[Posted July 19, 2007]

Seeing with Your Ears

A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami

Amma has said on a number of occasions, 'Why teach people Vedanta when all they want is something to eat?'"

Salon.com July 19, 2007 - ERIK DAVIS

Amma's cosmic squeeze

...Amma has hugged more than 26 million people. During her massive 50th birthday celebration in 2003, which was inaugurated by the Indian President Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, Amma cranked through a stadium full of devotees for 21 hours straight while a scoreboard racked up numbers well into the five figures.

Though all this can be seen as some kind of bizarre mass performance art, Amma's trademark gesture is also a brilliant and quietly subversive transformation of traditional South Asian worship. Hindus, and especially followers of the devotional path of bhakti, have long placed a special emphasis on being in the physical presence of holy beings, whether living saints or revered icons or sacred mountains and rivers. This practice of presence is called "darshan," and is usually considered a visual or visionary experience (the word means "sight"). But after having a number of powerful goddess visions of her own in the 1970s, a young Amma broke the fourth wall of darshan and started physically embracing those who came to her for succor, spiritual or otherwise.

Amma herself seems to wear her robes lightly; she is a cheery woman of little education who makes no divine claims and carries an air of good-humored humility. But the lore that surrounds her -- much of which derives directly from her tight-knit group of core disciples -- is redolent with the miraculous. Many devotees, East and West, believe that Amma's divine shakti can give them children, or fix their marriages, or make them money. One of the first Amma videos that comes up on YouTube shows a reenactment of a young Amma miraculously transforming water into pudding. ... go to story

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Not just a hug

Hear from the Authorized Agent Hansadutta das

That's what initiation really is: to hear. Aural, submissive reception. To hear. Like when a student goes to school, he can't read and he can't write. He has to hear. How does he have to hear? He has to be submissive. He can't be mischievous. He has to be submissive. He has to go to school. You follow? So school is not just anywhere. He has to go to the authorized place where the teacher is stationed and is authorized to teach. That "authorized" means sampradaya. Sampradaya means school. It means the school through which or line through which the teachings are disseminated or broadcast. And who is that teacher? The answer is Srila Prabhupada.

Why is the answer Srila Prabhupada? Is it because we are fanatic followers of Prabhupada? No, because he is the person who has represented the entire Vedic wisdom in a format that the whole world is able to embrace and practice, in every language, in every country and community. We find that whatever people know of Krishna, it has come from Prabhupada. Acharya means he sweeps aside all other pretentious or unauthorized teachers and teachings, and he presents the same thing which was presented originally by Krishna, Lord Chaitanya and previous acharyas. That's what it means. And what is the evidence? The evidence is there in the books. more

Who has properly heard

excerpt from lecture on Srimad-Bhagavatam 6.1.42, Los Angeles, June 8, 1976

The Lord, in order to maintain this material world, how He has expanded, it is described in the shastra [Vedic literature]. Eko 'py asau racayitum jagad-anda-koti. Jagad-anda means this universe. Anda: it is egglike. Anda means egglike, jagat-anda, the universe. So that universe is not one. We are seeing only one universe with our, these naked eyes, but when we see through the eyes of shastra, authority... shastra-chakshushat. This is Vedic knowledge, that "Don't be simply after your, these defective eyes." What is the value of these eyes? There are so many things. Just like this morning we were discussing: you take photograph from the sea. What you will see? But there are many millions of fishes within the sea. What you will take, photograph? They say that "We have taken photograph on the moon planet. There is no life." What is the value of this photograph? Can you take photograph in the water, how many fishes are there? So what is the value of your photograph? This is the difficulty, that these rascals, they do not accept that they are defective. That is the difficulty. With their defective senses they are thinking, "We are perfect. Because we have got a photograph, telescope, therefore it is sufficient." It is made by you. You are defective, and whatever you make, that is defective. This is the conclusion. This is right conclusion. If blind man, if he creates some telescope or..., can he see? You are blind. What you can see? But they are taking evidence: "We have seen with photograph, with telescope." So these questions were never raised. We are now raising these questions. And they were passing on. No. This is not the process.

