The whole world is divided into factions, and each accuses the others
of being crazy. But if there are no criteria by which to judge sanity,
then who can decide?
man-mana bhava mad-bhakto
mad-yaji mam
namaskuru
mam
evaishyasi yuktvaivam
atmanam mat-parayanah
“Engage your mind always in thinking of Me,
engage your body in My
service and surrender unto Me. Completely absorbed in Me, surely you
will come to Me.”—Bhagavad-gita 9.34
Here Krishna says that one should always think of Him, be His devotee
and worship Him. This is the process of devotional service; it is not
very difficult, and anyone can execute it by thinking of God, offering
obeisances and rendering some service unto Him. Generally people
identify with some party, either socially, politically, economically or
religiously. In America there are the Republican and Democratic
parties, and on the international scale there are the capitalists and
the communists. Religiously, people identify with a party as Christian,
Moslem, Hindu and so on. In India there are social parties also, like
the brahmanas and kshatriyas. In short, to avoid
belonging to some party or other is not possible. Spiritualism,
however, means that we should identify ourselves with God’s party.
On this platform also there is “party-ism” in that the spiritualists
call the materialists crazy, and the materialists call the
spiritualists crazy. We have formed a Society for Krishna
Consciousness, and those who do not like it say that we are “crazy.”
Similarly, a person in Krishna consciousness sees a person who is
acting in material consciousness as a crazy person. Who, then, is
actually crazy? Who decides? How are the parties involved capable of
deciding? Indeed, the whole world is divided into parties, each
accusing the others of being crazy, but if there are no criteria by
which to judge sanity, then who can decide? If we ask any man, any
common man on the street, what he is, he will reply, “I am this body.”
He may give some further explanation by saying that he is Christian, or
Hindu, or Jewish, or that he is Mr. So-and-So, or whatever, but all
these are simply designations he attaches to the body. In other words,
they all arise from the body. When a person says that he is an
American, he is referring to the body because by some accident or
reason he is born into the land of America and so takes the title of an
American. But that is also artificial because the land is neither
American nor French, nor Chinese, nor Russian, nor anything—land is
land. We have simply artificially created some boundaries and said,
“This is America, this is Canada, this is Mexico, Europe, Asia, India.”
These are our concoctions, for we do not find that these lands were
originally divided in this way. Three or four hundred years ago this
land was not even known as America, nor was it even inhabited by white
men from Europe. Even a thousand years ago Europe was inhabited by
different peoples and called different names. These are all
designations that are constantly changing. From the Vedic literatures
we can understand that this whole planet was known as Ilavarta-varsha,
and one king, Maharaja Bharata, who ruled the entire planet, changed
the name of the planet to Bharata-varsha. Gradually, however, the
planet became divided again, and different continents and sectors
became known by different names. Even recently India has been divided
into a number of countries, whereas earlier in the century India had
included Burma, Ceylon and East and West Pakistan. In actuality the
land is neither Bharata-varsha, India, Europe, Asia or
whatever—we simply give it these designations in accordance with time
and influence.
Just as we give the land designations, we also give our bodies
designations, but no one can say what his designations were before
birth. Who can say that he was American, Chinese, European or whatever?
We are thinking that after leaving this body we will continue as
American or Indian or Russian. But although we may live in America
during this life, we may be in China in the next, for we are constantly
changing our bodies. Who can say that he is not changing bodies? When
we are born from the womb of our mother, our body is very small. Now,
where is that body? Where is the body we had as a boy? We may have
photographs that remind us what the body was like in past years, but we
cannot say where that body has gone. The body may change, yet we have
the feeling that we do not change. “I am the same man,” we think, “and
in my childhood I looked like this or like that.” Where have those
years gone? They have vanished along with the body and everything that
came in contact with it. But although everything is changing at every
moment, we are still sticking to our bodily identification so that when
we are asked what we are, we give an answer that is somehow or other
related to this body. Is this not crazy? If a person identifies with
something he is not, he is considered crazy. The conclusion is that one
who identifies with the body cannot really be considered sane. This,
then, is a challenge to the world: Whoever claims God’s property or
earth as belonging to his body, which is constantly changing, can only
be considered a crazy man. Who can actually establish that this is his
property or that this is his body? By the chances of nature a person is
placed in a body and is dictated to by the laws of material nature. Yet
in illusion we think we are controlling that nature. Therefore
Krishna says in Bhagavad-gita:
“The bewildered spirit soul, under the
influence of the three modes of
material nature, thinks himself the doer of activities that are in
actuality carried out by nature.”—Bhagavad-gita 3.27)
Prakriteh kriyamanani: Material nature is
pulling everyone by the ear, just as a stern teacher pulls a student.
