The Vedic Wisdom (Part 1)

The Harmonist preaches the religion of Prema or transcendental love for Sree Krishna.

Transcendental love is very different from all forms of love with which we are familiar in the world. The only Object of transcendental love is Sree Krishna. Sree Krishna can never be the object of the so-called love of our mundane estate. The Biblical dictum, "Love God with all thy heart and with all thy soul," is not an invitation for the practice of earthly love towards God.

How, indeed, can it be possible to love man without loving God? As a matter of fact we cannot really love anybody unless we love God. But we cannot also love any other entity exactly in the same way as we love Sree Krishna. The one process is categorically different from the other. The word Maitri is used to denote the love of one soul for another soul. Maitri is qualitatively different from Prema. The servant loves the Master differently from the way he loves a fellow-servant. He should not love a fellow-servant in exactly the same way as he loves his only Master. One cannot, of course, love his worldly brother, father or mother as one loves another soul, or as he loves Sree Krishna.

The distinctive quality of Prema consists in this that it carries the Divine sexo-logical reference. Sree Krishna is the Only Purusha, all other souls are prakritis. There are also spiritual prakriti-purusha and spiritual prakriti-prakriti forms all of whom are prakritis with reference to Sree Krishna. The prakriti-purusha form of soul loves Sree Krishna in the same way as the prakriti-prakriti form. The prakriti-purusha soul is not the Divine Purusha. He is not Sree Krishna. The formal masculinity of spiritual prakriti is no masculinity either to the Divine Purusha or the spiritual prakriti. For this reason Prema, or the practice of love by all other entities towards Sree Krishna, refers to the unique Divine sexo-logical relationship.

The masculinity and the femininity of this world are again very different from the formal masculinity and femininity of pure souls. As a matter of fact the soul is never purusha in the senses in which the term is used in the Scriptures or in this world. The soul has also no mundane sex as he has no mundane body. The soul is un-born. The soul is altogether immune from the jurisdiction of phenomenal Nature. The soul is unmixed Chetan (uneclipsed cognitive energy).

We are, nevertheless still, very far from the positive spiritual realisation even after we are prepared to admit the difference between mundane and spiritual sex by mere intellectual conviction, as it is never possible for the eclipsed cognitive power of man to conceive the transcendental issue as it is. For such realisation man requires to be fully helped by the initiative of the Absolute Himself. It is also necessary to be enabled to receive this initial help by the due exercise of the proper receptive activity.

This help is most amply supplied by the Teaching of the Supreme Lord Sree Krishna Chaitanya. The Personality of Sree Krishna Chaitanya reveals Himself, to us, in the form of the Transcendental Narrative of his Leela, as the very Acme of Divine Magnanimity. He is the only complete Exponent of the sexo-logical reference in the Divinity. The worship of the Divine Couple Sree Sree Radha-Krishna was taught by Him, by His Word and Example, as the consummation of all tentative forms of worship that have been revealed to the cognition of man by the causeless Mercy of the Divine will.

Sree Krishna Chaitanya insists on the transcendence of the worship of Godhead with an emphasis that distinguishes His Teaching from that of all the prophets and teachers of Religion. The Mystery of the worship of Sree Sree Radha-Krishna, taught and practiced by Him and His followers, is unapproachable by any mundane contrivance. It is for overlooking this fundamental consideration that the comparative study of religion by modern scholars has so utterly failed to produce unanimity of conviction. It is high time to pay our best attention to the proper method of approaching the Transcendence which is part and parcel of the revelations.

The necessity of transcendental guidance for being enabled to approach the Absolute in the only scientific way requires to be seriously pondered and fully acted up to in practice by modern religionists. The empiric methods are as misleading and meaningless as the attempt to read a record without caring to possess the knowledge of the script. The worship of Sree Sree Radha-Krishna is bound to remain far less intelligible to empiric scholars than the undeciphered inscriptions at Mahenjodaro as they happen to be at the present moment and for an analogous reason.

On the proper method of the quest which is all important to the seeker of the Truth, the Teaching and Career of the Supreme Lord Sree Krishna Chaitanya shed a flood of light that was not available before Him. The entity of the seeker of the Absolute must needs be on the plane of the Object of his search if he is to have a subject at all. Empiric theology, no less than empiric philosophy, and Science are equally off the plane of worship. They are not less materialistic in their methods and conclusions regarding the Absolute than militant materialism that denies the very position of transcendence.

Revealed religion has suffered most grievously and most undeservedly alike at the hands of its empiric exponents and opponents. The Teaching and Career of the Supreme Lord offer the only constructive refutal of the vagaries of the empiric theologians, philosophers and scientists of all ages and countries that have misguided the world in its religious quest despite the real help that has been available from time immemorial in the shape of the revealed Scriptures.

