Bhakti-yoga

Giriraj Swami: So, we have been graced by the presence of a number of yoga students and we shall try to discuss yoga with them in today’s conversation. The word yoga literally means to link or connect. The English word yoke, like you yoke two oxen to a cart. The English word yoke comes from the word yoga. And the basic textbook of yoga is the Bhagavad-gītā. Bhagavat is related to the word Bhagavān which means God and Gītā means song. God has all of the faculties that we have, how could God be less than us? So we have the faculty to speak, that was given to us by God, so He certainly has the faculty to speak. But when He speaks it is not as ordinary as many of us speak but he speaks in verse, in poetry, in music, and therefore, whatever He says is like a song. So, the Bhagavad-gītā means literally the song of God, but it is really God, Krishna’s instructions on the science of yoga to Arjuna. And the first instruction of the Bhagavad-gītā is that the identity of the living entity is spiritual. The identity of all of us is spiritual, we are not the material body but we are the spiritual spark within the body, and as long as that spiritual spark or soul is in the body the body works. And as soon as the soul leaves the body the body is dead.

The body is actually a machine just like a car, as long as there is a driver the car works, if there is no driver the car doesn’t work. So in one sense the body is never alive, it is always just a machine, a mechanical arrangement, or a combination of material organs and parts, but when the soul is present we say that the body’s alive, but what it is, is that the soul is present in the body animating it and making it function. So yoga is part of the Vedic culture; in Vedic civilization the goal is to liberate the soul from the cycle of birth and death, saṁsāra-cakra, because as long as the soul is forced to take birth in a material body it has to suffer, janma-mṛtyu-jarā-vyādhi, birth, death, old age, and disease. And nobody wants those miseries. Sometimes people say, “Well, what is wrong with material life? I want to enjoy material life.” Well, that is all right, but do you want disease? No. Do you want to become an old man or an old woman? No. Do you want to die? No. But that is what material life entails.

So, the process of yoga is meant to elevate the soul, the consciousness, and ultimately release the soul from the repetition of birth and death. And the way that the soul can really be liberated is through yoga, through reviving its eternal relationship with God or Krishna. So in the Bhagavad-gītā, Lord Krishna explains different processes of yoga, sankhya-yoga, karma-yoga, jnana-yoga, ashtanga-yoga, dhyana-yoga, in different chapters, and ultimately, in the Twelfth Chapter of the Bhagavad-gītā He discusses bhakti-yoga. And it is only by bhakti-yoga that one can realize God fully. This is not a sectarian position but this is what Krishna says. So there are different processes of yoga which are compared to rungs on a ladder. You put your foot on one rung you go up, put your foot on the next rung you go up higher, next rung you go up higher. And that is the gradual process of advancement in yoga. Or staircase, same idea. But bhakti-yoga is compared to the elevator. You get in the elevator, and very quickly without much effort you get to the top, you don’t have to climb all those steps. And the reason is that there are two processes of advancement in broad terms: ascending and descending. In the ascending process one tries to progress by one’s own efforts and that is very difficult, it is possible but it is slow and arduous. And in the other process, descending process, the Lord descends or God’s mercy descends and lifts us up.

Vedic authorities give two examples: one is of the mother monkey and the baby monkey. Now, we do not get to see monkeys that much in America unless we go to a zoo, but in India, especially in Vrindavan, you get to see a lot of monkeys. They are not ordinary monkeys but they behave a little like ordinary monkeys, and the baby monkeys they climb on the back of their mother and put their little tiny weak arms around her neck and hold on for dear life, and the mother is jumping here and there. I also saw this in the Johannesburg zoo. And it is really a very frightening situation for the baby monkeys because they are babies, they are really very little, and just developing their muscles, the mother’s just jumping way up in the trees, bounding here and there. So it is a very frightening situation.

The other example is of the mother cat and kitten; the mother cat will pick up the kitten from behind the neck and carry the kitten. The kitten has nothing to worry about, the kitten is just there for the ride, and the mother is doing all the work. So the Vedic authorities have explained that yes, we make our own effort like the baby monkey, we have to make our effort. But the real success comes when the mother picks us up and carries us. So we make our efforts, we have our disciplines and spiritual practices, but really we are just showing our mother or father or the Supreme Godhead that we want to revive our relationship with them because that is the ultimate goal of yoga.

