It's a very difficult path. It requires so, so much labor. And still, when you reach this impersonal liberation, this kind of perfection, then you fall down at one point because you are neglecting the lotus feet of the Lord. So you can't stay there. It's no permanent position. It's not a stable platform because you become, as we spoke some not so long time we were discussing, you become bored and you become lonely. Because it's not the nature of the soul to be just floating in Brahman. We need loving relationships, we need engagement in the service of the Lord. That's our nature.
The soul is eternally active, Prabhupāda says. And if it lacks activities, spiritual activities, it will be attracted to material activities. And thus, the soul will fall down even from this wonderful brahmānanda situation. Or I don't know if it's so wonderful, but compared to material miseries, it's very wonderful.
Yeah, so it's the last snare of māyā to become attracted to this impersonal path and this impersonal liberation. And why is it so attractive, we can ask? I mean, Kṛṣṇa is all-attractive. Goloka Vṛndāvana, the spiritual world, when we read about it in the Kṛṣṇa Book, it's so wonderful. It's so super-attractive for the devotees. But actually, for a conditioned soul, this option of becoming one with the Lord is more attractive because, after all, we came to this material world because we desire to be... icchā-dveṣa-samutthena. Mukunda Prabhu was quoting this verse yesterday from Bhagavad-gītā. The cause, the reason why we come here is icchā and dveṣa. Icchā means desire. We desire to be like Kṛṣṇa, we desire to enjoy like God. And dveṣa, we have some hatred or some envy towards God, that we actually want to be in that position as the Supreme.
And therefore, of course, if a spiritual philosophy tells us that actually the goal is to become God, that's exactly what we wanted when we came here. We wanted to be God, so of course, it's very attractive and also that we don't have to subordinate ourselves to anyone. We are actually God. We just have to become free from the illusion and realize that we are God. Whereas the path of bhakti says that we have to surrender to Kṛṣṇa, subordinate ourselves and become servants. So this is very bitter truth for the conditioned soul. We don't like this concept of surrendering to someone. We don't like this subordination or serving somebody because we have this contamination, this impure desire of wanting to be the Supreme. So it's no wonder that this is the most popular philosophy in the world.
And it's so all-pervading, the māyāvāda philosophy. Prabhupāda is, it describes in his praṇāma mantra:
namas te sārasvate deve gaura-vāṇī-pracāriṇe
nirviśeṣa-śūnyavādi-pāścātya-deśa-tāriṇe
Prabhupāda came to deliver the world, the Western world, which is filled with impersonalism, nirviśeṣa, and śūnyavāda, impersonalism.
And Prabhupāda is, of course, very, very strongly preaching against this māyāvāda philosophy in so many places in his books and in so many lectures. He's all the time... and it is described in the Prabhupāda-līlāmṛta, at one point the disciples in the beginning, they were wondering why Prabhupāda is always speaking about this Māyāvādīs. Who are they actually? They must be some sect in India. But then at one point they realized that we are those Māyāvādīs, we are the impersonalists, because we are all so contaminated by this kind of philosophy. It's so deep in us here in the Western world.
Lord Caitanya also, He wanted to, actually He took sannyāsa to deliver all these most fallen people who are actually on the material platform they are very like kind of advanced and sophisticated people, very learned, often Vedāntists and like that, but they have this wrong philosophy. And they are the most difficult to preach to because they think they are already liberated, they are God. It's much more easy to approach some ordinary materialist and convince them of Kṛṣṇa consciousness, but this kind of people, they are the most difficult to convince because they already think they have everything together, they don't need anything, they are perfect. So Lord Caitanya, He actually took sannyāsa also to deliver these unfortunate personalities, like impersonalists, proud smārta-brāhmaṇa scholars and like that.
It's described in Caitanya-caritāmṛta how it came that He took sannyāsa, that one day Lord Caitanya, He was sitting at home and He was in a very special mood, and He was chanting the names of the gopīs. He was in a special mood, and He was chanting, 'gopī, gopī, gopī, gopī...' And then one student, some kind of, yeah, one student, he came there. He was like a non-believer, smārta-brāhmaṇa kind of person. He came and he heard Lord Caitanya chant, 'gopī, gopī, gopī...' So then he said to Lord Caitanya, 'Why are you chanting gopī, gopī, gopī? You should chant Hare Kṛṣṇa. Kṛṣṇa, it's said in the śāstras that Kṛṣṇa's name is very auspicious. You should chant Hare Kṛṣṇa.' He couldn't understand Lord Caitanya's mood.
