Prapanna-Jivanāmṛta: A message of hope for positive and progressive immortality

Prapanna-Jivanāmṛtam


द्वितियो ऽध्याय

Dvitiyo ‘dhyāya

Second Chapter

श्री शास्त्र-वचनामृतम्

द्वितियो ऽध्याय

Dvitiyo ‘dhyāya
Second Chapter

श्री शास्त्र-वचनामृतम्

Śrī Śāstra-Vacanāmṛtam
Holy Scriptural Nectar

CHAPTER II

तन् नित्यत्वम्, तद् अभावे आत्मनो वञ्चितत्वात्

प्राप्यापि दुर्ल्लभतरं, मानुष्यं विबुधेप्सितम्

यैर् आश्रितो न गोविन्दस्, तैर् आत्मा वञ्चितश् चिरम् [७]

ब्र्. वै.

tan nityatvam, tad abhāve ātmano vañcitatvāt

prāpyāpi durllabhataraṁ, mānuṣyaṁ vibudhepsitam

yair āśrito na govindas, tair ātmā vañcitaś ciram [7]

br. vai.

While surrender leads one to his correct eternal position, the unsurrendered soul wanders forever in the land of misconception.

The human form of life is coveted even by the gods. They pray for a human birth, for it is the best platform for self-realisation. Those who waste the human form of life on foolishness and do not take shelter of the holy feet of Śrī Govinda are doomed to wander forever in the land of misconception, cheated by their own exploiting tendency. (7)

अप्रपन्नानां जीवन-वैफल्याच् च—

अशीतिञ् चतुरश् चैव, लक्षांस् तान् जीव जातिषु

भ्राम्यद्भिः पुरुषैः प्राप्य, मानुष्यं जन्म-पर्य्ययात् [८]

तद् अप्य् अफलतां यतां, तेषाम् आत्माभिमानिनाम्

वराकानाम् अनाश्रित्य, गोविन्द-चरण-द्वयम्

ब्र्. वै.

aprapannānāṁ jīvana-vaiphalyāc ca—

aśītiñ caturaś caiva, lakṣāṁs tān jīva jātiṣu

bhrāmyadbhiḥ puruṣaiḥ prāpya, mānuṣyaṁ janma-paryyayāt [8]

tad apy aphalatāṁ yatāṁ, teṣām ātmābhimāninām

varākānām anāśritya, govinda-caraṇa-dvayam

Life without Surrender is useless.

After wandering through thousands of species, a fortunate soul gets a human birth. Alas, that human birth is wasted by those who avoid taking shelter of the lotus feet of Śrī Govinda.  (8-9)

सर्व्वाधमेष्व् अपि मुक्ति-दातृत्वम्—

सर्व्वाचार-विवर्ज्जितः शठ-धिइयो व्रात्या जगद्-वञ्चका

दम्भाहङ्कृति-पान-पैशुन-पराः पापान्त्यजा निष्टुराः

ये चान्ये धन-धार-पुत्र-निरताः सर्व्वाधमास् ते ‘पि हि

श्री-गोविन्द-पदारविन्द-शरणा मुच्क्ता भवन्ति द्विज [१०]

नारसिंह पूरन

sarvvādhameṣv api mukti-dātṛtvam—

sarvvācāra-vivarjjitaḥ śaṭha-dhiiyo vrātyā jagad-vañcakā

dambhāhaṅkṛti-pāna-paiśuna-parāḥ pāpāntyajā niṣṭurāḥ

ye cānye dhana-dhāra-putra-niratāḥ sarvvādhamās te ‘pi hi

śrī-govinda-padāravinda-śaraṇā mucktā bhavanti dvija [10]

 Nārasiṃha Pūrana

On the other hand, surrender to Śrī Govinda leads to the highest salvation for even those who are apparently the lowest.  Kṛṣṇa is known as "Mukunda." This means "One who gives something that shows that liberation is an awkward thing:  

एतां स आस्थाय परात्म-निष्ठाम्

अध्यासितां पूर्वतमैर् महर्षिभिः

अहं तरिष्यामि दुरन्त-पारं

तमो मुकुन्दाङ्घ्रि-निषेवयैव

etāṁ sa āsthāya parātma-niṣṭhām

adhyāsitāṁ pūrvatamair maharṣibhiḥ

ahaṁ tariṣyāmi duranta-pāraṁ

tamo mukundāṅghri-niṣevayaiva

  Mu-ku da: Mukunda gives something that makes "mukti" look awkward. This is above liberation. Liberation or immortality must be positive and progressive.

This highest form of "liberation" has been explained before. 

Because the soul is a particle of consciousness, it is endowed with free will. Eliminating free will, only gross matter remains. Without independence, the soul could not progress from bondage to liberation, and his ultimate salvation would have been impossible. But his spirit of exploitation is a foreign force, an intoxicant – a miscalculation that surrounds his independence.

