The Harmonist’s Humble Voice
The following article was written by our great-grand-guru, Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura and was first printed in The Harmonist, named Sri Sajjanatoshani in Hindi, Vol. XXVII, June, 1929, №1.
Herein we find the essential guidance, directing the scope and perspective in The Harmonist Life. We hope you will find it as pertinent today, as it was when it was written, and invite you to comment below.
As numerical considerations are often found to conduce to an absence of unity, the principles of unity and diversity are often thought to be contradictory; but Harmony can cement the gulf in counting them in one category.
The manifested world indeed appears to exhibit a threefold division as the observer, the observation made through the deeply ingrained conditions legislated by time and space, and the observed objects. The Harmonist has no other ambition than to bring peace among individuals, to remove temporal discrepancies, and to eliminate such spatial limitations.
She is not an advocate of untiring engagement in worldly activities, nor does she exhort the renunciation of material prosperity. She does not encourage the idea of annihilating oneself in absolute non-differentiation from the Totality, nor does she recommend that one identify oneself with the indivisible Whole.
The schools of elevation within the plane of mortality and mere salvation from mortality have not taught anything worthy of the Harmonist’s incorporating her own identity, either with the acquisitionists or with the proponents of a merging into nonexistence.
It would be a sheer mistake if the Harmonist were classified in the same category, with the seekers of either insentient or sentient pleasures. She does not claim to assist the reader in either gaining anything or losing anything, via the persuasion of any misguided thought, current among the sojourners of the sensual atmosphere.
In one’s reading the words of the Harmonist, one may, discern a particular characteristic within her message which is not to be found in any secular publication. The Harmonist deals with a subject easily accessible to one and all, whereas the common run of periodicals has shown no ardent sympathy for the same.
She deals with a subject which is the paramount necessity of one and all, although the general populace are not so very mindful, as they think they are at present not in need of it. Unaware of the Transcendence, the agnostics might show an indifference towards the direction of the Harmonist’s movement; the critics and skeptics might throw doubts in the path of her advancements and the atheists might emphatically stand against her. Yet the Harmonist’s all-loving mood will not be disturbed in the least.
The pantheist may try to include her in an effort to claim a broader perspective for himself, but her particular theistic mood will appear to him to be a limited one. By his inculcating a neuter phase of theism, the pantheist evinces his predilection of classifying Godhead among the neuter products of creation. Yet this assignation can never accommodate Him, who by the nature of His office, cannot merely form a part of the sentient and insentient creations of which He Himself is the very fountainhead. We are confident that if Godhead be conceived as a neuter figure by a sentient and inferentially superior agent, such designation can never be met with acceptance by the intelligent section of the populace. However much the practice of idolatry nowadays has engendered a wrong conception of Godhead, it should not therefore be assumed that the neuter conception is the supreme aspect of the eternally manifested Godhead.
In the kingdom of animated beings, the value assigned to the neuter aspect of Godhead by the pantheist is not appreciated much, and thus he ventures to proceed further in his understanding of the Source of such neuter manifestation. A masculine conception then comes within his purview, whom he calls the object of worship of the theists. If, however, the feminine counterpart is ignored, then such inattention to the reciprocal relationship inherent therewith must surely restrict one’s attempt at finding out the Absolute Truth.
The worshiper of a masculine form of Godhead can never properly serve Him unless such a knower or server designates himself. If the devotee of a masculine form wants to serve his Master, considering a masculine form of his own self, his assumption of service subtly includes his unexpressed ideas of mastery over other individuals who might in turn offer their services for his upkeep.
The masculine aspect of the object of worship cannot have a full play, unless the reciprocal feminine servitor comes within the visual range of He, who is her consort. Rational worshipers will then find that the eternal service- holder has got an eternal form by which she can serve her Beloved. The Harmonist will then find an opportunity to regulate the angle of vision of her friend, who proves to be an honest seeker of Absolute Truth. The Harmonist helps thereby to determine for her friend to shake off the foreign ideas which have been picked up from mundane association during the sojourn of different lives.
The Absolute Truth, being all-inclusive of the eternal harmonizing masculine form of Godhead, together with His eternal ecstatic female associates and paraphernalia such as the insentient spiritual environments, cannot admit of any deviation from true knowledge in favor of the defective hallucination of erring observers, who are busy with their ephemeral and inadequate sensuous pleasures.
The mountainous height of earthly ethics might prove high to a dwarf treading on the plane of inductive reasoning. And the distance to the furthermost star at its zenith-the position of the loftiest, most superexcellent and seemingly unethical features of the Personality of Absolute Knowledge-might appear shorter by comparison if the transcendental descriptions are assessed by those of meager thinking capacity among the fallible humanity.
The Harmonist has, however, taken up the lofty task of imparting true theistic impressions of the Absolute in their comparative merits and she will continue to serve such spiritual dishes to her misguided, shortsighted friends who place their confidence in the senses only. Her prayer may be heard by the lending ears of theists who are honest seekers of Absolute Knowledge.
