…continued from Part 2
The grace of Śrī Caitanyadeva causes no evil. In His grace, there is no indulgence in karma-kāṇḍa. His endeavour was to induce people to remain aloof from worldly and heavenly enjoyments.
The inner eyes of the people are blinded by the gloom of nescience yet, again, the current of thought cultivated by seekers of jñāna (impersonal knowledge of the absolute) devastates the very principle of opening one’s inner eyes by applying the beautifying ointment of true wisdom. The motto of such seekers of jñāna is: “Guru and I are not separate; guru is not eternal; I shall merge into brahma; etc.”
It is useless to grope in the dark, attempting and failing to grasp any clue about Reality. Those who have carefully studied the ślokas of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, such as the ones presented in the following passages, know very well that one who follows the māyāvāda current of thought shall certainly be disappointed in the long run and permanently remain steeped in ignorance. Persons who hanker for emancipation and adopt duplicity for that end waste time in henotheism (adherence to one god out of several, especially by a family, tribe, or other group) and, by becoming impersonalists, they destroy their own entity. Even the conception of guru is lost to them. Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu has solved the problem of such contradictory positions.
The ślokas referred to previously are as follows:
(i) Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 10.14.3–4:
Śrī Brahmā said to Śrī Kṛṣṇa, “O Lord, those who spend their lifetime listening to accounts of Your glories emanating from the mouths of true saints and bow low in obeisance, and who give up all attempts to acquire any jñāna leading to emancipation – they bring You under their control, although you are invincible in all other ways. But those who give up bhakti to You, which is the only way to true well-being, only gain troubles as their reward, for comprehending oneness with God is as troublesome as trying to produce grains by thrashing empty husks.”
(ii) Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 10.2.32:
Śrī Brahmā and the other gods, along with all the great sages, said to Śrī Kṛṣṇa, “O Lord, those who think themselves emancipated and shake off devotion to You have impure intellect. They endure a complete downfall from their high position, which was acquired with immense difficulty, for they disregard the only shelter – Your lotus feet.”
(iii) Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 1.5.12:
Śrī Nārada said to Śrī Vyāsadeva, “Even the ability to perceive brahma (absolute spirit) by dint of attaining the highest jñāna, while remaining free from any trace of the dirt of karma, is still not at all praiseworthy…”
Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu has given man the true cid-rasa (the transcendent, fully cognizant flavour of sweetness) and made him experience its difference from jaḍa-rasa (the mundane flavours of this material world). He has thereby set to rest all contending principles, which have their origins in man’s attempt to understand in the inductive way the transcendent entities that descend into this region of māyā, or the world.
Mahāprabhu’s grace has ever been giving us attachment to God with a tendency for offering Him service. His grace brings us real peace, which has been defined by God Himself as a result of fixing the mind with steadiness in Him (Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 11.1.36). He has also said to Śrī Brahmā: “That jñāna related to Me is the highest, and it is the perfectly esoteric mystery (Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 2.9.33).”*
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* [Bhagavān said to Brahmā:] Before the creation of this world, only I existed. The gross and the subtle, up to the indefinable Brahman – in other words the cause (sat) and the effect (asat) – did not exist. Nothing other than I existed. What is manifested in the form of creation is also I, after creation it is also I, and after annihilation only I will remain.
Among the forms of jñāna – jñāna relating to Bhagavān (God), to Paramātmā (the all-pervading Supersoul) and to brahma (Absolute Spirit) – jñāna relating to Bhagavān is the highest. The other forms of jñāna are lower. There is no jñāna of the distinctive features (viśeṣa) of God in impersonal brahma. There is some awareness of His distinctive features in Paramātmā, but it is without the esoteric element. In jñāna relating to Bhagavān, there are (according to Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 2.9.32) four differentiations:
jñāna – His svarūpa, or essential nature
vijñāna – His relationship with His potency
rahasya – His relationship with the jīvas
tad-aṅga or jñānaṅga – His relationship with brahma, which, in this context refers to nature consisting of the three guṇas (sattva, rajas and tamas), the first cause of the material world
It is not proper to ascribe the tendency for material enjoyment, which is so prevalent in religion, to devotion to God. The yogīs (who cultivate realization of Paramātmā) are in favour of majesty, and they practice yoga to acquire vibhūti (super-human power). Devotees culture and worship Śrī Kṛṣṇa’s sweetness, and His majesty plays a subservient part. Śrī Caitanyadeva, out of His grace, which generates no evil like other graces, as pointed out by Śrī Svarūpa Dāmodara, has widely propagated these teachings for the highest well-being of mankind. It is the worshippers of Adhokṣaja Kṛṣṇa who can understand all this; the jñānīs have no competence to do so. They are deprived of the power to comprehend the superiority of the tasty sweetness of devotion, or else they are only immaturely ripe in this respect.
