Positive (BG and SB)
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Bhagavad-gita As It Is
BG Chapters 1 - 6
Work with results becomes the cause of bondage; therefore such work is not auspicious. Everyone has his proprietary right in regard to prescribed duties, but should act without attachment to the result; such disinterested obligatory duties doubtlessly lead one to the path of liberation. Arjuna was therefore advised by the Lord to fight as a matter of duty without attachment to the result. His nonparticipation in the battle is another side of attachment. Such attachment never leads one to the path of salvation. Any attachment, positive or negative, is cause for bondage. Inaction is sinful. Therefore, fighting as a matter of duty was the only auspicious path of salvation for Arjuna.
BG Chapters 7 - 12
In the very beginning, the Lord says that this body is perishable and that the soul is not perishable (antavanta ime dehā nityasyoktāḥ śarīriṇaḥ). That is a confidential part of knowledge: simply knowing that the spirit soul is different from this body and that its nature is immutable, indestructible and eternal. But that gives no positive information about the soul.
Srimad-Bhagavatam
SB Canto 1
Some of these conditioned souls are engaged in the false enjoyment of material senses and others in simply negating their real life in the spiritual world. These less intelligent persons are known as karmīs, or fruitive workers, and jñānīs, or dry mental speculators. But above these two classes of men is the transcendentalist known as sātvata, or the devotee, who is busy neither with rampant material activity nor with material speculation. He is engaged in the positive service of the Lord, and thereby he derives the highest spiritual benefit unknown to the karmīs and jñānīs.
Becoming detached from material things does not mean becoming inert altogether, as men with a poor fund of knowledge think. Naiṣkarma means not undertaking activities that will produce good or bad effects. Negation does not mean negation of the positive. Negation of the nonessentials does not mean negation of the essential. Similarly, detachment from material forms does not mean nullifying the positive form. The bhakti cult is meant for realization of the positive form. When the positive form is realized, the negative forms are automatically eliminated. Therefore, with the development of the bhakti cult, with the application of positive service to the positive form, one naturally becomes detached from inferior things, and he becomes attached to superior things. Similarly, the bhakti cult, being the supermost occupation of the living being, leads him out of material sense enjoyment.
Thus established in the mode of unalloyed goodness, the man whose mind has been enlivened by contact with devotional service to the Lord gains positive scientific knowledge of the Personality of Godhead in the stage of liberation from all material association.
Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam was composed just prior to the beginning of the age of Kali (about five thousand years ago), and Lord Buddha appeared about twenty-six hundred years ago. Therefore in the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam Lord Buddha is foretold. Such is the authority of this clear scripture. There are many such prophecies, and they are being fulfilled one after another. They will indicate the positive standing of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, which is without trace of mistake, illusion, cheating and imperfection, which are the four flaws of all conditioned souls.
Learned circles have positively concluded that the infallible purpose of the advancement of knowledge, namely austerities, study of the Vedas, sacrifice, chanting of hymns and charity, culminates in the transcendental descriptions of the Lord, who is defined in choice poetry.
The transcendental qualities of the Lord are so attractive that Śrīla Śukadeva Gosvāmī became detached from being completely absorbed in impersonal Brahman and positively took up the personal activity of the Lord.
Whenever there are kings and administrators living like animals in the lowest modes of existence, the Lord in His transcendental form manifests His supreme power, the Truth Positive, shows special mercy to the faithful, performs wonderful activities and manifests various transcendental forms as is necessary in different periods and ages.
Śrīla Sanātana Gosvāmī in his Hari-bhakti-vilāsa says that a person, whatever he may be, can attain the perfection of a twice-born brāhmaṇa by undergoing the spiritual disciplinary actions under the guidance of a bona fide spiritual master, exactly as a chemist can turn gun metal into gold by chemical manipulation. It is therefore the actual guidance that matters in the process of becoming a brāhmaṇa, even without change of body, or in going back to Godhead without change of body. Śrīla Jīva Gosvāmī remarks that the word hi used in this connection positively affirms this truth, and there is no doubt about this factual position.
SB Canto 2
Impersonal meditation is therefore a source of suffering for the impersonalist. Here, the devotee has an advantage over the impersonalist philosopher. The impersonalist is doubtful about the personal feature of the Lord, and therefore he always tries to meditate upon something which is not objective. For this reason there is an authentic statement in the Bhāgavatam regarding the positive concentration of the mind on the factual form of the Lord.
The presence of Paramātmā in everyone's company is not very difficult to realize, even for the common man. The procedure is as follows. One can perceive one's self-identification and feel positively that he exists. He may not feel it very abruptly, but by using a little intelligence, he can feel that he is not the body. He can feel that the hand, the leg, the head, the hair and the limbs are all his bodily parts and parcels, but as such the hand, the leg, the head, etc., cannot be identified with his self. Therefore just by using intelligence he can distinguish and separate his self from other things that he sees.
Devotional hearing of the messages of the Lord is not like hearing ordinary topics; therefore the action will be felt by the sincere hearer by experience of the gradual disappearance of ignorance.
