19830605 Caitanya-caritāmṛta Ādi-līlā 9.42

The following is a lecture given by His Holiness Jayapatākā Swami on June 5th, 1983 in Atlanta, Georgia. The class begins with a reading from the Śrī Caitanya-Caritāmṛta, the Ādi-līlā, Chapter 9, Verse 42.

etāvaj janma-sāphalyaṁ
dehinām iha dehiṣu
prāṇair arthair dhiyā vācā
śreya-ācaraṇaṁ sadā

Translation: ‘It is the duty of every living being to perform welfare activities for the benefit of others with his life, wealth, intelligence and words.’

Purport: There are two kinds of general activities — śreyas, or activities which are ultimately beneficial and auspicious, and preyas, or those which are immediately beneficial and auspicious. For example, children are fond of playing. They do not want to go to school to receive an education, and they think that to play all day and night and enjoy with their friends is the aim of life. Even in the transcendental life of Lord Kṛṣṇa, we find that when He was a child He was very fond of playing with His friends of the same age, the cowherd boys. He would not even go home to take His dinner. Mother Yaśodā would have to come out to induce Him to come home. Thus it is a child’s nature to engage all day and night in playing, not caring even for his health and other important concerns. This is an example of preyas, or immediately beneficial activities. But there are also śreyas, or activities which are ultimately auspicious. According to Vedic civilization, a human being must be God conscious. He should understand what God is, what this material world is, who he is, and what their interrelationships are. This is called śreyas, or ultimately auspicious activity. 

In this verse of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam it is said that one should be interested in śreyas. To achieve the ultimate goal of śreyas, or good fortune, one should engage everything, including his life, wealth and words, not only for himself but for others also. However, unless one is interested in śreyas in his own life, he cannot preach of śreyas for the benefit of others.

This verse cited by Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu applies to human beings, not to animals. As indicated in the previous verse by the words manuṣya-janma, these injunctions are for human beings. Unfortunately, human beings, although they have the bodies of men, are becoming less than animals in their behavior. This is the fault of modern education. Modern educators do not know the aim of human life; they are simply concerned with how to develop the economic condition of their countries or of human society. This is also necessary; the Vedic civilization considers all aspects of human life, including dharma (religion), artha (economic development), kāma (sense gratification) and mokṣa (liberation). But humanity’s first concern should be religion. To be religious, one must abide by the orders of God, but unfortunately people in this age have rejected religion, and they are busy in economic development. Therefore they will adopt any means to get money. For economic development one does not need to get money by hook or by crook; one needs only sufficient money to maintain his body and soul. However, because modern economic development is going on with no religious background, people have become lusty, greedy and mad after money. They are simply developing the qualities of rajas (passion) and tamas (ignorance), neglecting the other quality of nature, sattva (goodness), and the brahminical qualifications. Therefore the entire society is in chaos.

The Bhāgavatam says that it is the duty of an advanced human being to act in such a way as to facilitate human society’s attainment of the ultimate goal of life. There is a similar verse in the Viṣṇu Purāṇa, Part Three, Chapter Twelve, verse 45, which is next quoted in the Caitanya-caritāmṛta.

Thus end the translation and the purport of the Text 42 of the Caitanya-Caritāmṛta in the Ādi-līlā, which is the verse from the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, 10th Canto, 22d Chapter, Verse 35, which has been quoted here by Caitanya Mahāprabhu.

*Gurudeva rereads translation*         

Jayapatākā Swami: So, this is something which is not too difficult to understand. That a human being should live for others. For the benefit of others. Of course, first one has to take care of one’s own interest, at least be concerned about one’s own interest and then one can consider others’ interest.

