— { DIVINE ASPIRATION } —

CHAPTER SIX:
THE PULL OF THE TRANSCENDENTAL WORLD

It is said meghachchhanam na durdinam, tadinam durdinam manye: a good day or a bad day is not to be judged by the weather, but the day we do not talk about, or cultivate understanding of the Supreme Being, our Lord, is hopeless and non-productive. It is a wasted day if there is no consultation about Him, if we forget our own Lord. He is the be-all and end-all for us, the all-in-all in our life. He is our Lord of lords.

SOUL’S AWAKENING

There is a verse in Srimad Bhagavatam:

avismrtih krsna-padaravindayoh
ksinoty abhadrani cha sam tanoti
sattvasya suddhim paramatma-bhaktim
jnanam cha vijnana-viraga-yuktam

(Srimad Bhagavatam, 12.12.55)

Here it is said: avismrtih krsna-padaravindayoh, do not forget the divine lotus feet of Krishna. Because by the continuous remembrance of Krishna, all the undesirable things, the dirty things within you, will have to leave (ksinoty abhadrani).

Without Krishna consciousness, without consciousness of Divinity, all mundane things are like dirt. That dirt should be removed. It should be destroyed by the continuance of Krishna consciousness. That remembrance cleans out all the dirt, and it extends to our real welfare. Cha sam tanoti: it produces from within real goodness. Sattvasya-suddhim: when the alloy is eliminated from your ego, from your present self-conception, then your whole existence is purified. Your self-conception is false ego; it is full of alloy, and that will be destroyed by your continued God-consciousness. As your existence is purified, gradually you will find the Lord, Paramatma, within yourself (paramatma-bhaktim). You will be able to understand who you are, jivatma, and who is supporting you from above, Paramatma.

Then, jnana cha vijnana: you will find a special type of God-conception that will show to you both the Lord and His potency—the different potencies and the Owner of those potencies. Viraga-yuktam: you will feel the effect of this two-fold: both non-attraction to the mundane world, and properly adjusted attraction towards the Truth. You will feel such development within you.

SWEET HOME

So continue with God-consciousness, and it will take you to the desired position. It will take you back Home. And you will be able to conceive how sweet that Home is. If you somehow try to maintain the fire of God-consciousness, all alloy within you will be destroyed; your purified self will come out from the fire, and you will find everything your heart really desires.

In this verse it is said: jnana-vijnana-viraga-yuktam. You will be able to clearly conceive both the knowledge of the Whole and the knowledge of the different parts and potencies of the Whole in detail. It will be clear in your heart. So, your faith will not be simply blind; do not think it to be so. It is not that faith means only blind faith, blind emotion. That plane where your heart is to live is not a domain of only blind emotion, but there is proper knowledge there. It is the land of proper understanding, where the Centre exists, the Lord, as well as so many potencies, which are controlled by Him. You will be able to acquire such a position of understanding.

So dive deep into God-consciousness. It is the key to the highest success of life and it will take you to your Home. And that Home is so sweet! It is not a foreign land; not that you will take so much risk only to go to some unknown place, where you may be dealt with in any way. There will be no such apprehension, no such doubt or suspicion. But as much as you will be able to make progress on that side, you will find such sweetness, such home-like comfort and confidence.

HEART CAPTURE

Once a devotee was out preaching and distributing books. He entered an office to speak with a lawyer, but the lawyer would not allow the devotee any time. He said, “I am so busy—don’t you see? So many clients are standing in line, they are queuing up to see me, and you have come to talk with me! How is it possible for me to spare any time for all these idle talks about religion?” He would not spare the devotee a moment. But that devotee somehow made him hear something about Krishna consciousness and presented him with the book ‘Search for Sri Krishna’. After reading a few pages, the lawyer ordered his secretary, “Pay fifty dollars to this gentleman. Write him a check.”

Student: Maharaj, actually that lawyer specialised in criminal law; if he read the part about Krishna stealing butter, perhaps he was attracted by that!

Srila Sridhar Maharaj (laughing): Then he should have concocted a case against that devotee, saying “You have come to introduce this idea, of God stealing? Then everyone in this world will imitate Him; they will all be thieves!”

Student: He could claim, “Your God is teaching anti-religious principles, adharma!”

Srila Sridhar Maharaj: But by his own reasoning, that lawyer must also have to conclude that not God, but all in this world, including himself, are culprits. Because if God is advaya-jnana, the Perfect Whole, and abhijnah svarat, the fully independent Absolute, and if He happens to be a thief, then all here who try to imitate Him in that way are envious of Him. To become jealous of His activities, they must first be thinking that they are equal to Him. But that is not the fact. He is Absolute—you are a culprit! And, nirmatsaranam-satam: only those who are not envious can accept this truth (Srimad Bhagavatam, 1.1.3). If God is a thief, also, we can consider that we have some hope. How is that?

