Chapter Eleven-Jada Bharata instructs Kind Rahugana
In this chapter the brāhmaṇa Jaḍa Bharata instructs Mahārāja Rahūgaṇa in detail. He tells the King: “You are not very experienced, yet you pose yourself as a learned person because you are very proud of your knowledge. Actually a person who is on the transcendental platform does not care for social behavior that sacrifices spiritual advancement. Social behavior comes within the jurisdiction of karma-kāṇḍa, material benefit. No one can spiritually advance by such activities. The conditioned soul is always overpowered by the modes of material nature. and consequently he is simply concerned with material benefits and auspicious and inauspicious material things. In other words, the mind, which is the leader of the senses, is absorbed in material activities life after life. Thus he continuously gets different types of bodies and suffers miserable material conditions. On the basis of mental concoction, social behavior has been formulated. If one’s mind is absorbed in these activities, he certainly remains conditioned within the material world. According to different opinions, there are eleven or twelve mental activities, which can be transformed into hundreds and thousands. A person who is not Kṛṣṇa conscious is subjected to all these mental concoctions and is thus governed by the material energy. The living entity who is free from mental concoctions attains the platform of pure spirit soul, devoid of material contamination. There are two types of living entities—jīvātmā and Paramātmā, the individual soul and the Supreme Soul. That Supreme Soul in His ultimate realization is Lord Vāsudeva, Kṛṣṇa. He enters into everyone’s heart and controls the living entity in his different activities. He is therefore the supreme shelter of all living entities. One can understand the Supreme Soul and one’s position in relationship with Him when one is completely freed from the unwanted association of ordinary men. In this way one can become fit to cross the ocean of nescience. The cause of conditional Life is attachment to the external energy. One has to conquer these mental concoctions: unless one does so, he will never be freed from material anxieties. Although mental concoctions have no value, their influence is still very formidable. No one should neglect to control the mind. If one does, the mind becomes so powerful that one immediately forgets his real position. Forgetting that he is an eternal servant of Kṛṣṇa and that service to Kṛṣṇa is his only business, one is doomed by material nature to serve the objects of the senses. One should kill mental concoctions by the sword of service to the Supreme Personality of Godhead and His devotee [guru-kṛṣṇa-prasāde pāya bhakti-latā-bīja]”
SB 5.11.1-The brāhmaṇa Jaḍa Bharata said: My dear King, although you are not at all experienced, you are trying to speak like a very experienced man. Consequently you cannot be considered an experienced person. An experienced person does not speak the way you are speaking about the relationship between a master and a servant or about material pains and pleasures. These are simply external activities. Any advanced, experienced man, considering the Absolute Truth, does not talk in this way.
PURPORT-Kṛṣṇa similarly chastised Arjuna. Aśocyān anvaśocas tvaṁ prajñā-vādāṁś ca bhāṣase: “While speaking learned words, you are lamenting for what is not worthy of grief.” (Bg. 2.11) Similarly, among people in general, 99.9 percent try to talk like experienced advisers, but they are actually devoid of spiritual knowledge and are therefore like inexperienced children speaking nonsensically. Consequently their words cannot be given any importance. One has to learn from Kṛṣṇa or His devotee. If one speaks on the basis of this experience—that is, on the basis of spiritual knowledge—one’s words are valuable. At the present moment, the entire world is full of foolish people. Bhagavad-gītā describes these people as mūḍhas. They are trying to rule human society, but because they are devoid of spiritual knowledge, the entire world is in a chaotic condition. To be released from these miserable conditions, one has to become Kṛṣṇa conscious and take lessons from an exalted personality like Jaḍa Bharata, Lord Kṛṣṇa and Kapiladeva. That is the only way to solve the problems of material life.
BG 11.55-My dear Arjuna, one who is engaged in My pure devotional service, free from the contaminations of previous activities and from mental speculation, who is friendly to every living entity, certainly comes to Me.
PURPORT-Anyone who wants to approach the Supreme of all the Personalities of Godhead, on the Kṛṣṇaloka planet in the spiritual sky, and be intimately connected with the Supreme Personality, Kṛṣṇa, must take this formula, as is stated by the Supreme Himself. Therefore, this verse is considered to be the essence of Bhagavad-gītā. …Therefore the pure form of devotional service is described in Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu as follows: anyābhilāṣitā-śūnyaṁ jñāna-karmādy-anāvṛtam ānukūlyena kṛṣṇānuśīlanaṁ bhaktir uttamā. In this verse Śrīla Rūpa Gosvāmī clearly states that if anyone wants to execute unalloyed devotional service, he must be freed from all kinds of material contamination. He must be freed from the association of persons who are addicted to fruitive activities and mental speculation. When, freed from such unwanted association and from the contamination of material desires, one favorably cultivates knowledge of Kṛṣṇa, that is called pure devotional service.
