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)

The good things, The bad things and You (Part 2)

(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.