Japa Retreat—Level 02 Day 04—Death and Dying in Krishna Consciousness

Ravindra Svarupa dasa: [start of recording]. . . goes on about the evils of lust. I just wanted to show the devotees that things you think that come from far off India or something used to be common knowledge in the West at one time because there was a period of time where it was something like a God-centered civilization in Europe but it gradually decayed and declined and something else was replaced with it.

It started with Shakespeare’s time, the Renaissance, which was really a big secularization; human vision was changed from God to man to matter—a big shift. We say the Renaissance, the rebirth, but it was actually the new birth is death. And Shakespeare didn’t like it. He was very conservative. He was quite appalled by all the things that happened. In his plays, the philosophy spoken by all the villains is all modern philosophy.

Giriraj Swami: On the point about good maya, I am not sure how you took it, but I took it as maya in the mode of goodness. It is still maya. Good is [?] best. It can be there.

Devotee: So do we have to be in maya, be in good maya?

Ravindra Svarupa dasa: The thing about the mode of goodness if it is an end in itself, it is another kind of bondage, but it also a launching pad for getting into transcendence.

Devotee: I have a friend, he says that a lot a devotees go into goodness as an excuse not to do service because it is tamo goodness.

Ravindra Svarupa dasa: Shirking of service is the mode of ignorance actually—laziness, procrastination. That’s the trouble with the material mode of goodness, there is some passion, there is some ignorance whorled in the texture of it. Then you get the śuddha-sattva.

Devotee: I was having some reflections while we were talking about European culture. I grew up in Europe and somehow this thought came when I was taking some of kind Christian retreat years ago, I remember one sentence. I got really stunned by it that life is actually dying. As soon as we take birth actually life is dying. I don’t know the whole. . .

Ravindra Svarupa dasa: It helps with our preaching if sometimes you can show people this is not some new thing in a way. There are just certain basic universal, spiritual truths. I think people have most deeply realized and explored them in India than anywhere else, but they tried in Europe. Even in the Middle Ages there was a kind of a system of varna, but the problem that I could see was the brahmans were organizers of the Roman Catholic Church and their acharya was the pope. As far as I could see because I spent a long time trying to figure out what went wrong. Even before I was a devotee all my academic study was what went wrong. So after I became a devotee I kept up the same thing.

The pope who is the head of the church was also a king in a large part of what is now Italy. There was this document called The Donation of Constantine which was a forgery which the emperor of Rome, Constantine, the first Christian emperor deeded to Pope Sylvester, the pope at the time of proprietorship over a big chunk of Italy. So the pope was also a king. The brahmans never had the detachment they should have. The papacy itself became the object of ambition for various prominent Roman families. So there was this element of proprietorship. Then the pope was theoretically and sometimes really the kings of Europe they were anointed by the priests. They were considered to be God’s chosen people because of the God’s anointed. . . because their legitimacy came from God mediated through the priest. So for example when King John of England, the one that he assigned the Magna Carta against, he had some private properties in Northern France and he decided to take the English armies and attack France to get his properties back.

So the French king went to the pope and said, “This is an unjust war. He can’t declare war on France to get his own properties back.” The pope agreed and he said, “This is an unjust war.” And he ordered King John to stop this war. John refused. And so he did this thing where he put England under [?dictions] that is to say no priest would perform marriages, funerals, baptisms (baptism anyone can do). So all these things—confessions, sacraments—it didn’t last long. He had to cave in because the people became so upset. They thought they are all going to go to hell, their sins wouldn’t be removed. People wanted to get married, they would have to live together and hope later on they could actually have it blessed being consecrated by God.

So they had a power. But the trouble is because he was also a king of Italy, he also used the pope position to get money for his thing. He wasn’t a neutral guy. In fact the whole thing started the Protestant reformation as an anti-Catholic movement was when the pope at the time was going toward, some of his lands in the East were contested, and he wanted to send an army to secure those lands. You need money for the war. So he sent people out to raise money by selling indulgences that if you give such-and-such a donation. . . the Catholic idea was that a soul who was advancing but not pure enough for heaven would go to this intermediate state called purgatory and remain there for some time until their sins are washed away. In the Catholic doctrine they can’t do anything themselves. Only people praying for them on earth can get them out of purgatory or the pope can get them out. So if you gave a certain amount of money then so-and-so would get so many years, in advance you could have years off in purgatory, or you could do it for other people.

