Living an active Spiritual Life

–So any questions from anyone? Yes? Ok!
–Um… thank you! My question is the human beings all have disadvantage and weakness, shortcomings…
–Yes…
–And … well, from Krishna
–Yes…
–So Krishna has weakness, everything we have
–Yes…
–But for Krishna everything is beautiful and perfect…
–Yes…
–But for us all our shortcomings are not perfect…
–Yes…
–Sometimes make us…
–Unhappy?...
–Unhappy, yes. So…

–Oh, it’s a very good question. Um, I can see this is disconnected. So it’s actually at the heart of the matter is to understand the position of the Absolute and the relative, and the Supreme Lord, the infinite and the finite. We are told in Bhagavad–gita that this world is the perverted reflection of the spiritual reality. So just like in a reflection… see… everything that’s in the original is… appears in the reflection. But perverted reflection… the example, given in the Gita ūrdhva-mūlam adhaḥ-śākham (Bhagavad-gītā 15.1), says like an upside down tree. Like when you are looking through the tree on the bank of a river and when you look in the water it will be upside down and backwards.

So it’s implying… say, here we have shortcomings. So then we’ll think, does that mean that the Absolute has some shortcomings? Otherwise how do we have them? Or some kind of weakness… So from generally, we won’t think like that but when it comes at Krishna Conception we can see even that. Everything can harmonize in Krishna Conception. Even that… who is omnipotent or powerful has a weakness. What is that weakness?

So, from the devotional point of view we’ll say that Krishna is known as bhakta-vatsala – His weakness – His love and affection for His devotees. And that is greater in a sense than His omnipotence. So, for example, I keep seeing this thing prompting… We celebrate the Pastime of Damodar, Krishna, being bound by His mother. First of all, just the fact that He can accept a mother and be dependent upon her – that’s the nature of devotion, who is told to be independent …

At the beginning of the Srimad-Bhagavatam it says, janmādy asya yato ’nvayād itarataś chārtheṣv abhijñaḥ svarāṭ (Śrīmad Bhāgavatam 1.1.1). ‘Svarāṭ’ means ‘independent’. And in this case – absolutely independent. The Absolute cannot be dependent, contingent upon any others. Then He would be in the secondary position. That’s the general statement. Later in the Bhagavatam Krishna is saying ahaṁ bhakta-parādhīno, hy asvatantra iva dvija (Śrīmad Bhāgavatam 9.4.63) – in the presence of devotion even though I appear to be independent, it appears as if I become… I’ve lost my independence and become dependent on the devotee. So that is the beauty of devotion and the power of devotion that the infinite who is omnipotent comes under the control of the finite. How is that possible? Through love and affection. That’s the meaning of devotion.

When we made the first book for Guru Maharaj and the first chapter… there’s a section – it says, “Beauty is the ultimate controlling principle. Beauty, love, charm and sweetness. Not power or grandeur. That’s a lower idea. So the king, a stereotypical example, is the person who’s in the supremely powerful position. But the king may through love and attachment be under the control of the queen. Or before becoming queen some girl… He is the king… Everyone has to do what he says, but he is under the control of the beauty of some girl… of a young girl. So, that principle, Guru Maharaj is applying the Krishna conception that generally we will attribute power, omniscience, omnipotence etc. to the infinite but in Krishna conception satyam, śivam and sundaram is the highest aspect, sundaram meaning beauty and by extension – charm, love, affection.

The very name Krishna – kṛṣi bhu-vachaka-sabda what is … when we say the word Krishna what it means – He’s attracting everyone to the center by His beauty, charming, sweetness, through love and affection and nourishing everyone in response to that. I think also of something that Guru Maharaj said which regards to Srila Saraswati Thakur, that’s also indicative of a similar thing. We see Him as the… you know…, “jati-rāja-gaṇaiḥ parisevya-padaṁ” (Prabhupāda-padma Stavakaḥ 10) … the … jati-rāja, the king of all the sannyasis. Whenever we see Srila Saraswati Thakur he’s so royal looking and commanding and very powerful and awesome, just totally awesome all inspiring. But Guru Maharaj says that when he wrote poetry in the Bhaktivinod-viraha Daśakam, which are prayers in separation from Bhaktivinod Thakur. He said, “I saw that my Guru Maharaj, his one weakness was his love and affection of Bhaktivinod Thakur”. If we can call it a weakness, he is saying, “His soft spot.” That’s the soft spot is love and affection for Bhaktivinod Thakur. So Guru Maharaj thought in a clever devotional strategy, “If I praise Bhaktivinod Thakur, then that the way to capture Saraswati Thakur”. I don’t know why, but this keeps becoming disconnected. So, I guess it just gonna have to be that way.

