Stages of Bhakti. The Right Way to Treat Anarthas
Bhakti Vijnana Goswami · Altai · 2008
Chapters
The following class is the fourth lecture of the seminar called Stages of Bhakti given by His Holiness Bhaktivijnana Goswami Maharaj in Altai, Russia, 2008. vasude Oh oṁ namo bhagavate vāsudevāya. oṁ namo bhagavate vāsudevāya
Bhagavate Sudeva Adosrad Tataksadu Sangotaba Janakriya, Tatonartani sādhakānām ayaṁ premṇaḥ prādurbhāve bhavet kramaḥ
ādau śraddhā tataḥ sādhu-saṅgo 'tha bhajana-kriyā tato 'nartha-nivṛttiḥ syāt tato niṣṭhā rucis tataḥ, athāsaktis tato bhāvas tataḥ premābhyudañcati, sādhakānām ayaṁ premṇaḥ prādurbhāve bhavet kramaḥ
Hadoshradata tahaksadum, sadum, sangotaba janakriyam, tato Nartani vrithiksyat, Tato Nistaruchistatta, Nisharuchistam,
ādau śraddhā tataḥ sādhu-saṅgo 'tha bhajana-kriyā budanchati, sadhakanam ayamprema. athāsaktis tato bhāvas tataḥ premābhyudañcati sādhakānām ayaṁ premṇaḥ prādurbhāve bhavet kramaḥ
Tatonartani Vritishat, Tatonistaru tato 'nartha-nivṛttiḥ syāt tato niṣṭhā rucis tataḥ Tatah Prima Bhudanchati, Sadhakana Mayamprema It's the eighth eight months of 2008 Easy it is to cheer up the devotees.
The number eight Bagini Lakshmi is the number of goddess Lakshmi. Also today's Friday. The day of Goddess Lakshmi. Good day for earn money. It's not clear what you're doing here.
I hope that by hearing about Krishna, the eternal consort of Goddess Lakshmi, will please her. Most offer the maṅgalācaraṇa. ajñāna-timirāndhasya jñānāñjana-śalākayā, cakṣur unmīlitaṁ yena tasmai śrī-gurave namaḥ.
śrī-caitanya-mano-'bhīṣṭaṁ sthāpitaṁ yena bhū-tale, svayaṁ rūpaḥ kadā mahyaṁ dadāti sva-padāntikam. vande 'haṁ śrī-guroḥ śrī-yuta-pada-kamalaṁ śrī-gurūn vaiṣṇavāṁś ca,
śrī-rūpaṁ sāgrajātaṁ saha-gaṇa-raghunāthānvitaṁ taṁ sa-jīvam, sādvaitaṁ sāvadhūtaṁ parijana-sahitaṁ kṛṣṇa-caitanya-devaṁ, śrī-rādhā-kṛṣṇa-pādān saha-gaṇa-lalitā-śrī-viśākhānvitāṁś ca.
he kṛṣṇa karuṇā-sindho dīna-bandho jagat-pate, gopeśa gopikā-kānta rādhā-kānta namo 'stu te. tapta-kāñcana-gaurāṅgi rādhe vṛndāvaneśvari,
vṛṣabhānu-sute devī praṇamāmi hari-priye. Gopesha Gopikanta, Radakantamoste, Taptakanchana Gurange Rade Vrindavanishware Vishamanus Devi Pranamamihari.
Vanchakalpatarubhyas ca kripasindhubhya eva cha patitanampavanebhyo, vaishnavebhyo namo namah Jaya Krishna Chaitanya Prabhu Nityananda, Sri Advaita, Srivasadvadi-gaura-bhakta-vrinda
Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare, Hare Krishna Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna Hare Hare, Hare Rama, Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna
Krishna Hare Hare Hare Rama Lalitā-bhūja kanakāvavadāto saṅkīrtanaika- pitaro kamalāyata-ākṣaḥ, viśvambharo dvijaḥ, yuga-dharma-pālana-pradā-priyaḥ, karuṇā.
Yam pravrajantam anupetam apeta-krityam dvaipayanaviraha-katara-ajuhava putreti tanmayataya taravo'bhinedus tam sarva-bhuta-hridayam munim an nato'smi Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam.
Distinguishing intermediate and ultimate life goals
In Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, the description of the appearance of Goddess Lakshmi from the milk ocean. And in her honor, I'll start our today's discussion by the attempt to understand what the purpose or meaning of human life is.
Because many people believe that the meaning of life is money. That happiness is in money or it's in bhoga. But we must clearly understand that there are two categories of understanding.
This simple truth will reveal many things to us in our lives and about what we should and what we shouldn't do. There are interim goals and there is the ultimate goal or the supreme goal. An interim goal, what what is it?
