This lecture explores the diverse transcendental forms of the Supreme Lord and explains how devotees relate to Him through distinct spiritual moods, ranging from awe and reverence to intimate, sweet love. It details the three realizations of the Absolute Truth—Brahman, Paramatma, and Bhagavan—emphasizing that the ultimate spiritual goal is to transcend material illusion through selfless personal service. Finally, the speaker highlights the magnanimous mood of Lord Caitanya and the spiritual teachers, encouraging listeners to gradually purify their hearts and revive their eternal relationship with the Divine.
This verse is spoken by Kardama Muni, who is a very, very prominent sage, greatly renounced from the material world. He is a liberated soul, a pure devotee of Krishna, and he has been given the honorable assignment by Krishna to, together with other colleagues, shall we say, populate the universe at the beginning of its creation. And this secondary creation is called in Sanskrit visarga. Creation is usually divided into sarga, the primary one, when the material world develops as an expansion, a temporary expansion of the spiritual, eternal dimension. That is the primary creation. And the secondary one is when, so to speak, all the planets and solar systems are in place and inhabitants are to move in, as it were.
So there we have Kardama Muni's position. And in order to go on creating offspring, he needed a suitable consort, a partner, so he asked Lord Vishnu for a woman as qualified as himself. And Vishnu arranged for him to enter into marriage with Devahūti, who was the daughter of another prajāpati, another father of mankind, namely Svāyambhuva Manu.
He partly explains the Lord's position in this verse when he says that Krishna, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, has no material form. But He has His own innumerable forms, innumerable transcendental forms. And what is specific about these different forms is that they appeal to different types of devotees. And this is another Sanskrit concept, called iṣṭa-deva, which means one's own personal God, or form of God. And it has its basis in the fact that devotees have different moods in relation to the Lord.
What is very common in the world today is what is called aiśvarya-bhāva. bhāva means mood, and aiśvarya comes from the word īśvara, which means the supreme controller, the one who ultimately controls everything. And who that is, is explained in the Brahma-saṁhitā:
īśvaraḥ paramaḥ kṛṣṇaḥ sac-cid-ānanda-vigrahaḥ
Devotees sometimes say that this very verse — one single verse — contains more condensed knowledge than, for example, the entire Bible or the entire Quran when it comes to knowledge of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, the ultimate Absolute Truth. And the first two lines of this verse say: the supreme controlling person is Krishna, īśvaraḥ paramaḥ kṛṣṇaḥ. And what is He, then? Well, sac-cid-ānanda-vigrahaḥ. Eternal, sat; cit, fully conscious; and ānanda, completely blissful; and vigraha — He has a personal form, which is the subject of today's Bhagavatam class. rūpa means form, and it is a word that appears in several places in this verse: rūpāṇi, abhirūpāṇi, arūpiṇaḥ and so on.
In the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, a very famous verse, it is explained:
vadanti tat tattva-vidas tattvaṁ yaj jñānam advayam
brahmeti paramātmeti bhagavān iti śabdyate
So the learned, the wise, who have directly beheld the truth, speak of the supreme Absolute Truth in three different aspects. One aspect is Brahman, which we may call the total existential substance. Everything that exists, both in the spiritual dimension and what is temporarily manifested in the material dimension — all of it, including the living beings, is called Brahman.
Paramātma is the next aspect. Brahman is something impersonal; it is, so to speak, all the ingredients of the dough being baked in a bakery, and so on, and all the utensils and the oven and everything — everything is Brahman. sarvaṁ khalvidaṁ brahma, everything is existential substance. Paramātma, on the other hand, is the complete consciousness, that which is conscious of Brahman, all-pervading. Paramātma, the Supersoul or the higher self, which in a way could be likened perhaps to the baker himself, who is aware of all the ingredients and aware of the recipe, aware of the process of making bread, aware of the oven — so one could put it that way, that there is a consciousness which can exert influence over Brahman. It is thus higher than Brahman. Brahman is a realization that impersonal philosophers and others can attain, whereas Paramātma demands greater effort — one must become a yogi and meditate very deeply and so on, and discover the cosmic self within oneself, so to speak.
