How Chaitanya Mahaprabhu demonstrates Vaishnava Siddhanta through Vaishnava Sadachara in Antya Lila

[Morning class at ISKCON, Soho Street, London, UK]

Video:

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Hare Krishna, good to be here, good to speak to the lordships, good to be here, try to speak something on Chaitanya Charita Amrit. So I will speak today and tomorrow on this theme of how lord Chaitanya demonstrates Vaishnava Siddhanta through Vaishnava Saddhacharya.
How he demonstrates what is the highest truth, but even he is talking here, but we will talk about the significance of the way he is interacting with him. If we consider the typical biography of a person, lord Chaitanya’s biography seems to be a little unusual, of course very unusual in many ways, but it is, say a person, maybe a person is a travelling speaker or somebody is a spiritual teacher, then the more influence they get, the more fame they get, the more success they get, then the more they try to increase their outreach, you know, suppose somebody is a speaker, the more opportunities you get to speak, the more you travel and speak, more and more. Now see Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, he travelled from the age of 24 to 30, that is described in the Madhya Nila, and his tours were astonishingly successful, South India tour, North India tour, they describe, phenomenally successful, and then suddenly after that he stops his tour, and it is not that he is very old, he is just 30, he is quite young, and he has followers, dedicated followers across the country, and he suddenly, he just stops all his travelling, and in the last, not one or two, but 18 years of his life, he is just at one place, which is that place? Jagannath Puri, so the whole Anta Nila is actually describing events that happen at Jagannath Puri, so what is the significance of this, that the Lord suddenly stops travelling, so the Lord’s pastimes, of course have many different purposes, and we can’t understand all of them, but if you look at the overall trajectory, what Lord Chaitanya comes to do, is demonstrate, is to share pure love for Krishna, in the mood of Radharani’s love for Krishna, especially Radharani’s separation from Krishna, so at one level, there is the aspect of sharing pure love, at another level, there is the aspect of savouring pure love, so in the Anta Nila, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu is primarily savouring that love for Krishna, and it’s not that he is not sharing, but he is sharing in a more quality way, that means if you see most of the chapters, see normally if somebody is travelling to various places, you can have many adventurous things happening, you know, you go here, this happens, go there, that happens, but you are staying at one place, and more or less that place is stable, it’s Jagannath Puri, at least when Chaitanya Mahaprabhu was ruling, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu was living, at that time Pratap Rudra was ruling, and he was a powerful king, so it was politically stable, so there was no tumultuous events happening, so most of the Anta Nila is about meetings, you are staying at one place, and there is no big things are happening at that place, then what is the significant thing, it is the people that you meet over there, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, although he is in Puri, you know, he, because already the Puri temple is there, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu doesn’t try to compete with that temple and construct any other temple, normally if we consider, as devotees, what are the services that we do, we build temples, we distribute books, we give classes, and we basically share Krishna consciousness in various ways, so Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, when he is in Puri, what is he doing, he is actually sharing Krishna consciousness by meeting with devotees, you see there are chapters, he is meeting with Raghunath Das Goswami, he is meeting with Rupa Goswami, he is meeting with Sanatana Goswami, he is meeting with Raghunath Das Goswami, primarily the chapters are just his meetings, so through these meetings, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu is demonstrating Vaishnava Sadāchara, and the Bhaktira Samrut, the Upadeesh Samrut says that there are 6 characteristics of loving exchanges, so especially opening our heart to others and hearing others open their heart, these 6 fold loving exchanges are what bond people closer to each other, and what Chaitanya Mahaprabhu is doing primarily in the Antya Leela is demonstrating these 6 fold loving exchanges, and we will see these 6 fold exchanges are demonstrated with a broad gamut of people, normally we could say when we interact with people, we could place the people who we meet with in different categories, those who are say our admirers, our followers, and now a days with Facebook and everything, people use celebrity terminology, so when I travel around, sometimes devotees tell me, I am your fan, I said don’t be my fan, please be my current, what it means is that it is your prayers, your good wishes that can give me energy to continue my