19850609 Bhagavad-gītā 9.34

The following is a lecture given by His Holiness Jayapatākā Swami, on July 9th, 1985, in Toronto, Canada. The class is beginning from the reading of Bhagavad- gītā Chapter 9 text 34.

(His Holiness Jayapatākā Swami reads the translation and a few paragraphs of from the purport)

Today we read from the Śrīmad-Bhagavad-gītā As It Is, Chapter 9 text 34.

Translation by His Divine Grace Śrīla Abhayacaranaravinda Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda!

Engage your mind…

Kṛṣṇa is speaking: Engage your mind always in thinking of Me, become My devotee, offer obeisances unto Me and worship Me. Being completely absorbed in Me, surely you will come to Me.

Purport: In this verse it is clearly indicated that Kṛṣṇa consciousness is the only means of being delivered from the clutches of this contaminated material world. Sometimes unscrupulous commentators distort the meaning of what is clearly stated here: that all devotional service should be offered to the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Kṛṣṇa.

One should therefore engage his mind in the eternal form, the primal form of Kṛṣṇa; with conviction in his heart that Kṛṣṇa is the Supreme, he should engage himself in worship. There are hundreds of thousands of temples in India for the worship of Kṛṣṇa, and devotional service is practiced there. When such practice is made, one has to offer obeisances to Kṛṣṇa. One should lower his head before the Deity and engage his mind, his body, his activities – everything. That will make one fully absorbed in Kṛṣṇa without deviation. This will help one transfer to Kṛṣṇaloka, in the spiritual world. One should not be deviated by unscrupulous commentators. One must engage in the nine different processes of devotional service, beginning with hearing and chanting about Kṛṣṇa. Pure devotional service is the highest achievement of human society.

The Seventh and Eighth chapters of Bhagavad-gītā have explained pure devotional service to the Lord that is free from speculative knowledge, mystic yoga and fruitive activities. Those who are not purely sanctified may be attracted by different features of the Lord like the impersonal brahma-jyoti and localized Paramātmā, but a pure devotee directly takes to the service of the Supreme Lord.

There is a beautiful poem about Kṛṣṇa in which it is clearly stated that any person who is engaged in the worship of demigods is most unintelligent and cannot achieve at any time the supreme award of Kṛṣṇa. The devotee, in the beginning, may sometimes fall from the standard, but still he should be considered superior to all other philosophers and yogīs. One who always engages in Kṛṣṇa consciousness should be understood to be a perfectly saintly person. His accidental non devotional activities will diminish, and he will soon be situated without any doubt in complete perfection. The pure devotee has no actual chance to fall down, because the Supreme Godhead personally takes care of His pure devotees. Therefore, the intelligent person should take directly to the process of Kṛṣṇa consciousness and happily live in this material world. He will eventually receive the supreme award of Kṛṣṇa.

Thus end the Bhaktivedanta Purports to the Ninth Chapter of the Śrīmad-Bhagavad-gītā in the matter of the Most Confidential Knowledge.

Jayapatākā Swami: This material world is sometimes described as ‘saṁsāra’ or the world of birth and death. And in the material world, we become entangled in the reactions to our activities in this life and in previous lives. Therefore, even though we may want peace and happiness as sometimes we always are wanting, but we are not able to always have that peace and happiness in the material world.

So the example has been given that this material world is like spider’s web and Kṛṣṇa is just like the spider who is leading the web. So you know in the spider’s web, so many little flies are getting caught and the more they try to get out the more they become entangled. But the spider... Have you ever seen a spider had ever got caught in the web? Who can say? No. Spider does not get caught. He is able to run on the web without getting caught. That is his mystic power. Spider has got some mystic power.

So in the same way, someone who surrenders to Kṛṣṇa as he has advised here - by thinking of Him, becoming His devotee, offering obeisance to Him, in worshiping Him, becoming absorbed in thinking about Him - that person is able to go back to Kṛṣṇa. So even in this lifetime…

īhā yasya harer dāsye karmaṇā manasā girā
nikhilāsv apy avasthāsu jīvan-muktaḥ sa ucyate

... such a person is considered to be liberated even while living. So it is said, just like becoming a baby spider. The baby spiders, they also do not get captured in the spider’s web. So if a person becomes a devotee of Lord Kṛṣṇa, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, the Parabrahma, the absolute truth and engages in pure devotional services recommended here, then one does not get entangled in the material world. But rather just like the spider babies you can go without getting entangled.