So then Lord Caitanya became very angry. And now He was in the mood of the gopīs, so just like there is this story how Śrīmatī Rādhārāṇī, when Uddhava came to Vṛndāvana, there is a chapter called, I think, Bhramara-gītā, the Song of the Bumblebee. So then she was in a very special mood, and a bumblebee came to Śrīmatī Rādhārāṇī, and then she started speaking to this bumblebee and she started criticizing Kṛṣṇa in the ecstasy of love. Actually, it's a symptom of very high ecstasy of love of Kṛṣṇa, but apparently she was criticizing Kṛṣṇa in all kinds of ways, speaking to this bumblebee.
So Lord Caitanya, He was in the same mood, and then when He heard this boy speaking about Kṛṣṇa, He said, 'Oh, who is this Kṛṣṇa?' and He started criticizing Kṛṣṇa, 'This rascal Kṛṣṇa.' And then He took up a stick and He started chasing this brāhmaṇa who had mentioned the name of Kṛṣṇa. So this brāhmaṇa, he just ran away and Lord Caitanya ran after him.
And then this brāhmaṇa boy, he went to a place where so many students gathered, hundreds of students, and he told this incident. He was completely shocked, and he told them how Lord Caitanya had been chasing him with a stick when he tried to correct Him. And then all the other students, they became very upset because they had no understanding of who is Lord Caitanya and what is this ecstasy that He was experiencing. So they all started criticizing Lord Caitanya. And it became, it just spread and spread, all these learned brāhmaṇas, they started criticizing very heavily Lord Caitanya.
And then when Lord Caitanya heard about it, He became very, very sad and He was thinking, 'I incarnated in this world to save everyone, to deliver all the fallen conditioned souls, but now just the opposite has happened. Now everyone is criticizing Me.' So then He thought, 'How can I counteract this?' And then He came to this conclusion, that 'If they bow down to Me, then their offense will be counteracted. So if I take sannyāsa, then everyone will respect Me as a sannyāsī, and then they will bow down to Me, and in this way they will be delivered. They will make progress.' So that's how He came to that conclusion, and He gave up His very beautiful young wife, He gave up everything. He had wonderful gṛhastha life, but He gave it all up in order to save the most fallen, wretched conditioned souls.
Yes, so that was just actually a side point, but it's a nice story how Lord Caitanya took sannyāsa. So here Prabhupāda points out that devotional service, if one wants to become free from this material contamination, from the māyā's clutches, it has to be pure devotional service, and not, he says here, viddha-bhakti means contaminated, when there are all kinds of material motivations, but that will not give us mukti. But pure devotional service, parā bhakti.
And this is what Kardama Muni engaged in. He engaged in transcendental pure devotional service, and thus He became liberated. So what is pure devotional service? That is defined by Śrīla Rūpa Gosvāmī in Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu:
anyābhilāṣitā-śūnyaṁ
jñāna-karmādy-anāvṛtam
ānukūlyena kṛṣṇānu-
śīlanaṁ bhaktir uttamā
So, pure devotional service, anyābhilāṣitā-śūnyam, it must be freed from all other motivations. Abhilāṣ means desire, and anyābhilāṣitā means motivation. So it means that we can still have material desires, everyone has in this material world, we desire different things, but we have to be free from the motivation to gain something by performing devotional service, like respect or honor or money or whatever it may be. Such motivations cannot be there. We have to desire only to please Kṛṣṇa. And also it has to be free from jñāna and karma, the coverings of fruitive activities and mental speculation, and it has to be favorable, ānukūlyena, in order just to please the Supreme Lord.
So that is parā bhakti, and we are rūpānugas, so we follow, this is what Rūpa Gosvāmī has given us, that we follow this path of pure devotional service. We may have all kinds of desires in our heart and so on, but our main desire, in order for it to be pure devotional service, it has to be with a desire just to please Kṛṣṇa and to give up all other kinds of motivations and desires.
