Суд над Бхагавад-гитой / Attempt to ban Bhagavad-gita

First Heartfelt Effusion



My dear Lordships Shri Shri Radha-Shyamasundara!
Crying at the lotus feet of Shri Guru, one very fallen and
destitute soul humbly offers to You the following unrestrained
stream of prayerful outpourings for Your kind and considerate
audience.

My dear beloved Lordships! Let me have not only this one
body with only one head upon which are placed only two eyes,
two ears, two nostrils, and one mouth in which I find only this
one pathetic tongue.

Let me have not only this one dead body upon which I find
only one clumsy cranium wherein we may assume there be at
least one exiguous lump of dull brain stuff.

Let me have not only this one frail figure from which
extend only two sluggish legs and two feeble arms with no more
than one leisurely hand on the end of each.

Let me be not only this single insignificant someone with
but this one heart, one life, and one sub-atomic soul to dedicate
most inadequately to Your urgently required large-scale
distribution of transcendental literatures.

If You wish to offer me any benediction, then please let me
have hundreds and thousands, nay, even millions and billions of
stout and strong bodies, either all at once or one after another
or both.

On each body let me have hundreds, thousands, even
millions of heads, each with hundreds of eyes and noses,
thousands of ears, and millions of mouths, each endowed with
billions of fabulously fortunate tongues.

Moreover, let me have trillions of most capable brains and
innumerable hale, hardy, and enthusiastic legs, arms, hands,
hearts, and happy selves to fully dedicate to the earnest service
of Your ministrative task of worldwide transcendental book
distribution.

What is the use of a soul who cannot expand into
thousands of beings, each having millions of bodies? What is the


use of having million of bodies if each body doesn’t have billions
of heads?

What is the use of each body having billions of heads if
each head doesn’t have trillions of brains and trillions of mouths
with trillions of gracious tongues in each?

What is the use of having trillions of brains if each brain
doesn’t command quadrillions of intelligences with which to find
the novel ways and means to drop zillions of transcendental
time-bomb books into the laps of the fallen conditioned souls?

What is the use of having innumerable legs, arms, hands,
hearts, lives, and geniuses if everyone and everything is not
solely dedicated to the service of Your mission to inundate the
whole planet with zillions upon zillions of transcendental
literatures eulogizing Your unlimited names, forms, qualities,
and pastimes in Your limitlessly divine supramundane realm of
eternity, knowledge, and bliss – Shri Vrindavana-dhama?

My dear Shri Shri Radhe-Shyama! What is the use of
having innumerable hands, each distributing transcendental
literatures by the billions and trillions, if as an outcome of it all,
not even one soul becomes Your fully self-realized, pure,
unalloyed kevala-madhurya-premika devotee?

What is the use of billions of brains scheming to optimize
the printing and proliferative dissemination of billions upon
trillions of transcendental literatures if even one soul with even
only one body with merely one head with but a single mouth
with just the one tongue could not even come to the position of,
at least even just only but once, relishing the immortal nectar of
Your pure Holy Name (shuddha-nama) which is fully inclusive of
Your sublime, internal spiritual potencies?

What would be the use of distributing millions upon
billions upon trillions of sublime rasa-saturated scriptures if, as a
result of all the hustle and bustle, not even one soul attains the
fruit of vraja-prema, vastu-siddhi, the ultimate perfection of
gaining Krishna’s direct shelter in the bhauma-lilas as a follower
of the damsels of Vrindavana, beyond the hope against hope
suppositional domain of wishful thinking?

If as a consequence of distributing countless billions of
Your transcendental literatures one could not ultimately realize


the perfection of one’s sthayi-bhava in one of the five primary
rasas befitting Your loving service in the beautiful land of Vraja,
what would be the actual accomplishment?

What a folly if, while incessantly promulgating hundreds of
thousands upon billions, trillions, or even innumerable
quadrillions of small, medium, big, and maha big books to boot
for billions of lifetimes, one does not bother to advance one’s
internal devotional eligibility (adhikara) in Krishna
consciousness to triumphantly deserve entree into Your
bhauma-lilas for the real attainment of one’s sac-cid-ananda-
siddha-deha as a vraja-gopa or gopi!

What a perfidy if, by broadcasting countless volumes and
volumes of transcendental scriptures, not even one thoughtful
book distributor could fortunately gain the essential penetrating
insight to deeply discover the esoteric truths behind the black
(Krishna) letters on all those white (Radha) pages!

To what avail are millions of bodies with millions upon
billions upon trillions of heads, eyes, ears, noses, mouths,
tongues, brains, feet, legs, arms, and hands – all simultaneously
serving to distribute millions upon billions upon trillions upon
quadrillions of unlimited transcendental literatures all over the
world, nay, all over the universe, anywhere and everywhere,
immediately and incessantly forevermore – if even one pure-
hearted book distributor could not verily gain, by mature,
intensified hari-nama-bhajana-ruci, the momentous realization
that, in truth, our only real business is to sit in Your holy lands
of Mayapura and Vrindavana and constantly chant Your self-
same prema-nama?

What is the use of it all, if we don’t recognize that the
purpose of our book distribution is to encourage as many others
as possible to become pure-hearted, fully self-realized
niskincana bhajananandis who are the fittest to propagate the
Holy Name by their ecstatic performances of prema-nama-
sankirtana which forever stands as the only true jaiva-dharma of
every jiva soul without exception?

What would be the use of it all, if we could not become
factually freed from the insanity of not clearly knowing who we


really are in terms of the intricacies of our ultimate, intrinsic,
eternal spiritual identity (vraja-svarupa)?

What would be the use, if no one could become
enlightened beyond the very vague notion of being a
transmigrating, ten-thousandth-of-a-hair-tip, subatomic brahman
particle floating around on the life airs of a temporary,
therapeutically engaged, superficially designated, rotting
corpselike defecating bag of bones masquerading as a so-called
man, woman, brahmacari, grihastha, sannyasi, vantashi,
brahmana, ksatriya, pot washer, pujari, temple president, G.B.C.,
guru, devotee, or even (hold my tongue) eminently exalted book
distributor?

My dear Lordships! What is the use of constructing
hundreds and thousands of pompously opulent temples,
worshiping thousands and millions of grandiosely ornamented
Deities, distributing umteenzillions of books, (mis)managing
millions and billions of bucks, filling billions and trillions of
bellies, and congregating a society of hundreds of thousands of
semi-conscious squabbling neophytes, if even one soul amidst
the menagerie could not ultimately achieve the supremely
privileged maid-service of the treasures of Your lotus feet as
You endlessly enjoy Your transcendental nikunja-lilas in Your
eternally resplendent realm of Vraja-dhama?

My dearmost beloved Lordships Shri Shri Radhe-Shyama!
If, however, as a result of all such laborious efforts even just one
fortunate soul could somehow or other by Your unbounded
special causeless mercy finally, even if after billions and trillions
of lifetimes of devotional struggle, attain that most cherished
goal of life, then by all means, please let there be thousands and
millions of “brihat-mridanga” printing presses, each producing
millions and billions of transcendental literatures describing
Your unlimited names, forms, qualities, and madhurya-lilas in
the sweetest of all sweetest lands, Shri Vrindavana-dhama.

If in the last, even just a single person consequently
becomes Your consummately pure unalloyed vraja-gopa or gopi,
serving to further exhilarate Your already limitlessly expanding
ocean of transcendental bliss, then let thousands and millions of
transcendental book distributors each with billions of


intelligences find trillions of newer and newer innovative
methods of inducing quadrillions of conditioned souls to take to
the process of hearing pure, nectarean Krishna-katha.

My dear beloved Shyamasundara! You are the ultimate
impetus behind all events in the three worlds. Please let
hundreds of thousands of book distributors each distribute by
the millions and billions while tolerating all types of tribulations
if in due course even one of them can come to clearly realize by
practical experience the integral correlation between the
external activity of propagating Krishna consciousness in the
world and the internal culture of the selfless bhavas of the vraja-
gopis, who relish ten million times the happiness of their own
meetings with You by making the arrangements for others to get
the happy chance to have Your delightful company.

Let thousands and millions of externally oriented prakrita-
bhaktas fill the atmosphere with endless streams of prajalpa,
faultfinding, backbiting, and fratricidal bickering, on top of all
the petty institutional and interinstitutional wrangling and war –
what do we care for it?

Let the over-intelligent, doggedly resorting to materially
contrived managerial stratagems, injudiciously undermine the
essential principle of keeping single-minded confidence in the
lucid instructions of the institutional Founder-acarya; they’ll
have to learn the hard way – as will the attendantly implicated!

Let hundreds of heedless sannyasis and guru-figureheads
plunge from their pompous pedestals owing to their often
sentimentally justified, inappropriately frequent, and
overextended proximity in dealings with their female disciples
and so on. Why should we lament or bother ourselves to in any
way condemn or condone; these things are going on – and on –
and will continue to go on and on and on . . . Trust no future
however pleasant.

Let the upper-organizational oligarchy essay to save face
by repeatedly rehashing their clandestine attempts to cloak the
pitiable transgressions of the institutionally rubberstamped
guru-figureheads. Let them, on the plea of “protecting” the
“faith” of their unwary disciples, in the name of service to the
Absolute Truth, perpetuate the farcical facade of Guruji’s


infallibility while groping for patchwork reformatory measures,
lest there be appurtenant embarrassment for all concerned. Oh
well, anyway . . . All glories to Kali-yuga! What could we expect?
Hari bol! God helps those who help themselves. Man is the
architect of his own misfortune. Let destiny prevail. We can fool
some of the people – some of the time, right? It all comes out in
the wash.

Let the rather foppish, high-flying svamis, intent on
compelling the purses of the prosperous prakrita-bhaktas,
sublimate their zeal for lordly grandeur, affluence, and fanfare
on the plea of yukta-vairagya – ostensibly in the interest of Lord
Gauranga’s sankirtana movement. Hmm . . .

Let the weak-hearted, ill-advised, or reckless religio-
institutional administrators, beguiled by the prospects of
amplified economic might, sightlessly prostitute or inelegantly
abandon all managerial scruples in deference to the non-
devotional demands of spiritually indigent neophytes of
monetary magnetism. So much for the brahminical culture of
candor and simplicity; it shall faze us not.

Let multitudes of deceitful dharma-dhvajis, to conceal their
actual reprehensible intents, masquerade as awesome mentors
of the Bhagavata in order to furtively milk the petty gross and
subtle material assets of the acarya’s institution under the
pretext of acquiring “spiritual opulences” by the grace of God!
Let them all “enjoy” and suffer according to the sweet will of
providence. We shall be thrilled to pieces – at the same time
much aggrieved.

Let the determinately shallow superficialists cosmetically
manage to farcically project a prodigiously meretricious
institutional semblance of forthright Krishna consciousness
while duplicitously concealing the relentless tenacity of their
own steel-framed hearts. Let them obsequiously buff the
“golden cage” institutional body as they insensibly disregard the
vital nourishment of the “songbird” institutional soul.

Let the respectability and trustworthiness of the
institutional “leadership” go to hell. Our eternal constitutional
personal loving relationship shall never be contingent upon nor
thwarted by any of this.


He Radhe-Shyama! The plastic, put-on felicitous social
niceties of polished cultural urbanity hardly constitute nor
necessarily evince internally developed pure devotional
excellence. Godless meat-eating demons also effectively train
their utterly materialistic corporate personnel to politely or
hospitably interrelate with forged, highly refined deferential
suavity. Are they too to be lauded as being spiritually
advanced? Animals are also seen to cordially welcome their
friends and relatives – and ward off their adversaries.

Let the Grand High Exalted Mystic Institutional Control
Monsters allege their high-handed, spuriously assumed, cliquish
inheritance of the sampradaya’s material and spiritual legacy to
patronizingly toss a scrap or two to the most servile of their
pathetically ambitious bootlicking sycophants. Smiling mildly,
we shall look on with casual indifference.

