19821016 Darśana - Part 3: “Impersonal Meditation Is Spiritual Suicide”

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The following is a lecture on Darshan - Part 3: “Impersonal Meditation Is Spiritual Suicide” given by His Holiness Jayapatākā Swami Mahārāja on October 16, 1982 – in Atlanta, USA.

The Nama Chintamani. The name is transcendental Chintamani rasa digra. It is the form of all transcendental emotions. Rasa mellows, ecstasies, this containing the ananda or the pleasure aspect of the Absolute in the name. Nama chintamani rasa vigra. Vigra means the form of transcendental mellows, ecstasies, Nam chintamani chaitanya. Chaitanya means living. That the name itself is not a dead material vibration like you’re saying fish or rabbit, rabbit or something like that. The name is itself and the absolute. There’s no difference between a person’s name, a person’s form and that person in the material world is a duality. You have an American passport, you have a certain body, but that’s different from your soul. You are a spiritual self beyond this, when this body is finished, you go on living. Kṛṣṇa’s form and himself are no different.

Mahvanish I described he has no veins, he has no bones. His form is made of another type of opaque material which is purely spiritual. And it can appear like material if it wants it to, but it’s actually spiritual. So namachin Tamani Chaitanya is living Rasadigra purna sudha. Purna means completely sudha, pure. There’s no material teens, no material gunas poorna sutto nitya mukto. It’s eternal. Nitya mukto is fully liberated from all material reactions. Porna sutta nitimukto ha vinatva namino nami no means a name and binatwa means abhinav. There’s no difference between the name and the name. That means that meditating on the name Kṛṣṇa is the same in the absolute nomenclature as if you were directly meditating on Kṛṣṇa right in front of you. But we don’t have the spiritual vision to see Kṛṣṇa.

But he’s kind enough to come before us in a vibrational form so we can meditate on the sound Kṛṣṇa. But because we’re not pure, therefore even when we say Kṛṣṇa, we’re not realize all of the in the conditioned state, all of the power and potency that’s there in the name Kṛṣṇa. And therefore Lord Caitanya described that this chanting is like cleaning the mirror of our consciousness. It’s like wiping off the dust from the mirror. As you continue chanting and the contamination is cleared away, then you can actually see the name in its full glory. You can realize the presence of Kṛṣṇa in his name. So here you see this too. Text 14 is talking about those great souls who are worshipping in devotion, Nitya Yukta. That means they’re perpetually, continuously connected. Always chanting my glories, endeavoring with great determination, bowing down before me.

These great souls perpetually worship me with devotion. Nityukta means Yukta is yoga. Yukta means to be connected. They’re always connected because they’re doing these chanting glories, endeavoring with determination, with intention that this work is directed towards him. Bowing down in this way, they’re connected continuously through the whole day. Then the next thing he did is others who are engaged in the cultivation of knowledge worship the supreme Lord as the one without a second, diverse in many and in the universal form. What Maharishi is talking about is this others seeing God, universal form, diverse and many. He’s only one, just meditating. So there’s the two systems. So another part in the Gītā, Kṛṣṇa is saying that both the systems are going to the same direction, but there’s a difference. So this is the one system and this is the other.

So then Kṛṣṇa describes what it is. I who am the ritual, I the sacrifice, the offering to the ancestors, the healing herb, the transcendental chant, I am the butter and the fire and the offering. In other words, what does this mean? I am the sacrifice, I am the butter, I am the offering, I am the fire. That is describing this whole process of devotion that when you are doing just like we are cooking the food, you can either offer in the fire or you can offer in terms of cooking. You are cooking for what? We are not allowed to taste the food before we offer it to Kṛṣṇa. We’re not even supposed to smell it. Sometimes they cover their nose. They just cook it like that. And the first person to taste it is Kṛṣṇa.

Certain mantras whereby Kṛṣṇa is offered the food as a sacrifice, so then it’s prepared. So Kṛṣṇa is saying, I am the butter, I am the fire and the offering. But when you are offering into Kṛṣṇa, not only the sacrifice, not only the offering, but even the ingredients, the butter means what the ingredients and also the fire or the act offering it. The person, the deity to whom it’s being offered, the chant, the mantras, to who I was offering, the actual sacrifice, even the ritual of going through it. Because the whole thing is directed for the purpose of satisfying Kṛṣṇa. Everything is on the same transmittal platform. So when you’re doing a work in sacrifice, then the whole work itself is not material.

In other words, the point of doubt that you raised is discounted in this understanding that is a difference between ordinary activity and activity performed in devotion.

Does that devotion have to be constantly conscious of? You have to be consciously aware of that intention all the time. It’s like, okay, I say, I intend to do this activity.

No, the way that it’s done, in a certain way that when you begin the work and when you end the work, you’re supposed to. When you begin the work and when you end the work, at that time, when you start off the work, you offer the activity. And then when you’re doing the work, obviously you have to be thinking what you’re doing. Say that you’re building something or you’re cooking something. At that time, you’re also chanting mantras. Off and on, you’re remembering. But the main thing you want to see, you’re not burning your milk, you’re putting the right amount of spices. You have so many practical things. And in every spare moment, then you’re also chanting mantras just to keep your consciousness absorbed. But actually, obviously, you’re pretty well absorbed in any case, give me the salt, Give me this, whatever.