Well, this is something that we want to achieve in order to achieve something else. Right? Therefore it's an interim one.
The ultimate goal is the goal that we want to achieve for its own sake. This is something after which we don't have to go any further because in itself.
If we look or ask ourselves the question about what goals people usually pursue, we will see as a rule that they pursue interim goals. If you ask them someone is earning money, why does he need money?
Is it enough for one just to earn money, sit on this money and be very happy? Wow, I have a pile of green pieces of paper. Will it in itself make one happy? What else people strive for? For health, right?
Is health necessary in itself? Is it an end in itself? No. Health is merely a means to achieve something else. Do you people need yoga itself? No.
Yoga is merely a means to achieve something else, to achieve mystical powers, to acquire some abilities, to gain something.
People do so many things, but as a rule, they do not ask themselves the most important question, why am I doing this? What will happen after that? And will I get what I want out of it? I know a person. Devotee.
He's a very witty man. And once he told me how he teased, practically drove mad a friend of his, an acquaintance of his. His friend told him, I want to get married. He says, why? For her, it was such an unexpected question.
She began to think, well, why do I want? The only thing that she had to answer was, well, to have children, why ask her again?
She thought for a long time and finally said, so that the number of persons on earth has increased. But then when he asked her why, she said, Leave me alone, why are you pestering me? She asked, Isn't that necessary?
It is, but you yourself must understand why. Because if you don't understand why you're doing this, you won't be able to do it in the right way.
Most people don't fully realize why they're doing that. And they're not asking themselves this simple but such an annoying
question, whether they will achieve what they need, even if what they have been doing that for has been fulfilled. Leo Tolstoy has a remarkable word called confession.
It's kind of the forerunner of the book which Caitanya-candradaya Prabhu has issued, how he came to Krishna Consciousness. Churam Prabhu has issued, how he came to Krishna Consciousness.
I achieved everything, everything that's possible. I achieved wealth, I became the best of writers. At least everyone has greatly appreciated me. I had certain goals that I pursued.
And at some point I came to the conclusion that I'm completely bankrupt because I achieved everything I wanted and I realized that I haven't achieved anything.
That's the question which I genuinely hate for a simple question. So what? This question suddenly popped up in my heart. So what? Well, you've become the greatest of writers.
Well, you've become a rich man, you've become this, you've become that. What? So what? So what? He says I was trying to find the answer to that question. So what? And couldn't find the answer to that damn question. So what?
Again, it's because people confuse the supreme goal with the interim goals. She also speaks about this in a very interesting way.
He says that at some point I thought that my writing or art represents an end in itself, that it's self-sufficient. But I've reached perfection in this and I've realized that it's not an end in itself.
And if we bring this analysis to its end, we will generally understand that one has only one goal for which the questions why does not work in principle because it's clear. I don't have to go any further.
What is our highest goal? All quests and aspirations? Happiness. Happiness. If you're aware of this and say that my goal is happiness, then that is it. If some fool asks you why, you will say, get out of here.
I know why, because I I need happiness. Even existence itself is not the highest goal. Existence is also a means of attaining happiness. Happiness, ānanda, is the highest manifestation of human nature.
When the soul attains this highest nature for which it's been created, for which it's been born, all questions disappear and everything else. All the problems go away too.
But it's very important to all of us that at this point of our reflection, we understand what brings this happiness to the soul.
Our siddhānta, ultimate and irrevocable, absolutely irrefutable, states that one's highest goal is love.
Shri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu came to establish this and to loudly say about this because no one had previously said the simple thing. Although the Vedas speak about this, Krishna speaks about it.
Still it's somewhat hidden, buried under the obscurity of all other secondary stuff. One has only one supreme goal. The greatest goal.
Everything else, dharma-artha-kama-moksha, it's not goals as such, it's all an intermediate
Once major goal is love, the only reason that the soul exists for, the only state in which the soul realizes itself and realizes its abilities fully is the eternal analog love, which is a synonym of happiness.
Therefore, the state of ananda is the state of love. When one has love, he also has an under. When one is blissful, it means that love has entered into his heart. All of our diseases.
And people in this world are very concerned about their disease. What's the origin of all diseases? The physical, mental, spiritual diseases. What gives rise to them? It's a lack of love.
This is the cause of all diseases, of cancer, of all other diseases, of everything in this world, of all suffering in this world. It's all due to the lack of one simple thing.
Today Bhakti Chaitanya Maharaj told us a wonderful story about how Śrīmatī Rādhārāṇī fed Durvāsā Muni, how she picked up some dust, mixed it with the earth of Vṛndāvana and said, Eat it up, kind man.
And the kind man didn't understand at first what he was going to eat. He got naturally suspicious about it. No. But Śrīmatī Rādhārāṇī's friends told him, just try. Maybe you'll like it.
