TLC 21 (1968)
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Further Talks With Prakasananda
Sripad Sankaracharya has unceremoniously obscured the Krishna Consciousness described in the Purusa Vedanta Sutra by manufacturing an indirect interpretation, and giving up the direct interpretation. But unless we take all the statements of Vedanta Sutra as self-evident, there is no need to study Vedanta Sutra. To interpret the verses of Vedanta Sutra according to one's own whimsy is the greatest disservice to the self-evident Vedas.
So far as Omkara Pranava is concerned, He is considered the sound incarnation of the Supreme Personality of Godhead; as such Omkara is eternal, unlimited, transcendental, supreme, and indestructible. He is the beginningless, and He is the beginning, middle and end. When one understands the Omkara as such, then he becomes immortal. One should know Omkara as a representation of the Supreme situated in everyone's heart. Anyone who understands Omkara and Vishnu as one and the same and all-pervading, never laments in the material world, nor does he remain anymore as a Sudra.
Although He (Omkara) has no material Form, He is unlimitedly expanded, and has unlimited Form. By understanding the Omkara one can become free from the duality of the material world and be placed in Absolute Knowledge. Therefore, Omkara is the most auspicious representation of the Supreme Lord. Such is the description of the Mandukya Upanishad. One should not foolishly interpret such a description of the Upanishad, and say that because the Supreme Personality of Godhead "cannot" appear Himself in this material world in His own Form, therefore the sound representation Omkara is here. By such a false interpretation, Omkara comes to be considered as something material, and the eulogizing of Omkara is misunderstood as simply an exhibition of His value. Actually, Omkara is as good as other incarnations of the Supreme Lord.
The Lord has innumerable incarnations, and Omkara is one of them, as an incarnation of the alphabet. As stated in the Bhagavad Gita: "Amongst the letters I am Omkara". This means that Omkara is non-different from Krishna—that is the right interpretation. The impersonalist, however, gives more importance to the Omkara than to the Personality of Godhead, Krishna. In fact, however, any representational incarnation of the Supreme Lord is non-different from Him. Such an incarnation or representation is as good spiritually as the Supreme Lord. Omkara is therefore the ultimate representation of all the Vedas. The Vedic Mantras or hymns have transcendental value because they are prefixed by the pronoun Omkara. The Vaishnavas, however, interpret Omkara as follows: By the letter O, Krishna the Supreme Personality of Godhead is indicated; by the letter U, Krishna's eternal consort Srimati Radharani is indicated; and by the letter M, the eternal servitor of the Supreme Lord, the living entity, is indicated. Sankara has not given so much importance to the Omkara. It is found, however, in the Vedas and in the Ramayana and in the Puranas and in the Mahabarata, from the beginning to the end, and in the middle—everywhere. Thus the glories of the Supreme Lord, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, are declared.
Thus Lord Chaitanya condemned the attempt at indirect interpretation of the Vedanta Sutra, and the Sannyasis present were all struck with wonder by His explanation. After hearing the direct interpretation of the Vedanta Sutra from Lord Chaitanya, one of the Sannyasis in the meeting immediately declared, "O Sripad Chaitanya, whatever You have explained by condemning the indirect interpretation of Omkara is not at all a useless argument. Only the fortunate persons can accept Your interpretation as the right one. Actually, every one of us now knows that the interpretations given by Sankara are all artificial and imaginary, but because we belong to the sect, therefore we took it for granted to be the right interpretation. We shall be very glad to hear You if You explain further the Vedanta Sutra by direct interpretation."
