Reason and Love

By Harmonist: August 8, 2016

By Srila Bhaktivinode Thakura, From an article called, “The Temple of Jagannatha at Puri” published September 15, 1871.

We do not mean to say that reason is a foolish principle. On the contrary we do not find better admirers of reason than our humble selves. We hold that man’s superiority among all created beings consists in man’s possessing the noble gift of reason.

What we maintain is this, that independent of this noble principle there is another higher gift in man which goes by the name of love. Reason helps love to maintain its proper bounds in the spiritual world. Love often tends to degrade itself by exercising its function on objects other then God and converts itself into lust for women, wine, meat and gold. Here reason advises her to rise higher till she reaches her proper sphere above.

Thus we find that the object of reason is to help love and not to create it. Reason may be properly styled as the servant of love and must always be subject to her in all her hopes, aspirations, and holy works.

The rationalist on the contrary considers reason as all and all. This is a degradation of humanity. The progressive rationalist, on the other hand, believes in the principle of love, but attempts to make her the maid-servant of reason. This is another error. He makes spiritual love sometimes a prisoner in the jails of reason! Love wants to soar on her spiritual wings to a realm where the jailer (reason) cannot go and the latter is sure to tie up her wings for fear lest she goes to an unworthy place.

Love utters sounds of a spiritual character peculiar to herself, but reason, having no previous experience of it, mistakes it for a disease and administers medicine for her cure. Thus it is that the natural strength of the queen of our soul is crippled by artificial administration of the dry principle of reason and she rests in us as if a bird taken in a cage. Oh! What a havoc doth reason commit by abuse of his power. Oh! Shame to the Rationalist! God help the man!!

Theist take care of those among you who mix with you only by assuming the name of theist but are in fact rationalists of a very dry character. They are divisible into two classes; the designing and the dupes. The designing theist is he who is in fact a rationalist but by assuming the name of theist wants to degrade the sincere by his bad influence. He that calls himself a theist in order to get rid of the name of rationalist but still holds love in subjection to reason, is a dupe because he is unable to find out his own position. The sincere theist should however take care of both of them and preserve the sovereignty of love over reason and his comrades.

Guided Chanting

Harmonist: February 22, 2016

Srila B.R. Sridhara Deva Goswami explains the importance of having a pure devotee’s association.

Student: Maharaja, I once heard that the chanting of Hare Krishna and Srimad Bhagavatam must be taken together, that the chanting of Hare Krishna alone will have some effect but the knowledge within Srimad Bhagavatam must also be there.

Srila Sridhara Swami: Not only Bhagavatam. That presupposes Bhakta Bhagavatam also. Sadhu-sanga and Nama-kirtana, these are the best. When there is want of sadhu-sanga, want of living scripture, then there is passive scripture (Bhagavatam).

sadhu-sange krsna-nama ei matra chai

(Sri Sri Prema-vivarta, 6.13)

With the association of the sadhu, we want to chant the Lord’s Name and when the sadhu is not available, then of course with scripture, sastra.

We are to take men to the guidance of the sadhu, the man of higher realization. There may be so many obstacles, oppositions, and difficulties along the way, but with his help, they may be removed. So, the guidance of the sadhu has been advised to be indispensable. But when sadhu is not available, then sastra comes. Mahaprabhu says:

sadhu-sanga, nama-kirtana, bhagavata-sravana

mathura-vasa, sri-murtira sraddhaya sevana

sakala-sadhana-srestha ei panca anga

“(1) Associating with sadhus. (2) Chanting the Lord’s Name. (3) Hearing the scriptures of pure devotion. (4) Residing in a holy place. (5) Faith­fully serving the Lord’s Deity. These five are the best of all the limbs of devotional practice.” (Sri Caitanya-caritamrta, Madhya 22.128)

And if only one is to be accepted, then it is Nama-kirtana. Kirtana means to chant loudly, and that presupposes that with the company of someone or in congregation we will chant. So, sankirtana. Srila Jiva Goswami Prabhu has given this interpretation of sankirtana:

bahubhir militva yat kirtanam tad eva sankirtanam

To talk about Krishna not alone but in a group is sankirtana. But Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakura also warns:

“Don’t join any type of imitation sankirtana. At least one leading man must be there who is a suddha-bhakta (pure devotee). When there is cholera or the great epidemic, some people want to go on with nama-kirtana but that is aparadha (offensive). They want the Name, the Lord, Hari, to remove all inauspicious things from the world. That is sakam (interested) chanting. That is aparadha. A suddha bhakta, a pure devotee, will not associate when such sankirtan is going on. So, at least one pure devotee must be in the group, then one can join the sankirtana.”

In this way, Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakura has warned that there must be guidance under a pure devotee, who is nirguna, who does not want anything mundane, but only the grace of Hari. That type of vibration must be present there, and that will help me in my subtle-most plane of self, my nirguna aspect, and awaken me.

Navadvipa and the Parikrama of the Vaisnavas

Submitted by Harmonist on March 10, 2016

By Srila B. R. Sridhara Deva Goswami

We should try to become more acquainted with the realistic view of Navadvipa. There are so many divisions in this Navadvipa Dhama: mainly nine. It is mentioned that they represent the nine sections of devotion:

sravanam kirtanam visnoh smaranam pada-sevanam arcanam vandanam dasyam sakhyam atma-nivedanam (Srimad-Bhagavatam 7.5.23)

Simantadvipa represents sravana-bhakti, hearing about Krishna. Chanting about Krishna, kirtana, is in Godrumadvipa; remembering the Lord, smaranam, is in Madhyadvipa; serving the Lord’s feet, pada-sevanam, is here in Koladvipa; worshiping with the ghee lamp, etc., arcanam is in Rtudvipa; offering prayers, vandanam, is in Jahnudvipa; rendering service to the Lord in the relationship of a best friend, sakhyam, is in Rudradvipa; and full self-surrender, atma-nivedanam, is represented in Sri Antardvipa, Mayapur. They have connection with these nine main types of devotional conceptions respectively. When traveling to these places we are reminded by the incidents connected with them how such representation comes from each place. All of them taken together promote our understanding as to what is devotion proper.

