Swami Tripurari on Reading Devotionally and Submissive Hearing

The following was transcribed from a weekly conference call where Swami Tripurari takes questions from disciples and spiritually inquisitive participants. You can find this call as well as previously recorded calls here. This particular conversation took place on 1/1/17.

 

Swami Tripurari On Reading Devotionally and  Submissive Hearing

Swami Tripurari: You want me to talk about the discipline of devotional reading? How to read a book devotionally, I guess that's what you mean, right?

Manohara das: Yes. Yes, Guru Maharaj.

Swami Tripurari: There are some things that could be said. Once Pujyapada Sridhara Maharaj said that, 'If you read the Srimad Bhagavatam but if a vaisnava, an advanced devotee, has not asked you to read it then it is simply an intellectual exercise, whereas, if a devotee asks you to read it then it's actually bhakti.'  He was emphasizing the point that in Vaisnavism we serve and we serve under a vaisnava. Similarly when Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswami Thakur was traveling in India and he would come to a village they would often present the local mystic and say, 'Here is our leader', and so forth. He would ask them, "What vaisnava are you serving under?' And if they would say nobody, everybody serves me, or whatever, then he would dismiss the person.

So, very much the spirit of raganuga bhakti-anuga means to follow, so we follow the ways of the ecstasies of Vrindavan. Of how they serve Krsna in Vrindavan and how that's represented in the chain of disciplic succession and through the saints and so forth. The whole spirit is one of serving under the guidance of someone of spiritual consequence. And that should be our healthy anxiety. 'Is there anyone of spiritual consequence that knows what I'm doing or I have a connection with?' That...ties us in, if you will.

That's the overarching spirit and Sridhara Maharaj applied it to this idea of devotional reading. Obviously in a general sense the vaisnavas want you to read the Bhagavatam but I think what Sridhara Maharaj also meant was that you are reading it with the view to apply ourselves then in service. And practically speaking, the advanced devotee is the object of service in as much as he or she represents Krsna in a prominent way in our lives because we come to know about Krsna through such persons and what he means and what the implications are, of his teachings and so on and so forth.

I've often said, 'Why do we bow our head before the deity of Krsna?' Because some vaisnavas told us, 'This is Krsna'. So, Krsna is obviously in the vaisnava. For example...you mentioned in your question that you had been reading Sridhara Maharaj's mangalacarana, the auspicious invocation of prayers that he cites before the commentary itself, and that's traditional. So your question, as you presented it, came in the context of seeing his auspicious invocations, seeing some different prayers there that you had seen in different places, and so forth. And so, before I speak I cite a verse, offer respect to the guru. I cite a verse that's generic with regard to showing respect to my guru because I know there are people in the audience that have different gurus, at times, and I want to honor all of them, rather than just a verse glorifying my guru. But then I also sing two prayers that are glorifying Caitanya Mahaprabhu and Nityananda Prabhu. One by Vrindavan das Thakur and one by Krsnadas Kaviraj Goswami. And while I'm offering my respects to...Lord Caitanya and Lord Nityananda, the more inside track of what I'm doing is I'm offering my respects to the vision of Vrindavan das and what was his experience and Krishnadas' and seeking their blessings for speaking about and understanding the teachings of Caitanya Mahaprabhu and Nityananda Prabhu.

...So that is one comment I would say, in regards to devotional reading and the need to invoke the presence of and blessings of saints, that our reading might be fruitful. And with that spirit in mind there's another term, or phrase, that Prabhupada coined which was, 'submissive oral reception.' It's mentioned in the Bhagavad-gita...Before the guru we make inquiries. We should show respect. We should make relevant inquiries and render service. That is what the Gita says. And Prabhupada would often render the word...as submissive inquiries. So we inquire submissively. 

I think that the spirit of that submissive inquiry is it's an inquiry not aimed at just titillating my intellect. Satisfying the appetite of my intellectual curiosity. And people do fall into this. That's why we have to learn to read, hear, chant with our heart, not with our head, and use our head as a tool to soften our heart. To sort out with our head something in the teaching that rings true to our heart and then use our head to put it in our heart and make it a foundational stone for the temple of Radha and Krsna that we're building in our heart.

To read devotionally would be to try to read and hear in such a way that you get some point from it that you know is true and should be part of your life. And then you make it part of your life. Or you really make an effort to make it a part of your life. In other words, you get get an epiphany when you read, 'Oh that's a really good point', 'Yeah, I should do that.' But then if you don't try to follow up and make it a part of your life, the epiphany kind of goes away and , 'Well, maybe it wasn't as good as I thought.', and you rationalize it and so on and so forth.

You want to read in such a way that such epiphanies come and you don't allow your mind to rationalize them away. That you actually integrate them into your life. Now, there are points that stand out, there are points of tattva, points of philosophical truths, that you didn't know previously and you go, 'Oh wow, I didn't understand it like that.' Okay, then you want to make that understanding something that, again, is a building block for the temple that you are building in your heart. You want to gather those kind of gems like you are going to build a temple and the foundational stones are like pearls and diamonds that you mine from proper reading of the scriptures. So you are looking for those kinds of points. And you are looking more so even for points that apply to how you need to change. So that's what I would call submissive hearing. That hearing that's not, again, just for the gratification of the voracious intellect. Because if that's the way that you're hearing, in due course the intellect will become bored with the subject because it's not able to penetrate into an experience unto itself. What is being offered through the sound, through the text, That can only be experienced by the atma, not the dull intellect. 

So, that's what you find sometimes. Devotees...think they understood it with their intellect but they never sufficiently allowed it to go into their heart and bring about change so that they could experience the truths in there and begin to find gems even in places where they thought they already mined. They've gone back to an old vein and found more valuable jewels than were there before, even. And you can live in a book that you are entering into the ongoing conversation with the Godhead, so to speak. That's how I look at revelation. It's a conversation. An answer to the question that human life is.  Of "Why am I? What am I? What is my purpose? What is the meaning?' That is what human life is. It's an existential question and the scriptures are an answer coming from beyond nature which includes intellect. And so that's how I would think about submissive hearing, the spirit of it, and so forth.

I, myself, as a younger devotee would have the opportunity, I don't have the opportunity as much now, to hear others give classes. And not everyone was great at giving a class in those days but my spirit of hearing was that if I could hear one point, just one point...that was valuable and I could take advantage of it then my time was well spent...The hearer can make something out of nothing. The devotee can make spirit out of matter. Caitanya Mahaprabhu saw a mound of sand on the beach on Jagganath Puri and he thought it was Govardhan Hill. And it was. He actually experienced Govardhan Hill.

So, with the right hearing, with the right spirit, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, you can draw out even from anywhere. Mahaprabhu was singing a cinema song in a ratha yatra and from it he was drawing the deepest meaning of Srimad Bhagavatam. So, that kind of hearing, that's how we want to orient ourselves also. And if we are in that spirit, also I am saying, you can draw from other devotees, even you can draw examples of how not to be from others and think, 'Wow, that was just great hanging out with him. I learned not to be like this. It was a really good lesson.'...That's the power of what I'm talking about. The right spirit. And it's the spirit to hear with, the spirit to chant with, even to speak with. We speak with the spirit of learning something, and so forth. Does that help?

Manohara das: Yes, thank you so much Guru Maharaj. Happy New Year.

Swami Tripurari: Happy New Year.