service, so there are some people who are like our admirers or followers, there are some people who are equals, there are some people who share similar interest, say for example we are Krishna Bhaktas, there might be Christians or people from other tradition, but who share some similar interest, and there are some people who are our enemies, who are our critics, now we need to deal with all these different kinds of people, and Chaitanya Mahaprabhu if you look at the Antya Leela, it is demonstrating how Chaitanya Mahaprabhu deals with these different kinds of people, he says that if he is meeting with Rupa Goswami, Sanatana Goswami, that’s more or less, it’s vertical, although Rupa and Sanatana Goswami are older than Chaitanya Mahaprabhu in age, but they are all in the mood of his followers, of his subordinates, so he is respectful to them, but there is a particular way of dealing with those who are his subordinates, then we could go to the other extreme, there are people who are critics, there are some people who think their full time service is to find fault with others, whatever you do, it’s never up to the mark, and Chaitanya Mahaprabhu meets such a fault finder also, who is that? Ramachandra Puri, yeah, Ishwara Puri is spiritual master, and so not exactly spiritual master, he is spiritual master’s level, Ishwara Puri is God brother basically, so Chaitanya Mahaprabhu is at the level of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’s spiritual master, so it’s one thing when some equal finds fault with us, but if some senior finds fault with us, and actually the senior is faulty, how do you deal with that? You have to follow the etiquette, at the same time you cannot just go along with whatever they are doing, it’s a difficult, delicate situation, so how Chaitanya Mahaprabhu deals with that, that’s demonstrated, and in this particular chapter, it is demonstrated how Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, shares and savours Krishna Prem with somebody who is from a different tradition, although it’s a similar tradition, so that is Vallabha Bhatta, now Vallabha Bhatta is also known in the Pushtimarg as Vallabhacharya, and he is a very prominent bhakti teacher, and there are thousands and thousands of his followers, so Gaudiya Vaishnavism and Pushtimarg are in some ways contemporaneous, they both started more or less at the same time, and both of them spread, so here Chaitanya Mahaprabhu is meeting Vallabha Bhatta for the second time, the second time, first he has met him in Varanasi, when he had gone for North India tour, Vallabha Bhatta also had been there at that time, and they had a very sweet interaction, now here there is another interaction, so in this interaction, what is Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’s mood? Earlier I said when he meets with Ramachandra Puri, because he is senior, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu does not directly counter him, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu does not directly counter Ramachandra Puri, but at the same time he keeps a respectful distance, and eventually Ramachandra Puri is trying to find faults, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu tries to amend himself, and the devotees feel so fed up, and finally when Ramachandra Puri goes away, the devotees feel as if they are able to breathe again, broadly speaking there are two kinds of people, some people bring happiness wherever they go, and some people bring happiness whenever they go, so the devotees feel, Ramachandra Puri has gone, they feel a big relief, so Chaitanya Mahaprabhu stays respectful to him, but he continues his own devotional service, his own practises, in this case, Vallabha Bhatta, we will see that there will be multiple threads of interaction, or multiple threads of thought in the interaction, but Chaitanya Mahaprabhu here is starting by glorifying those around him, normally whenever we meet someone, say that person is very well known, now we know that person quite well, because they are a well known person, but usually success is never like an isolated phenomenon, some people say I am a self-made person, yeah, even if somebody has worked very hard against adverse circumstances, still we all need some lucky breaks, we all need help and support from others, so Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, now Vallabha Bhatta knows his glories, Vallabha Bhatta has already interacted with him, and he is appreciating Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’s extraordinary devotion, but Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, instead of bragging how great I am, he focusses on telling the greatness of his associates, and in fact he is putting himself, not only saying that they are great, he is putting himself in the mood of their student, says from Sarvam Bhattacharya I have learnt this, from Ramanand Rai I have learnt this, at one level they are all his followers, Sarvam Bhattacharya is the person whom Chaitanya Mahaprabhu has converted, it is he who has brought Sarvam Bhattacharya to a more personalistic understanding, from his previous ultra-logical and impersonal kind of beings, so