The point is that Śrīmatī Rādhārāṇī is the embodiment of love. All that she does is permeated with love. Therefore, everything that she does is a supreme taste.
When Durvāsā Muni gave her the two so called benedictions, do you remember what two benedictions he gave her? What?
Yes, that everything that you cook will taste like nectar. And the second was that anyone who eats it will always be healthy. What did he do? Did he give her any benedictions? He merely confirmed the fact. Right.
He merely confirmed what was already there in what she cooks. Because one needs love and when one has love, there is no room for pain, for disease, things like that.
Love itself is there. But people don't realize this and they think that they need something else. This is our problem. Today we are speaking about anarthanivṛtti and we can actually achieve
this stage of getting free of or destroying those anarthas when we realize the simple truth that we don't need anything else, that we need love, that everything else is an artha. An artha.
Artha means value, an artha means something of no value. It's a simple thing which is difficult to understand. I remember that once I was speaking to a group of businessmen.
They were men, women and both the average income, some of them richer, some poorer, but generally people rich enough, wealthy people. There were about twenty people in the room.
I was asked to preach a little to them, and in the course of my speech I asked them: What do you think you need?
Imagine that you have everything, everything you could wish for, even what's incredible to wish for, but no one loves you. And you don't love anyone. Would you be happy? They said, no, we won't be happy.
Now imagine that you have nothing but you love everyone and everyone loves you. Would you be happy? They scratched their heads and said, Well, generally we would, but it's nice to have everything too as well.
I mean although that's obvious and if one thinks a bit more deeply about it, one will realize all I need is love. Everything else is just means for me to buy love.
People earn money because they think that when they have a lot of money they will be loved. Will they be loved? Earn money and see. Gopāla Bhaṭṭa Gosvāmī.
Gopāla Bhaṭṭa Gosvāmī is a psychologist and he says, I counsel many people among them, sometimes poor and sometimes rich. I came to the conclusion that the rich are much more miserable than the poor, because the poor still have the hope that when they get rich they will be happy.
Whereas the rich don't have this hope, all hope is gone. Since we need love, we don't need anything else. Everything else is just means some interim goals to achieve the highest goal.
Obstacles generated by material desire
And the highest goal is one, bhakti. No, I think that's a good question we can make out of habit, and it's a very deep rooted habit.
A habit that has settled very deeply in some layers of our consciousness or subconsciousness is that we need something else.
As a result, everyone wants to buy love, but instead buys what? Bogus, fake things. People buy fakes.
This so-called love in the material world, like Badahari told us at the first cultural program. It's all merely something with the label love. Something that was cold love, attachments called love.
Because the nature of false love is the desire to take. We need love, but we think that we need pleasures. And the thirst for pleasures which we confuse—this thirst
for pleasures generates all of the problems we have result from the same poisonous root which must sooner or later be uprooted from our heart if we want to attain love, this is the thirst for pleasures.
The thirst for pleasures breeds anger in one. When the pleasures that we desire do not come to us, what happens to one? One gets angry.
This energy arises inside which is necessary to remove these obstacles, to overcome them. When one gets some pleasures, but they are not sufficient, not enough, this breeds greed. One wants more such pleasures.
One gets God pleasures, one falls into illusion. One doesn't know what should be done and what should not be done. One's greedy for pleasures and one does nasty things at the end of the day.
Yesterday Shikshashtaka Prabhu told me a Russian proverb which I didn't know before. Sin is sweet and man is weak. People fall down, they are fond of this sweet sin.
And the thirst for pleasures when one achieves something, what does one want at any cost? One starts to be proud of what one has achieved. Those who have achieved something ride in the big cars. Why?
For everyone to see what they have achieved. They need some statues, they need a big house, a big car, big woman, things like that. Something else.
At the end of the day, ultimately the thirst for pleasures, what does it bring in our heart? It breeds envy. There are six things that are bred by the greed for pleasures.
So we, uh, and eventually we want to have everything that others enjoy. And if someone enjoys something that I do not enjoy, I start to envy.
If someone has something that I don't, my heart aches with envy and I want to do something so that this person feels bad. Such is the nature of envy.
Envy is a horrible feeling, and we'll be speaking about. The primordial enemy of love is the thirst for pleasures, but the thirst for pleasures is the course of transformation to be further and further away from love, and ultimately turns into poisonous envy.
This envy has a thousand heads, or rather a thousand and one head. Who embodies envy in Krishna līlā? Yes. Kāliya. Kāliya.
A thousand and one heads, then Krishna dances on those heads. One head goes down and another one comes up. This is a fight that goes on in our hearts for a long time.
