Prātaḥ-kālīna-bhajana - Sādhu-saṅga and Anartha-nivṛtti

You have manifested many holy names and invested all Your own powers in them. You have set no fixed time for remembering them. Such is Your mercy, O Bhagavān, even toward me; yet such is my misfortune that no attachment to Your Name has arisen within me.

Śrīla Kṛṣṇadāsa Kavirāja Gosvāmī explains: People have desires of many kinds, and in Your mercy You have spread many names. One may take the Name while eating, lying down, or wherever one happens to be. There is no restriction of place or time, and all perfection follows. You distributed all Your powers among these names, but my misfortune is that I have no attachment to the Name.

O Holy Name, may my love for You increase greatly in Your many forms: subduer of Agha, joy of Yaśodā, son of Nanda, lotus-eyed Lord, moon of the gopīs, sovereign of Vṛndāvana, merciful Kṛṣṇa who shelters those who bow before Him.

Hari drew together every auspicious, sin-destroying potency found in charity, vows, austerity, pilgrimage, the gods and great souls, the Rājasūya and Aśvamedha sacrifices, spiritual knowledge, and realization of the self, and established them all within His own names.

Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura summarizes: Whatever power existed in religious duty, sacrifice, yoga, and knowledge, Kṛṣṇa Himself placed entirely within Hari's Name.

The Name is not bound by place or time, nor by a judgment of purity or impurity. Simply by congregationally chanting, "Rāma! Rāma!" one is liberated.

Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura explains: The Name is subject to no rule of place, time, cleanliness, or uncleanliness. By uttering the names Hare, Kṛṣṇa, and Rāma, one crosses beyond bondage at once.

By providence their intelligence has been ruined. Their senses turn away from association with You, although that association extinguishes every inauspicious thing. Their minds overwhelmed by greed, these wretched persons continually commit harmful acts for the merest fragment of sensual pleasure.

Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura laments: Association with You reduces every misfortune to nothing, yet under the influence of my bad fortune my mind has made no effort to seek it. Hoping for the slightest sensual pleasure, greed leads me laboriously toward what is harmful.

When his stainless mind was perfectly concentrated through bhakti-yoga, Vyāsa saw the complete Supreme Person together with māyā, who rests under His control. Bewildered by her, the living being, though transcendental, imagines himself composed of the three qualities and accepts the unwanted conditions produced by that error. Direct devotion to Adhokṣaja is the means by which these unwanted conditions cease.

Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura explains: Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa's māyā, and the living being are three truths. Deluded by māyā, the conditioned soul is bound by her and suffers unwanted entanglements. The living being is a particle of consciousness; by the strength of bhakti-yoga to Kṛṣṇa, those entanglements are destroyed and love of Kṛṣṇa bears fruit. Vyāsa realized these truths in the samādhi of the Name and revealed bhakti-yoga in the Bhāgavata.

Four kinds of unwanted condition must be recognized in the living being bewildered by māyā: weakness of heart, offenses, thirst for the unreal, and confusion about spiritual truth.

Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura explains: The māyā-deluded soul has four poisonous afflictions: thirst for the unreal, weakness of heart, offense, and confusion about one's true nature. Bound by these four, the soul's worldly calamities spread without end.

Confusion about truth is fourfold: concerning one's own nature, the nature of the Supreme, the goal and the means of attaining it, and matters opposed to devotion.

Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura explains: Four forms of doctrinal confusion are extremely dangerous: error about one's own identity, error about Kṛṣṇa, error about the goal and its practice, and error about obstacles. These four delusions bind the community of conditioned souls.

Unwholesome thirst for the unreal is fourfold: craving for objects in this life, craving for rewards in the next, desire for mystic or material power, and longing for liberation.

Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura states: Worldly ambition, otherworldly ambition, desire for power, and desire for liberation are the four forms of asat-tṛṣṇā.

The wise should always understand offenses to be fourfold: offenses toward Kṛṣṇa's Name, His spiritual form, the conscious particles who belong to Him, and other living beings.

Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura explains: Errors concerning Kṛṣṇa's Name and form, His devotees, and other persons give rise to four classes of offense.

The wise should always recognize four forms of weakness of heart: attachment to trivial things, deceitful duplicity, envy, and hunger for one's own prestige.

Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura explains: Attachment to things other than Kṛṣṇa, deceit, hostility toward others, and the hope for prestige are the four weaknesses of heart identified in scripture. From them arise the six inner enemies and the six waves of material existence. As long as these unwanted growths remain, the creeper of devotion can never flourish.

One who has fallen into the dreadful cycle of birth and death but helplessly utters His Name is freed at once, for fear itself is afraid of that Name.

Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura explains: Fallen into this terrible world, a person who takes Kṛṣṇa's Name is immediately liberated. Fear itself becomes afraid of him.

