“yaà paçyati na paçyantaà
cakñur yasya na riñyati
taà bhüta-nilayaà devaà
suparëam upadhävata”
TRANSLATION
Although the Supreme Personality of Godhead constantly watches the activities of the world, no one sees Him. However, one should not think that because no one sees Him, He does not see, for His power to see is never diminished. Therefore, everyone should worship the Supersoul, who always stays with the individual soul as a friend.
PURPORT BY SRILA PRABHUPADA
Offering prayers to Kåñëa, Çrématé Kuntédevé, the mother of the Päëòavas, said, alakñyaà sarva-bhütänäm antar bahir avasthitam [SB 1.8.18] “Kåñëa, You reside both inside and outside of everything, yet the unintelligent conditioned souls cannot see You.” In Bhagavad-gétä it is said that one can see the Supreme Personality of Godhead through jïäna-cakñuñaù, eyes of knowledge. He who opens these eyes of knowledge is called a spiritual master. Thus we offer our prayers to the spiritual master with the following çloka:
“om ajïäna-timirändhasya
jïänäïjana-çaläkayä
cakñur unmélitaà yena
tasmai çré-gurave namaù”
“I offer my respectful obeisances unto my spiritual master, who with the torchlight of knowledge has opened my eyes, which were blinded by the darkness of ignorance.” (Gautaméya Tantra) The guru’s task is to open the disciple’s eyes of knowledge. When the disciple is awakened from ignorance to knowledge, he can see the Supreme Personality of Godhead everywhere because the Lord actually is everywhere. Aëòäntara-stha-paramäëu-cayäntara-stham [Bs. 5.35]. The Lord resides within this universe, He resides within the hearts of all living entities, and He resides even within the atom. Because we lack perfect knowledge, we cannot see God, but a little deliberation can help us to see God everywhere. This requires training. With a little deliberation, even the most degraded person can perceive the presence of God. If we take into account whose property is the vast ocean, whose property is the vast land, how the sky exists, how the numberless millions of stars and planets are set in the sky, who has made this universe and whose property it is, we should certainly come to the conclusion that there is a proprietor of everything. When we claim proprietorship over a certain piece of land, whether individually or for our families or nations, we should also consider how we became the proprietors. The land was there before our birth, before we came to the land. How did it become our property? Such deliberation will help us understand that there is a supreme proprietor of everything—the Supreme Personality of Godhead.
The Supreme Godhead is always awake. In the conditioned stage we forget things because we change our bodies, but because the Supreme Personality of Godhead does not change His body, He remembers past, present and future. Kåñëa says in Bhagavad-gétä (4.1), imaà vivasvate yogaà proktavän aham avyayam: “I spoke this science of God—Bhagavad-gétä—to the sun-god at least forty million years ago.” When Arjuna inquired from Kåñëa how He could remember incidents that had taken place so long ago, the Lord answered that Arjuna was also present at that time. Because Arjuna is Kåñëa’s friend, wherever Kåñëa goes, Arjuna goes. But the difference is that Kåñëa remembers everything, whereas the living entity like Arjuna, being a minute particle of the Supreme Lord, forgets. Therefore it is said, the Lord’s vigilance is never diminished. This is also confirmed in Bhagavad-gétä (15.15). Sarvasya cähaà hådi sanniviñöo mattaù småtir jïänam apohanaà ca: the Supreme Personality of Godhead in His Paramätmä feature is always present within the hearts of all living entities, and from Him come memory, knowledge and forgetfulness. This is also indicated in this verse by the word suparëam, which means “friend.” In the Çvetäçvatara Upaniñad (4.6) it is therefore said, dvä suparëa-sayujä sakhäyä samänaà våkñaà pariñasvajäte: two birds are sitting on the same tree as friends. One bird is eating the fruit of the tree, and the other is simply observing. This observing bird is always present as a friend to the eating bird and giving him remembrance of things he wanted to do. Thus if we take into account the Supreme Personality of Godhead in our daily affairs, we can see Him or at least perceive His presence everywhere.
