Understanding the Spiritual Reality and Parakiya Rasa

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
thank you very much om namo bhagavate vasudevaya narayanam namaskritya naram chaiva narottamam devin sarasvatim yasam kato jayam udheerayet nashtu prayeshu bhadreshu nityam bhagvate bhagvate sevaya bhagvate bhagvate bhagvatam canto 10 chapter 21 verse 11 dhanyah sma smamodhagatayo viharinyayita yanandanandanam upatavichitravesham akarana velu ranitam sakrishna saraha bhujam dadhur virachitam pranayavalokai bhava dhanyah dhanyah smamodhagatayo viharinyayita smamodhagatayo viharinyayita yanandanandanam upatavichitravesham yanandanandanam upatavichitravesham akarana velu ranitam sakrishna saraha bhujam dadhur virachitam pranayavalokai dhanyah smamodhagatayo viharinyayita smamodhagatayo viharinyayita yanandanandanam upatavichitravesham akarana velu ranitam sakrishna saraha bhujam dadhur virachitam pranayavalokai dhanyah smamodhagatayo viharinyayita smamodhagatayo viharinyayita yanandanandanam upatavichitravesham yanandanandanam upatavichitravesham akarana velu ranitam sakrishna saraha bhujam dadhur virachitam pranayavalokai dhanyah smamodhagatayo viharinyayita smamodhagatayo yanandanandanam upatavichitravesham smamodhagatayo viharinyayita smamodhagatayo virachitam pranayavalokai questions smamodhagatayo viharinyayita yanandanandanam upatavichitravesham akarana velu ranitam sakrishna saraha pranayavalokai dhanyah fortunate blessed smam certainly modhagatayah having taken birth in an ignorant animal species api although harinyah chidier etah these ya bu yanandanandanam the son of Maharaj Nanda upatavichitravesham dressed very attractively akaranya hearing velu ranitam the sound of his flute sakrishna saraha accompanied by the black deer their husbands pujam dadhuhu they worshipped virachitam parkom pranayavalokai by their affectionate glances translation and purport translation blessed are all these fish deer because they have approached Maharaj Nanda’s son who is gorgeously dressed and is playing on his flute indeed both the doe and the bucks worship the lord with the looks of love and affection purport this translation is quoted from Shri Prabhupada Chaitanya Charitambak madhya 1736 according to acharyas the gopis were thinking as follows the female deer can approach krishna along with their husbands because krishna is the ultimate object of attraction for the male deer because of their affection for krishna they are encouraged by seeing their wives attracted to him and thus consider their household lives fortunate indeed they become joyful upon seeing how their wives are searching after krishna and following along they urge their wives to go to the lord on the other hand our husbands are jealous of krishna and because of their lack of devotion to him they cannot even stand to smell his fragrance therefore what is the news of our lives om jnanati nirandasya jnananjun shalakaya chakshurum milkam yena tasmai shri gurave namaha shri chaitanyam na udhishti sthapitam yena bhokale suyam roopakadamayam radhati svapadantikam andhayam shri jnanam shri gurau shri utapadakamalam shri gurun vaisnavamsya shri roopam saagrajadam sahagana raghunathan vittam tam sujivam sadhvaitam saavadhutam parijun sahitam krishna chaitanya devam shri radha krishna padam sahagana lalita shri vishakhan vittamsyam nama om vishnupadal krishna prishtaya bhutale shrinate bhakti vedanta swami iti namine namaste saraswati deve braura vani pracharine vir vishesha sunyavadi ashyatya desha tharine namo maha vadanyaya krishna prema pradayate krishnaya krishna chaitanya namne gaurat vishena maha he krishna karuna sindho dina bandho jagatpate gopesha dopika khanda radha khanda namo namostu te takta kanchina gaurangi raghe vrinda vaneshwari vishabhanu sute devi pranamami haripriye pancha kalpataru bhasju krpa sindhubhya eva cha patita naam pavane bhlo vaishna vebhyo namo namah jai shri krishna chaitanya prabhu nityananda shri advaita gatadhara shri vasadi gaura bhakta vrinda hare krishna hare krishna krishna krishna hare hare hare rama hare rama rama rama hare hare I seek the blessings of all the senior devotees so that I can try to speak something on this exalted topic on the 10th canton Hare Krishna So today I’ll discuss this class in three parts First I’ll talk about the nature of spiritual vision Then I’ll talk about the nature of spiritual reality And then I’ll talk about how we can cultivate spiritual vision while we are living in our current material reality So what is the meaning of the nature of spiritual vision This purport basically is talking about how the gopis are looking at the deer and they are remembering Krishna So they are seeing the deer and not only are they seeing the deer but they are seeing how the deer are seeing Krishna and how the relationship of Krishna and the deer is and they are comparing that relationship with their relationship with Krishna and there is a almost like a tornado of emotions and memories that is going through their mind because of this So this is in the Srimad Bhagavatam 10th canto actually this chapter is the first reference practically speaking to the Madhurya Rasa in the 10th canto This Madhurya Rasa is referred to several times most prominently from chapters 29-33 and again it will be referred to in chapters 46 and 47 where Akrura comes to Vrindavan and then Akrura delivers the message of Krishna to the gopis in Vrindavan and once more again it will be referred to in the 65th chapter where Balram comes to Vrindavan and once more it will come in the 81st chapter where the gopis and Krishna meet in Kurukshetra So the Madhurya Rasa is the most exalted of all the Rasa’s and it is referred to in the Srimad Bhagavatam in these chapters in a concentrated way the chapters focus on this and this has been expanded by our Acharyas in a very elaborate way so the nature of spiritual vision is to be able to connect everything with Krishna now we see that when Chaitanya Mahaprabhu who was actually in the same mood as the gopis when they were trying to when they were searching for Krishna Chaitanya Mahaprabhu when he wanted to go to Vrindavan first immediately after sannyas and then later on after he somehow managed to get permission from his associates to go so he was in the mood of the gopis who were searching for Krishna when Krishna had departed from them during the Rasa advance so it is described that when Chaitanya Mahaprabhu was travelling along any forest that he would see he would think of that forest to be Vrindavan any river that he would see he would