THE VOICE OF SRI CHAITANYADEV (Vol 1)

All Glory to the Divine Master
and the Supreme Lord Sri Krishna Chaitanya

(5) Living Faith

Nitya-lila-pravista
Om Vishnupad Paramahamsa-chudamani
Sri Srila Bhakti Raksak Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj
[December, 1982]

Devotee: When I return to England, what would be the best way for me to make spiritual advancement?

Srila Guru Maharaj: To have proper connection with the sadhu—association. Association can help us the most. This is repeatedly stated in the scriptures. There is living association as well as sastric, or scriptural association. Most preferable is ‘living scripture,’ which means the sadhu, the devotee. And that must, of course, be genuine and not imitation. A candle of small power may thrive nearby a flame of high power, but it may easily and quickly die in the proximity of an opposing element. It can’t maintain itself that way. But if the atmosphere is surcharged with heat by so many flames, it can stand and develop. We can thrive in favourable circumstances or soil. If we have to fight with the environment, then we waste our energy and we'll have to die.

What is your age?

Devotee: Twenty-one.

Srila Guru Maharaj: Are your parents living?

Devotee: Yes.

Srila Guru Maharaj: Are they devotees?

Devotee: No, they’re opposed.

Srila Guru Maharaj: They're Christians?

Devotee: Yes.

Srila Guru Maharaj: Protestants or Catholics?

Devotee: Catholics.

Srila Guru Maharaj: What is the meaning of Catholic and Protestant? What is the difference? Ideally, at least, ‘catholic’ means ‘very generous in faith’; and the Protestants want to calculate and measure by reason before accepting. Reason is the predominant factor with the Protestant. They were started by Martin Luther in Germany. Then, again, amongst the Protestants another subdivision appeared as the Puritans. Milton was a Puritan. The ultra-moralists were called ‘Puritans.’ Then another branch came from the Puritans as the Independents. Those Puritans or Independents may not remain today in their original forms, but Protestants and Catholics are still present side by side. The British Monarchy is Protestant.

‘Catholic,’ in the proper sense, is a good expression. How much faith in the infinite can we claim to have? There is a story of a frog. One of the children of a frog saw an elephant. The mother was not present at that time. When the mother came, it said to the mother, “I saw a very big animal.”

“How big?”

The frog puffs itself up: “So big? So big? So big?”

In this way, it puffs itself up to a bigger and bigger figure.

“No—bigger, bigger, bigger than that!”

Then the frog bursts—finished. So how catholic can we be? What capacity do we have? We are like frogs. The elephant is also a meagre thing. ‘Catholic’ means ‘generous.’ How generous can we be to contain the whole within us? Impossible.

Only faith can give some connection. Our reason and all our other ‘weapons’ must come to failure. Only faith can somewhat connect us, give us some touch. How spacious is the faith we can accommodate in our tiny selves? In the infinite, we shall have to accommodate infinite possibilities. Krishna says, “In your conception of infinite, thousands of infinite forms are only a negligible part of Me”:

athava bahunaitena kim jnatena tavarjjuna
vistabhyaham idam krtsnam ekamsena sthito jagat

(Srimad Bhagavad-gita, 10.42)

You cannot imagine a connection with Him—it is only possible by His grace. Then, the question is, how to get His grace? Total surrender and attempt to please Him; to enter into His sympathy by fully inviting and accepting His ways, in whatever meagre way we can know to do so.

We must approach Him through His bona fide devotees. They are our wealth and ultimate resort. His devotees, His agents, are our shelter. We should only try our utmost to connect with His bona fide agents. To attain the infinite is to make the impossible possible. Being finite, we aspire after a connection with the infinite? Apparently it is impossible. Yet, it is possible, and possible only through our most humbled attitude; to directly admit that we are nothing, we are so mean. We are so mean, so small, so negligible, so meagre. When we come to realize our proper position, the law of relativity will take us to Him. He will come, out of mercy.

We shall try our best to know ourselves as sinners: “If You take the path of justice, I have no hope. I am an infinite sinner. Only if the door of mercy is opened—only if the line of mercy is extended to me, can I have some hope. I am so mean, so low—You are so high, so noble. Only through the doorway of Your mercy, Your affection, can I approach You to enter into Your shelter.”

