CC Antya 8 – Srila Madhavendra Puri and Life’s Final Exam

Giriraj Swami: All right, I’m going to try to synthesize some of the questions. Well, in California, I mean, in Los Angeles, it’s tomorrow, the disappearance day of Srila Madhavendra Puri, and that topic will bring in some of the elements, or many of the elements of the devotees’ inquiries.

So, in the progression of reading, generally, the first book is the Īśopaniṣad, and then after the Īśopaniṣad is the Bhagavad-gītā, then after the Bhagavad-gītā is The Nectar of Devotion, the Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu, then more advanced, after that would be Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, and then after that is Caitanya-caritāmṛta. So, we are going to a very advanced book, but within the discussion, we’ll discuss elements of many of the questions that you asked, and also include the philosophy of the Bhagavad-gītā.

Now, the question about the material world, that is very important because we are in the material world. Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu has explained that there are three topics covered by the Vedic literature, and they are sambandha, abhidheya, and prayojana. Sambandha-jñāna means knowledge of the different elements and the relationships between them. So, one of the elements is the material world.

In the Bhagavad-gītā, Lord Krishna explains that He has two energies: the material energy and the spiritual energy. And then, He is the controller of both. So, the material energy is everything here is temporary as Sarvit  quoted, but the living entity is eternal, the spirit soul is eternal, and the spirit soul wants to be by nature in a permanent atmosphere. But coming into the material world, it’s in an atmosphere where everything is temporary, which gives rise to fearfulness.

So, there are a number of verses that discuss why we become fearful and how to overcome fearfulness, but the basic answer is that if we understand that we are not the body, then brahma-bhūtaḥ prasannātmā, we become joyful because we realize that the body, which is temporary, is not us. And the body is subjected to different miseries, janma-mṛtyu-jarā-vyādhi, birth, old age, disease, and death. But those only affect the body, they don’t actually affect us, the living entity. And so, one loses that fear when one realizes one is not the body.

So, I’ll read this section, it’s a part of the section, you can say. Now, this section involves Madhavendra Puri. Madhavendra Puri was the spiritual master of Isvara Puri, who Lord Chaitanya accepted as His spiritual master. And Madhavendra Puri had other disciples, of course, and one of them was Ramachandra Puri.

So, at this stage of Caitanya-caritāmṛta, Ramachandra Puri. . . This is after the passing away of Madhavendra Puri. And so, Ramachandra Puri has come to Nilacala, or Jagannatha Puri, and he had a very mischievous mentality, in that one of the things he would do is he would induce devotees to eat more and more and more, and then he would criticize them for eating too much, because the Bhagavad-gītā says one should not eat too much or eat too little.

Actually, once, I was at a home in Durban, South Africa, with His Holiness Indradyumna Swami, and the host and hostess prepared a huge feast, but the way they were serving it, after a while, each preparation they brought, they sort of gave the impression that it was the last one, and it was sort of, “Eat more,” and then they’d bring another one, and then, “Eat more and more.” And it was so much, I didn’t think I could eat more, but it was sort of considered the etiquette to eat whatever the hosts offered.

So, once, when they left the room to bring more, I turned to Indradyumna Swami and I said, “Maharaja, I don’t think I can eat anymore, and we don’t know when it’s going to end, it keeps coming.” So, he said, “In the Bhagavad-gītā, Krishna says one should not eat too much or eat too little. So, today we are concentrating on not eating too little.”

So, of course, they just wanted to. . . I don’t know what their mood was, I guess to make us happy by feeding us, but Ramachandra Puri’s mood was to create a situation in which he could criticize the devotees, blaspheme the devotees. So, we’ll just enter a certain point because there are many instances of Ramachandra Puri’s behavior. So, let’s just start here. This relates to Jagadananda Pandita who is a pure devotee of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. But we should start with this, with our mantra here, please repeat.

jaya jaya śrī-caitanya jaya nityānanda

jayādvaita-candra jaya gaura-bhakta-vṛnda
 

Śrī Caitanya-caritāmṛta, Antya-līlā, Chapter Eight, Text One.

TEXT 1

taṁ vande kṛṣṇa-caitanyaṁ

rāmacandra-purī-bhayāt

laukikāhārataḥ svaṁ yo

bhikṣānnaṁ samakocayat

TRANSLATION

Let me offer my respectful obeisances to Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu, who reduced His eating due to fear of the criticism of Rāmacandra Purī.

COMMENT

So, Ramachandra Puri was a disciple of Madhavendra Puri, that means in generation, he was of the same generation as Lord Chaitanya’s spiritual master, who is also a disciple of Madhavendra Puri. So, the etiquette is that one respects the godbrother of the spiritual master on the same level as the spiritual master. And so, the devotees, including Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, were respecting Ramachandra Puri in that way. So, one of Lord Chaitanya’s devotees, Jagadananda Pandita, invited Ramachandra Puri for prasāda. We’ll begin here.

TEXT 11

A large quantity of the remnants of food from Lord Jagannātha was brought in for distribution. Rāmacandra Purī ate sumptuously, and then he wanted to find faults in Jagadānanda Paṇḍita.

TEXT 12

After finishing the meal, Rāmacandra Purī requested, “My dear Jagadānanda, please listen. You eat the food that is left.”

TEXT 13

With great eagerness Rāmacandra Purī seated Jagadānanda Paṇḍita and personally served him prasādam.

TEXT 14

Encouraging him again and again, Rāmacandra Purī fed him sumptuously, but when Jagadānanda had washed his hands and mouth, Rāmacandra Purī began criticizing him.

