19850923 Caitanya-caritāmṛta Madhya-līlā 11.104-118

The following is a lecture given by His Holiness Jayapatākā Swami on September 23^rd 1985 in Atlanta, Georgia. The lecture begins with a reading from Caitanya-caritāmṛta, Madhya-līlā 11.104

Translation: “[Lord Brahmā said:] ‘My Lord, if one is favored by even a slight trace of the mercy of Your lotus feet, he can understand the greatness of Your personality. But those who speculate to understand the Supreme Personality of Godhead are unable to know You, even though they continue to study the Vedas for many years.’”

Purport: This verse is a quotation from Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam (10.14.29). It is explained in the Madhya-līlā, in the sixth chapter, text 84.

Caitanya-caritāmṛta Madhya 11.105

rājā kahe, — sabe jagannātha nā dekhiyā
caitanyera vāsā-gṛhe calilā dhāñā

Translation: The King said, “Instead of visiting the temple of Lord Jagannātha, all the devotees are running toward the residence of Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu.”

Caitanya-caritāmṛta Madhya 11.106

bhaṭṭa kahe, — ei ta’ svābhāvika prema-rīta
mahāprabhu milibāre utkaṇṭhita cita

Translation: Sārvabhauma Bhaṭṭācārya replied, “This is spontaneous love. All the devotees are very anxious to meet Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu.

Caitanya-caritāmṛta Madhya 11.107

āge tāṅre mili’ sabe tāṅre saṅge lañā
tāṅra saṅge jagannātha dekhibena giyā

Translation: “First the devotees will meet Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu and then take Him with them to the temple to see Lord Jagannātha.”

Caitanya-caritāmṛta Madhya 11.108

rājā kahe, — bhavānandera putra vāṇīnātha
prasāda lañā saṅge cale pāṅca-sāta

Translation: The King said, “The son of Bhavānanda Rāya named Vāṇīnātha, along with five or seven other men, went there to obtain the remnants of Lord Jagannātha’s food.

Caitanya-caritāmṛta Madhya 11.109

mahāprabhura ālaye karila gamana
eta mahā-prasāda cāhi’ — kaha ki kāraṇa

Translation: “Indeed, Vāṇīnātha has already gone to the residence of Lord Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu and has taken a huge quantity of mahā-prasādam. Please let me know the reason for this.”

Caitanya-caritāmṛta Madhya 11.110

bhaṭṭa kahe, — bhakta-gaṇa āila jāniñā
prabhura iṅgite prasāda yāya tāṅrā lañā

Translation: Sārvabhauma Bhaṭṭācārya said, “Understanding that all the devotees have come, Lord Caitanya gave the sign, and therefore they have brought such great quantities of mahā-prasādam.”

Caitanya-caritāmṛta Madhya 11.111

rājā kahe, — upavāsa, kṣaura — tīrthera vidhāna
tāhā nā kariyā kene khāiba anna-pāna

Translation: The King then asked the Bhaṭṭācārya, “Why have the devotees not observed the regulations for visiting the pilgrimage place, such as fasting, shaving and so on? Why have they first eaten prasādam?”

Caitanya-caritāmṛta Madhya 11.112

bhaṭṭa kahe, — tumi yei kaha, sei vidhi-dharma
ei rāga-mārge āche sūkṣma-dharma-marma

Translation: The Bhaṭṭācārya told the King, “What you have said is right according to the regulative principles governing the visiting of holy places, but there is another path, which is the path of spontaneous love. According to those principles, there are subtle intricacies involved in the execution of religious principles.

Purport: According to the Vedic regulative principles, one has to be celibate before entering a holy place of pilgrimage. Generally, people are very much addicted to sense gratification, and unless they have sex at night, they cannot sleep. The regulative principles therefore enjoin that before a common man goes to a holy place of pilgrimage, he should observe complete celibacy. As  soon as one enters a holy place, he must observe fasting for the day, and after shaving his head clean, he must take a bath in a river or ocean near the holy place. These methods are adopted to neutralize the effects of sinful activities. Visiting a holy place of pilgrimage means neutralizing the reactions of a sinful life. Those who go to holy places of pilgrimage actually unload the reactions of their sinful lives, and consequently holy places are overloaded with sinful activities left there by visitors.

