Nomenclature of the Absolute (pg 27-30)
There cannot be more than one Guru. Guru is only one without a second. We should first of all make a searching enquiry throughout the world to single out the proper person from whom we can get the process for our adoption. We should rely on him fully and have our confidence (Shradha) in Him. He will dictate to us what sort of engagement or bhajan we should perform for the welfare of our souls. As a result of this engagement or Bhajanakriya, we will be set free from all sorts of troubles and all our acquisitions and empiric activities will be regulated. That is, all undesirable elements which have crept into our activities will be eliminated. This is called anartha-nivrithi. Then comes Nishthaa. We should resolve that we will not deviate from our only object which is to serve the Absolute, to be constantly attached to Him. We should have some sort of predilection or taste for our bhajanakriya, the continuity of which should not be disturbed. When we transcend Saadhan-bhakti, we are placed in the Bhaava-bhakti region where we will find that 'rati' is the cardinal point, the principal thing. When we were passing through Saadhan-bhakti, Shraddhaa was the index; here, in Bhaavabhakti, rati is the index. Rati has five different aspects, shaanta, daasya, sakhya, vaatsalya and madhura. Rati is the Medulla Oblongata or the substratum which lies between Saadhan-bhakti and bhaava-bhakti. Rati is supplied by four different ingredients known as vibhaava, anubhaava, saatvika, and saanchaari. Vibhaava includes aalambana and uddipana. In aalambana we find vishaya and aashraya.
(On the other hand,) for a person who cultivates wisdom or true knowledge, the results are inner peace, satisfaction, patience, respect for others, freedom from duplicity, compassion, joyfulness, remembrance of his spiritual identity, freedom from the fear of death, freedom from anxiety and depression, and so on.
There is activity of vishaya for aashraya and of aashraya for vishaya. The Vishaya is one without second, but aashrayas there are many. Krishna is the only Vishaya, and Karshnas (devotees) are the ashrayas. Rati is associated with Vishaya and is developed by the influence of uddipana. When we designate ourselves as ashrayas, we have only one Vishaya Who is always eager to confer mercy on us, i.e., assign a proper engagement for us; at the same time we should have the same inclination to have connection with Vishaya. Anubhava is regulated bhava, just following vibhava. Then comes sattvika and sanchari. The former are eight in number and the latter thirty-three in number. Sattvika indicates ecstasy. The ecstatic or enlivened features of Sattvika are displayed, developed and nurtured by the 33 sanchari bhavas. So rati is associated with 4 ingredients vibhava, anubhava, sattvika and sanchari. When they are mixed up, we find a palatable drink, rasa. Rasa is formed by the composition of these four ingredients with rati. Then we come to prema-bhakti, where rasa is indicatory. In bhava-bhakti rati is the cardinal point. The Vishaya and the ashraya both drink this rasa. We have now come to prayojana-tattva. Ashrayas taste Krishna-rasa and Krishna tastes Ashraya-rasa. The development of bhava-bhakti leads to prema-bhakti, and in prema-bhakti we find rasa. People need not confuse chit-rasa with jara-rasa. Chit-rasa is tasted in a region where no imperfection can possibly reach. Jara-rasa, such as we find in stories like Nala-damayanti etc., should not be carried to that region. The domain of rasa is Bhagavata. The book is dedicated to rasikas and bhavukas and not to anybody else. Krishna-prema is the only prayojana or need. This is the final stage.
There are some people who with their hallucinative ideas think that bhoga should be the final goal, and there are some perverse people who think that tyaaga should be the final destination. But these ideals are not congenial for our propagatory work. We are not to confine ourselves to the ideas of bhogaor tyaaga. Parama-dharma is not temporary religion associated with the retention of temporary things. We must not think that Parama-dharma is on the same line with Itara-dharma. Parama-Dharma or Sanatana-dharma is meant for our eternal purpose. Our soul being eternal, this Sanatana-dharma is to be adopted, but not the pseudo-sanatana Dharma advocated by the karmins and jnanins. We should be very careful not to accept the agnosticism of the pantheists. We should also be careful not to accept the enjoying mood of the karma-kandins who are very eager to have us as followers of their gluttonous desires.
The negative social results of a society populated primarily by hedonistic people should be obvious to anyone. A society of self-centered, animalistic people who have no other interest than their own sense enjoyment cannot be at all peaceful or progressive—either materially or spiritually.
So true devotion should be defined first. In order to do so, the second shloka of the Bhagavata reading "Dharmah projjhita- etc." has come to us. Projjhita means 'from which all pretensions have been uprooted'. Persons who have already transcended the mundane regions are known as sadhus, and the religion of the sadhus is inculcated in the Bhagavata. Matsarata is the combination of the five obstacles viz., Kaama, Krodha, Lobha, Mada and Moha. By indulging in these passions we acquire matsarata (jealousy). Sadhus are free from jealousy. Vaastava -- Vastu means positive entity. We should have access to the positive entity and not the negative side of the dreamy representations of the objects. By the reverential study of the Bhagavata the threefold tapas (miseries) viz., aadhyaatmik, aadhidvik and aadhibhoutik, are completely eliminated.
Krishna-prema-rasa should be our desired end. We should be rasikas and bhaavukas and never become devoid of rasa.
