Srimad-Bhagavatam 3.2.24
Бхакти Вигьяна Госвами · Лондон · 2011
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Reading Srimad Bhagavatam verse on devotion
Bhagavate Vasudevaya Bagate Vasudevaya Umam Bhagavate Vastudeva Nastampaya Sabadish Sabatish Bhagavad Ghada Sivayana Swakhab Bhakti Bhavakh Bhakti Bhavina Shtiam Prabhana Jantama Veta Matakrityam Vaipayanākatara
So today we'll read the twenty-fourth verse of the four of the third chapter of the second chapter of Shrimad, which is entitled Pure Devotional Service, The Change in
Heart and Asma sharam, asma sharam, vidam, vidam, bata, vidam, dam, yam, Krishna Manahi, Hadina, Haryam, Vikrieta, Vik Yada dikara dikara nitre jam ja chraatyesha dasamayamadeyama, Navikrieta Tayatika, Navikri Tayaka
By such a gross conception of God, through the material manifestations of His energy, one is enabled to spiritualize the mind and the senses and gradually concentrate the mind upon Lord Krishna, the Supreme, who is present as the super soul in every heart and everywhere, in every atom in the material universe.
The system of Panchy Upasana recommending five mental attributes for the common man is also enacted for this purpose, namely gradual development, worship of the superior, then that may be in the form of fire, electricity, the sun, the mass of living entities, Lord Shiva, and at last the impersonal super soul, the partial representation of Lord Vishnu.
Primary purpose of spiritual culture
They are all nicely described in the second chapter, but in the third chapter, further development is prescribed after one has actually reached the stage of Vishnu worship or pure devotional service, and the mature stage of Vishnu worship is suggested herein in the relation to the change of the heart,
the whole process of spiritual culture is aimed at changing the heart of the living entity in the matter of his eternal relation with the Supreme Lord as subordinate servant, his eternal constitutional position.
So with the progress of devotional service the reaction of change in the heart is exhibited by gradual detachment from the sense of material enjoyment, by the false sense of warning it over the world and an increase in the attitude of rendering, loving service to the Lord.
Vidibhakti or regulated devotional service by the limbs of the body, namely the eyes, the ears, the nose, the hands, the legs, as already explained herein before, is now stressed herein in relation to the mind, which is the interpretation of all activities of the limbs of the body.
It is expected by all means that by discharging regulated emotional service rather must manifest a change of heart.
If there is no such change, the heart must be considered as steel frame, for it is not melted, even when there is chanting of the holy name of the Lord.
We must always remember that healing and chanting are the basic principles of discharging devotional duties.
And if they are properly performed, there will be the reaction of ecstasy with signs of tears in the eyes and spending of the hairs on the body. These are natural consequences and are the preliminary
symptoms of bhāva stage which occurs before one reaches the perfectional stage of prema, love of God.
tad-aśma-sāraṁ hṛdayaṁ bataedam yad gṛhyamāṇair hari-nāma-dheyaiḥ na vikriyetāthā vāraka-naddhīti vikāra-netro 'śru-jalaiḥ syāt.
Vesu Harsam Suddenly that heart is still framed, which in spite of chanting the holy name of the Lord this concentration does not change when ecstasy takes place and tears fill the eyes and hairs stand on end.
śrī-caitanya-caraṇābja-bhakti-namas-te namas te sarasvati deura-vāṇī- nirdiśeśh śaradi-āchādakā-cakra-ākāra- paśyanti vācaṁ bāmādi.
yas te kṛṣṇa-caitanya-prabhv-ānanda-siddha- rādhā-kṛṣṇa-sādhu-bhakti-lābha-hare-kṛṣṇa- hare-kṛṣṇa-kṛṣṇa-kṛṣṇa-hare-hare-hare-rāma- rāma-rāma-rāma-hare-hare-saṅkīrtanaiḥ pī-dhara-kamaladāsa
viśvambharo vijayate yuga-dharma-pālaṁ jagat-tri-loka-karuṇāmṛtāmbhiḥ karmāny akṣa-hastacaraṇa- śravaṇāttha nāma thing would share into the
Importance of a genuine heart transformation
So I will speak something on this particular very important role Srila Prabhupada, where of course Srila Prabhupada
stresses very much the need of the change of the heart. And he says that this change of the heart comes as a natural consequence of our proper performance of devotional service.
And if this does not take place, something is wrong with our preference of devotional service.
And because we all to a certain extent experience that the heart either doesn't change at all, or changes in a much slower pace than it is desired or expected.
I sort of you know trying to elaborate on this point what it means and what it implies to change the heart and why it sometimes changes and sometimes does not. Why in certain cases of certain lucky, enlightened souls.
The process of devotional service works in a very amazing and wonderful way, very impressive way. And in case of other unlucky souls like humble self doesn't really work as naturally as it should have been expected.
So today I mostly speak about what it means to change the heart because there are some misunderstandings in this regard as well and they are quite common. And tomorrow I will try to elaborate on this most important topic.
What is the proper mechanism for the changing of the heart and how the heart is supposed to change through the process of feeling and changing as Belma explains in this for And what it requires of us.
What are the prerequisites or conditions or endeavors which we have to apply in the process of healing and changing it, to expedite or to speed up this process of changing heart.
