Conversation with GBC Delegation 5 March, 1982

Conversation with GBC Delegation 5 March, 1982

HIS DIVINE GRACE BHAKTI-RAKSHAK SRIDHAR DEV-GOSWAMI MAHARAJ

SridharMaharaj:So, Kirtanananda Maharajis the leading man here; senior?

JayapatakaSwami:He is the senior-most. SrilaPrabhupada`s first diciple.

SM:Yes, first disciple ,and he has installed him there like a king.

Dev:(Laughter.)

KirtananandaSwami:Yes, actually millions of people are coming to see SrilaPrabhupadnow.

SM:In royal style he has insalled him there.

KS:So, we wanted to come and speak to you a little bit, because we are anxious for your blessing, and we are more anxious that you understand us ;what we are trying to do for Prabhupad.

SM:Who is talking?

Dev:KirtananandaSwami.

SM:Yes, Yes. KirtananandaMaharajis very sober man, and he does not speak much.Is it not?

KS:Well, when one is a fool, if he opens his mouth very much , he will be detected.

SM: You speak a little slowly, I can`t follow. That was the cause, though I was requested by my Guru Maharaj to go to the West, I didn`t because I can`t follow the intonation of the

Western pronunciation.This is a defect in me.

KS: I said that I don`t usually talk so much, because I am a fool, and a fool can pass undetected, if he does not open his mouth.

AksayanandaMaharaj:Maharajsaid that, “I don’t speakso much, because,” very humbly he said, “I am fool.”

SM: Fool ?

AS:Yes, and if he opens his mouth, then we can detect who is the fool.

SM: Of, course, it is in Kautila Sastra: “Tavat yaso bati, mukha yavat kincid na bhasate.” But we are requested to talk about the Suprem Lord, and by thet process, all undesirability within us may vanish. ”Take to kirtan.” To speak; that is the general advice: ”Speak always, and only about Krisna.” Speaking means reproducing. When we speak something we cannot but be all attentive.

All attentive. We cannot speak nonsense. So when we speak, we must be all-attentive. It is difficult to have concentratioon within, so preching or speaking forcibly makes us to concentrate to a particular call. Reproduction so it cannot be nonsense to the public. I must be alert in what I am speking. In that way, it has ben selected as the highest form of means to the highest end, in this Kali yuga especially. But, speaking must be done in a proper way:

na yad vacas citra padam harer yasojagat pavitram pragrinita karhicit tad vayasamtirthamusanti manasana yatra hamsa niramantyusiksayah

(”Those words which do not describe the glories of the Lord, who alone can sanctify the atmosphere of the whole universe, are considered by saintly persons to be like unto a place of pilgrimage for crows. Since the all-perfect persons are inhabitants of the transcendental abode, they do not derive any pleasure there.” S.B.1.5.10)

On the other hand:

tad vag visargo janatagha viplavoyasminn pratislokam abadavaty api namaniananyasyayaso‘nkitaniyacchrnvantigayantigranantisadhavah

(On the other hand, that literature which is full of descriptions of the transcendental glories of the name, fame, forms, pastimes, etc., of the unlimited Suprem Lord is a different creation, full of transcendental words directed toward bringing about a revolution in the impious lives of this world`s misderected civilisation.”)

Only when the content of our speech, the subject matter of our speech is the Absolute; it may not be ornamented, it may not be grammatically correct, or any defect, it does not matter, but the theme must be about the Absolute, and those sort words, we should always try to pronounce. It has been advised in Bhagavatam, in those ten selected stanzas that were given by Narada to Vedaavyas. That is the basis of Srimad Bhagavatam as we find it now. Gaura hari bol. Kirtanananda is your name given by your Gurudev, and you say that you are afraid of kirtan?

Dev:(Everyone laughs.)

SM: So, your kirtan must be bonafide. We should not chant unnecessary and insubstantial things. Whatever you speak, speak the truth. We have to take it in this way.

KS:I am trying simply to remember what Prabhupadtold me, and to stick to that instruction.

