How to live with loneliness?

Goswāmī Mahārāj: So, any questions from anyone?

Question: She introduced her question as depressing. She says, she heard from Bhāgavatam, from Śrīmad Bhāgavatam, it is said there that souls are coming to this world like as individuals and they are lonely they come alone to this world, and it is also said there that they also leave this world by themselves, alone,
Goswāmī Mahārāj: Oh, like you enter alone and you leave alone.
Question: Yes. So, and during your life you also are alone and she says, “I feel sometimes that loneliness, is meant she says in Bhāgavatam, is it coming from false ego or it’s like sudden realization? How to make friends with this loneliness and how to live with it, and how shall we see it?

Goswāmī Mahārāj: Well, it minds me Śrīla Prabhupād Swāmī Mahārāj, we know some of his Pastimes, Divine Pastimes. And although generally Śrīl Guru Mahārāj said in the case of an Āchārya, such an exalted āchārya, when it was advised in terms of how to present his biography he said, “Don’t, in the pre-āchārya”, you don’t need to go into the details of that. But sometimes we are all loving and affectionate, we can tell some of that, cause he would say, talking about that sometimes too. So, that, his, and this is in his pūrvāśram, before he became the world-wide āchārya of Kṛṣṇa Consciousness movement, he is in gṛhastha-āśram. We’ve told, his wife did not approve of him dedicating so much of his energy and time to Kṛṣṇa Consciousness. But his sister, we affectionately call Pishima, Bhavatarini didi, she was physically a mirror image of Prabhupād, so dealing with her was a little perplexing at times, because it looked like Prabhupād in a female form, they were that similar looking. And she was a devotee, very devoted. Disciple, first initiation from Saraswatī Ṭhākur. And approached Śrīla Guru Mahārāj for mantra-dīkṣā, second initiation, at the time he deferred her to Bhakti Śaraṇ Goswāmī Mahārāj, so, she is a total devotee and she is the one who is observing at that time her brother Abhay Charaṇ, his unhappy family situation.

She said, “Prabhu, you’re meant to preach. Don’t worry any more with this family situation. You’re the preacher, you just…, we’ll take care of that”. And I remember hearing that, once in Bombay we were with Śrīla Prabhupād on the roof of one of the buildings there before the big place was built, and he’d walk around, do his walk on the roof top, cause there’s no park to go, and one interesting thing he said was, when he set within the small group of devotees, he said to the manager there who was Girirāj Swāmī, he said, “Are you keeping that one room available?” Some special room. He said: “Yes, Prabhupād”. Prabhupād was asking to keep the room for some, he never said who, he just said, “Keep one room”, so he just, “Yes, Prabhupād”. And Prabhupād said, “It is for one special guest”. And he was like teasing us a little bit, we are all like, “Oh, what’s…”. And Prabhupād was, “How he is special? I shall explain. [laughs] It is for my son”. And then I can’t forget him saying, “He’s thinking to take the bhajan. So, he wants to go Śrīdhar Mahārāja’s Maṭh”. [laughs]

And Prabhupād said: “But I told him, ‘I have so many’” [laughs]. But that was interesting, he said, “He is gonna go to Śrīdhar Mahārāj’s Maṭh, he is going to take a bhajan, Prabhupād has temples all over the world, “I am going to go to Śrī Chaitanya Saraswat Maṭh, Nabadwīp” [laughs]. But, anyway, and then he said: “So, that’s all I told him, ‘You can come, be with me’”, so, keep that room for him. And then he said: “I thought he would be a great devotee. When he was a young boy, once on Janmāṣṭamī, he was six-seven, and determined to fast till a midnight, but as the evening wore on he started getting weak”. And Prabhupād noticed that and he told him: “You know, you can take a little something”. And he said: “But the boy refused, he said: “No, I will fast until a midnight”. So, Prabhupād said, “I really had hopes for him”.

