Spiritual Personality

Giriraj Swami: Hare Krishna. It is a great honor and pleasure and privilege to be in your midst, sitting at the lotus feet of His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada.

We are all more or less conditioned souls, struggling in the material world. In the Bhagavad-gītā Lord Krishna says: mamaivāṁśo jīva-loke jīva-bhūtaḥ sanātanaḥ, that “The living entities are My parts and parcels eternally but they are struggling in the material world, conditioned by the three modes of nature.”

So our predicament is that we are spiritual beings. We are meant to be in the spiritual atmosphere but somehow we have come into the material atmosphere and it is an incompatible situation. So those of you who have come to the association of devotees, have heard the message of Krishna from the Bhagavad-gītā and Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, have gotten some sense or idea that you are spirit souls, part and parcel of Krishna, and you are meant to serve Him. You are by nature eternal, full of knowledge, and bliss, but you have come into this body, which is temporary, full of ignorance and misery.

So how do we get out of this predicament? The general answer is bhakti-yoga. Lord Chaitanya explains that the Vedic scriptures describe three subjects: saṃbandha, abhidheya, and prayojana. Saṃbandha means “knowledge of relationships,” basically who am I, who is God, what is the material nature, what is the spiritual nature, what are my relationships with them, what are their relationships with each other. The essence of the answer is, jīvera svarūpa haya kṛṣṇera nitya-dāsa: I am the eternal servant of Krishna.

Abhidheya means the process or the means to attain the goal and that is bhakti-yoga. And the goal is kṛṣṇa-prema, pure love for Krishna. Serious practice of bhakti-yoga begins by accepting a spiritual master, taking instruction from him, taking initiation from him, enquiring of him. These are the basic steps that one must take. Then of all the items of devotional service—nine items—the chanting of the holy name of the Lord is the most important.

In ISKCON Srila Prabhupada is the founder-acharya. We are receiving the knowledge of Krishna through disciplic succession through him and he has presented to us the teachings of Krishna and the previous acharyas in the line. He had great faith, full faith in the order of Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and his spiritual master, Srila Prabhupada’s own spiritual master Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura, and in the holy name of Krishna, chanting of the holy name.

Just as Krishna has all good qualities so the living entity being part and parcel of Krishna also has the same qualities of Krishna but in minute quantity. But actually, janmādy asya yataḥ, Krishna is the origin of everything. Everything that exists in us must also exist in Krishna. So what we might consider to be bad qualities also exist in Krishna but of course in Krishna, Krishna is absolute, He is all-good. And the same qualities exist in the pure devotee, but it can be confusing who is a pure devotee, what is the behavior of a pure devotee, because we have so many material conceptions which are varieties of the impersonal misconception.

The impersonalists have the idea that as individuals, as conditioned souls, as individuals we’ve suffered, so the way to become free from suffering is to give up our individual identity, our individual existence. We have had desires and the desires have brought us misery so we have to give up desire. Their ultimate goal is to merge into Brahman, the impersonal effulgence that comes from the transcendental body of Krishna or the Buddhists is more to enter the void, to enter into a marginal position. It is not really spiritual or material. It is in between.

We are all affected by this impersonalism. Srila Prabhupada is glorified by the praṇāma mantra: nirviśeṣa-śūnyavādi-pāścātya-deśa-tāriṇe, that he is delivering the Western countries, which are filled with impersonalism and voidism. The materialistic scientists, they are also in their own way impersonal. They don’t accept the personal basics of existence. So we are influenced by these ideas and therefore we are actually afraid—that is one of the obstacles of spiritual life—we are afraid of remaining persons, remaining individuals. As Srila Prabhupada says that you are a person and you are diseased and your activities cause you pain but the solution is not to commit suicide. Of course it happens sometimes, the pain is so intense you think, Let me just die, but ordinarily no one wants to die. So the solution is not to commit suicide. The solution is to cure the disease.

When you are diseased you are a person and when you are cured you are a person but when you are diseased all your activities cause you pain and when you are healthy the same activities are pleasurable. So thinking, feeling, desiring, acting, these cause pain in the material world or result in pain, but the same activities when engaged in the service of the Lord and Krishna consciousness produce pleasure, eternal pleasure. But it is not that anything is absent. All the sentiments of a conditioned soul also exist in the liberated soul but in the liberated soul they are all pure. They are all for Krishna.