SM: Oh. It is good. But at the same time we shall think that, “Vyaso vetti na vetti va.” Vyasadev, who is cosidered to be Saktyaves Avatar, he gave most of the revealed scriptures, but still we see Devarsi Narada has come and given strictures to him. In this way, that “What you have given to the world so far, you have done positive michief to the people.” His guru is chastising him in such a way. So, to understand the words of gurudev is not very easy. It is infinite. Gurudev is infinite. “Acaryam mamvajaniyam.”

(One should knou the spiritual master as My very self.” S.B. 11.17.27.) In his words, he deals also with the infinite, and we can`t put it under limitation, that we have finished what he wanted to give us, we have understood it, we have finished. We are always student, we shall remain student forever, because the infinite cannot be finished. We shall have to remain student all through, all through. If we think that we have finished everything, then we are in the relativity of Maya, not in the relativity of the infinite.

KS:His instruction is always there.

SM: Our Guru Maharaj told that he is monitor in a class. Leader of the students. In his Madras speech, in a written speech, he expressed, Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Prabhu, he told that, ” I am a monitor.” Something like that. We are all student, and will cotinue to be students, and we consider it to be fortunate to remain a student all along in our life. Can`t finish. None can finish. Even the highest devotees of every type, they are also of the same opinion. They are unsatisfied always. Unsatisfied that, ”I am not able to do real service to my Lord.” This should be the attitude.

KS:Yes.

SM: So far we have understood, come to understand the thing.

KS: Prabhupad has given us so many many volumes of books, we cannot begin to understand all that he has giveh us. SM:Yes, he did an extensive work. But it`s not a question of his side. We have to question on our side. (Our attitude toward our guru should be) ”You are full. But I am such a fool that I can`t understand your fullness.” That should be the attitude of a real student of the spiritual world. Especially those that are student of Krisna Consciousness. Mahaprabhu Himself, He is saying, ”I have not a bit of divine love within Me.”

Kaviraj Goswamiis posing that, ” I am the worst of the worst, the meanest of the mean”, and that is not a formal statement only. That is his sincere feeling. And how he could produce such a magnanimous work? That explanation is also given, that ”Something is forcing me to write.” Sanatan Goswamialso said that, ”Who am I to relate about the internal affairs of the harem of the Lord, the Queens? What audacity! But someone is forcing my hand, forcing me to write all these things. But we are very low, we are so mean”, they stood by that side. ”We are nothing, but He is everything.”

One gentlemen of the Arya samaj asked me there in Karachi, the leader of the Arya samaj of the place, ”If finite can know infinite, then He is not infinite.” I could also ansver him in his own coin, ”If the infinte cannot make Himself known to the finite, then He is not infinite.”

nayam atma pravacanena labhyona medhaya na behuna srutena yamevaisavrnutetenalabhyastasyaisaatmavivrnutetanumsvam

(“The Supreme Lord is not attained by expert explanations, nor by vast intelligence, nor by extensive study of the sruty. He is attained only by one who He Himself chooses. To such a person , He manifests His own form. Katha Up. 1.2.23)

Only one way: the way down. He can be met on the way down. We cannot meet Him by going up. Everything depends on him .He is adhoksaja.

KS:That knowledge is coming down through guru.

SM: Trough guru, through scripture we may not think that guru is limited in a particular body, or in a particular mind. In Bhagavatam; Mahaprabhu told that every word is Krisna, every word is infinite . We must have to come in connection in the relativity of the infinite. When Mahaprabhu gave explanations of the Atmarama sloka in 61 ways, then Sanatan Goswami said, “Oh, You are the Lord infinite , You can give infinite ways of meaning.” Mahaprabhureplied,” Why do you praise me, Sanatan?

Don`t you know that Srimad-Bhagavatam is Krisna Himself, and every letter is Krisna?” Every part of the infinite is infinite. Not that any number of finite can make infinite. So, we shall try to come very near the infinite, but at the same time, we must be conscious that He is infinite, not finite . However near I may aspire after to come I shall always try to remain under the relativity of the infinite, in connection with the infinite.

KS:Yes, we accept Prabhupadthat way, because he is our Guru.

