The Vedic Wisdom (Part 1) - Page 2

The Transcendental Name is quite different from the ordinary sounds. The ordinary sounds carry the impression of things of this world for our purpose. All things of this phenomena are meant to serve us ; but we are to serve Him. Service is to be rendered to the Absolute, and we need not hanker after receiving service from the non-absolutes. Anything done for the purpose of our own self, is not service. Whatever is offered to the Absolute, is known as service or bhakti. When the service is done properly, when it is not dominated by some regulation, the service is pure. All gnostic transactions or associations with the mundane things are quite opposed to service, because they are meant for our purpose and not for the purpose of the Absolute. When we know we are absolute infinitesimals, our vision is fully restricted to the Absolute Infinity and not to any non-absolute thing. Devotion or bhakti is the policy of approaching Him. Unconditional surrender should be performed at all costs. When we surrender, we will have an opportunity of depending on Him fully, otherwise we will be thinking of other things whether, the Absolute is at all prepared to rescue us from this troublous region or not. The unconditional surrendering will give us the assurance that we will be rescued from the worldly affinity. If we chant the Name continuously, we will be able to get rid of our inclination of accepting worldly things, we will be simply relieved from the invasion of phenomenal finite objects. So chanting should be the process. We need not trouble ourselves in the beginning to enter into the details of the Absolute; the very chanting of His Name will take us to Him. This world is a place of trial. We are to educate ourselves in the transcendental science. We should not fail to do so now that we have got a human frame. We must avail our present opportunity, leaving aside everything else for our next life. This life should be engaged solely in the pursuit of the Absolute and that sort of pursuing will be effected if we adopt the process of devotion. We have very little to do with the worldly people; but we have everything to do with those who are engaged in the service of the Supreme Lord. Association with people who are busy with their measuring temperament, will not be congenial for our purpose. We should not culture our enjoying temperament as people are doing. If we have at all to meet an undesirable person, we should always make it a point to proselytise him in the transcendental education.

The only aim of our life should be to make progress towards the veiled region. People may accuse us that we are talking of mysticism which cannot be examined by the senses. But we do not talk of mysticism, we talk of positivism. As seekers of positive knowledge, we should try to peep into the veiled religion. People are busy in examining things by their seeming aspects. The seeming positions are not to be confused with the actual positions, as a wrapper should not be considered to be the letter. We should penetrate into things. The outer case, the bahiranga mayashakti, has produced these things to be measured by our senses. This sort of measuring is not at all congenial to our purpose. We require to have a peep into the Absolute. We should not take our physical and astral bodies to be our real self. At present we know nothing due to ignorance, and this ignorance is to be dispelled. We cannot deny the fact that we will have to die and get rid of this fleshy tabernacle. We cannot retain it. So the real owner of the body should be targetted first. This is swarupajnan. We should not be known by our bodies.

The external aspect of Sree Krishna is prohibitive. As long as we know we are seers, He will not disclose Himself to us; he will show us His blue-black face. But when we are found to be eligible to see Him, we will be attracted by His sublime beautiful face. His beauty should not be enjoyed by us, but our beautiful transcendental frame should be shown to Him for His pleasure. As soon as we show Him our spiritual beauty, He will disclose Himself to us. Then we will have no occasion to remark that the blue-black face should not be the face of the Absolute.

Modern People and Religion

WHAT SREE GAUDIYA MATH DOES FOR THEM
By N.K. Baindail

THE modern people in India or any other part of the world think more or less that religion is neither a path of emancipation, nor a path of phenomenal progress of mankind in worldly possessions. It has the magnitude which vitiates mankind and frequent disputes and riots that occur on communal issues are all due to it. So, it should be abrogated and they will be happy then. Many Indians of the new light place before us the illuminating examples of Soviet Russia. They boldly tell how Russia is on the road to its wonderful all-round developments and improvements after having entirely done away with the religion which was formerly a hard block towards its prosperity. Who on the earth knows what after life is? Who knows that if one acts in accordance with the precepts, he will reach Godhead, and that after leaving the present world, he will be in a better world (Paradise)? To them it seems the onerous and ridiculous task of realising the transcendental Truth. Their life-aims and their all attentions are absolutely confined to worldly aggrandisement and materialism. They make themselves believe that they are happy in this present world and the happiness they have is all to them. They cannot see beyond this; their vision is limited to this extent.

