The spiritual path FAQ


STARTING THE SPIRITUAL PATH

I'M NOT SURE THIS PATH IS THE TRUE PATH

WALKING THE PATH

MATERIAL LIFE WHILE ON THE SPIRITUAL PATH

I AM A WOMAN ON THE SPIRITUAL PATH

PERSONAL QUALITIES

SPIRITUAL LIFE

GETTING CLOSER TO KRSNA AND LISTENING TO HIM

STAGES OF THE PATH









STARTING THE SPIRITUAL PATH



I'm still quite young. Should I wait before I engage in spiritual life?

It is best to begin to develop spiritual habits and lifestyle while you are still young. Every devotee, even my spiritual master, regrets toward the end of life that he did not begin to serve the Lord in earnest sooner, before so many years of good energy are wasted. Your education, career, fortune, marriage and children, house and family are all temporary and illusory, and will be vanquished and devastated by the force of time.
 
But all effort on the path of spiritual life yields permanent results:

    



Is this path really worth the trouble?

For those who mistakenly think that spiritual life is too austere, or there is no pleasure in following its principles, consider this:


There is more—much more—but that will do for now. Our journey is long, but it is sure; though our progress is slow, once we know the way, it is certain. We are like rivers flowing down to the ocean; if we but follow our inner nature, we inevitably come to our destination. For we are guided, protected and empowered by the Holy Name of God.

How can I find my purpose of life?

There are so many purposes, but the best purpose is God's purpose. God created this material world for one purpose: to give the fallen souls conditioned by material consciousness, who have fallen out of love and become selfish and greedy, a chance to understand Him and realign themselves with Him.

If we take up His purpose, our lives will be successful. Otherwise we will be defeated by the illusory energy of matter, and remain here in this miserable material world to accept birth after birth. Here we teach the Esoteric Teaching, which is a path of pure devotional service to God. So if we make God's purpose our own, then we will worship Him according to His instructions. This is the highest possible purpose, leading to spiritual emancipation from material existence.

I feel like I have a purpose here on Earth and must fulfill it before I renounce the world. Can't I have a unique purpose in life?

The reason that I don't encourage you to find "your unique purpose in life" is that there is no such thing. Material purposes are legion, and change constantly with the conditions and time. Looking back on my own experience, my material purposes have changed quite a few times. This is true for everyone.
 
Everything material is temporary and changeable. You cannot find any solid ground in the material world. It is like building a house on a sandbar. You cannot find any firm foundation. Every time our situation or needs change, our purposes change.
 
Only spiritual things are permanent and unchangable. Therefore if you are searching for a permanent purpose in life, you will find it only in the spiritual realm. God's purpose is eternal and changeless. So if we make God's purpose our own, then we are never shaken, even in the midst of the greatest calamity.
 
The real problem is that we are selfish, and do not want to serve God, but try to concoct a false material purpose to justify serving ourselves. Your idea that you have to accomplish some purpose in the material world before you can serve God, is unrealistic and impossible in practice. It is like trying to put out a fire by pouring gasoline on it.
 
Whether to serve God or oneself is an existential choice. As spiritual beings with free will, we have the ability to serve either God's purpose or our own at any time. It is easier to make this choice in youth. The older we get, the harder it becomes to change course. So I do not accept your argument.
 
I often hear Indian people say that "Now I will work hard and enjoy, then in old age I will become renounced." This is unrealistic. As you age you will find it more and more difficult to extricate yourself from the network of attachment.
"A saint in truth is a saint in youth."



Can anyone be a yogi?

The Yoga lifestyle is different for different kinds of people. In Bhagavad-gita, Krsna divides people into four general occupational and and four spiritual groups: the intellectuals and priests, warriors and administrators, tradesmen and bankers, and workers and servants; students, householders, retirees and renunciants. There is quite a range of lifestyles in Vedic culture, and all of them are, or can be, yogis.
 
But in general, a yogi is someone who lives a life governed by the mode of goodness. Krsna says in Bhagavad-gita [14.5-6]:


So a yogi is someone who lives in the mode of goodness. And what are the symptoms of the mode of goodness?


In other words, the mode of goodness exists when the senses are purified. And what is purification of the senses? Krsna gives a long list of qualities:


In general, yogis are vegetarian, nonviolent, intelligent, learned and compassionate. They prefer silence, contemplation, solitude, and lead a life devoted to the sacred.
 
That said, yogis can and do belong to every walk of life. Arjuna, the exemplary student of Bhagavad-gita, was a warrior on the battlefield of a fratricidal war. But again and again in Bhagavad-gita, Krsna gently and subtly draws our attention away from externals to the inner state of the yogi:


So despite the flowery words of the scriptures that seem to point toward external religious activities, yoga is ultimately the science of consciousness. A yogi is someone who has mastered this science, the Esoteric Teaching. So the real yoga lifestyle is the life of transcendental samadhi, wherein the yogi's mind and heart are fixed in a trance of devotional ecstasy on the Lord.




I have just started the spiritual path and it seems like everyone around me is talking in a spiritual language. Why?

What you are describing is a mild form of paranoia induced by the very beginning symptoms of spiritual awakening. I went though this as a young man back in the 1960s. The people you think are talking in spiritual language actually have no spiritual knowledge, and if you were to inquire from them, you would find that they have no intention of saying anything spiritual. It is just your mind that is interpreting their words according to your very beginning spiritual awareness.

You can get past this uncomfortable stage by getting actual spiritual knowledge. We have many authentic sources of spiritual knowledge on our site. Once you read them and start chanting the Holy Name, these hallucinations will pass and you will discover real spiritual consciousness. I would recommend watching the Introductory Seminar and going through Secrets of the Soul. This spiritual education is the answer to all the problems of life.

My senses are in illusion so is there any point in setting goals?

You are right, the senses are illusion. But if we are to stay free of the deception of the senses, we need both a detailed understanding of how they condition our consciousness and firm determination to rise above their influence.


If we simply drift along without a clear idea where we are going and a systematic method of accomplishing our goal, sooner or later the material senses and mind will again bewilder and entrap us.




I want to follow this path but doesn't building trust take some time?

Yes, building trust takes time and there is really no shortcut there. The same with changing one's ontological orientation.

But from where I sit, once you accept the basic concept that you are a spiritual being, everything follows from there. The thing is, people have been trained by modern education to accept and hold contradictory ideas in their mind, even though they are disharmonious and agitating. So they don't see that accepting the spiritual platform makes it necessary, for example, to eliminate meat-eating and sex life. This can lead to all kinds of nonsensical behavior that hurts, even nullifies their spiritual progress.

Even after accepting the spiritual platform, I had to work hard for many years to eliminate the disharmonious, contradictory thoughts from my mind. But the resulting inner harmony and intellectual integrity I achieved is well worth the struggle. We need the guidance of self-realized souls like Śrīla Prabhupāda. Otherwise, how can we understand the real result of spiritual practice? Only by his example have we seen the actual standard of self-realization, and understood how much work we need to do on ourselves.



How do we develop faith?

The process of developing faith is by hearing.

This same principle is emphasized by Śrī Prahlāda Mahārāja in Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 7.5.24:

iti puṁsārpitā viṣṇau bhaktiś cen nava-lakṣaṇā
kriyate bhagavaty addhā tan manye ’dhītam uttamam

“A person who directly applies these nine principles [hearing, chanting, remembering, etc.] in the service of the Lord is to be understood as a greatly learned man who has assimilated the Vedic literatures very well, for the goal of studying the Vedic literature is to understand the supremacy of Lord Śrī Kṛṣṇa.”

Śrīdhara Svāmī confirms in his commentary that first one must surrender to the spiritual master; then the process of devotional service will develop. It is not a fact that only one who diligently pursues an academic career can become a devotee. Even with no academic career, if one has full faith in the spiritual master and the Supreme Personality of Godhead, he develops in spiritual life and real knowledge of the Vedas. The example of Mahārāja Khaṭvāṅga confirms this. One who surrenders is understood to have learned the subject matter of the Vedas very nicely. One who adopts this Vedic process of surrender learns devotional service and is certainly successful. One who is very proud, however, is unable to surrender either to the spiritual master or to the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Thus he cannot understand the essence of any Vedic literature. [Śrī Caitanya-caritāmṛta Ādi 17.257 Purport]

Mahārāja Khaṭvāṅga was offered any boon by the demigods, but first he inquired about his remaining duration of life. When he heard that he had one moment to live, he surrendered to Kṛṣṇa and was successful. There is also the example of Haridāsa Ṭhākur; although he was born in a Mulim family, he became the ācārya of the Holy Name because he surrendered to Lord Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu. This is the essence of faith: when we have an opportunity to surrender to Kṛṣṇa, we should jump at it.

Generally, we develop faith in the spiritual teacher that we hear from. Everyone should hear from Śrīla Prabhupāda because he is the Founder-Ācārya of the worldwide expansion of the movement of Lord Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu. But we also need a self-realized soul to whom we can inquire and hear the answers to our questions, supported by quotations from the authorized śāstra. The definition of uttama-adhikārī is one who has expert knowledge of śāstra:

rati-prema-tāratamye bhakta—tara-tama
ekādaśa skandhe tāra kariyāche lakṣaṇa

“A devotee is considered superlative or superior according to his attachment and love. In the Eleventh Canto of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, the following symptoms have been given." [Śrī Caitanya-caritāmṛta Madhya 22.71]

PURPORT

Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura has stated that if one has developed faith in Kṛṣṇa consciousness, he is to be considered an eligible candidate for further advancement in Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Those who have faith are divided into three categories—uttama, madhyama and kaniṣṭha (first class, second class and neophyte). A first-class devotee has firm conviction in the revealed scriptures and is expert in arguing according to the śāstras. He is firmly convinced of the science of Kṛṣṇa consciousness. The madhyama-adhikārī, or second-class devotee, has firm conviction in Kṛṣṇa consciousness, but he cannot support his conviction by citing śāstric references. The neophyte devotee does not yet have firm faith. In this way the devotees are typed.

The standard of devotion is also categorized in the same way. A neophyte believes that only love of Kṛṣṇa or Kṛṣṇa consciousness is very good, but he may not know the basis of pure Kṛṣṇa consciousness or how one can become a perfect devotee. Sometimes in the heart of a neophyte there is attraction for karma, jñāna or yoga. When he is free and transcendental to mixed devotional activity, he becomes a second-class devotee. When he becomes expert in logic and can refer to the śāstras, he becomes a first-class devotee. The devotees are also described as positive, comparative and superlative in terms of their love and attachment for Kṛṣṇa.

So even a madhyama-adhikārī devotee is a pure devotee, because he does not perform devotional service mixed with karma, jñāna or yoga. But one should hear from a pure devotee who also has realized the meaning of the śāstra and has developed love of Godhead. Then one's faith will develop very nicely, because one is hearing from a devotee who displays complete harmony between his teachings, his actions and the śāstra, and whose words are saturated with prema and rati.




It feels like I am so far away from being completely purified. Is there hope?

These things take time. From the moment I realized that I wanted a direct contact with God to the moment when I actually attained it, was about 50 years. And I am pretty smart and worked very hard, and had the good fortune to be a disciple of an excellent teacher. So we are more strategic than tactical in our view. We work for the long term, pick battles we can win and neglect the rest. We always remain humble and simply continue on our daily routine spiritual discipline. That is our mood.
 
So just like it took us many, many years and lifetimes to get entangled in material life and karma, it may take some time to escape. There will be progress and sometimes fallbacks as well. Be prepared for this, and do not become discouraged. Be strong and determined, worship Vasudeva with transcendental faith, and surely you will attain Him.





I have many preconcieved ideas about sprituality and am finding it difficult to change my ontology. Seems there is so much to do. Why aren't we happy straight away?

When after studying this Vedic literature for many years, and you are on top of the mountain of self-realization, you will look back and wonder how you ever lived without this exalted understanding of life and consciousness. In the beginning it is very difficult, but as you become more experienced it gets easier. Kṛṣṇa says:


So happiness in the mode of goodness does not give immediate results, but takes some time to cultivate and mature before its full impact is perceptible. We have discussed in many places how in the beginning of spiritual life, the mind is full of impressions of material consciousness. So we have to work to create new impressions of spiritual quality to overcome the inertia of the material conditioning. This process must be continued for a long time—years, actually—before you get the complete result. But I am here to tell you that it is more than worthwhile; material consciousness will become so distasteful that you will wonder how you ever tolerated it, even for a moment.















I'M NOT SURE THIS PATH IS THE TRUE PATH


We can't prove God exists though right?

Oh but there is a proof, and it is the existence of the Vedic literature. Such a huge body of ecstatic transcendental poetry, written in a perfect and consistent style in Sanskrit, the most perfect and difficult language, more than any human could compose in ten lifetimes; containing a philosophy of such brilliance and preternatural insight that no human brain could have even imagined it, much less written it down. Vedānta-sūtra alone predicts and refutes every human-made philosophy in existence, up to and including modern science.

And if you want experimental proof, why just chant the Holy Name of the Lord according to the authorized process, and you will have all the proof you want and more.

kaviṁ purāṇam anuśāsitāram
aṇor aṇīyāṁsam anusmared yaḥ
sarvasya dhātāram acintya-rūpam
āditya-varṇaṁ tamasaḥ parastāt

"One should meditate upon the Supreme Person as the one who knows everything, as He who is the oldest, who is the controller, who is smaller than the smallest, who is the maintainer of everything, who is beyond all material conception, who is inconceivable, and who is always a person. He is luminous like the sun and, being transcendental, is beyond this material nature." [Bhagavad-gītā 8.9]

from the Purport:

The word acintya (inconceivable) is very significant in this connection. God's energy is beyond our conception, beyond our thinking jurisdiction, and is therefore called inconceivable (acintya). Who can argue this point? He pervades this material world and yet is beyond it. We cannot even comprehend this material world, which is insignificant compared to the spiritual world—so how can we comprehend what is beyond? Acintya means that which is beyond this material world, that which our argument, logic and philosophical speculation cannot touch, that which is inconceivable. Therefore intelligent persons, avoiding useless argument and speculation, should accept what is stated in scriptures like the Vedas, Gītā, and Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam and follow the principles they set down. This will lead one to understanding.

So perhaps even the Vedas cannot describe the taste of Kṛṣṇa consciousness, but their descriptions are so wonderful that they induce us to try and taste it.





Why do we need a path to freedom? Aren't we already free? Seems to me we are and that sins are just man made.

Well, what is sin actually? It means not following the instructions of God. Kṛṣṇa gives clear instructions in the Bhagavad-gītā and other Vedic scriptures. It is not so clear in the Western scriptures, because of a lack of supporting knowledge. I mean, the Western Church didn't even have an official philosophy until the 10th century CE. Unfortunately they picked Aristotle, which is why their philosophy is just black and white.

But reality includes all shades of gray, and all colors too. The incredible variety and diversity of the material creation is based on the even wider diversity of the spiritual world. How can any quality exist in the creation unless it is previously present in the Creator? So when we experience qualities like free will, creative energy, personality, individuality, desire, enjoyment, etc. in this material world, we can know beyond any doubt that these qualities are also present in God. Therefore it is impossible that God is impersonal, because we are persons. We have energy, activity etc. therefore God must have those qualities too.

We have a limited amount of freedom in this world; really our freedom is limited to whether or not we follow Kṛṣṇa's instructions. After that, everything is programmed by the laws of karma. Just like people think they are free because they can choose among 150 different kinds of potato chips in the supermarket, but this is just the illusion of freedom because all those processed food products serve corporate greed and are unhealthy. So our vaunted freedom in this material world is just an illusion of freedom; actually, it is just a choice between different jail cells. Some cells may be a little better than others, but all of the cells are in the prison.

Real freedom means to get out of the restrictions of material existence, and recover our original spiritual life and eternal identity in relationship with Kṛṣṇa. The method to do this is given in detail in the Vedic scriptures like Bhagavad-gītā, and I don't need to repeat it here. You should study these scriptures very carefully and put their instructions into practice in your life. That will clear up all your uncertainties and doubts.




I am skeptical of so many spiritual paths as every one seems to be cheating. Is it really worth trying another one?

A student answers:

Throwing the baby out with the bathwater is not quite the solution. Instead, we should use our intelligence for proper discrimination, which is what intelligence is meant for. If we give in to frustration then that's the end of our intelligence and we'll simply get drawn into a negative spiral. I direct you to a really fantastic lecture by Visnujana Swami. Here is a very relevant excerpt that I hope you read and consider very, very carefully:

Don't become dull-headed. Don't become lethargic. Krishna says in Bhagavad-Gita [3.30] that He wants service without egoism and without lethargy. What does that mean? Egoism, as Prabhupada defines, means personal desire for sense gratification, personal motive. No personal motive—only to satisfy Krishna—that should be the motive.

And no lethargy. In the material world we have so many frustrating experiences, and due to frustration only, people give up. You see? They become lethargic, they simply give up. We have so many philosophers around the world giving up—“Not this, not this, not this. Renounce the world, give up everything.” This has become a popular mania in society—that frustrated persons are trying to give up. So we see now, we are traveling amongst the young people around the country, and even in some places they become so saturated with drugs and sex life, now they want to simply give it up and they are speaking of practicing celibacy and this and that. Alternating—sense gratification and renunciation. This will not help. But if we actually come to the platform of being prepared to inquire from our spiritual master how we can get out of this lethargic condition of frustration, then that's what it means—to be inquisitive how to advance in Krishna consciousness.

Everyone is suffering from painful experiences in this material world, you should know that. Everyone is suffering from painful experiences. You can't meet anyone in this material world hardly who has not suffered from material relationships. Therefore, everyone to some degree or other is suffering from this lethargy, this fear of activity. They are fearful of their own spiritual identity and their own spiritual relationship with God. That's a fact. There are many persons in that condition, and it's a great stumbling block on the path of devotional love for God. So we have to come over this stage of fearfulness, of frustration, lethargy, and come to the stage of inquiry.

Chanting Hare Krishna will give us that strength. Chanting Hare Krishna will make you forget the wounds of material relationships. And chanting Hare Krishna will give you the pure cognition that actually this whole material phantasmagoria is only a passing dream of material nature. So, people take it very seriously, this materialistic dream life. But actually it is jagat—it is going on, but it is not permanent. It's temporary, it's being destroyed moment by moment.

So all this lamentation, all this hankering in the material world, it's all dream-like, mirage-like. It has no actual substance. The substance is our desire, and when we are freed from frustration, from materialistic desire, then we can be positively engaged in practical spiritual inquiry, spiritual desire. “I want to know what is my relationship with Krishna. I don't want to remain in darkness.” This is what spiritual inquiry is. “What am I? What is this body? What are all these personalities, all these different varieties of bodies? What is this world? Who is controlling it? What is the nature of love? What is the nature of all these moods and tastes of affection and love in this material world? What is the mood and taste in the spiritual world?” All these inquiries. This means not to be dull-headed, to be inquisitive to know about Krishna and Krishna's manifestation. [Visnujana Swami Lecture on the Nectar of Devotion, Chapter 6. April 30, 1973, Los Angeles]

I want to make advancement in spiritual life, but wouldn't it be closed-minded to accept this teaching above others?

Jesus is famous for saying:


To make any tangible spiritual advancement, we have to choose between serving God's values or the world's values; between serving Absolute Truth or one's own mind; between serving the spiritual master (the representative of God) or our false ego (the illusory material bodily conception of identity). We often meet very proud people who claim to be 'advanced.' But after a little discussion we find that they have not realized even the first introductory chapter of Bhagavad-gita, or the simple concepts of Sri Isopanisad.


There is a clear progression of spiritual concepts enunciated in the Vedic scriptures, beginning with Bhagavad-gita: introductory, confidential, more confidential and most confidential. And Bhagavad-gita is just the introduction to and summary of the much more detailed study of the same topics in Srimad-Bhagavatam. Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu is the ontological analysis of Srimad-Bhagavatam, and Caitanya-caritamrta shows the practical application of spiritual values in a perfect life of pure devotion, as demonstrated by the Supreme Personality of Godhead Himself, Lord Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu.

All of us will have to walk that path, beginning from disgust and disenchantment with the evils and limitations of material existence, through the search for the Absolute Truth and surrender to a bona fide spiritual master situated in the disciplic lineage of the Vedas, through performance of bhakti-sadhana both in the vaidhi (regulated) and raganuga (spontaneous) stages, to the three phases of realization of Godhead: Brahman, Paramatma and at last, Bhagavan the Supreme Personality of Godhead. In the process, our conceptions will change from the temporary platform of false ego and fruitive work in the modes of material nature, to the eternal platform of working in pure goodness as a sacrifice to God and transcendental love of the Supreme Lord in our original spiritual form.

Throughout that long spiritual path and complex inner transformation, the Holy Name of the Lord shall remain our most faithful companion and guide. The scriptures insist that the Holy Name is identical in quality and potency with the Lord Himself; we need only to take full and offenseless shelter of the Holy Name to realize this in practice. But to make any advancement on this path, we have to make a firm choice.


The materialistic speculative philosophers will accuse us of being closed-minded; the mundane religious wranglers will call us sectarian and narrow; the weak-minded fools will brand us as arrogant or afraid to think for ourselves. The real truth is that we are none of these. God makes the rules—both the laws of material nature and the eternal principles of spiritual life—and we who choose to please Him simply follow them as a matter of duty. If Krsna's opinion is that we must develop vyavasāyātmikā buddhi—one-pointed determination—to advance in spiritual life, then it is clear He agrees with Jesus Christ that we must make a firm choice of what we want out of life, and be willing to hold unflinchingly to that commitment.