This morning Ravindra Svarupa Prabhu spoke on a very nice verse with a very good purport by Srila Prabhupada. Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, Canto Four, Chapter Ten: “Dhruva Mahārāja’s Fight with the Yakṣas.”

TEXT 4

When Dhruva Mahārāja heard of the killing of his brother Uttama by the Yakṣas in the Himālaya Mountains, being overwhelmed with lamentation and anger, he got on his chariot and went out for victory over the city of the Yakṣas, Alakāpurī.

PURPORT by Srila Prabhupada

Dhruva Mahārāja’s becoming angry, overwhelmed with grief, and envious of the enemies was not incompatible with his position as a great devotee. It is a misunderstanding that a devotee should not be angry, envious or overwhelmed by lamentation.

COMMENT

I had opportunity both to hear Srila Prabhupada speak on this topic and to see him as a pure devotee demonstrate transcendental anger, transcendental lamentation. As far as the principle after the first Delhi pandal held at Connaught Place in 1971, after the pandal Srila Prabhupada was staying at a house in New Delhi and a young man from perhaps America came to meet Srila Prabhupada. He was so inspired by the Hare Krishna festival that we had had at Connaught Place, he said to Srila Prabhupada that, “If Krishna consciousness spreads, people will learn to love each other and give up hatred and anger.” Srila Prabhupada replied, “Anger. Did someone tell you that anger is bad? Krishna spoke the whole Bhagavad-gītā just to make Arjuna angry. He wanted Arjuna to fight and kill the enemy. You can’t kill someone unless you are angry. So, Krishna spoke the whole Bhagavad-gītā just to make Arjuna angry.” And then he explained that anything can be used in the service of the Lord including anger.

Another example is Hanuman. When Hanuman went to Lanka to find Sita and he was captured and his tail was set on fire he demonstrated his transcendental anger and practically burned the whole capital of Ravana to ashes. Hanuman is the greatest devotee of Lord Rama. Arjuna is a great devotee of Krishna. They used their anger in Krishna’s service.

One occasion in particular when Srila Prabhupada demonstrated his transcendental anger took place on a morning walk in Juhu Beach. Srila Prabhupada had a companion who often accompanied him on his morning walks, Dr. C. P. Patel. Dr. Patel was a little proud. He had gone to England to study medicine. In those days when he went it was quite a big thing to go to England to study but he never compromised his principles of behavior. He never ate meat, he never drank liquor or smoked cigarettes, he never engaged in illicit sex. So he was proud he had gone to England and on top of it he had maintained his principles of conduct and he knew Sanskrit, he knew many verses. He was quite an intelligent person in a sort of stupid way. [laughter] He would talk with Prabhupada. They would have very interesting discussions.

Dr. Patel would bring up different popular religious figures of India. So on one morning walk he brought up one of them and Srila Prabhupada quoted a verse from the Bhagavad-gītā: na māṁ duṣkṛtino mūḍhāḥ prapadyante narādhamāḥ māyayāpahṛta-jñānā āsuraṁ bhāvam āśritāḥ, that anyone who is not surrendered to Krishna is a duṣkṛtinaḥ (miscreant) and within the broad category of duṣkṛtinaḥ there are four subcategories: mūḍhas: fool, rascal or sometimes it is expressed as ass.

Ravindra Svarupa dasa: Jerk.

Giriraj Swami: Jerk! [laughter] Nara-adhamāḥ: the lowest of mankind; māyayāpahṛta-jñānā: someone whose knowledge is taken away by maya; and āsuraṁ bhāvam āśritāḥ: someone who partakes of the atheistic nature of demons.

So Srila Prabhupada was saying that this revered holy man of India who was not surrendered to Krishna was a duṣkṛtinaḥ in one of these categories. Dr. Patel felt highly offended that Srila Prabhupada was talking about this revered figure in such terms. Guess what Srila Prabhupada replied? I know you can answer. Can anyone guess?

