Participants:
Prabhupāda
...So in order to protect the devotees and the sages who are after self-realization, the charming brow of the Supreme Personality of Godhead protects the sages and the devotees from being charmed by the material lust or sex attraction. There is a great ācārya called Yāmunācārya, he said that so long he has begun to see the charming pastimes of the Lord, since then the charming of sex life has become abominable for him, so that as soon as he thinks of sex enjoyment he spits over the thoughts and his face becomes turned. Otherwise, in other words, that if anyone wants to be aloof from the sex attraction, one has to see the charming smile and charming brow—eyebrow of the Supreme Personality of Godhead.
TEXT 33
The yogī next shall meditate upon the laughter of Lord Viṣṇu in the core of his heart with devotion steeped in love and affection. Laughter of Viṣṇu is so captivating that it can be easily meditated upon, and in the course of which come to view the rows of His small teeth resembling jasmine buds rendered rosy by the profuse splendor of His lips. And having devoted his mind to the same, he should no more desire to see anything else.
PURPORT
The yogī is recommended to visualize the laughter of the Lord after studying His smile very minutely. This particular description of meditation—smiling, laughter, face, lips and teeth, everything very particularly means that there is no case for impersonalism. Everything, personality described from one point to another. That is the business of yogī's meditation. Another exceptional description in this verse is that the laughter or smiling of Viṣṇu should be meditated upon, not that one can manufacture by his imagination of something else besides the form of the Lord. Because except the smiling and laughter of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, no other such activity can completely cleanse the heart of the devotee. The exceptional beauty of laughter of Lord Viṣṇu is explained that the teeth, the small teeth resembling the buds of jasmine flower becomes at once reddish on account of the reddish lips of the Lord. And if the yogī is able to place in the core of his heart such beautiful face of the Lord, then he will deny to see anything more beautiful in the material world. Or in other words, when one is absorbed in seeing the beauty of the Lord within himself, the material beautiful attraction can no more disturb him.
TEXT 34
TRANSLATION
By following the above meditational course, the yogī gradually develops pure love for the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Hari. In the course of progress devotional service, the hair on his body stand erect through excessive joy and he is constantly bathed in a stream of tears occasioned by intense love so that he now gradually withdraws even the mind, which was being used by him as a means to attract the Lord as if one attracts the fish by the hook.
PURPORT
Here it is clearly mentioned that meditation, which is an action of the mind, is not the perfect stage of samādhi or absorption. The mind is, in the beginning, employed to..., in the matter of attracting the form of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, but in the higher stage there is no question of using the mind. Automatically a devotee becomes accustomed to serve the Supreme Lord by purification of his senses. In other words, the yoga principle of meditation is so long required as long as one is not situated in pure devotional service. The mind is used for the purpose of purifying the senses, but when the senses are purified by such actions of meditation, there is no need of sitting at a certain particular place and trying to meditate upon the form of the Lord. One becomes so much habituated that he automatically is engaged in the personal service of the Lord. When the mind is forcely engaged in the form of the Lord, it is called nirjīva-yoga, or lifeless yoga, that means the yogī is not automatically accustomed to this…, to such habit. But when the yogīis automatically accustomed to think of the Lord constantly, that is called sajīva-yoga, or living yoga. So one has to be promoted to the platform of living yoga. That means twenty-four hours engaged in the service of the Lord, as it is confirmed in the Brahma-saṁhitā [5.38], premāñjana-cchurita. This stage can be attained by complete development of love—premāñjana. Premāmeans "love" (p-r-e-m-a).
Premāñjana-cchurita-bhakti-vilocanena. When one is fully developed in devotional service to love the Supreme Personality of Godhead, he always sees, even without attempting, without..., even without meditating artificially to fix up the mind, he sees, he has no other engagement. So when that engagement is already attained, so it is advised that there is no necessity of artificially engaging the mind in such a way. In other words, meditation is the means to come to the standard platform of devotional service. Those who are already engaged in the devotional service, they are above such meditation which is recommended in the lower stage of executing devotional service. This stage of perfection is called Kṛṣṇa consciousness.
