Srila Prabhupada explained that there are two great dangers for an aspiring Vaishnava. The first is to become a sahajiya, the second is to become a Mayavadi. It’s just like a straight road, where one can get off course by going too much to the left or to the right. Just like Sahajism is not just about men dressing in saris, Mayavada is not just about people thinking that they are Narayana. How does it work?
The Mayavadis
The Vedas very clearly speak about a personal God. However, we can see that many philosophies based on the Vedas, including the Māyāvāda philosophy, avoid this conclusion, preferring to conclude that God is impersonal, and we are all one. How is that possible?
Mayavadis base their philosophy on the Vedanta-sūtra, which speaks about the Absolute Truth in an intentionally vague way, giving space for different interpretations. Still, the Vedanta-sūtra clearly speaks about a personal God, and this is clear starting from the second sūtra. However, by twisting the meaning of the sūtras, the Mayavadis impose an artificial and contradictory interpretation that is actually much harder to understand than the book itself.
During the time Caitanya Mahaprabhu was present on the planet, most of the great logicians of the time accepted His direct interpretation of the Vedanta-sūtra, abandoning the imaginary and contradictory explanations of Sankaracarya, and most of their followers went on the same path, becoming Vaiṣnavas. However, not everyone accepted it. Even after the advent of Lord Caitanya, the Mayavadi philosophy remained popular, and it ended up serving as a basis for most of the modern gurus and spiritualist movements.
We may not notice it at first, but Mayavada philosophy is not so much about being an impersonalist and believing everyone is God as it is a process of mental speculation that allows one to milk out the conclusion he wants from the scriptures. Mayavada philosophy is thus more about a certain mental mindset, when one ignores the authorized acaryas and instead accepts bogus interpretations of the scriptures, which one further deviates using their own speculations. We can see that Mayavadis in India started as a group of austere sannyasis who passed their time studying Vedanta and gradually morphed into an eclectic group of so-called “sadhus” who go to the West to teach hedonism.
The Sahajiyas
Sahajism, on the other hand, means to think one is on a transcendental platform while still very much attached to matter. This leads one to prematurely discard the rules and regulations of the scriptures and try to adopt the process of raganuga-bhakti while still attached to sinful habits. One then starts to confuse material lust with spiritual rasa and projects this lust into Krsna’s pastimes. He starts to see the pure transcendental pastimes of Krsna as full of lust and envy, and to describe them in the same way. Gradually, he develops envy of Krsna (since he also wants to enjoy, just like Krsna does), which leads to illicit sex, and so on. A very good indicator that we are going on this path is when we start thinking that rules and regulations, as well as the study of the scriptures, such as the Bhagavad-gītā, are just for neophytes.
Mayavada, on the other hand, starts with mental speculation. It’s actually not difficult to understand the scriptures: one just needs to study them under the paradigms given by the authorized acaryas. The recommended path is that one should accept a pure devotee as a spiritual master and study under him, but since Prabhupada wrote his books, even someone without the opportunity of directly studying under a self-realized soul has an opportunity to understand it by studying his books.
Understanding the scriptures
Srila Jiva Goswami explains in his Sat-sandarba that books in the scriptures have to be studied as a whole and not just as isolated quotes. He explains that each book develops a series of topics through arguments and counterarguments, with the conclusion becoming clear only when we study it as a whole. One who just takes out isolated quotes will probably just take one of these different arguments that are given during the book, without understanding the conclusion. One can find isolated quotes in the Bhagavad-gītā that support all kinds of philosophies, and thus miss the real conclusion, that everyone should become a devotee of Krsna and surrender unto Him by understanding and practicing the conclusions of the scriptures under the guidance of a bona fide spiritual master.
Just like Mayavadis misinterpret and misunderstand the Vedanta-sutra, anyone who adopts the same mental mindset of speculating and distorting the meaning of the scriptures, ignoring the conclusions of the authorized acaryas, will become similarly bewildered. He may think of himself as being very advanced in knowledge, studying all kinds of books and developing all kinds of arguments and counterarguments, but will remain completely ignorant of even the most basic philosophical conclusions. Just like going far away is only useful if we are going in the right direction, studying many books is only useful when we are getting the correct conclusions.
When Prabhupada wrote his books, he put a great effort into including in them all the conclusions of the previous Vaishnava acaryas. In this way, his purports are not just “his” commentaries, but actually the final conclusions of the whole succession of acaryas that goes all the way up to Krsna Himself. In this way, he made the conclusions of Vaishnava philosophy easily accessible in his purports, and most points are quite easy to understand. However, if we adopt the Sahajiya or the Mayavada mindset, things can become quite complicated.
