KEY TAKEAWAYS FROM HH HARIVILAS MAHARAJ’S MORNING BHAGAVATAM CLASS ON SB 2.2.20
- The whole point of Yoga is to bring the mind into the service of the lord. The Lord and His service are identical, being on the absolute plane. But unfortunately, the meaning of present-day Yoga has no mention of Mind or Krsna,
- The functions of the mind are thinking, feeling, and willing. When the mind is materialistic or absorbed in material contact, it acts for material advancement of knowledge, destructively ending in the discovery of nuclear weapons.
- But when the mind acts under spiritual urge, it acts wonderfully for going back home, back to Godhead, for life in complete bliss and eternity. Therefore the mind has to be manipulated by good and unalloyed intelligence. Perfect intelligence is to render service unto the Lord.
- When one turns his intelligence to inquire about it from the right sources, he gets information of the transcendental loving service of the Lord. (That is what we do in the temple, we provide people the information of loving service and provide opportunities to engage in the service of the lord)
- Instead of serving materially – the dictates of desire, anger, lust, illusion, insanity and enviousness, the different humors of the body, the living entity’s intelligence then becomes freed from the unhappy illusion of materialistic temperament, and thus, by unalloyed intelligence, the mind is brought into the service of the Lord.
- For the impersonalist the ultimate goal or destination is the brahmajyoti of the spiritual sky. Because of his neglecting the association of the Lord, he does not develop a spiritual body for spiritual activity, but remains a spiritual spark only, merged in the effulgent spiritual rays of the Supreme Personality of Godhead.
- For the devotees, the ultimate goal is the Vaikuṇṭha planets. The devotees attain spiritual forms for activity in the transcendental loving service of the Lord.
- Apart from the class of impersonalists or nondevotees, there are also classes who pose themselves as devotees of the Lord but at heart maintain the idea of salvation by becoming one with the impersonal Brahman. They wrongly manufacture their own way of devotional service by open debauchery and mislead others who are simpletons or debauchees like themselves. Such nondevotees and debauchees are completely excluded from the list of transcendentalists by Śukadeva Gosvāmī.
- All these impersonalists, non-devotees and debauchees – with a poor fund of knowledge cannot have any conception of the param, the Supreme; they try to stick to the varieties of material enjoyments, although they may flatter themselves as being Brahman-realized souls. They cannot reach the Supreme.
- There are so many of these misleaders and phony gurus who are not giving the right information to the people and with their theories, they are encouraging people to have more sense of gratification while in this material as there is no form beyond this material world…
- The devotees have full knowledge of the spiritual world, the Personality of Godhead and His transcendental association in unlimited spiritual planets called Vaikuṇṭhalokas.
- Knowledge – Knowledge means knowing things as they are, and if by deliberation it is found that there are things which are at all unnecessary, naturally the person who has acquired knowledge leaves aside such unwanted things.
- Detachment /Vairagya – When the conditioned soul finds by culture of knowledge that material necessities are unwanted things, he becomes detached from such unwanted things. This stage of knowledge is called vairāgya, or detachment from unwanted things.
- Purification – So purification means getting free gradually from sex desire, and this is attained by meditation on the person of the Lord as described herein, beginning from the feet. (SB 2.2.12)
- One should not try to go upwards artificially without seeing for himself how much he has been released from the sex desire.
- Those who are still entrapped by sex indulgence should never progress to meditation above the feet of the Lord; therefore recital of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam by them should be restricted to the first and second cantos of the great literature. One must complete the purificatory process by assimilating the contents of the first nine cantos. Then one should be admitted into the realm of the Tenth Canto of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam.
SB 2.2.20 TRANSLATION
The meditative devotee should slowly push up the life air from the navel to the heart, from there to the chest, and from there to the root of the palate. He should search out the proper places with intelligence.
CLASS NOTES:
There are six circles of the movement of the life air, and the intelligent bhakti-yogī should search out these places with intelligence and in a meditative mood. Among these, mentioned above is the svādhiṣṭhāna-cakra, or the powerhouse of the life air, and above this, just below the abdomen and navel, is the maṇi-pūraka-cakra. When upper space is further searched out in the heart, one reaches the anāhata-cakra, and further up, when the life air is placed at the root of the palate, one reaches the viśuddhi-cakra.
We see that we are trying to explore this planet, and other planets, but we have not explored our own bodies. Yoga is an internal process and it is focused mainly on controlling the mind. Controlling the mind is more difficult than controlling the wind as Arjuna says in BG. How to control the mind – Mechanical process & Spiritual process. Mechanical process is given in dhyana yoga – Yama, niyama, dhrana, pratyahara… This process practically cannot be done by anyone. However the spiritual process is taught by Chaitanya Maha Prabhu – By chanting holy name, honoring the prasadam, nagar sankirtan -to fill the mind with the transcendental ecstasies of loving service to the lord. Yoga process is actually infused with Bhakti. But nowadays due to cancel culture, Krsna is completely removed from the Yoga process, as the dictionary meaning of yoga says. If you cancel Krsna, Vaikuntha, Goloka, Cows, Nand Maharaj, … then you end up keeping the minds of the people in Sense gratification in this material world. They are increasing the attention to sex life and sense gratification as there is no love in Goloka you might as well do it here. The Yoga practice is aimed at obtaining Krsna. If you infuse bhakti then it becomes Bhakti Yoga.
