[Lecture delivered at 6:30 pm on 30.01.1932 in reply to the address given by the President and members of Janārdana Prārthanā Samajam, Ellore, Madras.]
My friends,
I feel it a great honour that I am received in this place by the devotees of Śrī Janārdana Prārthanā Samājam, Ellore, so heartily; but I am not fit for such reception as I am very poor in my devotional activities. You have very kindly mentioned in your address that I am doing great service towards the propagation of devotional activities, but I think, I have done nothing. As you have mentioned in your address that your people and your friends of this place are almost unaware of the Happy Message, I mean, the Transcendental Message, that has been given to all beings by the Supreme Lord Śrī Kṛṣṇa Caitanya during His journey in this Āndhra Deśa, so to realise and rejuvenate that conception the very felicitious position of devotion requires to be told by me to some extent.
I read a śloka:
anarpita-carīṁ cirāt karuṇayāvatīrṇaḥ kalau samarpayitum unnatojjvala-rasāṁ sva-bhakti-śriyam ।
hariḥ puraṭa-sundara-dyuti-kadamba-sandīpitaḥ sadā hṛdaya-kandare sphuratu vaḥ śacī-nandanaḥ ॥
from the writings of our old Ācārya, that describes what Śrī Kṛṣṇa Caitanya has meant by theism and what He has given to the people. In that śloka, we find that He has awarded us the conception of different sorts of transcendental and unalloyed services that can be rendered to the Supreme Absolute Śrī Kṛṣṇa as well as that of a special feature of service which was hitherto quite unknown to theists. And that special aspect of service was given by Him to the people right and left. The conception of theism before His disclosure was confined to reverential and awful principles only. Śrī Kṛṣṇa Caitanya has given us that we may approach Śrī Kṛṣṇa with our unconditional services in all sorts of aspects. And He has shown us the comparative excellence of the most confidential relationship between Godhead and human souls. Up to that time, we were quite familiar with the idea of approaching Śrī Kṛṣṇa by our other devotional principle only. We were simply worshipping Him, leaving aside the most attractive aspect in rendering our services to the Lord. We were thinking that the services to the object of our worship should be performed by the upper part of the body and the lower part of our transcendental eternal body cannot possibly offer any acceptable service to the beloved whose secondary conception of omnipotence and omniscience etc., only were prominent to the theists.
We were neglecting that we have got a transcendental entity called 'soul', however infinitesimal, inside our external frame, or inside our astral body. So, up to that time we were confounding ourselves with a philosophy which meant mental speculation only, always restricted by external views of the world and avoiding the cognisance of our unalloyed ego who is meant for rendering eternal service to the Transcendental Object, as the Sentient Being, I mean the eternal Over Soul. So the level we had of theism up to that time in our possession was that we were denied serving Him in higher aspects, I mean serving Godhead as our closer and more confidential friend, Godhead as our son and Godhead as our consort. Thus we were keeping this transitory relationship with only perishable objects here. But our theism should not confine us in ignoring the confidential services which can be offered by a free human soul to Śrī Kṛṣṇa. Hitherto we were not positive as regards the position and the entity of the Oversoul, that He alone should be the object of our devotion in all aspects as Śrī Kṛṣṇa.
We find, unless the Supreme Absolute Kṛṣṇa kindly graces us as the recipient of our services, we cannot do for Him all sorts of confidential services and in any other aspects of Kṛṣṇa i.е., in Matsya, Kūrma, Varāha, Nṛsiṁha, Vāmana, Rāma, etc., our reverential activities are rather limited to a certain extent. Here in this perverted world we can offer our confidential services in all the five rasas (relishing relationships). Śrī Kṛṣṇa and no other is the centre, the very fountain-head of all divine aspects whom we could serve with all the aspects of our confidential services. Śrī Kṛṣṇa is 'akhila-rasāmṛta-mūrti' that is the fountain-head of all rasas. And we can approach Him in any one of His five reciprocal different aspects. In engaging all our activities in Him by our transcendent soul's body, we can offer Him our eternal services in five different aspects; whereas, in other forms of the entity of Godhead we are debarred from offering our confidential services.