A BEAUTIFUL SOLACE

When I was a college student, I once went to hear a lecture given by a Goswami. There he said, “Because Krishna is a thief, we have some hope! We have erected such strong fencing all around us so that nothing good may enter. We have made a boundary wall, and there are so many locks, so much opposition, that nothing can enter. But Krishna is a thief. By stealth that thief will come for His own interest!”

So we have tried our best to construct a wall around our heart so that no God consciousness can enter. But as a thief Krishna will enter, and that is our solace. One day He may stealthily enter as a thief into our heart and capture it. That is our only hope. Consciously we won’t invite Him to come within our heart, so only the ‘thief-God’ is our solace. So, let God be a thief! When goodness comes in that way—stealthily—such mercy is above the consideration of justice.

TRUE CHARITY

There was one Mohammedan gentleman living in the Hooghly district of Calcutta. His name was Haji Mohammed Mahasim. He was a bachelor and owned much property, a rich man but of a very charitable disposition. In Hooghly there is a big mosque commemorated to his name. He used to give charity stealthily. He would move around in the poorest areas of the city at night, disguised in very plain clothes, and, unseen, he would throw bags of coins into the dwellings.

If money comes stealthily to someone in such a way, it is not considered undesirable. And if Krishna comes stealthily into our hearts, as a thief, how easily we may get Him! But such dealings are all above justice. They are in the plane of mercy. Above the plane of justice, in the land of mercy, affection and love, such things are possible. The good enters stealthily into the bad, the undesiring party, the exploiter, and makes him good.

FEELER AND FELT

First we must understand our present undesirable position as an exploiter. The conditioned soul is the exploiter of nature, but in actuality, he is being exploited by matter. We have to be able to see clearly the gain and the loss in this interaction. First of all we must be able to discriminate properly between matter and spirit: there is the action and behind it the consciousness.

Srila Swami Maharaj Prabhupad gave this example: there are two men, one has eyes but is crippled; the other can move but he has no eyes. Matter, though moving, has no feeling—it is not the conscious party; that position belongs to the man who is endowed with feeling. In Bhagavad-gita we find:

karya-karana-kartrtve
hetuh prakrtir uchyate
purusah sukha-duhkhanam
bhoktrtve hetur uchyate

(Bhagavad-gita, 13.21)

“Material nature is said to be the cause of all conditioned activities of the mundane senses and their effects, whereas the living entity is the cause of his own suffering and enjoyment in this world.”

Who is more important—the feeler or the felt? The criterion of happiness is confined in the feeler. And we have to consider: is happiness necessary? And if so, why is it necessary? Happiness is possible only in the subjective existence—it is possible for the soul. Avoiding this material engagement, one may feel more happiness. He will be atmarama, self-satisfied. Presently entangled in the unhappy substance, one must seek to become atmarama. Atmarama means one who is established within himself and not outside himself.

SUPERSOUL WORLD

Even they who are atmarama, who have attained that standard, find more happiness when they come in contact with with Paramatma, the Supreme Soul. In the Srimad Bhagavatam the existence of the higher atma, of the Supersoul world, is fundamentally established:

suta uvacha
atmaramas cha munayo
nirgrantha apy urukrame
kurvanty ahaitukim bhaktim
ittham-bhuta-guno harih

(Srimad Bhagavatam, 1.7.10)

“Suta Goswami said: All the atmaramas, those who find satisfaction in the self, and especially those who are situated on the path of spiritual realisation, being already free from slavery to matter, feel the desire to serve the Supreme Person with pure devotion. The Lord, being the Possessor of all transcendental qualities, is able to attract all living beings, even those who are liberated.”

Those who are self-sufficient are also attracted by some higher ecstasy. So this is the positive proof that higher ecstasy exists. Though of a much finer type, it is real, because the self-sufficient people find joy when coming in contact with that apparently abstract thing. That is the proof: that a man who does not care for anything of this world, who is almost independent of material existence, can be drawn by that transcendental substance.

Consider Sukadev Goswami. Already self-realised from before his birth, he does not want anything in this world; even he doesn’t wear any clothes. He only sometimes takes a cup of milk if it comes easily. He does not care for anything in this mundane plane—he has quite an independent life. He is atmarama, engaged in himself, not in any material, objective consciousness. And he has become attracted by something of a seemingly abstract nature. So, there must be something above the soul’s own subjective existence in a still higher plane that is adhoksaja, beyond ordinary perception.

When that plane comes down to contact us, we can feel it, and when it withdraws, we are helpless—we cannot contact it, cannot touch it. It is similar to the phenomenon of the “flying saucer.” You have heard of a flying saucer?

