In2-MeC

Prague, Czech Republic
18 June 2004

Yesterday I told you I don't have time during the present while for writing lengthy essays. Ah, but I neglected to say that I have a mine of old essays on my hard disk. Here is one--or the first half of one--that forms a chapter of a book I published a few years back called Transcendental Personalism.

The Secret That Rules All Things
Part 1

Every soul is part and parcel of Krsna's original spiritual nature. Our "material existence" is only a reflection of that nature. We have completely forgotten the perfection of our original position. Why do we think the reflection is the perfection? It is a question of taste. We prefer to view life in the light of our own taste for sense gratification, instead of in the light of Lord Krsna's taste for transcendental pleasure. The taste for sense gratification focuses our attention upon the reflection because there enjoyment seems easier. That taste further perverts the reflection into an obsessive illusion. For example, suppose I am lounging at the edge of a river beneath a tree bearing delicious-looking fruits. The fruits reflected in the water appear to be close at hand, while the fruits in the branches above seem harder to get. If I become obsessed with the reflection of the fruits in the water, forgetting totally the original tree above my head, my mind creates a perverted impression--I imagine the fruits in the water to be real. But that is maya. If I reach out to pluck them, I simply fall into the river. Thus maya is my false mental model of what I perceive reflected upon the material energy.

This false model we take to be knowledge. When we make plans of action based upon this false knowledge, that is called kubuddhi, intelligence spoiled by material desires. With incredible creativity, kubuddhi generates all sorts of foolish schemes for employing our so-called knowledge of matter to advance our sense gratification. Srila Prabhupada gave the example of an American mentholated cigarette with the trademarked name KOOL. "The advertisement is, 'Come on, here is the KOOL cigarette, make your brain cool. . . by smoking. ' Rascal. How it can be cool? But they purchase KOOL. This is called maya. He's smoking fire and becoming cool. " Thus kubuddhi means making plans to enjoy something that cannot be enjoyed--to become cool by smoking fire, to pluck fruit reflected in water, to be happy forever in a temporary world.

Our only problem with matter is our taste for enjoying it. When knowledge and intelligence are infected by that lower taste, we fall into maya and are swept away by the waves of time. Pure knowledge is the perception of matter as an energy not intended for our enjoyment. Pure intelligence (subuddhi) is acting within this material body according to Krsna's taste, in a way that pleases Him.

Making the intelligent choice

Depending upon what we do with the physical body, we may heighten consciousness or degrade it. Srila Prabhupada gave the example of a boy flying a kite. The kite is anchored by string to a stick, which the boy uses as a reel by rolling the stick in his hands. Watching him from a distance, we cannot tell whether he is reeling the string in, thus bringing the kite down, or unreeling the string, letting the kite go higher. The stick is compared to the human body. Working the stick to raise the kite is compared to acting in Krsna consciousness, and working the stick to lower the kite is compared to acting in material consciousness. It takes intelligence to understand the difference.

A dictionary definition of intelligence is "the collection of secret information"; hence, organizations like the CIA and Mossad are called intelligence services. Governments choose policy on the basis of such intelligence. In everyday affairs also, people understand "getting wise" (i. e. becoming intelligent) to be the process of taking choices that are in line with "inside information. " The perfect inside knowledge is the infallible plan of the Supreme Person. That plan reveals our eternal self- interest, but we require determination to enact that plan. In Bhagavad- gita 2. 44, intelligence plus determined action is called vyavasayatmika- buddhi.

As we saw in the previous chapter, to disregard the plan of the Lord and invent one's own is the disease of the soul. That disease is a false spirit of self-interest, the symptom of which is the twofold obsession of "I" and "mine. " In the material world, "I" is the higher conception. Nothing material can actually be "mine"--this is just a mental concoction-- but "I" actually do exist. Thus it is more intelligent to leave aside "mine" to liberate the "I" through detachment and introspection. Only the rarest and most fortunate intellectual comes to know the secret of "I am Krsna's. " Now, the material world, being a reflection, is a reversed image of the spiritual world. If in the material world the "I" conception is higher than "mine," the opposite is true in the spiritual world.

