19850127 Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 3.23.44

19850127_Srimad_Bhagavatam.3.23.44_Devahuti's_Lamentation_Honolulu_Hawaii_Literal Version.

 The following is a lecture given by His Holiness Jayapataka Swami on January 27th, 1985 in Honolulu, Hawaii. The class begins with a reading from the Srimad Bhagavatam, 3rd Canto, 23rd chapter, 44th verse.

His Holiness Jayapataka Swami:

Translation by His Divine Grace Swami Srila Prabhupada:

After coming back to his hermitage, he divided himself, Kardama Muni, into nine personalities just to give pleasure to Devahuti, the daughter of Manu, who was eager for sex life. In that way he enjoyed with her for many, many years, which passed just like a moment.

PURPORT: Here the daughter of Svāyambhuva Manu, Devahūti, is described as suratotsuka. After traveling with her husband all over the universe, in Mount Meru and the beautiful gardens of the heavenly kingdoms, she naturally became sexually stimulated, and in order to satisfy her sexual desire, Kardama Muni expanded himself into nine forms. Instead of one, he became nine, and nine persons had sexual intercourse with Devahūti for many, many years. It is understood that the sexual appetite of a woman is nine times greater than that of a man. That is clearly indicated here. Otherwise, Kardama Muni would have had no reason to expand himself into nine. Here is another example of yogic power. As the Supreme Personality of Godhead can expand Himself in millions of forms, a yogī can also expand up to nine forms, but not more than that. Another example is that of Saubhari Muni; he also expanded himself into eight forms. But however powerful a yogī may be, he cannot expand himself into more than eight or nine forms. The Supreme Personality of Godhead, however, can expand Himself into millions of forms, ananta-rūpa — innumerable, countless forms — as stated in the Brahma-saṁhitā. No one can compare to the Supreme Personality of Godhead by any conceivable energetic manifestation of power. Thus end the Bhaktivedanta purport to text 44, chapter 23, canto 3, of the Srimad Bhagavatam, in the chapter entitled ‘Devahuti’s lamentation’.

His Holiness Jayapataka Swami:

So now we are discussing the history of Kardama muni, Devahuti, and ultimately the incarnation of Kapila Muni, as remember that Kardama muni had performed austerities for a long time, and finally Visnu Himself appeared, or was it Brahma? Appeared to him and blessed him and then Kardama muni married the daughter. He wanted, he didn’t feel ready to immediately take up renunciation. There was still some seed of desire in his heart but he didn’t want to get married except to someone who was going to be able to assist him becoming Krishna conscious or God conscious, didn’t want to marry just anyone, didn’t want to fall down from the spiritual path, and ultimate issue. So he had a blessing from the Lord Visnu to get Devahuti as a wife and to enjoy with her for sometime and then he would renounce but that the Lord would himself become her son to give the transcendental science to the world. So now we are on the...[1]  of the pastimes, where Kardama muni has taken Devahuti around the universe, showing through his mystic powers different aspects of the universe. So they are now about to produce progeny. So they are enjoying their material happiness, sexual happiness, in their grihasta ashram. So there are many instructions contained within these pastimes. Of course, if we read on we find out that in spite of... nobody who can have a husband like Kardama muni, especially in this Kali Yuga, who is able to take his wife not only to the movies [ HH Jayapataka Swami laughs], or down to the drive-in or something in his whatever porsche..?? you see Kardama muni, in his special ah... airplane, created from his mystic power took his wife all over the universe, showed her that here are the heavenly planets, here is how the universe is... is set up, and then to give her ah... physical satisfaction, even expanded himself into nine forms. So there is no normal, there is nobody practically speaking in this... in this ah… world today who has got that type of ah... mystical power. Still at the very end, Devahuti was lamenting that ah... actually she had failed to get from her husband spiritual knowledge,and so in the end they both did tapasya together to get the Lord as their son. So although in here it is said muhūrtavat, material happiness may occupy our time, make it go very quickly, but then we are still right back where we started from. It just passes the time very nicely. It may be able to satisfy one’s urges temporarily, so that is good if someone is very agitated by material desires to experience what is the actual situation of material desire, what is the... what is it’s limitations, what is the extent of it. So here they are not leaving any tone... stone unturned, so to speak, within the regulative principles, they are fully experiencing material happiness in a bonafide way for a grihasta, with that type of blessings and mystic powers that he has, then ultimately of course their goal is to become ah… liberated. At least that was Devahati’s goal, and that was also his goal. So obviously we can’t imitate Kardama muni in any respect, similarly we don’t in our short life, they are the living lifetime.... lifespan of the demigods, so for them many many years is still just like only a few days as compared to us who are only living just 60-70-80- 50 years or less. For us a few years is a long time, it is a big percentage of our life, but for them many years is nothing because they are living in that… in that age, they are living in a totally different ah… lifespan. Nonetheless they are also trying to utilize the overall period of their life to become God conscious. So this is one of the reasons why a person enters grihasta life. I remember once Srila Prabhupada asked me to leave the room, he was counselling one of the grihastas and he gave some advice on how to ah… practice the grihasta life, gave some book, different things. So when one is in grihasta life there is a licence for enjoying sense gratification , but in the ultimate issue it’s supposed to lead one to renunciation. One may directly enter renunciation, but that is very rare. Normally the material desires plague one very strongly and so it is the safer way to enter into grihasta life, if you have a desire for a progeny, to have followers, to have a family, then that can be dovetailed by being married and having children and raising those children in Krishna consciousness. In fact in Sanskrit, the word putra or putri, the two names for a son or a daughter means that the offspring or the put... who can ah... putra, pu means hell and tra means to deliver. Putri same thing only in the feminine. So someone who can deliver the parents. In this... this case Devahuti’s son was Godhead Himself. He was definitely capable of delivering everyone, what to speak of His parents. Bhaktivinoda Thakur had ah...as a son Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur. Chaitanya Das had as a son Srinivas Acharya on the order of Lord Chaitanya. So sometimes even the grihastas are even given order to have a child by the guru or by some great Vaisnava, and those ah… children, the hope of the parent is that the child would be a transcendental personality. Of course from this first connection, we will find out that the offsprings were girls, and then they did a special tapasya, special penance later. Lord Kapila, He came on His own free will. So similarly we should try to follow the overall life example of Kardama muni and Devahuti when entering into the grihasta ashram, never losing sight you see of ultimate goal of becoming Krishna conscious. And since our lifespan is so short, therefore if we were to completely engage in this type of activities Kardama muni and Devahuti did of sexual relations for many, many years with no holds barred so to speak, then because of our lack of our austerities the chance of us totally forgetting spiritual life would be very, very great. Kardama muni for thousands of years had performed austerities, he had these mystic powers. So just like Bhima, he wanted... he said it’s too difficult for me to observe every Ekadasi, just give me one ekadasi once a year, I can just do it, you know, do a super one, because I may... it gets hard to keep track, (laughter), he was more in... not so much in the brahmanical mode, but more in a mode of passion but a pure devotee no doubt. So he got a benediction like you know... what in in India is the hottest day of the year, the day in the month of May. That without water, without sleeping, 24 hours continually just staying absorbed chanting and fasting, and those other ..s[2] ee rules that are to be followed. Then he observed that ah… totally, nirjala ekadasi, known as the pandava nirjala ekadasi. So then he said that, well that’s equal to 100 ekadasi. So in case he missed any during the year he makes up for that. Let’s say Kardama muni, he didn’t wanted to spend the whole life, his intention wasn’t to spend the whole life in regulated grihastha life, he wanted to just experience… oh phew.. just a few years and then I get back and then whatever was there, I can go back totally into renunciation, just get it over with. It was a little bit of different kind of a situation but he had that austerity behind him just like for instance there is a story about … it’s not exactly the same but there is story about Sankaracarya, that when he was preaching and... and defeating Buddhism, so there was this mistress just like a witch, she was like a mystically powerful yogini in the Buddhist religion, and he was having a debate with her. So she asked him some questions, he had to defeat her in every respect in order to be able to establish his philosophy, that he asked her some...she asked him some questions which only way he could know was if he was a grihasta, if had experienced sexual life, but since at the age of nine he had taken sanyas there was no way he could know that. So he was...he was in a hard put situation according to the story to be able to answer that particular question. So he went into Samadhi, in meditation, he left his body in his spiritual form, and this at time there was a king somewhere who was dying. So just after he left his body, he entered into this dead body, with his mystic power brought it back to life. Nobody realized. It’s just like a person sick, just at the very moment he died and he went in. So everybody thought that the king recovered. So then he went in and ah... he also enjoyed with the kings wife, experienced what was that situation and then the King went... died (laughter). All the time, Sankaracharya since Samadhi goes back in, then defeats that woman and he establishes vedic culture. Of course Sankaracarya is the incarnation of Lord Siva, but at that time when he incarnated it seems that they confined themselves to that particular experience as part of their pastime, it’s something beyond our understanding how that happens.