But so he described it like that. His weakness was his love and affection for Bhaktivinod Thakur. So, if we want to use that word… but here we are taking it in a um… its… by tracing it to the central conception of the infinite, which is the aprākṛta-līlā of Krishna. It shows itself as a… a beautiful quality and there are repeatedly examples of this and in Kuruksetra battle where Krishna vowed not to interfere in the war, so He would become pārtha-sarāthi, the charioteer of Arjuna. When it was clear that Arjuna was to become… um… was going to be killed by Bhismadev, Krishna interfered because up to that point… who was it… Duryodhana one night in the camp… he said to Bhismadev, “I don’t think you are fighting with full strength because you have so much attachment for Arjuna and the Pandavas. You are not hundred per cent.” And they were all kṣatriyas and that’s the way to capture a kṣatriya, “You are not fighting fully Bhismadev, so, tomorrow I’ll kill Arjuna. By sunset he’ll be dead.” And he had those five arrows for all the Pandavas. There are five arrows ready to kill them… and that’s when Krishna… Krishna is also plays dirty tricks and they are good.

So, knowing that… he told… who was it… Yudhisthir, “You have some favor? Now it’s the time to go and ask for your favor.” And so he comes to ask for a favor. And they say, “What do you want? We’ll just say ‘you won’, we won’t even have to fight. We will just say ’you won’ you’ll get the kingdom, everything… is that what you want?” Knowing that they are kṣatriyas, they will never agree to that. But he said, “If you want, we’ll just say ‘you won’, that’s all yours, it’s over.

He said, – No, that’s not what I’m asking for. – Then, what is that you want? – I want those five arrows that Bhismadev has. And they immediately gave them. That’s when Bhismadev said, – Krishna, tomorrow Arjuna will die. Guaranteed. So that time comes and Arjuana’s in trouble and his chariots broken, Bhismadev is getting ready to kill Arjuna for sure. And then Krishna… Normally Krishna’s weapon is the chakra, right? Have you seen that? The wheel? This wheel like weapon, called chakra?

So, Krishna, he’d said He wouldn’t take up arms in this fight, so he took the wheel off of the chariot. That’s why one of the… when we go to Ekachakra of Nityananda Prabhu, one of the legends is that’s how it got its name – that’s where that wheel landed. So Krishna picks up a chariot wheel and He normally had His sudarshan-chakra, divine… but here He’s taking this chariot wheel and He’s approaching Bhismadev and Bhismadev is shooting arrows at Krishna and the arrows are hitting Krishna and blood is coming but it’s saying to… for Krishna it was like flowers, being offered from His devotees hitting His body, like He’s offering many flower garlands to Krishna but like that… but they are flowers and that is like a love bite. It’s like a love bite to Krishna. And Bhismadev sees Krishna, He’s so angry, coming toward Him, that His dhoti falls off, right? He loses His lower garment and Bhismadev later, when he’s lying on his death bed, he’s offering prayers to this vision of Krishna. He says, – How beautiful He looked, angry, running after me and ready to crush me… He was so beautiful! I want to see that image forever in my life.

So all these things become harmonized in Krishna conception, all opposites: the arrows are becoming like flowers, the angry approach is seen as a beautiful figure. So… Kurma-avatar, He appears as a tortoise, a turtle and remember… He’s omnipotent means He’s all powerful, He can do anything but in this Pastime in the ocean, the milk ocean the gods and demons want to churn this ocean and extract immortality, nectar, āmṛtam. But they are having some difficulty. So, Kurma, the tortoise, turtle incarnation appears and what is His Pastime – He can’t scratch His back. Just like sometimes we have an itch on our back and you can’t reach it. You need someone else’s help.

