Nomenclature of the Absolute (pg 15-18)
In the conversation of Ramananda and the Supreme Lord, we find the Predominated Aspect of the Transcendental Absolute was giving replies to the interrogatories of the Supreme Lord. The true comparative studies of the different positions of devotees could only be made by submitting unconditionally our ownership of intellectual and physical store to the very Fountain-head. We shall then be classed as occupying different stages of devotion. We shall then find that the song of Shri Krishna Ye Yathaa Maim Prapadante [1] could not be mutilated by our mandane [sic] speculationists in their degraded unethical views of approaching Him. We are told of five different Rasas by the erudite professors of Aesthetics in our perusal of Transcendental literature by our spiritual senses which have no ambition whatsoever to meddle with mundane reciprocal situations. The Transcendental Supreme Fountainhead of Absolute Knowledge - Shri Krishna Chaitanya - has disclosed the different moods of predominating "Rasamaya" and predominated "Rasikas". So the Transcendental Super-Excellence of His Teachings would never be available to mundane sages or impersonalists until they absolutely submit to the ending exhortation of the Supreme Lord Shri Krishna in the Gita. [2]
However, neither the Sri Ishopanishad nor any other Vedic literature recommends that we neglect bodily needs. Bhagavad-gita states:
There is no possibility of one's becoming a yogi, O Arjuna, if one eats too much, or eats too little, sleeps too much or does not sleep enough.
~Bhagavad-gita 6:16
In courting, therefore, the Love of Shri Krishna Chaitanya we must not be busy with equipping ourselves with troublesome acquisitions of imperfect manifestations, but simply undergo an operation to remove our cataract by the beneficial spike of all His good Teachings. We need not be troubling ourselves with the physical enquiries in order to enable ourselves to indulge in Anthropomorphism or to have recourse to Apotheosis. The unconditional surrender to Shri Krishna or Shri Krishna Chaitanya and to His true functioning of our handicapped organs of senses and enable us to scrutinise the aspects of the different subjects of our knowledge. As true and sincere devotees our spiritual culture would never allow us to indulge in our mental activities as we do in Economics, History, Geography, Chemistry, Physics, Inconagraphy, Archaeology, Chiromancy and Palmistry, different branches of the Vedas, altruism, utilitarianism and other allied subjects. It we take any one or the whole group of the above subjects for examining Shri Krishna Chaitanya, all our labour would be fruitless and take us not an inch nearer to the Supreme Lord. It is Transcendental finite ego to approach the Transcendental Blissful Infinite. We should be ready to receive the Transcendental Sounds instead of the mundane sounds that are found in the Lexicons. Ordinary sound is examined by the other senses also. We reserve the right of examining every mundane sound that enters our ear with the aid of the four other senses. If the latter do not admit its validity, it is summarily rejected. These senses are not fit to scrutinize the validity of Transcendental Sounds. Our previous experience will show which sounds should be examined. If they aim at anything of this world, we should have every opportunity of examining them by our other senses. Our previous experience will decide whether they are to be welcomed.
But when the Transcendental Sound makes His appearance, we must not put ourselves into the challenging mood and suppose that there is any other face. The two sounds are quite distinct from one another. The mundane sound is meant for entities which have figure, odour, taste, etc. Heat, for example can be perceived by the sound produced. But it is the seeming feature which need not tally with the actual snbstratum. [sic] So, there is a distinct difference between the two sounds.
All Transcendental Sounds go to show One Object, the Absolute. Wherever there is any deviation, that is liable to vanish. Absolute Sound has got His peculiar phase and should be welcomed at all costs. We are vitally interested in that thing. The very description of Transcendental Sound will tell us that the Sound is identical with the Object, Qualities and Activities and is entirely distinct from Mundane sounds and that the Transcendental Sound is equipped with all cogent potencies that will regulate all other senses.
