
O jiyat kaisora-caitanyo
murti-matya
grihasramat
lakshmyarcito ’tha
vag-devya
disam
jayi-jaya-cchalat
TRANSLATION
Long live Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu in His kaisora age! Both the
goddess of fortune and the goddess of learning worship Him. The
goddess of learning, Sarasvati, worshiped Him in His victory over
the scholar who had conquered all the world, and the goddess of
fortune, Lakshmi devi, worshiped Him at home. Since He is therefore
the husband or Lord of both goddesses, I offer my obeisances unto
Him.
(Sri Chaitanya Charitamrta.
Adi lila 16:3.)
kamais tais tair hrita jnanah
prapadyante ’nya-devatah
tam tam niyamam asthaya
prakritya niyatah svaya
“Those whose minds are distorted by material desires surrender unto
demigods and follow the particular rules and regulations of worship
according to their own natures.”
(Bg. 7.20)
There are many different types of men in the world, and they’re
functioning under the different modes of material nature. Generally
speaking, most men are not after liberation. If they take to
spirituality, they wish to gain something by spiritual power. It is
not uncommon in India for a person to go to a svami and say,
“Swamiji, could you give me some medicine? I am suffering from this
disease.” He thinks that because a doctor is too expensive, he can
go to a svami who can work miracles. In India also there are svamis
who go to people’s houses and preach, “If you give me one ounce of
gold I can make it into one hundred ounces of gold.” The people
think, “I have five ounces of gold. Let me give it to him, and I’ll
get five hundred ounces.” In this way the svami collects all the
gold in the village, and after collecting it, he vanishes. This is
our disease: when we go to a svami, or a temple or a church, our
hearts are filled with material desires. Wanting some material
profit out of spiritual life, we practice yoga just to keep our
health fit. But, in order to keep healthy, why take shelter of
yoga? We can become healthy through regular exercises and regulated
diet. Why resort to yoga? Because: kamais tais tair hrita-jnanah.
We have the material desire to keep ourselves fit and to enjoy life
by going to church and making God our order-supplier.
Having material desires, men worship various demigods. They have no
idea how to get out of matter; they want to utilize the material
world to its best capacity. For instance, in Vedic literature there
are so many recommendations: if one wants to cure his disease, he
worships the sun, or if a girl wants a good husband, she worships
Lord Siva, or if one wants to become beautiful, he worships such
and such god, or if one wants to become educated, he worships
goddess Sarasvati. In this way Westerners often think that the
Hindus are polytheistic, but actually this worship is not to God,
but to demigods. We should not think that the demigods are God. God
is one, but there are demigods who are also living entities just
like us. The difference is that they have a considerable amount of
power. On this earth there may be a king or a president or a
dictator—these are men like us, but they have some extraordinary
power, and in order to get favors from them, to take advantage of
their power, we worship them in one way or another. But
Bhagavad-gita condemns worship of the demigods. This verse clearly
states that people worship the demigods due to kama, material
lust.
This material life is simply based on lust; we want to enjoy this
world, and we love this material world because we want to gratify
our senses. This lust is a perverted reflection of our love of God.
In our original constitution we are made to love God, but because
we have forgotten God, we love matter. Love is there. Either we
love matter, or we love God. But in no case can we get out of this
loving propensity; indeed, we often see that when one doesn’t have
children, he loves a cat or a dog. Why? Because we want and need to
love something. In the absence of reality, we put our faith and
love in cats and dogs. Love is always there, but it is distorted
into the form of lust. When this lust is baffled, we become angry;
when we become angry, we become illusioned; and when we are
illusioned, we are doomed. This is the process that is going on,
but we have to reverse this process and turn lust into love. If we
love God, we love everything. But if we do not love God, it is not
possible to love anything. We may think that it is love, but it is
simply a glamorized form of lust. Those who have become the dogs of
lust are said to have lost all good sense: kamais tais tair
hrita-jnanah.
There are many rules and regulations for the worship of demigods in
the scriptures, and one may question why the Vedic literature
recommended their worship. There is necessity. Those who are
motivated by lust want the opportunity to love something, and the
demigods are acknowledged as the officers of the Supreme Lord. The
idea is that as one worships these demigods, he will gradually
develop Krishna consciousness. But if one is completely atheistic
and disobedient and rebellious against any authority, what hope is
there? So one’s obedience to a higher personality can start with
the demigods.
If, however, we take directly to the worship of the Supreme Lord,
worship of the demigods is not necessary. Those who worship the
Supreme Lord directly show all respect to the demigods, but they do
not need to worship them because they know that the supreme
authority behind the demigods is the Supreme personality of
Godhead, and they are engaged in worshiping Him. In any case,
respect is still there. A devotee of the Lord shows respect even to
an ant, what to speak of the demigods? The devotee is aware that
all living entities are parts and parcels of the Supreme Lord and
that they are playing different roles only.
In relation to the Supreme Lord, all beings are to be respected.
Therefore a devotee refers to others as “prabhu,” meaning “My dear
sir, my dear lord.” Submissiveness is a qualification for a devotee
of the Lord. Devotees are kind and obedient, and they have all good
qualifications. In conclusion, if one becomes a devotee of the
Lord, all good qualifications will automatically develop. By
nature, the living entity is perfect, but due to the contamination
of lust, he becomes vicious. That which is part and parcel of gold
is also gold, and whatever is part and parcel of the Complete
perfect is also perfect.
om purnam adah purnam idam
purnat purnam
udacyate
purnasya purnam
adaya
purnam evavasishyate
“The personality of Godhead is perfect and complete. Because He is
completely perfect, all emanations from Him, such as this
phenomenal world, are perfectly equipped as a complete whole.
Whatever is produced of the complete whole is also complete in
itself. Because He is the complete whole, even though so many
complete units emanate from Him, He remains the complete balance.”
(Sri Isopanishad,
Invocation)
Due to the contamination of matter, the perfect living entity falls
down, but this process of Krishna consciousness will again make him
perfect. Through it, he can become truly happy, and after leaving
the material body, enter into the kingdom where there is eternal
life, bliss and full knowledge. (A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada. Book -
On the way to Krishna. Chapter 5.)
"Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Gosvami Maharaja has remarked that
there is a class of common men who claim that anyone and everyone
can worship the Supreme Lord according to his own invented mode of
worship and still attain the Supreme Personality of Godhead. They
claim that one can approach the Supreme Lord either through
fruitive activities, speculative knowledge, meditation or austerity
and that any one of the methods will succeed. They claim that one
can accept many different paths and still reach the same place, and
they maintain that the Supreme Absolute Truth may be worshiped
either as the Goddess Kali, or Goddess Durga, or Lord Siva, Ganesa,
Rama, Hari, or Brahma. In short, they maintain that it does not
matter how the Absolute Truth is addressed, for ali names are one
and the same. They give the example of a man with many names; if he
is called by any of those names, he will answer.
Such views may be very pleasing to an ordinary person, but they are
full of misconceptions. One who worships the demigods, motivated by
material lust, cannot attain the Supreme Personality of Godhead. If
one worships the demigods, the external energy of the Lord can
award some results, but this is not to say that one can attain the
Supreme Lord by such worship. Indeed, their worship is discouraged
in Bhagavad-gita: 7:23." (A.C.
Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada. TLC. Chapter 29.)
