Positive and Progressive Immortality
Doctors told me I would need a heart operation. Double bypass, they said. Yesterday I was lying on a cold narrow metal table. It was as wide as my body.
“Hold the sides with your hands or you’ll fall off,” they said.
“It’s cold.” I said.
“We’ll give you a blanket. But don’t move.”
An hour later my back was sore. They removed the probe from my right arm.
“Your arteries are too delicate.” said Dr. Lopéz. “We’ll try the leg. Hold still.”
“What about anaesthesia,” I asked him in Spanish.
“Solo en el punto de la incisión,” he said. “Only at the incision point.”
My arm throbbed.
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| Hospital 20 de Noviembre. |
Oddly it was the 20th of November. Stranger still, it was my wife’s birthday. This hospital was my last best hope Aurora had told me. If they couldn’t help me here, there was no hope. It was basically a death sentence.
The table was cold against my back. I felt the needle in my leg. Another two hours to go. I was told that there wasn’t much hope of success. Maybe 20 per cent. But the alternative was a slow death. My one remaining artery would slowly close. A death sentence.
Samuel Johnson once observed that there’s nothing like a death sentence to focus the mind: “When a man knows he is to be hanged, it concentrates the mind wonderfully,” he said.
As a young writer, Dostoyevsky was condemned to death by firing squad for an article questioning the Tsar’s treatment of the serfs. On the day in question he was taken from his cell in manacles and frog-marched into the prison yard where the firing squad was lined up, rifles at the ready. The other condemned prisoners on death row were led in front of Dostoyevsky. The night before they had played cards together and shared a final glass of tea. The young writer saw his new acquaintances led to their marks, tied to posts, blindfolded and shot. Now it was his turn. He was led to the post. He was blindfolded, trembling in fear for his life. The firing squad was given the order. “Prepare your weapons. Aim.”
At the last moment, the sergeant at arms said, “Hold!” A uniformed officer had appeared with the order sparing Dostoyevsky’s life. His sentence had been commuted to exile in Siberia.
As a young writer, Dostoyevsky had entertained his public with stories about gamblers. Now that he had won a gamble with death, his thoughts turned to immortality. His works were informed with existential problems: “Does God exist? If not, what is the implication for our lives?” And what of immortality?
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| Dostoyevsky's reprieve came at the last minute... |
In Dostoyevsky’s masterpiece, The Brothers Karamazov, Ivan argues with his brother Alyosha, a younger and more idealist Karamazov, saying: Без бога всё позволено. Без бога-то и без будущей жизни? Ведь это, стало быть, теперь всё позволено, всё можно делать?'”If God doesn’t exist, everything is permitted. If there is no immortality, everyone can do whatever they want.”
Pyotr Miusov, another character in the novel sums up Ivan’s views on immortality (Part 1, Book 2, Chapter 6 Pevear Volokhonsky translation, 1990) “...were mankind’s belief in its immortality destroyed, not only love but also any living power to continue the life of the world would at once dry up. Not only that, but then nothing would be immoral any longer. Everything would be permitted, even cannibalism. ...for one who believes neither in God nor in his immortality, the moral law of nature ought to change immediately into the exact opposite of the former religious law, and that egoism, even to the point of evildoing, should not only be permitted to man but should be acknowledged as the necessary, the most reasonable, and all be the noblest result of his situation.”
I want to adjust my position on the cold steel table. But one false move and the probe in leg may tremble, spoiling the surgeon’s work. I can feel the probe entering my abdomen. The pain in my right arm continues to throb. “Nothing like a death sentence to focus the mind.” I began chanting the Gayatri mantra again and again.
Om... a big yes.
Om. Come on home.
Come on, ....Om.
Bhur. Where we are. The world of exploitation, of karmic reaction.
It is the fear of karmic reaction that holds us in check; our fear that some reaction might torment us if we do not follow the moral codes of religion stays our hand from the most grotesque sinful acts. But if the soul doesn’t exist, if this life is all in all, then the most hideous crimes are possible. After all there will be no sinful reaction, so “anything is possible.”
It may be argued that the terrorists in Paris acted out of a promise of immortality, but in fact suicide is the ultimate form of egoism. Suicide and homicide are crimes. Such macabre crimes against humanity have no relation with religion; they are universally condemned by Islam, by Christianity and by the ancient wisdom traditions of India. To attempt to attain immortality through martyrdom is the ultimate act of ego. And egoism and immortality are diametrically opposed.
No immortality can be achieved through egoism. In fact, according to the laws of karma, Egoistic action chains us to the world of reaction and exploitation. No immortality can result from selfish action. Suicide and murder are the most selfish of crimes, punishable by karmic reaction according to the Hindu tradition and life in hell according to the Western one.