The words cakñur yasya na riñyati mean that although we cannot see Him, this does not mean that He cannot see us. Nor does He die when the cosmic manifestation is annihilated. The example is given in this connection that the sunshine is present when the sun is present, but when the sun is not present, or when we cannot see the sun, this does not mean that the sun is lost. The sun is there, but we cannot see it. Similarly, although we cannot see the Supreme Personality of Godhead in our present darkness, our lack of knowledge, He is always present, seeing our activities. As the Paramätmä, He is the witness and adviser (upadrañöä and anumantä). Therefore, by following the instructions of the spiritual master and studying authorized literatures, one can understand that God is present before us, seeing everything, although we have no eyes with which to see Him.
TRANSLATION
Although the Supreme Personality of Godhead constantly watches the activities of the world, no one sees Him. However, one should not think that because no one sees Him, He does not see, for His power to see is never diminished. Therefore, everyone should worship the Supersoul, who always stays with the individual soul as a friend.
Paramatma exists everywhere:
To be Krishna Consciousness means to be conscious of Krishna as the witness, the observer of all things in all places. Lord Sri Krishna tells us in the Gita, “Everywhere are my hands and legs, my eyes, and my faces”. In this way the super soul exists. The paramatma or super soul is everywhere. He is between and within each atoms and He is in the heart of all living beings. Therefore the preliminary stage of advancement and devotional service means that we should be looking for Krishna everywhere and in everything.
Krishna, the giver of knowledge and forgetfulness:
If you look for Krishna then Krishna will reveal Himself. But if you try to forget Him then as Krishna says in the 15th chapter of Bhagavad-Gita, He will provide for you that forgetfulness.
“sarvasya cähaà hådi sanniviñöo
mattaù småtir jïänam apohanaà ca
vedaiç ca sarvair aham eva vedyo
vedänta-kåd veda-vid eva cäham”
(Bhagavad-Gita 15.15)
Krishna says that I am in the heart of every living being. I am the source of rememberance, knowledge and forgetfulness. According to our desire, according to how we approach Him, He reveals to us Himself accordingly.
Krishna is seated besides our heart. It is described in Upanisad. It is like two birds sitting on the same tree. So it is the constitutional nature of the Jivatma to perceive the presence of Paramatma sitting beside him. It is their very nature to always be conscious in remembering the Lord within our heart. But it is when we want to forget him, when we want to justify within our own minds the liberty to engage in the various activities independent of the will of god, that Krishna covers himself from our vision. And at that time, we think we can act independent of His vision. We think we can act independent of what He perceives, independent of His divine will. But actually that is impossible. It is the illusion, that Krishna allows us to fall under simply for the purpose of allowing us to fulfill our desires.
Acting sinfully or sincerely:
When we desire to act sinfully, when we desire to act envious of God, then Krishna fulfills that desire by covering himself by the cloud of ignorance. Just like the sun is clouded by the cloudiest sky. But one who is sincere in Krishna Consciousness, through the process of hearing and through the process of associating with devotees, he becomes more and more aware of the presence of Krishna in our heart. He becomes more and more aware that Krishna is the witness of all of our activities. And therefore such a person, very very carefully acts, speaks and thinks according to what will please Krishna or what will satisfy Krishna. After all, if we dissatisfy Krishna, we can make no spiritual advancement and if we satisfy Krishna, that is the only means of making spiritual advancement.