How long did Krishna dance on the heads of the serpent Kāliya? For many hours. Five or six hours. Even Krishna himself had to dance for five or six hours.
New and new heads were emerging and each was attempting to bite Krishna to distract him, to take him away. That's envy. And envy and all these things, oddly enough, are highly appreciated in the material world.
All these things appear to be something that people in the material world consider important. Lust or the thirst for pleasures, is it useful in the material world? It is.
People buy Viagra, especially for the purpose of rousing their extinct lust. By all means, people try to... I
was nearly crucified by this psychologist who said what's wrong with the desires? We want to have a TV to generate even new desires, even more desires. People value this thing and are constantly trying to strengthen it.
Is anger necessary in the material world? Sure. We won't survive without it. We won't be able to defend ourselves without anger. Greed. Is pride necessary in the material world? It's a useful thing, isn't it?
How can you live without any pride? Pride is my fortress, my stronghold, where I'm locked in. Everyone appreciates that. People appreciate even envy. There is a good Sufi parable. There was a Sufi who was very rich.
When he was visited by another Sufi who went walking around his house looking at everything open-mouthed, because Sufi dervishes must in theory vow to lead the life of a beggar.
And that Sufi walked around and said, Oh, I saw so many things. You know, that Sufi lives in luxury.
Some friends visited that Sufi and told him, listen, that one has seen and was telling about the luxury that you live in in such a way. He said, oh, that's nothing. The latest piece of luxury obtained only today.
They asked him, what's that latest piece of luxury that you got today? Someone who envies me. Now my happiness has become perfect. And of course he said that to teach us.
But people like to be envied because they think, oh, if they envy me, it means that I've achieved something. I've achieved something in this world.
This is exactly why the devotees, despite all this being anartha, something that has no value, the devotees that have taken up the spiritual path instinctively or out of habit hold on to all this.
All anarthas that we need to get rid of are our habits.
These are the habits we have acquired in trying to settle down here in the material world. And since we wanted to settle down in this material world forever, we cannot imagine how we can go on living without these habits.
Therefore, in his Madhurya-kādambinī, Viśvanātha Cakravartī Ṭhākura, this is a very important point. He classifies all anarthas on the basis of where they have come into our hearts from.
I've happened to read some Christian books which speak or reflect at length about this vice, about that vice, about that vice. There was a whole book called Internal Struggle.
I kept trying to understand the logic behind it all. There in each individual case some specific recipes are given so that the person going along the spiritual path could feed this or that enemy creeping out of his heart.
But Viśvanātha Cakravartī Ṭhākura does a very simple thing. He says that all those anarthas have one root. If we pull out that one root, we will pull out everything else, all their consequences.
But to pull out that root, first of all, we need a very strong faith. Why did I completely dedicate the first three classes to faith? Because to uproot it, to come to want to get rid of it.
And we must have a very strong desire to get rid specifically of our anarthas, of all that hinders the attainment of love, the entering of love into my heart.
For that purpose I must clearly understand that this is an anartha that I don't need it. To do this I need faith, faith and love, faith in the infinite, perfectly unalloyed, pure love.
Therefore, devotional service begins with faith.
Ādau śraddhā. Without faith we cannot go anywhere. Because all these anarchas will be pulling us down. They will be distracting us from practicing bhakti. They will be putting in front of us other goals and will be causing us to pursue some
other goals, not knowing how to connect all those goals to the attainment of the supreme goal I
Deception as the root of obstacles
won't be able because I'm I mean I I don't have much time, I'm not going to talk too much, but I would like to go directly to the point. I would like us to go to the very route that gives rise to this anarthas.
Because even before the thirst for pleasures, there is something that generated in us that thirst for pleasures. And we have to define this quality and try to uproot from our hearts exactly this quality.
When in the Bhagavad-gītā Krishna describes our enemy, He doesn't go further simply because it's a certain level or a certain stage of description or analysis.
In a sense, kāma or lust here is a consequence to what does in your opinion lie behind it or out of which this desire for pleasures for material enjoyment grows from? What do you think?
Fear, ignorance, association, all that's correct. We have turned away from Krishna ultimately, yes. But let us just define this quality for clarity of understanding.
Ultimately this quality comes from the fact that we have turned away from Krishna and want to enjoy on our own. The ācāryas, in particular Krishna Dasa Kaviraja Goswami, calls this quality deception. Why is it deception?
Because I've turned away from Krishna. I want to enjoy independently from Krishna. There is nothing wrong in our desire to enjoy. The problem is not that we want to enjoy that. It's the nature of the soul.
The soul must enjoy. The problem is that we want to enjoy dependently from Krishna, that we've cut off our connection with Krishna. And this is a lie. This is deception. Can we be independent of Krishna in principle?