Three categories of spiritual practitioners
So with your permission and with the blessings Try to speak on this problem hopefully some result for problem So
as a little introduction to this whole topic, you know, if we see the devotees who come to Krishna Consciousness movement, we can see basically three categories of the others.
Some come attracted by the lofty promises and uh perspectives of uh pure devotional service, adult and please and happiness and stay for some time, commit some offences, lose taste and rolling.
That's a very common case scenario. An unfortunate scenario, but uh it's there we cannot underestimate this.
You know, people come and people are very much attracted to this city and very enthusiastic, but then they do something wrong and as a result, the taste is gone.
And you know, when the taste is gone, sooner or later you're also gone. There is another kind of intermediate category of devotees.
They come and they like it and they kind of you know adjust to the whole environment of our little uh as they say sect or you know some kind of group, which may not be that little but basically and because you know we
like it here because we like Pashan, which is a very important argument for us to stay in this code. And you know, because of so many other reasons, because we like the SSH and this and that.
We stay adjusting something in our behavior. And this adjustment to the behavior is a very common phenomenon
we kind of uh learn the jargon which is in veg invoke in one devotees which is not difficult you know we know what tamoon is and we know when tamas comes.
and um but uh the unfortunate thing is that and there maybe some taste is still there, it's to greater extent is gone, but still they remain here because of some you know compelling reasons. Good prasāda, so on time.
And some other not less compelling things. Uh you know. Oh maybe we don't have any other place to be a place to stay. We don't want to work hard outside.
And uh uh in many cases we also can see that uh there is a kind of you know adjustment to the environment without real change of the heart, without real transformation which is supposed to take place.
You don't see too many devotees rolling in ecstasy. And if somebody will start doing this, you know. It's not clear what our reaction will be.
uh and of course uh there is a certain uh class of the audience who who despite of all the difficulties which are there, and of all the problems which we may encounter, and one of the serious problems is this loss of taste, the loss of initial taste which is there, inevitably
in everyone's devotional career? The third category of devotees, they, despite of all these difficulties, they go on searching for the truth. They don't stop.
What is very lamentable about two first classes of devotees is that they more or less stop their devotional focus.
They may stop it very abruptly or visibly, and they may stop it not in a very obvious way, but somehow or other they lose the initial faith that by doing this process, performing this process, I will obtain unlimited happiness and bliss and freedom and whatnot.
And they come in terms with their condition, which is still somewhat momentum.
So this particular uh seminar which I developed is a bit longer than the version which I will present here in the manner, but this particular seminar who is devoted to the third class of devotees who are dedicated to them, who are determined to find the other truth by all means, no matter what.
Conscious evolution across living species
But it's addressed to the first two classes of the artist and uh try to understand what's going on in our heart.
So that said as a short introduction to the whole topic, The next point which Śrīla Prabhupāda elaborates in the board is that the devotional service is a natural stage of spiritual development of a human being.
And it's a very peculiar and particular stage of the evolution of the living entity in this world. And Prabhupada very briefly mentions the whole process of this evolution.
And we can see and we know that ultimately the living entity, being conscious by its very nature, has to evolve. The evolution is an intrinsic quality of a living entity or the consciousness as such.
And we can see that in a lower species of life, this evolution takes place in the mind.
And the evolution in the lower species of life, it's a very interesting process which is briefly described in the very literature. Implies the widening of the sphere of control.
If we see the evolution of the consciousness which Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura very beautifully describes in Jaiva Dharma and I believe in all the teachings of Lord Caitanya, Caitanya-śikṣāmṛta, we can see
that this automatic process of evolution brings about the broadening the sphere of control of the living method. You know, if we take any species, any lower species of life like like mosquito.
Mosquito by the natural process will become a fly. And um you know I don't know maybe why it's before, but anyway.
You know and then by natural process it will become something else, the WASP uh uh B And then gradually, gradually through the 8 million for 100,000 forms.
It comes to the human form, but we can see this phenomenon of finding the scope of the empowerment or the scope of the influence, so to speak.
But the main characteristic of this process, the main quality of this process is that it's totally completely automatic.
You know, mosquito doesn't have to meditate on the fly and develop the ardent desire to become a fly. In order to become a fly. It will become a fly by the nature of automatic process.
But when the living entity comes to the stage of the human development, when we reach the stage of human form of life, then the mechanism, the very essence of the process of evolution, and the mechanism changes.
And Prabhupada explains very beautifully that essence of the human evolution, which we will have to understand very purely to a certain extent, to a certain level when the soul reaches the human level, the essence of the evolutionary process is to widen the scope of my power, how I can influence this.
And then we reach the human level, and human level means we can change the environment. No other species of life can change the environment. Only human beings are changing it in a very drastic way.
You know everyone else is more or less adjusting to the environment but still influencing it in a wider and wider and wider way.
But the human species starts changing the environment, but by some sort of inertia, you know. The same kind of process is going on.
But Prabhupada says that the essence, the very essence of the human evolution is ultimately to surrender to the higher force.
The animal evolution, which is still going on in the human species of life, is to try to widen the scope of control. But the human evolution per se is to understand that ultimately not everything depends on us.
And this process of surrender, it's a very qualitatively different process of evolution. And this is the real human evolution.
The real human evolution, Prabhupada gives a very beautiful explanation. I mean it's amazing how he says this.
The whole process of spiritual culture is aimed at changing the heart of the living entity in the matter of his eternal relation with the Supreme Lord, as subordinate servant, his eternal constitutional position.