But in the beginning, you start off, we usually bow down and say a prayer. We do our service. And then when it’s finished, then either you say, tatsat, or you offer it in some other mantras, just like in the end of the Bhagavad Gītā.

So there’s a lot more to do in the practice than just the Hare Kṛṣṇa mantra.

Well, there’s nine practices of devotion. There’s nine practices of devotion, starting from hearing and chanting, remembering, serving, and you can do all nine, or you can do any one. If you just wanted to be a chanter and chant 24 hours, that’s enough also. But it’s very hard. We find that generally people can’t chant that long. Chanting is a liberated activity. And it’s so intense that generally people can’t chant more than two, three hours a day. So then how to fill up the rest of the day? So therefore, this whole process of Bhakti yoga is there that they fill up the rest of the day with different types of devotional services. They never come down to the material practice. This Haridas Taku, when he was chanting 300,000 times a day, he was chanting 10 million times Hare Kṛṣṇa.

In one month, we chant 10 million times Hare Kṛṣṇa. In a year, who’s also not a small amount, but he was doing it in one month. That means 12 times as much as we chant Hare Kṛṣṇa, he chants, he chanted. So the point is that’s not possible to imitate. It’s not possible to imitate. So that’s where the spiritual master, he sees what amount of, what type of practice a person can do. You see, like in previous times, sometimes there was a prescription for more Hare Kṛṣṇa, less work. Sometimes there’s a prescription for more worship in temples and less chanting like that. It slightly changes according to the different times and circumstances at the present time. In the western country, people have a tremendous amount of energy. And unless that energy is focused properly, it gets diverted.

And also the same principle that when you’re helping others to advance spiritually, this gives you multiple results. Just like if you’re like, don’t they have this type of metal fresh. You know about this metal fresh thing? Metal fresh whey. Whey hardware, exposed ammo and white products. Yeah, he doesn’t know about this. There’s a certain kind of, you know about chain letters.

Yeah. Is it illegal type of thing?

Yeah, we don’t do it. I am just using as an example. I mean, there’s a certain thing where you can. I am trying to think of a legal, ordinary thing. Or just say for instance that you’re a pop star, you make an album, right? So for the next 25 years or something, every album they sell, you get a royalty or a book published as a writer. So for everyone who buys your book, you’re getting a certain royalty. So in the same way, when you’re preaching or when you’re helping others and what is preaching when you’re trying to explain God, conscious of different people, say, like I presenting some knowledge to you’re able to somehow benefit by that. I am not asking for any money. I am just giving it to you in a liberal way, hoping that you will be able to take it and improve yourself.

So say that somehow you’re able to improve by this knowledge that I am providing you. And with that knowledge you’re able to help others in the future. So every person you help, then I am the indirect cause of that, or at least I am got a share in it. So then I would also get a share. Similarly they if they by you giving them. So in this way, by helping people advance spiritually, a person can advance very quickly.

Well, you also said earlier that when a person takes on disciples, a guru takes on disciples, he takes on the results responsibility for their karma. Well, I got a question. I taught my mother how to meditate. Did I do something good or bad? Did I take on her karmas when I am not Ready for it or did I.

Did you give her the mantra? You taught her the same mantra that you got?

No, not the same mantra as me.

You gave her a mantra?

Yeah.

Give. Well, giving the mantra is considered as a type of initiation. In some cases when you give a mantra, then you might have to accept some kind of. I don’t know what Maharishi is doing.

With all the mantras you can have.

When you give a mantra, then you may be liable to at least accept any of the. That a person does in practicing the mantra. That’s why the other yogis can’t understand how we can give out the Hare Kṛṣṇa mantra so liberally. The whole reason is that Caitanya, Mahāprabhu and the Vedas have provided this particular mantra that it can be given out liberally and there’s no offense. It’s not considered as an initiation unless one takes a particular oath of chanting it. You can request anyone to chant Hare Kṛṣṇa and there’s no responsibility for doing that because this was a specific order to do that for this particular age. But then the other type of mantras, like we don’t give those out unless a person is going to chant them properly and not commit offenses, because then we will be responsible.

But Hare Kṛṣṇa has a special facility that they can do. There may be other mantras, similar mantras where there is no responsibility also. But also even the Hare Kṛṣṇa mantra is given with this japa. When we chant on the japa and then the guru takes the oath before the fire, sacrifice for the disciple and the disciple takes the oath, then it’s a form of. But generally just forgiving instruction. As long as the instruction is correct, there’s no karma. But if you give any instruction and the instruction is in any way wrong, and if the person does it and as a result of that actually is performing karma, then actually you will be responsible. Therefore, one has to get the knowledge from the correct source. Otherwise, by giving his character.

Institution of initiating teach bait, having just learned from a qualified instructor and all that kind of stuff explains all that, all the ideas of Karma. He doesn’t get much into philosophies of Karma in that. But obviously he is aware of it.

He’s presenting it in a way that is palatable for the Western. I mean, if he got into the devotion. If he got into. He can’t go beyond the first six chapters. If he goes beyond the first six chapters, he’s losing a lot of people. He will lose a lot of people. He won’t be Able to. Because then immediately he will start to, you know, then after this first six chapters, it’s the basic spiritual. It doesn’t. Because once you get into bhakti becomes very similar to the other religions. And then immediately people, you know, then immediately the question of personality, of Godhead and non personality. So many things come up that immediately you’re going to have all kind of diversity.

