Nasty Eva Gatir Anyatha - Is there no other way?

Every devotee knows the famous verse, starting with harer nama.... "There is no other way". I was contemplating this verse a lot, and to be honest, I just do not know how to understand it properly. I am sure that it is not a manifesto of any sectarian, superior spirit: "Only WE have the supreme truth, the supreme path, the supreme method etc." This would suggest that all the millions of spiritual practitioners of the world, Buddhists, Shaivites, Christians et cetera, are simply ignorant or at best pseudo-spiritualists, and as many sects claim, the supreme truth is in the hands of a few thousand "chosen ones". I perfectly understand that we have taken up the process of bhakti because for us it worked best, but can we state that this is the "best" for everyone, and all other sadhakas of other processes are inferior?

What do you think?

I think that, whoever resists the fact that there is gradation in spirituality, might suffer from a complex of inferiority.

Or, I could put it this way: its not a question of 'best' but, as the verse says, the 'only' way.

It is the only way for the result intended: Shivaites do not want that result, neither do brahmavadis. For some other orientation this goal may be inferior as well. A Kali-worshipper wants power (at least some sadhakas do) he does not care for bhava. The Buddhist wants peace, dissolution of ego, whatever; he does not care what bhaktas say or do not say. It is for us good to see the gradation of goals, but to enforce that gradation on others is doing harm to them. Everyone deserves respect, as Sri Gauranga has taught and lived.

There definitely is gradation is spirituality, but there is also unnecessary pride that may appear when a certain group of people consider themselves the only proprietors of the truth. And just as the feeling of inferiority is unfavorable on the spiritual path, so is arrogance. It is a bit funny to see some devotees without any spiritual advancement apart from changing their clothes and hairdo to look at persons like the Dalai Lama with a superior smile, because after all he is just a poor Mayavadi...

Nabadip: thank you, you have mentioned the most important point: it is the best for us. Yes. No doubt of it, that is why we chose this path. But, as you pointed out, this can never be taken as a license to belittle other spiritual paths.

That verse specifically is refering to the method of self realization in the age of Kali, it wasn't written in consideration of religions outside of the vedic dharma.

The teaching is that in Kail yuga other yogic paths are too difficult.

But we can take it to also include non dharmic traditions, the basic premise is that the highest truth is Radha dasyam and rasa, since no other religion presents the highest truth then by default there is no other way.

You may attain to a certain level of god consciousness following another path but ultimately without knowledge of Radha Krishna and rasa you will not qualify to enter into God's confidence as an intimate.

Why would it be a must for everyone to enter Vraja? I do not believe in the tale of "we all fell from Goloka" any more.

As a matter of fact, I think our traditions lack a lot of what other traditions have. We do not get quick results as sadhanas get that include silent meditation. We can chant for years and still have a problem with negative emotions which are easily checked with insight-meditation. In terms of the here and now our traditions are extremely weak. Our path is different, with the many lives ahead in view, while especially the Buddhists provide instant solutions. Compassion is not one of the experienced strengths of our traditions. I know of only one really loving compassionate vaishnava in a responsible position, a mahant, in Vraja, and ironically he is not a Bengali. (Bengalis are known in India as being a rather arrogant ethnic group "by nature". Gaudiya means Bengali, so we are dealing with some special heritage here, quite fitting to our passionate western ways.)

If you do not take the Names of Hari, how will you enter His abode?

Openmind,

An individual may decide to go wherever he pleases, but to be intimate with a raganuga person this individual would be advised start thinking raganuga. The path itself is about individuals; with Whom one wants to be.

We did not fall from Goloka but we did not fall from any other place either...

I also observed that often senior devotees leave KC to take up processes like Reiki and meditation, because they experience that despite chanting and serving faithfully for years, when they look into themselves, they find the same neurotical tendencies and karmic traces they had before starting KC. Definitely there are persons with very positive samskaras who just start chanting and their lives becomes successful spontaneously, but in many cases the fact is that devotees often need some other methods like hatha-yoga, tai-chi, silent meditation, etc. to back up their devotional lives, so the principle "just do japa and everything will become perfect, nothing else is required" may not work, otherwise we would not see so many divorces and so many frustrated, bitter and depressed persons among devotees.

Anand:

Yes, if someone is attracted to Krsna and His abode, one should take up Krsna-bhakti. But I would not consider a particular person not attracted to running around as a cowherd boy/girl inferior to those who have this inspiration. Do you agree with that?

