LECTURE BY HIS HOLINESS BHAKTI CARU SWAMI ON SRIMAD BHAGAVATAM 04-25-16 ON 09 OCTOBER 2010.

Transcription : Ranga Radhika Dasi
Editing : Ramananda Raya Dasa

Audio Reference :

http://www.bcswami.com/2010/12/12/srimad-bhagavatam-3-25-16

Om Namo Bhagavate Vasudevaya
Om Namo Bhagavate Vasudevaya
Om Namo Bhagavate Vasudevaya

Srimad Bhagavatam, Canto 3, Chapter 25, Text 16

aham mamabhimanotthaih
kama-lobhadibhir malaih
vitam yada manah suddham
aduhkham asukham samam

aham — I; mama — mine; abhimana — from the misconception; utthaih —produced; kama — lust; lobha — greed; adibhih — and so on; malaih —from the impurities; vitam — freed; yada — when; manah — the mind;suddham — pure; aduhkham — without distress; asukham — withouthappiness; samam — equipoised.

Translation By His Divine Grace Srila Prabhupada:

When one is completely cleansed of the impurities of lust and greedproduced from the false identification of the body as “I” and bodilypossessions as “mine,” one’s mind becomes purified. In that pure statehe transcends the stage of so-called material happiness and distress.

Purport By Srila Prabhupada

Kama and lobha are the symptoms of material existence. Everyonealways desires to possess something. It is said here that desire andgreed are the products of false identification of oneself with thebody. When one becomes free from this contamination, then his mind andconsciousness also become freed and attain their original state. Mind,consciousness and the living entity exist. Whenever we speak of theliving entity, this includes the mind and consciousness. The differencebetween conditional life and liberated life occurs when we purify themind and the consciousness. When they are purified, one becomestranscendental to material happiness and distress. In the beginningLord Kapila has said that perfect yoga enables one to transcend theplatform of material distress and happiness. How this can be done isexplained here: one has to purify his mind and consciousness. This canbe done by the bhakti-yoga system. As explained in the Narada-pancaratrika, one’s mind and senses should be purified (tat-paratvenanirmalam). One’s senses must be engaged in devotional service to theLord. That is the process. The mind must have some engagement. Onecannot make the mind vacant. Of course there are some foolish attemptsto try to make the mind vacant or void, but that is not possible. Theonly process that will purify the mind is to engage it in Krishna. Themind must be engaged. If we engage our mind in Krishna, naturally theconsciousness becomes fully purified, and there is no chance of theentrance of material desire and greed.

[End of Purport]

Aham mamabhimanotthaih
Kama lobhadibhir malaih
Vitam yada manah suddham
Adukham asukham samam

When one is completely cleansed of the impurities of lust and greedproduced from the false identification of the body as “I” and bodilypossessions as “mine,” one’s mind becomes purified. In that pure statehe transcends the stage of so-called material happiness and distress.

So, Kapila Muni is instructing His mother. After His father lefthome His mother was left by His father at His custody. He told Him totake care of His mother and His mother, who was well aware of the factthat her son is none other than the Supreme Personality of Godhead,asked Him some questions.  And in response to those questions KapilaMuni is mentioning these instructions.

Actually Devahuti’s question was very simple, very pertinentquestion that how can I become free from this miserable entanglement ofthe body? How can I become free from this dangerous situation that I amin and how can I become free from this very disgusting onslaught of thesenses?  And, while answering the questions, Kapila Muni, in theprevious verse made it a point that it is the modes of the materialnature that causes one to become entangled in the material nature. Orwhen one becomes entangled in the material nature, when one is situatedin the material nature, he automatically becomes subjected to the threemodes of material nature.

And yesterday we discussed that actually it is the mode of passionand ignorance that causes the bondage. And when one transcends theinfluence of the mode of passion and ignorance and comes to the mode ofgoodness, he somewhat realizes the condition of the material nature,but he cannot properly understand the spiritual reality. The mode ofgoodness is not enough. That’s also a material mode. Goodness, if stillin the goodness, it is not, it is recognizing the influence orundesirable influence of the passion and ignorance, but in itself modeof goodness is not enough to free one from the bondage of the materialnature.

