19960128 Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 1.3.6

The following is a class given His Holiness Jayapatākā Swami on January 28^th, 1996 in Bangalore, India. The class begins with a reading from the Śrīmad Bhāgavatam, 1st Canto, 3rd Chapter, 6th Verse.

Text 6

sa eva prathamaṁ devaḥ
kaumāraṁ sargam āśritaḥ
cacāra duścaraṁ brahma
brahmacaryam akhaṇḍitam

Translation: First of all, in the beginning of creation, there were the four unmarried sons of Brahmā [the Kumāra], 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 Brahmā, the father of the living beings in the creation. The Kumāras, as above mentioned, appeared in the Kaumāra 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 Kumāras are empowered incarnations. And before executing the severe type of disciplinary actions, all of them became qualified brāhmaṇas. This example suggests that one must first acquire the qualifications of a brāhmaṇa, not simply by birth but also by quality, and then one can undergo the process of Brahman realization.

Thus end the Bhakti vedānta Swami Purport of the Śrīmad Bhāgavatam, 1st Canto, 3^rd Chapter, 6^th verse, in the matter of Kṛṣṇa is the source of all the incarnations, spoken this centennial year of the appearance of His Divine Grace Śrīla Abhay Charan Bhaktivedanta Swami Śrīla Prabhupāda (kī… Jaya!) here at Bangalore, Hare Kṛṣṇa Land, on the 28^th of January, 1996, 509 year of our Lord Caitanya Mahāprabhu.

Jayapatākā Swami: So this chapter describes the different incarnations of the Lord who are very prominent in the universe. So first the Viśvarūpa and the Puruṣa-avatāras were mentioned. Mahā-Viṣṇu, Garbhodakaśayī Viṣṇu and Kṣīrodakaśayī Viṣṇu. Most of us will not be able to see these three forms unless we get some very special mercy, but they are the foundation of the whole material creation. From the Mahā Viṣṇu, the Viśvarūpa is also expanding. So the example is given that the whole universe is like the body of the Lord and He is 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 non-different. They are also part of His energies but He is not made of any material element. So the Viśvarūpa is a material form of the Lord, whereas all these other forms are spiritual forms. So the Kumāras are also listed as the incarnations, although they are not Viṣṇu-tattva. They are considered śaktyāveśa-avatāras. 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 will find empowered incarnations, you may find līlā incarnations, yuga-avatāras, you may find guṇa-avatāras, different kinds of avatāras are there. So one of the avatāras is called the śaktyāveśa, who is a avatāra imbued with the potency of the Lord. So the Kumāras, they are considered a kind of incarnation, they are empowered incarnations. Prabhupāda said these Kumāras are empowered incarnations. An empowered incarnation is given one or two powers of the Lord. The Lord has all the powers. All renunciation, all beauty, all opulence, all strength, all knowledge and all fame. So Pṛthu Mahārājā, he became very famous and he had the power of ruling. 

The Kumāras had the power of renunciation, they are very renounced. At six years of age, they accepted brahmacārī for their whole life, and also because they were so great yogīs, they kept their bodies from biologically growing more than that age. That’s why they are always cira-kumāras, they are always the Kumāras. But they are the oldest in the universe. They are mentioned first because they are the oldest. They are the older brother of Śiva, that’s how old they are. They are known as the Bhavāgraja. So… Bhānu Maharājā is the Sanskrit paṇḍita. The elder brothers of Lord Śiva. He appeared because Lord Brahmā was very much 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 prajāpatīs, 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 offsprings 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, Brahmā, he is then very much eagerness of creation and his first sons decided to become brahmacārīs. (laughter) They don’t want to marry. Sometimes the parents, mother and father get very excited if the children say they don’t want to marry. Then they become very anxious about that. So Brahmā, he became very anxious. He became very angry but it was a good cause, he couldn’t stop them, he couldn’t say don’t do it. He requested them to create progeny but they said, “No we want to remain brahmacārī.” So he had to hold his anger in and then from his forehead the anger came out in the form of Rudra or Bhava. Bhavāgraja.