No, we can't. We will never be able to be independent. We pretend here to be independent from Krishna. This pretense manifests in the form of the desire for material enjoyment, in the form of anger and everything else.
Ultimately, this very pretense is the main problem. This pretense consists in my thinking that I'm God, I'm in the center, and everything else should revolve around me.
Like Microsoft sells computers with the needed software already installed.
Those who use computers know that there is an operating system and they supplement the computers with an operating system, some latest what's the related Vista, which doesn't work at all anyway?
This is a computer and along with the body and the mind there is an operating system that has been supplemented along with the computer. This operating system that is deeply embedded in our minds
aims at helping us to enjoy or feel that I'm God, this computer that we've got used to must create a kind of virtual reality where I'm in charge and where everything depends on me. And everything else is my Leela.
Even what doesn't depend on me is meant to just excite me. But ultimately this is what the tragedy of this material life consists of. It all starts with this, without deception.
That's why in principle it's quite correct that in Christianity the primordial, the principal enemy of one is described as the sly.
Mind set on deception or on enjoyments when it's all in itself. Because everyone lives in this way and of
course it's natural that one set on this will do silly things, bad things, things like that. But there are some limits
which one should generally be able to fit and when one commits sins and uh sin is something reprehensible from the point of view of other people.
But when such a person with that same tendency in one's mind joins the society of devotees and when that person has no control over the program running in his mind, then everything that he does
in the association of the devotees will be called... Yes, it will be called an offense. Viśvanātha Cakravartī Ṭhākura explains that there are different anarthas depending on their origin.
Anarthas that have arisen in our heart as a result of duṣkṛta, sinful activities,
and anarthas that have risen in our heart as a result of sukṛti or pious activities, as a result of attachment to some kind of piety, things like that. Attachment to material happiness.
It distinguishes two more types of anarthas. And especially the latter which are most difficult to eradicate, these anarthas remain in one up to the level above.
Even at the level of bhāva, a shadow, some smell of these anarthas remains. Anarthas have something very sticky. Has anyone used asafetida? If asafetida has been stored in a glass container, can you wash it afterwards?
You can wash it, but the smell remains all the same. And it's not clear where it remains. Similarly, Viśvanātha Cakravartī Ṭhākura says that there is one kind of anarthas that is extremely sticky.
It sticks to the walls of our consciousness and when the consciousness is almost pure and at level of bhāva it is pure, all the same there is still remains the faint smell of an artist and the probability or possibility of committing offenses again and falling down remains.
These are the anarthas generated by offences. The most uh horrible anartha that can be there is what is generated by our offenses in the process of our devotional practice.
Previously we didn't commit any offenses because we didn't know anyone. We didn't know anything. We lived our lives and in principle we were committing some sins, of course.
And in principle in the practice of devotional service, those sins are burned very quickly. Viśvanātha Cakravartī Ṭhākura says that if you take a piece of cotton and ignite it, what will happen?
He says that seemingly all of our sins as soon as we chant the holy name, Everything is burnt down. There is nothing left. All sins were burnt like cotton. And it's not so difficult to do all that.
Nevertheless, we can see that our problems are still there. When we come to Krishna consciousness, despite all the glorification of the holy name, these
problems consist in one thing only, that in holding on to some of our bad habits, in not letting them go.
Consequences of offenses in devotional service
We go on committing offenses here.
And offenses to whom it is? It is certainly the attention. Offenses to guru, sādhus, and Bhagavān himself in its various forms and manifestations, in the form of the holy name, in the form of mūrti.
And when we do this, all the other problems arise only because of this.
Therefore, the spiritual path is complicated due to our inattentiveness or due to the fact that we cannot properly grasp how this program works which we've become accustomed to.
We've got accustomed to using this operating system. We know what button to press, which icon to click on to make it work, so that something beautiful appears and we go on using it. It's really all very simple.
And these are absolutely basic things, I mean basic psychology that anyone can understand. How does mind enjoy the material world? How does it place itself in the center? What does it need to do then?
It needs to pull everyone else down. I'm in charge. I'm in charge means I'm above all the others. Everyone else is below me. At the very beginning we told our mind, please, my dear, come on. And it does it.
It serves us faithfully and serving us faithfully. It's God used to finding faults in everything, it sees faults. And the mind doesn't need to be explained, it doesn't need to be taught.
Has anyone taught their child to see faults in others? Have you ever been taught this? No. You will learn it yourself. You can defend your own doctoral thesis on this. Sometimes this mind tuned to faults is comparative fly.
If you have a good, beautiful, healthy body and there is one small wound, where will the fly go to? Right. Right there to the wound. We will not fly to any other place.
