Nityananda Trayodashi Special Discourse 2022

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This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
I’m grateful to be here with all of you today to celebrate the extremely auspicious appearance day of Ittyanand Prabhu. Let’s begin with some prayers. Swami Ittyanand, Namaste Saraswati Devi, I will speak about Ittyanand Prabhu today and I’ll be sharing a PowerPoint which also I’ll be using as a whiteboard occasionally and I’ll write something on the PowerPoint if required.
Now, for many people, they have not heard about Ittyanand Prabhu. So, if somebody is very new and we invite them for a programme, for this particular programme, and then the question may come, what is the occasion? It is the birthday of God’s older brother. Now, if you hear this, for most people, that sounds incredible.
What does this mean? Birthday of God’s older brother. So, first of all, you know, why is there incredulity when somebody hears this? Because first of all, we live in a world where many doubt even the existence of God. Even among those who accept the existence of God, they have various conceptions about maybe God is some kind of old man or some kind of light or whatever.
The idea that God has a brother seems unbelievable. How is that possible? And on top of that, since he is the source of everyone, so he is said to be defined as the source of everyone, the idea that he can have an older brother seems even more unbelievable. What is going on over here? What kind of conception, what kind of understanding is there over here that we talk about God’s older brother? So, this brings us to the bhakti traditions revelation of divinity.
There are many different theistic traditions in the world. Among the theistic traditions, there are different degrees of revelation of the object of devotion of God. The bhakti tradition offers an unparalleled revelation of divinity.
It reveals God to be not just an object of contemplation or even of worship. So, contemplation means, yes, I believe in God or there is some supreme intelligence underlying the world and maybe that is something just fascinating to contemplate on. Many people from a scientific background, if they accept divinity, usually they can accept something which is called the deistic divinity.
Yes, there is some intelligence organising the universe and it is fascinating to contemplate that. That’s an object of contemplation and that is also fine. The Bhagavatam begins with that conception.
Meditate on that ultimate reality. Even the monists, the impersonalists, those who think of the absolute truth as an all-pervading light, they also contemplate on God or meditation. Or for some people, especially in the Abrahamic traditions, God is seen as a, in some ways, some kind of person but it is primarily an object of worship.
So, generally, when we in our traditions, in the bhakti tradition, we talk about going to a temple. No, we don’t say we are going to temple to worship God. We say we are going to temple to have darshan of the Lord.
So, of course, there will be some kind of worship happening naturally and we will behold it. But it’s more an act of beholding because there is no clear revelation of the personal dimension of divinity. There is no form revealed in most of the world’s theistic traditions.
So, there you go. It’s a place for worship. There are prayers and there is reverential meditation.
So, yes, God is that. But the bhakti tradition says that he is not just these things. He is not just somebody whom we should worship so that we are not punished, we are not for our wrongdoing so that we don’t go to hell.
But he is an eminently lovable person. And that he is lovable means what? That he relishes the full range of relationships. In the Abrahamic traditions, God is said to be situated in like a majestic isolation.
He is far above everyone else and there is no one equal to him. In Catholicism, they have the idea of the Trinity which is vehemently criticised by especially Islam that God is one. The idea that God is trying the three dimensions to God is unacceptable for them.
But even there, the idea is that God ultimately exhibits in cosmic majesty, in divine isolation. So, the idea that God has relationships and not just relationships, it’s not just that God is the father and we are the sons. Oh father, thou art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.
Give us our daily bread. Not that God is the father and we are children or God is the master and we are servants. That is there.
But God has a full range of relationships. So, if he has the full range of relationships, that is where there is what is the concept of Krishna as Rasa Raj. So, this Rasa is the joy that comes from relationships.
Raja means king. So, that means the one who relishes the greatest joy, one who is the emperor in relishing the joy that comes from relationships. That is Rasa Raj.
So, he is Rasa Raj. And when we say God is complete, if he is really complete, he is supremely complete, that means that he can relish every relationship to its fullest. That God can have children, God can have servants, but how can God have a brother? No, if he can’t have a brother, what that would mean and if he can’t have an elder brother or he can’t have a sibling, that would mean that God can’t have something which we can have.
So, if God can’t have something which we can have, then how is he complete? In fact, he is incomplete. So, the idea of Krishna as Rasa Raj means that he can relish every relationship to its fullest. His relationship with his brother, that is paradoxical because God is, even the Vedic tradition says he is the one who has no equal, leave alone anybody superior to him.
So, in that sense, he is supreme and yet he has this paradoxical. Paradoxical means seemingly contradictory relationship with an elder brother. So, now, even if we agree that okay, he can have various relationships, but still the question is how can he have an elder brother? So, this is where the idea of Tattva and Leela comes in.
So, in Tattva, nobody is older than him, but in Leela, he can have not just an elder brother, but he can also have a father and a mother. So, God is the father of Pitahamsa Jagat, that is declared, that is true. But if he is to have the full range of relationships, then he can have even a father and a mother.
So, for understanding the divine, there is this two-fold approach to divinity that is revealed by the Bhakti tradition. So, there is the Tattva and there is the Rasa. So, in terms of Rasa, in which Leela occurs, in Tattva, the focus is on understanding his position.
He is supreme, he is independent, he is complete, he does not need anyone. That is his understanding his position. So, to Tattva, we need to understand his position.
Krishna talks about this in the Bhagavad Gita, that Tattvataha in 4.9, understand me in truth. But then beyond the Tattva understanding, there is the Rasa understanding. That means, if he understands his Rasa-Raja relationships, then he understands his disposition, not just his position, but his disposition.
And what is his disposition? His disposition refers to his lovability, his accessibility, and his vulnerability. Lovability means, see, when is somebody lovable? I mean, I love someone very much. But suppose, somebody has, say, nowadays in social media, some celebrity has a million followers.
And maybe a fan of that, there may be a million people who may be fans of that celebrity. But how many can say they have a relationship with that celebrity? And that celebrity may be completely inaccessible to them. So, therefore, where is the relationship? So, there is, the relationship is to be there.
And there is, that lovability comes through accessibility. Only when the person is accessible, you can have admiration for a person. You can be a fan of a person.
But if you want to be in a relationship, that Lord has to be accessible. So, he makes himself accessible. So, although God is supreme above everyone else, he does not keep himself in isolated majesty.
He is accessible. And not only is he accessible, he makes himself vulnerable. Vulnerable means he acts as if he needs others.
And Mother Yashoda, she feels needed by Krishna. She thinks that if I do not feed Krishna, Krishna will become weak. He will become sick.
He will, he may even die. Now, this is absurd. Krishna is all-powerful.
He is the strength of everyone. But Krishna appears like a small child and makes his devotees, makes himself vulnerable to his devotees. And that is how that sweetness, the sweetness comes in the relationship.
So, this, so if you do not appreciate the appearance, we need to understand that the tattva is there, but the rasa approach, how can God have an older brother? Because he has, he has a wide gamut of relationships. And in this rasa approach, there are various hidden aspects of divinity. So, the idea of a God as a blueish black cowherd boy, that itself is extremely rare.
How many people know about it? At least in modern times, in today’s world, very, not many people know about Krishna as God. In fact, there is one Christian pastor who wrote a book about, you know, the strangest ideas in today’s world. And he asked one of his parishioners, what is the strangest idea you have heard? And he said that Hare Krishna is approaching me on the street and giving me a book and telling that God is a blueish black cowherd boy.
