R-s 5b 🤲 I "receive" the seed?

❧ Cc Madhya 19.151 ❧

A week ago we went over the verse brahmāṇḍa bhramite, which I divided into three parts. Below is the script (slightly edited) I used to make the second part, which is on the topic of what it means that we receive the seed of the vine of devotion. Something you'll find in this post, which is not in the video—I wish I'd found it before—is a clip of my Gurudeva speaking on what to do if we ever face the situation where we don't see the the words of guru aligning with śāstra.

The debate: is bhakti inherient or inherited?

In this post I share some initial thoughts I have regarding the word pāya, that the jiva “receives” the seed in the verse brahmāṇḍa bhramite. This is a follow up to the previous post I wrote.  

In the current raging debate on whether bhakti inherent in the jīva or inherited, this verse is sometimes cited as proof. In this post, I won't be getting into specifics but will just share some thoughts I have on the whole debate in general.

This is a large, complex topic. I have a feeling this debate will continue throughout my lifetime. There have been large books written advocating that bhakti comes from an external source, that it is not inherent in any way. Last year my friend Sundar Gopal Prabhu embarked on a six-year research project at Oxford university and the topic of his dissertation is Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura’s presentation on the ontology of the jīva and the sources he pulled from to establish his conclusions.

I am not at all scholarly and have not delved so deeply into the topic, so I'm not qualified to be writing about this issue. My original plan was to spend just a few minutes going over the word pāya and then move on to discuss what the seed of the vine of devotion is (kṛṣṇa-seva-vāsanā and śraddhā), but as I started writing about this word pāya, my fingers didn't stop and so I just went with the inspiration.

This issue has caused certain individuals to leave the line of Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura and take initiation elsewhere. It has also been causing many people to doubt the teachings of our recent ācāryas and so I felt the need to just say a little something more on it now that the topic has come up in our Rūpa-śikṣā program. I wish I had time to properly prepare something but we have a fixed schedule all the way till Rūpa Gosvāmī's disappearance day (9 Aug) and I've already thrown everything off by the time I spent writing about this. I have major catching up to do now.

Kṛṣṇer nitya-dāsa

What is the foundational principle in bhakti that I’ve been taught all throughout my life since I was a child? That I, this tiny soul currently confined within this body, am by nature an eternal servant of Kṛṣṇa (kṛṣṇa-nitya-dāsa).

The ultimate authority on the topic of our eternal relationship with Kṛṣṇa, our sambandha-ācārya, is Śrīla Sanātana Gosvāmī. After Rūpa-śikṣā in Śrī Caitanya-caritāmṛta comes Sanātana-śikṣā, Mahāprabhu’s instructions to Sanātana Gosvāmī. So what was our sambandha-ācārya’s first question to Mahāprabhu, which was the basis for the rest of Sanātana-śikṣā?

"Ke āmi? — Who am I?"

Mahāprabhu's answer:

jīvera ‘svarūpa’ haya— kṛṣṇera ‘nitya-dāsa’
The living entity’s constitutional position is as an eternal servant of Kṛṣṇa.

kṛṣṇera ‘taṭasthā-śakti’,‘bhedābheda-prakāśa’
As a manifestation of Kṛṣṇa’s marginal energy he is simultaneously one with Kṛṣṇa and different from Him. (Śrī Caitanya-caritāmṛta, Madhya-līlā 20.107)

The first step is to understand what my svarūpa is, the purpose of my existence. That I am Kṛṣṇa's eternal servant.

It’s only within the last few years that I heard this idea that “nope, you haven’t had this purpose to serve Kṛṣṇa lying within you to fulfill. That’s not who you’ve been. Although becoming a servant of Kṛṣṇa is the topmost attainment without a doubt, a soul can find eternal fulfillment in brahma-sayūjya as well and therefore there is no form of bhakti inherent in the soul.  You can have the potential to become a servant of Kṛṣṇa, but you need someone to give it to you."

I remember standing in front of Rādhā-Vinoda-bihāri just considering the idea:  "Wait, so everything I’ve heard and understood my whole life is not true? My eternal nature hasn’t always been to be Your servant? I’ve just been an empty floating spiritual spark, with an individual sense of I, but without any eternal relation with You in me as Your servant?" It was depressing to think about.

