BG 14.26–27 – No Happiness without Relationships

Giriraj Swami: So, we are going to read from a book called the Bhagavad-gītā As It Is. The word Bhagavad is related to the word Bhagavān which we will discuss, but in short, the word Bhagavān means One who is complete in all opulence. Or, in other words, the Supreme. And, gītā means song. So, roughly speaking, Bhagavad-gītā could be translated as the Song of God. God has every faculty that we have. He must have every faculty that we have, otherwise He would be less than us. So, we have personality, we have form, we have senses, we have thoughts, we have desires, we have feelings, we have the ability to speak, so God has all of those. But, we possess them to a limited degree, and He possesses them to an unlimited degree. Now, there are different features of the Supreme. And, the different features of the Supreme are revealed proportionately according to the way in which the Supreme is approached. And, we shall read a verse from the Bhagavad-gītā with a purport by our spiritual master, Srila Prabhupada, that will elucidate the verse. And, then we will discuss. Before I read, I will request you to recite an auspicious mantra of invocation. Please repeat after me.

oṁ namo bhagavate vāsudevāya 

oṁ namo bhagavate vāsudevāya 

oṁ namo bhagavate vāsudevāya 

So, now, I will ask you to repeat each word in the verse that we are going to discuss. This is the Bhagavad-gītā As It Is, Chapter Fourteen,

TEXT 26

māṁ ca yo ‘vyabhicāreṇa bhakti-yogena sevate

sa guṇān samatītyaitān brahma-bhūyāya kalpate

TEXT 27

brahmaṇo hi pratiṣṭhāham  amṛtasyāvyayasya ca
śāśvatasya ca dharmasya  sukhasyaikāntikasya ca

COMMENT

Okay, now everyone move forward. All right, now listen very carefully. If you are able to follow, the verse has four lines composed of the words that we just recited individually. And, I will recite one line at a time, and you can repeat as best as you can. 

brahmaṇo hi pratiṣṭhāham  amṛtasyāvyayasya ca
śāśvatasya ca dharmasya  sukhasyaikāntikasya ca

COMMENT

Actually, we could pass out some of these books. This is Chapter Fourteen, Text Twenty-seven.

brahmaṇo hi pratiṣṭhāham  amṛtasyāvyayasya ca
śāśvatasya ca dharmasya  sukhasyaikāntikasya ca

COMMENT

Translation. . . Now, the speaker of this verse is Bhagavān Krishna, so keep this in mind. He says,

TRANSLATION

And I am the basis of the impersonal Brahman, which is immortal, imperishable and eternal and is the constitutional position of ultimate happiness.

COMMENT

So, we all want ultimate happiness, so this verse is very important for us.

PURPORT by Srila Prabhupada

The constitution of Brahman is immortality, imperishability, eternity and happiness. Brahman is the beginning of transcendental realization. Paramātmā, the Supersoul, is the middle, the second stage in transcendental realization, and the Supreme Personality of Godhead is the ultimate realization of the Absolute Truth. Therefore, both Paramātmā and the impersonal Brahman are within the Supreme Person. It is explained in the Seventh Chapter that material nature is the manifestation of the inferior energy of the Supreme Lord. The Lord impregnates the inferior, material nature with fragments of the superior nature, and that is the spiritual touch in the material nature. When a living entity conditioned by this material nature begins the cultivation of spiritual knowledge, he elevates himself from the position of material existence and gradually rises up to the Brahman conception of the Supreme. This attainment of the Brahman conception of life is the first stage in self-realization. At this stage the Brahman-realized person is transcendental to the material position, but he is not actually perfect in Brahman realization. If he wants, he can continue to stay in the Brahman position and then gradually rise up to Paramātmā realization and then to the realization of the Supreme Personality of Godhead. There are many examples of this in Vedic literature. The four Kumāras were situated first in the impersonal Brahman conception of truth, but then they gradually rose to the platform of devotional service. One who cannot elevate himself beyond the impersonal conception of Brahman runs the risk of falling down. In Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam it is stated that although a person may rise to the stage of impersonal Brahman, without going further, with no information of the Supreme Person, his intelligence is not perfectly clear. Therefore, in spite of being raised to the Brahman platform, there is the chance of falling down if one is not engaged in the devotional service of the Lord. In the Vedic language it is also said, raso vai saḥ, rasaṁ hy evāyaṁ labdhvānandī bhavati: “When one understands the Personality of Godhead, the reservoir of pleasure, Kṛṣṇa, he actually becomes transcendentally blissful.” (Taittirīya Upaniṣad 2.7.1) The Supreme Lord is full in six opulences, and when a devotee approaches Him there is an exchange of these six opulences. The servant of the king enjoys on an almost equal level with the king. And so eternal happiness, imperishable happiness, and eternal life accompany devotional service. Therefore, realization of Brahman, or eternity, or imperishability, is included in devotional service. This is already possessed by a person who is engaged in devotional service.