What does it really matter that hundreds and thousands of
exploitative neophyte religio-organizational opportunists jockey
for positions, more or less fraudulently establishing themselves
as “illustrious” “leaders” of the Hare Krishna movement on
various levels to pursue their sundry ulterior motives while
having not even the slightest genuine greed for the inestimable
treasure of vraja-bhakti-rasa. I say, “Bravo!” if, as a result of
having distributed millions of transcendental literatures all over
the world, we can even hope to find just one unpretentious,
truly elevated, fully enlightened rasika Vaishnava amidst the
veritable mess we’ve made of everything.

He Radhe-Shyama! Let the brutish nama-aparadhis,
goaded by a lingering appetite for the foul fruits of bhukti and
mukti, even after so much graceful guidance, remain ever
attached to whatever little labha, puja, and pratistha they can
manage to eke out from their ostentatious show of allegiance to
the cause of transcendental book distribution. We shall not be
impressed.

Let the benighted, pushy, audaciously puffed-up, mischief-
mongering egoistic vixens, wishing to spitefully dance on the
heads of the brahmacaris and sannyasis to gratify their inflated
personal and extended sense of self-importance, improvidently
misconceive, abort, abandon, nay, even ever so much as

vociferously revile the all-round salutary shelter of Vedic
cultural ethics on the pretext of Vaisnavi social equality. Ugh!

Let thousands of unrelenting, materially anchored semi-
bhaktas pursue their overwhelming concern for wholesale
systematic institutional social development. The birds, beasts,
and insects also cry for food, shelter, and sex satisfaction. Are
they not provided for?

Let the sanctimonious religio-institutional organizationists
treacherously robbed of their resolute faith in the all-
attractiveness of Krishna-nama-sankirtana blunderingly
adulterate the precepts of the Acaryas, on the plea of enhanced
public appeal, by insisting on a watered-down outward display
of sophistication in lieu of widespread ecstatic chanting and
dancing. We doubt they will ever be very successful.

Let the mundane, kali-cela pseudo kirtana-karis most
irresponsibly exploit the sankirtana performances to
purposefully augment their own name, fame, and sex appeal,
like yowling cats bewailing the want of their mates. Ha! The
joke’s on them.

Let thousands and thousands of cripple-minded griha-
medhis and grihasthas with their womenfolk have license for the
sordid sex life. Let them beget tens of thousands of grossly
misled, druggy, sense-gratifying “ex-gurukuli” ingrates and the
likes of them. It is of no earth-shaking consequence.

We shall applaud their grand success if even one soul
amidst all of these somehow or other finds the supreme shelter
declared in all the bhakti-shastras – the succulently nectarous,
ambrosial mellow sweetness of Your prema-nama-sankirtana-
rasa.

Let thousands of novice – and also seasoned – book
distributors priggishly presume themselves to be glorious
gosthy-anandi evangelic angels. Let thousands of imitative, half-
baked quasi-devotional sentimentalists conceitedly pose to
impersonate highly elevated paramahamsa-nirjana-
bhajananandis, while having neither depth of unalloyed
devotional insight nor accomplished worldly disinterest. All
would do well to understand that the best gosthy-anandi, and
also the best bhajananandi, is the niskincana-bhajananandi who


comes out from the depths of his profound rasika absorption in
Krishna consciousness to share his realizations for the benefit of
others, both by precept and by personal example.

Who cares whether or not anybody really went to the
moon? What damn bit of difference does it make?

Who cares whether or not I said that he said that she said
that they said that . . . who the hell knows what anyone actually
said anyway? Human life is much too short for any of this.

Who cares for the skepticism of the skeptics?

Who cares whether or not any stool-passing creature of
this world would be bothered to seriously understand or
appreciate our heartfelt feelings about anything? Did we come
to this world to win a popularity contest?

Who cares who puts whose stick in whose hole?
Ultimately, we must all fly our own airplane. Why waste our
invaluable time on the absurdities of the materially engrossed?

Who the hell cares who becomes the next Ravana of
institutional mismanagement? God will have to sort that out.
The only perfect management is in Vaikuntha anyway.

Who the hell cares what designer color the bathroom tiles
in our ritzy little “bhajana-kutiras” shall be? Is there anyone
amongst us who is not on the verge of death? Better to sell off all
the marble and classy bathroom tiles, and print books.

He Radhe-Shyama! What the hell do we care if the
incorrigibly infantile, bigotedly authoritarian, ego-warring power
mongers crassly arrogate to themselves, on the plea of
autocratic disciplic prerogative, “indubitable” theocratic
predominance? Let them, under the banner of Krishna
consciousness, with their presumptuous, often unduly
oppressive, superciliously inconsiderate unilateral sense of
communication and cooperation, rather coercively, nay, even
menacingly demand absolute, fear-based genuflection. They
would really prefer to suffocate any atmosphere conducive to
more genial, free flowing spontaneous devotional inspiration,
than, on the basis of perceivable degrees of genuine spiritual
illumination, reasonably evoke the actual love and trust
required for advanced reciprocal interpersonal devotional
dealings. Let them, scarcely conceding to the broader tenet of


unity in diversity, at least hope to gradually, at long last, purify,
in due course of the dovetailing process, their long-lingering
ardor for imperial eminence and the intoxication of totalitarian
controllership. This must eventuate, of course, at the expense of
the subjected underdog’s salubrious exercise of self-confidence,
self-reliance, self-fulfillment, self-expression, and individual
initiative pertaining to the personally responsible prosecution of
unconstrained preferential pure devotional service. All glories to
the small-minded, hollow, politically absorbed, false-ego-
gratifying, unjustifiably arrogant, boorishly cut-throat
Machiavellian “Hare Krishna” overlords! Come what may, they
are, no doubt, serious and “well intended” in their own
persuasion that the iron-fisted “might” of skin-deep religio-
institutional managerial “empowerment” in and of its own makes
right.

Anyway, Shri Shri Radhe-Shyama, no one is all bad. The
path to hell is paved with good intentions. Be that as it may, all
is well that ends well. Isn’t that nice! In truth, I have no intention
to fault or flatter anyone.

Where quasi-Krishna-conscious sophistry supplants
genuine pure devotional siddhanta, where the condescending
disempowerment syndrome or roguish despotism masquerades
as “authorized” Krishna conscious leadership, any array of
personal calamity or socio-religious anomaly would anything but
dissuade an earnest aspirant from the progressive current of
internal devotional amelioration. We could hardly think to turn
back the tide of Kali’s influence anymore than we could stop a
thunderhead from storming during the rainy season. Simply
hold up your umbrella, depend on Krishna, and sally forth.

It is natural to notice so many oppressive evils and
perversities; after all, we’re in the material world. Moreover,
Kali-yuga is an ocean of faults. What else could be expected?
The threefold miseries are there. We will always be harassed in
so many ways by so many problems. Even if we notice the
problems and even if others deny their various idiosyncrasies or
decline to address their problems realistically due to a lack of
Krishna consciousness or whatever, what real difference does it
make from the absolute perspective? Everyone and everything


either directly or indirectly serves the absolute purpose of the
Supreme. At some point in the course of eternity everyone will
have his or her better day. Meanwhile, we hope for the best,
expect the worst, and learn to transcendentally adjust our mind-
set. We could hardly expect to reform all the ignoramuses of the
world. Reformists who think there is scope for such should try
to recognize the need to reform their very outlook which
prompts them to think in such terms. At least we ourselves
should not be ignoramuses and lose our own focus on the
unalloyed devotional objective. Then we may hope to be of
some substantial value, sadhu-sanga-wise.

We must certainly acknowledge any measure of spiritual
progress achieved by individuals under the circumstances
impressed upon them in the course of the current lifetime. That
anyone is making any spiritual advancement at all in this Age of
Kali is a miracle. Ultimately that is in the hands of Providence.
How purely one responds to life’s situations will depend on
one’s level of paramarthika-shraddha based on previously
accumulated nitya-sukriti. Every conditioned soul under the
influence of the modes of material nature is fallible, prone to fall-
down and offense. Those who come forward on any level to help
the Acaryas fight the war against maya are glorious. Even if they
are lost in battle, temporarily falling away in various ways and
for various reasons, they are nevertheless glorious, at least to
some extent. Still, in all soberness, if we ourselves actually want
to permanently solve the problems of life, if we seriously want
to attain the goal of our bhajana, if we want to ascend to the
terrace of prema and go back to Godhead by the end of this
very lifetime, then we really have to focus, focus, and refocus.
No one else is going to focus for us. If we’re not part of the
solution, we’re part of the problem. If others are not willing to
understand the great necessity of concentrating their energy on
the aim of life, if they are not willing to recognize and follow the
examples seen in the lives of those who do so, then what can be
done? That is their problem. They will have to eventually
muster up enough sincerity to realistically deal with it.

It’s not enough that we, as spiritual probationers, turn a
blind eye toward our various individual and collective ungodly


misconceptions, attachments, and lapses along the devotional
path. Such apathy, though apparently convenient or
accommodating in some ways, never really facilitates an
enhanced internal devotional culture. Unless we are willing to
admit that we have a disease, and are able to properly diagnose
the degree of its infection, we could hardly hope to ascertain or
apply the precise scientific therapy required for its proper
treatment. In other words, unless we’re willing to admit that
there are problems, something we can do only if we allow
ourselves to notice them, we could hardly expect any viable
solution to come to light. Recognizing or frankly voicing that
there are problems (calling a spade a spade) does not
necessarily constitute an antagonistic “faultfinding” tone or
tendency. Moreover, such may provide the impetus to our
seriously adopting the means by which the problems can
actually be solved. For instance, a doctor may “hate” the
disease without at all hating the patient. “Hating” the disease
essentially recognizes and, in effect, alludes to the existence of a
natural healthy or liberated state. No doubt, “problems” refers
to two categorical effects, namely the observable “disobliging”
phenomena before us and, far more notably, the cynical mind-
set with which we see the phenomena, the cataracts on our own
eyes, or in other words, our own lack of Krishna consciousness.
No conditioned infinitesimal jiva can offer any solution to any of
life’s maladies. Only Krishna can alleviate the living entity’s
problematic state of conditional consciousness, the root cause
of all egocentricity, when the latter is somehow induced by
Divine Grace to take shelter of His merciful instructions.

The idea of always seeing the “good” in something or
someone doesn’t necessarily have to mean seeing the relative
good as opposed to seeing the relative bad. The principle can
and in certain respects must take on higher-dimensional
features. When we happen to see adversities, discrepancies, or
non-devotional elements, which are conventionally considered
to be “bad,” we should always endeavor to see good in the bad
by bearing in mind the “unseen” all-good hand of Krishna. Any
agent that in any way reminds us of Krishna, prompts us to take
shelter of Krishna, catalyzes our deeper sense of devotional


responsibility, or teaches us important and valuable lessons
concerning the culture of self-effacement in full surrender to the
will of Krishna should be seen as a manifestation of the all-
merciful guru principle. Shri Guru is never bad. An elevated
devotee always gratefully acknowledges the presence of Shri
Guru and Krishna in everything. At least for us, the all-goodness
of the guru principle seen in our own mistakes as well as in the
faults of others may well mercifully teach us how not to be, how
not to behave, and the like. Seeing in this way, we, feeling
ourselves blessed by the grace of Shri Guru, should profusely
praise all such indirect manifestations of guru-tattva as our ever
well-wishers, in spite of their negative exterior. The
environment is ever propitious even if fraught with apparent
adversity or hostility. Yet, we would certainly have to notice
and rightly respond to the blatantly abounding environmental
improprieties to realize the beauty in Krishna’s having placed
the nonsense before the purview of our eyes. Right response
does not necessitate retaliation against the environment.
Adversity and various observable transgressions and
imperfections, in fact, afford us an excellent opportunity to
exercise our culture of sadhu-bhusana – tolerance, mercy,
friendliness toward all living entities, humility, forgiveness,
patience, determination, et al. We should understand that the
sight of others’ misdemeanors and various other calamities are
shown to us by Krishna for the purpose of dynamically educing
our own pure devotional qualities, to enhance our devotional
adhikara. The degree to which we are able to perfect this
understanding is the degree to which we are actually sadhus and
sadhvis. To the extent that we are able to recognize this all-good
background purpose behind all events of the world, to that
extent we are seeing things in proper perspective, and to that
extent we may be endowed with first-class Krishna
consciousness and remain undisturbed in all circumstances,
recognizing Krishna as the cause of all causes, the ultimate
doer.

