Nomenclature of the Absolute (pg 11-14)
The teachings of a teacher are, therefore, meant for enriching, regulating and inviting the impulse of reception of the taught in order to enable the latter to make further progress. If he has an irreverent mood, he will prove himself to be a callous and non-susceptible agent. If he proves himself quite worthy of receiving the teachings and enriching himself, he would be deemed fit for undertaking further mental training. But some amount of diffidence may hamper him in his putiful [sic] advance.
The theme of teaching has different phases. The teaching that merely elevates the mental power of the audience will no doubt differ from that which seeks to lift us above the phenomenal existence by the process of meditation and shakes off the three mundane positions of the observer, observation and observed. The devotional teachings need not follow any of the two methods that have victimised both elevationists and salvationists. So the teachings of a devotee should neither help any aspiration of these two classes nor advocate their cause. Devotional teaching has already disclosed the fact that any knowledge secured from finite objects could not possibly lead to the Absolute position in a realm where no temporal phenomena are seen to be working.
According to yoga, every action, good or bad, produces some karmic reaction. Actions that are "bad" create bad karmic reactions. A person who engages in heinous criminal actions or who lives simply like an animal, exploiting others, will have to eat the bitter fruit of such actions in the future.
Chris Butler Speaks
Such dealing with the existence of a field of fourth to infinate demensions [sic] should not be restricted to be brought under intra-mundane speculations. Devotional teaching never subscribes to the policy of altruistic misapprehension for living peacefully in a plane of shifting phenomena. The devotional method does not, however, deviate at all from altruism when it shows a transcendental temperament of the cognisance of the Absolute. The altruistic views of pedants of the atheistic school cannot protect the futile predicament of intra-sentient beings who are very busy to show their predominating influence over devotional thought. Devotional teaching should never confine its theme to the restricted horizon of elevationists and so-called transcendentalists who are ambitious to restrict their activities in every way by annihilating their egoistic intra-mundane attempts.
As regards the position of a true teacher we have observed that he is never expected to be the possessor of mere mental speculations concerned with phenomena or noumena. The teacher should be unprejudiced and should not be challenged for any seeming fault of his in thought, word or deed. The teacher of some particular department of phenomena or noumena should never be recognised as participating in any teaching of transcendental observation. The unprejudiced nature of a true preceptor who has no other function but to remain eternally under the banner of the Absolute is to impart the ever-existing unshaky position of the Absolute knowledge enriched with Ever-Blissful enthusiasm.
The All-Blissful Ever-Existing Absolute has emanated the rays of knowledge which can disclose the true transcendental position of the Fountain-head. So the taught should invoke Him to delegate such power to him in order to enable his progressive march in the region of the Absolute Personality where the significance of the First Person has preponderance over the transcendental manifestations of Infinitude. The Fountainhead of Infinitude, the Fountainhead of Infinite Wealths, viz., All-Majesty, All-Prowess, All-Godness, All-Beauty, All-Knowledge and All-Dissociations with flesh and mind, grants the prayers of different actors on this stage of the world who take initiative in the temporal region of space and time. The personality of Godhead has awarded full facility to them in their sojourn of limited knowledge in proportion to their amount of knowledge, eligibility and praying capacity. When we turn to the various activities of seekers of different limited treasures, we observe that those prayer-mongers who want to dove-tail themselves with the object of their prayer are also endowed in proportion to their capacity for enabling them to discover such partial manifestation of the Personal Absolute. So our much-coveted treasures will store for us our respective goals in proportion to our acquisitions.
Everyone is engaged in action. The law of karma means that there are reactions to every action and that a person must endure the reactions to his actions.
But a true devotee is not satisfied with having the boons from an empiricist whose impoverished knowledge is found to seek for the satisfaction of personal selfish wants merely. And those who are content to pose their location in Infinity are found to enervate themselves in a frenzied mood, while a devotee is always found to disapprove of their intoxicated demeanour in engaging themselves in the futile chase of temporal soapbubbles. So we do not find any frenzied disposition in a devotee like that in an elevationist or a salvationist.
The essential devotional activities of an unalloyed soul become entirely nugatory in the mentalities of atheists and are often enshrouded with the intellectual activities of agnostics and sceptics, as the latter are always found to hinge their flexibilities of speculation on their imperfect and restricted sensuous knowledge only. A true devotee can be able to see easily the alloyed activities or the so-called knowledge which passes by the name of nescience helping its victims in their march towards a fabricated manifestation of a temporal plane known as 'paradise'. This may be termed the second group where the frenzied ignorance of the aforesaid group is eliminated. Next when we come to examine the third group who are trying to dismiss all intra-mundane thoughts they are seen as located in a peculiarly hallucinating non-manifestative sphere of their self and we may undoubtedly say that this is a self-deception tantamount to an Alnascarian disposition. The owner of the astral and physical bodies has been, by the abuse of his free-will, obligated to remain in a sleeping condition when he has delegated his powers, during his conspicuous activities in the mundane world, to the two different covers which claim to be owned by him.
A true devotee never submits to any high-sounding reasonings of Elevationists or Salvationists when he is truly realising his own self as a conciliatory ancillary fragment of a particular manifesting Energy, the position of which is on the geometrical line between the mundane phenomena and the transcendental manifestations. So a devotee is not expected to indulge in the method of the so-called speculative philosophers of the world. The oft-disfigured sublime views and the eternal theme of the Vedanta do not go to prove any hallucinative imposition of different sexological questions to be associated with the Ever-Existing Blissful Knowledge. No variety of the knowledge of Finitude must intoxicate and cripple the transcendental march of the presumptuous owner of this world of three dimensions.
