CC Madhya-lila 19.167
Бхакти Вигьяна Госвами · Вриндаван · 2007
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Om namo bhagavate vāsudevāya, Om namo bhagavate vāsudevāya. Om namo bhagavate vāsudevāya,
Recitation of the definition of pure devotion
Om namo bhagavate vāsudevāya. So I was asked to speak about the teachings of Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu to Sri Rupa Goswami, which are described in the nineteenth chapter of Madhya-līlā.
So we will chant verse number one hundred sixty-seven: anyābhilāṣitā-śūnyam jñāna-karma-ādy-anāvṛtam ānukūlyena kṛṣṇānu- śīlanaṁ bhaktir uttamā
bila sita sunya, nya sunya, na karma dana vritam, Anu Gulya na Krishna, Gulena Krishna, Silaam Bhakti Rutama, Kila, Anya Vila Sitasitasunyamila Sitasu Djana karma dana vritham, nya kaam, Anukuriena Krishna no, sila nbhakti ruttama, Anyadila shiasanya karma dya vritham Anam Kurya Krishna Krishna Bhti Rutramas Anamas Without desires other than those for the service of Lord Krishna.
Or without material desires. Such as laws for meat eating, illicit sex, gambling and addiction to intoxicants. Yana by the knowledge of the philosophy of the monist mayavadis. Karma by fruit of activities.
By artificially practicing detachment, by the mechanical practice of yoga, by studying the sankha philosophy, by studying the sankha And so on. Anabritam not covered. Anukulyana favorable. Krishna Bhakti Nam.
Cultivation of service in relationship to Krishna. Bhakti hi Uttama First Class Devotional Service.
Translation and commentary on uttama bhakti
First class devotional service. Translation and purport by His Divine Grace Asi Bhaktividanta Swami Prabhupada.
When first class devotional service develops one must be devoid of all material desires, knowledge obtained by monistic philosophy and fruitic action.
The devotee must constantly serve Krishna favourably as Krishna desires purport. This verse is also found in Srila Rupa Gaswami's Bhaktira Samrita Sindhu 1111.
As we can understand from the Bhagavad Gita, the Supreme Personality of Bodhit wants everyone to think of him always. Manmana Bhava Mat Bhaktaha.
Everyone should become his devotee, not the devotee of a demigod. Everyone should engage in his devotional service, including Archana, deity worship in the temple. Man Mana Baba Mat Bhakto Mam Yaji Mam Namaskuru.
Everyone should offer obeisances from moment to moment to the Supreme Personality of Godhead. These are the desires of the Supreme Lord, and one who fulfills his desires favorably is actually a pure devotee.
Krishna wants everyone to surrender unto him, and devotional service means preaching this gospel all over the world.
The Lord says openly in the Bhagavad-gītā, Na ca tasmān manuṣyeṣu kaścin me priya-kṛttamaḥ. kaschinne Priya Kritama. One who preaches the gospel of the Bhagavad-gītā for the benefit of all is most dear to Krishna.
The Bhagavad-gītā is spoken by the Lord so that human society can be perfectly organized from all angles of vision politically, socially, economically, philosophically and religiously.
From any point of view, human society can be reformed by the Krishna consciousness movement.
Therefore, one who spreads this philosophy of Krishna consciousness for the benefit of all conditioned souls in the universe is perfect in pure devotional service.
The criterion is that a devotee must know what Krishna wants him to do. This understanding can be achieved through the medium of a spiritual master who is a bona fide representative of Krishna.
Śrīla Rūpa Gosvāmī advises ādau gurv-āśrayam. One who is serious in wanting to render pure devotional service to the Lord must take shelter of a spiritual master who comes in a disciplined succession from Krishna.
Evaṁ paramparā-prāptam imaṁ rājarṣayo viduḥ. Without accepting a bona fide spiritual master coming in the disciplined succession, one cannot find out the real purpose of devotional service.
Therefore, one has to accept the shelter of a bona fide spiritual master and agree to be directed by him.
The first business of a pure devotee is to satisfy his spiritual master, whose only business is to spread Krishna consciousness.
And if one can't and if one can satisfy the spiritual master, Krishna is automatically satisfied. Yasya prasādād bhagavat-prasādaḥ. This is the success of devotional service. This is the meaning of the word anukulyan.
That is favorable devotional service to the Lord. A pure devotee has no plans other than those of the Lord's service.
He is not interested in attaining success in mundane activities. He simply wants success in the progress of devotional service. For a devotee that cannot be worship of others or demigod worship.
If your devotee does not engage himself in such a pseudo devotional service, he is interested only in satisfying Krishna.