Cause later, all of it fits together, when we hear him saying, and I am paraphrasing now, putting it this way, Śrīla Govinda Mahārāj was the son, that Prabhupād wanted to have. That’s who, he has many identities. One of them is he is the son; this is the son he wanted to have. That’s why Gurudev said at the Māyāpur: “He treated me like his son”. This is what he wanted. Someone he could teach Gītā to, would go out distributing Back to Godhead magazines, who could preach, that’s the son he wanted. And not to diminish his affection for the others, but what was I telling in this sense he said: “I had so much hope for him”. And this you’ll find interesting as well, he said: “But he was spoiled by communists”. And he didn’t mean your ancestors [laughs]. He meant for one is in Bengal. Amia Sindhu, didn’t you go to their office once? Remember? Amia Sindhu went at their office in Kolkata and they’ve got like Lenin on the wall, with like, you know, chandan and mālās [laughs]. Satya Sundar [you should remember], I think once when Avadhūt Mahārāj personally went back to Russia, he had some portrait of Lenin on the wall and he put tilak on it, Vijay came and said, like, “Stop it”. [laughs].
Audience: Too offensive?
Goswāmī Mahārāj: Yeah, just stop it, stop it right now. He means the Bengali, they are supposed to be the most forward advanced people, but they just don’t get it, the words out pretty much… Unless you’re the supreme leader of North Korea. Even the Chinese wear suits [laughs].  

But, anyway, Prabhupād says like, showing that his potential, this potential were spoiled by bad association. Even his son. Kṛṣṇa in Chaitanya Bhāgavat, Nimai Paṇḍit, he says, in his divine madness when he takes varāha-bhāv, he becomes the Varāha-avatār at the house of Murāri Gupta, he shows it one say, like, they open the door and he is like Varāhadev [laughs]. And he enters the house and there’s a water pitcher in the corner, he lifts it up, and saves it from the Garbhodak ocean; everyone was astonished, cause it goes from bhakta-bhāv, here Varāha-bhāv, Devi-bhāv and ultimately Rādhā-bhāv, it’s a wonderful inconceivable progression. But at that time he is in this mood and he’s telling: “Where is that rascal in Varanasi, in Benares? Prakāśānanda!. He’s saying, he’s mutilating My divine form, saying, ‘I have’, he cannot see, cannot hear, cannot taste, cannot feel, describing him that way, he’ll suffer for that”. And he said, “Understand this. My affection is for my devotees. Even my own son”, cause he’s taking that Narakāsura, the famous Narakāsura, why is he called Narakāsura? It’s a long story. But Varāhadev and Bhūmi, if we read Bhāgavatāmṛtam, they have some divine relationships, Narakāsura is his son. Long story short, he killed him. And he said, even if my own son is against devotion, finished.

So, this aspiration. So, about the so-called family of this word. So, on that roof talk, one man was there at this darśan also, and Prabhupād was reflecting on his past life, he said to that man, who had two daughters, and this is Indian Culture, Indian Civilization, and he was like visibly nervous or in anxiety, and it was related to his necessity to get his daughters married. So, and Prabhupād, we hear it’s in the beginning, it’s in Charitāmṛta, it’s in the Bhāgavatam, echoed in the expressions of Saraswatī Ṭhākur, that the, what do the sādhus do? How do they show us their mercy? They cut attachment with what they say, the language, strongly they cut through it by sometimes saying things that are shocking. So, Prabhupād, turned to this man and said, “If you die, who will make the arrangements?” And [the man] was so cut of… [and he told], “Bhāgavan!”. Prabhupād said: “Yes.”, he had to make some marriage arrangements, so he said: “I made some arrangements, [but] I might not tell anyone, cause my wife did not approve. Therefore I said: ‘Let them all go to hell’” [laughs]. The way he said this was like: “Let them all go hell. Hare Kṛṣṇa”. [laughs].

