20260224 Śrī Caitanya-śīksāmṛta 8 - Conclusion

Jayapatākā Swami: So today, two devotees left their bodies while bathing in the Ganges. I had saved many devotees when they were drowning. One is a young boy Vijay Jeti from Uttarkhanda. I don’t know, we should all be very careful. The Ganges is fast flowing and deep, and there should be someone who is always caring for the devotees. As I said, in some cases, I was able to save some devotees from drowning, but I don’t know these two devotees were not saved. So, we pray that they go back to the spiritual world.

Eighth Shower — Conclusion

The Reasoning of Nītiśūnya Nirīśvara-vādis (Immoral, Godless Beings)

Bahirmukha (attracted by the external material tendency, turning away from the service of the Lord) living entities reason in this way:

This variegated world has arisen through the combination and separation of atoms, according to the beginningless laws of nature. No one is its creator. The belief we hold in a Supreme Being is born of superstition. If a vast consciousness called “Parameśvara (Supreme Being)” is deemed necessary, then that consciousness too would require a creator. Even then, belief in God does not become permanent.

From the structure of the inert brain within the inert body, intelligence arises. When that structure is destroyed, intelligence ceases to exist. What we think of as “ ātmā (soul)” is nothing but blind belief. When the body falls, existence will cease—or one must merge into the fundamental substance. While situated in this life, enjoy as much happiness as possible until death. Only remember this much: in the pursuit of pleasure, no future worldly suffering should arise. Punishment by king (law), death sentence, animal slaughter, enmity with others, suffering, infamy—these are all future worldly sufferings. Bodily pleasure is the only necessity, for there is no happiness beyond that. To increase the happiness of life, expand science, art, and craftsmanship as far as possible through reason and effort. Enhance cleanliness, domestic goods, bodily ornamentation, and external civility by eliminating the wild state of life. Create and enjoy delicious food, fragrant substances, melodious instruments, beautiful images, and pleasing sense of touch. Construct excellent mansions and various vehicles to increase beauty and continue using them. Civilization is the refinement of human life. For the benefit of life, collect history. Preserve all the truths discovered through investigation in their proper form. Do not believe in anything supernatural or irrational. Wherever general happiness and personal happiness conflict, sacrifice general happiness for the advancement of one’s own.

Merely by hearing such forceful logical statements, the uncivilized and knowledge-deprived primitive humans become engaged in the pursuit of life’s advancement, abandoning their former ways. Their beliefs in the sun and moon, their livelihood through animal slaughter, and their forest-dwelling like beasts—all such practices are cast aside. The bahirmukha rationalist humans devoid of morals become inflated with pride over this. The lives of sensual pleasure-proponents such as Cārvāka and Sardanapalus are examples of this worldview.

Jayapatākā Swami: So, Cārvāka, I think his principle was buy, borrow, steal - somehow or another get ghee! So Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura is presenting what the immoral, atheistic people think. So this is one of the viewpoints – immoral, atheistic principle. The goal in life is to enjoy sensual pleasure. So these are people that we are preaching against.

Argument of the bahirmukha moralist

The moral bahirmukha living entity, manifesting greater intelligence, swiftly defeats the bahirmukha without morals. He says: Brother! I accept all your words— except that I do not accept your whimsical behavior as good.  You seek happiness in life, but how can true happiness exist without ethics? Do not consider only your own existence as ‘life’; consider social life as life. That principle which is capable of fostering the happiness and prosperity of social life alone is the highest good—and that is called ethics. To enjoy happiness in accordance with such ethics is what makes a human superior to a beast. Where through your suffering, society attains happiness, there accepting that suffering is the just duty of a rational person. This is called niṣkāma nīti—selfless ethics. This alone is the true human dharma. To enhance collective social happiness, cultivate the noble sentiments of love, friendship, and compassion. Then malice, envy, and other wicked tendencies will no longer be able to pollute the human heart. Universal love is universal happiness. Adopt any means to enrich it. This is the profound view of the positivists—namely, Comte and Mill—and the socialists such as Herbert Spencer, and generally of the Buddhists and atheists.”

Jayapatākā Swami: So, here is a step higher than the immoral atheists. So they are presenting that we should be more than animals. We should have some ethics or some morality. But they are still atheists. I think many countries in the world, they observe this. That they are basically atheists, but they think that we should have some morality.

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The imagined theistic moralists, while accepting all the points of the above stated doctrine (bahirmukha moralist without theism), only add this: that faith in God is itself a principal moral tenet. Until one believes in God, morality remains incomplete. Several distinct moral benefits of faith in the Supreme Being are clearly perceived:

1. Even when moral intelligence is strong, attraction to the objects of the senses, from time to time, becomes more powerful—even for great moralists. If, unseen, there arises a special opportunity for indulgence in sense-objects, then faith in God alone can serve as the proper restraint. Those who hold in their minds that the Supreme Being sees what no human eye can see, will never be inclined to commit immoral acts in secret.

2. If faith in God exists, then at the time of death, the happiness born of faith alleviates much suffering.

3. Generally, faith in God produces more virtuous tendencies in worldly life than mere moral intelligence—this is universally acknowledged.

4. In the life of one who believes in God, there is greater peace than in the life of one who is merely moral.

5. If God exists, then faith in Him brings immense gain. If He does not exist, still faith brings no harm. On the other hand, if He does exist, unbelievers suffer immense loss. Therefore, for serious moralists, faith in God is an absolute duty.

Jayapatākā Swami: This is an important point. Say that alright, we believe in the Supreme Being, but there is actually no Supreme Being. Then we don’t lose anything! But if there is a Supreme Being and you don’t believe in Him, then you lose everything! This is an important point.