[Devotee answers]

Yes. Srila Prabhupada said, “I am not saying. Krishna is saying. I am just repeating what Krishna says.” But Dr. Patel was not pacified. He was just incensed. He was just furious and Prabhupada held his ground. He said, “This is what Krishna says. I cannot change it. I am just presenting what Krishna says. This is our standard. This is our criterion. I can’t help it. I am just repeating what Krishna says.”

The argument escalated. I am presenting it in a more even tone of voice, [laughter] but in reality Dr. Patel started to shout at Srila Prabhupada and Srila Prabhupada was shouting back at him and Dr. Patel was getting red in the face. Dr. Patel had his group of friends, his cronies who would walk with him. Because he was a little intelligent and educated and outspoken so he was the leader and they would just follow him but in this case they actually tried to separate him from Srila Prabhupada. Just like sometimes in a boxing ring, the two opponents are smashing each other. The bell has rung. The round is over and the referee tries to separate them. So his friends, they were literally trying to pull him away. And they said, “Swamiji has a heart condition. It is not good for him to get so excited.” And he kept shouting and Prabhupada was shouting and finally they pulled him away. So this was a big mystery why Srila Prabhupada engaged with Dr. Patel, because it was hard to figure him out actually.

Ravindra Svarupa dasa: Patel or Srila Prabhupada?

Giriraj Swami: Both, but I meant Patel, it was hard to figure him out because he would speak like a Mayavadi but whenever Srila Prabhupada would accuse him of being a Mayavadi he would say, “No Sir! I beg to differ. I am Vaishnava, a pure Vaishnava,” meaning that he does not eat onions and garlic.

After this incident Tamal Krishna Goswami went into Srila Prabhupada’s room in Juhu and he said, “Why do you put up with him? He is so offensive. Why do you put up with him?” Srila Prabhupada replied, “Simply our duty is to engage everyone.” Tamal Krishna Goswami said, “But what is his actual position? Sometimes he speaks like a Mayavadi, sometimes he speaks like a Vaishnava. Sometimes he is very respectful to you, sometimes he is very aggressive towards you.”

Srila Prabhupada told the story that there was once a man who was very expert in many languages. In whatever language you addressed him he would reply in that same language perfectly without any hesitation. So nobody could figure out where he was from. [laughter]. Nobody could figure out what his mother tongue was and it became quite a topic in the town. “Who is this person, where is he from?” No one could figure it out.

Finally one man said, “I will find out.” So one day the man snuck up behind the person who spoke many languages and from behind gave him a big whack. [laughter] And that man started to curse in his native tongue. [laughter]

So Srila Prabhupada said that Dr. Patel—there are others like that, some of the swamis—they are like expert linguists. If they think that you are a krishna-bhakta they will talk about Krishna and if they think that you are a shiva-bhakta they will talk about Shiva. They are just expert in speaking different languages. So Srila Prabhupada said that Dr. Patel was like that. He could speak many different languages. “It is hard to know but when I gave him a whack where it really hurt his real language came out.”

So then for the first time in all of those years Dr. Patel did not join Srila Prabhupada for his morning walk and Srila Prabhupada also said, “Now no more discussion. Just read the Krishna book.” So we would read the Kṛṣṇa book on the morning walk. After a couple of days. . . Srila Prabhupada would walk in the early morning. It would be dark when he would start his walk and then it would come to the dawning twilight. So it is sort of dark. There is a little twilight. Dr. Patel would be walking with his friends on one end of the beach and Prabhupada would be walking with his disciples on the other end and Dr. Patel, he was walking quite a distance from Srila Prabhupada pretending he did not see Srila Prabhupada and the devotees and then something happened. He just changed directions and he came to Prabhupada and sort of bowed down and touched his feet.

He said, “Prabhupada, from my childhood I have been taught to respect all the saints of India.” And Srila Prabhupada replied, “And our business is to say who is not a saint.” [laughter]

This is actually a very profound point. Part was anger, but Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakura (we just completed two japa retreats in Montgomery, Texas. Some of you were there—Gauracandra Prabhu and his wife, Kalpana; Guru Bhakti Mataji was kind enough to send her parents; Kuvera Prabhu) in Harināma-cintāmaṇi discusses the ten offenses against the holy name because to get the real benefit of chanting one must chant without offense.

