When posted on FB transcriptions of calls are seen by many but when one wants to find them again it is often difficult. So I hope Syamananda does not mind that I will put his transcriptions here, for easier access 🐮 These are long texts so I will post them in few posts in separate thereads.
Karnam: Alright, we're ready for you, Maharaja.
Guru Maharaja: Morning.
Karnam: Good morning, oh, you are loud and clear today, that's great.
Guru Maharaja: Oh good.
Karnam: Yeah. Any updates or things you would like to share with us, making the transition? We're making the transition, you not being here, so...
Guru Maharaja: Well, [chuckle], those that I'm with are making a transition, being with me, so…
Karnam: Another transition, kind of transition, huh?
Guru Maharaja: Back to California and here we're in transition, so... We are still, you know, involved in the relocating and there has been some ups and downs in that, but we're plying forward and optimistic. So I'm pretty much preoccupied with that. I also expect here to be plowing forward with the book that I'm writing. The final section that I have begun... I had done this kind of introductory chapter to that second section. The second section is a lila-narrative and the chapter that prefaces it and begins the second chapter is about the nature of lila, so... I had been working with that for a long time, finished it a few times, but now I've moved into the lila-narrative section itself and t's very rewarding. So I'm kind of thinking, maybe, if everything works out well, to get it done this year. [chuckle] I wanted to say earlier, but then I started thinking I better not say, give it time.
Karnam: You're half the way through, huh?
Guru Maharaja: Yeah, I kind of think maybe more than that, because this section should go easier than a kind of a more of a tattva section which I've written, underlying, explaining the significance, theory and so forth. Just telling the story, if you will, and waxing into the implications of it and bringing out implications of it that one might not see in the text initially. Doing a semi, you know, somewhat poetic sense is easier in one... Less head, a little more just the heartbeat you know. Anyway, we will see. So that's what I'm working on.
Karnam: Yeah, that's exciting, good to hear about.
Guru Maharaja: Yeah. And so, for those who weren't there I had a really nice visit to Saragrahi. I think I gave like over 30 classes in the days that I was there. Most of them are probably, if not all of them, online. I won't be speaking much while I'm here because of what we are doing with the transition, but in about a month I will be going to Poland for a couple of weeks, so there will be a lot of classes coming out of there. There are... I have a good translator there, that's Guru-vakya. He translates simultaneously, so I believe that all the English speaking audience will have access to all those too.
Karnam: That's quite an art to do it at the same time that you are speaking it.
Guru Maharaja: But I think I'm ahead of everybody, I don't know.
Karnam: That's for sure. [Laughter]
Guru Maharaja: Everybody can get caught up with all of my lectures. Anyway, what are the questions this morning?
Karnam: Alright, well, we're going to start with Arcana today.
Guru Maharaja: Ok.
Arcana: Ok, good morning!
Guru Maharaja: Morning.
Arcana: I had a question from something that you shared when you were here. At the time when you shared it I thought "Ooh, that's a charming story", but then reflecting a little bit on it and some questions for you have come out of it. It was the story where you were talking about Srila Prabhupada being offered doughnuts and someone said, "Oh, Srila Prabhupada, that has eggs in it", and Srila Prabupada said "Well, we are not eating eggs, we are eating doughnuts". I thought in a lot of ways, "Oh, Prabhupada is less than fanatical" and according to circumstance he was able to make adjustments and whatever. But then I was thinking more about it and I was thinking, maybe if somebody would say, if a new person heard that and wasn't very familiar with the whole body of the teachings, that they could think what Prabhupada means when he says that is that we don't eat eggs it means we don't eat eggs, but we could eat things that have eggs in them. That was one thought that came to my mind, and just, you know, giving a license to less strict devotees to be even less strict and using that as an example. I also had a question if it could be an example of niyamagraha, being too attached to rules and regulations. So could you speak a little more about that? I think it's also really good, because we have a guru to ask these questions too, whereas not everybody does.