Finally, Bhagavān. Bhagavān is the Supreme Person, and the Supreme Person is characterized by being infinitely blissful — He has ānanda. Thus: sat, corresponding to Brahman; cit, knowledge, awareness, corresponding to Paramātma; and ānanda, corresponding to the supreme divine person. And then vigrahaḥ — He has a form, a figure of His own.
And an analogy one can read in the thirteenth chapter of the Bhagavad-gītā — which means the Bhagavān-gītā, that is, the Supreme Lord sings, the song of the Supreme Lord — is the philosophy of kṣetra and kṣetra-jña. kṣetra means field, and every person in this material world, for example, also has a field. A kind of... well, we have a form; one could call it an exoskeleton if you like, something that carries us around. And this field is unique to each one of us. There are Swedish fields, Indian, German, Russian fields, male fields, female fields, four-legged, two-legged, fields with wings, fields that grow in the ground, and so on.
But in every such field there is something called kṣetra-jña, and jña comes from the word jñāna, knowledge — the knower of the field. So every — if we keep to the material world — every embodied soul, every spiritual spark inhabiting a material field, or material body, knows that field. Each one of you, for example, knows whether your knees hurt or your back is stiff, or whether you are hungry or need to go to the bathroom, whatever it may be. We do not feel one another. So if we pinch ourselves on the arm, we immediately feel that — oops, there's a pinch; but if I pinch this field here, these other knowers do not feel it — you merely see that I am pinching, but you do not feel it. The difference between the aṇu, the minute living beings, and vibhu, the infinitely great, Krishna, is that we know only our own field and ourselves, our own feelings and so on, directly — whereas Krishna knows all fields.
It is this analogy we find in the Upaniṣads, about two birds sitting in the same tree. This we can call a tree, then. And one bird is busy searching — "what tasty, sweet fruits can I find?" and "oh, these weren't good, they taste bitter" and "ugh," and so on. So he constantly swings between bhoga and tyāga — enjoying something or rejecting something. Whereas the other bird sits calmly to the side, remains neutral, and simply observes what the first bird is up to. "Well, now he wants that, and now he's off over there, and that didn't go so well. Ah, but there he succeeded," and so on. So he perceives absolutely everything that we — well, if we are going to talk about mind reading: we can have no secrets from the Supersoul. The Supersoul knows absolutely everything, so we cannot hide from Krishna, since we are part of Krishna and He is present in our hearts. He is also anumantā — and since Krishna is powerful through and through, or as we say: almighty, all-powerful, omnipotent, omnipotentia — Krishna can arrange everything.
And what is interesting when someone goes and becomes a devotee is that he then begins to contribute to the very purpose of the material world. In truth, its purpose is not that we should be given full facility to have fun without Krishna; rather, we are given limited opportunities to amuse ourselves, but we are also obliged to bear the consequences of it all. If we enjoy ourselves at the expense of others, for example, we often incur bad karma — then we must suffer for those things later. But if we take joy in perhaps helping others and making them happy and satisfied, well, then we get the opportunity later on to rejoice and enjoy, even if it is temporary or material and so on. Those are the rules of the game that apply in the material world.
Those of us who are fortunate and choose to step outside this game of enjoying and suffering and so on, of performing good deeds and performing bad deeds — choosing instead to try to establish ourselves on a transcendental platform — we then truly fulfill the purpose of the material world, which is to be a place where the spiritual souls can get the chance to wake up from this illusion of believing ourselves independent enjoyers of whatever we encounter, without understanding that we are in fact, by our very nature, Krishna's eternal servants. We are meant to water the existential tree at its root, for when we water the root we benefit everyone — we benefit the whole creation, and we benefit Krishna, and ourselves too, for that matter.
And meanwhile Krishna, via the Supersoul, delegates to His material nature — to prakṛti, or māyā, Durgā if you will, the personification of material nature — the arranging of everything that happens to us and so on, the results of our actions. And Krishna says in the Gita: mama vartmānuvartante — everyone follows the path that Krishna has designed for us, since He knows us better than we know ourselves. And for the atheists there is a certain category of paths, which perhaps lead to not particularly pleasant circumstances; and for the faithful, and above all for His personal devotees, the vaiṣṇavas, Krishna has designed other paths, which we follow. So it is Krishna who is behind it. And it is an intricate interplay between His Paramātma aspect and material nature.
