Daan bado ke Daataa?

'Daan bado ke daataa?' is a multifaceted question which requires a lot of perspectives and study of a few varied rules and protocols of Pushtimarg.

The daan here obviously signifies Shri Thakurji himself, more precisely Thakurji's aagya and the daataa here signifies Shri Mahaprabhuji, Shri Gusaiji and your diksha guru. So whose aagyaa must you follow first? And in case they contradict, whose aagya should you ignore?

We are all students for our entire lives. We begin learning different subjects through different teachers and without a doubt, we start developing varied interest in different subjects and the teachers play a huge role in our interest towards a subject! I still remember, I developed a taste for grammar because of my fifth standard English tutor. I doubt I would have been so keen on grammar were it not for my amazing English tutor during my school years. Upto the extent, I actually started liking the subject because I liked her teaching style and personality. I also remember disliking a subject which I used to love earlier because I got a shitty teacher for the subject in my later half of school years. No matter how the subject is, teachers are the ones who enable our journey into the unknown subject. They are the torch bearers for you in the dark of the unknown and without them, you would lose direction and get lost pretty quickly no matter how excited you are for the journey.

Thus, I would say, the teacher is more important

This is not grammar, the daan here is sakshat bhagavan!

The other side would have this to say. How can we compare mundane subjects to bhagavan himself! 

Krishna is our teacher too! After all, He is seen as Arjun's teacher in entire conversation of the Gita?

Yes, but no. Not in Pushtimarg. Shri Krishna is an expert in everything, but Shri Mahaprabhuji is an expert on Krishna. Krishna talks about the jeeva, the sansaara etc. and mentions among that, bhakti yoga is the best, but shri Mahaprabhuji lives this bhakti. Krishna has to talk about all his creation, he has to include all aspects of creation which have nothing to do with liberation or bhakti because of Krishna's position, and because he wants to run his leela of this sansaara, Shri Mahaprabhuji talks only about Krishna on the other hand. If you want to make Krishna love you, Shri Mahaprabhuji is the teacher, not Krishna himself.

A CEO of a big corporation may be an expert in all the fields concerning his business, but his secretary is an expert on him!


Let's get a few concepts clear before conclusion.

1. The nature and form of Pushtimarg

Practically speaking, Pushtimarg is a journey which lasts your whole life. It is a progressive path towards Krishna. This path is independent and inclusive of all aspects of your live. Pushtimarg sampradaya is based on the theory of Shuddhadvaita Brahmavād which is a universal theory. It explains all functions and elements of your life and Universe and how they interact. As a Pushtimargiya vaishnav, there is no action you can take without moving ahead or behind on this path. Every action you take in life affects your Pushtimarg journey in a positive or negative way.

This Shuddhadvaita Brahmavād theory in a nutshell is, Thakurji is your everything and his seva is the ultimate goal and means of happiness. (Since this article is not about Shuddhadvaita Brahmavaad, I will not dive into that here)

2. Shri Mahaprabhuji as founder of Pushtimarg

This universal theory was established in clear terms by Shri Mahaprabhuji. Shuddhadvaita Brahmavaad is nothing new, but Shri Mahaprabhuji pointed it out from the vast treasure trove of Upanishadic knowledge. In a true torchbearer fashion, Shri Mahaprabhuji gives light in the right direction and leads us. This sampraday, is based solely on Shri Mahaprabhuji's revelations in the Shuddhadvaita Brahmavaad theory. 

3. Shri Mahaprabhuji as Shri Krishna

Speaking of Shri Mahaprabhuji himself, it is not an easy task to set up such a theory in the first place. And only Krishna himself can reveal his own nature. After all, यमे वैशे वृणुते तेन लभ्य (Only those whom I seek can get to me) Thus, shri Krishna manifests himself in shri Mahaprabhuji and reveals himself through him. Please note however, Shri Mahaprabhuji is Krishna in his Acharya form, as a teacher. Thus never disrespect him thinking of him as Thakurji and doing his seva instead. The dignity of him as a guru must always be there. The this dignity is maintained by following what he says, not doing his seva. (What he says is in the last line of Point number 1)

Shri Mahaprabhuji is the Acharya svaroop of Thakurji, know him as thakurji, follow him as Acharya.

अग्निरूपो द्विजाचारो भविश्यामिह भुतले

वल्लभो अग्निरूपस्यात विट्ठलः पुरुषोत्तमः

(Agnipuraan predicting the birth of Shri Mahaprabhui and Shri Gusaiji as Agni svaroop and sakshad bhagavān)

Once you are clear on the above three concepts, the question itself sounds flawed, On one hand Thakurji himself is speaking through your guru, on the other hand Thakurji is speaking directly.

Conclusion

• Respect Shri Mahaprabhuji as an Acharya and follow his command of Krishna Seva
• While doing that, don't differentiate between Thakurji and Mahaprabhuji, both are the same.

