INTRODUCTORY.

INTRODUCTORY.LIFE'S SOURCE AND SEARCH.Beloved! I wish to call you "my beloved," whoever you are who have taken up this my love-message to read, for you are the beloved of my Beloved—Krishna. I may not know you, nor you me, and yet we have been together times without number: yet we have loved each other with the truest, the purest, the sweetest love again and again, when we lived in Love, when we had our being in the Ocean of Love, when we were awake in the consciousness of the One Essence which ever pervades us all—Love.Beloved! That state, that realm, in which we lived and knew and loved each other, we have forgotten, and this forgetfulness is the cause of our separateness, our non-recognition, our want of sympathy, our troubles and quarrels. Going into the depth of Silence—Silence within and without us—I have discovered its Secret which is also the Secret of our forgotten Love-Existence. And this my message to you is the revelation of that mystery which our strayed soul is trying to solve through every effort of the life we are living now.Beloved! I humbly lay before you this message to read—to help you to recognize your true self, to help you to find your true goal in this life's race. This message is a magic mirror in which, maybe, you will catch the reflection of your soul's All-Beautiful Image.You are now engaged, my beloved, in reading this message with the same object for which every one of us is just now engaged in doing various things. It is life's one common object for us all—Pleasure. That is the one all-absorbing quest of humanity, nay, of all living creatures, of all creation. We are ever striving, all of us, every minute, to find that one blessing which ever eludes our grasp, ever misses our ken, ever deludes us like the will-o'-the-wisp—the one object of our desire, of predominant, spontaneous, practical, natural interest—Unmixed, Unbroken Happiness.Not only is this quest for happiness ever present within mankind, but also in lower animals, and even in every phase of Nature, more or less pronounced or discernible. Every manifestation of Nature, man or beast, bird or tree or plant, is ever endeavoring to adjust a state of internal disorder and disturbance—I mean ever endeavoring to bring about a sense or instinct of that harmonious equilibrium, which we call Full Satisfaction, Complete Contentment, Absolute Happiness.Now the question may be asked: Why is this universal quest for happiness? How is it that every man or woman or child is every minute seeking some sort of happiness or other? The Hindoo sages have answered this question to the satisfaction of all intelligent human beings. Why is this eternal search for happiness?That answer is: Because the whole universe, of which we are parts, has come out of that Eternal Abode of Happiness, called Bliss, where it had dwelt before creation, like a tree in a seed, and the memory of which dwells still in the inner consciousness of all created beings, though it has dropped out of their outer consciousness.That abode of happiness is called the Abode of Absolute Love; the Hindoo calls it Krishna. The word Krishna, in Sanscrit, comes from the root "karsha"—to draw. Krishna means that which draws us to Itself; and what in the world draws us all more powerfully than Love? It is the "gravitation" of the modern scientist. It is the one source and substance of all magnetism, of all attraction; and when that love is absolutely pure, its power to draw is absolute, too.In seeking even material Pleasure or happiness through life we are ever seeking this Absolute Bliss, only most of us do not know it. The man who devotes his heart and soul to acquiring wealth is, in fact, but striving to attain this blissful state. For what does the would-be millionaire work to make the million but to secure pleasure, the pleasure of good eating, good drinking, good living, good enjoyment—to be happy? He makes the million; but the happiness which he secures, by securing the means of pleasure and by enjoying the pleasures themselves, is not complete. He still feels some void in that happiness, something still wanting in those pleasures to make him fully happy. He therefore piles up more millions, he plunges into newer pleasures, he leaves no stone unturned to find the material objects which will add to his pleasure; and when he has secured all these objects and enjoyed them, he finds himself exactly at the same place where he was before—there is something still wanting to make him completely happy. Finding no newer objects which are likely to add to his happiness, he occupies himself by enjoying what he has already enjoyed over and over again; that is to say, he goes over again the same round of pleasures to delude himself into the belief that that is the best happiness allowed to mortal man.But the delusion is temporary and far from complete. The longing, the search for something still wanting, is present all through that delusion—something unknown, but which he thinks he might know and recognize, if he once found it. But, alas, he does not!Poor Man! He does not know the secret of true happiness, the happiness which is complete in itself, which never ends, which, once secured, never falls short or vanishes, which flows from within the heart through all the channels of the body, out through the pores of it in a continual stream of ecstasy. He does not know that this thing, this unending happiness, is not to be found in material objects; that it cannot be secured by the means or by the instincts of the physical senses, which cognize only material objects.And why? Why is it that material objects fail to give us that true and absolute happiness, fail to satisfy the hunger of the yearning human heart for that unknown something which it feels somehow must exist, but which ever eludes its ken and quest, and which, alas! it does not realize that it once knew, that it once owned by right of heritage?The answer is simple, and ought to be convincing to every thoughtful mind. The answer is: Because material objects are changeful in their nature and principle; because, being nothing but forms of changefulness, they do not possess this permanent, this unchangeable happiness, to give it to those who seek to derive it from them. An object whose very principle is changefulness can afford nothing which is not changeful in its nature. All the pleasures, therefore, that we derive from material objects must necessarily be changeful, which means short-lived, pleasures of short duration, broken pleasure, distinguished by the Hindoos from unbroken pleasure, which, because of its unbrokenness and ecstatic taste, ceases to be called pleasure and assumes the name of Bliss.The question now arises, where is this true happiness to be found, if it cannot be found in material objects? Some modern scientists call this unbroken happiness a delusion and a snare of credulous humanity. Modern science has done much, has done wonders in this Western world. None but a fool will deny the glory of its brilliant achievements. But even among those who admire the wonderful progress of modern science, if there be one who fails to find anything in these products of science which is in any way likely to contribute towards the attainment of contentment by the human mind, that person need not necessarily be a fool. Modern science has excited our wonder, but has failed to make us either contented or happy—contentment and happiness, which are our eternal quest, theoneobject of our life, theonegoal to which all creation is running in a blindfolded race. It should rather be claimed for modern science that it has made its followers outward-looking. It has produced conveniences and comforts of life, which have made all people hanker for them; and many, failing to secure them, make themselves discontented and unhappy. Modern science, in a word, has served only to put obstacles in the way of our attempt to realize that one object of our existence—contentment, which affords true happiness.This leads me to repeat what I have just said, that no true or all-satisfying permanent happiness can be found in material objects, and hence the failure of material scientists to make humanity either contented or happy.Where is, then, this happiness to be found?The answer is: Within ourselves. It cannot be found in anything outside of ourselves. This continual stream of happiness is flowing at all times from our heart of hearts all through our body, but we cannot perceive it, or feel it, because our mind has been covered by the clouds formed out of our hankerings for material objects. Our desire for material pleasures is the only veil that shrouds this fountain of true happiness from our mental vision.But if our desires for material enjoyments be carefully and intelligently analyzed, we can arrive at only one conclusion, and that is that in hankering for material pleasures we are in fact practically hunting for that happiness which, once attained, is ever full, ever satisfying; which, once enjoyed, lays all hankerings for material enjoyments forever at rest. The fact of our material possessions and enjoyments ever leaving within us a wish, more or less pronounced, for something still more enjoyable, still more pleasurable, is the most indirectly direct proof that we are in quest of something which material objects cannot supply; and the fact of this quest being present in all human souls, in all their thoughts and actions at all times forces us to the irresistible conclusion that we once knew or had a taste of the thing we all are eternally searching for; and that, having lost it, we are ever endeavoring to regain it, its absence having rendered us as unhappy and restless as a fish out of its element.This lost object, this once enjoyed state of the human soul, now absent but ever longed for, is—Krishna.It is Krishna—Perfect State of Love or Bliss—that is ever drawing us to Itself. This Krishna was once our home, when this creation, of which we form but atoms, slept for aeons unnumbered in the bosom of Krishna, forming but a part of His will. When those unnumbered aeons were numbered, after these atoms of creation had slept for enough time to rest themselves in that bosom of Absolute Bliss, they were thrust out of that realm into space, to form a universe.They first manifested themselves as Universal Consciousness, which, wanting to be conscious of something, developed into Ego, and Ego developed into the Mind, as no Ego is possible without the faculty of thought, which is the Mind's function. And as thoughts are not possible without objects to think upon, the five fine objects, namely: Sound, Touch, Form, Taste and Smell, came into existence, along with their gross counterparts and compounds, I mean the five elements, namely, Ether, Air, Fire, Water and Earth; while the Mind's channels of communication with these fine and gross forms of matter were developed simultaneously, namely, the five Cognizing Senses: Power of Seeing, (eye), Power of Hearing (ear), Power of Smelling (nose), Power of Tasting (tongue), Power of Feeling (skin), with the five Working Senses, namely, Power of Speaking (vocal organs), Power of Holding (hands), Power of Moving (feet). Power of Excreting and Power of Generating.Thus from Krishna to earth, Krishna's Will took twenty-four steps to assume the form of the universe, and myriad steps more to divide the universe into earth, heaven, stars, planets, sun and moon, man and beast and bird; trees and shrubs and grass; mountains and rivers, which go to make it up.But every particle of this cosmos is conscious, directly or indirectly, in every point, of the home that it has left, the absolute state of Bliss it once has soaked in, the incomparable nectar which it has once tasted. Yes, that memory endures; the memory of that Love Absolute is the cause of all discontent, of all dissatisfaction, of all strife and effort, of all ambition and achievement. It is the cause as well of every philosophy and transcendental thought, of moral and spiritual uplifting, and of developing the human into the Divine.From Krishna have we all come and Krishnaward are we all tending. And all our actions, good, bad or indifferent, are but the feeble steps with which we are all endeavoring to cover the journey back to Krishna—our Home, Sweet Home!