19900517 Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 10.10.14

The following is a lecture given by His Holiness Jayapataka Swami on May 17th, 1990. The class begins with a reading from the Srimad-Bhagavatam, 10th Canto, chapter 10, verse 14.

yathā kaṇṭaka-viddhāṅgo
jantor necchati tāṁ vyathām
jīva-sāmyaṁ gato liṅgair
na tathāviddha-kaṇṭakaḥ

Jayapataka Swami: (reads Translation)

Translation:

By seeing their faces, one whose body has been pricked by pins can understand the pain of others who are pinpricked. Realizing that this pain is the same for everyone, he does not want others to suffer in this way. But one who has never been pricked by pins cannot understand this pain.

Purport:

There is a saying, “The happiness of wealth is enjoyable by a person who has tasted the distress of poverty.” There is also another common saying, vandhyā ki bujhibe prasava-vedanā: “A woman who has not given birth to a child cannot understand the pain of childbirth.” Unless one comes to the platform of actual experience, one cannot realize what is pain and what is happiness in this material world. The laws of nature act accordingly. If one has killed an animal, one must himself be killed by that same animal. This is called māṁsa. Mām means “me,” and sa means “he.” As I am eating an animal, that animal will have the opportunity to eat me. In every state, therefore, it is ordinarily the custom that if a person commits murder he is hanged.

(Thus ends the Bhakti Vedanta Swami translation and purport to text 14,chapter 10, canto 10, of the Srimad Bhagavatam in the matter of ‘The Deliverance of the Yamala-Arjuna trees’.)

Jayapataka Swami:

Here Narada Muni is giving his reasons why he is going to destitute the two sons of Kuvera for their offensive activity. He is going to make them bankrupt materially, but then the act of doing so he is going to spiritually make them very wealthy. So he is giving the reasons why being impoverished can also have its good features. If someone is wealthy, they become very proud and they don’t see things as they are. So that by entering them to poverty they may actually see how painful life is, how painful it is to be in poverty. This makes them lose their false ego and forces them to be more humble, accept things as they come instead of thinking one is always in control of all the situation. So in this verse, it gives the example that if someone was pricked with pin and he see another person being pricked with pin making agreement, making a face, he can understand what kind of pain that person is suffering because he already got pricked one time. Someone never was pricked with a pin, even if a person makes a face he can’t relate with it, what does actually that person is feeling. Prabhupada gives many examples. What is it to go through childbirth? How can someone know? A woman who has never had children, she may theoretically think she knows, but she will not be able to know. So many examples are there.

Actually in India, one sees how where there is a lot of mud stray dogs around. Sometimes people throw hot water on the, in tea stalls they throw hot water on the stray dogs. When the scalding water hits the dog, “WAaah” Anyone who got burnt can also understand that the dog is feeling the same burning pain that he jumps off when the hot water is put. Sometimes to scare the dogs away, they smack the dog with a big stick. The dog hangs around the tea stall and the boy over there hit the dog “mwaav mwaav” . It also cringes and makes a certain whining sound, screaming sound, whatever. Anyone who has ever been hit, then you can understand, “Well, he is feeling same kind of pain”. Actually, in this material world, human beings have an opportunity to become God conscious. And that’s the real special feature of this body. But as far as material experiences go, the pains that the human body feel are not categorically different from the pains that the dogs or other animals feel. Similarly, the pleasures are not categorically different. There may be a little qualitative or depending on the person, quantitative difference of different types of pain or pleasure. But categorically the basic experience of pain and pleasure is not different.

That’s why in the Bhagavatam, we are instructed that why shouldn’t we make our lives based on trying to get the same kind of happiness, ‘viḍ-bhujāṁ’ that the dogs or pigs are able to get, even the eaters of stool. Of course, in the West, dog is considered man’s best friend and they openly worship the dog. We see in India how sometimes even the dogs go and eat the excrement on the side of the road. And recently in Hyderabad when I was there, Prabhupada said, “when the dog looks at your face, sometimes they are wagging their tail looking at your face thinking how nice it would be to eat your nose.” The nose is a very tender, sweet tasting delicacy for the dogs. So, in Hyderabad there was a big case that something was coming in and eating all the people’s faces in the mord. So then they found that, one day a guy hid and found that some dog was able to climb in to the window, unto the house and __ (5:40 Not clear) get to a hole in the wall. Somehow it was hiding there and there was a dead body of some 11 year old girl and right to the face and eating the face and nose. I know what Prabhupada said. Then the guy came out and beat the dog to death. Then they decided to fix the hole in the wall. [audience laughs]

