What is the devotional and scientific reason of keeping shikha?

From: Vraj Dham Das

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
question from rajadhamaprabhu what is the devotional scientific reason of keeping shikha answer when we talk about scientific reason the modern material science doesn’t have much clues about the subtle energies that permeate and activate the body it doesn’t have much idea of the pranas how they flow and things similar to that from the point of view of yoga which talks about the various pranas there are different energy centers in the body and at the back side of the head if the hair is kept a little bit then that helps the cosmic energies to flow in a proper way through the body however shikha prabhupada generally did not emphasize the technicalities of this so much for example when we fast on ekadashi’s every ekadashi has its own mahatmyam its own story but shikha prabhupada rarely if ever referred to these stories shikha prabhupada primarily focused on the core process of krishna consciousness and he said that if we increase our chanting of hare krishna on those days and use those days like ekadashi for intensifying our devotional service then we will make much more advancement even the adhikamas which has so much glory is being described in the scriptures shikha prabhupada just said oh all those glories are for new people for devotees actually they will get the same fruits if they continue devotional service whether it is adhikamas or not adhikamas so that’s why we don’t have to bother too much about the scientific reason because then we may start wondering where exactly is the energy chakra in my head and is my shikha position properly and then we may get more worried about the position of the then of the purpose of the shikha so for us the purpose primarily is devotional that we want to identify ourselves as servants of krishna so actually in the vedic culture there are two ways to deal with hare one is to completely neglect it and let it grow the way it grows and then it becomes jata the other way is to shave it off so prabhupada recommended that we shave it off following the courses of chaitanya mahaprabhu and especially chaitanya mahaprabhu after taking sanyas shave it off so prabhupada recommended devotees to shave off their hair now the impersonals also shave off their hair and they shave off all their hair for them the idea is that the hairs represent material attachments and every single metal metal attachment has to be cut off so that the soul can merge in brahman whereas devotees we cut off all the hair except that at the back why because devotees want to shave off all attachments except the attachment to krishna so that small cloud of hair which is there at the back of the head indicate that one attachment to krishna so in order to differentiate through our appearance the distinct philosophy that we have as given in the various scriptures as contrasted with the philosophical ideas of mayavadis we keep the small tuft of hair at one particular place only on the head which indicates the attachment one attachment to krishna and the figurative sense it is said that the devotee shikha is the means by which the spiritual master can catch him if he goes wrong and drag him back to krishna’s lotus feet so the mayavadis when they don’t keep any hair of course then their guru cannot drag them back of course and if the mayavadis sometimes even think that my guru was god and when i have taken initiation now i have become god so nobody needs to drag me back also so from that point of view chaitanya mahaprabhu said that he brought kalakrishna das by his shikha when that when he unfortunately got misled so having a shikha helps the spiritual master to get us back spiritual master will get us back whether we have shikha or not but keeping shikha indicate that we are following his instructions and following his instructions shows that shows him that we want to come back and makes it easier for him to bring it back to us thank you so from