In other words, that's that according to Vedic literature, and we know it very much, we know it very well, this particular point of our philosophy is that the real essence of human life is to surrender to the Lord.
And that means evolution, that implies evolution.
And if one is trying just to widen the scope of his control, as uh some people are still doing, uh very enthusiastically we can see that the whole human civilization is just cheering about the victory after victory after victory over the you know material nature. But we know the ultimate result of all these victories of stupid human beings who are trying to gain victory over God.
So the very essence of this process of evolutionary process, which we have to understand very clearly, you know, we are degrading ourselves.
If we don't understand that the process of revolution is to ultimately understand our constitutional position as the subordinate to the greater force which is there.
And Śrīla Prabhupāda says that you know this understanding of this greater force of the nature of this greater force is different. There is an evolutionary process.
First you understand it as a nature, then you worship Mahādurga, then you understand it as an energy, as the sun, more particular kind of energy.
Then you worship sun, then you worship uh then you worship Gaṇeśa uh as a representative of the consciousness, you understand that this greater force which you have to surrender is
represented by the consciousness in the living entities, and you try to surrender to this by that you know the original source of the consciousness that you know the original source of the consciousness
Overcoming laziness in spiritual practice
is there and this is the representation of Lord Śrīvāsa, and I want them to surrender to Lord Krishna. And Śrīla Prabhupāda says that the worship to Lord Krishna is the mature stage of evolution.
But then he says that the real change of the heart takes place when you reach the worship of Viṣṇu.
The very important thing is that I said that the essence of human evolution is different than the essence of the evolution of the lower species of life. And the mechanism of this evolution is also different.
The mechanism of evolution is that you have to apply your consciousness at least on the level of Viṣṇu worship. It will not take place automatically.
Consciousness may or may not take place in the human species of life by the natural process, so to speak.
But at least on the level, when you reach the level of understanding that God is in your heart, that God is everywhere and it's in your heart and in the heart of every living entity, and that you always interact with this conscious power which is there, which is this all-pervading Supreme Lord who is Vishnu and Vishnu means he's all pervading.
But this understanding, when you reach this understanding, at this stage, at least at this stage you have to employ God given consciousness to you for the further evolution.
And if you don't employ the consciousness which is there in us and um why I'm stressing this point so much the reason is very obvious because we are used to the more or less automatic process of evolution.
And we very much rely on this automatic process and especially when we hear and sometimes crowd past say that everything is so here, this you know, we very much like this uh notion or this understanding that we don't have to apply so much conscious endeavors in this evolutionary process.
Because we are lazy. Is anyone lazy here?
And being lazy, and being ultimately very lazy being, we uh we are kind of afraid and you know this is this is candidate, we uh we are kind of afraid and you know this is this is a very important point to understand.
Uh one of the reasons, one one of the major reasons of our failure and the spiritual path is laziness.
And this laziness manifests in us as the desire to kind of rely on certain automatic processes or to switch off our consciousness in our spiritual
practices and uh uh do it uh you know So and then we turn on our automatic pilot and you know sometimes we are being encouraged in this, you know, just do it, you know, everything will be fine. Just switch on the automatic pilot.
But you know, if you don't uh even in the case of plane driving on plane flying, you know, if you only drive on an auto pilot sooner or later it will crash.
You will have to turn on uh your real pilot and real consciousness for this. Uh so and that's then is uh is uh is a very uh important point uh to understand uh how we uh what we should do.
So uh and usually um when when it comes uh and that's the uh real topic of today's discussion, what it means to change the heart.
Prabhupada says that if you don't change the heart, something is wrong. If the chant the heart doesn't change, which manifests according to him in signs of ecstasy and in our emotional kind of involvement in devotional process, then something is wrong.
When doing something wrong, if the heart must change. If it doesn't change, then you're doing something wrong.
And one of the tricks which our mind plays with us is that the mind actually, and that's another reason why the heart doesn't change so easily, that the mind doesn't want to change.
We are ready to change external things. That's no problem. To change the dress, that's okay.
You know, it's a little difficult in the beginning, you know. You always feel little strange in this new clothes, but ultimately it's okay. You're ready to surrender to this extent, no problem. You know, to put something on the forehead, that's also fine, no problem.
You know, you're ready to go to the extent of changing your name. That's difficult, but okay, fine.
External changes versus internal transformation
You know, but you're you're ready even to the extent of changing your habits. But again, this is cheating.
Śrīla Prabhupāda says that if you don't understand what implies what it means to change your heart, and if you don't work on changing your heart and you only try to change your externals, your external appearance your name your habits that's cheating.
You know so, many times people they you know, and sometimes we become proud, you know, I change my habits. Now I get up at you know sometimes six o'clock,
sometimes at five o'clock which is this is a great devotional achievement you know I used to get up at ten o'clock and uh and on Sundays you know if I'm lucky if I'm up at twelve. And now I achieve this.
Oh, we change our you know diet. This is a great achievement. Sometimes Śrīla Prabhupāda he was he was really mocking on the people, you know. People would come to him and say, I'm vegetarian.
If you take all this new age movement, you know, it's a great achievement, you become vegetarian. And sheeps and goats are also eating. Great evolutionary achievement.
Sometimes people say, you know, I'm I'm only eating raw food you know sheep are also eating raw food so what's the big deal the point is that people are ready to change the experience and to change the heart is difficult.