TEXT 15

“I have heard,” he said, “that the followers of Caitanya Mahāprabhu eat more than necessary. Now I have directly seen that this is true.

TEXT 16

“Feeding a sannyāsī too much breaks his regulative principles, for when a sannyāsī eats too much, his renunciation is destroyed.”

TEXT 17

The characteristic of Rāmacandra Purī was that first he would induce someone to eat more than necessary and then he would criticize him.

COMMENT

Now, we come to the disappearance pastime of Madhavendra Puri.

TEXT 18

Formerly, when Mādhavendra Purī was at the last stage of his life, Rāmacandra Purī came to where he was staying.

TEXT 19

Mādhavendra Purī was chanting the holy name of Kṛṣṇa, and sometimes he would cry, “O my Lord, I did not get shelter at Mathurā.”

TEXT 20

Then Rāmacandra Purī was so foolish that he fearlessly dared to instruct his spiritual master.

TEXT 21

“If you are in full transcendental bliss,” he said, “you should now remember only Brahman. Why are you crying?”

PURPORT by Srila Prabhupada

As stated in the Bhagavad-gītā, brahma-bhūtaḥ prasannātmā: a Brahman realized person is always happy. Na śocati na kāṅkṣati: he neither laments nor aspires for anything. Not knowing why Mādhavendra Purī was crying, Rāmacandra Purī tried to become his advisor. Thus he committed a great offense, for a disciple should never try to instruct his spiritual master.

TEXT 22

Hearing this instruction, Mādhavendra Purī, greatly angry, rebuked him by saying, “Get out, you sinful rascal!

PURPORT by Srila Prabhupada

Rāmacandra Purī could not understand that his spiritual master, Mādhavendra Purī, was feeling transcendental separation. His lamentation was not material. Rather, it proceeded from the highest stage of ecstatic love of Kṛṣṇa. When he was crying in separation, “I could not achieve Kṛṣṇa! I could not reach Mathurā!” this was not ordinary material lamentation. Rāmacandra Purī was not sufficiently expert to understand the feelings of Mādhavendra Purī, but nevertheless he thought himself very advanced. Therefore, regarding Mādhavendra Purī’s expressions as ordinary material lamentation, he advised him to remember Brahman because he was latently an impersonalist. Mādhavendra Purī understood Rāmacandra Purī’s position as a great fool and therefore immediately rebuked him. Such a reprimand from the spiritual master is certainly for the betterment of the disciple.

COMMENT

So, there are many elements here, but the most important is that, as stated in the Bhagavad-gītā, the material world is an inverted reflection of the spiritual world.

The Bhagavad-gītā gives the example of a banyan tree, that its roots are upwards and branches are downwards, and the example is given that if you see the reflection of a tree on the bank of a body of water, so when you look at the reflection, the roots will be at the top, and the top of the tree will be at the bottom.

So, everything that exists in the original exists in the reflection, so everything that exists in the spiritual world also exists in the material world. But everything in the material world is upside down. In the material world, in material consciousness, everyone wants to be the master of the master of the master, whereas in the spiritual world, everyone wants to be the servant of the servant of the servant.

So, just as we have desire in the material world, there is also desire in the spiritual world, but in the material world, or in material consciousness, the desire is for our own happiness, and because material consciousness means we identify with the body, so we think that that happiness means sense gratification, gratification of the senses of the body or the mind, which is the center of the senses. And in the spiritual world, everyone desires Krishna’s happiness. And so, that’s called prema, that’s pure love, and what we have in the material world is kāma, or lust, and the two can resemble each other, but there is a world of difference between them.

So, in the material world, someone may be attached to something for his or her sense gratification, and then when he, just say he, when he is separated from the object of attachment, he becomes sad, he laments. But the same phenomenon exists in the spiritual world, but in the material world, the attachment and the lamentation bring misery, whereas in the spiritual world, the attachment and lamentation are ecstasy.

So, Madhavendra Puri was at a very high level and he wanted to be with Krishna in Mathura to serve Him for Krishna’s happiness. And it’s sort of an even more advanced stage that one feels unqualified, humble, because the sign of advancement is one is humble, and humble means that one feels that one is unqualified. So, Madhavendra Puri was feeling, “I want to serve Krishna and I’m not able to reach Him because I’m so lowly and fallen.” And Ramachandra Puri, he couldn’t understand because underneath it all, he was an impersonalist.

And frankly, most people, unless or until they get the association of pure devotees, they are impersonalists, and they think that the ultimate is something impersonal and that the goal is to merge and become one with it, and that all varieties are material, maya. And so, they think desire is maya, so they try to stop desire, which they can’t do, but they try, that’s the theory to stop desire.

And anger, it’s the same thing. In the material world, if you want something and then you don’t get it, you become angry, or if you have something and you think someone is the cause of your losing it, you become angry, you can become angry. So, spiritually, one wants to serve Krishna and give Krishna pleasure, and if someone interferes with Krishna’s pleasure, that pure devotee can become angry, not because of a personal frustration like in material consciousness, but because of his desire to make Krishna happy, and that anger can be used to remove the impediment to Krishna’s happiness.

So, that happened here. When Ramchandra Puri was giving bad advice to the spiritual master, the spiritual master became angry, krodha upajila, that anger arose within him and he rebuked him.

So, we’ll continue.

TEXT 23

“O my Lord Kṛṣṇa, I could not reach You, nor could I reach Your abode, Mathurā. I am dying in my unhappiness, and now this rascal has come to give me more pain.”

COMMENT

But again, that unhappiness, externally it’s unhappiness, internally, it’s spiritual bliss.

TEXT 24

“Don’t show your face to me! Go anywhere else you like. If I die seeing your face, I shall not achieve the destination of my life.”

