Srimad-Bhagavatam 4.21.15
Bhakti Vijnana Goswami · Germany · 2004
Chapters
Describing King Prithu's bodily features
We are reading from Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, Canto 4, Chapter 21, Instruction by Mahārāja Prithu, Text 15.
Bram Sukhinayatabujo Bray Gora Kanjaruniksanaha, Goranjarunishana, Sunasaksumuka Swamya, Sunasaksukha Swamya Pinamshaksud Vijayasmita, Pinamsas Sudvi Jasmita, Ramsuho, Ramsuh, very tall. Full and broad. Bujaha Arms. Arms.
Gaura. Fair complexioned. Fair complexioned. Kanja. Kanja. Lotus like. Lotus like. Aruna Ikshanaha. Aruna Dikshana. With bright eyes, bright eyes, resembling a morning sunrise, resembling the morning sunrise.
Sunasah beautiful nose. Beautiful nose. Sumu Kaha with a beautiful faith. With a beautiful faith. Some of a grave bodily stature. Pina Amshaam shoulders raised. Shoulders raised. So beautiful. Beautiful.
Dvija Dvija Teet Smitaha Smiling Translation King Pritu's body was tall and sturdy, and his complexion was fair, his arms were full and broad, and his eyes were bright as the rising sun.
His nose was straight, his face was very beautiful and his personality was grave. His teeth were set beautifully in his smiling face for Paul Baishru Prabhupada.
Amongst the four social orders, brāhmaṇas, kṣatriyas, vaiśyas and śūdras, the kṣatriyas, both men and women, are generally very beautiful.
As will be apparent from the following verses, it is to be concluded that not only were Maharaja Prithu's bodily features were attractive, as described here, but he had specific all auspicious signs in his bodily construction.
As it is said, the face is the index of the mind. One's mental constitution is exhibited by his facial features. The bodily features of a particular person are exhibited in accordance with his past deeds.
For according to one's past deeds, his next bodily features, whether in human society, animal society, or demigod society are determined. This is proof of the transmigration of the soul through different types of bodies.
Śrīla Prabhupāda: Pramshuk Pinayata Bujo Gorah Kanjan Runeksanaha. Sunasah some mukha, so my pinamsah, sudvijas mitah.
King Pṛthu's body was tall and sturdy, and his complexion was fair, his arms were full and broad, and his eyes as bright as the rising sun. His nose was straight and his face very beautiful and his personality
grave, his teeth were set beautifully in his smiling face. So the bodily features of Mahārāja Pṛthu are being described as the indication of his subtle body.
And Śrīla Prabhupāda is very intelligently and very beautifully describes how the bodily features we can understand the mental constitution of a human being.
And he says that actually this is the proof of the transmigration of the soul. In the same canto of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, Nārada Muni gives at length describing the process of the transmigration of the soul.
Later on, when he will be speaking with Mahārāja Prācīnabarhiṣad, he will explain this problem of the human society.
not only of human society, but the problem of the conditioned soul, that the conditioned soul has to change his bodies again and again and again.
And while describing this process of transmigration of the soul, which is actually very simple knowledge, very obvious thing, Srila Prabhupada makes this simple argument.
He says that everyone is born with a certain feature.
And you can see that these features already predetermined by examining examining the features of the human being, you can see that he has certain abilities and certain inclinations and certain psychological defects and certain psychological strength.
You can see it very clearly when the little baby is born,
Reading karmic traits from facial features
you can look at his face and you can immediately determine this is a criminal born. He didn't he might not have committed any criminal activities yet, but he will do it for sure because it's already there in his face.
Also, Cāṇakya Paṇḍita says that if you know how to read the face, And yesterday we had a workshop about face reading with our
yoga teacher, Ānanda Prabhu. So Cāṇakya Paṇḍita says: if you know how to read the face, you can read five things on the forehead of the human being. You can read uh a lot of his karma uh in his forehead.
You can know uh how long he will live, uh you can actually know the exact date when he will expire from this body and so many other things are written there. What is his occupation? It's all there in the forehead.
It's just a question of knowing how to read it. And it's obvious that somebody is born already with his fate, with his karma, as we say. And of course, there is this rather stupid theory that you know uh
that the soul is being created by God at the moment of conception. It's a very interesting conception how God is sitting there in the clouds and looking, you know, when the people have this sexual intercourse.
And in this very moment he makes his focus focus and creates a new soul. And this new soul is sent in the womb of of a woman. This is uh ridiculous.
And sometimes people say that the newborn child is born as a tabula rasa, as a very blank word, but it's not blank. So many things are already written there. It's far not blank.
There are already chapters and chapters and chapters and chapters which he is carrying with him, his past lives.
