Waves of Devotion

I think most everyone who reads this – I know my audience – has spiritual aspirations. All, with perhaps a few exceptions, face the same problem to one degree or another. The world today is generally in opposition to that aspiration. It can wear one’s spiritual life down. The challenge is nothing new. What to do?

“Retreats, retreats, you need retreats!” I remember this sage-like advice from a mentor when a friend of mine described to him his insane schedule as a professional musician, which severely compromised his regulation and sādhana.

We just finished our 7^th annual Bhakti Immersion Retreat.[1] The effect on people was profound. It inspired me to revisit the question, “Why retreats?”

Realization

To move forward in spiritual life you need faith. Faith is not theoretical or blind; it is a trust based on experience. What experience? An experience that confirms that the goal of our practice is indeed sublime. But how to get a sense of that? We need just a drop of that sublimity. How to get that realization? Realization only comes by practice, concentration without break over a period of time. Spiritual retreats afford that opportunity, a rare few days in immersion. If you are sincere and take advantage, it works. The sublimity one feels gives one hope to move forward in one’s practices while perhaps still in a less than conducive situation. “Retreats! retreats! You need retreats!”

Community

One of my main objectives in organizing retreats is to give the participants the feeling of community, a belonging to something greater than oneself that allows one to embrace a common interest over a selfish one. That is especially important for one on the path of devotion, for true bhakti only manifests in the heart of one who goes beyond self-centeredness. Only by such transcendence can we experience and expand our joy, like playing in a symphony where so many talented people sacrifice the spotlight to produce and relish something far greater than they can produce by themselves. Unfortunately, in today’s world, the experience of community is increasingly rare. Often, even our spiritual get-togethers become just crowds, not communities, a gathering of people of separate interests where, unfortunately, we are forced to remain guarded despite sharing a similar faith. Joining an inspiring retreat can therefore be life changing by fostering spiritual community, the place where bhakti easily seeps into the open hearts. “Retreats, retreats, you need retreats!”

Perspective

Living in the world has a kind of materialistic momentum where our selfish needs grow incrementally without us even realizing the subtle expansion of our entanglement. I therefore like to fast on ekādaśīs, which gives me a perspective on how little I actually need. In a similar way we need retreats to break the momentum of materialistic life and thwart the imperceptible snowballing of illusion.

Feeling stuck in your spiritual life and overwhelmed by day-to-day life? “Retreats, retreats, you need retreats!”

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-CJF-7JL1ys

In bhakti, agony can be ecstasy. An example:

“Lord Caitanya Mahāprabhu spoke, ‘My dear beautiful friend, if one develops love of Godhead, love of Krishna, the son of Nanda Mahārāja, all the bitter and sweet influences of this love will manifest in one’s heart. Such love of Godhead acts in two ways. The poisonous effects of love of Godhead defeat the severe and fresh poison of the serpent. Yet there is simultaneously transcendental bliss, which pours down and defeats the pride of nectar and diminishes its value. In other words, love of Krishna is so powerful that it simultaneously defeats the poisonous effects of a snake, as well as the happiness derived from pouring nectar on one’s head. It is perceived as doubly effective, simultaneously poisonous and nectarean.’” (Cc. Antya-līlā 1.148)

This description of agony and ecstasy is quite an elevated topic, but also core to the general practice of bhakti, at least the correlation between discomfort and devotion. Here’s the agony/ecstasy principle made simple.

The highest happiness is selfless love or devotion. It doesn’t always come easy, but any struggle done out of selfless devotion is mixed with a counter-intuitive feeling of happiness, because devotion is happiness. Hopefully a few examples of this apparent dichotomy will help clarify this point.

The first of five saṁskāras (good impressions) required for one taking initiation (commitment on the path of bhakti) is tāpa, or regret. We must regret our previous selfish life and commit to a life of selfless service. Tāpa also means to burn. What can burn more for one attached to the ego than the acknowledgement and regret of their mistakes? At the same time, what can be more blissful than the humble position, for it is the only position where love is felt and flows?

