0:21Thank you, Srila Gurudev. So my question is that we see there is Vaidhi-bhakti and Raganuga-bhakti. So Vaidhi-bhakti can only lead us to a mood of Aishwarya. And also we know the definition of Raganuga-bhakti is to follow the Raganatmika, so the love which is in the heart of the Raganatmika. So my question is, was ever Raganuga-bhakti available with other destinations other than pure Vraja-prem?
0:52Them, so destination in which there will be some Aishwarya, will it still be called Raganuga Bhakti or not? Because even there we see there are the eternal associates, so one can think one is following the mood of those eternal associates which are not in Vraja, which are not in Goloka, Sthiti, Vrindavan, so still there is some Aishwarya. Will it still be Raganuga Bhakti, and so that maybe could explain how it was possible that some sadhakas, For example, as I asked yesterday, in Vishnu Swami Sampradaya, they were, like Raganuga Bhakti was one of their aspects of their preaching, even though Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu did not appear yet, so only Chaitanya Mahaprabhu can give Vraja-prema, actually.
1:57This is a fascinating point. First of all, it is considered the Raganuga Bhakti to follow the residents of Vrindavan because they have Raga. That is, Raga means the Shuddha Raga, no awareness of the Aishwarya of Sri Krishna, but if one will follow the Raga, but he will outwardly perform the activities of Vaidhi, that means his Raga is mixed, the Raganuga Bhakti is mixed with Vaidhi Bhakti, and then what destination will he get in Madhurya Rasa?
3:08If one follows Madhurya rasa on the path of Raganuga, but he insists on practicing all the rules and regulations of Vaidhi bhakti, then Rupa Goswami Pada said, that person will become an associate of Krishna in Madhurya rasa, in Dwaraka.
3:37Because even though the queens of Dwaraka, they have love for Krishna, but their love does not transgress the Maryada. It is within some, they have fear of social etiquettes. So in the same way, if the devotees, Shastra said you must worship like this, this, this and this, internally he wants to follow the vraja-vasis, but outwardly he's following all all the different prescriptions of Vaidhi-bhakti, then because he will not transgress, he will not leave out any vidhi, so then his Raganuga-marga is not pure, it is mixed with Vaidhi, and he will attain a position of like a maidservant to a queen in Dwaraka. So if there is a king or a prince and he has a wife, so he also has the conjugal relation with her maidservants also. So it's a relation,
4:50with Krishna in Madhurya rasa, but as a follower of one of the queens. That position is possible, because Krishna has 16,108 queens, and if every sadhaka who goes to Dwaraka in Madhurya rasa also becomes a queen, then it will be 16,109, 110, you know, so the pastime couldn't go on. So, one attains the position of being an assistant or maidservant to one of the queens in Dwaraka, if he is following the Kamanuga bhakti, not Sambandhanuga, but Kamanuga, but he won't give up certain aspects of Vaidhi bhakti.
5:38And so this is why we see that actually traditionally in the Nimbarka Sampradaya originally the Ishtadeva of the Nimbarka Sampradaya is Rukmini-Dwarakadish. Originally by the influence of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu each of the four Sampradayas became let us say had a branch that branched off into
6:20to a Vraja-rasika sampradaya. But originally in the Nimbarka line, the Ishtadeva is Rukmini-Dwarakadish, in Rudra-sampradaya, it is the Narasimhadeva, and then later due to the influence of Mahaprabhu, or we can also say a few generations before Mahaprabhu, through Madhavendra Puri and Ishwara Puri, some focus towards Vraja-rasa began to manifest. And so, the Sri Sampradaya, sorry, the Vishnu Swami Sampradaya, whose Ishtadeva is Narasimhadeva, became focused on Krishna.
7:08And in that Sri Sampradaya, in that Rudra Sampradaya, you have Bhavamangal Thakur, and then, at the time of Mahaprabhu, Vallabhacharya, Pushti Marg, here in Vraja. So in the Nimbarka Sampradaya, so you have Sri Bhakta, and Haridevacharya, and of course Swami Haridasa, and the line of, in the Banke Bihari, yes, raise your hand if you have a question.
7:52Hare Krishna, Prem Prayojan, thank you so much for the opportunity. Actually I have a few questions, but they all are related. And my first question, based on Bhakti-rasamrta-sindhu, 1.3.54, where Rupa Goswami said that, and after him, Srila Jiva Goswami and Srila Vishvanatha Chakravarti Thakur, in purport, that there are three types of offense, by the grave offense, your bhava will be destroyed, by the middle offense, your bhava will become bhava-abhasa, and by the slight offense, your bhava will become an inferior type. So my question is, what does it mean bhava become an inferior type?
