Self-deception

[jayaisvara]

I just read this article about self deception http://www.religion-online.org/showarticle.asp?title=1017 and some question came to me which I hope you guys can help me with.

 

When I sing the mahamantra, I feel like I am talking to God, Krsna. Is this deception?

 

Should I pray to Vaisnavas or Krsna about elevating my position from where it is currently at? How can I pray to both of them? I heard that Swami Prabhupada has said that when you say Krsna then you mean Krsna's associates, paraphernalia, friends etc.

 

When I sing the mahamantra, if I try to think of something then that is self deception I believe, is it not? So, knowing that I have a problem with lording over others(being in control), I don't know how I can execute chanting offenselessly, and what to speak of executing bhakti yoga. What can be done in this situation?

 

Should I not even care about the results, but just go on chanting? If so, with what mentality should I do this? Most of the time, if not all the time in my KC life so far, while praying I am in one mood, then as soon as my prayer is finished, then I am totally in another mood. I still don't understand about my position. Are there any quotes from acaryas that say just exactly what is a position of a neophyte in bhakti yoga?

 

If I am at my home for extended period of time, like during holidays, then I think I develop a humble mentality. Then as soon as I go to college environment, the environment just makes me go back to my old mentality, which the mentality and maya that is in the college, which is who is popular, the survival of the fittest. I don't know how to deal with this situation.I've heard about Srila Sridhara Maharaja say something about dying to live, killing the ego to give soul the life. It is painfully hard to do this because when I am at the college environment, my offensive mentality immediately goes up and I can't think more soft hearted about others, even if they say something to me. What can be done in such a situation?

 

If I am being selfish in asking these questions please tell me. Please also tell me how I can see the greatness of others without always deluding myself with my supposed greatness which I know my mind says but I just cant check it.

[Guest guest]

When I sing the mahamantra, I feel like I am talking to God, Krsna. Is this deception?

--if you do not see krsna and goloka with full senses and consciousness it is deception

 

Should I pray to Vaisnavas or Krsna about elevating my position from where it is currently at? How can I pray to both of them? I heard that Swami Prabhupada has said that when you say Krsna then you mean Krsna's associates, paraphernalia, friends etc.

--yes the plan of krsna is the same as the vaishnava's one. Both they want you to chant hare krsna

 

I don't know how I can execute chanting offenselessly, and what to speak of executing bhakti yoga. What can be done in this situation?

--we have no possibility to control or mind, we cannot decide to be not offensive.. Only krsna can purify ourselves.. so we have only to chant. Prabhupada says "chant and be happy..." this is imperative.. "you must chant and you must be happy simply by chanting.."

 

Should I not even care about the results, but just go on chanting? If so, with what mentality should I do this?

--go on chanting... that's the right mentality. Do not believe that some mentality can have for your spiritual life the same importance of mahamantra. Chanting will change your mentality and he willsolve your doubts and fears...krsna says "sarva dharma...", "abandone all systems, plans, efforts and simply surrender to me, i will free you from all problems given by surrendering, do not have fear"

 

If I am at my home for extended period of time, like during holidays, then I think I develop a humble mentality

--a real humble devotee does not observe his mentality and sees it humble... a devotee feels that he's very proud.So do not bother of your mentality going from a state to another, there's no need.. do your best to be a moral man and chant your rounds, associate with devotees, surrender to a sad guru..

 

I've heard about Srila Sridhara Maharaja say something about dying to live, killing the ego to give soul the life. It is painfully hard to do..

--it is not surprising because only krsna can make us behave like that... if we were able to do this by our own efforts, it would be useless to call radhe and krsna to help us chanting the mahamantra. ..... the fact that mahamantra is there is a demonstration that nothing can be done by our own efforts, but exclusively by krsna's efforts..

 

you are a very sincere devotee

 

[krsna]

***********************************

 

the fact that mahamantra is there is a demonstration that nothing can be done by our own efforts, but exclusively by krsna's efforts..

*********************************

 

Yes, by our own efforts we will certainly fail

whereas with the divine mercy and shelter of Nama Prabhu we will overcome all obstacles on the path of devotion.

 

" O Mother Hara(Hare), O Father Hari(Krsna), please give me the previlege of pure devotional service unto your lotus feet."

This is what we are chanting, praying and crying from the depths of our heart. The soul crying and calling out piteously for the divinity to descend and take one to Krsna's transcendental abode.

