We started our reading in Govardhan Hill with a theme led by a specific verse (SB 11.3.31):

smarantaḥ smārayantaś ca

mitho ’ghaugha-haraṁ harim

bhaktyā sañjātayā bhaktyā

bibhraty utpulakāṁ tanum

The last line says that you'll experience transcendental symptoms in your body. Tanum means the body, and that means when we interact with the world, we experience various changes in our bodies, like heart palpitations, we can worry about things; we can become affected. And we can also become affected by the power of transcendental experiences and interactions. It's one of the noticeable points made in the Caitanya-caritāmṛta. In fact, Lord Caitanya Mahāprabhu experienced extreme changes in His body because of His ecstasy and love of Kṛṣṇa, in reaction to chanting and remembering Kṛṣṇa and so forth.

So, bibhraty utpulakāṁ tanum means your hair will stand on end; you'll feel ecstasy in your body. But why?

I'm going backward in the verse, which says bhaktyā sañjātayā bhaktyā. This means that one kind of bhakti, which is official bhakti, means that you don't really have more than an intellectual understanding of it; your hair isn't standing on end, and you don't feel ecstasy. But as you continue it, then you'll change from that official kind of bhakti into the real life of bhakti. Just like when children grow up, they start to understand a lot of things they didn't understand before and they couldn't have; they didn't have the capacity. So, in the beginning, we don't have the capacity, but bhaktyā sañjātayā bhaktyā—from one kind of bhakti, another kind of bhakti emerges. It awakens naturally.

Now you getting interested in the first two lines? Like how do we get there right? It's good going backward!

So then, the verse says mitho ’ghaugha-haraṁ harim. How do you become purified? Well, when I'm in a pure state, I have all these discordant vibrations going on in my citta, in my consciousness, and it's really hard to get them out. They're really banging around in there, and they're impelling me to do things that are even against my own self-interest—even my intelligence will say, "Why are you doing this?" And the response is, "I don't know, I can't stop myself." This is the phenomenon of being entrapped in material life, being a conditioned soul.

But the verse is saying that what is causing us to be in such discord with our self-interest is an accumulation of these vibrations, the vibrations in the material world. And those all get cleaned up! It says mitho ’ghaugha-haraṁ harim. Agha-ogha—try saying that. Yeah, if you say it a few times, people think you are Tarzan or something! Agha-ogha is the horrible accumulation of the worst kinds of poisonous vibrations that you can ever imagine. It's awful, and it's what causes us to suffer, and all that gets cleaned up. How?

Aha, we come to the first line. It says smarantaḥ smārayantaś ca mitho. Mitho means by meeting together in a group like this, or smaller (you can have two people, if you want), and smarantaḥ smārayantaś ca—remembering Kṛṣṇa and causing other people to remember Kṛṣṇa. Then, by that meeting, all of the unwanted things get destroyed within the heart.

Somebody asked, "Why?" Our ācāryas say, "Because it pleases Kṛṣṇa when He sees the devotees come together to remember and cause others to remember." And then, by that process, one advances from official bhakti to real bhakti.

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To connect with His Grace Vaiśeṣika Dāsa, please visit https://www.fanthespark.com/next-steps/ask-vaisesika-dasa/

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Add to your wisdom literature collection:

https://iskconsv.com/book-store/

https://www.bbtacademic.com/books/

https://thefourquestionsbook.com/

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