Life’s objectives may be scientifically analyzed as threefold: exploitation, renunciation, and dedication. The most common tendency is in those engaged in exploiting other persons, species, or elements, for mundane sense enjoyment. They desire to materially elevate themselves in the present environment, and thus they are described as elevationists. A more sober class discover the severe equal and opposite reactions to worldly pursuits, and they engage in renunciation of the world, in search of an equilibrium comparable to a deep, dreamless slumber. By being unawake to the world, they hope to escape its concomitant reactions and sufferings. Thus their goal is liberation, and they are known as salvationists or liberationists. But through the correct interpretation of the Revealed Scriptures by learned votaries such as Sri Sanatana Goswami, Sri Jiva Goswami, and Sri Ramanuja, the devotees of divinity know the pursuits of both exploitation and renunciation as not only fruitless, but injurious to real progress.

The normal, wholesome, and happy plane is in the life of dedication. Without exploiting or borrowing anything from the environment, and without attempting to artificially renounce it, one who is sincere to dedicate himself naturally comes into contact with a higher and more subtle plane of life. By his readiness to give and serve, he will attain to a higher society and achieve an appropriate master. The enjoying spirit forces one to be associated with a lower section to control and enjoy. And the renouncing spirit allures even the scholars with its ‘prestigious’ superiority over exploitation. Thus it is more dangerous, just as a half-truth is more dangerous than falsehood. As it is difficult to awaken someone from the deepest possible sleep, the liberationists may remain for incalculable time within their cell of non-differentiated liberation. But the higher existence will invite the service of one who desires to purely dedicate himself without remuneration.

Seva – service, dedication, is the summum bonum of the teachings of the Vaisnava school, the third plane of life where every unit is a dedicating member in an organic whole. In such a normal adjustment, everyone mutually assists one another in their service to the center, the higher recipient, the highest entity. Everything is existing to satisfy Him, because He must possess this qualification to be the Absolute. He is the prime cause of all causes – and everything exists for Him, to satisfy Him.

A barren conception of mere ‘deathlessness’ cannot afford us any knowledge of a positive thing, but only freedom from the negative side. If immortality means ‘no influence of mortality,’ what, then, is its positive conception? What will be the nature, movement, and progress of that which is immortal? Without this understanding immortality is only an abstract idea. Because it does not appear to exhibit the symptoms of death, stone would be ‘more immortal’ than human beings, and conscious entities would be ‘mortal,’ forever denied immortality! What, then, is the positive conception of immortality? How are the immortal ‘immortal’? What is the positive reality in immortality? How can one become immortal? One must search out his intrinsic location in the universal order. It will not do to attempt to solve only the negative side of life which is full of suffering – birth, death, infirmity, and disease. We should know that there exists a conception of life worth living for. This positive side has been almost totally neglected in general religious views.

The ‘immortality’ professed by the schools of Buddha and Sankaracarya yields no positive life. Their goals are maha-nirvana and brahma-sayujya respectively. The Buddhist theory is that after liberation, nothing remains. They crave absolute extinction of material existence (prakrti-nirvana). And the Sankarite monist theory of liberation is to lose one’s individuality by ‘becoming one’ with the non-differentiated aspect of the Absolute. That is, they crave extinction in Brahman (brahma-nirvana). They postulate that when the triad of seer, seen, and seeing (drasta-drsya-darsana), or knower, knowable, and knowledge (jnata-jneya-jnana) culminate at one point, the triad is destroyed (triputi-vinasa) and nothing remains.

Material action and reaction ceases in Viraja, the river of passivity, which is located at the uppermost edge of this illusory (mayika) world. And above Viraja is the destination of the Sankarites – the ‘abscissa’ stage or the non-differentiated plane of Brahman, called Brahmaloka, which is located at the lowest edge of the spiritual realm. Both are vague areas of ‘negative immortality.’ Brahmaloka is a marginal or ‘buffer’ state midway between the material and spiritual worlds. Composed of innumerable souls, it is an immortal plane devoid of specific variegatedness (nirvisesa). It possesses positivity only in the sense that it is a plane of existence, a background (kastha), but in itself it lacks positive development of variegated existence (kala). The nature of the background is oneness, and development woven over it necessitates plurality or a differentiated nature (kala-kasthadi rupena parinama-pradayini – Candi, Markandeya Purana).