Of course, if there is no immortality, there is no hellish punishment for infernal crimes. “Anything is permitted,” in the words of Ivan Karamazov.
Immortality implies submission. If God exists, and if the individual soul is dependent on the absolute for his existence, the relationship must be based on submission. True immortality means surrender, Sharanagati. The opposite of surrender is Ego.
In 1944, as war raged around the globe, my gurudeva, Bhakti Rakṣaka Śrīdhara Deva Goswāmī published the first edition of Prapanna-jīvanāmṛta, a meditation in Sanskrit about the nature of immortality. In those days, he lived in a hut on the banks of the Ganges, or a five minute walk, depending on how high the river was. There were no gorgeous temples etched in gold, no marble palaces of meditation. Rice paddies etched the earth. Tigers roamed in the forests beyond the palm trees. Monkeys played in the mango tree. Massive water buffaloes led by children watered themselves in the Ganges, like black submarines.
After the passing of his own spiritual master, Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sāraswati Ṭhākura, Śrīdhara Mahārāja had retired to this quiet part of Nabadwipa-dhāma. He spent some time contemplating the basis of bhakti, the path of divine love. His thesis was Prapanna-jīvanāmṛta.
The title is hard to translate into English. Years later, when I first met Śridhara Mahārāja, intent on seeking his spiritual guidance, I was part of a team of so-called “scholars,” working on producing a useful translation of the work.
শ্রী প্রপন্ন-জীবনামৃতম্
I first visited the ashram of Shridhar Maharaja in the winter of 1981. At that time I met V.B., who was working on the English translation of Prapanna-jivanamritam. We stayed in a rented house down the road from the Chaitanya Saraswat Math. There were others as well, who had come for his guidance.We would rise early and attend the religious services at the temple, or mangala-aroti. As the morning progressed, we would find ourselves sitting before Shridhar Mahārāja, listening carefully to his discourse. He sat in a large wooden arm-chair, for he was a big man. And as we sat close, he would take questions on any and all subjects; his was a vast and erudite intellect, bathed in years of spiritual contemplation of divine truth. Apart from our own small problems and ideas, our main subject of discourse was the Prapanna-jīvanāmṛtam.
Shridhar Maharaja was capable of summing up big ideas in few words. His discourse was as terse as the Sanskrit of Vyāsadeva, but it required that we learned a new vocabulary. Subjective Evolution, Die to Live, Reality is By Itself and For Itself, Hegelian thought, Negative Tendency, and Positive and Progressive Immortality.
At times, in our inability to comprehend his dicion, we felt that Shridhar Maharaja’s English needed improvement. Later we discovered that we lacked a sufficient philosophical vocabulary and grammar to properly interpret his language. It wasn’t his English that was deficient, it was our capacity to grasp his meaning. We recorded his discourses. It took us years of close listening and study to realize how subtle was his understanding.
Later, as fortune would have it, I would collaborate with Bhakti Sudhir Goswāmi in bringing out a number of published works based on Shridhar Maharaja’s teachings: The Search for Shri Krishna, Reality the Beautiful; Shri Guru and his Grace; The Golden Volcano of Divine Love; The Loving Search for the Lost Servant; and Subjective Evolution of Consciousness.
With each publication we were forced to confront our inadequacies: We had to study Bengali, Sanskrit, Western philosophers such as Berkely, Hume, Locke and Hegel. We had to dig into the chronology of the Puranas, the history of India, including the Bengali Independence Movement and the arcane practices of the Gaudiya Math.
At Guardian of Devotion Press in San Jose, California we established a publishing company with our own printing press dedicated exclusively to publishing the works of Shridhar Mahārāja.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. At that moment in time we did our best to decode the inner meaning of Prapanna-jivanamrita eluded us.
Our crew of would-be saints would return from Shridhar Maharaja’s discourse to the rented blue house down the road from the ashram, across the street from rice paddies where cobras made their home. After lunch and a siesta we would all meet to discuss what we had learned. It was a great time of intense spiritual discovery. As the sun went down over the Ganges, we adjusted our oil lanterns and bent over the manuscript of the mysterious Prapanna-jivanamrita. We were to reconcile the florid translation made by an eager female disciple from the Bangla with the terse and philosophical Sanskrit. There were egos involved. Our best translator was a man from Alabama who knew some Sanskrit. He warred with the other translator whose qualification was Hindi, a language with little in common with Bengali. Above all, we had to consider what Shridhar Maharaja himself had told us.