So Kumāras, they were born first, then came Śiva. Of course Śiva is more than a jīva, but he comes in the universe in this way. He came in that creation in this way although his existence is higher than the jīvas. He is an expansion of Viṣṇu, who is here for the creation of the material world in his form as Śambhu. So the Kumāras, they are very old but they look very young. Nowadays in the modern world everybody wants to look young. But they have the secret! And the Kumāras, they are so wise, they have completely controlled their sex urge. So if somebody wants his difficulties with his sex urge, by worshipping the Kumāras, specially Sanat Kumāra, Prabhupāda mentioned, by his blessings one can control. It is very difficult to control sexual desires. So for the yogīs, as well as for the devotees who are trying to follow strictly the principles of spiritual life and control and regulate themselves in the sexual activities, the Kumāras' blessings are very important.

In the Bhāgavatam, there are several places where the Kumāras’ instructions are giving us wisdom about Kṛṣṇa consciousness. They came to the yajñas of Pṛthu Maharājā and instructed. And at different occasions, there are some times when they are giving instructions. And other Purāṇas also they have given their instructions. They were originally… the whole coming of Jaya and Vijaya into the material world was because of the Kumāras. The Kumāras were so great that they could travel around the universe by their own will. They were perfected yogīs. They had achieved Brahman realizations. They were brahmānandīs. Somehow they wanted to go to the planet of Viṣṇu and see what that was. So when they came to the planet of Viṣṇu and they were walking in the gate, Jaya-Vijaya, the gate-keepers of the planet of Viṣṇu, they stopped them. Said, “Who are you? You can’t come in here.”, and they got very angry and they cursed them that, “You should take birth in the material world because as you are acting in such an improper way. So take birth as asuras.”

And Lord Nārāyaṇa came because very critical situation happened there. And the Kumāras, when they saw Nārāyaṇa, they bowed down and they offered their obeisances, and although they were already situated in their happiness of Brahman, when they bowed their head down at the lotus feet of Nārāyaṇa and smelt the tulasī 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 realized yogīs or jñānīs to bhaktas. There is no example in the universe of any God-realized bhakta who changed his position to become a jñānī. But here, these Brahman realized jñānīs, they became bhaktas. In fact, they were the first jñānīs in the universe. In South India there are many people who like jñāna-yoga. Sometimes they have jñāna-yajñas and so on. And according to Lord Kṛṣṇa jñāna-yoga is also one way to reach Him. He says that, “bahūnām janmanām ante jñānavān mam prapdyate (Bg. 7.19). After many, many births if someone follows jñāna-yoga, they can reach me, vāsudevaḥ sarvam iti sa mahātmā su-durlabhaḥ. When they realize that I, Kṛṣṇa, am everything, then they become very rare mahātmās, they can reach me.” So eventually some jñānīs, they can also reach Kṛṣṇa but it takes a long time. They have to come to the understanding that Kṛṣṇa 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 jñānīs to realize this are the Kumāras and after this, they came bhaktas, they became bhakti-yogīs. And now they have got their own sampradāya, their own guru-paramparā through Nimbārkācārya and this is Kumāra-sampradāya, and they teach how to teach Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa and Their pure devotion. They are only other sampradāya that is teaching about Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa. Four Vaiṣṇava-sampradāyas are there, the Śrī-sampradāya from Lakṣmī that Rāmānujācāryā is heading. Then there is the Brahma-sampradāya where Madhvācārya came, and in there Lord Caitanya, who is Kṛṣṇa Himself, appeared. And from Lord Caitanya, actually from Mādhavendra Purī, Rādhā-Kṛṣṇa worship was revealed. Especially in the Madhvā-sampradāya, the idea of progressive realization was permitted. He didn’t say he had realized everything. So Lord Caitanya, His realization is built up a little bit more, although He came in Madhvā-sampradāya. Then we have the… from Rudra, he has his Rudra-sampradāya through Viṣṇuswami, that is in Gujarat. Vallabhācārya is coming from that sampradāya. Lord Śiva is also a great kṛṣṇa-bhakta, the greatest kṛṣṇa-bhakta and he has also his Vaiṣṇava guru-paraṁparā. So we have the Śiva, Brahmā, the Kumāras and Lakṣmī. So these four sampradāyas are there. 

Lord Caitanya, one of His purposes is to unite the all the Vaiṣṇavas. In Kali-yuga, kalau saṅgo śakti, that we get more strength when we are united, you see. There used to very great people who were so powerful, they could perform wonderful things but in Kali-yuga, people are not so strong individually. They are not like the mahārathīs or the great… these great, even brāhmaṇas don’t have the same śakti. The kṣatriyas don’t have the same śakti. We don’t know much about the vaiśyas but you hear how many cows Nanda Maharājā had. But now there is no vaiśya who can maintain so many cows. So the śakti of individuals has reduced. If you hear what the śakti is of Bhīma you know, there would be no Olympics at all. He would just win everything right? You would just give him all the medals and forget it, right? The Pāṇḍavas would have taken just all.