But those whose vision is naturally much stronger and wider or made so even at the present juncture, see beyond the universal aspects. They realize what a religion is to them; what the emancipation of the soul is; what their true life-aim should be; and what the genuine happiness is. Their mind is not filled in with mental speculations that lead mankind into the devilish whirlpool and then into the entire wilderness. They receive the true Light from the Supreme Being Who is above all. Some of them come out of the fold of the worldly people and render themselves wholly and solely to the service of the most High God, serving all universal connections that mean nothing to them.

Their services to Godhead are rendered in different ways. They go on preaching to the ignorant people; they ask them to broaden their vision; to realize what they are and what the transcendental Truth is and to identify themselves with the servants of the Most High. They organise institutions where people can have religious and spiritual teachings. Their great service is to convey the true gospel of the Almighty to all the human-beings on this earth.

The so-called modernistic views of materialistic ideas are not sound basic principles of men to drift to. Men must add spiritual and high religious ideas to their knowledge. They certainly help men after their mundane life.

Oh! The young modern people of this universe, wake from a reverie and give up all sloppy sentiments; try to understand the true preceptors first, without the intent of simply criticising them or their religious teachings. Verily, then the absurd modern views and mental speculations etc., will intuitively pass away. And the religious sentimentality will prevail in the whole-some atmosphere.

In Bengal, one finds more religious people than in any other part of India. Here he can meet spiritual teachers and can visit religious institutions. It is remarkable and significant that one sees highly English educated Hindu Bengalis having the - strongest faith in their religion. Many of them are true devotees to the Supreme Lord Sree Krishna, The great organisation, namely, Sree Gaudiya Math, which is purely based on Hindu religion and the Holy Teachings of the Supreme Lord Sree Krishna Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, has been doing valuable services to mankind for their spiritual uplift. It sends its evangelists to all other parts of India and foreign countries to imbue people, who have gone astray, with the true religion. The Sanyasi and Brahmachari devotees of this Gaudiya Math, Calcutta, are the inspired souls and real preceptors. They are all highly educated. They all work with their pure love to the Math under the distinguished guidance of His Divine Grace the President Acharya Paramhansa Srimad Bhakti Siddhanta Saraswati Goswami Who is a God-sent Preceptor, indeed.

The Message of Sree Chaitanya

(By Kishori Mohan Bhaktibandhava)

(Adopted from the lecture of M.M. Pandit Sundarananda Vidyavinode, Editor "Gaudiya," broadcasted through the Radio on June 9, in Calcutta)

A connecting link between the Transcendental word and human ears having been ordained by the kind providence. It has been possible to bring the Message of Sree Chaitanya to the doors of the people of this universe. It is not through the medium of the tie of the flesh but through that of sound or speech that we stand united with our fellows also in the ordinary affairs of life. We can have a peep into one another's mind not through our eyes, but through our ears.

The Transcendental Message of Sree Chaitanya runs in the channel of spoken communication. The Message advises us not to make any attempt to see the Form of the Absolute through our mundane eyes. The Absolute in the fullness of His Initiative and personality is our Eternal arbitrator and Regulator. In trying to see and hear Him by our initiative we shall see and hear things other than they really are. When the Transcendental Message entering through the ears reaches our liberated cognition, it opens our spiritual eyes to show the real thing in its true colour. By means of the transcendental sound a link can be established between us, the whole animated kingdom and the Absolute. It is the Divine Sound alone Who can give us a clue to what has never been seen not made cognisable by our senses.

Scientists have called the present age "the age of machines"; while philosophers have described the same "as the age of free controversy". The word 'controversy' is a synonym for the word "Kali" for which reason the Puranic authors have termed the present age the "Kali Yuga". Whatever faults and good qualities may be attributed to this Kali Yuga, the only good quality that drowns its other attributes, either good or bad, is in the discovery of the acme of glory in the virtue of the Divine Sound. Radios and other instruments of the like as carriers of sound have wrought wonders in the world.