I absolute disagree with this. You don't 'back up' your spiritual life with methods for health improvement. This is actually a little short of commiting the offense of considering the Holy Name just another method for so called self-improvement. As a 'back-up' for chanting what one needs is proper sanga.

The Holy Name can make one depressed, frustrated, bitter, and yes, disagreeable with one's spouse. Sastras are full of examples of such.

If one's goal is to be happy in paradise, there you have it, aim for paradise...

Our pandits will perhaps supply the Sanskrt slokas where some of the Goswamis recommend pranayama as a back up for japa (maybe in HBV?). So how about offences?

Nabadip I think the solution for gaudiyas is with knowledge, you may try silent meditation etc, but the path of the Bhagavata is knowledge of absolute truth. When you study the Bhagavata you learn the truth of the mind and the movements of all things and people.

It is by knowledge of absolute truth that the yogi learns to see all and everything to be nothing more then a manifestation of the will of the supreme.

With this vision he/she sees everthing equally and is situated in transcendence, the mind or others movements are all seen with clarity and one is able to see the controller manipulating reality, it's all about knowledge.

This is the path included within the Harer nama verse, it is meant to include the study of the Bhagavata. Mahaprabhu taught that the Bhagavata was the means of salvation along with the holy names, this is because knowledge is necessary as well as mantras.

When someone is attracted to Krsna and His abode, one has ALREADY taken up Krsna-bhakti.

Pranayama is not a must but an option. Generally, shariram adyam khalu dharma sadhanam - The key to a healthy sadhana is a healthy body. Any aid to that, like hatha yoga or pranayama, is good work done. It should not, however, take precedence over harinama. It should be a support sadhana, not a chief sadhana.

Everything you do, even down to brushing your teeth properly, should be done exclusively in support to Bhakti.

What is a senior devotee? One who gets special discounts at drugstores? By some standards a 'senior' devotee would never have the thought of 'leaving' KC.

What Openmind implies here is that many groups promise paradise through the Holy Name, (chant H.K. and be happy) and while it may happen during the kirtan, it does not do the job of cleaning the mirror of the mind as promised. Now you can quote hundreds of verses about offence and all, it does not change the fact of life that this process does not fulfill that promise forever and people need other processes for their needs, and if it is only an extra mega-dose of Vitamin C or B-complex (that takes care of depression to some degree).

The Holy Name can give you paradise as well, complete with the best Vitamin C. That is also a fact of life. It all depends Whom you chant with and in what state of mind.

Ah, this timeless bit of wisdom. We need to take care of bodily and mental balance to ensure our having a functional vessel for spiritual undertakings and progress.

If all were taken care of by the holy name, then we certainly wouldn't need to sleep, eat, evacuate, take medicine or indeed do anything else at all but chant. Certainly that might work for some, but for me it certainly doesn't. Call me faithless if you will, but we need to progress with patience and due consideration to ensure that we are on the path after a decade or two still.

I do regular Taiji, and I can experience practically how it brings about balance both in body and mind, making it easier to focus on that which is essential in life.

I think talk of absolute truth is a misnomer, an unhappy translation, the experts may correct me, but when tattva is referred to truth, it actually means essence (that-ness). I'd prefer to speak of absolute reality, because truth is a matter of language games, whereas reality is a matter of existence. The Bhagavatam speakes in enchanting ways about reality, there is little apologetics there, but it is about the vast panorama of the levels of existence, of a reality that is not meant to be only understood, but tasted, enjoyed.

As a personalist I get knowledge of different aspects of divine reality through the Bhagavatam and other texts. As a recipient of Sridhar Maharaj teachings you remember his jnana-sunya-bhakti conclusion. Bhakti that does not look for knowledge. But I know what you mean, D. Hari ji.

Exactly. How many of those thousands of ecstatic, shiny happy youngsters sitting and listening in the 70's to ACBS lecturing about how chanting will solve everything and nothing else is necessary are still on the path of bhakti today?

If what you need is a number, I don't think anybody has come up with precise statistics. Specially if you consider, according to the tendency of your own philosophy, the realtivity of "being on the path".

My use of the term absolute truth is meant as that which is the essential or fundamental truth as the foundation of all of reality, that which is true in all circumstances and at all times.

It is absolutely true that everything is a manifestation of the will and manipulation of the supreme being, with this as the basis or foundation of our world view then gradually we leave behind all mental distrubance related to seeing dualites.