Krsna's plan transcends even liberation

According to Bhakti-rasamrta-sindhu, the conception "I am Krsna's" (technically known as tadiya-buddhi) is only the beginning of devotion. Tadiya-buddhi rules persons who take shelter of Krsna out of a desire for liberation from material contamination. They subdue their senses and minds by comprehending that everything belongs to Krsna only. But more confidential than tadiya-buddhi is the conception of mamata-buddhi, "Krsna is mine. " Only through mamata- buddhi is the full significance of Krsna's personhood understood: that He gives Himself as He is to the devotee who loves Him as He is.

This is the ultimate plan behind everything. Material sense objects are attractive only because they reflect Krsna's opulences of beauty, wealth, strength, fame, knowledge and renunciation. A reflection is a temporary duplicate with no depth of being. When I come before a mirror, my face is duplicated there in form but not in substance. When I move away, the reflection no longer exists. Thus my reflection does not live independently of my glance. Similarly, the material world has no independence from the glance of the Supreme Person. As Srila Prabhupada writes in his introduction of Sri Caitanya-caritamrta, Adi-lila Chapter Five, the Lord "places His glance over the material energy, and by a reflection of His transcendental body He amalgamates Himself within the material elements. " The cosmic form of the Supreme Person is a reflection cast upon matter of His original transcendental substance. The substance is eternal, full of knowledge and bliss, whereas the reflection is temporary, full of ignorance and misery. Material nature assumes shape only for the time the Lord's spiritual form is reflected within her elements. When He withdraws His glance, material nature reverts to its primordial unmanifest condition known as pradhana. To try to possess a reflection is certainly less intelligent. It is more intelligent to give up the attempt to lay claim to sense objects, knowing that they have no existence apart from Krsna. Even so, the material world remains attractive, since Krsna's opulence is reflected there. Thus even a more intelligent person can be overwhelmed by the senses. It is therefore most intelligent to reach beyond sense objects altogether and to possess He who is the source of all attraction and who is the reservoir of all pleasure.

One can pass to the other side of sense attractions by loving devotion (prema-bhakti). When a soul's eternal spiritual identity blooms in prema-bhakti, his ecstatic Krsna consciousness overfloods the confines of the matrix of mundane experience. He is welcomed by Krsna into His most intimate pastimes, those shared only with His confidential associates in the spiritual realm. Our eternal spiritual identity is the most secret, most confidential plan of Krsna for each one of us. It most secret because to take part in this plan, one must give up all other plans one may have-- including the plan to get liberated from material existence.

Self-interest beyond the self

Loving Krsna means to eternally choose Him as one's only self-interest. All a pure devotee cares about is Krsna; he does not care for his own position, whether it be heavenly, hellish, liberated or not. Srila Prabhupada narrated how the gopis, Lord Krsna's cowherd girlfriends, offered the dust of their own lotus feet to be applied as medicine to His head. Krsna had a headache, and it was announced that only the dust of the feet of His devotees could cure it. But those devotees who were a little too concerned about "I" had reservations, fearing it would be offensive for the dust of their feet to be applied to the head of the Supreme Lord. They feared that they would fall down from their liberated positions as a result. The gopis know only that Krsna is their beloved. Heedless of any sinful reaction, they gladly supplied Him the dust of their feet as medicine. Such chastity to the service of the Lord does not even slightly permit anxiety about one's own liberation.

Explaining the mamata conception, Srila Prabhupada writes in Sri Caitanya-caritamrta: "When the devotee feels, 'The Lord is my master' and renders service to Him, Krsna consciousness is awakened. " Mamata-buddhi is the devotee's loving conviction that the Supreme Person is my lord, my shelter, my only possession--mine. When a woman tells her husband in the emotion of intimacy, "You are mine", he finds her possessive affection most enjoyable and becomes like a toy in her hands. Similarly, Krsna enjoys the loving possessiveness of His devotees: vase kuvanti mam bhaktya, "My devotees bring Me under their full control. "

A favorite example is the relationship between Mother Yasoda and Lord Krsna. She loves Krsna in the vatsalya-rasa, the mood of parental affection. Always smitten by the Lord's dark hue, His beautiful form, His mildness, His sweet words, His simplicity, shyness, humility, charity and readiness to offer respect to the elderly, Yasoda thinks, "Krsna is my son. " And Krsna, that Supreme Person from whom countless universes emanate, comes under the full control of her love-- so much so that when He is naughty, she binds Him with a rope to discipline Him. Thus He is known as Damodara, He who is bound around the belly by His mother's love--the same belly that at this very moment sustains the lives of everyone in the cosmos.