Guru Maharaja: Yeah. Well, just to be clear about the story, someone had brought some doughnuts to Prabhupada, a box or something like that. You know, this is quite some time ago. And so, he probably explained, "these are doughnuts", to Prabhupada, and probably never had seen doughnuts before, and it's a treat and so on and so forth, and Prabhuppada started taking the doughnuts out of the box and handing them to students of his that were there and they all started eating them. Then a devotee came in to the room and said, "Prabhupada, those doughnuts have eggs in them!". Then Prabhupada said, "We are not eating eggs, we are eating doughnuts". So that's the story that the question is about.
There is a lot that could be said about the answer, and far-reaching. You could start with the very idea of eating eggs and Prabhupada didn't want us to eat eggs. He considered eating eggs to be... It's flesh in a certain form, so he included it in a kind off ahimsa principle, if you will, a nonviolent principle. Vegetarian, you know, no meat, no blood. And that is a pretty good rule in one sense, you know, and it's pretty easy to follow. I don't think too many people who are devotees have a problem with it, a hankering to eat meat or to eat eggs. So, to avoid them is not much of an issue. At the same time I want to say that Bhakti is of course most powerful and efficacious in terms of purifying us and so forth. If one should succumb to dipping below the moral standards that Prabhupada set, following it in and of itself doesn't constitute Bhakti. It's not an anga of Bhakti so to speak, to follow those principles. Someone could not follow them and do Bhakti, and of course the result would be that they would lose interest in those things or see the wisdom in avoiding them and so forth. I just wanted to preface by emphasizing the position of bhakti in relation to those details, I would say. Prabhupada called them regulative principles, but by that he didn't mean that they were principles of Bhakti. They were moral standards that he wanted to see his disciples uphold. But again, one could not have that standard, but he had that standard, and be engaged in Bhakti out of faith and that would come of its own accord. Such is the power of Bhakti. Just to begin there.
Then if you go to eggs in particular, of course, the issue becomes even smaller, because, you know, with regard to ahimsa, I think they are typically unfertilized eggs and so on. Doesn't mean that chickens aren't abused and so forth, but as far as the actual eating of flesh... I guess there are some that are stillborn or something like that. It doesn't sound very attractive to me, but... If we had stillborn babies and it just happened to happen and we sold them on the market for people to eat, you couldn't really find them guilty of violence per se, if that makes sense. You know, there could be arguments that someone could make to minimize even from a moral point of view the egg eating thing. Prabhupada didn't do that. I've heard, I don't know if it's true, that some south Indian vaishnavas eat eggs. It may not be true. Maybe they eat onions. Anyway, that said, it's just a kind of a preface to it. I don't think if you understand that story in context you really get anything more from it than a healthy picture, so to speak, of Prabhupada and an ideal as a devotee that is not out of balance in some kind of fanatical way, taking things too extreme and kind of getting off track. It's said that it's Kali-yuga, you know, the whole world and all of our actions are fraught with, you know, inconsistencies and problems, and if you want to stop doing this because it's going to cause problems there, you know, there is no end to that type of approach. Jains, you know, have a little mask so they don't breathe in germs and things like that. What are you going to find out next that they did in order to produce this product and the money goes there? And you just can't follow all those things and make a whole lifestyle out of it. Who knows if you would end up with a anything to eat, or anywhere to sleep, or anything to wear, practically? I mean, that's extreme, and that's not accurate. I'm exaggerating. But to identify that with the pursuit that Krishna consciousness, Gaudiya vaishnavism, is talking about in terms of being non-violent and that being a kind of knowledge, ahimsa, embracing that kind of principle, jiva-daya to put it in vaishnava terms, kindness to living beings, along which Bhaktivinoda Thakura said chanting the holy name to be the essence of dharma.
