Śrī Śrī Prema-Bhakti-Candrikā 39 (comm. by Śrī Anantadāsa Bābājī Mahārāja)

নরোত্তম বড় দুঃখী,        নাথ! মোরে কর সুখী,

তোমার ভজন-সঙ্কীর্তনে ।

অন্তরায় নাহি যায়,        এই ত পরম ভয়,

নিবেদন করি অনুক্ষণে ॥ ৩৯ ॥

narottama baḍa duḥkhī,        nātha! more kara sukhī,

tomāra bhajana-saṅkīrtane |

antarāya nāhi yāya,        ei ta parama bhaya,

nibedana kari anukṣaṇe || 39 ||

     O Lord! I, Narottama, am very miserable; please make me happy by engaging me in your bhajana and saṅkīrtana. It is my greatest fear that these obstacles will not go away; therefore I pray to you at every moment.

Bhajana-Saṅkīrtana 

     Sudhā-Kaṇikā-Vyākhyā: Śrīla Ṭhākura Mahāśaya next prays for bhajana in the form of saṅkīrtana, congregational chanting, by saying, narottama baḍa duḥkhī, nātha! more kara sukhī, tomāra bhajana-saṅkīrtane. “O Lord Śrī Kṛṣṇa! This Narottama is a very miserable person. Please rescue him from his terrible suffering. The word nātha means ‘protector or preserver.’ Therefore, after protecting him from misery, preserve him with happiness.” If Śrī Kṛṣṇa replies, “What makes you happy; can you say?” In response, he says, tomāra bhajana-saṅkīrtane. “My only happiness lies in your bhajana and nāma-saṅkīrtana; therefore, make me happy by giving me the blessed gift of your bhajana.” Filled with extreme humility, Śrīla Ṭhākura Mahāśaya considers himself a worldly person. For the worldly people who are intoxicated by sense-enjoyment, this most helpful instruction is like an elixer for reviving the dead. Worldly people who have forgotten their true nature, infatuated by the mundane pleasures of eating, having sex and so on, think this to be the happiest of conditions. Though having obtained a human body, the receptacle for knowledge and intelligence, they themselves create the suffering they must endure in various kinds of miserable wombs and terrible hells. Śrīla Ṭhākura Mahāśaya himself has said in verse eighty-two, biṣaya garalamaya, tāte māna sukhacaya, sei sukha duḥkha kari māna. If briefly considered, everyone can easily understand that the illusion of worldly enjoyment is the cause of various kinds of indescribable miseries. How can that be called happiness? It is easily deduced that this is the source of intense misery or trouble. According to Maharṣi Gautama’s Nyāya-Darśana, the cessation of suffering is called mukti. In his doctrine, there are twenty-one kinds of duḥkha or suffering. Because the body, the six senses, the six sense-objects and the six kinds of perception are the abodes of misery, they are referred to as duḥkha. Because sukha, happiness, is also subject to being transformed into misery, that is also duḥkha, and misery itself is duḥkha. These are the twenty-one kinds of duḥkha. In this doctrine, even happiness is considered to be misery. In fact, true happiness is not something of this material world. Therefore, it has been said,

sukha nāi kabhu e saṁsāre | sukha āche māyāra opāre ||

sukha bale tumi dekha yāre | se tomāya duḥkha dibāra tare ||

āche sukhera ākāra dhare | sarbātmā gilibāra tare ||

yemana keha nāginīre | puṣpa-mālā bale pare ||

tāra biṣe saba aṅga jāre | kebā bāñcābe tāre ||

sādhu dhanvantarī dhare | akapaṭe āśraya kare ||

jhāḍāo bāhire antare | tabe ḍubibe sukha-sāyare ||

     “There is never any happiness in this material world; happiness is beyond māyā. Whatever you see as happiness in this world is meant to give you misery. It has assumed the form of happiness to devour your entire being, just as if a person mistakes a snake for a flower garland, his entire body will burn from its poison. One who wants true happiness will sincerely accept the shelter of a sādhu, who like a doctor, will purify him within and without. In such a state, he will sink into the ocean of happiness.”

     Śrīla Ṭhākura Mahāśaya says, narottama baḍa duḥkhī. Suffering exists to one degree or another in all of us, but we don’t all understand its consequence. The experience of suffering is like a touchstone for a human life. By the touch of this suffering, the iron-like citta stained by sense-enjoyment becomes radiant like gold as the desire for bhakti appears. As a person continually experiences suffering, by the mercy of the great souls, he is able to extend his hand toward Śrī Govinda’s lotus feet, which are filled with happiness. In the end, he is blessed with joyful service to those lotus feet.

