19960128 Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 1.3.6

Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 1.3.6

Type Of Talk:

Morning Class

Book:

Srimad Bhagavatam (SB)

Date:

Sunday, January 28, 1996

Collection:

Enlightenment 7

Audio player:

19960128_Srimad_Bhagavatam.1.3.6_Bangalore_India_Literal Version The following is a class given his holiness Jayapataka Swami on January 28th, 1996 in Bangalore, India. The class begins with a reading from the Srimad Bhagavatam, 1st Canto, 3rd Chapter, 6th Verse. First of all, in the beginning of creation, there were the four unmarried sons of Brahma [the Kumaras], who, being situated in a vow of celibacy, underwent severe austerities for realization of the Absolute Truth. Purport: The creation of the material world is effected, maintained and then again annihilated at certain intervals. So there are different names of the creations in terms of the particular types of Brahma, the father of the living beings in the creation. The Kumaras, as above mentioned, appeared in the Kaumara creation of the material world, and to teach us the process of Brahman realization, they underwent a severe type of disciplinary action as bachelors. These Kumaras are empowered incarnations. And before executing the severe type of disciplinary actions, all of them became qualified brahmanas. This example suggests that one must first acquire the qualifications of a brahmana, not simply by birth but also by quality, and then one can undergo the process of Brahman realization. Thus end the Bhativedanta Swami Purport of the Srimad Bhagavatam, 1st Canto, 3rd Chapter, sixth verse, in the matter of Krishna is the source of all the incarnations, spoken this centennial year of the appearance of His Divine Grace Srila Abhya charan Bhaktivedanta Swami Srila Prabhupada ki. Jay (by devotees) Here at Bangalore, Hare Krishna land, on the 20th of January, 1996, five hundred and tenth year of our Lord Caitaya Mahaprabhu… 509th… 10th is 2 weeks ago or one month ago. So this chapter describes the different incarnations of the Lord who are very prominent in the universe. So first the Viswarupa and the Purusa avatara’s were mentioned. Maha Vishnu, Garvodakshayee Vishnu and Ksirodakshayee Visnu. Most of us will not be able to see this three forms unless we get some very special mercy, but they are the foundation of the whole material creation. From the Mahavishnu the Viswarupa is also expanding. So the example is given that the whole universe is like the body of the Lord and he like the soul. Just like we are not the body but we are the soul in the body. The Lord is different from the material elements. Simultaneously He is different and as well as non-different. They are also part of his energies but he is not made of any material element. So the Biswarupa is a material form of the Lord where all the other forms are spiritual forms. So the Kumaras are also listed as the incarnations although they are not Visnu tattvas, they are considered saktavesh avataras, that means that they are living entities, just like you and I are living entities but the difference is that they are very special living entities who have been empowered by special powers of the Lord. So they are empowered incarnations. So in this list of incarnations you may find empowered incarnations, you may find ah… lila incarnations, yuga avatars, you may find guna avatars, different kinds of avatars are there. So one of the avatars is called the saktavesh, who is a avatar imbued with the potency of the Lord. So the Kumaras, they are considered a kind of incarnations, they are empowered incarnations. Prabhupada said that these incarnations are empowered incarnations. An empowered incarnation is given one or two powers of the Lord. The Lord has all the powers. All renunciation, all beuty, all opulence, all strength, all knowledge and all fame. So Prithu maharaj, he became very famous and he had the power of ruling u… ah… the kumaras had the power of renunciation, they are very renounced. At six years of age they accepted brahmachari for their whole life, and they also because they were so great yogis they kept their bodies from biologically growing more than that age. They are…. So, that’s why they are always chira kumaras, they are always the kumaras but they are the oldest in the universe. They are mentioned first because they are the oldest. They are the older brother of Siva, so old they are. They are knows as the Bhavagrajas, bhavagraja is the correct translation? So… Bhanu Maharaj is a Sanskrit pandit. The elder brothers of Lord Siva, he appeared because of the ah… because the Lord… Brahma was very eager to create the universe and he had created the planets, now he wanted to fill that up with living entities, so he wanted to create Prajapatis, who would create progeny and start to populate the world. So in the beginning they were very great reproducers. They could produce many children and those ah… of springs would also produce many children who could produce many children. So in a very short time things started to fill up and become populated. So you can imagine, well then Lord Brahma, he is then very much eager ah… eagerness of creation and his first sons decided to become brahmacharis. They don’t want to marry. Sometimes the parents, mother and father get very ah… excited if the children say they don’t want to marry, then they become very anxious about that. So Brahma he became very anxious, he became very angry but ah… it was a good cause, he couldn’t stop them, he couldn’t say don’t do it, he