216 Teachings of Lord Chaitanya

the circumstances, there is no doubt regarding the authority of Srimad Bhag-
watam Puranam. Within five hundred years from the present era, many scholars,
even after the time of Lord Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, have made elaborate
commentaries on the Bhagwatam Puranam with unique scholarship; and the
serious student will do well to make an attempt to go through them, to relish
more happily the transcendental messages from the Bhagwatam.

Srila Viswanath Chakravarty Thakur specifically deals with the original
and pure sex psychology (Adirasa) devoid of all mundane inebriety. The
whole material world is turning on the basic principle of sex life. In the modern human
civilization, sex life is the central point of all activities. Wherever we may
turn our face we see a great prominence of sex life. Therefore, sex life is not
unreal. Its true reality is experienced in the Spiritual World. Material sex life
is but a perverted reflection of the original. The original, therefore, is in the
Absolute Truth; and the Absolute Truth cannot be impersonal and have a
sense of pure sex life. The impersonal monist philosophy has given an indirect
impetus to the abominable mundane sex life, because it has given too much
stress to the impersonality of the Ultimate Truth. The result is that men who
lack knowledge have accepted the perverted sex life as all-in-all without any
information about the actual spiritual form of sex. There is a distinction between
sex life in the diseased condition of material life and that in the spiritual exist-
ence. The Srimad Bhagwatam will gradually elevate the unbiased reader to the
highest perfectional stage of transcendence, above the three modes of material
activities, namely fruitive actions. speculative philosophy, and worshipping
the functional deities as they are inculcated in the Vedic verses.

Srimad Bhagwatam is the embodiment of devotional service to the Supreme
Personality of Godhead, Krishna. It is therefore situated in a superior position
over all other Vedic literature.

The term religiousness includes four primary subjects: namely, (1) pious
activities, (2) economic development, (3) satisfaction of the senses, and (4)
liberation from the material bondage. Religious life is distinguished from the
irreligious life of barbarism, and human life begins from the life of religious-
ness. The four principles of animal life—eating, sleeping, defending and mating
—are common both to the animals and the human beings. Religion is the
extra concern of the human being, and without religion the so-called human
life is no better than that of the animal. Therefore, in real human society there
is some form of religion aiming at self realization, with reference to the eternal
relationship with God.

In the lower stage of human civilization there is always a competition in
