Understanding the spiritual world, the power of bhakti and Narottama Das Thakura’s contribution to the bhakti tradition

[Bhagavatam class on Srimad-Bhagavatam 3.15.15 at ISKCON, Denver, USA]

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Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Hare Krishna. So, today morning we are discussing from one of the most spiritually evocative sections of the Bhagavatam, where there is a description of the spiritual world. And here, the Vaikuntha planets have been described, and Shabda Gaucharam.
So, Srila Prabhupada writes in the purport that they can be understood only by hearing. So, I’ll talk three points in today’s class. First, I’ll talk briefly about the nature of the spiritual world.
Second, I’ll talk about the nature of the process for accessing the spiritual world. And third, the nature of how that process is adapted according to time, place, circumstance, so that the spiritual world can be accessed. And that third part, I’ll talk about Narottam Das Thakur, whose disappearance we are celebrating today.
The spiritual world is, the idea that there is some world beyond this world is almost universal in all the traditions of the world. In fact, historians of philosophy say that the defining difference in the modern and pre-modern thought is the acceptance of some other world beyond this world. Modern thought, which was primarily driven by science, started focusing on this world alone.
This world is all that exists, this world is all that can be explained. So, Carl Sagan was a famous scientist. So, he made a documentary series called the Cosmos.
And he started that by saying that the cosmos was all that existed, is all that exists and will all that ever exist. Now, this is not a scientific statement. It’s an ideological statement.
There is no scientific way that anyone can prove that this world is all that exists. All that we can say is, this world is where science looks for explanations. So, if I decide, okay, my jewelry has been stolen and I’m looking for the jewelry inside the house.
And I decide I’m not going to look at anything outside the house. So now, I can’t know if I’m only looking inside the house, the house is locked, because of a snow storm coming, all the windows are barred, the doors are closed. Then I don’t look outside the house at all.
Then whether anybody exists outside the house, whether there’s a thief outside, I can’t know anything if I have no access to the outside world and I’m not even looking at the outside world. So, science focuses on just looking at this world and trying to explain things in terms of this world. So, the rejection of any other world, that is a primary characteristic of modern thought.
And paradoxically, the same modern science, which prides itself on its rationality, has given rise to technology, which is used to spawn up hundreds of imaginary worlds. So, we could say that through technology, what are people trying to do? People play video games, people have watched movies and there are fiction, fiction books written, fiction movies created. And what are people trying to do? They’re simply trying to find some place, transport their consciousness to some place other than this world, where life is at best boring.
Life is often distressing. Sometimes it is titillating, but most of the time it is just boring. So, we can understand the values of a culture by what it values the most.
In today’s culture, who are the people who are paid the most? Sport stars, actors. Basically, they’re entertainers. You know, a doctor who can heal a broken foot gets far less money than someone who can use his foot to kick a ball.
Isn’t it? So, now why is it entertainment has always been a part of human society? But why is it that entertainment is so much an object of obsession today? The sheer amount of money that people spend on entertainment is mind-boggling. In India, there is a cricket tournament called IPL, Indian Premier League. Now, the amount of money that is spent on this Indian Premier League in one year, that is enough to feed all the poor people of India for a whole year.
That’s spending just 15-20 days. So, it’s the colossal amount of money which people spend on entertainment indicates people’s a desperate need for some experience beyond what this world can offer. And that desperate need, craving for some experience which is more stimulating, more exciting, more filled with action and drama, and hopefully joy, that is what makes them so mad with respect for entertainment.
So, basically, this is the material world, this is the spiritual world, and this we could say is the virtual world. The virtual world that is created through technology, through fiction, through entertainment. Now, we in the modern world have rejected the spiritual world.
It’s all just pre-scientific religious mythology. And we rejected that, but then what has happened? We are now craving, creating some other world and are craving for that. So, sometimes when people see the form of Narasimhadeva, how can you believe in a person who is a half-man, half-lion? They may deride half-man, half-lion as this mythology, but then they adore a half-man and a half-spider, or a half-man and a half-bat.
So, somebody may say, no, no, but we know this is just for entertainment, this is just imagination. You consider this half-man, half-lion to be real. We don’t consider them to be real.
Now, it’s whether one considers them to be real or not, when people are involved in it, they get infatuated by it. If we are so much concerned with the rationality and reality, then why are we craving for some imaginary characters? Why are we adoring such characters? Why are we fantasizing about the world in which they live? When the Harry Potter series was coming to its conclusion, the author, she made it like an open contest, what will be the last part of it? And hundreds of people wrote their own stories about how the concluding part of it would be. So, what does it mean? People, they got themselves emotionally, intellectually, totally invested in this.
So, mayi arpita mano buddhir, Krishna says. Physically, we are in this world, but Krishna says, offer your mind and intelligence to me. So, instead of mayi arpita mano buddhir, instead of Hari arpita mano buddhir, we have Harry Potter arpita mano buddhir.
What has happened is, people simply misdirected their consciousness. So, basically, the longing for a life better than what this world can offer us is innate to the human heart. And this longing comes from our spiritual core.
And that longing is fulfilled in the spiritual world. So, the spiritual world is a place of ananda chinmaya rasa, of constant excitement, constant enjoyment, constant fulfillment. That is where Krishna, the all-attractive supreme person, in his many different forms, advaitam acyutam anadimanantarupam.
He is one lord, he has many different forms. He resides over there. And he engages in endless loving reciprocations with his devotees.
And it is that world, which the human heart constantly aspires for. Even if we don’t understand that this is what I’m aspiring for. If we look, not at the specific desires of people, but look at the foundational longing, which is leading to those desires.
So, there is a basic longing for food. And there is a fulfillment, we have a basic need, hunger. And there are different foodstuffs, which that hunger can be fulfilled.
But, the point is, that there is hunger. And there is food. Specifically, how that hunger will be fulfilled, different people may eat different foodstuffs.
Some people may eat foodstuffs which are very unhealthy. Some people may just eat things which may kill them. So, how that hunger is fulfilled, that may vary from person to person.
But the fact is, there is a need of hunger, and there is a fulfillment. We have thirst, and there is water, and there are a wide variety of liquids. So, similarly, the longing for an exciting, fulfilling life, that just goes on and on, that is there within every human heart.