The living entity, although Brahman by nature, has the desire to lord it over the material world, and due to this he falls down. In his constitutional position, a living entity is above the three modes of material nature, but association with material nature entangles him in the different modes of material nature – goodness, passion and ignorance. Due to the association of these three modes, his desire to dominate the material world is there. By engagement in devotional service in full Kṛṣṇa consciousness, he is immediately situated in the transcendental position, and his unlawful desire to control material nature is removed. Therefore the process of devotional service, beginning with hearing, chanting, remembering – the prescribed nine methods for realizing devotional service – should be practiced in the association of devotees. Gradually, by such association, by the influence of the spiritual master, one’s material desire to dominate is removed, and one becomes firmly situated in the Lord’s transcendental loving service. This method is prescribed from the twenty-second to the last verse of this chapter. Devotional service to the Lord is very simple: one should always engage in the service of the Lord, should eat the remnants of foodstuffs offered to the Deity, smell the flowers offered to the lotus feet of the Lord, see the places where the Lord had His transcendental pastimes, read of the different activities of the Lord, His reciprocation of love with His devotees, chant always the transcendental vibration Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa, Hare Hare/ Hare Rāma, Hare Rāma, Rāma Rāma, Hare Hare, and observe the fasting days commemorating the appearances and disappearances of the Lord and His devotees. By following such a process one becomes completely detached from all material activities. One who can thus situate himself in the brahma-jyotir or the different varieties of the Brahman conception is equal to the Supreme Personality of Godhead in quality.

COMMENT

Hare Krishna. So, within these two pages, we have received all the knowledge that we need to make our lives perfect. The Lord as mentioned here, brahmaṇo hi pratiṣṭhāham, He is the basis of the impersonal brahman. Now, generally speaking, there are four categories of people. One category is the materialist which are most people; they want to work, and make money, and enjoy sense gratification. Then, there are three other categories, and they are all transcendentalists. One category is the jnanis, the philosophical speculators, and by their process, they can realize the impersonal feature of the Absolute Truth which is called brahman. The next category of transcendentalists are the yogis, and by the actual practice of yoga, they can realize Paramātmā, the Lord within the heart. And, the third category are the devotees or bhaktas who engage in devotional service, bhakti, and they have full realization of the Absolute Truth as Bhagavān Krishna. Krishna is a name for Bhagavān. There are many other names, but we are using the name Krishna. Actually, in one sense, God has no name, but if we accept the Personality of Godhead, we will understand that He is attractive. Any quality of God—God is great, God is merciful, God is kind, those are all attractive qualities. So, although God has no name, but He can be referred to by words that refer to His forms, His qualities, His activities, and so on. He is the creator, He is the maintainer, and ultimately, He is the destroyer. But, whatever His qualities are, they are attractive, and so, the word Krishna means all-attractive. And therefore, that is considered the perfect name of God because it includes all the other names. 

