Patterns of Human Behavior that Prove the Existence of God Madhavendra Puri Dasa March 2014

There are specific patterns of human behavior that would not exist if Krishna (God) did not exist. These patterns involve specific ways in which members of the general public reciprocate with book distributors of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON), which has distributed almost half a billion books about Krishna since its inception in 1966, as described in detail at www.ISKCONBookDistribution.com. The number of books distributed and the amount of donations received depend significantly on activities that are not directly related to book distribution but pleasing to Krishna. Such activities include one book distributor going out of his/her way to assist other book distributors. For example, books need to be loaded in the morning into vehicles used for distribution. Vehicle maintenance involves calling the repair shop to schedule repairs and routine maintenance such as oil changes and transmission service. The vehicles need to be vacuumed and washed regularly. Food needs to be prepared for lunch, packaged and put into the vehicles so the distributors can stay out all day. Other activities that please Krishna include hearing and chanting about His pastimes and qualities, as well as the pastimes and qualities of His pure devotees as described in Vaisnava literature, specifically in Srimad-Bhagavatam. Distributors find that the number of books distributed and the amount of donations received, on a day in which these activities are performed, are significantly higher than the number of books distributed and amount of donations received on days in which these activities are not performed. Of course, one must do large numbers of trials, which means many days of book distribution, to average out the effects of weather, location, interference by solicitors of other groups and other factors that influence the number of books distributed and amount of donations received. One might object that a book distributor can temporarily (even for a period of years) get a big result without pleasing Krishna. That’s true, but irrelevant to my thesis. My thesis is that any particular distributor does bigger when he/she pleases Krishna, and this is quantifiable and objectively observable. Obviously a distributor can temporarily use techniques to produce a big

result without pleasing Krishna and can even do bigger than distributors who are trying very hard to please Krishna but are not so expert in using these techniques. This, however, is irrelevant to my thesis. The objective nature of my thesis means that it can be verified by anyone, including the greatest skeptic, who need only closely monitor the activities of book distributors. All variables can be directly observed and tabulated. A meticulous study of this could easily be done by a professor of psychology and published in a professional, peer-reviewed psychology journal. This would be one of the most important studies ever performed, because it would provide completely objective evidence for the existence of God and His control of physical events.

Reawakening Our Relationship With Krishna Through the Process of Bhakti Yoga How many of us are aware that Krishna is conquered by the love of His pure devotees, that His hankering to experience this love is so great that He takes the role of His greatest devotee to experience her love for Him, that one of His greatest pleasures is to serve His devotees, that He does not desire to enjoy His supreme opulence without His devotees, or that, in the highest region of transcendence, Goloka Vrindavana, His devotees forget that He is God in order to engage in intimate, loving relationships with Him? These confidential topics are described in great detail (thousands of pages) in SrimadBhagavatam, Caitanya-caritamrta and Nectar of Devotion, which can be read in their entirety for free at www.vedabase.net. From now on, I will refer to these books (along with Brahma-samhita, Bhagavad-gita As It Is and other books of this tradition) as Vaisnava literature, in which God is referred to by the name Krishna. When reading this vast literature, one is at once struck with wonder at how attractive Krishna is. When Krishna plays His transcendental flute, all living entities in Vrindavana are immediately enchanted, so much so that they forget whatever they are doing and become deeply absorbed in transcendental, ecstatic rapture. Before describing their activities, it is important to recognize that these activities are fundamentally different from their counterparts in the world of our common experience, which I will refer to as the physical world. The underlying substrate of transcendence, called Brahman in Sanskrit, is

completely devoid of physical qualities. Physical forms degrade. Our physical bodies are subject to old age, disease and death. In the transcendental world, the bodies are of an entirely different nature and not subject to such transformations. Physical laws do not apply in the transcendental world, where form, space and time adjust their properties to enhance the loving exchanges between Krishna and His pure devotees. By proper execution of bhakti yoga in the physical world, we regain our original transcendental forms, as opposed to the physical forms with which we now falsely identify. Each of us has a particular transcendental form appropriate for the unique, loving relationship we have with Krishna. These relationships are described in great detail in Vaisnava literature. Even more radical than the wholesale flouting of physical laws in the transcendental world is the experience of ever-increasing pleasure available there. Although the sights, sounds and other sensations of transcendence are already so intense that it seems impossible for them to increase, they nevertheless continuously increase. Since this is experienced by advanced practitioners of bhakti yoga even before quitting their physical bodies, it is naturally experienced at all times by the residents of the transcendental world. The residents of the transcendental world are continuously enchanted by Krishna’s personal qualities and pastimes. As mentioned above, when Krishna plays His transcendental flute, all living entities enter a trance of ecstatic devotion and forget everything else. The cows raise their long ears to catch the nectar sound of the flute, and the calves, which had been drinking their mother’s milk, become overwhelmed with loving ecstasy and are unable to continue drinking. The tears gliding down their cheeks are the external manifestation of their internally embracing Krishna within the cores of their hearts. Likewise, the many kinds of transcendental birds in the forests of Vrindavana lose external awareness in the course of their intense concentration on the sound of Krishna’s flute. Krishna’s friends (the gopas) and girl friends (the gopis) are mesmerized upon hearing Krishna’s flute, and their desire to satisfy His transcendental senses increases unlimitedly. The river Yamuna stops flowing and eagerly awaits the transcendental dust from Krishna’s divine feet, while Govardhana Hill begins to melt in loving ecstasy. Earlier I mentioned how form, space and time adjust themselves to enhance the loving affairs of the residents of the transcendental world. Here is a specific example of this: the transcendental hill known as Govardhana begins to melt and flow, while the transcendental river known as Yamuna freezes in ecstasy. The constraints of the physical world do not apply in the transcendental world.