For instance, in the case of Rāmacandra, we cannot offer our services in all the five different aspects. He cannot stand as our consort, because otherwise Sītā might prove that Her devoted husband Rāmacandra would be crossing His limits and His ethical principles, and moreover Sītā would never allow any soul that sort of service to be rendered to Rāmacandra. As we find in the case of Daṇḍakāranya Ṛṣis when the Ṛṣis approached Rāmacandra; Rāmacandra would not accept them because they got male forms and He was devoted to only one wife, in other words, for fear of violating ethical principles He could not accept that sort of service from them. Rāmacandra could accept the services of His subjects, could accept the services of His servant Anjaneya, could accept the services of Lakṣamaṇa and others in some other aspect save and except in consorthood; whereas Śrī Kṛṣṇa is eternally and can very easily be called the Bahu-vallabha. He can accommodate hundreds of His dependents as His consorts whereas Rāmacandra can only welcome the four dependents, I mean, His parents and His brother, friends, servants and His neutral paraphernalia of His Realm who render unalloyed service to Rāmacandra while all others except Sītā are debarred from offering any confidential services to Rāmacandra in the capacity of consorts.
But in Śrī Kṛṣṇa, we find that. there is no such restriction. Every soul can offer all sorts of unalloyed confidential services to Śrī Kṛṣṇa. Moreover we find that Śrī Kṛṣṇa welcomes everybody. He does not deny anyone. Though He does not allow anybody to keep that sort of mundane relationship among His temporary pseudo-servants, He admits every servant if he has got such capacity to approach Him in any of the loftiest moods and positions. Even Śrī Kṛṣṇa would always wish His devotees to accept Him as the Consort. No souls are restricted to make progress towards the confidential services to the Over-Soul in that capacity if He considers that they can offer, being over subservient to His Predominated Counter-Whole, that sort of service to Him. So Śrī Kṛṣṇa does never check any sort of confidential services that we in our unconditioned stage are bent upon offering Him. The thing is that, in His other aspects we are barred to offer such services which are not acceptable to Him because we do confine ourselves in alloyed mentality or in mental speculations.
If we give up worshipping with our mental speculations — if our independent souls can have a wider and larger scope — we can easily approach that transcendental being with all our sincerity. So He does not deny anybody, neither does He allow anybody to keep that sort of engagement which is meant for some other aspects of Him, in as much He is the one who is ever engrossing our soul. So we should scrutinise most minutely whether we should at all utilise and engage some limbs kept and meant for our personal benefits and some portions of our transcendental body for Godhead! But the real truth is that all our engagements-the whole of our occupation-may be engaged for Śrī Kṛṣṇa, whereas in other aspects of Godhead we do not have the rarest fortune of performing all these things in the best way possible.
Śrī Kṛṣṇa Caitanya has not taught us any anthropomorphic idea. Ordinary people might think that they may indulge in this sort of carrying ideas of this world produced by nature to that transcendental realm, but such anthropomorphic ideas are never enjoined or entertained by Śrī Kṛṣṇa Caitanya. All that we must know is that Godhead is the full, complete and perfect being and that He should in His Person have no partial and crippled aspects. We must not be thinking that all that we have here in this world with us — all that might be feasible or practicable and ethical here — we should carry along with us to a region where such imperfect acquisitions are not wanted. We have no such ambition.
Śrī Kṛṣṇa Caitanya told us that self-determination is first of all necessary; otherwise we would be confusing the mind with the soul. Mind is quite different from the Soul. The thing is that the mind is the conductor of the physical world. Mind gets the impression of nature through the medium of senses and through the working of our body, that is through the former's inter-mingling with external things which are made of matter.
Though we are used to meddle with those things yet when we take theism for our consideration, that is when we enquire what the actual Figure of Godhead is, we find in the catuḥ-slokī Bhāgavatam
yāvānahaṁ yathā bhāvo yad-rūpa-guṇa-karmakaḥ ।
tathaiva tattva-vijñānamastu te mad-anugrahāt ॥
Said the Absolute fountainhead to Brahmā the creator, "If I am to bestow my mercy to any body. I must expose myself to him fully. Persons who have wrong aspirations and speculations of mind will be debarred from having any unobscured perception of the actual size, the figure and the colour that I have. They will be simply missing Me if I do not confer on them My mercy." So Śrī Kṛṣṇa Caitanya has disparaged all mundane thinkers who are busy with high class philosophies or sticking to their mundane ethical principles, as well as those persons who are engaged in their altruistic enterprises.