The first offence is sādhu-nindā, to blaspheme devotees or sadhus. Bhaktivinoda Thakura discusses who is a sadhu because in order to avoid sādhu-nindā one has to know who is a sadhu. He discusses, there are twenty-six qualities of a devotee but out of those one essential quality defines a sadhu and that is kṛṣṇa-eka-śaraṇam, exclusively surrendered to Krishna or has taken exclusive shelter of the holy name of Krishna. The other twenty-five may or may not be present to different degrees but their absence does not disqualify a person as a sadhu if he has the one quality of kṛṣṇa-eka-śaraṇam.

Then Bhaktivinoda Thakura mentions three categories of asādhus, people who are not actually sadhus but whom we might think are sadhus. One is a Mayavadi, impersonalist; and then there is the dharmadhvajī, he holds the flag of dharma. He presents himself as being very religious but actually he is not. He is basically a pretender. I am remembering the third category just now. But they are not sadhus although people might take them as sadhus. And to criticize them is not sādhu-nindā. It is not a fault. If someone criticizes someone who is not a sadhu and if some third person thinks that the devotee who is criticizing the asādhu is committing an offense that is an offense. Understand?

So Prabhupada did that. He said that our business is to point out who is not a saint and if you think that, Prabhupada is being offensive to these saints, that is offensive. But in the case of Dr. Patel they had a special relationship we can’t understand. According to Dr. Patel, Srila Prabhupada told him that in their past lives they were brothers. [laughter] They had that other side to their relationship. Of course Srila Prabhupada would sit a little higher on his asana at his desk. Dr. Patel would sit across from him. Prabhupada would speak in Bengali but Dr. Patel was intelligent enough to understand what he was saying and then he would reply in Gujarati and Prabhupada was intelligent enough to understand what he was saying and he would respond in Bengali. [laughter] So they used to have fun together in their own way. So that was anger.

Now lamentation. This was a very interesting discussion. A publisher of a weekly newspaper in Mauritius, Mr. Ram Lalla, although he is a Hindu no doubt, somehow in his youth he had gone to Russia. He got a little influenced by the communism. He came to meet Srila Prabhupada and he raised the question that, “If someone receives knowledge and then acts contrary to the knowledge is it not ridiculous?” And Srila Prabhupada replied, “If someone has knowledge he cannot act in a contrary way.” Ram Lalla was insisting and Srila Prabhupada was insisting. The thing is that Mr. Ram Lalla had an offensive edge to him. He had to really come out with what was on his mind fully. But Prabhupada could understand that he was being offensive.

So Mr. Ram Lalla was saying, “Someone who receives knowledge and acts in a contrary way isn’t it ridiculous?” And Prabhupada was saying, “He can’t do it. Your question is ridiculous.” Then Mr. Ram Lalla brought out Arjuna that Arjuna had heard the Bhagavad-gītā from Krishna. In His own words he had told Krishna that he had understood the Bhagavad-gītā but then when he received the news that Asvatthama had been murdered he was overwhelmed with grief and he said that he was ready to enter into fire, give up his life in fire. So isn’t that ridiculous?

Srila Prabhupada said, “Oh, you mean Arjuna?” Then Srila Prabhupada said that everyone knows theoretically, na hanyate hanyamāne śarīre, that when the body dies the soul does not die but still when we hear that a loved one has died we feel grief. He said that is natural. Everyone feels grief but Krishna spoke the Bhagavad-gītā to Arjuna to convince him to fight and even though Arjuna was temporarily disturbed by grief he did not leave the battlefield. He did not give up his duty. In the end he did fight and Srila Prabhupada said that was his victory. So Prabhupada said it is natural. The fact that one feels lamentation does not disqualify him as a pure devotee or as a great devotee because Arjuna did his duty. He followed the order of Krishna and that was his victory.

Of course our problem is that we identify with the body and we lament for the body but there is spiritual lamentation. Once Srila Prabhupada said to me, “Our only lamentation is why people are not taking to Krishna consciousness.” I believe he was paraphrasing Prahlada Maharaja that, “For myself I have no anxiety or I have no lamentation—na socē—but I am concerned for the fallen souls who are suffering without Krishna consciousness.”