[jayaisvara]

Guestji and krsna prabhu, thanks for replying.

 

 

If I am at my home for extended period of time, like during holidays, then I think I develop a humble mentality

--a real humble devotee does not observe his mentality and sees it humble... a devotee feels that he's very proud.So do not bother of your mentality going from a state to another, there's no need.. do your best to be a moral man and chant your rounds, associate with devotees, surrender to a sad guru..

 

 

 

Does the mahamantra chanting prepare us for the moment of surrender to a sad guru so that we wont make any offenses to sad guru and Krsna?

[Guest guest]

we are contaminated, guru is pure

 

so there's no possibility to approach a pure devote and to be not offensive..

 

but we are safe because we have krsna's instruction in bhagavad gita (tadd viddi pranipatena,,,) so we have to do it

 

of course mahamantra helps us to find a real guru and to have the best possible behaviour in approaching him

[jayaisvara]

Thanks for the clarification guestji,

 

Haribol

[theist]

 

When I sing the mahamantra, I feel like I am talking to God, Krsna. Is this deception?

 

 

No, the point is to open up a communion with Krsna.

 

 

Should I pray to Vaisnavas or Krsna about elevating my position from where it is currently at? How can I pray to both of them? I heard that Swami Prabhupada has said that when you say Krsna then you mean Krsna's associates, paraphernalia, friends etc.

 

 

You know that answer. Simple, when directly your praise or petition to Krsna you are directing it to Krsna. When you are directing it to Srila Prabhupada you are directing it to him.

 

Krsna is never alone without His devotees.

 

There is a danger in over thinking something just like there can be danger in not appling carefull consideration to something.

 

 

When I sing the mahamantra, if I try to think of something then that is self deception I believe, is it not? So, knowing that I have a problem with lording over others(being in control), I don't know how I can execute chanting offenselessly, and what to speak of executing bhakti yoga. What can be done in this situation?

 

 

It's offensive to be inattentive to the Hare Krsna mantra when chanting. So just try to hear the mantra and not the chattering of the mind.

 

You can't execute offeseless chanting at our stage. What's new? Are you thinking that you can, by the strength of your mind, somehow will yourself to be free from all your past accumulated bad habits and thus be worthy to chant Krsna's names?

 

The power for purification is in the names.

 

When you realize that you are in darkness and can't see your real position what can you do? When the dawn begins you are given the power to see things as they are, dimly at first, then geadually brighter until the full Sun has risen.

 

Just as the ability to see comes from the Sun so does purification come from the Name. The Name like the Sun is self revealing.

 

Our problem is that we have developed bat like mentalities and seek the dark caves at the first hint of dawnto avoid the sunlight. So to become lovers of light we should connect up with those that are more attached to the light than we are. So by chanting and associating with devotess our love of darkness will gradually be changed over to a lover of light.

 

 

 

Should I not even care about the results, but just go on chanting? If so, with what mentality should I do this? Most of the time, if not all the time in my KC life so far, while praying I am in one mood, then as soon as my prayer is finished, then I am totally in another mood. I still don't understand about my position. Are there any quotes from acaryas that say just exactly what is a position of a neophyte in bhakti yoga?

 

 

Yes you should go on chanting no matter what. Even if you don't care keep chanting anyway. Mood. If your mood is better while praying then why stop? Your chanting is also praying. "Pray without ceasing". Prayer needn't be just a busy time where we are petitioning krsna for this or that or repeating what we have read of His glories, perhaps that prayer time may be more of a quiet communion.

 

 

If I am at my home for extended period of time, like during holidays, then I think I develop a humble mentality. Then as soon as I go to college environment, the environment just makes me go back to my old mentality, which the mentality and maya that is in the college, which is who is popular, the survival of the fittest. I don't know how to deal with this situation.I've heard about Srila Sridhara Maharaja say something about dying to live, killing the ego to give soul the life. It is painfully hard to do this because when I am at the college environment, my offensive mentality immediately goes up and I can't think more soft hearted about others, even if they say something to me. What can be done in such a situation?

 

 

So become a hermit. Withdraw and chant all day. Or if that seems impractical you will have to adjust your college life in such a way that you don't get sucked in. Maybe you like hanging out with people who you think are your friends and they are not into Krsna. That will prolong your suffering but that is your choice. Being along won't make you softhearted. I am alone alot and sometimes I have fantasies about being Kalki and riding through the earth whacking the heads off these friggin' demons posing as whole leaders.

