By Hansadutta das
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Text 14
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The ascetic with matted locks, the
shaven-headed monk, the renunciate who has pulled out all his hairs one
by one, as well as those who wear different styles of saffron robes are
all fools because, though seeing, they do not see. Indeed they have
adopted these different guises only for the sake of their stomach.
Here is a verse describing a particular kind of ascetic (sadhu
) which we especially find today in India. We find them
not only in India, but also in Europe and America. The priests, the
monks,
the sadhus, the yogis--everyone has adopted
that lifestyle as a profession or as a way to earn a living and
maintain
some social status. India, of course, is well known for religion. India
is the land of religion, and it is the culture of India to offer all
respects
to a sadhu. Sadhus are generally dressed in saffron cloth. They
are
supposed to either shave their head and face clean, or they should not
bother
with their hair and in this way let it grow long and become matted. A
sadhu is also supposed to be without any family connection, social
connection or national connection. He is supposed to travel at least
every
three days to another place with just his loin cloth, his stick and his
kamandalu (begging bowl). To this day, all over
India there are hundreds and thousands, maybe millions of sadhus
. We especially find sadhus in the holy places such as
Hrishikesh,
Haridwar, Vrindavan, Jagannatha Puri, Kurukshetra and many other
places.
Unfortunately, because of the influences of Kali-yuga, the sadhus
really have nothing to offer the public in exchange for the alms they
daily beg.
Actually, a sadhu is not a beggar, but a person
who, for the sake of the service of the Lord, has given up all kinds of
worldly connection to wife, relatives, friends and countrymen. In the
guise or role of a beggar, he actually does the highest type of welfare
work for
human society. A sadhu is supposed to be enlightened in Krishna
consciousness. Because he has this kind of enlightenment and
understanding about the futility of material activities, out of
compassion he accepts the life of a beggar or renunciate so that he can
approach all classes of
men and give them an opportunity to understand spiritual knowledge (
atma-tattva ), the higher truth of Krishna consciousness. That is
the real position of a sadhu. He is not really poor. He is not
really
in need. He has no real necessity to beg anything, but with the excuse
of
begging, he looks for an opportunity to enlighten people about Krishna
consciousness.
In Bhagavad-gita (6.32) it is said, "He is
a yogi who, by dint of his own experience, can see the real
happiness and distress of all living beings." A devotee, or sadhu,
knows how people are suffering, because he has suffered
similarly in material activities while trying to maintain wife,
children,
relatives, friends and countrymen. He tries to make others, who are in
ignorance, understand about the real purpose of human life, which is to
get gradual release from material entanglement and prepare one's self
to
give up this material body and all its relations and go home, back to
Godhead.
Unless a sadhu is capable of doing this, unless he himself is
actually
enlightened and free from material anxiety and material desire, then he
cannot really do any good for people in general.
So-called sadhus who have no real enlightenment
and renunciation are actually a nuisance. They are nothing more than
beggars, like the hippies, hobos, and bums in America who actually
cannot contribute anything to the society. They simply beg in order to
maintain themselves somehow or other from hand to mouth. Similarly,
although one may wear a
saffron cloth and shave his head or keep matted hair or practice
yoga, he is just a parasite, a beggar or a bum, if he is not
capable of giving real knowledge and real enlightenment in Krishna
consciousness.
This is a warning that the devotees of this Krishna
consciousness movement should not neglect the real purpose of this
movement and the real purpose of life, which is to become free from
friendship, society and love. We have not given up our family and
friends to come together for starting another arrangement of family,
friends, love and society. We
have come together just to help each other advance in Krishna
consciousness. We are creating a community or society, not for our
personal enjoyment, but for those who have no knowledge of Krishna
consciousness, to give them an opportunity to associate with devotees
and learn the science of Krishna consciousness. This especially is the
purpose of our communities: to create some facility where outsiders can
come and comfortably associate and participate together with devotees
to learn the philosophy and lifestyle of Krishna consciousness.
Every devotee should consider himself to be a transient or servant--a
keeper
of the inn only. The temple and community is like an inn for wayward
travelers
who have been journeying since time immemorial in the material
atmosphere
and are looking for shelter. That shelter is this place. We should live
in that way, just as keepers of the inn always look forward to giving
shelter
to those who are not so fortunate.
We should not become professional monks or priests. In
India there are so many professional priests. They become pujaris
in the temple and get a salary. Actually, the situation is so much
deteriorated in India that people open temples in order to earn money.
It is a good way to earn money, because the mass of people still
have the sentiment of offering money to the Deity. There are also men
who
become professional Bhagavatam reciters. They recite Bhagavatam
(bhagavata-supta) for seven
days, for which they get paid. They maintain themselves in that way.
This
is not very good.
Our movement has a different character. It is a
missionary movement, established just for broadcasting the message of
Krishna. As far as personal maintenance is concerned, we must have that
much faith in
Krishna that He will somehow or other provide our food, clothing and
shelter.