Why do most people prefer indirect interpretations instead of just accepting the direct meaning?
The first problem is that most people don’t really understand either. They are just not philosophically inclined and just follow some charismatic leader. If the charismatic personality teaches the correct conclusions, they will more or less follow that, but if the leader is on the wrong path, they will also go in the wrong direction. For this large group, it’s not about philosophy; it’s just some sentimental faith in some popular personality.
Piety is also a factor
Another point, however, is that correctly understanding the correct meaning of the scriptures demands one to have a certain level of piety, a factor that, unfortunately, many of us lack in Kali-Yuga.
We like to think that we are rational beings who make decisions based on logic, but the reality is that most of the time we base our decisions more on intuition, or some “gut feeling”. Our decisions are thus not based on logic, but just on our current inclinations, which are in turn determined by our previous karma.
It may be hard to accept, but the way we think now is not based on what we are or what we currently want, but just a result of our previous activities in this material world. Because of our previous activities, we are put in a certain condition of life, and due to the particular influence of the three modes we receive in such a condition, we think in a particular way. If we somehow end up receiving the body of a dog, we will start thinking like a dog; if we receive the body of a demigod, we will start thinking like a demigod, and so on. The way we think now is thus more a result of our past karma than of our current desire.
This may sound a little confusing, but the main point is that unless one has some piety from previous lives, which makes him naturally attracted to proper spiritual knowledge, the tendency is that he or she will be more attracted to some kind of adulterated knowledge.
People who are very impious will very rarely surrender to Krsna. Instead, they will become attracted to the worship of spirits or demons, to some kind of materialistic fruitive process, or to some impersonal philosophy that allows them to think they are God.
Dying on the beach
Even amongst devotees, people who are already more or less on the right path, the tendency to become attracted to adulterated paths continues to be prominent. That’s why it’s not so easy to become a pure devotee. Most devotees will not be attracted to the pure path, preferring some kind of mixed path that doesn’t directly lead to the ultimate goal.
One of these paths is bhakti mixed with karma, which manifests in a mixture of devotion and materialism. That’s a path where most of us are currently. We are attracted to Krsna, but at the same time, we want to enjoy in this material world. It’s not so bad as long as we are gradually improving, but there is the danger of going on the opposite path, lowering our devotional standards and gradually becoming sahajiyas.
Another path is a mixture of bhakti and jñana. The word jñana can mean both spiritual knowledge and mental speculation, depending on the context. People who are philosophically inclined have a tendency to seek knowledge, and this tendency is properly utilized when used to attain proper spiritual knowledge from pure sources. The problem is that often this tendency degenerates into just trying to understand things by ourselves, using just our material intelligence, which is more problematic.
Proper spiritual knowledge can come only from transcendental sources; it is not something that can be produced in this material world. Finding it requires one to approach pure devotees with the right mindset and receive spiritual knowledge from them. That’s why Srila Prabhupada emphasized the distribution of his books, since this allows people to get in contact with the unadulterated spiritual knowledge he was transmitting.
Nowadays, this knowledge is largely available. Even people who live in remote areas can have easy access to his books through the internet. The knowledge is easily accessible, but still many don’t accept it. Many are just not interested, while others say he was mistaken or teaching just the ABCD. Why is that?
That’s the same dynamic that pushes people to the Mayavadi philosophy operating on a smaller scale. Because one is more pious than a Mayavadi, he or she can accept the path of Vaiṣnavism, but because there are still issues, he or she still needs a path that is not so direct, that allows one to play with different ideas instead of accepting the direct conclusions. This allows one to toy with the idea of devotion to Krsna, without having to do all the necessary internal changes. One can thus think that he is now a great devotee or philosopher, who understands the scriptures better than the previous acaryas, has a guru who is a “pure devotee” and a personal associate of Krsna, thinks himself better than other Vaiṣnavas, who are just learning “the ABCD” and following the rules and regulations, and so on. One is, of course, free to think in any way he or she wants, but may later find out that the ultimate goal is just as distant as it was in the beginning. As previously mentioned, there is no point in walking a lot if one is not going in the right direction.
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I would love to read some additional expansions on sahajism. I've been hearing about that a lot on devotee social media and would greatly appreciate clarification on what it is and in what ways we can identify it, particularly in modern ISKCON. Thank you so much prabhu 🙏