20181203 Śrī Krishna Caitanya Book

Nama Om…

Mukham karoti vaachalam…

First we are compiling the Krishna Caitanya book and now Nimai Pandit had gone to Gaya and got initiated by Ishwara Puri paad. And there in Bihar He started to manifest pure love of Krishna. And He saw Krishna in Kanainaathshaala which is part of the new state of Jharkhand. Then He went back to Navadvip and now He is gradually informing people about His realizations of Krishna. So now He is instructing His mother and we are at the stage where the embryo is the womb of the mother and in the seventh month as they gain full consciousness, he can remember the sinful life he led in the previous birth. So he is praying to the Lord. You have certainly given me a befitting punishment. But even though I deserve it, now I beg for Your mercy. 

Please have this mercy on me. Please don’t forget me. Please don’t keep me away from You. Wherever I take birth, or die, that I may not forget You. 

The king Kulashekhar has written in his Mukunda Mala Stotra 5 as follows: 

“O my Lord I have no attachment for religiosity or for accumulating wealth or for enjoying sense gratification. Let these come as they inevitably must in accordance with my past deeds but I do pray for this cherished boon, birth after birth, let me render unflinching devotional service unto Your lotus feet.”

In the Srimad Bhagavatam 10th canto 14.30, Brahma prays to Lord Krishna as follows:

“My dear Lord I therefore pray to be so fortunate that in this life as Lord Brahma or in another life, wherever I take my birth, I may be counted as one of Your devotees. I pray that wherever I may be, even among the animal species, I can engage in devotional service to Your lotus feet.”

So the pure devotees, the acharyas, they pray that they can achieve the devotional service of Lord Krishna and never lose it. Even no matter what their birth is. So we also see that many acharyas they also pray that if they are not qualified to go back to Godhead, they could be born in the family of devotees where they can render devotional service from their childhood. 

So he is praying to Lord Krishna, wherever, whichever place You are, Your glories are not preached, where there is not the advent of the vaishnavas, where Your festivals and mahotsavas are not observed, even if it is Indra loka, I don’t want to go there. So Indra is the king of the heavenly planet or the celestial abode. In the Vedas, they are called devatas or demigods. In the Christian books they are termed as angels because they do some confidential services for the Lord. So there are two kinds – those who are in the material world and those who are with the Lord in the spiritual sky. So the prayer here is that any place which is devoid of the glorification of Lord Krishna, His transcendental qualities, improper behavior in the form of glorification of the conditioned souls, where pure devotees do not take birth, where the pure devotees don’t go there and don’t glorify the names, pastimes, forms of Krishna, those places where the Providence of Lord Krishna is not manifest and any place where there are no festivals celebrated for Krishna even though there is a place where there is sense gratification equal to that in Amaravati, the abode of  Lord Indra, I do not desire it. So this was the prayer of King Kulashekhar and other devotees. So the materialists they have intense desire for sense gratification. And they have no possibility of remembering Vaikuntha or Lord Vishnu. That is why they disregard Vishnu’s devotional service which is devoid of all other desires and which is the shelter of selfless action. They glorify the heavenly planets which are ideal for sense gratification. So I was once in Howrah station (not conversation. Ha!) with Srila Prabhupad. There were some very poor people They had collected the half burnt firewood from the coal engines. They used this wood to ignite the coal, the railway people. They would throw that half burnt wood away. So these people collected this half burnt wood and tied them and carried on their head. Prabhupad was saying that this wood has no commercial value. You cannot sell it. But these people although they are very poor, they are not akinchina. Akinchina, niskinchina means having nothing. But they have something.  Half burnt fire wood. If you try to take one from them they will fight. For them it is a valuable thing. So they are not akinchina. So the devotee accepts all his possessions for Lord Krishna. So they are actually akinchina, nothing belongs to them, everything belongs to Krishna. So Prabhupad was seeing the philosophy enacting before him or manifesting before him. 

So this is a verse from Srimad Bhagavatam canto 5, chapter 19,  24th shloka. This is the translation by Srila Prabhupad. Please read it:

“An intelligent person does not take interest in a place, even in the topmost planetary system, if the pure Ganges of topics concerning the Supreme Lord’s activities does not flow there, if there are not devotees engaged in service on the banks of such a river of piety, or if there are no festivals of sankirtan yajna to satisfy the Lord (especially since sankirtan-yajna is recommended in this age).”