The nondevotees struggle to become God, either personally (by claiming His cosmic energy of three modes as their own) or impersonally (by merging into His Brahman effulgence). But the pure devotee who thinks "Krsna is my master, my friend, my son, my lover," is greater than God, for this attitude of personal service rules Krsna, the Supreme Person. This is the secret that rules all things in the spiritual world.

Buddhi is defined as the discriminative power of consciousness. By this power, the soul can choose his actual self-interest. While in the material condition, the soul must choose spirit over matter. But that is not the last word in discrimination. Srimad-Bhagavatam 3. 27. 18 explains that intelligence is a symptom of spirit, just as scent is the symptom of soil or taste is the symptom of water. If buddhi operates originally on the spiritual platform, the original subject matter of its discrimination must complete transcend matter. That original buddhi is mamata-buddhi, which chooses service to the Supreme Spiritual Person, Krsna, as the only self-interest of the soul. It discriminates between this self-interest and other transcendental factors that may hinder pure devotion. A personal servant of Krsna of the name Daruka is sometimes overwhelmed by ecstatic love when he fans the Lord. But he is so serious about his service that he holds his ecstacy in check, considering it a hindrance. Thus spiritual ecstacy is ruled by a determination that proceeds from mamata-buddhi.

Mamata-buddhi is a person's original intelligence as a resident of the spiritual world: as a menial servant like Daruka, or a friend like Sudhama, or a parent like Yasoda, or a conjugal associate like Srimati Radharani, Lalita and Visakha. Such intelligence is facilitated by Yogamaya, the internal spiritual energy of Krsna, which joins the devotee to Krsna. Krsna, mercifully reciprocating with the devotee's aim to serve, includes him in His lila, or pastimes of love. Lila engages the devotee in ever-new opportunities to render intimate service according to his mood of loving possessiveness.

ananya-mamata visnau
mamata prema-sangata
bhaktir ity ucyate bhisma
prahladoddhava-naradaih

When one develops an unflinching sense of ownership or possessiveness [mamata] in relation to Lord Visnu, or in other words, when one thinks Visnu and no one else to be the only object of love, such an awakening is called bhakti [devotion] by authorities like Bhisma, Prahlada, Uddhava and Narada. (Narada-pancaratra, cited in Bhakti-rasamrta-sindhu 1. 4. 2)

Bheda-buddhi

Mamata- and tadiya-buddhi are in yoga (connection) with the Supreme Person. The conceptions of "I" and "mine" that are not in yoga with the Supreme proceed from bheda-buddhi, or "separated intelligence. " According to Srila Prabhupada, bheda-buddhi has three phases: "Krsna is different from me"; "Who is Krsna?"; "I am Krsna. " These are evident even in Brahma, the creator, what to speak of other living entities. Srimad- Bhagavatam 3. 32. 12-15 confirms that Brahma is so exalted that he attains the shelter of the first purusa (Maha-Visnu) after the dissolution of the universe. The Brahma with four heads from our universe is one among countless Brahmas from countless universes; when these universes are inhaled into the body of Maha Visnu and dissolved into His acit-sakti, all these Brahmas take shelter of the Supreme Person. But souls who've enjoyed the position of creator have a tendency to think themselves as independently constituted from Visnu: "Krsna is different from me. " Now, there is a valid difference between Krsna and an individual soul: Krsna is the soul's master, and the soul is His servant. The bheda-buddhi conception is "Krsna is a different master from me--I am my own master. " When the Lord exhales new universes and the separate material existence again appears, the individual Brahma-souls affected by bheda-buddhi are tempted to leave the Lord's company in order to resume their former positions. Those who do leave are considered to have fallen down into material existence because of the habit of thinking themselves lord and creator of a universe.

When Krsna personally descended to earth some 5000 years ago, bheda-buddhi confused the Brahma within this universe as to the Lord's identity. Brahma asked himself, "Who is this little cowherd boy Krsna? Is he really the Supreme Person?" And so he tried to test the Lord's potency by spiriting away with mystic power His cowherd friends and cows. Brahma thus attempted to establish himself as the master of all mystics: "I am Krsna. " But Krsna personally expanded Himself as cowherd boys and cows identical to those stolen by Brahma. Each expansion was Himself the all-powerful source of countless Brahmas and universes. When he perceived this wonderful truth, Brahma admitted his own insignificance and surrendered completely to Krsna.