So we are not closed-minded nor sectarian nor exclusionist; we are sincere followers of Krsna, the Supreme Personality of Godhead. We follow His ideas and opinions, for extensive experience over many generations of intelligent sadhus has shown His conception to be correct. When we follow His principles we advance, and when we follow our own imperfect conceptions, we languish in material corruption and foolish, self-centered ignorance.

The way out of material confusion, the impermanence of relative truth and the false identity of corporeal existence is to firmly commit to the eternal spiritual values of the Vedas. No other source of spiritual knowledge embodies so clearly and consistently the essential ontological distinction between material and spiritual, temporary and eternal, as explained in the second chapter of Bhagavad-gita:


From this it is clear that our imperfect, changeable material mind and intelligence can never deliver firm conclusions of Absolute Truth. We must choose, and our choice must be for the eternal, since any other alternative is temporary and therefore ultimately meaningless. That truth without beginning or end, unconditioned and universal, is only given in the Vedas, and Krsna is the ultimate source of the Vedas.


Therefore let us be known as staunch followers of Him who spoke Bhagavad-gita, the great Gitopanisad, the summary of all Vedic truth, while acting as the chariot driver of His friend Arjuna. We fully accept Him, and we reject anyone whose opinion differs from His. That is our firm policy. And I can tell you from experience that this policy brings greater peace, happiness and enlightenment than words alone can describe.

If someone has a million dollars, all his ten-dollar problems become insignificant. So when a man receives a great inheritance, he quits his low-paying job and applies himself to its management. Similarly when one receives the great legacy of the Vedic lineage from a bona fide spiritual master, he automatically rejects the insignificant wages of the speculative mode of thought and a separatist mentality based on false ego. This is not sectarianism or closed-mindedness, but the only sane practical choice.

One cannot taste the sweetness of honey by licking the outside of the jar. Similarly, those who have never actually studied this path in a bona fide esoteric school cannot even imagine, what to speak of explain, its profound benefits. They may claim to have read Bhagavad-gita or other Vedic scriptures, but their foolish words and reveal the poverty of their conception; they have not understood it at all. Only those who have made the irrevocable choice to accept the Lord, whose stated policy is to reveal His Esoteric Teaching through His bona fide representative, as Master of his life, can understand the mystery of Bhagavad-gita.





I have some doubts about this path. Can it be proven that this is the right one?

It is natural to have doubts about any new system of knowledge or spiritual path. After all there are many cheaters and we all have been burned before. Therefore Śrīla Prabhupāda always recommended that we do not take anything on pure faith alone, but investigate very carefully to make sure that we are getting the authentic Vedic knowledge.

"So we are delivering this sublime movement all over the world and if we do it cautiously and carefully surely we will be successful." [Letter to Hamsaduta, 8/7/71]

Even Kṛṣṇa gives this same advice to Lord Brahmā:

śrī-bhagavān uvāca
jñānaṁ parama-guhyaṁ me
yad vijñāna-samanvitam
sarahasyaṁ tad-aṅgaṁ ca
gṛhāṇa gaditaṁ mayā

The Personality of Godhead said: "Knowledge about Me as described in the scriptures is very confidential, and it has to be realized in conjunction with devotional service. The necessary paraphernalia for that process is being explained by Me. You may take it up carefully." [Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 2.9.31]

So we should study the original books very carefully, and gradually apply the knowledge without any changes, systematically observing the effects on our consciousness. This is the scientific approach to Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Then we will know without a doubt that we are on the right path.

Others, even other devotees, cannot properly explain what is the meaning of consciousness. So how can they become Kṛṣṇa-conscious? It is not possible. Therefore you must verify everything in the laboratory of your own consciousness, because that change of consciousness is the final proof of the science of Kṛṣṇa consciousness.



I have some doubts about whether this lineage or path is for me. I am having a difficult time accepting the idea that other saints such as Yogananda, Sai Baba, Mahavatar Kriya Babaji, and the others who are not part of your lineage are somehow inferior or their paths do not lead to full realization. I have a strong connection with these saints and others who are of the Christian tradition. Is it normal to have these doubts?

When several teachings disagree, you have to choose. Everyone cannot be right. Your doubts are natural but the answer is very simple.

Let's say you apply for one job and the work is very hard and dirty, and the salary is $10 per hour. Then you apply for another job and the work is easier, but you have to cheat people, and the salary is $25 per hour + commission based on how many people you cheat. Then you apply for a third job and the work requires great intelligence and hard work, but the hiring bonus is $50,000 in stock options, the pay is $1,000 per hour and the benefits are a nice apartment, complete health care, dental, retirement, gym, organic snack bar, 3 months vacation etc.

Which job would you take?

Similarly if you compare the different teachings and lineages—not based on sentiment but on the actual knowledge and benefits that are available—you will see without a doubt that the Esoteric Teaching of the Vedas as taught by Lord Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu and His followers is simply incomparable. I spent over 20 years reading everything, comparing everything and even meeting all the different spiritual teachers, and my conclusion was that the Esoteric Teaching is simply beyond everything else. The benefits gained even by a beginning student are far beyond what any other path has even dreamed of. Other paths are OK but the Esoteric Teaching is better by far.

nigama-kalpa-taror galitaṁ phalaṁ
śuka-mukhād amṛta-drava-saṁyutam
pibata bhāgavataṁ rasam ālayaṁ
muhur aho rasikā bhuvi bhāvukāḥ

"O expert and thoughtful men, relish Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, the mature fruit of the desire tree of Vedic literatures. It emanated from the lips of Śrī Śukadeva Gosvāmī. Therefore this fruit has become even more tasteful, although its nectarean juice was already relishable for all, including liberated souls." [Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 1.1.3]

The real answer to your doubts is to go through the actual Vedic texts and compare their conclusions to the other different teachings. You will see that all these other teachings actually disagree with the conclusions of the Vedas. For example, it is not possible that Sai Baba is God and also Kṛṣṇa is God. But the Vedas say that the incarnations of the Lord are predicted in the scriptures. Kṛṣṇa is predicted but Sai Baba is not. Similarly every spiritual teaching talks about the soul, but there is only one teaching that actually describes the soul in detail, and that is the Vedic Esoteric Teaching.

We can go on and refute every point of every other teaching in detail with references to the original Vedic literatures, but that is not the point here. The point is to see whether or not you are intelligent enough to accept that process as valid. Testing on the basis of sentiment or the vain wish that somehow, everyone is right will never give a clear, firm conclusion. You must have a clear scientific basis for comparison, and that is the original Vedic literature, the Esoteric Teaching.

Of course, at your stage of realization you probably can't see this yet. It may take quite some time until you can. You might benefit from hearing this podcast, "The Most Valuable Jewel." Also, here are posts from some of my other students and disciples on how they resolved this same doubt.


Although the previous student did compare our lineage's teaching with others, it happened retroactively, after he already had a good idea of the Esoteric Teaching. So it is a little different from most devotees' search for the Absolute Truth.

The deep truth of this issue is that ultimately, human intelligence is insufficient to judge the relative merits of the different spiritual paths. The jīva is overwhelmed with the sheer amount of information involved. Practically one would have to practice each different spiritual path for a significant length of time to determine its result, and there is not enough time in human life to perform such an involved experiment.

So it really comes down to whether one is sincere and fortunate enough to pray to Kṛṣṇa to be guided to the authentic Absolute Truth. If one is sincere, then Kṛṣṇa will guide him; otherwise he will become lost in a maze of conflicting opinions on the mental platform.

When I was young and looking for a guru I was reading so many books, but it was only making me confused. I had no real knowledge of what the books were saying. It was just words and theories. It was clear to me that Śrīla Prabhupāda's books were superior to all the others. No one else was giving the authentic Vedic scriptures. Other were talking about the Vedas, but only Śrīla Prabhupāda was actually quoting them. This is because most of the teachings that claim to be based on the Vedas are very speculative and ultimately contradict the Vedas in so many ways. Especially there are so many impersonalists, beginning with Śāṅkarācārya who claim their teachings are Vedic, but as soon as you get beneath the surface you can see that their conclusions are completely different.

So I had to simply pray to Kṛṣṇa to guide me, and He created a situation where I got what I thought I wanted materially, found that it was rubbish, and then in a state of material exhaustion, I found that what I really wanted to do was surrender to Kṛṣṇa. Maybe it can't happen any other way, and all other attempts to find a bona fide guru by our own efforts are doomed to fail.

Everyone can't be right; there are too many contradictions between different philosophies and systems. As we stated in our podcast Two Sides of the Teaching, we have to decide what to accept and what to reject. Pick one and make a concentrated effort to make spiritual advancement. This determination cannot be made on the basis of imperfect human knowledge, limited intelligence or foolish sentiment; it can only be made on the authority of the Vedic scriptures. No other path can claim to have perfect knowledge: "That knowledge, once knowing which, there is nothing further to be known." [Bhagavad-gītā 7.2] That can only come from Kṛṣṇa.

Another student writes:

When I was in ISKCON I made a bit of a hobby out of asking devotees how they came to Kṛṣṇa consciousness. The common factor out of the many stories I heard was that Kṛṣṇa revealed Himself to them in some way, usually as a result of a prayer or desire to show them the way.

Life is confusing, there is too much contradictory information and no time to resolve it all. Reading many books gives gives rise to confusion. We want to find a path or person that we can place our faith in, but we don't the confidence. When we finally do, as you narrate, we often feel 'buyer's remorse' soon after the fact.

There was in interesting study done some time ago about buyer's remorse, that people hate to give up their options, even options that they don't plan to exercise. That is why so many people are shy of making commitments. But you know our history, that the devotees who have made that commitment and stuck with it are very pleased with the results. We have a small number of exceptions, but they were always holding back, imitating the external features of a devotee but never really doing the process.

Anyone who tries the process given in the Esoteric Teaching invariably finds it to be correct. As Śrīla Prabhupāda says, try the experiment, otherwise you'll never really know.

Seems to me that Esoteric, hidden, mystical, occulted, transcendent wisdom, the eternal gnosis, the perennial philosophy; etc, all means the same thing. The problem is not so much with our experiences of things mystical and transcendent but rather with language and in the face of socio/political brainwashing for vested reasons. All religions seem to have had their original kick-start in human experience of things transcendent from time and space initially, and by a few mystics in each generation. But these saying have been distorted out of all recognition of what they were actually saying, and hence adopted and came to be owned by priestcraft and churchianity and power politics (same thing). Is there any hope of returning to the initial experiences which these things were founded upon in mass social terms simply by way of talking and writing? Not a hope, for it has all gone too far into the cesspit of corruption and distortion. The only thing which will (and does) change people is for them to experience it for themselves.

You have stated the problem correctly, but your answer is insufficient. There is a gateway into the path of authentic mysticism open to anyone who is willing to enter into it. That gateway is the Esoteric Teaching, and the key to the gate is the Holy Name of the Lord, as glorified in the dvadasaksara-mantra, om namo bhagavate vasudevaya and other authentic Visnu mantras.

The Esoteric Teaching has always been there, available to all who are sufficiently determined to access its arcane secrets. What is new is that this Teaching has emerged from the caves of the Himlayas and is now being broadcast worldwide via the Internet.

It is certain that the forces of ignorance and evil have conspired down through the ages to distort and cover up the message of the wise. What you do not appear to understand is that the mystical power of the Holy Name of God can never be distorted or lost. Even if the grammar or pronounciation of the Name is incorrect, He still hears every prayer that is voiced by the heart, and will still act in response to the pure intention of the aspirant, revealing Himself to the sincere devotee.

Your explanation makes sense only if God is impotent. But since He is not only omnipotent but also has invested all His spiritual potencies in the Holy Name, we not only have lots of hope, but full certainty that anyone who sincerely desires true enlightenment can have the experience of complete self-realization: a face-to-face meeting with the Supreme Personality of Godhead.

Many have experienced the bliss of the Self-revelation of the Lord within the heart; we are not unique, or even so very rare. What is rare is that we are moved to share this bounty, and have articulated the Esoteric Teaching in a language and style accessible to Westerners. Our Western language is insufficient to express many of the higher aspects of spiritual consciousness, but it is wonderful for giving instructions, as we have many times shared herein.

Our problem is that we have too much faith in the insufficient Western philosophical process of inductive reasoning and Aristotelian logic, whose only result is reductionistic pessimism and loss of faith in the authentic Absolute Truth. Our faith is sufficient, but it is scattered among many things that will not help us.

So my advice to you is the same as to everyone here who inquires sincerely into the transcendental mystery of the Esoteric Teaching: review our videos, chant the mantra om namo bhagavate vasudevaya, and spread this process to everyone with an interest in spiritual life. If you will not follow this advice, which is meant only for your benefit, then any loss of hope is due only your own ignorance and inertia in spiritual matters.

I am not looking for any more transcendent mystical experiences, for I had them spontaneously for a period of twenty years; including the big one that reveals our true nature in that transcendent paradise of the ground of being. I question your assertion that these things can be got by way of some magic formula though – chanting and having faith in your particular message. You know as well as I do that the world is full of guru's. Everybody whom I have met who have experienced these events did so spontaneously, they were not on any path or seeking it; and most of them belonged to no religion as with myself. Why do we need this path or any path? Language can't describe the transcendent.

The Absolute Truth is realized in three stages [S.B. 1.2.11]:

The experience you have described is, at best, Brahman realization according to the Vedic sources of the Esoteric Teaching. This is simply the realization of oneself as a spiritul entity, independent of the material body. That is a good start, but there is much, much more.

The downside of flying by the seat of your pants and doing it all yourself is that you have no idea really where you have arrived. You have no map, no standards, no process, and no one to help or guide you when you go astray. Generally, a person who does not accept the authority of the Vedic scriptures, or the shelter of a bona fide Vedic lineage, is considered an atheist and an offender. As such, they do not have access to the higher stages of self-realization.

Your position on the inadequacy of language to describe transcendental experience is certainly justified in regards to English, but the Esoteric Teaching is in the Sanskrit language, which is considerably more expressive of spiritual truths. For example, Sanskrit has no trouble at all with non-Aristotelian logical concepts like "simultaneously one and different." In fact, the Sanskrit language of the Esoteric Teaching has seven distinct levels of interpretation, according to one's stage of advancement in self-realization. It is a very rich language which, like German, is also extensible to embrace new concepts.

The Holy Name of God is not a 'magic formula', as you so naively describe Him. Just consider these authoritative Vedic verses selected from many, many hundreds of similar ones:

aho bata sva-paco ’to gariyan yaj-jihvagre vartate nama tubhyam
tepus tapas te juhuvuh sasnur arya brahmanucur nama grnanti ye te

O my Lord, a person who is chanting Your holy name, although born of a low family like that of a candala [dog-eater], is actually situated on the highest platform of self-realization. Such a person must have performed all kinds of penances and sacrifices according to Vedic rituals and studied the Vedic literatures many, many times after taking his bath in all the holy places of pilgrimage. Such a person is considered to be the best of the self-realized souls.

harer nama harer nama harer namaiva kevalam
kalau nasty eva nasty eva nasty eva gatir anyatha

In this age of quarrel and hypocrisy the only means of deliverance is to chant the holy name of the Lord [in the neophyte stage], chant the holy name of the Lord [in the clearing stage], chant the holy name of the Lord [in the perfectional stage]. There is no other way [by silent meditation]. There is no other way [by elaborate religious rituals]. There is no other way [by arcane mystical temple worship].

krsna-varnam tvisakrsnam sangopangastra-parsadam
yajnaih sankirtana-prayair yajanti hi su-medhasah

In the Age of Kali, intelligent persons perform congregational chanting to worship the incarnation of Godhead who constantly sings the name of Krsna [Lord Chaitanya]. Although His complexion is not blackish, He is Krsna Himself. He is accompanied by His associates, servants, weapons and confidential companions.

nama-sankirtana haite sarvanartha-nasa
sarva-subhodaya, krsna-premera ullasa

Simply by chanting the holy name of Lord Krsna, one can be freed from all undesirable habits. This is the means of awakening all good fortune and initiating the flow of waves of love for Krsna.

ceto-darpana-marjanam bhava-maha-davagni-nirvapanam
sreyah-kairava-candrika-vitaranam vidya-vadhu-jivanam
anandambudhi-vardhanam prati-padam purnamrtasvadanam
sarvatma-snapanam param vijayate sri-krsna-sankirtanam

Let there be all victory for the chanting of the holy name of Lord Krsna, which can cleanse the mirror of the heart and stop the miseries of the blazing fire of material existence. That chanting is the waxing moon that spreads the white lotus of good fortune for all living entities. It is the life and soul of all education. The chanting of the holy name of Krsna expands the blissful ocean of transcendental life. It gives a cooling effect to everyone and enables one to taste full nectar at every step.

krsna-premodgama, premamrta-asvadana
krsna-prapti, sevamrta-samudre majjana

The result of chanting is that one awakens his love for Krsna and tastes transcendental bliss. Ultimately, one attains the association of Krsna and engages in His devotional service, as if immersing himself in a great ocean of love.

namnam akari bahudha nija-sarva-saktis
tatrarpita niyamitah smarane na kalah
etadrsi tava krpa bhagavan mamapi
durdaivam idrsam ihajani nanuragah

My Lord, O Supreme Personality of Godhead, in Your holy name there is all good fortune for the living entity, and therefore You have many names, such as “Krsna” and “Govinda,” by which You expand Yourself. You have invested all Your potencies in those names, and there are no hard and fast rules for remembering them. My dear Lord, although You bestow such mercy upon the fallen, conditioned souls by liberally teaching Your holy names, I am so unfortunate that I commit offenses while chanting the holy name, and therefore I do not achieve attachment for chanting.

trnad api su-nicena taror iva sahisnuna
amanina mana-dena kirtaniyah sada harih

One who thinks himself lower than the grass, who is more tolerant than a tree, and who does not expect personal honor but is always prepared to give all respect to others can very easily always chant the holy name of the Lord.

These slokas from the most confidential part of the Esoteric Teaching give the essence of the authorized Vedic process of self-realization for Kali-yuga. But because impersonalists are envious of the personal feature of the Lord, they cannot chant the Holy Name with faith, make offenses to the Holy Name, and therefore cannot realize the Paramatma and Bhagavan personal features of the Lord.

Generally the Master Teachers of the Esoteric Teaching do not describe their inner experiences, except perhaps to intimate disciples. One reason is that such things are very confidential—in many cases, absolutely confidential—and cannot really be understood by anyone else. Another reason is that students may be led astray by imitationism. Yet another is that very few of these experiences are transferable; each jiva soul's relationship with the Lord is unique, and may differ significantly from the expectations of unenlightened people.

That said, I recall an experience very similar to the one you describe when I was about 5 years old. It was a necessary, but certainly not sufficient precursor to later and more complete realizations of spiritual reality. It certainly seemed impressive to me at the time, but was actually pretty tame and limited in light of my present understanding and realization.

I can understand from your attitude alone that your level of realization is on the neophyte platform. You do not mention of God in a worshipful way. You think you have arrived at the ultimate, when any well-informed or experienced Student of the Esoteric Teaching would know that you have barely scratched the surface.

The spontaneous experience of the transcendental realm is called ajnata sukrti in Sanskrit. It means that one has performed some pious activities in a previous life, and is receiving the results effortlessly in this life. It doesn't mean that you have arrived at the pinnacle of self-realization.

Quite the opposite: Anyone who is not humbly looking to better themselves spiritually has a conceptual limitation preventing their further advancement. The spiritual path is infinite and endless, although there are limits to what one can achieve and still keep the material body. If you really understood spiritual life you would know all these things.

Our experience is that in spiritual life, as in most things, one gets what one pays for. Without a transaction or exchange of service, there is no flow of energy or transfer of value. The attitude and sincerity of the student is more important than the quality of the teacher, because the real guru is God, who sees all things and knows everyone's heart. The real spiritual teacher is simply God's servant, who acts as a transparent via medium between the qualified Student and the Lord, until the Student becomes sufficiently qualifed to contact the Lord directly. You would do well to pray for that level of realization.

I am studying many paths and wonder how you can say this leads to self-realization? Isn't the spiritual path eternal? I feel the more we realize, the deeper the path gets.

While the path of spiritual service is in fact unlimited and eternal, in the development of devotion in this life there are several well-defined stages, which are well-known to Master Teachers of the Esoteric Teaching:

* In the beginning there must be faith (śraddhā).

* Then one becomes interested in associating with pure devotees (sādhu-saṅga).

* Thereafter, one is initiated by the spiritual master and executes the regulative principles under his orders (bhajana-kriyā).

* Thus one is freed from all unwanted habits (anartha-nivṛtti).

* and becomes firmly fixed in devotional service (niṣṭhā).

* Thereafter, one develops taste (ruci)

The path thus far is the way of the execution of devotional service according to the regulative principles (vaidhi-bhakti). Now hear of the path of development of spontaneous love of Godhead (raganuga-bhakti).

* Gradually emotions intensify (bhava)

This is the gradual development of love of Godhead for the devotee interested in God consciousness and self-realization.

Our presentation of the Esoteric Teaching is firmly based upon this scientific description of the development of devotion, handed down by Vedic authorities who are much more experienced than ourselves. So our first order of business is to encourage people to withdraw their faith from false things that cannot help them, and to invest their faith in the Esoteric Teaching, which is the original, complete and potent instructions on attaining God consciousness.