So people think how this can be? Because we see Kali-yuga, people are not what they used to be. Sometimes they don’t even believe it. They think that is some mythology or something. But these all histories… people in previous yugas had more potency. So in this yuga, kalau saṅgo śakti, we get more strength when many of us are together united, unity is the force. If we are united together in Kṛṣṇa consciousness, then we get a lot of strength. So Lord Caitanya came to unite all of the Vaiṣṇava-sampradāyas as one of his many purposes. So in our Kṛṣṇa consciousness, you will find that there are common ideas with all of the Vaiṣṇava-sampradāyas. Not only the Madhvā. We have common ideas with Madhvā but also with Rāmānuja and Nimbārka. There are many common grounds with everyone, because Lord Caitanya took the essence of all of the four sampradāyas and kept in His sampradāya. So that’s why we call as a Brahma-Madhva-Gauḍīya-sampradāya. Gauḍīya meaning it is coming through Lord Caitanya, some specialties are there.

Some of the paṇḍitas, they were challenging that, “Well you are claiming to have a separate, developed sampradāya within the Madhvā. So you should have some separate ideas. You should have your own ṭīkā on Vedānta-sūtra.” So that time Baladeva Vidyābhūṣaṇa was the ācārya for our disciplic succession who was the most prominent, and he was in Jaipur worshipping Rādhā-Govinda if I am not mistaken. That time they moved from Vṛndāvana, Rādhā-Govinda, to Jaipur because of the Mughal problems that they were causing in Vṛndāvana. And the Rajput kings, they protected Rādhā-Govinda in Rajasthan. And still to this day, Rādhā-Govinda of Rūpa Gosvāmī are in Jaipur, and they are being worshipped enthusiastically by the people there. So, they said that in order for us to recognize your sampradāya as a unique sampradāya, you have to give us your Vedānta-sūtra commentary. Generally we accept Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam that we are reading, this is the natural commentary of Vedānta-sūtra, because it begins also with oṁ janmādy asya yataḥ. The same verses of Vedānta-sūtra, the same first mantra is also in the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, and this is also Vyāsadeva’s own natural commentary. But these paṇḍitas, they say, “No every sampradāya has to have its own Vedānta-sūtra commentary, otherwise we won’t accept.”

So Baladeva Vidyābhūṣaṇa said, “I will just 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 Vedānta-sūtra and so Govindadeva, the deity, dictated the Vedanta-sūtra commentary and Baladeva Vidyābhuṣaṇa wrote it down, he called it the Govinda-bhāṣya. Just like Vyāsadeva dictated sāstras and Gaṇeśa took off his tusk and wrote them down. So Baladeva Vidyābhuṣaṇa wrote it down, the dictation from Govindadeva deity. So that’s how our sampradāya got it’s ṭīkā or bhāṣya – Govinda-bhāṣya of Vedānta-sūtra.