Similarly, we'll look at our people and they may have lots of great qualities, but what do we see? The pus and the wound. We'll find it, never mind how hard they will try to hide it. We'll find it and pull down that person.
The mind tuned in this way, the mind that has been assigned this by us, the mind that's got this program starts looking for faults and the devotees and the guru. On his voice, pulls everyone down to its own level or preferably even lower.
Once it's pulled them down, it's now easier. Everything is clear now. I'm good, I'm nice, like in that joke, and there I come. This, this joke is about us. Everything is daubed in mud, and there I come.
I come on all in white. That's our mind, and we must clearly see and know how the mind works, because it's the mind that commits offenses, and these offenses lead us away from Krishna.
Literally in a nutshell, basically I've already exhausted my time limit, but I'll say a few more words if you allow me, about how this um entrenchment from Krishna takes place in the process of practice in bhakti.
The practice of bhakti must bring us to Krishna. When we chant the Holy Name, we meditate on Krishna and talk to Krishna is the one who is free from all faults. The one who is free from envy.
He is the most beautiful, the most merciful. He has all the opulence which we need. Uttering his holy name and thinking about him, we can immediately purify ourselves.
Brahma, at the very beginning of the Rāmāyaṇa, Nārada Muni dedicates several pages to the description of Rama's qualities. Read it sometime.
Open that Rāmāyaṇa. Read it and think about what kind of God we worship, who he is, what he is. Because when we chant the holy name we should think of him, and when we think of him,
our consciousness will be naturally purified and full, but since we have this deception inside, the desire to place ourselves in the center in one way or another.
This desire makes us try to pull the others down in our own eyes. And we don't want to surrender to anyone. We don't want to see devotees.
We always pick holes in the Vaishnavas, and we commit the most severe and most unforgiving aparadha of the holy name, the offense of the Vaishnavas, sādhu-nindā. Word of aparadha itself. Aparādha means love.
Aparādha means love, it means the inability to worship Radha. Aparādha means the ability to give, to serve, forgetting everything, forgetting yourself. Aparādha-radhā is what drives us further and further away from Radha.
It all starts with this. Śrīla Prabhupāda translates this word as kauṭilya. Kauṭilya means cunning. Kuṭi means hooked. Kuṭi means a hook. Kauṭilyam ati. Au, kauṭinya is a beautiful word. We all have this kauṭinya.
A big, beautiful quality. Oh my, such a good thing. Śrīla Prabhupāda gives this kauṭilya an absolutely amazing, absolutely brilliant definition. He says kauṭilya is the ability to see faults in others, fault finding.
There are other ways of translating it, but Śrīla Prabhupāda goes to the very root. He says that this deceitful or cunning, sly nature of our mind manifests in our constant attempt to pull down everyone else. And
what happens after that? Just in a few words, I would like to tell you of the sad chain or sequence of events. The chain reaction that we turn on when we press this trigger. Kuṭi is the trigger, the hook.
Sequential degradation from fault finding
When we start pulling it, when we start using it, then other things start growing in our heart. Śrīla Jīva Gosvāmī defines kauṭilya exactly in this way. He says that kauṭilya is the external worship of Vaishnavas,
Of the spiritual master and Bhagavan, but without deep inner respect for them. Without a truly deep inner deference to them. When we start all sorts of psychological mechanisms turn on and they impede us.
What happens after that? Fall in kuṭi-nāṭī the next anartha or weed the next parasite on the body of our bhakti that takes birth. And and all these are parasites that suck the blood of our bhakti.
There is a sprout of bhakti within us which in the form of faith was planted
by Śrīla Prabhupāda, the spiritual master whom we have heard from and further on kuṭi-nāṭī appears which is something pretty harmless at the beginning.
appears which is something pretty harmless at the beginning. But what starts growing further on, the next step of phase in pratiṣṭhā is called pratiṣṭhāsā. Asha means desire. And Pratishta means to stand out.
The desire to attract attention, the desire to be appreciated in one way or another. One starts doing something in devotional service for this purpose. One is very enthusiastic in devotional service. To what end?
Devotional service provides us with extraordinary opportunities to manifest all these nasty things in our heart.
We begin to be appreciated, we start expecting this all the time when we will be appreciated, when we will be praised, one starts giving lectures. And what for?
To be appreciated and be told, "Oh, what a cool lecture." One dresses up to date and what for? "Oh, how beautifully has he dressed the deity." One cooks and what for?
"So that people say, 'Oh, how nicely you cook for Kṛṣṇa.' Probably Rādhārāṇī herself has cooked that through you. She might have, Rādhārāṇī herself has entered into you."
And then all these things start to appear, but this desire is becoming more and more insatiable. That's not enough. I need more and more. As a result, I get this desire to somehow stand out, to be to be noticed.