That is the strangest thing I have heard ever. So, that itself is difficult for people to understand. So, that knowability is rare.
How can God be a boy? But then, not only God as a boy, God is a golden dancer who seeks to know his own lovability. Now, God is expected to have some gravitas. And of course, he has his gravitas, but it’s not just gravitas that defines divinity, it’s also ecstasy.
So, Krishna comes and dances. There was an atheistic thinker who said that, he was so turned off by the Christian conception of divinity that he said, I don’t believe in this. I will believe in a God who knows how to dance.
So, Mahaprabhu, he unfortunately never knew about Mahaprabhu. Mahaprabhu is defined as dancing God. He did many, many things, but his greatest characteristic was his ecstatic Sankirtan and how he inspired others to do Sankirtan.
And why was he doing this? Why did he become a golden dancer? He wanted to know what is so lovable about me. That is even more rare. And most rare among the aspects of divinity which are hidden is God who savours and shares his intimate lovability as profound mercy.
That is Nithyananda Prabhu. So, Nithyananda Prabhu is who? He is actually God himself. So, in the bhakti tradition, it is understood that there is one God, but one God is not limited to one form.
Advaitam achyutam anadhim anantarupam. He is Advaita, he is only one, but he has anantarupa. So, the same one divinity who manifests as Krishna, he also manifests as his brother Balaram.
And Krishna appears in Kali Yuga as Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and Balaram appears in Kali Yuga as Nithyananda Prabhu. So, by Srila Prabhupadas and by the Gaudiya tradition’s outreach, Mahaprabhu is known quite widely and Nithyananda Prabhu is also known. This is hidden.
Hidden because it is not easy to understand. It is a confidential aspect of divinity. So, why is it confidential? Because it’s not something which can be, for people who don’t even understand or accept the idea of God, this idea of God having a brother, it’s extremely difficult to understand.
So, when you talk about confidentiality, see confidential, it’s not so much secret as private. Secret means that which is consciously hidden from others. Private means that which is not the concern of others.
So, for example, say if in a public place like a temple or somewhere, a couple of family members, a husband, a wife, or a parent and a child, they want to talk with each other. And if either of them is with someone else, then they may say to the other person, can we have a little privacy? Can we have a few minutes of privacy? Now, what that means is that can we talk with each other? So, this Guhiya is confidential. Now, it is not that what they are talking is top secret which cannot be told to everyone.
No, it doesn’t concern others. It’s not relevant to others. So, there is, Krishna talks about the principle of that there is a revelation.
He reveals himself in proportion to what people are interested in. So, as people seek understanding, accordingly understanding comes. So, that is revelation of divinity.
So, the revelation of the Lord as Nithyananda Prabhu is extremely rare. And it’s rare, not in the sense that it has been kept consciously a secret, but rather it is private. Only those who become sufficiently interested in divinity, those who are open to more intimate understandings of divinity, for them, this is like a bonanza.
This is, oh, there is so much to know about God and becomes like a veritable devotional feast. So, now, with this background, I took a little time to set this background. It is important for us to understand that Nithyananda Prabhu, when he appears, his name itself signifies the mission.
Nitya is eternal and Ananda is happiness. So, what does it mean? Nithyananda, the one who savours and shares eternal happiness. So, let’s try to understand this from a diagrammatic perspective.
See, there is a spiritual domain of the Nithyananda mission. So, this is not referred to a particular organisation with a particular name, but there is a mission of Lord Nithyananda. So, there is a spiritual domain, which is Nithyananda, which is eternal and full of bliss.
That is the whole spiritual world. Krishna says, when all in this world is destroyed, that part is not destroyed. So, it is from that domain that the Lord descends.
So, that is his ecstatic descent. He descends with his ecstasy. He comes filled with joy.
He is joyful and he comes with his joy. So, on this day today, around 500 years ago, that Lord Nithyananda Prabhu appeared in India, in Bengal, in a place called Ekachakra. So, that is the ecstatic descent from the divine domain.
And what is the purpose of that ecstatic domain? It empowers us for a compassionate ascent. So, ascent is that we rise from here, our consciousness rises from the material domain. The material domain is characterised by its Anitya and it is Nirananda.
Anitya, that nothing here is permanent. And even while it exists, quite often it is devoid of pleasure. It is because life is so bankrupt of pleasure that we try to create so many sources of pleasure.
That we try to say, have entertainment. Now, entertainment is in one sense, it is not that we are enjoying it, it is we are watching somebody else enjoy and we are getting second hand enjoyment through that. It is second hand enjoyment.
Maybe a hero and a heroine in the movie are hugging and the audience whistle and think, if only I would be there, I would enjoy so much. So, it is second hand enjoyment. But why? Because the enjoyment in the world is so little that people seek it desperately.
And that is what is being referred to over here. So, the world is Nirananda. And it is in this Nirananda world.
Now, we may say, the Lord’s mission is to, he comes from the spiritual domain to take us to the spiritual domain. Somebody may say, does the spiritual domain really exist? I don’t believe in it. Okay, we all can choose what we want to believe.
But the fact is that we may not believe in the spiritual domain, but then we try to create a domain of ecstasy, a domain of joy. The whole purpose is, we want a better world, we want a better world than what exists. And we try to create it through entertainment, we try to create it through sci-fi, we try to create it through movies.
In India currently, the Indian Premier League cricket is going on, or at least its auction is going on. And crores and crores of rupees are spent on it, millions and millions of dollars. In fact, the amount of money that is spent on one IPL, that can feed all the hungry people of India throughout the year.
So, people are so desperate for entertainment, people are so desperate for a higher life. So, what happens is, yes, we may get some moments of thrill, we may get some thrill. So, the normal material domain is Anitya and Nirananda.
Now, what happens is, when we try to get, we try to create pleasure through some entertainment, that entertainment is also Anitya, it is temporary. But there is some little Ananda in between. It is Anitya and little Ananda.
We are so desperately pleasure craving, that we try to seek some pleasure. But Lord Nityananda descends to take us to the place of Nitya Ananda, the place of eternal bliss. And how does he do that? By purifying and raising our consciousness.
So, it is his compassion that he gives us the opportunity to ascend, to rise upwards. So, the Lord comes because he does not want us to be unhappy. Somebody say, I am not unhappy, I am happy.
Okay, fine. Yes, now that depends on how we define, happiness is not just like a state, it is more like a continuum. In general, if you want to say, I am happy, unhappy.
Okay, what is the definition of unhappiness? A simple definition could be that, two things, to not get what we want and to get what we do not want. The priya, that which is dear for us, it goes away from us. And that which is not, that is unwanted by us, that comes to us.
So, we all have, right now you can think of situations in your life, where something we want, we do not have it. And something we do not want, it may be in relations, it may be in finances, it may be in health, it may be in professional, social circles. So, this world is a place of distress.
And we can try to tackle this distress at a practical level and we should, but we also need to raise our consciousness. It is for that purpose that Nithyananda Prabhu comes, that we belong to a place where there can be constant happiness forever. So, Nithyananda Prabhu, he is supremely merciful.