Now there is a very important point here. The Kumāras became qualified brāhmaṇas. Prabhupāda said that this example suggests that one must first acquire the qualifications of a brāhmaṇa, not simply by birth but also by quality. In Bhagavad-gītā (4.13), Kṛṣṇa says, “cātur-varṇyaṁ mayā sṛṣṭaṁ guṇa-karma-vibhāgaśaḥ - I created four varṇas in the varṇāśrama system, of brāhmaṇa, kṣatriya, vaiśya and śūdra, by guṇa and karma, by quality and nature of work. He didn’t say janma-karma. He didn’t say by birth. He said by guṇa and karma. Prabhupāda says that normally you know if someone is born a son of a businessman, they usually can take up business quite easily. In fact, sometimes people come in, they go to college and they get all kinds 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 is a big crorepati. He has no degree but he is hiring so many. If you have to get a job with him, you have to have Ph.D, M.A. So one way of learning is that you learn it from your father. Of course, it’s not that every businessman’s sons are only businessmen. Many become doctors or lawyers or something else, you see. But if they want to be a businessman, if they have the aptitude, then they can definitely get some advantage. If you are the son of a high-court judge, it’s quite easier to become a lawyer and even possibly one could be made a judge. And if you work for a government officer… yesterday I was coming from Bangladesh to India and the customs. One young man in customs he saw me. He said that, “I went to Māyāpur many times, my father was the commissioner of the customs.” So here his father was commissioner at customs, and he is also a customs inspector at the airport. So the son got some facility, must be because the father was a commissioner so he could also easily get some appointment for his son in the customs. So there may be some advantage like that. But that doesn’t mean that just because you are the son of the Prime Minister, you are also a Prime Minister. Or son of the CM mean 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 some advantage may be there. Just like we have seen that sometimes son of a PM also became a PM. Right? Indira Gandhi was the daughter a PM and then her son also became PM. But that doesn’t mean that automatically every son will become a PM or every daughter. There is no such… of course I think the present PMs sons, some of them might like 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 Kumāras, they became qualified as brāhmaṇa. Then they could realize Brahman. Now we want the people…Prabhupāda, he said, in the world today we need more people who are brāhmaṇas. Brāhmaṇas 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 got some kind of political leadership to some degree, you may have different types of leadership but the spiritual leadership is a big vacuum and that’s felt in all the other spheres of leadership, because the brāhmaṇas 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 brāhmaṇa family and they have very good positions in banks and business, you know. And some of them don’t have very good position. Some are working as clerks or whatever. Very few are functioning as a brāhmaṇas in a sense of the karmas. Maybe some are maintaining their pūjās in home and maintaining their cultural link, but what I am speaking about is actually people functioning for society as a brāhmaṇa. Serving the society to spiritually guide people. Previously the brāhmaṇas were maintained by the kings, they were maintained by the public, they got dakṣinā. They lived very simply. And now people don’t like to live simply. There are families of brāhmaṇas but they are not maintaining themselves through their profession of being a brāhmaṇa, which is doing yajñas and giving… and few are there, no doubt, and you go other countries, there is no brāhmaṇas. In Malaysia, most of the people are Indians there, and they are Tamils but they have a big shortage, they don’t have brāhmaṇas. Even in Bangladesh, most of the brāhmaṇas have left and come to India and only the people left there are the workers and many other… few caste Hindus are there. I went to one place in an island and the person who performs the wedding is the carpenter. He is considered in the caste system; he was the highest. At least he was a śūdra. Others were not even sūdras, they were lower than sūdras. So as a carpenter he was asked to do the weddings. This is the state of affairs. No brāhmaṇas, even to do the rituals.

So there are different kinds of brāhmaṇas. There is the half qualified brāhmaṇa, then there is the fully qualified brāhmaṇa, then there is the brāhmaṇa who can do yajñas, there is a brāhmaṇa who knows the Vedānta is considered a very advanced brāhmaṇa, you see. Of all the brāhmaṇas, the brāhmaṇa-Vaiṣṇava, someone who actually knows the science of bhakti-yoga is considered the topmost. So Prabhupāda he wanted to create brāhmaṇas to fill up the vacuum. By the process of bhakti-yoga, you can create brāhmaṇas you see. Smārtas, they may think that you can never create a brāhmaṇa. But in the Vedas, you can find that Viśvāmitra, he was born a kṣatriya, he became a brāhmaṇa by doing tapasyā. Why we are born in a particular birth is because of our karmas. We done sins, we have done pāpas, therefore we get certain birth. So someone who has done enough puṇyas, they might have been born in a family of brāhmaṇas. That doesn’t mean that they are qualified as a brāhmaṇa. To again become qualified, they have to go through the saṁskāras. They have to do all the saṁskāras and they have to work as a brāhmaṇa, 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 maybe they have changed their qualities. Maybe there is someone who is born in a śūdra family, but now he is working more like a brāhmaṇa, but he is still considered by the brāhmaṇa family as a śūdra. Because the varṇāśrama system was originally by guṇa and karma but the system…. this should be a whole recognition. New recognition. Like you can get people… “Ok you have this guṇa and karma, then you are recognized as a…”, there should be a re-categorization according to the guṇa and karma. In Calcutta we have a person who delivers who delivers the coal to our temple, the coolie who carries the coal, he is a brāhmaṇa, his black brāhmaṇa thread is all covered with coal. He is working as a coolie. He doesn’t do yajñas or anything, but he considers that I am born in a brāhmaṇa family. He wears his paita… you know his upanayana, yajñapavitra, but he is working as a… and the brāhmaṇas are prohibited to work like that.