8:42And Srila Vishvanatha Chakravarti Thakur said, like, from Madhurya, it becomes to Dasya, it goes to Dasya. So I just don't understand that, how, like, what does it mean? If someone was developing, like, manjari bhava, then now he cannot do anymore, now he only can be dasa, and how is it forever?
9:12So, yes, there are different degrees of severity of offence. So if the offence is extremely severe, then he will lose his bhava. If the bhava has begun to appear, he will lose it.
9:33If it's not so severe, then his bhava may go into a lower mood. So, let us say the person was in Madhurya rasa. By making offence, he'll become confused. And after some time, then he'll lose his focus on this. And he will lose his taste in this. And he will think, this is not who I am.
10:03I should, I have a, the Dasya-abhiman, and he'll try to cultivate a mood in Dasya, but generally, the effects of aparadha, they cause some suffering, but they wear off after some time. For example, Srila Jiva Goswami describes that if one is a devotee and he commits offences, then he can become a demon even, material desires will come and he can become a demon, not only in that life, he may be a demon for several lives even, but because the bhakti-lata-bija, the seed of devotion is indestructible, he will suffer those offences.
11:11And when the suffering of the offences is over, then that bhakti-lata-bija will manifest again. Understand? So the example is Gajendra. Previously Gajendra was Indradyumna Maharaj. But he committed an offence. He had progressed quite far. But because of his offence, he fell down and he had to take the form of an elephant. In the form of an elephant, he was fighting with a crocodile for thousands of years.
11:47And by that suffering for a long, long time, then his aparadha was, the results of the aparadha were burnt. And then just at that moment, when his aparadha was removed, then his bhakti from before became manifest. And when that bhakti from before became manifest, then he was realizing, just now I will die.
12:27And some people think that he took a lotus and offered to the Supreme Lord and said, save me. So then the Supreme Lord came and said, but this is not what happened.
12:39Because his aparadha just wore off and then that bhakti that he had before appeared because of that. And also because he was about to die. And when you're about to die, there is an increase of humility because the person is helpless. Dainya bhava, the Dainya bhava, the feeling of humility, increases, when you realize, oh it's all over, now, Dainya bhava,
13:17...
13:44So, when Dainya bhava comes, it makes utcalita, that means the rising wave of bhakti. If there's some bhakti, but humility is added to the bhakti, then it becomes utcalita, it rises up like a wave. So, he had some bhakti from the previous life, it became covered by offense. He suffered. When the offense was gone, then his bhakti manifested. But because he was also about to die, then the dainya-bhava caused the bhakti to rise up quickly, boosted it. So at that moment, he surrendered. He did not pray to the Lord, please save me. Only he prayed, oh my Lord, I am yours. I am your devotee. I surrender to you.
14:55He never asked to be saved, because to demand that the Lord will save you is not surrender.
15:08When Durvasa Rishi, he sent the kritya, the fiery demoness to kill Ambarish Maharaj, Ambarish Maharaj just folded his hands.
15:18If Krishna wants to kill me, good, that just means to relocate me somewhere else. If Krishna doesn't want to kill me, then whatever he decides, it is fine.
15:42Bhaktivinoda Thakur, he has praise: "Oh my Lord, you can kill me, or you can save me, as you like, you have the rights, you have the adhikara, because I am your dasa." This is surrender. So only like this, he offered prayers and glorified the Lord. Oh, then the Supreme Lord appeared, and he took the lotus flower to offer to him. So he did not say, "save me," because pure bhakti appeared. But it was the pure bhakti that he had before, now intensified by the situation. So the type of bhakti that you have, the type of bhakti-lata-bija, seed of devotion that you have, corresponds to the type of consciousness of the sadhu who gave you the bhakti-lata-bija, who gave you that seed of devotion. In Bhakti-sandarbha, it's described very clearly,
16:49that when a soul associates with a sadhu, if a sadhu has a particular mood, then with whom we're associating with, we'll also attain that mood. So that's bhakti-lata-bija. Then that mood will grow, grow, grow, grow. If it goes up to bhava, then it will be a bhava of the nature of that seed.
17:13So if that person will make offence, then it can go to bhava-abhasa or it can go to aparadha-bhava, but because it's the result of offence and the seed of bhakti is indestructible, you should know the devotee will suffer.
17:39And when that suffering period, when the reaction of the offense wears off, then the nature of the devotion as it was before, it will come out.
