In2-MeC

ISKCON Bhaktivedanta Sadhana Asrama (IBSA), Govardhana, India
18 May 2004

Sriman Mahaprabhor-asta-kaliya-lila-smarana Mangala-stotram
By Srila Visvanatha Chakravarti Thakura

Sri gauranga mahaprabos caranayor ya kesa sesadibhih
sevagamyataya sva bhakta vihita sanyair yaya labhyate
tam tan manasikim smritim prathayitum bhavyam sada sttamair
naumi pratyahikam tadiya-caritam sriman navadvipa jam

Devotional service to the lotus feet of Sri Gauranga Mahaprabhu is far beyond the perception of Lord Brahma, Lord Siva, Lord Sesha-naga and the rest; but it is continual engagement of the Lord's own devotees. It is always available to other souls as well. Now I will begin my descriptions of the process of manasi-seva (service to the Lord executed within the mind). This process is fit for continuous remembrance by the most virtuous sages. Therefore I offer my most respectful obeisances to the eternal daily life and pastimes of the Lord born in Navadvipa.

Brief codes describing his daily schedule in eight periods

ratryante sayanotthitah sura sarit snato babhau yah prage
purvahne sva ganair lasaty upavane tair bhati madhyahnake
yah puryam aparahnake nija grihe sayam grihe 'thangane
srivasasya nisa-mukhe nisi vasan gaurah sa no raksatu

(1) At the end of the night (before sunrise), Lord Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu gets up from His bed, washes His face and converses with His wife.

(2) In the morning, He is massaged with oil and bathes in the celestial Ganga river, then worships Lord Vishnu.

(3) In the forenoon period. He enjoys discussing topics about Lord Krishna with His devotees during visits to their homes.

(4) At midday, He enjoys pastimes in the gardens on the bank of the Ganga

(5) In the afternoon, He wanders about the town of Navadvipa, sporting with all the residents.

(6) At dusk, He returns home to worship Lord Vishnu and be with His family.

(7) In the evening, He goes with his associates to the courtyard of Srivasa Pandita to chant the holy names and dance in ecstasy.

(8) At night, He returns home to take rest.

May this Lord Gaura protect us all.

". . . this sankirtana or street chanting must go on, it is our most important program. Lord Caitanya's movement means the sankirtana movement. You may simply take two hours for chanting sixteen rounds daily, two hours for reading congregationally, and balance of time go out for sankirtana. We must do both, reading books and distributing books, but distributing books is the main propaganda. "

--Letter from Srila Prabhupada, 09-18-72

Individual Free Will vis-a-vis Krsna's Supreme Knowledge

During a morning walk in Mayapur, 14 March 1976, this exchange ensued between Srila Prabhupada and several disciples.

Ramesvara: I spoke with one man who argued that "Krsna is very cruel because He knows everything past, present and future, so He knew that we would all fall down from the spiritual sky, but still, He gave us the independence to fall down. "

Prabhupada: Hm?

Ramesvara: "Even though He knew we would fall, because He knows everything. . . "

Acyutananda: That's a common question.

Prabhupada: That is another foolish question. Unless you have got independence, what is your life? Then you are dead stone. You want to become a dead stone? That is not Krsna's concern. Krsna does not give such perfection, that you become a dead stone.

Acyutananda: The thing is that because Krsna knows the future, past, present, and future, so He knew that we would fall down, so why didn't He help me?

Prabhupada: No, no, future means, just like. . . . This is the law of nature, that if you steal, you'll be punished. So if I say, "Oh, you are stealing; you'll be punished," this is future. Suppose this is the month of March, and if I say, "In the month of July [the time when monsoon season begins] there will be rain. " So I know; you know; everyone knows. This is not a future telling. The natural sequence is everyone knows it.

Madhudvisa: But does that means that Krsna doesn't know something?

Prabhupada: Krsna. . . . If everyone knows, why Krsna does not know? "He knows everything" means this common sense everyone knows.

Madhudvisa: Does He know what you will choose?