TEXT 25

“I am dying without achieving the shelter of Kṛṣṇa, and therefore I am greatly unhappy. Now this condemned foolish rascal has come to instruct me about Brahman.”

TEXT 26

Rāmacandra Purī was thus denounced by Mādhavendra Purī. Due to his offense, gradually material desire appeared within him.

COMMENT

So, this is a very important point in that there are consequences if we commit offenses, and the scriptures mentioned particularly ten offenses against the holy name. And one of them, first is sādhu-nindā, to criticize devotees, blaspheme devotees. Another is guror avajñā, to disrespect the spiritual master, disobey the instructions of the spiritual master.

So, Ramachandra Puri was committing these offenses, and as a result, material desires appeared within him. Sometimes it happens that a person will come to the association of devotees and be very enthusiastic about Krishna consciousness.

And I remember my own experience and I also discussed with other devotees who had joined, and they also felt the same way, that to them, everyone seemed like a pure devotee when they joined, and so the mood was very surcharged with spiritual energy. But then what can happen is by becoming too familiar with devotees, you can start to see, “Oh, I thought this person was such a great devotee but I saw this, I saw that,” and then you start to commit offenses, and one of the results is that material desires develop.

Another effect, Srila Jiva Gosvami enumerates the different effects of offenses, one is that you become attracted to the association of people who are offensive, you are drawn to their company. And another result, and it goes with that, is that you commit more offenses. So, it’s a real downward spiral. And Ramachandra Puri, he became implicated in offenses. And one of the material desires is the desire to merge and become one with Brahman, it’s also considered a material desire.

TEXT 27

One who is attached to dry speculative knowledge has no relationship with Kṛṣṇa. His occupation is criticizing Vaiṣṇavas. Thus he is situated in criticism.

COMMENT

So, this is one example, Ramachandra Puri. So, now we come to the example of Isvara Puri.

TEXT 28

Īśvara Purī, the spiritual master of Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu, performed service to Mādhavendra Purī, cleaning up his stool and urine with his own hand.

TEXT 29

Īśvara Purī was always chanting the holy name and pastimes of Lord Kṛṣṇa for Mādhavendra Purī to hear. In this way he helped Mādhavendra Purī remember the holy name and pastimes of Lord Kṛṣṇa at the time of death.

COMMENT

So, when we serve someone in general, and in particular at the time of death, we want to serve them, serve their bodies. In this case, it’s cleaning up his stool and urine with his own hand. And also, we want to serve the soul by helping the person in chanting and hearing about Krishna, remembering Krishna. And this is especially true at the time of death because the time of death is considered the final exam.

There is a verse that whatever sadhana and bhajana you do during your life will be tested at the time of death, and if you can remember Krishna at the time of death, then you go to Krishna, yaṁ yaṁ vāpi smaran bhāvaṁ. Whatever is your state of mind at the time of death will determine your next birth.

TEXT 30

Pleased with Īśvara Purī, Mādhavendra Purī embraced him and gave him the benediction that he would be a great devotee and lover of Kṛṣṇa.

TEXT 31

Thus Īśvara Purī became like an ocean of ecstatic love for Kṛṣṇa, whereas Rāmacandra Purī became a dry speculator and a critic of everyone else.

TEXT 32

Īśvara Purī received the blessing of Mādhavendra Purī, whereas Rāmacandra Purī received a rebuke from him. Therefore these two persons, Īśvara Purī and Rāmacandra Purī, are examples of the objects of a great personality’s benediction and punishment. Mādhavendra Purī instructed the entire world by presenting these two examples.

COMMENT

Now, in 1996, my biological father was diagnosed with cancer, and so eventually, things came to the point where I came to be with him, he was in a hospital in a suburb of Chicago. And the idea within our family was that someone should always be with him from the family, and at the time, my sister had a son who was four and a half years old, so she had to take care of him, and then at the same time, look after my mother. So, at night, it was decided that I should logically be the one to stay with him in the hospital.

Anyway, there was, I guess, a sofa in the hospital room where at night, I would lie down on the sofa. But my father’s condition was such that he needed help to get out of the bed, and then there was some distance from the bed to the bathroom, and he would every so often have to go to the bathroom. So, I was in a constant state of alert, vigilance, because at any moment, he might need my help to get out of bed and go to the bathroom. And plus, the whole situation of his illness in which, I mean, everyone had their hopes, but it definitely looked like he could be heading towards the end. So, the whole situation was emotionally stressful.

So, I could hardly sleep, I was constantly listening if there was some sound that indicated that he needed help. But sometimes I was just so exhausted, I would doze off, but then very soon, there would be a sound, and I didn’t know what it was, and very often, it was my father. So, I would help him get up, help him get out of bed and walk him to the bathroom, and sometimes he didn’t make it in time, so there was a mess and I dealt with the mess. And so, this went on and it was very, very exhausting.

And then, I think the sun was just rising, it was just starting to come to be visible through the window shades of the hospital room, and he sort of called me close and he said, “What would you do if I gave you a million dollars?” And I don’t even know what I answered because that was not on my mind at all, I just wanted to try to make his situation as easy as possible for him, and it was my duty, and also out of love, I didn’t want him to suffer. So, he said, “What would you do if I gave you a million dollars?” And I don’t even know what I said or if I said anything. And then morning came, and his illness took its course, and eventually, he left.

