19861103 Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 4.22.37

The following is the lecture given by His Holiness Jayapataka Swami Maharaj on November 03, 1986 in New Panihati Dham, Atlanta, Georgia. The class begins with the reading from the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam Canto 4, chapter 22, verse 37.

Jayapatākā Swami: (Reads Translation and Purport)

tat tvaṁ narendra jagatām atha tasthūṣāṁ ca
dehendriyāsu-dhiṣaṇātmabhir āvṛtānām
yaḥ kṣetravit-tapatayā hṛdi viśvag āviḥ
pratyak cakāsti bhagavāṁs tam avehi so ’smi

(ŚB 4.22.37)

Translation: Sanat-kumāra advised the King: Therefore, my dear King Pṛthu, try to understand the Supreme Personality of Godhead, who is living within everyone’s heart along with the individual soul, in each and every body, either moving or not moving. The individual souls are fully covered by the gross material body and subtle body made of the life air and intelligence.

Purport: In this verse it is specifically advised that instead of wasting time in the human form of life endeavoring for economic development and sense gratification, one should try to cultivate spiritual values by understanding the Supreme Personality of Godhead, who is existing with the individual soul within everyone’s heart. The individual soul and the Supreme Personality of Godhead in His Paramātmā feature are both sitting within this body, which is covered by gross and subtle elements. To understand this is to attain actual spiritual culture. There are two ways of advancing in spiritual culture: by the method of the impersonalist philosophers and by devotional service. The impersonalist comes to the conclusion that he and the Supreme Spirit are one, whereas devotees, or personalists, realize the Absolute Truth by understanding that because the Absolute Truth is the supreme predominator and we living entities are predominated, our duty is to serve Him. The Vedic injunctions say, tat tvam asi, “You are the same,” and so ’ham, “I am the same.” The impersonalist conception of these mantras is that the Supreme Lord, or the Absolute Truth, and the living entity are one, but from the devotee’s point of view these mantras assert that both the Supreme Lord and ourselves are of the same quality. Tat tvam asi; ayam ātmā brahma. Both the Supreme Lord and the living entity are spirit. Understanding this is self-realization. The human form of life is meant for understanding the Supreme Lord and oneself by spiritual cultivation of knowledge. One should not waste valuable life simply engaged in economic development and sense gratification.

In this verse the word kṣetra-vit is also important. This word is explained in Bhagavad-gītā (13.2): idaṁ śarīraṁ kaunteya kṣetram ity abhidhīyate. This body is called kṣetra (the field of activities), and the proprietors of the body (the individual soul and the Supersoul sitting within the body) are both called kṣetra-vit. But there is a difference between the two kinds of kṣetra-vit. One kṣetra-vit, or knower of the body, namely the Paramātmā, or the Supersoul, is directing the individual soul. When we rightly take the direction of the Supersoul, our life becomes successful. He is directing from within and from without. From within He is directing as caitya-guru, or the spiritual master sitting within the heart. Indirectly He is also helping the living entity by manifesting Himself as the spiritual master outside. In both ways the Lord is giving directions to the living entity so that he may finish up his material activities and come back home, back to Godhead. The presence of the Supreme Soul and the individual soul within the body can be perceived by anyone by the fact that as long as the individual soul and the Supersoul are both living within the body, the body is always shining and fresh. But as soon as the Supersoul and the individual soul give up possession of the gross body, it immediately decomposes. One who is spiritually advanced can thus understand the real difference between a dead body and a living body. In conclusion, one should not waste his time by so-called economic development and sense gratification, but should cultivate spiritual knowledge to understand the Supersoul and the individual soul and their relationship. In this way, by advancement of knowledge, one can achieve liberation and the ultimate goal of life. It is said that if one takes to the path of liberation, even rejecting his so-called duties in the material world, he is not a loser at all. But a person who does not take to the path of liberation yet carefully executes economic development and sense gratification loses everything. Nārada’s statement before Vyāsadeva is appropriate in this connection:

tyaktvā sva-dharmaṁ caraṇāmbujaṁ harer
bhajann apakvo ’tha patet tato yadi
yatra kva vābhadram abhūd amuṣya kiṁ
ko vārtha āpto ’bhajatāṁ sva-dharmataḥ

(ŚB 1.5.17) 

If a person, out of sentiment or for some other reason, takes to the shelter of the lotus feet of the Lord and in due course of time does not succeed in coming to the ultimate goal of life or falls down due to lack of experience, there is no loss. But for a person who does not take to devotional service yet executes his material duties very nicely, there is no gain.

