Relative Worlds

by Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Goswami Maharaja

Chapter One

ABSOLUTE AND RELATIVE

My Friends,

With profound respect I come to offer a few words on Relativity and Absolute, which may prove to be conflicting with each other at first sight. But the harmony wanted by both of them should be secured to reach the unique position of the Truth Who has no deviation. The negative idea of our present day experience, through inadequate senses on the temporal plane, does not include the full description of the Absolute Truth, in Whom some other phases cannot have lien to co-share. The synthetic method need not be confused with the analytic process; neither the darkness should be accepted as light to explain our observing stand.

The activities of our present senses over phenomenal representations have impressed us with a particular designation which should in no case be abscribed to the manifested region of Absolute, where our deformed senses and their objects should not be thrust with equal vehemence as we are apt to apply in our present sphere.The transcendental specification does not submit to any limited sense of an enjoyer, but the cogent energy of the transcendence always exhibits a supernatural predominating and justifying aspect, to regulate the shortsighted views entertained in the temporal region. A close attention will, I am sure, convince every recipient if he is amenable to see things from different positions; so I take the liberty of asking everybody not to submit to the current views of many bearing an enjoying mood. A real enquiry, with submission for utilising the same, will ensure the safety of Truth. In cases of non-absolute subjects, an opposing party can have full claim to contradict or challenge, whereas in the Absolute no such second part is possible.

Among the considerate who were watching the career of the Supreme Lord Shri Krishna Chaitanya, on His return to Nadia from Gaya, the people of Shri Mayapur noticed His marked deviation from the former character of the Lord. They observed Him to discourage the impersonalism of the ascetic Prakashananda, who was alleged to have been inculcating an unassorted epistemology which went to show the dragging of the conception of the Absolute to a region devoid of manifestive sentiency. So the Supreme Lord compared the ascetic's ways and methods to those of a villain wanting to sever asunder the all-charming eternal limbs of the Personality of Godhead.

The discouraging tone and positive nullification of the theory of the ascetic from the lips of the Fountainhead of the theistic thesaurus, brought a revolutionary effect on the pedantic mentality of the members of the then centre of learning. These discouraging remarks of the Supreme Lord caused them to hold a poorer conception of the Lord, Whom they found to have been belittling the mental acme of pedantic insinuation. The pedagogic function of Lord Vishvambhar was changed into that of a platform speaker, as the World Teacher closely demonstrating His instructions in practice. This simple and illustrated version gave a clear understanding to those who had a scope of honest reading of the Absolute Eternal Blissful Knowledge. They understood that it was a part and parcel of blasphemy to do away with the different parts of the Transcendental Structural Entity of the Fountainhead, Who is instrumental, ablative and locative of all Immanence, Transcendence and phenomena.

The disclaiming of the Spiritual Aspect of the Absolute had done a great mischief in the cosmological enterprise of tracing the genesis of phenomenal existence. The sensuous speculation of the phenomena made them confident of their advancement in the search of knowledge in their alleged thesaurus. The impersonalists have found facilities to explain by a suicidal commission the amalgamating of the three manifestive positions. The relativity observed among sentient and insentient phenomenal things shows qualitative difference among them; whereas among the sentients the distinctions are traced by the rhetoricians in five different connections. The esoteric interpretations of sentiency are more or less associated with the insentient, as their conceptions are drawn from the mundane concrete. So they cannot be strictly relied upon as being free from the contamination of a foreign opposite element. The quantitative as well as qualitative features have participated a good deal in the discourse on relativity of knowledge.

The Supreme Lord, during His association with the members of theistic society, planned an idea of proceeding to the den of impersonalists at Benares, where He could meet all who had proselytised themselves as subscribing to the erroneous views insisted by Prakashananda, at that time the head of the so-called monistic community. In order to do so, He also thought that He should pose as an ascetic of their order, who could influence the members of that pedantic society, despite their hollow arrogance.

The fourth order of life was considered as the civic guardian of society. The Lord wanted to show Himself as an ascetic to attract the attention of all, instead of being received as one of them or less, in their comparative vision. Though the Supreme Lord underwent the different stages of life, He exhibited the highest position of the fourth order, by not adhering to the rigorous regulations and privations, and by not abstaining from dancing, singing and playing with musical instruments, which are essential relativities of the transcendence.

Chapter Two

PERPLEXING QUESTIONS

In all the manifestive stages, distinction and difference have the upper hand in distinguishing from the rest and differentiating from the unique conception of the Integer. In other words, the quantitative and qualitative relations are established where there is a converging reference of all the diverse courses. In the theme of relation we find the necessity of numerical difference, as well as the distinctive features, when the conception of the Integer Whole is held prominent. In both cases relation is the essential factor which can never be avoided by a knower in his activities on other two planes.

