I realize that my blog started as an attempt to tell my friends about my madcap life.
As Bogart once said, my problems don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy mixed up world. Lately my blog has morphed into reflections on life. I'd like to thank the 97 or so people who look at my blog every day. I was planning to write this for Valentine's Day, so here's a few reflections on love.
When I was a kid growing up in high school, all the girls read Kahlil Gibran. I went to Palisades High School and most of the guys had cars, motorcycles, acting careers, or they were athletes, or surfers. I was pretty much a nerd.
As a sensitive, poet type, I decided that if I was to be popular, I would have to read The Prophet. I opened up the book to a random page and found that he had written, "Work is the active principle of love." That was the kiss of death. I wanted nothing to do with work.
I was a fan of Maynard G. Krebs, the beatnik dude on "Dobie Gillis." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maynard_G._Krebs
Maynard hated work and so did I, so I thought any poet who said that "Work is the active principle of love" must be on the wrong track. I put "The Prophet" back on the shelf and gave up trying to be the sensitive poet type. But his words haunted me: "Work is the active principle of love." How could that be true. As I grew older I began to understand his point.
Love means sacrifice. Without sacrifice, there's no love. Hollywood people say, "I love you," all the time. Facebook friends freely scatter "I Like you," all over their social media.
But when there's no action or work or sacrifice behind the happy talk it's all just sentiment. Real love implies action, sacrifice, and yes, work. People revere Jesus, not so much for being the Son of God, but for the sacrifice he made. The idea that someone will sacrifice for a noble ideal or for love still captures our hearts. Sacrifice is really the key to understanding love, be it the mundane erotic principle or the highest divine love. I understand this better now, I think, but it's no easier now than it was the first time I heard it.
So for those of you who contemplate the meaning of love, here's another excerpt from The Prophet. Here's Kahlil Gibran's reflection on love:
Love
Then said Almitra, “Speak to us of Love.”
And he raised his head and looked upon the people, and there fell a stillness upon them. And with a great voice he said:
When love beckons to you follow him,
Though his ways are hard and steep.
And when his wings enfold you yield to him,
Though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you.
And when he speaks to you believe in him,
Though his voice may shatter your dreams as the north wind lays waste the garden.
For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you. Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning.
Even as he ascends to your height and caresses your tenderest branches that quiver in the sun,
So shall he descend to your roots and shake them in their clinging to the earth.
Like sheaves of corn he gathers you unto himself.
He threshes you to make you naked.
He sifts you to free you from your husks.
He grinds you to whiteness.
He kneads you until you are pliant;
And then he assigns you to his sacred fire, that you may become sacred bread for God's sacred feast.
All these things shall love do unto you that you may know the secrets of your heart, and in that knowledge become a fragment of Life's heart.
But if in your fear you would seek only love's peace and love's pleasure,
Then it is better for you that you cover your nakedness and pass out of love's threshing-floor,
Into the seasonless world where you shall laugh, but not all of your laughter, and weep, but not all of your tears.
Love gives naught but itself and takes naught but from itself.
Love possesses not nor would it be possessed;
For love is sufficient unto love.
When you love you should not say, “God is in my heart,” but rather, “I am in the heart of God.”
And think not you can direct the course of love, for love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.
Love has no other desire but to fulfil itself.
But if you love and must needs have desires, let these be your desires:
To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night.
To know the pain of too much tenderness.
To be wounded by your own understanding of love;
And to bleed willingly and joyfully.
To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving;
To rest at the noon hour and meditate love's ecstasy;
To return home at eventide with gratitude;
And then to sleep with a prayer for the beloved in your heart and a song of praise upon your lips.
Now if you've read this far, you're in for a real treat: Here's Professor Nishikant Sannyal on "The Erotic Principle and Unalloyed Devotion" a completely different point of view from his understanding of Bhagavat Theology:
Senior Professor of History, Ravenshaw College, Cuttack (Orissa)
A FEW WORDS ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Now if you've read this far, you're in for a real treat: Here's Professor Nishikant Sannyal on "The Erotic Principle and Unalloyed Devotion" a completely different point of view from his understanding of Bhagavat Theology:
THE EROTIC PRINCIPLE AND UNALLOYED DEVOTION
BY
NISI KANTA SANYAL, M.A.
NISI KANTA SANYAL, M.A.
Senior Professor of History, Ravenshaw College, Cuttack (Orissa)
REVISED WITH A FOREWORD
BY
HIS DIVINE GRACE
OM VISHNUPAD PARAMAHAMSA
SRI SRIMAD BHAKTI SIDDHANTA SARASVATI
GOSWAMI PRABHUPAD
BY
HIS DIVINE GRACE
OM VISHNUPAD PARAMAHAMSA
SRI SRIMAD BHAKTI SIDDHANTA SARASVATI
GOSWAMI PRABHUPAD
PUBLISHED BY
SRI SAJJAN SUHRID DAS ADHIKARI, M.A., B.L.
SRI GAUDIYA MATH, BAGHBAZAR, CALCUTTA
SRI SAJJAN SUHRID DAS ADHIKARI, M.A., B.L.
SRI GAUDIYA MATH, BAGHBAZAR, CALCUTTA
1941
Second edition
Second edition
PRINTED BY
THOMPSON & CO., LTD.,
BROADWAY, MADRAS
1941
THOMPSON & CO., LTD.,
BROADWAY, MADRAS
1941
(All rights reserved)
All glory to Sri Guru and Gauranga
FOREWORD
An erudite scholar like the late Dr. Bhandarkar erred when he gave vent to his expression that the worship of Rama has a more ethical representation than that of Sri Krsna, especially, in reference to the Latter's amorous exploits. So it is no wonder if the observers of the West are naturally found to subscribe to a wrong opinion when they deal with the ethical merits of oriental theism. When men like late Raja Ram Mohan Roy or late Dr. Bhandarkar are apt to commit blunder in respect to the transcendental pastimes of Sri Krsna, men of less intelligence are always expected to be persuaded to follow the same track when they try to acquaint themselves with the Supreme Lord Sri Krsna's Lila. With a view to remove a long-felt want, that was keenly experienced, of justifying in English language the rational faith of a true Sri Krsna-worshipper, the writer of this brief pamphlet has pioneered some convincing reasons which it is hoped may to a great extent appease the hunger of an honest enquirer. The author has dealt with many points which can elucidate and clear off the dubious knots that easily puzzle all moral men to accept the account of the transcendental Hero busy with His own amorous achievements. This pamphlet will, therefore, suit best those able scholars who are very eager to examine the comparative merits of religions based on true moral principles. The reader will surely find in the few lines many unexplored explanations during his progress of study of the book till the concluding line.