So these dogs, whatever pains and pleasures that they are feeling is not different from what we are experiencing in one sense. So, why should we consider- this is the, we have this type of pain and pleasure, this is what is going to make us happy. If we can have a nice material comfortable situation for the senses, then we are happy. That Prabhupada explained that, “some astrologer said one of the previous prime ministers of India, had taken rebirth as a white dog in a millionaire’s house in Sweden. That, he wanted a comfortable life. So this millionaire had two dogs; one black and one white, one male and one female and so both of them had 2 servants to bathe them, rub them down with brush, give them as much meat as they wanted to eat and a nice little dog house. They had everything they wanted a comfortable life, no anxiety, no anything, all was served and equipped. So, this was what he wanted. This was the goal of his life. So next birth he took like that, he was a nice, well-kept pet dog.” Who could say what his next birth was? Who could challenge the astrologer? (GM Laughs). But according to the statement of that person, that so-called prime minister, it might be true. The point is no one knows what their next life is going to be. If we develop our desires in such a way that we will be satisfied with that kind of animal, comfortable situation, that’s what we will get.

If we ask for overriding desires to achieve God consciousness, to be God realized to actually transcend this. May be now, by Krishna’s mercy or by good karma, by whatever means, we may feel some relief, some comfort. But we shouldn’t allow ourselves to become casual or nonchalant or careless. We shouldn’t allow ourselves to turn down the accelerator on our progress back to home, back to godhead. Therefore, getting some material relief, that’s Krishna’s mercy, so we can get more time for Krishna’s service, more energy for Krishna’s service. If the only thing which is going to make us serve Krishna more is being put in suffering, then we will be, of course Krishna will put us more and more in suffering. And when we are put in to the test, we are praying to Krishna we may get Krishna conscious. At the same time, we may have a comfortable situation, we may become little bit lazy, then it is not good for our Krishna consciousness. So thus, some of us are asking Krishna if you put me in difficulty, that’s the only way I am going to serve you. That’s actually what Kunti Devi, of course she didn’t say that was the only way, she said, “all the time.” Even Kunti said, “better we can if we are put in difficulty, by difficulty we get Your mercy.” Even if by not having difficulty, He’s going to leave us. But it is not that Krishna has to leave you because the person is not in difficulty.

If we spontaneously and self-motivatedly we engage ourselves in Krishna’s service, taking opportunity of fair-weather too so that we make hay. Fair weather is to actually go forward in our Krishna consciousness. Our goal of course is not just to have a comfortable life situation, because that’s all illusory. Today it is comfortable, tomorrow it’s a cyclone, tomorrow it is disease, tomorrow there is something else. Whatever, danger is there at every step. So, know that at any kind of comfort, even the devas, these two sons of the demigods, they were enjoying like anything. They had so much comfort, no anxiety, their father was Kuvera. In this way they were completely wasting their valuable life. From there they again fall back down and become an animal or a human being. It’s not a permanent situation that they remain as devas. So, before they completely waste their lives, Narada muni gave them this curse which is a blessing in disguise so that they could actually become God conscious, they could protect their lives. In Bible it says, “as you sow so shall you reap,” this is the law of Karma. For every action there is a reaction. So, this is very well understood by all the devotees. And our Krishna consciousness is not exactly karma, we are depending on Krishna’s mercy. Karma goes on even by its own previous momentum. We suffer, enjoy according to our previous karma. But devotional service is something that we have to push ourselves, something which is transcendental to the law of Karma.

māṁ ca yo ’vyabhicāreṇa bhakti-yogena sevate
sa guṇān samatītyaitān brahma-bhūyāya kalpate

Therefore, it’s not dependent on law of Karma. It is dependent on our own enthusiasm, our own patience and determination, our own practice of devotional service. Whatever the material situation we have to go on with our devotional service. If there is anything that stands in our way, that bring us down, then actually that should reveal to us our actual conditioned nature. That no matter what the situation we have to remain fixed in our Krishna consciousness, in our direct relation in serving Guru and Gauranga.