The seed of the vine of bhakti is kṛṣṇa-sevā-vāsanā, the tendency to serve Kṛṣṇa. So if this potential to serve Kṛṣṇa hasn't been the nature of our soul, and the seed is bestowed by śrī guru, then what about the many thousands of devotees who don't have a mahā-bhāgavata guru? Surely someone whose own vine of devotion hasn't developed won't be able to give something he doesn't have. So does that mean the majority of devotees all over the world don't have the potential for this eternal service connection to Kṛṣṇa to realize and develop? I’ve never discussed this with people advocating bhakti is inherited so I’m just assuming that’s what they’re saying, and if that’s the case, that’s pretty bleak.

In the current of conceptions, the dhārā, flowing from Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura  through Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Gosvāmī Prabhupāda and the many rivulets coming from him—his perfect associates—it has been made absolutely clear that our svarūpa, our very nature, is that we’re a servant of Kṛṣṇa (jīver svarūpa haya, haya = is). Not at some point in the future, possibly, will be. IS. This doesn't apply to merely some rare, fortunate jīvas. ALL jīvas. There are heaps and heaps of things our guru-varga has said on this topic in no uncertain terms.

In 1955, after Vraja-maṇḍala parikramā there was an iṣṭa-goṣṭhī with many of the prominent disciples of Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Gosvāmī Prabhupāda and they Śrīla Bhakti Rakṣaka Śrīdhara Gosvāmī Mahārāja and my Paramgurudeva, Śrīla Bhakti Prajñāna Keśava Gosvami Maharaja, both gave their opinions on the matter. I read out a recount from my Gurudeva, which you can watch below:

The word pāya

Let’s go back to the verse we learning and try to understand this word pāya:

brahmāṇḍa bhramite kona bhāgyavān jīva
While wandering throughout this universe, some fortunate jīva,

guru-kṛṣṇa-prasāde pāya bhakti-latā-bīja
by the mercy of guru and Kṛṣṇa, attains the seed of the vine of devotion.

Sometimes this verse is used as evidence: “see? The word pāya ("gets", "obtains") is there. The jīva gets, receives this seed of the bhakti-latā. It wasn’t there before, otherwise what would there be to receive?”

In the previous posting we saw Śrīla Prabhupada’s full Caitanya-caritāmṛta Purport to this verse in which, at the end, he beautifully answers this question:

❝Everyone has dormant kṛṣṇa-bhakti — love for Kṛṣṇa — and in the association of good devotees, that love is revealed. As stated in the Caitanya-caritāmṛta (Madhya 22.107):

nitya-siddha-kṛṣṇa-prema ‘sādhya’ kabhu naya
śravaṇādi-śuddha-citte karaye udaya

Dormant devotional service to Kṛṣṇa is within everyone. Simply by associating with devotees, hearing their good instructions and chanting the Hare Kṛṣṇa mantra, dormant love for Kṛṣṇa is awakened. In this way one acquires the seed of devotional service. Guru-kṛṣṇa-prasāde pāya bhakti-latā-bīja.❞

From what I’ve understood, it’s not like we already have this bhakti developed within us but it is just in a stunted or covered position. No. My Paramgurudeva would explain that it is just like a seed, which has a particular purpose inherent within it. The purpose of its entire existence is to grow into a particular type of tree. The tree isn’t already in the seed, but its purpose to become a tree is there. And this seed, if it’s just left in the seed packet, it’s not going to grow on it’s own. The chance to awaken the purpose of our existence—for this seed to start growing—is so far away and inaccessible to us, it’s almost as if it isn’t even there. Our true nature is completely lost to us. We completely, 100%, depend on the mercy of śrī guru and Krsna by which we can get access to this seed, plant it and begin the growth process with the water and everything else they supply us with. We can’t do it on our own. So in that way bhakti is simultaneously inherent and inherited. It’s not only one or the other.

I really liked how Sundar Gopal Prabhu explained it in his presentation. You can watch a clip from it here.

Difference in sādhu, guru and śāstra?

I hear people making the point: “When we find a difference (seeming difference) in the words of sādhu, guru and śāstra, then we give prominence to the conclusion of śāstra.

You face major problems when you see these three—sādhu, guru and śāstra—as being completely separate and independent from each other. Sometimes people claim they might be at odds with one another and they try to divorce sādhu from guru or guru from śāstra. The fact is that these three are in complete harmony with each other. Our inability at times to harmonize these three is our lacking, not some fault or lacking in sādhu or guru.

After three minutes in the audio clip below, my Gurudeva explains the necessity to reconciling apparent contradictions:

Another point that comes to mind is what is śāstra? That depends on one's faith. The six classical schools of thought in India all have different scriptures they consider the basis of evidence. For Christians, it's the bible. What is considered pramāṇic śāstras differs according to one's faith. For us, Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam is pramāṇam-amalam, the topmost spotless evidence.

