Суд над Бхагавад-гитой / Attempt to ban Bhagavad-gita

A contemporary example: A prankish young school-boy,
sitting behind a sweet young girl in his class, secretly dips the
ends of her braids in the ink-pot on his desk. Unknown to the
girl, the backside of her nice new dress becomes totally
blotched with ink and spoiled when she stands up to go home.
Only at home, when she changes dress, does she come to know,
and she at once ascertains the culprit and complains about him
to her mother. The next day, following her mother’s advice, she
sits across the classroom from him in order to escape his further
mischief. But do you think that stops him? Hell no! Desiring her
crooked glance, he hurls spitballs across the classroom,
bouncing them off the back of her head. At first she pretends
not to notice. But after two or three incidents, she becomes


annoyed and turns to see from whence the spit-balls came. And
who does she see – the prankish boy, hiding his smile while
pretending to know nothing of it. At this point she begins to
gather that he must have an interest in her, and she becomes
inwardly enchanted and pleased at heart. At recess, when all
the boys are playing ball, she, standing on the side, searches
and searches among them to find him out in order to witness
her prankster’s sportsmanship, but she doesn’t see him
anywhere. Does that mean he’s not around? Hell no! Deftly
sneaking up from behind, our prankish boy quietly catches a
single strand of loose hair from the base of her braid and . . .
ping! . . . “Oww! That hurt!” as she whirls around and
spontaneously slaps his face screaming, “Oh, you nonsense!”
Sprightly sprinting away, feeling very satisfied with himself, and
considering all his endeavors a success, having caught her
notice and achieved her reciprocation, he elatedly muses again
and again, “She loves me! She touched me! She actually touched
me!” Later, he sends her a box of sweets; still later, he
personally hands her a beautiful bouquet of fantastically
fragrant flowers . . . and the rest is history. Whether the boy
pesters her in this way or that, or gives her a flower or blows
her a kiss, in any case, his intention is to somehow get her
attention and occupy her thoughts.

In the same way, Krishna just wants to have a relationship
with us. So He disturbs us in this way or that, or from time to
time sends us some special maha-prasadam or a nice garland of
lotus flowers just to in some way or other remind us that He still
exists, waiting patiently behind the whole cosmic affair. He has
His hand everywhere, and behind that hand is the rest of His
person, who is so sweet and adorable and enchanting and full of
rasa. So though we may feel mistreated in some way or
disturbed or dismayed by various situations, when we see
within our heart of hearts the all-attractiveness of His beautiful
face, we will no longer feel inclined to bear any grudges. Why?
Because we know He always has our best interest at heart and
that, ultimately, He loves us, even if by His prankish behavior
He makes us shed a stream of tears for the rest of eternity.


Another fitting illustration is seen in the contrast between
the mentality of a dog and that of a lion. If one throws a dog a
bone, the dog will always run after the bone. If one throws a
bone to a lion, however, the lion, lifting his head and licking his
lips, will turn to check out who it was that threw the bone,
considering the thrower to be a tastier prospect, a tastier entity
than the thrown! It is better to have the consciousness of a lion
than to have the consciousness of a dog. In other words, instead
of becoming primarily concerned with or entangled by the
external phenomenon itself, it is better to pursue the tastier
entity, the higher taste, by looking to see who has placed the
external phenomenon before us. And who will we see? We will
see that supremely prankish cowherd boy, Vrajendranandana
Shyama, who, by His inscrutable desire, has expanded
innumerable cosmic arenas in which He may directly and
indirectly enact His various sportive lilas. That is Krishna
consciousness.

The world-view of the uttama-adhikari maha-bhagavata is
achieved by conscientious cultivation of the same, by practicing
to perceive the underlying absolute reality behind the illusory
relative manifestations. The means and the end are identical.
When one becomes habituated to that practice, then such habit
becomes second nature. Only on the uttama-adhikari platform of
advanced internal absorption in Krishna consciousness does
one perfectly envisage the world in proper perspective, in terms
of the highest understanding. The ultimate understanding is that
everything is under Krishna’s control, and that because Krishna
is the supremely lovable absolute well-wisher of all living
entities and because He is all good, His control always has its all-
good, ultimately beneficial objective and outcome. The uttama-
Vaishnava always sees the ultimate-good cause behind all the
manifested events of this world. He never loses sight of that
vision by adopting an illusory or semi-illusory mode of
understanding, even when “coming down” to the position of an
acarya for preaching. The kanistha-bhakta’s angle of vision,
though approaching the threshold of spirituality, is still rather
mundane or erroneous on account of extensive egocentricity.
The madhyama-adhikari Vaishnava’s perception, though


considerably advanced toward the spiritual platform by way of
determined sharanagati, has yet to transcend all tinges of
mundanity. Hence it is semi-illusory and thus only partially
valid. However, the perfectly liberated non-illusory acuity of
reality, which is the absolute transcendental visionary platform,
is the prerogative of the uttama-adhikari alone and no one else.
Attaining the perfection of Krishna consciousness most certainly
demands one’s evolvement to no less than the uttama-Vaishnava
platform of perception. Anything short of that would be
considered unnatural or artificial. It is highly unlikely that a
sadhaka will advance to the uttama-adhikari platform without an
attentive endeavor to purposefully culture the internal and
external consciousness of an uttama-adhikari. The culture of
internal consciousness means to be absorbed in the pursuit of
one’s aspired-to position in the nitya-lilas of the Lord by
cultivating the appropriate aprakrita-bhava, and the culture of
external consciousness means to pursue the rasika perception
of the phenomenal world as per the principles presently under
discussion. A case in perfection is the instance of Srila Gaura
Kishora Dasa Babaji Maharaja being harassed by boys jestingly
throwing stones at him as he was riding down the road on a
bullock cart. Turning to them, he spontaneously chastised, “I
know who You are [Krishna], and if You don’t stop teasing me,
I’m going to tell Mother Yashoda about Your nonsense
misbehavior!”