So there was a slogan in German, “Every time a tula, a dollar. Whenever a tula in the box rings, another soul from purgatory springs.” [laughter] So he is raising funds in this way for his own private war. That was a thing that really incensed a lot of people. He was coming collecting donations in this way.

To me it was almost like a varna system but the brahmans were not sufficiently pure. Also they collected a lot of money because when people would die they would leave property in their wills to the church. It is at the top of the donor pyramid request. So the church was getting more and more property. All over Europe there were huge chunks of people’s country were actually owned by the church. Now brahmans are supposed to receive in charity but they are also supposed to give. So they weren’t giving. And actually there were some popes that came up especially inspired by St Francis who one pope came out of a monastery, they were going to purify everything, and he wanted to give away the wealth of the church, a big chunk of it. And he was assassinated very soon afterwards.

They had this attachment to this wealth. One of the reasons why Henry the Eight made his own church, the Church of England, of which he was the head. . . to this day the head of the Anglican Church is the queen of England, not the archbishop of Canterbury. What is a kshatriya doing running a church? But that was the Protestant reformation. So he wanted to get married again. He wouldn’t be granted a divorce from the church. And the other thing was all those properties were sitting owned by the church, huge amount of properties. When he separated from Rome, first thing he did was seize all these properties. It was a horrendous scene. All these monks and nuns had to go out and get jobs. And then he distributed it to all his political allies. They all got huge estates and everything like that. It was really horrendous.

You can actually trace the whole collapse of the varna system in the history of Europe. The ideas were there, they were just never realized. Although Christians weren’t officially vegetarian, a lot of the monks and nuns were just as a matter of austerity, because only rich people ate meat. So you wouldn’t eat meat except on rare occasions. Then there were some orders that banned it altogether as a matter of austerity. There was some realized knowledge maybe up to Paramātmā to some extent. So it is there.

Whenever there is God consciousness a certain kind of society will follow. This is off the topic. Back to death.

Devotee: I was reflecting that some times when I read not too much but sometimes I read those Christian books and I can relate much more to those writings which is a lot as you said, the ideas are there because of my upbringing. I see so much now being Krishna consciousness, they have so much there as well. Sometimes I feel guilty and I shouldn’t be reading it but I get inspired.

Ravindra Svarupa dasa: If it is favorable you can accept it. When I joined I was working on a PhD program. I was reading weird books. I used to keep it in the closet or in antics. Devotees wouldn’t see me reading these books. A lot of them are very useful. For twelve years now we have been carrying on in Potomic Vaishnava Christian dialogue and one thing we do is every year all of us read a Christian text and a Vaishnava text. Hopefully they have some relationship with each other and then we talk about them. It was my proposal to do it this way. One thing is to get Christians to read Vaishnava literature which they don’t know. But it was really interesting. I read these spiritual exercises of St Ignatius. I could really get into it because it is just laws in spiritual life and those show up everywhere. If they are favorable. You can only go so far and then usually you bump in. . . they worship a God who is a person but when they think about God they end up being Mayavadis. Very few of them. If they get up to the idea of a really personal God, every time they start thinking theologically then, “This. Not this. Not this, not this,” comes in again which is unfortunate. So there are some limits.

Maha-mantra dasa: We are supposed to be talking about death. We can keep the discussion.

Devotee: Often times when we talk about death and the holy names, it is only Ajamila that comes to mind.

Ravindra Svarupa dasa: It is another death story.

Devotee: In the case of Ajamila, he had some past good deeds that he performed and then most of his life he didn’t do much. And then the Narayana words. And then he chanted Narayana without offense. It disturbs me a little bit because it basically says that your devotional practice and the devotee’s devotional practice is good but then there is this whole mercy aspect which is probably even more than your personal sadhana. The first description you have of sādhya and sadhana there is also this aspect of kṛpā. There is kṛpā-siddha and there is sādhana-siddha. So how much of this is kṛpā and how much of this is sadhana?

Giriraj Swami: In the case of Ajamila, he performed sadhana in his youth and then of course he became attracted to the prostitute and married her. He gave up his chaste, faithful, brahman wife. And then as the Yamadutas were approaching, he shouted in complete helplessness the holy name of Narayana. And then as a result of chanting the holy name of Narayana the Vishnudutas came and had some discussion with the Yamadutas and then he was released. And then he left his wife and son Narayana and went to Hardwar and engaged in sadhana.