After this, Lord Chaitanya explained each and every verse of the Vedanta by direct interpretation. He thus explained the word Brahman. Brahman means the greatest, and the direct interpretation of greatest is the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Greatest means full with six opulences. The Supreme Personality of Godhead is the Reservoir of all wealth, all fame, all strength, all beauty, all knowledge, and all renunciation. When Lord Krishna was present Personally on the Earth, He exhibited these six opulences in full. Nobody was richer than Lord Krishna, nobody was more learned than Krishna, nobody was more beautiful than Krishna, nobody was stronger than Krishna, nobody was more famous than Krishna, and nobody was more renounced than Krishna. Therefore the Supreme Personality of Krishna is the Supreme Brahman. This is confirmed in the Bhagavad Gita, Tenth Chapter, when Arjuna thus addressed Him: "You are Param Brahman," the Supreme Brahman. Therefore, Brahman means the Greatest, and the greatest means the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Krishna. He is the Shelter of the Absolute Truth, Para Tattwa, because He is Param Brahman. But, at the same time, in all His opulences and exhibitions of wealth, fame, strength, beauty, knowledge and renunciation, there is nothing material. Everything spiritual and transcendental in all the Vedic verses and hymns indicates that Supreme Personality of Godhead, Krishna. Wherever, therefore, the word Brahman appears in the Vedas, it should be understood to indicate Krishna, the Supreme Personality of Godhead. The intelligent person at once replaces the Name Krishna wherever there is the word Brahman.
The Supreme Personality of Godhead is transcendental to the material modes of Nature, but He is fully qualified with transcendental qualities. To accept the Supreme as impersonal is to deny the manifestation of spiritual energies. When the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Brahman, is full with spiritual energies, and somebody simply accepts His impersonal exhibition of spiritual energy, then he does not accept this Absolute Truth in full. To accept It in full means to accept the spiritual variegatedness also, which is transcendental to the material modes of Nature. Therefore, failing to indicate the Supreme Lord, the impersonalist conception is incomplete.
The approved method of understanding the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Krishna, is the path of devotional service, as is confirmed in every Vedic Scripture. The devotional service of the Lord begins by hearing about Him. There are nine different methods in devotional service, of which hearing is the basic one. Hearing, chanting, remembering, worshipping—all these are the process of attaining the highest perfection of understanding the Supreme Personality of Godhead. This process of understanding the Supreme Personality of Godhead is known as Abhidheya, or practice of devotional service within our conditional life.
In practice it is also experienced that anyone who takes to Krishna Consciousness does not like to deviate to any other consciousness. This Krishna Consciousness is a development of love for Krishna, the Supreme Personality of Godhead. And this development of love of Godhead is called the fifth dimensional interest of the human being. When one takes to this process of transcendental devotional service, or love of Godhead, he relishes his relationship with Krishna directly, and by such reciprocation in relishing transcendental dealings with Krishna, Krishna becomes gradually a Personal associate of the devotee. The devotee eternally enjoys blissful life. Therefore, the purport of the Vedanta Sutra is to re-establish the lost relationship of the human being with the Supreme Lord Krishna, to execute devotional service, and ultimately to achieve the highest goal of life, love of Godhead. These three principles of transcendental life are described in the Vedanta Sutra, and nothing more.
After this explanation of Vedanta Sutra by direct interpretation of the verses one of the disciples of Prakasananda Saraswati, considered to be the chief amongst all his disciples, stood up in the assembly and began to praise Lord Chaitanya as Personally the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Narayan. He very much appreciated the explanation of Vedanta Sutra by Lord Chaitanya, and said publicly that the direct explanation by Lord Chaitanya of the meaning of the Upanishad and Vedanta Sutra, "is so pleasing that we forget ourselves, and forget that we belong to the Mayavadi sect." It must be admitted herewith that the explanations by Sankaracharya of the Upanishads and Vedanta Sutra are all imaginary. We sometimes accept such imaginary explanations for the sake of sectarian feuds, but actually such an explanation does not satisfy us. Simply by accepting the order of Sannyasa one does not become free from material entaglements. Actually, if we understand the explanation given by Lord Chaitanya, that will help us. Sri Krishna Chaitanya has very nicely explained the meaning of Harer Nama Harer Nama Harer Nama Eva Kevalam—and we are all very much pleased. There is no alternative to devotional service. Without devotional service nobody can become liberated from the material clutches. Especially in this age, when simply by chanting Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare/Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare, one can achieve the highest liberation."