You’re going to have a lot of problems in terms of like, just like we know there’s Jews and Catholics and Protestants and so many different people who are going to possibly be turned off or be alienated by some of the teachings when it starts to get into the more specifics. So he just avoids the whole thing, which is good in the sense that he allows just everybody to get into sahur basics. We don’t particularly understand why he takes money.

I think it just weeds out the answers. Yeah.

Along with, there’s also finances a lot.

Yeah.

Are you guys waiting for questions too? No questions. I will leave about. For those who worship me with devotion, meditating on my transcendental form. To them I carry what they lack and preserve what they have.

Carry what they lack.

In other words, say someone might have a doubt that I have already got intelligence or I have got some certain qualities that if I start doing devotional service, I might lose what I have. I might lose my. Somehow, you know, there’s a doubt may come that people might have a doubt that by doing this they will lose.

I said I fear that.

So Kṛṣṇa is saying that I am the only enjoyer, the only object of sacrifice, that everything, ultimately even the sacrifice of the. The yogis, of the demigod worship everyone is ultimately Saint Manslamiya, the absolute truth. So those who do not recognize my true nature, they fall down. Those who worship me with devotion, meditating on my transformed form, to them I carry what they lack. Say that a person is missing something. Kṛṣṇa provides that whatever is needed to make you succeed, he fills the gap. And whatever you have, you don’t lose that. Kṛṣṇa maintains that in other words, whatever level you have already advanced in terms of Gyana yoga or whatever, that it’s already going to be preserved. Whatever amount of advancement you make that you have, we don’t lose that.

But then from there, what you lacked actually the whole this process is to finish in one life. And there’s no guarantee in the Patentelli system you can finish in one life. You can’t guarantee that this life you’re going to reach God’s realization.

There are Guarantee in this path?

Yes, definitely.

How’s that? I got to take that on faith.

No, it’s very scientific. It’s not just a Kṛṣṇa say.

I can see that in your understanding of Karma and all that.

In other words, it’s a just as Kṛṣṇa says. And the same thing with Asvarjuna. What happens if we don’t succeed in this life? Say that I leave the path. Then Kṛṣṇa says whatever a person does, who does good activity never gets a bad result. So then even if you leave the path before you finish in this life, then next life you take off where you left. You get a good birth. Also in a family of yogis or Brahmanas or rich people. So the situation you’re asking, what was the question you were asking?

You said something about fearing losing what you have. You mentioned intelligence or something. You kind of don’t know that I had a question.

Yeah. So you don’t use anything. Instead you gain. You gain more, huh?

Yeah, I can understand.

Then after that you ask question that how do you know that you’re guaranteed success? So that’s of course Kṛṣṇa gives his own personal promise in the last chapter where he says, always think of me and become my devotee. Worship me and offer your homage to me. You’re offering all these services to Kṛṣṇa and Bhakti Yoga, guarantee that it’s not that. Then at the end of life you’re just going to just fail. He said, I am not going to let you down. You’re definitely going to come to me. You can even intellectually understand that the person who is in day and night is always meditating on Kṛṣṇa at the time of death. That’s how they’re going to think of something else. You’re going to think of Kṛṣṇa and that practice.

You see, a person devotee stubs his foot after a couple of years of chanting, Hare Kṛṣṇa yells Hare Kṛṣṇa, oh Kṛṣṇa. And it says in one of the Purāṇas that if you hurt yourself and you say Kṛṣṇa, that alone is qualification from liberation. It’s a qualification that’s a symptom, that if you do that means you get liberation spontaneously, without thinking. You hurt yourself and suddenly you say a name of Kṛṣṇa in fear or in shock, sudden, then that means that you will get liberation. Then Kṛṣṇa says, abandon all varieties of a religion and just surrender unto me. I shall deliver you from all the sinful reaction from all type of karmas. Do not fear.

So then the Lord has described various kinds of knowledge, process of religion, knowledge of the supreme Brahman, knowledge of the super soul, knowledge of different types of orders and status of social life, knowledge of the renounced order of life, knowledge of non attachment, sense and mind control, meditation, etc. He is describing so many ways, different types of religion. Now in summarizing Bhagavad Gītā, the Lord says that Arjuna should give up all the process that have been explained to him. He should simply surrender to Kṛṣṇa. That surrender will save him from all kinds of sinful reactions, for the Lord personally promises to protect him. In other words, all the different processes of yoga are ultimately to get you detached from the material world and get you attached to the spiritual.

So some of them are more focused on detachment and by elimination you gradually get closer to the spiritual truth. And the devotional service is the opposite. Is that already whenever you hear we’re searching for the truth, you never hear devotees that we’re searching for the truth. The Bhakti yoga process is already understand what is the truth. Truth is, this is the truth. Brahma Eati, Brahmaatmi Bhagavān, et the full absolute truth means Brahman, Parmatma, Bhagavān. And the full perfect form of that is finally the Bhagavān realization includes all the other realizations. So they’re simply engaging and serving the personality of Godhead. So they already know what the truth is. So it’s not a question of like searching out the truth. They know what the truth is. It’s a question of realizing the truth.

So the difference is that the devotee gets to the truth by being attached to the truth. Instead of detachment to the material world, they are getting attachment to the spiritual world. If you’re attached to the spiritual world, you automatically become detached from the material world.

I can remember one night that.

Well.

When I meditate, maybe like some water.

Something grape juice or what is it? I don’t really need anything. Maybe something I can remember.