Now, even in the legal system, there is a tension between mercy and justice. So, justice is following the rules. You have done this wrong, therefore you will be punished.
This is the wrong and this is the proportional punishment for the wrong. That is playing by the rules. So, Nithyananda Prabhu does not play by the rules, but he fulfils the purpose of the rules.
He is called avadhut, avadhut shiromani he is called. Not just avadhut, avadhut means one who does not follow the rules, one who transcends the rules. And he is the greatest among those who transcend the rules.
Now, we may say, really, if somebody says proudly, I am a rule breaker, really, is there something to be proud of? Most people, when they break rules, they are afraid, they want to hide, they want to conceal. Once a person was caught by a, was pulled over by a traffic cop, and this is speeding way above the speed limit. So, the traffic cop said, did not you see the speed limit sign? The driver said, person said, I saw the speed limit sign, I just did not see you.
I just did not see you. What that means is that I will follow the rules as long as I do not get caught. So, most people play by the rules and if somebody is a rule breaker, they want to hide it.
But Nithyananda Prabhu is said to be the rule breaker and he is qualified as that. But he is not exactly a breaker of rules, he is a transcendent of rules. So, there are rules and there is something below the rules and there is something above the rules.
So, he gives mercy to anyone and everyone, even if they have no spiritual interest, even if they have no spiritual qualification, even if they have no spiritual background. So, when something is given to the worthy, that is justice. So, when something is given to somebody unworthy, that is mercy.
So, he does not play by the rules, playing by the rules means giving something valuable to those people who deserve it, who qualify for it. So, Nithyananda Prabhu, when he appears in the world, he is actually, he is Avadhoot. How does he not play by the rules? His appearance is quite extraordinary.
So, some people are attracted to spirituality by those who conform to their expectations of spirituality. That means, okay, how should a spiritualist be? Maybe a spiritualist should be simple, should be sober, should be gentle or everybody has a particular idea of what has their idea of what a spiritualist should be. And when somebody conforms to their expectations, oh, yes, this is what, I respect this person, I want to know more, learn from this person.
But there are others who are attracted by those who challenge and even confound their expectations of spirituality. Oh, I did not expect a spiritualist to be like this. I thought spiritual people were grave and this person is so cheerful, so jolly.
Okay, I thought, I did not know spiritual people are like this. So, Nithyananda Prabhu attracts these kind of people. So, Nithyananda Prabhu, what he does is, his appearance is such that he challenges, oh, this person could not be spiritual, if this person is spiritual, that means spirituality must be cool.
So, he attracts people that way, to challenge and confound their expectations of spirituality. So, let us see how Nithyananda Prabhu does that. So, there is this concept of Niyam Agraha.
Niyam Agraha, there are two aspects to it. There is Niyam and Agraha. So, Niyam is the rule and Agraha is not following.
Graha is to accept and Agraha is to reject. So, Niyam Agraha is to reject the rules and act whimsically. Now, that is bad, that is unhealthy, that will lead us nowhere.
So, like somebody is going on a traffic, going, travelling in traffic and then follow traffic rules, that will be dangerous for them, dangerous for others. So, there is Niyam Agraha. And then there is nearing, Niyam Agraha.
So, what happens over here is that Niyam Agraha means insisting on the letter of the rule at the cost of its spirit. That means, this is what is to be done, this is always to be done. Say for example, somebody, even if an ambulance is going through and there is a life or death situation, says no, you have to stop for red signal.
No, no, that is not required. There are times when the spirit has to be highlighted more and more. So, what Nityanand Prabhu does is, he, it is not that he rejects the rules, the letter of the rules, he does not reject the rules of spirituality, rules that govern spiritualists for the sake of rejecting them, but for a higher purpose.
In whatever way, he pursues the spirit in whatever way is most effective. So, that is his extraordinary mercy that he, let us try to understand this, that there are people who may, who are already somewhat spiritually inclined, who are having a pious upbringing, they may go to a temple, they may go to a holy place and they may meet with holy people, they are inspired and transformed by the sacred atmosphere over there. And those kind of people will be delivered.
But what about those who will never go to such places? How will they be delivered? So, Nityanand Prabhu is especially concerned about such people. So, what happened is, one way his compassionate comportment came in is that he would dress in extraordinarily opulent clothes. So, I will focus on this particular pastime of Nityanand Prabhu, where Nityanand Prabhu, although he was a spiritualist, initially he was a brahmachari, as an avadhut, and then sometimes he is referred to as a sannyasi, but technically he was a brahmachari.
He never took the official vows of sannyas. And out of respect, sometimes he is referred to as sannyasi in some circles. But he was a brahmachari.
And then later on, on Nityanand Prabhu’s instruction, he became a grahastha. But even as a brahmachari, sometimes he would dress in extraordinarily opulent clothes and he would expensive ornaments. And this is what happened once when he was in Navadweep and he was at the place of a person called Hiranya Pandit.
So, when he was at the house of Hiranya Pandit, there, while living there, there was a thief, a very well-known, you could say infamous thief in that place. And this infamous thief, he was constantly searching, like all other thieves, for opportunities to make quick money, to rob people. And at one particular time, when he encountered Nityanand Prabhu, he saw Nityanand Prabhu wearing such an opulent, having such wealth around him, he thought that, you know, this is one person, if I can just get, this is one robbery which will give me all the wealth that I want.
He was such a person who would never have gone to anything like a temple. And yet Nityanand Prabhu decided that he was going to deliver that person. How did Nityanand Prabhu do that? He did that by, actually, his avadhutvesh.
His vesh was, this person would not have turned to a sacred person or sacred people. There are so many sacred people. I don’t care about them.
And holy people, I don’t care about them. But Nityanand Prabhu, by his extraordinary dress, he said, oh, I want to go and rob this person. And he told, he had his own gang.
So, he said that, this gang is there. And with this gang, if I go and, if I rob this person, you know, this is one robbery which will settle us for the whole life. This is one job.
You don’t have to do any more jobs after this. So, he said, okay. His colleagues were also intrigued and they decided to go.
And he was saying, now Hiranyak Pandit, Hiranyak Pandit was not a very wealthy person. But Nityanand Prabhu, although he had so much wealth, he didn’t really care for that wealth. He cared for the wealth of devotion.
And normally, if somebody is very wealthy, they will want to go in a house, go and stay at somebody’s place who is also very, very wealthy. Sometimes when devotees conduct programmes, and if there are some elite people, if they want to come to a home programme, they will not come to the home of a person who is like, whose house is very small. They want to go to similar places.
But Nityanand Prabhu, he was not like that. Hiranyak Pandit was not a very wealthy person, but Nityanand Prabhu was staying at his place. So, they decided to go and rob.
And they went there and they were waiting. The devotees were relishing the supreme wealth of devotion. They were chanting the holy names.
And as they were chanting the holy names more and more and more, these thieves were waiting and waiting and waiting. And while inside, the devotees were becoming more and more ecstatic through the chanting. In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna says that, that that which is day for all living beings is night for the self-realised and that which is day for the self-realised is night for the all living beings.
So, what it means is that it’s not that self-realised people and other people are living in two different time zones, opposite time zones. That is not what it refers to. What it means is that day is the domain of activity, of energy.
And night is the domain of inactivity, lethargy, darkness. So, although it was night, the devotees were ecstatic. They were being filled with more and more energy.
