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19961113 Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 4.25.40

The following is a class given by His Holiness Jayapatākā Swami on November 13^th, 1996 on Sridham Mayapur in India. The class begins with a reading from the Srimad Bhagavatam, 4^th Canto, Chapter 25, verse 40.

His Holiness Jayapatākā Swami:

pitr-devarsi-martyānām

(repeated by devotees)

bhūtānām ātmanaś ca ha……

bhūtānām ātmanaś ca ha

(repeated by devotees)

His Holiness Jayapatākā Swami:

kṣemyam vadanti śaranam

(repeated by devotees)

His Holiness Jayapatākā Swami:

bhave ’smin yad grhāśramah

(repeated by devotees)

According to authorities, the householder life is not is pleasing not only to oneself but to all the forefathers, demigods, great sages, saintly persons and everyone else. A householder life is thus beneficial.

Purport by Śrīla Prabhupāda ki

Devotees: Jai

According to the Vedic system, when one is born in this material world, he has many obligations. He has obligations to the demigods — the demigods of the sun and moon, King Indra, Varuṇa, etc. — because they are supplying the necessities of life. We receive heat, light, water and all other natural amenities through the mercy of the demigods. We are also indebted to our forefathers who have given us these bodies, paternal property, intelligence, society, friendship and love. Similarly, we are indebted to the general public for politics and sociology, and we are also indebted to lower animals such as horses, cows, asses, dogs and cats. In this way, as soon as one is born in this material world as a human being, he has so many obligations and is bound to repay all these obligations. If he does not repay them, he is further entangled in the process of birth and death. The gṛihamedhī, however, is overly addicted to material things, does not know that if he simply takes shelter at the lotus feet of Mukunda, he is immediately freed from all obligations to others. Unfortunately, a gṛhamedhī does not have any interest in Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Prahlāda Mahārāja says:

matir na kṛṣṇe parataḥ svato vā

mitho ’bhipadyeta gṛha-vratānām

(Bhāgvatam. 7.5.30)

A gṛha-vrata is the same as a gṛhamedhī. One who takes sex life to be supreme finds action in Kṛṣṇa consciousness confusing. Either due to his own personal consideration or due to his having taken instructions from others or conferring with them, he becomes addicted to sexual indulgence and cannot act in Kṛṣṇa consciousness.

His Holiness Jayapatākā Swami: Hari Om Tat sat….

Thus, end the Bhaktivedanta Swami translation and purport to text- 40, chapter-25, Canto-4 of the Śrīmad Bhāgavatam in the matter of the characteristics of King Purañjana.

Yesterday the Bengali devotees didn’t read the text-39, because they were having a class on the Govardhan Puja. So, we will read also text-39, for the benefit of others who were not here yesterday.

dharmo hy atrārtha-kāmau ca

prajānando ’mrtam yaśah

lokā viśokā virajā

yān na kevalino viduh

Translation:

The woman continued: In this material world, a householder’s life brings all kinds of happiness in religion, economic development, sense gratification and in the begetting of children, sons and grandsons. After that, one may desire liberation as well as material reputation. The householder can appreciate the results of sacrifice, which enable him to gain promotion to superior planetary systems. All this material happiness is practically unknown to the transcendentalists. They cannot even imagine such happiness.

Comment by His Holiness Jayapatākā Swami:

This woman is definitely promoting the pravriti marg, and Purañjana, he is naturally very attracted to this beautiful woman. So here presenting the case why Purañjana should get married. It’s good materially. Even at the end of the household life one can get elevation to higher planets by performing sacrifice or one can even achieve liberation; good for the forefathers and today…

Actually, householder life… even gṛhamedī life is better than the things which are going on today, where people don’t take any responsibility, and they just have casual relationships, going from one person to the next. In this way it is not possible to have a world developed or improve itself.

The real point is that Prabhupāda, he describes in many places that there are two types of householders – there is the gṛhamedī and there is the grihastha.

Gṛhamedī is where the sex life is the focal point and the sexual attraction is the main purpose of the household life. When that happens, then of course… that’s why there are so many divorces going on because very hard to maintain that type of relationship for a long period of time. People are very restless, especially in the modern age.