The author begins to assure his readers that the greatest ethical teacher - the Supreme Lord Sri Krsna Chaitanya has offered His theistic observations to the best intellectual societies who are thoroughly and perfectly moral. A brief index, therefore, will, no doubt, impede in a great measure the hostile criticisms of an empiricist that are likely to be showered upon the defence, inasmuch as the former is always expected to give out his biased sentiments.
SIDDHANTA SARASVATI
All glory to Sri Guru and Gauranga
All glory to Sri Guru and Gauranga
A FEW WORDS ABOUT THE AUTHOR
In a renowned Zemindar family of Varendra Brahmin caste at the village Korakdi in the district of Faridpur (Bengal), Sriyut Nisi Kanta Sanyal took his birth in the year 1884 A.D. He passed the Entrance Examination from Berhampore with scholarship and B.A. with honours and gold medal and stood second in M.A. in history. He served in Ravenshaw College at Cuttack (Orissa) as Professor of History and retired from the Government Service in the year 1937. He departed this life on 29th February 1940.
He possessed all the worldly fortunes, viz., pedigree, wealth, learning and health - any of which is sufficient to justify one's pride. Generally they stand in the way of living a real spiritual life but in him they were all harnessed to the whole-hearted service of the Lord. While a Professor at Cuttack he was attracted by the speeches of Tridandi Goswami Srila Bhakti Pradipa Tirtha Maharaja of Sri Gaudiya Matha and came to Calcutta to drink deep in the holy nectar at the Fountain-Source. Here at Sri Bhaktivinoda Asana at ¹.1, Ultadingi Junction Road, he had the good fortune to sit at the Lotus Feet of Srila Ananta Vasudeva Brahmacari, now the spiritual head of the Gaudiya Mission and known as His Divine Grace Om Visnupada Paramahamsa Parivrajakacaryavarya (108) Sri Srimad Bhakti Prasada Puri Goswami Thakura, and hear his discourses continuously for seven days. All his doubts removed, his sincere soul saw the clear light of Truth and was initiated by Sri Srimad Bhakti Siddhanta Sarasvati Goswami Prabhupada in the year 1925.
He lived an ideal spiritual life. His devotion to his Gurudeva and his god-brothers knew no bounds. Though outwardly a Grihastha, his inner life was an object lesson to many Sanyasi. He surrendered himself whole-heartedly to the service of his divine master. His learning, his pay, his position and all his virtues he placed at the disposal of Srila Prabhupada to such an extent that during his parting benediction Srila Prabhupada was pleased to remark that he was indebted to Sripada Narayanadasa Bhaktisudhakar Prabhu - the initiated name of Prof. Nisi Kanta Sanyal.
Prof. Sanyal wrote various treatises and translations on Gaudiya Vaisnava religion. His monumental work is "Sri Krsna Caitanya", a book of international fame. There in Vol.1, he narrated the Lila of Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu upto His initiation at Gaya. Under the editorship of his Gurudeva, he conducted "The Harmonist", a fortnightly journal in English, for several years. The present treatise, though covering only a few pages, gives in a succinct way the highest philosophy of Sri Krsna's amorous pastimes which has justly baffled the highest imagination of the empiricists and rationalists. This booklet, if read with the sincere reverence of an ardent seeker of Truth, will save him and many of his creed from self-annihilation and open their eyes to a New-World of ever-increasing usefulness and felicitation.
After the disappearance of Srila Prabhupada [BHAKTI SIDDHANTA SARASVATI], the great world teacher, on the first day of 1937, a crisis came upon the Gaudiya Mission, which called forth the best and the worst in the members thereof. Sripada Bhaktisudhakara Prabhu, a born thinker and writer, always felt the urge to write the succeeding volumes of his "Sri Krsna Chaitanya" and complete the work - a course, if adopted, would surely gain for him an everlasting fame. With the discerning eye of a brave soldier and an ardent devotee, he found the Mission-boat tossing on the high waves deserted by the helmsmen, and in a spirit of supreme sacrifice of all worldly considerations including fame, 'the last infirmity of a noble mind', he volunteered his service and with a rare courage took his stand at the helm. He left his service at the college and steered the boat in troubled waters till his last breath with a zeal, sagacity and devotion unparalleled in modern times. True, he has not given us the "Sri Krsna Chaitanya after initiation", - let there grow in us a burning desire for a true approach of the Lord - but he has given us the richest treasure on this perverted world, - the living example, far more powerful than tons of precepts, of a true Sadhu which is the only royal road to a proper appreciation of the Lord. May his spirit of non-challenge in the face of violent antagonism and his most devoted cohesion, in the midst of constant whirlwind, to the Lotus Feet of His Divine Grace Om Visnupada Paramahamsa Parivrajakacaryavarya (108) Sri Srimad Bhakti Prasada Puri Goswami Thakura, the present spiritual head of the Gaudiya Mission, guide and encourage us, like an illuminating lighthouse, in our hours of peril and depression and lead us on to the harbour of the ever-joyous service of Sri Krsna.
Sri Gaudiya Math,
Baghbazar, Calcutta,
17th February 1941.
Baghbazar, Calcutta,
17th February 1941.
SAJJAN SUHRID DAS ADHIKARI
All glory to Sri Guru and Gauranga
All glory to Sri Guru and Gauranga
The Erotic Principle
And
Unalloyed Devotion
And
Unalloyed Devotion
The transcendental amorous pastimes of Sri Krsna with the spiritual milkmaids of Braja constitute the highest platform of service of the divinity. This is the sum and substance of the teachings of Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. This teaching is set forth in the Srimad Bhagavata Purana which offers the concrete and unambiguous exposition of this religion of love.
The principle of love is not supposed by anybody as necessarily implying the reference to sex. Amorous love which involves the sexual reference is, however, regarded as a dangerous subject. It is difficult to understand how amorous love can be made to survive the complete elimination of the sexual reference as appears to be the hypocritical dream of a certain type of empiric poets and religionists. The empiricists take strong objection to the sexual element that enters most prominently and in its most repugnant form of polygamous adultery into the narrative of the pastimes of Sri Krsna. The unconventional amorous love of Braja with its frank sexual abandon is regarded by moralists and sociologists a too strong dose especially for boys and girls of a tender age, if not also for adults who do not possess a cultured taste and imagination. The idolatry of ribald sexual passion is a most mischievous religion and a survival of the ideal of promiscuity of the savage state out of which humanity has hardly yet emerged fully, despite the concerted labours of countless generations. No same man can, therefore, contemplate without a shudder the prospect of being hurled back again into the condition of primitive savagery and sheer animalism. Any doctrine that leads or tends to lead, either directly or indirectly, humanity back into an ideal of promiscuous sexualism, therefore, stands self-condemned.
