Crisis of Faith
Bhakti Vijnana Goswami · 2021
Chapters
Mangalacharana and introductory remarks
Omagyannatimiranda syagyanam jana sala kaya chaksuru niditamyata smai sriguravena maha sri Chaitanya Manov Vishtam stapitamy butali swayamrupa kadamahyam da tiswapadantikam vandeham Sri Guro Sri Yutapadak Malam Sri Gurun Vaishnavam Sha Sri Rupam Sagrajatam Sahganara Gunatam Vitam Sajivam Sadvaitam Savadutam Parijana Sahidam Krishna Chaitany The Guru Bhakti Vrinda Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare Hari Rama Hari Ram Rama Rama Hari Hari Yantah Pradisya Mamavachamamam Prasuktam Sanjae Vaya Kila Shakti Dara Swadhamna Anjamatva Gadi, Prananda Mau Bhagavatam, Swasyastu Vishwasia Kalah Prasida Tam Deantu Bhutani, Sivam Mito Di Yamana Schabadram, Bajatata Doksa javi shitum no materatya hai to ki.
So I'm very honored to be with all of you, even though I don't see all of you, but I at least can see Jai Jagannath smiling. That's good enough. And please guide me uh how shall we uh
do our association because I can tell more or less in gist the presentation which I I did inLS. I have the PowerPoint. Of course, in ILS I had three sessions, so I can only do maybe
overview of what I did there or I can get deeper in certain sections so I can just tell how this whole concept developed, and maybe you can ask the questions in this regard. So please choose what would you like.
The presentation is ready. I can you know walk you through this presentation very quickly and then let's see. Or I can just talk and explain the basic ideas behind this concept.
So or we can go deeper in some sections of it, whatever you like. Please let me know.
I'm I would suggest a little bit of a hybrid, maybe explaining the motivations and some of the main inspirations and main points behind the presentation and maybe zooming in on some of those those um major crises points that we've maybe already face or are likely to face and how to navigate that because as the environment around us gets more intense, external environment, encountering those internal crises are going to be magnified for us and we could probably use a lot of guidance how we might successfully navigate the turmoil I hope you don't view my presentation as a possible vaccine against the crisis No,
we we do it actual medicine.
Observing crises in spiritual life
Anyway. So I've been in Iskon
long enough to see many uh crises including the you know very dramatic ones when even very senior devotees would change their views unexplicably from the external point of view or do something which you would never expect from them.
I've seen how less senior devotees struggle sometimes on the different levels of their spiritual development and the different junctions in their spiritual journey.
I've seen how devotees sometimes were shaken in their face. I did have my you know share of critical situations.
And because I have some sort of scientific background, I was observing all this phenomenon, and I was wondering if it's possible to explain it in a scientific way what
is going on and why crises are practically inevitable in the spiritual development which you know we know a royal road, you know, smooth way easy way to god elevator don't go through the stairs. You just got right there.
And nevertheless, you know this elevator every now and then halts and And probably because it's Indian elevator and the electricity is being cut off. Or some other reasons.
So basically I was wondering what is going on and can we more or less scientifically or systematically view different crises and causes for crises.
I was reading Madhura-kadambini, where Viśvanātha Cakravartī Ṭhākura gives the very elaborate and vivid description of the spiritual development and I gave several seminars on this topic,
especially of course on the topic, perhaps the most memorable part of the whole Madhura- kadambini is this his description of different stages of aniṣṭhitā bhajana-kriyā, starting with utsāhamayī and ghanataralā and so on so forth.
Still something was lacking in this regard.
Spiritual ego and child development
I gave very elaborate seminar on Manaḥ- śīkṣā by Śrīla Raghunātha dāsa Gosvāmī, where basically in the very first verse, he describes, in my humble opinion, the development of the spiritual ego.
And this sort of thinking and studying of this literature was coupled with my interest in developmental psychology. I read some books about the development of the child.
And ultimately I kind of synthesized these ideas together and I understood that the development of a devotee is very much similar to the development of the child.
This simile is there in many places in Vaishnava literature, like Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura, he compares śraddhā with a little baby Thakur, he compares Shraddha with a little baby girl, or Śrīla Prabhupāda sometimes calls his disciples as spiritual babies or spiritual children.
So I would you know dare, or yeah, I would be bold enough to suggest that there is some similarity between the development of a child and the development of a beginner devotee.
Because the processes which take place during the development of a child and the processes which take place during the development of a devotee are somewhat similar because the the development of both the child and the beginning devotee, neophyte devotee, is the development of their ego.
The small you know small human beings, small baby, while growing develops an ego, and this ego goes through certain stages. And in the same way, we as devotees developing spiritual ego.
This is very clearly stated by Vishwanachakravati Thakur in the very end of Madhuri Kadambini, in the eighth chapter of Madhuri Kadambini, where he says that the The development, spiritual development is the process of development of Ahhanta and Mamatha.
We know that ego has these two aspects: I and mind, Ahanta and Mamatha. So when you develop your spiritual ego, you develop your spiritual Ahanta.
I am this and that from the spiritual point of view, I am spirit soul in the beginning, and this ego is being solidified more and more and more and becomes more concrete.
You know, we know that ultimately the crown achievement in the spiritual path is to have completely developed spiritual ego, meaning that I know what is my age in the spiritual world, what is the dress which I dress there, what is my service, all this Akadesh Abhava stuff. It's basically a description of ego because everything else stems from ego. Ego is the beginning of everything.
If you come to a job, then the first thing to a new, you know, new company. The first thing which they have to tell you, they have to tell you who you are.
This is your position, and by knowing who you are, you will know what you are supposed to do, what is your relationship with everyone else, and so on and so forth.