Thus end the Bhaktivedanta Swami purport of Text 37 Chapter 22 Canto 4 of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, in the matter entitled “Pṛthu Mahārāja’s Meeting with the Kumāras.”

Oṁ tat sat.

Jayapataka Swami: So Sanat-kumāra one of the greatest scholars, devotees, liberated souls, and the first of the sons of Brahma is speaking the Absolute Truth to King Pṛthu, the empowered incarnation of Godhead, empowering the power of administration. Sanat-kumāra is explaining the nature of the individual soul and the Supersoul. Without the two, this body cannot sustain life. This understanding of life of the Supersoul and the individual soul is very important. That we understand the difference between the individual soul and the Supersoul, and we understand the difference between the individual soul and this gross material body and subtle body, these things must be understood for achieving self-realization.

So many important points came out of this. This is a very long purport, one of the important points is that we are qualitatively one with Kṛṣṇa but we are not absolutely one, we are not one in all respects as the māyāvatī philosophers would consider, we are only one in quality.

One time, Advaita Goswami was feeling so upset that Lord Caitanya was not mistreating him, that always Lord Caitanya was treating him with great respect. Even though Lord Caitanya would not accept that Advaita Acharya could offer Him respect. He is Advaita Acharya was an elderly brāhmaṇa. So Lord Caitanya said, “No, you are my senior, don’t offer Me respect.” But Advaita knew that Lord Caitanya was in fact Lord Kṛṣṇa Himself. So he wanted to offer respect to Lord Caitanya as Kṛṣṇa. So he became so frustrated that he could not offer respect to Lord Caitanya. Then he decided that he is going to force Lord Caitanya to mistreat him. So he went out and started to preach “tat tvam asi - We all everything is one”, and started to preach the Māyāvadī philosophy that how we are all of the same quality, and by realizing the absolute... So when Lord Caitanya heard that Advaita Goswami is teaching impersonal philosophy, He is so angry, took up the stick, and He went out looking for him. When He found him, He chasing him you don’t dare preach this nonsense again, and then Advaita Goswami was running, laughing saying that, “Finally, I got You to disrespect me.” So Lord Caitanya.. "You don’t, under no circumstance don’t ever preach this impersonal philosophy again."

In other words, even someone is dear as Advaita Goswami if he started to preach Māyāvadī philosophy then whatever respect Lord Caitanya had, finished. He chased him with a stick; of course that was Advaita’s plot. But we can take a lesson from in the other regard. Someone may be very senior devotee or anything, but if they started to preach things which are impersonalistic, which are Māyāvadī, or covered Māyāvadī, or camouflaged Māyāvadī, or disguised Māyāvadī, or any other form of Māyāvadī, then Lord Caitanya is not going to recognize such persons rather will de-recognize them. So to be very careful not to become polluted by this Māyāvadī philosophy.

Māyāvadī is a very expert in presenting things in juggling words. In fact, it’s not uncommon that after a big Māyāvadī sannyāsī gives a lecture in India, if you ask them what is a... If you ask the people that have heard, how did you like the lecture, “Oh fantastic! Swamiji has said such a wonderful thing”, and they just... Then you say, “what did swamiji say?” “But that I couldn’t understand, but it was very wonderful.” You get... It’s not the... The idea is not to understand, simply to tickle a brain and send them off. So this is the thing that sometimes people say, “Well, Swamiji your lecture they are so simple, I can understand everything you are saying.” (Laughing) In their thought, that’s a disqualification. The qualification is, you should say something so complicated that they can’t understand, then they feel that he knows more than I do. So, their communication is another way to try to non-communicate.

