19840913-Srimad-Bhagavatam.5.7.13-14-You-Can't-Cheat-Your-Way-to-Bhava

---

The following is a lecture given by His Holiness Jayapataka Swami on September 13th, 1984 at the Bhaktivedanta Manor. The class begins with a reading from the Srimad-Bhagavatam, 5th Canto, Chapter 7, Verse 13 and 14.

Jayapataka Swami:

Translation by His Divine Grace, Srila Abhaya Carana Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada:

Mahārāja Bharata appeared very beautiful. He had a wealth of curly hair on his head, which was wet from bathing three times daily. He dressed in a deerskin. He worshiped Lord Nārāyaṇa, whose body was composed of golden effulgence and who resided within the sun. Mahārāja Bharata worshiped Lord Nārāyaṇa by chanting the hymns given in the Ṛg Veda, and he recited the following verse as the sun rose.

Translation with repetition:

Mahārāja Bharata appeared very beautiful

Devotees: Mahārāja Bharata appeared very beautiful

Jayapataka Swami: He had a wealth Devotees: He had a wealth

Jayapataka Swami: of curly hair on his head

Devotees: of curly hair on his head

Jayapataka Swami: which was wet from bathing

Devotees: which was wet from bathing

Jayapataka Swami: three times daily

Devotees: three times daily

Jayapataka Swami: He dressed in a deerskin

Devotees: He dressed in a deerskin

Jayapataka Swami: He worshiped Lord Nārāyaṇa

Devotees: He worshiped Lord Nārāyaṇa

Jayapataka Swami: whose body was composed

Devotees: whose body was composed

Jayapataka Swami: of golden effulgence

Devotees: of golden effulgence

Jayapataka Swami: and who resided within the sun

Devotees: and who resided within the sun

Jayapataka Swami: Mahārāja Bharata

Devotees: Mahārāja Bharata

Jayapataka Swami: worshiped Lord Nārāyaṇa

Devotees: worshiped Lord Nārāyaṇa

Jayapataka Swami: by chanting the hymns

Devotees: by chanting the hymns

Jayapataka Swami: given in the Ṛg Veda

Devotees: given in the Ṛg Veda

Jayapataka Swami: and he recited the following verse

Devotees: and he recited the following verse

Jayapataka Swami: as the sun rose.

Devotees: as the sun rose.

Jayapataka Swami:

Purport:

The predominating Deity within the sun is Hiraṇmaya, Lord Nārāyaṇa. He is worshiped by the Gāyatrī mantra. He is also worshiped by other hymns mentioned in the Ṛg Veda, for instance: dhyeyaḥ sadā savitṛ-maṇḍala-madhya-vartī. Within the sun, Lord Nārāyaṇa is situated, and He has a golden hue.

paro-rajaḥ savitur jāta-vedo

devasya bhargo manasedaṁ jajāna

suretasādaḥ punar āviśya caṣṭe

haṁsaṁ gṛdhrāṇaṁ nṛṣad-riṅgirām imaḥ

Translation “The Supreme Personality of Godhead is situated in pure goodness. He illuminates the entire universe and bestows all benedictions upon His devotees. The Lord has created this universe from His own spiritual potency. According to His desire, the Lord entered this universe as the Supersoul, and by virtue of His different potencies He is maintaining all living entities desiring material enjoyment. Let me offer my respectful obeisances unto the Lord, who is the giver of intelligence.”

itthaṁ dhṛta-bhagavad-vrata aiṇeyājina-vāsasānusavanābhiṣekārdra-kapiśa-kuṭila-jaṭā-kalāpena ca virocamānaḥ sūryarcā bhagavantaṁ hiraṇmayaṁ puruṣam ujjihāne sūrya-maṇḍale ’bhyupatiṣṭhann etad u hovāca.

Translation by His Divine Grace, Srila Abhaya Carana Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada:

Mahārāja Bharata appeared very beautiful. He had a wealth of curly hair on his head, which was wet from bathing three times daily. He dressed in a deerskin. He worshiped Lord Nārāyaṇa, whose body was composed of golden effulgence and who resided within the sun. Mahārāja Bharata worshiped Lord Nārāyaṇa by chanting the hymns given in the Ṛg Veda, and he recited the following verse as the sun rose.