In the Srimad Bhagwatam, Tenth Canto, Fourteenth Chapter, it is stated that, for a person who gives up the path of devotional service and simply undergoes some labor of life for knowledge, there is no other profit than taking the trouble to understand what is matter and what is spirit. It is considered useless labor to try to get grains from the husks which are empty. Similarly, in the Tenth Canto, Second Chapter, it is also said that a person who gives up the transcendental loving service of the Supreme Lord and artificially considers himself liberated, never attains to actual liberation. On the contrary, with great labor of austerity and penances he may be elevated to the status of liberation, but for want of shelter unto the Lotus Feet of the Supreme Lord, he falls down again into the material contamination.
The Supreme Brahman cannot be accepted as impersonal. Otherwise the six opulences, meaning the Supreme Personality of Godhead, will not be acceptable in the concept of Brahman. All the Vedas and the Puranas affirm that the Supreme Personality of Godhead is full of spiritual energies. Foolish persons do not accept the energy of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, and therefore His Pastimes and His Activities are derided by them. They misinterpret the transcendental Body of Krishna as a creation of the Material Nature, and this is the greatest offense and sinful act. One should, therefore, accept the words of Chaitanya just as He explained in this assembly.
The individual Personality of the Supreme Absolute Truth is explained in the Srimad Bhagwatam, Third Canto, Ninth Chapter: "O my Supreme Lord, the transcendental Form which I am just seeing is simple transcendental pleasure without any change and without any contamination of the material modes. It is full of effulgence and there is no greater manifestation of the Absolute Truth than this. O Soul of everyone, You are the Creator of this cosmic manifestation with all the material elements, and I surrender unto You, Your transcendental Form, O Krishna! O Most Auspicious Universe! You advent Yourself in Your Original Personal Form for the Purpose of being worshipped by us. We perceive You either by meditation or by worshipping directly. Foolish persons, mostly contaminated by the material Nature, do not give much importance to Your transcendental Form, and therefore they are understood to be gliding down to hell."
The same statement is confirmed in the Bhagavad Gita, Ninth Chapter, 11th verse: "Only the foolish persons mock at Me because I am here just like human being. Such foolish persons do not know the intrinsic value of this transcendental Form, that I am the Proprietor, I am the Master, I am the Lord of All Creation."
For such foolish, demoniac persons, hell is also confirmed in the Bhagavad Gita, Sixteenth Chapter, 19th verse: "Such deriding persons who are envious of Me and My devotee, I put into this material world in the most degraded species of life, and being thus situated in such degraded forms, the demoniac persons have no chance to understand the Supreme Personality of God."
The doctrine of by-product, Parinamavada, is ascertained from the very beginning of the Vedanta Sutra, but Acharya Sankara has artificially tried to hide it and to establish the doctrine of transformation of state, Vivartavata, and he has the audacity to say that Vyasa is mistaken. All the Vedic literature, including the Puranas, confirm that the Supreme Lord is the center of Spiritual energy and variegatedness. The Mayavadi philosopher, however, is puffed up, in his own incompetence, and cannot understand variegatedness in spiritual energy. He therefore falsely conceives that the spiritual variegatedness is no more than material variegatedness. Deluded by this false belief, he derides the Pastimes of the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Such foolish persons, being unable to understand the spiritual activities of the Supreme Lord, consider Krishna as one of the products of this material Nature. This is the greatest offense which can be committed by any human being. Lord Chaitanya therefore establishes that Krishna is Sat Chit Ananda Vigraha, the Form of Eternity, Knowledge and Bliss, and is always engaged in His transcendental Pastimes of spiritual variegatedness.
The student of Prakasananda summarized the explanation of Lord Chaitanya and concluded: "We have practically given up the actual path of spiritual realization. We simply engage in nonsense talk. The Mayavadi philosophers who are serious about attaining benediction should engage in the devotional service of Krishna, but instead they take pleasure only in useless talk. We admit herewith that by the explanation of Sankara the actual import of Vedic literature is hidden. Only the explanation given by Chaitanya is acceptable, and all other interpretations are useless."