Saranagati—condemning one’s own self to the extreme, sincerely of course, and feeling the greatness of the Master party. “Will You graciously accept me? I am not fit to render any service to You, my Lord.” Only this kind of attitude may take us to Him. We must appeal to the mercy side. Affection, devotion. His grace, His kindness—that subtle aspect is to be tackled by the souls, and then they may have some hope and prospect.

Mercy above justice

vicharite aobi, guna nahi paobi,
krpa kara chhodata vichara

(Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur says) “If You come to judge, You won’t find anything in my favour, so kindly leave aside the way of judgement. In the way of justice I have no hope. If You come with mercy, then I can hope to enter into Your Domain.”

That is devotion proper, saranagati. And in Krishna consciousness, that is the plane of mercy, love and affection. Mercy is not as intense in Vaikuntha; some justice, calculation, or vidhi, is mixed there. But Vrindavan is the land of mercy, love, and affection. And more, there is no want there—it is infinite; the mercy there is also infinite, so an infinite number of culprits can be accommodated there without the slightest difficulty. There is no possibility of pollution of the atmosphere if so many nasty souls like us are accepted. It’s infinite.

Krishna consciousness is so generous. It may be extended to the lowest, but the negotiation with Him must be sincere. Still, there is no fear of the meanness of the negotiation. There is no sinner that cannot be purified by Krishna. The greatest sinner may be purified in a second or less. There is so much dynamic power. But we must enter into those doors of mercy and affection, not of justice. Vicharite aobi, guna nahi paobi, krpa kara chhodata vichara.

Divine slavery

“Take me by the door of mercy, my Lord.” That is our real nature, and we should live in such an atmosphere. If we are to live in Vrindavan, no vanity can stand. There, all are of such a temperament. We are all dependants, parasites. We may be cast away and rejected at any moment. As slaves, the Master has all rights over us (Krsnera nitya-dasa). We have to enter with the mentality of a slave: “I am His property, and He can do anything and everything with me; He has cent-per-cent lordship over me.” Such a conception is our wealth. We are always thirsty for mercy. In that plane all are fully cognizant of the fact that they are living dependent on the mercy of the Master, the Lord.

Still, we sometimes find that one party asserts itself over another, but this is arranged by Yogamaya to accomplish the lila of Krishna. One slave may be appointed the master of many. In a drama, a slave may play the part of a landlord, yet he is still a slave in fact. A slave can play different parts in a drama. Such things are arranged by Yogamaya to satisfy Krishna. There, a slave may also have such a unique right, according to his degree of sacrifice, self-abnegation and intensity of hankering for mercy. There may be a gradation according to progress on the negative side. We are told that one who holds the highest position thinks himself to be the lowest of all. This is the measure of negativity. He or she who is rendering the greatest service thinks, “I am most unsatisfied, I can’t do any service to Krishna. I am the worst of all the servants. I can’t serve properly.”

In fact, that is the qualification for rendering service to the Lord. That dissatisfaction is the capital of service. “I can’t satisfy my Lord; I can’t work as directed.” Such a devotee is always alert in this way to the highest degree. He is always suspicious about his own self. This is the ego of the negative type—never asserting, but always self-abusing. The combination of such servitors becomes very, very sweet. The atmosphere is very sweet—no aggressors, all contributors. Famine is created artificially by hoarding, which forces the government to place a prohibition on hoarding and order all commodities fairly to the open market, With the fair, open market, opulence flourishes, and with hoarding, dearth is felt. Similarly, when all are earnestly contributing service without any hoarding, the market is full. Any passer-by will find all abundance for there is hearty contribution for Krishna and His own. There is ample of all necessities.

