Jayadvaita Swami: Is He on the Mental Platform?
BY: B. RADHA-GOVINDA
Feb 19, 2011 — USA (SUN) — Mental platform refers to one's acceptance and (later) rejection (sankalpa/vikalpa), of the same thing based on the likes and dislikes of the mind, resultant from false ego. This mental platform based acceptance and rejection is symptomatic of conditioned souls, not the pure devotee.
The uttama adhikari pure devotee knows the sastras which are a direct manifestation of Krsna's expressed words, expressed either directly from Krsna or His incarnations, or from those pure empowered devotees to whom Krsna has given realization of His words/instructions, Krsna's using such pure devotees as His instrument to convey their realized ("Krsnized") words and/or their prayers of glorification expressed through sastra.
Regarding Jayadvaita Swami and the question, "Is he on the mental platform?", my question comes because not only does Jayadvaita Swami change certain things in Srila Prabhupada's books, but he makes changes to the changes he (JAS) has himself already made.
To give one example, over the years I saw a few different changed versions of Bhagavad-gita As It Is (Was), and there were different "renditions" to the BG 2.1 verse, although Srila Prabhupada's translation was already so clear and beautifully expressed that the reader has a very vivid, heartfelt understanding of Arjuna's feelings from the verse, which read:
"Sanjaya said: 'Seeing Arjuna full of compassion and very sorrowful, his eyes brimming with tears, Madhusudana, Krsna, spoke the following words'."
Despite the (pre-1978) word for word translation, krpaya - 'by compassion', avistam - 'overwhelmed', asru-purna - 'full of tears''; akula - depressed'; iksanam - 'eyes'; visidantam - 'lamenting', one of Jayadvaita Swami's edited (slaughtered) renditions of this verse read, "Sanjaya said: 'Seeing Arjuna his mind depressed, Madhusudana, Krsna, spoke the following words'".
One has to assume Jayadvaita Swami was, at a later point, dissatisfied with his own editing because he changed his own (edited, "subtracted") rendition of this verse to read more according to the original translation in Srila Prabhupada's pre-1978 edition of Bhagavad Gita As It Is. This updated/renewed/changed verse read, "Sanjaya said: 'Seeing Arjuna full of compassion, his mind depressed, Madhusudana, Krsna, spoke the following words'."
That was again changed, the final, most current rendition reading, "Sanjaya said: 'Seeing Arjuna full of compassion, his mind depressed, his eyes full of tears, Madhusudana, Krsna, spoke the following words'."
Although in the pre-1978 BG, in the word for word translation the word "depressed" is given as the translation for "akula," although Jayadvaita Swami uses the word "depressed" in his edited translation of this verse, in his editing of the word for word translation, there is no word "depressed" used there. (Please note the difference between the two word for word translations with asru-purna-akula given below to mean 'full of tears' and the pre-1978 BG's word for word translation, asru-purna - 'full of tears'; akula - 'depressed'.)
krpaya -' by compassion', avistam - 'overwhelmed', asru-purna-akula- ' full of tears'; iksanam - 'eyes'; visidantam - 'lamenting'.
So one may have to question whether it is a matter of mental platform being the reason for Jayadvaita Swami's (re)editing his own published editing of Srila Prabhupada's books, or whether he's doing so to keep a job for himself.
Transcending the "mental platform" requires that one identify the mind as the source of accepting and rejecting based on false ego, and allowing one's intelligence to be one's guide, that intelligence based on sastra or the instructions of those pure devotees who know and speak them.
May we be safely situated under the shelter of Srila Prabhupada's Lotus Feet, Those of our Guru Varga, the Vaisnavas, and Sri Sri Radha and Krsna.
Your servant,
B. Radha-Govinda
Hare Krsna