So sometimes this great yogis and munis, they do some amazing things, but unless we are able to take people around the universe, and expand ourselves in the nine forms and so on, we shouldn’t  just imitate, thinking alright, so now I’ll just , for five years we will just have a total honeymoon, and then after that we’ll renounce or something like that because we don’t have that type of austerity in this modern world, behind, rather I think everyone has already done the opposite. In many cases, it is not everyone, but in many cases the material world this already they are enjoying totally and then little sometimes people are a little bit frustrated, they come, and others are coming just out of knowledge, some have come out of distress, all different situations are there. So Prabhupada has given us the opportunity of practicing Krishna consciousness, that whether we are in the grihastha ashram or whether we are in the renounced ashram, if we practice it perfectly, we can go back to godhead, at any time. This system is a little bit risk... risky if in the middle of it one were to leave the body, then one ah… would have a hard time going back to Godhead because at time their consciousness is absorbed in the mood of sense gratification. Although Kardama muni took that risk, but as I say, he again had... that time was different age, and people lived the total lifespan ah… he had the blessings of Visnu behind him and great austerities, and he also had the benediction that he was going to have Visnu as his son. Well from this first attempt only daughters were born, then next time they were very ah... careful to try to produce a son, and they were of course hoping that Visnu would come in that next ah... birth.

