Bhakti Shastri (021) – Sri Isopanisad Mantra 17

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Hare Krishna. Today we start with the penultimate verse of the Isha Upanishad. This mantra 17 is the last section in which prayers are being offered to the Supreme Absolute Truth, the Isha about whom this Isha Upanishad is, for help in passing through the perilous journey of life as we struggle to return back to the Supreme Lord.
So here the prayer becomes more intense and the longing is that this material world is filled with so much danger. So let me just end my life and let me return back to you. So let us look at the mantra, then we’ll look at the parapura.
vāyur anilam amṛtam athedaṁ bhasmāntaṁ śarīraṁ om kṛto smaraḥ kṛtaṁ smaraḥ kṛto smaraḥ kṛtaṁ smaraḥ So vāyur anilam amṛtam. So there is air in the body. Let the life air mix into the total reservoir of air.
And bhasmāntaṁ śarīraṁ. So let this body die, let the corpse get burned and at that time om, O Absolute Truth, kṛto smaraḥ kṛtaṁ smaraḥ. Please remember what I have done for you.
kṛto smaraḥ kṛtaṁ smaraḥ. Please remember. It’s a repetition.
So kṛto is, kṛtuḥ is one of the words used to describe Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita. So kṛto is for whom things are done. Prabhupāda translates it as supreme beneficiary.
So kṛta means that which is done by me. So om kṛto smaraḥ kṛtaṁ smaraḥ. O Lord, for whom there are so many things have been done, please remember what has been done.
So let this, the translation is, let this temporary body be burned to ashes and let the air of life be merged with the totality of air. Now, O my Lord, please remember all my sacrifices and because you are the ultimate beneficiary, please remember all that I have done for you. Now, two distinct thoughts may strike us when we look at a mantra like this.
Firstly, it’s a very intense sort of emotion that when we are going to die and when we see death is going to come, at that time what happens? At that time there is a desperate longing, let the body fall. So religion and spirituality are not just casual pursuits as social cosmetics in our public life. People want to look good and that’s why I have a car, I have a house, I have a dog, I have a guru also and I go to the temple also.
They are not casual pursuits. Actually they are going to be of supreme importance in determining our post-mortem destiny. What will happen to us after death will be determined by how we have related with God in this life, what we have done in this life.
So this gravity comes out when you say let this body fall, let everything end, let me, now there’s no explicit prayer, let me return to you but the mood here is what? Oh Lord, I want to come back to you and I hope and I pray to you that you remember what I have done for you. Sri Prabhupada will explain the purport, the answer, elaboration that will address the second thought that may come in our mind. Now do we need to tell the Lord to remember? The Lord already remembers, so why do we need to tell the Lord to remember? So actually this is, the Acharya described that the Upanishads don’t necessarily always talk at the pure devotional level.
So here this prayer is a fervent call for mercy. At the same time it’s not a call that is at a pure devotional level. At a pure devotional level we may just call out, please my dear Lord, let me serve you, come what may, as we see Vatrasur praying, as we see Kunti Maharani praying, even in dangers.
So just because this may not be a prayer at the same level, shouldn’t mean that we look down at the prayer. The fact that a person is so soberly preparing for death and thinking of death so gravely itself is instructive for us. We rarely think about death with such seriousness and even we think about death often, our thoughts are flitting.
We see death somewhere, either in the society or in the news or more consequentially when we see it in our family, then we think about it for some time. But then life draws the veils of illusion around us and we forget our mortality. So the very fact that someone is preparing for death and recognising that what will happen to me after death is not in my hands, it is in the hands of a supreme being on whom I am dependent.
So naturally one is praying, have mercy on me. So here we can focus more on the aspect of the gravity of the moment of death and the seriousness with which one has to prepare for it. And as a part of the preparation one is begging to the Lord, O Lord, please remember all that I have done for you.
Let us look at Srila Prabhupada’s purport. It has six sections in it. As we have discussed, the later purports become a little longer.
So first point Srila Prabhupada makes is the material body is a foreign dress that must be given up. This purport, what is the mantra is talking about? I want to give up the body. So Prabhupada says why do you want to give up the body? Because the body is foreign to the soul.
Then how should it be given up? Everybody is going to die. But that is not enough. The best way to give up body is by surrendering to the Lord, not by going to the Brahmajyoti.
So all of us will give up the body, we will get another body. The jnanis will go to Brahmajyoti, but the bhaktas alone will go back to Bhagawan. That is the best way to give up the body.
And if you want to give up the body in that way, what is required? What it is the last thought, what we think about at the time of death will be of defining decisive importance. Then Srila Prabhupada addresses the point that Krishna never forgets our service to Him. So we may not be able to remember Krishna at the time of death, but Krishna will remember our service.
And therefore, we should always serve Him. And here the prayer is being offered to Lord to have mercy, but Krishna is always ready to shower His mercy on us. And Krishna’s mercy is ever available through devotional service.
And then what is that process of devotional service? This is a devotional prayer. And Srila Prabhupada takes this opportunity to explain more about devotion and he immediately connects it with Bhagavatam. Bhagavatam elaborates this verse and all other verses.
