The Key Difference Between Mayavada and Bhaktivada

In Śrīmad Bhāgavatam (3.24.31), Kardama says:

Ah! Even though he is beyond the delimitation of form, the All-Attractive appears in such beautiful forms just to delight his own beloved devotees!

The Supreme Being is beyond delimitation, beyond form, and beyond comprehension. However, to enjoy the bliss of love, he delimits himself within infinite forms that come into the comprehension of his devotees. He enjoys doing so because he enjoys the bliss of delighting those who love him.

So, how is this different from māyāvāda?

Māyāvāda claims that "the Supreme Being is beyond delimitation, beyond form, and beyond comprehension.” So does Kardama, representing the bhakti-siddhānta.

Then what is the difference?

Māyāvāda claims that the forms taken by the Supreme Being, such as in his many avatāra, are limitations of him imposed by Māyā (illusion), and he seeks to become free from these limitations and return to his formless state.

Kardama (representing bhakti-siddhānta) makes a very different claim: the forms taken by the Supreme Being, such as in his many avatāra, are accepted by his freewill, as a result of his natural, inherent desire to enjoy bliss by exchanging love with his distinctly manifested energies.

In short, Māyāvāda claims that the Supreme Being has form because it comes under the sway of illusion (Māyā), but Kardama claims that the Supreme Being has form because he enjoys it.

The sum difference between the two claims is that Māyāvāda makes no sense, while Kardama’s bhaktivāda makes very good sense. It makes no sense to suggest that the Supreme Being can come under the sway of anything unpleasant (such as illusion). But it makes very good sense to suggest that the Supreme Being can do anything he pleases by his infinite freewill, in the pursuit of his intrinsic desire to experience bliss.

This is exactly the difference between Māyāvāda and truly Siddhāntik Vedānta.

On the first day of Kartika I had the unimaginable good fortune to chant 16 rounds on the original japa beads of Srila Jiva Goswami. I chanted slowly and attentively, all the while praying for a genuine taste for the holy names of the Lord. I was well aware that the special opportunity was given [...]

(Kadamba Kanana Swami, 13 April 2013, Amsterdam, Netherlands, Srimad Bhagavatam Lecture)

When we surrender, Krsna reciprocates by revealing knowledge. At that stage, knowledge of Srimad Bhagavatam is no longer just theoretical. Now when we read through it and we can go, ‘Okay, seven oceans containing: salty water, sugar-cane juice, liquor, clarified butter, milk, emulsified yogurt and sweet drinking water. I mean, come on! I mean, how can it be?’

One starts to think – fairy tales! In the beginning, the Bhagavatam is theoretical – we are exploring it, we are reading it but the interesting part is that as we surrender to Krsna and as we live our lives according to the directions of the Srimad Bhagavatam, we begin to realize the Bhagavatam and our perception changes. Krsna will give us insights and knowledge, and that is where the Bhagavatam comes alive. Gradually, we see that the Bhagavatam is not only in the book but it is everywhere – it is life! We actually see that this knowledge is reality, then we walk around in the world in the Bhagavat consciousness! This is the way to relate to the Bhagavatam by seeing through the eyes of scriptures. We are not only reading it intellectually but we are reading it devotionally, following it, practicing it and then realizing it deeper and deeper, until in the end of the Bhagavatam, in the tenth canto, we come to Krsna.

So many incarnations, the whole history of the universe, so many sages and so on, have been described before the tenth canto. In the ninth canto, the appearance of Lord Ramachandra has been explained, and in the tenth canto – Krsna! When Lord Ramachandra comes – he is the Supreme Lord – but he comes to teach dharma, to teach the duty for human beings. Therefore, he is acting as a human being and is following principles that human beings must follow. But the Lord is actually not bound by such limitations. Krsna comes to show how God himself can act and is acting. So, he steals! Lord Ramachandra does not steal, no, no! That is against dharma!  But Krsna steals and everybody knows it, everyone worships Krsna for it and everyone loves Krsna for it.

Every day, the cowherd boys are going into forest with Krsna and everyday their mothers are making lunch packages. The mothers go all out in making really, really amazing lunch packages with lots of tasty things inside because they know very well that the cowherd boys share and sometimes steal each other’s packages. They hope that one day, just one day, the lunch package that they made for their son will come in the hands of Krsna and Krsna will taste something. Therefore, every day they are making special lunch packages in the hope that one day Krsna will steal it! We worship Krsna as a thief!

Like this, the tenth canto takes us to Lord Krsna, and by then the Srimad Bhagavatam has primed us with the full knowledge of creation and all expansions of Lord. By now, we know that there is one Lord who has many forms; he is one, not two; he is infallible and he has no other origin than himself. In this way, we understand Krsna. After we have gone through these nine cantos, we are well prepared and have got some realization. Then we are ready to taste the sweetness of transcendental pastimes of Krsna and the Bhagavatam is actually meant for that.

