Devotion to Sri Krishna grows like a creeper growing from a tiny seed. The soul seeking devotion to Krishna is like a gardener who sows the seed of love and splashes that seed with nourishing water, in the form of hearing the Name of Krishna and chanting the Lord's Holy Name. The creeper of devotion springs a shoot and grows, piercing through this mundane sphere. The growing creeper goes through the stream of Viraja, the energetic, flowing, unmanifest formless state of existence outside this universe. Then it grows further, and goes through the illuminated plane of Brahma, the white light of Spiritual bliss; until at last the creeper finally attains a home for herself  in the soil of the infinite sphere called Paravyoma. This Paravyoma atmosphere is sometimes called the kingdom of God. The creeper continues to grow in that Paravyoma atmosphere and reaches the limits of the higher sphere called Goloka-Vrindaban where she climbs and clings to the Purpose-Tree at the Feet of Sri Krishna. 

The individual soul is feminine, in its intrinsic nature. When the soul is approaching Sri Krishna, the first conception she will have will be of the Name of Krishna, the sound aspect. Then, engaging in proper production of the Divine Name, she will get realization of Krishna's Form. The sound will show His Figure, Colour and Beauty. Afterwards she will be able to come in contact with His Qualities. Next she will find that there are so many servitors around Him. Then, with all these mixed together, she will find that the pastimes are revealed, and she will find she has a particular place in those pastimes. The soul will find herself living in the harmonious movement of pastimes, the playful life. In that dynamic harmony your innermost soul will have a part to play, and you will find your heart is filled with joy. You will find yourself overjoyed. 

Any vision, any hearing, any experience of the transcendental Lord, is independent of our physical body. But when the Lord descends in the plane of our consciousness we feel as if "with this hand I am touching Him, with this ear I am hearing Him, with this eye I am seeing Him." Dhruva was sitting in the forest, absorbed in silent meditation, when the Lord first came to him. In his meditation, Dhruva had a vision of the Lord's form and figure. But when that vision was intensified Dhruva opened his eyes and found that very figure of the Lord standing before him. The Lord descends from above and appears within our consciousness. Krishna comes from above to our soul, to reason, to mind. Krishna comes down, and He is not a product of the external world. 

Why have souls come into this world of selfish exploitation and not to the world of dedication to Sri Krishna? That should be attributed to their innate nature, which is endowed with free will. It is because of our free choice that we have been born in this world of birth and death. This is substantiated in the Bhagavad gita. 

"Due to their tendency towards ignorance since immeasurable time, the living beings act, considering themselves the doers or inaugurators of action. The Supreme Lord does not generate their misconceptions of considering themselves doers, nor does He generate their actions or their attachments to the fruits of those actions. 

"The fully self-satisfied Supreme Lord accepts neither the sin nor the piety of anyone. Cognizance is the intrinsic nature of the living beings, but the living beings are infatuated by the material body, thinking it to be themselves, on account of their original spiritual nature being enveloped by the deluding potency (Maya) of the Lord."
             - Bhagavad gita 5:14-15

In the Bible there is the story about Adam and Eve who were living in a blissful garden but they were thrown out because they did something wrong. Because of the sin committed by those primitive ancestors all the future generations of mankind are punished by God. But we see this God is kind to some people and harsh to others - he is not just. Some babies are born in wealthy homes, some are born into a life of indescribable misery. Not because of anything they did in a previous lifetime or karma or any other such thing, since Christians, Muslims and Jews do not believe in karma, but rather because God is not fair. He gives some people plenty of daily bread while others starve. This type of God who causes people to suffer for no reason cannot be said to be a loving and Good God. The Vaishnavas reject this type of God. Vaishnavas believe in Krishna, Rama, Vishnu - who is pure goodness.

According to Vaishnavism, the ancient religion of the Bhagavat, there is one Supreme Being who is known by many names such as Vishnu or Krishna, or even Allah or Yahweh. Vaishnavas do not believe in the existence of any "Satan". There is only one supreme power and Vaishnavas do not believe an evil anti-god with supernatural powers is working against God to cause evil in the world. There are many gods and demons in Hinduism but these beings are people like us and are not considered to be the supreme being. They are like fairies or angels or spirits, somewhat similar to the angels and jinns in the Koran. Srila Bhaktivinode Thakur, a great devotee of Sri Krishna who lived in the nineteeth century, taught that the notion that there are two great supernatural powers constantly struggling against each other, one Good, the other Evil, is a idea that was first propounded by Zoaraster in Babylon. Srila Bhaktivinode Thakur said the Jewish, Christian and Muslim religions were influenced by Zoaraster's misconception that a Good God is battling against a Bad God in some sort of cosmic war.