But because these thieves outside, they had no, they didn’t have any devotional interest. So, they started getting bored, tired and they fell asleep, waiting for this kirtan to end. So, they said that, okay, they were thinking that when he goes, when everybody goes to sleep over there, then we will enter and we’ll rob.
Because although they had their weapons, just by the sound of the kirtan, they thought there must be a lot of people over here. There are so many people, it will not be easy for us to rob. So, let’s wait for them to go to sleep.
But the devotees didn’t go to sleep, they themselves went to sleep. And then, they slept throughout the night. And then in the morning, when the crows started cawing and the birds started chirping, they woke up.
The cocks, the hen and the cocks started crowing. So then, and they said, what happened? And their leader woke up and he looked at it, why did you sleep for so long? Why didn’t you wake me up? You slept first, you slept first. They all started blaming each other.
We lost our opportunity. And finally, now it’s interesting that the culture of virtue or culture of religiosity was there. Their leader, he thought, okay, why did we fail? He said, okay, this is it, you fell asleep, I fell asleep, whoever it is, actually, there is a deeper cause.
And the deeper cause is, we are worshippers of the goddess, we are worshippers of Durga. At that time in Bengal, the worship of the goddess Durga was quite common. He said that because we didn’t worship Durga Devi before we went robbing.
That’s why our attempt was foiled. So, we displeased Durga Devi. It’s amazing that this religion alone, religiosity alone, doesn’t automatically bring virtue.
Somebody may go to a temple, somebody may worship, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that person will be doing good things. Here, people are thinking that, okay, our job is to rob. So, generally, when we want to do something important, we may go to the temple and take blessings of God.
So, here, for them, it is a project robbery. And for starting the project robbery, they wanted to go and take the blessings of the goddess. That’s why the Bhagavad Gita significantly differentiates between religiosity and spirituality.
Religiosity means doing some rituals. But is that transforming somebody’s heart? Gita says in its conclusion, It says, give up mere religiosity, give up mere rituals and focus on becoming spiritual. So, but still, it is to be appreciated that although they were robbers, they still were worshipping the goddess.
They said, let’s wait for some days. And they knew from their discreet enquiry that Nityanand Prabhu was going to be there for some time. So, they went back.
And then, again, they came. This time, they worshipped the goddess properly. And when they came back, as they were coming, coming, initially, the night was, the sky was clear because of the stars and the moon in the sky.
And suddenly, the sky became clouded. It became pitch dark. It started, it started appearing like it was going to be stormy and thunderbolt and lightning and showers.
And then, as they’re walking, they’re just going toward the house. Inside the house, the ecstatic kids are going on. And suddenly, they all fell into a ditch.
Now, they had marked out a path. How were they going to go inside? And they didn’t know from where this ditch came. And as they fell into that ditch, and they found that inside, there were all kinds of insects.
They started becoming alarmed. First, they were alarmed. If we call out to others, we will be caught as thieves because they had their weapons and stuff with them.
And if we don’t call out, what kind of, what is it that is biting us? Are these mere insects? Mosquitoes? Are these snakes and scorpions? They were petrified. They were horrified. And as if that was not bad enough, they’re trying to trying to catch on somewhere in the ditch and come out of it.
And then suddenly, see, what happens is, when it’s dark, we can’t see. But even in dark, we can see something. It requires some amount of seeing to know that we are not seeing.
For a person who is blind, for them, they can never see. It is when we are seeing, and then we can’t see. So, now, if suddenly we wake up, and there’s complete darkness around us, we will not be able to see.
But they were still able to see some light from the house nearby, and suddenly that light went off. And they said, what happened? And then they realised that actually, they had become blinded. And they look at each other.
A person tried to look at his hand. Come and see me. Came horrified.
What happened? How did we become blind like this? This was what was supposed to be like their dream job. It was turning out to be their worst nightmare. And what was happening was, through all this, their heart was being churned.
With that, they all had done many, many wrongs. But what Nityanand Prabhu was doing, Nityanand Prabhu as the Supreme Lord was giving his mercy. So, generally, when mercy is given, there is, it’s not that a person has done huge amount of wrongs, and they’re just let completely scot-free.
Okay, there is some symbolic, at least some symbolic punishment is to be there. So, this whole nightmarish experience was actually their karma coming upon them in a very concentrated form. They were horrified.
And at that time, what happened was because they had worshipped the goddess. In the Bhakti tradition, there is a description of a hierarchy of divinity also. There are Devatas, and above the Devatas, there is the Supreme Lord.
So, because they had worshipped the goddess, and they had that level, at least their head had the level of piety. So, earlier they had thought of the goddess. And now, what happened was, by Nityanand Prabhu’s mercy, when they were going through those situations externally, that Nityanand Prabhu is also present in their hearts.
God is present inside each one of us in the form of the Paramatma. And from that indwelling divinity, he got an insight. Oh, actually, how can so many things be going wrong for us? It must be because of some special reason.
And then a conviction arose within his heart. So, actually, this person Nityananda, he’s not an ordinary person. He’s not even an extraordinary person.
He is the supreme person. He is God himself. And as soon as this conviction arose within his heart, it was not just like an insight coming or idea coming.
It just emerged as a conviction. And with that conviction, he started praying fervently. So, fervently, fervently, fervently, they started calling out to Nityanand Prabhu.
He started praying, and the others also started praying. He says, please forgive me. We tried to rob you.
We tried to offend you. Please have mercy on us. And when the Lord saw that the little door of mercy was opened, little door of receptivity was opened in their hearts, then he gave a shower of mercy.
As if miraculously, their eyes came back. All the insects that were tormenting them disappeared. The storm cleared.
Again, a clear night. And they came out and they had some good sense. They immediately went and cleaned themselves a little bit.
And then they dressed themselves properly. And then they came back. With this head thief in the front, Nityanand Prabhu was doing ecstatic kirtans.
And as they were doing kirtans, they came in. And initially, all the common people, they were apprehensive. They are known to be robbers.
If they have come here, it’s like if, say, we are having some celebration, we have a temple, and suddenly some mafia don comes with a whole gang over there. Everybody will become frightened. What did they come here for? This heftily bodied thief along with other hefty thieves came and they came straight walking.
And then they came right up to Nityanand Prabhu and everybody’s tension was increasing. What is going to happen? What is going to happen? And then as they came near Nityanand Prabhu, that person just fell down like a dandavat and offered obeisances. He says, I surrender to you.
Please have mercy on me. And Nityanand Prabhu raised, lifted him up, caught up from his seat, lifted him up and blessed him, embraced him and told him that everything that you have done will be forgiven. Just accept Lord Chaitanya’s mercy and stop doing wrong things.
And he agreed. He committed his life to Nityanand Prabhu and his heart was completely cleansed. Not only was he freed from future sinful reactions that were going to come, but the sinful desires, the greed that was there within his heart, that was also removed.
And with that, he just became transformed. And he joined in the Kirtan. He didn’t even think about all the extraordinary ornaments and precious stones that were there with Nityanand Prabhu because he had got Param Drishtvani Vrat.
He had got a higher taste. He was tasting the sweetness of divine mercy. He was tasting the sweetness of the holy names and of the Kirtan of the holy names.
