LECTURE BY HIS HOLINESS BHAKTI CARU SWAMI ON SRIMAD BHAGAVATAM 04-25-15 ON 08 OCTOBER 2010.
Transcription : Ranga Radhika Dasi
Editing : Ramananda Raya Dasa
Audio-Reference : http://www.bcswami.com/2010/12/12/srimad-bhagavatam-3-25-15
Om namo Bhagavate Vasudevaya
Om namo Bhagavate Vasudevaya
Om namo Bhagavate Vasudevaya
Srimad Bhagavatam. Third Canto, Chapter twenty five: The Glories of Devotional Service. Text fifteen.
Cetah khalv asyabandhaya Muktaye catmanomatam Gunesu saktambandhaya Ratam va pumsi muktaye
Cetah- consciousness; khalu – indeed; asya – of him; bandhaya – forbondage; muktaye – for liberation; ca – and; atmanah – of the livingentity; matam – is considered; gunesu – in the three modes of nature;saktam – attracted; bandhaya – for conditional life; ratam – attached;va – or; pumsi – in the Supreme Personality of Godhead; muktaye – forliberation.
Translation by His Divine Grace Srila Prabhupada:
The stage in which the consciousness of the living entity isattracted by the three modes of material nature is called conditionallife. But when that same consciousness is attached to the SupremePersonality of Godhead, one is situated in the consciousness ofliberation.
Purport by Srila Prabhupada:
There is a distinction here between Krishna consciousness and mayaconsciousness. Gunesu, or maya consciousness, involves attachment tothe three modes of material nature, under which one works sometimes ingoodness and knowledge, sometimes in passion and sometimes inignorance. These different qualitative activities, with the centralattachment for material enjoyment, are the cause of one’s conditionallife. When the same cetah, or consciousness, is transferred to theSupreme Personality of Godhead, Krishna, or when one becomes Krishnaconscious, he is on the path of liberation. [End of purport]
Cetah khalv asyabandhaya Muktaye catmanomatam Gunesu saktambandhaya Ratam va pumsi muktaye
Cetah khalv asya bandhaya
The stage in which the consciousness of the living entity isattracted to the three modes of material nature is called conditionallife. But when the same consciousness is attached to the SupremePersonality of Godhead, one is situated in the consciousness ofliberation.
So, just in one verse the conditional life and liberated stage havebeen described. Cetah khalv asya bandhaya. When is the consciousnessattached or bound, bandhaya? Bandhaya is bound. Gunesu saktam bandhaya,when it is attached to the modes of material nature. Then it is bound.There are two stages, bound, the living entities can be only in twostages. There is another stage. I’ll come to that afterwards, butgenerally it is two stages. Stage of bondage or conditioned stage, orliberated stage. A living entity can be either conditioned or bound.Either in prison or free. And there is a third stage, which I wasmentioning, it is the stage of unconsciousness. A living entity alsocan be in an unconscious state. Like we see, when we are asleep, thenwe are unconsciousness. Then we are existing, but at time we areneither bound nor liberated, especially in the state of deep sleep.When there is no dream. State of dream also is a state of bondage. Whenthe consciousness is in the gross body, that is the wakeful state ofconsciousness. When the consciousness is in the subtle body then it isin the dream state of consciousness. Svapna avastha and nidra. State ofdream is the state of activity of the subtle body. The body when one isin the subtle body then he is dreaming. When one’s consciousness is inthe gross body then he is awake. And when one is not either in thegross body or subtle body then he is in his deep sleep. And beyond thatdeep sleep is the state of spiritual consciousness. The spiritualconsciousness is when the consciousness is in the spirit soul. When theconsciousness is active in its spiritual identity, then it is in theliberated stage or it is in Krishna consciousness.
So this is our state of existence. Actually our existence issynonymous to consciousness. When we are conscious we are existing.When we’re unconscious we do not know whether we are existing or not.We are not existing. So it is only a matter of consciousnes.