He Radhe-Shyama! In the last, anything seemingly unjust,
unreasonable, or wrong from the relative standpoint may well
directly or indirectly serve as a venerable eye-opener,
constituting a formative impetus to one’s pitiably crying out for
Your special causeless mercy in complete self-surrender. Such
could not but be seen as integral to Your absolute, perfectly
synthesized, all good, complete whole arrangement for the
ultimate deliverance of even such as Your single, most
insignificant, all but forsaken, inconspicuous, long-lost aspiring
maidservant. For me, any other outlook would be illusory. I
gratefully offer You my humble obeisances again and again.

It is certainly a fact that all events of the past, present, and
future on the relative material time continuum transpire on


account of the all-perfect sanction of the absolute, ever-present
Supreme Will. Further, it should be well ascertained that in all
circumstances every living entity involved is in some way or
other effectively moved toward the ultimate surrender of the
soul, or at least indirectly engaged by superior arrangement to
instrumentally catalyze such surrender in someone.
Undoubtedly, everything is perfectly arranged by providence to
interactively elicit whatever various responses are
circumstantially required to progressively effect every
interrelated individual’s ultimate reform. For instance, when
cows and other animals (or people) are mercilessly slaughtered
(physically or psychologically), perceptive individuals will at
least wince upon sympathetically imagining the victims’ painful
plight. The more insightful will cry or at least shudder when
considering the butcher’s hellish future. Such observable Kali-
yuga phenomena may actually serve to awaken or augment, to
some extent, a pious soul’s natural, inborn quality of
compassion. If that much is accomplished, then it may certainly
be concluded that Maya’s distressful manifestations have
successfully promoted a gradual progress to someone’s ultimate
good. Persons with shastric vision will soberly understand that
both the tortured animals (or people) and the consequently
tortured slaughterers are progressively reaping their karmic
destinies under the influence of the three material qualities.
Both the tortured and the torturer will in due course realize the
sufferings of material existence and eventually turn inward
toward Godhead. They will thus progressively attain complete
perfection at some future point in time. No conditioned soul is
an island. All living relativities in this world are always,
knowingly or unknowingly, directly or indirectly, positively or
negatively, at least remotely in some way or other interactively
instrumental in fulfilling the reformatory purposes of the cosmic
manifestation. The apparently endless sojourn of the jivatma
through the relative time warp of this ephemeral cosmic
dimension will anyway be experienced as a mere dreamlike
flash in eternity when one has, at long last, accessed the real-
time eternal realm of the Absolute. At that point, the cumulative
sufferings that were subconsciously retained from experiences


over innumerable lifetimes will, no doubt, positively serve to
dynamically enhance the wakened soul’s appreciation of the
bliss of ultimate enlightenment. Therefore, the wise with the
vision of eternity lament neither for the living nor for the dead.

Yet, powerful Krishna conscious preachers remain ever
perturbed to see “sanctioned” ignorance or forgetfulness of
Krishna, which constitutes the very basis of all “sanctioned”
sufferings of the conditioned living entities. They thereby feel
compelled or “sanctioned” to show mercy by helping to elevate
the fallen to Krishna consciousness whenever plausible
(“sanctioned”), to expedite everyone’s progress to final
beatitude. Was the Mogul Emperor Aurangzeb’s desecration of
numerous Visnu temples not “sanctioned”? Was his breaking to
pieces hundreds of deities not “sanctioned”? Was his paving the
walkways up to the Islamic mosques with the pieces of the
broken deities not “sanctioned”? Was his terrorizing
innumerable brahmanas and Vaishnavas not “sanctioned”? Was
the envious Kazi’s order to cane Haridasa Thakura in twenty-
two market places not “sanctioned”? Would any soft-hearted
Vaishnava condone, appreciate, or laud these “God-sanctioned”
atrocities? The offended advance by their “sanctioned” praying
or crying out to Krishna, their exercised tolerance, and their
mercifully applied forgiveness. The sympathetic onlookers,
deploring and remonstrating against the demonic mentality of
the atheist, advance by their “sanctioned” sorrowful lacrimation
and their “sanctioned” endeavors to either practically protect or
at least verbally or mentally honor and support the Lord and His
devotees. And the offenders advance by inevitably meeting
their “sanctioned” total destruction, reducing their “sanctioned”
false pride to “sanctioned” ashes! If fortune favors them, they
may then hope to enjoy a “sanctioned” humbled fresh start.

In Kali-yuga, we may consider ourselves theistically
enriched to the extent that we actually help to promote the
cause of congregational kirtana of Krishna’s Holy Name.
Conversely, we may be considered as atheistical to the extent
that we minimize or obstruct (by committing various offenses)
the propagation of shuddha-nama-sankirtana. We would do well
to remember that in this age both the godly and the demoniac