So he engaged in sadhana. The story really shows the power of the holy name chanted even in nāma-ābhāsa because he chanted in complete helplessness, complete intensity. We were talking about a genuine cry of a father for the child. It was a genuine cry. That tīvreṇa bhakti-yogena, that intensity was there. Even in sādhana-siddha there is always the element of mercy. Kṛpa-siddha means that even without sadhana one attains perfection. Sādhana-siddha means you engage in sadhana and that combination of your effort and Krishna’s mercy makes you successful.

There is always mercy at every stage. So the mercy was he got the association of the Vishnudutas, he heard their instructions, and then he performed more sadhana. He resumed his sadhana and when he became perfect then he went back to Godhead.

Devotee: The first time he chanted, his intention was not to chant for God.

Ravindra Svarupa dasa: There are different kinds of nāma-ābhāsa. So we are cultivating the holy name when we are chanting but there are still offenses. Then that’s nāma-ābhāsa but there are also listed other kinds of nāma-ābhāsa. When the Muslim is being gored by a pig, he says, “Haram! Haram!” It is what you call unclean. He says, “Haram! Haram!” But because the name of Rama is there even though he didn’t mean the name of Rama, it is still effective because it is one kind of nāma-ābhāsa.

Another kind is saying the name of the Lord but meaning someone else. It is the same connotation but a different denotation. That’s another kind of nāma-ābhāsa. So all of these are effective. In fact people always describe that when they first get into Krishna consciousness they make a whole lot of advancement very fast and then things seem to slow down. Often when they get initiated. It is usually people say you get a little extra mercy from Krishna in the beginning but then you have to get it on your own. I think a more precise explanation of what happens is that in the beginning the nāma-ābhāsa was easier because you don’t disobey the orders of the spiritual master because you don’t even know what they are. So you can’t be guilty of that. As far as blaspheming devotee, you think all the devotees are great souls. Later you get to know them. But at first there is no sādhu-nindā.

So in some ways in the very beginning there is a lot of nāma-ābhāsa. What happens is that one has to learn how to live with devotees and not to be an idiot and think they are all. . . you have to discriminate who’s who and what’s what, but at the same time not to become offensive. It is a little harder. It becomes harder to follow the orders of the spiritual master. When you see what he really wants, you go, “Huh! It is tough.” We all benefit even from the very beginning and this is just the fact that the holy name has this potency is itself kṛpā. My idea of sadhana mostly is, it is just the. . . Prabhupada gives the idea that when you are drowning, somebody can throw you a rope, but as a general rule you have to hang on. So the rope is mercy because somebody has come to rescue you but you are expected to hang on. Sometimes there could be more mercy and he can help you hang on too—that’s also there—but there has to be something from our side.

To me chanting is just convincing Krishna that I am really interested. But the mercy is always flowing from Krishna. It just comes off of Him like the brahmajyoti comes off of Him, the mercy comes off of Him.

Devotee: I am sorry to have a follow up on that question but in my case the chanting now hopefully I will chant without offense one day but if I continue in nāma-ābhāsa and at the end of my life I chant rāsa-līlā,. . . the attachment to the family is there and as you said at the beginning of the talk, the mind will go in that direction. It is really the attachment for Krishna is [knowledge?]. There is some attraction but the attachment is not.

Giriraj Swami: To go back to Godhead you have to chant purely. You have to have kṛṣṇa-prema. The end of Ajamila’s story was not when he chanted the name of Narayana. You can’t assume that if you chant in nāma-ābhāsa at the time of death that your life will be extended and then you’ll do more sadhana and achieve perfection. You might have to do that continuation in your next life. That would be more usual.

As far as chanting rāsa-līlā at the time of death again I think a lot has to do with your intensity. In the case of Ajamila, because you can chant something as we all know, and your mind can be somewhere else. It is not the chanting so much. It is the mind. Once someone asked Srila Prabhupada, I don’t want to touch on anyone’s sensitive feelings or sentiments, but once someone asked Srila Prabhupada about Gandhiji because it is said that he chanted the name of Rama at the time of death. Prabhupada said, “Unless you chant purely you don’t go back to Godhead. Unless you have prema you don’t go back to Godhead.” He said that Gandhi was in the habit of chanting “Rama Rama” so because he had the habit of chanting “Rama Rama” he chanted “Rama Rama” at the time of death. The way Prabhupada looked at it, his chanting “Rama Rama” was part of his political persona or his political strategy.

So it is really the consciousness at the time of death.

Ravindra Svarupa dasa: What he meant by Rama Rama was Svaraja Svaraja.

