Kṛṣṇa-prema Devoid of a Siddha-deha is Intrinsic to a Nitya-baddha-jīva

This essay intends to settle a raging controversy which has ravaged the institutions representing the gauḍīya-vaiṣṇava-sampradāya in the modern world by dividing and estranging them, baffled erudite minds for a long time, and inspired many articles and debates, but has yet not been unanimously and indisputably settled. This topic is a classic example of an overtly enticing and convincing truth which disintegrates upon deeper investigation by revealing the several inherent inconsistencies and fallacies lurking beneath. Due to addressing one of the most fundamental and crucial topics of sambandha-tattva, and its consequential impact on abhidheya-tattva to ultimately attain the prayojana-tattva, and its ramifications in interpreting the words of the ācāryas, it is imperative for all to grasp these subtleties even at the emotional discomfort of relinquishing the fake solace in believing we possess something we never did.

We know from Rūpa Gosvāmī's 'anarpita-carīṁ' verse that Kṛṣṇa descended as Caitanya Mahāprabhu to bestow that which He had never bestowed before, which is Rādhā-Kṛṣṇa-prema in mañjarī-svarūpa, by His causeless mercy. Since mercy is the act of voluntarily bestowing a thing upon one who does not have it and does not deserve it, a jīva must therefore receive his siddha-deha from an external source, Kṛṣṇa, who bestows it upon him by His will upon being pleased. Hence, a jīva's siddha-deha cannot intrinsically preexist in him.

If we accept that a nitya-baddha-jīva's siddha-deha is preestablished in him since eternity, then he must inevitably realise his siddha-deha upon attaining siddhi via any process for realising Kṛṣṇa prescribed in any yuga he lives. First, there would be nothing to bestow due to his siddha-deha preexisting in him, and second, mercy itself would have no role in bestowing a siddha-deha in a specific rasa upon him, because he would now claim to deserve it or be worthy of it, due to it being preestablished in him. Kṛṣṇa would also thus become obliged to reinstate a jīva in his constitutional rasa, thus losing His supreme independence as Bhagavān, and thus violating Rūpa-Gosvāmī's verse.

Consider a nitya-baddha-jīva whose siddha-deha as a mañjarī is intrinsically established in him since eternity. If this jīva lived in any other yuga and intensely worshiped Kṛṣṇa to realise Him, one of three situations would occur: either he attains self-realisation and becomes a mañjarī, which violates the verse because he cannot become a mañjarī in any other yuga without the mercy of Caitanya Mahāprabhu who appears only in one out of a thousand kali-yugas; or he attains self-realisation, but is forced to enter another rasa and be condemned to eternally love Kṛṣṇa in a relation he never had or desired, which is ludicrous; or he is not allowed to attain self-realisation due to his siddha-deha as a mañjarī, and is forced to transmigrate from one body to another, from one yuga to another, for no fault of his, hoping by chance to take birth in that one in a thousand kali-yugas in which Kṛṣṇa descends as Caitanya Mahāprabhu.

Some even argue that it is only those nitya-baddha-jīvas who possess an intrinsically preestablished mañjarī-deha, who mysteriously take birth in human bodies on bhūmi during Mahāprabhu's kali-yuga, and accept dīkṣā in the gauḍīya-sampradāya, just so they could be reinstated to their eternally preestablished rasa. This would equally mysteriously mean that even if those jīvas aspired to realise Kṛṣṇa in any other yuga, they would not have been allowed to, and thus would have been forced to aimlessly wander the universe in various bodies and various yugas only to fulfill Kṛṣṇa's divine and inconceivable plan. However, Kṛṣṇa can never be held culpable for a baddha-jīva loitering and perpetuating his suffering in the material world, which happens only by his karma. Kṛṣṇa, as paramātmā, is only a witness and rewarder of a jīva's karma, and never usurps his freedom to impose His dictates.

Some argue that just as the sages of Daṇḍakāraṇya, desirous of becoming gopīs in tretā-yuga, took birth as gopīs in Kṛṣṇa-līlā in dvāpara-yuga, nitya-baddha-jīvas with mañjarī-deha from previous yugas have mysteriously taken birth in this kali-yuga, only to receive Mahāprabhu's mercy and become mañjarīs. In this case, those jīvas would be sādhana-siddhas who would take birth and participate directly in Gaura-līlā, rather than be born as flesh-eating, intoxicating, gambling, fornicating outcastes, and then receive Mahāprabhu's mercy. Hence, the argument is flawed.