It seems when I meditate I have a feeling of backing up to the absolute. Just like you said, there’s been a couple of times when I had the need desire to muster up a feeling of devotion towards God, not necessarily Kṛṣṇa. But then when I have done that and meditated on that devotion, it was.

Much.

Faster and more powerful pull towards that bliss. And it was a feeling of going towards it instead of backing up to it, which is the same as what you said, an attachment towards that instead of a detachment from everything else. That was one thing that gave me a motivation to consider something like this feeling that there’s a magnet pulling instead of something instead of me trying to walk away from something.

You see, sometimes what happens is that devotees. That actually a person performed some devotional service. What’s that? Because I lived india now for 16 years, more or less. 16 years in this movement, 12 years india. So in America, you don’t have. I mean, we have a lot of spiritual groups here now. But the leaders of the groups and that are pretty aloof on the people. The people don’t really see them that much. But india, I am considered one of the. At least I am the representative of the Hare Kṛṣṇa movement, which is considered. One of. Which is considered as a major movement india and around the world. So in all the big gatherings that they have, I am always at their congresses speaking. So I have met most of these people personally.

And then in our actual preaching field, we deal india in the rain tin away we and I going. Even in South America and all over the world, I always meet different disciples of different groups who come to me with various questions and problems that they run into in their spiritual life. And then you find that sometimes there’s a person who actually is very sincerely trying to achieve success and realization. Most of the people are not like that. Most of the people are only doing it for some very limited purpose. They’re not really in focus yet. They’re into it just like to get. Like some people do yoga to lose fat. I guess some people do it to get free of anxiety or to increase their intelligence or so many different reasons.

Someone that actually wants to do yoga to really achieve full God realization, to transcend the material dualities and actually achieve transcendental life and realization. These are very rare people. And generally a good number of them are spontaneously attracted when they come in contact with devotional service. They feel an immediate pull, as you were just discussing. And that is one symptom that they have performed devotional service in the past in a previous life. If they actually feel that immediate pull, it could be a good symptom. They would have to study more of the symptoms in the future to draw a full conclusion. But in general, we would take that to be as a symptom that in a people there was already a practice of yoga, specifically some bhakti, for a person to actually.

Because the general people, as you say, they only go up like the sixth chapter and bhakti, they’re not even attracted to it. But someone who has a little bit of an acid from before when they practice bhakti, immediately, if they experience that they’re getting some Special, then that’s a very good sign.

I have got one problem that’s also mentioned in there in chapter 12, around verse 6 or so about. Or a little bit after that about problems with family and that kind of thing. As far as me getting into something like this got my family.

Die.

And it makes me hesitant to get fully into something like this. Spiritual development is definitely my highest goal in life, although I still have a lot of attachments to them developing. Well, it’s got good intentions though.

Actually.

I am going to school majoring in psychology and I want to focus on transpersonal psychology. So I really want to develop knowledge in that and give it to the field of psychology to integrate it into there.

How many years have you read so far?

How many years have what.

I mean, have you been in college?

I am only starting my major now.

That means it’s your junior year. When do you start to major?

Yeah, I am starting my junior year.

Right.

I am very into it and driven by it.

You’re going to Emory or Georgia West.

Georgia College in Carrollton, about 45 miles southwest of here. And I wonder how I see my goal as having good intentions. I wonder how if I’d have to give up something like that or. Or if it’s a hindrance to the path I can always take that it may be, but those kind of things.

Well, there’s a lot of useless things you’re going to have to learn to get a degree, which you’re going to find out subsequently to be kind of.

Irrelevant going past that. And I am into my major now and that’s what I like because I don’t.

Know the details, but I am sure that even in a major you will find a lot of the things that are purely spectacular.

That’s why I don’t like traditional psychology. I like the transpersonal psychology.

I don’t know the detail. But of course if you have a degree or you have some kind of material knowledge, in many ways it can be dovetailed. Like we have a psychiatrist in Sydney who runs a counseling center in downtown Sydney called Makunda’s Drop In Center. It’s been created by the government. We give out free plates of Kṛṣṇa Prashant spiritual food to anybody that comes. And then they have a free counseling service there. And it’s unbelievable. We have 99% success with people that have taken up the counseling for getting them to stop being alcoholics and drug addicts, things like that. So they go. You can only do that because the person happened to have a degree in. I don’t know exactly what a degree is in either social counseling or psychiatry or something like that. He has some degree, so it doesn’t hurt.

But in terms, it’s not going to really bring you any closer to God. There’s a danger that being there in a college and with all the other friends and everything, that you can get more and more distracted. That it’s not that you have to immediately do an abrupt change or you have to leave college or even have to leave so many different things that naturally comes. You know, the main thing is, the first of all is to try to. Is to actually to fix up the consciousness. The change is internal. So that requires, of course, some good association with devotees. And one’s recommended not to just really get into real frivolous type of friendships with people who are not spiritually interested. That’s why one thing might be good is if we would actually here. What’s the name of this college in Athens, Georgia?

University of Georgia.

Is that the same one? So in this University of Georgia, we made a yoga Vedic society there Amongst the students, 10 students signed a petition or something. And those who are interested and they have a Vedic society, we meet there once or twice a week. There’s recently, maybe within the month they formed this. So in the same way that we could form some kind of a group there of interested people in your college. And that way a devotee can come there once or twice a week and lecture or have like seminars, something like that, meditation or this way you would be able to get some more association and some more culture. And that way it will also provide an opportunity for others who are interested.