So to say that you are not being kind to living beings because, you know, some extreme, you know, thing that's being done that you didn't know, that you found out about, the whole society runs on it or something. I can't think of an example from the top of my head. To not get out of balance with that and start chasing that. Which again is, after all, only a moral principle. We should chase after, positively after, Bhakti, and let our moral compass be whatever is favorable for Bhakti and what's not favorable for Bhakti, and also not beat ourselves up, because in the context of Bhakti there is a learning curve where the practice is unsteady, that's a given. We don't want to emphasize that on one hand, but if we find that it's creating a neurosis or something like that then we do need to emphasize it. I think Prabhupada was speaking as to that, if you will, when he made that statement, because they were already eating the doughnuts. There they were, he had never seen them before and it doesn't look like an egg to him. They have eggs in them. I don't think he misunderstood. I think he understood that they made them with some eggs in them. He is just saying, "Let's not be fanatical here". We're not going to go out on principle therefore and say, "It's ok to eat things with eggs in them as long as you don't eat eggs that are fried or hard-boiled", or something like that. I mean, I just don't think that that's what he is saying at all. But he is saying, you know, api cet suduracaro. Sometimes you may do something, you may not even know that there's something in it. You found out later. You are not culpable. That all in the context of your pursuing Bhakti, It's possible for someone to get out of balance and become fanatical and off on a tangent, and become neurotic and so forth in the name of Bhakti. I think that story is a good example of Prabhupada exemplifying a devotee that's balanced and understands the power of Bhakti and the fact that the world is full of all kinds of problems that you can't avoid in the context of living.
Bhakti is more of an overarching solution to all of that because it's powerful enough to compensate for any reactions that otherwise one might be implicated in. But that in itself is not a license to say. "I'm doing Bhakti, and therefore I can engage in all types of things that are undesirable because I like them and Bhakti is going to compensate". That for example in relation to the holy name is thought to be an offense to the name, that I can commit acts that are inappropriate because the holy name is powerful enough to rectify that I can do that to, both worlds. That's another kind of extreme. So I think it's good to tell new devotees. It's the first time I ever heard that story. I've been a devotee for a while, disciple of Prabhupada. [??? 18:20-21] It's a nice story. To me it's like what Prabhupada was like. And often he is painted as being, I mean he is represented by someone who is being very fanatical and off on a tangent about something, making a huge issue out of a small and insignificant issue, that indicates that that person does not understand Bhakti, the power of Bhakti, the central thing that we are doing and so forth. You know, Prabhupada felt, someone has given a gift, devotees give gifts, they share foodstuffs, that's nice. Someone has the best intention, and someone else comes in and says I'm not going to eat it now, because I'm going to go to hell. You're nuts, you know, get over it here, you know. I don't know why the story couldn't be explained in that way, positively, not being abused like you said earlier about what a new person may think. New people are intelligent and it shouldn't be dumbed down for them. They certainly have the capability to understand or even look for a more balanced idea of spiritual life rather than some dogmatic, fanatical idea. I think they will relate readily to the story and be sensible. And I like to trust people to be sensible, that's why they are getting involved in this type of a thing. Krishna consciousness is a very sensible idea. Anyway, those are some of my thoughts.
Arcana: Yeah, that's great. It coincides with next week I'm going to be speaking on niyamagraha from the Upadesamrta. So I was thinking, do you feel this would be a good example again of Prabhupada showing how Bhakti is the balanced way of dealing with, you know, everything. It's such a balanced path of not too much renunciation, not too little, you know, using discernment and not being too caught up in the rules and regulations, but at the same time not rejecting them.
Guru Maharaja: Yeah, I think you might be able to use it like that. It's a little bit of a stretch because it's not talking about a rule of Bhakti or something like that, but yeah, I think…
Arcana: I mean we think about the rules that Prabhupada gave us as the regulative principles, you know, no meat, fish or eggs. So in those terms I guess it could be. Ok, thank you very much.
