SF lecture Feb 10 1966
Excerpt from class on Lord Caitanya talking about his experience with his spiritual master ordering Him to chant Hare Krsna Mantra. This was addressed to Prakasananda Sarasvati, the mayavadi sannyasi.
Prabhupada mentions the actual symptoms of Love of God will develop in such a chanter. These symptoms of transcendental emotion are far above material religiosity.
Please read on if interested…
Hare Krsna
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” ‘This chanting makes Me obliged to laugh and dance and sing.’ So when My spiritual master heard Me, he replied as follows.”
Now the spiritual master is explaining, “Yes, this is the right result of
chanting
Hare Kṛṣṇa. Unless You come to this emotional stage, transcendental emotional stage, You should know that You havenot come to the perfectional stage of chanting. So I am very glad to see that You have chanted very nicely and You have developed the desired result.” Kṛṣṇa–viṣayaka premā–parama puruṣārtha. “Because this emotion means that You are developing love of Kṛṣṇa. And that is required, not that simply by official chanting You remain where You are. You should develop. This, I mean to…, laughing, crying, and dancing is due to emotion of love of Godhead. So this is not bad.” He, I mean to say, informed, the spiritual master of Caitanya Mahāprabhu:yāra āge tṛṇa–tulya cāri puruṣārtha. “Now, the symptoms which You have developed is transcendental and above all other four perfectional stage.”
What are the four perfectional stage? In the material world there are supposed to be four perfectional stage of human life. What is that? First perfectional stage is that when one becomes very expert in following the religious principles. That is also another perfectional stage
of common man. You have got your principles of religions, say, either Hindu or Muslim or Christian or Jew. You have got your own Bible or Testament or Koran or Vedas. There are rules and regulation, rituals, everything. So one who follows those rules and regulations, they are called religionist. And what is the effect of becoming religionist? The effect is that you can live very peacefully without any material want. Simply by following the rules and regulation of your scripture, it doesn’t matter in which religion you belong to, but if you follow the rules and regulation, then your life will be peaceful and there will be no material want. That is not, of course, peaceful. You cannot expect any peace in this material world because the major problem is birth, death, old age and disease. So you cannot check this. But somehow or other, your life will be peaceful and more than those, I mean to say, upstarts who do not follow any rules and regulation. You’ll be in better position, far better position than them. So this is one perfection, to become a man of religiosity.
Then, if you become a man of religiosity, then your economic wants will be almost nil. Dharma, artha and kāma. And, if your economic wants are fulfilled, then you can fulfill your sense enjoyment very nicely. We want economic development—why? Because we want to… Ordinary man, who is in the material world, he wants to fulfill his sense… He has got so many demands of his senses, either in this world or in the other world. Suppose a man is trying by his, following the religious principle to go to other planets.
What is the purpose of going to other planets, heavenly planets? It is for having a better facility for sense enjoyment. Just like, according to Hindu conception, the heavenly planet, Indraloka, it is said there are very beautiful women and very beautiful gardens, and they can drink soma rasa and enjoy life for ten thousands of years, and their one day is equal to six months of this planet. So opulence, life, enjoyment, far, far greater than this; therefore they want to go to the heavenly planets.Similarly… These are facts. These are not, I mean to say, stories, or fiction. These are facts.
Similarly, in the Koran also there is such injunction that if one follows the principles of Koran, in the next life they’ll go to Hur(?), the land of the Hu(?), the same beautiful woman.
Because we have got this material idea, sense gratification, and the last word in the sense gratification is sex life. That’s all. So if we think that “Going to that place, I will have free sex life and beautiful man, beautiful woman, and nice drinking, nice eating,” oh, so materialists, they think, “This is perfection of life. This is perfection of life.”
So dharma, artha, kāma,and the last stage is salvation. Salvationists. What are the salvationists? When a person becomes frustrated by become a man of religiosity, a rich man of economic development, and satisfaction of sense gratification,
when he, one has seen that all these things has not given him any peace of mind, then he wants to become out of this scene and become one with the Supreme. This is called salvationist. So somebody is thinking void, somebody is thinking impersonal
Brahman. So the last stage is to become extinguished in the void or impersonalism. That is called salvation. Salvation from this material entanglement.
So general people, they have got these four kinds of ideas: religiosity, economic development, sense gratification, and at last monism, or become one with the Supreme. That’s all. ….
So Kṛṣṇa, but Caitanya Mahāprabhu says that this emotion, by chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa, developing love of God, is far, far beyond these four principles of perfection, above the idea of becoming one with the Supreme.
