Sharanagati

(from a lecture of Swami Tirtha, 03.05.2018, Rila)

(continues from the previous Monday)

Kalau nasty eva nasty eva nasty eva gatir anyatha[1] – no other way to reach perfection. And why three times again? Because in the other yugas there were other methods of perfection. What was the method of perfection in the Satya Yuga? Meditation. For, let’s say, sixty thousand years living on dry leaves and sometimes air. Sometimes. That is why I like it so much when people want ‘to meditate’. They have their good old friend – their mind, and body, and all influence… and let’s meditate! Anyway, this is a good start, if somebody is serious about it fully, with the blessings they will qualify more and more. And we shall also qualify more and more.

Then in the Treta Yuga what was the method of full purification? This was yagya – the great sacrificial ceremonies. I’ve mentioned many times, a few years back they wanted to repeat a full-scale Vedic ceremony. Тhe local brahmins in a very small little village in South India came together. And some western Indologist was also invited and he wrote two big volumes about all the details, while the brahmins were recalling: “Ah yes, this should be like this, that should be like that.” To give a very little detail about the ingredients of this yagya: they made a fire altar made of bricks in the shape of a bird. And the bricks, specially casted for this purpose of course, were in five layers. And in some layers, between certain bricks was necessary to put certain stones – a little pebbles. So the brahmins were recalling by heart: “This layer, that stone, that brick.” They know everything about the details. This is a very complicated system. I think it was going on for one week. The main priest was not allowed to leave the area of the sacrifice for this one week. And finally when they finished, they put everything into the flames. So, a sacrifice is very complicated! But Treta Yuga was a more glorious age, people were more qualified, so they could make these sacrifices.

Then came the Dvapara Yuga and there the method was the temple worship. So you can see the huge temples as monuments of a lost age. And finally came this age of Kali Yuga, full of disintegration, and conflicts, and misunderstanding, and hypocrisy. Therefore this mantra means: nasty eva – not by meditation; nasty eva – not by sacrifice; nasty eva – not by temple worship.

Harer nam, harer nam, harer namaiva kevalam – what does it mean? Why three times again? So far we discussed what should be overcome or rejected: not in tamas, not in rajas, not in sattva; not by meditation, not by sacrifice, not by temple worship. Now let’s find the positive substance of this harer nam, harer nam, harer nam. Give me some names, denominations of our process. Well, like ‘devotional service’,  ‘bhakti-yoga’ or ‘harinam sankirtan-yagya’.

How is that? We understood that in this Kali Yuga there is no yagya?! Certain things are forbidden in Kali Yuga. Animal sacrifices are forbidden. Some other things are also forbidden, but harinam-yagya is not forbidden. So harer nam means that this is the yagya for this age.

We also say that we meditate over the holy name. So, the practice of Satya Yuga is included. Harer nam – this is the best meditation. And we also worship thakurji – Krishna coming to us in different-different forms. So the temple worship – harer nam – is included in the holy name. Mama mana mandire – “I will worship You with the flame of my eyes and the water of my tears, Krishna Murari!’ So harer nam, harer nam, harer nam includes all the other yugas as well. And what does it mean? That it’s eternal, it’s beyond the limits of the different epochs – no, this is coming from beyond time.

(to be continued)

[1] Brihan Naradiya Purana 38.126