(Excerpt from the book Visuddha Caitanya Vani, by Sri Srimad Bhakti Vijnana Bharati Gosvami Maharaja )
The beggar’s fortune
There was once a beggar who was unable to eat properly, even after a full day of collecting alms. One day while walking alone through the forest, he saw many pieces of iron lying on the ground unattended. He looked cautiously in all directions and found no one nearby. Without wasting a moment, he enthusiastically collected the iron pieces. He kept some in a tied piece of cloth he carried on his head, filled his shoulder bags to full capacity, carried as many as he could in his bare hands and moved on. Although he was carrying such a heavy load, he did not feel the slightest discomfort. In fact, he considered himself extremely fortunate.
The most natural way of losing attachment for inferior objects is by possessing superior objects
After walking a short distance, the beggar saw many copper pieces on the ground. He immediately discarded all the iron pieces he was carrying, knowing them to be of no significant value in the presence of so much copper. He filled his head cloth and shoulder bags with those copper pieces and, collecting as many pieces as he could in his bare hands, started walking. Further down the road, he then found brass, silver and gold, successively. Being well aware of the comparative values of the materials, he discarded each previous metal and collected the new, more valuable metal.
Bewilderment is the result of a lack of experience
When he walked further still, he saw separate heaps of many different types of precious jewels. These jewels were sūryakānta-maṇi, a jewel that brightens up one’s home like the rays of the sun; candrakānta-maṇi, a jewel that is a source of freshness comparable to the splendorous calm of moonlight; nīlakānta-maṇi, a jewel that emits shining blue rays and fills the surrounding area with a blue hue that reaches far and wide; sparśa-maṇi, a jewel that converts any metal it touches into gold; and śyāmantaka-maṇi, a jewel that daily yields kilograms of gold.
The beggar was completely bewildered by seeing these different types of jewels in one place, and he considered he was perhaps dreaming, had stumbled into a foreign country, or had somehow been transported to one of the heavenly planets. Although he had heard about these precious jewels, he was unable to decide whether to keep the gold or throw it all away and pick up the jewels lying in front of him.
One’s duty when experiencing bewilderment
The beggar was unsure whether the jewels were real or fake. He considered that if he were to take the jewels and they would turn out to be fake, he would not only have lost the gold, but he would also be left with worthless stones. Although those jewels were highly precious, he doubted their authenticity, because he was unable to assess their values. If a jeweler had been present with him, he could have rightly assessed, beyond a doubt, the true value of all the different jewels, as well as their correct uses and respective market demands.
One must be alert when bewildered
It is worth mentioning here that not all jewelers have the same level of proficiency or character. Due to their varying abilities and intentions, different jewelers may assign drastically different values to the same jewel. For their own personal gain, some cheating jewelers knowingly assign a lower value to a highly precious gem and then buy that gem at their concocted price, while others assign an inflated value to their own gems and sell those gems to an ignorant client for an exorbitant fee.
Fifty years ago in Hyderabad, an owner of a sweet shop named Āgrā Sweets purchased an old house. During the excavation and renovation of that house, a worker found a diamond in the ground, but because he lacked knowledge about diamonds, he considered it something with which children would play. For this reason, he gave the diamond to the owner of the house and said, “I found this. If you want, you can take it for your children.” The owner gave the worker ten rupees as a reward and took the diamond from him. The worker was very pleased, and praised the owner for his kind-heartedness. The owner took the diamond to a jeweler, who valued it to be worth one lākha (one hundred thousand) rupees. The owner of the house was very intelligent; he did not sell the diamond in Hyderabad, but took it to Bangalore to have it appraised during a business trip. The jeweler in Bangalore valued the diamond to be worth three lākha rupees. Still, he did not sell it, but instead took it to Mumbai, where it was valued to be worth ten lākha rupees.
From the above anecdote, we can clearly see that although the same diamond was assessed by three different professional jewelers, they each gave different appraisals. The first reason for this discrepancy is the difference in their respective proficiencies in assessing the true value of the diamond. The second reason is their greed to make a greater profit by falsely appraising the diamond at a lower price.
