viernes, 10 de septiembre de 2010

The Emporium of Everything



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sri sri guru gauranga jayatah!
[Rays of The Harmonist Monthly On-Line Edition Banner-logo]
Year-3, Issue 10
Posted: 28 October 2010

Dedicated to
nitya-lila pravista om visnupada
Sri Srimad Bhakti Prajnana Kesava Gosvami Maharaja

Inspired by and under the guidance of
Sri Srimad Bhaktivedanta Narayana Gosvami Maharaja


The Emporium of Everything
by Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura Prabhupada

Portrait of Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura Prabhupada

We will be making a sad mistake if we think that the Lord, in the long run, may have nothing to confer upon us, and that by giving up what we have acquired we will only meet with difficulty. We forget that He is the Absolute. He is the emporium of everything. We need not be doubtful of His assurance that He will never fail us. We have free will, which we can exercise. But we are not expected to imagine that we are independent. We are bound to accept that we are His dependants.
If we make a careful enquiry into the nature of phenomenal objects and carefully scrutinize them, we will fail to find anything capable of giving us the sort of satisfaction, relief and poise that the Fountainhead of all things can give us. Hence the Gita tells us that submission to the Supreme Authority, Sri Krsna, is the only desirable thing, and by such submission all our deepest desires will be fully and duly fulfilled. The question then, is how can we engender such submission when the temperament of corporeally measuring everything stands in the way of our higher purpose?
Proceeding comprehension of our relationship (sambandha) with the Absolute Fountainhead, we must comprehend abhidheya, which signifies how to reach our coveted destination, or, in other words, what course we must adopt for the purpose of achieving our objective. That is the general meaning of abhidheya, and there are a great many varieties of abhidheya. According to some authorities there are sixty-four divisions of abhidheya. According to others, there are five. Although there are a multitude of paths we can adopt by means of which we can come to love the All-love, the Absolute, these methodologies are classified into sixty-four, nine or five divisions. But even among the sixty-four divisions, five are principal, and it is these five divisions that we shall deal with.
They are: (1) bhagavat-sravana, bhagavat-kirtana and bhagavat-smarana (hearing, chanting and remembering in connection with Godhead); (2) sri hari-vigraha sevanam; (3) mathura-vasa; (4) sadhu-sanga (associating with saints); and (5) sri harinama-sankirtana.
Mathura-vasa (3) implies eternal residence in Mathura, the holy place wherein permanent knowledge is present. Sri harinama-sankirtana (5) is chanting the transcendental Name of the Supreme Lord, Sri Hari, ceaselessly. Sri hari-vigraha sevanam (2), or serving the transcendental deity through arcana (formalized worship), is accomplished by worshipping the worshipful deity – which may be manifest as a painting, figurine or some other icon – using either five, sixteen or sixty-four specific articles in conjunction with corresponding mantras.
All material things are spiritualized by the influence of dedication to the Supreme. When we dedicate worldly things to our worshipful deity, we need not consider whether they have any material value that we may enjoy. All sorts of mundane, temporary associations must be eliminated before anything can be offered to our worshipful deity. This is called bhuta-suddhi (purity of existence).
Our worshipful deity is spiritual, so He must be offered spiritual things by a spiritual agent through spiritual acts. Material things are not welcomed by the Supreme Spirit and we should not bring any material thing before Him. If we were to do so, it would be tantamount to supposing Godhead to be one of Nature’s products, but that is certainly not the case. He should never be considered an object within the domain of ordinary phenomena. All the objects of worldly phenomena serve our purpose, but Godhead is not an object meant to serve us. He is the sole object of adoration and worship for all beings, and all services are to be offered to Him.
We should not demand anything from Him in the same way that we might demand cheques or notes that can be cashed in whenever we need and for our own purposes. He is not our servitor. It is we who are His eternal servitors, and we are to offer our service to Him without expectation of anything in return.
To demand anything in return for our service would render our service no more than a business transaction. When we go to a general store, we get various goods for which we pay some price. That sort of transaction is out of place in dealings with the Absolute. We can have such transactions when dealing with the non-absolute domain, but it is ridiculous to import such transactions into our association with the Absolute.
There is never a need for a business mentality. We should always offer our service to Him and never receive any service from Him. We must not expect Godhead to serve us in any way. He need not come to our material aid as a worldly parent might come. We find that such demands as “dhanam dehi, rupam dehi, jayam dehi – [O Goddess Durga!] Give me money, give me a beautiful wife, give me victory, etc...” are frequently made by a class of people who style themselves as Saktyas*. Our prayers should never be to the same end. We should not pray: “Give us this day our daily bread.” We must not expect Godhead to beckon to our call. Yet we find such wrong attitudes everywhere. Devotion should be our principal aim, not reward seeking activity (karma) or the pursuit of empiric knowledge (jñana).
_____________________
* Those who worship energy as the supreme truth and origin, rather than the energetic