Relative environmental negativities simply serve to
indirectly indicate, laud, and help us appreciate the all-
beauteous positivity of the Absolute. The all-merciful hand of


God is always behind every major and minor happening of the
world. Sometimes Krishna gives trouble to the youthful gopis by
pinching them or harassing them along the way, toppling their
head- or hip-held pots of milk, yogurt, and ghee. At other times
He sends them gunja-malas or love messages tremulously
inscribed with the juice of red roses by His own hand. Whatever
He does, He simply wants to increase their affection for Him, to
somehow draw their attention toward Him. Similarly, all
tribulation as well as all jubilation experienced in the course of
life’s sojourn is but Krishna’s attempt to get our attention, to
elicit our reciprocation in various ways. In His childhood,
Krishna would often break the motherly gopis’ carefully kept
pots of yogurt, butter, and ghee, pinch their babies to make
them cry, or mischievously urinate on their freshly cleansed
floors before escaping; and the gopis, though not catching Him
in the act, would easily surmise that it was all His handiwork.
Yet, when they, perturbed and frustrated, would gang up on
Mother Yashoda to angrily lodge complaints against Him, they
would become charmed and pleased to see Him hiding behind
His mother’s dress, pretending to be innocent, His face looking
so sweet and adorable. At that time their hearts would melt and
they would immediately become overwhelmed with motherly
affection, dispossessed of their affected anger and annoyance
toward Him and happy to have a good excuse to come to His
home to see Him in such a state.

A contemporary example: A prankish young school-boy,
sitting behind a sweet young girl in his class, secretly dips the
ends of her braids in the ink-pot on his desk. Unknown to the
girl, the backside of her nice new dress becomes totally
blotched with ink and spoiled when she stands up to go home.
Only at home, when she changes dress, does she come to know,
and she at once ascertains the culprit and complains about him
to her mother. The next day, following her mother’s advice, she
sits across the classroom from him in order to escape his further
mischief. But do you think that stops him? Hell no! Desiring her
crooked glance, he hurls spitballs across the classroom,
bouncing them off the back of her head. At first she pretends
not to notice. But after two or three incidents, she becomes


annoyed and turns to see from whence the spit-balls came. And
who does she see – the prankish boy, hiding his smile while
pretending to know nothing of it. At this point she begins to
gather that he must have an interest in her, and she becomes
inwardly enchanted and pleased at heart. At recess, when all
the boys are playing ball, she, standing on the side, searches
and searches among them to find him out in order to witness
her prankster’s sportsmanship, but she doesn’t see him
anywhere. Does that mean he’s not around? Hell no! Deftly
sneaking up from behind, our prankish boy quietly catches a
single strand of loose hair from the base of her braid and . . .
ping! . . . “Oww! That hurt!” as she whirls around and
spontaneously slaps his face screaming, “Oh, you nonsense!”
Sprightly sprinting away, feeling very satisfied with himself, and
considering all his endeavors a success, having caught her
notice and achieved her reciprocation, he elatedly muses again
and again, “She loves me! She touched me! She actually touched
me!” Later, he sends her a box of sweets; still later, he
personally hands her a beautiful bouquet of fantastically
fragrant flowers . . . and the rest is history. Whether the boy
pesters her in this way or that, or gives her a flower or blows
her a kiss, in any case, his intention is to somehow get her
attention and occupy her thoughts.

In the same way, Krishna just wants to have a relationship
with us. So He disturbs us in this way or that, or from time to
time sends us some special maha-prasadam or a nice garland of
lotus flowers just to in some way or other remind us that He still
exists, waiting patiently behind the whole cosmic affair. He has
His hand everywhere, and behind that hand is the rest of His
person, who is so sweet and adorable and enchanting and full of
rasa. So though we may feel mistreated in some way or
disturbed or dismayed by various situations, when we see
within our heart of hearts the all-attractiveness of His beautiful
face, we will no longer feel inclined to bear any grudges. Why?
Because we know He always has our best interest at heart and
that, ultimately, He loves us, even if by His prankish behavior
He makes us shed a stream of tears for the rest of eternity.


Another fitting illustration is seen in the contrast between
the mentality of a dog and that of a lion. If one throws a dog a
bone, the dog will always run after the bone. If one throws a
bone to a lion, however, the lion, lifting his head and licking his
lips, will turn to check out who it was that threw the bone,
considering the thrower to be a tastier prospect, a tastier entity
than the thrown! It is better to have the consciousness of a lion
than to have the consciousness of a dog. In other words, instead
of becoming primarily concerned with or entangled by the
external phenomenon itself, it is better to pursue the tastier
entity, the higher taste, by looking to see who has placed the
external phenomenon before us. And who will we see? We will
see that supremely prankish cowherd boy, Vrajendranandana
Shyama, who, by His inscrutable desire, has expanded
innumerable cosmic arenas in which He may directly and
indirectly enact His various sportive lilas. That is Krishna
consciousness.

The world-view of the uttama-adhikari maha-bhagavata is
achieved by conscientious cultivation of the same, by practicing
to perceive the underlying absolute reality behind the illusory
relative manifestations. The means and the end are identical.
When one becomes habituated to that practice, then such habit
becomes second nature. Only on the uttama-adhikari platform of
advanced internal absorption in Krishna consciousness does
one perfectly envisage the world in proper perspective, in terms
of the highest understanding. The ultimate understanding is that
everything is under Krishna’s control, and that because Krishna
is the supremely lovable absolute well-wisher of all living
entities and because He is all good, His control always has its all-
good, ultimately beneficial objective and outcome. The uttama-
Vaishnava always sees the ultimate-good cause behind all the
manifested events of this world. He never loses sight of that
vision by adopting an illusory or semi-illusory mode of
understanding, even when “coming down” to the position of an
acarya for preaching. The kanistha-bhakta’s angle of vision,
though approaching the threshold of spirituality, is still rather
mundane or erroneous on account of extensive egocentricity.
The madhyama-adhikari Vaishnava’s perception, though


considerably advanced toward the spiritual platform by way of
determined sharanagati, has yet to transcend all tinges of
mundanity. Hence it is semi-illusory and thus only partially
valid. However, the perfectly liberated non-illusory acuity of
reality, which is the absolute transcendental visionary platform,
is the prerogative of the uttama-adhikari alone and no one else.
Attaining the perfection of Krishna consciousness most certainly
demands one’s evolvement to no less than the uttama-Vaishnava
platform of perception. Anything short of that would be
considered unnatural or artificial. It is highly unlikely that a
sadhaka will advance to the uttama-adhikari platform without an
attentive endeavor to purposefully culture the internal and
external consciousness of an uttama-adhikari. The culture of
internal consciousness means to be absorbed in the pursuit of
one’s aspired-to position in the nitya-lilas of the Lord by
cultivating the appropriate aprakrita-bhava, and the culture of
external consciousness means to pursue the rasika perception
of the phenomenal world as per the principles presently under
discussion. A case in perfection is the instance of Srila Gaura
Kishora Dasa Babaji Maharaja being harassed by boys jestingly
throwing stones at him as he was riding down the road on a
bullock cart. Turning to them, he spontaneously chastised, “I
know who You are [Krishna], and if You don’t stop teasing me,
I’m going to tell Mother Yashoda about Your nonsense
misbehavior!”

He Radhe-Shyama! In the last, anything seemingly unjust,
unreasonable, or wrong from the relative standpoint may well
directly or indirectly serve as a venerable eye-opener,
constituting a formative impetus to one’s pitiably crying out for
Your special causeless mercy in complete self-surrender. Such
could not but be seen as integral to Your absolute, perfectly
synthesized, all good, complete whole arrangement for the
ultimate deliverance of even such as Your single, most
insignificant, all but forsaken, inconspicuous, long-lost aspiring
maidservant. For me, any other outlook would be illusory. I
gratefully offer You my humble obeisances again and again.

It is certainly a fact that all events of the past, present, and
future on the relative material time continuum transpire on


account of the all-perfect sanction of the absolute, ever-present
Supreme Will. Further, it should be well ascertained that in all
circumstances every living entity involved is in some way or
other effectively moved toward the ultimate surrender of the
soul, or at least indirectly engaged by superior arrangement to
instrumentally catalyze such surrender in someone.
Undoubtedly, everything is perfectly arranged by providence to
interactively elicit whatever various responses are
circumstantially required to progressively effect every
interrelated individual’s ultimate reform. For instance, when
cows and other animals (or people) are mercilessly slaughtered
(physically or psychologically), perceptive individuals will at
least wince upon sympathetically imagining the victims’ painful
plight. The more insightful will cry or at least shudder when
considering the butcher’s hellish future. Such observable Kali-
yuga phenomena may actually serve to awaken or augment, to
some extent, a pious soul’s natural, inborn quality of
compassion. If that much is accomplished, then it may certainly
be concluded that Maya’s distressful manifestations have
successfully promoted a gradual progress to someone’s ultimate
good. Persons with shastric vision will soberly understand that
both the tortured animals (or people) and the consequently
tortured slaughterers are progressively reaping their karmic
destinies under the influence of the three material qualities.
Both the tortured and the torturer will in due course realize the
sufferings of material existence and eventually turn inward
toward Godhead. They will thus progressively attain complete
perfection at some future point in time. No conditioned soul is
an island. All living relativities in this world are always,
knowingly or unknowingly, directly or indirectly, positively or
negatively, at least remotely in some way or other interactively
instrumental in fulfilling the reformatory purposes of the cosmic
manifestation. The apparently endless sojourn of the jivatma
through the relative time warp of this ephemeral cosmic
dimension will anyway be experienced as a mere dreamlike
flash in eternity when one has, at long last, accessed the real-
time eternal realm of the Absolute. At that point, the cumulative
sufferings that were subconsciously retained from experiences


over innumerable lifetimes will, no doubt, positively serve to
dynamically enhance the wakened soul’s appreciation of the
bliss of ultimate enlightenment. Therefore, the wise with the
vision of eternity lament neither for the living nor for the dead.

Yet, powerful Krishna conscious preachers remain ever
perturbed to see “sanctioned” ignorance or forgetfulness of
Krishna, which constitutes the very basis of all “sanctioned”
sufferings of the conditioned living entities. They thereby feel
compelled or “sanctioned” to show mercy by helping to elevate
the fallen to Krishna consciousness whenever plausible
(“sanctioned”), to expedite everyone’s progress to final
beatitude. Was the Mogul Emperor Aurangzeb’s desecration of
numerous Visnu temples not “sanctioned”? Was his breaking to
pieces hundreds of deities not “sanctioned”? Was his paving the
walkways up to the Islamic mosques with the pieces of the
broken deities not “sanctioned”? Was his terrorizing
innumerable brahmanas and Vaishnavas not “sanctioned”? Was
the envious Kazi’s order to cane Haridasa Thakura in twenty-
two market places not “sanctioned”? Would any soft-hearted
Vaishnava condone, appreciate, or laud these “God-sanctioned”
atrocities? The offended advance by their “sanctioned” praying
or crying out to Krishna, their exercised tolerance, and their
mercifully applied forgiveness. The sympathetic onlookers,
deploring and remonstrating against the demonic mentality of
the atheist, advance by their “sanctioned” sorrowful lacrimation
and their “sanctioned” endeavors to either practically protect or
at least verbally or mentally honor and support the Lord and His
devotees. And the offenders advance by inevitably meeting
their “sanctioned” total destruction, reducing their “sanctioned”
false pride to “sanctioned” ashes! If fortune favors them, they
may then hope to enjoy a “sanctioned” humbled fresh start.

