19950807 Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 10.13.50

Lecture Code: 19950807

Scripture: Śrīmad  Bhagvatam

Verse: 10.13.50

Date: 7th August 1995

Place: Warsaw, Poland

Transcribed by: Subhadra Shubhangi dd

date:   31-Aug-2019

First Level Proofer: Tom pr, Reading UK Bhakti Vriksha

First Level Proofed on: 22-Jun-2020

 

Editorial Changes (non voice): Usha

Date: 5-Jan-2021

 

STATUS: Completed

Source:

https://archives.Jayapatākā swami.com/courses/304945/lectures/5000901

Title:

 

Following is a class given by His Holiness Jayapatākā Swami on August 7 1995 in Warsaw, Poland. Class begins with a reading from Śrīmad Bhāgavatam 10th canto, chapter 13, text 50.

candrikā-viśada-smeraiḥ

sāruṇāpāṅga-vīkṣitaiḥ

svakārthānām iva rajaḥ-

sattvābhyāṁ sraṣṭṛ-pālakāḥ

           

Translation:

 

Those Viṣṇu forms, by Their pure smiling, which resembled the increasing light of the moon, and by the sidelong glances of Their reddish eyes, created and protected the desires of Their own devotees, as if by the modes of passion and goodness.

 

Purport:

Those Viṣṇu forms blessed the devotees with Their clear glances and smiles, which resembled the increasingly full light of the moon (śreyaḥ-kairava-candrikā-vitaraṇam). As maintainers, they glanced upon Their devotees, embracing them and protecting them by smiling. Their smiles resembled the mode of goodness, protecting all the desires of the devotees, and the glancing of Their eyes resembled the mode of passion. Actually, in this verse the word rajaḥ means not “passion” but “affection.” In the material world, rajo-guṇa is passion, but in the spiritual world it is affection. In the material world, affection is contaminated by rajo-guṇa and tamo-guṇa, but in the śuddha-sattva the affection that maintains the devotees is transcendental.

The word svakārthānām refers to great desires. As mentioned in this verse, the glance of Lord Viṣṇu creates the desires of the devotees. A pure devotee, however, has no desires. Therefore, Sanātana Gosvāmī comments that because the desires of devotees whose attention is fixed on Kṛṣṇa have already been fulfilled, the Lord’s sidelong glances create variegated desires in relation to Kṛṣṇa and devotional service. In the material world, desire is a product of rajo-guṇa and tamo-guṇa, but desire in the spiritual world gives rise to a variety of everlasting transcendental service. Thus, the word svakārthānām refers to eagerness to serve Kṛṣṇa.

In Vṛndāvana there is a place where there was no temple, but a devotee desired, “Let there be a temple and sevā, devotional service.” Therefore, what was once an empty corner has now become a place of pilgrimage. Such are the desires of a devotee.

 

Guru Maharaja: - Lord Viṣṇu forms were manifested on the place of each of the cowherd boys. Lord Brahmā was trying to figure out who the boys were, because a year before he had stolen the boys.

 

A year by our calculation, but by Brahmā’s calculation it was only a moment. Then he came back to see what happened, he felt, he didn’t feel right about doing it. But he was surprised to find that boys he had stolen are all still there.

 

Then he looked back to where he had hidden the boys in a cave, and he saw that they are still there. Then he focused his consciousness back on the cowherd boys with Kṛṣṇa, they looked exactly the same, couldn’t see any difference, he was wondering how did this happen. When I looked here those boys shifted back here, when I looked there, they shifted there, or what are the sets are not the real set. Like this he became bewildered, what is actually the situation?

 

Prabhupāda  explains in the previous verses rather, in verse 45, as the darkness of snow on a dark night and the light of a glowworm in the light of day have no value, the mystic power of an inferior person who tries to use it against a person of great power is unable to accomplish anything; instead, the power of that inferior person is diminished.