And difficult because of different reasons, and one of the reasons is that we don't know how to change the heart, how to change our mind.
So the first what I wanted to explain a little bit in this talk is that what the heart means.
And before because before we understand, you know, how to change the heart, we have to really clearly understand what is the heart. The heart it's English translation of Sanskrit word, usually.
Sanskrit word, sometimes some other words are translated like the car, but usually it's a translation of the word citta. And citta means the aggregate consciousness which is there.
And the main characteristic of citta, or in other words, if you want to change, because if we use the Sanskrit word, the whole process will become more clear and more precise. The understanding will become more clear.
So the changing of the heart means the changing of citta, and citta is being defined as the place the desires are being generated in the living energy.
The main function of chitta, chitta is collecting all the impressions, chitta is the aggregate consciousness in our mind which is collecting all the impressions, but as a result of it, the function of the chitta is threefold, which is thinking, feeling, and being, and the main part of it is the generation of desires.
Desires, thoughts, and emotions.
Basically, when we speak about changing of the heart, which is extremely important for us to understand, changing of the heart means not to change the external dress, the external appearance, the habits, the external behavioral patterns, but it means to change the thoughts, to change the emotions, and to change the desires.
And unless, and of course, Rāma explains that it manifested, but the heart is changed and it manifests in ecstasies.
But basically it means that you know when your heart is changed, the dirty thoughts will not enter your mind at all.
We sometimes wonder and you know and that's also important things to understand that the changing of the heart is the whole soul process and wholesale process of changing of our reactions to this world.
What we have now, we have a particular type of reaction which manifests as a as a certain thought processes, certain patterns of our thought. You know we see somebody and we immediately react on this particular person.
We see and we try to find a fault, right? You know when we see somebody we we try to see you know how I'm better than him.
And sure enough we will find how I'm better than him. Or you know emotional reactions is also very important and I will uh elaborate a little bit on this.
But basically we have to understand, and and of course, desires are very important. So, to change the heart means to change basically everything. And first of all, it means to change the reaction of the world.
What we have now, we have habitual reaction of how to say God in training, you know, because we all trained ourselves to become God, right?
So the reaction on this environment which we have is this reaction so this you know more or less uh God is almost there, but you know not quite yet.
Transforming habitual thoughts and reactions
So and that's why we have certain uh kind of emotional traits, we become bitter, we become very sad, morose, out of nothing, you know. And that's all you know, that's all uh the manifestation of our dirty polluted heart.
There is a very interesting story how this change of the heart takes place and what it means, what it implies.
And it's a story from Lord Buddha's time. There was one man who was a merchant. And his particular moment moment of changing of heart took place when he first listened for Buddha.
Then all this very lucky but unfortunately rare occasions in the spiritual history of the world and somebody meets with a great saying and just on the score his heart changes.
So this particular merchant he was so impressed by Buddha speaking. And the powerful words of Lord Buddha penetrated so deeply in his heart that his heart changed immediately. And as a result of it, he gave up on the spot.
He came to Sravasti to the place where the discourse took place with all his goods and money.
So he gave all this money and all the goods to his companion and said, I'm staying here, I'll become a monk, I don't need anything.
So and then uh very soon he approached Lord Buddha, his master, and he said, I want to go preaching. And this is, you know, we can see, we can very much relate to this kind of scenario.
Somebody gives up everything, you know, after hearing some powerful, you know, not this body preaching, join's is gone and then very soon he's out there you know trying to preach and to change the heart.
But Lord Buddha was not that you know easily impressed by these sudden changes of the heart. Probably has seen some of the fake ones too. So before giving permission and his blessings to this man uh about the preaching.
He said that's nice. The desire to preach is very good. It's very commendable. But and he wanted to go to his homeland, Maharashtra to preach to the people there.
But he said, please answer a few questions of mine before I give you my blessings. And he said, you know, people of Maharashtra are very tough. They are rough people.
And if you start preaching, they will start chastising you and rebuking you and and basically they will they will say some bad words about you. What will you say? And then you hear these bad words. What will we say?
He said, oh, I was thinking such a nice people. These Maharashtans are such a nice people. They just rebuke me, but they don't slap me. Nice people.
And Lord Puddha said, wait a second, you know, but they are tough people. They may rebuke you and then they may slap you. What would you say to this? He said, Oh, when I when they do this, I will think, you know, such a nice people. They rebuke me and they slap me, but they don't beat me with the sticks.
Nice people. And Buddha said, you know, what if they beat you with the sticks? And he said, oh, at this point I will see such a nice people.
They beat me with the sticks and they slap me and they rebuke me, but they don't attack me with the weapons. Nice people. And what are they attacking with? And at this point I will think, you know, nice people.
Such good hearted people. They hit me with the sticks, they slapped me, they attack me with the weapons, but they don't kill me. Nice people, right? And then what if he says, what if they kill you?
Sometimes happen also when somebody pleases you, it doesn't happen so often in England, but it definitely happens in Russia. What will you say if they kill you? What do you think? Then they kill you.
I don't think you know such a nice people. Nice people. They help you to get rid of this body. Thank you very much.
But the the point of this story is very important, is that if the heart is changed, our reaction is changed. And this is the test of the changed heart.
You know, because when we just adjust to the whole environment to just slightly change our external behavior, not necessarily our reactions change.