This completes the 3 part series.
Adapted from The Gauḍīya, Volume 8, Number 1, Part 3 of 3
by the Rays of The Harmonist Team
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Rays of The Harmonist
Śrī Caitanya’s Grace Leaves No Evil in its Wake Part 2 of 3
5 February, 2018
by Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura Prabhupāda
…continued from Part 1
In the Chāndogya Upaniṣad (Dahar section) there is a list of many desires and the special resolution one must make to attain each. As long as someone indulges in these desires, their demands will be fulfilled accordingly.
In Bhagavad-gītā (9.25), God says those who act according to their tamasika (dark, or covered) nature worship dark spirits like yakṣas, rākṣasas, vināyakas and other bhūtas (disembodied beings). And eventually they get to stay among them. These desires continue until we develop the inclination to satisfy the desire of God. Māyā (material nature) has kept us within the environment of the relativity of matter and tied us with strong ropes (Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 7.5.31).
It is necessary to rid the jīvas here [in the material creation] of all inconveniences and brush off the dirt of the three kinds of human suffering*. Some people think it is worthwhile to stay amidst the evils of the material world and repeatedly enter within evil realms. They do this to chalk out a plan to secure their future enjoyment of bodily pleasures.
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* (1) from one’s own mind and body – adhyātmika, (2) from others – adhibhautika and (3) from the forces of nature and their deities – adhidaivika.
But this is not the trend of thought among those who are really liberated. When a human being, waking from the depth of sleep, becomes alive to sentience and knows his own identity by the light of the knowledge of the soul, then he may bid adieu to the drawback of perceiving what is not the soul. Before the cosmic evolution of matter began, and the functions of māyā (material nature) were yet still dormant, all of the variegations of Vaikuṇṭha (the transcendental realm) existed. All of the variegations of Vaikuṇṭha are still existing, and they will continue to exist in the future.
When the principle of ekāyana, or intentness with singular concentration, was prevalent – namely, in Satya-yuga, the golden age – only Nārāyaṇa was worshipped. Ekāyana means no numbering. When that principle was stopped in Treta-yuga [the next age], the faculty of intent concentration received a setback, and misery visited men thereafter.
Two ślokas from Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam describe this time, when trayī (the triple form of the Veda) came into existence, and the age of karma-kāṇḍa began with King Purūravā (Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 9.14.48–49).
Śrīdhara Svāmīpāda gives us the gist of these two ślokas in his commentary (ṭīkā) [on Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam]:
“In Satya-yuga almost everyone was sattvika by nature, so they were given to contemplation. But in Treta-yuga, when the rajasika nature was predominant, the Veda was divided and the department of karma (ceremonial rites, etc.) was introduced.”
Then we have Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 12.3.52:
“What could be obtained by men meditating on Viṣṇu in the Satya-yuga, by people performing sacrifices in the Treta-yuga and by persons performing elaborate worship of God in the Dvāpara-yuga, is all available in Kali-yuga through hari-kīrtana.”
The only resource in the present era is hari-kīrtana [uttering the holy Name], and we shall come to know the reality of these statements therefrom. It is not necessary to take the help of what only appears to be the truth. Those who adopt the way of karma labour under much trouble, and the opposite way of thinking is impersonal.
In the Gītā (12.5) the Lord says,
“The impersonalists must undergo even more difficulty because for those who possess bodies, the way of impersonalism is available only with a good deal of trouble.”
The misery of those who are not devoted to Kṛṣṇa is indescribable. They are suffering on account of their own conceptions. It is necessary to be free from such conceptions.
The grace of Śrī Caitanyadeva causes no evil.
to be continued…
Adapted from The Gauḍīya, Volume 8, Number 1, Part 2 of 3
by the Rays of The Harmonist Team
Rays of The Harmonist On-line; Year 11, Issue 1, “Śrī Caitanya’s Grace Leaves No Evil in its Wake”, by Śrīla Bhakti Prajñāna Keśava Gosvāmī Mahārāja is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License to ensure that it is always freely available. You may redistribute this article if you include this license and attribute it to Rays of The Harmonist. Please ask for permission before using the Rays of The Harmonist banner-logo.
