The Career and Teachings of the Supreme Lord Sree Krishna-Chaitanya
by Sri Narayan Das Bhakti
Sadhukar
CHAPTER XVIII
SIGNIFICANCE OF SCHOLASTIC TRIUMPHS
I have tried to reproduce
almost verbatim the account of Sree Thakur Brindavandas in describing the
controversial triumph of Nimai Pandit over ‘the Conqueror, of all quarters’.
Technical details of the controversy also have been handed down to us in the
Narrative of the same event in the immortal work of Sree Krishnadas Kaviraj
Goswami. The shloka which was condemned by Sree Gaursundar runs as follows:—
Mahatvam
Gangayah Satatamidamavati nitaram
Yadesa
Shree-Vishnoshcharana Kamalotpattisubkaga
Dvitiya
Shree Lakshmiriva Suranarairarchyacharana
Bhabanibharturya shirasi bibhavatyad bhutaguna.
Sree Gaursundar pointed out
in detail the defective disposition and use of words and the incorrectness of
rhetorical embellishments used in the shloka,
while admitting specific excellences. He observed that the five principal
defects pointed out by Him were the most prominent ones; but there were also
other and numerous minor defects. He said that the productions of the greatest
poets such as Kalidas, Bhababhuti, Jayadeva, etc., were not also free from all
defects; and so it was not necessary for ‘the Conqueror’ to be discouraged, inasmuch
as he certainly possessed the poetic genius which is so rare.
The power of learning, that
ever serves the Supreme Lord, does not mislead any one; but worldly learning
always misleads her votaries. This is not the Age-long controversy of Theology versus Natural Science; as both of them
are equally the products of the erring reason of man. The issue is the higher
one. Is the Absolute attainable by empiric knowledge ? Nimai Pandit held the
view that empiric knowledge is necessarily defective, i.e., untrue, by the
standard of the Absolute. Instead of helping us to find the Truth empiric
knowledge produces a delusive belief in the sufficiency of itself, and thus
acts as an obstacle in the way of the search of the Truth.
All mental speculation as a
matter of fact is non-spiritual by its unavoidable neglect to make due
allowance for inherent limitations. It is never possible for the reason of man
to discover the Absolute Truth by its unavoidably limited speculative efforts.
‘The Conqueror of all quarters’ was, however, aware of this. He knew, what
ordinary scholars will be hardly prepared to admit, that it was the goddess of
learning who was the cause of his genius. If this were fully admitted by
everybody then all differences, detectable in such knowledge, would be proved
to be fictitious, and be at once seen as due to the operation of an invisible
controlling Power who also produces and keeps up the idea of human merit as the
resultant of human effort. The Conqueror’ was aware of the conditional nature
of his knowledge. But ‘the Conqueror’ himself had not realized the utter
delusiveness of all worldly learning. He accordingly aspired to the fame of
being the acknowledged leading scholar of the world. The greatest theologians
and the greatest scientists are but puppets in the hands of the goddess of
illusion, if either of them suppose that they can know the Truth by their
limited effort.
Sree Jiva Goswami prabhu is
not a controversialist of the mundane stamp. His arguments can never be really
grasped by even the greatest Or empiric thinkers of this world. Sree Jiva Goswami
refutes his antagonists by arguments that are intelligible to empiricists for
overthrowing the conclusions of a faulty system. He however, knew that he was
actually the channel of communication of the one Living Indivisible Knowledge
to all impartial understandings in the Form of the Articulated Transcendental
Sound. Sree Jiva Goswami’s sole ambition was to serve as the unobstructive
medium of the Divine Communication. He is, as a matter of fact, not in the
scale of comparison with the empiric scholars of this world. All comparison
between one empiric scholar and another is mundane and delusive. The futile
speculation of one man is by its nature challengeable by the equally abortive
rival speculation of another man. This opens the way to the vicious cycle of
the endless and inconclusive controversy that passes in the name of theology.
All this controversy is untrue and never takes us an inch in the direction of
the Truth. In the picturesque language of Srimad Bhagavatam it is futile to
expect the discovery of the grain by thrashing the empty chaff. Empiric
knowledge has not legs to stand upon. It rests on unproved and unprovable
assumptions. It assumes the principle of limitation itself as the basis of its
search for the Unlimited! Can there be conceived a greater or more absurd form
of self-deception than this?
‘The Conqueror’ was the
favoured protégé of the goddess of the delusive empiric learning. All the
empiric sciences accordingly yielded up their whole wealth ( ?) of hypothetical
truths ( ?) to him, without any acquisitive effort on his part. The ideal of
the empiric quest is the unrealizable wild-goose of the fable. Let us suppose
that it is possible for one to know everything that it is possible or desirable
for one to know and whenever one is in actual need of such knowledge. Will the
possession of such power yield, or produce in such a person the inclination
for, the Absolute Truth? If I could attain every facility that is conceivable to
the human reason as desirable possession without any effort, would it be the
really satisfactory state of existence that it is conceived to be? This was the
actual condition of ‘the Conqueror of all quarters.’ But he felt as solitary as
Faust himself ‘in his bad eminence’. But there is no Tempter except one’s own
boundless vanity of the hankering for empiric knowledge. The attempt to shift
the responsibility of our sons to the shoulders of a third party, is most
disingenuous since it is so easy to explain our own responsibility for our sins
without the profanity of any such deliberately dishonest assumptions!