This is the Purport and Translation of Text 13, Chapter 7, Canto 5, The Activities of King Bharata. Translation and Purport by His Divine Grace, Srila Abhaya Carana Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada.

So Maharaja Bharata by performing his devotional service his love for Krishna increased more and more melting his heart. Maharaja Bharata was practicing regulative principles of bhakti-yoga very strictly – bathing three times a day, chanting Gayatri mantra when the sun rose, chanting the others prayers according to the time and schedule. Thus he was completely engaged. So from that regulated practice of devotional service he gradually rose to the platform of bhava or ecstatic devotional service, where he experienced parama hlada or the highest transcendental spiritual bliss; gambhira which was very deep; hrdaya-sthira situated in his heart; so much so that he was experiencing the asta sattvika bhava the eight ecstatic symptoms like standing of hair on the end romaharsana, crying, choking, and so on, choking up in the throat. So many tears were coming he couldn’t see through his eyes. So in that ecstasy sometimes he would forget the regulative practices or services to the Lord. He might forget to take a bath or may have forgotten to do something because of chanting and being so absorbed in ecstasy that he forgot the time, just being completely overwhelmed by the meditation upon the Supreme Personality of Godhead.

So this of course illustrates the different stages of devotional service. We practice devotional service according to the regulative principles. We follow the regulative services – there’s the regulative service and there’s spontaneous service, you see. Of course the principles are there in both. But one in the regulative service a person may not even have a great deal of taste. If someone in the beginning of devotional service, sometimes they say that “I am chanting, I am rising, and I am doing everything but I am still not feeling a great deal of taste.” Or sometimes it goes up and sometimes it goes down due to subtle attachments, due to bad association, due to offenses to Vaisnavas and the Deity. One may be doing all right starting to feel very blissful but then due to some mistakes or irregularity then again they become distraught.

When one becomes so absorbed in devotional service through practicing regulated service or through the blessings of the spiritual master that one becomes completely filled with the ecstatic symptoms of Krishna consciousness, becomes completely absorbed in spontaneous devotional service where even if for a moment if that… he is unengaged or she is unengaged in devotional service they’d feel very restless, you see.

In regulated service someone may feel restless for enjoying sense gratification and by regulated service somehow they are keeping their mind pacified but the spontaneous devotional service is the opposite. One is feeling restless for serving Krishna and if that devotional service to Krishna is in any way distracted then that devotee will feel very impatient, find it quite intolerable.

So you can see that Bharata Maharaja he was practicing very regularly the uh, system of regulated service cleansing his heart from all material desires very systematically and then he rose up to the level of spontaneous devotional service bhava. So he is also chanting every day different mantras and prayers offered to the Lord. So there are some people who may worship the sun. That is not the same as worshipping Narayana who is the origin and presiding deity of the sun. Indirectly by worshipping the sun they are worshipping Narayana. But here it very clearly states that Bharata Maharaja was directly worshipping Narayana who was residing in the sun. It shouldn’t be confused with sun worship which some tribal people are performing but they don’t have clear understanding about the position of the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Indirectly those who see the sun as the origin and worship the sun as the origin and if they see that this as the presiding deity their service may also be indirectly accepted by Lord Krishna but here directly as the Supreme Personality of Godhead Bharata Maharaja was worshiping Krishna who is situated in the sun, who is maintaining and supporting the entire universe and spread everywhere as the Supersoul in everyone’s heart.

So this verse gives us some insight because Bharata Maharaja he was able to make a very quick advancement, he was materially well situated, he was emperor, he had a big family, had ministers, had wealth, had fame, power, had everything materially that a person could desire. But at a certain stage he realized that this was inadequate, it wasn’t the goal of life, that sooner or later he would have to give everything up. Better sooner voluntarily abdicate for his other qualified descendant and let him completely become Krishna conscious.