Prema means that Love. That is the nature of love—die to live. There may be ‘kill to live,’ and ‘die to live.’ In the land of exploitation, everything is ‘kill to live,” but here is the opposite—‘die, and live’; ‘give, and live,’ not ‘take and live.” And that is the order of that land where everyone lives happily. It may appear that they are dying, but really we thrive there. By giving we thrive, and by taking we lose. Exploitation and devotion, or dedication, are opposite numbers. And most important is the link with the centre. This cannot be a nationalistic pursuit, or that of any similar separate group. One must have a proper connection with the centre, otherwise there will be selfishness and partiality. In national unity, religious unity, etc., there will always have to be a hitch. Religious classification which is provincial or local (sampradayik) will not do. The Absolute Centre represents love, affection, beauty, harmony, and we must connect with that to live, to give. Worldly giving is not giving at all. Giving to a goonda (rogue) or giving to a prostitute is only exploitation or to invest some energy for greater exploitation in the future. Not that. But give in the proper sense—to give is to ‘die.’ That is ‘die to live,’ that is dedication. And die for what? Die for the centre, the central good. Merge there. Merge yourself wholly in His interest. Then you will be happy. Consider yourself a slave to the Absolute Lord. You will be happy.

Slavery is a most contemptible thing in this world. Even to utter the word ‘slave’ is considered most objectionable and unthinkable, the most hateful and dishonourable connotation. But in connection with the Absolute Good it is the actual honourable position. To be reckoned as a slave to the highest good is the most honourable position: “I don’t want to assert myself; to assert myself will be a loss to my own interest. The more I assert myself, the more I shall be the loser. I shall be denied His perfect decision and interference by taking my fate into my own limited hand.”

Depend on Him—learn to believe in Him

So depend on Him as much as you can. Learn to believe in Him, the Absolute Good. You are afraid of believing in your neighbour. You have earned such a position by your own previous action. Your intellect is always keenly alert to being robbed by your neighbour, only because of your previous karma. Doubt and suspicion cause you to think, “I’m being exploited by the environment, I’m being robbed.”To be always alert with such suspicion is a most miserable and intolerable life. So we have to become good enough to have a cottage in that soil where none deceives his neighbour, where one always opens his heart to his neighbour in that kingdom of Krishna.

We should not rely on the future. We do not know where we shall be hurled to at any moment, by the course of the different currents of the environment. So act in the living present, believe only the present. Try to make the most of the present. The future is not in your hand. It depends on the resultant of so many actions, forces and currents in the world outside. Where and how it will take us is unknown, so we must try to utilize the chance of the present. Don’t bother retaining the previous incidents of your life.

Heart within and God overhead

Act in the living present, with heart within—with sincerity—and with God overhead; the ultimate reality must be Good Absolute. Accept a life of this type. Na hi kalyana-krt kaschid durgatim tata gachchhati: if you be sincere, well-meaning, no one will be able to defeat you. Your victory is assured.

With spirit we have to take the Name Divine. With the help of the Divine Sound we can approach that soil. The absolute sound is assertive. It contains divinity. That sound will gradually guide us, but we must follow the direction sincerely. The Name appears in a most concise form, but as much as we progress we shall see the broadness of that sound, what it contains in its substance—figure, colour, appearance. The sound will produce the appearance as food for the eye; then attributes as food for the mind; then parikara, the entourage, for our movement. It will show a soil where can live and move, and then lila, or pastimes, which is the product and object of that movement. As in a big organization we find that money is the product—so many labourers are moving so many parts of machinery in the factory only for the result—money; we shall similarly find that lila means movement with intrinsic satisfaction. It is not only that movement is the cause of satisfaction, but automatically every movement means the wave of love, the wave of joy, the wave of ecstasy. The whole movement is that of joy, ecstasy, happiness. Lila means that. In Sri Brahma-samhita it is said, natyam gamanam. Ordinary movement is a general thing, but as dancing, movement contains joy. Katha ganam: speaking becomes singing; in the sound wave there is sweetness all through, within and without. Sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet. Charm, beauty, sweetness, love, affection—all these come to give some conception of that highest soil that Krishna consciousness promises to take us to.

CONTENTS

(1) The Divine Service of Krishna
(2) The Voice of Sri Chaitanyadev
(3) A Day at Hapaniya
(4) Holy Talks
(5) Living Faith
(6) Sri Dasa-Mula

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