Now, the other processes of yoga are really meant to lead one to bhakti-yoga, bhakti means devotion or love, love for God. But even in the ashtanga-yoga system, gradual yama, niyama, āsana, prāṇāyāma, pratyāhāra, dhāraṇā, dhyāna, and samadhi; samadhi really means to fix one’s mind on God. So, in ashtanga-yoga all the other processes are meant ultimately to achieve the same goal of meditation on God or Krishna. It is very important that we know that God, or the absolute, or the Supreme, or the divine, or the eternal is Krishna because otherwise, we don’t know what we are looking for, we don’t know what we are aiming for. Of course, I spoke about the ascending and descending, those are related to another two broad categories of transcendentalists: the personalists and the impersonalists. The impersonalists believe that the ultimate realization or at least their personal goal is impersonal, they want to merge and become one with the Supreme and give up their individual identity. And the personalists, they understand that the soul is by nature individual and active and they want to revive their eternal relationship with the Supreme soul, and in this relationship the individual soul retains its individual identity and the Supreme soul retains its or his or her individual identity, and there is a loving exchange.

Now, that soul, we discuss the soul, the soul is by nature active and personal. We may think that the body is the cause of activity and individuality but that is not the case, the body is just a machine, so when the soul leaves the body there is no activity, there is no personality, it is just a lump of matter. So the personality, that thinking, feeling, desiring, and acting, that comes from the soul. So why should we think that in the conditioned stage the soul is active and in the liberated stage it is inactive? No, it is just like you are in prison, you are active in prison, and when you are reformed and released from prison you are still active. You are a person when you are in prison and you are a person when you come out of prison. But in prison you are a prisoner, your movements are very severely limited and when you are released you are free.

So, the impersonalists they want to merge and become one with some impersonal light called the brahmajyoti. The brahmajyoti exists, it is real. Everything we are discussing is real, but that brahmajyoti is actually the effulgence of the supreme person, Krishna. And that impersonal liberation where they want to leave their bodies and merge and become one with the light is temporary. It is not permanent because the soul is by nature active, and eventually, the soul will become restless, it will be bored, it will want some activity, it will want some relationship, and then it will come back into the material world. But if the soul understands, the soul means you and me, if the soul understands that he or she has an eternal loving relationship with the Supreme soul then we get everything. We get personality, individuality, activity thinking, feeling desiring, everything, but it is pure, purified or pure. And the impersonalists are compared to, well in one example they are compared to dumb animals. For example, say a cow in a barn; so the barn catches fire and the cow is getting burned and runs out and thereafter whenever the cow sees something red or orange like the color of the fire the cow runs away. The cow cannot understand there is a difference between this orange color and the fire. In the same way, the impersonalists, because they have a bad experience of material life of individuality in the material world, as soon as they hear about personality they want to run away. God is a person, “No, no, no,” they want to run away. The soul is eternally an individual, “No, no, no, no, no, I want to run away, run away. I suffer too much as an individual.”

But actually, the problem was not being an individual, the problem was in the consciousness, the material consciousness of wanting to be the controller, the enjoyer, the proprietor, all the things that God is we wanted to be, and so we got in trouble and we suffered. So they think, “Okay, I have suffered as an individual so I will give up being an individual.” Which is something like spiritual suicide. It is like I have a disease and a lot of misery so I think, let me commit suicide, but that is not a solution. The solution is to become cured from the disease and the cure is bhakti-yoga. Then when you are cured from the disease you are still an individual but you are not suffering. You don’t identify with the body, you don’t think you are the controller, the enjoyer, the proprietor, but you realize that you are just a loving servant of Krishna and then there is no problem. And bhakti yogis they move in the world, they can do anything that ordinary people do, but the consciousness is different. Like Arjuna, he was a warrior. Before hearing the Bhagavad-gītā he was a warrior, and after hearing the Bhagavad-gītā he was a warrior, but his consciousness changed. So, Krishna consciousness means being conscious of Krishna, being conscious of our loving relationship with Krishna. And it is really a matter of consciousness. You can remain in whatever position you are you just change the consciousness.