So, it just so happened that the day before my father ended up leaving, eventually, we brought him home and he left his body at home, His Holiness Radhanath Swami was visiting his father in Chicago, and it was arranged that he was going to come up to see me on Monday, and on Sunday evening, the nurse who was, there was a rotation of nurses that were attending to my father at home, she saw signs that indicated he was going to be leaving. So, not just that, in her words, he was calling for everyone. She must have seen something because he wasn’t really able to move much at all, but maybe through his eyes or some gesture, she came to everyone in the house and said, “He is going to be leaving now and he is calling for everyone.”

So, at some stage, I quickly phoned Radhanath Swami and I said, “My father’s leaving now,” probably said, “Please, pray for him. And I don’t think it’s going to work for us to get together tomorrow, we are going to need some time.” And he left, and at the very end, his eyes opened wide and left, and there was this big smile on his face. And my sister was a sort of rational scientific type, I mean, it was just so obvious being with him, just the way he opened his eyes, and ended up with this smile, she said, “What do you think he saw that made him smile?” But anyway, of course, then lamentation came.

So, a few days later, His Holiness Radhanath Swami came up to visit, and so I told him this story of when my father was in the hospital, and he said that it was very similar to Isvara Puri serving Madhavendra Puri, that he gave his full energy to serving his spiritual master and, in the end, his spiritual master was so pleased with him that he gave him the greatest treasure, love of God, prema-dhana.

He said, “The same thing happened with your father, except he didn’t really have a spiritual treasure, he had a material treasure, but still, he had that mood of wanting to bestow this treasure on you.” [Sound of door closing or opening]. We will return to this pastime, but it is a very special time when the soul is leaving the body, it’s not always easy for the soul to leave the body, but it creates a very sacred space.

In Santa Barbara, where I have a base now, I mean, the situation has changed a lot, but there was a Rabbi who came to be the Rabbi of the temple that my sister and other family members are members of. Anyway, it’s so much to say. When my mother passed away, there was a little ceremony at the family’s house in Santa Barbara.

And so, he came, and maybe just a little after he came, I gave a talk, and in the talk, I said many things about my mother, but I also mentioned about the soul leaving the body and the soul being eternal, and basically, some elements of the philosophy of the Bhagavad-gītā.

So, he was just coming in as the new Rabbi, and there was an interim Rabbi, and so there was an event sort of to appreciate the interim Rabbi who was leaving, who was very charismatic, and so it was an odd thing. So, the new Rabbi was there, but everyone was paying a lot of attention to the interim Rabbi who was leaving.

And so, I sort of went close to him, and he said, “I heard your talk, your mother’s memorial service, and I was very impressed by what you said.” And he said, “Where did that all come from?” So, I said, “Part of it was just from my heart, my realization, but I’ve also studied.” I said, “I had a teacher from India and I studied the Bhagavad-gītā with him, and a lot of what I said is in the Bhagavad-gītā.” And he was really somehow quite touched by what I had said and quite moved by it.

So, we became sort of friends, and I’d occasionally meet him, and he was saying that it was a little hard for him because he had been the Rabbi of a smaller congregation where in a way there was more study, more prayer, and in this larger congregation, he felt some of the energy was being drained. So, I said, “Well, is there anything that gives you energy? Maybe focus on those things.” Because all of us, whatever our position is, whatever our work is, some things drain our energy, and some things give us energy.

So, I said, “Are there any things that give you energy? What gives you energy?” He mentioned maybe one or two things, but what I really remember he said, “This might come as a surprise to you, but when I visit a congregant who’s at the end of life and is about to pass away, and then I administer to that person, I get energy.” And I could relate to that because it’s a very surcharged situation, although it can be a terrible situation if the person identifies with the body and has been very sinful, and, I mean, it can be terrifying. But I guess when a Rabbi is going, they have some faith and they have some hope that they’ll be maybe transported to a better place or something like that.

So, this is a very important time, it’s the final exam. So, to help someone pass the final exam of their life is really the best service that you can do. Now, of course, sometimes it happens that a person will pass away without notice, without much notice, in an accident. It could be an automobile accident, it could be a fire, it could be some sort of asthmatic attack, or something that comes with very little warning, it could be within minutes. So, at that time, we depend on our, I guess, our spiritual efforts up until then, and the mercy that will come to us in, you could say, reciprocation for our spiritual efforts.

Srila Prabhupada had a disciple named Tamal Krishna Goswami, one of his most prominent disciples, and at one stage, Tamal Krishna Goswami asked him, “I’m so absorbed in serving you, what if I’m serving you and death comes? I’m not chanting or specifically remembering Krishna, I’m just serving.” And Srila Prabhupada said, “Don’t worry, Lord Chaitanya will forcibly enter your mind and make you think of Him.” Of course, that’s our hope, and of course, to the degree that we really surrender to the Lord’s service and give ourselves to the Lord’s service, we’ll be likely to get that special mercy.

And there are so many stories of devotees who’ve left their bodies who’ve gotten special mercy, I mean, just even devotees who may have had some difficulties along the way, but at the end, because of their sincere service, they get special mercy. And of course, I’ve seen many cases of Prabhupada’s disciples, but even grand disciples of Srila Prabhupada, disciples of his disciples have received very special mercy at the end.

So, I’ll just read a little bit more, a few more verses.

TEXT 33

His Divine Grace Mādhavendra Purī, the spiritual master of the entire world, thus distributed ecstatic love for Kṛṣṇa. While passing away from the material world, he chanted the following verse.

COMMENT

I'll read the verse, Text Thirty-Four.

TEXT 34

ayi dīna-dayārdra nātha he

mathurā-nātha kadāvalokyase

hṛdayaṁ tvad-aloka-kātaraṁ

dayita bhrāmyati kiṁ karomy aham

TRANSLATION

“O My Lord! O most merciful master! O master of Mathurā! When shall I see You again? Because of My not seeing You, My agitated heart has become unsteady. O most beloved one, what shall I do now?”

