0:22Shri Narada Muni talks to Shri Vyasa and says to him that if a person at an immature stage takes the path of bhajan and he falls down from that position, there is no fault in that.
1:04Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, he talks, says, to Raghunatha Goswami, that he should continue outwardly as he does, but try to establish nishta in himself. So it seems contradictory, contradictory now. Yes, yes. So you understand the question? Mohan Prabhu is comparing two instructions: the instructions of Narada to Vyasadeva in the first canto of Srimad Bhagavatam and the instructions of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu to Srila Raghunatha dasa Goswami before he had left his home.
1:54So first of all, Narada Rishi says, Those who don't follow the Vedic culture, dharma, they don't follow dharma, religious principles, which gradually elevate the soul to sattva-guna, then for sure they will commit the adharma sins. Adharma simply means the crimes against nature, the act against nature, that is God's nature, the purpose that God has invested every object with. They're misusing the objects and in this way they're not progressing towards the higher consciousness; they're going down.
3:38So, this is the standard in the regular Vedic, dharmic, religious society. But what Narada Rishi is saying is that this dharma is the dharma of the body and mind. It is not the dharma of atma, the soul.
4:03So it is not, though it is a dharma, one type of occupational duty, it is for those who are somewhat in ignorance and identifying with the body to save them from going down into more and more sinful life and suffering. But the purpose of dharma is to come to sattva-guna. The purpose of sattva-guna is to develop viveka, discrimination between matter and spirit, to know 'I am not this body.' Then a question will come, 'Ah, but what's the dharma of my atma? What's the true occupation, spiritual occupation, which is eternal of my soul?' So, Narada Muni is saying, if a person gives up the worldly dharma in order to do bhajan to Krishna, it sometimes happens that they are not mature, their renunciation is not mature.
5:29If someone is following the material dharma and they do adharma, they'll have a very heavy reaction, they'll have to perform prayashchitta atonement in order to try to become free from that reaction. But for those on the path of bhakti, if the devotee makes a mistake, Krishna Himself will clean their heart. So here He said if He falls down, it doesn't mean that He falls down again and again and again deliberately.
5:58It means if kathanchit, if by some mistake, some very strong samskara, that He makes some mistake, but then again He tries to apply Himself in the path of bhakti, then Krishna will save Him and gradually make Him become a pure devotee.
6:28He said, what benefit is there if one perfectly follows his dharma? What benefit is there? Because if one only perfectly follows his dharma and rises up to a high level of a sattva-guna, but he doesn't take to bhajan, In other words, his soul never becomes activated in its natural occupation towards God, But rather the soul is still not engaged in its spiritual dharma. Only the body is going on in its dharma. Because in this material world, the sattva-guna is never completely pure. So that person, he may go up to a higher planet, to Svargaloka, to heaven, and then enjoy there. And when his punya runs out, then he'll come back down again. And then he may go down really far. He may wander in the saṃsāra-cakra, the saṃsāra-cakra,
7:30cycle of birth and death, up to heaven, back to earth and down to hell, and suffer then, come back to earth and then back to heaven, wandering around like this. So ultimately there's no permanent benefit. So in that verse, Narada Muni is weighing up two things. You do your worldly dharma perfectly because it's not the action of the soul, then you get no eternal benefit. And bhakti is so wonderful, even if you do bhakti imperfectly.
8:02And one falls down, has some problem, anything. But still, bhakti is pragalbha. It's very aggressive. It's very bold. So if you keep going in bhakti, once the sins will be destroyed, then once pāpa-bīja, the seed of sin, that is in the form of the saṃskāras, impressions, that will be destroyed, and ultimately avidya, all ignorance will be destroyed, and in the end, that person will attain perfection.
8:34So Narada Rishi is comparing these two things, because in the Vedas, Srila Vyasa Deva has written so much about dharma and karma-kanda, performing ritualistic, fruitive activities and so on, and Narada Rishi is telling him off, 'juṣṭaṃ yad etad asad-upāsanayā svitātma-rūpaṃ na miśraṃ...' No, wait. 'Juhositam dharma...' Wait, let me find the verse. 'Juhositam dhama kirtanu shaashata, sobhava rakta samahan vyatikramaha.' Oh, Vyas, what have you done? You have made a great transgression; you have described dharma, but this dharma is contemptible. So it's quite incredible, the moral system of a person who is averse to God, they have not developed devotion; their highest morality is contemptible in comparison to bhakti.
9:33It's virtuous compared to sins from the relative viewpoint of this world, but compared to the eternal absolute reality, it is nothing. Like Jesus Christ said, 'all of your good works are like dirty rags before the eyes of God.' In the Bible, it's written, 'All your good works are just like dirty rags before the eyes of God.' People cannot understand it because they didn't listen to Narada Muni.