The paltry reason of man,
when it takes upon itself to shape its own course, finds itself reaping the
harvest of its deliberate folly. It could foresee well enough the inevitable
consequences of its attempt to dominate the world, if it could only properly
exercise the sense of its responsibility for its acts, which it undoubtedly
possesses. The exercise of the egotistic principle, on the part of a being with
limited faculties of knowledge, is bound to lead to discord and misery. The
plea is sometimes advanced that the miseries of this world are unreal. They do
not really affect those who possess sufficient firmness of disposition. This is
the Stoic’s philosophy. But it is the most fatal form of all delusions. It is
hardly prepared to deny the reality of misery in the case of those who do not
possess the required imaginary firmness of disposition. It finds itself
occupied in applauding the qualities of the unfeeling stone and the hardened
criminal. This mechanical ‘unconcern’ is not capable of being recognized even
by the limited intellect as the ideal of human perfection. The miseries of this
world are not really ended by such suicidal policy. It is necessary to seek out
the true cause of our miseries for effecting their real and lasting cure.
Empiric science is, at any rate, free from the killing vice of callousness of
the Stoics. Its defect is not that it at all undertakes to search for the
Truth; but that it deliberately undertakes to do this in the evidently wrong
way. The empiric optimist is, however, nevertheless cousin-german of the
empiric pessimist. The forte of both
is an egregious egotism which both of them mistake for the principle of their
coveted individuality and personality and for which they heroically prepare
themselves to take all fictitious risks. This is no doubt rank atheism. Which
is the antagonist against whom all this preparation is directed. There is no
Satan in this world except one’s own avoidable egotistic vanity.
‘The Conqueror of all
quarters’ was happily disillusioned and gave up all worldly ambition to follow
the true spiritual path. It is necessary to consider the means by which such a
result was produced, as also the nature of the change itself. This great change
was wrought by the Mercy of Sree Gaursundar. The goddess of learning directed
‘the Conqueror’ to the Feet of Nimai Pandit. The same goddess was thus
performing a double and apparently contradictory function. She had herself
hitherto produced the delusion from which she now chose to rescue her victim.
For the previous sufferings of ‘the Conqueror’ the goddess was not to blame at
all. She is ever contriving to save the perverse soul from the consequences of
his suicidal folly, without allowing him to succeed in actually destroying
himself. Her function is like that of the wise mother who deludes her wayward
child with toys that have no intrinsic worth in order to wean the naughty child
from the consequences, present and prospective, of his wantonness. The culpable
egotistic sentiment is inherent in free cognition and is controllable only by
the conviction of its possessor that it is wrong. This is at once the privilege
and the danger of the soul of man poised between the spiritual and mundane
worlds. The jiva possesses as his birthright perfect freedom to abuse his
cognitive liberty. The empiric sciences of this world provide the scope for the
abuse of his liberty. The sciences themselves are not to blame for this. As a matter
of fact they are never created by, but are only communicated to, the mind of
man. ‘The Conqueror’ had realized this truth. Modern scientists, as a rule, do
not admit this. Nor do they admit its corollary that the empiric sciences only
serve to conceal the Truth more effectively. This last fact was also unknown to
‘the Conqueror’. But inasmuch as he was fortunately immune from the more fatal
of the above two defects he proved to be of a more governable disposition.
Mother Saraswathi accordingly directed him to the Lord Who alone could deliver
him from his ignorance. It is only by the positive Appearance of the Truth that
untruth loses its power over us.
The Supreme Lord is the
Sole Director of all the power of learning. We want our so-called acquired learning
to serve our own selfish purposes, and not for serving the purpose of the Lord.
But learning refuses to serve any one except the Lord. When she seems to serve
us she only puts on a deceptive appearance, in order to delude us for our
benefit, by the Will of the Lord. This deception is continued as long as we
retain the least inclination to be her master. As a matter of fact we can never
be her master. We serve her even when she seems to serve us although this is
contrived by her with such consummate skill that we find ample scope for
serving her purpose even by our vanity of being her master. It is our own
irrational attitude that is solely responsible for the deception, that is thus
provided by the Mercy of the Supreme Lord for our redemption.
The goddess of learning
ever serves the Supreme Lord and she serves only Him. This is inconceivable to
our limited understanding. We are ever striving to learn the so-called deluding
secrets of Nature. Such striving would be meaningless if we didn’t expect to be
rewarded with success in the shape of the attainment of material results
yielding worldly facilities. The power to be able to compose impromptu verses
is one of such facilities. The verses actually composed by ‘the Conqueror’ were
in praise of the holy Ganges; and such performance might, therefore, appear to
have been of a spiritual nature. But ‘the Conqueror’ was praising the Ganges
only in order to win fame for himself. Every learned activity of empiric reason
necessarily aims at some such definite selfish result. Empiric learning has its
face always and necessarily directed towards the selfish interests of its
ignorant victim.