 

I have found there is a very fine line between being properly introspective and internally aware of our our position and motivations and be coming so overly self critical that we paralyze ourselves form taking the proper action in the proper frame of mind. I know here is such a line but I never have been able to walk on it for more that the briefest of periods at a time. I have learned that the mind sets so many expert traps for us to fall into. One is the "I can see so clearly how falsely my motivations are behind all my so called service that I must be becoming humble. Not like all those others who assume they are becoming great devotees I know that I am fallen (therefore I must be a great devotee). The fact is we haven't got a clue as to how screwed up we are. We are not competent to know accurately assess our own plight.

 

It is quite a battlefield that we have entered. We have a choice. We can take shelter of all these differnt energies to try and come to a perfectly balanced mind and approach to our sadhana. Powerful enegeries exist like pyschology etc. which is all the rage these days. Or we can just fall before Lord Caitanya and beg and weep for mercy and guidance.

 

We have we seen this before?

 

 

If I am being selfish in asking these questions please tell me. Please also tell me how I can see the greatness of others without always deluding myself with my supposed greatness which I know my mind says but I just

cant check it.

 

 

Yes you are being selfish. What else to do think? That you are acting on the selfless plaform or something? Just assume that everything you do is motivated y your own selfish need even if you don't know what that is eaxctly.

 

Our position is to perfect that selfish spirit by acting for our own REAL self instead of the ahankara. Prabhupada, Christ, Haridas Thakur etc. are on the selfless platform. You are not even close. Neither are the rest of us beginners.

 

But because they are working for Krsna's self interest which is to benefit us, the selfish,cringing, miserly,inhabitants ofthe material world, they accept our worthless self motivated act(s) (interesting word)as service

Krsna can still be pleased. So we have some hope.

 

We will see the greatness of others when we see that they are eternally connected to Krsna. We practice seeing the Supersoul within everyone and hope He grants us that vision.

 

We will not by force of mental manipulation or will power be able to enter or remain on that plane.

[jayaisvara]

theistji, you are a senior in this board. Thank you for that sincere reply /images/graemlins/smile.gif

 

Haribol

[AncientMariner]

Woman's Literature class is what drove me to become a hermit. I was in a class full of feminists and we read that book Jane Eyre. I was just trying to get a grade and I couldn't relate to all the feminist b.s. so I decided to take the angle that Jane Eyre was an epic hero that transcended gender and represented the epic journey that all epic heroes go through regardless of gender. Needless to say I pissed off and frightened the feminists and after that I just gave up on the whole liberal college environment being a tolerable place to reside.

 

That is what makes me marvel about Prabhupada. He is soft hearted even to these lunatic people. I wish I was soft hearted but I would just be faking it. The truth is I have never been happier since I left the association of those people.

[krsna]

I think the following might help

but have a hearty appetite as some of Srila Bhaktisiddhanta's words are difficult to digest for those conditioned :

 

<font color="blue">Someone may question:

 

“When we are inhabitants of this world, how, after fully relinquishing our experience about it, can we take refuge with some super-mortal being?”

 

In answer it is to be said that it will not do to get afraid of the difficulty; to know the truth, there should be a great strength of mind. You will not learn how to swim, if, seeing the water, you get afraid.

 

Self-surrender is not a very difficult thing:

that is rather very natural and easy for the soul. Whatever is contrary to self-surrender,

is rather unnatural and difficult.

 

If we want to learn about God, we will have to learn from His agent. When we listen to him, we must stop all our experience about the world and all misleading argumentations. It is by continually listening to the strong and forceful narratives about God’s glories that all the evils like of heart weakness will be liquidated.

 

There will appear an unprecedented courage in the heart. Then will arise, in its full glow, self-surrender which is the natural virtue of the soul. Then will reveal itself in that self-surrendered heart, the self-manifested truth of the transcendental region of the fourth dimension. It is in this way that truth can be known; there is no other way in which can be realized the real truth beyond all deceitfulness.

 

There is a distinction between divine and mundane topics. There are two senses in which a word is used; one refers to a transformable object of the world, creating forgetfulness about God; and the other to an eternal object leading to the conception of an excited feeling towards God’s own divine realm.