This pañcama puru… This is fifth dimension. One, religiosity; two, economic development; and three, sense gratification; and four, to become one with the Supreme. So above these four, this is fifth. This is the fifth stage of perfection. What is that? Developing love of Godhead and getting emotion out of that. So Caitanya Mahāprabhu says this emotional
stage
is so transcendental and so elevated that there is no comparison with the other four principles. The perfection of the other four principles is enjoy to become one with Brahman. CaitanyaMahāprabhu says this brahmānanda is just like a drop in comparison with the ocean. This emotion of transcendental love is compared with the ocean, and this brahmānanda, to become one with the Supreme, is just like a drop out of that ocean. So there cannot be comparison.Caitanya Mahāprabhu said that there is no comparison. Brahmandiānanda yāra nāhe eka bindu. Kṛṣṇa–nāmera phala-‘premā’, sarva–śāstre kaya. Kṛṣṇa-nāme: “If you chant Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa, then the result is that you develop full-fledged love of the Supreme Personality of Godhead.”
Bhāgye sei premā tomāya karila udaya: “So I am very glad,
Caitanya, that You have developed that symptoms by chanting. So it is very good, and it is very nice. You are very fortunate.”
Premāra sva–bhāve karecitta–tanu kṣobha: “When one becomes…” Just like a man in love in this material world, also, he sometimes becomes just like madman, so similarly… Material manifestation is simply perverted reflection of the real love. Here there is no love. It is simply a reflection. Because the spirit soul is originally in love with the Supreme, so he is trying to express his loving sentiments or life’s symptoms, but because it is not on the platform of the Supreme, therefore materially they are manifested sometimes, but it breaks. It breaks. It does not exist. So similarly, as in the ordinary love affairs there are so many emotions, similarly,
Caitanya Mahāprabhu says this is the nature of love, nature of love.
Premāra sva–bhāve kare citta–tanu kṣobha. Kṣobha means there is some agitation, within the mind, of the body. There are so many symptoms.
Kṛṣṇera caraṇa–prāptye upajāya lobha: “And the more you increase the symptoms and this emotion, the more you will be anxious to be a sincere lover of God, or
Kṛṣṇa.”
Premāra sva–bhāvebhakta hāse, kānde, gāya: ‘This is the nature of loving emotion of a devotee, that he sometimes laughs, sometimes dances, sometimes cries.”
Unmatta ha–iyā nāce, iti–uti dhāya: “And sometimes he dances like a madman and goes this side and that side. So these symptoms are good symptoms.”
Now these are some of the stages explained, and each item is very important. Sveda: when actually one comes to the perfectional stage of emotion, there is perspiration, perspiration from the body, sveda.Kampa: there is shaking of the body, like this. Yes. Shaking of the body.Romāñca: the hairs stands on the holes, romāñca. Gadgada: he fails to speak. He cannot express his words exactly. Vaivarṇya: there is sometimes paleness of the body. Unmāda: just like a madman. Viṣāda:he becomes morose, very sorry, viṣāda. Dhairya: and calm and quiet. Then garva: he becomes pride, sometimes just like a chivalrous man, pride, proud. Harṣa: ecstasy. And dainya: and humble, humbleness. So these are the symptoms of perfection. So sometimes they imitate. So imitation is no good. It will come. When you are in perfectional stage, these symptoms will automatically come.
“All these symptoms means that he is floating in the transcendental ocean of joy, of loving Kṛṣṇa.” That is the actual experience of love. Just like you love somebody, when he comes, meets you, embrace you, oh, you have got some, a particular emotion, similarly, these emotions means that you are in the perfectional stage of chan
ting
Hare Kṛṣṇa.
So His spiritual master said, “So it is very nice, my dear
Caitanya. You have developed all these symptoms. So I am also obliged to You because I initiated You. Now You are so perfectional stage, in aperfectional stage, so I am thinking myself, also, proud, that I have got a disciple like You. Or You have been benefited by me.” So His spiritual master said like that.