That is the difference between conditioned stage and liberatedstage. The stage in which the consciousness of the living entity isattracted by the three modes of material nature is conditioned life.But when that same consciousness is attached to the Supreme Personalityof Godhead, one is situated in the consciousness of liberation. Sobondage and liberation is simply a matter of being separated from theLord and being attached to the Lord. When we are separated from theLord we are in the material nature. When we are connected to the Lordwe are in the spiritual nature.  And in today’s verse He is pointingout that ultimately it is a matter of consciousness and mind.

Now what is the link between consciousness and mind ? Consciousnessis the inherent characteristic of a living entity. The soul is thereand wherever there is a spirit soul the consciousness must be there.This consciousness is the symptom of life, meaning the consciousness isthe symptom of the existence of the soul. Wherever there is a soulthere must be consciousness, or we can say wherever there isconsciousness there must be a soul. Is that tree conscious? And if ourconclusion is yes, that tree is also conscious, then we have toconclude that there is a soul in the tree. Although to our bare eyes itmay appear that a tree doesn’t have a soul, tree is not a living entity.

And that is the difference between the Vedic understanding and nonVedic understanding.  There are many other religions that accept theexistence of the soul, but they do not accept that the trees and plantshave a soul. What to speak of trees and plants, Christianity doesn’teven accept that the animals have souls. Like, often I find it very,very surprising that their concept of soul is so is so, so incomplete.Or they don’t actually have any understanding of the soul. NowChristianity doesn’t accept the animals have soul, do you know what theMuslims say? They say the women do not have soul! [laughter]

So the point is that they don’t understand what the soul is. Theydon’t have any understanding of the soul, that’s why they make suchstrange conclusions. But the Vedic scriptures give us the perfectunderstanding of the soul. What is a soul? Soul is the source ofconsciousness. Just as fire has inherent characteristic of light.Wherever there is fire, there is light. Or wherever there is lightthere is fire. We cannot separate light from fire. We may not feel thefire, we may not feel the heat, but whenever we see light we have toconclude, an intelligent conclusion will be that there is fire. Likethere is this light, a layman may not understand that there is fire,but a knowledgeable person will know that there is fire. That’s what ishappening. Electricity is passing through the filament and the filamentis causing the resistance to the flow of electricity. And as a resultof that, the filament is becoming hot, through resistance. And that
heat is generating the light. That heat is fire and it is generating the light.

Similarly when you look at the sun we may not see that sun is fire,but you know, but general conclusion is that the sun is a ball of fire.There is a huge source of fire, a fiery planet! And that’s why it isgiving out light. So just as wherever there is light, we have tounderstand that the source of that light is fire, similarly whereverthere is consciousness we have to conclude that the source of thatconsciousness is the soul.

So soul and consciousness cannot be separated. That is the ‘cid’aspect. A soul is ‘sat cid ananda’. The soul is eternal, sat. Soul isimperishable, soul will never die. Na jayate na mriyate va kadacin ajonityah sasvato yam puranah na hanyate hanyamane sarire [Bg. 2.20]. Sothat is the nature, that is the characteristic of the soul: eternal,ever existing, ever lasting. So that is the ‘sat’ aspect of the soul.

Then the ‘cid’ aspect is the consciousness aspect of the soul. Thesoul is conscious and soul is constantly hankering for ananda. In itsnatural state a soul is anandamaya. Soul is anandamaya. Just as Krishnais anandamaya, the soul is anandamaya, but that ananda aspect of thesoul is relative to its connection with Krishna. When the soul isconnected to Krishna it is anandamaya. When the soul is separated fromKrishna then this ananda aspect is missing. He becomes nirananda.

So these three characteristics that are spiritual and that areinherent in Krishna are also present in a spirit soul in itsconstitutional position. But he loses its constitutional position. Heloses his constitutional position when it separates from Krishna. Andthe example for that is just like a spark of fire. A spark is fire, butwhen the spark becomes separated from fire and falls on the heap ofash, that spark loses its fiery qualities and becomes ash. Originallyit is fire, but it’s a minute fire. So for the minute fire to maintainits fiery quality by itself is not possible. When the spark isseparated from fire it just loses its fiery qualities. And losing thefiery quality means ash. When the fire is gone then the spark isnothing but a speck of ash. It falls on a heap of ash and it becomesash. But actually it has the ability to be ignited into a fire, but tobecome ignited into a fire it needs to go back to the fire.