And he talks about the various exemplary characters from the Bhagavatam who are models of devotional service. And then he says prepare for death by devotional practise. You have to practise in this life if you want to attain perfection at the end of our lives.
So let us look at the first point. The material body is a foreign dress that must be given up. So basically, people can have three distinct attitudes towards the body.
In karma, in the path of karma, that is the path of material enjoyment, one romanticises the body. In jnana, one demonises the body. And in bhakti, one utilises the body.
So what does it mean to romanticise the body? One thinks that the body is a source of great pleasure. And people dream about their own body, how good looking it is. And they’d fantasise about someone else’s body.
And they think that when the two bodies will come together, there’ll be so much pleasure. So the idea is, the body is a source of enormous pleasure. And body’s pleasure is not just the greatest fantasy, but many people think that it is the very purpose of existence.
Krishna talks about this mentality in the 16th chapter when he talks about the demoniac people. And he tells that what is their attitude in 16.11, he says, such people have, they feel that there is no doubt about this. The absolute certainty is what? The supreme goal of life is sense gratification.
Sri Prabhupada translated this as, they have ascertained that the prime necessity of life is sense gratification. Nobody can live without this and this is the purpose for which we are all meant to live. So in the path of karma, the body is romanticised as if it is the ultimate goal of life.
You have to enjoy the body’s pleasures and the body is like a well of pleasure from which one just has to draw out and enjoy. However, a little experience of life in the world also shows us that this is not a realistic picture of bodily pleasure. The body’s pleasure capacity is not like that of a well which has unending reserves of water.
The body’s pleasure capacity is more like a sponge that is filled with water. A sponge is pressed, water comes out. Initially just little touch and water comes out.
After that, we press it, water comes out. After we squeeze it, water comes out. After sometime we squeeze it, squeeze it and then all that we get is the pain of pressing the sponge and no water comes out.
So like that, the body’s capacity to enjoy is limited and it is permanently, irreversibly, unchangeably limited. Therefore, we cannot, although we may in our fantasies romanticise the body, we cannot actually live that fantasy because the body’s capacity is limited and the body appears to be like a road to pleasure but the very road turns into a roadblock. So imagine this picture, I am going along a road and sometimes some roadblock comes along.
Some trees have fallen or some other vehicle has fallen so the debris is there. Then we can remove the roadblock. But imagine the road itself turns into a roadblock.
There is nowhere a person can go. So body is like a road to pleasure that turns into a roadblock to pleasure and we cannot do anything about it, no matter what we try. So then if a person becomes somewhat philosophically astute and the person understands that actually the body is a trap and all the senses that are there in the body, they are going to drag us down, they are going to drag us down to sin, they are going to drag us down to suffering and this body is what makes us forgetful of our true spiritual identity and not only does it make us forgetful of our true spiritual identity but it makes us also filled with materialistic desires that perpetuate our illusion.
So it is one thing to be blind and it is quite another thing to be blind about our blindness. That means if I do not have eyes then at least I know that I am blind and then when I may walk carefully with a stick or when I ask somebody else please show me the way. But if I am blind and not even aware that I am blind and I just walk along and bang I may hit into a wall and I may break my nose, crack my head.
So actually the body makes us blind. It makes us forgetful of our spiritual identity but it makes us forgetful about our forgetfulness also. That it makes us forget that we have forgotten our spiritual identity.
It makes us think that I am the body and it makes us think that bodily existence is normal and therefore it is a trap. So that is why Bhaktivinoda Thakur says Sharira avidya jaal. It is not only avidya, it not only puts us in ignorance but it traps us in ignorance.
It is a trap, jaal, it is a net. So what is the cords of the net that drag us deeper and deeper? That is the bodily desires. So in the path of jnana the body is demonised.
What is this body that we are attracted to? It is filled with stool and urine and this and that. What is the attraction to the body? So can’t you see? So in the Ayala Gita, in the 11th canto of Srimad Bhagavatam, Ayala Gita is the song of lamentation sung by Pururava after he has been ditched by Purvashi and he comes to his senses. So he is telling that what was his attraction to the body? What is this body? It is filled with maam sarudhiras naayu.
There is flesh, there are bones, there is blood, there is skin and then what is it? That is the covering of the body and it is filled with stool, urine, pus and I am trying to enjoy such a body. So if I am trying to enjoy a body that is made of such substances, what is the difference between me and a worm? A worm is in the stool and is enjoying in the stool and I am enjoying a body that is inside nothing but stool, externally just looks attractive. What is the difference between me? So this is an attitude of extreme rejection of the body and where the body is demonised.
So now on the path of bhakti, the focus is on utilising the body. So yes, as we discussed earlier, the body is a bad bargain but we have to make the best of a bad bargain. We cannot just reject the body.
We have the body now so we have to utilise the body. So how do we utilise the body? For that the example is given in the Srimad Bhagavatam of Ambarish Maharaj, how we engage all the senses in the service of the Lord. So he describes all the senses, with his mind he thought of the Lord, with his tongue he spoke the glories of the Lord, with his hands he touched the lotus feet of the great devotees and then he touched the limbs of the devotees, with his hands he cleaned the temple of the Lord, with his feet he went to the holy places, with his head he bowed down.