requested them to create progenies, that no we want to remain brahmacharis, so he had to hold his anger in and then from his forehead the anger came out in the form of rudra or bhava, bhavagraja. So Kumaras, they were born first, then came Siva. Of course Siva is more than a jiva, but ah… he comes in the universe in this way, he came in that creation in this way although his existence is higher than the jivas, he is an expansion of Visnu who is here for the creation of the material world in his form as Sambhu. So the Kumaras, they are very old but they look very young. Nowadays in the modern world everyone wants to look young but they have the secret, and the Kumaras they are so wise, they are completely controlled their sex urge. So if somebody wants his difficulties with his sex urge by worshipping the Kumaras specially the sanat kumar’s, Prabhupada mentioned, by his blessings one can control, it is very difficult to control sexual desires. So for the yogis as well as for the devotees ah… who are trying to follow strictly the principles of ah… spiritual life and control, regulate themselves in the sexual activities, the Kumaras blessings are very important. In the Bhagavatam there are several places where the Kumaras instruction are giving us wisdom about Krishna consciousness. They came to the yajna of Prithu maharaj and instructed, and in different occasions, there are sometimes when they are giving their instructions and in other Puranas also they have given their instructions. They started, they were originally, the whole coming of the Jagai ah… the whole coming of the Jay and Vijay into the material world, it is because of the Kumaras. The Kumaras were so great that they could travel around the universe by their own will, they were perfected yogis, they had achieved brahman realizations, they were brahmanandis. Somhow they wanted to, they wanted to go to the planet of Visnu and see what that was. So when they came to the planet of Visnu and they were walking in the gate, the… Jay, Vijay, the gate-keepers of the planet of Visnu, they stopped him, said, “who are you? You can’t come in here and they got very angry and they cursed them that you should take birth as… in the material world because as you are acting in such an improper way. So take birth as asuras, and Lord Narayana came because very critical situation happened there and the Kumara’s when they saw Narayana, they bowed down and they offered their obeisance’s, and although they were already situated in their happiness of brahman, when they bowed their head down at the lotus feet of Narayana and smelt the Tulasi which is offered at His lotus feet, they became filled with loving ecstasies, their hairs stood on end, their bodies were quivering, tears were coming in their eyes, they were getting choked up, they were feeling ecstasies which were much more than the bliss of brahman and immediately they became converted from brahman realised yogis or jnanis to bhaktas. There is no example in the universe of any God realized bhakta who became, changed his position to become a jnana but here this brahmand realized jnanis they became bhaktas. In fact they were the first jnanis in the universe. In South India there are many people who like jnana yoga. Sometimes they have jnana yajna and so on, and according to Lord Krishna jnana yoga is also one way to reach Him. He says that, “bahunam janmanam ante jnanavan mam prapdyate, after many, many births if someone follows jnana yoga they can reach me, Vasudeva sarvam iti sa mahatma sa durlubham. When they realize that I Krishna am everything, then they become very rare mahatmas, they can reach me, so eventually some jnanis they can also reach Krishna but it takes a long time. They have to come to the understanding that Krishna is everything. Then they become perfected and freed from this bondage. So eventually everyone needs to go the path of bhakti, sooner or later. So the first jnanis, to realize this are the Kumaras, after this came bhaktas, they became bhakti-yogis and now they have got their own sampradaya, they have got their own guru parampara through Nimbarka Acharya and this is Kumar sampradaya and they teach how to teach Radha and Krishna and Their pure devotion. They are the other…. there are other sampradayas that is teaching about Radha and Krishna. These four vedas, these four vaisnava sampradayas are there, the sri sampradaya that is teaching about Radha and Krishna. This four veda vaisnava sampradayas are. The sri sampradaya from Laxmi that Ramanujacharya is heading, then there is the brahma samradaya where madhava Acharya came, and in there Lord Caitanya who is Krishna Himself appeared and from Lord Caitanya we… actually from Madhavendra Puri Radha- Krishna worship was revealed. Specially in the madhava sampradaya the idea of progressive realization was ah.. permitted. He didn’t say he had realized everything. So Lord Caitanya, He has… His realization is built up a little bit more although he came in Madhavendra sampradaya. The we have the ah… he has his rudra sampradaya through Visnu swami that is in Gujrat. Ballavacharya is coming from that sampradaya. Lord Siva is also a great Krishna bhakta, the greatest ah… Krishna bhakta and he is also a Vaisnava guru parampara. So we have the sri, brahma, the kumara’s and the Laxmi. So these four sampradaya’s are there. Lord Caianya, one of His purpose is to unite the all the Vaisnavas. In Kali yuga, kalua sango saktir, that we get more strength when we are united, you see. There used to very great people who were so powerful, the could