19831029 Caitanya-caritāmṛta Madhya-līlā 19.159

The following is a lecture given by His Holiness Jayapatākā Swami on October 29th, 1983 in Atlanta, Georgia. The class begins with a reading from the Śrī Caitanya-Caritāmṛta, Madhya-līlā, Chapter 19, Verse 159.

‘niṣiddhācāra’, ‘kuṭīnāṭī’, ‘jīva-hiṁsana’ ‘lābha’,
‘pūjā’, ‘pratiṣṭhādi’ yata upaśākhā-gaṇa  

Translation: “Some unnecessary creepers growing with the bhakti creeper are the creepers of behavior unacceptable for those trying to attain perfection, diplomatic behavior, animal-killing, mundane profiteering, mundane adoration and mundane importance. All these are unwanted creepers. 

Purport (by Śrīla Prabhupāda): There is a certain pattern of behavior prescribed for those actually trying to become perfect. In our Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement we advise our students not to eat meat, not to gamble, not to engage in illicit sex and not to indulge in intoxication. People who indulge in these activities can never become perfect; therefore, these regulative principles are for those interested in becoming perfect and going back to Godhead.

Jayapatākā Swami: He’s dealing with one at a time. Six weeds… we were discussing last night in the darśana about unwanted creepers or weeds which grow alongside of the bhakti-latā or the creeper of devotion, and how they sometimes take over, they grow more, or they appear to be very similar to the bhakti-latā. So it’s very hard for someone to distinguish. So, here Prabhupāda is giving us… or Lord Caitanya rather, is giving us six examples of this type of creeper although there are more, no doubt. So the first one is, breaking regulative principles, performing behavior unacceptable for those trying to attain perfection. Somebody wants to become perfect in spiritual realization, then the gross material entangling activities and degrading activities like unregulated sex life, illicit sex, without any spiritual purpose, gambling, meat eating, indulging intoxication, all these things are obstacles in the path of devotional service. Sometimes people condone taking drugs as taking some kind of an impetus for spiritual realization. There are other purports where Prabhupāda said that they are effective, hallucinations are accepted as realizations. One should not be confused by this kind of a propaganda, that by taking any form of drug, psychedelic or whatever. That one is going to actually achieve real transcendental realization. Transcendental realization is not dependent on any chemical, it is dependent on the mercy of the Lord and in one’s practice of the Lord’s orders. So Prabhupāda continues with the next unwanted creeper.

Purport (cont.): Kuṭīnāṭī, or diplomatic behavior, cannot satisfy the ātmā, the soul. It cannot even satisfy the body or the mind. The culprit mind is always suspicious; therefore our dealings should always be straightforward and approved by Vedic authorities. If we treat people diplomatically or duplicitously, our spiritual advancement is obstructed. Jīva-hiṁsana refers (Prabhupāda says) to the killing of animals or to envy of other living entities. The killing of poor animals is undoubtedly due to envy of those animals. The human form is meant for the understanding of Kṛṣṇa consciousness (athāto brahma-jijñāsā), for inquiring about the Supreme Brahman. In the human form, everyone has a chance to understand the Supreme Brahman. The so-called leaders of human society do not know the real aim of human life and are therefore busy with economic development. This is misleading. Every state and every society is busy trying to improve the quality of eating, sleeping, mating and defending. This human form of life is meant for more than these four animal principles. Eating, sleeping, mating and defending are problems found in the animal kingdom, and the animals have solved their problems without difficulty. Why should human society be so busy trying to solve these problems? The difficulty is that people are not educated to understand this simple philosophy. They think that advancement of civilization means increasing sense gratification.

There are many religious propagandists who do not know how the ultimate problems of life can be solved, and they also try to educate people in a form of sense gratification. This is also jīva-hiṁsana. Real knowledge is not given, and religionists mislead the general populace. As far as material profits are concerned, one should know that whatever material profit one has must be abandoned at the time of death. Unfortunately people do not know that there is life after death; therefore mundane people waste their time amassing material profit which has to be left behind at the time of death. Such profit has no eternal benefit. Similarly, adoration by mundane people is valueless because after death one has to accept another body. Material adoration and titles are decorations that cannot be carried over to the next body. In the next life, everything is forgotten.