If one lives only for the satisfaction of Krishna, it does not matter whether he belongs to this order of life or that order of life. One's only business should be to satisfy Krishna.
This process is completely manifest in the activities of the Krishna consciousness movement. It has been actually proved that the entire world can accept devotional service without failure.
One simply has to follow the instructions of the representative of Krishna. Anyabhilashtita-sunyam jñana-karmady-anavritam anakulyam krishnanushilanam bhaktir uttama. Ruttama.
When first class devotional service develops, one must be devoid of all material desires, knowledge obtained by monistic philosophy and fruit of action.
The devotee must constantly serve Krishna favorably as Krishna desires.
om vishnu-padaya krishna-presthaya bhutale srimate bhaktivedanta-swamin iti namine namaste sarasvate deve gauravani-pracharine nirvishesha-shunyavadi-paschatya-desha-tarine pashchatya-desha-tarine
namah krishna-presthaya bhutale srimate bhaktivedanta-swamin iti namine namaste sarasvate deve gauravani-pracharine nirvishesha-shunyavadi-paschatya-desha-tarine
Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare Hare Rama, Hare Rama Rama Rama, Hare Hare
So first of all, I would beg permission from His Holiness Devamit Maharaj, Janananda Prabhu and other senior devotees to be able to speak.
Empowerment of Rupa Goswami at Prayag
Only after that I can start. I was asked to speak on this very essential and
important topic in the view of upcoming Gaura Purnima, the teachings of Lord Chaitanya through Rupa Goswami. We know that Rupa Goswami was the closest and the most important associate of Lord Chaitanya. And Lord Chaitanya specifically invested him with the power to spread Krishna consciousness.
His initial desire and his main mission of coming to this world, besides the internal reasons for this, was to spread Krishna consciousness movement.
He wanted to make this very clear because this is Yuga Dharma, because this is the only way for salvation in this age of Kali.
But he also had some other business to do, therefore he very carefully had chosen the best people and empowered them to perform this task.
And six Goswamis of Vrindavana, his the best representatives, who came here on his order to give the humanity this, precious gift of Krishna consciousness. And this act of empowerment has taken place in Prayag, Allahabad.
Before Silarupa Gaswami came here in Vrindavan for the first time. For ten days, Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu in a secluded place at Dashaswamethghat in Prayag was instructing him in the intricacies of devotional service.
When he finished his instructions, he said to him, "I gave to you the outline. Actually his instructions are very brief. He only chalked out the whole outline of the realm of devotional service.
And then he told him that now you have to meditate on my instructions. And with the help of Krishna from within the heart, you have to elaborate on these points. And to describe it in all details. You have to fill up the gaps which are still there.
So in the 19th chapter of Madhya-līlā of Śrī Caitanya-caritāmṛta, this outline is beautifully given by Kṛṣṇa-dāsa Kavirāja Gosvāmī, and I have chosen this verse, which is the most essential verse of uh Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu, to speak a few words on this.
We only have a few minutes left. So basically what Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu wanted, he wanted uh to establish devotional service in such a way that it is available for everyone. He himself was a spiritual genius.
He was filled with transcendental buff and these emotions were coming from him as a fountain head. He was just you know bubbling with these emotions. And this is the essence of spiritual life which he wanted to prove.
But he also wanted to chalk out the path for us to follow. Because if he would establish the devotional service on the foundation of his emotions, it would last for some time.
Those devotees who would see his example would be inspired to follow his footsteps and would try to imitate his emotions or would try to do something. But he didn't want uh cheap imitations.
He wanted to establish devotional service first of all on the firm basis of the scriptures and that was the specific task which he gave to Śrīla Rūpa Gosvāmī. He explained to him the whole structure of the practice
of devotional service, but he also told him you do it on the basis of Shastra. Whatever you do have to be firmly based on Shastra. We know there are so many different bhakti movements of branches of bhakti movements.
And so many of these branches are not really established on the basis of Shastra. One of the most prominent nowadays branches of so-called Bhakti is Swaminarayan Sampradaya. And they don't study Shastra.
You go to their bookshop. There's no Bhagavad-gītā even there. You cannot even find Bhagavad-gītā in their you know in their shops.
They do follow Swami Narayan, who was a bhakta, who was firmly following Bhagavad-gītā and Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, who was giving these courses on Bhagavad-gītā and Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. But his followers somehow or other misconstrued his teachings.
So first point of uh Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu was to establish bhakti uh on the firm basis of Shastra to prove that all the emotions which are there, which he manifested, is not just concoction.
Sometimes we can see all these emotions being manifested by different people. But unless it is established on the basis of the Shastra we cannot know for sure whether it's spiritual emotions or not.