When a saintly person or pure devotee visits such a holy place, he absorbs the sinful effects left by the common men and again purifies the holy place. Tīrthī-kurvanti tīrthāni (ŚB. 1.13.10). Therefore, a common man’s visit to a holy place and an exalted saintly person’s visit there are different. The common man leaves his sins in the holy place, and a saintly person or devotee cleanses these sins simply by his presence. The devotees of Lord Caitanya Mahāprabhu were not common men, and they could not be subjected to the rules and regulations governing the visiting of holy places. Rather, they exhibited their spontaneous love for Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu. Immediately upon arrival at the holy place, they went to see Lord Caitanya, and by His order they took mahā-prasādam without following the regulations governing holy places.

Thus end the purport of text 112 of Chapter 11 of the Madhya-līlā of Śrī Caitanya-caritāmṛta.

Jayapatākā Swami: So, there are the two paths – one is vidhi-mārga and one is raga-mārga. Vidhi-mārga is the basis of standard rules and regulations. Everyone follows the vidhi-mārga. But then raga-mārga is where one has spontaneous devotion, spontaneous attraction for serving the Lord. That takes the priority.

Just like everyone has to follow the rules and regulations in the country. But if you are a senator or governor, then if it is on duty, then you can have a pilot police car with a red light going and break the speed limit. If there is no emergency and you break the speed limit, then you will come under criticism. But if the emergency is there, then you can break the speed limit because of your higher relationship with the government. If the devotee has got a special relationship with the government, then these minor rules and regulations, they can be superseded by a more direct instruction of the Lord.

Similarly, Śrīla Prabhupāda, he had actually shown how we should daily maintain our regulative life. At the same time, sometimes there would-be preaching engagements where he would personally be preaching in India. It’s in the Līlāmṛta. Prabhupāda, one-time Prabhupāda was even though sick and there was some preaching engagement, and he started to preach, and he went on preaching until after midnight. Then he came back and he told the devotees, “Now I am hungry. Give me prasādam.” But Prabhupāda would never take at midnight otherwise. But he had been preaching. So, he said, “Give me some prasādam, I am hungry, I am talking. For Kṛṣṇa if I can talk, that is my life. The more you give me opportunity to talk for Kṛṣṇa, that will extend my life.” So sometimes when some preaching opportunity would come up, then Prabhupāda would forget all other kind of physical and other problems he might have. He would become so enlivened that would actually give him more and more energy when people were interested to hear about Kṛṣṇa.

So that is spontaneous attraction to discuss about Kṛṣṇa, to preach to people. That is a bit higher raga-mārga activity which Śrīla Prabhupāda had exhibited. When that opportunity is not there of course, then artificially one shouldn’t imitate. They shouldn’t artificially neglect any kind of rules and regulations.

So, in this way, here we find that the devotees they came as they were spontaneously attracted to see Lord Caitanya. They directly ran. Normal thing would be, alright, to go, shave up, take a bath in the river, then after that take darśana of Jagannātha, and then you take prasāda. Instead, they directly ran to see Lord Caitanya without going through all these rituals. Lord Caitanya offered them prasad and they immediately accepted. We may think, “What’s the matter? Why didn’t they go through the different rituals?”