So, there are many examples to help us understand these different features. There is one story that when the railways first began in India, so people heard that the train is coming. They had never seen a train, and they wanted to know what is a train. So, they all gathered on the platform and were waiting, and finally, in the distance, they saw the headlight of the train. And so, some people thought, Okay, that is what a train is. It is a light, and then they went home. The next is a manifestation of the train as it came closer. There was an outline of the front of the train. There were the two windows, the headlight, and the bumper, sort of like a face. And, I am sure they must have children’s cartoons with the way the locomotive has eyes, the nose, and the mouth. So, they saw the outline of the train, and they thought, Oh, that is what a train is; it has these two windows and a light and a thing across the bottom. And, they went home. But the last group, they waited until the train actually pulled into the station. And they saw, Oh, there is a locomotive, there is a car that holds the coal, and they feed the coal into the fire of the locomotive, and there are compartments with people. The people are sitting in the train. There are compartments where people can lie down and sleep. There is a dining car where people can eat. And then, there is a compartment where they can keep their luggage. And they saw there is a whole life in the train. 

So, the example of the three groups of people with their different realizations of the train correspond to the three classes of transcendentalists. The jnanis, they are like the first group; they just saw the light. So, jnanis they think that the Absolute Truth is light. Often we hear God is light, and their goal is to merge and become one with the light, that one undifferentiated spiritual light. And the second group who saw the outline of the form of the train are like the yogis who realize the Lord in the heart, Paramātmā, Dhyānāvasthita-tad-gatena manasā paśyanti yaṁ yoginaḥ. The yogis are able to see the Lord in their heart in meditation. But the devotees, they have full knowledge of the Supreme Personality of Godhead. And, the Supreme Personality of Godhead does not exist in isolation, but He exists with His devotees, and He engages in loving pastimes with them, which are eternal, and full of knowledge, and full of bliss. And, there is a whole world of spiritual blissful activity. And, that is what we want. We want ultimately, happiness, everyone wants happiness. So, in Vedic language or Sanskrit language, the Lord is sac-cid-ānanda-vigrahaḥ. Sat means eternal, chit means full of knowledge, ānanda means full of bliss, and vigrahaḥ means with form. And so, the realization of the impersonal brahman is realization of sat, eternity, that is all. And, realization of Paramātmā is sat and chit; there is knowledge, there is consciousness, there is cognizance of the Personality of the Lord in the heart, but not ānanda. Real ānanda or bliss comes when one enters into a loving relationship with the Lord, and that is what we all want. 

And therefore, the Bhāgavatam states that the impersonalists who imagine that they are liberated, or who think that they are liberated, that is a sort of a debatable point whether they are liberated or not, but we can say that they are liberated but not perfectly liberated, because they fall down. They cannot maintain their liberated position because they do not have ānanda, they don’t have bliss, they don’t have a loving relationship. 

Now, even ordinary people who want material enjoyment cannot be happy without relationships with other people. Without other people, there is no happiness. Those of you, who are studying the Bhagavad-gītā, know from the very beginning that Arjuna was confronted by. . . It was a fratricidal war where two branches of the same family were brought together in a conflict. And, Arjuna did not want to fight against his relatives. Now, this is a big topic because from the worldly point of view, Arjuna’s position was very laudable. Arjuna told Krishna that, “I do not want to fight over this kingdom, even though it is rightfully mine, but still, I don’t want to fight over this kingdom because I will have to kill my family members. And, I won’t be able to enjoy the kingdom without my family members.” And, Srila Prabhupada analyses the psychology of people who are earning money that they want to show off their houses, their cars, their entertainment centers, otherwise there is no fun. I mean, if you were the richest man in the world with billions of dollars, and you could build a fabulous home like Bill Gates or that Ambani character, but if you couldn’t show it to anyone, if you couldn’t share it with anyone, would you be happy? No! You would say, “Take this. I don’t want it; give me one person at least. I can have some relationship with one person.” So, that was what Arjuna told Krishna at the beginning of the Bhagavad-gītā that even if, what to speak of a kingdom on earth, even if You gave me a kingdom of heaven with unrivalled sovereignty. . . Here one may have a kingdom but there is rivals, there is always rivals, so there is always anxiety and fear. Even, yes, you might own Microsoft but there is a rival, so there is always competition. But, Arjuna said, “Even if I was given the kingdom of heaven without any rivals, still I could not drive away my grief.” What grief? The grief of having to kill my family members and relatives in battle. 