If you are forgetful about rendering your service to Shri Krishna you will be denied the entire benefit and you will be compelled to walk the stage of this conditioned life. So the true duty of the mind is to associate itself with the Divine through the senses. We are now involved in our passionate senses and these senses are flying in different directions and are not concentrated on One. So there is deviation from the Absolute. By that deviation, we find hundreds of things appearing before us. They tempt us and we engage ourselves in rendering our services to them. When we are assured that the only duty of the soul is to render service to the Over-Soul and that the other incorporations are but temporal, we then decide that we should emerge clearly from out of these different engagements of the world that are placed before us. We come to understand that we are part and parcel of the Fountainhead, the Over-Soul, and though we are not the Substance itself we are fractional parts of one of the potencies. We are given to understand that in the transcendental region no foreign thing should be included and in this world we do not find the unalloyed position of transcendence. We get a mistaken idea when we consider ourselves to be part and parcel of this universe just adjuncts of this phenomenon in which we are now experiencing our conditioned life. We are now, rather enwrapped by the two wrappers; and these two wrappers are made up of matter and obstructing subtlety. So we run the risk of subscribing to the view of identifying ourselves with material phenomena, or, if we are more keen we find that we have got an astral body. We can be drawn to the Absolute from the limited concrete world and we can build up on these purified ideas of matter. So our duty should not be confined to the foreign wrappers associated with the foreign things only - I mean the material body which has got sense and these other equipments - and consider these equipments as meant to move towards abstract ideas from the concrete. But these ideas vary according to our fitness in empirical activity. These changes in phenomena apply to the external and internal bodies but not to the soul.
(On the other hand,) the positive results of a society populated mostly by people who are serious about cultivating wisdom and spiritual understanding should be clear. If the citizens are peaceful, satisfied, respectful of others, compassionate, selfless, and so on, then society will be progressive both materially and spiritually.
But we have got our own position in the intermediate land, that is, the land between 'Chit' and 'Achit'; and we call that plane 'Tatastha.' Some human souls are conditioned and some are liberated. Liberation is nothing but going back to the original position, that is offering our services to the Eternal Being, as we are eternal objects. If we want that we should come under the temporal clutch we may do so by enjoying this world which gives us happiness; but the normal condition of this world is full of miseries as all experienced men have observed. That very thing itself is puzzling. Why have we come to this place? It is so because we have exercised our free will to play on a particular level and we have been abusing our free will to turn 'Kartas.' In other words, we have taken an initiative to enjoy this world and we have thereby submitted to the trap, or rather to the laws, of Karma. We should think that we have had everything at our own risk, and only when we come to know from good counsel that the external body is misused by the association of this world and our internal body is misused by mental speculation or by meddling with these external phenomena, do we realise that our own entity is lying in a dormant condition inside that, and that if the interest of the soul is once generated in us, we will find that service of the Absolute is the eternal function of the soul and the only duty.
In our conditioned life we see here that we have got five different relationships. We trace these five relationships usually among our worldly associates, but some of us think we should extend them to the Divine, and so approach the Over-soul with a definite purpose of our own to please Him, to serve for Him, to render service to Him, that is, to place ourselves before Him, to attend to His eternal necessity and not to attend to our temporal seeming necessity. As elevationists, as Karmis, we require that happiness should come to us. As salvationists we think we should merge into the Absolute so that the fruit is to come to us personally, whereas we always deprive the Over-soul of having our services for Him. We do not give Him any opportunity to love us by our Karmakanda or Jnanakanda. We do not endow the Absolute with any privileges since we have a strong inclination only to acquire for ourselves something which we think will give us happiness for our sensuous purposes. All these phenomena come to us, and as soon as we come in contact with a real sage who can give us a true idea, a thorough idea of the position, we will at once adopt that process and thereby relieve ourselves of all notions of this conditioned life. When we are in need of having the counsel of an entity who is conversant with the thought of transcendence we seek his protection. Shri Krishna Chaitanya, as Jagadguru, has preached what we require and offered us the protection we require against the frivolity of the senses. "A man who is desirous of having the greatest boon should always utter the Name of the Transcendental Absolute, the Eternal Absolute, the Eternal Knowledge, the Eternal Bliss, the Ecstatic Bliss, the Complete, Who is called Hari." The very word Hari is the Transcendental Sound and this should never be confused with the ordinary conception of Allah, God, Brahman, Paramatma, etc., of different religions persuasions. The dictionaries have given us the connotation of these words and we are conversant with the objects for which the words stand.
LEARNING FROM HISTORY
In this world, people are always fighting over property. They want to stake their claims of ownership on both the living and the nonliving. According to the Sri Ishopanishad, these people are like thieves fighting over stolen loot. If we look at the question from the relatively short-term view, we may find it hard to accept that no one is really an owner of anything. But if we adopt the point of view of the Sri Ishopanishad—which sees the universe not in terms of decades, centuries, or even thousands of years, but in terms of many millions of years—then we can understand this point.
They limit the same to a brief compass, instead of revealing the fullest aspect of the all-embracing Object of love. So Shri Krishna Chaitanya declared that if we wish to liberate, ourselves from these puzzling questions we should first hear from the lips of one who is conversant with transcendentalism the exposition of the Name of Hari. He will be quite eligible to chant the Name of Hari all the twenty-four hours of the day. He can have the privilege of uttering the Name of Hari for all time, if he can claim that he has the lowest and most humble position, instead of proudly proclaiming himself as Brahman, -- 'Aham Brahman' - and identifying himself with the All-Pervasive. If it is found that he can endure any amount of trouble that may be offered by some inimical agencies, that he can have the patience to cross all sorts of obstales [sic] placed by everybody, and if he is at the same time found to be in the mood of uttering the Name (the Name being identical with Hari Himself), that uttering of the Name would lead him to consider himself as the humblest of all; and in this predicament he will see clearly the way to bliss, being set free from all earthly bonds. He will then surely find his way to ignore all non-Absolute things that seem to enrich but really impoverish him.