And that longing is fulfilled in the spiritual world. So, actually, the material world itself is not very satisfactorily explainable without considering some world beyond this world. What does that mean? That this world which exists here, why does it exist? What is its purpose? What made this world come into existence at all? Now, if you look at atheism, and we had the atheistic biography of the universe, what would that be? It would be, nothing existed because of nothing, nothing exploded because of nothing, and gave rise to everything.
Now, is that a very rational story? Nothing existed because of nothing, nothing exploded because of nothing, and gave rise to everything. So, there’s no explanation. Why does this world exist at all? So, in the Bhagavad Gita says, that this world is a reflection of the spiritual world.
So, the world that exists over here is for a purpose, and the purpose is to take us beyond this world. So, the point of this world is to point beyond this world. The point of this world, what is the point of existing here? So, theists may say that, oh, you can see so much design and organization in this world, and atheists may say, there is so much misery in this world, and both are true.
So, if theists have a material conception of God or of existence, then they can’t explain that if there is a good God who has made this world, then why is there so much suffering in this world? And atheists who reject God, they can’t explain why there is actually design in this world, why there is so much coordination in this world, why everything, say for example, a storm comes, we say, oh, such a bad thing has happened, a storm has come. But what about the many times when storms don’t come, when things function very well, that requires coordination. So, there is no denying that there is tremendous coordination in the functioning of this world.
And there is no denying that there is also occasional disruption in the functioning of this world. So, what we understand is that this world is like a hospital. In a hospital, there is sickness, but sickness or disease or distress is not the purpose of the hospital.
The purpose of the hospital is not to get the patient to stay there lifelong. The purpose of the hospital is to get the patient out of the hospital back home. Similarly, the point of this world is to point beyond this world.
In a hospital, there is distress, no doubt. Many people are suffering over there. But there is also design over there.
Things are arranged properly. There is this particular equipment for this purpose, this treatment for this. So, the hospitals, if somebody tries to make a hospital into a home, then they will be frustrated.
They can never get the comforts of home in a hospital. So, actually the spiritual world is like the home and the material world is like the hospital. And the point of the hospital is to get people out of the hospital.
Similarly, the point of this world is to point beyond this world. There is a reality beyond this world, which is what we should aspire for. And in that transmaterial reality, there is the Supreme Person.
Krishna talks about this in 8.20 to 23. He talks first about the spiritual world, parastasmat bhavonyo vyakto vyaktat sanatana yah sa sarveshu bhuteshu nasyatsu navinasyati. He says beyond this manifest and unmanifest world, there is another world.
When all in this world is destroyed, that part remains as it is. And then he says, what is the nature of that world? There is avyakta, it is unmanifest. Akshara, it is beyond deterioration.
Unmanifest means it is not perceivable by our senses. That is the supreme destination. And further he says, that having gone there, one does not come back.
And then he talks, what is the nature of this other world? It is not just a diffused light or anything like that. Tad dhama paramam mama, that is my supreme abode. So, it is not just some other eternal reality existing.
In that eternal reality, there is the Supreme Person whose abode it is. And purushahasaparahaparthah bhaktyalabyas tu ananyaya yasyantah sthani bhutani yena sarvamidam tatam. So, 8.22 says purushahasaparahaparthah, that Supreme Person, how can he be attained? By unalloyed devotion.
And what is the nature of this world, of this Lord? Yasyantah sthani bhutani, that all of existence is situated within him. And yena sarvamidam tatam, he exists in all of existence. So, this is a poetic way, if you say in English, everything exists in him and he exists in everything.
This is inconceivable nature. Yasyantah sthani bhutani, everything exists within him. Yena sarvamidam tatam, he exists in everything.
So, this is the inconceivable nature of the Lord. So, everything exists within him means, we can, one way to understand it is that, Maha Vishnu, it is from his bodily pores that the universes come out. So, everything exists within him.
And as the Shirodaksha Vishnu, as the Paramatma, he exists in everything, in every atom. Andantarastha paramanu chayantarastham, the Brahma Samhita says. So, that Supreme Lord, he exists not just in the spiritual world, he exists even in the material world, as its container and as its sustainer.
He exists as the container of the world, that means everything is present within him. And he is the sustainer of this world, he exists in everything. So, this is 8.22. So, here, I’ll move to the second point in the class that, what we’re talking about is, that how is that world to be accessed.
So, purushahasa paraha partha bhagya labhya sthuvananya. It is by the practice of bhakti. So, here in this verse, Prabhupada says that, actually hearing is the way to know about the spiritual world.
So, hearing is a primary limb of bhakti. And the process of bhakti, that is the way to access the spiritual world. Because only in bhakti, we start with that which is spiritual.
In the other forms of yoga, if we look at, basically, before we go into the process of yoga, I may want to think, I think about the spiritual world. Maybe there’s some world beyond that, I want to attain that. That’s fine, that desire.
But how do I get there? If I want to go to some other planet, I have to get out of the Earth’s gravity pull. And for getting out of that gravity pull, we need some force. The force is not adequate, the rocket will go up, it’ll crash back.
So, like that, it’s only when the other process, whatever we think, I’ll raise my consciousness, I’ll try to explore something spiritual. But for that, we have to launch ourselves upwards, out of material consciousness. And this launching is extremely difficult.
Because the gravity pull is so strong, the objects that are launched, they come back. Now, consider a hypothetical situation, where there’s an object that is floating above the Earth. And some other celestial body is, say, maybe an asteroid or a comet, or it’s passing by.
And when it is passing by, it has its own gravity pull. So now, if that object comes in the gravity pull of that passing object, and gets pulled by that, then it’ll be pulled out. So, we can launch that object from here, and it can go out, but that will require a lot of energy.
But if that object can come in the gravity pull of some other object, that gravity pull pulls it out. So, the processes of Karma, Jnana and Ashtanga, Karma Yoga, Jnana Yoga, Ashtanga Yoga, they are like the soul trying to launch oneself out. One can try it, sometimes one may succeed.
But, launching oneself and sustaining that launch against the gravity pull, the gravity pull in this world is material desires. That is extremely difficult. It pulls us down.
But, if we place ourselves in the proximity of Krishna, in the presence of Krishna, then that is like we are coming in his gravity pull. And that pulls us out. It is his gravity pull that takes us towards him.