So now these are all devotional activities and there are varieties of devotional activities that we can do with the body and for doing these activities we do need the body. So the mood of a bhakta is to utilise the body. And Srila Prabhupada was also quite categorical about this.
He said if devotees do not take care of their health, there’s a letter of Srila Prabhupada where he’s telling to devotee if you do not take care of your health now, in the future even if you are very enthusiastic you will not be able to serve Krishna. Of course we can serve Krishna even with our body. We can serve Krishna just by thinking about Krishna, hearing about him, chanting his holy names.
But devotional service has so many more opportunities to render service in exciting and fulfilling ways which require the body. So therefore a devotee utilises the body. Now we may wonder that Bhakta and Thakur is a bhakta and Purva is also a bhakta, then why are they talking about making statements which seem to demonise the body.
So these are essentially counters for the default romanticisation of our body that the mind does. That means for most of us we think the body is a source of so much pleasure. So these are the three positions of a pendulum.
Romanticising is one extreme, demonising is the other extreme, and utilising is the normal point. So because all of us have a romanticised conception of the body, so often the scriptures contain statements which forcefully push the pendulum from this extreme to that extreme. So this body I think is a source of enjoyment.
What is it made of? Foul smelling substances push the body from here to there. But then what happens is this is not the steady state, the attitude with which we can live in the body and serve in the body. So the normal attitude is to utilise the body.
That doesn’t mean we love the body, but whatever Krishna has given us for our service, we take care of it. So if we have a computer, we’ll take care of the computer. If we have a vehicle, we’ll take care of a vehicle.
Similarly, the body is also a vehicle for the soul. It’s an important vehicle, so it has to be taken care of. But when you take care of also, it has to be understood that I am not the body and the body is a foreign dress.
Prabhupada uses such precise words. Foreign dress means that it is different from me and it is alien to my nature. I am sat, chitananda.
The body is asat, achit and nirananda. And it is amazing that we discussed earlier how everybody has to die and still nobody wants to die. Everybody wants to live.
How do the people want to live actually? How means what are the ways in which you can see that they’re desperate and try everything and anything to try to live and all living beings. So where does this desire come from? It comes not from the body but from the soul. Everybody wants to expand their knowledge.
Some people want to know what is happening in the neighbourhood, so they may gossip. Some people want to know what is happening all over the world, so they may read news on the internet or watch news on the television. Some other people may want to know what is happening in the farthest reaches of the galaxy, so they may be going to science and do the research.
But everybody wants to know. And experiments have shown that if monkeys are put in a box with the wall on one side and there’s food on this side, but if the monkey is their curiosity somehow aroused and they are ready to climb up the wall, risk falling down the wall just to go on other side of the wall to see what is there on the other side. So it is said curiosity kills the cat.
So actually this curiosity, this eagerness to know, it is there in everyone. The matter is unconscious, but where does this urge to know come from? It comes from the Atma, which is conscious. And then Ananda, we all want happiness, but actually matter is dead.
Matter can experience nothing. When you put a gulab jamun on our tongue, the gulab jamun doesn’t think, I am delicious. So actually it is we who experience the sweetness of gulab jamun.
We say delicious. So where does this happiness seeking propensity come from? The gulab jamun is not seeking happiness, otherwise the gulab jamun will automatically become sweet. It doesn’t automatically become sweet, it just stays as it is.
So we have to cook it and sweeten it properly. So this Satchitananda tendency comes from the Atma, which is Satchitananda. And that’s why when we look at the nature of the body and look at the nature of the soul, we can understand the body is a foreign dress.
It’s a foreign and it’s a dress, so I have to give it up. So now it is said that we are dressed for and dressed by our desires. We are dressed by our desires means that whatever kind of desires we have, that is the kind of body we’ll get in the future.
So if a person wants to eat meat, then they’ll get an animal body. So we are dressed by our desires. So whatever desires I have, then I get a body.
When I am in lion’s body, then I am dressed for my desires. So I had a desire to enjoy eating meat and now I’m dressed for my desires. Sometimes we say people are dressed for the party, person is dressed for playing sports, that means whatever is required for that.
You are dressed for swimming, you are dressed for a sport, for going for a hike, whatever is required for doing that activity, that is there. So similarly, when you say we are dressed for our desires means an animal, we see a lion or a tiger, it is a soul who had the desire to eat meat and now that soul has been dressed for its desires. So we are dressed for and dressed by our desires.
So when we understand this, that actually, although I may seem to identify very closely with my body, but I and my body are different and the body has been given to me because of my past desires and now depending on how I cultivate my desires, accordingly I get a body in the future. So as devotees, we want to utilise the body, neither romanticise nor demonise. Though it is helpful to contemplate on those sections of the Bhagavatam where the body is demonised and periodic contemplation on such sections helps to bring the mind back from its romanticised notions where the mind often tends to go because of the culture we live in where the body is glamorised and displayed and we are always exalted with images of the pleasure that the body can give.
So, as devotees, we want to utilise the body. Now, after you, how do we utilise the body? That is we serve, practise devotionalism and ultimately we have to leave the body. So what is the art of leaving the body? So at the time of death, the body will give us up, but we will not give up the body.
