19940601 Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 4.21.22

Following is a lecture given by His Holiness Jayapatākā Swami on June 1^st 1994 in New Orleans, Louisiana. The class begins with a reading from the Śrīmad Bhāgavatam fourth canto, twenty first chapter, twenty second verse.

Translation: King Pṛthu continued: By the grace of the Supreme Lord I have been appointed the king of this planet, and I carry the sceptre to rule the citizens, protect them from all danger, and give them employment according to their respective positions in the social order established by Vedic injunction.

Purport: A king is supposed to be appointed by the Supreme Personality of Godhead to look after the interests of his particular planet. On every planet there is a predominating person, just as we now see that in every country there is a president. If one is president or king, it should be understood that this opportunity has been given to him by the Supreme Lord. According to the Vedic system, the king is considered a representative of Godhead and is offered respects by the citizens as God in the human form of life. Actually, according to Vedic information, the Supreme Lord maintains all living entities, and especially human beings, to elevate them to the highest perfection. After many, many births in lower species, when a living entity evolves to the human form of life and in particular to the civilized human form of life, his society must be divided into four gradations, as ordered by the Supreme Personality of Godhead in Bhagavad-gītā (cātur-varṇyaṁ mayā sṛṣṭam, etc.). The four social orders — the brāhmaṇas, kṣatriyas, vaiśyas and śūdras — are natural divisions of human society, and as declared by Pṛthu Mahārāja, every man in his respective social order must have proper employment for his livelihood. It is the duty of the king or the government to ensure that the people observe the social order and that they are also employed in their respective occupational duties. In modern times, since the protection of the government or the king has been withdrawn, social order has practically collapsed. No one knows who is a brāhmaṇa, who is a kṣatriya, who is a vaiśya or who is a śūdra, and people claim to belong to a particular social order by birth right only. It is the duty of the government to re-establish social order in terms of occupational duties and the modes of material nature, for that will make the entire world population actually civilized. If it does not observe the institutional functions of the four social orders, human society is no better than animal society, in which there is never tranquility, peace and prosperity but only chaos and confusion. Mahārāja Pṛthu, as an ideal king, strictly observed the maintenance of the Vedic social order.

Prajāyate iti prajā. The word prajā refers to one who takes birth. Therefore, Pṛthu Mahārāja guaranteed protection for prajānām — all living entities who took birth in his kingdom. Prajā refers not only to human beings but also to animals, trees and every other living entity. It is the duty of the king to give all living entities protection and food. The fools and rascals of modern society have no knowledge of the extent of the responsibility of the government. Animals are also citizens of the land in which they happen to be born, and they also have the right to continue their existence at the cost of the Supreme Lord. The disturbance of the animal population by wholesale slaughter produces a catastrophic future reaction for the butcher, his land and his government.

Thus, ends Bhaktivedanta Swami translation, purport text twenty-two, chapter twenty-one, canto four.

Jayapatākā Swami: So, Pṛthu Mahārāja is addressing all the citizens as well as all the assembled priests, brāhmaṇas, devas. He is giving his perspective, what his realization is, for the benefit of the citizens and he’s asking them to avoid sinful karma and explaining to them at the time of death or after death the benefit of a person’s life is equally shared by those who guide or encourage and those who are following, as well as the person himself.

He wanted to get the support of everyone. He’s explaining how if the government doesn’t teach the people systematically how to relate to each other and how they have to fulfil some spiritual duties. 

So, they have to take the karmas of all the citizens because they haven’t spiritually uplifted them, he said for your own benefit you should practice religious principles for the benefit of your king. He requested them to kindly follow these principles, he is going to benefit and they are also going to benefit. It’s a win-win situation.

A king is supposed to be appointed by the Supreme Personality of Godhead to look after the [ Not audible: 7.58].

On every planet there is a predominating person just as we see now that in every country there is a president. Here in this planet we find that in the original history of the puranas Mahābhārata previous to this age or in the beginning of this age there was one emperor or king who was in charge of the whole population of the planet, he is predominating over the entire planet. And in many planets in the universe, it is like that. 