And also in the Bhāgavatam:
sa vai puṁsāṁ paro dharmo
yato bhaktir adhokṣaje
ahaituky apratihatā
yayātmā suprasīdati
So there also it is described that pure devotional service, para dharma, is ahaitukī, it's devoid of any other motivations, free from all motivations, and apratihatā, it's uninterrupted. So it never stops.
It means that we always should be in the mood of serving Kṛṣṇa somehow or other. It's not that we just do, for example, some sādhana in the morning, chanting 16 rounds, doing some pūjā on the altar, and then we go home and we kind of, 'Oh, now, now I can relax.' Like Prabhupāda once he made a joke. He was chanting his 16 rounds, then he put his bead bag down and then he said to Śrutakīrti, his servant, 'Oh, now I have finished my 16 rounds. Now I can do whatever I want.' He was kind of imitating how we as conditioned souls tend to think, 'Okay, I do my sādhana, now I can just, you know, relax and do something not Kṛṣṇa conscious, I can watch a movie or whatever.' No.
Pure devotional service, it's continuous, it never stops. We always try, we should always try to engage ourselves somehow or other in Kṛṣṇa's service. Doesn't have to be physical all the time, the physical body has its limitations, but we always try to somehow or other absorb the mind in Kṛṣṇa. So real devotional service is internal. It's independent of external circumstances.
Like once Tribhuvanātha Prabhu, he was in jail, they put him in jail for some days, and he was in a cell. Tribhuvanātha is a very famous devotee, he has left this world, but he's like one of England's most famous preachers, Prabhupāda disciple. So he was in this cell where he couldn't even sit or lie, it was very terrible externally. But when he came out after some days, somehow Kṛṣṇa arranged so he was released, and then he was so blissful. He said, 'This was the most ecstatic days of my life,' because he had nothing else, so he was just totally absorbed. He was chanting, chanting, chanting, chanting continuously for probably almost day and night for these three days or something.
So, a pure devotee can never, you can put him in jail or whatever, but his devotional service can never be stopped because in the mind he is always serving Kṛṣṇa, even if he cannot do it externally. So it has to be ahaitukī and apratihatā, it has to be without break. That's pure devotional service. So we can strive for that, strive, of course, we are not on the platform, but we strive to somehow or other always be engaged in Kṛṣṇa's service, always remember Kṛṣṇa and never forget Kṛṣṇa, that's the essence.
And Prabhupāda has given us so many ways to engage in devotional service, so we can always somehow or other try to be engaged. Yes.
What verse in Bhagavad-gītā is best describing a Māyāvādī? What verse comes to mind? Māyāvād philosophy?
Other speaker: īśvaro 'ham ahaṁ bhogī...
Yes. That's a good one. 'I am the enjoyer, I am the controller, I am God.' Yes, that Kṛṣṇa is describing in the 16th chapter, the demonic mentality, 'I am God, I am īśvara.' Any other verse comes to mind about Māyāvād mentality or something about Māyāvād?
What about this one?
avyaktaṁ vyaktim āpannaṁ
manyante mām abuddhayaḥ
paraṁ bhāvam ajānanto
mamāvyayam anuttamam
7.24: 'Unintelligent men, who do not know Me perfectly, think that I, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Kṛṣṇa, was impersonal before and have now assumed this personality. Due to their small knowledge, they do not know My higher nature, which is imperishable and supreme.'
So what is a Māyāvādī actually? It's someone who thinks that Kṛṣṇa... first of all, someone whose goal is to become one with God, the goal is impersonal liberation, and also they say that Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa's form, His qualities, everything which is connected to Kṛṣṇa, it's just the creation of the external energy, of māyā. Therefore they follow the path of Māyāvād. They actually think that Kṛṣṇa is māyā. That when God incarnates, He takes on a material form. Actually, the Supreme form of God is impersonal Brahman, but the impersonal Brahman sometimes incarnates and takes a material form. So they think Kṛṣṇa is just a material being. So this is Māyāvādīs. Yes.
Other speaker: avajānanti māṁ mūḍhā...
Oh, yes. That's... yeah.