So Kṛṣṇa, He is trying to help His friend Arjuna how to get out of the material world. How to achieve His eternal shelter? He had previously said in the 32nd verse... Today we are reading at 34th. That anyone, even those who are businessmen, laborers, any age, whether men, whether women, that if they take shelter of the Lord through this process of devotional service or sādhana bhakti, that they can attain the supreme destination.

So then He says that someone who is already very qualified, someone who is already very righteous, someone who is a great brāhmaṇa, or who is very learned in spiritual matters, then how much quicker can they achieve perfection by engaging in the devotional service of the Lord. Just like as so many rivers are gradually merging into the ocean, so the different paths of spiritual realization ultimately bring one to realize Kṛṣṇa, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Param Bhagavān. And when one realizes Kṛṣṇa, then one engages in His bhakti or His devotional service. That is considered to be on the transcendental platform.

For instance, in this world, we are all serving someone. We are serving either our friends or wife or husband or family or some relative or the country. If someone doesn’t want to serve anyone, then they may serve at least their pet dog. In the morning, you can see people taking their dog out, doing dog sevā, service to the dogs. We are naturally by nature servant. It is unnatural for us to be Lord.

Artificially in this material world we are trying to lording over the material nature. Because of that lording over tendency, we become entangled in the stringent laws of the material nature. So when we rather cultivate our serving attitude by serving the supreme object of service, the Lord Himself, that is the singular most purifying thing that we ca...That’ll automatically frees us from the entanglement of this material world, and it established a link with us and Kṛṣṇa to take us back to the spiritual world.

This is Kṛṣṇa’s very clear promise. mām evaiṣyasi - that you will definitely come back to Me.This is very scientific.

According to the Bhagavad-gītā:

yam yam vāpi smarann bhāvam tyajatyante kalevaraṁ

At the time of leaving this body known normally as death, we go to whatever we are thinking about. For instance, the history in Bhāgavatam reveals that Mahārāja Bharata, a great king; he gave up his family, give up his kingdom, gave everything up and went to the forest to do meditation. He had even achieved some siddhi or perfection, but in advertently a baby deer was adopted by him.

When during a storm, the mother died, the mother deer died giving birth to the baby. So he picked up the baby, fed it, treated it as a pet. When that Mahārāja Bharata was dying, he was thinking about the deer, “Who will take care of the deer? Who will feed the dear? What will happen to the dear?” So because he was thinking about the deer, in his next life he became a deer. He took birth as a deer.

Whatever we think about, that is what we achieve in our next life. Fortunately, because he had performed so much yoga practice, he could remember his... he maintained the same human consciousness although in a deer’s body. So he had plenty of time to contemplate on how ridiculous it was that he had gone so far. And yet at the last moment rather than giving his full attachment to Kṛṣṇa, instead he allowed himself to become infatuated with the baby deer. That caused him to take another birth as a dear.

Of course, it’s a long story. The next life after his deer birth, he took birth Jaḍa Bharata. At that time he was able to achieve complete perfection. So I just wanted to use that as an example. Whatever we thinking about when we die, when we leave this body, that’s where we will go in our next life. So if we train up mind to think about Kṛṣṇa, in this life man-manā bhava mad-bhakto.

‘man-manā’ means give Me your mind. Think about Me; ‘mad-bhakto’ become My devotee.

This is the easiest way to achieve Kṛṣṇa to just become His devotee. Whether you are living in a house, whether you living in a temple, wherever you may be living, it is very easy to think of Kṛṣṇa, to chant Kṛṣṇa’s name, to offer your obeisances to Kṛṣṇa, to offer your meals to Kṛṣṇa - according to the process of bhoga-naivedya or offering of prasāda, foodstuff.

In this way naturally when you leave the body you can think of Kṛṣṇa because that has become your habit. Suddenly a person says, “Now I am too young. Let me get old, then I will practice. That is not a very good proposal. Suddenly after 60 years of thinking in one way, how will a person suddenly change their habit of thinking? Rather… Rather by a gradual habit of chanting, of meditating on the Lord, it will be easy even at the end of life or any sudden moment to think about Kṛṣṇa.