So that means he was dhrta bhagavata vrata. He accepted the vow to serve the Supreme Personality of Godhead very diligently, dhrta vrata. We should all become dhrta vrata, we should all become and be very diligently dedicated to serving the Supreme Personality of Godhead. This should be our, you see vow when we accept the bona fide spiritual master as our Gurudeva, as our spiritual master, when we take initiation or even before when we accept his, him in our heart, you see. That deep acceptance is a dhrta vrata, it’s a vow, it’s a commitment, it’s a very… it’s an eternal obligation. And accepting that vow then… we guide rather our lives according to the instructions of the spiritual master, and the previous spiritual master or masters. In this way very diligently neglect everything which is opposed to devotional service and we accept whatever is favorable.

Here we can also see aiṇeya-ajina-vāsasa, that he was wearing a deerskin. Of course today in modern times it is not necessary to wear deerskin but this also shows us that it is necessary to accept some form of austerity that we should be ready to accept some inconvenience for the sake of achieving God realization. We can see in material life which is normally predominated by the raja guna that so many people are sacrificed for the sake of achieving some kind of material goal. When they build these hundred-storey buildings its not at all unusual if two four people fall off and die. That means that just to build the building they are sacrificing life. The nature of raja guna, the mode of passion, tremendous suffering to achieve their goal. But people are willing to accept this suffering for the promise of sense gratification.

Comparatively the suffering in devotional service is, actually… in the beginning when you are in regulated service level it may appear as an inconvenience or as a austerity. But when one actually rises to even the spontaneous regulated service or to the fully spontaneous service it becomes itself a source of transcendental joy. One has to be ready to accept a little inconvenience to practice devotional service. That should be voluntarily accepted, you see.

Now for preaching we may also have to accept even silk cloth sometimes, or we may have to accept different types of situation. Sometimes in India you find the sadhus they say you can’t ride a car, we have to walk everywhere. We wish that more would take up this type of mode of transportation because then as we are travelling by cars and jets, we could have a little advantage over them to preach more rapidly than those Mayavadis. But also to show that even though nowadays due to the instructions of Rupa and Sanatana Goswami that we should use everything which can be utilized in Krishna’s service for His pleasure. So therefore we can travel all over the world using whatever transportation means are available and we can utilize all modern inventions and so on. At the same time it’s not that we are not capable of also accepting austerities for the sake of preaching Krishna consciousness.

So as Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu had walked throughout India so now ISKCON has organized padayatra, retracing the root of Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu. And this is especially attractive for the Indians because sometimes they think well in the Western countries London, New York they are practicing devotional service in a very lavish style, you see. But they could never practice it in a very humble way in India. When they hear that devotees are coming from all over the world and they are walking in padayatra with Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu immediately they become overwhelmed that this is something very exceptional and something very wonderful. And so we just on September 2d inaugurated the padayatra about 150 devotees came from all over the world and all the residents of Dwaraka came about 40,000. They all came out to greet Caitanya Mahaprabhu and to send him off. We have a few slides from that function if the temple likes and can organize possibly we could show those slides before I leave, if anyone likes to see those.

Devotees: Jaya!

So in fact this Indradyumna Maharaj told me yesterday that several devotees are coming, going from the UK yatra to help take Lord Caitanya throughout India. I don’t know who the lucky ones are. So we take, we practically so, but they don’t realize… of course some of them in India, they are actually the devotees are maybe the greater austerity is preaching on the streets or in the airports or different places in the West where people are often very unfavorable. But actually that may be a great austerity when you are walking through the villages and thousands of people come out and greet you and throw water on your feet, roll in the water afterwards to express their, you see. (laughter).

All the… it’s not actually such a great austerity although it might seem that this is austerity they had to avoid getting their feet washed but, the devotees when they arrived in the first village there was actually no running water of course. There was no hot and cold switch, or anything. In fact there wasn’t any water at all. (laughter) They happened to pick a dry spot, you see. We had a little meeting and then it was revealed that Prabhupada had said that always establish your camp near the water. (laughs) So it is easy to bathe and drink and so on near the water hole. But the local villagers they themselves carried water by buckets about half a kilometer, half a mile or so to the camp where the devotees were, just spontaneously hundreds of villagers started to carry water and fill up big containers for the devotees. So that type of service attitude was very inspirational for all the devotees.