According to Vaisnava philosophy, the physical world is a section of the transcendental world in which physical laws create the illusion that Krishna does not exist and we are nothing more than the physical bodies we inhabit in the physical world. Krishna creates this illusion to satisfy our desire to abandon our relationship with Him. Most living entities do not develop this desire; we are among the small fraction of the total number of living entities who desire this. Krishna satisfies our desire by creating the illusion of the physical world. According to Vaisnava philosophy, physical laws are simply conventions by which Krishna chooses to control the physical world. Krishna is at liberty to alter these laws whenever He wants to. Krishna is constantly and effortlessly in control of both the physical and transcendental worlds. Actually, Krishna is so powerful that He does not need to personally deal with the physical world. He expands Himself into various Vishnu forms, known as Purusha Avatara (Maha-Vishnu, Garbhodakashayi-Vishnu and Kshirodakashayi-Vishnu), who create, control and periodically dissolve the physical world over time cycles of billions of years, as described in detail in Srimad-Bhagavatam. Kshirodakashayi-Vishnu is another name for Paramatma, who is Krishna’s expansion residing within all living entities in the physical world. Krishna is very attracted by the transcendental, ecstatic love of His pure devotees. Indeed, He is conquered by it. There are many examples of this in Vaisnava literature. Although all pure devotees are exalted and there is no need to rank them as higher and lower, the devotee who gives the greatest pleasure to Krishna is known as Srimati Radharani. Krishna is known as Madan Mohan because He enchants everyone, but Srimati Radharani is so captivating that She enchants even Krishna. Therefore, She is known as Madan Mohan Mohini, the female enchantress of Krishna. As you might imagine, it is no small feat to enchant Krishna, and actually Radharani is the personification of Krishna’s internal, pleasure potency known as Hladini Shakti. In the course of His transcendental, loving affairs with Radharani and Her expansions (the gopis of Vrindavana), Krishna detects that She and the gopis are experiencing far more pleasure than He experiences. Being Rasaraja (the supreme enjoyer of loving relationships), He develops an intense desire to taste the pleasure that Radharani and Her associates are tasting, but He can not do so as Krishna, because His psychology is fundamentally different from Hers. He is the direct enjoyer of transcendental sense gratification, whereas all His pure devotees (headed by Radharani) derive pleasure by gratifying His senses, rather than trying to gratify their own senses.

In the transcendental world, there is only one direct enjoyer, Krishna, and everyone else engages in gratifying Krishna’s senses. In the physical world, everyone (except for a pure devotee of Krishna) is interested in gratifying his/her own senses (or the senses of someone other than Krishna), whereas in the transcendental world, everyone is interested in gratifying Krishna’s senses. An example of sense gratification is eating. In the transcendental world, everyone has a transcendental body, so no one needs to eat, but Krishna likes to eat, and pure devotees there make elaborate arrangements to offer Krishna transcendental, tasty preparations. The reason we are in the physical world is we want to gratify our own senses instead of gratifying Krishna’s senses. We were originally in the transcendental world, but we felt uncomfortable with gratifying Krishna’s senses, which is why we came to the physical world. We remain in the physical world as long as we desire to gratify our own senses and not Krishna’s senses. Since gratifying Krishna’s senses is inherently more satisfying than gratifying our own senses, ultimately everyone in the physical world gets tired of trying to gratify his/her own senses and becomes interested in gratifying Krishna’s senses. Srimati Radharani is the most expert of all pure devotees in gratifying Krishna’s senses. The amazing thing is that She enjoys much more than Krishna although She has no intention to enjoy: She simply desires to increase Krishna’s pleasure. A pure devotee enjoys much more than Krishna simply by trying to please Krishna. When Krishna detects that His pure devotees, especially Radharani and Her associates, are enjoying far more than He does, He becomes eager to experience what they are experiencing. Thus, Krishna takes a special form, known as Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu, to experience the ecstatic mood of Srimati Radharani. The book Caitanya Caritamrta describes the wonderful pastimes and teachings of Lord Caitanya. The greatest secret of all time is that we can experience the highest pleasure, even more than what God Himself experiences, simply by shifting our psychology from endeavoring to gratify our own senses to gratifying Krishna’s senses. When we think carefully about what it means to be God and how intense His enjoyment must be, it is clear that no activity can yield more pleasure for the performer than becoming a pure devotee of Krishna. The process for becoming a pure devotee of Krishna is known as bhakti yoga. Krishna arranges that there are always at least a few pure devotees in the physical world to teach people in general how to revive their relationship with Krishna. The first business of one who is serious about experiencing ecstatic love for Krishna is to find such a pure devotee. The characteristics of such pure

