Where to find the nectar of immortality?

Goswāmī Mahārāj: Hare Kṛṣṇa. Any questions from anyone?
Avadhūt Mahārāj: I have a question.
Goswāmī Mahārāj: Yes, Swāmīji
Avadhūt Mahārāj: Well, Saraswatī Ṭhākur was speaking about spiritual evolution, and he said he want to open the temple in every heart. How that spiritual revolution to be, I mean, everything Vaiṣṇava say must be substantial and real, how it will look? What will be ideal picture of that?
Goswāmī Mahārāj: Well, what Mahārāj is alluding to is that, we can say under the guidance of the conception of Ragunāth Dās Goswāmī,

vairāgya-yug-bhakti-rasaṁ prayatnair
apāyayan mām anabhīpsum andham
kṛpāmbudhir yaḥ para-duḥkha-duḥkhī
sanātanas taṁ prabhum āśrayāmi
(Vilāpa-kusumāñjali: 6)

I mean this is not generally funny, but I’ll answer your question in another way later [laughs]. But Guru Mahārāj said, that Saraswatī Ṭhākur gave an example, that in relation of this śloka, so if he said that, I mean, forgive me for laughing uncontrollably, but what he said was, and probably they have more experience of this in India and other places, is sometimes they need to feed a horse medicine. And it’s not an easy thing to do. So there is a big group of man, they start like, one guy grabs the horse’s neck, the others have his legs, and they hold this horse. And then they push the medicine in his mouth, they force it down the throat. That’s the way, that’s what it looks like. [laughs]

And I know you think I was going to say something really sweet and wonderful, but wait, I’m not done. [laughs]
Avadhūt Mahārāj: That’s a good start.
Goswāmī Mahārāj: But that’s actually how you do it. You have to grab them and force it down their throats. The medicine. I mean that’s a metaphor for it. So, what do we find,

tyaktvā su-dustyaja-surepsita-rājya-lakṣmīṁ
dharmiṣṭha ārya-vachasā yad agād araṇyam
māyā-mṛgaṁ dayitayepsitam anvadhāvad
vande mahā-puruṣa te charaṇāravindam
(Śrīmad Bhāgavatam: 11.5.34)

What does it say here? Māyā-mṛgaṁ dayitayepsitam anvadhāvad—mercifully Mahāprabhu’s running after those jīvas who are chasing after māyā. So, the jīvas are chasing after māyā, Mahāprabhu is running after them to try and capture them. So, then he devises some ways and means to capture their attention and for them to revere on some level to express their appreciation for his Kṛṣṇa conception, on some level, so, he’s saying, “Then I’ll become a sannyāsi and they will have to bow down to me, but that will be good for everybody.” It’s cause what will happen is someone because he is a sannyāsi they give respect to [him], “What is his name again?” “Śrī Kṛṣṇa Chaitanya,” “Chaitanya, Chaitanya.”

So, he is devising these ways and means. What did Saraswatī Ṭhākur do?

pūjalā rāga-patha gaurava bhaṅge,
mātala sādhu-jana viṣaya raṅge

This word is so apt to be misunderstood or misinterpreted that Gurudev told to Guru Mahārāj, “I want to change it to ‘kīrtana raṅge’ especially for the Bengalis who are Eastern, I mean, people outside of Bengal, they don’t know what it means, but ‘viṣaya’ means generally, I mean it’s a reference to what is mundane, so, Guru Mahārāj said, “What does it mean? What was his original idea? Guru Mahārāj used the word ‘bait’. Like you put bait on the hook to catch a fish. So, he said there is different types of bait and he mentioned he was at the Jagannāth Dās Bābājī, I think it was Jagannāth Das Bābājī Mahārāj, he would give rasgulas to children, if they’ll take the name, say, “Hare Kṛṣṇa” or “Nitāi Gaura,” “Alright, good boy,” he’d give the one a rasgula, someone else a rasgula. So, I mean, that’s a sweet way of enticing, there are other ways to bait people and bring them in the connection of Kṛṣṇa Consciousness.

Guru Mahārāj says, “When the earliest devotees met Saraswatī Ṭhākur although they are highly qualified by saṁskāra, by birth, education, born in Mahāprabhu’s land, in many instances, vaiṣṇavas from birth, of some status in some particular line. And they’re saying, they couldn’t understand what he was saying. The intensity that he is delivering it with, he’s pounding on the table, the blood’s flushing to his face, his face looks like a pink lotus flower. So, Sakhī Charaṇ Bābu told Guru Mahārāj, he said, “We couldn’t understand, something, but mainly we couldn’t understand what he’s saying, but what we could understand was that he’s trying to forcefully push some nectarine substance into us, that much we could understand, with great earnestness, intensity, etc.”

So, in that śloka of all people I mean Raghunāth Dās Goswāmī, we think of him is the personification of vairāgya, Raghunāth Dās, who has aiśvarya (material opulence), strī-apsarā-sama (wife like an angel of heaven), who is like Indra. Gurudev liked to quote this in Govardhan, which is the place of Raghunāth Dās Goswāmī. That he’s got wealth like Indra and a wife as beautiful as a goddess from heaven. And when the mother and father are scheming of how to keep him bounded to family life and the mother suggest shackling him, just like the way you shackle a prisoner around the ankle and then some chain. And he can move around the house, but in that way we’ll be sure we won’t leave. But what was the father’s response? He says, “Look, we’ve already shackled him with a wife as beautiful as apsarā, and he’s got the wealth like Indra, if this doesn’t do it, then what can you do to someone who’s become a madman for Śrī Chaitanya Mahāprabhu?”

The father knew, it’s just a matter of time, that we will lose him to this, but it’s that Raghunāth Dās, who we think is of the extremes of vairāgya in his Pastimes. He says in his prayer to Sanātan Goswāmī that, “I was unwilling to drink the nectar of vairāgya, “Vairāgya-yug-bhakti-rasaṁ prayatnair,” but Sanātan Goswāmī Prabhu, who is he? “Kṛpāmbudhir yaḥ para-duḥkha-duḥkhī,” his only duḥkh, suffering, is seeing others suffering in absence of Kṛṣṇa consciousness, it doesn’t say, “He’s suffering seeing people for want of food, for want of shelter, that’s not what’s breaking the heart of Sanātan Goswāmī, what’s heart breaking to him, is there is this nectarine immortality inducing nectar that people are separated from. Kṛṣṇa conception, the beauty of Kṛṣṇa conception, the charm and sweetness of Kṛṣṇa conception and life-giving nectar, immortal life-giving nectar of Kṛṣṇa conception, being separated from that causes some pain in his heart.

