HG Ravindra Svarupa Prabhu

[Guest guest]

Live from Sri Mayapur Candrodaya Mandir!

 

February 22, 2006

Verse: Srimad Bhagavatam 2.2.20

Speaker: HG Ravindra Svarupa Prabhu

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nabhyam sthitam hrdy adhiropya tasmad

udana-gatyorasi tam nayen munih

tato 'nusandhaya dhiya manasvi

sva-talu-mulam sanakair nayeta

 

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.

 

PURPORT: There are six circles of the movement of the life air, and the

intelligent bhakti-yogi should search out these places with intelligence and

in a meditative mood. Among these, mentioned above is the

svadhisthana-cakra, or the powerhouse of the life air, and above this, just

below the abdomen and navel, is the mani-puraka-cakra. When upper space is

further searched out in the heart, one reaches the anahata-cakra, and

further up, when the life air is placed at the root of the palate, one

reaches the visuddhi-cakra.

 

 

 

So this is a further description. Here there is yoga practice going on for

leaving the body deliberately under full control to achieve transcendence.

Here we have technical details about this process. Elsewhere in Bhagavatam

there are further technical details. Many of you may want to know, we don't

need to know these technical details. The question was raised yesterday that

why is all this mentioned. We don't even need to know this. The answer is of

course to distinguish from different process, to clarify the nature of pure

devotional service. Although we must say Prabhupada always talks about these

manasvi and munis as bhakti yogis. They are performing actually a form of

bhakti yoga, but it is mixed with or done by the means of this technical

process of satcakra yoga or kundalini cakra yoga for leaving the body at

will.

 

Other reasons also I have thought of about understanding this process. It

also draws the interest of other people who may not be interested in bhakti

yoga and it tests people - are you more interested in this than pure

devotional service, let's see if you're sincere.

 

There are some other things. First of all, we have a number of incidences in

Bhagavatam where devotees left their bodies in this way and we might wonder

how is this possible, how does it work. We already heard one description of

Dhrtarastra leaving by this method under the tutelage of Vidura and how at

the end his body burst into flames. Another person who left the body at will

by this method is the daughter of Daksa, Sati. She wanted to leave her body

and she could do it like this. Again, her body burst into flame. Another

incident in the Bhagavatam is Maharaja Prthu. He decided to leave his body

in this way also, and again, his body burst into flames.

 

It is mentioned there commenting on Prthu's departure by this method,

Prabhupada mentions that Prthu normally would not take advantage of this. In

fact, he didn't need to be worried about it or use this method, but when he

decided it was time to leave his body, he wanted to leave his body, he

remembered from former practice, he wasn't practicing anymore, but he

remembered from former practice how to do this, so he engaged this method

for leaving his body at will. So his body bursts into flames and Arci threw

herself on the funeral pyre later.

 

By the way, there are very mysterious cases in medical history of people

dying by spontaneous human combustion. In one of his novels, Charles Dickens

has a character die in that way, quite a wonderful description. People

apparently wrote in protesting about this very weird story. In the second

edition of this book he has a long defence with all these histories of

people who died by spontaneous human combustion. To the day, there are so

many people on record where the body just seems to burst into flames, no

ignition point. The body is mostly liquid, so for it to burn up, it takes a

lot of heat, and these people burnt up.

 

Some lady in Miami, this happened to her, leaving only one foot behind. The

silverware on the table had melted from the heat, but it was a pretty

contained. Anyway, there is avenue for research on these things. Maybe

accidentally at the right time something happened, I don't, but it is

possible, in at least one way, for the human body to actually burst into

flames.

 

Besides from the interest of medical mysteries, we can understand how these

people left their bodies. Furthermore, there is more description later on

this chapter, the ones that leave their bodies and go directly back to

godhead , or at least transcend material nature, there is also a description

of something that occurs in this of amalgamating the gross elements of the

body in to the subtle, the subtle elements into the mind, and everything

gets wound up back into the maha tattva, kind of reversing the process of

creation. In this chapter, it describes that a yogi who doesn't go back to

Godhead then has to travel up to the Brahmaloka and there he undergoes this

final process at the end of the universe. Many times this reversed process

of creation unwinding, not shuffling off the mortal coil but unwinding the

mortal coil, this takes place.

 

One thing we see from this is just how advanced people were. This is a

technical science. Munis and sages had found this out. These cakras and the

associated nadis, the channels through which the prana flow are in the body.

They are apparently found by yogic exploration, not by tearing up bodies

with scalpels and things like that. So far as I know, no one can find them

when they operate on dead and living bodies, but they are there. Maybe one

day people will discover these channels.