The process is shastra-chakshushat, shabda-pramanam [seeing through the eyes of the shastra by the process of hearing]. That is the Vedic injunction, shabda-pramanam. Just like you are sleeping, and somebody is coming to kill you with knife. So how you can take precaution? You are sleeping. But some of your friend or relative: "Get up! Get up! Get up! There is enemy! There is enemy!" Immediately you wake up. That means you see with the ear, not with the eyes. The real seeing is through the ears. Suppose one does not know who is his father. So how he can see the father? Through the ear, not with the eyes. That is not possible. The mother says, "My dear child, here is your father," and you see through the eyes: "Here is my father." So therefore real eyes—the ear, not these eyes. Real eyes. That is real seeing. Therefore shastra says, Vedic knowledge, that shastra-chakshushat, pashyati jñana-chakshushat: "One can see by the eyes of knowledge," not by these blunt eyes. This is useless. They cannot see. And how you can see through the shabda? Shastra means shabda. Through the ear... My Guru Maharaja used to say, "Don't try to see a saintly person by your eyes. You see a saintly person by the ear." Because if you hear from the saintly person and if he is speaking from the experience which he has heard from another saintly person—this is called guru-parampara—then the knowledge is perfect. Yesterday we explained that the Yamadutas said that iti shushruma. Never said, "I have seen it." Vedo narayanah sakshat svayambhur iti shushruma: "We have heard it." Vedo narayanah saksha... He never says, "I have seen it." No. Iti shushruma. So this is experience, real experience, real knowledge. Vedo narayanah sakshat. Veda is directly Narayana. So Narayana... You can see Narayana. You can hear about Narayana. Shravanam kirtanam vishnoh [Srimad-Bhagavatam 7.5.23]. Vishnu is Narayana. This is the beginning of understanding Narayana — shravanam kirtanam. Never says, "By seeing, by touching, by licking up." No. You cannot see. That is not experience. Real experience is iti shushruma.

... So this is our position, that prakriteh kriyamanani gunaih karmani sarvashah [Bhagavad-gita 3.27], ahankara-vimudhatma. Anyone who is proud of his so-called knowledge, so-called experience—simply "I believe," "I think," "It may be," "Suppose"—what is this knowledge? They're all nonsense. When you get knowledge shushruma, from the authority, that is knowledge. Otherwise all useless. All useless. Because your senses are imperfect. You cannot see properly. You cannot hear properly. You cannot touch properly. You cannot smell properly. These are your instruments for getting experience. You cannot go. How you can say in other planets there is no life? You cannot go. According to the scientists' calculations, they say that to go to the topmost planet it will take forty... Eh? Forty thousands of years. Who is going to travel forty thousand years? But we are seeing. The planets are there. Go there and see. You cannot estimate of one universe, which you are practically seeing. And in the shastra we hear that there are millions of universes.

yasya prabha prabhavato jagad-anda-koti-
kotishv ashesha-vasudhadi vibhuti-bhinnam
tad brahma nishkalam anantam ashesha-bhutam
govindam adi-purusham tam aham bhajami [Brahma-samhita 5.40]

So we have to take knowledge from shastra. And who will teach me shastra? Tad-vijñanartham sa gurum evabhigacchet [Mundaka Upanishad 1.2.12]. Go to guru. Tad-vijñanartham. Just like you go to some superior person to learn something. That is the process. Similarly, the same process... You have to go to a person who has also heard — shushruma. You go to that, not that person who says that "I suppose," "I believe," "Maybe." No. You go to the person who says, iti shushruma: "We have heard it from authorities." You have to go to that person. Shrotriyam brahma-nishtham [MU 1.2.12]. Who is guru? Shrotriyam: "Who has properly heard." Shrotriyam. And what is the result? Brahma-nishtham: by hearing, he is firmly convinced there is God. You have to go to such guru. lf you go to a fakir, what he will teach you? No. Fakir means one who talks much without any knowledge. He is called fakir.

So everything is, direction is there. Tad-vijñanartham. If you want to know that science, then Tad-vijñanartham sa gurum eva: [MU 1.2.12] "must." Gacchet. This verb is used when there is the sense "must." If somebody says, "All right, I shall learn even without going to any guru," no, that is not possible. Therefore this verb is used, gacchet: "You must if you want to learn." Otherwise you remain in darkness. This is Vedic injunction. Shushruma? You must hear from the right source; then you will get perfect knowledge.

Sri guru and Gauranga