BG 4.6–7 – Understanding Krishna in Truth

Giriraj Swami: Yesterday we observed the appearance day of Lord Balarama, the first expansion of Lord Krishna. Next weekend we will celebrate the appearance of Lord Krishna Himself. According to Vedic literature, kṛṣṇas tu bhagavān svayam, Krishna is the original Personality of Godhead. He has a sac-cid-ānanda-vigraha, an eternal, blissful, spiritual form. So He exists eternally in His spiritual abode of Goloka-Vrindavan and He descends into the world from time to time by His internal potency.

In the Fourth Chapter of the Bhagavad-gītā, Text 6, He explains: 

ajo ‘pi sann avyayātmā

bhūtānām īśvaro ‘pi san

prakṛtiṁ svām adhiṣṭhāya

sambhavāmy ātma-māyayā

“Although I am unborn and My transcendental body never deteriorates, and although I am the Lord of all living entities, I still appear in every millennium in My original transcendental form.”

So when the eternal Lord Krishna enters into the material world, He does so in His original spiritual form (avyayātmā), by His own internal potency. He is not forced to take birth like we ordinary, conditioned souls, but He comes of His own sweet will (ātma-māyayā). His spiritual body never ages or deteriorates. When we conditioned souls take birth in the material world, we are subject to disease, old age, and death, but when Krishna descends into the material world in His original spiritual form, He never grows old. As a pastime or līlā, He appears to take birth and He appears to grow up until He looks like a youth of about sixteen years of age, but He never ages beyond that. When Krishna spoke the Bhagavad-gītā to Arjuna on the Battlefield of Kurukshetra, from the material point of view He was more than a hundred years old. He had children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren. But His body never aged. You never see a picture of Krishna as an old man with wrinkles and grey hair walking with a cane. He is always a youth because His body is spiritual. It never ages or deteriorates. To mistake Krishna as an ordinary, conditioned soul with an ordinary material body is a great mistake and an offense. In fact Krishna says that those who deride Him for accepting a humanlike form are fools. 

So the purpose of the Vedic literatures is to ultimately give us information about God because if we can actually understand God you can be liberated from the cycle of birth and death. In the fact, in the Fourth Chapter which I just read from, Lord Krishna says, janma karma ca me divyam evaṁ yo vetti tattvataḥ, tyaktvā dehaṁ punar janma naiti mām eti so ‘rjuna, that, “One who understands the transcendental nature of My nature and activities in this world, never has to take birth again but he comes to Me,” he comes to Krishna. So understanding Krishna is very important and His appearance anniversary called Krishna Janmashtami is important for us to remember His appearance and to try to understand it tattvataḥ, in truth, because if you can understand it in truth we are liberated.

We have discussed in brief how the Lord descends. Then the next question is when He descends and in the next verse He explains:

yadā yadā hi dharmasya

glānir bhavati bhārata

abhyutthānam adharmasya

tadātmānaṁ sṛjāmy aham

“Whenever and wherever there is a decline in religious practice, O descendant of Bharata, and a predominant rise of irreligion – at that time I descend Myself.”

And again that phrase, tadātmānaṁ sṛjāmy aham, suggests He manifests Himself. He doesn’t actually take birth like an ordinary living entity that is injected through the sperm of the father into the womb of the mother and develops a material body made of material elements. 

So this dharma is a very important word. Dharma is related to the root dhr which means “that which sustains” or “natural characteristic.” For example, the natural characteristic of sugar is that it is sweet. The natural characteristic of chili is that it is hot. It doesn’t matter whether the sugar is in America or India or China, its natural characteristic is to be sweet. So we can say the dharma of sugar is to be sweet. So what is the dharma of the living entity? What is the natural characteristic of the living entity that cannot be separated from it? It is to render service. If you analyze, every living entity is always rendering service. Although we want to be enjoyers and the controllers and the proprietors but actually we are always rendering service. Even the president of the nation, he is rendering service. People work very hard to gain some political post but they still remain servants. They have to serve the voters. They have to please the voters to get elected and to stay in office to be re-elected. So everyone is servant. The children are serving the parents, the wives are serving the husbands, the husbands are serving their employers or customers—everyone is always serving everyone. But we mistakenly think that we can be masters. 