although he has done this, what is he doing? He is sharing the glories of others, those who are his devotees, and he is using that as a thread of thought, to establish the philosophical point that comes in this verse, that Purushartha Shiromani, the summit of all goals of life is love for Krishna, so now when we have this, when we are interacting with others, normally every conversation, you could say it is like a train, and within that train, when the train is moving, it needs continuous fuel, if the fuel stops, the train stops, or if the brake is applied, the train slows down, if the accelerator is applied, the train moves faster, so whenever we interact with each other, at that time when we speak something, every word that we speak, it is like we are giving a small glimpse of our heart to the other person, sometimes some people are very reserved, may be very suspicious, when they speak in a very guarded way, but then we speak something, and then if we feel that the other person is understanding us, then their statement inspires us to open the heart a little bit more, so that means, each interaction in a conversation, it can either act like a brake, or it can act like the accelerator, and then the conversation can move on, or it can come to a stop, now sometimes we meet with some people, and just naturally gel with them, sometimes some people we meet, and then it is just a formality being with them, or it is like austerity being with them, now both people are looking at the watch and thinking when can we end this, so what is happening, the conversational train is not moving at all, or it is just stopping and starting and stopping and starting, then it can’t gain any momentum, so Chaitanya Mahaprabhu demonstrates here, how he starts this conversation and takes it forward, so he is here in Jagannath Puri with his associates, and in one sense, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu is staying at a particular place, I said earlier that his purpose, while staying at one place, is to demonstrate the 6 fold loving exchanges, actually Prabhupada says in Upadesa Amrita, I mentioned that earlier that, the Krishna consciousness movement is nourished by these 6 fold loving exchanges, it is interesting, and Prabhupada doesn’t say that, at one level we say Krishna consciousness movement spreads by preaching, that is obviously true, but it is one thing which is spreading, but another thing is, we spread in the sense that we plant many many many trees, it is good, we increase the number of seeds that are being planted and they are growing, but what has already been planted that also has to be nourished, then the garden will grow nicely, you can plant new trees, but you also have to take care of existing trees, so this nourishing of the existing trees, that happens through the 6 fold loving exchanges, 6 fold loving exchanges, especially among us giving gifts and taking gifts, sometimes we may do occasionally, we may do periodically, the giving and taking prasadam we do regularly, but what often doesn’t happen is, sharing the heart, and letting others share their heart and their guilt, and when that is not there, then we all experience loneliness, even in association, so the most painful loneliness is not when we are physically alone, it is when we are with people who don’t understand us, then there is practically no way to become free from that loneliness, what do I do in such a situation, so it is when we can hear others speak and others can hear us speak, without judging, without evaluating, without criticising, then what happens is, the exchange can flow nicely, so now we will see later, that Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and Vallabh Bhatta, they will have some differences, and that’s natural, when two people come from two different traditions, then there will be differences, but how are those differences dealt with, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu starts, more you could say for Vallabh Bhatta, the start is more in the informational sense, when you come to a new place, you like to meet new people, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu is saying, he is so glorious, his glory is not in what he has achieved, but what he has given me, there can be different kinds of introductions, when we introduce a person, there can be like an impersonal introduction, impersonal introduction means, this person did this, this, this, that’s good, but there can also be a personal introduction, personal introduction means, yes, this person has done this, this, but this is how I know this person, this is how I have interacted, this is what I appreciate about this person, then say, if the audience knows the introducer, and the introducer knows the speaker, then what happens, if the introducer gives a more personal introduction, then the audience can link much more with them, and that’s why usually, the introducer, has to be someone familiar to the audience, once I had gone for a programme in a college, and then, the two of us monks had gone, so there is one monk, who introduced the other monk, and then sometimes the devotees, their enthusiasm, overshadows their