So this is initial or starting point of
the whole teachings uh of uh Caitanya Mahāprabhu. Even while uh instructing Rūpa Gosvāmī he would be quoting many many śāstra quotes to explain how bhakti is the highest achievement of humanity.
It's not just a sentimental kind of uh attitude which one develops through some mental imbalance. Like Sachimata when Chaitanya Mahabhu came from Miss Bengal, she saw that he has become a little crazy.
And the doctors said that the airs are deserated in his head. That's why he is manifesting bhakti. But the point of his teaching is that it's not imbalance of the ears in the head. It's a real result of our development of
spiritual process which is firmly established in the ancient shastras. It's not concoctions. Sometimes, of course, we say that Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu was a revolutionary. He gave so many things which were not there.
Like today, when I saw how the Vamritamaraj was jumping in the kīrtana, I was actually enjoying this beautiful scene of his jumping in the kīrtana. I remembered uh another scene from Caitanya-bhāgavata when uh
King Pratāparudra for the first time in his life saw this kīrtana of the devotees of Lord Chaitanya.
When the devotees of Lord Chaitanya came to Jagannātha Purī and then King Pratāparudra saw this kīrtana, this prema-kīrtana of Lord Chaitanya. And King Pratāparudra, even though he was the king of the most holy place in the whole of India, he was amazed to see this scene.
And he asked Sārvabhauma Bhaṭṭācārya, what is this? What kind of worship it is? What kind of sadhana it is? I've never seen this before. And King Prataparudra told him, this is Chaitanya Srishti,
which Which literally means this is invention of Lord Chaitanya. He invented it. He introduced it. This is his uh innovation, this is his addition to the practice which has never been seen before.
But all these innovations again have the foundation in the Shastra.
Exceptional rarity of pure devotional service
And when Lord Chaitanya started speaking about bhakti, his first point was that it is established in the ancient scriptures in the Shastras, and his second point was that despite the fact that it is so
firmly and so clearly established in the Shastras, it's very difficult to achieve. He starts his teaching to Rupa Goswami by explaining how rare Bhakti is. He says there are eight million uh four hundred forms of life.
This uh lakṣa-caurāśī, form that 8,400,000 forms of life is there. And out of this, you know, some of them are movable, some are immovable. The consciousness is hardly developed.
Out of this 8,400,000, only 400,000 is human forms of life. Out of 400,000 human forms of life, only few people follow Shastra. He starts again his establishment of Bhakti saying that only
few follow Shastra, and of those who follow Shastra, only few who really follow Shastra? Most of them just say I follow Shastra and we can see. You know the rest of the world can care less about Shastra.
In India Shastra is still somewhere there, but who really follows Shastra in India. Only very few people. Only very few people know what Shastra is. So Lord Chaitanya says out of those who perfectly follow Shastra,
the majority, the vast majority, the millions of them, are all following karma-kāṇḍa. They really want to follow Shastra for some material benefit. There is no other purpose in their following whatsoever.
They just want some material selfish gain. And therefore they follow Shastra. They, they are just grossly materialistic. Even though they are so called religious people, ultimately that in essence they're materialists.
And he says that out of millions and millions, Koti Koti he says, out of many many millions of such karmis or materialists who follow Shastra, there is hardly one jñānī. Who knows the essence of Shastra?
Who knows that the Shastra actually teaches the spiritual teaching that ultimately the purpose of Shastra is to obtain the spiritual knowledge.
And he says, out of millions of jñānīs, hardly one is mukta. The one who really achieved liberation. And out of millions and millions of these muktas, there is hardly one a pure devotee. He says it's extremely rare.
Even if you follow Shastra, even though in the Shastras it's so clearly established that bhakti is the goal of life, again and again it is repeated that everything else is futile, still people somehow or other get bewildered.
So the main point of this description is first of all to show that bhakti is the most rare and the most precious achievement of human life, the most essential goal of human life.
But then after describing how rare it is, being the essential goal, Lord Chaitanya wants to explain how this goal can be achieved. It's rare. There is no doubt about it. But he wants to explain the path to this goal.
Attaining divine grace through devotional endeavors
Basically, uh, what he's uh attempting to do and what Śrīla Rūpa Gosvāmī so beautifully explained in his Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu is to uh explain the path and the realm Sindhu is to uh explain the path and the realm where there is no path.
When Srimad Bhagavatam explains Bhakti, usually
in the explanation of the path of Bhakti, Srimad Bhagavatam like for example, when Krishna talks to Uddhava, and when Krishna explains to Uddhava how bhakti can be achieved, he uses the very enigmatic Sanskrit word yadricha.