 

According to the Candogya Upanisad, there are a hundred and one of these

nadis, but they go up from the bottom to the ida, pingala, and the breathing

exercises to clean those two channels out. When you come to the anata cakra,

cakra means the place where many of these nadis come together, when you come

to this cakra, it says in the Candogya Upanisad, there is one nadi that goes

to the brahma-randra, the cerebal hole. It is called a sisumara. This is

what somebody has to know, how to find this one, and being extremely pure

and single minded in purpose and completely detached, take up the life air,

the soul to the sisumara.

 

We find out later in this chapter that the sisumara is also a cosmological

feature. If you don't go back to Godhead all the way, you have to travel by

this sisumara up in the heavens to get to Brahamaloka and so on. This is

very scientific. It produces extraordinary results. Among them is the body

bursts into flames that people can see. We can appreciate this.

 

Another reason for describing these things is Krsna also in Bhagavad-gita

describes general principles. He describes jnana yoga in the sixth chapter.

>From that, we can also see that there are general principles of spiritual

disciple, of all yoga, that also apply very much to us. We can see from

these yogis, although the practice is not the same, the diligence and

intensity of effort that is required. You cannot be deflected or distracted

by anything. You have to be very committed and you have to become free from

material attachments and material desires for this to work. These are very

sattvic people. That is also required for yoga practice.

 

So these devotees that are described here, they are like great spiritual

Olympic athletes. We can get some inspiration from them because the general

principle remains the same. Our process, as it was nicely described

yesterday, as given to us by Caitanya Mahaprabhu, is doable. Prabhupada used

the word it is practical. It can be done by us. Whereas this is so far

beyond our grasp you don't even think about it. These people who claim to be

practicing this, we know this is all bluff. But actually bhakti yoga we can

do. It is doable. But even then so many people are not doing. Even among us

who have accepted this path we are still finding so many difficulties and

troubles and problems and are not doing. So we should understand what is

necessary for this process.

 

For example, if we look at the sixth chapter of the Bhagavad-gita, Krsna

tells Arjuna that the yogi must fix the mind on the self and not be

distracted by anything else. Wherever the mind wanders, one has to bring it

back under the control of the self. The mind has to be concentrated, he uses

this wonderful example, like the flame of a candle in a windless place. You

know how it is when a candle is in a windless place. You can't even tell

anything is happening. It is so still. And the slightest little breeze will

cause it to flicker. This much control is there. At this point, Arjuna

interrupts this description and says, "Hold it. It cannot be done because

the mind, you can't control the mind. It just can't be controlled. It is

like to control a raging wind." The mind has to be still like a candle in a

windless place, here you have a hurricane, Katrina Force Five hurricane in

the mind. How are you going to control it?

 

Of course Krsna answers, "It can be done." First he agrees, "Yeah, I know

the problem. I am aware of this problem. It is very difficult to control the

mind, but it can be done." He says two things: abhyasena and vairagyena - by

abhyasa, practice, and vairagya, detachment. These are two important

principles for us. Of course our yoga practice is mantra yoga, chanting the

Hare Krsna Mahamantra.

 

Mahaprabhu has mentioned how easy it is. First of all, the first verse of

the Siksastakam prayers, he says to the Lord, You have given so many, from

the victory of this sankirtana of the chanting of the Holy Name, when it is

successful, so many wonderful things come. There is a list of the things

that come, beginning from ceto -darpana-marjanam, and that is just the

beginning, so you see all the benedictions come. Then He says on top of

that, You have so many names. Maybe taste varies, so as you like. You have

so many names and in these names You have invested nija-sarva-saktis, all

Your transcendental, spiritual potencies, so they're right there in the

name. It means here Krsna is very accessible, very portable, like one of

these little machines now. This Hare Krsna mantra is Krsna Himself, you can

put Him right in your mouth, carry it around, miniaturised, very portable,

very accessible.

 

Then He says, as for chanting, the restrictions about time and place, they

are very loose, not really so hard. tava krpa Bhagavan - that, my Lord, is

Your mercy. Then if that is His mercy, then the other side, mamapi

durdaivamidrsamihajani nanuragah, my misfortune is that with all that, I am

still not all that, I am still just not all that interested. Mahaprabhu was

talking about us. There is still no anuragah, there is still no attraction

for Your name.

 

So we are told, we have been well instructed, that to chant the Hare Krsna

Mantra, we have to follow a process. In the very first introductory record

album that Prabhupada made, there is a little talk on that album. He said,

in the beginning, anyone can chant the Hare Krsna Mahamantra, but if later

on, you want to become serious, then one has to avoid offences on the ground

of spiritual understanding. In the beginning, you don't even know what an

offence is. You don't even have the opportunity, you don't know what a

Vaisnava is, but then you have to avoid offences. So that is the process.