Fear arises when the soul turns from the Lord and becomes absorbed in what is secondary to Him. Then inversion and forgetfulness of one's true identity appear through the Lord's māyā. The wise therefore worship Him with undivided devotion, regarding the spiritual master as their lord, worshipful deity, and very self.

Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura explains: Abandoning Kṛṣṇa, the living being became absorbed in other things; therefore inversion, forgetfulness, and suffering overtook him. Taking shelter of a genuine guru and hoping for Kṛṣṇa's mercy, he performs exclusive worship and approaches Kṛṣṇa.

Faithful sages, endowed with knowledge and detachment, hear the revelation and through devotion behold the Supreme Self within the self. When bhakti-yoga is offered to Bhagavān Vāsudeva, it quickly produces causeless knowledge and detachment.

Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura explains: With faith, one worships the Name, receives the mercy of the sādhus, understands one's eternal nature, and becomes detached from all else. This is called unsurpassed bhakti-yoga. If one follows its stages, bhakti-yoga grants every perfection.

A seeker of truth need inquire only into that which exists everywhere and at all times, discerning it through direct agreement and through the exclusion of what is absent.

Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura explains: Effort to destroy unwanted habits is of two kinds, the positive approach and the negative approach. Positively, one follows the injunctions for bhajana; negatively, one rejects the many false shelters opposed to it.

A sober person who can withstand the impulses of speech, mind, anger, tongue, belly, and genitals is qualified to instruct the entire world.

Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura explains: The urges of speech and mind, anger, tongue, belly, and genitals disturb bhajana. Restrain them all constantly and with great care, and worship Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa in solitude.

Devotion is destroyed by six things: overeating or excessive accumulation, fruitless exertion, idle talk, rigid attachment to rules or disregard for them, worldly association, and restless greed.

Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura states: Overconsumption, needless labor, gossip, worldly company, obstinacy about rules, and fickle greed break the course of bhakti.

Offering gifts and accepting gifts, revealing one's heart and hearing another's confidences, taking food and feeding others are the six marks of love.

Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura explains: Giving and receiving, intimate conversation, eating and feeding are the six characteristics of affectionate association. In the company of sādhus devotion grows; through the unholy company of nondevotees it declines.

Śrīman Mahāprabhu said: For a renunciant who is intent on worshipping Bhagavān and longs to cross to the far shore of the ocean of becoming, meeting materialistic people or seeking intimate association with women is, alas, even more harmful than drinking poison.

Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura explains: For one without possessions who has turned toward bhajana and desires to cross the ocean of worldly existence, association with sensualists and intimate association with women obstruct the goal more grievously than poison.

Do not regard a devotee as material because of faults arising from his nature or still visible in his body. The liquid spiritual nature of the Gaṅgā is never lost because bubbles, foam, and mud appear in her water.

Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura explains: Never dishonor a pure devotee because a bodily defect or a habit born of previous nature appears for a moment. Scripture declares that mud, foam, or other qualities of water never abolish the Gaṅgā's spiritual character. The devotee is transcendental and does not deliberately commit sin; remnants of former sin disappear after a short time.

The brazen outcaste woman called thirst for prestige dances within my heart. How then can pure and saintly prema ever touch it? O mind, always serve the incomparable leaders who are dear to the Lord, so that they may swiftly drive her out and establish prema within you.

O mind, bathing in the foul stream poured out by the ass-like burden of deceit and crookedness, why do you burn both yourself and me? Instead, bathe always in the nectarean ocean bright with love for the feet of Gāndharvā and Giridhara; then bring deep happiness to yourself and to me.

Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura instructs: Carefully drive away the desire for prestige and deceitful behavior. When they are gone, abundant taste for the Name will arise.

To spread the grave offense called criticism of sādhus is intolerable to the Holy Name, for how could the Name endure condemnation of those whose spiritual fame has become known? One who considers the qualities, names, and all else belonging to Śiva and Śrī Viṣṇu to be separate and independent acts against Hari's Name. The other offenses are to disregard the guru; revile the revealed scriptures; treat the Name's glories as exaggeration; impose an imaginary meaning upon Hari's Name; resolve to sin on the strength of the Name; equate the chanting of the Name with piety such as religious duties, vows, renunciation, and sacrifice; instruct the faithless, unwilling, and inattentive in the Name; and, even after hearing the Name's greatness, remain without love for it and deeply absorbed in "I" and "mine." Such a person also commits offense to the Name.

Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura summarizes: Disrespecting sādhus; regarding other gods as independent of the Lord; neglecting the guru; dishonoring the scriptures of the Name; treating its praises as exaggeration; sinning on the Name's strength; equating the Name with other auspicious works; giving it to the faithless; and, through material attachment, remaining without faith even after knowing its greatness: carefully avoid these ten offenses, brother, and worship through Hari's Name with discernment.