And while describing this process of transmigration, which is very natural conception, and most of the people intuitively admit this.
Nārada Muni again, to prove the process of transmigration or to help us understand how transmigration takes place, he gives similar example or similar proof.
He says that you can know what is in the mind of the human being by looking at his activities. Right? If somebody is angry, what he will do?
He will, you know, clinch his fist and he will punch you in the nose or he will become red. Well, looking, or if he is, you know, if he is bewildered, you can immediately see what is in within his mind through the senses.
In other words, the content of the mind is betrayed through the external activities of the senses.
And Nārada Muni, explaining this, he says in a similar way: by the content of the mind, you can understand what was in the past lives of this human being.
Because we may think that this is a big mystery. We ourselves don't remember what was there with us in last life and other lives. But actually it's not such a big mystery.
It's actually manifested again and again and again through our bodily features and through our through the content of our mind. You know, through the inclinations which we have because these things are very intimately interconnected. The bodily features and the content of the mind. And actually, the body, as we know, is the reflection of the mind.
The mind is the subtle structure upon which this gross covering is put, so to speak. There is this subtle structure, and the body is the manifestation of it. And all our deeds are reflected on our bodily features.
You can basically by looking, especially in the old people, you can already
figure out what they will be in the next life, you know. know, because during their life they develop certain habits and certain tendencies, and these tendencies and habits already in this lifetime are manifested through their bodies.
Like if you look at Winston Churchill, who is the great, great politician, you know, he definitely looked like a big hawk, like a big pig at the end of his life.
He was fat and he had this, you know, very piggish kind of special expression. So which is the indication of his nature.
As much as the present body, especially when we are younger, is the indication of our past lives as much or our bodily features at the end of our life is the indication of our next life. We can immediately see it.
If somebody led a very pious and very pure life, he's very beautiful. Even though at the old age everyone is ugly, still people who led this very pious life, they are very, very beautiful.
They're bright and they have very sharp intelligence and and you can see you can see through their eyes the beauty is kind of coming through and uh on the contrary people they may be uh externally beautiful.
But if they are bad inside, or if they have committed many sinful activities, you can see that they're actually ugly.
And this is just external makeup, which is uh on the surface of their being so to speak and they are trying to hide this ugly internal content
Subtle body formation and karmic impressions
of a of their you know activities. So this is uh this is a very obvious thing which you can see. There is this famous story but by Oscar Wilde about the portrait of Dorian Gray.
And the story, I don't know if you read it or not, but the story goes like this that there was a very beautiful man and somebody created his portrait and his portrait became himself and he was committing many sinful activities but his face would not change.
But the portrait would become more and more and more and more ugly.
Every time he would commit some sin, some very bad thing, he would go and see in his in this picture and he would see, you know, new wrinkle would appear, you know, very you know ugly expression on his face and so on so forth.
And finally, you know he was so frustrated because he wanted to remain beautiful. At the same time, he wanted to commit sinful activities. This is the problem which we all have.
We want to remain strong and we want to remain beautiful. But at the same time we want to commit sinful activities. This doesn't go well together. It cannot be. So at the end he was so frustrated.
Looking because he knew that this is what he is. Looking at his portrait, which which was made by one mystical artist, he could see that this is what I am. Ugly, ugly, old stinking being.
Finally he just, you know, he he pierced the portrait with the knife and in this moment he died. But that's uh that's allegorical description of what is going on.
Every activity which we commit, every action which we do is affecting our subtle body. And during our lifetime, what is our karma?
Karma is basically impressions which we have, impressions which we collect within our mind, and all these impressions are being collected all the time. And these impressions form our subtle body.
And uh this subtle body will be our next body, which we create this lifetime. You know, now at this moment we are creating our next life and next life and next life due to our activities.
And these activities, whether they are good or bad, they're creating certain shape or certain form of the subtle body.
And uh this is the process of transmigration as uh we can see it and we can understand that the main problem which we have is happening within the mind. The mind is there. And the mind is collecting all these impressions.
The mind is nothing but this, you know, huge collections of stored impressions.
They're there, you know, in our library, tons of them, tons of them in the subconscious mind there are impression after impression after impression after impression and they're all you know shaping the uh the the shape of our mind, the form of our mind.
It is said that the matter of the mind is very flexible.
And when you look at something and some sense object, especially if you want to kind of contact very much with the sense object, then your mind takes the shape of the sense object.
If you look at a piece of cake, then your mind becomes the big piece of cake. You take this sense object from within, from without, from the external environment within. And this is what the material life is.
By experiencing all these sensual pleasures and sensual experiences we basically put everything inside and shaping the mind accordingly.