intelligence, so what happened is, that means, a devotee, while giving this introduction, in the college, started speaking, in the mode like a Vyasa Puja offering, it is a completely inappropriate introduction, and then, the introduction got over, and after that, there was one of the students, who was also a devotee, he told me, and the student next to him, he said that, these monks, they have come to our college, and they are just glorifying each other, so, they just couldn’t connect at all, so the mode of speaking was not appropriate, and the speaker was also not like a bridge between the two, so if we are having a college programme, then somebody from that college ideally should be introduced, if the introducer also is unknown to the people, then how are you introducing actually, so there has to be an appropriate introduction, this is a personal introduction, so Chaitanya Mahaprabhu is offering this personal introduction, he is also saying, oh, Sarvambhattacharya is learned in the Shaddhasanas, he is also saying, it is from him, I have learned the Siddhanta Upanishad, now the question might come over here, is Chaitanya Mahaprabhu lying over here, is he saying, did Chaitanya Mahaprabhu learn the principles of Bhakti from Sarvambhattacharya, sometimes, I was just a few months ago in New Zealand, so one devotee asked a question, that does humility have to come at the cost of honesty, that means in order to be humble, do we have to speak something which is not true, like if some devotee comes, Prabhu, you are a pure devotee, now we ourselves know, we are all struggling, pure devotion is a long way away, so does humility have to come at the cost of honesty, it is not like that, the point here is, that Chaitanya Mahaprabhu is expressing his humility, and when we talk about learning the principles of Bhakti, it is not that we, it is an ongoing process of learning, so every time when we speak, we share, it is not just the audience who learns, it is the speaker also who learns, sharing Bhakti is not just a matter of delivering, it is also a matter of discovery, so when we speak, it is by that speaking, we ourselves learn, so when, especially when we speak some philosophy, and somebody else is very influenced by that point, sometimes we speak some point, and some devotee comes and says, oh you know, this class was life changing, really, my life has not changed, how did your life change, sometimes we may take our philosophy in a very familiar way, familiarity breeds contentment, but when we see somebody else very impacted by some point, this must be something special, let me revisit it, let me not take this for granted, so often our appreciation for the practises of Bhakti, increase when we see those transforming others, so when Chaitanya Mahaprabhu sees here, that, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu is saying that, he has taught me, but he knows the system of philosophy, and he has taught me about the supremacy of Bhakti, now what does he mean by that, it is that, he is saying that, it is he who spoke the principles of Bhakti to Sarvabhattacharya, but when a person as learned as Sarvabhattacharya got transformed, then that means, this Bhakti philosophy is really glorious, so in that sense, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu learns about the philosophy of Bhakti from seeing the effect of that philosophy on others, so it is not humility and honesty being two non-intersecting circles, we can be honest, but we can always speak the truth in a way that is humble, and then when he is talking here about Ramananda Raya, he is saying from Ramananda Raya, I have learned about the flavours of Bhakti, about the sweetness of rasa, love for Krishna, and it is not just sweetness, but it is also greatness, this is life’s greatest purpose, so why is love for Krishna considered the purushartha shiromaya, the greatest purpose in life, basically we all have desires, and to be conscious is to be desirous, whenever we are conscious, that means we observe certain things, we observe certain things, this is good, this is not so good, I want this, I don’t want this, so to be conscious is to be desirous, now when we have the desires, what do we do with these desires, so basically the four purusharthas, which are the purusharthas, anyone know, dharma, artha, kama and moksha, so now all these four purusharthas, the four purposes of life, are basically different ways of processing our desires, what do we do with our desires, so dharma is the first step, that is don’t just indulge in your desires, follow some discipline, follow, live a life of virtue, and actually this kind of virtue, discipline, regulation is required not just in the spiritual way of life, it is required in every way of life, if somebody wants to become a musician, somebody wants to become an author, somebody wants to become an athlete, they have the desire, but the first step in fulfilling the desire is dharma, dharma means regulation, discipline, we can fulfil some cheap desires, I just want to eat, I want to watch TV, I want to just, you can have cheap pleasures, but desires which are more deeper and meaningful, it begins first with dharma, discipline