So similarly a living entity, a jiva, when he is connected to theSupreme Personality of Godhead, he possesses the spiritual qualitiesthat the Lord has. Isvarah paramah Krishna sac cid ananda vigraha [Bs.5.1]

So Krishna is sac cid ananda vigraha and when a jiva is connected toKrishna, he is sac cid ananda vigraha. But when the living entitybecomes separated from Krishna then he falls into Krishna’s externalenergy, Maya. Maya means illusion. He falls into that illusorycondition and in that illusory condition he loses his originalidentity. And falling in the world of matter it becomes matter. Itstarts to identify itself with matter. Therefore a living entity, thejiva, begins to consider that his body is the self. He identifieshimself with the body.

And then, again, there are two types of bodies: subtle body and thegross body. Two types of material bodies. Material nature is made ofeight elements. Bhumir apo analo vayuh kham mano buddhir eva caahankara [Bg 7.4]. Mind, intelligence, false ego, earth, water, fire,air, ether. Five are gross and three are subtle. With the five grosselements he gets a gross body. This body, the gross body is made offive gross elements. Earth, water, fire, air, ether, all these elementsare there in the body. This body is composed of these five elements.But beyond this gross body there is another body, subtle body, made ofmind, intelligence and false ego. False ego: the first covering for aliving entity. False ego, mistaken identity.
The moment a living entity comes to the material nature, or we can say,the moment a living entity looks away from Krishna, because it isminute, its consciousness is very minute. Minute means it is like a rayof consciousness.

A living entity’s consciousness is like a ray of consciousness. Thatray of consciousness, ray can be projected only on one point. A livingentity can project his consciousness only in one direction. It caneither project its consciousness towards Krishna or it can project itsconsciousness away from Krishna. When a living entity projects itsconsciousness away from Krishna, then what is away from Krishna?Krishna’s external energy! There are only two things: Krishna’sinternal energy or Krishna’s external energy. When you are lookingtowards Krishna we are looking towards Krishna’s internal potency. Whenwe’re looking away from Krishna we are looking at Krishna’s externalenergy. And when we look towards external energy which is inferior, butjiva bhutam mahabaho yayedam dharyate jagat [Bg. 7.5].

The jiva bhuta, the living entities, are coming from Krishna’ssuperior energy. Living entities are coming from the superior energy ofKrishna, but apareyam itas tv anyam [Bg. 7.5]: this material nature isKrishna’s inferior energy, apara, but prakritim viddhim me param [Bg.7.5]. The internal energy is the superior energy. External energy isinferior energy. Living entities are coming from superior energy. Andit’s looking now towards the inferior energy.

What happens when a superior comes across an inferior? He develops atendency to lord over. It’s a natural tendency. As soon as a livingentity comes across this inferior material nature, because he issuperior it develops a tendency to lord over. Now that tendency to lordover is the cause of his false ego. It’s a ‘matter’ actually. Thistendency is an influence of a certain matter called false ego, whichcauses the covering to the living entity. It becomes covered by falseego. False ego, he becomes covered with a mistaken identity. Instead ofbecoming the servant of Krishna he identifies himself to be the lordand master of this material nature. And that’s the first covering.

Then through intelligence he gets the covering of intelligence andas a result of that he begins to think how is he going to exploit thismaterial nature. Manah sasthani indriyani prakriti sthani karsati [Bg.15.7]. He tries to exploit this material nature. This exploitation ofthe material nature is the result of the intelligence or is caused bythe intelligence. And how does he try to exploit this material nature?Mana and five senses, mind and five sense. Manah sasthani indriyani. Sothen comes the covering of the mind through which his consciousnessflows towards the material direction. His consciousness now is flowingconstantly towards the material direction. And that is the mind. Mindis the medium. It’s a substance which is the medium for consciousnessto flow to the material direction. So this is how a living entitybecomes entangled.

Now the existence aspect of a living entity is relative to itsconsciousness. When a living entity is conscious he is existing. When aliving entity is unconscious, he is not existing. He is not aware ofhis existence. So when a living entity is conscious in this materialnature his consciousness is flowing constantly through the mind. Now asit has been pointed out in the previous verse, condition and liberationis a matter of just a flow of consciousness in two differentdirections. When the consciousness is flowing towards the materialdirection it is a conditioned stage. When the consciousness is flowingtowards Krishna that is the Krishna Conscious state, or liberated state.