So, ego is a very important concept, and we know that everything in the material world and in the spiritual world has ego.
We are personalists, we are not impersonalists, and personalists they maintain that ego is not necessarily a bad thing, that there is such a thing as a spiritual ego, and spiritual ego defines your role in the spiritual world.
It defines your service, it defines your mood, you know, because all this Ekādaśī bhāva is basically emotions, but you can only experience emotions if your ego is fully mature.
The little child has some emotions, but they are very immature emotions. You know, the spiritual emotions are a manifestation of a fully mature spiritual ego.
And when I started comparing the crises which a little child goes through while developing his ego, while interacting with the world, I found very interesting parallels, or at least I found that it's an interesting way of looking at the spiritual development.
I don't claim that this is some you know something I don't want to make bombastic statements.
But my humble proposal is that if we take this understanding and try to look at the spiritual development from this point of view, we may see something which may escape our attention.
Otherwise, if we don't look in this light,
Importance of sadhu association
So that's more or less the initial premise of the whole thing. One more very important point which I want to make is that uh and it's resonates very much with our philosophy.
To develop ego, you can only develop healthy ego if you interact with other people and if you interact in a healthy way, in a proper way with other people, those who are senior, those who are equal to you, those who are junior to you, you cannot really develop your ego being isolated.
If a baby, a human baby is you know forgotten somewhere in a forest and somehow or other he survives, he will not develop his intelligence, his mind and his ego. He will be totally, completely, you know, undeveloped human being, even though the potential is there.
So, for the development of ego, the normal ego, the material ego, false ego, you need proper association. And again, you know, even false ego may not be such a bad thing.
There is a bad false ego and there is good false ego. Like for example, what is varnashrama?
Varnashrama is nothing but the system which helps human beings to create strong, healthy, false egos. And when you have strong and healthy false ego, then you can overcome false ego and develop your spiritual ego.
But if your ego is weak, if you don't know what you're doing, you know, like people in the present-day society, modern day society, they don't have ego. They only have egos of consumers.
They are very unhealthy personalities. They don't know what to do, they don't know their special talents, special contributions, special gifts which they have. They are completely totally lost.
And they cannot function properly in the world, what to speak about developing something higher.
So, for healthy development, both material and spiritual, you need healthy association, and that is a very prominent feature of our philosophy to develop your spiritual identity, spiritual personality, so to speak, you need association.
You will never be able to develop spiritually without association.
And actually, all the problems of immature, undeveloped people is due to the lack of proper association, and the same is true for the devotees, all our problems is due to the lack of proper association.
If we have proper association, if this association is nourishing and if this association is healthy, it helps us to develop
our proper spiritual identity and by helping develop our proper spiritual identity, it will ultimately contribute to our success.
And therefore, Prabhupada says if you think that you will be able to develop spiritually outside of the association of devotees, you just you know you are more or less in delirium, you are in a state of delirium.
It's not it's not a realistic proposal, it's completely insane idea of somebody who has immature and
unhealthy, painful, diseased ego, and therefore, he cannot really properly associate with devotees, and therefore, his spiritual problems also are there.
Three influential life factors
So that's another very important point, and one more little addition to this point, which I find very interesting and intriguing.
I was reading one book on astrology, quite prominent book, Parashara Hora Shastra, by supposedly written by Parasara Muni.
And at the very end, Parasara Muni makes a very He speaks about dependence of our he identifies the three factors upon which our life or faith is dependent.
And out of these three factors, stars or our astrological situation is only one. And not even the main one. Well he doesn't say which is the main one, which is not the main one. They obviously they all contribute.
They are born with certain karma, we are born with certain proclivities, with certain tendencies, innate tendencies in us. It's there. So that's our karma.
That's a significant contribution to our, you know, whatever is happening with us, like you know some of the members of this esteemed assembly, they were born in the families of devotees.
Obviously, it's a very lucky birth. But then he says there are two more factors, which is very interesting and very important for us to understand. He says the second factor is association.
You know, you can basically even overrule certain tendencies which you have if you have proper association. Association is extremely formative. Every time we associate with somebody, some influence is there.
We have to be really very careful with whom we associate because every single contact with somebody leaves some impression upon us. It may be not so deep, but it may be deep.
So, association: it's a very important foundational point of whole vedic culture that we have to associate with proper people and be very selective in the way we associate.
But then he said there is a third factor which is most interesting. He said the early years of one's development. And I was thinking, you know, why this third factor is there?
Is it not covered by the by the first two because uh you may say that you know your early years are dependent on your karma or your early years are dependent you know, on the association which you have. But no.
What he wants to say is that any influence which we have in the formative years of our development is crucially important for the development of our personality, of our persona and our life. And we know this.
You know all the psychologists they talk about childhood traumas and so on and so forth. Why? The answer is very important. Because in the early years our ego is not developed, our protective shield is not developed.
And therefore, any external influence which we have, we are very vulnerable when we are young and insecure,
we are very vulnerable, and uh any association which we have, any interaction with other people which we have uh makes a very lasting and deep impression which we may not even be aware of.
These childhood traumas they may appear because of very insignificant reasons.
You may see some spider. And this spider, you know, which somehow or other crawled on you, you know, inflicts such a terror in you and leaves such a lasting impression in your psyche, then you know, for the rest of your life you will be afraid of spiders.
You know, you already know that there is no reason for you to be afraid of spiders, but still, you know, this fear will be totally irrational because of this encounter which you don't even remember, but the impression is lasting.
So, again, this is to stress that early years of our spiritual development. When we are little babies, when our spiritual ego is not really formed, when we cannot really distinguish between right and wrong,
they are extremely important. And depending on this association in the early period of our spiritual life, it may influence very much our whole devotional career so to speak.
