19911028 Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 7.10.31-35

Lecture Code: 19911028

Sri Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 7.10.31 - 35 Lecture By

His Holiness Jayapatākā Swami Mahārāja

In Atlanta Georgia

 

vande 'ham sri-guroh sri-yuta-pada-kamalam sri-gurun vaisnavams ca

  sri-rupam sagrajatam saha-gana-raghunathanvitam tam sa-jivam

sadvaitam savadhutam parijana-sahitam Kṛṣṇa-caitanya-devam

sri-radha-Kṛṣṇa-padan saha-gana-lalita-sri-visakhanvitams ca

Text 31:

 

śrī-nārada uvāca

ity uktvā bhagavān rājaṁs

tataś cāntardadhe hariḥ

adṛśyaḥ sarva-bhūtānāṁ

pūjitaḥ parameṣṭhinā

 

Translation:

Nārada Muni continued: O King Yudhiṣṭhira, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, who is not visible to an ordinary human being, spoke in this way, instructing Lord Brahmā. Then, being worshiped by Brahmā, the Lord disappeared from that place.

No purport, text 32:

tataḥ sampūjya śirasā

vavande parameṣṭhinam

bhavaṁ prajāpatīn devān

prahrādo bhagavat-kalāḥ

 

Translation:

Prahlāda Mahārāja then worshiped and offered prayers to all the demigods, such as Brahmā, Śiva and the prajāpatis, who are all parts of the Lord.

 

tataḥ kāvyādibhiḥ sārdhaṁ

munibhiḥ kamalāsanaḥ

daityānāṁ dānavānāṁ ca

prahrādam akarot patim

 

Translation:

Thereafter, along with Śukrācārya and other great saints, Lord Brahmā, whose seat is on the lotus flower, made Prahlāda the king of all the demons and giants in the universe.

 

Purport:

By the grace of Lord Nṛsiṁhadeva, Prahlāda Mahārāja became a greater king than his father, Hiraṇyakaśipu. Prahlāda’s inauguration was performed by Lord Brahmā in the presence of other saintly persons and demigods.

 

pratinandya tato devāḥ

prayujya paramāśiṣaḥ

sva-dhāmāni yayū rājan

brahmādyāḥ pratipūjitāḥ

 

Translation:

O King Yudhiṣṭhira, after all the demigods, headed by Lord Brahmā, were properly worshiped by Prahlāda Mahārāja, they offered Prahlāda their utmost benedictions and then returned to their respective abodes.

 

evaṁ ca pārṣadau viṣṇoḥ

putratvaṁ prāpitau diteḥ

hṛdi sthitena hariṇā

vaira-bhāvena tau hatau

 

Translation:

Thus the two associates of Lord Viṣṇu who had become Hiraṇyākṣa and Hiraṇyakaśipu, the sons of Diti, were both killed. By illusion they had thought that the Supreme Lord, who is situated in everyone’s heart, was their enemy.

 

Purport

The discourse concerning Lord Nṛsiṁhadeva and Prahlāda Mahārāja began when Mahārāja Yudhiṣṭhira asked Nārada how Śiśupāla had merged into the body of Kṛṣṇa. Śiśupāla and Dantavakra were the same Hiraṇyākṣa and Hiraṇyakaśipu. Here Nārada Muni is relating how in three different births the associates of Lord Viṣṇu were killed by Lord Viṣṇu Himself. First they were the demons Hiraṇyākṣa and Hiraṇyakaśipu.

 

Thus ends the Bhakti Vedanta Swami translations and purport to text 31 to 35 of the Srimad Bhagwatam Chapter 10 Canto 7.

 

So Jaya Vijaya who are the gatekeepers of the heavenly planets, excuse me, of the Vaikunta planets, stopped the Kumaras from entering. And listen to previous Cantos, six Cantos, one canto the continuation of events with one question, that how when they were cursed, oh no that was the first purport. Anyway, now there was a question about it, about Dantavakra and Shishupal, So the same Jaya and Vijaya, taken birth three time. If you recall they were cursed by the four Kumaras to take birth as demons and Lord Visnu offered them an alternative, three births as demons and being killed by the Lord, or seven births as devotees. So they chose the first option. 

 

So due to the illusion when the take their birth they are automatically inimical the Lord. Here the Lord had warned Brahmadev to not give such benedictions to the demons, to the envious. It is dangerous to give benedictions to demons who are by nature ferocious and jealous. If a demon gets special powers then instead of using it for the good of and up-liftment of others they use it to persecute, control and torture others for their own personal pleasure. Ravana he got also supernatural powers from Lord Shiva then he also created a lot of disturbance. He arrested all of the demigods and put them on the steps to his throne. So everyday he’d walk on their backs up to his throne just to show that he was so powerful. Indra, Vayu, Saturn and all the different devas were there.

 

So Narada Muni, or someone said, why are you stepping on their backs that’s not so painful than if you were to step on their stomach walking up. He thought yeah that’s even better so he turned them over and had them all lying on their back looking up. He would step on their stomach as he walked to his throne. What happened was that because all the devas are in charge of the different astrological signs they were frozen on their stomach they couldn’t look at Ravana but now that they’re put on their back they are all looking and completely cursing him like (arghhh sound) wishing him all misfortune everything completely finishing him so that was a special deal to him, reduced his good fortune very quickly. 