So, from the material point of view, it sounds very noble, but actually, there were two very basic defects in Arjuna’s conception which Lord Krishna pointed out. And, that is how it came that He spoke the Bhagavad-gītā to Arjuna. The first was that Arjuna was identifying with the body and the actual person is the soul within the body, not the body. The body is just like dress. And so, he was so worried, “Oh, I have to kill my relatives in battle, even my superiors, my grandfather, my teachers. How can I kill them?” But Lord Krishna explained that actually, the soul cannot be killed; that you cannot kill them because they are eternal; that they are not the body, they are the soul, and the soul is eternal. 

Now, of course, that does not justify killing. Killing without authority, without justification, is a great sin. And, what to speak of killing human beings, devotees won’t even kill an ant; so, that is something else. But here, it was a righteous war. It was being fought for a good cause. Arjuna was not fighting it because he wanted to enjoy the kingdom. To the contrary, he didn’t want to fight it; he didn’t think he would be able to enjoy the kingdom. So, that was the first instruction that you are not the body. You are lamenting for the body, but those who are wise do not lament for the body. They lament neither for the living nor the dead because the soul is eternal. 

The other defect in Arjuna’s apparent noble qualities was that he was seeing himself as the center, “What do I want? What will make me happy? What will make me sad?” He was keeping himself in the center, and himself means not his real self, but his egoistic self, the concept of himself as a body who’s related to all these other bodies. But, the proper understanding is that we are souls and as souls, we are part and parcel of Krishna, the Supreme Soul, and therefore our real interest is to serve Krishna, na te viduḥ svārtha-gatiṁ hi viṣṇuṁ It is natural to think of your self-interest; everyone does, and it is natural. But, the problem is we do not know what our self-interest is. And, to know what our self-interest is, we have to know who ‘ourself’ is. If we think that our self is the body, if we are in that illusion or ignorance and think, I am the body, then I will think that my self-interest is the interest of the body, the comforts of the body. We will want to pamper the body, and please the senses of the body or please the mind which is the center of the senses. But, that effort never actually makes us happy because we are not the body. 

Srila Prabhupada gives the example of a bird in a cage. The body is like a cage and the soul, in this example, is like the bird in the cage. So, even if we put the bird in a golden cage and polish the gold, beautiful gold bars, and decorate it with cushions and jewels and gems and perfumes and everything nice, but if we don’t feed the bird, will the bird be happy? No! You have to feed the bird. You can surround the bird with all sorts of opulence and comforts, but if you don’t feed the bird, the bird will die. So, for the soul, the body is like the cage. And we might decorate it and try to give all comforts to it, but if we don’t feed the soul, spiritually, we will die. I mean, the soul can never actually die, but spiritually we will die. Spiritually, we will be deprived of our sustenance, and our sustenance is our relationship with God. And what is our relationship with God? It is one of loving service to God. So, without loving service to God, the soul is starved, and so we are not happy. 

And therefore, there are so many examples of, I mean, pretty much everyone but of rich people, very rich people, who are not happy because they are doing so much for the body, but they are not the body and their real self is starving. I am not sure of the latest statistics but at one stage, Sweden had the highest standard of living of any country in the world. And, it also had the highest rate of suicide. And we often read reports of very wealthy people, very famous, rich and famous people who commit suicide, or die of some overdose of medication, or some drug, overdose of some drug because they were not happy. So, na te viduḥ svārtha-gatiṁ hi viṣṇuṁ There is nothing wrong with thinking of your self-interest, but you should know who you are, who yourself is, what yourself is, and yourself is spirit, part and parcel of Krishna. And therefore, your natural function is to serve. It is the natural function of the part to serve the whole, like the hand is part of the body. It is the natural function of the hand to serve the body. If it doesn’t, if it is not serving the body, there is something wrong. It is diseased or it is paralyzed, there is something wrong. 