And we can see you know devotees they get most of their spiritual traumas, spiritual childhood traumas.
When they are very vulnerable, when their faith is kind of weak, and when they are you know coming totally disarmed into the society of devotees and they may encounter with some exploitations, some wrong ideas, this and that.
They may be consciously programmed into certain wrong ideas. Like you know, devotees go to Ritvik Camp. I recently spoke with one devotee who spent 17 years in one prominent Ritwik group in India in Brahmacharya
ashram, and he said that the first thing even before studying Śrīla Prabhupāda books, we we study the final order, their explanation why there is no other gurus, the final orders stuff.
So that's naturally it will create very deep and lasting impression uh and will be very uh formative uh for the whole spiritual development because that's the foundation, the foundation of everything which they do.
So that's more or less the short introduction into the whole thing. How it developed, and what was there? Uh now I can come to the crisis point or uh uh yeah? Jay Jaganath Prabhu you guide me please.
Crisis as a developmental junction
Yeah Okay. So again, as I said, uh there is this uh developmental psychology which explains what are the typical crises every child has to go through in the process of his development. Let me uh yeah.
So and when we compare these crisis with the stages of spiritual development listed by Śrīla Rūpa Gosvāmī in his famous ādau śraddhā tataḥ sādhu-saṅgo ’tha bhajana-kriyā tato ’nartha-nivṛttiḥ syāt tato niṣṭhā ruciṃ tataḥ and so on so forth in this famous two verses from Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu, where Śrīla Rūpa Gosvāmī explains the ladder of devotional service starting with śraddhā and then coming to sādhu-saṅga and then coming to anartha-nivṛtti, bhajana-kriyā, anartha-nivṛtti, niṣṭhā, ruci and so on so forth, and we can actually very clearly see the stages of development, and the crisis is actually the event which necessarily takes place when you go from one stage to another stage.
It is explained also by Bhaktivinottakur in his Chaitanya Shikshamrita, where he says that in the development when you go from stage to stage it's a very... It's kind of... It, it's, it may be a dramatic situation because a lot of things change while you're going from stage to stage.
Your environment changes, your internal perception changes, and the requirement which is there, external requirement which is there, changes. You know, the rules which you are expected to follow are also different.
You know, you cannot expect that people on the level of śraddhā will follow the same rules as people on the level of, you know, premā or bhāva or ruci even.
So there is a lot of differences, and basically, what I suggest in this presentation or in this paradigm is to look on these stages and to see what are the crises which we will have to go through by coming from stage to stage, by coming, by climbing on this level ladder of spiritual development.
Actually, the English word crisis is coming from Greek word, and the Greek word crisis from which it's being derived, means junction. It does not necessarily mean something bad.
It's just the junction or the choice which you have to make. You know, like you you come to a junction and you you have the choice whether you go this way or that way.
So the crisis is basically you know you develop develop develop develop but then at one point you feel that you have to choose your path, whether you go this way or that way.
And sometimes it's very painful, and it's internal process which manifests externally. And basically, the idea is that if you overcome the crisis, then you come one step closer to Krishna, you climb over this ladder of devotional service.
It means basically that you have a new stage of your spiritual development, you function differently, your association is different on this stage. And that's one thing when you overcome the crisis.
Another external manifestation that you have overcome the crisis is that you become more integrated internally. When the crisis is there, you feel like you're kind of disassembled, you know, you're in pieces.
You're not such an integrated personality. So when you overcome the crisis, you become more integrated, more wholesome personality, your integrity increases.
And then another external manifestation, that's of course internal manifestation, but the external manifestation of your successful passing through this crisis is that you become closer to the devotees.
You become more integrated externally into the society of devotees.
Whereas if you fail the crisis, if you somehow or rather don't pass through the crisis, you become a less integrated personality, you don't really progress spiritually, and you become alienated from the society of devotees.
The extremely totally opposite processes are taking place. And of course, there is a compromise.
When externally you move further through some certain external means, like for example, you took a first initiation or you took second initiation.
This, by the way, all these initiations, so praṇāma-mantra, all these actions which we do symbolize certain levels of our spiritual development. They're not just rituals. They actually have to be synchronized and symbolized with our spiritual development, synchronized with our spiritual development.
But if we take, let's say, externally we take the step further, but we didn't really undergo properly the crisis, didn't really pass the critical period properly, then what will happen?
Externally we will be on a higher level, but internally we will be totally torn apart by unresolved doubts and unresolved problems. And sometimes it happens.
People, due to social pressure, they do this, they get praṇāma-mantra, even though they're not ready for this; they get first initiation, second initiation, then sannyāsī initiation, and then go and get married.
So that's all, that's all. That's all result of this compromise when there is really no resolution in the crisis. Therefore, if we are aware of what's going on internally and what we are supposed to do,
what are these external symbolic rituals which we are doing by taking pranam mantra, starting chanting, or taking first initiation and vows, taking second initiation and so on and so forth.
What it really means internally, how to translate it in terms of our internal development, it will help us to do it not in a blind way, but to do it in a more wholesome and healthy way.
So that's a little introduction to the crisis idea and what crisis means and why it is so important to understand that there is nothing wrong with crisis. If we develop, if we are living system, if we will have crises.
That's not a problem, because the crisis is the sign of our development, is the sign of certain dynamic in our spiritual path, but if we The problem is not the crisis itself; the problem is how we relate to crisis and how we go through the crisis.
So that's uh that's the most important thing. So let me give the very short overview because I'm talking already for one hour, right? It's been 45 minutes, Marjorie. Ah, yes, right, 45 minutes. Yes, right, 45 minutes.
Please let me know when you are totally bored and when you are right. My excitement is only increasing more and more and more. This presentation is is very brilliant actually and well timed, I feel like, environmentally.