Other speaker: avajānanti māṁ mūḍhā mānuṣīṁ tanum āśritam / paraṁ bhāvam ajānanto mama bhūta-maheśvaram
Yes. Yes, that's described in the next verse, yes.
And then, yeah, it's a very interesting verse. avajānanti māṁ mūḍhā mānuṣīṁ tanum āśritam, that 'Fools deride Me.' So the impersonalists, the Māyāvādīs, they deride Kṛṣṇa because they fail to see His transcendental nature, and they say like Prabhupāda said, they say, 'I cannot...' What is it Prabhupāda said? 'I have no legs, I have no arms, I have no...' They actually, they say that He is dumb, I forgot. Prabhupāda puts it very nicely, that 'God is dumb, He is lame, He is...' like this. So they deride Kṛṣṇa in that way. And because they deride Kṛṣṇa, they completely become covered over and cannot understand His... Is this ninth chapter, 'avajānanti māṁ mūḍhā'? I think so.
Other speaker: 9.11.
9.11. Thank you.
9.11, yeah. And in the next verse, the result of this kind of mentality is described: 'Those who are thus bewildered are attracted by demonic and atheistic views.' So they become completely deluded and they become atheistic, because this is so offensive to think that Kṛṣṇa is an ordinary human being.
Other speaker: moghāśā mogha-karmāṇo mogha-jñānā vicetasaḥ...
Yeah, that's a good... yeah. 'In that deluded condition, their hopes for liberation, their fruitive activities and their culture of knowledge are all defeated.' So this is the result of deriding Kṛṣṇa and thinking Him an ordinary human person. You become totally covered over and you can't understand anything.
So it's a very dangerous philosophy, and that's why Prabhupāda was preaching so heavily against Māyāvād, and it's also, so as she says, so all-pervasive. Lord Caitanya also said that, 'If you hear this Māyāvād philosophy, you become doomed.' I think you know the verse:
māyāvādi-bhāṣya śunile haya sarva-nāśa
Other speaker: māyāvādi-bhāṣya śunile haya sarva-nāśa
Yeah. So it's so powerful, this philosophy. It's very sophisticated and it's very easily, if you hear it, you very easily become completely convinced and contaminated by this philosophy.
So therefore, we are very fortunate that Śrīla Prabhupāda is so sharp and so expert in defeating this māyāvāda philosophy, and so wonderfully presenting the absolute truth, that we are eternal servants: jīvera ‘svarūpa’ haya—kṛṣṇera ‘nitya-dāsa’ / kṛṣṇera ‘taṭasthā-śakti’ ‘bhedābheda-prakāśa’. This is our eternal constitutional position, is to be the eternal servants of Kṛṣṇa, and we are taṭasthā-śakti, that means we are both simultaneously one with God and different from God. We are one in quality, but quantitatively there is a huge difference and we are eternally subordinate servants of God.
And to realize this is the goal of life. And this is the most blissful position, when we understand that we are Kṛṣṇa's servants and we engage in His service. Then we become completely blissful and satisfied. And this bliss is just completely, it's not even comparable with any other type of bliss, like I think you said just some weeks ago that brahmānanda is like, the material happiness is like a drop, brahmānanda, happiness of liberation, is like the water in a hoofprint of a cow calf, but then bhakti is like the ocean of devotion, of happiness, when we serve Kṛṣṇa. So that is our goal.
Jaya Śrīla Prabhupāda. Okay, then, this, I think I stop here and maybe there is some comment or question or discussion.
Other speaker: So how is it that the gopīs are of that sect... in this philosophy?
Mhm.
Other speaker: So, it is so... attractive to this philosophy also, that Kṛṣṇa Himself...
If we have, yeah, bhakti is the most powerful. Once you surrender to Kṛṣṇa, then you can: daivī hy eṣā guṇamayī mama māyā duratyayā. That's the only way how to conquer māyā.
And so, it proves that bhakti is... have you, do you have a better answer? I don't know.
Other speaker: Yeah, she says 'why it is so attractive', but she actually says... even Goloka, Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa's pastimes...
Yeah.
Other speaker: Goloka Vrindavan is also very attractive... but why is this other thing so...
Yeah, that's a good point.