All these obstructions have been described in this verse as unwanted creepers. They simply present obstacles for the real creeper, the bhakti-latā-bīja. One should be very careful to avoid all these unwanted things. Sometimes these unwanted creepers look exactly like the bhakti-latā creeper. They appear to be of the same size and the same species when they are packed together with the bhakti-latā creeper, but in spite of this, the creepers are called upaśākhā. A pure devotee can distinguish between the bhakti-latā creeper and a mundane creeper, and he is very alert to distinguish them and keep them separate.

Thus end the Purport by Śrīla Prabhupāda on Text 159, Chapter 19, in the Madhya-līlā, Śrī Caitanya-Caritāmṛta. History of the Cleansing of the Guṇḍicā temple. 

Jayapatākā Swami: There, it describes how first Lord Caitanya and His associates went and they picked up branches and fallen down twigs and leaves and things like that, they were scattered all over the temple, which is not used except for 9 days in a year, basically. Then after they cleaned all out these things, then they came with stiff brooms, and they swept all the smaller… just little things, and they swept all those out. After they did that, after sweeping thoroughly, then they took water and washed out the whole temple, with floods of water, and scrubbing and washing. Then after that, Lord Caitanya sent devotees back, with little nails, or with their finger, and they were scraping out in the cracks between the stones, all the little accumulated sand and dusts.

So in the purport, Śrīla Prabhupāda explains that like that we have to continually be purifying our heart. When the temple was cleansed, it said that it was as clean as Lord Caitanya’s heart. In material life our heart is filled with material desires, which are just like dirt, just like accumulated garbage. So the first desire’s like the regulative principles, this are just like the logs, just fallen down trees, there. You have to cut them and clear them out, you see. After you clear out this big, fallen down branches and limbs from trees, then you have to clear out all the leaves and everything. So practically there’s the stages, first the four principles. Alright, someone may be following the four principles, but how is he behaving with the other devotees? Is he straightforward in his dealings or has got some other schemes, some other separate ideas, therefore always has to be lying, stretching the truth, being diplomatic with the devotees, can’t be straightforward because… why? Because of some separate ideas than Kṛṣṇa’s. He has to go out of the way to maintain that. Then dealing with other devotees or karmīs, is cruelly, harshly, which means in some cases not preaching to them when they could be preached to. All these situations, could be determine… could be described as jīva-hiṁsā or cruelty to others.

Then, just like the scrubbing with the water, then there is fame adoration and distinction, you see. And (inaudible) in the cracks. Then there are so many other subtle desires, that come up where one has an idea, just like in the purport Prabhupāda quotes Bhaktisiddhānta as saying that sometimes one finds that even a fairly mature devotee, we get an idea to do some sort of business with the idea, “I will make money, and I will give the money to Kṛṣṇa.” You see, but because we have been in the material world in previous births and this birth, literally thousands of births, millions of births, so the habit to work for fame, adoration, distinction, to work for profit, the groove is already there, it’s just like in (inaudible) it’s scratched in, you have to avoid it all together. So when they, even though they come with the idea,“Let me do this for Kṛṣṇa.” but once they get near that, in the side that groove, even though it is "Kṛṣṇa", their mentality Bhaktisiddhānta said, it reverts back to the original thing. They become attached, you see, they become very attached to those ideas, that even without knowing it, although all along they thinking it is for Kṛṣṇa, but ultimately they are just taking so much energy away from their direct service to Kṛṣṇa, and investing more and more and more time, in this separate idea which is actually an over-endeavor.

So Bhaktisiddhānta guided us that we should be very careful not to fall into this type of a thing that the nature of the living entity is to work some sort of profit, adoration and distinction, and in trying to do something, even though it is for Kṛṣṇa, we have to be very careful that, we are not simply taken off, swept away by this type of desires, even though it’s not at all, as it says it looks completely bonafide, it’s not at all on the top of the mind, but it’s like a kind of fever that takes over and clouds the intelligence, even though all along person is saying is for Kṛṣṇa. So many times you see people leave, “I am going to do business, I am going to give so much money to Kṛṣṇa.” And year after year doing their business, but in many cases you never see any service attitude, actually given to Kṛṣṇa. They are always building up their capital, or something or another. So, this is what Bhaktisiddhānta has warned us against.