So, Raghunāth Dās is saying, “So, seeing a fallen soul like me, suffering in this world” and he was a wealthy man. That’s a point here. He’s suffering, it’s not only the materially impoverish, but this quote wealthy man with the wealth of Indra, and the apsarā wife, the super model wife. He said, Sanātan Goswāmī out of his mercy he forced me to drink this nectarine substance and now I’m addicted.

Avadhūt Mahārāj: To have short statement, if someone who had a great wealth and beautiful wife and watching this program now, he can sincerely, he’s also suffering.
Goswāmī Mahārāj: He just won’t admit this in front of his wife. [laughs]
Avadhūt Mahārāj: Right. It’s a great statement, but one thing, there are so many great revolutionaries, great people, who want to do something good for humanity, who is even willing to sacrifice not only people, you know so many people died for communism, so many other movements, even willing to sacrifice themselves for some great cause, so, when you said about giving the spiritual nectar forcefully, could that be misinterpreted that.
Goswāmī Mahārāj: It could be. But here’s what I say to that. Guru Mahārāj pointed out something interesting, “There is self-sacrifice and self-forgetfulness.” And it’s amazing. He extracted this from Christian priest at the school teaching. He said, “They told us that really higher than self-sacrifice was self-forgetfulness.” So, then he extracted from there and then he applies it here. And we know the famous ślok, where Sanātan Goswāmī, where Mahāprabhu says,

sanātana, deha-tyāge kṛṣṇa yadi pāiye
koṭi-deha kṣaṇeke tabe chāḍite pāriye
(Chaitanya-charitāmṛta: Antya 4.55)

Where he says, “Sanātan, or kṣaṇeke, at every moment, if you could get Kṛṣṇa by killing yourself or becoming a murder, then I’m ready to die a thousand times at every moment, but that’s not how you get it.” So, Guru Mahārāj is saying, “Yes, and still when you’re sacrificing yourself in that way, there’s still some implied expectation of the result. Self-forgetfulness means, you’re so absorbed in the other that you’ve forgotten all self-consideration, but not self-annihilation, the self hasn’t been annihilated, but it so deeply absorbed in the other, that no consideration of what’s beneficial to me or any possible remuneration or gain that I’ll get from this transaction.

So, that’s really the highest level sort of spiritual transaction. So, here what I will say to this is generally men of spiritual substance, their interest lies in bringing others in connection with that spiritual substance. If someone wants to call that in its most generic sense ‘immortality’ they can. But as we’ve told in Guru Mahārāj’s parsing of the Kūrma-avatār and we’re talking about Kumha Mela in that, “immortality is the most superficial aspect of spiritual existence, even if you want to say sat, chit, ānandam. So, Guru Mahārāj said, “Alright, sat is fine, but consciousness is finer than that, and consciousness has a target, which is feeling and what is that, ānandam, ecstasy, love, affection, this what the heart is really searching for, beyond material, transcending material circumstance and situation.

So, the vaiṣṇavas they are trying to bring someone in connection with that plane on some level to extend it to them and have them on any level express some appreciation for that, because the least, sv-alpam apy asya dharmasya trāyate mahato bhayāt (Bg: 2.40), the least affinity or appreciation, expressed for that, saves one from the most dangerous type of even material situations. So, that’s their idea, of giving someone something substantial, that’s why when [just to finish it]. When we’re in the place…Where is the big lake in Russia? What’s that place called?
Audience: Baikal.

Goswāmī Mahārāj: No, it’s another one. And I’ll think of the name later. We were there mane years ago, and we were staying with one devotee at the house, and the sisters kind of like listening in on the programs. And one day goes by, two, and she goes like she raises her hand and like, “You’re always talking about Kṛṣṇa. And you’re all here happily talking and hearing about Kṛṣṇa. But why don’t you do something valuable, like going out and distribute food to people, the clothes, but you’re all sitting here night after night, talking about Kṛṣṇa, very happily. And so, I realized, she thinks this has no value, in her world, feeding the poor, that’s a valuable thing to do somebody, and all this talk about Kṛṣṇa, how does that really help anyone?

Avadhūt Mahārāj: Well, if it can bring immortality to someone.
Goswāmī Mahārāj: Exactly. Wait, what do the Vraja-gopīs say? Hearing that Mahāprabhu embraces Pratāparudra Mahārāj, when he is a king Mahāprabhu wants nothing to do with him, but when he comes with his Gopī-gītā, Mahāprabhu’s saying, “You’ve just given me something that’s so valuable, the only thing that I can do in response is give Myself to you, I wanna hug you and what is it, when he says,

tava kathāmṛtaṁ tapta-jīvanaṁ
kavibhir īḍitaṁ kalmaṣāpaham
śravaṇa-maṅgalaṁ śrīmad ātataṁ
bhuvi gṛṇanti ye bhūri-dā janāḥ
(Śrīmad Bhāgavatam: 10.31.9)

So, this is what they say and it’s very interesting too, because they’re saying to Kṛṣṇa. Chakravartī Ṭhākur say that, “Kṛṣṇa, I thought you came to relieve everybody’s suffering, people are burning of the fire of material existence and one avatār after another you descending to save them and all of Your different incarnations. In other words, the endless stream of merciful descends into this world in the form of avatārs, incarnations, etc. to relieve the suffering of the people of this world. He’s saying, hat about our suffering?” Does it apply to us, the suffering that we’re feeling? And what is implied here is really the root cause of all suffering. They’re saying in this, they’re feeling separation from Kṛṣṇa, and that’s applicable to them in higher level. What’s the problem here? Is also separation from Kṛṣṇa, but Prabhupād put this very nicely in his Gītā, where he said, “The original capacity for prema, for love, has been pervertedly manifested as a lust for matter. But it’s just the same thing. There are not two things, that why it’s,

ātmendriya-prīti-vāñchā — tāre bali ‘kāma’
kṛṣṇendriya-prīti-icchā dhare ‘prema’ nāma
(Chaitanya-charitāmṛta: Ādi 4.165)

That hṛd-rogam, that heart disease that I want to consume, that’s what causes suffering. But really what we’re searching for, that sweetness, that love, that affection, that beauty, that you think you’ll get by acquiring, controlling and consuming the mundane and it’s not extinguishing the fire in the heart, they’re saying, kalmaṣāpaham, when we talk about you, we find that talking about you relieves that suffering of the heart and then they say, śravaṇa-maṅgalaṁ, so, beginning, hearing about You that’s the beginning of auspiciousness, even someone who suffers in this world and whether it’s self-induce miseries, miseries from other people or miseries from the environment, social, political, historical, whatever it is, the beginning of the end of that, the beginning of relief for them is when they start hearing about You. And why would that be?