Lastly to all questions similar to the one below, 

"Gurudev ordered me to do Mangala at 4AM and Thakurji ordered me to do mangala at 8AM, what should I do?"

The short answer is to simply discuss this with your respective Gurudev. The long answer depends on your Asakti and Thakurji's sānubhāv towards you.

Rath Yatra

Mansi Seva in Pushtimarg

।। कृष्ण सेवा सदा कार्या मानसी सा परा मता ।।krṣṇa sevā sadā kāryā mānsī sa parā matā- Siddhantmuktavali (Shri Mahaprabhuji)

Shri Mahaprabhuji teaches us such a wonderful thing, "Always engage in the seva of Krishna; in seva, the state of 'mansi' is the best. This is interpreted in such disastrous ways by Vaishnavs that it can hamper your bhakti altogether.

Often times, seva is the first thing we skip in our day to day life. Have to attend a marriage? skip seva, have to go watch a movie? skip seva, have to take kids to the garden? skip seva, sometimes even Facebook and other social time-sinks lead us away from seva.

Obviously such indifference towards seva is wrong. Ignoring seva for other things is wrong. You must feel guilty when you do it. Krishna is at our homes as our child, as our family. Would you ignore your family like that?

There is a slight sliver of hope if you at least feel guilty about it, such repent shows that you care and are upset if you are unable to do seva. However, many in our Pushtimarg have made themselves comfortable under the above shloka by misinterpreting it to justify their laziness. As a result not only they do not do seva, they have stopped feeling any kind of repent for it and live a life in a house with walls made up of self ignorance and misinterpretation. What they have done is, started doing 'Mansi' seva! They think of doing seva and don't actually do anything. They imagine the entire process of seva in their heads and conclude seva as done for the day after their imaginary escapade in vraj with Krishna. This is so stupid. She Mahaprabhuji has said मानसी सा परा मता, meaning manasi is the ultimate, if this lazy interpretation of manasi is true, does aapshri mean to say "do seva all the time, but if you dont do it and just think about doing seva, that is best, that is ultimate." this is laughably stupid. Not only in seva but in any activity. Can you just 'imagine' feeding your baby and be done? Can you just 'think' of studying and will you learn? Is just 'imagining' being in Paris sufficient?

To such fools, I invite you to a vacation trip to Europe with Five star accommodation and business class flight tickets with a personal chauffeur and a concierge. Shall you join me? We shall do it in mansi though.. :/ if you can do seva in mansi like that, I don't see why you can not enjoy Europe like that too!

In seva, mansi is a state in which is experienced through extreme dedication in seva, ultimate love for Krishna and maximum involvement of time in seva and bhakti. Raja Askaranji did not experience manasi by his own will, he was dedicated in seva to such an extent that even when an arrow hit him in the stomach, he didn't feel pain, he didn't even react, he was in seva and he was deeply engrossed in the lilas of Krishna. Such level of dedication is required in achieving mansi. It doesn't just happen by imagining seva in your mind...

Hope you stop doing that 'mansi' seva after reading this, for those of you who still want to do mansi seva, my Europe vacation tour offer is still open to you....

(Originally posted at facebook.com/vatsal.goswami and pushtiprakash.blogspot.in)

(I apologise for the delay in the post as I had to find a way to figure out how to fit a poll inside this post, I being not the most bright person in writing html code, got confused and rage quit this blog. Obviously I have now learned how to do it so here is the post...)

In my last post I attempted to explain the nature of Pushti Bhakti. Moving along the theme of natural (and unnatural) disasters and how to deal with them, we developed the idea of Pushtimarg's version of love. When seva is done with this kind of love, it is the Pushtimargiya way in the real sense.

This love is very specific. It should have the correct ingredients - sneh and mahatmya gyan to become pushti. When seva of prabhu is done with such love in mind, it is true pushti seva, otherwise even a paid servant does seva of his master, even you do seva of your sick relative sometime, in modern times the concept of random acts of kindness has gained momentum and even that is seva, the now popular process of paying for 'seva' at havelis is also technically seva but none of the above are 'pushti' in their nature.

When you make donations to a haveli for the swaroop's seva, neither love nor mahatmya gyan comes into picture. When a servant serves his master, he is doing it because he wants to earn money. Let me make it very clear, a servant doing seva of his master is still doing seva! but it is just not Pushtimargiya in nature, similarly when you help out a relative or friend in hard times, you most probably do it because you don't want to be seen in a bad light in social circles. If that is not the case, you would still expect the said relative or friend to help you out when hard times hit you. Even this is not pushti seva. Random acts of kindness are a notch above than these examples though because they are done purely to make some random person happy - they are the most closest form seva which can be fit into the 'pushti' framework. 