Actually when Prabhupāda would speak, if the people could give a little concentration, they could understand anything he was saying. He was very simple, but very profound. And this is the way the Vaisnava ācāryas speak. Is in order to the... So that the people can understand what is the subject matter. But the jñānīs sometimes they tend to say things in such a way that you can’t understand what they are talking about. I would give a... Can we? Ātma Tattva is very expert in giving these demonstrations, I don’t think it’s appropriate to give, however humorous it is, sitting here I am on the seat of Vyāsa. So but the point is that they are able to twist the things in various ways.

In fact, one time when a Rāmānujācārya was, this is explained in one purport by Śrīla Prabhupāda how Rāmānujācārya was studying under māyāvadī, and the māyāvadī was giving an explanation from the Bhāgavatam. He took one verse which meant that Kṛṣṇa has lotus eyes, lotus face something like that, and that person took the, took the verse and divided them in different places. Just like here in the verse today, there is some words which are actually very long, dehendriyāsu-dhiṣaṇātmabhir. So we divide that as dehe – or body – deho, indriya, disha – dishana – consideration, ātmabhir– self-realization. But if you divide the words up in different ways, you can get different meanings in the Sanskrit. This is the very natural way of dividing it up. Sometimes people they might take the word “Satr-vita-datta-tapatayā” and they might start to just divide them up in different ways, so by doing that you get all kind of meanings, that are not the original meanings.

So this guru, he took a very simple verse on Lord Kṛṣṇa, glorifying His beauty. But he divided the words so that it came, that there was a black monkey by the name of Kṛṣṇa, and he had instead of saying lotus feet with a red color, he said, he had a, he had a, his face was like the red of the rear end of the particular kind of monkey, and just... I mean it is horrible thing... And then outside looked, and he saw that Rāmānujācārya was crying. “What’s wrong? What is the matter? Why you are crying?” “You just said such horrible things about my Lord, so how can a person not cry when he hear these things? And so in this way, the, they don’t like to say anything good about Kṛṣṇa.

Just like I mentioned sometimes, one famous speaker he was saying, when someone was saying, “Well, this Hare Kṛṣṇa chanting seems to give a lot of force, lot of spiritual ah strength to the chanters. What is the meaning for this? This must mean that names of Kṛṣṇa, the personality of Kṛṣṇa has got spiritual potency.” And he said, “No, it’s not the names Hare Kṛṣṇa Hare Kṛṣṇa. It’s not the names that you are chanting. It is the little voids between the names. The voids give the śakti. Without the void, what is the... Name has no meaning. It’s the void, see.” “Oh ya, swamiji you are so smart.” So in this way, they never like to give Kṛṣṇa the credit.

That’s why the Lord Caitanya said, “Māyāvadī kṛṣṇa aparādhī - that the Māyāvadīs they make so many offenses against Kṛṣṇa.” Just like, what would if you say, if you went up on the street in saṅkīrtana, there is a nice couple, you start telling the person, “Oh your, your, your girl she is very nice, but she has no face, no arms, no legs, no breast, no… ah.. no eyes, no...”, you know. This is what they say; the Supreme Absolute Truth has got no form, no quality, no like you know he start describing that to someone how their friend has got no features, pretty soon that person would be putting his fist in your face at least here in America, for sure. So the point is that, by describing the Absolute Truth to be simply impersonal, they to, to, to create that absolute advaita-ism, they have to ah commit so many offenses.

[Aside: See that he gets prasāda]

And for this reason we are advised not to hear the words of the impersonalists. Because by doing so we have to hear offenses, and if we hear offenses it cuts our spiritual root,  then we are forced to then we lose our śakti, then we can get bewildered, and it’s like a, it’s like a, what they call, a tailspin fall in to a descending instead of being yuppies, we are which are we are the other way, dippies, going down, dipping into the material world.