It's actually interesting because I read one Christian author and this Christian author he also gave a very similar description. He said that basically every one of us is an artist. We're all artists.
And artists they're very creative. And artists they're they have to be little crazy. Because, you know, like Salvador Dali, you know. You know, they they have to, you know, they have to do something unusual.
So he said as an artist, he goes somewhere and he has his little studio. And he goes in this studio and he paints a painting, you know, and he goes every day to this studio and he paints it.
And every day he adds something, you know, this is this and this is this and he puts new color and new color and new colors. And then when the painting is finished,
He goes out and uh he takes this painting and he shows to everyone and he says, Please look at this painting, how do you like it? And everyone comes and says, Oh, far out.
Some you know, crazy stuff is there, and everyone is looking there. My goodness, how did he make it? What is the imagination?
And he said in the similar way the human being they are living guided by their dirty minds and these dirty minds they are more or less they are creating the painting the whole life is more or less this creation of the painting.
And finally, when it's done, it's over, they take this painting out and they show it to God and they say, How do you like it? And God says, My goodness, what did you do with your life? This is ugly.
So but if you wanted it, fair enough. Please take it. Be it. And our next life is this creation which we created now, this painting which we are creating now will be the image, is the image of our next life.
So this is what is going on.
Material bodies as temporary masks
We are just, you know, every, every life, we are kind of, you know, we are we are bored with this, you know, role which we have accepted from the past life, and we are doing something you know crazy, and then you know the next life is going on, and then it goes on and on and on.
Like also people go out to have fun in carnival. They have these masks and they put on masks.
Why do they put masks in the carnival? This is a very there is a very deep psychology behind this. Why do they put masks? Because they want to perform nonsense, right?
Because behind the mask you can, you know, you're known and you can do all kinds of nonsense, right? You are totally free.
So, in a similar way, the beautiful spirit soul, who is the servant of God, puts this strange mask to perform nonsense, you know. This body is nothing but mask. Nothing but, you know, some kind of funny dress.
And this funny dress, you know, sometimes it's really funny and you know it's so strange. But uh you know it's also within human psychology because sometimes it's not that all the masks are beautiful.
Sometimes they put completely totally ugly masks.
And in a similar way, people they they want to experience this strange uh sensations of the you know carnal pleasures of the pleasures of our flesh and therefore, they're putting all these strange strange, ugly uh masks to have the freedom to experience this sensual uh things.
And therefore, we have to understand that the main problem takes place in the mind. This is a very essential point that all the time mind is like a big big vacuum cleaner. It has this ability to suck in the impressions.
You know, it's it's uh if you notice it, you will if if you absorb it, you will notice it.
The mind is going and it's just you know and the more dirty the image is, the the more excited the mind is. You know, the mind likes dirty things.
He goes to some, you know, and says this is far out, you know, and he absorbs this and puts it inside and stores it. You know, just in case I will need it sometime, you know, this image or that image, this imagination.
So the main point which we have to understand very clearly is that the process of this contamination of the mind is going on constantly.
Constantly, every day, every second, every minute, every hour of our life, some impressions are coming there. And we have to do something, therefore we have to do something constantly.
There is a very beautiful story in this regard about one man. He was a yogi. And he had a guru. And the guru was becoming old. And he had few disciples. And he was thinking whom he would appoint as a successor.
He had this problem because he didn't know who is the best. He he had some idea who is who is good, who is fit, but he still wanted to check him, to test him.
So he he gave so many tests to his disciples and he passed all these tests. And finally, he called him in and he said, This is my last test. You go to a hotel and live for one week in a hotel.
And the disciple, you know, he was wondering what kind of test it is you know. But being a Bidian disciple, he went to the to the hotel and he was living there.
And after one week he came back to his guru and his guru said, Did you live there? He said, yes, I was living there in this Dharmshal or whatever in the hotel. And the Guru said, What did you notice?
What is the most amazing thing which you noticed? And then actually, the test, the essence of this test is very interesting because you notice from your surrounding only what has affinity to your mind.
You don't notice everything which is going on. Only something which which is which the mind is attracted to. So he wanted to know the content of the mind of the disciple through the things which he would notice.
Because in the in the hotel so many different things are happening, you know, some, you know somebody comes there with the girlfriend and you know you may notice this or somebody is, you know, so many strange activities is going on in the in the hotel and it's it's always changing, you know, new people are coming, other people are leaving, this and that.
So he asked his disciple, what did you notice? What struck you? And he said, Yes, I noticed one thing. I noticed that the owner of this hotel he had a big mirror in the hall of the hotel.
And he would uh clean this mirror late at night. And then early in the morning, he would clean it again. So I asked once I asked this owner of the hotel, why do you clean this mirror? You just cleaned it.