When seekers of liberation regard things connected with Hari as material and abandon them, their renunciation is called shallow or false.

Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura explains: A renunciant's rejection of objects related to bhakti because he judges them worldly is known as phalgu-vairāgya.

O King, one who has wholly taken shelter of Mukunda, the shelter of all, and has abandoned every lesser refuge is no longer a servant or debtor of the gods, sages, living beings, relatives, humanity, or ancestors.

Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura explains: One who exclusively takes shelter of the Name never again remains indebted to the gods and other beings.

Viṣṇu is always to be remembered and never forgotten. Every injunction and prohibition is simply a servant of these two principles.

Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura explains: Know as an injunction whatever brings remembrance of Kṛṣṇa, and regard as prohibited whatever causes one to forget Him.

Even a degraded person who commits offenses to Hari may someday take shelter of the Name and cross beyond those offenses through the Name alone. But one who offends the Name, the friend of all, falls low. For those burdened by offenses to the Name, the Names themselves remove sin when uttered continuously; those very Names also bestow the sought-for fruit.

Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura explains: If one commits offense toward Kṛṣṇa's sacred form, shelter of the Name carries one beyond it. Offenses to the Name are destroyed by the Name itself; by chanting without interruption, one attains every perfection.

I alone existed before creation; nothing else, whether cause or effect, existed beyond Me. I alone am all that appears afterward, and what remains after dissolution is also I.

Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura explains: Kṛṣṇa, whose nature is concentrated consciousness, is eternal and beginningless. Every other manifestation is a transformation of Kṛṣṇa's potency. When all else has ended, Kṛṣṇa remains, the sun of consciousness. Everything other than Kṛṣṇa exists by the inconceivable truth of simultaneous distinction and nondistinction.

Whatever appears to possess value apart from Me, or does not appear within the Self, should be understood as the Self's māyā, like a reflection or like darkness.

Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura explains: Kṛṣṇa's potency called māyā is simultaneously distinct and nondistinct from Kṛṣṇa. The spiritual potency rests in His own nature and shines within the light of consciousness. In its material aspect, māyā has the nature of shadow and darkness; through it the temporary world of action appears.

Just as the great elements enter all beings, high and low, yet also remain beyond them, so I am within all beings and at the same time beyond them.

Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura explains: The great elements dwell within bodies of every order while continuing to exist fully in their own vast forms. In the same way, Kṛṣṇa pervades the conscious living beings through His minute spiritual parts, yet the complete Kṛṣṇa remains established in His own nature.

The Holy Name is a wish-fulfilling jewel. It is Kṛṣṇa Himself, the conscious embodiment of rasa. It is complete, pure, and eternally liberated, for the Name and the Named are not different.

Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura explains: Hari's Name is a spiritual jewel and the very form of conscious rasa. Complete, beyond matter, and eternally free, it is Kṛṣṇa in His own form.

Therefore Śrī Kṛṣṇa's Name, form, qualities, and pastimes cannot be grasped by the material senses. When a person turns toward service, beginning with the tongue, He reveals Himself of His own accord.

Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura explains: The Name, form, qualities, and līlā cannot be apprehended by the senses. Out of mercy, they arise within the senses of one who has become inclined to serve.

Steadiness in the conduct proper to one's own qualification is praised as virtue; conduct contrary to that qualification is fault. This is the settled conclusion regarding both.

Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura explains: Conduct rightly suited to one's qualification is virtue. The discerning should understand contrary conduct to be fault.

One who has developed faith in hearing about Me becomes disenchanted with all fruitive work. He knows sense desires lead to suffering but is not yet able to abandon them. Such a faithful person should remain resolute and lovingly worship Me, even while experiencing those desires, and should condemn them because their final result is misery.

Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura explains: When faith in Kṛṣṇa-kathā arises, attachment to fruitive work is abandoned. Yet one may still lack the strength to renounce desires, though knowing they produce suffering. If such a person happens to indulge a desire, he reproaches it and, through firm bhajana, destroys its power. Here "desire" means desire that is not sinful; a faithful devotee never honors sinful desire.

Bhakti flourishes through six practices: enthusiasm, firm conviction, patience, engaging in its proper activities, abandoning harmful association, and following the conduct of the sādhus.

Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura instructs: Fix your mind upon these six: enthusiasm, determination, patience, delight in acts of bhakti, rejection of bad company, and saintly conduct.

In the company of sādhus, discussions of My heroic deeds become a tonic for the heart and ears. By lovingly cultivating those discussions, faith, attachment, and devotion soon unfold in sequence along the path of liberation.

Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura explains: In saintly company, Kṛṣṇa-kathā becomes nectar. Through it, faith, spiritual attachment, and devotion are awakened one after another.