He forgot everything else. And then he felt so ecstatic that the whole Kirtan went on for the night. He participated throughout it.
And for all the days that Nityanand Prabhu was there, he would continue, he would join the Kirtans. Nityanand Prabhu would travel. So what he did was, he didn’t travel with Nityanand Prabhu, but along with Nityanand Prabhu, wherever Nityanand Prabhu would go, he would go separately.
And wherever Nityanand Prabhu would go, he would go there and there is like a book distribution travelling party. There are different devotees who travel and share Krishna Bhakti. So he had like a robbers outreach programme.
So wherever Nityanand Prabhu would go, he would go to that place and he would go to the hideout of all the robbers over there. And he would tell them about Nityanand Prabhu. Now he was a widely known and feared head of robbers.
And then they saw he is transformed. He is speaking this. He had credibility in robber circles.
And so this same phenomena that Nityanand Prabhu would be doing Kirtans and suddenly the local mafia would come there. And everybody apprehensive and those local leaders would come with this particular thief. Who had now become a devotee and they would come and they would all surrender their lives to Nityanand Prabhu.
And they would all become devotees. Such is the extraordinary mercy of Nityanand Prabhu by which he transformed the hearts of those whose hearts could not normally be transformed. And this is how Nityananda, that eternal joy is spread far and wide.
And that same Nityanand Prabhu and his mercy are available to us today. Srila Prabhupada taught in the tradition of Nityanand Prabhu and Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. And he especially emphasised the mercy of Nityanand Prabhu.
Srila Prabhupada was a part of the Gaudiya tradition. Traditionally in the Gaudiya temples, previously there would be Gaur Gadadhar, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and Gadadhar Pandit. But Srila Prabhupada instead introduced Gaur Nityanand.
Because Nityanand Prabhu and his mercy are vital for us for our spiritual growth. And therefore, Prabhupada would say that if we pray to Nityanand Prabhu for his mercy, by his mercy even the impossible can become possible. Whether there are impossible obstacles in our life externally or there are impossible to deal with impurities inside us internally.
Either way we can become purified and transformed and empowered by Nityanand Prabhu’s mercy. And we can progress through this difficult life, through this difficult world which is Anitya Nirananda toward the destination of Nityananda. So Nityananda Prabhu comes to take us towards the abode of Nityananda.
And Srila Prabhupada has established the International Society of Krishna Consciousness to share, to continue sharing that tradition, that legacy of extraordinary mercy. So we all are indebted to, we all can indebted to Srila Prabhupada for introducing us to Nityananda Prabhu and for giving us an opportunity to hear his glories and to relish his mercy. So I’ll conclude with a prayer.
But before that I’ll quickly summarise what I discussed. I discussed three main points today. First was the extraordinariness of the festival that we are celebrating, the birthday of God’s older brother.
So in the bhakti tradition God is revealed to be not just as some remote divinity, as an object of worship or meditation, contemplation, but as a very lovable divinity who relishes the full range of relationships, his rasaraj. And so through tattva we understand, we understand God’s supremacy, but through rasa we understand, we understand not just his position, but his disposition, his lovability, accessibility, vulnerability. And then we discussed specifically about Nityananda Prabhu, what is his mission? That he comes to give Nityananda.
He comes from the eternal abode, there’s a compassionate, there is ecstatic descent to help us to ascend towards him, that is his compassion. And to that end, so one specific attribute of Nityananda Prabhu, so that was the philosophical understanding of Nityananda Prabhu and his mission. And so God can have an older brother because he is supreme and he relishes all relationships.
But specifically when Nityananda Prabhu is discussed, he is so merciful that his mercy goes beyond the letter of the law. He is, there is a letter and there is a spirit of the law. So we talk about two kinds of Niyamadraha and Nityananda Prabhu goes beyond that.
So not justice, but mercy and extraordinary mercy he gives to everyone. And we discussed one particular manifestation of his mercy was how he delivered things. Those who had no spiritual inclination, those who would not go to a spiritual person, those who would worship only so that they could draw better, such people, they were attracted through Nityananda Prabhu’s extraordinary of opulence.
He didn’t care for that opulence, but he used that opulence to attract others. And then by Nityananda Prabhu’s miraculous mercy, they were all transformed and elevated. So we all can pray that whatever conditionings we have, by Nityananda Prabhu’s mercy, we too can be transformed and elevated.
So I’ll conclude with a prayer to Nityananda Prabhu over here. I offer obeisances to Nityananda. All happiness, he provides, he manifests, he creates all happiness and supreme happiness.
Among those who provide happiness, he is the supreme. And how does he do that? How does he give us access to that happiness? He is that divinity who gives the holy name, who gives taste for the holy name, who gives ecstasy in the holy name. And how does he do it? He doesn’t just stick to the rules.
He goes beyond the rules, doing whatever it takes for enabling and empowering people to elevate their consciousness and attain Nityananda. So for such a merciful Lord Nityananda, let us offer obeisances to him and let us pray that we too get a drop of his mercy. Nityananda Prabhu ki Jai.
Thank you very much. Hare Krishna. So I can see there are a few questions.
How much time do we have for questions? Hare Krishna Prabhu. Thank you for the class. We have 30 more minutes, if that’s fine with you.
Okay. So let’s look at the various questions. So what is the difference between religiosity and spirituality? When we chant or do Arthi, Arandha’s technical rituals, since there’s a time and procedure for them, how do we become less religious and more spiritual? And through this, we become more virtuous.
Well, okay. So there is a difference between religion and religiosity. Religiosity is more of religious pomposity.
So it’s a portmanteau. Like we have smog, it is smoke plus fog is called smog. So religiosity is religion plus pomposity.
That means when somebody does religion for ostentation, just for show, just for external purposes, that is religiosity. Just maybe they are in a social circle where if somebody appears to be respected a lot, or they use God for their own ulterior motives like that. So religiosity is simply ritualism without understanding the purpose.
So the rituals themselves, the practises, the word rituals often has a negative connotation. That’s why in our tradition often we use the word of practises. So spiritual practises like chanting, worshipping the deities, doing Arthi.
So these rituals themselves are not bad. They are required in every walk of life. For that matter, if you see when you meet a person, when we meet a person, we shake hands.
Now why shake hands? That’s a ritual. That’s a ritual of greeting. And different countries, different cultures, there are different rituals.
Some people may just nod their heads. Some people may bow down. Some people in the British tradition, there are people who do courtesies.
So there are different. So now in today’s world, the ritual of handshake has become very common. So that’s a ritual.
Now rituals, they are essential. They give structure. They bring structure and order to our interactions with each other.
If you meet someone and if there is no ritual, okay, what do I do? How do I express cordial cordiality? We’ll shake hands. That’s a ritual. In the Vedic tradition, we may fold our hands.
That’s also a way of greeting. Of course, I’ll come to that particular ritual a little later. So rituals are, they give structure for our actions.
So rituals themselves are not bad. Sometimes there are, even in modern society where people condemn superstition and blind faith, there are so many people who have, so many people follow blind rituals. So for example, the whole idea of blowing a candle on birthday, that’s a complete superstition.
Why are candles blown? Actually that tradition or that practise originates from a Norwegian myth that they said that when small children are growing, at that time, on their birthdays, some evil spirits enter into their body. And the number of years that child is, that many evil spirits will enter into the body. And their idea is that if you extinguish candles, the evil spirits will go.