So anyway we have to accept some type of austerity actually for the pure, in the previous, karma kanda system of devotional service, karma misrita bhakti was more prominent. So many of those systems were used. But in the modern times since Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu, He established a more simple system. He was refusing to so such things as weardeerskins and He’d wear saffron cloth, often that cloth would be offered first to the Lord and He would wear the prasadam. There is still a custom in South India that the acarya all his cloth would be offered at the feet of the deity and after touching the deity then that new cloth would be given to the acarya, to the sannyasi and then they would wear Krishna prasadam cloth or the previous Guru’s prasadam cloth and every cloth would be offered.

When we visited the temple in Madurai, the Perumal temple, it’s the second largest Visnu temple in India, in terms of its height right next to the Meenakshi temple where Lord Caitanya visited both the Perumal temple as well as the Meenakshi temple. Meenakshi is the younger sister of Visnu was married to Sundaresvara. So when we went there they had arranged a full greeting. They had elephants and the brahmans with the purna kumbha, the Ramanuja Sri sampradaya system. They came forward chanting Vedic mantras, we had to touch the kumbhas and that they would bring in, that they offered and worshiped to… There’s two ways, one is they give a bhoga kumbha where you touch and they take that and offer it to Krishna. Or another is they bring a prasadam kumbha install and you touch and take the first prasada.

So after that an elephant came and gave a garland to me. It was a little naughty when it gave a garland it picked my sikha and pulled it. (laughter) There’s really not much you can say about it. (laughter) He was bigger than I am. (laughter) But then when we went inside to the Deity after circumambulating the temple then they had wrapped a cloth around the deity. They took that off and wrapped it around our head in a kind of make shift turban as the prasada and that was their special greeting to the give the prasadam cloth to the Deity… of the Deity to the devotees.

So we prefer to cover ourself with all prasadam. Prasadam cloth, prasadam garlands, prasadam everything. And therefore we avoid deerskins. The uh… Although deerskin is also considered one of the four pure. It is said that cotton has to be cleansed by water. Deerskin is clean by just putting that in the sun. And wool is cleaned by being in the wind, you just shake wool, its clean. And silk is also clean, but I forget, I think silk is just always clean. Silk is always clean no matter what. This is one of the pure substances. The pujaris often they wear silk. In case something touches it it’s still clean and wool although it’s pure we don’t know normally wear it in the pujari room because one of the little hairs may fall off in the offering and then we shouldn’t offer any prasadam or bhoga with any hair in it even if it is a sheep hair.

So those are all the different regulative principles but Bharat Maharaj he became so much absorbed in his devotional service that sometimes, he was just completely absorbed in Krishna consciousness. We can see that actually that Bharat Maharaj he rose to a very elevated level of devotional service. This is important to note, later how of course we know he became attached to a deer and everything and gradually that whole pastime will be explained, kind of a unknown… (inaudible)

Now going through this particular part of the Bhagavatam we can see verse by verse how the whole situation developed. And how advanced Bharat Maharaj was as he had reached the stage of bhava. By our own sadhana bhakti we can’t come up to the level of bhava, you see. Of course the mercy of Guru is always there but it comes almost automatically. It’s something that happens step by step. It could happen much faster if you get special mercy but you can say that by normal mercy it happens quite easily in due course. But the level of prema is very very high. That is something, you can’t achieve that. You could be in the level of bhava even for a birth but unless Krishna personally wants. He may desire that His devotee should wait, maybe relishing the intense desire of the devotee to become Krishna conscious, you see. When Krishna finally reveals Himself as He did to Narada Muni who was also crying for Krishna then the prema is established when we realize the self and the Supersoul and we realize Krishna in His fullness, then one becomes completely… one’s reference point, rather than rising from the material platform towards Krishna, if you have already been completely linked with Krishna then your connection with the material world is cut completely.