Actually, we can see now how one whole government would be very beneficial, if the one government of the whole planet everyone was taking, there was one responsible government. Then possibly we could avoid such a massive as we see now previously in Bosnia, many other places, so that one government is to be the principal. But the government, they need vision, it’s not just an administrative function that has nothing more to do with the citizens, but is actually connected with the citizens.

Think about the karma, whatever the government encourages the citizens to do, in their spiritual life, this will have an effect. This will encourage the citizens to do well, the citizens, they function properly so that not only they get the good karma but the king also gets good karma.

So, one sixth of all the karma of the citizens goes to the king or the head of state. You can see after four to eight years of being the president of the United States, people start to develop lot of, lot of karmas.

The king is considered the representative of Godhead and he’s got the respect of the citizens as God in the human form of life. 

Actually, according to the Vedic information, the Supreme Lord maintains all living entities, especially human beings. But then actually you are being maintained not by government or not by anybody else but by Kṛṣṇa.

He is the one who is giving us the strength and the intelligence, the Supreme Lord is giving us ability and opportunity, capacity to work, to produce, to survive, without His blessings there is no guarantee we will survive. 

So, therefore those times the king was known as Naradeva, he was the representative of the Lord amongst the human beings. In the sense that the Lord was protecting, the king’s duty was to protect, was not to exploit but just like a father was supposed to protect the children, the king was supposed to protect his subjects, his prajā.

By doing so by materially and spiritually protecting the subjects then he would gain so much good karma. And in his next life he could be promoted to the spiritual world if he was doing everything in a devotional attitude. Or at least to the heavenly planets, if he was doing things in a mundane good sense. It was something that would be considered very materially what they would do, what would be the reaction for that. 

So, Śrīla Prabhupāda mentioned that today they have no idea what type of responsibility they have to be the government, they don’t think that Presidents understand what karma they have to accept.

In the Vedic time therefore, the very responsible heads of government and the state, they would act in such a way that they would be thinking about their own spiritual wellbeing as well as the well-being of the whole kingdom. Their spiritual well-being was connected with how they were promoting divine consciousness amongst the people.

We went to the place of Śrīnivāsa Ācārya in Bengal, he is one of the previous gurus of our disciplic succession. And when he came back, he was in Vṛndāvana, the land of Kṛṣṇa, studying under the Vedas, gurus there. And he came back entrusted with bringing all the books to Bengal.

So, when he reached Bengal, anyone know what happened to those books? They were stolen. The books were stolen because that king he was… in this one particular king’s kingdom and Śrīnivāsa Ācārya actually he got back the books. And that particular king he wanted to surrender to Śrīnivāsa Ācārya to become his disciple, also his queen wanted to become his disciple.

So, after considering it for a long time, because to be a king’s Guru was a very big responsibility, so then he agreed that the whole kingdom became Kṛṣṇa conscious. The king has established beautiful Rādhā Madana Mohana deities as well as the temple for his Guru who had also Rādhā Kṛṣṇa deities. There would be big festivals, all the citizens would be prepared a big feast of prasādam, then everyone would be engaged in different ways in these festivals.

Recently, a few months ago, two months ago, we did some programs in that area, we found the people were very enthusiastic, even after four hundred and fifty years they were still remembering their heritage.

Here, we have history also dating back to three hundred years, but it’s not so long ago, the Americas were found five hundred years ago, earlier by the Vikings but then by the Spaniards 500 years ago.

And just at that time Caitanya Mahāprabhu was on the planet, 1492 Columbus and 1486 Caitanya Mahāprabhu He appeared in India. So He was six years old when Columbus stumbled across the Americas. And within recorded history everything has well documented since then.

Of course, this knowledge is coming from thousands and thousands of years. We were just at a big conference in Dallas and somehow our members interfaith meeting at a thanks giving center in downtown Dallas. And there they have the Hare Kṛṣṇa devotees speak first as the oldest spiritual process in the world. Then others - the Buddhists, Christians, Muslims, all speak in order, the Jews, Christians, Muslims. So, this tradition is going back since time immemorial.