In Kali-yuga, we may consider ourselves theistically
enriched to the extent that we actually help to promote the
cause of congregational kirtana of Krishna’s Holy Name.
Conversely, we may be considered as atheistical to the extent
that we minimize or obstruct (by committing various offenses)
the propagation of shuddha-nama-sankirtana. We would do well
to remember that in this age both the godly and the demoniac

dwell in the same body, the extent of the latter proportionate to
the measure of anarthas yet to be eradicated. It really depends
on an individual’s purity of purpose. Was the litigious disunity
within Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Prabhupada’s Gaudiya
Matha, whereby his illustrious preaching mission became
markedly dysfunctional, not “sanctioned”? Would not the ability
or inability to learn important and perhaps rather costly lessons
from all such reprehensible ungodly stagecraft be absolutely
“sanctioned” in view of some far-reaching ultimate design or
purpose? Would history’s horrific recurrence be anything but
utterly “sanctioned”? Would not our continued ignorance of the
consequences of our own unthinkable self-aggrandizing affronts
to the dignity and integrity of our acarya’s mission be well
“sanctioned”? How long will we, claiming to be Vaishnavas, opt
to slight, disrespect, belittle, or mistreat others out of a risky,
false, condescending sense of ascendancy? If we won’t learn
anything from the “sanctioned” instant or eventual outcome of
our own “sanctioned” blatantly whitewashed folly, perhaps at
least someone will somewhere along the line. That alone would
make the whole “sanctioned” charade worth a little something.

In the final analysis, it may be admitted that any
pervertedly reflected illusory manifestation within this cosmos
may purposefully pose to prospectively either entangle,
liberate, or transcendentally enrapture one, consonant with the
degree of spiritual eligibility governing the way one sees and
responds to Maya’s multi-functional demeanor. For example,
with all due respect to Maya Devi’s empowered most-
recognizable expansion in the shape of a psychophysical
woman, a so-called man, bewildered by material absorption,
misidentifying himself as purusa or enjoyer and succumbing to
an entangling labyrinth of lusty obsessions, foolishly identifies
the womanly form as a most desirable and inspirational object
of gross or subtle selfish sense delectation. To a lusty man the
world appears as if filled with lusty women. He thus, by
harboring intensified attachments to vain, romanticized
objectives, degrades himself, running the risk of rebirth into an
illusory prison-suit body bearing the shapeliness of a mayic
psychophysical woman. Thus the materially conceived “he”


ironically gets “himself” reborn as a materially conceived “she.”
Such is Maya’s joke!

The somewhat knowledgeable, however, who has become
wary of Maya’s allurements, will wisely see the same womanly
form as “mother,” an expansion of the supreme form of material
motherhood, goddess Durga. In this material world, “mother”
means one who gives corporeal birth, and for one who is born,
death is certain. So, she who will give birth and concomitant
death within this material world shall be deftly esteemed by a
vigilant aspiring transcendentalist as “mother,” the
personification of repeated birth and death. Steering clear by
cautiously maintaining a respectful distance, the aspirant will
traverse the path of liberation, intelligently circumventing the
shackles of sex attraction, the binding force of this material
world.

Yet, an elevated Vaishnava acquainted with higher truths
concerning the spiritually substantial reality of which this
material world is merely a shadow will ably see everything in a
different light. He transcends the relatively mundane principles
of both pravritti (inclination) and nivritti (disinclination) that
refer to material connections. Clearly, he realizes that the
temporary, shadowy manifestations of this world, stemming
originally from the substantial spiritual names, forms, qualities,
and activities of the eternal realm of Goloka, can absolutely
serve in various ways to remind a pure devotee of the supreme
eternal reality of Radha-Krishna lila. He will therefore allow the
sight of the illusory womanly form within this world, which
faintly resembles the radiance of spiritual muliebrity, to prompt
within himself an internal recollection of the supreme root of all
minor expanded varieties of femininity. This original feature of
all transcendental womanhood is none other than Shri Radha,
who mothers not the material existence of repeated birth and
death but rather spiritual birth into eternal loving devotion.

A subordinate king’s attitude toward the emperor’s envoy
conspicuously reflects his general attitude toward the emperor.
As a well-wishing emissary coming on behalf of the emperor’s
government to examine the condition of a subordinate is to be
properly honored, so similarly any expanded form of femininity


should be honored as a representative of Radha. This entire
material world, Devi Dhama, is comprised of prakriti, the
expanded feminine energy of Radha. Such energy in any form is
meant primarily to remind one of Radha and is ultimately meant
to be engaged so as to serve Her purposes in the matter of
assisting to satisfy Her beloved Shyama. Herein lies the essence
of the yukta-vairagya principle. A thoughtful Vaishnava,
therefore, will recognize in any manifested feminine figure the
symbolic ambassadress, or messenger maidservant, of Shri
Radha, the supreme empress of irresistible supra-mundane
feminine attraction for the enchantment of Shri Krishna.
Externally maintaining a respectful distance from Radha’s
messenger (duti) so as not to commit offense, while humbly
considering himself to be unqualified to directly associate with
her as long as he remains in the sadhaka-deha, he will simply
pray from within that she mercifully inform her svamini (Radha)
about his pure devotional intents. Internally offering eternal
allegiance to Radha’s lotus feet, he will beg to remain ever
supportive and covetous of Her loving service. Then Maya Devi,
being very much satisfied, will mercifully serve in Her primary
feature as Yoga Maya to transcendentally connect the devotee
to the lilas of the Lord. Such externally prompted reflective
remembrance of Shri Radha and Her gopi friends and
maidservants thus elevates the devotee far beyond the
mundane influences of the physical field, unlocking a treasure
chest of blissful internal absorption in Krishna consciousness.

Similarly, the tertiary purpose of all varieties of mundane
political wrangling within or without the confines of any
religious institution would be to endlessly embroil and entangle
those who are externally oriented. The secondary purpose of
the trite, gracelessly perpetrated power-politics, diplomacy,
espionage, sabotage, back-stabbing, subterfuge, intrigue, and
managerial baboonery abounding amongst the neophytes would
naturally serve to dismay or disgust the disinterested
intermediate devotees. These apolitical madhyama-adhikari
Vaishnavas scrupulously avoid all such social vulgarities,
valuing each fleeting moment as if it were their last. Dissociating
themselves as far as possible from the prakrita-bhaktas, they


concertedly focus on their devotional services of hearing and
chanting, etc. and remain relatively freed from the time and
energy squandering perplexities of institutional strife.

No doubt the actual primary purpose of everything within
this cosmos, including all the petty little interpersonal,
interdepartmental, interinstitutional, international, and
interplanetary conflicts inevitable at practically every Kali-yuga
turn in life, is to someway or other remind the progressive
antaranga-bhaktas of Krishna and His various pastimes. Political
intrigue in its original supramundane feature certainly exists in
the highest spiritual realm, Goloka Vrindavana. As in this world,
only in a pure way, it dramatically serves to thicken the plot! So,
when circumstantially noticing the bogus claptrap, caballing,
and sheer tomfoolery of this plane, the resolute pure-hearted
sadhakas and rasika Vaishnavas may solace themselves to some
extent by reflectively remembering the likes of dina-keli- or
mukta-carita-kathamrita by recalling the alarming antics of Jatila
and Kutila or by musing upon the original, absolute, contentious
rivalry between the followers of Radharani and the followers of
Candravali. As they turn disadvantage into advantage, seeing
substance within shadow, they are transported to the plane of
transcendental bliss. Thus, they remain self-satisfied in all
circumstances. Let the calamities come again and again – and
again and again and again – te dvandva-moha-nirmukta bhajante
mam dridha-vratah!

Still, my heartfelt feelings are that we could hardly expect
to legislate or despotically enforce real love and trust by
injudiciously compelling the stringent orthodox letter of the law,
let alone wrongheaded, illiteral, or fictive fanatical contortions
thereof. It just ain’t polite. Rather, I would prefer to suggest that
by constant unbiased recourse to the law’s dynamics, essential
purpose, or inner spirit, in a facilitative temper we might hope
to more or less naturally engender the desirable fruit in
proportion to the purity of our perception of cogitable reality, as
relevant to individual time, space, heart, and circumstance.
That one would barbarously blunder to grandiloquently exhibit,
time and again ad nauseam, one’s unseemly, spiritually
perverted ishvara-bhava or inordinate appetite for peremptorily


governing everyone and everything (well . . . everything except,
of course, one’s own materially anchored domineering manner
of manipulatively controlling and controlling everyone and
everything and everything else) hardly says much for one’s
measure of devotional sobriety, theocratic fitness, or
accomplishment in Krishna consciousness.

Leadership or managerial positions dare not be exploited
as incumbencies from which to intimidate or brutishly lord it
over the Lord’s devotees on the pretext of “getting the job
done.” The pure devotional service attitude and that which is
vitiated by the hostile, egoistically grounded lording propensity
smack not of the same tenor. Guru is commander-in-chief – not
demander-in-chief. Guru-parampara is chain of command – not
chain of demand. Guru and subsequent representatives are not
to demand services on behalf of the Lord. Rather, on the basis
of visibly ideal character, they are to command or elicit such by
openly demonstrating the unalloyed selfless service attitude
toward the Lord and the world about. It is not the institution
that makes the man; it is the man that makes the institution.

To be real, earnestly shared sincerity of approach,
regardless of expressional form, is at the very wellspring of
trustworthiness, far above and beyond the indecorous,
stereotypical tactlessness of frequently resorted to blunt, oft-
times duplicitous managerial expediencies. Not all knavish
administrative prevarication or diplomatic cajolery constitutes
pious fraud. Moreover, love in the real sense, though certainly
subsuming the substantive principle of service to actual eternal
self-interest, in fact never seeks to interfere with, subvert, or
squelch the individual’s freely volitional application of personal
integrity in deciding one’s own suitable mode of devotional
reciprocation. Hence, mature mutual give-and-take on the
spiritual platform had better soberly respect a broader-
mindedness, accommodating the significance of unique
individual perspective or taste, perhaps even considerably
beyond one’s own prejudice or preset dogmatic viewpoint – so
help us God!

He Radhe-Shyama! The pursuit of lofty mundane academic
degrees very rarely if ever really lends itself to an expedited

Second Heartfelt Effusion





My dear Shri Shri Radha-Shyamasundara! Crying at the
lotus feet of Shri Guru, one very fallen and destitute soul humbly
offers to You the following unrestrained stream of prayerful
outpourings for Your kind and considerate audience.

Some brazenly declare that the Hare Krishna movement is
dead – a lifeless corpse spasmodically flapping for a few residual
moments before total collapse. Others rashly conclude that
transcendental book distribution is for the neophytes. Still
others insist that the members of the Hare Krishna movement
could never attain vraja-prema or vraja-lila due to all the
offenses a few of its leading members have done to great souls;
they could attain Vaikuntha at best. Even worse, much high-
flung absurdity spews forth, inanely declaring the
Bhaktivedanta purports to be detrimental to one’s faith in
Krishna consciousness.

I ask, Are these blessings, promises, challenges, curses,
insults, or threats? I dare doubt not only the legitimacy but also
the very rectitude of such statements. If there were but one
sincere, unsullied soul living among the members of the Krishna
consciousness movement, could we not construe the
establishment, notwithstanding all its trials and tribulations, to
still be alive in spite of itself? Aside from that, did not great
devotees of the Rupanuga-sampradaya, like Shrinivasa acarya,
Bhaktivinode Thakura, Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Prabhupada,
and more recently, His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami
Prabhupada, humbly embrace the task of transcendental book
distribution to uplift the fallen? Should we deem them
neophytes? Moreover, are we to say that the above-suggested
immature, superstitious bigotry of a few adherents becomes
automatically imputed to yet the broader-minded more
progressive students simply by dint of institutional
membership? Must an entire army stand trial for the inter-


institutional war crimes of a handful of its soldiers? Is attainment
of the vraja-lilas not contingent upon the Lord’s response to an
individual’s sincerity of purpose? Can we not see even one
worthy soul among the followers of A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami
Prabhupada intently pursuing the progressive living spirit of
self-discovery culminating in the realization of vraja-prema? Is
there no one “in” the Hare Krishna movement desperately
crying out for the mercy of Shri Lalita, Rupa, and their
attendants? Can their decision to bestow or not bestow special
causeless mercy upon anyone be countermanded merely by the
miserly dictums of minute jivas who wish to be distinguished as
the foremost rasa-Acaryas of all the little raganuga wannabes? Is
there any consideration at all beyond the transcendental
preponderance of Shri Rupa Manjari’s mercy?