Here in the level of bhava it 99% slackened 99% cut just this slightest connection might still be there reference come up from the material level to this pure devotional level of bhava. So that 1% crust, that we also have to be very careful not to ever do anything whimsically. If we do something whimsical which isn’t authorized by the spiritual master, like become very affectionate to a deer or something then we could get in trouble even if we come up to the level of bhava.

But normally that’s a very elevated platform from there Krishna’s mercy and especially Lord Caitanya’s and acaryas mercy is not long in coming. If they want at any moment they can give their mercy and they can give complete devotional protection of the level of prema to the devotee. One can’t demand it. It’s not something that anybody deserves. It’s something beyond deserving, it’s a mercy and we have to simply hanker for that, desire and then Krishna’s sweet will is there and He gives it. But if we become impatient and try to make a short cut, that’s called sahajiya. You can’t short circuit, you will just blow a fuse.

If you try to circumvent, if you try to jump up too fast then it becomes cheapened. Actually a person goes very fast as it is, if he just follows the regulative principles, become spontaneous, then automatically one comes to the level of bhava, one practices devotional service in that way very carefully following the instructions of the spiritual master and then in due course Krishna has His maximum mercy upon the devotee. But if at some level if the devotee thinks that let me immediately, I am already at the prema level, “I am already on the most advanced level.” and tries to imitate as if he is someone who is already involved in the eternal pastimes of the Lord.

Sometimes the eternal devotee of the Lord may be engaged in preaching. Therefore that devotee may not at that time even remember his eternal relationship with the Lord because that would be a distraction. Once you remember that then it is very hard to preach in some cases, you see. One could be absorbed in that particular relationship. So unless they voluntarily come down to the preaching level.

This is basically what a devotee should remember that we should follow the authorized system, mahā-jano… mahā-jano yena gataḥ sa panthāḥ follow in the footsteps of the great acaryas, the great spiritual masters. In India you have these people who jump over. They just immediately claim to be in the highest level. Neither do they follow the regulative principles, neither are they spontaneously preaching. But they are just claiming. Some people go… some are very subtle where they are actually kanistha adhikaris but they claim to be uttama adhikaris and some are completely in maya but they claim to be eternal parshads, eternal associates of the Lord by imitating… just… I don’t want to mention… but they do all types of, all kinds of acrobatics sometimes for attracting the minds of innocent people

So Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura, Srila Prabhupada, by their examples they would always be ecstatic but they would conceal or try to internalize their ecstasy. Srila Prabhupada would sometimes give a lecture, one time in Gorakhpur when he was describing how Rupa… excuse me, how Sanatana Goswami and Lord Caitanya met, I believe it is in Varanasi. At that time they embraced, Lord Caitanya embraced Sanatana Goswami and then Prabhupada was explaining how their meeting was exactly like the gopis when they met Krishna after a long separation. And as he spoke, he just completely chocked up. He just completely manifested the symptoms, stunned, and just he was frozen, just couldn’t even move, tears were pouring down his eyes and he couldn’t say anything or he just couldn’t move. It was like that from eye-witnesses, it was about thirty seconds or couple of minutes it was complete silence. Finally when he could speak something because suddenly he was just completely immersed in that pastime, completely absorbed in it, then he said, “Chant Hare Krishna.” and had to end the class there.

One time Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura was lecturing and suddenly he became also overwhelmed by transcendental symptoms, and he ran out from the class, ran up to his room and didn’t want to show because especially previously, it was such a thing that there were actually people that they would simply constantly cry in front of the devotees and that would be the thing that would convince them this type of external ecstasies and manifestations, that this was actually… this was the proof of their, rather than the anubhavas which Bhaktivinoda Thakura has told us that we should observe and the regulated service or the spontaneous service principles that we should follow.