This agony/ecstasy principle is especially relevant to the chanting of the holy name. The first effect of chanting the holy name according to the Śikṣāṣṭakam is that it cleanses the mirror of the heart[1] and gives us clarity of perception. By sincerely chanting the holy name one can see and feel the real self, which is the pure consciousness of selflessness and devotion. Even a glimpse of the soul exposes our egoistic pretensions in comparison. How embarrassing to see our charade as the enjoyer and controller separate from God! So, which is more blissful — the pain of diminished pride where we call the names of God in hopelessness and humility, or our blasé and inattentive chanting that avoids exposing the depth and pain of our forgetfulness of God?

A little more about ecstasy. Happiness is selfless love or devotion, and love is manifest only through a relationship with someone either as one’s master, friend, child or lover. Krishna has appeared in His holy name. To experience the ecstasy of the holy name we must therefore talk with the holy name and pray to understand our relationship with Him. If you offer your consciousness in devotion, will He not, like any worthy person, reciprocate and increasingly reveal Himself, including your relationship with Him? Chant with attention, but pray for a relationship with the holy name.

There is more to say, but I have to stop here. My yearly Bhakti Immersion Retreat starts tomorrow (Friday), so there isn’t time for anything more. I just wanted to share a simple message this week before I go:

Be attentive while chanting, cleanse your heart, see your folly, and, in humility, beg for a relationship with the holy name.

Ah, the agony and ecstasy of chanting the holy name!

[1] Śrī Caitanya wrote an eight-verse poem called the Śikṣāṣṭakam glorifying the potency of chanting the holy name. The first verse summarizes the eight progressive effects of chanting the holy name. The first effect is ceto-darpaṇa-mārjanaṁ — it cleanses the mirror of the heart.

I looked out at a sea of college students that filled the small auditorium. The professor, a friend, asked me to teach his “Introduction to Hinduism” class. Standing at the podium before them, I started with a joke to introduce myself and to warm the crowd. With a straight face I tell them:

“I haven’t been back in a university in almost forty years, when I was studying aeronautics.”

I paused for a minute to watch the puzzled audience try to digest the incongruence between what I had just said and who was standing in front of them in robes and a shaved head. I then quickly added: “I was taking up space.”

Get it? Taking up space… aeronautics. I heard a few chuckles, then a few more. Most got it.

The truth of the matter is that I studied philosophy in school, but what I said was basically true. I wasn’t a serious student, and I don’t remember even one thing I learned in class that has been useful in my life. I am not saying that because I became a Hare Krishna monk. It was the late Sixties. From all practical standpoints, most students were, in fact, just taking up space.

Of course, for many career choices a college degree is an essential prerequisite, and there are competent teachers in some fields of study that can share pearls of wisdom. Yes, there are also good reasons to attend college, and some elite schools work you hard, but even for most career directed majors what is too often important is not what he or she actually learned in school, but rather the graduation diploma needed as a prerequisite for a job or further education. I don’t suppose the whole college experience today is much different than it was fifty years ago, except for one big difference. This may come as a shock to you, but I paid $800 per semester for room, board, and tuition at a good school! When I graduated, I left debt free and was able to join the Hare Krishna movement — or do anything else — without being bound by debt to some useless job.

Now here’s a brief list of reasons why college, when not approached very thoughtfully, can be a big mistake.

The Financial Challenge

The cost of college today is exorbitant.[1] Most students have to take out huge loans to pay for their college education. Most are under the misconception that the responsibility for one’s loan begins after graduation. Not true. With many, or even most loans, you start accruing compounded interest the minute you start school. By the time you finish school and are obligated to start paying the loan back, you will be paying back only the interest you have accrued without having touched the initial principle, and this will go on for years. What’s even worse is that six out of ten students don’t even complete their degree in four years. They, or their poor parents, have basically just thrown their money to the wind.