Someone may say, “Well, what will happen to me whether at the time of death I am not be able to think of Kṛṣṇa.” Even Jaḍa… Even Mahārāja Bharata, although he made a mistake but because of his spiritual practices, he was protected. So that eventually he did achieve the shelter of Kṛṣṇa. So Kṛṣṇa describes in Bhagavad-gītā that for someone who does good, someone who does auspicious spiritual activities, there is never any... is not possible to be a bad result. There’ll always be a good result.

Kṛṣṇa when He was present, some people could recognize Kṛṣṇa, and some people could not recognize Kṛṣṇa. There is a very interesting example. You know that Kṛṣṇa lived in Vṛndāvana for the first sixteen years of His life. And there in Vṛndāvana, He was tending the cows. He was under the care of Nanda Mahārāja and Yaśodā Mā, and there he had so many pastimes, in Vṛndāvana, including rāsa-līlā and others.

So then Akrura came and took Him to Mathurā, and He went there to rescue Devakī and Vasudeva, His original mother and father, from the prison house of Kaṁsa. So Kaṁsa had invited Kṛṣṇa and Balarāma to come and wrestle against Muṣṭika and Cāṇūra, two great wrestlers. His idea was that these wrestler will kill Kṛṣṇa and Balarāma. Also Kaṁsa arranged his killer elephant the kuvalayapīḍa… What’s that? (Mahārāja asking the audience) Kaliya… Kuvalayapīḍa will crush Kṛṣṇa when He came to that arena.

Kaṁsa was a demon who in his whole life always thinks about Kṛṣṇa in hate. His idea was always to kill Kṛṣṇa from the very moment he heard Kṛṣṇa’s name. So it was very unusual when Kṛṣṇa entered into that arena, there were thousands and thousands of people all around. The wrestlers were in the center. King Kaṁsa, he was in the cover area of the stadium. It was a big stadium. Mother Yaśoda and Nanda Mahārāja, they were present; great yogīs and sages were present. Common people were present. There was this huge audience to see what was going to happen.

So when Kṛṣṇa came in, a 16 years old boy with His brother Balarāma. At that time, each individual who saw Kṛṣṇa, saw Kṛṣṇa from a different realization. For instance, His mother, Yaśodā, and father, Nanda Mahārāja, they saw Kṛṣṇa, they thought, “There is our Son.”

Some common people, they say, “ What is this? These two boys coming in. They are going to fight with these big wrestlers. This is not fair. What is this? This is not even match.”

There are some foolish people, they look they said, “What is this? These two fools, they are going to come and fight against these two wrestlers.”

Then there were some great siddha-yogīs, some great realized yogīs. They saw Kṛṣṇa Balarāma, they said, “There is the Paramātmā Himself, come here.”

Those who were the impersonal yogī, they saw, “There is the brahma-jyoti personified.”

Those two wrestlers, they looked at Kṛṣṇa and Balarāma. Although They were the young boys, they looked at Them as great heroes, and they were very afraid that “These are very formidable foes!”

The pure… The young ladies in the audience, they saw Kṛṣṇa and Balarāma - “They are the most beautiful cupid. Who had ever seen someone so handsome, so beautiful?”

Everyone there looked at Kṛṣṇa and saw something different. No two people could see the same, unless they were on the same level of realization. The pure devotees of Kṛṣṇa, they saw Kṛṣṇa as, “There is the Supreme Personality of Godhead, the Supreme Absolute Truth - our eternal Lord and master.”

And Kaṁsa, the demon king, when he saw Kṛṣṇa, he saw personified death that “Today my death has come.”

So achieving Kṛṣṇa... Many people had seen Kṛṣṇa when He was here in this planet 5000 years ago. But simply seeing Kṛṣṇa that is not the actual perfection. Because Kaṁsa saw Kṛṣṇa, all those different people saw Kṛṣṇa, but who could actually see Kṛṣṇa as He was. Only the pure devotees could see Him in His perfectional... in His real form, in His more complete form.

Therefore Kṛṣṇa says, “bhaktyā mām abhijānāti - except for My devotees, no one can know Me as I am.” So if someone wants to know Kṛṣṇa, then the only method that He has offered is this process of devotional service or bhakti-sādhanā. To know the other forms of Kṛṣṇa, there may be other processes. But eventually everyone in the final realization, they come to the point of realizing Kṛṣṇa. At that time they have to perform this same system of devotional service. So why go through so many different processes which beat around the bush when there is a direct root.