Maha-mantra dasa: The story that Surta Kirti told when he was in Alachua that one of Prabhupada’s disciples left Prabhupada and took shelter of another guru. In that line they teach sixty-four rounds is the minimum requirement to develop prema, to go back to Godhead. He actually came back to Prabhupada and told Prabhupada [more or less you are bogus] because you have to do sixty-four rounds to get love of Krishna. And Prabhupada replied, “You can’t force Krishna to give you love. That’s up to Him.”

It is kind of a paradox because you have to have the intensity and desire—that’s all you can have—but then it is up to Krishna whether He is going to give you. If you don’t have that, “Krishna, I want this, I want this,” and the commitment for it, what’s Krishna going to do. Who cares about you? You are not showing what you want but at the same time you have it and it’s up to Him.

In one book, Renunciation Through Wisdom, Prabhupada wrote before he started ISKCON, he said he always wondered why Krishna isn’t giving him mercy. Then he said in your neophyte stage if Krishna gave you His mercy, you couldn’t handle it. Then he said also sometimes Krishna holds it back to create that intensity so not giving mercy is mercy. I asked about Krishna, I said why it is so hard, sadhana, such a struggle in one sense. We need to struggle so Krishna makes it hard. So we struggle because we need to create the intensity. I always feel myself I feel [?] qualified, Krishna will give mercy. Then I only get as much as I am qualified to get. And then I think of that in terms of service, everything, “Krishna, why are You letting me do this wonderful service?” And He tells me, “Because you are not qualified. If I give you this power you will get [deviant] and you wouldn’t be able to handle it. Learn to handle it then I’ll give it to you.”

Devotee: I just thought I would ask something and it is related to what Giriraj Swami was speaking a bit about moksha and artha. [unclear] expectancy today and the moment for today. And then artha [?] service [?] spiritual advancement should be there. When you explained that I was thinking, Oh God, I wish. . . Usually you hear people who reach, you have the case of these devotees in Mayapur who got into a horrible car accident. Arcana-siddhi in New Vrindavan read a letter that she wrote, Janudvipa and Braja sevaka, where they basically explained that they saw this as incredible mercy. They were in a profound state of gratitude because they were disfigured and in complete vain. [?] of ego saying that they were [?].

They explained their history that they were coming out of Mayapur with this tacit. . . each of them were praying for the same thing independently and it was a real disturbance, it was a real anxiety they shared passively. They weren’t sharing it amongst themselves. They both had which was that they wanted to go beyond attachments to a deep state of service and they just didn’t know how to do it and they were praying saying, “How to do it?” They got into a car accident.

So it just seems like. . . there is the staircase method, there is the elevator method, the car crash method. I was just thinking my prayer is I wish I. . . it is almost like to reach that stage you have to leave the body or. . . I am just sharing. This was just a thought that went through my head and I thought it was interesting. It seems like it would be a good ideal if we could maintain that state of power now and be in a profound state of surrender [?] day to day and still be here, be able to share [?]. I just wanted to share that.

Giriraj Swami: Prabhupada was conscious of his own impending death. Of course he was old as you said when he began. Therefore he wanted to do as much as possible as quickly as possible. He had that sense of urgency. He took up programs that were somewhat long term. In other words if he was thinking. . . if he had seven days, it would have been very different. He did have that sense of urgency which we should also have.

Ravindra Svarupa dasa: You noticed how urgent Prabhupada really was to try to make disciples who could carry on after him. He didn’t know how long he would have to teach people before he left. There were times when people thought he was going back to India to leave his body and he didn’t. Rupanuga would tell me, “What will we do if Prabhupada didn’t come back.” He was really concerned like that.

Giriraj Swami: But even then when they asked if he could suggest a godbrother, he said no.

Ravindra Svarupa dasa: That’s another judgment of his that you should be aware of. One thing Prabhupada did because of a sense of not knowing how much time he had or seeming not to know, he put so much in the First Canto of Bhāgavatam. Because if that is all he wrote, he would have at least the essence of everything. And he also had a deep faith in that, “At a certain point I’ll do everything that I can do and then the rest is up to Krishna. The results of my work are not mine. I’ll do the work, I’ll do the best I can, and then it is not my business how. That’s Krishna’s business.” That brings a sense of renunciation and in a way it is kind of free from anxiety at the same time.

Maha-mantra dasa: Didn’t he say in the end, “Have I created a monster.”?

Ravindra Svarupa dasa: That’s the first I heard that. This is from some Ritvik website.