O dear queen of my life, most gracious Shrimati Radharani!
O cherished treasure of my heart, honey-moon-faced Shyama!
Please let us have recourse to higher authorities to whom we
may confidently appeal our individual cases! Have we not read
many scriptures? Have we not served many gurus? Is Shri
Vrindavana Dhama not the greatest of all gurus, the crowning
splendor of all the scriptures? Is the dust of Vraja not ultimate
authority? Is hari-dasa-varya, Giri Govardhana, not highest
authority? May we not earnestly resort to the life-saving waters
of Radha-kunda and Shyama-kunda, optimistically anticipating
the fruition of our heart’s enshrined aspirations? Is His Divine
Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Maharaja Srila Prabhupada
himself not, in truth, higher authority? One may, to muster some
sort of esteem amongst a rather credulous following, vaunt
otherwise in violation of due Vaishnava decorum, but honestly
speaking, one would do very well to remember that ultimately
the decision as to who is nearer and dearer to Lord Gauranga is
not in our hands. Are Shri Shri Jahnava-Nitai not our ultimate
well-wishers? Does not the very name “Radha,” when fervently
chanted, forgive all Vaishnava aparadhas? Does not even a
single recitation of the name “Shri Krishna Caitanya” forgive all
offenses? Do the statements of the Acaryas regarding all these
things now betray us?


Hridaya Caitanya, considering his disciple Duhkhi
Krishnadasa to be a wayward offender, wanted to punish him
for changing his tilaka and also for changing his name to
Shyamananda. My dear Shyamasundara! Did Shyamananda not
appeal to Lalita, Radha, and subsequently Subala (Gauri dasa
Pandita, the spiritual master of Hridaya Caitanya himself)? Was
Shyamananda not able to achieve the blessings of Radharani by
the grace of Jiva Gosvami in spite of the displeasure and
considerable consternation of his guru, Hridaya Caitanya?

Anyway, so be it! Even if it were true that the Hare
Krishna movement is dead and so forth, still, I would never give
up my deepest gratitude toward His Divine Grace A. C.
Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada and his many sincere
servitors who, though bearing diverse levels of spiritual
qualification and empowerment, benevolently went out of their
way to help extend all those life-line literatures to the lives of
fallen conditioned souls like me. If the words of our acarya
diminish one’s faith in Krishna consciousness, then pray tell
how, by reading his Bhaktivedanta purports, thousands of
people like myself continue to come forward to join the Krishna
consciousness movement and become attached to the pursuit
of Krishna-prema?

My dear Shri Shri Radhe-Shyama! I know I’m not qualified.
I know I’m an offender. On that account, I may rightly be ever
deprived of the wish-fulfilling service of Your lotus feet in Your
most charming land of Vraja. Still, I declare and declare
emphatically that I shall never relinquish my enthusiasm for
hearing the incomparably brilliant exaltations of Your glorious
names, forms, qualities, and pastimes from the pages of all those
beautiful books of the followers of Lord Gauranga!

Ha Radhe-Shyama! Are You kindhearted or what? If You
want to stick me this way and that with all the apparently
dogmatic, arbitrary, unintelligible, virtually impracticable rules
and regulations of the smriti-shastras, then surely there is no
hope for my redemption.

Yet even if in Your view I should have to be born and
reborn in hell for the rest of eternity, I shall never ever give up
hoping against hope that one day some unlimitedly


compassionate person will take pity on me and, though I be not
at all deserving or fit, benignantly fulfill my impossible dream to
attain but a dust particle of direct engagement in the service of
Your eternal associates.

My dear Radhe-Shyama! Even though I am certainly a
reprehensible reprobate, devoid of any trace of good qualities
and deserving to be punished in every way, please hear the
earnest plea of my heart’s deepest desperation. Please don’t
laugh at me, scorn me, or doubt me in any way. Even if I will
never be allowed to relish a single drop of the ocean of
nectarean mellows of pure unalloyed prema for Your lotus feet,
please let me perpetually or even just in some lifetime or
another live and die in the dust of Vraja-bhumi, hoping against
hope to some day in the course of eternity attain You.

My dear most fortunate and beneficent Shrimati
Radharani! Please allow me to take my birth millions and billions
of times in Vraja-bhumi in any species of life, even as a worm in
the stool of a pig, rather than banishing me to become a queen
of Dvaraka or an associate of Laksmi in Vaikuntha.

Even if I will not be permitted to eternally reside at Shri
Vrindavana-dhama, please let my heart live here always.

He Radhe-Shyama! Please do not forsake me! Please
forgive me for my many obvious faults and shortcomings and
somehow or other compassionately find the ways and means to
take my withering soul to Your lotus feet. Otherwise, what hope
is there for such a helplessly fallen and blameworthy creature as
myself?

To hell with trying to secure a comfortable situation within
this temporary world of shadowy afflictions!

To hell with hoping for heavenly delights on earth,
elevation to svarga-loka, or residence on any of the highest
planets within this cosmos!

To hell with the achievement of mystic perfections!

To hell with all our exuberant eating, sleeping, mating, and
defending on the plea of keeping body and soul together for the
performance of sacrifice!


To hell with the attempt to curtail our generally excessive
eating, sleeping, mating, and defending, with the aim of
practicing the principles of practical renunciation!

To hell with undergoing severe penances and austerities
for the sake of self-realization and God consciousness!

To hell with the achievement of the five kinds of liberation!

To hell with the attainment of Vaikuntha-loka in the
eternal kingdom of God!

To hell with having been born on Earth as some kind of
dull-headed humanoid in this most glorious Age of Kali in which
Lord Caitanya has appeared to make self-realization easy by
inaugurating the sankirtana movement of the Holy Name!

To hell with conceitedly boasting of our descent from a
most venerable disciplic succession of eternally perfect Gaudiya
Vaishnava Acaryas!

of their preaching struggle, meeting Krishna could hardly be a
very happy affair! So why bother to advance one’s purva-raga,
anxiously hoping against hope to some day actually meet Him
face to face and eye to eye? Moreover, if they were factually
tasting the ten-million-fold happiness they were purported to be
able to taste, then why do so many of them fall away to re-chew
the pre-chewed gross and subtle sense gratification for want of
achieving a higher taste? We see, but we don’t see. If one
actually saw Krishna, one would faint! If one actually saw
Radharani, one would die!

One might pause for a moment and question to what
extent a practitioner could have actually seen, experienced,
tasted, “realized,” or even basically understood for that matter
what is Krishna, what is Krishna consciousness. For the most
part, a sadhaka cannot do any more than conjecture or imagine
what it means to be fully Krishna conscious. We should
doubtlessly acknowledge that the Lord quickly recognizes
anyone who teaches the secrets of the science of Krishna
consciousness for the benefit of the fallen conditioned souls.
Still, to be sure, it would not be inappropriate at this point to
aver that only a topmost devotee can really preach with the
requisite purity, potency, and background of full-fledged
shuddha-sattvika realization to effectually revolutionize or
spiritually enkindle the heart of anyone. Only a maha-bhagavata
invested with the (hladini) potency to do so is fit to bestow
shuddha-nama, which alone can be said to be, in the real sense,
identical with nami, Krishna Himself, subsumptive of all His
internal spiritual potencies. Others, occupied with missionary
movements (antics), may by hook or by crook generate a
curiosity, persuade via various inveigling modus operandi, or
sympathetically encourage by pointing the way; something is
better than nothing, for sure. Still, merely going through the
motions (Hare Krishna movements), as it were, and actually
getting the whole job done may prove to be conspicuously
dissimilar at the upshot. In other words, the degree of a
devotee’s genuine experience of Krishna’s sweetness, as
proportionately revealed by Krishna Himself in response to
one’s evolving premika sweetheartedness toward Him, assumes


the fundamental measure of one’s adhikara to perform
empowered sankirtana.

Those who think themselves to be Vaishnavas, as well as
individuals who regard themselves as guru of Vaishnavas,
looking forward to receiving honor and respect; vying for fame,
recognition, and reputation; equating the rapacious,
quantitative accumulation of disciples with sampradayic worth;
uppishly considering themselves to be superior to others though
incapable of genuinely crying for the Lord’s special causeless
mercy, all the while forgetful of or oblivious to, nay, totally
apathetic toward their internal sac-cid-ananda spiritual identity
(vraja-svarupa), yet anxious to satisfy their greed for prestige
and material gain by accessing religio-institutional power and
position for securing diverse gross and subtle personal and
extended sense indulgences or ego-inflations; remaining
enslaved by mental concoction while keeping Krishna in the
front, can never chant the actual Holy Name of the Lord. Nor
can they qualify their fawning followers to hear the Holy Name,
which alone can award the highest happiness. Though the
syllables of the Holy Name be ostensibly articulated, the
aparadha-nama or abhasa-nama kirtana of the egotistical can
never directly help any jiva attain the final beatific prayojana,
i.e., pure unalloyed vraja-prema. Krishna, as a person, can on
the basis of His own personal feelings like someone or not like
someone according to His own sweet will. No one, even
adhering to or outwardly espousing strict regulative devotional
proprieties, can compel Him to selectively use one’s fleshy
tongue as an instrument in the service of His divine sound
avatara merely by paying lip-service to the vulgar similitude of
Hari-nama or ingeniously mouthing off sampradayic rhetorical
jargon to the extent that one prides oneself to ably parrot
something of the Krishna consciousness philosophy. First
deserve, then desire! How can we expect to fully enlighten
others about the secrets of high-level Krishna consciousness, to,
when required, lead or instruct them to their supreme
perfection, if we ourselves have not deeply penetrated the
esoteric truths and devotional conclusions via our own personal
introspective application of the tenets of antaranga-bhakti-


bhajana, humbly following in the footsteps of the previous
Acaryas? If one, being uninformed, inexperienced, or disinclined,
is incapable of even theoretically discussing the constituent
principles of raga-margabhidheya, or if one fancifully fabricates
dubious, superstitious, or presumptive aberrations thereof, then
how far could the disciples expect to advance under such
unsatisfactory neophyte guidance fraught with utter spiritual
ineptitude?

Compassion is defined as “pity inclining one to help or be
merciful,” implying that one should presumably possess the
capacity to do so. Obviously, one can only effectively help to
the limits of one’s spiritual wherewithal. We vibhinnamsha souls,
as minute parts and parcels of the pleasure potency of Krishna,
are compassionate by nature; it is our intrinsic constitutional
dharma. Arousal of one’s spontaneous, constitutional quality of
benevolence toward others is therefore integral to the very
substance of self-realization. There is, however, essentially no
qualitative distinction between the pure devotional compassion
displayed in terms of one’s participation in the internal
supramundane pleasure dalliances of the spiritual realms of
Gokula and Goloka and the pure devotional compassion
expressed extensibly to the fallen souls of this world by a
constituent of the acarya’s preaching mission. Both varieties of
ministrative concern, whether existentially manifest (in practice
or in perfection) as seva toward those who are ontologically
superior or as daya toward subordinates, are really aspects of
the same substance – the selfless service disposition, far
beyond the bestial self-gratifying nescience of mundane egoism.