And when one has become a devotee, or is trying — the criterion is that one has a desire. One may be a beginner and not know very much about manners or etiquette or philosophy, but if one truly wills it in one's heart — "I want to approach Krishna" — then, since Krishna is bhāva-grāhī janārdanaḥ, He who knows in detail the mood of the devotee and values endeavor far more than position, even a beginner with an intense yearning to be freed from the material world and be given the chance to serve the Lord's lotus feet will find that Krishna supplies every facility and resource for that person to succeed.
yoga-kṣemaṁ vahāmy aham. He preserves what you need in order to serve Him, and He sees to it that you are provided with whatever you may come to need in your devotional service. And this means that Krishna takes a personal interest in your life as an aspiring devotee of God in an entirely different way than with the majority of the conditioned souls of this world, who do not care much about God — or at best care about God insofar as He can grant them material advantages. So one prays to God for something one wants: a new Mercedes or a big color TV, or a beautiful wife or husband, or money, or a Tesla, or whatever it may be. He appreciates that too, in His own way, and shows a little more interest — but that way of approaching God is inferior compared to the devotee who is anyābhilāṣitā-śūnyam.
Such a devotee does not treat Krishna, or God, as a Santa Claus to whom one writes one's wish list: "I've been a good boy and eaten my spinach all year and helped old ladies across the street, and now I want a twelve-speed mountain bike" or some such, so that I can have more fun in this material world. That is something Krishna does address, and in fact encourages, in the Bhagavad-gītā for those persons who stand on that platform — who still have strong desires to enjoy the material world in various ways. But the Bhagavad-gītā ends there; the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam takes over, and the Bhagavatam does not concern itself with these materially motivated religions where one prays to God for things, but only with praying to God to become His servant, to please God. So in the Bhagavatam He casts aside all that is called kaitava-dharma — deceptive, cheating religion — and addresses only those persons who are nirmatsarāṇāṁ satām, the non-envious, envious neither of the Lord nor of any other living beings. dharmaḥ projjhita-kaitavo 'tra paramo nirmatsarāṇāṁ satām, it is explained in the Bhagavatam.
So these persons serve the Lord unconditionally. Not like the impersonal philosophers: "Well, we want to be very spiritual, we want to realize sac-cid-ānanda, we do not want to suffer in the material world — we want mukti, liberation." And then all will be well. But a personal God? No — I don't want to surrender... I have my own opinions about things, and I don't intend to change them merely because there is a God who is to be served and so forth. It is like entering a relationship. If you enter a personal relationship with a friend, or a romantic partner, or whoever it may be, on those terms, it is doomed to fail. One does not enter a relationship so that the other party will make me happy. One enters a relationship in order to have an object upon whom one can truly pour out love and devotion, so that the language of the soul becomes all those practical acts that bring happiness and pleasure to the beloved. That is the pure, selfless anyābhilāṣitā-śūnyaṁ jñāna-karmādy-anāvṛtam.
It is very easy to ask the Lord for things for one's own sake — He is, after all, almighty, so He has complete control over everything. The very definition of the supreme absolute Lord, Bhagavān, is found in a Vedic scripture that, unusually, was not compiled by Śrīla Vyāsadeva but by Vyāsadeva's father, Parāśara Muni; it is explained in the Viṣṇu Purāṇa:
aiśvaryasya samagrasya
vīryasya yaśasaḥ śriyaḥ
*jñāna-vairāgyayoś caiva
ṣaṇṇāṁ bhaga itīṅganā*
ṣaṇ means six — meaning the various opulences, the majestic qualities and assets, that only Bhagavān possesses in full. He owns everything to the utmost extent, whereas we may possess a small measure of these majestic attributes. He has all wealth, He has all power, He has all beauty, He has all fame — Krishna is "the best influencer," as they say — and He also has all renunciation, all detachment. For that is a very attractive quality when one notices it in people. There are, for example, certain artists or film stars who are enormously famous, enormously rich, yet very renounced — who perhaps ride public transport, the subway in New York, who give generously to charity, who before or after their performances thank God for the gifts He has given — "I can sing, I can dance" — acknowledging that all of it comes from God. Such persons become very attractive too, and that is the whole idea behind these bhagas: they make God supremely attractive.
