What Gaudiya Math is doing? (Part 5)

Written by Śrīla Bhakti Siddhānta Sarasvatī Gosvāmī Ṭhākura Prabhupāda - Paramahaṁsa Jagad-Guru

First published by VISHWA-VAISHNAVA-RAJA-SABHA in the 1930's

The Gauḍīya Maṭh says, "All men of the world without exception are our kin—all birds and beasts, grass and shrubs, are our kindred; whatsoever conscious being, wheresoever existing, belongs to our Lord; we shall conduct our kindred from out of the spells of the enchantress towards home. By enabling those who have fallen into the snares of the enchantress to get more deeply entangled, we shall not be showing, for the time being, sweet sympathy for them. Even if under the spell of the enchantress they fill heaven and earth with their loud protestations against our endeavours, we will still proclaim the message of the amṛta to them."

Even if it be contrary to the current of thoughts of the religious or religiously minded people, as that term is understood by the world, or appears strange or wonderful to them, we will still for ever practise and proclaim those religious works, the Sanātana dharmma made by God, the tidings of which are unknown to any of the Ṛṣis, gods, siddhas and men,—the dharmma which, although it happens to be hidden, pure, and difficult to understand, alone enables us to attain the amṛta,—the dharmma that is the supreme dharmma of the jīva, the dharmma to which all jīvas without exception have a claim, the dharmma to which everyone in the universe may become the heir. That dharmma alone is the object as well as the method of our endeavours.

The current that is sweeping the world, the flood on which it is adrift—the famine by which it is distressed—the want, fear, sorrow, delusion by which it is mastered, oppressed, and tortured—can be prevented, can be pulled up by root, by the method of moving Homeward, of self-surrender at the holy feet of the sorrowless and fearless amṛta. So long as we shall stay in the foreign land—the greater the distance and the speed with which we shall continue to run towards foreign lands and away from the direction of Home—so long and to the same extent sorrow, fear, and delusion will not leave us; they will, on the contrary, mock at us like the delusive deer by their further and steady increase. The Śruti says—

द्वितीयाद् वै भयं भवति।

dvitīyād vai bhayaṁ bhavati/

—Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣat 1.4.2

"Firm persuasion of duality is the source of fear."

Death cannot be abolished from this mundane world. By no amount of efforts of the united jīvas of the whole universe can the threefold misery be banished to the Andamans. No one can extinguish the fire of Rāvaṇa's funeral pyre—it is the water well cooled by contact with the feet of Śrī Rāmacandra that alone has the power to quench it. Once the world is fairly embarked on the high tide of the Holy Name, the insignificant worldly flood retires forthwith; if the alms in the shape of the glorification of the tidings of Hari become easily procurable, the little famines will leave us for good as a mere attendant result. With the appearance of sorrow-delusion-fear-killing Bhakti (devotional faith), avidyā (nescience), the root of every form of misery of the jīva, is destroyed and the soul is well satisfied. Bhakti is like fire. Nothing else can purify gold in the manner that fire can. Without Bhakti-yoga (association of Bhakti) other forms of effort are meaningless like the attempt to refine gold on the application of tamarind, earth or ashes.

(To be continued...)