Now the question is where our consciousness will be. In simple wordswe can say that there is a reflection and there is a reality. Thematerial nature, what is the definition of the material nature? Thematerial nature is the reflection. Yathabhaso yatha tamah [SB 2.9.34].Abhasa. Abhasa means the impression of the reality. It is not thereality. It is the impression of the reality. The impression of thereality also can be in different stages. One is the reflection and oneis a shadow. Shadow is also an abhasa, but the shadow is the state ofdarkness, yatha tamah. But the reflection is like in the mirror thereis a reflection. We see the thing in the mirror. When we see thereflection the reflection looks like the real thing. Like, for example,in a pool of water we see the reflection. In a still pool of water wesee the reflection of a tree. What do we see in the reflection? In thisreflection we see the branches of the tree. We see the trunk of thetree. We see the leaves of the tree. We see the flowers of the tree. Wesee the fruits of the tree. All are there, but it is not there. ItAPPEARS to be there.
So, material nature is a reflection of the spiritual reality.Everything seems to be there, but it’s a reflection. The reality iswhen it is real, not only an impression. It is there. Like, forexample, leaves have a purpose. Flowers have a purpose. Fruits have apurpose. Like, we are hungry and we want to eat the fruit. Can we eatthe fruit from the reflection? We like the beauty of the flower andwant to pick it and make a garland. Can we pick the flowers from thereflection of the tree, although it appears to be there? That is thedifference between the reality and the reflection.
Now when we are looking at the reflection, then our consciousness isstuck there. But when we look at the reality, in order to look at thereality we have to withdraw our consciousness from the reflection andthen only will we be able to project it into the reality. Like, we arevery hungry, so another reflection, impression of a reflection, can beseen in this way that in this world is a mirror. And, say we arestanding there, and there is a table, full of beautiful, deliciousfood. And I am very hungry. Now when I look at the reflection,extremely hungry, for seven days I didn’t have any food [laughs], and Icome into the room and I see the reflection. Then what will happen?Mind you, did anybody ever fast for seven days? [laughs] Well, you knowhow it is like to fast even for one day. And Nirjala Ekadasi you fastand you are very hungry. The next day, not the same day. And you seeall kinds of beautiful prasad, delicious prasad. So what will be thenatural reaction for you? You came in from the door and there you see abeautiful table full of hundreds of delicious preparations. The wholeworld is full of preparations, foodstuff. Now what will you naturallydo? Won’t you just run to the food, thinking that the food is there?But you try to grab the food, what do you get? You get the food? Or youget the solid mirror? And you are so hungry and you are so you becameso obsessed with the prospect of having the food, then what do you do?You are trying to get the food, but you don’t get the food. But thenwhat you think? You think there is something wrong in your trying,that’s why you are getting no food. Maybe if you try harder, thenyou’ll get it. Your food is there, but you can’t just get it. So whatdo you do? You take a few steps back and then pounce up, thinking thatnow you get it. What do you get? You get hurt. The more you endeavorthe more you get hurt. The more you endeavor the more you get hurt.
Then somebody comes into the room and sees you struggling like thatto get the food. And then he tells you, “Prabhu, this is only thereflection. You’ll never get the food you found in the reflection.” Butsince the reflection is there the food since the food is there in thereflection, in reality also the food must be there! So the food is notthere, the real food is there. But then, if you’re wise enough, thenyou believe in his words and you turn your face and you see, yes, thereal food is there, the table is there, all the preparations are there.You simply just have to just approach in that direction, not in thisdirection.
So that is the difference between Krishna consciousness and maya.The only thing is that our endeavor for food in the reflection isdominated by the three modes. Three modes are mode of goodness, mode ofpassion and mode of ignorance. The mode of goodness tells you that wehave seen that there is no food there, so don’t endeavor. Don’t wasteyour time. Don’t get hurt. But mode of passion says, no! Get into it!Get into it! Get into it! You will get it. You didn’t try hard enough.So mode of passion in this way motivates one to just go into thisendeavor to enjoy in this material nature, trying to get the substancethrough the reflection. There is no substance in the reflection, butthe mode of passion is saying, no, no, no, go in there. And then, afterendeavoring very, very hard with the mode of passion, you become tiredand you fall asleep, ignorance. And then you wake up again and then youmake that effort again to get the food, to satisfy your hunger from thereflection. So this is how the three modes are motivating us. Mode ofgoodness is telling us that there is no food, but mode of goodness isnot giving us the real information. Mode of goodness is giving someinformation: you’ll never be able to get it there. But where you’ll getit, that is not there. That information comes with the pure mode ofgoodness. There are two types of goodness. One is mixed goodness andpure goodness. Material goodness, satva guna, is tinged with passionand ignorance. It is goodness, but at the same time it is tinged withpassion and ignorance. But when somebody comes and tells you there isno food here, but the real food is there, and you follow hisinstruction, then you are situated in the mode of pure goodness. Modeof goodness means knowledge, but the mode of goodness in the materialnature is the knowledge about the material nature, not the realknowledge. The real knowledge is the spiritual knowledge.