A person who possesses a great deal of knowledge — a professor of this and that, a Nobel laureate, and so on — that is the person one turns to: "You who know everything, what about this?" He becomes very attractive. And such a person can tell you how to navigate through life, perhaps, and shape your own future. A person who is enormously strong and influential, with the power to govern and manage and arrange, becomes enormously attractive — one gladly seeks the company of such a person. A very beautiful person, by beauty alone, becomes enormously attractive — and that is really Krishna's particular beauty: no one can be more beautiful than Krishna.
And, as mentioned, wealth — with money one can buy more or less everything, every object one imagines will yield enjoyment; one can buy people and services, should one need to. And so, the person who possesses all of these qualities to 108 % — that is Krishna, Bhagavān. And that is why Krishna is called "the all-attractive." That is in fact the meaning of the two syllables Krish-na: He who owns all majestic attributes and is therefore supremely attractive.
And if we analyze the situation in the world today, all people are striving for one or more of these bhagas. Who does not want to be beautiful? Who does not want to know everything? Who does not want power? Who does not want all the money? Because then you know that, possessing these things, others will be attracted to you. For that is the disease we carry, the one that brings us to this world: we want to stand at the center. īśvaro 'ham ahaṁ bhogī — I want to be the one who rules and arranges, I want to be the enjoyer. And then one finds it very pleasant when people place me at the center. Yes — I receive all the honor, and all the rasgullas and all the halava and paneer, whatever it may be, and everyone tells me: "Oh, you are so capable, you are so learned, you look so good," and so on.
But the fact is that people are attracted to one another for the same wrong reasons that we are attracted to God. Namely, that we want a piece of the cake. I reckon that if I befriend this very rich person, perhaps I'll get some money — he has so much in the bank anyway, surely he can spare me a slice. And if I keep company with this film star, beautiful and famous, perhaps I'll get to stand beside them on the red carpet, before all the spotlights and cameras, and feel important. To strut, as we say, in borrowed plumes. It is like the peacock with those beautiful feathers — one can pluck a few and stick them in one's own hat: look, "see how fine I am," and so on.
And the thing is that Krishna, deep down, actually welcomes people approaching Him even with that kind of desire — He says it is quite all right. Better that you come to Me directly than keep troubling My demigods, who have their hands full administering the material world. They are His highly trusted, extremely competent devotees, managing all the wind, all the water, the sun, the moon, all the resources, and so on. They manage fire, and they have their hands full with it — and admittedly they can sometimes land in a spot of stormy weather. I am thinking now not only of Vāyu but above all of Indra, who gets up to certain antics, being the king of the demigods and imagining he may take liberties with other men's wives, and so on; and when he goes out on his rounds and involves himself with the wrong sort of wives — the lady in question may be the consort of a very powerful muni, a sage such as Gautama Muni — he can meet with very severe consequences, something we had perhaps better not go into here today.
But it does show that even the demigods have their faults and shortcomings. And many times Krishna employs those faults and shortcomings in His divinely wonderful pastimes, His līlās in this world; He orchestrates pastimes on a great many levels, for His own enjoyment, for His devotees' enjoyment, and for the enlightenment of those who hear of these pastimes. As when Krishna decides: "Okay — instead of petitioning Ganesha, or Shiva, or Durga, this one and that one, you may come to Me. I can give you that as well, for what they give ultimately comes from Me."
But the finest thing, the thing He values most, is this: "Krishna, I appreciate You for who You are. Your beauty, Your pastimes, Your wonderful voice, Your flute playing — all of it. I want nothing from You." Sometimes Krishna may give something anyway — He can plunge devotees into ecstasy, but then they protest: "Ah, stop it now — I cannot fan You properly while I'm in ecstasy." So it becomes something of a problem. But there are many examples of this, such as...