Prabhupada: Eh? Just try to understand. Future means like this: nature's law; and it will happen. After summer there will be rainy season; it will happen, and they will call, I am foretelling future. It is not future; it is natural sequence, automatically happened.

Satsvarupa: But that's predictable. If I have my own free will, what I'm going to do, you don't know.

Prabhupada: No, no, if you are in knowledge, you can predict. But if you are fool, you cannot say. If I see that in July there will be rain, and if you are a fool, you'll protest. That is your foolishness. It is natural sequence, one after another.

Madhudvisa: When is the natural sequence. . . ?

Prabhupada: Natural sequence. . . . Just like you are infected, some contaminous disease. You'll suffer. There is a story that one fool was sitting on a branch of a tree and he was cutting off. And somebody said, "You'll fall down. " "Ha, fall down. " But when he fell down he said, "Oh, you are a great astrologer. " So who goes to the astrologer? Only fools and rascal. No sane man goes. They know that what is. . . . Yad bhavyantam tad bhavata. (?) What is to happen, that will happen. Why shall I go to astrologer?

Gurukrpa: I can prepare myself to make change.

Prabhupada: Yes. My only business is to serve Krsna. I don't mind what will happen next.

Pusta Krsna: That desire to serve Krsna, though, that Krsna. . . .

Prabhupada: Don't talk like foolish. That desire everyone has. He is serving. He is serving so many things, but he doesn't want to serve Krsna. That is his foolishness. He is serving maya; still, he denies to serve Krsna. That is his misfortune. Ei rupe brahmanda bhramite kono bhagyavan jiva. So unless one is very fortunate, he does not agree to serve Krsna.

It was many years ago when I first came across this exchange. I remember that I was deeply satisfied with Srila Prabhupada's answers here. Prior to my reading this, a few people had challenged me with the argument that belief in an all-knowing God negates individual free will. If God knows what we will do before we do it, then what we do is pre-determined. On the other hand, if we really do have free will, and at the same time there is a God, then we must conclude that God does not know ahead of time what choices we'll make. In that case it is wrong preaching to proclaim God as all-knowing. Before I became aware of this morning walk conversation, I was unsure how to properly reply to this challenge.

I will restate Prabhupada's position thus:

Yes, the individual soul has freedom to choose, but choice operates in the context of different sequences of natural results. Krsna knows all these sequences. Thus He knows what the outcome of our choice will be. His foreknowledge of the outcome does not rob us of the power to decide to initiate a particular sequence of events leading to that outcome. In short, the soul does have free will. But as Srila Prabhupada always said, our free will is minute. It operates under a higher law.

In Vrndavana on 20 October 1972, Srila Prabhupada made the following observation in a lecture on Nectar of Devotion.

So material rasas. That is being experienced in different types of body. Just like somebody wants to taste fresh blood, flesh and blood. So he's given the next life a body like a tiger, like a other carnivorous animal, and he tastes very nicely blood and flesh. Nature gives all the facilities. Prakrteh kriyamananih gunaih karmani sarvasah, ahankara-vimudhatma kartaham iti manyate. Prakrti, nature is doing everything. I am desiring something. That means I am contacting, contacting the certain type of the modes of material nature.

What we exactly choose, then, is a question of rasa or taste. In Gaudiya Vaisnava philosophy, taste is the key to everything. "For one who has a particular material taste," writes Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura on page 135 of Brahmana and Vaisnava, "that taste appears supreme. " In the next sentence he adds, "The faith of living beings is determined by how they identify themselves. " So our conceptions of who we are, and what activities we ought to choose, are ruled by the law of taste.

To arrive at a clear understanding of free will, we must know that the individual soul is ever a servant to his taste. His will of movement is free in a sense similar to the glowing "free" sign one sees on a taxicab plying a city street. Yes, the cab is moving freely here and there, but the very meaning of that movement is that it is actively seeking a passenger. As soon as a passenger gets aboard, off goes the "free" sign. The cab now moves under the direction of another. That's why there are cabs.