So, now in the material nature the mind is flowing towards…, theconsciousness is flowing through the mind. Therefore there is so muchimportance given to the mind. In this verse it is saying that two mostimportant considerations for the living entity’s existence isconsciousness and mind. In Bhagavad Gita Krishna is giving so muchemphasis on this mind, that man-mana bhava, man-mana bhava [Bg.18.65].Time and time again Krishna is pointing out, with your mind you thinkof Me. With your mind you think of Me, what does it mean? Change yourconsciousness. Through your mind your consciousness is flowing towardsthe material direction. Now you change the direction. Don’t think ofmatter. Don’t let your consciousness be projected to matter, rather letyour consciousness come towards the spiritual direction. Think of Me.So this is actually a process of changing one’s consciousness.

Now Prabhupada is making a very important point here, is that thechanging of consciousness, of mind, changing the activity of the mindfrom material to spiritual, is not possible by any other means otherthan devotional service. Astanga yoga process and other processesactually try to do that. All the other spiritual activities areactually meant to change the consciousness, flow of consciousness.

But they get caught up with some misconception. They think that itactually means to stop the mind from thinking. We can’t blame them,because the first aphorism of yoga , astanga yoga by Patanjali, is‘atha citta vritti nirodha’, or, ‘yoga citta vritti nirodha’. Theprocess of yoga is to stop the ‘vritti’, the activities of ‘citta’ ormind. Stop the activities of the mind. But what it actually means stopthe material activities of the mind. But less informed people think nowwe have to stop the activities of the mind. That means stop the mindfrom thinking, but that will never happen! [laughs] Mind will never beable to stop thinking! Only when you become unconscious, then we can.Probably we will stop thinking when we are dead!

But still then we won’t, because the subtle body will be there andthe activity of the subtle body will continue. The consciousness willbe dwelling in the subtle body. Just like in a dream. We are asleep,but we are dreaming. Consciousness is still active, but on the subtleplane. There is a stage when it is complete cessation of consciousness.That is the state of ‘susukti’. That is the state of total inactivityof the soul, deep sleep, which is considered to be ‘Tamisra’ and ‘AndhaTamisra’. There is a region. When the soul goes into that region thenthe soul is completely inactive.

Inactive means the soul doesn’t have any consciousness, activeconsciousness. But that is not the desirable state. Our goal of life isnot to die. But this system, or this misconception is leading them tothink that, to become dead. The Buddhist, the impersonalist, that istheir goal: sunya, void. Become completely unconscious. Butunconsciousness, to become unconscious is not the goal of life, cannotbe the goal of life. We are conscious. The goal is actually to becomesuper conscious!

The goal of life is not to become unconscious, but to become superconscious. The goal of life is to become Krishna Conscious! So that iswhat one understands when one comes across a bona fide spiritual masterlike Srila Prabhupada. It is through the teachings of Srila Prabhupadathat we became aware of these facts. Otherwise we were in ignorancealso. We were in tamisra and andha tamisra! [laughs] The deepestdarkness of ignorance. But Prabhupada gave us the right understanding.Citta vritti nirodha doesn’t mean to stop the activities of the mind,but to stop the material activities of the mind and develop thespiritual consciousness.

From an impure state of existence get into the purified state ofexistence and that is being explained by Kapiladeva here in simplewords. He is saying when one is completely cleansed of the impuritiesof lust and greed, produced from the false identification of the bodyand the mind. As we considered before, the spark came out of fire andfell in the heap of ash and began to identify itself with ash. That’swhat happened to us. We became separated from Krishna, falling into thematerial nature and began to identify ourselves with matter: this body.It’s matter. It’s not our real identity. And that’s our falseidentification. That is the root of our false ego, identifying ourgross and subtle bodies to be ourselves.

Now as a result of identifying with the body then what is happening?We are developing lust and greed. We’re trying to enjoy by exploitingother bodies. That is what lust is. A living entity identifying himselfas the gross body, as body made of matter, and he tries to enjoy byexploiting other material bodies. That is the definition of lust. Andto desire to possess more and more in order to enjoy, that is greed.But these two are the basic characteristic or basic influence of themode of passion and ignorance. Tada rajas tamo bhavah kama lobhadayasca ye [SB. 1.2.19]. Kama lobhadayas ca ye. So here also, kamalobhadibhir malaih. Kama, lust, and lobha, greed. Adibhir. Adibhirmeans etcetera. Begins with lust, greed, and etcetera. What are theother ones? Anger, illusion, envy, pride. Lust, greed, illusion, envy,anger and pride, these are the six impurities of the soul.