Yadricha means somehow or other. Somehow or other one gets faith and somehow or other one gets bhakti. And somehow or other means, you know. Means somehow or other. It means you cannot do anything to achieve it.
Basically, when uh the bhakti is explained and it is it's explained in a very mysterious way.
It's uh, uh, a rare stroke of good fortune. You know you get good fortune and this good fortune is coming to you and just because of this good fortune you get bhakti. And that's it.
So what is there remaining for us to do? If we really know that the bhakti is the goal, if we know that this is the goal, we need to have means to achieve this goal.
We need to have real means which we have to do to feel good about it at least. And you know usually it is described that somehow or other you just wait when the bhakti descends upon your heart.
But in reality, this secret of sadhana or specific systematic actions which you should do to achieve bhakti is also hidden in the Shastras.
And the essence of teaching of Śrīman Mahāprabhu to Śrīla Rūpa Gosvāmī is to explain this secret how bhakti, which is not achievable by our endeavors, can still be achieved by endeavors. Because what is sadhana?
Sadhana is our own endeavours, right? Can bhakti be achieved by endeavors? No. Bhakti by definition is ahaituki. A haituki means causeless. Causeless means I cannot do anything to achieve it.
So uh uh uh Mahaprabhu is explaining how to achieve something which is not achievable by material means. How to get causeless mercy of Krishna through the performance of bhakti.
And he very beautifully establishes and explains this mystery. He basically says that uh the whole progress of bhakti starts when we meet with devotee.
He says, bhagyavan jiva. If jiva is very fortunate, he meets a pure devotee. And this is the starting point of his bhakti. There is no other way to achieve bhakti.
There is not any other way than to meet a pure devotee. And this is a strike of our good fortune.
When sometimes devotees ask Śrīla Prabhupāda, uh what pious uh karma they have created in the past to be able to perform bhakti.
Śrīla Prabhupāda looked at them and said, you have no pious credit whatsoever. It's a very encouraging statement for all of us. He says, I created your good karma. I created your good fortune.
And actually Śrīla Prabhupāda himself explains in Bhagavad-gītā in uh seventh chapter of Bhagavad-gītā that the only purpose of a pure devotee to come to this world is to create the good fortune for all living beings.
The only purpose of the pure devotees to tread this past this earth is to somehow or other give other people opportunity to serve them and Prabhupāda explains that even by seeing pure devotee, you serve pure devotee.
So he is also very strongly speaking in this regard in the purport to this verse which we read today that our whole progress of devotional service entirely depends on our relationship with the pure devotee.
Pure devotee comes and he gives us this good fortune. And this good fortune is the bīja uh of bhakti latā. From the very beginning bhakti is transcendental and it's coming from the transcendental source and
this transcendental source is the heart of a pure devotee. So from the heart of a pure devotee we get this bīja seed of pure devotional service and later on our feeble endeavours to cultivate this
seed uh is uh ultimately uh only not to harm the seed which is sown in our heart by the pure devotee. The seed of bhakti or bhakti latā bīja is fed.
How about once sometimes people get bewildered and try to get some esoteric explanation: what is this bhakti-lata-bija? Sometimes they ask, you know, whether I have bhakti-lata-bija or not.
You know, after 15 years of practicing devotional service, they ask this, you know, very genius question. Whether I have the seed or not. Whether m my spiritual master gave me the seed or not.
Prabhupada explains it very simply. He says when you get the faith which enables you to follow regulative principles, it means you have the seed.
Otherwise, you know, where in the world we can have this strange idea to follow four regulative principles? It's it's it's a very strange idea indeed, you know.
So and it's coming it's coming from the pure heart of a pure devotee who gives us the faith and the symptoms of this faith is that we start uh cultivating bhakti uh by trying to follow regulative principles and chanting the holy name.
And Caitanya Mahāprabhu proceeds to say that when this seed of devotional service is sown in our heart, then it sprouts.
Essential simplicity of practicing devotional service
And the only thing which we have to do is to water it with the water of Śravaṇaṁ kīrtanam. Actually, devotional service is very simple.
Prabhupada was a great proponent of this principle of simplicity of devotional service. Sometimes we being complicated ourselves are trying to complicate this whole process.
How about you know once I heard his lecture where he explains how simple devotional service is. He says, you know, you get you know you get śraddhā from a pure devotee, you meet with a pure devotee, you get some śraddhā.
And then, you know, after that, sadhu sangha, you associate with pure devotee, you hear him for a few days. And then after hearing him for a few days, you know you get initiation, Dīkṣā, and bhajana- kriyā starts.
And then he says, anartha-nivṛtti. And he says, what is anartha-nivṛtti? Anartha-nivṛtti, he says, what is anartha? Anartha means meat eating, intoxication, gambling. So when you give it up, you achieved anartha.