So whether a person wants to do it full time or part time or whatever it is, it’s helpful for everyone. Everyone. You will find yourself as you start to advance as you. As you’re saying when you feel yourself going forward to the truth, to the absolute, that the various things which are as obstacles, either you will be able to overcome them by somehow being able to dovetail them with the guidance of the spiritual master, or you will be able to overcome them. Just like my mother. As far as. Like my mother, for instance, she was completely upset when I became a devotee. But then she flew to India and everything. When I went there and saw everything I was doing. And now she chanted Kṛṣṇa herself. In fact, she. She’s even in some of our magazines. She’s one of the mouthpieces for parents around America.

And my father, who was dead against me on his deathbed, he told the priest that he feels that I am his only real son. That all the other sons sold out. He didn’t understand what I wanted. All the other. His other children had kind of just sold out for materialism. Never really did anything. But I was the only one that really stuck by what I believed in. So ultimately he appreciated that I was his only real son. Which was a shock because we never got along in the end. Ever since I became a devotee. It was very hard relationship. But then the priest, when they gave the spinal, et cetera. You know, like when they do like a last talk before the buried embodiment theology. Then he spoke about me for like a half an hour, about 20 minutes or something.

About all the things that my father had said which shocked everybody. My other brothers and sisters. I wasn’t even there. I was an Indian. My other brothers and sisters were shocked that the eulogy was bad. 20 minutes of it was glorifying me and how he was proud of me. Maybe he was feeling some guilt in the end. And actually he practically rejected me. But whatever it is, then in the end he actually. And there’s also a spiritual understanding that if someone performs this system of abandoning all varieties, the religion surrendering under Kṛṣṇa. One actually comes to that level of complete dedication to Kṛṣṇa. Then not only the mother and father, but even seven generations in the family are all liberated because of that. Because we naturally have a debt to our parents.

They just say that even a hundred years you can’t pay back the pain that your mother has to go through having childbirth. And that the parents have to go through and bringing out the kid. Of course, nowadays kids forget about that about 10, 21 years. So definitely there’s a debt there. So the point is that whatever energy that put into having a child. If the child is to understand Kṛṣṇa again. That since the person is now no longer creating any more karma. So whatever karma, whatever work they put into, invested into the child. Then Kṛṣṇa directly pays back by giving them liberation. The child is abraded to parents and grandparents like that. Because as I mentioned before, they’re each getting a share. So up to seven generations. That’s a later point.

But first of all, the main thing is that if you chant Hare Kṛṣṇa and if you try to understand the process. And perform even a little devotional service. Take some. You’re vegetarian. Yeah. Try taking the spiritual food. Not just vegetarian food, but take actually the sanctify the offering the food as a sacrifice. Just learn a few basic things and then you will be Able to even you will find that your meditation everything will really zoom forward.

I would like to not give that up quite yet. At least meditation on it. Yeah, I can already see that it would do that it would benefit me. I’d like to find out learn something specifically that I could do the chanting and like you said, the offering of food. What’s gonna be going on here tonight?

Tomorrow there will be a definitely there’s gonna be a high school coming here in the afternoon. Morning. There will be a class in the afternoon. There’s a high school coming here and there’s going to be a bedtime a baby wedding where the wedding is consummated with the fire sacrifice. And then I am supposed to be considering tomorrow someone for giving the second stage of initiation. The secret mantras. Person who’s been chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa after being initiated for one year, then they consider them for second initiation. So I considered this person months before. The person didn’t have the qualifications then. But the president here says that the person is now advanced. So I am going to be considering again tomorrow. And then if call then I will also give that initiation to my. But it may be just all in one sacrifice. We haven’t really gotten to it.

If anything happens, it may just all be. I will just give that first and then I will do the winning afterwards and use the same fire sacrifice. Ever seen a fire sacrifice?

We have a Sunday feast too.

Then there’s a Sunday feast in the evening. We have a big feast afterwards.

That’s an evening.

Well, from 4 until 9 is going to be a solid program, sire. Sacrifice, lecture, feast, then a question, answer period like this. You see, like Maharishi, he presented the thing in, you know, such a basic level that you know, you can practice TM and your parents. Nobody’s objecting, Right? Right. Then he went. Even if he were to give the full. Even if you were to practice what it says in the sixth chapter of the Bhagavad Gītā, he went off in the Himalayas or in the forest and started meditating for 12 hours a day and really tried to get into here. Not just 20 minutes a day because he has no reason why he’s saying only 20 minutes a day. It’s just kind of arbitrary. Yeah.

It’s not too much to catch people.

Just because otherwise.

He doesn’t interpret that word seclusion as being up in Himalayas. He just means. He just says you just gotta take a quiet place. You’re not gonna be disturbed to meditate.

Yeah. The point is that, you know, the people that meditate for 20 minutes and then again go out, they’re definitely benefiting when it says someone’s not meditating at all, but they’re not actually able to get completely out of the material attachment by hand, you have to have an unbroken meditation. And it’s not physically possible in this age to do that unbroken meditation. There may be some rare soul that can do it. I mean, there’s still some sense, sincere yogis like that do it. You see them come down for the Kumbha Mela, India. People that have been meditating so long that they can just bathe in one river and come out in another and bathe in one river and come out another like that, thousands of miles away.