So, he’s saying these sort of responsibilities that are acquired in this world, he was prepared to meet them up to the point. So, and as we recalled recently, we sing that song every day, praṇamāmi sadā prabhupāda-padam, janakādhika-vatsala-snigdha-padaṁ (Śrī Śrī Prabhupāda-padma Stavakaḥ 7). What’s the first part? Kṛpayā hari-kīrttana mūrtti-dharaṁ, dharaṇī-bhara-hāraka-gaura-janam, janakādhika-vatsala-snigdha-padaṁ, praṇamāmi sadā prabhupāda-padam Guru Mahārāj said that Saraswatī Ṭhākur, he had the sweetness of Vṛndāvan within, and it could only be detected with him, externally he was in the form of the devastator. So, sometimes we associate some rather fears imagery with him, siṁha-guru. “But, he said, that he had the sweetness of Vṛndāvan within and then this śloka we’re saying, kṛpayā hari-kīrttana mūrtti-dharaṁ, he’s always by his, engaged in Hari-kīrtan, Kṛṣṇa-kathā, who did not sing and dance visibly, his every movement was like beautiful dance, and everything that came out of his mouth was kīrtan. And Guru Mahārāj says here, and it parallels what he’s written elsewhere in ślokas, he said, “He’s revealing on the one hand that the so-called affection of this world, like between man and woman, or family, it’s all hooks, it’s deception, friendship, mundane friendship is deception, all of these things”. And that person has revealed this with his strong cutting language, janakādhika-vatsala-snigdha-padaṁ, he’s more affectionate than your own father.

So, how to harmonize these seeming desperate point of view. So, Śrīla Prabhupād Swāmī Mahārāj, when he was in Vṛndāvan, he had some success as a businessman and his household life, but then that went down. Some people say because of his, him and Guru Mahārāj always talking about Kṛṣṇa and Mahāprabhu, that his business was neglected, just as they told historically, “When Pratāparudra Mahārāj came under the influence of Mahāprabhu, that was the end of the Orissa Empire, lost her military spirit, could not fight any more”. Was emasculated [laughs]. This stuff goes on all the time. And what I am getting at, is who our real friend? Actually, we have real friends and an inconceivable amounts of real friends, but just, I’ll get to that in a moment.

But so here, Prabhupād is in Vṛndāvan and now following the advice of his sister, and his own internal inspiration and Saraswatī Ṭhākur’s appearing to him in his dreams. He said once in Los Angeles, “My Guru Mahārāj after His disappearance started appearing to me in dreams and saying, “Come out! Come out!” Come out of household life and take sannyās. And Prabhupād said at the time I thought, “Uh, horrible”. Not Hari Bol, but horrible. “How horrible”. He is even saying that, who generally presented himself as what he was, the perfect disciple: “I only ask my Guru Mahārāj one question, ‘How can I serve you?’” and Prabhupād could talk the talk and walk that divine walk of being the ultimate servitor of the Guru, gave everything, put his life on the altar of self-sacrifice and service of the order of Saraswatī Ṭhākur, Bhakti Vinod Ṭhākur, Mahāprabhu. But sometimes he gives a little, glimpses of times where things were not so perfect.

But still he said as Guru Mahārāj appearing to him, then the sister giving some inspiration, others, many things, then he took, vānaprastha, ultimately sannyās, he’s living in Vṛndāvan. He said, but now when he had no money, the whole, those big colossal hooks of a family arrangement, especially in India. Have you ever heard of the joint family system? When we would go preaching in this villages and every village there is some millionaire, he is reputed to be a devotee, and they would always put you up at their house. And there is always like ground floor, first floor, second floor, third floor, fourth, [etc.] and we’d be on the floor that is totally unoccupied, like fourth floor, you go: “What is this one?” “Oh, that is for son number three. He and his family will live there. So, on this floor another son of his”. That’s what I’m saying, this big “kuṭumba-bharaṇena vā” (Śrīmad Bhāgavatam: 2.1.3), in a words of Śukadev Goswāmī, big arrangement, they like it. That ever expanding family arrangement. But Prabhupād said, suddenly, everyone who was so concerned before, now that he was penniless, he said, “The only thing that remains of my family life is like a long list of names”. [laughs]