But recently what our Ācāryas, what our spiritual masters have been doing since Lord Caitanya it’s all very well documented, ancient history is given in our scriptures here.

What happened here with Pṛthu Mahārāja, this is not today or yesterday or five hundred years ago, this is happening thousands and thousands of years ago. This is a history which is dating back to a very ancient past.

According to the establishment there was only civilized people five thousand years ago, before that there was cavemen. They have not found any bones; they are the hidden history of human civilization.

A recent book published by Dr Thomson there in the Bhakti Vedanta Institute, he finds so many historical evidences have been uncovered in philosophy to show. But actually there was modern man even five hundred million years ago. They have found things in the same standard, they say five hundred million [ Not clear 18:04], pipes, other different things and implements which show civilization.

Now in the Vedic civilization, this planet was basically under the Vedic civilization over five thousand years ago. In that time, unless somebody died accidently or maybe there were some kind of tribal outcast. In the normal society everyone was cremated, so you are not going to find many fossil records if all the humans were cremated, slight detail. 

But they found, although they didn’t find bones, they found so many implements to show that there was a developed culture at that time.  So, Pṛthu mahārāja he may have had a different civilization or different situation of that time in terms of material standards. There was no Fords, Chevrolets, Toyotas and other things, they weren’t ready a hundred, two hundred years ago.

But the principles on which government should be based, the principle of human relations and of spiritual development is based. These are timeless truths. It doesn’t matter what the external environment is, the basic laws of nature, the basic laws of the universe don’t change.

Therefore, we read these ancient teachings because it tells us, gives us a deeper perspective of what is the actual purpose of life. How things should be run on higher principles.

Pṛthu mahārāja wanted to please Kṛṣṇa, he wanted to please God, that was his purpose. So, he says somehow or other I become a king, I was born a king. 

King was born, he didn’t have a choice. He was born as a son of a king so he became a king, this is my karma. So, he told his citizens this is what I have to do and I have to protect you. I have to rule you and to guide you and see that you are all properly guided, you’re all these saintly people here and I have to instruct you I have to tell you what is your duty to do in society, see you got employment.  If I do that in a proper way to please Kṛṣṇa, to please God then I am going to get a very good destination after this life. You get a good destination if you assist me in helping you and those who are guiding me and tell me what I am doing. If I’m doing the right thing, they also going to get the benefit, everybody gets the benefit.

In this regard Śrīla Prabhupāda said that now the saṅkīrtana movement of Caitanya Mahāprabhu  is in the world, this chanting of

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

This is the special process of this age to uplift people, to bring them on the spiritual path back to home, back to Godhead.

Anyone who appreciates, oh! This is a very nice process, chant the names of God. Serving others, trying to please the Supreme Lord through life’s activities. If someone even appreciates, they get elevated, if they support, they get full benefit. If they are practicing of course, they are getting the full benefit and those who are directing, ‘do it this way’, they are also getting the full benefit.

Anyone who chants benefits, and so unlimited benefit is unlimited to share. [Not sure 21:58] directly the king he gets the benefit, because he is directing the citizens, everyone is getting. But karmas are limited so in the spiritual activities they are unlimited, the benefit is there.  So, unlimited divided still remains unlimited, everyone gets unlimited benefit. 

So, Śrīla Prabhupāda encourages even people who cannot practice if they support preaching, they are also benefiting.  So, if one even by appreciating they get the benefit spiritually, then what to speak if they even practice partially, then they also benefit. 

If somebody can fully practice of course then their good fortune is guaranteed. So, everyone is born in a certain situation, they are born in certain climates, normally it’s very difficult to change these karmas. Karmas are very powerful. What we do now will produce future karma for us, but it’s hard to change what we’re doing now. By material means, but if we take shelter of Kṛṣṇa then it’s very easy. 