TEXT 35
TRANSLATION
When the mind is thus become completely freed from all material contamination and renounce all material objectives just like the flame of the lamp, at that time the mind is practically dovetailed with the mind of the Supreme Lord and is experienced as one with Him on account of its being freed from the interaction, flow of material qualities.
PURPORT
The activities of the mind is acceptance and rejection in the material world. So, so long the mind is materialistic, by force this mind is practiced to accept the meditation of the Supreme Personality of Godhead. But when actually one is elevated to the platform of loving the Supreme Personality of Godhead, the mind is automatically absorbed in the thought of the Lord and he has no other object of thinking except the service of the Lord. This dovetailing of the mind with the desire of the Supreme Personality of God..., Godhead is called nirvāṇa, or making the mind one with the Supreme Lord. The…, the best example is certainly Bhagavad-gītā, that in the beginning the mind of Arjuna was different from the mind of Kṛṣṇa. Kṛṣṇa's mind was that Arjuna should fight, but Arjuna's mind was that he should not fight. So there…, there was disagreement. But after understanding the Bhagavad-gītā from the Supreme Personality of Godhead, he dovetailed his mind with the desire of the Supreme Personality of Godhead. This is called oneness. Not that by making this oneness of mind of Arjuna with Kṛṣṇa the Arjuna and Kṛṣṇa lost their individuality. The Māyāvādī philosophers, they cannot understand this. They think that oneness means the individuality is lost. But actually we find from the Bhagavad-gītā that the individuality is not lost, the individual is there. Similarly, when the mind being purified completely in love of Godhead, it is practically my mind becomes the mind of the Supreme Personality of Godhead because my mind at that time does not act separately without being inspired to fulfill the desire of the Lord. A individual soul or the liberated soul has no other activity.
Explanation given here, pratinivṛtta-guṇa-pravāhaḥ (p-r-a-t-i-n-i-v-r-i-t-t-a g-u-n-a p-r-a-v-a-h-a-h): pratinivṛtta-guṇa-pravāhaḥ. That actually the oneness of the devotee's mind with the mind of the Supreme Personality means that in the conditional stage the mind is always engaged in the activities impelled by the three qualities of this material world. But in transcendental stage, the qualities of the material world cannot disturb the mind of the devotee. He has no other business than to execute the desire of the Lord. That is the highest stage of perfection or nirvāṇa which is called nirvāṇa-mukti, to make the mind completely free from material desires. And the example given here, yathārciḥ. The yathārciḥ, arciḥ means the flame. When the lamp is broken or the oil is finished, we find that the flame of the lamp is extinguished. But according to scientific understanding, the nothing is extinguished, the flame is not extinguished; it is conserved, conservation of energy. Similarly, when the mind stops functioning materially, it means it is conserved in the actions of the Supreme Lord. So the Māyāvādī philosophers' conception of ceasing the function of the mind is explained here that…, that cessation of the function of the mind means cessation of the activities under the influence of the three qualities of material nature.
TEXT 36
TRANSLATION
Thus being situated in the highest transcen..., transcendental stage, the mind being ceased from all material reaction is supposed to be situated in its own glory, transcendental to all material conception of happiness and distress. The yogī at that time realizes the truth of his relationship with the Supreme Personality of Godhead and discovers that pleasure and pain as well as their interaction, which he attributed to his own self, are actually due to the false ego, which is the product of ignorance.
PURPORT
Forgetfulness of one's relationship with the Supreme Personality of Godhead is a product of ignorance. By yoga practice, one has to eradicate this ignorance. The ignorance is that one thinks himself independent of the Supreme Lord. His relationship is eternally of love. The living entity is eternally meant for rendering transcendental loving service to the Lord. When he forgets that sweet relationship, that is called ignorance; and in ignorance, he thinks himself as the enjoyer impelled by the three material modes of nature. So when his mind is purified and he understands that the..., his mind has to be engaged and dovetailed in the desire of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, that is the perfectional stage, transcendental stage, beyond the perception of material distress and happiness.