Be aware of God within our heart:
Now, satisfying Krishna externally, it means to satisfy the spiritual master. Of course spiritual master is also conscious of our activities by the grace of super soul within our heart. So when we gain the favor of the spiritual master by executing his order, we can understand that we are pleasing him, we are satisfying him. And thus we are on the path of spiritual advancement. But it is the paramatma the super soul within, who is constantly checking to see, how devoted we are, to pleasing our spiritual master and Krishna. And ultimately at the time of death, it is that paramatma that we have to face. It is the He, that decides where the soul will be destined. So therefore, we must be very very aware that the execution of the order of the spiritual master is not simply seeing by the external eyes of our guru or the external eyes of the deity or the external eyes of the devotees, but it is seen by the eyes of God within our heart, at all times, in all places. And this is the essence of Krishna Consciousness- to be aware of God within our heart. Rather than, in the execution of our material desires to turn away from the super soul within our heart, we must learn how to turn towards this super soul within our heart. We must learn to take shelter of the presence of God within our heart. When we chant the holy names-
“hare kåñëa hare kåñëa
kåñëa kåñëa hare hare
hare räma hare räma
räma räma hare hare”
We are invoking the divine remembrance of the Lord within our heart. And simply, by always remembering Krishna in this way, that He is the proprietor, He is the controller, He is the enjoyer, He is our friend and He is our ever well wishing friend seated always most intimately besides the soul.
He is the closest of the close to our consciousness:
In this world, we develop relationships and in these relationships, there is a certain closeness and this closeness brings about affection and attachment. But let us be aware, that physical closeness is not within the proximity of the soul. Real closeness exists only between the Lord and the Jivatma. Because the real person, that you call ‘You’ is the soul within the heart and Krishna is intimately close to the soul within the heart. It is not a question of even inches. He is right beside you at all times, in all places, in all circumstances. And Krishna is constantly anxious to embrace us with the shelter of His divine love. But unfortunately, although He is the closest of the close to our consciousness, at times, He becomes so far away that we do not even remember His very existence. So Krishna Consciousness means to turn from without to within.
Reconditioning our consciousness to always think of Krishna:
Since time in memorial, we have deliberately forgotten the super soul. Since time in memorial, due to our desires to load it over material nature, we have turned away from the Lord in our heart and therefore even when we want to perceive Him, even when we have the intelligence and the knowledge through the sashtras and association of devotees, that the goal of life is to perceive Him and to be aware of His divine presence, we cannot see the dilemma we have created for ourselves. We have conditioned ourselves to such gross consciousness that, it is practically impossible to be aware of the closest thing to our very self. Therefore Krishna is so kind, He is so merciful, that the same super soul, the paramatma appears externally, so that we can perceive him through our senses. He appears within the sound of His holy name. He appears within the form of the archa-vigraha (the murti). He appears in the presence of His devotees. He appears within the Holy Scriptures. In this way, we can directly bring our attention to the presence of the Lord within our life. And in this way, by worshiping the deity, by focusing our attention, our consciousness on the beauty and the grace of the Lord in the temple, by focusing our consciousness and attention on the sweet sound of His Holy name, by hearing the scriptures, hearing His glories, hearing the divine qualities of the Lord, by associating with those who are always engaged in the service of the Lord and rendering service to such persons, in this way we can recondition our consciousness to remember Krishna. We can recondition our consciousness to always think of Krishna and to be very very carefully conscious that He is the divine witness of everything, everywhere. And thus through the purification that takes place through this process, gradually we can feel the divine presence of the Lord within the heart.
Pain of guilt- a warning to protect us:
The first realization of the super soul in the heart for the conditioned soul is usually the feeling of guilt. When you do something that you know is not correct and that feeling of guilt comes into your consciousness, that is the divine grace of the Lord because just like pain is physical warning that something is not good for us, it is the grace of God. If you put your hand in fire and if it pains, if it burns, what happens in that situation is that Krishna is through material nature warning you to take your hand out of the fire because if you leave it in, you will be burnt. But if it did not hurt, people would leave their hand in the fire. They would not understand that I should take it out. A child would leave his hand in the fire until it is completely burnt, his whole body is burnt. Why would he take it out? But that pain creates a situation that we immediately move it. Therefore, that pain protects us and factually that is real purpose of pain to protect us. When we do something sinful and we get a sinful reaction which is painful, we understand that this is a reaction to what I have done. So therefore, we must protect ourselves from further being destroyed or devoured by our foolish activities. So similarly in the same way, the Lord within the heart, he provides a pain called guilt, when we do something wrong. When we do something against the principles of the will of God and this pain of guilt is actually a warning to protect us. If we did not have it, then we would continue our activities endlessly. So therefore we should be very very thankful to the Lord and be aware of these feelings and we should respond accordingly. Because just as if we become careless to the pain of keeping your hand in fire, you can actually become immune to that pain and then you will be finished. Correct? So similarly, if you do not respond to the first realization of super soul called guilt then what happens is, Krishna, He allows you to be careless to that and then you endlessly justify all of your independent activities, which transport your consciousness further and further and further away from Krishna.