So, the different types of yoga are ultimately meant to bring us to that point,  dhyānāvasthita-tad-gatena manasā paśyanti yaṁ yoginaḥ. Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam which is the sacred text that we study in the morning, I am not sure if we will get to it today, but at the conclusion, it explains dhyānāvasthita-tad-gatena manasā paśyanti yaṁ yoginaḥ, that it is Krishna who is the object of meditation, dhyana, of the yogis. So it is the same thing, it is the same goal. And hatha-yoga, the real purpose of hatha-yoga is not to make the body fit so people can enjoy material activities, the original purpose of hatha-yoga is to make the body fit so that the yogi can engage in meditation for long periods of time without being disturbed by the body, that is the purpose of hatha-yoga. All the different rungs on the yoga ladder are meant to help the yogi come to that stage of meditation on Krishna and then ultimately samadhi.

So in bhakti-yoga we also have the same stages, comparable, not exactly the same but comparable, like yama-niyama, every process has to begin with yama-niyama, otherwise, without some basic discipline you can’t make any progress. And within bhakti-yoga there are stages that are comparable to pratyāhāra, dhāraṇā, the different stages along the way. But the process is a little different, in a way it is similar but it is a little different. There are nine divisions in that like they have ashtanga-yoga, this is nava-vidhā bhakti, beginning with śravaṇam, kīrtanam, and smaraṇam. Sravanam means hearing, kīrtanam means chanting which has become pretty popular in yoga circles, kirtan, that is a kirtan, chanting, and smaraṇam, remembering. And you will note that these activities do not require physical constraints. In a sense everyone is hearing about something. People turn on the radio they want to get the traffic report, that is hearing; they want to hear how the stock market is doing, that is hearing; they want to hear who won the basketball game, that is hearing. So hearing is something that everyone does anyway. Bhakti-yoga means that we change the subject, that is all, the activity is the same, we change the subject. And the same with chanting, kirtan it really means glorification, people are always engaged in glorification of some thing or someone according to their conception. So one political group will glorify their candidate, and the other political group will glorify their candidate, and one sports fan will glorify his team’s star athlete, and then another will glorify her team’s star athlete, or they will glorify some movie star, or it goes on at every level. Even if someone is a cheater he’ll hear of some very clever scheme by which someone cheated and made millions of dollars and glorify that cheater. People they will glorify anyway.

So glorification is not something we don’t do, but again, we just have to change the subject, and same thing with remembering. I may walk in the park or walk on the beach, so I will remember, “Oh, we did nice chanting here, we had such a good time chanting here.” Someone else might remember, “Oh, I picked up a pretty girl here.” People are remembering, they have associations and they remember, but they remember different things. So our subject in bhakti-yoga is Krishna, remembering Krishna or things related to Krishna. So in that sense the change is very subtle but it is very deep because you can do external activities, you could be sitting in meditation and thinking about something very mundane. Bhakti-yoga works directly on the consciousness, it is more subtle but it is much more profound. But physically it is easier, externally it is easier, but we don’t say that you shouldn’t do hatha-yoga or other things. If done in the right consciousness they can help one in certain ways, but we should have a clear idea of who we are and who the absolute is and what our ultimate goal is.

The really strict process of ashtanga-yoga as described in the Bhagavad-gītā is difficult. For example, śucau deśe, one should find a sacred place. Of course, the temple is a sacred place and well we hope the yoga studio is somewhere, but really you should find a sacred place by a body of water like a sacred river, and I believe it is in the Patañjali yoga-sūtras, that one should find a place where no two roads meet. In other words, very secluded. Now, if you have to find a place where no two roads meet in Los Angeles your options are very limited, I don’t even know if there are any. So the actual practice of ashtanga-yoga according to the authorized texts is very difficult, wouldn’t say impossible but it is very difficult, whereas bhakti-yoga is easy and sublime. And therefore, in the Bhagavad-gītā, Lord Krishna ultimately recommends bhakti-yoga. He explains all the other methods but at the end of the Sixth Chapter, the chapter about ashtanga-yoga, He says, yoginām api sarveṣāṁ, among all yogis, mad-gatenāntar-ātmanā, the one whose consciousness is fixed on me, śraddhāvān bhajate yo māṁ, and who serves me with faith and devotion is the best of all. And also in the Twelfth Chapter, He says that those who try to focus on the impersonal absolute their path is very difficult and troublesome, whereas those who try to focus on the supreme person their path is more easy and pleasurable.