So here's a vital point to comprehend. "Free will" in the jiva never means "a dispassionate, autonomous decision. " The word "free" should always be understood to have overtones of "seeking engagement. " The nature of the will of the jiva is that of servitude to rasa in general. Within that position of servitude, a choice of rasas--material and spiritual--is available. Yes, there's a choice. . . but the jiva makes his choice out of an abiding need.

To think,

Once I was a liberated soul completely above it all. I must have been so transcendentally intoxicated with my own self-satisfaction that I sort of accidently blundered into maya. I mean, being liberated and all, I couldn't have really wanted to be in maya, could I?

shows signs of confusing the position of the living entity with that of the Supreme Lord. It shows signs of not appreciating the inherent needfulness of the individual spirit soul, that the spirit soul is originally and always the dependent servant, not the independent master. And it shows signs of not owning up to the responsibility for one's choice of rasa.

This brings us to the point of the natural sequence that follows individual choice. If--referring to the quotation previous by Srila Prabhupada--I take aboard the taste for fresh blood and flesh, my karmic travels will bring me to the destination of the body of a tiger or other carnivorous animal. That destination is known to Krsna. But His knowing it does not make it His fault that I have become a servant to a taste that is contrary to my best interests.

The principle here--that one person's gift of foreknowledge of the consequences of another person's choice does does not rob the other of his free will--is explained in a book titled Impossibility by John D. Barrow (Oxford U. Press 1998, pg. 233-4). Barrow offers us a scenario involving a scientist who's figured out how to determine people's choices before they make them, and the subject of the scientist's experiment, a man who is about to order his lunch.

So long as he [the scientist] keeps this knowledge to himself, his deterministic theory of the diner's thoughts and actions can continue to be infallible. He could tell other people [what the diner will order for lunch]. He could even write the prediction down on a piece of paper and show it to the diner after he had chosen his lunch. In both cases, he could have predicted correctly, but would not have exercised any constraint upon the diner's free choice.

As we see from the questions above asked of Srila Prabhupada by his disciples, people are sometimes inordinately obsessed with the issue of whether God knows before we choose what we will choose. They even go so far as to conclude that if He does have such foreknowledge, then He is cruel, since when He foresaw I would choose to come to this world of suffering He yet did nothing to stop me. There's this "bug" (like a computer bug) in their logic that forces them to conclude, "If God knows, then He's responsible for what I do, not me. "

When we follow closely Srila Prabhupada's replies to these questions we see he stressed that the misfortune of the fallen jiva is his choice to not serve Krsna even though constitutionally he is always a servant. Therefore the jiva now suffers in the service of maya. At the bottom of his suffering is an attitude of determined contrariness, a resolve to never surrender. Krsna isn't imposing this attitude on him. The jiva willingly takes on this attitude in defiance of Krsna.

At this point someone can ask, "But if my real and original taste is to serve Krsna, then why would I choose something against my nature?" The implication in this question is that if I have an original nature, an original "program" in my soul of transcendental, Krsna-centered tastes, then that program should logically determine my choice. In other words, if--in the core of my heart and in the essence of my being--I really do like to serve Krsna, then I wouldn't choose to serve maya.

Coming back to the scenario of the scientist and the diner: accepting that the scientist has the ability to "read" the diner's food preferences from his brain state, Barrow asks if that guarantees that the diner will choose what the scientist predicts he will choose.

The answer is 'no'. The subject can always be stubborn, and adapt a strategy that says, 'If you say that I will choose soup, then I will choose salad, and vice versa!' Under these conditions it is logically impossible to predict infallibly what the person will choose if the scientist makes his prediction known.

The point Barrow is making (he's actually following an argument proposed by a British cognitive scientist named Donald Mackay in 1957) is that determinism--which is the doctrine that an individual's choice isn't really free because it is preset by natural law; it only appears to be free because the individual is unaware of that law--does not logically mean that the individual is incapable of defying the law.

Following the logic of the materialistic version of determinism, Barrow shows how the supposed natural law that a person's choice is determined by the state of his brain allows for defiance of that law.