The word 'difference' is taken up in our synthetical view of qualities, and the word 'distinction' in the analytical view of tabula rasa. If we require to get rid of examining the distinctive and differentiative view of a particular subject we can get rid of the relativity of knowledge. The three distinctive locations are ignored to dismiss the idea of space; and differentiative mood, when neglected, would drive out the factor of time in the Entity, as differentiation presupposes the relativity of time. The synthetic method, adopted to eliminate the relativity or to remain indolent to view the perspective Absolute, may, to some angle of vision, appear to he successful, and it will hover afterwards to fix its position in indistinctive or undifferentiated monism. These perplexing questions were asked of the Supreme Lord Shri Krishna Chaitanya at Benares by one of the retired principal ministers of the King of Bengal.

When there was a quest to know the true position of relativity, the renunciating attitude of the monist was exposed by the instructive reply of the Unlimited Thesaurus. The delineation by Full Knowledge of the scope of non co-operation with mundane relativity, gave us the occasion to survey the true manifestive plane of transcendence, apart from the impression of degraded mundane sty, though the indolent mentality posed its stuporous standpoint of getting rid of relative Blissful Knowledge.

There is a qualitative relational difference between the transcendence and phenomena, so relativity cannot be ignored. If such temper is maintained of establishing the undifferenced and non-distinctive Unit, the rationalist school would not set much value to their posit. The undesirable imperfection observed in the temporal relativity of Nature should not be carried to an unknown region where there is no such anthropomorphic, ephemeral, defective welcoming. The weight of such measuring temperament, and to ascribe the same shortcomings in the transcendence, would prove too heavy to be carried by the feeble porter with mundane relative reasons. Moreover, there is no warranty of exact dovetailing in the Transcendental Vacuum.

Our imperfect knowledge is now captivated within the mundane horizon, and we earnestly crave a release trom the prison-walls of unwholesome relativity. That experience will necessarily lead us to conclude the desirability of non-cooperation with finitudinal relativity. But when infinite relativity is talked of, we should not ascribe any defects of finitudinal reference as per our experience here. To curtail the extension of mundane relativity we may proceed to Immanence by minimising our sensuous activities, which are the measuring instruments to dispel our ignorance, by removing the opaque barrier. If we trace out the cause of renouncing mundane relativity, we will prefer non-relative hallucination to give us the facility of vanishing such function. The measuring instruments or, in other words, senses, require to be stopped artificially to remove our inspection of temporal or phenomenal existence. But this would not preclude us to remove the Transcendental irremovable Elernal Existence from our inspection.

The Supreme Lord did not confirm the impersonal phase of the Fountainhead of Nature and Eternal Supernature, but targetted a long track which we should adopt in our sojourn in this temporal world, as well as in proceeding to the Transcendence. He did not prescribe the short-sighted policy of non-cooperation with perishable limited things of this world, but instructed to utilise them in the proper direction to get our desired end.

Our reliance on petty reasonings of mundane relativity would show a stuporous temperament to receive the Transcendental Truth unexplored hitherto by our defective aural reception but a lucky moment would give us an accidental opportunity for paying a little more attention to the remedy volunteered to serve as the greatest relishing sauce for a thirsty soul.

Too much attachment for any limited thing will deny us the facility of extensional gains, though the policy of concentration is talked of very highly for our amelioration. Too much affinity for a thing has produced marvellous results in a research scholar, whose object is to bring out hidden knowledge inherent in the outward object. The question of time has set up the function of acquired durability, thereby resembling the existence of an ephemera. As the research scholar, or the lover of a transitory object, is observed to be shifted elsewhere from the object of his quest, and as the object has a temporary existence with the susceptibility of transformation, such exertions are meant to be analagous to time-serving exploits.

The question of inadequacy, and the quantity of exuberance, will also prove the nondesirability of such temporary fruitive acts. In the emporium of phenomena, our senses are found to engage themselves with all earnestness. When the senses are gratified from the ample service of their need, the satiative sequel does not later on suit their purpose.

The problem comes to be solved, "Where to keep those objects of the senses if we require any relief from their exploiting invasions? Are we to stop the actuating of our senses, or destroy the objects of our senses by devising some means?"