Now before, kings, they would do that, they would say, “You are not a brāhmaṇa. You are doing…” Whole vamśa they would say is not long brāhmaṇa. They are working like this. In Calcutta, in Bengal, they have the Debnath. They used to be considered brāhmaṇas but because the king, he said that they are not acting like brāhmaṇas, so he re-categorized them and now they are all weavers. But they said previously, historically we were considered brāhmaṇas but now, like thousands of years ago, the king called us something else. Whether it was right or wrong, the king doing that, but the King had that ability apparently in those days to recognize someone. Just like Duryodhana, he recognized Karṇa, “I recognized it, you are a kṣatriya.” 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 previous gurus told us we should try to do is, we should try to create daiva-varṇāśrama. That let the people become… daiva meaning that they should all be Vaiṣṇavas and actually be all one varṇa. But for the practical working arrangements, someone may be functioning as a brāhmaṇa, or someone may be working as a kṣatriya, or vaiśya or śūdra but they should all be Vaiṣṇavas 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, everyone, because they are all accepted as a devotee of the Lord, everything… 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 brāhmaṇas, you need some people who are trained as kṣatriyas, you need people who are good vaiśyas and so on. And you need people who are śūdras for work. Even though mostly everybody is a śūdra, nobody likes to be called a śūdra because of the stigma that has been given. But in the daiva-varṇāśrama 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 Kṛṣṇa’s service.

So to create this, you need to have Vaiṣṇavas functioning also as preachers. Lord Caitanya said that everyone should take up Kṛṣṇa consciousness and should preach it to others. So we need that people become qualified and understand the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, Bhāgavad-gītā and to explain this to other people, to partially fill the vacuum because of lack of brahminical culture. So our parama-gurudeva Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura you see, since 500 years Vaiṣṇavas have been given pañcarātrika initiation, even if they were from other castes, in the sampradāya of Lord Caitanya. But two of our parama-gurus said that since according to sāstras, he said that who is qualified as a Vaiṣṇava, he is already considered to be a brāhmaṇa. A brāhmaṇa is included in a Vaiṣṇava. There are 12 qualities included in the brāhmaṇa and a Vaiṣṇava has 13 qualities including those 12. So therefore, and there is are specific ślokas in Vedas that say that if somebody is a Vaiṣṇava practicing and chanting the holy names purely, then he is qualified to do yajñas and all the activities of a brāhmaṇa. So he started a system of giving upanayana even to people who are born in non-brāhmaṇa families, if they were practicing all the Vaiṣṇava principles regularly for some period of time, and establishing themselves properly in vaiṣṇava-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 pūjārī, if he is initiated as a brāhmaṇa, if he is also qualified as a Vaiṣṇava. He may be making altars now part time and they are doing pūjās or something but… we have now all over the world people, 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 upanayana, it’s alright. They don’t need to take upanayana again but they also get the pañcarātrika-mantra from the guru, so that they can do a pañcarātrika form of pūjā for the deities. So brāhmaṇas have upanayana, they also take second initiation. They don’t need to take the upanayana again. But those who are non-brāhmaṇas, at the same time we give upanayana and the pañcarātrika initiation. So this is probably unique in India. There is lot of talk 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 varṇāśrama was not a caste discriminatory thing but it was meant to organize the society. Now here is a natural way. Society needs people to be qualified as brāhmaṇas. So we have this system where any person who qualifies as a Vaiṣṇava, they can also become brāhmaṇa. Automatically by being a Vaiṣṇava, we recognize that according to our previous ācāryas and according the sāstra 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 gradually, they are not fully accepting the… many are accepting and many are tolerating, they are not saying anything anymore. 