 

So, Lord Brahmā he was, his own mystic power was made to appear very insignificant in the face of Lord Kṛṣṇa. So then before he could figure out what was going on then immediately Kṛṣṇa had all of the cowherd boys that He had expanded Himself to become. He had them all start to manifest themselves as Viṣṇu forms for Him, forms which had been described here, all beautiful forms.

 

So, this verse is giving a detail about those Viṣṇu forms, how they are smiling at all the devotees and that their smiling is very affectionate and the transcendental affection is a cause for the devotees wanting to serve them in various ways.

 

Like in the material world someone smiles or somebody is very attractive, then another person may get the desire in raja guna to enjoy that person.

 

In the spiritual world there is affection and that’s the inspiration to want to serve the person, to want to do various services to reciprocate their affection, so where in spiritual life affection is bona fide.

 

But we have to be careful because being in the material world someone may take spiritual affection or compassion to be something else. Even in the, it happens many times even a priest or a doctor or someone trying to treat the patient, they show some care, some affection and then the patient thinks that “oh!!!”, the whole thing turns into something amorous, material love, material male, female, and people get attached in some romantic way.

 

So, this is why we have to be careful because of this possibility of misunderstanding. And in spiritual life there is affection, but that affection doesn’t mean that it is romantic. Affection in the spiritual world is transcendental to these mundane considerations.

 

So, when doing counselling to devotees especially devotees of the opposite sex, then we have to be very careful. Even married people shouldn’t give counselling alone to people from the other sex. Because of this tendency of misunderstanding someone, genuine spiritual concern or affection is there. The devotees, they have their material desires already fulfilled, then here why does it say that so many great desires are fulfilled by the glance of the Lord or created.

 

In the spiritual world devotees have so many desires to serve the Lord. Those are created by the Lord’s affection for his devotees, those desires to serve the Lord are created or (not audible) affection of the Lord.

 

Śrīla Prabhupāda had so much affection for his devotees, so much compassion for the conditioned souls.

 

Śrīla Prabhupāda was genuinely concerned about the conditioned souls and their sufferings. Everyone by nature is eternal but people are neglecting their eternal existence and simply acting in the external bodily platform under the influence of the mode of passion and ignorance, and because of that they are forced to suffer in so many ways.

 

So, when Prabhupāda got the knowledge to save them, his point was how could he remain silent or not take some steps to save them, to not help someone when you have the cure is like violence.

 

Say that there is a patient who is dying, has some disease, you have got the medicine to cure the disease, no one else has the medicine, you don’t give the patient the medicine, isn’t that violence?

 

Śrīla Prabhupāda  used this reasoning that we have the knowledge to save people from the suffering of birth and death. If we don’t give them that knowledge then we are being violent. (Internal dialogue between Guru Maharaja and translator).

 

Śrīla Prabhupāda , he had genuine concern about the people of the world. That’s why he left Vṛndāvan , physically bring Kṛṣṇa to everyone. One time in Māyāpur  during the Gaur Purnima lecture there were devotees there from all over the world.

 

So that time Śrīla  Prabhupāda  he pointed out that normally in the material world you see young people are associating with young people and old people with old people, but here materially I am an old person, you are young people, we come from different countries, different languages, so how is it there so much affection between us, so much relationship between us, love between us, because this is not physical, it’s not material, this is spiritual relationship, soul to soul, heart to heart.

 

So, if you get a taste of what’s being explained here by seeing the affection that Prabhupāda had for all of the devotees. He took so many voluntary difficulties in order to give us his mercy, to give us the mercy of Caitanya Mahāprabhu.

 

This year at Gaur mandal parikrama, we visited some of the holy places of Lord Caitanya’s associates. We went to the house of Basu Ghosh. How many went to the house of Basu Ghosh?

 

So, I remember there was, for those who didn’t go there were very beautiful deities there of Lord Kṛṣṇa.

 

Basu Ghosh he was a great kirtan singer of Lord Caitanya’s sankirtan party. So, he is glorified in an evening kirtan in sandhya aarti to Basu Gosh adhikay. So, he will go every year to see Lord Caitanya in Jagganath Puri, he will be helping Lord Nityānanda with the preaching.