So I will give you very short overview and then we can go into details if you want to go into any details. So if you have some questions, we can answer questions. I can try to answer your questions.
Understanding shraddha and trust
So, very short overview of the natural processes which we call crises on the path of spiritual development. Of course, to understand very clearly what is going on. We have to also have very clear and profound understanding
what are these stages of spiritual development. What exactly is Shradha? What exactly is Sadhu Sangha? What exactly is Bhajanakriya? What exactly is anartha-nivṛtti? What exactly is niṣṭhā?
I don't try to go any further because this is the most important. This is the early stages of our spiritual development which are foundational for our whole progress in spiritual life.
Everything else after niṣṭhā is more or less, I mean, it's smooth, it's it's uh it's not so difficult. But before NISTA we really have to climb and work hard, and therefore, I only consider this initial stages of spiritual development.
So, what is Shraddha? Shraddha basically it doesn't mean phase, especially it doesn't mean faith in Christian sense of the world, of the word.
It does not mean that you necessarily you just have to believe in certain practices, you have to believe in certain ideas, you have to believe in certain figures of the past. Faith, it's very simple.
Shraddha, literally Shraddha means respect. Shraddha means, and Prabhupada gives this beautiful definition of Shraddha, he says Shraddha means appreciation.
If you come to devotees and if you appreciate what they are doing, it means you have Shraddha.
You don't know anything, you don't have to believe, but you just kind of like what devotees are doing, and you naturally spontaneously feel the respect towards these people and towards what they are doing. You don't understand, you don't necessarily identify yourself with them.
The only little thing which is there on the level of to be qualified as somebody who has Shraddha is this appreciation. It's like little baby.
Little baby, he doesn't have to know anything, he doesn't have to do anything, the only responsibility, quote unquote of, this little baby, is to accept his mother, not to reject his mother.
Basically, he doesn't know anything, but he kind of naturally again spontaneously accepts, respects to a certain extent, as much as you can say that baby respects anyone.
But you know, there is some level of acceptance between the parents and the little baby, and this acceptance is actually called Shraddha. And the Shraddha is the period of nourishment.
As much as the little baby, the most what he required is the nourishment, and he is totally indiscriminate. You know, little baby, you know, whatever you will give to him, he will just suck it. He will try to take it.
But it's good in one sense, and it's also very dangerous, because very easily, you can poison this little baby by giving him wrong food.
So, what is most important on this level of spiritual development when you are just a little baby, and when you're totally vulnerable and totally dependent, the first most important thing is the selfless care of the mother. It is called healthy dependence.
You know the this the baby should feel from the mother her selflessness.
I mean it's in one sense it's natural for mother to give this selfless love to the baby, but at the same time, we know it may not be you know, not always unfortunately nowadays it's so selfless and so unconditional.
And much more so much more true this statement is much more true for the case of little spiritual baby
because the first condition of his you know, properly forming śraddhā is that he has to meet with a devotee who is selfless and unconditional. He has to feel: here is somebody who can give me shelter.
Because this is what it is. The first period of our spiritual development is when we take shelter of somebody who is selfless and who is not egoistic and he is taking care of us. That's the first condition.
And the second condition: the food which this person has to give to me has to be very natural. It should not be you know milk powder. It should be breast milk. It should be something genuine.
It should be the proper knowledge of the scriptures, not something which he concocted, or not some of his speculations.
He may be very selfless, he may be very caring, but if he feeds me with something with the wrong food, my spiritual development will not be good.
So, these two most important conditions for the first period for us to form śraddhā properly, we have to meet with the devotee, we have to develop faith in Him, some sort of trust in Him.
But to develop this proper trust in Him, He has the proper śraddhā in Him. He has to have these two qualities. He has to have knowledge of the Vedas as much as Mother has to have breast milk to feed the baby.
So this is what will be the nourishment. And he has to be selfless, he has to give this shelter and this emotional protection to the spiritual baby or spiritual child.
So and the crisis which we have. This is very interesting. We come to a spiritual movement, we see somebody, we get attracted to somebody, we see somebody who is, you know, who poses himself as a sādhu.
We don't have any discrimination, any power of discrimination, really.
But we initially feel this initial attraction to the whole process, to the chanting, to the purity of people, to the you know generally to people who are there.
And the first crisis which we have at this stage I call the crisis of trust because uh uh with you know like like little babies sometimes may feel rejected by the parents or may feel you know or if the parents are harsh to him. You know, he will develop mistrust to them.
So there will be a crisis initially between acceptance and kind of rejection of sādhu.
Satsvarūpa Mahārāja beautifully describes how it was with in his case with Śrīla Prabhupāda when he first met Śrīla Prabhupāda and he had, you know, he had a double mind, he wanted to accept him, he was attracted to him, but he was not at the same time sure.
He certainly level of mistrust was there. So he was going back and forth, back and forth. And then you know Prabhupada gave him some grapes.
And initially Satsvarūpa Mahārāja was a little disappointed because he brought a big stack of transcribed dictations of Śrīla Prabhupāda. And Prabhupāda gave him a few grapes in exchange. He saw what's going on?
You know, I I worked hard and I I brought it to him. But then, you know, Prabhupada said something. I don't remember exactly this. It's a beautiful story, Satsvarūpa Mahārāja. It describes it's beautiful.
But Prabhupada said that something which actually indicated that you know it's just a little indication of my love. I will love you anyway, whether you will do it or not, whether you will come to me or not, you know, from my point of view, is the relationship already established and it's totally unconditional.
So the moment when Satsvarūpa Mahārāja felt this unconditional love from Śrīla Prabhupada, his faith was formed and his crisis, the crisis of trust was over.