So it is not that there is a double standard, but there is a difference. And usually those who are situated in the vidhi-mārga, who are absorbed in these rules and regulations, they can never understand what is going on, why the other devotees don’t follow all the step-by-step rituals. The problem is you see, most people, they don’t have a spontaneous attraction to Kṛṣṇa. Even most devotees, they are naturally, their attraction would be more say for the prasādam or for some other activity. So therefore, it is necessary that they may be even more attracted not to even prasādam, but just to materialistic activity, So, for them, they should become purified. Then they can have a proper attitude of service when they see the Lord, when they take prasādam. But if a person is already spontaneously attracted to the Lord, to His devotees, then it is a different situation. Just like when Prabhupāda would come somewhere, the devotees would be so spontaneously attracted. They would run to hear from him and run to see him. That was that type of spontaneous devotion – where there is a difference you see, one is where there is a rule—‘This is the rule, you must do it!’—and people are doing it mechanically because it is a rule. “I have to do it. It’s my duty.” Another thing is where one from inside feels a natural spontaneous attraction, feels an inner desire, just beyond and above the call of duty. It is enthusiastic. So that spontaneous devotion is something which brings us closer to Kṛṣṇa unlimitedly, more rapidly than the vidhi-mārga. So, these two things have to be adjusted.

If a devotee shows some spontaneity in worshipping the Lord, receiving the spiritual master in doing some devotional service, it’s a very good sign. In the Nectar of Devotion, it mentions that first one is told to follow rules and regulations, and when they do that, then the next stage of that is that when it becomes second nature to follow the regulative principles. One doesn’t have to push one to do those regulative principles, but they do it spontaneously. Then higher level than that is where one actually has got a natural attraction. It is not that it is a rule or regulation. Whether it is a rule or not, the person is attracted. You don’t have to force the person; the person is naturally attracted to the devotional activity. That is considered to be the higher level or rāgānugā.

So, there is a difference. And the people who live in the holy dhāma, they are considered to be basically on the rāgānugā platform. This is mentioned by Śrīla Prabhupāda in his different purports. Sometimes people go to visit the holy dhāma, and there they see how the residents are kind of dealing sometimes casually with Kṛṣṇa. Because they became so confidential and intimate with Kṛṣṇa, that they can’t help but think about Kṛṣṇa in so many various ways. But someone who is in a more mechanical vidhi-mārga vision, they think that this is offensive, and they start to criticize the residents of the holy dhāma, and thus they become guilty of a Vaiṣṇava-aparādha. Therefore, it is said that people should only visit the holy dhāma for three days. They shouldn’t stay too long because they are not going to be able to accommodate the relationship of the dhāma-vāsīs with the Lord. It’s a bit too difficult for them to understand. They are more in awe and reverence kind of platform rather than on the rāgānugā platform. These things are mentioned in the scriptures. But if you try to tell that to someone who is on the vidhi-mārga, they cannot understand. In fact, they become offensive. So, it is a very difficult situation to accommodate.

Now Mahārāja Pratāparudra would be similarly making this mistake, but Sārvabhauma Bhaṭṭācārya who himself was a very strict vidhi-mārgī before, now he has come to understand that there is a higher level of spontaneous devotional service, and he has learnt to recognize that. These symptoms are mentioned in the Caitanya-caritāmṛta known as anubhāvas. You see, someone should see those anubhāvas. If a person has got those anubhāvas of spontaneous devotional service, then he can be recognized as such. Just like one of them is a person, he is idle. A material person or a person in the vidhi-mārga, they may, if they get the opportunity they may sit around and start to just waste time in certain ways. They may talk about unrelated subjects. So, there is a rule that we have to talk about Kṛṣṇa, so then they have to be engaged. But someone in the rāgānugā platform, or in the platform of bhāva, upper echelons of eight-fold stages of advancement in bhakti, they automatically, they won’t be able to be idle from Kṛṣṇa’s service even for a moment. They will start to become anxious. This is one of the symptoms. You won’t have to ask them to do something. They themselves would be wanting to do some devotional service. If they don’t have any, they will start to become anxious that what service can I do next? So, this is one of the qualities. Like that there are other qualities, eight anubhāvas or nine anubhāvas are there.

