One very important point for the success of our spiritual practice is to understand that devotional service can be practiced under the influence of the three material modes. Understanding this is essential not only for our own spiritual practice, understanding where we are, and being able to progress, but also in dealing with other devotees. Most of us have experiences with devotees acting in less-than-ideal ways, and we also have experience of how discouraging this can be to our spiritual life, especially when such less-than-ideal devotees perform such actions from positions of leadership.
Being able to identify devotees who are performing devotional service under the material modes of passion and ignorance is thus essential to understanding such cases, as well as minimizing their effect. If we can understand the mentality of a person and understand how he or she tends to act, we can protect ourselves against such negative actions.
This information is not something coming out of my mind, it is described very scientifically by Lord Kapila in the third canto of Srimad Bhagavatam:
“Lord Kapila, the Personality of Godhead, replied: O noble lady, there are multifarious paths of devotional service in terms of the different qualities of the executor. Devotional service executed by a person who is envious, proud, violent and angry, and who is a separatist, is considered to be in the mode of darkness. The worship of Deities in the temple by a separatist, with a motive for material enjoyment, fame and opulence, is devotion in the mode of passion. When a devotee worships the Supreme Personality of Godhead and offers the results of his activities in order to free himself from the inebrieties of fruitive activities, his devotion is in the mode of goodness.” (SB 3.29.7-10)
A devotee contaminated by the mode of ignorance will show qualities such as pride, anger, and violence. Such a person is defined by Lord Kapila as a separatist because his desires are not dovetailed with the Lord. In other words, the Lord desires one thing and he desires another. Even though he becomes somehow or other attracted to the practice of devotional service and the association of devotees, his practical actions are contrary to the desires of the Lord. He may act in inconsiderate, dismissive, offensive or even violent ways against other devotees and people in general, engage in dishonest activities, tell lies, spread rumours, and so on.
Both Vidhura and Dhṛtarāṣṭra were brothers of Pandu, the father of the Pandavas. Dhṛtarāṣṭra was the eldest son, but he couldn’t become the King because he had been blind since birth. Vidhura also couldn’t because the was the son of a maidservant, therefore Pandu became the King.
When Pandu passed away, the crown passed to Yudhisthira, the eldest son. However, Dhṛtarāṣṭra became resentful, desiring that his son Duryodhana would become the king instead. This led him to conspire with Duryodhana, Duḥśāsana, Sakuni, and others, first trying to kill the Pandavas by different means, and later taking the kingdom and sending them into exile by cheating on the dice game. In the process, they also seriously offended Draupadi.
Although Yudhisthira was defeated unfairly in the game, he honored his word and went into exile with his brothers. However, when the time came to get the kingdom back, Dhṛtarāṣṭra and Duryodhana refused. They remained adamant even after many attempts to negotiate the situation, including a personal visit of Krsna to the assembly. With this, the battle of Kuruksetra became inevitable.
Although spiritually blind, Dhṛtarāṣṭra had some trust in his brother Vidhura and thus asked him for advice. Vidhura spoke directly to the point:
Prabhupada explains that life in this material world is like a dream. In a dream, we travel to many places and see many illusory situations, while at the same time never leaving our room. Similarly, the soul somehow becomes entrapped in this material world, although never leaving his original position. This means we are here, living in a material body, but at the same time with Krsna in the spiritual world. How is this possible?
This very intricate point of our philosophy is explained by Lord Kapila in the Srimad Bhagavatam.
On SB 3.27.11-13 he explains the example of the reflection in the dark room, which is central to understanding the relationship of the soul and the material world:
“A liberated soul realizes the Absolute Personality of Godhead, who is transcendental and who is manifest as a reflection even in the false ego. He is the support of the material cause and He enters into everything. He is absolute, one without a second, and He is the eyes of the illusory energy. The presence of the Supreme Lord can be realized just as the sun is realized first as a reflection on water, and again as a second reflection on the wall of a room, although the sun itself is situated in the sky. The self-realized soul is thus reflected first in the threefold ego and then in the body, senses and mind.” (SB 3.27.11-13)
These three verses give a very deep explanation of the nature of our material, conditioned consciousness, the presence of the Lord, and the vision of a pure devotee.
Did you read the introduction of the Bhagavad-Gita? This question may sound silly, but many of us never read it, or if we did, we just skipped through it. However, the introduction of the Gita is extremely important, because there Prabhupada gives the conclusions that allow us to understand the whole text. Devotees asking about the origin of the soul, for example, come from skipping the introduction of the Gita. If we understand it, all these existential questions become clear.