So that’s a basic kind of overview of the situation, the ah… power of the yogis to expand themselves and do wonderful things, we can see that although these abilities are there, then ultimately the real thing is to connect with Krishna, who has got unlimited forms. Once we are reunited in our relationship as eternal servitor of Krishna, that is actually our complete perfection, and whether we have ah… mystic power, at that time of course one gets the mystic power, just like ah... Narada muni he also said that when he went to see Krishna at Dwaraka, he went to each of the palaces of Krishna and in each of the palaces he found Krishna was doing something totally different. So Yogi may expand in the nine, ten or eight or whatever of these forms, but they only have one consciousness. It’s not like one form is feeling happiness, and the other is feeling... it may have multiple sensual perception, but the consciousness is one, so like if one is feeling pain, you know that pain would be felt you know by all, because there is one common consciousness. It’s just that they are able to somehow expand into ten forms, but they won’t be feeling different emotions. Emotionally they will be in one consciousness. It’s like we have of course two arms, but most people are like right handed or left handed, and some drummers they become what do you call that ambidextrous where they they... just they can play different beats with each hand, you see which normally it’s like they are both working independently practically. So somehow they are able to do the similar type of thing where they are ambidextrous in each form, that each form can work simultaneously, and do different things, But emotionally the consciousness is still one person. When Krishna expands each separate form, it’s totally independent of the next, yet simultaneously, the same, it’s something which is totally inconceivable to even a great yogi, a pure devotee, liberated, mystical, perfected person like Narada muni. When he went around and saw Krishna, laughing in one house and then feeling very compassionate in the next house, and going in each one, displaying a totally different emotion, one place He is dressing up to go out and spy on and see what the citizens are thinking about what is going on, one place He is... all different kinds of pastimes are going on, totally different from the next. Then he ah... he became totally amazed at the… at the potency of Krishna, that how each of these forms, is not like a yogi’s expanding. He explained that it is totally different. Krishna’s each expansion is full and complete, whereas the yogi’s expansion is not actually independent of the others totally. They are not full and complete separate entities, it’s still one entity with just able to make nine or whatever eight forms, but the ah… expansions of Krishna, they are unlimited and each unlimited form has got the total potentiality, you see. It’s the difference between having a multi user computer where we have multi terminals, and having you know unlimited separate, separate ah… like what you call those, like mainframes computers, each one has go the full potential, it is not dependent on the other. So yogi is kind of like a multi terminal expansion, still one.. one main, what you say the CPU, Central Processing Unit, but it has multi forms, but Krishna He is totally independent. Each form, each one is ah... simultaneously as good as the next and able to manifest its own pastimes ah… without any dependence on any other form. So that’s pretty inconceivable how that could happen, but we can get about some kind of an idea that Krishna’s potency is unlimited, and the yogi’s potency is limited, they don’t have the same potency as Krishna, but they definitely have more potency than normal conditioned human beings who haven’t entered into ah… the brahminical culture. So rather than just trying to achieve that intermediate stage of just achieving mystic powers, which you can get automatically by being a pure devotee of Krishna, just like Narada muni achieved. But Narada Muni although he had those mystic powers, it wasn’t ah... that he needed to utilize them very often, we don’t find ah... I don’t know of any such instances when Narada Muni felt the need for ah... manifesting, although he mentioned he had them, sometimes he must have tried them out because he knew the difference between his mystic powers and Krishna’s. We don’t find that he needed them, he rather depended upon Krishna. In his preaching he would travel around and he would be preaching and ah… whenever it was necessary for his particular service he used his power of travelling, apart from that he didn’t use very much ah… his mystic powers except in rare instances, like when he gave mrigrari the vision that ah... what would happen to him in the future as the result of his karma and so on. So someone who is a pure devotee, they are given the mystic powers, because they won’t misuse them, they won’t fall down even though if have them, only for devotional service sometimes they utilize them.But the yogi sometimes they tend to, when they get mystic powers, to misuse them for sense gratification and as such sometimes they fall down from their platform. For instance we find that in the life of Pandu, when he went into the forest for hunting there was a... a male and female deer, are having sexual intercourse and at that time he shot the male... he shot the deer. It turned out that there were two ah… husband-wife, who through their austerities had achieved mystic powers, had turned themselves into the form of deer so that in public they could wander around in the forest and have sex, which they couldn’t do in the human form because it would… wouldn’t be appropriate at all. They wanted to maintain the vedic standard, but unfortunately for them, they got killed. Of course while they were dying they cursed Pandu for shooting them in that state. In this way sometimes we find that they get some mystic power and they use it for reasons which are not totally ah... Krishna conscious. In the case of Kardama Muni of course, they said that there was a planned program, just in a short time he wanted to finish of his material desires and then to totally renounce and he was assured that he would get liberation in the end. So that kind of an assurance behind him, so he took this particular method. Some of this other, they get this mystic power, they totally lose sight, of ah... going back to Krishna and they get absorbed in ah... material activities, and sometimes they don’t recover, or that delays them for a long time. Saubara muni due to offenses of Vaisnavas, he left his austerities and he also got married to 49 queens, and he... and ah... it took him, we don’t hear after that exactly about his spiritual practices, it took a long time to recover for him, but definitely he was delayed for a very long time. His fall-down was due to offending Garuda. Therefore we are advised not to desire mystic powers. Today in America people seem to have... active exploiting different forms of sense gratification. Some people are already tired of it. So now the movies are showing a trend towards mystic powers. The Force, so many other things, the people want to have mystic powers, these different movies that I hear about seem to be showing some kind of mystical things happening. So that’s a normal trend, first one one’s sense gratification in an ordinary way, then be able to have mystic powers, you can have sense gratification in a bigger way, then the next stage after that is to want liberation. So the Buddhist yogis, they also get mystic powers, therefore they are able to convince people. Normal people if they see some mystic power they become awe-struck and then they, just like the scientist have been able to convince the people by showing some unusual feats, through scientific and technological ah... advancements, and more or less they have awestruck the people by their practi... you know, almost mystical power. Now we may think, well that is not mystical, it’s just a manipulation of matter and science, also mystical means what, it’s nothing, except also the manipulation of matter. It’s just that through vibration, through certain austerities, Prabhupada said it is a mechanism, if you know the mechanics of it ,you can do it, but to get that type of mental and psychic control to know those subtle mechanics of the material world, it takes austerities, it takes practicing, that type of yoga, or it takes a special mercy of Krishna, but it is a mechanical apparatus. It’s just that, in modern science they may discover some of the mechanics of it, the mystic yogis they discover going, coming from a different directions, so they are coming up from the gross material direction, they are coming down from the spiritual into the subtle world and knowing how to manipulate matter from the causal region, coming down into the world of effect. Now modern science has found that mind over matter, that some people are able to move little corks in the water and make them go here and there just by their thought process, so like the yogis their concentration is so intense, and they have the understanding how on the... everything is coming down from the law of karma, from the causal plane into the phenomenal plane. So they are able to utilize that ah...that science, a subtle science into manipulating matter. But that is the same thing, you are manipulating matter. No matter how much you manipulate matter, whether you move pebbles or whether you move mountains, you are not going to be any more spiritually satisfied. It’s simply a type of extended form of sense gratification. Ultimate satisfaction comes when we realize our real constitutional position.