The so-called disinterested
pursuit of knowledge for its own sake, so loudly advertised by the empiric
pedants, is a misnomer as applied to the inductive and deductive processes of
the mental principle professing to engage itself in unraveling the so-called
mysteries of the mundane world. It is not at all disinterested.. Behind it all
lies the insincere conviction that knowledge will bring power to its possessor.
It is the possession and enjoyment of power over Nature that can be the only
logical goal of all worldly learning. However proud we may be of this learning
it is permissible to question the conclusion that it has any real use for us. Is not the whole affair an example of
repeating a foolish experiment even after its exposure? We are apt to assume
that our knowledge is the cause of the so-called progress of mundane
civilization. We are punished and disillusioned by the ever-present possibility
of the wheels of this worldly civilization irrevocably going back at any
moment. If knowledge has to be kept up to the teaching of experience by the
process of its constant revision, is it not thereby proved to be always really
inapplicable to any event? If what we are pleased, on insufficient grounds, to
call the cause of an event, turns out
to be no such thing, can we blame anybody excepting ourselves for neglecting
this foregone conclusion?
The laws of Mathematics, we
say, have proved perfectly reliable ever since the dawn of human civilization,
and are accordingly inferred to be absolutely true; and it is also expected
that they will remain true for all time. There are certain so called
fundamental principles which are also supposed to be true. All this is, on the
face of it, self-contradictory. What then is the real value of this experience
? The whole position is entirely relative to the nature of our present senses
and shares all their defects. The senses do not give us the correct information.
Our unbiased reason tells us that they cannot also give us the true
information, as the temporary have no capacity of apprehending the Absolute
Reality. The knowledge, that our senses yield, is one of the changing phenomena
of this world. It cannot understand itself.
If it were possible to know
the Truth would we still have the temporary use of our empiric knowledge? ‘The
Conqueror’. at any rate, gave up once for all any further acquisitive effort.
He must have realized the utter uselessness of such knowledge. We learn that he
lived to write theological works that have come down to us embodying his
reasons for forsaking the empiric quest. So his activities did not stop
altogether. But a race of theological writers and priests by themselves do not supply
the ideal state of worldly existence. The world is sufficiently bad as it is.
But it would be worse by such a change for the reason that even material
civilization is preferable to fanatical barbarism. But are we absolutely sure
that material civilization or material barbarism is producible by the effort of
the will of man? The philosophical answer should be in the negative.
But if we change the form
of the question and ask, ‘Is the knowledge of the Absolute Truth attainable by
man?’ we at once find the right track. ‘The Conqueror’ was evidently satisfied
that it is possible to know the Truth. Our responsibility in the matter is very
great indeed. If the Truth is knowable we cannot be excused if we deliberately
neglect to find Him. It is said that the Truth is to be found in the
Scriptures. This is denied by the Upanishads which declare that there are two
kinds of learning or knowledge, viz.,
(l) the transcendental knowledge, and (2) knowledge that is not so. The Vedas
and all branches of study are classed as the text books of non-transcendental
learning. The transcendental learning is declared to be that by which the
Transcendental Truth is known. The Bhagavatam declares that if a person, who is
thoroughly versed in the Scriptures, be not conversant with the transcendental,
then his efforts in the acquisition and preservation of such learning have no
more value than the labour that is wasted in tending a dry cow. A distinction
is made between the phenomenal and the transcendental. Learning as such, whether
in the form of Theology or otherwise, is lumped together as non transcendental.
The knowledge of the Scriptures is not differentiated from that of any other
branch of study. Neither is knowledge condemned. It is declared that
non-transcendental knowledge is subordinate to the transcendental and that the
possession of the transcendental knowledge automatically and perfectly settles
our relation to non-transcendental knowledge and teaches us the proper use of
empiric knowledge. We need not be haunted with the impertinent fears of a
conspiracy for the suppression or preservation of material civilization. The
question at issue does not affect our material prospects which are quite safe
in the hands of Providence. But the method to be pursued seriously concerns the
prospects of the individual soul for regaining his natural spiritual condition.
Transcendental Knowledge
cannot be acquired by the inductive or deductive empiric processes. The first
step that is to be taken in the direction of the attainment of such knowledge,
is to try to be convinced of the necessity of submitting to receive Him at the
Hands of the Supreme Lord. Godhead Himself is the Absolute Knowledge. He alone
can make Himself known to us. He is Free in His Choice to make Himself known to
us. We also may or may not want to know Him. We do not really want to know Him
so long as we do not want to serve Him. The Supreme Lord may be known only by
the method of complete submission. Perfect submission is an indispensable
condition of the attainment of such knowledge. The necessity and nature of
complete submission is not conceivable except by the Mercy of the Lord. The
Lord is spontaneously All-merciful. We come under the Influence of His Mercy
the moment we are at all really inclined to
submit to Him. This inclination is sometimes produced by the shock of utter
worldly humiliation. It was so in the case of ‘the Conqueror’. It came to him
as the consequence of his defeat in controversy by the Lord.
The Mercy of the Supreme
Lord often comes in the shape of defeat and humiliation. No one except the
actual recipient of the Divine Favour can perceive His Appearance. We gather
all this from the writings of Keshab Bhatta himself who was favoured by the
Supreme Lord.