What does it mean? It’s by the force of time, the body will give us up. We will become separated from the body, but psychologically, mentally, emotionally, we will not give up the body. We will still have bodily attachments and the real way to give up the body is to give up the attachment to the body.
Only when our subtle body becomes purified, when we are no longer desiring mental enjoyment, then we become detached from the body. So Shankaracharya describes that all the limbs have become weak. So one’s hair has fallen off because of old age.
So because one has become old, one has to use a walking stick. All the tooth from the body have fallen off, but still the spindle, the body that is there, even then it doesn’t give up what? The desire. The desire to enjoy even then doesn’t go away.
So really if you want to give up the body, what that means is we have to give up the desire to enjoy the body. The body will give us up, but we will not give up the body because we still have the desire to enjoy the body, so we will get another body. This specific body will go away, but the body and what it represents, the field, the Kshetra through which we will enjoy the world, that will not go away from us as long as we have the desire to enjoy.
So the whole process of spiritual life is to purify the subtle body of the material desires that we have. Actually, when the subtle body is purified, when the subtle body no longer contains the desires to enjoy the physical body, then eventually when that physical body falls off, then the subtle body doesn’t, along with the soul and the super soul, doesn’t go to the next body. See, the person gets purified, being purified, and the person goes out of the material existence.
The subtle body merges with subtle elements that are there in the coverings of the universe, and the soul returns back to the spiritual world. So the whole process of bhakti is the process of purifying the subtle body, and the art of leaving the body is the art of giving up the attachment to enjoying the body while we are here. So how do we give that up? That is through the process of bhakti.
Now, Sri Prabhupada explains in the purport that the path of impersonalism is difficult and it is unstable. That’s why one is not sure of any internal attainment by that, and the preferred method is the practise of bhakti. Now in the purport, Sri Prabhupada explains how this whole art of leaving the body can be practised only in the human form.
All living beings will die by the course of nature, but they cannot purify themselves. They do not have the intelligence to perceive some higher reality. If a cat sees a rat, the cat cannot think, oh today is Ekadashi, I should fast.
The cat doesn’t have the intelligence, it’s simply driven by instincts. But human beings can have a higher intelligence where they can perceive some reality beyond the bodily reality, and they can pursue some happiness higher than the happiness of the bodily demands, eating, sleeping, mating and defending. So in the human form alone, we can rise to a higher level of consciousness.
Sri Prabhupada talks about how the living being goes through various species, and then eventually he comes to human form where the person has the opportunity to become freed from the bodily entanglement. So here what Sri Prabhupada says may at first glance seem to be supporting the idea of evolution, but Sri Prabhupada is not talking about the bodily forms changing. The idea of evolution is that the souls go from a lower species to a higher species, that is spiritual evolution.
But the scientific conception of evolution is that the bodily forms themselves change. That however is not correct. So what Sri Prabhupada is talking about after the pralaya at the end of a manvantara, when the universe is covered with water, then the souls that are there at that time are having aquatic forms, and gradually other forms also come and they start populating.
The human form is a precious opportunity. Now, that’s why the moment of death is very important. What happens in the moment of death? All the scriptures say we have to remember the lord at the time of death.
But actually we have to understand that at the moment of death we will remember that in which we have sought shelter the most during our life. That means if throughout my life, whenever I have had any trouble, whenever I had any trouble, my idea of getting relief from the trouble was, oh, let me just turn on the TV and watch a cricket match. My favourite moments of the cricket match, maybe when Indian team hit the match winning sixer and then they lifted up the world cup.
Oh, that’s my dream. That’s my dream to come true. So whatever it may be.
So if the greatest relief, the greatest shelter I have always sought, say in watching cricket, then at the moment of death, the moment of death is so traumatic that often conscious coherent thought is difficult. And that time subconsciously our mind will gravitate towards that in which we have found the greatest shelter or we have sought the greatest shelter. We may or may not have found it.
Actually find the shelter only in Krishna. But still we seek shelter in various things. So if somebody has found shelter in alcohol, then even if the person becomes very determined and decides to give up alcohol, but there is always the chance of relapse.
Why relapse? Not because the desire for alcohol will be so strong. That will go away after sometime. The physical withdrawal and the physical urge for alcohol or drugs will go away.
But after that comes the management of one’s emotions. So whenever there is a reversal, whenever there’s depression, whenever there’s frustration, and immediately the mind’s default tendency will be there is no problem so big that alcohol can’t solve it. There is no problem so big that one shot of a drug can’t solve it.
So that is the default instinct of the mind to seek relief in something which it has been habituated to. Similarly, all of us, we all have our own pseudo shelters. The true shelter is Krishna.
All other shelters are pseudo shelters. They’re false shelters. Even after becoming devotees, we still often keep taking shelter of these pseudo shelters.
So even if we don’t entirely become pure devotees, at the very least, if we train ourselves to not take shelter of the pseudo shelters when we are troubled by life’s inevitable problems, but instead we consciously seek the shelter of Krishna, then at the moment of death also, the mind will gravitate towards Krishna. So gravitate means, just like if I keep an object here, by the force of gravity, the object will fall. Nothing has to be done.