So who is omnipotent? Here what’s the weakness He’s showing? He’s a turtle, how can He scratch His back? We’ll think, “No, but He’s God Himself and He’s appearing as a turtle, of course He can…” That’s not His play. And His play is appearing as a turtle, has an itch on His back and can’t reach it. So that always allows for seva for service. So then they put a mountain, because He’s a rather large turtle, they put a mountain on His back and wrap a giant serpent around it and on one… you see that at the Suvarnabhumi airport and after you clear immigration – one side – devas, gods, off the side – asuras, demons. So they are using the serpent as a rope and they’re churning the mountain like this. It’s itching His back. [to someone in the audience: Just leave it, it’s not going to work]. It’s itching His back and as His back is being itched the ocean of milk is being churned and many beautiful things are coming: Laksmi-devi, the Moon, so many things.

But while… just like people in this world, when their back is itched they go, , “ Ohh!... So He’s also going – Ohh! But as His breath was Ohh, the Vedas are being generated from His breathing. So just His breath is generating the revealed truth. So what does this tells us minimally? We have to reconceive everything, we can’t on the basis of our experience within this world project that upon divinity, upon the infinite. And especially perceiving it as some sort of deficiency or flaw, weakness, disadvantage as you say. So we’ll always be… Or… we should say that…, that is the beauty of Krishna conception whereas Supreme… whereas in other Pastimes, other avatars, incarnations They are somewhat restricted in what can be accommodated in Their Pastimes.

Sometimes like Ramachandra is the king, he has to abide by rāj-nīti, the conduct in behavior that is appropriate to kings. But Krishna… there is no restriction. So, He can contradict everything. Late, when Krishna’s a little toddler the gopis, the older gopis of Vrindavan sometimes they want to play with Him, so they will say, – Oh, go and pick, and bring that to me. They tell Him to bring and He goes to bring something, sometimes He can bring it, but because He’s playing other times it’s too heavy He can’t bring it. So He just put… touches it. And other times He is going, – I’m so strong!
Like a little child. That’s the charm of Krisha-lila – He’s concealing His omnipotence. And showing some apparent weakness. So from the position of a child He lifts Govardhan Hill, as a 5-year old boy on His left hand, the pinky of His left hand He lifts Govardhan Hill.

But what is His mother thinking? She thinks, – Oh, He’s just a boy, how long can he hold it? But that is certain divine madness - how can…, if he’s just a little boy how could He hold it at all? But she’s thinking, – Maybe, for a little while, he can hold it, but certainly not a day, a whole day, what to speak of five days, six days, seven days? After some days go by we heard that Rohini and Yasoda, they are pushing butter into Krishna’s mouth like as to give Him some strength. Because they think, maybe He’ll become weak and drop it. So we told before, Damodara to Yasoda sees that Krishna repeatedly He’s getting into trouble, so she thinks, “For His own benefit I’ll tie Him.”

We see sometimes they feel they have these things now when they can harness the child. Seen them in the airport, it’s just like walking your dog or something. See these little kids walking around the airport like a little… Cause I saw this person in Dubai… they have like two kids… It’s like, ‘Oh’. So she’s thinking, – Oh, I’ll tie him up and then he at least will be close and that will minimize the trouble. So she gets the rope together, tries to tie Him, but we told it’s two fingers too short. So then she’s just thinking, – All right, – she gets some ropes, it’s two fingers too short. She gets every rope they can find and two fingers too short.

But then… and she is struggling, so Krishna sees, she has flowers in her hair, the flowers are falling from her hair, sweat is coming from her brows. And He sees, – How much love and affection she has for me! Then He agrees to be bound. So we told really although ostensibly in the form of ropes He’s being bound by the ropes of the love and affection of His mother.