Some months ago I was just reading some of Srila Prabhupada’s letters—not to me, just collected letters—and he was discussing some disciples of his who had left him. A common friend of theirs had written to Srila Prabhupada and Srila Prabhupada said that he was lamenting with tears in his eyes for the disciples who had left him. He quoted one incident where his Guru Maharaja, Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura had given sannyasa to one disciple and very soon thereafter the man’s wife came and took him away. Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura lamented, Prabhupada said, with tears in his eyes that, “I could not save this soul.” So with these devotees that left, Prabhupada said that he was crying with tears in his eyes and silently prayed that they may come back which is the same idea, lamenting that people are not taking to Krishna consciousness but in a very personal way in relation to some devotees who had come forward in the early days of ISKCON to help him.

So this is also in Krishna consciousness. There is Krishna at the center. I saw other times Prabhupada would cry just seeing the suffering of people. This is compassion, Vaishnava compassion. It is not mundane lamentation. So a devotee has the full range of emotions. The only difference between material emotion and spiritual emotion is that in spiritual emotions Krishna is the center and in material emotions the body is the center. So you shouldn’t think that if someone shows anger or lamentation it necessarily means that they are in maya. Brahma-bhūtaḥ prasannātmā na śocati na kāṅkṣati. No, a pure devotee has the full range of human sentiments, but the center is Krishna.

Ultimately Krishna is a person; He also has the full range of sentiments. He becomes angry. He also killed demons. In His incarnation as Nṛsiṁhadeva, He is the incarnation of anger. He also laments. As Chaitanya Mahaprabhu He laments for the fallen souls. In kṛṣṇa-līlā He laments. He also feels separation from His devotees. Ramachandra too. When Sita was kidnapped by Ravana, He lamented. It wasn’t material. It was a type of transcendental ecstasy but still it took the form of lamentation. Srila Prabhupada explained all these things. He exemplified them. So we should learn from his instructions and his example. But to really come to that stage of realization one must chant and hear offenselessly. Because we are as I mentioned part and parcel of Krishna we have all the good qualities of Krishna but they are covered. So the chanting reveals them, uncovers the pure soul—ceto-darpaṇa-mārjanaṁ—and that is the Hare Krishna movement. It is basically the Hare Krishna movement. We chant the holy name and serve Srila Prabhupada, serve the pure devotees, the whole line of disciplic succession, chant and hear about Krishna.

So now I would like to request His Grace Ravindra Svarupa Prabhu. You can speak on the holy name or anything that strikes you.

[Ravindra Svarupa Prabhu’s talk]

Devotee: Sometime sadhus come to our temples and try to undermine the faith of our devotees and take our devotees away. How to reveal them?

Giriraj Swami: One of the questions is who is a sadhu and who is not a sadhu. Srila Prabhupada said, “My business is to point out who is not a sadhu.” So he said that there are people who dress as sadhus and present themselves as sadhus and they come to ISKCON temples and undermine the faith of the devotees and their spiritual authorities and try to take people away. So how do we deal with it?

This is a practical question. The closest experience I have is in Los Angeles. There is a saying that, “Good fences make good neighbors.” So in Los Angeles there is a very strict policy not to allow those people or people associated with those people from coming to the temple community. Not just the temple itself—as a whole community. The result was that the atmosphere improved. The atmosphere in the temple became more peaceful and the relation with those other devotees was better because they weren’t threatening us. So it seems like a good policy.

We can’t preach to them because they think they know the truth better than we, they know a higher truth than we know, and they are on a mission, and they think the end justifies the means. So they use all sorts of tactics in pursuance of their mission. It really seems appropriate that good fence make good neighbors.

Srila Prabhupada had a godbrother in Vrindavan and Prabhupada was discussing

with the godbrother how there are so many sahajiyās in Vrindavan. 75 percent of Vrindavan is sahajiyā. So the godbrother asked Srila Prabhupada, “What are you going to do to protect your disciples?” And Srila Prabhupada said that, “I built a fence around them to protect them.” During Prabhupada’s time there was quite a strong fence and that fence continued but over the years the fence has been eroded. There are a lot of holes in the fence and people are associating with Vaishnavas—we won’t question whether they are Vaishnavas or not for the sake of the discussion—but they are associating with people that Srila Prabhupada warned us not to associate with and the results have been quite disturbing.