But all we are doing is very much backed up by the sāstras. So Mahābhārata… from all the different Purāṇas, many quotes are there. You see the quality of someone… you have to judge by their quality, by their activities, whether they are brāhmaṇas or what they are. Even Romaharṣaṇa, who was the guru of the Purāṇas, he was born from a mixed marriage, from between a śūdra and a brāhmaṇa. But he was accepted as a guru for all of the Purāṇas. Of course, one has to be very careful, never to become proud you see. Never to become proud. Even as a devotee, we should always remain humble. If at all anybody becomes qualified, it is simply by the mercy of the guru and Kṛṣṇa, 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 these activities for Kṛṣṇa. So it is said here that the Kumāras here, they became empowered to do this great tapasyā, otherwise it is not possible. For us to practice Kṛṣṇa consciousness, we need the mercy of Kṛṣṇa and Balarāma, need the mercy of Lord Caitanya and guru. To be able to preach Kṛṣṇa consciousness, we need to be able to have their mercy and become a nimitta-mātreṇa, become an instrument in their hands. It is very much essential that we always are dependent on the Lord. We recognize our dependence. We are never independent. That’s the difference between jñāna-yoga… jñāna-yogīs, they think that independently they have got this knowledge of Brahman, they consider themselves to be the person who has given the knowledge. But the bhakti-yogīs, 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 brāhmaṇa or as a… in some as a leader of a Nāmahaṭṭa group, or leader of the temple, but they are servant leaders, where they are to serve. Leadership is a service that we do for Kṛṣṇa. And the 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. And when we preach to other people, like all of you are practicing different levels, so naturally you will be telling people about Kṛṣṇa consciousness. We have to very careful not to be proud of what we can do. We may… like the Kumāras, 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 vegetarian diets, or avoid all kinds of intoxications, or all kinds of gambling, or to rise early in the morning or whatever. We shouldn’t be proud about that. We should be grateful that the Lord has given us the ability. When we talk about other people, we should understand that if we too much tell about all the things we are doing, they may feel that, “Oh I can’t do all these things.”, or, “These people are criticizing me for what I am doing.”, and we may discourage someone from chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa. We should encourage them more about the practices of chanting and coming to class and learning everything, and when they build up 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 according to the amount of taste they have developed 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 strength from within, then only temporarily can they do something and again they will fall away and it 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 too proud. If we are able to somehow or another practice something, and rather just encourage people whatever they can do.

I just heard yesterday how somebody preached very heavily to somebody because he was smoking. And because of that a person for ten, fifteen years now has 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 thinks ISKCON is too 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, follows all the regulative principles, she preaches and she does all kinds of things but she is unfortunately very much addicted to smoking. And she tried everything to try to stop it, but we will have to all pray for her that Kṛṣṇa 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, even if they have many bad habits or things. 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 the bad. But if we too much focus on the bad… before they have their good fired up, 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… if you are told the Kumāras that, “You know you are in māyā, you are a brahmānandī, you are a jñāna-yogī, you don’t know anything about bhakti.”, they probably wouldn’t have accepted it at all. You know. “I am realized in Brahman, what do I care about Kṛṣṇa or Nārāyaṇa. But when they bowed to Nārāyaṇa, and did a little bhakti-yoga, they bowed down, they smelled the lotus feet of the Lord, his tulasī, flowers, they started feeling ecstasy, Immediately they became devotees and you didn’t have to tell them anything. Because they are already realized in Brahman. When they got so much ecstasy from worshipping the Lord, they understood. What is Brahman? It’s like nothing, it’s like a drop compared to the ocean, the happiness I am getting by worshipping Kṛṣṇa, Nārāyaṇa, is so much greater.

So like that we have to get people, let them chant Hare Kṛṣṇa, let them feel the happiness. And all the things they’re doing, they 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 that happiness. Otherwise, if you tell them, they won’t believe you. They will think that, “These 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.” Their mind tells them so many crazy things, you know. Because they are attached, they don’t have a higher taste. You give them the higher taste, paraṁ dṛṣṭvā nivartate (Bg. 2.59), then immediately they can give up the lower thing, you see. So especially when we are preaching to the congregation, 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 the minimum is practically any service you can do. There is no minimum. So we want, let people do something, whenever they can do and then gradually build themselves up, so that they can come up to the highest level and thus get the mercy of Kṛṣṇa. So I want to thank everyone for coming and taking these lessons in the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam every Sunday, learning about different avatāras, learning about devotional service and practicing this in your daily life. May Kṛṣṇa Caitanya Mahāprabhu bless all of you to be empowered to give this mercy to others also.

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

Any questions?