(SB 2.2.16) THE WHOLE POINT OF YOGA IS TO BRING THE MIND INTO THE SERVICE OF THE LORD
The functions of the mind are thinking, feeling, and willing. When the mind is materialistic or absorbed in material contact, it acts for material advancement of knowledge, destructively ending in the discovery of nuclear weapons. But when the mind acts under spiritual urge, it acts wonderfully for going back home, back to Godhead, for life in complete bliss and eternity. Therefore the mind has to be manipulated by good and unalloyed intelligence. Perfect intelligence is to render service unto the Lord. One should be intelligent enough to understand that the living being is, in all circumstances, a servant of the circumstances. Every living being is serving the dictates of desire, anger, lust, illusion, insanity, and enviousness — all materially affected. But even while executing such dictations of different temperaments, he is perpetually unhappy. When one actually feels this and turns his intelligence to inquiring about it from the right sources, he gets information of the transcendental loving service of the Lord. Instead of serving materially for the above-mentioned different humors of the body, the living entity’s intelligence then becomes freed from the unhappy illusion of materialistic temperament, and thus, by unalloyed intelligence, the mind is brought into the service of the Lord. The Lord and His service are identical, being on the absolute plane. Therefore the unalloyed intelligence and the mind are merged into the Lord, and thus the living entity does not remain a seer himself but becomes seen by the Lord transcendentally. When the living entity is directly seen by the Lord, the Lord dictates to him to act according to His desire, and when the living entity follows Him perfectly, the living entity ceases to discharge any other duty for his illusory satisfaction. In his pure, unalloyed state, the living being attains the stage of full bliss, labdhopaśānti, and ceases all material hankerings.
(SB 2.2.17) IMPERSONALISTS REMAIN AS SPIRITUAL SPARKS AND DEVOTEES GET SPIRITUAL FORMS TO PERFORM LOVING SERVICE TO THE LORD.
For the impersonalist the ultimate goal or destination is the brahmajyoti of the spiritual sky, but for the devotees the ultimate goal is the Vaikuṇṭha planets. The devotees experience the above-mentioned state of affairs by attainment of spiritual forms for activity in the transcendental loving service of the Lord. But the impersonalist, because of his neglecting the association of the Lord, does not develop a spiritual body for spiritual activity, but remains a spiritual spark only, merged in the effulgent spiritual rays of the Supreme Personality of Godhead. The Lord is the full-fledged form of eternity, bliss and knowledge, but the formless brahmajyoti is simply eternity and knowledge. The Vaikuṇṭha planets are also forms of eternity, bliss and knowledge, and therefore the devotees of the Lord, who are admitted into the abode of the Lord, also get bodies of eternity, bliss and knowledge. As such there is no difference between one and another. The Lord’s abode, name, fame, entourage, etc., are of the same transcendental quality, and how this transcendental quality differs from the material world is explained herewith in this verse. In the Bhagavad-gītā, three principal subjects have been explained by Lord Śrī Kṛṣṇa, namely karma-yoga, jñāna-yoga and bhakti-yoga, but one can reach the Vaikuṇṭha planets by the practice of bhakti-yoga only. The other two are incompetent in helping one reach the Vaikuṇṭhalokas, although they can, however, conveniently take one to the effulgent brahmajyoti, as described above.
This explains that there are many misleaders in this world, the phony gurus who do not give the right information to the people. There is a description in the next verse – They create artificial perplexity…
(SB 2.2.18) MAYAVADIS CREATE ARTIFICIAL PERPLEXITY
Mayavadis, Mental Speculators and materialists
- They create artificial perplexity in the matter of transcendental understanding by wasting time in discussing what is Brahman and what is non-Brahman, or māyā,
- they falsely think of themselves as one with the Lord, or argue that there is no existence of the Lord separately, or that there is no God at all, or that living beings are themselves God, or that when God incarnates Himself He assumes a material body.
- they concern themselves with many obscure speculative theories, which are in actuality so many stumbling blocks on the path of transcendental understanding.
- Apart from the class of impersonalists or nondevotees, there are also classes who pose themselves as devotees of the Lord but at heart maintain the idea of salvation by becoming one with the impersonal Brahman.
- They wrongly manufacture their own way of devotional service by open debauchery and mislead others who are simpletons or debauchees like themselves.
DEBAUCHEES
All these nondevotees and debauchees are, according to Viśvanātha Cakravartī, durātmās, or crooked souls in the dress of mahātmās, or great souls. Such nondevotees and debauchees are completely excluded from the list of transcendentalists by the presentation of this particular verse by Śukadeva Gosvāmī.