So how to purify them? The way to purify them is, as Prabhupadaexplained very clearly in the purport, Krishna Consciousness! KrishnaConsciousness, turn your consciousness towards Krishna. How to do that?By constantly thinking of Krishna with the mind. Consciousness isflowing through mind, but think of Krishna. That will make theconsciousness to become purified. That means consciousness will be nowprojected towards the spiritual direction instead of the materialdirection. In the material nature we are having all kinds ofundesirable influences and those undesirable influences will becomepurified by being projected properly on to Krishna. That is thebeginning of Krishna Consciousness.

This terminology that Srila Prabhupada applied for bhakti,devotional service, is so appropriate! Krishna Consciousness, verysimply it explains, what is our purpose, what is our goal, what is ourobjective. Krishna Consciousness; think of Krishna! Allow yourconsciousness to be projected towards Krishna. Then the rest willhappen. First is ‘man mana bhavah’, and then the result of that, whenmind is projected unto Krishna, then ‘tesam satata yuktanam bhajatampriti purvakam dadami buddhi yogam tam’[Bg. 10.10]. I give himspiritualized intelligence, buddhi yogam. So this buddhi yoga is thepurification or proper application of intelligence. All this while wewere trying to exploit the material nature with our intelligence andnow that intelligence is projected towards Krishna and thinking how amI going to serve Krishna? That is the buddhi yoga.

So intelligence is purified. It all begins with mind. Mind isprojected towards Krishna, then the intelligence is purified, because‘satata yuktanam bhajatam priti purvakam’. When he is constantlyengaged in devotional service, his intelligence is purified, becauseintelligence is thinking how is he going to surrender himself toKrishna. And when the intelligence is purified in this way and hebecomes a devotee of Krishna then his…does he have a false ego? Thencan he possibly have a false ego? No! His false ego, mistaken identity,has been rectified to his pure consciousness, or pure identification ofhimself as ‘jivera svarupa haya Krishnera nitya dasa’ [CC Madhya20.108-109]. When he becomes a servant of Krishna he is situated in hisactual identity, in his spiritual identity. Jivera svarupa hayaKrishnera nitya dasa.

Now the question is, now at that state does he have a mind? Does hehave an intelligence? Question is, at that stage does he have a subtlebody? Does he have a subtle body? No! Now he is freed from the coveringof his subtle body. He is situated in his pure spiritual identity as aservant of Krishna. So he may have a gross body, but he doesn’t have asubtle body. And that stage that means he is in his pure spiritualidentity. So at that stage he is called ‘jivan mukta’, liberated stage.Although he is in his apparently material body, but he is liberated.Iha yasya harer dasye karmana manasa gira nikhilasv apy avasthasu jivanmukta sa ucyate[ Bhakti-rasamrita-sindhu (1.2.187)]. Jivan mukta stage,and this jivan mukta stage or this stage is also known as ‘svarupasiddhi’, the perfection of his spiritual identity. He is now in hissvarupa siddhi. He is situated now in his spiritual identity, perfectedspiritual identity. Although he is in his material body, but he is aliberated soul.

And that is the state of a pure devotee. Although he is in hismaterial body, but he is in the material body there is a pure spiritualpersonality. When one is completely cleansed of the impurities of lustand greed, produced from the false identification of the body as ‘I’and bodily possessions as ‘Mine’ one’s mind becomes purified. In thatpure state he transcends the stage of so called material happiness anddistress. Kapila Muni is pointing out that at that state he is notaffected by his material condition, his physical condition of happinessand distress, because he is beyond that. His is not being affected by aphysical condition anymore, because his consciousness now is situatedin another dimension, in another plane. So what is happening herethrough the body, he is not affected by that. So that is the sign ofthe liberated soul.

So Srila Prabhupada very emphatically pointed out that one canachieve that state only through pure devotional service. Not by anyother means. Not by austerities, not by penances, not by astanga yoga,not by any other so called spiritual activities. The actual spiritualprocess, the actual effective spiritual process is KrishnaConsciousness.