 

One acquires fitness to take God’s Names after learning from the Acharya’s mouth about the difference between God as the Word of Vaikuntha or the transcendental World, and the mundane words of this world, limited by maya. </font color>

 

 

 

 

[jayaisvara]

Thanks krsna for posting that.

 

When Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur says:

 

 

we listen to him, we must stop all our experience about the world and all misleading argumentations.

 

 

 

Does he mean that we should stop our wordly activities and go to a vaisnava devotee?

[krsna]

 

 

Paper by Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakura

 

 

 

THAKUR BHAKTIVINODE

 

We avail of the opportunity offered by the Anniversary Celebrations of the advent of Thakur Bhaktivinode to reflect on the right method of obtaining those benefits that have been made accessible to humanity by the grace of this great devotee of Krishna. Thakur Bhaktivinode has been specifically kind to those unfortunate persons who are engrossed in mental speculation of all kinds. This is the prevalent malady of the present Age. The other Acaryas who appeared before Thakur Bhaktivinode did not address their discourses so directly to the empiric thinkers. They had been more merciful to those who are naturally disposed to listen to discourses on the Absolute without being dissuaded by the specious arguments of avowed opponents of Godhead.

 

Srila Thakur Bhaktivinode has taken the trouble of meeting the perverse arguments of mental speculationists by the superior transcendental logic of the Absolute Truth. It is thus possible for the average modern readers to profit by the perusal of his writings. That day is not far distant when the priceless volumes penned by Thakur Bhaktivinode will be reverently translated, by the recipients of his grace, into all the languages of the world.

 

The writings of Thakur Bhaktivinode provide the golden bridge by which the mental speculationist can safely cross the raging waters of fruitless empiric controversies that trouble the peace of those who choose to trust in their guidance for finding the Truth. As soon as the sympathetic reader is in a position to appreciate the sterling quality of Thakur Bhaktivinode's philosophy the entire vista of the revealed literatures of the world will automatically open out to his reclaimed vision.

 

There have, however, already arisen serious misunderstandings regarding the proper interpretation of the life and teachings of Srila Thakur Bhaktivinode. Those who suppose they understand the meaning of his message without securing the guiding grace of the Acarya are disposed to unduly favour the methods of empiric study of his writings. There are persons who have got by heart almost everything that he 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. There is no honest chance of missing the warnings of Thakur Bhaktivinode. Those, therefore, who are misled by the perusal of his writings are led astray by their own obstinate perversity in sticking to the empiric course which they prefer to cherish against his explicit warnings. Let these unfortunate persons look more carefully into their own hearts for the cause of their misfortunes.

 

The personal service of the pure devotee is essential for understanding the spiritual meaning of the words of Thakur Bhaktivinode. The Editor of this Journal, originally started by Thakur Bhaktivinode, has been trying to draw the attention of all followers of Thakur Bhaktivinode to this all-important point of his teachings. It is not necessary to try to place ourselves on a footing of equality with Thakur Bhaktivinode. We are not likely to benefit by any mechanical imitation of any practices of Thakur Bhaktivinode on the opportunist principle that they may be convenient for us to adopt. The Guru is not an erring mortal whose activities can be understood by the fallible reason of unreclaimed humanity. There is an eternally impassable line of demarcation between the Saviour and the saved. Those who are really saved can alone know this.Thakur Bhaktivinode belongs to the category of the spiritual world-teachers who eternally occupy the superior position.

 

The present Editor has all along felt it his paramount duty to try to clear up the meaning of the life and teachings of Thakur Bhaktivinode by the method of submissive listening to the Transcendental Sound from the lips of the pure devotee. The Guru who realises the transcendental meaning of all sounds, is in a position to serve the Absolute by the direction of the Absolute conveyed through every sound. The Transcendental Sound is Godhead, the mundane sound is non-Godhead. All sound has got these opposite aptitudes. All sound reveals its Divine face to the devotee and only presents its deluding aspect to the empiric pedant. The devotee talks apparently the same language as the deluded empiric pedant who had got by heart the vocabulary of the Scriptures. But notwithstanding apparent identity of performance, the one has no access to the reality while the other is absolutely free from all delusion.

 

Those who repeat the teachings of Thakur Bhaktivinode 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-realised souls. They may not at all know the real meaning of the words they have learnt by the method of empiric study.Take for example the Name "Krishna". Every reader of Thakur Bhaktivinode'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 Thakur Bhaktivinode and quite another matter to realise the Nature of the Holy Name of Krishna by the process conveyed by the words.