Now here is another order. The first order is that “You chant.” And when the disciple (is) in the perfectional
stage
, the spiritual master orders that “Yes, continue this chanting
.” Nāca, gāo, bhakta–saṅge karasaṅkīrtana. Nāca, gāo, bhakta–saṅge. Here is the particular word, that “You chant and sing and dance in the societies of devotees, not otherwise.” Bhakta–saṅge. This particular word is there. Because otherwise you’ll not feel quite comfortable. Abhakta. Abhakta means those who are not devotees. They cannot participate with this chanting or dancing. Therefore it is particularly mentioned that bhakta–saṅge:“You chant and dance in the society of devotees.” Nāca, gāo, bhakta–saṅge kara saṅkīrtana: “And Yourself enjoy this chanting
and dancing, and at the same time,” kṛṣṇa–nāma upadeśi’ tāra’ sarva–jana, “at the same time preach the Kṛṣṇa consciousness philosophy so that others may also be delivered. Don’t be satisfied that You have attained theperfectional stage, so Your business is end. No. You have to distribute this sense of Kṛṣṇa consciousness to the world so that others may take also advantage.” Kṛṣṇa–nāma upadeśi. Upadeśi means “Instruct kṛṣṇa–nāma, about Kṛṣṇa, and Kṛṣṇa’s name, Kṛṣṇa’s fame, Kṛṣṇa’s entourage, Kṛṣṇa’s glories, Kṛṣṇa’s form.” There are so many things about Kṛṣṇa. The Kṛṣṇa science is Bhagavad-gītā, Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam,principally, and there are many other supplementary books of knowledge about Kṛṣṇa. So this is also another duty of this line, Kṛṣṇaconsciousness. Āpani… There is another… Caitanya Mahāprabhu said that bhārata–bhūmite manuṣya–janma haila yāra: [Cc. Ādi
9.41] “Anyone…” He is ordering all Indians. Bhārata–bhūmite means all Indians. He does not say the Hindus or the Bengalis or these Punjabis. No. He says particularly, “Any person who has taken his birth in this land of Bhāratavarṣa,” janma sārthaka kari, “you just perfect your life. Just perfect your life,” and kara paropakāra, “and distribute this knowledge for benefit of all other people.”
So this injunction is received, as
Caitanya Mahāprabhu says, that “First of all make your life perfect. Don’t try to preach without becoming yourself perfect.” The nonsense thing is going on in this world that so-called preachers, they have not perfected their life, but they have become preachers. They have not already perfected their life, and they have become preacher. Therefore they are bringing so many nonsense things and misleading persons, Vedāntists and
VedāntaSociety, yogis, this or that. But they are not themselves perfect. So
Caitanya Mahāprabhu said that
“Before becoming preacher, before endeavoring yourself to do good to others, you just perfect yourself.” “Physician, heal thyself.” Physician, you are yourself diseased. How you can become a physician? People will, at once, will be detracted, “Oh, this doctor, this medical man, he’s suffering from fever, and he’s treating my fever.” So there will be no, I mean to say, effect.So
Caitanya Mahāprabhu says, or His spiritual master says, that
kṛṣṇa–nāma upadeśi’ tāra’ sarva–jana: “First of all You have perfected Yourself by chanting
Hare Kṛṣṇa. You have come to the perfectionalstage.
Now You have got the symptoms of emotion. Now You can preach Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa, Hare Hare/ Hare Rāma,Hare Rāma, Rāma Rāma, Hare Hare.” Yes.
Now
Caitanya Mahāprabhu says that “My spiritual master, after instructing Me in this way, he has taught Me one very nice verse from the
Śrīmad-Bhāgavata.” What is that?
When one becomes actually devoted to
Kṛṣṇa consciousness and takes pleasure by chanting his object of love,
druta–citta uccaiḥ, his mind becomes perturbed by such chanting. And then
hasaty, hasaty, he laughs;
atho roditi, sometimes cries,
roditi; and
rauti, and, by seeing him, others also cry;
roditi, rauti; gāyati, and chants very loudly;
unmādavan nṛtyati, and dances like a madman,
nṛtyati; loka–bāhyaḥ,a
nd he doesn’t care that “Somebody is looking upon me just like I am madman.” He doesn’t care for them. This is the perfectional stage ofchant
ing.
Now
Caitanya Mahāprabhu concludes…
Because you might always remember that He is speaking to Prakāśānanda Sarasvatī. So He said that “With full faith in the words of My spiritual master, I chant this
Hare Kṛṣṇa,
Hare Kṛṣṇa,
Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa,
Hare Hare, and I have no other business.”
Nirantara kari. Because He was… He raised the question of
Vedānta, studying
Vedānta, so He is answering,
“This is My position. I am just following the instruction of My spiritual master. In the beginning, he taught Me like this. He instructed Me like this. Then I followed. I have developed these symptoms. Then again I approached My spiritual master. He confirmed the same thing. Therefore My business is to follow his instruction, and therefore I am alwayschanting and dancing.”
Thank you very much. (end)