So also, here Prabhupada explains the meaning of the word – “mamsa”. Mamsa is actually the name in Sanskrit for meat. ‘Mam’ means me and ‘sa’ means he. If I am eating an animal, the animal has an opportunity to eat me. The meaning of meat means, Ok I am eating your flesh today, that means in next life you can eat my flesh. And when they have the ceremonial offering the goat to some demigoddess like Kaali, then the brahmin on behalf of the person who is having the goat sacrifice whispers in the goat’s ear that today this person is taking your life, in the next life you can take his life. Of course, now people don’t know the meaning of the mantra, so they do mechanically. But that’s actually the meaning. So, by eating meat, practically the person is eating his own flesh. Because his flesh will be eaten in the future. If somebody understands that, then why he will be so foolish ever to want to eat meat, fish, egg, etc simply causing his own future flesh to be eaten.

The Buddhists don’t believe in God officially. Unofficially many Buddhists believe but official philosophy is not God, it’s voidism. But they can understand by the law of karma, that whatever you do - you get the reaction. So, the original teachings of Buddha are to be nonviolent, it rejects all kinds of meat eating. Modern Buddhists are not so strict on that.

So, but the philosophy is like that. It is very clear in the Vedas that one should not eat meat for this reason, specially not of animals, that not of killed animals. One time there was one sadhu who was some acarya. He got caught up in a drought in a desert. And he practically was dying, like crawling to get out of the desert. And then he came across a dog, right before him the dog died. It was a dead dog; he didn’t kill it. It just died. He was about to die himself then he ate the dog meat for survival. He got out of the desert and then he served his own Krishna consciousness. Sometimes people say, “what if this, what if that? What if he was starving?” but even then, he didn’t kill the dog. The dog was already dead. He took it as Krishna gave him this, to save himself. If it is so dire, life and death circumstance, then the consideration. But nowadays I have seen all over the world, even in the interior villages of India and even in the deserts of now, the middle - east, everywhere they are importing oranges from California, oranges from different places – Australia, Israel. There are fruits available, vegetables available. Grains are shipped all over because of the whole international commerce. Frankly speaking there is nothing you can’t get anywhere, at least in the western world. I do not know about __ (not clear 13:25) in the communist countries. But even there the devotees are not having difficulty in being vegetarian. There’s not such a variety of vegetables in winter. But actually, there is no difficulty today for someone not eating meat. So, it’s understood if someone is eating meat because they are eating just for their sense gratification, just for their tongue or because they are ill-informed, they don’t know what is the danger of eating meat. So, the devotees are actually, they are explaining, they are doing welfare for the value for the animal. Many movements are there to save cruelty to animals. But the devotees realize that they are not only saving cruelty to animals, they are saving the pain for the people who are eating the animals because they are going to also suffer in the future if they don’t stop. When they hire the animals to get their meat, when they kill them, the same pain and fear that we would feel in the same situation they are feeling similar pain, fear, distress.

In India in two of the states they only allow cow slaughter, in the other states it is prohibited. So, you see that sometimes you are riding down the road and they are herding the cows from one state to the next because they have a slaughterhouse. And normally you know how when people herd cows how they move along. But these cows know that they are going to slaughter. Thus, they are always trying to run away in escape and then you can see tears coming down their eyes. It is the most horrible thing to see. And these people have to beat the cows, the cows sometimes sit on the road, they don’t go forward. They can just smell it from this people that they are of no good. And people beat them with sticks as such. It’s really intolerable to watch them herd these cows to the slaughter house. In America you don’t see this, put in a big, you know real big trucks so you won’t know what happens. But here they just herd them along the streets. So, you can see how the cows really don’t want to get slaughtered. They don’t want to go with these people. By any means they try to run away. So, they ran the cows and put something paint on them so that they run away they can easily spot them.

So, these Nalakuvera - Manigriva, they are very rich but they became proud. Therefore, they had to be got down to their humble position again so that they could understand things as they were. That’s why Narada Muni has turned them from demigods into trees. So, you should understand, learn from the mistakes of others. Manigriva and Nalakuvera they got little wealth, they got proud and they got some mercy to get pulled down. Actually, if they hadn’t, they would have fallen down permanently. By being pulled down by Narada muni, they actually became purified and get re-established in real glory.

