The Career and Teachings of the Supreme Lord Sree Krishna-Chaitanya

by Sri Narayan Das Bhakti Sadhukar

CHAPTER XXIV

HIS INITIATION AND AFTER

The method of service by the mood of separation is the distinctive feature, the differential as it were, of the religion of pure devotion that is exhibited by the Conduct of Nimai Pandit after His Initiation. It is this which makes the religion of pure devotion the antipode of the worship (?) of Material Energy by the mood of enjoyment represented by the gross type of the Shakta Cult. The worship of Godhead, being located on the transcendental plane, cannot be practiced in its positive or substantive form on the material plane.

But neither is the spiritual function performed by the method of abstention from material enjoyment. The method of abstention is a radically unnatural, hypocritical and pessimistic attitude. Why should a person abstain from the ordinary activities of this world? If one loses any organ of sense should it be regarded as any cause for congratulation in itself ? Any deliberate attempt to be deprived of the functions of all the senses, cannot be supposed, for the same reason, to be either desirable or equivalent to any positive function on the transcendental plane. Moreover the process itself of being deprived of one’s senses is really impracticable. Any offense against Physical Nature is automatically punished by an equally violent re-action. Nature always takes her revenge.

The sensuous aptitude is the natural condition for the physical body under the direction of the mind which is dependent on the sense-organs for all its activities. This is the fact. The world is not an illusion, to be got rid of by the mere desire of any person. Those, who believe in the philosophy of illusion and the omnipotence of the mind, fall thereby only more deeply into the clutches of the sensuous nature. The victims of cynicism may not be themselves prepared to admit the sterile failure of their cherished misconceptions, but it is none the less patent to all impartial observers.

When, therefore, it is stated that Sree Gaursundar practiced the pure devotion of Krishna by the Mood of Separation, as distinct from that of material enjoyment practiced by the elevationists (or materialistic Shaktas), it is not to be supposed that He necessarily belonged to the opposite camp of equally materialistic ascetic salvationists. As a matter of fact He belonged to neither materialist camp. He was acting according to the pure dictates of the soul when he wakes from his mundane stupor to find himself wholly off his proper plane in this world. The plank of the elevationists as well as of the salvationists offered Him the alternative aspects of the perverted spiritual function that prevails on the mundane plane. Elevationism is fruitful of transitory positive activities which are essentially irrational in their nature, although they seem to be true for a time; while Salvationism offers freedom from the round of such activities by substituting in place of the positive a number of impracticable, negative equally irrational and transitory activities. The stuff in either case is the same, viz., an unintelligible existence depending on the physical senses for its functioning. It is, therefore, no wonder that the Salvationists should consider himself saved only by his total immunity from the shackles of his present unwholesome existence as a thinking individual with compulsory, positive tantalizing functions.

The quarrel between Elevationism and Salvationism is as old as the hills. It has also remained the eternal Gordian Knot which cannot be untied by any earthly thinking. Each can be justified only by including the other which is logically its direct negation. This vicious circle is the very plane of all empiric thinking on the subject of itself.

Nimai Pandit was perfectly aware of the insoluble nature of this problem of empiricism and He took care not to embrace either of those alternatives. He found Himself instead on the real positive plane of the Absolute. This plane is not one of sensuous activities at all. On the mundane plane the senses demand their own gratification. On the spiritual plane the senses are found to be absolutely free from this hankering. The sensuous hankerings of the Elevationists are capable of being only suppressed. The Salvationists are never cured of their longing for material enjoyment which is indirectly or directly the very stuff of all existence on the material plane.

If I suddenly find myself on a plane where the senses do not require their own gratification, I should be left without any motive for active existence. This is the seemingly rational conclusion of the Salvationists. But Nimai Pandit did not find that it is really so. He found that He was being prevented from exercising the proper function of His Senses by His Separation from the only Object towards Whom it is worthy of being performed. He found no worthy function to be performed by His senses towards this world. He desired an infinity of functions to be performed towards the Absolute. But the Absolute had ceased to be accessible to Him after a sudden momentary revelation. This was the plight in which He found Himself.

The empiric critic might be inclined to agree to this for a reason of his own. He may think that such a state is identical with the goal of the Salvationists. If Nimai Pandit did nothing but cry for Krishna night and day, did He not thereby limit Himself to the minimum of barren transitory performances which is the cherished goal of ascetic Salvationists?