Guru Maharaja: Glad I could be helpful.
Arcana: [??? 21:21-22] such a response from you. Guru Maharaja: Ok. Arcana: Ok.
Guru Maharaja: Ok, what's next.
Karnam: Alright, Maharha, you're on.
Marhaha: Morning Swami.
Guru Maharaja: Good morning, are you still moving to Saragrahi?
Maharha: We're trying. We're trying.
Guru Maharaja: What's your question?
Maharha: Ok, my husband and I were reading, we have been reading with a reading group, and we came across a verse, Text 4, Canto 1, Chapter 2: "Before reciting this Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, which is the very means of conquest, one should offer respectful obeisances unto the Personality of Godhead, Nārāyaṇa, unto Nara-nārāyaṇa Ṛṣi, the supermost human being, unto mother Sarasvatī, the goddess of learning, and unto Śrīla Vyāsadeva, the author." So we were wondering if you could talk a little bit about Nara-Narayana Rsi, because we were wondering which one was Narayana and which one was Nara and Rsi, because it says he was the supermost human being, but does that mean joint Arjuna and Narayana? We're just a little confused about it, because in the eleventh Canto where it talks a little bit about him, mostly it doesn't say much about that. It speaks... I think it says that he, they perform austerities in the Himalayas.
Guru Maharaja: Yeah, I think that, you know, the reason the verse mentions Nara-Narayana which is a, is supposed to be like an avatara of Vishnu who is man and human. So there is Nara, the human and Narayana, and sometimes they are thought to be some type of an incarnate expansion of Arjuna and Krishna, Arjuna being Nara and Krishna being Narayana. Something like that. But I think that the reason that Nara-Narayana, he is the supermost human being if you will, he is mentioned there along with Vyasa, and who else?
Maharaha: Mother Saraswati.
Guru Maharaja: Godess Saraswati yeah, is mentioned, with regard to glorifying them before one proceeds to recite the Bhagavatam, is that the Bhagavatam is said to be composed in the Himalayas. And I think that Nara-Narayana Rsi is right up there at Badrikashrama, the ashram of Vyasa, and so, arguably, Vyasa wrote the Bhagavatam under their influence in that area. You know, it's recognizing the Himalayan form of Vishnu. But otherwise, also I think you could say that Nara-Narayana Rsi, that avatara being the avatara of a Rsi, I think it's the one, maybe other than Mohini, Vishnu appearing as a woman. I think Nara-Narayana Rsi may be the only avatara of Vishnu that doesn't have a consort. So he is a Rsi, sense-controlled.
The story in the eleventh Canto that you began to refer to is a story of him being in meditation and the devas sending heavenly women to distract him and so forth, and how he in his superhuman ability finds no difficulty as a result of that. I think they even manifested women that are more beautiful than the devas or something like that, and maybe the goddesses became attracted to them and so forth. It's also a way, I would say, of saying that this Bhagavatam which is really about the love affair of Radha and Krishna should be properly understood and therefore, before reciting it, let's offer our obeisances to Nara-Narayana Rsi who is so sense controlled that it's, he's superhuman and therefore the lilas of Krishna are superhuman and so forth, a preface to entering into the Srimad Bhagavatam that supports an important point of the Bhagavatam. Again, here we are going to write about Radha and Krishna's love affair in a comprehensive way by explaining Krishna, the tattva of Krishna and his shaktis and so on and so forth and ultimately go into the lila-narrative that should enable people to understand that lila-narrative properly, but we invoke Nara-Narayana Rsi as well, as it was composed under their auspices in the Himalayas and the fact that he is in that sense a deity that presides over the Bhagavatam, and is fully sense controlled to the extreme and superhuman.
That kind of a thing I think is why his name is included there. There is not a lot mentioned in the Srimad Bhagavatam about Nara-Narayana Rsi, as you mentioned. There are countless avataras of Vishnu mentioned and I haven't explored the details of all of them, Nara-Narayana beinf one of those I haven't gotten to yet in detail, so... Does that help?
