Kaviraja Shanti Prakash Dasa: There is no love in this material world. But what is the ‘love’ of this world? This emotion is so powerful that people commit suicide, homicide and other unspeakable acts to in order to serve ‘love’. However this ‘love’ is but a shadow of the actual substance- Prema or Pure love.
Thus prema is not of this world, it descends from the spiritual world. At the same time it lies dormant within our hearts (CC Madhya 22.107). This is because in actuality we are spiritual beings This is something that we all hear from the beginning of spiritual life, but do we progressively try to understand it? Only as we begin to realize our eternal position in transcendence, does the misidentification with the material body dwindle.
The so-called love of this material world boils down to being self (body or mind) centered. However prema is based on the Lord’s happiness and is thus completely selfless and spiritual. Although many varieties of so-called love exist, ranging from a mother’s love for her child to animalistic lust. All are selfish although apparently selfless, and produces happiness mixed with suffering. This mixed happiness is what drives people act in extraordinary (or insane) ways. Each kind of love produces a unique fulfillment, however true satisfaction escapes the living entity until one discovers that the best object of affection is God. Only then can one can be truly selfless, understanding all other living beings’ connection with the Divine Father.
The desire to gratify one’s own senses is kama [lust], but the desire to please the senses of Lord Krishna is prema [love]. (CC Adi. 4.165)
The neophyte only tries to understand his/her relationship towards the deity in the temple or God or his/her respective spiritual master. ”It is only me and my God! It is only me and my Guru and I will have you know there aren’t any other gurus and my guru is jagat-guru!” That is an extreme example of the neophyte’s conception but it conveys the attitude. The neophyte is also called materialistic (Prakrta) because their conceptions are based on self identification with matter, identifying the guru with matter and understanding Krishna as limited. Thus the neophyte’s conception of prema is constricted and puny.
The middle class, pure devotee sees Krishna’s devotees and everything in relation to Krishna. However he or she does discriminate. Thus where as the neophyte limits his/her conception of prema, the middle class devotee directs prema towards the Lord but understands that loving relationships should with formed with devotees of that same Lord according to their respective qualification; compassion should be shown to those ignorant of God; and in order to serve the envious, the middle class devotee avoids them so that unnecessary offenses are avoided as well. The middle class devotee is always aspiring to serve with love. When this serving attitude of the middle class devotee matures completely, he/she practically sees Krishna everywhere. He/she only sees devotion and pure devotees. Thus he/she only relates in pure love or prema and is known as a first class devotee.
Thus the First class devotee relates only in terms of prema and the conditioned soul only relates in terms of kama (or material ‘love’). For spiritual practioners (or sadhakas) however, it is not one extreme or another. Sadhakas strive to progressively convert the tendency to ‘love’ in a material way into loving in a selfless way. This can only occur if the sadhaka relates the love to Krishna. This is called sambandha (or philosophical understanding). Without a relationship to Krishna or God, there is no real sadhana (or spiritual practice); and thus there is no conversion of the tendency for material love to prema. Thus the sadhaka should attempt to see and act in relation to Krishna-with regard to the wife, husband, home, work, people in general etc. This requires patient practice and the Holy name’s mercy. Thus the ‘loving’ (or lusty) propensity progressively converts to a selfless, loving attitude. As the sadhaka becomes fixed in this consciousness, his/her development matures gradually into the consciousness of a first class devotee.
Thank you Kaviraja Shanti Prakash Prabhu. This is a very clear explanation of the kanistha, madhyama and uttma adhikaris.
hrishikesa hrishikena sevanam bhaktir ucyate
The Lord, Hrishikesa, is the owner of the senses, even our purified senses. He has expanded Himself to expand His pleasure. As such, since our senses are part of His senses (simultaneously one and different), the jiva souls can experience inconceivable loving bliss. Krishnadas Kaviraj states that the ecstasy that the jiva souls experience when seeing the beautiful form of Sri Krishna is 10,000 times greater than the ecstasy that Krishna experiences when seeing the jiva soul. This ultimately creates curiosity of the highest nature in Krishna Himself, to know the ecstacy and love which is experienced by Srimati Radharani. Sri Krishna’s transformation into Sri Chaitanya follows.
It is sometimes said that the love style of the gopis is to redeposit their ecstasy and love into Radha Krishna Lila. They continue to deposit, and do not take withdrawals for themselves. Such is their unique and high love that Krishna sends His dearmost friend, Uddhava Prabhu, to Vrindaban to witness the extraordinary love that the gopis have. Uddhava realizes the heights of their devotion and prays to become a blade of grass in Sri Vrindaban Dham so that the gopis might step upon him and bless him with the dust of their lotus feet. Such is love, and we have the inverted reflection, the banyan tree described in the Bhagavat Gita, as the basis for the material world. The real substance exists, it is in bhakti, loving service to the Lord. We have only to analyze the transitory nature of affection or love in this world, to realize the imperfection of mundane affection.
When I was first preached to, one of the things that attracted me to Krishna was that here was Someone who I could love, which was not temporary, which would never lead to frustration, which transcended even the death of this body. That perfection which transcended the perverse tendency to merge into Brahman, the last snare of maya, gave emphasis to the eternal nature of the jiva soul, and the possibility that true love, like the jiva soul, is eternal. Srila Prabhupad saved us from the wasted flawed love of the material variety, saved us from the flawed resort to merge into the Light of Brahman, and gave us our true identity as eternal jiva souls, part and parcel of Sri Krishna eternally. Krishna Who is the reservoir of all rasas or eternal relationships, Who is the reservoir of Love, the reservoir of Pleasure. Hare Krishna, Pusta Krishna das