And, here too, Srila Prabhupada tells a story about the different limbs of the body that they got together, and had a meeting. And, they considered that we are doing all the work, we are going and getting money, we are going to the market, we are buying all the foodstuffs, we are doing all the cooking, we are even putting the food in the mouth, and what do we get out of it? Nothing! It all goes to the stomach. We are doing all the work, and the stomach gets everything. So, we should go on strike. So, all the different parts of the body went on strike, and guess what happened. They all became weak, weaker, and weaker and weaker and more and more miserable. And then, finally, they decided we were better off when we were serving the stomach. So, this quaint little story actually illustrates a very profound truth. And, the Bhāgavatam also says that just as by pouring water on the root of the tree, all the branches and twigs and leaves and buds are watered. And, just as by putting food in the stomach, all the limbs of the body are nourished. Similarly, by serving the Supreme Personality of Godhead, all the demigods, demigods means Brahma, Shiva, Durga, Ganesh, and so many demigods, all the demigods and all the living entities are served. We don’t have to serve them separately. That is a very profound truth. So, our diseased condition in material life is like we have gone on strike against Krishna. We don’t want to serve Krishna, we want to serve ourselves, but it doesn’t work.

Another example, suppose there is some nice food. I don’t know what a good example would be as different people have different tastes. But let us. . .

Devotee: Sweet rice

Giriraj Swami: Yes, sweet rice, all right!

Devotee: Pizza.

Giriraj Swami: Well, all right. So, we will give you a choice. Just imagine, it could either. It could be a sweet rice, rasagullā, pizza. . .

Devotee: Tacos

Giriraj Swami: Tacos, ice cream, all right. All right, whatever it is. . . So, the natural process is to put the piece of pizza in your mouth, and chew it, and swallow it, and it goes to the stomach. Now, if the hand thinks, Well, why should I feed the stomach? I will enjoy directly, and it mushes up the pizza, and tries to enjoy it directly. It won’t work. That is not the process. The process is you have to feed the stomach. So, it is the same way, if we want to enjoy directly, we say, “Okay, well, I don’t want to serve Krishna, I want to enjoy,” you can try to enjoy directly, but it doesn’t work because that is not the way it works. It is scientifically incorrect. The way it works is, if we serve Krishna like feeding the stomach, then we enjoy, but not independently. So, this is the basic defect in material consciousness that we want to enjoy independent of God, kṛṣṇa-bhuliya jīva bhoga vāñchā kare. And, as soon as one forgets his relationship with Krishna and wants to enjoy independently of Krishna, he comes under the material nature, which is called maya, and is punished. And we are being punished. 

Of course, there are certain fundamental miseries of material existence that we cannot avoid, janma-mṛtyu-jarā-vyādhi-duḥkha-doṣānudarśanam. The Bhagavad-gītā mentions birth, disease, old age, and death, we cannot avoid them. The scientists, the doctors, they may try to counteract these miseries, but they cannot counteract them. You cannot counteract these miseries by any material means. I mean, you can temporarily put them off, but you cannot escape them. If it were the case that by medical science, one could cure disease, then we would find that gradually all the hospitals would close down; all the doctors would go home; there would be no patients because they were curing disease, but they are not. They may temporarily counteract a particular disease for a particular time, but another disease will come, and then another, and then another, and ultimately, death. In the meantime, if you live long enough, old age, they can’t stop it. And, there is always a demand. I am sure you know very well; there is always a demand for doctors, for physical therapists, for occupational therapists, for nurses. There is always a demand because we are not actually able to stop disease and old age—can’t stop old age. I mean, they have these really, I would say, extreme measures to try to make you look young, to counteract the appearance of old age, but they cannot stop old age. Time passes, you just get older and older and older, and the body, the machine. . . the body is a machine, the machine, it just starts to fall apart; this part goes, you try to put it back together, but it is not quite the same. And, another part goes, you try to put that back together, but it is not quite the same, and gradually, the whole machine stops functioning. And eventually, it is not a fit place for the soul to reside in. And then, the soul leaves because it is not a fit place. You can live in a house that is falling apart, but eventually, if it falls apart completely, it says you can’t even perform the basic functions that you need to perform within the house, then you leave the house. You can’t live there anymore. So, that happens to the body. 