And uh at night, why do you clean it again? And the owner said. And that what struck me. Because I understood that the dust is always coming to the mirror of our mind.
And therefore, you know that was that was the best lesson which I learned there. And when the Guru heard this, he said, Yes, you're you're a good disciple. You understood. You got the point.
Because this is what we have to notice, this this is what we have to know very very clearly that the dust is always coming to the mirror of our mind. And we have in other words we have to clean it all the time.
We have to have this, you know, wet cloth always ready. And we have to clean it again and again and again. It's not that today I cleaned it and that's it.
You know, it's clean. No, today I cleaned it ten minutes later, it's dirty again. Therefore, the conclusion of this is that to prepare for our next life and to make our next life nice, what we have to do this
life we have to clean the mirror of our heart Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare Hare Hare Rāma Hare Rāma Rāma Rāma Because the the dust is always being accumulated on the mirror of our mind.
It's always, constantly, it's the process. And it's actually very interesting how Caitanya Mahāprabhu describes this process. He says, ceto-darpaṇa-mārjanam.
And this word dharpana is very essential because dharpana means mirror. But darpana has two very clear sayings in Sanskrit. What is dharpa? Who knows? Damba dharpa, biman ascha. This is three main qualities of the demons.
Dharpa, dhamba darpa and abiman. Darpa means conceit, darpa means pride, and na means na in Russian nah in Russian na means take it. Darpana means please take this pride, my dear soul.
When you look in the mirror, what the mirror tells you? The mirror has a very special message to everyone.
The mirror You are beautiful, yes, you're beautiful, you are intelligent, you are nice, you're very pious too, and you're very humble. This is also mirror can say. But this is it's actually it's very interesting.
Darpana, it's uh in many other uh Sanskrit words like Krishna. Krishna. Krishna means attraction. Krishna, the one who who who gives the attraction, who who is who is attracting us. It's also the same thing.
There are some other Sanskrit words which are kreated in this way. Na means take it. So Dharpana and Caitanya Mahāprabhu says therefore, ceto-darpaṇa- mārjanam.
You should clean this mirror of the mind because when the mirror of the mind, when we look in this dirty mirror of our mind, we only see the wrong reflection. And wrong reflection means pride.
We see very proud and very beautiful reflection. And to clean the mirror of the mind, we will see the real reflection. What we will see? The little tiny spirit soul who is the servant of Krishna.
You know, the clean mirror of the mind means that we very clearly see who I am.
The dirty mirror of the mind will give you all this, you know, darpa, will give you all this pride all the time and uh will tell you all these nice things. And this is uh this is the process which we have to do all the time.
But the problem with this is why we cannot do this all the time. The problem is that we don't want to do it all the time.
Frustration with karma versus material attachment
It's a big problem which everyone a big existential problem which every one of us has we understand the problems of this material existence but our desire to get rid of this material existence is not strong enough.
Like recently I received a letter. I have this website and people write me different questions and one man wrote a long letter, long and desperate letter.
He said, I was going to this tradition and to that tradition and to this tradition.
And I like you Hare Krishna, and I was a Christian, and I was a Buddhist, and I was this and that, and you know, I like Hare Krishna. They are nice people. But actually, I don't like any spiritual tradition.
Because nobody can give me the answer to the most important question of my life. He says, I want to be religious. I want to go to God. Why am I harassed by this karma? By this lust? I don't want it, but I'm harassed.
I'm bound. He says, it's ridiculous. It's all your, you know, all your good things, you know, it's nice, you know, you say all these things. But I cannot understand. I'm sincere, he says. I'm very sincere.
I want to get rid of it. It just doesn't work.
It's as if, he says, as if I went to a big, big, you know, to a big brothel where where there is all this illicit sinful activities going on. And I had it enough. I really had it enough. And I want to get out of it.
But the owner of this brothel, one fat lady, she stands in front of the door and she says, No, no, no way. You are here. You remain here. You're my customer. And you will remain my customer till the end of eternity.
And he says, I'm so frustrated. He says, I am sincere, he says, I'm reading these books, you know. Why would I read these books if I was not sincere? I'm sincere. Why I cannot get rid of this? Why I cannot solve this problem?
And the solution to this question is that yes, you are sincere, my dear sir, because you're fed up, you're frustrated, you don't want this. But at the same time, you also want it.
At the same time, your desire is not strong enough. The problem of our material existence is that yes, we are fed up with it. We are definitely fed up with it. We are frustrated. We have had enough.
You know, it's it's it's y it's not good, but at the same time we're attached to it. We are frustrated, but we are attached to it. And we may not admit to ourselves, but we are attached.