Then we have to understand something about who and what Kṛṣṇa is. If He is Beauty personified, Love personified, Affection personified and as the Absolute has the capacity to not deal with a few or just a select few, but to reciprocate every atom of every soul’s hankering and the Absolute must be nothing less than that, who can personally reciprocate the hankering of every atom of every soul, and deliver to them what they’re searching for, that’s the Absolute.

Then we can see by inference, that really what people searching for is Kṛṣṇa, and if someone brings you in connection with Kṛṣṇa, brings you the talks of Kṛṣṇa, the topics of Kṛṣṇa, they’re saying, śravaṇa-maṅgalaṁ, that’s the beginning of auspiciousness in that person’s life, what is lead to? “Śrīmad ātataṁ,” they become imbued with the eternal lasting wealth, not the kind of wealth here that vanishes in the dot-com boom, to start market financial, eternal wealth and then what does he say? “Bhuvi gṛṇanti ye bhūri-dā janāḥ,” the people who do this in this world they are real altruists, humanitarians, they’re really helping people and giving them something substantial.

Avadhūt Mahārāj: That’s great but here is the question. You talk about consumerism, which is, everybody can realize consumerism is the enemy of the progress no matter how you are presenting. Can people try to consume Kṛṣṇa? It seems like we try to consume everything, nature, philosophy, art…
Goswāmī Mahārāj: No, they can try. In the beginning stages someone because we’re accustomed thinking of ourselves as subjects and everything else is our objects to be consumed by us, cause we’re thinking that’s our enjoying method, we take objects and we extract something from them. And sometimes it lasts short time, long time, sometimes it’s intense, sometimes it’s mild, sometimes it brings reactions in the aftermath, the hangover, this and that, the karmic reaction to it, but it’s our method. So, there is a strong tendency in the beginning coming in connection with Kṛṣṇa consciousness to view it as something objective. So, we want to consume the image of Kṛṣṇa, the sound, we want to have Kṛṣṇa music in our lives, the Kṛṣṇa wall-paper. We gonna remain as we are. Consumers. Exploitationists. But we gonna put Kṛṣṇa pictures on the wall and pump in pleasing Kṛṣṇa music and burn the good incense. You know, the good incense, right. We gonna burn that and chant the Name, and it’s gonna make you high forever, man. This was a little bit of their bait. Don’t swallow your own bait. This is my advice, “Do not swallow your own bait,” don’t become victims of your own propaganda. So, the devotees of the psychedelic days of the sixties they would adopt some of those slogans. The famous one, “Turn on, tune in and drop out.” But it was like: “Turn on to the most progressive spiritual movement.” They tried to segue, but of the things is they’d had like a picture of Prabhupād looking ecstatic and there are many such pictures because he was, and they would say, “Stay high forever.” [laughs].

So, people would think, “I am gonna get this mantra, I am gonna chant this Name, and I am gonna stay high forever.” So, and Allen Ginsberg what did he say to Prabhupād once? He said, “Maybe the people of Kali-yuga are so fallen and Kṛṣṇa is so merciful, that he’s incarnated as LSD. So, then you just drop LSD and you get Kṛṣṇa Consciousness.” Now, Guru Mahārāja’s response to that is, “No amount of finite can produce the infinite.” The sum total of the finite will not generate the infinite. Any reconfiguration of matter will not generate what is spiritual. Herein lies the flaw in materialism and even in its most benevolent form as humanitarianism, we’d think, “If we give people the good water, the good sanitation, this, that and the other thing that automatically their consciousness will raise, they are conscious beings.” Unfortunately not.

So, once one man was arguing with Guru Mahārāj against Gaudia Math and he was going like, “Swāmīji, The Boy Scouts, they are doing good work, they feed people, they feed the poor, they distribute clothes. Why don’t you do something like, that I can support what you’re doing. If you’re like The Boy Scouts.” And Guru Mahārāj’s response to him was, “Alright, suppose the man is dealing with dogs as dogs.” Like sometimes people have a dog hospital or something like that, animal hospice, so, where they are giving them food, medicine, repairing them, and people think, or that’s a good thing, you know, PETA, whatever it is. But Guru Mahārāj said, “But suppose another man has a program, where he deals with dogs in such a way as they are transformed in a human beings, - he said, that’s our program.”

Avadhūt Mahārāj: Okay, can you describe that program.
Goswāmī Mahārāj: I’ve been describing it. [laughs].
Avadhūt Mahārāj: I mean, we spoke about consumerism, now we can say that…
Goswāmī Mahārāj: Alright, let’s go back to what we just said. So, even Kṛṣṇa Consciousness if we think of it in an objective way as something to be consumed by us and will extract some juice from there, you can have a connection like that, but it’s in Vedic terminology that’s called karma-kāṇḍa or projecting your one’s desires, wishes upon the higher, in other words, the lower position, we’re projecting on the higher and calling it divine, Divinity etc. It’s part of why Vyās was chastised by Nārada, he’s saying, “You didn’t mean to do this, but really clever people will figure out the way to use what you’ve said to remain bound in the material world and religious, saying they’re following religion. So, you’ve got to give them straight, pure, the beauty of Kṛṣṇa Conception, that’s so irresistibly charming, that it can break the bonds of even the strongest mundane attraction, which is the erotic principal, so, only in the Kṛṣṇa conception of Divinity you have the full-fledged expression of erotic potential in spiritual terminology, to get from here to there. As Guru Mahārāj told to the man, who told him, that, if you wanted [to make] a donation for humanitarian work, maybe, but to build another maṭh, a temple, where you’re gonna talk about Kṛṣṇa—no.”