In the paragraph just penned I had been trying candidly to realize the position of the anti-erotist and have not scrupled to use very strong language on his side. I may also mention that he can truly point, and he has not failed to do so, to ugly facts in support of his apprehensions. The almost open debaucheries of the dregs of the so-called followers of Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu have been asserted by more than one respectable writer who have not even scrupled to attribute their degradation to the teachings of Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. The fact of the wide prevalence of sexual corruption among certain sections of people, who pass themselves off as the followers of Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu is so painfully true that I consider it as both unnecessary and dishonest to play the role of an apologist for such persons and shall not stop to discuss the view that the charge is an exaggeration which it possibly is.
The sexual relationship which is nowadays ordinarily sought to be regulated with the help of the principle of morality is not, so far as I am aware, condemned as wholly impure by any of the writers who object to the pernicious tendency of the teachings of Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and Srimad Bhagavata. They should, therefore, be surprised if they are informed that sexuality itself is condemned in the most unambiguous terms by the Srimad Bhagavata, Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and His associates and eminent followers. The difficulty that confronts me in this discourse is not due so much to the onus of proving that they do not condemn, but to the much more bewildering fact that they do condemn the very principle of sexuality as the most harmful of all the delusions to which we are subject in the state of sin.
The moral principle of empiric ethics is based upon an ideal of human personality which consists in the harmonious development of all the faculties and instincts inherent in the human race. According to this view no instinct or quality is useless or immoral in itself. The proper use of every faculty is that which tends to improve its range and quality. If this method of improvement is applied to sexual instinct we obtain the principle that it is not only justifiable but necessary to exercise the sexual function under proper safeguards which will ensure the increase of sexual power and scope. This ideal is being actually realized, under the lead of empiric ethics, by the various aesthetic and scientific activities of poets, novelists, painters, artists, physicists, chemists, biologists, eugenists, etc., on a consciously organized and exhaustive plan especially in modern Europe. The teaching of the Srimad Bhagavata has been found fault with by the empiric moralists and their followers on the grounds of crudity, grossness and want of worldly wisdom. Even the superiority of the religion of Christ and Mohammed is held by religionists, who are under the sway of empiric ethics to consist, at any rate partly, in their social principles, in their wise handling of the sex problem by condemnation of sexual excess and promiscuity. The principle of total sexual abstinence which is also recommended by those religions is supposed to be an error on the less dangerous side.
Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu following the Srimad Bhagavata rejects the above ideal of human personality. The development of the powers of the non-soul body and mind, according to Him, has no connection whatsoever with the individual soul proper, who is located beyond the scope of all the activities and experiences of our present delusive existence. The mind is an organ of the soul who in this existence happens to be under the thraldom of matter with the acquiescence of its master. This unnatural and seemingly impossible union between spirit and matter is the mystery which has baffled all the efforts at explanation of empiric science. The principle of causation which forms the basis of the inductive method does not apply to this fact of the first magnitude. The spirit is found meddling with matter with which he has nothing in common and is also convinced for all practical purposes that all his affinities are with the limited and the unconscious, that is, the unspiritual. All the schemes of empiric science have avoided this problem for the plane reason that it is incomprehensible to the known resources of our present reason or experience. But their ignorance of this subject continues none the less to be the fatal deficiency that vitiates all their conclusions at their source. If a material state has been supposed to be the ideal of human personality by empiric ethics, it is due to the assumption that the mind with its present outlook is the undeveloped human soul which is capable of finding its way to the summit of perfection by continuing to increase its capacity and inclination of meddling with matter, or in other words, that its union with matter is a permanent fact of its very constitution.
But as a matter of unbiased reasoning the spirit need not be supposed to have any material requirements for the simple reason that he is the spirit. Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu holds that the spirit is eternally and wholly separate from matter. In the state of sin it is under the false impression that it has an intimate connection with matter. Anything which tends to confirm this wrong impression prevents its reversion to its natural condition of unlimited existence. By any attempts to increase the sexual power which aims at establishing the material connection, the state of delusion will be prolonged. The sexual power has no value for the soul. If the sexual suggestion is allowed to pervade literature, science and art, those subjects do not thereby attain the proximity of the spirit. If one can lift a mountain, does it prove that his soul is great? Matter or any capacity or instinct that derives its value from material effect, is of no concern to the soul. Spirit is eternally and categorically different from matter.
The ideal of human personality according to Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu is that of the soul freed from his incarceration in matter and functioning on the plane of the Absolute to which he belongs by constitution. The faculties and instincts of our present minds are a perversion corresponding to the analogous principles of the soul in his (her) pure state. It is, therefore, not only unnecessary but positively harmful to try to increase the possibility or scope of our present misguided activity. The true ideal demands the deflection of their direction from material objects towards the spiritual. We should, therefore, desist from the attempt to increase the power and scope of our present sexual instinct and try to reclaim soul from misdirection towards any ideal that is derived from our experience of this world by turning him back upon himself thereby enabling him to find his true objective.
Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu is no advocate of gross or refined sensuality or of total sexual abstinence. He is opposed to all such positive and negative connection with the matter. He wants the emancipated soul to find his own ideal. He does not consider it possible to ascertain artificially the function of the free souls by the principles of their false existence.
If this radical difference between Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu and empiric moralists in regard to the ideal of human personality is kept well in view, it should be possible not to misunderstand His attitude towards the sexual principle. Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu takes sex in the same way as He does any other phenomenon of this world, viz., as offering a double face to our unbiased reason. It may be regarded either as part and parcel of our eternal nature or as an adventitious factor which has no connection with our real self. The empiricist holds the former view. Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu opposes and refuses it and establishes the truth of the latter view. The sex according to Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu is a passing affair and belongs as such to this changing existence. It happens to be in our way in one form or another, so long as we are subject to this worldly existence, and it is of course necessary that we should have a principle of conduct in regard to it. That principle should also be consistent with our ideal of the human personality. If the soul freed from the shackles of matter be our ideal, we should so conduct ourselves towards sex that we may not thereby strengthen our present unnatural hankering for certain form of material activity. For this purpose, the very first thing that we have to do is to try to realize clearly that the world as it is presented to us by the material senses is not the world with which our souls are concerned. The soul has its own separate world. The soul is not an abstraction nor is the spiritual world a figment of our material imagination. Rather the opposite of this is the real truth. This material world is only the perverted reflection of the spiritual world. It is the shadow, the abstraction, of the spiritual world which is the real substance. Our soul who is a citizen of the spiritual world has somehow lost all real recollections of the substantive world. But the features of the spiritual world are reflected in a distorted manner in this material world. It is that very same world which is presented in this distorted and unintelligible form by our present defective senses. The dormant soul itself is responsible for this distortion. It is the inevitable result of the wrong use of the faculty of free reason which the constituent principle of the soul. The soul is free to choose to serve the Truth. It is equally free to follow the opposite course. The proper function of the free reason is to serve the Truth, or in other words, to be prepared to recognize its natural limitations and submit to the guidance of a higher reason whenever the latter makes its appearance. The reason of fallen souls refused deliberately to recognize his own native littleness and renounced the guidance of the higher reason. In fact, it set up for itself in order to build a world of its own with its own partly resources. The present world is the result of this disloyal activity. We have put our neck deliberately in to the noose that holds us fast in its iron grip and the same original perversity still persists and prevents us from reverting to our constitutional position. So long as this irrational perversity continues, we are doomed to grope in ignorance and reap the reward of the wilful abuse of our free reason in the form of this petty existence of sin and death. It is also under the lead of this perverted reason that we have built up the empiric science of conduct. The empiric science which are the outcome of the efforts of the reason to get rid of the consequences of its folly are really the fetters forged by itself which bind soul all the more securely to a false existence. The very first step that has to be taken in the right direction is to try seriously to realize the nature of this perversity or sin. Once this perversity is clearly perceived, the very science which have till now served to confirm our ignorance will be found to be of the utmost help in freeing us from the bondage of the world. There is nothing to be lost the change of front, and everything is to be gained in the only true sense.