10:09Narada Rishi is explaining it exactly, perfectly.
10:21See, Tulasidas in Ramacharitmanas also, he said a very beautiful poem, my Gurudev used to quote,
10:41The Vedas say, follow dharma. That means you should serve your parents. You should serve your guru. That means in this context, the family Kula Guru, who's teaching you about karma.
11:02The wife should serve their husbands. The younger brothers should honor their elder brothers. So all of these instructions of dharma are being written. But Tulasidasji, he's saying, 'Jāuṃ pitā prahalāda', Prahlad Maharaj gave up his father. He was very powerful. He was the king of the universe. But Prahlad gave up his father. What is this? It's against Vedic dharma.
13:00Lord Rāma. So, tyājyaṁ pitā prahlādaṁ vibhīṣaṇaṁ bandhuṁ… mahātārī, guru, bali-tyājyaṁ; one should never give up his guru. But what did Balī Mahārāja do? Śukrācārya, who is the Śukrācārya, śukra means semen, is a seminal line of gurus, not actual sad-guru-paramparā, but by birth. So Śukrācārya, he was the guru of the demons, only teaching them how to do rituals and astrology and all of these things so that you can enjoy the material world.
13:49So when the Supreme Lord came in the form of Vāmanadeva and said, oh, please give me three steps of land. Then his Guru said, don't give him anything. This Brahmin boy is Vishnu in disguise. Don't give anything to Vishnu.
14:05So then guru, Balī Mahārāja, he gave up his Guru because he was unfavorable to pure bhakti. Guru is a pure devotee, one should never give up Guru. But if the Guru is in only Karma, Jñāna, Aṣṭāṅga-yoga, and worldly things related to the body, and he is vimukha, he is against Krishna, or even if he is not against Krishna, but he is Vaiṣṇava-vidveṣī, he is envious of other devotees, or other Gurus, then Śāstra said that one should give up that person.
14:48Kāntāṁ parivrajanti, Dharma said, the wife should serve the husband, but the Vraja-gopīs, they left their husbands, and went into the forest of Vṛndāvana, called by the flute of Śrī Kṛṣṇa, so bhaya-jaga-maṅgala-kārī, and it made auspiciousness for the whole world, so what Tulasīdāsa Ji is saying here in Rāmcaritmānas, and what Nārada Ṛṣi is saying in Bhāgavatam is the same thing, it's auspicious from a relative point of view, to follow Dharma, but there's no inauspiciousness, even from leaving all dharma in order to perform bhakti. Leaving dharma to perform bhakti does not mean you have a license to do adharma because one who is absorbed in bhakti automatically avoids adharma just by his nature. So this is one instruction. Now the instruction of Mahāprabhu to Raghunātha dāsa Gosvāmī kept trying to run away from home but he was not mature yet.
16:02in bhakti. So Caitanya Mahāprabhu told him, you stay in your home and you practice bhakti there. Raghunātha dāsa has a very qualified guru, who? Yadunandanācārya. Yadunandanācārya is living there nearby and he is associating with him and hearing from him and taking his guidance. Śrīla Haridāsa Ṭhākura used to come there also and other pure devotees, Advaitācārya. So he had good association and for that time in his life he was just taking a good association, cultivate your bhakti inwardly, and when your niṣṭhā comes, Kṛṣṇa Himself will arrange for you to come out of that restricting situation, and so that He could come and then stay with Caitanya Mahāprabhu and Svarūpa Dāmodara Gosvāmī, and Rāmānanda Rāya, Paramānanda Purī, Brahmānanda Bhāratī, and all the great devotees in Jagannātha Purī.
17:17So, here, one is to show that bhakti is sanātana-dharma and ordinary dharma is anitya-dharma, temporary. Bhakti is the svarūpa-anubandhi related to the nature of the soul, not to the body, whereas ordinary dharma is related to the body. This is what the point that Nārada is making.
17:48Mahāprabhu is making this point that if someone will try to renounce when they are immature, they may have many problems. So for that particular person in that situation, he has good association and everything, he should follow this and become more mature and then Kṛṣṇa will help him transition to the next stage in his spiritual life. Is it clear? Good question.
18:21You should all study Śāstra very deeply, then such questions will come. Raghunātha dāsa Gosvāmī is observing the loka-vyavahāra, but he's not doing all the rules and regulations of varṇāśrama-dharma. Also, you should know. He's not performing five types of yajña to counteract the five types of pāpa and all these things that the householders have to do. So he's practicing bhakti, but just in that setting with his family and with his family guru, who was a very qualified person.
19:13Yadunandana, that's right.
19:15Gaur-brahmānande, hari-bol.
