англ. название записи: Q&A: Can We Explain Chanting Holy Names to Non-devotees? - 2024-11-24 - Sri Prem Prayojan
0:01Yes, raise your hand, if you have a question. My question is about the practice of chanting the holy names. In your theological structure realism, you are philosophically proving that God and the soul exist.
1:04Is it possible to explain to the simple mundane people in terms of philosophy? What is this practice of chanting the holy name. without reference to the Vedas, because there is a practice in orthodox tradition of, for example. So is it possible to explain this practice to the people without reference to the Vedas?
2:15You can explain anything without reference to the Vedas, but it will be not authoritative, and any explanation which does not go against the version of the Vedas is accepted by those in the Vaishnava tradition. So, if you are explaining about the chanting of the holy name, just to a general person, then you should use the yukti that the Vedas themselves have given, because though logic itself cannot prove something positive, think about it very carefully.
3:17If you are thinking logically about something or explaining something logically, then you are processing some physical experience. In other words, from physical experience, you have some impression. And on the basis of that impression, then you're explaining. Because in logic, first of all, you need premises. Premise number one and premise number two. And then you apply your logic to these to come up with some conclusion. So the premises themselves, they're all based on sense perceptions, because those are the only perceptions we have.
4:00So since the actual premises on which the logic is based are all sense perceptions, therefore the logic itself is dependent on sense perception, and because the Supreme Lord is transcendental and beyond sense perception, therefore through logic you cannot prove anything positive about the Supreme Lord. And so, for example, in Vedanta Sutra, in the commentary on Tarka-pratiṣṭhāna, that logic is inconclusive, Baladeva Vidyābhūṣaṇa, he comments that actually you cannot say logic is completely inconclusive, because then you get stuck in a dilemma. What is that? If someone explains something and their logic is wrong, and by logic you point out that their logic is wrong, then if by logic you
5:14If you could not conclude anything, then you could not point out that something was logically inconsistent and wrong. Understand? And that would make the logically inconsistent point correct. So you cannot say. So logic is good for an uha-uha. It cannot be this, it cannot be this, it cannot be this. And therefore, then, something positive is left over.
5:45Now, you cannot logically prove that positive point positively, but you have proved it by negating everything else. You negated all the other feasible possibilities. But someone can always come up with some fantastic unfeasible possibility, you know? So, when you prove something by the negation of all the other possibilities, that's called anyathā-anupapatti-pramāṇa, anyathā-anupapatti-pramāṇa, anupapatti means that something is appropriate, it's an appropriate conclusion, anupapatti, ananupapatti means it's inappropriate,
6:44And anyathā means otherwise. So you have anyathā-anupapatti-pramāṇa. We consider that this point is true because if you accept any of the other positions, they all lead to some absurd contradiction. So you can think about logical consistency in this way. So by reason you can show that the cause of everything must be, does not have another cause. It makes sense.
7:35That contingent things, they cannot self-exist. There must be something self-existent behind that which is the contingent, has contingent existence. You can say that God is not temporary, that God is not limited, that God is not evil. So this is called via negativa. And that's a theology you can also find in Christian, scholastic Christianity as well. So by negative things, by negating all the other possibilities, then you can posit. But that positive entity, you cannot by logic prove because logic is dependent on sense perceptions and this entity himself is beyond sense perception.
8:26So then only reason becomes by analogy that I am a conscious being and God is a conscious being. So if someone wants to know, let's say something about you, a conscious being, a secret, then if you don't want to tell them the secrets, then there's nothing they can do. If they torture you, but no, I'll never tell you. They can torture you till you die. They can only know when you yourself decide to reveal that secret. And so simply by reason we can say that right now a person they don't have awareness of God or the secrets of life so it must be because that's God's will and if it's God's will that you don't know then there's nothing that you can do to know because God is all-powerful you can
9:35counteract his will. And so then the only way to know the truth is to change God's mind about hiding from you. Now the thing is that God being all good and a reasonable person, he must be hiding from you, not because he's cruel and he wants to torture you, but for some legitimate reason. And And that reason is that we want to compete with him. His plane is a plane of love, but we have selfishness, so we're not qualified to exist or know about that plane. That ultimately, we don't really want to know him, because that would threaten our own selfish conception of being the supreme enjoyer, because no one can be the center of existence in the presence of the center of existence.
