19880830 Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 2.10.25

The following is the class given by His Holiness Jayapatākā Swami on August 30, 1988 at Trivandrum, India. The class begins with the reading of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 2nd Canto chapter 10 text 25 (2.10.25).

Translation by His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Śrīla Prabhupāda ki.. Jaya!

Translation: There upon, because of His desiring to control movement, His legs became manifested, and from the legs the controlling deity named Viṣṇu was generated. By His personal supervision of this act, all varieties of human being are busily engaged in dutiful occupational sacrifice.

*Translation repeated*

Purport by His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Śrīla Prabhupād ki.. Jaya!

Purport: Every human being is engaged in his particular occupational duty, and such activities are visible as men go hither and thither. This is very prominently visible in big cities of the world: people are going all over the cities with great concern, from one place to another. This movement is not limited only to the cities, but is also visible outside the cities from one place to another, or from one city to another, by different means of vehicles. Men are moving by cars and rails on the roads, by subways within the earth and by planes in the sky for the purpose of business success. But in all these movements the real purpose is to earn wealth for comfortable life. For this comfortable life the scientist is engaged, the artist is engaged, the engineer is engaged, the technician is engaged, all in different branches of human activity. But they do not know how to make the activities purposeful to fulfill the mission of human life. Because they do not know this secret, all their activities are targeted towards the goal of sense gratification without control, and therefore by all this business they are unknowingly entering into the deep regions of darkness.

Because they have been captivated by the external energy of the Supreme Lord, they have completely forgotten the Supreme Lord Viṣṇu, and thus they have taken it for granted that this life, as presently manifested under the conditions of material nature, is all in all for enjoying the highest amount of sense gratification. But such a wrong conception of life cannot give anyone the desired peace of mind, and thus in spite of all advancement in knowledge by use of the resources of nature, no one is happy in this material civilization. The secret is that at every step they should try to execute sacrifices toward the path of world peace. The Bhagavad-gītā (18.45-46) also advises the same secret in the following verses.

sve sve karmaṇy abhirataḥ
saṁsiddhiṁ labhate naraḥ
sva-karma-nirataḥ siddhiṁ
yathā vindati tac chṛṇu
yataḥ pravṛttir bhūtānāṁ
yena sarvam idaṁ tatam
sva-karmaṇā tam abhyarcya
siddhiṁ vindati mānavaḥ

The Lord said to Arjuna: “Just hear from Me how one can attain the highest perfection in life simply by discharging his specified occupational duty. Man can attain the highest perfection of life by worshiping the Supreme Lord and by performing sacrifice for the sake of the Supreme Lord Viṣṇu, who is all-pervading and by whose control every living being having different propensities in life because every human being is proportionately independent to chalk out the plan of his life by different occupations.

But one should make it a point in his life to know perfectly well that he is not independent absolutely. One is certainly under the control of the Supreme Lord’s different agencies. Knowing this one should make it a point that by his work and the results of his labor he serves the Supreme Lord as described by the authorities’ expert in transcendental science.

For performing such occupational duties of life, the legs are the most important for without the help of the legs one cannot move from one place to another and therefore the Lord has special control over the legs of all human beings which are meant for performing yajña.

Thus, ends the Bhakti Vedanta Swami purport of text 25, chapter 10 Canto 2 of the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam – The matter of in Bhāgavatam is the answer to all questions.

Translation: Thereupon, because of His desiring to control movement, His legs became manifested, and from the legs the controlling deity named Viṣṇu was generated. By His personal supervision of this act, all varieties of human being are busily engaged in dutiful occupational sacrifice.

Jayapatākā Swami: This is describing how the creation and the Supreme Puruṣa gradually develops the material world with his virāṭa-rūpa or his universal form. One by one the Lord manifests different energies, idea being that all of the mental and physical activities are spiritualized by engaging in the devotional service to the Lord.

Generally, what we see in big cities that people are moving from one place to the next especially after from 7-8-9 in the morning although even earlier in the morning.