So in this way our previous acaryas they were very careful not to minimize or cheapen the great experience of love for Krishna. And actually it is said that therefore a real devotee is like seeing the tip of the iceberg. If you see any even just a small any kind of ecstatic symptoms in a prema devotee, it’s just like a tip of an iceberg. Even a tip of an iceberg because an iceberg is 7/8 under water and 1/8 above. But this is just one you know part of a percent above and you see vast majority of the ocean below you can’t actually… It’s so deep where a devotee may be experiencing even a nama-bhasa by intense association with his spiritual master, with Lord Caitanya one may get a preliminary feeling, it won’t be full bhava but it’s just before the sun rises sometimes there is also the sunlight, like that one may be experiencing a nama-bhasa or like a twilight experiencing a bhava just momentarily but that is not so deep. It’s quite deep but not so deep and more of just a sudden… and as they advance and it becomes more and more deep the experience of devotional ecstasy and appreciation.

So of course we are not concerned so much with experiencing ecstasy just like the servant of Krishna when he was fanning Krishna then he became ecstatic and his vision clouded up, he couldn’t see, he was trying to fan and it was interfering with his fanning because he couldn’t see Krishna any more. Tears were coming out, his body was shaking, it was becoming very hard to fan. And so he started to curse that ecstasy because they were interfering in his devotional service to Krishna.

A devotee is more concerned with rendering devotional service than the ecstasies of something which is not the prime impetus. Of course in our neophyte stage we are very interested we like to see because it counteracts and fills our heart with love for Krishna so that the material attractions they have no room anymore. When the heart is completely filled up, when the cup is filled then there is no more room. So for a neophyte of course in the beginning stage they are very interested in achieving ecstasy very quickly so we pray to Lord Nityananda to make us always happy. But then this very advanced stage of prema even the ecstasy it’s for them it’s not as important as the service. The service is all important, pleasing Krishna. And ecstasy comes but if it interferes with his service even that they are feeling uninterested. That shows how selfless the pure devotees are. They are not motivated even by the desire for ecstasy, they are motivated by the desire for pleasing Krishna. We can’t imitate their level but that comes spontaneously.

kṛṣṇa — sūrya-sama; māyā haya andhakāra

yāhāṅ kṛṣṇa, tāhāṅ nāhi māyāra adhikāra

Krishna is just like the sun and maya is just like the darkness. So when sun rises the darkness of maya cannot save it. Nescience has to go. So in the same way when we can bring Krishna in our hearts then all the maya, all the ignorance you see, that’s all dissipated, all the doubts. So Krishna consciousness is a positive alternative.

Yesterday at the Vyasa puja celebration of Srila Gurudeva, the what’s the… (inaudible) Visvambhara… Visvambhar Maharaja when he was making his offering then he was saying that how Gurudeva by his lectures on the Bhagavatam dissipated all the doubts of the devotees. And he made a similar comparison that how we have to purify the mind by hearing the instructions from the spiritual master because they are Krishna’s manifest.

So bringing Krishna in the mind this is a positive alternative. We are bringing Krishna in, by our activities, by our devotional service, we bring Krishna there, then automatically the darkness goes out. Most of the yoga processes are for systematically eliminating the darkness. This is a very difficult process, very tedious, but it happens automatically when you bring in the sun of Krishna. So rather than we just, the grossest type of maya is like the four regulative principles. Those of course we have to neglect right from the beginning. But all the subtle maya’s that are there if we are very consistent in bringing Krishna into our heart, then those will automatically go away. So in that sense it is a very positive process. Devotional service means that we very consciously use our intelligence to establish Krishna at every moment in our heart.

So Bharata Maharaja was able to bring Krishna meditation to a great deal into his heart so that he was able to actually immerse there. But we have to never stop immersing ourselves in Krishna. At any point if we think that “Now I am quite advanced and I am old devotee, now I know everything, now I, you know, I have done enough, something like that, now I can. I can watch television Prabhu I won’t be put in maya by that.” Or I can do this, sometimes we find that devotees, just like Bharata Maharaja I can have a pet deer and he didn’t plan it that way. What to speak of someone if they plan it that they have some kind of material, unless it is directly connected with devotional service. Maybe a specific show is there where we can learn something about how to present Krishna consciousness those devotees who have that particular service.