Honor within the mind one whose speech utters "Kṛṣṇa." Bow before one who has received initiation and worships the Lord. With the service needed to obtain his cherished association, serve the accomplished, exclusive devotee whose heart is free from criticizing others.

Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura explains: Whenever you hear Kṛṣṇa's Name spoken without deceit, honor that chanter again and again within your mind. One who has entered the bhakti lineage and worships Kṛṣṇa should be honored by bowing in the dust of his feet. Continually serve the exclusive devotee who has no consciousness of "mine" and "another's."

To use objects in a fitting way without attachment, while firmly relating them to Kṛṣṇa, is called appropriate renunciation.

Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura explains: Enjoy only what is suitable, remain unattached, and connect everything with bhakti. This is well-balanced vairāgya.

Living by a livelihood suited to one's nature and performing one's proper work, a person gradually relinquishes nature-bound action and reaches the state beyond the guṇas.

Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura instructs: Accept a livelihood appropriate to your nature, live without sin, and take shelter of Kṛṣṇa's Name.

A contemplative person should be content with only what sustains life, not with pleasures dear to the senses, so that knowledge is not lost and speech and mind are not scattered.

Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura explains: Without idle talk, accept only a livelihood sufficient to maintain life. Do not embrace habits merely because they please the senses. Adopt that form of fitting renunciation through which speech, mind, and spiritual understanding remain healthy.

A person acquires the qualities of his associates, just as a jewel reflects what is placed near it. Therefore a wise person who seeks the flourishing of his spiritual family should take shelter only among his own devotional group.

Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura explains: For the welfare of your own spiritual group, keep other association at a distance. According to the company you keep, abundant corresponding fruit will come.

One should seek the path that brings the highest good and is free from distress, the well-trodden road by which the saints of former times advanced without exhaustion. Exclusive devotion to Hari that disregards the rules of the Śruti, Smṛti, Purāṇas, and Pañcarātra produces only disturbance.

Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura explains: Walk easily upon the path of the earlier mahājanas; a newly invented road brings turmoil and ruins the soul. A person who never strives to destroy unwanted habits is unfortunate and does not receive the Name's mercy. Without that mercy, even millions upon millions of efforts can never make those habits leave. One who sincerely weeps at the feet of the Name sees them driven far away within a short time. Abandon the unwanted and practice hearing and chanting; with single-minded feeling, take shelter of the Name.

Those dedicated exclusively to the Lord generally delight only in chanting and remembering Him with supreme love; no other duty attracts them. According to their cherished devotional mood, they desire to serve the feet of their beloved sacred form. The particular method then arises through their own mantra and their own rasa, while they naturally continue the prescribed daily duties. Even after renouncing everything, one thing is most difficult to abandon and gives birth to every unwanted condition: the filth of prestige. It is best to labor never even to touch it. Those who sing of Hari at dawn, at midnight, at noon, and at the day's end require no other discipline.

Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura explains: The exclusive devotee is devoted only to chanting and remembrance and has no taste for other undertakings. Service to Śrī Kṛṣṇa is filled with a particular bhāva, and spontaneous devotion gradually awakens. The gestures and activities of exclusive devotees arise from rāga, yet never oppose the principles of scripture. Even one who has renounced everything finds the thirst for prestige terribly hard to leave; strive to give it up and become expert in bhajana. At dawn, deep night, midday, and evening, abandon unwanted habits and take shelter of the Name. One who chants and remembers in this way quickly receives Kṛṣṇa's mercy and crosses beyond bondage with ease. By taking Kṛṣṇa's Name with faith in saintly company, all unwanted habits depart and steadiness arises.

In the morning, contemplate the eternal līlā. As contemplation deepens, bhāva becomes the devotee's practice.

I take shelter of Rādhā in the early morning, bathed and beautifully adorned, summoned by the queen of Vraja and going with Her sakhīs to that queen's house, where She prepares many foods and later eats Kṛṣṇa's remnants. I also take shelter of Kṛṣṇa, who awakens, reaches the cowshed, completes the milking of the cows, bathes well, and eats with His companions.

Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura explains: Rādhā has bathed and adorned Herself. Called by Śrī Yaśodā, She goes with Her sakhīs to Yaśodā's home, cooks there, and eats Śrī Kṛṣṇa's remnants; in between, the Divine Couple meet from time to time. Kṛṣṇa rises from sleep, goes to the pasture compound and milks the cows, then bathes and eats with His companions. Contemplate this līlā and, overflowing with love for the Name, rejoice with the devotees in the morning. Meditate upon this pastime and perform saṅkīrtana; very soon spiritual emotion will awaken within you.

Thus ends the practice for the second period in Śrī Bhajana-rahasya.