And then he wrote a postcard to Śrīla Guru Mahārāj and he said, “I think of my present position that the animals, and the trees, and the plants they are more friendly to me than human beings. I feel a sense of comradery to them, no longer with human beings” [laughs]. So, that’s a mood, that comes, because this is are hooks, all of these other arrangements, to deal with loneliness, or finding your counterpart, your soul mate. Cause what we are searching for? Sometimes I mention this, in my preaching in Russia, in the secular setting, that we have now all these things, like social networks, matchmaker.com. So, when you go to one of this sites, the idea is you should put on your ideal criteria, hope who your mate will be, they will look like this, they will like to do this, and like “long walks on the bitch” [laughs]. For some reason people in America are all like “long walks on the beach”. Even if it’s Vaitarini river. It’s very esoteric.

So, they’re putting ideal criteria, but as mentioned, as a footnote, from scientific point of view, nobody writes in there “carbon-based life form seeking relationship, intimate relationship, with other carbon-based life form”. [laughs]. That would be absurd, but that’s another subject. But still these ideal criteria, and I’m here to suggest, that here we shall equate the ideal with the Absolute, the ultimate ideal is the Absolute, and anyone less than the absolute ideal is incapable of reciprocating ideal criteria. So, that’s why, when people enter relationship to address that loneliness, we’re using that word this evening. They find out in time, they are projecting ideals unto someone who is admittedly less than ideal, they are not the absolute. And in time, they begin to [put on] a check-list, saying, “Nope, nope, nope, nope”, and they realize, it’s like in a T.S.Eliot poem “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”, where it is a line, where he says, what after all this entreaty and submitting in all of these things"..., what the girl turns and says, “That’s not what I was thinking, at all!” And he realise that’s only your own fantasy being imposed on another person. So, gradually you realise they are not ideal, so that relationships ends in frustration, disappointment, dissolution. So, what I am suggesting is the Absolute is capable of reciprocating these ideals.

There is a very beautiful line, that Śrīla Guru Mahārāj quotes sometimes. Śrīmatī Rādhārāṇī [said it] Herself, it goes, prati aṅga lāge kā̐de prati aṅga mora. “Who is Kṛṣṇa? He is that person who is capable of satisfying and corresponding every atom of my soul’s hankering, to address every atom of its hankering”. And not only for one, but the Absolute means of satisfying all, must necessarily be, not one person or few, two or few, but everyone, the Absolute has that capacity to reciprocate, that’s really the meaning of akhila-rasāmṛta-mūrti. So on this loneliness issue we can say, Bhāgavatam says, sudurlabhā bhāgavatā hi loke (Hari-bhakti-sudhodaya, 13.2), such personalities, who personify this type of love and affection and can extend it to you, they are very rare to find in this world. But Guru Mahārāj takes a step further, he’s saying, “Yes, they are very rare in this world, but there is another world of which they are, they constitute the entire population”. Everyone in that world is like that. And not only that, not only every person there is like that, every thing there is like that, vaikuṇṭhera pṛthivy-ādi sakala chinmaya (Chaitanya-charitāmṛta, 5.53), the soil is your friend, the soil has your interest at heart, the trees have your interest at heart, every bird, every insect, everything, the wind, the air, the rivers, the streams, everything is your best friend, has your self-interest at heart.

So, these devotees who are sometimes described very exclusively, like they are recluses, they are exclusive, they are not mixing with so much in ordinary society, but they are not lone, the Kṛṣṇa conception is elaborate. Guru Mahārāj used to quote, we see his humility, sometimes he is quoting devotees, who said something at the Maṭh, he heard them saying, it made some impression upon him, his heart is so soft and beautiful, melted, heard something said by some relative newcomer to Kṛṣṇa Consciousness, and he never forgot that and he peppered his lectures with some of these things. He remembered it. This is probably like 1973, whereas at some meeting, some lady was asked to speak, some disciple of Śrīla Prabhupād Swāmī Mahārāj, and she said what she liked about Kṛṣṇa Consciousness, is we’re being given an opportunity to have a family life with Kṛṣṇa. Guru Mahārāj never forget that, he thought it was just so wonderful, of her to say that, and he quoted that repeatedly so many times, and also he is commending her for appreciating that, that what you want that can be addressed in Kṛṣṇa conception.