So that’s why you extinguish candles. Now, most people don’t believe in evil spirits. But still, it has become a ritual now.
So rituals are there in every walk of life. When in cricket, for example, somebody hits a boundary. Now, why does the umpire do like this? Now, what has this got? This has nothing to do with four or this has got nothing to do with six.
That’s a ritual. So rituals are everywhere in life. So, but the point is that, is there a purpose for the rituals? So in the bhakti tradition, in spiritual traditions in general and bhakti tradition in particular, the rituals are designed in such a way that they enable us to develop the or to express or to cultivate the appropriate emotions.
So for example, when we go in front of the Lord, we offer obeisances. So that brings humility. Then we fold our hands and approach in the mood of reverence that it fosters devotion.
So it is not that we have to become more less religious. It is not that we have to become less religious and more spiritual. Rather, we need to become religiously spiritual.
Because the religious practises are the way to spirituality. Many people when they say I want to be, I want to be spiritual, but not religious. They will say like that because their understanding is that they think religion means being having blind faith, being dogmatic, being just following some superstitions and that’s why they don’t want to do that.
But what is required is for each one of us to recognise that we all are growing and the practises that are there, they help us to raise our consciousness. So if somebody does the practises without actually striving to raise their consciousness, then that is a problem. So yes, it is we want to be religiously spiritual.
And that’s what the Bhakti tradition is all about. So I can read out a few questions that we have in the chat. So one of the questions we have is at the age of 12, one mendicant requested Hadai Pandit to give his son Nitai to accompany him in travel for preaching.
Was this mendicant Lakshmipati Teertha? And I think this is from Pitamber Prabhu, he is saying there were two versions, some say that it was Lakshmipati Teertha, some say it was someone else. Okay. See, Nityanand Prabhu, when he was a child, he was told at 12 that as a sannyasi came and he said I want a charity, give me your son, I want to take him with me.
Now the early life of Nityanand Prabhu is documented but not exhaustively documented. There is a book called Nityanand Charita Amrit, which describes his past time. But Nityanand Charita Amrit is attributed to Vrindavan Das Thakur.
As far as our tradition’s historical records go, it is not written by Vrindavan Das Thakur. In the contemporary attribution of what the immediate followers of Vrindavan Das Thakur, when they describe Vrindavan Das Thakur in the books that he wrote, Nityanand Charita Amrit doesn’t come in that. So, therefore, there are some aspects about him was, about Nityanand Prabhu, especially his early life, things which are not described in Chaitanya Bhagavata and Chaitanya Charita Amrit, there is not that much clarity.
So, that is why it is not very clear. So, now it is understood that Nityanand Prabhu was at one level, he, so exactly what he did during those years before he came to be with Mahaprabhu. See, we have Mahaprabhu’s biographies and when because we have Mahaprabhu’s biographies, when Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, when Nityanand Prabhu came to meet Mahaprabhu and was with him, from that time there is relatively clear status.
So, there is relatively clear knowledge about him. So, the previous things, there is a lack of clarity and there are different Gaudiya Vaishnavas who say different things. So, my understanding would be that there is, unless there is a very definitive source, it is going to be difficult to resolve this controversy.
Thank you, Prabhu. There is another question from… Yeah, I can see. So, even about his spiritual master also, I would say that Nityanand Prabhu considered.
So, now the idea that one’s Godbrother can be considered as good as spiritual master, well, that depends again on what is the… See, when we talk about Godbrother, there is a huge difference among Godbrothers also. Say, for example, for us, all Prabhupada disciples are very senior devotees. But if you talk about Prabhupada disciples, you know, somebody who came to Krishna Maharshi movement in 65 and somebody who came in 77, just before Prabhupada departed.
He took initiation at that time. Oh, that devotee is very, very senior to me. So, we don’t know.
And it was when exactly both of them took initiation. So, Nityanand Prabhu recognised Madhavendra Puri’s exalted status and that’s why he… So, now spiritual master can also mean shiksha guru. So, for many of us, we may be introduced to Krishna consciousness by some devotees who may later become our Godbrothers.
That means we may take initiation from that same person, from the spiritual master, who has also initiated the person who brought us to Krishna bhakti. So, in one sense, we become Godbrothers. But still, we may treat them like our spiritual master, like at least our gurus, not niksha guru, but shiksha gurus.
So, Madhavendra Puri’s relationship with Nityanand Prabhu saw Madhavendra Puri venerable because of his exalted spiritual status, even if he was… even if they were Godbrothers. Then Nityanand Prabhu entered Grahastha ashram. Yes, Mahaprabhu told him to do that because Mahaprabhu wanted that Nityanand Prabhu would reach out to a broader number of people.
As sannyasi, there are limits to what can be done. As grahasthas, he could go and meet everyone. Nidamdas Thakur says that even if Nityanand Prabhu will go to a bar, I know he is going there, not to drink, but to get people over there to become drunk with love for Krishna.
So, for sannyasi to do that would be inappropriate. So, now, Avadhoot is not exactly sannyasi, as I said. Avadhoot is more of a person who, he was a person who had, you could say, renounced the rules or he rose above the rules and he went above that.
So, now, see, regarding the past lives of certain characters, I wouldn’t go too much into those things because if we go into past lives, we can learn about past lives, but the more important thing is that Nityanand Prabhu is merciful. If he is merciful, then his mercy can come independently, even if his parents have not done anything in the So, if you find some specific things in specific sources, that will be wonderful. But even if that is not there, the principle of mercy still remains.
And in fact, the principle of mercy becomes more extraordinary if they had not done anything special in previous lives. I am not saying that they did not, but further research will be required. So, what does Nityanand Prabhu look for? He is very merciful.
What do we need for his mercy? Well, broadly speaking, you can say, it is eager desire. If you have a little desire, his mercy will increase that desire. If you have a lot of desire, his mercy will increase that desire further.
So, now, when we have desire, everything else will follow. Humility is required. But in one sense, if I have a desire, if say, if somebody is in India, and they have a desire to go to America, then just a desire brings some level of humility, they will stand in a long queue at the visa office, and they will plead their case, they will send so many applications, they will do all that is required, and all this requires humility.
So, if we just have a little desire, and if we do not have that desire, then maybe we are fortunate enough to associate with somebody who has that desire. And through that, we get the desire. So, in association, desire will come.
So, this is a question which is of a different nature, but I will quickly address this. If you follow Prabhupada, as you say today, why in the past have you said that his statements are not as per Shastra? Now, there are some random reports on the internet about something that happened more than 5-6 years ago. Basically, Prabhupada himself was a living person.
It is not that Prabhupada, he learned from Shastra, and his eyes and ears were closed to everything else. And it was that Prabhupada went to a college, Scottish Church College. Prabhupada learned from there certain things.
So, the college that Prabhupada learned was a Christian college. Prabhupada learned some Christian conceptions from there. So, for example, Prabhupada said that, Prabhupada had a college professor, who taught that the female brain is smaller than the male brain.
And Prabhupada spoke that. So, that statement of Prabhupada was not according to Shastra. And Prabhupada himself has acknowledged that at times.