These are just a few points that are explained there. I’m just taking points that Prabhupada explains and elaborating a bit on them. If it doesn’t sound familiar to you, it means you may consider going back and reading again the introduction, this time with more attention:
The Bhagavad-Gita deals with five basic truths: The Supreme Lord, the jivas, material nature, time, and activities (karma). The jivas are eternally connected with the Supreme Lord, but when they somehow come in contact with material nature, their natural propensity to serve Krsna is converted into material activity, performed under the influence of the three modes. These material activities generate reactions that keep the soul entangled in the material world. All material activities happen under the purview of material time, and both time and material nature are eternal, being energies of the Supreme Lord. However, the interaction between them, which leads to the creation of the material world is temporary.
All material activities happen inside this material manifestation, which exists under the limits of material time. Although material nature (as an energy) is eternal, the universe goes through innumerable cycles of creation and destruction. The soul is not part of the material manifestation, but we are here for so long that is not possible to trace it back. In this way, Krsna, the souls, material nature, and time are eternal, but the material manifestation is not, and thus karma, or the actions and reactions of the living entities, is also not eternal. Since karma is not eternal, it can be changed and eventually destroyed, and when this happens we can return to our original spiritual position. The only true process to achieve that is devotional service to the Lord. Other processes of self-realization, such as jñāna and yoga are effective only to the extent that they are mixed with bhakti.
The Vedanta Sutra was compiled by Vyasadeva as the conclusion of the Vedas. Vyasadeva compiled the most important parts of the original Vedas in the form of the Upanisads, short books that bring the ultimate conclusions of the Vedas. The Vedanta Sutra is a book that offers the ultimate conclusions of the Upanisads and clears many common misconceptions. The Vedanta Sutra brings thus the ultimate philosophical conclusions of the Vedas in an extremely compact form, being composed of about 555 sutras.
The Vedanta Sutra starts with the Sutra “athāto brahma-jijñāsā”, Now it’s time to enquire about Brahman.
This is an invitation to properly use our human form of life to try to understand Krsna, the absolute truth, and thus become free of the cycle of birth and death.
It continues with the Sutra “janmādy asya yataḥ”, which starts describing the Absolute Truth by stating that: From Him, everything emanates.
How can we understand this Brahman or the Supreme Absolute truth? This is explained in the third Sutra: “śāstra-yonitvāt”. He can be known through the sastras.
The Sastras offer different arguments and many of them appear to be contradictory. Somewhere it’s said that Vishnu is God, somewhere else that Shiva or another demigod is Supreme. How can we understand all these apparent contradictions?
How to improve our thinking power and become more productive, especially in creative tasks? Most people in the world use caffeine, but devotees are not supposed to use caffeine, as well as other types of psychotropic-altering substances, except in case of medical necessity. In a previous article, we discussed that this is not a very good idea, anyway.
What can a devotee then do to improve his concentration and thinking power, to become more productive in his services and work, etc? I don’t think there is a silver bullet that will solve all the problems form all people, but I can share what works for me. You can try and see what works for you.
Although intelligence is actually part of the subtle body, it is expressed through the brain. This means that if the brain is not working well, the intelligence will also not work very well. Just like all organs of the body, the workings of the brain are a lot connected with our general health, so it’s important to start from there. I wrote a whole book about improving our health “How to have a better health to better serve Krsna”, you can just Google it.
My practical experience, which I share in the book is that good health is mainly connected with what we eat and how we eat. Many other things like exercise also play a role, but their importance is secondary. As long as one is on the SAD diet, nothing else will work very well. That’s the basic decision every human being of our times has to make, to enjoy all kinds of processed food or to have good health. Unfortunately, we can’t have both. Nowadays, what we call prasada is also mainly based on the SAD diet, so that’s also something to consider.
After working out the basic things connected with diet and lifestyle, what are the next things to consider?
The last chapter of the second canto of Srimad Bhagavatam is called “Bhāgavatam Is the Answer to All Questions”.
This chapter is called like this because in this chapter Sukadeva Goswami expands the meaning of the four original verses of the Srimad Bhagavatam and shows how they answer all the remaining answers of Maharaja Pariksit.
Although there are just four verses in the chatuh-sloki, they present ten separate topics, which are described in each of the 12 cantos of the Srimad Bhagavatam in different levels of detail. These ten topics may not be obvious in the text, but when the four verses are fully understood, all the ten topics become apparent.
1- The creation of the universe (sarga)
This topic includes the creation of the material elements, including the five elements (fire, water, earth, air, and ether), sound, form, taste, smell, touch, and the eyes, ears, nose, tongue, skin, and mind. This is called sarga, or the primary creation.
In the second canto of Srimad Bhagavatam, a personal meeting between Brahma and the Lord is mentioned. One could question when this conversation of Lord Brahma with Krsna happened. This is actually a difficult question to answer because the focus of the Srimad Bhagavatam is the spiritual instructions and not the historical descriptions. We are currently on the first day of the second half of the life of Brahma. This conversation happened at the very beginning of one of his days, but each one?