perform wonderful things but in Kali yuga people are not so strong individually. They are not like the maharathis or the great… these great, even brahmana’s don’t have the same sakti, you see. We don’t know much about the vaisnava’s but ah… so many cows nanda maharaj had but now there is no vaisyas who can maintain so many cows. So the sakti of individuals has reduced. If you hear what the sakti is of bhima you know, there would be no Olympics at all, he would just win everything right?, you just give his all the medals and forget it. The pandavas would have taken just all the… so… so people think how this can be, because we see kali yuga people are not what they used to be. So tha… sometimes they don’t even believe that, they think that is some mythology or something but these all histories… people in previous yugas have more potency. So in this yuga, kalua sango sakit, we get more strength when many of us are together united, unity is the force. If we are united together in Krishna consciousness then we get a lot of strength. So Lord Caitanya came to unite all of the vaisnavas sampradayas as one of his many purposes. So in our Krishna consciousness you find that there are common ideas where all of the vaisnava sampradaya’s, not only the Madhava, we have common ideas of madhava but also there are Nimbarka, there are many… because Lord Caitanya took the essence of all of the four sampradayas and kept in his sampradaya. So that’s why we call as a brahma-madhava-gauriya sampradaya. Gauria meaning it is coming through the ah… Lord Caitanya, some specialities are there. So that… some of the pandits they were challenging that while you are claiming to have a separate, developed sampradaya within the madava. So you should have some separate ideas, you have to have your own tika on Vedanta sutra. So that time Baladev Vidyabhusan was the Acharya for our disciplic succession who was the most prominent, and he was in Jaipur worshipping Radha-Govida if I am not mistaken. That time they moved from Vrindavan, Radha-Govinda to ah… Jaipur because of the Mughal problems that they were causing in Vrindavan and the Rajaput kings they protected Radha-Govinda in Rajastan and still to this day Radha-Govinda of Rupa Goswami are in Jaipurand they are being worshipped enthusiastically by people there. So they said that in order for us to recognize your sampradaya as the unique sampradaya you have to give us your Vedanta sutra commentary. Generally we accept Srimad Bhagavatam that we are reading, this is the natural commentary of Vedanta Sutra because it begins also with Om Janmadasya yataha, the same verses of Vedanta sutra, the same first ah… ah… mantra is also in the Srimad Bhagavatam, and this is also Vyasa Deva’s own natural commentary but this ah… pandits they say ah… every sampradaya has to have it’s own Vedanta sutra commentary, otherwise we won’t accept. So Baladev Vidyabhusan said, I will go inside and get it, and he closed the door of temple, went inside and prayed to Govinda, the deity and requested His mercy to give them a commentary of the Vedanta sutra and so Govinda Dev, the deity dictated the Vedanta Sutra commentary and Baladev Vidyabhusan wrote it down, he called it the Govinda Bhasya. He dictated, just like Vyasa Dev dictated sastras and Ganesh took off his tusk and wrote them down, so Baladev Vidyabhusan wrote it down, the dictation from Govinda Dev diety. So that’s how our Sampradaya got it’s tika or bhasya, Govinda Bhasya Vedanta Sutra. Now that is a very important point here, the Kumaras became qualified brahmanas. Prabhupada said that this example suggests that one must first acquire the qualification’s of a Brahmana, not simply by birth but also by quality. In Bhagavat Gita, Krishna says, “Catur Varnyam maya sristam guna karma bivagasha, that I created four varnas in the varnashrama system of brahma, ksatriya, vaisya and sudra, by guna and karma, by quality and nature of work, he didn’t say janma, karma,…. He didn’t say by birth, he said by guna and karma, but Prabhupada says that normally you know if someone is born a son of a businessman they usually can take up business quite easily. Infact sometimes people come in, they go to college and they get all kind of degrees, so that they can work for someone who has no degree. Because he was a son of a businessman and therefore he could, he learnt it from his father, he has a big property but he has no degree, but he is hiring so many. If you have to get a job with him you have to be a phd., you have to be a M.A, so one way of learning is that you learn it from your father. After you start this, every businessman’s son’s are only businessman, then you become some doctor or lawyer or something else, you see. But if they want to be a businessman, if they have the aptitude then ah… they can definitely get some advantage. If you are the son of a high-court judge it’s quite easier to be a lawyer and even possibly one could be made a judge but if you work for a government officer, if you… yesterday I coming in ah… ah… Bangladesh ah… Inidia and the customs, one young man in customs he saw me. He said that, “I went to Mayapur many times, my father was ah… the ah… customers of the customs. So here his father was commissioner customs and he is also a customs ah… inspector at the airport. So the son got some facility, must be because the father was a commissioner, so he must also easily get some appointment for his son in the customer. So there may be some advantage like that but doesn’t mean that just because you are the son of the Prime Minister you