Maha-mantra dasa: I definitely read that. “Sometimes I think I’ve created a monster.”

Ravindra Svarupa dasa: At the same time he knew it was Krishna’s will. I can understand that opinion.

Maha-mantra dasa: I was just reflecting on your statement that he was detached, “I’ve done my best. What have I created? Are we going to succeed? Are we going to fight? Are we going to be sincere, intelligent, cooperate? It’s out of my hands now.”

Ravindra Svarupa dasa: We have to think it is in our hands now. Not just his direct disciples. Not at all. To me one of the profoundest things, Shyamasundara was Prabhupada’s secretary and he used to send out this newsletter. It was in this very artistic stream of consciousness way. There was one that came out and that’s where. . . Prabhupada was in Africa and he had just been in London. He debated to have a [?] society and he won. The guy surrendered to him. Shyamasundara quoted Prabhupada saying, “I act like a king because no one can defeat me.” And that’s when he said, “I am one person and see what I have done.” And then he said, “Now we are five hundred. Each one of you become just like me and imagine what can happen.”

That’s also the newsletter where he says, “Preaching is the essence. Books are the basis. Utility is the principle. Purity is the force.” That’s where it comes from. I read that and I put it on my wall in my office. And then Rupanuga Prabhu came by and he said, “Hey that’s pretty good. Where did that come from?” I said, “It’s in this newsletter.” Apparently a lot of people didn’t read it because it was. . . He is describing early in the morning he is sleeping outside Prabhupada’s door and he says “his keyhole flashed into shape.” I thought, What does it mean ‘his keyhole flashed into shape’? then I realized the light went on in the other side and you could see the keyhole. He had this way of doing things. You just want to read and get it over with. You don’t pay attention to. But they were remarkable.

I saw him just a few years ago. I thanked him for those newsletters. He said, “Do you have any copies?”

Giriraj Swami: Yes, they were very important instructions.

Maha-mantra dasa: That was also the newsletter that said all you need is two chapatis and a cup of dal. [laughter] Then we got the other half two weeks later that said that’s all you can digest. [laughter]

Giriraj Swami: I have few things on this topic. At the end at least Prabhupada’s mood in relation to his disciples, we asked him directly that, “You said that your Guru Maharaja could have remained longer but he left early because he was disgusted with his disciples. Is that the case with you?” Prabhupada said, “No, if Krishna allows me to stay, I will be very happy to stay in your association.”

As far as the future of ISKCON, I was there on several occasions when the question was asked. One was way back in 1971. A life member in Calcutta asked Prabhupada, “So often it happens that when the founder or the leader leaves then the institution fails. The disciples become greedy and they split and so many things happen. So how do you see the future of your movement?” And Prabhupada said that, “The future is bright, because in India a lot of people come to such institutions because they are materially needy and they come with material ambitions. But most of the young men and women who joined me, they’ve have enough of that in America. They are not coming to me for that. So I don’t think we will face the same thing in ISKCON. The future is bright.”

Then many times Prabhupada made the point that he wanted the BBT separate from ISKCON so in case something happened to ISKCON, the BBT would go on. At one stage Prabhupada made a decision in which, I don’t remember the context and I won’t even try to remember, one of the disciples said to Prabhupada, “I thought you wanted everything in the BBT to be completely separate in case in the future ISKCON fails.” And Prabhupada said, “Who says ISKCON will fail? Anyone who says ISKCON will fail is an atheist.”

But again to balance that, when he met Lilavati Munshi, the wife of the former governor Kanayalal Munshi, she was in charge of Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan. She was implicated in the whole affair with Bhakti Bhavan in Jhansi. So she asked Prabhupada about the future of the movement and to her he gave the example of the freedom movement that the problem with India is that after Gandhiji was assassinated people didn’t follow him because he was in favor of village organization and agriculture. He said because they didn’t follow him, because they went against him, so now India is in such a fallen condition. So he said, “I have given all the instructions my disciples need. So if they follow the instructions then the future of the movement will be very bright. But if they don’t follow what can I do.”