Sometimes we can see, we can very clearly see it within our own um mind or our own heart that you know I still have the same reactions. I'm still with the same kind of the same materialism. And it means that the heart does not change.
You know, Śacinandana Mahārāja who is our uh you know main expert on the change of heart topic.
He he gave a beautiful example of how this change of heart also takes place, you know, what it means. Very beautiful story he told once.
He said that once one bhakta was walking in Bangalore because bhakta was steady bhakta and he was chanting the mahā-mantra. And then he saw a little crowd of people.
And you know, in India, you know, it doesn't take much to make a crowd. So he looked there and he saw that one dead cow is there. And of course people are around this dead cow discussing what to do with this dead cow.
this man when he saw this dead cow he started jumping and singing and you know rolling the metals and saying, Oh, jah people, so nice. And you know, all the people looked at him and said, what's so nice about him?
Why you manifesting such a strange reaction to this whole occasion? He said, whoa, this is that cow. Don't you understand this? They said, yeah, this is that cow. What's so what's so glorious about it? This is that cow.
He said, you know, this is that cow.
The skin of this cow, the leather of this cow will be taken, and mridanga will be made from this skin, and this dead cow will take part in the kirtan of the Lord. how lucky this cow is. Haribol!
And everyone looked at him and said, yes, Haribol! But they didn't feel the same. So what I want to say is that you know the change of the heart means the change of the three things, the change of your thought process.
That the process of the thinking becomes different. It becomes different than your present process of thinking, the change of your emotions, your emotional reactions are different. Completely different. Completely opposite.
180% opposite. Because the career of devotional service means developing
this particular nature of the dasa, of the servant, and it means that we will become happy when normal people so called or so to speak normal people will become sad.
You know, like this particular man, you know, somebody is rebuking him and slamming him and beating him and he's happy. He said, sir, I met such nice people. So and and that's not easy.
What I mean to say, it's not a small thing to change the heart. To change the heart means somebody is chastising us. And we say, yes you, are such a nice man.
You know, used to be, and somebody is glorifying us, and we say, he's not good. He's not good, but he's good. No, and it and it's not that you just you know just learn the tree how you really feel it.
You feel that this is not good and she's glorifying you. You feel you really feel bad about it. You feel good when somebody is just dying to. You know, it's not a small thing to change the heart.
Controlling thoughts feelings and desires
So and if we take these three things, which is there, thinking, uh emotional reaction or feelings which are there, and desires, then we can see and that the extent or the hard work which we have to apply to change these things is is different in these three cases.
It's the easiest is to change our things. You know, as I said, it implies certain conscious process. The mechanism and the process itself we will talk about tomorrow in our second lecture.
But today still I I wanted to say that it's progressively more difficult to change. The easiest is to change the discipline to change this thinking process. And that in itself is quite a big achievement.
You know, we to a certain extent can control our thoughts.
And if a bad thought comes to us, if the bad kind of thinking comes to us, we can to a certain extent control and if we come to the platform of devotional service, to the platform of bhakti and consider our thinking from this vantage point of view and try to think differently.
That's a big achievement. That's a good thing to do. You know, we we know uh how it works. Uh and the the example from the Shastras is a very interesting one.
The example from Chaitanya Bhagavad is the example of this Brahmacharya who was chastised by the Lord. Milk drinking Brahmacharya.
There is a famous story when the brahmacārī was hidden in a house of Śrīvāsa Ṭhākura and Lord Caitanya, he somehow or other he just sensed that somebody with materialistic mind is polluting the kīrtana. The kīrtana is a special type of event when the minds of everyone has to be in unison.
The real kīrtana is when it takes place when everyone is really in the same place so to speak in his mind. So Lord Chaitanya was very sensitive and he said, no ecstasy today.
The same Mahā-mantra, Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, nobody. No ecstasy. Somebody is polluting the atmosphere here.
You know, and then you know Śrīvāsa Ṭhākura very humbly said, yeah there is one there under the basket. You know, but he's very pure. He just drinks milk all the time.
So Lord Caitanya became furious. This materialist, you know, this is not bad, but you know, it's milk drinking spiritual giant should be kicked out of here immediately.
Because he thinks that just by drinking milk, just by changing something external, you know, this is something great, you know, just kick him out. So they kick him out. He was initially, he was very sad.
But then what happened at that point, and it's very important for us to understand. He changed his thought process at this moment.
He was going out and he was very sad, but then he said, You know, they are right. He didn't start at this point of time, he didn't start saying, you know, this is this is such a rough vaiṣṇava, they're so rough. You know, they impose all this crazy, they're so fanatical. They impose all these crazy rules upon my glorious self, you know, who they think they are.
And unfortunately this is the reaction which uh we often manifest, you know, if something goes not according to our wishes and desires in the society of the world.
Somebody is trying to impose some standard upon us and say, you know, they're all bad, even they're all fanatical, and you know sure enough, you will find so many arguments to support this point of view.
So, but he uh at this point of view said, They're right, I'm so lucky, I still somehow rather, still I saw lucky and he was anything. He didn't feel ecstasy, but still I saw because I'm so lucky.
And immediately when this change of heart took place in him, more or less, conscious change of heart, immediately Lord Chaitanya became this and said, Bring him back. He belongs here.
So that's one point, you know, and that's one application or one uh thing which we have to apply, and this is how our consciousness manifests in our practice, we can change our desires. Oh sorry, our thoughts.