Mundane sound is invigorating to the senses and enables us to come in contact with the world. When our attempt is for the Absolute, we run no risk. When we want the sound to come to us, we ignore the Absolute, we do not receive the Transcendental Sound. The Transcendental Sound is strictly restricted to the Thing. So the Absolute is to be determined when we determine our self. Any distorted view will not allow us to approach the Absolute.
Only one who can learn the process of nescience and that of transcendental knowledge side by side can transcend the influence of repeated birth and death and enjoy the full blessing of immortality.
Some neophytes on the spiritual path may fall into the illusion that taking care of the body is somehow evil, or a sign of spiritual backwardness. Not only may they neglect the needs of the body, but they may go out of their way to actually damage the body. Such people actually hate the body. They see it as a source of misery, and thus they take out their anger on it. This is certainly a mistake.
First of all, we should examine our self. If we think we are mind and the external body, the Transcendental Sound will have no effect on us. It would be a mundane sound. The sound himself would tell us that the external body is a garment of the inner astral body and both of them are the two wrappers of the soul who, in his dormant condition, incorporates these two which do not determine his own real nature. The external body is perishable; the internal body is transformable. Our mind in the morning, is different from our mind at noon and so on. It is changed with the rolling of time.
We cannot rely on the mind and our mental speculation. All of us are busy in making our mind control everything relating to ourselves. This does not admit the conception of the Absolute. The mental conceptions are all changeable. The property must not be confounded with the proprietor. Our external body is our property. It is perishable and there is no certainty of its retention. In Egypt, the body was preserved. The process was thought necessary for the reawaking of the soul. The materialists see the externality of things. They observe that the combination of material particles produces animation. So, the external is scrutinised by the materialistic sciences.
But the idea propounded by intellectual people is that knowledge is eclipsed and obscured by the interception of ignorance (vivartavada i.e., wrong conception of things which deludes us in regard to the Truth). The background of time and space intercepts our visual range. Chinmatra or perfect knowledge is required in order to know what we are. This view is different from that of the materialists who want to establish all knowledge as identical with the background of our conceptions. One party thinks that the spirit comes out of these things by a process analogous to that of effervescence. The other party holds that knowledge is impeded by the material molecules that form the opaque mass which disturbs and prevents us from examining the entity. This gives rise to the conception of Immanence. There is an inner face in regard to which we are liable to be deluded by the operation of the external face.
In the first place, we should undertake to determine the nature of the self. We should know that we are eternal. Had our life been of a few days duration, our prospects would be very dark, indeed. It is the idea of the Semites that this is the only life we have. According to them, the conception of metempsychosis is a hallucination to dissuade us from the immediate necessity of learning the Absolute Truth.
Masochism can never lead to spiritual perfection. The body is actually a most precious property of the self; it enables the self to engage in various devotional activities that can bring about a change in consciousness. A person's external activities affect his consciousness, and his consciousness affects his external activities. Knowing this, a bhakti yogi consciously chooses to engage in particular external activities in order to bring about the desired spiritual happiness and wisdom.
Jagad Guru Speaks
The empiric truth is to be carefully distinguished from the Absolute. It is analogous to the distinction between the glow-worm and fire or between the mirage and water. The outward feature is not to be trusted. Lime-water outwardly resembles milk. The apparent face is not identical with the Immanence, the soul or the substratum. In determining the self it is necessary to find our real position. Are we products of material things? Are we the Oversoul? This problem requires to be solved as we shall leave the external body after a time.
When the question of 'Time' is brought forward we find that, we are eternal. When we attend to the problem of 'Knowledge' we find that our mixed ignorance cannot give us any relief. The soul should be blissful. We do not require unpleasant things. The external body and astral body do not serve our purpose. If they were our sole concern life would be troublesome and we would necessarily be pessimists. There is an optimistic view to oppose pessimism. If both are discarded we would know what we are. It would result in our considering that we are part and parcel of the Absolute liable to foreign invasion. Incorporation with the world requires to be severed for the realisation of our permanent situation.
