Bhagavad-gita 9.20-22 class, given by His Divine Grace Sri A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, on December 6, 1966, New York.
Prabhupada:
trai-vidya mam soma-pah puta-papa
yajnair istva svargatim prarthayante
te punyam asadya surendra-lokam
asnanti divyan divi deva-bhogan
Now, Lord Krsna has described different types of transcendentalists. First He has described about the mahatma, mahatma, the great soul. And their symptoms have been described, that satatam kirtayanto mam[1]. They are engaged twenty-four hours, cent percent, in the transcendental loving service of the Lord, yatantas ca drdha-vratah, and trying to serve the Lord very carefully with vow. So they are first-class transcendentalists or the great soul.
And then? Second-class? Those who are trying to understand the Supreme, the Absolute Truth, by identifying himself with the Supreme, that “I am, I am the Supreme.” This I have already explained. This “I am Supreme” means “I am part and parcel of the Supreme, of the same quality.” So these people, these devotees, not exactly devotees, transcendentalists, they, doing that, when they are little more advanced and if by chance they get association of another pure devotee, then he can understand that “I am not Supreme, but I am the part and parcel of the Supreme.”
Then he makes further advance and the ultimate goal, as I have several times explained before you, ultimate goal is to know Krsna, or the Supreme Lord. That is the ultimate goal.
So this is direct method. The Krsna consciousness, which we are trying to popularize, this is direct method and just suitable for this age.
As Lord Caitanya introduced,
kalau nasty eva nasty eva
nasty eva gatir anyatha.
In this age of Kali, the age of quarrel and hypocrisy — this is called Kali — in this age this is the simplest method and direct, direct action. Just like in military art there is a word, “direct action,” this is the spiritual direct action, this
Hare Krsna Hare Krsna
Krsna Krsna Hare Hare,
Hare Rama Hare Rama
Rama Rama Hare Hare.
But because it is very simple, sometimes those who think themselves as very intelligent and advanced, they think,
“Oh, what they are doing, Hare Krsna, Hare Krsna? We are meditating, we are philosophizing, and we are doing penance and austerities and following the rituals, so many things.”
So practically, they are, according to Bhagavad-gita they are not directly in touch with the Supreme Lord, but they have taken different paths as ahangrahopasanam, thinking himself as one with the Lord, pantheism, thinking everything the symbol of God, and thinking the universal form as the Supreme, in different ways.
So anyway, all of them, the first-class mahatma and all these people, they are transcendentalists. They are trying to realize the Absolute Truth. Maybe in different grades, but they are trying.
And besides that, besides them, there is another class who are, more or less can be called, not transcendentalists but materialists. And who are they? That is described here.
trai-vidya mam soma-pah puta-papa
yajnair istva svargatim prarthayante
te punyam asadya surendra-lokam
asnanti divyan divi deva-bhogan
Deva-bhogan means this is with reference to the standard of living. As in this world we have got different standards of living and it may be that your standard of living in America or Europe may be, from a material point of view, very high and the standard of living in another country may be lower… Different standards of living there are. But in other planets also, there are different standards of living.
They are called deva-bhogan.
That standard of living we cannot imagine here, in the moon planet and other, surendra-lokam. Surendra-lokam means where the demigods live. They are also human beings, but they are highly intellectual, and their duration of life is very long, and their standard of living is very high, most costly. We cannot imagine even.
[1] Bhagavad-gita 9.14
This is a section of the book “Brilliant as the Sun”.
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