yourself, then through discipline what happens, artha, artha means the resource, by discipline we get the resources for fulfilling the desires, so if somebody wants to be an author, then by dharma, by discipline, they start developing the skills, they learn how to write, which words to use, how to construct sentences, what figures of speech, literary devices to use, how to make the writing more attractive, poetic, so this is artha, artha can literally mean, I am talking about these in a generic sense in terms of dealing with desires, artha can specifically refer to money, because money is a resource by which we fulfil desires, but artha can also refer generically to the resources for fulfilling desires, and then after artha comes kama, kama is the specific desires that we have, we try to fulfil them, so through discipline we get resources and through resources we fulfil the desires, and this is the trajectory of life which most people try to follow, now many people try to go to kama without dharma and artha, say somebody is born wealthy, then they can just gratify their desires, but such people who do not go through dharma and artha to get kama, soon their life becomes meaningless, why meaningless? because you just keep gratifying, gratifying, gratifying, it just becomes pointless, so we make sometimes fulfil kama without dharma and artha, like people get into just cheap pleasures, say somebody just thinks whatever I feel like I will eat, whatever I like I will drink, and then eventually what happens, people who just keep gratifying kama without dharma and artha, if we keep doing whatever we like, we end up disliking ourselves, if somebody just keeps eating whatever they eat, then they become sick, then they become they start becoming physically not very attractive, or a person just instead of studying just keeps surfing the net, and one day, two days, days and weeks they spend just playing video games or watching videos or whatever, and after that they start having a very low self esteem, because they start looking down on themselves, what am I doing with my life, I am just wasting my time, so sometimes we might fulfil some kama without going through dharma and artha, but that doesn’t lead to any deep fulfilment, that just leads to disillusionment, but the problem is that even if we go through dharma, artha and then come to kama, still there is not much fulfilment, even when we fulfil our desires, we don’t become fulfilled by the fulfilment of those desires, because there are so many desires, I fulfil one desire, then I get another desire, then I get another desire, so then, so dharma, artha and kama are one way of dealing with desires, another way of dealing with desires is moksha, moksha it means liberation, but liberation is not just primarily like a physical relocation, get out of this material world, liberation primarily is psychological, liberation is essentially liberation from desires, moksha is the desires to enjoy the world, so the soul is here, the body is here, and the world is here, the desire to enjoy the world, bind the soul to the body and the world, so liberation means, the soul says no more desires, fulfilling desires doesn’t lead to happiness, so I just give up all desires, and in some ways, giving up desires can lead to peace, no more agitation, but then, what happens, we don’t just want peace, we want some activity, sometimes when we are very fed up with the people around us, just leave me alone, just leave me alone, we want some privacy, but you know, if people forever left us alone, and nobody ever want to talk with us, no no no, I don’t mean forever alone, sometime I want to be alone, isn’t it, so, if we just reject all desires permanently, that’s not a sustainable state, so what is the best way of dealing with desires, it is, what Prema, when it is said is the purushartha shiromayi, what it means is, that use your desire to desire the desirable, the supremely desirable, so desires are not the problem, the direction of the desires is the problem, so what bhakti says is, that everything attractive in this world comes from Krishna, yad yad vibhuti mad sattvam shreemadurjitam eva ma tattva devaval achyatvam mam tejo amshasambhava everything attractive manifests the spark of Krishna’s flame, so Krishna is like the ocean of attractiveness, and everything attractive will make a drop of attractiveness, so when we learn to direct our desire towards Krishna, then what happens, the more we become absorbed in Krishna, because Krishna is the supreme desirable, therefore, by connection with Krishna, we start getting the supreme joy, when we become, our consciousness when it is connected with Krishna, when it is absorbed in Krishna, it does not need anything else, just that absorption itself is enough, that absorption itself brings fulfilment, and Chaitanya Mahaprabhu is saying over here, that from philosophically, I understood from Sarvam Bhattacharya, that bhakti is the supreme purpose of life, and experientially in terms of rasa, from Ramananda Raya, I understood that the mellows of devotion are the sweetest, and thus he is saying over here that love for Krishna is life’s supreme purpose.