He was detached but he was also in a transcendental way very attached. In level one I spoke about Prabhupada’s transcendental anxiety. He was in Nairobi and he got a report from one of the tenants that some of the workers were stealing the construction supplies. In Nairobi Prabhupada was hardly eating. So Brahmananda asked Prabhupada, “You are hardly eating.” Prabhupada said, “How can I eat when my property is being stolen.” And then pretty soon after that he came to Bombay to deal with the situation and he said he was so concerned. He met with Saurabha who was in charge of the construction. And in a wry way he said, “I came to Krishna consciousness for life of bliss but instead now I have a life of anxiety.” [laughter]

Ravindra Svarupa dasa: Prabhupada was giving a talk in New York and he said about book distribution, “You should go out with the desire to distribute a thousand books, but don’t be disappointed if you don’t even distribute one,” which is not what many saṅkīrtana leaders would say. But it is this combination of this strong desire to do something for Krishna and working really hard to do it, but the same time if it doesn’t happen. . . we had to be thankful that Prabhupada had that attitude because so many things he tried didn’t work. He kept on going. He just didn’t get discouraged. When the Jhansi thing collapsed he kept on going. He tried to work in the Gaudiya Matha. That didn’t work. He kept on going.

There was this one incident early in the history of ISKCON when Prabhupada was ready to walk out the door too. “I do not need this ISKCON.” But he kept going.

Maha-mantra dasa: Hari Sauri asked Prabhupada, “You first did sixty-four then you went to thirty-two, then you went to sixteen.” He said, “Why did you do that?” Prabhupada said, “It was an experiment to see what you could do.” So testing.

Ravindra Svarupa dasa: Another early quotation from Prabhupada that I haven’t been able to verify that I was told, he said, “You learn from experience and experience means you make mistakes.” It seems to me that a lot of ISKCON was first trial and error. “Here are these people. Let’s see what they can do. If they can do this, okay. If they can’t, we’ll do this. If this works, it’s fine. If this doesn’t work. . .” He tried all kinds of different things to see what would actually work.

The remarkable thing about Prabhupada is that when his godbrother came to the West, they had this idea that everything is for the intelligent, elevated class of people. Even you read Prabhupada’s Preface to the Bhāgavatam which he began in India, was that he was thinking if only the intelligent people will take this up. So he came to the West. I think the general expectation in the Gaudiya Matha was that they were going to look for the high class, intelligent people. When Prabhupada came, at the time he came, who really showed up was what was later called hippies or the counter culture. These young people, their parents may have been rich but they were throwing the whole thing aside. And the real thing to give Prabhupada credit, he just didn’t seem to have blint, “Okay, if this is who Krishna sent, that’s what I’ll do.”

Once for writing an article I went through and I looked everything Prabhupada said about hippies: dirty, unbathed, unemployed, drug addicted, lying in the streets. A total description in the mode of ignorance. He was not into it at all. It was just amazing that he just kept on going. All those high class people that he thought would be interested in Bhāgavatam were simply not.

Giriraj Swami: I want to make a short comment on that and then I want to say something in my initial presentation which will take a few minutes. I think it was the first disappearance day celebration for Srila Prabhupada after he left and Saurabha gave quite an eloquent talk comparing Prabhupada’s mission to a construction. He felt that with Prabhupada’s brilliance and charisma and aristocracy that he could have gotten more of those people but that he felt that the real foundation of the movement would be guru- niṣṭhā and he saw that he could instill that in these young people even though he could have attracted those. He certainly could.

Ravindra Svarupa dasa: He never would have gotten that surrender he got. That’s true.

Giriraj Swami: Yes. He gave priority to the foundation and left it us to erect the superstructure and do the plastering and ornamentation.

As far as what I said about thinking of Krishna at the time of death, mother Arca Vigraha’s question, “What does it really mean to think of Krishna,” and how it became much more detailed and specific, I’d like to say a word about one’s qualification for this type of mood or topic. Other devotees also mentioned how Balabadhra Prabhu’s wife in Scotland and other examples of devotees who reached exalted states of consciousness at the end, mother Kirtida.

One of the requirements for going forward is detachment. Prabhupada writes in The Nectar of Devotion specifically in relation to rāgānugā-bhakti that one has to have passed the stage called anartha-nivṛtti. Now there are different practices of rāgānugā-sādhana and most of the most famous ones or the most notorious ones that have been misapplied and misused and abused are really meant to be practiced only in a very advanced stage of āsakti and even within āsakti the advanced part of āsakti when you are just on the verge of bhāva-bhakti, but we are talking about is having a natural attraction for Radha and Krishna, an aspiration to serve Them under Their servants, and hearing about Them, reciting prayers. In fact I was thinking there is so much to discuss, we can go on. . .

Ravindra Svarupa dasa: But it is not esoteric. You could just pray: ḍivya vṛnda. . . You could just say that verse and. . .

