HARE KRISHNA HARE KRISHNA KRISHNA KRISHNA HARE HARE HARE RAMA HARE RAMA RAMA RAMA HARE HARE 19 страница
He Radhe! I long to directly witness how delinquent Shyama repays His unrequited debt to His beloved gopis by donning the various moods and characteristics of His own intensely attracted ragatmika devotees in His form as Lord Gauranga!
When will I be permitted to personally play a part in the progressive extension of Your vraja-lilas, the audarya pastimes of my most merciful Nimai Candra?
Please let me eternally serve, in any small way, the lotus feet of my dearmost beloved Shaci-suta in the company of the followers of Nitai and Jahnava Mata. He, the most beautiful of all, more enchanting than millions and billions of cupids, will eternally dance in the core of my heart!
My dear unlimitedly gorgeous Shaci-suta-sundara! When will Your magnificent Gosvamis of Vrindavana, headed by Shri Rupa, leniently bestow upon this fallen derelict the priceless treasure of loving service to Your prema-nama-sankirtana-lilas in the Nitya-navadvipa sector of Goloka-dhama? I will happily serve in any small way to help augment Your blissful relishment of the moods of Vraja throughout the day and night.
I yearn to not only see, but to also get, by Your supremely merciful divine dispensation, the chance to actually participate in Your blissful nocturnal kirtanas at Shrivasangana in the company of Your eternal associates. I will ever immerse my ever-youthful anti-material body, mind, voice, and heart in the ever-expanding ocean of Your prema-nama-sankirtana pastimes! Dancing ecstatically while wearing blissfully chiming ankle bells about my feet, I will at different times play various kinds of karatalas, whompers, and gongs to help exhilarate Your heights of premananda! Sometimes I will play on the snakelike nagasimha horn or conch shell; other times I will play happily upon the vamshi flute, joyfully generating a festive mood to encourage Your rapturous dance! At times, I will play on stringed instruments, and occasionally I myself, exhilarated with divine exuberance, will blissfully dance, raising my trembling arms in transcendental delight! At other times, I will again and again roll in the dust of the feet of all the Vaishnavas, profusely crying streams of tears in unbounded happiness! I hope and pray that someday I, at the behest of Your eternal associates, may sweetly sing the Holy Names of Krishna for You in a voice overflowing with intoxicating madhura-rasa! At that time You will recognize me as Your long lost eternal servitor.
Dear honey-faced dancing Lord of my life! When will that blessed moment arise when You, drenching my entire body with the torrents of tears gushing from Your incomparably love-laden lotus eyes, will mercifully enfold my insignificant yet fully love- saturated person into Your most magnanimous bosom? My Shaci-suta! My Prana-natha! There is no one more dear to me than You. Let us always stay with each other, through thick and thin, and keep each other company! Please don’t deprive me of Your all-delightful association! Please always stay with me and never ever abandon me! Kindly let me always have You and You always have me, and I always dearly love You and You always dearly love me too! I have none other than You! Without You, I have no one! Please don’t let anyone, even in a dream, ever take You away from me! May my heart ever recall Your indescribably captivating countenance, Your enchanting gestures, and Your ruthful, reassuring words of love to me in the privacy of my own dreams! Please let me never, even for a moment, ever forget You! Since my beloved Srila Prabhupada revealed to me the enchantment of Your sublime personality, I have cherished an indelible desire to – in an eternal, unhindered spiritual body – forever serve the dust of Your lotus feet.