18:27So why would the person, ruchi, asakti, bhava, make offense to someone? So we see that Citraketu Maharaj, it looked as if he made an offense to Lord Shiva, so Parvati cursed him and he became a demon for one life. We see that even Subhari Rishi made an offense to Garuda and he fell down and gave up his sadhana and married the 50 daughters of Mandhata Maharaj.
19:16We see that Indradyumna Maharaj, made an offense, became an elephant, Gajendra, and then he was delivered, but our Acharyas have given really very profound analysis of these occurrences, and they have concluded, for example, Citraketu Maharaj, he was very advanced, he had bhava, but he was living the life in the heavenly planets,
20:02with so many beautiful heavenly damsels flying in his airplane and he had a very long life but the Supreme Lord was feeling separation from him. Bhagavan could not wait for him to live this long life in the heavenly planets even. So he arranged this situation where it seemed that he had made an offense and he was cursed and he became a demon and then he was very quickly killed by Indra because the Lord wanted to bring him to his lotus feet.
20:42retrieves, quickly, out of love, he was feeling separation, Citraketu Maharaj should come to me, very soon, so he made this situation, the same with Bharata Maharaj. Bharata Maharaj was doing his sadhana, but the Lord wanted him to progress very quickly, so he made him humble, by creating this experience of becoming attached and then becoming a deer and then giving up that life, and then in the next life, he became imperfect. So for those who are on the stage of bhava, generally do not commit any offense. But sometimes the Supreme Lord will create a situation, create an attachment, create a fall down, create, let's say in Citraketu Maharaj, it was not really aparadha, it was aparadha-abhasa, it was not really offense, but aparadha-abhasa, and
21:47create a situation that looks negative, but that situation is to accelerate the progress of the
23:33So these are some adjacent also examples which are connected to this question, adjacent to this question. So first we should know that the bhakti-lata-bija, the seed that we get, corresponds to the type of association that we have, and it's indestructible. So even if a person makes offense, it just means it becomes covered over, and when the period of suffering is being completed,
24:56So how will you enter into Raganuga-bhakti unless you have love for the Brahmins of Braja, like Daudayal Chaturvedi?
25:05Also Sujana means Vaishnavas of other sampradaya. He is not only the Brahmin of Braja, Chaturvedi Brahmin of Mathura, they are the greatest in the whole universe. My Gurudeva used to say, the Chaturvedi Brahmins of Mathura, they are the best of the best. So, not only that, but also, he is a Sampradayika Vaishnava, yes, in the line of Swami Haridas, also. So, we are very fortunate to have his association.
25:43But something more, when our Sri Gauranga Mahaprabhu came to Brajamandala, first he came to Mathura, and there in Mathura, he took bath at Vishram Ghat, and then on one side he sat down and was chanting Harinama, so that Ghat, where Mahaprabhu was sitting and chanting is called Chaitanya Mahaprabhu Ghat, in Mathura, so various families of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu Ghat, they are the guardians of different There are 24 important ghats along the Yamuna there in Mathura.
26:32So the Chaitanya Mahaprabhu Ghat has been taken, has been served and is under the adhikari of one family for hundreds of years since the time of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and that is our Prabhu's family. So, he is the guardian and sevayat of Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu's Ghats, and the Yamuna in Mathura. So, Daudayal Chaturvedi is very dear to us, Gaudiyas, not only him, but his father and grandfather and great-grandfather and great-great-grandfather for generations.
27:16Another thing, you know that if anyone comes from anywhere in India and they go to a holy tirtha, then when they come to the holy tirtha they have to find their tirtha-purohita priests, because in any holy tirtha the Brahmins are there, the tirtha-purohitas, and they have connection with different gotras, with different lineages, with different places all over India. So if you have come from Kashmir or if you have come from Gujarat or you have come from Orissa then when you go to the holy Tirtha, then you find your Tirtha-purohita, whose service it is to take care of all the pilgrims from that place, or in that tradition, or in that Sampradaya.