So, that’s why, when Krishna is talking about attaining the spiritual world, first he said is that, that is my abode. That spiritual world is my abode. But then he is, that’s 8.21, Tad Dham Paramam Mama.
But in 8.22, he says, it’s not that I exist only in the spiritual world. I am the container of this world, and I am the sustainer of this world. I am present here also.
So, the process of bhakti invokes the presence of the Lord. Or rather, he is already present, but in that, his presence, we become attuned to his presence by the practice of bhakti. We may come, somebody may come to a temple and say, okay, these are nice, nicely decorated images.
And then we just go out. But if they come to a temple, and there is a vibrant kirtan going on, the spiritual sound vibration, and that spiritualizes their consciousness. And they feel there’s something special over here.
Something special. Some extraordinary experiences are over here. So, in the Puranas, there is a verse where Lord Vishnu tells Narada Muni, I do not stay in Vaikuntha.
Here it is said that he is residing in Vaikuntha. That is his abode. The Lord himself says, I don’t reside in Vaikuntha.
Nor do I reside in the hearts of the yogis. Now, the yogis, they meditate and try to focus their consciousness on the Lord within themselves. One of the concluding verses of the Bhagavatam says that, in dhyana, the yogis perceive the presence of the Lord in their hearts.
But here, the Lord is saying, I am not present in Vaikuntha. I am not present in the heart of the yogis. Where am I present? That is where I am present.
Now, this is a rhetorical statement. It doesn’t mean that Krishna is not present in Vaikuntha. Literally.
It doesn’t mean that Krishna is not present in the heart of the yogis. There is an emphasis. It’s a rhetorical statement.
The emphasis is, yes, Krishna is present in Vaikuntha. Krishna is present in the heart of the yogis. How can we perceive His presence? But, when the devotees are reciting His glories, that is when we can perceive His presence.
So, it is through the devotees that we perceive the Lord. It is through, not just the devotees physical association, but when they glorify the Lord. That is when we start perceiving His presence.
And by perceiving His presence, gradually we start becoming attracted to Him. So, we are still in the gravity pull of material desires. But the more we bring our consciousness in the awareness of Krishna, by hearing about Him primarily, by the spiritual sound vibrations that talk about Him, it’s the holy name, it’s the Krishna Katha, it’s hearing scripture, reading scripture.
Through all this, we are placing ourselves in His gravity pull. And gradually, that is what will pull us out of material consciousness, pull us out of material existence. So, Bhakti Yoga is the process where we definitely use our determination, we use our willpower.
But we use our willpower not to simply launch ourselves out of material existence. We use our willpower to place ourselves in the gravity pull of Krishna. And Krishna pulls us out of the material world.
So, the Bhakti process, because it accesses the omnipotence of the Lord, it is the most easy process for raising oneself in spiritual consciousness. Because another problem is, even if I come out of the gravity pull, what next? Where am I going to go after that? The space is so vast. So, somebody may transcend material consciousness, but even after that, they may just be lost in the vastness of the Brahma Jyoti.
They may not necessarily attain Vaikuntha. They may not go to the spiritual world, go to the spiritual planets within the spiritual world. So, by the process of Bhakti, we not only get out of the material world, but we get attracted to the Lord of the spiritual world and thus we attain Him.
Now, the process of Bhakti thus involves two factors which go together. One is dependence and the other is diligence. Diligence, diligence.
Dependence means we depend on Krishna. Our spiritual advancement will come by His mercy. That we have to be dependent on Krishna for that.
You know, that other planet, it has to pull us. Then only we will come out of the gravity pull. But at the same time, there is a diligence.
Diligence means that we have to endeavor wholeheartedly. So, when we chant the holy names, we have to fix the mind on Krishna. We are bringing our mind, bringing our consciousness in the presence of Krishna.
Now, sometimes our consciousness focuses, sometimes it doesn’t focus. So, that diligence is, I will keep trying to bring my consciousness in the presence of Krishna. The dependence is, when will my consciousness get attracted to Him? That will depend on Krishna.
So, we have both these aspects in the practice of Bhakti. And both dependence and diligence, actually the combination is surrender. In surrender, we may have the, we conceive of surrender as Siddhrapati.
Now, raising her arms in the hands and helplessness, Krishna, I surrender to you. She’s completely dependent on Krishna. That is one mode of surrender, dependence.
Now, the Bhagavad Gita concludes with Krishna telling Arjuna that, surrender to me. Sarva-dharman parityajya mam ekam saranam vraja. Surrender to me.
18.66. And Arjuna says, yes. Karishe vachanam tava. I will do your will.
I surrender to you. But Arjuna’s surrender is not raising up his hands in helplessness. Arjuna’s surrender is picking up his bow in determination, ready to fight.
So, for Arjuna, in his context, he expressed his determination through diligence. He was an archer. His duty was to serve the Lord and he diligently served the Lord.
So, one aspect of Bhakti is dependence on Krishna. Another aspect of Bhakti is diligence for Krishna. So, there is dependence on Krishna and there is diligence for Krishna.
So, a broad way to understand how these two go together is that in every situation in our life, some things are in our control, some things are not in our control. So, for the things that are not in our control, we have dependence on Krishna. And for the things that are in our control, there is diligence for Krishna.
So, about 20-25 years ago, when I started giving classes for the first time, some devotees gave me some guidelines about how to speak in public. And the last guideline there was depend on Krishna. But only after you have prepared.
So, depend on Krishna is essential. But if I don’t prepare at all for a class, I will just say I am depending on Krishna. Well, that is not my Bhakti.
That is my responsibility. So, preparing for the class, that is diligence. But after that, how much I remember from what I have prepared, how much I am able to express, how much people are able to understand what I speak, that is dependence on Krishna.
So, basically, there are two components. There is dependence on Krishna and there is diligence for Krishna. And both comprise surrender.
So, we surrender to Krishna by leaving to him the things which are not in our control. And we surrender to Krishna by doing wholeheartedly for him the things that are in our control. And this is what the great saints throughout history have demonstrated.
Today is the disappearance day of Shri Narottam Das Thakur. So, I will focus on one aspect of his life which illustrates this combination of dependence and diligence. When Shri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu appeared, the movement of Bhakti was a very, we could say, a radical movement, which is either reformist or we can say revolutionary.