The probe has reached my heart. My back is killing me. It’s a strain not to scream in pain. I’m exhausted. This is not really an “operation,” nobody uses that word any more. It’s a “procedure.” Both arms are bruised from so many needles and IV units. With no anaesthesia my only shelter is the holy name and the Gayatri mantram. I alternate between the two.
Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna Hare Hare.
Bhur...the world of exploitation. The sun, the stars, the planets, Milky Way galaxy, Andromeda...Orion...Nebulas...
Bhuvaḥ, the mental plane, mind, dreams, emotions, ideas, Platonic reality....
Svah...The plane of intelligence...
Tat Savitur....The light...that light...savitur, savior, sabio, wisdom...sabiduria...wisdom...knowledge...the light that gives us knowledge....the sun? the light at the center of the universe....Who lights up the universe? the jīva, determined to find his way in the world of exploitation? Or God Himself? Supersoul? Paramātma, Kṣirodakṣayī Viṣṇu, Garbhodakṣayi, Karaṇodakṣayi Viṣṇu...Catur Vyuha.. The fourfold explansions of God. Thesis, Antithesis, Synthesis.
Shridhara Maharaja had often told us that we needed to “Increase our Negative Tendency.” This is difficult to understand in light of the idea that we need to be positive. Isn’t positivity the goal? Why should we increase our “negative” tendency.
Real learning, however, takes place as a consequence of a genuine need to understand something. The very definition of “learning disability” is that we feel we know something. As long as I know something, I can’t learn. He would give the example of a piano teacher who charges two prices: One price for new students, but double-charge for intermediate students. The teacher would have twice as much work; first the student would have to unlearn everything he knew and then re-learn.
We were in much the same position, since we felt that we had already learned everything. Shridhar Mahārāja was only giving us “master classes” since we were already “masters.” The men who sought sannyāsa initiation felt they needed only a figure-head spiritual master, one who would put the stamp on their diplomas. Since they were already “spiritual masters,” getting a stamp from Shridhar Mahārāja would just make it official. Having received their stamp from him, they could go forth and initiate disciples and establish their own missions. Some of them did. Some have thousands of followers today. But Śrīdhara Mahārāja left his stamp on their spiritual lives forever.
But “increasing negative tendency” means one needs to be empty in order to be filled. To receive Divine Mercy, one must be as Saul on the road to Rome. Only when Saul realized how fallen he was he could accept the mercy of Christ. Only when Christ felt completely forsaken and abandoned in the Garden of Gethsemane could he call out to the Lord like a child unto its mother, begging for mercy. Only then can one attain true understanding and Divine Love.
As we sat in the blue house, confident with our spiritual attainments, we puzzled over the meaning of Prapanna-jivanamritam. Its translation was a purely academic matter. It was another Sanskrit book, and V.B was confident that his Sanskrit was adequate to the task of translation.
Upstairs in the blue house we had our main headquarters. A large room with a concrete floor and no furniture. There we would roll out our sleeping bags and rest. But as the sun went down over the Ganges, V.B. would light his oil lantern. He had an old Smith-Corona Typewriter, propped up on a battered trunk.
A ream of onion-skin paper, typed in tiny print and marked up with corrections was stacked on the trunk. He would consult an old Sanskrit book and peck away at his translation. I'm a pretty good typist, so I was asked to help. You had to strike the keys with plenty of force. There wasn't much ink left in the ribbon and each time you hit a button, the type key would punch a tiny hole in the paper.
A ream of onion-skin paper, typed in tiny print and marked up with corrections was stacked on the trunk. He would consult an old Sanskrit book and peck away at his translation. I'm a pretty good typist, so I was asked to help. You had to strike the keys with plenty of force. There wasn't much ink left in the ribbon and each time you hit a button, the type key would punch a tiny hole in the paper.
During this time, we had a visitor. It was A.K. Swami. Originally from New Zealand, he had arrived from Vrindaban, where he had been temple president during Prabhupāda’s time. Since he had a working knowledge of Hindi and was superior by dint of being a Swāmi, he felt it only right that he be put in charge of the Sanskrit translation.
He and VB would wrangle over the meaning of a verb or a noun in Sanskrit until late at night. AK Sswami was a bit eccentric as were we all. In his days in Vrindaban, he had acquired a strange Hindu musical instrument, a Saraṅgi, a kind of violin. He would prop it on his knee and scrape it with a weird-looking bow. It produced an eerie heart-piercing sound that would scare away the monkeys in the mango tree. After we had all gone to sleep, we could hear him on the roof of the building, scratching away a mystical drone in the Bengali night.
In the morning, we would visit Shridhar Maharaja. They would try to read their translation to him. He was confident that they could take it to Govinda Mahārāja, who could smooth out the difficulties. But they insisted.