Previously, even the gṛhamedī ’s would also stay together the whole life, but now it seems exceedingly difficult for them. The grihastha, householder, is working in a higher level, where they actually have a plan how to go through the material activities together, how to raise the children and have a family together and how to serve Kṛṣṇa together; how to please guru and Kṛṣṇa.

So, in that way, if one is regulated in their family life, then Prabhupāda said that they are also to be considered grihastha brahmacārīs. They are also a kind of brahmacārī because they are also practicing celibacy by regulating themselves. This is a very important thing to understand because in this age most of the people around the world certainly not going to be able to practice the strict form of the sanyas and brahmacārī for their whole life.

Only certain rare individuals are able to maintain that vow, especially in the Western world where the situa… the mixing between the opposite sex is so common that… very difficult to maintain oneself in a renounced order.

Even starlwarts on the spiritual path in the modern ISKCON have suffered from this problem.

So ISKCON today… the biggest topic which is on our agenda is the importance of the family. Many of …. we have been concentrating a lot on brahmacārīs and sanyasis all these years and we haven’t given enough focus on the importance of the householders and their family.

So, our… here in Māyāpur we do have a large number of brahmacārīs and there… one has to tolerate that. In the next year or so there is going to be a lot of discussion about grihastha ashram amongst the leaders. Because everybody is very concerned about the future which is mainly around the world the vast majority of devotees are householders. How to see that their children in the future can become good devotees. Some of them can also become brahmacārīs. At least for some time and so on. How that we can actually have a society where everybody is able to develop fully up to their potential, Kṛṣṇa Consciousness.

So, have been concentrating on all on the householder ashram. I don’t know we have concentrating on any asram really, but the householder feel that they haven’t got the attention. So that’s going to be the focus for the next G.B.C. meeting in fact to a large degree, and may be for some time to come.

The idea is that, just as a king or a kṣatriya has to protect, so in the society we don’t have any kṣatriya’s and in our general human society today, it’s a ‘demon crazy’ or democracy. So, people generally don’t get too much protection. Whatever protection is afforded through the laws, and then the police. But there is so much corruption in many parts of the world that one doesn’t get always really that kind of protection, and this sifts down to the whole society.

Like Bhaktivinod Thakurs says we should do things that come naturally to us in the beginning. The Nectar of Devotion explains how in our conditioned state, our connection with Kṛṣṇa is… or in the beginning of our spiritual life of Kṛṣṇa Consciousness, the connection is through devotional service, and in the liberated stated it is through our direct relationship with Kṛṣṇa in accordance to our rasa.

So, just like yesterday we observed the pastimes of Govardhan Pūjā…. now the Vrajavāsīs, they are not doing any kind of regulative devotional service to Kṛṣṇa as such although they are observing all their household duties, but their connection with Kṛṣṇa is direct. Their love for Kṛṣṇa is natural and spontaneous. And so, in the liberated state one is simply, naturally engaged in Kṛṣṇa’s service.

When Lord Caitanya was here in Nabadwip Dham, people didn’t know that He is God, but they loved Him anyway. That is the difference between say the Nārāyaṇa worship where one worships Nārāyaṇa but he knows that Nārāyaṇa is God. The worship of Kṛṣṇa one does not think that Kṛṣṇa is God, but thinks that… just love… but even if they heard that He is empowered by God or He is something non-different than God… it’s not the reason why they are serving Kṛṣṇa. They serve Kṛṣṇa because they love Kṛṣṇa.

So, the Vrajavāsī… they naturally, for seven days when Kṛṣṇa was lifting the Govardhan hill, they were just looking at Kṛṣṇa and just by looking at Kṛṣṇa they have no hunger, no thirst, no miseries.

Simply by looking at Kṛṣṇa’s lotus feet, lotus… lotus face all of their necessities were being met, and Kṛṣṇa… He was also very happy to look at His devotees. He was also wasn’t feeling any hunger.

Of course, He is ātmārāma and He doesn’t have to be, but He wasn’t also, He was just quite happy to look at His devotees for one week.

