Spiritual Hankering—Bhakti Bhrnga Govinda Swami and Giriraj Swami

Bhakti Bhrnga Govinda Swami: I would like to thank His Holiness Srila Giriraj Swami Maharaja for inviting us to come here.

Giriraj Swami: I thought you invited yourself.

Govinda Swami: Oh yes, I did invite myself. [laughter] I am quite a shameless person.

Giriraj Swami: If I had known earlier that you were coming, I would have invited you. [laughter]

Govinda Swami: One way or the other, we are here, and it has been very nice. It is always nice to chant Hare Krishna, and it is even nicer to chant in the association of pure-hearted Vaishnavas. Tonight, besides singing Hare Krishna, we sang two other songs, Lālasāmayī Prārthanā (’Gauranga’ Bolite Habe) and Sakhi-vrnde Vijnapti (Radha-Krishna Prana Mora), which were written by Srila Narottama dasa Thakura, a great Vaishnava acharya. Srila Prabhupada said that Srila Narottama dasa has described the highest truths in very simple, beautiful Bengali language.

These two songs are songs of hankering, spiritual hankering. And that our acharyas have written in this way indicates that in our lives we too should have great hankering to achieve the Lord and engage in the Lord’s pure devotional service. It is stated in the Caitanya-caritāmṛta that true devotional service in Krishna consciousness cannot be obtained by performance of pious activities in millions and millions and millions of births; pure devotional service and pure love for Krishna can be attained only if we have intense greed, or intense eagerness, or intense hankering.

kṛṣṇa-bhakti-rasa-bhāvitā matiḥ
krīyatāṁ yadi kuto ‘pi labhyate
tatra laulyam api mūlyam ekalaṁ
janma-koṭi-sukṛtair na labhyate

“Pure devotional service in Kṛṣṇa consciousness cannot be had even by pious activity in hundreds and thousands of lives. It can be attained only by paying one price — that is, intense greed to obtain it. If it is available somewhere, one must purchase it without delay.” (Padyavali 14, Cc Madhya 8.70)

So, in these songs that we sang tonight, Narottama dasa Thakura is indicating how the heart of a pure devotee should feel. He says, “When will that wonderful day come when we chant ‘Gauranga’ and all the hairs on our body will stand on end—and when we chant ‘Hari Hari’ tears will flow from our eyes?” We know from Srila Prabhupada’s books that these are symptoms of very advanced devotional service—hair standing on end, tears flowing from the eyes, losing one’s voice, and not being able to support oneself and falling to the ground. Narottama dasa is asking, “When will that day come when will my life be blessed, when just by chanting ‘Gauranga’ and ‘Hari’ I will experience the same transformations?”

When we assess our situation, where we are now, and think of tears falling from our eyes and hairs standing on end, it seems far beyond us, something we can’t catch—like a dwarf trying to catch the moon. But Narottama dasa Thakura gives us some vision of how we can attain that. He says, āra kabe nitāi-cānder koruṇā hoibesaṁsāra-bāsanā mora kabe tuccha ha’be: “When will I receive the mercy of Nityananda-candra, because when I do receive His mercy, all of my material desires and my material hankering will vanish from the heart.”

Of course, Lord Nityananda is Balarama. But Srila Prabhupada often said that He represents the spiritual master, and that if we actually wish to attain the mercy of Nitai, we should have the very serious intent and determination to please our spiritual masters and predecessor acharyas. Srila Prabhupada said that a devotee will never think that he is great or that he has accomplished some spiritual achievement or that he has done something profound in the field of preaching himself, but that the devotee will always feel himself simply to be the humble servant of his spiritual master and the predecessor acharyas. So it is a very, very important point that we focus on attaining guru-kṛṣṇa-kṛpā, focus on attaining the mercy of Nityananda.

In the purport to the verse brahmāṇḍa bhramite kona bhāgyavān jīva guru-kṛṣṇa-prasāde pāya bhakti-latā-bīja, Srila Prabhupada explains that when a person has a background of piety—specifically ajñāta-sukṛti, the piety that awards pure devotion—Krishna blesses him. Krishna blesses him by putting him in contact with a bona fide spiritual master. And then the bona fide spiritual master directs the sincere disciple to the lotus feet of Krishna. Prabhupada said that this is called guru-kṛṣṇa-kṛpā. (The other day in Los Angeles I met a nice devotee playing mridanga called guru-kṛṣṇa-kṛpā.) Srila Prabhupada says that guru-kṛṣṇa-kṛpā will allow us to actually overcome all material obstacles, by attaining the mercy of Krishna and of the spiritual master. So, āra kabe nitāi-cānder koruṇā hoibe saṁsāra-bāsanā mora. Saṁsāra-bāsanā means “material desire.” When we attain that mercy, the heart will be washed free.