Never forget that Brahma is the most elevated soul in the universe. If he is influenced by bheda-buddhi, how much more so are we ordinary souls? In Srimad-Bhagavatam 4. 24. 61, Siva states: yad- bheda-buddhi sad ivatma-duhsthaya--"the bheda-buddhi conception is the cause of all the soul's distress (in the material creation). " Ordinary souls who follow the bheda conception seek sense gratification in the cosmic creation. Consequently they must suffer the miseries of embodied life--birth, death, disease and old age. But that experience of bodily pleasures and pains is artificial. Indeed, the bheda conception that rules material life is itself artificial. It simply fosters in the real person, the soul, an artificial dependence upon the impersonal, mechanistic functions of matter. Real intelligence begins as soon as one knows the soul to be independent of matter and dependent upon Krsna.

Artifical intelligence

Alan Turing (1912-1954) was a brilliant English mathematician. In 1949, he devised an argument often quoted by today's advocates of machine intelligence. This is the so-called Turing test. If you, dear reader, have heard anything about it, you probably know the Turing test claims that if a computer--by holding up its end of a conversation in an exchange of typed messages--can convince a human being that it is also human, then machine intelligence is proven. Indeed, a computer scientist named Joseph Weizenbaum wrote exactly such a computer program. Called ELIZA, it acts like a therapist intent on getting the human human user to talk about his state of mind. Some people, when informed afterward they'd been "conversing" with not a therapist but with a computer, refused to believe that such a level of exchange is possible with "only" a machine.

Now, in his original argument, Turing did not at first propose an encounter between man and machine. He imagined a game between three people, two of whom were to be hidden in separate rooms. They, a man and a woman, were to be interrogated by the third player and try, by written answers, to convince him that they were both women. If during the game a computer took over for one of the hidden players and was able to persuade the interrogator that it was at least human (male or female wouldn't matter), that would be demonstration enough of the machine's intelligence. From this we may conclude that Turing believed intelligence equals dissemblance, or the concealment of one's true nature. If a male or female gets away with dissembling as the opposite sex, he or she's got smarts. It follows that if a machine gets away with dissembling as a human being, it's got smarts too. Dissembling intelligence is called atad-dhiyaham by Mahajana Sri Prahlada (Bhag. 7. 9. 17). Atad or atat means "untruth," dhi means "intelligence," and aham means "I". Atad-dhiyam means the intelligence by which an untruth is taken to be myself.

But real intelligence, according to the Vedas (Rig Veda 1. 164. 16), sees through dissemblance: striyah satis tan u me pumsa ahuh pasyad aksanvan na viketad andhah--"They say that these are males, though really they are females. Only he who has eyes (i. e. intelligence) knows this, and not the blind (i. e. the unintelligent). " Or as Srila Prabhupada said,

These living entities, although they have dressed like purusas [males], are not purusas. They are superior prakrti [females], but not purusa. They are trying to be purusa. This is called illusion. If a woman dresses like a man and wants to act like man, that is artificial. Similarly, a living entity is not purusa; he is prakrti. But because he wanted to enjoy this material world, nature has given him a dress like a purusa, and he is falsely trying to enjoy another prakrti.

The word purusa, which in its fullest sense means a male enjoyer, is only applicable to Krsna. All other living beings are enjoyed by Him. Thus they are properly termed "superior prakrti"; or prakrtim me param, as Lord Krsna calls them in Bhagavad-gita 7. 5-- "My superior spiritual nature" distinct from the inferior material nature. One definition of the word prakrti is "female. " Every soul is, spiritually speaking, female. That does not mean that the original spiritual form of every soul is that of a transcendental woman (like Mother Yasoda, for instance). It means that the original plan for all souls is that they satisfy Krsna's senses, just as the plan ruling the beauty of females in the material world is that it attract the senses of males.