But as a matter of fact the ascetics themselves of that period did not recognize the Performances of Nimai Pandit as coming under the requirements of Salvationism. They said that He was only a soft-hearted sentimentalist. They scorned His company and His philosophy, as being utterly incompatible with a life of austerities.

Nimai Pandit was, therefore, out of His element both among Elevationists and Salvationists. Neither could He find any other footing of His own in this world. Thereupon He behaved as one who is distraught with a great sorrow, and found no consolation except in the talk of Krishna. His sorrow was that He had found Krishna but that He had been immediately forsaken by Him. He had lost sight of Him. But He could not live without seeing Him. His only concern was to find Him again. He was interested in the company and talks of those who were attached to Krishna and who might enable Him to find Krishna. He had no duties till He found Krishna. Can such a Person be described as a Salvationist who seeks freedom from the miseries of his individual existence? Or can He be regarded as an Elevationist, who is bent upon finding his goal in the gratification of his own senses ?

Nimai Pandit gave up all earthly occupation from the moment of His initiation, devoting Himself heart and soul to the Search for Krishna. Did He also expect to find Him ? He was engaged in this Search for the rest of His Career. The Search served to intensify the pang of separation from His only Beloved. He ceased at first to care for the ordinary duties of a householder and finally renounced the world and lived away at Puri, far from His widowed mother and loving consort, who were left to be taken care of by, and to care for, Krishna, in His place.

Such a course, although at first sight it seems to bear a close external resemblance to Salvationism, is radically different from the same. To love Krishna is the summum bonum of all animation. The love for Krishna had been aroused in Nimai Pandit as the result of His Initiation. But from the very beginning it had the form of the anguish of loving separation from the object of His love. This was the fulfillment, brought about by the process of initiation, of His spiritual need. He had gained the summum bonum in this form.

If one is seriously disposed to settle down in a contented mood in this world, such a person cannot be regarded as possessing an iota of real love for Krishna. Krishna is never to be found in this world. It is also necessarily impossible to serve one who cannot be found. A person, who is favoured by the sight of Krishna, is thereby deprived of all taste for the life on the plane of sensuous existence that alone is available in this world. In this terrible predicament what is such a person to do for passing his time ?

Krishna shows Himself to the neophyte only once, at the moment of the fulfillment of the probationary stage of his spiritual pupilage, and immediately vanishes from his view. This, indeed, sets him on the real quest. Till the novice has been favoured by the sight of Krishna he has no love for the Real Krishna. The instant he is blessed by the sight of Krishna he finds Krishna to be his only beloved and he is ready with the offer of his all for His service. But Krishna has no need for the things of this world. The pure soul, who has once been blessed by the sight of Krishna, is thereby enabled to know also this perfectly well. He, therefore, on his part does not expect nor want that Krishna should actually allow Himself to be served by the offerings of mundane things. In other words that form of worship, which bears the Scriptural designation of archana, cannot also have an exclusive attraction for such a person.

It is possible to worship Godhead by means of the objects and thoughts of this world. But this form of worship can be but symbolical at its very best. It is not possible to attain to the substantive spiritual service of Godhead on the mundane plane. But notwithstanding this necessary reservation the process of worship represented by archana possesses the greatest value during the period of novitiate on the path of spiritual endeavour. It is not also correct to say that archana is symbolical worship. It should be described as the practice of learning to regard all mundane objects as being unacceptable to Godhead. The food, which is offered to Krishna by the process of archana, is not the mundane eatable. But it is nevertheless offered to Him by uttering the formula that the act of such offering is only the mental function which has a correspondence in the spiritual sphere and that the offering is therefore, made by means of the formula which shields the worshipper against mistaking the mundane act for the spiritual. The person who performs archana is required, as the initial act of the process, to try to realize that it is his soul who is offering worship. After this attitude has been assumed the object of worship and the articles of offering are regarded as further items in a corresponding function. The mantras impress this vital difference on the mind of the worshipper. All this precaution is necessary in order to guard oneself against the profane error that the articles of offering or any mundane figure of, the object of worship to whom they are offered or the mind or body of the worshipper, are the entities engaged in the service of Godhead on the spiritual plane. The mantra says that they are not. The archana, however, is not a symbolical process. The worshipper is instructed not to suppose that he is doing anything which can be conceived, either symbolically or otherwise, as at all like the spiritual process on which he is engaged. The mantra forbids him to exercise his mind at all on the subject.