So the glories of human birth in the sacred land of Bharat where the Lord appeared as various avatars, where there are holy places dedicated to His pastimes and which is better than the temporary heavenly places where the remembrance of the Lord is absent. Shukadev Goswami spoke to Maharaj Parikshit in the 5th canto 19th chapter 24th verse. Translation is by Srila Prabhupad.

“An intelligent person does not take interest in a place, even in the topmost planetary system, if the pure Ganges of topics concerning the Supreme Lord’s activities does not flow there, if there are not devotees engaged in service on the banks of such a river of piety, or if there are no festivals of sankirtan yajna to satisfy the Lord (especially since sankirtan-yajna is recommended in this age).”

So the point is that sometimes we get bewildered and we think we have to have a perfect sense gratification and we neglect to serve the Lord. But actually we should limit our sense gratification and we should focus on understanding Krishna and participating in His devotional service and festivals. Haribol!

My Lord, suffering the pain of staying in the womb is for me good if I can continually remember Your lotus feet at all times. So praying to the Lord although it is extremely miserable condition of being in the womb, intolerable and heart rendering, if my constant remembrance of You remains intact, while suffering such extremely miserable conditions, then they are most praiseworthy, desirable, relishable and wish fulfilling. In the first canto, 8th chapter 25th verse Queen Kunti prays to Lord Krishna as follows:

“I wish that all those calamities would happen again and again so that we could see You again and again, for seeing You means that we will no longer see repeated births and deaths.”

If you have a scale and you put all the miseries on one side and you put the remembrance of Krishna and His devotional service on the other side, Krishna consciousness, service and remembrance of Krishna is much heavier. So we should to remember Krishna and to understand His nature. To be freed of the suffering but not attain Krishna is useless. If we are enjoying or suffering, in all circumstances, we want to remember Krishna. 

So where Your lotus feet are not remembered please give that mercy to me Lord, please don’t put me there! So if one is focused on sense gratification either positively or negatively, one desires to enjoy sense gratification unlimitedly, or hates and renounces, focusing only how much they dislike sense gratification. In either situation they are not focused on Krishna. The devotees they are not attached or detached from sense gratification, rather they are attached to Krishna. Too much renunciation makes the heart hard. Too much enjoyment will make you forget Krishna. So the devotee concentrates on remembering Krishna and whatever comes due to one’s karma, happiness or distress, those are not allowed to distract one from the service to the lotus feet of Krishna.

My Lord I have in this way suffered millions and millions of births. Prabhu I have suffered greatly but all this is due to my karma. The translation of karma means the results of previous deeds, the result of misdeeds, sinful activities, misfortune, ill fortune and bad luck. 

Oh my Lord, may those miseries and dangers come again and again, as long as Your remembrance remains intact. Because Your remembrance is the essence of all the Vedic scriptures. So remembrance of Krishna protects one from material entanglement and sufferings. But even if one falls into some misfortune due to the previous misdeeds, karma, if they can always remember Krishna then they can quickly rise above this. It will be very auspicious for the conditioned souls. So from the external view, the suffering and tribulation (miseries) the living entities go through, appears to be a punishment. But from the internal point of view, they are evidence of great mercy. At every step we will not be bewildered by our false ego identifying ourselves as the body and doers of our activities, but actually the illusory energy is doing everything. If we can see the negative side of the material world, then we can take shelter of Krishna. So His mercy flows liked the Phalgu river, which flows underground. You have heard of phalgu vairagi? They come from that river! It is like sand on top and one-foot down is river water below. They appear renounced but have sense gratification. This is phalgu vairagya, they show renunciation from outside but do sense gratification. So in the opposite way the Lord, like the Phalgu river, He is not visible but He helps the living entities to get out of this material world. So if someone chants Hare Krishna he can go to the spiritual world even if he has so many faults. So we have the minute independence, we can choose to be under the protection of Krishna or we can be so called independent. Thus be in godlessness which is the root cause of our being in this material world. Lord Caitanya came to deliver all the conditioned souls. He is the most merciful avatar of Krishna. So this is from the second canto, Prabhupad’s translation, what is the highest perfection of human life:

“The highest perfection of human life achieved either by complete knowledge of matter and spirit, by practice of mystic powers or by perfect discharge of occupational duty is to remember the Personality of Godhead at the end of life.”