—our ever-loved Home, from which we have come away as sorry truants and to which the needle of our soul ever trembles, pointing to us the forgotten path, by which we fled from and by which we are again to return to that Home—Sree Krishna!GOD IS FORMLESS AND HAS A FORM.Thus Krishna is the object we are all seeking through every wish and every act; every moment of our existence we are seeking Krishna. He is the interest which makes life interesting, the one interest which makes life worth living. He is the element of sweetness in the grossest pleasure. He is the highest beatitude which the purest souls attain to. The lover of good eating cannot keep on eating forever to sustain the pleasure that good eating produces; if he did, he would die. The sensation of eating endures as long as the food is on the palate; but the mind alone is the enjoyer of that sensation. The mind alone, likewise, enjoys the pleasure of intoxication, which the dryest and highest priced champagne can afford. A little while and the pleasure of the daintiest of food and the most delicious of drinks is over, giving place to the pain of its loss and the restlessness in the search again for such pleasure!The man who has solved the mystery of true pleasure that needs no re-eating and re-drinking to keep itself up, does not seek to find it in any food, or in any drink, or in any form or means of material enjoyments, knowing that it is the mind alone, affected by material objects, that cognizes pleasure or pain. The pleasure or pain which the mind feels on being brought into contact with the thought or influence of material objects is derived from those objects themselves; and so long as the mind is habituated to draw pleasure from such objects it cannot but come in for some sorrow, too, for objective pleasure is short-lived, and its cessation is sorrow in the least pronounced sense.But we all want only pleasure or happiness; we hate pain or sorrow in any shape. If that is true, and nobody can say it is not, then what we practically want is eternal, unending pleasure; but we seek to find it in objects whose very constituents partake of changeful materials born more of pain than of pleasure.If we can make the mind dwell upon some object which is eternally lovely and lovable, nay, even if we can imagine such an object, mentallycreatesuch an ideal object, and concentrate our mind exclusively upon it, then we can have a taste of that unending happiness which we all are seeking in vain to find in material objects. Then, dwelling on this Changeless Idea, the restless mind becomes fixed and calm; and calmness of mind being happiness, the mind is thus made happy by itself. Then it has known that happiness lies within itself, and within means independent of any concern with outside objects; then it finds that the coarsest meal gives as much pleasure as the daintiest of dinners, and that Adam's Ale is a more delicious drink than the highest-priced champagne. It has then learned to drink the champagne of the soul, the least taste of which makes one think the taste of the most delicious wine and food to be all tasteless.But from such transcendental nonsense, as the materialist would call it, let us come down for awhile to analyze matter, the God of the materialist. Let us for awhile examine the making and the mechanism of the universe, and try to trace in the grossest matter the existence of this Perfect Love or Happiness.I have already told you of the making of the universe, that it is made up of twenty-four principles; namely, Love, Universal Consciousness, Ego, Mind, the Ten Senses, the Five Objects and the Five Elements. I have also told you very briefly the process of creation from Love to earth. I need now tell you that every succeeding principle, as it is developed, contains the preceding principle or principles. A grain or earth therefore is as good as the whole universe in regard to its composition. There is but this difference between the universe and an atom of it, that in the universe all the passages of its twenty-four principles are fully opened, while in the atom all these passages are closed. But motion is the principal law of creation, of all creation, as every particle of it is ever moving in the form of change. The atom of earth, which is the smallest form of moving manifestation of Love through finer and grosser matter, moves backward now through grosser and then through finer forms of love-manifestations into the Ocean of Love again, from which it had originally started.The process of this backward motion of material atom is the opening of the passages of its composing principles through repeated reincarnations. To develop from a grain of earth into a blade of grass is the first step, in which only one passage, that of Feeling, is opened. The blade of grass draws by the opening of this passage juice from the earth for its sustenance. Upward through myriad forms of life—shrubs, plants, vegetables, trees, lower animals, etc.—that atom travels, to develop into the first savage man, in whom the principle called Mind is for the first time opened, and along with it are opened the passages of Ego and Intelligence (called Intellect in individual souls); for all these three principles are close co-workers.The most important stage of evolution is man himself, for in man alone are the passages of all these twenty-four principles more or less open. And hence it is that man is called the miniature universe. From savage man to civilized man, from civilized man to religious man, from religious man to spiritual man, from spiritual man to perfect, all loveful man, the process involves again innumerable incarnations. It is the perfect, all-loveful man, that reaches the original starting point and merges in the Ocean of Love called Krishna.I am now about to put before you a proposition which at first sight may perhaps shock you; but I assure you that, if you can manage to get over the first shock, by the aid of an open mind and calm consideration, you may find that proposition to contain the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. My proposition is this: If this "formful" universe—if that word may be allowed—formful in every detail, has come out of God, or Krishna, or Love, can it be possible that that Source of the universe is perfectly formless? If formless, whence have these form-manifestations of that formless Deity come? How can forms come out of anything void of all forms? That is a hard nut to crack for Western theologians; while material scientists do not care to call that a nut at all, for they have learned to see nothing beyond matter.I want you to think over this question with a view to draw the right deduction. Meanwhile, I beg to submit a few suggestions which may be of help in drawing these deductions. Forms coming out of anything formless is as absurd to common sense as it is to higher, otherwise called divine, or spiritual science. Therefore the producing cause of the universe, the first principle, is notformless, buthasa Form. It has even a form like the form of a man, a form most perfect in every feature, a form of which the most exquisitely beautiful and divine human form is but a coarse, crude counterpart. Man has been made after the image of his Maker, says the Bible. The idea has been borrowed from the Hindoo scriptures, which in their principles are nothing if not scientific in propounding principles.The Veda says that the Supreme Deity is both formless and with form at the same time. Just as the sun in its orb is the concrete centre of its abstract, infinite self in its manifestation of light and heat, so is the Supreme Deity, of which the sun is but a physical reflection, the Concrete Centre of His Abstract Infinite Self of His Effulgence, called Love, which pervades the whole universe and all space, as the basic principle of all Existence.As the sun (the orb) taken together with its light and heat should be called the sun, and not the mere orb should be called the sun; so Krishna, the Supreme Deity, should be taken together with His Central Form and His All-Pervading Effulgence— Love—to be called Krishna. It will be as wrong to regard the orb only as the sun, that is, the orb minus its effulgence and heat, to be the sun, as to regard this Form of Krishna (the Centre of Himself) minus the effulgence—all-pervading Love—to be Krishna. Thus Krishna, like His physical light-reflection, the sun, is Infinite, even though He has a finite-looking Form-Centre.The fear entertained by most people in the West, that the form carries with it an idea of finiteness, is not true in regard to Krishna's Form. Not only is Krishna Infinite in His effulgence, but the Image of his Central Form dwells in every particle of that effulgence, called Love. Besides, nothing in this universe is finite.I shall, in succeeding pages, try to prove to you the fact that the Supreme Being has a concrete-looking Form-Centre, for two reasons. One is to support the proposition that no form can come out of anything formless, and the other is that all forms in creation, from a blade of grass to a divine man, are more or less imperfect manifestations of the Central Form from which they have sprung. From the blade of grass upward, the process of evolution discovers more and more outward resemblance and inward affinity to the Form and attributes of the Author of the universe. Hence it is true that man is made in the Image of his Maker.In the upward evolution of the man-form, the refinement of mental, moral, intellectual and spiritual attributes contributes more and more towards the man-form being made a more and more perfect image of his Maker, both externally and internally.Krishna in Form and in Love-Effulgence is present as much in a grain of earth, in a blade of grass, in a beast, as in man. Only that Form is more or less covered in the lower life-forms, on account of many of the composing principles of their bodies being unopened; while in the man, all the principles being opened, the man-form looks more like the form of God. Some people refuse to believe that the Supreme Deity has a form like that of man, because God, with a human form would be lowered in their estimation. These devout people forget that the human form is but an imperfect picture of God's form, instead of God's form being a copy of the human form. So God need not take the trouble of assuming an imperfect reflection of His own Perfect Form.Dear Reader! Some of you may say that it is foolishness and temerity on my part to try to prove that God has a Form before people who are in the vanguard of civilization, and many of whom think that the very idea of God is but a diseased fancy of weak humanity. Yet, for all that, I do preach a Form-God along with a Formless God with all the boldness my ancient, truly scientific conviction commands, because that boldness is backed by truth, the only Truth.You here in this country are all of you great lovers and admirers of science; you want everything to be scientific in order to be acceptable. The food you eat, the air you breathe, the medicine you use, must be scientifically supplied and applied. But if you want science in everything, why do you not demand science in religion? Why is your religion so unscientific? Forms coming out of a formless God is the most unscientific assertion imaginable.The root of this belief in forms coming out of the formless is buried in the conceit which the new civilization has developed in its average votary. People here do not care to bow in reverence to anything that has a form, hence is a formless Deity so readily believed in. If God had a form, they say, He would be human, and therefore not worth worshiping. Nor do they believe in making an image of God or bowing to it. They will bow to man; they will idolize man, but not God. Every man here idolizes his lady-love, and every lady idolizes her lover, with more or less abject worship. They will worship the picture of a lover or a lady-love day and night, but they will not worship the image of God, even in a picture. They will pay homage to a moving form of Wealth or Physical Beauty or Sensuality, but hate to think of, much less worship, an Image of God. They are worse idolaters than the Hindoos whom they affect to hate as "heathens." They worship idols of money and human flesh; the Hindoos worship idols of God. They worship material forms of mere matter; the Hindoos worship Sanctified Forms of the Divine Spirit or Its Attributes. Let them raise their standards of idol-worship first in order to be worthy to talk of the purely transcendental idolatry of the Hindoos.The Hindoos rarely paint a picture or carve an image of a human being; a human being is not worthy of it, except a Saint or a Gooroo (spiritual guide); but they paint their God and make His Image, and worship it with all internal and external homage.We are all denounced as idolaters; but we are idolaters to-day, in spite of all the influence of civilization and Christian bigotry brought to bear upon us, as good idolaters today as we were ten thousand years ago. The idols and idolatry of ancient Greece, Rome and Egypt have been swept away; but the idols of the Hindoo-God still flourish and will flourish to the end of time, as they flourished time out of mind.What is the reason? Whence is this extraordinary vitality of Hindoo idolatry? Because it is not idolatry in the sense it is understood by "civilized" Westerners. We worship the images of the attribute-manifestations of the ONE God, of the ONE Deity, of the ONE Supreme Being, who pervades the universe, who originally is with Form and Formless at the same time. We worship Krishna, above all, in His Image as He manifested Himself and walked on earth among men 5,000 years ago; Krishna, whose miraculous deeds of love, power and valor no incarnation, either in the West or in the East, ever could enact or even imitate, before His time or even after His ascension to Heaven, up to to-day. We love this Krishna, the Seed and Soul of the Universe, the Basic Principle of creation; we believe in Him and in the potency of His Name.Love Him, dear Reader, because He loves you more than anyone you meet here on earth.My Krishna bless you all!ContentsSREE KRISHNA THE LORD OF LOVE PART I.PREFACEINTRODUCTORY.SECTION I. THE CONCRETE AND ABSTRACT GOD.SECTION II. THE SCIENCE OF CREATION.SECTION III. THE STEPS OF CREATION.SECTION IV. THE CYCLIC MOTION OF CHANGES.SECTION V. THE GOLDEN AGE.SECTION VI. THE SILVER AGE.SECTION VII. THE CASTE SYSTEM.SECTION VIII. THE FOUR STAGES OF LIFE.SECTION IX. THE COPPER AGE.SECTION X. THE IRON AGE.SECTION XI. MANWANTARA OR THE DELUGE.SECTION XII. THE KALPA CYCLE.SECTION XIII. NATURAL DISSOLUTION.SECTION XIV. MODERN SCIENTIFIC TESTIMONY.SECTION XV. SCIENCE UPHOLDS SHASTRAS.SECTION XVI. PHYSICAL AND ASTRAL BODIES.SECTION XVII. KARMA.SECTION XVIII. REINCARNATION.SECTION XIX. HOW TO DESTROY KARMA.SECTION XX. THE ATOM'S RETURN JOURNEY.SECTION XXI. YOGA.SECTION XXII. BHAKTI YOGA.SECTION XXIII. VAISHNAV, CHRISTIAN OF CHRISTIANS.SECTION XXIV. KRISHNA LEELA.SREE KRISHNA THE LORD OF LOVE PART II.PROEM.CHAPTER I.CHAPTER II.CHAPTER III.CHAPTER IV.CHAPTER V.CHAPTER VI.CHAPTER VII.CHAPTER VIII.CHAPTER IX.CHAPTER X.CHAPTER XI.CHAPTER XII.CHAPTER XIII.CHAPTER XIV.CHAPTER XV.CHAPTER XVI.CHAPTER XVII.CHAPTER XVIII.CHAPTER XIX.CHAPTER XX.CHAPTER XXI.CHAPTER XXII.CHAPTER XXIII.CHAPTER XXIV.CHAPTER XXV.CHAPTER XXVI.CHAPTER XXVII.CHAPTER XXVIII.CHAPTER XXIX.CHAPTER XXX.CHAPTER XXXI.CHAPTER XXXII.CHAPTER XXXIII.Messages and Revelations from Sree KrishnaMESSAGES AND REVELATIONS FROM SREE KRISHNAA HOLY MAN'S PRAYER.A SOUL AND ITS BELOVED.THE FAIR ONE AND HER SOUL.