TEXT 35

In this verse Mādhavendra Purī teaches how to achieve ecstatic love for Kṛṣṇa. By feeling separation from Kṛṣṇa, one becomes spiritually situated.

COMMENT

So, this verse is a very special verse, and it really represents the mood of Radharani in separation from Krishna. And it was said that there were only three people who could really understand the significance of the verse: one was Srimati Radharani, one was Madhavendra Puri, and one was Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. No fourth person could really fathom the depths of that verse in the mood of separation, ecstatic love and separation. And by such feelings of separation, one becomes spiritually situated. And we also have something similar even on the material platform, when someone passes away, the people at the crematorium, they feel detached from the material world.

I remember once, a very wealthy man, Sri Shanti Duta, his only son passed away in a very tragic way, and there was a cremation near Juhu, Sri Duta had a huge mansion and that’s a hotel in Juhu Beach. And so, many of the most affluent people came, and many Sindhis.

And so, one of them, who I knew very well, he came up to me sort of towards the end of the ceremony, he was saying, “You see this happen and then you wonder what’s it all for? We work so hard to make money and build up our empires, and then at the end, it ends like this. So, what’s the use? What’s it all for?”

So, there is a Sanskrit word for that called smashan-vairāgya, the detachment at the crematorium, it arises in someone’s heart at that moment seeing the body go up in flames, but it doesn’t last. And the same person, a week later or a month later, was doing business like crazy. And not that there is anything wrong with it, but this is smashan-vairāgya, the detachment at the crematorium. But the idea is that that separation gives rise to detachment.

I had one very small experience on the island of Saint Lucia; Krishna Kirtan came there with me once. So, we were staying with this family, they are originally from Bombay actually, and they had a beautiful home, and they gave me a whole area to myself, and they had such a nice service mood. They didn’t want any attention or anything, they just wanted me to have whatever facility I needed for my service. And the wife was a great cook, and then the husband was an eye doctor. So, when he would come back, he would take us out to go for a walk by the seaside, and it was just ideal.

And during that time, I was chanting thirty-two rounds a day and reading and it was just ideal. But when we’d go out in the car to go for a walk or something, it’s sort of inevitable, there are billboards, you look at the billboards, there are shops, there are people. I mean, the view wasn’t really that good, but sort of hard to control.

But on the last day, when I was leaving, I was feeling separation from the family and also just from that experience that I had so much chanting and reading, and just so nice in every respect. And so, in that sort of mood of separation, I didn’t care to look at the billboards, I didn’t care to look at the different shops and people, it was in a different space, a different mood.

So, this feeling of separation is very important in Krishna consciousness, very much in our line. Madhavendra Puri, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, Six Gosvamis, they all have that mood. And you can only have that when there is some attachment. When you get attached to something, then you can feel separation from it. If there is no attachment, you won’t feel separation.

Every day, there is. . . I’m just making it up. So many millions of people die every day, we don’t feel any separation from them because we don’t know them, we have no attachment for them. But if you have an attachment for someone, then you feel separation. So, having feelings of separation for Krishna and devotees of Krishna, that’s good separation that will be an impetus to our increasing our Krishna consciousness.

TEXT 35

In this verse Mādhavendra Purī teaches how to achieve ecstatic love for Kṛṣṇa. By feeling separation from Kṛṣṇa, one becomes spiritually situated.

TEXT 36

Mādhavendra Purī sowed the seed of ecstatic love for Kṛṣṇa within this material world and then departed. That seed later became a great tree in the form of Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu.

TEXT 37

I have described the passing away of Mādhavendra Purī. Anyone who hears this must be considered very fortunate.

COMMENT

Baḍa bhāgyavān, that’s all of us, all of you. So, that’s basically the end of that pastime. I mean, there is more, but yeah. So, I think we should stop here, I mean, there were so many other things, I did want to answer that question about the dairy industry. But I think we’ll sort of continue in this line, and then maybe we’ll have a part two. But even if we can’t have a big presentation, we could read afterwards because it’s a big topic that Purushottam Kshetra Prabhu and I have been discussing a lot just these last two days and he has gone very deep in the subject.

Devotee: Asking the question.

Giriraj Swami: Okay.

Devotee: Do you have any questions for Maharaja?

Giriraj Swami: On the subject that we discussed. Yes?

Devotee: The verse, yaṁ yaṁ vāpi smaran bhāvam, that whatever we remember at the time of the death, that will determine our next life. The general process of a devotee is to remember Krishna throughout his life so that he prepares himself at that final moment, but what in case a karmi for example somehow performing his materialistic activities throughout his life but at the final moment he remembers Krishna, is that kind of going against the system, or the kind of mainstream system of remembering, or the process of actually going back to the spiritual world?

Giriraj Swami: Well, generally, at the time of death, we’ll think of what we are most attached to. So, in our preparation for the time of death, we really should be increasing our attachment to Krishna; it’s said in the Bhagavad-gītā, mayy āsakta-manāḥ pārtha yogaṁ yuñjan mad-āśrayaḥ. And Srila Prabhupada gave the example that a parrot may learn to chant Hare Krishna, “Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna.” But when a cat comes and attacks the parrot, there is no more, “Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna,” it’s, “Kha, Kha.” So, Srila Prabhupada said, “Our chanting shouldn’t be like the parrot, and then at the time of death, we forget all the chanting and say, “Ahaaa.”

Now, what you described, that’s an ordinary materialistic person thinks of Krishna at the time of death, it’s not very usual because again, generally, you’ll think about what you are most attached to at the time of death.