In substance however we find in our Ācārya's writings —
siddhāntatastvabhede'pi śrīśa kṛṣṇa-svarūpayoḥ ।
rasenotkṛṣyate kṛṣṇa-rūpam eṣā rasa-sthitiḥ ॥
Nobody must be misconstruing that we are talking of a wholly different object who is not Rāmacandra when we talk of Śrī Kṛṣṇa. By the talk of Śrī Kṛṣṇa we do not mean that we are differentiating Śrī Kṛṣṇa from Śrī Rāmacandra. Śrī Rāmacandra and Śrī Kṛṣṇa are not substantially different objects. They are identical. But as we find in this perverted region that one man is the father of somebody, the son of somebody, the physician of somebody, similarly, in the transcendental realm also we find manifold aspects of the same Absolute.
So nobody must be thinking that we are talking of wholly different objects. Vāsudeva is the same as Lakṣmī Nārāyaṇa; Lakṣmī Nārāyaṇa is identical with Sītā-Rāma; Sītā-Rāma is the same as Kṛṣṇa. We do not make any difference in them. There should not be any dissension, but there cannot be any such temperament in us as to draw distinction between Śrī Kṛṣṇa and Śrī Rāma save in the planes of respective rasas. We want to appreciate the respective positions of the one Absolute.
We have no ambition to shift our position. But we are to do everything for the confidential services of the Over- Soul; and this is safe too. We find a particular worship. We do not find that all our activities are engaged hundred percent in Rāmacandra. We find that a part of our activities may be kept apart for our selfish personal use here, and some portion of our activities may go to that very adorable object. This is not perfectly disinterested. We often find that a man claims himself to be the master of several dependent things here believing thus, 'I have got many servants', 'I have got a big estate', 'I have great learning', and so forth. If I am meant to confine myself in a particular aspect, then it would be rather incompatible to human beings who have nothing to do with the other aspects of the same object.
We need not keep anything for our engagement beyond the Absolute; otherwise we must pass for some other names than 'devotees'. For instance, if we serve a horse, we would be called a 'groom', if we treat others with medi-cine, we would be called a 'doctor'. These are different denominations we have here. But these designations are meant for individual beings like us, and our engagements are often found to be in different objects other than the Absolute.
Whereas Śrī Kṛṣṇa is the fountain-head of all these manifestations. Therefore, there must not be any such gross ethical idea that He should be crippled or restricted to receive some particular sort of service only. We must not be doing so. We are to approach the whole thing, the one entire Absolute, the very fountain-head. He is sat-cid-ānanda 'akhila-rasāmṛta-mūrti' and cannot be disliked by any perfectly healthy thought. We should not participate with some other form which may give us self-centred happiness merely. That sort of engagement would be rather detrimental to our final cause or goal. We find that the fountainhead is possessed of all qualifications with all sorts of aspects; but a particular shape may often be seen in our engagements.
So Śrī Kṛṣṇa Caitanya has given and shown us the whole object. And if we resolve that we are simply to follow Him, we shall then be called higher theists. That theism cannot be restricted and found in a particular aspect only, just as we find in this world.
If we can get rid of all our mental speculations, we would be relieved of this mundane conception of the universe by the help of the medium of transcendental words. If we confound them with created words of mundane lexicons we would be erring; because we cannot at a time give out all-pervading transcendental expressious fully for that. The transcendental word, sound or concept is identical with that Great Personal Absolute or the fountainhead.
We would be known to have cultured well in our theistic aspirations for that fullest form if the other awful and majestic attributes than all-blissfulness or all-ecstatic Beauty are taken out from that One Integer. So when we approach Śrī Kṛṣṇa we find that all sorts of aspects are fully in Him and we can offer all sorts of confidential services to Him with our transcendental and eternal body. We can offer ourselves with all the closest intimacy to Him in all ways.
We must not be thinking that we should restrict ourselves in a particular aspect only, so as to quarrel with somebody dealing with some other school of thought or philosophy or some other religious controversies, but we must require that the whole-time attention, hundred percent, should be devoted to Him and His Counter-Whole. This is the general outline of the Supreme Lord Śrī Kṛṣṇa Caitanya's teachings.