- yasya deve parā bhaktir
- yathā deve tathā gurau
- tasyaite kathitā hy arthāḥ
- prakāśante mahātmanaḥ
- (ŚU 6.23)
When a hungry man is given food to eat, he feels satiation of hunger and the pleasure of dining simultaneously. Thus he does not have to ask whether he has actually been fed or not. The crucial test of hearing Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam is that one should get positive enlightenment by such an act.
Even the very sound of the holy name of Lord Kṛṣṇa or Rāma can at once surcharge the atmosphere spiritually. We must know definitely that the Lord is present wherever such pure transcendental service is performed, and thus the performer of offenseless kīrtanam has positive association with the Lord. Similarly, remembrance and prayers also can give us the desired result if they are properly done under expert guidance. One should not concoct forms of devotional service.
The Viṣṇu-sahasra-nāma prayers mention the Lord's name as sanāt and sanātanatama. The Lord and the living entities are both qualitatively sanātana, or eternal, but the Lord is sanātana-tama or the eternal in the superlative degree. The living entities are positively sanātana, but not superlatively, because the living entities are apt to fall to the atmosphere of noneternity. Therefore, the living entities are quantitatively different from the superlative sanātana, the Lord.
The impersonal conception of one's self is just the negation of material personality and is far from the positive existence of personal form.
SB Canto 3
Negation of the variegatedness of the inferior energy does not necessitate negation of the positive transcendental bliss of the spiritual world. Therefore the Lord's gentleness, His smile, His character and everything related to Him are all transcendental. Such manifestations of the internal potency are the reality, of which the material shadow is only a temporary representation from which everyone with proper knowledge must be detached.
As stated in Bhagavad-gītā (9.26), the Lord accepts only foodstuffs which are within the range of fruits, flowers, leaves and liquids, provided they are offered in complete devotional service. Devotional service is the only criterion for a bona fide offering to the Lord. The Lord assures that He positively eats such foodstuffs offered by the devotees.
Impersonalists always think backwards. They think that because there is form in matter, spirit should be formless; because in matter there is sleep, in spirit there cannot be sleep; and because the sleeping of the Deity is accepted in arcanā worship, the arcanā is māyā. All these thoughts are basically material. To think either positively or negatively is still thinking materially.
Those who are very eager to advance in transcendental knowledge can engage themselves in pure devotional service, without wasting time in mental speculation. For arriving at the positive conclusions of knowledge in the Absolute Truth, the word brahma-darśanam is significant in this verse. Brahma-darśanam means to realize or to understand the Transcendence.
SB Canto 4
In the material world there is the trinity of the three material qualities. Lord Viṣṇu has accepted the superintendence of the quality of goodness, which is the source of religion, knowledge, austerity, renunciation, opulence, etc. Because of this, actual peace, prosperity, knowledge and religion can be attained when the living entities are under the control of the quality of goodness in the material world. As soon as they are subjected to the control of the other two qualities, namely passion and ignorance, their precarious conditional life becomes intolerable. But Lord Viṣṇu, in His original position, is always nirguṇa, which means transcendental to these material qualities. Guṇa means "quality," and nir means "negation." This does not indicate, however, that He has no qualities; He has transcendental qualities by which He appears and manifests His pastimes. The positive transcendental qualitative manifestation is unknown to the students of the Vedas as well as to the great stalwart demigods like Brahmā and Śiva. Actually, the transcendental qualities are manifested only to the devotees.
The earth was accused of hiding the seeds of all herbs and grains, and therefore she is preparing to explain how the seeds of these herbs and grains can be again exposed. The earth knew that the King was very angry with her, and she realized that unless she pacified his anger, there was no possibility of placing a positive program before him. Therefore in the beginning of her speech she very humbly presents herself as a part and parcel of the Supreme Personality of Godhead's body. She submits that the various bodily forms manifest in the physical world are but different parts and parcels of the supreme gigantic body.
There are different types of great personalities—some are positive great personalities, some comparative and some superlative—but King Pṛthu exceeded all of them. He is therefore described here as mahattamaḥ, greater than the greatest. Mahārāja Pṛthu was a kṣatriya, and he discharged his kṣatriya duties perfectly.
In our Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement, we accept this principle by rejecting four prohibited items—namely illicit sex life, intoxication, gambling and flesh—eating—and accepting the daily chanting of at least sixteen rounds of the Hare Kṛṣṇa mahā-mantra and daily meditation three times a day by chanting the Gāyatrī mantra. In this way one can keep his brahminical culture and spiritual strength intact. By following these principles of devotional service strictly, chanting twenty-four hours a day the mahā-mantra—Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa, Hare Hare/ Hare Rāma, Hare Rāma, Rāma Rāma, Hare Hare—one makes positive progress in spiritual life and ultimately becomes completely fit to see the Supreme Personality of Godhead face to face.
The impersonalists or the voidists can simply avoid the positive material association; they cannot remain fixed in transcendence without being engaged in devotional service. The beginning of devotional service is to hear about the glories of the Supreme Personality of Godhead.
