Do those who study the Gita go to Vaikuntha or Goloka Vrindavana?
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Question, I heard in a class that Krishna never leaves Vrindavan and that Krishna outside Vrindavan, like in Dwaraka, is a Vasudev expansion of the original Krishna. Later on in another context, I also heard that those who worship the Vasudev form in Dwaraka go to Vaikuntha, while those who worship Krishna in Vrindavan go to Goloka Vrindavan. Then what about those who worship Krishna as the speaker of the Bhagavad Gita, which according to this principle is spoken by the Vasudev expansion of Krishna which is outside of Vrindavan.
As Bhagavad Gita is central scripture for Gaudiya Vaishnavas, the fate of a follower of Bhagavad Gita must be Goloka Vrindavan. But then how should we understand the above principle? Answer, we have to understand the subtleties of Tattva and Rasa. From the Tattva point of view, Krishna is one.
There is Vasudev, Krishna, Vrindavan, Krishna, they are all one. From the Rasa point of view, Krishna relishes the maximum Rasa in Vrindavan. And in Vrindavan, Krishna never uses any weapons.
Krishna's pastimes, Uddhava when he is remembering Krishna in chapters 2 & 3 of the third canto, described that Krishna's killing of the demons was, it was just like a child playing with toys. So the whole mood of Vrindavan is of a playful relish, whether it is in the conjugal pastimes or the pastimes of killing demons. The whole mood is of mirth and merriment.
And very intimate relationships are reciprocated between Krishna and his devotee. So in terms of Rasa, there is difference. In terms of Tattva, they are the same person.
That's why there is no need to unduly overemphasize these differences. Now having said that, Jiva Goswami also mentioned this in his Brahma Samhita commentary, that those who worship Vishnu go to Vaikuntha. Then he also describes, what about those who worship Krishna in a Vaikuntha mood? That means those who do not worship Krishna in a Vaikuntha mood, they consider Krishna to be also the god of opulence, not the god of intimacy, Aishwarya Bhava.
So he describes that actually there is Goloka Vrindavan and around Goloka Vrindavan, there is Vaikuntha Vrindavan. So in Vaikuntha Vrindavan, Radha and Krishna, they appear like king and queen, just as Vishnu and Lakshmi and Narayan are in the Vaikunthas. And those who worship them go to that place.
So now in Goloka Vrindavan itself, there is Vrindavan, there is Mathura and there is Dwarka. Of course there is Navadvip also over there, but the point is there is, if we look at the overall understanding of what the spiritual world is, from the very broad hierarchical point of view, there are Vaikuntha, there is Ayodhya and then there is Goloka. So as the rasa evolves more and more, then Vaikuntha has mostly the Dasya rasa, then there is Sakya also in Ramlila, then greater intimacy no doubt, that's why slightly higher and then there is Goloka where all the five rasas are there.
Now this is the broad hierarchy, within Goloka also some people may worship Krishna in the mood of Aishwarya, so then they go not to the Madhurya Goloka Vrindavan, but to the Aishwarya Vrindavan, that is Vaikuntha Vrindavan. But Dwarka is a transition between the two. Dwarka is not exactly entirely Aishwarya, it is Krishna only who is being worshipped and actually Uddhava has an intimate relationship with Krishna.
The Queens of Krishna in Dwarka also have quite a close relationship with Krishna. Their rasa is also Madhurya Bhava, but that Madhurya Bhava is permeated with an awareness of Krishna's greatness, which is much more than the awareness of Krishna's greatness that is there in Goloka. So now who goes where ultimately it depends on everybody's consciousness and everybody's particular rasa and everybody's Swaroopa, that's why these are very advanced topic that we don't need to bother too much, but still we can try to understand the general principles.
So what will happen to those who study the Bhagavad Gita? Now firstly, the Bhagavad Gita is an extremely important book. At the same time, it is not a central book of Gaudiya Vaishnavism per se. It is a very important Vaishnav book and as Vaishnavism as a foundation of Gaudiya Vaishnavism, so in that sense Bhagavad Gita is also an important book.
But Chaitanya Mahaprabhu doesn't quote very extensively from the Bhagavad Gita, nor do the Goswamis quote a lot from the Bhagavad Gita because Gaudiya Vaishnavism is focusing on how there is the highest Madhurya rasa over there in the relationship with Krishna. So that has been the primary thrust. So in a sense, in the hierarchy as I said, Vatsala Prabhupada has given us the three primary books.
The Bhagavad Gita is like a Vedic book in the sense that it is practically accepted by personalists, impersonalists, even demigod worshippers to a large extent, they accept the authority of the Bhagavad Gita. Although they may try to say the Bhagavad Gita teaches all paths are one or something like that. But Bhagavad Gita is like a Vedic book.
The Bhagavatam is like a Vaishnav book. It's not like, it's a Vaishnav book in the sense that it very unambiguously focuses on Vishnu and on Krishna, specifically in the 10th canto. And the Chaitanya Charita Amrit is the Gaudiya Vaishnav book.