The goddess of learning
ever serves her Lord. She directs the erring empiric scholar to the Real
Knowledge when he is at all inclined to serve the Truth. The endless
experiments with the finite, that now-a-days absorb all intellectual efforts of
man, are not undertaken for the purpose of finding the Truth. Very few of those
who busy themselves with the acquisition of worldly learning and fewer still of
those who attain fame and success(?) in such pursuit, attain to the inclination
to suspect the utter worthlessness of empiric scholarship in itself. They
seldom seriously put the question to themselves, ‘What shall we do with this
deluding and changing knowledge?’ Most people take it for granted that empiric
knowledge is desirable because it is valued by all people of this world. It is
supposed to increase our chances of happiness ( ?) It is only those, who do not
feel sufficiently satisfied by the
prospect, who ask the further question, ‘What is the value of the proposed
happiness itself?’
It is in this last form
that the call for the quest of the Absolute makes its first appearance to the
individual consciousness. So long as the lure of worldly prospects continue to
dominate the mind one can hardly be expected to pay any serious attention to
the voice of the higher reason that is always speaking to everybody from
within. It is only when a person actually shapes his external conduct in
conformity with such prompting that he is in a position to obtain the realized
Mercy of the Supreme Lord. Vanity in all its forms stands in the way of our
real conversion to the free spiritual service of the Absolute.
Sree Gaursundar showed His
Extraordinary Mercy to ‘the Conqueror of all quarters’ by defeating him in
controversy in such a way that the vanquished was enabled to realize, for the
first time in his life, his own utter helplessness in the Presence of a mere
Boy Who taught nothing higher than vyakarana. This proved to be an
exceptionally favourable spiritual conjunction for ‘the Conqueror’ who was
actually enabled to realize its supreme significance for himself by the grace
of the goddess of learning whom he had worshipped so long for a vain purpose.
It is likely that really
great scholars may be in a slightly better position than others to be able to
realize the utter worthlessness of all empiric scholarly achievements. But it
is rarely that this saving truth is rightly grasped and acted upon by any one
in this world of his own accord. The spiritual instinct, the effective
hankering for the unalloyed Truth, is not the result of any worldly merit or
demerit. But as soon as the first dim reflection of the light of Truth begins
to irradiate the dark chambers of the mind, it automatically drives out the
desire of all worldly possession. The mind realizes that the Truth has made His
Appearance, not as the result of the intensity of its professed quest for the
Truth of Whom it had no idea previously, but in spite of its bungling activity
calculated to shut Him out altogether.
The process of spiritual
enlightenment is not of the nature of the last term of a continued mathematical
series, neither does it result in the destruction of all previous experience.
It should rather be regarded as the fulfillment of all previous activities.
With the Appearance of the Absolute, however, there is an end of all
deficiency, unwholesomeness and ignorance we now know the Full Truth, and, in
this sense, enlightenment is its own fulfillment. It also dis-illusionizes. The
whole body of the old knowledge is seen to be utterly insubstantial and
positively delusive. The shadow had all along been mistaken for the substance.
The nature of the shadow is truly realizable only after one’s acquaintance with
the substance. There is then no more chance of the shadow being mistaken for
the substance.
It is no doubt a rude shock
to be awakened in this manner. ‘The Conqueror’ confessed that the first
suspicion that he had of the actual Approach of the Truth, was caused by his
absolute collapse at the very Sight of the Lord. The darkness, which had been
so fondly cherished, was found powerless to oppose the Advent of the Living
Light. The first experience of the transcendental requires to be carefully
distinguished from the invasion of hallucination. The transcendental is not
anything that is opposed to the laws of physical Nature. It is not any thing
abnormal. It is not a monstrosity. It neither confounds nor stupefies, but
enlightens. It does not destroy anything except ignorance. We understand for
the first time the real meaning of all those things with which we had been
already familiar. All this happens without any initiative on one’s part and by
the mere Sight of the Truth Who is no other than the Divine Person Himself.
The goddess of learning
told ‘the Conqueror’ that he had at last gained the real reward of his devotion
to her by obtaining the Sight of the Lord. But, as a matter of fact, Sree
Gaursundar was being actually seen by all the people of Nadia, who failed to
experience any such spiritual consequences. There is a difference between
worldly seeing and spiritual seeing. The term ‘seeing’ has to be used to
express the new process in order to make the fact at all intelligible to the
ignorant people of the world: But spiritual seeing is very different from
although certainly analogous to the process of worldly seeing. In the former
the Object to be seer takes the initiative, while in the latter the initiative
seems to lie with the person who sees. That, which we seem to see on our own
initiative, is the shadow. In such seeing we approach only such objects that
are bound to show themselves to us the moment we choose to look at them. The
object has no option but to be seen. Nay, it is bound to submit itself to the
inspection of our senses as soon as we are in a position to choose to inspect.
This process of knowing applies only to matter, limited existence or the
shadow. The substantive Reality is spiritual and possesses the initiative.
Why do we never see the
soul of man ? Because we are content with the sight of the material case which seems
readily enough to submit to our sensuous inspection. The material eye sees, can
see, only matter. The soul does not see matter as substance. He is not under
the necessity of curtailing or distorting his naturally perfect vision. One is
no loser if his faculty of vision ceases to be eclipsable by the interposition
of an opaque body. The soul sees, through all obstacles, the object. He sees
the obstacle as the enveloping shadow of the substance. There is thus no loss
of cognitive power by the spiritual process.
