Praying for the unhindered completion of his book, Śrīla Ṭhākura Mahāśaya appropriately follows the Vaiṣṇava tradition of first honoring Śrī Gurudeva with an auspicious invocation.
গ্রন্থের আরম্ভে করি মঙ্গলাচরণ । গুরু বৈষ্ণব ভগবান্ তিনের স্মরণ ॥
তিনের স্মরণে হয় বিঘ্ন-বিনাশন । অনায়াসে হয় নিজ বাঞ্ছিত-পূরণ ॥
সে মঙ্গলাচরণ হয় ত্রিবিধ-প্রকার । বস্তু-নির্দেশ আশীর্বাদ আর নমস্কার ॥
“At the beginning of this book I perform an auspicious invocation by remembering the spiritual master, the devotees and the Supreme Lord. By remembering these three, all impediments are removed and all one’s desires are easily fulfilled. An invocation (maṅgalācaraṇa) is of three types: establishment of the subject matter, a blessing and obeisance.” (CC. Ādi 1.20-22)
Even though Śrīla Ṭhākura Mahāśaya was the embodiment of prema, still, out of extreme humility he felt himself to be an ordinary materialistic person bound by māyā. Remembering the words of boundless mercy spoken by his guru, he bows to his lotus feet with great devotion. This is the ‘obeisance’ type of maṅgalācaraṇa. “I lie prostrate at the lotus feet of Śrī Gurudeva, who has opened my eyes, once blinded by the darkness of ignorance, with the collyrium stick of knowledge.” Here ‘the darkness of ignorance’ means the cheating tendency of the jīva, expressed as the desire for piety, wealth, sense gratification and liberation.
অজ্ঞান-তমের নাম কহিয়ে কৈতব । ধর্ম-অর্থ-কাম-বাঞ্ছা আদি এই সব ॥
তার মধ্যে মোক্ষ-বাঞ্ছা কৈতব-প্রধান । যাহা হৈতে কৃষ্ণ-ভক্তি হয় অন্তর্ধান ॥
“The darkness of ignorance, known as kaitava, or cheating, consists of the desire for piety, wealth, sense gratification and liberation. Among these, the desire for liberation is the supreme deceit, because of which kṛṣṇa-bhakti disappears.” (CC. Ādi 1.90, 92) The meaning of darkness of ignorance is fraud or deceit, which is described as the longing for piety, wealth, sense gratification and liberation. But the words fraud or deceit aren’t synonyms for the phrase darkness of ignorance, and the phrase desire for piety, wealth, sense gratification and liberation isn’t synonymous with the word deceit. Why have these seemingly unrelated terms been utilized in the Śrī Caitanya-Caritāmṛta? Śrīla Viśvanātha Cakravartipāda reaches this conclusion in his commentary of those verses: kṛṣṇa-nitya-dāsasya jīvasya tad-dāsatvaṁ vinā nija-sukhārtham anyaṁ sarvaṁ kaitavam iti bhāvaḥ. The jīva is by nature the eternal servant of Śrī Kṛṣṇa, and his duty is to serve him. If at some time the jīva forgets his service to Śrī Kṛṣṇa, he falls into the darkness of ignorance, forgets his own nature, and becomes deeply engrossed in his illusory body and all that goes with it, trying desperately to find some sort of self-satisfaction. If these various types of self-satisfaction are scientifically divided, it is seen that they are nothing more than the desires for dharma, artha, kāma and mokṣa. Here the word dharma refers to ordinary Vedic sacrifices, worship, charity, compassion, etc. performed by workers motivated by their desire for elevation to the heavenly planets. The celestial happiness earned by this piety is temporary, which can be understood from verses like tad yatheha karmārjito lokaḥ kṣīyate, evam evātra puṇya-jito lokaḥ kṣīyate, kṣīṇe puṇye martya-lokaṁ viśanti and others from the śrutis. Consequently, after the deluded jīvas enjoy the heavenly pleasures, and the piety they accumulated by Vedic sacrifices and worship, etc. is exhausted, they are once again afflicted with birth, death, and all the other dreadful miseries of mundane life. Moreover, even the heavenly happiness that the deluded jīva is caused to enjoy is actually a novel type of punishment by māyā for him having turned away from Kṛṣṇa. In Śrī Caitanya-Caritāmṛta, Śrīla Kavirāja Gosvāmipāda has written:
কৃষ্ণ ভুলি’ সেই জীব অনাদি-বহির্মুখ । অতএব মায়া তারে দেয় সংসার-দুঃখ ॥
কভু স্বর্গে উঠায়, কভু নরকে ডুবা । দণ্ড্য-জনে রাজা যেন নদীতে চুবায় ॥
“Having been averse to Śrī Kṛṣṇa, the embodied soul has been attracted to external things since beginningless time. Because of this, māyā, the illusory energy, has plagued him with the miseries of mundane life. Sometimes he is lifted to heaven, and sometimes sunk into hell, just as a king punishes a criminal by repeatedly dunking him in a river.” (CC. Mad. 20.117-118)
In olden times, when criminals were to be punished by the king, one method commonly used was for the king’s men to tie the criminal to the end of a long stick of bamboo and immerse him in a river or the water of a deep pond. When he’d been in the water so long that he was nearly dead, he would then be pulled up. After being lifted from the water, he would gasp, “Aho, I’m alive!” and feel great happiness. That happiness quickly turned to misery because as soon as he was pulled from the water, he would again be dunked repeatedly. In much the same way, māyā punishes the worldly jīva who has forgotten Śrī Kṛṣṇa by alternately raising him to heaven and then plunging him into hell. Therefore, the dharma practiced by those who aspire to the heavenly worlds is understood to be the grossest ignorance.