Some argue that persons like Gopa-kumāra and Mīrā were spontaneously attracted to Kṛṣṇa in a specific rasa, as evidence of it being preestablished in them. However, Kṛṣṇa is never guilty of prejudice for preestablishing love for Him in some jīvas but not in others, thus intrinsically segregating the nitya-baddha-jīvas into two mutually exclusive categories. We must therefore know that jīvas have or do not have a spontaneous attraction for Kṛṣṇa as a result of their past worship of Him or His devotees, or an aversion for it, but never due to a rasa being preestablished in them.

If the siddha-deha of a jīva is intrinsically preestablished in him, then kṛṣṇa-prema in that rasa would also be intrinsically preestablished in him. However, the jīvas who attain brahma-sāyujya-mukti, although free from all material coverings, have no naturally awakened intrinsic desire to serve Kṛṣṇa with loving devotion in one of the rasas. This further confirms that siddha-deha is not among the intrinsic attributes of a jīva.

If the ultimate goal of sādhana was merely to reinstate a jīva to his intrinsically preestablished rasa, then there would have been no reason for Mahāprabhu to instruct His associates to pen volumes of literature meticulously delineating and elaborating upon the various rasas, comparing them to establish their hierarchy of intimacy, and especially glorify parakīya-mādhurya-rasa in mañjarī-bhāva, if it was not to inspire the jīvas to aspire for the highest, sweetest, most coveted, and rarest of the rare rasa, because they would anyway receive only what they already have intrinsically preestablished in them, and the very attraction towards or earnest endeavour for anything higher would ultimately prove agonisingly disappointing and futile.

Therefore, having considered all the above commonsensical arguments, we can irrefutably conclude that when Mahāprabhu says, in Caitanya-caritāmṛta, Madhya-līlā 20.108, "jīvera svarūpa haya kṛṣṇera nitya-dāsa | kṛṣṇera taṭasthā-śakti bhedābheda-prakāśa ||", that every jīva, nitya-siddha or nitya-baddha, is eternally a servant of Kṛṣṇa, He generically declares so regardless and independent of a specific rasa in which a nitya-baddha-jīva may desire and choose to serve Kṛṣṇa. In other words, although every nitya-baddha-jīva is Kṛṣṇa's marginal potency, and can choose to serve either Kṛṣṇa or Māyā, every nitya-baddha-jīva is eternally Kṛṣṇadāsa as opposed to being Māyādāsa since time immemorial. Although the words svarūpa and siddha-deha are synonymous in Saṁskṛtam, in the context of the Caitanya-caritāmṛta, the word svarūpa does not imply spiritual body because, if it did, then the word nitya-dāsa must be interpreted as dāsya-rasa, which would render the gauḍīya-sampradāya absurd.

Therefore, we can also irrefutably conclude that when Mahāprabhu says, in Caitanya-caritāmṛta, Madhya-līlā 22.107, "nitya-siddha kṛṣṇa-prema sādhya kabhu naya | śravaṇādi-śuddha-citte karaye udaya ||", that love for Kṛṣṇa is eternally and intrinsically dormant in every jīva, and that it is awakened in a consciousness purified by the nine-processes of bhakti, He does not imply the dormant existence of a siddha-deha, or awakening of love for Kṛṣṇa in a specific rasa, but rather the existence and awakening of the intrinsic attraction to serve Kṛṣṇa-tattva in general, due to intrinsically and eternally being Kṛṣṇadāsa. This is why any jīva, regardless of the extent his spiritual exaltation, awakens his dormant attraction to serve Kṛṣṇa-tattva in the form of His names, deities, prasāda, scriptures, or whatever else, even long before receiving his siddha-deha and eternal service in a specific rasa. This is why a brahmavādī, due to mistakenly considering brahmānanda superior to bhagavat-sevānanda, in pure consciousness awakens attraction for brahma, which is Kṛṣṇa due to being the effulgence of His body, but still does not awaken a desire to serve the personality of Kṛṣṇa with love in a specific rasa, because his siddha-deha in a specific rasa never eternally and intrinsically existed in him to begin with so that he could awaken it. However, upon worshiping Kṛṣṇa by the nine-processes of bhakti, and meditating on Kṛṣṇa's name, form, qualities, and pastimes, a jīva will gradually cultivate the desire to love and serve Kṛṣṇa in a specific rasa of his choice, which Kṛṣṇa will mercifully reciprocate with by bestowing a siddha-deha in that rasa.