In SB 3.4.13, Krsna describes to Uddhava that He spoke to Brahma at the beginning of creation, at the Padma Kalpa (the lotus millennium): purā mayā proktam ajāya nābhye padme niṣaṇṇāya mamādi-sarge, “O Uddhava, in the lotus millennium in the days of yore, at the beginning of the creation, I spoke unto Brahmā, who is situated on the lotus that grows out of My navel”
The different days of Brahma receive names, and two kalpas are referred to as the Padma Kalpa. The first Padma Kalpa is the second day of the first half of his life, as described in SB 3.11.35-36:
There are four verses in the Srimad Bhagavatam that contain the whole text in a seed form. These four verses were transmitted from the Lord to Brahma at the beginning of the creation and then transmitted to Narada, who in turn transmitted them to Vyasadeva, who expanded it, resulting in the verses of the Srimad Bhagavatam we have today.
These four verses have unlimited meaning, and this is hinted at in the deep philosophical purports Prabhupada gives to all four of them. Here I’m trying to just give a summary of the central ideas.
Verse 1 (2.9.33): “Brahmā, it is I, the Personality of Godhead, who was existing before the creation, when there was nothing but Myself. Nor was there the material nature, the cause of this creation. That which you see now is also I, the Personality of Godhead, and after annihilation what remains will also be I, the Personality of Godhead.”
Prabhupada emphasizes that Krsna refers to Himself as “I” (aham) three times in the verse, not leaving any doubts that He is indeed a person, although being the original source of everything. Krsna is a person, He is eternal and He is the source of everything, both material and spiritual.
in the Srimad Bhagavatam, Lord Kapila describes Yama and Niyama, the preliminary principles for the yoga process, including what to do, and what to avoid. These points are valid for all processes of self-realization. They give a solid basis from which to develop our practice. All of them are important, and many of the problems we face in our spiritual path come from failing to develop one or more of them.
“One should execute his prescribed duties to the best of his ability and avoid performing duties not allotted to him. One should be satisfied with as much gain as he achieves by the grace of the Lord, and one should worship the lotus feet of a spiritual master. One should cease performing conventional religious practices and should be attracted to those which lead to salvation. One should eat very frugally and should always remain secluded so that he can achieve the highest perfection of life. One should practice nonviolence and truthfulness, should avoid thieving and be satisfied with possessing as much as he needs for his maintenance. He should abstain from sex life, perform austerity, be clean, study the Vedas and worship the supreme form of the Supreme Personality of Godhead.” (SB 3.28.2-4)
The first principle is sva-dharmācaraṇaṁ, executing one’s prescribed duties. This is a topic explained in detail in the Bhagavad-Gita. The natural division of society into four classes is naturally present in all societies, the problem is that most don’t understand the duties connected with each function. The essence of the varnasrama system is that people may be trained to properly perform their duties. This starts with basic qualities such as honesty, tolerance, being averse to fault-finding, etc., and progresses into more specific qualifications according to one’s social functions and occupation. On the other side, one should avoid performing duties that are against his nature and thus not allotted to him. A Brahmana should not fight, a Ksatriya should not try to be artificially non-violent, a Vaishya should not be artificially renounced, and so on.
Apart from these material duties, there is also the supreme duty, which is to serve the Lord. As long as one is in a material platform, one should serve the Lord while simultaneously performing his material duties, but when one becomes completely free from identification with the body, his duty becomes to just serve the Lord, although he may continue performing his material duties to give example to others. This is also well explained in the Bhagavad-Gita.
The next principle is santoṣa. One should be satisfied with what comes automatically by the grace of the Lord. Every one of us has a certain quota already allotted to us according to our previous activities. Instead of wasting our human lives trying to obtain more material facilities than what is allotted to us, we are advised to just accept whatever results come through the performance of our duties and honest work, by the grace of the Lord, and instead use our time for self-realization. It’s said that at the end of our lives, we don’t have to answer for what others do, but only for what we personally do. Other people may sensor or mock us, but we should just do what is right and not be disturbed. They will answer for their actions, and we will answer for ours.
The most important principle from the first verse, however, is ātmavic-caraṇārcanam, we should find a genuine spiritual master and surrender to him, following the process of serving and inquiring about spiritual topics. This process of approaching a spiritual master in the line of disciplic succession is the basic pre-requisite for spiritual realization. Although we have access to all the correct conclusions of the scriptures in the books of Srila Prabhupada, still we should find a spiritual master who can help us to properly understand his instructions, as he explains in his books. Without such guidance, it is easy to misunderstand.