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Anyway, what need is there for me to further disclose the treasures of my troubled heart? After all, they are almost certainly no more than the overly optimistic self-delusions of a miserable madman, notorious for his eccentric absorption in the dreamland of pensive spiritual delirium. When will all my ungodly anarthas flee far away from my rascal mind? For now, in my shamefully fallen, condemned condition of material existence, I am helplessly incarcerated in this vile cesspool of a mortal stool bag, struggling in this world to do any kind of devotional service at all. Practically, in my present state, I have nothing nice to offer. All of my heartfelt hopes and aspirations for eternal loving service to Your nitya-lilas in the lands of Navadvipa and Vraja, as also the verbose utterances burdening the pages of this book, seem to me like so many sky flowers. I have written these words in response to a dream in which Srila Prabhupada moved me to do so. He Shaci-suta! Although I would generally feel disinclined to voice these few inner thoughts and feelings, at his behest I have inspirationally done as was prompted by You from within. It is as if You, like a highway robber, stealthily assailed me along the way, plundering whatever little wealth of words I was carefully keeping to myself, only to haphazardly scatter them over the pages of this book in Your haste to escape my prudent circumspection!
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If I could not somehow or other ultimately achieve the fulfillment of all these hopes for divine service, then what would be the meaning of my having joined the Hare Krishna movement? What would be the value of my having unassumingly sacrificed by altruistically distributing thousands and thousands of transcendental literatures in the earlier years of my devotional career? What would be the purpose of my having, in my own shameless way, embraced the severe austerities of the renounced order of life? What would be the sense of my ongoing struggle to loudly sing the Holy Name? What would be the point of my living and dying in the holy land of Vraja? What would be the significance of all these toilsome, long-winded sentences? What would be the sanity of my maintaining all these lofty aspirations? What would be the proof that the Supreme Lord is most merciful to the fallen?
Anyway, my dear Shaci-suta, under the circumstances I see no option but to remain ever determined to somehow or other serve the mission of my spiritual master, though I am hardly able to do anything very substantial. Even if I never become one of his stalwart “big” book distributors, I could at least try to assist by humbly helping to keep the bathrooms clean. I could help wash the pots or carry out the trash when needed. Then again, I could help by nicely dressing the Deities with plenty of fragrant flowers. Maybe I could even try to lead a kirtana from time to time, or perhaps I could help load the buses with books or help distribute prasada to the devotees and guests, man the shoe room, or anything, recognizing the absolute nature of all varieties of devotional service. At least my lowly insignificance could manage to daily complete a measly sixteen rounds of hari-nama-japa. I regard any “big” or “small” position within the acarya’s institution as the post of a menial servant. I consider any “big” or “small” menial service to Your sankirtana movement to be tantamount to the exalted service of Radha’s lotus feet. I pray that my guru will kindly see my meager attempts in that light.
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I pray to the lotus feet of my beloved Srila Prabhupada that he may forgive my laughably inadequate and sometimes rather blunt statements presented in this small volume. I am most certainly a despicable reprobate of a so-called disciple. I cunningly pretend to be some kind of a devotee just so the illustrious leaders of what now passes as his Hare Krishna movement don’t kick me out on my ass.
Dear Srila Prabhupada! Even though I am a contemptible offender and surely don’t deserve any consideration, I have no other shelter than the shade of your lotus feet. I am really not at all very much advanced, and I don’t have much longer to live within this one miserable, presently flapping dead body. My erstwhile sinful life of material sense gratification was so abdominal! Now the cruel black-snake time factor is mercilessly devouring the feeble remaining span of my mouse-like existence. Yet somehow, by the influence of your graceful words, in spite of everything, an undeniable burning anxiety to attain the lotus feet of supremely handsome and beautiful Lord Krishna has surged within my heart – a dwarf hoping to catch the moon. By divine revelation, my internal self-acuity and heartfelt lofty aspirations for spiritual perfection were aroused by you in the course of my resolute endeavors to please you by my pounding performances of nama-sankirtana-yajna. By your special causeless mercy, the fruition of all my deepest desires, in good time, will certainly come to pass.
In a dream, you spoke to me the following profound and particularly meaningful instructions:
“Actually, Aindra, book distribution is not enough. Our real business is to become bhajananandi; and, by our personal example, try to encourage as many others as possible to also become bhajananandi. Book distribution simply facilitates this.”