So, like that there are so many creepers that are competing with the bhakti-latā creeper, and we have to pull them out. We have to pull them out completely out of our consciousness, you see. Creepers of illicit sex. Kṛṣṇa says in the Bhagavad-Gītā (7.11), dharmāviruddho maithuna-aham, that “The sex life which is not against the Vedic principles, the religious principles is Me. I am the sex life not against the Vedic principles, the religious principles.” In other words, Kṛṣṇa Himself is saying that if someone is following Vedic principles, he is trying to have a child, that sex life which is meant to continue the… order of Kṛṣṇa, they are helping Him to maintain the material world, always have to have more people being born, otherwise the material world would not be able to go on. So that is authorized, and there is certain principles, how to do that. So someone who follows those principles, Kṛṣṇa says that I am that sex life, it’s nothing degrading, in the sense in itself, it’s not. If it is done authorized, one has no bad karma, but other forms of sex life are degrading, they are polluting, they are not for… as Prabhupāda says here in the purport, they are not prescribed behavior for those actually trying to become perfect. What happens is when one engages in activities against the regulative principles, it has a tendency to harden the heart. All these weeds, they have a tendency to harden the heart. They make the heart and unsuitable place for the bhakti-latā to grow, just like nowadays they have the acid rain, where it falls you can’t grow any plants. If you have too many of these weeds, the whole soil becomes polluted, then the bhakti-latā just cannot grow there properly. Becomes overwhelmed by all the other plants which are producing so many poisonous kinds of byproducts. So one has to be… cleaning the garden, so you can plant the bhakti-latā, when it is planted you have to see, this other crop… other plants don’t come up again. This is mother Jaṭilā said, you let one weed grow up, it will grow up into a huge tree, that’s what happens in the garden if you leave a weed grow, it grows, and grows and grows. Somehow they have the ability, certain other plants to suck up the fertilizer more than the intended plant. That’s their special siddhi.

So, of course one time we were walking, and Prabhupāda said in Māyāpur, “What are all these plants?”

I said, “They are weeds.”

He said, “No, each plant has a use, you see, if you don’t know the use, that’s all, but in real life each plant has some kind of a use, you can use it for medicinal purpose or something if you know the actual use.” you see, but for those who want perfection, this type of plants here, these are the real weeds, these are the ones which don’t have any use, for no productive use for achieving perfection and self-realization. They have a use of binding people in the material world. Keeping them prisoners. You see māyā’s tricks, māyā’s chains, so Lord Caitanya is coming down literally to free the conditioned souls. He is giving very scientifically what is the material world, what is the bondage of the material world, and isolating one of the actual… just like nowadays there are people who are suffering so many terrible diseases, and the scientists being directed to find out what are the basic symptoms that causes the cures.

There’s millions of dollars are being spent in the research trying to isolate the virus or bacilli or whatever it is, that is the actual cause of the disease. So then Lord Caitanya, He has already done this for us, he has isolated, this is the… this is the root causes. You avoid these weeds and then your own spiritual progress will go on very nicely. Just like we asked yesterday, little Lalitā, some question I forget,“Were you chanting, or doing some devotional service?” and she said, “No, I was playing.” Very straightforward. “I was playing.” that’s the nature of a child, they are very simple, they are very straightforward, you see, at least the good ones. But that’s generally the nature of a child. Now modern society, one is trained, especially in the political field, like Cāṇakya says “In politics, you want to succeed, you have to be a crooked tree, then no one will cut you down.” But that’s in the… That’s why the brāhmaṇas, they stayed away from politics, they stayed away from this the… the… government and all that, because it’s practically impossible to be a politician and a brāhmaṇa. Cāṇakya, actually he came down to the level as the teach… the politician, how to be politicians. In that way just like Droṇācārya taught them, how to fight, he is teaching them, but they offered him that, “You stay in the King’s palace.” he refused, he lived in a grass hut, he refused to take a salary. He told everyone to be politician, this is how to do it, but he refused himself to completely come down to that level. That’s the brahminical culture.

He could have had a big palace to live in, but instead he lived in a grass hut. He could have had a big salary, he didn’t want it. If you give something, he take it and he’d distribute to the poor, whatever, he will always live in a simple way. This is a brahminical culture, is that one unnecessarily doesn’t want to have a comfortable life. So, once that one has enough to practice Kṛṣṇa consciousness… the modern ideal is try to get more and more comforts, and to maintain this comforts,they have to work so hard. The standard of living… I saw an advertisement for some kind of movie, three house wives they couldn’t meet the standard of living, so they robbed a bank or something.