devotees are clearly described in Vaisnava literature: they are always engaged in hearing and chanting about Krishna’s name, form, qualities and pastimes. They do not engage in hearing and chanting about anything else. Of course, hearing and chanting about Krishna means also hearing and chanting about Krishna’s pure devotees, since Krishna is always engaged in ecstatic, loving affairs with His pure devotees. Krishna is never alone. He is always engaged with His pure devotees. In fact, Krishna is more pleased when we glorify His pure devotees than when we glorify Him. Krishna is not very attached to having people glorify Him. He prefers that people glorify, worship and serve His pure devotees. Krishna Himself loves to serve, worship and glorify His pure devotees, and He is very pleased when people in general do likewise. The fastest way to get Krishna’s attention is to serve His pure devotees. When you sincerely serve a pure devotee, Krishna showers His mercy on you, which means you realize that you are inherently different from your physical body, you are freed from the desire to gratify the senses of your physical body, and you begin to experience transcendental ecstasy by glorifying Krishna and His pure devotees. Thus, the first, last and ultimate business in bhakti yoga is to dedicate your life to serving a pure devotee. This is the key to your entrance into the transcendental world, which you can experience even in the physical world if you are serious about bhakti yoga. For the last 30 years I have served an exalted pure devotee named Srila A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada. I am part of an international bhakti yoga group, and our daily spiritual practice begins at 4:00 a.m. when we rise and take a shower. The first meditation, called Mangala Arotika, begins at 4:30 a.m. and lasts until 5:00 a.m. This is a meditation on the qualities of pure devotees with the understanding that these qualities are very pleasing to Krishna. Then we glorify Tulasi devi (one of the gopi associates of Srimati Radharani), who specifically grants us access to the highest region of transcendence, Goloka Vrindavana. From 5:15 a.m. to 7:30 a.m. we chant the maha-mantra: Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare, Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare. Krishna means the all-attractive one. Naturally, God is allattractive in terms of beauty, power, knowledge, compassion, etc. Rama means the reservoir of all pleasure. The result of chanting the name Rama is that one experiences transcendental pleasure, even in the beginning of one’s practice of bhakti yoga. Hare is the internal pleasure potency of Krishna, which helps us to receive Krishna’s mercy. Hare is a name of Srimati Radharani. The mahamantra dissolves our false identification with the physical world and allows us

to easily realize our true transcendental nature. It can be chanted anywhere and at any time, but it is much more powerful for neophytes when chanted in front of Tulasi devi. Tulasi devi is very dear to Krishna, so He is very pleased when we worship her and chant reverently in front of her. At 7:30 a.m. we worship Srila A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada because, as mentioned above, Krishna is very pleased when we worship His pure devotees, especially those who undergo the great austerity of inhabiting fallible physical bodies simply to teach others how to love Krishna. At 8:00 a.m. we study Srimad-Bhagavatam, and at 9:00 a.m. we honor Krishna prasadam, vegetarian food that has been first offered to Krishna for His satisfaction. As mentioned above, bhakti yoga means gratifying Krishna’s senses. So, when we wake up in the morning, we do not think about what we want to eat, we think about what Krishna wants to eat. Of course, Krishna does not need to eat since His body is transcendental, but He appreciates the offering of tasty food as an exchange of love. Srila A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada has taught us in great detail what Krishna likes to eat, and we prepare such food and offer it to Him with love by chanting specific mantras. Some of us are engaged in preparing Krishna's breakfast from 5:30 a.m. to 7:30 a.m. while most of us are engaged in chanting the maha-mantra in front of Tulasi devi. We offer Krishna the breakfast at 7:15 a.m. but do not ourselves eat until 9:00 a.m. After breakfast some of us go out to various parts of the city to distribute books about Krishna, while others of us prepare Krishna’s lunch, which is offered to Him at 11:30 a.m. We eat lunch at 12:30 and then continue to perform various services for Krishna until 7:00 p.m. when we assemble to chant together and read Vaisnava literature. We retire around 10:00 p.m. and wake up around 4:00 a.m. In this way, we directly experience ecstatic love for Krishna. I welcome all serious correspondence. Please use the “Contact Us” link at the top of this page to send us an email.