Saturday 14 April 2012

To reach the visuddha-sattva stage (Platform of Pure Goodness)

The lower modes of material nature are particularly entangling us, more and more in the material energy. It is said that the mode of ignorance are those kinds of activities, which are detrimental to a person’s progress. Activities of laziness; eating things that are not edible; sleeping more then required; dreaming, illusion, madness; lack of cleanliness; dishonesty and anger – these are all symptoms of ignorance.
So tama-guna in that way is damaging. Raja-guna is a state where we are always eager to enjoy. We are always eager to manipulate things for our enjoyment. This is rajas. So one should not think that:

‘To be very active is rajas’.
When one is very active in devotional service, then we should not say:
‘Why are you so passionate?’
That’s not passionate, since it means that we have this desire to enjoy. To be active in devotional service is very favourable, and to be eager, very alert to serve and take every opportunity to serve is exactly what we require! Not that we become so much in goodness:
‘This is service is too passionate for me.’
That is actually passion because, then we want to enjoy the service:
‘I enjoy this type of service but not that type of service.’

No, service is as is required. So the mode of goodness means that we are simply prepared to be humble, to be an instrument and to be a servant, in a real sense, and to work for the benefit of Krishna – His mission and His vaisnava and so on. The gradually one can reach the ‘visuddha-sattva’ stage. ‘Visuddha-sattva’ is the stage when one is not interested in personal form of enjoyment, but one naturally becomes peaceful.
Vasudeva the father of Krishna is described as the embodiment of that state, of pure goodness. Sometimes the state of Vasudeva is synonymous with pure goodness. It’s that consciousness of pure goodness of Vasudeva and Krishna which has manifested Himself in that consciousness. So importance is that when the heart has become purified, then Krishna can enter, and then He can be seated within the heart. Then one can live in that worship and in the service of Krishna all the time. Then our chanting also becomes enlivening experience instead of a struggle!

- HH Kadamba Kanana Swami

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