After this, we encourage them to organize small groups for association, practice and discussion of the principles and scriptures of the Esoteric Teaching. This develops their ability to present the Teaching themselves, and prepares them for initiation. By practicing and preaching the Esoteric Teaching for some time under competent direction, one's character is gradually purified of doubt and other materialistic features. In this way the students become firmly fixed in the path of transcendence.

Finally, one develops a real taste for spiritual life and becomes so attached to it that no difficulty can shake him. At this point, transcendental love blossoms in the heart. From this point, the journey to the spiritual world is all downhill. The attraction of transcendental love of Godhead becomes so magnetic that one forgets everything else, becoming a madman and relishing ecstatic devotion at every moment.

These same steps are there in the development of devotion according to any path, be it Vedic, Christian, Buddhist or what have you. Actually there are many, many higher stages, but one cannot complete them while remaining in a material body, because the fleshy body is too weak to sustain such potent spiritual energies.

In one sense, even if one attains the highest realization possible in a mterial body, one feels as if one is always just beginning, because as you correctly point out, the more one advances, the farther he can see the path stretching into the future. But in another sense, these same stages are always there, and we observe in our own lives, our Godbrothers and in our training of new students, they always occur in the same order and with similar symptoms.

At your stage, you have yet to develop firm faith in anything. Your faith is scattered among many different things. You have no firm spiritual center, and because of this, no transcendental experiences. Therefore your tendency is to doubt everything, even if you have no real evidence to do so, and to hedge your bets by placing a little faith in many things. This is the condition of most people today.

Love, even ordinary love, requires faith, faith requires trust, and trust requires knowledge. Knowledge comes from practice and experience.

Practicing the methods of the Esoteric Teaching provides the knowledge and experience to trust in its methods. This trust, once established by experience, leads to faith in the Teaching and the Teacher. Once you can make a sincere commitment in the form of initiation, your path of self-realization becomes wide open. At this point you can begin to develop transcendental love by following the hieratical methods of the Esoteric Teaching and contemplating its recondite transcendental knowledge.

In the beginning, the process is more or less mechanical, according to the rules and processes established by the Teaching, but when one reaches the stage of ruci and especially bhava, one's taste for the transcendent Absolute Truth eclipses one's attachment to material sense gratification. From this point on, one is no longer on the platform of regulated devotional service, but attains the exalted platform of spontaneous transcendental love.

Each of these stages has its well-known symptoms, and an expert, experienced Teacher can instantly know which stage any particular aspirant has attained and treat him or her properly.

Therefore we advise people who are new to the Esoteric Teaching that almost all other sources of information on transcendental subject matters are corrupted by the selfish motives of the power-possessing elite. The rulers of the earth planet in kali-yuga do not want the people in general to become self-realized, because that would ruin their schemes for illicit exploitation, profit and control.

There is a great deal of disinformation in the world on spiritual subjects. Everyone has been cheated by false teachings and exploitive teachers. Therefore doubt and hesitancy are natural when coming in contact with a new teaching.

But we are living in a time when all these secrets are coming out. The corruption in government and religion is common knowledge, and soon everything will be exposed. People will lose their faith in the old, corrupt ways, but because everyone needs to have faith in something, many will begin to search. Thanks to the Internet, after centuries of secrecy the Esoteric Teaching is now globally available, and anyone who is thirsty for the Absolute Truth can drink from this unlimited source until they are fully satisfied.

The practice of the Esoteric Teaching begins with the chanting of the Holy Name of God. We advise people to chant the dvadasaksara-mantra, om namo bhagavate vasudevaya. But if you have faith in Jesus Christ then you can chant:

Jesus Christ Jesus Christ, Christ Christ Jesus Jesus

Jesus Lord Jesus Lord, Lord Lord Jesus Jesus

My spiritual Master Teacher once wrote me that of one chants the Holy Name of Jesus Christ with faith, they will get the same result as chanting the Holy Name of Krsna or any other bona fide incarnation of the Lord. He said, "After all Jesus Christ was the representative of God, so anyone who takes sincere shelter of his name will get the same result."

Whether one chants the name of Krsna, Vasudeva, Sanskarsan, Pradyumna, Aniruddha, Vaikuntha, Visnu or Rama from the Vedic tradition, or Yaweh, Allah, or Jesus Christ from the Abrahamic tradition, or any other name intended to reveal the spiritual qualities of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, then the result will be the same, provided one chants with transcendental faith and detachment from the material conception of life.

This chanting process is the beginning of the practice of the Esoteric Teaching.

WALKING THE PATH


Is there a guide to our daily routine? Like a Vaishnava handbook of sorts?


The problem with daily routines is that different people's needs and activities vary so much, it's very hard to cast it in stone. Some people like a strict daily program, others can wing it. If you have downloaded the VedaBase software [a 400 MB zip file] (and you should) in the Handbooks and Reference section, Pañcarātra-Pradīpa gives an overview of the daily duties of a devotee. But unless you're really into Deity worship and have little else to do, you'll probably find that it's too much.

The basics are chanting on beads in the early morning, offering one's food, studying the scriptures and association with devotees. One should begin devotional activities by bowing down and reciting the guru-pranāma-mantra, and before chanting one should recite the Pañca-tattva-mahā-mantra. When offering food one should also offer incense and flowers, and recite nice prayers. That will be sufficient for one's personal salvation. If you can also do some preaching and share the good fortune of being a devotee, that is very nice.



After coming across this teaching and practicing a little my head is spinning. Is this normal?

You are reeling because of ontological shock. All this time you have been thinking that the material existence is real, and the spiritual world is just kind of an energy or light. Now you can understand that Krsna is a person, He is everywhere and especially in your heart, and loving Him is the key to eternal life, complete knowledge and unlimited bliss.

Now you have learned the basic practices, and you can feel the purification. Uddhava and I once discussed how when your senses and mind become a little purified, suddenly you can understand how dangerously polluted most people and this material world really are. It's scary and painful, because all of a sudden you find that you don't really have meaningful relationships with the people you called your friends and family. You feel the bliss of the spiritual world, and then when you have to go to work, you come crashing into the material existence again. Your most meaningful relationship is with Krsna, and then there are these transcendental madmen in India....

It should make your head spin, if it doesn't then you have not understood fully. We are talking about the most radical change of consciousness, from material to spiritual. Of course there will be some disorientation in the beginning. It will take some time to sort everything out and get stabilized in the new orientation. Hang in there; please take my word for it that all this trouble is worthwhile.

Very soon you will realize that Krsna is with you every moment. He is guiding you because you are sincere. So everything that happens is moving you closer to Him. And He is the reservoir of all pleasurable things



I feel intense energy going up my spine and throughout my body when I listen to you. It distracts me from my devotional service sometimes though. Is this alright?

When I am speaking about the Esoteric Teaching, I am pretty much out of my body. In fact, I generally have to make an effort to get into my body, so when I think or talk about these topics, I really have to try hard to control the ecstasy. Maybe you're picking up on that. Like we discussed before, after some time you will get a little used to it. Spiritual energy is like cold showers—you never really get used to either. But after some practice it becomes easier to cope.

An advanced student of the Esoteric Teaching more or less always feels spiritual ecstasy, but this can get in the way of performing service. So he learns to ignore the ecstatic emotions and concentrate on getting things done. As my guru used to say, "Work now; samadhi later." We will have all eternity in the spiritual world to enjoy ecstasy. Right now the focus is to reach out to millions of people and help them advance spiritually.

I have found that since starting this path I am more inspired and happier in my day to day life. Is this normal?

This is very nice. Yes, spiritual inspiration is independent of everything material. It also comes with its own energy, so we can act on it. This spiritual love will actually sustain us, because we are spiritual beings. We need the spiritual nourishment of Absolute Truth, then we can be strong and happy.

So we see that when we are properly engaged in spiritual service, then happiness, knowledge and all other good things come automatically. When the spiritual master sees that his disciples are happy in Kṛṣṇa consciousness, then he is happy. This transcendental happiness is the real result of cultivating the Esoteric Teaching.

Spiritual life and instructions should make us feel good, because the soul is naturally blissful like the Lord.

The point that I have made many times herein is that if one is actually following the process, then the spiritual joy that results more than makes up for giving up material so-called happiness and enjoyment, which are actually the causes of miserable material existence. So controlling the senses and mind is actually very blissful.

If we are not feeling this causeless bliss, then something is wrong in our attitude, understanding or application of the process. We may have committed offenses to the spiritual Master Teacher or the Holy Name. We may be holding back, not surrendering or giving the level of devotional service that we are actually capable of. In any case, the fault is not with Krsna, the other devotees, the spiritual master or the Esoteric Teaching; the fault lies in ourselves. And the cause of this fault is always the same:

We must always remember that the cause of all suffering is contact of the pure soul with the contaminated material senses. The soul and the material body are constitutionally incompatible. Just as a fish cannot be happy out of water, the soul cannot be happy in the material world. It is useless to try. We can dress the fish up as a king, put him on a throne and offer all kinds of royal worship, but he will still be miserable because he is out of his element.

Similarly, no amount of material enjoyment can make us happy in this horrible material world. Britney Spears is young, beautiful, talented (well, maybe that's debatable ) famous and rich. She can and does have any kind of material enjoyment whenever she likes. But she is so miserable that she is cracking up in a very public way. The only thing that actually is enjoyable about sense gratification is the anticipation—the actual experience is always a let-down, because it is never perfect or eternal.

Real enjoyment is when the soul is in contact with the spiritual energy, because the soul is made of the same kind of energy. This contact of the soul and the spiritual energy is called yoga. When we are in contact with the spiritual energy, the Personality of Godhead is visible to us. In fact, our service relationship with Him is the only thing that makes such contact possible. So devotional service to the Lord is the only cause of spiritual advancement and real happiness, meaning the eternal unconditional spiritual happiness of ecstatic transcendental love of the Supreme Personality of Godhead.

Is the consciousness in which an action is performed or a decision is made what is important, not so much the act or decision itself? If so, how can we go through our lives before we have cleansed our consciousness?

That's right, we perform actions every moment, even while sleeping. Certainly we should arrange our lives in such a way that our actions have spiritual consequences as far as possible. And our goal should always be to attain complete enlightenment in devotional service. In western materialistic society where every other move is about money this is very difficult, but it is possible by always remembering the Holy Name of the Lord. That way our consciousness is always situated on the spiritual platform.

Lord Caitanya is not joking when He instructs, kirtaniyah sada harih: always chant the Holy Names. If we cannot chant, then at least we can hear. We keep transcendental sound vibration going constantly in our house. When we go out we wear an iPod Shuffle filled with spiritual sound vibration. So we are always in the vibration of the Holy Name. Sravanam kirtanam visnuh: hearing and chanting the Name of God. This is the most important practice of spiritual life.

What are the dangers to watch out for on the spiritual path?

The greatest danger is that we will not apply ourselves to the spiritual path seriously enough to attain complete self-realization in this life.


There are no obstacles to anyone who makes a firm determination to attain complete self-realization, because Krsna helps him from within and also from without.


So the greatest danger is that we will be weak in our resolve or vacillating in our commitment to reach the goal.

There are many other pitfalls, of course, and these are described in detail in The Nectar of Instruction by Srila Rupa Gosvami. In my experience, many devotees became contaminated by untruthfulness due to excessive political dealings. Subtle pride is another danger as we advance on the spiritual path. We may become attached to power and position within some ecclesiastical organization, and lose the feeling of love for the Lord.

One way I avoided these traps was to wait until I attained complete self-realization before teaching or accepting disciples. By taking a humble position, patiently serving my spiritual master and his mission, reading and studying Srila Prabhupada's books thoroughly, contemplating the philosophy of this path deeply, chanting and hearing very sincerely with love, I was able to attain the goal. Now the illusory energy has no attraction for me, because I can see Him who is the object of our quest.

In material terms, the only danger is that if we seriously strive to attain self-realization, our friends and family member who are not so spiritual-minded will think that we are neglecting our material duties, or that we are 'crazy'. Of course, persons who pursue material goals alone are actually crazy, because they are ignorant of the spiritual nature of the self. But this misunderstanding can cause professional, social and familial difficulties in the devotee's life.

It is very important to avoid the ten offenses to the Holy Name, especially preaching the glories of the Holy Name to the unfaithful. The various offenses on the path of bhakti are described in detail in Nectar of Devotion, Chapter 8. It is natural to want to share the wonders of spiritual life with our family and friends; but if they have no interest, efforts to preach to them will be counterproductive. It is better to concentrate on our own spiritual development and keep one's spiritual feelings confidential. Just like a husband and wife do not discuss their relationship with outsiders, we should not discuss too much of our inner spiritual experiences with people who lack faith or interest in them. This will help prevent falldown.

Finally, of all the spiritual techniques that give advancement, the best is hearing and chanting the Holy Name with concentration. Therefore be careful to avoid inattention while chanting.

I could add many other pieces of advice but those are the most pertinent.

Please also read and listen to our essay on Avoiding Crystallization.

I have been reading this philosophy for a little while. How do I make some advancement in devotional service?

In the Second Chapter of Bhagavad-gita, Krsna several times speaks of the level of determination necessary to be successful in devotional service.


The phrase vyavasāyātmikā buddhiḥ means "the intelligence (buddhiḥ) of a soul (ātmā) who is fixed in resolute determination (vyavasā)." Without this one-pointed intelligence, it is very difficult to make advancement in devotional service, because the aspiring devotee will be deviated by the changing conditions in the material world, or even by his own defective intelligence.

We often encounter pseudo-disciples who are happy to pose themselves as very advanced, but when asked to contribute some humble service to the preaching mission, suddenly dry up and blow away. Their big words and proud poses come to nothing when the rubber meets the road. What is the use of learning and intelligence unless it is practical?

The difference between knowledge and wisdom, between mental speculation and devotional service is the difference between theory and practice. Knowledge is only information about some subject, but experience is the subject itself. In the case of bhakti, a neophyte disciple may have all kinds of degrees and certificates, and be very expert in mental speculation, but when the spiritual master tries to engage him in service, he quails.

This is precisely the subject of Bhagavad-gita. Krsna wants to engage Arjuna in fighting because He wants to create the conditions for the transition to Kali-yuga. He wants to destroy the dynasty of qualified ksatriyas, the Vedic kings who manage human society according to religious principles, and He wants Arjuna to be the instrument of that fight.

Arjuna plays the role of a materialistic person deluded by family attachment, pointing out the inevitable social consequences of Krsna's plan just to provoke Him to explain the principles of religion. This same material attachment and unwillingness to surrender raises its ugly head whenever a neophyte is called by Krsna or His representative, the spiritual master, to take some risk on His behalf.

We should ignore this temptation. Claiming to be a Vaisnava devotee of the Lord, but refusing to engage in His service, is hypocrisy. My spiritual master Srila Prabhupada certainly never tolerated such hypocrisy, and often chastised his errant disciples caustically in sarcastic words. I have heard that to be chastised by Srila Prabhupada was a uniquely humbling experience. I don't really know, because he never chastised me.

But Krsna sarcastically addresses Arjuna,


Similarly, one who offends his spiritual master by refusing to follow his instructions certainly becomes fallen and dishonored, and whatever high position in devotional service he may have aspired to, simply becomes a laughingstock.

The principle and method of approaching the spiritual master is given by Krsna Himself:


The spiritual master engages the disciple in service because without a large stock of pious activities, no one can rise to the platform of pure goodness (śuddha-sattva):


Srila Prabhupada explains,


We are not acting arbitrarily when we invite the conditioned souls to engage in practical service; nor are we self-interested. The fact is that without following Krsna's system of guru-parampara and offering selfless service to the preaching mission, no one can remain fixed in the devotional service of the Lord because he will remain contaminated by the modes of passion and ignorance. We experience time and time again that those who pretend to be advanced disciples but are unwilling to render such practical service, refusing to sacrifice their material resources to the exalted cause of advancing Lord Krsna's devotional service all over the world, fall down.

In our case, we have dedicated our entire energy, resources and our very existence itself to this service, with all the detachment and humility at our command. It is our hope that our students and disciples, understanding the instructions of the Lord in Bhagavad-gita and other authorized Vedic scriptures, will come forward to contribute whatever they can to this mission; not for our benefit, but for theirs. This is devotional service in practice, or karma-yoga.

The basic message here is simple: You get what you pay for. The more of your energy and resources you invest in the progressive path of the Esoteric Teaching, the faster you will advance toward complete self-realization.

This Esoteric Teaching is not just one-sided; it addresses all aspects of human existence. It has many facets: intellectual, emotional, practical, mystical, religious, aesthetic, philosophical, scientific, sociological and ontological, to name just a few. In this discussion I especially want to stress the practical side.

Srila Prabhupada used to say, "Religion without philosophy is sentiment, or sometimes fanaticism; philosophy without religion is mental speculation." I would add that mysticism without practical service is cheating oneself. One who does not apply his philosophical spiritual knowledge to practical service cannot attain ultimate self-realization.

Maybe you think I am talking about someone else; but no, I am talking about you. For a long time I have tolerated students and even disciples who may be superficially intelligent, but only want to study the theory and philosophy of devotional service, without practical engagement. We must move forward from the philosophy of the Second Chapter of Bhagavad-gita to karma-yoga, the practical action described in the Third Chapter. Anyone who claims to be a disciple of the Esoteric Teaching must practice karma-yoga. Srila Prabhupada explains,


My role as a spiritual Master Teacher is to elevate the fallen souls of Kali-yuga from animal consciousness to human consciousness by progressively engaging their energy and resources in the service of the Supreme Lord. I would be remiss, and a false teacher, if I allowed my students to accept the consolation and comfort of the pure spiritual Bhagavata philosophy without insisting that they also apply it in practical service.

For the first few years of our community we spent a lot of time and effort in a detailed examination of the philosophy of spiritual existence as taught by Krsna in the Second Chapter of Bhagavad-gita. Now we have presented sufficient material on that subject. Everyone on this forum should be very clear that they are not this body, but an eternal spiritual living entity. Then we concentrated on the teachings of the Third Chapter of Bhagavad-gita on karma-yoga.

Without such practical engagement in service, any claim to be a Vaisnava devotee situated in the disciplic succession from Lord Krsna is simply nonsense. Krsna Himself spoke Bhagavad-gita to help Arjuna overcome his material attachments and engage in practical devotional service to Him by fighting the Battle of Kuruksetra. This service, not the temporary service of material purposes, is proper spiritual engagement for the energy and resources of human life.

As Srila Prabhupada writes,


Stay with us as we rise, step-by-step, out of the darkness of material life to the exalted platform of God consciousness and the spiritual world.





So we must engage ourselves practically?


Yes. The Esoteric Teaching is similar to an investment portfolio: what you get out of it is exactly in proportion to what you put into it. If you only read the prospectus and never actually invest any funds, then you will not get any return. You have to actually contribute something to the investment fund; then you will start getting returns or results on your investment.

The more you invest, the higher rate of return you will get. If you invest everything, your return is unlimited: you get God Himself. And with the Esoteric Teaching, all our returns are permanent and tax-free; in other words, our benefits are never diminished by time because they are completely spiritual in quality.

On the other hand, everything you invest in material life and work will certainly be lost at the time of death, if not before. Working for material gain is like an investment that produces some small return, but the fees and taxes are so high that you are left with nothing. Actually less than nothing, because material work also produces karma that binds you to rebirth in this horrible material world.

Working in the material world is like putting your money in an account where at any time, you may find that your balance is zero and have to start all over again. What kind of an investment is that? Would you listen to a broker who recommends an investment account where your money randomly disappears? Of course not; that would be stupid.

Would you throw your money in the trash? No? Then you should also refuse to accept advice from people who want you to spend your valuable human life working for material gain, without investing any time or energy in spiritual education and culture. Why should you waste your valuable time and effort working for mere material results that are certain to disappear in the course of time?

The Esoteric Teaching gives us the knowledge of how to approach God by chanting His Holy Name. It also shows us how to engage our material activities in devotional service so that instead of generating material karma, our work actually liberates us from material attachment. But it is up to us to take advantage of this knowledge. If we simply read the articles and messages on the site, or even read the Vedic scriptures but don't apply the Esoteric Teaching, then our time and effort are wasted in material activities. We can never recover even one second of wasted time with any amount of material wealth.

Everyone should ask themselves: How much of this knowledge are you actually using? 5%? 10%? 50%? How much of your energy is invested in spiritual activities? Are you on track to become a sincere student of the Esoteric Teaching? Are you purifying yourself and preparing for initiation as a disciple? Do you plan to become a teacher of this knowledge someday? Or are you just along for the ride, as a spectator instead of a participant?

The purpose of this site and the Esoteric Teaching is not passive entertainment or mere presentation and discussion of some arcane information, but active engagement leading to spiritual benefit. The more you participate, the more benefit you get. We have almost 100 registered users, but how many have ever posted a question on the forum? 20% of the students make 80% of the effort. I would like to see everyone engaging their energy and making significant, tangible spiritual progress.

Anyone who would like to consider that I am their spiritual teacher must chant the Holy Name regularly, at least one hour a day. And you must study the Vedic scriptures and follow the regulative principles of spiritual life: strictly abstaining from meat eating, intoxication, illicit sex and gambling. Otherwise you have no right to consider yourself my student; you are just an observer, not a participant, and you will not get any lasting benefit from this teaching because you have not advanced from theory to actual practice.