So, leaders in the Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement have to become expert, whether they are on the vidhi-mārga, or whether they are on the raga-mārga, to recognize this anubhāvas. If they can see the anubhāvas, this is more important. To recognize what stage another devotee is on. If a person is showing a natural inclination towards sense gratification, if he is showing natural inclination towards materialistic activities, then it means that the person should be very strict with the vidhi-mārga so that he can purify himself, because he has got the spontaneous attraction to the material world, which is a normal situation. To counteract that, we follow vidhi-mārga, and then gradually our spontaneous attraction for the material world is cut. It is stopped and then gradually it transfers over until it becomes spontaneous attraction to Kṛṣṇa. But if one is showing a spontaneous attraction to Kṛṣṇa, then Kṛṣṇa gives that devotee a little levy in terms of how to apply the devotional service, you see. Just like this example where the devotees are running to see Lord Caitanya, and Lord Caitanya offers them prasādam. Doesn’t force them to go through the normal rituals of going down, bathing in the ocean, shaving their head. “Alright you have come so far all the way from Bengal, you can all sit down take prasādam.” When they get the direct order from the Lord, how can they refuse? So, these two things are there. This is a common thing that, relative to the other Vaiṣṇavas in India, Prabhupāda has set up many things in ISKCON much more on the raga-mārga, which even our ISKCON devotees they can’t understand that. Some of the Gauḍīya-maṭhas and other maṭhas and things like that, sometimes they consider that, what ISKCON is doing is not strictly following the minute rules and regulations. Like in the rainy season some strictures are there. I don’t know exactly where, but they claim that there are some rules – don’t take eggplant, don’t take beans, don’t take gourds, don’t take... there are about ten different vegetables. By the time you finish it all, there is nothing you can take but potatoes. (laughter) So what happened, Prabhupāda said these are not very important. And of course, the main things we don’t take spinach in one month, we don’t take yogurt this month, next month we don’t take milk and then the final month we don’t take Urad dal. These are the more important, which are mentioned quite prominently. The other are, I don’t know. Might be some rules are there. They must be following some sort of stricture. But Prabhupāda said that it is more important to offer nice prasādam to Kṛṣṇa, and for preaching. They didn’t stress on this particular point. Or in some temples, in the rainy season, they don’t cut their hair. But they eat everything else. I mean some of them don’t even follow these four things that we follow: no milk, no yogurt. They take the milk and yogurt, but they don’t eat the eggplants. So what is the big deal? But like this sometime people think this is some kind of, you see, breakage of the rules. This type of difference of opinion exists from one spiritual master to the next, in terms of applying the devotional principles.

Prabhupāda applied in many aspects a rāgānugā principle, where for preaching’s sake, he streamlined or he just took out what was the essence, what preserved the inner mood, and then those things which were too cumbersome or too impractical for the common day, those things… he had that vision to know which was more grave and which was less grave. So, these things are there even between ISKCON and other centers. Within ISKCON it is also necessary that, just like when a party is going on doing travelling saṅkīrtana, they may think that, “Well! I am doing saṅkīrtana, I am not able to attend the maṅgala-ārati in the temple. Therefore I shouldn’t go out and do travelling saṅkīrtana.” But no, for preaching, it is more important. So then even if one gets up and just starts a small ceremony in the back of the bus, or chants some japa or just some other, you see whatever they can do, to have a little morning program while travelling, even though it may not be the same as going to the whole temple program, still for the sake of travelling and preaching, so many different souls scattered here and there. It is a higher priority. So, like these things have to be accommodated. But if one is actually, for the purpose of preaching doing, but then again within the temple community they should not whimsically ever neglect any kind of rules and regulations. That would create a bad habit.

Caitanya-caritāmṛta Madhya 11.113

īśvarera parokṣa ājñā kṣaura, upoṣaṇa
prabhura sākṣāt ājñā  prasāda-bhojana

Translation: “The scriptural injunctions for shaving and fasting are indirect orders of the Supreme Personality of Godhead. However, when there is a direct order from the Lord to take prasād prasādam, naturally the devotees take prasādam as their first duty.”

Caitanya-caritāmṛta Madhya 11.114

tāhāṅ upavāsa, yāhāṅ nāhi mahā-prasāda
prabhu-ājñā-prasāda-tyāge haya aparādha

Translation: “When mahā-prasādam is not available, there must be fasting, but when the Supreme Personality of Godhead orders one directly to take prasādam, neglecting such an opportunity is offensive.

