Mukti, or liberation, means freedom from material consciousness. In the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam also the definition of liberation is given. Muktir hitvānyathā-rūpaṁ svarūpeṇa vyavasthitiḥ: (SB 2.10.6) mukti means liberation from the contaminated consciousness of this material world and situation in pure consciousness. All the instructions of Bhagavad-gītā are intended to awaken this pure consciousness, and therefore we find at the last stage of the Gītā's instructions that Kṛṣṇa is asking Arjuna whether he is now in purified consciousness. Purified consciousness means acting in accordance with the instructions of the Lord. This is the whole sum and substance of purified consciousness. Consciousness is already there because we are part and parcel of the Lord, but for us there is the affinity of being affected by the inferior modes. But the Lord, being the Supreme, is never affected. That is the difference between the Supreme Lord and the small individual souls.
Instructions of the Lord
Expressions researched:
"Lord gives instruction"
|"Lord imparted instructions"
|"Lord's instruction"
|"instruction by the Lord"
|"instruction from the Lord"
|"instruction of the Lord"
|"instructions of the Lord"
|"instructions of the infallible Lord"
Bhagavad-gita As It Is
BG Preface and Introduction
BG Chapters 1 - 6
This is the beginning of the instruction by the Lord to the living entities who are bewildered by the influence of ignorance. Removal of ignorance involves the reestablishment of the eternal relationship between the worshiper and the worshipable and the consequent understanding of the difference between the part-and-parcel living entities and the Supreme Personality of Godhead. One can understand the nature of the Supreme by thorough study of oneself, the difference between oneself and the Supreme being understood as the relationship between the part and the whole.
We cannot imitate the Lord by lifting Govardhana Hill, as the Lord did in His childhood. It is impossible for any human being. We have to follow His instructions, but we may not imitate Him at any time. The Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam (10.33.30-31) affirms:
- naitat samācarej jātu
- manasāpi hy anīśvaraḥ
- vinaśyaty ācaran mauḍhyād
- yathā 'rudro 'bdhi-jaṁ viṣam
- īśvarāṇāṁ vacaḥ satyaṁ
- tathaivācaritaṁ kvacit
- teṣāṁ yat sva-vaco-yuktaṁ
- buddhimāṁs tat samācaret
"One should simply follow the instructions of the Lord and His empowered servants. Their instructions are all good for us, and any intelligent person will perform them as instructed. However, one should guard against trying to imitate their actions. One should not try to drink the ocean of poison in imitation of Lord Śiva."
The system of Kṛṣṇa consciousness was first narrated to the sun-god, the sun-god explained it to his son Manu, Manu explained it to his son Ikṣvāku, and the system is current on this earth from that very remote time. Therefore, one has to follow in the footsteps of previous authorities in the line of disciplic succession. Otherwise even the most intelligent men will be bewildered regarding the standard actions of Kṛṣṇa consciousness. For this reason, the Lord decided to instruct Arjuna in Kṛṣṇa consciousness directly. Because of the direct instruction of the Lord to Arjuna, anyone who follows in the footsteps of Arjuna is certainly not bewildered.
Being engaged in Kṛṣṇa consciousness, one can immediately understand one's spiritual identity, and then one can understand the Supreme Lord by means of devotional service. When one is well situated in devotional service, one comes to the transcendental position, qualified to feel the presence of the Lord in the sphere of one's activity. This particular position is called liberation in the Supreme.
After explaining the above principles of liberation in the Supreme, the Lord gives instruction to Arjuna as to how one can come to that position by the practice of the mysticism or yoga known as aṣṭāṅga-yoga, which is divisible into an eightfold procedure called yama, niyama, āsana, prāṇāyāma, pratyāhāra, dhāraṇā, dhyāna and samādhi.
Srimad-Bhagavatam
SB Canto 1
A pure Vedāntist, or a bhakti-vedānta, instructs followers exactly according to the instructions of the Lord Himself. The Personality of Godhead, both in the Bhagavad-gītā and in all other scriptures, has definitely instructed men to follow the Lord only.
In the Bhagavad-gītā the Lord says that long, long before the instruction was imparted to Arjuna, the same was instructed to the sun-god, and in course of time, the same instruction, being wrongly handled and being broken, was again instructed to Arjuna because he was His perfect devotee and friend. Therefore, the instruction of the Lord can be understood by the devotees only and no one else.
For the ordinary man who wants to lord it over material nature, the Lord not only sanctions and becomes a witness of activities, but He never gives the nondevotee instructions for going back to Godhead. That is the difference in dealings by the Lord with different living beings, both the devotee and the nondevotee. He is leader of all the living beings, as the king of the state rules both the prisoners and the free citizens. But His dealings are different in terms of devotee and nondevotee. Nondevotees never care to take any instruction from the Lord, and therefore the Lord is silent in their case, although He witnesses all their activities and awards them the necessary results, good or bad.