10:42So there are all these very reasonable and psychological things that you can explain to an ordinary person But all of these things, they're not independent from Śāstra-yukti, understand? This yukti, these types of reasons, they are given in Śāstra.
11:14So all of these reasons, they are in Śāstra. so we don't, as Vaishnavas, we never use the reason which is independent of Śāstra. But that doesn't mean that you make the argument, or what I am saying is true because it's written in this book, because that will, that comes across to the person as being the dogmatic, but within that itself, also when you analyze it carefully, it's also not dogmatic.
12:52Or it can also mean that the Śāstra comes from that Brahman. Now, because the living entity is tiny and the Brahman is unlimited, therefore the living entity does not have any potential or capacity to know that Brahman outside Brahman's own revelation of himself.
13:26So if Brahman, why would the Supreme Lord give us existence if our purpose is not to know him? So it's clear that the Supreme Lord wants us to know him and therefore there must be some method by which he reveals himself and that is Śāstra and the paramparā. And so it's completely reasonable to conclude, if you consider it very profoundly, that there must be a way in which the unlimited being reveals himself to the limited beings, and that is Veda-śāstra.
14:19And we can also conclude that outside the supreme being's own revelation, there's no way for the limited being to know the unlimited.
14:30It's not simply not, it's not a rational position to take. If you're insisting on being rational, that's not a rational position to take. And so Shastra-yonitvāt, the supreme lord, reveals himself through the Shastra, and that's the only way by which he can be known. So even what seems to be initially a dogmatic position that this is the truth because this book says so, it is actually not really a dogmatic position, it is actually a very well thought out philosophical position which cannot be, you cannot avoid this, it's an unavoidable position.
15:16Only the controversy comes then is that so many often unscrupulous persons are presenting and this is the book, this particular book that was created by some human being with so many faults. So then the water becomes muddy. So at the beginning of the universe when the Vedas are given to the Devatas and everything, the waters are not muddy.
15:45This is only in Kali Yuga, when there are so many, not actual dharma, but upadharma, they're not really religions, but there's some shadow of religion, have come about in Kali Yuga, that makes competing scriptural authorities, so, but still, the Vedic revelation has within it some shastaryukti, in order to pacify the minds of the general persons.
16:19But really, the general person comes into the Vedic culture by associating with the sadhu. Because when we associate with the sadhu who has within his heart a realization of Sri Krishna, it's very powerful. When we associate with them, when we listen to them, though even there may not be things that we understand then we experience that we're transforming, that our base nature, our lower nature, which had a strong grip on us, is becoming loose, that our senses, which had so many addictions, are starting to become pacified and quiet, that from the Tamas-guṇa and Rajo-guṇa, Sattva is coming very quickly, a clarity is coming, and the peacefulness, like this.
17:17and so along with the shastra being the explanation being reasonable along with the experience of sadhu sangha and kirtan being joyful you can literally feel your citta starting to open you can feel your narrow-mindedness is going away and the consciousness is expanding and sometimes you're dancing in kirtan and you just have some moments of sākṣitā that you're not even your body and you're just you're a spiritual being having a vision of the world, of so many people singing and dancing from a vantage point which is above that actual situation and so śraddhā comes, faith comes and so it's not that faith comes not because of some philosophical domination, that a philosophical argument wrestled your philosophical argument to
18:18the ground and held him on his back for the count of three and then that your philosophical argument said, I submit. Though that also happens, but that's not the main thing. Because, you know, there's a saying that a man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still. If your will is going in one direction, even if you're philosophically defeated, the person would just say, you know, they give the example of playing chess with a pigeon. If you, if you make a move on a chessboard, which is the, the final move, that the pigeon is, not interested in chess, he'll just walk around and kick the pieces over, maybe pass stool on the board.
19:08So if someone has a will and they're determined to go in one direction, it doesn't matter how reasonable what you say is, they'll just forget it. Either if they understand it, they'll push it to the back of their mind, or their will is so strong that they refuse to understand it or consider it like this.