The consideration, that affords the real clue to the spiritual significance of the method of archana as a valid form of worship, is to be sought elsewhere than in the visible items actually employed in the worship. The process derives its spiritual value from the fact that it has the sanction of Godhead Himself. It is, of course, perfectly conceivable that a person should be disposed to cherish the firm conviction that no entities of this world can have any locus standi on the spiritual plane. It should also be possible to devise an infinite variety of forms and processes of worship based on such conviction. But if the conviction were acted up to under those forms, would it help us to get rid of our present doubts and difficulties? Our unbiased reason should hold out no hope of any such possible consummation. But if once it could be rationally admitted that the process has the sanction of Godhead we would have no further objection to it even on the rationalistic grounds. In other words it is not sufficient for any form of worship to be rationalistic in the conditioned sense. The rational instinct itself requires that there must be a Supernatural sanction, not for reinforcing the rational but, for endowing it with the substantive spiritual value. Human emotion is as much a mundane phenomenon as human reason; and, therefore, the mere addition of human emotion to an imperfectly rational process, will not make the function a religious practice even in the rational sense.

It should, therefore, be possible for a human being to gain the goal of spiritual endeavour only by the pursuit of a scriptural process. But what is this goal in itself ? Sree Chaitanya's conduct shows that it consists partly of the realization of the categorical difference that separates the mundane from the spiritual. This realization is effected by the momentary vision of the Reality as He is. The vision is attained only for a moment in this life by the due performance of the archana and as the supreme fulfillment of the process. Should the process be, therefore, continued even after the vision has been attained?

The answer should be in the affirmative. It should now be possible for the worshipper to perform the worship in the manner that is required by the mantra. The mantra will now be consciously applied. But the resulting process, although there has been no external difference, will have been wholly changed as regards its significance and something more, for the worshipper. The worshipper is now no longer under the obligation of avoiding to exercise his mind on the impossible. He is now conscious of the nature of the spiritual process by reason of his spiritual experience. The function itself has thus become quasi-spiritual. After this stage has been reached it is optional for him to continue to worship the Archa ( image ) by means of the symbols.

Nimai Pandit gave up the method of archaha shortly after His Initiation, when He found it impossible to go through the process by reason, not of His opposition to the principle of archana but by the discovery, of His actual incapacity for the due performance of the valued ceremony. This point will be taken up again at the proper place.

It is the fuller realization of the spiritual that is the cause of the non-attachment of the devotee, in the higher stages of spiritual endeavour, alike to the concrete and abstract forms of the mundane. The activities on the mundane plane are not discarded in the ordinary sense by the realization of their spiritual worthlessness, as the Salvationist avers. All activities are expanded by a change of plane into quasi-spiritual performances. The devotee in this stage appears to an external observer as being neither attached nor averse to mundane activities. But he is not found to be devoid of all interest. He is found to be partial to hearing and talking about Krishna and, unconditionally serving those who serve Krishna by the true method.

With the change of His point of view the nature of Nimai Pandit’s normal Activities underwent only the corresponding alterations. The nature of this change is not conceivable to one who is bent upon confounding the spiritual with the mundane. Neither can a mere pessimist, a mere scorner of the things of this world, enter into the purpose of the pure devotee of Vishnu. His case bears a distant analogy to that of the love-lorn maiden separated from her sweet-heart. She is not unmindful of the duties of the household on principle. But she cannot also avoid being unmindful. Her seemingly deliberate neglect of ordinary duties need not be objected to on economic and utilitarian grounds. in consideration of her inner condition.

It is no part of our duty to neglect the concerns of this world any more than to be wholly engrossed with transitory mundane interests. Those interests have a real, although temporary, value during our sojourn in this world. But they are by no means the only interests. They need not be cultivated in the spirit that they are our permanent interests. They concern the perishable and changing physical body and mind. They can have no relation to the eternal. If the soul can subsist independently of the body and mind why should it be at all his duty to engage himself in supplying their so-called needs ? It is certainly necessary if these so-called duties are to be performed with the solace of any real conviction of their necessity for our souls, to inquire in what way, if any, they can really supply the needs of the soul.