One day Śrīla Prabhupāda in the Māyāpur and there the devotees stood and watched some bulls going around and around kicking some rice with their feet or some dāl with their feet checking all the seeds from the pods. They are tied to a stick.

Prabhupāda said, "you see that stick in the local language it is known as the medanda” and then he quoted the verse gṛhamedhinā that generally the people are simply working hard for sense gratification so they are called gṛhamedhinā. So, Prabhupāda explained that they are just like the bulls. The bulls they think they’re walking a long way they think they’re walking to the deli and back but actually they’re tied to that stick so they are not going anywhere they are just going in a circle.

So, the people they are not going anywhere they may be travelling from one city to the next from country to the next from one side of the world to the other side of the world but they are all going around in the same circle. To get their money, to make profit, to enjoy sense gratification.

Generally, sense gratification is centered around the attachment of man and women. And there are two types of gṛhastha life or household life. One is gṛhamedhi and one is gṛhastha. Gṛhamedhi life means that one is simply trying to satisfy the senses. So, they are trying to please the senses of the wife. Wife is trying to gratify herself through a serving attitude. The husband is trying to gratify himself through serving his wife. This way the center is simply gratification of senses – how to have a nice family, children should all get well situated for the purpose of social standing and so on. So many desires are coming from that. So, a person is moving sometimes in a narrow circle sometimes in a big circle but the goal is the same.

Gṛhastha life means the husband and wife they put Kṛṣṇa in the center, they are both going around Kṛṣṇa. Actually, when one gets married, they go together around a yajña the homa because the husband and wife are supposed to engaged in sacrifice. The center of their journey through life should be serving Kṛṣṇa, serving Viṣṇu. Yajña by (for) Viṣṇu. But instead usually people become mad after sense gratification and they just go on working hard day and night to get more and more money to enjoy more sense gratification.

One businessman was explaining to me yesterday in the train now in India there are many salaried people who have come into existence after independence of India and this new middle class has got surplus economy to spend on luxury items. So they are the new consumer market in India and they want to attract those consumers to various consumer items and luxury goods, so that they can make money, make themselves rich of the new middle class. So like this everyone has their duties, people are trying to live a more comfortable way of life but they don’t realize that life itself always ends that is not very comforting. But this life will always come to an abrupt end we have to leave it and again take a new birth we don’t know what type of birth we are going to take.

Bhagavad-gītā, the Vedas, Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, Vedānta-sūtra they all awaken us to the duty we have to actually realize the self, Vedanta Sutra says “athāto brahma jijñāsā” now we should inquire into the absolute truth. Other verse say…… wake up, wake up to the real purpose of life.

Life is not meant to just to go round and round trying to gratify the senses, tinkle the ears with the simply materialistic sounds. To agitate the senses to various objects these will not create any permanent peace of mind. People want peace in the world, peace in the world will not come from worldwide competition for greater gratification of the senses. Rather than simply creates only imbalances adds enviousness and ultimately produces types of violence and activities. But if the center is based on serving Kṛṣṇa, serving Viṣṇu the supreme lord then their naturally can be harmony. People can relish the transcendental happiness and everything can actually become peaceful because their goal is all one. This way the whole world could be united ….. dogmatic, sectarian, religious outlooks which do not recognize that there is only one Supreme Lord in a multifarious variety of forms, with unlimited names, they are also stumbling blocks in the way of achieving universal transcendental peace and knowledge.

The Vedas, are based upon knowledge, based upon taking self-realization rather as a science very systematically. Open for anyone who will follow the process in a systematic manner. So we can use our legs for moving about for sense gratification or we can use the same legs for moving about to spread the glories of Kṛṣṇa.

So many buses, lorries moving on the street you can hear that in the morning, moving about transporting things from one place to the next for sense gratification. So now we also have ISKCON travelling sankirtan bus in Madras for carrying the transcendental literature from place to next. So that people can easily avail these transcendental books.