So long he acts in his own account, he becomes subjected to all material perception of so-called happiness and distress. Actually there is no happiness. As…, as a madman whatever he does there is no happiness at all, similarly the material activities, the mental concoction that this is happiness, this is distress, actually everything is full of distress. And when such mind is dovetailed to execute according to the desire of the Lord, that is the transcendental stage. Desire to lord it over the material nature is the cause of ignorance. And so when such desire as to lord it over the material nature is completely extinguished and the desires become dovetailed in the Supreme Lord, that is the perfectional stage. This perfectional stage is described here: upalabdha-parātma-kāṣṭhaḥ (u-p-a-l-a-b-d-h-a p-a-r-a-m-t-a k-a-s-t-h-a-h). Upalabdha means realization.
As soon as we speak of realization, the…, there is indication of individuality. Without individuality there is no question of realization. In the perfectional stage, or in liberated stage, there is realization. That means the living entity keeps his individuality. Only the oneness means that he realizes happiness with the happiness of the Supreme Lord, and in the Supreme Lord there is nothing but happiness. Ānandamayo 'bhyāsāt [Ved. sūt. 1.1.12]: the Lord is by nature full of transcendental happiness. So therefore in the liberated stage, oneness with the Supreme Lord means he has no other realization than happiness. But the realization is there, otherwise this word upalabdha (u-p-a-l-a-b-d-h-a) should not have been used. This upalabdha means individual realization of the transcendental happiness.
TEXT 37
On account of his achieving his real identity, the perfect realized soul has no more any conception of the material body, how it is moving, how it is acting, as much as when a person intoxicated by drinking cannot understand whether his cloth is on the body or not.
PURPORT
This stage of life is explained by Rūpa Gosvāmī in his Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu, that a person whose mind is completely dovetailed with the desire of the Supreme Personality of Godhead and is cent-percent engaged in the service of the Lord, he forgets his material demands of the body. And in another place Śrī Narottama dāsa Ṭhākura, he also explains that "One who has forgotten the demands of this material body, where is their conditional life?" That means as soon as one is free from the material demands of the body, he is actually free. And that stage is obtained being situated in one's actual constitutional position. This mukti or liberation means to be situated in the identical position of the individual soul. The individual soul is eternally the servitor of the Supreme Soul. So as soon as he is situated in that service, transcendental loving service, without being impelled by the concoction of the mind, just according to the direction of the Supreme Lord or His bona fide representative, he is considered to be a liberated person. Just like one in a business forgets how many times he has gotten up and how many times he has seated on his chair, he forgets. Similarly the..., whether he is sitting or…, or he is standing, that has no calculation. Similarly, a liberated person engaged in the transcendental service of the Lord has no perception of his material body. So: brahma-bhūyāya sa kalpate. The Bhagavad-gītā [14.26] also says like that, that "One who is cent-per cent engaged in the unalloyed devotional service of Lord Kṛṣṇa, he is in the Brahman stage of life; he is no more in the material stage." Here the word used: yato 'dhyagamat svarūpam (y-a-t-o-a-d-h-y-a g-a-m-a-t s-w-a-r-u-p-a-m) This is the realization of one's self.
Now one may argue that how is he in self although he is in the material body? That is explained that svarūpam means, a liberated soul means that he has no activities in relationship with the body. A devotee does not act in relationship with the body, and the conditioned soul acts on the basis of relationship with the body. A devotee acts for Kṛṣṇa, and a conditioned soul acts for his relatives in relationship with this material body. Therefore, the activity shows his real identity. If one acts on account of Kṛṣṇa as Arjuna fought on account of Kṛṣṇa. On his bodily platform he did not like to fight because he was on the bodily plat..., that is not his svarūpam, his real identity. But in the transcendental platform when he dovetailed himself with the desire of the Supreme Lord, that is called svarūpam. So this svarūpam means self-realization. This is self-realization.