দুর্লভ ভজন হেন, নাহি ভজ হরি কেন,
কি লাগি মরহ ভববন্ধে ।
ছাড় অন্য ক্রিয়াকর্ম, নাহি দেখ বেদ-ধর্ম,
ভক্তি কর কৃষ্ণপদদ্বন্দ্বে ॥ ৯১ ॥
durlabha bhajana hena, nāhi bhaja hari kena,
ki lāgi maraha bhaba-bandhe |
chāḍa anya kriyā-karma, nāhi dekha beda-dharma,
bhakti kara kṛṣṇa-pada-dvandve || 91 ||
Why do you not worship Śrī Hari? It is such a rare bhajana. Why should you perish in material bondage? Give up other scriptural rites and do not look at veda-dharma. Just worship Śrī Kṛṣṇa’s lotus feet.
Rare Bhajana
Sudhā-Kaṇikā-Vyākhyā: By saying beda-bidhi-agocara (beyond the range of Vedic injunctions) in the previous verse, Śrīla Ṭhākura Mahāśaya has established the rarity of yugala-bhajana. Now, in the yuga of Śrīman Mahāprabhu, that rare bhajana has become easily obtainable for all jīvas, including those broken by immorality and suffering. Taking shelter at Śrīman Mahāprabhu’s lotus feet, Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava ācāryas such as Śrī Rūpa, Sanātana, Raghunātha, Śrī Jīva and the rest of the Six Gosvāmīs, and then later on, Śrīnivāsācārya, Śyāmānanda Prabhu, Narottama Ṭhākura Mahāśaya, Viśvanātha Cakravartipāda, Baladeva Vidyābhūṣaṇa and other ācāryas and poet mahājanas have in endless ways made the rare path of yugala-bhajana magnanimous and open.
To draw the attention of worldly people toward this rare bhajana, Śrīla Ṭhākura Mahāśaya said, durlabha bhajana hena, nāhi bhaja hari kena, ki lāgi maraha bhaba-bandhe, under the pretext of instructing his own mind. “Why do you not worship Śrī Hari? It is such a rare bhajana. Why should you perish in material bondage?” Śrīman Mahāprabhu has mercifully given to the jīvas tormented by kali-yuga an unparalleled taste of vraja-rasa, which in other yugas was difficult for even Brahmā and Maheśvara to obtain. Though having now received a human body, if someone is deprived of this golden opportunity or does not take shelter of the path of bhajana, he will, due to saṁskāras of attachment to sense objects, pass his rare human lifetime pursuing the happiness derived from food and other pleasures. He will fall into the gaping jaws of repeated birth and death and remain perpetually bound by the fetters of the material world. Śrīla Premānanda Ṭhākura has sung the following in his Manaḥ-Śikṣā:
e mana! mānuṣa habe ki āra |
badana bhariyā, ‘hari hari’ bala, ‘śodha’ nā yamera dhāra ||
bhābiyā dekha nā, se hāre āpanā, ihāte ye kare pāpa |
āpanāra doṣe, āpani pāya se, janame janame tāpa ||
sei se catura, bāpera ṭhākura, ye laya harira nāma |
ihāte yāhāra, ruci nā janmila, bidhātā tāhāre bāma ||
e bodha bujhibe, narake majibe, śamana ruṣibe yabe |
āṅkhira palake, e ṭhāṭa bhāṅgibe, ki bali eḍābe tabe ||
bhāi bandhu jāyā, tanaya-tanayā, āpanā balicha yāre |
jāna nā mukhete, anala bhejāye, agādha jalete ḍāre ||
mūrati dekhiyā, ḍare ḍarāiyā, tile nā rākhibe ghara |
kahe premānanda, ‘hari hari’ bala, tā binu sakali para ||
“O mind! Will you get a human body again? If you fill your mouth with harināma, you will no longer owe payment to Yama, the god of death. Having considered it, do you not see? As a result of losing himself, a man commits sin. It is because of his own mistakes that he suffers birth after birth. Those who are intelligent and worthy of reverence chant the name of Śrī Hari. Providence is unfavorable to those who have no taste for this. You will understand this when you anger Yama and sink into hell. In the blink of an eye this outward show will disintegrate. How then will you escape suffering? You claim your friends, wife, sons and daughters to be your own. Do you not know that they will light a fire in your mouth and dump you in deep water?* After seeing your dead body, they will be frightened and remove it from the house immediately. Premānanda says, ‘Chant Hari! Hari!’ Other than that, all is irrelevant.”