Chapter Three

THE ANSWERS REVEALED

The enjoyer of the objects, as well as the enjoyed objects, are both situated in a tentative position of time. As the provisional existence and activities are captivated in a part of time, these discrepancies should be redressed to have a proper solution of these puzzling questions. We deal with shaky non-absolute things. So we should have an inner desire to know the direction of the Absolute. We have had an irrepressible function of handling the phenomena by our senses, and also the objects of manipulation of the senses are found to be transformable. Because we are compelled to select our position at a place where there is no trouble, we therefore seek for deserting ourselves from all limited platforms.

Association with the phenomenal objects has given vent to disruption, so dissociation is picked up as a remedy. How to handle this function should be the next question. By dissociation we mean to get rid of the relativity of knowledge - to sacrifice our cognitive principle, as is inculcated by a certain school. Maximisation of knowledge might swallow up the two different positions of observed and observer, and will proselytise to singular observation. In that case the uninterrupted knowledge cannot fly rationally without the two wings of Eternity and Bliss, although this seems to be secured by laboured dissociation of manifestation.

When we ascertain that non-cooperation will give us what we have sought, do we mean to make ourselves abstain from all necessities of life, in order to gain perfect dissociation from the imperfected objects? The answer will be 'no'. We need not put a stop to receiving the necessities of life, but we accept those functional activities necessary for our definite purpose. We will welcome the manifestive aspect and finite inadequate things to serve as ingredients facilitating the Eternal Blissful Knowledge, without any reference to our dislocated enjoying mood. If they form to be of any use to the Absolute, the temporal and faulty phases are indirectly removed from the conception of such things. So we need not have any apprehension as to their unsuitability and will discern the immaculated aspect of those things, which otherwise prove snares to us if they are monopolised for our impure purpose.

The insipid situation of an impersonal conception need not predominate over us as a settled fact. At the removal of our enjoying aspiration in Connection with our temporal entities, we would naturally associate such things as elements incorporated with the Absolute.

Then comes the question, "What are the salient features of the Absolute and what should be the nomenclature of the Absolute?" The Absolute is evidently to welcome all sorts of manifestive nature, instead of lurking Himself as the unknown in a region beyond our sensuous scope. Our sensuos activities are hitherto confined in non-absolute, and when we care most for the immutable situation of the Absolute, no mutability should dissuade us from our targetted object. If we can clear our position from serving transformable objects, and when we have only singular motive of serving the immutable Absolute, we must trace the connection of all manifestive things with Him. This will give us the much coveted situation of continuing our living adivities in His service in this world too, without an undesirable attitude of enjoying the same.

The burden of enjoyment is now shifted to the Absolute, and we, being His irregular subservients, help Him in serving by these ingredients, which are His imperishables, though they were acknowledged by us to have been meant for our use. So the greatest facility is accorded by our serving temper, in place of our wrong enjoying mood which proves fruitless in the long run.

Dissociation from undesirable things, when we have a view of the Eternal Blissfull Knowledge, will be exactly dovetailed if we can trace out their connection with the Absolute, having no bearing of co-sharing with them, but simply to welcome them with a consideration that they have only Eternal association.

We meet men who cherish the view of dissociating themselves from all manifestive features of phenomena in their would-be emancipation, and who want to deprive them of their utility in order to gain the full scope of impersonation. They are found to non-cooperate with the earthly phenomena under the apprehension of having been entangled with such association. As they have no knowledge of their self, or have misguided conception of self - like a cow mistaking under an old apprehension the red clouds as flames of burning fire - they want to flee from the very nature of the transitory perspective aspects of the phenomena.

A failure of true detection compels them to exhibit their diffidence of accepting the wholesale manifestive nature of even the Transcendence. They want to carry their defective impression to the Transcendence, considering the Transcendental Region to be identical with the prison of mundane phenomena. So it should be a matter of grave consideration whether to show our back to all aspects, by turning ourselves to follow the undifferenced monistic phase of the Absolute.

The view of the Transcendental subjectivity in our present activity is more or less misunderstood. So to get relief from such erroneous impression we must not neglect to utilise everything, as far as possible, for the service of the Absolute; and must not participate in the views of miscarried decision of the impersonalists. If we do not do so, we will class ourselves among the imprudent.

Four years after His meeting with Raya Ramananda, in the early part of 1516, the Supreme Lord as an ascetic met Sanatana Goswami for the second time. The latter asked his Master to enlighten him regarding his own self and the threefold troubles he has to meet during his journey of life. The Lord taught him that human souls are eternal karsnas: they have originated from the borderland energy of Absolute, Shri Krishna, with the neighbouring dominions of phenomena and transcendence on two sides.