If I give you a jar of honey, you have to open the jar before you can taste the sweetness. You cannot taste the honey by licking the outside of the jar. Similarly, you cannot experience the benefits of this teaching unless you actually practice it. The more energy you invest in this practice, especially chanting, the more benefit you will get.

It is up to you how much time, energy and resources you invest in this school of the Esoteric Teaching. An important part of the test of discipleship is to see how constructively you employ your initiative. How eager are you to read the books, hear the podcasts, watch the videos, post your questions on the forums and discuss the issues? How enthusiastic are you to render service to your spiritual master? How much effort are you making to spread this knowledge to others? Are you just taking, or are you giving, too?

Krsna guarantees His support and protection to anyone who wholeheartedly engages in His service:


Do you think this is just a comforting myth? Or that God is impotent and cannot support or protect us? Don't be a fool. Krsna is real, and His promises are true. I have been living according to this teaching for most of my adult life, and I have never missed a meal. Actually I have led a very rich and varied life, traveling five times around the world, teaching spiritual life in over twenty countries, recording beautiful transcendental music, writing books, living on beautiful tropical islands. I basically did whatever I wanted to do, but—and this is the vitally important part—I did it in such a way that Krsna would be pleased by my activities.

So why are you knocking yourself out, working so hard merely for temporary material benefits that are certain to be vanquished by time? You can have a lifetime of secure, karma-free engagement in this material world as Krsna's servant, and then go back to the spiritual world for an eternity of bliss in association with the Lord. But first you have to prove that you are sincere, and successfully apprentice yourself to a Master Teacher who is already accomplished in esoteric knowledge. This is Krsna's test:


The qualification of a sincere disciple is the degree of his surrender to his spiritual master. Complete surrender means that one gets the complete benefit; partial surrender means partial benefit. Are you just playing with this Esoteric Teaching, like some kind of hobby? Or do you take it seriously enough to make a significant investment? To base your whole life on it, as I have done?

What you get out of this school is precisely proportional to what you put in. This is not my idea, but Krsna's system and the eternal spiritual law:






I get the impression we will need to start this path over quite a few times if we really want to perfect pure loving service to Krsna. Is this right?

A student answers:

For example, in shotokan karate, it takes about ten years to get your black belt.  But when you actually achieve this, It is only the beginning.  It is funny, because after doing karate for ten or so years, when you finnaly achieve a blackbelt you are taught to forget everything you have learned and learn everything all over again.  It is funny, because, you learn how to puch all over again from scratch.  This is a very hard thing to explain.  The only way you can understand this is if you have experienced this yourself by being dedicated solely to one thing.  And by learning and re-learning that thing, you make real progress. 

Just like if you want to build a mansion, you can't start with the foundation that is used for a shack.  When we want to create something at a higher quality than what we already have, we must demolish everything and re-lay the foundation properly.  Then the foundation will withstand what it is intended to withstand and not buckle under pressure.

So, if we are living in a shack and we want to build a house, we must demolish everything and start with building a foundation that is suitable for a house.  When we are living in a house and we want to build a mansion, we must demolish everything and start with a solid foundation that will support a large structure such as a multi-floor mansion.  When we live in a mansion but decide to build a skyscaper building, we must again demolish everything, and dig down deep underground and attach solid metal bars to the rockbed;  Then our skyscraper building will withstand earthquakes and rogue airplanes. 

From my understanding, this is how we learn and re-learn.

He is right. I have lost count of the times that I got deep into Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, only to encounter something that made me realize that I had a completely wrong mental model, and go back again to the beginning of Bhagavad-gītā and start all over again. People groan when I tell them to study Bhagavad-gītā by looking up every word; but I did it, and it was very good for me.

I did the same thing many times as a musician. I would get into bad habits or just get frustrated with music in general, stop practicing for a while, then go back to the very beginning and just play one note for days until it felt right, then start practicing two notes, articulations etc. and gradually build up a new set of better habits. In general, being expert at something requires a willingness to start all over again and again, until one gets it right from the beginning. However, you can't know how wrong habits will hold you back until you become somewhat advanced; then you can go back to the beginning, knowing that if you take a shortcut at that stage, how it will stop your progress later on down the road. Anyone who has attained mastery of any subject has traveled this path over and over.

A student explains further:

This process of learning and re-learning is difficult to explain.  Words can not do the actual process justice.  You just have to have experience and these things appear.

This explanation of the process of learning and re-learning gives more meaning to the idea that a devotee is expert.  So, what does expert mean?  I have concluded that one of the results of being expert at something means that we have learned how to learn.  This is it.  This is the benefit we recieve from being expert at any one thing.  This experience gives us an ontology that enables us to walk a path, whatever it may be, and learn as we go.

Prabhupad: [...] Expertness is you just try to do which is easily performed by you. You don't accept anything heavy task because Kṛṣṇa does not want that you have to do this heavy task. Whatever you know, you just apply it. You dovetail it in Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Kṛṣṇa does not say that you have to become like this, like that, like that, then you can serve Him. Does not say. Just like this cow. Just see. What does it know? He's an animal. You see? But the calf knows to brush his head and tongue like this, in love. It is doing and Kṛṣṇa accepting, "Yes." That is expert. First of all find out what is easily done by you. Don't take anything which is not easily done by you. You find out what is your occupation, what you can very nicely and easily perform, and do it for Kṛṣṇa. That's all. Is that clear? Expert? This is expert.

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Also, I have concluded from Babaji's experience that when we start this process over again correctly and expertly, we become self realized in 6 months or a relatively short period of time.  So, we should be willing to start this process over and over again, at least every couple of years, or as many times it takes to get the result.  When we really do the process expertly, we get true results in a short period of time. 

It might only take 6 months to become self realized, but to get to this point we have to start the process over and over again many many times.  So, we should not hesitate to start over again at any time;  Starting over again will make us advance slower in the short run, but in the long run it will enable us achieve a much higher goal.

As Babaji has taught us from his own experience, he obtained the result in a relatively short period of time when he finally demonlished everything and started building the Vaikuntha mansion correctly.

I would say that is an accurate assessment. Six months if you are doing everything almost perfectly. So you must learn how to learn, and be willing to start all over again until you get it right. Another definition of expert is:

Any person who can quickly execute a very difficult task is called expert. About the expertise of Kṛṣṇa there is a statement in the Tenth Canto, Fifty-ninth Chapter, verse 17, of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, wherein Śukadeva Gosvāmī tells Mahārāja Parīkṣit, "O best of the Kurus, Śrī Kṛṣṇa cut to pieces all the different weapons used by different fighters." Formerly, fighting was done by releasing different kinds of arrows. One party would release a certain arrow, and the other party had to defeat it by counteracting it with another arrow. For example, one party might release an arrow which would cause water to pour from the sky, and to counteract this the opposing party would have to release an arrow which could immediately turn the water into clouds. So from this statement it appears that Kṛṣṇa was very expert in counteracting the enemy's arrows. Similarly, at the rāsa dance, each and every gopī requested that Kṛṣṇa individually become her partner, and Kṛṣṇa immediately expanded Himself into so many Kṛṣṇas in order to be coupled with each and every gopī. The result was that each gopī found Kṛṣṇa by her side. [Nectar of Devotion, 21.16]

So Kṛṣṇa is very expert because He can effortlessly perform tasks that are completely impossible for others. An expert musician easily plays music that is difficult or impossible for others. He can do this because of his complete mastery of the fundamentals. I know this from experience. The beginner or amateur expends great effort trying to perform an impressive piece, but the real expert does it better without effort.

Similarly in the beginning we may make some advancement in devotional service by great effort, but we cannot maintain it and then we fall down. This means that we have not sufficiently mastered the fundamentals. From my perspective, loving Kṛṣṇa is the easiest and most natural thing in the world—it is our very nature. But it may seem very difficult for others because they still maintain some psychological residue from conditioned consciousness. There is no shortcut to the expert stage, but requires that we practice again and again until we get it right by accumulating many, many impressions on the pure spiritual platform.

One of the secrets of my spiritual success was that I always put the satisfaction of my spiritual master and Kṛṣṇa first, before the satisfaction of anyone else. My Godbrothers hate me for it, but I never regarded their opinions very highly. I could see from the beginning that their consciousness was covered by the modes of passion and ignorance, so I never took them seriously.

These are the true secrets of the path of spiritual perfection. If you can understand these things from the very beginning, then you will have a tremendous advantage over my Godbrothers. Hopefully we have learned from their mistakes and can do better this time around.





How can we be successful in spiritual life?

There is a very interesting article in The Guardian by Malcolm Gladwell about success, luck and practice. Research into what makes successful people in many fields seems to indicate that extraordinary success is combination of lucky breaks and hard work. Specifically, exposure at a critical age to a stimulating environment, combined with logging more than 10,000 hours of practice, seem to be the conditions for extraordinary success in any field.

This reminds me of an old joke: the foreign tourist asks the hipster, "Excuse me, how do I get to Carnegie Hall?" "Practice, man, practice!"

We can easily see how this applies to spiritual life. One must have access to a stimulating environment—personal association with a self-realized soul—and then practice, man, practice until you attain self-realization. Chanting 64 rounds every day for a bit more than more than three years would add up to about 10,000 hours. That seems about right; or 30 years of on-again, off-again practice followed by six months of offenseless chanting in my experience.

śrī-bhagavān uvāca
asaṁśayaṁ mahā-bāho
mano durnigrahaṁ calam
abhyāsena tu kaunteya
vairāgyeṇa ca gṛhyate

Lord Śrī Kṛṣṇa said: "O mighty-armed son of Kuntī, it is undoubtedly very difficult to curb the restless mind, but it is possible by suitable practice and by detachment." [Bhagavad-gītā 6.35]

PURPORT

The difficulty of controlling the obstinate mind, as expressed by Arjuna, is accepted by the Personality of Godhead. But at the same time He suggests that by practice and detachment it is possible. What is that practice? In the present age no one can observe the strict rules and regulations of placing oneself in a sacred place, focusing the mind on the Supersoul, restraining the senses and mind, observing celibacy, remaining alone, etc. By the practice of Kṛṣṇa consciousness, however, one engages in nine types of devotional service to the Lord. The first and foremost of such devotional engagements is hearing about Kṛṣṇa. This is a very powerful transcendental method for purging the mind of all misgivings. The more one hears about Kṛṣṇa, the more one becomes enlightened and detached from everything that draws the mind away from Kṛṣṇa. By detaching the mind from activities not devoted to the Lord, one can very easily learn vairāgya. Vairāgya means detachment from matter and engagement of the mind in spirit. Impersonal spiritual detachment is more difficult than attaching the mind to the activities of Kṛṣṇa. This is practical because by hearing about Kṛṣṇa one becomes automatically attached to the Supreme Spirit. This attachment is called pareśānubhava, spiritual satisfaction. It is just like the feeling of satisfaction a hungry man has for every morsel of food he eats. The more one eats while hungry, the more one feels satisfaction and strength. Similarly, by discharge of devotional service one feels transcendental satisfaction as the mind becomes detached from material objectives. It is something like curing a disease by expert treatment and appropriate diet. Hearing of the transcendental activities of Lord Kṛṣṇa is therefore expert treatment for the mad mind, and eating the foodstuff offered to Kṛṣṇa is the appropriate diet for the suffering patient. This treatment is the process of Kṛṣṇa consciousness.

In any case, we are not going to reach the goal of perfect self-realization without a lot of practice; better get started now!

This practice must be deliberate though. And at times we need feedback. Here are some excerpts from "Cognitive Psychology And Its Implications" by John R. Anderson, a cognitive psychologist at Carnegie Mellon University:



The importance of guru is that he gives the student this expert feedback. Remember the example of the game of "telephone," where a message becomes distorted beyond recognition after being repeated only a few times. If we add the step of getting feedback, i.e. repeating the message to the previous person in the line and verifying that one has received it accurately, then the errors drop to nearly zero.

So the function of disciplic succession is to pass down this message from Kṛṣṇa, and the function of the guru is to observe our practice and correct it, leading to accurate duplication of Kṛṣṇa's Esoteric Teaching. Once the message is duplicated, the student can think it through for himself; this is the stage of understanding. Then contemplation and realization follow almost automatically.




I have had some wonderful internal experiences but lately it seems I have been getting a lot of opposition to my practice. Why?

This is unfortunate, but don't be afraid; we are living in the material world, therefore spiritual activities—especially if they are potent—will always attract opposition. This is the nature of the material world. It is a trap of very subtle construction, and as soon as we try to get out, the trap reconfigures itself. To remain transcendental, we must always be making progress on the path of self-realization.

Try to remain patient, and work methodically and patiently for what you know is right. Just like sometimes a pilot cannot see due to clouds, and must fly the plane on instruments. Just because it is bad weather right now, does not mean that what we are doing is wrong. Using your intelligence, keep your direction and work to resolve the difficulties, and your relationships will wind up stronger than before.

There is a season for everything. Sometimes we get wonderful inner experiences, and sometimes they stop, with or without reason. Krsna can be such a tease! But He is within our hearts and always knows what is best for us. Your attention is drawn to externals so perhaps your inner life may suffer for the time being. But you know those ecstatic visions happened, and they were real.

So continue on the path that brought them to you, and don't waver. For example, these days I am so busy helping others that I hardly ever get to chant nicely. But I always remember the transcendental experiences from my days of intense sadhana, and that helps me keep my direction and enthusiasm. The chanting that we do when we don't feel like it is worth many times the value of the chanting we do when it is easy and we feel great. Remain consistent and persistent, and the troubles will go by the force of time; "This too shall pass."

Krsna is starting to take away all my arrangments. I feel like I am going in and out of Krsna consciousness sometimes though. Will this stabilize?

Your description of going in and out of Kṛṣṇa consciousness reminds me of a story I heard about George Harrison. He and John Lennon were cruising on a boat off Greece, just playing guitars and chanting the Hare Kṛṣṇa mantra. He said, "Whenever we would stop, it was like somebody turned out the lights. So we would just start chanting again."

Now Kṛṣṇa is making the arrangement to give you time to study and contemplate Him. He makes all good arrangements for His devotee. So as you go through the transition from thinking that you are a material being to realizing your actual nature as a spiritual being, you have the time to adjust to this change of identity. Don't worry, in a little while you will stabilize again in a new mode.

I find my questions usually get answered eventually. Is this normal?

The deep understanding on questions is that like all desires, they are predicated on the illusion of separation. But when we attain self-realization, we directly perceive that the source of everything, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, rests in transcendent exaltation deep within our own hearts as Paramātmā. Therefore because we have Him as our eternal Friend we are not in need of anything, nor are we lacking knowledge of anything. The knowledge will manifest spontaneously when we need it and are ready to receive it.

Nevertheless most of us are not in a perfect state of self-realization, therefore we also need to do the standard spiritual practices like chanting, study of the Vedas, following the regulative principles etc. to prepare and qualify ourselves.

ceto-darpaṇa-mārjanaṁ bhava-mahā-dāvāgni-nirvāpaṇaṁ
śreyaḥ-kairava-candrikā-vitaraṇaṁ vidyā-vadhū-jīvanam
ānandāmbudhi-vardhanaṁ prati-padaṁ pūrṇāmṛtāsvādanaṁ
sarvātma-snapanaṁ paraṁ vijayate śrī-kṛṣṇa-saṅkīrtanam

‘Let there be all victory for the chanting of the holy name of Lord Kṛṣṇa, which can cleanse the mirror of the heart and stop the miseries of the blazing fire of material existence. That chanting is the waxing moon that spreads the white lotus of good fortune for all living entities. It is the life and soul of all education. The chanting of the holy name of Kṛṣṇa expands the blissful ocean of transcendental life. It gives a cooling effect to everyone and enables one to taste full nectar at every step.’ [Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu’s Śikṣāṣṭaka, 1]

So this is the process that brings out the wealth of self-realization hidden within our hearts, and manifests it like cooling moon-rays of transcendental bliss. Please continue to engage in this saṅkīrtan and you will gain everything that is available in human life.




Why is the spiritual path rarely direct and straightforward?





I am just starting this path and came across Rasa-Tattva in your satsangs.  I do not understand what Rasa-Tattva is.

Rasa-tattva is the supreme topmost ultimate ontological truth of the Vedas. I am giving all the greatest secrets now because I am planning to retire from public teaching soon to concentrate on my sincere disciples. But you are at the beginning of the path, and rasa-tattva is the end; you are at the bottom, and rasa-tattva is the top. You can look it up the Vedabase.

You cannot jump from the bottom to the top; you have to climb carefully, step-by-step, otherwise you will fall down. I have been climbing this mountain carefully and methodically for over 40 years; do you think you can just jump to the top and study rasa-tattva? There are so many other tattvas you must understand first, and you must become purified of all mundane contamination. Otherwise if you try to enter the rarefied atmosphere of rasa-tattva without adequate preparation, you will just make offense and fall down.

In spiritual life, you are planning to go very high; so you must first build an adequate foundation. Just like if you are going to build a skyscraper building, the first thing is to dig deep into the ground and make a strong foundation. Otherwise your building will collapse when it is half-finished.

I have seen many, many devotees try to jump to the top, and fall down as a result so be careful. Aim for the top, but don't jump; keep your feet solidly on the path and advance step-by-step. From where you are, it will take a long time to reach rasa-tattva.
















MATERIAL LIFE WHILE ON THE SPIRITUAL PATH

(Please also see "Working in the material world and karma yoga FAQ")




In our daily lives we must perform many actions and take many decisions. How do we know for certain what is the correct thing to do?

Changing the quality of our actions is the key to attaining self-realization. We have to gradually adjust our activity from the modes of ignorance and passion to the mode of goodness, and then to transcendental activity (akarma or naiskarma) through engaging everything in devotional service. That is the path of karma-yoga or buddhi-yoga given to Arjuna in Bhagavad-gita.

The topmost solution for this though, is fully surrendering to a bona fide spiritual master. Srimad Bhagavatam 11.2.37 says:


Please also see the Spiritual Master FAQ.




I find when I am home I can easily follow the practices and feel great. But I become so bewildered when I have to work and sometimes cave in to coffee or even questionable food. Any advice for this?

As soon as you become a little purified, you can immediately feel your body and mind become enlivened. The problem is when you have to work or travel in the material world, how to deal with the material energy?

It is easy to start spiritual discipline, but difficult to maintain it for a long time unless you are living in a spiritual community, or someplace like India where vegetarian food is available everywhere. When I travel I bring a big bag of fruit, trail mix and energy bars from the health food store, bread, yogurt and whatever else is handy that will keep for some time. Realistically, especially in the beginning it will be difficult to maintain all the principles.

But remember, spiritual life is a discipline of consciousness. It is not masochism. When Srila Prabhupada created his preaching mission, he called it 'International Society for Krsna Consciousness' not 'International Society for Vedic Religion' or even 'International Society for Rules and Regulations'! The principles help us maintain the state of spiritual consciousness, but they are not consciousness themselves.

Let's get some perspective here. I am not advocating to break the principles, but when keeping the principles strictly would require you to put more attention on the material energy, then it is better to accept the practical rather than pursue the ideal.

I knew the devotee who cleaned out Srila Prabhupada's personal records from his room in Radha-Damodara temple. Srila Prabhupada kept meticulous records of his business expenses, and on the receipts he even wrote exactly what he ate and drank every day. Therefore I know for a fact that even Srila Prabhupada sometimes drank tea and ate rather questionable food when he was traveling on business. Of course, when we are in our home then we live as we like. But sometimes we have to compromise for practical reasons when on the road.

So the most important thing is chanting our mantra very nicely. When we chant our regular amount of rounds even when we don't feel like it, then on that day we make more advancement than on the days when it is easy. Remember, it is the quality of consciousness that is the fundamental and important result of our spiritual practices. So don't beat yourself up if you drink a cup of espresso once in a while; just don't let it become a habit.





I read the 'Nectar of Instruction' and found some of the rules and regulations stipulated by Rupa Goswami to be rather difficult to adhere to in today's world. Especially troublesome is avoiding non-devotees, after all, who am I to judge who is or isn't a devotee? Are these rules necessary for everyone or just for those in certain varnas/ashrama?

Here is a nice answer from one of our students:

In the preface to the Nectar of Instruction (NoI henceforth), Srila Prabhupada writes:



So, these literatures are all written to guide people who want the highest perfection of life. It has nothing to do with varna or ashrama or whether you're man, woman, american, indian, rich, poor etc. But if someone - anyone - finally decides that "Yes! I want to know the perfection of life!" then these literatures are the map to guide the aspiring devotee. So, these instructions make no compromise. That is their supreme value! There are many other spiritual paths out there and traditions that make all sorts of compromises in their teachings, so that it is never clear what is a relative truth and what is absolute truth. But in all those cases, the truth is compromised. It will change according to time and place, so it is reduced to a relative truth. It is trying to be popular. Not so with the literatures of the Goswamis. They deal with the Absolute, and the principles they lay out are always going to be true anywhere and anytime. So 10,000 years from now if someone picks up their books, they will still be perfectly relevant. The same with the Gita. That is the nature and value of absolute truth.