As soon as this necessity for inquiring about the needs of our soul is seriously experienced we drift into the process of archana by whatever name we may choose to designate the ensuing function. The essence of archana consists in seeking to do every duty of this world by a considered reference to the paramount needs of the soul. The attainment of such an attitude is practicable in this world. Otherwise there would be no way of the redemption of conditioned souls. The archana develops into bhajana, or actual spiritual service, which is the function proper of the soul and which manifests itself to the view of this world as a causeless hankering for association with Krishna involving internal dissociation from all mundane concerns.

There is a still higher form of worship, viz., that which was exhibited by Nimai Pandit during the concluding twelve years of His Leela, at Puri. During that long period He did nothing but listen to the discourses of the Pastimes of the Divine Pair from the lips of His most confidential associates, Swarup Damodar and Rai Ramananda, in the strictest seclusion of His own private chamber.

All stages of worship of the Absolute, that are available on the mundane plane to conditioned souls, are of the nature of the unrealized quest of the Absolute. It is never possible, so long as the mortal coil persists, to know Krishna as He is. If it had been possible to know Him in that way the function would be substantively eternal. Nimai Pandit was apprised of this by the actual vision of the Object of worship. It had made Him realize that it is not possible to serve Krishna by the method of archana laid down in the Scriptures and that it is really impossible to serve Godhead on the mundane plane. The method of archana undoubtedly possesses the merit of being the legitimate form of endeavour, available on this mundane plane the conditioned souls by the Grace of Godhead, for realizing the spiritual service of Krishna in Sree Brindavana, the eternal Realm of the Divinity. But the archana is nevertheless only an endeavour for realization; it is not the realized service.

The more strongly and fully this unbridgeable gulf that thus effectively separates archana from bhajana is realized by the endeavouring soul, one is bound to lose in proportion his confidence in the method of archana. The realization comes to him in the shape of the sense of utter inadequacy and impropriety of the available method. In other words, one does not become more sensuous, but one realizes that no form of activity, possible on this mundane plane, can possess the substantive spiritual nature of the Divine service proper. Such a person must still continue to retain his regard for archana, but he is unable to be satisfied by merely remaining on the steps of the ladder by lacking the means of the performance of the actual service of his Beloved.

It is this mood that has been termed ‘bipralambha’ by the Acharyyas who are self-realized, practicing, authorized teachers of the pure substantive eternal function. The word ‘bipralambha’ means the Mood of Separation from one’s only Beloved. Godhead can be fully served on the mundane plane only by the growing realization of one’s utter separation from Him. This is the sine qua non of the Teaching of Nimai Pandit. It is from after His initiation that He began to practice this hitherto unrevealed form of the religion of pure devotion.

Those, who consciously exhibit by the manipulation of their external conduct that they are actuated by the mood of separation, commit the blunder of supposing that they possess the thing, which alone it is certainly desirable to have. Any real manifestation of genuine self contradiction of this kind in the conduct of a person who is actually distraught with the uncontrollable anguish of separation from the Divinity, need not also be willfully undervalued. The condition of the loyal, loving wife is certainly to be preferred to that of the harlot. If it is not possible to serve Krishna really on the mundane plane, one, who desires to serve Him at all, should show his sincerity by submitting to undergo the preliminary training, in the form of the archana and must patiently and loyally wait for the realization of his desire when he is actually lifted to the higher plane by the grace of Godhead by His own promise recorded in the scriptures.

But for the sincere soul there can be no meaning in simulating a condition simply because it resembles, in its external feature, that of Nimai Pandit. If one goes into the streets weeping and crying aloud the Name of ‘Krishna’ such an act should be discouraged by all means. If such a person is really actuated by the bona fide sense of separation from Godhead, he should be expected to exhibit his mood only to his confidential sympathizers, as Nimai Pandit took care to do. Nimai Pandit realized that the whole world is steeped in atheism, and that, therefore, it would be crying in the wilderness to ask them to listen to the tale of His woes. Notwithstanding all this precaution and apprehension, He could not always control His real sentiments. But whenever He chose to exhibit them openly, they only served to strengthen the general misconceptions against Krishna. They were so utterly opposed to the method of archana enjoined by the Scriptures that nobody, who was not himself very far advanced on the path of spiritual endeavour, could be expected to understand what it really was. It was only Sribas Pandit who could recognize in it the very highest form of devotion and accordingly proposed that Nimai Pandit might be pleased to perform the sankirtana of Krishna in his court-yard where all the Vaishnavas would join the holy function and from where all other persons would be excluded.