 

So the point is that when they get power they misuse it. This is the problem, that unless people are God conscious, unless they’re devotees. If they get weapons of mass destruction, if they get any very powerful weapon they by nature will not hesitate to use it even if it meant the suffering of so many other people. Just now you have seen that for some they get so worked up for some political purpose that even like the assassination of the Prime Minister of India Rajiv Gandhi they sacrificed their whole life, they tied the plastic explosive to their own back bent down to touch his feet and then blew herself up and blew the Prime Minister and reinstalled master minded the whole plan and when they surrounded the whole house he and five other people ate cyanide and killed themselves. When they broke in to the house they were already dead in a circle holding their hands. 

 

They were so wrapped up in what they were doing they killed themselves they sacrificed themselves they also without hesitation killed so many people. So you can see that previously the nuclear persistent for protecting against nuclear attack was you may blow us up and we will wipe you out too so that was mutual destruction, mad. So if you have a really mad person they couldn’t care less.  I am sure some person in middle east is also, they have could trade-off for them if they were to destroy the demon among.   So you get different kind of people with different kind of ideals and this is something from time immemorial. So even Krishna is saying don’t give a ferocious violent cruel demonic person some special powers so that goes for all time. So Krishna is more selective. If some demon worships him and wants to get special power he doesn’t have to give, he uses his discretion. But generally the other devas, especially Lord Shiva, they tend to give without considering the pros and cons. Brahma was forced to consider the pros and cons he also was very impressed by the austerities of Hiranyakasipu he surrendered to those austerities but then Hiranyakasipu misused him. 

 

So Vishnu is warning that don’t give this type of benediction to the demonic people. It was just like Diti she later became very angry that her sons were killed out of attachment she thought it was all a trick by Indra – Indra has arranged it to kill my two beloved sons Hiranayaksha and Hiranyakasipu those sweet two boys so I should arrange to kill Indra. So for one year she served her husband real sweetly always smiling never a harsh word always hearing everything and serving keeping everything clean really nice foodstuffs. Everything was just completely serving never a discouraging word could be heard. He became so impressed by the devotion of his wife he thought that she is such a sincere humble dedicated wife I should give her some benediction. Of course he was a very powerful yogi so he could give special benediction so then he said you have served so nicely I give you a benediction whatever you want just tell me what you want. Once he said these words, are you sure you will give me whatever I want? These were the magic words she was waiting for.  He said yes. Alright what I want is a son who’d be the enemy Indra meaning that she wanted a son who could kill Indra. And then he said ohhh how did this happen how did I, here I thought this lotus faced this beautiful princess whose been serving so nicely how has she done this to me  after all this nice service the thing she asked for is to kill her own nephew she wants a son who can kill her own nephew. So he was really shocked she could have made this diabolical plan this whole time. But then he was careful he didn’t just give immediately what she wanted. He thought for a minute how can I get out of this I gave her my word I promised at the same time I should do it in the most intelligent way so that if wrong it would turn out alright. So then he told her to do the payovrata for one year worshipping Vishnu. It was a very intricate ritual with many slip up points. He said but if you do it perfectly you can have a son who will be the enemy of Indra who could kill Indra but if you mess up then you’ll have a son who’ll be a friend of Indra. 

 

So then Indra when he realised what was happening then he came and he started serving his aunty like a menial servant and he was just waiting when she is going to slip up. And then he was getting really worried because she hadn’t slipped up and it had already been so many months over and at the end of the period he was trying to think how he could also make it difficult for her with some fog or something, anything. Anyway finally she did mess up, she drank water with two hands when she was supposed to with the right hand and she made some other mistake. So merely he came and cut up her children in the womb but they were crying out hey we are your friends don’t kill us because they merely became his friends, as 49 kids born up as soon as she messed up. 

 

So in this way they get benediction but they have to be a little more careful to give a benediction in such a way that there was a chance to change the whole situation. Sometimes even a very highly placed person gets wrapped up in enviousness and revenge. And in the previous time there were people who were specifically demons and people who were saintly and sometime the saintly people got angry and wanted revenge but they were always ready to do what they had to do to control they didn’t have many qualms, any qualms for that matter, they’d do anything to serve the purpose. So in this age of Kali we have a situation where in a house we have both divine and demoniac natures nobody is born so pure that they are free from all kind of demoniac nature. Usually like the devatas they are so much in the mode of goodness. But in this age people have both kinds of nature, they have some good tendency and they have some bad tendency some people are more bad and some people are more good but it’s hard to find someone who’s predominantly exceedingly of good quality because people are not of such elevated character in a particular concentration. So it is very difficult to preach in Kaliyuga because people do have a certain nature to want to reject Krishna Consciousness for the slightest reason, to become envious of others for the slightest reason they are not so intelligent so the demoniac nature can take over. Its not normally that people will think like that but then they will use their discretion their intelligence to control that demoniac thought. In the age of Kali people are notably weak in being able to resist this type of influence. 