Anartha-nivṛtti, sorry. So sometimes we you know we also ponder whether we achieve this anartha-nivṛtti.
Prabhupāda says when you follow four regulative principles, all your anarthas are finished. Because this is what anartha [is]. And then he says, niṣṭhā. Niṣṭhā is very simple.
You come to maṅgala-ārati every day, this is niṣṭhā. That's it. What else do you need to be able to say that I have niṣṭhā? Nishṭhā means you follow sādhana-bhakti and do it in a simple way.
And then ruchi, ruchi means, you know, you feel good. When the kīrtana is there, it's ruchi. It's not something mysterious. You know you you really really feel good when the kīrtana is going on, it's ruchi.
And then you chant like Devamrita Maharaja in kīrtana, this is a śakti and but But really when Caitanya Mahāprabhu explains the process of devotional service to Śrīla Rūpa Gosvāmī, he does explain it in very simple terms.
He says that the only thing which you have to do is not complicate. You just have to water the little sprout of your bhakti-latā within your heart by hearing and by kīrtanam, by chanting the holy name.
And then you have to guard against the offences. And he doesn't even elaborate about offences. He says there is basically one offense. He doesn't mention anything else.
He says there is one offense which is mad elephant offense if you offend Vaiṣṇavas. And if if you offend Vaiṣṇavas, you're finished. Your bhakti-latā is totally finished.
But if you don't do this, if you avoid this, and if you see the little sprouts of other unwanted desires, you just plug them out and uh continue on
uh watering the sprout of your bhakti and ultimately it will reach Vaikuṇṭha. Not only will it reach Vaikuṇṭha, it will cross beyond Vaikuṇṭha. And it will reach the lotus feet of Lord Krishna.
And because it's latā, because it's uh it's uh uh how do you call it? Creeper.
Uprooting unwanted desires and avoiding offenses
Creeper, because it's a creeper, uh it will take the shelter of lotus feet, the tree of lotus feet of Krishna. And only when it reaches the lotus feet of Krishna it bears the fruit.
This is a very essential point of his teaching, is that ultimately fruit of bhakti even even though it depends on our cultivation, as it is said here, anyābhilāṣitā-śūnyam jñāna-karma-ādy-anāvṛtam ānukūlyena kṛṣṇānuśīlanam, although it depends Vritam Anukuliana Krishna Anu Silana, although it depends on our cultivation, cultivation of devotional service and the purity of our mood, how we cultivate devotional service, ultimately the fruit of devotional service is given by Krishna.
This is how Caitanya Mahāprabhu resolves this paradox that bhakti is not coming as a result of our endeavors. Still, we have to do our endeavors, and our endeavors is already in the realm of bhakti.
From the very beginning, sādhana-bhakti, starting with śraddhā, little śraddhā within our heart, uh is bhakti. And when we cultivate bhakti, it's in the realm of bhakti.
It's not something bhakti is only coming from bhakti. So we get Shraddha from the heart of a pure devotee. And then our endeavors is not the cause of bhakti, but it is the activity within the realm of bhakti.
And that's why ultimately, because we are from the very beginning, acting in the which is Krishna prema. Sometimes, again, devotees are being confused whether they're pure devotees or not.
Once in Australia, Prabhupada said, uh, by looking at his disciples, he said, All my disciples are pure devotees. And somebody had some doubt, some doubt at this point.
He said, Prabhupada, he was a little uncomfortable. He said, Prabhupada, don't you know what we did before we joined Krishna consciousness?
You know, by calling us a pure devotee, pure devotees, you're giving us a very high pedestal. You know. Prabhupada said, it doesn't matter.
Your main qualification is that when you heard the sound of the Holy Name, you start running on this sound of the Holy Name. And that's why you're pure devotees.
And Śrīla Rūpa Gosvāmī basically he gives this definition of pure devotional service or uttamā bhakti for all the stages. It's not that the pure devotee is only on the stage of, you know, prema. No.
Even when you get śraddhā, if you get the śraddhā from the pure source, you are a pure devotee.
And if you are trying to cultivate this devotional service in a proper manner under the instruction of a pure devotee, you are a pure devotee.
Śrīla Prabhupāda in this purport he again and again stresses this point that this ānuk uh uh anuśīlanaṁ, Kṛṣṇa anuśīlanaṁ, ānukūlyena Kṛṣṇa-anuśīlanaṁ, this svarūpa-lakṣaṇam of pure devotional service described in this verse of Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu is entirely dependent on the instructions of a pure devotee.