Definitely, it was a reformist movement. Many times people, whenever they hear about India, I just, last weekend, I gave a talk in Yale University in Connecticut. So, there is a Muslim and he asked the question, he says, isn’t Hinduism all about the evil caste system? So, I explained, yes, the caste system is there in Hinduism that exists today, but that is a distortion of the original system.
And more importantly, within the Indian tradition itself, the Bhakti tradition was a tradition of internal reform. People say that, oh, this caste system is so bad, and therefore, many Hindus are encouraged, you just give up Hinduism, convert to Christianity, convert to Islam. We don’t have any discriminatory caste system like this.
But the Bhakti tradition was actually an internal tradition of reform. Many of the greatest saints, they were not from the higher caste, they were from the lower caste, and many of them were persecuted. But they persevered, and eventually, their saintliness became manifest, and they were accepted.
So, we know the famous story of Haridas Thakur. Now, he was beaten by the order of the Muslim magistrate in 22 marketplaces. Now, why was he beaten? It was because the Hindu priest complained that he is disrupting our religion.
The Hindu priest were Brahmins. So, the Brahmins had become caste conscious. They had become conscious of only their privileges.
So, the Prabhupada writes that a Brahmana has two functions. The primary service is through the mouth. Brahmanas don’t do so much physical work.
One is that they share spiritual knowledge, and the second is they receive Brahman bhojan. So, he says Brahman bhojan, that means they are offered food. The Bhagavatam, it’s a verse which says that the food that is offered to the Brahmanas, Lord Vishnu accepts that food with great delight, much more delight than the fire sacrifice offerings that are made.
So, what has happened is the Brahmanas, many of them today, they do only the second function. They only take food. They don’t give any knowledge.
Now, giving knowledge is the primary function. They take food means, they not literally take food, they take Dakshina. Oh, I’ll come, we’ll do some rituals, you give us some donation and we’ll go away.
Now, the primary purpose is to give spiritual knowledge. So, these Brahmanas who were persecuting. So, what happened? They were persecuting the devotees.
They had power at that time. They had influence with the kings. But the saintliness of the devotees, eventually, even if they were from lower caste, that became manifest.
And that’s how gradually they recognized, oh, this is really a saintly person. So, Narottam Das Thakur was like this. Narottam Das Thakur was born in a Kayastha family.
And his father was very wealthy. His father was actually a king of part of Bengal, Krishnanand Dutta. But from his early childhood, Narottam Das Thakur was very renounced.
And astrologers said that either he’ll become a great king or he’ll become a great saint. Basically, he’ll become a Maharaja. Maharaja means one who becomes a king, who controls the world.
Or Maharaja can refer also to a renunciate, who controls the inner world of the mind and the senses. So, he’ll become a Maharaja. And soon he renounced the world and he was a lifelong celibate, devoted to the Lord.
And he went to Vrindavan, he lived with the Goswamis and then he came back. I am not going over the full story of his life. We are focusing on one particular point here.
So, when he came back, he was so saintly. And seeing his saintliness, many Brahmanas, many people took initiation from him. And even some Brahmanas even took initiation from him.
So, even when we talk about Brahmanas, it’s not just one monolithic unit. There are some Brahmanas who were very power conscious, privilege conscious. There are other Brahmanas who were just pious.
There are other Brahmanas who were just living their ordinary life but doing some Brahminical duty. So, those who were really spiritually oriented among the Brahmanas, they started taking initiation from him. And that outraged the Brahminical community, the orthodoxy there.
They said, how can this person, he give initiation, he should come and take initiation from us. Not that he give initiation to us. He said, this is a complete perversion of the natural order.
That was their argument. And they tried to persecute him. So, they tried to persecute him in various ways.
Now, if you see, Narottam Das Thakur, he is one of the prominent followers of Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. And he never directly got to meet Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. So, after Chaitanya Mahaprabhu departed, he was the person who brought together the Gaudiya Vaishnavas from various parts of the world, various parts of the country at that time.
They were somewhere in Vrindavan, somewhere in Bengal, somewhere in Orissa. He brought all of them together. And in a place called Kheturi, he had the first Gaurapurnima festival, where all the followers came together and he unified Gaudiya Vaishnavism.
He is a very prominent leader. But as he was not just a leader, he carried, didn’t just carry on the tradition, he carried forward the tradition. That means that when the Goswamis lived in Vrindavan, at that time, Roop and Sanatan were accepted as the leaders.
But because the Brahminical orthodoxy at that time was very strong in Vrindavan, in India in general, in Vrindavan especially, so Roop and Sanatan Goswami, although they renounced the world, they did not take Sannyas. Because the traditional idea at that time was only Brahmanas can take Sannyas. And Roop and Sanatan Goswami were Brahmanas, but under the pressure of the Muslim king, in order to protect the devotee community, they had converted to Islam.
And in that sense, they had lost their caste. So because they had lost their caste, so they could, of course, they were renunciates and they could have taken Sannyas. But, na buddha-bhedam janayet ajnanam karma-sangeenam.
Don’t disturb the minds of ignorant people. Krishna says in the Bhagavad Gita. So instead of taking Sannyas, they took another form of renunciation, which is called Babaji Vesh.
They became Babajis. And that’s how in our tradition, instead of Sannyas, the Babaji Vesh became prominent. Chaitanya Mahaprabhu himself took Sannyas.
But because his most prominent followers in the renounced order, Roop and Sanatan Goswami did not take Sannyas. They took Babaji Vesh. So thereafter, all his followers, when they wanted to renounce the world, they took Babaji Vesh.
It is only Bhaktiswami Thakur who first, in our tradition, after Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, took Sannyas. And then Srila Prabhupada, of course, introduced Sannyas. So at that time, what had happened? By the time of Bhaktiswami Thakur, the Babaji Vesh had become very disreputable.
Because many of the Babajis, in the name of being renounced, while pretending to be renounced, they were doing all kinds of illicit activities. So he wanted to avoid the negativity that was associated with Babaji Vesh. And because at that time, there were monks from impersonalist traditions who had come to America, become very famous.
So Sannyas was considered very respected. So Bhaktiswami Thakur gave himself Sannyas. Because there was no Sannyasi to give him Sannyas.
There was no Sannyasi in our tradition to give him Sannyas. So he gave himself Sannyas. And Srila Prabhupada followed in his footsteps.
So that’s a different subject. But the point which I am making is that Roop and Sanatan Goswami, they deferred to the Brahminical orthodoxy at that time. And they themselves neither took Sannyas, nor did they directly initiate disciples.