Suppose your brain is in state 1 and we predict you will act as P(1). Would you be correct to believe the prediction P(1) if it were shown to you?

First, we must consider the effect on your brain state of believing the prediction P(1). If believing the prediction changed the state of your brain to state 2, then the act of believing the prediction P(1) would put your brain into a different state from that on which the prediction was based. The new brain state 2 would give rise to a new prediction P(2). The key question is whether we can build into our predictions the effects of making the prediction P(1) known to you, so that we could make the prediction P(2). But, if that were done, we could not claim that P(2) is what you would be correct to believe, because it is brain state 2 that leads to prediction P(2), and if you believed P(2) this would again change your brain state from state 2 to some new state 3, say, and P(2) would not be a correct prediction of the action that follows from that state.

Now, in this essay we are considering a spiritual version of determinism. To restate it: if my original spiritual nature is to take pleasure in serving Krsna, then from that nature it should be predictable that I will choose to serve Krsna. If at any time I choose not to serve Krsna, then I may rightly ask whether my original nature is to take pleasure in serving Krsna.

Maybe my original nature is merely neutral. Maybe I was originally in the brahmajyoti. Maybe I have to be especially blessed with a taste for Krsna-bhakti, then only will it become my nature.

Maybe maybe, but what Srila Prabhupada stated above is clear:

Pusta Krsna: That desire to serve Krsna, though, that Krsna. . . .

Prabhupada: Don't talk like foolish. That desire everyone has. He is serving. He is serving so many things, but he doesn't want to serve Krsna. That is his foolishness. He is serving maya; still, he denies to serve Krsna. That is his misfortune.

Everyone has a natural desire to serve Krsna, and that desire is observable in the jiva's natural condition of servitude; yet still the jiva can choose to not serve Krsna directly. Thus he becomes an indirect servant of Krsna.

Matter is the dictionary of spirit, said Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakura. From Barrow's demonstration of the logic of materialistic determinism, we can demonstrate that spiritual determinism does not rule out that a jiva can choose to serve maya instead of Krsna.

Barrow's point is that even if for argument's sake we accept that the state of the brain determines an individual's choice of action, we must acknowledge that the state of the brain is variable. If I come to know that my brain state 1 will result in me performing activity 1, that knowledge changes the state of my brain. It is no longer certain that I will perform activity 1, because now I am in brain state 2.

The core idea here is not a big chore to grasp: as soon as I think about my brain state, I am no longer in that state. Even a materialistic determinist cannot deny that we all have the ability to think about who we are and what we are doing. As soon as I think in that way, a relationship manifests of my self to my self. That relationship in turn opens up an opportunity for a change in how I relate to my self. That I am in relationship with myself means there is a potential for the relationship to change.

Now, if it does change, the original "I" still remains. So what is happening? It is that this "I", this entity who is invested with the nature of choice, is simply exercising his nature.

This is just the way things are.

Krsna is Acintya, which means that He, as He is, is not defined by the logical capacity of the human mind. He is always more than what the mind can say about Him. Similarly His energy--which is ultimately the energy of everything--is acintya-sakti. Thus all our mental formulations of ontology ("what is") fall short of what really is. In this light, the nature of things can be called paradoxical if we take "paradox" to mean a statement that, even though true, seems to be saying different things at the same time. Not a few people in this world are troubled by this definition of paradox. But without doubt it is valid (see http://www.andrews.edu/~calkins/math/biograph/199900/topparad.htm). Not a few people in this world would rather that paradox mean "an impossibility; something that doesn't exist except as a baffling idea. "

Consider Russell's paradox (named after the famous British mathematician-philosopher Bertrand Russell). Since you, my reader, have reached this page through your computer modem, I'll explain the paradox in this way: suppose 1) the dialup number programmed into your computer is a set of digits from 0 through 9 (let's say 0935481276) that we'll call D; 2) since we see in D the numbers 0 through 9, we can conclude this set called D belongs to itself; 3) yet at the same time because it a set, it is not a member of itself. Hard for the mind to follow? Yes. Is it therefore an impossibility? No, and that is why I'm explaining it in terms of your dialup program. You click once on a button on your screen. Your computer dials 0935481276. After a short wait you are connected to the Internet. There's nothing in the dialup number other than the digits 0 through 9. It can't be denied that D equals 0935481276 and 0935481276 equals D. But your clicking on this number once as a set, D, is different from having to click on each digit individually to get your computer to dial the number manually.