think of that river to be Yamuna any hill that he would see he would think that to be Govardhan now if we think of it from the objective reality point of view we know the conditioned soul has four defects one of the defects is to commit mistakes and the supreme lord is he doesn’t commit any mistakes so then now when lord Chaitanya is seeing some river to be Yamuna is he committing a mistake now is that river Yamuna or is it not Yamuna now if we say it is not Yamuna then we imply that lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu is committing a mistake by considering it to be Yamuna but if we say it is Yamuna then is Chaitanya Mahaprabhu really thinking of it as Yamuna if he really thought of it as Yamuna then he would not keep going further towards Yamuna so he sees it as Yamuna but still he understands also that it is not Yamuna and he goes towards Yamuna so what we consider as factual reality from our ordinary logical perspective is not as important as devotional vision as is one’s ability to remember Krishna in everything so Chaitanya Mahaprabhu is exalted these glories are described by Krishnadasa Kaviraj Goswami because he was able to connect everything with Krishna so the material reality we may call it reality in the sense that it exists but it exists only temporarily and the existence of any temporary object it can have only some temporary effect on us we may get attached to it, we may get entangled in it we may think of it for sometime and then the object perishes and we also perish we at least in our current bodily conceptions no longer exist so the material reality when it is seen for what it is at the material level alone it has some reality it has some utility but it is all temporary the only way this material reality can give us something eternal is when it connects us with the eternal so the river in an objective material reality sense is not Jamuna but actually everything in this world is meant to ultimately help us remember Krishna and it has value to the extent that it helps us remember Krishna so the nature of the spiritual vision is that one tries to connect everything with Krishna and to the extent one is successful in making that connection to that extent one is spiritually advanced so in the Brihad Bhagavatamrit when it is described that the Gopakumar went through this whole hierarchy of the levels of devotees when he finally comes to Vaikuntha where he meets Lord Vishnu and then after that he comes to Dwarka where he meets Krishna in Aishwarya Bhava now it is interesting that both the Vaikuntha devotees and the Dwarka devotees they both consider their respective lord to be supreme they don’t consider that Vishnu is coming from Krishna and Vishnu has only 60 qualities and Krishna has 64 qualities they don’t think that Krishna in Dwarka is in any way inferior to Krishna in Vrindavan and although Sanatana Goswami has written this book to establish the supremacy of Madhuri Rasa in Vrindavan but he does not in an objective sense try to prove that their understanding is wrong why? because there is Tattva and there is Rasa there are these two fundamental themes within the Vedic discourse Tattva is concerned with intellectual analysis and the Bhagavatam actually joins together Tattva and Rasa when you understand truth then there is meditation contemplation, analysis and that is what the first words of the Bhagavatam end with Dhimahi means meditate so when there is Tattva then there is meditation on the Tattva but when there is Rasa at that time there is no meditation in terms of analysis there is simply relishing and that’s the journey of the Bhagavatam, the third verse of the Bhagavatam so it first says ok we will meditate on the absolute truth the second verse says actually there are various ways to approach the absolute truth and this lower Dharma Dharmaprojita kaitavatra paramo nirmatsaramsatam we give up all the lower ways of meditating on absolute truth as an absolute truth as a desire fulfiller, as the maintainer even as the father no these are kaitava dharma and the third verse of the Bhagavatam says so become a Rasika so here the Bhagavatam doesn’t say that Dhimahi it says together drink and Rasika relish so there are these two distinct approaches of methods of approaching the absolute truth one is the analytical method and the other is the aesthetic method so for example if there is a beautiful flower now if I approach that flower as a botanist then I will say ok where is the Andrushyam where is the Ganeshyam, how many carpels does it have how many stamens does it have, which species does it belong to and I can get a good amount of knowledge about that but I won’t relish the flower if I want to relish the flower I approach the flower in an aesthetic sense how beautiful it is, how does the colour composition blend together how is the shape of the petals, what is the softness so there are these two ways of approaching analytical way of approaching is largely the jnani way the aesthetic way is the bhakta way analytical being jnani doesn’t mean it has to be rejected but it has to be subordinated eventually so here when I gave these two examples of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu seeing every forest as Vrindavan or the Vaikuntha Vasis seeing Vishnu as supreme or the Dwarka Vasis seeing Dwaraka Krishna as supreme, this is the aesthetic vision so in the Sandarbhas, Jiva Goswami talks elaborately from the analytical point of view and he establishes how Krishna is the source of all incarnations but that is a point which is required for philosophical analysis but when it comes to relishing then it doesn’t make a difference and that’s why the Brihad Bhagavatam describes that the Gopakumar himself is not satisfied with relating with Vishnu in Vaikuntha or with Dwarka Krishna his heart longs for Vrindavan Krishna but at the same time he doesn’t say that they are wrong neither Sanatana Goswami nor Gopakumar say that they are wrong so here when we are looking at the nature of spiritual reality we have to understand that we need to go beyond our normal logical categories of right and wrong and we have to have more of the aesthetic categorization of what is Anukul for Rasa and what is Pratikul for Rasa so whatever is Anukul for Rasa is accepted and whatever is Pratikul for Rasa is put aside so now that brings us to the point which has been of elaborate discussion and debate within our tradition itself, what to speak of outside our tradition Sparpod says that the Gopis were married to their husbands and then they