So the Bhāgavatam is very practical, if someone gives it a good hearing, they can understand what is life, what is a difference between dead body and living body, and then they can start to assign priorities to their life. We have a living body, is going to be dead, so should we waste our whole life simply decorating and preparing ah things simply for the dead body? Is that the goal? Or should we actually consider the living body and how to provide proper spiritual food and development for the living soul, the real essence of life so that again and again we don’t have to return to conditioned material life.

So Kṛṣṇa conscious way of-course is not to simply waste the whole life making preparations with the body, but to cultivate our own Kṛṣṇa consciousness, so that we can achieve the real perfection of life. And someone may say, “Well, that’s well and good. But in material life, we got both feet on the ground; there are so many things you can enjoy. I mean you know what you are getting, but in this spiritual life may be we won’t what do we going to get out of it? I mean, alright, if we achieve perfection we can get liberation, and we can achieve love for Kṛṣṇa, but we see that so many senior people even in history, great devotees they have, they haven’t succeeded in their same life time. They started off and they fell down. Even we have seen some older devotees sometime they leave. So then what is the future? Why should we take a risk?”

So in this regard, Narada’s statement before Vyāsadeva is very appropriate. Is it if a person out of sentiment or for some other reason takes to the shelter of lotus feet of the Lord, and in due course of time does not succeed in coming to the ultimate goal of life, or falls down due to lack of experience, there is no loss. But for person who does not take the devotional service, and executes his material duties very nicely there is no gain. Somebody takes the risk, whatever devotional service they have done they will reap unlimited benefits for that. And they get other opportunities and it’s a auspicious that one gets his good reactions first, even after person falls down they are no doubt liable for any material activities they perform. But if they had been devotees they would have performed those activities in any case, so they would have been liable, but by performing devotional service they have accrued so many auspicious sukṛtīs or puṇyas and they are able to enjoy the results of those first. So they get more opportunity to engage in liberation says that they can take birth in higher planetary systems for long period of time, and then in the, in the end they get another opportunity in this planet by being born in a family of devotees, or yogīs, or brāhmaṇas, or rich people, and then they get another opportunity to take up for this spiritual life.

So actually one doesn’t lose anything. Well, being a devotee what’s the difficulty? Devotee life is very peaceful, very happy. But if somehow due to bad association one is a little bit immature, so they are not careful, they are careless, they make mistakes, they might fall down, and even then what do they lost? Never lost anything, they gained so much. And that is a type of spiritual wealth which stays with them even life after life.

So people should take opportunity to render devotional service, there is a greatest opportunity one has, there is no greater opportunity, no greater service one could do. And even if one is not able to stay on the path in the whole life what do they lost? But by not engaging in the devotional service what do they gain? Then they are just... they still facing the same problems of life, birth, death, old age, disease, conditional life, there is no hope. But for those who engaging in devotional service there is every hope that they can be successful, and in any case there is no loss at all. This is the special mercy of the Sanat-kumāra, he is teaching this not only to Pṛthu, but to all of the people who are present there. So we can take advantage of his instruction and be very serious in our devotional service, chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa, and following Śrīla Prabhupāda back to Home back to Godhead.

Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa, Hare Hare
Hare Rāma, Hare Rāma, Rāma Rāma, Hare Hare

Any question?

By whatever Bhakti Siddhānta presented was very direct. The difference is he was so actually scholarly. He wasn’t word jugglering. If you read Bhakti Siddhānta's work you can get every word is like a sūtra, it’s like a riddle almost, but not, it’s not a riddle, it’s just written so profoundly. He put so much into so little few words, because he chooses, chooses his words so well that it requires intense concentration. Of course Prabhupāda out of humility he was saying that, obviously he did understand Bhakti Siddhānta, that’s why he carried out the orders of Bhakti Siddhānta and spread Kṛṣṇa conscious movement all over the world. But he was one of the more educated followers of Bhakti Siddhānta, because he had a degree from the University of Calcutta, and he was very high family, he can understand. But out of humility, he was I wasn’t understood, he was saying you know he had difficulty in understanding. Even then Prabhupāda was presenting that even he had difficulty, he had to really concentrate to understand his spiritual master, so therefore what chance is there, what hope is there for us? Therefore we should read Prabhupāda books and understand his teachings. You can read the Brahma-saṁhitā is there. And Bhakti Siddhānta’s writing is practically like poetry. It’s so, it’s so, every word is so well chosen.

