śrī śrī guru gaurāṅga jayataḥ!
Year 13, Issue 5
Posted: 14 June 2020
Dedicated to
nitya-līlā praviṣṭa oṁ viṣṇupāda
Śrī Śrīmad Bhakti Prajñāna Keśava Gosvāmī Mahārāja
Inspired by and under the guidance of
Śrī Śrīmad Bhaktivedānta Nārāyaṇa Gosvāmī Mahārāja
Debarred from Truly Tasting the Bhāgavatam
by Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura Prabhupāda
Rather than listening to Bhāgavata discourses spoken by liberated paramahaṁsa Vaiṣṇavas, those who make a fuss of listening to the Bhāgavatam from professional orators or others whose discourses are full of tendencies that are harmful to the culture of true well-being, do so for sensuous gratification through poetic, literary, grammatical and other such false appreciations. They are debarred from tasting the pure, juicy sweetness of the Bhāgavata but are deluded into thinking the bad taste or indifferent taste they experience is the true taste of the Bhāgavatam. When persons sure of the transitory nature of human life, like Parikṣit, listen to discourses on the Bhāgavatam spoken by liberated paramahaṁsa Vaiṣṇavas like Śrī Śukadeva, they become eternal tasters of bhāgavata-rasa, having been absolved from all worldly attachment.
If you read other books than the Bhāgavatam, you come under the influence of the processes of karma and jñāna (the pursuit of rewards and knowledge), pleasure and pain, birth and death. By these you may obtain dharma (puṇya), artha, (wealth) and karma (fulfulment of desires). One, desirous of emancipation (mokṣa), may even renounce worldly life, but one motivated by such desire does not serve God. Only the devotees do that. God is not served even by the practitioner of astaṅga-yoga, which bestows siddhis, or vibhūtis, like aṇimā (the power to become as small as you wish), laghimā (the power to be as light as you wish), and so on, what to speak of by the emancipationist who may want to rid himself of the weal and woe* of worldly life in order to become the recipient of enjoyment in the form of the negation of suffering?
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* The expression “weal and woe” refers to the good and bad times, the joys and sorrows, or prosperity and misfortune.
Adapted from The Gauḍīya, Year 20, Issue 9
By the Rays of The Harmonist team