 

So what does Lord Caitanya recommend, that we should trinadapi shunicena. We should more humble than a blade of grass. We should be so humble that Prabhupada explains, that we don’t feel any kind of resentment. This resentment is a reflection of the demoniac nature, resenting the different situations that occur. A blade of grass is sitting in the sun getting a hard time, sometime someone is walking on it, Prabhupada explains that the grass does not protest that don’t step on me. If someone steps, the blade of grass bends over and comes right back up again. Similarly a tree is so tolerant, people stand under the tree and take shelter of the tree but then they go an chop off the branches of the tree so the tree does not protest even though people are acting cruelly sometimes with the tree. So Lord Caitanya said we have to be in Kaliyuga that tolerant because we have this nature that can easily flare up and can become envious become resentful become bitter if we are not particularly humble. Someone may come up to us and mistreat us call us a dirty name or sometimes it is the outside people it doesn’t hurt so much because they are people we don’t really have a relationship with. If someone we have some form of relationship with, some other devotee, criticizes us, it hurts because of the relationship. So these things are from a dear one take a greater effect. A devotee can however overcome this by just being super humble super tolerant straw humble and tree tolerant. It requires focus on the objective of being Krishna Conscious and not letting anything take it away from us. You can see how the demons to achieve their end they’re very determined. Hiranyakasipu did incredible austerities Ravana did amazing austerity even Diti had to manage her determination to achieve her objective. She was purified by the devotional service she did for one year anyway and she was chanting anyway, that’s the point, if we tolerate our urge to be resentful to be envious to be angry, only use that not against Krishna but for Krishna the effect of the devotional service our mood will change you won’t maintain that bitter, you shouldn’t maintain it, but sometimes devotees fall in to this kind of demoniac influence where they start to judge devotees according to ethnic groupings or according to their various kind of superficial circumstances and neglect to see any good qualities in the devotee, simply speak bad about one or other devotee And in this way instead of using their time to glorify Krishna they use it to criticise the other devotee which at best is a waste of time and at worst might even be a Vaishnava aparadh. 

 

So Prabhupada said we don’t hate the diseased we hate the disease, we’re trying to cure the disease for different people. Whoever comes to the temple to render devotional service it’s understood they’re going to have defect, nobody is going to be cent percent pure, the point is that they will entertain the treatment to cure themselves, as long as they’re taking the treatment there’s a good hope that they can be completely cured. So it is very important that we exercise this control over our conscience otherwise we will find ourselves being sacked, drained of spiritual consciousness. 

 

Prahalad is the personification of tolerance, he was tortured in so many different ways but he always tolerated. So he was so highly respected, Brahma and other devas they personally performed the abhishek  - when a King is installed in the Vedic culture there is a abhishek performed for the King, it’s like you install a deity, you install a King. Then he is installed with the duty of representing Krishna for protecting the citizens, just as God is protecting everyone, he is supposed to protect the citizens. If he doesn’t then he has to suffer, however, if he protects the citizens properly and engages them in God conscious activities the he gets one sixth of the karmas or one sixth of the effects. When people get married their karmas are merged, whatever the wife does, the husband has to take the bad karma if she does bad things. If she encourages the husband to do good things, she get 50% of the good things. That’s a material viewpoint, Krishna consciousness is transcendental so you get full benefit if you tell someone to be Krishna Conscious.

 

So the King when he is installed that means he is wedded with his praja, in the sense he is connected now with the praja. All the people of his kingdom, whatever they do he gets the reaction, good or bad. So if majority of the people are good he ends up with a plus, if the majority are bad he is in trouble. So if a person, if the King is a little bit God conscious, he understands that he is actually connected with his citizens then the tendency would be that he would be a lot more motivated to protect them and try to create a very good rapport with them and engage them in activities so that they would be naturally improving in their God consciousness, he has a very vested interest. We heard that the people playing in the world service baseball game whoever the winning team is has to play 100,000 if they lose they get 15 or 19 or something. So suddenly its not just a game but they get a lot of money if they win. Also its not just like that they are professional players they are not playing just for the love of it they’re playing for the money also. So in the law of karma people in responsible positions they also have to pay in terms of part karma or they get rewarded in terms of punya and any way or other they get a reaction. They naturally if they’re a little conscious they will take their life very seriously. Of course the demoniac couldn’t care less what karma they collect they do so many things they’re riding on their previous good karma, they finish off quick. They go as long as they’re previous karmas are going and when it’s all over then they’re finished. It’s amazing how some third world countries  see somebody big like a president of dictator all of a sudden er (clicks) he’s like arrested or shot then a new one. His bank balance of karma was finished and immediately was time to go to Yamaraj and pays the debt. The law of karma, you get good karmas first and when that is finished then all the bad karmas are waiting to be paid. So we got enough bad karmas piled up there when the positive are finished Yamaraj is waiting to help them pay back the debt, the debt collector is there for bad karma. 

 

So here this is such an auspicious occasion, normally a Kings is installed by some Brahmins, they chant some mantras, have a big ceremony, invite the leading citizens. But here we have such a major occasion, we have Lord Brahma, there are very few Kings that are personally installed by the Brahmin of the whole universe Lord Brahma. And they gave this ceremony to Prithu Maharaj who had a very amazing installation, coronation, and here Prahlad is ready too to have that kind of coronation. Prahlad he doesn’t have any particular desire he is instructed by Lord Narshimadev to take up this role so he is doing it. Devotee, if they get some material facility they don’t throw it away, if Krishna is giving it spontaneously then they may take it and use it for Krishna, that’s Krishna’s desire.

 

Prabhupada was upset that sometimes, he mentioned, that  it was not proper, not very appropriate that somebody works hard their whole life amassing a certain fortune a certain capital and then they decide they want to surrender to God so they just give it all away to their materialistic relatives then go to Krishna empty handed. So their whole life all the work that they did went for some materialistic purpose a lot of people use it for their sense gratification, rather that there’s a formula that you give part to the relative part you keep for emergency part you give for Krishna, to devotees for preaching. Things should be done according to the ratios given by the previous acharyas.