So Caitanya Mahaprabhu, His followers are totally disinterested in mystical powers. In fact sometimes Lord Caitanya offered mystical powers to His ah... devotees, practically as a test, but He offered that they could have. They didn’t desire it. There is a story of Rasikananda who was a disciple of Shyamananda Pandit, and ah… at one time at Ramuna, where Khirachora Gopinath is, he was sitting in the temple there, just the.. it’s not, I have not seen it written in a book but this what the local pandits of that local temple explained happened. There is a special shrine to commemorate this pastime. There was one mystic yogi who had come to the town and was flying around on a branch. It seems that since he was flying on a branch, he wasn’t actually a mystical yogi in the normal sense of the satvik, astha... ashtanga yoga process, because if you need to fly around in a branch it would indicate that he was following the more tantric method. By worshiping demigods, they get the empowered branch. This is the original system. We know of course in Western history that Witches would ride around on broomstick or something. In India they ride around up on a branch from a tree. So it seems that whatever that ancient system was we find that the gypsies in Europe they speak ah… the language which is ah... mainly Sanskrit derivative. They can understand Bengali or Hindi if you speak to them, they say that. So, it seems that a similar type of a tantric science was being practiced in the ancient ah... four, five hundred years ago, all over the world, but it originally came from India. So this yogi was flying around on a... on a branch, we call him a yogi, or this mystic, whatever you call it. And all the villagers were just dumbfounded, because it’s not the kind of thing you see everyday. So they were overwhelmed. They ran to Rasikananda who was their, local mahanta, their spiritual master, their spiritual guide, and they said you must come and see; they loved him as a vaisnava, you must come and see this yogi is flying around on a.. on a branch, this is wonderful . He was brushing his teeth, that time early in the morning, he said “it is not nothing to worry about, it is not important.” “No, No, he is flying.” “I tell you it is nothing important. It is much more important to be Krishna conscious.” “No, No, psh... he is flying, on a branch, there is no strings, nothing” So Rasikananda became very impatient, he took his ah... twig, in India they chew on a twig, put it under his leg, psh.... he flew around the ashram, four, five times, telling that, I tell you, it is not important, you just be worried about being Krishna conscious, and he came back down, sat, finished brushing his teeth. (laughter) The villagers were amazed, you know, they got the point. So many of our great acharyas had this power, they didn’t... because ah... the people then they won’t be thinking about how to be Krishna conscious, they would be thinking how to fly, right? Then they will be obsessed with that idea, and the... you know, if they die with that idea, then you know they can become a bird or something ah… become a mystic yogi to... it will delay their spiritual progress. These mystic powers are simply a spell. In others ages when you have got 10,000 or 100,000 years to work with, alright, so mystic powers ah… it.. it’s not that big a problem but in this particular age when you can die at any minute, when life is very short anyway, to... to be worried about this type of things which are also very difficult to achieve because they are mechanical things, you have to in the normal way of getting them, there is no guarantee that a person would get these powers. These TMR’s[3] , they are doing this type of meditations to levitate and practically speaking because ah... in spite of doing it for years together, they are normally able to just get up about a few inches, and they fall down, they have to put rubber cushion, they fall down on their face, so they have rubber cushion so that they don’t break their neck, because they don’t, they can’t follow all those systems. It is amazing even in this age they can do that much that ,that they can even bounce. But even if they could fly, it’s not the goal, you see. So Kardama muni after , even if he had so many mystic powers , he engaged ultimately in Bhakti yoga. Everyone who really knows the science of yoga, knows that ultimately you have to go into Bhakti yoga and understand your relationship with Bhagavan. This is the ultimate perfection.

So Lord Caitanya, He was so merciful that He didn’t want to distract anyone in spite of offering... even He offered devotees, they didn’t accept, you see. Somehow if they had it alright, but they didn’t bother to show it to people. You hardly find any example of showing any mystic powers among Lord Caitanya’s followers. Rather they avoided the public fanfare. They avoided that type of public exposure, and they were always preaching the glories of Krishna, chanting Hare Krishna, even though they would easily get mystic powers, not that, what was the use of showing it if the people are all attracted for those mystic powers. No one is going to be just be absorbed, how to do this, how to do that. It will be hard to introduce Krishna consciousness to them. So our process is not to try to achieve mystic powers or even liberation, but to achieve pure Krishna consciousness. [Pause] When you go back to Godhead, you leave this body. Now some people they may immediately transfer. But we find in the teachings of the Goswamis, Prabhupada also mentioned that when we go back to Godhead, that if we have any desires we get stuck up on that particular plane. So if you could imagine, if you are going back from the earth planet, and you are going past the heavenly planet. So in one planet there people all have mystic powers, in one planet there are all beautiful gardens and beautiful men and woman and have ample opportunities for sense gratification, you see. By their travelling to the heavenly planets, it is told here even Devahuti and Kardama muni, they became sexually agitated. When there is a very nice environment, very comfortable, very beautiful, sometimes that creates more sex desire. So as we are going back to ah... the spiritual world, as we, if we happen to go on a visual tour, sometimes the yogis want to see what the universe looks like and so they... they go around and see a few planets on the way back to Godhead. But if we can... but there is a danger we will get stuck up. If we think, “Oh! This mystic powers are far out, these are really nice, I would really like to have those. Alright, then the next thing you know is that you are in Siddhaloka or Kinnara Loka. You think, “Oh, these gardens in the heavenly planets are really nice, I would really like to stay here for awhile”. You get to take birth in the heavenly planets. And if you go through all the different planets, but your actual desire is fixed. I simply... “There is no Krishna here, where is Krishna, Oh! I don’t see Krishna here among the yogis, I don’t see Krishna here amongst the heavenly planets, I don’t see Krishna here in Siva Loka, I certainly don’t see Krishna here in this Brahmajyoti, where is Krishna ?, Oh, here is Vaikunta Loka, but where is Krishna?Where are the cowherd boys? Where is mother Yasoda? Where is Lord Caitanya and His sankirtan party? Here is Narada muni is here, and here he is very formal with Narayana, four Kumaras are there, and Jay... but where is, where is, where is Gopal, and where is Gauranga?” -You see, if we have that type of desire, if we are already in that type of Swarup upalabdhi, where we identify directly in our relationship with...as a servant of Krishna, in His Gopala form, Radha- Madhava form, or with ah… Lord Caitanya, then that takes us back to Goloka Vrindavana. Anyway along the way, where we are attracted to the material world, to the karma kanda, jnana kanda, or the majestic aspect in the spiritual world, or to just merging in the Brahmajyoti, and the lower level than that, whatever it may be, we get stuck up there. For a pure devotee, they sometimes are able after death, after time they are able to continue. This is the thing.