Neither do Vaishnavas do not believe there is any everlasting "hell". Living beings create karma and if they do bad things they will suffer for that. But even if a person is a "demon" like Hitler he will not go to an everlasting hell. Hell can exist, no doubt. War is hell on earth. But wars are not an eternal hell. The soul reincarnates and experiences the results of his karma and every soul will one day evolve into a pure soul who will live in the spiritual world with God.

The soul is a particle of consciousness and since it is consciousness it is endowed with freedom. "Consciousness" means endowed with free will, for without free will no consciousness can be conceived of. The soul has freedom of thought and the capacity to act upon those thoughts and ideas. But the freedom the conscious soul possesses does not guarantee the soul will always act in the right way. Freedom has its value independent of "right" and "wrong". Because the soul is atomic in size its free will is imperfect and vulnerable. The possibility of committing a mistake is there. An atomic pinpoint of consciousness has very meager free will, and by misuse of their free will some souls have taken their chance in the material world. They refused to submit to the supreme authority. They wanted to dominate. So, with this germinal idea of domination, the soul enters into this world of exploitation. 

The first position of a soul in the material world will be like that of Brahma, the creator. Then his karma may take him to the body of a beast like a tiger where he is surrounded by a tigerish mentality, or to the body of a tree or creeper, where different impressions may surround him. 

It is the soul who gives light to the world, who creates an understanding of the environment, the world of perception. Here "soul" means individual soul. The individual soul is the cause of his own world. The philosopher Berkeley said similarly, that the world is in the mind. It is not that the mind is in the world but that the world is in the mind. 

Thought is coming from the thinker, and if there is "thought" then there must be space and there must be time. Time and space are factors of thought. The whole world has sprung up from ether, from space; and the ether, that substance itself is coming from mind. In the Bhagavad gita, 15^th chapter, it is mentioned that just as a tree's branches spring up, sprout up from a seed, the objects of our sense experience are coming from within to out. All our sense experience, of that which we take to be external, has evolved from within ourselves. 

I am a particle of consciousness and consciousness is the original substance. Deviation from that sort of spiritual consciousness to some other consciousness must be considered delirium. We have deviated so far, thinking this flesh is our self. My home is in the conscious world where there is proper existence (Sat), pure consciousness (Chit) and ecstasy and fulfillment (Ananda). 

This is the teaching of Gaudiya Vaisnavism, or Bengal Vaishnavism, the religion and philosophy of  Sri Krishna Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. Sri Chaitanya is the Great Master Who came into the world to teach about the glories of the Holy Name of Sri Krishna. 

In the beginning Krishna consciousness is a hazy thing. But if devotee consciousness attracts us, if we come into contact with a proper devotee and develop some consciousess of the nature and character of a proper devotee, then that will be more tangible, helpful and encouraging for us. 

So Krishna says, " To serve My devotee is better than to serve Me." In ordinary consciousness we do not like the idea of service to a devotee. We may think "He is a man, I am searching for God, why should I waste my time following the advice given by this man. Why should I spend my time in the service of some man? He may have some devotion to the Lord but still he is not the highest." But when we really want to make progress then we must understand that attraction for a devotee is more helpful for us. My energy is utilized in a more concrete way under his guidance. 
 

These teachings have come down to us in the present generation, through this succession of Spiritual Masters:

His Divine Grace Srila B S Govinda Maharaj

Paramahamsa Srila B R Sridhar Maharaj

Om Visnupad Srila Saraswati Thakur

Final note by Muralidhar das... 

Sri Rupa Goswami wrote: 

abhivyakta mattah prakrti-laghu-rupad api budha vidhatri siddharthan hari-gunamayi vah krtir iyam pulindenapy agnih kim u samidham unmathya janito hiranya-sreninam apaharati nantah kalusatam

"O learned personalities, this treatise, composed of the divine qualities of Lord Hari, will fulfill your cherished wishes despite the fact that it is presented by me, a very insignificant person. Does not the fire ignited from pieces of wood rubbed together by a low-born barbarian dissipate the impurities in gold?" 

Sri Rupa Goswami's words spoken in a mood of deep humility give us hope that our efforts to repeat what we have heard from our Spiritual Masters can be repeated even by a person of barbaric nature such as myself. 

Offering my prayers to the Divine Master who is the source of all Truth, Auspiciousness and Beauty, seeking to become a Vaishnava's servant, I have published the preceding article as an offering to Srila B.S. Govinda Maharaj

Muralidhar das
Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Sridhar Mission
The Channon, NSW, Australia
21 January 1997