In the age of kali these transcendental books are the most important medium for transmitting the knowledge. Infact, when the sages asked Kṛṣṇa that how the people of the age of kali would be able to go back to Godhead when you leave and along with you Dharma, Jñāna also going. That time Kṛṣṇa said the secret was revealed that he would come in the form of the Bhāgavatam, Purāṇas quote which is like brilliant light which is more brilliant than the sun. So, in this way we can spread this light of the Bhāgavatam everywhere, people can know their real duty to serve Kṛṣṇa the supreme personality of Godhead, To transcend, just the, idle occupation of gratifying of the senses, which doesn’t produce any lasting effect. It is interesting note that, Prabhupāda said that, all the Humans, the real purpose is to earn wealth for comfortable life. This comfortable life is scientists engaged, artists engaged, and engineers engaged, technicians engaged all different branches of people engaged. They don't know how to make the activities purposeful and fulfill the mission.

Krsna consciousness doesn't want to change what everybody is doing but actually want to add the mission. People should know the ultimately a superior mission to human life. It is not the mission just go on make life more and more comfortable. I mention it occasionally how the paragon trying to make life more and more comfortable such a economy such a contradiction in the west.

They made life so comfortable now you have to go the health spa, to work out spending 100s of dollars of every year or thousands of dollars in order to stay fit, because life become so comfortable.

Everything we push a button technology that people are not moving and so the doctors saying heart is not getting enough exercises. So, people are going and having electric drilling machine and weight lifting and so many, this way we create artificial extra comfort beyond what we need.

In the Indian tradition grinding your spices or doing little exercise this way, you get not only fresh but if you buy a packet of ground spices, you can smell that, compare to freshly grinded spice, the smell is totally different the flavor everything. So, the grinding is some effort is required but the effort is good to get some exercise if we don't move then it is not good.

Then next time you get good things to offer to Krsna. So like this kind one specific example but there are so many examples in this one. How we create to this, trying to make everything more and more comfortable that what obviously in India has not reached to that extent because the comfort by machines of course in India the other kind of comfort.

The point is that the people are going to college getting Ph.D., to become a great scientist, to become great artist but the whole purpose in vedic culture was to make a very well-organized society so that the least amount of complications was there so maximum energy could be given into self-realization.

So now, the reverse, most some people working hard day and night. Just to increase sense gratification to have the tallest building in the world, multistoried building or tallest building in your city. And for one building is not as usual that half a dozen people fall and die that means what a passionate activity. And doing so even people given up their life. Why because they can make comfortable life in air condition building go by lift but doing they have to spend so much effort, so actually miss the whole point. The point is we are not this body, we are eternal spirit soul we should realize the soul. Of course, Kṛṣṇa…, sometimes we are built Krsna’s temples to attract the people to come and hear about Krsna.

Prabhupāda said for bhajana, no need we can live in a grass hut even and simply chant. The coconut leaf hut can become nice temple. Eventually in Madras, we need a very nice temple and facilities otherwise that's why so many people may come. The message will not be different, this is the nature that we put today. We have big temple to big exhibit then everyone likes to come, and if you have an ordinary situation even the message is same, they are not changed. Now a days you make a pure spice dish in a bag you won't take it but you get nicely packed in card board box or plastics then you think it is very good.

In America, People buy the…some people have mango trees in their homes in Hawaii, but they go to the store to buy the mango. So, someone said, “You having mango, why don’t you like it?” “That mango in my yard, it is not pure, the birds and everything are flying and it is falling, but in the grocery shop, they are in little cardboard boxes there with some plastic over it. So, they are very pure.”

So, we said, “Can we have the mangoes?” “Yeah, yeah you take it.”

So, we go take all the mangoes, fresh mangoes, ripened from the trees. They are buying other type of mango, which is plastic wrapped, sprayed with insecticide, everything they are getting it from the market. This is the kind of, you see, artificial culture developing. And this is where we are headed down gradually in India. If people are not reminded that the real purpose of Indian culture is to promote the real mission of human life. That is to realize our relationship with Kṛṣṇa, realize the self, engage in self-realization. If we neglect this, you see, then we will not be able to have the world peace everybody is hankering for.

