Prabhupāda: (chants maṅgalācaraṇa prayers)
- buddher jāgaraṇaṁ svapnaḥ
- suṣuptir iti vṛttayaḥ
- tā yenaivānubhūyante
- so 'dhyakṣaḥ puruṣaḥ paraḥ
- (SB 7.6.25)
This verse we have been discussing in our last meeting, that it is very easy to understand what I am. Take the... The description is that buddher jāgaraṇam. When we are, I mean to say, awakened, and we are acting with our intelligence, this is one stage. Then the another stage, that we are sleeping, dreaming. Another stage is that we are in deep sleep, forgetting everything. That is suṣuptiḥ, or deep sleep. Sometimes we want to forget ourself by transferring ourself into that deep sleep, forgetting everything. Actually, that is our natural tendency. When we are too much afflicted with these material activities, anxieties... Because material life means full of anxieties. That is material life.
That is explained in the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam: tat sādhu manye 'sura-varya dehināṁ sadā samudvigna-dhiyām asad-grahāt (SB 7.5.5). Prahlāda Mahārāja was asked by his father, "My dear boy, what best thing you have learned from your teachers? Will you kindly explain?" So he answered immediately, tat sādhu manye: "To my opinion, my dear father, that is very nice thing." What is that? Tat sādhu manye 'sura-varya dehināṁ asad-grahāt sadā samudvigna-dhiyām. Dehinām means those who have accepted this material body. There are many millions and millions, unlimited number of liberated souls in the spiritual world. They have not accepted this material body. We are conditioned souls. So Prahlāda Mahārāja recommends that "For those who have accepted this material body, and due to acceptance of this material body, they are always full of anxiety..." Nobody can say that "I am freed from all anxiety," beginning from a person lying on the street, up to..., go to the President Johnson. Ask everybody, "Are you free from material anxiety?" Everyone says, "No." Everyone has got some problem. That is material existence. So sometimes, when we are disgusted with this material life, we want to forget, forget all the things. Sometimes a man takes to drinking: "Oh, business anxiety, so many worries, cannot solve. Let me drink. Annh." So sometimes we take to LSD or other intoxicants, gañja, pan. So this is... There is a tendency for suṣuptiḥ, going to the stage of suṣuptiḥ. Sometimes they take injection to sleep soundly. Now there are sleeping pills also, so many things. So actually, as pure spirit soul, I want to forget, but because I do not accept the real path, how to get out of this material existence, therefore we have to accept something, concocted means. That will not save us. That will not save us.
Prahlāda Mahārāja says, sadā samudvigna-dhiyām asad-grahāt hitvātma-ghataṁ gṛham andha-kūpaṁ vanaṁ gato yad dharim āśrayeta (SB 7.5.5). Prahlāda Mahārāja said to his father, "My dear father, if somebody quits this scene of gṛham andha-kūpam, a dark well of this material life, and goes to the forest and takes shelter of Kṛṣṇa, oh, that is very nice thing." That was the beginning of misunderstanding between the father and mother..., father and the son. The father expected that Prahlāda Mahārāja will explain something diplomacy, politics, technology, something like that. "Oh, what is this foolish boy is explaining, that one should go away from the scene and take shelter of Kṛṣṇa consciousness? Oh. The teacher has taught them all nonsense." So he became angry, and the misunderstanding between the father and the son began from that point. But he was devotee, fully Kṛṣṇa consciousness. So he told the plain thing, "Yes, unless one comes to this platform, that that platform, the material platform to the spiritual platform, there is no question of peace and prosperity." It is simply, I mean to say, artificial trying to forget this full of anxious life. It is not possible. When one becomes fully Kṛṣṇa conscious, automatically he forgets this nonsense. Just like I have several times given you the example: You have got a glass. If you fill it up with milk, then there is no possibility of its being filled up with ink. But so long it is filled up with ink, there is no possibility of its being filled up with milk. So Kṛṣṇa consciousness is milk, and material consciousness is ink. So if you want to black milk, then let us remain. But Caitanya Mahāprabhu suggests Or accepts, not suggests. It is already there in the Vedic literature, that sthāne sthitāḥ śruti-gatāṁ tanu-vāṅ-manobhiḥ. (children yelling outside, devotee chases away) (aside:) That's all right. Don't take much.
Caitanya Mahāprabhu, when He talked with Rāmānanda Rāya, there was many forms of discussions, how to make oneself perfect. So he recommended so many things. But when he recommended, Rāmānanda Rāya, that sthāne sthitāḥ śruti-gatāṁ tanu-vāṅ-manobhiḥ. We should always remember that this material life is our diseased condition. It is not our healthy life. Because as spirit soul, we are healthy. Ānandamayo 'bhyāsāt (Vedānta-sūtra 1.1.12). By nature we are joyful. There is no question of our being morose, unhappy, diseased. No. Spiritual life, spirit as it is, it is The constitution is blissful, full of knowledge and eternal. That is spiritual life, actual, sac-cid-ānanda-vigraha (Bs. 5.1). So we are not actually, I mean to say, constitutionally, we are unhappy. Our happiness is our life. Ānandamayo 'bhyāsāt. In the Vedānta-sūtra, you'll find that this verse, ānandamayo 'bhyāsāt. As God is full of joy, similarly, we are also part and parcel of God; we are also full of joy. So we have to treat ourself, how to go that platform of joyfulness. That is explained in the Śrīmad Bhagavad-gītā: brahma-bhūtaḥ prasannātmā na śocati na kāṅkṣati (BG 18.54). You can simply become joyful, without any anxiety. When? Brahma-bhūtaḥ: when you understand yourself, when you understand your spiritual existence. That is Brahman Prahlāda Mahārāja analytically, self-analysis.