Anyway that is the situation. It is hard. It depends on faith. It is all a matter of faith. We tell someone not to go, that Srila Prabhupada discouraged it, but if they have faith in you, they won’t go. But if they don’t have faith then, “Well what’s wrong?” So they will go. Like a certain type of child when you tell them not to do it they want to do it more. So it could be like that. You say, “Don’t go.” And they say, “Why not? What are you afraid? Why shouldn’t I go?”

We can advise people not to go but we can’t control it because it depends on their faith, on their desire, but what we can control is who enters the gate. It is the duty of the leaders to protect the devotees, safeguard the faith of the devotees. It can take different forms in different places or different situations. I gave the example in LA. There could be other approaches.

Gentleman: I have a doubt that the maha-mantra that is given by the spiritual master to the disciples in the form of [unclear]. In another way we are using the maha-mantra in saṅkīrtana so how we can justify saṅkīrtana as well as the maha-mantra as the same?

Giriraj Swami: The Hare Krishna maha-mantra is not a secret mantra. We distribute it freely. Once you have received it you can chant it quietly as japa or loudly in kirtan but the mantra itself is open. It is not like the mantras that the spiritual master gives to the disciple when the disciple is initiated as a brahman. It is not like that. Anyone can chant it and you can chant it either as japa or as kirtan or both. The ideal is both.

Ravindra Svarupa dasa: The shastra says that the yuga-dharma is chanting the names of God, specifically saṅkīrtana. Chaitanya Mahaprabhu is the yugāvatāras to give that dharma. So this is the way He did it as Maharaja described. He is the acharya, the teacher. Although He is Krishna Himself He came as a devotee to teach by practice. So how He practiced is the standard. So this is part of the extraordinary mercy of Kali-yuga that sometimes the very potent mantras that are kept either secret or are very restricted as of course is tradition but now because of Kali-yuga there is a very special potency in these very potent mantras are given out very freely. That is the mercy of the age.

Gentleman: Why are some mantras kept secret and given only with initiation, and others made public and given freely to all?

Ravindra Svarupa dasa: I am not really very qualified to judge in this way myself. When we need some medicine from the doctor, the bottle says to two tablets three times a day and somehow they know what is the right thing. And if you start thinking, Well, I will just take them all three in the morning, then you may run into some problems. So there are different prescriptions for different mantras by people who are on a much higher level than me that make these kinds of decisions.

Giriraj Swami: Yes. From the time of Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura the initiation process was divided into two, first hari-nāma and then Gayatri and other mantras. The idea is that just to be initiated as a brahman or a dvija one should be of a certain standard. So as Srila Prabhupada said we give hari-nāma initiation for encouragement and then by the chanting of the holy name the candidate becomes purified and when he is purified to a certain extent then he is considered to be eligible for the second initiation. But even for the first initiation there is a standard. It is based on shastra. Sadhu, shastra, guru, these are our three authorities. Shastra is the central point and a sadhu is one who lives according to shastra and guru lives according to shastra and he preaches the same message as the shastra.

In Hari-bhakti-vilāsa—it is mentioned in the Caitanya-caritāmṛta—there should be a mutual testing period between the guru and the disciple. During Srila Prabhupada’s presence the minimum period was six months. Now as time has progressed I think the minimum period is at least a year. The mutual testing period is required so that the disciple can be assured of the position of the guru and the guru can be assured of the position of the disciple. In Srila Prabhupada’s case he couldn’t personally know every candidate. Therefore the temple president was appointed as his representative to assess the candidate. So he would test the candidate and after six months or year or whenever the president felt he could recommend the person he would recommend the person.

And following the four regulative principles, you know what they are, chanting sixteen rounds. For that period of six months the candidate should be chanting the sixteen rounds. He should show that he is steady in chanting sixteen rounds and following the four principles so that at the time of initiation when he takes his vows we have reasonable hope that he will maintain because he has already been doing it for six months or a year or whatever. So even the first initiation, even though it is sort of an encouragement but still there are standards that Srila Prabhupada established based on certain scriptural injunctions including that idea that there should be a mutual testing period.