Those material languages cannot help us to reach Vaikuntha-jagad, but when svarup shakti of Bhagavan can enter into someone then any language can work like magic, or even without any language – Part 6

All glories to Śrī Śrī Guru-Gauranga

Those material languages cannot help us to reach Vaikuṇṭha-jagad, but when svarūpa śakti of Bhagavān can enter into someone then any language can work like magic, or even without any language – Part 6

By Śrīla Śyāma Dāsa Bābā

Date: 16.06.2025

(continuation of the fifth part)

Perhaps the most dangerous phrase in the English Language is— “We have always done it this way”. Many traditions they all have their tailor made suite in form of dogmas, status, conceptions, beliefs, ideas, etc., which should fit for everyone and never be questioned. Traditions are kept in such a way that usually nobody even dares to question them, because by doing so one will be brand marked by society as someone who has transgressed all honour, dignity and prestige of society.

Of course we are here not saying that all traditions are useless, it is only that we should not follow them blindly. To always have a spirit of honest inquiry and doubt is the right antidote against just being another sheep in the heard. The great scientist Einstein also used to say that— “Curiosity has its own reason to exist”. 

Śrīla Bhaktivinod Ṭhākura and Śrīla Prabhupāda come to this world as the greatest disrupters of some so-called traditional believes. It is not that Śrīla Bhaktivionod Ṭhākura and Śrīla Prabhupāda Bhakti Siddhānta gave something new. No. Rather they always wanted to remove all the unnecessary distorted things to bring back that original flow of our Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava sampradāya which was almost lost at that time. Most of those very well-preserved traditions and structures followed by the people in general, were discovered as unauthentic and misleading by Śrīla Prabhupāda Bhakti Siddhānta.

That is why it is said with the appearance of Śrīla Bhakti Siddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura Prabhupāda paramahaṁsa Jagad Guru all other so-called acharyaships are proven wrong.

Gauḍīya Goṣṭhī Pati Śrī Śrīla Bhakti Siddhānta Sarasvatī Gosvāmī Ṭhākura Prabhupāda Paramahaṁsa Jagad Guru wrote in one article the following—

"The Bhāgavatam is the nectarean chastising rod (amṛta-daṇḍa) wielded to annihilate karma, jñāna, and gross materialistic intellect."

Only the sūrigaṇa—the divine seers—have the eternal vision of Bhagavān Viṣṇu’s supreme abode (parama-pada). Now the question arises: who are these sūrigaṇa? Those who remain disinclined to taste the matured fruit of the nigama-kalpa-taroḥ—the Vedic wish-fulfilling tree—imbued with the ambrosial essence from the mouth of Śukadeva (śuka-mukha-amṛta-drava-saṁyukta) in the form of the rasa of the Bhāgavatam—they are the ones who, having no true trace of access to the essence of the Vedas and Vedānta, seek to confine the Absolute Reality (bhagavat-tattva) within narrow conceptual containers of speculative intellect.

By attempting to bind Bhagavān within the morphology of material time and space, they deprive themselves of the direct realization of His ontological aspect—i.e., His eternal and intrinsic existential nature (tattvika-svarūpa).

It is precisely to reject and dismantle this kind of human ignorance (nirbuddhitā) that the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam—suffused with the essence of the Vedas (vedārtha-parivṛṁhita)—repeatedly employs the word "adhokṣaja", indicating that Bhagavān is beyond the reach of mundane perception.

Rather than attending to the essential philosophical substance of the text, such people are preoccupied merely with the scholastic curiosity of whether the Bhāgavatam appeared before or after the Vedas. If it is post-Vedic, they claim, then it must be unauthoritative! But such polemics are the domain only of those unfortunate souls who have been, and shall remain, bereft of Bhagavān’s grace.

Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam is not a humanly composed scripture. It is eternally manifest to strike down the distorted intelligence of humanity with a nectarean rod of transcendental truth. Its manifest and unmanifest līlās are simply different phases of its eternal presence. Just as Bhagavān Nṛsiṁhadeva appeared from a pillar—not that the pillar was the cause of His appearance—so too, though the Bhāgavatam may have become manifest in the linguistic style of a post-Vedic era (prāg-vaidika-yuga), to reject it on this ground as modern and therefore unauthoritative is an act of envy and malicious intent.

Only before nirmatsara sādhus—saints free from envy—does the projjhita-kaitava parama-dharma (the supreme religion bereft of deceit) of the Bhāgavatam reveal itself in full resplendence.

(Translated from ‘Sāptāhik Gauḍīya’, Vol. 15, Issue 10)

He (Śrīla Prabhupāda) openly criticized beliefs and practices held sacred by most followers of Hindu dharma, such as Māyāvādīs and worshipers of Devatas. All those various misrepresentations of Vaiṣṇava dharma or any kind of business in the name of religion and other kind of deviant philosophies and apasampradāyas—and that’s why whatever fell short of pure devotion to Śrī Kṛṣṇa Bhagavān, Śrīla Prabhupāda was immediately ready to attack. We also know from Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam the following śloka—

dharmaḥ projjhita-kaitavo ’tra paramo nirmatsarāṇāṁ satāṁ

vedyaṁ vāstavam atra vastu śivadaṁ tāpa-trayonmūlanam

śrīmad-bhāgavate mahā-muni-kṛte kiṁ vā parair īśvaraḥ

sadyo hṛdy avarudhyate ’tra kṛtibhiḥ śuśrūṣubhis tat-kṣaṇāt                        (ŚB 1.1.2)

Completely rejecting all religious activities which are materially motivated, this Bhāgavata Purāṇa propounds the highest truth, which is understandable by those devotees who are fully pure in heart. The highest truth is reality distinguished from illusion for the welfare of all. Such truth uproots the threefold miseries. This beautiful Bhāgavatam, compiled by the great sage Vyāsadeva [in his maturity], is sufficient in itself for God realization. What is the need of any other scripture? As soon as one attentively and submissively hears the message of Bhāgavatam, by this culture of knowledge the Supreme Lord is established within his heart.

Also, we can remember the following śloka—

pṛthivīte yāhā kichu dharma-nāme calebhagavat prahe tāhāṅ paripūrṇa chale

Bhāgavatam states that whatever in the world is passing as dharma is actually wholesale deception.

So, in this way we can see that in countless ways traditions become distorted and polluted, because of the countless interpretations by bonded jīvas.

Traditions, Institutions, Dogmas, Rituals etc. which try to possess the monopoly over the Absolute Truth are most dangerous factors in the way of our bhajan field. Rituals or dogmas or institutions or traditions are not always capable to keep the essence alive, rather they all can change from time to time. But the original flow of that Absolute Truth can never be polluted or contaminated. It is that pure śabda-brahma which is always dancing in the heart of the pure devotees, and only by their causeless mercy will we ever be able to know about it. The pure devotee appears only for that reason to make that Absolute Truth available according to time, place and circumstances in whatever language he feels suitable.

All problems and confusion arising only when those who have no realisation about that Absolute Truth try to interpret or change the original message in a wrong way according to their limited understanding. How can someone who has never tasted mint try to explain its taste to others? Similarly, only those who have experience of that transcendental realm they can explain it (or make necessary changes or adjustments if necessary) others have no right to change even one comma or full stop in the writings of those great great mahājanas.

Gaura Hari Hari Bol