In Bhagavad-gita, Kṛṣṇa is teaching Arjuna about spiritual values. Why? When Arjuna saw all his enemies on the battlefield, he could not bring himself to fight against his cousins and other relatives, even his grandfather and guru. But this was a complete dereliction of his duty. Therefore Kṛṣṇa chastised him:
klaibyam ma sma gamah partha
naitat tvayy upapadyate
ksudram hrdaya-daurbalyam
taktvottistha parantapa“O son of Prtha, do not yield to this degrading impotence. It does not become you. Give up such petty weakness of heart and arise, O chastiser of the enemy.” [Bhagavad-gita 2.3]
You cannot understand this Esoteric Teaching philosophy with material intelligence. It requires time, practice and careful study. Unintelligent people, if they simply see that “Kṛṣṇa is enticing Arjuna to fight; therefore Kṛṣṇa is immoral,” that means they are trying to see Kṛṣṇa with their material vision. You cannot see Kṛṣṇa as He really is with material eyes; you have to see Kṛṣṇa with spiritual eyes. Therefore Kṛṣṇa says in the Bhagavad-gita,
janma karma ca me divyam
evam yo vetti tattvatah
tyaktva deham punar janma
naiti mam eti so ’rjunaOne who knows the transcendental nature of My appearance and activities does not, upon leaving the body, take his birth again in this material world, but attains My eternal abode, O Arjuna. [Bhagavad-gita 4.9]
Divyam. Kṛṣṇa’s activities are all transcendental, divyam. If anyone can simply understand these transcendental activities of Kṛṣṇa, then he immediately becomes liberated. Not ordinary liberation, but for going back to home, back to Godhead.
tyaktva deham punar janma
naiti mam eti kaunteya“He does not, upon leaving the body, take his birth again in this material world, but attains My eternal abode.” [Bhagavad-gita 4.9]
This is the greatest liberation. There are different types of liberation: sayujya, sarupya, sarsti, salokya and samipya. Of these five kinds of liberation, sayujya is the lowest. Sayujya means to merge into the existence of Brahman, the impersonal aspect of God. This brahma-laya (merging into the impersonal Brahman) is a kind of liberation, but it means permanently extinguishing one’s individuality.
The Mayavadis or the jnani-sampradaya want to merge into the Brahman existence. That is called sayujya-mukti. But for a devotee, this sayujya-mukti is just like hell. Sri Prabodhananda Sarasvati, a great devotee of Lord Caitanya, said, kaivalyam narakayate: “The happiness of becoming one with the Supreme Lord, which is aspired for by the Mayavadis, is considered hellish.” That oneness is not for pure devotees.
There are many pseudo-devotees who theorize that in the conditioned state we may worship the Personality of Godhead but that ultimately there is no personality; they speculate that since the Absolute Truth is impersonal, one can imagine a personal form of the impersonal Absolute Truth for the time being, but as soon as one becomes liberated the worship stops. That is the theory put forward by the Mayavada philosophy.
Actually the impersonalists do not merge into the existence of the Supreme Person, but into His personal bodily luster, which is called the brahmajyoti. Although that brahmajyoti is qualitatively no different from His personal body, that sort of oneness is not accepted by a pure devotee because the devotees experience greater pleasure from devotional service than the so-called pleasure of merging into His existence.
The greatest pleasure is to serve the Lord. The two syllables ‘krs-na’ literally mean the greatest pleasure. Devotees are always thinking about how to serve Him; they are always designing newer and more original ways and means to serve the Supreme Lord, even in the midst of the greatest obstacles of material existence. This is very glorious and beautiful.
The impersonalists think that the description of the pastimes of the Lord are mythological stories, but actually they are not stories; they are historical facts. Pure devotees accept the narrations of the pastimes of the Lord not as stories but as Absolute Truth. They derive the highest aesthetic and ontological states of pleasure, technically called rasa, from these transcendental narrations about the Lord. And this transcendental pleasure is eternal; once attained, it just keeps growing.
So for a Vaiṣṇava, kaivalyam, monistic liberation, to merge into the existence of the Supreme, is compared with hell, because for one who has accepted sayujya-mukti, there is no chance to perform devotional service and relish the ever-increasing pleasure of bhakti-rasa.
kaivalyam narakayate
tri-dasa-pur akasa-puspayate“For a pure devotee, kaivalya, merging into the existence of Brahman, the Brahman effulgence, is no better than living in hell. Similarly, he considers promotion to heavenly planets (tridasa-pur) just another kind of phantasmagoria.” [Caitanya-candramrta 5].
The jnanis or Mayavadis are anxious to merge into the existence of the Brahman effulgence, but for the karmis, the fruitive workers, their highest aim is how to be elevated to the higher planetary systems, Svarga-loka, where Lord Indra and Brahma live. In other words, the karmi’s ambition is to go to the heaven. In all other religious literature, all other scripture except Vaiṣṇava philosophy, their aim is how to be elevated to the heavenly planets.