Srimad Bhagavata and Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu tell us of this transcendental existence in which, in spite of analogical resemblance, everything is different from those things with which we are familiar in this world, even as the substance is different from its distorted shadow. The amours of Sri Krsna are categorically different from the sexual performances of the debauchees of this world, because they are the eternal verity, of which the latter form the unwholesome perverted reflection. It is our eternal duty to have much to do with the One, and nothing at all to do with the other. We are freed from the delusion and snare of sexuality through the realization of the spiritual amours of the Divine Pair. The knowledge of the spiritual amours of Sri Radha-Krsna is the medicine of the diseased soul afflicted with the malady of saxuality. The amours of the Divine Pair are the Highest Truth and the last to be realized on the path of spiritual endeavour. This is the teaching of the Srimad Bhagavata.
We have to reach this goal by graduated stages of progress. It is first of all necessary to listen to the tidings of the spiritual world from the lips of those who have actually realized the life eternal. Such persons alone can properly expound the Srimad Bhagavata. Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu is the ideal exponent of the Srimad Bhagavata. His life is the Bhagavata reduced to the terms of the duties of everyday life of this world to enable us to really understand and realize the Truth. Any one who reads with an unbiased mind the illuminating volumes penned by His associates and eminent followers with the object of transmitting all succeeding generations the particulars of His life and teachings, can never fail to realize the imperative necessity for everyone of us to follow His footsteps. We are thereby enabled to understand that the spiritual world really exists, that it is the realm of the Concrete Absolute, that it cannot be attained by our own unassisted efforts, for the reason that Absolute Person refuses to reveal Himself to our self-asserting tiny soul, that it is necessary to approach the reality by the method of submission, that this method of submission to the Absolute Person has to be learnt, also by the method of submission, from those who have actually realized the Absolute Truth and that there actually exist among us such Godsent teachers of the religion. Once this necessity of submitting to the spiritual preceptor is clearly realized, one is thereby enabled to find out the right kind of preceptor. This is the first manifestation of the Absolute Truth to the sincere seeker. The next stage of progress consists in attentive listening to the transcendental words of the good preceptor simultaneously carrying them out into practice to the extent that they are understood, that is to say approved, by our reason. It is only after undergoing a complete course of training that we are enabled to reach the goal, viz., a right understanding of the narrative of the transcendental amours of the Divine Pair.
The spiritual pupilage is indispensable and is the key to the situation. Those who profess to understand the Bhagavata without having passed through the complete course of such training by the method of sincere submission to the good preceptor are denied all access to the real meaning of the narratives of the Bhagavata. There are many professed followers of Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu who ignore the necessity of following His teachings. They reap only sin and degradation by their study of the Bhagavata. Their misrepresentations or depraved conduct need not stand in the way of our honest enquiry into the actual doctrines of Srimad Bhagavata in the light of the practice and teaching of Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and His associates and sincere followers.
Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu has declared that Sri Krsna is served properly only by the citizens and specially the milkmaids of Braja, and that it is not possible for anyone who is not perfectly free from sin to realize the nature of such service. It is necessary to pass through a regular course of spiritual training under a good preceptor to be able to understand what it really is and to be able to practise it. By attaining such service we realize the eternal function of our souls. This service cannot be performed by means of this body or mind. It is performed by the pure soul who is absolutely free from all worldly hankerings including the sexual. This service is a matter of spiritual realization and not of apish imitation with the help of our present ribald imagination. By sincere, that is to say, convinced submission to the rules of spiritual pupilage as laid down in the scriptures and expounded by competent teachers, one is enable to attain to such perfect purity of mind. The Absolute Truth manifests Himself of Him own accord, for He has the power of taking the initiative, to the mind that is thus purified in the sincere effort after Himself, Absolute purity of the mind is attainable. Relative purity is a delusion and a snare, and will not serve the purpose at all. The Bhagavata should never be read without bearing in the mind these warnings of the scriptures. Otherwise, there will be the absolute certainty of confounding the spiritual with the material and being punished with the acquisition of a positive repugnance for the medicine which alone can heal the distemper of mortality or misapplying the same to one's utter ruin. It is not the counsel of intolerance or superstitious faith, but the highest conclusion of the unbiased reason in its effort to be absolutely loyal to its own constituent principles. The above position has been reached by the proper exercise of rationality which is the one unerring guide of our real self.
The spiritual milkmaids of Braja serve Sri Krsna with all their spiritual senses and for His satisfaction alone. Sri Krsna is a real Person. He is the sole Proprietor of everything. We are His property. Our eternal senses are also His property. He has got senses like our souls who emanate after His Image. Our present material senses are an unwholesome perversion of the reality. At present we want to serve ourselves by means of our senses. What we actually do, although we are not fully conscious of this, is that we serve our senses because our souls are so constituted that they can offer, but cannot receive any service from the Served. As we cannot serve ourselves, if we also do not want to serve Sri Krsna we are thereby reduced to the necessity of self-delusion. In this deluded state we wrongly suppose ourselves to be the proprietors of our senses, that is, to be like Sri Krsna. This equally applies to either sex. The males as well as the females of this world equally regard themselves as the owners of their senses, and their senses, as the means, of self-gratification. In this sense all of us irrespective of sex are males, i.e., masters or enjoyers in the spiritual sense, although this is a delusion; because by constitution we are not masters but servants. Sri Krsna is the only Master of everything including our souls. This fact is reflected in a perverted way in the principle of sex. We belong to the category of property to which our senses also belong. Hence it is practicable to identify ourselves with our senses in the deluded state of sin and mistake its supposed pleasure as that of ourselves. But as a matter of fact, in the spirit there is no dividing line separating the soul from its senses as master from property. All this is only very faintly perceptible to our present reason. In the fallen state, we suppose that the senses, conceived as different from ourselves, are pleased if we follow their dictates, again conceived as separate from ourselves, in the exercise of our function of self-consciousness.