The Scriptures reveal Krishna through the medium of language. The sadhu reveals Krishna through his spoken words and every activity. But the spoken Word is the Source of all Manifestations of Krishna on the mundane plane. The Name of Krishna is the Supreme, All-sufficing, Spoken Word. The Name of Krishna is identical with Krishna and possesses all the Powers of Krishna. The Name of Krishna has greater Potency than any other form of divine manifestation. The person, who can utter the Name of Krishna without offense, is the purest of sadhus. By the service of the best of sadhus one acquires eligibility for uttering the Name of Krishna without offense. The only method of serving the pure sadhu consists in uttering the Name of Krishna without offense in his company. The companionship of the sadhu helps the realization of that mode of life which is free from offense against Krishna. The sole motive for leading such a life is to be enabled to realize Krishna in the form of taking His Name without offense. If one calls upon the Name of Krishna only once with the really sincere motive of service, he is freed from all worldly entanglements for good.

This simple creed Sreebas Pandit was enabled to understand by the Mercy of Nimai Pandit, as embodying the complete significance of all the Scriptures. The conditioned soul can only try to sincerely call upon the Name of Krishna. If he wants to do anything else, he is bound to go astray. He is in utter need of receiving all enlightenment from Krishna. The sense of this supreme need makes itself felt in its truly effective form only to the person who is sincerely desirous of leading a life of which the sole object is to conduce to the Pleasure of Krishna. Such a life is made available for the conditioned soul by the grace of the sadhu who has himself attained the same position. The need for the grace of the sadhu is, therefore, the fundamental fact in the method by which spiritual enlightenment is to be sought by the conditioned soul.

The sadhu is not a denizen of this phenomenal world. The conditioned soul is not a sadhu . The redeemed soul is, indeed, a sadhu . But the process of redemption does not mean that the physical body and mental body of the conditioned soul are turned thereby into spiritual essences. There is no transformation of the mundane into spiritual. Just as the pure soul is liable to be enveloped by the double casing of the physical body and mental sheathe on attainment of the conditioned state, in like manner the redeemed soul finds his material casings in their turn capable of being coated or saturated with the substantive principles of spiritual cognition and bliss. This is in perfect keeping with our experience of the known phenomenon of the conditioned state. If the conditioned state is possible without the necessity of changing the essence of the soul, the redeemed state should also be possible without transforming the material casings.

But the sadhu has no material casings at all. The redeemed soul resembles a sadhu in his function inasmuch as he is in a position to render his service to the Supreme Lord unhampered by the presence of his actual material coverings. The sadhu is the soul himself without the encumbrance of material coverings. But the sadhu appears to the vision of conditioned souls in the guise of the possessor of material cases. Or rather the form of the sadhu to the view of the mundane spectator, i.e., the conditioned soul, appears to be like the material case. If it be asked how the conditioned soul can at all see those material cases if the sadhu really has them not, the answer is that whatever the conditioned soul is permitted to see with his material eyes appears to him like material casing. No mortal eye is permitted to see the agent of Godhead as he really is.

Let us have recourse to a mundane analogy for avoiding any possible misunderstanding of this all-important point. If a live tiger could find his way into the bioscopic show, the spectators should have no cause to suspect that there is any material difference in the show by his appearance, unless, indeed, the tiger chooses to come out of the picture to prove to the spectators that he is really no part of the painted show. But if the tiger is content to behave as a harmless actor inside the show, no spectator need suspect that he is not the painted picture of the live animal. This impression of the spectators, however bona fide it may be, will be still in flat contradiction to the real fact, provided the tiger is actually the live animal instead of being the show that he looks.

The sadhu possesses the power of entering into the bioscopic show of this world in order to come within the range of the ocular vision of mundane spectators, without being really a part of the show. This is the real nature of the appearance of the sadhu on this mundane plane. His visible body is not any product of this phenomenal world any more than the body of the tiger is painted show. What appears to the mundane spectator as the physical body of the sadhu , is not the picture in the show, although it resembles the same to his view, but the form of the soul. The least gesture of the form of the soul is, therefore, a spiritual event. This can be known to the spectator only if he is inclined to submit to the sadhu for being initiated into the otherwise impenetrable secret.