The intangible inverted reflection of a tree seen on the
surface of a pool of water can have no existence without the
original substantial prototype at the water’s edge. Similarly,
miserable, selfish, and spiritually corrupt personal and extended
sense gratification on the material platform, antithetical to its
divine counter, exists only on the basis of the original ananda-
maya tree of concentrated and extended selfless prema for
Krishna and His devotees on the terrace of spiritual perfection.
Censurable desire for gross and subtle personal sense
gratification is at the root of the tree of material existence,


whereas the varieties of lustfully extended sensory or emotional
indulgences expand the tree’s downward spread of distressful
material entanglement in terms of increased ephemeral bodily
identification with mundane family, society, nationality, race,
humanity, and so on. Correspondingly, with regard to Krishna’s
nitya-lilas it should be clearly decided that personal
concentrated premika appreciation and enthralling worship of
Krishna’s supremely enchanting loveliness and lovableness is at
the very root of the ever-expanding, all-entangling labyrinth of
extended para-upakara premika fascinations, which are notably
marked by a concerned ministering to others’ love-laden,
deepest desires for the Lord’s loving association (a‰ga-
sa‰ga). Without a doubt, these two tendencies – the trend
toward solitary bhakti-bhajana-kriya and the predilection for the
more gregarious devotional service characterized by
outreaching sanga-kirtana – are natural and actually essential to
every soul. This is quite so because both proclivities have
originated from the absolute personalities of Radha-Krishna and
Shri Gauranga as seen in Their madhurya and audarya-lilas
respectively. As infinitesimal, eternally separated fragments of
the Supreme, the vibhinnamsha-jivas are in their own minute
way inherently ever possessed of both these relevant
juxtapositional divisions of purely supra-mundane madhurya
and audarya expression. It stands to reason, therefore, that one
may without much difficulty justifiably deduce that if preaching
to induce wayward souls to reunite with Krishna be akin to a
gopi’s selfless service of gracefully canvassing to effectuate
another gopi’s enhanced rapture of samprayoga (conjugal union
with the Lord) in the context of the vraja-lilas, then the
execution of solitary bhajana in this sphere should also sensibly
correspond to its self-same essential substance seen in the
Lord’s nitya-lilas in all purity. No one would blame Radharani for
consenting to sport with Krishna in solitude for some interlude
in the course of Her showering mercy upon the whole of Vraja.
Similarly, solitary bhajana for any relative period in the progress
of the eternal life of any elevated Vaishnava should not be
misconstrued to be abhorrent to the high-grade pure devotional
demeanor in that such may well prove to be integral to the


complete whole, long-term, ongoing eternal maturation of the
individual’s multi-aspected Krishna conscious experience. We
must acknowledge that although solitary bhajana and sankirtana
appear to be divergently constituted, the objective of both ways
of worship is one – to please Krishna. It is nowhere indicated
that progress in Krishna consciousness demands a
unidimensional, one-sided approach to the Lord’s loving service.
The sincere adoption of one mode of service or another is
simply a question of pertinence with regard to personal
requirements in consonance with the extent of the Lord’s mercy
manifested in all variegatedness. In fact, today’s consummately
introverted bhajananandi may very well be tomorrow’s
empowered gosthy-anandi preacher, or vice versa.

In the long run, practically tasting the sweetness of vraja-
prema-bhakti-rasa itself becomes the true impetus for earnestly
endeavoring to share the experience with others. It is not
enough to merely distribute, distribute, distribute – superficially
going through the motions on the basis of bare theoretical
understanding without sufficiently developed internal
devotional proficiency. With considerable preparatory foresight,
one must also conscientiously endeavor to ascertain the truth of
one’s ultimate nitya-dharma in terms of one’s eternal inner
spiritual identity. It is imperative that one progressively come to
the point of actually relishing transcendental rasa, self-
manifested through the precise systematic culture of sthayi-
bhava, which fosters the tangible increments of prema from
sneha up to the stage of maha-bhava. Please bear in mind that
these upper levels of prema are possible only upon the
attainment of sampatti-dasha, otherwise known as vastu-siddhi,
the ultimate perfection of gaining Krishna’s direct shelter upon
achieving the actuation of one’s supra-substantial sac-cid-
ananda siddha-deha (perfect spiritual body) in the bhauma-lilas
of the Lord. Nothing happens automatically or blindly by
chance. Everything must be cultivated scientifically and
consciously for the absolute pleasure of guru and Krishna with a
clear conception of deliberate cause and due consequence. One
could hardly expect to achieve the supreme spiritual perfection
by unapprisedly harboring anomalous devotional (what to


speak of non-devotional) idiosyncrasies, which are not
accommodated by the purest realm of Vraja.

To be sure, what one sees in the make-up of one’s sadhana
is basically what one could prospectively see in one’s sadhya
(outcome of spiritual practices). Vaidhi bhakti (fear-based,
reverential devotion) alone can never in a million lifetimes lead
to the stage of raga-bhakti (attraction-based, spontaneous loving
devotion), which is essential for the attainment of Radha’s realm
of sweetest intimacy. Sakala jagate more kare vidhi-bhakti /
vidhi-bhaktye vraja-bhava paite nahi shakti. “Everywhere in the
world people worship Me according to scriptural injunctions.
But simply by following such regulative principles one cannot
attain the loving sentiments of the devotees in Vraja-bhumi.”
(Cc. adi 3.15) Only by the merciful arrangement of a rasika
Vaishnava, wherein the regulative principles of vaidhi sadhana-
bhakti are therapeutically directed toward the diverse
madhurya elements of Vraja, is it at all possible for vidhi (rule) to
attendantly promote the attraction and lobha (greed)
essentially required to gain the adhikara (eligibility) for raga-
marga-bhajana. Even still, one would have to possess sufficient
faith, fortune, and spiritual acumen to actually recognize the
need to progressively transition by stepping up onto the
platform of raganuga sadhana-bhakti in order for the rule to be
said to have effectively served its real purpose. Undoubtedly,
the unqualified, irresolute anisthita-bhajana-kari novices on the
plane of rudimentary devotion, due to insufficiently evolved
greed for the Vrajavasis’ sweetest moods of selfless loving
service, factually have no recourse but to rely heavily upon the
force of pancaratrika rules and regulations in their attempt to
rise above the material quagmire. However, simply sticking to
the reverential process alone does not produce the superlative
result, the highest satisfaction of the self. The bhava eventually
attained with great effort through exclusive fear-based,
reverential adherence to the regulative principles of vaidhi
sadhana-bhakti and the bhava naturally awakened as an
outcome of avidly following the course of raga-bhajana are not
qualitatively one and the same. Bhagavata-dharma, or the cult of
Shrimad-Bhagavatam, is specifically and purposely, if not

http://www.24hourkirtan.com/media/
WHO NEEDS TO PERFORM HARI-NAMA-SANKIRTAN?
(Sanskrit diacritics omitted for broader internet accessibility. Inconvenience deeply regretted.)

In Kali-yuga no other devotional activity supersedes the currently prescribed yuga-dharma, hari-nama-sankirtana. Indeed, all other dharmas and all the various adjunct angas of bhakti must subordinate themselves to the service of the yuga-dharma to be deemed at all conducive, so far as the proper progress of the Krishna consciousness movement is concerned. All doings connected with Lord Caitanya’s sankirtana movement may be accepted as sankirtana, or facets of the sankirtana principle, to the extent that they factually inspire, promote, and facilitate or at least positively compliment direct performances of yuga-dharma hari-nama-sankirtana.
Kali-yuga-dharma hari-nama-sankirtana is the yuga-dharma for this entire yuga, please. Kali-yuga lasts a total of 432,000 years, of which only a mere 5,000 years have passed. The understanding should be that the process of nama-sankirtana is applicable to all souls appearing on Earth, particularly in the human form of life, during this entire 432,000-year period. The yuga cycles functioning on this planet are not effective on other higher or lower planetary systems. Hence, it is we who have presently appeared on Earth who are expected to take full advantage of the golden nama-sankirtana opportunity for easily going back home, back to Godhead. It is not that hardly any more than 500 years after the Lord and His associates descended to inaugurate the system of sacrifice for this entire age some other scheme should take precedence. If we don’t have complete faith in the congregational chanting of the Holy Name, if we have very little taste and attraction for chanting and dancing and are thereby relatively disinterested or diverted to other engagements, leaving ourselves little if any time to seriously take up the religion of the age, if we don’t recognize the beauty and value of hari-nama-sankirtana, and if we are not intent upon practically helping to push forward that most sublime dharma emphatically prescribed by Lord Caitanya, then we should simply understand that we are cursed by Yamaraja, that we have not realized the purpose of the Krishna consciousness movement, and that we have not truly comprehended the highest mercy aspect of the Lord’s ongoing audarya-lila of preaching the sankirtana movement all over the world. The highest mercy aspect of the Lord’s ongoing audarya-lila is to elevate fallen conditioned souls to the topmost perfection of relishing eternal spontaneous loving madhurya service to Radha and Krishna on the platform of vraja-prema. There is no doubt about this. Golokera prema-dhana, hari-nama-sankirtana. Any goloka-rasa may be awakened by the performance of vipralambha-rasa-maya hare-krishna-maha-mantra-sankirtana. However, as rasaraja-mahabhava Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu mainly descended to this world to freely distribute the supremely nectarean mellow of radha-dasya, it should not astonish anyone that sankirtana of the ultimate, matchless maha-mantra – Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare/ Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare – would primarily appear to distinguishedly stimulate and nourish that unnatojjvala-vraja-rasa

Na mam duskrtino mudhah prapadyante . . . But who are the mudhas? The term mudha does not exclusively portray the other guy. As much as we ourselves, like beasts of burden, continue to blunderingly bear the encumbering heaps and piles of corporeal egoism, material attachments, and misconceived notions about the recommended processes by which the ultimate philosophical conclusions of the Gaudiya sampradaya’s teachings may be practically implemented and realized, that much we ourselves can be considered mudhas.

naham prakasah sarvasya
yoga-maya-samavrtah
mudho ‘yam nabhijanati
loko mam ajam avyayam

“I am not manifest to everyone. Because I am concealed and guarded by My internal deluding potency (yoga-maya), dull-headed ass-like individuals cannot recognize Me as the unborn and inexhaustible Supreme Personality of Godhead.” (Bg. 7.25)

Kaviraja Gosvami has stated in his Caitanya-caritamrita (Adi 17.22), kali-kale nama-rupe krishna avatara: in this Age of Kali, Krishna descends from His eternal abode in the form of the Hare Krishna maha-mantra. Paritranaya sadhunam – it is Sri Hari-nama Prabhu who descends to deliver the sadhus by augmenting their faith in the process of sankirtana-yajna while granting a profound taste for its performance, thus mitigating their pangs of separation. Vinasaya ca duskrtam – it is Sri Hari-nama who anihilates the demonic anartha-congested mentality that generates the unfortunate reluctance, disregard, and sheer disinterest concerning the performance of sankirtana. In Kali-yuga, not to engage one’s energies in the performance of yuga-dharma-nama-sankirtana can be considered the primary form of irreligion. Whenever and wherever there is a decline in its performance – yada yada hi dharmasya glanir bhavati – and a predominant rise in the negligence of such – abhyutthanam adharmasya – then, tada, at that time – dharma-samsthapanartaya – it is only Sri Hari-nama, appearing through the lips of the Lord’s pure devotee, who can forcefully reestablish the jivas’ eternal occupational duty, nama-sankirtana. So also, it is Sri Hari-nama who descends to graciously bestow unalloyed love for Himself through the culture of nama-sankirtana-yajna. Even so, Krishna-nama reserves the right to either expose or conceal Himself in response to an individual’s quality of faith. Regrettably, disoriented neophytes possessed of persistent mudha-like tendencies do not recognize the true nature of the Holy Name, who, though unborn, inconceivably takes birth from His mother, who takes the form of a pure devotee’s tongue. The beginning, middle, and culmination of saranagati (surrender to the Lord’s shelter) as a practical expression of one’s level of sraddha are actualized in this age by surrendering to the service of the Holy Name. And the prime methodology for such surrender is the propagation of the current yuga-dharma, the congregational chanting of the Holy Name. This truth was profusely demonstrated by Sri Gauranga throughout His manifest earthly pastimes.

Only prema-ruruksu devotees, who are considerably advanced on the path of pure devotion, can truly understand the power of the Holy Name and the need to wholeheartedly take shelter of the process of nama-sankirtana.

bhaktya tv ananyaya sakya
aham evam-vidho ‘rjuna
jnatum drastum ca tattvena
pravestum ca parantapa

“My dear Arjuna, only by undivided devotional service can I [as nama-rupa avatara] be understood as I am, standing [dancing] before you [on your tongue], and can thus be seen directly [in the proper light]. Only in this way can you enter into the mysteries of My understanding.” (Bg. 11.54)

atah sri-krishna-namadi
na bhaved grahyam indriyaih
sevonmukhe hi jihvadau
svayam eva sphuraty adah

No one can understand the transcendental nature of the name, form, quality, and pastimes of Sri Krishna through his materially contaminated senses. Only when one becomes spiritually saturated by transcendental service to the Lord are the transcendental names, forms, qualities, and pastimes of the Lord revealed to him.” (Bhakti-rasamrta-sindhu 1.2.234) Here again, in Kali-yuga, “transcendental service to the Lord” connotes primarily the congregational chanting of His Holy Name.

