Home Comfort

Part One

Please listen attentively to what I shall explain. I shall try to explain the subject to you in a scientific way, in general, independent of any religious conceptions.

First of all, we are to understand that there are three planes of life: the plane of mundane enjoyment, the plane of renunciation, and the plane of dedication. The plane of enjoyment is where we are at present, more or less. Mundane enjoyment means exploitation. None can exist in this plane without exploitation:

ahastani sahastanam apadani chatuspadam
laghuni tatra mahatam jivo jivasya jivanam

“Those that have hands live on those who have no hands. Four-footed animals live on grass, creepers, etc., and the big live on the small.” Everything is full of life—creepers, grass, and trees also have life—but without exploitation none can maintain their body here.

This is the plane of exploitation, and, as Newton’s third law says, to every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. By exploitation one takes a loan, and to clear that loan he will have to go down. In this way, there are so many jivas (souls) going up and down, up and down due to action and reaction in the plane of exploitation. Society is trying to exploit to the utmost. Everywhere there is an attempt to live at the cost of others. Without it life is impossible in this area because this is the plane of exploitation.

The Buddhists, the Jains, the followers of Sankara, and so many others are trying to get out of this entanglement of exploitation and find a life where there is no exploitation, no action and reaction. To avoid action and reaction, they try to find a position of renunciation, and they come to a conception similar to dreamless sleep, that of samadhi: to withdraw completely from the objective world and to remain in the subjective plane. Without allowing their feelings to move into the lower plane, they always keep a subjective position; that is something like dreamless sleep.

The Vaishnava section—those who serve the Supreme Personality of Godhead—are of the opinion that there is another world, a world of dedication. That dedication is just the opposite of exploitation. In the mundane plane, every unit wants to exploit the environment, but in the plane of dedication, every unit wants to serve the environment; and not only serve the environment, but the real key to the life of that plane is to serve the Centre. We are living in an organic whole, so every point must be true to the organic Centre. The explanation is given in Srimad Bhagavatam by the analogy of serving the root of a tree:

yatha taror mula-nisechanena
trpyanti tat-skandha-bhujopasakhah
pranopaharach cha yathendriyanam
tathaiva sarvarhanam achyutejya

We also find it said in the Vedic literature, “Try to find the one by knowing whom everything is known.”

yasmin jnate sarvamidam vijnatam bhavati
yasmin prapte sarvamidam praptam bhavati
tad vijijnasasva tadeva brahma

There is a central point by knowing which everything is known, by attaining which everything is attained. The long and short of the entire Vedic advice is to try to find out that Centre. Therefore, try to find out that Centre. In the beginning, some may think this to be a ludicrous claim, “By knowing one, everything is known; by getting one, everything is got—what is this? Only a madman can say such a thing!” So, an analogy is given in Srimad Bhagavatam: when you pour water onto the root of a tree, the whole tree is fed, and if you put food into the stomach, the whole body is fed; similarly, if you do service to the Centre, everything is served. It is possible, and to do that means to enter the plane of dedication. Avoiding the plane of exploitation and that of renunciation, try to enter the plane of dedication. Your atma, your soul proper, is a member of that plane. That is the real world, whereas this here is a perverted reflection.

The real world is where every unit is dedicating itself to the whole, represented by the Centre, just as in a healthy body every atom will work for the welfare of the whole body. If an atom works for itself, it exploits to the extreme, and such local works for local interest are clearly bad. Every part of the body, every atom is to work for the welfare of the whole system. There is a Centre, so everything should work under its guidance.

What is the position of the Centre? It is mentioned in Bhagavad-gita,

sarva-dharman parityajya,
mam ekam saranam vraja

(Srimad Bhagavad-gita, 18.66)

Krishna explains His position, “Abandon all dharmas (duties) and just surrender unto Me.”

Now I want to represent this conception from another standpoint.

The philosophy of Hegel, a good German philosopher, is known as perfectionism. He gave the idea that the Absolute Truth, the Prime Cause of everything, must have two qualifications. What are they? It must be by itself and for itself. Please try to pay attention. “By itself” means that He is His own cause—nothing else has created Him. If anything created Him, that creator would have the primary importance. Therefore, to be the Absolute He must be anadi, eternally existing and not created by anything. Another qualification is that the Absolute Truth is “for itself”—He exists for His own satisfaction, not to satisfy anybody else. If His existence was to satisfy another entity, then He would be secondary and that entity for whose satisfaction He would be living would have the prime position.

Therefore, the Absolute must have these two qualifications: He is His own cause, and He exists only to satisfy Himself, to fulfil His own purpose. The Absolute is by itself and for itself. If any straw moves, it moves to fulfil the purpose of the Absolute. Everything—every incident, whatever happens—has to be for His satisfaction. So, although the real current is His lila (pastimes), we are guided by separate interests—family interest, country interest, social interest, humanitarianism, etc. In the infinite consideration it is all only a tiny part, but we are all engaged in acting for such separate interests, and because there is a clash between innumerable separate interests, it causes trouble. We must leave all our so-called special interests, come out from misunderstanding, and try to attain the function of a unit active for the cause of the whole.