The central doctrine of the Teaching of Mahaprabhu Sree Chaitanya, in conformity with that of all the revealed Scriptures of the world, refers to the Divinity of the Word or the Transcendental spoken Sound. The Word is God. The Name of God is God. The Name of God is not any word on a par with the words of names for expressing the objects or ideas that are experienced by man in this world. There is, therefore, also a corresponding and consistent method of approaching the Word by man with his present inadequate equipments. This method is part and parcel of the transcendental activity. It is only the transcendental in man that can approach the Word on His plane. The preacher as well as the hearer of the Word must follow this proper method, if they are to have real access to the Word as He is.

The Guru is no other than the transcendental person who is eligible to serve as the proper medium for the Appearance of the Word. The guidance of the Guru is obligatory if man is to be enabled to avoid the method of futile empiricism in approaching the true meaning of the Scriptures. The Supreme Lord Sree Krishna Chaitanya enacted the Role of the Guru in order to teach the world the right method of following the different Scriptures of the world. If the correct method is followed, everybody will obtain access to the plane of transcendence where there is no possibility of discord. So we earnestly appeal to our readers to bear in mind the epistemological method that is being followed in the propaganda of which this journal is the mouth-piece.

The initiative in serving the spiritual interest of all souls naturally lies with only pure serving souls in as much as they alone are the eternal mediums for the Appearance of Sree Sree Radha-Krishna in and through their unalloyed service of Himself by all the faculties of their pure souls. But we have it in the revealed Scriptures of the world that the Absolute Person, nevertheless, is pleased to manifest His Descent to the plane of the conditioned soul in the Form of the Name or Word.

The Word may be either descriptive of the Absolute, or the Absolute as the Subject of such description. He is as a matter of fact Both. The descriptions of the Scriptures are truly the Transcendental Body of the Absolute. Nevertheless all words are not on a par with the Name Who possesses all the Potencies of the Absolute in the highest measure. It is possible to approach the Personality of Sree Krishna through His Name. On the path of spiritual realisation the Name makes His Appearance even before the neophyte can have any realisation of the Form or any of the Attributes of the Divinity. The Scriptures contain the descriptions of the Form, Attributes, Activities and individual servants of Godhead. None of these are accessible to the eclipsed cognition of the neophyte till he has been purified of all earthly dirts by the preliminary practices of spiritual living. It is at this critical stage that the Mercy of the Name alone becomes available to the humble seeker of His unalloyed service.

For this reason the service of the Name Krishna, and not merely a descriptive designation, has been made available to all conditioned souls by the unparalleled Mercy of the Supreme Teacher of all religions. It is this realism that constitutes the appropriate form of the Divine Dispensation of the present scientific age.

But in the New Dispensation there is a further revelation viz., that even the Name cannot be available except by the mercy of the Guru. Hence the Name, that has been offered by the Supreme Lord, is not merely the name of Sree Krishna but the Coupled Form Sree Sree Radha-Krishna. The name of Radha precedes the name of Sree Krishna. Radha is the Guru or the Eternal Counter-Whole and the Source of the service of all individual souls who are the products of her essence.

It is not possible for the individual soul to chant the Name of Sree Krishna except by willing subservience to the Complete Spiritual Energy of whom he is a tiny spark. The service of the Guru is, therefore, alone available to the individual soul in the truly unsolicited form. As soon as an individual soul is blessed by the real mercy of the Guru he becomes an agent of the Guru for conveying the message of the Guru to all souls. But the individual soul, as he is not the principal but only the agent, cannot impart spiritual enlightenment in the form of the gift of the Name Krishna. That is absolutely reserved for the plenary Divine energy. The Harmonist seeks to carry the Message of the Guru to all sincere seekers of the Truth.

Talk about the Absolute

Editor's talk to Herr Baron H.E. Von Koeth and Herr E.G. Schulze
(Short-handed by Sj. Anil Kanta Ganguli B.A)

WE require the fullness of things. The plenary transcendence is to be approached. The difficult problem is to solve how we can do so. First of all we find that the mind is meant for dealing with the external finite things of this world. Our senses are reciprocated with the objects but these objects are found to be inadequate for our purpose. When we are in search of more than is available here, or when we require a continuity of those very things, we are simply denied. We cannot have our desirable objects in full, so we try to devise some means that continuity may be preserved.

Here we find three different trends, I mean qualities. One quality tends to appear for creating purposes, the next for sustenance and the third for destruction. When there is nothing, something comes up for our sensuous inspection, something which was not in existence before or whose existence could not trace before, just like an entry on the stage. It exists for some time. And then it takes its exit from the stage. These are the three things we mark in this world, whereas in the Absolute, these are not the current conditions, though they have got their existence in order to foster the ecstasy of the Absolute.