The title of the book, VB thought, might be best rendered as “Nectar of Surrender.” After all, Prabhupāda had two successful titles: Nectar of Devotion (Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu) and Nectar of Instruction (Upadeṣāmṛta) both by Rūpa Goswāmī.
But Shridhar Maharaja resisted.
He didn’t seem to really like the title, “Nectar of Surrender.” One of the problems is the word Amṛta, pronounced A-MREE-TA. It’s an interested word.
The word amṛta means “deathless, immortal, eternal,” but also “nectar, ambrosia, liquor.” It’s hard to understand how one word could have such a range of meaning.
Shridhar Mahāraja’s intention in the book was to describe how surrender in divine love is both process and goal.
Thesis, Antithesis, Synthesis.
Die to Live.
Thesis: Ego. Antithesis, No Ego, Namaḥ.
Synthesis: Surrender, Śaranāgati, Surrender.
He liked the title, “Positive and Progressive Immortality,” and insisted on this so much that the English editors and translators finally consented to using it as a subtitle, while sticking with “Nectar of Surrender.”
Shridhara Maharaja’s point was that amṛta means immortality (a mṛtyu), but not in a commplace conception. Normally, the sense of “a-mṛtyu” is negative: death-less, or im-mortal. But real eternal life should be positive. We must have a place in a higher world; a positive role to play in the spiritual world.
This may be achieved through surrender. Normally surrender also has a negative connotation. Shridhar Maharaja embraces the idea that “increasing one’s negative tendency” leads to “positive immortality.” So these two apparently negative concepts, “surrender” or “increasing one’s negative tendency” and amṛta or deathlessnes, become positive in a perfect Hegelian synthesis.
And for who?
For the jīva. The jīva refers to the conditioned soul, whose tendency for exploitation, or “positive tendency” has evolved in reverse, from the undifferentiated plane of cosmic consciousness to the world of exploitation where he resists surrender to the almighty.
Shridhar Maharaja echoed these themes in lecture after lecture. His insistence on using the expression “positive and progressive immortality” was essential to understanding the meaning of Prapanna-jivanamritam. He really eschewed an english translation, since he felt the Sanskrit was perfectly scientific.
Translators of Hegel have run into similar problems with Phenomenology of the Spirit. The word Spirit in English translates Geist in German. Geist also means Ghost. When I was a child I was taught by the Roman Catholic Church to believe in the Holy Ghost. Later that translation was abandoned for Spirit. But the problem with translation is that Spirit can also mean esprit de corps, team spirit, group spirit, party spirit, a spirited horse, or even alcohol, spirits.
Shridhar Maharaja avoided reductionism. He did not like that his carefully crafted philosophical explanations of the profound truths of spiritual life be reduced to slogans. He disliked “Nectar of Surrender” as a title, since it seemed too easy. He liked “Immortality: Positive and Progressive. In the Lives of Surrendered souls it is nectar to them.”
We devotees, coming out of a 1960s “hippie” sensibility loved the word “Nectar.”In the west, “nectar” and “ecstasy” are words much abused. Ecstasy now refers to a psychedelic drug used at rave parties, and nectar certainly has an alcoholic connotation. It was not Shridhar Maharaja’s idea to have a book title that meant something like “Surrender is fun.”
And so it went. Every evening the translators would bicker and fight over the Sanskrit, and every morning, after bathing in the Ganges, we would bathe ourselves in the sublime teachings of Shridhar Maharaja. Some progress would be made, we would wrangle over sentences and punctuation and tear up pages and retype. At some point they asked for my help as proof-reader.
It was translation as Divine Comedy. VB would try to work out a meaning from the Sanskrit and put it into English. AK Swami would go through it. The Swami would say, “This is not literary enough. We need to dignify these words.”
He began rewriting VBs prose as Elizabethan poetry. “Some people want to bring Shridhar Maharaja into the 20th Century,” he would say. “I want to return his language to the 16th Century with Shakespeare.”
In the end our translation of Prapanna-jīvanāmṛta became a turgid and incomprehensible koan. We would wait until Govinda Maharaja arrived from Calcutta, and, beaming with pride, we would show the latest work to him. He would smile, read a few lines and shake his head. Then he would smile that generous smile he had and try to reassure us that our service was acceptable.
Having been responsible for the original edition, he couldn’t understand what they had done with his Guru Maharaja’s masterwork.
He would consult Shridhar Maharaja and they would laugh and go on in rapid-fire Bengali. Shridhar Maharaja would make an observation and they would become grave. Shridhar Maharaja would repeat Gaura Hari bol, Gaura hari bol, again and again. Then they would look at each other and laugh some more at some strange intangible irony in a commentary by Vishvanath Chakravarti Thakura.