So right now we have the opportunity, through Srila Prabhupada’s books, this movement of Lord Caitanya, of reawakening our original consciousness as the servant of the original form of Krishna, and that can take us right back to Krishna, right back to Godhead. But even if get stuck up, as long as we are... practiced devotional service, of course Prabhupada assures in the end, when one again gets the opportunity to continue. Even you take birth in the heavenly planets, again when you take birth in the earthly planet, you are able to take up your devotional service, by being born in a good family suitable for taking up devotional service, but there are definitely risks involved. In fact I have heard ah… that one time, Prabhupada said that, he was expressing anxiety that his devotees weren’t concentrating enough upon being Krishna consciousness. If somebody, we don’t have the mystic power like Kardama muni to experience everything in one life, so if somebody still has his unfulfilled desire to enjoy sense gratification, they may have to take birth in the heavenly planets. But then by that time or by the time we come back down to this earthly planet, Lord Caitanya movement wouldn’t be here. His movement is here for 10,000 years. What’s 10,000 years in heavenly planets? That’s few days, nothing. It is a very great risk, you see. No we have this opportunity. It’s just like when they advertise, “Sale on between ah... January ah… 26 to 28”, if you go now while the sale is on, now you stand every opportunity. Now is the chance, now if we just absorb ourselves in Lord Caitanya’s sankirtan movement you see, we relegate, we... we just fall at the feet of Nitai Gaur and beg for Their mercy and somehow if They give us a drop of that spiritual ecstasy of pure love for Krishna, then immediately without going through all these trials and tribulations, we can see that, “Well, this whole material world’s happiness is just, very insignificant compared to that to the joy, to the transcendental bliss of serving Krishna”, and that is the best protection. You see, there is different ways of approaching it, one way is kind of through the school of hard knocks, and the other way is alright, if you just, “Lord Nityananda, give me a little drop of Nectar, if you just flood me with so much happiness, that I can’t think anymore about anything else, that I just, the material happiness no longer has any attraction for me because of You giving me the pure happiness of Krishna consciousness.” You see, that is the best immunisation. You want to get the vaccination from the material attraction. The best way is to get absorbed in transcendental ecstasy, and to do that we have to have a very strong desire. In a... in a, few days or weeks or months or years, if we are very determined, and if we get that somehow or another, if we can just convince Lord Nityananda that we don’t want anything else but that, you should please give us that little drop of mercy. Well if somehow or another, because He is unlimitedly merciful, He doesn’t consider that this person is qualified or unqualified, He is very liberal in giving that mercy. And if someone just has the desire for it, Lord Nityananda, He is been known to give. So it is very promising if we put our....put our faith in Lord Nityananda, if we put our aspirations on His lotus feet to give that mercy, and if we get that, then after that it is smooth sailing. Then material happiness does seem very insignificant, and all we have to do is to just avoid too much association with the materialistic ah... things, which will somehow just bring us into some clouded condition where we forget our spiritual perspective, and start acting just mechanically again on the material platform. We just have to avoid that type of situation, and continually engage in devotional service. So with that little drop of nectar, that’s what every devotee prays for. ‘Kripa bindu diya’, give me that drop of mercy, that drop of mercy which is the mercy of Lord Nityananda. Guru is of course the representative of Lord Nityananda. He can also request Lord Nityananda to give that mercy. So when we get that, then we don’t have to go through so many materially experiences, and become ah...renounced and detached, and then when... engaged in devotional service, and austerities, and that kind of more tedious way. Directly we can be very fixed up on the spiritual platform by achieving that ah.. ecstasy of devotional service. We get little, a little taste of it, in our kirtans, sometimes in devotional service, we get a little glimpse of that transcendental happiness in that, and that is enough, of course to give us even more enthusiasm. If we totally desire that mercy from Lord Nityananda, why wouldn’t He give, He is so merciful, He gave Jagai, Madhai, and they didn’t even have a desire for it. If we have the desire for it then why He wouldn’t give us the mercy? So we should fix our mind, not for any material reason we want this spiritual happiness, but just so that our mind is totally fixed. Because you know that like little children, always looking where is the sweet, where is something to eat, are a little restless,  like this our mind is immature, a little restless, it gets disturbed sometimes by material allurements, how is it going to be possible to satisfy the mind and the senses, you know it is not possible by material means, and we don’t... we lack sometimes the determination to do it spiritually. So the only hope for us is to get the mercy of Lord Caitanya, Lord Nityananda, the Pancha Tattva. Because by Their mercy then immediately we can be absorbed in transcendental bliss, and that’s our best immunisation. The only thing that can potentially drag us down from that transcendental platform, is if we commit offenses to the Vaisnavas wherefore careless and inadvertently we allow weeds to grow up. So this is the system Lord Caitanya has given. It’s definitely the most short cut. You simply be absorbed in transcendental ecstasy, this way you don’t have to go through this type of ah... material sense gratificatory distractions. One can very simply practice their Krishna consciousness, then go back to Godhead, that’s the unlimited mercy of Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, to bring us the mercy of Lord Nityananda here in the Western world, where people are far removed from spiritual life. So He gave the process, chant Hare Krishna, dance in ecstasy, feast, and by... people they didn’t know the philosophy, they didn’t know anything, they weren’t even following any principles where by chanting and feasting, and Krishna prasadam and dancing, while chanting Hare Krishna they started to feel transcendental happiness .And having felt transcendental happiness even a little bit, even for a few moments, then their mind became fixed. “Oh, this is something really wonderful.” And then he started reading the books and they become.... so our process is somehow or another to get people to chant, get them to dance, get them to take Krishna prasadam, those who are you see, the general people they are not very philosophically inclined nowadays. Those who are of course, let them come and we will, we can deal with them philosophically but in generally our process is to just somehow or other engage people in devotional service. By that they become purified, and they taste some spiritual peace of mind, happiness, ecstasy in some cases, and then once they feel a very strong connection with Krishna, through that type of, those different types of practices, then we teach them how to avoid weeds and offenses, how to maintain their devotional service through the process of ah... regulative principles or sadhana, and once they achieve, then a very fixed ah... state of experiencing transcendental bliss, then their responsibility is to carry out the order of the spiritual master. Of course externally, they will always engage in chanting and hearing and ah... devotional practices to show a good example to others, but their primary duty at that time then is fulfilling the order of the spiritual master over all other duties.

Jaya Sri Krishna Caitanya Prabhu Nityananda

 Sri Advaita Gadadhara Srivasadi Gaur Bhakta Vrinda

Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare

Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare.

Any questions?

Devotee: ..... who are the demigods?

HH JPS: Well, they are all devotees, you see.