Okay. So Krishna appreciates it most of all when one approaches Krishna simply because He is who He is — not for what He has, nor for what He can accomplish — He is simply a particular form. He can be a small child, if one feels a fatherly or motherly, loving mood toward Krishna. He can be terrifyingly fearsome, mighty, powerful — half lion, half man — so that one, like Prahlāda, can relate to that form of the Lord.
And one can... well, He has infinitely many forms. In India the distinction is perhaps most marked between what are called Kṛṣṇa-bhaktas and Rāma-bhaktas. There are very many — perhaps the great majority, what do I know — who are devotees of Lord Ramachandra, and who truly cherish this noble king who, wholly filled with love and care for his citizens, made Ayodhya, his kingdom, into practically a replica of the spiritual world: everyone's wishes were fulfilled, everyone was happy and healthy, and everyone loved Ramachandra unconditionally. But so too is Krishna in Dvaraka. There, mind you, He is king — He has 16,108 palaces with as many queens — so there are opportunities in abundance to attend upon and worship the Lord in this mood, as a king; and that is called aiśvarya-bhāva, in which one sees far more of Krishna's bhagas: His power, His wealth and His influence, His knowledge, and so on.
But then we have what is called mādhurya-bhāva — the sweet mood, in which one somehow lays the titles aside. One does not approach Krishna with awe and reverence, and often enough fear — as is very typical, for example, in Islam, where one fears the Lord's wrath, which in itself is a good thing, for if one fears God it may at least mean one behaves tolerably well toward one's fellow human beings, not least. But in mādhurya-rasa one forgets that this is the almighty, all-knowing Lord — rather, like mother Yashoda: "Ah, that's my sweet little boy." Or the gopis, or Radha: "This is that young, wonderful youth we want to dance with and embrace," and so on. Or the cowherd boys, who want to play tag or hide-and-seek, or ride on Krishna's shoulders. Having a good time, in these various relationships.
So where there is relationship — real relationship with the supreme Absolute Truth — there must also be a specific form. Not that Krishna is impersonal and one may think and do as one pleases and so on, or stand independent of Him; rather, one develops a taste for a particular form of God. And we might then debate whether one is worth more than another, but on the transcendental plane those differences do not exist; rather, each devotee is like a drinking glass. Fill the glass with Ramachandra and it is full; fill it with Narasimha and it is full; fill it with Krishna and it is full. It makes no difference — it is transcendental, and there one holds no material distinctions or concepts, no upādhis, no labels on things.
So this is the perfection: embracing one's own drinking glass and that with which one wishes to fill it. Filling it with the Pañca-tattva is neither more nor less worthy than Ramachandra or Krishna or Narasimha or whichever it may be. The ācāryas do assign a kind of transcendental precedence to mādhurya-bhāva — the sweet, essentially equal footing with the Lord — because it yields more sweetness, more intensity, and so on. Thus they concern themselves not at all with liberation, where one has essentially just been let out of prison: "Oh, I no longer suffer — now I am self-realized, I have realized my tiny little sat, my tiny little cit, my tiny little ānanda, and that will do for now, at any rate." But compared with Krishna-bhakti — no, that does not hold up in the long run.
Either one returns to the material world, where one can experience more variety, or one takes the further step and uses one's mukti as a springboard to truly enter the infinite realm of transcendental variegatedness, of pure love for Krishna. So mādhurya stands a little closer, for dāsya and sakhya — or dāsya and śānta, passive or active service to the Lord — carry a little more of a barrier, rather like the barrier between employee and boss, or subject and king. One can feel affection and longing and love, but when that barrier falls away, it grows more intense. And sometimes Krishna plays upon this, as in the case of mother Yashoda, when Balarama came and reported, as it were: "Listen — your son Krishna is out eating dirt."