In the Bhagavad-gita (15.16), mutable (ksara) and immutable (aksara) existences are described, representing the personal and the impersonal, the development and the basis, or differentiated and non-differentiated conceptions of general existence. The mutable is represented by the multitude of embodied living beings, while the immutable aspect is the great expanse of the all-accommodating Absolute, the Brahman (8.3). In the analysis of worldly action, the most subtle form of unfructified past action, prior to the present tendency (the seedling stage) to sin, has been defined (B.r.s. Purva 1.23) as unknowable, indistinct, and of untraceable origin (kuta). The immutable Brahman aspect of the Absolute is similarly defined as being one-dimensional – undetectable, unspecific, and of no definite color, sound, or taste; an unknown and unknowable ‘un-understandable’ stage of existence (kuta). But the Supreme Lord, Krsna, is above both the mutable and immutable existences, and thus His glories are sung throughout the Vedas and in the world as the Purusottama, the Supreme Personality (Bg. 15.18). Sri Sukadeva Goswami affirms that in the most remote and distant plane, Lord Krsna is to be found: everywhere is He – the fountainhead of all conceptions (vidura-kasthaya, Bha: 2.4.14). He cannot be eliminated.

Thus, the ‘immortality’ of the impersonalistic schools such as Buddhists, Sankarites, etc., offers no positive life. But in Vaisnavism, immortality is positive, dynamic existence. Above the non-differentiated Brahman aspect of the Absolute, the transcendental, variegated existence begins in the first glimpse of the spiritual sky, the plane known as Paravyoma (C.c. Madhya 19.153). Situated there in the spiritual plane is the positive Kingdom of God: firstly Vaikuntha, then Ayodhya, Dvaraka, Mathura, and finally, above all, Goloka. Transcending the vague areas of ‘negative immortality’ that the impersonalists aspire for, the devotees – the Vaisnavas – dedicate themselves to the life of eternal devotional service to the Supreme Lord of the transcendental realm (Bg. 18.54). Although the soul can maladopt himself to a fallen state of existence in the planes of exploitation and renunciation, he is inherently adoptable to the positive life in the Kingdom of God. And fully blossomed, he reaches the realm of Goloka (svarupe sabara haya golokete sthiti – Sri Sri Krsnera Astottara-sata-nama).

Sri Prapanna-jivanamrtam: amrta means ‘undying,’ or ‘nectar,’ and jivana means ‘life.’ Positive immortality is possible only for the surrendered (prapannanam). All others are necessarily mortal. Only those who have wholly given themselves to the center are living in eternality. Surrender is fully established in its excellence and its constant position. Yet there is variegatedness within that constancy, in the form of progressive movement, or pastimes (vilasa). The Supreme Absolute Personality being infinitely superior to both the mutable “mortals’ and the immutable “immortal’ (negative) Brahman, only the svarupa-siddha souls – those who are perfectly established in their divine relationship with Him – are eternally freed from the disease of mutation and mortality (svarupena-vyavasthitih, Bha: 2. 10.6).

With a broad vision, we must know ourselves as created of smaller stuff, and thus only with assistance from above can we improve our situation and achieve a position in the higher plane. A submissive, serving attitude is necessary in us. If we submit, the universal dictatorial aspect of the Absolute will take us upward to a higher prospect. He is the autocrat, the absolute knowledge, the absolute good – everything about Him is absolute. Being in a vulnerable position as we experience in this world, why, then, should we not submit to Him?

The road to the sphere of transcendence (adhoksaja) is the deductive or descending method (avaroha-pantha). We can reach the absolute good, the absolute will, by His consent alone. Only by faith in absolute surrender is anyone allowed entry into that domain, never by ‘exploration,’ by ‘colonization,’ or by attempting to become a ‘monarch’ there. No inductive or ascending method (aroha-pantha) such as renunciation or yoga, etc., can compel Him to accept us. Whosoever He chooses can alone reach Him (Svet. 6.23). Although the highest point of the renunciates is desirelessness or freedom from possessiveness, the surrendered soul (saranagata) is naturally desireless (akincana, C.c. Madhya 22.99). Detachment is only the negative side of surrender, and above selflessness, the devotee surrenders himself to the higher substance, and this is to be awake in another world, another plane of life. Such is the positive, Vaisnava conception of life – to determine one’s real self beyond the jurisdiction of the world of misconception.

The nature of the progressive substance is eternal existence, knowledge, and beauty (sac-cid-ananda). The one harmonizing organic whole (advaya-jnana-tattva) contains all similarities and differences, held inconceivably in the hand of the Absolute (acintya-bhedabheda-tattva). And there is no anarchy in the absolute power. Nonetheless, mercy is found to be above justice. Above judiciousness, the supreme position is held by love, sympathy, and beauty: ‘I am the absolute power, but I am friendly to you all. Knowing this, you need never fear (Bg. 5.29).’ This revelation relieves us of all apprehension: we are not victims of a chaotic environment, but it is judicious, considerate – and the ultimate dispenser is our friend.