Now Rupa Goswami has laid out what needs to be done. He is stating the facts and he is not out to win some popularity contest. And if we want to make progress, we must accept the facts and aspire to follow them. We do not have to speculate about whether his instructions are really necessary or not. They are all necessary and that is a fact, and especially for neophyte devotees Rupa Goswami has listed out the basics. How we incorporate those basic rules into our lives is a detail that he doesn't concern himself with, because that is a relative truth . In the Nectar of Devotion, Chapter 6 , it's written:




So there, you see? The principle is always good, and it applies to anyone who wants to reach the stage of perfection. Now how we go about incorporating them into our lives is a detail that we have to deal with. There are some things that we also have to struggle with. It's not all spoonfeeding. When one has a spiritual master, some of the details and conflicts are easier to understand and deal with. Otherwise, we associate with other devotees and also take shiksha from them. Association is very very important. It makes a world of difference. I also struggle with these principles, but I am careful to always be aware that the principle is important and that I need to slowly, somehow move towards that. The present society is in a terrible state and so it's complicated, but just be aware of what direction we need to go to get out of this dense forest. We are lost and we should KNOW that we are lost. As soon as we think we know better, and that we're on top of things, we fall down.

But here's the thing: if you want to climb a mountain and you're standing at the bottom you can't figure out exactly how you're going to get there. You can't foresee and prepare for every pitfall, every landslide, every crevasse, every accident etc. Heck you can't even see the path all the way to the top. You have to start climbing. As you climb, you gain in strength and in experience. As you climb you get a closer view of the terrain that seemed so far away and you can make a much better assessment of it. Similarly, in the gradual advancement of devotional service, it is impossible to just sit and try and figure out the path that we're going to take. It is completely impossible. It is impossible because we haven't developed a taste for devotional service, and that taste gives us a different intelligence. In game-theory terms, our payoff matrix changes. So the game changes. That is why it is impossible to figure out how we're going to deal with all these rules and regulations etc. But we make a start somewhere. We just make a small start and focus one step at a time. The rest of the inspiration will flow from there. It sounds magical, but it works! Why does it work? Because Krsna promises this to us:



Furthermore, Prabhupada also says "If you take just one step towards Krsna, He takes ten steps towards you.  Krsna is more eager than you are to have you back!" This is a fact, and you will be able to  very easily see this by your own experience. You don't have to take my word on it. Krsna is your dearest and closest friend, and He will give you what you need to make further steps. Radharani will give you the inspiration. So just make a start somewhere, and keep alive your desire to know more. That will fuel further understanding and the implementation of the details will slowly slowly become clearer.
 
To address the other part of your question: who is a devotee and who is not? Well some are obviously non-devotees - they are openly envious of the Lord and are offensive, they deny His personality and form, have no taste for His service etc etc. Those are easy to identify, and our relationship with them must not be intimate. It's not so easy when we get to "religious" or "pious" people etc. What is real love of God? That we don't know yet - it is something not of this world. So we are neophytes and it is very difficult - and in many cases harmful - to sit in judgment. There are many rascals out there in the dress of a priest or sannyasi...but who's to tell which is which? It's a bit of a landmine really....such is kali-yuga . The important thing is to focus on our own weaknesses and the dirt within ourselves and drag that into the light. That will keep us occupied for a long long time and curb the tendency to criticize unnecessarily. It takes a lot of guts to look within ourselves and make changes. It's a lot lot easier to just adopt some external "pious" behavior and let our actual internal state continue to fester. We must always guard against that. Fakeness is rampant in one's devotional progress...we find it all over the world, and we recognize it because we also see it in ourselves. Fakeness and fanaticism go hand in hand and feed each other. It is a quality of a Vaisnava to be humble and truthful. If you can, you should read about one of Prabhupada's disciples named Jayananda. He left this world before Prabhupada did....and Prabhupada ordained that he be venerated like the other Vaisnava saints. We can't fake a Jayananda, but we can aspire to his beautiful qualities.

Also, here's an important bonus - a fantastic lecture by Visnujana Swami, another very special disciple of Prabhupada who passed away before Prabhupada did. You can find it on this page as Nectar of Devotion.

Not only will you get to hear about the rules and regulations in devotional service, but you will also imbibe something else - the wonderful personality of Visnujana. And that is priceless.




What is the best thing we can do for our future happiness and prosperity?

Lord Krsna came to this world to give us His divine message, His instructions on how everyone can attain peace, prosperity and happiness. The basis of this message is that everyone should cooperate to serve the purposes of the Supreme Personality of Godhead.

The example is given that when the hand cooperates with the stomach by putting food into the mouth, then the hand also prospers by this service. If the hand tries to compete with the stomach and enjoy the food itself, then it gradually starves. This is exactly our position. If we cooperate with Krsna by serving Him, following His instructions in a mood of cooperation, then we prosper and grow wise, and ultimately reach the highest reward.

If we try to compete with the Lord, enjoying His property without authorization, there is no doubt who is going to win. The Lord as inevitable Time can defeat anyone. Therefore we should use the facilities available in His creation only in the spirit of devotional service to Him. Then there is no risk of ending our days in despair, having wasted our precious time in fruitless pursuit of material enjoyment.

No matter how much material wealth, power or other opulence we amass, we will have to leave it all at the time of death. Our study of Jyotish shows that no amount of effort can improve our karmic position without pious activites of spiritual study, service and worship. Don't waste valuable time and effort striving to increase your material position, when the wealth and enjoyment due to us by the Law of Karma will come without unnecessary toil on our part, just as our karmic suffering comes without effort.

We have simply to do our duty to the Supreme Cause, and engage whatever resources come to us easily in devotional service to the Lord. That is sufficient to experience the highest bliss of spiritual realization in this very lifetime. A mood of cooperation with spiritual teachers and other authorities, the instructions of the scriptures, and the Supreme Lord Himself is the best thing we can do for our future happiness and prosperity, both in this world and the next.




Seems it is hard to be renounced in this society. How can we attain the kind of renouncement needed for spiritual life?

If a person accepts the renounced order of life externally, but does not give up attachment for activities based on material desire, then his sannyasa is a failure and he eventually falls down. Someone who remains in household life but internally becomes free of attachment to the fruits of work, is the real sannyasi. Freedom from attachment means that one offers the results of all his work to advancing the mission of the Lord, and does not seek or accept personal enjoyment or credit for his achievements.

We see this characteristic in the lives of all the great saints and acaryas. They sacrificed everything in the service of the Lord, even while in household life. This is called grhastha-brahmacari, or one who remains celibate even in household life. They are naturally renounced because they have no desire for the fruits of material activities.

So according to Bhagavad-gita, we have to work and perform religious service activities as a matter of duty, without being attached to the result. We are to apply the result of our work to spreading the Esoteric Teaching to benefit the fallen souls of this material world, who have no idea of spiritual life and are simply rotting in temporary activities aimed at material sense gratification. In this way we really come to the point of liberation, which is to work in a service relationship with the Supreme Lord under His directions.

Now in practical terms, this usually means membership in a spiritual community, since as you correctly point out, ordinary materialistic society does not support the type of renunciation required for liberation. This why we urgently encourage our students to organize spiritual communities for serious study of the Esoteric Teaching. It is very difficult, if not impossible to make significant spiritual advancement while living in the association of materialistic people.

My spiritual master writes:

It seems to me that one has to accept poverty when following the spiritual path and look only to the Lord for sustenance. For you that seems the highest good; for many of us, that is out of alignment with the spiritual values of a householder lifestyle. Similarly, there are many poor people in the cities who look to others to take care of them. If calamities are coming, wouldn't the Lord prefer creative, dynamic and competent people to those who depend on others for sustenance? Also, Arjuna was not poor, he was royalty.

Well, there are two points in regard to your observations (not really questions). One, you are making the same mistake as Arjuna when he asks:

arjuna uvāca
sthita-prajñasya kā bhāṣā
samādhi-sthasya keśava
sthita-dhīḥ kiṁ prabhāṣeta
kim āsīta vrajeta kim

Arjuna said: O Krsna, what are the symptoms of one whose consciousness is thus merged in transcendence? How does he speak, and what is his language? How does he sit, and how does he walk?

Notice that Arjuna assumes the symptoms of a transcendentalist will be external: speaking, sitting, walking, etc. But Krsna answers:

The Supreme Personality of Godhead said: O Partha, when a man gives up all varieties of desire for sense gratification, which arise from mental concoction, and when his mind, thus purified, finds satisfaction in the Self alone, then he is said to be in pure transcendental consciousness. [Bg. 2.54-55]

Arjuna, who is playing the role of an unenlightened person just to provoke Krsna to speak the eternal truths of Bhagavad-gita, asks about the external symptoms of the self-realized person. Krsna in His reply does not mention anything about the external situation; He responds by talking about the internal mental state of the transcendentalist. There are several similar exchanges in Bhagavad-gita.

Similarly, you are falling into the Aristotelian logical trap of assuming that renunciation is external, when it is actually a mental state of detachment from material possessiveness. Actual renunciation does not mean poverty; it means that when some material opulence or wealth comes, as it does to everyone according to their karma, instead of thinking "How can I use this to enjoy myself?" one thinks, "How can I use this for the pleasure of the Lord?"

One who is in this state actually sees his whole existence—mind, body and energy—and all his possessions as the personal property of the Supreme Lord, to be used as He sees fit in His service, to forward His purposes. Such a person is not attached to his or her body, mind or possessions, but actually lives in the spiritual world, constantly engaged in the devotional service of the Lord, his consciousness merged in the transcendental ecstatsy of divine love.

A person in the divine consciousness, although engaged in seeing, hearing, touching, smelling, eating, moving about, sleeping and breathing, always knows within himself that he actually does nothing at all. Because while speaking, evacuating, receiving, or opening or closing his eyes, he always knows that only the material senses are engaged with their objects and that he is aloof from them. [Bg. 5.8-9]

This firm realization that the self is pure consciousness, different from the material body, and that the Lord is the actual Doer in all circumstances, is the first stage of actual self-realization. Renunciation of the body leads naturally to renunciation of sense gratification and the objects of the senses. That does not mean that one has nothing and lives in a cave, but that whatever one does have is engaged in spiritual service instead of selfish material aggrandizement.

Arjuna along with his brothers were the rightful heirs to the entire Vedic empire, which at that time was basically the whole earth planet. But because the Pandavas were unlawfully deprived of their inheritance by their cousins, many times they endured calamaties, want and privation. Yet every time, Krsna rescued them because they were His eternal associates and pure devotees. So did the Pandavas think, "Oh great, Krsna has come to put us in our rightful position"? No, they thought:

visan mahagneh purusada-darsanad
asat-sabhaya vana-vasa-krcchratah
mrdhe mrdhe ’neka-maharathastrato
drauny-astratas casma hare ’bhiraksitah

My dear Krsna, Your Lordship has protected us from a poisoned cake, from a great fire, from cannibals, from the vicious assembly, from sufferings during our exile in the forest and from the battle where great generals fought. And now You have saved us from the brahmastra weapon of Asvatthama.

vipadah santu tah sasvat tatra tatra jagad-guro
bhavato darsanam yat syad apunar bhava-darsanam

The Pandavas and their mother Queen Kunti used to actually sit around and figure out how to engineer calamities, just so that they would get to see Krsna again. Of course, the Pandavas were eternal associates of the Lord, eternally enlightened beings. They were companions of the Lord helping Him enact His eternal Dvaraka-lila when He came to this planet 5,000 years ago. They are not ordinary people like ourselves; they are as infallible as the Lord.

So the Pandavas could easily handle the opulences of a great kingdom, which would make any of us go crazy in a heartbeat. But when the time came for renunciation, they gave up their kingdom like a person gives up stool after passing it, and walked barefoot up into the Himalayas.

Try to understand: our whole Western cultural context is built on the mistaken idea that the body is the self, and that service of the bodily senses is happiness. Of course, this is completely wrong; actually, the more we feed the senses, the stronger they become, and demand more and more, leading to an infinite regress of lust and dissatisfaction.

But in our present condition, it is impossible to realize this, because we are completely surrounded by an artificial, synthetic environment composed exclusively of human-manufactured values, commodities and social processes. Everyone is controlled by money, because we live in a culture where money buys sense gratification. In that context, to be rich appears to be its own justification. As a result, we have never experienced the natural, normal condition of life.

Whenever the balance of nature and normalcy try to obtrude into our fragile little fantasy world, we are conditioned to employ an endless array of strategies to restore the illusion to which we are addicted. We have been raised from childhood habituated to living in the 3% of the world's population that consumes 95% of the world's resources, and to adamantly, even violently resist the course of nature trying to revert to its normal balance.

That is about to change. Millions of people are about to be forced to live in a less opulent station of life. The laws of nature and karma can be held back only for so long, and then they must restore the natural balance. We are fortunate to live in a time when God is giving such merciful lessons to His children, for as His servants, we can become helpers in the massive harvest of souls that is to take place in the near future. God help those that resist this trend, for they are fighting agaist time itself.

The second point is that you mistakenly conflate the external poverty experienced by an advanced devotee, who has lost all interest in material enjoyment, with that of inner-city poor who have been disenfranchised by normal society because they are hopelessly sociopathic, criminal and/or demoniac. Such ignorant people are conditioned by the mode of ignorance, and ceratinly they bring misfortune on themselves because of ignorance and sinful activities.

Nevertheless, it is our duty not to maintain an elitist or moralistic attitude against them, but to be kind and merciful to them, as we would to foolish animals or children who do not know right from wrong. In fact if there is any kind of disaster, as in New Orleans recently, these people will suffer tremendously. It is a symptom of our blind, materialistic kali-yuga society that we do not spend more resources to train them in spiritual life, which is the only cure for their miseries. The other night a friend got a call from her friend in New Orleans. She writes:

It was unnerving to hear him so upset because he's really blase and funny, and physically extremely strong. This isn't a normally hysterical person, this is a person who lives by his wits. He was saying he found all his white friends but none of his black friends. Saying the government is lying about how many died, and that in fact his neighborhood is still filled with bodies that will never be counted.

The Lord cares for all His children, not just the talented and materially successful ones, who are influenced by the rajo-guna, or material mode of passion. He also loves the people controlled by the mode of ignorance, tamo-guna, even though they are foolish and animalistic. In Vedic society, there are effective spiritual means of dealing with such foolish population to reform them. Will we lose our compassion because we are ignorant in a different way—elitist and uncaring—and because we have eschewed the guidance of the wise, do not know any effective way of reforming those who have fallen into need?

The fact is, we who are a little intelligent and resourceful are actually responsible for them, and we have abandoned them. But like everyone else in kali-yuga, focused on our own material enjoyment, we have abdicated our duty and become debauchees ourselves. Shame, shame!

Of course those whose duty includes raising children have some extra needs that those of us who are single and retired do not. That is also natural. But even the poorest American or European is hundred of times richer in both tangible and energy resources than the average citizen of this planet. But because we are under the whammy of the industrial consumer material civilization, we think we need more and more, and that will make us happy. This imbalance cannot continue much longer, and the writing is already on the wall. Mark my words: the situation is about to take a drastic turn for the worse.

In view of the extremity of the world situation, I am sacrificing my own samadhi to preach on a very broad scale so that as many as possible can be saved from the catastrophes of the near future. The so-called poverty that is coming to everyone's door is simply karmic balance for centuries of colonial expoitation. But the mood in America today is "Gas up the SUV, honey! Have to make to to the mall before it closes!" The gas station and mall will close one day soon, and not re-open. Then what will you say to the masses rotting in the cities?

I say: let us create a large, well-funded movement for propagating the authorized Vedic means of self-realization—chanting the Holy Names of the Lord—on an international scale. Let us sell our inflated real estate and gas-guzzling oversized vehicles while they are still worth anything, and spend the money to open temples, distribute the Holy Name on a wide scale, feed hungry people with bhagavat-prasadam, and advertise the holy life. We need to educate people all over the world on the natural valuies of Vedic spiritual society, co-opting the technology temporarily available through the materialisticx society before it collapses.

I say: let us become examples of how little material resources a human being really needs to live a happy, holy life. Let us show by example how we Westerners can engage in spiritual culture to become simple, humble and helpful, instead of a drain on the lives of the whole world and an albatross around their neck. Whatever Americans do, the whole world follows, even if it's jumping off a cliff. So let's start spiritual re-education of the whole world by re-educating America how to live a gentle pious lifestyle of simplicity.

Love is never wasted, and spiritual service to the Supreme Lord is rewarded by everlasting bliss. If we are truly intelligent and advanced, let us show the unintelligent how to manage their lives in harmony with nature and God.

The older ones among you are probably too set in their ways to change. They will go to their own funerals in their damned SUVs, rather than relax their economic death-grip on the world's resources. They will bring the whole world crashing down around them, rather than accept a little voluntary humility and austerity.

But you who are young can learn from the mistakes of our foolish generation. We had the knowledge of what was to come back in the 60s, but we copped out. Hippies sold out to the system and became yuppies. The Rainbow tribe became the Wal-Mart tribe. As it is said, "a conservative is a liberal with a couple of kids and a mortgage."

Now we have a chance to remake a human society gone astray into greed and materialism, under the guidance of the enlightened souls. Will we blow it again due to gross selfishness? That decision is up to each one of you alone.

Is it OK to have material possesions in spiritual life?

There is no problem with devotees having all kinds of material possessions, as long as we use them in Kṛṣṇa's service and are well-engaged ourselves. Real renunciation means refraining from material sense enjoyment while utilizing all kinds of material objects in the service of the Lord. We see from experience that if we become too renounced, no one wants to hear from us because they do not respect people who are poverty-stricken. Śrīla Rūpa Gosvāmī writes in his Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu [1.2.258]:


Renunciation is complete when it is in the knowledge that everything in existence belongs to the Lord and that no one should claim proprietorship over anything. One should understand that, factually, nothing belongs to anyone. Then where is the question of renunciation? One who knows that everything is Kṛṣṇa's property is always situated in renunciation. Since everything belongs to Kṛṣṇa, everything should be employed in the service of Kṛṣṇa. This perfect form of action in Kṛṣṇa consciousness is far better than any amount of artificial renunciation by a sannyāsī of the Māyāvādī school.

For example, the originator of our paramparā [disciplic succession], Lord Brahmā, is the secondary creator of the universe. He has enormous material wealth, power and responsibility, which he engages in the service of the Lord by utilizing it for spreading Vedic wisdom. That is the correct utilization of the material energy.




I have some questions about SB 7.10.11. If Prahlada behaved like a perfect pure devotee, why did he have to wait so long by ruling a material kingdom ? If Lord Nrsimha just came for him, why didn't he go with him back to Godhead just then? How is it possible to "enjoy" in the material world as Prahlada was ordered to by the Lord?

This is a very interesting question. Sometimes the Lord deliberately keeps an advanced devotee in the material world, even if he is qualified for liberation. For example, when I had a serious heart attack in 1986, I went before the Lord and begged for liberation. But He showed me my life and pointed out that I was only somewhere in the middle. Then He ordered me to return to the material world and continue my service.

In the case of Prahlāda, he states in Srimad-Bhagavatam 7.10.3, addressing Lord Nrsimhadeva: "You have sent me to this material world to exhibit the symptoms of a pure devotee." Prahlāda's father Hiraṇyakaśipu had been the leader of the demons. His oppressive reign had terrorized the universe for a long time, even conquering the demigods and kicking them out of the heavenly planets. To balance this dangerous situation, the Lord enthroned Prahlāda as the king of the demons until the end of the current reign of Manu.

The period of each Manu is 71 maha-yuga cycles, or 90,300,000 terrestrial years. Of course, one day in the heavenly planets equals one of our years, so the actual period as experienced by Prahlāda Mahārāja is much shorter. Still, the average lifetime in the heavenly planets is 10,000 of their years. (See the Purport of Srimad-Bhagavatam 4.9.63 for more details of time in the heavenly planets.)

Srila Prabhupada writes in the Purport to Srimad-Bhagavatam 7.10.11, "Prahlāda Mahārāja had taken birth in the family of Hiraṇyakaśipu, who was the topmost materialist, and since Prahlāda was the bona fide heir of his father, the Supreme Lord allowed him to enjoy the kingdom created by his father for so many years that no materialist could calculate them." As a pure devotee, Prahlada would induce everyone, even the demons, to perform devotional service to the Lord, and thus restore the damage his demoniac father had wreaked upon the universe.

The Lord is a responsible creator and the caring Father of all living entities. Therefore He takes responsibility for seeing that the material universe is managed according to Vedic spiritual principles. After all, the purpose of the material universe is to grant an opportunity for spiritual reformation to the living entities conditioned by a spirit of rebellion against the authority of the Lord. So the Lord arranges for His devotees to manage different aspects of universal affairs. This is not an inconvenience for His pure devotees such as the demigods, because devotional service to the Lord is the source of all bliss and spiritual satisfaction.

So it was not a problem that Prahlāda Mahārāja had to enjoy the material facilities of a great king. In Vedic society, the king is worshiped as a representative of God for ruling over the people. So they are offered great material opulence and enjoyment. Part of the duty of a king is to receive this worship and opulence, just as the duty of the spiritual master is to receive honor and worship—not for himself, but as a representative of the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Therefore the duty of the God-conscious king or spiritual master is to engage the material opulence offered by his subjects or disciples in the service of the Lord. That way it does not become a source of spiritual difficulty for the subjects or disciples.

"The ultimate goal of devotional service is love of Godhead. Therefore although Prahlāda Mahārāja, Dhruva Mahārāja, Ambarīṣa Mahārāja, Yudhiṣṭhira Mahārāja and many devotee kings were materially very opulent, they accepted their material opulence in the service of the Lord, not for their personal sense gratification. Of course, possessing material opulence is always fearful because under the influence of material opulence one may be misdirected from devotional service. Nonetheless, a pure devotee (anyābhilāṣitā-śūnyam [Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu 1.1.11]) is never misdirected by material opulence. On the contrary, whatever he possesses he engages one hundred percent in the service of the Lord. When one is allured by material possessions, they are considered to be given by māyā, but when one uses material possessions fully for service, they are considered God’s gifts, or facilities offered by Kṛṣṇa for enhancing one’s devotional service." [Srimad-Bhagavatam 7.10.1 Purport]





What then does Nrsimha mean while telling Prahlada: "It does not matter that you are in the material world." Is there any devotee who would prefer to be in the material world by his own will ?