And Guru Mahārāj had this example previously, he meditated on Saraswatī Ṭhākur deeply [and] thought, “What am I going to say to this man? He just doesn’t get, what am I going to say now?” And that’s when the, “Vikrīditaṁ vraja-vadhūbhir,” (SB: 10.33.39) śloka came to him, very high śloka, but in a very practical way. Where it says, you know, hṛd-rogam, appears heart disease and then Guru Mahārāj turns and says, “Sir, when, the ātmā, who is going from one species to another and evolving an evolutionary process from one species of life to another, when I was in the body of an elephant I ate a jungle and I wasn’t satisfied, when I was in the body of a stool-eating pig I ate a hill, a mountain of stool and it didn’t satisfy my hunger. So, what people are suffering from is heart disease, hṛd-rogam, it’s a spiritual problem. The material problems are obvious and no one would be unsympathetic to that, no reasonable, generous, kind person. But that is not the root cause of material existence, the root cause of material existence is a heart disease, a spiritual condition, voyeuristically envisioning ourselves as consumers and here we’re gonna make consumers synonymous with exploiter, an exploiting agent. So, trying to acquire, control and consume to achieve that happiness that we want, where is the inversion is through a spiritual culture reconceiving yourself as a dedicating unit, that there is something, instead of trying to consume things that are lower than me, as there is something higher to dedicate myself to.

Now, then humanitarians will say, “Yes, it’s to the needs of poor people.” But you see this doesn’t compute, you’re back to what is lower than you. They say, “Oh, we’re gonna supply them with, as conscious beings what’s lower than us, material objects, when we give everyone that, we’ve made our obligation?” No, that’s not dedicating yourself to a higher principal. Like in India they used to have this expression, “manava seve is madhava sevā,” “service to man is service to God” or when you get this type of brahmavad, you know, the mother Teresa idea, Christ is in the poor, if you gonna go that far, he is in the reach, he is everywhere, why he would only be in the poor? Let’s just get in the full-blown māyāvad and brahmavad, he is everywhere, he is in everyone. So, by serving rich people, I am serving Jesus. I mean these are all half-baked ideas. There are not fully-fledged, they don’t press them toward their natural conclusion, because you will find that it’s faulty, it’s impartial and not on target.

Avadhūt Mahārāj: How would you make it clear statement about human ability to serve, because feel based on what you’ve said is a service mood rather than consume.

Goswāmī Mahārāj: Yes, to dedicate. So, what is higher to dedicate yourself to? And how is your, dedicating yourself something higher, helping the man on the street? Let’s add that to it. Right. How is it that saving yourself would be saving others? That’s seem like some kind of self-serving selfish way, so, I see, very conveniently you can ignore all the suffering of other people in the name of saving yourself, you’re doing the highest, greatest service to the world. Is that possible? So, what do we hear?

’śraddhā’-śabde — viśvāsa kahe sudṛḍha niścaya
kṛṣṇe bhakti kaile sarva-karma kṛta haya
(Chaitanya-charitāmṛta: Madhya 22.62)

Really theistic, the basis of theism, at the basis of it, is this idea, that I focus all my energy, exclusively in this one place and that simultaneously serves everyone everywhere appropriately. Now, that’s a great add, alright, that’s your claim, any examples that that’s possible. I mean, you’re saying that, okay, is there any example of that? So, what are the examples given that follow this? You know, pouring water on the root of the tree. We could say, each leave represents a different cause, let’s say a noble cause, a worthy cause. Then you realize, “I am one person, there is innumerable leaves of noble causes on this tree of existence, which one do I pick?.” So, there, “Oh, we’ve got a United fund, just give to us and we’ll give a little bit to everybody, that will work.” If is that true, but there are back to objective treatment, not subjective treatment, dealing with the root cause of suffering.” So, the example given, you pour water on the root, the root of all existence and then through that type of service, it’s the inverse, service to God is the service to man. In this way you can actually benefit others. And that’s the basis of theistic culture.

Avadhūt Mahārāj: Well, very interestingly you declare something what everybody aspiring for immortality as a superficial aspect of Divinity. Can you just like revealed the statement, make it clear.
Goswāmī Mahārāj: Yeah, I mean, to say it in just common parlance is, “Nobody wants to die.” Immortality is like this big, you know, they use it in the movie trailer, “Immortal, the Immortals.” Let’s just, the way people normally deal with it to make it even more base is like, “I don’t wanna die.” And people are saying they are not afraid of dying, they are just, we know what it is. No one wants to die.
Avadhūt Mahārāj: They have no choice.
Goswāmī Mahārāj: Right. So, then since it’s inevitable, you think, well, it doesn’t bother me. Once, I was in Washington, D.C. in a taxi. This is when I was younger and a little wilder. So, I am preaching to the taxi cab driver. And he is there, and I am like, I am doing, “janma-mṛtyu-jarā-vyādhi,” (Bg: 13.9), birth, death, old age, and he goes like, “You know, death doesn’t bother me, I can…” and I go, “Oh, really?” He doesn’t know me, right. So, I grabbed him by the shoulder and started shaking him and he pulls over the car and says,
“You’ve almost got us killed!” [laughs] I said,
“Wait a minute, two minutes ago you told me, you could care less. Now you’re sitting here shaking.”
“Get out of my car!”
“Wait, wait, you told me death doesn’t bother you.”
I am not advising for the youngsters out there.
Avadhūt Mahārāj: Did he charge you or let you go?
Goswāmī Mahārāj: He wanted me to get out of there free. [laughs]
Avadhūt Mahārāj: Well, it means he values his life.

Goswāmī Mahārāj: Right, but he said, “Death doesn’t bother me.” [laughs] But what we were talking, oh, about immortality. So, this is what I wanna say. It was a beautiful example of Śrīla Guru Mahārāj and here is how things work. This is how things can go from the ordinary to extraordinary to super-super extraordinary. Cause Guru Mahārāj will say, just as a footnote, “We’re subjects, Paramātmā is super Subject, the spiritual world, and the super super subjective world that’s the way it goes. Subject, super Subject, super super Subject, etc. Anyway, there is a nice Indian man coming to our temple in San Jose, we were preaching about Guru Mahārāj, I think his name was Satya Nārāyaṇ, and his wife. They’re one of the first couples, who came, this beautiful Bengali couple, Arun and Alpona Benerji, the husband a NASA rocket scientist, literally, would come and sit on the floor humbly, super qualified scientist. First Bengalis have come and [then] this other man—Satya Nārāyaṇ, his wife and family [from] South India.