The subservient souls, being simultaneously associated with and dissociated from the Absolute, are themselves no positive substratum, but merely distinguished from the Absolute by their quantitative designation of energy. Forgetful of their true situation, they are susceptible to isolate themselves by enwrapping with foreign quality from the Absolute, whereas they have the same quality as the Absolute, with a magnitudinal variegated position.

This very Transcendental Absolute Truth has disclosed the two-fold aspects of relativity, reigning in the temporal mundane sphere, as well as in the Transcendental Eternal Plane. So the question of relativity is to be treated in these two aspects independently, without subscribing to opinions of impersonalists who have no other treasure to explain away the phenomena in derogatory situation.

On the western banks of the Ganges, close to the Panchanada Bathing Ghat, the retired administrative authority welcomed the Transcendental description of Full Knowledge, Who was never confined to the empirical activities of the learned renunciators, including Prakashananda Saraswati, who was inculcating avoidance of mundane relativity of knowledge. His high-sounding pedantic feats were properly cowed down by the Master, Who posed to be a member of the impersonalistic school. The band of impersonalists, who were known to have gained the civic guardianship of India from time immemorial, got the true impression of the Ever-Immutable Undeviated Relative Knowledge.

Sanatana showed himself as if busy with philosophic discourses by his external activities, and was posing in securing knowledge by participating in the views of empiricists. Not only did he exhibit the opportunity of audiencing the Transcendental Narratives of the different manifestations of the Transcendence Himself, but the positive view can also be secured by all honest followers of that great sage who will show a sincere aptitude to be associated by following Absolute delineations.

Chapter Four

MUNDANE RELATIVITIES

Here, friends, I shall consider mundane relativities. Words are different sounds to indicate different impressions of things and they have qualitative value to prove their entity. When there is a singular significance and no variation, the language would determine the particular conception by the word 'Absolute', Who has differentiating aspects from relations which carry a deviated idea of the Absolute.

When numerals form to bring out differenced realisation, we are obliged to go astray from the Absolute. The very application of relation can only be possible when these different items are introduced. Relation is the connection between two or more objects, whereas there is no lien of introduction of relation of One Integer. Relation is comparative value; but in the case of the Absolute, the varieties of the objects are not traceable. The relation between the two or more has two aspects: they have either harmonious position among them or are at loggerheads with one another.

The scrutiniser has the function of determination; but in the case where there is no observer the different numerals have no occasion to establish their existence, though they may have a subjectivity of their own. It depends on the predilection of the observer to decide whether the tie of observation between the sight and the seer is acceptable or renunciable. Only as a third person are relations between two other seeable objects traced. Sometimes relations are not truly conceived by the observer through his differenced senses from the particular species of community. When the majority of the members differ from the particular view of one of them, they brand such affairs as an outcome of vitiation and error. At this time we observe the different predilective moods of different observers. This has given rise to contending solutions of relative observations. In order to pacify these conflicting conceptions we adopt insipid exploitations for the purpose. Elimination of different attributional conceptions sometimes compels us to resort to the substratum where no relation is wanted to delineate the particular positions of differentiated objects.

We have heard of different potencies that enlighten our conception of differentiating things. If we require to eliminate the potential quality of a particular thing, we make inert all the objects where there is no occasion of determining the relation between them. We cannot conceive an object without its colour, attributes and functions. So the qualities are the significant elements to see the relativity between the objects. The observer has got a power innate in him to pose himself as an observer, owner or possessor of such functions. This sort of owning or temporarily possessing can have a pacified position which may cease in the worker if he is enforced as stuporous.

The mind is the conductor of the senses. The senses get their field of work in limited objects of phenomena. Our stock of physiological knowledge has not yet furnished us the location of a physical entity of the mind which acts upon the senses. The mind has been considered as the telegraphic centre of one's senses; so the senses are analysed to have a material bearing, they will seek their material community as their relatives.

All informations received through the senses are drawn from matter or motion through such stuffs. We cannot avoid the subtle impressions of figured objects which are made up of matter. So, in our attempts to secure knowledge a contamination of grossness or subtlety of phenomena is inevitable. The knowledge of limited things, as picked up by our senses, should bear along the impression of relativity with other things. So empirical knowledge should have no propriety to pose as unalloyed impression of the non-shaky Object.

The indolent mentality often encourages us not to meddle with perishable positions of different objects, but to keep ourselves quite free from such associations. Our senses are often found to welcome things according to their own predilection, and such taste is imbibed by the association of their nearer friends. As we are endowed with the head of senses with all paraphernalia, we have no other alternative but to stick to the relatives of the knowledge of the world, though we might have a promising prospect before us to reach the Absolute. Mental speculation will give us the facility of deciding that the cessation of mental work, with the dismissal of the phenomena, may facilitate a suicidal commission, and that the final goal should be discerned as the Absolute, without any tinge of relativity experienced through the senses.