INTRODUCTORY.LIFE'S SOURCE AND SEARCH.Beloved! I wish to call you "my beloved," whoever you are who have taken up this my love-message to read, for you are the beloved of my Beloved—Krishna. I may not know you, nor you me, and yet we have been together times without number: yet we have loved each other with the truest, the purest, the sweetest love again and again, when we lived in Love, when we had our being in the Ocean of Love, when we were awake in the consciousness of the One Essence which ever pervades us all—Love.Beloved! That state, that realm, in which we lived and knew and loved each other, we have forgotten, and this forgetfulness is the cause of our separateness, our non-recognition, our want of sympathy, our troubles and quarrels. Going into the depth of Silence—Silence within and without us—I have discovered its Secret which is also the Secret of our forgotten Love-Existence. And this my message to you is the revelation of that mystery which our strayed soul is trying to solve through every effort of the life we are living now.Beloved! I humbly lay before you this message to read—to help you to recognize your true self, to help you to find your true goal in this life's race. This message is a magic mirror in which, maybe, you will catch the reflection of your soul's All-Beautiful Image.You are now engaged, my beloved, in reading this message with the same object for which every one of us is just now engaged in doing various things. It is life's one common object for us all—Pleasure. That is the one all-absorbing quest of humanity, nay, of all living creatures, of all creation. We are ever striving, all of us, every minute, to find that one blessing which ever eludes our grasp, ever misses our ken, ever deludes us like the will-o'-the-wisp—the one object of our desire, of predominant, spontaneous, practical, natural interest—Unmixed, Unbroken Happiness.Not only is this quest for happiness ever present within mankind, but also in lower animals, and even in every phase of Nature, more or less pronounced or discernible. Every manifestation of Nature, man or beast, bird or tree or plant, is ever endeavoring to adjust a state of internal disorder and disturbance—I mean ever endeavoring to bring about a sense or instinct of that harmonious equilibrium, which we call Full Satisfaction, Complete Contentment, Absolute Happiness.Now the question may be asked: Why is this universal quest for happiness? How is it that every man or woman or child is every minute seeking some sort of happiness or other? The Hindoo sages have answered this question to the satisfaction of all intelligent human beings. Why is this eternal search for happiness?That answer is: Because the whole universe, of which we are parts, has come out of that Eternal Abode of Happiness, called Bliss, where it had dwelt before creation, like a tree in a seed, and the memory of which dwells still in the inner consciousness of all created beings, though it has dropped out of their outer consciousness.That abode of happiness is called the Abode of Absolute Love; the Hindoo calls it Krishna. The word Krishna, in Sanscrit, comes from the root "karsha"—to draw. Krishna means that which draws us to Itself; and what in the world draws us all more powerfully than Love? It is the "gravitation" of the modern scientist. It is the one source and substance of all magnetism, of all attraction; and when that love is absolutely pure, its power to draw is absolute, too.In seeking even material Pleasure or happiness through life we are ever seeking this Absolute Bliss, only most of us do not know it. The man who devotes his heart and soul to acquiring wealth is, in fact, but striving to attain this blissful state. For what does the would-be millionaire work to make the million but to secure pleasure, the pleasure of good eating, good drinking, good living, good enjoyment—to be happy? He makes the million; but the happiness which he secures, by securing the means of pleasure and by enjoying the pleasures themselves, is not complete. He still feels some void in that happiness, something still wanting in those pleasures to make him fully happy. He therefore piles up more millions, he plunges into newer pleasures, he leaves no stone unturned to find the material objects which will add to his pleasure; and when he has secured all these objects and enjoyed them, he finds himself exactly at the same place where he was before—there is something still wanting to make him completely happy. Finding no newer objects which are likely to add to his happiness, he occupies himself by enjoying what he has already enjoyed over and over again; that is to say, he goes over again the same round of pleasures to delude himself into the belief that that is the best happiness allowed to mortal man.But the delusion is temporary and far from complete. The longing, the search for something still wanting, is present all through that delusion—something unknown, but which he thinks he might know and recognize, if he once found it. But, alas, he does not!Poor Man! He does not know the secret of true happiness, the happiness which is complete in itself, which never ends, which, once secured, never falls short or vanishes, which flows from within the heart through all the channels of the body, out through the pores of it in a continual stream of ecstasy. He does not know that this thing, this unending happiness, is not to be found in material objects; that it cannot be secured by the means or by the instincts of the physical senses, which cognize only material objects.And why? Why is it that material objects fail to give us that true and absolute happiness, fail to satisfy the hunger of the yearning human heart for that unknown something which it feels somehow must exist, but which ever eludes its ken and quest, and which, alas! it does not realize that it once knew, that it once owned by right of heritage?The answer is simple, and ought to be convincing to every thoughtful mind. The answer is: Because material objects are changeful in their nature and principle; because, being nothing but forms of changefulness, they do not possess this permanent, this unchangeable happiness, to give it to those who seek to derive it from them. An object whose very principle is changefulness can afford nothing which is not changeful in its nature. All the pleasures, therefore, that we derive from material objects must necessarily be changeful, which means short-lived, pleasures of short duration, broken pleasure, distinguished by the Hindoos from unbroken pleasure, which, because of its unbrokenness and ecstatic taste, ceases to be called pleasure and assumes the name of Bliss.The question now arises, where is this true happiness to be found, if it cannot be found in material objects? Some modern scientists call this unbroken happiness a delusion and a snare of credulous humanity. Modern science has done much, has done wonders in this Western world. None but a fool will deny the glory of its brilliant achievements. But even among those who admire the wonderful progress of modern science, if there be one who fails to find anything in these products of science which is in any way likely to contribute towards the attainment of contentment by the human mind, that person need not necessarily be a fool. Modern science has excited our wonder, but has failed to make us either contented or happy—contentment and happiness, which are our eternal quest, theoneobject of our life, theonegoal to which all creation is running in a blindfolded race. It should rather be claimed for modern science that it has made its followers outward-looking. It has produced conveniences and comforts of life, which have made all people hanker for them; and many, failing to secure them, make themselves discontented and unhappy. Modern science, in a word, has served only to put obstacles in the way of our attempt to realize that one object of our existence—contentment, which affords true happiness.This leads me to repeat what I have just said, that no true or all-satisfying permanent happiness can be found in material objects, and hence the failure of material scientists to make humanity either contented or happy.Where is, then, this happiness to be found?The answer is: Within ourselves. It cannot be found in anything outside of ourselves. This continual stream of happiness is flowing at all times from our heart of hearts all through our body, but we cannot perceive it, or feel it, because our mind has been covered by the clouds formed out of our hankerings for material objects. Our desire for material pleasures is the only veil that shrouds this fountain of true happiness from our mental vision.But if our desires for material enjoyments be carefully and intelligently analyzed, we can arrive at only one conclusion, and that is that in hankering for material pleasures we are in fact practically hunting for that happiness which, once attained, is ever full, ever satisfying; which, once enjoyed, lays all hankerings for material enjoyments forever at rest. The fact of our material possessions and enjoyments ever leaving within us a wish, more or less pronounced, for something still more enjoyable, still more pleasurable, is the most indirectly direct proof that we are in quest of something which material objects cannot supply; and the fact of this quest being present in all human souls, in all their thoughts and actions at all times forces us to the irresistible conclusion that we once knew or had a taste of the thing we all are eternally searching for; and that, having lost it, we are ever endeavoring to regain it, its absence having rendered us as unhappy and restless as a fish out of its element.This lost object, this once enjoyed state of the human soul, now absent but ever longed for, is—Krishna.It is Krishna—Perfect State of Love or Bliss—that is ever drawing us to Itself. This Krishna was once our home, when this creation, of which we form but atoms, slept for aeons unnumbered in the bosom of Krishna, forming but a part of His will. When those unnumbered aeons were numbered, after these atoms of creation had slept for enough time to rest themselves in that bosom of Absolute Bliss, they were thrust out of that realm into space, to form a universe.They first manifested themselves as Universal Consciousness, which, wanting to be conscious of something, developed into Ego, and Ego developed into the Mind, as no Ego is possible without the faculty of thought, which is the Mind's function. And as thoughts are not possible without objects to think upon, the five fine objects, namely: Sound, Touch, Form, Taste and Smell, came into existence, along with their gross counterparts and compounds, I mean the five elements, namely, Ether, Air, Fire, Water and Earth; while the Mind's channels of communication with these fine and gross forms of matter were developed simultaneously, namely, the five Cognizing Senses: Power of Seeing, (eye), Power of Hearing (ear), Power of Smelling (nose), Power of Tasting (tongue), Power of Feeling (skin), with the five Working Senses, namely, Power of Speaking (vocal organs), Power of Holding (hands), Power of Moving (feet). Power of Excreting and Power of Generating.Thus from Krishna to earth, Krishna's Will took twenty-four steps to assume the form of the universe, and myriad steps more to divide the universe into earth, heaven, stars, planets, sun and moon, man and beast and bird; trees and shrubs and grass; mountains and rivers, which go to make it up.But every particle of this cosmos is conscious, directly or indirectly, in every point, of the home that it has left, the absolute state of Bliss it once has soaked in, the incomparable nectar which it has once tasted. Yes, that memory endures; the memory of that Love Absolute is the cause of all discontent, of all dissatisfaction, of all strife and effort, of all ambition and achievement. It is the cause as well of every philosophy and transcendental thought, of moral and spiritual uplifting, and of developing the human into the Divine.From Krishna have we all come and Krishnaward are we all tending. And all our actions, good, bad or indifferent, are but the feeble steps with which we are all endeavoring to cover the journey back to Krishna—our Home, Sweet Home!