bhāi re bhaja gorācāṅdera caraṇa |
e tina bhubane āra, dayāra ṭhākura nāi, gorā baḍa patita pābana |
hena abatāre yāra, nahila bhakati-leśa, bala tāra ki habe upāya ||
rabira kiraṇe yāra, āṅkhi parasanna naila, bidhātā bañcita bhela tāya ||
hema-jalada kāya, prema-dhārā bariṣaya, karuṇāmaya abatāra |
gorā hena prabhu peye, ye jana śītala naila, ki jāni kemana mana tāra ||
kali—bhaba-sāgare, nija nāma bhelā kari, āpane gaurāṅga kare pāra |
tabe ye ḍubiyā mare, ke tāre uddhāra kare, e premānandera parihāra ||
“O brother! Serve the lotus feet of Śrī Gauracandra. There is not a more compassionate spiritual guide in the three worlds. Gaura is a benevolent savior of the fallen. Tell me, what will be the solution for one who has not even a trace of bhakti in such an avatāra? One has been deprived by fate if his eyes are not pleased by a ray of the sun. This merciful incarnation’s body is like a golden cloud that rains down a constant stream of prema. How do I understand the mind of one who is not soothed after getting a master like Śrī Gaura? In the age of Kali, Gaurāṅga will ferry you across the ocean of material existence in a raft of his own holy name. But if one instead immerses himself in this ocean and perishes, who will rescue him? Premānanda gives up!”
Then Śrīla Ṭhākura Mahāśaya says, chāḍa anya kriyā-karma, nāhi dekha beda-dharma, bhakti kara kṛṣṇa-pada-dvandve. Here, anya kriyā-karma means engaging in illusory rites and rituals meant to produce mundane bodily happiness rather than performing śrī-kṛṣṇa-bhajana. Veda-dharma means the varṇāśrama-dharma mentioned in the Vedas. He advises us to abandon such things and take shelter of the path of pure bhajana.
The jīva is by nature the eternal servant of Śrī Kṛṣṇa. Therefore, the desire to serve Śrī Kṛṣṇa is the jīva’s natural dharma. The jīva who is averse to Śrī Kṛṣṇa desires independent enjoyment of illusory things. Because of that, the desire for sevā that is naturally related to the svarūpa (spiritual form) instead manifests through the body and senses. Influenced by the dharma of the senses, it is transformed into the desire for service to the senses. This is why we see the jīva try to gratify his senses through the enjoyment of mundane objects. The māyā-bound jīva engages in various kinds of rituals or adopts varṇāśrama or other forms of veda-dharma in an attempt to become happy through sense-enjoyment. But the sense-enjoyment described in the karma-kāṇḍa section of the Vedas can never make one happy. There is no true or lasting happiness in sense-enjoyment; only the arrival of misery after misery. Other than bhakti or service to Śrī Kṛṣṇa’s lotus feet, there is no means of release from this misery. Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 3.9.6 says the following:
tāvad bhayaṁ draviṇa-deha-suhṛn-nimittaṁ
śokaḥ spṛhā paribhavo vipulaś ca lobhaḥ |
tāvan mamety asad-avagraha ārti-mūlaṁ
yāvan na te’ṅghrim abhayaṁ pravṛṇīta lokaḥ ||
In Brahmā’s glorification of Śrī Bhagavān, he says, “O Bhagavān! As long as people do not take shelter of your fear-removing lotus feet, they continue to experience apprehension, grief, desire, humiliation and extreme greed regarding their wealth, bodies, friends and families. They maintain the mentality of ‘I and mine’ regarding the illusory body and things related. This is the root of all misery.”
The first fetter of the māyā-bound jīva who is averse to Śrī Kṛṣṇa is avidyā, or ignorance. Through this, he forgets his own spiritual nature and his dharma as a servant of Śrī Kṛṣṇa. The second fetter is asmitā, or egoism, through which he considers the transitory body to be himself. He also develops a possessive mentality regarding wealth, family members and other things related to the body. The third fetter is rāga, or attachment, through which is born a fondness for acquiring money, property and so on, which are pleasurable to the body and senses. The fourth is dveṣa, or enmity, through which he becomes averse to anything antagonistic to the body and things related. The fifth is abhiniveśa, which means devoting the mind to the acquisition of things conducive to sense enjoyment, or the mind being transformed into the shape of sense objects. Firmly bound by this five-limbed ignorance, the jīva sinks into the mud of desire for mundane sense enjoyment. The inclination for spiritual joy, which is the natural dharma of the self, is transformed into an inclination for worldly pleasures. There is no other way for the māyā-bound jīva than to abandon through sādhu-saṅga his attachment to good and evil actions, which are impediments to devotion, and take shelter of śrī-kṛṣṇa-bhakti. For this reason, Śrīla Ṭhākura Mahāśaya said, chāḍa anya kriyā-karma, nāhi dekha beda-dharma, bhakti kara kṛṣṇa-pada-dvandve. “Give up other scriptural rites and do not look at veda-dharma. Just worship Śrī Kṛṣṇa’s lotus feet.”
* “Normally the eldest son carries out the funerary rites. He lights the funeral pyre after first placing a burning stick in the mouth of the deceased.” From factsanddetails.com.