say that their husbands were envious of Krishna now the word used is actually jealous of Krishna now we know that a soul who is jealous of Krishna cannot be there in the spiritual world so how can those who are residing right in the heart of the spiritual world and they are also the Gopas are also associates of Krishna so how can they be jealous of Krishna so actually speaking I will focus first on what Jim Goswami says in Gopal Champu and Vaktisandarbha then I will talk about what Vishnacharya Thakur says in his 10th canto and then we will try to reconcile what is being said so primarily the spiritual world is the abode of Rasa Rasa means the experience of spiritual emotions so the love between Krishna and the Gopis is extremely deep and powerful and the depth and the power of that love is realized internally and expressed externally when there is opposition the depth and the power of their love is both realized internally and expressed externally when there is opposition and that’s why in the spiritual world as a part of the Leela it appears as if there is opposition to their love so that that love becomes deeper Elephant is extremely powerful but when the elephant is tied by shackles at that time the elephant now the elephant wants to go towards its mate or towards food or whatever when the elephant is tied by shackles which are very severe which are very strong then the elephant tries to pull apart the elephant is not with the desire of going towards particular object and when there is the shackles then the elephant realizes its strength internally can I break apart the shackles and then it breaks apart the shackles two things happen, actually the elephant itself realizes I have so much strength that I can just break apart the shackles I can even uproot the poles or the walls or the hill or the tree, whatever to which the shackles are attached and there is also external expression you can see how strong this elephant is, it just ripped apart everything so the elephant is giant but its strength becomes realized internally and expressed externally when there is opposition so similarly in the spiritual world no soul is actually inimical to Krishna all the souls in the spiritual world especially those who are participating in Krishna’s leela all of them love Krishna but some of those souls as a part of their loving service to Krishna take an inimical role and that inimical role which creates obstacles in the loving pastimes between Krishna and the gopis that does greater internal realization and greater external expression of their love so that’s why there are no there are no souls who are actually jealous of Krishna so this jealousy is transcendental it is anukul to bhakti just as there is nobody who actually is a parent of Krishna Krishna is sarva-karana-karana he is the cause of all causes, he is the parent of everyone but just as certain souls take the role of being parents of Krishna for the sake of rasa, similarly certain souls take the role of being jealous of Krishna for the sake of rasa so actually speaking everybody in the spiritual world loves Krishna but in their love there are different ways in which their love is expressed and these oppositions that are there they create variety and excitement in the spiritual world the spiritual world is filled with dynamism, variety, excitement that happens because it’s not that everything there is very easy and always favorable to Krishna’s pastimes favorable in an external sense ultimately everything is favorable but because Krishna and the gopis there are obstacles in their relationship so therefore what happens is it appears as if that they have to struggle to overcome all those obstacles and the struggle to overcome all those obstacles creates adventure creates excitement and that’s how the rasa becomes intensified so now Jiva Goswami in our sampradaya he was the most prominent scholar and he had the responsibility of bringing intellectual and scriptural respectability to our tradition Chaitanya Mahaprabhu he gave the siddhanta and in his times he defeated, debated and defeated the most prominent scholars but then he did not write any books and because Chaitanya Mahaprabhu did not write any books and in general the credibility of a tradition comes within the traditional Vedic context from various sources the first of course is the charisma the potency of the prominent teacher but another very important way is by the caliber of the literature that are produced in the tradition and that’s why Chaitanya Mahaprabhu sent the Goswamis to Vrindavan to give this intellectual foundation for our tradition by writing books so Jiva Goswami wrote four different kinds of books so first was he wrote philosophical books which philosophically explained how Gaudiya Vaishnavism is the conclusion of the teachings of the Vedic literature the Madhuryaras in Parakiya Bhav in Vrindavan so those are primarily his sandarbhas, those are his philosophical literature second was he wrote books on grammar that was the Harinama Amrit Vyakarat and other books like that the books on grammar that he wrote are primarily for the sake of continuing the legacy of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and spiritualizing the study of Sanskrit and third he wrote literature that were commentaries so Rupa Goswami wrote Bhakti Razamrut Sindhu and Jiva Goswami commented on that and wrote Durgam Sangam like that he wrote several commentaries and the fourth which is of relevance to us is that he elaborated on the past times of Krishna by writing books like Gopal Chandra so these are books of past times so philosophical books grammatical books, commentaries and past times the four different kinds of books that he wrote and through all these he actually in different ways contributed to bringing about intellectual respectability for our tradition so now Jiva Goswami lived in Vrindavan and Vrindavan was a place of conservative orthodoxy and the idea of Krishna dealing with Krishna’s dealing with the Gopis especially the Gopis are considered to be the wives of some other men that was quite jarring even to the moral sentiments of the people at that time so Jiva Goswami has an elaborate analysis he does it in various places like he has written a commentary on the Brahma Samhita also he goes into elaborate analysis to actually say that the Gopis were they married to somebody else he says the Gopis were pure untouched they were not married to anybody else and how is that possible in Gopal Champu it is an elaborate amount of analysis quoting from