You know, because before that he was not really really sure what's going on, whether he should take this or not, whether it's the good thing to believe in or not, whether it's a good thing to invest your heart, because literally śraddhā means investing our hearts into something.
So to overcome this crisis of trust, we need to meet with somebody who really shows that He is unconditional, that He loves us unconditionally, and He is ready to take care of us unconditionally. And of course, He has to uh show certain level of genuineness uh in regard to the knowledge which he gives also, and genuineness of his practices and this and that.
So that's the first crisis.
Prabhupato, very interestingly, he describes his crisis in this regard. He said, I could not understand Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī, but I liked him, he says. I really I was not convinced at all, but I liked him and I you know and I continued listening to him.
And he also says I noticed that he noticed me. And you know, by kind of by this indication that he is ready to give me shelter, he also developed faith in what Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura Prabhupāda is saying.
In the beginning, we cannot expect that devotees or people will understand what we're saying. The only thing which we can expect from them is they should feel that we are something genuine and that we are really taking care of them.
Crisis of independence in sadhu-sanga
So that's the first crisis, the crisis of trust. But then what is sādhu-saṅga?
The next level of spiritual development, sādhu-saṅga, Śrīla Prabhupāda says that sādhu-saṅga, how you you know, what is the difference between śraddhā and sādhu-saṅga, between śraddhā when you meet with the devotees and sādhu-saṅga? It both seems to be the same.
What is the difference?
No, Prabhupāda very clearly explains what sādhu-saṅga means, and this is also explained by other ācāryas by Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura in particular. Sādhu-saṅga means that you initially get śraddhā, you like people, you respect people, you respect what they're doing, but at one point you start looking at them as your gurus.
This is when you come from the stage of śraddhā to the stage of sādhu-saṅga. Sādhu-saṅga it's not just you know I'm I'm coming for last 20 years to the Sunday feast program, and you know, I have sādhu-saṅga. No.
As long as you don't view a particular devotee as your guru.
Or at least as long as you don't understand that some of these people whom you like and respect eventually should become your gurus, which is very difficult step to do, step forward.
You know, you're not in the level of sādhu-saṅga. Sādhu-saṅga is when you accept somebody as spiritual master. master. But on this stage, to come from śraddhā to sādhu-saṅga, actually, there is we have this independent
And this what I call this crisis is the crisis of independence when we want to protect our independence.
You know, we like the society of devotees, we want to be a part of the society of Vaishnavas. But in the beginning we are very you know, sensitive, and we don't like if somebody tells us you should do this, you should do that. Because we accept it or we consider it as an intrusion into our independence you know into the borders which we have.
And it's actually you know we are more or less freelancers on this stage.
So coming from śraddhā to the level of sādhu-saṅga means uh to accept certain uh certain uh responsibility or certain obligation uh and it basically means that you know now I see there is somebody and I will accept what he says.
And the most beautiful way of explaining this crisis or formulating this crisis is done by Sanjay in Bhagavad-gītā.
Because in Bhagavad-gītā, Sañjaya explains what happens with Arjuna when he initially surrenders. He sees Krishna as his spiritual master. This is the sandhi.
We know that there is this verse which is explained about sandhi. When he stops the talk of just a friend,
and he accepts Krishna as a spiritual master, and he says, śiṣyaste 'haṁ śādhi māṁ tvāṁ prapannam. I'm surrendered. I'm the soul surrendered unto you, I am your disciple.
But in the next verse he says, na yotsya iti govinda, I am not going to fight, my dear Arjuna. Oh my dear Krishna. So that's what it is. That's the crisis. I want to surrender, but I don't want to surrender.
I am surrendered soul, but I'm not going to fight. Don't ask me to fight. So that's the crisis.
Before that it was the crisis, you know, Arjuna had severe identity crisis, his ego was demolished. Now he is coming to the spiritual path.
And the first thing which he experienced in the spiritual path is again the crisis because he does not want to lose his independence. He is he does not really is not really prepared to lose his independence.
And coming a little back to the first crisis, there is one interesting thing which I forget to tell you.
Idealization and devaluing of sadhus
Very interesting idea. It may not be so prominent in the Western world, but it it's very prominent in Russia and in this Slavik world.
But I think it's also to a certain extent, there for Western-minded people, for people with Western mentality. It is a known psychological fact: That babies they consider their parents as mystical figures.
For a little baby, his parent is almighty. You know, because he's so big and he's so powerful and he is this and that. So there is a certain element of um mythology mythology or mystification.
You know for uh for a little baby, uh you know, the parent is a mystical figure. He can do miracles. So, in the same way, oftentimes, for a beginning devotee to develop faith in some sadhu, he needs to show some miracles.
To actually to strengthen the faith of of a devotee. He needs to show some miraculous display of, you know, and if he doesn't show these miracles, then the devotee starts imagining all these miracles.
Or he just, you know, he read my, you know, he read my thoughts, or he is just, you know, he's such a miracle man.
You know, very often, you know, when you speak with the beginner devotees, when they speak about the spiritual masters, they started exaggerating and saying he's such a mystic. He has to be mystic because otherwise I cannot believe in him.
Because I don't have proper foundation, proper discrimination. I don't know how to believe in him, what to trust, what not to trust, therefore, I tend to mystify the figure of a spiritual master of or of a sadhu.
And the actually the failure of this crisis is that when we imagine something, you know, we mystify the figure of a spiritual master, and then, you know, when and then we devalue uh in the beginning we uh just uh we idealize sadhu and then we devalue sadhus. This is what happens oftentimes.
People come and they idealize sadhus, they idealize devotees, they think they should be totally, completely ideal, and then you know they
meet something different and they didn't develop proper faith because the proper faith is the faith in Shastra.