Here's a list of things which can all be considered 'seva'

A nurse helping out a sick person and being paid for it

A person helping out a sick relative because of social pressure

A Person helping out a sick relative as a favour and expect a return

A person helping out a sick relative as a favour

A person helping out a sick relative

A person helping out another random and unknown person for fame (any other personal gain)

A person helping out another to feel good about himself and no other reason

A person helping out another for no reason whatsoever

Now replace 'helping out a sick relative' with doing seva of thakurji and you will find out all the different types of reasons and situations which come under the official concept of seva. All of them is seva but the love is of a different kind in each situation. We shall continue with the concept further in the third and the final part, meanwhile please tick the answer you think is right for the question below. The options must be at the top of the page.

The good things, The bad things and You (Part 1)

In this part I talk about Pushti Bhakti to give you a better idea of what is the pushtimarg's version of love. Once we clear that, we will talk about what role it plays in the Paris Attacks.

aadmi bohot chota hai, lekin kaam sab bade bade karta hai

Meet the Bade Mukhiyaji at Motamandir often enough and you will hear him proclaim this with a snarky smile and a finger directed towards Thakurji. What does it imply? To me, it implies that bhakti as defined by Naradji in his bhakti shastra and approved by Shri Mahaprabhuji has a rather tricky meaning to it. 

The definition goes - 

which is, pure and greatest love for bhagawān along with a realisation of his true identity. It is tricky because the qualities of love mentioned do not go along with each other. Just like a hungry person will find it difficult to reject good food offered to him, māhātmya gyān may interfere with sneha if not understood properly. Here is a word by word break up of this definition which is more precise than the one line explanation I did before:

• माहात्म्यग्यान - full knowledge of his greatness
• पूर्वक - with
• सुद्रढ - unshakable, strong
• सर्वतोधिक - more than anything else
• स्नेह - love

There are two distinct features to this kind of love.

माहात्म्यग्यान & स्नेह

This is because, each one of them, arouses different and contrasting emotions in us.

Māhātmyagyān arouses immense respect, humbles us towards the mighty all powerful bhagwān and reminds us of how different a single being and bhagawān are.

Sheh arouses bonding and closeness. It makes us feel closer to him, makes us feel like we are his intimate beings.


So confusing is this definition of love that even the Gopis of Vraj could not strike a balance sometime. The story of Gopi Geet in the raas leela episode reveals to us how Thakurji disappeared when he sensed that Gopis have developed a pride about Thakurji being with them in the raas. This goes to show how particular Shri Krishna is in bhakti. Even the gopis, one of those for whom Krishna came to vraja in the first place, were not spared when their bhakti went wrong. Although I must clear that the case with Gopis, pushti devotion was broken because of Pride (Aham - अहम) and not an imbalance of mahatmyagyan and sneh in their bhakti but I mention this just to remind how difficult it is to always maintain pure pushti devotion.

Coming back to the Mukhiaji's statement;

aadmi bohot chota hai, lekin kaam sab bade bade karta hai

Does this statement stand valid in the kind of bhakti as defined by Nāradji?

Post what do you think and why in the comments below.

In part two I will discuss all the possible correct answers to this. 
The more answers I get the more interesting the discussion will become, so do not shy away with your opinion. We are here to discuss and learn together, we are not ranking as to who is right or wrong. 

Krishna Seva in Adhik Maas - This time; for reals (Part 3 of the Adhik mās series)

So, finally we come up the the conclusion of the series of Adhik maas. Finally - I talk directly about Pushtimarg & Krishna seva in Adhik mās.

(This post is part 3 of an existing blog series on Adhik mās, I highly recommend that you read part 1 and part 2 before you start reading this; otherwise you may not be able to grasp entirely, my opinions and views on Adhik mās.)

In my previous posts, we concluded that Bhagawan wants Adhik mās to act like a catalyst to us in our efforts to better ourselves and the community and achieve Moksha.

<<<<>>>><<<<>>>><<<<>>>>SEVA IS THE FAL SEVA IS MOKSHA<<<>>><<<>>><<<>>>

Here, it is said that in Pushtimarg, the seva which we do is our whole and sole objective, the pleasure and happiness which we get from Krishna seva is all that a Pushti Jeev wants and living a life with bhagwat seva as a part of it is how pushti jeev wants to live. The idea of moksha is nothing more than doing better or more Krishna seva. Having more ways to be with Krishna.

Any kind of a work or an activity or a task has two stages. First stage is when you work towards it and put in efforts or the 'Sadhana' avastha and the second is when you enjoy the benefits of that work or the 'Fal' avastha. Acharyacharan Shri Mahaprabhuji states that the same applies to prabhu seva too, but only here - The sadhan and the fal are the same! You are doing seva of your Thakurji to earn his love, the sadhan here is seva. But, the fact that you get to do seva is fruit enough to you! So it is also the fal at the same time!