There are no doubt lots of bogus persons who are passing themselves off as sadhus , as an easy way of gratifying their sensuous appetites at the expense of their victims. But the undoubted existence of the bogus Sadhu can be no rational cause for disbelieving, the existence of the real sadhu . The bogus sadhu does not practice the service of Godhead, nor does he propose to teach his disciple the same. The bogus sadhu cannot teach his pupil the conduct that is enjoined by the Scriptures in regard to one who is anxious to attain to the spiritual service of Godhead. One who is anxious to find the genuine sadhu , however, can never go astray. The only thing that a person is required for finding the bona fide sadhu is to be true to himself. If one is insincere he has no chance of finding the sadhu and has to thank only himself for his dire misfortune.

If it be asked how an insincere person can be made sincere, the reply should be that no one is altogether insincere. It is not possible for a person to have a thing for which he possesses no aptitude. Everyone has got the faculty in an explicit or latent form. One is only asked to exercise the function in its full measure. The appeal of the sadhu is made to the higher nature of every person, which is fully sincere. The higher nature is deluded into supposing that it is the same as the lower nature which also is found in every person. It is the function of the sadhu to impress upon all persons that the one is categorically different from the other and to insist that the lower nature should be made to occupy a position of subordination to the higher. The sadhu says in effect to the insincere person, “You are really sincere, as you possess the higher nature. You have become insincere by supposing that you have an obligation to your lower nature. Any indulgence of your lower nature is partial or total denial of your obligation to the higher nature. The higher should be allowed to dictate your duty to the lower nature, and not vice versa. It is, therefore, your only duty to be true to your higher nature. Your higher nature has got no other function than to serve the Absolute. It is in a position to do so even by the resources of your lower nature when the latter happens unavoidably to be in his way. But it is possible, nay normal, for your higher nature to refuse to take any help of the lower, in serving the Absolute. It is also possible for your higher nature, i.e., your soul, to compel the lower, i.e., the physical body and mind, to be employed in the service of the Absolute during his temporary sojourn in this world.”

The insincere man may, indeed, pretend to hold that inasmuch as the service of the Absolute is only open to the higher nature, who is perfectly sincere, it can be no business of a person who is insincere to bother about the service of Godhead. The weak point of such contention is brought out when we remember that the function of denying the higher nature would be impossible except by connivance of the higher nature himself. Such obstinacy of the insincere person is, therefore, nothing short of a gross and deliberate suicidal folly on the part of the soul. Of course it is open to the soul to choose to commit suicide and to say wrongly that he is being compelled to do so. But as a matter of fact there is and can be no necessity for insincerity. The most hardened sinner can be such only by option. He cannot also be redeemed unless he chooses similarly to be a really consenting party. He can be redeemed by the sadhu only with his own consent, by the method of his unconditional submission to the Absolute. The sadhu enables a repentant sinner to obtain the strength required for such submission even in the otherwise impossible surroundings of this mundane world. The sadhu never asks for more than it is really in one’s power, by one’s sincere conviction, to give.

Once the bona fide candidate for spiritual enlightenment finds himself in presence of the sadhu , he recognizes in him the transcendental guide of whose help he stands in such absolute need. There is no danger in making one’s unconditional submission to the bona fide servant of the Absolute. If one really seek the exclusive service of the Truth one finds the person who is capable of instructing him in His service. The teacher of the Absolute is incapable of deceiving any person. He may find it necessary to advise an insincere person to shun the society of insincere persons by any pretext that may tend to aggravate the malady. But the sadhu is never the enemy of any person. This is instinctively realized by all who are themselves sincerely engaged in the quest of the eternal service of the Absolute. When the candidate for spiritual service is enabled to be really established on the path of the Absolute by the causeless grace of the pure devotee, he is liable to be set upon by all the deluding forces of the limiting energy for pulling him down to the mundane plane if he is found to cherish any lurking insincerity. If he stands the test he is also cured of his worldly hankering and assured of unhampered progress on the path of divine service. The crisis of his life naturally makes the neophyte extraordinarily sensitive to the dangers of his position and makes him properly enough desirous of avoiding all association with non-sadhus lest he be misguided by their advice. The new experience is nothing less than the sudden revelation to the spiritual consciousness of the neophyte of his relationship to the Absolute which makes him realize the function of serving Krishna as the only thing needful. The Sight of Krishna excites an unpreventible disposition for His service which is recognized as the summum bonum. Thenceforward the only function of the awakened soul resolves itself into a sleepless endeavour for retaining and augmenting his newborn attachment to the Lotus Feet of Krishna.