28:12So, anyone who is in the Madhva Sampradaya, let's say they're coming from Udupi, and they want to come to, they come to Brajamandala, then they have to find their Tirtha-purohita. So, which family are the Tirtha-purohitas for the Madhva-sampradaya, for the family of our Daudayal Chaturvedi, for hundreds of years? Yes, that means that even before Mahaprabhu came to Braja, Madhavendra Puri came to Braja to do parikrama, and he first came to Mathura, and then the Tirtha-purohitas,
29:05who has shown the Brajamandala to Sri Madhavendra Puri. It is his ancestor. When the Tirtha-purohita is taking someone on the parikrama of Braja, then each person, they ask them to sign, to sign their book. And so all our pandas in Govardhan, in Nandagram, and other places, I have seen, they have the signature of my Gurudeva, Bhakti Prajnan Keshava Maharaj, Bhakti Siddhanta Sarasvati Thakur, Bhaktivinoda Thakur, this is our tradition, but these traditions today, in the advancement of Kali Yuga, they are being forgotten, but we aspire to be the servant of servant of servant of the Gaudiyas, and we will not give up the tradition of our Guru-varga and Parampara, so in every generation, we maintain the prema-sambandha, loving relationship with our Tirtha-purohita.
30:19I believe actually Prabhuji, he has so many palm leaves and among there there is some writing of Madhavendra Puri also. So we are very fortunate because Raghunatha Dasa Goswami has said this. If you want to enter into Raganuga-bhakti, you have to have intense love for Gurudev, for Braja, for the eternal associates of Radha-Krishna and Mahaprabhu, for the Vaishnavas of all sampradayas and the Brahmins of the Dham. Someone may say, "Oh, why?" Don't speculate. Follow Raghunatha Dasa Goswami, then you can realize it and you can feel the deep sambandha with Braja.
31:07Because really, Vraja-mandala is transcendental, it is aprakrta, it is a cin-maya-dham, it is a All the trees are desire trees, all the dust is cintamani, but by material eyes, we think that this Vraja-mandala is made of pañca-bhūta, pañca-mahābhūta, earth, water, fire, air, ether, but it is transcendental. When you come to Brajamandal, how do you know that this transcendental Brajamandal is accepting you? So when the Brahmins of the Dham, they accept you, it means Brajamandal has accepted you. Yes, yes, this is true. So we are most fortunate. Prabhu, you want to tell something? Yes. Hindi.
33:26Hare Rāma, Hare Rāma, Rāma Rāma, Hare Hare, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa, Hare Hare
34:11Actually, you know, we have about 100, 150 devotees have come from Jodhpur, and they're just staying, they're just arrived here in Anandam, so he's actually taking them on the Chaurasi Krosa Brajamandal Parikrama, he's leading, very good. One thing, yesterday, we heard some glorification of Shikshastakam, was very inspiring.
34:48I also want to say just a few words. Why is Shikshastakam called Shikshastakam? So yesterday we heard from Sri Achyutalala Bhakta Goswami. What type of shiksha is there in each one of the verses of Shikshastakam? Because it looks like vilapa. It looks like the crying, the lamentation of Radharani herself or of Mahaprabhu, sometimes in bahya-dasha, sometimes in antar-dasha, outer consciousness, sometimes in inner consciousness.
35:44So, but But there is, even though it looks like vilapa or pralapa, but still there is teaching there. There are three ways of giving a teaching.
36:23You can give a teaching, like a master, prabhu, and that is the teaching method of the Vedas. The Vedas give imperative commands.
36:57So, Vedas give imperative commands, like a master, but the Puranas, the Puranas instruct you, like a friend So, instead of saying, "do this," they say, "Oh, let me tell you a story," once upon a time, and then you hear the story, and you think, "Oh, this person who made this mistake in the story, I'm also making that mistake, I should correct myself."
37:39Then, prabhu-mitra-priyevaca; then the third way to instruct someone is the kanta-sammitā-padāvalī, that means like a lover. So kavya or poetry does not give you an order, it does not tell you a story, but it's poetry, it's full of dhvani, it's full of suggestions, so just as a lover who is rasika speaks in such a way which is so pleasing to the heart and full of suggestions, and from this we can learn many things. So, Siksha is giving shiksha, it's giving instruction in this way.
38:27So, Sri Achyutalala Bhakta Goswami was giving examples of this. I want to give another interpretation from Prabhupada Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura. Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura has raised this point that there are six Vedangas. What are the six Vedangas? Remember? Six Vedangas. These are not the Vedas, but Vedangas, they are limbs of Vedic knowledge that you have to learn just to become qualified to study the Vedas.