Now how Chaitanya Mahaprabhu takes this conversation forward, we will discuss in tomorrow’s class. I will quickly summarise what I spoke today. I spoke on this, how Chaitanya Mahaprabhu is demonstrating bhakti, Vaishnava sadhana to Vaishnava sadhacharya.
And Chaitanya Mahaprabhu at the peak of his career as a travelling preacher suddenly stops travelling. It is not that he is stopping sharing, but he is savouring bhakti in Jagannath Puri. He is teaching how to savour bhakti, and he is getting his closest associates to him, so that he can take bhakti deeper into their hearts.
So through them he will be sharing bhakti, and he is demonstrating a six-fold loving exchanges with a wide gamut of people. Those who are his followers, those who are his equals, those who are his critics. So how this sadacharya, the proper behaviour with different people can also be used to share bhakti, that’s what Chaitanya Mahaprabhu demonstrates in Andalira.
And specifically here with while dealing with Vallabha Bhatta Chaitanya Mahaprabhu starts by introducing his associates. And he gives a very personal introduction by placing himself as their subordinate, that he has learnt from them. And when he speaks in this way he doesn’t just simply glorify them for the sake of glorifying, but he is glorifying in a way that brings to a philosophical point.
And the philosophical point we discussed is that love of Krishna is the supreme purpose of life. So basically to be conscious is to be desirous, and how we deal with our desires determines our life’s destiny. So dharma artha and kama are basically discipline, then acquisition of resources, and then fulfilment of desires.
So without dharma artha if somebody gets kama then it becomes very meaningless. If we keep doing whatever we like we end up disliking ourselves. But even with dharma artha with discipline and acquisition of resources, we get kama, there is a more fulfilment, there is maybe a little more fulfilment, but still it’s not completely fulfilled.
Some people say I’ll just give up all desires, let me go toward moksha. But that is not a sustainable state. Because we don’t just want peace, we want love, we want reciprocation.
So the way to deal with desires is to direct the desire toward the supreme desirable. So everything that is desirable in the world comes and gets its desirability because it’s a part of Krishna. When we love Krishna, instead of getting drops, we get the ocean of happiness.
And that is what brings supreme contentment. Thank you very much. Is there any question? I was just wondering what makes liberation so attractive? What makes liberation so attractive? It is usually the best among bad alternatives.
If you don’t know anything better, it’s like if somebody is sick and then they may be at their arthritis or something like that, so every bodily movement causes pain. Then they will start thinking if I could just stop moving, I’ll be free from pain. And it’s correct but it’s not complete.
So the pain is superficially caused by movement. Actually, it is caused by sickness. But when there is a superficial diagnosis of the problem, then they feel if I move, it causes me pain.
If I just stop moving, but what will happen? Even if they succeed in stopping moving, it’s difficult, but even if they succeed, and they do become free from pain, afterward, soon, they’ll want to do something. Similarly, whenever we have desires and we try to fulfil our desires, we often get into trouble because of that. If I could just get rid of desires, I’ll be free from this trouble.
That’s an understandable misunderstanding. It appears as if desires are the cause of trouble. But rather, it is not the desires, but the kind of desires.
So, we could say that if we learn, if somebody becomes healthy and then they move, there won’t be pain. In fact, the motion will bring activity, bring joy. Similarly, when our desires when our consciousness is unhealthy, then whatever desires we have, they cause us trouble.
And if we just let go of desires, but if we make our consciousness healthy, purify it by practising bhakti, then the desires that emerge in the pure consciousness, they actually bring joy. Prabhupada, his, you could say at one level, his speciality, of course, many specialities, but as compared to his godbrothers, his speciality was that he had the strongest desire to share Krishna bhakti with others. His desire was so strong that it overcame all obstacles.