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

Any questions? Yes

Devotee: This is not on the subject, but in the Bhāgavatam, there are certain descriptions of the universe and the scientists they come up with different kinds of theories of nature of the universe. So how do we convince scientists with Vedic culture?

Guru Maharāja: Well, it is a technical subject matter. Always Prabhupāda has asked the devotees to research, make a presentation. Like Sanatbhuta, Harikeśa Maharāja, some people are researching it. There are other descriptions in other parts of the Vedas which fill in the missing links so to speak.

Mārkaṇḍeya and Parāśara and others, they have certain descriptions. So then putting those together you get, more complete. Ultimately, we are supposed to convince them by building our Māyapur planetarium and show how the universe looks. That is going on, but in the meantime, we are preaching all over the world.

Devotee: And some may have to preach to so many scientific people, so what by what means can we apart from just the technicalities how shall we convince them on the validity of the Vedic philosophy?

Guru Maharāja: Vedic philosophy. Prabhupāda said the main thing is to prove the existence of the soul. If we can prove the existence of the soul, then from that one thing everything else will come.

Devotee: In the meantime, if we can’t demonstrate the validity of our Bhāgavatam, the Vedic version of the description of the universe. Do we just sort of avoid the subject matter, if they challenge us on that subject matter? Do we deflect them into the other aspects of the philosophy regarding the soul and like that?

Guru Maharāja: When they don’t have the need basically, what should we do?

Devotee: So, we just try to find out that the conditioned soul has been trapped in scientific theories and mental speculation. Should that be our answer?

Guru Maharāja: I don’t know if I can call it the answer of what our technique should be. It would be nice if this type of thing is discussed in seminars amongst the people who are researching, former GBCs, sannyāsīs and community preachers.

It would be good form of utilization of our Māyapur festival. Because there are certainly man aspects of Vedic technology which can add a lot even today. Like in the descriptions given are in such a way that the people they are spoken to, they don’t have access to telescopes. All those came from just watching the sky. They are given content and descriptions how things are. But in other Purāṇas, it is explained in other ways.

So, in one Purāṇa you get the question that everything is flat, in others Purāṇa, you get to question, what is your name… what you are saying sadabuta he said that ……global allow then the planet remain in orbit I don’t know much either even.

Śrīla Prabhupāda said that …. Hare Kṛṣṇa 5th canto purport to be read one. Which are the things are figurative, which are to what extent they are accurate all of this in terms of are they meant to indicate racial part distinct dimensions.

I have seen in some scientific books like in some books there was a description which I found quite interesting, I saw this in Montreal in the late sixties. And this was one of these some kind of… lady magazine in science must been French and they said how light is actually effected by electromagnetic fields and know they found a certain two wheeler tubes, tubes can bend the light, can get these tubes they use it know in telephone transmission of light and they go around corners everything in these tubes.

They said that basically light can be reflected and will be dead by certain type of forces. This is modern far known that time in the late sixties it was not even known to that extent. But that this magazine there are maybe wasn’t written on that exactly I am not much of on top of it, they said that the light ray then is actually going around in a cycle in a spiral around the earth and by the time they reach the earth then it is mentioned that in this time the light wave it appears that the sun is quite far away by the distance of the light, but the actual physical proximity of the sun to the earth is quite close. Compared to what they think it is, it will be just going around in a circle many times orbits the earth that is only way they know how to measure it the time it takes the light to reach ….

This is another theory that some scientist came up with and according to that they read them. That different planets are the sun light goes in this way and another planet the light does not go that way. So what actually Prabhupāda said is that we are conditioned by what they are telling us, just like we do not know they do not know themselves exactly that everything that they are saying is true. And in another magazine, I also saw how they show that when they so called went to the moon and actually the person and the video on the TV showed that suddenly he moved his hand like that so they took the video and slowed it down frame by frame. And they found that in one frame there was a fly and they blew it up there was a fly up so that’s how they are flying in the moon.