The relations of this world can be ascertained by multifarious mediums which are reciprocal securities in the laboratory of inspection. Our ocular activity would take the help between our previous and present convictions, size, colour, distance; the difference between our previous convictions and present presentiment; comparative varieties, taste, etc. Those will serve as ingredients facilitating to trace out the relative merits of our seeable objects. The ear will determine the magnitude of vibrations of sonorous or harsh, discordant, gradation of sounds. The nose has similar activity of receiving odours and stenches and different degrees of scents. Similarly the tongue serves to vocalise sounds and have different tastes of pungent, saline, astringent, bitter, sour and sweet articles of food. The skin feels different degrees of heat, catches infection, invigorates physique and serves many purposes. The worldly relativity creates pain as well as pleasures in sentient beings.

The relations between the two or more things show a compatibility with each other, or one another, and in some cases they are incompatible. The relation between the observed and observer proves to be inharmonious or exactly in conformity - which is, in other words, known as serving the predilection of the observer by such association.

In the atmosphere of measurement, both quality and quantity are inevitable factors. They also prove their efficacy in distinguishing and differentiating the very conception of relations. The observer's association with the observed produces a condition of taste which is enjoyed by the observer and observed in the case when they are sentient beings. A peace-loving solution of the different disruptive situations will necessarily eliminate the factors of Time and Space, and Entity. This will simply annihilate the temporal relativity of the mundane sphere. So, the question of selection or rejection ceases when annihilation is effected, and this could necessarily reconcile the unpleasant sensation of relativity. This is in short, dear friends, the position of earthly relativity.

Chapter Five

TRANSCENDENTAL RELATIVITIES

We now proceed to say a few words on transcendental relativity. Hitherto we were noticing the question of relativity in phenomena, which has the intermediate position between Immanence and Transcendence. The usual tendency of rubbing out the relativity in the Immanence or in the Transcendence is observed to gain the supremacy in the two positions. The Immanence and the Transcendence would have no manifestation which is considered as the conspicuous feature of an insensate observer. The imperfect manifestive world does not want to supplement the inadequacy by the extension of appropriate relativity.

The phenomenal observation has decided to eliminate the relativity, on the basis of imperfection, in the two wings of Immanence and Transcendence. The solution of the extension and unusual curtailing tend to verge on relativity, which should be no factor in the conception of different situation from phenomena. So transcendental relativity is quite unintelligible at the very outset, but we are out to deal with the same. Is transcendental relativity irreconcilable by the apparent contradiction, or can these two have harmonious affinity?

The Absolute craves for a singular situation where no relation could find place in our mundane reason. We need not be disturbing the Absolute by accompanying anthropomorphic suggestions when we talk of the Absolute, Who is quite different from the views entertained by mundane relativity. In the mundane sphere we are the judge to accept a particular view, though we are sometimes forced to change our views by unexpected revelation of hidden Truths.

Our analytic exertion may give us some hope of entering into the particular details of the Absolute by the synthetical method. The synthetic method has been observed to suit best in the inspection of phenomena. But in the Absolute no synthetic method can work out its way, as the word 'Absolute' has monopolised as an autocrat not to allow any plurality which would have a conflicting situation. However, the Absolute may show us some delineative manifestations which will permit analysis of the Absolute.

Why should we deprive the Absolute of His eternal manifestation by our approaching? The rationalist would shudder at the very thought of an Inspector of the Absolute. He will then pass a quarantine to the observer when the Absolute becomes a part of the whole which is going to locate the three distinctive positions, as are often found in the phenomena. The objector will not allow us to transcend the phenomena, keeping his existence which, in his view, is one of the components of phenomenal existence.

Our present conception is so concretised with perishable materials that we cannot differentiate the Absolute from mundane pieces of perishable matters. The Absolute, in our present view, cannot have manifested entities, and we are prone to confuse the interpretation of the Absolute with non-absolute to the elimination of plurality. The plural phases of Absolute should not have any reference to mundane manifestation, except by a resemblance of the seeming features we observe through our senses. The Absolute entities should never be identified with the mundane transformable enjoying position through our errable senses; but entities who only have engagement with the Absolute are inerrable, even in this mundane world, having connection with the Absolute.

Though the seeming conceptions have similarity, both in mundane and transcendental worlds, still they have a distinctive reference of the question of temporal and eternity. All mundane conceptions have a differentiative aspect between the exoteric and esoteric comprehension of the thing; the factor of Immanence is involved. In the Absolute there cannot be any trace of this bifurcate position. The Immanence and the phenomenal conceptions are identical in the Absolute, though possessing different phases and different units, peacefully conglomerated without any disruptive situation of the mundane atmosphere.