And through that desire, so many people have, millions of people have tasted love for Krishna. So, liberation appears attractive because if one doesn’t know about pure desires, then either it is desires which are mostly impure, impure desires or desirelessness. Among those two options, for people who are a little bit more in sattva, desirelessness seems to be the better option.
Please stop. You mentioned observe Krishna. What do you mean by observe Krishna? Observe? Yes.
Absorb. So, what does absorbing ourselves in Krishna mean? It essentially means that our consciousness, it can go in many different directions. Say, right now, you are here in this class.
So, you could say you are focused on this. But say, if your phone beeps, then consciousness goes over there. So, our consciousness goes in various different directions.
But if we focus on Krishna, so focus is more an act of conscious attention or conscientious intentional attention. But absorption is more spontaneous. When we have attraction towards something, then we don’t have to exercise to concentrate.
Just naturally we become absorbed. So, say somebody is studying a physics book, say quantum physics. You have to concentrate to understand what is going on.
But if somebody is a cricket fan and they are reading the latest cricket news, they don’t have to exercise. Naturally they get absorbed. So, absorption means that our consciousness naturally goes towards Krishna and goes deeper and deeper into Krishna.
And that comes through purification. So, now we have to conscientiously focus on Krishna by effort. That is sadhana bhakti.
But as we become purified, what is that conscientious focus will gradually become spontaneous absorption. Okay? So, he is fully absorbed there. Does he still need to come out of that zone of absorption of Krishna? Probably he doesn’t apparently need that.
Okay. Good question. So, if an artist is in the zone absorbed and still they need to come out of that absorption and go towards devotional absorption in Krishna, whatever is anyone’s deepest experience that is their experience of Krishna.
Even if they don’t know that. That means that whenever somebody is very greatly attracted to something, say as an author, as a famous poet William Wordsworth, he wrote a letter to his friend. He said I spent my morning very productively today.
I worked on one of my new poems. After breakfast, I added a comma to the poem. Before lunch, I deleted the comma.
So, three hours you are just thinking whether the comma should be there or not. I said, what is there in comma like that? Now, what is this flavour is getting in that? Actually, that is a manifestation of Krishna. But they may not know that.
So, what is it so attractive about art? What is it so attractive about poetry? What is it so attractive about sports? It is people are experiencing a spark of the divine. Krishna says, mama vartamanu vartante manushya partha sarvajna Everyone is on my path. So, we could understand this in such a way.
Krishna is at the end of this path. And there are people at various places along the path. And wherever they are, they are attracted to something.
They are absorbed in something. Say, somebody is an alcoholic. They drink alcohol.
They are so captivated by alcohol, they forgot everything else because of their drinks. Or somebody is an artist. They absorb in art.
They forget everything else. So, both the attraction of the alcohol and the attraction of the art. Ultimately, it is a spark of Krishna that is manifesting through them.
Through that particular thing. So, everything attractive comes from Krishna. But everything attractive doesn’t necessarily take us to Krishna.
So, alcoholism they get absorbed in that. Now, somebody who is not an alcoholic they say, why do you spend so much money? Why are you so caught with it? But they are caught with it. So, because they are experiencing something extraordinary extraordinary over here.
But that is taking them away from Krishna. So, yes. Now, art is definitely much more elevated than alcoholism.
I am not comparing the two at all in the functional sense. But in the philosophical sense whatever we experience it is an experience very deeply whatever is our deepest experience, it is an experience of Krishna. But if we understand it is an experience of Krishna then it will take us towards Krishna.
So, Prabhupada said that if somebody is an alcoholic and they cannot give up alcohol then while they are drinking alcohol they can think that the taste of alcohol is Krishna. Krishna says, raso ham apsu kaunteya I am the taste of water. In Bhagavad Gita, Prabhupada expands that.
He says, I am the taste of alcohol. Now, Prabhupada is not saying by drinking Prabhupada says, if they think of Krishna in this way, one day they will become great devotees. He is not saying by drinking alcohol they will become great devotees.