So, he comes to India, and we’re going, “Please, meet Guru Mahārāj,” so, he visits his home town, then comes to Nabadwīp and some of us saying, “Oh, Satya Nārāyaṇ Prabhu, please come and meet Śrīla Guru Mahārāj.” He goes upstairs, he is talking to Guru Mahārāj and they’re just having an ordinary conversation. “Where are you from? etc.” and so he mentions where he is from is like Kūrmakṣetra, in South India. And Guru Mahārāj says, “Oh, I know that train stop it’s a hill station...” or something, but it has Kūrma in it. But he is not asking Guru Mahārāj any spiritual, they’re just having a you know polite conversation. And then, he is a very humble shy man. So, I see, alright, it looks like he is not gonna ask Guru Mahārāj anything. Him, myself and Sagar Mahārāj were there. And there is no conversation going on. So, I’d just read the last chapter of the twelve canto of the Bhāgavatam. So, it’s like fresh in my mind and I’m thinking, “Eighteen thousands ślokas. Ten cantos to get to Kṛṣṇa’s Pastimes. Nine cantos to get to the tenth canto, where you gonna hear Kṛṣṇa-līlā, how cautiously, how much back story they’ve given to qualify the readers up to that point. But still twelve canto, last chapter of the eighteen thousands work Maha Purāṇa, Super Purāṇa, Śrīmad Bhāgavatam, I am thinking, every and not many verses in that chapter. So, everyone must have some special significance.

So, he said, he’s from that town with Kūrma. So, I said to Guru Mahārāj, “You know I just read the twelfth canto, last chapter of the twelfth canto,” it’s around four o’clock in the afternoon, so, normally it’s light, we don’t get into heavy discussions at that time, that would be in the morning. I said, “But there is this śloka there about the Kūrma-avatār, and while we revere that Pastime, I don’t understand why is that, this is the crescendo, the conclusion of the great Bhāgavatam, and this Kūrma-avatār śloka is there,

pṛṣṭhe bhrāmyad amanda-mandara-giri-grāvāgra-kaṇḍūyanān
nidrāloḥ kamaṭhākṛter
(Śrīmad Bhāgavatam: 12.13.2)

Gurudev liked it very much, Guru Mahārāj also. So, I was saying, “Mahārāj, I can’t understand, why it’s there.” And then Guru Mahārāj became very silent. And it was like “dive deep into reality” in real time. He left this plane, went into his internal world and didn’t speak for some time, and I thought, “Oh,” I looked at Sagar Mahārāj, I was going to say, “Mahārāj, you don’t have to, it could be another time.” I thought I’m taxing his brain. Cause this was an original question, and he’s gonna answer it in original way. He’s gonna generate, so, he’s like looking deep and scanning. And I’m starting to say, “You don’t have to, we can, just let it go.” And he cuts me off. And he said, “When the devas and the asuras were churning the milk ocean, what was their object?” That’s how he began.

And he said, “Amṛta.” Now in the word ‘amṛta’, we know the Sanskrit word, one of the Sanskrit word for death is ‘mṛtyu’. ‘Amṛtyu’, ‘amṛta’ is that, which counteracts mṛtyu, death. So, on the most basic level ‘amṛta’ is sometimes called the nectar of immortality, it’s like its generic description. So, he’s saying, “What do they want? On one side, you could say, are the objective evolutionists, the asuras, on the other side are the subjective evolutionists, the devas, they’re both churning the same stuff, even Nietzsche says, “There are no facts, there’s just interpretation.” That’s one of his better statements. “There are no facts, there’s just interpretation.” So, these two, they’ve got the same set of facts. But the interpretation is different. So, there is the objective evolutionary asuric idea about what is immortality, what’s life, all of these things.
Avadhut Mahārāj: Enjoyment.
Goswami Mahārāj: Exactly. Enjoyment, life, meaning, existence, reality, there is a perspective there. And that’s our option to exploit that prospective and all of its facets. On the other side they have an idea, and it’s also in gradation, it’s not just one idea. There are different gods, there are varying levels of understanding, realization, we can understand that, but Guru Mahārāj’s point. He begins with, “What was their object? Of both.” So, it’s not just, sometimes we hear, oh, spiritual people want this, material people want that. No. We all want the same thing, that’s not true. We’re the ultimate pleasure seekers. They think, “No, they are just denying themselves.” No, base things, but actually, we’re real pleasure seekers, we want the ultimate pleasure. “Stay high forever.” We’re going for the real thing there. Not just an empty slogan. As Guru Mahārāj said, “It’s not the pursuit of pleasure, happiness, no one will say, “I’m not interested in being happy. I don’t want pleasure.” I mean unless someone is just mad. So, everyone atheist, agnostic, theist, we’re all pursuing the same things, we’re going about it in different ways, and we describe and express it differently.

So, there he says, “They wanna get amṛta.” So, what happens, when they’re churning and we know, they are in the milk ocean, and this is beautiful from the inconceivable mind of God. How is gonna respond to this situation? It’s a teachable moment. As they say. But these Pastimes are multidimensional. What would come from the mind of God? How did he descend into these circumstances? They’re having some problems with the churning situation. What does he do? He descends as the Kūrma-avatār. A turtle. And people always say, “Can God make a rock so heavy, He can’t lift?” You know, these are very primitive speculations about the inconceivable power of Divinity. So, He doesn’t play that game. And just to answer that point, He can make a small rock so big He can’t lift it, like when the Vraja-gopīs asked, “Can you lift that?,” and He can’t lift it. So, He just touches it. Or He can alternately withdraw the gravity of Govardhan hill and lift Govardhan hill on the pinky of His left hand, when He is five-six years old. So, let’s not get silly.

So, what does He do here? From the mind of God. He’s a turtle and He can’t, the more interesting thing for Him is what He can’t do. He can do anything. So, he has to make up stuff He can’t do. So, He has an itch on His back. And as we all know, we’re, “Mamaivāṁśo jīva-loke jīva-bhūtaḥ sanātanaḥ,” (Bg: 15.7) there’s some itch, you just can’t get by yourself, so, you need somebody else’s help. So, what do they do? Mandara Hill. This is all to address the original idea. This could only come from the mind of God. So, He had an itch on His back, He’s a turtle, He can’t reach it. We would say, “Wait, adbhutakram, He’s of wonderful stride, we just celebrated the Vāmana-avatār. He couldn’t make His arm reach and touch that? In this Pastime He can’t. This is the beauty of it. And this is where it transcends rational thought and if you can follow this, then you can be liberated from material existence in a moment. So, He can’t reach that, He needs help.

