19810621 Evening Darśana

The following is a class given by His Holiness Jayapatākā Swāmī Mahārāja on June 21st, 1981 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Jayapatākā Swāmī: So… anyway it was possible, everyone was in their room who heard the example, most of the people could appreciate that example from practical experience. But since you are at different level, then for you I will give a different example. Examples are not for… the same for everyone; But that example, most of the people could appreciate because in our practical day to day life we forget when we put things, and we think “Where did I put it? Where did it… Where was it?” and we remember. The only thing you see is that, when we came in this material world with so many millions and billions of birth ago, that if we knew why we came then to know that we would have to be in that position, in that memory, in that uh, mentality again to appreciate the actual reason and to be in that mentality means that we had to… at that time we were not in this material world. That means we would have to again be liberated to appreciate that circumstance, so that’s my point.

And know the exact, individual reason means that one has to be liberated then only he can see, because from the… once you’re in the well, unless you can think of the time when you were out of the well, and remember that position when you were out of the well and how you fell in, then only you can know how you fell in. But if you can’t even remember what it was like to be outside of the well, what it was like to stand above the well and that memory has gone from your mind, then how can you understand even if someone tells you how is it to fall in, if you don’t know that what is the existence except for what is in the well, you don’t even know that outside there’s trees and there’s other so many things. You forgot. Then how can someone try to explain, “Well this is how you fell in, you see maybe its very complex you just take my word for it.” Unless you are liberated you will never know the exact reason because it is not possible for someone in that ignorant state of life to know these things. But in general, I gave the answer, we fall down because we want to be independent. So Kṛṣṇa allows us that independence. Could you understand that?

The first qualification to understand such a subtle thing is to be a vegetarian and eat kṛṣṇa-prasāda and chant Hare Kṛṣṇa. Actually, we don’t expect that people will understand these things unless they become purified in their consciousness. If one does not purify their consciousness there is no way he can understand these subtle things. It’s like tuning in your radio. If you have a ten dollar radio, you’re not going to tune in to the station going across from the other part of the world. You only get AM, FM. But if you have got a nice Shortwave if so many bands high… Sony or some other very good brand then you can get fine tuning.

So we have to clean the garbage from our brain and get fine tuning to understand these things. We want everything to be immediately understood but at the same time if we are not getting fine tuning in our brain, we are not chanting, we are not doing meditation and we’re not being vegetarian or taking only kṛṣṇa-prasāda and acting in a pure way. We’re absorbing our mind in material activity and then we want to understand the subtle things which require very sharp intelligence, so the two things don’t mix. When a person is driving, if he’s drunk and they give a test, he can’t walk in a straight line (laughter). When we are in the material world, we’re overwhelmed by this energy. It’s not any individual I am talking to. In general in this material world, we are intoxicated with this body, with this mind; Therefore we are not able to understand things as they are. We should understand that this body is intoxicating. Right now, it’s hot. We’re thinking “Its uncomfortable.” If someone turns the fan on, “We think now its very nice.” If the fan goes off, we think “Its so hot.” That means our happiness is being affected by this simple body, if we have a fan we feel nice. If its just heat and we get hot and sweaty, we think “Oh, this is very bad.” That means how we are intoxicated by this body? Our happiness is being dependent just by the presence of a fan or not. That’s how much this body can affect us. So therefore, we have to transcend the body and that means we have to transcend the body and transcend the mind also, because the mind is what is appreciating all these distinctions. So, that is done by purifying the con… the intelligence, you see.

So our intelligence can’t remember how we fell in this material world. We cannot even remember our previous life in most cases, what to speak of that ancient thing? So you are very intelligent person. You’re coming here and trying to understand all these things. So you should appreciate, that this is a most difficult thing to understand. That even you hear it you may not be able to immediately understand everything. But if you meditate on what is being said, then you can appreciate.

We come here. Why we come here? We have to take Kṛṣṇa’s word. Because we have forgotten the time when we came here. We have been here so long, that we no longer where we first began being here. So Kṛṣṇa said the reason we come here is that it was our own choice. That means it’s our fault and He is saying that, you also have the choice to get out.

So what if we fall in the ocean? Should we be asking, “How did I fall in the ocean? How did I come here?” If someone comes in a life boat and throws us the rope, “Before I grab on the rope tell me How did I fall in?” Will that be the proper mentality, or should we first grab on the rope, and hold on and get pulled out of the water and then we will see that “Oh…” and then we can remember everything, how we fell in, What happened we can discuss in leisure.