 

So everything has got a certain instruction, a certain status how it is supposed to be done, whether the person is a King, or whether they’re a woman or whether they’re a grihasta, or whether they’re a conditioned soul in Kali. There’s guidelines given in the Vedas, under the guidance of a bonafide spiritual master   we can see what is the thing to do at a particular.  

 

The biggest danger for devotees is to somehow or other stop chanting stop rendering devotional service. Lord Caitanya says that in order to do Kirtania sada Hari, in order to chant Hare Krishna all the time without stopping you have to be more humble than a blade of grass, you have to be more tolerant than a tree, you have to be ready to offer respect to others and not expect any respect for yourself. It’s very rare that, even when you see someone who’s a rascal, you call them that you’re a rascal they don’t seem angry, doesn’t solve the problem. Sometimes in some material situation Americans try to just become angry and aggressive occasionally it works but in terms of preaching ultimately a person has to voluntarily accept what we say. See in a business relationship someone may not like it but then if he has his own vested interest then they may swallow their pride. But when you are preaching and its not a question that the person is obligated to accept what you’re saying because of some vested you know, its their own higher interest but not their immediate material interest. It was just like recently there was some article about somebody, somehow he lost 400 dollars, somehow due to the mess up of some company he was working with, his whole company went down. He bought something from them, but because he was supplying it as a bank, bank gave counterfeit 400 dollar bills he went to the next place they said it was counterfeit money, he went back to the bank, they said how can you prove it was our money, you may have got it from somewhere. So this way he happened to be providing cheques for the bank, he was a cheque printer, so if he made a big stink about it and sued the back he would lose the job, so he said what can i do, it looks like I’m up for 400 bucks. So here’s the person, it’s not like he’s happy but he just had to swallow that loss because he doesn’t want to lose the ongoing business he’s getting from the person. 

 

So a lot of times, maybe you go to an airline or something  and they mess up your reservation and you get angry and because they want to keep your business so they just swallow it, But when you’re preaching you don’t have that kind of a hold on someone. If you go to someone and start becoming angry with them, you’re fallen, you’re a rascal, you’re committing sin they may just get turned off and not come anymore. It’s like somebody said yesterday that people take the Krishna banks and different things to donate to the temple but sometime they forget to bring it here to the temple, some say they have actually full banks fully filled with coins and money but they forget to bring it to the temple. Its like when the mortgage bill comes they are looking for you, you have to pay otherwise they close up your house but giving to Krishna is like you don’t have your house closed up so they forget t bring it to the temple, until somebody comes by and picks it up it just sits there.

 

A similar kind of way that, in this material world, Krishna has arranged that if we don’t eat if we don’t sleep if you don’t pay your rent you suffer materially. The whole suffering of course in the larger sense is because we’re in the material world and if we serve Krishna we leave this material world but that requires someone to be very God conscious to understand that reality. So they devotees they know that people are by nature foolish, by nature they’re fallen, by nature they’re not God conscious. So by nature very few people will spontaneously come forward and follow up on their pledges, they need to be encouraged they need to be reminded and if that’s not done in a positive way they may also become angry and say I don’t have to give you this there are so many other religious institutions so many other teachers and temples, so Lord Caitanya’s system was to be very humble, to praise the other people, oh you’re such a  nice gentleman, you’re so sincere, you’re so generous. In this way if you say you’re a real rascal, you’re a miser the person says well bug off get out of here, they get angry, impatient and won’t give but if you are very kind and nice in the preaching then they may be encouraged, yes I am nice, I am generous, alright I will give you something. Sometimes they say I am not nice I am alright. But in general that’s the preaching, one has to be very tolerant, people come up and abuse the devotees, they do so many things but the devotee they defend themselves if it’s a question of physical injury, but otherwise if its verbal abuse, they have to tolerate.

 

In America they are talking about abusing women in the workplace, they have no idea what abuse the Hare Krishna centers have to go through. To sell books sometimes, you’ll be surprised, the number of people that sometimes have such a vocabulary that never goes beyond four letter words. But there are very nice people, there are many people that are open to receiving Krishna’s mercy and the devotee has to be very controlled. This is a sense control, to be controlled, to be humble, to be patient, to be tolerant, to know that these people are really suffering due to the laws of nature and that devotees had to be so much in control of their faculties so that they can cut through the other persons mode of ignorance and passion and bring out the little spark of goodness in them and engage them in Krishna’s service.

 

Prahlad, he was offense-less, but his father was completely impatient, demoniac by nature, so he couldn’t tolerant anything that wasn’t completely something he wanted to hear. There may be a few representatives of Hiranyakasipu it is said but generally people have both the nature, they are not so predominantly demoniac, quite a few might be, those people we avoid. So you avoid the demoniac you preach to the innocent. So if it is a innocent person, rather than agitate their lower nature you try to address their higher nature, try to inspire them to engage in Krishna’s service. Lord Caitanya was so expert when he went to sannyasis led by Prakashananda Saraswati, if he came in and said look you’re all mayavadi and impersonalists, mayavadi hoye Krishna aparadhis,  you’re all offenders of Krishna, I’m a pure Vaishnava, I have bhakti yoga, knowledge, I can smash all of you people. Something like that would have been a non-starter. Although instead although all these all are two completely correct statements about mayavadis and a lot of them were already spoken by Lord Caitanya to his confidential devotees or devotees, Lord Caitanya went there he took a very humble position where they all washed their feet right in the dirty feet water, said what are you doing over there that’s a dirty place, he said no you are all great sannyasis, I am of a lower category so I am just sitting here how can I go and sit amongst all of you. Then they said no no what is this, why you are being so humble you come here and sit with us. So immediately they were, obviously there were some anger before then, because they were always criticising Lord Caitanya, but he approached so humbly that there was really hard to find something wrong with Lord Caitanya  he was being so humble. So that’s the expert nature of Lord Caitanya’s preaching.