By engaging in devotional service, we actually create a revolutionary effect of our karma, we can wipe out huge quantities of bad karma. We can produce huge quantities of beneficial influences in our life. Because in the material level we are dealing with a very limited normal energy, the material nature we are dealing with is a very relative level, one can directly linking with Kṛṣṇa who is the power behind everything then things start to happen quickly. 

So, in the Nectar of Devotion it says that simply by practicing kīrtana, the names of Kṛṣṇa being sung so many karmas are released.

It is like somebody claps their hands when a bird’s landing in the rice field, the agricultural field, and they’re scaring away the birds.

In America they put the scarecrow, people in the farms here. Please take some prasādam, someone give them prasādam.  [Not clear 24:28] North America, Kṛṣṇa preaching going around establishing many programs, new devotees on [ Not clear 24:36] program.

Even in India we see that sometimes they use scarecrows also. But scarecrows are just for crows. These crows are intelligent, they see that this must be a human and they stay away. But in a grain field the sparrows come and come and fly, sometimes maybe fifty thousand, one hundred thousand birds, it is unbelievable. It’s like a plague of locusts or something, they just come in and they’re all, each one is just eating as many grains as they can. And then some people come and clap their hands and you hear this ‘whoosh’, the fluttering of all their wings at the same time and they fly off, it’s amazing the amount of birds.

Here in the scripture it’s saying if we clap our hands, that’s how many karmas go, it’s not like a few birds, a couple of crows fly away. It’s thousands of karmas flying away because ultimately Kṛṣṇa is the one who is  controlling our karma, and the reason why we get karma is because we are independent of Him, we decided that we want to live separate from God. 

We want to try to enjoy on our own, when originally our position is having a loving relationship with God. If we want to try to enjoy separately then He has to create this whole temporary world. But He is not visibly present although behind the scenes He is maintaining everything.

So, the whole root cause of being here is our turning our back to Kṛṣṇa, to God. When we turn our face to Kṛṣṇa, even a little way He is so pleased he just starts throwing away all these karmas. So we can quickly get back to Him. One step we take to Him, He’ll take ten steps to us, and so He gets close to get back.

So, king Pṛthu he is a very, very exemplary ruler, that’s why this is being discussed, because he was ruling by higher efforts. Many times, a king is simply materialistic and they simply exploit. He explains that those kings have to take all the karmas of the citizens, whether king or head of state, guides the citizens, sees that they know what are their spiritual duties. Then everything is done in devotional service so after life… after death people go back to the Godhead. 

So, he was explaining His aims and objectives, how he is running on a higher principle, through that principle, just like today we have problem of, exploiting, cutting down huge areas of forest, killing so many animals, so many whales, so many fish, now they have figured out how to kill vast numbers of animals... so exploitation, so much so that they cause imbalance of nature, destroy. That’s because the kings don’t have this higher ethic over kings or rulers, presidents, Prime ministers, no government can see what is good for the whole planet. 

Now the United Nations is trying to create an awareness but ultimately every government has liberty to accept or not, and many just don’t know, they don’t care, let the forest burn, let the whales and other fish get hooked up, they don’t care. So, what’s happening is that nature is reacting to us, producing many imbalances and causing harm to all of us. 

So, you can see that this kind of responsible ruler to see the world as one integrated biological living cooperative sphere. Where everyone has got certain basic rights, humans, animals, all the living creatures and entities that people with responsible vision is actually needed today. Even though we’re reading about something that happened before modern history, this is something coming from the ancient Vedic histories, but it is giving us principles that really we need today to make a better world to live in.  

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

Anyway, it’s nice to discuss about all these world issues and higher principles. But right now we only have control of our own body, maybe someone has little over their whole family so we have to take whatever our sphere of influence is, even if it is just our own self. At least we should take care of our own spiritual life and if we can influence others favorably very good, but at least we should say that we can achieve God realization.

We can understand what is the self, we are something beyond the mind and body, we are the living force in this body. Otherwise what is the use of having this developed human intelligence?