The object just has to be left and it will fall. So like that, whatever are our attachments, our mind will gravitate towards those attachments. Now, what are our attachments? How can we know? We don’t necessarily have to do this experiment to find out, but actually when we do nothing, we come to know a lot of things about ourselves.
As soon as we leave the mind idle, then what happens? Immediately the mind goes wherever we think pleasure is available. So wherever the mind imagines pleasure is available, and that’s where our attachments are. Now we shouldn’t keep ourselves idle to think, let me observe where the mind goes, because the mind is so seductive that it will not keep us as the observer, it will make us the actor.
And we said to the observer, where does my mind go? And after some time, what am I doing? I’m not supposed to do this. So we don’t have to observe this. Anyway also, we can see our mind going in so many wrong directions.
But the point here is that we have to consciously retrain our mind so that instead of going towards worldly things for shelter, the mind goes towards Krishna for shelter. So it is not just some coincidental magical feat. At the moment of that we remember Krishna, everything is all right, we’ll go back to God.
Sometimes some people ask, if all that I have to do is remember Krishna at the time of death, then I’ll enjoy as much as I want throughout my life. And when I’m enough of enjoyment, then I’ll just take out a pistol, put the pistol on my head, Hare Krishna! So will I go back to Godhead? I’ll not go back to Godhead, I’ll go back to ghost head. Why? If I commit suicide, then that’s what is my destination.
Why is that? Actually Krishna is also very clear. Krishna says, antakaale cha maa meva smaran muktva kalekra. He doesn’t just say, it’s not just uttering the word, it’s smaran, it’s remembering.
So if I have been enjoying the body, naturally then I have been attached to the body. And if I’m attached to the body, somehow verbally, even if I utter the holy name, will I be thinking of Krishna at that time? Very unlikely. And we can’t, we can’t cheat our way back to Godhead.
Krishna says, dhyutam chhalaya tamasmi. Among all cheaters, I am the greatest cheater. So we have to honestly redirect our desires to Krishna.
The last thought will be determined by the thought that we have held uppermost in our life, throughout our life. And that’s what Srila Prabhupada talks about, that now the point is, we may worry, somehow I may practise throughout my life also, but still what if I’m not able to remember everything I’m over with? What if suddenly an accident happens? What if a heart attack occurs? What if I die in my sleep only? There are so many possibilities. Now we have to understand, practising bhakti and surrendering our life to Krishna is not a matter of some chance game, where everything is determined by some arbitrary factors.
If we have served Krishna through our life, then even if at the moment of death we are not in a position to remember Krishna, Krishna will remember us. He will remember us. So in the Vishnu Sahasranam, there are a thousand names of Lord Vishnu, which are used to glorify His different attributes, and the various acharyas have given many meanings of each of these names.
So Baladevidya Vishnu has written a beautiful commentary on the Vishnu Sahasranam, and there he describes the names, meanings of each name of Vishnu, and there he describes two paradoxical attributes. So so he described two contradictory attributes, Animesha and Nimisha. Animesha means one who never blinks his eyes, and Nimisha means one who blinks his eyes, closes his eyes.
So now how can the Lord be both? How can He be Animesha and Nimisha? So Baladevidya Vishnu explains that actually Animesha means when the devotee renders service to the Lord, the Lord keeps the eyes unblinkingly open, so that the devotee can render, the Lord will not notice the service the devotee is doing. And Nimisha means whenever the devotee commits an accidental mistake, the Lord closes the eyes and overlooks the mistakes. So the Lord is not there to catch us committing mistakes.
The Lord loves us and He wants to elevate us. Krishna’s inner presence is not there not to catch us, it is to coach us. He wants to coach us, this is right, this is wrong.
Now when a coach is there, and coach is helping athlete, the coach is also aware, okay, the athlete is doing this wrong. If the batsman is, say, moving the legs too fast or too slow while batting, the coach observes that and the coach points out that also. But the whole purpose of the coach is not to find the faults.
The purpose of the coach is to focus on the potential of the athlete and help bring out the potential and help remove whatever faults are there, which are preventing their potential from coming out. Similarly, Krishna’s inner presence is not to catch us, you are doing this wrong, you are doing that wrong, you are doing that wrong. His inner presence is to coach us.
So He sees our spiritual potential and He wants to bring that out. That’s why Animeshwara Animeshwara Swagri. Animeshwara means whenever He sees anything good that we are doing, He notices unblinkingly.
He keeps eyes always open to us. Animeshwara means He closes His eyes. So whenever we commit any mistakes, He closes His eyes and overlooks it.
And the example for this is, of course, Bhutana and Draupadi. We know that in the Mahabharata there is a story that Draupadi once came when Krishna and Arjuna were in a room and she brought some fruits and now they were talking intimately. So she just left them with the knife and she went away.
So Krishna started picking up the knife and peeling the fruits. And as he was peeling the fruits, the knife slipped from his hands and when the knife slipped, actually it cut his finger and blood started coming out. When Draupadi saw blood coming out, without looking at it, she ripped a piece of her saree and started bandaging his finger.