 

Basically in America we are in that situation where people Prabhupada said have very predominant tendency to be angry for many people, the number of vegetarians is not so great, so we have to do from our side the best possible thing to create in them a positive impression, and in our spiritual life in our dealings with other people other devotees we have to be very careful not to fall in to a demoniac kind of a nature. We have important works to do we have important works to achieve in our devotional service we have to achieve the goals. But if we are very tactless in our dealings then we can simply create disturbance, these are the kinds of things we have to avoid.

 

Both examples are given in the vedas the demoniac and the divine. Krishna says in the Bhagavad Gita there are two kinds of persons, the divine and the demoniac. So we are supposed to avoid the demoniac nature and to take the divine nature. First thing is to become a devotee and then that makes it very easy. Without being a devotee nobody can get permanent good qualities. The devotee appreciates anything done for Krishna, because Krishna is our worship able object, Krishna is our Lord he is our life and soul, Gaur Nitai are life and soul, so anyone who is doing anything for Krishna that is appreciated.  You see how people accept a material thing they become very attached to it, just like sports people become so attached to a particular team just because it’s some kind of superficial illusory attachment. So the point is people start crying if their team loses, if they’re not winning they become angry stresses, if they win they become completely intoxicated. When I was in June in Chile, the day after I left Chile, the Chilean football team won the South American contest the people became so happy they had big festivals in the street, championing for everyone, drinking, dancing, we won we won for the first time we ever won and eight people were killed because of drunken driving, riotings. Four hundred people were put in to hospital. This is the victory celebration (laughter in the audience).

 

Because the course is in the mode of passion and ignorance so they get so much worked up over something. What does it matter, who remembers three year ago, ten years ago who won, you have to look it up, doesn’t have any permanent value at all. The people get so much worked up over something. So illusion is very expert at creating very subtle gross attachments to things that don’t have any real value at all. So we’re trying to break people’s attachments from these illusions and let them awaken their natural attachment to Krishna. But even those people who are not illusioned, every person who scores a point, every team fan become intimate friends because their understood as fans for the same team. 

 

These are all perverted reflections. Actually the devotees are supposed to be very close to each other, their supposed to be intimate brothers and sisters, because they’re all serving the same Lord, they all have the same objective. The purpose is to see that Krishna’s interest is promoted. And anyone who is dedicated to that, anyone who is on the same team, whoever they may be, we’re brothers. 

 

But Maya is very expert, it is kaliyuga, to create any reason to create division, age of quarrel. Division between husband and wife, division between god brothers and god sisters, division between spiritual organisations. This is the divide and rule tactic that Kali is using and if we are not humble and tolerant we become resentful and angry and we allow ourselves to fall in to the material mode of ignorance and passion. Any little things become a reason for distracting ourselves from the real business, which is focusing all our energy in promoting Krishna Consciousness. If we do that then where is the difficulty in progressing? But because we don’t do that and we become involved in many other different types of personal relationships which are not at all based on Krishna Consciousness. Even if you don’t personally like someone’s personality but we see the person is doing something for Krishna, just on that basis he is worthy of respect worthy of being offered obeisance’s, worthy of giving our affection our love and appreciation. 

 

In the spiritual world, this kind of rivalry in a negative sense is completely absence. There may be competition, when Krishna is playing with the cowherd boys, their playing different kinds of sport, their routing for each side, what’s the punishment – they have to carry the victors on the shoulders. So if you lose to Krishna you have to carry Krishna on your shoulders, if you win then Krishna has to carry you. So everything is transcendental. Winning and losing, it’s all the same, it’s all connected with Krishna. There’s no desire to harm or hurt, everything is very chivalrous, filled with love. A devotee gets to carry Krishna complete bliss, he loves Krishna. So there is a transcendental competition, if someone does better, they say oh you have done very nicely, you’re serving Krishna so sincerely, you produced these nice results. I would also like to learn from you and do something nice for Krishna. The whole purpose is that Krishna is pleased and not material, and by pulling down another person it wont help you to go up. Rather, to help another person, that will help you to go up. The reason to go higher than another person is to make progress so I can do something that’s alright check. 

 

In the sports, a lot of time there is cheating, people have to go in pack of four because if they catch you alone they will put something in your tyres or push you off the road, dump you off the ravine or something, these are very famous. They always have to go in groups of four, block the other people, because its all dirty, cut throat, whatever it takes to win. That why Prabhupada said this place is no place for a gentleman or gentle woman, because its cut throat. Because the demoniac nature will inspire someone to do anything to win, even violent, vicious, horrible things. 

 

That type of attitude has to be very systematically eradicated from the society of devotees. It should be like in all kinds of sports there are rules in the game, if you break the rule then there is an umpire system. Different sports have different penalties. You get thrown out of the game. If you commit too big an offense, against the Vaisnavas, you get thrown out of the game, Krishna takes away the mercy, back to zero, if it’s a little offense, you get set back. We have the umpire, Krishna is the umpire ultimately and he’s deciding. But we have to do our own kind of judges, and we have to take the judgement from our own Gurus and senior devotees. As soon as somebody does something which is not Krishna Conscious, we should be fallen. So even if somebody hears someone else criticising another devotee or doesn’t protest it or doesn’t walk away, they’re also implicated. One person making a fallen is compelled. if anybody refers to another Vaisnava as being of a particular ethnic group in a derogatory way – not just like a prescriptive way to distinguish one devotee from another in a crowd or something – but if it’s done as a derogatory way – he’s a Bengali or he’s a this or he’s a that in a derogatory sense – it’s a aparadh. It’s hellish mentality. 