There are two more much more difficult things. You know, emotions are much less under our control. Still, that to a certain extent they are under our control. You know, emotions are a bit more difficult to control than the
thinking, but still we can by certain kind of um um willpower we still can change our emotions, you know, we can. In like this also, this brahmacārī initially he felt sad, but then he felt happy.
And that was a conscious process which took place in his heart. And the same way we can also estimate our emotions.
Sometimes we may get bitter or we may get uh, we may get offended by somebody, uh, and that's difficult, you know, but still uh within our power is to change our emotional reaction.
The very beautiful illustration of this point is the reaction of Mukunda. Rūpa Sanātana, Rūpa Sanātana said, I don't want to see this guy. This guy is hypocrite, I don't want to see this guy, I will never see this guy.
And when Advaita knows, Mukunda is sitting there outside of the door. And Mukunda is listening. And the Lord says, no, don't mention his name before me.
And then Advaita started bleeding and saying, you know, but will you ever see him? He said, maybe I will not see him in millions
of times, lifetimes, but maybe after millions of lifetimes, maybe when he says, how do you know millions of lifetimes? he says, he said, how do you know millions of lifetimes?
Our natural, uh, emotional reaction to any rejection, especially rejection of somebody who's superior, would be just sad, but Mukunda, he became ecstatic. You know, I will, I will see him, I will see him, and Lord Caitanya said, bring him, it's okay, he is trying, he's not wrong. okay he he is trying he's not wrong.
Persistence of subtle material desires
But then and that is the most difficult thing. But even this most difficult thing is possible to change. The most difficult thing is to change the self.
You know, you may change your emotional reaction to a certain extent it's under your control. But desires are totally, completely beyond your control. And citta or your heart is the source of all the desires.
And there is a very important proof for this in our scriptures: how difficult it is to change the desires.
The scriptural proof of how extremely difficult it is to change these desires is the reaction of Lord Vishnu to the prayers of Druva.
You know, we know that Dhruva in Hari-bhakti-vilāsa, he said the famous verse, kācaṁ vicinvān divya-ratnam. He says that, you know, my, my heart is changed. Dhruva is standing in front of the Lord.
The Lord is there, his heart is changed, all the symptoms of ecstasy are there.
Uh, Dhruva is lamenting, I was, I was looking for a piece of glass, kācaṁ vicinvān. I was trying to find the piece of glass, but instead of this divya-ratnam, I found a divine gem.
And he's saying this to the Lord, you know. In other words, he wants to say, my desires are changed. I came in front of you because I wanted to fulfill my material desires, my desires are now changed.
And the Lord says, yes, yes, yes, my dear Dhruva, please take this kingdom, nice kingdom. You really deserve it. And what it means? It means that the Lord didn't believe.
It basically means that you know of course now he's he is in this emotional kind of state, but we shouldn't take it too seriously. He will come back and he will think, such a stupid guy.
You know, the Lord was standing in front of me and I didn't aim to give me kingdom.
And that's according to the commentators of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, the reaction of the Lord was only because he knew better than Dhruva Maharaj in this point.
He knew that the vestiges of desires, the selfish desires, were still there in Dhruva's heart. And therefore he fulfilled his material desire.
He said, you know, don't be in a hurry. After some time, you know. In the meantime, enjoy your kingdom which you wanted to enjoy.
So that's uh that's about the you know transformation which should take place and extend how how it should take place.
I don't know you know it's uh you you still want to hear or you want to meet prasāda. I don't want to take advantage of your kindness.
But But ultimately, you know, we have to be very clear about this point that the that the complete revolution of the heart has to take place and um I I will say a few more words, a few more Just
want to uh read a little quote from Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī, which stresses this particular point about the need of the change of the heart, complete change in the heart.
Says that there has to be practically alchemical reactions in our heart. The heart has to change, the quality of the heart has to change completely in a very profound way.
And in Sanskrit the alchemistry is called Rasayana Shastra. Rasa is uh is the same word as we use, rasa is there in Rasayana Shastra, chemistry, Rasayana Shastra.
So Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī, he is playing there is a little pun in his uh uh statement here.
It says that the real the true chemical science, Rasayana Shastra of Lord Chaitanya, is capable of removing the diseases of the mind.
It is necessary to begin with the cure of the diseases of the mind if we are really desirous of laying the true and lasting foundation of every form of blessing.
He stresses the same point which I want to bring to our life or to our discussion instead.
He said it is necessary to begin. In other words, the process of devotional service should begin with this, to begin with the cure of the diseases of the mind, if we really desire to lay the true and lasting foundation of every form of blessing.
In other words, he says that the blessings will come.
But the stepping stone of these blessings which we all want to acquire and to obtain, the stepping stone is to cure the desire. We have to be very conscious about this and not to be complacent about this process of uh of changing the heart.
Embracing the pain of deep transformation
And then this at this point probably then I will uh just give some other some few concluding words about this, what it means. So what next I wanted to say on this topic is that changing of the heart is a painful process.
And that's if we if we become serious about the understanding of what's taking place in our heart, we will very clearly see that it's a difficult and painful process because why
the rate of success, even in devotional service, with all the mercy which we with all the advantages which we have, with Lord Chaitanya which is there, still the rate of success in the process of devotional service is not that I mean sometimes seems to be not that impressive in one sense.