are also the prime minister or son of the CM you are also the CM or the son of the chief justice means that you are also the justice. You have to become qualified, you have to go through the procedures and you have some advantage may be there, just like we have seen that sometimes son of a PM also became a PM, right? Indra Gandhi was the daughter of ah… PM and then her son also became PM. So that… that doesn’t mean that automatically son will become a PM or every daughter, there is no such ah… of course I think the present PM’s or son’s, some of them might be able to be PM, but we cannot say that it will happen. There is no automatic thing like that. So you have to become qualified and you have to be able to do that work. So Kumara, they became qualified as brahmana’s, then they could realize brahman. Now we want people, Prabhupada he said in the world today we need more people who are brahmanas. Brahmanas are people to provide spiritual leadership. This world needs spiritual leadership. Anywhere in the world, you go anywhere and you ask the newspaper, you ask educated people what is the stage of spiritual leadership in the world and they will all tell you it is very much lacking, right? You have economic leadership, you go some kind of political leadership to some degree, you may have different types of leaders but the spiritual leadership is a big vacuum and that’s felt in all the other spheres of leadership because the brahmanas are to guide all the different kinds of people how they can do their activities in a spiritual way. Of course in India you may have many people who are born in the Brahmana family and they have very good positions in banks and business, you know, and someone don’t have very good position. Some are working as clerks or whatever. Very few are functioning as a Brahmana in a… in a sense of the karmas. May be some are maintaining their pujas in home and doing… maintaining their cultural link but what I am speaking about is actually people functioning for society as a Brahmana. Serving the society to spiritually guide people. Previously the brahmanas who are maintained by the king’s… I mean they are maintained by the public, they got dakshinas, they lived very simply and now people don’t like to live simply. They are families of brahmanas but they are not maintaining themselves through their profession of being a Brahmana which is doing yajnas and giving and few are there, no doubt, and you go other countries, there is no brahmanas. In Asia most of the people are Indians, and they are Tamils but they have a big shortage, they don’t have a… brahmanas. Even in Bangladesh most of the brhmanas have left and come to India and only the people left there are the workers and many other…. …30.18… rules are there but you see. I went to one place in Assa…. In island and there the person who person who performs the wedding is the carpenter. Like he is considered in the caste system, he was the highest, at least he was a sudra, others were not even sudras, they were lower than sudras. So as a carpenter he was asked to do the weddings, this is the state of affairs. No brahmanas even do the rituals. So there are different kinds of brahmanas, there is the half qualified Brahmana, then there is the fully qualified Brahmana, then there is the Brahmana who can do yajna, there is a Brahmana who knows the Vedanta is considered a very advanced Brahmana, you see. Of all the brahmanas, the Brahmana vaisnava, someone who is… actually knows the science of bhakti yoga is considered the top most. So Prabhupada he wanted that to create brahmanas, to fill up the vaccum, not the… by process of bhakti yoga you can create brahmanas you see, but smarta can think that you can never create a Brahmana but in the vedas you can find that Viswamitra he was born a ksatriya, he became a Brahmana by doing tapasyas. Why we are born in a particular birth is because of our karmas, we done sins, we have done paps, therefore we get certain births. So someone who has done enough punyas, they might have been born in a family of brahmanas. That doesn’t mean that they are qualified as a Brahmana, they may have again become qualified, they have to go through the dasam samskaras. They have to do all the samskaras and they have to work as a Brahmana, you see. Now the problem in India is because the caste system has become distorted, people are born in a family but they don’t take the qualities of their forefathers or may be they have changed their qualities. May be there is someone who is born in a sudra family but now he is working more like a Brahmana but he is still considered by the Brahmana family as a sudra because the Varnasharama system was originally by guna and karma but the sytem…. This should be a whole recognition. No recognision, like you can get people, ok you have this guna and karma then you are recognised as a… there should be a re-categorization. According to the guna and karma you get a... in Calcutta we have a person who delivers who delivers the coal to our temple, the coolie who carries the coal, he is a Brahmana, his black brahmin thread is all covered with coal, he is working as a coolie. He doesn’t do yajnas or anything, but he considers that I am born in a Brahmana family, he wears his paita… you know his upanayana, yajna pavitra, but today he is working as a… and the Brahmana’s are prohibited to working like that. Now before kings they would do that, they would say, “you are not a brahmana, you are doing…” just a whole …33.25… they would say you are not a Brahmana, they are working like this.”