The most important thing is to be engaged in the Lord's service at all times. This is more important than knowledge, more important than performing religious sacrifices, even more important than liberation. Indeed, this service has the power to bestow liberation.

But to a pure devotee engaged constantly in the Lord's service, liberation is not very important. According to the Vedic scriptures, there are five kinds of liberation:


Srila Prabhupada writes in the Purport to Caitanya-caritamrta, Madhya-lila 6.268:

If we perform service to the Lord for the purpose of attaining liberation, then this service is motivated by personal gain. It is neither pure not unmotivated.


Pure devotional service is defined as follows:


So when we uninterruptedly and without motivation engage all our senses in the devotional service of the Lord, we attain pure devotional service, which is the standard for pleasing the Supreme Personality of Godhead. This pure loving service is so attractive, it attracts even Kṛṣṇa Himself:


In this exalted stage of devotion, the Lord appears personally to the devotee to accept his service. What, then, is the need for liberation, if one has constant darshan of the Lord?




I can understand clearly the exalted pleasure of being in service of Krsna, what i don't understand is how we can be complete in a demoniac situation.
For example, in this world, being earthly and not hellish, sometimes I have no time to chant or engage in service to the Lord. Although, at least its karma yoga, still I wouldn't say it's very steady service. If my objective is to serve Krsna as purely as I can, how can this service be done in a demoniac planet, where just to survive one has to cheat and do so many abominable things, and is full of interruptions much worse than here?

Well fortunately we are not in a demoniac planet, just an earthly planet that is currently under the control of the demons.

Right now you are still a new disciple, so you are working hard to serve your spiritual master and learn the science of devotional service. Srila Prabhupada used to say, "Work now; samadhi later." Later when you have served more of your apprenticeship and become an expert preacher learned in sastra, the Lord will inspire you with a means of livelihood that does not require so much mundane work and is based on Vedic principles.

For example, maybe you could become an expert astrologer and advise all sorts of people on their spiritual life. Or you could become an expert in Shilpa Sastra and advise people on architecture and community planning. Or you could become expert in the science of administration and deliver inspiring personal guidance and motivational training, which is a very highly valued skill.

All of these occupations dovetail Vedic knowledge with making a living in the real world, but all of them require a very strong foundation in the philosophy and practice of the Esoteric Teaching. So your study has to come first. Once you have read and understood the entire Esoteric Teaching, then it will be time to put your knowledge into practice.

As we have discussed in our talks on the philosophy of Jyotish, advancement in spiritual life comes at the price of material success. It cannot be otherwise. For example, according to my Jyotish chart, I was supposed to become fabulously wealthy. But instead of working for material success, I concentrated my life's work on studying and realizing the Esoteric Teaching. A completely pure devotee has no desire for material advancement or taste for material success. He works only for the satisfaction of the Lord, and therefore the Lord maintains and protects him without any extraneous endeavor.

However, this level of renunciation is attainable only by those few who have no other desire than serving the lotus feet of the Lord. Most devotees have to work to maintain their body, home and devotional service. If we are sincere, Krsna will give us intelligence how to do this. For example, when I was writing my books in the 1990s, I was working less than 20 hours a week as a technical writing consultant. By Krsna's arrangement, I made enough money to pay all my expenses, even printing and publishing my books, from just a little work.

So when the time is right, Krsna will provide facility to increase your devotional service. Actually you are already doing very nice service if you are dedicating all the results of your work for the service of your spiritual master and spreading Krsna consciousness all over the world. The result of this will be that Krsna will benedict you with all you need to be successful in spiritual and material life.





So how can I engage in pure devotional service in a mixed environment?

In the neophyte stage of devotional service, we have to study the scriptures and work very hard to serve the spiritual master. This kind of service can be performed in a mixed environment, in fact it must be because an important part of our training is overcoming opposing elements and difficult situations. Then after some time, when the taste for the Holy name is developed, Krsna will provide a pure situation in which our devotional service can be perfected.

Srila Prabhupada advised us that in the beginning it is good to have a strong desire for liberation. This helps motivate us to continue to strive for advancement. Then when we actually taste love of God, we lose all desire for other things, even including liberation. All we want is our beloved Lord. So at this point, either through some fortunate material arrangement or the exercise of renunciation, the devotee attains the facility for developing his spiritual taste to the perfectional point.




I don't think I can get to a sacred place just yet but I have been practicing intensely and have a strong desire for Krsna-darshan. Is this OK?

Good. This strong desire for krsna-darshan will be very good for your spiritual advancement. It does not matter whether you are in family life or living as a renunciant. But if you can transcend the urge for material enjoyment by experiencing a higher taste of spiritual pleasure, then you will be situated in renunciation even while surrounded by material opulence and the paraphenalia of sense gratification.

When the time is ripe, you will get the opportunity to go to a sacred place and chant intensively. Practice now for that time. Chant nicely and meditate on Paramatma in your heart. Avoid bad association and study Gita and Harinama-cintamani. You will get nice guidance, and your faith will only grow.












I AM A WOMAN ON THE SPIRITUAL PATH

Although I am benefiting a lot from chanting, there are many things which seem really strange to me. For example, restricted association between men and women. Do I have any disadvantage because I am a woman? Are there things that I will not be able to be involved in?

In the beginning of spiritual life, many things seem strange. But that is because we are seeing them from an inferior perspective. For example, if we could see a house or other building from below the ground, it would look very strange. But from a normal perspective, the same house looks fine.

In ordinary life we are conditioned, actually trained, by materialistic culture and education to look at everything from the perspective of the material body. This is abnormal because we are actually spirit souls. So many features of spiritual society, for example, seem strange to us because we are looking from an artificial angle. But from a normal angle of spiritual consciousness and realization, everything makes sense.

Now in this material world, self-realized persons are in the minority; therefore the normal spiritual perspective may seem highly unusual, eccentric or even crazy to a person in material consciousness. But actually, in any area of life we find that the majority opinion is usually wrong. For example, we used to trade futures and were winning, but we know from published statistics that 90% of traders lose. Similarly, in general, what most people think is wrong, and people with real knowledge are in the minority.

Now the materialistic, politically correct idea accepted by the majority of people is that men and women are equal in all respects. The fact that this platitude is almost universally accepted should alert us to regard it with suspicion. And in reality, especially when it comes to spiritual culture, women are at a distinct disadvantage because of the biological programming of the female body. This does not mean that women cannot become self-realized, but in general, we find that women do have a more difficult time overcoming their identification with the material body than men.

Many spiritual groups have changed their teachings to give women equal status, but to do that they have had to water down their teachings and practices until they are almost unable to provide any spiritual benefit. But the very first teaching of the authentic spiritual path is that we are not these material bodies, but spirit souls made of pure consciousness. And our practical experience over many years of spiritual teaching is that women generally have a more difficult time assimilating and realizing this teaching than men.

There are notable exceptions, of course, and many of Śrīla Prabhupāda's early female disciples are exceptional devotees. But on the average we have found this principle to be valid. Of course this does not mean that we disrespect or insult women, give them all the dirty jobs or hold prejudiced opinions against them. That would be equally immature. But it means that we hold our male disciples to a much higher standard than the females.

The restrictions on association between men and women in Vedic society are designed to prevent illicit sexual relations, even between husband and wife, which often result in unplanned children. Such unwanted pregnancies are extremely inauspicious for the whole society. As any Vedic astrologer knows, the quality of the child is dependent on the quality of consciousness of the father and mother at the time of conception.

A child conceived in passion or under the influence of intoxication will almost always be third- or even fourth-class, and will have to overcome significant spiritual obstacles. They are usually addicted to sinful activities, and if they cannot get the sense gratification they desire, they become angry and cause great trouble and disturbance in society. We have seen the long-term result of lax policies of association between the sexes in ISKCON and other religious organizations, and frankly, we do not want such degraded beings in our community.

In Vedic society, women cannot stay in the same quarters as men, even if they are married. Association between men and women is strictly regulated to prevent illicit sex, as described above.

Other than that restriction though, there is nothing that you could not do—become a skilled craftswoman, manage a business, become a community administrator or planner, even a teacher in our University—as long as you are willing to acquire the appropriate qualifications, except to become a sannyāsī or a guru. Longer term, we are looking for a mature married devotee couple to take charge of the family āśram, called the gṛhāstha-āśram. This will be a linked but separate community project from the monastic community as it stands right now. Our community project is still in the beginning stage, but at least most of the big planning decisions finally have been made and we are moving ahead with the University.

The truth is that we are all spirit souls, and have taken different male and female bodies in many species of life. So we are neither men nor women, but spiritual living entities. Our actual identity is that we are children and servants of the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Once we accept that and cease identifying with the material body, then there is no more question of being man or woman; the material body is temporary, and therefore simply irrelevant to our actual spiritual identity.

Everyone craves intimacy and love, even Kṛṣṇa. Therefore we search all over for someone for loving relationship, but as long as we identify with the material body we always fail. And this search will always fail, because the material body is not the real self. Our material identity is more or less of a lie, and how can we have an intimate relationship based on a lie? The truth is that we can only experience happiness and love in relation with the Supreme Lord. He is the real Friend and Lover, and when we accept Him like that, then we become satisfied.

Where is God? He appears within everyone's heart as the Supersoul. So if we want to have a personal relationship with the Lord, all we have to do is look within. If we approach Him with affection and love, He will reciprocate. Anyone can test this and experience His reciprocation. This spiritual pleasure of transcendental love is the real taste of intimacy that everyone is seeking. He knows us completely, and He can reciprocate our love better than anyone.

Outwardly, we follow the rules and regulations of devotional service and Vedic varṇāśrama society—not just for the sake of following them, but with detachment. The external system of the Esoteric Teaching is only for the purpose of training people to approach self-realization. Our real life is within; we are mystics, and the real perfection of life is experienced only on the spiritual platform.

The female body is biologically programmed for strong sentimental attachment because that is necessary for raising good-quality children. In this world there is nothing so close to unconditional love as the love of a mother for her child. Nevertheless even mother's love cannot substitute for the love of the Supreme. That has to be our goal, for love of Godhead and His unconditional reciprocation are the most valuable attainments of human life.





I'm truly bothered by the statement that I've read in one of Srila Prabhupada's purports that women are less intelligent than men. Before, women had very little or no opportunity for any general education but nowadays with the open access to education , women many times prove to be better than men. My best math teachers were all women. So are women really less intelligent? Aren't we all equal?

Oh boy, here we go again. You begin with "I'm truly bothered..." The fact that you admit that you are upset means that you are less intelligent. The first thing Kṛṣṇa teaches Arjuna in Bhagavad-gītā is that lamentation is useless.


If you cannot understand that men are in general more intelligent than women, then this also confirms that you are less intelligent. Not only are you lamenting, you cannot even come up with any new arguments; these are the same old tired arguments we have been hearing since the 70s. You are hearing too much from the nonsense feminist equal-rights rascals, and not enough from Kṛṣṇa. And the proof is that you have not understood even the first lesson of Bhagavad-gītā.

Later on, Kṛṣṇa says directly:


But as long as one's consciousness is situated on the material platform and arguing about women versus men, black versus white, this-ism versus that-ism, then one cannot attain transcendental consciousness and self-realization.

There is too little precious time left to waste it on stupid material arguments based on the bodily platform. That is less intelligent for sure. So get off the material bodily platform and start chanting the Holy Name. This is real intelligence.

Here is a reply from one of our female students:



This is a thoughtful reply. She is speaking from experience and from the heart. Let us not forget that by Vedic standards, the contemporary nuclear family model, with wife and husband living and sleeping together in an unregulated manner, is an abomination that is sure to cause illicit sex and result in severe sinful reactions, such as the birth of demoniac souls in the family. That is the underlying structural reason for the huge number of divorces. We know from experience that no two people can live together in close quarters for years without getting thoroughly disgusted with one another. This why in our āśram we allow plenty of space and time for privacy.

In villages and even large cities of India we have seen extended families of 20 or more relatives living together in a large compound. Resources such as money are held in common and managed according to the direction and advice of the elders. The businesses, offices and men's quarters are on the outside of the compound, and the family temple, kitchen, goshalla (cowshed), women's and children's quarters are on the inside. Even the married couples do not sleep together, but stay in their respective quarters; cohabitation and sex life are strictly regulated. Marriages are more or less a merger of two families and are undertaken only after all the family members are satisfied by extensive social interaction, brahminical spiritual and astrological consultation, negotiations, exchange of gifts, etc. If the couple desires a child, they take permission from their elders and arrange for a Vedic garbhādāna-saṁskāra ceremony to be performed with the advice and help of expert brāhmaṇas. The children produced by this arrangement are sure to be very nice devotees of the Lord.

The philosophical idea in Vedic family life is that no one is independent, no one is falsely equal; everyone is servant of someone and master of someone else, but everyone is servant of Kṛṣṇa. This service attitude must be assimilated very deeply. You may say that "You are spiritual master," but I also am servant of Kṛṣṇa, Śrīla Prabhupāda and even of my own disciples; I serve them as their teacher. If everyone humbly considers himself or herself a servant at all times, then the society will be very nice.

The false attitude of equality destroys the service attitude; it has to be very firmly rooted out of our mentality. No one is equal to anyone else; in every relationship, one is superior and one is inferior, one is servant the other is served. Also the romantic model of family relationships is very destructive because it is based on sex attraction and the mode of passion; thus it always leads to suffering.

So if at all desire a peaceful happy life, we have to set aside our modern misconceptions of family life and the roles of the sexes based on a false materialistic understanding, and accept the eternal Vedic social system of varnāśrama-dharma. This system is simply the consequences of understanding the teaching of the three modes of material nature and their interactions as taught by Kṛṣṇa in Bhagavad-gītā. If we actually understand the implications of the modes of material nature, then we will naturally develop distaste for the modes of passion and ignorance and adopt the mode of goodness for all our activities.

Here is a post from a student using scriptural quotes which discuss real intelligence:





Are there any quotes from sastra that specifically give differences between men and women?


There are hundreds and thousands of quotations in the śāstras about the differences between men and women. Do a little research in the Vedabase and you will find them.

Truthfully I grow weary of this topic, because the great interest in it just shows how materialistic we still are. Why not devote the same energy and interest to discussing transcendental subjects like rasa-tattva or Transontology, Sāṅkhya philosophy or Kṛṣṇa-līā? That will really help us to rise above the trap of bodily identification as man or woman and attain transcendental consciousness.





So are women treated differently in Spiritual matters?

In a speech by one of Prabhupada's female devotees which you might like to read, shows that Prabhupada still treated women similarly to men in spiritual matters.


This is the essence of the man/woman question. If one is in false ego and considers oneself to be this material body, then whether male or female, one is less intelligent. When one identifies oneself as a Vaiṣṇava, servant of the Lord, then he or she is in spiritual consciousness. That is real intelligence.

















PERSONAL QUALITIES


What is the first qualification one needs in spiritual life?

The first qualification of spiritual life is truthfulness. If we are sincere, we have to admit that we are suffering in material life. Then we can take some action to heal our spiritual disease of materialism.

In the beginning of Bhagavad-gītā, Arjuna admits that he is suffering:

vepathuś ca śarīre me
roma-harṣaś ca jāyate
gāṇḍīvaṁ sraṁsate hastāt
tvak caiva paridahyate

"My whole body is trembling, and my hair is standing on end. My bow Gāṇḍīva is slipping from my hand, and my skin is burning." [Bhagavad-gītā 1.29]

But you never hear Duryodhana admit to suffering, even though his whole existence is taken up with envy for Arjuna and his brothers. That is the difference between demon and devotee; the devotee is truthful about his identity, his uncertainty and his suffering condition in material life, so Kṛṣṇa can give good advice to counteract it. Otherwise, without this sincerity, no spiritual advancement can take place.

Kṛṣṇa describes in Chapter 16:

The Blessed Lord said: "Fearlessness, purification of one's existence, cultivation of spiritual knowledge, charity, self-control, performance of sacrifice, study of the Vedas, austerity and simplicity; nonviolence, truthfulness, freedom from anger; renunciation, tranquility, aversion to faultfinding, compassion and freedom from covetousness; gentleness, modesty and steady determination; vigor, forgiveness, fortitude, cleanliness, freedom from envy and the passion for honor—these transcendental qualities, O son of Bharata, belong to godly men endowed with divine nature." [Bhagavad-gītā 16.1]

Accept your real self as an ethical spiritual being, free from fear and lamentation, and advance on the path of the Esoteric Teaching with full consciousness of Kṛṣṇa through His Holy Name.

Being honest with oneself is hard, but it is absolutely essential if we want to become a pure devotee. How does one become pure? By overcoming his faults. So being honest with oneself and others, especially one's spiritual teacher, about one's faults is the first step.

Do the scriptures describe the qualities we should develop in spiritual life?

Yes, there are many quotes. For example:

I am a bit of a geek and I get the feeling from your videos that you are as well. Is this good in spiritual life?

I used to be a geek, that's for sure. Yeah, I can use my noggin. But if being a geek means that I have to deny my heart, then fie on it!

In High School, I was a music and physics prodigy. I got perfect scores on my math and physics SAT tests (funny, there was no test for music). But I was also in love with Bach and Mozart. And Jazz! Anyway, I was offered a full scholarship to MIT in Nuclear Physics. Simultaneously I received a scholarship to a conservatory in Musical Composition. After a lot of soul-searching, I chose the path of music, the path of the heart, instead of the path of calulation, the path of the geek.

A lot of people told me I was crazy. A brilliant boy from my school (a real geek!) got a similar scholarship in computer science. But when the students from my county carpooled up to MIT overnight in a van, the driver fell asleep and they crashed into a bridge, killing everyone. BIG lesson for a lot of people.

Some people think the word 'geek' comes from circus sideshow slang for a freak who will do anything. But another theory is that it comes from Geick's Technical Formulae, a handbook that English mechanical engineering students are always seen carrying around.

So in that sense, a geek is a person who thinks that you can get the answer to anything by some kind of intellectual calculation. In other words, a person whose consciousness is two-dimensional, because it ignores the depth, variety and richness of emotion.

Emotion is what gives life meaning. What use is knowing the answer to everything, if it doesn't make us happy? Emotion also has its own aesthetic, and associative, deductive logic which always defeats the linear, Aristotelian logic of calculation precisely because it is personal and multidimensional. This is also the logic of rasa, of bhakti.

No, I am not a geek anymore. I have been through too much and seen too much of the result of this heartless materialism, where everything is reduced to a calculation. Reductionism and impersonalism go hand-in-hand. For, is not the most salient symptom of our personhood the fact that we feel emotion? Put that in your sliderule and smoke it!

Or whatever. The proper use of intelligence inevitably brings one to the conclusion that the really important things in life cannot be known by reason and calulation, but only by revelation and intuition. For example, the fact that the Personality of Godhead is the Supreme, irreducible prime cause and origin of everything else that be.

Until we accept this, sadhana and meditation are hard work with little result. We can go on for lifetimes like that without attaining anything. But once one accepts this fact, that God is ultimately personal, then everything else falls into place, our sadhana becomes an effortless joy, and very soon bears fruit.

I am a lazy person by nature. Will this hinder my devotional service?

Being a fundamentally lazy person, I have always felt there is something intrinsically less-intelligent about hard work. Fortunately, Śrīla Prabhupāda agrees with me:


Śrīla Prabhupāda himself projected an image of being busy intelligent, and certainly his disciples built a culture of busy intelligence around him; yet here he is advocating lazy intelligence. Why? Because lazy intelligence is actually the working method of the brāhmaṇas. A qualified brāhmaṇa can simply sit in one place and meditate, and everything happens perfectly around him by the grace of the Supreme Personality of Godhead.

 Real intelligence means to do a lot with little effort, to do more with less; to accomplish everything without doing anything, just like Kṛṣṇa:


However, we do need to work hard for Krsna, especially in the beginning. If you are not using your lazy nature in this way, to please Krsna, then laziness means ignorance. Especially if you are not observing the four regulative principles—abstaining from meat eating, illicit sex, intoxication and gambling or speculation—you will be covered by ignorance. That means:


This answer is expanded upon in the"Regulative principles and hinderances to our devotional service FAQ."



















SPIRITUAL LIFE



What is the principle of spiritual life?

The principle of devotional service is that one's mind should always be fixed at the lotus feet of the Lord. In this connection, it is very helpful not to expose the mind to nonsense by watching TV, reading mundane literature, going to cinema etc. Therefore there are nine methods for devotional service, beginning with hearing and chanting.  If somehow the mind can be filled with impressions of the Lord in any form, then that is God consciousness, Krsna consciousness or samadhi. That is the perfection of all yoga systems and practices. It is also the highest form of liberation.
 
So continue to practice this eternal activity of devotional service, and more and more, you will experience the bliss of bhakti, or pure spiritual love of Godhead. Why would anyone want flickering, imperfect conditional material happiness, when one can have this spiritual happiness at all times?


 
Does one need to join a group to advance?