Therefore, sādhana-bhakti is not merely a passive endeavour to reinstate a jīva to an intrinsically preestablished position, but rather an active, deliberate, conscious, and intense yearning to cultivate a loving relation with Kṛṣṇa in a specific rasa of his choice, which Kṛṣṇa reciprocates with and bestows upon him.

Now that we have established that a siddha-deha is not intrinsic to a nitya-baddha-jīva, another conundrum which follows as a natural consequence of the previous one, and has baffled even those philosophically astute, due to their inability to reconcile the simultaneous existence of kāma and prema, is whether or not kṛṣṇa-prema is intrinsic to a nitya-baddha-jīva. In other words, they opine that kṛṣṇa-prema can never exist before attaining a siddha-deha, as love can only acquire meaning or even existence upon the acquisition of a specific relation with Kṛṣṇa, which they claim accentuates the mandatory necessity to accept dīkṣā, which is when a guru imbued with kṛṣṇa-prema infuses his disciple with svarūpa-śakti, thus enabling him to begin loving Kṛṣṇa. They falsely rationalise this by asserting that the material energy, mahāmāyā, induces only kāma from a jīva, whereas the spiritual energy, yogamāyā, induces only prema from a jīva, because a jīva is constitutionally desireless, and that desires manifest only in the mind, which when ridden of, the jīva will have no desires. If truly desireless, then those jīvas who have attained brahma-sāyujya after relinquishing all the material coverings, must never fall down into the material world, but rather be eternally happy in the brahmajyoti. However, they cannot be eternally happy in the brahmajyoti due to not having tasted the nectar of Kṛṣṇa's personal being, eventually leave, and fall down into material existence, because they still have intrinsically unfulfilled desires. This false rationalisation is merely a projection of their worldly experience of fake love on the absolute truth of the spiritual nature of true love. Superficially, love is to derive pleasure from pleasing one's beloved, whereas lust is to derive pleasure from pleasing oneself. However, within material existence, even when a lover attempts to love his beloved, he only seeks pleasure for himself, and when he seeks the reciprocation of his love from his beloved too, he only seeks pleasure for himself, because both the lover and beloved vainly labour under their mistaken identities of their bodies. Due to the ignorance of falsely identifying with the body, a person is helplessly compelled to act selfishly, whereas when enlightened in his true identity, that person can act selflessly.

The universal principle is verily that true misery is separation from one's beloved. A pretty girl is miserable when her body shows signs of aging, due to her separation from her beloved object of bodily beauty. A student is miserable when he performs poorly, because of his separation from his beloved object of high scores. An artist is miserable when separated from his beloved object of aesthetics. A sadist is miserable when separated from his beloved object of inflicting pain upon others. A masochist is miserable when separated from his beloved object of inflicting pain upon himself. An atheist is miserable when separated from his beloved object of denying the existence of divinity. A person even commits suicide only due to his conviction in being happier and deriving more pleasure after death than when alive, and becomes utterly miserable when separated from his beloved object of happiness after death. A person would merrily confront even death, given the assurance that he would be reunited with his beloved after death, thus proving that his attempt to derive pleasure from love transcends even death, and that his only inconsolable grief is his separation from his beloved. So, the conscious or unconscious attempt to derive pleasure through love for a beloved object undeniably underlies every pious or impious act. Under mahāmāyā, we are conditioned by rāga and dveṣa, but under scrutiny, rāga is to derive pleasure by loving an object, and dveṣa is to derive pleasure by loving to hate an object. Thus, both impulses of attraction and repulsion are impelled by the desire for pleasure from love.