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In a subsequent dream, you spoke to me again:
“Aindra, I want you to write a book about how to distribute books.”
Dear Srila Prabhupada, I really don’t know what kind of book you expected your insignificant, unworthy Aindra Dasa to write. Whether my attempt is brimming with great hope or overshadowed by dire hopelessness I can’t really say. Whatever came from the core of my heart I have submitted with the hopes that you may smile, even if only ever so slightly (or at least not get too mad at me). I pray that my verbose outpourings may in some small way instrumentally serve the purposes of our predecessor Acaryas.
I don’t expect that many will be interested in troubling themselves to seriously study the contents herein – yet another bundle of pages to impudently clutter the increasing shelves of so many volumes of comparatively greater consequence than my own that we would hardly have time to read in an eventful lifetime. Among the few who make even a cursory attempt to go through this treatise, still fewer may very deeply appreciate or for that matter actually grasp the essence of what I have endeavored to present. How compelling could the words of a minuscule microbe like me be anyway? In attempting to openly present my personal inspirations as I have done, I intend not that the reader necessarily embrace the details of my particular bhava, given that each individual soul will seek and ultimately realize a unique angle of loving reciprocation with the Lord according to the individual’s natural affinity and personal capacity. Rather, the intent is to encourage one to deepen one’s own bhajana so as to gain an enhanced internal devotional experience of one’s own. It is not that divine revelation is beyond the scope of contemporary feasibility. The Holy Name of Krishna is as real today as ever. Ye yatha mam prapadyante tams tathaiva bhajamy aham. “As all surrender unto Me, I reward them accordingly.” One should prudently think, “If it can happen to insignificant Aindra Dasa – if that rascal can do it – anyone can do it! Then what the hell are we waiting for! Let’s go for it!”
If, out of fear of being ostracized, I were to ignore my heart’s calling to responsibly discuss, for others’ benefit, the subject matter expressed in this book, I would consider myself to be a faithless misanthropist, a godless nihilist. I am not unaware of the inevitability of my words raising a few eyebrows. Still, I have risked writing down these ideas simply with the hope that I may somehow serve to augment or perhaps even catalyze an intensified quest for the ultimate aim of Krishna conscious self-discovery among the non-envious. Faithful persons who have a glimmer of greed for the attainment of the realm of Vraja will value this attempt. Let the jata-rati Vaishnavas assess my merits and demerits. Those who are unfit to discuss the substance herein perhaps should avoid going through this book lest they become lamentably confused, contemptuously censorious, or unduly enmeshed in endless shallow argumentation.
To the esteemed reader, who has bothered to expend invaluable human life’s time and energy to peek into these pages, I offer my humble obeisances again and again. I beg to place before you a few closing words for your kind deliberation.
It is an incontestable matter of fact that the mass distribution of transcendental literatures unfolding the principles of bhagavata-dharma for the propagation of raga- bhakti throughout the world is the number one missionary “business” of the Krishna consciousness movement. Only a dull- headed ecclesial anthropoid would speciously conclude otherwise. Still, it should be borne in mind that there is really no mundane dichotomy between the essential message of the scriptures so proliferated and the application of the primary methodology promoted by the scriptures themselves, the congregational chanting of the Holy Name. In fact, the main function of any scripture propagated by the Gaudiya Vaishnava sampradaya is to convincingly induce the fallen souls to take up the practice of the yuga-dharma, hari-nama-sankirtana, without doing which, one could hardly expect to make much tangible spiritual progress in this present age. This book also seeks to pointedly propound the same principle. We should always remember that Veda Vyasa compiled and wrote down the scriptures with a view to facilitate the less intelligent, fallen people of this Age of Kali, who have relatively short memories and therefore require books as reference material. In previous yugas, there was no pressing need for the written word. The shruti-dharas upon hearing only once could immediately memorize for life the knowledge disseminated through guru- parampara, which specifically emphasized the appropriate process of self-realization appurtenant to the respective yuga circumstantially in progress. Given that scriptural texts were presented specifically for this present Age of Kali, it would be ludicrous to surmise that Vyasadeva’s ultimate conclusion would be in any way divergent from the interest of the kali-yuga- avatara, Shri Caitanya Mahaprabhu, in the matter of widespread propagation of the currently appropriate yuga-dharma, the congregational singing of the Holy Name. One who with great effort obsequiously goes out to bear the task of transcendental book distribution without recognizing this essential intention of the scriptures is like an ass that, lacking much good sense, simply carries the burden of heavy loads of paper and ink.