Now, I’m going to tell a story about Vaikuntanath. I don’t think I heard it from him, but maybe I’ll confirm it with him sometime. But I know he was in an accident, and what I heard was that he was driving his vehicle and it stalled on the railway tracks. And you know how it is, you want to get the car started. So, he was fiddling, trying to get the car started, and he saw in the distance there was a train coming but still, he said, “Let me going so I can pull the car off the tracks.” And he got absorbed and then he looked up again and he saw the train was just about to hit the car, and he thought, This is it, this is the end. He started to chant Hare Krishna, and then when the train actually hit, at the last moment, he thought, What’s going to happen to my wife? And then he became unconscious.

So, of course, fortunately, he lived to tell the story, but the idea is that generally, we think of what we are most attached to at the time of death, but then again, the mind is also so flickering. But definitely, in his case, he is a very sincere devotee, he lived, and I’m sure that his future will be very bright. But still, if someone is open, even though they’ve been sinful, someone’s open to hearing the holy name, and it happens even with parents of devotees, they themselves weren’t really devotees but somehow, they have devotees around them at the time of death chanting.

So, Srila Prabhupada gives the example of an honorary degree. Sometimes it happens that a university will award someone an honorary degree, but it’s very rare. If you think, Well, I’m not going to go to the university, but I’ll just get an honorary degree. Well, how many get an honorary degree? Very few. So, the usual method, as you said, you go to the university, you study, you write your papers, or take your exams, and get your degree. But it is possible that one can get some special mercy, but that’s usually on account of some service. But we want to help give everyone the chance to remember Krishna at the time of death, remember God in their tradition at the time of death.

In my book, Life’s Final Exam, I told the story of both my father and my mother’s passing. And there are some devotees who feel that they have to get their parents to chant Hare Krishna, hear Hare Krishna, even if the parent is a faithful follower of some other tradition, the catholic tradition, or any other tradition. And so, generally, it’ll be more natural and more successful to encourage the person to remember God according to the person’s tradition.

With my mother, there was praying, but it was within her tradition. I mean, it was also really nice that there were devotees doing kirtan for her somewhere else, and in her room, there were prayers in her tradition. But I remember when that time after my father passed away and His Holiness Radhanath Swami came, I asked, “He’d like to discuss what his destination is.” And he said, “It’s very hard to say but there is a range of destinations one could achieve.” But definitely, like Srila Prabhupada said, the parents of his disciples will realize their good fortune at the time of their passing away. So, I’ve seen, it was quite clear in my parents’ passing away, but it was exactly what that means.

We discussed with Radhanath Swami, he said, “It’s hard to say exactly if you went back to Godhead or he is going to take birth in a devotee family.” He said personally, he always likes to imagine them getting the maximum mercy. Because to chant the name of Krishna at the time of death, even if one’s a materialistic person, he has to have had some association with devotees otherwise. So, it is possible that even a little association even though the person didn’t take real advantage of it, it could bear fruit in the end. But usually, it takes more than that. That’s why the Bhagavad-gītā says that something like they’ll take birth again and then continue until you are completely successful.

Any other questions?

Devotee: When a person is leaving his body and he is not in our tradition, then it’s better to not force him or her to chant Krishna’s name, but to just remember God as his understanding. But what if the person is atheistic, and he doesn’t have an image of God? Then what is the right way to make him remember something that will be beneficial to him or her?

Giriraj Swami: Well, usually, there is a period before the soul leaves the body, it’s where the person is not outwardly conscious, it’s called the actively dying stage. Seems like an odd term, actively dying, but what is it? If you are shutting down your home, you close the windows, you lock the doors, you turn off the lights, so it’s like you are actively shutting down your home. So, there is a stage called the active dying stage where your senses are shutting down, but the last sense to shut down is the sense of hearing. And so, even if a person isn’t able to express what he or she is thinking or feeling just because the senses have been shutting down, but they can hear.

And it’s also very important to keep that in mind that even though you might think the person is unconscious, or in coma, but the person can still hear. So, I mean obviously, in any case, you don’t want to speak nonsense in the room. So, even if the person is atheist or agnostic, there can still be chanting, and that living entity within the body can get the benefit of it. It's mercy.

Any other questions or comments?

Devotee: One question, Maharaja. You were mentioning how Ramachandra, He was going spirally downward, and Krishna also says that someone is envious, he is casting them further and further away. So, I was wondering then in such an environment, what is the saving grace moving so far away from the spiritual life? If Krishna is rejecting them and guru is rejecting them, how does that person come back?

Giriraj Swami: Well, it’s said that by suffering these reactions, a person should eventually become humble, and then when they become humble, they can seek the mercy of some Vaishnava, and then they can get reinstated.

Devotee: So, can a Vaishnava intervene without that person even requesting? In the sense that if I am envious, I’m behaving bad, I’m committing vaiṣṇava-aparādha and then a vaishnava is compassionate towards me and He is praying on my life. Would that somehow help to come out or this person have to really go through the fathom?

Giriraj Swami: Well, the prayers can help, but eventually, there will have to be a change of consciousness in the person.

Devotee: I’m trying to understand, can a change in consciousness arrive in a person by his own individual? Is that the Lord has to empower the person to chant?

Giriraj Swami: So, the Lord is the well-wisher of every living entity, so He will try to help every soul to come back to Him. But the Lord is a person and He also has feelings. I mean, no mundane feelings, but He has spiritual feelings, and so it’s said that when the Lord punishes an offender, it’s for the benefit of the offender so that he doesn’t commit more offenses, and it’s also for the benefit of the offender if the offender becomes humbled by the experience and realizes his mistake and tries to rectify.

