PERFECTION AT HOME
by Rupanuga das, ACBSP
The principle of perfection at home is that the power is in the people. Not the power to hold elections and elect or displace politicians, but the power of self-realization. There have been many efforts to define that power, which have been most often confined to defining skills, talent, proclivities, expectations, interpersonal relations, achievements, potentiality, preferences, fulfillment, etc., accompanied by all manner of protocols, exercises, practices, speculations and incentives.
Although one may identify with such recognized ways and expand them to include friends and family, actual self-realization implies, and invokes a deeper, essential understanding of oneself. This identity can transcend any particular set of time and circumstance, yet one remains as the observer, knower or seer.
The intelligence acts like a superior, a supervisor, or analyst, much like a parent serving as a guide for the subordinate child. The intelligence is like that, and it is all-pervading. When the individual dovetails with the higher intelligence, beyond the mere gratification of the senses, the consciousness becomes focused in self-realization.
The more people become aware or conscious of practical self-realization in their own lives, there will be a basis for spiritual brotherhood on a grass-roots level, to offset the growing degradations in society today.
The continuous accepting and rejecting process of the mind becomes interlocked when one simultaneously chants and listens to the Mahamantra. The question arises, wherefrom comes this Mahamantra? According to the most authoritative scholars, it first appeared in written form in Sanskrit, the earliest recorded written language. For example, it is found in the ancient Vedic Kali Santana Upanisad, dated about 3,000 BC, and also described in numerous other ancient Sanskrit texts.
Spoken Sanskrit was written down by the revered sages of the time, who also predicted the onset of this present age, which they called Kali, to be known for hypocrisy, quarrel and strife, as well as the progressive diminishing of memory. They expected to compensate for this by recording all the theoretical and applied knowledge known at the time, both material and spiritual, which had been accumulated since time immemorial.
The foremost applied spiritual knowledge of this ancient wisdom remained isolated in India, although many translations, including over 600 Bhagavad-gitas, have been known in the modern world. The Gita is written in 700 Sanskrit verses, or sutras, which means codes. These codes could not be properly deciphered and interpreted by many later Indian philosophers, what to speak of historical attempts with ordinary Western linguistics or scholarly interpretations, which have remained theoretical, and therefore could not penetrate to the deeper purports, or meanings of the Sanskrit language. Consequently, such attempts have made no meaningful contributions to the present quality of life.
However, we now have the self-realized translations of Srila A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami, which present the method of practical application for these modern times, and they have now made a major impact upon wayfarers on these shores of Earth, who are seeking higher knowledge and their own self-realization.
Hearing and repeating the Mahamantra with attention is not imposing something artificial upon the mind. Rather, it is retrieving, reawakening, the primordial original energy common to mankind, which is the innate power of self-realization. This progressive process of expanding human consciousness was forgotten in the course of history, as more and more efforts focused on the technological exploitation of the resources of material nature.
This preoccupation with conquering over the laws of nature and becoming the master of whatever man surveys in the course of many centuries expanded into more and more technological developments, especially the conception of labor-saving devices. The result has been that the original power of the people for self-realization gradually became obscured.
This historical phenomenon was especially predominant in the Western world, while in the East, especially India, there remained an acceptance of the distinction between the laws of material nature and the laws of spiritual nature. That Eastern tradition is epitomized in the Vedic history of India, whereby the exploration of the laws of both spiritual and material nature are emphasized beyond the utilization of material nature for human necessities.
The Eastern exploration, especially in India, focused upon differentiating between matter and spirit, and identified consciousness as spiritual energy, distinct from ordinary matter or material energy. This was profoundly clarified in the revered Bhagavad-gita of India, which has been so thoroughly studied in the West, but with extensive interpolation, obscuring the deeper meaning.
Now, however, the Bhagavad-gita As It Is, by A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, once read past the first chapter, which sets the scene, indicates it to embody a universal teaching beyond the subcontinent of India, applicable and useful anywhere in the world. It is unique in its clear explanation of the simultaneous oneness and difference between individual consciousness and God-conscious, meaning not to have God’s consciousness, as popularized in the West, but consciousness of God. Both are defined therein as being of the same spiritual nature.
Sometimes, people say the Bhagavad-gita appeared in India only, and do not recognize its universality, but that is like saying the sun, which first rose in the East is an Indian sun and not for the rest of the world.