The conclusion given by Krishna in Bhagavad-gita is “Sarva-dharman parityajya mam ekam saranam vraja. Give up all your duties which you think at present you have to discharge and surrender to My feet. Aham tvam sarva-papebhyo moksayisyami ma suchah. I shall release you from any trouble you can ever conceive of.” In other words, we are to remember to be faithful to the Centre. At present all our duties are for local interest, but we should give up this local identification of our interests and merge totally with the interest of the organic whole.

We see that if a police officer takes even three rupees for his own purpose, he is punished, but if he kills so many for the interest of the country, he is rewarded. Similarly, whatever is done for the satisfaction of the whole is good, but if you do anything for yourself or any local friend, you will have to be punished. In an industry, we have no right to take a bribe for our personal purpose; at the same time, we have no right to call a strike and close down the labour force because then the industry will be destroyed. Neither exploitation nor renunciation will do. Exploitation is clearly bad, and because we have no right to go on strike, renunciation is also bad. In an organic whole, the common interest is that everyone must be dedicated to the Centre, which means to the whole. When we put food into the stomach, the stomach will distribute it properly to every corner according to its necessity. That sort of life is Vaishnavism. There is an organic whole, and we are a part of that. We have our special duties in connection with the whole, and that is proper dedication for the whole. We are not to put food into the eye, nose, ear or anywhere else except the stomach, then only will it be distributed properly and the whole organism will be healthy. All of us are parts of the whole universe, and our duty is to work for the whole—that is devotion, dedication, surrender. And how are we to know about that? We will receive help from the revealed scriptures and from the many saints and agents who come from that plane to bring us into harmony.

The religion of the highest harmony has been given by Mahaprabhu Sri Chaitanyadev, who explained devotion on the basis of Srimad Bhagavatam, the book which is understood to be the real conclusion of all revealed scriptures. He explained that energy, or power, is not the highest thing, but knowledge is above it. Knowledge can control power and give a beneficial result, but further, knowledge itself also holds a lower position: above it is love and affection, and that is the highest. Neither knowledge nor power but only affection can give us fulfilment of life.

Mercy is higher than justice. Justice only exists where there is the necessity of laws, rules, etc., but in the realm of the Absolute Autocrat, who is the Absolute Good, there can be no question of any apprehension about Him. He is Absolute Good, and Absolute Good is Absolute Love and Affection—that is home! Back to God, back to home. What is home? It is where we find that we are in the midst of our well-wishers. If we do not care for our own benefit, there are so many others who will take care of us—in fact, the whole environment will take care of us. That is home. That is the domain of the Absolute, and we can enter His service, the highest position, and thereby see the affection, love, harmony, and beauty that exist there. All these qualities are similar, they constitute the nature of the Prime Cause and Good. We are to go there.

Misusing our free-will, we have been somehow led astray, but now we are being called, “Come home, back to God and back to home, the highest position, the land of love.” This is, in general and in short, the sum total of what I have presented to you—this is the Krishna conception in Bhagavad-gita and in Srimad Bhagavatam, and it is the conception that has been given by Sri Chaitanyadev. This Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math and the whole of the Gaudiya Mission is preaching only that. “Go to the Centre. Use your life for total dedication to the Centre, and the Centre is all above justice—it is all-merciful, affectionate, loving, and beautiful.”

This is the general background of the Vaishnava religion, of Srimad Bhagavad-gita and Srimad Bhagavatam and a brief history of all conceptions of religion: exploitation, renunciation, and dedication are the three planes of life, and the soul proper is a member of the land of dedication. All souls are dedicating units, but somehow, by misusing their partial freewill, they have entered the world of exploitation. Buddha, Jain, Pareshnath and others helped those who want to withdraw from here to get out of the entanglement of exploitation—of action and reaction—by complete retirement. Although they said that after retirement, the soul can live happily, there may still be a possibility of again becoming entangled in this trap. But where the really free souls live, all are dedicating units, and if we trace what is harmonising them and maintaining them in that plane, we shall see that they are all working for the whole, which is represented by the one Absolute Good.

We are to see all these things. That is why this human birth is very valuable. In connection with sadhus—saints, or agents—we shall try our best to get out of this entanglement and enter the land of love, dedication, and affection. We have already published several books, and there are many old scriptures which also help us understand properly and in a more detailed way all ontological aspects of religion.

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CONTENTS

Foreword

(1) Part One

(2) Part Two

(3) Part Three

(4) Part Four

(5) Part Five: Sri Guru and His Grace

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