The soul, in his normal
state of uneclipsed spiritual condition is privileged to have the sight of the
reality. This privilege he forfeits the moment he begins to function in this
material world. His faculty of vision is eclipsed, as he now sees through the
coloured glasses of the material eyes, which function is on the level of the
plane of this world. But he is no gainer by the change as his knowledge of his
own self is also correspondingly obscured. The conditioned soul functions in
this world by allowing himself to be personated by a material substance which
he is compelled to mistake for himself. But his adventitious second self is not
really his servant, but always behaves as his master and makes him undergo in
proxy the disappointments of his unnatural identification with its
insubstantial existence. It is no privilege or widening of existence for the
substance to be reduced to the serfdom of a shadow.
The All-soul is never
subject to any such obscuration. It is only the jiva soul, who is a detachable particle of the Potency of the
All-soul, who is liable to succumb to His limiting Power. ‘The Conqueror’ had
the spiritual vision of the Lord. The people of Nadia also saw the Lord but
with their material eyes and necessarily as an entity of this world. But ‘the
Conqueror’, no sooner did he see the Lord, then he believed Him to be more than
human. In fact the Lord made Himself known to Him at the very first sight. No
one can recognize the Lord unless He makes Himself known. This applies to all
spiritual entities. They have an unstinted sight of one another in the Lord so
long as they serve the Lord by the boundless measure of the perennial
requirements of such service. The Lord strictly reserves the right of remaining
unrecognized by all till He chooses to make Himself known to any one out of His
own causeless mercy.
As soon as the Lord
permitted ‘the Conqueror of all quarters’ to have the real Sight of Himself all
the learning of which he supposed himself to have been the master, came forward
in the living form of the Spiritual Power that ever serves the Lord, and made
Herself known to him as She really is. The goddess of learning is that Power
whereby the Lord makes Himself known to the cognitive faculty of the jiva. She is part and parcel of the
Divinity Himself. But she is not Herself the Master. She is Power and not
Possessor of Power. She is, however, Power with Personality and Function under
the Supreme and Exclusive Direction of the Divine Will. In this She resembles
souls in the state of Grace. ‘the Conqueror’ had been unable to know Her Real
Nature as long as he had been trying to make use of Her for purposes other than
the service of the Lord. But when the Lord was pleased to be merciful to ‘the
Conqueror’ the goddess, by the Will of the Lord, instead of misleading now,
made known to ‘the Conqueror’ the Real Nature of the Lord, which is, indeed,
the legitimate function of all learning. ‘the Conqueror’, who had supposed that
he was master of all the Shastric learning,
now discovered that he had misunderstood everything. He also realized the fact
that no one can know the Lord by one’s own aspiring efforts.
The Goddess directed Her
votary to make his unconditional submission to the Lord without delay. When the
Lord asked him why he, ‘the Conqueror of all quarters’, had chosen to submit to
Him, Keshab Bhatta replied that everything is fulfilled by serving the Lord.
The spiritual service of the Lord, resting upon the principle of complete
submission, is the summum bonum This
is realized only by the causeless Mercy of the Lord as conditioned souls are
naturally disinclined to unconditional submission to another’s personality.
This was also the stumbling block in the way of the scholars of Nabadwip. They
did not believe in the Personality of the Lord. But unless the Lord is a Person
how is it possible to serve Him at all? The Lord, of course, is not a person
like conditioned souls. The empiric idea of personality is that of a limited
and erring mind joined to a gross physical body. It is not, therefore, at all
surprising that there should be a sincere and universal repugnance, on the part
of empiric thinkers, to admit such personality in the case of the Supreme Lord.
But the Personality of the Lord and of His servants are neither material nor
mental. Therefore the objection does not apply.
The Goddess of Learning did
not also direct ‘the Conqueror’ to submit to an abstract principle, which would
be a fraud. The so-called submission to an abstract principle is rendered to a
variable concoction of one’s own erring mind. When we pretend to submit to an abstract divinity ( ?) we
thereby only make a show of submitting to our own pedantic fantasies. As a
matter of fact we are disinclined to submit to a real person as such submission
appears to us to be incompatible with a free rational individual existence.
So submission to the
Supreme Person is equivalent neither to submission to an abstraction nor to a
conditioned soul. The Personality of the Supreme Lord is such that by
submitting to Him we are delivered from the necessity of following the
indeterminate abstract concoctions of our own sensuous minds and the similar
fancies of others. We have in this world no choice but to submit to one of
these two alternatives and we choose to call the process by the epithets of
liberty (?) and rationalism (?) against the elementary principles of our own
logic. Actual unconditional submission to the Transcendental Personality of the
Supreme Lord is the only cure of this misfortune to which we are thus necessarily
subject in the conditioned state.
Keshab Bhatta admitted that
the Personality of the Lord is inconceivable to the empiric reason and is the
Truth of all the Scriptures Those empiric philosophical systems, which try to
establish the Nature of Godhead by the process of inductive reasoning based on
the experience of this world, can really arrive at no definite conclusion.