But what was the need for so many ācāryas, like Śrīdhara Svāmī, Sanātana Gosvāmī, Jīva Gosvāmī, Viśvanātha Cakravartī Ṭhākura, Baladeva Vidyābhūṣaṇa, Śrīnātha Cakravartī, Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Prabhupāda, and our Śrīla Prabhupāda to write extensive commentaries on Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam? Is it possible to bypass all of them and understand Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam directly on your own? And are  their commentaries also considered śāstra? Śrīla Rūpa Gosvāmī writes in Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu: "rasikaiḥ saha śrī-bhāgavatārthāsvādaḥ – we relish the meanings of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam in the company of rasika devotees." We don’t approach it independently.

If you’ve come into our Rūpānuga Gauḍīya Sarasvata line, then would you not consider Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura’s Jaiva-Dharma to be śāstra? Come to more recent times, do you consider Śrīla Prabhupāda’s writing to be śāstra? It really depends on your śraddhā.

We can only understand śāstra through our guru-varga

What was the culture doing the time of Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Prabhupāda for how to approach Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam? Śrīla Śrīdhara Gosvāmī Mahārāja gives us a glimpse:

❝Self-giving is the symptom of śraddhā, faith. Without self-giving, intellectualism will have no value. Reading scriptures will have no value, and also the physical association of the sādhu will have no value, if there is no śraddhā. Many living entities including bugs and mosquitoes have physical association with the sādhus, but association through dedication is necessary. Śraddhā is all-important. To have śraddhā means to have the mood that if we dedicate everything to Kṛṣṇa, we will get everything. We will achieve whatever is necessary: wholesale fulfilment.

The path of that is dedication, śraddhā, and sevā, service, and therefore our Guru Mahārāja laid so much emphasis on service. We were not allowed so much to read even Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam or the books by the Six Gosvāmīs, but our time was to be utilised in service.

The serving nature will connect you with the real thing. Neither scriptural knowledge nor the close association with a saint has any meaning if it is not done with dedication, self-surrender, self-giving. Physical association alone has no meaning. It must all be done through śraddhā, and service, so much so that if a sādhu or guru asks, “Read this book,” then it will be service; but if I read a book to enhance my knowledge, it may be jñāna but not service. We can only have real progress through sevonmukhe hi jihvādau, otherwise everything may be imitation. If we do not approach with the spirit of service, everything may be imitation, and we won’t come in contact with reality. This is the most important point, and it is the specialty of the Gauḍīya Maṭha, our ācāryas, our gurudevas, and also of Mahāprabhu and Rūpa Gosvāmī.❞

Published in Rays of The Harmonist (No 9, Kartik 2001)

Once in 1952, there was an iṣṭa-gosthī with the senior disciples of Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Prabhupāda and they were discussing a seeming difference in the commentary of Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakura and Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Prabhupāda on the verse kṛṣṇeti yasya giritān mānasādriyeta. In that discussion my Paramgurudeva said, “We must understand the commentary of Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura through the medium of Śrīla Prabhupāda, and we should give prominence to Śrīla Prabhupāda’s commentary.” and then he went on to harmonize the two seeming contradictory points. We are cheating ourselves if we simply depend on our shallow, surface-level understanding of their words and have the confidence thinking we've fully grasped everything.

I’ve never been one to retain much of what I hear or read, but if I’ve understood anything—even if only theoretically—from the teachings of our ācāryas that I’ve heard since childhood, it is to accept with submission our guru-paramparā’s statements on transcendental subject matters.

What did Śrīla Viśvanātha Cakravartī Ṭhākura do when he wasn’t able to understand understand Śrīla Kṛṣṇadasa Kavirāja Gosvāmī’s mention of the half syllable in the kāma-gāyatrī-mantra? He did not for a minute think that Śrīla Kṛṣṇadasa Kavirāja was incorrect but saw that the fault was in himself and he did extensive research to determine the half-syllable. When he was unable to find the answer and went to the bank of Rādhā-kuṇḍa at night with the intent of giving up his body, he dozed off and Śrīmatī Rādhārāṇī appeared to him in a dream and personally guided him in which book to find it. (Read full story here)

In this way, we have only ever heard of our guru-varga setting the example of being cent-per-cent accepting of their own guru-varga’s words.

