A devotee is asking: Does sāyujya mukti mean losing one's individuality forever?
The goal of meditation is to join our mind with Krishna. Now when you and I do that our mind is partly and temporarily joined with Krishna The more we practice the deeper that state of union becomes, but we're not perfectly attached to Krishna. We're not completely surrendered to Him. So, right now to whatever extent we're attached to Him, our mind receives His grace. Our mind, to the same percentage, gets purified and develops good qualities and reduces bad qualities and in the very same amount receives ābhās or reflection of Krishna's Divine blissfulness. Ultimately, when one fully surrenders to Sri Krishna, then they attain the perfect state of union with Him.
That perfect state of union can be realized in one of two main ways:
One is when you receive a Divine body, senses and mind and you go to the Divine world, just like you see depicted on some of these beautiful panels here in the mandir, you go to His Divine abode with Him in Divine Vrindavan, Divine Golok. And over there in His Divine abode, because you have a body and He has a body, you can see each other, talk to each other. You can embrace. You can be with Krishna in any way you want, play games or serve Him. This is one way of realizing God.
Another way of realizing the state of perfect union is not to have a Divine body, senses or mind. In that case, just your soul merges into Krishna's formless aspect. So this is called ‘såyuja mukti’. In this state, you don't actually get to experience anything because your mind no longer exists. You didn't get a Divine mind and your material mind finished because it was material, mayic, and now the mayic influence and bondage over you is finished. Your body was also mayic. You left that behind when you went to merge into God. So no mind or senses or body, just your pure original Divine soul. Then how would you experience anything? The soul needs faculties with which to experience. The soul needs senses. Soul needs a mind and a body in order to realize its potential to experience. The soul itself is the one with the potential to know, hear, see, experience, but without those faculties (you’re not going to be able to do anything). Just like you have an engine of a car but that car engine isn't connected to an axle with wheels; and the car is revving up, it's alive. It has potential, it has power. But where are you going to go? Until you give that engine a drive shaft and the axle and some wheels, (where are you going to go)?
Similarly the soul has the potential to do everything. The soul is full of life, Divine power, yet without a mind, senses and a body, ‘the rubber is not going to hit the road’. You're not going to be able to do anything, think anything, know anything, experience anything. Right now we have material faculties to experience this world. After God realization, we could get Divine faculties to experience God and the Divine world. But some people ask for pure, ‘only liberation’; it's called ‘kaivalya mukti’ or ‘sayujya mukti’. So in that case, you actually do lose your individuality, although you don't cease to exist. But let's say you are a drop of water and you enter the ocean. Did you cease to exist? No, the drop of water didn't cease to exist. That molecule of H2o is still there, but practically it lost its individuality when it merged into the ocean. Similarly, you as a soul will never cease to exist, but if you merge into formless God in that state of ‘kaivalya moksh’, for all practical purposes your individuality is finished. You merged just like a drop of water into the ocean never to do anything or experience anything ever again. Do you still exist? Yes, your soul still exists as an individual entity. But just like the drop of water that lost its practical identity when it merged into the ocean, you practically lose your identity when you merge into formless God.
So these are the two main options in the Divine world. Luckily for us, we have a choice.
A devotee is asking: I hear about curses when you read our scriptures, Ramayan, Mahabharat. We always hear about this Rishi giving this curse, this person getting that curse, even God gets cursed. So they want to know what is that about? Is a curse a bad thing? Why does it happen in our scriptural history?
So, let's look at the actual meaning of the word shrāp, which means curse. Shrāp in Sanskrit comes from the word ‘shreya prad’. ‘Prad’ means denewala (giver). ‘Shreya’ means ‘sabse achha’. ‘Apne hit ki bāt (talks about our best interests). ‘Shreya’ means our ultimate good and ‘prad’ means that which gives. So ‘shreya prad’ or a curse, shrāp means that which leads to something good happening.
Let me give you an example: One time Narada ji came to Shri Krishna with pride that you know, “I was sitting and doing devotion and then Kam Dev, the material God of love, he came with all his maidens, and he tried his power on me. He tried to induce desire in my heart, but I was impervious to his influence!” So he had that pride that ‘see what a great devotee I am’. So Krishna said, “This pride is also a dangerous thing. It can lead to a person's downfall. So let me cure my devotee Narad Ji of this.” So He tricked Narad Ji. It's a long story, but He gave Narad Ji a face that looked like a monkey.
Okay, I'll tell you a little bit more. When Narad left, Krishna said, “Okay, how will I teach him a lesson?” He used His yogmaya shakti to produce a whole city that wasn't there before. Krishna produced all the inhabitants of this city and in this city, there was a beautiful princess who is getting married on that very day and Narad Ji passed by and saw this princess, who, of course, being produced by yogmaya (It's not the same as getting enticed by Kam Dev, the material God of love), all this whole scene was produced by Krishna's yogmaya shakti. So, of course, people will get (attracted), even a Divine Saint would get attracted! But Narada ji didn't know what's the secret behind this whole situation.