6. There is happiness even in the worship of God. That happiness is purer than other flawed pleasures. In the joy of God there is no disturbance; in all other pleasures there is disturbance.

7. Through faith in God, the tendencies of the mind toward the path of righteousness are nourished far more quickly than by other moral principles.

8. With faith in God, compassion and forgiveness gain greater strength.

9. With faith in God, there is greater enthusiasm for selfless action.

10. With faith in God, the intelligence of the afterlife arises. When intelligence of the afterlife arises, one never falls into despair from any incident at any time.

Jayapatākā Swami: So ten reasons they are giving why believing in God is beneficial even for the materialists. The three earlier principles, they are considered to be the most effective. Anyway, we are not materialists, we want to serve Kṛṣṇa, please the Supreme Lord!

Oh brother! Even if God does not exist, still, for the above causes and many other reasons, it is proper to accept a God. Seeing all these direct results, the atheist is defeated before the imagined theistic proponent. Finally, like Comte, he accepts a doctrine of imagined worship. Jaimini’s ritualism, Patañjali’s meditation on God, and Comte’s imagined worship—though they differ in some respects— in the ultimate result, they are the same. Comte, by manifesting his own mood, had said so. Jaimini and other ritualists are more cautious than them, and therefore did not reveal the feeling of the heart.

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Jayapatākā Swami: Here we have the imagined theistic, like they are not firmly committed that there is a Supreme Personality of Godhead. We are all convinced there is a real, Supreme Personality of Godhead. What is our situation?

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Reasons of the Real Theistic Moralists

When imagined theistic doctrine becomes strong, real theism advances in the battle of reasoning. The real theist says: “Brother! Do not think of God as a mere imagined principle. He truly exists. Consider well the following profound arguments.

1.         The orderliness of the laws of the universe leaves no doubt that this world has been created and arranged by some supreme consciousness. Human reasoning power is the highest faculty; when that faculty is properly directed, truth is discovered. Wherever subtlety is neglected, error arises. In the work of reasoning, universal concomitance (vyāpti) is especially necessary; otherwise, reason cannot go very far. The two premises upon which the determination of the conclusion (sādhya) depends must be absolutely pure. For example: that a mountain is fiery is inferred from the perception of smoke. Here, the premise must be pure: wherever there is smoke, there is fire. Secondly, the smoke that is seen must be real smoke, not mist or something else. When both premises are pure, the conclusion (that there is fire on the mountain) must be true. This is the chief process of logical inference. In the affairs of the world, the beauty and orderly arrangement that are observed may be taken as the first premise. The second premise is that such order does not arise merely by chance; such order is found only when guided by some intelligence. From these two premises, it is established that this world has been constructed by a great consciousness.

Jayapatākā Swami: So this is a very nice reasoning. And naturally, if we see that the world is very organized, then the existence of a Supreme Soul or greater intelligence is evident. So Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura has very nicely taken up the logical steps and showed how the devotees are the most well-situated.

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2.         No action occurs without an agent. If you say—“the agent itself must also have an agent”—the proper reply is this: only material agents require an agent. By the power of intelligence, a form is first conceived; when that form is transformed into action, it becomes a material affair. Conscious entities are the original agents of matter. But the agent of that intelligence is not seen; therefore, consciousness itself does not require an agent. Who told you that because matter requires an agent, consciousness must also require one? From your observation of matter, you have acquired a certain impression, and by wrongly extending that impression, you seek for an agent of consciousness. That is only a false impression. Abandon false impressions, and by pure reasoning place your faith in the Supreme Lord.

Jayapatākā Swami: So, when one speculates based on their material knowledge and thinks that oh, Kṛṣṇa needs an agent! But we have no idea of the unlimited spiritual potency of pure consciousness! And our material ideas on this spiritual consciousness are not reasonable. So people are drawing wrong conclusions because of their material conditioning.

3.         If the origin of consciousness happened by some special process through atomic combination, then there should be an example of its origin recorded somewhere in the history of some country. The origin of humans in the mother's womb is the only way we see. I do not see its origin happening by any other means. Even after science has progressed, it has not shown anything like this in thousands of years. If you say that at some point, humans arose by chance, and now they follow the process of being born from the mother's womb, the answer is that if that were true, we would still see other such chance events happening. Even now, we would occasionally see a few self-born beings appearing. Therefore, the creation of the first parents cannot be explained by any means other than the supreme consciousness.

Jayapatākā Swami: We are trying to show in the West Wing of the TOVP, how even the simplest cell is very complicated! And to create a cell requires different things happening at the same time. That is not possible by any other means other than the Supreme consciousness. So, it is not possible that things happen just by atomic particles. Anyway, we are trying to show that in the West Wing.

4.         Wherever there are humans, there is also belief in God. Belief in God is an inherent quality of human nature. If someone says that in the beginning, people believed in God out of ignorance, and later, through reason, this belief was removed, the answer is that mistakes are not the same everywhere. Truth is always the same everywhere. For example, if ten is added to ten, the result is twenty. In every country, the result of this addition is the same, because it is true. If ten plus ten somehow equaled twenty-five, such a false result could not be universal. Belief in God has been observed even among people living in remote islands, so the argument that superstition spreads through teaching does not apply here.

Jayapatākā Swami: So, human beings naturally believe in the presence of God. And apparently this is observed even in remote islands, isolated civilizations. So, this aspect of the presence of God is something universal! We will continue reading tomorrow.

Tomorrow also we have the parikramā. I don’t know if there will be a class tomorrow.