The proper sadhu has to take his responsibility or see this his responsibility to develop faith of a devotee in a proper way in Shastra. You know, like there is a beautiful story.
I think Pushtakrishna Prabhu tells the story about Prabhupada. He says, Prabhupada, you know, I trust only you, I don't trust anyone else. Only you, a pure devotee, you saved me, you this, you that.
And Śrīla Prabhupāda looks at him and smiles and he says, Don't trust me. I may fail you. I may I may let you down. Trust in Krishna.
So this is what is very important on the on this level of spiritual development, you know, to help the devotee to place his heart in a proper way, in a proper place. Shraddha means placing the heart in a proper place.
So as soon as possible. Initially, you cannot expect it from devotee, but it's very important. And that's exactly what Śrīla Prabhupāda was doing. He was instilling faith in Shastra, in his followers.
He is not creating, he was not creating the personality cult out of himself like some other sādhus. He was always saying śāstra, śāstra, śāstra, śāstra. This is how he was developing the faith.
And therefore, this second crisis, you know, when devotees had to develop faith in a particular sādhu as a guru was very smooth at that time, you know. It was very natural.
Devotees really, it was easy for them, because of so much trust in Śrīla Prabhupāda, they can easily relinquish their independence.
So when you go from śraddhā to sādhu-saṅga, it basically symbolically means that you take praṇāma-mantra because you already have śraddhā and you already decided that this particular sādhu will be your guru, will be your guide, spiritual guide, and you trust him, and symbolically you take praṇāma-mantra, and praṇāma-mantra basically means that you successfully overcame the crisis of trust.
You already ideally know who is this person, you know what his teaching is, you know that he is genuine, you know that he is trying to teach you śāstra, and you don't idealize him, you don't make a mystical figure out of him, and it means that you will not devalue him later on because you will be able to appreciate what he has to give.
He has to give you śāstra, he is giving śāstra, so what's the problem? Even if he is not a miracle man. He is still genuine.
So then you know on the level of this if you inevitably you you you chant your praṇāma-mantra, you know that this person is my guru, but still you want to protect your independence. You don't want him to say to you something yet. You're not ready to accept any of his orders or whatever.
So then you have this crisis of your independence.
Sometimes, like little children, when they grow little up, you know, they you tell them something and they say, No, I want to do it myself. They start feeling this initial you know ego ego trip is there, you know.
I will do it myself. So don't tell me doing this. So that's that's the next level of problem which we may have. And that's when you over when you done with this crisis, when you pass this crisis.
When you really trust this person so much that you are ready to accept his order or his order and do what he says because you trust him and because he is genuine and this and that, then only you should take first initiation.
If you don't have this level of trust and if you still not really completely I know myself you know some devotees took initiation and I know that you know they're not on this level they should not do it.
You know, they're not really ready to do it. They're just doing it under some sort of social pressure because you know the temple president tells them, you know, you get initiation, everyone tells them so many years.
But they still want to maintain their independence.
Practicing regulated devotional service
They are not really, you know, ready to relinquish the independence.
So that's the first initiation and first initiation means bhajana-kriya. Bhajana-kriya means you uh perform regulated devotional service in the society of devotees.
On the first stage of your spiritual development, you only take shelter. That's the only thing which you you actually learn to take shelter of the devotees. You learn to trust them.
That's the main gist or the main essence of this Shraddha level. On the second stage of spiritual development, your sadhusanga, your duty or your responsibility is to learn the language.
As much as the little baby, when he starts, you know, developing a little bit, he starts repeating the words of the sadhus of their parents. He starts speaking like parents.
That's a very important stage of spiritual development. We don't know anything, but we repeat the words of sadhus, you know, sometimes very mechanically, sometimes improperly.
So we learn the language, we learn the terms, and it's uh on the stage of sadhu sanga it's very important to learn the basic terms, what it means, what it means, what what Krishna means, what sadhu sanga means, what Shraddha means, all these definitions are there, what bhakti means, what pure devotional service means. These definitions are very important because you know otherwise you will not really understand the language or you will not properly communicate with the sadhus.
So that's on the level of sadhu sangha you learn how to speak. On the level of bhajanakriya, you learn how to act as a devotee.
On the level of śraddhā, you learn how to trust the devotees and proper way of trusting devotees what we should trust.
On the level of sadhu sangha, we learn how to speak as a devotee. So on the level of bhajanakri, we learn how to act as a devotee. How to chant, how to go to Mangalarati, how to you know perform Harinam kirtan on the street, how to preach, how to distribute.
Like little children they start doing this, learning this from and on this stage of spiritual development, it's very important to have peer association. Without this, there will mean no development.
In the beginning, you don't need so much peer association because you're totally entirely dependent on the association with elevated people who are like your parents.
But on this stage of your spiritual development, you need peers because you learn from them a lot and you do something together with them and they become your teachers as well, not only the senior people.
But this stage of Bhajanakria is a very interesting stage. I will only I'm already speaking too long, so let me wrap it up quickly.
So bhajana-kriyā, there is a lot of crisis on the level of bhajana-kriyā. Basically, the six stages of aniṣṭhā bhajana-kriyā, which Viśvanātha Cakravartī Ṭhākura mentions in Mādhurya Kādambinī, is a description of different crises which the devotee has on the level of Bhajanakriya.
Yeah, so but if we take it's a separate subject matter to reformulate these stages of spiritual development according to Vishwana Chakravati Thakur from the point of view of a modern bhakti practitioner.
What does it really mean? It's entirely possible, but it's a separate subject matter. Interesting, but we will not fit it into this limited time frame. But the essence of this crisis of this stage is very very important.
Substitution of spiritual taste
Please listen because it's the most relevant for us as practicing devotees.