I remember I showed that to one, to one person in university, and they read in 1968 or something like that, and they read and they said ‘phew’. This can be relate with that it was like so. You know was a... He said something frivolous when they just found it was so even for very highly educated people, it’s very hard to, his language is so, I mean now it would be considered a bit antiquated or something. But at that time, it wasn’t that he was, it was just a he was so well learned in English or so well read in English that he could present, or even a Sanskrit any language he could speak fluent Sanskrit. So when he would speak, when he would write, they were just very concise, very erudite. But it wasn’t with idea of confusing the people.

It is just that at that time in the Vaiṣṇava world, there was no proper preacher to protect the movement of Lord Caitanya, to present the teachings of the six Gosvāmīs. So Bhakti Siddhānta he went to preach in competition with all of these other people who are just word jugglering, but he didn’t word juggler. He presented the Absolute truth. The people had to use, but he could appreciate what he was saying was so scholarly, was so philosophical, it was so erudite, that it had to earn their respect, if they were little foolish and couldn’t understand they would respect it, because they couldn’t understand it, (laugh) they fall in the same category. But that wasn’t the purpose.  The purpose was that the people would understand. But the people at that time they really highly qualified scholars, were more educated. They could also speak Sanskrit, they could more than today at-least. And so they are those who were highly qualified they could appreciate what he was saying. It wasn’t also just that he was speaking in high language, but the topic that he was speaking on was also very elevated. He wrote, he spoke on the Jīva Gosvāmī’s Ṣaṭ Sandarbhas and so on.

The point is even if you sit down and read, haven’t transcribed what they said, read with Māyāvadī say, even you read it, even you, it’s not that you can’t understand what they saying is, what they are saying doesn’t make any sense in most of the time. The basis of this is this, and that’s that, this for this, this for that, and may bit create a lot of logic, and then this means that, and this then you know, that is like all logic. Bhakti Siddhānta is not putting just dry mundane logic. He is presenting spiritual Kṛṣṇa conscious philosophy based up on the Vedas, with references, with quotes, and it’s not just jugglery words, it’s very, it’s very concise, it’s very accurate.

I mean, we have to compare the two, and this and it is a you can see it is day and night, although the end result for someone who is, might, for some might be same all over their head, but that it’s actually difference between day and night, because those who are very attached to that type of relation, read the works of Bhakti Siddhānta and they will be satisfied by having re..re..read or heard some philosophy which goes over their head they can have that satisfaction. But if they chant Hare Kṛṣṇa, eat little prasādam and then they study very carefully and then you can make it out. It just requires very intense concentration which is very enjoyable actually. So to surpass someone or to defeat someone’s philosophy or to be able to understood, you can impress somebody by just saying something they don’t understand it, but if you want to actually convince someone or to defeat someone you have to be able to communicate. So he was, it wasn’t that he wasn’t able to communicate.

Well, Prabhupāda said here, there are two ways of advancing in spiritual culture by the method of the impersonalist philosophers, and by the Absolute by devotional service. There are sincere impersonalist philosophers, there are, they were. Somewhere in history they have been. But today the problem is just polluteration of impersonalist  philosophers if they are really sincere, they would be convinced possibly by Vaiṣṇava philosophy when they faced it just like Prakāśānanda and others. But there are right now lot of this impersonal philosophy gives you lot of leeway to do anything and speculate, there are lot of impostors polluterated in the market today, who don’t follow the four regulative principles for one who don’t strictly referred to the Vedas, in their discourses. They are lot, you have to be careful. But there is a sincere, such as an entity as a sincere impersonal philosopher and that’s one way of achieving Absolute Truth. There is two ways Prabhupāda said. These are the two broad categories, within that there are so many other subcategories. Because impersonalism is very dry, how long you are going to talk about nothing? Nothing to say, right?!