In olden times, when criminals were to be punished by the king, one method commonly used was for the king’s men to tie the criminal to the end of a long stick of bamboo and immerse him in a river or the water of a deep pond. When he’d been in the water so long that he was nearly dead, he would then be pulled up. After being lifted from the water, he would gasp, “Aho, I’m alive!” and feel great happiness. That happiness quickly turned to misery because as soon as he was pulled from the water, he would again be dunked repeatedly. In much the same way, māyā punishes the worldly jīva who has forgotten Śrī Kṛṣṇa by alternately raising him to heaven and then plunging him into hell. Therefore, the dharma practiced by those who aspire to the heavenly worlds is understood to be the grossest ignorance.
The word artha indicates the worldly sense objects such as forms, sounds, flavors, aromas and tactile sensations that are enjoyed by the eyes, ears, tongue, nose and skin. Or it can also mean incomparable kingly power, riches, possessions, etc. Kāma means the desire to satisfy one’s own senses without any regard for whether doing so would be a lustful, immoral or pious act. Those jīvas who have forgotten that they are the eternal servants of Śrī Kṛṣṇa consider their bodies to be themselves and all that is enjoyable to be theirs. As the result of this materialistic conception, their minds are imprisoned and they remain absorbed in this mentality life after life. This sense gratification leads them to be repeatedly swallowed by the dreadful gape of birth and death wherein they suffer unbearably hellish agonies. If, by the will of God, a jīva happens to get the body of a knowledgeable and intelligent human, but retains a mentality pervaded by contaminated desires, he will be unable to determine what is beneficial or harmful to himself and remain engrossed in bodily enjoyment. Thus, this artha and kāma are very powerful manifestations of the jīva’s ignorance or deceit.
But if the living being is somehow freed from his illusory bondage to dharma, artha and kāma, and he attains to brahma-sāyujya, that mokṣa or liberation becomes the greatest deception or ignorance covering the true nature of the jīva. Since the jīva whose heart is only muddied by the desires for dharma, artha and kāma is continually wandering from one womb to the other, the possibility remains that he may at some time get the association of great devotees. By their mercy, his dormant nature as servant of Śrī Kṛṣṇa may be awakened and he may receive the seed of bhakti. In the Śrī Caitanya-Caritāmṛta we find the following:
But if the living being is somehow freed from his illusory bondage to dharma, artha and kāma, and he attains to brahma-sāyujya, that mokṣa or liberation becomes the greatest deception or ignorance covering the true nature of the jīva. Since the jīva whose heart is only muddied by the desires for dharma, artha and kāma is continually wandering from one womb to the other, the possibility remains that he may at some time get the association of great devotees. By their mercy, his dormant nature as servant of Śrī Kṛṣṇa may be awakened and he may receive the seed of bhakti. In the Śrī Caitanya-Caritāmṛta we find the following:
নিত্যবদ্ধ--কৃষ্ণ হৈতে নিত্য-বহির্মুখ । নিত্য সংসারী ভুঞ্জে নরকাদি দুখ ॥
সেই দোষে মায়াপিশাচী দণ্ড করে তারে । আধ্যাত্মিকাদি তাপত্রয় জারি তারে মারে ॥
কাম-ক্রোধের দাস হঞা তার লাথি খায় । ভ্রমিতে ভ্রমিতে যদি সাধু-বৈদ্য পা ॥
তার উপদেশ-মন্ত্রে পিশাচী পালায় । কৃষ্ণভক্তি পায় তবে কৃষ্ণ নিকট যায় ॥
“The nitya-baddha, or perpetually bound soul, is always averse to Śrī Kṛṣṇa. Remaining endlessly within the cycle of birth and death, he suffers all kinds of miseries. Because of his mistake, he is punished by the demoness of māyā, who tortures him with the three kinds of afflictions: miseries caused by his own mind or body, those caused by other living entities, and those caused by the gods. He becomes the servant of lust and anger, and is mercilessly kicked by these cruel masters. If, in his wanderings, he gets the mercy of a sādhu and accepts instruction and mantra from him, he can escape from that demoness and by the power of bhakti go to Kṛṣṇa.” (CC. Mad. 22.12-15)
(to be continued...)
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