Keshab Bhatta realized that he had known nothing
by his so-called erudition, and that it was not possible for him to know the
Truth except by the Mercy of the Lord. He also realized that he was now enabled
to understand, against the conclusions of all empiric philosophy, that the Son
of Sree Jagannath Misra is the Supreme Lord, that his own past profession of
submission to the Supreme Lord had been a terrible self-deception, that it was
only now that he was privileged to obtain the chance of really submitting to
the Supreme Lord Himself in the Person of Sree Gaursundar, that such submission
was at once the cause and the result, the indispensable concomitant, of
spiritual enlightenment by the Grace of the Lord.
The episode of the defeat
and conversion of ‘the Conqueror’ is the first-recorded instance of the
deliverance of a conditioned soul by the mercy of Sree Gaursundar. We would,
therefore, be well advised if we try to consider carefully how this Mercy was
obtained. The process has been described above in detail by the grace of Thakur
Brindavandas. We have seen that the Mercy of the Lord was not earned by any
worldly merit. It was altogether causeless. We can, therefore, obtain some sort
of the idea of its nature by the careful consideration of this actual instance.
Does such knowledge help us in any way in attaining the spiritual life? It does
so negatively, by destroying current misconceptions on the subject, if we give
the Narrative an impartial hearing and thus prepare our minds for receiving the
Truth when He actually makes His Appearance in the person of the devotee of the Supreme Lord, who teaches us the Truth
by his own conduct. We can, however, understand the words of the bona fide devotee by the method of personal submission to him. Sree
Gaursundar is the Supreme Lord Himself. He appeared in this world in the
character of His devotee in order to establish the necessity of submission to
the servant of the Lord if one really wants to obtain spiritual enlightenment.
The episode of ‘the Conqueror of all quarters’ will have, therefore, served its
real purpose if it establishes to one’s satisfaction the necessity of this
procedure to be followed even by those who are supposed to be masters ( ?) of
all the knowledge of this world.
But how is it possible to
recognize the transcendental personality of the devotees of the Lord? This, of
course, depends entirely on the Mercy of the Lord Himself, which can be secured
by serving the Goddess of Learning not with the object of gaining any worldly
advantage but for the purpose of receiving spiritual
enlightenment. In the case of ‘the Conqueror’ he had all along been using
his learning to procure reputation and wealth. He was now disillusioned by the
causeless Mercy of Sree Gaursundar. The devotees of the Lord are ever engaged
in endeavoring to reclaim all conditioned souls from the state of bondage to
the limiting Energy. The bondage is devised by the punitive Power of the Lord,
who is the negative aspect of His Beneficent Power. The devotees of the Lord
are the agents of Positive Beneficence of Divine Power, appearing in this world
to deliver all bound souls by affording them an opportunity of actual
submission to the agents of the Lord, i.e., to themselves. The bound jiva is seldom inclined to-submit to any
person other than himself. The
inclination to submit to a devotee may be produced by attending carefully to
the Narrative of the Activities of Sree Gaursundar as interpreted by His
associates and followers for the benefit of all conditioned souls.
It was only after he had
submitted to the Feet of the Lord that ‘the Conqueror’ attained the spiritual
life. He became a devotee of the Lord. ‘The Conqueror of all quarters’ was
freed from his accumulated ignorance and at last became really learned by
learning the service of the Lord.
Keshab Bhatta belonged
originally to the school of Nimbarkacharyya and is the author of ‘Kramadeepika’ in which work he lays down the principles of the service of Sree
Radha Krishna in conformity with the Teachings of Sree Gaursundar and the
verses of the ‘Dasa-SIoki’ of Nimbarkacharyya. He was followed by
Gangalya Bhatta and other disciples. At a subsequent period, Keshab Kashmiri,
who is not to be confounded with Keshab Bhatta, and others gave up the path of
Sree Gaursundar and established an independent school. But Sree Sanatana
Goswami and Sree Gopala Bhatta Goswami, in recognition of the fact that Keshab
Bhatta was enlightened by Sree Gaursundar, have collected material for the
Vaishnavite canon from his work, the ‘Krama-deepika’ referred to above.
As the result of the Mercy
of Sree Gaursundar, Keshab Bhatta was enabled, by the operation of the
Spiritual Power of the Divinity, to be simultaneously endowed with all
excellences in the shape of devotion to the Lord, realization of the Divine
Nature, and aversion to anything other than the Lord. Keshab Bhatta now became
humbler than a blade of grass, discarding for good’ all the vanities of ‘the
Conqueror of all quarters’.
The followers of Sree
Gaursundar adopt the conduct that is prescribed by the Scriptures for the truly
enlightened viz., the genuine Brahmanas.
They give up all military, economic, or other worldly ambitions, and, in fact,
all hankering for fame and honour, accepting thereby in their hearts the ideal
of the Tridandi Bhikshu. This conduct should not also be misunderstood. The
achievements of this world also appear in their true .perspective to one only after
he realizes his own spiritual nature. They cease to have any direct attraction
for such a person who gets disentangled from the progress or decay of material
civilization. He is freed from the influence of the hopes and fears of this
world. But he is constantly engaged in serving the Lord by means of those very
entities on the transcendental plane. The attitude is everything and is
spiritual. The external conduct of the devotee is not properly intelligible to
worldly people as it is not directed to any worldly object for any purpose that
is intelligible to worldly people. The conduct of the devotee, however, is
neither sentimental nor visionary, but part and parcel of the Eternal Reality
Himself.