Some Conclusions– These are a very powerful purports about just one of the aspects that pure devotional service avoids-mental speculation. I am just finishing reading Acytananda’s das book-called Blalzing Sadhus about his experiences with Srila Prabhupada and he mentions several things at the end which he considers very important. Prabhupada personally told him that after he leaves many devotees will say Prabhupada said this or Prabhupada said that-but the only definitive answer for the serious devotees is –to read his books.
Same thing here in the above purports and text. Jada Bharata is telling King Rahugana that he is a fool in so many words , just like Krsna did to Arjuna on the battlefield, because both were giving their own comments on how to move thru life and still become liberated at the end.
One of the mental concoctions that devotees may have is that karma khanda activities are beneficial for spiritual advancement. They are not. When one puts more importance on material betterment than actual spiritual activities, that person is suffering under yet another mental concoction.
Prabhupada writes above…According to different opinions, there are eleven or twelve mental activities, which can be transformed into hundreds and thousands. A person who is not Kṛṣṇa conscious is subjected to all these mental concoctions and is thus governed by the material energy.”
I am not sure what these 11 or 12 mental activities are that he mentions, but I am sure they fall within the category of karma, jnana and yogic acts.
He also writes..”One has to conquer these mental concoctions: unless one does so, he will never be freed from material anxieties. Although mental concoctions have no value, their influence is still very formidable.”
And most of these pitfalls are avoided by avoiding the association of unwanted men, which should go without saying.
Recently one devotee sent me an email about this same point saying, in his opinion, that all these so called “advanced senior devotees”(iskcon gurus, gbc’s etc) should be avoided all the time and that their “memories” of Srila Prabhupada were laced with all sorts of concoctions and self aggrandizement to bolster their own position as one of the few who knew Srila Prabhupada personally. In other word, he felt we should just avoid hearing the memories of ALL of them.
I do not agree with this point because everybody has some value and all those devotees did do some service for Srila Prabhupada, however it may have been contaminated within the three modes of nature. Something can be learned from everybody, if we listen. But we have to be intelligent with this hearing process and what we hear from these older devotees must be backed with what we read in Prabhupadas books. If the two (the books and their memories) don’t line up, then we can reject them.
Canakya pandit tells us….
chapter 1 text 16-one must accept nectar from the midst of poison, gold even from an impure place, good instruction from a low class person and a jewel even from a girl of a wicked family.”
And finally if that isn‘t enough to convince us, here is what Srila Prabhupada tells us about the activity of speculation…
Adi 8.15 : PURPORT :
Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvati Ṭhākura comments in this connection that people in general, in their narrow-minded conception of life, create many different types of humanitarian activities, but the humanitarian activities inaugurated by Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu are different. For logicians who want to accept only that which is proven through logic and argument, it is a fact that without logic and reason there can be no question of accepting the Absolute Truth. Unfortunately, when such logicians take to this path without the mercy of Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu, they remain on the platform of logic and argument and do not advance in spiritual life. However, if one is intelligent enough to apply his arguments and logic to the subtle understanding of the fundamental spiritual substance, he will be able to know that a poor fund of knowledge established on the basis of material logic cannot help one understand the Absolute Truth, which is beyond the reach of imperfect senses. The Mahābhārata therefore says: acintyāḥ khalu ye bhāvā na tāṁs tarkeṇa yojayet. (Mahābhārata, Bhīṣma-parva 5.22) How can that which is beyond the imagination or sensory speculation of mundane creatures be approached simply by logic? Logic and argument are very poor in spiritual strength and always imperfect when applied to spiritual understanding. By putting forward mundane logic one frequently comes to the wrong conclusion regarding the Absolute Truth, and as a result of such a conclusion one may fall down to accept a body like that of a jackal.
The very last sentence Srila Prabhupada writes for the Introduction to this chapter of the 5th Chapter of SB,says..
“One should kill mental concoctions by the sword of service to the Supreme Personality of Godhead and His devotee [guru-kṛṣṇa-prasāde pāya bhakti-latā-bīja]”
Hare Krsna
damaghosa das