The modern elected executive head of a state is just like a puppet because he has no kingly power. Even if he is enlightened like Mahārāja Yudhiṣṭhira, he cannot do anything out of his own good will due to his constitutional position. Therefore, there are so many states over the earth quarreling because of ideological differences or other selfish motives. But a king like Mahārāja Yudhiṣṭhira had no ideology of his own. He had but to follow the instructions of the infallible Lord and the Lord's representative and the authorized agent, Bhīṣmadeva. It is instructed in the śāstras that one should follow the great authority and the infallible Lord without any personal motive and manufactured ideology. Therefore, it was possible for Mahārāja Yudhiṣṭhira to rule the whole world, including the seas, because the principles were infallible and universally applicable to everyone. The conception of one world state can only be fulfilled if we can follow the infallible authority.
The last instruction of Lord Śrī Kṛṣṇa in the Bhagavad-gītā is that one should give up everything and should follow in the footsteps of the Lord alone. Less intelligent persons do not agree to this great instruction of the Lord, as ill luck would have it, but one who is actually intelligent catches up this sublime instruction and is immensely benefited.
As we have discussed previously, one can achieve seventy-eight percent of the godly qualities by the Lord's intimate association. To follow the instructions of the Lord is to associate with the Lord. The Lord is not a material object whose presence one has to feel for such association. The Lord is present everywhere and at all times. It is quite possible to have His association simply by following His instruction because the Lord and His instruction and the Lord and His name, fame, attributes and paraphernalia are all identical with Him, being absolute knowledge.
The merciful Lord left behind Him the great teachings of the Bhagavad-gītā so that one can take the instructions of the Lord even when He is not visible to material eyesight. Material senses cannot have any estimation of the Supreme Lord, but by His inconceivable power the Lord can incarnate Himself to the sense perception of the conditioned souls in a suitable manner through the agency of matter, which is also another form of the Lord's manifested energy. Thus the Bhagavad-gītā, or any authentic scriptural sound representation of the Lord, is also the incarnation of the Lord. There is no difference between the sound representation of the Lord and the Lord Himself. One can derive the same benefit from the Bhagavad-gītā as Arjuna did in the personal presence of the Lord.
Sūta Gosvāmī said: Thus being deeply absorbed in thinking of the instructions of the Lord, which were imparted in the great intimacy of friendship, and in thinking of His lotus feet, Arjuna's mind became pacified and free from all material contamination.
As soon as Arjuna turned his attention towards the instructions of the Lord, as they are inculcated in the Bhagavad-gītā, his true color of eternal association with the Lord became manifest, and thus he felt freed from all material contaminations.
The Lord instructs in the Bhagavad-gītā (18.62) that one must become a devotee of the Lord at least at the last stage of one's life. A sincere soul of the Lord like Mahārāja Yudhiṣṭhira must abide by this instruction of the Lord for his own interest.
SB Canto 2
A pure devotee does not want liberation so that he may be relieved from the miseries of life. Even without so-called liberation, a pure devotee is aspirant for the satisfaction of the Lord. Influenced by the kāma spirit, Arjuna declined to fight in the Kurukṣetra battlefield because he wanted to save his relatives for his own satisfaction. But being a pure devotee, he agreed to fight on the instruction of the Lord because he came to his senses and realized that satisfaction of the Lord at the cost of his own satisfaction was his prime duty. Thus he became akāma. That is the perfect stage of a perfect living being.
The less intelligent do not accept Mahābhārata as part of the Vedas, but great sages and authorities accept it as the fifth division of the Vedas. Bhagavad-gītā is also part of the Mahābhārata, and it is full of the Lord's instruction for the less intelligent class of men. Some less intelligent men say that Bhagavad-gītā is not meant for householders, but such foolish men forget that Bhagavad-gītā was explained to Arjuna, a gṛhastha (family man), and spoken by the Lord in His role as a gṛhastha.
Service to the Lord is the completely purified use of the senses, as described in the Bhagavad-gītā. The Lord imparted instructions with full senses, and Arjuna received them with full senses, and thus there was a perfect exchange of sensible and logical understanding between the master and the disciple. Spiritual understanding is nothing like an electrical charge from the master to the disciple, as foolishly claimed by some propaganda-mongers. Everything is full of sense and logic, and the exchange of views between the master and disciple is possible only when the reception is submissive and real. In the Caitanya-caritāmṛta it is said that one should receive the teaching of Lord Caitanya with intellect and full senses so that one can logically understand the great mission.