And no mother wants to hear that her child is eating dirt, for it may contain all manner of things — viruses and germs and parasites and such. "No, no, you must not eat dirt." So she called: "Krishna, come here at once," and she meant to open His mouth and pick out the dirt, more or less. But when Krishna opens His mouth, mother Yashoda beholds the universal form — that is Krishna's prank, playing a trick on His mother. And she is utterly — "Wow! There is the whole universe and cosmos, and there am I, and there is Krishna" — and she begins, she begins to offer prayers, very much in this vein of awe and reverence and so on. But then Krishna thought: "Well, it was rather exciting that Mother is like this today. Okay" — and then He casts His yoga-māyā over her, and: "Yes, yes, You may very well be the ultimate cause of all causes and the foundation and the ruler of all the universes and all that — but You are still my sweet little boy, so come here now and have some yogurt." And there we have the superiority of mādhurya.
And then there is a third mood, which is very special. It is something possessed by a particular category of gopis. Broadly we have a couple of categories: we have the so-called sakhīs, and the sakhīs are those who serve Krishna and Radha directly — they are there arranging and managing everything so that Krishna and Radha may have the finest possible time together. The mañjarīs, on the other hand, are those who essentially assist the sakhīs; they may not have much direct dealing with Radha and Krishna, but they are — they are young girls who help the sakhīs to facilitate. And this mood of wishing to facilitate for others is utterly unique.
And it is called audārya-bhāva, and it is what characterizes Lord Caitanya and his followers. He would not hear of being the Supreme Personality of Godhead — rather: "No, no, no — viṣṇu, viṣṇu, viṣṇu," whenever anyone began glorifying Lord Caitanya. He wanted to be a servant; he wanted to relish serving — well, essentially himself, for śrī-kṛṣṇa-caitanya rādhā-kṛṣṇa nahe anya: Lord Caitanya is none other than Radha and Krishna combined. And it is a special bhāva, a special mood, to experience the feelings that flow between Radha and Krishna.
And those who facilitate — "jīv jāgo jīv jāgo gauracandra bole — wake up! You are Krishna's eternal servant; your position is to facilitate Krishna's and Radha's enjoyment." Stop this nonsense of idling in the material world, for it profits neither the world nor you; embrace instead your position as kṛṣṇera nitya-dāsa, for that is what you exist for. And such a person — who encourages, who writes books and speaks of these things, who chants the holy name and lets others hear it — is, one might say, something of a missionary, and is marked by this audārya-bhāva: they are liberal, charitable, generous.
And such was Lord Caitanya, and such was Śrīla Prabhupāda, and the other ācāryas — Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura, Bhaktisiddhānta — they have this generosity. There are, mind you, also bābā-jīs in our tradition, greatly elevated devotees, who took no disciples; they preferred to sit in their bhajana-kuṭira and meditate and chant the holy name and sing bhajanas and so on — so-called bhajanānandīs. Whereas those of the more generous, liberal spirit — often at their own expense; some, at an advanced age, crossing the ocean on freight ships and suffering heart attacks and all manner of things in order to spread this to others — they are called goṣṭhy-ānandīs.
And therefore, when we consider the relationship with the Lord and His pure devotees, there must always be a person. To say that God has no material form or figure at all — that is a great offense, for the Lord is the source of all relationships, of everything. He is rasa-vigrahaḥ. He is the source of all moods. Nor should one say of His pure devotees... well, they have material forms, one might suppose — but beyond that, one who is a pure devotee has a transcendental form, free from all material designations and so on.
So, in any case: here we have Kardama Muni, glorifying the Lord and setting the concepts straight. And Prabhupāda, in his purport, asserts one thing very firmly: that when you say Krishna, it does not mean only Krishna, Krishna — it means Krishna, Varāha, Narasiṁha, Ramachandra, et cetera. All His innumerable forms, with any one of which different devotees prefer to develop their personal relationship.