This is the idea, they work so hard, they create some sort of artificial standard, where they have to maintain so many machines. The the big playboy magazine, and I can’t even mention the name of the other magazine, this big editors they… their thing is to spend billions of dollars on gadgets, there is a gadgets magazine, and just to maintain the gadgets, one of this guys has $45,000 a year, engineer, just to maintain his video TV’s, and his tape recorders, and his automatic clothes hangers and everything. Some in-flight magazine. Now this is his success, you see, that he can have so many gadgets. So he has to work so hard, he doesn’t know exactly how long he keep it up, but he is trying you see, to amass as many gadgets as they can make.

So this completely artificial standard of existence, is glorified by people. They think that this is somehow the standard, but this is actually, it’s just like a desert. This is a drop. Every day they have to buy a new gadget, because there’s a drop of happiness there. Just is a drop, slight little drop. A new thing. Alright, play with it little… New toy, then they get bored, just like in a desert like a drop. Not enough to satisfy, just enough to wet your tongue, then you go on and on. What Lord Caitanya and Nityānanda are offering is… They are giving the flood. The happiness, the sublime bliss which they are giving, the love for Kṛṣṇa, that is actually a flood… Flood of love for God, it is inconceivable. Nobody can imagine that how much happiness is there, and happiness which doesn’t have any mixture of misery.

In material life, every form of happiness has got some kind of misery with it. The more illegal it is, the more unauthorized, the more anxiety there is. The more danger. Like the people robbing the bank, all this. Or people doing some kind of sneaky business, they always have to be duplicitous. The more straightforward, well if it just a normal, like in the Vedic society, a person goes to just a normal human life, that’s considered to be a standard of happiness of one, you see. Just honest, material life, get married, have children, just without any spiritual touch, just the regular work every day, do your work, bring home the bread, whatever. That’s the happiness of one. The maximum a human being can have is one. As much as they go over trying to exceed that, then on the other hand they have to suffer more anxiety and misery, or diseases or whatever. You can’t cheat the material nature.

Then to go higher then you go up to the Gandharvas, they have 10 times more happiness, then you go beyond that and then you go up to the Kinnaras, and another 10 times, you go up to the Siddhas, another 10 times, you go up to the demigods, another 10 times, you go up to Indra, he is 100 times, you go beyond Indra, accord… even then the asuras are there, they also… the regular full asuras who have their planets like Sutala, they also have a lot of enjoyment, more than human being, but beyond… beyond, more than them are the demigods, and more than… Indra, beyond Indra, 1,000 of times… Brahmā. It is said that even beyond those who live in Satyaloka, the planet of Brahmā, that all their happiness is not considered even a drop in compared to happiness or realization of the impersonal Brahman.

These impersonalist yogīs, who realize the Brahman, the bliss in the Brahman is more than all the material happiness, by… like a drop compared to the ocean, but even those who are absorbed in the bliss of impersonal Brahman, they find that the happiness of love for Kṛṣṇa is so many times greater than that, that they compare the happiness of Brahman as the impression of a calves hoof in the mud. That amount of water it can hold, compared to the ocean. I am going to be flying back to India over the Pacific Ocean, you don’t real… even over the Atlantic, you know, ocean. Just seven-hour flight, times 600 miles an hour, was it 3000, 4200 miles? or something like that. From England to New York, when you fly over the pacific, and you go from here to Hawaii, it’s about 5 hours, 6-hour flight, and from there to say Hong Kong, it’s is another 10-12 hour flight, so you are going like 18 hours and you look down, and there is just water, and water, and water, and water, and more water, and just water, and that’s all, and then some you know… then you come and here little… is a little island, that’s Hawaii. Little island between you know… this little, little speck in this, it’s like unlimited expanse of water. So you compare all that water to the little impression of a calves hoofprint, I don’t know, how can a… how can, the… the proportion is mind boggling. That is the proportion of happiness compared to the Brahman, and the whole material happiness is not even a drop, just like one drop compared to the ocean of the Brahman happiness. So how much happiness one achieves when one is fully Kṛṣṇa conscious, you see? This is inconceivable, and that is what Lord Caitanya is giving freely.