Of course, our audience here is generally on the younger side, so I don’t want to dwell too much on the subject of old age, but one of my colleagues gave a very nice example about energy. How, as you grow older, you lose your energy, and that is gradual. You hit forty, you have a little less energy, you hit fifty, less, sixty, less, it just gets lesser and lesser. They said, it is like a tube of toothpaste. When you get a new tube of toothpaste, it is full of toothpaste. You just press it a little, and all sorts of toothpaste comes squirting out, it is so much. And then, as you gradually use up the toothpaste, it takes more effort to get it out. And then, when there is very little left, and you are rolling it up from the bottom and just squeezing out whatever little you can get. And then, you have rolled it all the way up to the top, there is still a little underneath, so you try to squish it up, you get that last toothbrush worth of toothpaste. So, it is like that in the beginning that you have so much energy. . . like parents of small children, they are all over the place running here and there; you can’t even contain them. But then thirties, forties, fifties, it gradually decreases. So, it is inevitable, it is inevitable. 

So therefore, the real purpose of human life, na te viduḥ svārtha-gatiṁ hi viṣṇuṁ. What is our self-interest? Our self-interest is to get out of the material world, out of the bondage of material existence, out of the captivity of the soul within the body, to a free life with Krishna in the spiritual world. And, the beauty of Krishna consciousness is that you can experience that relationship with Krishna even in the material world—that is called jīvan-mukta. You are in the material world, but you are actually liberated. You are in the world but not of it. The example is given of the lotus flower—the roots of the lotus flower are in the mud but the stem and the leaf is above the water. So, it is in it, but it is not of it. So, a devotee can achieve that position. And, that we didn’t discuss thoroughly. We read the two verses, but we didn’t discuss the first one thoroughly. But the verse is: 

māṁ ca yo ‘vyabhicāreṇa

bhakti-yogena sevate

sa guṇān samatītyaitān

brahma-bhūyāya kalpate

So, one who serves Krishna in bhakti-yoga without deviation, sa guṇān samatītyaitān, He transcends the material modes of nature – tamo-guna and rajo-guṇa, even sattva-guna. brahma-bhūyāya kalpate, and he comes to the platform of brahman. So, that is the process of bhakti-yoga. And, even within this body, even within this lifetime, you can come to the brahman platform and relish service to Krishna which means association with Krishna. And then, leaving the body has no significance. It is like, when a devotee is fully absorbed in Krishna and loving service to Krishna, that change of body, it is like nothing, it is like he hardly even notices it. It is like. . . it is a crude example, but if you are really absorbed in something and you are in a car, and then you get out of the car, and you go into a house, but if you are really absorbed in some thought, you don’t even notice, it is like, Oh yes!, Suddenly, you are at the door. So, that is possible even in this lifetime. 

And, the process is not difficult. . . that is another thing that the impersonal process, that jnana-yoga, impersonal speculation, even asthanga-yoga, very difficult. And, after all that difficult labour, there is still no guarantee you’ll attain success. And, even if you attain success in impersonal realization, it is not permanent because there is no bliss, there is no relationship. You are just like. . . you don’t actually merge, that is another sort of illusion, you don’t actually merge but you are like a little, your soul is like a little shining particle in the brahma-jyoti which is composed of other little shining particles, spiritual particles. There is no relationship, there is no activity. It is just a sort of escape, temporary escape. Just like if you are miserable, you just go, Okay, I am going to go to sleep, just get away from it all. But eventually, you wake up, you can’t sleep forever. But okay, if things are too bad, I am going out with the boys, we are going to get drunk. Okay, you can temporarily forget your miseries, but eventually, the effects will wear off. You’ll have a hangover, first of all; you’ll feel worse then, and then, all the same problems will be there. So, impersonal liberation is like that. Eventually, even in the brahma-jyotir, you become restless, you want some activity. If you want some relationship, and then patanty adho, you fall down again into the material world.

