The Harmonist or SHREE SAJJANATOSHANI VOL XXIX SEPTEMBER 1931, Chaitanya-Era 445 NO. 3. No author’s name was given to this article. Since Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur was the editor for Sajjana Toshani in September of 1931, it was either written directly by him or it was written under his supervision.
By the testimony of the Holy Scriptures Sree Krishna manifested the Divine Lila of His most auspicious Birth in this phenomenal world about five thousand years ago. Godhead was born in the Holy City of Mathura. The worship of Shree Krishna has been confounded with the worship of a historical human hero on the above testimony of the Scriptures. It has been gratuitously assumed even by writers who call themselves believers in the Divinity of Jesus Christ, that Shree Krishna is conclusively proved to be human by the admitted fact of His having been born of human parents. The abnormal term Incarnation’, i e., incarceration in the flesh, of the Divinity Himself, has been invented by so called theologians to denote the ‘miracle’ of the Nativity of Christ. Christ has been supposed to have actually put on the mortal coil in order to experience, and by experiencing deliver the race from the sufferings which the flesh is heir to. It is out of deference to the Divine Nature of Christ that this condescension on his part is regarded as a miracle by these theologians. If Christ is admitted to have been born as a mortal he no doubt becomes an ordinary historical personage by such unwarranted admission on the part of his obliging historians to the great relief of all persons who aspire to understand the Nature of the Divinity by means of their muddy understandings. These writers are also no longer under any obligation to acknowledge the absurdity of a doctrine of a historical incarnation, who is not amenable to the laws of human society. It is necessary to get rid of the idea of ‘historical incarnation’ in the above sense in order to be enabled to understand the nature of the Birth of Shree Krishna.
Shree Krishna’s Own Divine Form became visible to mortal eyes under the figure of a, human baby born in the usual way. But the event itself was a true Manifestation of the eternal transcendental Birth of the Divinity. Its transcendental nature was not perceived and is never perceivable, by any conditioned soul to whose cramped vision the event nevertheless chose to disclose itself under the figure of the birth of a human child, which has a real correspondence to the Divine Event. The nature of this correspondence itself is, however, wholly inconceivable to the limited understanding of conditioned souls. By these reservations the Birth of Shree Krishna is prevented by the narrators of the Scriptures from imbibing any of the unwholesomenesses of mortal birth even in becoming, in the better and inconceivable sense, a true historical event which is in the conditional sense, open to the vision of even the people of this world who are possessed of a limited understanding.The Son-hood of Godhead is unreservedly admitted in the eternal transcendental sense by the doctrine of Divine Descent (Avatara) which is quite wrongly rendered as ‘incarnation’ in as much as in the process of Descent there is no reference to any assumption of the mortal coil by the Divinity for rendering any ‘service’ to humanity by undergoing any mortal suffering Himself. The doctrine of Divine Descent implies on the contrary that Godhead can never be subject to any limitation in the mundane sense which belongs to the category of the condemned and irrecouciliable potency of the Divinity which has and can have no power over the Spiritual Nature of the Divinity i.e., as He truly is, but which has a punitive function towards the conditioned souls. Or, in other words, the doctrine declares that there is eternal and irreconciliable distinction as between the mundane and the purely spiritual which latter is the proper nature of the substantive Reality, the realm of the Activities of the Divinity as they are. The mundane realm eternally dogs the Absolute as the shadow or rather the reflected image (in this case a distorted and unwholesome reflection) is seen to attach itself to substantive source. The Divine realm is full of spiritual Activity Which is dimly and inconceivably reflected in the events of this world as viewed through the limited mind of the conditioned soul. Boy-Krishna is worshipped by the followers of Shree Madhwacharya who flourished in the twelfth century A.D.