     Śrīla Ṭhākura Mahāśaya is saying that true joy lies in śrī-kṛṣṇa-bhajana and saṅkīrtana. In the form, qualities and pastimes of Śrī Kṛṣṇa, who is filled with joy and rasa, are found the full manifestations of that joy and rasa. By devoting himself to śravaṇa, kīrtana and the other limbs of bhajana, the bhakta continually tastes the unabated sweetness of the rasa of Kṛṣṇa’s form, qualities, pastimes and so on. Śrīla Ṭhākura Mahāśaya has previously discussed the topic of bhajana, which should be understood as śravaṇa, kīrtana and the rest of the nine kinds of bhakti. In addition to that, he has also discussed saṅkīrtana. Though saṅkīrtana is included among the nine kinds of bhakti, he has specifically prayed for absorption in nāma-saṅkīrtana, implying its preeminence over all. We find the following in Śrī Caitanya-Caritāmṛta, Antya 4:70-71:

bhajanera madhye śreṣṭha naba-bidhā bhakti |

kṛṣṇa-prema kṛṣṇa dite dhare mahāśakti ||

tāra-madhye sarba-śreṣṭha–nāma-saṅkīrtana |

niraparādha-nāma haite haya prema-dhana ||

     “Among the different types of bhajana, the nine kinds of bhakti are the best. They bear the great power of being able to give Kṛṣṇa and love of Kṛṣṇa. Among them, nāma-saṅkīrtana is the best of all. From offenseless chanting of the Holy Names comes the treasure of prema.” When many people join in one place and loudly sing kīrtana, accompanied by śrī-khola, karatālas and so on, that is called saṅkīrtana. Good fortune comes to oneself, other people and even other mobile and immobile beings when nāma is heard. For this reason, saṅkīrtana is considered better than japa and other practices. Moreover, nāma-kīrtana accompanied by līlā-smaraṇa can also be called saṅkīrtana (samyak, or complete kīrtana). For Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava sādhakas who perform bhajana on the path of rāga, there is a system of nāma-kīrtana combined with contemplation of līlā. By introducing his garāṇahāṭī style of music, Śrīla Narottama Ṭhākura Mahāśaya has given form to the saṅkīrtana-rasa of nāma, guṇa, līlā and so on. Therefore, the following has been written: 

saṅkīrtanānandaja-mandahāsya-dantadyuti-dyotita-diṅmukhāya | svedāśrudhārā-snapitāya tasmai namo namaḥ śrīla-narottamāya ||

     “I bow again and again to Śrīla Ṭhākura Narottama. The luster of his teeth shines through his gentle smile born of the joy of saṅkīrtana and brightens all directions, and at the time of saṅkīrtana, all his limbs are bathed with an endless stream of sweat and tears.” Through this, we get an excellent introduction to the happiness Śrīla Ṭhākura Mahāśaya derives from saṅkīrtana.

     Then Śrīla Ṭhākura Mahāśaya makes a very important statement: antarāya nāhi yāya, ei ta parama bhaya, nibedana kari anukṣaṇe. Bhakti-sādhanā has so much inconceivable power that, in the absence of aparādhas and other anarthas, it very quickly blesses the sādhaka with prema, the fruit of bhajana. According to the severity of his impediments, the sādhaka is delayed in attaining prema through his bhajana-sādhana. For those who take shelter of the lotus feet of Śrī Guru and the Vaiṣṇavas and always carefully guard against aparādhas and other obstacles to bhajana, those obstacles never materialize. Because of this, they cautiously avoid those obstacles and remain engaged in bhajana. For careful sādhakas, there can be no impediments. If, by chance, an obstacle comes to them because of some kind of asat-saṅga or bad saṁskāra, they feel very repentant and resort more seriously to the mercy of Śrī Guru and the Vaiṣṇavas and the shelter of Śrī Bhagavān’s lotus feet. In this way, they quickly cast off the impediment. The sādhaka’s sorrowful prayer at the lotus feet of Śrī Guru, the Vaiṣṇavas and Śrī Bhagavān constantly protects him from the influence of all obstacles. This sorrowful prayer causes Śrī Bhagavān’s mercy to flow toward the sādhaka, which results in the obstacle being removed. Therefore, he says, nibedana kari anukṣaṇe: “I pray to you at every moment.”