Actually there is no difficulty in performing devotional service. It is very natural if one understands that one is actually the servant of the Lord. What is the difficulty in bowing down to Him? What is the difficulty in chanting His name?

We shouldn’t think that chanting the name of the Lord just like some form of concentration. Because in that case we could chant so many rock and roll songs. (Mahārāja singing) “Nobody. Something.” Anyway so many songs are there. Someone could chant those songs. Why chant the mantra? Whole world is chanting some rock n roll, or some music or some songs. But they are not achieving the perfection of life. They are not solving the problems of their life.

There’s something different about the chanting of this Mahā-mantra (Mahārāja and devotees chanting together) - Hare Kṛṣṇa Hare Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa Hare Hare Hare Rāma Hare Rāma Rāma Rāma Hare Hare. The chanting of Hare Kṛṣṇa is described in the Vedas as being non different from Kṛṣṇa Himself.

nama cintāmaṇiḥ kṛṣṇas
caitanya-rasa-vigrahaḥ
pūrṇa-suddho nitya-mukto

This holy name is actually eternally liberated and nama-nami - there is no difference between the name and the named.

For instance if I am thirsty and I call out water, water, it’s not going to quench my thirst. I’ll become more thirsty. Because there is difference between the word water ba pani, thani, jal and the substance water. But Kṛṣṇa being the Parambrahma, there is no difference between His name, the vibration Kṛṣṇa and Kṛṣṇa Himself, His eternal form, His saccidānandarūpa. This is the difference between a material vibration and a spiritual vibration.

So when a person is in need, for instance Draupadi. Draupadi was alone. Her husband was there, helpless. She was being insulted by Duḥśāsana, the unworthy son of the Kurus. At that time who was there to save her? But simply she raised her hand and called out on the name Keśava! Kṛṣṇa! Immediately Kṛṣṇa was present. You can say it’s like transcendental telephone. If you say Kṛṣṇa, there’s no separation between time and space because He is all pervasive. He is existing simultaneously within everything as well as in His eternal abode.

So when you say Kṛṣṇa, He is immediately presentdancing on your tongue. So Draupadi said, “Kṛṣṇa!” Kṛṣṇa came and immediately saved her. When little Prahlāda Mahārāja, his father challenged him:

“Where is your Kṛṣṇa? Is He in the sky?”

“Yes.”

“Is He in this column?”

“Yes! He is everywhere.”

So then, he took his sword and smashed the column of his palace . And immediately, there was a resounding sound which shattered the entire universe. And out came the form of Kṛṣṇa Narasiṁhadeva, to prove His devotee’s word was correct. That He was simultaneously present in every atom, everyone's heart, everywhere. So the devotee is able to see the Lord everywhere.

But the non devotee is not able to perceive that. Non devotees they try to love them shelves. They try to love their neighbors through mental adjustment. But the devotee by loving Kṛṣṇa because Kṛṣṇa is present in everyone’s heart, they actually love everyone. The easiest way to develop love for everyone is to love Kṛṣṇa. If you try to love everyone, that is very difficult in some other independent way. Becomes very artificial.

When someone is actually a lover of Kṛṣṇa, then as the Bhagavad-gītā says, ‘panḍitaḥ samadarśinaḥ’. That person becomes equal visioned to everyone. So Lord Caitanya whose 500 anniversary we are celebrating this year 1986, rather in March 26th. He came as were predicted in the Vedas. That in Kali-yuga it is predicted, the Lord personally comes as channāvatāra. That Kṛṣṇa comes in a non blackish color, in a golden color.

kṛṣṇa-varṇaṁ tviṣākṛṣṇaṁ
sāṅgopāṅgāstra-pārṣadam
yajñaiḥ saṅkīrtana-prāyair
yajanti hi su-medhasaḥ

So Kṛṣṇa, He was here for about 5000 years ago as the Supreme Personality of Godhead. But only 500 years ago, He came as His own devotee to teach how to practice this process of Bhakti-yoga or devotional yoga, by His personal example. Just like sometimes a teacher takes a pencil. and shows how to write. “Write like this.” Just to show the student.

When Śrī Kṛṣṇa spoke the Bhagavad-gītā, then there was only one understanding of Bhagavad-gītā. But now there are hundreds and hundreds of copies on translation of Bhagavad-gītā. And people, they started to misinterpret and to misunderstand the real purport or purpose of the Bhagavad-gītā. So to show by His own example, Kṛṣṇa came as Lord Caitanya to show this process of applying the Bhagavad-gītā.