It is explained by Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura that he explains that there are three energies of the Lord: Saṁvit-śakti, Sandhinī-śakti and Hlādinī-śakti, the energy of existence which is eternal existence in the spiritual world.
and the energy of consciousness, saṁvit-śakti, and the energy of pleasure.
And when these three energies of the original energy of the Lord, which is Chit Shakti, and the energy of consciousness, come in contact with māyā-śakti, with the tiny māyā-śakti of the Lord, with jīva, then Hlādinī-śakti being reflected in the jīva becomes the attachment towards the Lord.
Sorry, not towards the Lord, towards this material world. The material attachments. This Chladini Shakti, which is the original energy, the energy of bliss of the
Lord, when it w when it is reflected in the tiny little jīva, then it becomes the attachment, his attachment to the material world. And therefore, to cut this bondage is very very difficult.
Five stages of spiritual degradation
It is explained, Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura also explains this. He explains that when we come to this material world,
the process of coming to this material world has five stages. Five stages of degradation or five anarthas which we acquire while coming here to this material world.
He says that the first anartha of the soul, the first problem of the soul, and actually if we look deeply within our heart we can see all these problems. And if we are bold enough and honest enough, we can track
down our problems to this original anarthas and then we can somehow rather reverse this process. He says that the first problem of the spirit soul is that, uh, it's called Kṛṣṇa-bahirmukha. It turns away from Kṛṣṇa.
It turns away from Krishna. It turns away from God.
You know, God, he says that the little tiny jīva soul is like a, uh, how do you say this, firefly. This little little creature which is you know flying when it's dark and it's emanating some little light. So little soul is just like little little firefly and it's little light. And then it has the son of Krishna in the spiritual world.
And the son of Krishna is so bright. Can you see the firefly when the sun is up? No, you cannot see. So the spirit soul becomes a little desperate, you know. The spirit soul says, you know, I'm also bright.
But nobody can see how bright I am when this big, big, big sun is there. So he wants to go where? To manifest his brightness. To the dark place, yeah, where there is no sun.
He says I don't want to have sun because this sun totally overshadows my glory. I want to become, you know, son myself.
You you know, know these little fireflies they're flying when it's dark and they're very proud of themselves. They say, Look, I'm dissipating this darkness by my light.
So in the same way, little jīvas they're like these fireflies, and they say, let's go to the dark place so that everyone would notice how bright I am, you know, because otherwise nobody will notice it.
So the first problem is that the Jiva Soul, which is eternally related to Krishna, because it's the ray of Krishna's sun, it's the ray, it's the particle of Krishna's brightness, wants to be bright on its own and it turns away from Krishna.
So the first Anart is Krishna Bahirmuk. I don't want to see him because I want everyone to appreciate my brightness and my glory and my light. Otherwise when he is there, nobody sees me, right?
When Krishna is there, who sees us? Who is interested in us? Nobody is interested in us because Krishna is much more interesting. So. And it's such a big painful experience for the little soul.
So the little soul says, Krishna Bahir Mukai, turn away from Krishna. So and immediately because by turning away from Krishna we lose our residence within the internal energy of Krishna.
The second step is called Maya Avarana. Maya Avarana means you're covered by Maya. Instead of taking shelter in Krishna's internal energy, you're taking shelter in external energy of Krishna.
Because while looking outside of Krishna, outside of God, if you turn away from God, what you will see? The external energy of the Lord. Because it''ss ex externternal. It's eternal towards the Lord.
You you don't want to look in this direction. We don't want to look at Him. We want to look there. And we see māyā and we take shelter in māyā. And māyā-āvaraṇa means we are covered by māyā immediately.
The little jīva soul is covered. And this covering is dark, you know, that's exactly what we wanted. We wanted it ourselves. Like the when the little children they want to do some mischief, you know, or they want to hide.
How they hide? How the little children hide? Yeah, they yeah, they or they put blankets over themselves, you know.
And everyone knows they are just, you know, they're they're there, you know, they're they're crawling there, but they say nobody sees me.
So in the same way, this little jīvasoul, mischievous jīvasoul, naughty jīvasoul wants to somehow or other hide themselves from God. And she puts this māyā-āvaraṇa under the blanket of mind.
She says, oh this is fine. I'm, you know, I'm hidden. I can do whatever I like. Any nonsense which I want. So this is the next point.
And the next point, the next anartha is called dehātma-buddhi. Immediately when jīva soul takes shelter in māyā, dehātma-buddhi comes, means dehātma-buddhi, I'm this body. You know, the covering is there.
You got the covering from the external energy and dehātma-buddhi, I'm this covering. Yeah, that's me. That's me. This is this is me. This is this is I. Look how beautiful I am. So dehātma-buddhi.