Atma-nivedanam, full self-surrender, is the basis of all. After atma-nivedanam the plane of life will be categorically changed. After surrendering to the central direction, whatever will be done by us will come to have recognition as devotion. That is devotion. Atma-nivedanam is selflessness plus self surrendering. Self-surrendering presupposes selflessness. Selfish actions come to an end and selflessness is also crossed, and then self-surrendered life begins—and that is devotion proper.

The life of a devotee has no individual or provincial interest. He works only for the universal interest of the whole Absolute. Devotees are soldiers of that plane. Whatever they may do, the suggestion and inspiration comes from the center, the Absolute good. Though apparently they seem to be members of this plane of quarrel, in their heart their connection is with the Absolute; therefore their color has completely changed. The valuation of the devotees movements has completely changed although apparently they seem to be doing everything almost in a similar way to the mundane persons. Mundane persons eat, and the devotees also appear to eat, but actually they are not eating: they are rendering service to the remnants sent by the Lord. In this way they are going on.

tvayopabhukta-srag-gandha vaso ‘lankara-carcitah ucista-bhojino dasas tava mayam jayema hi

(Srimad-Bhagavatam, 11.6.46)

Uddhava says in Srimad-Bhagavatam, “We shall conquer the whole of the deluding energy by only one thing. And what is that? We shall accept everything with the spirit of service. Whatever you, O Lord, send to us, you have already taken and enjoyed, and we shall serve those remnants and thereby the whole of the deluding energy will be devastated.”

One of my learned professor Godbrothers was challenged by his younger brother who was perhaps a graduate,”What do you do there in the matha? What we do, you also do there.”

The professor replied, “No, no, you do not do what we do in the matha.” “You do not eat?” “No, we do not eat.” “Then what do you do? With my own eyes I have seen you eating.” “No, we do not eat. We do not eat like you; we do not put solid things into our stomachs like you. We render service to maha-prasadam. What we do is beyond your understanding. We do not eat like you. We have no spirit of consumption. We do not consume anything, but we honor the remnants of God.”

Such will be the difference between all the activities of the true Vaisnavas and the worldly men. Apparently the Vaisnavas seem to do the same things as others are doing: walking, sleeping, eating, engaging others in activities, earning money, spending, and so many apparently similar things; but the standpoint is totally different. It is connected with the center. They abide by the direction of the central movement whereas the worldly men are guided by their provincial, local, and the other by the Absolute, and that difference is very, very great. The Vaisnavas are on the other side of selflessness, the other side of renounced life. Between the worldly men and the Vaisnava is the realm of complete renunciation. One is on one side, the other is on the other side.

What proper devotion is, must be realized. Generally, it may not be understood by the apparent movements of the devotees, but it is to be realized by the question of adjusting the angle of vision. The angle of vision is to be changed.

There are so many incidents, stories, and sceneries connected with Sri Navadvipa Dhama parikrama, but all are meaning to help us in our life of absolute adjustment. If one can catch that, then by his parikrama through different holy places and his hearing about local “historical” incidents he will receive eternal instructions in various conceptions of devotion. He will receive encouragement in this way.

It is not like the parikrama of the ordinary people in the general Hindu section of society who also go out on pilgrimage. The general people come in contact with the holy places and they have some holy association, but their main object is to gain some unseen help in their present life. They want their desires of this present life to be satisfied by some invisible help from the demigods. It is punya-karma—to acquire good merit to help success in their present life according to their conception. It is not suddha-bhakti.

The objective of the Gaudiya Matha people is quite different and it cannot be reckoned in any of the different planes the present educational section are hunting for. The present-day scholars cannot even think that purely spiritual life is possible at all. They consider that spiritual life may be only a concoction that others are suffering from. According to the so-called scientific scholars, the spiritual searchers are fighting with their shadow, hunting after impossibility and imaginary things. They consider the devotees to be running after phantasmagoria and superstition.

ya nisa sarva-bhutanam tasyam jagarti samyami yasyam jagrati bhutani sa nisa pasyato muneh

(Bhagavad Gita, 2.69)

But on the other side, we think that in the name of concrete reality they are running after phantasmagoria—just the opposite. They are running after the mortal achievements. They think immortality is not possible, and Socrates had to pay a heavy price for expressing that the soul is immortal. At the cost of his life he announced that the soul is immortal. They objected, “No, nothing is immortal, therefore it is foolish to neglect the mortal pleasures, so let us enjoy whatever there may be.” That was their viewpoint.

The normal viewpoint is that we want to be wakeful in that plane of life which is darkness to them. The basis is that the soul is immortal and there is an immortal world. It is not only immortal but it is nectarean reality, srnvantu visve amrtasya putrah: “O you sons of nectar, be mindful. You are eternal and you have become victims of mortality but really you are not so. You have an inconceivably higher prospect of life. Come back. Come back to your own plane. Come back home.” That is the general call of the Upanishads, the most ancient revealed scripture.