Every individual is under the dictations of material nature and is
being put sometimes in this body and sometimes in that. We are now
fortunate to have acquired a human body, but we can easily see that
there are many other types of bodies (8,400,000 according to Padma
Purana) and by the laws of nature we can be put into any type
of body according to our work. Thus we are completely in the grip of
material nature. Although this lifetime we may be fortunate in
acquiring a human body, there is no guarantee that the next time we
will not have the body of a dog or some other animal. All this depends
on our work. No one can say, “After my death, I will take my birth
again in America.” Material nature will force us into this body or
that. Since we are not authorities, Bhagavad-gita informs
us that everything is being conducted by the supreme laws of nature,
and it is the foolish man who thinks, “I am something. I am
independent.” Ahankara-vimudhatma:
this is false reason. Although the living entity is different from the
body, he thinks, “I am this body.” Therefore Shankaracharya basically
preached the same
message over and over: aham brahmasmi, “I am not this
body;
I am Brahman, spirit soul.”
Nonetheless, even when we have resolved to take to the path of
self-realization, maya or illusion persists. By
self-realization a person may come to realize that he is not the body
but a spiritual soul. What then is his position? Void? Impersonal?
People think that after the demise of this body there is nothing but nirvana
or void. The impersonalists similarly say
that as
soon as the body is finished, one’s personal identity is finished also.
In actuality, however, the body can never be identified with the living
entity any more than a car can be identified with its driver. A person
may direct a car wherever he wishes, but when he gets out of the car he
does not think that his personality is gone. In Bhagavad-gita
Krishna speaks of the living
entity in this way:
“The Supreme Lord is situated in everyone’s
heart, O Arjuna, and is
directing the wanderings of all living entities, who are seated as on a
machine, made of the material energy.”—Bhagavad-gita 18.61)
These various bodies are like cars, and they are all moving. One person
may have an expensive kind of car, and another person may have an
inexpensive one; one person may have a new car, and another person may
have an old one. Should we then think that when we are out of the car
of the body the personality no longer exists? This is another kind of
craziness. The void philosophy, which maintains that after death we
become nothing, is also a craziness that has been contradicted. We are
not void but spirit. When one attains spiritual realization, knowing
himself as spirit outside the body, he can advance further by inquiring
about his duty as spirit. “What is my spiritual work?” he should ask.
Realizing one’s spiritual identity and asking about one’s spiritual
duty is actual sanity. So much individuality and discrimination are
displayed by the living entity even in the body. Should we think that
at death one’s intelligence, discrimination and individuality no longer
exist? Although we may make such great plans and work so hard within
the body, are we to assume that when we leave the body we become void?
There is no basis for this nonsense, and it is directly refuted by
Krishna at the very beginning of Bhagavad-gita:
na tv evaham jatu nasam
na tvam neme
janadhipah
na chaiva na
bhavishyamah
sarve vayam atah param
dehino ’smin yatha dehe
kaumaram yauvanam
jara
tatha dehantara-praptir
dhiras tatra na
muhyati
“Never was there a time when I did not exist,
nor you, nor all these
kings; nor in the future shall any of us cease to be. As the embodied
soul continually passes, in this body, from boyhood to youth to old
age, the soul similarly passes into another body at death. The
self-realized soul is not bewildered by such a change.”—Bhagavad-gita
2.12–13)
Thus the spiritual identity of the individual soul continues after
death, for Lord Krishna assures Arjuna of the
eternality of all the individual souls assembled on the battlefield.