Sri Jiva Goswami has stated that of the six symptoms of surrender, to embrace the guardianship of the Lord (goptrtve varanam) is central, since total surrender expresses the same ideal. The remaining five symptoms of accepting the favorable, rejecting the unfavorable, faith in the Lord’s protection, full self-surrender, and humility, are natural contributing associate-servitors to the ideal (angangi-bhedena sad-vidha; tatra ‘goptrtve varanam’ evangi, saranagati-sabdenaikarthyat; anyani tv angani tat parikaratvat – Bhakti-sandarbha, 236).

Surrender is the foundation of the world of devotion. It is the very life and essence. One cannot enter into that domain without surrender. It must be present in every form of service, and to attempt divine service without it will be mere imitation or a lifeless formality. The entire gist of the Vedic instruction is to dedicate oneself to the service of the Lord. In his commentary of Srimad-Bhagavatam, Sri Sridhara Swamipada has stated that only if the practices of devotion are initially offered to the Supreme Lord can they be recognized as devotion. To attempt to execute them and subsequently offer them cannot be pure devotion (iti nava laksanani yasyah sa, adhitena ced bhagavati visnau bhaktih kriyate. sa carpitaiva sati yadi kriyeta, na tu krta sati pascad arpyeta) Without surrender, the activity will be adulterated with exploitation, renunciation, artificial meditation (karma, jnana, yoga), and so on.

By constitution, the soul is the Lord’s servant, and the Lord has the right to make or mar, to do anything according to His sweet will. If accepting this truth we undertake the devotional practices such as hearing, chanting, remembering, and worshipping, only then will our activity be devotional. Only the activity of the self-dedicated soul can be devotion. Sincere prayer will help us to seek the help of the Lord, but, again, prayer in the spirit of surrender can alone reach Him (Saranagati, 1.5). The path of devotion entails increasing our negative status to invite the positive to descend and embrace us: ‘I am very low, and You are so high. You can purify me, take me and utilize me for Your higher purpose. Be pleased. Otherwise I am helpless, neglected.’ It is impossible to take Him captive in the cage of our knowledge. Only the way of devotion can help us. In every respect He is high, great, and infinite – and we are similarly small. His mercy – His sympathy, love, and grace, are the only medium through which we can come together. And good faith is autonomous in that sweet land which is so high that we will earnestly hope and pray for the association of the higher existence as His slave; and that also will be our happy prospect for the future.

सर्व्वाधमेष्व् अपि मुक्ति-दातृत्वम्—

सर्व्वाचार-विवर्ज्जितः शठ-धिइयो व्रात्या जगद्-वञ्चका

दम्भाहङ्कृति-पान-पैशुन-पराः पापान्त्यजा निष्टुराः

ये चान्ये धन-धार-पुत्र-निरताः सर्व्वाधमास् ते ‘पि हि

श्री-गोविन्द-पदारविन्द-शरणा मुच्क्ता भवन्ति द्विज [१०]

नारसिंह पूरन

sarvvādhameṣv api mukti-dātṛtvam—

sarvvācāra-vivarjjitaḥ śaṭha-dhiiyo vrātyā jagad-vañcakā

dambhāhaṅkṛti-pāna-paiśuna-parāḥ pāpāntyajā niṣṭurāḥ

ye cānye dhana-dhāra-putra-niratāḥ sarvvādhamās te ‘pi hi

śrī-govinda-padāravinda-śaraṇā mucktā bhavanti dvija [10]

 Nārasiṃha Pūrana

While surrender leads one to his correct eternal position, the unsurrendered soul wanders forever in the land of misconception. Life without Surrender is useless.

On the other hand, surrender to Śrī Govinda leads to the highest salvation for even those who are apparently the lowest. 


O twiceborn one:

By taking shelter of the lotus feet of Śrī Govinda, all are saved. Even the undisciplined and lost attain salvation through Him. Even the addicted, the criminals, and the fools and rascals attain salvation through Him.  Even the homeless and destitute, the proud and the vain attain salvation by taking shelter of the Lotus feet of Śrī Govinda.

Drunkards, losers and sinners are saved by taken shelter of the lotus feet of Śrī Govinda. Even the violent, the outcastes and the untouchables are saved by taking shelter of the lotus feet of Śrī Govinda.

Even those outside the caste system are saved through surrender to Him. Even the violent and cruel are saved through surrender to Him.

Even those who are addicted to material things are saved through surrender to the lotus feet of Śrī Govinda.

Those who are attached to  wife and family, children and home comforts are saved through dedication to Śrī Kṛṣṇa.

Even if the lowest of the low attain positive and progressive immortality by taking shelter of the lotus feet of Govinda..  (10)

Nārasiṃha Pūrana