We get bhakti or seed of bhakti from the heart of a pure devotee in the form of śraddhā. But then how do we know what is pleasing to Krishna? Ānukūlyena Kṛṣṇa-anuśīlanaṁ. We have to do something in relationship to Krishna.
And anu means it's coming through the disciplic succession. Kṛṣṇa-anuśīlanaṁ. Śīlanaṁ means our own endeavors.
But again, from the very beginning, from the starting point, this endeavor is bhakti. This endeavor is not some preparation. This endeavor is already in the realm of pure bhakti. But to be pure, it has to be connected with Krishna.
How is it connected with Krishna? Kṛṣṇa-anuśīlanaṁ. Through this prefix of anu. And Anu signifies parampara. This is how you get the purity and the understanding how to follow or how to follow cultivate bhakti.
Because so many angas of bhakti are delineated by Śrīla Rūpa Gosvāmī in Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu, one of them is serving the cows. Assembly to Sindhu, one of them is serving the cows.
You know, and so many people they're serving the cows. Not only here in India in Russia also there are so many cow farms. Does it mean that they develop bhakti? Not really.
Or sometimes also people they don't understand this. How it is connected.
So what is essential in this definition of pure devotional service, which is the uh essence of the teachings of uh Śrīla Rūpa Gosvāmī, is this connection with the pure devotional service through the pure devotee.
Kṛṣṇānusīlanam. And Prabhupada, while explaining this, he doesn't go into little esoteric details of this verse because there are so many interesting points of this verse. But he goes directly to the root of this verse.
He says the purity of our devotional service. And the point and the distinguishing feature of our sampradaya is the purity of devotional sources. Bhakti is there.
Bhakti is there in Sri Sampradaya, Bhakti is there in Madhva Sampradaya and Nimbharta Sampradaya, everywhere. But nowhere is this scientific analysis, what makes our bhakti pure.
And this definition of pure bhakti is given here in this verse, anyābhilāṣitā-śūnyam jñāna-karmādy-anāvṛtam. Vritam.
And Prabhupada, while explaining this verse again, gives the essence of the essence of this verse, which is connection with a pure devotee, and following the instructions of a pure devotee.
Spreading divine consciousness as the primary mission
And what is pure devotee is supposed to do? He says the pure devotee, his only business is to spread Krishna consciousness. As Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu came to this world to spread Krishna consciousness.
As he gave these teachings to Śrīla Rūpa Gosvāmī, and In order to empower him to spread Krishna consciousness all over the world, again to explain this path of Krishna consciousness, to explain the sadhana of Krishna consciousness, to make it accessible for all of us.
In a similar way, the business of any pure devotee is just to spread Krishna consciousness.
And what is our business? Those who are maybe not so pure in heart, our business is just to follow him. Our business is just to serve him. He says this is the perfection. yasyādِه gatiḥ kutaḥ.
You just serve the pure devotee, and then you can be sure that the mercy of Krishna will come to you. Sometimes we have these doubts, you know, whether I get the mercy of Krishna or not.
You know, I bet it's 61 rounds is enough or not. Maybe I should, you know, maybe I should do something really far out to achieve the mercy of Krishna.
How can I achieve the mercy of Krishna without having my siddhasvarūpa? You know, and better get the siddhasvarūpa, this and that. So many things are there.
But Śrīla Rūpa Gosvāmī, by giving the synopsis of pure devotional service, He explains it very clearly. You do something which is clear, which is pleasing to Krishna. This is the essence.
This is svarūpa-lakṣaṇa of pure devotional service. Do something which is pleasing. How do you know what is pleasing to Krishna? How in the world you can know what is pleasing to Krishna?
There is only one way to know what is pleasing to Krishna. Just to ask his pure devotee and he will tell you this is pleasing, this is not pleasing.
He will tell you that to get Siddhasvarupa from somebody who doesn't know what is his Siddhasvarupa is not pleasing to Krishna. It's not really pleasing. It's not the process. It's not what you're supposed to do.
What you are supposed to do, you are supposed to serve the instructions of somebody who knows what is pleasing to Krishna.
And then you will be you know you can be sure that your devotional service remains pure, your practice remains pure.
And later on after describing this Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu explains how um this purity of the heart which is achieved through our humble endeavors to please a pure devotee how it increases day by day through our practice of devotional service and by increasing in our heart it intensifies and takes the shape of pure love.
He explains all the stages of pure love of uh sneha and then māna and then praṇaya and then rāga, anurāga, bhāva and uh ultimately mahā-bhāva. He goes to the highest possible realms of devotional service.
But all these high stages of devotional service are based on a very simple foundation. And the simple foundation, the simplicity of this foundation, we should never lose from our side.