In other words you will be peacefull because everything in your awareness is percieved as being controlled, things are as God desires them to be, so any kind of idea that chaos or non controlled reality is invading your awareness i.e emotions dominating intellect, other peoples actions or words, the weather etc, will gradually come to be observed from a detached position, we will see the action and we will see the controller of the action, mental or physical.

Absolute truth is observation of everything in your awareness i.e either mental thoughts or the world around you, with the detached knowledge that it is all a virtual reality under complete and total manipulation.

This is absolute truth because it is always true in all circumstances and at all times, all other "truths" are relative to this concept.

When we can detach our vision from seeing the mayic or illusory paradigm to the point where even our thoughts are understood to be also a manipulation not of our doing, then at that point you have attained the level of self realization or atma tattva.

Then Paramatma realization is given, when you are able to detach your conscious awareness as being the controller of your thoughts, then the mind is able to reveal it's true nature, it is always controlled by Paramatma.

This is the absolute truth of the Bhagavata, mantras alone or meditation alone or both combined are not enough, knowledge of absolute truth is necessary to enable you to enter into the realm of absolute truth, where everything is understood and revealed to be a single conscious entity masquerading as this world and our minds.

So its absolutely true that everything is the Absolute Truth.

If you argue on a maya versus reality basis, you are caught in a solipsistic circle that you cannot transcend your brain and what it allows to be seen as real, or true. The reality as such, das Ding an sich, may very well be totally different to it all, and most likely is totally different. Faith is the only way, but even that, or especially that is easiliy misguided. Even in faith you are dependent upon brain-functions. The ultimate conclusion is the total, absolute dependence upon a merciful God, after the relinquishment of all, all, pretensions to any kind of knowledge. For me this is Sri Nitai. Joy Nitai!

Knowledge is not necessary if you live in lila under yoga maya, for everyone else it is the boat that keeps your mind from drowning in the sea of ignorance.

The brain is not a consideration in the realm of absolute truth, knowledge and perception is not coming from the brain, it comes from the mind.

The mind is controlled and a manifestation of God, our ability to percieve absolute truth has as it's foundation knowledge of absolute truth, this is why a guru or sastra or sadhu is required rather then cave dwelling.

Absolute truth is not relative to the perception of others, rather we understand absolute truth relative to our knowledge and it's desire.

As far as i see we all have differing conceptions of what you call absolute truth. The absoluteness is only axiomatic, you can only assume it, or neglect it. I assume it with you, but its absoluteness can be totally relative to someone else, a Christian for instance.

Truth has a bad reputation in our post-antiquity culture. And today you cannot reverse the achievements of the Enlightenment (the turn to transcendental subjectivity), otherwise you are simply not credible. You can behave like a medieval scholastic, arguing away, but you are not in step with the 'condition humaine' of the present.

The brahmana is one who has knowledge of Brahman, the modern philosophers whether esoteric or not are failures because they do not have the foundation of vedanta as their basis for discrimination between subjective and objective reality.

The Vedanta viewpoint is based on the Vedanta Sutra 1.1.1 athato brahma jijnasa, without this as the starting point, all philosophy is speculation.

You say we cannot turn back time and reverse the "enlightenment" and transcendental subjectivity, and if this is not our goal in our teaching to the public then what are we doing ? What are we teaching ? Truth is subjective to your experience ?

That is not what the yoga schools teach, we teach vedanta, and it is being accepted and will continue to be accepted.

Spiritual Truth is not subjective it is absolute otherwise it is not truth, spiritual truth means it transcends temporary considerations, today tomorrow or a 1,000 years ago the spiritual truth is the same.

Any other concept is not teaching spiritual or non material philosophy, matter changes, people grow and die, civilizations grow and die, but consciousness is the same yesterday today and tomorrow, there are no fads or temporary considerations that effect the realm of consciousness, it always exists within the same reality, the external world changes while the internal remains the same, the mind and body change, the consciousness remains the same substance.

Any philosopher who wants to understand spiritual truth has to admit that time place and circumstance do not affect the non material reality, it is not subjective to our experience, our understanding of it is relative to our knowledge and experience, it is not subject to philosophers deliberations, we know this because we cannot control reality, we are at the mercy of this reality, so any rational vision would be that "truth" is absolute and our understanding is relative to our knowledge of it, otherwise "truth" in spiritual terms has no meaning because it is based on material or temporary subjective considerations.

Real absolute truth is so because we cannot change it, we cannot influence it to come under our whims, we cannot choose to live as long as we desire nor can we choose to not age, this is absolute truth, it remains while speculators change.