May 3, 2007

Going to Vaikuntha
We had a very interesting discussion on today’s SB verse 4.12.36:

“The self-effulgent Vaikuntha planets, by whose illumination alone all the
illuminating planets within this material world give off reflected light,
cannot be reached by those who are not merciful to other living entities.
Only persons who constantly engage in welfare activities for other living
entities can reach the Vaikuntha planets.”

I started the class by explaining the term Vaikuntha indicated that the
spiritual planets were free from anxiety, but in actuality when one become
Krishna conscious anxiety (of a different sort) increases and the method for
becoming Kcon is to put oneself in anxiety.

The residents of Goloka experience extreme anxiety when they can not see
Krishna or when Krishna goes to the forest with His cowherd boy friends or
appears to go to Mathura. Even the Gopis experience anxiety when they are
separated from Krishna by the blinking of their eyes. They experience so
much anxiety that a moment is like twelve years or more.

Of course this anxiety is transcendental ecstasy and should not be confused
with material anxiety that is based upon selfish considerations.

But spiritual anxiety naturally arises because of love. Just like when
mother loves a child, she is in anxiety when he/she cries. If there is no
love the crying of a child is simply a botheration. When I am in a plane and
there is a mother with a screaming child everyone except the mother is angry
at the child because there is no love for the child.

So, when there is love for Krishna one is always in anxiety about seeing
Him, serving Him nicely, His safety, His happiness, etc. That is the Goloka
mood.

In addition one is in anxiety about the plight of those parts and parcels of
Krishna who are not serving Him at present. In the 5th Canto of the
Bhagavatam, Pariksit Maharaja is presented with a description of the hellish
planets. His response is to feel anxiety for the souls that are being
punished and to enquire from Sukadeva Goswami as to the remedial measure for
alleviating the suffering of these poor souls.

Sukadeva Goswami tests his disciple Pariksit by first describing the process
of atonement (prayascitta), but Pariksit (who is not a blind follower but an
independently thoughtful pure devotee-not caught up in a hierarchical
dynamic) rejects Sukadeva Goswami’s prescription of atonement because
atonement does not effect a change in the heart and a change in the
counterproductive behavior of the materialist.

Sukadeva therefore describes the actual cure for material suffering in the
famous verse SB6.3.31:

“Sukadeva Gosvami continued: My dear King, the chanting of the holy name of
the Lord is able to uproot even the reactions of the greatest sins.
Therefore the chanting of the sankirtana movement is the most auspicious
activity in the entire universe. Please try to understand this so that
others will take it seriously.”

So, Pariksit Maharaja now understands that the ultimate solution to the
pangs of material existence is the chanting of the Holy Names.

So, as far as our becoming Krishna conscious is concerned; we need to be
anxiety about the suffering of the souls in this material world and impelled
by that anxiety we need to always be thinking of how to get people to chant
and hear about Krishna.

In other words that is our preaching goal. And in order to achieve this we
have to do the needful (utility is the principle).

Our goal is not to get people to dress like us, nor to have haircuts like
us, nor to talk like us, nor have Gopi dots on their forhead, nor to …, but
to simply come to the point of chanting the names of Krishna purely. In Kali
Yuga all other practices are meant to bring people to that point. Prabhupada
understood this perfectly in his strategy.

Too often we confuse the means with the end or goal.

And in helping people come to the point of chanting purely, to be successful
we have to be tolerant, understanding, compassionate, empathic, loving,
accepting, etc. And all these qualities that we need to manifest have to
come from the heart, they can not be a show.

That’s a pretty tall order, isn’t it? How to do it?

Of course we have our sadhana. We also have our sadhu sanga (association
with pure devotees the best of whom is Srila Prabhupada).

It really helps to see that other than spiritual desires and actions, all
other actions, desires, emotions (that we have and others have) are tragic
expressions of the original desire or need to love and please Krishna and
His associates. Tragic in the sense that these desires or needs will never
be fully satisfied and our search for fulfillment of them will be endless.

Uh Oh. I said that I would write about overcoming old age today, but I never
got to it. I will try tomorrow as this topic is quite lengthy and involves
the greater topic of how we deny reality in the name of external
spirituality.