Other speaker: Māyāvād is a pleasing thing... but it does not make you surrender.
Mhm.
Other speaker: We can attract her, so...
Yeah.
Other speaker: But there has to be bhakti... devotee...
Mhm.
Other speaker: ...to overcome.
Mhm.
Thank you. That was a good answer. By the mercy of a pure devotee.
Other speaker: And they are so... so sophisticated philosophy. So those who like to speculate, they can run on like this, and they can... if you hear, you become easily convinced.
Mhm.
Other speaker: But studying for years and years and years to understand, but in the end, in the end you cannot understand, because it's contradictory.
Yeah.
Other speaker: There is no nothing there in the end.
Mhm.
Other speaker: It's like a...
What do you call it?
Other speaker: Yeah, castle in the sky. They build it with all kinds of words, but then in the end there is nothing there.
Mhm.
Other speaker: They are saying everything is Brahman, but then they remove everything from Brahman. So there is nothing there. There is not even cognition there, because they they say the knower, the known, and the knowledge, they are all the same thing. So then there can be no perception of anything, there can be no knowledge. So in, for Brahman, there is just void.
Mhm.
Very depressing. Yes.
Yeah, for devotees it's inconceivable. It's so dry and so unattractive for devotees, but as you say, for people who like to speculate, it's very attractive because it gives a lot of space for that kind of...
Other speaker: But what's, what's more important is that there is actually not much in śāstra, in the Vedas, that support it. They take a few statements...
Mhm.
Other speaker: ...tat tvam asi...
Mhm.
Other speaker: ...ahaṁ brahmāsmi... a few mahā-vākyas they call them. And then from that they build a philosophy. And everything else in the Vedas, they reject and say that is lower truth. That's for...
Mhm.
Other speaker: ...in material consciousness. Talking about difference between God and soul. So they just remove most of the things from the Vedas, they take a few things. So Vaiṣṇavas are just much more faithful to the Vedas and to the śāstras. They take the whole.
Yeah.
They try to just explain away most of it and just...
Other speaker: Yeah.
Śaṅkarācārya's job was to convince the Buddhists to become faithful to the Vedas, and the Buddhists were impersonalists and atheists, so he had to do this kind of interpretation. But then in the end of his life, he said:
bhaja govindaṁ bhaja govindaṁ
bhaja govindaṁ mūḍha-mate
And then there is one more line which I don't know in Sanskrit, but it all means that, 'Oh, you fools and rascals, you mūḍhas, just worship Govinda, worship Govinda, worship Govinda. All your juggleries, word juggleries and suffix and prefix and everything, it will not help you at the time of death.' So actually he revealed his true nature as a devotee. Śaṅkarācārya was sent by Kṛṣṇa for a special purpose. He was actually Lord Śiva.
So and he also said 'nārāyaṇaḥ paro 'vyaktāt'. That Nārāyaṇa, Kṛṣṇa, is beyond this material world. So actually the propounder of Māyāvād philosophy, he's a devotee, and he says that, yeah, it's ultimately Kṛṣṇa who should be worshipped.
Other speaker: And we are also naturally, we have also natural attraction to serve Kṛṣṇa.
Mhm.
Other speaker: And, and and we have been, we have been like forced to serve in this world. And we have acquired a bad feeling because in this world we are serving the senses, we are serving the mind. And, and then the soul is pristine. We have been so many times abused here by serving, serving, serving.
Mhm.
Yeah, true. Serving our senses and serving wicked masters like people who have exploited us, and yeah, so there is a bad taste for service. So we have to cure it by, yeah, getting the higher taste.
Other speaker: There is no reward.
No.
Other speaker: So we think, 'how can I serve, why should I serve, why should I serve, Kṛṣṇa is also like one of them, he wants us to serve him.' But that's a bad feeling because we...
Okay.
Other speaker: Can someone help me, I am so...
Ah.
Other speaker: Frågan är, 'Prabhupāda was especially fighting nirviśeṣa and śūnyavāda, so carefully following guru, sādhu and śāstra is the best way to protect one's spiritual life. Answer is yes.'
Yes. Definitely, if we follow Prabhupāda, and if we follow our guru and śāstra, and we do as they say, and we engage in devotional service, then...