Then, in his next line—we sang this line over and over again—viṣaya chādiyā kabe śuddha ha’be manakabe hāma herabo śrī-vṛndāvana, Narottama says, “Only when my heart is washed of this desire for sense gratification will I be able to see śrī-vṛndāvana.” Viṣaya chādiyā kabe śuddha ha’be mana

Often we hear the word viṣaya. Viṣaya means “sense gratification"; the word visa means “poison.” So, when the heart can be washed of this poisonous hankering. . . Like Srila Prabhupada said, we desire to eat nice spicy pungent food, very tasty. We desire to eat more and more, but eating more and more creates a burning sensation in the heart. Some of these Indian boys here are from Madras, and they like to eat very spicy food. They have their idli and other preparations, but they have a thing that they eat with their food which they call gunpowder. [laughter] It is ground up spices, and it is hot as fire. Whenever I would take Bimal and Sultana to Dubai and they would try to eat this South Indian cooking, they would go crazy. It creates fire in the heart. So, viṣaya, sense gratification, seems tasty, but it creates a raging fire in the heart, and while that fire is burning, you can’t see Vrindavan. So Narottama dasa asks, “When will that time come when the desire for sense gratification will go from my heart and my mind will become very pure?”

Sri Krishna begins His discourse on bhakti in the Seventh Chapter of the Bhagavad-gītā. The first thing He says is mayy āsakta-manāḥ pārtha yogaṁ yuñjan mad-āśrayaḥ asaṁśayaṁ samagraṁ māṁ yathā jñāsyasi tac chṛṇu. His first point to Arjuna is “Your mind has to be absorbed in Me, attached to Me—not attached to anything else. Not attached to your house or to your husband or wife or children or anything else in this world. Your mind has to be attached to Me.” Once, I was listening to Srila Prabhupada give class on this verse, and he said, “Mayy āsakta-manāḥ—with mind attached to Krishna.” He said, “This means like Yasoda-devi’s mind is attached to Krishna. Yasoda-devi cannot stop thinking of Krishna twenty-four hours a day. When Krishna goes to herd the cows in the field, Yasoda is weeping. And when He comes home in the evening and jumps into her arms, she is so bewildered from His absence that she weeps even then.” Srila Prabhupada said, “This is what it means to have mind attached to Krishna.” viṣaya chādiyā kabe śuddha ha’be manakabe hāma herabo śrī-vṛndāvana: When will we see Vrindavan with a pure mind?

Again, the point was that we may feel a little skeptical or almost hopeless—how will it be done? But then in his next verse Narottama says, rūpa-raghunātha-pade, hoibe ākuti, kabe hāma bujhabo, śrī-yugala-pīriti. “If you want to understand yugala-pīriti, the sweet, loving behavior of Krishna in the spiritual world, you should become very, very eager to follow in the footsteps of our acharya such as Rupa and Raghunatha dasa Gosvamis.” Srila Prabhupada said hoibe ākuti means to become very, very enthusiastic to study the literature given by all the Gosvamis.

Narottama dasa Thakura concludes, rūpa-raghunātha pade rahu mora āśaprārthanā koroye sadā narottamo dāsa. He says, “Their lotus feet are my only āśa.” Āśa means “hope.” The lotus feet of the great acharyas or the great sadhu, the great spiritual master, are our hope. There is a verse in Caitanya-caritāmṛta in which Kaviraja Gosvami is lamenting about his situation. He is saying how old he is and how overwhelmed with disease he is and how he is going blind. And then he says, “The saints are the staffs on which I lean to take my support.”

durgame pathi me ‘ndhasya
skhalat-pāda-gater muhuḥ
sva-kṛpā-yaṣṭi-dānena
santaḥ santv avalambanam

“My path is very difficult. I am blind, and my feet are slipping again and again. Therefore, may the saints help me by granting me the stick of their mercy as my support.” (Cc Antya 1.2)

So, rūpa-raghunātha pade rahu mora āśa: “They are my only hope.” Prārthanā koroye sadā narottamo dāsa: “Therefore I always pray to them.”

It shows that in our lives we should have spiritual hankering. We should always be hankering to attain the service of Krishna, and in order to attain that pure service, we should always be hankering to have the association of very pure and great Vaishnavas like Srila Giriraj Swami Maharaja and Srila Indradyumna Swami Maharaja and Srila Niranjana Swami Maharaja, to have their association and hear the words that come from their mouths and follow their wonderful examples. In this way we can progress on the path of advancement in Krishna consciousness.

Thank you for coming this evening. Hare Krishna.

Giriraj Swami: I would like to thank His Holiness Bhakti Bhrnga Govinda Swami Maharaja for accepting my invitation.

Govinda Swami: You didn’t invite me. I invited myself.