So the example — to finish quickly here — is from the Caitanya-caritāmṛta, where Lord Caitanya tested one of his pure devotees — and by that I mean Krishna's devotees. Murāri Gupta was a physician, and he was a very, very steadfast Rāma-bhakta. And Mahāprabhu pushed and teased him a little: "What's all this about Ram? You should become a Kṛṣṇa-bhakta — Krishna is far better," and so on. And Murāri Gupta loved Lord Caitanya, so he thought: "Well, of course — I must try to do as the Lord says." So he went home and tried: "Okay — not Ram, but Krishna, Krishna." But it would not work. He came back to Lord Caitanya the next day and said: "I lay awake all night, I wept — I could not abandon my Lord, Lord Ramachandra. So I am sorry if I disappoint you." But then Lord Caitanya said: "By no means — you have truly proven yourself a pure devotee."
So there one sees how a devotee with a clear conscience... we may even live at Almvik and feel that the Pañca-tattva are utterly wonderful, they are... "But I am so fond of Bālagopāla," or of some other form — that is nothing to be ashamed of; it is simply how Krishna has arranged it. But we should also know that in worshiping the Pañca-tattva, we worship all the other forms of God at the same time, for they are all present in Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu, Nityananda, Advaita, Gadadhara, right.
I would like to stop there — does anyone have a comment, perhaps, or a question?
Yes, of course.
Participant: What did you call it — when someone has what Śrīla Prabhupāda had, a desire, a feeling?
Speaker: Well, I am not qualified to pronounce upon the feelings of the ācāryas, but their behavior is plain to see: they exerted themselves enormously to give this precious treasure to others — bhagavat-tattva, the knowledge, the truth of the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Which is not to say that those of the more withdrawn bhajanānandī disposition are worth any less from the transcendental point of view. But these others are very special, and we have...
Participant: What did you call it — that word?
Speaker: Audārya. It is Lord Caitanya — he has his own planet in Vaikuntha. And audārya — those who follow Lord Caitanya are at bottom preachers, for that is Lord Caitanya's mood. They seek to awaken, to inspire other living beings to take shelter at the Lord's lotus feet. So if one judges — observes — the behavior of the ācāryas, such as those I mentioned, they are very generous, very liberal, and they are prepared to... well, essentially: "I care nothing for going back to Godhead — I can take birth in whatever universe Krishna needs me in, to write books, or spread the truth, or inspire the other souls to draw closer." So it is characteristic of those who follow Lord Caitanya and his successors — all the rūpānugas, the followers of the six Gosvāmīs — that we all feel an immense debt of gratitude to these mighty, eminent teachers. For had it not been for them, we would not be sitting here today. That is simply how it is.
So if you can develop that mood — mañjarī, audārya-bhāva — then do so; but it always begins with understanding that you are not this body, that it is foolish to eat meat, that it is idiotic to engage in illicit sex, take drugs, and gamble, and so on. That is where it begins. And then you take it seriously, and above all treat the other devotees with respect and reverence — then success is guaranteed. And then you can very swiftly purify your heart and reach that platform where we may begin to ponder these esoteric matters. And the way you go about it is this: if you feel an attraction to Lord Ram, for example — very fine — then you study his devotees, above all Hanumān, the best incarnation of Lord Shiva, the most eminent of vaiṣṇavas, and follow in his footsteps. How does Hanumān think, what does Hanumān do, and so on. And likewise with Lord Krishna, with Lord Caitanya — you find one of his eminent devotees whose books you can read, and study how they served this form to which I, for whatever reason, feel so great an attraction.
So one walks a very gradual path — one cannot simply leap in: "Now I am a Rāma-bhakta, now I am a Narasiṁha-bhakta." Rather: are you attracted to Lord Narasimha? He has a great many fine qualities. Then read about Prahlāda Mahārāja, for example. If you are attracted to Krishna in some way — you feel, "Oh, He, the driver of Arjuna's chariot," you feel some stirring of "I too would like to become Krishna's friend" — well then, you study Arjuna, or you study Uddhava: how they thought, what they did, and so on.
Rather advanced matters — but with the right singular and strong will, you can quite quickly come so far that your heart is purified, and Krishna will keep noticing: "Yes — now she is ready for this; here you are. Now she is ready for that; now you may." And so, okay.
Anything else?
Okay. I believe we are running over time.
Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam kī jaya!
Śrīla Prabhupāda kī jaya!
Gaura-premānande haribol!