In one lecture, Prabhupada said that, he was talking to some people, most of them have a Christian background. He says, in your Aquarian Gospel, it is said that Jesus Christ went to India and he went to Jagannathpur. And then, the devotees afterwards, Ravindra calls the Gospel a bona fide book.
Prabhupada said, it is a Gospel, isn’t it? He says, no. They said, actually, it is not a part of the Christian canon. So, he said that there is a book which is recently discovered and some people call it the Gospel.
So, Prabhupada said, so, is that good? So, Prabhupada said, that part of Jesus Christ going to Jagannathpuri is good. And he just laughed. And Prabhupada didn’t quote from there afterwards.
So, Prabhupada didn’t quote from there afterwards. So, Prabhupada taught Shastra. And wherever he taught Shastra, that is his compassion.
But while teaching Shastra, Prabhupada also drew from other sources. So, Prabhupada drew from some other sources. And if those sources were not reliable, then to point that out, so, is it that we have to defend that? Because Prabhupada said so, the Aquarian Gospel is the right Gospel.
And are we going to go and tell the Catholic Church, you are wrong because you don’t accept Aquarian Gospel, our Guru accepted it. No, Prabhupada heard from someone and then when he heard that they are not authorised, he didn’t accept it. So, we have to understand what Prabhupada’s greatness is.
Prabhupada is teaching Shastra. And when Prabhupada is teaching Shastra, that is his glory. But if Prabhupada has learned certain things from some other sources, and those sources are unreliable, then we don’t have to think that we are being unfaithful to Prabhupada by pointing out that those statements are coming from a different source.
So, how to understand Nityanand Prabhu’s mood as an avadhuta with respect to our sadhana and preaching activities? In our path, how can we follow Nityanand Prabhu? Well, generally, it requires a very exalted level to follow Nityanand Prabhu. So, generally, it’s important to follow the rules before we can rise beyond the rules. So, follow the rules means we have to practise our sadhana properly.
We reach out to people according to our adhikar, according to our capacity. And eventually, as we become more and more purified, then maybe some of the things which Nityanand Prabhu did, we may be able to do. So, rather than thinking that we can prematurely follow Nityanand Prabhu, we can just appreciate his mercy and try to access his mercy at this stage.
Then in exceptional situations, maybe with the blessings of senior devotees, sometimes we may go into areas where normally it may not be advisable to go. But sometimes we may go. So, generally, at our level, it is best to simply access his mercy, appreciate that he is so merciful, but focus on right now gaining that mercy, not on sharing mercy in that mood.
So, Mahaprabhu left householder life to preach, but he asked Nityanand Prabhu to go to householder life for preaching. So, how is this to be integrated? Well, that is the meaning of the Isha Kalapatra, that spiritual life is not a stereotype. To grow spiritually or to share spirituality, it’s not that there is a set of bullet points that we tick, tick, tick, tick, I did this, I did this, therefore, I’m spiritual now.
It is actually a change of heart for us and it is inspiring a change of heart in others. And that’s why it requires time, place, circumstance, understanding. So, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu was, you could say, the primary, the Pradhan Pracharak, the primary preacher.
And he was teaching a message of bhakti at a time where Advaitavada, along with sannyas, Advaitavada says that serious, impersonalists say that actually serious spiritual life begins only when you have renounced the world. So, sannyasis were highly respected, grahastas were not respected that much. So, Mahaprabhu wanted the message of bhakti and they thought, they used to propagate, okay, bhakti is nice, but it’s for less intelligent people, it is for sentimental people.
Those who are really intelligent, they will practise Jnana, they will Vedanta, Vakkesh, Sudha, Ramanta, they will analyse Vedanta Sutras. So, Mahaprabhu was the greatest Pandit at his time, even at the age of 14, he had defeated Keshav Kashmiri. Mahaprabhu, so, he actually, in one sense, perfected the chart that a typical Advaitin would follow, that he was a great scholar and then, he just, there’s a twist, that he became a bhakta.
Because he was a grahasta and he was a bhakta, people disrespected him. So, Mahaprabhu took sannyas, or not, Mahaprabhu took sannyas and he took sannyas apparently in the Advaita sampradaya, so that he could have that respect. And then, not that he wanted respect, he wanted his message to have that respect.
So, for the purpose of spreading the message far and wide, what happened is, he actually took sannyas. Now, Nityanand Prabhu, once the message has gained respectability, especially among the intellectual, Mahaprabhu wanted that message should reach even the masses, not just the masses, you could say even among the most, the most who are, those not who are degraded among the masses. And for that purpose, he felt the sannyasi couldn’t reach, a grahasta couldn’t reach.
So, again, that is an example of the purpose being important. And whatever purpose is required, however that purpose can be fulfilled, different people may do different things for that purpose. So, now, what does causeless mercy mean? Now, causeless mercy does not literally mean that there is no cause.
What it means is that the cause is too less for the mercy, that the cause is too less for the mercy. So, if it is literally cause, if it is completely causeless, then the question comes, why does one person get it and why does another person not get it? Is the Lord discriminatory? See, the Lord is not partial, he is reciprocal, he is reciprocal. But then the causelessness is that his reciprocity is far out of proportion with our mercy.
As we say that we take one step towards God, he takes a hundred steps towards us. So, in the biblical tradition, there is a story that Jesus talks about how God is merciful. So, he says that there was a village where there were very poor people with jobless and having no money.
And a wealthy farmer came to the marketplace, he saw many poor people, these hungry people. He says, you want to earn some money? He said, yes, work on my farm. So, he came in the morning and many people worked on the farm.
And then again went in the afternoon and he found that many other people over there. And when he went in the afternoon, he said, would you like to work and earn something? He said, yes. They also came and worked.
And in the evening, he gave wages to everyone. And his farmer gave equal wages to everyone. And then those people who are working since morning, they protested, you know, we worked, we worked more than double there.
We worked from morning, these people only work from afternoon. So, he said that, you know, I am giving you what you promised, what I promised you and I am giving them what I promised. Now, why do you compare? So, he told this parable to indicate the principle of mercy, that mercy is reciprocal, but it is not mathematically proportionate.
There has to be some desire from our side, but it is not our desire that qualifies us for the mercy. Rather, that desire opens our heart so that the Lord can bestow the mercy. So, why do some people never get the mercy? Because, because they may never open their hearts at all.
So, causeless means not that there is no cause, but the cause is too less for the mercy. Prabhupada would give an example of causeless mercy. Once he was on a morning walk, and they were near a pond.
And there, one man is in America, one man was throwing some breadcrumbs and other things to the, to the ducks in the pond. And he was throwing to everyone and there was one duck which was quacking very loudly, very loudly, very loudly. And what was happening was this man was throwing more crumbs to that duck.
So now, it is not that by that greater quacking, that duck had earned the right to get more. But it is that, okay, because of that greater quacking, they attracted attention. Prabhupada is mercy.
So, the more we pray, the more fervently we chant, the more diligently we serve, the more we attract mercy. But that does not mean that our sadhana or our seva is the cause of the mercy. It is the Lord’s compassion, because of which the mercy comes.
But our seva, our sadhana are ways of showing him our eagerness. So, in that sense, it is the causeless mercy is that the cause is too less for the mercy that is coming. That is how we understand causeless mercy.