Maharha: Yeah, that was great. I wanted to ask you also, I was reading about Prthu Maharaja and I read that he wasn't a nitya-siddha, but then, here, Prabhupada says he was a saktyavesa incarnation and he doesn't have to act in any way to achieve liberation. He came from the Vaikuntha world or spiritual sky. Although Prthu was eternally a pure devotee of the Lord he nonetheless adapted the process of devotional service. It sounds like he is a nitya-siddha there. So I was just wondering...
Guru Maharaja: And somewhere it says he's not?
Maharha: Yeah, I remember reading that earlier. I'll try to find it for you. I came across it today and I wanted to ask you about that.
Guru Maharaja: Well, yeah, there are different kinds of saktyavesa avataras, there's when Bhagavan himself comes down as an avesa, as a particular potency of himself, like the potency of knowledge. So he personifies this potency of knowledge. Then there is when a jiva gets empowered by an aspect of Narayana, like his knowledge for example. In regards to Prthu it's palana-shakti, or the ruling shakti if you will. I don't remember which type of saktyavesa he is. Let's say he was an empowered jiva. If that was the case then he could have come from vaikuntha, because there are jiva-tattva that are from Vaikuntha as well, nitya-siddha, but I don't know where Prabhupada said he was sadhana-siddha. To be honest with you, sometimes Prabhupada says things that are contradictory in the books, that aren't significant really and if he had substantive editors, they would have pointed it out to him and he would say "Ok, then we change it like this". That's what I do, and I've seen Prabhupada outside of his writing do things like that as well. He would make a statement about something, get other information, someone would say "Prabhupada, you said one thing here and another thing there" and he would resolve it and so forth. I don't want to diminish the spirituality and transcendental nature of Prabhupada's writing, but I don't believe that the writing of such great people involves closing the eyes and holding the pen and it just moves. I believe that there is a, as he said, emotional spiritual ecstasies that are behind the writing and the writing itself then is an art that could be done better or worse as a skill if you will and that somewhat relative to one's first language. English was not Prabhupada's first language. I think that the medium through which those ecstasies are expressed has something to do with how they are going to come out. Therefore Prabhupada really wanted his work edited. I'm not talking about the editing that goes on now that has created a debate among some people. But in his presence he wanted his work edited, he wanted it brought up to the proper English and so forth and so on. So he was acknowledging that some of his t's wouldn't be crossed and some of his i's wouldn't be dotted and so on.
But that's copy editing and substantive editing involves things like that, you read it through and you find that there seems to be some logical inconsistency here or something like that. And that certainly happened when Prabhupada spoke. When Prabhupada spoke sometimes for example he would speak and he would quote a verse, and he would quote the first two lines of one verse and the second two lines of another verse and that was just, you know, the way it came out, so to speak. Speech is also, you know, another art, if you will. And in the moment, you know, I'm speaking, and then you want to take my speaking, transcribe it, and put it into writing, certainly it's not going to come out like if I wrote it. And it could be misunderstood, you don't understand the emphasis on the words, the way they were said, the context, they were not there in the environment.
The transcribed word is very unreliable in many respects, because all those things are absent. You can try to take into consideration when you write something to bring people into the moment. When you're speaking you're not doing that. It's more off the cuff and you're with a group. I mean, there can be more formal speech to and so forth, but I think you understand my point. I'm emphasizing it and kind of playing it out, because there is so much fanaticism about the way Prabhupada wrote and no common sense approach to resolving, you know, some contradictions in the books here or there which I think needs to be drawn upon. Prabhupada would have really appreciated if he had that kind of a person, and he didn't have that kind of a person. Editing meant mostly copy-editing and nobody knew the philosophy. So, I mean, you couldn't really go back and say "Prabhupada, you trained me in the philosophy and you said this over here", and he would say "Well, change that". Simple thing. He was without that and in one sense the books, you know, they lack that.