19:28So you have to understand the place. You are in a stage in your life where you have become the more peaceful and self-controlled and philosophical. And so that's very important to you that doubts have to be logically resolved. But at the same time, because you experience the joy of bhakti, if there's something that you can't resolve, it doesn't bother you so much like that.
19:57Whereas another person, they did not come to that stage which was an intense philosophical investigation in their life And they just experienced the bliss of bhakti and they're taking up and they're practicing Because śraddhā came from sādhu-saṅga So everyone according to their saṃskāras, they have different necessities But even the very logical person does not come entirely by logic but by a combination of the it is mainly the śraddhā that comes from sādhu-saṅga which gives the experience and the expansion of consciousness and when they listen to the philosophy then they see that the philosophy is superior to anything they heard before even though you could still perhaps make some challenges to it but other ideas in comparison are inferior so it's good it's good to understand
21:01and the śāstra-yukti, the arguments of śāstra. And so you'll see, especially in Bhāgavatam, the discussion between Rahugaṇa Mahārāja and Jaḍa Bharata, very logical, very philosophical. Also, chapter 7.15 of Śrīmad Bhāgavatam, instructions for civilized human beings, Nārada Muni's discussion with Yudhiṣṭhira Mahārāja, such deep philosophy, so deep. more than any philosophy in the world, you'll find that conversation between Yudhiṣṭhira Mahārāja and Nārada Muni.
21:48Really, that is the supreme, let us say, rational presentation that you'll find anywhere. If someone will understand that, then they have exhausted the possibilities of philosophy. If you understand that conversation, you have exhausted all the possibilities of philosophy, and you'll know, understand the weaknesses of every other philosophy. So Krishna says that, hey Uddhava, by serving guru and hearing from guru, you should sharpen the axe of knowledge.
22:31And when the axe of your knowledge, philosophical discrimination, is sharp, you should use it to cut your soul's connection with the subtle body.
22:46person has come to a very high level of sattva-guṇa and they've developed fine discrimination then they can sever there because there was some remaining desire to be associated with the subtle body so give up that desire to be associated with the subtle body by saṃskāras it happens again and again but the more time you spend in chanting harināma and chanting more and more you can spend the time free from the limitations of the subtle body. One should cut it and then when that cut has taken place and the subtle body dies like the scorpion that stung itself or like a fire that goes out because
23:50there's no more fuel, then the subtle body will be finished and then you always remain in trance when you're walking, talking, whatever you're doing. At first you'll only have a trance experience on your deepest moments of chanting. But once the subtle body is dissolved, you will have a deeper trance than that, even, only all the time. So, Śrī Kṛṣṇa said, sharpen the axe of a knowledge by serving guru and hearing guru. And cut your connection with the subtle body and then put that axe down. You have to let go of that. You can't use that forever. And now you have to proceed further on this path by pure faith, śraddhā.
24:44And by faith we mean that people have a very bad saṃskāra related to the word faith because society has given everyone the impression that reason is reasonable and faith is when you believe something for no reason in a stupid, stubborn and dogmatic way because we are low IQ, right? But that's not the śāstric definition of faith.
25:07It is a special inclination of the citta to serve. So faith means our service tendency. So the service tendency is precisely in harmony with who we are. Because the jīva is a servant of Krishna. So to live in a free flow of service tendency is to be who you are. And it's only in that free flow of unconditional love that you can progress further.
25:52If you want, I can speak on that subject, that supreme philosophy. You know that when we think and when we speak, our thoughts are inescapably linguistic. We think in language. When a child is born, there's a baby, the baby, he is not a philosopher and cannot understand philosophy. And simultaneously, the baby also cannot speak. And as the ability to speak develops, the ability to think, because we think in language, these two are connected.
26:42And this is why we discussed, it was a very deep discussion we had the other day, but we're only beginning, it was only starting.
27:24And so, all kinds of abstractions are vikalpa. Like numbers. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, till infinity. Are numbers real? Have you ever seen a 1 or a 2 or a 3? No. You see an apple, then you see another apple, then you see another apple, then you see a banana. And you look and you notice that there's something in common between these three things, which is not there.