So, how do we open our hearts to receive such mercy? Generally, our hearts open by the, by the association of devotees. So, that in general, attachment to the material is very difficult to give up. Our hearts are filled with so many material desires and material cravings that it is very difficult to turn to even have any space within our heart for Krishna.
So, that is how our attachments bind us. But prasangam ajara means that which never grows old. So, our bodies may grow old, but our attachments do not grow old, they are still strong.
Prasangam ajara pasham atmana kavayo vidu, the wise know this nature of attachment. But sa eva sadhusu kruto is somehow we can get attached, attracted to the saintly people, sadhusu kruto. Then what happens by that is, so our heart may not open to Krishna, but our heart may open to a devotee of Krishna.
And yeah, this nice person. I would like to serve this person. I would like to assist this person.
I’d like to do something for this person. If not, at least I want to hear from this person. I want to learn from this person.
That little appreciation for a devotee of Krishna is itself the opening of the heart. And through that what happens is, mokshadwaram apavritam, the doors to liberation open up. So, that is how our bhakti usually begins.
And this also points to a converse responsibility for all of us when we are functioning in the world and we are practising devotees. We need to act in a way that opens people’s hearts toward Krishna. Not everybody will be receptive to Krishna to take a bhakti, but generally if we are polite and courteous and helpful in our dealings, then even if people are not interested in Krishna bhakti, they don’t agree with the practise of Krishna bhakti, they don’t appreciate the philosophy, but still they will say that’s a nice person.
And that is a nice person that itself can be a quantum leap in their spiritual journey. That can be the seed of the opening of their heart. So, that’s how generally through appreciation for those who are devoted to Krishna, our hearts start opening.
And when we are already practising bhakti, when we want to open our hearts more, what we can do is look for what it is that we currently are attracted to in bhakti. Now, what is it that we can give a place for in our heart? So, generally love is seen in two ways. Love is seen in what we give to our beloved and what we give up for our beloved.
Two things, what we give to our beloved and what we give up for our beloved. So, if we love someone, we want to offer them the best things, parents, they love their children, then they want to offer the best things to their children, the best education, the best facilities. So, they give for their children.
And what they give up for their children, that means, say a parent may, they want their children to study comfortably. So, the parents may take loans or they may live in a room without air conditioning and they may have their child’s son’s or daughter’s library with air conditioning so that you can study comfortably. So, what you give up for your beloved.
So, similarly for us, at our stage in bhakti, just the fact that we have come for this programme, there is some opening of the heart. So, with this opening of the heart, we can try to see what can we give to Krishna and what can we give up for Krishna. These two are indications of Sharanagati.
In fact, there are two principles of Sharanagati, Anukulyasa Sankalpa, Prathikulyasa Varjanam. Except what is favourable, that means, that which we can give to, when we give to Krishna, what does it mean? That means we give Krishna a place in our heart. Generally, when we give our attention, in all religious traditions across the world, charity is emphasised.
Now, why is charity emphasised? It is not just because religious people are after money, not at all. The idea is that, actually speaking, it is very difficult for us to give Krishna a place in our heart. So, the idea is that if we can’t give our heart to Krishna, then we can give what is in our heart to Krishna.
And usually money has a prominent place in our heart. So, when we give our money to Krishna, then what happens is, that much place in our heart comes to Krishna. So, Prabhupada would say, don’t just give books freely.
Let people pay for the books. Because if they pay for the books, then they will read the books. So, that is the idea.
So, in general, to open our hearts further to think of these things, what can we give to Krishna and what can we give up for Krishna? So, is there anything that I am attracted to right now in Krishna Bhakti? Maybe I like to hear Kirtans. Maybe I like to hear a particular devotee’s class. Maybe I like to do some puja.
So, whatever we like to do, try to do that in a committed way. Try to do that in a consistent way. At least that one thing, do it consistently.
There are many other things to do in Bhakti and if you can do other things, also wonderful. But at least become committed about this one thing. So, Krishna, every day, I will do Kirtans for 15 minutes.
Krishna, every day, I will read Shastra for 15 minutes. So, that is what we can give for Krishna. And then what we can give up for Krishna is, is there something which is unfavourable for our Bhakti and we can sacrifice it? That will also please Krishna.
So, if we have some unhealthy indulgences and we can give them up, that will also please Krishna. That will also open our heart to Krishna. So, that is how we can move closer to Krishna.
So, regarding class on Varahadev, well, right now, I am not giving any class. Tomorrow, I am giving another Nityanand Rajyoshi class. But on Varahadev, I have several classes on my website.
I have two websites, thespiritualscientist.com, where I have answered almost 7,000 questions. There are about 4,000-5,000 classes, 3,000 classes. There are classes on Varahadev also.
So, you can find that. And then I have another website called GitaDaily.com, where I write every day a 300-word article on the Gita, on understanding it logically and applying it practically. Thank you, Vallabhi Mataji, for sharing this thing.
So, quickly, does liberation refer to detachment from material things or to the soul’s travel to Goloka? Well, both. There is Jeevan Mukti and there is Videha Mukti. Jeevan Mukti, there are different kinds of liberation.
So, Jeevan Mukti means a person is in this body, but they have no attachment to worldly things. They are as if liberated. They are living in this world, but they are not living at all for this world.
They are living only for the Lord. So, to the extent we develop detachment, to that extent we can say, we have become liberated to that degree. So, Jeevan Mukti means we have no attachment to the world.
And Videha Mukti is a person, they give up their body and then the soul goes to spiritual world. So, both apply. So, last question quickly.
Haridas Thakur and Shiva’s Pandit could not find Nithyananda Prabhu and sent by Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. Chaitanya Mahaprabhu himself went and he found Nithyananda Prabhu in the house of Vandana Acharya. So, is there a tattva behind this Leela? Well, this is a pastime which describes the entry of you could say Nithyananda Prabhu into Gaur Leela directly.
So, broadly speaking, this is more of a rasa pastime, but the idea is that it is more meant to be relished, but the broad understanding is that Chaitanya Mahaprabhu at one level wanted to establish right from the beginning the exalted position of Nithyananda Prabhu. That not only that you cannot find him, but he is so important that I will go out of my way to find him and I will find him. I will take the endeavour to find him.
So, Nithyananda Prabhu, what happens is Chaitanya Mahaprabhu was the head of the Vaishnavas and how much respect he would accord to others that would indicate, that would define that person’s position. So, the very fact that he wanted to meet Nithyananda Prabhu means that Nithyananda Prabhu is a special person. But okay, we cannot find him, what to do, abandon it.
No, you cannot find it, then I will myself go and find him. And in this way, he showed how important he is for me. And of course, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu was also very respectful of Nithyananda Prabhu.
So, in that way, through this pastime, he established right from the beginning the extremely important position of Nithyananda Prabhu among his associates. So, thank you very much for this combination of very deeply devotional theological questions, as well as practical philosophical questions. I am happy to be of service, happy to have this opportunity to share Bhakti wisdom with all of you.
My best wishes and prayers that Nithyananda Prabhu also shower your mercy on you. It is just as the centre that Niagara Falls, there is a lot of water falling. So, I mean Nithyananda Prabhu, you have Nithyananda Falls over there.
Nithyananda Prabhu’s mercy may fall profusely. And I can reach many, many people who come there and who are there. My best wishes and prayers to all of you.
Thank you very much.