The problem is that nobody knows what is in their good interest in the modern world. That is the… the big problem. The… so many examples of how people, in the name of doing good to others, actually create havoc because they don’t know exactly what will be the result. Whether it’s on a temporary basis… some rather isolated basis. Just like bringing foxes to Australia to get rid of the rabbits and then there’s nothing to get rid of the foxes. Nobody was trying to help them out. In India there is the water hyacinth fern which completely clogs all of the riverways, all of the waterways, all of the lakes, ponds and that was brought because some English lady wanted to decorate India. Did not realize there is no one who eats water hyacinth. So that thing is just everywhere, clogs everything up, stagnates the water. So it can be I mean, those are just more or less frivolous, or little examples.

So, to the ultimate goal of life people are not… at least people are considered as immediate. They have an immediate problem, they want an immediate solution. But what will be the ultimate result of that they don’t know. Prahlāda Mahārāja in the Seventh Canto describes that their problems all require solutions, but the solutions that they find for their problems are another problem. Just like there was the problem of transportation. So now in this problem of transportation we have developed the automobile, which is another problem. Right? Then we have to have roads, you have to have laws, then we have to have enforcement branches, so on and so forth, all trying to maintain; to solve your original problem, you’ve just created another problem, which has created another 50 problems.

So at race, neck… you know, break neck speeds one races to go from one place to the next. To see a friend, you have to drive thirty miles. Now the life has become so complicated and people lose track that what is the actual basic standard of life. That these are not necessary to actually be happy. But we have created artificial standards, and to maintain that, that’s the big problem.

So all these things are preyas, they just give us some immediate happiness. Just like you tell people on the plane I was flying over “Happy Holidays”, or something. “Yeah! I think I am going to try to have a real good time.” Within these short holidays, I was flying from India to Frankfurt to here, so from Frankfurt all of the boys, all of the army boys, and force officers everybody, they are all flying over for the holidays. So in this… they have to report back in January 6th or something. So in this short time they want to squeeze in as much preyas, immediate happiness that they can. This is the standard around the world for most of the people.

If, the only śreyas, it’s just like little long term, maybe they take some education. Now so many adults are going back to school to get some more education so that they can get another future. Better position in society for economic development. This morning while doing something I saw an old paper. There was an ad there for people retiring. What do people have to look forward to? After retirement go to some old folks’ home. And the ultimate “What are people living for?”, it’s very dubious in many people’s minds. So those who are a little pious they feel they will go to heaven. But who is God, who are they, what is heaven in real scientific or more definitive terms, what does it all mean? What is life? To ignore that basic question and just to go on blindly through one’s life is basically the greatest foolishness that one could do. No purpose of human intelligence if that’s simply to be able to invent so many machines to solve our problems and then create another problem to maintain those machines. That’s all just subsidiary purposes. That’s simply to facilitate going where we have to go. But where are we going, that nobody knows.

That’s the amazing thing in the Western world, that from the great scientists, to the philosophers, to the leaders, that where society should go; what is the actual destination where there can be peace and harmony or where people can be satisfied and happy? They know that there are so many difficulties in society, there are so many deficiencies. But what the destination is, what is the standard, what is the goal… Is there a standard? That nobody can say anything. They all have different ideas. Plans. Like Marxism and Capitalism and so on. But all these are man-made schemes are all deficient.

So the actual plan, the real śreyas or the real permanent benefit is given in the Vedic literature. That first thing, is the purpose is, that we should know who Kṛṣṇa is. We should know who the Supreme Godhead is. We should know everything about Him that we are capable of knowing. Not that we can know everything, because He is unlimited. But there are many things that we can know, and we should know! And we should know about ourselves. Who are we? How did we come in the world? Is there life after death? What is that life? What is this material world? How does it relate with ourselves, with God? All these things are very scientifically and systematically described in the Vedic literature.

So Prabhupāda’s books, they are actually giving this knowledge to people. Unfortunately people are so absorbed in the external form, that if it is a little bit different from what they are accustomed to they tend to reject or tend to doubt without giving it a fair hearing. So by some means or another we have to allow people to be exposed to our literature and be exposed to our philosophy so they might start to understand that there is actually something that they should be analyzing in their lives, more than their immediate economic program.