And uh the reason being is that the reason is that uh We have to come out of our comfort zone to change the heart. It's painful. And we prefer to take an easy part and to pretend that our heart is changed.
To change something in our externals, in our behavior and think that that's all we need to do. You know, I I know it very much, it's very much pertaining to my own devotional kind of career so to speak.
I remember myself how I was you know we we don't want to change. We really don't want to uh change in a in a deeper level of our consciousness, because we feel it's fine, it's no problem.
And therefore, what we can see, the phenomenon, the very common phenomenon which we can see is that very often what is being stressed in our lectures, which is okay.
I mean to a certain extent it's fine to stress this point, to encourage people. But I think we go to a greater extent of overdoing it is that we overstress the easiness of the process of of devotional service.
It's so easy, it's so nice, it's so great, just you know, just eat prasadam and then you will come back home back to Godhead. It's really good, you know. Now I just have to make sure that I eat prasadam you know in enough
quantities to make and you know and Prabhupada because he wanted to encourage his disciples, he said we will just eat prasadam and dance and chant and you know all of sadhana we will be there with the spiritual master. But
then you know there are some other quote there too. This is a certain quote which we like. But there are some other quotes.
There was a famous story when Prabhupada was sitting with his disciples and then he became kind of very grave. And then he said to his disciples, you know, if you knew how much pain it would require to become a pure devotee, you would run away from here with a loud cry.
This kind of quote we don't like to quote so much. But Prabhupada had an excuse. He said if you knew how much pain you have to undergo to become a devotee, you would probably not stay here for a long time.
If you knew what is the price you have to to pay for this, you probably you might have to consider your enthusiasm.
So what I mean to say is that uh you know it's we we have to be very clear that it's not it's not that easy. Uh and it is uh it is a certain amount of endeavours which we have to apply.
It's easy in one sense but still and it will be a painful process which we have to undergo because otherwise there's no chance.
And before just one little point, uh which will be concluding point of my discussion today, uh is that tomorrow I will uh try to explain in more details how it should take place and what can be us in our chanting and hearing process.
But in conclusion of today's talk, I want to say about two methods which are not real and which are not natural and devotional service because many people they still try to change this, to change the heart.
Misconceptions about changing the heart
But also I have seen that the application of the methods are sometimes not correct. And the particular story in my own life is interesting. I know it's a little episode which was there recently.
I spoke with one lady, she's one very nice devotee, young, energetic, idealistic, not very experienced, but very sincere. And at one point she was lamenting about certain things.
And at one point she said, I totally agree with it. Please listen attentively because it's important.
She said, I see in this coin two schools about how to change yourself about how to change my heart and everything which is pertaining to you. And I became very curious about these two schools.
And she said these two schools are completely, totally opposite, and I don't know which school I should take.
Because one, you know, group of devotees they are ardent supporters of one school and another group of devotees they aren't supporters of another school. Please tell me which school you belong to and which school I should go.
And I asked her, can you please kind of explain to me about these two schools of devotional service?
And uh this is a very uh interesting thing because she's innocent, she came, she's fresh, and she looks uh this fresh eye and what is going on and that's your conclusion.
Uh, she said there is one school and this school is a very nice school. It's a soft school and they just like psychology.
You know, and they use all kinds of psychological trainings and you know, and they give seminars and you know, and they pray, and this psychological nice school, I like this school.
But then there is this other school, and that's a very bad school. That school says you have to really crush your false ego. You have to really repent and do some austerity and change.
You please kindly tell me which school you belong and what should I do? And when I heard this, I was shocked. I said I don't belong to any of these schools. Because none of the schools is correct.
And this innocent mistake which she did actually reveals certain mistakes which are there or certain events which take place in our glorious society.
And we can see very clearly, especially I don't know how in England, but certainly in Russia, you know, this first school, psychological school of Kṛṣṇa consciousness is very popular.
It's so nice and of course, you know, together with Prabhupāda you use some Purāṇas and some other rājas and ta- expedite the changing of the heart. It's a nice process.
Very interesting, and you hear all kinds of psychological seminars and you learn some tricks and things like this. The problem is that it doesn't work because
all these psychological things they give you and that's the opinion of one of the greatest experts in this field, we have one devotee who is a very good psychologist and he gives many seminars. He said, I need more trainings and psychological trainings and seminars than probably anyone else in this world.
And I know they don't work. What happens?
People feel good about this and they feel that they learn some psychological trick and they calm down, but you know it doesn't go deep, it just still remains on the surface of some some kind of tricks and you know some some kind of feel-good feeling, uh you know, which which doesn't really change.
You know, one lady psychologist, also a devotional psychologist, she said once an amazing thing, she said, you know, she told the story about one lady who was frequented in all these trainings and everything.
And this lady came to this psychologist for consultation and this lady said, you know, please teach me how what to do with my daughter. And uh the psychologist asked, What's wrong with your daughter? She hates me.
And recently she said, Mom, Mom, I hate you, but especially I hate you when you come after psychological trainings.
Because I know that at this point, for few moments you will you will use some trick on me, but ultimately it will become false.
You know, uh ultimately that's a very interesting thing. It sometimes we substitute the real process of emotional service by all by all this stuff. You know, and that's very common in ISKCON.
It's a very, it's a very, you know, strong trend in this call. As a result, as a reaction of some failures to change something. So we apply this technique. Doesn't work.
