A Locked Treasure Chest

This is an excerpt from Śrīla Nārāyaṇa Gosvāmī Mahārāja’s lecture at the Ātmānanda Yoga Center in New York City on July 12, 1996.

Śrīla Swāmī Mahārāja has given everything in his books. He knew that a child of one year, or two years, or even five years, could not retain all the information. A father or mother save money for their child, keeping it in a locked box. When the child is mature, he will be qualified to take the treasures inside. Before maturity, however, the child would waste that treasure. Similarly, Śrīla Swāmī Mahārāja kept all his treasures in his books. If you want to open them, you should know that the key is in the hands of the bhāgavata (the pure, self-realized devotee).

There are two bhāgavatas–grantha-bhāgavata, the Vedic scriptures, and bhakta-bhāgavata, the pure devotee who embodies those scriptures. Bhakta-bhāgavata is superior, as the key to understanding the scriptures is with bona fide bhaktas who have prema. They can open the lock. Śrīla Swāmī Mahārāja has kept the treasure which Śrīla Rūpa Gosvāmī left in Bhakti-rāsāmṛta-sindhu and his other books, and his own books are full of treasures. In his purports we see all the teachings that are in Śrīla Rūpa Gosvāmī’s books. Śrī Upadeśāmṛta (Nectar of Instruction), for example, gives the process by which we can go to Vṛndāvana and follow Śrīla Rūpa Gosvāmī.

Some persons say, “We are not qualified, and we will never be qualified, to hear about Goloka.” I think that is quite wrong, because Śrīla Swāmī Mahārāja has written about it in his books. When we are matured and qualified, then we can actually taste that nectar and go to that place which Śrīla Rūpa Gosvāmī, Śrīla Kṛṣṇadāsa Kavirāja Gosvāmī, Śrī Vyāsadeva, and Śrīla Bhaktivedānta Swāmī Mahārāja have written about.