Śrī Caitanya-caritāmṛta, Antya-lila 20.12—[No Audio]

[00:00 Minutes] [No Audio]

Prabhupada: ...material existence is due to the unclean mind. We have accepted this material way of life as the ultimate goal of our life. That is the accumulation of material dust on the clean mirror of the mind. This dust has to be cleansed. Self-realization means to clear up this dust and then see your face in the clear mirror. That is the way.

So Caitanya Mahaprabhu says that this stage of life is immediately achieved simply by chanting Hare Krsna. In other words, this stage of life is called liberated stage. There are different kinds of self-realizing processes-yoga system, jnana system-but it takes long, long, very long time to come to the stage of self-realization, which is called brahma-bhūta, brahma-jnana, self-knowledge, or to identify oneself with the spirit soul. So it takes a very long time. There are so many yogis, they are trying for lifes after lifes. There are so many philosophical speculators; still, they are unable to come to the final stage of self-realization. But Caitanya Mahaprabhu is so kind that to the fallen conditioned souls of this age He gives immediate delivery, immediate self-realization, simply by chanting Hare Krsna. And as soon as one is freed from this material contamination, or material consciousness… It is all consciousness. Forgetfulness is also a kind of consciousness, and when one is out of forgetfulness, he thinks in a different way. Sleeping, also there is consciousness; but when one is awakened, that consciousness is different. So by chanting one comes to the Krsna consciousness, and thus he is liberated immediately.

Bhava means this repeated birth and death. It is called bhava. Bhava means you take your birth, or be in material existence. And that is just like a blazing fire, maha-davagni. Davagni… Each word requires volumes of explanation. Davagni means forest fire. Forest fire, nobody goes to set fire in the forest; similarly, nobody wants a blazing fire in this material existence. A war, a pestilence, a famine, an earthquake-so many disturbances. Just like blazing fire, nobody wants them, but it comes into existence exactly just in the forest. Nobody goes there to set fire, but it takes place; therefore bhava-maha-davagni. But it becomes extinguished simply by chanting:

And when one is freed from material consciousness, then his Krsna consciousness begins, and that is called sreyaḥ-kairava-candrika-vitaranam. Sreyaḥ, sreyaḥ means actual happiness, actual well being, begins. Because so long we are in material existence there is no well being; it is simply we are making progress in the darkness. But when we come to the light, if we make progress, that means we are making progress in the light. If you go deeper, deeper into the darkness, that is not progress. So here the people, material consciousness, they are advancing in material way of life. That is not actually advancement; that is visatam tamisram [SB 7.5.30]: they are entering into the darkest region of ignorance.

So when Krsna consciousness begins, that is actually progress. And how that progress is compared? Sreyaḥ-kairava-candrika-vitaranam. Just like the moonlight begins after the dark moon; the moonlight begins very little. On the first day of moonlight, the moon is just like a scrap, but gradually it grows; and on the full-moon night the whole sky becomes over-flooded with the effulgence. Similarly, the Krsna consciousness, after being freed from material consciousness, begins in a small scale, but it grows, just like the moon grows daily.

And when the full moon is there, then his life becomes full of knowledge. Then after achieving that stage of life, anandambudhi-vardhanam: real transcendental happiness begins to increase. The comparison is ambudhi. Ambudhi means the ocean. The ocean never increases, but in the transcendental world the ocean also increases. Anandambudhi-vardhanam pūrnamrtasvadanam: and when that ocean of transcendental pleasure increases, he relishes the full pleasure of life, full bliss of life.

And when he comes to that stage, just like if you dip into the..., take a dip into the water you feel immediately refreshed, a new life, so when you come to the full understanding of spiritual consciousness, or Krsna consciousness, your life becomes fully refreshed-a new life of spiritual understanding. And Lord Caitanya says, param vijayate sri-krsna-sahkirtanam. Oh, we get so many benefits simply by chanting this mantra: hare krsna, hare krsna, krsna krsna, hare hare/ hare rama, hare rama, rama rama, hare hare. The next verse He explains,

He says that the Lord, being absolute, He is not different from His name. In the material world the name and the substance are two different things-the water name and water substance is different. You cannot quench your thirst simply by calling "water, water." But Krsna name is not like that. Practically those who are chanting Hare Krsna, by chanting Krsna, this name, he feels the presence of Krsna. That is the spiritual significance. So Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu explains that in the name of the Lord all the potencies of Lord is there. Don't think that name is not potential as Krsna personally is potential. There is no difference. [end]