What you are talking about is something like kṛpā-siddha, which is like the honorary degree, it’s possible but it’s very rare, and generally, you can’t just hope, “Okay, I’m just going to go around offending devotees and then some great soul is going to be merciful.” We have to follow the process. But usually, it’s because of a connection with a devotee.

There are many offenders. One example, and it’s sort of related to prasāda, that Sarvabhauma Bhattacharya invited Chaitanya Mahaprabhu to take prasāda at his home, and he had a son-in-law named Amogha who was sort of agnostic and fault-finder.

So, he prepared all this prasāda, and Lord Chaitanya said, “I’ll just take a little, I’m a sannyasi and I should eat very frugally and simply.” So then, Sarvabhauma Bhattacharya said, “But we know who You are, You are the Supreme Personality of Godhead, You are Lord Jagannatha, You eat fifty-four huge offerings every day, this is nothing for You. And when You took the form of Govardhana Hill, You were eating mountains of prasāda.” And he gave all these examples and he said, “This is nothing for You, so please don’t try to fool me, we know who You are.” So, out of His love and his Krishna conscious arguments, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu began to honor prasāda.

But Sarvabhauma Bhattacharya knew the mentality of his son-in-law so he was sort of guarding the door, but I forget what happened, maybe towards the end of the meal, anyway, he left his post at the door and Amogha came in and he saw this huge feast and he began blasphemy, “You are a sannyasi, what kind of a sannyasi are You? You are eating enough for a hundred people.” And then Sarvabhauma Bhattacharya became livid, he came with a stick and was chasing him and sort of cursed him, “May,” because his daughter’s name was Sathi, “May Sathi become a widow,” means he was cursing them. And everyone was in the mood, she was ready to become a widow, she didn’t want to be married to him.

So then, within three days, Amogha got cholera and he was on his deathbed. And so, Sarvabhauma Bhattacharya quoted a verse from the Mahābhārata, that when I think the Yakshas came and attacked the Kauravas, and so maybe Yudhisthira, one of the Pandavas said, “What we would have had to do with so many soldiers and weapons has happened automatically without our making any endeavor.” So, when they heard that he had cholera and he was about to die, he thought, Okay.

But then Chaitanya Mahaprabhu went to Amogha and He put His hand on Amogha’s heart and He said, “How have you allowed envy to sit in your heart? Envy should not be in the heart of a brahman.” And so, He basically cured Amogha of the cholera, but more than that, He purified His consciousness, and then Amogha fell at the feet of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, “I’m an offender, please forgive me.” But Sarvabhauma Bhattacharya was upset, he said to Chaitanya, “Why did You save him?” Maybe that was when He quoted that verse, and He said, “He is related to you, and because he is related to you, I wanted to purify him and save his life.”

So, there are many cases, I mean, there are so many offenders, I mean, and some of them have a change of heart, and often, the change of heart comes from the association of a devotee, sometimes it comes from suffering, but sometimes Chaitanya Mahaprabhu would also deliver an offender because of the offender’s connection with a devotee, like Amogha and his connection with Sarvabhauma Bhattacharya.

Devotee: Probably it’s a silly question, Maharaja, I’ve been thinking about. So, it seems like we chant, but still, there is a lot of opportunity for one committing vaiṣṇava-aparādha even while chanting, but it seems like the association with devotees seems to be the heal. Like you were saying, no matter what upright someone commits, but the presence of a Vaishnava, or the compassion, or somehow forcing the Lord to reject His own thing saying, “I would discard,” but He is going against and helping somebody. So, I was wondering that seems like the association seems more powerful than chanting in helping eventually get to the point of chanting. Is that correct?

Giriraj Swami: Well, the best is both. In fact, that was one of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’s regular instructions to the devotees from Kulinagram. Every year, they would come to Jagannatha Puri and they would say, “What is our duty? We are householders, what is our duty?” And every year, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu would say, “Serve the devotees and chant the holy name.” So, we want all the help we can get.

Okay, so if Radha Priya doesn’t want to speak, she doesn’t have to. Do you think you could give a three-minute explanation of how to become a millionaire dairy farmer in seven years?

Devotee: Sure.

Giriraj Swami: It might have sounded funny but there is a person who has developed this program.

Devotee: [Unintelligible 01:28:58] he works for the state of Iowa as an agricultural specialist in the dairy industry, and his particular interest is in helping people that want to take up a more humane kind of dairy process. In fact, he has recognized that there are a lot of young people, couples that come from rural environments that were living on dairy farms, and they saw their parents working like slaves with thousands of cows or business people, and their whole mentality was, “How can I make another buck out of this process we are putting these cows through?” They are just suffering tremendously, everybody’s suffering, kids are suffering, parents are suffering, the cows are suffering, it’s hellish.

So, he noticed that even if you can just move the situation from thousands of cows to a few hundred cows and put them on an organic program, then already everybody’s doing better than they were. So, he said, “All right, I wonder if it’s possible to take these young people.” They are saying, “I don’t want to live this kind of life that my parents are living, but it’s the only thing I know how to do. What am I to do?”

So, he says to them, “Well, I can show you how to go from the life that your parents are leading to a life where you can be happy and simply instead of having thousands of cows that you feed with trucks and artificial food and supplements and hormones and all this horrible stuff that they do nowadays with cows, just have a wonderful pasture. Turn them out to pasture and the cows can take care of themselves all day long. With a few hundred cows it’s very easy to take care of them relative to thousands of cows. So, they give wonderful milk, and the farmer is peaceful and he has a happy family, and it’s an entirely different situation.”