So, they put Mandara Hill, a mountain, cause He is a large tortoise, on His back. They roped Vāsuki around the hill. You’ve got the asuras, the objective evolutionists on one side, the subjective evolutionist on the other side, they’re like this, the hill is going like that, and it’s reliving the itch and what’s His response? It’s when you go like, “Uhh” [exhales]. But this is the Infinite going “Uhh.” And when He exhales, it generated the Vedas. So, Divine liberating sound vibrations come out of His breathing to save everyone. From themselves mainly.

So, they’re churning, who is coming? Lakṣmī Devī appears. The elephant of Indra, others. The Moon, spins out and starts the orbiting the Earth, the Moon comes out of the kṣir-sāgar. Many things. But they see, “Oh, by this churning process, some poison, what so they call it, by-product, a poisonous by-product.”
Avadhūt Mahārāj: Of nectar.
Goswāmī Mahārāj: Well, it’s coming because you, just like when you turn you get the curds in the way, or the cream. So they are saying, this other poisonous substance is the opposite of immortality. It’s death inducing. What do we do? From the mind of God, the Pastimes of the infinite. Mahādev Śiva, He is drinking that poison, then Nīlkaṇṭh, little effect, that’s his Pastime, but He looks even more beautiful with the pea-cock blue neck. So, and now finally that substance has been generated, then Mohinī-mūrti comes to take it and there is the rest of the Pastime. But here is the point of Guru Mahārāj, cause what’s my question. I am saying, “Why, that’s all good, this is a wonderful divine Pastime, why is it at the end of the twelfth canto of Śrīmad Bhāgavatam?” Guru Mahārāj [is] saying,

artho ’yaṁ brahma-sūtrāṇāṁ
bhāratārtha-vinirṇayaḥ
gāyatrī-bhāṣya-rūpa ’sau
(Garuḍa Purāṇa)

It’s the natural commentary on Vedānta, it’s the gāyatrī-bhāṣya. So, what is this Bhāgavatam all about? Now, Guru Mahārāj is moving towards, saying, “The reason this verse is being included here, what they are searching for ostensibly is immortality, the nectar of immortality. But what is that real, what is that substance? Remember,

tava kathāmṛtaṁ tapta-jīvanaṁ
kavibhir īḍitaṁ kalmaṣāpaham
śravaṇa-maṅgalaṁ śrīmad ātataṁ
bhuvi gṛṇanti ye bhūri-dā janāḥ
(Śrīmad Bhāgavatam: 10.31.9)

The Vraja-gopīs were saying, “Hearing about You, this relives all the suffering of material existence, enriches one with unlimited spiritual wealth. If anyone can bring you in touch with this, they are really life saviours. They are saving your life. So, Guru Mahārāj said, “What is that substance?” What is that nectar, is it some kind of, you know in a painting a pot with some like type of liquid in it. He is saying that substance is madhura-rasa, that’s what it is. Madhura-rasa is the life giving, immortality giving, ultimate nectarine substance. And that’s what being given distributed though the Śrīmad Bhāgavatam, and that’s why the Kūrma-avatār Pastime in śloka is mentioned here. To say really what you thought before, dive deep into Reality, that substance is madhura-rasa. And that’s the whole subject matter, the Śrīmad Bhāgavatam and the whole of the madhura-rasa is dependent upon one person, and Her name is Śrīmati Rādhārāṇī. Rādhā-dāsyam, and you’ll get connection with that substance in service to Her Holy Lotus feet which is the ultimate noble dignified higher plane to dedicate yourself to. So, he is saying, “That’s what it is.”

Avadhūt Mahārāj: So, if we can say people who are searching this sacred bath in Kumbha Mela, are they missing?
Goswāmī Mahārāj: Yeah, we’ll little come back again to capacity. So, someone’s thinking, liberation from suffering, mukti, get free from all of this suffering, it’s so horrible, there’s so much suffering in this world, we gotta stop it, put an end to it. But then someone else [wanted] to live forever. In some of the Greek myth [there was] someone [who] said, “They gave eternal life, I forgot to ask for eternal youth, damn.” [laughs] So, live forever for what? So, you’ve got sat, you’re sat. Hey, guess what, you’re actually live forever. “Jīva-bhūtaḥ sanātanaḥ,” jīvas are eternal. You didn’t gain anything in this proposition. You’re already eternal. So, but because you’re deluded into the objective world, you’re riveted on this thing about not dying. But it’s impossible to live forever in this objective world. And by nature you’re eternal. So, just to be granted eternality, that’s the innate constitutional right of the soul from the beginning.

So, then to be conscious as like I am eternal and conscious but I forgot to be young, what is he implying? Sense pleasure. So, we know the body doesn’t offer eternal sense pleasure. And we want eternal sense pleasure. So, it means sat, chit, then we need ānandam. What is the cap in Brahma-saṁhitā, sach-chid-ānanda-vigraha. Oh, then real eternality would be to have a form endowed by sensuous capacity, erotic potential eternally in a world beyond time and space. That’s the spiritual domain. And that’s what Nārada told Vyās, “You have to let people know, there is another life that’s possible in another world, that’s not like this.”

Otherwise they’ll think the only place any fun is here, and the other place is boring, you know, it’s eternal existence. You’re there with God. Punish anybody lately? No, people are behaving themselves. You know, what are you gonna do there?

Avadhūt Mahārāj: So, are you trying to say that we always pay by one thing for another thing. So, how to measure eternity and love? Eternal love. What is the…?
Goswāmī Mahārāj: Well, first of all, we should wonder, why is it, that we are repeatedly expressing these things in songs, in poetry, in novels, in motion pictures, in movies, everything. We revisit these subject matters repeatedly. People find themselves in a position where they’re expressing eternal love to someone. When we know statistically objectively speaking it’s not true. And mostly, and as time goes on it’s more and more not true. We’re not even sure how much true it as before. But we at least, now that we keep records of all this stuff, we know the potential for this eternal relationships to dissolve. I love you forever or until you’re forty. [laughs]
Avadhūt Mahārāj: Until you’re fat.