Coming to the second verse, the next principle is grāmya-dharma-nivṛttiś, to stop the performance of mundane religious practices that have the goal of achieving material prosperity. There are many activities on this level prescribed in the karma-kanda section of the Vedas, as well as many traditional customs followed by different social groups, but they are not favorable for developing devotional service. They sometimes can work as a first step for people coming from gross materialism, but their benefit is very limited. The root of these religious performances is materialism, and when people see that there is another way to achieve things they want, they tend to abandon such religious performances and become again regular materialists. We can see that this type of religious activity is rejected right at the beginning of Srimad Bhagavatam. Instead, one should concentrate on the practice of devotional service and practices that make us free from material entanglement.
To be stable in our spiritual practice we need to ascend to the mode of goodness. From passion and ignorance is very dificult to understand what spiritual practice is, and what to say about being successful in it. To assist us in that, two principles that are very useful are mita-medhyādanam and vivikta-kṣema-sevanam.
Mita-medhyādanam means eating frugally and only pure food. At the beginning of our spiritual practice, eating a lot of prasadam is favorable, because it helps us to lose the taste for contaminated foods. However, as we advance, it becomes progressively more important to also reduce our eating to just what is needed for maintaining the body. Eating too much increases the influence of passion and ignorance, making us lethargic, diseased, and incapable of controlling our senses. On the other hand, eating little makes us active and healthy. As Prabhupada explains, the general rule is that we should eat half of what we would normally eat, and add a quarter of water, leaving the other quarter of the stomach empty. This requires a good dose of self-control, but that’s exactly the purpose of human life. The other principle, vivikta-kṣema-sevanam means to live in a secluded, peaceful place, where our spiritual practice will not be disturbed. For devotees, this means to live with other devotees who are serious in their spiritual practice. That’s the main reason Prabhupada emphasized the development of spiritual communities.
Another essential part of our spiritual realization is to be able to see all living entities as parts and parcels of the Lord. The Lord lives in every heart as Paramatma, and thus every living being is worthy of respect. Without practicing ahiṁsā, our spiritual practice will remain just an external show. The practice of non-violence is explained in more detail later in the teachings of Lord Kapila, as well as in the 11th canto.
When advised by Śukrācārya to break his word, Bali Maharaja argued “How can I behave like an ordinary cheater, especially toward a brāhmaṇa?” then he said: “There is nothing more sinful than untruthfulness. Because of this, mother earth once said, “I can bear any heavy thing except a person who is a liar.” (SB 8.20.4)
In Kali-yuga, three of the pillars of religious life (cleanliness, austerity and mercy) have already been destroyed. In this age, we are not very clean (especially internally, in terms of our thoughts and desires), we can’t perform serious austerities like people from previous ages, and we are not very merciful. Although people suffer all over the world for the lack of Krsna Consciousness, we are not very inclined to sacrifice our own comfort in order to help them. The only thing that sustains dharma in Kali-yuga is truthfulness. Because there is still some degree of truthfulness, people can still approach saintly persons and inquire about spiritual knowledge. When this truthfulness, the last pillar is broken, all is lost. Therefore, Lord Kapila prescribes satyam, truthfulness, as another essential principle for anyone interested in advancing in spiritual life.
Another principle is asteyam. It is translated as “to refrain from theft”, but Prabhupada calls our attention to the broader sense of it. Asteyam doesn’t mean just not being a thief in an ordinary sense, but avoiding becoming a thief by accumulating more than one needs or not spending one’s money for the worship of the Lord. Everything belongs to the Lord because everything is made out of His energy. If we take it and claim it to be our property, that’s theft. Instead, we should accept the principle that everything belongs to Krsna and use whatever properties we find under our care in the service of the Lord. A pure devotee may accept any amount of material resources for the service of the Lord, but he will avoid accepting more than necessary for his personal maintenance. This is the principle of īśāvāsyam idaḿ sarvaṁ discussed in the first verse of the Śrī Īśopaniṣad.
The last four principles are interconnected. One should practice brahmacaryam, which means to practice celibacy. As Prabhupada explains, it can be practiced by either completely avoiding sex life or by restricting it to sex inside the marriage according to regulations. Illicit sex life is the sinful principle that destroys cleanliness, both internal and external, therefore this is an important principle for one desiring to be serious in the spiritual practice. Cleanliness is also essential when one is engaged in worshiping the deity.
Without controlling one’s senses, it’s also very dificult to study and understand the scriptures. As Prabhupada mentions, “practicing yoga without reading the standard literatures is simply a waste of time.” Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakura classifies the three stages of spiritual advancement as sambandha, abhidheya, and prayojana. The first stage, sambandha, is based on having a proper understanding. Based on this, one can properly practice the process (abhidheya) and attain the ultimate goal (prayojana).