It’s so strange the lack of reverence, how people are so quick to dismiss the words of our guru-varga nowadays. “Oh, that doesn’t hold weight in a scholarly debate because this ācārya came within the last 1-200 years.” What’s starting to become prevalent in our Vaiṣṇava community is this extreme reverence for jñāna above all else. Actually, I wouldn’t even call it jñāna, but simply mundane scholarship. "Se jñāna durbala, se jñāna ajñāna jāni – that knowledge [mundane scholarship] is weak; I know that jñāna knowledge to be ajñāna ignorance." (Vidyāra Vilāse, 2, Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura)

I’m sharing this quote of Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura Prabhupāda again because it’s relevant:

There are persons who have got by heart almost everything that he [Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura] wrote without being able to catch the least particle of his meaning. Such study cannot benefit those who are not prepared to act up to the instructions lucidly conveyed by his words. …

Those who repeat the teachings of Ṭhākura Bhaktivinoda from memory do not necessarily understand the meaning of the words they mechanically repeat. Those who can pass an empiric examination regarding the contents of his writings are not necessarily also self-realized souls. They may not at all know the real meaning of the words they have learned by the method of empiric study. Take for example the name “Kṛṣṇa”. Every reader of Ṭhākura Bhaktivinoda’s works must be aware that the name manifests Himself on the lips of His serving devotees, although He is inaccessible to our mundane senses. It is one thing to pass the examination by reproducing this true conclusion from the writings of Ṭhākura Bhaktivinoda and quite another matter to realize the nature of the holy name of Kṛṣṇa by the process conveyed by the words.

Ṭhākura Bhaktivinoda did not want us to go to the clever mechanical reciter of the mundane sound for obtaining access to the transcendental name of Kṛṣṇa. Such a person may be fully equipped with all the written arguments in explanation of the nature of the divine name. But if we listen to all these arguments from the dead source, the words will only increase our delusion. The very same words coming from the lips of the devotee will have the diametrically opposite effect. Our empiric judgment can never grasp the difference between the two performances. The devotee is always right. The non-devotee in the shape of the empiric pedant is always and necessarily wrong. In the one case there is always present the substantive truth and nothing but the substantive truth. In the other case there is present the apparent or misleading hypothesis and nothing but un-truth. The wording may have the same external appearance in both cases. The non-devotee may recite verses from the scriptures identical to the ones recited by the devotee, and the devotee may even apparently misquote something, but the corresponding values of the two processes remain always categorically different. The devotee is right even when he apparently misquotes, the non-devotee is wrong even when he quotes correctly the very words, chapter and verse of the scriptures.❞

From The Harmonist, December 1931, Volume 29, Number 6
Published in Rays of The Harmonist No 26, 2014

Debating siddhānta

You wanna know how NOT to gain knowledge of acintya, inconceivable, subject matters? How to completely delude yourself? Try to reach the conclusion through long, drawn-out debates. Have we seen an example like that in our Gauḍīya history where all the Vaisnavas got together to get in a big debate and argued out the conclusion of some transcendental topic? That seems to be the process for realizing the truth now. It’s like this very heavy Western intellectual mindset has befallen our Vaiṣṇava community.

We’ve only seen debate used in Vaiṣṇavism when someone outside our community starts to spread false conclusions opposed to bhakti or tries to attack our teachings—only then would those qualified and learned great Vaiṣṇavas rise to defend and establish our pure Gaudiya siddhānta. Open, public debates with one another is something I've heard of before.

Relying solely on intellect to reach conclusions is the path of aroha, those on the ascending path. But we are followers of the avaroha-pantha, the descending path. Our process is simply to surrender ourselves and humbly serve like Śrīla Śrīdhara Gosvāmī Mahārāja said, approaching these subject matters in a prayerful mood and with an understanding that “aprakrta-vastu nahe prakrta gocara” that these transcendental things are beyond the grasp of my intellect and other material senses (CC Madhya 9.194), and they can only be revealed into my heart by someone who has truly realized it and can give it.

Scholarship alone doesn’t hold much weight in the realm of bhakti. Let the scholars rack their brains in endless cold, dry debate and argument. I’m praying that I can stay far away from useless argument and in the company of like-minded devotees, gradually be able to surrender my life to these three: sādhu, guru and śāstra. In Śrīla Prabhupāda’s purport the other day, we came across these words he quoted: “Sādhu-guru-śāstra vākya, cittete koriyā aikya – may I make the words of sādhu, guru and śāstra one with my heart”. Only then will their transcendental words reveal everything to me.