Persons who are intelligent take serious notice of this last instruction of the Lord. Knowledge of the self is the first step in spiritual realization, which is called confidential knowledge, and a step further is God realization, which is called more confidential knowledge. The culmination of the knowledge of Bhagavad-gītā is God realization, and when one attains this stage of God realization, he naturally, voluntarily becomes a devotee of the Lord to render Him loving transcendental service. This devotional service to the Lord is always based on love of God and is distinct from the nature of routine service as prescribed in karma-yoga, jñāna-yoga or dhyāna-yoga.
Therefore, wherever Nārada Muni goes, he represents himself as authorized by the Lord, and his appearance is as good as that of the Supreme Lord. Similarly, the disciplic succession which strictly follows the transcendental instruction is the bona fide chain of disciplic succession, and the test for such bona fide spiritual masters is that there should be no difference between the instruction of the Lord originally imparted to His devotee and that which is imparted by the authority in the line of disciplic succession.
Lord Brahmā heard the occult sound tapa, but he did not see the person who vibrated the sound. And still he accepted the instruction as beneficial for him, and therefore he engaged himself in meditation for one thousand celestial years. One celestial year is equal to 6 x 30 x 12 x 1000 of our years. His acceptance of the sound was due to his pure vision of the absolute nature of the Lord. And due to his correct vision, he made no distinction between the Lord and the Lord's instruction. There is no difference between the Lord and sound vibration coming from Him, even though He is not personally present. The best way of understanding is to accept such divine instruction, and Brahmā, the prime spiritual master of everyone, is the living example of this process of receiving transcendental knowledge.
This bhakti-yoga begins if a person has the firm conviction that simply discharging devotional service to the Lord in full transcendental love can elevate him to the highest perfectional stage of life. Brahmājī believed in this art of bhakti-yoga; he believed in the instruction of the Lord to execute tapa, and he discharged the function with great penance and thus achieved the great success of seeing the Vaikuṇṭhalokas and the Lord also by personal experience.
In this stage of full satisfaction and detachment from the sensory world, one can know the mystery of the science of God with all its confidential intricacies, and not by grammar or academic speculation. Because Brahmā qualified himself for such reception, the Lord was pleased to disclose the purpose of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. This direct instruction by the Lord to any devotee who is detached from the world of sense gratification is possible, as stated in the Bhagavad-gītā (10.10):
- teṣāṁ satata-yuktānāṁ
- bhajatāṁ prīti-pūrvakam
- dadāmi buddhi-yogaṁ taṁ
- yena mām upayānti te
Unto the devotees who are constantly engaged in the Lord's transcendental loving service (prīti-pūrvakam), the Lord, out of His causeless mercy upon the devotee, gives direct instructions so that the devotee may make accurate progress on the path returning home, back to Godhead.
SB Canto 3
The Lord, whose lotus feet are worshiped by demigods like Brahmā and Śiva, wanted to worship the feet of Vasudeva. Such instruction by the Lord to the world is quite appropriate. Even if one is the Supreme Lord, one must serve his parents. A son is indebted to his parents in so many ways, and it is the duty of the son to serve his parents, however great the son may be.
When Brahmā goes to sleep in his nighttime, the three planetary systems below Brahmaloka are all submerged in the water of devastation. In his sleeping condition, Brahmā dreams about the Garbhodakaśāyī Viṣṇu and takes instruction from the Lord for the rehabilitation of the devastated area of space.
After receiving the sage's attention, the King sat down and was silent. Recalling the instructions of the Lord, Kardama then spoke to the King as follows, delighting him with his sweet accents.
The spiritual master is the manifested representation of the Supreme Lord because he receives and presents the instructions of the Lord, as they are, by disciplic succession. It is described in Bhagavad-gītā that the teachings therein should be received by disciplic succession, otherwise there is adulteration.
SB Canto 4
The Lord is not far away from the devotee. He is always in everyone's heart, but only the devotee can realize the Lord's presence, and thus he is directly connected, and he takes instruction from the Lord at every moment. Therefore, there is no chance of a devotee's being in error, nor is there any partiality on the part of the Lord for His pure devotees.
SB Canto 5
Even though one may be situated within this material world, he can become fully satisfied and devoid of hankering and lamentation simply by following the instructions of the Lord as set forth in Bhagavad-gītā or Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. Satisfaction through self-realization is called svarūpānanda.
SB Canto 6
The members of human society who strictly follow the principles of bhāgavata-dharma and live according to the instructions of the Supreme Personality of Godhead are called Āryans or ārya. A civilization of Āryans who strictly follow the instructions of the Lord and never deviate from those instructions is perfect.
SB Canto 8
The Lord lives in the spiritual world in His original personality, and a devotee who follows the instructions of the Lord approaches Him (mām eti). As a spiritual person, such a devotee returns to the Personality of Godhead and plays and dances with Him. That is the ultimate goal of life.