Adapted from The Gaudiya, Volume 26, Number 12
by the Rays of The Harmonist team


Special On-line Edition: On the disappearance day of Srila Bhaktivedanta Vamana Gosvami Maharaja, 9 November 2010
Special On-line Edition: On the disappearance day of Srila Bhaktivedanta Svami Maharaja, 10 November 2010
Next Issue – Year 3, Issue 11: “Sri Guru Is Present In All Things”, 26 November 2010
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Rays of The Harmonist On-line; Year 3, Issue 10, "The Emporium of Everything", by Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura Prabhupada is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License to ensure that it is always freely available.
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The Attitude of a Servant - Being the Seen, not the Seer





This article from the Rays of The Harmonist Monthly On-line Edition is being resent by keep_in_touch@purebhakti.tv.
The Rays of The Harmonist banner-logo is being used with permission.




Special On-line Edition for the Disappearance Day of
Sri Srimad Bhakti Prajnana Kesava Gosvami Maharaja



sri sri guru gauranga jayatah!
[Rays of The Harmonist Monthly On-Line Edition Banner-logo]
Year-3, Special On-line Edition
Posted: 22 October 2010

Dedicated to
nitya-lila pravista om visnupada
Sri Srimad Bhakti Prajnana Kesava Gosvami Maharaja

Inspired by and under the guidance of
Sri Srimad Bhaktivedanta Narayana Gosvami Maharaja


The Attitude of a Servant: Being the Seen, not the Seer –
Drsta nahe drsya haiya sevakera karya
by Sri Srimad Bhakti Prajnana Kesava Gosvami Maharaja