Vishnu Puran from Bhagavatam and other places it’s a very scholarly analysis I won’t go into the reasoning here but the technicalities of the reasoning but I will talk about the overall thread of thought so he explains the same point which I was telling that Vrindavan is the abode of Rasa and whatever is required for enhancing the Rasa that is done over there but when we consider whatever is there for the sake of Rasa to be Tattva then we make a mistake so fundamentally the Gopis and Krishna are related to each other as wife and husband because all souls are ultimately meant for the enjoyment of Krishna all souls are the servants of Krishna and the Gopis are exalted devotees so that means fundamentally there is an intimate relationship of devotee and the lord between all devotees and Krishna and especially between his most exalted devotees the Gopis and Krishna and their relationship is in Madhura Rasa so he explains how actually the Gopis in Vrindavan are non different from the Queens of Dwarka because the Queens of Dwarka are basically expansions of the Gopis but he also explains in Vrindavan there is something special that happens so the Vraja Leela is more or less like a drama, not drama in the sense that it is unreal, drama in the sense that it is an arena for heightened emotional expressions so in Vrindavan, so imagine that there is a husband and wife who are dutifully married to each other and they are happy together but then there is a drama that is performed in which this couple husband and wife they play the role as if they are paramours so actually they are husband and wife but in the drama they play the role as if they are paramours, that means the wife is married to somebody else and then the wife has attraction towards the husband and actually speaking within the drama it is as if they are not married and within the drama that creates suspense, that creates excitement that creates tension so dramatic tension is created so the same way it is in Krishna Leela actually Krishna and the Gopis are always constitutionally they are related to each other as devotees as consorts but within the setting of Vraja the setting is created as if the Gopis are not married to Krishna now Jiva Swami describes that when Krishna becomes of a marriageable age in Vrindavan in the spiritual world Krishna is eternally of the same age there is eternal time which just keeps moving round and round so that there is variety in the past times but there is no change so there is no growth, there is no old age, everybody in the spiritual world stays of the same age in the material world when Krishna manifests his past times, Krishna grows from childhood till youth and then he doesn’t grow beyond that so when he is growing towards youth when he comes to a marriageable age so at that time Garga Muni sends a message to Pauranamasi and Pauranamasi decides that it is from the childhood itself, everybody understands that actually Krishna is going to marry Radharani and the whole of Raja is actually planning and dreaming and hoping for that union but then Pauranamasi and Garga Muni they feel that Garga Muni tells that Krishna will have to come out of Vrindavan to do his duties of protecting the world and if Krishna leaves the Gopis after he is married to them that separation will be intolerable so therefore Pauranamasi arranges in various ways to delay their marriage and he delays the marriage, so then what happens Jiva Goswami describes he quotes from the Vishnu Puran that actually Krishna eventually comes back to Vrindavan and he marries the Gopis marries Radharani and all the Gopis so this is actually inferred from Vishnu Puran where there are verses which talk about Chakravarti pad elaborates on this quite elaborately so we’ll look at these three points now, Krishna in Vrindavan before he left for Mathura and Dwarka, then Krishna in Mathura and Dwarka and then Krishna’s return so before we go into this we need to understand this fundamental point that actually everything that is happening is at the level of a divine eternal drama Krishna and Gopis are related to each other as husband and wife always that is their conjugal rasa relationship but external obstacles are created to make that rasa richer deeper, stronger so let’s see how these obstacles are created and how they are removed so it is arranged that because because Krishna cannot marry the Gopis and the Gopis come of marriageable age then it is decided let the Gopis marry someone else and then it is described that the Gopis are completely heartbroken and they hear that they have to marry somebody else and then at that time Pauranamasi arranges something very mysterious and actually Jiva Goswami doesn’t exactly reveal what has happened so Vrindadevi and Pauranamasi are discussing it’s going to be a disaster if the Gopis get married to somebody else all the Gopis are meant for Krishna how can they marry anyone else and Pauranamasi says don’t worry I have an idea and then this happens in the Purvachampu in the Gopalchampu but Jiva Goswami doesn’t describe what has happened clearly and then actually at the end it is described towards the last part of the Uttarchampu, last part of the book so what Pauranamasi says I got some idea and by this everything will be taken care of and then she tells Vrindadevi the idea secretly and then they become very happy and then Krishna leaves Vrindavan and goes to Mathura and then when he comes back at that time finally so actually Krishna Krishna is living in Dwaraka he kills Shushupal and then he is to kill Dantavakra now he comes back from Dwaraka to Mathura Mathura is very close to Vrindavan so Krishna comes to Mathura to kill Dantavakra and when he kills Dantavakra after that he comes back to Vrindavan he comes back to Vrindavan and he stays for two months in Vrindavan but the whole thing is arranged in such a way that for Krishna time is under his control and time can expand, time can contract when Krishna is performing Rasleela with the Gopis he doesn’t have to keep looking at a watch now time is over, I have to go now when Krishna wants to perform Rasleela he can just expand time in fact one night of Rasleela he expanded it to be one night of Brahma for so long, so when Krishna kills Dantavakra and comes back the Dwarkavasis feel as if Krishna has just gone to Mathura to kill Dantavakra and come back but during that period Krishna expands the time, so there are two whole months he spends with the Vrajavasis at that time when he goes there he gets married to all the Gopis and then after