And we are very fortunate that we somehow found it. We somehow gotit by Prabhupada’s mercy and by the mercy of Prabhupada’s devotees whohave been so effectively distributing his books. And if we apply theprocess then we’ll see how it works. One applies the process and hebecomes purified. What is the sign of purification as we werediscussing yesterday? The sign of this purification is how one leaveshis body, his or her body.

We were discussing about one devotee who just left. Just a simplelady, a house wife, left her body and we could see that she left insuch pure consciousness, like as if she didn’t have any entanglement,any attachment to the material nature. The time came to leave the body,it’s a relief to get out of this material body and go back to thespiritual sky.

Those who properly practice the process, even though in theirlifetime, they may not have achieved their perfection, but at the timeof death Krishna will help them to become hundred percent purified andgo back to Godhead. Because that awareness is there, althoughphysically we may not be able to properly come to that situation orperfection, but at the time of death, by nature’s arrangement and bythe arrangement of Krishna, we will see that now the time has come tobecome free from all the entanglement, all the attachments, and that isthe consideration.

The purity as we are saying is to become free from the entanglementof material nature, not to be affected by the happiness and distress ofthis material nature. And that will happen only when we are properlysituated in our spiritual identity. And we see, time and time again, weare seeing how this process works. How effective is this process.

Thank you very much. All glories to Srila Prabhupada! Gaura Premanande Hari Hari bol!

Does anybody have any question? Yes?

Devotee: Gurumaharaja, why senses is not identified in the human as the subtle body?

BCS: because it is gross!

Devotee: senses are gross?

BCS: Yeah, see, say for example the eyes. How is it functioning?Eyes are senses. They’re one aspect of our senses. Now the eyes areseeing. Eyes interact with light or fire. Eyes interact with fire andas a result of that, it is pursuing the objects of the eyes, the form.Through eyes we see forms. Now those impressions, or you can even saythose informations are carried from eyes through the nervous system tothe brain segment. Now the eyes are made of matter, the nerves are madeof matter, the brain centre is made of matter. So all thesearrangements, or you can say the system is actually matter. Thereforethese senses are matter. Same thing with our ears. The ears are made ofmatter. The nerves that are carrying the information are made ofmatter, carrying it to the brain centre, that’s also made of matter.But then, who is staying in the brain centre? The mind. And mind isregistering that.

Devotee: [inaudible]

BCS: The mind is subtle.

Devotee:  the mind is interacting.

BCS: okay mind is subtle. Therefore mind is the subtle aspect of the senses.
It is the sixth sense, the mind, but other five senses are material. Mind is subtle. Yes. Hare Krishna!

Devotee: Thank you very much, Maharaja!

BCS: Hare Krishna!

Devotee: Srila Prabhupada[unclear] was mentioning how the soul issac cid ananda and the ananda aspect is depending on the direction yougo on. Can you say something more on the sat and cid, is that alsodependant on this you especially mentioned ananda

BCS: yeah, yeah right. The thing is, you see, like even though weare not connected with Krishna, the cid aspect is there. Like we areconscious. The conscious aspect is there and the other two aredependant, relative to that aspect of consciousness, because ourexistence is relative to our consciousness.

Like, I am, because I am conscious. When I am not conscious, am Iexisting? Right? But in the material nature, because we are identifyingourselves with the body, that aspect of our consciousness is noteternal. Because our body is transient, perishable, therefore that istemporary. Our consciousness becomes I mean our existence becomestemporary. But the ananda aspect is a living entity because it has thatananda aspect in it, it tries to get the ananda. It tries to get anandaand the medium for getting ananda is actually prema, love.

So when one is in a conditioned stage, he tries to get the anandathrough loving exchange with other entities. But because it is on thefalse platform, it’s never effective or is never fulfilled. So thisananda will be achieved only when a jiva establishes connection withKrishna. And the way to establish a connection with Krishna is throughprema. Love is the force that causes two entities to become united.Love is actually a force that causes the unification. But the thing is,this is actually this love is actually meant to be connected toKrishna. This energy is actually meant to be connected to Krishna, butwhen one is oblivious of Krishna he tries to connect himself withothers through this love, but, you know, the end result is not there.Therefore it is said that only when one is connected to Krishna heexperiences the ananda aspect. Otherwise this ananda is restricted inthe material nature in the form of happiness, or sukha. Sukha is notananda. Sukha is cessation of suffering condition, whereas ananda isopposite to suffering condition. If darkness is suffering, then lightis ananda. Now some sort of artificial means to remove darkness issukha. Thank you. Hare Krishna!