The unspeakable extension of the Transcendence, though observed in the phenomenal view to have stopped all sorts of variegated positions, still maintains a resemblance of manifestive nature, and this Transcendence has analogous relation, just as phenomena to Immanence. The seeming feature which is considered as exoteric inspection of phenomena becomes a subconscious element of things; whereas, Transcendence has the full conscientious eternal conception by a spark of Absolute, an unconditioned soul, who is free from the phenomenal clutch.

The factors of matter and spans of time serve as infinitessimally small esoteric reference when we speak of the full-fledged Eternal Transcendence. The Transcendence has scaled up this time from the cubical expansion to the entities of higher dimensions. Persons who are inured to talk much of matter and entangled with the physical liabilities may, by their limited conception, impede their course of investigation, and would naturally tell us that such a view of Transcendence has come out from the factory of phenomena in enjoying mood. But we would not encourage them to be so audacious as to exercise their crippled senses for decisions of viewing higher things.

The certitudinal gnostics may rely on their mundane senses like the agnostics, and would like to exploit all healthy eternal feelings associated with the Absolute Harmony. The working of these two entities has played agreeable and disagreeable parts in the present land of transformation; but in the Transcendence there is no question of disagreement between the eternal entities, who have no susceptibility of being inharmonious to one another, and so the transcendental plane has got an Absolute value which cannot admit the deformities of an anthropomorphist.

There is no occasion of a black and undesirable sight as we can prefer the admissibility of a challenge. No foreign hallucinative ideas could be ushered into the manifestive phases of the Absolute. Our present senses require regulation by the transcendental association which will give real value of the Absolute instead of a contradictory value from the deformed perishable relativities.

The question comes then that the impediments of opaque quality of vision, of the inaudible sounds of our aural reception, of the insipidious tastes, or unpleasant smells, and of the defective dermal conception of external things, can have no trace in the Transcendental Absolute. He has a distinctive character of transparence, continued auricular reception, exceptionally fine inebriating fragrance, tasteful dishes for ingressing purposes without any defects of egressive easements. He has soothing without burning sensation or any sort of unpleasantness of any mundane sense, but has senses that are made up of Transcendental Absolute. So, there in Transcendence, all sorts of incongruent phases are continually crammed in whenever such entrance is pressed through the mouthpiece of gnostic exertions.

The nature of phenomena has a similar nature of Transcendence, save in the eclipsed view of the Eternal Manifestive Blissful Emporium of extended gnosticism. The impoverished phase of the excellent aesthetic culture cannot have a comparison with the Transcendental Sublime Beauty of the Acme of the Absolute. But the most welcoming different values of the reciprocity of our transcendental senses cannot come to our mundane situation.

Our mundane empiricist would consider to break his limbs in his long jump to the Transcendence, but he can have such a long jump only if the Transcendental Agent injects him with the super-excellent, cogent, nonshaky qualities of comprehending the entities of higher dimension, which are above all worldly material range. There we find inconceivable majesty, cogent potency, acme of prestige, fame and honour, beauty; allsided prudence and dissociative faculty from perishable existence are concentrated in the Absolute with a Manifestive Nature devoid of undesirable sensual experience. This super-beautiful gnosticism will be found identical with the Transcendental Love, and the Absolute Entity should have the unalloyed Eternal Blissful Existence of Pure Knowledge, Who can accommodate all undesirable conflicting situations in the most coveted Eternal Harmony.

No negative situation of the Transcendental Absolute, possessing all eclectic features, can be entertained in the Transcendence. The relativities of the sentient world have a very strong footing in the Transcendence, besides an eternal treasure house from which mundane eclecticism could emanate and stand.

No pneumatologic exertion can give us relief from the association of enjoyable things, which in their turn trouble us in our present sensorial play. But this has shown a similar feature of the Manifestive Absolute, though in a crippled form. Our rhetoricians intercede at this stage to reconciliate more or less the conflicting nature of the two manifested planes. The relations here tend to bring in transitory love, but whenever any undesirable feeling disturbs us, we hasten to resort to an immaculated position. The innate impulse in us always seeks for a desirability, and when this taste is troubled we are found to hallucinate for an insipid situation, checking all the manifestive phases.