Simultaneous, inconceivable oneness and difference is not paradoxical in the sense that it is impossible. It is paradoxical in the sense that our minds can't quite put together oneness and difference simultaneously.

Have a look at this animation: Does it show white silhouettes of faces, or does it show a blue flower vase? As you view it you know the animation is showing two images in one image. But your mind is not able to fit both together seamlessly. You see one image or the other, either faces or the vase.

Simultaneous, inconceivable oneness and difference is just the way things are.

Determinism is supposed to mean that things are the way they are because they are the way they are, not because we made them that way. Fine. Let's not argue about that. Let's just point out that when the logic of the way things are--simultaneous, inconceivable oneness and difference--is brought to bear on determinism, then undifferentiated monism is not an option. There will be variety. And because there will be variety, there will be choice.

The natural state of the living entity is that he is the part and parcel servant of Krsna. But that state is variable. Variable means that even in his original transcendental position, the living entity is not without power to think of himself differently in that position. It is perfectly natural for him to think that way, as difference is a component of his nature.

Krsna's energy--His maya-sakti, or svarupa-sakti--is one, but it is manifested in varieties. Parasya saktir vividhaiva sruyate (Svetasvatara Up. 6. 8). The difference between Vaisnavas and Mayavadis is that Mayavadis say that this maya is one, whereas Vaisnavas recognize its varieties. There is unity in variety. For example, in one tree, there are varieties of leaves, fruits and flowers. Varieties of energy are required for performing the varieties of activity within the creation. To give another example, in a machine all the parts may be iron, but the machine includes varied activities. Although the whole machine is iron, one part works in one way, and other parts work in other ways. One who does not know how the machine is working may say that it is all iron; nonetheless, in spite of its being iron, the machine has different elements, all working differently to accomplish the purpose for which the machine was made. One wheel runs this way, another wheel runs that way, functioning naturally in such a way that the work of the machine goes on. Consequently we give different names to the different parts of the machine, saying, "This is a wheel," "This is a screw," "This is a spindle," "This is the lubrication," and so on.

parasya saktir vividhaiva sruyate
svabhaviki jnana-bala-kriya ca

Krsna's power is variegated, and thus the same sakti, or potency, works in variegated ways. Vividha means "varieties. " There is unity in variety. Thus yogamaya and mahamaya are among the varied individual parts of the same one potency, and all of these individual potencies work in their own varied ways. The samvit, sandhini and ahladini potencies--Krsna's potency for existence, His potency for knowledge and His potency for pleasure--are distinct from yogamaya. Each is an individual potency. (--Srimad-Bhagavatam 10. 13. 57p)

Srimad-Bhagavatam 1. 2. 11 declares the Absolute Truth to be advaya, not divided. Yet within this undivided Transcendence, the verse continues, there are various states of realization. These correspond to the potencies Srila Prabhupada listed: Brahman realization corresponds to sandhini or sat potency, Paramatma realization corresponds to samvit or cit potency, and Bhagavan realization corresponds to ahladini or ananda potency.

Liberated brahmanas are connected to the sandhini potency and so realize Brahman. Liberated yogis are connected the samvit potency and so realize Paramatma. Liberated devotees are connected the ahladini potency and so realize Bhagavan. Yet at the same time all are connected by Yogamaya to the same undivided Absolute Truth.

A liberated soul's awareness of the different states of realization in the different potencies of the Absolute permits him to vary his own state. Remember Barrow's explanation that when one becomes aware of brain state 1, a different brain state results in which a new course of action becomes manifest. But this is just mundane logic, you say? You ask, where is the evidence that this deterministic argument can be correlated to transcendence?