And as soon as you got this dehātma-buddhi, this ahaṅkāra, this false identification with the uh with the uh with this body, with m with matter, with flesh.
As soon as you see I'm this flesh, yes, I'm flesh, then immediately the fourth anartha comes. What is the fourth anartha? What is the fourth problem which everyone experiences? Kāma.
Which is within this flesh, within this body, within this senses. Lust.
You already identify yourself with this body and within this body this lust is there, this shackles of lust is there. You already put you put yourself very, you know, very willingly and actually very excitedly you put these shackles of lust. You said yes, yes, yes.
Right? Harivow. You're very excited. And the lust is there, and the lust is bubbling. It's flowing through your veins, it's in your eyes, in your ears, it's everywhere, it's in the mind, you know, it's kam. Great!
Let's enjoy this. So, and then you get frustrated. You get totally frustrated, you're trying to enjoy with this body, you get totally frustrated, and at the same time, you're totally frustrated, but the same false idea that
I don't want to look at God, I don't want to surrender to Him, I don't want to be his servant. He's still there. So, what is the last crown jewel of all anarthas of all the problems which we have?
What is the last idea which the Jiva Soul develops while turning away from God. Yeah, I'm God. I'm God. Moksa. It is called Moksha. Yes, yes, yes, yes. We'll get liberation from last being God. I'm God. Right? Don't you see it?
I'm God. So this is this is this crazy, crazy thing. This is the trap.
This is the trap of the material world which jīva soul put uh you know we are really you know like like like the little mouse going to the strap, you know nobody nobody asks you to go to the strap. You know it just goes, goes, goes.
Why? Because there is a little piece of cheese there. And this cheese is totally free, right? It's completely free. You don't have to pay anything. You just go there, walk inside and it's yours.
So but that's it, you're there, you're trapped. So that's the problem. We're trapped. We're trapped.
And and the problem is that you know even though and Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu he comes the Lord comes himself and he goes you know he says you know you you you you stupid baddha jivas you bound jivas imprisoned jivas you go out.
What's the problem? But the problem is that we don't want to go out. We don't really want to go out. And this is this two desires. We want to go out and at the same time we don't want to go out.
Fanning spiritual desire through sadhana
And therefore this material existence is perpetuated again and again and again.
And therefore we have to really understand that the process of spiritual life, People come to spiritual life because they are frustrated and they have little desire to go out.
But the real path of spiritual life, the process of spiritual life, is to fan this desire to make it stronger and stronger and stronger.
This is actually the sadhana, the process of spiritual life is to fan this desire to be with Krishna.
It becomes it's it's very little in the beginning, but then if you chant the holy name, if you do the process of devotional service, and especially if you have guru whose main business is to really maintain this fire of spiritual desire within you.
So if it's there then the process of liberation may take place, then you may get out of this. So that's what we are supposed to do here in this Krishna consciousness movement.
We are lucky enough to have little desire to get rid of all these material problems. But that little desire is not enough. Because it's not strong enough.
So the process of sadhana is the process of fanning this desire, making it stronger and stronger and stronger until all the dirt of karma is burnt by this strong spiritual desire to come to Krishna to come back to Krishna and for that we need to chant constantly.
Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare, Hare Rāma Hare Rāma Rāma Rāma Hare Hare. Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare Hare Rāma Hare Rāma Rāma Rāma Hare Hare.
And not complain that we otherwise cannot get rid of these problems. You know, this we have to understand that we can, but it requires little endeavor and willpower. Okay. Thank you very much. Yes?
I'm thinking a little bit about the question of how to increase the attachment to Krishna and uh up till now uh I have two answers. One is from the eleventh canto where it says that acts of bhakti give rise to further bhakti.
And in the fourth canto when the four Kumaras meet I explained that attachment to Krishna can be increased by acts of devotional service, by serving the Yogeshvada, which
can mean Krishna or the spiritual master, and by hearing the Mandra Krishna basically that there are uh other things which I've forgotten at this moment uh which they give let me let me
ask you how do you think the attachment or the desire can be can be practically fent?
You gave one way that is chanting the Rakishna mantra which is an act of devotion and gives rise to further devotion, probably the chanting gives rise to more chanting.
But uh do you have something more in your arsenal of Brahmasta weapon well
this this the most the standard process which is recommended by our sampradaya you already mentioned that is definitely hearing about Krishna, first and foremost, but not just hearing about Krishna by but hearing from the lips of a pure devotee.
Because the sound vibration which is coming from the lips of the pure devotees is extremely strong.