So, what you are doing right now is one of the processes of bhakti-yoga, you are hearing. We are right now engaged in śravaṇam and kīrtanam, I am speaking about Krishna, about the science of God, the science of linking with God, and you are hearing. So, it might seem well you are not doing anything different than you usually do. You go to a lecture at school, you are just listening and somebody is speaking, it doesn’t seem that different. But because the subject is different the result is completely different. Our spiritual teacher, Srila Prabhupada, gave the example that when you get on an airplane you take your seat and you basically do what you do on the ground, if you are sitting by a friend you may be talking to your friend. If you bring a book you may open up your book and read it or listen to something. Just what you would do on earth or eat something if you brought some food with you or buy some, you are eating something. You are doing everything the same and you might not even notice that you have gone anywhere. But when you look out the window you see, “Oh my gosh, I am way up here, I didn’t even notice it.” So bhakti-yoga can work like that. It seems you are doing the same things that you always do, but suddenly, when you look at what you are now and what you used to be you think, Oh my gosh, I have really come a long way, I didn’t even notice it. So it is really good and you are fortunate that your teacher has brought you here and if you add this, especially the chanting, especially in the present age, the chanting especially of the Hare Krishna maha-mantra is most recommended. And again, in a physical sense, it is easy, you just articulate the sounds.

Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare
Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare

And you hear the sound vibration, it is very easy, and you can do it anywhere at any time. Of course, it is good to do it early in the morning or sometime a day when there is no distractions. And because on my own spiritual journey I was practicing a sort of yoga before I met Prabhupada and the devotees, and I had my apartment, I was a university student in Boston area, and so I would sit to do my exercises and meditation and the phone would ring. “Oh no, what to do? Should I answer or not? Who is it? Could it be this? Well, I don’t know. It could be that? If it is that I don’t want to answer, but it is this, I do want to.” And I was always getting distracted, or the doorbell rings, it is the same thing, should I answer or not? And then when I heard Srila Prabhupada speak about bhakti-yoga and the difficulties with the other processes, I could relate to it. I could relate to it because in bhakti-yoga the idea is that every moment should be spent in Krishna consciousness. It is not that we meditate for twenty minutes in the morning and twenty minutes in the evening and then that is it. The idea is to be conscious of Krishna twenty-four hours a day. So yes, it is nice to chant early in the morning where there is no disturbances or distractions, but because our whole mood is to serve Krishna and think of Krishna in whatever we do, if the phone rings I can answer it in the spirit of service to Krishna, or I may not answer it. Or if someone comes I can answer the door in the mood of spirit to Krishna. So there is not that duality, and then I can go back to my chanting.

And it is very interesting because in my spiritual quest, at a certain stage I realized I needed a guru, that to really go further I needed a guru. And then my quest became to find a guru. And whenever I heard that there was a guru speaking anywhere I would go but in each case, I wasn’t satisfied. But in one case one quite famous and popular yoga practitioner, he was describing his guru, that with every breath that he inhaled he went into the void, and with every breath that he exhaled he came into the world and this was presented as the highest achievement, highest spiritual attainment or perfection of yoga. And it sounded intriguing. Frankly it did sound intriguing, but then when I met the devotees and they explained about Srila Prabhupada’s position, that he is always seeing Krishna, that his eyes are always moist with tears of ecstatic love for Krishna, then I thought, this is even higher, because in that inhaling and exhaling, going into the void and coming into the world, there is still some duality. But with Srila Prabhupada, there is no duality, there is no going in and coming out. He sees the world but he also sees Krishna, and whatever he does, he does in the mood of love and service to Krishna, and then I thought, this is beyond all dualities, this is the highest perfection.

Of course, what we are discussing in relation to Srila Prabhupada would be comparable to samadhi. We don’t immediately come to that stage. But in bhakti-yoga all the stages are pleasurable because the activities are pleasurable; chanting, dancing, spending time with nice people, sharing one’s knowledge with others, worshiping, serving, it is all very enjoyable. In fact, once a newspaper reporter asked Srila Prabhupada that, “You are doing everything for Krishna, you are traveling, you are speaking, you are writing books, you are establishing centers, you are doing everything for Krishna, and what if in the end there is no Krishna?” And Srila Prabhupada said, “I wouldn’t do anything different because I could not find anything that I would rather do because there is so much pleasure in speaking about Krishna, and hearing about Krishna, and serving Krishna in different ways. Even if there were no Krishna I wouldn’t do anything different.” Of course, there is Krishna but that was his answer.