 

Swarup Damodar, Rupa Goswami, Sanatana Goswami, they were born in Bengal – you don’t consider them Bengali. Bhakti Charu Swami is also born in Bengal, Srila Prabhupada was born in Bengal, there are many born in Bengal. We see devotees are transcendental. There are other rascals who are born in Bengal, rascals are born in America, this doesn’t mean all American devotees are rascals or all Bengali devotees are rascals. We should never go down to that level in our discussions. 

 

Some devotees for a particular period of time may be lazy but do we say that all the devotees are lazy. Everybody in the asharam is a lazy bum, there’s only three devotees who are sincere. That means if there’s a fourth devotee in the temple who is sincere then we’re guilty of vaisnava aparadha. So any kind of generalisations or any kind of ethnic slurs, any kind of calling in the tama guna, is hellish. And it’s so easy to fall in to it, because it’s all around, it’s all pervasive in the material world. But that’s what everybody expects that people who are in the asharam are going to be exemplary they are going to be free from these defects. And we better be. Otherwise how can we live together as a community, how can we live together. We are not like Hiranyakasipu and his band of demons who are together because they want to exploit people. We live together because we want to do something for Krishna. 

 

Many times I’ve heard the comment made, if I was from a particular background and another devotee was from another background, then I wouldn’t be with you if it was a material situation. We don’t have the same interests, we don’t have the same material interest or material personality. Whereas devotees are together because they are all trying to serve Prabhupada, all trying to serve Caitanya Mahaprabhu. That is why Prabhupada calls ISKCON the united nations of the spiritual world. In Mayapur you have a PLO an ex commando sitting next to an Israeli, sitting next to an American, sitting next to another Chinese, all taking maha Prasadam together in Mayapur, sitting together like brothers. You go to Israel, it is very bodily conscious, you go to the Middle East, when I had to go to Israel and I had to fly to the Middle East I had to take off all the stickers that showed that I went to Israel so I would land in the Middle East with stickers that indicated I went to Israel they had to give me double luggage tape when I got to Athens and I was flying to the Middle East – when they re-issued the ticket they had to blur the ticket to stamp it, because if I landed I could be persecuted if Id gone to Israel. 

 

The devotees are transcendental to this kind of situation. One devotee from Nairobi was preaching in Bangladesh and he was telling all the people that he had visited South Africa ten years ago and of all the institutions in South Africa, the only institution that had the Africanas, the Blacks, the Indians, the coloureds, all the different ethnic groups all together in the same temple – there wasn’t even a church, there wasn’t anywhere that was so open they let everyone in to the same institution completely freely. This is our claim to fame, that we are completely above body conscious, we have to religiously guard this heritage that Lord Caitanya gave us – Vaisnava Jati Bhuti Nahi no caste consciousness. We check each person individually. If a number of individuals have similar defects and they are from the same ethnic background, maybe it’s a coincidence, maybe it’s a trait, but anyway everyone is an individual, that does not mean everybody cant love everybody else. Women have got their weaknesses, men have got their weaknesses, we have to rather go against those, to conquer over those weaknesses. The scriptures are telling what are the weaknesses of women not to slur women but to show these are your weaknesses, now transcend them. They say what are the weaknesses of men to warn them, these are the weaknesses now you transcend them. Because a devotee is supposed to be transcendental to bodily consciousness, I am not this body, but we have to act on this spiritual level. Our relationship is that we are all devotes, Vasudeva Kutumbakam, we are all serving Krishna. We want the whole world to be united like that, we want to show the world it works. 

 

Everybody says universal brotherhood but the fact is people are not able to associate like that and cross over - materially its difficult for people to get together on that level. They try bustling people from one neighborhood to another with limited success. But with Krishna Consciousness we are able to achieve because we have our philosophy but to make it work we have to practice it. 

 

So that was what the difference was with Prahlad. He had the philosophy and he practiced it. And therefore in the Bhagavad Gita it says what is the success for victory, Krishna says of victory I am morality. If we follow our spiritual ethics, if we follow our principles given to us by Srila Prabhupada, that’s the highest morality and that will always produce victory. Victory by cheating is very temporary, some time you will get exposed and it will fail. But victory by morality, by following the principles given to us by Guru by Caitanya Mahaprabhu, that is giving us permanent victory. 

 

So just like it takes two to tango, it takes two hands to clap, there’s a saying that one hand can never make a clapping sound. Whenever there’s disagreements, it always takes two people. If one person is super humble - just like Lord Caitanya put himself in such a situation that even Prakashananda who wanted to pick a fight, he couldn’t get a grip, he couldn’t get anger. Lord Caitanya was too humble, so he slipped out and he didn’t give any reason for them to be agitated. So we have to also be expert like Caitanya Mahaprabhu not to create any reason for people to be agitated. And if somebody has a hellish mentality that’s their own karma, why should be come down to the same level. 