    

How to do Krishna seva during Adhik mās (Part 2 of the Adhik mās series) #Adhikmaasisawesome!

A simple Google search on Adhik maas these days gives you more results on what to do and what not to rather than what adhik maas is. This just goes to show that people have decided to stop thinking altogether. They want others to tell them what to do and they will happily oblige! Some critical thinking, some questioning can lead you to a long and interesting path of knowledge and fulfillment about the topic you choose to want to know about.

Typical Google search results for 'Adhik mās'

But why!? I ask!

I will first reinforce my point with a few examples of vedic practices which people do during adhik maas. Then of course, we will come to the main topic - Krishna seva in Adhik maas!

What the maryada margiya shastras ask you to do during Adhik maas:

A lot of things! But all of it can be condensed into three;

1. Become more pious (Do more Pujas, Japas, Satsang, etc.)

2. Fast (Daily or selected days of 'Falaar' (eating fruits and water only)

3. Daan (Charity, All sorts of charity from directly giving things and money to feeding the needful)

That's basically it! That's all what shastra ask us to do. There's no denying that it's not the right thing either! This especially holds true for the holier than thou 'shastra knowing' pushtimargiya crowd who would deny and belittle every aspect of maryada marga at every opportunity they get. Let us find out why, what the maryada shastra ask from us, even as pushti jeevs is just alright and not anyashray as long as you know what you are doing and do it in a limit, after all Bhagwad seva must be your highest priority and nothing else.

Before I start explaining why the three things mentioned above are justified and can be done by us vaishnavas during adhik maas, read this quick snippet from part one of this #adhikmaasisawesome series.

recalling on what adhik maas is,

The Lunar year is 11 days short of the Solar year. As years go by, this gap increases by 11 days every new year. In three solar years, the the Lunar year is roughly 33 days behind the Solar year. To match the two cycles again, an Adhik mās is added in this year so that the 'lag' between the two systems can be rectified. Pretty awesome how Adhik mās works isn't it?

and also read the conclusion of the article.

The Adhik mās is that important correction which prevents time tracking from going haywire. It is that key which lets the sun and the moon run in harmony. 

It is a necessary void!

Adhik mās has a lot of philosophical implications. Conceptually speaking, Adhik mās does not have an identity of its own. It is in a state of existential crisis but also an equally necessary component of time keeping harmony. Think of it as 'space'. It is just 'nothingness'. But that nothingness singlehandedly is responsible for current state of the universe. Space defines everything that is not space, space does not react with the universe at all but all the universe lives in space. Space is that nurturing home which lets stars and planets grow.  A universe without space will quickly become unstable and possibly die! At least, it won't be fit for human habitation. Similarly, timekeeping without Adhik mās will quickly go unstable and definitely won't be fit for human observations as our calculations will become more and more inaccurate at every passing year!


So then, what implications does this adhk mās have on us practically? I mean, considering the Indian calendar (vikram samvat) , This year is gonna have 13 months.. so will I have to do an extra ekadashi fast? will I get paid an extra month's salary? Will I have to work one month extra? Will I have to pay one extra credit card bill? These are all the practical aspects of Adhik mās. This is what will really affect us in our day to day life.

Now considering the exotic and special status of Adhik mās, Bhagwan prescribed something equally exotic - befitting its special case.

How Bhagwaan Made Adhik mās:

Adhik mās is that nothing which improves everything. Adhik mās does not have its own identity, but it improves and perfects the identities of all the other months and years. Similarly we must also do to us, what adhik mās does to timekeeping - Improve and perfect ourselves!

The maryada man must improve and perfect his karma. A good karma score will lead him to his moksha. A maryada man and improve his karma by pleasuring the devas and schmoozing them by various havanas and poojas. Along with that, a man is already entangled in the 'laukik' irrespective of his pushti or maryada inclination, so effort must be done to clean this laukik part of our life as well.

When we do charity, we feel good, we feel happy. The people enjoying the charity will definately get a chance improve their lives for better. Hence you will not only make yourself happy from this act, but also improve the lives of others around you, this action will lead to a better community.

Fasting purifies and cleanses the body and also gives you more time to do the above mentioned two activities. A day of Fasting provides you with more energy to do more positive things at one go. Therefore fasting is also a very essential aspect of improving yourself.

This way, all the three commands of Bhagwan are justified and make total sense to all the people.

BUT! The Pushti way is a little different!

While the objective of the maryada man is to relieve himself from the cycle of birth and death via moksha, the Pushti man's moksha is right in front of his life - in the satisfaction he gets from prabhu seva. So working more towards the 'pushti' version of moksha is essentially doing more prabhu seva! 

Nothing so complicated after all isn't it?

So that is why friends,

Adhik maas is a month of spiritual cleansing for all, but for us Krishna bhaktas, just one more excuse to celebrate our Krishna!

- Goswami Vatsal (Mumbai)