What happens on the stage of bhajana-kriyā, aniṣṭhā bhajana-kriyā, before anartha-nivṛtti and niṣṭhā, we practice the devotional service, but we don't have the genuine taste in it.
We don't have profound taste uh in chanting, we don't have profound of course we have profound taste in taking prasadam. That's that's the taste which we definitely have.
So, but besides that, we may not have a very developed taste in reading books, we may not have taste in chanting, japa individually, we may not have taste in going to Mangalarati, we may not have taste in any other regulated devotional service starting with śravaṇaṁ, kīrtanaṁ, smaraṇaṁ and pāda-sevanaṁ and arcanaṁ and so on and so forth.
But as Prabhupāda says beautifully, that we are all pleasure-seeking living entities. Human being, you know, and not only human being, any spirit soul is the pleasure-seeking living entity.
So, we don't have the genuine spiritual taste on this level, because our material in grossment is too deep. We cannot really feel the ananda the bliss of spirit because we are too engrossed in matter.
But we are still doing it out of necessity because we took this responsibility. So, what will happen on this stage? We try to derive the taste from something else and pretend that this is the spiritual taste.
So on this stage of spiritual development, which is most important and most you know, most of the devotees they have they are on this stage of spiritual development, on this aniṣṭhita-bhajana-krāya. Like some devotees derive taste from being glorified as as big preachers. They don't have taste for you know for preaching really, but they have taste for being glorified.
Some devotees that derive taste from having so many followers. They don't have genuine spiritual taste, but they definitely they feel a lot of taste, you know, that because they have so many followers.
Some devotees they develop some taste in some other things, some other external things. You know, because we need some taste and we don't have genuine spiritual taste, we substitute the taste.
This is the crisis of this substitution of taste. And because we substitute the taste, what happens? Our goal, you know, nominally, ex officio, we say my goal is love of God.
But really, my goal is to have followers, my goal is to have fame,
name, glory, you know, to be glorified as a very scholarly devotee or very pakā devotee, fixed up devotee, or very varṇāśrama, dharmic, whatever, I don't know whatever you call it.
So the real goal, uh, which, uh, we have on this stage is not really, you know, Kṛṣṇa-premā.
It's always very hilarious when devotees in the temple after Maṅgala-ārati they repeat all the ten offenses and then at the end they say, you know, uh, any practicing devotee should carefully avoid committing these offences while chanting and in this way very quickly achieve the goal Kṛṣṇa-premā and they they all repeated
and it's it sounds very unconvincing. It's not really I always felt there is something wrong in this in this habit which we have.
So if we consider this aniṣṭhā bhajana-kriyā starting with this utsahāmayī, what is utsahāmayī? Utsahāmayī, you know, you're very enthusiastic. Why you're so enthusiastic?
Because everything is new, because everything is fresh, because you feel superior
to others, because others are dirty karmises and you are you know the higher truths and this is all the you know causes of your total infatuation or your uh you know your initial neophyte enthusiasm.
It's not the genuine spiritual enthusiasm which will develop later on the stage of niṣṭhā, but it's initial enthusiasm which is very flickering. And you want to maintain this artificial sort of thing,
and then it vanishes, and then you go to the stage of ghaṭā-kuṭī-karaṇa, and sometimes you're very enthusiastic, sometimes you're not very enthusiastic, you know.
Sometimes somebody says to you which you don't like, and you seriously consider to give up this association of devotees because they're all bad, and then somebody says something good to you and glorifies you and you again seriously consider to join this Krishna consciousness movement because they are such a nice people and so on and so forth.
It's going on. So that's basically the crisis of the substitution of God Goal when we have the false goals and the crisis of lack of spiritual taste. That's what it is.
We We have the internal conflict because officially we accepted Krishna as the goal of our endeavors.
But in reality, we don't want to go to him, we just want to stay here more or less and enjoy here because this is the taste which we have. We know this taste, we don't have other taste.
And therefore we become fanatical in the beginning. This actually this utsahāmayī is the initial fanaticism.
And then we become ritualistic, we just mechanically do some rituals, we become hypocritical, and so on and so forth.
Crisis of identity before nishta
So that's the crisis on the stage of Bhajanakriya. And very quickly, I will say the last thing about anartha-nivṛtti. You know that if you overcome this, it basically means that you passed aniṣṭhā
Bhajana Kriya, you're more or less past An Arandhani Vriti, you are ready to come to Anishta stage. But before coming to Nishta stage you have to overcome one more crisis because
in the last stage of your spiritual of your anиṣṭhā bhajana-kriyā. You became a great devotee. You became very respected in the society of devotees. You have many followers.
Everyone calls you Maharaj, everyone bows down to you. And you enjoy this position. This is what Tāraṅga-raṅgiṇī means. You become the leader, you become powerful, you are,
you know, everyone respects you because this is what bhakti does. You really you really develop certain level of stability, but you're still enjoying these material things because you're not yet
capable of enjoying spiritual things. You didn't develop your spiritual ego to a proper level, you're not yet capable of getting spiritual taste because your ego is still immature, spiritual ego.
But before coming to the stage of niṣṭhā, if you want to go further, you have to destroy this false quote-unquote spiritual persona which you developed. You developed certain pseudo spiritual identity.
You know, everyone respects you, everyone thinks you're a pure devotee, everyone is really, you know, trying to surrender to you. So you cannot come to the stage of niṣṭhā with this with this crap. No way.
Because niṣṭhā means tṛṇād api su-nīcena, taror api sahiṣṇunā, niṣṭhā means I'm nobody. Niṣṭhā means I am tiny little insignificant spiritual neophyte who doesn't have even genuine spiritual taste.