that he takes all the Gopis with him and they all return back to the spiritual world so now when Krishna comes back to Vrindavan it’s a moment that the Vrajavasis have trembled and cried tears of joy and when Krishna actually comes they are not able to believe it but when they see Maharaj is actually there and then when Krishna says now I have come back now I have killed all the demons, now I will never leave you and the Vrajavasis can’t believe it they are so overjoyed and then as Parinids are always, when Krishna is back then the Vrajavasis start thinking now we should get Krishna married and when they decide to get Krishna married they go to Paranamasi and they start asking should we marry Krishna to Padma or the other Gopis and then Paranamasi says why are you not referring to Radha actually it is Srila Prabhupada who coined the honorific Srimati Radharani for Radha the previous Acharyas referred to her as Radha only so actually speaking there are some Gaudiya Vaishnavas who say that this calling Radha as Srimati Radharani is Rasabhas because actually she is simply in the mood of Vraja she is a Gopi so Srila Prabhupada wanted to emphasize that we should not see her cheaply so Bhaktisans would refer to her as Sri Radha sometimes but this Srimati Radharani this is Srila Prabhupada’s unique rendition so Srila Prabhupada did that because many Sahajiyas were there and the Sahajiyas would take Radha Krishna’s pastimes very cheaply and they would refer to Radha in a very cheap sense and that’s why when I read the Acharyas books and you just see the word Radha it seems jarring to us we should use Srimati Radharani that’s what we are accustomed to because we have been reading Srila Prabhupada’s books but Srila Prabhupada wanted to emphasize that context of respectfulness so that we don’t take the Vraja relationships very cheaply now in contrast Srila Prabhupada uses no honorific for Krishna laughter laughter laughter laughter you know there are people from other Sampradayas who can’t digest it some Bhagwan Krishna, Lord Krishna something should be there Srila Prabhupada has a distinct honorific phrase Supreme Personality of Godhead but when he is referring to Krishna it’s very rare that he will use Lord Krishna he will just say Krishna when he is referring to Krishna in the third person separately the Supreme Personality of Godhead he may say so actually the way Srila Prabhupada talked about Krishna and dealt, I mean talked about Krishna with everyone it’s like Krishna is a person who is intimately new and loved and that’s why Srila Prabhupada we say also, we see in that poem that he wrote when he was going on Jaladuta so he wrote two poems so in the Markini Bhagavad Dharma was when he reached the coast of Boston, America and another he wrote when he was on the journey so in that other poem he writes about Krishna is my very dear friend and he says I wonder what is there in Krishna what is Krishna, we will go in the forest and we will play and we will roll in the grounds with Krishna so Srila Prabhupada you know presented Krishna to the world as if Krishna is just like our best friend certainly is God but he is also very intimate to us so Srila Prabhupada referred to Krishna and Radharani in these distinctive ways Priyas Acharya said I used the word Radha and it might have jarred some people because Priyas Acharya used it in that context I was using it but so when so then Purnamasi says actually Krishna is Krishna is meant to be married to Radharani so they use that for Purnamasi she is Radha, she is not Radharani Purnamasi is much older and for Yashodamayi also she is much older so Yashodamayi is older but Radharani is younger so Krishna is meant to marry Radha so Yashodamayi says yes it is our heart’s greatest desire that Krishna should be united with Radha but that is not possible because Radha is already married to someone else so he says no that is not true so what do you mean he says the marriage will be there no she has not been married to anyone Radha is meant only for Krishna and then he says how is that possible he says you call an assembly of everyone in Vrindavan and I will show you a great miracle and then all the Brajwasis assemble and when all the Brajwasis assemble then at that time the Brajwasis they come along and then actually Purnamasi arranges to show a mystical vision and what is that mystical vision actually Purnamasi so all the Gopis they are in their houses apparently they are married to somebody else they are in their husband’s house and they come reluctantly here they are seeing Krishna and then suddenly Purnamasi with a mystical vision and she sees everybody sees all the Gopis there again so then people look up and look towards Purnamasi they see Radharani and Vishaka and Lalita and they look behind and see Radharani, Vishaka and Lalita they are all two everybody is in duplicates and every time then Purnamasi explains this was actually the plan which was revealed to me so that Rasa could be maintained in both ways so actually just as Ravana Jigopaswami gives this example just as Ravana when he took Sita he took a Maya Sita so actually he couldn’t touch Sita the real Sita was taken by Agnideva through his wife Swaha and kept safely with her and then when Ravana is killed at that time during the Agni Pariksha Sita returns the real Sita returns so similarly he describes that actually Yogamaya says I had created the duplicates of all the Gopis and those Gopis were actually the persons who married who got married so the real Gopis are pure and they are untouched by universe and they were never married to anyone else and they are meant only for Krishna and that way they all then when they understand this they all become very happy and then the marriage of all these Gopis with Krishna is arranged big celebration, chapter upon chapter of Gopalachapu describes it and then eventually Krishna takes all the Gopis and they return back to the spiritual world and now so in the spiritual reality so Jiva Goswami goes to great labors to point out how there is nothing immoral in the relationship of Krishna with the Gopis and that is because there is Tattva at the level of Tattva the Gopis and Krishna are married to each other eternally they are consorts in terms of Leela also in terms of Rasa whatever is required for enhancing the Rasa is done but even within that there is no there is no immorality because the purity is protected by the arrangements of the Aumaya now Vishwanath Chakravarti Thakur while commenting on the same section he refers to what