(indistinct question)

That is a special mercy of Lord Caitanya. Normally to get this 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 it is said that of all the incarnations he is the sāra-śiromaṇi.

parama karuṇa, paṅhū dui jana, nitāi-gauracandra
saba avatāra-sāra-śiromaṇi, kevala ānanda-kanda

Of all the incarnations, the most merciful Kṛṣṇa’s incarnation is Lord Caitanya and Nityānanda. Balarāma has come as Nityānanda. Because, they are giving a process that is kevala ānanda-kanda, right? The Kumāras they did austerities to... that was not kevala ānanda. There was a lot of austerities they had to go through. But this process of Kṛṣṇa consciousness is kevala ānanda-kanda. Anywhere you bite it is all sweet. No sour, no bitter. Only sweet, right? Chanting, taking Kṛṣṇa-prasādam, 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 with the fires 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 Kali-yuga. So because this is a tough yuga for spiritual life, the Lord has given some special facility. It is hard enough… even with being so easy, still people think, “Oh, it is so difficult”, right? Even though it is kevala ānanda-kanda, still they are hesitating, because they have no taste yet. 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, Prabhupāda said, even the jaundice man you give him some thing sweet, 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, “Ugh! It’s like a bitter melon. What is this??” But you go on sucking on that sugar candy and your liver becomes stronger, and then you can get sweet taste. So although this is ānanda-kanda, people are so sick in Kali-yuga that even the ānanda-kanda they are thinking is bitter. So we have to get them to get the sweet taste by taking little doses until their spiritual jaundice is cured enough. They can actually taste what is the sweet taste. But actually there is no austerity. Still people are thinking.

Like for the meat eaters if you tell them that you have to eat Kṛṣṇa-prasādam, “Ughhhhh…. Kṛṣṇa-prasādam!? What about my meat, fish and eggs you know? How can I live without that?” They think it is an austerity. Like they should have seen our Janmāṣṭamī feast, you know. 1200 or 2000 preparations or something were offered here, you know. So much opportunity, so much preparations, I don’t think anybody has ever seen it in their life. But for Kṛṣṇa, 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. (laughter) But there are people like that, they have got tāmasika taste buds and to get it to change… actually there is no suffering at all, but they are contaminated, they are sick, they are victimized by māyā, so somehow, we had to bring them up from that. And when then get a little taste, then they feel actually there is no difficulty at all. They feel very wonderful about it. But initially you know the conditioning is like that.  I have heard people come and say, like this every day, I would be a vegetarian too, this is so much nice prasādam you are giving. But my family, they don’t know how to cook. So now we have nice vegetarian cook book. So all the wives can learn how to cook nice prasādam for the Lord, nice bhoga to offer to Kṛṣṇa, so that the people they won’t think anything about being a vegetarian, for those who are not. In fact, the cook books are one of our major preaching all over the world.

Everyone around the world are interested very much throughout the society, even the non-vegetarian people are now becoming vegetarian for many reasons, health and other. So this is the kevala ānanda-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 Mahāprabhu kī... Jaya!
Nityānanda Prabhu kī... Jaya!

Question: What are the 13 qualities of Vaiṣṇavas?

Jayapatākā Swami: Well, you know the twelve qualities of the brāhmaṇas. The other one is pure devotion for Viṣṇu. Sama, dama, all these qualities are there, titikṣava, of the brāhmaṇas. The other is that they have pure devotion to Viṣṇu.

Question: It is said most of us in this Kali-yuga are sūdras. What relevance is there really to brāhmaṇas, kṣatriyas, vaiśyas and sūdras in the present society? In fact, it is Lord Kṛṣṇa Himself who brought us in these respective families, then they will be reduced to sūdras, or else most of us would have been born in a śūdra family alone. My question is how is it that people with śūdra qualities are born in brāhmaṇa family?

Jayapatākā Swami: The point is that kalau śūdra-sambhavaḥ. It is not that everyone is a śūdra. Everyone is born with the quality of a śūdra. kalau śūdra-sambhavaḥ. In Kali-yuga there is nobody born with brahminical quality. You are born as a śūdra, but then by saṁskāra you have to elevate yourself to brāhmaṇa or to kṣatriya or whatever. So there is saṁskāra. Brāhmaṇas, kṣatriyas and vaiśyas used to do upanayana, go through saṁskāras. They actually went ot the gurukula, they’d learn from the guru and they’d become qualified. Now where is the gurukula? Prabhupāda 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 saṁskāra. 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 śūdra qualities but by saṁskāras one can get rid of those different qualities and get the higher quality. So that’s the idea. So although we are born with the śūdra qualities, but by saṁskāra we can get a higher quality. So we are trying. The whole movement is also encouraging people to go through the saṁskāras. The śikṣā program is another kind of spiritual saṁskāra that helps people in their spiritual progress. 

Hare Kṛṣṇa!