The only disciple we could say was Jiva Goswami. But he was also their nephew. So everybody else who came there, although Roop and Sanatan were the leaders, they did not give initiation.
So Narottam Das Thakur went to Vrindavan. He took initiation from Loknath Goswami. And Jiva Goswami, he was born in the Brahminical family.
So of course, Roop and Sanatan were also born in the Brahminical family. But Jiva Goswami had never converted like that. So whenever later generations of Vaishnavas came, we have the second generation, Srinivas Thakur, Srinivas Acharya, Narottam Das Thakur, Shyamanand Pandit, they took initiation from different people.
They took shiksha under Jiva Goswami. So the point I am making here is that in Vrindavan, because the Brahminical orthodoxy was very strong, Roop and Sanatan Goswami did not directly initiate any disciples. But times keep changing.
And the same thing, sometimes a particular battle may be very difficult to fight. And one may decide not to fight this battle. Let us keep practicing bhakti without disturbing people.
But then as times change, then we may decide this is a very important battle to fight. So Narottam Das Thakur, when he came back to Bengal, he felt that this notion that birth by caste, that caste by birth, that was choking, choking bhakti, choking dharma. And he decided to openly oppose it.
And the way he opposed it was by giving initiation. He himself gave initiation. And because he was such a spiritually effulgent person, that at that time, even some Brahmanas came and took initiation from him.
So now the Brahmanas became very angry. The Brahmin orthodox, those who were in power, they became very angry with him. And they said that, you know, we will defeat him.
So how do we defeat him? So they said, let us challenge him for a debate. And we’ll prove that he doesn’t have any scholarly credentials. We are the real scholars.
And if he is defeated in debate, then he will be discredited. But then one of the Brahmanas said, you know, I’ve heard he’s very learned. In his childhood itself, he had learned Sanskrit.
And Narottam Das Thakur said to whatever he would hear, he would remember. He was very learned. So they said, let us go and, first of all, let us just go and test the waters a little bit.
So they sent a couple of young Brahmanas to go to where Narottam Das Thakur was staying. And they went there, outside his, outside his place where he was staying, there were some vegetable sellers. And they were discussing Shastra.
They were talking about the glory of Bhakti and they were quoting verses about the glory of Bhakti. And when these Brahmanas heard this, they were so mesmerized. They said, we have never heard the message of the Vedas spoken so beautifully.
So they had gone there to find out, to find chinks in the armor of Narottam Das Thakur. But just by hearing from his followers, they became so attracted that they became his followers. So they went there and Yad Gatwan and Yad Gatwan, they did not come back only.
They became his followers. So the other Brahmanas became even more alarmed. And eventually, they decided to challenge him for a debate.
But they found, even before a debate could take place, that even his followers were so scholarly that they, they just had to have some, like you test the water before a debate. So they had to have some casual conversations at different places. And they found, now what had happened, Narottam Das Thakur himself was not a Brahmana, but his followers were Brahmanas.
And they themselves were very learned. But their learning previously had been mostly like Karmakandi, ritual-centered. But Narottam Das Thakur guided them towards the devotional essence.
And then when they, so the Brahmanas who were in power, they talked with the Brahmanas who were the followers of Narottam Das Thakur. And they found even these Brahmanas are more learned than us. So then they just abandoned him.
Said, nothing doing. We can’t debate with him. They will only be disgraced if we debate with him.
So Narottam Das Thakur is a prominent Acharya who, who very actively worked against the caste system. So what he did was, his contribution is not just, not just to the intellectuals. Vishal Prabhupada, when he started the Bhaktivedanta Institute, you know, the first scrapbook that Sadāpur Prabhu wrote based on a meeting with Bhaktivedanta Institute, he said they had four purposes for it.
This one is to preach to the scientists. Second is to preach to the general educated people. Third is to preach to students who will become future scientists.
And fourth is to preach to the devotees so that they can be equipped for scientific preaching. So basically, there is, there is preaching to the class and there is preaching to the mass. So Prabhupada wanted his scholarly followers to do both.
So preach to the scientists, but preach to the students, preach to general community. So Narottam Das Thakur did both. So he was a very powerful intellectual and he was so inspirational that even Brahmanas took initiation from him.
But he is most remembered not so much for his class preaching, but for his mass preaching. His mass preaching was that he composed songs. His songs made the wisdom of the Vedic literature accessible to the people in general.
In every tradition, the tradition’s viability depends on its popularizers. Now popularization is not populism. Populism means we pander to the people in general and we just speak whatever they want to hear.
But popularization means that that tradition is taken and it is made accessible to people in general. So even in science, there are scientists and there are science writers. The scientists talk in their own scientific language, they live in their own world.
And often what they speak is not so easily understandable by people. So who brings science to the common people? It is the science popularizers, the science writers. So they take scientific concepts and explain it in a way that people in general can understand.
And when that is done, that is how science appeal increases. Because complex scientific concepts do understand that. The same applies to spiritual philosophy also.
There are complex philosophical books which are written for scholars. Traditionally, before say Gutenberg invented the printing press, books were very rare. It is books were so rare that if you had to get a copy of a book, you would have to write it by hand from someone who had the book.
So how was the tradition communicated? It was usually communicated in the vernacular language and was communicated through culture, not so much through classes. Classes were there, no doubt. But it was more of song, dance, drama and culture.
So what Narottam Das Thakur did was through his songs, he was like a popularizer of Gaudiya Vaishnavism. He took the message of the Gaudiya Vaishnav Acharyas, himself was an Acharya, but other Acharyas, the Goswamis, and their explanation of the import of the Vedic scriptures and he made it accessible through his songs. Sri Prabhupada says that Narottam Das Thakur’s songs are like the Vedic mantras.
You hear them, they act like thunderbolt on the Anarthas in our consciousness and they destroy the Anarthas. So that is his enduring legacy. Actually, Prabhupada as a prominent Acharya in the Gaudiya Vaishnav Sampradaya, he also did both of these things.
He preached to the classes, he would go on morning walks, he had important people come and meet him and he would have discussions with him. But Prabhupada also wrote books which were simple enough for people in general to understand. And today also for us, as the followers of these great Acharyas, in our own small way, we also have to do our part in sharing their message.