In the Vedic culture the whole system of varṇāśrama is given to divide the animals from the humans. So before varṇāśrama is practiced, that basically human society is a type of polished animal society. Varṇāśrama means that there is a basic direction of becoming self-realized, of being… following the laws of God. And these things are organized in such a way that people in their retired life, they’re able to concentrate on God consciousness and their active life there are various programs. The whole system was given by Kṛṣṇa just to bring the people to the platform of human life. But people are very far away from varṇāśrama culture.

So Caitanya Mahāprabhu, He is actually giving the essence. I mean the whole purpose, even of varṇāśrama-dharma, is to bring one to the point of God consciousness. To be conscious of God and one’s own spiritual nature, to be conscious of the interrelationships, this is the actual purpose. So then Caitanya Mahāprabhu by giving this

Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa, Hare Hare
Hare Rāma, Hare Rāma, Rāma Rāma, Hare Hare

…mahā-mantra, this awakens the dormant spiritual capacity to understand these things. Prabhupāda once retorted when somebody said you are brainwashing the people. He said “What brain they have to wash?” You give them a brain and then we have something. They have nothing, no brain even to understand spiritual life. People don’t have the… they are so much embedded in body consciousness, they identify themselves so much simply by their material tabernacle that they are temporarily residing in, that they have no idea whatsoever that there’s anything beyond that, which is such a hopeless frustrating situation because at every moment this body is disintegrating and there is no doubt that at one time that thing is simply going to fall off.

So it’s a very hopeless and frustrating situation, which you can block out (ignorance is bliss) for some time but doesn’t actually solve the problem. The people, they are very hopelessly absorbed in this type of bodily existence. And that there is something beyond this, they don’t have the intelligence to perceive that or to understand that. Even if you tell them about the existence of the soul in real spiritual terms. Even the more religious people they say, “I have a soul. ‘I’ they are so identifying, ‘I’ is in the body, I have a soul. It’s like the car saying, “I have a driver.”, right? If cars could speak. Now they have computers that can speak, “I have a user.”, right? But if the user does not turn on the switch the computer is nothing, isn’t it? So here, “I have a soul.” It’s not the soul, it’s the actual person, the body is simply a vehicle.

But this to get them even to that level without chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa or taking a little Kṛṣṇa-cookie or prasādam, without having some association of the devotees, without just getting some little bit of spiritual vibration or spiritual understanding or just little bit of spiritual sukṛti, they have no scope for even slightly conceiving what’s going on.

So by all of your preaching Kṛṣṇa consciousness, and giving people… engaging them in the process of Kṛṣṇa consciousness, you are doing the greatest welfare work. This is the ultimate śreyas. Because even by a little bit of advancement in spiritual life, they can eventually conquer over all these difficulties. They can conquer over death, what to speak of anything else. And once they understand who they are, how they are interrelated with the material world, with God, with each other, in factual spiritual terms, then they have achieved the supreme happiness. They have achieved the supreme peace which everybody is hankering for. But they don’t have any idea how to get it. They all have ideas how to get it but they don’t get it with those ideas. They don’t know how to achieve śreyas or ultimate benefit. They’re just after preyas the immediate sense gratification, the immediate result.

So you are doing the greatest welfare work by giving this Kṛṣṇa consciousness to others. And if we persevere, then gradually people will start to be more and more fortunate simply by your association. And by your engaging them, and eventually, if they have the slightest desire, they will be able to understand. Everyone has the capacity to understand, whether young or old, whether educated or uneducated, whether man or woman. Everyone has the capacity to understand but they are covered. That capacity is covered by different degrees of material ignorance and passion. So that fire that’s burning in their heart has to be a little bit cooled down and good intelligence has to be transplanted or rather uncovered, by the cleansing process of Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Actually then, real intelligence is revealed. Then they can understand what is happening.

Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa, Hare Hare
Hare Rāma, Hare Rāma, Rāma Rāma, Hare Hare

[End of Recording]