Student: Yes.

Srila Sridhar Maharaj: Recently it was reported in the newspaper that there was a rumour that a craft of some kind—an unidentified flying object or flying saucer—was coming to make contact with Earth. From here, the airforce pilots apparently sighted it, but when they tried to follow it disappeared.

The adhoksaja plane of existence is something like that; it can come down to make contact with us, but when we chase after it, when we try to capture it, suddenly it is nowhere to be found. That is the nature and the proof of the higher existence. Just as with the flying saucer, the airplane pilots see something is coming towards them, but when they give chase, it disappears. So a world of more efficient machinery exists on the other side. Based on their experiences, those pilots and other aeronautical experts are now admitting the existence of some higher plane of life.

In Srimad Bhagavatam, Sukadev Goswami informs Maharaj Pariksit:

prayena munayo rajan
nivrtta vidhi-sedhatah
nairgunya-stha ramante sma
gunanukathane hareh

(Srimad Bhagagavatam, 2.1.7)

“Oh King, even the most advanced transcendentalists who are above the regulative principles and restrictions feel the greatest pleasure in describing the glories of the Supreme Lord.”

There is such taste in the topics of the Lord, in His names, forms, pastimes, paraphernalia and associates. All are existing in the higher plane. But how are we to prove the existence of this higher plane? We cannot enter at our will to have any experience of it. Then what is the proof that such a plane exists at all? Only that some accomplished transcendentalists of this world, experts of the highest class, find that something is disturbing their complete experience of self-satisfaction. That plane is disturbing them and attracting them towards Itself.

PROOF OF THE HIGHER PLANE

In the present day also, we find that there is a particular group of people who do research in order to prove scientifically that there is rebirth, transmigration of the soul. Through methods such as hypnosis they claim that in their previous birth they were in a certain place: “Yes, I was here and this was my room. I put my things here, in this chest. They are still left there.” And later, when they are actually taken to that place, it appears just as they have described. Those who want to show scientific proof of rebirth are collecting such examples, which are demonstrated as proof of the soul’s transmigration, its continued existence birth after birth.

In a similar way, the atmaramas, those who have superseded any charm of this mundane plane, stand as proof that there is a higher dimension of existence because such an area is irresistibly attracting them.

So that higher plane does exist, and it is not mundane. Sukadev Goswami says, “You all know that I am well established in the non-material world, that no charm for any form of the material world exists in me. But some new, unknown type of lila, some ecstatic pastimes full of personality have attracted my heart. Don’t think that this is mundane. No mundane thing can have any attraction for me. This is transcendental; you may take it for certain. I stand as evidence to the fact that there is a transcendental world made of higher dignity, higher quality. I stand as evidence to the fact because nothing of mundane character can affect me or disturb my balance, my equilibrium. The equilibrium of such full, all-spiritual consciousness cannot be disturbed by any worldly attraction. Some supernatural attraction has come to disturb my equilibrium and attract me towards Itself.”

SUPERNATURAL ATTRACTION

atmaramas cha munayo
nirgrantha apy urukrame
kurvanty ahaitukim bhaktim
ittham-bhuta-guno harih

(Srimad Bhagagavatam, 1.7.10)

This verse describes the attraction felt for the super-subjective plane of life by those who have already attained self-realisation. Those who are in the disciplic order, the lineage of descending knowledge in devotion, may experience a lesser degree of intensity than what is described here. But still, through their sukrti, their fortune, and their sraddha, faith, those devotees feel themselves to be most extremely fortunate. They are like witnesses. Though they are very insignificant, they are the most fortunate witnesses to something that is infinitely great.

Their feeling is, “Here is something extraordinary, something unexperienced, and my inner heart is hankering for that. All the charms of this world are forever finished for me. Now if I want to live at all, I shall live for that—at any risk. My whole future is invested in that wonderful thing. I can’t stand to live without that great thing. I must have it. I must attain such a position; otherwise, I do not like or want any sort of existence. I have had a little taste, a peep into that beauty; now that is my life. My life is there. If I want to live at all, I must get it. Without it, everything is tasteless. I have finished with all other standards of life; they hold no charm for me; they are all tasteless. I only want that thing. That is the fulfilment of my life. Life is worth living only because it has got that ultimate connection.”

MUTUAL HELP

How is one to attain that fulfilment? Only with the association of those who are eager for it. “Birds of a feather flock together.” There are others of similar nature and if you want such a thing, then go and mix with them, and try to get it by mutual help. In that field of divine aspiration there are the experts and the beginners. The newcomers advance by the association of those who are in a position to help them. And through giving their assistance, the helpers are also helped, given nourishment, as so many things of substance are drawn out of them.

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