In Calcutta, in Bengal they have the Debnath, they used to be considered brahmanas but ah… the king, he said that he is not acting like brahmanas, so he re-categorized them and now they are all weaver, but they said previously, historically we were considered brahmanas but now like thousands years ago the king called us something else. Whether it was right or wrong, the king doing that, but there was that… the King had that ability apparently in those days to recognize someone, just like Duryodhana, he recognized Karna, “I recognized it, you are ksatriya.” Ok, that… the king did that, that was accepted to some extent. In Vedas however there is a system for doing that. Right now we are not trying to re-establish that caste system, it is too complicated and it is too difficult to try to do that in this Kali yuga but what our fore… our previous gurus told us we should try to do is, we should try to create daiva varnasrama, that let the people become… daiva meaning that they should all be vaisnavas and actually there is one varna but for the practical working arrangements someone may be functioning as a brahma or someone may be working as a ksatriya or vaisya or sudra but they should all be vaisnavas and this way the whole society can be very smoothly operating. So all the functions of the society would be taken care of. At the same time because they are all accepted as a devotee of the Lord, everything will be… there will be no discrimination or anything, and everyone will be respected by everyone and there will be very nice organization in society, because you need some people who can function in society as brahmanas, you need some people who are trained as ksatriyas, you need people who are good vaisyas and so on, and you need people who are sudras who work, but nobody wants… even though mostly everybody is a sudra, nobody likes to be called a sudra because of the stigma that has been given but in the daiva varnasrama system there is no stigma, everyone is equally part of the whole body of the Lord and they should all be serving the Lord but they should function in Krishna’s service. So to create this you need to have vaisnavas and sudras functioning also as preachers. Lord Caitanya said that everyone should take up Krishna consciousness and should preach it to others. So we need that people become qualified and understand the Srimad Bhagavatam, the Bhagavat Gita and to explain this to other people to function partially through the vaccum that the… because of lack of Brahmana culture. So our param gurudev Srila Bhaktisiddhantha Saraswati Thakur you see, since 500 years Vaisnavas have been given Pancharatrika initiation, even if they were from other castes, in the sampradaya of Lord Caitanya but ah… two of our param guru he said that since according to sastras, he said that who is qualified as a Vaisnava, he is already considered to be a Brahmana. A Brahmana is included in the Vaisnava, there are 12 qualities included in the Brahmana and a Vaisnava has 13 qualities including those 12. So therefore, and there is a specific ah… slokas in Vedas that say that if somebody is a Vaisnava practicing and chanting the holy names purely then he is qualified to do yajnas and all the activities of a Brahmana. So he started to give a system of upanayanam even to those born in non-brahmana families, if they were practicing all the vaisnava principles regularly for some period of time and establishing properly in Vaisnava dharma and we are continuing on with this tradition all over the world. So now we don’t need to use the carpenter, we can use the carpenter also as a pujari if he is initiated as a Brahmana, if that is also qualified as a vaisnava, he may be making altars now part time and they are doing pujas or something, we don’t… we have now all over the world, they don’t do carpentry but if they want to of course for the deity they can use any skill they have but they don’t work outside like that. So we do have this facility and we want to see that people do become qualified to perform all kinds of services for the Lord. So those who have got the upanayanam it’s alright, they don’t need to take upanayan again but they also get the pancharatrik mantra from the guru so that they can do a pancharatrik form of puja for the deties. So brahmana’s have upanayana, they also take second initiation, they don’t need to take the upanayanam again but those who are non-brahmanas, at the same time we give upanayanam again but those who are non-brahmana’s at the same time we give upanayanam and the pancharatrik initiation. So this is probably unique in India. There is lot of talks about solving the problems in the caste system but here is this a natural way you see. The caste system in itself is created by God, we cannot you know. The original system of varnashram was not a caste you know discriminatory thing but it was meant to organize the society. Now here this is a natural way. Society needs people to be qualified as brahmanas, so have this system where any person who qualifies as a vaisnava they can also become Brahmana. Automatically by being a vaisnava. Now we recognize that according to the ah… our previous acharyas and