So in this way, Prabhupada has given us a progression. So he starts with the Vedic book which gives a broad overview of the various Vedic processes and then focuses on Bhakti and Bhagavan. And then that is the broad Vedic book.
Bhagavatam is a Vaishnav book. Although there are also references to the broad Vedic path, but there is focus more on the Bhagavatam's central dialectic is two. One is the contrast of Karmakand and Bhakti and the second is Shuddha Bhakti and the second is the contrast of Jnanakand and Shuddha Bhakti.
So beyond this Gaudiya Vaishnav, Chaitanya Charita Amrit is just focusing on pure love for Krishna only and how that is practiced. So the Bhagavad Gita has not been very extensively commented on in our tradition. It is not that every Acharya and every generation has commented in the Bhagavad Gita.
As if Chakravarti Pada was the first Acharya to comment and after that Baldev Vidya Bhushan and then after that Bhaktivinoda Thakur and then Shri Prabhupada's commentary. So we have had several generations of Acharyas and not a lot of Acharyas considered very important to comment on the Bhagavad Gita because the focus of Gaudiya Vaishnavism is Madhuriya Ras and Bhakti and the Bhagavad Gita is focusing primarily on establishment of Bhakti as the best sadhya and Bhagavan as the ultimate sadhya. Bhakti as the best sadhan and Bhagavan as the ultimate sadhya.
So this is like assumed preliminary knowledge in Gaudiya Vaishnavism. It's not that Bhagavad Gita is unimportant but with respect to the unique thrust of Gaudiya Vaishnavism, Bhagavad Gita was not considered important. But as the society became more and more influenced by Kali and Vedic principles were more and more obscured, then the Acharyas realized that even within Gaudiya Vaishnavism, we cannot just focus on the Gaudiya aspect of Gaudiya Vaishnavism.
People have to be brought from the animal level to the human level, from the human level to the spiritual level, from the spiritual level to the devotional level, from the devotional level to the pure devotional level and then within the pure devotional level to the Madhuriya Ras pure devotional level. So it's a huge multi-level journey from animal to human to spiritual to devotional to pure devotional to Madhuriya Ras pure devotional. It's a six level journey and actually we can understand what was Shrila Prabhupada's challenge in doing all this.
It's remarkable what he has done but so for this purpose of getting people from the lowest level upwards, then to introduce people to the broad Vedic culture, Shrila Prabhupada considered Bhagavad Gita to be a very foundational book in the presentation of Krishna Consciousness to the world and we may say that we are Gaudiya Vaishnavas today but actually speaking most of our upbringing, our education and our conceptions have been formed in a context where the Vedic culture was either not present or it was only nominally present. That's why even the idea that there is a difference between human life and animal life and that the soul should be the center of one's pursuits, we may not have really understood this deeply before we are introduced to Krishna Consciousness. So even the basic teachings of Vedic culture are what we need to learn and that's why Bhagavad Gita is a very important book for us to assimilate so that we can move forward to the further revelations that Gaudiya Vaishnava tradition is giving us.
So for us Bhagavad Gita is very important, Shrila Prabhupada emphasized that we should study the Bhagavad Gita very carefully that will create the foundation by which we can get the special blessings that Gaudiya Vaishnavism is offering us. At the same time, the Bhagavad Gita study alone, it can surely liberate us but again where we will go after studying the Bhagavad Gita alone will depend on what conception of God we develop by studying the Bhagavad Gita. So if somebody becomes attracted to Krishna in Vaikuntha Bhav, then one will go to Vaikuntha Vrindavan.
If somebody considers Krishna to be an incarnation of Vishnu and with that way studies Bhagavad Gita, then the person depending on which form of Vishnu the person is attracted to, that person will go to that Vaikuntha Loka and if a person studies Bhagavad Gita with an understanding of the speaker of Krishna being the being Vrindavan Krishna ultimately, then such a person will go to Ugaloka Vrindavan. Now it doesn't matter that it was Vasudev Krishna who spoke the Bhagavad Gita and not Vrindavan Krishna. What is important is that what is the message that is given because as I said the difference is primarily from the Rasa point of view, not from the Tattva point of view and the concept of Rasa is not a major thrust of the Bhagavad Gita's teachings.
That's why who spoke the Bhagavad Gita doesn't matter. If you understand the conclusion of pure devotional service from the Bhagavad Gita and then we practice pure devotional service or aspire to practice pure devotional service as it is taught in the Gaudiya Vaishnava tradition, then surely we will make spiritual advancement and we can also attain Goloka and others who study the Bhagavad Gita, other Vaishnavas who study the Bhagavad Gita with slightly different conceptions will get accordingly slightly different destinations. But all we shouldn't unduly maximize the differences because all of them are the spiritual world, all of them are eternally blissful, all of them are free from the miseries that characterize material existence and all of them are the supreme attainment of life.
So the Bhagavad Gita can offer us that and that is far more important for us at our level than the subtle differences of which planet within the spiritual world we go to and which rasa we enjoy. Firstly we have to become free from Indra Tukti rasa and we have to develop the attraction to Krishna and that the Bhagavad Gita can surely help us to do. So that's what we need to focus at our stage.
Thank you.