Whenever any inclination is observed in a sojourner for a conception of the Absolute, these sexological questions check his activities, but when his activities are scrutinised they are found to be in a particular chamber of a neuter aspect or a male or female aspect of that Object. The Personality of [sic] the Absolute Ecstatic Knowledge can only be had if the true discernment of the real self shakes off by his free will all finite temporal conceptions.
This second mantra of the yogic scripture Sri Ishopanishad refers to karma yoga, or devotional service:
A person may desire to live for hundreds of years if he works
according to this truth because that sort of work will not bind him to
the law of karma. And there is no alternative to this way for man.
~Sri Ishopanishad, Mantra Two
Being fully empowered through the mercy of the All-Blissful, the owner of all intra-mundane speculations can easily shake off the chains of the habit of measuring transformable things. An unalloyed soul can only get rid of his deluding conceptions of physico-mental shields. The eternal devotee is emancipated from non-realistic ideas by the causeless help of the Absolute, or in other words, is set free by his love for the latter. No clutches or prisoner's restrictions should be imposed on him like those that are necessary to be put on Elevationists and Salvationists. He has now got the unconditional mercy from the Supreme Fountainhead and he need not be compelled to be classed as a prisoner of the physico-mental.
So Shri Krishna Chaitanya has disclosed the Transcendental Manifestation which can be approached only by a theist who is confident of his realisation of the Ever-Existing Ecstatic Absolute Transcendent, as he has absolutely no reliance on the seeming activities of a temporal mundane observer, observation and observed. The theist can then approach Shri Krishna as Arjuna did when the latter played his part in the Great Mahabharata War. The elevationist and salvationist warriors had been combating with their physical and mental powers in order to predominate over each other. But the Song of Shri Krishna relieved them from all such gross and subtle undertakings. The War of the Mahabharata has shown us the contending positions of physical and mental heroes busily engaged in this region of mundane speculations. The Mahabharata has disclosed the fact of different positions of elevationists and salvationists, viz., their positions, deeds, and their final goals.
We have got the true comparative idea in the literary expression of the word "Excellent" i.e., one who has excelled all the rest of the members generally of his community. There can be no question when the final result is designated by the word "excellent". We need not again put that to a controversy. A transcendental harmonising plane would tell us, through transcendental Sounds, that the manifestations in the regions of three dimensions are not to be confused with those in the Manifestive Region of Shri Vaikuntha which in the preamble cannot welcome any challenge of an empiricist when the region itself is endowed with spirit and not with deformed and mutable matter. So, as devotees we have no discussion with an empiricist or a challenger in a mundane measurement, and the position of a devotee need not, therefore, be degraded to the position of an elevationist or a salvationist.
When we finish the perusal of the Mahabharata which includes the "Mokshadharma", "Sanatsujatiyam" and the "Bhagavat Gita", we can safely be entrusted with dealing with the transcendental book which is revered by both Bhagavatas and Sattwata Pancharatrikas. The best scripture of the Bhagavatas (devotees) is the Bhagavatam which is a narrative offered by Shri Suta Goswami to Shri Shaunaka and a legion of sages who sat for such a valuable teaching in Naimisaranya. The present Book of Shrimad Bhagavatam has incorporated all true Pancharatrika views and is known as the true commentary of the Aphorisms of Badarayana that go on to show the connecting link and consistency of apparently conflicting Mantras of the Vedas.
Those who engage in the culture of nescient activities shall enter into the darkest region of ignorance. Worse still are those engaged in the culture of so-called knowledge.
~Sri Ishopanishad, Mantra 9
Unfortunately, most of humanity spends the majority of its time in the culture of ignorance. We cultivate ignorance by serving our tongue, belly, genitals, and other senses like obedient slaves. The vast majority of our energy goes into this mad pursuit of sense pleasure. Left with frazzled nerves, frustration, anger, jealousy, envy, greed, hate, loneliness, and confusion; we seek an escape in alcohol, cocaine, heroin, and a myriad of other legal and illegal consciousness dimmers. This is the cultivation of ignorance.
The physical aspect of the Vedas would lead people to base their exploits upon the Physico-mental endowments of the Vedas but not upon the permanent and unalloyed knowledge of the Absolute. In order to give men relief from the clutches of physico-mental exploiters some impersonalists have jumped into the pacification of mundane meddlings which the Bhagavatam does not advocate. We see therefore that Bhagavatas incorporate all Pancharatrikas.
The supreme Lord Shri Krishna Chaitanya has encouraged His followers to learn Bhagavatam in an unalloyed mood. Though the Excellent Teachings of the Full Manifested Transcendent Absolute have been narrated through the medium of words, still a devotee may often engage himself in the outward manifestations which might be dissuading agents for entangling him in the temporal world. So the seeming realisation of Archa (Transcendental Image) of the Icongraphised Transcendentalism need not betray a real 'sadhaka'; nor should the symbolised Transcendental words bring the same into a controversial position.
The most important and crucial point of the Shrutis has been ignored by the Impersonalists. So they could not make any progress when they impirically perused and interpreted the Mantras of the Vedas. The Super-Excellent Teacher by His Super-Excellent Teachings has given the best and greatest facilities to His disciples who will, in no time, turn out to be serving Agents of the Super-Excelent, [sic] Transcendental Teacher, Who is Himself identical with the concept of the Supreme Godhead. By the word "Super-Excellent" the graduation in the Transcendental Region has been found to reach the climax.