The call of super soul within our heart:
Sometimes a man who is very very sinful, they say, he is a man of no conscious. Another words, either in this life or through previous lives, he has neglected the call of super soul within his heart. Such a person can engage in any abominable activities and not even feel that anything is wrong. This unscrupulous mentality is the most unfortunate condition of the soul. Therefore, if we are sincere, we must respond positively to the signs, to the signals that Krishna is constantly giving us and through the process of Krishna Consciousness, we become sensitive to the will of God and although we cannot perceive God directly, gradually through the very feelings of our heart, we can be aware of what Krishna wants. But we must always be very careful to examine that what Krishna in our heart is speaking, is identical to what Krishna is speaking through the lips of guru and through the lips of shastra. Otherwise, we can know that it is Maya again trying to bewilder us and bring us further and further away from the Paramatma.
Spiritual master- the external manifestation of the super soul:
You see the Lord within our heart is certainly giving signals and giving feelings, which are meant to guide the conditioned soul. But those feelings must be understood through the light of the words of guru and Krishna, who is the super soul, who is speaking externally and everything we feel within must be confirmed with from without, otherwise this is sahajia. Sahajia means to take things very cheaply, to think we have divine relationship with the lord in the heart but not to understand, what is the true desire of the Lord. After all, we have so many voices within our heart. And these voices are very important to recognize in confirmation with the spiritual master. It is said that the spiritual master is the external manifestation of the super soul. He is the external manifestation of the Paramatma and therefore by always being very careful to follow the instructions of the bona fide spiritual master and always being very very careful to live according to those words, then gradually we will feel the super soul, the Lord within our heart as our divine friend, as our ever well wishing friend in all circumstances of life. And such a beautiful state of consciousness is the only real need and longing of the soul, to reunite with the lord within the heart. To be embraced by the mercy of the Lord within the heart.
“yasya prasädäd bhagavat-prasädo
yasyäprasädän na gatiù kuto ‘pi”
(Songs of Vaishnav Acharya-Standard prayers)
Really, all we have to know is this verse, that by pleasing the guru, we please the Lord within our heart. That by hearing from the guru, we can understand what is the desire of the Lord within our heart.
Is there any questions?
(A devotee asks two questions one after the other(which are inaudible))
Maharaj: You should ask one question at a time. These questions are completely different questions. What was the first question?
Devotee: The first one is determination, once the guilt is there, that is to tell us that this is wrong and if we decide- “okay,this is wrong, this is it, but inspite of it, there is, you decide something to it but we do it again…. (inaudible)
Maharaj: Why??? This is because you have been habituated by your previous activities to be callous to the desires of super soul. We have conditioned ourselves for many many births to rebel against the desire of God and through this process, we have become hard hearted. We have made our heart hard by time and time and time and time again betraying Krishna. So, it is a habit that has to be stopped. Just like momentum or inertia. When something is moving in a certain direction, the tendency is to keep it going in that direction. Correct?? If you are going very fast in an automobile and you want to stop it and you push the brakes very fast, what happens? Does it stop immediately? The tendency is to keep going. If you want to stop it, just like when you take driving test, one of the most important questions that is asked in driving test. It means where I am from is the braking distance for every speed. If you are going 100 km an hour it takes certain amount of meters to stop the car from that speed and you have to know that. If there is a stop, you have to know when to start a brake, otherwise it will be a very very serious danger. So the momentum of your speed, you must know that it takes time to stop. The tendency is to just keep going. So similarly, we have our consciousness has been for such a long time developing more and more momentum to act according to our mind’s desires, rather than according to our intelligence. Intelligence comes from God and intelligence comes from the spiritual master’s order. But the mind generally takes his dictations from the longings of the senses.