After thus explaining his position, that particular student of Prakasananda Saraswati engaged himself in the chanting of Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare/Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare. Prakasananda Saraswati saw that his chief student was engaged in chanting Hare Krishna, and he too admitted the fault of Sankaracharya, and spoke as follows: "Acharya Sankara wanted to establish the doctrine of monism, and therefore he had no other alternative than to interpret the Vedanta Sutra in a different way. If he accepts the Supreme Personality of Godhead, then the doctrine of monism cannot be established. Therefore, by his illusory scholarship, he has tried to cover the actual meaning of the Vedanta Sutra. Not only Sankara, but any author who wants to give his own views must curtail and misinterpret the Vedanta Sutra."
The Lord therefore gave the direct meaning of the Vedanta Sutra. No Vedic Scripture can be used for indirect speculation; not only Sankara, but other materialistic philosophers like Kapila, Gautama, Astavakra, Patanjali—every one of them has tried to put forward philosophical speculations in a different way. The philosopher Jaimina and his other followers, who are all more or less logicians, have given up the real meaning of the Vedas, devotional service, and have tried to establish the Absolute Truth as subject to the material world. It is their opinion that if we do our material activities nicely, then if there is any God He will be pleased and give us the desired result. Similarly, the atheist Kapila has tried to establish that there is no God Who is the Creator of this material world. But he (Kapila) has analyzed the material world's elements and their combination as the cause of creation. He has tried to establish this. Similarly, Gautama and Kanad have given stress to the material elements, and have tried to establish that atomic energy is the origin of creation. Similarly, the impersonalists and monists like Astavakra have tried to establish the impersonal effulgence of the Brahmajyoti as the Supreme. Similarly, Patanjali, one of the greatest authorities on the Yoga system, has tried to conceive an imaginary Form of the Supreme Lord.
To summarize their philosophy, it is understood that all these materialistic philosophers have tried to avoid the Supreme Personality of Godhead, as they wanted to put forward their own mentally concocted philosophies. But Vyasadeva, the learned sage and incarnation of Godhead, has thoroughly studied all these philosophical speculations of different sages; and to answer all of them he has compiled the Vedanta Sutra, which simply indicates the relationship with the Supreme Personality of Godhead, execution of devotional service, and ultimate achievement of love of Godhead. In the very beginning of the Vedanta Sutra, the verse Janmadyasa yata appears and is explained in his Srimad Bhagwatam in which Vyasa establishes at the very beginning that the Supreme Source of everything is a cognizant, Transcendental Person.
The impersonalist tries to explain that the impersonal effulgence of the Supreme Lord, or Brahmajyoti, is beyond these material modes of Nature, but at the same time he wants to establish the Supreme Personality of Godhead as contaminated by the modes of material Nature. The Vedanta Sutra establishes that the Supreme Personality of Godhead is not only transcendental to the material modes of nature, but also' that He has innumerable transcendental qualities and energies. All these speculative- philosophers are one in denying the existence of the Supreme Lord Vishnu, and they are very much enthused to put forward their own theories to be recognized by the people. Unfortunate persons become enamoured of these atheistic philosophers, and thus they can never understand the real nature of the Absolute Truth. It is better for them, therefore, to follow in the footsteps of great souls who are called Mahajans. According to Srimad Bhagwatam there are twelve Mahajans or great souls. They are: 1. Brahma, 2. Lord Shiva, 3. Narada, 4. Vaivasvata Manu, 5. Kapila (not the atheist, but the original Kapila), 6. the Kumaras, 7. Prahlada, 8. Bhisma. 9. Janaka, 10. Bali, 11. Sukadeva Goswami, 12. Yamaraj.
According to Mahabharata there is no use of arguing about the Absolute Truth. Because there are different kinds of Vedic Scriptures and philosophical understandings, and no philosopher is agreeable to another philosopher. Everyone is trying to give us his own point of view, rejecting the other. Therefore, to understand the prime necessity of religious principles is very difficult. It is better to follow in the footsteps of the great Mahajans, Great Souls, as above mentioned. One is then able to achieve the desired success. Lord Chaitanya's teaching is just like nectar, and it holds whatever you need. The best way to take to this path, is to follow.