So that is the difference between materialistic way of life andspiritual life. Materialistic way of life is motivated by three modes.You can’t help it. You may be in the mode of goodness, but still thatis not enough. Mode of goodness means don’t try to get the food fromthere, because it’s not there. But the information how am I going tosatisfy my hunger is not there. That ‘how am I going to satisfy myhunger?’ comes with the information. Now, who can give us theinformation? A devotee only can give us the information, because he hasthe knowledge. A devotee has the knowledge, because he received theknowledge from somebody who has the knowledge. And he makes us turn ourface around. But then there is another situation. When we are too muchinvolved with the material nature, then it becomes difficult to turnour face away from the material nature and towards Krishna. That’s thesituation with most of us. We are in the material nature. We are caughtup in this material nature, therefore, to completely free ourselvesfrom the material nature is very difficult. Therefore, the process thatis given in this age is, okay, you are looking at this food, there is abeautiful piece of pakora, there is a beautiful piece of paneer mattarmassala, there is a beautiful plate of rice, fried rice, so offer it toKrishna. They are not meant for you. You offer it to Krishna and acceptit as Krishna’s prasad. So through this, what we are actually learning,although the need is ours and the effort that we are making is for oursake, but we are being trained to offer it to Krishna. Although it ismaterial, although it is reflection, although it is not apparentlyreal, but we are trained, we are taught to offer it to Krishna. Now byoffering it to Krishna we are actually transferring our consciousnessfrom there to there.
In other ages people used to do that. Through the process of yogathey used to turn their face around, but in this age, that effort, thatendeavor is very difficult. We are not strong enough to do that.Therefore, they used to leave this material nature. They used to leavethe material nature, because why live in the material nature which isillusory? Don’t stay in the illusion! Now in order to get out of theillusion they used to go away from the illusion. They used to go to theforest. They used to go the mountain caves. They used to go to allkinds of places. And they used to make an endeavor to turn theirconsciousness away from matter towards the spirit. But that used totake a lot of spiritual strength. In this age we don’t have that. Weare in the middle of this material nature so much, we are so much inthe middle of illusion, that it is impossible for us to severourselves, in one hand the illusion so strong and we are so weak.
Therefore, the process is, offer it to Krishna. That is the meaningof devotional service. Idam Krishnaya na mamah: this is for Krishna,not for me. It is impossible for me to completely give it up, but weare actually turning our consciousness away. For Krishna, this is forKrishna. The plate of food is there. I cannot give it up. I am soattached to it. Okay, first offer it to Krishna and then take it asprasad. We are so attached to so many things. Okay, turn yourconsciousness, consider that this is Krishna’s, use it for Krishna’spurpose. That is the meaning of devotional service. So in this way thisprocess is training us how to change your consciousness. And theneventually, the time comes at the time of death when you have to giveup everything. We don’t have to sever our relationship artificiallythrough the process of austerities and penances, but we can do thatvery easily through the process of devotional service.
Therefore, at the beginning the devotional service is in apracticing stage. And then from the practicing stage it comes to theperfected stage. And nature helps us. We don’t have to sever ourrelationship with the material nature artificially. Nature will forceus. We see that. Like, when the body gets old our influence of passionbegins to reduce. Influence of passion meaning the influence thatindulges us in the material activities. When we are young we think thatwe can conquer the world, but when you get old then you begin to see,what to speak of conquer the world, I can’t even lift my own hand! Ican’t lift my own leg. I can’t take one step. Bedridden, completely.The body is completely useless. Although we thought that with this bodywe are going to conquer the whole world and now we see the reality. Iam not able to even lift my own fingers. So this is how nature helps usto become free from the bondage of matter.