There is a real danger of losing one’s attachment to Krishna as long as the physical cases continue to be in one’s way. By their means it is always practicable to cultivate the contrary disposition of seeking one’s own sensuous gratification from the things of this world. The presence of the two material bodies is also an effective bar in the way of all access to the substantive plane of the Absolute. The service, that it is possible for the redeemed soul to render while he still continues to retain the entanglements of his material cases, is probationary service under the unconditional guidance of the sadhu . The whole duty of such a soul consists in obeying the sadhu. Krishna has, indeed, been seen by the grace of the sadhu , but the vision is not capable of being retained till Krishna is pleased to divest the soul of his mortal coils. The memory, however, persists by the grace of the sadhu. If the service of the sadhu is relaxed the memory about Krishna also tends to lose its spiritual significance. It is only by the continuous and exclusive service of the sadhu that one has any chance of retaining the memory of the divine event. If there is no real memory there can be no real relationship with the Absolute. No amount of punctilious observance of external conduct can restore to one’s activities the spiritual character when once the tie of living memory is snapped.

The sadhu cannot be served in the way in which a person of this world is said to be served. The sadhu is a transcendental person. He can be served only on the transcendental plane. He is not served by the mundane aptitude of his service-holder. This is the meaning of the Scriptural dictum that it is only by the method of unconditional obedience that the sadhu has to be served. The way, in which the sadhu requires to be served and is actually served by his disciples, cannot for this reason be at all understood by the uninitiated. Empiricists may think that they are justified in adversely criticizing the perfectly pure conduct of the devotee from the angular point of view of their mundane plane. They are apt to think that if the devotee really belongs to the transcendental plane, his conduct would be of an extraordinary kind and would also appear as such to all mundane spectators. Empiricists expect miracles and are prepared to serve only persons who are able to gratify their atheistical demands. But the devotee of Krishna lives above all expectations and performances of the worldling. It is no part of his business to seek to satisfy any expectations of any mundane person. It is the only duty of the worldling to try to understand in a spirit of humility and reverence why the sadhu claims to be able to serve the Absolute without having to perform miracles that alone are claimed to be recognized as spiritual manifestation by unbelievers.

When Sree Krishna-Chaitanya did nothing but cry for the Sight of Krishna, after He had been initiated into the transcendental service of Godhead by the grace of Sree Iswara Puri, His contemporary worldly spectators affected to regard His conduct to be absolutely sterile and wholly below the mark of their fanciful theories of the spiritual function. They could have been mystified by the manifestation of miraculous powers and some would have fallen at His Feet for obtaining ‘boons’ in the shape of extended scope for the gratification of their sensuous appetites. But all were sadly disappointed when they discovered that the Conduct of Sree Krishna-Chaitanya did not offer the least prospect of their worldly advancement. They turned into relentless opponents of the Lord when they found out later that the teachings of Sree Chaitanya were necessarily most radically opposed to their own cherished supposed interests and convictions.

Those who hold the view that the practice of spiritual service of Sree Krishna is conducive of social, political or physio communal welfare (?), betray utter ignorance of the nature of the elementary principles of the function of the soul in the state of grace. Social, political or so-called personal welfare, can be the cry only of those who are actually in a state of want. The soul in his spiritual essence is self-satisfied. He requires no external condition for the perfection or augmentation of his happiness. To the pure soul the proposal of being made happy would be as unacceptable as that of being rendered unhappy. He covets neither. He has no reason to covet them even if he could know, because he is eternally located on a plane to which those considerations are absolutely foreign and inapplicable. The boatman of the fable conceived the ridiculous ambition of spreading prospective quilts on the thorny banks of the river when he would become a king in order that his bare feet might no longer be hurt in the process of tugging at the line of his boat. He could not imagine that it would not be necessary at all for him to pull at the line on actually becoming a real king. The amenities coveted by the conditioned soul refer only to the mundane plane and the adventitious material casings. The soul, when he is really free from those casings, has nothing to do with any physico-mental prospect offered by the mundane world. The real problem of the conditioned soul is located beyond the limited outlook of his fettered mental understanding. The problem for the conditioned soul is one of finding a method of realizing the inconceivable function of the unfettered soul. If the soul has no physical body nor limited mind, if he has, therefore, no mundane wants, in what manner could it be possible for him to be occupied at all when he leaves off his mortal coil? It is the problem of the boatman of the fable. The boatman could not find the solution by scratching his head with the help of the resources of his actual experience. He would have been better advised to inquire of those who knew about the function of a real king and who were not limited to his unwholesome experience of a life of unedifying menial drudgery.