Jiva Goswami is saying and he also elaborates that actually the Parakiya Rasa so now some people what happened is they sort of misunderstood Jiva Goswami’s intention so now Jiva Goswami is not denying the reality of Parakiya Rasa he is just pointing out that there is no immorality in the Parakiya Rasa what is the Parakiya Rasa? the Parakiya Rasa is the idea that Krishna and the Gopis Krishna and his consorts his conjugal devotees when they are married to each other that is Swakiya Rasa that is Krishna with the queens in Dwaraka now Krishna with the Gopis apparently they are not married to each other that is the Parakiya Rasa so some people have concluded some people in the Gaudiya tradition and others they felt that actually Jiva Goswami is saying there is no Parakiya Rasa in the spiritual world that the Gopis and Krishna are always married to each other so actually how it is in the spiritual world whatever is required for enhancing the Rasa that is there so is the Parakiya Rasa there in the spiritual world? Parakiya Rasa is actually the highest of all Rasa and that is definitely there in the spiritual world but at the same time everything in the spiritual world is of the highest moral standards that means Jiva Goswami has not denied the reality of Parakiya Rasa he has explained how there is no immorality in the Parakiya Rasa and in this way what Chakravarthy passes the Parakiya Rasa is definitely there the relationship out of red lock that is Parakiya Rasa that is there in the sense of the Leela just as in the sense of the Leela Krishna has a father Krishna has a mother although in sense of Tattva it makes no sense to talk about Krishna having a father or a mother so the problem comes up because when we talk about the male-female relationship in this world it is always centered on selfish gratification it is centered on selfish gratification and we take that vision and apply it to the spiritual world and then that with that vision we start seeing everything suspiciously so when Krishna is relating with the mother and father then that relationship seems pure that’s a wonderful relationship, sweet relationship but there doesn’t seem to be much reason for misunderstanding that relationship but when it comes to conjugal relationship then there is scope for misunderstanding and that’s why the Acharyas go to great levels labors to explain the difference between material and spiritual and Krishna Das Kaviraj Goswami gives quite a demanding definition of the difference between Kama and Prema he says Kama is the desire to satisfy one’s own senses Atma Indri Priti Vancha Hare Bole Kama Krishna Indri Priti Vancha Hare Premana so now the definition of Prema that he is giving is very interesting he is saying that the desire to satisfy the senses of Krishna is called as Prema now what does it mean first of all he is talking about selflessness he is not talking about I centeredness, I want pleasure actually it is the desire to give Krishna pleasure but it also makes it clear Krishna Indri Priti Vancha so Krishna has selflessness, Krishna has tongue and Krishna Radharani serves Krishna by cooking hundreds of items for her and she is satisfied by that service so there is spiritual variety, there is spiritual reality and the devotees in that spiritual variety and spiritual reality satisfy Krishna and the desire to satisfy Krishna in a pure and selfless way that is actually the essence of Prema and that Prema is revealed to the highest extent in the love of the Gopis for Krishna so now when we look at this so I talked about the nature of spiritual vision then I talked about the nature of spiritual reality the nature of spiritual reality is that everything is arranged to intensify Rasa then when we come to how do we adopt the spiritual vision in the material world so actually speaking in the material world we have to first of all learn to differentiate between matter and spirit now first of all this is material, this is spiritual so at a philosophical level if we don’t understand the difference between matter and spirit then we can mistake the material to be the spiritual and that is what the Sahajiyas do the Sahajiyas they often have their own idea of imitating Radha Krishna’s pastimes and they think that as long as we are thinking of Radha Krishna actually whatever we are doing is also spiritual no first, before the basic spiritual vision that we need to adopt is I am not the body, I am the soul before coming to ISKCON, I read this Aham Brahmasmi so many times it’s a very common thing anyone is spiritual anybody who is spiritual Prabhupada, he brought out in an emphatic way what is the implication I am spirit means I am not the body so that practically nobody talks about yes, I am spirit you are eternal, fine but then yes, somehow you are the spirit also and you are the body also some mysterious idea is there so especially you know within the this has come to the Vedic tradition also to some extent within Christianity, the idea is you know the heaven is just like a continuation of this material world without the problems of the material world so all our relatives who are long lost, they are back so for example, C.S. Lewis wrote a set of novels called the Books of Narnia and in that, he is describing how everybody ultimately goes back to heaven so there is a lion who is considered to be the representative of Jesus so the point, it’s off track but the point I am making is that at the end when everybody goes back to heaven and they say we reached heaven and we found that heaven was just like London so the idea is that their conception of the spiritual world is just like a continuation of this world without the problems of this world but the essential of what makes the spiritual world spiritual is not just the absence of problems it is the presence of Krishna Consciousness and to intensify Krishna Consciousness there may be problems also when we say Vaikuntha the place that is free from anxiety so what does it mean now actually when Radharani is cooking for Krishna it is said she cooks dozens and dozens of Kustavas, she wants to make every single item the best for Krishna so now she is not very peaceful and detached you know, she is anxious let every item come out nicely when Yashodamayi is concerned where Krishna is, is he doing some mischief she is not just peaceful, she is anxious so when we say Vaikuntha when we say free from anxiety the spiritual world is free from material anxieties the anxieties that agitate our mind and take us away from Krishna further those anxieties