And as she was bandaging the finger, Krishna looked at Draupadi. Now Draupadi was concerned but Krishna was peaceful, joyful. He says, Oh Draupadi, I will remember this service and I will repay you for this.
So Krishna repaid her at the time of the Vastararana. A small piece of saree she offered Krishna, gave her unlimited saree in return. So Krishna notes in the smallest service that is being done.
Krishna’s body is transcendental and no blood comes out from it because there is no blood in it. But for the sake of Leela, whatever is required, Krishna manifests. So the devotee doesn’t think that, Oh, nothing has happened to Krishna.
Krishna is transcendental. So the devotee is concerned to take care of Krishna and to enable for the reciprocation of emotion as a part of Leela, Krishna lets whatever is required manifest from his body. So even the blood that comes out, it is not material blood, it is transcendental, just to enhance the rasa of the pastime.
Then similarly in Nisha, when the devotee commits a mistake, the Lord overlooks that. So when Putana came to kill Krishna, Krishna closed his eyes. Why? Because Putana had a inimical mentality, she wanted to poison and kill Krishna.
At the same time she had come as a nurse and in her previous life also she had a maternal attitude, desires, affection towards Krishna when he had come as Vamanadev. So she was the sister of Bali Maharaj and she initially had maternal feelings towards him. But when she saw him take a giant form, the maternal feelings changed.
So she still had some maternal feelings and Krishna closed his eyes. He focused only on the maternal feelings and her malevolent feelings of wanting to kill, he overlooked them and he purified her and enabled her to become a nurse. So the malevolent feelings went away and the maternal feelings were highlighted.
So Krishna closed his eyes to overlook the faults of Putana. This is Krishna. So Krishna always remembers our service and as devotees we need to be assured that whatever service we are doing, even if other devotees don’t notice it, our spiritual master doesn’t notice it, our counsellor doesn’t notice it, it doesn’t matter.
Krishna is noticing and Krishna will reward us for every single service that we do. And it’s not that we want rewards for our service. We love Krishna and that’s why we want to serve him.
But we want reciprocation. We can try to have reciprocation with other devotees also and when there is a healthy relationship there is reciprocation with devotees also. But even when there is no reciprocation because of certain circumstances, we know that Krishna is watching and Krishna will surely reward every single service that we do.
So this is Krishna. So Srila Prabhupada is using this point to say that Krishna never forgets the service that we do for him. In fact Krishna is so concerned what to speak of forgetting our service.
He doesn’t even forget us when we have completely forgotten him. That’s how Krishna’s love is unfailing for us. Krishna’s love is unfailing in the sense that it is ever waiting, ever willing and ever working.
Krishna is ever waiting. He is in our heart as a super soul and he is waiting for us to turn back to him. When will this soul come to me? Suppose we go to meet someone and that person keeps us waiting for five minutes, ten minutes, one hour, two hours, three hours, five hours.
We feel irritated. How long should I wait? And if the person doesn’t come then we just go away, forget it. Now sometimes if we need that person then we may wait for six hours, ten hours also.
We may go two, three, four, five days. But suppose say you are a coach and you are going to coach a student. You are doing that as a favour to that person and then that person doesn’t come on time and that person keeps you waiting.
Then what will happen? If you don’t come on time I don’t need you. We can get lost. We just walk away.
So actually Krishna is like that. Krishna comes for us and he is in our heart. He is waiting for us and it is not he who needs us, it is we who need him.
He is happy in the spiritual world with innumerable devotees. But without him we may think we are temporarily enjoying but actually eventually we suffer. So Krishna has come for us to coach us but we turn away from him.
But no matter how much we turn away from him, Krishna is ever waiting. He keeps waiting for us as a Paramatma. Life after life after life he comes along and Krishna never gets upset with us.
He says you neglected me for so much time, I won’t care for you now. Sometimes when two friends have a tiff and one friend turns away and after sometime that friend comes to the senses also and the friend says come on let us be friends. He says no, I will not be friends with you.
So Krishna is not like that. Krishna is ever waiting, Krishna is ever willing. Even when we not only turn away from him, we turn against him.
Turn away from him means go away from him. But turn against him means blame him only. So we may become atheistic, we may become offensive.
But even then Krishna keeps waiting. You know there is nothing that anyone can do that can ever stop Krishna from loving us. No sin, no offence, nothing that we can do that can ever stop Krishna from loving us.
Sometimes we may do such things by which we may not be able to perceive Krishna’s love. It’s like nothing that I can do can stop the sun from giving its light. But I can close my eyes and I will not see the sun.
Even if I insult the sun, the sun will not stop giving light. Similarly, no matter what we do, even if we become atheists and blaspheme Krishna, Krishna still stays in the heart even of the atheists. And Krishna doesn’t stop loving them.
Krishna always keeps loving them. But the more they become atheistic, the more they are closing their eyes to the sun, they can’t perceive Krishna’s love. But Krishna is ever willing, ever waiting, ever willing.
And not just ever willing, Krishna is ever working, ever working. So Gajendra prays to the Lord when he’s caught in the jaws of the crocodile. Crocodile, my dear Lord, please, prapanna, I surrender unto you.