 

Thakur Bhaktivinode did not want us to go to the clever mechanical reciter of the mundane sound for obtaining access to the Transcendental Name of Krishna. 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 identical verses of the Scriptures may be recited by the devotee and the non-devotee, may be apparently misquoted by the non-devotee 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.

 

It is not empiric wisdom that is the object of quest of the devotee. Those who read the scriptures for gathering empiric wisdom will be pursuing the wild goose chase. There are not a few dupes of their empiric Scriptural erudition. These dupes have their admiring under-dupes. But the mutual admiration society of dupes does not escape, by the mere weight of their number, the misfortunes due to the deliberate pursuit of the wrong course in accordance with the suggestions of our lower selves.

 

What are the Scriptures? They are nothing but the record by the pure devotees of the Divine Message appearing on the lips of the pure devotees. The Message conveyed by the devotees is the same in all ages. The words of the devotees are ever identical with the Scriptures. Any meaning of the Scriptures that belittles the function of the devotee who is the original communicant of the Divine Message contradicts its own claim to be heard. Those who think that the Sanskrit language in its lexicographical sense is the language of the Divinity are as deluded as those who hold that the Divine Message is communicable through any other spoken dialects. All languages simultaneously express and hide the Absolute. The mundane face of all languages hides the Truth. The Transcendental face of all sound expresses nothing but the Absolute. The pure devotee is the speaker of the Transcendental language. The Transcendental Sound makes His appearance on the lips of His pure devotee. This is the direct, unambiguous appearance of Divinity. On the lips of non-devotees the Absolute always appears in His deluding aspect. To the pure devotee the Absolute reveals Himself under all circumstances. To the conditioned soul, if he is disposed to listen in a truly submissive spirit, the language of the pure devotee can alone impart the knowledge of the Absolute. The conditioned soul mistakes the deluding for the real aspect when he chooses to lend his ear to the non-devotee. This is the reason why the conditioned soul is warned to avoid all association with non-devotees.

 

Thakur Bhaktivinode is acknowledged by all his sincere followers as possessing the above powers of the pure devotee of Godhead. His words have to be received from the lips of a pure devotee. If his words are listened from the lips of a non-devotee they will certainly deceive. If his works are studied in the light of one's own worldly experience their meaning will refuse to disclose itself to such readers. His works belong to the class of the eternal revealed literature of the world and must be approached for their right understanding through their exposition by the pure devotee. If no help from the pure devotee is sought the works of Thakur Bhaktivinode will be grossly misunderstood by their readers. The attentive reader of those works will find that he is always directed to throw himself upon the mercy of the pure devotee if he is not to remain unwarrantably self-satisfied by the deluding results of his wrong method of study.

 

The writings of Thakur Bhaktivinode are valuable because they demolish all empiric objections against accepting the only method of approaching the Absolute in the right way. They cannot and were never intended to give access to the Absolute without help from the pure devotee of Krishna. They direct the sincere enquirer of the Truth, as all the revealed scriptures do, to the pure devotee of Krishna to learn about Him by submitting to listen with an open mind to the Transcendental Sound appearing on His lips. Before we open any of the books penned by Thakur Bhaktivinode we should do well to reflect a little on the attitude, with which as the indispensable pre-requisite, to approach its study. It is by neglecting to remember this fundamental principle that the empiric pedants find themselves so hopelessly puzzled in their vain endeavour to reconcile the statements of the different texts of the Scriptures. The same difficulty is already in process of overtaking many of the so-called followers of Thakur Bhaktivinode and for the same reason.

 

The person to whom the Acarya is pleased to transmit his power is alone in a position to convey the Divine Message. This constitutes the underlying principle of the line of succession of the spiritual teachers. The Acarya thus authorised has no other duty than that of delivering intact the message received from all his predecessors. There is no difference between the pronouncements of one Acarya and another. All of them are perfect mediums for the appearance of the Divinity in the Form of the Transcendental Name Who is identical with His Form, Quality, Activity and Paraphernalia.