Goswāmī Mahārāj: Right. So, there are many objective criteria that somehow destroy, dissolve that love. And we’re still hankering for this eternal love scenario. So, then it’s like we’re told in Madhya-līlā, where it says, “Kṛṣṇa-prema, [yena] jāmbūnada-hema,” (Śrī Chaitanya-charitāmṛta: Madhya 2.43), it’s Rādhārāṇī’s expression though Mahāprabhu, [which] says, Kṛṣṇa-prema is not a thing of this world it’s like golden rivers of heaven. What do we hear in the Bhāgavatam. If you can believe it, there are heavenly planets, that have mangos the size of elephants. The mangos fall from the trees and they’re just full of juice. The juice forms rivers that create gold on the banks. This is described in Purāṇic literature about heaven. It’s in the Bhāgavatam. So, it’s saying Kṛṣṇa-prem is like that gold, like that golden rivers of heaven, it’s not a thing of this world. So, then here, then what are we doing? You yourself are saying, “It’s not a thing of this world.” But stop for a second, we didn’t say, “It’s impossible to connect with,” we’re saying, “It’s not a thing of this objective world, what is expressed in those stories, that eternal, it’s in the song, the story, the movie, etc., it’s not really the thing of this world, you’d say, “Oh, that’s just in a movie.” Right. But does that mean that there is not a plane, it doesn’t exist anywhere, not even in the movies? No, so we understand. So, we’re hardwired to seek this, to seek something that we’re trying to address through objective culture, in the objective. So, it’s purely subjective thing that we’re trying to feed objects to.

Avadhūt Mahārāj: But wouldn’t people say, “Well, this sounds like idealism and there were different types of idealism in human’s nature and history, starting from Greeks, going to Europeans, with your idealism you’re overcrossing the realty of this life.
Goswāmī Mahārāj: Yes, there are many things that we value are not objectively verifiable. Like humour, we like things that are funny. Why? I mean, humans are the only animals, who really laugh. They go, “No, there is a laughing hyena.” No, that doesn’t count. [laughs]. Right. Well, I am just saying, humans, we laugh, we cry, you could say, “Oh, animals as well.” That’s true, because they’re approaching humans, you know, they wail when their baby’s taken away, things like that. You start feeling. So, what we’re all about is feeling. Not just objective thing. You’d say, “Well, we can make you feel better with chemistry.” Better living through chemistry. As one author said, “There is got to be more to life, and the story of life, and the possibility of life, than the narrative that says, “My chemicals were bad, I fixed them.” So, the idea is just about chemical balances. Happiness is nothing more than a particular type of chemical balance? The things that we are really hardwired to seek, beauty, love, humour, I can’t prove to you, that someone is beautiful, I can’t prove love even exists, and statistically we could make a case that it doesn’t exist, and we could say, like they’re talking about, “the God delusion.” We could write a book, called, “The love delusion.” Why is everyone searching for this it does not exist, no one has it, they’re all lying to themselves? It doesn’t really exist.

But there’s an element with inside us, that can’t accept that it doesn’t exist. And even in the face of heavily anti, statistical evidence, that you won’t get it, you’re not experiencing it, we’ll still search for it. So, it means really as subjects we’re in the situation, we’re spiritual subjects, living and navigating a mundane environment, searching for subjective inner fulfillment. So, then it becomes obvious we need to repurpose ourselves in addressing that inner fulfillment. When we tried merely to acquire, control and consume objective things, it doesn’t produce that type of joy that we’re seeking.
Avadhūt Mahārāj: What produce?
Goswāmī Mahārāj: Subjective. The culture of subjective pleasure.
Avadhūt Mahārāj: How you describe the process?
Goswāmī Mahārāj: Well, I’ve already just alluded to what we described. We hear this in story, “There are no facts, just interpretations.” We hear stories, we hear stories of great love and it resonates, it effects part of us, so it means that we’re actually seeking to live in the subjective world. That’s what I’m saying. Actually that’s what we want to do. Just like when someone goes to a movie. They really like it, if they’ll say, “If you’ll just forget yourself and live in that for two hours.” So, we’re the only species who really does that or to the extreme in human species. So, what it really points to, is we want to live in the subjective world and we’re at present half way between the objective and the subjective world.

Avadhūt Mahārāj: I wanna say something. Someone I just met, one government official, who came to my lecture, he said, “It sounds like you’re very nice person, you’re good fairy-tale teller, and maybe for that group of such people this is okay, but how you prove [to] me that what you’re telling is actually true. I can accept that…
Goswāmī Mahārāj: You can’t prove it in an objective sense.
Avadhūt Mahārāj: Well, prove [to] me subjectively.
Goswāmī Mahārāj: Right. In other words, it we’re sitting looking at a master artwork in Uffizi Museum in Florence by Leonardo, I can’t prove to someone that it’s a great art, it’s a masterwork, but if that person’s willing to hear to undergo some study, then it’s possible that they can come to the point of appreciating the depth of beauty, the subjective aspect of what is there.
Avadhūt Mahārāj: But in short way can you say something in favour of subjective world, just principles of subjective world’s existence.
Goswāmī Mahārāj: Yes, I Just did. By saying, “We’re always seeking subjective things,” we’re attracted to hear a story. Whether it’s true or not, as they say, “If you wanna tell the truth, write fiction,” “Art is the lie that tells the truth,” so, we’re not really concerned about its objective aspect. When we’re looking at the beautiful Renoir painting of the flowers or whatever, they are not real flowers, maybe a real flower upon close examination is more beautiful. But if an artist does some sort of representation there, we’ll appreciate that.

Avadhūt Mahārāj: So, are you trying to say, that this is our nature. We have subjective nature, because it sounds like we have an objective nature, that’s where we’re coming down sometimes to realise ourselves.
Goswāmī Mahārāj: No, that’s like [claps], they’re saying, “Oh, but look, you’re saying this flesh and blood is not real?” No, not saying that, but what allows me to feel this and see it, I’m seeing it through these eyes, touching it. What’s the seed of this experience? Then, we’ll go to the mind, and then the more refined than the mind, intellect. And as Kṛṣṇa says in the Gītā, “The soul is located in even more subtle plane. So, the soul is the enabler, who’s enabling us to navigate the objective world and have sensual experience.
Avadhūt Mahārāj: Just like, can we give the photographer as an example, because many people buy expensive cameras, but pictures come out totally different.
Goswāmī Mahārāj: Yes, right. Oh, you mean ability. But now you’re back to interpretation and the eye to see something. Just like my photography teacher used to say, “We can teach you processes, but we can’t teach you how to see.” Either you have some capacity to do that, but then we’ll say spiritually the reason you make connection with a Guru is to get the eyes to see, to be initiated into subjective seeing.