So, it does appear from an external point of view, that these devotees are, we could even say lonely or isolated, actually they have more friends than you can possibly imagine, they are connected in a real and substantial way with spiritual personalities in the upper world. So, here we, how can we expect to have really address that this loving necessity, necessity for the fulfilment, etc., loving exchange, if we don’t properly conceive ourselves, we have a misconception about who we are, of what our identity is and all of those of whom we have connection with.

I remember, cause my mom won’t see this video, [laughs], and it probably happens to every kid or many when you’re like at the age of puberty or something. But I remember being around thirteen years, like in the kitchen my mother is at a sink doing something and talking to me, but we are both not looking at each other. And it occur to me, I thought: “This woman thinks she knows who I am”, but actually we really don’t know who we are, but just on the basis of some assumed relationship, she is talking as if she knows who I am, I am talking to her as if I know who she is, but actually we have no idea who we are. Each of us. And then she turned around, looked at me and like for a while, you know, like: “Wow!”, for a moments she looked like a total stranger to me. It’s like you tell, “O yes, it’s some phase you’re going through” whatever, but it’s like a realistic phase.

Remember, once girlfriend of my brother was talking to me and asking who am I, where have I come from, asking philosophical questions. And my brother is like, “She is going through a face” [laughs]. I said, “She is going through a good face”. You should be asking who are you, where, you know like, “She’ll get over it”. [laughs].

So, it’s a precarious situation for devotees who have some family connection, etc., because you can’t be callus, insensitive, but at the same time, you’ve got this philosophical understanding working on the background. So, that’s why I meant to say, injecting earlier that Śrīla Prabhupād, as an example ultimately, was not sentimental, what he hoped for one son, he saw realised in Śrīla Govinda Mahārāj. When at the time of giving harinām, after giving a talk about the ten offences and then usually the four types of nāmābhās, also to avoid that, and Śrīla Guru Mahārāj would say to go in the naṭ-mandir, take four rounds and then take prasādam. But you would always see this, wherever your God brothers and God sisters are, give your daṇḍavats to them, because you’re being welcomed into the family of Kṛṣṇa.

So, and that is sometimes described as achyuta-gotra, gotra means a family line, and there is a mundane idea of what is achyuta-gotra, meaning it’s like, you can translate it as “God’s family”, people who think that through some sort of blood lineage they have the right to be connected to that. But that’s not what we are talking about. But when you become accepted in Kṛṣṇa consciousness by substantial Vaiṣṇava agency then you are part of family that is infinitely larger than you can possibly conceive, and you’ll realize that in time. So, the devotees they don’t feel alone. They feel some real connection with all of those who are in connection with Kṛṣṇa Consciousness.

I remember at the end of one darśan I brought some ISKCON leaders to hear from Śrīla Guru Mahārāj, and at the end one said, he is overwhelmed and, or I should say before that actually we went downstairs to take prasādam with Śrīla Gurudev gave everyone prasādam, and then he said something very peculiar, he said, “Guru Mahārāj wants some of this prasādam that you’re taking”. And wants you to come back upstairs and see him again. And we thought, that was unusual, after hour and half darśan, and we went back upstairs and Śrīla Guru Mahārāj said, “I’m thinking, I’ve got an inspiration, that your sincerity for preaching Mahāprabhu’s Kṛṣṇa conception is so great that Mahāprabhu himself supplied this prasādam. So, I asked Govinda Mahārāj to bring some to me”. And we’re like. He said a few more things, and then that devotee said, “Wow! Thank you so much, thank you”. And Guru Mahārāj said, “Thank you? That doesn’t sit well with me”, and then he was like, “Oh, what should we say?”, and Guru Mahārāj said, “Express some appreciation, but thank you presupposes two parties, that there is this one party, you come in connection with another party, you get something from them, thank you for that, and then you go”. And then Guru Mahārāj turned his head and said, “But we’re all Mahāprabhu’s men”. At the time I thought, “He who is so exalted, when he says “we”, he is including us in his “we”, ‘we are all Mahāprabhu’s men’”.