Giriraj Swami: Yes. It is built into our maṅgala-ācaraṇa. The one I was going to mention is the Tulasi prayers. In fact this morning I was chanting to Tulasi-devi because we are addressing Hare Krishna, Radha and Krishna, but I was chanting in front of Tulasi-devi, and one of the lines in the Tulasi prayer is koro nija dāsī: “Please make me your maidservant.” But that’s included in “O Radha, O Krishna, please engage me in Your service,” because we don’t engage in Their service directly. We engage in the service under the guidance of Their servants of which tulasi or Vrinda, the tulasi plant is actually an expansion of Vṛndādevī in the spiritual world.

I was even thinking of Haridasa Thakura what was his mood chanting to Tulasi-devi. Prabhupada quotes from his Guru Maharaja’s commentary on Sri Brahma-saṁhitā that Lord Brahma realized himself to be the eternal maidservant of Krishna. Haridasa Thakura is Lord Brahma.

It is there and it is not that we really change our practices but the mood changes. The same prayers that we recite just take on a little special significance. I think these devotees, Vraja-līlā and mother Arca Vigraha and mother Kirtida, when you are leaving your body and you know you are leaving your body, all these things arise—detachment, a clear awareness that you are not the body—so things that we might not be qualified to do so much or too busy to do, that’s possible at that state.

Ravindra Svarupa dasa: It is a luminal stage.

Giriraj Swami: Yes.

Ravindra Svarupa dasa: You are moving toward Krishna and Krishna. . .

Maha-mantra dasa: A lot of times I hear these stories I think I can’t wait—all these devotees around me doing kirtan, telling me a lot of kṛṣṇa-līlā. I am so busy now doing other things, it is just part of my life.

Devotee: I am really happy you mentioned that because during this whole discussion I was thinking, Is he going to going to come back and say more about that. I am glad you came back to that. I am just trying to understand. In other words, the thinking of [Krishna?], you are saying it is not that specific or that. . .

Giriraj Swami: I am saying that at a certain stage when one has largely cleared the anarthas and that also I might mention, I think Ravindra Svarupa Prabhu has mentioned that, we might be more or less in a particular stage, but at times we get a glimpse of a higher stage or for some time experience a more advanced stage, and sometimes the opposite, we are basically at a certain stage and then we go through a rough patch and we are for a while in a lower stage. But those feelings of attraction to serving Krishna in a particular mood in a particular relationship arise when one is largely freed from the effects of anarthas and according to Srila Prabhupada that stage of niṣṭhā means 75 percent free from anarthas. Visvanatha Cakravarti Thakura gives a very elaborate transcription of what anarthas are eradicated. Prabhupada as a rough figure gave 75 percent. At that stage it is natural if it comes. It is natural. It is not artificial. One might have that and then go back or become otherwise engaged. Again it is not something we try to hold on to artificially. It comes by mercy but if it does come by mercy there is nothing wrong in looking at pictures that inspire that mood or reading from Prabhupada’s books or other authorized books, reciting prayers in that mood.

Ravindra Svarupa dasa: I think your point it that we actually already have all the resources. You don’t have them study aṣṭa-kālīya-līlā or anything like that. If you are really there, somebody will hand you one tulasi leaf and. . .

You can go around tulasi every morning and say koro nija dāsī and then one day, “Look what I am asking.” We got it all.

Giriraj Swami: Yes.

Devotee: In one lecture Bhurijana Prabhu said that at the time of death it is like thousands of scorpions stinging at the same time. It is so painful. How can one remember the name, form, qualities, and pastimes of Krishna in such a condition? Right now for me it’s impossible. You are madhyamā [?] let alone be put in this difficulty. Do we get any credit if we don’t remember Krishna or vāpi smaran bhāvam.

Devotee: Even if you have a headache you cannot meditate on Krishna.

Ravindra Svarupa dasa: I was sitting one day in my room and I had a really bad headache. In fact it was a migraine, a really bad headache. I heard this noise outside and there was a car accident. I looked outside and watched the car accident and then I went back. Then I realized, “Oh, while I was absorbed in that car accident I felt no pain.” As soon as I started thinking about it, it came back again. So it is just a question of if you are really interested in something you just don’t notice. That’s part of the answer. You’ll find out. Next time you have a headache, if something happens and you get interested in it, all that time you were interested in something else, it didn’t cure it because as soon as the interest goes away, the headache turns out to be there still.