So then, with that kind of program, this fellow has worked out a way that they can practically go from virtually no investment to being millionaires in seven years based simply on this process that he has worked out for them. So, then the question comes, “Well, this sounds nice, certainly is nice, but the problem, of course, is that they don’t know what to do with the progeny. These cows are going to have more cows, and half of those cows are going to be male cows. What do we do with that?”

And so, they don’t understand that that too is a problem, it’s a terrible problem, and the way they deal with it is really unfortunate for everybody involved. And they don’t also understand that, “Okay, at some point, what do we do with the situation where the cow’s not giving so much milk anymore? The cow’s getting older and just circumstances change.” So, eventually, they decide, “Well, we have to get rid of the cow.” So, even the female cows, at some point, they don’t work out so well.

So, we can offer a positive alternative at that point to these people that are thinking, Okay, organic dairy is better. We can offer an even better opportunity. These people are still reliant on petroleum. Ultimately, they have to transport the milk, they have to process the milk, they have to distribute the milk, they have to do all these things, and then they have to run the tractors to make the pasture and harvest. And so, it turns into this whole petroleum-based profit motive, and that’s a disaster too.

So, the solution lies within the problem, just put the oxen to work instead of killing them, and automatically, now you’ve got the power you need to run the farm nicely, and you have a small farm where the locals can come and take advantage of the milk products that are produced, so that you are going to be no longer having the long-distance transportation, and all the horrible things that go with all this use of petroleum. You can use the cow dung and the urine because the cows are out there on the field automatically fertilizing it instead of using petroleum products to fertilize, increasing the disaster.

So, at some point, then it just becomes a question of, “Well, is this economically viable?” And even though there are very few present-day examples of it being economically viable, it was economically viable for the whole history of human existence, it worked. It was only the last maybe a hundred and fifty years when people decided, “Okay, we are going to pump out petroleum from the ground and burn it in tractors and create a whole economy based on that sort of a behavior, instead of just putting the oxen to work, and letting the cows do their thing, and take care of them nicely in the field.” And it’s a whole ecologically sustainable situation at that point. And the interest is not purely to make a buck and exploit the cows.

So, there is another way to do it, and we just need to get from here to there. We’ve been there for most of human history, it’s just a question of finding out how to get back there because in due course of time, we won’t have petroleum anymore. Even the experts argue about. . . Well, is it fifty years or three hundred years? But nobody says, “We will always have petroleum.” And the problem there is that okay, you run out of petroleum, but what you need to be able to practically do farming is serious power in the field that’s relatively lightweight and compact. Well, diesel fits that bill, but so do oxen.

So, when there is no more diesel, they are going to be using oxen. They even work better than horses because horses are really expensive in terms of the feed that they need to eat and the care that they need to have. Oxen, they’ll eat the stubble from the harvest and be totally healthy and happy. And the horses, they are not like that, so even the horses don’t work out for you. But Krishna has arranged that the system works nicely if you take advantage of everything that a cow can offer. So, we just need to find out how to get back there.

Giriraj Swami: And they can have more plantings because during the rainy season, the tractors can’t plow but the oxen can.

Devotee: Exactly. So, you could have more harvest because instead of only getting two plantings in a year, and so it’s in a certain type of a climate where naturally, you are going to get rain, and if you are using a tractor, that tractor is going to bog down in the mud, and the oxen are happy to go out and rain work if that’s what you’d ask them to do. They’ll go out there and plow in the rain, and it works just fine. So, in anyone planting, it may be a smaller harvest, but when you get more plantings in a year, you are going to actually get more harvest, so it works out better.

Devotee: One question. In these eco-villages where they are doing something like that, they’re completely self-sustainable. Do they take care of their cows and their calves throughout their entire life?

Devotee: Yeah.

Devotee: I mean, to the very end?

Devotee: That’s the goal, and there are some villages that are achieving that goal.

Devotee: They don’t go to [Unintelligible 01:40:27].

Devotee: No, no, no, no, no, no. As I say, we are learning how to do this all over again. We don’t have any 150-year-old people to tell us, “This is how you do this.” So, we are having to reinvent the wheel, and that’s not an easy thing to do in agriculture, nobody has the knowledge. They encountered a problem like this in Cuba.

In fact, I don’t know if you know, when the Soviet Bloc broke up in the late eighties, all of a sudden, they went from an economy that was based on trading tobacco and sugarcane for petroleum, tractors, and food with soviet countries, and all of a sudden, literally almost overnight, that exchange disappeared, and they were in desperate straits to figure out what’s much to be done about this.

So Raúl, Fidel’s brother, said, “We are not going to kill the cow because we are going to get oxen and we are going to put them to work, and we are going to grow our own food.” So, they learned how to do it all over again, and they are people that worked on these vast plantations, and the owners of the plantations started to realize, “Hey, there are a lot of benefits to this, it works really nicely.” It’s an austere life, but it’s a healthy, clean, satisfying life. And they even realize that there are spiritual benefits for them to do it like this.

Devotee: [Unintelligible 01:42:43] I’m sure there are other villages in India that still have the old way of doing things where machinery is not well available.

Devotee: Yeah.

Devotee: So, [Unintelligible 01:42:55].

Devotee: Absolutely, yeah, one of the things they do that’s really interesting in India is rather than any farmer keeping his oxen and working his field and then there are times when you don’t need all that power, they have people that it’s kind of their service to keep oxen. These days, people keep trucking companies, so they can go from place to place and hire out their oxen in exchange for agricultural goods. So, it’s the same thing, but it’s a nice way of doing it.