We require to eliminate all sorts of undesirable impediments. We require to get rid of the alloyed portions, the defective portions, which we have incorporated with us. All sorts of imperfections should be avoided.

In the region of the Absolute we know there are three different energies working, one of which is His ecstatic energy by which bliss is conferred to us, and He is found to be inebriated with the ecstatic exploitations. The very Absolute indulges Himself in the ecstatic mood and He is delighted; and when we find that He is delighted, we, being more or less part and parcel of the transaction, get a share as well; we being not the mind but the soul proper. When He is delighted, we necessarily get the advantage of that delightful temper of the Absolute. When He is surcharged with all beatific phases, we are also endowed with a part as per our own eligibility; as per our affinity of serving Him, we enjoy a part. Here where we are passing through non-absolute region, our enjoyment is nothing but depriving Him of his enjoyment. We should take proper care not to carry our defective ideas there. The passionate desires of this mundane world need not be carried to the Absolute region. The second is the true energy, the energy of diffusing true knowledge; and the third is existence. In the mundane region, we find three things: existence, sustenance and destruction. Destruction is a thing which is quite undesirable here. But in the Absolute region, we find the very dissociation or separation has got a factor in inebriating us. Here when we are deprived of something, we are rather helpless; there we get more opportunities of serving Him in case of separation. The very procedure of approaching Him is to realise the condition of separation. Here we do not find Him. The Absolute cannot be had here though we may have ample inclination of having Him. The very formation of our equipments, the mind and the senses - quite inadequate to have an approach of the transcendence, neither can we expect Him to be confined here as one of the objects of phenomena. We need not think that He should come under our sensuous jurisdiction. If He came as an object, we would accuse Him of His finiteness. He is not to be dealt as one of the material objects which can be reciprocated by our senses. We need not think so. He keeps himself quite out of our vision and out of the touch of our senses. Unless we have devotional aptitude, we cannot invoke Him here. He does not condescend to come to this region and become an object of the activities of our senses. So we should find out a means to approach Him and this is known as sadhan bhakti, i.e., the procedure to be adopted in our case. The Supreme Lord has not given us any privilege of exposing Himself to our senses. Phenomenal objects are presented to us, for duping us, for deluding us. So we require to be in touch with Him, but He has denied us this privilege. This is a case of separation. When he, the Lover, the Centre of all love, has denied the beloved His presence, our inclination and activities should double, or treble to have His association. So this sort of separation is an essential point - is the cardinal point - that will help us to have the inclination of approaching Him. All our attempts should tend to associate with Him, because the association is denied for the purpose of studying our heart. He has given us this facility to have an easy track to reach Him. The very condition of separation is a very good thing for his servitor as he can culture his affinity or inclination for the Absolute more than when he is allowed to appear before Him. He has intentionally deprived us of His presence. He was found to be of a loving temper, but the Lover has deserted us, and we are to follow Him. When we are disappointed to have His presence, we should thank our stars that our Lover has gained much by dissociating Himself from us. I mean the Autocrat has got the right of making Himself quite happy by denying His presence to us. He finds Himself very happy by deserting us, and we are to submit to His pleasure and wish, we are to submit to His whims. We must abide by His decision. This I consider to be service. That is, I need not satisfy my senses by approaching Him. But when he has managed to shut Himself from my senses, I know He wants that I should acquire more affinity for Him, and He has given me that opportunity. If He came within our perception, we would simply gratify our senses, which would be a detriment to our cause and would prove an obstacle to our service. An illustration is quoted. One infinitesimal absolute was fanning the Absolute Infinity. The moment he thought that the Lord was delighted by his services-that the Master had accepted his services-he became overpowered and could fan no more. Thus he was found to be negligent in offering his services. The fanner should have known that he aught not to satisfy his senses by stopping his services by considering that the Master had accepted his services. He should not have become inebriated, because it proved rather a bar to his offering further service. Instead of being taken away by our emotional sentiments, we should always be alert in offering our service and service is best offered by chanting the Name. The Supreme Lord is keeping Himself at a distance and we are to seek after Him; this is the proper way of chanting the Name. The Name of the Absolute should be chanted continually so that we may be mindful and not diffident to offer our services. As soon as we show our diffidence to serve Him, and stop chanting His Name, we are necessarily led to lord it over this phenomena, we get a quite different occupation. The occupation or the sole function of the soul is nothing but to associate himself with the Supreme Lord. As soon as we are negligent of our services, we miss the opportunity of associating with Him. We are His eternal servitors (bhaktas) and as such we have no other occupation but to serve Him. If we neglect this injunction, we will have to become engaged with temporal things; but these engagements will not be continued for a long time. There will be a cessation of such engagements.