Avadhūt Mahārāj: So, in other words, photography teacher tells you, he can’t give you vision, but Guru can. What’s the secret of being connected with Guru?
Goswāmī Mahārāj: I’ll give an example from another one of my teachers, my biology teacher. He announced on the first day of class. You know the story? [laughs] Anyway, he announced from the first day of class, “I’m gonna teach you biology in such a way, as when you wake up in the morning and you gonna see biology, when you brush your teeth, you gonna see biology, when you eat your breakfast, you gonna see biology, when you go to the bathroom, you gonna see biology. And he was right, when we started hearing from him and his concepts, our life was the same, but there is this new awakening of seeing the biology when you brush your teeth, when you went to the bathroom, when you ate your breakfast.

Avadhūt Mahārāj: That means that Guru principle is not some imaginary.
Goswāmī Mahārāj: Well, what we’ll say is this, “Not only is it not imaginary, but word many people have heard, is ṛṣi. Like the Mahā-ṛṣi, or Ṛṣikeś. So, ṛṣi, comes from the Sanskrit word dṛṣi, which means ‘to see’, to observe, so a real spiritual agent is an observer of subjective reality, this what a Guru is. And observe jñāninas tattva-darśinaḥ (Bhagavad-gītā, 4.34). An observer of subjective reality and as Śrīla Guru Mahārāj will say, “And from that plane, what they’ve observed is passing through their consciousness to you in the form of mantram or revelation.” Then putting yourself under guidance of such an agent, you’re now in connection of revealed truth. As opposed to objective truth, objectively verifiable things, which are just agreed-upon, it’s a consensus of agreed-upon norms of this world, that we say, kilometers or miles, “It’s ninety tree million miles away from the Earth, or it’s a hundred and fifty million kilometers.” Mile and kilometer are, you and I, both agreed that we gonna call the specific thing something, and it’s good when we need to make a table, because we need to say, “I need this much wood.”

So, when you’re working in the realm of time and space, there’s objective reality, but we know time and space, whether from theistic point of view or a scientific point of view, it will all disintegrate, whether you say, it hundred percent vanishes or not—that’s another story. But it’s all going to disintegrate, that everyone’s in totally agreement upon. So, the agreed-upon working vocabulary while we’re here, we gonna use miles, kilometers, this much will be that and it will help us build things. That shouldn’t be confused with actual Reality, and again, what’s even enabling that system of measurement of the objective world? Our subjective agents, who are looking through eyes, using senses, and extensions of senses, in the form of technology, to measure things, reconfigure to navigate the world.

Avadhūt Mahārāj: Can we use that word ‘Guru’ and switch to word like a ‘visionary’ or ‘spiritual curator’, ‘experience curator’. Cause it’s very popular words. Visionary and curator. …to subjective word?
Goswāmī Mahārāj: Right. So, you could say that yes, that spiritual agents, Prabhupād’s favourite expression, “Transparent the medium.” The mediums they’re curating a spiritual experience. So, what they’ve observed in the subjective word they are the agent or the medium for expression of that in the objective world. So, depending upon their locus standi or their GPS, where they’re located in term not only geographically, but historically, they’ll find the ways and means among that population, where they’re situated to translate revealed truth into something that’s accessible to the local people.

That’s why the śloka says, “Āchinoti yaḥśāstrārtham,” (Vāyu Purāṇa) what is an āchārya do, extracts the meaning of the śāstra and shows you, and shows its relevance. Because just as I said to Guru Mahārāj, “I don’t understand, why is the Kūrma-avatār Pastime in the end of the twelfth canto.” He showed me its relevance that shows his āchārya capacity, he extracted the inner meaning of the scripture and made it relevant to my inquiry. He could’ve said many things about it, and showing also perfection, he answered my question and took it to the highest possible answer. Answered me on my most base level, “Why does that appear there?” And then took it at the same time, in the same breath to its highest possible level of answer an expression.
Avadhūt Mahārāj: Isn’t it what our curators, visionary, writers, poets, trying to do, they’re trying to reveal to certain…
Goswāmī Mahārāj: There is a parallel there. But then we can also understand, what’s the capacity of the curator.
Avadhūt Mahārāj: What is capacity to those who’s trying to curate…
Goswāmī Mahārāj: Right, that’s also there. But then we know on finer things, that they employ the method, they believe in giving exposure, and that, “āvṛttiḥ sarva śāstrānam bodhād api garīyasi,” you don’t have to understand, let’s say art. They say keep seeing what they know is the real thing, the substantial, the higher stuff. Keep exposing you to that, giving you some education along the way, and the day will come, when you’ll have an epiphany, and what they see, you’ll be seeing that. That’s why the Veda, Guru Mahārāj it’s not as important to understand me, keep hearing.

Like, we sing the songs every day, we hear certain ślokas over and over again. Keep hearing, we read Gītā over and over again. And then at a certain time through, and here we add service. You can’t be antagonistic of envious of the teacher or the agent in spiritual life. In the material world you might despise your teacher. And get the knowledge of the information. Spiritually that doesn’t work. Therefore, praṇipātena, the respectful approach. And actually really it’s true materially for the most part, when a child goes to school, they’re telling, “Put full faith in your teacher here.” And I know from my own experience the first nun I had, Sister Pauls, we were telling, “Sister Pauls our teacher, we believe everything she says without hesitation, without doubt, without suspicion.” So, the transmission is very rapid, because of that depth of believe. Then, went to another grade, second or third grade, and sister Paul wasn’t there. There was another sister, and at first I was upset, because I had so much faith in sister Pauls, I couldn’t understand why she is not teaching me. Where is my first grade teacher? They said, “No, no. She’ll be teaching you here.” Then I learned to accept that teacher, give that faith and this is way of progress.

Avadhūt Mahārāj: Okay, I think our time is finished. Tomorrow we’ll talk about faith. [laugh]
Goswāmī Mahārāj: Hare Kṛṣṇa.