So Narad ji saw this princess. It was her swayamvar (a ceremony where the girl chooses a husband of her choice). She was getting married. She was choosing her husband on that day. So, Narada ji saw the beauty of the princess, and he said, “I want to be chosen by her!” And he went back to Krishna, and he said, “Give me a face like Hari”. He wanted to be so beautiful that this princess would definitely choose him. Now the word Hari isn't just Krishna's name! So, Narada ji was asking, “I want to be as good-looking as You!” But Hari also means monkey. So Krishna gave him a monkey face and Narada ji went back and sat in the crowd with other princes and thought, “She's definitely going to choose me!” He ended up getting that people were snickering at him and saying little snide remarks quietly. And he was hearing all this and thinking, “What's wrong? What's going on?” And the princess also when she saw him, kind of looked in surprise like, “How did this person think that they could come in this competition? Is this person crazy?” Gave him that kind of look.
So Narad ji went and looked in the mirror, and he saw, “Krishna gave me a monkey face!” He became furious and he went to Krishna, and he cursed Him, “You are going to have monkeys as your servants! You'll have to be born on earth and have monkeys as your servants!” And then after having given the curse Narada ji felt, “Oh, what have I done? I just cursed my beloved Krishna? I'm His devotee, and I cursed Him!” And Krishna said, “Narada ji, don't worry! This was all My plan.” It was His plan to go as Ram and have Hanuman ji and other bānars to get the chance to come and do His seva like that.
So you see this is one example you can read in Bhagwatam about this time Narada ji gave Shri Krishna a curse, and you think curse? No! It was part of Krishna's plan to make some Divine event happen that was going to benefit all the souls. See, we got to learn about Shri Ram and all of His leelas because of that one curse of Narada ji.
Another curse that took place: Sanakadik paramhans went to the Divine abode of Vishnu and they were stopped at the gate by Vishnu's gatekeepers, Jai and Vijay. Sanakadik Paramhans are God-realized Saints. They're always in the form of five-year-old boys, and when they were stopped, well, Jai and Vijay were a little bit disrespectful to them, kind of saying like, “Where do you boys think you're going?” That type of thing. So those boys who are Divine Saints with their mind always established in God also became angry and cursed them, “How dare you stop us? How dare you disrespect us?” And then cursed Jai and Vijay to have three successive births on earth as rakshas. So one of those births was they became Ravana and Kumbhakarn. In other words, it was also part of Krishna's plan that if, “I'm going as Ram, there has to be some interesting leelas as well, not just loving leelas. There has to be some fighting leelas too, otherwise, what will all the little boys do roop dhyan of? They don't want to hear about Rās leela and Krishna and Gopis dancing. They want some fighting, right?
So God produces all kinds of leelas, “If I'm going to fight, I'll have to fight against my own people. Otherwise who other than a Divine personality, who would be able to fight against Me?” So it was part of His plan that Jai and Vijay got cursed to go down to earth and be born as demons, and then Ram went and fought against them. When He killed them, He was just releasing them from that form and sending them back to the Divine abode.
So every shrāp, whether it's Parikshit getting cursed by the son of that rishi that he had disrespected by throwing a dead snake around his neck, and then getting cursed by his son, “You will die in seven days from the bite of a snake!” His father scolded him, “You cursed the king?!” Parikshit said, “No, no, it's good! It's very good! I'll spend my last seven days thinking of Krishna!” And because of that, we got to hear the whole Bhagwatam recited by Sukadev ji, the first public recitation of the Bhagwatam.
So each and every shrāp has a Divine reason behind it. And it's always the case of a Saint cursing another Saint or cursing God. There are no shrāp that happen where a Saint gets angry on an ordinary person like you or me and curses us. That never happens. Saints curse each other as part of God's Divine leelas. So this answers the question of curses or shrāp.
Swami Nikhilanand Ji poses the following questions to the audience:
What did Shri Krishna say we should think of in our meditation?
Devotee replies to focus the mind to Him.
I told you in the state of sayujhya mukti or kaivalya moksh there are three things we are bereft of, three things we need in order to experience. Can somebody tell me one or more of those things?
One of the devotee replies, “Body, we're bereft of a body.” The other devotee says the remaining two: mind and senses. Swami Nikhilanand Ji replies, “That's right: mind, senses and body. So, without those we can't experience anything in the state of kaivalya moksha.”
What does shraap mean? Actually, and I don't mean curse. I mean the actual definition of shraap how I told you.
A devotee answers: “Giving the very best thing.”
Okay, what is the other main option of attaining that state of perfect unity with God. So, we talked about kaivalya moksh, where it's a state of ‘no experience’ where the soul merges into God with no body, mind or senses. But there's another option of how to enter the Divine dimension. So can somebody tell me what happens there? You get something. What do you get and what happens?
A devotee answers: the other is bhakti and we get the Divine body and mind to experience the dvait. Swami Nikhilanand Ji replies, “Good. Yes. So you get a Divine body, mind and senses and you can directly experience God.”
So we'll spend our last few minutes here doing just what Shri Krishna told us to do in the Gita. Focus our mind on Him. We're going to do it with kirtan. The kirtan blocks out distractions and helps our mind stay more focused. But let us close our eyes and try to picture the form of Krishna. Give yourself the freedom to picture Krishna any age you want, younger or older, decorate Him and dress Him any way you want, and really try to focus your mind on visualizing what we call roopdhyan. We'll all do this together in our own way as we do some kirtan: Radhe Radhe Govind Govind Radhe Govind Govind Radhe…..