Jayapatākā Swami: It reminds me one time I was on a mission to find the birthplace of Kṛṣṇadāsa Kavirāja, for doing some development work there. And as such, I went to the temple of Dāsa Gadādhara, the brother of Gadādhara Prabhu. Disciple or brother. And he is also considered the effulgence of Rādhārāṇī. There was a Lord Caitanya temple established by Raghunandana Ṭhākura. It is One of the original temples made for Caitanya Mahāprabhu. So, I asked the mahanta there if he could give a disciple to guide me, to find… because Kṛṣṇadas Kavirāja’s birthplace there was no road. You had to go about ten miles on dirt roads into the villages, and it was a very backward place. You had to cross over a river. Our jeep we had to put on a bamboo boat, and just somehow balance it, and walked on the side of the boat while we took the jeep over on the other side. It was one of the most backward places I have seen in Bengal, apart from the Sundarbans where the tigers are. So, I requested, and he said, “I will give you someone to guide you, but you should take prasādam.”

Then I said, “No, I have to go and do this work for Lord Caitanya. I have to go and find this place and do some development work there.”

Then He said that, “You are doing Lord Caitanya’s work, but as a pūjārī on behalf of Lord Caitanya, when you come to His house, then as it is your duty to serve Lord Caitanya, it is His desire to serve you. And therefore, I am ordering that you have to take prasāda! Are you going to refuse the mercy of the Lord?”

So, like that you know. So, he put it so heavy, plus he was blackmailing me. He wouldn’t give me anybody unless I took prasāda. So it just happened that way, it was like a special festival. He had about, there were about five different spinaches, śākas, and about twelve different, fifteen different vegetables. It was really nice, really wonderful prasāda. Although we were not even thinking about taking any prasādam or anything, because it was quite a distance we had to go from Māyāpur, and get back to Māyāpur that night. It is about, almost a hundred miles drive in total. So, with those kinds of roads, it takes a long time. So, we took the prasāda as the mercy of the Lord. So, that way Kṛṣṇa Himself, He is always trying to take care of His devotees, and the devotees they are trying to take care of the Lord’s instructions. In this way there is like a spiritual competition. Here the devotees of Lord Caitanya came. We can see how Lord Caitanya dealt with them.

Caitanya-caritāmṛta Madhya 11.115

viśeṣe śrī-haste prabhu kare pariveśana
eta lābha chāḍi’ kon kare upoṣaṇa

Translation: “When Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu is distributing prasād with His transcendental hand, who will neglect such an opportunity and accept the regulative principles of fasting?

Jayapatākā Swami: Lord Caitanya is giving out prasāda Himself, and “No, I will fast.” Who will do something like that?

Caitanya-caritāmṛta Madhya 11.116

pūrve prabhu more prasāda-anna āni’ dila
prāte śayyāya vasi’ āmi se anna khāila

Translation: “Previously the Lord gave me mahā-prasādam rice one morning, and I ate it just sitting on my bed, without having even washed my mouth.

Caitanya-caritāmṛta Madhya 11.117

yāṅre kṛpā kari’ karena hṛdaye preraṇa
kṛṣṇāśraya haya, chāḍe veda-loka-dharma

Translation: “The man to whom the Lord shows His mercy by inspiring him within the heart takes shelter only of Lord Kṛṣṇa and abandons all Vedic and social customs.”

Purport: This is also the teaching of the Bhagavad-gītā (18.66):

sarva-dharmān parityajya
mām ekaṁ śaraṇaṁ vraja
ahaṁ tvāṁ sarva-pāpebhyo
mokṣayiṣyāmi mā śucaḥ

“Abandon all varieties of religion and just surrender unto Me. I shall deliver you from all sinful reactions. Do not fear.” (Bhagavad-gītā 18.66) Such firm faith in the Supreme Personality of Godhead is possible only by the mercy of the Lord. The Lord is sitting within everyone’s heart, and when He personally inspires His devotee, the devotee does not stick to the Vedic principles or social customs but rather devotes himself to the transcendental loving service of the Lord. This is confirmed in the following verse from Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam (4.29.46).