The milkmaids of Braja are the property of Sri Krsna and are fully conscious of this relationship. This attitude is expressed by saying that they are females. In Braja the males are those who are equally spiritual, that is to say who are not under any partial delusion when they are considered citizens including in touch with Sri Krsna. The spiritual milkmaids of Braja are neither the masters nor the slaves of their senses as we want to be. They are not like our speculative misguided moralists who are engaged in chasing the shadow. They are the only realists. They know, which none of us really knows, that everything belongs to Sri Krsna, serves only Sri Krsna and that everything is also privileged to realize that Sri Krsna is his or her Master. This is purely spiritual state. The milkmaids of Braja alone possess this perfectly pure vision. Therefore, they alone are truly dependants that is to say, servants of Sri Krsna, realizing as they do that nothing including themselves belong to themselves but that everything, themselves as well as their senses, belongs to Sri Krsna.
The empiric moralists overlook the fact that our senses are not really ours. We cannot make our eyes see or our noses to smell. They do not obey us. They obey their real Master to Whom alone they belong. Everything is subordinate to Sri Krsna. Everything really ministers only to His pleasure. It is not inconsistent with but the complete fulfilment of the moral principle. The female principle in the form of subordination to the male is a real fact of our spiritual existence. In all amatory phases Sri Krsna is the only Male, all the rest of us are females. This is the exact opposite of the current ideal, viz., that we are the only males and everything else is a dependant, that is to say intended for our enjoyment. The soul functions freely in the realm of the Absolute where he is conscious of his real relationship with Sri Krsna. His function is crippled, thwarted and distorted the moment he chooses to set up as master on his own account, that is to say, wants to play the role of a male. This perverted activity is stopped on all sides by the resistance of the Absolute Truth. This mind or the ribald soul falls out with everything as soon as he falls out with Sri Krsna. In his attempt to enjoy everything, he is punished by those very things which serve to lure him to deeper depths of ignorance by a delusive response to his frantic attempts after sensuous gratification. In the normal state, those very objects help him in serving Sri Krsna. To sum up, the soul retains his natural condition as long as he serve the Absolute Person with all the resources of the principle of self-consciousness. But his will is free. He may not like to serve the Absolute Truth. This is the abuse of his free choice inasmuch as it is an offence against the principle of pure reason which also is part and parcel of his eternal nature. In consequence of his choosing deliberately to act in opposition to the dictates of reason, the delusion that it is an entity existing independently of Sri Krsna takes firm possession of it. He now finds himself exiled from the realm of the Absolute and functioning in strict subordination to the delusive or material power of Sri Krsna. In this new world, the fallen soul tries to please himself with the help of his reason on which he has deliberately put various limitations. Thus is evolved the principle of the false ego (Ahankara).
We are all egotists. When we read the Bhagavata, we therefore necessarily regard Sri Krsna Himself as an egotist like ourselves seeking after material sensuous enjoyment by means of His superior powers. To the egotist, the service of the milkmaids of Braja, therefore, appears in the guise of the sad lot of the imagined victims of his own unprincipled lust. But the egotist never wants to be the object of another's enjoyment. This is true both of the female as well as of the male. The suffragettes are not false to their sex. They are only trying to shake off the unnatural domination of persons who do not themselves like to submit to be enjoyed on the pretext of sex. The real fact, however, is that both sexes like to enjoy and not to be enjoyed. They are all males. There are no real females or objects of enjoyment in this world but only universal hankering for enjoyment. In the spiritual realm Sri Krsna is the sole Enjoyer and everything else, an object of His enjoyment. But this arrangement is not the distortion or denial but the fulfilment of all the real wants of the true selves of every object.
As Sri Krsna is the soul Master, He is also His only Supreme Servant. In the Absolute all ends meet. It is Sri Krsna Who by His serving potency serves Himself and no one can serve Sri Krsna best except Himself. It is, therefore, not possible for us either to be masters or servants independently of Sri Krsna. We are potencies of Sri Krsna and yet not potent Sri Krsna. We are of His essence but are not the source of the essence. But although we are of His essence, we are liable to be deluded by another power which also belongs to Sri Krsna and which is called by our scriptures by the name of Maya, i.e., by which everything is measured, the principle of limitations. The soul in the pure state is subject to no limitations although it is only a small fraction of the divine spiritual essence, because in the spirit there are no such hard and fast dividing lines enabling it to be measured like material phenomena. This, however, is also liable to be misunderstood. The human soul is a tiny part of the divine spiritual essence functioning in the realm of the Absolute who is free from limitations but liable to be expelled from the spiritual world if he ever forgets his own littleness and abjures the guidance of Sri Krsna. So long as it chooses to be guided by Sri Krsna he is free from limitations or ignorance.
In the realm of the Absolute the little soul functions free from all limitations under the guidance of Sri Krsna Himself. His function is to serve Sri Krsna. Service implies a knowledge of the wishes of the Master. It also implies a difference or possibility of difference between the wishes of the servant and those of the master. The wishes of the master have, therefore, to be communicated to the servant who cannot otherwise know it. In this world such wishes are conveyed imperfectly through the medium of some material substance. The command is clearly distinguishable from its source. In the spiritual world there can be no such difference. The servant knows the whole of the command that is Sri Krsna Himself. Therefore it must be Sri Krsna Himself Who always makes Himself known to the servants in the realm of the Absolute by means of His commands. But Sri Krsna as Master cannot be known to the servant. That would eliminate the difference between the Master and the servant. If He wants to be known to the servant He must make Himself known to the latter in the form in which the latter can also recognize his Master. For this purpose Sri Krsna becomes His own servant in whose heart He appears as Master. This concept, to use a worldly word, is communicated to us by Sri Krsna as servant. This serving Counter-Whole of Sri Krsna is called by our Sastras Sri Radhika. She is the female or serving principle and the inseparable and eternal Counter-Whole of Sri Krsna Himself. She is the premier milkmaid of Braja. For serving Sri Krsna She expands Herself into the other milkmaids of Braja. She is the power of Sri Krsna and every power is of Her essence, even the principle of limitation itself.