SM: That is a material conception: ”Mat gurusi jagat guru”(My guru is jagad-guru) “Acaryammam vijaniyam“. (One should know the guru to be My very self.” S.B.11.17.27.) A universal conception we must have about our guru.

KS: But that is the way he has taught us.

SM: What?

KS: That is the way he has taught us.

SM: Taught? No. He cannot have taught that. Our Guru Maharaj once told that if I am required to give an explanation of this slokaof Bhagavatam, ”Acaryam mam vijaniyam“; if I am under necessity to explain this sloka, should I leave the seat and run away? I shall have to give explanation of that very sloka. How? So he might have give explanation of this sloka and so many other slokas; the guru is infinite. He also says that his guru is infinite. In a telescopic system, the infinite is going up. Everyone thinks, in his place, that his guru is infinite.

“I am nothing, and everything is coming from my guru.” In this way, it is possible. Otherwise, this is the sahajiya section that will say, “I am guru, I am infinite.” A guru never says so. In “Prakrta satadusani“; Madhvacarya has written “Mayavad satadusani“, so our Guru Maharaj, Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakur, he also has written “Prakrita sahajiya satadusani” there it is mentioned that the guru never says, “I am guru, I am infinite”.

KS:No, no, Prabhupadnever said that he was infinite, that he was God. But we can see God through him.

SM:Of course try to see …

KS:He is the transparent via medium …

SM:If you can see rightly, then. We must not think that we can see Guru Maharajrightly, but as must as possible, for my condition …

KS:But for my seeing, I am dependent on him. Whatever he wants me to see, I will see.

SM: We shall always try to think like that. At the same time, we shall think that, ”I cannot attain the fullest degree. I shall try, I am out to try for that which is impossible; to know the infinite. I have come to try. I must try. But I can’t try, I fail when I try”, that should be the healthy attitude. ”I am trying, but I not trying satisfactorily, so I am not getting, I am always in want.”

KS: Our concern is not so much to know the infinite, as to serve the infinite. Srila Prabhupad has asked us to serve him by preaching all over the world, therefore our movement is a preaching movement.

SM:That is not a new thing. You are preaaching, alright. Alright, you are preaching as directed by your G uru Maharaj, as much as you can catch, as you can understand him, sincerely, you are to do; but there are so many like you. We are also trying to move in the same way.

KS:We are not saying that we are the only ones, but we are trying to preach …

SM: We don’t think you are the only one. There are so many, and they aren’t one, they are of different stages.

KS:We are trying to preach as he ordered us.

SM: From different stages they are trying their utmost, and some may not try also. Gurubhogi is also there. Gurubhogi, he wants to exploit in the name of guru; that is also there, we find. Gurubhogi. Exloitation of guru, it is also to be concieved, there may be. So, criticisms of many so-called “Gurus” also in Gaudiya Math, we found.

KS: At any rate …

SM:Yes …

KS: I wanted to speak to you on behalf of the GBC.

SM:Yes.

KS:About what has been going on …

SM: It is most deplorable. Swami Maharaj very earnestly invited me in ISKCON, and you are driving me out. All the good. It is all for the best. I am to take it in that way. I did not want to encroach within the precincts of ISKCON, but Swami Maharaj had must affection for me, all throughout his whole life. He abused many of my Godbrothers, but with the exception of me alone. And I think that I have much affection for ISKCON, and hee also asked me several times, that you are to look after them, and he tried his best also.

Once he proposed that I accept the post of president of ISKCON, but I am always a backward-pushing man, an ease-lover, so I did not venture. And I had no capacity also that I will be the president of a great institution throughout the whole lenght and breadth of the world. I am a man of small energy, and satisfied with very little things, not mush ambition, but at the same time, some disinterestedness also is in me. And some sort of common sense. My Guru Maharaj and also my Godbrothers, had some certificate for me.

Not an aggresor. I was forcibly almost, by affection’s force taken into the connection of ISKCON, and now, I am being driven out of ISKCON, but still I cannot give up my own faith, what I am fostering throughout my whole life of fifty-five years in Gaudiya Math, which is well tried, and Swami Maharajto his last days, up to his last days, he maintained his faith in me. And still I think that I am a well-wisher of that great institution, what is the result of wonderful grace of Krsnain him. But anyhow …

KS:I think you are misunderstanding.