So now we rotting Birth, Death, Old age and disease we are suffering it every moment and when the spiritual master throws the rope, “Grab!” You see we don’t grab on the rope, we want to discuss so many things(laughter). So of course, we don’t want dogmatic followers so that they simply blindly accept. We want good questions, these are very good questions which all of you are asking, but we should understand that real thing is we have to grab on the rope and when we get pulled out then we can actually understand. So if we appreciate that we are in this material world, that this material world is a place of suffering. That should be enough for us to now try to get out. Then we should try to understand whether this process is effective to get us out, and the other questions related to… “How did we get here?” and all these things. Actually, to understand and appreciate this is not possible for a newcomer. And it is not essential.

I would advise an essential thing is to understand what is this material world. How we are suffering in this material world and how to get out of that suffering. Whether this process of Kṛṣṇa consciousness is suitable for that. Someone gets a disease he asks the doctor, “How did I get it?” The doctor is not supposed to say how you got your disease; He can also give you some advice. You may or may not accept. Its like that. You are asking “How did we fall?” I have already given you three, four answers. Four, five people are asking the same question. They don’t have to accept my answer. So my second rebuttal is that, whether you accept my answer or not, the real thing you should accept is the cure. You should know your disease that you are diseased in this material world. Birth, death, old age, disease. If you don’t accept Kṛṣṇa’s advice that you chose to be in this material world due to ignorance, due to mistake. What more can I say? But, you should understand. Just like the doctor when he tells the patient, “You have got diabetes, now you have to know… don’t eat any sugar. Even if one can’t follow all the principles as I mentioned before eating kṛṣṇa-prasāda and so on, at least, he should start to chant Hare Kṛṣṇa. Which is a recommended medicine for this age Yuga-dharma.

harer nāma harer nāma
harer nāmaiva kevalam
kalau nāsty eva nāsty eva
nāsty eva gatir anyathā
(Bṛhan-nāradīya Purāṇa)

What other choice has been given in the Kali-yuga? This is the only recommended process, guaranteed success. So we realize we have a disease and we go to the doctor to be cured and if we don’t take the cure then we can’t blame the doctor if we don’t get cured. So we want everyone to be conscious of what are the problems of life. If we can identify these problems then we can also identify the cure, once the problem is solved then there is no… Then you won’t even care about how I came. That you’ll already know. When the problem is over then those questions don’t even come up, you see. But if you want to know, at that time you can know detailed, exactly how you came. Just like even today you can know in India those people who are having the Bṛghu-saṁhitā, They’ll look up and tell you your previous life. How you came to this life. What is your life this life and how you… what was your life the previous life. Similarly, what was your existence before, that I can instruct but to understand one has to have, some basic philosophical foundation which may take a few… some time to build up and the exact individual reason, everyone will know.

But what we should be concerned with now is how to get out of this predicament. Why you want to go on suffering, birth after birth? In Nepal at the Visva Hindu Sammelana the Buddhists, Jains, Sikhs, SānatanaDharma, Hindus everyone was present. So they all accepted the reincarnation. Everyone, even the Buddists, Sikhs, Jains they all accepted reincarnation. So how to get out of the chain of reincarnation, that should be our first concern. What is the actual goal of life, that should be our concern.

Comment: They still don’t accept in (inaudible)

Jayapatākā Swāmī: Now they have to accept, in America they’ve already proven it by hypnosis and Kiron photography, they photographed the uh… subtle body leaving the body, in Russia also. In Rome at the Vatican, they had a big scientific conference and every scientist from all the countries of the West… they all had so many proofs of reincarnation.

Comment: Okay, so…

Jayapatākā Swāmī: Just two days ago… two days before I left at 8 o’clock TV, Prime Time, Audrey Rose is one famous movie. Whole movie is on reincarnation. So they played it right on 8 o’clock Sunday night prime time TV I was told. The Christian Bible was... 400 years ago after Lord Jesus left, it was completely edited. No one knows what the original Bible contained. You're are going on abridged version. Lord Jesus himself... then in India they have his footprints in Bombay. They say his body is left in uh, Kashmir. Many Christians accept that. All the Christians of India accept that, so even… even Christianity, the roots are originally coming from India. But now its all distorted. What the original teachings were, you see. Lord Jesus never ate cow. He never opened a slaughterhouse, did He?

Comment: (inaudible)

We don’t find anywhere that He ate. He said, “Let the bread be thy flesh.” We’re not trying to discourage the Christians. If… We want those people who are intelligent, who want a post graduate course, we are offering a post graduate course: non-secteraian. We don’t care whether someone is Christian or any religion. This is a post graduate course. It is dealing with more higher principles. It transcends all these barriers. Rabbis and priests they come and they take lessons from us and they go and give sermons based on our teachings. These are universal points.

Is there any prasāda?

Devotees: Jaya! Śrīla Ācāryapāda kī, Jaya!