If a person, after being thus admonished and after being promised good things of which he can have no idea till he had actually seen them with his own unsealed eyes, is suddenly informed that he would have lots of servants to pull at the boat-line for his pleasure and that he himself would only have to take his ease on the soft cushions spread inside the delicious cabin of a boat of wonderful quality, the boatman should no doubt be disposed to bless his extraordinary good fortune and be prepared to give up his own plans for the betterment of his condition, directed to an imaginary end.

But if on the contrary the boatman were told in a blunt fashion that he would have to tug at the line of the boat that conveys Krishna on the blue waters of the Yamuna and would have to do so without being supplied with the amenities of quilts, etc., and without being allowed to quit his hold of the line for a moment, nor to have even the scantiest of meals after the longest intervals, should he have the stomach for welcoming such strange tidings so apparently contrary to all ideas of the prospective good fortune that he had been eternally promised with all the choice phrases of the mundane vocabulary?

It is this sort of disappointment that is apt to be experienced by empiric expectants of transcendental enlightenment when they chance to meet the agent of the Absolute on this mundane plane. They have been building castles in the air from the moment that they were informed by the Scriptures that they are not physical bodies but pure souls and that the soul has no cause of unhappiness. Like the boatman of the fable the empiric sages, by ignorant inference from their mundane experiences, had proposed to themselves a condition which is to provide worldly amenities that would exceed their wildest demands.

But how can any worldly amenities be of any use on the transcendental plane ? The happiness and unhappiness of this world are of no use at all for the soul who happens to be located wholly beyond their limited and temporary jurisdictions. The conditions on the transcendental plane are wholly and inconceivably different from those on the mundane. The nature of the soul in the state of grace is also altogether different from the disposition and outlook of the temporary conditioned sojourn. In such circumstances it is foolish for the conditioned soul to embark on fictitious speculations on his own resources, regarding the substantive nature of the function of the soul in the unfettered state.

So without affecting to be undeceived by the actual conduct and words of the pure devotee, for the reason that they do not serve the purposes of our body and mind, it is necessary to turn one’s unprejudiced attention to the real significance of such activities. One need not bring up the resources of worldly experience for understanding the tidings of the transcendental plane by the method of trying to assimilate them to the mundane. It is not necessary to accept them for the purpose of gaining any worldly end that one may have in view. Such ubiquity is out of court in the perfectly pure atmosphere of transcendental enquiry. The whole position has to be accepted as it is and for good. It is necessary to try to become acquainted with the real nature of what is offered as our only eternal function, from the point of view of the soul, and not from that of the body and mind.

The body and mind are satisfied only when they receive an abundance of the deceptive treasures of this world. The mind covets subtler forms of acquisitions that can no more be retained than the grosser possessions of this world which it looks down upon. This accumulative aptitude, for no purpose of the soul, is apt to be accepted as the only function of human life. But why should it be obligatory on anybody to take the mind at its word? Why should one not agree to sit for a quiet half-hour for taking stock of the permanent achievements of his life? Are any of our acquired million of items likely to endure? Is it desirable that any of them should endure? Suppose all of them could be had without any effort; would they be worth one’s while to have them? Or are their seeming values due to their being difficult to obtain and impossible to keep? Is not this a veritable wild goose chase from the point of view of substantive value? If a thing is really valuable for me, why should it tend to lose its value at all so long as I myself endure?

So it is absolutely necessary to try in all sincerity to get over the habitual, but nevertheless abnormal, feeling of disappointment that is experienced by all conditioned souls when they read the accounts of the Scriptures without being able to understand why it should be necessary for them to desire to have access to a realm which seems to resemble this world in many respects but is unduly lauded to the skies by a comparatively small number of the most peculiar type of people and their equally peculiar admirers?

The answer to their reasonable question is supplied by the Scriptures and they should only have the patience to question with an open mind. If they are prepared not to accept nor desire any merely tentative solution applicable to the conditions of this temporary sojourn, they are likely to find the real answer to their real inquiry.

Conclusion of the early part of the Career of

Sree Krishna-Chaitanya

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