Shridhar Maharaja’s discourse followed a formal style: State principles, develop an argument, give examples, make a point. Tell an anecdote illustrating the point. Make four or five points showing different sides of the argument, each with aphorisms, details, and anecdotes. Gather the points together and make a conclusion, circling back to your first principles.
Listen to his recorded lectures and you will see his style at work. His argument is clear, concise, and beautiful, his anecdotes illustrative and to the point. Even interrupted by train whistles, construction workers, petitions from devotees and friends, daily Math business, Shridhar Maharaja would carefully elaborate a very coherent argument over a two hour period. Each lecture may be edited into an essay, with many gems of wisdom, deep observation, spiritual experience and Gaudiya Vaishnava siddhanta.
I believe I was somehow blessed by some divine power to take part in the unraveling of Shridhara Maharaja’s message.
It was a strange combination of good fortune and necessity. No one else presented himself at the time and I was desperate to repay Shridhar Maharaja for his kindness and help. Somehow things came together and I found myself involved with Bhakti Sudhir Goswami and all the members of the team which formed around Guardian of Devotion Press.
It was an intense educative experience. I learned computer science, typesetting, page layout, graphic design, copy editing, transcribing, compiling and editing taped transcripts, making editorial decisions, and cooperating with a creative team of artists, spiritual teachers, and intensely humble devotees willing to surrender everything to keep the message alive.
The probe is reaching my heart. I can feel a kind of heat. The doctors turn off the Mexican Heavy metal music they’ve been grooving along to. They’ve become serious. Silent. I can hear them shouting numbers back and forth. One of them works the probe, looking at a large computer monitor. The other has a huge flat-screen Macintosh monitor. It’s like two men parking a truck. The driver is at the wheel, his helper waving him in. I think they’re arriving at the moment of truth. Either they will plant the stent and I will have double my present circulation, or it’s all for nought. The arteries are gone, fossilized and necrotic and it’s time for me to wrap up my affairs on this earth planet.
Nothing clarifies the mind like a death sentence.
Ego, No Ego, Surrender. Thesis, Antithesis, Synthesis.
Surrender.
Maybe it’s an ego trip, but somehow I feel that I have been prepared for writing, that my mission is to broadcast the message of surrender. All my life I have read avidly. My years at Guardian of Devotion Press were productive years. We worked prolifically. And now, in my final years I have been sought out by the devotees again and pushed into writing. What other purpose could I have. I have no money. I have no influence. I do not come from a high family. But I have some talent for expression with words. What else can I offer?
So, in some strange way, I feel I have been prepared by a divine hand. If I am to pray to God to preserve my life, what can I offer in return? Shridhar Maharaja used to give the example of Professor Nixon, a World War I flyer. As his plane went down in flames, Nixon promised God to dedicate his life, if only he survived. He did survive and went on to become Śrī Krishna Prema Swami. He wrote a commentary on the Bhagavad-Gita, one of the first Westerners to do so.
The doctors are going back and forth now, arguing in Spanish about something. I think they’re ready to open the artery. They’re excited. Animated. Will some divine force guide the surgeon’s hand and let me live? Or is it all over.
We’re supposed to accept what is favorable for divine love and reject what is unfavorable. Is it favorable to go on living? Or shall I surrender to the dark currents and go under, surrendering to whatever fate divinity has ordained for my soul? People are praying for me. Will their prayers go for naught? Can supernatural prayer make the computer monitor a bit brighter? Can it make the surgeon’s reflexes sharper, his mind more clear? Can some divine power inspire my team of cardiologists to work without tiring another five minutes, before deciding to quit and break for lunch?
I feel a burst of warmth. Something is said, not quite in celebration. These are men of science. No sense of humor. But the atmosphere has changed subtly. I can feel the relief in the operating room. They have stopped concentrating. They are recording the moment and preparing to withdraw the probe. My heart is warmer.
They start patching me up. There’s a certain amount of blood involved. They’re giving me instructions, putting some kind of pressure bracelet on my arm. The pressure hurts, but I’m happy. I think it was a success.
“Dolan.”
“hmmm?”
“Señor Dolan.”
“Yes?”
“The result. We could place 2 stents. Your arteries are open. You need to take care of your arm. Don’t move for 4 hours. Don’t go up stairs for 4 weeks. You’ll be OK. You can talk to the Doctor later. It was a success.”
I breathe a sigh of relief. “There is a God.” I think. “Thank you Krishna.” Gaura hari bol.