And I would say, as much as he wanted his books to be edited so that it would sound reasonable, sensible, and come across, when he was speaking in public, in a way that they could relate to, that would include going through the books like that as they are written and point those kinds of things. And that thing, maybe you remembered it wrong, but maybe there is a contradiction, which one is accurate about Prthu Maharaja you would probably have to go to Laghu-Bhagavatamrta of Rupa Goswami which describes in some detail, you know, all these different types of avataras and expansions and so forth. That would be kind of like the founding acarya of the sampradaya, you know, Rupa Goswami, that everybody is drawing from, so, that's my answer.
Maharaha: Ok, yeah, thanks, that's great.
Guru Maharaja: Ok, Haribol.
Maharha: Haribol.
Pranada: Can I make one comment?
Guru Maharaja: Yeah.
Pranada: When I was... This idea of editing... I was... I've heard that the Goswamis edited each other. They didn't just write. There was some editing going on even when they were writing.
Guru Maharaja: Well, to give you an example of that, in one sense, not quite, it's kind of an example. Jiva Goswami wrote the sat-sandarbha. But hue says at the onset of the sandarbhas that he wrote it based on the writing of Gopala Bhatta Goswami. Gopala Bhatta Goswami had written something that he was taking and developing. You know, we don't have that work of Gopala Bhatta Goswami, but it's an example that, yeah, they played off of one another. And Jiva Goswami wrote a commentary on Bhakti-Rasamrta-Sindhu that's written by his guru, Rupa Goswami when they were both still alive. It's not like he never asked him anything about it or talked to him about it. It's sure that they had this kind of collegiate dialogue and so forth. That's what you're saying, right?
Pranada: Yeah and Kaisori had told me that there is this actual evidence that they... I can't say it because I don't remember who did what, but that there was actual editing; They would show eachother what they had written and they would dialogue about it, yeah.
Guru Maharaja: Yeah, I mean they were together and forming a whole sampradaya and writing books and at least some of them, Rupa Sanatana, Jiva Goswami, they were living in Vrindavana at the same time, writing, so... Pranada: Yeah. Guru Maharaja: Ok, so what else?
Karnam: Alright, Kanurama? Are you there, Kanuramaji?
Kanuram: Good morning, can you hear me?
Guru Maharaja: Yeah.
Kanuram: Good morning, I had a question. I'm for some further clarification about the difference between vaidhi bhakti and raganuga bhakti. I'm reading the section from Bhakti-Rasamrta-Sindhu about the difference between them. I just had in another mission before becoming your student, had this idea that I was a vaidhi bhakti, that's what I was. Even though my goal was Krishna in Vrindavana I still thought that the means to attain it was vaidhi bhakti. That's just what everybody called it. You spoke about several times that where we are ajata-ruci raganuga bhaktas. But Rupa Goswami is talking about, there is a verse that says when one becomes a, forgive me for paraphrasing, he says that when one becomes a raganuga bhakta, that he should pick some things from vaidhi bhakti that would also serve his purposes of raganuga like hearing and chanting. Can you clarify that?
Guru Maharaja: Yeah, I have done this a few times, but I guess it's a difficult issue for some devotees to understand. Vaidhi bhakti, the angas, the limbs of vaidhi bhakti, that Rupa Goswami gives in Bhakti-Rasamrta-Sindhu, after he gives those he begins a discussion of raganuga bhakti. In the context of speaking about raganuga bhakti he says it's driven by a certain motive, the ideal to follow in the footsteps of a kind of love that we find in the associates of Krishna in Vrindavana. They are the ideal. For example in sakhya-rasa or in madhurya-rasa, and therefore to hear about them and those pastimes, that is part of the culture of raganuga bhakti, which would not necessarily be the case of vaidhi bhakti.