A jewel that renders all other jewels worthless
Every single thing in this world and the fourteen planetary systems, including all the above-mentioned jewels, is by nature jaḍa (without consciousness). There is, however, one very special, precious jewel in front of which all jewels of the mundane world appear as insignificant and abominable as stool. This special jewel is kṛṣṇa-nāma-cintāmaṇi, the wish-fulfilling jewel of the names of Śrī Kṛṣṇa, and it is the very embodiment of conscious, transcendental mellows:
nāma cintāmaṇiḥ kṛṣṇaś
caitanya-rasa-vigrahaḥ
Padma Purāṇa
The glories of kṛṣṇa-nāma are understood respective to one’s qualification
Only the self-realized, pure devotees, who have completely realized the potency of the transcendental objects of Vaikuṇṭh, can describe the real glories of this most magnificent jewel of kṛṣṇa-nāma. Some very fortunate persons, by virtue of their accumulated sukṛti (spiritual merit) from either this lifetime or previous lifetimes, obtain the opportunity to hear the glories of the pure name (śuddha-nāma) from the lips of these very dear associates of Bhagavān. Still, it is not certain that such fortunate souls will be able to understand, accept or realize the transcendental significance of this śuddha-nāma to the same extent as those self-realized souls. Each practitioner will realize it differently, according to his own qualification, capacity and intelligence.
The realizations of the unqualified
Kṛṣṇa-nāma is the transcendental wish-fulfilling jewel that fulfills every wish upon that wish’s expression; the entirety of one’s desires are fulfilled immediately upon chanting this holy name. Sometimes, people who have successfully realized certain trivial, material results of chanting kṛṣṇa-nāma think they have fully realized the true transcendental potency of this most glorious name.
Once, all the wells of a place called Devaghar had dried up due to a severe drought. All the residents were so desperate for water that they engaged the local priests to perform a fire sacrifice to induce rain, but their attempts went in vain. In desperation, a group of Marwari ladies assembled and performed kīrtana of the mahā-mantra—hare kṛṣṇa hare kṛṣṇa kṛṣṇa kṛṣṇa hare hare, hare rāma hare rāma rāma rāma hare hare—while playing drums and other instruments. After some time, rain began falling from the sky. Since then, the villagers perform mahā-mantra kīrtana whenever there is a lack of precipitation during the rainy season, but they do not feel the need to perform kīrtana at other times. Is this the real glory of kṛṣṇa-nāma?
At another place, Rāṇāghāṭa, there was a wholesale merchant. Because his customers were delayed in making their due payments, he was unable to pay his creditors, who insisted on immediate payment. The merchant was in a very difficult situation, and seeing no other solution, he organized the performance of mahā-mantra kīrtana for eight prahara (twenty-four hours). Shortly after the kīrtana, his customers made their payments and he was able to pay his creditors on time. This merchant would later narrate this incident repeatedly, claiming very proudly that he had personally witnessed the true glories of kṛṣṇa-nāma. But this claim is simply illusion. Such trivial results can be obtained by the mere chanting of nāma-aparādha, or the chanting of harināma while committing offenses, whether knowingly or unknowingly. If such trivial results are considered glorious, what then can be said of the glories of chanting śuddha-nāma offenselessly in a mood of complete surrender?
It is not guaranteed that one will realize the true value of an object, however precious it may be, by simply acquiring it. For example, after the death of Hari Singh, the king of Kashmir, his son and daughter-in-law took most of his belongings to their house, except for one old chest that was filled with apparently useless things. They locked the chest and left it at the deceased king’s palace. The chest remained untouched for a long time, until the later Chief Minister of Kashmir, Sheikh Abdullah, ordered the lock on the chest opened and all the contents taken out. Among the contents, they found such a unique and precious jewel that no jeweler in India was able to assess its value. A jeweler was brought specially from France, and when he declared the value of the jewel to be around five hundred crore, everyone was taken aback in great disbelief.
The Sikhs claimed that the jewel belonged to their king, Ranjeet Singh; the people of Kashmir said that the jewel belonged to them; and the Indian government asserted that the jewel was a national asset, and therefore they were its rightful owners.
The true value of kṛṣṇa-nāma is realized by sādhu-saṅga
While this jewel of Kashmir lay in a chest for a long time, all were unaware of its immense value. In the same way, we are completely ignorant of the glories of kṛṣṇa-nāma. Even if great personalities were to inform us of its glories, it would not be enough to inspire us to consider it our very life and soul. We will have to first earn the qualification to consider this nāma-cintāmaṇi our most cherished possession. In this regard, Śrīman Mahāprabhu’s intimate associate Śrīla Jagadānanda Paṇḍita has written:
ĵadi kôribe kṛṣṇa-nāma sādhu-saṅga kara
bhukti-mukti-siddhi-vāñchā dūre parihara
Prema-vivarta (7.3)
If you desire to chant kṛṣṇa-nāma, remain in association of pure devotees and reject all desires for senses enjoyment, liberation and mystic perfections.
‘sādhu-saṅge kṛṣṇa-nāme’—ei mātra cāi
saṁsāra jinite āra kona vastu nāi
Prema-vivarta (6.13)
Desire only to remain in the association of pure devotees and chant kṛṣṇa-nāma. Besides this, there is no other way to conquer the cycle of birth and death in this material world.