So bhakta-vatsala, He’s a play thing in the hands of His devotees. So whatever we find in the Absolute, or whatever we find here, if we trace its position back to the central conception of the Absolute, Krishna conception, aprākṛta-līlā of Krishna, we’ll see that it’s a beautiful thing, it’s a wonderful thing. It’s not a flaw or a deficiency.

Our predicament is on the basis of magnitude. He’s independent, we are independent, but we have minute independence. So we have the tendency to misuse that. To be overwhelmed by illusion, to make the wrong choice, to misperceive what is in our actual self-interest. Sometimes examples are given comparing jiva-souls, the finite to sun rays and Krishna to the sun. So they are more or less qualitatively the same but the difference is magnitude, finite and the infinite. Any other question?

Yes, yes.
Question: So, people can value only something they can get like…, it’s difficult to get to them, but different temples have like a day after day practice… there we have darsan with you and your lectures and arati and everything is so… We keen to used to it. So how can we remember about this and not to become complacent, not to be passive about this?

Goswāmī Mahārāj: O the Krishna Consciousness has within it the word “consciousness” meaning by implication some awareness, some conscious endeavor. We can absentmindedly do things or do things with remembrance. So as you say, we prefer to not become complacent. But we’ll have to factor in an accept that we have a tendency towards complacency. Just as we were saying before about finite magnitude and infinite magnitude. So our tendency is to degrade, right? It can take years, life-times to go up, to become saintly but you can become degraded in 15 minutes. It doesn’t take a long time. So it’s our tendency because as we said before of our finite position to come under the influence of bad association. So the solution is good association. In some places we’ll find that this is equated to hunger. Sometimes we’ll say hunger is the indication of health. If you’re not hungry, even if nice food is put before you, you are not interested in it. Means you are in unhealthy or diseased condition.

And we’ve had the experience when you’re sick and you can’t eat anything one of the signs of your recovery is when your hunger returns. You say, - Oh, I feel some genuine hunger now, so maybe this illness is finishing. So it’s something similar to that. This hunger for… to go deeper, to not stay on the surface and have superficial experience, but to go deeper. What we’re told will take us even to highest position.

Famous sloka in Ramananda-samvad quoting perhaps Rupa Goswami,
kṛṣṇa-bhakti-rasa-bhāvitā matiḥ
krīyatāṁ yadi kuto ’pi labhyate
tatra laulyam api mūlyam ekalaṁ
janma-koṭi-sukṛtair na labhyate
(Chaitanya-charitāmṛta, Madhya 8.70)

It says, – You won’t get that, the real substance of Krishna Consciousness by merely doing the right thing for ten million births. But what will give it to you is hunger, genuine hankering for that. So hearing that… Guru Maharaj says, you know… requires this hunger…, one devotee said to him, – Then how will we get that hunger? And Guru Maharaj said, – Associate with the hungry. Again he is noted for his use of analogy, you know. Maybe you are not feeling like eating something but if you around someone who’s describing how nice… It’s just like Srila Gurudev was that type of personality… sometimes he’d start talking about prasadam and even if we’ve just eaten recently the description was so mouthwatering that we became hungry, we wanted to eat. And we just ate. But he had that ability in both ways, I mean talking about prasadam and also in the spiritual sense.

So these things… every day we have pāṭ and kīrttan. That means class and kīrttan, but more specifically it means recitation. We recite certain things over and over again. And sometimes maybe we are doing this in absent-minded way or not fully appreciating, comprehending, but Guru Maharaj recalls a statement from his childhood, in the Scriptures it is said, āvṛtir sarva-śastrānaṁ bodhavati garihasi. It’s said, – It’s not as important to understand the meaning as to go on hearing.

Normally… now I’m speaking as making an observation that’s not what we would expect to hear from Guru Maharaj. Normally we would expect him to say, – The real thing is to extract meaning and not to mindlessly go on hearing. Like he had an aphorism… he’d said… and again an original creation of his, where he said, – The repetition of sensation is not experience. I’ll say that again, – The repetition…  thank you the repetition of sensation is not experience. So just an over and over and over again but this Vedic statement āvṛtir sarva-śastrānaṁ bodhavati garihasi we were saying, but still go on hearing, keep hearing and repeatedly and there is a accumulative effect, Guru Maharaj said, he realized it later in Gaudiya Math, there is accumulative effect of all this hearing.