Then he also says that raganuga as well consists of serving that ideal in one's practitioner's body, the sadhaka deha, as well as in a meditative internal siddha-deha that corresponds with the associates that we are following. So, like a sakyha-rasa form or a madhurya-rasa form and personality. So that is also part of raganuga bhakti. I should clarify that or qualify that, put a caveat to that, that of course by engaging in one's sadhaka-deha appropriately, in hearing and chanting and so forth, and as that meditative reality starts to form, as it does, then appropriately one can incorporate that kind of aspect of the seva. And a third thing he says is that a raganuga bhakta should follow the angas of vaidhi bhakti that are in conflict with the ideal of raganuga bhakti.
So what he is saying basically with regard to raganuga bhakti is that all the angas of vaidhi bhakti, like accepting a guru, taking initiation and so on and so forth, I think there are 64 angas of vaidhi bhakti, that they should all be followed in raganuga bhakti, but the ideal in raganuga bhakti and the knowledge that drives the bhakti is that this love and intimacy is possible to attain. I want to attain it rather than reverential love that is the standard for example in Vaikuntha. I have that knowledge through the association that such an ideal is possible to attain and by association I have interest in that, so I'm going to worship in a way that follows those that I got that ideal from, and that's the teachers in the Gaudiya sampradaya. That's going to be my motive in the context of my hearing, chanting, and remembering, doing deity worship and so forth. My ideal is to attain that. In the context of doing that then one becomes more and more qualified so to speak as raga bhakti, as taste starts to develop and drives the practice itself.
So it's not that one day you qualify for raganuga bhakti... You may be qualified in a basic sense and there are different degrees of qualification that can come. Just like Rupa Goswami does in vaidhi bhakti, there different degrees of qualification. There is the kanistha, the madhyama, the uttama eligibility or qualification for treading the path of raganuga bhakti and they all correspond with faith, the measure of ones faith, which he explains is simple faith, faith strengthened by scriptural argument and faith that actually results in being a scriptural genius and one can do sastra-yukti. Sastra-nipuna, that kind of faith. That's vaidhi bhakti. In raganuga bhakti, faith is also included in order to tread the path, but faith with ruci, so, lobha or what you want to call it. Sraddha-mayi lobha, lobha-mayi sraddha, faith that is saturated with this taste, thirst for that ideal, or the knowledge of that ideal, I can't get away from that, so that's how I'm oriented.
The point being here, with regard to your question, that all that's in vaidhi bhakti is in raganuga bhakti and something more as well so to speak. And you know, there are a few limbs of vaidhi bhakti that you don't follow, worship of the queens of Dvaraka, because you don't have the interest of attaining that ideal, so that would be contrary to raga-bhakti, but for the most part the angas are favorable and can be engaged in with a different ideal in mind rather than reverential love in mind and rather than being driven by "I should do this, I shouldn't do that" because scripture says if you do this it's bad for you, if you do that it's good for you, driven by knowledge, if not taste, by the knowledge of raganuga and the fact that this opportunity has been presented to you by Caitanya Mahaprabhu and this window that you could go through that they say the people in Vaikuntha don't even know about practically, you know, this possibility of intimacy with Krishna in Goloka.
So you just kind of thank your lucky stars and think this is my ideal and that's not vaidhi bhakti what goes on there in Goloka, in Gokula, the center of the lotus of Goloka that is Vrindavana. That's not vaidhi bhakti. Those people, Yasoda was not a vaidhi bhakta. Lalita, Visakha, Sridama, Sudama, they are not vaidhi bhaktas. They are ragatmikas, the paradigmatic figures that represent the ideal of raga that we are attracted to. Then, however minimally, that's our course, right? We say raganuga bhakti without taste, raganuga bhakti with taste, so you have fallen into this former category, and as you become qualified, then the taste will then the taste will drive you. So that's the idea. Does that help?
Kanurama: It does. I just want to clarify a little bit further. So is the goal of vaidhi bhakti reverential love?
