Yes to Krishna, No to Illusion (Part I)

[You find the second part of this lecture here.]

by His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada

"By rendering devotional service unto the Personality of Godhead, Sri Krishna, one immediately acquires causeless knowledge and detachment from the world."

—Srimad Bhagavatam 1.2.7

Those who consider devotional service to the Supreme Lord Sri Krishna to be something like material emotional affairs may argue that in the revealed scriptures, sacrifice, charity, austerity, knowledge, mystic powers, and similar other processes of transcendental realization are recommended. According to them, bhakti, or the devotional service of the Lord, is meant for those who cannot perform the high grade activities.

It is sublime for the pure devotees who are serious about getting in contact with the Supreme Lord, and it is easy for the neophytes who are just on the threshold of the house of bhakti.

To achieve the contact of the Supreme Personality of Godhead Sri Krishna is a great science, and it is open for all living beings, including the sudras, vaisyas, women, and even those lower than the lowborn sudras, so what to speak of the high-class men like the qualified brahmanas and the great self-realized kings.

The other high grade activities designated as sacrifice, charity, austerity, etc., are all corollary factors following the process of pure and scientific bhakti.

The principles of knowledge and detachment are two important factors on the path of transcendental realization. The whole spiritual process leads to perfect knowledge of everything material and spiritual, and the results of such perfect knowledge are that one becomes detached from material affection and becomes attached to spiritual activities. Becoming detached from material things does not mean becoming inert altogether, as men with a poor fund of knowledge think.

Naiskarmya means not undertaking activities that will produce good or bad effects. Negation does not mean negation of the positive. Negation of the nonessentials does not mean negation of the essential. Similarly, detachment from material forms does not mean nullifying the positive form. The bhakti cult is meant for realization of the positive form. When the positive form is realized, the negative forms are automatically eliminated. Therefore, with the development of the bhakti cult, with the application of positive service to the positive form, one naturally becomes detached from inferior things, and he becomes attached to superior things.

Similarly, the bhakti cult, being the supermost occupation of the living being, leads him out of material sense enjoyment. That is the sign of a pure devotee. He is not a fool, nor is he engaged in the inferior energies, nor does he have material values. This is not possible by dry reasoning. It actually happens by the grace of the Almighty.

In conclusion, one who is a pure devotee has all other good qualities, namely knowledge, detachment, etc., but one who has only knowledge or detachment is not necessarily well acquainted with the principles of the bhakti cult. Bhakti is the supermost occupation of the human being. The knowledge that comes from practicing bhakti enables us to answer the question "What am I?"

In the conditioned stage of life we pass our days not in knowledge but in ignorance, just like the animals. The animals have no self-knowledge. They are always absorbed in the bodily concept of life. The dog thinks, "I am a dog. I am this body." Of course, he does not know whether he is a dog or a cat. We have given him the name "dog." He simply knows, "I am this body, and I must meet the needs of this body somehow or other." That is his only business. The whole day and night he is simply working to meet the needs of his body. This is ignorance.

When we are no longer cats and dogs but are human beings, we can understand, "I am not this body; I am a spirit soul." Therefore the Vedanta-sutra says, athato brahma jijnasa: "Having achieved the human form of life, one should inquire into the Absolute Truth."

The human body is achieved after transmigrating for many, many years through up to 8,000,000 lower forms of life. Therefore this life should not be spoiled by living like cats and dogs—simply eating, sleeping, defending, and engaging in sexual intercourse. These bodily demands are common to both animals and human beings. But what is the special facility of human life? The human being is eligible to understand what is the value of life, what are the problems of life, and how to make a solution to those problems. That is human life, not simply passing our days like cats and dogs, working very hard to satisfy our bodily demands.

Again and again the scriptures warn against this kind of degraded life. Lord Rsabhadeva says (Srimad-Bhagavatam 5.5.1), nayam deho deha-bhajam nrloke kastan kaman arhate vidbhujam ye: "This human form of life is not meant for satisfying the senses with great difficulty, like the stool-eating hogs."

Eating is necessary, of course, but a village hog eats the most abominable thing, stool, searching it out the whole day and night. And if human beings create a so-called civilization in which one simply has to work hard day and night to get food, then the lives of the human beings in that civilization are no better than the hog's life.

That is not human life. Human life should be peaceful. One should be able to acquire food easily, eat nicely, and save time for cultivating Krishna consciousness. That is human life. But if we create a civilization of cats, dogs, and hogs, then Krishna will give us the chance to work day and night simply for eating, sleeping, mating, and defending. And that is the position now because people want it.

Actually, there is no scarcity of food. Krishna is so kind that He is providing food for everyone (eko bahunam yo vidadhati kaman). He is feeding millions and trillions of living entities. Throughout the world there are billions of birds. Who is feeding them? Krishna is feeding them. So the real problems in the world are not overpopulation or a scarcity of food. The problem is a scarcity of God consciousness. That is why people are suffering.