are not there, spiritual anxieties actually intensify our remembrance of Krishna so in the in the writings of the Goswamis, there is a prayer of Radharani and Radharani is saying Krishna, I prefer separation from you to union with you because when I am united with you I see you in one place but when I am separated from you I see you everywhere so this is what is happening here they are seeing, they are seeing the deer and they are seeing Krishna so actually speaking if we consider material and spiritual all material emotions are like poison poison in the sense that they make us forget Krishna so material pleasure is like sweet poison and material pains are like bitter poison but both of them are like poison whereas spiritual emotions are like nectar and union with Krishna is like sweet nectar and separation from Krishna is like bitter nectar but it is nectar so nectar actually the nectar actually is the remembrance of Krishna and in the spiritual world there is no forgetfulness of Krishna there is constant remembrance of Krishna and even the anxiety that is there that intensifies the remembrance of Krishna the jealousy so it is said here that apparently some of the Gopas who are apparently married to the Gopis who are actually in relationship with Krishna they are jealous of Krishna but this jealousy is anukum to Bhakti this jealousy is actually based on the platform of what will enhance the pastimes of Krishna the most and in that sense it is also for Krishna sweet it increases the excitement of the pastimes so when we are in the material world we have to first of all begin by differentiating between matter and spirit that if there is no clear understanding of the difference between matter and spirit then we can just confuse the material to be the spiritual but once there is this clear philosophical understanding this is matter and this is spirit but when it comes to the spiritual level we have to recognize that there is there is room for subjectivity within devotional sins subjectivity means I will talk about two things primarily over here now Vishuddha Prabhupada in his famous speech on the Vyasa Puja he says that the Guru is one but the Guru manifests in many manifestations so now in ISKCON we have many spiritual masters and now for the disciple the spiritual master may be source of great inspiration now for others let’s say those who are not disciples of that spiritual master, they may find ok, he is a senior devotee very inspiring devotee but they may not have the same I don’t feel that person is so inspiring so actually speaking as long as all the spiritual masters serving Krishna as long as all of them are dedicated to Vishuddha Prabhupada’s teachings, then we understand that they are capable of delivering souls from the material world as instruments of Krishna and Vishuddha Prabhupada so there is I will find my spiritual master to be inspiring and others will find their spiritual master to be inspiring and this is the room for actually transcendental transcendental subjectivity that means it may be possible that one person, one disciple may not find some other spiritual master so inspiring but the disciple finds the spiritual master so inspiring when we don’t understand this whole concept of transcendental subjectivity then there is the whole issue my guru is better than your guru or you should take initiation from my guru not from that guru so all that happens because we are trying to drag spiritual reality down to the material world so actually all the different spiritual masters are representing Krishna and Vishuddha Prabhupada and the important point is not which specific spiritual master a devotee gets connected with it is how the person is inspired to connect with Krishna ultimately people can have as potent a spiritual master as Bhaktisiddhanta Sri Thakur or Srila Prabhupada and still they may have problems in their spiritual life that is because ultimately the spiritual advancement of an individual depends on that individual. The spiritual master definitely offers mercy and with that mercy the disciple can make advancement but it is the disciple who has to take responsibility, who has to take initiative who has to take up commitments so if some other devotee is inspired by some other spiritual master then it is not for me to dissuade or disturb that person’s faith I have to understand that it is the same Krishna who is manifesting through that person this is what Srila Prabhupada’s attitude was Srila Prabhupada was enormously successful in sharing Gaurav Vaishnavism all over the world when he came back to Vrindavan and Mayapur unfortunately some of his god brothers they couldn’t digest because Srila Prabhupada had during Bhaktisiddhanta Sri Thakur’s times he had been just a sideline grahastha he was never among the prominent leaders and to become the most prominent representative of Gaurav Vaishnavism the most respected among the disciples of Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sri Thakur they found it difficult to digest so Srila Prabhupada told his disciples now sometimes they would hear the criticism of Prabhupada from his god brothers and Prabhupada would be pained by that criticism Prabhupada would say that if Bhaktisiddhanta Sri Thakur chooses to fulfill his instructions through one of his disciples then why are they seeing me separate from Bhaktisiddhanta Sri Thakur it is not that I am doing something separate I am fulfilling the instructions of Bhaktisiddhanta Sri Thakur so that connection you should be able to see that connection is that actually all the spiritual masters are inspiring souls to come towards Krishna and how they become inspired that is important of course through which particular representative but at the same time what we should be seeing is they are becoming inspired they are becoming committed in their Krishna consciousness and as long as that is happening we don’t have to feel that I have to impose my spiritual master on others nor should I feel threatened if others are inspired by their spiritual master there is room for transcendental subjectivity and that does not in any way change the strength of our relationship with Krishna through our spiritual master so the same applies to our services to Krishna now all of us will over a period of time be inspired to do different kinds of services now Srila Prabhupada when he would go he would say that if you would go to New Vrindavan where they were developing farm Prabhupada would say that this is the most important service that you can do and then