Devotee: What’s that ?

HH JPS: They are called, sakama bhaktas, that means they are devotees, but they have material desires.Niskama and sakama, those who have desires, they go to heavenly planets. Anyone in the heavenly planets is a devotee. Deva means, you are devotee of Visnu. If you have material desires, you are not a devotee, then you go to those places in the lower planets, where there are also sense gratification but they are not devotees.

Devotee: Why they can’t go back to Godhead?  Why do they have to come back here and then go back from here ?

HH JPS: Well, the...it’s been described in different ways. One is that when you are in the heavenly planets, the...the comforts and the sense gratification is so all pervasive that one doesn’t really feel the urgency, one doesn’t feel that type of intense ah… need for engaging in self realization.... it’s just like, you find that it is...it is more difficult to preach to the Americans than people in the 3rd world, possible because they have enough money, make them more proud, self-relying. But when they are poor, even when you do sankirtan, I have heard it many times that it is actually the poor people, are easier to approach. Even if they don’t have money, they are easier to approach, they are not the... the, by sense gratification, the person becomes a little bit proud, becomes a little bit aloof. So you can imagine that now, in the heavenly planets, you have a situation where there is practically no suffering, that... the, practically the only..in Janaloka like the suffering, they experience is that they see in other planets, people are suffering and that they feel bad about it. And you go up higher up than that, then they are even further removed from the suffering. So in that environment, to become Krishna conscious requires a long time of meditation, different things. There are those who do that, but normally to go back from the heavenly planets, and they will start planet hopping, they will start to, by their austerities go up to Brahma loka, Satya loka, and then they will stay with Lord Brahma. Now when Lord Brahma dies, and he lives a long time, when he goes back, then those people with him on his planet, they get to go back. So at that time many of the siddhas and others, who have mystic power, they try at the last part of the universe to get up to satya loka. Those who make it, then homebase... they get to go back to Godhead, but those who don’t make it they have to wait till the next creation of the material universe. So that… that way is, is a very... is something very far in the future. We know that even if Lord Brahma goes to sleep at night, that...that ah... the residents of the satya loka, like well, Narada muni explained that he was in the Vis... in the body of ah... Visnu, but ah... he was conscious for those millions of years just went very quickly for him, then again they came out., he didn’t lose his consciousness. From this earthly planet the facility of going back to Godhead ah... at the end of life, this is just ah... this is like the special loophole, that as a human being it’s not so much sense gratification, there is not that... there is a not a little suffering, you can see suffering, if you not even experiencing it so much, you can see it, it is there in the world, right before your eyes, and most people experience some suffering, specially now in Kali Yuga. Similar but there is not so much suffering, that even amongst the suffering there is some happiness, like it is said in the heavenly... in the hellish planets it is so hellish, that it is just so horrible that you can’t think about senses, you just want to get out of that place, and you can’t concentrate upon sadhana or some kind of you know spiritual practices so much, it’s very difficult. It is just too hellish, the pain is just too great, so this is ah...the... described as the ideal place for going back to Godhead. But Krishna says that, anybody remembers Krishna at the time of death they will come to Him, no matter where they are. But we are advised that in the heavenly planets, apparently they don’t always think about Krishna, because of the sense gratification they get distracted, where if we are Krishna consciousness in this planet, well it’s a good opportunity that we remember Krishna and go back. If you remember Krishna at the time of death, you go to Him. If you are thinking of something else, you go there. That is universal. Krishna wasn’t speaking for one country, or one person, or one place. He is speaking as universal...so then the demigods, they live for long time. So at the end of their lives, if they think of Krishna, they can go back, and just apparently there is dangers and you have to live a long time. It’s a long time, in a very comfortable situation. So it is advised that, in fact the demigods they prefer taking birth here to practice devotional service. Specially they are crying to be here when Lord Caitanya’s movement, because in such a short time, you can go back to Godhead. I don’t know if I answered it.

 Devotee: You explained that how a yogi can expand himself so many times but what about a pure vaisnava,? [57:10]

Kardama muni .. predominance of a pure vaisnava expansion...58.00-05.......... [4]  Is that a pure devotee has expanded a 1000 times ?.....[5] 

JPS: Oh, he is expanding his material body, these many times. The spiritual... the spiritual form is not limited. Spiritual form is beyond time and space. It’s on the transcendental platform. So there is not that separation.

Devotee: Can a pure devotee , can a  pure devotee have more than one ...?[6] 

JPS: You are talking about the physical, material body, it’s not a physical... you know

Devotee: Physical ,tangible , just like ...[7] 

HH JPS: Spiritually  physical ??....(laughter)