Chapter Six

SERVICE TO THE ABSOLUTE

In the Absolute we cannot have any undesirability, owing to the defective existence of varieties. The predominating aspect is to enjoy from the objects under his jurisdiction. In the mundane world we have endless numbers of entities known as predominating aspects to suit the purpose of endless numbers of such predominated aspects. This relationship, both in the relative manifestation as well as in the Absolute manifestation, has resemblance to enable us to trace the original position in the Absolute where Knower, Knowledge and Known are not to transform, neither to shift, their position by some other outward agency.

Space and time, as well as individual activities, prove detriments, whereas we have not carried any such defective and undesirable nature to the Region of Transcendence by our anthropomorphic exploits. The dissimilar feature is only traced in the singular position of the predominating part of the Transcendental Manifestation, without any interruption of the different manifestive entities of the predominated aspect, except the rupturous position that emanates out of the conflicting situation among them.

The Absolute is the Consort of the Spouse. He is the Son of the subservients known as parents. He is the only object of friendship of all friendly entities. He is the Master of all the dependants and is the only manifestation of all neutrality. The Absolute exercises His prerogative influence over all the manifestations, who are but reciprocally emanated for His Pastimes. There is no occasion of any dissension that could create any disturbance not in conformity with the Absolute Volition. None of the entities could lurk from His visual range; none of the sonorous sound can keep itself away from His aural reception; no pleasant scent can resist His nasal enjoyment; no relishing feature could impede His tongue, and no heat or cold could claim to stand against Him, as our position has assured us of our subservient situation.

No monistic method can lead us to shake off our innate eternal service to the Absolute, if we can target our position as an infinitesimal part of the same. The ethnic method will never be justified in lapsing ourselves in the Absolute with a hallucinative cognition of identifying ourselves fully with the Absolute. Could we do so, we might not have been captivated by our senses. The suicidal commission of annihilating our differentive cognition, volition and emotion, would not relieve us from the realistic pangs, unless we are helped by the association of the manifested Absolute.

Inebriated with our sensual comforts we may swell like a frog, if we want to inflate by the pedantic exploits of our impoverished gnosticism. Our prudence will never be immaculated if we pose any phenomenal position. So the Supreme Lord has told us to minimise our selfish entity in this world, instead of maximising ourselves fruitlessly to become identical with the entire Absolute, which is never our own position. We are a transcendental, different, atomic phase of the Absolute, so we need not be masqueraded by worldly transitory garments of limited space, time and non-absolute individuality.

Our mental speculation has been found to discern the two positions of the planes where relativities could be fledged or checked. But when we speak of unvitiated knowledge, free from the mundane sensorial world, we need not carry this zoomorphic or anthropomorphic imprudence to manufacture things, instead of approaching the Eternal Manifestations. Mutilation or mutation may have some lien in the worldly phenomena, but there is no possibility of offering a jerk so as to shake the Absolute position of the Transcendence; hence we need not confuse mind with the soul. The soul is never disturbed by phenomenal invitation which has incremental or decremental associated value.

The Absolute reserves the right not to come under the jurisdiction of the sensual world. So the rigours of phenomenal experience would not be imposed in the eternal manifestation. The Hellenic and Hebraic dispositions should not occupy the transcendental atmosphere, as they are serviceable for our purposes here. In the Personality of the Absolute, mention of conflicting thoughts, which are the outcome of mental exploits, would not predominate over the Absolute, as was the case within our mental scope. Savants of different ages and different countries have formulated by their exploits many a scholastic view, to set right according to their whims the epistemological and cosmological question, which have very little value when realisation of the Absolute finds its play in unalloyed souls.

The Transcendental Pastimes of the Absolute with the human souls are eternally to clear their positions from the mundane atmosphere, and no amount of the temporal and local objective reference could stand as a check to regain the eternal functions of their senses. When mundane relativities are associated in the Transcendental Manifested Absolute, we get a very ugly figure, if we estimate from this level. Of course, all the secular branches of knowledge can have some propriety to help the devotees, but they cannot boast of their superior instructive chair above their recipients, who have got some other stuff, not exactly dovetailing the purpose of the enjoying mental exploitations. All secular branches of knowledge should have a serving mood to those who have the only aptitude for serving the Absolute. If these objects of the phenomenal museum are meant for the enjoying purpose of some angular vision, it would be quite useless to apply them for such undeserving, local, selfish interest.

The Supreme Lord Sri Krishna Chaitanya, Who is known as the very Fountainhead of All Love, has chiselled all high and low conceptions of temporal things by His Eternal Transcendental Chisel, in order to have a loving eternal plane, free from all sorts of crutches and their irregular rationalistic exploitations; although exploitation possesses a notoriety and the rationale has some propriety to combat with his opponents by branding them to be less tactful. Still such ratiocination must have the common object of the Loving Absolute and not rupturous irregularities.