It contains, as it is also said in the fourth canto of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, Mahārāja Pṛthu is saying that the pure devotee he is standing
under the lotus feet of the Lord and the particle of the dust, you know this uh very aromatic particle of the dust, uh like the lotus has this how you call it dust or this pollen. Pollen, yeah. The lotus has this pollen.
So this particles of pollen. They fall on the head of this person who is under the shelter of the lotus feet.
And when they fall on his head they are coming from his mouth. So it's a very special process, you know they're coming here and then coming out from his mouth.
And Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura Prabhupāda actually he said he gave taking this example he he said that let the particles of the pollen of the lotus feet of the Lord, which are emanated from the mouth of my spiritual master, be spread all over the world. And this way he inaugurated this preaching mission.
And it means that you know what is this particle of the dust of Krishna is it's it's a special quality of the sound vibration which has this ability to liberate the soul.
So when we hear about Krishna through the mouth of a pure devotee, then the soul is liberated from the attachment which is our main problem, attachment to the spiritura material world because it gets the attachment to the spiritual world.
And you know the description which is there is given that when somebody has the amnesia, right when his memory is lost, then how you can recover your memory? There is a standard process of recovering your memory.
Somebody sits down in front of you and says, you know, you know, this is you know this is what happened to you, this is your home, and this is your family members
and this is you know so the process of Kṛṣṇa-kathā is that it helps you to identify back with this surrounding.
Actually, what happens in our material existence is that we have this deha-buddhi, and deha-buddhi is this ability to identify with the material world.
So we identify, we have identified ourselves with the material world, we kind of found our material identity within this world. But when we hear Kṛṣṇa-kathā, this is the process of re-identifying ourselves.
Because what is our identity? Actually, our identity is: When somebody asks us who you are, what will you answer? Who am I? Of course you will all answer, I'm Krishna's servant, dāsa, dāsa, anudāsa, that's clear.
But still, if somebody asks you, what is this? This is actually what we, the exercise which we did in Radhadesh when Sona Krsna was asking, you know, that it's very essential that our identity we we cannot really understand our identity without the context of our life.
Our identity is actually is filled from the context of our life. What will we say? I live in Riga, right? Antwerp or Berlin or Amsterdam or in Weimar. This is one identity of mine. I'm an inhabitant of this city.
I, you know, I'm husband of this lady, I am father of these children, I am, you know, I am the owner of this house. This is all our identities. All our things. So, and we're filled with these false identities.
So when somebody speaks about Kṛṣṇa, that actually the process works like this: that ultimately we will have to find our identity in this spiritual surrounding.
You know, somebody speaks Kṛṣṇa and he is living in Nanda-gram and there is Śrīmatī Rādhārāṇī. She is living in Javat. And you hear this word Javat and you think, ah, this is, I remember, I'm also living there and I'm going to Yamunā to take some water.
Anyways, so this memory can awaken after prolonged hearing about your identity in the spiritual world, because this is our original identity. This is actually interesting.
There is this story about Śrīdhara Mahārāja and Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura.
When therefore we are going through this uh Vraj Parikrama, you know, for for one month uh during the Kartic months, people going from one holy place to another holy place and listening to different kathas. So once Bhakti Siddhanta Saraswati he had this huge parikrama with his disciples.
And then after this parikrama was practically finished, he asked Śrīdhara Mahārāja he asked what is what is your most favorite place in Vraj where did you feel the most attraction within your heart?
And Śrīdhara Mahārāja said, yes, Terkadamba. And he said, yes, this is your eternal place of your bhajan, of your worship to Krishna.
This is your soul kind of you know uh felt this original attraction and found its original identity within this place.
So this is this is another way of reawakening our attachment to Krishna just by going to Vraj and going from one place to another place. And finally, I you know kind of uh feel that this is this is my place.
I I want to stay here all the time. This is my eternal place which is uh which which is part of my eternal identity in my relationship with Krishna. That's another way of of awaking attachment.
Establishing identity beyond material conditioning
But you all know this better than anyone else. Any other questions? Yes, anyone?
I'm looking for um a balance which can help all kinds of devotees uh to have a healthy uh self uh consciousness in the sense that for many years we were hearing preaching how we are so bad and contaminated and lusty and whatever. But that's not the self. That's so one has the consciousness of himself like that how he's going to process. So I'm looking for a consciousness uh uh uh uh answer to how one should see oneself so that one can actually process one from any level of conditioning.
Yeah. Once there was a story with Śrīla Prabhupāda. He was sick and uh he was staying in one house. It was in the early uh days of Hare Krishna movement. And he had only three devotees with him.
Govinda Dasi, her husband, and Kirtanananda. Swami as his servant. And Kirtanananda Swami, as you may know, was a very heavy male chauvinist. So he was constantly harassing and teasing Govinda Darsi.