Caitanya-caritāmṛta Madhya 11.118

yadā yam anugṛhṇāti
bhagavān ātma-bhāvitaḥ
sa jahāti matiṁ loke
vede ca pariniṣṭhitām

Translation: “When one is inspired by the Lord, who is sitting in everyone’s heart, he does not care for social customs or Vedic regulative principles.”

Purport: This instruction (ŚB. 4.29.46) was given by Nārada Gosvāmī to King Prācīnabarhi in connection with the story of Purañjana. Here Nārada implies that without the mercy of the Supreme Personality of Godhead one cannot extricate himself from the fruitive activities that are under the jurisdiction of the Vedas. In previous verses (ŚB. 4.29.42-44) Nārada admits that even personalities like Lord Brahmā, Lord Śiva, Manu, the Prajāpatīs (headed by Dakṣa), the four Kumāras, Marīci, and even Nārada himself could not properly receive the causeless mercy of the Lord.

Jayapatākā Swami: People wonder, how is it possible that the devotees, one person was asking “How they are able to just chant on their bead bags in public when people are staring and everything; and they don’t care. Because they know that by chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa they can feel… so for them chanting is more important than what people think. Rather let people think, maybe they will be able to get some association by that. Actually, yesterday when we went to a quaker program, they received us quite cordially. They invited us to come in. Whenever they come in, this point about the program, but we could see that there is a opportunity to go and to put up some kind of exhibitions and forums at such places. They have actually time when they have set aside for that kind of a program. We could have a kind of Food for Life slideshow, made up of our activities in America, in Australia, in different parts of the world, in India. We could have, you know, we had our movies. We could go and show videos, show the movie Super 8 and explain something about Kṛṣṇa consciousness, and   according to the different interest group that is there, from the Food for Life angle or in a general way.

In this way, gradually the kind of opinion that people have about the Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement, due to lack of exposure more than anything else; the only exposure they get is when occasionally some horrible thing is published in the newspaper. Generally, the newspapers especially in Atlanta, they hardly ever publish anything good. I mean in New York, they had on the front page New York Times, the Ratha-yātrā! Similarly, in Los Angeles, they do have good press releases come out. But in Atlanta, I don’t think I have ever seen, hardly you know, very occasionally is there a good press that comes out. And if anything, it is just you know something bad that comes out. Usually nothing comes out at all. So, they get some strange idea that what are these people, they dress funny, they look funny, they act funny. So, they can’t really relate.

So, we had some more exposure with these people if they were able to gradually start to relate, what is the Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement. In fact, we saw this class come last night. Actually, about more than half I would say actually chanted one round, even though it was their first visit. So, in this way it shows that the people themselves are not bad at heart, they are innocent. But they just have got some inborn kind of prejudices. This kind of fear of anything which is new or unknown. Probably in that respect the South East is a little more conservative because it is more, it is not as cosmopolitan. But since Atlanta is the undisputed commercial centre of the South East, second largest airport, now you can fly directly to London and a few places in Europe. So, the people here should become little more open minded and we should help them by opening their minds. Presenting to them some Kṛṣṇa consciousness. So in this way, they can see that, “Alright we may not hundred per cent observe all the social customs of the Americas, because we are coming from a different Vedic culture. But since here also Martin Luther King respected Gandhi. Gandhi used to read the Bhagavad-gītā every day. In the Gandhi movie, they had the Raghupati Rāghava Rājā Rāma at least in the closing minutes. I mean people should be a little more receptive here. We should take advantage of the different ethnic groups and different people that are here and try to introduce Kṛṣṇa consciousness to them. When we start to use our brain and start to think that how can I deliver the people here in Georgia, how can I deliver the people in the Southeast like…

Actually, like Jagatguru Swami came all the way down. But at that time he was in Chicago, and he attended the Festival of India program about a year and a half ago in Birmingham, and we are sitting here and we didn’t even know that there was such a program going on. And they distributed thousands of plates of prasādam and books. This is the kind of thing that if the devotees become more and more absorbed in actually how to take advantage of every opportunity, then naturally there are so many opportunities we could take advantage of. We could get an exposure to Kṛṣṇa consciousness, we could gradually start to change the public opinion and create a positive public opinion.