And this other thing, you know, other school which you described, you know, you just crash your false ego and do it and then it just you just It works to a certain extent, but it's not our process.
What I wanted to say, and it's good news. How smoking I wanted to have the good news I mean that this second
Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura, he has a lot to say about this. He said that the second method, he said this is not the ocean method.
This is the method of jñāna. When you try to really, really kind of chase to the force and you know get rid of your false ego and everything.
But, you know, that would very interestingly explain that this is the sign that there is some mixture in your understanding.
Some jñāna-miśrā-bhakti or some mixture of jñāna is there in your understanding of the process of devotional service and you're trying to expediate or expedite or kind of you know improve so to speak the process of devotional service through the
techniques which are foreign to the devotional process.
All the strict and tapasya, sometimes people, you know, they really want, they're very sincere, they really want to get it to someone or two and then it become just fasting and So
this is a good news we can this is also both don't you give yeah stuff very clearly says that this is the, you know, the mixture of this is not pure devotional service, the process of changing of the heart through the pure devotional service has nothing to do with it.
Anyway, so that was my first question.
Receiving divine mercy through sadhana
I'm very sorry for this about what means the change that happened tomorrow, hopefully not examining
For an aspiring devotee, how much endeavor, how much sincerity, how much changing of the heart must there be before Krishna bestows his mercy.
Well, no, Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa is very generous, especially in the form of Lord Caitanya. And we have to really understand what his mercy is. When a devotee gets the mercy, it's always absolutely causeless,
not by our doing or happening. By meeting with the devotees, it's causeless. So Jiva Goswami, he gives a very beautiful explanation in
one of his commentaries to Caitanya-caritāmṛta. He wrote a very long comment on this verse from Ādi-līlā. And he said that Lord Caitanya is totally mad.
And he's like a mad king who after great victory starts distributing all his riches. And he has a big kind of, you know, box with all his riches, treasuries,
and he just—and he says, you know, he—he distributes three kinds of riches. He says he gives golden coins—that's his causeless— he gives sapphire, blue sapphire, in-granting prema-bhakti. And he gives cintāmaṇi gems.
Three kinds of riches he gives, probably. And he said that the golden coins, it's sādhana-bhakti. Sometimes we think, you know, sādhana-bhakti is not something—prema-bhakti, that's real something. This is real causeless.
We have to be very clear about this point. The very fact that we are engaged in the process of sādhana-bhakti is the manifestation of mercy of Kṛṣṇa, which is completely causeless. You know, of course, we need sapphires.
And I said sapphire is bhāva-bhakti, and cintāmaṇi gems is prema-bhakti.
And we are—so if—if we are to be very honest, and we are questioning, it doesn't—it doesn't take anything, it only takes, uh, somehow or other to meet the devotees' association, and immediately mercy is there.
But this mercy in the beginning, in the form of mercy, and then in the beginning of our entrance into sādhana-bhakti process, that's also mercy. Then the higher grades of mercy are there.
And that really depends how we deal with the first installment of mercy, which is there. The first installment of mercy is that we get mercy in the form of sādhana-bhakti. So how do we deal with this mercy?
Whether we express our constant gratitude that we have this mercy, then, you know, the next installment of mercy can also be there in form of bhāva-bhakti and prema-bhakti.
So, but, uh, other than this, it's very difficult to answer the question because you know how much it really depends. Sometimes you may get cintāmaṇi gems just by being in the right place at the right moment of time.
But unfortunately for us, we went somewhere else 500 years ago and think that is doing very freely. By now mostly gold coins are there. Which is also quite good.
Especially if we consider that we didn't have anything Iraq ask this question. Last question, I'll bring it on. It's a very brief one. I was interested in a new version. First of all, thank you for the nice question.
You know, in the Bhāgavatam, first canto of Bhāgavatam, there is a famous verse, Naṣṭa-prāyeṣv abhadreṣu nityaṁ bhāgavata-sevayā.
And there is a commentary of Śrīla Prabhupāda and also the Prabhupāda refers to Śrīdhara Svāmī, that the heart cannot be completely purified.
You know, the verse itself says that by hearing and chanting and rendering service to pure devotee, all those trouble that trouble the heart, they're almost but not completely. So I was wondering what is um what is your understanding?
Why it cannot be completely... It can be. It can be if you continue the process.
It's just this particular verse in Sutta Gaswani's explanation or description of devotional process signifies a state of Nisha or other Anatomy. So it's just a description of a very beginning stage of devotional service and he doesn't stop there.
At the end, he says what is this Tindanti Sava Sabasamsharaha?
That all the doubts and misgivings are completely destroyed, and all your karma is completely finished, the chain of your karmic reaction is totally gone, and you see in front of yourself God. So that's the end.
He just says that initially if you if you do this, and by the way, this particular verse is the topic of my tomorrow's discussion, if you just do this, nityaṁ bhāgavata-sevayā, then naṣṭa-prāyeṣv abhadreṣu. Practically everything which is troublesome in the heart is is being destroyed. So it's it's just a description of this particular screen.
And if you do it properly, and Prabhupāda very much stresses in the purport to this verse that you should do that this process works only if you do it properly.
So tomorrow we will kind of discuss what it means to do this process properly. uh hearing, Bhāgavata-prabhu. But you know and and that's that's that's our meant.
We don't belong to these two schools which which were this kind of and it worked then. How can they come to complete this? Thank you very much.