śrī-kṛṣṇa-caitanya-dayā karaha vicāra
vicāra karite citte pābe camatkāra

If you use your logic and reasoning, then try to analyze, “What is Lord Caitanya… what you get out of Lord Caitanya’s movement?” You can’t begin to tell people what they get. They don’t even know what a human being is, what is a soul, what is the spiritual life, they have not even an idea what is the material world, what are planets on the material world, what are the material happiness they could achieve in the material world. The material happiness’s are so great on the higher planets, why do you think all the sages are working so hard, doing tapasyā to get Siddha-loka?

I met one man in India, he said that…. I said, “Why don’t you get married”

He said, “I don’t want any of this material women in this world, I want an Apsarā.” The women in the higher planet, they are much better, you see… I want to take birth in heavenly planet, then I will get married, or maybe America. (laughter) Slight defect, slight you know, propaganda has bewildered him. But the… he wasn’t a sage, he was a bewildered person but anyway, the people have some idea of higher standard, but due to propaganda they think when they come to America, they have… bubble is popped, but they think… they think that must be something like Indraloka, but the happiness on those higher planets is so great that they want to achieve that happiness. That’s the happiness… if you read the Bible and the Koran, this is basically material happiness, the heavenly situations describe, especially in the Koran they describe so many gardens and facilities for material enjoyment, that’s their idea, one of the ideas… there’s two ideas, that’s another subject. So the people, their impetus is to have happiness, but they don’t even know what is the happiness in the material world. But it is over-publicized. The modern day, it is like the propaganda for sex, the propaganda for intoxica… it’s over propagandized, it’s over publicized, over-rated. So many times, you know, there’s someon… and “over-rated.” The material sense gratification is over rated, due to their… they wanna sell a pack of… of lung cancer, what do you call… those little sticks that they smoke. So then, they are not very attractive, so then they’ll have some you know picture of some beautiful young man, woman together holding this pack, and then everyone they are attracted, men are trying, you know, in this way this the advertising technique, use sex appeal to sell soap, cigarette whatever, anything. This is the highest happiness in the material world. But even though it might be the highest happiness in each individual body, it’s overrated, in itself it is not fully satisfying. So all this material enjoyments, they are all being overrated.

The happiness that people expect to get from their toys is so short-lived, that even for a moment if they get some thrill… but it’s short-lived, and then they get so much entangled by this whole thing, that is overrated. In fact it is completely misrated. When a person is on fire, when they are completely fixed on a particular idea. Where their gross sense gratification are some kind of a subtle desire that they dwelt upon, they meditated upon, they have developed an attachment for, it’s very hard to get them to see the light. They are attached, they are clinging on. If you say, “No, this is māyā.”, they get angry.

“What do you mean māyā? You are… what do you mean?” They get so angry. Just like Indra, when Brahmā came down and said, “What you are doing here as a pig? You are the king of the demigods, you come back to Indraloka.” He said, “What do you mean? These are my wives, and my kiddies, I am very happy here wallowing in the mud and eating the maggots, and stool, this is very wonderful food here, as much as you can eat.” right? Snorting away, because he had a pig body, he became absorbed in that, he couldn’t see the reality. Finally then Brahmā, he killed the piggy mother, and the piglets, and then Indra was crying, “What have you done? You killed my ma, and my wife, and my children is crying”, and then Brahmā threw some water from his kamaṇḍalu and Indra, and he came and… and he got his memory of his previous birth, “Who am I.” Then he could see that what an illusion, “What am I doing, my God!” Because he had committed some offences and fallen down, so this is the nature, we get over attached, we lose the ability to see what is māyā and what is Kṛṣṇa consciousness.

So we have to be very careful not to be deluded by the material nature, and to be always fixed in devotional service. Not to get mislead by the false propaganda of material satisfaction, whatever happiness there is, what to speak of even higher planets where there is none of these problems like diseases and things. Even all that happiness is nothing compared to the happiness of spiritual life, which is nothing compared to the… which is infinitesimal, compared to the happiness of Kṛṣṇa consciousness. 

Hare Kṛṣṇa Hare Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa Hare Hare
Hare Rāma Hare Rāma Rāma Rāma Hare Hare

and that is being given by Caitanya Mahāprabhu.  That is His great mercy. Hare Kṛṣṇa

Devotee: Śrīla Ācāryapāda kī…!

Devotees: Jaya!