Prabhupada has said there is a process.

 

Famously, I think, one group split off from ISKCON, thought that ISKCON

devotees were too rigid. They took this no hard and fast rules in a very

extended way, so Prabhupada was asked about this and he said that you have

to follow the process. He said, "If you chant the Hare Krsna Mantra, and you

don't follow the process, it is like cooking with smoke." Not a very

effective way to cook. You have a fire to make your breakfast and if the

fuel is wet, you'll just get smoke. Prabhupada said you should cook with

fire; it is should be a hot fire. You should follow the process. If you cook

with smoke, very inconvenient. It will take a very long time to get your

breakfast. But if the fires hot, it goes easy and you will soon have your

mean.

 

Then Prabhupada admitted that you can argue that where there is smoke there

is fire, and he said, "Yes, but what good will that little bit of fire do

you?" He said you should have a hot fire. Otherwise, you can go on cooking

with smoke for three hundred years. So in this way, one should follow the

process. That process is we have to chant the Hare Krsna Mahamantra while

trying to give up offences. That is why we all learn these offences against

the Holy Name.

 

In the list of offences, which comes from the Padma Purana, there is one in

particular, ati-pramada. Ati can mean especially and pramada means insanity,

literally, not in your right state of mind. So in one way, all the offences

are a variety of pramada. Also Bhaktivinode Thakura singles it out as a

particular offence - inattentiveness while chanting. In the

harinama-cintamani he says that this one is the seedbed or foundation of all

the other offences and if we are not trying to become free from this one,

then we will not be successful in becoming free from the others.

 

Now here comes our yoga practice, that is to say that when we chant the Hare

Krsna Mantra during japa, that is the time to control the mind. We have a

transcendent object to focus our attention on, the divine names of Krsna. So

we sit down and concentrate our attention on Krsna and we discover somehow

or other some mental breeze has come in and suddenly our attention is over

here or over there. So this is pramada - distraction, thinking of other

things. So what do we do? Well, if our chanting is pure, if we are actually

on an advanced stage, then that breeze doesn't come or even if that breeze

comes, it doesn't affect our attention because we are so attracted to Krsna,

our mind doesn't go away. It's naturally attached to Krsna; that is the

natural state. But short of that, the attention will waver.

 

When the mind is fixed on the Holy Name completely, then what's manifest is

suddha-nama, the pure name. Short of that, something else is manifest. If my

mind wanders and I just let it go, my early days in the movement, I had one

professor I brought to the temple and he chanted and I asked him, How did

you like the chanting?"

 

He said, "Oh, great, I got so many good ideas."

 

[Laughter.]

 

It's true, when you start chanting, somehow or other, sometimes the mind

produces so many ideas. They seem, at least, good ideas, but if we let the

mind wander and that's what happens, then the Holy Name is not manifest. In

fact, what's manifest is called nama-aparadha. There's an offence and I'm

not doing anything about it, so that is just nama-aparadha. Bhaktivinode

Thakura remarks somewhere that in this case, the Holy Name is little better

than letters of the alphabet. That's just smoke, huh? You can down it as

something, but you will not see a result.

 

Now we can try to practice yoga, try to unite with Krsna, and the mind

wanders because we're not pure. And as soon as we see it wander, we bring it

back. This is Krsna instruction: it goes away, we bring it back, it goes

away, we bring it back. Then we're chanting on the clearing stage. This is

called the clearing stage as Prabhupada explains and what's manifest is not

the suddha-nama, but rather, namabhasa.

 

As the Namacarya explains it in Caitanya Caritamrta, this is the dawning

light of the Holy Name. The Holy Name is like the sun in the morning below

the horizon. You cannot see the Holy Name, but still the dawning twilight of

the Holy Name is filling the sky. Haridasa Thakura explains that this mere

namabhasa destroys all sinful reactions and the result is mukti. There was a

controversy because he said this because thought that was not the highest

goal because the suddha-nama, pure name, gives prema. But mukti is a

transitional stage for further advancement, mad-bhaktim labhate param, then

you achieve real devotion.

 

So this clearing stage, we cannot immediately come to the pure stage, but we

can immediately come to the clearing stage of chanting. So this is the place

to become yogis, when we chant our japa, to be aware of our attention, where

it is going. We should be aware when our attention goes away. We should feel

like Mahaprabhu, durdaivamidrsamihajani nanuragah, I am so unfortunate,

here's the Holy Name and I want to think about something else. What's wrong

with me? What a misfortune! What a mind! I've turned away from Krsna and

come to this world and look what my mind does even though the Lord has given

me this name, it's right here. Prabhupada went through so much to bring it

to me. So many devotees sacrificed so much. The Lord descended so many

times. But still I'm not interested.