So some people say it was a whole conspiracy between Russia and America before everyone else had advanced radar they could reach that part they all went to the, they did a joint scam each other right after another they both went to the moon after they dropped no more discussions of going to the moon. Some people say they just, they just did a joint scam on the whole world, who knows what’s going on you know. We just read the newspapers whatever we see the video know they can claim they can show star wars and with such accuracy you cannot tell whether it’s true or not. They can take a video and each dot on the screen they can recompose and they can superimpose anything on anything and you cannot see any line you can’t tell. Just like in courts they don’t accept photographs as evidence any more in some most of the advanced countries as you can completely reconstruct a photograph by computer nowadays. You can show that anybody is doing anything, crying or anything by this advanced computer.

Who knows even who to believe you don’t blindly believe them as Prabhupāda said we should not blindly believe what they say. But ultimately to go deep we have to it is a very technical topic and to go deep into it and to be able to see what they are doing. And then actually what they a complete picture on the Vedic personality I usually stress I mean that as far I do, we should do as a …. Strategy in terms of presenting this topic I don’t know but what I personally do is I just stress out that.

Prabhupāda wanted us to be more objective and not too gullible and accept everything that they say and that there is a much bigger global structure I mean a universal structure in order to, in the universe.

The Vedas, they could predict the eclipses in the earth five thousand years ago, very accurately.

That’s why Kṛṣṇa went to Kurukṣetra to observe the solar eclipse ahead of time. They know that this time there would be a solar eclipse. So that means that their method of calculation would also have some efficacy; how they can predict the solar and lunar eclipses. Everyone is going before that; it is not suddenly it comes. They have to travel for months to go from Dvārakā to Hastināpura, at least a month by procession and all that to go there.

So, they already know, everyone knows that this time is lunar eclipse, this time is solar eclipse. It means that they already have advanced astronomy in the Vedas, Jyotiṣa-śāstra is one of the big śāstras, one of the big upavedas. But I don’t know about it, I am not knowledgeable about all that necessarily. But obviously the Vedas had that science. They could predict the movement of the sun, otherwise they couldn’t predict the solar and lunar eclipses.

In the west, they could predict that only in the very recent history, maybe in the past thousand years, before that they couldn’t predict, astronomy was relatively new. But five thousand years ago, they could predict. But the basic something that they are seeing now, some conclusions and some observations, you know observations may be totally wrong. It may be descending light, it may be anything so on the basis of that they say, “We don’t accept your philosophy.” Because they don’t have complete knowledge.

So then actually to go into it, you have to be independently. How is it that the Vedic calculations work and the Western don’t? Although they are using totally different angles. Why is it that Āyurveda works and allopathic won’t? They are going from different angles. So that means that there are. Just like how we saw that, recently this came out in the newspaper that this scientist, found this new pole, big pole. He said that now this has disproved Galileo’s theory of gravity. Is it Newton or Galileo? Newton. Newton’s theory of gravity, that his theory doesn’t work, doesn’t actually. They took to the North Pole, they dug two three miles into the ice glaciers and then they lowered something and deep beneath the glaciers, according to his calculations, what should be the gravity, it didn’t work out. Totally different gravity was there. They didn’t say exactly what’s happening in the paper; they said that something different and what they were expecting didn’t happen, something that was not at all answered by Newton’s gravitational laws. So, either there is this new force that they haven’t thought about or there is no gravity at all, it is totally a different thing.

Prabhupāda said that actually there is no such thing as gravity. What we know as gravity is another force altogether. The concept they have of gravity is not actually the force that is keeping everything in the universe together, there is another force, which appears to act like gravity, but is actually something else. So, like this they are just groping in the dark compared to the Vedas. We don’t need to know all this, how it works out. If you know how to calculate it, if you want to go deeper, the method how to go deeper, we know that. The total of all the forces, the siddhīs, which is ultimately designed transcendental.