 

So Prabhpada wanted that society would show universal brotherhood but on a spiritual platform. And to make it work we have to all be Krishna conscious, we have to all be very careful. Just like now every time a political says something a million media people with tape recorders – sometimes someone off the mark makes an ethnic slur and then somebody tapes it, and next it’s the headlines – Senator so and so said this, or President Truman said that, and so on. There’s a lot of pressure, although they probably have all kinds of racial prejudices and everything, but because their on a public eye they have to be very careful. We may not have a number of media people trying to record everything we say, but we have the devas watching everything we are doing. We have Yamaraj hearing everything we say, we have Vishnu, Krishna, watching everything we are doing, they’re all keeping score. When do we say something that’s not Krishna conscious. When do we say something that’s not helpful for someone else’s Krishna consciousness, when something that’s just material. If we want to go back to Godhead in this lifetime we have to watch every word we speak, every thought we think, every action we do. They just got the newspapers to watch them, we have Krishna monitoring every thought we are making and seeing that are we ready to go back to Godhead or do we need to spin around in a few more births to get purified. If we take birth in another ethnic family, transcend our attachments, whatever it may be. Whatever we think of at the time of death, what if we die thinking of something. We only want to think about Krishna. Somebody dies thinking of the enviousness of another ethnic group and he’s thinking of that ethnic group, they take birth in that ethnic group. That’s karma. 

 

So all these kinds of childish things, which we think as childish, in terms of the great philosophy of Krishna Consciousness, they have to be very meticulously avoided. And we have to promote how we can be real brothers and sister, better uncles, and nephews or whatever, better family members so that the bond between us with Krishna in the centre is enhanced, its naturally enhanced if we’re Krishna conscious. Material friendship means you rub my back and I’ll rub your back. But a real friend in Krishna consciousness sees that someone’s wrong, he may say Prabhu I’m very concerned.

 

The story I told about the tiger – the villager warned a pandit watch out don’t go in the forest there’s a tiger he will eat you, that’s real friendship. That’s alright you want to go in the forest have a good time. 

 

Hare Kṛṣṇa Hare Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa Hare Hare
Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare

 

Any questions?

 

(57.50) Question from the audience – difficult to hear

 

Even if a demon has good motives because they are demoniac they are not in control of their senses. It’s not that atheistic people don’t have good material qualities, they may sometimes have very good qualities. It’s just like the scientists who are inventing dynamite for different reasons but they felt guilty as it was used for destruction. The rulers or the government that time said no no we just want better dynamite for making tunnels, but then once they got it they used it for making better weapons. He was a peaceful person but realised they had disappointed him. So sometimes people may say so many things but when they get the facility the demons they use it for anything they need and may use it for things that are actually destructive for society. So that’s why it’s said that even if a non-devotee has good qualities the end doesn’t come because ultimately they can misuse those qualities, even somebody has good intentions they can misuse them, he may have good intentions but he is mistaken, he doesn’t know what’s good. The terrorists who sacrifice their lives to kill other people they think they are doing something for a very good cause for their people for their independence, for their political freedom, against the tyranny, against the satanic Americans, or against this or that. They create some kind of illusory good cause and they do horrible things for that. So the problem is someone doesn’t have a higher intelligence, even though they may have a so called good intention, the intention itself because they are in illusion, may actually be completely false and bogus. And actually it’s harmful for everyone.

 

A devotee is supposed to have a greater objective vision, see the overview of things by having an understanding of the Absolute Truth and what is actually absolutely good. People have better ways of doing abortion and are doing it with good intention but ultimately it’s still considered as being killed. If they don’t believe that life begins at conception, it’s a chemical reaction that happens six weeks after, then how the baby is growing up to that point? So they give their theories and some people believe it. So many people have good intentions but the problem is that if they don’t have any spiritual knowledge then they are doing something which is completely harmful. That’s why we want to make people God conscious. We want to give them spiritual knowledge so they can make discrimination of what is good and bad.

 

If a person is completely happy without any transcendental knowledge, without any spiritual knowledge, then to a certain degree they are insane. To a certain degree they lack the rationale. So that’s why when we are preaching it is such a high elevated platform and then if we don’t act at least in the mode of goodness, if we don’t act up to the standards of ethics that they can understand then they will think these people are criminals or they won’t believe us at all. So Prabupada wanted that devotees act very ethically, not to steal, not to lie, there may be some extreme circumstances or they may be some exception for Krishna but frivolously to do it as a habit is very detrimental. Prabhupada wanted that people would really respect the Hare Krishna’s for being charitable, upright, honest, good citizens. Some people don’t have that idea right now and we have to work to change that. So now the North American leaders, the temple GBC, and other leaders they’re trying to do a campaign to tell devotees to not anything that will attract that kind of misunderstanding, so positive activities like Prasad distribution and public relations campaign, and not do the things that are unethical. But actually their ethics sometimes get distorted due to lack of spiritual knowledge. Devotees are not only in the mode of goodness but they’re even higher, just like we say we shouldn’t cause unnecessary violence and everyone will agree but they will think it’s alright to kill animals to feed human beings even when there is vegetarian food around because they don’t consider that animals have souls so it’s alright to kill them. They just plug their ears, the animals scream out, they says it’s not a real scream, it doesn’t exist. So in order for us to implant higher ethics where people will see that animal screams should also not have to be unnecessarily caused. We have to establish ourselves in their eyes as at least we have as good ethics as they do, in terms of honesty, straight forwardness, morality. If they think they have only basic ethics in the end they ruin the whole thing because of lack of spiritual knowledge. 