The spiritual spark or self is within the body from the moment the body
begins to form within the womb of the mother, and it continues existing
in the body as the body undergoes all of its changes through infancy,
childhood, youth and old age. This means that the person who is within
the body is present from the moment of conception. The measurement of
this individual soul is so small that the Vedic scriptures approximate
it to be no larger than one ten-thousandth part of the tip of a hair—in
other words, as far as human vision is concerned, it is invisible. One
cannot see the soul with material eyes, but the soul is there
nonetheless, and the fact that the body grows from the shape of a pea
to full-grown manhood is proof of its presence. There are six symptoms
of the soul’s presence, and growth is one of them. If there is growth,
or change, one should know that the soul is present within the body.
When the body becomes useless, the soul leaves it, and the body simply
decays. One cannot directly perceive the soul’s leaving the body, but
one can perceive it symptomatically when the body loses consciousness
and dies. In the Second Chapter of Bhagavad-gita Lord
Krishna gives the following simile to illustrate this
process:
“As a person puts on new garments, giving up
old ones, similarly, the
soul accepts new material bodies, giving up the old and useless ones.”—Bhagavad-gita
2.22)
Although the soul takes on new bodies, the soul does not select the
bodies himself, the selection is made by the law of nature. However,
the mentality of the soul does affect the selection, as indicated by
Krishna in the following verse:
yam yam vapi smaran bhavam
tyajaty ante
kalevaram
tam tam evaiti kaunteya
sada
tad-bhava-bhavitah
“In whatever condition one quits his present
body, in his next life he
will attain to that state of being without fail.”—Bhagavad-gita
8.6)
As one’s thoughts develop, his future body also develops. The sane man
understands that he is not the body, and he also understands what his
duty is: to fix his mind on Krishna so that at death he
can attain Krishna’s nature. This is the advice of
Krishna in the last verse of the Ninth Chapter:
man-mana bhava mad-bhakto
mad-yaji mam
namaskuru
mam evaishyasi yuktvaiva
matmanah
mat-parayanah
“Engage your mind always in thinking of Me,
engage your body in My
service and surrender unto Me. Completely absorbed in Me, surely will
you come to Me.”—Bhagavad-gita 9.34)
Every embodied soul is in the constant act of thinking. To refrain from
thinking something is not possible for a moment. The duty of the
individual, therefore, is to think of Krishna. There
should be no difficulty in this, nor any harm; Krishna
has pastimes and activities, He comes to earth and leaves His message
in the form of Bhagavad-gita, and there are so many
literatures about Krishna that thinking of Him is
neither a difficult nor costly task. There are enough literatures on
Krishna to last one a lifetime, so there is no shortage
of material. Thinking of Krishna, however, should be
favorable. If a man is employed, he may always be thinking of his
employer: “I must get there on time. If he sees me late, he may deduct
from my paycheck.” This kind of thinking will not do. It is necessary
to think of Krishna with love (bhava
mad-bhaktah). In the material world when the servant thinks of
the master, there is no love; he is thinking only of pounds, shillings
and pence. Because that kind of thinking will not save us,
Krishna requests that one just be His devotee.
Thinking of Krishna with love, or devotion to
Krishna, actually means service. The spiritual master
prescribes various duties to enable the neophyte devotee to think of
Krishna. In the Society for Krishna Consciousness, for
instance, there are so many duties assigned: printing, writing, typing,
dispatching, cooking, and so on. In so many ways the students are
thinking of Krishna because they are engaged in the service of Krishna.
What is the duty indicated by Krishna? Mad-yaji mam namaskuru.
Even if we are not
inclined to obedience, we must obey and offer respects (namaskuru).
Bhakti, or devotion, minus respect is not bhakti.
One should engage in
Krishna consciousness with love and respect and should
thus fulfill his designated duties. Then life will be successful. One
can never be happy by identifying himself with the material body and
engaging in all kinds of nonsensical activities. For happiness, there
must be consciousness of Krishna; that is the
difference between spiritualism and materialism. The same typewriter,
dictation machine, tape recorder, mimeograph machine, paper, ink, the
same hand—on the surface, everything is the same, but everything
becomes spiritualized when it is used in the service of
Krishna. This, then, is spiritual. We should not think
that something has to be uncommon to be spiritual. The entire material
world can be transformed into spirit if we simply become
Krishna conscious. By ardently following the
instructions of Krishna in Bhagavad-gita
and following in the footsteps of the great acharyas, teachers
of Bhagavad-gita in the line of disciplic succession, we
can spiritualize the earth and restore its inhabitants to sanity.