প্রার্থনা করিব সদা, শুদ্ধভাবে প্রেমকথা,
নাম মন্ত্রে করিয়া অভেদ ।
নৈষ্ঠিক করিয়া মন, ভজ রাঙ্গা শ্রিচরণ,
পাপগ্রন্থি হবে পরিচ্ছেদ ॥ ৭৫ ॥
prārthanā kariba sadā, śuddha-bhābe prema-kathā,
nāma mantre kariyā abheda |
naiṣṭhika kariyā mana, bhaja rāṅgā śri-caraṇa,
pāpa-granthi habe pariccheda || 75 ||
I shall always pray to hear talks of prema in a pure state of mind. I make no distinction between nāma and mantra. O mind! If you worship the crimson feet of Śrī Rādhā-Mādhava with firm faith, the knot of sin will be completely severed.
Devout Bhajana
Sudhā-Kaṇikā-Vyākhyā: In this verse, while teaching his own mind about devout bhajana, the high-souled author is also alluding to some valuable information regarding the practice. He first says, prārthanā kariba sadā, śuddha-bhābe prema-kathā. “I shall always pray to hear talks of prema in a pure state of mind.” In a pure state means in a singleminded way devoid of any desire for one’s own happiness. Though we always talk about pure bhajana or desireless bhajana, in fact, pure bhajana free from any search for personal happiness is very rare and is dependent on the mercy of Śrī Guru, the Vaiṣṇavas and Śrī Hari. Because of being absorbed in desires for women, gold, profit, adoration, high position and other things related to the body, various kinds of subtle desires for personal happiness have secretly pervaded the heart. At the end of Śrī-Hari-Bhakti-Vilāsa it is written that the hope for high position and fame exists even in the heart of one who has renounced everything.
sarva-tyāge’py aheyāyāḥ
sarvānartha-bhuvaś ca te |
kuryuḥ pratiṣṭhā-viṣṭhāyā
yatnam asparśane varam ||
“Even by renouncing everything, the hope for pratiṣṭhā (high rank or celebrity), which is the root of all anarthas, is not abandoned. The sādhaka must be particularly careful not to touch this excrement.” Śrīmad Raghunātha Dāsa Gosvāmipāda has called this hope for name and fame ‘the unchaste wife of a dog-eater.’ pratiṣṭhāśā–dhṛṣṭā śvapaca-ramaṇī me hṛdi naṭet kathaṁ sādhu-premā spṛśati śucir etan nanu manaḥ (Manaḥ-Śikṣā 7). “O mind! An unchaste wife of a dog-eater dances in my heart in the form of yearning for fame. How can pure, holy love ever touch such a heart?” To benefit the sādhakas, the great souls cast light in various ways upon the sādhakas’ hidden desires for personal happiness. Śrīla Premānanda Ṭhākura Mahāśaya has written the following in his Manaḥ-Śikṣā:
ore mana ki tora bujhibāra bhula |
kahicha bedera pāra, karicha niṣiddhācāra, bhāba dekhi āpanāra mūla ||
muktike aiśvarya bali, dūrete diyecha pheli, iṅgite bujhāo ei tattva |
anitya asāra artha, se bhāla sadāi prārthya, yā lāgi rajanī dibā matta ||
nirhetu yājana kara, hetu se chāḍite nāra, kathāya birakta e saṁsāra |
sarbasva balicha yāra, dite eka baṭa tāra, se cāhile kaha āpanāra ||
kaha bhaji bṛndābana, ghare sukha bāsa mana, bhālabāsa basana-bhūṣaṇe |
santuṣṭa mānicha māne, mahākrodha apamāne, ātma-sukha ghucila kemane ||
kahicha gopīra dharma, ki bujhicha tāra marma, svabhāba chāḍite nāra tile |
dekhiyā pāicha sukha, prakṛti bāghinī mukha, sarbātmā sahite yei gile ||
śuna kahe premānanda, bicārile saba dhanda, kahile śunile kibā haya |
‘hari hari’ abirata, kaha ei prema-patha, nirmala haibe suniścaya ||
“O mind! Have you misunderstood? You said that you are beyond the Vedas, yet you engage in forbidden acts. I see your essence and your origin. You have said that true freedom is to possess great wealth, and yet you squander it away. Help me to somehow understand this. Wealth is temporary and unsubstantial. Thinking it beneficial and always to be desired, you madly chase after it, day and night. You say you perform religious rituals without any motive, but the real reason is that you are unable to give them up, while saying you have no attachment to this world. You said you would give away all your possessions, but if someone asks for even one cowrie, you tell them it all belongs to you. O mind, you say ‘I worship Vṛndāvana in my home, where I live very happily, satisfied with love, nice clothes and ornaments.’ But you have acknowledged that through pride, anger and contempt you lost that happiness. How did this happen? You talk about the dharma of a gopī; have you understood the spirit of it? You are unable to even slightly let go of your own nature. Seeing that you have found some happiness, the tigress of material nature swallows that along with your entire self. Premānanda says, ‘Please listen; if you think about it, you will see it is all a trick. What is the point of speaking or hearing of it? Just chant hari hari constantly. Without doubt, you will become pure on this path of love.’”
