In2-MeC

Kolhapur, Maharastra
20 January, 2003

Doubt is one of the important functions of intelligence; blind acceptance of something does not give evidence of intelligence. Therefore the word samsaya is very important; in order to cultivate intelligence, one should be doubtful in the beginning.

--HDG Srila Prabhupada (SB 3. 26. 30p)

Great doubts
deep wisdom. . .
Small doubts
little wisdom.

In the previous entry I told something about the nature of "this" mind, "my" mind: it has a lunar quality and thus like the moon is subject to phases of change. According to Bhagavad-gita, that is true of all minds: manas cancalam asthiram, "the mind is flickering and unsteady" (Bg 6. 26). I made mention of numerology to illustrate that the mind is subject to the forces of nature like the planetary rulers Soma, Surya, and so on.

I do have an interest in numerology and astrology, just as I have an interest in philosophy and psychology. But I would not agree that I have a real faith in these things. My interest in them is conversational more than anything else. I use them as a source of vocabulary for discussion of the human situation in the material world. Just to illustrate what I mean, I'll switch over to philosophical vocabulary. In the modern philosophy known as existentialism, the human condition is said to be predominated by dread and despair. Many people have that experience in their own lives. But they don't know how to express it. So knowing the vocabulary of such philosophy is useful when talking about that experience. At the same time I do not believe that it is ultimately true that the human situation is predominated by dread and despair. If I did, how could I be a devotee? The human situation is predominated by Krsna.

Some people (among them there may even be some devotees) have hope that numerology, astrology, philosophy, psychology, the Enneagram--or whatever else there might be outside the of parampara path of Krsna consciousness--can help them. I do not, even though I have an interest in these subjects, and may even apply them in my own life. My faith is that hope in anything that falls short of surrender to Krsna as explained and demonstrated by Srila Prabhupada is hope that is sure to be baffled. For without surrender to Krsna, who predominates over the human situation, the human situation is as the existentialists describe it: full of dread and despair.

Like an image in a dream the world is troubled by love, hatred, and other poisons. So long as the dream lasts, the image appears to be real; but on awaking it vanishes.

--Sripad Sankaracharya

Is this quotation wrong just because Sankaracharya said it? I have spoken to devotees who think like that. But if we take a little effort to analyze his words, we'll find their congruency with the Vaishnava version. He compares a world troubled by poisonous duality to an image seen in a dream. The actual logic of this comparision is that just as when one awakens from a dream and sees the image vanish, so when one awakens to reality, he will see the poisonous duality of the material world vanish.

That is not voidism. To wake from a dream does not mean that nothing then remains. A dream is founded upon the waking state. When one awakes, he sees the dream for what it actually is from the standpoint of wakeful consciousness, not nothingness. While under the dream, he does not know it is a dream. He thinks the dream is all there is--thus he thinks it is real. That is his illusion.

Similarly, the troubled world of duality is founded upon the untroubled world (Vaikuntha), not upon nothingness. Our illusion is to think the troubled world is real. That "real" we think the world to be has no alternative; i. e. like the existentialists, we think reality is only dread and despair, nothing else. But it is the LACK of reality that gives rise to dread and despair. Reality is of the quality of Vaikuntha. Reality is anandamaya, overflooded with bliss. The miserable material world is simply the want of Vaikuntha. It is not the want of nothing, which is the voidist idea.

The voidists think that we are in this miserable material world because we are missing what we really want, which is nothing. No, we are missing Vaikuntha. In Vaikuntha we want nothing. Not that we want "no thing" as "a something desired", as a negative sense object. In Vaikuntha we want no OTHER thing because we have everything--Krsna. Thus in Vaikuntha we are fully satisfied. The voidists want "no thing" from the standpoint of dissatisfaction, like the fox who rather wanted "no grapes" than the despair of wanting grapes that he could not attain.

The point of all this is actually simple. And the point refers back to the two quotations in the beginning of this entry. The point is that attainment of Vaikuntha begins with a doubt about the reality of the material world, and a further doubt about nothingness (no-thing-ness) as the solution to that doubt. Hence: "great doubts, deep wisdom; small doubts, small wisdom. "

The doubts about vishesha (mundane characteristics) and nirvishesha (the negation of those characteristics) will often be expressed in the vocabulary of dread and despair. Hence the first chapter of the Bhagavad-gita is called vishaada-yoga, "the yoga of despair. " It's here that Arjuna gives his longest speech in the whole Gita. Here he puts forward all his doubts before the Lord; in later chapters, he returns to these doubts (3. 1, 3. 36, 5. 1, etc. ) even as Krsna is slashing them by His transcendental instructions.

All topics that fall short of surrender to Krsna are framed in the vocabulary of despair.
Astrology, numerology, philosophy, psychology are not vaikuntha-vaca (see SB 9. 4. 18). They are vishaada-vaca. But just as Arjuna used the vocabulary of despair to reveal his doubts to Krsna that they might be forever removed, so these subjects may be employed to enunciate our plight in this material world. . . so that we may invite the spiritual master to remove that plight by transcendental knowledge.

Transcendental knowledge that he communicates by his transcendental mercy. This is the only hope of the living entity in this material world.

The day after my initiation, Srila Prabhupada went to Logan Airport to fly to New York. This time I went with the devotees to see him off. Prabhupada sat in a waiting room chair while we sat in a great mass on the floor in front of him. He chanted japa, so we chanted japa. I was more or less in the middle of the group. Like everyone else, I had my eyes on His Divine Grace as I chanted.

Suddenly Srila Prabhupada looked right at me and said, "Oh, you are chanting Hare Krsna very nicely. " Everyone immediately fell silent. I didn't know what to say in reply, but my mind fairly shouted, "No, Srila Prabhupada! I am not chanting Hare Krsna nicely AT ALL!"

The "lunar mind" and its internal dialogue of despair.

Srila Prabhupada made a lifting gesture with his left hand and in an almost urgent voice said, "Yes!"

I offered my humble obeisances to his lotus feet. The purport is not (of course!) that of all the devotees present in the waiting room, I was singled out by Srila Prabhupada as the superior japa-chanter. He was teaching me the means by which I could get free of my internal dialogue of despair even when I was not in his personal presence. Yesterday he'd given me the Hare Krsna Mahamantra. If I kept chanting it in connection with him, my spiritual master, as I was doing there in the airport, then I would be chanting nicely. Then I would be nice, no matter what my despairing mind might tell me. I would be in Vaikuntha. I am still chanting Hare Krsna today only because of the lessons I learned from His Divine Grace in Boston of July, 1971.

Those lessons are my only hope.

All glories to Srila Prabhupada!

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