So our natural function is to render service to whom? To Krishna. Because that service is eternal. The living entity by nature is eternal and Krishna is eternal and because our function is to render service, we should render service in a way that is eternal and that is to Krishna. And that eternal service is called sanatana-dharma. The living entity is sanatana and Krishna is sanatana. Our service in relation to Krishna is sanatana, sanatana-dharma, and we go back home, back to Godhead we will go to His abode which is sanatana. So this decline or upsurge of adharma. . . adharma means deviating from our natural constitutional position as servants of Krishna. Jīvera svarūpa haya kṛṣṇera nitya-dāsa.’ That is our constitutional position. And that is our liberated condition. Mukti. Everyone wants mukti, liberation. Muktir hitvānyathā rūpaṁ sva-rūpeṇa vyavasthitiḥ. Mukti means to give up all these other temporary forms—material bodies—and to be instated in our svarupa, our constitutional position. And what is our svarupa? Jīvera svarūpa haya kṛṣṇera nitya-dāsa: to be eternal servants of Krishna.

So we may manufacture different temporary dharmas but those are not real dharma. Therefore at the end of the Bhagavad-gītā Krishna says, sarva-dharmān parityajya mām ekaṁ śaraṇaṁ vraja. He says that He descends when there is decrease in dharma. And in the next verse, Text Eight, He says, dharma saṁsthāpanārthāya, He comes to reestablish dharma. He comes to reestablish dharma so why does He say, sarva-dharmān parityajya, to give up all varieties of religiousness? Because those other dharmas that we manufacture or imagine, those are not our real dharma or eternal dharma or sanatana-dharma. Those are based on the temporary body. If I think, “I am an Indian,” so then I think, “My duty is to serve the cause of the Indians.” And in India that may take the form of thinking, “I have to defend India from the Muslims, from Pakistanis,” but in my next life I might take birth in Pakistan and then I will think my duty is to uphold the cause of the Pakistanis or Muslims against India. So these are not real dharmas, eternal dharmas, true dharmas, and therefore Krishna says, sarva-dharmān parityajya, mām ekaṁ śaraṇaṁ vraja. He comes to reestablish dharma but He says, “Give up all your dharmas and just surrender to Me.” So that means the real dharma is to surrender to Krishna. Not these temporary dharmas based on the body.

And that makes us liberated. This irreligion or we could say temporary dharmas make us conditioned. Conditioned means we have to suffer birth, death, old age, and disease. Nobody wants to suffer them but we are forced to suffer them as soon as we have a material body. So to become free from this suffering we have to understand Krishna—tattvatah—in truth. Not just superficially, “Krishna was born in Mathura and Vasudeva took Him to Gokula.” All that is true, it is all well and good, but you have to understand more deeply—tattvatah. Like sometimes when we would speak to people in India, they would say,” Oh, you don’t have to tell us about Krishna. We are born in this. Krishna is in our blood.” Well, yes, He is in your blood, He is in my blood, He is in the blood of the hog and the dog and the demigod, Krishna is everywhere, but we have to understand Krishna—tattvatah—in truth and that is not an ordinary process that you can just watch the Krishna television series or [Amacitraka?] comic books. You have to understand Krishna in truth.

How to do that? In the Bhagavad-gītā Krishna says, bhaktyā mām abhijānāti yāvān yaś cāsmi tattvataḥ, that He can be understood in truth only by devotional service, by bhakti, and there is a whole science of bhakti-yoga, and only by bhakti-yoga can we understand Krishna in truth. The science of bhakti-yoga is explained in brief in the Bhagavad-gītā and then expanded in the Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu, The Nectar of Devotion, and it begins, ādau gurvāśrayam: one must take shelter of the spiritual master, and that is in the Bhagavad-gītā: tad vidhi praṇipātena paripraśnena sevayā upadekṣyanti te jñānaṁ jñāninas tattva-darśinaḥ. Tattva. That same word, tattva, that the spiritual master is tattva-darsi, he has seen the truth or he has understood the truth and therefore he can impart knowledge unto the worthy disciple. Who is a worthy disciple? Pranipatena: he surrenders to the guru. Paripraśnena: he is inquisitive. He wants to know, tad-vijñānārthaṁ sa gurum evābhigacchet, that when one is inquisitive to understand the Absolute Truth, he must approach a guru. Jijñāsuḥ śreya uttamam. When one is interested to know the ultimate aim of life, he should approach a guru.