 

 

On 27 September 2014 His Holiness Jayapataka Swami, ISKCON Malaysia Co GBC gave initiation to 25 devotees in Sri Jagannatha Mandir. There was a big crowd witnessing this sacred ceremony. His Holiness Srila Jayapataka Swami gave an inspiring talk before he gave the names and beads to the initiation candidates. His Holiness stressed on the importance of using one’s intelligence in serving Lord Krishna. He also appreciated the good work being carried out at our ISKCON farm. His Holiness later explained about Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu having darshan of Krishna in Kanayah Natashala, how Lord Caitanya saw Krishna and after that the separation He felt form Lord Krishna etc. Read more ›

Although everyone admires the ecstatic chanting and dancing of the devotees, who are therefore popularly known as "the Hare Krishna people," Mayavadis cannot appreciate these activities because of their poor fund of knowledge. (Sri Caitanya-caritamrta, Adi-lila, 7.42 Purport) Read more ›

ISKCON devotee Premamaya Vasudeva Das (Pierre Edel) has reached the third stage in Season 3 of the Russian version of TV singing competition show The Voice, an international phenomenon. At every opportunity along the way, he’s sharing what he knows about God consciousness, vegetarianism, and sacred mantras with judges, contestants, and journalists.

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One who accepts the chanting of Hare Krishna to be some kind of pious activity is completely misled. Of course, it is pious; but the real fact is that Krishna and His name, being transcendental, are far above all mundane pious activity. (Sri-Caitanya-caritamrta, Adi-lila, 3.79 Purport) Read more ›

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Toronto, Ontario

Sacred Central Station


Now, the Jews have Jerusalem, the Catholics have Rome, the Muslims have Mecca, and so on.  Do the Hare Krishnas have a place they call headquarters?  Their capitol?  Their sacred Central Station?

The answer would be, Mayapura, the birth place of Sri Chaitanya.  This is the spot we would call home.  The global initiative to the now popular kirtan is unmistakably this location situated 130 km north of Kolkatta, India, along the Ganges River. 

From the Kolkata Airport, it would take a marathon pilgrim like myself 4 days of walking to get there.  It takes a grueling 4 hours by car over a pot-holed road.  That duration will change once a spanking new 6 lane highway is completed.

In Mayapura, an amazing super structure is practically materialized as the start of a gorgeous, what will be, the largest Vedic temple on the planet.  By its completion date in 2022, the world will see a magnificent landmark commemorating the great avatar, Sri Chaitanya. 

Visiting us in town this weekend is the chief fundraiser for the project.  Radha Jivan hails from Bihar, India, and now resides in Florida, but travels the world for the campaign.  He told me of the 6 million pilgrims that have come to Maypura already this year.  The attendance grows each year since construction began 5 years ago.  I teamed up with Radha Jivan for the fundraising at locations Brampton and Toronto.  It went well.  It is a global undertaking. 

“This place, Mayapura, is very dear to devotees’ hearts,” one person commented.  This global effort demonstrated cooperation amongst Krishna followers. 

Between the two communities, Brampton and Toronto, where pledges were made, I had the opportunity to have a breather.  I walked a distance on Avenue Road, and while I did so I relished the thought of this great edifice coming up to remind everyone of how great is the spiritual world and how small we all really are.

May the Source be with you!

7 KM

Toronto, Ontario

Moving Bodies


Well, we had a bit of a problem this morning at the ashram.  It had something to do with bodily contortions, moans and groans and twitching eyes.  The woman, a visitor, who exhibited these unique features, was asked to be less distractive because she persisted and refused tone down advice we gave her. 

To her credit, she wore meditation beads and chanted on them.  Even some of her physical stretches demonstrated remarkable ability.  It’s just that the psychological diversions and the various moanings began to become non-condusive to our devotional atmosphere, and most unfortunately, the authorities had to be called in to deal with this incommunicable individual.  I was impressed by the cautious way and their handling of the situation.  From the depths of our hearts, we wish the lady well. 

The evening continued to be a time of bodily movement.  After the beautiful and tasty birthday cake that I received (and yes, the supportive community did sing “Hare Krishna to you…”  instead of the usual “Happy Birthday to you…”), an enthusiastic group headed to Queen Street for some stimulative dancing.  It was the annual Nuit Blance, an evening of artistic expression in the downtown.  Our kirtan with its drumming got people gyrating and coming up with all kinds of interesting and creative moves. 

Being a celebratory day in honour of this humble servant, I was pleased to receive words of gratitude at our temple ashram, but it was equally as exciting to co-lead the kirtan with Ajamil and watch the various happy contortions of people’s physical frames.  At some intervals of the chanting sessions, people came up one by one to the mic to recite the maha mantra. 