So it may be very far in the future, we have our personal experience, some things I heard in 1971 and in 2011 I went, – Aha… that’s what it means. So I’m happy about that. That’s forty years later to go, “Aha!” To have an ‘aha’ moment. Srila Gurudev himself was saying that sometimes very happily like overwhelmed with feelings saying, – Why all these things being revealed to me now?

And at a time he was, in his late 70-s, but he thinks, so much meaning came springing out of this slokas and Hari-katha, Krishna-katha, he was just astonished. So sometimes Srila Guru Maharaj is also giving the example… as he said… “The book, sastra in the form of the book is a passive posing, it’s actually spiritually conscious substance, right. It’s alive, more alive than we, so… Chinmoy, spiritually conscious substance but posing in the form of a book, maybe an old book or new book, maybe a digital book, posing in some way. But not… as he said…but so when we’re going to have the reading, the Vedic system as they… they take a garland and then they offer a garland to the book and who’s leading that class is offering themselves as an instrument of revelation. Cause Guru Maharaj is saying, – Those Scriptures, they want to reveal themselves.

Like 87th chapter of the 10th Canto of Srimad-Bhagavatam, the Veda-stuti is rendered… Prabhupad calls it “Prayers of the personified Vedas”. So these Vedas they are also people. These Upanishads, 108 Upanishads – 108 individuals, they are personified. That’s why there in one section one Upanishad starts speaking, another Upanishad starts speaking and Vishvanath Cakravarti says, – Some of the deeper Upanishads were getting really anxious. Like they wanted to say something. The things which haven’t been covered properly. Cause generally they are indicating the direction, śrutibhir vimṛgyām, but these confidential Upanishads they have confidential part, they are saying, – I’d like to say something, please. Like to steer this conversation in a new direction.

So, we have to remind ourselves continuously of these things. That’s part of the process also, right? So we think about Tulsi-devi, Giriraj Govardhan, the songs in the arati. We don’t understand everything, it’s good for us to say those divine words in the song by Bhaktivinod Thakur, Narottam Thakur, Srila Guru Maharaj, but sometimes if we are fortunate it may come to us, some little glimpse. Bhaktivinod Thakur compares it with lightning, like when it’s all dark, especially on the śyāmā-moon. You know, this is just a footnote. This place which is called Siyam, it comes from śyāmā. That’s what Siyam, and they pronounce things differently, that’s all. So they were saying śyāmā, means dark and black… So they were saying… sometimes they say the Thai people came from certain part of China, Huang Shi, something like that, forgive me, I know it certainly doesn’t sound like what i just said. You know… Well, how do you say that? Yunan… but other people say this… just like Huang… what’s the X? Kuang Shi. That’s it. Some people say from… Yunan… some say from there… you know it’s a legend. But they were darker, so śyāmā, their complexion was dark. It’s an interesting tidbit. But the reason I’m saying that, why did I say that? Because… dark complexion? – A light [voice from the audience]. – Light?[Maharaj]. – Yes! [voice from the audience]. What was I saying before? The Upanishads? – About songs. Sometimes we can understand something. [voice from the audience]

Oh, right! Lightning. So there’s a black sky and then there’s lightning, Bhaktivinod Thakur… and for a moment… you know, when there’s light, you can see everything and your heart like… ah!... And then it’s gone but for that moment everything you see. It’s like that. And so those moments like the chatak, Rupa Goswami talked about the chatak bird. It’s a bird that only drinks rain water. So it’s a mystical bird. Water is everywhere, but it only drinks rain water and sometimes there’s thunder and lightning and it may finish the existence of that bird but they only drink rain water. Rupa Goswami says, – Devotees are like that, they are not going here, not going there, not taking durāśā, false shelter, anything. They just stay fixed, accept their fate durdaivam īdṛśam ihājani nānurāgaḥ,(Śikṣāṣṭakam 2) this is my fortune, my luck. Krishna’s kind. Sometimes Gurudev would say, – Two things we know: we are fallen and Krishna is merciful to the fallen. So like those chatak birds waiting that sometimes something’s coming, that moment coruscating glimpse… tchch…Brilliant illumination. This is oh! And that’s enough to give impetus to the heart to adhere and be true, faithful and persevere.