—our ever-loved Home, from which we have come away as sorry truants and to which the needle of our soul ever trembles, pointing to us the forgotten path, by which we fled from and by which we are again to return to that Home—Sree Krishna!GOD IS FORMLESS AND HAS A FORM.Thus Krishna is the object we are all seeking through every wish and every act; every moment of our existence we are seeking Krishna. He is the interest which makes life interesting, the one interest which makes life worth living. He is the element of sweetness in the grossest pleasure. He is the highest beatitude which the purest souls attain to. The lover of good eating cannot keep on eating forever to sustain the pleasure that good eating produces; if he did, he would die. The sensation of eating endures as long as the food is on the palate; but the mind alone is the enjoyer of that sensation. The mind alone, likewise, enjoys the pleasure of intoxication, which the dryest and highest priced champagne can afford. A little while and the pleasure of the daintiest of food and the most delicious of drinks is over, giving place to the pain of its loss and the restlessness in the search again for such pleasure!The man who has solved the mystery of true pleasure that needs no re-eating and re-drinking to keep itself up, does not seek to find it in any food, or in any drink, or in any form or means of material enjoyments, knowing that it is the mind alone, affected by material objects, that cognizes pleasure or pain. The pleasure or pain which the mind feels on being brought into contact with the thought or influence of material objects is derived from those objects themselves; and so long as the mind is habituated to draw pleasure from such objects it cannot but come in for some sorrow, too, for objective pleasure is short-lived, and its cessation is sorrow in the least pronounced sense.But we all want only pleasure or happiness; we hate pain or sorrow in any shape. If that is true, and nobody can say it is not, then what we practically want is eternal, unending pleasure; but we seek to find it in objects whose very constituents partake of changeful materials born more of pain than of pleasure.If we can make the mind dwell upon some object which is eternally lovely and lovable, nay, even if we can imagine such an object, mentallycreatesuch an ideal object, and concentrate our mind exclusively upon it, then we can have a taste of that unending happiness which we all are seeking in vain to find in material objects. Then, dwelling on this Changeless Idea, the restless mind becomes fixed and calm; and calmness of mind being happiness, the mind is thus made happy by itself. Then it has known that happiness lies within itself, and within means independent of any concern with outside objects; then it finds that the coarsest meal gives as much pleasure as the daintiest of dinners, and that Adam's Ale is a more delicious drink than the highest-priced champagne. It has then learned to drink the champagne of the soul, the least taste of which makes one think the taste of the most delicious wine and food to be all tasteless.But from such transcendental nonsense, as the materialist would call it, let us come down for awhile to analyze matter, the God of the materialist. Let us for awhile examine the making and the mechanism of the universe, and try to trace in the grossest matter the existence of this Perfect Love or Happiness.I have already told you of the making of the universe, that it is made up of twenty-four principles; namely, Love, Universal Consciousness, Ego, Mind, the Ten Senses, the Five Objects and the Five Elements. I have also told you very briefly the process of creation from Love to earth. I need now tell you that every succeeding principle, as it is developed, contains the preceding principle or principles. A grain or earth therefore is as good as the whole universe in regard to its composition. There is but this difference between the universe and an atom of it, that in the universe all the passages of its twenty-four principles are fully opened, while in the atom all these passages are closed. But motion is the principal law of creation, of all creation, as every particle of it is ever moving in the form of change. The atom of earth, which is the smallest form of moving manifestation of Love through finer and grosser matter, moves backward now through grosser and then through finer forms of love-manifestations into the Ocean of Love again, from which it had originally started.The process of this backward motion of material atom is the opening of the passages of its composing principles through repeated reincarnations. To develop from a grain of earth into a blade of grass is the first step, in which only one passage, that of Feeling, is opened. The blade of grass draws by the opening of this passage juice from the earth for its sustenance. Upward through myriad forms of life—shrubs, plants, vegetables, trees, lower animals, etc.—that atom travels, to develop into the first savage man, in whom the principle called Mind is for the first time opened, and along with it are opened the passages of Ego and Intelligence (called Intellect in individual souls); for all these three principles are close co-workers.The most important stage of evolution is man himself, for in man alone are the passages of all these twenty-four principles more or less open. And hence it is that man is called the miniature universe. From savage man to civilized man, from civilized man to religious man, from religious man to spiritual man, from spiritual man to perfect, all loveful man, the process involves again innumerable incarnations. It is the perfect, all-loveful man, that reaches the original starting point and merges in the Ocean of Love called Krishna.I am now about to put before you a proposition which at first sight may perhaps shock you; but I assure you that, if you can manage to get over the first shock, by the aid of an open mind and calm consideration, you may find that proposition to contain the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. My proposition is this: If this "formful" universe—if that word may be allowed—formful in every detail, has come out of God, or Krishna, or Love, can it be possible that that Source of the universe is perfectly formless? If formless, whence have these form-manifestations of that formless Deity come? How can forms come out of anything void of all forms? That is a hard nut to crack for Western theologians; while material scientists do not care to call that a nut at all, for they have learned to see nothing beyond matter.I want you to think over this question with a view to draw the right deduction. Meanwhile, I beg to submit a few suggestions which may be of help in drawing these deductions. Forms coming out of anything formless is as absurd to common sense as it is to higher, otherwise called divine, or spiritual science. Therefore the producing cause of the universe, the first principle, is notformless, buthasa Form. It has even a form like the form of a man, a form most perfect in every feature, a form of which the most exquisitely beautiful and divine human form is but a coarse, crude counterpart. Man has been made after the image of his Maker, says the Bible. The idea has been borrowed from the Hindoo scriptures, which in their principles are nothing if not scientific in propounding principles.The Veda says that the Supreme Deity is both formless and with form at the same time. Just as the sun in its orb is the concrete centre of its abstract, infinite self in its manifestation of light and heat, so is the Supreme Deity, of which the sun is but a physical reflection, the Concrete Centre of His Abstract Infinite Self of His Effulgence, called Love, which pervades the whole universe and all space, as the basic principle of all Existence.As the sun (the orb) taken together with its light and heat should be called the sun, and not the mere orb should be called the sun; so Krishna, the Supreme Deity, should be taken together with His Central Form and His All-Pervading Effulgence— Love—to be called Krishna. It will be as wrong to regard the orb only as the sun, that is, the orb minus its effulgence and heat, to be the sun, as to regard this Form of Krishna (the Centre of Himself) minus the effulgence—all-pervading Love—to be Krishna. Thus Krishna, like His physical light-reflection, the sun, is Infinite, even though He has a finite-looking Form-Centre.The fear entertained by most people in the West, that the form carries with it an idea of finiteness, is not true in regard to Krishna's Form. Not only is Krishna Infinite in His effulgence, but the Image of his Central Form dwells in every particle of that effulgence, called Love. Besides, nothing in this universe is finite.I shall, in succeeding pages, try to prove to you the fact that the Supreme Being has a concrete-looking Form-Centre, for two reasons. One is to support the proposition that no form can come out of anything formless, and the other is that all forms in creation, from a blade of grass to a divine man, are more or less imperfect manifestations of the Central Form from which they have sprung. From the blade of grass upward, the process of evolution discovers more and more outward resemblance and inward affinity to the Form and attributes of the Author of the universe. Hence it is true that man is made in the Image of his Maker.In the upward evolution of the man-form, the refinement of mental, moral, intellectual and spiritual attributes contributes more and more towards the man-form being made a more and more perfect image of his Maker, both externally and internally.Krishna in Form and in Love-Effulgence is present as much in a grain of earth, in a blade of grass, in a beast, as in man. Only that Form is more or less covered in the lower life-forms, on account of many of the composing principles of their bodies being unopened; while in the man, all the principles being opened, the man-form looks more like the form of God. Some people refuse to believe that the Supreme Deity has a form like that of man, because God, with a human form would be lowered in their estimation. These devout people forget that the human form is but an imperfect picture of God's form, instead of God's form being a copy of the human form. So God need not take the trouble of assuming an imperfect reflection of His own Perfect Form.Dear Reader! Some of you may say that it is foolishness and temerity on my part to try to prove that God has a Form before people who are in the vanguard of civilization, and many of whom think that the very idea of God is but a diseased fancy of weak humanity. Yet, for all that, I do preach a Form-God along with a Formless God with all the boldness my ancient, truly scientific conviction commands, because that boldness is backed by truth, the only Truth.You here in this country are all of you great lovers and admirers of science; you want everything to be scientific in order to be acceptable. The food you eat, the air you breathe, the medicine you use, must be scientifically supplied and applied. But if you want science in everything, why do you not demand science in religion? Why is your religion so unscientific? Forms coming out of a formless God is the most unscientific assertion imaginable.The root of this belief in forms coming out of the formless is buried in the conceit which the new civilization has developed in its average votary. People here do not care to bow in reverence to anything that has a form, hence is a formless Deity so readily believed in. If God had a form, they say, He would be human, and therefore not worth worshiping. Nor do they believe in making an image of God or bowing to it. They will bow to man; they will idolize man, but not God. Every man here idolizes his lady-love, and every lady idolizes her lover, with more or less abject worship. They will worship the picture of a lover or a lady-love day and night, but they will not worship the image of God, even in a picture. They will pay homage to a moving form of Wealth or Physical Beauty or Sensuality, but hate to think of, much less worship, an Image of God. They are worse idolaters than the Hindoos whom they affect to hate as "heathens." They worship idols of money and human flesh; the Hindoos worship idols of God. They worship material forms of mere matter; the Hindoos worship Sanctified Forms of the Divine Spirit or Its Attributes. Let them raise their standards of idol-worship first in order to be worthy to talk of the purely transcendental idolatry of the Hindoos.The Hindoos rarely paint a picture or carve an image of a human being; a human being is not worthy of it, except a Saint or a Gooroo (spiritual guide); but they paint their God and make His Image, and worship it with all internal and external homage.We are all denounced as idolaters; but we are idolaters to-day, in spite of all the influence of civilization and Christian bigotry brought to bear upon us, as good idolaters today as we were ten thousand years ago. The idols and idolatry of ancient Greece, Rome and Egypt have been swept away; but the idols of the Hindoo-God still flourish and will flourish to the end of time, as they flourished time out of mind.What is the reason? Whence is this extraordinary vitality of Hindoo idolatry? Because it is not idolatry in the sense it is understood by "civilized" Westerners. We worship the images of the attribute-manifestations of the ONE God, of the ONE Deity, of the ONE Supreme Being, who pervades the universe, who originally is with Form and Formless at the same time. We worship Krishna, above all, in His Image as He manifested Himself and walked on earth among men 5,000 years ago; Krishna, whose miraculous deeds of love, power and valor no incarnation, either in the West or in the East, ever could enact or even imitate, before His time or even after His ascension to Heaven, up to to-day. We love this Krishna, the Seed and Soul of the Universe, the Basic Principle of creation; we believe in Him and in the potency of His Name.Love Him, dear Reader, because He loves you more than anyone you meet here on earth.My Krishna bless you all!ContentsSREE KRISHNA THE LORD OF LOVE PART I.PREFACEINTRODUCTORY.SECTION I. THE CONCRETE AND ABSTRACT GOD.SECTION II. THE SCIENCE OF CREATION.SECTION III. THE STEPS OF CREATION.SECTION IV. THE CYCLIC MOTION OF CHANGES.SECTION V. THE GOLDEN AGE.SECTION VI. THE SILVER AGE.SECTION VII. THE CASTE SYSTEM.SECTION VIII. THE FOUR STAGES OF LIFE.SECTION IX. THE COPPER AGE.SECTION X. THE IRON AGE.SECTION XI. MANWANTARA OR THE DELUGE.SECTION XII. THE KALPA CYCLE.SECTION XIII. NATURAL DISSOLUTION.SECTION XIV. MODERN SCIENTIFIC TESTIMONY.SECTION XV. SCIENCE UPHOLDS SHASTRAS.SECTION XVI. PHYSICAL AND ASTRAL BODIES.SECTION XVII. KARMA.SECTION XVIII. REINCARNATION.SECTION XIX. HOW TO DESTROY KARMA.SECTION XX. THE ATOM'S RETURN JOURNEY.SECTION XXI. YOGA.SECTION XXII. BHAKTI YOGA.SECTION XXIII. VAISHNAV, CHRISTIAN OF CHRISTIANS.SECTION XXIV. KRISHNA LEELA.SREE KRISHNA THE LORD OF LOVE PART II.PROEM.CHAPTER I.CHAPTER II.CHAPTER III.CHAPTER IV.CHAPTER V.CHAPTER VI.CHAPTER VII.CHAPTER VIII.CHAPTER IX.CHAPTER X.CHAPTER XI.CHAPTER XII.CHAPTER XIII.CHAPTER XIV.CHAPTER XV.CHAPTER XVI.CHAPTER XVII.CHAPTER XVIII.CHAPTER XIX.CHAPTER XX.CHAPTER XXI.CHAPTER XXII.CHAPTER XXIII.CHAPTER XXIV.CHAPTER XXV.CHAPTER XXVI.CHAPTER XXVII.CHAPTER XXVIII.CHAPTER XXIX.CHAPTER XXX.CHAPTER XXXI.CHAPTER XXXII.CHAPTER XXXIII.Messages and Revelations from Sree KrishnaMESSAGES AND REVELATIONS FROM SREE KRISHNAA HOLY MAN'S PRAYER.A SOUL AND ITS BELOVED.THE FAIR ONE AND HER SOUL.