This is the pleasure of a pure devotee whose only business is to spread the glories of the Supreme Personality of God all over the world, and our role in this is to serve him in his endeavours.
And that's the essence of the teachings of Śrīman Mahāprabhu. Śrīla Rūpa Gosvāmī explains all these different rasas and uh uh there is no time to do this, my time is already over.
But if we want to know the essence of the essence. And this verse is the essence of the essence. But then Prabhupada explains by commenting on this verse and
explaining the essence of the essence, he explains the essence of the essence of the essence. And the essence of the essence of the essence is the pleasure of a pure devotee.
From whom we got the seed of bhakti, from whom we got the Shraddha in the form of faith or trust and the path of devotional service.
We got this determination or trust that we should follow this path of devotional service from Śrīla Prabhupāda.
And if we want to achieve any success, if we want to get any mercy of Krishna, it entirely depends on our success in pleasing Śrīla Prabhupāda and his representatives.
And this is the foundation of the success of Krishna consciousness movement as Śrīla Prabhupāda explains in this purport.
Addressing internal obstacles and avoiding diversions
I guess I have to finish now, my time is over. Thank you very much. We we see sometimes devotees when they come to Vrindavan they they they look for something higher, as what Śrīla Prabhupāda said. Of course.
And uh Śrīla Prabhupāda gave pure faith. So it depends on the devotees how they receive. We're getting so much and we're not able to to receive or whatever.
We're not able to have everything that we we are actually needing for bhakti, but it seems to me that still there's some something missing in our side that that's why devotees are looking for something higher.
What is missing? Actually it is also explained here by uh Caitanya Mahāprabhu. He explains very clearly. He explains very clearly that bhakti is simple.
The seed is there, you water it by Shravanam and Kirtanam, and it will sprout and it will grow. Then there will be obstacles.
And this obstacles he explains this is niṣiddhācāra and Kutinati and Jiva Himsa and Labha and Puja and Pratishta and so many other obstacles are there. And we stumble over these obstacles.
And instead of pointing out to ourselves that this is our fault and we are not able to approve this unwanted desires from our heart. We try to find faults in the teachings of Srila Prabhupada or in the teachings of his representative or in the his presentation and we say you know there's somebody who will explain to me how I should do it.
The fault is ours. And Caitanya Mahāprabhu very clearly says this is the fault. You see the unwanted desires is in your heart. But somehow or other we're not bold enough and not honest enough to uproot these desires.
And this is the this is a this is the hard part, this is the painful part. This is what is missing from our part.
But then as a result of this, because we are not careful enough to uproot all because we're not careful enough in our practice, because we're not pure enough in our practice of devotional service, we don't achieve these results, we don't get sneha
or māna or praṇaya or rāga or anurāga or mahā-bhāva and we say oh yeah this is because because our guru is not qualified to give me the pure devotional service.
But we're not doing this and this is what is missing and therefore people are trying to look to shop around.
You know, and you can find you know rāgānuga-bhakti in every shop on Loi Bazar, they sell it there. If you are ready to pay they will sell it no problem. And you get bewildered ultimately. And you lose the simplicity.
Again, when Śrīla Rūpa Gosvāmī explains it it's simple. When Śrīman Mahāprabhu explains it it's even more simple. And it is simple.
He doesn't go into all the esoteric details. It's nice, but it ultimately uh it's all bewildering unless you have the firm foundation within your heart and the simplicity of devotional service.
If this foundation is there, everything else is nice. It's it's beautiful, it's decoration of your devotional service. If you only have decorations but don't have foundation, try to build a
house and there's no foundation, only decorations are hanging there. Doesn't work. You will end up creating a mess. So people they don't have this simplicity and therefore they're trying to.
And uh they're lazy uh to practice properly the painful part of devotional service, which is approaching all these unwanted desires. Okay.
Unique features of Gaudiya Vaishnava philosophy
Yes. I don't understand one part which you say that our key is there and other sampradāya is also. But the purity of our devotional service is because of our condition of your religion.
I meant to say is that the trademark of all sampradāyas is this scientific analysis how bhakti can become contaminated.
Whereas in other sampradāyas, even though the teachings of bhakti is there, uh it's not being described uh in the uh uh so clearly, so to speak.
Like if you go to Śrī Sampradāya, in Śrī Sampradāya bhakti is not even regarded so highly. What we call bhakti, they call uh prapatti or surrender. And they say bhakti is just some ceremonial worship.
That's what they call bhakti. But of course, they do have pure bhakti there. But this distinction between pure bhakti and how pure bhakti can be adulterated is not so clearly explained in Śrī Sampradāya.