It is by thinking about Krishna while drinking alcohol. So, we all have certain experiences which are very deep. We don’t necessarily have to give up those deeper experiences but we have to connect them with Krishna.
So, there is, we could say that it is a big subject but quickly I will answer this that there are broadly two understandings of devotion. There is exclusive devotion and there is inclusive devotion. Exclusive means you forget everything else and just practise bhakti.
Say for example, come to the temple, chant the holy names, worship the deities. So, we exclusively focus on Krishna. Putting out everything else.
But inclusive devotion means we understand that Krishna includes the world. So, whatever I am doing in the world, whatever engagement I am having, whatever experiences I am having I see them or I find how I can connect them with Krishna. So, devotion has to be exclusive to be inclusive.
If we don’t directly experience Krishna then whatever else we experience we won’t realise that we are experiencing Krishna. And then it will be like an artist in his home is very absorbed and they are in an extraordinary state but that state itself will not take them toward Krishna. They will have that state maybe as long as their artistic intellectual faculties are there and once those faculties wane then what will they have? But if they understand if somebody is an artist then they will naturally do that art very diligently and they should.
So, Arjuna, when he was an archer he was absorbed in archery. There is that famous example when Arjuna is asked all the students of Drona are asked to shoot at a bird and they ask, what do you see? So, they say, oh, I see this tree, I see this branch. Arjuna says, I see only the eye of that bird.
It’s interesting, Arjuna doesn’t say, I see Krishna over there. So, he is focused on that target. But his life is devoted to Krishna, his art is devoted to Krishna and thus his archery also becomes a devotion to Krishna.
So, there are some things in the world if we are naturally absorbed in them, then that is good, at least we have some absorption. But if we can connect that absorption with Krishna then that absorption will not only give us some shelter right now but that absorption will also take us towards the supreme shelter. Okay? Yes.
You had a question, Arjuna? You had a question? I missed out the additional part of the class. So, I just wanted to know, what does it mean for practising devotees who are engaged in a specific type of service earlier and then, if at all there has to be a change because of you know, age or health reasons? Yeah. So, if we are doing a particular service and then we have to change it because of age or health.
Yeah, see, bhakti is dynamic. We can say that Chaitanya Mahaprabhu was in Puri and he refused to meet the king, Prataparudra. Srila Prabhupada was the greatest follower of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu in the modern times and Prabhupada was on a tour of the world and he cut down his tour to come back to India to meet Indira Gandhi.
She was the head of the state. So, sanyasi, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu said he should minimise association with materialistic people, should minimise association with the opposite sex. Now, Indira Gandhi was a materialistic head of state and she was a female and still Prabhupada came all the way just to meet her.
So, in terms of externals, what Chaitanya Mahaprabhu did and what Prabhupada did was opposite. But the purpose was the same. Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’s concern was not that I don’t want to meet the king.
At that time, the reputation of a sanyasi would go down if a sanyasi is hobnobbing with kings. You renounce the world, why do you want to associate with materialistic people? But in today’s world, it’s different. If a spiritual teacher is meeting with the head of state, that will increase the reputation of the spiritual teacher.
That won’t decrease it. So, this example I gave is that service, the intent has to be consistent. The practise can be variable.
In fact, it will be variable. So, how we serve, it depends on person to person. Our health, our inspiration, our guidance.
So, yes, if we are not physically able to do a particular service, we have to find out what service we can do. So, each service we do is like a path for the river of our consciousness to move towards Krishna. But if one path gets blocked, just as Kunti Maharani says, let the river of my consciousness be like Ganga flowing towards you who are the ocean.
So, when the Ganga finds one path blocked, it finds some other way to keep moving onwards. So, similarly, for us, if one service we can’t do, then we have to find out, this path is blocked, let me find out some other path will open. So, we do whatever service we can and we stay connected with Krishna.
Thank you. So, thank you very much.