And then the time comes. A time comes, at the time of death, nowyou’re free! We are free from the bondage of matter. And that’s thetime we have to take advantage of our Krishna consciousness. At thattime we have to depend on Krishna. At that time we have to rememberKrishna. Yam yam vapi smaram bhavam tyajaty ante kalevaram tam tamevaiti kaunteya sada tad bhava bhavitah [Bg. 8.6]. When will it happen?It won’t happen accidentally. Sometimes people say, well, at the timeof death I’ll remember Krishna. No, it won’t work like that. Yourthoughts will be what you have been thinking all the time. If one isthinking about his dog all the time, at the time of death he will thinkof his dog. And I see the danger. Like, people are becoming so attachedto dogs! [laughs] Sometimes it is so disgusting. In America, Europeancountries, it is a law now that when your dog evacuates then you haveto pick up that they have to pick it up. [audience member: and put itin a bin] Not that! They have to carry a plastic bag! They have tocarry a plastic bag [laughs]. It is so disgusting actually. And theyhave to carry it and then put it in a bin, in a [indistinct]. And theyare doing it! They won’t do it for their own son, but they are doing itfor their dogs. So the option is there: whether you will think of dogor whether you will think of God. We can remember Krishna only when weare sada tad bhava bhavitah. When one is simply thinking of Krishna allthe time, sada. Then only he’ll be able to remember Krishna at the timeof death. If one is thinking of anything else, people, we know thestory of Ajamila. He was attached to his son, so much so that heremembered his son at the time of death. Our last thought will be whereour deepest attachment is. Wherever your deepest attachment, that willbe your last thought. So we have to be very, very careful that ourconsciousness is in the right place. And if we practice properlythroughout our lifetime at the time of death we will. And we are seeingit’s happening.
Just the day before yesterday one devotee in South Africa all of asudden left her body. They went shopping from six, she was quiteelderly, she and her husband. Many of you know probably, Harichandanand his wife, Rukmavati. Harichandan comes here quite often.Harichandan and his wife. She had some heart problem. They did shoppingfrom six to nine, then, no I am sorry, three to six. Three o’clock tosix o’clock. They did their shopping, then they came home. At seveno’clock they did their arotika and then they took some prasad. Now,when they were shopping she was actually telling him that she had adream that Bhakti Devi came and told her to come with Her. And then atten o’clock at night she was telling that she was feeling suffocation.She was finding it difficult to breathe. And she just told him, see, mytime has come to go, I am going to go. And she just left. I mean, sucha glorious way of.. and apparently she is just an ordinary housewife.She is not a big sannyasi or big devotee. She was just a simple.. butwe are seeing how Krishna Consciousness Movement is benefitting people.How can one leave his body or her body in this way? She is having somedifficulty and she is saying, well, my time has come for me to leavethe body. Gone! This is how Krishna consciousness helps. The real helpwill come at the time of death. And it’s a beautiful experience. Totell you frankly, like, when Prabhupada was in his final days,Prabhupada was totally bedridden as I told you many times. Prabhupadacouldn’t even turn to his side. We had to help him to make him turn tohis side when he wanted to. And sometimes Prabhupada used to say that,“Don’t think that this won’t happen to you.” What Prabhupada was goingthrough, and Prabhupada was saying that it will happen to all of us. Inthis way Prabhupada actually taught us how to die, how to leave ourbody. And at that time, I mean, I heard the expression, Prabhupadasaying that, but couldn’t understand it.
But now I am seeing it, what happens when the body gets old. Itdoesn’t function the way it used to function before. And it willhappen. Gradually it will become bedridden. Bedridden means the souland the body will become separated gradually. And then finally the soulwill leave the body and go. So that is the arrangement of nature and wehave to go along with that. But unfortunately what is happeningnowadays, people do not want to accept death, do not want to accept oldage, do not want to accept disease. They are trying to make all kindsof artificial arrangement. They are trying to find medicine so thatthey won’t get the disease. They are trying to make arrangements thatthey won’t become old. But it never happens. They become old, only, onedoctor actually made a very wise statement the other day. He wastelling, it was during the convention in South Africa. One doctor madethat statement. He was invited to speak and he was telling, he franklyadmitted, what modern medicine has been able to do is to prolong thesuffering condition of the people. They have been able to simplyprolong the suffering condition. The man was meant to suffer for fivedays and leave his body, but they are making the body to prolong forfive years. And in these five years what is happening? The man is justsuffering, prolong the suffering condition. Okay, so that is thereality and we are very fortunate that Prabhupada gave us Krishnaconsciousness. So let’s take full advantage of it. There will be manyhurdles. There will be many difficulties. There will be many obstacles.Don’t worry about that. Just recognize you got the most precious thingand go ahead with it. So I’ll stop now.
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