We should have so much enthusiasm and sincerity that our only concern
is
how to serve Krishna, how to please Krishna, how to preach the message
of Krishna, come what may.
Krishna has guaranteed in the Bhagavad-gita
(9.22), "For those who constantly worship Me with love and devotion, I
provide what they need and I protect what they have." So maintenance is
not really a problem for a devotee.
A devotee has that much conviction--"Wherever I go, as long as I'm
engaged
in service to Krishna, then Krishna will look after me, and I should
not
waste my time trying to improve my material comfort, prestige or
wealth.
Krishna will take care of me."
In America also, so many priests in the church get a
salary, nice quarters and vacation once a year. That kind of
spiritualism is useless. It cannot really help anyone. The whole thing
becomes material.
This is not a Hindu movement. Christian, Jew,
Mohammedan, and Hindu--all these designations are material. They have
nothing to do with the real essence of the scriptures of spiritual
life. The real essence is that we are always servants of Krishna. While
we are in this human form of life, we should revive that pure
devotional service by practicing bhakti-yoga. Bhakti-yoga means
to practice service to Krishna while in the material body.
The material body is certainly the source of all sorts
of suffering. We suffer from birth, we suffer from old age, we suffer
from disease, and we suffer from death. There are also many other kinds
of sufferings, such as mental distress, sufferings inflicted by other
living creatures, sufferings from the activities of the devas,
or demigods--all kinds of suffering. Indeed, material existence is a
struggle to avoid this suffering which is being imposed upon us by
material nature.
Instead of trying to counteract the inevitable miseries
of material life, we should rather try to make a complete solution to
the problem by getting out of material life, out of material existence
permanently.
That is the difference between material activities and
spiritual activities. Material activities aim at temporary solutions,
or temporarily trying to get some relief through the application of
medicine, politics, science, art, music or poetry. All of these give us
some temporary relief. But ultimately, the suffering of birth, death,
old age, and disease cannot be avoided by any kind of material
activity.
Spiritual activities give us a permanent solution. How?
By freeing us altogether from the material existence, the cycle of
birth and death. This has to be understood. Unless a person has
understood the utter
futility of material endeavors, he will not be attracted to Krishna
consciousness.
We must be hopeless about material enjoyment, material
comfort and prestige. We must be convinced that to be liberated from
the cycle of birth and death is the primary duty, the primary goal of
our life. That conviction must be in the heart. Then Krishna
consciousness becomes very easy. Unless we see the urgency, the
necessity of Krishna consciousness, we will be very casual. We will
take it as something interesting--"Yes, it is nice, but right now I
must do my business," or "I will just have some sense gratification,
intoxication, or illicit sex, or whatever. Then tomorrow I can go to
the temple, or next week, or next year, when I get older I will take
this up, but not now. Now I want to have some comfort and some
enjoyment." That is the problem. Everyone has a casual attitude. We
must be serious, as if the house were on fire. If the house were
burning, we would not think of sleeping another five minutes. We would
jump up and run out, scream
and get help. We would do everything in our power to extinguish the
fire.
We would not casually embrace our wife and have some sweet talk. We
would
be in panic.
One must come to this panic-stricken awareness, this
urgency, that at any moment our life may end. We are sitting in a house
on fire. Actually, this body is on fire. The senses are burning us with
lust, anger and greed--we have so many things that we want to possess
and enjoy. And yet the body has another kind of fire: the fire of old
age, disease and ultimately death. Death burns up our very body, and
that death may
come at any moment. It may come today, it may come tomorrow. It comes
to
everyone for sure, either today, tomorrow or after some years. No one
can
be certain when, where or how he will die. The house we are living in
is
on fire--this body is compared to a house with nine windows--two eyes,
two ears, nostrils, mouth, anus, and genital. We are packed up in the
house
of this material body, and it is on fire, but we are not taking any
measure
to extinguish this fire, the fire of material existence, the blazing
fire
of samsara (repeated birth and death). If you do not make any
arrangement
to get out of this material body in this life, you will get another
body
in the next life, and again you will be subjected to these sufferings:
birth,
death, old age and disease.
Whoever or whatever a person may be--rich or poor,
learned or foolish, Indian or American, married or single, city-dweller
or country-dweller, child or old man--everyone should be very serious
about Krishna consciousness. No one can say, "Now I am alone, and no
one is looking, so I can do whatever I like." We should all be serious.
Everyone is responsible for his own
life. No one can really help anyone. The spiritual master can give some
instruction, some suggestion, but he cannot and will not enforce.
Everyone
has to fly his own airplane and swim alone. Don't be diverted. Be
always
very alert and very determined, dhira (sober) about this life
of
Krishna consciousness.
The greatest misfortune is to get the opportunity of
human life, then to get spiritual life, and then to neglect it. That is
the greatest misfortune or tragedy. That is very lamentable. When we
see the
non-devotees, who have no knowledge, living a casual life of sense
enjoyment, we cannot really criticize them. They don't know anything.
But when we
see a devotee fall back into sense gratification on account of his
laziness, we have to be very sorry about it. Hare Krishna.
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