To maintain a healthy life, according to the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, one must immediately get rid of three things: unwanted guests, disease, and debt. Modern psychological studies have significantly linked debt to depression, anxiety, stress, anger, fear, shame, low self-esteem, impaired cognitive ability, and mental illness. So, unless one pursues a syllabus aimed at a specific occupational goal that leads to sufficient economic remuneration, there is a chance that you will be borrowing money only to debilitate your general well-being, including enslaving yourself to a meaningless job to pay it back.

The Intellectual Challenge

Even if one does pursue a college major that trains one for a good job, is that the purpose of university — simply to get a job? Traditionally the university had a very solemn duty. It was invested with the responsibility to train the intellectual and leadership class of society to maintain and hone the foundational principles behind the various institutions and traditions within their society. How sad is it that today the university, at least in the United States, has increasingly become a social club or trade school, and a poor one at that?

A university is meant for intellectual rigor. Worse than becoming job training centers, too many disciplines in the universities have degraded into intellectual orthodoxies[2] where the gift of reason is not used to educate or find truth, but to confirm existing beliefs and indoctrinate students into many disciplines that, frankly, often pawn absurd ideas.[3]

The Education Challenge

Besides the lack of intellectual rigor, it seems that college is even failing to give the most basic lessons of the humanities that were once the hallmark of education. Here’s the insight of controversial Camille Paglia, an alum of my alma mater, on the deteriorating state of classic education:

“What has happened is these young people now getting to college have no sense of history — of any kind! No sense of history. No world geography. No sense of the violence and the barbarities of history. So, they think that the whole world has always been like this, a kind of nice, comfortable world where you can go to the store and get orange juice and milk, and you can turn on the water and the hot water comes out. They have no sense whatever of the destruction, of the great civilizations that rose and fell, and so on — and how arrogant people get when they’re in a comfortable civilization. They now have been taught to look around them to see defects in America — which is the freest country in the history of the world — and to feel that somehow America is the source of all evil in the universe, and it’s because they’ve never been exposed to the actual evil of the history of humanity. They know nothing!”[4]

The Character Challenge

More than anything else, the single aspect of one’s life that determines one’s success is the strength of one’s character. I can’t afford to waste precious words here arguing the obvious, which is that modern education is not geared to elevate one’s character. A few notable quotes should suffice.

“We are good at teaching technical skills, but when it comes to the most important things, like character, we have almost nothing to say. Modern society has created a giant apparatus for the cultivation of the hard skills. Children are coached on how to jump through a thousand scholastic hoops. We are good at talking about material incentives, but bad about talking about emotions and intuitions.” — David Brooks, New York Times columnist

“To educate a person in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to society.” — Theodore Roosevelt, American adventurer and president

I will leave this section with some words on the spiritual vacuum of modern education from the very learned Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura. He went for higher education in Calcutta, the seat of the British Raj and its best schools, over 150 years ago, but his insight into the spiritual vacuum of modern education is still relevant today.

“The result of modern education is that one becomes no better than an ass as one only becomes more enamored with the flickering nature of this world.” (Vidyāra Vilāse v. 3)

Buyers Beware Notice

My perspective in life is spiritual, and my Monday musings follow suit. Śrīla Prabhupāda taught us that it is difficult to separate one’s spiritual life from the way one lives in the world. I would not be faithful to my mission in writing without an occasional social comment. Too many young people who don’t belong are entering college and going into substantial debt without even getting a good education or a remunerative career. How much better it would be if they could be guided immediately to a suitable career rather than four costly years simply taking up space. [5]

[1] This article may be more relevant for people in the United States where colleges cost on the average at least $50,000 and are often outfitted like country clubs.