Unfortunately, ass-like (bhara-vahi) externally absorbed kanistha-bhaktas of meager spiritual standing, though socially established through Gaudiya-religio-institutional affiliation, have very little if any true cognition of the eternality, infallibility, and omnipotence of Krisha’s self-same names, forms, qualities, and pastimes. Owing to residual sinful reactions, insufficient accumulation of piety in this and previous lifetimes, and a tendency to commit nama-aparadha, they are unable to worship the Holy Name with the determination required to gain much tangible experience of the efficacy of nama-sankirtana. On that account, their faith in and concomitant surrender to the direct prosecution of the yuga-dharma largely lacks firmness. For want of spiritual insight, they do not clearly ascertain what is and what is not to be done. Their pursuit of Krishna consciousness lacks proper prioritization. They disregard scriptural injunctions even while giving lip-service to the importance of following scriptural injunctions. They thus fail to submit to the prescribed process recommended in the scriptures for this age and so give little importance to the practice of congregational chanting and dancing. Hence, their degrees of faithlessness in the matter of congregationally chanting the Holy Name relegate their way of thinking to the domain of assorted mudha-isms. Srimad Bhagavad-gita has it that four kinds of faithful neophyte devotees begin the process of devotional surrender with the hope of gaining the Lord’s favor – the distressed (artah), who are to some extent mukti-kami, hoping to get peace of mind by chanting the semblance of nama; the inquisitive (jijnasuh), who are curious about the effects of chanting the Holy Name; the fortune seekers (artha-arthi), who are to some extent bhukti-kami, hoping to fulfill desires for material gain by performing sankirtana; and the wise (jnani), who actually know things as they are and dutifully perform sankirtana of the Holy Name with an aspiration to pure devotional progress. All these people are considered to be more or less pious (sukrtinah), eligible for elevation to the madhyama-adhikara through the association of pure devotees. Conversely, there are those of us who, even though posing as devotees, relentlessly decline to acknowledge the need to intently adhere to the process of nama-sankirtana. On the pretext of various other devotional engagements and institutional “responsibilities,” they platitudinously declare themselves to be exempt from the need to seriously prosecute the yuga-dharma. Due to miserly weakness under the influence of the Lord’s deluding potency, they are hard put to see the connection between the sankirtana performances and the fulfillment of all material and spiritual exigencies. To the extent that we fail to appreciate and earnestly actualize the propagation of nama-sankirtana, residues of the demonic tendencies persist in our hearts. Correspondingly, the terms duskrtinah, mudhah, naradhamah, and mayayapahrta-jnanah found in the Gita also indicate our own individual and collective devotional shortcomings. So, who are the mudhas? We are the mudhas! Why? Because even though the truth of the importance of prosecuting the yuga-dharma as the only viable method by which the goal of life can be practically achieved is staring us in the face, we continue to ignore the obvious and attach ourselves to so many superfluous strategies. On the plea of various Krishna conscious pursuits, we are primed to die losers, without ever having truly understood or appropriately applied the science of self realization. Yo va etad aksaram gargy aviditvasmal lokat praiti sa krpanah. “He is a miserly man who does not solve the problems of life as a human and who thus quits this world like the cats and dogs, without understanding the science of self-realization.” (Brhad-aranyaka Upanisad 3.8.10) This very brief human form of life is a most valuable asset for allaying the tribulations of conditional existence, which revolve around the quest for ultimate happiness. Therefore, one who does not utilize this golden opportunity properly for the achievement of vraja-prema via the process of nama-sankirtana is a miser.

All other spiritual practices may be considered legitimate to the extent that they actually enhance the performance of hari-nama-sankirtana. As much as we engage our time in activities other than hari-nama-sankirtana or activities other than those that support, inspire, or facilitate the direct performance of hari-nama-sankirtana, that much our human form of life may be considered a devotional wasteland. The Krishna consciousness movement is not Lord Caitanya’s arcana movement. It is not Lord Caitanya’s “kitchen-religion” prasada-distribution movement. Neither is it Lord Caitanya’s management-meetings movement, nor is it Lord Caitanya’s varnasrama movement, nor is it a cow-protection movement. It is not Lord Caitanya’s money-scamming movement; nor Lord Caitanya’s computer-junkie; social-development; community-service; international-matchmaking; child-protection; or eating, sleeping, baby-buggying, and mutual back-scratching or backbiting movement. We would do very well to clearly mark that the Krishna consciousness movement happens to be Lord Caitanya’s sankirtana movement, please. A movement that does not primarily inspire, promote, and facilitate its members’ concerted absorption in kali-yuga-dharma hari-nama-sankirtana is hardly a sankirtana movement. Moreover, a sankirtana movement that neglects to purposely encourage the pursuit of raga-bhajana for the attainment of vraja-prema is not the sankirtana movement of Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu. In this Kali-yuga, there’s no question of pleasing Lord Krishna without pleasing Lord Caitanya. Human beings with good brain substance (su-medhasah) intelligently recognize that Lord Caitanya is immensely pleased by the lobha-maya performance of sneha-samyukta-nama-sankirtana (complete engagement in congregational chanting with deep affection). There is no universally viable dharma in this age save the congregational chanting of the Holy Name.

In this Age of Kali the success of any other limb of devotional service – not excluding the execution of bhagavata-sravana-kirtana, of which transcendental book distribution (brhat-kirtana) is an extension – largely depends upon one’s isochronous absorption in the direct practice of nama-sankirtana. It is seen, with reference to acarya-vani, that the most highly elevated, self-surrendering devotees doubtlessly prefer to exclusively embrace the congregational singing of the Holy Name rather than rely on other devotional processes for the evolvement of prema. In the bhakti-sastras the efficacy of nama-sankirtana is well established above all other angas of bhakti. In fact, nama-sankirtana stands alone as the greatest devotional practice (maha-sadhana) and therefore reigns supreme as the only infallible means of attaining love of Godhead (vraja-prema). It is not that other forms of devotional service are as good as nama-sankirtana, but somehow or other nama-sankirtana is not really good enough (financially viable or whatever), obliging us not to highlight its performance in any way. If we are to propose that nama-sankirtana is not good enough to merit our concern, then any engagement allegedly “as good as” nama-sankirtana should also be equally ignored. Beyond that, the proposition that any devotional activity is in any way better than prosecuting the yuga-dharma should be deemed sheer madness. Any other anga of sadhana-bhakti deserves to be lauded as sadhana only if it in some way facilitates one’s active absorption in nama-sankirtana-rasa. Further, any sadhana that fails to promote but rather tends to detract from one’s progressive attachment to the process of nama-sankirtana is simply an anartha, an impediment on the path of ultimate perfection – even if in the broader sense it is computed to be some sort of sankirtana.

It is not that just because we have joined Lord Caitanya’s hari-nama-sankirtana movement we therefore don’t need to bother ourselves to go out on hari-nama-sankirtana. How can we expect to get ruci for something we scarcely do? Suddha-nama-kirtana-ruci is not so cheap that merely by official, institutionally regimented token gesture or lame lip-service we should expect to achieve the thing. We have to go deeper, beyond the call of duty, beyond the ceremonious filing in and filing out of the stipulated “temple programs.” When Mother Yasoda was trying to bind Bala Krishna to the grinding mortar, she was mystified to find that she was again and again two fingers short of success. One finger represents a devotee’s steadfast extra endeavor, the other Krishna’s divine dispensation, His special mercy. Alongside whatever other services we may be doing on any level, all of us, irrespective of organizational echelon, would do well to assiduously find or make the time to both privately and publicly do more hari-nama-sankirtana and see the long-lasting internal (personal/communal) and external (outreaching/para-upakara) results. If our authorities disallow, discourage, disparage, or in any way hamper our focus on the performance of yuga-dharma-hari-nama-sankirtana, then they are not our authorities. If our gurus instruct us not to concentrate our energies and resources on the performance of yuga-dharma-hari-nama-sankirtana, then, with all due respect, they are not our gurus. As Bali Maharaja rejected the order of his guru, Sukracarya, we should be prepared to similarly disobey the instructions of millions of “gurus” who in any way dissuade us from surrendering to the yuga-dharma. Trnad api su-nicena . . . kirtaniyah sada harih. What does it mean to have the genuine humility required to constantly and uncompromisingly adhere to the practice of nama-sankirtana? To unwittingly allow ourselves to be regressed to a state of infancy by the institutional manipulators of men and money, that they might conveniently maneuver us to advance their managerial agenda according to their whims via their artful appliance of the principles of child psychology, is not what is truly meant by “trnad api su-nicena.” The correct understanding is very simple; simple for the simple. Contextually implied by the proposed adoption of an attitude of humbleness is simply the seemliness in honestly admitting oneself to be a fallen Kali-yuga creature, having no qualification to achieve the goal of life by any means other than the process foreordained by the sastras and propagated by Lord Gaura as the only viable dharma for the deliverance of the fallen souls of this age, namely hari-nama-sankirtana. Equally connoted is the spiritual integrity required to boldly stand up against all odds (taror iva sahisnuna) and simply do what is right according to time (Kali-yuga) and circumstance (our fallen condition). In doing so, one should not unrealistically expect to be regarded as being fit for any other practice (amanina), and one should respect (mana-dena) the true self-interest of other similarly fallen Kali-yuga creatures, in the matter of their attaining the fruit of krsna-prema, by encouraging them to also take up the dharma of the age. Kirtaniyah sada harih is not achieved by not doing nama-sankirtana. Hari-nama-sankirtana is the best and most powerful process for awakening one’s taste and attachment for the Holy Name. One who fortunately gains authentic suddha-nama-ruci and intelligently amasses stockpiles of solid background experience in the matter of relishing the nectar of nama-sankirtana-rasa will most likely never depart from the path of unalloyed devotional bhajana.

Without having the impulse to enthusiastically practice the religion of this age, hari-nama-sankirtana, what Vaisnava or Vaisnavi can claim to be having suddha-nama-ruci?

Without having extensively engaged in vigorous, daily protracted performances of the yuga-dharma, hari-nama-sankirtana, what Vaisnava or Vaisnavi can honestly claim to have ascended to the terrace of prema?

Without purposely promoting the daily promulgation of the yuga-dharma, hari-nama-sankirtana, what devotional community can viably proclaim its intent to elevate its members to life’s ultimate perfection?

Without deliberately stimulating and fostering the worldwide daily promulgation of the yuga-dharma, hari-nama-sankirtana, what institution can claim to be truly representing the sankirtana movement of Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu?

Without having sensibly dedicated a substantial portion of life’s time and energy to the direct performance of yuga-dharma hari-nama-sankirtana, which individual or group of individuals can claim to have rightly understood and applied the essential message of the scriptures proliferated by the Gaudiya Vaisnava acaryas through disciplic succession?