To turn to the nature of the message of Sree Chaitanya to the world, in His own language it can be put in a nut-shell and summed up in one word as "the constant chanting of Sree Hari"; and the science of pure devotion teaches us to take and consider all animate and inanimate things of the universe as the potential carriers of the transcendental chant. Material science is the imperfect and perverted reflection of spiritual science. Material science that is creating wonders and dazzling the eyes of the world every moment is after all only perverted shadow, although it has so much overpowered all worldly people with the glare of its charms. To rouse up all who have been thus stupefied by discovering to them the connecting link of Divine Love, is the message of Sree Chaitanya. This connecting link of Divine Love has its full manifestation and display in the chanting of Sree Hari. Hari Kirtan or the chanting of Sree Hari should not be misunderstood as something palatable to our ears; but it is that which enhances the gratification of the pleasures of Sree Hari. What is palatable to us has been termed by the Upanishad as "Preya" which, however sweet and pleasing it may be to our ears or other senses, is not at all conducive to our eternal good in the long run, but that which is termed "Shreya" though distinctly unpalatable and bitter to the senses at the beginning, leads to our eternal wellbeing in the end.

The message of Sree Chaitanya is the message about the "Shreya" of the Upanishads the best and final goal of the "Shreya" of all souls being Krishna Prema. In the transcendental love of Krishna there is not an iota of hankering for the gratification of one's senses. A devotee, fully surrendering himself to Krishna, does not require anything to gratify his senses, neither does he hanker for the so-called salvation for which worldly people on being disillusioned of the vanities of the world, are so very anxious; but his ultimate aim is unconditional devotion to Godhead. He desires no other pleasure but to make himself an instrument for the gratification of the Spiritual Senses of Krishna against all apparent odds and at the cost of all seeming difficulties and sorrows arising therefrom. His outlook is in always searching for His pleasures wherein he identifies all his needs and outside which he finds no separate requirement for himself.

There are people who speak highly about renunciation. Like desire for rest after prolonged fatigue, desire for renunciation arises in human breast after prolonged enjoyment. But in respect of the eternal bliss of the service of the Lord there is no locus standi for any desire of renunciation. Unlike in 'kama' (sensuous pleasure) there is nothing troublesome or monotonous in 'prema' (divine love). To a "bhogi" (enjoyer of the world) the word "tyag" (renunciation) has got a sinister charm; but 'prema' is a different thing altogether and not an object of vaunt of worldly people. If Sree Hari be worshipped or not, there is no necessity for any "tapas" (austerities); and if He be found within and without or not, there is also no necessity for any such 'tapas'.

Sree Krishna is the fullest Object of Divine Love. All the varieties of "rasa" (mellow principle) are centered in Him. Shanta, Dasya, Sakhya, Batsalya, and Madhura are the five principal 'rasas'; and Hasya, Adbhuta, Bira, karuna, Radars, Bibhatsa, and Bhayanaka are the seven subsidiary rasas; all of which find full scope in Krishna. No where else except in Krishna free scope for the full exercise of all the rasas is to be found. With a thorough analysis Sree Chaitanya has made this eternal truth manifest to the world. To give a full delineation thereof is not at all possible within the short compass of this discourse Brahma, Paramatma, Iswara and the name of the gods of most religious sects are epithets by reference to this world; that is, these names are attributive in the mundane sense; but the name Krishna is not of the type, the name being identical with the Personality Himself. Krishna is the Owner or Possessor of all Divine Powers and Attributes. He is far far above all the conceptions we have formed about Him with the help of our experience of the things of this world either in theatres, bioscopes, literatures or in the common sayings of men. Man cannot derive from his experience any true conception about Him. A Historical Krishna, an allegorical Krishna, a super-natural Krishna, a heroic Krishna or an immoral Krishna is a conception far away from the real Truth. Hence the Bhagabat describes Him as Adhokshaja i.e. One Who has reserved to Himself the exclusive right of not being exposed to human senses; because the fullest initiative and personality are focused in Him. He is the Regulator of all empirical knowledge of the 'jivas' and with His own initiative controls the same. He is also called Aprakrita, being beyond all ‘pratyaksha’ (what is seen by anyone) and 'paroksha' (what is seen or known through others). Not to speak of Pratyaksha, Paroksha and the Aparoksha (Knowledge of Impersonalism), Aprakrita is more elevated even than the Adhokshaja Truth. Aprakrita Krishna is the fullest Personality in His Transcendental Pastimes, to whom there is no equal, nor superior, but Who is the Son of the king of Braja, the Autocrat and the 'Adwayajnan'. In the language of politics He can be called the Transcendental Despot. He is also a Personification of the full free will and the unrivalled Hero of all spiritual dramas and literatures, the mundane ones, having no reference to Aprakrita Krishna, being the tiny perverted reflection thereof.