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 complement direct performances of yuga-dharma hari-nama-sankirtana.
Temple Deity worship in this age can be seen as sankirtana only when we recognize the Deity’s intention that His devotees regularly assemble to satisfy Him by their splendid performances of yuga-dharma hari-nama-sankirtana. The highest worship of the Deity in Kali-yuga is undoubtedly the performance of sankirtana-yajna, the congregational singing of Krishna’s Holy Names. We nicely care for the Deity, making all the best arrangements for His pleasure and comfort, simply to inspire Him to remain with us and glance favorably upon our performances of nama-sankirtana and thus enjoy in our company. Even if we don’t feed Him very nicely, He will still be pleased to stay with us if He sees our keen interest to perform yuga-dharma hari-nama-sankirtana for His satisfaction. In fact, all regulative temple functions basically aim to induce novice devotional aspirants as well as the general public to systematically associate with the primary devotional process, nama-sankirtana.
Sweeping or cleansing the temple can be considered sankirtana in that they serve to facilitate the performances of hari-nama-sankirtana. No gentleman likes to come to a dirty place. So if the temple is nicely cleansed, people will be happy to congregate there to engage in sankirtana-yajna.
Prasada distribution is useful to the extent that it encourages people to assemble together for the purpose of congregational chanting and dancing with the devotees. When the aroma and enchanting taste of Krishna’s prasada inspires them to get a taste for chanting the Holy Name, then only has prasada distribution served its highest purpose.
Cow protection is important in human society because the cow gives her milk to increase the human being’s good brain substance for understanding subtle spiritual values. If that good brain substance (su-medhasah) is used for understanding the importance of performing sankirtana-yajna, the congregational chanting of the Holy Name, for the satisfaction of Lord Caitanya, then only can cow protection be said to have served its true domestic function. Otherwise, cow protection in and of itself would be a relatively mundane affair of very little pure devotional consequence.
Unless all varnas and ashramas are aimed at the process of nama-sankirtana, in pursuit of the highest nitya-dharma of the soul, then varnashrama could hardly boast an evolved human dignity.
Making babies can be considered as sankirtana when the children produced from the coition of the father and mother become fixed up in pure devotional principles by gaining a profound taste for practicing the dharma meant for the rescue of all Kali-yuga conditioned souls, namely nama-sankirtana. Then the progeny actually does the work of putras and putris by delivering the parents from the hell-hole of material existence to the shelter of the Lord’s lotus feet.
Temple management is sankirtana to the extent that the managers intelligently recognize the real congregational function of the temple and purposefully do the needful in the matter of favorably fostering the performances of hari-nama- sankirtana, both inside the temple and outside as well. The temple must also serve as a base from which sankirtana parties go out to publicly propagate the yuga-dharma, the congregational chanting of the Holy Name.
Book distribution is also sankirtana, primarily because it serves to widen the scope for large-scale acceptance of the process of spiritual elevation most recommended in this age, yuga-dharma hari-nama-sankirtana.
Institutional administration may also be considered sankirtana to the extent that its influence positively motivates the devotees of the sankirtana movement to get out of their doldrums and engage their life’s energies as much as possible throughout the day and night in the performance of the 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 Shri 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.
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