Śrīla Ṭhākura Mahāśaya says, “I shall always pray at the feet of my beloved deity to be able to hear, sing and remember the stories about Śrī Rādhā-Kṛṣṇa’s love with a pure and desireless heart, free from the expectation of personal happiness.” Prayer removes the barriers to Śrī Bhagavān’s compassion. A person whose citta (mind/heart) is pervaded by the impressions of various kinds of hopes and longings cannot by the power of his own sādhana give up the desire for personal happiness and attain pure consciousness. If Śrī Hari’s compassion falls upon a devotee as a result of prayer, he is able to easily get the blessing of continuously hearing with a pure heart discussions about the love of his cherished deity. This should be the understanding in this context.
Then he says, nāma mantre kariyā abheda. In becoming mantras, the names of Śrī Bhagavān, such as Kṛṣṇa, Govinda and so on, have been given dative case endings and combined with words such as namaḥ and svāhā by the sages, and are comprised of six parts including ṛṣi. Therefore, in reality there is no difference between mantras and Śrī Bhagavān’s names. The question may be asked that if there is no difference between mantra and nāma, and that without relying on dīkṣā-puraścaryā, nāma impartially gives prema to one who performs kīrtana, then what is the need for mantra-dīkṣā? Regarding this, Śrī Jīva Gosvāmipāda says, nanu bhagavan-nāmātmakā eva mantrāḥ. tatra viśeṣeṇa namaḥ-śabdādy-alaṅkṛtāḥ śrī-bhagavatā śrīmad-ṛṣibhiś cāhita-śakti-viśeṣāḥ śrī-bhagavatā-samamātma-sambandha-viśeṣa-pratipādakāś ca, tatra kevalāni bhagavan-nāmāny api nirapekṣāny eva parama-puruṣārtha-phala-paryanta-dāna-samarthāni; tato mantreṣu nāmato’py adhika-sāmarthye’labdhe kathaṁ dīkṣādy apekṣā? ucyate–yadyapi svarūpato nāsti, tathāpi prāyaḥ svabhāvato dehādi sambandhena kadarya-śīlānāṁ vikṣipta-cittānāṁ janānāṁ tat saṁkocīkaraṇāya śrīmad-ṛṣi-prabhṛtibhir atrārcana-mārge kvacit kācin-maryādā sthāpitāsti. tatas tad-ullaṅghane śāstraṁ prāyaścittam ubhāvayati (Krama-Sandarbhaḥ commentary on Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 7.5.18). It may be said, “Because mantras are composed of Śrī Bhagavān’s various names, each mantra is specific. According to Bhagavān’s desire, Śrī Nārada and other ṛṣis have adorned his names with namaḥ and other words and deposited a particular śakti in each mantra. Therefore, mantras establish a specific relationship between the mantra-chanter and Śrī Bhagavān. But Śrī Bhagavān’s names do not depend on anything else and can by themselves even give prema, the parama-puruṣārtha, the supreme goal of life. Therefore, we see more power in nāma than in mantra. So why does one who performs nāma-kīrtana need mantra-dīkṣā?” In reply to this question, he says, “In principle, it may not be necessary to accept dīkṣā due to the power or influence of Śrī Harināma, as in the case of Śrī Ajāmila. Still, to curtail the engagement of scatterbrained humans in frequently abominable actions related to the body, which is naturally devoted to enjoyment, Śrī Nārada and other ṛṣis have established some guidelines in various places on the arcana-mārga. For those who do not comply with those guidelines, śāstra has prescribed various kinds of penance. Therefore, the need for mantra-dīkṣā must certainly be recognized.” Specifically, when a person accepts mantra-dīkṣā from a sad-guru who has the characteristics mentioned in śāstra, the gloom is driven out from his māyā-darkened mind by Śrī Guru’s mercy. After his mind becomes steady, no longer distracted by sense-objects, he can engage in bhajana. Svayaṁ Bhagavān Śrī Nandanandana has in the form of Śrī Gaurāṅga accepted mantra-dīkṣā from Śrīpāda Īśvara Purī. At the beginning of his instructions to Śrī Sanātana Gosvāmī regarding the sixty-four components of bhajana, he says, śrī-guru-pādāśraya, dīkṣā, gurura sebana; sad-dharma-śikṣā-pṛcchā, sādhu-mārgānugamana (Śrī-Caitanya-Caritāmṛta, Madhya 22.115). “Shelter at the feet of Śrī Guru, initiation, service to Śrī Guru; receiving instructions in transcendental dharma and asking questions; following the path of the holy ones.” By these words he has pointed out the instruction or guideline that mantra-dīkṣā comes from a guru who has received it through a true paramparā. This is also seen to be the practice of the great souls.