Sri Caitanya-caritamrta
CC Adi-lila
The caste system has a specific purpose. If this scientific system is followed, human society will get the greatest benefit. Heeding this instruction by the Lord, people should serve cows and calves and in return get ample quantities of milk. There is no loss in serving the cows and calves, but modern human society has become so degraded that instead of giving protection to the cows and serving them, people are killing them. How can they expect peace and prosperity in human society while committing such sinful activities? It is impossible.
CC Antya-lila
Instead of becoming a so-called renunciant, Raghunātha dāsa, following the instructions of the Lord, returned home and played exactly like a pounds-and-shillings man.
Other Books by Srila Prabhupada
Krsna, The Supreme Personality of Godhead
This statement by Lord Balarāma definitely confirms that the Supreme Personality of Godhead is free to act in any way. Although His killing of Romaharṣaṇa Sūta may be considered improper, He could immediately counteract it with greater profit to all. Therefore, one should not imitate the actions of the Supreme Personality of Godhead; one should simply follow the instructions of the Lord. All the great, learned sages present realized that although they considered the action of Lord Balarāma improper, the Lord was immediately able to compensate with greater profits.
The Bhagavad-gītā confirms the fact that this material world is created and annihilated perpetually and that conditioned souls without Kṛṣṇa consciousness come back again and again, whenever the material creation is manifest. If such conditioned souls take advantage of this opportunity and develop Kṛṣṇa consciousness under the direct instruction of the Lord, then they are transferred to the spiritual world and do not have to come back to the material creation.
Conversations and Morning Walks
1975 Conversations and Morning Walks
Who does not deviate from the instruction of the Lord, he is Aryan. All others, non-Aryan. The Aryans will take the words of God as it is, without any deviation. That is Aryan. An Aryan means advanced, advanced in knowledge, and one who is advanced in knowledge, he is advanced civilized. Rascal fools, how they can be civilized?
Correspondence
1968 Correspondence
Your ambition for chanting Hare Krishna exclusively is very good. But sacrificing the results of action is as good. A concrete example is Arjuna. He fought very chivalrously under the instructions of the Lord, and the Lord certified him to be the best devotee and friend of the Lord. So there is no distinction between chanting and offering the results of one's activity. Sometimes under the garb of chanting people take to the habit of laziness, which is not required at all. Execution of devotional service is prescribed first with enthusiasm and patience.
1971 Correspondence
I know you are all intelligent devotees of the Lord and I feel confidence in you that you can all illustrate the philosophical instructions of the Lord and this will be a great boon to the people at large.
1974 Correspondence
Therefore in the Bhagavad-gita there is the essence of Vedic instructions. The plan is that the conditioned soul may fulfill his desire for material enjoyment and at the same time be trained up in spiritual identity to come back to Godhead, back to home. As such, Bhagavad-gita contains the solution of all problems of the material world. Unfortunately, foolish people described as duskrtina, do not want to take instruction from the Lord, although it is completely perfect—but they select their own concocted leaders who are themselves blind, and therefore the world is in chaotic condition on account of rascal leaders in all fields.
1975 Correspondence
The conclusion is, when one gives up his concocted ideas of perfection and takes to Krishna consciousness just to render service to the Lord by following his direct order this perfection is actually attained by a pure devotee, so much so that a pure devotee constantly engaged in the service of the Lord can get direct orders from the Lord, and then follow perfectly the instructions of the Lord.
1976 Correspondence
It is very nice that you have written to me offering your services. This is the mission to all those who have taken their birth as human beings in the land of Bharata-varsa. As stated by Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu, bharat bhumite manusya haila janma yara janma sathaka kare karo para upakara. Therefore it is very good that you are taking these instructions of the Lord seriously by surrendering yourself under the direction of His bona fide representative.
People are suffering greatly presently due to having lost all proper vision. They are completely without knowledge as to what is the real purpose of life. They have forgotten what is the real purpose of life. It is up to you to reestablish their lost relationship with Krsna by being sincere to preach the message of Krsna purely by yourself following the instructions of the Lord and his bona-fide representative, the spiritual master. If you follow nicely our Krsna conscious program and preach to these unfortunate people, surely Krsna will recognize your very nice service as He states in Bhagavad-gita, na ca tasmad manusyesu kascin me priya krttamma, whoever preaches this message of Bhagavad gita is considered by Me to be the most dear. So continue on this way, you have my full approval and support.
| Page Title: | Instructions of the Lord |
| Compiler: | Labangalatika, Rishab |
| Created: | 19 of Oct, 2009 |
| Totals by Section: | BG=5, SB=26, CC=2, OB=2, Lec=0, Con=1, Let=6 |
| No. of Quotes: | 42 |