So it is a very pure, beautiful life even if one is not at the standard to begin with, one will gradually come to a higher platform just by associating with devotees and chanting and hearing. Of course, I am not sure exactly what yama-niyama you are following, but here there are four basic regulative principles that one must follow before he or she is considered eligible for initiation. And that is no eating meat, fish, or eggs; no taking of intoxicants; no gambling; and no illicit sex which means casual sex. Now, someone might be attached to one or more of those activities, but even then if they associate with other practitioners of bhakti-yoga and chant and hear, they will give up those things without much of an effort because they will experience something higher, something better. Again India, in some places you find poor people, they live on the street, or they will have some makeshift little hut, and so they don’t have much money, and so the easiest thing to cook, is called chapati. Do you know what is chapati? It is just basically wheat flour; you make a ball and you roll it flat like a pancake and then you cook it; like a flat bread, like pizza. And chapattis are very nice when they are served with ghee; ghee is clarified butter. But these poor people they can’t afford ghee, they can’t even afford oil, so they just have these dry chapattis. So if you go to one of them and you say, “Give me your dry chapati.” “What do you mean? How can I give you my dry chapati? That is all I have.” But if you bring them a nice plate filled with beautiful, colorful, aromatic preparations, like rice, dal, vegetables, sweets, savories, chutneys, pickles, all sorts of delicate [Unintelligible 00:49:47] and say, “If you give me your dry chapati I will give you this.” “Yes, I can do that.” Because nobody wants to give up something for nothing, but if they get something better then they will give up something lesser. So as we progress in Krishna consciousness and relish that bliss, then we naturally give up things that come in the way of our relishing that superior bliss such as little bad habits we might have, even sleeping late. Whatever little bad habit we have, when we see that it is getting in the way of this bliss that we are relishing then we give it up because we are getting something better. So that is the basic idea, and the main thing is if you just chant then everything will follow. So please repeat after me.

Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare

Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare

So thank you. I don’t know if we have time for questions, or maybe not, five minutes, okay, five minutes. So, do any of you have a question or even a comment or thought you would like to share? Yes.

Devotee: [Unintelligible 00:51:35].

Giriraj Swami: What is this?

Devotee: [Unintelligible 00:51:40].

Giriraj Swami: Yes, the paint is actually sacred clay, and depending on where that is drawn from it might be a little whiter or yellower. It is meant to mark the body as a temple of God. We are saying that this body is a temple of God, God dwells inside this body, and this body is dedicated to the service of God. It is like a church will have its steeple or cross, a mosque will have its domes and typical markings. So you know, this building is dedicated to God, it is a church, or a mosque, or a temple. And when you go in that building there is only glorification of God and service to God. So this is marking the body like that.

Any other? Yes.

Devotee: [Unintelligible 00:53:11].

Giriraj Swami: Why Krishna has a bluish complexion?

Yes, well, that question presupposes that something existed before Krishna. You might ask me, “Why do you wear an orange sweater?” So I can say, “I wear an orange sweater because I am in a certain spiritual order in which the people wear orange.” So I have that thought and then I get an orange sweater and I wear it. But this is very hard, I know when I first met Srila Prabhupada and the devotees I had a hard time understanding that Krishna or anything is eternal. Eternal means it has no beginning and no end. So there is no question of why; that is Krishna. It is not that Krishna woke up one morning and decided, “Do I want to have a blue body or a yellow body or a white body or a red body?” But this is very hard to understand, this is beginningless, there is no beginning, Krishna has no beginning. But I have heard it said that if you take all the colors in the world and mix them together they end up being the color of Krishna. It is not exactly blue like you go to a paint store and they show you the different shades of blue. It is described that He has the complexion of a dark rain cloud, sort of bluish, grayish, blackish, that is His actual complexion as far as we can compare it to something in this world. But yes, it takes a while to get used to that idea that some things have no beginning because everything in the material world has a beginning and an end. But Krishna has no beginning and no end, the soul has no beginning and no end, and the relationship between the individual soul and the Supreme soul has no beginning and no end which is good news because we all want permanent relationships. And in the material world, our relationships all break and then we suffer terribly. That is why people become impersonalists, they don’t want that suffering so, “Okay, let me just merge,” and it is like, “Okay, I can’t take it anymore, just going to go to my room, close the door, and go to sleep.” But how long can you remain asleep? Eventually, you have to wake up. So yes, this is one relationship that will never break, so that is good news.

So thank you very much and thanks to your wise instructor for bringing you here. You are on the right path so just continue.

Hare Krishna.