But they don’t come out mixed with the people, they don’t do all kinds because then they will get distracted and people have to go to them if they want to learn something. But for the Devakti yogis, because the whole point is that you become a devotee, you’re doing activities for Kṛṣṇa. So because of that you can do action which is actually a sacrifice. The whole action is a sacrifice. So therefore you can act in society. You can act if you’re acting in that proper way.

You call that meditation?

Yes, it’s also meditation.

That’s meditation.

Just like for instance, just like you’re buying a Christmas gift for your mother, you go to the store, you’re looking at so many different things, but you’re thinking, what’s going to be pleasing to her? What’s it going to be nice? Is it a good gift? Is it a good price? You’re thinking of so many things, right? But then the ultimate observation, you’re bringing this thing, you’re giving it to her. So in that way the whole, I mean, she accepts and maybe she doesn’t need this thing, but it’s like the thought, it’s the action. You went through some trouble to get this thing for her. So in that way she appreciates in the same way you’re doing the action. And if it’s an authorized, shouldn’t be whimsical, it should be something which is authorized. Kṛṣṇa gives a descriptions which things are alright to do.

Not that, you know, you put your calendar execution like that. Then even though within the action you may be slightly thinking of so many other things, but because the whole intention is to give it to Kṛṣṇa and ultimately you do give it to Kṛṣṇa and say something beyond your control, you don’t give it a But Even then the intention was to give it to Kṛṣṇa so you get the same benefit.

(Side B of the Cassette)

So that way the activity is on intransal plenty.

Gradually, the experience during the activity becomes.

In the conditional state. In the conditional state, when you’re doing these activities, you’re relishing transcendental ecstasy.

What’s the conditional state means?

Conditional state means that before you realize Kṛṣṇa with your spiritual body and you realize your own spiritual self and spiritual and Kṛṣṇa before you, in other words, achieved full realization, God realization, that we call conditional state. That means you’re still to some extent identifying with the body. Although theoretically you’re not identifying due to being. Being in the material world. You’re forced to identify like if you don’t eat, you get hungry, right? So that means you’re in the conditional state. You’re conditioned by the body. The body creates pain and pleasure.

But then even in the conditional state, one is able to transcend the pain and pleasure, be able tolerate it, that the mind reaches an equilibrium, that even you’re hungry or even you’re very satisfied because you ate something, you don’t actually become thrown into remorse or lack by the sorrow, or you don’t become elated or infatuated by some temporary happiness. You actually reach an equilibrium in terms of material occurrences, which is considered to be peace. And there’s a practical realization of spiritual happiness that as you’re serving, you realize spiritual happiness. You get pleasure from the action done in devotion. And that’s actual spiritual pleasure which is coming, which is beyond. You have been experienced nothing that you ever experienced. So a devotee in the.

We say in the before full realization, who’s doing the work, the scriptures describe that he actually enjoys, he gets spiritual happiness through this form of active meditation. And in the realized state, then he renders personal service to God. So whether one is experiencing through the service or directly from association with Kṛṣṇa and a spiritual realization, in both cases it’s in the absolute. So that what we read, unless a person understands Kṛṣṇa as being above Karma, they can’t understand working for Kṛṣṇa as being free of karma.

That doesn’t mean you still wouldn’t reap benefits.

No, no. I am just saying. I am saying in this sense that like Maharish here, other. I don’t know what’s, you know, I don’t know what the type of philosophies that you were discussing, that if they don’t understand Kṛṣṇa’s position, which is very likely for a person, is he coming into light of Shankaracharya, they’re generally speaking, I believe he’s either Shankaracharya or Panchantali. Generally speaking, they don’t have a very concrete understanding about the personality of Godhead. They consider some other. They have some other to give 29 Kṛṣṇa. They may have another. I don’t know their exact viewpoint. Has read his books.

Yeah, I think he doesn’t have a very.

Big idea.

Personality guy.

No, they generally focus on the impersonal. At best they consider the personal form to be somehow something is linked up with the impersonal. They don’t focus on the personal form very much at all. You see, that’s why they don’t stress bhakti except as they very transient stage.

And once again, what’s the disadvantage of that?

Of what? Of.

Focusing only on the impersonal and not the personal.

It’s like committing spirits of suicide. It’s not that you’re going to realize the impersonal and from there you go on to realize the personality of Godhead. Unless you have knowledge about the personality of Godheads. Just by realizing the impersonal doesn’t really bring you any closer.

I was told by a team teacher once that if you reach the stage where you realize the self but not God consciousness and then die. He said that Maharishi once said that it’s a great loss. It’s spiritual suicide like he said. So in that sense he has some understanding.

But so the point is that you realize this light and then if you don’t have actual knowledge about Kṛṣṇa, like you got more knowledge about Kṛṣṇa today probably than you got in all the time. If we have even the slightest bit of knowledge that can take you beyond the light to the spiritual planets. If you don’t go beyond the light and you just get there and you get in the light, the tendency is just, well, this is pretty great.

Is it necessary to have a physical body to evolve? There’s no experience of that.

Rarely it’s possible to realize to have some experience in the body when it’s quite rare.

So in other words, that aspect of us is developing but we’re not experiencing it. Then when we leave the body we take on that it’s just been developing.

For the impersonal realization. There’s not that much to say.

No, I am talking about the personal.

