Excerpt from Back to Godhead magazine (1966-2008)

[pragosh]

Back to Godhead Magazine #37, 1970

 

Love in the Absolute World 

by His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada

 

The Practice: Bhakti

 

Now we are trying by regulative principles to transfer our minds to Krsna consciousness. In that mature condition, one achieves love of God. Love of God does not mean theoretical knowledge and book writing. People say, "We have trust in God; we have love for God," and yet they engage in all sorts of nonsense. This will not do. Rather, one must practice so that one will love others. Bhakti means devotional service. Krsna consciousness means realization of God. The symptom of realization of God is that as soon as one is in touch with God or Krsna, one will have no more taste for material things. This is the test. If one is free of disease, one will have no more fever, and one's pulse will be normal. Similarly, if one is actually advanced in Krsna consciousness, the concomitant result will be that one will lose one's interest in material consciousness. One can test for oneself whether one is advancing. If one is advancing in Krsna consciousness, then his taste for material consciousness will decrease. If one gives a hungry man foodstuffs, the more he goes on eating, the more strongly he feels satisfaction. He can understand, "I am eating something." And when he has actually filled his belly with foodstuffs, then even if one offers him a golden sweetball, he will not accept it. He is filled up; he does not want any more. Dhruva Maharaja went to search out God in order to get the kingdom of his father, but when he actually found God he said. "My dear Lord, I do not want anything."

 

It is confirmed in Bhagavad-gita that if one actually attains Krsna consciousness, then any other gain or profit will be most insignificant. That is satisfaction. Krsna consciousness will give one peace. This is called self-realization. It is not gained by smoking marijuana or ganja. By intoxication one may be able to forget material nonsense for the time being, but as soon as the hallucination is gone, one must again come back. For example, one can travel 50,000 miles high by spacecraft, but what are 50,000 miles? There are millions and millions of miles in outer space! Unless one gets the shelter of another planet, one will have to come back again to this planet. We want shelter. To be situated in the sky-voidness will not give one satisfaction. The astronauts are trying again to go to the moon or other planets. It is not that they are trying to wander in outer space. Their aim is to go to the moon; they are looking for tangible shelter.

 

As for spiritual life, as long as one does not get that ultimate shelter, he will have to come back again. Simply voidism or impersonal negation of this material consciousness will not help. One must have positive consciousness; then one can stop. Therefore, Srimad-Bhagavatam says, "My dear Lord, there are persons who speculate that they have become free." Vimukti-manina means the concoction of thinking that one has become free when actually one is not free. One may go up 20,000 or 50,000 miles and think, "Now I am out of this world," but that is not out of the world. Similarly, those who are speculating mentally -- "Now I am free." -- are not actually free. They are thinking, "I am out of this earthly sphere," but they are not because their intelligence is not yet purified. And why are they not purified? The Bhagavatam says, "They have neglected Your personality." Because they are impersonalists, they have no shelter. Those who are thinking in an impersonal way have no entrance into the Krsna planet. Their intelligence is not purified. The result is that even though they go very high, almost to the concept of Brahman realization, because there is no engagement in the service of the Lord, they will come teach again and engage themselves in philanthropic service and altruistic service, such as opening hospitals and doing humanitarian work, and so they fall down.

 

First of all they say, "The world is false, and the Absolute Truth is truth," and they try to realize the Absolute Truth. But because they have not truly realized the Absolute Truth, they therefore come back again to that false world which they have denied. So what is the value of their humanitarian work? If they say that this world is false, then why do they take to humanitarian work? It is because they do not have genuine realization of the Absolute Truth. If they say that the world is false, then why do they take to material service, social science? Why take to it if it is false? It is because they have no other engagement that they have to take to this false engagement. Therefore the Bhagavatam states, "Their intelligence is not purified because they have no shelter." Bhagavad-gita confirms this: "Therefore, when one's intelligence is purified after many, many births of the speculative habit of searching after the Absolute Truth, one then surrenders." Mental speculators say that they want peace in the world, but they will not believe in God. This was nicely stated by the Archbishop of Canterbury, who said, "You want the kingdom of God without God." They will say that God is dead, that there is no necessity of God, and that God has played so much havoc. They will decry God, and with their limited power they will try to establish peace and prosperity among humanity. But how is it possible? The example can be given that if one doesn't pour water on the root of a tree but simply waters the leaves and twigs, the entire tree will die. That is not the natural process. Similarly, if one doesn't supply foodstuffs to one's stomach but simply washes one's body with soap to make it clean, it will die; it will cease to exist. So we have to take to the root. Vedanta-sutra says, janmadyasya yatah: Brahman is He from whom everything is coming. Caitanya Mahaprabhu says, "If one gives up the prime source of emanation, if one gives up the root, and if one simply hovers by mental concoction, then where is the possibility of transcendental bliss'?" There is no possibility. One must engage oneself in the regulative principle of devotional service in Krsna consciousness, and then gradually the material disease will be cured, and one will be established in complete Krsna consciousness, and that will give one blissful eternal life.

 

>>> Ref. VedaBase => The Practice: Bhakti