Guru Maharaja: Yeah. The goal of vaidhi bhakti is reverential love. It could be Vaikuntha, or it could be Krishna in Dvaraka, or in Mahura there is a mix betwwen raganuga bhakti and vaidhi bhakti. The goal of vaidhi bhakti is not bhakti that retires knowledge so to speak. The knowledge for example of Krishna's godhood is the most subsumed by raga-bhakti so that there can be the intimacy that we find in Vraja. In Dvaraka for example, Krishna is there also. There is vaidhi bhakti for Krishna in Dvaraka. They know that he is the Supreme Personality of Godhead, and they know that they are in his earthly dynasty, and they think "wow, that's pretty cool", but in Vraja they don't think like that. That's why sometimes... Mahaprabhu referred to it as jnana-sunya-bhakti, bhakti unencumbered in any way by that which would prohibit or impede intimacy that we find in Vraja.
So yes, the goal of vaidhi bhakti is not to enter into Vrindavana. You cannot enter there by vaidhi bhakti, it's not possible, because vaidhi bhakti is not what goes on there. It's raga bhakti that goes on there. They are all ragatmikas and those who follow the ragatmikas and become like them as a result of it. So if you do a different kind of bhakti then you are not going to get there. That's why it's important to have the right orientation. That's why we give this kind of talks and then that will help us to focus and drive your bhakti. Does that help?
Kanurama: Yes, thank you
Guru Maharaja, I'm a little clearer on it. And I admire your sastra-nipuna as well. That's almost how Rupa Goswami presents it verse by verse.
Guru Maharaja: Ok.
Kanurama: Thank you.
Arcana: Gaura Narayana, do you want to ask your question? Unmute yourself, *6.
Guru Maharaja: Gaura Narayana, are you there?
Gaura Narayana: Hare Krishna. Hello? Good morning, Gurudeva. I wanted to ask about the significance of wearing Tulasi, over something else like Neem or something.
Guru Maharaja: Well. the wearing of Tulasi beads is recommended. It's thought to be favorable for developing the ideal, and so it would be bhavanukula. In other words, the bhava you want to attain as a friend of Krishna for example in Vrindavana, will be well served by wearing Tulasi, wearing Vishnu tilaka and so forth. It doesn't say anything anywhere about wearing neem beads. Neem is a nice tree and has antiseptic qualities. Caitanya Mahaprabhu was born under a neem tree, that's why he was nicknamed Nimai. So you could get some mileage out of that so to speak, but it's not recommended anywhere in the scripture that you should wear neem beads and it will get the same effects as the Tulasi. So Tulasi is a particular consort of Bhagavan and then there is the sacred basil as it's called sometimes in the west that is a manifestation of that sakti. And so we honor it. Therefore it's recommended to chant on the Tulasi beads, to wear the Tulasi beads.
It may say, I'm not sure about this, somewhere in the Bhakti-Rasamrta-Sindhu, chanting on Tulasi beads or lotus beads, to make beads I think out of lotus seeds, they look quite nice, but I'm not sure about that. And again the Tulasi beads are recommended and everybody chants on them and wear them as neckbeads. There's nothing equivalent that's said about wearing the neembeads, so... I mean, that's a simple answer, but... And they are nice. Somebody just asked me the other day, "Where did you get those beads?". And I have said many times when I have given them to devotees at initiation that when somebody asks you then you remember, "Oh, where do I begin, where did I get these beads, how do I tell this person", you know. But it's a protective in that sense, it reminds us of who we are. Prabhupada called it a dog collar. Does that help? we are just running out of time too.
Gaura Narayana: That's good, thank you.
Guru Maharaja: Ok, yeah.
Karnam: Well, alrighty, thank you so much, and hopefully talk to you next week.
Guru Maharaja: Ok, Haribol.
Arcana: Hare Krishna. ----end----