he would tell book distribution this is the most important service that you can do and then he would tell those who are running the Gurukul Gurukul is the most important service now what does it mean? actually all services are important and the important point is to recognize that Srila Prabhupada gave different definitions of success for different devotees according to their natures so for a person who is very interested in book distribution distributing books is the definition of success for somebody who is developing a Gurukul training the next generation of his children that will be a definition of success so in general when we are associating with devotees those devotees whose definition of success is similar to ours we can gel very easily with them we can relate with them of course we can become envious of them also very easily but basically what happens is our emotional circles and their emotional circles they intersect but for some devotees whose definition of success it is within the realm of Krishna consciousness only but it may be a very different definition of success so for somebody’s definition of success is to build a very big temple and that’s what they are thinking constantly and then you have we have say counsellor meetings and programs for training and cultivating devotees and seminars and Vaishno relationships where is the temple? where is the temple? there are different definitions of success so even with respect to this we should impose our definition of success on others nor should we feel threatened by others definitions of success as long as the service that we are doing is within the jurisdiction of Krishna consciousness with the guidance and the knowledge and the blessings of our spiritual authorities, we go on and this is what will actually bring variety that there are different kinds of people they will feel inspired in different ways and when they serve Krishna in different ways that will attract different kinds of people to Krishna so I’ll conclude with one anecdote which is of Prabhupada so when the devotees were doing book distribution some devotees were very good at distribution when they were going around and distributing books Prabhupada was very pleased so once they came to Prabhupada and they said Prabhupada we have found that there are certain techniques and tactics for distribution you know or there are certain sentences that we can speak, certain expressions certain ways of talking and that makes people take the books so can we go around temple to temple to temple telling these techniques and then you can go on enormously so they expected Prabhupada to be very pleased but Prabhupada became very greedy and Prabhupada said this devotional service is individual voluntary and spontaneous when a soul feels inspired to serve Krishna then devotional service is possible so inspire devotees to serve Krishna there is no need to tell them the techniques so devotional service is individual, voluntary and spontaneous every soul is individual every soul has to voluntarily choose to serve Krishna and spontaneous doesn’t mean that suddenly we can go to Raghana Bhakti, spontaneous means here spontaneous essentially means over here that actually the soul has to feel inspired to serve Krishna and then Srila Prabhupada recognized that different devotees have different natures and we cannot standardize things in Bhakti what we can actually do is inspire others and they according to their nature according to their inclination they will find ways to serve Krishna so again when we find our way to serve Krishna then we need to be satisfied with that because we have a particular definition of success and whatever definition of success we have in our service we should be satisfied with that so that way we will be satisfied otherwise if we are just comparing our service with somebody else’s then we will be dissatisfied you know if a devotee who is a preacher is comparing the service with a fundraiser now the devotee will think what am I doing studying Shastra, I should go and raise funds now if somebody wants to become a Shastric scholar, my definition of success should be that I understand the scriptures deeply somebody else will have some other definition of success so it will take time for us to discover our own understanding of how we should best serve Krishna but over a period of time all of us will discover and then we can march ahead in spiritual life studying it and in that way we will have various devotees who are successful in their own way in serving Krishna and that way there will be so much variety of attractiveness for people who are coming towards Krishna because they will see that there are so many different individuals and they are all inspired to serve Krishna and they are all happy in serving Krishna and they are all successful in their own ways and the magnetic pull of that there is nothing no amount of preaching that can substitute for that so this is the way we actually see spiritual reality this is how we see the spiritual reality from the, sorry we have a spiritual vision in the material world also so I will summarize I started by talking about the nature of spiritual reality is that we don’t focus so much on what the objective reality is as much on how much potential it has to remind us of Krishna so then I discussed that in the nature of spiritual reality so for this I discussed the past instead of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu looking at any forest and thinking it to be Vrindavan the nature of spiritual reality is such that everything is arranged so that the rasa is maximized so the fact that certain Gopas seem to be jealous of Krishna that is just a arrangement made to ornament the pastimes of Krishna and then we discussed how the spiritual reality is very profound and often inconceivable how the Gopis are married to Krishna in terms of their constitutional relationship but at the same time in terms of the dramatic relationship the Gopis are in the parakiya bhaav when we discussed how everybody got married and lastly we discussed how to have spiritual vision incorporate this transcendental subjectivity in our dealings in the material world so devotees can have different gurus different services with their own definition of success and we don’t feel threatened by those definitions at the same time we don’t impose our own definitions in this way we can have multitudes of devotees who are happily serving Krishna Thank you very much.
Is there any one question? or any comment? Thank you very much.