Otherwise by the law of nature, they would be completely finished anyway. So, this is the situation now. America has so much of wealth, but gradually it’s all going to become ruined if people do not change their consciousness. If we are proud of wealth that will destroy us. And generally, when people are wealthy, they are proud. Now some of the big people in the world, they are facing lot of difficulties. Some of these wealthy people comes in the paper often that even if they are rich and famous some people get pneumonia, some people get wife, they get divorced, they don’t. so many difficulties. So, in this Kaliyuga even a so-called wealthy person is not in control of his situation. He may be proud, but actually he is still suffering in so many ways. One of the things that is - caution that devotees when they preach, they shouldn’t become bewildered by the wealthy people in the world and think that. Because if they think that oh look at this person- he has a big house, he has a big car, he has a big this, big that. He is so wealthy. Won’t it be nice to have these things? And if one starts to think in this way, it’s actually a fall down from the spiritual platform. A devotee should guard against being bewildered by the material nature and thinking that the material nature is actually going to make us happy. Understand that the material nature is a bad bargain. We want to make the best use of the bad bargain by being as Krishna conscious as possible, by being fully Krishna conscious. Using the material energy in the service of Krishna, accepting whatever Krishna gives us as His mercy and using it the best way possible in His service. Regulating our material activities and continually reminding ourselves - What is the real nature of the material world?

In the Vrindavani bhajan Prabhupada says that, “I have seen the naked ‘ruup’, the naked form of the material nature.” Actually material life appears nice under certain conditions, but the conditions if they change a little bit, all of a sudden transcendentality of they leave someone if they don’t have money, they don’t care so much anymore. These difficulties are there. So we relying on material situations for our satisfaction are bound to be frustrated. Therefore we rely on Krishna consciousness for our satisfaction. And we live with what our material situations are as best we can. That is actually the formula. One has satisfaction isn’t there anyway in material life. Happiness and distress are always going to be following one after another. So, no deep or permanent kind of satisfaction can be achieved by any material thing. It’s always are flickering.

So, the devotees know that material life there is no satisfaction. They also know there is satisfaction in Krishna consciousness. So, the followers of Lord Caitanya, they absorb their ambitions, their dreams, their higher energy in Krishna consciousness. And their material life is a maintenance factor there– it has to go on as long as we are in this world. And it’s not the, we don’t put our hopes in there that this material life is what is actually going to make our life happy. So, the pure devotees are so much into pleasing Krishna that even when they experience ecstasy in serving Krishna, like in the ‘Nectar of Devotion’ Daruka was fanning Krishna and he was getting so much ecstasy- his hands were shaking, his eyes were filled with tears, his voice was choked up. So actually, it was disturbing his fanning of Krishna. His ecstasy was making him not be able to fan properly. He was feeling so much love for Krishna, so much ecstasy was coming that his hand wasn’t able to fan properly. So, he became very angry at this ecstasy why it was disturbing his service to Krishna. So, the pure devotees, their objective is so much so to please Krishna that even ecstasy is not their goal. Although they are experiencing the highest ecstasy but their desire is simply that Krishna be pleased. And the more they want to please Krishna the more Krishna is pleased with them and the more they are also feeling pleased because they are part of Krishna.

In the previous verse also Prabhupada quotes “harāv abhaktasya kuto mahad-guṇā” (SB 5.18.12) An avaisnava never becomes a good man however severely he is punished. And by the mercy of vaisnava unless one is brought to the vaisnava platform one cannot be a good man. Great qualities will never be there in a non-devotee. But if someone is a devotee then automatically all good qualities will come and take shelter. Unfortunately, modern society, they are trying to make educated people, trying to make productive people, trying to make good taxpayers, but they are not trying to make devoted people to God, to the Supreme Person. It is not an official policy. That’s the real thing which makes a good or a great person. If you think Kamsa was a great man, very powerful. But as soon as he heard that his sister was going to have a child that will kill him, immediately he wanted to kill his sister in a second although he had good qualities. Just like the story of a Jackal – a paint can turned the Jackal into blue. So, all the animals of the jungle thought that it was a very unusual animal. So, he declared himself to be the king of the jungle and even the tiger and the lion. You know the lion is known as the king of the jungle. He acceded to the blue animal because there was never blue animal before. So, he must be the king, royal blue. But that night when other jackals were crying in the night – ‘huhuhu’ like hyena, coyote. Then all of a sudden that so called blue king of the jungle, he couldn’t resist and he also started to howl. Then the lion realised that this is an imposter, it’s just a jackal. He jumped on him and killed him. So, nature is like that. Someone may appear to be, because of some artificial accumulation of wealth or fame as a very great person. But then as soon as some opportunity comes, they, again they act just like a low-class person. They reveal that they actually don’t have any great quality. In Kali yuga a person is considered great just if he has money. That’s considered aristocracy. Somebody somehow or other, by hook or by crook he gets some money, then he is considered an aristocrat. But previously in Vedic culture it was considered, a person was great as a brahmana, a kshatriya, a vaisya, even as a sudra according to their particular quality. But now it’s simply if you have money, you are great. If you are poor you are bum. This is Kaliyuga. The devotees, they know that this is not the actual criteria. Having a good character, having a good consciousness – all these things, having Krishna consciousness these are more important.