What to speak about Madhva Sampradāya when Caitanya Mahāprabhu came to Udupi, He was not very pleased with their goal in life and with their practices.
Even though he appreciated their service to the deity of Udupi, Kṛṣṇa, with love, still, he said that the goal of life is not clearly established, sādhya is not clearly established, and sādhana is not clearly established.
What Śrīla Rūpa Gosvāmī did, he took the ocean of the scriptures. And he extracted from the ocean of the scriptures all these points
and he said, "This is pure devotional service. Everything else outside of this is not pure devotional service. This is the goal of pure devotional service: love of Kṛṣṇa.
Because in other sampradāyas, uh, they don't even say that love of Kṛṣṇa is the goal. Even in Śrī Sampradāya, they say that mukti is the goal.
Śrī Sampradāya is a very pure sampradāya, but they don't say that love is the goal. Mukti, liberation is the goal. So the distinguishing feature of our sampradāya is that the goal is very clearly established.
The means to this goal, of sādhana, is very clearly established.
And how, uh, the means to this goal can be adulterated in the course of our imperfect, uh, performance of bhakti is also explained: what are the contaminations which can sneak into our practice of devotional service and how we have to guard against all these contaminations.
It's not that—I didn't mean to say that in other sampradāyas there are no pure devotees. Of course there are. Of course, Śrīpāda Rāmānujācārya, Madhvācārya, great devotees of the Lord, they're pure devotees of the Lord.
There's no doubt about it. But in their practice and in their understanding not everything is so clearly established as, uh, was established by Rūpa Gosvāmī by the instruction.
think uh uh that uh misunderstanding between the end of the In the other centre that doesn't it be due to the lack of speech and lack of uh
so much of uh training to the work is doing because when he is not doing something. Not necessarily. Not only, let's say, what Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu wanted to say also is that the teachings are not entirely perfect.
He gave the perfect teachings of pure bhakti in his teachings to Rūpa Gosvāmī and Sanātana Gosvāmī and some other of his associates, where the emphasis on the pure bhakti is very clearly given.
Whereas in other sampradayas uh even though it is it is a bhakti sampradaya and Shiman Mahabrabhu extracted something from there. Uh the teachings are not entirely entirely perfect.
I I feel little difficult to speak about this because uh it may be seen as something presumptuous from our side. We have to be humble as Vaishnavas.
And we uh be great hold a great respect towards Ramanujacharya, his teachings and everything.
But you know, I was just there in Tirupati and they were nice Brahmanujacharya Brahmanas and they were chanting all kinds of mantras. But you know something was missing there. There was no kirtana.
And so many mantras were there and so many rituals were there. But uh you know, this um very clear and simple goal clearly established and simple means to achieve this goal are not there.
You know, all these rituals are there.
And it's nice for a change, but but ultimately it becomes little kind of mechanical and it does not establish this religion of the heart, Bhakti is the religion of the heart uh so firmly.
And therefore we see that this adulteration of uh castism is sneaking out in the sampradaya. You know, even though uh originally it's not there, but we see in Madhva Sampradaya it's very much there.
Sweetness of spontaneous love over majestic reverence
Only only Brahmanas can can practice bhakti and only Brahmanas can ach That's all that's also they gave Vaikuntha Bhakti. And that's true.
This is a central part of uh his teachings to Rupa Goswami which I uh missed in my presentation because at one point he starts saying that there is this Aishvarya jnana and there is this Madhurya jnana. And he says ultimately uh he doesn't say this, but uh he hints to this.
He says that ultimately to practice pure bhakti you have to relinquish this Aishwarya and you have to follow Madhurya.
And he gives so many examples from the shastras where he explains how uh in Mathura even uh the pure bhakti is tinged with this Aishwarya and this is not so pleasing to Krishna.
Because ultimately we are concerned with the pleasure of Krishna, ānukūlyena kṛṣṇānuśīlanam. And this is the svarūpa-lakṣaṇa of bhakti. And Krishna is not pleased with Aishwarya.
And uh Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu gives this example of Devaki and Vāsudeva, when Krishna killed Kamsa, they felt so much Aishwarya and so much awe and reverence. This is the Supreme Personality of Godhead.
Krishna came to them after so much separation with them, feeling this vātsalya,
feeling this, you know, love for them as the parents, and they, they started, you know, offering prayers, and he felt disgusted, he started crying, he said, «What is this? I didn't come to hear your prayers.
I came to experience your love and then they somehow or other they came to their senses. So this is there, this is also an essential part of the teachings of Caitanya Mahāprabhu. Gosvāmī.
Thank you very much for pointing it out. Anyway, thank you very much. Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu kī jaya! Gaurāpremānande!