Actually, one is not a real Student of the Esoteric Teaching if one is not in a group. Association is the guiding principle of spiritual advancement. We become like the people we associate with. So we should associate with fellow Students of our Esoteric School, then we can make very powerful spiritual progress.
 
We have many resources to help you form a group. But really, it's just finding friends who are interested in similar subjects, turning them on to the Teaching, and meeting together regularly to discuss it. Anyone can form a Student group, and anyone can lead them. You can also join our online community. There may be students in your area already.

The best way to learn the Esoteric Teaching is to share it with others. So if you organize a local Students' Group, even if it's only yourself and a couple of friends, you will find your advancement going along much faster. Association is the best way to learn anything. If one wants to become a lawyer or a doctor, one goes to law school or medical school and associates with those professionals. Similarly the best way to advance in the Esoteric Teaching is to associate with other students.



How important is the atmosphere in spiritual life?

We read in Śrīla Prabhupāda's books that the Holy Name is a very powerful instrument for spiritual advancement.


Considering the great stress that the scriptures place on the Holy Name, one would expect that devotees who chant regularly would make great advancement in spiritual life. However, we see practically that most of the devotees in the large 'spiritual organizations' (an oxymoronic term for sure) are making some progress but then they get stuck. Some of my Godbrothers have remained stuck at the same level of realization for 20-30 years. What is wrong? The association in the temples is contaminated with political atmosphere, therefore along with their chanting and hearing the Holy Name, they are taking in so many impressions of material quality. Because of this political atmosphere, everything has become spoiled. They are trying to attain something mixed, so there is some contamination of material influence. Therefore they cannot rise above the material energy.

The proof is that we have created an ideal atmosphere for spiritual advancement, and the result is that the devotees here are making great advancement. In just a few months, they have become just like veteran devotees with years of experience. We can just imagine how much further they will progress in several years.

The key is to keep the atmosphere pure. Once Uddhava said, "I could live like this forever." This is real spiritual atmosphere. It is so nice, one wants it to go on forever. That is because there is no disturbance of material influence and the power of the Holy Name is free to act. That is our secret.




Is spiritual life really austere?

Uddhava always jokes when we talk about austerities. He says, "Oh how terrible: living in an ecologically pure place, breathing the pure fragrant air, chanting the Holy Name day and night, worshiping beautiful Deities, eating fruits from the local trees, swimming in the unpolluted rivers, eating delicious prasadam, having to listen to the sweet songbirds—I don't know if I can stand that much austerity!" Then he laughs.

It's true, real spiritual life is a pleasure beyond compare. But most people cannot appreciate it; they look at how we are living simply and naturally and feel sorry for us, thinking that we are taking so much austerity. If they only knew! Srila Prabhupada used to say, "Virtue is its own reward." And so it is, the spiritual enjoyment inherent in the life of a sage in the forest is many times more than the flickering material happiness of sense enjoyment in a noisy, polluted city. And we will still have our video equipment, state-of-the-art laptops and software and everything required to preach and maintain our existence in a first-class way.

For example, one student did some research on natural remedies and preventatives for jungle diseases like malaria and dengue fever, and it turns out they are very simple: neem leaves, and the juice of papaya leaves! Neem oil mixed with olive oil with citrus-peel marinade is a natural mosquito repellent. So we ordered a bunch of herbs, and seeds to grow our own herbs once we find a nice jungle location. Of course, papaya already grows in those places. So it does not require a lot of money for medicine to maintain one's health; just like when I had heart trouble, a little research revealed that cayenne is a natural remedy, and I have been healthy ever since without the need for expensive operations. Nature supplies everything needed by God's law. Everything is there in the natural world already; the only missing ingredient is knowledge. All we have to do is worship the Lord sincerely, and everything will come.

You can easily meet the standards when you are in good association. As we discussed with other students, the difficulty is when you have to go out into the material energy without any devotee association. Therefore you should long for the company of your spiritual Master Teacher and your Godbrothers, who are all very sincere souls and good men. This longing is itself a kind of association through separation. When Krsna was in Dvaraka, apparently far away from Vrndavan, He sent His personal secretary Uddhava to the gopis to soothe their hearts by delivering His message:





How can I get the Lord's mercy?

When Lord Caitanya took sannyasa at age 24, He made His headquarters in Jagannath Puri. Every year the devotees from Navadvipa, Bengal would travel to Puri for the Ratha-yatra festival. Sinananda Sena was from a very wealthy mercantile family, and he took responsibility for supplying, protecting and guiding the devotees on their long journey to see the Lord every year. This was a great source of spiritual pleasure for the Lord and His devotees. Because of this nice service, Sivananda got Lord Caitanya's complete mercy.

Similarly, anyone who dedicates all their resources, time and energy to the cause of devotional service gets the Lord's complete mercy. It is axiomatic in both material and spiritual life that 'you get what you pay for.' If you give a little, then you get only a little; but if you give everything, then you get everything, even the Lord Himself.


The profound change in consciousness that you will experience as a result of your total commitment to the service of the Lord is because the power of devotional service actually transforms the body from material to spiritual:


Everything spiritual and material is the Lord's energy, therefore in the ultimate issue, even the material energy is actually spiritual. When it is engaged in the Lord's service, He can change the material energy into spiritual energy just by His merciful glance. So even the material body, or any material object, can be spiritualized when it used only for the Lord's pleasure. This the secret of why activities in karma-yoga do not generate karmic reactions for the practitioner; such activities are fully spiritual, and the ingredients and articles used to serve the Lord in this way are also fully spiritual by means their service connection with Him.




What does being expert mean in spiritual life?

"Expert means whatever he is doing, he must do it very nicely That’s all." The underlying point is that Krsna has given everyone some talent, some skill or good quality. We have to find out what activity or work we like enough to practice it until we are able to do it "very nicely. That's all."

Becoming expert requires practice, and practice means we must take pleasure in what we are doing. Otherwise it will be difficult to remain steady long enough to become truly expert. Even small or apparently unimportant tasks, if done very nicely, can help us reach the pinnacle of devotional service. The key is in the quality of the work, not so much the quantity. But to become expert at anything, one must do a great deal of it.

Take music for example. There is a famous story about the great guitarist Segovia, who when he was asked why he still practiced every day, replied: "If I don't practice one day, I can hear the difference. If I don't practice for two days, my wife can hear the difference. And if I don't practice for three days, my friends can hear, and that's too much!"

Just like every day I am practicing scales and chords on the keyboard. I have been doing this since I was in conservatory 40 years ago. But if I don't do it, my hands become weak and I cannot play the music that Krsna inspires in my heart, and that is too much. So the day begins with scales.

An important part of self-realization, of knowing oneself spiritually, is to understand what kind of service we would like to perform in the spiritual world. We have eternity to associate with Krsna; what kind of activity, what kind of service relationship will keep us happy and satisfied for all eternity? This is a subject for profound contemplation.

Now regarding quality, everything should be first-class. Or at least it should be equal to ordinary commercial quality. Just like the quote above about being expert. We should become expert in our service to Krsna, then Krsna will be satisfied, guru will be satisfied and we will also be satisfied.

If you listen to my music you can hear that I put a lot of time and effort into it. Similarly I took so much time to make my books nice, and especially Srila Prabhupada's books are very nicely written. He set the standard for Vaisnava literature for a long, long time to come. So this is the example of expert; it should be first-class as far as possible.

But that does not mean that if we cannot do first-class work, we should give up and do nothing. To become first-class we must practice. Even the expert must practice, or he will lose his skill, as discussed above. The principle is that if we make the effort to develop our skill for Krsna, He will give the result as soon as we deserve it.






Do we need to learn new things?

No, we don't have to learn anything extra. Once I wrote Srila Prabhupada with some essays and suggested that I might learn Bengali so that I could appreciate Sri Caitanya-caritamrta better. Prabhupada wrote back,


Because my assigned service did not require it, Prabhupada did not want me to take the time and trouble to learn another language. But notice that he did appreciate the essays, and this was something that I already knew how to do. Therefore he encouraged me to develop this talent given by Krsna.

So whatever we like to do or already do well, we can do that in Krsna's service, as long as it meets the criteria of devotional work. Obviously if we like stealing or something similar, it is not possible to engage that in Krsna's service because it breaks the principles of Vedic society. But any lawful kind of work may be engaged, if not directly then by giving the result in sacrifice, karma-yoga.




I had a strange dream about spiritual life. Could you explain the meaning?

Without knowing the details of your dream, it would be hard to say anything about it. To understand the relationship of the Supersoul with the mind, see my article Abstraction & Consciousness.

Dreaming sleep is one of the four states of consciousness, the others being deep sleep, ordinary waking consciousness and spiritual consciousness. We shift between these four states of consciousness every day, but do not realize it because of a lack of knowledge.

Dreams are often undigested experiences, or dramatizations of astrological influences that we do not have the facility to experience in waking consciousness. The dream state is like a stage where the psychological dramas of the subconscious mind play out.

For more information, look at these scriptural references.














GETTING CLOSER TO KRSNA AND LISTENING TO HIM



How do we become aware of our eternal relationship with the Lord?

We first perform service, and by that service we become qualified to understand Krsna. Krsna says:


It is our duty to approach Krsna and render service. After all, we are in difficulty in this material world, and we need Krsna to deliver us. So first we must please Him by service, and then He will reciprocate according to the degree of our surrender. Bhagavad-gita and other scriptures are filled with Krsna's instructions. So first we must show our sincerity by following those instructions, and then Krsna will respond.

As we become purified and attain self-realization, we will automatically become aware of our mood of relationship with the Lord. The Lord reveals Himself, and our relationship with Him, in proportion to how completely we surrender. For example, when I finally stopped hesitating and joined Srila Prabhupada's temple, within a few weeks I automatically realized that my eternal relationship with Krsna was in the mood of conjugal love. No one had to tell me; it was just revealed from within.

I want to get closer to God but I find the intelligence can over complicate the simplicity and overshadow the lessons to be learned. Its been my experience that most people question things out of a sense of fear. There is this internal struggle between the head and the heart. The heart has the capacity to follow unquestionably, provided that it is free to do so, but the head says, hey wait a minute, I'm not sure about this. Getting closer to God seems to be all about faith. Is this right?

Real intelligence is 'lazy intelligence.' In other words, it tries to find the path of least resistance and least effort. God is all-powerful; His purpose will be accomplished without a doubt. By aligning ourselves with God's purpose—to spiritually enlighten every living entity—we will be successful without a doubt. And in the process we shall attain everything there is to attain in the spiritual realm.

Yes, doubt comes from fear—fear of change. But change happens anyway by the force of time. When we realize our true spiritual nature, we want to change from fruitive workers bound by the laws of karma, to spiritual servants on the eternal path of devotional service to the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Then our questions come from a sense of purpose: how can we accomplish this most lofty goal?

Faith is built on trust, and trust is built on knowledge. Not theoretical knowledge, but practical experience of the Absolute Truth. Chanting the transcendental mantra, om namo bhagavate vasudevaya, gives one actual experience of the transcendental realm.

You have to experience this to know what I am talking about. You have to chant this mantra and help with our teaching work to be a bona fide Student of the Esoteric Teaching. Simply reading the messages and dashing off a few breezy, chatty responses will not help very much. You must become active and participate to get the real benefit.

But intelligence means questions too. I don't want blind followers. Nor do I want glib followers who repeat everything like parrots but don't really understand. In fact I don't want followers at all; I want first sincere Students of the Esoteric Teaching, and ultimately, peers who are equally adept in practicing and presenting the Esoterifc Teaching. That requires asking intelligent, properly-motivated, on-topic questions.

Everything about the Esoteric Teaching is unlimitedly deep. Just inquire deeply enough into this one question, and you will understand everything.

Of course God is in control of everything. The very conception of God includes the idea of the Supreme Controller. But there is a higher conception of God as the Supreme Friend and Lover. Similarly, there is a higher conception of religion as transcendental friendship and love. This is the conception of the Esoteric Teaching.

Everyone needs love and affection in greater quality and quantity than imperfect human beings can provide. Therefore we must approach God, Vasudeva or Krsna, who is the source of all transcendental love, and realize our eternal relationship with Him. This relationship begins from spiritual service to His purpose. Then we will be satisfied. That is the supreme goal of the practice of the Esoteric Teaching.

How do I differentiate between Krsna speaking to me from within and the mind?

The difference is that the voice of Paramātmā will only give advice from the Vedas. Our mind will always disagree with the Vedas.

To be honest and true with myself, how can I understand if the inner voice is coming from the heart or mind? In daily life sometimes it can be quite complicated to understand if the voice is coming from the heart, Supersoul or from the mind? For example desire can come out from the heart or from the mind. How can I understand the difference? A Simple example;

I want to be alone (m? h?),
but I can't leave behind the people who love me, this makes me sorry and guilty,(m? h?),
but when I am alone I feel relaxed and free (m? h?),
but also feel unhappy because I turned my back to the people who love me. I feel compassion for them and they are really good people. (m?h?)
and after sometime I also miss their association as well. (m? h?)

You ask, "How can I see the real direction of the heart?" If this were easy, then everyone would be able to do it. It's like asking "How to swim?" or "How to ride a bicycle?" I can explain and explain, but you will actually learn only by practicing, not by any amount of explanation or theoretical knowledge.
 
We all have certain mental tendencies that are a result of our karma accumulated in previous lives, and these are visible in the birth chart. We cannot get rid of these simply by wanting to, because they are part and parcel of the body/mind in which we have taken birth. The only effective approach is to make a deliberate conscious effort to counteract these inborn tendencies. For example, I tend to be very conservative and delay actions that I know I need to take, not out of procrastination or fear but just because they are new or different. Most people who know me are surprised when I tell them this, but it is because over the years I have trained myself to recognize this tendency and compensate for it by being more proactive.

So we all have to be very honest with ourselves about our inner life, and be willing to take the necessary steps to discipline our minds to march according to the real direction of the heart. Supersoul is always giving guidance, and the challenge is to focus on that to the exclusion of all the false voices in our mind. That is why the principle of guru-śāstra-sādhu is so important; it gives us a concrete model to follow in our attempts to become sincere and genuine in all our actions and dealings, especially with Kṛṣṇa.

If we have an impulse that agrees with guru-śāstra-sādhu, then it is from Supersoul; if not, then it is from the mind or material sentiment. Let's take this principle and analyze your example.

"I want to be alone."

Kṛṣṇa says, "Resorting to solitary places, detachment from the general mass of people...all these I thus declare to be knowledge, and what is contrary to these is ignorance." [Bhagavad-gītā 13.8-12] We also see that all the great spiritual teachers went on solitary pilgrimages, at least for some time. So this is in harmony with guru-śāstra-sādhu.

"But I can't leave behind the people who love me, this makes me sorry and guilty."

This sounds like sentiment. It's not like you're leaving them forever, or neglecting them. Are they devotees? Do they have expectations of you that are actually contrary to the principles of devotional service? Are they running a guilt trip on you?

"But when I am alone I feel relaxed and free."

When we are alone, we do not have to engage in the service of the mind and senses, but remain free to concentrate our consciousness on the Lord. Some devotees preach but others are primarily contemplative:

"Other devotees are ātmānandī, or self-satisfied, and do not take the risk of preaching work. They remain, therefore, alone with God. In this classification was Kardama Muni. He wanted to be free from all anxieties and remain alone within his heart with the Supreme Personality of Godhead." [Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 3.24.34 Purport]

"But also feeling unhappy because I turned my back to the people who loves me, I feel compassion for them and they are really good people."

We have to be clear with ourselves and others that self-realization is our highest priority: "Most people give the highest priority to economic development and sense gratification, relegating religion to a support activity. But actual religion—self-realization—should come first." [Nārada-bhakti-sūtra, 37] If your friends or family do not understand this, maybe it's time that you have a talk with them and make it clear.

"And after sometime I also miss their association as well."

We do not say that everyone should become a solitary sage, because family and other human relationships are natural, especially when they are also devotees. Nevertheless, if one can become completely renounced from worldly ties, this is very beneficial for spiritual progress. It is enjoined in Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 11.5.41:

devarṣi-bhūtāpta-nṛṇāṁ pitṝṇāṁ
na kiṅkaro nāyam ṛṇī ca rājan
sarvātmanā yaḥ śaraṇaṁ śaraṇyaṁ
gato mukundaṁ parihṛtya kartam

"Anyone who has completely given up all worldly relationships and has taken absolute shelter of the lotus feet of the Lord, who gives us salvation and who alone is fit to be taken shelter of, is no longer a debtor or servant of anyone, including the demigods, forefathers, sages, other living entities, relatives, and members of human society."

My advice is to observe yourself very carefully, and see which of the impulses of your heart are born from your own desire and which come from your projections of the expectations of others on you. That would be a good place to start separating the real and essential from the false and sentimental, the spiritual heart from the material mental platform.





I am casually friendly with the Lord when I speak to Him. What kind of mood should we have with the Lord? What about guru and Godbrothers?

There is nothing wrong with having a friendly relationship with the Lord. After all, He is with us 24/7, sees everything and knows us quite well. This friendship, like any good friendship, must be based on love and our natural attraction to His exalted qualities tempered with respect. Still He is the greatest friend. Sudāmā the pious florist of Māthura prayed:


We may have friendly feelings toward the Lord, but He is still the Master and we are the servants. So we can be friendly but also respectful. Similarly, we may have very warm feelings toward our guru and senior disciples, but still there should be some respect, some distance. This keeps us from becoming overly familiar and making offenses.

The fine old mood of gentlemanly friendship has been lost in Western culture, and this is a shame. We can be a friend and still be respectful without being too casual or familiar. If our confidence in the relationship is strong, we will not let the standard formalities and etiquette interfere with our heartfelt feelings of affection. They will shine forth regardless, because transcendental love is not limited by distance.

For example, Native Americans are very reserved in openly expressing their feelings; they carry the formalities of respect to an extreme. However, in my association with tribal people, I have never wondered how they felt. Emotion, especially transcendental love, has a life and energy of its own and does not require showy expression or lengthy explanation. One whose heart is open can feel it.

In ISKCON a culture developed of calling devotees by nicknames, and I always found this disrespectful. Vedānta-sūtra teaches us that all names are names of Kṛṣṇa; so especially devotees should be careful to address one another respect. It better to be a little too formal than too informal, because that can lead to offenses. A little respectful distance in devotional society is healthy.

I find myself jumping around often to Kirtan, but I noticed you do not, your joy is more internal. I want to have the kind of relationship you have, to be naked in front of the Lord. How can I?

Thank you for your message and kind appreciation. Don't worry, I did my share of jumping in kīrtan when Śrīla Prabhupāda was present! But now I find that as I gradually move beyond the great milestone of Kṛṣṇa-darṣan and it becomes integrated in my personality, my devotional service becomes more and more internal and spontaneous.

The other day I was sitting around, feeling a little strange. Contemplating it, I felt that I had lost some kind of edge that kept me always in motion. Finally I realized that I have lost the feeling of fear and anxiety that I have had for as long as I remember. I feel like I have come home, not externally but internally, and this is far more profound than any pale external material imitation could be.

Yes, we must become naked before God; or rather realize that we are already naked, completely exposed, in His sight. He knows everything about us—and still loves us eternally and unconditionally.


Yet we can know Him by hearing about Him from the Esoteric Teaching and also by observing our own consciousness. After all, He made us in His image, and so we have all the same urges and impulses. The difference is that we are impure and He is completely pure. His love is perfect, but ours is contaminated with lust. We are tinged with the mode of passion, but He is Vāsudeva, in pure goodness.

Sometimes I wonder why I have been selected for such an important service, when there are so many devotees who are stronger, smarter, have better leadership qualities and so on. Maybe it is because of my close relationship with Lord Nṛsiṁhadeva, and because my mood is so similar to Prahlāda's:


I am much more attracted to spontaneous, intimate service of the Lord than to external, formal service and rituals. And I also teach this mood to my students, both by example and precept. Devotees who have experienced both say that spontaneous devotional service feels like freedom after being cooped up in jail. I remember the days of rituals, rules and regulations, and I was not happy in that mode.

So I would urge you to study the Nectar of Devotion, which was Viṣṇujāna Swami's favorite book. We are also studying the original work from which NOD is derived, Bhakti-rasamrta-sindhu, in our Evening Darshans. Please follow along. Therein is the secret, and why the Lord gets so much more enjoyment out of spontaneous devotional service than mere external ritualistic imitation. That is also the actual teaching of Lord Caitanya:

I have strange occurences in my life which are connected. Is this God trying to tell me something?

That is not strange; it is called synchronicity, or coincidence, and it is a function of Kṛṣṇa's intelligence and the fact that time is not linear but structured. It happens a lot to devotees because Kṛṣṇa is trying to show us that He is real so we increase our faith. We get it so much that we become used to it: "Oh, there's Kṛṣṇa again!" You see, Kṛṣṇa really is God, and if you keep your mind open to Him, He will prove it by making many of these 'coincidences.'




I have questions on the deeper aspects of the spiritual world, such as relationships between jivas.

First you should finish reading Kṛṣṇa Book, Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, Nectar of Devotion and Śrī Caitanya-caritāmṛta. Otherwise these questions are just based on speculation. This subject matter is the most confidential. Be very careful so you don't make offenses. Better to drop it for now.




















STAGES OF THE PATH



Do you have an easy way I can understand the stages of devotional service, such as as a table or something similar?

Here is The Bhakti Matrix in PDF format.

The idea is to show the relationship between the stages of devotional service given in Rupa Gosvami's famous 'adau sraddha' sloka, and the nine processes of devotional service given in Prahlada Maharaja's equally famous 'sravanam kirtanam visnoh' sloka.

