CC adi-#4
Adi 1.88-89–As the sun and moon drive away darkness by their appearance and reveal the nature of everything, these two brothers dissipate the darkness of ignorance covering the living beings’ and enlighten them with knowledge of the Absolute Truth.
Adi 1.90–The darkness of ignorance is called kaitava, the way of cheating, which begins with religiosity, economic development, sense gratification and liberation.
Adi 1.91--“The great scripture Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, compiled by Mahā-muni Vyāsadeva from four original verses, describes the most elevated and kindhearted devotees and completely rejects the cheating ways of materially motivated religiosity. It propounds the highest principle of eternal religion, which can factually mitigate the threefold miseries of a living being and award the highest benediction of full prosperity and knowledge. Those willing to hear the message of this scripture in a submissive attitude of service can at once capture the Supreme Lord in their hearts. Therefore there is no need for any scripture other than Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam.”
PURPORT–This verse appears in Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam (1.1.2). The words mahā-muni-kṛte indicate that Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam was compiled by the great sage Vyāsadeva, who is sometimes known as Nārāyaṇa Mahā-muni because he is an incarnation of Nārāyaṇa. Vyāsadeva, therefore, is not an ordinary man, but is empowered by the Supreme Personality of Godhead. He compiled the beautiful Bhāgavatam to narrate some of the pastimes of the Supreme Personality of Godhead and His devotees.
The path of religion prescribed by Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam is different from all forms of imperfect religiosity. Religion can be considered in the following three divisions: (1) the path of fruitive work, (2) the path of knowledge and mystic powers, and (3) the path of worship and devotional service.The path of fruitive work (karma-kāṇḍa), even when decorated by religious ceremonies meant to elevate one’s material condition, is a cheating process because it can never enable one to gain relief from material existence and achieve the highest goal. A living entity perpetually struggles hard to rid himself of the pangs of material existence, but the path of fruitive work leads him to either temporary happiness or temporary distress in material existence. By pious fruitive work a person is placed in a position where he can temporarily feel material happiness, whereas vicious activities lead him to a distressful position of material want and scarcity. However, even if a person is put into the most perfect situation of material happiness, he cannot in that way become free from the pangs of birth, death, old age and disease. A materially happy person is therefore in need of the eternal relief that mundane religiosity in terms of fruitive work can never award.
The paths of the culture of knowledge (jñāna-mārga) and of mystic powers (yoga-mārga) are equally hazardous, for one does not know where one will go by following these uncertain methods. An empiric philosopher in search of spiritual knowledge may endeavor most laboriously for many, many births in mental speculation, but unless and until he reaches the stage of the purest quality of goodness-in other words, until he transcends the plane of material speculation-it is not possible for him to know that everything emanates from the Personality of Godhead Vāsudeva. His attachment to the impersonal feature of the Supreme Lord makes him unfit to rise to that transcendental stage of vasudeva understanding, and therefore because of his unclean state of mind he glides down again into material existence, even after having ascended to the highest stage of liberation. This falldown takes place due to his want of a locus standi in the service of the Supreme Lord.As far as the mystic powers of the yogīs are concerned, they are also material entanglements on the path of spiritual realization. One German scholar who became a devotee of Godhead in India said that material science had already made laudable progress in duplicating the mystic powers of the yogīs. He therefore came to India not to learn the methods of the yogīs’ mystic powers but to learn the path of transcendental loving service to the Supreme Lord, as mentioned in the great scripture Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. Mystic powers can make a yogī materially powerful and thus give temporary relief from the miseries of birth, death, old age and disease, as other material sciences can also do, but such mystic powers can never be a permanent source of relief from these miseries. Therefore, according to the Bhāgavata school, this path of religiosity is also a method of cheating its followers. In the Bhagavad-gītā it is clearly defined that the most elevated and powerful mystic yogīs one who can constantly think of the Supreme Lord within his heart and engage in the loving service of the Lord.The path of worship of the innumerable devas, or administrative demigods, is still more hazardous and uncertain than the above-mentioned processes of karma-kāṇḍa and jñāna-kāṇḍa. This system of worshiping many gods, such as Durgā, Śiva, Gaṇeśa, Sūrya and the impersonal Viṣṇu form, is accepted by persons who have been blinded by an intense desire for sense gratification. When properly executed in terms of the rites mentioned in the śāstras, which are now very difficult to perform in this age of want and scarcity, such worship can certainly fulfill one’s desires for sense gratification, but the success obtained by such methods is certainly transient, and it is suitable only for a less intelligent person. That is the verdict of the Bhagavad-gītā. No sane man should be satisfied by such temporary benefits.None of the above-mentioned three religious paths can deliver a person from the threefold miseries of material existence, namely, miseries caused by the body and mind, miseries caused by other living entities, and miseries caused by the demigods. The process of religion described in Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, however, is able to give its followers permanent relief from the threefold miseries. The Bhāgavatam describes the highest religious form-reinstatement of the living entity in his original position of transcendental loving service to the Supreme Lord, which is free from the infections of desires for sense gratification, fruitive work, and the culture of knowledge with the aim of merging into the Absolute to become one with the Supreme Lord.Any process of religiosity based on sense gratification, gross or subtle, must be considered a pretentious religion because it is unable to give perpetual protection to its followers. The word projjhita is significant. Pra means “complete,” and ujjhita indicates rejection. Religiosity in the shape of fruitive work is directly a method of gross sense gratification, whereas