Lord Caitanya, He had devotees who were kings, great jamindars or landlords as well as simple banana salesman. He had one devotee called Kolavecha Śrīdhara. Kolavecha Śrīdhara, he was very poor. He was growing bananas in Bengal. In Bengal, every house has got bananas. So he is selling bananas. Is not a kind of high supplying demand item. Everyone has got bananas. Only after some accidental need, might they need bananas. So he wasn’t making a lot of profit from his banana sales.

It’s like selling bananas in Costa Rica or something like that, for those who are from North America. Bengal and Orissa, these are very humid parts of India where there are plenty of bananas and mangoes and tropical fruits. So everyone has got bananas in their village. So his occupation was growing bananas, selling the leaves, banana, the flower, the center, the thor of the banana, the mocha, all the different parts of the bananas. But he was a very great devotee. Although he was a small businessman, he was very sincere. He will chant everyday Hare Kṛṣṇa Hare Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa Hare Hare, Hare Rāma Hare Rāma Rāma Rāma Hare Hare, and he was very happy. So he had a very special service given by His guru that 50% of his income, he will worship everyday the mother Ganges. He will go to the Ganges, and he will do a worship like he is doing here - ringing the bell, offering lights, and fans.

(aside:) Normally when we give a lecture, they don’t ring a bell. Not to disturb but... When you are worshiping, you ring a bell. This is a standard practice.

So they ring a bell, offer different things. So he was very poor. It took half his income just to buy incense, the ghee, the few things that he would use in worshiping in Ganges. He would spent, how much he made, 50 % he buy that many ingredients and he offer worship to Ganges.

So some of his fellow countryman, they approached him and say, “Listen, why not you stop this worship of the Ganges for a year. Build up your Capital. Become rich, then you can do a bigger worship of the Ganges.”

He said, “If I stop worshiping the Ganges, then what will insure that again in the future I will begin to worship again. Once I break the habit, then I could forget forever.”

He said, “No. I don't want to take that risk.” Then they were... Because the whole night he was always chanting with his friends Hare Kṛṣṇa, so they used to say that “Listen, why don’t you repair your house? It’s got holes in your roof.”

Because he’s a very poor man, he said that “It’s all right. It keeps out the sun, and in hot weather, it gives some ventilation,” with a little sense of humour.

They said, ”Listen, you have hole in in your dhoti, in your cloth.”

He said that “At least I am not naked, and there’s no problem for that.” So in this way there was always a constraint, always with his materialistic friends. There is always beyond… on his case that “Why don’t you simply give up all these spiritual nonsense, and you’ll become rich and famous.”

And then he said, "If I become rich and famous, I will become rich and famous by the Lord’s mercy. I am working hard. I am working sincerely. I am not going to try beyond... I will try, but I will never stop this chanting process.”

So they’ll be so critical that when he chant at night, they say, “Oh, that crazy guy. He is chanting at night because he is hungry. He can’t sleep. So he is howling, “Hare Kṛṣṇa! Hare Kṛṣṇa!” Totally… you see, unsympathetic people.

Then one day Lord Caitanya, He would have this very big kīrtana parties. Kīrtana means congregational chanting of Hare Kṛṣṇa with hundreds of devotees. So one day Advaita Gosāñī, one of the great devotees of Lord Caitanya, he perceived by saying some prayers to Lord Kṛṣṇa that Lord Caitanya had gone into a trance and was actually manifesting, he was in that moment, in that particular moment He was in the mood of His original self Kṛṣṇa.

So at that time he started to perform a great ārati ceremony to Lord Caitanya. And at that moment Lord Caitanya, He started to give benediction to different devotees. There was one devotee named Murāri Gupta. Murāri Gupta was a doctor. He was a great devotee of Lord Rāma. So at that time Lord Caitanya revealed His form as Lord Rāmacandra. And then Murāri Gupta, he revealed that actually he was Hanumān who has taken birth as Murāri Gupta to assist Lord Caitanya who is actually Kṛṣṇa and Rāma in that special pastime.

So when Murāri Gupta saw he was Hanumān, he became so shocked to see his real identity, he fainted. When he come back to his consciousness, he was back again Dr Murāri Gupta. So like this each devotee was being called, and they were being revealed their previous births .What they were in their previous birth? What was their real identity? It was a great revelation. It was a wonderful mystery.