 

The Divinity is Absolute Knowledge. Absolute Knowledge has the character of indivisible Unity. One particle of the Absolute Knowledge is capable of revealing all the potency of the Divinity. Those who want to understand the contents of the volumes penned by the piece-meal acquisitive method applicable to deluding knowledge available to the mind on the mundane plane, are bound to be self-deceived. Those who are sincere seekers of the Truth are alone eligible to find Him, in and through the proper method of His quest.

 

In order to be put on the track of the Absolute, listening to the words of the pure devotee is absolutely necessary. The spoken word of the Absolute is the Absolute. It is only the Absolute Who can give Himself away to the constituents of His power. The Absolute appears to the listening ear of the conditioned soul in the form of the Name on the lips of the sadhu. This is the key to the whole position. The words of Thakur Bhaktivinode direct the empiric pedant to discard his wrong method and inclination on the threshold of the real quest of the Absolute. If the pedant still chooses to carry his errors into the Realm of the Absolute Truth he only marches by a deceptive bye-path into the regions of darker ignorance by his arrogant study of the scriptures. The method offered by Thakur Bhaktivinode is identical with the object of the quest. The method is not really grasped except by the grace of the pure devotee. The arguments, indeed, are these. But they can only corroborate, but can never be a substitute for, the word from the living source of the Truth who is no other than the pure devotee of Krishna, the concrete Personal Absolute.

 

Thakur Bhaktivinode's greatest gift to the world consists in this; that he has brought about the appearance of those pure devotees who are, at present, carrying on the movement of unalloyed devotion to the Feet of Shree Krishna by their own wholetime spiritual service of the Divinity. The purity of the soul is only analogously describable by the resources of the mundane language. The highest ideal of empiric morality is no better than the grossest wickedness to the Transcendental perfect purity of the bonafide devotee of the Absolute. The word 'morality' itself is a mischievous misnomer when it is applied to any quality of the conditioned soul. The hypocritical contentment with a negative attitude is part and parcel of the principle of undiluted immorality.

 

Those who pretend to recognise the Divine Mission of Thakur Bhaktivinode without aspiring to the unconditional service of those pure souls who really follow the teachings of the Thakur by the method enjoined by the scriptures and explained by Thakur Bhaktivinode in a way that is so eminently suited to the requirements of the sophisticated mentality of the present Age, only deceive themselves and their willing victims by their hypocritical professions and performances. These persons must not be confounded with the bonafide members of the flock.

 

Thakur Bhaktivinode has predicted the consummation of religious unity of the world by the appearance of the only universal church which bears the eternal designation of the Brahma Sampradaya. He has given mankind the blessed assurance that all Theistic churches will shortly merge in the one eternal spiritual community by the grace of the Supreme Lord Shree Krishna Chaitanya. The spiritual community is not circumscribed by the conditions of time and space, race and nationality. Mankind had been looking forward to this far-off Divine Event through the Long Ages. Thakur Bhaktivinode has made the conception available in its practicable spiritual form to the open minded empiricist who is prepared to undergo the process of enlightenment. The key stone of the Arch has been laid which will afford the needed shelter to all awakened animation under its ample encircling arms. Those who would thoughtlessly allow their hollow pride of race, pseudo-knowledge or pseudo-virtue to stand in the way of this long hoped for consummation, would have to thank only themselves for not being incorporated in the spiritual society of all pure souls.

 

These plain words need not be misrepresented, by arrogant persons who are full of the vanity of empiric ignorance, as the pronouncements of aggressive sectarianism. The aggressive pronouncement of the concrete Truth is the crying necessity of the moment for silencing the aggressive propaganda of specific untruths that is being carried on all over the world by the preachers of empiric contrivances for the amelioration of the hard lot of conditioned souls. The empiric propaganda clothes itself in the language of negative abstraction for deluding those who are engrossed in the selfish pursuit of worldly enjoyment.

 

But there is a positive and concrete function of the pure soul which should not be perversely confounded with any utilitarian form of worldly activity. Mankind stands in need of that positive spiritual function of which the hypocritical impersonalists are in absolute ignorance. The positive function of the soul harmonises the claims of extreme selfishness with those of extreme self-abnegation in the society of pure souls even in this mundane world. In its concrete realisable form the function is perfectly inaccessible to the empiric understanding. Its imperfect and misleading conception alone is available by the study of the Scriptures to the conditioned soul that is not helped by the causeless grace of the pure devotees of Godhead.

 

Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura,

The Harmonist, December 1931, vol. XXIX No.6