All this ecstasy took place in front of the stately Old City Hall.  When the tower’s massive clock struck midnight, from there I walked with friends from Michigan back to the ashram.  In the course of the walk as we trailed through, or struggled through crowds which numbered at 1 million strong, a meagre realization came about.  There has to be as many different ways of walking as there are people.  Body movement has no limit it seems.

May the Source be with you!

5 KM

The Vedic scriptures say: "Even if one distributes ten million cows in charity during an eclipse of the sun, lives at the confluence of the Ganges and Yamuma for millions of years, or gives a mountain of gold in sacrifice to the brahmanas, he does not earn one hundredth part of the merit derived from chanting Hare Krishna." (Sri-Caitanya-caritamrta, Adi-lila, 3.79 Purport) Read more ›

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Below are questions posed by a devotee friend and my following answers.

From what I understand, Krishna is a person, meaning he is personal. What are the impersonal aspects he is referring to?
You are correct Krishna is a person with likes and dislikes except He is the Supreme Person. The impersonal aspect of Krishna is His bodily effulgence or nirguna nirakar Brahman and then His energy upon which this material creation rests. This material world in which we are currently occupying is an expansion of Krishna but without Krishna directly in it so in that sense it is impersonal. The Brahman effulgence (the universal light) which yogis meditate upon is also a manifestation of Krishna (which is impersonal as it has no character or guna).

Does the personal triumph over the impersonal?
I am not exactly sure what you mean by triumph but from a spiritual perspective, impersonal and personal are same but the difference is in complete versus incomplete. Brahman manifestation is an incomplete realization of God. Realizing Bhagavan is a complete realization of God so one can say in that sense personal is superior to impersonal due to the degree of completeness. If you want to give a crude example, we can establish a relationship with a person by email and or also by person. Both are valid but talking to a person directly reveals more about the individual than just email. Similarly meditating on Brahman reveals certain aspects of God but meditating directly on God reveals Him completely.

I absolutely believe that one has to treat God like a family member to establish that relationship of Love with him. Unless one can think of him that way, it will be difficult as you said to continuously think of him. Correct me if I am wrong, the best way to develop this Love would be to read and hear about his stories, his past times.
Yes you are correct. Just one additional point, you have to hear not just from anyone but from His pure devotee only and not anyone else because Krishna as we discussed earlier reveals His confidential secrets only to His pure bhaktas (not gnanis or yogis). Why…you may ask that is because love is personal and confidential as we discussed earlier and gnanis want knowledge and yogis want siddhis, only bhaktas want to love God…so therefore if we also want to develop love for Krishna, then we must hear from a lover of God – His pure devotee or suddha bhakta.

When we say he is a person, are we not limiting his existence to a body and form? What of the space outside of his body and form? How should we understand it?
This is good question. To understand this fully requires deeper realization. For my part I can share the theory. Our mundane experience so far has taught us to see body as limited…why…because our body is made of flesh and blood bound by space and time. According to great saints like Sukadev Goswami, Mahamuni Vyas etc and according to Bhagavad Gita and Srimad Bhagavatam, we understand that Krishna’s body is not made of flesh and blood. You can get an indication of this in verse BG 4.6. Please read that for clarification. In other words, even when Krishna appeared 5000 years ago, His body was not material but fully spiritual. His atma and His body are the same unlike in our case, the atma is inside the physical body. Therefore the entire body of Krishna is spiritual and in our case our atma or spirit is a tiny size (1/10,000 tip of a hair strand) located in the heart region of our body. The rest of our body is made of flesh and blood. So Krishna is not bound by laws of nature like we are bound. Believe it or not…all the 33 crore demigods (except Lord Siva) also have a physical body like us and an atma residing within. However, the physical bodies of demigods are very powerful. Krishna’s body however is completely spiritual and hence He is categorically superior from all living beings and demigods including Sivaji and Brahmaji. This is why Krishna is Swayam Bhagavan.

The space outside of Krishna’s body is both outside and inside of His body. This is not possible for us to understand as we live in a three dimensional world. For example, mother Yasoda asked to see Krishna’s mouth, she saw the entire creation plus herself in it which means Krishna was inside and outside His creation simultaneously. Because Krishna is the Supreme creator, His entire creation is inside and outside of Him. So in one sense all space is contained within Him and outside Him simultaneously. So Krishna is everywhere and in one place simultaneously. Because we live a three dimensional world, it appears to us that Krishna came to earth 5000 year ago, did some lila, lived in Vrindavan, Mathura and left the planet. People with material understanding like scholars and material sadhus narrate Krishna’s stories in this way. But actually, Krishna never leaves Vrindavan and at the same time all pervading. We cannot perceive this reality till our heart is cleansed of our attachment to our bodily identity and completely immersed in service to Krishna. This will take time but for now in theory, we can understand that because Krishna’s body is not made of material elements, is all pervading (i.e all space is within Him) and at the same time localized (i.e. space is outside of Him) simultaneously. There are two narrations to illustrate this conundrum, one story of Markendeya muni and the other of Dhurvasa muni. Both experience Krishna inside and out.