 

When they heard that Lord Caitanya had left the world, he and his wife became so overwhelmed with separation. (Śrī Śrī Gaur Nitāi ki jay) Then they dug a, they dug a big hole in the ground and they plan to enter into it and have devotees cover them up, bury them alive. They were feeling so much pain in separation from Kṛṣṇa that they didn’t want to live anymore.

 

But before they could do that, the deities spoke to them, the stone deity of Kṛṣṇa spoke to them and told them ‘you can’t do this, this is not allowed, you have given your life to me you cannot take it away, this is not authorized to do this type of. You have to serve me. Who will take care of me if you do something like that?’

 

So, I forget all the things the deities say but anyway their plan was cancelled. So Basu Ghosh one of the songs he sang in great separation from Lord Caitanya was a song about what if Lord Caitanya hadn’t come, then what would have been the situation?

 

There’s a Bengali poetry a Yadi Gaurāṅga na hoito ki hoito, if Lord Gaurāṅga hadn’t been, what would have been. I don’t know if it comes across the translating it in a few languages but it is very poetic. Yadi Gaurāṅga na hoito ki hoito, so then he said if there was not a Lord Caitanya then who would have given us the holy names of Kṛṣṇa, who would have given us the sankirtan movement, who would have given us the devotional service to Rādhā-Kṛṣṇa, who would have given us the esoteric understanding of the Vṛndāvan  pastimes, who would have revealed to us the importance of the holy dhams?

 

There are so many things that Lord Caitanya gave that if He hadn’t given, it was very obvious no one would have given, it would remain a secret.

 

This tenth canto of Śrīmad  Bhagvatam is revealing the very esoteric information about the Supreme Personality of Godhead.

 

The Lord is revealing by his pastimes on this planet what is happening in the spiritual kingdom of God in the highest planet of the spiritual world.

 

So, it’s contemplating how Basu Ghosh, he was feeling so much appreciation for Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu’s blessings on the world. Similarly, how much we should be feeling grateful to Śrīla  Prabhupāda  for having brought all these things to us.

 

At least in India they knew something about basics of spiritual life, but here in the west we don’t even know that. We wouldn’t have understood that we are not the body, we are the spirit soul, we wouldn’t have understood our relationship with Kṛṣṇa, we wouldn’t have understood who is God the Father who is the Personality of Godhead, we wouldn’t understand what is the process of devotional service, wouldn’t have got the Harinam sankirtan, wouldn’t have had the deities, would not have the Bhagvatam, Bhagavad Gītā, Caitanya Charitamrita, wouldn’t have had Kṛṣṇa consciousness, like this we can go on and on, all the things we wouldn’t have had.

 

That Śrīla  Prabhupāda  was so merciful, so compassionate to go out of his way to give this message here to the western world. He is personification of the mercy of Lord Caitanya and Nityānanda Prabhus, mercy incarnation.

 

So, if we understand the affection that Prabhupāda had for us, that can also be a cause of us to have many desires to want to serve him.

 

When we understand the affection of Lord Nityānanda and Lord Caitanya for us then that can inspire us, we want to do so many services for them, to worship the deities, to spread the knowledge about them, spread the sankirtan movement.

Lord Caitanya gave this order that all people of the universe should take up Kṛṣṇa consciousness, not only the people in this room, and everybody in all of Poland, all of Europe, all over the world, all of the universe. This is not a sectarian thing, something to do with soul, the eternal self.

 

Every soul has a relationship with the Supreme Lord, but they have forgotten it, so by this process they can remember again their eternal relationship with the Lord.

 

The great devotees of Lord Caitanya like Basu Ghosh by their songs, they help to bring out those desires to know the Lord and serve Him. So, the devotees are inspired by this devotion, they become very eager to serve the Lord, they become filled with desires to spread the sankirtan movement. These should never be considered as material; these are spiritual desires to please the Lord.