So this is the system. It is very simple actually. But as Srila Prabhupada said, it is simple for the simple but difficult for the crooked and most people unfortunately in Kali-yuga are very crooked and so it seems very complicated. It is actually very simple. You just surrender. Surrender means you follow the instructions. Very simple. Krishna says, “Do this.” “Okay, I am Krishna’s servant, I will do it.” The guru is Krishna’s representative, he says, “Do this,” “Okay, I will do it.” It is very simple. But it becomes complicated when our ego comes in the way and our minds, our treacherous, wicked minds come in the way, and then so many questions, so many doubts. And it is very hard to make progress then. As Krishna says later in the Bhagavad-gītā, that for the doubting soul, progress is difficult in this life and in the next, but if we give up this—sarva-dharmān parityajy —give up all these speculations and just surrender to Krishna and follow His instructions, it is very easy and we can be liberated from this cycle of birth and death in this very lifetime. We can make a permanent solution to all problems. Therefore there is a beautiful verse, every bona fide scripture, Vedic scripture will reiterate what the other says, from what the other says, so Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam says. . . there are so many verses, this is just one:

samāśritā ye pada-pallava-plavaṁ

mahat-padaṁ puṇya-yaśo murāreḥ

bhavāmbudhir vatsa-padaṁ paraṁ padaṁ

padaṁ padaṁ yad vipadāṁ na teṣām

It is a very beautiful verse. For those who have taken shelter of the lotus feet of Krishna, this vast ocean of material existence becomes just like a puddle contained in the hoof-print of a cow. Although there is danger at every step in the material world the devotee crosses right over it, just steps over it. It is so insignificant. And Krishna says the same thing in the Bhagavad-gītā, daivī hy eṣā guṇa-mayī mama māyā duratyayā: “This material nature consisting of the three modes are very difficult to overcome, but mām eva ye prapadyante, those who surrender unto Me can easily cross over it.” 

Easy as it is in principle to surrender, Krishna, who came in Kali-yuga again, as Sri Krishna Chaitanya has made it even easier. Easier means it is the same process of surrender but He has made it easier because He is given us the chanting of the holy name to cleanse the mirror of the mind so it is easier to surrender. Therefore we always encourage people to chant the holy names. Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu quoted a verse from the Bṛhan-nāradīya Purana:

harer nāma harer nāma

harer nāmaiva kevalam

kalau nāsty eva nāsty eva

nāsty eva gatir anyathā

“One should chant the holy names, chant the holy names, chant the holy names of Sri Hari [Krishna]. There is no other way, no other way, no other way for success in the age of Kali.”

So it is emphatic, it is repeated three times, “You must do it. You must do it. You must do it.” The other is also repeated three times, “There is no other way, no other way, no other way.” Not by karma, not by jnana, not by yoga, but only by bhakti, by hari-nāma. But we are so unfortunate, we don’t do it. Srila Prabhupada used to refer to a cartoon that had appeared in some journal. An old man is sitting across from an old lady and the lady is telling her husband, “Chant, chant, chant,” and the husband is replying, “Can’t, can’t, can’t.” [laughter] That is our unfortunate position that with the same effort that it takes to refuse, we could just as easily do it and get the benefit.

So Krishna comes—dharma saṁsthāpanārthāya—to reestablish dharma, ultimately prema-dharma, and we should reciprocate. He took the trouble to come to us for our benefit to give us knowledge, to give us the method to reach Him, and we should reciprocate and accept His teachings and follow His instructions because it is only for our benefit. Krishna has plenty of servants in the spiritual world. Lakṣmī-sahasra-śata-sambhrama-sevyamānam. He is being served by hundreds and millions of Lakshmis or goddesses of fortune. We are all so eager to get Lakshmi, day and night how to get Lakshmi, how to keep her, she is cañcalā, how to keep her, where to invest her, where to hide her, and yet Krishna is being served by hundreds and millions of Lakshmi in the spiritual world. So He doesn’t need our service but we need to serve Him because that is our constitutional position and so He comes and gives us that information. He leaves the Bhagavad-gītā so that we can refer to it and repeat His instructions, and if we follow His instructions which are actually quite easy and pleasant, we can get liberated from this miserable material existence and enjoy our eternal life with Krishna. Hare Krishna.

Are there any questions or comments?

Bhakta Richard: You mentioned about the mind having so many questions. I was wondering in relationship to asking questions to the spiritual master, how do you discriminate from what are proper questions and how do you discriminate or do you discriminate or do you ask whatever questions you have and let the spiritual master discriminate?