So sometimes we preach to older devotees and they you know become very resentful that “Prabhu, give me the benefit of the doubt.” something like that, where they are doing something which isn’t connected with devotional service, yet just because they have been practicing for a long time they think “Well it won’t really make much difference or it’s not going to affect me.” But the principle is we shouldn’t do anything that’s not directly a devotional service. You know immediately he should have let the deer go its own way and not di… He gave up the whole world, the kingdom was going on, now the deer would also have gone on, it required his day to day attendance, it didn’t require. But he didn’t consult with the guru “What should I do in this regard?” So even inadvertently delayed his return back to Godhead by three births. So similarly we should be very careful not to become uh, lackadaisi… or not to become careless thinking that well I have already practices for a long time.

It’s like the proverbial race between the hare and the tortoise. Until we cross over the finish line, until we actually reach Krishna prema, until we go are back right to the lotus feet of Krishna, at any point, even just a few feet from the finish line somebody was racing and they tripped just before the finish line, so they came in last. The danger is there, you can’t stop until you go over the last hurdle. It doesn’t matter whether you have been, Bharata Maharaja, after giving up everything, or whether you are just in the beginning we have to always be very consistently… apratihata, unbrokenly rendering our devotional service until finally we take the full shelter of Radha and Krishna. Then our flowers and our fruits of devotional service they blossom, and they fructify and then we are actually beyond the danger of falling down because our natural whole reference point will be changed to one of consistently spontaneously always in Krishna’s service.

Therefore Krishna could say nāpnuvanti mahātmānaḥ saṁsiddhiṁ paramāṁ gatāḥ, that once you achieve the spiritual world then again you don’t come down into this material world as a conditioned soul. So these are some very important lessons to learn from Maharaja Bharata pastimes.

Any questions?

kṛṣṇa-prema nitya-siddha ‘sādhya’ kabhu naya So Krishna prema that kind of prema is already within us but it’s been covered over. It’s not something we can achieve by sadhya by doing some specific practice. It’s already there within us. But due to our own misdeeds somehow it’s become covered up. So it’s actually just a question of Krishna again uncovering that already existing love for Him which we have somehow. In that sense of course it is our birthright, but what I was just saying rather from the point of view that whatever service we are offering, what is the value of that service, if we have to give it a value, and then if we took what is the value, again we are regaining our original love for Krishna then proportionately anything we can do whether we are offering a flower or water or even devotees to Krishna in his service. but hardly does that equal the benediction of getting His eternal devotional love. From that point of view it’s His causeless mercy, it’s not that we deserve it in the sense that because of what we are doing we deserve it.

But from the point of view you are bringing up that its already actually, yes its already a part of us but somehow we have forgotten that pure love for Krishna. ‘sādhya’ kabhu naya that we get it, I forget the last śravaṇādi-śuddha-citte karaye udaya. So it’s by the mercy of the holy name that pure devotional service or that Krishna prema again arises. From that point of view yes of course it is our birthright or it is our nature to love Krishna but we have forgotten that nature. I was just trying to stress from the point that it’s not that we can demand Krishna that “I have done so much service give me Krishna prema.” You can request Him, you can appeal to Him, and certainly there is nothing else that we should want and that is the original status we were in. So we should hope to achieve that. That’s something we can’t just demand that “Alright, I’ve chanted sixteen rounds for two years now I should immediately be given Your darshan.”

If we chant purely, Krishna, He’s more eager to come to us than we are to come to Him. He is more eager to bring us back to Him, than we are to go. So that’s not the problem. But the problem is when we may not be ready. We may so many material desires, material conceptions at the same time along with that we also have a desire for Krishna so that isn’t good enough. Our desire for Krishna has to be exclusive. That means that we require some more purification. We cannot, Krishna will not, if we limit Himself to some material conception we may have of Him, our consciousness has to be pure then Krishna will reveal Himself to us without any material conceptions or limitations. It is ultimately up to Krishna’s sweet will, to… from that point of view. You can cry to Krishna but if Krishna doesn’t want to reveal there’s not anything we can do except appeal to His mercy.