And then the the next stage, Śrīla Kṛṣṇadāsa Kavirāja Gosvāmī, this is his analysis, he explains that this is jīva-hiṁsā, violence and pain that I cause others.
I start exploiting others, or I start causing them pain, offending them. Because how can I otherwise? No one has appreciated me. No one has praised me. What is my natural reaction to this? Yes, I must get indignant.
I will exploit other people, and again the association of devotees provides extraordinary opportunities to do so because devotees are humble. They want to serve and we start taking advantage of it.
This is jiva-himsa or the desire to subjugate others, to exploit others, to make others serve me. This desire becomes uncontrollable. This weed starts growing in our heart.
Following this, plenty of other nice things start to appear. And next to it is niṣiddhācāra. And niṣiddhācāra, I sincerely wish you that you do not sink into that, but unfortunately, this has also happened.
One climbs up and up the stairway of bhakti, and he thinks that he climbs the stairway of bhakti. We have been describing this stairway and its stage. First
this kuṭīniṭī appears in one's heart, and then its natural expression in a form of pratiṣṭhāśā, the desire for pratiṣṭhā, the desire to distinguish oneself, then jiva-himsa.
One begins to exploit, one becomes a senior devotee, grown wise with experience. And then niṣiddhācāra. Niṣiddhācāra, what does that mean? Niṣiddhācāra means forbidden behavior.
Suddenly everything one has previously forgotten, everything one has left behind before coming to devotional service comes back with renewed vigor.
One cannot control it, one starts to either eat fish or eat meat or something else. I've seen that happen. Unfortunately, these things or these stories have happened in front of me.
It all starts with the very subtle things quite indistinguishable. And after that, niṣiddhācāra, kāma and pūjā. Kāma is the desire to enjoy. It's just an ordinary lust. Puja is the desire for fame. Comma.
10. Hamsa-kāpa. Kāma is also very strong. But it's sad. Should I know?
I don't even know whether we should tell it or not, a story of a devotee, a very talented devotee who joined ISKCON, a very smart one, of very high intelligence.
But there was this one small fault that he didn't control, didn't distinguish in himself. The desire to find faults. He received initiation, first one, second one, and then as a result he started offending his guru.
First in words, then via the internet. He published incriminating materials against his guru, his this, his that, and so on and so forth. Okay, he left from here. He wasn't appreciated here.
He went to one Gaudiya Math Maharaj. And at first everything was fine, everyone was happy that such a smart man has joined us. Such a reasonable person, such a preacher, and so on.
In a few months some not very nice information about the chart of the Gaudiya Math appears on the internet.
He goes away on his own to Rādhā-kuṇḍa, takes initiation now from a bābājī at Rādhā-kuṇḍa. He lives at Rādhā-kuṇḍa and undergoes austerities, chants the holy name, he has learned fluent Sanskrit, Bengali.
He's read all the vaiṣṇava literature. Our Gosvāmī is just awesome. I watched him. He's an acquaintance of mine. I watched him and to some extent communicated with him. Everyone glorifies him.
The Rādhā-kuṇḍa, everyone is ecstatic about him, he knows everything, everything is perfect, siddhānta, there is no one better than him. He has his own form, he defends all our siddhānta. And then the respective denunciation comes.
He exposes himself and the next step of his
līlā, so to speak, of the stairway of bhakti, the next step is that he places an advertisement in the internet that he's ready to become a guru of young girls. And he mercifully adds guru and a lover too. Is that funny?
No, it's sad. Tears fill one's eyes when one hears all these stories. But I cherish poorness against that. This is the natural stage of degradation of one's consciousness, which at first sight begins very innocently.
It starts from the desire to assert oneself at the expense of others in the association of devotees. Because we don't see Vaishnavas or start to offend them, start to find faults.
Yes, Vaishnavas do have fools. Who said they don't? They do have fools. But these are not Vaishnavas. Because who is a Vaishnava? Vaishnava is the soul that strives for Krishna. Everything else is the mind and the body.
Bhakti-nāṭaka-parīkṣā warns us of this.
It says, if you want to have the right attitude to people, especially to Vaishnavas, learn to see not what they are now, but what they aspire for. Learn to see the spark of aspiration in them and relate to it.
Then you will associate with Vaishnavas. Otherwise, you yourself will be digging in this muck and will be splattering it on all everyone else.
Three ways to handle unwanted qualities
All this is the result of inattention. Once again, anartha-nivṛtti means self-analysis. When we see some anartha, there are three ways of dealing with it when we meet some anartha.
If we have noticed or caught ourselves on some quality that has popped up in us, and as I explained, in the course of purification of the heart, all
these faults or anarthas will pop up out of nowhere, out of some depths which we didn't even suspect, then there are three ways of dealing with them. One is try to suppress it, right?