Giriraj Swami: Jijñāsuḥ śreya uttamam. One should be inquisitive into the ultimate benefit of life—śreya uttamam. There is śreyas and preyas. Preyas means immediate benefit like a child always wants to play and sreyas means ultimate benefit, the child wants to play but the parents know that it is best for the child to go to school and not just stay home and play. So the inquiries should be about śreyas not preyas. 

Now sometimes it happens that a person’s material circumstances are disturbed and the disturbance in the circumstances become a disturbance to the person’s spiritual life. So in that sense the spiritual master may help the disciple deal with the materially disturbed situation, but the ultimate goal should be śreya uttamam, should be self-realization, should be to go back home, back to Godhead. Tad vidhi praṇipātena paripraśnena sevayā. That tad means knowledge of sacrifice to please the Supreme or as stated in The Nectar of Devotion, sad-dharma-pṛcchāt, one should inquire, sat-dharma, into eternal religious principles.

So that type of inquiry is welcome. Sometimes devotees ask questions—I don’t like to say it-but they ask questions to make a show of being very surrendered, they will say, “Guru Maharaja, do I have your permission to go on pilgrimage?” Pilgrimage is recommended. Of course in a way it is good to ask if a person is ready to take a particular type of pilgrimage, but still, “Do I have your permission to go on pilgrimage?” That they will ask but when it comes to watching DVDs, eating in restaurants, spending time on Facebook, they don’t enquire. They go their merry way but when it comes to, “Do I have permission to go to Vrindavan? Do I have permission to take the class on Bhagavad-gītā? Do I have permission to make garlands for the Deities?” They are so submissive and so surrendered and all the other things they might not get permission to do, they don’t ask about. 

The basic requirement is sincerity. That will guide the person and if the person is sincere, like you said the guru can correct the person. But if the person is not sincere then the guru doesn’t usually want to waste time because it is kind of scarce. There are many sincere souls that want guidance so if someone is asking but is not really surrendered because that is the first thing— praṇipāt—first surrender, if the surrender is not there then why should he take the trouble to answer. It will be like polishing coal. You rub and rub and polish it but it is still black. But we try, we give everyone a chance. They will still have to discriminate.

Gentleman: [unclear]

Giriraj Swami: That is a good question. He says as far as the process of bhakti-yoga, one must accept a spiritual master. So he is asking to what degree should one have a personal relationship with the spiritual master.

Of course one should have a personal relationship with the spiritual master but the relationship is based on hearing and service. Service means following the instructions. So in that sense there must be a personal relationship otherwise how will the guru know what instructions to give you because the instructions should be suitable according to the candidate and time and place and circumstances.

But that said there are different categories of gurus. There is the dīkṣā-guru who gives you initiation and śikṣā-gurus. So the dīkṣā-guru may not have that much time—it depends—but he may not have that much time with an individual disciple, but the disciple can get practical guidance from other mature and experienced and learned devotees who can be like śikṣā-gurus for him. So a lot depends on the disciple if he wants that personal relationship with the dīkṣā-guru or if he feels that he gets enough strength and inspiration from the dīkṣā-guru from hearing lectures, recorded lectures, from reading the writings and other ways of getting association through vāṇī and can get sufficient practical guidance in terms of one’s individual circumstances from other guides, friends, advisors. But the main thing is faith because it is based on faith that you’ll follow the instructions. So if the faith is not there then the relationship will be meek whether you have a lot of personal association or not.

Rupa-nuga dasa: Maharaja, we’ve heard the relationship with the śikṣā-guru is sometimes stronger or maybe more profound than that of the dīkṣā-guru. So one might ask a question, it is necessary to take initiation from a dīkṣā-guru or is it possible to continue with the relationship with the śikṣā-guru?

Giriraj Swami: As I mentioned we are following a scientific process, bhakti-yoga, so there is guru-pādāśraya, dīkṣā, gurura sevana sad-dharma-śikṣā-pṛcchā, sādhu-mārgānugamana. Part of it is to take instructions, part of it is to take initiation because the mantra is also an important part of the process. You receive the mantras from initiation. 