Hare Krishna

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One should never consider the chanting of the holy name of Godhead equal to pious activities like giving in charity to brahmanas or saintly persons, opening charitable educational institutions, distributing free food and so on. The results of pious activities do not equal the results of chanting the holy name of Krishna. (Sri-Caitanya-caritamrta, Adi-lila, 3.79 Purport) Read more ›

Last year I made a series of short pieces about the holy month of Kartik. Here’s the first one:

The Hare Krishna mantra is specifically mentioned in many Upanisads, such as the Kali-santarana Upanishad, where it is said: "After searching through al the Vedic literature, one cannot find a method of religion more sublime for this age than the chanting of Hare Krishna." (Sri-Caitanya-caritamrta, Adi-lila, 3.40 Purport) Read more ›

The importance of the counsellor system.

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01-10-2014 Krishna Balaram Katha Part 2, ISKCON Gaborone, Botswana.mp3

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Answer Podcast

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Why would he say, "I started serving Krishna with Rs 40 and now I have more than Rs 40 crore"

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HH Radhanath Swami inaugurates the exquisite paintings adorning the roof of the Vedic Cultural & Educational Center. All these hand drawn gems-of-art have been made by the expert artists @ GEV! Read more ›

Radhanath Swami visited Bologna for 2 days and this was the first program at a large hotel very well known in Bologna, home of the oldest university in the western world. There were over 500 people attending on a Thursday night. At the end they gave a great applause and purchased over 200 books. For Maharajas visit next year we are already looking for halls with over a thousand seats!! Ys Trai das Read more ›

Devotees have begun construction on another temple in Rohini, near Punjabi Bagh, which will complete Srila Prabhupada’s wish for ten small temples and one big temple in Delhi. Read more ›

From Cape Town, Kadamba Kanana Swami travelled to Durban on Monday, 22 September. His stay was a week full of exciting programs and kirtans. It started-off on Tuesday with an evening program at the New Jagannatha Puri Temple in Phoenix; followed by a program in Scottburgh on Wednesday, 24 September, which was a public holiday in SA. This was an initiative by the Global Youth Yatra which brought together young people from the local community who got exposure to Krsna consciousness through song-and-dance, interesting discourses and prasadam!

On Thursday and Friday, Maharaj participated in Bhakti Yoga Society Student Retreat that took place at the temple. On Friday night, a program was held at the home of Candrasekhara. Apart from the devotees, many family members and friends also attended who got the opportunity to hear Maharaj render kirtan and speak about Krsna’s Vrindavan pastimes.

Amidst his stay in Durban, Maharaj went to Pretoria for a day to participate in a Saturday afternoon program. On Sunday, another busy day lay ahead with Maharaj attending the Love Feast in Pietermaritzburg at midday and in Durban in the afternoon.

On Monday, the final program of this SA visit took place at the house of Nicole and Kody in Pretoria. Apart all of these engagements, Maharaj also gave morning classes and spent time with the disciples. On Tuesday, he departed for Australia.

 

Photos

Please visit flickr to see the full slide-show.

 

 

Audio

Courtesy of Vibhu Caitanya Das

 

Lectures

KKS_DBN_23 September 2014_SB_1.10.4

KKS_NJP_23 September 2014_Evening Lecture

KKS_DBN_24 September 2014_Scottburgh_Lecture

KKS_DBN_26 September 2014_BYS_Lecture_The_path_of_saints

KKS_DBN_26 September 2014_House Program_Lecture

KKS_PTA_27 September 2014_Lecture

KKS_PMB_28 September 2014_Sunday Feast_Lecture

KKS_DBN_28 September 2014_Sunday Feast_Lecture

KKS_PTA_29 September2014_House Program_Lecture

 

 

Kirtans

KKS_NJP_23 September 2014_Kirtan I

KKS_NJP_23 September 2014_Kirtan II

KKS_DBN_25 September 2014_BYS_Evening Kirtan

KKS_DBN_26 September 2014_House Program_Kirtan I

KKS_DBN_26 September 2014_House Program_Kirtan II

KKS_PTA_27 September 2014_Kirtan I

KKS_PTA_27 September 2014_Kirtan II

KKS_PMB_28 September 2014_Sunday Feast_Kirtan

KKS_DBN_28 September 2014_Sunday Feast_Kirtan

KKS_PTA_29September2014_HouseProgram_Kirtan