But associate with the hungry. Guru Maharaj is saying, “Those who do have some genuine eagerness consistently will seek their association because they will awaken that kind of eagerness within us.

So… but again… so when we are reading statements of the devotees in the Scriptures Prapanam-jivanamritam, Bhagavatam, Charitamrita, we’ll see, we are hearing what the devotees say, it may awaken something within us, some little appreciation. Even a dim reflection of their mood will illuminate the heart and give us some encouragement, inspiration to go on. But again how much genuine is that hankering? So we’ll say well… it’s very small in me… then I associate with those that have a little more, little something more. We pray to our Guru-varga, they have a great eagerness, hunger. Like Guru Maharaj saying once, you know, – What will feed an ant, is not food for an elephant. Like there’s some ant in my room… they don’t need a lot. You know, one grain of sugar is like, you know, they having a party. So he said, – What will feed an ant is not food for an elephant. Prabodananda Saraswati says,

vañchito’smi vañchito’smi
vañchito’smi na saṁśayaḥ
viśvaṁ gaura-rase magnaṁ
sparśo’pi mama nābhavat
(Śrī-Prabodhānandapādānāṁ)

– I’ve been cheated, I’ve been cheated, I’ve been cheated. Of this there is no doubt, Mahaprabhu inundated, flooded the whole world with Krishna-prema and I wasn’t touched by a drop. That’s what he is saying, but Guru Maharaj said, – Oh, that’s just telling us such an appetite Prabodhananda has. That what is the flood for others is not a drop for him.

na prema-gandho ’sti darāpi me harau (Chaitanya-charitāmṛta, Madhya 2.45), Radharani Mahaprabhu expressing this inverted way of expressing Their position we can understand They have the greatest hunger, the greatest necessity.

‘Rasa-rāja’, ‘mahābhāva’—dui eka rūpa (Chaitanya-charitāmṛta, Madhya 8), a combination of rasa personified and the one mahabhav, who can extract… So Radharani, She’s extracting nectar from Krishna and distributing to those who’s assisting in Her service. Radha-dasyam, our inspiration is under the guidance of Guru and Vaisnav. Guru-varga, Rupanuga line, to be connected to that divine plane of service.

The mind has a tendency to distract us from our own good, benefit, from what… The sort of thing we should be contemplating. So we know our tendency is not so great. In fact it’s small. So we have a limited amount of time for that type of meditation if you will. And most of the time we try to engage ourselves in some kind of responsible service, that will be helpful.

And the end result of that seva will be grater mindfulness, a greater capacity to hear, speak, remember. Will be the outcome of dedication. But that tendency is awakened, bhaktyā sañjātayā bhaktyā (Śrīmad Bhāgavatam 11.3.31), in association of those who are like that, who has that. They’ll awaken that within us.

Otherwise for the higher devotees, for the nityaṁ nava-navāya-mānam, Krishna’s Pastimes, they are newer,  fresher. Krishna doesn’t look as… He’s inconceivably beautiful but the next time He’s seen… he looks more beautiful than what one remembers it from the time before, not less.

And are told, Krishna is beauty  personified and the Vraja-gopi when they look at Krishna, He’s so beautiful, they become more beautiful. He looks at them, their smiling faces, their lotus eyes etc… and He sees how beautiful they are – He becomes more beautiful. They seeing that Krishna has become more beautiful – that makes them become more beautiful. Krishna’s seeing them become more beautiful… It’s a competition of beauty, charm and sweetness. It’s the opposite… Here everything… riches the pick and then it goes down. Beauty is but a flower, wrinkles will devour, brightness falls from the air, queens have died both young and fair. That’s not..., that’s poetry. Five hundred years old poetry. But you get the idea I think.