The milkmaids of Braja never forget Sri Krsna because they are the direct spiritual power of Sri Krsna. On the other hand Sri Krsna Himself is manifested, or in other words becomes fit to be served, by their means. The power of Sri Krsna at Her source is one. The principle of limitation or ignorance is also in Her but without power over her. The human soul is a tiny part of the spiritual essence delicately poised between the to forces, viz., the spiritual power of Sri Krsna and Her material shadow. So the human soul must serve Sri Krsna under the direction of the pure spiritual power diversely represented for Her comprehension by the services eternally performed for His benefit by the milkmaids of Braja. The service of the little soul cannot be offered directly. This constitutes the eternal between Himself and the milkmaids of Braja. Sri Radhika alone directly serves Sri Krsna. She is helped by the other milkmaids. Sri Radhika and Her companions are, therefore, direct servants. The little soul can also only serve in a subordinate position. The object of the other milkmaids is not direct dalliance with Sri Krsna which is the right reserved of Sri Radhika but to carry out the orders of Sri Radhika in Her service of Sri Krsna. The object of the human soul is to carry out the orders of Sri Radhika and Her companions in their service of Sri Krsna. This is the arrangement of Braja. The sex idea loses all its unwholesomeness when it is applied to Sri Radhika inasmuch as She is Sri Krsna Himself in the guise of His only Love or Sweetheart. The unwholesomeness of sex in this world is due to the desire of domination of one over another each one of whom is by constitution really independent of other. The basis of this unwholesomeness is eliminated in the case of the amours of Sri Radha-Krsna. In the realm of the Absolute, therefore, Sri Krsna is eternally served by the pure spirits who are allotted their respective functions by His Counter-Whole Sri Radhika without Whose help the contact with Sri Krsna that is necessary for serving Him cannot be obtained. Sri Radhika and the milkmaids of Braja are the direct or subjective constituents of Sri Krsna Himself. Our soul are the tiny constituents of the spiritual power of Sri Krsna represented in its fullness by Sri Radhika and located on the margin of the spiritual realm contiguous to the borders of this world, the realm of Maya. Maya herself is a constituent part of Sri Radhika serving Sri Krsna not directly but indirectly and from a distance. We are perpetually exposed to the pulls of Braja and Maya at the two ends and we are free to choose between them.
The pastimes of Sri Krsna with the milkmaids of Braja as explained by the Srimad Bhagavata are neither history nor allegory. They are not history because they are transcendental, whereas our so-called history is only a record of our experiences of this world in terms of the egotistic principle. They are also not allegory for the reasons that they happen to be actual concrete reality of which this world is the perverted reflection. As a matter of fact it is this world and its happenings that are really allegorical and impossible of comprehension except relatively to the real and symbolizing the reality. Our souls have really nothing to do with allegory which misrepresents our function and deludes us into the acceptance of this perverted existence. The proper function of our souls is to serve the Absolute Person in obedience to the commands of Himself conveyed through Himself in the form of His devotees.
The sexual principle is a misunderstood symbol of the reality. It can no more be banished from our consciousness than the consciousness itself. The male and female forms are also not the sole and distinctive possessions of this world. There is a reality behind them as well. The soul has a body which is symbolized by the female form and which is absolutely free from any unwholesome material association. Our present objection to the female form is due to the egotistic principle which for the same reason does not object or rather, readily enough adopts the male form as more properly representing the pure little soul. This repugnance to the female form prevents us from unprejudiced examination of the position and functions of the milkmaids of Braja. The recognition of the female sex is a necessary factor of our conception of amorous love. This amorous love is the highest subject of human poetry and the most powerful factor in all human activities. Its worthlessness is not established by the mere refusal to recognize it as a part of our nature. It would much more to the purpose to try to understand what it really is. The Srimad Bhagavata is the only book that furnishes a satisfactory answer to this all-important question.
The only kind of answer that we require to such questions and one which will remove our doubts and difficulties must needs be absolutely true. The empiricists pin their faith on tentative truths. They seem to believe that by progressive movement they will attain the goal. But the goal which is attainable by a process of advance is an illusion. It is like the ever receding rim of the horizon that can never be actually reached. The Truth is not determinable in terms of progress. He is fixed and immutable. It is subject to obscuration due to defects of the observer. These defects are also material which alone can stand in the way of the Absolute Truth who is spiritual. The real progress towards Truth consists in the endeavour to improve our faculties of observation. We cannot realize the Absolute Person by extending our so-called knowledge of the relative. It is moving in the opposite direction. The greater the number of limited objects that crowd into our brains the greater is the difficulty of discovering their uselessness for our purpose. And in fact it is our own hankering for half-truths and seeming truths that is also really responsible for such overcrowding. We create the fog that obscures our vision. By this endless process of rejection and election of material objects we can never reach the goal. We must stop and reflect on the cause of our perpetual and utter failure. If we do so sincerely we make the real discovery with Kant that we cannot know the Truth by means of our present faculties. But we need not, therefore give up the quest as hopeless. We are to question again and then we shall get the true answer. That answer will be that the Absolute Truth for Whom our souls hanker is not a dead thing or relations of dead and limited things or thoughts but something Who is akin to ourselves. He is something that is living or self-conscious. He is also Spirit like our souls. The next question that will arise in our minds will be, why cannot we see Him? The answer will be, "Because He does not show Himself to us." If we ask again, "Why does He not appear to us?" We shall be told that He is so because we do not seek for Him. We never seek for the Truth but always seek for the half-truth. That is the disease. The real Truth Himself comes to us the very instant we seek for Him. And we seek for Him only when and as soon as we really understand His nature. This is the vicious circle. At present we have no real idea of the Truth and so whenever we seek for anything that thing is necessary untruth. Then at last the conviction dawns on our understanding that the whole process hitherto pursued requires to be reversed and we begin to understand the mystic words of the scriptures. "Give up once for all the empiric quest for the Truth and wait for Him to take the initiative. You cannot go up to Him. When you try to go up to anything of your choice you go away from it. So you must submit to be enlightened. He has the power and the will of making Himself known to you."
At this stage one naturally asks, "Shall I then sit idly and do nothing?" And now Truth answers in a definite manner, "No, let your mind and body do what appears to them to be their proper functions but you yourself stand apart and do not identify yourself with them, but wait for communications from Me. Rely wholly on Me and I shall guide you to the goal which is Myself."
Thus faith is kindled in the doubting heart and we are in a position to profit by the instructions of the good preceptor whom Sri Krsna sends to us the moment we really seek to be enlightened in perfect humility. Then we are also able to understand the words of the good preceptor as being identical with the words of the scriptures. Being now convinced of the real ability of the good preceptor to guide us on the path of the Absolute we take hold of his hand that is ever extended to us and submit to be led without hesitation and much questioning at first. As we gradually learn to walk in the path of service our vision slowly clears up and we see The Truth for ourselves. Then only we understand what it really is.