the process of culturing spiritual knowledge with a view to becoming one with the Absolute is a method of subtle sense gratification. All such pretentious religiosity based on gross or subtle sense gratification is completely rejected in the process of bhāgavata-dharma, or the transcendental religion that is the eternal function of the living being.Bhāgavata-dharma, or the religious principle described in Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, of which the Bhagavad-gītā is a preliminary study, is meant for liberated persons of the highest order who attribute very little value to the sense gratification of pretentious religiosity. The first and foremost concern of fruitive workers, elevationists, empiric philosophers and salvationists is to raise their material position. But devotees of Godhead have no such selfish desires. They serve the Supreme Lord only for His satisfaction. Śrī Arjuna, wanting to satisfy his senses by becoming a so-called nonviolent and pious man, at first decided not to fight. But when he was fully situated in the principles of bhāgavata-dharma, culminating in complete surrender unto the will of the Supreme Lord, he changed his decision and agreed to fight for the satisfaction of the Lord. He then said:naṣṭo mohaḥ smṛtir labdhātvat-prasādān mayācyutasthito ‘smi gata-sandehaḥkariṣye vacanaṁ tava”My dear Kṛṣṇa, O infallible one, my illusion is now gone. I have regained my memory by Your mercy. I am now firm and free from doubt and am prepared to act according to Your instructions.” (Bg. 18.73) It is the constitutional position of a living entity to be situated in this pure consciousness. Any so-called religious process that interferes with this unadulterated spiritual position of the living being must therefore be considered a pretentious process of religiosity.The real form of religion is spontaneous loving service to Godhead. This relationship of the living being with the Absolute Personality of Godhead in service is eternal. The Personality of Godhead is described as vastu, or the Substance, and the living entities are described as vāstavas, or the innumerable samples of the Substance in relative existence. The relationship of these substantive portions with the Supreme Substance can never be annihilated, for it is an eternal quality inherent in the living being.By contact with material nature the living entities exhibit varied symptoms of the disease of material consciousness. To cure this material disease is the supreme object of human life. The process that treats this disease is called bhāgavata-dharma, or sanātana-dharma-real religion. This is described in the pages of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. Therefore anyone who, because of his background of pious activities in previous lives, is anxious to hear Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam immediately realizes the presence of the Supreme Lord within his heart and fulfills the mission of his life.
Adi 1.92–The foremost process of cheating is to desire to achieve liberation by merging into the Supreme, for this causes the permanent disappearance of loving service to Kṛṣṇa.
PURPORT-The desire to merge into the impersonal Brahman is the subtlest type of atheism. As soon as such atheism, disguised in the dress of liberation, is encouraged, one becomes completely unable to traverse the path of devotional service to the Supreme Personality of Godhead.
Adi 1.94--All kinds of activities, both auspicious and inauspicious, that are detrimental to the discharge of transcendental loving service to Lord Śrī Kṛṣṇa are actions of the darkness of ignorance.
PURPORT……. The purpose of the appearance of Lord Caitanya and Lord Nityānanda is to dispel the darkness of the soul. Before Their appearance, all these superfluous activities of the living entities were covering Kṛṣṇa consciousness, but after the appearance of these two brothers, people’s hearts are becoming cleansed, and they are again becoming situated in the real position of Kṛṣṇa consciousness.
Adi 1.95-–By the grace of Lord Caitanya and Lord Nityānanda, this darkness of ignorance is removed, and the truth is brought to light.
Adi 1.96--The Absolute Truth is Śrī Kṛṣṇa, and loving devotion to Śrī Kṛṣṇa exhibited in pure love is achieved through congregational chanting of the holy name, which is the essence of all bliss.
Adi 1.98—But these two brothers [Lord Caitanya and Lord Nityānanda] dissipate the darkness of the inner core of the heart, and thus They help one meet the two kinds of bhāgavatas [persons or things in relationship with the Personality of Godhead].
Adi 1.99--One of the bhāgavatas is the great scripture Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, and the other is the pure devotee absorbed in the mellows of loving devotion.
Adi 1.100--Through the actions of these two bhāgavatas the Lord instills the mellows of transcendental loving service into the heart of a living being, and thus the Lord, in the heart of His devotee, comes under the control of the devotee’s love.
Adi 1.101–The first wonder is that both brothers appear simultaneously, and the other is that They illuminate the innermost depths of the heart.
Adi 1.102--These two, the sun and moon, are very kind to the people of the world. Thus for the good fortune of all, They have appeared on the horizon of Bengal.
PURPORT… They appeared on the horizon of Gauḍadeśa to spread the science of Kṛṣṇa consciousness, and it is predicted that as the sun and moon gradually move west, the movement They began five hundred years ago will come to the Western civilizations by Their mercy.Caitanya Mahāprabhu and Nityānanda Prabhu drive away the five kinds of ignorance of the conditioned souls. In the Mahābhārata, Udyoga-parva, Forty-third Chapter, these five kinds of ignorance are described. They are (1) accepting the body to be the self, (2) making material sense gratification one’s standard of enjoyment, (3) being anxious due to material identification, (4) lamenting and (5) thinking that there is anything beyond the Absolute Truth. The teachings of Lord Caitanya eradicate these five kinds of ignorance. Whatever one sees or otherwise experiences one should know to be simply an exhibition of the Supreme Personality of Godhead’s energy. Everything is a manifestation of Kṛṣṇa.
Adi 1. 103-–Let us therefore worship the holy feet of these two Lords. Thus one can be rid of all difficulties on the path of self-realization.
Adi 1.107-–Simply hearing submissively will free one’s heart from all the faults of ignorance, and thus one will achieve deep love for Kṛṣṇa. This is the path of peace.
Adi 108-109–If one patiently hears about the glories of Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu, Śrī Nityānanda Prabhu and Śrī Advaita Prabhu-and Their devotees, devotional activities, names, fame, and the mellows of Their transcendental loving exchanges-one will learn the essence of the Absolute Truth. Therefore I have described these [in the Caitanya-caritāmṛta] with logic and discrimination.