 

It says in Caitanya Caritamrta in the last chapter, in that chapter

Mahaprabhu is depicted with Svarupa Damodara Maharaja and Ramananda Raya,

his two most confidential associates, reciting the Siksastaka prayers and

talking about them. In the narration, it describes the feelings that

Mahaprabhu experienced while reciting these different slokas. In the second

sloka, it says that Mahaprabhu felt visada, and dainya. Visada means

lamentation, grief, "durdaivam durdaivamidrsamihajani nanuragah". When I

understand that I'm making so many offences, I should then feel bad about

them. I should repent, I should apologise to Krsna. What do you do when you

commit offence, you apologise. I should apologise to Krsna. This is how we

clear up our anarthas, by this mood of apology. This is the emotional

component of chanting. And the other thing was dainya, humility. We start to

become humble so that you can see that there is a natural transition from

this to trnad api sunicena. It all seems unnatural: how can I, with my

education, my wealth, and my good looks, possibly think myself in this

artificial position of being like a blade of grass? Then we realise this is

not artificial at all, this is where I belong. Then this idea will come

naturally.

 

So this is our process, this is our process. And if we just take it

seriously, we've joined the Hare Krsna movement, we have taken initiation

into the chanting of the Holy Name, are desiring to take initiation into the

chanting of the Holy Name, let's not stop there. That's the beginning.

Initiation means begin. It means we're initiated into this process. Now we

have to practice like this.

 

People say, "Oh, so many things are happening. So many people are chanting

for so many years, but nothing is happening. I'm not making advancement, the

GBC is not making advancement, the sannyasis are not making advancement."

Practice has to be there, and we start to make advancement. And if we start

to make advancement, everybody looks better. ISKCON looks good, the GBC

looks good, or better anyway. [Laughter.] Everything changes. We go from the

offensive to the clearing stage, the world lights up. Sastra suddenly

becomes really interesting. It's not hard to attend class and read. These

all things are from just going to the clearing stage. So we have to take it

seriously.

 

Krsna said two things: abhyasa, the meaning of abhyasa is practice. Many of

you play musical instruments. If anybody is any good it's because they have

practice. Practice means repetition. You do it over and over again every

day. "Did you practice your piano," your mother says to you. In America they

do like this, they spend all this money for lessons, bought the instrument

and everything and they want to know, "Did you practice?"

 

Practice meant that for forty-five minutes a day you have to sit down and

you have to play these scales. I tried to violin once and I'll never forget:

Dada-dada-dada-dada-dada-dada-dada-dada-dada, over and over and over again

while there was baseball outside and al lthose things. [Laughter.] You have

to practice. Practice means repetition and when I sit down to chant the Holy

Name, especially during japa, I fix my attention on the Holy Name. when the

mind wanders, I pull it back. Oh, it's so hard! And therefore, I require

this determination like these yogis also. I have to keep trying because

Krsna said it can be done.

 

The second thing is vairagya. When we are engaged unnecessarily in sense

gratification, the mind becomes more turbulent. The modes of passion, oh

boy, that's really the wind. Mode of ignorance means we sleep. That is

another form of inattentiveness while chanting, but we have to also do

whatever is necessary to make those arrangements, including getting enough

rest at night if that is the case. Anyway, usually our problem is

distraction when we want to bring our mind to Krsna. We will find if we are

very interested in improving our sadhana, we'll naturally become interested

in stopping those things that make the mind turbulent. So those two things

are there.

 

And in this way, with our very easy process, this is all that we need. If we

are sincere, remember we are doing this is relation with Krsna, Krsna sees

that we are trying. Even if every day my mind has to struggle, I feel like

I'm going to lose it, if we keep trying, Krsna sees it and He helps us. So

therefore we are not alone and we can become successful. To be like one of

these yogis, you have to have so many qualifications, but Prabhupada never

said to anybody that you are unqualified for devotional service because

Krsna helps. Whatever we can't do, whatever we don't have, He promises in

the ninth chapter, He will make up for it. He will give us yoga and he will

give us the ksemam. He will protect what we have achieved and give us what

we need. We should take this very seriously. This is the greatest

opportunity in billions of lifetimes. Let us not waste it.

 

Thank you very much. Srila Prabhupada ki jai!

 

We won't have time for questions. We do have a GBC meeting today, sorry.

[Laughing.] Hare Krsna.