Giriraj Swami: Actually, I did invite you, three years ago. You just phoned a few days ago to tell me you were accepting. [laughter]

I was thinking of another few lines from another song by Narottama dasa Thakura—Nama-saṅkīrtana (Hari Haraye Namaḥ)—about the servants of the Six Gosvamis: ei chay gosāi jār-tār mui dāstā-sabāra pada-reṇu mora pañca-grās

“I am the servant of that person who is a servant of these six Gosvamis. The dust of their lotus feet is my five kinds of foodstuffs.” And: tādera caraṇa-sebi-bhakta-sane bāsajaname janame hoy ei abhilās “This is my desire: that birth after birth I may live with those devotees who serve the lotus feet of these six Gosvamis.”

Narottama dasa prays to live in the company of the servants of the Six Gosvamis. And he says that the dust from their lotus feet is his five kinds of foodstuffs. So it really is by the mercy of the devotees, the servants of the Six Gosvamis in disciplic succession, that we maintain our lives in Krishna consciousness. Just as we cannot live without food, spiritually we cannot live without the dust of the feet of the servants of the Six Gosvamis, the followers of the Six Gosvamis in disciplic succession.

Maharaja mentioned the seed of devotional service: guru-kṛṣṇa-prasāde pāya bhakti-latā-bīja. Many people are exposed to Krishna consciousness. They are offered the seed, which means the instructions, the methods by which one is trained in devotional service. And Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu advised everyone to accept that seed and care for it, to become a gardener and plant the seed and water it. We take that seed—the idea of devotional service—plant it in our hearts and water it by the process of chanting and hearing. Chanting and hearing brings us again to the association of devotees, in whose company we can properly hear and speak about Krishna.

satāṁ prasaṅgān mama vīrya-saṁvido
bhavanti hṛt-karṇa-rasāyanāḥ kathāḥ
taj-joṣaṇād āśv apavarga-vartmani
śraddhā ratir bhaktir anukramiṣyati

“In the association of pure devotees, discussion of the pastimes and activities of the Supreme Personality of Godhead is very pleasing and satisfying to the ear and the heart. By cultivating such knowledge one gradually becomes advanced on the path of liberation, and thereafter he is freed, and his attraction becomes fixed. Then real devotion and devotional service begin.” (SB 3.25.25)

In particular, we want to associate with pure devotees, because we are trying to cultivate the seed of pure devotional service.

The gardener must protect the creeper by fencing it all around, and the fence is the circle of pure devotees. We have to stay within the circle of pure devotees, because that association will protect our delicate creeper. Protect it from what? In particular, we want to protect it from the worst catastrophe, a mad elephant (hātī mātā). The mad elephant is an offense at the feet of a Vaishnava (vaiṣṇava-aparādha). In the circle of pure devotees, we grow strong, because they protect us, and if we leave the association of pure devotees, we become weak. We may become weak in our spiritual practices, and we may become open to bad association, and the combination of spiritual laxity and association with non- or mixed devotees can cause us to commit that most damaging offense, vaiṣṇava-aparādha, which unleashes the mad elephant that can enter the garden and uproot and break the creeper.

So I always extend an open invitation—I would extend it to all of you tonight, but we have limited space—but I especially extend an open invitation to the three of you—His Holiness Bhakti Bhrnga Govinda Swami Maharaja, His Holiness Indradyumna Swami Maharaja, and His Holiness Niranjana Swami Maharaja—so that I can stay protected by your association and so that your mercy can be extended to others in the area. Even our main spiritual practice, which is chanting the holy name, becomes easier in the association of pure devotees. We become inspired to chant, Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare/ Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare—to chant and hear with our minds attached to the sound of the holy name. As Lord Krishna says, mayy āsakta-manāḥ: “with mind attached to Me.” So we want to fix the mind on Krishna, specifically in His manifestation as the holy name, Krishna as transcendental sound.

I take it as Srila Prabhupada’s special mercy that he sends his sincere devotees all over the world to preach his message and show by example how to follow the process he gave us, and to encourage us in his service. Srila Prabhupada gave so many instructions in his books, but it is really in the association of pure devotees, more advanced devotees, that those practices, those instructions, come to life. A person who is weak—a hungry man, a starving man—doesn’t have much life in his body, but when he gets food he comes to life. He becomes happy. Everything looks different; everything looks cheerful. He sees so many opportunities. So, when we get the food of the dust of the lotus feet of the servants of the Six Gosvamis, we come to life. We are nourished, we become strong, and we feel satisfied (tuṣṭiḥ puṣṭiḥ kṣud-apāyo), as in the verse in the Bhāgavatam (11.2.42):

bhaktiḥ pareśānubhavo viraktir
anyatra caiṣa trika eka-kālaḥ
prapadyamānasya yathāśnataḥ syus
tuṣṭiḥ puṣṭiḥ kṣud-apāyo ‘nu-ghāsam

“Devotion, direct experience of the Supreme Lord, and detachment from other things—these three occur simultaneously for one who has taken shelter of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, in the same way that pleasure, nourishment, and relief from hunger come simultaneously and increasingly, with each bite, for a person engaged in eating.”

The association of pure devotees is the sustenance of our spiritual lives.

Hare Krishna.