Chapter Seven

INCONCEIVABLE ONENESS AND DIFFERENCE

The intercession of the Supreme Lord Krishna Chaitanya among the members of the crowded rationalistic parliament has done incomparable eternal good to the gnostic world, as well as to the silly congregation of the so-called pedantic schools of mental speculation. The impersonal and personal conceptions of the Absolute were at loggerheads with each other. This has been pacified by His offering the interpretation of acintya bhedabheda [inconceivable oneness and difference].

The conventional social conflicting views also had a proper place in the Hands of the Supreme Lord, when He taught Sri Sanatana not to renunciate from the manifestive phase of natural emanations, but to use them in quite a different way, so as not to be captivated by the glaring features of the sensorial plane of an individual averse to submit to the manifested Absolute with a devout demeanour.

The Supreme Lord wanted all His apparently dissenting audience to take a line where they could make eternal progress of functioning their unalloyed souls, instead of keeping themselves under the prison bars of temporal senses. The Supreme Lord did not ask anybody to confine themselves in the short sighted policy of altruism, where mundane relativity proves to be the emperor of the mental and physical empire. He advised everyone, right and left, high and low, not to be so sanguine to the temporal acquisitions formed by mundane relativities, but to extend their views to the Transcendental Museum, where they can have a comparative conception of their objects in view.

People of this world are all shelved up in their secular enterprises, and thereby accuse themselves to be captivated by their own respective whims. And this association is meant for their transitory purposes. Everyone is vitally interested with the Absolute and cannot possibly evade to associate Himself with the question of the Absolute, except for the time being.

All the attempts for any mundane acquisition cannot be retained, all things of other places cannot be had at a time; so a big gulf is to be crossed over to get the absolute knowledge. The partial gnostic attempts of the empiricists would never permit them to come in touch with the Absolute, unless they have a submissive mood, a conciliatory habit of audiencing the transcendental sounds invoked to their ears. In the Absolute there is no occasion of material space to accommodate forms and their extensions.

The infinitesimal absolute does not require any such space. The intercession is so close that no material conception of space is to be intruded in His location. The relativity of the Absolute does not require an equality like that of mundane relativity. The question of extension does not vex a soul proper like that of a speculationist. So, impersonal propaganda to get rid of the defective views of mundane relativity has no lien in dealing with the theme of absolute relativity. The Absolute individuation should not be placed under the rigours of vitiated space and notoriety of time. The relation in the Absolute Region should not be classed in the same category of heterogenous afflictive situations, for His manifestive phases have no undesirability, hunger, thirst, pain and sorrow, etc.

The human soul need not be put within a corporal body, as he is evidently an incorporeal to the strictest sense. The soul need not be put inside this tabernacle, or this subtle corporal bearing. We do not identify a reflection with the original entity, neither do we consider a spark of fire to be different from the flame itself; but we need not think that a reflection or a spark has diminished the total value of the Absolute by their different situation. We need not think that the infinitesimal absolute is only an outer case of the body, or that it is interwoven with molecules of the frame. The individuality is related to the Whole and no addition or substraction can be effected by the intercession of anything between them, either space or form. This has given rise to amalgamation or annihilation the two perspective individualities, or personalities, instead of an eternal relative position. So the relation and the two sides of personalities should have no undesirable instigation of mental speculation.

The Supreme Lord has pacified these conflicting conceptions forwarded by the bands of rationalists, who base their arguments on their sensuous acquisitions. The Absolute substratum has Absolute energy from which infinitesimal absolutes, as well as infinitesimal conditioned lives, are emanated or created.

The relation between mind and body need not be confused with the transcendental tie of relativity between the two quantitative phases of the Absolute, as quantitative relation there has not lost the position of the Absolute; or, in other words, we need not carry non-absolute being or a non-being thought of Entity to the Region of the Absolute. The prohibition of encroachments by the limited entities to the Region of the Absolute should in no case be neglected.

In conclusion, I would thank you all, my friends, for the splendid response you have made to our humble call, and the patient hearing you have so kindly given me this afternoon. We had too vast a theme before us and short is the time you can spare. So tonight I shall be satisfied with this short dissertation and close for the time being the crater of the volcano of thoughts on the Transcendental Relativities, which once had their most forcible and soul-stirring outburst before Sri Sanatana Goswami.

(This lecture was delivered by Srila Bhakti Siddhanta Saraswati Thakura in Calcutta in 1932. This edition is a reproduction of the Sri Chaitanya Saraswata Classics edition of 1985.)


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