Shree Madhabendrapuri, in the line of disciplic succession from Shree Madhwa and one generation earlier than Shree Chaitanya, is regarded by the followings of the Supreme Lord as the first religious preacher who realised the nature of loving service of Shree Krishna as treated in the tenth Skandha of the Bhagabatam which was subsequently fully promulgated by Shree Krishna Chaitanya, by His Practice and Teaching, as the highest and perfect form of worship of the Divinity. The method of worship practised by the milkmaids of Braja is declared by Shree Chaitanya to be higher than all other forms of Divine worship. The worship of Shree Radhika, the premier milkmaid of Braja, is proclaimed by the same Authority as being the highest of all, incorporating and surpassing the rest. Shree Krishna dwelt in Braja up till the eleventh year of His Age. The worship of Adolescent Krishna by Shree Radhika by the method of amorous love is, therefore, regarded by the followers of Shree Chaitanya as the complete form of service of Shree Krishna. This worship of Shree Krishna is of such supreme excellence that Shree Krishna eternally prefers to clothe Himself in the mood of His Counterwhole Shree Radhika in order to be privileged to taste the sweetness of Her service of Himself as Shree Krishna. Shree Krishna clad in the mood and beauty of Shree Radhika is Shree Krishna Chaitanya Who is the Ultimate Source of the complete service of Himself. But neither the Son-hood nor the Adolescent Consort-hood of Shree Krishna are events of the mundane plane. Those who are seriously disposed to know their real transcendental nature are enabled to do so by the causeless mercy of Shree Krishna Chaitanya Who is the only Teacher of the world by the Scriptural test, being alone absolutely fit to practise what He professes to teach. The Scriptures accordingly declare that the sincere willingness to serve Shree Krishna to the exclusion of all other function what so ever, is the only method of attaining His service by the grace of the spiritual guide who wields the power of Shree Krishna Chaitanya. Unless the whole scheme, both the method and the purpose, of the redemption of the conditioned soul outlined above is clearly borne in mind the service of Godhead is apt to be confounded with mundane affairs for the attainment of limited illusory results. From the mundane point of view there can indeed, be no meaning in the worship of Godhead at all. If, rationally speaking, there is to be any acceptable service of Godhead it should be absolutely free from all mundane unwholesomenesses without missing, but on the contrary completely fulfilling in a never-ending order of progression, all aspirations of all aptitudes of the conditioned soul. The most valued of all the possessions of the conditioned soul is his own individual nature i.e., his personality. He wants to be assured of the substantive continuance of his persent personality by the method of fulfilment of his particular outlook and particular function in accordance with his individual outlook. In other words the true nature of the soul is found on analysis to be primarily i.e., substantively cognitional. This cognitive nature wants to be assured of its complete fulfillment. It wants this consummation for the reason that it is not satisfied with its -present position. It is capable of being satisfied, say the scriptures, only if it is really sincere and impartial, as it can be at its option, of the absolute truth of the most fundamental dictum of Spiritual religion that anything offered by its present necessarily limited outlook can never give it what it really wants.
So it will be imperative for it to agree to a radical change of outlook and environment it is to be really satisfied. To that plane it has at present no access and can have none with its present equipments. Its present equipments cannot also be regarded as part and parcel of itself if it is to be admitted that it is at all feasible for it to attain the state of complete satisfaction. So it can not amount to self-destruction if it agrees to regard its present equipments as adventitious and as an obstacle in the way of its being able to realise what its real self imparatively requires. The problem for the conditioned soul is, therefore, to carry its personality unimpaired and fully expanded to a sphere where it can properly exercise all its faculties in the perfectly satisfactory way. It is as a matter of fact always trying to attain this elevated plane by the exercise of its present equipments. It is somewhat persuaded that the solution of this problem is attainable on the mundane plane by the discoveries of the Physical Sciences. But the Physical Sciences themselves in the pride of their earthly triumphs have learnt to look askance at the very problem which the soul has always been putting to itself. At any rate they have no mind to waste their time over what they suppose is no better than a form of hallucinative idleness of minds which have no sufficient mundane occupation. Critics trained in this materialistic school of modern thought feel themselves in the position of square men in round holes when they find it necessary, for some mundane end, to undertake the investigation of this problem of religion. Those among them who persist, from their point of view, in this hopeless quest which does not reward its votary with the discovery of any earthly good, find it necessary to seek the aid of the conclusions of the Physical Sciences for the purpose of finding the Absolute. But you can never get blood out of stone.
Shree Krishna is the Absolute to whom the conclusions of the Physical Sciences do not apply as they lie altogether off His proper plane. It is necessary to realise one’s spiritual self in order that one may have access to the plane of the Absolute at all. The adventitious equipments of the Physical and mental coils which the conditioned soul mistakes for the self, have no access to the spiritual plane. It is open to the Physical Scientists to refuse to believe in the existence of the Absolute plane by disowning the consistent promptings of their own rational natures. This is what the atheist actually does. He simply refuses to be rational in the only consistent sense in order to disbelieve the Absolute. But all the ephemeral discoveries of the Physical Sciences will never succeed in stifling the eternal need of the ignored soul. The Absolute possesses a specific Personality of His Own and is simultaneously the material as well as the efficient Final Transcendental Source of all existence. The Absolule Person possesses a specific Name and a specific Body. In these respects there is an inconceivable but realisable resemblance between the state of man and Shree Krishna. Shree Krishna is simultaneously unborn in the earthly sense and is possessed of the quality of being eternally born on the transcendental plane. The eternal Birth of Shree Krishna is realisable only by those who has attained a very advanced state of spiritual realisation.
Shree Krishna manifests His eternal Birth in the perfectly pure spiritual essence who is called Vasuduva in the language of the Scriptures. The perfectly pure spiritual essence does not belong to the tiny soul of man but he may make himself known i.e., realisable, to the pure soul of man. By the grace of Vasudeva the tiny soul of man is enabled to attain the realisation of the Divine Event of the Birth of Shree Krishna which is otherwise inaccessible to him.
Gaura Hari Haribol