{"id":119,"date":"2007-05-03T21:03:40","date_gmt":"2007-05-03T21:03:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/atourcity.com\/bkgoswami.com\/?p=119"},"modified":"2014-10-11T11:49:27","modified_gmt":"2014-10-11T16:49:27","slug":"going-to-vaikuntha","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/atourcity.com\/bkgoswami.com\/going-to-vaikuntha\/","title":{"rendered":"Going to Vaikuntha"},"content":{"rendered":"

May 3, 2007<\/span><\/p>\n

Going to Vaikuntha
\nWe had a very interesting discussion on today’s SB verse 4.12.36:<\/span><\/p>\n

“The self-effulgent Vaikuntha planets, by whose illumination alone all the
\nilluminating planets within this material world give off reflected light,
\ncannot be reached by those who are not merciful to other living entities.
\nOnly persons who constantly engage in welfare activities for other living
\nentities can reach the Vaikuntha planets.”<\/span><\/p>\n

I started the class by explaining the term Vaikuntha indicated that the
\nspiritual planets were free from anxiety, but in actuality when one become
\nKrishna conscious anxiety (of a different sort) increases and the method for
\nbecoming Kcon is to put oneself in anxiety.<\/span><\/p>\n

The residents of Goloka experience extreme anxiety when they can not see
\nKrishna or when Krishna goes to the forest with His cowherd boy friends or
\nappears to go to Mathura. Even the Gopis experience anxiety when they are
\nseparated from Krishna by the blinking of their eyes. They experience so
\nmuch anxiety that a moment is like twelve years or more.<\/span><\/p>\n

Of course this anxiety is transcendental ecstasy and should not be confused
\nwith material anxiety that is based upon selfish considerations.<\/span><\/p>\n

But spiritual anxiety naturally arises because of love. Just like when
\nmother loves a child, she is in anxiety when he\/she cries. If there is no
\nlove the crying of a child is simply a botheration. When I am in a plane and
\nthere is a mother with a screaming child everyone except the mother is angry
\nat the child because there is no love for the child.<\/span><\/p>\n

So, when there is love for Krishna one is always in anxiety about seeing
\nHim, serving Him nicely, His safety, His happiness, etc. That is the Goloka
\nmood.<\/span><\/p>\n

In addition one is in anxiety about the plight of those parts and parcels of
\nKrishna who are not serving Him at present. In the 5th Canto of the
\nBhagavatam, Pariksit Maharaja is presented with a description of the hellish
\nplanets. His response is to feel anxiety for the souls that are being
\npunished and to enquire from Sukadeva Goswami as to the remedial measure for
\nalleviating the suffering of these poor souls.<\/span><\/p>\n

Sukadeva Goswami tests his disciple Pariksit by first describing the process
\nof atonement (prayascitta), but Pariksit (who is not a blind follower but an
\nindependently thoughtful pure devotee-not caught up in a hierarchical
\ndynamic) rejects Sukadeva Goswami’s prescription of atonement because
\natonement does not effect a change in the heart and a change in the
\ncounterproductive behavior of the materialist.<\/span><\/p>\n

Sukadeva therefore describes the actual cure for material suffering in the
\nfamous verse SB6.3.31:<\/span><\/p>\n

“Sukadeva Gosvami continued: My dear King, the chanting of the holy name of
\nthe Lord is able to uproot even the reactions of the greatest sins.
\nTherefore the chanting of the sankirtana movement is the most auspicious
\nactivity in the entire universe. Please try to understand this so that
\nothers will take it seriously.”<\/span><\/p>\n

So, Pariksit Maharaja now understands that the ultimate solution to the
\npangs of material existence is the chanting of the Holy Names.<\/span><\/p>\n

So, as far as our becoming Krishna conscious is concerned; we need to be
\nanxiety about the suffering of the souls in this material world and impelled
\nby that anxiety we need to always be thinking of how to get people to chant
\nand hear about Krishna.<\/span><\/p>\n

In other words that is our preaching goal. And in order to achieve this we
\nhave to do the needful (utility is the principle).<\/span><\/p>\n

Our goal is not to get people to dress like us, nor to have haircuts like
\nus, nor to talk like us, nor have Gopi dots on their forhead, nor to \u2026, but
\nto simply come to the point of chanting the names of Krishna purely. In Kali
\nYuga all other practices are meant to bring people to that point. Prabhupada
\nunderstood this perfectly in his strategy.<\/span><\/p>\n

Too often we confuse the means with the end or goal.<\/span><\/p>\n

And in helping people come to the point of chanting purely, to be successful
\nwe have to be tolerant, understanding, compassionate, empathic, loving,
\naccepting, etc. And all these qualities that we need to manifest have to
\ncome from the heart, they can not be a show.<\/span><\/p>\n

That’s a pretty tall order, isn’t it? How to do it?<\/span><\/p>\n

Of course we have our sadhana. We also have our sadhu sanga (association
\nwith pure devotees the best of whom is Srila Prabhupada).<\/span><\/p>\n

It really helps to see that other than spiritual desires and actions, all
\nother actions, desires, emotions (that we have and others have) are tragic
\nexpressions of the original desire or need to love and please Krishna and
\nHis associates. Tragic in the sense that these desires or needs will never
\nbe fully satisfied and our search for fulfillment of them will be endless.<\/span><\/p>\n

Uh Oh. I said that I would write about overcoming old age today, but I never
\ngot to it. I will try tomorrow as this topic is quite lengthy and involves
\nthe greater topic of how we deny reality in the name of external
\nspirituality.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 read more>><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/atourcity.com\/bkgoswami.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/atourcity.com\/bkgoswami.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/atourcity.com\/bkgoswami.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atourcity.com\/bkgoswami.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atourcity.com\/bkgoswami.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=119"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/atourcity.com\/bkgoswami.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":120,"href":"https:\/\/atourcity.com\/bkgoswami.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119\/revisions\/120"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/atourcity.com\/bkgoswami.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=119"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atourcity.com\/bkgoswami.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=119"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atourcity.com\/bkgoswami.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=119"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}