Portrait of Sri Srimad Bhakti Prajnana Kesava Gosvami Maharaja

It is mentioned in Sri Hari-bhakti-sudhodaya (13.2):
aksnoh phalam tvadrsa-darsanam hi
tanoh phalam tvadrsa-gatra-sangah
jihva-phalam tvadrsa-kirtanam hi
sudurlabha bhagavata hi loke
Devotees of Bhagavan are extremely rare in this world. Therefore the perfection of the eyes is to see them, the perfection of the body is to touch them and the perfection of the tongue is to glorify them.
Upon seeing the title of this essay and reading this verse, many people will object to this essay even before reading it. Offering our brothers, the readers, prostrated obeisances and keeping a straw between our teeth, we earnestly beseech them to hear us. By submissively approaching the lotus feet of an acarya, who is the personified conclusion and the manifested embodiment of sastra, we can understand that our own consideration of sastra is based on external perception and is nothing but the whim of our minds. Even that which sastra directly refutes or rejects, we, according to our own desire, deem the subject and essence of sastra.
In this verse, a fortunate person who has been blessed by darsana of a bhagavad-bhakta is overwhelmed with bliss. He says, “To have the darsana of a Vaisnava is indeed the perfection of the eyes, to touch him is the perfection of the body and to glorify him is the perfection of the tongue, because in this world such bhagavad-bhaktas are extremely rare.”
Such a statement has been delivered at the lotus feet of a Vaisnava by a servant who has received his mercy and been overwhelmed by gratitude for him. Unless a Vaisnava bestows his mercy upon us and reveals his svarupa, there is no possibility of us knowing and understanding him. When the Vaisnava mercifully reveals his svarupa, the jiva remembers his previous mundane, sensual, worldly perception of that Vaisnava and he naturally feels a deep anguish in his heart. That specific form of the Vaisnava, who is devoted to the service of Bhagavan, attracts him to such an extent that as soon as a previous mundane conception of the Vaisnava appears on the path of his memory he feels disgusted by it.
It is stated in the above verse, aksnoh phalam tvadrsadarsanam hi – the perfection of the eyes is to have darsana of a Vaisnava. In such darsana the mood to render service under that Vaisnava’s guidance is indeed expressed. Vaisnavas do not know anyone apart from Sri Bhagavan. In turn, the vaisnava-sevaka does not know anything apart from rendering service according to the directions of the Vaisnavas.
This sevana-dharma (service attitude) of the servant is not aimed at attaining personal enjoyment through acts of seeing and touching the Vaisnava. Bhagavan and Bhagavan’s devotees only accept our true nature (svarupa), which is devoted to service. They never accept our mundane nature, which is devoid of service.
Bhagavan is not a mundane entity (prakrta-vastu). Similarly, the pure soul (suddha jivatma) is also not a mundane entity. In his pure state, the jivatma is naturally devoted to service that pleases Bhagavan. The intense eagerness for the darsana of Bhagavan that is observed in him is solely due to his eagerness to render service to Bhagavan. The perfection of the sevaka’s feet in visiting the dhama of Bhagavan is manifest in order to attain service to Bhagavan. He cleans the temple of Visnu with his hands, thus enhancing Bhagavan’s pleasure. The sevaka’s two eyes become blessed by collecting all types of beautiful objects solely for the service of Bhagavan. With the help of his nose, the sevaka is led to gather various fragrant objects to assist in satisfying Bhagavan. With his tongue, the sevaka perfor ms the kirtana of Bhagavan’s name, form, qualities and pastimes, thus enhancing His bliss.
Besides this, he offers extremely tasteful food to Bhagavan, having examined them with his tongue. The sevaka (the servant) has a spiritual body so that the sevya (the object of his service), Sri Bhagavan, can experience the pleasure of touch from that sevaka. The Vaisnavas of the Sri sampradaya are devoted to the conception of vidhi-marga, or regulated devotional service, and cannot embrace the purport of all this in their hearts. However, in comparison, the more qualified service of the Gaudiya Vaisnavas, who are devoted to the path of raga, or deep attachment, yields the highest extent of perfection in all the senses by this method alone.
We have entitled this essay: “The Attitude of a Servant: Being the Seen, not the Seer.” This means that one should not consider himself he who sees Bhagavan. A person should never hurry to have darsana of Bhagavan with the aim of personal enjoyment. When a person has kama, the desire to please his own senses, then the door to the transcendental abode of Bhagavan closes to him. And when mundane endeavours for personal enjoyment and false renunciation have been completely eliminated from a heart that has been illuminated by exclusive surrender to Krsna (krsnaika saranata), then the servant’s sole disposition will be to render service exclusively for the pleasure of Bhagavan.
The transcendental gopis of Vraja dress solely for the pleasure of Krsna. Phalgutva, to falsely renounce that which pleases Krsna, can never result in finding a place in their hearts. Their obsession for Krsna is solely to render service to Him. Their act of looking at Krsna’s lotus face without blinking their eyes is also solely to enhance His bliss. When Krsna sees that the gopis are looking at Him, He becomes delighted. Because they are aware of this, the gopis are exclusively intent on attaining darsana of Him. When they look at Krsna, it is not with the intention of personal enjoyment through being the seers. In other words, it is they who become visible to Krsna; they become the objects seen by Him. Solely to give Krsna bliss, they ‘show’ Him their nature (svarupa), which is completely devoted to serving Him. Here the act of ‘showing’ does not express their ego, but indicates the excellence of their service.
Thousands and thousands of pilgrims visit holy places in order to have darsana of Bhagavan. Although most think that they received His darsana, they are actually still an unlimited distance from receiving it. When one has actually attained darsana of Bhagavan, he is unable to utter statements like, “The deity is made of wood”, “The deity is made of stone”, “The deity is made of clay” and “Jagannatha has no hands or legs”.
The act of these pilgrims’ ‘seeing’ is saturated with the spirit of personal enjoyment, which is not the spirit of a servant of Bhagavan. The afore mentioned expressions show that the very act of ‘seeing’ Bhagavan is itself covering and barring their vision. Many have lost the path by which they can have darsana of Bhagavan due to being covered by the darkness of the spirit of personal enjoyment, which is darker than the new moon night. Therefore, with their deliverance in mind, my sri gurupada-padma, Srila Prabhupada, has cautioned:
Do not go to see Lord Jagannatha with a spirit of personal enjoyment, which is born of aversion for Him and which is prevalent in this world. Enter the temple of Sri Jagadisa carrying the necessary ingredients – that is, a service attitude that delights Lord Jagannatha.
 
Always keep in mind that the act of ‘seeing’ Jagannatha with mundane eyes is not how a servant sees Him. The servant’s disposition is to show Him the nature (svarupa) of his service attitude – in other words, to become the seen. It means to come within His sight in such a way that delights the worshipful Bhagavan. The servant’s attitude is not to derive personal pleasure by seeing Bhagavan. Rather, brilliantly situated within the servant’s heart is the attitude, “Bhagavan will be delighted by seeing me.”

Translated from Sri Gaudiya Patrika, Year 7, Issue 9
by the Rays of The Harmonist team
Published in English for the first time in Rays of The Harmonist Number 11, Karttika 2002




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Rays of The Harmonist On-line; Year 3, Special On-line Edition by Sri Srimad Bhakti Prajnana Kesava Gosvami Maharaja is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License to ensure that it is always freely available.
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