Please liberate me from this pashupash, this animal coil that has caught me. This pashupash has two meanings. It’s not just the crocodile, which is a pashu, which has become a pashwa, but it is also the body, the body in conception, which is also like a pashupash.
And why should you liberate me? Muktaya. You are liberated, so you are capable of liberating me. Yes.
But why should I liberate you? I am liberated. You are very merciful. You are very merciful, my dear Lord.
Please have mercy on me. But the Lord may say, I had so much mercy on you, I tried so many times, you never came to me. So he says, Muktaya bhuri karunaya namo layaya.
Namo layaya. O Lord, you are all layaya. All layaya means you never get tired.
Prabhupada writes in the Parpod and Chakravarti Pada also writes that actually the Lord is constantly striving to get us back to him and he never ever gets tired. When a mother gives some medicine to the child, a child just, as soon as the mother brings the medicine, the child just catches it and throws it away. And the medicine gets spilled, the glass gets cracked.
What does the mother do? The mother again brings the medicine and takes it. Again it cracks. So how many times will an ordinary mother do? A few times.
After that she will get angry. But Krishna, he keeps trying to give us the medicine of spirituality again and again and again. So Krishna is ever waiting, Krishna is ever willing, Krishna is ever working.
And whatever little work we have to do in our devotional service to turn towards him, actually that is very tiny as compared to what Krishna has done for us. For so many lifetimes he has been accompanying us. And that’s why the Bhagavatam says that how much when the soul becomes awakened to the glory and infinity of Krishna’s love, the soul feels as if, you know, what to speak of repaying the Lord for what he has done.
I can’t even say enough thank you. Even if I express my gratitude for the Lord, to the Lord, for a lifespan as long as Brahmaji is, still that will not be enough. Why? That Lord internally and externally, he has been working to purify me.
Externally he has been sending Guru Sadhu Shastra in my life. Internally as a Chaitanya Guru, he is guiding me, do this, don’t do this. As a voice of conscience, he is speaking to me, constantly guiding me.
So this is Krishna’s love. And meditating on Krishna’s love enables us to put aside the false loves of this world, the temporary loves of this world, that we don’t let ourselves be allured and distracted by those loves. Those loves can also be connected with our spiritual love for Krishna, that’s wonderful.
But we don’t let those loves become substitutes for Krishna’s love. So in this way, om krato smara krato smara, we can pray to the Lord, please remember me. But more important is that we pray, that we remember how much the Lord loves us.
We just keep remembering that how much the Lord loves us, then we will not let ourselves get tempted by the things of this world. So ultimately, if we want to go back to what Aishwarya Prabhupada says, that the examples are given in Bhagavatam. So Parikshit Maharaj, what he did at the time of death.
So Aishwarya Prabhupada gives all the nine verses of devotional service and he gives examples of how the devotees practised each of the limbs of devotional service, one one limb, each of them, and they attained perfection by practising that limb. So Parikshit Maharaj heard Shukadeva Goswami spoke, then like that, different devotees have done perfection in Shukadeva Goswami. Sarvanam kirtanam vishnu smaranam.
Smaranam is Prahlad Maharaj. Sarvanam kirtanam vishnu smaranam. Pada sevanam.
Pada sevanam Lakshmi Devi. Archanam vandanam dasyam. So Archanam is Puthu Maharaj.
Vandanam is Akrura when he went to Vrindavan, he offered wonderful prayers. Dasyam, that is Hanumasaakhyam, that is Arjuna. Atmanivedanam, that is Bali Maharaj, sorry, yeah Bali Maharaj, he offered himself completely to Vamanadeva.
So now it is not that these devotees have alone practised these limbs of bhakti. There are many other devotees who have practised, and these devotees may have also practised other limbs of bhakti. But the prominent thing that they did was, the defining attribute of the devotional life was their rendering of this service.
And that is highlighted in the Srimad Bhagavatam. And they are the models for that form of devotional service. And Srila Prabhupada says that if we want to practise this, that we want to attain success at the time of death, and the model for that is in the Bhagavatam.
In the Bhagavatam we see that there is the example of how people remember Krishna and they strive to remember Krishna. They are from different backgrounds but still they somehow come together and remember Krishna and return back to Him. So now, actually the time for practising is now.
When should we start practising devotional service? Now. Srila Prabhupada says we have to render devotional service now so that we can be prepared at the time of death. The present is all that we have and all that we will ever have.
What does this mean? Our mind often goes into a zone where we are thinking about the past, what went wrong, if only that had happened it would have been so nice, or in the future, oh when that happens that will be so good, if that happens I don’t know what I will do. So our mind keeps going towards the past and the future. So because of this, we often don’t utilise the present.
And often we think of the present as if it is a practise run for next time. Sometimes when players are playing, say sports stars or cricketers are playing, sports stars are playing, then they are having some net practise. Net practise, some of them may take it seriously, some of them may not take it seriously.
So it is just practise, it is not the real thing. So we often treat life, we treat the present as if it is a practise run for next time. What is going right now is not very important, tomorrow what is going to happen, that is very important.