28:01There's something coming between this one, this one and this one and then you make an abstraction based on categorization you make a category and then within that category you make some parts and you give each part a name one and two and three like this so actually we use abstractions all the time. Once I was speaking to one sādhu, very famous and learned sādhu, and he was saying to me, he was saying, actually when you consider things very carefully everything is inconceivable. But if the disciple will come to the guru and the guru will just say and he asks a question and every question the disciple asks he says everything is inconceivable then the disciple is not going to be satisfied so then the sādhu has to use some language and there's inevitably in one sense some fault in that language if you'll say anything if the enlightened person will say anything that the unenlightened person can understand that actually it's impossible because
29:14Yes, the person is in illusion is in illusion. The enlightened person is not in illusion. So anyway, some language is necessary there. So some explanations. So when there's some logical explanation, these logical explanations are like steps that lead you step by step to the conclusion. But none of the steps are really conclusive or really true in an absolute sense. With the exception of Harikathā, when a pure Vaishnava is, the pure Vaishnava who is speaking and
29:51describing the truth. The actual sound coming from his mouth is the truth. If the disciple is surrendered, that sound will give them a vision of Krishna. So, then this sādhu, he said, he said, take, for example, a simple thing like, in a line, how many points are there in a line? How many? So infinite, right? So if you cut the line in half, then how many points are in each half? Does each half have the same amount of points?
30:35Yes. But if there's infinite in each one, is there now, is there, by cutting in half, have you doubled the points? Because now there's two infinities, right? What if you cut it but not in half? Are there the same amount of points in the small points as the small part of the line or the large part of the line? Which part has the most points? You have a line that has infinite points, so then you cut it, but there's a small part. And now the small part, does the small part have less points than the big part?
31:19But how many points are there in the small part that no that's not a that's not a because there's a finite number of pieces of sand so it is not an appropriate analogy so you cannot answer these questions and the reason is because points don't exist but you never considered that the point itself is a vikalpa the point itself is a vikalpa you know what a point a point is a is a some a point is something that has a location
32:01but has no dimensions. So you can think by words, you can say it and the words form a construct in your mind but actually that doesn't exist. How can you have something which has a location but no dimensions? And if you have two points, the shortest distance between two points is called a line. So a line has a dimension, it has length but it has no thickness, it has no width. So you can say it and you can think it but it doesn't.
32:37So everyone in the world, all their thoughts are vikalpa. All of their thoughts are vikalpa. Vikalpa is an abstraction. We look at something and we abstract, we extract some part of it and then we give it a name and consider it to have its own individual existence. But is reality really divisible? The supreme truth is akhaṇḍa, it's indivisible.
33:14And so, every thought that a person has, which is produced from the awareness that reality is divisible into parts, or we can say into whole objects even, and those whole objects also have parts, that's the basis of all of our thoughts. Rajoguṇa means vikalpa, vikalpa means abstraction. There is one reality actually, it's indivisible, but our intelligence is making abstractions. This thing is separate from another thing. This object is separate from other objects and the object itself has divisions within it.
33:55So those two aspects, they are the products of the rajas in the mind, and all of our words, all of our thinking, only indicates concepts which have these two aspects, identifying something as being different from other things, and that object itself has divisions within it. And so when two philosophers sit down, what do they do? They're using language and their language, the language itself in which they are philosophizing is the vikalpa.
34:43The language itself is the entire method of communication is constructed from the very, let us say, the vikalpas or misconceptions or illusions which come from Rajoguṇa. and so the way that they understand words is always the ajñādṛḍhavṛtti or avidvad-rūḍha-vṛtti sorry it's always avidvad-rūḍha-vṛtti which has two parts ajñādṛḍhavṛtti or sādarādṛḍhavṛtti see so this is why philosophers who sit down and try to discuss they will never get anywhere they will never arrive anywhere because
35:39Because the very medium that they're using to philosophize with is itself the product of Rajoguṇa, vikalpa. So it's going nowhere. However, we can see that, let us say, in Nyāya, in Vedic Nyāya logic, and also in the classical philosophy of Greece, they posit something called the forms. In logic, it's called the jāti, universals.