The English translated version of the Bhagavad-gita by A.C. Bhaktivedanta, known as Srila Prabhupada, was first published in a condensed version by the reknowned Macmillan Company in 1968, and later expanded by them, unabridged, in 1972 to meet public demand. Srila Prabhupada entitled it the Bhagavad-gita As It Is, because previous versions had focused on the Sanskrit grammar and punctuation without penetrating to the deeper transcendental meaning of the 700 verses, or sutras. Sutra means code in Sanskrit. Translation requires these codes to be properly deciphered or decoded to reach the essential meanings, beyond the grammar.
Because the previous translations were insufficient, there was a lack of understanding of the unique subject matter, and the commentaries remained dependent upon the speculations of the authors. However, Srila Prabhupada came in a line of authorized translators and practitioners traced back to 3,000 BC, when written Sanskirt first appeared. Before then, the knowledge contained therein was called sruti or transmission by hearing, or sound vibration.
Srila Prabhupada explained the verses with his purports. He often spent an hour to find the best English word to express a particular meaning, which also expressed his knowledge, realized from his personal practice since boyhood, over sixty years. He once remarked about the growing popularity of his translation, Bhagavad-gita As It Is, “My purports are liked by people because it is presented as practical experience.”
Srila Prabhupada’s books are the basis of an existential method for anyone to understand the purpose and meaning of life for themselves, without compromising with people's anxieties of daily life, and without capitulating to the “powers-that-be,” in a world increasingly demonstrating man’s inhumanity to man---i.e.. engineered coups, deliberate environmental contamination, conflicting morals and degradation, misleading propaganda, political corruption, expanding wars, spiraling costs of living, misspent taxes and government 'bail-outs,' etc., etc.
Coping with the world around us is becoming an art, as an age of anxiety surrounds us. Theories notwithstanding, a practical approach is needed. The question arises how the Mahamantra can help? What did Srila Prabhupada mean when he said that one can do their work, it doesn’t matter what you are doing, and that if the Mahamantra is regularly chanted, there will be no anxiety, and everything will be clearly understood about spiritual life?
“Understood" means knowledge and he gives a practical beginning of knowledge. The point is there is no hard and fast rule for taking advantage of the Mahamantra and one’s occupation is no impediment. The gradual reduction of anxieties means that the purifying effects of the sound vibration of the Mahamantra facilitate peaceful comprehension of higher knowledge.
The Mahamantra stimulates the intelligence to focus upon the unique analysis of the Gita, which distinguishes between two familiar existential energies, which are experienced by everyone as inferior energy (material), and superior energy (spiritual). On the highest level, both energies are spiritual because the original source is the same, but their manifest qualities are different.
Srila Prabhupada gives a practical explanation in his Introduction to the Gita, by differentiating, as does the Gita itself, between inferior spiritual energy and superior spiritual energy, as the difference between matter and spirit. Further, the inferior spiritual energy, or matter, is divided into gross and subtle, as in the physical body and the invisible mind, intelligence and ego, respectively.
The superior spiritual energy is consciousness, which is much finer and qualitatively different than the subtle, unseen, material mind, intelligence and ego. This mind, almost like another person within, can act as friend or enemy, depending on how it is directed. The mind is always accepting or rejecting according to one’s desires. The ego means identity, what “I” am. Firstly, I am conscious or consciousness. This consciousness is my energy or the energy of an individual self or soul. Honest contemplation is required for this understanding.
False ego means to identify 'myself' with something that 'I' am not, like the body. I am not the body. No one says 'I body'; everyone says 'my body'. The contemplation that I am not this body is all that is required for the initial step in self-realization. I am the seer, the knower, the observer of my own body and what is outside my body. Meanwhile, 'I' am still very little aware of what is going on inside 'my' body, made of inferior energy, or matter.
According to the ancient Indian sage, Kapiladeva: 'Intelligence is higher than the mind and instantly ascertains whatever comes into view. It has the discriminating power to understand objects, and helps the mind and senses to make choices. Doubt, misapprehension, correct apprehension, memory and sleep, determined by their different functions, are said to be the distinct characteristics of intelligence. A sign of intelligence is doubt. Blind acceptance is not evidence of intelligence. However, doubtfulness is not very favorable when applied to a bona fide source of information.'
In other words, intelligence can be used to recognize the ring of truth.