So and Krishna will help you to destroy this. There will be something in your life which will, some... critical situation which will destroy your spiritual...
you know, you may commit some obvious sinful activity, for ex... because you know, and everyone will start, you know, disrespecting you or you know saying that you're a hypocrite, this and that, or something like this.
And it may become, it actually it may be a very important stage of your spiritual development because this is the help of Krishna for you to become
more genuine, to come to the stage of niṣṭhā when you are really humble and really tolerant and you're ready to respect anyone and don't want to accept any respect from other people.
So this is a very painful crisis, extremely painful crisis where your whole pseudo-spiritual persona identity crumbles. And when you have to go through this very painful transformation, becoming really genuine, humble servant of Vaishnavas, and deriving taste in this service, not in anything extraneous or external to this.
So, but then it means that you passed this, you are on the level of niṣṭhā and voila, you are you are on a very stable platform from which you will be able to develop further. So that's a short overview.
I'm speaking, I mean not so short but an overview. So you know I don't know what we will do. It's already I am already speaking one and a half hour. How much time do you have? And we don't want to impose on your time also.
I only have till six thirty because at six thirty there is one lesson which I am taking. Is that um I'm in uh 6 30 means 15 more minutes. 15 more minutes, okay.
Question on repeated trust crises
Um so we can ask questions. I just want to say personally, Mahārāja, there's so much profundity in this presentation. I'm my mind's blown.
At certain parts of it, I was practically almost in tears and I was just like just reflecting on what you're describing my own journey in Krishna consciousness. It's very, you know, it was profound. Um just thank you for that.
Uh I've been around for almost twenty years and I've been hearing your lecture since the beginning.
My first lecture with you was Anāvṛtti Śraddhā seminar, which I come to periodically throughout the years again and again.
So I've been appreciating you for many, many years now in my spiritual life, and just very happy to be in your presence. I wanted to say um I'll kick it off and then it looks like we know Kovida has a question.
These crises you spoke of the crises of trust and obviously I've been around for 20 years, so I've gone through that, but I feel like I've gone through that many times throughout my 20 years.
And it wasn't, it's in other words, not like just at this particular stage, but I feel like I've been repeatedly experiencing the crises of trust.
Of course, and when I first joined, I wasn't getting the pure breast milk, I was getting a lot of milk powder but um I had a strong attraction to scripture from the very outset I would study four to six hours every day um just trying to get acquainted, so that was
there, and then finally someone came into my life who seemed shastrically endowed. Um, I developed trust in this particular individual, but he had a way of speaking
that broke faith and grew. I had already been initiated at that time actually right off, Mahārāja. And it kinda looked like experientially that he was kind of building a personality cult around him.
Just saving the details, that's what it kind of translated into in Chicago. Some of the devotees here know this experience.
Um, and so I ended up asking him, you know, about his own relationship with his guru and he grew the relationship with me immediately because I had I was having a crisis of trust.
You want us to put faith in you but you don't seem to have faith in your superiors.
So when he broke broke the relationship immediately I was thrown again into another crisis of trust, which made me develop like that's it. I'm only gonna put my head in scripture.
You know, it's very hard to trust who is being genuine from the sādhus. I was like that for about, I don't know, five years, and then I ran into Satyanarayana Dasa Babaji.
And um right at the period when I was kind of getting kicked out of the ashram after 13 years, and I kind of like confided in him and complained about various things and he didn't take advantage of that.
He never criticized his kind, he never criticized any of my gurus. So I developed trust in him and he treated me very affectionately.
And so I developed a like a trusting relationship with him and which was even noted by many of his disciples with whom I'm friends with.
But then later uh you know a couple of years after taking a lot of his association when I would go
to Vrindavan, you know, because he's in a different parivāra and they kind of maybe they he reinitiates devotees from ISKCON, amongst other things. You know, I was advised by my own guru, Srila Rameshwara Swami, you know, do not spend so much post time and because I'm a disciple, I just followed that also.
But I I experienced like turmoil because of having an affectionate relationship with this sādhu. I was finally getting trust. I was getting the breast milk, you know, shastri. And then to be told not to do that.
And I followed it happily also because I have a lot of faith in my own guru also. So I did follow that.
I still feel like I still felt like the reverberations of the schism that was created because of the breaking, you know, the having to like break something that I felt trust was coming.
So anyway, that's a quick overview of my like sort of outline I feel like I've been going through this crisis of trust so much in my twenty years and I don't know if you have any feedback or any I don't know how how how are you hearing this and what would you say to me yeah
thank you very much for asking this question uh see There's a lot a lot to say, but the main point, see the the saving grace which you had and which I had. This experience of unconditional love, which is most important.
If we experience the unconditional love of somebody, if we experience shelter that somebody is really ready to give us shelter and feeds us with some proper food which we require.
Like the baby, when he is brought up with a lot of love in the very initial stages, he is much more protected, you know.
He may experience some betrayals during his life and this and that, but he will be still more protected because he has this protective shield.
He got these vitamins in the very beginning, and these vitamins and nourishment which he got from certain personalities give him protection. You know, so this, this sort of story. And
then you wanted to have some more nourishment which is natural I mean when the baby grows he explores different things he wants to explore the world he wants to explore this and that and he wants to take shelter of somebody else.
But because you knew that you know there is somebody whom you really trust, you could overcome other relationship which may be not so healthy or partially healthy, you know.
So it didn't affect you because from the inception you had protection, basically. And if you're protected, then you can enter into relationship. Like you mentioned Satyanara Babji. I like him very much.
I listen to some of his lectures. I, you know, whenever I have a chance I go to him, I speak with him. But at the same time, you know, there is a certain distance which I don't cross.
Because again, I know certain things which I may not agree, but it doesn't bother me. I can take something good from him and I will not take something which which is not healthy for me.