36:18and in Greece they're called the forms, ideas, the forms, they're also universals. According to Vedanta this is vikalpa but it's a kind of useful vikalpa if you come at it from the classical world or from the logic world because this vikalpa leads you to the conclusion that there must be God and then if a person believes that there's God and understands well you can only know God if he allows you to know him so we should be we should try to serve him so So he'll change his mind and reveal himself to us. Bhakti, then by bhakti, then you can realize that the concept that you use to arrive at the concept that God exists itself is a vikalpa and become free from it. And that's why in St. Petersburg, I gave that class about materialistic point of view, how you can defeat this with the classical point of view, but how the classical point of view also has some limitations that Vedanta
37:25Vedanta will solve. But to go from the material to Vedanta is a big jump. It's difficult for people. And so even Vedanta doesn't do that. Even Vedanta doesn't go from the material point of view to Vedanta. It goes through the nyāya, through the logic school and everything. So Vedanta is in four parts. And the second part is actually the analysis of what is nyāya, vaiśeṣika, yoga-sūtras, and karmakāṇḍa, and so on.
37:57and then by comparing them it shows how Vedanta is the best so even that presentation that I give it's not it's not in principle it's not something new it's only in the detail something is new because at the time when the Vedanta Sutra was composed then let us say Socrates or Plato or Aristotle they weren't born like that but so it's just updating the Vedantic discussion in detail, but not in principle.
38:33All right, so we can just look at that, what is that supreme philosophy by which philosophy becomes exhausted, and then now you are fully happy, and just by your śraddhā, by faith, you can proceed. One thing is that just the common person who has no philosophical training or background, they cannot understand this thing.
39:06If someone is a low IQ, if someone has no philosophical training, the actual supreme philosophy, it's still beyond their capacity to grasp. And so, but every soul has a chance to become perfect just by bhakti. If you don't understand these things, then noam, just do bhakti. And actually by bhakti, Krishna will reveal everything to you.
39:34And you will understand without effort, actually. Even without effort you understand, just by a simple person chanting the holy name and serving their guru, everything will come.
39:46So just like in Russia, in Moscow, we discussed Bhakti Vinoda Thakur's presentation of the different levels of person. And each person has the capacity to go to the next level and then to the next level and then to the next level. They cannot jump over the stages of evolution. But anyone on any level can take up bhakti and they will progress whether or not their intellect has caught up with the conclusion that they've accepted. So that's the difference between the kaniṣṭha, madhyama, and uttama, we can say in terms, in vaidhi-mārga, that the kaniṣṭha, his faith is soft and he can be confused by opposing arguments.
40:38The madhyama, his faith has become strong. So if an opposing argument will come, he'll just say, I can't answer that, but my Gurudev can, so it doesn't bother me.
40:52And then the uttama, śāstra-yukti sunipuṇa, is the person, their faith is strong, and their power to, let us say, philosophize on the basis of the śāstra-yukti, the logic of the scripture, catches up with their faith. And so now their faith is strong and they can philosophically also defend every position as well. And so that's the uttama-adhikārī. That uttama-adhikārī, that doesn't mean the mahā-bhāgavata, because we're discussing in the line of vaidhi, it means in the stage of ruci.
41:28They became steady in their faith and steady in their practice and then when ruci appeared, a real taste and realization of the sweetness of bhakti and the sweetness of Krishna, Then their ability to philosophize caught up with their level of faith. And now to then the scripture itself is not dogmatic at all.
41:54They see the śāstra, which appeared to be like a dogma or a collection of axioms. Now actually everything is clear and makes perfect sense in that stage. So Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakur describes it as, when one comes to the ruci, the level of the uttama-adhikārī, that he has succeeded in harmonizing reason with the scripture, completely, and then he is, Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakur describes it, he is done with the philosophical questions, he has asked all the questions, and he has answered all the questions,
42:41and so he's blissful and he proceeds just on the basis of devotion. But then in devotion there are questions. There are so many questions. But these are not of the abstract conceptual type. They're regarding the nature of rasa. How can I serve more beautifully? Why does Rādhikā feel in this way? Why did Krishna leave Vṛndāvana?
43:48and detachment, they arise automatically, causelessly, so don't worry.