Some devotees, Lord Caitanya would give them benedictions. Give them blessings whatever they wanted. He said, “You bring me that banana salesman, Śrīdhara.”

They went to Śrīdhara, the banana salesman and they said, “Lord Caitanya wants to see you now.”

He said “ Me! I am a simple vegetable banana seller. He wants to see me, Lord Caitanya?”

“Yes!”. Boom! He fainted. Was too much. Couldn’t imagine why he wanted to be seen. So they picked him up and run him to Lord Caitanya. So that time when he became conscious, there he saw Lord Caitanya was manifesting His effulgent forms with effulgence everywhere. There is a complete transcendental display. The devotees are chanting kīrtana, āratika is going on.

Lord Caitanya said, “Now Śrīdhara, you are My devotee. You have served Me faithfully. Whatever you want, you can have. You tell Me, what do you want? Do you want to have unlimited wealth? Big kingdom? (pause) Take it.”

Kolavecha Śrīdhara, the banana salesman, said, “No, I don’t want that.”

“ You don’t want that. Mystic power, siddhi. You can become smaller than an atom, larger than a planet.” You can reach away in Hong kong and bring back Rolex watch. You can do… Of course, He didn’t say that. I am just explaining what siddhi is. One of the siddhi is prāpti. You can get anything you want. If you want something from the moon, you could get it. That’s called prāpti. aṇimā, laghīmā, prāpti, mahimā. These are different siddhi. Aṣṭa-siddhi.

Suppose Lord Caitanya just said, ”You want Siddhi? You want this mystic power”

So he said, “No, I don’t want mystic power.”

“ What do you want? You take mystic power; you can have anything you want.”

“No, is not what I want.”

“Ok, what do you want? Do you want liberation from the repetition of the birth and death? Freedom from reincarnation?

He said, “No, I don’t want that.”

“ You don’t want liberation? Then what is that did you want?”

He said, “My dear Lord, my desire is that whenever You take Your avatāra, Your incarnation in this world, whether it is Kṛṣṇa or Rāma or Caitanya or whatever form you are coming, my desire is that I could offer You Your banana and vegetable needs if I could do some service. I don’t want liberation. Or if I could serve you eternally, this is my desire. If I am not worthy to serve You, then at least if I can have the association with Your devotees who are always filled with Your transcendental loving devotion.

So then Lord Caitanya said, “I am going to give you that benediction which even Lord Śiva and Lord Brahmā are eager to get, but they don’t get it easily. I am going to give you My pure love. Kṛṣṇa-prema. When the devotees heard that the simple banana salesman, a hawker in the street, he was given by Lord Caitanya Mahāprabhu the āsīrvāda, the blessings of Kṛṣṇa Prema - pure love for Kṛṣṇa, they started to shout Haribol! Haribol! Haribol! They started to just rejoice the mercy of Lord Caitanya’s compassion.

This is very esoteric. Most people, most in our Hindu tradition or Vedic tradition, we know that there’s dharma, artha, kāma, and mokṣa. First, there is religious practices, and then there is dharma. Then there is artha, economic development, make some money. Why? Kāma. So you can get sense gratification and enjoy the senses. Have a happy material life, and at the end of life Mokṣa. Achieve liberation from birth and death. So these are considered the puruṣārtha or the purpose of life.

Actually Kṛṣṇa, He gives His benediction very easy. If you want liberation or material benediction, Kṛṣṇa gives His devotee very easy. In Vṛndāvana, one lady came up offered Kṛṣṇa some fruits. She looked back at her whole basket becomes jewels. Kṛṣṇa gives this type of material benediction very easy. Why? Even giving liberation, He gives very easy. What is the reason? The reason is that when Kṛṣṇa gives those benedictions, there is no obligation on His part.

Just like if your boss says, “You a take a hundred dollar bonus.” It’s a one time thing. Finished. But when he says, “I want to give you a raise.” That means it’s a perpetual thing. So when Kṛṣṇa gives liberation or some material benediction or mystic power, something like that, then Kṛṣṇa has got no further warranty. No kind of further obligation is there. But when Kṛṣṇa gives pure devotion to His devotee, when He gives that love of Kṛṣṇa, then Kṛṣṇa says, “I never let My devotee perish. I always protect My devotee.” Is like Kṛṣṇa adopting the devotee. Just like the spider and the baby spider.