If we sincerely desire to deepen and redouble our taste for chanting the Holy Name, then we would do very well to take shelter of Gaura-Nitai and do more hari-nama-sankirtana! If we recognize the enormous need to practically expand the ocean of transcendental fortune and bliss to touch the lives of other pious souls, in the matter of increasing and maintaining Krishna’s family of devotees, then we would surely do well to take shelter of Gaura-Nitai and do more hari-nama-sankirtana! If we at all acknowledge the intermutual need to expedite the purification of our Vaisnava relationships then we would all do very well to concertedly take shelter of Gaura-Nitai and do more hari-nama-sankirtana! If we seriously want to go well beyond the bodily concept of life, to realize the highest constitutional spiritual identity of the self (vraja-svarupa), then we would do very well to set all worldly considerations aside, take shelter of Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu, and do more hari-nama-sankirtana! If we truly desire the perfection of the vraja-bhavas, by which we could ever hope to attain the pleasure pastimes of the Lord in the topmost realm of Vraja, then we would do very well to do more hari-nama-sankirtana! If we at all see the need to expedite our progress to the terrace of vipralambha-bhava-maya-vraja-prema for the pleasure of guru and Gauranga, in consonance with the very purpose of Their mission, then we would do very well to do more hari-nama-sankirtana! If we, honestly confessing any delinquency in the matter of its performance, sense a deficiency in the evolvement of our individual and collective pure devotional experience as per insight, revelation, and realization, then we would, by all means, do very well to abandon all apprehensions about the thing and simply do more hari-nama-sankirtana! If we want the life-long inspiration to carry on with our transcendental book distribution in a most viable way, then we would certainly do very, very well to do more hari-nama-sankirtana in order to deeply appreciate and enthusiastically share the very essence of what the books are, in so many words, purposely promoting! Given that we might, with a view to accomplish the as-yet-to-be-realized final half of Srila Prabhupada’s mission, deem the reestablishment of varnasrama-dharma in present-day human society to be of paramount importance, even still, we would do very, very well to intelligently put the horse before the cart and concertedly, all the world over, do more mass hari-nama-sankirtana – to practically increase the piety and spiritual consciousness of the masses in order to even hope to make possible that which is virtually impossible under the present so-called “for the people, by the people” heinously roguish, demonic, world-domineering corporatist governmental misleadership. Godless religio-racist multi-national corporate elitists and other hard-core, ruthless, raksasa-like terror-breathing global tyrants are not going to politely wait for us, the members of the Krishna consciousness movement, to finally, all over the world, wake up to our inalienable right and responsibility to do more and more mass hari-nama-sankirtana! Institutional management has neither the authority to sanction nor the right to interdict or in any way inhibit the performance of the yuga-dharma. The will of Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu ultimately pulls rank on institutional authority. Please remember that in Kali-yuga the Supreme Personality of Godhead descends from Goloka-dhama to protect the sadhus and annihilate the demons by resoundingly manifesting as His Holy Name on the tongues of His pure devotees. The divine descent of kali-yuga-krishna-avatara sri-hari-nama-rupa alone can effect the downfall of such insidiously scheming, media-manipulating latter-day murderous war-money-mongering demons and carcass-devouring pseudo religionists of Kamsa’s and Putana’s class! Even if we prefer to pursue variant paths of spiritual perfection, or even if our all-devouring exigencies cannot go beyond the transitory urgency to “put food on the table” and “give peace a chance,” all the same, we would definitely do very, very well to have faith in the yajna for this age and simply do more and more hari-nama-sankirtana! Let us not wait until the fag end of life, when varieties of physical and mental decrepitude will render our bodies inoperative, to wisely recognize this principle. The urgency is enormous. Jiva jago! Jiva jago! The time is now. Now is the time for revolution – a revolution of consciousness, a revolution of priorities. It’s time for a reality check. All individual, communal, institutional, and inter-institutional devotional inadequacies, anomalies, and inequities – as well as all domestic, public, socio-political, governmental, and inter-governmental irregularities of this age – can be positively surmounted simply by intelligently administering “heavier,” more frequent medicinal doses of life-giving yuga-dharma sri-hari-nama-sankirtana. Once again, if we’re not part of the solution, we’re part of the problem. We have busied ourselves over the years, trying so many other ideas. Why not sincerely concede to this one and be pleasantly surprised?
(Excerpts from Aindra Dasa’s soon to be published composition, The Heart of Transcendental Book Distribution.)

Again in the
Caitanya Bhagavata (Madh. 23.76-79):



hare Krishna hare Krishna
Krishna Krishna hare hare

hare rama hare rama
rama rama hare hare

prabhu kahe kahilam ei mahamantra

iha japa giya sabe kariya nirbandha

iha haite sarva-siddhi haibe sabara

sarva-ksana bala’ithe vidhi nahi ara



“The Lord said, ‘Regularly chant japa of this maha-mantra. In
this way you will attain all perfections. Chant at any time and in
any circumstance. There are no other rules for chanting. Gather


together, five or ten, in your own homes, clap hands or play
cymbals and sing kirtana of these holy names.’”

Shastric evidence such as this, however, in no way poses
to preclude the sadhaka’s need to be esoterically instructed.
Sambandha-abhidheya-prayojana-tattva-vicara demands the
consideration of each individual’s specific internal devotional
requirements. It is not meant to remain a general discussion
devoid of any concern for the individual disciple’s personal
spiritual objective. After all, the ascent to prema is a personal
affair involving the delicate unfolding of personal sentiments
based on personal desires to personally please the particular
Personality of Godhead whom one considers to be one’s
personal ista-deva. We must always remember that we are
persons. Krishna is a person, the Holy Name is a person, and we
are all unique individual persons who need to personally
conceptualize the unique personal goal of our chanting before
we can expect our chanting of the Holy Name to yield the
superlative personalized fruit of love for Krishna we personally
require to be all we can personally be to be personally satisfied
that Krishna is personally satisfied with our personal attempts
to please Him in all personified personal sweetness. Chanting
with specific wrong conceptions bears specific wrong results,
chanting with no specific conception bears no specific result,
chanting with specific inferior conceptions yields specific
inferior results, and, unsurprisingly, as one might reasonably
gather, chanting the Holy Name with specific superexcellent
conceptions yields specific superexcellent results. Ye yatha
mam prapadyante tams tathaiva bhajamy aham... It’s not all one.

The obvious implication of the above Caitanya-caritamrita
verse is as follows: Srila Rupa Gosvami in his Bhakti-rasamrita-
sindhu clearly delineates two basic levels of devotion – sadhana-
bhakti (bhakti in practice done by ajata-rati sadhaka-bhaktas)
and sadhya-bhakti (bhakti in perfection done by jata-rati
bhavukas and siddha-bhaktas). Sadhana-bhakti includes two
distinct paths – vaidhi-marga and raga-marga – correspondingly
leading to two distinct types of perfection – maryada-prema
(reverential love) and kevala-madhurya-prema (unadulterated
sweetest intimate love). Raga-marga-sadhana is not to be


equated with spontaneous devotional service; rather, it is
deemed spontaneous devotional service in practice wherein a
sadhaka covetously endeavors to internally emulate the perfect
spontaneous mood of one of Krishna’s intimate eternal
ragatmika associates. Only fortunate practitioners adequately
endowed with lobha-maya-shraddha may legitimately take up
this path. To the extent that one has not gained steadfastness in
the pursuit of raga-bhajana, to that extent one is obliged to
allow shastra-vidhi to prompt one’s adherence to the external
practices of devotional service. As one’s affinity for bhajana
prevails, lobha itself becomes the driving force, and the need to
rely on shastra-vidhi becomes relatively superfluous. Likewise,
sadhya-bhakti is divided into two progressive levels – bhava
(preliminary love of Godhead) and prema (advanced love of
Godhead). The stage of relishing prema-rasa, realized at the
highest level of purity, comes only after the arousal of sthayii-
bhava by the influence of vibhava, anubhava, sattvika, and
vyabhicari, generated from the fragrance of the flower of rati or
bhava. Prema never appears before svarupa-siddhi, which is
realized at the stage of bhava. The stage of bhava and apana-
dasha are basically synonomous. Bhavapana-dasha is the
sadhya, or outcome of intensified sadhana, which progresses
through the stages of shravana-dasha, varana-dasha, and
smarana-dasha culminating in bhakti-samadhi. As previously
indicated, shravana-dasha appears in two phases – krama-hina-
shravana-dasha (haphazardous or unqualified hearing without
aspiration to a particular rasa) and krama-shuddha-shravana-
dasha (systematic, offenseless hearing with the ultimate aim of
pleasing Krishna). If as a kanistha-adhikari shraddhavan jana one
hears Krishna-lila in an unfocused way without having
undergone sufficient purification via advanced devotional
association, clouds of anarthas will obstruct the discernment of
one’s natural inclination toward a particular rasa. Such hearing
designated as krama-hina-shravana may in fact retard the
arousal of one’s latent proclivity for raganuga-bhakti if one does
not scientifically endeavor to improve one’s approach to the
hearing process. However, when faithful upper class neophytes
who are antarmukha (looking inward in the spirit of self-


discovery) attentively and methodically hear (nityam
bhagavata-sevaya) about Krishna’s nitya-lilas and naimittika-lilas
under the wholesome guidance of experienced raganuga-
sadhakas and rasika Vaishnavas, they, by such krama-shuddha-
shravana, swiftly and without difficulty dissipate the clouds of
anarthas (nasta-prayesu abhadresu) and come to the nistha
platform (bhaktir bhavati naisthiki). Purposeful krama-shuddha-
shravana appreciably manifests the enchanting sweetness of the
Lord’s pastimes, spontaneously arousing the hearer’s latent
predilection for raganuga-bhakti. As anarthas (material lust and
greed) decrease in the course of extensive hearing (ceta etair
anaviddham), one gradually recognizes within oneself a special
natural appreciation for particular pastimes of the Lord enacted
with a particular ragatmika associate endowed with a specific
rasa. This indicates one’s natural constitutional inclination
toward a particular rasa. The awakening of a basic yet firm
eagerness to attain a kind of relationship with the Lord similar to
that of one’s esteemed ragatmika archetype constitutes one’s
specific innate lobha.

It should be emphasized here that the details of a
disciple’s ekadasha-bhava are generally to be sussed out
between the disciple and the guru during the krama-shuddha-
shravana-dasha stage in light of the disciple’s specific lobha.
acarya-vani has it that these constituents of raga-marga-sadhana
may be inculcated to the disciple quite early in the course of
events if the guru sees that the disciple’s association is pure,
elevated, and siddhantically solid. When, satisfied that the guru
has correctly ascertained one’s inner greed for achieving a
specific devotional perfection, one vows to heartily accept the
compatible bhava for continuous cultivation, only then does one
come to the stage of varana-dasha, which is the very basis of
raganuga-bhajana-nistha. Having become “fixed-up” and
satisfied on the brahminical platform of goodness (sthitam sattve
prasidati), one becomes freed from the major lot of gross
material distractions. At this point one may gradually focus and
absorb one’s mind and heart (from smarana, dharana, dhyana,
anusmriti, to samadhi) in the remembrance of one’s given vraja-
svarupa while cultivating the mental service of Radha-Krishna’s


eightfold daily pastimes (asta-kaliya-lila-manasa-seva). apana-
dasha, as a sequel to all this, comes quite later in the chain.
Hence, it would be erroneous to conclude that raganuga-
sadhana and the prerequisite greed (lobha) to pursue the path
of raga would commence from the stage of bhava. Moreover, it
would be terribly clumsy to suggest that sadhakas must first
attain vaidhika bhava-siddhi on the path of reverential devotion
before gaining the credibility and the go-ahead to even dare to
consider the prospect of pursuing the principles of raganuga-
sadhana. It is preposterous to in any way deduce that sadhana
would begin after sadhya (apana-dasha [rati]) has been
achieved. Jata-rati Vaishnavas are bhava-bhaktas, not sadhana-
bhaktas.

After the attainment of svarupa-siddhi, a siddha-bhakta
anxiously cries to be reinstated in his or her original
constitutional relationship (vastu-siddhi) with the Lord. This
state of intense eagerness is technically termed lalasamayi. It is
incorrect to equate lalasamayi, which is manifested in the
perfectional stage, with lobha, the basic element needed for
embarking on the path of raganuga-sadhana while in the state of
bondage, the position of imperfection. It is not that one must be
perfect (jata-rati) before one can practice to become perfect. If
sankirtana of the Holy Name can bring the sadhaka to the
highest perfectional platform of unalloyed Krishna-prema, why
should we not expect the Holy Name to grace the sadhaka with
the relatively lesser adhikara required to merit hearing esoteric
ekadasha-bhava instructions from the lips of Shri Guru –
instructions that are actually required for the tangible practice
of proper asta-kaliya-lila-smarana and manasa-seva in pursuit of
the internal achievement of raganuga bhava-siddhi, svarupa-
siddhi. Whether or not the present generation of gurus have the
adhikara to adequately deliver the goods is a question in and of
its own. God knows; it’s a question that the guru-figureheads
themselves will ultimately have to honestly acknowledge and
answer. But in principle it should not be presumed that just
because the general mass of people tends to be prone to
degradation and hypocrisy, genuine people don’t exist, and that
such genuine people should not be instructed and encouraged