 

But if somebody, someone may be imitating those desires if he wanted to be known as a great preacher or if he wants to do something for some material purpose, but if we do something out of eagerness to serve Kṛṣṇa, that is pure devotion and then Kṛṣṇa He may make His devotees famous even if they don’t want it.

 

So, in the spiritual world there is also this desire to do something to serve Kṛṣṇa, that’s reciprocation of Kṛṣṇa’s affection and love for His devotees. So, if you go around Gaur mandal bhumi you’ll see so many temples were established, so for five hundred years their worships are still going on.

 

Some of the temples the worship has become substandard, but of course after five hundred years at least something is going on. ISKCON has been around for about 27, how many years now? Thirty years?

 

So, if after five hundred years all our temples are doing very nice it will be very good. Sometimes you hear “oh!! I don’t find any brahmana to do aarti, I don’t find someone to do the worship, everyone is too busy”. The whole area’s fit in a hundred meters, just like one community, maybe one hundred, two hundred meters maximum, one block, how is it, very close. Hundred meter that means like one hectare, they’re all living in that, or maybe five hectares, I don’t know, compact area, I didn’t measure.

 

So then that day when they would cook then the husband, he would stop all other work and he wouldn’t talk to anybody, he wouldn’t go out on the street he would just be cooking for the deities.

 

The wife would help him to cook, it’s a special day cooking for the deity. Sometimes the mataji would cook, sometimes the husband would cook, sometimes the whole family would cook, then the deity would come and they would offer the bhoga to the deity, kind of a unique system you never saw this system, the deity going to the house, anywhere else you never saw that system.

 

Many other temples on rotation the grihastas cook for the deity but then they bring an offer for the deity, here the deity went to take from them so they all had a special place to put the deity in their house. That deity was everyone’s personal deity, everyone felt very much connected with the deity.

 

So, we can see also how Dayananda he had to carry out the order of his guru and he stayed and he preached there. He also said, where I’m going to preach, I need the Bhagavad Gītā.

 

So Gadadhar prabhu had a personal Bhagavad Gītā he had copied with his own hand and that was very special for him because on the first page of the Gītā, Lord Caitanya had personally written a verse.

 

So, he gave his own Bhagavad Gītā. When people saw that Gītā was written by Gadadhar and had a verse written by Lord Caitanya everybody went and put their head on the Gītā, especially at the place where Lord Caitanya had written. But so many people put their head there, that it got wiped out you know, now you can’t read that verse anymore of Lord Caitanya. They kept the Bhagavad Gītā in a sober box and with glass, you can see it.

 

So, Lord Caitanya, he wrote when he was five hundred, and He said Bhagavad Gītā how many verses it has, and who spoke the different verses? Anyone knows how many verses Bhagavad Gītā has?

 

Exactly how many?

 

710, 750, how many exactly? 740?

 

Right, 745?

 

And who spoke, who spoke the verses in Bhagavad Gītā?

 

How many verses did Kṛṣṇa speak?

 

Who else?

 

How many did Dhrutarashtra speak?

 

One verse, he got one in there. And then Arjuna – 57, and Sanjaya, any one knows how many he spoke? 5 no…67. And the rest was spoken by Kṛṣṇa, I think it comes out to six hundred and thirty. (in audible) written by Nimāi Pandit, 745 verses, one by Dhrutarashtra, fifty-seven by Arjuna, sixty-seven by Sanjaya and six hundred and thirty by Kṛṣṇa. Interesting.

 

Nimāi Pandit he was, he knew all the details. He could go up to some pandit and then he says, my dear pandit you are a great scholar.

 

I just wanted to ask you a question.

They are so afraid of His questions that whenever they see Him coming out on the street, they run the other way.

 

That He’s going to ask a question and they don’t know the answer then I will be defeated.

 

But later Lord Caitanya, He started sankirtan movement and then He simply spread the glories of Kṛṣṇa. In fact, his guru told him to preach where the people speak English but Prabhupāda went around the world, so many countries even where they don’t speak English.