SM: I thing you are making much of formality, administration, and divorcing the very spirit from it. That is my understanding. You are all captured by the grandeur, the glamour, and not so much for the inner spirit or truth.

KS:Personally, I have great affection, and I know that you had, I know that many of my Godbrothers …

SM: Don’t think that you have made a monopoly of the truth, of the Absolute Truth; you few heads you have got monopoly, and it is the object of your trade you think. I am not such a fool to give recognition ti the committee which is effected by a few heads like you. I consider you students; all student, not professors. In my consideration, you are all student. And you will be healthy if you can think that you are student, and not professors.

KS: We are student. But student of Prabhupad.

SM:Yes.

KS:And we must study Prabhupad from his books, SM: And I am in the rank of his friend, not disciple. KS: Therefore we give you respect.

SM:Yes, you are giving.

Jayapataka Swami: We don’t want to commit any offense unto you.

SM: But now you are very much afraid of me, because I am a plain speaker.

KS:Not exactly because you are a plain speaker, but because SrilaPrabhupadwanted to preserve this ISKCON.

SM: In my last days, I am (motivated) to some mean interest of making my position, before I go to death, you think me like that.

JayapatakaSwami: We have never said such things. Neither we have expressed any …

SM: My position is clear. I am not an aggressor, but those that are coming to me and asking me my advice in particular cases I cannot but extend my sympathetic help to them. That is my position. I am not running hither, thither to entice perons or to capture them. I am sitting straight here, and anyone coming to me, according to my own conscience, I am extending my helping hand to them.

KS:But those who are coming are using you, they are using you for their own political ends.

SM: I am not supposed to see things through your eyes. I have got my own eyes. I am fifty five years in connection with the Gaudiya Matha, and whether I am bonafide, I do not require your certificate; any of you in the whole of ISKCON. I don’t want any certificate. I have got my own way of thinking, and many of my Godbrothers, including Swami Maharaj, had confidence in me, in my thinking.

AksayanandaSwami:But not these gentlemen; they don’t have confidence.

KS: Because Prabhupadtold us not to come.

SM: I am an old man, I am tired, excited,I am very very sorry, (crying) really I say with folded palms that you are ill- treating me. I am very sorry. Swami Maharaj was so affectionate, I also treated with such affection to him. And rudely you are behaving towards me. I am very much mortified for that, but what can I do? I am a amall man …

KS:We have never said that you are not bonafide.

SM: Anyhow.

JPS:We have never said that.

JTM:You have said it openly in your meetings, so much.

KS:I never said that he is not bonafide, I said that that’s what Prabhupadsaid.

SM: KirtananandaMaharaj. Accha! Oh! KirtananandaMaharaj, you see one point.

KS:It is in his books! Because you don’t accept his books that’s your problem!

DhiraKrsnaMaharaj: Because you’ve never read them that’s your problem!

SM: Quiet! Do not speak to much, in my presence at least. I don’t like these things; rowdyism. Now, my final appeal to you is that I am old, I am tired, I can’t talk anymore now. If you find any necessity to meet me, you will have to come sometime after. Especially, perhaps in the morningtime I am a little in good health at that time. Now, I am almost finished, I can’t talk longer. If you come again, I shall try to put my things more slowly, and judiciously, and in an appealing way.

JPS:The point was that …

SM: Now, I can’t move, my energy finished almost. I can’t speak anymore.

JPS:(To others) You can tell Maharajthat we just wanted to …

SM:JayapatakaMaharal.

JPS:We just wanted to stress that it is not a question of anything personal, and neither is anything personal, it is a question only of what policy to adopt in terms of allowing …

SM: Why do you talk now. I can’t listen to that. Because if you speak, them I shall have to reply, but I am unable to reply, so you will think that, “Maharajcould not reply.” I don’t like that. So, if you want to talk more, I am ready, but you must come at some suitable time, I am not lacking in reasoning, or in repressenting sastric quotation. Anyhow, I am finished now. I can’t talk more. Gaura Hari bol.