All glories to the assembled devotees. Please accept my humble obeisance as I ask for you indulgence in reading and replying to this rather lengthy commentary on mantra 6 of Sri Isopanisad:
This wonderful passage demonstrates the moral position which stems from Krishna Consciousness. When one comes to the realization of the previous teachings, one will recognize that a relationship exists between the Lord and everything and everyone else. Each human, animal, plant, rock, or atom is part and parcel of the Supreme Lord. Everything exists to serve Lord Sri Krishna, and Lord Sri Krishna is within everything. Once that realization is actualized, then one may come to the ethical stance that nothing or no one should ever be hated or despised, because to hate or will ill to another is to direct that venom at the Lord. On the other hand, to see oneself as the servant and to look upon all things and everyone with love and devotional service in mind is to direct the love which is the base of one's heart to the Lord. That is the nature of Bhakti.
A beautiful passage in the Ramayana demonstrates this idea. Hanuman, upon realizing the true nature of Lord Sri Rama, asks Him for a teaching. Lord Sri Rama replies that the most beloved to Him is the person who sees himself as the servant, and everyone and everything else as his master. In this vein, Srila Prabhupada would frequently refer to himself as the servant of the servant of the servant. Such a person may be referred to as the maha-bhagavata. However, to attain such a level is not a quick or easy path. In fact, there are three distinct stages one must move through in order to realize the Supreme Lord's presence. The vast majority of people do not make it past the first stage.
The first, and lowest, stage is kanistha-adhikari. Unfortunately this is the stage that most people in the world find themselves in. Individuals at this level will attend religious services at a temple, church, mosque, etc. at specific times to engage in worship. They may follow certain prescribed rules, or mouth words that have been memorized without real understanding. These individuals do not usually carry this activity over into their daily lives, because they believe that the Lord is only present in those Holy places. So for them, worship only takes place within the Holy site. These individuals may mouth the desire to attain realization or to transcend to the spiritual plane, but they remain fixed in the material world, and concern themselves with material things. The kanistha-adhikari do not engage in, nor understand their role in, devotional service, and no one may attain realization without devotional service. Most people do not move beyond this stage.
The second stage is madhyama-adhikaris. As Srila Prabhupada describes in his purport: “These devotees observe the distinctions between four categories of being: 1. The Supreme Lord; 2. The devotees of the Lord; 3. The innocent, who have no knowledge of the Lord; and 4. The atheists, who have no faith in the Lord and hate those in devotional service” (p.44). Because of the awareness of these distinctions, the madhyama-adhikaris treat people differently. The object of their love is the Lord, and so they desire to associate with those who are like minded, namely, the devotees of the Lord. In this way, those who are engaged in devotional service may remain in the presence of others who are engaged in devotional service. In addition, because of knowledge of these distinctions, he/she will attempt to bring knowledge of the Lord to the innocent, and to avoid conversing with the atheist. Of course, therein lies the difficulty. As Shankara stated in “The Crest Jewel of Discrimination”, what appears to be a duality is in fact a non-duality. Once one attains true realization one is able to realize that the distinctions of the material world do not exist in the Absolute Truth.
The third, and highest stage, is uttama-adhikari. These people do not discriminate or recognize any distinction within the material world because they are able to see everything in relation to the Supreme Lord. These individuals have attained the realization that everything is part and parcel of the Lord. The man, woman, animal, plant, or atom has no fundamental differentiation. It is our attachment to the material world that causes us to recognize these distinctions, but as we have already seen, everything that is in this material plane is an appendage of the Lord, and therefore not fundamentally distinct. The material bodies may be different and have different beliefs, but the divine spark, the atman, within is what is real. This is what unites everything in existence and why we may refer to the oneness of the Lord. To come to this final realization one must not, like the materialist of stage one simple mouth or give false pretense to this unity, but must truly come to believe it and embrace it as the Absolute Truth. This takes dedication, and a willingness to follow in the footsteps of the great acaryas, the perfected teachers who came before us.
This point is a crucial one, so I felt it appropriate to make a few additional comments. The acaryas are those who teach by example. For example, Srila Prabhupada is the founder-acarya of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, and as such we may look to his activities and pastimes as an example for our own. One finds this notion quite frequently in the Eastern world. For example, Confucius taught that in order to cultivate and practice virtue in the hopes of attaining sagehood, one must follow in the footsteps of one who was already a sage. In the Western world, one finds few who like the idea of being a follower. Instead, we want to be leaders. In the vein of Friedrich Nietzsche, westerners seek to be Ubermensch. However, this idea of the acarya is not completely alien to the West. In fact, Lord Jesus was an acarya, and the potential exists for those of the Christian faith to follow in his example and footsteps.
This willingness to follow the acaryas is crucial due to the defective nature of the material world. As Srila Prabhupada states, "one cannot see properly unless one has heard from a superior source, and the highest source is the Vedic wisdom, which is spoken by the Lord Himself" (p. 46). In earlier yugas, the human mind was sharper, more intelligent, and able to retain what it had heard, and so one could hear the Vedic wisdom from a bona fide spiritual master, and once heard could be retained and followed. Now in the Kali-yuga, our memories are not so good and our minds not so sharp, and so things have become cloudy. Many people have picked up a text, or listened to a teaching, and one can find countless commentaries on Vedic wisdom, however, not everyone who speaks on these topics is part of the disciplic succession, which further muddies the waters. By following an acarya, one is receiving the original message from the Lord Himself. One's eyes are opened to the Higher Truth. As stated in Bhagavad-Gita, "only one who is already on the liberated platform can become an uttama-adhikari devotee and see every living being as his own brother" (BG 18:54).
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