In sharing the wisdom that has enriched our hearts, our lives, we wanted to enrich the lives of others also. So we can pray to Shri Narottam Das Thakur that the immense devotion that he had to Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, by which he did such extraordinary service, that we may get a drop of that devotion and that we may also be able to do a drop of the service that he has done. So I’ll summarize.
I spoke today about the nature of the spiritual world, the nature of the process for accessing the spiritual world and the nature of how that process is applied in today’s world. So the spiritual world I talked, people in modern times have rejected the idea of any non-material world. But then they have spawned their own hundreds of fictional worlds which they take very seriously.
Why? Because the human heart longs for something more than what is offered by this world. The world offers mainly boredom and distress. We want excitement, we want fulfillment, we want enjoyment.
So instead of going down from the material world to some fictional world, we raise our consciousness from the material to the spiritual world. And the spiritual world is not just some diffused light. There is a supreme person over there who is the center and the summit of the spiritual world.
And he is also present in this world as its container, as its sustainer. And he can be accessed through the process of bhakti. But other processes of yoga are like launching ourselves so that we can go out of the gravity pull of material desires.
But the process of bhakti is like placing ourselves in the gravity pull of Krishna and he pulls us out. So in bhakti there are two aspects. There is dependence on Krishna because he will pull us out.
And there is diligence for Krishna by which we keep putting ourselves in his gravity pull by exposing ourselves to Krishna related stimuli, primarily sound. So where sound vibrations related to Krishna are recited, that is where we can feel his presence. And when we, the great acharyas, according to time, place, circumstance, they present the message of bhakti.
So we talked about how in India, the bhakti tradition, although there is a caste system which was discriminatory, the bhakti tradition was a reformed tradition within Indian tradition itself. And depending on time, place, circumstance, the devotees adapt different ways. So Rupan Sanatana Goswami, they did not take sannyas but took Babaji.
They did not directly initiate many disciples. Bhakti Sanatana Thakur, he took sannyas because that was favorable. So practically how bhakti is practiced, that varies according to time, place, circumstance.
So Narottam Das Thakur, he felt he was a strong voice against the discriminatory caste system. And although he was born in a Kayastha family, by his great saintliness, he attracted many people to take initiation from him, not just people of his caste or people of caste lower than him, but even people of caste higher than him, brahmanas. And when the brahmanas tried to challenge him, even his followers were actually more scholarly than him.
So he is remembered, not primarily for his class preaching which was enormously influential, but also his mass preaching which was through his songs. So every body of knowledge, it spreads not just by the content of that knowledge, but by the presentation of that knowledge. Just as science spreads because of science popularizers, so spiritual knowledge spreads because of the popularizers of that spiritual knowledge.
So Narottam Das Thakur’s songs popularize the spiritual wisdom of bhakti given in the Vedic literature. And that is what Shri Prabhupada has also done through his books, for the classes as well as for the masses. And we can seek their blessings so that we can do our part in serving and carrying on their legacy.
Thank you very much. Hare Krishna. Are there any questions or comments? Thank you very much for your day’s experience.
So Narottam Das Thakur’s disappearance was miraculous. Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, when he came to the Padma river, he, actually at that time he started singing Narottam, Narottam, Narottam. And his followers didn’t understand who is this, what is he talking about? But Chaitanya knew that at this place, a illustrious saint was going to come who was going to carry forward his legacy.
Chaitanya Mahaprabhu invested love for Krishna in the Padma river. And Narottam Das Thakur, he was Narottam’s, he came there and he bathed over there. And his complexion became golden, just like was Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’s.
And he became infused with love for Krishna. So it was Chaitanya Mahaprabhu invested that love for him, love in the river and that river gave it back to him. And then he had completed his mission in this world.
He came back by the banks of that same river, where he had sat and where he had received Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’s mercy. And he started bathing in that river. And as he was bathing in that river, his followers, they wanted to assist him.
And they started doing abhishek, taking the water and pouring it on his body. And as they were pouring it on his body, they had understood, Narottam Das Thakur had indicated to him that now he’s going to depart from the world. So when they poured the water on his body, actually his body started disappearing.
In some of the Gaudiya literature, it said that actually his body started converting into milk. The river was water over there, but it started becoming like milk over there. So they were taken aback.
But then they knew that he was going to disappear. So they realized this was his extraordinary disappearance past time. So then they kept pouring water.
And as he kept pouring water, in a sense, he got Jala Samadhi. You know, his body transformed into milk. And the milk went into the water.
It was like pure milk. And then he departed to the spiritual world. So for people in general, for them, such miraculous events are what inspire faith.
And Narottam Das Thakur had this extraordinarily miraculous way in which he manifested his disappearance, by which his saintliness, even those who had been skeptical, who had been doubtful, when they saw the extraordinary mode by which he disappeared, their faith in his exaltedness was also established by that. So in his life and his death, he preached the glory of Bhakti. I heard someone break out in Sanskrit, like the kriya, like to do, and then pause to get it.
Okay, beautiful. Thank you. But then I had another appreciation and question, the nature of this spiritual world and how the copious amounts of energy that we spend on entertainment indicates our general need for something greater than this world.
And then you were mentioning how, you know, someone may say, you have half man, half woman, you know, this is crazy. And then you say, well, you have Spider-Man and you have Batman. Yes, but those are just imaginings, just for entertainment.
And I was just kind of thinking, this has been a theme that I thought about for some time now. The difference is kind of lies in responsibility. Because for an atheist who is absorbed in their imaginary world, but then they’re like, oh, but it’s just, they don’t have any responsibility to that.
Very different words, like, first, we accept these forms of God, and then our responsibility is to serve. So my question is, why do you think, or why is there such a hesitation for a living entity to take responsibility? Because I see this also within like, just the whole New Age culture and also, you know, with impersonalism, like, we’re very attracted to impersonalism, because there’s less responsibility involved. Does that make sense? Okay, yeah.
So people may accept Spider-Man, but they don’t accept Nelson Mandela, because accepting that will bring some obligation on them, some responsibility that we have to transform ourselves. Yes, that’s true. And why is it that people are reluctant to take up that responsibility? That’s because, although at one level people want something higher, but there is a lethargy.
People don’t want to labor to do that. So going back to that point, okay, what is the difference between the conception of Narasimhadev, of half man, half law, and a conception of half and half bad? We could say both are just products of imagination. No, I talk about the difference in a triple E. E, exponents, explanation, and experience.