Devotee: .........[8] deity of Prabhupada

JPS: Well , it’s an archa Avatar. You are calling Prabhupada from the spiritual platform to be present within that form. So that’s, that can be done unlimited number of times. You see, there is... there is two different ways to approach it. One is someone who is in the spiritual world and has a form like Visnu’s, That means that he already has his svarupa siddhi, where he is in his two armed, or four armed form. So you can’t limit that form. Its not, it’s ah... that ah... that entity can be simultaneously present. You can communicate with that person, he is on the transcendental platform, it’s beyond the material limitations. That’s one angle of vision, the other angle of vision is, even if someone is in the material world, he is a pure devotee, but is still not ah... manifesting any type of transcendental opulences like that, but through the supersoul, through the supersoul, Sri Krishna is present everywhere, so through the super soul that devotee can understand. Just like this electrical, just like this telephonic connection. You have a line here and one in Los Angeles, so supersoul is in every atom, he is in every heart, he is in the heart of the pure devotee. So if one has direct connection with Krishna, then he would also have, he would know everything through Krishna, it’s just the difference, knowing it from Krishna, or knowing it directly, there is no basic difference, it’s almost the same thing. When we offer our prasadam to the spiritual master, even... even when people offer the prasadam to their ancestors, the ancestors are not pure devotees, in fact when they are offering they might be in hell, but through the process of mantra and through our meditation, they get the benefit of having that… that Prasad offered to them, through the super soul. Now the pure devotee, he is in a totally different situation. But in any case, in whichever way ah... it’s going through the devotee, to Krishna, worship is accepted by Krishna. There is no limitation of the material time or space. It’s not that you can only have 10 murtis of Prabhupada, after that there is no more expansions allowed. But this is this archana avatara, that specifically is being taught here, there is one body, it expands into 10 different forms, and each form is like, you know, sometimes I forget, there was one yogi who was fighting a battle and he divided himself into 10 forms, and each one had a sword and they was fighting like that. I think some demon did that also with Krishna. So that can be done by these yogis, they can expand themselves into different forms and they can all be...they are all doing one thing, they are all fighting, or whatever they happen to be doing. In this case they are all acting in a family activities, and sexual activities....They are all doing one ah... basic activity. This is on the material platform, these are material bodies. Spiritual bodies don’t do this type of things. It’s not the body, it is the spiritual rupa. You say deha, deha means body. Suksma sarira and sthula sarira. Gross and subtle bodies. Body is a covering. When you... You don’t find...you see, here is a siddha swarupa, siddha rupa, the spiritual form, for when we are referring to the form of the soul, it’s not a body, it’s the form of the soul. Just Like you are the form of your hand, and the covering of your glove. So there is a difference. When you are discussing with the coverings, with these bodies, the yogis are able to expand even his physical body upto 8 or 9 times, through mystic power. That’s called mind over matter, in a far different level than what they are investigating in our modern science. But the spiritual, on the spiritual platform, there is no limitation. If Krishna wants He can empower us all to anything, that’s called Saktavesh, and simultaneously one can ah... be conscious of what’s going on throughout the entire material universe. Vyasadeva saw simultaneously the material world, spiritual world everything. He is an individual soul, empowered. So simultaneously, on the spiritual platform you can see, you are not limited, your every sense is interchangeable just like Krishna’s. There are[9]  ultimately some limitations, but an individual soul relative to Krishna even on the spiritual platform, but that is in specific ah... Specific areas. This one proves in either case, but it wouldn’t prove the limitation. Either you consider that directly the spiritual master is present in his deity, or that is being transmitted through the agency of the supersoul, in either case, there is no difficulty.

 Devotee: When the yogi expands in different forms, does he still have the one same soul?

HH JPS: Right. Souls are not subdividing, the atma is one.

Devotee: In the case of pure devotee who ah.. has the body of Visnu, is non-different in that way, does that means they become all pervasive that way as well?

HH JPS: His body is like Visnu, not exactly

Devotee: or is he just conscious

HH JPS: not exactly the same.

Devotee: so does that mean that he is all pervasive like the picture, or is he conscious of the picture or...

HH JPS: That means that his... his picture on the transcendental platform, anything to do with the ah... the liberated soul is connected with you, even in... even in... even in material world it’s known that physically that... as you come up to the focal point, as you come up to the absolute platform, everything does become one in the absolute, but even within that oneness there is also variegatedness. Even we find in the ancient ah cultures like in South America, and the Caribbean , and what is that, they take a doll of someone, materially and they do voodoo or something.... because there is a relation between ah... form or thought or an object of the person and a person, even in the material platform. What to speak about the spiritual platform as direct, a picture of guru, picture of Krishna, is is... connected.

Devotee: The spirit soul...one thousand’s part of the tip of the hair... [10] 

HH JPS: And that’s the size of the dormant soul. When you get your siddha swarup, then you have your spiritual form, which is well related to whatever situation you are in, at that time it is not..

Devotee: it never becomes

HH JPS: Not in that sense. Well, it is all pervasive. Wherever Krishna is the devotee is there. Simultaneously the soul can appear in more than one place, under certain circumstances and be performing different ah... pastimes.
          [Pause or not audible 1:06:40 ]       

HH JPS: In the spiritual world ah...

Devotee: Just like the deity is localized, the deity is there Krisha is there, He is looking at us... is it same way ,  the spiritual master is there in the altar? …[11]  he’s in the altar looking at us?

HH JPS: okay..Why not?

[Pause 1:07:05 to 1:07:20]

Devotee : I’ve read that it doesn’t require real intelligence to be successful in devotional service such as in the case of devotees. I’ve also read that sometimes it’s very easy to mistake the weakness of our heart .. So how do we understand this ...[12] 

HH JPS: If we fortify our intelligence with the words of the spiritual master, and the instructions from the sastras, and the teachings from the Vaisnavas, that gives us transcendental intelligence. Just like someone might be a phd. or a doctor or some big lawyer, and he may be very intellectual and very intelligent on that level. And there may be someone who is just like that, the... that story, you must have heard about the ah... the boatman and the scholar. You heard that? New Bhaktas? You don’t tell him these stories? One might be very ah... simple, in terms of material sophistication, he may be very practically intelligent. So if we have the advice from the spiritual master, they can tell you the story sometimes, of the boatman and the scholar. Some video I think you get the drama. The ah... that very practical intelligence, you can distinguish what is supreme. Just like a gardener, he is also intelligent, but he may not be very sophisticated in cases, but he is very practically intelligent. So that type of intelligence, a devotee has, very practical, that may not be the most sophisticated. May also be that they are also not very sophisticated, or really intelligent devotee, in that sense but , but in general they have a very pragmatic understanding of life. Very pragmatic understanding of what is the weed in spiritual life. By having received somebody’s instructions from the spiritual sources. So you should fortify yourselves by reading the scriptures, by listening to the classes, by listening to your spiritual master, in this way you get more and more intelligence how to avoid the different pitfalls in spiritual life. Yes.

Devotee: [ Not audible  1:10:01]

HH JPS: it’s number one .

Devotee:  [ Not audible  1:10:12]

HH JPS: Can, can be. It depends on the gravity of your offence, the elevation of the person who you are offending, in any...for any Vaisnava, it can cause fall down. It’s compared with

vaiṣṇava-aparādha uṭhe matal hātī upāḍe vā chiṇḍe, tāra śukhi’ yāya pātā

[CC Madhya 19.156]

It’s like a elephant pulling out banana tree right from the root, ripping it out and throwing it down, or any tree. So that means for some time the leaves may stay green, but after some time they sort become dry and fall out, because it is pulled out from the root. And if you cut, it might grow up again. You cut a tree sometimes it grows up, you pull it out from the root and just throw it down then... this is called the mad elephant offense. So we have to guard from it, from that very carefully. You should never stop seeing the good qualities in Vaisnavas. Some quality may become visible, which is not so good, sometimes, but if a person is a Vaisnava, we should never lose our sight of the good qualities that person possesses. Bad qualities can be purified. So when a person only starts seeing the bad qualities, not able to see the good qualities, becomes offensive, then it’s very dangerous .