[2] https://heterodoxacademy.org

[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVk9a5Jcd1k

[4] https://www.intellectualtakeout.org/article/paglia-dumbing-down-america-began-public-schools

[5] Some people ask me how I come up with a topic every week. It’s not easy. The above article was based on a YouTube video that someone sent me that I thought made a powerful point: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dETn6JVO-p4

Śrī Rūpa Gosvāmī was not bored:

“I do not know how much nectar the two syllables ‘Kṛṣ-ṇa’ have produced. When the holy name of Krishna is chanted, it appears to dance within the mouth. We then desire many, many mouths. When that name enters the holes of the ears, we desire many millions of ears. And when the holy name dances in the courtyard of the heart, it conquers the activities of the mind, and therefore all the senses become inert.” (Vidagdha-mādhava 1.15)

Is this our experience? Do we sometimes, often, or even always get bored by the repeated recitation of the holy names?

Chanting the same syllables over and over again? How can something so monotonous not be boring?

Obviously, others have a different experience. Although they repeat the same syllables again and again, their chanting becomes more, not less, exciting. How can that be?

Friedrich Nietzsche was not a theist, but he said some things about boredom that I think are relevant to our discussion. He described boredom as the “unpleasant calm that precedes the creative storm”, and described that he who never fortifies himself against boredom “will never drink the most powerful elixir from his own innermost spring”.

I think what Nietzsche portrayed about tolerating periods of external dullness to reap the benefit of inner excitement is especially applicable to those struggling with meditation. In meditation, when one withdraws from external objects boredom may arise, especially today when we are so conditioned by the fast, intense, and changing stimuli of the world. When we resist moving towards those impulses, however, one’s consciousness automatically becomes redirected inward to the self, and the experience of meditation becomes dynamic. We then gain faith that our temporary struggle to focus was indeed only the entrance to something deeper and exciting.

In bhakti meditation there is something even more. The object of meditation is not just a prop to still the mind, but the holy names of God, which is a direct manifestation of the Divine in sound. As we have an innate relationship with God, and there is a natural energy called “love” between beings in relationship, when we meditate on the names of God, the energy of that relationship, which is the highest love called prema, gradually awakens.[1] The repeated recitation of the same words, which initially may have felt somewhat monotonous, then becomes an object of great attraction, and in time one surely drinks “the most powerful elixir from his own innermost spring”.

Boredom is, therefore, ultimately not what we are doing, but how we feel. We are thus never bored in deep devotion, regardless of how much we withdraw from external stimulation. Bhakti yogis have chanted the same names of God over and over again with increasing internal relish despite withdrawing their senses from the world. The example of Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta, the guru of Śrīla Prabhupāda, immediately comes to mind. He took the vow of Nāmācārya Śrīla Haridāsa Ṭhākura and sat in the jungles of Māyāpur for ten years chanting one billion names of God.[2] He certainly was never bored.

Now the real question: What does this have to do with us? We are speaking here not about an attainment, but rather a principle that is certainly applicable to us — to advance in meditation one must initially tolerate the withdrawal of one’s consciousness from external stimuli with the faith that shortly one will enter into something deeper. Even one who has achieved samādhi in his meditation never starts at the level of samādhi. They have to rev up the consciousness first through the preceding stages of dhāraṇa and dhyāna before again getting up to the level of samādhi. It is like a car that has potential for fifth gear, but every time needs to go through the other gears first to get there.

In other words, we don’t start any activity at our full potential, especially meditation. We may have to initially tolerate, as Nietzsche said, “the unpleasant storm before the creative force” to awaken some real interest or feeling for the mantra. Our daily potential is surely not samādhi, but if we concentrate for a set period of time every day without interruption, then even a sincere beginner will feel that energy of connection to the divine, an experience that should allow us to get over the initial challenge of chanting that at times may feel tedious. We can then chant and be happy, rather than chant and be bored.

“I am never bored; to be bored is an insult to one’s self.”
― Jules Renard

[1] Verse two of Nārada-bhakti-sūtra states sā tv asmin parama-prema-rūpā; that the highest form of love is to God.

[2] One billion names is 192 rounds a day for ten years.