according the sastras system. So initially there was some objections about that but gradually since the whole system anyway in the society is gradually crumbling, even the very orthodox people are very gradually …. They are not fully accepting the… many are accepting and many are tolerating, they are not saying anywhere but all they are doing is they are very much backed up by the sastra. So Mahabharata… from all the different puranas, many quotes are there. You see the quality of someone… you have to judge by their quality, by their activities, whether they are brahmanas or what they are. Even Romaharshana, who was the guru of the puranas, he was born from a mixed marriage, from between a sudra and a Brahmana, so he was accepted as a guru for all of the puranas. Of course one has to be very careful, never to become proud you see, never to become proud. Again as a devotee we should always remain humble. If at all anybody becomes qualified, it is simply by the mercy of the guru and Krishna, we shouldn’t take credit for ourselves, we should always be grateful that it is the mercy of the guru that we are able to do any kind of devotional service or be able to perform any of this ah… activities for Krishna. So it is said here that the Kumaras here, they became empowered to do this great tapasyas, otherwise it is not possible. For us to practice Krishna conscious, we need to mercy of Krishna and Balarama, need the mercy of Lord Caitanya and guru. To be able to preach Krishna consciousness we need to be able to have their mercy and become a nimitta matrena, become an instrument in their hands. It is very much essential that we always are dependent on the Lord, we recognize our dependency, we are not independent but that’s the difference between jnana yoga. Jnana yogi, they think that independently they have got this knowledge of brahman, the consider themselves to be the person who has given the knowledge but the bhakti yogis, our principle is that we are always dependent on the Lord’s mercy. So we remain humble by remaining conscious that everything is happening by the Lord’s mercy, by gurus’ mercy. So even if someone is taking up such an important leadership role as a preacher or as a Brahmana or as a… in some as a leader of a namhatta group or leader of the temple but where they are servant leaders, where they are to serve. Leadership is a service that we do for Krishna and only ability we have to do any leadership is by the mercy of the Lord, without His mercy what can we do. So in this consciousness one can remain free from the false pride. The false pride causes us to commit offenses to qualified people and then we fall down, we become offensive even to devotees who are newer than us and harm their spiritual progress. It is a very big obstacle, but when we preach to other people, like all of you are practicing different levels, so naturally you will be telling people about Krishna consciousness. We have to very careful not to be proud of what we can do. We may like the kumaras, they were so powerful that from the small age they could be celibate. So someone may be able to practice the celibacy or someone may be able to practice ah… vegetarian diets or avoid all kinds of intoxications or all kinds of gambling or to rise early in the morning or whatever. We should be proud about that, we should be grateful that the Lord has given us the ability, when we talk about the other people we should understand that if we too much tell about all the things we are doing, they may feel, the wife can do all these things or these people are criticizing me for what I am doing or we may discourage someone from chanting Hare Krishna. We should encourage someone more about the chanting and coming to class and learning everything and when they build up in their spiritual strength naturally they will be able to on their own take up more and more of the regulative principles, that we should encourage them amount of taste they have realized spiritually because only by the mercy of the Lord can anyone do all this kinds of austerities and spiritual practices. If they don’t have any taste, if they don’t have any spiritual ah… strength from within, then only temporarily they can do something and again they will fall away and they will be artificial. So we want people to build up spiritually and naturally be able to follow all the principles. So we have to be very careful not to be very proud. If we are able to somehow or another practice something, and rather encourage people whatever they may do. I just heard yesterday how somebody preached very heavily to someone because he was smoking and because of that a person for ten, fifteen years now has now got a bad impression about ISKCON, just because one person got on his case so to speak, chastised him for smoking or something. So he knew ISKCON as to heavy because he is too attached to smoking he can’t give it up. Now I have a devotee in America, one lady used to chant 16 rounds, followed all the regulative principles, he preaches and he does all the kinds of things but she is unfortunately very much addicted to smoking, and she tried everything to try to stop it but you have