So, we need positive engagement. Okay, we are not the body but it doesn’t mean that we become inactive because the soul is by nature active. We think the body is active, but it is actually the soul that is active because when the soul leaves the body, the body is inert. All the parts of the body are there, but the body is not working because the soul is gone, so the soul is the active principle. And so, the soul needs activity. It is wrongly engaged in material activities of sense gratification or mental speculation. It should be properly engaged in devotional service. So, even in that liberated position or so-called liberated position, eventually, the soul will want activity, and without knowledge of devotional service, it will come back down into the material world. 

And so, real liberation means. . . Yes, just like your disease, okay, you are diseased, yes, material existence is a diseased state, you are diseased. Okay, you are in bed, you have a fever. Gradually, by following the physician’s orders, taking the medicine, the disease comes down, and finally the fever is gone. You can say, you are liberated from the fever. So that is good, but are you going to just lie in bed? That is like impersonal liberation, Okay, I am cured of the fever. I am just going to lie in bed now. I am not suffering from the fever, I am just going to lie in bed. You can’t do that. How long can you do that? You have to get up and engage in healthy activities. The healthy activities are devotional service and Krishna consciousness, and especially, in the sense of the chanting of the holy names of Krishna, especially, in the sense that it is the easiest. It doesn’t require any paraphernalia or preparation. And, the other activities are all meant to be accompanied by the chanting of the holy name. And, it is very easy and very pleasant. But, it is a whole process also—taking spiritual food, reading and discussing transcendental topics—these are the basic activities. And, they are very joyfully performed. It is not this dry speculation or hard austerities or gymnastic feats. It is very pleasurable. 

In fact, once a newspaper reporter asked our spiritual master, Srila Prabhupada, that, “You are doing everything for Krishna, you have dedicated your whole life to Krishna, everything is for Krishna, and what if in the end, there is no Krishna? What would you do?” And, Srila Prabhupada replied, “I wouldn’t do anything different because what am I doing? I am chanting Hare Krishna which is full of pleasure. I am reading Vedic literatures which is full of pleasure. I am eating Krishna prasāda which is full of pleasure. I am yes dancing, enjoying the company of Krishna’s devotees which is full of pleasure. So, even if there were no Krishna, I wouldn’t do anything different. I would continue to do the exact same thing.”

Devotee: His Holiness Giriraj Swami Maharaja ki jaya!

Giriraj Swami: So, do any of you have any questions or comments?

Devotee: So, why do people get stuck on the impersonal state of mind or Paramātmā realization?

Giriraj Swami: Yes, that is a good question. The impersonalists. . . actually, the yogis who realize Paramātmā generally continue to advance and become devotees. But the impersonalists, they can quite often be stuck in the impersonal conception because they are so conditioned by material life and material association. So, their thinking is that I am a person and I am suffering, so to be free from suffering, I should give up being a person. It is relative. It is not spiritual, it is relative. There is no higher knowledge, transcendental knowledge, it is just relative. I have had desires in the material world and pursuing my desires has resulted in misery, so I will give up all desires. But, they can’t, they can’t give up desire, they can’t give up individuality, it is all artificial, but that is the thinking, that is the thinking. 