Devotee: You are also very scared of death, very scared. You may be praying to Krishna but it is because you are scared. You are not asking for His association or you are not asking to go back to Him.

Ravindra Svarupa dasa: But you are a devotee. Of course you are going to ask to go back to Him. You don’t have anywhere else to go. Look at Maharaja Parīkṣit, he is going to be killed by this Hollywood special effect monster [laughter] and he says, “Here’s the messenger from Krishna coming to take me back.”

Devotee: Just by this terrorist talk we had, more than six months back when that Taj incident happened, right after that Rasaraja Prabhu went with his family. The same day they came the next day my daughter and I were going to India. But fortunately our tickets were to Delhi, not to Mumbai. So we were relieved that we are not going to go to the same airport but again Delhi was a big airport. Many times we thought that we are going to cancel the tickets. We don’t want to take the risk. It is just a recent attack. We’ll just go some other time. I asked my mum about it and they were very disappointed and kind of laughing. . . I guess they live in Gujarat and they are so used to all this bombings. They were laughing that it is just a part of Indian life now.

Ravindra Svarupa dasa: It is every day explosions.

Devotee: They said not to worry about it. Then I thought probably I don’t want to disappoint them and just go ahead and go.

Ravindra Svarupa dasa: They even target ISKCON temples.

Devotee: At the Delhi airport we arrived and we were waiting for the next flight to go to Ahmadabad and the flight connection was in the morning. During the time we arrived at eleven o’clock and during that time we started hearing the rush. People were running and the chaos was there. All of a sudden the security guards came and the army was there. They started running. Soldiers were there. They came with their guns. I was alone with my daughter. My husband wasn’t travelling. It was just the two of us. And my daughter is too connected to Nṛsiṁhadeva instead of Krishna. She has a cousin whose name is also Krishna so she can’t just understand Krishna the God. She sees her brother as Krishna so she is more related to Nṛsiṁhadeva. She calls Him “Lion jaya jaya.” She says “Lion jaya jaya.” It is a Gujarati word for God.

She saw me that I got scared looking at the situation. So she also started singing the Nṛsiṁhadeva prayer. We both started praying but I realized that I wasn’t really surrendering to Nṛsiṁhadeva. It was just out of fear. Actually that was just a false alarm. They found out there was some gun shooting outside the airport. They could not find out after that that it was somebody who really just did some mischievous act or a real thing happened. The point is that it was just out of fear that I was praying to Krishna.

Ravindra Svarupa dasa: That’s good.

Giriraj Swami: Where you really absorbed in Krishna in fear or sort of like with your lips, you knew the right thing to do was to chant Krishna, but within yourself you were thinking of other things.

Devotee: No. I was just thinking of the terrorists. I was scared. And I was trying to distract my daughter also that I don’t want to put her into the fear.

Giriraj Swami: It was good you were chanting Krishna. You saw some weaknesses in you so you can work on those. Try to become stronger in your attachment to Krishna. Krishna gave you a little test so you could see where you succeeded and where you didn’t succeed. You can build on your strengths and work on your weaknesses. We can discuss in more detail.

Maha-mantra dasa: Also there is a commentary that we should not pray for anything but only for service but in danger sometimes spontaneously a devotee will pray for protection. It is not considered something impure because it is not this permanent relationship with Krishna.

Giriraj Swami: That’s Visvanatha Cakravarti Thakura’s commentary on anyābhilāṣitā-śūnyaṁ. Anyābhilāṣitā would mean “without any other desire” but the suffix itā, anyābhilāṣitā, means that in general one does not have any other desire but in an extreme case like when one is threatened with a life and death situation, without thinking if one prays to Krishna for protection, it is not considered outside of pure devotional service. But it shouldn’t be a regular thing that we are praying for health, wealth—those types of things.

Devotee: That is okay—not the health and wealth—because you are so scared at the time of death.

Ravindra Svarupa dasa: Actually Prabhupada has a commentary quoting Bhaktivinoda Thakura that a devotee takes shelter of Krishna whenever there is danger just like a child, if something is threatening him he runs to his father. He doesn’t know how to ask the father for anything but that’s just where he goes when there is a problem. So even the devotee doesn’t know how to ask Krishna for anything but whenever he feels some distress or danger, he just runs without calculation to Krishna just the way a child runs to his father.

Giriraj Swami: Like the cowherd boys when there was a fire they just ran to Krishna.

Ravindra Svarupa dasa: That is not fruitive. That is just going to Krishna for shelter.