to all pray for her that Krishna will give her the blessing, to get her to stop it, but she is going on with so many other services, and we don’t discourage her, we try to encourage her and hope that she can get over that problem but somehow because everything else is going on she is still able to be very active in devotional service and do a lot of valuable services. So we don’t want to discourage anyone to do any service when if they have many bad habits or things, but we try… we don’t say those are good habits, we don’t say good as bad and bad as good, but we don’t, we accept the good anyone has to offer, the good that anyone has and trying to fan that spark and make it grow and grow so it will burn out …47.43… but if we too much focus on the bad, initially before they were have their good fired up you see, then it will be very much discouraging for people. So it is a whole technique how we encourage and how we preach to people. In Kali yuga we have this difficulty, we cannot be so much rigid in the beginning you see, we have to be very compassionate and tolerate in trying to help people come up step by step so that they can get the taste, and when naturally they get the ecstasy just like that… if you are told that... that Kumaras you know you are in maya, you are a brahma nandi, you are a jnana yogi, you don’t know anything about bhakti they probably wouldn’t have accepted it all, you know. “I am realized in the Brahmana, what do I care about Krishna or Narayana.”, but when they bowed to Narayana and did a little bhakti yoga, they bowed down, the smelled the lotus feet of the Lord, his tulasi flowers they started feeling ecstasy, immediately they became devotees and you don’t have tell them anything because they are already realizing brahmand, when they got so much ecstasy from worshipping the Lord they didn’t understand that what is brahmand, it’s like nothing, it’s like a drop compared to the ocean, the happiness I am getting by worshipping ah… Krishna and Narayana is so much greater. So like that we have to get people, let them chant Hare Krishna, let them feel the happiness, and say what is all this things that you are doing, the will themselves feel, this is all useless things, the real happiness I am getting by chanting and by being a devotee, but you have to let them get the happiness otherwise if you tell them they won’t believe you. They will think that this people are different than me, somehow they are doing it, I don’t believe them, maybe they are cheating, on the side they are doing it anyway, they make… their mind tells them so many crazy things, you know. Because they are attached they don’t have the higher taste. You give them the higher taste, parma dristva nivartante, then immediately the can give up the lower taste, you see. So especially when we are preaching to the congregation where we know that there are so many different conditions they are working under, we have to gradually help them you see. Living in the temple we have one standard. To come and live in our community you have to have that minimum standard. To practice in your home there is… the minimum is… practically any service you can do, there is no minimum. So we want, let people do something whenever they can do it and then gradually build themselves up so that they can come up to the higher level and thus get the mercy of Krishna. So I want to thank everyone for coming and taking this lessons in the Srimad Bhagavatam every Sunday, learning about different avatars, learning about devotional service and practicing this in your daily life. May Krishna Caitanya Mahaprbhu bless all of you to be empowered to give this mercy to others and also… Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare, Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare. Any questions? Q: JPS: That is a special mercy of Lord Caitanya. Normally to get the mercy one would have to do so many kinds of austerity and things but Lord Caitanya is giving us that mercy very easily. That’s why …51.20… all the incarnations he is the sara-siromani. Parama kuna bahu dui jana, nitai gaura Chandra Save avatara sara siromani, kevala Ananda kanda Of all the incarnations the most merciful Krishna’s incarnations is Lord Caitanya and Nityananda. Balaram has come as Nityananda. Because they are giving a process that is kevala Ananda kanda, right? The Kumaras they did austerities to... that was not kevala Ananda. There was a lot of you know austerities they had to go through, but this process of Krishna conscious is kevala Ananda kanda. Only the… anywhere you bite it is all sweet. No sower, no bitter, only sweet, right? Chanting, taking Krishna Prasad, what is the big austerity, you don’t have to meditate in the cold waters of the Himalayas, you don’t have to be on the snow, you don’t have to in the heat where the fire is around you, it is a very blissful process. So that’s why we should understand that we have been given a very special mercy by Lord Caitanya, we are in Kaliyuga, a tough yuga for spiritual life, the Lord has given some special facility, it is hard enough, even…even with being so easy, still people think, “Oh, it is so difficult”, right? Even