The full meaning of “now”
Srila Prabhupada to Achutananda dasa
“The first sutra reads athato brahma jijnasa. Athata means ‘now’ jijnasa means to inquire. ‘Now we shall inquire into the Absolute Truth, Brahman.’ So what does now mean?
“Now that you have studied the Vedas; now that you have performed your duties as a brahmachari; now that you are serious in acquiring this knowledge; now that you have understood that impersonal and personal are in harmonious relationship; now that you have understood the eternal constitutional position of the spirit soul; now that you are fortunae to have a good birth after passing through unlimited lifetimes as human, as animal, as plant, as demigod; now that you have come to this human for of life; now that you have come into contact with a bona fide spiritual master; now that you are not hankering for material piety, wealth, sense gratification, or birth in the higher planets; now that you have set aside all other inquiries, you can inquire into Brahman.”
He paused to say, “Just see how one word—now—can have so much meaning.”
Quoted from Blazing Sadhus by Achutananda das
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Not caring is actually
NOT CARING IS ACTUALLY CARING—NOT
Oftentimes, those persons speaking with Srila Prabhupada would speak without deeply considering their comments—something generally done when we choose, consciously or unconsciously, to act, exclusively, with materially conditioned consciousness. One such situation arose where someone proffered the materialist’s argument that, “I don’t mind transmigrating (i.e., receiving another material body after I (the soul) leave the present one), and if I become a cat or dog I’ll just forget this life anyway, and so I won’t suffer.”
Prabhupada countered with, “But if I say that you can immediately be turned into a dog—will you agree to that proposal? Will you accept that?” The person, of course, said, “No!” Prabhupada then counters, “Why not? You’ll just forget.”
And so the response, heard often today, that people just don’t care about the repercussions of their behavior, was exposed as a feeble one, held intact only by sheer bravado and lack of consideration. Prabhupada explains, often, that we all have limited free will, eternally. The reality of this is that we each receive the results of both our positive and negative actions—whether we wish to receive them or not. As the saying goes, ignorance of the law is no excuse. Exercising our free will, we can certainly opt for a mood of indifference in life. Nevertheless, when we act without understanding the stringent laws of material nature—we’re in effect being reckless, and must still garner the appropriate reactions from our actions. It’s been our experience that most people desire the “positive” results from their actions, but don’t desire the negative results of their actions. That is, we don’t mind acting in a manner deleterious to our bodily, mental, or spiritual health—but once we have acted poorly, we don’t want those reactions.
Bhakti-yoga, in addition to addressing what we all really are, and how we can perfect our existence in this very life—details how the material world operates, and how we can disentangle ourselves from a life of material karma, and come to the spiritual plane of existence.
A Balance of Spiritual Push and Pull
“How much is push and how much is pull? By push, I mean the conscious way we push ourselves towards spiritual development through our intellectual understanding of its necessity. By pull, I mean the natural attraction that draws us towards development. Both, I suppose are interwoven, but often I feel there to be a tension between the two. Is there a proper balance?”
RESPONSE
In the beginning, the attraction is often more to a paradigm that answers many questions that no one has answered successfully for us in the past. That propels us initially to have the faith to investigate, and so we undertake to learn the elements involved in the practices of Bhakti (karma, modes of nature, making the yogic link, etc.). This is our “push.” This is the beginning of Sadhana-Bhakti (practices that are favorable to the “flowering” of Bhakti in our hearts).
This is an important and necessary stage, akin to learning the scales when you begin to study piano. At first we must push ourselves a bit to practice the piano, because, frankly, we can’t produce beautiful music with our hands yet. So, in the beginning “push” is prominent, but there is a hint of what is to come, and we hear others who can play, and we want what they have, we sense it is life-changing and beautiful, and with that, there is a “pull.” But at this stage in our Bhakti practice, we may not directly be all that “emotionally involved” yet. But if it all resonates with us, we may look back occasionally, but we continue following this intriguing path to see where it might lead.
As we progress further down the path, new landscapes appear, and it gets lovelier and lovelier, and we begin to feel pulled, we want to progress faster. We want more—our hearts feel pulled by Krishna from within. Our hands now know exactly where to go on the spiritual keyboard to create music. It may not yet be a full blown symphony of the heart, but it is original and pure and pleasurable.
In time there is no need to “push,” it is most, or all “pull.” Along the way, we don’t consult the steps, we may not analyze where we are, unless perhaps we happen on them in our reading on occassion. We just invite this beautiful Bhakti path into our lives and trust if we continue, we will reach the goal.
This reminds me of my Aikido training. Aikido is a complex martial art. Very complex. When I began my training I was pulled by my sensei’s mastery. It was frankly a thing of beauty to watch. I wanted to be able to do what he did. Initially, I felt I was slow to learn, others in my class had taken other martial arts and they seemed ahead of me in all facets. My sensei said, “Don’t pay attention to that, compete only with yourself.” I trusted his words and did just that. I did a lot of “pushing” to keep getting on the mat and training, in the first few years. When I finally received my black belt, I remember looking back and thinking how all along, I didn’t think I was progressing all that much.
I remember that Prabhupada used a nice example on this point, as he likened us to iron filings, and Krsna to the consummate magnet. When we choose material life we’re (consciously or unconsciously) covered-over (akin to heavily encrusted, or dirty, particles of iron). Taking up yogic/spiritual life is the process whereby we clean away the layers of “dirt” covering the filings. Then we’re in a position to be more readily attracted to Krishna and spiritual life. The state of attraction is always there, it’s really a case of how one wishes to respond. Of course, the closer we move toward Krsna, the stronger the attraction, and the more that’s revealed.