The second is to try to manifest it. Right? Well, it tortures you there and you say, well, never mind, well, human, nothing human is alien to us. If you cultivate anarthas and if you suppress the anartha, what will happen?
If you try to suppress lust, it will crawl deep down and come out in some distorted forms from somewhere, from nowhere, at the most unexpected moment. Suppression doesn't work. Manifestation is possible in some cases.
For this purpose there is the Vedic culture. It explains how we can manifest our material tendencies so that it doesn't harm us. That is why we need a Vedic culture and a well-formed society.
There are some ways through which you can manifest, but
as a rule, if we manifest our anarthas, especially living in an uncivilized society that we live in and our attempt to pose as a man of very culture, as a rule, looks very funny.
And the third method, the only proper way of dealing with this anartha, is that one must see it, say hello to it, and say Namaste. Please accept my obeisances, dear anartha. I haven't seen you for ages.
And ignore it in the sense that at this point we must analyze and understand what kind of an anartha it is. me happy. We must understand that this is something that will ultimately give me nothing, absolutely nothing.
Will I be happy if I display envy? No. Will I be happier if I display anger? Prabhupada Goswami gives two important advices.
He says that if all these problems that have accumulated in our heart too strong when we practically cannot control ourselves, when our lust, and our anger, and our envy, when the urges come, you must rush to the devotees' association and cry, Help me, save me, my dear.
That's why we need the devotee society. These things go away there. They lose their power over us. But no, then they appear at a more subtle level when they don't overwhelm us and don't fully seize us.
But at this point we must use our intelligence to understand everything and say that all this is anartha. I don't need it, I don't want it. I want what? What do I want? I want love. I want to go to Krishna.
Everything else has not and will not make me happy. The only thing that will make me happy is love.
Prahlada Maharaja desiring pure love
Unfortunately, I don't have time to tell in detail. It is a nice story, but I'll tell it in another. Krishna appeared before Prahlāda Mahārāja, before he appeared in the form of Narasiṁhadeva, Krishna previously.
Krishna appeared when Mahārāja Sāgara took Prahlāda Mahārāja out of the ocean and placed him ashore. They wanted to drown him.
Hiraṇyakaśipu ordered that they drown him. The waves themselves and Sāgara Mahārāja, the ruler of the ocean, he took Prahlāda Mahārāja out, who was not even thinking about it, who didn't remember it. He was thinking of Krishna.
Prahlāda. He brought Prahlāda Mahārāja onto the shore, placed a train in front of him full of precious stones, and said, You're such a great devotee, take this from me, please.
Prahlāda Mahārāja didn't understand who it was. What kind of a guy that was in front of him? Then he did realize who it was and started saying, I'm not a great devotee at all.
I've never seen Krishna and you always see Krishna. He lies in your waters. You can always have His darśana. He began crying, I have nothing, I have no bhakti. That is why Krishna never came to me.
Maharaj Sagara went away, he didn't care anymore. And Prahlāda Mahārāja was left on the shore crying and praying to Krishna so that He gives him His darśana.
Suddenly at some point he saw Krishna in his heart, he opened his eyes and saw that Krishna was in front of him and that he was sitting in his lap.
Prahlāda Mahārāja jumped up and began bowing down to him at this point, Krishna will retell this amazing dialogue literally in a few words. Krishna said to him, You are my devotee.
There is no need for all these formalities. Ask me something. I came here specifically to give something. Prahlāda Mahārāja says, What do I need? The only thing I wanted was to see you, to get your darshan. I can now see you.
What else do I need? I don't need anything. And listen how clever Krishna is, and how clever Prahlāda Mahārāja is, who proved even more clever than Krishna.
Krishna started telling him, it's clear, of course, you don't want anything but my darshan, but ask me something just for my sake, because I'm pleased to fulfill the desires of my devotees. Please ask me something.
Please do. Prahlāda Mahārāja says. I don't want anything. I want one thing to have bhakti, to have love. I don't want anything. Anything. Krishna tells him, you already have bhakti. Why do you need it? You do have it.
Please ask me something, I beg you. Please, I beg you. Let me have this pleasure. Let me have this joy. I do have a soft spot. I do love fulfilling the desires of my devotees. Ask for something else. Bhakti you already have.
Listen to Prahlāda Mahārāja's last reply, by which I will end the lecture. If I had bhakti, you wouldn't offer all this to me. So give me bhakti. I don't want anything else. I don't want anything. I don't want fame.
I don't want popularity. I don't want any preachers. The only thing I want is love. And today's 8th of August 2008.
When the highest manifestation of Goddess Lakshmi, Śrīmatī Rādhārāṇī, can bestow this love upon us if we ask her for it and hear about