though it is kevala Ananda kanda, still they are hesitating, because they don’t have taste yet, see, so if they just bite into the fruit they will get the taste. We have let them bite into it and they will experience the taste, but we are so contaminated, Prabhupada said, “even the jaundice man you give him some sweet thing, he will think, “oh this is very bitter”” Because he is sick, his liver is bad, so even sugar candy he thinks is bitter. You give sugar candy, “oh” it’s like a bitter melon, what is this you know, but you go on taking, you go on sucking on this sugar candy and the liver becomes stronger and then you can get sweet taste. So although this is Ananda kanda, people are so sick in Kali yuga, that even the Ananda kanda they are thinking it is bitter. So we have to get them to get the sweet taste by taking little doses and so they are… their spiritual jaundice is cured enough, they can actually taste what is… this is the sweet taste, but actually there is no austerity. Still people are thinking, like the meat eaters if you tell them that you have to take Krishna Prasad, “ohhhhhh…. Krishna prasad!!! What about my meat, fish and eggs you know, how can I live without them?” They think it is an austerity. Like they should have seen in the Janmasthami feast you know, 1200 or 2000 preparations or something were offered here you know, it’s not a… so much opportunity, so much preparation, I don’t think anybody has ever seen it in their life. But for Krishna, we are offering so many offerings that all the devotees can get, and we can’t even eat all the 1000 preparations, we can hardly eat 10 or 20 or 30 and that will be overdosed, but there are people like that, they have got tamasic ah… taste buds and ah… and to get it to change. Actually there is no suffering at all, but they are contaminated, they are sick, they are victimised by maya, so somehow we had to bring them up from that ah… and when then get a little taste and they feel actually there is no difficulty at all, they feel very wonderful about it but initially you know the conditioning is like that. So we have to very… I have heard people come and say, “… 55.30… like this every day, I would be a vegetarian too, there is so much nice prasadam you are getting with my family that they don’t know how to cook you know. So now we have nice vegetarian cook book. So all the wives can learn how to cook nice prasadam for the Lord, nice bhoga to offer to Krishna, so that the people they don’t think anything about being a vegetarian for those who are not, and the… infact the cook books are one of our major preaching all over the world. Everyone, …55.58-55.60 around the world are interested very much throughout the society, even the non-vegetarian ah… people are becoming vegetarian for many reasons, health and other, so this is the kevala Ananda kanda but we have to… we are experiencing that. Some people are so unfortunate they don’t even experience that. So we have to cure them from that disease so that they can experience. So actually there is no suffering at all in this process, this is a very wonderful process. Caitanya Mahaprabhu ki Jay (all the devotees) Nityananda Prabhu ki Jay (all the devotees) Q: JPS: Well, you know the twelve qualities of the brahmanas. The other one is the pure devotion for Visnu. Sama, dama, all these qualities are there. Titiksha…56.54-56.58… the other one is that they have pure devotion to Visnu. It is said most of us in this Kali yuga are sudras, what relevance is there really to brahamanas, ksatriyas, vaisyas and sudras in the society? In fact it is Lord Krishna Himself who brought us in these respective families, the they can… they will be reduced to sudra’s or else most of us would have been born in a sudra family alone. My question is how is it that people with sudra qualities are born in Brahmana family? The point is that kalua sudra sambhava, it is not that everyone is ah.. sudra, most are born… everyone is born with a quality of a suddra, kalua sudra sambhava. In kali yuga there is nobody born with brahminical quality. You are born as a sudra, but then by samskara you have to elevate yourselves to Brahmana or to ksatriya or whatever. So there is samskara. Brahmana’s , vaisayas… Brahmana, ksatriya and vaisya’s used to do upanayana, gotra, samskara. Once they go to the gurukula they learn from the guru they get qualified. Now where is the gurukula. Prabhupada said every devotee family, the children should take initiation from the guru, by the age of 12 or 13, you see, automatically they will have the samskara. When we are born we are not born initiated you see, we are not born with these qualities, we are born in kali yuga with so many sudra qualities but by samskara’s one can get rid of those ah… different qualities and get the higher quality. So that’s the idea. So although we are born with the sudra qualities but by samskara we can get a higher quality. So we are trying. The whole movement is ah… encouraging people to go through the samskaras. The siksha program is another kind of spiritual samskara, they help people in their spiritual progress. Hare Krishna.

Transcribed by: Sadananda Krishnaprem Das Dibrugarh.