Ultimately, a jīva's unquenchable thirst to derive pleasure through love for a beloved, emanates from his intrinsic desire to love Kṛṣṇa, and he is utterly desolate, and the whole world feels void to him, only due to his separation from his sole beloved Kṛṣṇa, in whom alone his thirst can be fully, eternally, and blissfully quenched. This is succinctly stated by Mahāprabhu in the Śikṣāṣṭakam, "śūnyāyitaṁ jagat-sarvaṁ govinda viraheṇa me", that the whole creation seems void due to my separation from Govinda. The soul being entirely antithetical to matter is aggrieved in separation from Kṛṣṇa, and fatigued by his ignorant and persistent attempts to love objects in place of Kṛṣṇa. In other words, a soul, regardless of the body, unconsciously, incessantly, and desperately languishes in frustrating attempts to seek pleasure through love, by substituting material objects for Kṛṣṇa. As Mahāprabhu says, "jīvera svarūpa haya kṛṣṇera nitya-dāsa", that the constitutional nature of a jīva is eternally to be a servant of Kṛṣṇa. A servant can only derive pleasure by serving and pleasing his master. Since a soul is eternally a servant of Kṛṣṇa, he was, is, and will be happy only by serving and pleasing Kṛṣṇa. This is the reason those jīvas who attain brahmajyoti eventually leave it due to their unfulfilled intrinsic desire to love Kṛṣṇa which has not been fully realised due to being devoid of a siddha-deha in the brahmajyoti. This clearly proves that a jīva has the intrinsic spiritual desire to derive pleasure by loving Kṛṣṇa.

Ultimately, as Kavirāja Gosvāmī says, in Caitanya-caritāmṛta, Ādi-līlā 4.165, "ātmendriya-prīti vāñchā tāre bali kāma | kṛṣṇendriya-prīti-icchā dhare prema nāma ||, that to please one's senses is kāma, and to please Kṛṣṇa is prema. To please one's senses by kāma is based on the false egoistic notion of the self being one's body, whereas to please oneself by prema for Kṛṣṇa is based on the true egoistic notion of the self being a soul who is eternally a beloved of Kṛṣṇa. Thus, kāma is the perverse manifestation of prema. Just as if we pass pure water through a dirty pipe, the water flowing out will be dirty, when the pure desire of a jīva to love Kṛṣṇa is processed through a mind which is materially contaminated by false egoistic impressions, the love manifests as lust, although originally pure.

In Caitanya-caritāmṛta, Madhya-līlā 15.108-109, Mahāprabhu unambiguously declares, "dīkṣā-puraścaryā-vidhi apekṣā nā kare | jihvā-sparśe ācaṇḍāla sabāre uddhāre || anuṣaṅga-phale kare saṁsārera kṣaya | cittākarṣiyā karāya kṛṣṇe premodaya ||", that kṛṣṇa-nāma is independent of dīkṣā and the rituals before dīkṣā, and that merely by chanting kṛṣṇa-nāma even the most degraded beings can be liberated. As a natural consequence, kṛṣṇa-nāma destroys his worldly entanglement, and awakens his dormant kṛṣṇa-prema by attracting his mind towards Kṛṣṇa. Also, in Caitanya-caritāmṛta, Ādi-līlā 7.142, Mahāprabhu says, "sādhana-bhakti haite haya premera udgama", that from sādhana-bhakti there is an outflow of kṛṣṇa-prema. These words by Mahāprabhu explicitly prove the existence of dormant kṛṣṇa-prema in a jīva, and that it can be awakened even without dīkṣā from a guru. From Caitanya-caritāmṛta, Madhya-līlā 15.109, it is evident that dormant kṛṣṇa-prema intrinsically exists in a baddha-jīva even when devoid of a siddha-deha in a specific rasa, and that it is awakened when the consciousness is attracted to Kṛṣṇa by kṛṣṇa-nāma, or in general sādhana-bhakti. Of course, Caitanya-caritāmṛta, Madhya-līlā 22.107, corroborates that eternally established kṛṣṇa-prema is never to be attained, but is rather awakened in a consciousness purified by engaging in the nine processes of bhakti.

Therefore, the irrefutable conclusion arrived at after prolonged deliberation on Caitanya Mahāprabhu's teachings, and rationally analysing them from various perspectives to ensure they endure the tests of logical arguments, is that dormant love for Kṛṣṇa is intrinsic to every jīva, although a dormant siddha-deha in one of the five rasas is not. By engaging in the various activities of devotional service to Kṛṣṇa, commensurate with a jīva's gradual purification of consciousness, the jīva's dormant love for Kṛṣṇa will gradually awaken. Prior to attaining a siddha-deha in a specific rasa of the jīva's choice, love for Kṛṣṇa will exist and manifest due to the jīva's attraction towards Kṛṣṇa, and post attaining a siddha-deha, love for Kṛṣṇa will exist and manifest in its highest expression due to the jīva's relation with Kṛṣṇa.