Any questions?

Devotee: (inaudible 22:37) law of Karma ... story in the Bible, feeding thousands with fish ..

GM: According to some scholars, he actually fed them bread. Some, they mistranslated that as fish. Actually, he just gave them bread.

Devotee: (inaudible 23:15)

GM: This one I heard. Any other question? So, every word in Sanskrit has so much meaning. The word meat- mamsa – I am you; you are my food and I will become your food.

Devotee: (inaudible 23:40) sacrifice of goat you were explaining how…...,

GM: What’s the next step in the sacrifice?

Devotee: (inaudible 23:50) You were explaining how ………..

GM: My ability is that. Somewhere along the line, they can end up becoming food for that living entity.

Devotee: (inaudible 24:07)

GM: It is to be.

Devotee: (inaudible 24:20)

GM: Some renowned spiritual leaders, they fast to death, one person fasted actually till he died trying to get the cow slaughter ban in India. The problem is that India has about 20 percent or more Muslims and other 1-2 percent Christians and lately, specially the religion doesn’t point in the way they interpret it. Today they does not ban it. So as a secular government India doesn’t want to lose the minority- the politicians don’t want to lose the minority votes. And the government makes money also on the slaughterhouses. So somehow the determination to actually implement in the constitution is said, there is a goal in the constitution to have cow protection, end cow slaughter. But the founders of the Indian constitution did not have the determination or the force to actually implement it themselves. They put something - this is an objective,it should be done, but they didn’t do it. So as a result, some states, most states have done it, but a few- if they don’t want to, they don’t. And Kerala specifically has a majority of Christian and Muslim and a minority of Hindu. So, they have cow slaughter. But in Tamil Nadu, even this prohibition is more – No alcohol allowed, there is no cow slaughter allowed. There’s hardly any Muslims or Christians. And in Bengal there is 29 percent Muslims because that was the capital of the Mughal empire and Eastern India- kind of the British capital. So somehow, they don’t also force it and most of the people they eat fish, they don’t eat cows actually. But only the Muslims eat cows Hindus don’t eat cows. Somehow, they don’t question. So, there’s a movement, but in these two states the movement somehow didn’t get off the ground so much and the other states they stopped it because the movement was more powerful. So hopefully by Lord Caitanya’s preaching expands again and again, cow protection can be achieved in these places also.

Devotee: inaudible

GM: Hardly, small percent.

Devotee: inaudible

GM: Of course, the point was that the Muslim don’t have to go to the slaughter house, they can kill on their own, following their religious rituals. They don’t have to buy it in a package or some.., buy it from the butcher shop. If they have to do, they can do on their own, but it should be in the institutional way. If you have to do your own you can’t discourage here. They are doing it here quite frequently. Actually, there is a, in the Quran it says, “they shouldn’t kill a cow, actually cow meat is like poison for the eater.” These verses, one of my disciples found several verses where Hasid Mohammed said, “one shouldn’t eat cow meat. In general, better not to eat meat at all.” I was thinking, maybe in America where the black Muslims are more, philosophical and open, maybe we can get those quotes and promote amongst them they should all be vegetarian. We know the quotes in the Bible - Genesis and other places where it tells that, “We’ve given you the grains and seeds in the field to be your meat. Shouldn’t eat anything with blood. You know how the Jews get around that? They make potion of the meat, they drain out the blood from the animal. Don’t eat anything with blood - we don’t eat anything that has blood, if it has sap or juice or some fruit juice - take it. If it has blood - omit it. That means you have to drain out all blood. That means any living creature that has blood – fish, meat, egg that has blood in it, don’t eat it and they created another ____ (28:20) that out.[1]  (laughter) Well, eat it now. (laughter)