There are different categories of śikṣā-gurus. A new person comes to the temple, he doesn’t really know anything, the devotees tell him about Krishna consciousness, so they are dīkṣā-gurus, vartma-pradarśaka-gurus. They show the way in the beginning but then as the person spends more time in the association of devotees and begins to know more about Krishna consciousness then he’ll look for instructions from advanced and mature and knowledgeable devotees. So then there are still śikṣā-gurus but it is not such a broad category but it is like a few special guides. And then one can come to the stage of accepting a śikṣā-guru with great faith that, “That śikṣā-guru is the representative of Krishna from me and I take what that śikṣā-guru says as if it were coming from Krishna.”

Generally it is that type of śikṣā-guru who becomes the dīkṣā-guru but you can have that type of relationship with a śikṣā-guru who is not the dīkṣā-guru but the śikṣā-guru should reinforce the disciple’s relationship with the dīkṣā-guru. He obviously shouldn’t undermine the disciple’s relationship with the dīkṣā-guru.

But yes, mantra is required. Required means it is part of the process; it is part of the regular process.

Rupa-nuga dasa: So Maharaja, even though the śikṣā-guru reinforces the dīkṣā-guru but still [unclear].

Giriraj Swami: It is part of the process. It is essential. There are exceptions. There are always exceptions but as a general rule, yes, it is there. It is one of the first three items: to accept the shelter of the spiritual master, to take instruction from him, and to take initiation from him. It is one of the first three preliminary items of devotional service. And after those three, then the others follow. It is part of the process and as Srila Prabhupada writes in one purport, if someone is unwilling to accept a spiritual master then where is his hope for future progress. He shouldn’t be unwilling. It could suggest an unwillingness to surrender but then again you have to have faith. There is no use taking initiation if you don’t have genuine faith otherwise it is just a disturbance.

Did I answer your question or is there something more to it?

Rupa-nuga dasa: It is a good answer.

Actually Rupa-nuga Prabhu is one of my śikṣā-gurus so if he says it is a good answer then I know it is a good answer otherwise until I asked I wasn’t sure.

Misra Bhagavan dasa: For the last thousand years we have worldwide conflict between Muslims and Christians and violence between Christians and Hindus, Hindus and Muslims. Sometimes within Christianity, fights between Protestant and Catholics. How do you get so much war out of this love of God? Why is there so much conflict?

Giriraj Swami: These are those temporary dharmas. Just like Krishna says, sarva-dharmān parityajya mām ekaṁ śaraṇaṁ vraja. “I am a Protestant.” “I am a Catholic.” So we fight. Amongst Muslims, “I am Sumi,” “I am a Shia.” We fight. And then there is the Amadeus and the Sumis and the Shias, they are both against them. 

If there is genuine love of God then these anomalies will not be there. Srila Prabhupada said that religion without philosophy is just sentiment or fanaticism and philosophy without religion is just mental speculation. So we need both. A lot of what goes on that you described is in the category of religion without philosophy and so it is just sentiment or fanaticism. The basic philosophy is you are not the body. They don’t know you are not the body. They don’t know that the soul in the body of the Hindu or Christian or Muslim or cow or goat or tree is the same. They don’t know. There are Christians who say that animals have no soul so you can eat them. They have no soul. There is no philosophy. So that is the problem. People say the problem is religion but that is not the problem. The problem is Christian religion without philosophy, that is what the problem is. So if a Hindu or Christian or Muslim or any sort of fanatic or sentimentalist can accept the knowledge of the Bhagavad-gītā then they can be a real Hindu or Christian or Muslim but without philosophy, without basic knowledge of the difference between the body and the soul and the Supreme Soul, Prabhupada said it is sentiment, fanaticism. In a way it is ignorance. It is just different manifestations of ignorance.

So that is why it is important that we distribute this knowledge to all sorts of people and any sincere Hindu, Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, Jain, Parsee who accepts this knowledge will definitely improve in his life. He doesn’t have to change his designation but he’ll become a better Hindu or Christian or Muslim or Buddhist or Jain or whatever. So that is really the problem, they don’t have knowledge, and so we have to give them the chance to come in contact with the knowledge and that will balance their religious sentiment in a way that will be wholesome and congenial for them individually and for the world in general.

So I am glad that you are going door to door with the knowledge in these books and if people get the books and then they come to the temple and see the knowledge perfectly exemplified in the activities of the devotees, it will be a perfect combination.

Thank you very much.

Srila Prabhupada ki jaya!

Nitai-Gaura premānande Hari Haribol!

Hare Krishna.