Any other question? Okay, Priyavrata, do you have a question?

Devotee: yes, if you generalize this, this sac cid person, you were saying that ananda, what we get here is in a minute

BCS: It’s a reflection.

Devotee:  And there is an ananda Krishna, He is on the full, complete.

BCS: Right!

Devotee: and permanently. He is in ananda all the time.

BCS: right!

Devotee: we just get temporarily and we are not satisfied and then comes the misery and then we get..

BCS: right! Exactly.

Devotee: We want the fullness.

BCS: Good question. Because in anandamaya, being connected to anandamaya we become also anandamaya.

Devotee: So practical, very scientific, Maharaja.

BCS: [laughs] Yes, Krishna Consciousness is a science.

Yes, Dhananjaya?

Devotee: When you quote Bhagavad Gita sasthani indriyani, exploitingmind and senses, but not intelligence and false ego. Why only…

BCS: That is indriyana para..what is that verse? Indriya parah?Indriyani paranyahur indrayebhyo param manah, manah sastu parah buddhi.So this is like the gross material objects. From gross materialobjects, indriyah, the senses are superior. From the senses mind issuperior and even superior to the mind is the intelligence. So you see,prakriti sthani karsati, exploiting. Who is karsati? The mind and withthe mind and… with the mind and the senses he is exploiting. Butintelligence is above that which is considering how the mind and thesenses will will exploit successfully.

So that arrangement is made by the intelligence. That’s why it issuperior. Or because it is superior it is actually making thearrangement. The mind itself or the senses itself cannot actuallyexploit without the intelligence.

Yes? Radha Piyari?

Devotee: Guru Maharaja, you say that when the mind is thinking aboutKrishna we can purify the mind but how can we also purify the grossbody and how important is it in devotional to always purify?

BCS: Very good point. When the subtle body is purified, we areactually not only talking of the purification of the mind. The endresult of the purification of the mind will also include thepurification of intelligence and transformation of false ego, right? Sothat means the subtle body is purified. So when the subtle body ispurified then the gross body is also automatically purified. How? AsPrabhupada gave the example, that when an iron rod is placed on fire,it becomes fire, right? It becomes red hot, it becomes fire! Sosimilarly when the pure spirit soul is existing, you know, likepurification of the subtle body means what? Spiritualization of theself. Now he is a pure spirit soul dwelling in the apparently materialbody. Now, is that material or spiritual?

Devotee: Spiritual

BCS: So the body is spiritualized. Therefore a pure it is said thatthe body of a pure devotee is spiritual. It is not material. Okay, sothank you

Do you have a question? Yeah, say it. Why are you hesitating?

Devotee: You were saying the body is made of fire, are the bodies of animals made of the same process?

BCS: Yes, what do you think? Do you, when you touch an animal body do you feel the heat? Yeah? So where did the heat come from?

Devotee: From the sun.

BCS: No, in the animal body, when you touch the animal, right? Doyou feel the heat in the body? Just like you touch a living body. Is ithot?

Devotee: Yes

BCS: Did you ever touch a dead body?

Devotee: No.

BCS: Okay, you know at least, it is clearly cold. But why a livingbody is hot? Because there is fire in the body, right? Does a bodybreathe? So what is that breathing process consisting of?

Devotee: Air

BCS: Yeah, air, not fire. Breathing is not through, does an animal breathe? Does an animal breath?

Devotee: Yes

BCS: So, there is air also in the body, because through breathingthe air is circulating in the body. So you can see there is solidsubstance, there is liquid substance in the body, there is fire, thereis ether and there is air and there is also ether. So yes, all livingbodies, even a trees’ body is made of five elements. Trees alsobreathe. Yes.

Devotee: They don’t have senses?

BCS: They have their senses but not as active as your senses. Thetrees… Actually Jagadisa Bose, he developed a machine through which hecould demonstrate that trees also feel happiness and pain.

Okay. Any other question?

Thank you all very much!

Gaura Premananda! Hari Haribol!