Here are the two slokas:


So the nine processes of devotional service apply for almost all classes of devotees, but the details of each process differ as one makes advancement to higher and higher stages of bhakti. I hope that this article encourages you to respond with your thoughts, observations and questions about spiritual life.




At matrix location [pada-sevanam, nistha], what is meant by "Mature external service"? In the same row, what is meant by "spiritual responsibility"?

By "Mature external service", I mean that by this stage of advancement one should be competent in the performance of vaidhi-bhakti, such as hearing from the guru and sastra, chanting japa and kirtan, Deity worship, cooking, preaching, Vaisnava etiquette, etc. Also one should have chosen and developed advanced skills in some specialty like leading kirtan, giving class, puja, writing, etc. Nistha means 'steadiness', and pada-sevanam means 'serving the lotus feet of the Lord'. So one's service at the stage of steadiness should exhibit good development in all the branches of general service, and exceptional development in one or more specialties.

"Spiritual responsibility" means that one is capable of taking leadership responsibility for the condition of other devotees' spiritual life. Sakhyam means 'being a friend', and nistha means 'steadiness', so one who is a steady friend both of Krsna and the other devotees is capable of taking responsibility to show the path to others. Usually he becomes a responsible leader in family life, in the temple or other association of Vaisnavas, a senior devotee to whom others naturally look up as an example. Because of his steadiness, he is sober and does not fall down. He is reliable and his service gradually becomes a pillar of his devotional association.



Sometimes one feels an inclination to do a particular kind of activity (under dasyam, sakhyam, etc.) or contemplation (smaranam) that is listed at deeper locations in the matrix, without possessing the qualifications prayed for in earlier portions of the matrix (like surrender, purity, steadiness, etc.) as they are commonly understood. In such cases, one feels hypocritical trying to engage those service propensities. Please comment on this kind of situation.


I don't think that to desire a type of service that is more advanced than our present state of realization is hypocritical; actually it is a good quality to aspire for higher levels of service. In fact if we do not, there is something wrong. Srila Prabhupada writes in many places in his books that we should always be progressive, and not remain content with our present level of advancement, but always strive for higher levels of realization. For example:


This progressive advancement in devotional service is developed not exactly by doing, but by the maturity of our desire. For example, when an advanced devotee aspires to enter the transcendental pastimes of the Lord, he develops a strong craving to serve the Lord in the mood of a particular associate of the Lord.


So in the advanced stage of raganuga-bhakti, spontaneous love for the Lord, one develops a 'lusty desire' to serve the Lord in a particular way. This ever-increasing transcendental desire is a source of great spiritual pleasure to both the devotee and the Lord.


Śrīla Mādhavendra Purī said further:


So even if we are presently unable to perform a more advanced level of service, that does not mean that we cannot aspire for it. I remember when I was learning music, when I heard an advanced player, even though my skills were not as polished I became inspired to practice, so that someday I could perform at a higher level of competence. Similarly we should aspire to follow in the footsteps of the eternal associates of the Lord, even though in our present state we may be unable to do it. But someday, by the grace of the Lord, we will attain the object of our spiritual desires.



What does the column for Smaranam signify? Does this mean that we progressively contemplate the entries in the column? Does contemplating the Six Goswamis mean studying their works? What does it mean to contemplate Radha-Krsna?

Smaranam means remembering. So smaranam is what we remember, or our general mode and quality of consciousness. The object of our remembrance changes at different stages of devotional service. In the beginning we remember the Holy Name and our guru, but later on we think in terms of the whole guru-parampara going back to Lord Caitanya and Krsna. So yes, we progressively contemplate different entities as we advance in devotional service. Finally in the stage of raganuga-bhakti we remember our eternal service relationship with the specific aspect of the Supreme Lord with whom we have the most intimate service relationship.



In the Bhava-Arcanam cell, what does Manasi Seva mean and how is it different from direct service?

'Direct service' means that we perform service internally in our eternal spiritual form. This is manasi-seva or service in the mind, not with the material body and senses but with the spiitual body and senses.



How can I learn more about this bhakti-matrix?

We are currently studying Bhakti-rasamrta-sindhu in our darshan series so please follow along live or via the youtube videos and many of your questions will be answered. You can also ask questions on our community site. And finally, here is a transcription from a Satsang where we discussed this Matrix:

Babaji: Yeah that’s what I’m going to do first of all. Okay. First of all, what is the Bhakti Matrix? Well, it’s the intersection of two very important shloka s. The ādau śraddhā shloka and the śravaṇaṁ kīrtanaṁ shloka. These two shlokas give respectively the nine processes of devotional service and the ten stages of devotional service. I think it’s ten. [Counting on a sheet] One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. Yeah.

Uddhava: Well ‘Realization’ is a column.

Babaji: Well I added ‘Realization’. Basically what I’m trying to do here is show what the subject matter or the nature of the nine processes of devotional service will be in the stages – [counting] one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine stages of devotional service. So first let’s talk about śravaṇaṁ kīrtanaṁ and so on. The nine processes of devotional service given by Prahalada Maharaja in the seventh canto of Srimad Bhagavatam.

• śravaṇaṁ means hearing
• kīrtanaṁ means chanting
• smaraṇaṁ means remembering
• pāda-sevanam means
• arcanaṁ means worship, like temple worship
• vandanaṁ means surrender or prayer
• dāsyaṁ means becoming a servant
• sakhyam means becoming a friend and
• ātma-nivedanam means surrendering everything. Full surrender.

These are the nine processes of devotional service. And then I added another column at the very end, ‘Realization’. What is the final realization of that particular stage of devotional services and the stage, the stages reading down the left side [of the matrix] are:

• śraddhā or preliminary faith
• sādhu-saṅga or association with devotees
• bhajana-kriyā or performance of devotional service. Regulated devotional service.
• anartha-nivṛtti which means cessation of unwanted things.
• niṣṭhā which means steadiness
• ruci which means taste
• āsakti which means attachment
• bhāva which means preliminary ecstatic emotions and
• prema which means pure love of Godhead

These are the nine stages of devotional service. So we have nine processes of devotional service and nine stages of devotional service. So the point of this chart is, what do these nine processes look like in each of these nine stages? So I have tried to go through and give examples or give particular subjects for these nine stages of devotional service. For example, śravaṇaṁ - hearing. In the first preliminary stage of śraddhā someone’s going to be visiting the website and they’re going to be hearing videos, podcasts, reading the articles on the site and like that.

Uddhava: Youtube.

Babaji: Huh?

Uddhava: Youtube.

Babaji: Yeah, youtube videos or what else is there? Maybe listening to music, transcendental music from the site. But then, once they advance to the stage of sādhu-saṅga, what’s the first thing we’re going to tell them? Read Bhagavad Gita! [Laughs]

Uddhava: “Have you read Bhagavad Gita?”

Babaji: Yeah. So when someone advances to actually associate with devotees then they’re going to go from the preliminary -actually promotional – materials that we create on this site, to the actual śāstra. And so the subject of hearing is going to change according to the stage. Let’s go across [the matrix] and take each stage and see what the nine processes of devotional service look like. So in this stage of śraddhā, which is preliminary faith, śravaṇaṁ or hearing is going go be mostly the promotional materials that we create to interest people in the process of devotional service and their kīrtanaṁ - their chanting – if they chant anything at all is going to be oṁ namo bhagavate vāsudevāya because that is the mantra that is very good for this preliminary stage. Similarly their smaraṇaṁ, their remembrance, is going to be the different articles on the site and so on, the philosophy of the Esoteric Teaching and the philosophy of Transontology. And we keep posting newer and newer material on these subjects so if they come on the site and they look at the forums that’s what they’re going to be thinking about. And their pāda-sevanam is going to be donations – anybody can make a donation on the site now; we’ve opened that up to everybody – and, back in the old days we used to sell things [laughs] like DVDs and CDs of transcendental music and videos and so on. Well we don’t do that anymore, we make all that material free but people can and should donate something and that’s their devotional service; that’s their support for our work.

Now the next processes of devotional service like arcanaṁ or deity worship, vandanaṁ or prayers, dāsyaṁ or actual servitude, sakhyam and ātma-nivedanam don’t really exist in the preliminary stage of śraddhā so I just grayed out those boxes [in the matrix]. But the realization, the actual end result of practicing this stage of śraddhā is that one realizes there is a path to the Absolute Truth! First he realizes there is an Absolute Truth. That’s very important, and there is a way to reach that Absolute Truth – which, in the ordinary stage of material existence neither of those things are true. An individual has no way of knowing the Absolute Truth, what to speak of realizing it. So when they realize “Yes, there is an Absolute Truth, there is a spiritual reality and there is a way to reach it”, that is the actual result of that stage of śraddhā. Now they can move on to the next stage, which is sādhu-saṅga - association with devotees.

And, as we said, the first thing we do when they reach that stage is tell them [wagging finger] “You have to read Bhagavad-Gita!” [laughs]. Bhagavad Gita is the actual Esoteric Teaching – or at least the introduction to it – and we recommend that everybody should read that first. So they’re going to be hearing from Bhagavad Gita. Well what are they going to be chanting? Well in sādhu-saṅga what’s the first thing we do? We have a kirtan. Right? As soon as you start to associate with devotees by attending this saṅga or viewing the video then the first thing you come in contact with is kirtan. So kirtan is the most important aspect of sādhu-saṅga and you’re also going to hear philosophical discussions. So your śravaṇaṁ is going to be kirtan and discussions of the philosophy.

What’s going to be your smaraṇaṁ? Sankhya philosophy. The point of Sankhya philosophy is to distinguish spirit from matter. We’re all spiritual living entities but because we have identified with material bodies, the first thing we need to learn is that we’re not this body; we’re the spirit within. That’s Sankhya philosophy. That’s actually the subject of the second chapter of Bhagavad Gita, by the way. And in the third chapter Arjuna...or actually Krsna says “Thus far I have described Sankhya philosophy. Now I’m going to describe work in devotion.” So in pāda-sevanam, the process of pāda-sevanam is that one begins to serve the devotees. When they’re in the stage of sādhu-saṅga the devotees basically are the path. We don’t know the path except for our association with the devotees. So service to the devotees becomes our pāda-sevanam. And then our arcanaṁ in that stage, in that early stage of devotional service, is offering prasadam. We’ll make an altar with some pictures and we’ll put the plate there and say a few prayers or maybe just Hare Krsna, according to our knowledge and that’s the beginning of our process of arcanaṁ or worship.

Uddhava: Should we say “offering bhoga”?

Babaji: Offering...well, yeah. It’s colloquially known as ‘offering prasadam’ even though the prasadam is actually the result of the offering of bhoga which is for enjoyment and da-da-da-da-da but you know, just to save words okay?

Uddhava: Okay.

Babaji: Similarly, our vandanaṁ or our prayers in the stage of sādhu-saṅga are typically directed towards the guru. Typically we will learn the guru pranam mantra for our particular guru and then we’ll say that prayer several times a day when we offer obeisances to the guru and like that. And similarly our dāsyaṁ, our service will be guru-seva. The guru will say “Do this, do that” and then if we do that, if we actually follow, if we’re intelligent we’ll follow the instructions of the guru. If we’re not intelligent then, you know, something else may happen. [Laughter] But that’s not dāsyaṁ. That’s concoction! [Laughs] If we’re actually following a process then we’ll do what the guru tells us to do, [wags finger and widens eyes] Rddha Das!! And the next stage, or process, sakhyam will be we’ll make friendship with the devotees. So because in the beginning stage we can’t make friendship with the Supreme Lord; we’re not advanced enough to know what His purposes are and His nature is. So we make friends with the devotees and then ātma-nivedanam or self-surrender will be to the guru. If we actually surrender to the guru then we reach the result of the stage of sādhu-saṅga and we get the realization that the Holy Name gives transcendental knowledge and cleanses the heart. And so what happens? We become initiated by the spiritual master and we reach the next stage, which is bhajana-kriyā.

In bhajana-kriyā we perform the service given to us by the spiritual master and so in the bhajana-kriyā stage we will hear Srimad Bhagavatam. Our śravaṇaṁ becomes Srimad Bhagavatam. Remember Bhagavad Gita takes place on the battlefield of Kurukshetra. There’s a war going on between the pious and the impious. So the battle for the heart of the living entity takes place on the battlefield of Kurukshetra. That’s why we call the first forum that people get involved in, we call that Kurukshetra Forum because Bhagavad Gita is spoken there and the end result of hearing Bhagavad Gita is sarva-dharmān parityajya mām ekaṁ śaraṇaṁ vraja – give up all these different processes of religion and just surrender to Krsna. If we just surrender to Krsna then we accept the orders of the spiritual master and we become initiated and then we begin to serve the spiritual master according to his instructions and the instructions of the śāstra . So at this point if we’re following the four regulative principles and so on, then we begin to hear from Srimad Bhagavatam and, of course, to chant the Hare Krsna mahamantra, because we have to be following the four regulative principles to do that without making terrible offences.

Similarly, our smaraṇaṁ or our remembrance will be remembrance of the guru because the guru is our principle object of service in this stage of bhajana-kriyā. So we are always thinking or remembering our diksa guru. And similarly, our pāda-sevanam will be guru-seva. Guru-seva means serving the guru – supporting the mission and doing various services assigned by the guru and also vaidhi-bhakti. vaidhi-bhakti means regulated devotional service according to the rules and regulations in the scriptures. Now our arcanaṁ in that stage will be offering arati and kirtan to the deities. This is the beginning of actual deity worship. We have to be in association with a bona fide spiritual master to perform this kind of worship because it requires quite a bit of instruction. So one has to be pure, following the rules and regulations and initiated by a bona fide master to even begin the process of deity worship. So we’re getting deities now. I guess everyone has seen the picture on the forum that Neville sent, and when they arrive we also ordered a bunch of paraphernalia for worshipping them and then we’ll begin the process of arcanaṁ and we’ll also begin teaching our disciples how to do this. vandanaṁ will be to pray for purity.

In the first stage of sādhu-saṅga, our prayer was for a bona fide guru. By associating with devotees one of the first things we learn is that we need a guru. So we pray for a guru. But once we have a guru then we pray for purity because the first thing we learn when we are given the instruction of how to serve Krsna is that we can’t do it. We can’t follow the principles, we can’t chant regularly, we can’t study properly, we can’t do anything right! That’s our first realization, so we begin to pray to Krsna “Please purify me so I can actually follow the instructions of my spiritual master!” And then our dāsyaṁ will be our daily sadhana. We perform sadhana. To get purified we perform sadhana in a regulated way and also we perform karma-yoga where we gradually engage all aspects of our existence in the service of the guru. So, I mean, at this point in my life, for example, everything is completely engaged in karma-yoga. There isn’t anything separate from the service of the guru and we should strive for that ; we should try to emulate that.

Then our sakhyam is, our friendship is that we become a qualified disciple. Because when we’re an offensive disciple we’re not being very friendly with our guru, are we? - if there’s some difference of opinion, some difference in purposes between ourselves and our spiritual master. But [when] our purpose and the spiritual master’s purpose become the same - that’s real friendship. So when we attain this, we’re trying to become a bona fide disciple, become purified, basically we’re trying to become qualified as a servant of the spiritual master by adopting the same purposes. And then our ātma-nivedanam is that we make a lifetime commitment. In other words, we surrender our whole life to the mission of the spiritual master and in this way we become a perfect or a bona fide disciple. So the result of all that is that we experience that all of Krsna’s potencies are invested in His Holy Name. If we actually become a qualified disciple then Krsna will reveal the power of His Holy Name to us. And at that point we become a transcendental madman [laughs].

Uddhava: This is up to where ISKCON gets to, right?

Babaji: Right. ISKCON gets up to this point. ISKCON covers all these different areas of devotional service. Or not just ISKCON, but any formal organization devoted to the Vedic Esoteric Teaching can reach up to that point because this is actually the mesoteric stage of devotional service, but now starting with anartha-nivṛtti - anartha-nivṛtti means cessation of all unwanted things or actually it’s the beginning of perfection. The devotee doesn’t fall down anymore. I mean in ISKCON you even have gurus falling down! So, like...what...you know, what level is that?? But in real devotional service one soon reaches the level of anartha-nivṛtti which means that they no longer have any desire for material activities and their śravaṇaṁ, their hearing...if you have heard Srimad Bhagavatam, if you have really heard Srimad Bhagavatam the result is you have no more desire for material activities. So then you can hear Chaitanya-Charitamrta, which describes the life and teachings of Lord Chaitanya, because that scripture has no tinge of material activity at all. If you try to read Chaitanya-Charitamrta before you’ve understood Srimad Bhagavatam you won’t get it. I have seen this many times.

So at this point our kīrtanaṁ becomes preaching. Our chanting becomes preaching. Preaching is also kirtan because we’re repeating Krsna’s instructions. We’re not making up anything of our own. And similarly the smaraṇaṁ, or the remembering, becomes not just our own guru but the entire guru-parampara, the entire disciplic succession. We begin to understand not only our own guru but we see how our own guru is reflecting the teaching coming down through the parampara from Krsna and our awareness begins to expand and we understand how the different teachers in the lineage interpreted the teaching for their particular circumstances and so on like that. We start to get a much broader view, a much bigger view of the whole history of the lineage and like that.

Then our pāda-sevanam in that stage becomes a deep study of the scripture. There is a difference between superficial study of the scriptures and deep study. In superficial study one can spit back the teachings more or less on a mechanical basis “Oh yeah Krsna says this and Lord Chaitanya says that.” But in deep study of the scripture one actually understands the inner logic of the scripture, the ontological significance of the scripture. This is a very advanced stage of study when one can actually understand, for example, why Krsna says this first and that next and then this other thing and then finally that. Why does the Srimad Bhagavatam go through nine cantos and what are the subject matters of those cantos and why are they in that particular order? Questions like that becomes one’s focus in the stage of deep study.

And similarly in the stage of pāda-sevanam...or, sorry, the arcanaṁ now becomes the more intimate service to the deities. Not just offering prasadam or having nice kirtans but doing the bathing and dressing ceremonies, which are a very intimate service, a very deep service. And these services actually lead to some very wonderful realizations. This is advanced stage of being a brahmana. And then one prays for steadiness. In other words, at each stage of devotional service our prayer is for the next stage. So in ātma...in, sorry, in anartha-nivṛtti we pray for steadiness. We don’t want to fall down anymore. We’ve finally reached a stage of purity and so we pray “Please make me steady so I don’t fall down. I don’t want to go back to the previous stage. I’m done with that. I’m tired of that. I want the real thing – I want eternal devotional service.” So we pray like that.

And then similarly our dāsyaṁ or our service in that stage is to understand the correct siddhanta, the actual conclusions of our lineage, the deep reasoninig that leads to the particular conclusions that are taught by our guru and by the disciplic succession going back to Lord Chaitanya and like that. We learn these things by studying Chaitanya-Charitamrta. Then our sakhyam, our making friends...oh sorry, I missed...yeah, is that we become a friend to all. When we actually attain anartha-nivṛtti and we give up all of our material aspirations and desires, that’s...for the first time we become capable of becoming a friend to everyone. And how do you actually be a friend to everyone? Well, of course, you’re preaching. And I don’t mean preaching in the sense of like recruiting new members for your church. I mean preaching in the sense that you can actually take responsibility for giving people this spiritual consciousness. That’s real preaching. Real preaching is always on the basis of consciousness – giving people the tools they need to change their consciousness to get relief from the suffering of material existence.

And finally the ātma-nivedanam is renunciation - real renunciation. Real renunciation means I not only give up sex-life, I give up the desire for sex-life. It means I not only give up meat-eating, I give up the desire for enjoying my tongue. It means not only do I give up gambling, I give up the desire for speculation and easy profit. You see? Real renunciation means I don’t even think about these things; my mind is full of much better things to think about so I don’t even care about material enjoyment. I can live under a tree, I don’t mind – as long as I can be engaged in devotional service. Therefore the realization of that stage is “Follows the ideal character of the sādhus and develops attachment for the Holy Name. The Holy Name becomes everything to me. So I automatically follow all the rules and regulations, not just in an external way but in an internal way. And of course, the result of that is the next stage - niṣṭhā. niṣṭhā means steadiness.

Any questions so far?

Uddhava: We can do it in two sessions.

Babaji: I think we’re going to have to take two sessions just to go over this because it’s very long and there’s a lot of different sections. But are you seeing the natural progression of thoughts here? This is like...to make this chart I had to think back on my own history as a devotee and as I went through all these stages what did I do in each of them? Or what was my concentration, what was my focus?

Question?

[...]

Uddhava: From Neville. “Is it possible to be in different stages (rows) under the different modes of worship (columns)?” Meaning not exactly in line, but...

Babaji: Yeah, I mean any chart like this is going to be an abstraction. This is just categories, conceptual categories for trying to understand where we are approximately. Because this whole world of devotional service is completely subjective we are sometimes in one stage, sometimes in another stage, like that. Although it becomes a lot more stable once we reach niṣṭhā. niṣṭhā means steadiness so things start to move a lot slower, actually. The stage of niṣṭhā and ruci and āsakti, these may take thirty or forty years for a person to go through – or even a whole lifetime, you know, depending on how fast they’re moving. Whereas I’ve seen people go through from śraddhā up through bhajana-kriyā in three months! So it depends on what stage we’re at, how fast we’re moving, how determined we are and how much mercy we’ve got. [...]

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