INTRODUCTORY.LIFE'S SOURCE AND SEARCH.Beloved! I wish to call you "my beloved," whoever you are who have taken up this my love-message to read, for you are the beloved of my Beloved—Krishna. I may not know you, nor you me, and yet we have been together times without number: yet we have loved each other with the truest, the purest, the sweetest love again and again, when we lived in Love, when we had our being in the Ocean of Love, when we were awake in the consciousness of the One Essence which ever pervades us all—Love.Beloved! That state, that realm, in which we lived and knew and loved each other, we have forgotten, and this forgetfulness is the cause of our separateness, our non-recognition, our want of sympathy, our troubles and quarrels. Going into the depth of Silence—Silence within and without us—I have discovered its Secret which is also the Secret of our forgotten Love-Existence. And this my message to you is the revelation of that mystery which our strayed soul is trying to solve through every effort of the life we are living now.Beloved! I humbly lay before you this message to read—to help you to recognize your true self, to help you to find your true goal in this life's race. This message is a magic mirror in which, maybe, you will catch the reflection of your soul's All-Beautiful Image.You are now engaged, my beloved, in reading this message with the same object for which every one of us is just now engaged in doing various things. It is life's one common object for us all—Pleasure. That is the one all-absorbing quest of humanity, nay, of all living creatures, of all creation. We are ever striving, all of us, every minute, to find that one blessing which ever eludes our grasp, ever misses our ken, ever deludes us like the will-o'-the-wisp—the one object of our desire, of predominant, spontaneous, practical, natural interest—Unmixed, Unbroken Happiness.Not only is this quest for happiness ever present within mankind, but also in lower animals, and even in every phase of Nature, more or less pronounced or discernible. Every manifestation of Nature, man or beast, bird or tree or plant, is ever endeavoring to adjust a state of internal disorder and disturbance—I mean ever endeavoring to bring about a sense or instinct of that harmonious equilibrium, which we call Full Satisfaction, Complete Contentment, Absolute Happiness.Now the question may be asked: Why is this universal quest for happiness? How is it that every man or woman or child is every minute seeking some sort of happiness or other? The Hindoo sages have answered this question to the satisfaction of all intelligent human beings. Why is this eternal search for happiness?That answer is: Because the whole universe, of which we are parts, has come out of that Eternal Abode of Happiness, called Bliss, where it had dwelt before creation, like a tree in a seed, and the memory of which dwells still in the inner consciousness of all created beings, though it has dropped out of their outer consciousness.That abode of happiness is called the Abode of Absolute Love; the Hindoo calls it Krishna. The word Krishna, in Sanscrit, comes from the root "karsha"—to draw. Krishna means that which draws us to Itself; and what in the world draws us all more powerfully than Love? It is the "gravitation" of the modern scientist. It is the one source and substance of all magnetism, of all attraction; and when that love is absolutely pure, its power to draw is absolute, too.In seeking even material Pleasure or happiness through life we are ever seeking this Absolute Bliss, only most of us do not know it. The man who devotes his heart and soul to acquiring wealth is, in fact, but striving to attain this blissful state. For what does the would-be millionaire work to make the million but to secure pleasure, the pleasure of good eating, good drinking, good living, good enjoyment—to be happy? He makes the million; but the happiness which he secures, by securing the means of pleasure and by enjoying the pleasures themselves, is not complete. He still feels some void in that happiness, something still wanting in those pleasures to make him fully happy. He therefore piles up more millions, he plunges into newer pleasures, he leaves no stone unturned to find the material objects which will add to his pleasure; and when he has secured all these objects and enjoyed them, he finds himself exactly at the same place where he was before—there is something still wanting to make him completely happy. Finding no newer objects which are likely to add to his happiness, he occupies himself by enjoying what he has already enjoyed over and over again; that is to say, he goes over again the same round of pleasures to delude himself into the belief that that is the best happiness allowed to mortal man.But the delusion is temporary and far from complete. The longing, the search for something still wanting, is present all through that delusion—something unknown, but which he thinks he might know and recognize, if he once found it. But, alas, he does not!Poor Man! He does not know the secret of true happiness, the happiness which is complete in itself, which never ends, which, once secured, never falls short or vanishes, which flows from within the heart through all the channels of the body, out through the pores of it in a continual stream of ecstasy. He does not know that this thing, this unending happiness, is not to be found in material objects; that it cannot be secured by the means or by the instincts of the physical senses, which cognize only material objects.And why? Why is it that material objects fail to give us that true and absolute happiness, fail to satisfy the hunger of the yearning human heart for that unknown something which it feels somehow must exist, but which ever eludes its ken and quest, and which, alas! it does not realize that it once knew, that it once owned by right of heritage?The answer is simple, and ought to be convincing to every thoughtful mind. The answer is: Because material objects are changeful in their nature and principle; because, being nothing but forms of changefulness, they do not possess this permanent, this unchangeable happiness, to give it to those who seek to derive it from them. An object whose very principle is changefulness can afford nothing which is not changeful in its nature. All the pleasures, therefore, that we derive from material objects must necessarily be changeful, which means short-lived, pleasures of short duration, broken pleasure, distinguished by the Hindoos from unbroken pleasure, which, because of its unbrokenness and ecstatic taste, ceases to be called pleasure and assumes the name of Bliss.The question now arises, where is this true happiness to be found, if it cannot be found in material objects? Some modern scientists call this unbroken happiness a delusion and a snare of credulous humanity. Modern science has done much, has done wonders in this Western world. None but a fool will deny the glory of its brilliant achievements. But even among those who admire the wonderful progress of modern science, if there be one who fails to find anything in these products of science which is in any way likely to contribute towards the attainment of contentment by the human mind, that person need not necessarily be a fool. Modern science has excited our wonder, but has failed to make us either contented or happy—contentment and happiness, which are our eternal quest, theoneobject of our life, theonegoal to which all creation is running in a blindfolded race. It should rather be claimed for modern science that it has made its followers outward-looking. It has produced conveniences and comforts of life, which have made all people hanker for them; and many, failing to secure them, make themselves discontented and unhappy. Modern science, in a word, has served only to put obstacles in the way of our attempt to realize that one object of our existence—contentment, which affords true happiness.This leads me to repeat what I have just said, that no true or all-satisfying permanent happiness can be found in material objects, and hence the failure of material scientists to make humanity either contented or happy.Where is, then, this happiness to be found?The answer is: Within ourselves. It cannot be found in anything outside of ourselves. This continual stream of happiness is flowing at all times from our heart of hearts all through our body, but we cannot perceive it, or feel it, because our mind has been covered by the clouds formed out of our hankerings for material objects. Our desire for material pleasures is the only veil that shrouds this fountain of true happiness from our mental vision.But if our desires for material enjoyments be carefully and intelligently analyzed, we can arrive at only one conclusion, and that is that in hankering for material pleasures we are in fact practically hunting for that happiness which, once attained, is ever full, ever satisfying; which, once enjoyed, lays all hankerings for material enjoyments forever at rest. The fact of our material possessions and enjoyments ever leaving within us a wish, more or less pronounced, for something still more enjoyable, still more pleasurable, is the most indirectly direct proof that we are in quest of something which material objects cannot supply; and the fact of this quest being present in all human souls, in all their thoughts and actions at all times forces us to the irresistible conclusion that we once knew or had a taste of the thing we all are eternally searching for; and that, having lost it, we are ever endeavoring to regain it, its absence having rendered us as unhappy and restless as a fish out of its element.This lost object, this once enjoyed state of the human soul, now absent but ever longed for, is—Krishna.It is Krishna—Perfect State of Love or Bliss—that is ever drawing us to Itself. This Krishna was once our home, when this creation, of which we form but atoms, slept for aeons unnumbered in the bosom of Krishna, forming but a part of His will. When those unnumbered aeons were numbered, after these atoms of creation had slept for enough time to rest themselves in that bosom of Absolute Bliss, they were thrust out of that realm into space, to form a universe.They first manifested themselves as Universal Consciousness, which, wanting to be conscious of something, developed into Ego, and Ego developed into the Mind, as no Ego is possible without the faculty of thought, which is the Mind's function. And as thoughts are not possible without objects to think upon, the five fine objects, namely: Sound, Touch, Form, Taste and Smell, came into existence, along with their gross counterparts and compounds, I mean the five elements, namely, Ether, Air, Fire, Water and Earth; while the Mind's channels of communication with these fine and gross forms of matter were developed simultaneously, namely, the five Cognizing Senses: Power of Seeing, (eye), Power of Hearing (ear), Power of Smelling (nose), Power of Tasting (tongue), Power of Feeling (skin), with the five Working Senses, namely, Power of Speaking (vocal organs), Power of Holding (hands), Power of Moving (feet). Power of Excreting and Power of Generating.Thus from Krishna to earth, Krishna's Will took twenty-four steps to assume the form of the universe, and myriad steps more to divide the universe into earth, heaven, stars, planets, sun and moon, man and beast and bird; trees and shrubs and grass; mountains and rivers, which go to make it up.But every particle of this cosmos is conscious, directly or indirectly, in every point, of the home that it has left, the absolute state of Bliss it once has soaked in, the incomparable nectar which it has once tasted. Yes, that memory endures; the memory of that Love Absolute is the cause of all discontent, of all dissatisfaction, of all strife and effort, of all ambition and achievement. It is the cause as well of every philosophy and transcendental thought, of moral and spiritual uplifting, and of developing the human into the Divine.From Krishna have we all come and Krishnaward are we all tending. And all our actions, good, bad or indifferent, are but the feeble steps with which we are all endeavoring to cover the journey back to Krishna—our Home, Sweet Home!