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Rays of The Harmonist
Śrī Caitanya’s Grace Leaves No Evil in its Wake Part 1 of 3
7 January, 2018
by Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura Prabhupāda
There are those who are said to have adopted the śreya-pānthā, the excellent path (C.f. Kaṭha Upaniṣad 1.2.1–1.2.2), which leads to mankind’s true well-being, and who are bent towards serving God on account of their being attracted to Him and tied to Him by the purest love – the love naturally found in the jīva’sessential constitution of pure sentience (cit). True rasa (the sweetest sentiments of pure cit) has grown in their heart – when considered in relation to the final Reality; and they have had recourse to the lotus feet of Kṛṣṇa as the ultimate refuge, even to the exclusion of topics of goodness (the highest mode of nature in this world), what to speak of rajaḥ and tamaḥ (the two inferior modes).
The closest associate devotee (or eternal servitor) of Lord Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu – namely Śrī Svarūpa Dāmodara – has described the Lord’s plenary grace as follows: it is the grace that generates no evil in its wake and that is meant to awaken those whose sentience has been clouded by primordial ignorance, having been guided by the mirage-like theory that the world is an illusion. Such people regard knowledge of the Personality of Godhead as inferior to that of His impersonality, which is free from any feature of distinctiveness that may be observable in matter. This is their own imaginary conception.
The knowledge of that final Reality is only accessible through the culture of the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. In the very first śloka of the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, the mutual relationship between God, the jīvas and matter has been shown. Material distinctiveness is, of course, unnecessary. So when these deluded people experience the bitterness of matter, they take leave of material enjoyment, adopting the principle of ‘not this, not that’ in order to get rid of the idea of enjoying worldly objects. But they comprise a group within the class of ignorant people who labour under the idea that the final word is the cessation of the faculty of perception, or the final goal is exemption from any special research with that faculty. This is because, as they think, distress is the track of enjoyment or pleasure, and acceptance of the wished-for road brings about the three kinds of human sufferings: those caused by the mind and body, by other creatures, and by natural catastrophes.
The people who err the most are those who, adopting the doctrine of illusion, cling to matter, mistaking it for spirit (cit). There is no reality in it. They wrongly opine that attempts to acquire knowledge through transcendental devotion are of the same type as attempts for the limited knowledge of material enjoyments. They have erroneously given the highest place to the doctrine of non-distinctive impersonality, disregarding objects that are favourable to the service of God and ignorantly keeping aloof from that service. We should be anxiously craving for the real good that Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu has shown by declaring the unnecessariness of their impersonal doctrine.
They have found themselves in a fix, having indulged in the wrong thirsts and having presented the Plenary Entity as one wanting in fullness. Such people are really miserable, having established themselves in the belief that there is variegation only in the world of matter and that attributing variegation to cit is only a phase of deliberation on the inert nature of matter. Without fail, the error of considering the distinctiveness of cit as equal to that of matter brings about one’s downfall, instead of producing the desired object. The sentimental sweetness of matter must be destroyed or dried up. But God Himself is the embodiment of tasty sweetness (C.f. “raso vai saḥ” – Taittirīya Upaniṣad 2.7) and, as such, that tastiness – the very flavour of sat-cit-ānanda, or the embodiment of eternity, sentience and bliss – must last forever. If it did not, one’s deliberation would end in the Buddhistic conception of the morphologists* or mere logomachy** of the māyāvādīs.
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* C.f. linguistic morphology (the study of words, their etymology, and their interrelationships)
** arguing about words
As long as the principle of material distinctiveness is not destroyed, men will have to keep away from the vicinity of Reality, being satisfied only with materialism. But the moment their sentience is roused to wakefulness, they will understand the distinctiveness of cit, and it is then that they will acquire competence to listen to the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. Others must enter either the fold of henotheism (worship of one of several deities) or impersonalism (non-distinctiveness). We should culture the transcendental rasa after going beyond the region of material distinctiveness.
to be continued…
Adapted from The Gaudiya Volume 8, Number 1, Part 1 of 3
by the Rays of The Harmonist team
Rays of The Harmonist On-line; Year 10, Issue 12, “Śrī Caitanya’s Grace Leaves No Evil in its Wake Part 1 of 3“, by Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura Prabhupāda is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License to ensure that it is always freely available. You may redistribute this article if you include this license and attribute it to Rays of The Harmonist. Please ask for permission before using the Rays of The Harmonist banner-logo.
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