If simply we are following dictations or impulses of the senses and not using our higher intelligence to understand what is our real purpose in life.

The Vedic realizations are there to give us this inside process of how we can understand, that’s why we chant

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

To awaken that spiritual potential in everyone. Hare Kṛṣṇa.

Any questions?

Devotee: - [Not clear 31:08].

Jayapatākā Swami: - One devotee asked Śrīla  Prabhupāda, does the temple president have to take 1/6 of the karma of the devotees living in the temple, and Śrīla  Prabhupāda said ‘Why 1/6? hundred percent’.

But the temple, that means how much control does the king have over the citizens. He’s not got one hundred percent control, but they figure out at least 1/6 influence or something, so he gets 1/6 of the karma.

The government has a certain influence over the citizens, if they try to use that influence favorably then they are not responsible, if they neglect then they just have to get the 1/6 karma. But in the temple, nobody is supposed to be doing sin, it is not supposed to be a place where people come and do sin. There shouldn’t be any bad karma there in the temple. When somebody is doing bad karma living in the temple then the temple president is fully responsible.

Conversely, he is being benefited by everyone who is doing their spiritual activities some time and that’s why the temple president does have a certain moral and personal right to tell people not to commit any sinful things. If he neglects that, then he will be also held responsible.

Any other question?         

Devotee: - (Not clear 32:30).

Jayapatākā Swami: - Make the best use of a bad bargain. According to whatever situation we’re in, we realize that situation for the best extent, we can following our own higher principles. And at the same time internally even though externally they may play the role within that society but internally you should not be identified with it. It’s like an actor, you are really identifying yourself with the Supreme Lord Kṛṣṇa then you are actually serving Him.

We are not depending on this world even though we are acting in the world, even though we are functioning in a certain productive way to produce an income and then have financial stability.

But actually, you are not depending on the world, you are depending on Kṛṣṇa. You know without the backing of Kṛṣṇa, nothing could happen. Still they are not over the shock of the last earthquake.

When the earthquake hit, there was like a sound, hearing you know millions of lions roaring, this roaring, such a loud sound, and where do you go? Even the devotees who were in the temple they went you know we had three altars so they had in Los Angeles they had  also. 

So, the devotees in the morning they bow down to Gaura-Nitāi, bow down to Rādhā Kṛṣṇa. When they bow down to Rādhā Kṛṣṇa, just at that moment the earthquake hit and the power on the both sides fell, then the devotees were right in the middle and nobody got hurt being [ Not clear 34:50] of earthquake.

Then they jump down the altar and all the deities are falling off the altar because they were shaking so much. Then somebody go ahead it’s [ Not clear 35:00] then they ran outside earthquake you know up and down [ Not clear 35:13] even the ground is not solid.

Sometimes there’s earthquakes and the whole ground is shaking under our feet, nothing in this world is hundred percent dependable. Everything is depending on Him, but Kṛṣṇa is a hundred percent dependable, even after we leave this material world, Kṛṣṇa is there [ Not clear 35:54]. Prthu is teaching to his citizens to be dependent of Kṛṣṇa.

So, we should be working in this life in such a way that next life we go back to Kṛṣṇa [ Not clear 36:06] I act in such a way in this life that next life I go back to Kṛṣṇa what better we are going to have, we have come back to Him. 

If in this life we act by some artificial speculative way, you’re just getting entangled in karma coming back again and again. But the devotees dedicates completely our self in Kṛṣṇa’s service very systematically according to our social position, our karmas, our nature [Not clear 36:50] children we have certain responsibilities. So in that case there’s certain ways of acting so when they grow up and you’re in your retired life more free, giving our time and energy. Prabhupāda’s saying deriving different guidelines how we can be maximum Kṛṣṇa consciousness in that particular stage of our student life, married life, retired life.

Hare Kṛṣṇa,  

Thank you.  

Second Level Proofer: Karuṇāpati Keśava das

Second Level Proofed on: 19-Feb-2021