Answer: see pages 136-7 of Brahmana and Vaisnava by Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura. Some rapid-fire quotations--

The three features of the nondual Absolute Truth are endowed with energies. . . As an object is perceived differently by different senses, so the Absolute Truth, although one, appears in three forms. . . Thus the indifferent brahmanas who know Brahman, the yogis who realize the Supersoul, and the devotees of the Supreme Lord are all engaged in serving the advaya-jnana Absolute Truth. . . If the brahmanas who know Brahman desire to practice yoga, they can do so; and if they desire to worship Krsna, they can also do so. If the devotees of Krsna become averse to worshiping Krsna, in other words, if they fall from the path of devotional service, they can become karma-yogis or jnana-yogis; and if they fall from knowledge of Krsna or knowledge of the Supersoul, they can become brahmanas on the platform of impersonal knowledge. The yogis are situated on a platform below the devotees of the Lord, and the brahmanas who know Brahman are situated are situated below the yogis. The yogis who have realized the Supersoul can advance to the position of the devotees or degrade to the position of impersonalist brahmanas. When brahmanas accept the doctrine of fruitive activities in the world of material qualities, they also become affected by material qualities. . .

On page 139 of the same book Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati points out, "The cause of the spirit soul's coming to live in this world in aversion to Krsna is his misuse of free will. When this aversion becomes strong, the living entities accept a material mind and body in order to enjoy the temporary material world and thus come under the control of fruitive reactions. "

The spirit soul in his relationship with Krsna has different options before him. He may choose to elevate himself in Krsna consciousness, following his natural transcendental taste. But he may conversely choose to defy his natural transcendental taste in favor of impersonalism or even the mundane rasa. There is nothing illogical in the jiva's so choosing, as these choices all appear in relation to the same undivided Absolute Truth who is akhilarasamrta-murti, the very form of the different tastes that may be desired by His parts and parcels. Even the material rasas have no other origin that Him.

Krsna knows everything about our original nature and our conditional nature. These two natures are comparible to water in its liquid state and water in its frozen state. As water remains essentially water whether it is liquid or ice, so our essential power of choice (tatastha-sakti) continues to function in both states of our nature as conscious entities.

All this is true, but it is completely illogical to argue that Krsna's knowledge of our nature determines whether we are "liquid" or "frozen. " Our state is determined by our choice. Our choice is determined by the quality of rasa we submit to. And the quality of rasa we submit to is determined by our attitude towards Krsna.

Even though Genesis says that God gave man dominion over all animals, we can also construe it to mean that He merely entrusted them to man's care. Man was not the planet's master, merely its administrator. Descartes took a decisive step forward: he made man maitre et proprietaire de la nature. And surely there is a deep connection between that step and the fact that he was also the one who point-blank denied animals a soul. Man is master and proprietor, says Descartes, whereas the beast is merely an automaton, an animated machine, a machina animata. When an animal laments, it is not a lament; it is merely the rasp of a poorly functioning mechanism. When a wagon wheel grates, the wagon is not in pain; it simply needs oiling. Thus, we have no reason to grieve for a dog being carved up alive in the laboratory.

. . . . .

Mankind's true moral test, its fundamental test (which lies deeply buried from view), consists of its attitude towards those who are at its mercy: animals. And in this respect, mankind has suffered a fundamental debacle, and debacle so fundamental that all others stem from it.

. . . . .

Another image also comes to mind: Nietzsche leaving his hotel in Turin. Seeing a horse and a coachman beating it with a whip, Nietzsche went up to the horse and, before the coachman's very eyes, put his arms around the horse's neck and burst into tears.

That took place in 1889, when Nietzsche, too, had removed himself from the world of people. In other words, it was at the time when his mental illness had just erupted. But for that very reason I feel is gesture to the horse has broad implications: Nietzsche was trying to apologize to the horse for Descartes. His lunacy (that is, his final break with mankind) began at the very moment he burst into tears over the horse.

And that is Nietzche I love. . . stepping down from the road along which mankind, 'the master and proprietor of nature', marches onward.

--Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being, pgs. 284, 286-7

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