Kapiladeva’s teachings were reiterated by another most prominent sage, Suta Goswami, during the great conference at Naimisaranya Forest, by the Gomati River, or Adi Ganga, in what is now the Sitapur District of the Province Uttar Pradesh, India. This took place approximately 3,000 BC during the advent of written language, and was recorded at that time, appearing as the graduate study of the Bhagavad-gita, and known by the name of Srimad Bhagavatam or Sri Bhagwat.
The Srimad Bhagavatam is the graduate study of the Bhagavad-gita. The self-realized version of the Gita, referenced herein, written by Srila A. C, Bhaktivedanta Prabhupada, is entitled Bhagavad-gita As It Is, because it is translated 'as it is' without any change in original meaning. Likewise, all of the Srimad Bhagavatam is also translated, and purported, 'as it is' by Srila Prabhupada, without any change of the original meaning of the 1,000s of sutras, or texts.
The practical, scientific sequence, of self-realization, or God realization is related in the 2nd Canto of the Srimad Bhagavatam, 2nd Chapter, text 35. This text explains that everyone can perceive and hypothesize a higher intelligence than their own within themselves, through their acts of seeing and taking help of that greater intelligence, which allows them to perceive what comes into view in proper perspective.
Srila Prabhupada has described herein a procedure anyone can follow: "One can perceive one’s self-identification and feel positively that he exists. He may not feel it abrubtly, but by using a little intelligence, he can feel that he is not the body. He can feel the hand, the leg, the head, the hair, and the limbs are allhis bodily parts and parcels, but as such the hand, the leg, the head, etc., cannot be identified with his self."
By patiently applying a little intelligence, one can actually observe the feeling of not being the body. So, just by the use of a little intelligence, one can distinguish and separate the self from other things seen or observed, beginning with one’s own body. Even a child never says I hand, but my hand.
Although this perception is a fact of life from the beginning, it becomes ignored by an expanding infatuation for the potential of the domination and enjoyment of endless sense objects, as presented by nature, for accepting or rejecting according to one's desires.
All of this requires thoughtful consideration and leads naturally to the conclusion that the living being, man or beast, is the seer, who sees besides himself, all other things. Therefore, there is a qualitative difference between the seer, the knower or the observer and that which is seen.
Srila Prabhupada further explains: "Now, by a little use of intelligence, one can also readily agree that the living being, who sees the things beyond himself, by ordinary vision, has no power to see, or to move independently. All of our ordinary actions and perceptions depend on various forms of energy, supplied to us by nature in various combinations."
These energies are acting upon us, via an unlimited variety of combinations, just as the eye requiring various light to see or the ear requiring many vibrations to hear.
In fact, all of: "Our senses of perception and of action, that is to say, our five perceptive senses of 1) hearing, 2) touch, 3)sight, 4) taste, and 5) smell, as well as our five senses of action, namely 1) hands, 2) legs, 3) speech, 4) evacuation organs and 5) reproductive organs, and also our three subtle senses, namely 1) mind, 2) intelligence and 3) ego, thirteen senses in all, are supplied to us by various arrangements of either gross or subtle forms of natural energy.
"It is equally evident that the objects of perception are nothing but the products of the inexhaustible permutations and combinations of the forms taken by natural energy." (SB.2.2.35 Purport by A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada) --- and interactions of the forms surrounding us, as taken on or shaped by natural, material energy. This conclusively demonstrates that the ordinary living being has no independent power or control of perceptions, or even motion, because these are limited, provided, or controlled by whatever natural energy surrounds us, whether on land, or sea, or in the air.
We are always conditioned by nature’s energy, in one way or another, whether we like it or not. In other words, it is always found, under the present circumstances, that our superior energy of consciousness is limited, constrained, or conditioned by the inferior energy of nature, subtle or gross, mental or physical. Therefore, it is clear there are two energies involved, that of the observer or seer and that of the observed. The former is naturally dissatisfied with his freedom being subservient or limited to the latter--- a materially conditioned existence! That is the difference between spirit and matter.
According to the Bhagavad-gita, as we undoubtedly feel our existence being thus conditioned by material nature, we conclude that the one who sees, or the self, is spiritual, and the senses as well as the objects of perception are material. Again, the spiritual quality of the seer, the self, is manifested in our dissatisfaction with the limited state of materially conditioned existence. This illustrates the difference between spirit and matter, or the superior and inferior energies.