39:13Yeah, so, Vyakarana, first you have to learn grammar; how can you read the Vedas if you don't know grammar? Vyakarana, Chhanda, you cannot chant the mantras if you don't know the meter of the mantras. is it anustubh chanda, is it gayatri chanda? So Vyakarana, Chanda, Nirukta, Nirukta means etymology, that means being able to break down the word, find out what is the etymological root of the words, understanding the words based on etymology, so that is Nirukta, then Kalpa, Kalpa means rituals, how to perform rituals, because the mantra is in the Vedas, but how do you use the mantras, at what point
40:08in the ritual, and Jyotisha, Jyotisha means astrology, because if you're going to perform a Vedic ritual, you have to do it at the correct astrological time, and Shiksha, Shiksha means how to pronounce the mantras in such a way, udātta, anudātta, svarita, they're intonations of the voice, you know, the sound has to go to the higher pitch, the medium pitch and the lower pitch, So that is shiksha, shiksha means pronunciation, how to pronounce it to get the right effect, because if you make the wrong intonation, when you're pronouncing the mantra, even if you get the chanda correct, but you make the intonation wrong, then the meaning will change. So shiksha means how to pronounce properly to get the right effect; this is shiksha. So therefore these verses of Mahaprabhu are called shiksha-astakam,
41:22astakam, how to pronounce the holy name to get the right effect, understand? So the fact of the matter is that in pronunciation you have to know uccāraṇa-sthāna for Vedic mantras. Uccāraṇa-sthāna means which part of the mouth is the uccāraṇa, the utterance going on, and the prayatna, the effort, and all of these things are involved in doing uccāraṇa, proper articulation of the mouth.
42:42low, middle, and anyway, the material senses cannot even touch the holy name. Jiva Goswami in Bhagavata Sandarbha, there he describes the characteristics of Bhagavan in the form of his holy name. What is that? Van-manasa-gochara. Van-manasa-gochara. The holy name is beyond the vocal instrument, the power of speech. The holy name is beyond the power of speech and beyond the mind.
43:22So vān-manasa-gocara, the holy name is nikhila-pramāṇa-pariccheda-gocara; it is inaccessible by all of the 10 types of investigation. There are 10 types of pramāṇa or evidence such as perception and inference and śabda, even śabda, but there are different types of śabda, the Vedas are not, the truth is not accessible through the Vedas,
44:37He has a hellish mentality. So śabda-sāmānya is material sound. Material sound is the guṇa, the subtle cause and quality of ākāśa, ether. So ākāśa and śabda, they are the tāmasika transformation of ahaṅkāra. So the sound that your material tongue can produce is a tāmasika transformation of ahaṅkāra. Understand? From the pradhāna comes sāttvika, mahat-tattva, then rājasika sūtra-tattva, then tāmasika ahaṅkāra, then from ahaṅkāra, the slightly more sāttvika portion makes manas, the rājasika portion makes buddhi and indriya, and then the tāmasika portion of the ahaṅkāra makes the śabda, ākāśa, sparśa, and the vāyu, and like this, so the sense objects, the tanmātras, and the elements,
45:51come from the tāmasika transformation of ahaṅkāra, which itself is a tāmasika transformation of mahat-tattva. So if you're thinking that that sound, that śabda-sāmānya, which is a tāmasika transformation of ahaṅkāra, ego, and the mahā-mantra is the same thing, then you're a resident of hell.
46:17If you think that the mahā-mantra is accessible by your senses, then by implication you're thinking that the mahā-mantra is śabda-sāmānya.
46:30So then the problem comes, how can I do the uccāraṇa? How can I utter the holy name? It's a big problem if you understand the metaphysical reality between śabda-sāmānya, material sound, and the holy name is śabda-brahma. it is tan van manas agochara, beyond the voice, beyond the mind, it cannot be investigated by 10 different types of collecting evidence, it is svata siddha, it is eternally perfect and self-existent, it is svayam prakasha, self-manifested, these are all the characteristics of harinama, because it is bhagavan himself, then how you chant it, then you'll need
48:04Go beyond duality. So though the Maha Mantra is mentioned in the Kali Santarana Upanishad, it is not the mantra of Karmakanda. It is directly the Supreme Lord Himself. So the Shiksha, which teaches us how to utter the Maha Mantra, how to live and how to pray in such a way that Harinama Prabhu will descend and dance on our tongue.
48:35That shiksha is not a Vedanga, just a partial Vedanga. It is the Purna Jnana, complete knowledge. That shiksha is complete. It is not partial.
49:19not only that but all the nine angas of bhakti are all complete just by nama-saṅkīrtana. so the shiksha that teaches us how to utter the holy name is not actually a Vedanga, a partial Vedanga but it is a complete Vedic knowledge
50:25for everyone at every level of adhikāra, how to go through each stage of progress, so that the holy name will come and dance on one's tongue, along with rasa, prema-rasa, and therefore it's called Śikṣāṣṭakam, gaur-prema-nanda-līlā.