And then at the time I thought, and those who are in the lower position they are not willing to include him in their “we”. How unfortunate it is, how sad that is, but he happy, he who is so exalted, when he says “we”, he is including us. So, we’re happy to be included in that “we” and so we don’t feel lonely, because we have Guru, Vaiṣṇava, the God brother, God sister, the great devotees, sādhu, śāstra, who’ve lived before, we feel something living, it’s not nostalgia, it’s not imagination, it’s not poetry. You read something written by great devotees, like in Prapanna-jīvanāmṛta, or it could be Bhāgavtam, Charitāmṛta, elsewhere. And you can dance with that, and realise, “Oh, that great soul, I have some connection with them by appreciating the devotional sentiments, being expressed from their hearts and it’s real, you think how fortunate we are, we can read Viśvanāth Chakravartī Ṭhākur’s comments on the Bhāgavatam and you can feel his associating, he is so great, so wonderful and we can connect with him by the grace of our Guru-varga, so many these personalities.

So, even alone we can a festival. [laughs]. Sometimes we are alone, we are having festivals. [laughs]. Really, we’re thinking this is like a feast, Anaṅgotsavam, Jayadev says, in his description,

viśveṣām anurañjanena janayann ānandam indīvara-
śreṇī-śyāmala-komalair upanayann aṅgair anaṅgotsavam
(Gīta-govinda: 1.11)

It’s describing the form of Kṛṣṇa and it’s a festival. Kṛṣṇa looks like a festival, walking, moving festival for the eyes, everything. So, Guru Mahārāj, Gurudev was in Soquel, and Hasyapriya Prabhu is presenting the first honey gathered from the beehives, they were doing like a bee-keeping for a while,
Satya Sundar: I was the one.
Goswāmī Mahārāj: Alright.
Satya Sundar: I was the beekeeper, the first one.
Goswāmī Mahārāj: Okay, there we are, he’s got you know the marks to prove it [laughs]. The bee stings. So, he is coming and giving and Gurudev suddenly goes like, “I am feeling a little sad, Prabhu”. Everybody’s thinking, “Why?”, you know it’s a celebration honey, wonderful. And Gurudev says, “No, but Guru Mahārāj didn’t say it’s like that”, and we are thinking, “What?”, and his favorite śloka, is that which is at the end of Prapanna-jīvanāmṛta, “śrī-śrīmad-bhagavat-padāmbuja-madhu-svādotsavaiḥ ṣaṭ-padair…” Ṣaṭ-padair means six legs, it’s a Sanskrit way of saying bees, so, there it says, the devotees they are like bees and they are relishing the honey of talking about Kṛṣṇa, discussing Kṛṣṇa,

mach-chittā mad-gata-prāṇā
bodhayantaḥ parasparam
kathayantaś cha māṁ nityaṁ
tuṣyanti cha ramanti ca
(Bhagavad-gītā: 10.9)

It’s like eating, like consuming a feast, so he said, “While they are relishing this nectar, it’s making them mad, and some of the drops are falling from, you know, like that, madly tasting the nectar and drops of that nectar are falling from their lotus mouths”, and Guru Mahārāj says, “I am collecting that, and what I’ve captured from them, I’ve presented here in this Prapanna-jīvanāmṛta, and this is life-giving nectar for the surrendered souls”. So, Gurudev was saying, “That’s the way it should be”. [laughs].

So, he feels and we shall follow his footsteps and feeling some living connection with the devotees it’s not our imagination, it’s not a fantasy, it’s real and it’s substance of Kṛṣṇa Consciousness. That’s a type of sādhu-saṅga, and when we are in their association loneliness will be an abstract memory. And without them you’re alone, if you are surrounded by a joint family, you know, if you are at Kumbha Mela, you’ll be alone [laughs].

Hare Kṛṣṇa