—our ever-loved Home, from which we have come away as sorry truants and to which the needle of our soul ever trembles, pointing to us the forgotten path, by which we fled from and by which we are again to return to that Home—Sree Krishna!GOD IS FORMLESS AND HAS A FORM.Thus Krishna is the object we are all seeking through every wish and every act; every moment of our existence we are seeking Krishna. He is the interest which makes life interesting, the one interest which makes life worth living. He is the element of sweetness in the grossest pleasure. He is the highest beatitude which the purest souls attain to. The lover of good eating cannot keep on eating forever to sustain the pleasure that good eating produces; if he did, he would die. The sensation of eating endures as long as the food is on the palate; but the mind alone is the enjoyer of that sensation. The mind alone, likewise, enjoys the pleasure of intoxication, which the dryest and highest priced champagne can afford. A little while and the pleasure of the daintiest of food and the most delicious of drinks is over, giving place to the pain of its loss and the restlessness in the search again for such pleasure!The man who has solved the mystery of true pleasure that needs no re-eating and re-drinking to keep itself up, does not seek to find it in any food, or in any drink, or in any form or means of material enjoyments, knowing that it is the mind alone, affected by material objects, that cognizes pleasure or pain. The pleasure or pain which the mind feels on being brought into contact with the thought or influence of material objects is derived from those objects themselves; and so long as the mind is habituated to draw pleasure from such objects it cannot but come in for some sorrow, too, for objective pleasure is short-lived, and its cessation is sorrow in the least pronounced sense.But we all want only pleasure or happiness; we hate pain or sorrow in any shape. If that is true, and nobody can say it is not, then what we practically want is eternal, unending pleasure; but we seek to find it in objects whose very constituents partake of changeful materials born more of pain than of pleasure.If we can make the mind dwell upon some object which is eternally lovely and lovable, nay, even if we can imagine such an object, mentallycreatesuch an ideal object, and concentrate our mind exclusively upon it, then we can have a taste of that unending happiness which we all are seeking in vain to find in material objects. Then, dwelling on this Changeless Idea, the restless mind becomes fixed and calm; and calmness of mind being happiness, the mind is thus made happy by itself. Then it has known that happiness lies within itself, and within means independent of any concern with outside objects; then it finds that the coarsest meal gives as much pleasure as the daintiest of dinners, and that Adam's Ale is a more delicious drink than the highest-priced champagne. It has then learned to drink the champagne of the soul, the least taste of which makes one think the taste of the most delicious wine and food to be all tasteless.But from such transcendental nonsense, as the materialist would call it, let us come down for awhile to analyze matter, the God of the materialist. Let us for awhile examine the making and the mechanism of the universe, and try to trace in the grossest matter the existence of this Perfect Love or Happiness.I have already told you of the making of the universe, that it is made up of twenty-four principles; namely, Love, Universal Consciousness, Ego, Mind, the Ten Senses, the Five Objects and the Five Elements. I have also told you very briefly the process of creation from Love to earth. I need now tell you that every succeeding principle, as it is developed, contains the preceding principle or principles. A grain or earth therefore is as good as the whole universe in regard to its composition. There is but this difference between the universe and an atom of it, that in the universe all the passages of its twenty-four principles are fully opened, while in the atom all these passages are closed. But motion is the principal law of creation, of all creation, as every particle of it is ever moving in the form of change. The atom of earth, which is the smallest form of moving manifestation of Love through finer and grosser matter, moves backward now through grosser and then through finer forms of love-manifestations into the Ocean of Love again, from which it had originally started.The process of this backward motion of material atom is the opening of the passages of its composing principles through repeated reincarnations. To develop from a grain of earth into a blade of grass is the first step, in which only one passage, that of Feeling, is opened. The blade of grass draws by the opening of this passage juice from the earth for its sustenance. Upward through myriad forms of life—shrubs, plants, vegetables, trees, lower animals, etc.—that atom travels, to develop into the first savage man, in whom the principle called Mind is for the first time opened, and along with it are opened the passages of Ego and Intelligence (called Intellect in individual souls); for all these three principles are close co-workers.The most important stage of evolution is man himself, for in man alone are the passages of all these twenty-four principles more or less open. And hence it is that man is called the miniature universe. From savage man to civilized man, from civilized man to religious man, from religious man to spiritual man, from spiritual man to perfect, all loveful man, the process involves again innumerable incarnations. It is the perfect, all-loveful man, that reaches the original starting point and merges in the Ocean of Love called Krishna.I am now about to put before you a proposition which at first sight may perhaps shock you; but I assure you that, if you can manage to get over the first shock, by the aid of an open mind and calm consideration, you may find that proposition to contain the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. My proposition is this: If this "formful" universe—if that word may be allowed—formful in every detail, has come out of God, or Krishna, or Love, can it be possible that that Source of the universe is perfectly formless? If formless, whence have these form-manifestations of that formless Deity come? How can forms come out of anything void of all forms? That is a hard nut to crack for Western theologians; while material scientists do not care to call that a nut at all, for they have learned to see nothing beyond matter.I want you to think over this question with a view to draw the right deduction. Meanwhile, I beg to submit a few suggestions which may be of help in drawing these deductions. Forms coming out of anything formless is as absurd to common sense as it is to higher, otherwise called divine, or spiritual science. Therefore the producing cause of the universe, the first principle, is notformless, buthasa Form. It has even a form like the form of a man, a form most perfect in every feature, a form of which the most exquisitely beautiful and divine human form is but a coarse, crude counterpart. Man has been made after the image of his Maker, says the Bible. The idea has been borrowed from the Hindoo scriptures, which in their principles are nothing if not scientific in propounding principles.The Veda says that the Supreme Deity is both formless and with form at the same time. Just as the sun in its orb is the concrete centre of its abstract, infinite self in its manifestation of light and heat, so is the Supreme Deity, of which the sun is but a physical reflection, the Concrete Centre of His Abstract Infinite Self of His Effulgence, called Love, which pervades the whole universe and all space, as the basic principle of all Existence.As the sun (the orb) taken together with its light and heat should be called the sun, and not the mere orb should be called the sun; so Krishna, the Supreme Deity, should be taken together with His Central Form and His All-Pervading Effulgence— Love—to be called Krishna. It will be as wrong to regard the orb only as the sun, that is, the orb minus its effulgence and heat, to be the sun, as to regard this Form of Krishna (the Centre of Himself) minus the effulgence—all-pervading Love—to be Krishna. Thus Krishna, like His physical light-reflection, the sun, is Infinite, even though He has a finite-looking Form-Centre.The fear entertained by most people in the West, that the form carries with it an idea of finiteness, is not true in regard to Krishna's Form. Not only is Krishna Infinite in His effulgence, but the Image of his Central Form dwells in every particle of that effulgence, called Love. Besides, nothing in this universe is finite.I shall, in succeeding pages, try to prove to you the fact that the Supreme Being has a concrete-looking Form-Centre, for two reasons. One is to support the proposition that no form can come out of anything formless, and the other is that all forms in creation, from a blade of grass to a divine man, are more or less imperfect manifestations of the Central Form from which they have sprung. From the blade of grass upward, the process of evolution discovers more and more outward resemblance and inward affinity to the Form and attributes of the Author of the universe. Hence it is true that man is made in the Image of his Maker.In the upward evolution of the man-form, the refinement of mental, moral, intellectual and spiritual attributes contributes more and more towards the man-form being made a more and more perfect image of his Maker, both externally and internally.Krishna in Form and in Love-Effulgence is present as much in a grain of earth, in a blade of grass, in a beast, as in man. Only that Form is more or less covered in the lower life-forms, on account of many of the composing principles of their bodies being unopened; while in the man, all the principles being opened, the man-form looks more like the form of God. Some people refuse to believe that the Supreme Deity has a form like that of man, because God, with a human form would be lowered in their estimation. These devout people forget that the human form is but an imperfect picture of God's form, instead of God's form being a copy of the human form. So God need not take the trouble of assuming an imperfect reflection of His own Perfect Form.Dear Reader! Some of you may say that it is foolishness and temerity on my part to try to prove that God has a Form before people who are in the vanguard of civilization, and many of whom think that the very idea of God is but a diseased fancy of weak humanity. Yet, for all that, I do preach a Form-God along with a Formless God with all the boldness my ancient, truly scientific conviction commands, because that boldness is backed by truth, the only Truth.You here in this country are all of you great lovers and admirers of science; you want everything to be scientific in order to be acceptable. The food you eat, the air you breathe, the medicine you use, must be scientifically supplied and applied. But if you want science in everything, why do you not demand science in religion? Why is your religion so unscientific? Forms coming out of a formless God is the most unscientific assertion imaginable.The root of this belief in forms coming out of the formless is buried in the conceit which the new civilization has developed in its average votary. People here do not care to bow in reverence to anything that has a form, hence is a formless Deity so readily believed in. If God had a form, they say, He would be human, and therefore not worth worshiping. Nor do they believe in making an image of God or bowing to it. They will bow to man; they will idolize man, but not God. Every man here idolizes his lady-love, and every lady idolizes her lover, with more or less abject worship. They will worship the picture of a lover or a lady-love day and night, but they will not worship the image of God, even in a picture. They will pay homage to a moving form of Wealth or Physical Beauty or Sensuality, but hate to think of, much less worship, an Image of God. They are worse idolaters than the Hindoos whom they affect to hate as "heathens." They worship idols of money and human flesh; the Hindoos worship idols of God. They worship material forms of mere matter; the Hindoos worship Sanctified Forms of the Divine Spirit or Its Attributes. Let them raise their standards of idol-worship first in order to be worthy to talk of the purely transcendental idolatry of the Hindoos.The Hindoos rarely paint a picture or carve an image of a human being; a human being is not worthy of it, except a Saint or a Gooroo (spiritual guide); but they paint their God and make His Image, and worship it with all internal and external homage.We are all denounced as idolaters; but we are idolaters to-day, in spite of all the influence of civilization and Christian bigotry brought to bear upon us, as good idolaters today as we were ten thousand years ago. The idols and idolatry of ancient Greece, Rome and Egypt have been swept away; but the idols of the Hindoo-God still flourish and will flourish to the end of time, as they flourished time out of mind.What is the reason? Whence is this extraordinary vitality of Hindoo idolatry? Because it is not idolatry in the sense it is understood by "civilized" Westerners. We worship the images of the attribute-manifestations of the ONE God, of the ONE Deity, of the ONE Supreme Being, who pervades the universe, who originally is with Form and Formless at the same time. We worship Krishna, above all, in His Image as He manifested Himself and walked on earth among men 5,000 years ago; Krishna, whose miraculous deeds of love, power and valor no incarnation, either in the West or in the East, ever could enact or even imitate, before His time or even after His ascension to Heaven, up to to-day. We love this Krishna, the Seed and Soul of the Universe, the Basic Principle of creation; we believe in Him and in the potency of His Name.Love Him, dear Reader, because He loves you more than anyone you meet here on earth.My Krishna bless you all!ContentsSREE KRISHNA THE LORD OF LOVE PART I.PREFACEINTRODUCTORY.SECTION I. THE CONCRETE AND ABSTRACT GOD.SECTION II. THE SCIENCE OF CREATION.SECTION III. THE STEPS OF CREATION.SECTION IV. THE CYCLIC MOTION OF CHANGES.SECTION V. THE GOLDEN AGE.SECTION VI. THE SILVER AGE.SECTION VII. THE CASTE SYSTEM.SECTION VIII. THE FOUR STAGES OF LIFE.SECTION IX. THE COPPER AGE.SECTION X. THE IRON AGE.SECTION XI. MANWANTARA OR THE DELUGE.SECTION XII. THE KALPA CYCLE.SECTION XIII. NATURAL DISSOLUTION.SECTION XIV. MODERN SCIENTIFIC TESTIMONY.SECTION XV. SCIENCE UPHOLDS SHASTRAS.SECTION XVI. PHYSICAL AND ASTRAL BODIES.SECTION XVII. KARMA.SECTION XVIII. REINCARNATION.SECTION XIX. HOW TO DESTROY KARMA.SECTION XX. THE ATOM'S RETURN JOURNEY.SECTION XXI. YOGA.SECTION XXII. BHAKTI YOGA.SECTION XXIII. VAISHNAV, CHRISTIAN OF CHRISTIANS.SECTION XXIV. KRISHNA LEELA.SREE KRISHNA THE LORD OF LOVE PART II.PROEM.CHAPTER I.CHAPTER II.CHAPTER III.CHAPTER IV.CHAPTER V.CHAPTER VI.CHAPTER VII.CHAPTER VIII.CHAPTER IX.CHAPTER X.CHAPTER XI.CHAPTER XII.CHAPTER XIII.CHAPTER XIV.CHAPTER XV.CHAPTER XVI.CHAPTER XVII.CHAPTER XVIII.CHAPTER XIX.CHAPTER XX.CHAPTER XXI.CHAPTER XXII.CHAPTER XXIII.CHAPTER XXIV.CHAPTER XXV.CHAPTER XXVI.CHAPTER XXVII.CHAPTER XXVIII.CHAPTER XXIX.CHAPTER XXX.CHAPTER XXXI.CHAPTER XXXII.CHAPTER XXXIII.Messages and Revelations from Sree KrishnaMESSAGES AND REVELATIONS FROM SREE KRISHNAA HOLY MAN'S PRAYER.A SOUL AND ITS BELOVED.THE FAIR ONE AND HER SOUL.