The empiricists although they seem to recognize the necessity of being taught and trained in the affairs of this world unduly sceptical in regard to such training in spiritual matters where its necessity is very much greater because we happen to possess absolutely no knowledge of it. In the terra incognita, of the spirit it is indispensable to have a guide unless indeed, we persist to confuse the spiritual with the material and retain our faith in empiric efforts. But as a matter of fact all predilections for the limited shuts out the unlimited not partially but radically, not quantitatively but categorically. Srimad Bhagavata asks those who really want to serve Sri Krsna to forego all thoughts of any advantage in the worldly sense the conscious or unconscious, direct or vicarious, pursuit of which is the cause of all impurity and ignorance. This reform of life is the indispensable preliminary condition for obtaining any real knowledge of the Absolute Person and the nature and imperative necessity of such reform and also its practicability are clearly realized by close spiritual association with the good preceptor. It cannot be realized so long as we retain an iota of egotism. It cannot be realized unless and until one agrees with the sincerity of real conviction to receive it at his hands as a favour to which he can lay no claim on the strength of any worldly merit or demerit. It is only by such reasoned submission of the will to the process of enlightenment from above that our clouded vision can be cleared up. The Guru is not a mortal, erring creature like ourselves. He is the eternal servant of Sri Krsna whom He sends into this world for the deliverance of fallen souls. He comes into this world on this mission of causeless divine mercy in order to help us to rise out of the depths of sin to our natural state of absolute purity by methods which are perfectly consistent with the principles of our really unbiased reason. So long as we refuse to listen to him we are doomed to misunderstand everything.
By the process of abstraction we are bound to obtain only a negative result. In our present sinful state the sex suggests the idea of sensuous impurity because our present outlook itself is sensuous. The sense of impurity is really nothing but that of incongruity of any material, limited, unconscious substance with the nature of the human soul. We are not on the same plane with the object of our thoughts but are yoked to it in a most unnatural way. This longing is the feeling of impurity or repugnance. So long as we continue to look upon sex with an eye of longing we can never think of it in any other way. But this longing is also part of our present acquired nature and cannot leave us till we are enabled to lay aside this secondary nature itself. With this reform of nature our relation to the principle of sex also undergoes a complete transformation which is, however, otherwise incomprehensible to our present understanding. The female form of the human soul is not a material form. The relation between the human soul and Sri Krsna is not the relation between the material female form and its corresponding male form. The amorous pastimes of Sri Krsna with spiritual milkmaids of Braja are not the amorous pastimes between male and female of this world. The amours of Sri Krsna are not a concoction of the diseased brain of a sensualist. The amours of this world could have no existence unless the substantive principle exists in Sri Krsna. But no one denies the existence and importance of the principle of amour in this world. Why do they imagine that it does not exist in the realm of the Absolute in the perfectly wholesome form?
It is because we choose to regard as material the female form of the soul that we are shocked at what we suppose to be the shameless sensuous proclivities of the transcendentalists. This inevitable so long as we deliberately choose to nurse the error that the sex of our experience is the real entity and not its perverted reflection and imagine that we have been able to solve the problem of sex by transferring our sensuous activity from the body to the mind and by condemning as impure the excesses of the external sexual act on no consistent principle. Such bungling philosophy has not convinced and will never convince anybody of the real nature and purpose of sexual act. This is so because the sexual act is the eternal concomitant in this sinful world of the highest function of the spirit which can, therefore, be never minimized or abolished by all our empiric endeavours but the right understanding of which can alone save us from the consequences of our present suicidal sexual follies.
All the misunderstanding on the subject is due to our deliberately confounding the medicine with the disease, The Absolute Truth with His perversion, The substance with the shadow. The Srimad Bhagavata has offered us in an unambiguous form the medicine knowing full well that it will be wilfully misunderstood and misrepresented by its so-called friends and foes alike. But the medicine is, nevertheless, indispensable for our well-being. No religion which has overlooked this necessity of the human race can afford us the relief of which we stand most in need. It is for this reason that the Srimad Bhagavata which is so much maligned by all diseased persons, that is to say by practically everybody of this world, has been declared by the greatest teachers of the religion in this country as being the only book in the whole world that offers the most unambiguous exposition of the whole Indivisible Truth a right understanding of which alone can really save us from sin and consequent misery. Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and His associates and followers have explained the religion of the Srimad Bhagavata by their teachings as well as conduct. They tell us that the Absolute Truth must be lived in order to be realized. If He be not lived but merely professed He ceases to be the reality and degenerates into the worst form of His materialistic caricature, doing infinite mischief to His professor and His followers. The right application of the medicine is absolutely necessary for curing the disease of ignorance. One who fails to take the medicine administered by a competent physician will never be cured of ignorance. If the blind man pretends to be able to see he may be believed by the blind but cannot escape detection by those who really see. Neither can he guide others aright on the narrow path of righteousness. Unless and until we choose to actually give it our most serious attention being urged to such a course by real necessity and find our way to its acceptance our irrational perversity will continue to bar most effectively its ingress to our benighted understanding.
We must know that the realm of the Absolute is self-protected against the intrusion of all guile and imperfection which are the parents of self-deception. As a matter of fact we are required by the Srimad Bhagavata, if we want to realize the true nature of amorous love by which alone Sri Krsna can be properly served, to be ready to make the supreme sacrifice of discarding once for all and unconditionally all sexual hankerings and prospects. We are perfectly free to choose this course. But no choice is a real choice unless it is of the nature of conviction based on actual experience. The discourses regarding the truth help us to such conviction. After the conviction is produced we feel naturally disposed to accept the guidance of the scriptures as expounded by real devotees. There are carefully graded stages on the path of spiritual effort which have to be traversed before we can reach the goal. It is only when the goal is reached that we can actually realize the truth underlying the principle of sex. It is realized last of all although the sexual hankering is cured on the threshold of spiritual endeavour. There are people who mistaken this elimination of the sexual desire for the goal. Those who choose to be content with the relief which such elimination seems to afford for the time being and allows themselves to be dissuaded from the search of the truth by the attainment of means of self-gratification unconsciously begin the retrograde journey by a side path. One should not stop till he gets the final answer to the question. What are we to do with our senses? It is the positive attitude. We cannot desist from making some use of our senses. It is therefore, necessary to know their right use. It is by persevering in this selfless search for the Absolute Truth that we are enabled by and in the search itself to realize the Object of our search Who is identical with the means itself that is really adopted for His search.
THE END
Commentary by Swami B.G. Narasinghahttp://gosai.com/writings/gita-govinda-of-jayadeva-goswami
Question: I purchased a copy of Gita-govinda from a devotee selling books in the streets of Bangalore (India) with a foreword by Srila Bhaktisiddhanta. My question is, are we to understand that Bhaktisiddhanta has authorized the reading of Gita-govinda for the devotees and the general public?
Swami Narasingha: So far as the Gita-govinda is concerned, Bhaktisiddhanta did not allow his disciples to read Gita-govinda nor did he ever write a foreword to that book.
I am aware of the Gita-govinda publication that you speak of and it is quite misleading that the publishers have posed Srila Bhaktisiddhanta as having written that article expressly for Gita-govinda. Had he actually written a foreword to Gita-govinda, then it would indeed be an authorization for devotees in his parampara to read that book, but he has not.
It is a misnomer since the article presented there as a foreword by Bhaktisiddhanta was actually not written by Bhaktisiddhanta. The article was originally written by Professor Nisikanta Sanyal and published in The Harmonist magazine volume 26 #6 in November 1928 (it was later published as a small booklet in 1931). The article was originally called "The Erotic Principle and Unalloyed Devotion" and has been printed and mistakenly attributed to Bhaktisiddhanta in many Gaudiya Matha publications over the decades.
