CC daily 176 – 6.262 – Action contrary to expectation provokes question of intention

Thank you Chaitanya Chaitanya Amrit Madhya Leela text 6.261 262 rather Chaitanya Mahaprabhu Chaitanya Mahaprabhu Aspi Sarvabhauma here Sarvabhauma has recited the famous words from the Brahmastava in the Bhagavata, the Shastang that It's a famous verse where the last line is jivetayo bhakti-pade, as a person will attain liberation. So Sarvabhauma has changed that to bhakti-pade. Chaitanya Mahaprabhu knows the words and immediately points out that you have changed it.

So he says that there is bhakti-pade, there is mukti-pade, why have you changed it to bhakti-pade? Now normally, sometimes when someone recites a verse, sometimes some changes might happen that might be slips of tongue or slips of memory, that sometimes because of slip of tongue, one wants to say one thing but one says something else. Slip of memory means actually one might recollect the words slightly wrongly. So mamayati, kaunte might be there, mamayati pandava someone might say.

So that's sort of when someone does some mistake, there are different levels at which mistakes may happen. There might be unconscious mistakes, the person makes a mistake unintentionally and even after making the mistake the person is not aware of the mistake. So at that time the person may speak a verse wrong and still go on speaking normally as if nothing wrong has been done.

Now this sort of slips of tongue or slips of memory are rare among people who are careful scholars. So Sarvabhauma was still a careful scholar and Jitendra Mahaprabhu immediately when he heard this verse altered, he looked at Sarvabhauma and asked, what is your ashe? What is your intention? Because he saw here that this was not an inadvertent lapse, the way Jitendra Mahaprabhu could look at Sarvabhauma's face and he could see some sort of special expression there. When someone is up to something, there is a special, either it can be a smug expression or it can be a mischievous expression or it can be a challenging expression.

But usually the face can reveal whether something is done intentionally or unintentionally. So it is said that the face is the index of the mind and so by looking at a face of a person we can get a fair idea of what is going on in the mind of a person. That's why it is said that especially people who are expert at trying to detect lies often they say that when a person is being interrogated and that person is speaking so look whether that person pauses or does some other nervous gestures like say touching one's shirt buttons or pulling one's collar or just basically avoiding the eyes.

So if someone does like that, that indicates that that person is trying to hide something or speak something counterfactual. So it's one thing that somebody hides something, somebody does something wrong accidentally, inadvertently and it's quite another thing if somebody does something wrong intentionally. So if for example, if a teacher is telling a child to recite tables and while reciting tables if the child, the student who is a child says 3 3's are 11 and now 3 3's are 9 or something which the child has memorized so many times and child knows by heart completely, there is no possibility that the child will make a mistake and even if someone has made a mistake, even if the child has made a mistake then immediately because it's not just as we discussed, it's not just memorized especially that which is recited aloud and memorized that also goes into the heart that also gets settled on the tongue.

So sometimes we may speak something wrong 3 3's are 11. It doesn't sound right. It sounds itself like it doesn't sound right.

What was it actually? And then one will remember oh it's meant to be 9, it's meant to be 11. So immediately sometimes if somebody speaks something wrong and then realize oh the person will put the hand on the mouth as if to try to stop the sound from going out. So immediately the person will look apologetic or embarrassed.

Oh it was a slip of tongue, I committed a mistake. But if it's a child, 3 3's are 11 and child has a smug expression, a smile on the face, no embarrassment, no mortification. And the teacher will naturally ask him what's going on? What's going on here? What is your intention? Are you up to some mischief? Why are you changing the mathematics table like this? So just as when something wrong is presented without any seeming reason for that wrong and apparently with knowledge that it is wrong then naturally we may ask what is your intention? What is our share of? So normally in certain situations certain things are expected.

Like if a particular patient has a particular set of symptoms which say indicates stomach upset and then normally a particular medicine may be given. But if say one doctor is treating with another doctor and then the first doctor says better do a chest x-ray. That is not what is expected at that time.

So then the first doctor says what are you thinking? What is your intention? Why are you asking him to do a chest x-ray? So usually when an action is according to expectation then we don't ask about the intention. We just accept that this was what was expected and this was what was done. So that's fine.

But when the action belies expectation and the action goes against expectation when a person does something which we didn't expect that person to do then we often ask what is going on here? What are you thinking? What is your intention? Why are you doing like this? In certain relationships, relationships become settled and steady. Two people in that relationship more or less understand each other and can predict broadly each other's actions because when two people live with each other say as spouses or any other close relationship then they observe each other and observation is not just in terms of actions but also in terms of thought process. How do you think? I want to know.

And then based on that we get some understanding of how we expect a certain person to behave in a certain situation. And when the behavior is not as per expectation naturally it raises the question what's going on? So the same happened for example Arjuna instead of fighting in the war suddenly he put aside his bow and said I will not fight. So naturally the question came up what's going on? Arjuna what are you doing? Where has this weakness come from? So similarly for a scholar like Sarvabhauma to quote a verse wrong to quote a verse with the words in it changed is not expected at all.

So when the action defies expectation then naturally there is a question about intention. And that's what Lord Chaitanya asked over here. Kito Maharaj what is your intention?