That is not to say that the needs of the body should be neglected; they must be met. But we should not be busy simply for satisfying the needs of the body. We are spirit souls, and the spirit soul has its own needs. We must meet those needs. Then we will be happy.

These needs can be met when we follow the instructions of this verse and attain jnana and vairagya, knowledge and detachment. Detachment cannot be achieved without knowledge. Real knowledge means to understand, "I am not this body." As soon as we understand that we are not the body, we can also understand that sense gratification is not required. And that understanding is detachment, or vairagya.

But without jnana, we think we must satisfy the senses. Absorbed in the bodily concept of life, which is ajnana, or ignorance, we think our only business is to satisfy our senses. The whole world is moving on the basis of sense gratification. When a young man and a young woman meet, the desire for sense gratification becomes very strong. As the Srimad- Bhagavatam (5.5.8) says,

pumsah striya mithuni-bhavam etam
tayor mitho hrdaya-granthim ahuh
ato grha-ksetra-sutapta-vittair
janasya moho 'yam aham mameti

A man is attracted to a woman, and a woman is attracted to man, and as soon as they are united sexually, that mutual attraction becomes very strong. Then they are married and require a house or apartment (grha) and a job for earning money or some land for cultivating food (ksetra).

Then come children (suta), a widening circle of friends and relatives (apta), and wealth (vittaih). In this way the living entity becomes entangled in a network of illusion and thinks, "I am this body, and this family and property are mine."

Actually, nothing belongs to him. As soon as death comes, he has to change his body, and as soon as he changes his body, everything is finished. His property, his wife, his children, his country, his society—everything is lost. As Krishna says in the Bhagavad-gita (10.4), mrtyuh sarva-haras caham: "As death, I take away everything." For His devotees Krishna appears as Himself—as beautiful Sri Krishna playing a flute—but for the nondevotees Krishna comes as death. Then they can see God. The atheists simply defy God, challenging "Where is your Krishna? Where is God?" and in the end they also see Him, as death.

So the atheists and the theists both see Krishna, but whereas the atheists see Him only at the end of their lives, as all-devouring death, the theists see Krishna Himself in their hearts at every moment because they have developed love for Him (premanjana-cchurita-bhakti-vilocanena santah sadaiva hrdayesu vilokayanti [Bs. 5.38]).

The previous verse of Srimad-Bhagavatam (1.2.6) has described the culture of this love of God as the supreme dharma for human beings: sa vai pumsam paro dharmo yato bhaktir adhoksaje. That culture is required. You may belong to any type of religion-Hindu, Muslim, Christian—but the test of how religious you are is how much you have developed love of Godhead. Without such development, your religious process is useless.

Sometimes people ask, "Have you seen God?" To see God is not difficult. You simply have to qualify yourself to see Him by developing your love of Godhead. Then you can see God at every moment. This is the formula. And if you have not developed Krishna consciousness to the degree that you can always see Him in your heart, then you can see God in the material world, as prescribed in the scriptures. For example, in the Bhagavad-gita (7.8) Krishna says, raso 'ham apsu kaunteya: "I am the taste of water." So, you can see Krishna while drinking water if you remember, "The taste of this water is Krishna." Is it very difficult? Not at all.

Then Krishna says, prabhasmi sasi-suryayoh: "I am the light of the sun and the moon." If while drinking water you forget that Krishna is the taste, you can see Him by remembering that He is the light of the sun and the moon. So when people ask, "Have you seen God?" we reply, "Yes, and you have also seen Him, because Krishna says, 'I am the sunshine.'" Who has not seen the sunshine? So, you have to begin seeing God in this way—by remembering Him when you taste water, when you see the sunshine, and so on. Such remembrance of God is also seeing Him.

Spiritual seeing is not done simply with the eyes. Because Krishna is absolute, you can also see Him by chanting His name or by describing Him. Sravanam kirtanam visnoh smaranam pada-sevanam [SB 7.5.23]. When you hear of Krishna, you are seeing Krishna, when you chant about Krishna, you are seeing Krishna, when you are thinking of Krishna, you are seeing Krishna. This is the process for seeing God.

If you hear about Krishna, if you chant about Krishna, if you think about Krishna, if you worship Krishna, if you render some service to Krishna, if you offer everything to Krishna, you'll see Krishna always, twenty-four hours a day. This is bhakti-yoga. My students in the Krishna consciousness society are following these principles: They are cooking for Krishna, dancing for Krishna, singing for Krishna, talking for Krishna, going around the world for Krishna—everything for Krishna. Anyone can adopt these principles. Where is the difficulty? Vasudeve bhagavati bhakti-yogah prayojitah [SB 1.2.7]. And if you practice Krishna con- sciousness in this way, the result will be janayaty asu vairagyam jnanam ca yad ahaitukam: Very soon you will automatically attain knowledge and detachment.

[You find the second part of this lecture here.]