Devotee: [ Not audible  1:11:50]

HH JPS: Pardon?

Devotee: [ Not audible  1:11:56]

HH JPS: You see, sometimes people consider, like if you say that, this person shouldn’t be listened to, or this person is inimical to Prabhupada, but this persons.. that’s all that is[13]  needed, that’s not an offense, you see. Sometimes ah...people try to get sympathy saying just see, because they say, “don’t go to those people”, they don’t listen, they say that they are inimical to Prabhupada, or they have...

Devotee: [ Not audible  1:12:40]

HH JPS: In some cases, in the... in the Chaitanya Caritamrita, it’s says anyone who cannot appreciate, the good devotional service of another, is envious of that, he is not a Vaisnava. So it doesn’t mean that everyone of Prabhupada’s godbrother is necessarily a Vaisnava. It doesn’t mean that everyone of our godbrothers is necessarily a Vaisnava, they might not come up to the platform of being a Vaisnava. They may have fallen down from the platform of being a Vaisnava by their offenses. Normally no one is going to take a risk of criticizing the spiritual master’s brothers. You don’t take  such a big risk, socially and vedically, you just don’t do it. It’s not.. it’s dangerous. May be somebody has that type of insight, they think that, “Well, this person doesn’t show the qualities of Vaisnava”, so they may say something like that. Other people may just maintain the social structure, they don’t say that. Someone may say that later on, just for the sake of preaching, because someone although technically they may not actually be a demon, but they may be acting practically like a demon because they are acting inimical to preaching ah... to you know preaching of Krishna consciousness or preaching movement, which is definitely not the activity that a Vaisnava should or would do. But later on that person may somehow or another readjust his vocabulary in terms of describing that particular person, or may... he may have...have said something like that just to be a little graphic in terms of defending the spiritual lives of others. May be it was over enthusiastic in some cases, maybe in other cases it was realistic but just to get the kind of you know, attention or sympathy that people who try to expose, they would just say, “How can someone offend a Vaisnava?” This all ploys in somehow or another getting people to listen to the other person and ultimately to come in to that particular camp, you know, this is not, just like for instance in the Krishna conscious movement, we don’t discuss Prabhupada’s godbrothers, he brought it up so we are discussing. You see. We don’t... we have plenty of things, we are trying to preach, we are trying to expand, Prabhupada’s ah… mission....the mission that he started, the mission of Caitanya Mahaprabhu. We don’t have time to just sit around and discuss the bad or good ah... relative qualities of different other people, who are not really doing so much in the spiritual activities of spreading Krishna consciousness in this world. But other people their... their preaching is based upon somehow identifying with Prabhupada and bringing him into that and trying to gain some credibility from having some relation with Prabhupada, and then the other way that they have is then by trying to discredit people if they ah...they don’t accept whoever they are trying to promote. But the basic thing was that Prabhupada was very clear, he wanted that all the followers of Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur should work together. This is basic standard- We should all work together. If you don’t want to work together, if you don’t want to cooperate together, alright then we are separate. We are going to establish a cooperative movement as the International Society for Krishna Conscious. You want to cooperate with that, work together, we have branches all over the world. We got the mercy of Caitanya Mahaprabhu, step forward, come on. If you don’t want to cooperate, you want to set up your own independent camp, you don’t want to follow Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakur’s order to work together, there is nothing [14] to do with you apart from socially being polite if you are not inimical with. This is the basic thing. There is no reason that anyone should not cooperate with Srila Prabhupada. This movement is ah… offering the best opportunity in the whole world to become Krishna conscious.[Pause] Hare Krishna.

Devotee: [Not audible 1:18:00]

HH JPS: Well, if you have had the mercy of Lord Nityananda, that mercy is that you are feeling spiritual ecstasy, that immunises you from material attractions. So doesn’t matter whatever Vaisnava, in fact in the 11th canto or the 12th, 11th canto, Bhagavatam, it’s mentioned that even Uttama Adhikari, if he offends a Kanistha adhikari, say that for some reason a very exalted devotee became envious of a neophyte devotee’s sincerity or something like that, just as a... I mean it is practically impossible to happen, but in case it would just to happen, even in that case that a more advanced devotee, just like Lord Rama told Hanuman that don’t be proud and ah... and not give that little spider who was throwing little pieces of dust, and Hanuman was throwing big boulders. So Hanuman said like, “Get out of the way”, and Rama is saying, “No, he is working with his full enthusiasm and energy, he is no less than you are.” So somehow if a more advanced devotee might consider himself far more exalted than some say neophyte devotee and somehow obstruct the devotional service of the neophyte just out of false ego. That...even for that offense you can fall down, what to speak of, if you are offending someone who are, you see... any... any Vaisnava. So it’s certainly in the social... the Vedas say that one should see one’s, even one’s own godbrother who is more elder, who is more senior, more Krishna conscious, you should see him almost equal with the spiritual master, in the vedic......that’s your own godbrother, and ah... so the godbrother of your spiritual master should... should normally be ah... respected...spiritual uncle. there is a difference in relationship, again Prabhupada clarified in... in the adi lila, part 3, that if somebody is inimical of the devotional service of his godbrother, that is not a Vaisnava quality. Vaisnavas are not envious people. Materialists are envious people. If a person is materialist when you offend them, there is no offense, or if a person is a Vaisnava, but he has a materialistic attitude and you want people to avoid that materialistic attitude, that’s also not an offense. But one should definitely from the vedic, social point of view, one should avoid offending the older Vaisnavas, or the godbrother of the spiritual master, as one also would avoid offending the spiritual master.[Pause] And if you do offend anyone, then if you... you lose the mercy of Nityananda, then naturally you are more open for falling prey to sense gratification. This is something that is very difficult for someone else to judge, except for the spiritual master.

Transcribed by: Sadananda Krishnaprem Das Dibrugarh, 30 June 2016