But then what happens is, when we have a lackadaisical attitude, indifferent, uncaring attitude towards the present, then it is not only the present that we lose by that, we lose also the future. Because that attitude which we allow to sink into us, that attitude we carry from the present to the future also. So whenever the future is going to come in our life, the future is going to become the present.
And then we see the present also as the practise run for next time. Oh tomorrow something will happen, day after tomorrow something will happen. So we all expect that in the future something will happen and I will become serious in devotion service, we may think that oh my spiritual master will come and maybe touch his hand on my head and then some electric current will pass through my body and then I will become a pure devotee.
No no, such things are not going to happen. Actually we have to purify ourselves. And a moment for purifying ourselves is now.
Now is the best time for purifying ourselves. Why? Because now is all that we have. We say now I have this problem, that problem, that anxiety.
Yes, we have those. But we will similarly have distractions throughout our life. At some moments there will be more, at some moments there will be less, but distractions will always be there.
So the present is all that we have and the present is all that we will ever have. So if we have to do some material responsibility in the present, fine, we’ll do that material responsibility, we’ll do it wholeheartedly. If we have to do some devotional activity, then we’ll do that wholeheartedly.
Because this is the only time we have to do it. So keeping this in mind brings a sense of urgency and immediacy to our spiritual life. Because when we understand that it’s not that there will be some rosy future when I’ll be able to peacefully chant Hare Krishna, when I’ll be able to peacefully practise devotional service, is if we can make arrangements by which we can be more peaceful, our spiritual life, our circumstances can be more conducive for practising spiritual life, that is excellent.
But we shouldn’t postpone the practise of our spiritual life for a future, for a more comfortable future. At a basic level we keep practising our spiritual life even now and we work towards creating a future when we can practise it more. Because spiritual life can be practised not just when we have time, but spiritual life can be practised when we have the attitude to practise spiritual life.
When we have the attitude that I want to commit myself to Krishna and that attitude has to be cultivated now. So in the future even when I get time, if I have not cultivated the attitude of committing myself to Krishna, then when I have time, then I’ll find that so many other engagements will come up. So it is such that, you know, work expands to occupy that time that is available for it.
So that which I can do in one hour often, if I use six hours for it, it will consume all the six hours. So like that, if we have habituated our mind to doing material things, we’re not really habituated ourselves to doing spiritual things, then even when we have the time to do spiritual things, we’ll take up some material thing and that will expand itself so much, we’ll have no time for spiritual life. Because the problem was not the lack of time.
The problem was the lack of the attitude. So if that attitude has to change, it has to change now. That means what? This is the moment when I want to offer myself to Krishna.
So in the future, if the circumstances are better, I might be able to offer myself better to Krishna. Fine. But right now, whatever I have, let me offer myself to Krishna.
So what I have most important is the present moment. When we practise devotional service with this urgent attitude, then we’ll find that not only will we make spiritual advancement, but our devotional life will become so much deeper and richer. We’ll start getting better realisations, we’ll start relishing Krishna consciousness.
And then when we start practising the spiritual life with such seriousness, when the moment of death will come, we will have remembered Krishna throughout our life. Naturally, we’ll remember him at the time of death. And then we’ll return back to him to live forever with him in love and eternal happiness.
So to summarise, we discussed about firstly how the body is a foreign dress. So to understand this, we discussed the three attitudes towards the body, the karma where the body is romanticised, jnana where the body is demonised and bhakti where the body is utilised. So even in the bhakti scripture, sometimes the body is demonised to drag our mind away from its default romantic conception of the body.
But in a steady state, we have to utilise the body. We take care of it as a vehicle given by Krishna to serve him. Then we discussed about how everybody is going to die.
The body will give us up, but we will not give up the body till we actually remember Krishna. Sorry, till we become purified and we remember Krishna, our subtle body becomes purified. So the essence of spiritual life is not just giving up the body, it is turning our attachments, purifying our subtle body so that instead of being attracted to the world, we are attracted to Krishna.
And that can be done only in the human form. So in the human form, we have the intelligence to pursue spiritual reality and the advanced consciousness to seek that spiritual reality. So how do we pursue the spiritual reality? Perceive and perceive.
Perceive means to see and pursue means go after. That all happens through various spiritual processes, but the best among them is the process of bhakti yoga. And to remember Krishna at the time of death, which is very important so that we can go back to him, we have to practise remembering him throughout our life.
And in between, we discussed before that how will we get the motivation to remember Krishna at the time of death. I said I’m going to die, there’s a great danger. That’s a fear-based motivation.
It’s important, but a love-based motivation is to remember how much Krishna loves us. So we discussed how Krishna is present in our heart not to catch us, but to coach us. He closes his eyes, blinks his eyes whenever he sees any mistakes and he opens his eyes wide to see every service that we do for him.
So Krishna is ever-willing, Krishna is ever-working, ever-waiting and ever-working. Nothing that we can do that can stop Krishna from loving us. So we need to meditate on Krishna’s love.
That is a positive love-based motivation. When we remember death, that is a negative fear-based motivation. And both can be used at different times to remind us of the urgency.
The present is what I have, is all that I have and all that I’ll ever have. So let me offer this present moment to Krishna. Thank you very much.