The so-called 'Forward to Gita Govinda' is actually Professor Sanyal's article with a two paragraph add-on at the beginning taken from a lecture by Bhaktisiddhanta wherein he speaks briefly about Jayadeva Gosvami. But he does not recommend the reading of Gita-govinda. The two paragraphs by Bhaktisiddhanta and the article by Professor Sanyal were never intended to be an introduction to Gita-govinda and to do so is misleading and misrepresenting our acarya.
So the topic that you have raised must be taken as interpolation - the fact of the matter is that Bhaktisiddhanta did not write a foreword to Gita-govinda nor did he allow his disciples to readGita-govinda nor did his bona-fide disciples recommend Gita-govinda to be read by their disciples.
The fashion of pseudo-Vaisnavas has always been to acquire information about Krsna's lila and then to make a show of such knowledge to attract the innocent or ignorant devotees and public.
Bhaktisiddhanta, however, was quite a different person - he placed full importance on surrender and the serving disposition - first deserve, then desire. He was also not in favor of trying to be something or someone in Krsna consciousness that you are not. In other words first one must purify one's heart from all material tendencies by chanting the Holy Name of Krsna before one is qualified to hear higher topics in Krsna's lila. When a neophyte devotee delves in the higher lilas of Krsna without being properly qualified he makes offences and is in due course cast down. Bhaktisiddhanta therefore wanted his disciples to make real advancement in Krsna consciousness and he guided them accordingly.
To read Gita-govinda without proper qualification is an offence and to distribute it to the innocent or ignorant public in the name of preaching is also an offence.
I will provide here some quotes on this topic from acaryas and renowned Vaisnavas so you may better arrive at the proper conclusion on this matter.
"Our master did not allow us to read the books where the higher lilas are described: Govinda-lilamrtam, Stava-kusumanjali, Ujjvala-nilamani, and Gita-govinda. He did not allow us to study and to discuss them. Rather, he would be very much disturbed if he heard that someone was interfering with the higher lilas in those books. He did not like it."There are three chapters of Sri Caitanya-caritamrta that we were generally not allowed to discuss fully, including the conversations with Ramananda Raya. Where the lila portion of Radha-Govinda is mentioned, we were not to delve. Of course when parayana (consecutive chanting of the whole book) was taking place, we were to go on reading those sections, but without giving any particular attention to the lila of the highest order of raga. That was barred: "Don't try to come into details there. That will come automatically when it is time. Do not make it a public discussion. Do not place it in the public eye.""Dusta phala karibe arjjana-Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakura warns that we will get only a bad result if we venture to cross that line. It is aparadha. From the lower position, the steps are shown: sraddha, sadhu-sanga, sravana, kirtana, then anartha-nivrtti, when the undesirable things vanish. Then comes ruci, then asakti, then bhava-bhakti, the sprout of real devotion. Then prema-bhakti, and sneha, mana, pranaya, raga, anuraga, bhava, mahabhava-by such steps we are to approach the highest plane." (Srila B. R. Sridhara Deva Goswami, Follow the Angels, Ch-2)"Gita-govinda is a special poetry book, full of transcendental mellows of devotional service, and it describes the exalted pastimes of the Supreme Brahman. There is no other such book in the world. Since the ordinary readers cannot realize the conjugal mellows of the Supreme Lord and since they are fond of material enjoyment, their study of Sri Gita-govinda is not perfect. The poet Jayadeva Gosvami has not offered his book to such readers; rather he forbade them to study this book. For persons who are inexperienced in the transcendental mellows of Vraja, discussing Jayadeva Gosvami and his work is proof of their shamelessness." (Bhaktivinoda Thakura, Sajjana-tosani 7/2)"With the dissolution of mundane desire, an intense urge arises to serve the senses of Madana-mohana, the transcendental Cupid who enchants the mundane Cupid with His beauty. It is only at this point in one's spiritual development that one will be able to properly engage in the practices of raganuga bhakti such as hearing, chanting and meditating on the asta-kaliya lilas. As long as material desires are present in the heart, it is very possible that a concerted effort to enter into erotic subject matter such as those described in Jayadeva's Gita-govinda will have inauspicious results." (Srila B.P. Puri Maharaja, Art of Sadhana, Chapter 1)"It is premature to think that as soon as one has taken shelter of his spiritual master he has the right to relish books like the Bhagavata's Rasa-pancadhyaya, Gopi-gita, Uddhava-samvada, or Govinda-lilamrta and Krsna-bhavanamrta, the songs of Candidasa and Vidyapati, Jagannatha-vallabha-nataka, Krsna-karnamrta, Gita-govinda, and other books of this type. The inevitable consequence of such precocious entry into the subjects of Krishna's conjugal pastimes is that one falls into illicit sexual activity." (Srila B.P. Puri Maharaja, Art of Sadhana)"The Gita-govinda, the loving affairs of Radha and Krsna, it is not for the neophyte student... If you are actually advancing in devotional service, then the symptom will be that you'll have no more material hankerings." That is real. So if you actually hear about Krsna's pastimes with Radharani, then hrd-roga-kaman apahinoti, then our heart disease, lusty desires, will vanish. That is the result. I have repeatedly said. So if you become more lusty by seeing the pastimes of Krsna with Radharani or hearing, that means you are not fit. Stop it. Stop it. Don't be foolish."(A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, Lecture on Caitanya-caritamrta Adi-lila 1, 6, Mayapura, March 30th 1975)
Actually, you will not find anywhere any quotes from our acaryas or renowned Vaisnavas recommending that one who is unqualified should hear about the advanced lilas of Krsna. All ouracaryas recommend that first one has to become free from anarthas, free from material contamination. Only the Sahajiyas and publishers of Gita-govinda have the audacity and foolishness to cross the instructions of Srila Bhaktisiddhanta.
It is indeed a ruse when the publishers of Gita-govinda say that if the followers of Bhaktisiddhanta do not translate and comment upon Ujjvala-nilamani, Gita-govinda, etc. that these books will then be the exclusive property of the Sahajiyas. To the contrary, in doing so, the publishers of Gita-govinda have entered the domain of the Sahajiyas and shown us their true colors.
At a time when pseudo-Vaisnavas gave faulty instructions in the name of the teachings of Sri Caitanya, Bhaktisiddhanta rose above the crowd and by his preaching, and his personal example, he gave real life to Gaudiya Vaisnavism. His instructions are thus for all time, all places, and all circumstances - because he directly represents the desire and teachings of Sri Caitanya. Bhaktisiddhanta gave real life to Gaudiya Vaisnavism and to reject his instruction means to suffer a spiritual death no matter how much one thinks he knows about Krsna.