The debauchees – they follow the path of Caitanya, but they do not follow the math. They think everything ends up being One. They do not follow the Math – Matta – disciplic succession. This is like eight of nine deviations. They are the most dangerous type…
(SB 2.2.21)
As such, persons with a poor fund of knowledge cannot have any conception of the param, the Supreme; they try to stick to the varieties of material enjoyments, although they may flatter themselves as being Brahman-realized souls. Such less intelligent persons cannot have any conception of the param, as mentioned in this verse, and therefore they cannot reach the Supreme. The devotees have full knowledge of the spiritual world, the Personality of Godhead and His transcendental association in unlimited spiritual planets called Vaikuṇṭhalokas. Herein akuṇṭha-dṛṣṭiḥ is mentioned. Akuṇṭha and vaikuṇṭha convey the same import, and only one who has his aim fixed upon that spiritual world and personal association with the Godhead can give up his material connections even while living in the material world. This param and the paraṁ dhāma mentioned in several places in the Bhagavad-gītā are one and the same thing. One who goes to the paraṁ dhāma does not return to the material world. This freedom is not possible even by reaching the topmost loka of the material world.
The propaganda that spiritual life is void of any relationships, individual persons, becomes an impetus for the people to enjoy at any cost while in the material body..
DEFINITIONS
(SB 2.2.12)
KNOWLEDGE – Knowledge means knowing things as they are, and if by deliberation it is found that there are things which are at all unnecessary, naturally the person who has acquired knowledge leaves aside such unwanted things.
VAIRAGYA – When the conditioned soul finds by culture of knowledge that material necessities are unwanted things, he becomes detached from such unwanted things. This stage of knowledge is called vairāgya, or detachment from unwanted things.
We have previously discussed that the transcendentalist is required to be self-sufficient and should not beg from the rich blind persons to fulfill the bare necessities of life. Śukadeva Gosvāmī has suggested some alternatives for the bare necessities of life, namely the problem of eating, sleeping and shelter, but he has not suggested any alternative for sex satisfaction.
When one has knowledge of Krsna they will begin to eliminate unwanted things – watching movies, playing video games, watching games… reading mayavadi books…
Sex is not an absolute necessity like eating, sleeping and shelter.. The suggestions made by Sukhdev Goswami may seem radical, but he is making a point that we dont have to over exert ourselves for the basic necessities of life. If you are married, when your children grow up you can down size a very very simple life and have plenty of time for spiritual activity.
RENOUNCED ORDER OF LIFE
One who has the sex desire still with him should not at all try to accept the renounced order of life. For one who has not attained to this stage, there is no question of a renounced order of life. So by the gradual process of devotional service under the guidance of a proper spiritual master, and following the principles of the Bhāgavatam, one must be able at least to control the gross sex desire before one accepts the renounced order of life factually.
PURIFICATION – So purification means getting free gradually from sex desire, and this is attained by meditation on the person of the Lord as described herein, beginning from the feet. (SB 2.2.12)
One should not try to go upwards artificially without seeing for himself how much he has been released from the sex desire.
IMPROPER HEARING OF BHAGAVATAM
The smiling face of the Lord is the Tenth Canto of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, and there are many upstarts who at once try to begin with the Tenth Canto, and especially with the five chapters which delineate the rāsa-līlā of the Lord. This is certainly improper. By such improper study or hearing of Bhāgavatam, the material opportunists have played havoc by indulgence in sex life in the name of Bhāgavatam. This vilification of Bhāgavatam is rendered by the acts of the so-called devotees; one should be free from all kinds of sex desire before he tries to make a show of recital of Bhāgavatam.
Śrī Viśvanātha Cakravartī Ṭhākura clearly defines the import of purification as cessation from sex indulgence. He says, yathā yathā dhīś ca śudhyati viṣaya-lāmpaṭyaṁ tyajati, tathā tathā dhārayed iti citta-śuddhi-tāratamyenaiva dhyāna-tāratamyam uktam. And as one gets free from the intoxication of sex indulgence by purification of intelligence, one should step forward for the next meditation, or in other words, the progress of meditation on the different limbs of the transcendental body of the Lord should be enhanced in proportion to the progress of purification of the heart. The conclusion is that those who are still entrapped by sex indulgence should never progress to meditation above the feet of the Lord; therefore recital of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam by them should be restricted to the first and second cantos of the great literature. One must complete the purificatory process by assimilating the contents of the first nine cantos. Then one should be admitted into the realm of the Tenth Canto of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam.
The gradual development of KC is very important. Trying to skip steps is a great blunder in spiritual progress.
Caitanya Maha Prabhu says – If you take the trouble to hear and try understand Mayavadi philosophy, you will never understand Srimad Bhagavatam and BG
Asat sangha tyagas, …
These purports are so profound when we hear we think that we understand, but later on when we look back we see that we forgot everything and that there are so many important points…
People follow the path of Chaitanya and not the math… – Sahajiyas.