In2-MeC

IBSA (ISKCON Bhaktivedanta Sadhana Asrama), Govardhana, India
21 December 2003

I came across two references in Srimad-Bhagavatam that tie into the entry on svabhava (second nature, habit, "the robot") of a few days ago:

The mouth of the gigantic universal form of the Lord is the source of the speaking power. The director of the fire element is the controlling deity, or the adhidaiva. The speeches delivered are adhyatma, or bodily functions, and the subject matter of the speeches is material productions, or the adhibhuta principle. [Bhag. 3. 6. 13]

The adhibhuta manifestation entails repetitions of births and deaths with old age and diseases, the adhyatma manifestation conditions the spirit soul, and the adhidaiva manifestation is the controlling system. [Bhag 2. 5. 20p]

Thus Srila Prabhupada writes "The speeces delivered are adhyatma, or bodily functions. " Our way of speaking is most certainly a demonstration of our second nature, since language is a habit that once acquired is automatic. Bodily functions, or organic activities, are one of the three categories of vrtti, material engagements of the mind. "The adhyatma manifestation conditions the spirit soul," Srila Prabhupada points out. We are conditioned by habits pertaining to organic activities.

Oh yes, and in this connection, here is one more quotation from Orson Welles:

"But haven't you heard of something better to follow than your nature?"

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In Priti-sandarbha, Srila Jiva Gosvami states:

tatra bhagavati paramatmaparabrahmabhavenanandaniyabhimanino nirmana.
jnanabhakti. . . satypi bhedapagame natha tavaham na mamakinastvam.
samudra hi tarangah kvacana samudra na taranga.

There is an intimacy in premabhakti that is superior to mukti. Because he loves Krsna with all his heart, the devotee feels a sense of madiyata (mine-ness) about the Lord: "He is my own in a way that nothing else can ever be. " The mukta's mood toward the Lord is tvadiyata (Thine-ness): "I am Yours. " Thine-ness leans towards the santa sentiment; it is an impersonal tendency when compared to madiyata.

Some devotees I've mentioned the above to have remarked that madiyata is the advanced platform. Our business is to try to become servants of Krsna. A servant, they say, is more tvadiyata than madiyata.

But consider this statement Prabhupada made on 25 June 1975 in Melbourne:

Krsna says, patram puspam phalam toyam yo me bhaktya prayacchati. "A leaf, a flower, fruit and liquid, milk or water, all these things, within these categories, whatever a devotee offers Me in love and devotion, I eat. " Krsna says. Krsna is not hungry. Neither He is dependent on your supply of foodstuff. No. But still, Krsna has become your guest. Just like you have brought Krsna here. He is very kind. Because you are devotees, you want to serve Krsna, Krsna has come in your temple in a form which you can very easily serve. Krsna does not require your service, but He is so kind that He is accepting your service.

Yes, we are Krsna's servants. But by His mercy Krsna is our guest. There is a "Thine-ness" and a "mine-ness" simultaneously, even at the sadhana-bhakti stage.

Other statements from Srila Prabhupada attesting to this could be quoted. And there is no doubt of Srila Prabhupada's madiyata mood toward the Deity. It was very strong, as evident in the pastime of his receiving Sri-Sri London Isvara, and his determination to keep the Juhu land upon which Sri=Sri Radha-Rasabihari are installed.

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In the entry for 19 December I wrote:

. . . it is interesting to note the worth the Egyptians gave to the brain, cherished today as the organ of intelligence. When mummifying the dead bodies of important persons, the Egyptian embalmers would extract the brain through the nose and throw it away. But they would carefully preserve the heart. As in the Vedic understanding, the Egyptians considered the heart to be the seat of consciousness.

It turns out that in the ancient "Western world" (the world a little to the west of India) there were different opinions about the location of the soul. But none of the very ancient scientists believed it was located in the brain. In contrast to the Egyptians, the Babylonians thought the liver was the seat of human spirit and emotion. The Mesopotamians assigned intellect to the heart, emotions to the liver, and cunning to the stomach. The Greek philosopher Plato (a comparatively modern philosopher when compared to the thinkers of Egypt, Babylonia and Mesopotamia) is apparently the first to place the soul primarily in the brain and only secondarily in the heart. His own disciple Aristotle, however, reversed the emphasis: the heart is the seat of the "vital soul" and the brain is the seat of the less important "rational soul. " The French rationalist Rene Descartes, "the father of modern philosophy", thought the soul was located in the pineal gland, which is a small cone-shaped organ within the brain (it is not the brain proper, and is considered an organ in its own right). The pineal gland is known today to secret the hormone melatonin.

Even as late as the 1700s the brain was not the favored place where scientists expected to find consciousness. In those days someone named Redi removed the brain from a tortoise in November. It lived until the following May. But scientists also wondered about the heart: Robert Whytt, personal physician to the King of England in the 1700s, removed the heart of an eel which continued to thrash about for a long time. Well. . . the soul is not material, so removing the heart from a body does not necessarily mean the soul is removed. The soul is really located in the heart of the subtle body. Besides, living entities in lower forms of life tend to be much more attached to their bodies than those in higher species--as I have seen myself, if you cut a poisonous centipede in half, both halves run away. Another thing is that the heart is just one center of vital energy in the subtle body. These centers are known as cakras. These are counted as six, or seven, or even thirty-six (such are the numbers given in books have seen personally. . . I wouldn't be surprised if there are other enumerations of cakras).

The subtle body clings to the gross body, and it is "stretchable. " Even when the soul is gone from the gross body it may remain connected to the corpse in a ghostly way. An experiment done by Cleve Baxter, who invented the lie detector, and replicated by the U. S. Army Intelligence Command (INSCOM. . . no, not ISKCON, INSCOM) in the 1980s, indicates that a small amount of tissue removed from a living person and connected to a lie detector will emanate the same minute electrical impulses as the person himself, who is connected to a lie detector in another room. If that person is subjected to some emotional stimulation, the wave patterns given out by the lie detector connected to the separated tissue are the same as those given out by the lie detector connected to the stimulated subject.

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