As we decide more and more that we want to get more serious on this path, there are innumerable things we can do to speed the process. There is much to read, we make sure to offer our food, we increase our chanting, we pull Krishna into our lives much like we would bring a new friend in. We begin to feel more comfortable in the association of other Bhaktas, and when we experience that taste, we start to have less of a taste for purely mundane activities. I believe AC mentioned how, as children, we naturally upon experiencing higher “tastes” in life—give up playing with dolls or playing cowboys & Indians. And just like there is no trauma to not playing with our dolls anymore, that is how we gradually change our focus. Maybe one day as an adolescent, a girlfriend might say, “Let’s play dolls!” and our thought is, ” It’s not really fun for me anymore.” But that doesn’t mean we no longer have any fun. It just means what is fun to us has changed.
The 1st phase (sraddha) is dependent upon our desire to take up spiritual life, while later it becomes a combination of deepening that desire because we are experiencing what’s revealed. As Amit Acara mentioned last Sunday in class, as we engage in devotional service (Sadhana Bhakti-yoga) we receive assistance all along the way. Initiated Bhakti-yogis receive an enormous leg up, so to speak, from their respective teachers/gurus—both Initiating (those who accept our karma and situate us so we can, properly and ultimately, relate with Krsna), and from our Instructing gurus (those who give proper and relevant instructions). And of course, Paramatma (localized aspect of Krsna within every living entity’s body) helps, as nicely explained in Bg.—from within—as He sanctions what our actual desires are. Hence the admonition in yoga to control the mind, for as we desire—so goes our consciousness, and therefore our “life.”
An intellectual understanding of the need for spiritual life is necessary, but it is only a preliminary one, particularly because we’re making this assessment with our material mind and intellect—which, by their very nature of being material, can’t in- and of-themselves make the leap to the transcendental platform. That is, engaging material phenomena—can give us material results only. However, when the mind becomes more and more cleansed and understanding deepens by following the discipline of Sadhana-Bhakti, then we’re afforded greater insight, and the attraction to Krishna is spontaneous and deeply heartfelt. Depending upon the depth and density of material conditioning, everyone responds, initially, and necessarily, at a different pace.
Of course there must be a balance if one’s to be successful, and thus you’ve probably heard us state that real, or actual, spiritual/yogic life is a GRADUAL process. It’s a little like choosing sides between something which is known and comfortable (and we know what material life can provide), and something hazy in the beginning—but which supplies us what we’ve been looking for, for lifetimes (i.e. yogic/spiritual life). The two can’t even be compared, and yet, because of material consciousness—in the beginning it is a little hard to have confidence in the transition.
Monkey Noise
Mantra meditation without the brain’s “monkey noise”
“…As far as the Mahamantra goes, I have indeed found time to chant. I set aside an hour of time two nights ago to get as deep into the chant as possible, and it just didn’t work out. I find it intensely difficult to get past the chatter, the constant ‘monkey noise’ buzzing about in the brain.”
RESPONSE
Your dive into the Mahamantra, and the results, were interesting. It was a good experiment but, frankly, not the best way to proceed. Taking an hour and expecting to be able to chant peacefully and deeply is a bit like trying to run a marathon after only jogging a mile a few times! Or trying to lift your weight with barbells without working up to it.
My suggestion is this: First see how many rounds on the beads you can chant before your mind really rebels—then stop. Was it one, two, four rounds? Then start by chanting just that many. Of course you can chant other times too, like when walking somewhere, or standing in the grocery line, or singing while driving, etc., but I am speaking about chanting as a meditation on japa beads. Let’s say it was 2 rounds (maybe 12 minutes or so). So chant two rounds until you have no problem controlling the mind. If the mind wanders, pull it back. Focus on the chant. When you can do that easily, add a round. Eventually you can add more than one round at a time because there is a point where you have much more mind control than at first.
Some buddhists smack those in meditation with a stick when they appear to have lost focus. You don’t have to do that, just pull the mind back take a deep breath and continue. Train the mind patiently, as you would train a child. In this culture, there is little attempt to control the mind. In fact, often the opposite is true. And if you talk about restricting sense enjoyment, people gasp. They think you are taking away your freedom. They do not understand that real freedom comes ONLY with the ability to control the senses and the mind.
Each year one of the classes we give is on the hierarchy of our faculties. We’re been drawn into the world of the senses. The senses are out there roaming, constantly looking for something to focus on and become absorbed by. If you walk down a city street, you are pulled into what you see, smell, hear, etc. They are always roaming. Bhagavad-gita says that if the mind gets snared by even ONE sense, that sense can/will (if you allow it) throw off your consciousness. So the senses are always vying for your attention. They are begging the mind, “Let me eat this, smell that, feel that, etc.” It is the task of the intelligence to control the mind, or else the senses will control it. So when the intelligence controls the mind—once we are seasoned by the yogic path—the senses willingly tag along with the mind, instead of pulling it. And since the mind is more peaceful, the intelligence can be heard clearly. The intelligence is, in turn, guided by the practice of Bhakti, and so it then acts in your (the atma’s) best interest—instead of being dragged about by all the lower faculties.
Have you ever seen The Dog Whisperer? He teaches that if you have a dog, you have to be the “pack leader.” I imagine you’ve seen people in your neighborhood out walking dogs, but really the dogs are walking them—pulling them along, stopping, straining on their leash. Clearly, the dog is in control. But if you become the pack leader to your dog, then he happily trots along with you. He doesn’t at all resent that he is not leading, he has found his place in the “pack.” Our senses and mind are like that. If we control the mind, by gently pulling it back, showing it that we are the “pack leader,” then eventually, the senses will tag along with the mind. And all are happy, because they weren’t really meant to be the boss anyway!
- Japa meditation