 

Any other questions?

 

1.04.00 (Question from audience – not audible – please check)

…Where do we draw the line when devotees are revealing their minds that what they are revealing seems to be critical to other devotees. They’re really disturbed that other devotees have done this to them… 

 

Was that the intention of Rupa Goswami that revealing the mind means emptying out the garbage truck in the other person’s back yard? (Laughter in the audience). Revealing the mind is a pair, revealing and accepting the other person’s. We have the humility, if we have a lot of anger or resentment or negative feelings in our mind then we should be embarrassed about that. We should want to know how to get rid of it. We shouldn’t be proud of our garbage and dirty laundry and kind of justify that. Its not that real revelation of the mind, unless if I’m willing to accept that if I reveal my mind to the guru that I’m having this doubt or have this feeling and the guru says that its maya you should see it in this way, if we can accept, the guru is also opening his mind. Except from a god brother or god sister if they give us an opinion which is not the same as ours and they back it out with sadhu-sastra and guru, if we’re close to hearing anything else then its not really that kind of reciprocation that’s mentioned dadati pratigrnati the giving and the taking. I’m opening my garbage on your lawn but then they say this is garbage it should really be thrown in the garbage dump and not kept in your mind anymore and we just want to take the garbage around everywhere and not throw it in the garbage dump then what’s the use? 

 

Some people may remain in that kind of a rut and in the name of revealing the mind but they’re not willing to also accept someone else’s understanding of that then its not really a two way reciprocation. Its just an excuse for us to talk about the things we don’t like. Because if it is real you may say but Prabhu it’s not exactly like that, you have to also see it like this in these circumstances, Prabhu, but no – then it’s just a normal kind of material discussion where I got my end and I tell it to you and if you agree with it then we’re friends and if you don’t then I get angry and just keep on saying what I want to say so it’s a material one way road. But for the Vaisnavas, of course the real thing is to get above its, it’s a low level of reciprocation, usually we don’t want to just tell our problems to our peers. Usually you go to a stronger devotee with your problems and get the stronger devotee to advise us. Mostly with equals it is a favorable association, and if the person is somewhat junior, for sure you wouldn’t tell your problems to a junior devotee, because you don’t want to overload, a junior devotee has got enough of their own problems. This is the thing, the more you take responsibility for other people’s spiritual life the more you have to take the garbage from their life. But then the reciprocation is if they’re approaching with that type of respect then they have to also they supposed to take your guidance on how to clean that mess up. 

 

So a peer devotee may not be the proper person to really reveal all that kind of mentality because they may not have that wisdom in order to advise how to overcome that and instead what may happen is that they just get overloaded. Prabupada said like the sun can dry up a dirty place, you take dirty water in the sunlight it gets dried up. There’s no use of trying to purify something if it’s a rainy day or its not that powerful a sun. So we have to also be a little discriminative to who we reveal our mind to and to what extent. If we’ve got really strong attitude problems in terms of our commitment to Krishna Consciousness, in terms of our appreciation of devotees and someone starts to overload things you think that’s too much for me. What they’re revealing to me maybe they are doing it with all good intention but actually its more than what I can handle, I’m not going to be able to help them because its too heavy what they’re feeling. Then you may just say Prabhu actually maybe you should talk to some more senior devotee because the things you’re feeling are really heavy and I’m just a simple devotee I don’t really have the potency to kind of advise you but it seems to me you should see someone who can help you to get a better perspective of what your feeling because its not going to look favorable for your Krishna consciousness. And if you’re sincere you should talk to your Guru, talk to a senior sanyasi, or a devotee, they may be able to help you. You can also bow out if you think a person is starting to bring out a lot of negative things, more than what a person can handle, you can politely protect your consciousness from getting overloaded. 

 

I know there was a time when ISKCON when senior devotees were telling much more innocent junior devotees many heavy things about other leaders and other places. Maybe they were so committed to Krishna consciousness they kept on serving and they were just thinking we have to solve the problem but another junior devotee who is just trying to gradually build up his devotional creeper, the roots are not so deep in his faith in Krishna Consciousness and all of a sudden if he hears all kind of rumors or discussions sometimes its too much and they overload and they blew, they lose their determination and they lose their faith, Prabhupada said faith is a very delicate thing. So we have to protect our own faith and we have to be careful on to fry the faith of other people, Its like a ceramic pot, if you break it, Its very hard to – you can’t put it back together the same way anymore, there’s always going to be those little crack lines. So we want to build up people’s faith. Others like Rupa Goswami, they do not have dirt in their mind, they’re revealing their sweet realisation, how wonderful was this kirtan or how nice was this devotee, how nice is this festival. Maybe sometimes there is also other things they have to reveal, doubts they have, but then have to be a little selective of who we open our mind to or to what degree, whether they will be able to take it. So there’s different relationships, we may reveal things to the Guru that we may not reveal to our government because we know that to the Guru I have to reveal, he’s the one who’s responsible to help me. Maybe I have so much faith in a senior devotee to reveal, but just to reveal everything to everybody is not the intention of Rupa Goswami. From madhyam adhkari to Kanishka adhikari, that’s not recommended, to give unfavorable association to devotees who are our peers or innocent people. That would only be admissible if we go to our Guru or see a senior devotee to take some spiritual guidance for our purification.              

 

Transcribed By: Jigna mataji

Transcribed On: 14-Aug-2020

 

Proof Reading By: Amrita Padma Devi Dasi

On 10/10/2020