The original form of the "female soul" may be that of a spiritual woman or a man, but in either case that form has nothing to do with physical biology. It is the unconditional devotion inherent in these forms that Krsna enjoys. However, when a soul chooses to satisfy "herself" instead of Krsna, that soul is dressed up by material nature to be a mechanical person, a physical body equipped with cutters (teeth), pipes (veins), bellows (lungs), levers, rods, plates and joints (bones). It doesn't matter if the bodily dress is biologically male or female. The same dissembling intelligence rules the desire of both sexes. Everyone who identifies with the physical body is a spiritual female pretending to be the original male, the Supreme Purusa, Sri Krsna.

The purusa as "hero"

That primeval choice--to act as mechanical purusas instead of to serve the real Purusa--was our bid to become the heroes and heroines of our own myths. As one of the world's most renowned psychiatrists, Rollo May, wrote in his book The Cry for Myth:

A hero is a myth in action. . . The hero carries our aspirations, our ideals, our beliefs. . . That is what makes heroism so important; it reflects our own sense of identity, and from this our own heroism is molded.

Although there is no proven etymological connection, it is remarkable that the word myth (from Greek muthos) is similar to the English word mouth (from Old English muth), since a myth is a narrative tale--a story proceeding from the mouth. May argued it is incorrect to minimize myths as falsehoods, for he believed they begin as historical events that later become powerful narratives that orient many millions of people to reality.

The original hero is Krsna, the lilapurusottama (supreme enjoyer of divine pastimes). As churning milk produces butter, Krsna's pastimes churn the eternal realm of Brahman to produce the transcendental emotional states known as rasas: (1) raudra (anger), (2) adbhuta (wonder), (3) srngara (conjugal love), (4) hasya (comedy), (5) vira (chivalry), (6) daya (mercy), (7) dasya (servitorship), (8) sakhya (fraternity), (9) bhayanaka (horror), (10) bibhatsa (shock), (11) santa (neutrality), (12) vatsalya (parenthood). Krsna's lila is always on display in the spiritual world. From time to time He displays it in this world as real historical events, as He did 5000 years ago in Vrndavana, Mathura, Dvaraka and Kuruksetra. These events were glorified by the mouth of the great soul Sri Sukadeva Gosvami and are recorded in the Srimad-Bhagavatam ("the beautiful narrative of the Personality of Godhead"). Krsna's pastimes are ultimate reality; hearing them delivered many, many devotees from the illusory myths of material existence and instilled in them the spiritual intelligence to choose God as the only hero, master, friend, son and conjugal lover.

Krsna's lila is the standard of heroic activities that people everywhere acknowledge. In the spiritual world, the devotees directly participate in Krsna's lila. In the material world, everybody is ruled by a secret plan to become Krsna artificially. And so they imitiate His lila. The original intelligence behind the activities that define a hero is Krsna's own. When His heroic activities are imitiated by mechanically-costumed purusas, that is myth. Their myths are enacted in a theater they believe is apart (bheda) from Krsna--the theater of the threefold cosmos. The stage scenery, casting and costuming is taken care of by the material energy. In that theater of the material world, each individual hopes to become a hero or heroine--the perfect master, parent, friend, son/daughter and lover. Each hopes his dramatic performance will move others to celebrate him as the greatest.

To "make it," to become a "star" in the theater of the material world, we must mold our lives to the dominant narratives of our time-- narratives that command sympathy and respect. As examples, Rollo May lists such narrative themes as Individualism; The Great Myth of the New Land (America); The Journey Through Hell; The Value of Despair; Grandeur and Tragedy; Survival; and so on. These powerful themes occur again and again in history, literature, biographies, poetry, theater and film. When they are seen in real life, it is big news--"true-life dramas" are instantly splashed in full color by mass media across the screen of global consciousness. Everybody is electrified by the struggles of living, breathing heros.

And everybody wants to be a living, breathing hero himself. However modest our situation may be, each of us plays a sometimes comic, sometimes tragic role in a true-life drama staged in our circle of family and friends. But where does this ambition for mythic status get us? As Shakespeare wrote in Macbeth:

And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

As far as we can tell within the matrix of mundane experience, death severs all relations to others. Then what is another person to me except a sequence of images? And what am I but such a sequence for myself? The potential of each person's death closes him in upon himself; each solitary "hero" is briefly entertained by faded, poorly focused imagery of himself and others, most of it tasteless and boring. Then the lights are shut down forever.

Part 2 of The Secret that Rules All Things will follow tomorrow!

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