Those, who imagine the
pursuit of sensuous enjoyment to be the sole object of life, naturally regard
the dedication of learning, health, wealth and other qualifications for the
augmentation of such enjoyment as their legitimate and successful use. But the
insignificance and ephemeral character of the result achieved is clearly
demonstrated by the phenomenon of death. Death snatches its victim from the
scene of his enjoyment and shifts him to an unknown and unknowable destination.
As soon as one is enlightened in regard to the real nature of his self he is
enabled to realize the triviality of his so-called happiness and possessions of
this world. Such a person is privileged to understand the unwholesomeness of
all worldly knowledge and activities as a help for such enjoyment. One is
enabled to realize the self and his proper relationship with the ephemeral
objects of this world by the Mercy of the Supreme Lord. On the appearance of
self-knowledge one automatically understands the nature of the transcendental
service of the Lord as being the only proper function of the soul. From this
moment he is enabled to be constantly engaged in such service and to dedicate
his learning, health and wealth and every other qualification to this purpose.
It is not the duty of the
soul either to be addicted to the things of this world or to renounce them
altogether, as both courses lead nowhere. The duty of the soul is to try and
find out the everlasting plane and to learn to function on that plane by giving
up the fleeting prospects of the Epicurean and Stoic alike. Such course is the
only one that exactly suits the requirements of the soul. The soul can be
satisfied with nothing less than the immutable reality. The fact, which the
soul in the state of bondage does not realize, is that the immutable reality is
not to be found by the pursuit of fleeting worldly enjoyment, nor by simply
abstaining from such pursuits. There is a third and the real method viz., that of service of Godhead.
The nature of this service
has to be learned from those who are themselves well-established on the spiritual
plane. It can be learned by all persons who are sincerely desirous of knowing
it and are prepared to give a really patient hearing to the exposition of
methods and duties constituting the mode of endeavour for such enlightenment.
This attitude is not possible in one who is not convinced of the unsatisfactory
character of the correlated methods of enjoyment and renunciation of the things
of this world, that are consciously or unconsciously followed by all
conditioned souls including the pseudo-religionists. Only one who is thoroughly
sincere will be disposed to accept the method that is laid down in the
spiritual Scriptures and all that such a method necessarily implies.
When the spiritual plane is
actually attained one is in a position to realize for himself, in a clear and
conscious manner, the true nature of the cosmic and super-cosmic processes and
his own place and function in the whole scheme of the Universe. The realization
of this should be possible in this life if one is prepared loyally to undergo
the necessary training. It cannot of course be equally easy of attainment for
all. There are very few persons who are fully prepared to accept the Truth on
His Own terms. On those who are really so prepared the communication of the
Truth acts with wonderful suddenness, because they really offer no resistance
to His Entry into their hearts. But most of us are not really prepared to
welcome the Truth even when we profess to cherish Him. This is the condition of
the average honest person of this world. It is claimed in these pages that such
persons are sure to benefit by listening patiently to the exposition of the
Career of Sree Gaursundar from the lips of the real devotee.
They will thereby gradually
acquire the effective desire for living up to the Truth. No worldly merit or
demerit can either help or retard the process of spiritual enlightenment. It is
situated wholly beyond the range of every form of worldly conviction and is,
indeed, likely to be more easily grasped by those who are less under the sway
of their formed convictions.
Those who have absolute
faith in worldliness and perpetual ignorance are enamoured of the deeds of the
heroes of this world. But we have also the testimony of all teachers of the
Religion to the utter hollowness of all worldly achievements. A child may
oppose the reconstruction of a house that is uninhabitable on the ground that
the masons are plotting its destruction. But he is nevertheless necessarily
wrong. Our worldly life requires to be thoroughly overhauled and reconstructed
on a sounder basis. Those who are unduly attached to the rotten house by reason
of either ignorance or malice, need not be regarded as wise. Empiricists are
engaged in the attempt of trying to live safely and comfortably in the badly
built falling house by opposing the process of imperative reconstruction. They
do so partly for the avowed reason that it will be impossible to retain any
measure of rottenness in the edifice after it has been thoroughly overhauled.
They are right no doubt; but they are less alive to the consequences of their
perversity. The policy is sure to bring the whole house down and crush them to
death. There is absolutely no chance of their being able to live safely and
comfortably in the rotten structure at any time.
The deceptive triumphs of
material civilization have failed to solve the old problem of the uncivilized
times why everything of this world is fore-doomed to pass away. Those savages
were not content with the conditions of their existence any more than we are
with ours and also mainly for similar reasons. If an enchantress is pleased to
provide us with an endless stock of the most beautiful things that make their
appearance only to pass away, should we suppose that our requirement has been
really fulfilled? It is no less necessary for us than it ever was for those
savages to pause and consider well whether the achievements and convictions of
material prosperity have any real value in the scale of our absolute
requirements. The quest of the Truth is not for those who are content to remain
ignorant by the lure of the dissipating enjoyment of the moment.