Exponents means we look at the caliber of the people who are talking about Lord Narasimhadev. They are people who have renounced the whole world, the people who have devoted themselves to the Lord, and many of them are profoundly intellectual people who have analyzed the nature of the material world, and they have written philosophical classics. So these exponents, they have thought deeply, whereas the exponents of fictional characters, there is no philosophy in their life.
They have not renounced the world. They teach about this, they talk about some fictional characters, and they make a million dollars out of it. So the caliber of the exponents, if we see, is very philosophically astute.
That is the first thing. Second is explanation. Explanation means, if we look at, not just the idea of half man, half law as God, but there is a whole worldview that comes with it, which helps us to make sense of life, to make sense of the world.
It gives us a sense of purpose in this world for us. Whereas, when we get into a fictional world, it is the explanations, there are no explanations there at all. So there is simply stop thinking and enjoy.
Just enjoy. In fact, whenever people enjoy fiction, there is what is called in fictional circles as the suspension of disbelief or suspension of skepticism. Just to enjoy, you stop using your rational mind.
Just enjoy. So actually, there is no deep thought involved. There is no explanation.
Okay, a spider man exists or a batman exists and he comes and rescues people who are in danger. But what after that? What is the purpose of life? There is no explanation of life per se. So the explanation is very coherent when it comes to the bhakti worldview in which, say, Lord Krishna, Lord Narasimha Deva are enthroned as the supreme.
And the third is the experience. Experience means, okay, by superman and spider man, batman, batman fans, they may enjoy reading about batman and Krishna bhaktas may enjoy hearing about Krishna. But the difference is the transformation that results.
That is, bhakti pareesha anubhava virakti ranyatrajya. The process of bhakti is so joyful, pareesha anubhava, it gives us the experience of God, who cannot be experienced by any ordinary beings. He is transcendental.
And that experience is so fulfilling that virakti ranyatrajya, that there is detachment from other things. Because we feel this experience is so wonderful. This is what I want more and more in my life.
I want to experience Krishna. I want to love Krishna. I want to serve Krishna.
So basically, the commitment is something which will come when people see the things. They see the caliber of the exponents and get the explanation. And then they themselves get the experience of the sweetness of bhakti.
Then the commitment will come after that. So when people just hear the stories, this is one story, that is one story, why should I commit myself? So to inspire the commitment, the sense of responsibility, they have to have the whole explanation of worldview that is given. And sometimes we as devotees may not present Krishna bhakti in the most attractive way.
Say, a new model of an iPhone has come, say iPhone X has come. Now where they are going to promote iPhone X? In the advertisement, the first thing they are going to show is the price. Is it? No.
The promos, they never tell anything about the price. This feature, this feature, this feature, this feature. And at the end, we have to go and say, what is the cost of it? If they present the product, and then the price is something which is to be found out later.
But for most of us, when we start practicing bhakti, we start following the regulative principles. There is some pride that comes, I am following these principles. So when we meet with people, often what happens? The first thing we tell is, no meat-eating, no gambling, no intoxication, no illicit sex.
And people say, no Krishna bhakti. So, there is a price to be paid, but first we have to tell what the product is. So we explain the philosophy, we explain, we give them the experience of bhakti, and then we say, this is so, this is so wonderful.
I want this more. Then we talk about the price. So if we talk about the price before talking about the product, we alienate people.
So what we need to do is focus on the product first. And what happens because our lifestyle is quite different from the lifestyle of people in general. So people, the price that they have to pay, that is what comes first in their face.
Oh, I have to become, I have to wear these strange clothes. I have to become a monk, I have to become a, I have to become, I have to give up the world. So this otherworldly aspect of Krishna bhakti, that gets thrust in the face of people.
And that’s why they fear. But if we can present Krishna bhakti in a way that is intelligible to them, not that that appears too far-fetched or too demanding. If we can make it how it is understandable, how it is, not only is it understandable, it helps us understand life.
We first present the product and then present the price. Then gradually, people will take it. And Srila Prabhupada, sometimes we may talk of him as, you talk about fools, rascals, condemn people.
That is one aspect of Srila Prabhupada’s presentation. But Prabhupada was also an expert in presenting. One time, a hippie came to him and asked, Swamiji, what is the bliss of Vaikuntha like? And Prabhupada replied, it is like an ocean of LSD.
Ocean of LSD. Now we may say, in which shastra is it said that Vaikuntha’s happiness is like the ocean of LSD? Now we say, LSD is tamasek, Vaikuntha is shuddha sattva, this is offence. Some skeptic will say like that.
But Prabhupada was expert enough to present things in a way that people could understand. So for a person who thinks life’s greatest happiness is taking LSD, for them an idea of an ocean of LSD. That’s wonderful.
That’s what I want to do. I want to go there. I want to be there.
So Prabhupada was expert in presenting things in a way that people could get attracted to it. So we also have to be expert so that rather than focusing on the commitment part, which will come in due course, but we focus on what it offers them, not what it asks from them. So if we focus on the price rather than the product, people become a little apprehensive.
So is it that those who have more material desires, they cannot come in Krishna’s gravity pull? Yes, but it will depend on the nature of the material desires. Sometimes we differentiate between desires. Material is a spiritual.
But not all material is the same. In material also there is goodness, there is passion, there is ignorance. So goodness is relatively speaking more favorable for bhakti.
Ignorance is more unfavorable for bhakti. So what is the nature of the material desire also? Or another way to look at material desires also, some material desires can be anti-devotional. So for example, the desires which involve breaking the regulatory principles, they are anti-devotional.
They will definitely keep us away from Krishna’s gravity pull. But there can be some desires which are just non-devotional. Somebody just has some curiosity, some general knowledge, I want to know about nature, I want to know about, just people have curiosity for general knowledge or whatever.
Some people like to go trekking. Some people like to go swimming. This is not necessarily anti-devotional.
There is nothing devotional also about it. It is non-devotional. And some desires may be pro-devotional.
Pro-devotional means those desires, whatever we get from it, we will be able to use in Krishna’s service. So somebody likes to sing. Now we all devotees sing in kirtans.
But some devotees really like to go into singing. They go deep and they learn about singing. They may do some courses for it.