Or, nāma mantre kariyā abheda means there is no difference between nāma and mantra, in the sense that nāma has also been called a mantra. For example, the thirty-two-syllable hare-kṛṣṇa-nāma has been called a mahāmantra. Regarding this, we see the following in Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 6.2.19, in the description of the glories of the Holy Name:
yathāgadaṁ vīryatamam
upayuktaṁ yadṛcchayā |
ajānato’py ātma-guṇaṁ
kuryān mantro’py udāhṛtaḥ ||
In the narration of the deliverance of Ajāmila, the viṣṇudūtas said to the yamadūtas, “Just as a powerful medicine destroys the disease of someone who ingests it, though the person may not understand how it works, in the same way, if one even ignorantly chants a mantra consisting of Bhagavān’s names, the fruit of nāma is spontaneously obtained. The power of a thing is never dependent on intellect or knowledge.” In his Krama-Sandarbha commentary on this verse, Śrī Jīva Gosvāmipāda has written, mantra-śabdenātra nāmoktiḥ–mantrasya tathā prabhāve śraddhādy-apekṣatvād asya tu tad-anapekṣatvād atraiva mantra-śabdasya mukhyā-vṛttir ity abhiprāyeṇa jñeyā. “Here, the word mantra is understood to mean nāma. Though by nature, nāma and mantra are one, still, mantras rely on faith and so on. Because in nāma there is no such reliance, it is to be understood that nāma bears primary significance among the words of a mantra.
Then Śrīla Ṭhākura Mahāśaya said, naiṣṭhika kariyā mana, bhaja rāṅgā śri-caraṇa, pāpa-granthi habe pariccheda. “O mind! If you worship the crimson feet of Śrī Rādhā-Mādhava with firm faith, the knot of sin or ignorance will be completely severed.” When niṣṭhā (firm faith) appears, bhajana-śaithilya (bhajana-fatigue) completely disappears; even during incessant bhajana, no weariness is felt. These five kinds of anarthas are also removed: laya (drowsiness at the time of śravaṇa-kīrtana and so on), vikṣepa (distraction, concern about news of worldly matters at the time of bhajana), apratipatti (even though no drowsiness or distractions are present, one is still incapable of doing bhajana), kaṣāya (impurities, saṁskāras of anger, greed, pride and so on) and rasāsvāda (lack of mental absorption in bhajana due to thoughts of sense enjoyment). Śrī Jīva Gosvāmipāda has referred to dhruvānusmṛti, or remembrance of Śrī Bhagavān that is continuous like a stream of oil, as naiṣṭhikī-bhakti or firm devotion: naiṣṭhikī-bhakti-dhyānākhyā dhruvānusmṛtir ity ucyate (Bhakti-Sandarbhaḥ 198). Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 1.2.17-18 says that hearing and chanting śrī-hari-kathā is the only way to obtain naiṣṭhikī-bhakti:
śṛṇvatāṁ svakathāṁ kṛṣṇaḥ
puṇya-śravaṇa-kīrtanaḥ |
hṛdy-antaḥ-stho hy abhadrāṇi
vidhunoti suhṛt-satām ||
naṣṭa-prāyeṣv abhadreṣu
nityaṁ bhāgavata-sevayā |
bhagavaty uttamaśloke
bhaktir bhavati naiṣṭhikī ||
“Situated in the heart, Bhagavān Śrī Kṛṣṇa destroys the inauspicious desires for worldly pleasure in the minds of those devout souls who listen to his stories, which bestow virtue when heard or sung. In this way, when inauspiciousness has been mostly destroyed through continuous bhāgavata-sevā (service to the bhaktas and/or study of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam), firm devotion to the preeminent Śrī Kṛṣṇa appears.” The reading āstika kariyā mana is also seen. āstikyam asti vedaika-gamyaṁ vastv iti niścayaḥ. “Āstikyam (theism) is the conviction that truth can only be obtained through the Vedas.” This means one must worship Śrī Rādhā-Kṛṣṇa with śraddhā or faith in the words of śāstra and the mahājanas. Some people have interpreted āstikyam as having established a self-concept of one’s own siddha-svarūpa and one’s own relationship with Śrī Rādhā-Mādhava. In this context, this is also a good interpretation.