Heaven is described in the Vedic literature as tri-dasa-pur. Tri-dasa-pur. Tri-dasa-pur means there are 33,000,000 demigods, and they each have their own planet. Tri-dasa-pur akasa-puspayate. Akasa-puspa means “a flower in the sky,” something imaginary. A flower should be in the garden, but if somebody imagines the flower in the sky, it is something imaginary. So for a devotee, promotion to the heavenly planet is just like an imaginary flower in the sky. Very nice, but what is the use of it? It is just another temporary material pleasure.
So this describes the processes and the results of the karmi and the jnani. Then durdantendriya-kala-sarpa-patali protkhata-damstrayate. This describes the yogis. Yoga, real yoga, not the phony commercial variety available in the West, means yoga indriya-samyama, controlling the senses. That is the authentic yogic practice.
Our material bodily senses are very strong. Just like we Vaiṣṇavas first of all try to control the tongue, so the yogis try to control the senses, not only the tongue, but all the senses, by some mystic process. Why they are trying to control the senses? Because the senses are just like poisonous serpents. Wherever such snakes live and whatever they touch becomes contaminated with poison.
Just like our material sex impulse. As soon as there is illicit sex, there are so many difficulties. Of course, nowadays it has become all too easy to engage in illicit sexual affairs. Therefore everyone’s lives have become chaotic and strident.
As soon as one is touched by the poisonous serpent of sensual desire, then so many karmic difficulties and complications are there, preventing any self-realization. Therefore Vedic civilization is very strict about illicit sex, because the whole aim is how to go back to home, back to Godhead. Not sense gratification, eat, drink, be merry, enjoy; that is not the aim of human life.
Self-realization, or realizing our perfect eternal spiritual identity and body, is the aim. Everything in Vedic culture is planned according to the directions of the Esoteric Teaching with that aim, because once you become implicated in sense gratification, it is very difficult to withdraw the senses by yogic methods. The practice of real mystic yoga is almost impossible in this age; therefore Caitanya Mahaprabhu said,
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, chant the holy name of the Lord, chant the holy name of the Lord. There is no other way [by jnana]. There is no other way [by karma]. There is no other way [by yoga].” [Caitanya-caritamrta, Adi-lila 17.21]
So for a Vaiṣṇava, a devotee who practices the Esoteric Teaching, these poisonous snakes of the senses are just like snakes with broken fangs. They automatically attain sense control without separate endeavor. That is the power of the Holy Name of the Lord.
For example, we can easily control the tongue if it is engaged only in chanting the maha-mantra or dvadasaksara-mantra, and eating only Kṛṣṇa prasadam, pure vegetarian food offered to the Lord with love and devotion. There is no need for a mystic yoga process, because the whole thing is done by the power of the Holy Name, and one who does this automatically becomes a perfect yogi. For a bhakta, there is no trouble with the senses because a bhakta knows how to engage each and every sense in the service of the Lord.
sarvopadhi-vinirmuktam
tat-paratvena nirmalam
hrsikena hrsikesa-
sevanam bhaktir ucyate“Bhakti, or devotional service, means engaging all our senses in the service of the Lord, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, the master of all the senses. When the spirit soul renders service unto the Supreme, there are two side effects. One is freed from all material designations, and one’s senses are purified simply by being employed in the service of the Lord.” [Bhakti-rasamrta-sindhu 1.1.12]
That is bhakti. Hrsika means the senses. When the senses are engaged only for the service of Kṛṣṇa, Hrsikesa, then there is no need to practice a separate yoga process to control the senses. Automatically the senses are locked up in the service of Kṛṣṇa, Hrisikesa, the master of the senses. They have no other engagement. That is the highest stage of yoga, samadhi. Therefore Kṛṣṇa says,
yoginam api sarvesam
mad-gatenantaratmana
sraddhavan bhajate yo mam
sa me yuktatamo matah“Of all yogis, the one with great faith who always abides in Me, thinks of Me within himself, and renders transcendental loving service to Me is the most intimately united with Me in yoga and is the highest of all. That is My opinion.” [Bhagavad-gita 6.47]
Therefore this chanting of the dvadasaksara-mantra, if we simply chant and hear it with great attention and devotion, we automatically become a first-class yogi. So this chanting is the yoga process for the Kali-yuga.
Just like Kṛṣṇa wants to Arjuna to understand that “Why you are indulging in this weakness of mind? You are under My protection. I am ordering you to fight. Why you are hesitating?” That was in the previous yuga, and Kṛṣṇa was the incarnation for the age.
In Kali-yuga, Lord Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu is the incarnation. So just like Kṛṣṇa was encouraging Arjuna to do his duty in Bhagavad-gita, similarly, Lord Caitanya is saying, “Why are you hesitating, trying so many different impractical forms of self-realization? Simply chant the Holy Name of the Lord and attain the highest liberation! This is your duty; why are you hesitating? Stand up and chant!”
This is the message of the Esoteric Teaching.
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