The results of passion and ignorance are lust and greed. In the life of a materialist, activity means working in lust and greed. However, when he comes to his senses, he wants to retire. According to Vedic civilization, such retirement is positively recommended, and this portion of life is called vānaprastha. Retirement is absolutely necessary for a materialist who wants to become free from the activities of a sinful life.
SB Canto 5
To remain unattached to the modes of material nature, one should avoid associating with those who are asat, materialistic. There are two kinds of materialists. One is attached to women and sense gratification, and the other is simply a nondevotee. On the positive side is association with mahātmās, and on the negative side is the avoidance of nondevotees and women-hunters.
This Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement was started to engage people twenty-four hours daily in the service of the Lord and in His glorification. The students in this institution engage in the cultivation of Kṛṣṇa consciousness from five in the morning to ten at night. They actually have no opportunity to waste their time unnecessarily by discussing politics, sociology and current events. These will go their own way. A devotee is concerned only with serving Kṛṣṇa positively and seriously.
To become liberated from material bondage, one must give up the association of worldly people and accept the association of devotees, positive and negative processes are mentioned in this regard. Through the association of devotees, one develops Kṛṣṇa consciousness, which is dormant within. This Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement is giving this chance to everyone.
SB Canto 6
Even a gṛhastha has to give up so many bad habits that his parents think his life has been practically destroyed. We allow no meat-eating, no illicit sex, no gambling and no intoxication, and consequently the parents wonder how, if there are so many no's, one's life can be positive.
SB Canto 7
O greatly fortunate and learned brāhmaṇa, whether Nārāyaṇa is partial or impartial has become a subject of great doubt. Kindly dispel my doubt with positive evidence that Nārāyaṇa is always neutral and equal to everyone.
If one is interested in the process of arcanam, one must positively take shelter of a bona fide spiritual master and learn the process from him. There are many books for arcana, especially Nārada-pañcarātra. In this age, the pañcarātra system is particularly recommended for arcana, Deity worship.
The brahmacārīs can go with the sannyāsīs to preach, and the vānaprasthas should prepare themselves for the next status of renounced life, sannyāsa. Gṛhastha devotees, however, are generally engaged in material activities, and therefore if they do not take to Deity worship, their falling down is positively assured. Deity worship means following the rules and regulations precisely. That will keep one steady in devotional service.
Whatever he possesses he offers to the spiritual master, the guru, who engages him in śravaṇaṁ kīrtanaṁ viṣṇoḥ (SB 7.5.23). The disciple follows strictly and in this way learns how to control his senses. Then, by using his pure intelligence, he gradually becomes a lover of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, as confirmed by Śrīla Rūpa Gosvāmī (ādau śraddhā tataḥ sādhu-saṅgaḥ). In this way one's life becomes perfect, and his attachment for Kṛṣṇa becomes positively manifested.
Devotees are always on the positive platform, in contrast to the Māyāvādīs, who want to make everything impersonal or void. One cannot remain void (śūnyavādī); rather, one must possess something. Therefore, the devotee, on the positive side, wants to possess something, and this possession is very nicely described by Prahlāda Mahārāja, who says, "If I must take some benediction from You, I pray that within the core of my heart there may be no material desires." The desire to serve the Supreme Personality of Godhead is not at all material.
The karmīs are completely in illusion, the jñānīs are neither in illusion nor in positive knowledge, but the yogīs, especially the bhakti-yogīs, are completely on the spiritual platform.
SB Canto 8
The Lord is the root of everything. Aham ādir hi devānām: (Bg 10.2) He is the original cause of all the devas, or demigods. Ahaṁ sarvasya prabhavaḥ: (BG 10.8) everything emanates from Him. In all cases—nominative, objective, positive, negative and so on—whatever we may conceive of in this entire cosmic manifestation is in fact the Supreme Lord.
SB Cantos 10.14 to 12 (Translations Only)
A sincere disciple should learn to dissociate the mind from everything material and positively cultivate association with his spiritual master and other saintly devotees. He should be merciful to those in an inferior position to him, cultivate friendship with those on an equal level and meekly serve those in a higher spiritual position. Thus he should learn to deal properly with all living beings.
Therefore, My dear Uddhava, abandon the Vedic mantras as well as the procedures of supplementary Vedic literatures and their positive and negative injunctions. Disregard that which has been heard and that which is to be heard. Simply take shelter of Me alone, for I am the Supreme Personality of Godhead, situated within the heart of all conditioned souls. Take shelter of Me wholeheartedly, and by My grace be free from fear in all circumstances.
Śrī Uddhava said: My dear lotus-eyed Kṛṣṇa, You are the Supreme Lord, and thus the Vedic literatures, consisting of positive and negative injunctions, constitute Your order. Such literatures focus upon the good and bad qualities of work.
| Page Title: | Positive (BG and SB) |
| Compiler: | Visnu Murti, ChandrasekharaAcarya |
| Created: | 22 of Dec, 2010 |
| Totals by Section: | BG=2, SB=38, CC=0, OB=0, Lec=0, Con=0, Let=0 |
| No. of Quotes: | 40 |