one question. If He is so bad and you want to live without Him, why do you keep talking about Him? Why don’t you choose some another subject?” Then the gopīs replied, “That is the problem. We can live without Krishna, but we can’t live without talking about Him. That is the problem.” So, devotee means that one is so attracted to the subject of Krishna that he can’t forget Krishna even for a moment, even if he wants to, he can’t. So this is Krishna consciousness. When one actually attains Krishna consciousness, he will be so absorbed in that nectar of Krishna consciousness that he won’t want to drink the poison of sense gratification. Hare Krishna.

Any questions? Yes.

Devotee: [Unintelligible 00:38:15] So, what would I expect to happen to people who are following their systems?

Giriraj Swami: Well, I would rather answer in a more positive way. Generally, the standard in the past has been to chant sixty-four rounds. In The Nectar of Instruction, Srila Prabhupada has commented that, Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura said that if one does not chant sixty-four rounds, he is considered to be fallen. But then Srila Prabhupada said that Lord Chaitanya has descended to deliver fallen souls. We are fallen, we are patita but He is patita-pāvana. He come to deliver us. So, we should accept Srila Prabhupada as the empowered representative of Lord Chaitanya who has adjusted the standard of Krishna consciousness in the most appropriate way for us. He has fixed the standard of sixteen rounds. And in the book Srila Prabhupada comments that the instruction to chant sixteen rounds is authorized, so Lord will accept it and he will help the devotee who follow this instruction to chant sixteen rounds, to cross the ocean of nescience and achieve the lotus feet of Krishna. So, taking Srila Prabhupada as the empowered representatives of Lord Chaitanya, who is sent by Lord Chaitanya, or empowered by Lord Chaitanya specifically to reclaim the fallen souls in the present day and age. We feel quite confident that if we follow the Srila Prabhupada’s instructions to chant sixteen rounds, we will be able to maintain our Krishna consciousness, to progressively remember Krishna more and forget Krishna less. Ultimately, we experience the higher taste which will bring us to the position where we always remember Krishna and never forget Him because of transcendental love.

As far as the idea that other Gaudiya Vaishnavas have the standard that one can chant four rounds, but not exactly sure that they considered the four rounds to be standard really. At least the ones coming in the line of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu through Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura know about the standard of sixty-four rounds and the standard of sixteen rounds as Srila Prabhupada set. So, if they take initiation, the standard for initiation is there. Apart from the question of initiation, I am sure that they hope that the people who begin with four rounds will increase. But as far as initiation standard, we come back to the same point: the standard that Srila Prabhupada gave, we feel confident. With another standard, we can’t say so confidently.

Devotee: [Unintelligible 00:43:35]

Giriraj Swami: He says that, if while chanting japa, one enjoys pronouncing the holy name, is it the higher taste?

There are different degrees of taste. Srila Rupa Gosvami has given the example of the disease person who has jaundice. Being diseased, he tastes sugar as bitter, but the ayurvedic cure for jaundice is to take sugar candy. By taking sugar candy without taste as a medicine under instructions from the doctor, one will gradually become cured of the disease. As he becomes cured of the disease, the sugar will begin to taste sweeter and sweeter. When one is completely freed from the disease, then he can actually taste the sugar as it is, sweet like nectar. The development of taste is gradual. It means being cured from the disease is gradual, and developing health is gradual. As we go along, we should be developing more and more taste.

Once, when Srila Prabhupada was in America in the early days, a taxi driver because we didn’t have any car then, so one taxi driver asked him, “You are a Swami, what is a Swami?” Srila Prabhupada replied, “A Swami is a person who, if you put him in a room full of naked women, will not be disturbed.” Now, we are talking about taste. I am alone in the room, and I have my picture of Krishna in front of me. I close the windows, curtains, and door, and I am chanting and feeling some taste. But if suddenly the door opens and a number of naked ladies entered, I could be disturbed. So, I have some taste, but not to the extent that I am so absorbed in that taste that I have no taste for anything else. When we come to the stage where, by the grace of God and after millions of lifetimes, we come to stage of Haridasa Thakura where even if Maya devi herself comes to test us, we won’t be disturbed. Our taste for chanting will be so great that we have no taste for anything else. It is a matter of degree.

Srila Prabhupada ki jaya!