LIFE'S SOURCE AND SEARCH.

Beloved! I wish to call you "my beloved," whoever you are who have taken up this my love-message to read, for you are the beloved of my Beloved—Krishna. I may not know you, nor you me, and yet we have been together times without number: yet we have loved each other with the truest, the purest, the sweetest love again and again, when we lived in Love, when we had our being in the Ocean of Love, when we were awake in the consciousness of the One Essence which ever pervades us all—Love.

Beloved! That state, that realm, in which we lived and knew and loved each other, we have forgotten, and this forgetfulness is the cause of our separateness, our non-recognition, our want of sympathy, our troubles and quarrels. Going into the depth of Silence—Silence within and without us—I have discovered its Secret which is also the Secret of our forgotten Love-Existence. And this my message to you is the revelation of that mystery which our strayed soul is trying to solve through every effort of the life we are living now.

Beloved! I humbly lay before you this message to read—to help you to recognize your true self, to help you to find your true goal in this life's race. This message is a magic mirror in which, maybe, you will catch the reflection of your soul's All-Beautiful Image.

You are now engaged, my beloved, in reading this message with the same object for which every one of us is just now engaged in doing various things. It is life's one common object for us all—Pleasure. That is the one all-absorbing quest of humanity, nay, of all living creatures, of all creation. We are ever striving, all of us, every minute, to find that one blessing which ever eludes our grasp, ever misses our ken, ever deludes us like the will-o'-the-wisp—the one object of our desire, of predominant, spontaneous, practical, natural interest—Unmixed, Unbroken Happiness.

Not only is this quest for happiness ever present within mankind, but also in lower animals, and even in every phase of Nature, more or less pronounced or discernible. Every manifestation of Nature, man or beast, bird or tree or plant, is ever endeavoring to adjust a state of internal disorder and disturbance—I mean ever endeavoring to bring about a sense or instinct of that harmonious equilibrium, which we call Full Satisfaction, Complete Contentment, Absolute Happiness.

Now the question may be asked: Why is this universal quest for happiness? How is it that every man or woman or child is every minute seeking some sort of happiness or other? The Hindoo sages have answered this question to the satisfaction of all intelligent human beings. Why is this eternal search for happiness?

That answer is: Because the whole universe, of which we are parts, has come out of that Eternal Abode of Happiness, called Bliss, where it had dwelt before creation, like a tree in a seed, and the memory of which dwells still in the inner consciousness of all created beings, though it has dropped out of their outer consciousness.

That abode of happiness is called the Abode of Absolute Love; the Hindoo calls it Krishna. The word Krishna, in Sanscrit, comes from the root "karsha"—to draw. Krishna means that which draws us to Itself; and what in the world draws us all more powerfully than Love? It is the "gravitation" of the modern scientist. It is the one source and substance of all magnetism, of all attraction; and when that love is absolutely pure, its power to draw is absolute, too.

In seeking even material Pleasure or happiness through life we are ever seeking this Absolute Bliss, only most of us do not know it. The man who devotes his heart and soul to acquiring wealth is, in fact, but striving to attain this blissful state. For what does the would-be millionaire work to make the million but to secure pleasure, the pleasure of good eating, good drinking, good living, good enjoyment—to be happy? He makes the million; but the happiness which he secures, by securing the means of pleasure and by enjoying the pleasures themselves, is not complete. He still feels some void in that happiness, something still wanting in those pleasures to make him fully happy. He therefore piles up more millions, he plunges into newer pleasures, he leaves no stone unturned to find the material objects which will add to his pleasure; and when he has secured all these objects and enjoyed them, he finds himself exactly at the same place where he was before—there is something still wanting to make him completely happy. Finding no newer objects which are likely to add to his happiness, he occupies himself by enjoying what he has already enjoyed over and over again; that is to say, he goes over again the same round of pleasures to delude himself into the belief that that is the best happiness allowed to mortal man.

But the delusion is temporary and far from complete. The longing, the search for something still wanting, is present all through that delusion—something unknown, but which he thinks he might know and recognize, if he once found it. But, alas, he does not!

Poor Man! He does not know the secret of true happiness, the happiness which is complete in itself, which never ends, which, once secured, never falls short or vanishes, which flows from within the heart through all the channels of the body, out through the pores of it in a continual stream of ecstasy. He does not know that this thing, this unending happiness, is not to be found in material objects; that it cannot be secured by the means or by the instincts of the physical senses, which cognize only material objects.

And why? Why is it that material objects fail to give us that true and absolute happiness, fail to satisfy the hunger of the yearning human heart for that unknown something which it feels somehow must exist, but which ever eludes its ken and quest, and which, alas! it does not realize that it once knew, that it once owned by right of heritage?

The answer is simple, and ought to be convincing to every thoughtful mind. The answer is: Because material objects are changeful in their nature and principle; because, being nothing but forms of changefulness, they do not possess this permanent, this unchangeable happiness, to give it to those who seek to derive it from them. An object whose very principle is changefulness can afford nothing which is not changeful in its nature. All the pleasures, therefore, that we derive from material objects must necessarily be changeful, which means short-lived, pleasures of short duration, broken pleasure, distinguished by the Hindoos from unbroken pleasure, which, because of its unbrokenness and ecstatic taste, ceases to be called pleasure and assumes the name of Bliss.

The question now arises, where is this true happiness to be found, if it cannot be found in material objects? Some modern scientists call this unbroken happiness a delusion and a snare of credulous humanity. Modern science has done much, has done wonders in this Western world. None but a fool will deny the glory of its brilliant achievements. But even among those who admire the wonderful progress of modern science, if there be one who fails to find anything in these products of science which is in any way likely to contribute towards the attainment of contentment by the human mind, that person need not necessarily be a fool. Modern science has excited our wonder, but has failed to make us either contented or happy—contentment and happiness, which are our eternal quest, theoneobject of our life, theonegoal to which all creation is running in a blindfolded race. It should rather be claimed for modern science that it has made its followers outward-looking. It has produced conveniences and comforts of life, which have made all people hanker for them; and many, failing to secure them, make themselves discontented and unhappy. Modern science, in a word, has served only to put obstacles in the way of our attempt to realize that one object of our existence—contentment, which affords true happiness.

This leads me to repeat what I have just said, that no true or all-satisfying permanent happiness can be found in material objects, and hence the failure of material scientists to make humanity either contented or happy.

Where is, then, this happiness to be found?

The answer is: Within ourselves. It cannot be found in anything outside of ourselves. This continual stream of happiness is flowing at all times from our heart of hearts all through our body, but we cannot perceive it, or feel it, because our mind has been covered by the clouds formed out of our hankerings for material objects. Our desire for material pleasures is the only veil that shrouds this fountain of true happiness from our mental vision.

But if our desires for material enjoyments be carefully and intelligently analyzed, we can arrive at only one conclusion, and that is that in hankering for material pleasures we are in fact practically hunting for that happiness which, once attained, is ever full, ever satisfying; which, once enjoyed, lays all hankerings for material enjoyments forever at rest. The fact of our material possessions and enjoyments ever leaving within us a wish, more or less pronounced, for something still more enjoyable, still more pleasurable, is the most indirectly direct proof that we are in quest of something which material objects cannot supply; and the fact of this quest being present in all human souls, in all their thoughts and actions at all times forces us to the irresistible conclusion that we once knew or had a taste of the thing we all are eternally searching for; and that, having lost it, we are ever endeavoring to regain it, its absence having rendered us as unhappy and restless as a fish out of its element.

This lost object, this once enjoyed state of the human soul, now absent but ever longed for, is—Krishna.

It is Krishna—Perfect State of Love or Bliss—that is ever drawing us to Itself. This Krishna was once our home, when this creation, of which we form but atoms, slept for aeons unnumbered in the bosom of Krishna, forming but a part of His will. When those unnumbered aeons were numbered, after these atoms of creation had slept for enough time to rest themselves in that bosom of Absolute Bliss, they were thrust out of that realm into space, to form a universe.

They first manifested themselves as Universal Consciousness, which, wanting to be conscious of something, developed into Ego, and Ego developed into the Mind, as no Ego is possible without the faculty of thought, which is the Mind's function. And as thoughts are not possible without objects to think upon, the five fine objects, namely: Sound, Touch, Form, Taste and Smell, came into existence, along with their gross counterparts and compounds, I mean the five elements, namely, Ether, Air, Fire, Water and Earth; while the Mind's channels of communication with these fine and gross forms of matter were developed simultaneously, namely, the five Cognizing Senses: Power of Seeing, (eye), Power of Hearing (ear), Power of Smelling (nose), Power of Tasting (tongue), Power of Feeling (skin), with the five Working Senses, namely, Power of Speaking (vocal organs), Power of Holding (hands), Power of Moving (feet). Power of Excreting and Power of Generating.

Thus from Krishna to earth, Krishna's Will took twenty-four steps to assume the form of the universe, and myriad steps more to divide the universe into earth, heaven, stars, planets, sun and moon, man and beast and bird; trees and shrubs and grass; mountains and rivers, which go to make it up.

But every particle of this cosmos is conscious, directly or indirectly, in every point, of the home that it has left, the absolute state of Bliss it once has soaked in, the incomparable nectar which it has once tasted. Yes, that memory endures; the memory of that Love Absolute is the cause of all discontent, of all dissatisfaction, of all strife and effort, of all ambition and achievement. It is the cause as well of every philosophy and transcendental thought, of moral and spiritual uplifting, and of developing the human into the Divine.

From Krishna have we all come and Krishnaward are we all tending. And all our actions, good, bad or indifferent, are but the feeble steps with which we are all endeavoring to cover the journey back to Krishna—our Home, Sweet Home!—our ever-loved Home, from which we have come away as sorry truants and to which the needle of our soul ever trembles, pointing to us the forgotten path, by which we fled from and by which we are again to return to that Home—Sree Krishna!

GOD IS FORMLESS AND HAS A FORM.

Thus Krishna is the object we are all seeking through every wish and every act; every moment of our existence we are seeking Krishna. He is the interest which makes life interesting, the one interest which makes life worth living. He is the element of sweetness in the grossest pleasure. He is the highest beatitude which the purest souls attain to. The lover of good eating cannot keep on eating forever to sustain the pleasure that good eating produces; if he did, he would die. The sensation of eating endures as long as the food is on the palate; but the mind alone is the enjoyer of that sensation. The mind alone, likewise, enjoys the pleasure of intoxication, which the dryest and highest priced champagne can afford. A little while and the pleasure of the daintiest of food and the most delicious of drinks is over, giving place to the pain of its loss and the restlessness in the search again for such pleasure!

The man who has solved the mystery of true pleasure that needs no re-eating and re-drinking to keep itself up, does not seek to find it in any food, or in any drink, or in any form or means of material enjoyments, knowing that it is the mind alone, affected by material objects, that cognizes pleasure or pain. The pleasure or pain which the mind feels on being brought into contact with the thought or influence of material objects is derived from those objects themselves; and so long as the mind is habituated to draw pleasure from such objects it cannot but come in for some sorrow, too, for objective pleasure is short-lived, and its cessation is sorrow in the least pronounced sense.

But we all want only pleasure or happiness; we hate pain or sorrow in any shape. If that is true, and nobody can say it is not, then what we practically want is eternal, unending pleasure; but we seek to find it in objects whose very constituents partake of changeful materials born more of pain than of pleasure.