So therefore, how to stop this momentum? It can be done, if we very seriously take shelter of Krishna. If we very seriously take shelter of the words of the spiritual master. It can be done in a second, if we surrender to Krishna. But if we are not surrender to Krishna, we are not fully taking shelter of the words of the spiritual master, we should know that the inertia of the mind, inertia of the senses, is to always want to justify sense gratification. It is not easy to stop it immediately because we have developed such a speed in that direction for so long, that there is a very strong tendency. So therefore the best way to protect ourselves from that is the association of devotees. If we remain in the association of saintly persons and we are hearing constantly the word of God and we are given constantly the service of the spiritual master, this is the process of taking shelter of Krishna. Through this process, it is said,
“mükaà karoti väcälaà
paìguà laìghayate girim”
(CC_Madhya_17.80)
Even miracles are performed when we take shelter of guru and Krishna. The extraordinary can take place. We can with stand the temptations of Maya, if we remain fixed in the service of guru and Krishna, if we remain fixed in the association of devotees. Otherwise without that miraculous extraordinary grace of God, the inertia of our mind will just carry us further and further and further into Maya. So through the process of other systems of religion and yoga, what takes place is the gradual process of slowing down the momentum that we have built up over such a long time of conditioning.
But through the process of bhakti, what we are doing is, we are appealing to the super excellent miraculous power of God to stop it immediately and that is possible. Jagai and Madhai were the most sinful persons. But simply by taking shelter, all of their sinfulness was checked immediately. The tendencies may still be there. But by taking shelter of the Lord’s name, by taking shelter of the Lord’s devotees, the inertia can be checked immediately. Otherwise, how is it that the people of the west who were addicted to the illicit sex, intoxication, gambling, and meat eating, every sinful activity imaginable; How is it that simply by meeting Srila Prabhupada, it is givenup instantly? We have not seen any other religion or any other process where people could give up all these sins immediately. Generally, it is a very gradual process. But because certain very fortunate living beings took shelter of the grace of the great souls. Then miracle is performed.
Just like they ask Srila Prabhupada, can you show us a miracle? They wanted to see if he can produce some ashes or if he can produce some gold, or if he can reveal some other form of his own. These are miracles, that are performed by the mystic yogis. Srila Prabhupada was in the room full of American disciples. He said these young men were addicted to illicit sex, intoxication, gambling and meat eating practically from the day of their birth. Right? Practically from the day of their birth! How is it that some of them are twenty, thirty years old and instantly they can stop all these things? Instantly they can dedicate their body, mind, words, and everything in the service of God. He said, this is the miracle. This is the greatest miracle. This is not something that can be understood through material intelligence. This is the inconceivable mercy of the divine grace of Krishna and the spiritual master. So therefore, we can either take the gradual process or we can surrender to Krishna and by His inconceivable mercy, He can do anything.
Trinavarta was a whirlwind. He just threw him down onto the ground. Govardhana Hill, My God! its 21 km around. He lifted it with a little finger of His left hand. And all the power of Krishna is within the divine grace of the spiritual master. Do you understand? So the problem is, we have conditioned our self for so long, that the tendency is to allow that conditioning to continue to act independent, to justify our sinful activities. But if we sincerely take shelter of the divine grace of guru and Krishna, then that can be stopped immediately. That is the great miracle of devotional service.
Thank you very much. Hare Krishna.
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