Interestingly, Socrates was quoted by Srila Prabhupada as being the last great philosopher in the Western world, because he clearly distinguished between the self and material energy. He did not identify himself with his body, or as being composed of matter. He was forced to take the Hemlock poison, and was asked by his captors what ceremony he would prefer for his burial? As recounted by his disciple, Plato, he answered, as paraphrased by Srila Prabhupada, “First you catch me, then you bury me!” In other words, you may bury my body, but not me!
by A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada
This transcendental vibration by chanting of Hare Krsna, Hare Krsna, Krsna Krsna, Hare Hare, Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare is the sublime method for reviving our Krsna Consciousness. As living spiritual soul, we are all originally Krsna Conscious entities, but due to our association with matter from time immemorial our consciousness is now polluted by material atmosphere. In this polluted concept of life we are all trying to exploit the resources of material nature but actually we are becomiing more and more entangled in her complexities. This illusion is called maya, or hard struggle for existence for winning over the stringent laws of material nature. This illusory struggle against the material nataure can at once be stopped by revival of our Krsna Consciousness.
"Hare Krsna Hare Krsna
Krsna Krsna Hare Hare
Hare Rama Hare Rama
Rama Rama Hare Hare
is directly enacted from the spiritual platform surpassing all lower status of consciousness...There is no need of understanding the language of the mantra, nor there is any need of mental speculation, nor any intellectual adjustment for chanting this mahaman
"Hare Krsna Hare Krsna
Krsna Krsna Hare Hare
Hare Rama Hare Rama
Rama Rama Hare Hare
is directly enacted from the spiritual platform surpassing all lower status of consciousness...There is no need of understanding the language of the mantra, nor there is any need of mental speculation, nor any intellectual adjustment for chanting this mahamantra. ... It springs automatically from the spiritual platform. ... Anyone can...dance in ecstasy."
Krsna Consciousness is not an artificial imposition on the mind. This consciousness is the original energy of living entity. When we hear the transcendental vibration this consciousness is revived, and the process is recommended by authorities for this age. By practical experience also we can perceive that by chanting this mahamantra or the great chanting for deliverance, one can at once feel transcendental ecstasy from the spiritual stratum. When one is factually on the plane of spiritual understanding, surpassing the stages of sense, mind and intelligence, one is situated on transcendentalplane. This chanting of Hare Krsna, Hare Krsna, Krsna Krsna, Hare Hare, Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare is directly enacted from the spiritual platform surpassing all lower status of consciousness namely sensual, mental and intellectual. There is no need of understanding the language of the mantra, nor there is any need of mental speculation, nor any intellectual adjustment for chanting .
This mahamantra... springs automatically from the spiritual platform and as such anyone can take part in this transcendental sound vibration without any previous qualificationand dance in ecstasy. We have seen it practically, even a child can take part in the chanting or even a dog can take part in it. The chanting should be heard from th
This mahamantra... springs automatically from the spiritual platform and as such anyone can take part in this transcendental sound vibration without any previous qualificationand dance in ecstasy. We have seen it practically, even a child can take part in the chanting or even a dog can take part in it. The chanting should be heard from the lips of a pure devotee of the Lord, so that immediate effect can be achieved. As far as possible chanting from the lips of non-devotee should be avoided, as much as milk touched by the lips of a serpent causes poisonous effect.
The word Hara is the form of addressing the energy of the Lord. Both Krsna and Rama are form of addressing directly the Lord, and they mean the highest pleasure eternal. Hara is the supreme pleasure potency of the Lord. This potency when addressed as Hare, helps us in reaching the Supreme Lord.
The word Hara is the form of addressing the energy of the Lord. Both Krsna and Rama are form of addressing directly the Lord, and they mean the highest pleasure eternal. Hara is the supreme pleasure potency of the Lord. This potency when addressed as Hare, helps us in reaching the Supreme Lord.
The material energy called as maya, is also one of the multi-potencies of the Lord, as much as we are also marginal potency of the Lord. The living entities are described as superior energy than matter. When the superior energy is in contact with inferior energy it , it becomes the happy becomes incompatible situation, but when the Suprem
The material energy called as maya, is also one of the multi-potencies of the Lord, as much as we are also marginal potency of the Lord. The living entities are described as superior energy than matter. When the superior energy is in contact with inferior energy it , it becomes the happy becomes incompatible situation, but when the Supreme marginal potency is in contact with spiritual potency, Hara, it becomes the happy normal condition of living entity.