Now that can be used in Krishna’s service. Whether it will be used or not, that will depend on how strong is their devotional desire to serve Krishna. So rather than saying that material desires keep us away from Krishna, we have to process the material desires and see how are they relating with our Krishna consciousness.
So if the desires for worldly enjoyment are very gross and overpowering, then that means the gravity pull towards the world is very strong. But if those desires are spiritualizable, the desires can be used in Krishna’s service, then that is not necessarily, that is not at all opposed to the principles of bhakti, unless I like to sing, say I like to speak. Now I can speak about Krishna and I can fulfill my desire to speak, but I can also go closer to Krishna.
But if I get so infatuated with the activity of speaking itself, that in order to get a bigger following, I start speaking about things other than Krishna, then that desire is going to take me away from Krishna because I am chasing after popularity. So that means there is a, we could say there is a driving desire in our life and there are other desires also in our life. So if our driving desire is to go towards Krishna, then our other desires can be processed appropriately.
Now some desires may need to be rejected entirely, some desires we indulge in a regulated way, some desires we we we engage them in such a way that they can also help us in moving towards Krishna. But if the the important thing is rather than focusing on, okay a person has a lot of material desires, that’s why that person cannot go towards Krishna. The point is we try to keep ourselves in the gravity pull of Krishna as much as possible.
See Krishna consciousness is not dependent on renunciation. Renunciation is dependent on Krishna consciousness. So that means whatever level of renunciation I have or whatever kind of attachment I have, whatever it is, just start practicing Krishna bhakti.
And by practicing Krishna bhakti as we get taste, then gradually the renunciation will develop in an organic way. But if I try to make renunciation a precondition, then it’s not going to work. So yes, if somebody has more material desires, what can we do about it? Well, I have it.
And some desires can be just rejected. I’m not going to do this. But some desires, the impressions may be so much that we just can’t wish them away.
We can’t reject them. So we may have to process them appropriately. So the Krishna bhakti doesn’t depend.
Krishna bhakti is not, what shall we say, is not unavailable to those who are having material desires. It is available for everyone. But the effect may take more time.
It’s not that somebody who has a lot of material desires can’t come to a temple. They can also come to a temple. They can also practice Krishna bhakti.
But for that Krishna bhakti to spiritualize their consciousness may take more time. But that’s okay. All of us have gone through many, many lifetimes before we have come to this level.
So we don’t have to, if certain desires are difficult to give up for a particular person at a particular time. And rather than worrying about those desires, we focus on trying to connect with Krishna. It will take more time if the desires are strong.
It’s like, say, if somebody is in mood of goodness, then, at least the material desires are less, then that’s like a person is dry wood. When you light it, immediately it blazes. If a person is in the mood of ignorance, that’s like, you know, wood that is completely submerged in water.
Light will take a good amount of time. Or like that wood that is very wet, not submerged in water, very wet. His passion is like wood that is wet, but still is not completely wet.
So basically it will take time. But whatever happens, we keep practicing Krishna bhakti. So is it that if we feel that Krishna is not reciprocating, then, is it that at that time we need to put more endeavor? Yes.
There’s diligence and there’s dependence on Krishna. So diligence we can try to increase. Now, at the same time, the reciprocation from Krishna, it’s not always so easily quantifiable.
Sushila Prabhupada in India was trying to share Krishna bhakti for almost 30-40 years. And there’s no result. So was the absence of that result a sign that Krishna was not reciprocating with him? Well, Krishna did not reciprocate on an external level.
But internally, Prabhupada’s commitment to Krishna didn’t waver at all. And that internal commitment itself was, in a sense, the result of Krishna’s reciprocation. Despite having no material results, Prabhupada was persevering in his service to his spiritual boss, in his service to Krishna.
So he was experiencing Krishna internally. That was the reciprocation. So Krishna’s reciprocation can come in various ways.
But we needn’t stereotype Krishna’s reciprocation to one particular way, that I’m doing this service, and in this service, if the results come, that’s Krishna reciprocating. Sometimes it may just not work out like that. But we may find that we are doing some other service, then we’re getting nice results.
We may decide to focus on this. Sometimes in our relationships, there’s some devotee we try to please, and we do so many things, and nothing seems to please that devotee. But there may be some other devotee, you know, who offers so much warmth, so much affection, so much kindness, love, and we take that devotee for granted.
So Krishna is offering his love, but if we expect that love from this one channel, and it’s not going to come. But Krishna may be offering his love through some other channel. So basically, we have to have openness to appreciate Krishna’s reciprocation.
And if we feel that Krishna’s reciprocation is not coming, then we may have to pray internally, and we consult some of our spiritual guides. Is this the service that I should keep doing, or should I do something else? Prabhupada, he had got that, started League of Devotees in Jhansi. At that time, there was a clique against him, that property where he was going to make his headquarter, that was being taken away from him.
And he didn’t know what to do. So he went to his godbrothers, I think, Sridhar Maharaj he went to, and one of his godbrothers, and he said that, you know, we have got a small community coming up over here, but we need to get this property. So can you come and, can you make this as a center of your Gaudiya Math? And I will take care of this one.
So his godbrother came there, travelled all the way. And then he saw the property, and he said that actually, Bhaktswami Raghuram wanted us to build temples in big cities. So Jhansi is a very small place.
This is, I don’t want to do, we won’t be able to invest over here. So Srila Prabhupada took both the opposition that he got from the people over there, the clique, as well as his spiritual master, his godbrothers telling that our spiritual master wanted us to build temples in big cities. He took both of them as an indication that I needn’t fight this battle.
He just walked away from the League of Devotees Center in Jhansi. And then later on he tried other things, and then he came to America and established Krishna Varkara Consciousness. So the point is that if we feel the reciprocation is not coming in an external sense, and we do need, because we still have some mode of passion, we want to see some tangible results.
So if it is not coming in an external sense, then we may consult devotees, pray in our own hearts, introspect, and then decide that okay, this service is not what I will do. I will do some other service. Or sometimes we may decide I will persevere in the service.
So as long as we are connected with Krishna through a mode of service, that means that capacity to connect with him is itself at one level Krishna’s reciprocation. Otherwise you would not persevere in Krishna Bhakti. But because we want to serve Krishna not just in our heart, we also want to serve in this world.
So we may adapt different things so that externally also the results come about. Did I answer your question? So thank you.