Actually it appears differently, actually it is also by Krishna’s mercy even our regulated advancement or the yogis step by step control of the pranayama and taking the atma to the different chakras. But Krishna allows it, in each stage He actually gives His blessings and one advances. But He allows it to appear as if it’s going on mechanically but actually at each stage He is giving His mercy but He gives it more, it’s kind of more or less automatically, doesn’t withhold it. But at the last stage sometimes He may, there is no specific point at which one can directly know for sure that “At this time Krishna if I do this He is going to appear to me.” Like Narada Muni after seeing Krishna again he did all the systems and meditations and he is trying like anything Krishna wasn’t coming. Krishna says that “I don’t come like that. You won’t see Me for some time.”

But its not that by some regulated mechanical thing that Krishna appears. He appears at that level its completely personal. He appears because that’s His own desire to do so. Sometimes if He wants the devotee to experience a more intense desire then like for Narada He just suddenly appeared then disappeared. Or like Parikshit Maharaj He was suddenly there and gone. Whole life, why the name Pariksit? Pariksa means to test. Anyone he looked he was analyzing is this the same person I saw when I was in the womb? He was testing everyone Pariksit. But of course there was no one who was like Krishna who he saw when he was in the womb.

Any other questions?

So we try to follow the sadhana because that was the order of the spiritual master. If there is someone who didn’t follow any sadhana but still they got the mercy then it’s quite obvious that its kripa siddhi. Srila Prabhupada one time I went to his room in Mayapur, and he just suddenly started to admonish me, that “I am not depending upon my chanting of Hare Krishna to be Krishna conscious, not depending upon my writing or my reading, studying of sastras to become Krishna conscious. I am not depending upon.” He started explaining all the different aspects of devotional service that he wasn’t depending upon. Which normally we all think that we have to completely depend upon. He said, “I do all of these simply for attracting the mercy, I do this just to please my spiritual master and I am completely depending upon the mercy of my spiritual master.” He brought in a totally different viewpoint that actually we are depending upon the kripa siddhi, that we don’t depend on our expertise in doing the sadhana that “I am very expert in chanting my rounds, or I am doing everything and because of my own expertise I am doing all the practices therefore I am going to make advancement.” We try to be as expert as we can, we try to do as well as we can to please the spiritual master. Still we are always anxious at every step to get a little special mercy, to get that little, you know we are going through the motions.

Just like someone they may be going through the high school, college graduation MA, PhD, but along the way if somebody offers a PhD, they are not going to refuse it. So here, but of course normally people don’t get it. So we practice we go step by step getting our graduation papers or whatever at different levels to get the mercy but we are always anxious to get their mercy. You don’t want to jump up artificially but to get their real mercy even before hand or even in spite of our inefficiency in following everything perfectly as we’d like to. So we are always anxious for their mercy.

So that’s one of the qualities of surrender to be always hopeful and anxious to always get the mercy of Krishna. You should always be hopeful to get the mercy of guru and Krishna. And we take it that everything is by their mercy that actually we may be doing the sadhana, it may appear that we have done sadhana and therefore we have got the mercy if we take it that there may have been so many mistakes in what we have done or even if whatever we have done but ultimately by the mercy of the spiritual master.

Not only did he instruct us how to do and what to do without which we couldn’t have made any advancement at all but on top of that the ability to do that and overcome the different obstacles that come up that is also by his shelter and mercy. So we take it as a krpa-siddhi you can say. It is just that when externally the sadhana is very prominent so that will be categorized as sadhana-siddhi but the devotee himself takes it that it is the mercy of the Lord and that the sadhana is actually a medium for trying to satisfy the spiritual master.

Hare Krishna.

---

Tags: Srila Prabhupada, Bharata Maharaja, Narayana, Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura,

Transcriber: Suvilasi Madhavi dd Date: 21 March 2015

Revised by Jagannatha dasa Brahmacari