Yeah, you develop your spiritual form and then you leave. It’s immediately manifest. I mean for a realized soul they may even see that the person has a developed spiritual body, but the person himself may not have realized it yet. That’s why sometimes a spiritual master will tell a person when he’s almost at that point what his relationship Is. Or the person comes forward and says, I feel these particular moods. It’s a very elevated stage. He’s already experiencing certain moods in devotional service. Certain specific symptoms in a certain way which would indicate what type of spiritual form and relationship he’s having in the spiritual world. Then the spiritual master, on the basis of those symptoms and upon his own vision, then he advises possibly another type of spontaneous devotional practice. These are very technical things which happen after many years.

Generally speaking, if you read this book, the teachings of Lord Caitanya, since you’re a little more philosophically inclined, this describes these things in a very detailed way. The difference between the personality of God and the impersonal realization. And all English has very little answers. I don’t know if we have any of these drownings or not. Did you. You touched your lips when you drank the thing. Maybe you should wash your hands off. All right. It’s a little technical. I can use your handle. Oh, they added a Sanskrit. No, definitely. They give all the translations.

Here.

In this. It gives a tea. Lord Chaitanvi met the greatest and personalist of India. This is a condensation of all those brown books there. This is Reader’s Digest conversation between who? No, that’s one of the chapters in here. Lord Caitanya Prakashananda. It’s just one of the volumes. There is one chapter here. Get 60,000 desires. 60,000. Maharishi must have more than 60,000.

Yeah, I can keep it.

Are you considered disciples when you get the mantra? Not really.

Says he doesn’t have any followers.

He teaches people to follow themselves.

He doesn’t consider himself to have any disciples. Any followers.

Oh, you see? Or at least he says he’s not claiming any karma. He’s right. Because I was thinking if he had to accept all the karma of all the people that he gives, he’d be saying he’s already publicly announced, I have no followers. You’re following yourself. So that way he’s not responsible for their karmas. He’s just an instructing spiritual master. May have given some mantra, but he’s already said that this is just. I am giving it without any responsibility. At your own risk, you can. Where? In Bhakti Yoga, the spiritual master actually takes a. Makes a permanent commitment to help the disciple and actually takes the responsibility for the term. This way we maintain the vulgar. In South America, sometimes 100 people come up and I lidograph the books and I am not your autograph. I was just remembering. Well, this is a pencil, actually.

What’s Your name? Jayapatākā Swami. Want to take shelter? This is Prabhupāda. He appointed me and some of my other godbrothers to be gurus in his absence. He was appointed by Bhakti, Siddhānta, Saraswati, Goswami. His spiritual master was Gorkishwaraj Mavaji. His spiritual master was Tapavati Gidav. Then it goes like that back. And 11 spiritual masters before his Chaitanya Mahakava. It was predicted that Kṛṣṇa would come in a golden form as a devotee and would preach his own devotional service to chanting the names of Kṛṣṇa in congregation. This is the birthplace of Mayav Lord Chaitanya street down in Māyāpur. The birthplace of Supreme Lord Śrī Kṛṣṇa takes on the province of Goda in Bengal. So I put the Śrīdharan Māyāpur. That’s where I live. This place here, I don’t. I live. We have our own. This is the. This is a place for all the devotees.

We have a separate ashram just next to this. This is just a central kind of place, surrounded by different temples. They have a big temple there. A lot of pictures in this book. It’s quite nice, isn’t it? Oh, yes, beautiful. The Chankazi. No, this is the. There’s the whole. You know, about Brahma and the four headed Brahma, things like that. Shiva, can you tell anything about that? He recommends that reading the Bhagavad Gītā, first six chapters.

Yeah, definitely. That’s his textbook, that Science of Being.

And Art of Living. Talks about.

Philosophy of being personal God, really.

A little bit about karma and manifestation of the mind and the senses and everything else.

The benefit of establishing yourself in being, in daily life.

You been to India ever? No, not to India. Get one of my cards. Vera wants to write me a letter. How long are you gonna be here living?

Sunday.

I come back. I may be back in December because they’re having a special program. Otherwise. Normally I only come twice A. Once in May and once in September after arriving. Are you the only guru that comes here right now? Mostly you handle all the initiations. It’s up to the individual. But there used to be another spiritual master here, but he’s concentrating now on writing. He already has other disciples. He wrote this book, translated it. So he’s not traveling anymore. He actually got sick. He might have disciples. He wants to take this translate now for a while. But he feels that will be the best help for his disciples and for the future of the movement. He has a whole team of Sanskrit scholars. I am Translating some books from Bengali because I know Bengali but he knows Sanskrit. So he’s writing Sanskrit.

So he asked me to. Actually he’s the one who asked because I was staying india for 12 years. I never left him and he requested me to come out that he thought that if I came out with the experience that I had india would be actually help for the people here. So for two years I have been traveling in the west and he was a major factor. Otherwise I beg my assistance from India sometimes to let him see how it is in the West. He came with me from India. He’s anxious to come back and continue his services there. He was born in Jagannath Purī just on the side of the ocean where there’s a very big temple india. You may have heard of Jagannathpuri, I don’t know. There’s a big temple there. About 8 million tourists go every year. It’s the biggest.

One of the biggest temples in the world. It’s going to be the second or third biggest temple and that’s considered a dhaam. There’s certain places where the Lord is where here’s the big car festival. This is a. My modern day picture is usually about half a million people come and they have a big parade like procession. Is there all her Christians? Is that what you call yourself? Yes. They’re always nice.