 

I had the order to be in Māyāpur  and that time Prabhupāda  I remember he was in Māyāpur  and Hare Kṛṣṇa maharaja was his personal secretary, and then he asked ‘can you go to Europe and I want you to publish books and I want you to preach there’, and he said ‘no I don’t want to go I want to be with you’, he was crying I remember he didn’t want to go.

 

Śrīla  Prabhupāda  said, “No no you have to go’ so he went as sincere. I remember some years later he came and he gave Prabhupāda so many books he had published in different languages.

 

Prabhupāda said ‘see I told you that you should go and now because you went so many nice books have been published’.

 

Although devotees they carry out the order of the guru by affection, even then sometimes their heart is very heavy because of separation from their guru. So, this bond of love between guru and disciple, between devotee and Kṛṣṇa.

 

So, in the spiritual world, the whole world is going on by love. Here in the material world, it is going on by the perverted reflection of that love. We should understand what is the difference between spiritual love and material lust, but what we are all anxious to get actually is the spiritual love. But in this material world it’s not spiritual love, it’s not visible in material relationships.

 

So, we need to teach people the principles of spiritual life so they can have spiritual love and spiritual peace, so they can also be empowered to spread this to others.

 

Śrīla  Prabhupāda  ki,

 

Devotees: - Jay

 

Guru Mahārāja: - Gaurang Mahaprabhu, Nityānanda prabhu ki,

 

Devotees: - Jay

 

Nitāi Gaur Sitanath premanande

 

Devotees: – Hari Bol

 

Guru Mahārāja: - Any questions?

 

Devotee: - During Gaur mandal parikrama she saw different temples install deities like Gaurāṅga alone or single deity, so why we cannot install them in our ISKCON temples like Gaurāṅga alone or in namhatta centres?

 

Guru Maharaja: - But those are more rare, the general temple you’ll find you see Gaur Nitāi, occasionally they’ll be a Lord Caitanya alone, there might be some reason for that, but even Gadadhar brother Baninath he established the deity of Gaur-Gadadhar. But Gadadhar was also like his guru so it’s kind of natural.

 

Gouridas Pandey established Gaurāṅga and Nityānanda , also Suryadasa Sarakhela the father-in-law of (Lord Caitanya) Nityānanda , he established Nitāi -Gour deity. Nitāi -Gaur is especially important for the propagation of Kṛṣṇa consciousness, giving out the mercy.

 

Lord Nityānanda is even more merciful than Lord Caitanya, so especially namahatta devotees, they need Nityānanda ’s mercy, he is also a founder of namahatta, why would they want not to have Lord Nityānanda ?

 

Gaur-Gadadhar, there’s only a few temples for Gaur-Gadadhar that’s a special type of worship. Gadadhar is coming as an assistant to Lord Caitanya and he had tremendous love and affection for Lord Caitanya.

 

There was a reason why Rādhārāṇī came as Gadadhar.

 

Apparently, she was, all the cowherd boys could all be with Kṛṣṇa all the time but She could not be with Kṛṣṇa all the time like they were. So, she expressed her desire that I want to come in a male body where I can always be by the side of Kṛṣṇa. I don’t have to worry about elders, parents, anybody, I can just be with Him all the time.

 

So, to fulfil Her desire when (Lord Caitanya) when Kṛṣṇa was coming as a devotee then She came as Gadadhar and was always with Lord Caitanya. Although there was so much affection between them but this is not a conjugal relationship, this is another type of relationship they have, but it gives an example that the pure nature of the transcendental affection in the spiritual world, totally selfless and all absorbent.

 

Mainly the followers of Gadadhar they established some of those deities as well as Bhaktivinod Thakur, he used to worship Gadadhar so he had a deity also. But otherwise everybody else mostly they have Gaur-Nitāi.

 

Śrīla Prabhupāda he also established Gaur-Nitāi. Nityānanda delivered Jagāi-Mādhāi.. I think you have any Jagāi-Mādhāi in this country then you may need Nityānanda 

 

(inaudible).

Hare Kṛṣṇa.