If we can make the mind dwell upon some object which is eternally lovely and lovable, nay, even if we can imagine such an object, mentallycreatesuch an ideal object, and concentrate our mind exclusively upon it, then we can have a taste of that unending happiness which we all are seeking in vain to find in material objects. Then, dwelling on this Changeless Idea, the restless mind becomes fixed and calm; and calmness of mind being happiness, the mind is thus made happy by itself. Then it has known that happiness lies within itself, and within means independent of any concern with outside objects; then it finds that the coarsest meal gives as much pleasure as the daintiest of dinners, and that Adam's Ale is a more delicious drink than the highest-priced champagne. It has then learned to drink the champagne of the soul, the least taste of which makes one think the taste of the most delicious wine and food to be all tasteless.

But from such transcendental nonsense, as the materialist would call it, let us come down for awhile to analyze matter, the God of the materialist. Let us for awhile examine the making and the mechanism of the universe, and try to trace in the grossest matter the existence of this Perfect Love or Happiness.

I have already told you of the making of the universe, that it is made up of twenty-four principles; namely, Love, Universal Consciousness, Ego, Mind, the Ten Senses, the Five Objects and the Five Elements. I have also told you very briefly the process of creation from Love to earth. I need now tell you that every succeeding principle, as it is developed, contains the preceding principle or principles. A grain or earth therefore is as good as the whole universe in regard to its composition. There is but this difference between the universe and an atom of it, that in the universe all the passages of its twenty-four principles are fully opened, while in the atom all these passages are closed. But motion is the principal law of creation, of all creation, as every particle of it is ever moving in the form of change. The atom of earth, which is the smallest form of moving manifestation of Love through finer and grosser matter, moves backward now through grosser and then through finer forms of love-manifestations into the Ocean of Love again, from which it had originally started.

The process of this backward motion of material atom is the opening of the passages of its composing principles through repeated reincarnations. To develop from a grain of earth into a blade of grass is the first step, in which only one passage, that of Feeling, is opened. The blade of grass draws by the opening of this passage juice from the earth for its sustenance. Upward through myriad forms of life—shrubs, plants, vegetables, trees, lower animals, etc.—that atom travels, to develop into the first savage man, in whom the principle called Mind is for the first time opened, and along with it are opened the passages of Ego and Intelligence (called Intellect in individual souls); for all these three principles are close co-workers.

The most important stage of evolution is man himself, for in man alone are the passages of all these twenty-four principles more or less open. And hence it is that man is called the miniature universe. From savage man to civilized man, from civilized man to religious man, from religious man to spiritual man, from spiritual man to perfect, all loveful man, the process involves again innumerable incarnations. It is the perfect, all-loveful man, that reaches the original starting point and merges in the Ocean of Love called Krishna.

I am now about to put before you a proposition which at first sight may perhaps shock you; but I assure you that, if you can manage to get over the first shock, by the aid of an open mind and calm consideration, you may find that proposition to contain the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. My proposition is this: If this "formful" universe—if that word may be allowed—formful in every detail, has come out of God, or Krishna, or Love, can it be possible that that Source of the universe is perfectly formless? If formless, whence have these form-manifestations of that formless Deity come? How can forms come out of anything void of all forms? That is a hard nut to crack for Western theologians; while material scientists do not care to call that a nut at all, for they have learned to see nothing beyond matter.

I want you to think over this question with a view to draw the right deduction. Meanwhile, I beg to submit a few suggestions which may be of help in drawing these deductions. Forms coming out of anything formless is as absurd to common sense as it is to higher, otherwise called divine, or spiritual science. Therefore the producing cause of the universe, the first principle, is notformless, buthasa Form. It has even a form like the form of a man, a form most perfect in every feature, a form of which the most exquisitely beautiful and divine human form is but a coarse, crude counterpart. Man has been made after the image of his Maker, says the Bible. The idea has been borrowed from the Hindoo scriptures, which in their principles are nothing if not scientific in propounding principles.

The Veda says that the Supreme Deity is both formless and with form at the same time. Just as the sun in its orb is the concrete centre of its abstract, infinite self in its manifestation of light and heat, so is the Supreme Deity, of which the sun is but a physical reflection, the Concrete Centre of His Abstract Infinite Self of His Effulgence, called Love, which pervades the whole universe and all space, as the basic principle of all Existence.

As the sun (the orb) taken together with its light and heat should be called the sun, and not the mere orb should be called the sun; so Krishna, the Supreme Deity, should be taken together with His Central Form and His All-Pervading Effulgence— Love—to be called Krishna. It will be as wrong to regard the orb only as the sun, that is, the orb minus its effulgence and heat, to be the sun, as to regard this Form of Krishna (the Centre of Himself) minus the effulgence—all-pervading Love—to be Krishna. Thus Krishna, like His physical light-reflection, the sun, is Infinite, even though He has a finite-looking Form-Centre.

The fear entertained by most people in the West, that the form carries with it an idea of finiteness, is not true in regard to Krishna's Form. Not only is Krishna Infinite in His effulgence, but the Image of his Central Form dwells in every particle of that effulgence, called Love. Besides, nothing in this universe is finite.

I shall, in succeeding pages, try to prove to you the fact that the Supreme Being has a concrete-looking Form-Centre, for two reasons. One is to support the proposition that no form can come out of anything formless, and the other is that all forms in creation, from a blade of grass to a divine man, are more or less imperfect manifestations of the Central Form from which they have sprung. From the blade of grass upward, the process of evolution discovers more and more outward resemblance and inward affinity to the Form and attributes of the Author of the universe. Hence it is true that man is made in the Image of his Maker.

In the upward evolution of the man-form, the refinement of mental, moral, intellectual and spiritual attributes contributes more and more towards the man-form being made a more and more perfect image of his Maker, both externally and internally.

Krishna in Form and in Love-Effulgence is present as much in a grain of earth, in a blade of grass, in a beast, as in man. Only that Form is more or less covered in the lower life-forms, on account of many of the composing principles of their bodies being unopened; while in the man, all the principles being opened, the man-form looks more like the form of God. Some people refuse to believe that the Supreme Deity has a form like that of man, because God, with a human form would be lowered in their estimation. These devout people forget that the human form is but an imperfect picture of God's form, instead of God's form being a copy of the human form. So God need not take the trouble of assuming an imperfect reflection of His own Perfect Form.

Dear Reader! Some of you may say that it is foolishness and temerity on my part to try to prove that God has a Form before people who are in the vanguard of civilization, and many of whom think that the very idea of God is but a diseased fancy of weak humanity. Yet, for all that, I do preach a Form-God along with a Formless God with all the boldness my ancient, truly scientific conviction commands, because that boldness is backed by truth, the only Truth.

You here in this country are all of you great lovers and admirers of science; you want everything to be scientific in order to be acceptable. The food you eat, the air you breathe, the medicine you use, must be scientifically supplied and applied. But if you want science in everything, why do you not demand science in religion? Why is your religion so unscientific? Forms coming out of a formless God is the most unscientific assertion imaginable.

The root of this belief in forms coming out of the formless is buried in the conceit which the new civilization has developed in its average votary. People here do not care to bow in reverence to anything that has a form, hence is a formless Deity so readily believed in. If God had a form, they say, He would be human, and therefore not worth worshiping. Nor do they believe in making an image of God or bowing to it. They will bow to man; they will idolize man, but not God. Every man here idolizes his lady-love, and every lady idolizes her lover, with more or less abject worship. They will worship the picture of a lover or a lady-love day and night, but they will not worship the image of God, even in a picture. They will pay homage to a moving form of Wealth or Physical Beauty or Sensuality, but hate to think of, much less worship, an Image of God. They are worse idolaters than the Hindoos whom they affect to hate as "heathens." They worship idols of money and human flesh; the Hindoos worship idols of God. They worship material forms of mere matter; the Hindoos worship Sanctified Forms of the Divine Spirit or Its Attributes. Let them raise their standards of idol-worship first in order to be worthy to talk of the purely transcendental idolatry of the Hindoos.

The Hindoos rarely paint a picture or carve an image of a human being; a human being is not worthy of it, except a Saint or a Gooroo (spiritual guide); but they paint their God and make His Image, and worship it with all internal and external homage.

We are all denounced as idolaters; but we are idolaters to-day, in spite of all the influence of civilization and Christian bigotry brought to bear upon us, as good idolaters today as we were ten thousand years ago. The idols and idolatry of ancient Greece, Rome and Egypt have been swept away; but the idols of the Hindoo-God still flourish and will flourish to the end of time, as they flourished time out of mind.

What is the reason? Whence is this extraordinary vitality of Hindoo idolatry? Because it is not idolatry in the sense it is understood by "civilized" Westerners. We worship the images of the attribute-manifestations of the ONE God, of the ONE Deity, of the ONE Supreme Being, who pervades the universe, who originally is with Form and Formless at the same time. We worship Krishna, above all, in His Image as He manifested Himself and walked on earth among men 5,000 years ago; Krishna, whose miraculous deeds of love, power and valor no incarnation, either in the West or in the East, ever could enact or even imitate, before His time or even after His ascension to Heaven, up to to-day. We love this Krishna, the Seed and Soul of the Universe, the Basic Principle of creation; we believe in Him and in the potency of His Name.

Love Him, dear Reader, because He loves you more than anyone you meet here on earth.

My Krishna bless you all!

ContentsSREE KRISHNA THE LORD OF LOVE PART I.PREFACEINTRODUCTORY.SECTION I. THE CONCRETE AND ABSTRACT GOD.SECTION II. THE SCIENCE OF CREATION.SECTION III. THE STEPS OF CREATION.SECTION IV. THE CYCLIC MOTION OF CHANGES.SECTION V. THE GOLDEN AGE.SECTION VI. THE SILVER AGE.SECTION VII. THE CASTE SYSTEM.SECTION VIII. THE FOUR STAGES OF LIFE.SECTION IX. THE COPPER AGE.SECTION X. THE IRON AGE.SECTION XI. MANWANTARA OR THE DELUGE.SECTION XII. THE KALPA CYCLE.SECTION XIII. NATURAL DISSOLUTION.SECTION XIV. MODERN SCIENTIFIC TESTIMONY.SECTION XV. SCIENCE UPHOLDS SHASTRAS.SECTION XVI. PHYSICAL AND ASTRAL BODIES.SECTION XVII. KARMA.SECTION XVIII. REINCARNATION.SECTION XIX. HOW TO DESTROY KARMA.SECTION XX. THE ATOM'S RETURN JOURNEY.SECTION XXI. YOGA.SECTION XXII. BHAKTI YOGA.SECTION XXIII. VAISHNAV, CHRISTIAN OF CHRISTIANS.SECTION XXIV. KRISHNA LEELA.SREE KRISHNA THE LORD OF LOVE PART II.PROEM.CHAPTER I.CHAPTER II.CHAPTER III.CHAPTER IV.CHAPTER V.CHAPTER VI.CHAPTER VII.CHAPTER VIII.CHAPTER IX.CHAPTER X.CHAPTER XI.CHAPTER XII.CHAPTER XIII.CHAPTER XIV.CHAPTER XV.CHAPTER XVI.CHAPTER XVII.CHAPTER XVIII.CHAPTER XIX.CHAPTER XX.CHAPTER XXI.CHAPTER XXII.CHAPTER XXIII.CHAPTER XXIV.CHAPTER XXV.CHAPTER XXVI.CHAPTER XXVII.CHAPTER XXVIII.CHAPTER XXIX.CHAPTER XXX.CHAPTER XXXI.CHAPTER XXXII.CHAPTER XXXIII.Messages and Revelations from Sree KrishnaMESSAGES AND REVELATIONS FROM SREE KRISHNAA HOLY MAN'S PRAYER.A SOUL AND ITS BELOVED.THE FAIR ONE AND HER SOUL.

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