The defect is not one of
intellect, it extends to all the faculties which also have their due share in
the performance of conscious activity. The self-imposed sway of empiric
knowledge, which supplies no definite answer to our fundamental questionings,
is responsible for all the misfortune of humanity. Empiric knowledge does not
take man an inch towards the Truth. On the contrary it leads its votaries by an
accelerated pace towards sin and death by its justification of the false ideal
of a life of dissipation alternating with that of barren asceticism, the twin
forms of egotistic worldliness. It ever whispers into the ears of man, that in
this present depraved condition he seems also to like so much, that he need not
depend on nor submit to any other authority than his own, that he is the master
of his body and mind and through them of all things of this world which, he is
assured, have been intended solely for ministering to his corrupt pleasures.
These conflicting ideals of empiric knowledge require to be smashed as the
first step in any plan for rescuing fallen humanity from the fell clutches of
the Enchantress. .
This was being done by Sree
Gaursundar during the period of His Professor-life at Nabadwip and also in the
subsequent period when He traveled for this sole purpose all over the country
as a Sannyasin. Those who suppose that it is against principle of humility to
oppose the untruth or neglect to vindicate the Truth, are the emissaries of the
Deluding Power. The attitude of humility is to be practiced by all means
because we cannot know the Truth by our own unaided effort. Empiric knowledge
errs by ignoring this basic principle of spiritual conduct. By, submitting to
empiric knowledge not humility but insolence in its undiluted form is
practiced. Those, who are loyal servants of the Truth, are necessarily opposed
to empiricism which is verily the embodiment of insolent denial of the
supremacy of the Truth. Worldly people practice this masked insolence under the
name of humility for deceiving themselves as well as their victims. But it
should be easy to distinguish between true humility and the counterfeit ware.
The uncompromising assertion of the principle of real humility is to be found
in the resolve not to tolerate any of those countless insincere shifts devised
by suicidal worldliness, under the connivance of empiric knowledge, for ruining
humanity by masking them in the borrowed phraseology of Godliness.
This was admitted by ‘the
Conqueror of all quarters’. He was satisfied by being defeated in controversy
by the Lord Himself. This extraordinary result would not have been produced if
he had been worsted by an ordinary mortal. The process of controversy itself
would have been a quite different one. ‘The Conqueror’ realized that his
untruth had been confronted by Truth and was, therefore, utterly powerless to
assert itself. He felt that he had been dabbling with words which might please
and amuse but were really mere empty sounds signifying nothing. This utter
hollowness of all so-called worldly knowledge is demonstrated to all sincere
persons by Truth Himself in the form of the words of the devotees of Truth. On
the lips of one who really serves the Absolute it is the Absolute Truth Himself
Who makes His Appearance in the Form of the Divine Transcendental Sound.
Divinity as Sound has Power to convey the knowledge of Himself to a soul who is
prepared to receive Him as Sound against every specious obstructive argument.
The arrogance of the
devotee of the Lord is thus the perfection of true humility. Those who realize
this are freed from the fetters of the Deluding Energy inasmuch as they are
thereby proved to have no interest of their own as against the Truth. Those,
who can be angry with the follower of Truth under any circumstance, are
necessarily under the spell of empiric untruth which always differentiates the
external conduct and the internal motives. But a votary of Truth is always
necessarily above duplicity of this kind. This is realizable only by those who
are themselves also wholly sincere.
Impertinent fears for the
future of the world never disturb the devotee of the Lord nor deflect him from
the constant service of the Truth. This detachment should not be confounded
with idleness or indifference to duty. The alertness and industry of the
‘worldling’ neither help nor retard the march of events of this world which is wholly controlled by a very much
superior Power called in our shastras ‘Maya’ or the limiting Potency of Godhead
acting in perfect obedience to the Will of the Supreme Lord. The empiricist, in
his childish atheistical folly, chooses to imagine, against the clear impartial
testimony of his own rational faculty, that he is the creator and controller of
the forces of Nature. On the basis of this sacrilegious folly he builds up a
science of conduct in keeping with this basic principle. It is the business of
the devotee to strike at the very root of this folly in order to demolish the
flimsy structure which has power to draw to itself so unaccountably the whole
attention of most people of this world. There is no rational ground for
doubting that a structure which is built on Truth is sure to prove a more
suitable arrangement than one which is reared on untruth backed by insincerity.
It is a fatal delusion, indeed, which has led rational beings to the strange
conviction that they can manage to live well without Truth and that it is,
therefore, their duty to oppose the Truth on the plea of possible ( ?) damage
to the existing systems of untruth.
The devotee is sent into
this world by the Lord in order to establish spiritual conduct by demonstrating
the unstability of the worldly life, its prospects and achievements. It is
never possible nor rationally, desirable to try to build our lasting home in
this world. They are mistaken who suppose that this life has to be lived for
its own sake. Such people are sure to be surprised by death in the midst of
their preparations for settling down in right earnest. This life is a
preparation for the eternal life and should be lived accordingly. That conduct
is fatal which in any way obstructs or delays the process of spiritual
enlightenment. We should not allow ourselves to be diverted from the true
purpose of this life by the temptations and disappointments provided by the
Deluding Energy of the Lord, which are intended to help the process of our
spiritual training if only they are rightly understood.
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