In Kolkata because of the Ratha-yātrā festival—as Mukunda dāsa mentioned yesterday—just because of the very positive effect of that Ratha Yātrā, the people’s consciousness was turned around. Maybe it is not so easy in America to just have one festival and be able to create that kind of an effect. But whether it is by one big festival or by gradual chipping away of the mountain, eventually we can definitely create a very positive opinion. There was a negative opinion in Los Angeles. Now I understand even the municipality in their brochure advertising LA for tourists, they have a picture of the Ratha-yātrā there. It is one of the landmark festivals or attractions that people visiting LA can see. So, like this in different parts, people's attitude has changed. Just like in Cleveland, I believe it was, the government had approved the 20,0000 dollars. So, these kinds of things are there where we are getting a good response. People are starting to appreciate what we are doing in different ways.

Now here Mahārāja Pratāparudra, he cannot understand why they are not following the Vedic social customs. What to speak of you know, even if we strictly follow Vedic social customs, Americans don’t understand what we are doing. So we need to be educated and introduced little more into at least the Vedic customs, and then they can appreciate how this Kṛṣṇa consciousness is providing a whole other service and cultural venue for the people.

On levels of bhakti: On Generally, that is what a person should do. Sometimes Kṛṣṇa might inspire in the heart. Just like if there is an opportunity to preach, it is very hard to tell someone in the rāgā-mārga to actually take rest from 7 o’ clock or 8 o’ clock and get up at 2.30 and chant japa before maṅgala-ārati when there is an opportunity to preach to the people who are there. But there are some people who are so rigid that they could just do that. They could just walk out when many people sit there, who have come to hear about Kṛṣṇa, so that they can maintain their schedule. Obviously, some people have to do that because they are doing pūjā and things. Those two things somehow have to be accommodated. But the general thing, one should not disturb anyone’s faith. One should just follow the normal vidhi as an example for others. Sometimes if some opportunity comes for preaching, then there will be a different way that the two types of devotees will be attracted. One will be spontaneously attracted to telling people about Kṛṣṇa as Prabhupāda was, and others will be spontaneously attracted to just following the rules and regulations and let those people go to hell.

Sādhana-bhakti is a broad category which includes vidhi-bhakti. We all perform sādhana. (inaudible) Sādhana is more or less synonymous. Sādhana-bhakti includes vidhi-mārga and the spontaneous vidhi mārga, both. It is like in the beginning someone is told to get up for maṅgala-ārati, but they don’t do it. We have to set off an atomic bomb by the side of their bed before they get up! They get all angry or something. But they come, but with great duress. And then there is a person who spontaneously gets up, attends all the programs, follows the rules and it becomes like second nature to him. So that is considered a stage where the rules and regulations themselves become spontaneous. But even such persons, although they are very spontaneous in following the rules and regulations, they may not have a spontaneous attraction say for preaching or some other activities like that. They just spontaneously follow the rules and regulations. When they become spontaneous directly for rendering certain devotional services, then that’s actually considered full rāgānugā. Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura’s godbrother was on the rāgānugā platform, much higher, highest level. His disciples could never understand his activities, so he restricted them from actually seeing him. Vaṁśīvadana dāsa Bābājī.

We should try to encourage people’s faith. But this is the problem. Just like when those devotees came to Jagannātha Purī, they just forgot about everything and just ran to see Lord Caitanya. And that is the kind of nature of devotees on a more spontaneous, on a spontaneous platform. When a particular devotional service arises, one does something. Actually they are just being inspired by Kṛṣṇa in the heart. They forget all these other considerations.

Verified by: Sadananda Kṛṣṇaprema dāsa