19851002 Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 7.1.4-5

The following is a lecture given by His Holiness Jayapataka Swami on October 2nd, 1985, at New Talavan farm in Carriere, Mississippi. The class begins with a reading from the Srimad Bhagavatam, 7th Canto, Chapter 1, Text 4 to 5.

Jayapataka Swami: [Reads translation and Purport ]

[Translation]

 The great sage Sukadeva Gosvami said: My dear King, you have put before me an excellent question. Discourses concerning the activities of the Lord, in which the glories of His devotees are also found, are extremely pleasing to devotees. Such wonderful topics always counteract the miseries of the materialistic way of life. Therefore great sages like Narada always speak upon Srimad Bhagavatam because it gives one the facility to hear and chant about the wonderful activities of the Lord. Let me offer my respectful obeisances un to Srila Vyasadeva and then begin describing topics concerning the activities of Lord Hari.

[Purport]

 In this verse Sukadeva Gosvami offers his respectful obeisances krisnaya munaye, which means to Krsna Dvaipayana Vyasa. One must first offer one’s respectful obeisances to one’s spiritual master. Sukadeva Gosvami’s spiritual master is his father, Vyasadeva, and therefore he first offers his respectful obeisances to Krsna Dvaipayana Vyasa and then begins describing topics of Lord Hari. Whenever there is an opportunity to hear about the transcendental activities of the Lord, we must take it. Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu recommends, kirtaniyah sada harih: one should always engage in Krishna-katha by chanting and talking about Krishna and hearing about Him. That is the only occupation of a Krishna conscious person. Thus ends the Bhaktivedanta Purports of Canto 7, Chapter 1, text 4 and 5, in the chapter titled “The Supreme Lord is equal to everyone”

Jayapataka Swami:

So it is described that Sukadeva Goswami achieved perfection simply by speaking the Bhagavatam and that Parikshit Maharaj achieved perfection simply by hearing the Bhagavatam. So here Sukadeva Goswami is congratulating the King for asking such pertinent and wonderful questions. Someone who preaches, they know how blissful it is if someone asks pertinent questions about Krishna. So often when you preach in the West, people walk up and the only question they can ask is, “What is the white thing on your face? Do everybody have to have short hair? “And so and so forth. So someone actually comes up and says, “What is that even, just tell me what is the ah… what is the reason why the devotees appear so happy when they chant Hare Krishna? Is there something really ? or”… even you know just something like that… then you think that well this is wonderful. So here Lord, rather Maharaj Parikshit, he is asking such a nice question that those questions are opening the gateways for Sukadev Goswami to go higher and higher in the descriptions of Krishna katha. So it requires both a good listener as well as ah… a qualified speaker, then you can have proper discourses. But this combination and everything is perfect, so here we have the perfect speaker and the perfect listener- Sukadev Goswami and Maharaj Parikshit. Maharaj Parikshit asked perfect questions and Sukadev Goswami is giving the absolute perfect answers. So when I was present in Mayapur when Prabhupada was having those perfect questions and perfect answers and Prabhupada was sitting in his grass hut in his little bhajan kutir and he was preaching to different people and so when this Peace Corps student came by asking various questions then Prabhupada was ah… explaining Krishna consciousness to him. So this is a common feeling by any preacher, they get a good question, if they get a question that shows that the person is actually interested in knowing something about spiritual life, it is very encouraging. It’s primarily equal, they are only concerned with the materialistic aspect of life, they don’t even think or don’t even have hardly any inclination towards knowing more about spiritual life due to a bodily concept of life. So this question is ah… very ah… spiritual whether Narayana is partial or impartial, how He is dealing with His devotees, this opens the door for some very high level discussions. So in this way ah… when I first joined the temple I asked for some clue you know , what was… when I was first going to see Prabhupada ,one devotee told me that it is going to be very hard for me to understand what he says because he has an Indian accent, so better you just stay in the temple and just help us out with sankirtan and don’t go there. He was the President of course. Another devotee told me that, “Well, don’t listen to him, if you offer him …. 6.45-50[1] … he will go with you too. So you just go to see Srila Prabhupada. You will be able to make out.” That devotee told me that good thing is always ask good questions, always try to ask him pertinent questions, so I know… I remember that that was the only and first advice that I got from anybody. So every time when Prabhupada gave a class at then end I raised my hand and tried to ask a question, usually I would get smashed. Remember one time I asked something, “What about the gopis?” He said, “Just try to understand… Just try to become Krishna conscious.” And so…so I thought that I was actually being more of a botheration and I would have go to work every night because that time was a great economic difficulty, I couldn’t attend Prabhupada’s classes at one point, and the next day I would listen to the tapes, and then after the class one day Srila Prabhupada asked that ah… “Where is Jayapataka?” He said, “He is out, he has to work now because of… bringing money for the temple”, and Prabhupada said, “Oh! He asks very nice questions.” He would smash me when I asked, but ah…Prabhupada didn’t usually praise anyone to the face but sometimes… so you can see that in asking questions for something that ah… is very pleasing to preachers and to be able to ask a good question a person has to also come up to that level of understanding of the subject matter that they can coherently form the appropriate question. That means that even to ask a question, a person has to listen very carefully. Unless a person listens they are not going to be able to ask subsequently a relevant question. So Lord Caitanya knew that how He did a lot of preaching simply by asking questions. He asked questions to Ramananda Raya, which were so pertinent that they got Ramananda Raya to go higher and higher and to explain Krishna consciousness in the most exalted levels. In fact Lord Caitanya kept asking such questions that it forced Ramananda Raya to come up with topics which had never been disclosed before. So he had never had anyone ask him to explain those topics, those highest topics of Krishna consciousness ever before…[2] 

Transcribed by: Sadananda Krishnaprem Das Dibrugarh 05.06.2016