Saying that this is, you know, women they're just they are.
You know what he would have to say. I don't have to repeat it. You probably have heard it so many times. So, anyway, he was always pointing out that this is this and this is this. And finally she was so fried.
And she said, and she came to Śrīla Prabhupāda and she said, Prabhupāda, is it true that women cannot make any spiritual progress? And Prabhupada said, yes.
If you think that you are woman, you cannot make any spiritual progress. So this is As much if you think you're mad. So this is the answer to your question.
Um it's actually as long as we identify with all these things then we are trapped.
The the question is the healthy self-consciousness healthy spiritual self-consciousness is to stop identifying oneself with all these problems which we have.
And as because as long as we identify ourselves with all these problems we reinforce them more or less. We we give them more nourishment and you know we energize them by our identification with them.
So the Lord Caitanya Mahāprabhu he gave this answer, you know, I'm not a sannyāsī. And you know, and I am not a brāhmaṇa, I am not Vaishy, I am not Sudra, I am not householder, I am not woman, I am not men, I'm Gopi Bharta Pada Kamala Dasadasa Dasa Anu Dasa.
This is our healthy self-consciousness which we have to develop through chanting Hare Krishna. Basically means that we should stop identifying ourselves with all these things.
Yesterday, Atmananda Prabhu, who was giving us some yoga psychology lessons, he said very deep thing. He said that usual psychological reaction. Like we have this mind. And we have the soul. And the soul is the absorber.
But the soul is used to identify oneself with the mind, and that's our main problem. So he said when some kind of reaction you know you are interacting with this world and in your mind some reaction comes.
So the usual way to deal with this reaction is only three. First is react, right? Some some kind of agitation came to your mind, you react. Somebody offended you and you offended him back. Right? And you're happy about this.
You know, I've you know, fine. We are on par with him. Another kind of reaction you suppress. Some anger appeared within your mind. You suppress this anger. No, no, I will not manifest, it's bad.
The third reaction, you rationalize, you explain to yourself, no, this is not good, this and that. You know, but this is all wrong reactions.
He said that the only proper reaction is just to observe. Because you are the absorber. You are not this. You don't try to suppress it, you don't try to react, and you don't try to rationalize. You just absorb.
And it's gone. That's it.
So in the same way, the healthy self-consciousness means you are healthy established in your real identity as the eternal spirit soul which is full of eternity, knowledge and bliss, and you have nothing to do with this. And you just look at this.
You look, your mind. Like, there is a very deep story in Mahābhārata which Śrīla Prabhupāda liked to tell. Kuntī, she was always young, right? She got this benediction from Durvāsā Muni.
And therefore once Krishna asked Mahārāja, don't you have a problem living so closely with your mother who is so young and so beautiful. And Mahārāja Yudhiṣṭhira said, yes, I do.
And then Krishna asked him, what do you do about this? And he said, nothing. It means that, you know, lust may come to your mind. Uh until and unless you are here, lust will come. What should you do about this? Nothing.
You should just observe and wonder, you know, it's amazing, you know, it's still there. It's still coming. The anger may come. What should you do about this? Nothing. You shouldn't suppress it. You shouldn't react.
You shouldn't explain to you. You should just admit very honestly. Yes, it's still there, the conditioning is still there, but I am spirit soul, which is full of eternity, knowledge, and bliss. Did I answer your question?
Yeah, the the problem may come that one may look in the mirror and see part of this beautiful qualities and and and think this is me, but um No, no you there may be you know that's the point that you have to find you find we can only find our true identity
is the con in connection with Krishna. Everything else is false. When we try to find our identity in connection with this body, with the family members, with this material world surrounding this is false, this is wrong.
So our only true identity is in connection with Krishna. Therefore we have to be established, firmly established. We have to chant this mantra many many times a day. Gopi, Bartur, Padaka, Malay, Dasa, Dasa, Dasa Nadasa.
I am just servant of the servant of the servant of the servant of the husband of gopis. That's it. And nothing else. Everything else is just my roles which I try to play in this material world. This is like this.
We have to play, we still have to play the roles. But internally we have to be established in the true identity. In other words, I I'm playing the role.
It's not that you know because I'm Gopi Bartur Pada Kamalaya from tomorrow on I will only wear Sari, right? Because I'm not man, right?
Therefore, you know, and I put earrings here and you know bangles here come to the temple to serve. No, we still have to play the roles, material roles.
But we we we we have to be really clear that this is just roles which I play. It has nothing to do with me, but I'm firmly established in this relationship with Krishna. And this is very beautiful.
And has nothing to do with anything of this material world. Okay, thank you very much. Śrīla Prabhupāda kī jaya!