Actually those people they don’t reach anything about this spiritual science like he following the Maharshi but he has no information about all these things Adhpuri or Vrindavan all these times. I don’t think Rajan is sat anybody seeing these things here. But they’re not revealing the basis of the cults or anything here.

No. I see more the only one that’s really presenting Indian culture as it is. They just present a little flash of humanitarian. This is in America. They do the same thing here. We haven’t had a picture sure of the Kui temple they have since they have. So here I might I stay at the world headquarters of the Hare Kṛṣṇa since the past two years I have been giving the initiations here in Atlanta, New Orleans, in Tennessee for the coast southeast area and also in South America. And I have a few disciples in New York and Canada and other parts of the States that have been coming here regularly since they asked me to start coming. So I have been developing relationships with a lot of the devotees and different people here.

There were about four or five new people who just joined but they decided to go out to the farm because they wanted to practice out of the city. They went to a farm in Tennessee. They were nice farm there. So what would be required of me for initiation? This is the front. Not a good shot, is it? Here’s another one.

It’s not a full. This is long, very long temple. This front gate. This is the gate 20 times.

This temple is really. It’s like 220, like 25 stories high. But the particular angle, you don’t really see it. You don’t realize how far away it is.

This is on this. On this top person. Two cars can drive.

Can be drive on top of that.

Yeah. And the government was trying to find out the foundation of the world around it. They could not find out. This is the foundation of the world.

Is in the pasture. This whole city, the whole temple itself is about five city blocks square. Within it, there’s over a thousand temples. This is the main temple here. You can see it from about 15 miles, 20 miles. So he’s blind. He was right behind. This is everybody. It’s a big. Every whole town is centered around this. You know, see in the south you have these small cities where you have the town hall in the center and around it the square with the bank and the church. But this town, this is the whole town. This is the center. And all around it is the city. And the whole center is this temple. And then they have these big processions that we showed the picture before. The requirements for initiation is basically that one has the grace to chant a certain number of times.

Hare Kṛṣṇa live and to follow dietary rules, things like that, certain behavior rules like not drinking alcohol and things like that. You promise to follow that for your whole life. Those are the basic requirements. And that one will follow the instructions of the spiritual master. In terms of. As problems come up, when there’s ever a doubt what to be done, what’s not to be done. And the mother is supposed to refer to the spiritual medicine. Unless he advises. One is obligated to follow that. That’s the basic thing. The one boy that was sitting in front, actually, he’s my disciple. He’s been practicing for two years. But he never lived in the temple. He was a college student. He just graduated, I think. And he just. His family was giving him a. And he couldn’t live in the temple because of his family.

And he didn’t want to disturb him. So he just told me he was coming up to America to learn English, practicing English. He’s from Peru, came up here. Now he’s staying in the temple just to get some more for A few months to really, you know, practice his full time and his ideas. He wants to go back and open up a vegetarian restaurant in Lima. His parents are pretty rich as Akhon. They wanted to finance the whole thing for Prashana restaurant. We will see if that’s. Anyway, for the next three months he’s going to stay up here. Living in the temple is very simple. It’s a sacrifice type of program. But it helps one to really become detached in the material world and find how many attachments there are for the family and for support.

Many different things only when you go away with it from them for a little bit. But then it actually helps to make a person strong, even if you go back and later it actually helps to just tighten up the ties with the spiritual world and loosen the ties with the temporary world. The more you have the ties with the temporary world, then they pull you back again into this world and the more that you’re focused. So sometimes you need like a little situation where you’re forced to depend more on spiritual life and then you become detached from the material attachments. Even then you can not that you have to formally sever any ties. You’re still friends and still same relationship can be there.

It’s just that the right concept that these are my parents, these are my brothers, is actually philosophically, even in the first six chapters of the kidnapping, completely unfounded. Because that’s alright in the sense that they are related with this body. What about our previous life? Where are those parents, those brothers and those. That’s what Arjuna was saying that I don’t want to follow. Fight against my relatives. In the very first chapter of the Gītā and Kṛṣṇa said, you’re speaking very learned philosophical points. But he’s completely foolish. None of these people are inner relatives. They’re all eternal souls. They have always existed. Even when they die in the battlefield, they’re going to continue to exist. They’re here. Now you are also here. So where’s the question of killing anyone? You’re fighting here because this is your moral duty, this is your religious duty.

This is so many different duties. Ultimately, if you fight because you want to fight, because I want you to fight because I want to establish a God conscious administration in the world and you fight because it’s my desire, then I will accept the karma. You don’t have to accept any karma. And anyway just explain so many different ways. But so that way we have our relations naturally of life. We have so many relations and we develop some attachment. But then if you really love someone, then you want to give them the best thing. The best thing is actually to do what’s going to bring them closer to God. Not like someone is drowning in the ocean. You can jump in the water after you learn how to swim, and you drown yourself.

Before you can help somebody, you have to learn yourself, at least be either in a situation, be strong enough, or be under the if you got a rope around you and you run in the water to pull somebody out, you have a life preserver on you. Somehow you go out there, you can pull it back, and you don’t know how to swim because you got the life preserver and you have tied the rope like that. Even some of our people don’t have a lot of practical experience, but they do various services because they’re always being helped by the senior people and they’re connected with the guru in very personal relationships. So that way they actually progress very quickly.