Shri Krishna Chaitanya has told us that we are part and parcel of the "Tatastha - Shakti" (Marginal Potency) of the Absolute Who has got numerous potencies. These potencies are classifiable into departments. The human soul is situated in an intermediate position as distinct from the Bahiranga-Shakti (External Potency) which is perishable and that Antaranga-Shakti (Internal Potency) which is eternal. The external potency offers the reflected intercepted view of the Activities of the Absolute. This supplements the system of Vishistadvaita (Distinctive Monism) or rather that system is given some additional knowledge by the introduction of the Tatastha-Shakti (Marginal Potency).
We are not substratum. Had we been part and parcel of Godhead there would be no misery. As we are realists we cannot think that we should turn idealist, that we should suppose everything to be simply a deluding feature and that observed objects are nothing but delusions and that we should consider ourselves to be the Oversoul. But it is not so. We are not the substance. We are potency. The position of the Jiva is a part of the Tatastha-shakti (Marginal Potency) that can enjoy, cease to enjoy and go back to his original position. In the devotional mood he can offer his services to the Absolute instead of picking up servants from this world which is the plight of the deceptive brain. These are but baits and traps and will not lead us to the Absolute. We are not part and parcel of the substantive entity Godhead but of His Tatastha-Shakti to serve the Absolute. The determination of the self will lead us to that very thing.
We should attain first to this, that we are in need of receiving the Divine boon, our own boon of the self. As we are now in the human frame, we can have the opportunity of knowing the face of transcendence. Inanimate beings are not known as sentient. They are deprived of the function of audition of the transcendental Sounds. We cannot communicate to them all that we are in need of in future. But since we have got a human life, we are in a predicament that allows us to hear through the medium of transcendental Sound a good response to our desire for the best thing that one could crave.
So a person's entire lifestyle can be dovetailed with his deep purpose in life. Such a person is the controller of his body, not a slave of his senses. Most people are servants of their senses and minds—they are godas (go means "senses"; das means "servant"). A bhakti yogi, however, strives to be a goswami (swami means "master," and so goswami means "master of the senses"). A goswami is not dragged around by his senses, but instead uses his senses for his own desired purposes. Although goswami is also a title, in fact the real meaning of goswami is controller of the senses, whether one is externally with the title goswami, brahmachari, householder, or whatever.
We have experienced finitude in our previous birth and in this life too by our empirical activities. We have come across many things and we have come to the conclusion that we should seek for the best; and, in order to do so, we are called upon to pay sufficient attention to our own acquisition, eternal acquisition; and this is based on the opportunity offered to us.
When we think that we are conditioned souls we always look at the outer side of our existence, that is, the external body we have; and then we come to inspect the inner aspect which we call our astral body; and both these come and go, so that they have no eternal references associated with us. But as our souls are eternal, we cannot consider that the futile external body as well as the internal temporal body are identical with the soul. They are incorporated later on by abuse of our independent will. When we abuse that free will, or when we show our diffidence to serve the Absolute, the Over-soul, we think we are to dominate our Nature and Natural Phenomena. But these things, so to say, have only a temporal level. The eternal self should never be considered as identical with the mind who is but an agent of the soul to meddle temporarily with the external world. We are but part and parcel of the Over-soul, that is, of Paramatma. We are all human souls. We must not become confused by the simile of the breaking of the jar, compared to the material bodys, and we should not come to the conclusion that we have no other situation but to be identical with the Over-soul. For that is not the case. We are measurable cavities like that of the pot. Simply by the breaking of the external frame, we cannot think that we will be turned immeasurable. We are decidedly always measurable things. This measurement or the very platform of finitude is quite sufficient for us not to consider ourselves to be the Oversoul. A finitude cannot consider that the very finiteness can ever claim that he is the Infinite. So, Shri Krishna Chaitanya has told us that in your entity you are no other than Karshnas, or Vaishnavas. You have no other eternal function than to serve Shri Krishna.