They say tons of ton, you know volumes of books about the void. So people get bored. So it’s better for them to discuss about the Personality of Godhead it’s very attractive and then at the end, because they are impersonalist, that’s why it says,

avaiṣṇava-mukhodgīrṇaṁ
pūtaṁ hari-kathāmṛtam
śravaṇaṁ naiva kartavyaṁ
sarpocchiṣṭaṁ yathā payaḥ

Don’t listen to the words of the non-Vaiṣṇavas. Even when they are discussing Hari-kathāmṛta, when they are discussing the glories of Hari, because it’s like taking milk that is touched by the lips of a serpent, and it will have a poisonous effect.

They will discuss about Kṛṣṇa, but in the end Kṛṣṇa they just also say, yes, Kṛṣṇa has said in the Bhagavad-gītā give up all other religion and simply surrender unto the void within Me. Where does He say that, where is He say Kṛṣṇa that void within Me? But they just throwing something like that, and then that bewilders their follower. There is no void within Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa the same within and without.

sakalendriya-vṛtti-manti

kṛṣṇa vai saccidānanda ghaṇa, kṛṣṇa ādi purusaḥ
kṛṣṇa puruṣottamaḥ

Kṛṣṇa's quality is saccidānanda, it’s a Vedic aphorism. There is no where it says saccidānanda śūnya, in saccidānanda there is other one inside, there is nothingness. No, it’s sat-cit-ananda: eternity, knowledge, and bliss, doesn’t say anything about voidness. These three qualities are there. Saccidānanda ghaṇa He has qualities. So they will just throw in something like that, and then you will be taking those and say yes, a living entity is like a piece of ice floating in the ocean, and eventually they will melt, and they will become one. Result of everything you will think yes little piece of ice in ocean now. The ocean is water, the ice is water, but because of some change now this little soul has got form, and then eventually that little when, when it ice melts, it becomes God. So after our form melt into nothingness, we become God? They are presenting, oh yes, pretty good idea, why didn’t I think of it earlier, and this way people get bewildered. How are we ice? What is the difference? Why are we ice, and the Absolute Truth is water, where is the similarity in that comparison? Where does the Veda say that in any place? But they just throwing things like that. That one, that's a particularly in the Gītā press Bhagavad-gītā. They throwing the ice ice analogy. No it supposed to be simply a direct translation, in parenthesis they throw this little bit of poison, so that someone reading it gets a wrong idea.

So therefore one has to have a proper Vaiṣṇava spiritual master, and study the Bhagavad-gītā, the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, the Vedas under a Vaiṣṇava spiritual master otherwise you get bewildered. They can throw in, little boomerangs, little loopholes where least expected. You are one drop merging into the ocean, this is the comment. Prabhupāda said, if we are the Vaiṣṇava wants to be fish in the ocean, we go deep. The drops get evaporated by the sun and taken back up. Like this the impersonal liberation is not permanent, you go there and eventually you come back again into the material world. The cloud’s evolution, you get sucked up. But the fish, they stay, the deep water fish they stay deep under the water in the ocean of nectar, so they remain immune from that danger. Hare Kṛṣṇa.

Thus neophytes are more impersonal but we don't consider them as an impersonalist. That’s a, that’s you know being saying too much. They are more impersonal they are less realized. They think, they think that God is a person. But they never understand beyond that, what is a relation or the importance of Lord’s devotees. This is not necessarily impersonalism, this means that they are neophyte. They are not very advanced in the personal concept. They just understand the very basic thing. But if they believe that the Absolute Truth is a person, then that’s a not influence any impersonalism.