Srila Prabhupada gives the example of a cow who is in a barn, and the barn catches fire. And then, the cow is being scorched by the flames, and it runs out. And then, whenever the cow sees that orange color, red-orange color of the fire, she runs away, “Oh! This is. . . I was burnt by this. I am going away.” But, not every not everything that is orange or red is fire. But, in that primitive consciousness, the cow thinks, “Oh! It is red, it is fire, I have to get away.” So, the impersonalists are like that. They have been burnt by personal relationships, by individuality and personal relationships. “Oh, Krishna consciousness, there is individuality, Krishna is a person, He has a form,” and they want to run away. The cow can’t understand that the red of the fire and is not the same as the red of the farmhouse. So, they can’t understand that the form of the conditioned soul that is so full of misery is different from the form of Krishna. It is different from the form that we will get when we go to Krishna. So, it is unfortunate and it is hard. It is especially, if someone has gone sort of deep into that. I mean, of course, it varies from case to case, but that is how someone can get stuck. 

And then, the Buddhists—they are marginal. They are actually between materialists and spiritualists because they are. . . The spiritualists who are impersonalists, they have a sense of the spiritual light. They want to merge and become one with the spiritual light. But, the Buddhists don’t have even the conception of the spiritual light. For them, it is void. Now that exists, everything exists. There is a region, it is a borderline region between the spiritual world and the material world, and that void, so-called void, it is not actually void, but that is where a perfect follower of Buddha would go. Again, it is temporary. It is the same thing, it is temporary. They can’t stay there forever. They get bored. They get lonely. 

Devotee: Impersonalism is really hard to understand but all these pundits and the priests, they do lot of rituals. They manage the people to come and do some austerities. And they chant also, and they cannot be called surrender souls. 

Giriraj Swami: Surrendered to? I mean everyone is surrendered—you either surrender to maya, or you are surrendered to Krishna, or something in between. Everyone is surrendered, that is your position, that is your position.

Devotee: They are not surrendered to God. Likewise, in Krishna consciousness, we say that we are surrendered once we are devotees. What is their position?

Giriraj Swami: What is the position of a Hindu pundit? Mixed up. Most. . . yes, most of them are mixed up, but if you go to them and speak the message of the Bhagavad-gītā and Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, they can become most fortunate. I think this could be your mission. Really, really! Yes. . .

Devotee: You are saying that as we get older, our energy diminishes. Prabhupada came when he was seventy years old and so full of life. How do we tap into that, too?

Giriraj Swami: Yes, this is the method. Yes, chanting Hare Krishna, reading Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, serving devotees, following the instructions of the spiritual master. Yes, that is true. It is very true. Yes, Rasikaindra Prabhu? 

Devotee: Maharaja, we understand that the four Kumaras were impersonalists but they were not allowed entry into Vaikuntha to meet Lord Vishnu, but then they were able to go and meet. They were able to enter and go and actually personally see the Lord, and then, when they smell the fragrance of the tulasi, it is said that they actually became devotees. So, they being impersonalists, how were they able to enter into Vaikuntha?

Giriraj Swami: Okay, yes the four Kumaras were yogis. And, they were so advanced in yogic practice that they could leave the material universe, and come to the precincts of the spiritual abode of the Lord. And, they were. . . And when they got there, as you mentioned, they smelled the aroma of the tulasi at the lotus feet of the Lord, and that attracted their minds. So, they had already become free from any material attraction. So, the fact that they were attracted to the aroma from the lotus feet of the Lord shows that the aroma at the Lord’s lotus feet is spiritual. And so then, they became devotees, but they smelled it before they saw Him, before they were given entry. It was after that they were given darshan. 

There are other examples like Śukadeva Gosvami, other examples of sages, who were liberated living in the caves in the Himalayas, and fixed in meditation on the Lord in the heart. And then, when Krishna blew His transcendental conch shell, their meditation broke. But, because they were attracted to that sound. . . They were liberated, they had no material attraction, but they became attracted by the sound of Krishna’s conch shell, and their meditation broke. And, Śukadeva Gosvami, also. So, there are many examples, and we could discuss for a lifetime, many lifetimes. But, I think we should proceed because just as the souls in the brahma-jyotir get restless, so even devotees if they don’t get prasāda, they can also get restless. So, we have to feed the soul, to treat the soul.

All right, so thank you.