Normally, these clouds that Indra uses are for destroying the world. We know how in an ordinary way the clouds cause tremendous flooding in Māyāpur.

What to speak of the Sāṁvartaka clouds?

So much water was being rained on Vṛndāvan that it was coming down like a wall of water. A wall of water!

Just… it would have flooded the whole Mathurā district very quickly, but by Kṛṣṇa’s mystic power no sooner did the water hit the ground than it evaporated. It was gone. You might wonder why is it that it didn’t flood? They were under the hill but why… the water would accumulate and it would still food them. It’s all around them… this water, but Kṛṣṇa had the water dissipate very quickly.

In spite of pouring unlimited water… the water that can fill up you know, the whole planet, the whole universe, nothing was really happening. When Kṛṣṇa lifted up the Govardhan hill, there were so many deer’s and other animals…

When all the thunderbolts were hitting Govardhan… these thunderbolts can even crack mountains but Govardhan… the thunderbolts were like someone throwing a flower garland. Sometimes when it is a flower, it doesn’t hurt or anything, it just bounces off.

So, in this way sometimes even Govardhan was not aware that the thunderbolts were hitting him.

So, eventually Indra figured out that something is happening in the Vraja and that he had considered Kṛṣṇa to be martya….to be a mortal.

Prabhupāda explained up here in the roof in Māyāpur. He was looking down…. sometimes in Māyāpur there are so many ants moving their eggs from one place to the next.

Like that the ants were swarming, and we were looking down at the ants, and then Prabhupāda said, “We look down on the ants and we think that, ‘How insignificant these creatures are, they live only for a few days, they are so small.’ But just like we are looking down upon them there are higher living entities in the universe who look down upon the human beings, and consider how insignificant we are. How our civilizations are lasting for so little time, how our life span is so small, they look down upon us in the same way. For the residents in the higher planets one of our years is one of their days and nights. It goes… you can imagine how long they live. A hundred of our years is for them three months. So, we are something like… for them you know maybe… even a mouse lives longer than we do.

We don’t consider mice… what… I don’t know exactly which animal lives for three months, we have any biologists here?

Which particu… may be a cockroach… some kind of bug, you know, some puka…. coming from Śatadhanya… Expert on bugs (laughter). he is doing all… investigating on micro-organisms in the water.

So, we are very insignificant in this… in this world. In fact, the whole science… scientists are now trying to figure out where do we all come from. But they don’t understand that we are actually… we are sent here from another planet.

Jay Śrī Śrī Rādhā Mādhava Aṣṭa Saki Vṛndā ki

We are descendent from Manu, and Manu was sent here by Brahmā from another planet along with the Sanskrit language. Sanskrit is not something that evolved a few thousand years ago as ordinarily speculated. Nor did the living beings evolve a few thousand years ago. That’s why they can’t find a missing link because we don’t come from this planet. We are colonized here.

So, the human form of life, however, it gives us an opportunity…. even though we are very insignificant compared to the devas… gives us an opportunity to serve Kṛṣṇa. So just like the Vrajavāsīs, they were serving Kṛṣṇa in Vṛndāvan. They were all liberated souls, but as far as Indra was concerned, he thought these are just ordinary cowherd boys and this is Kṛṣṇa. One might say, how is that Kṛṣṇa was mistaken, but in India everybody… how many Kṛṣṇa’s are there in the Māyāpur Village? You will find Hare Krisna Mandol and you will find Gopal Ghosh and you will find you know so many Gopals and Kṛṣṇas and Govinda’s in the village.

(Testing mic: Hare Kṛṣṇa. Hare Kṛṣṇa.)

So, like that, Indra… this was, you know, one of those cowherd boy Kṛṣṇa… that always in the village. Not the Kṛṣṇa but then he figured out, the actually Kṛṣṇa ... the original Kṛṣṇa was there.

So, the Govardhan Līlā is also important for us in Māyāpur because afterwards when, you know, today is the day after you can say… After the līlā was over Indra came and surrendered to Lord Kṛṣṇa and begged for His forgiveness.

So, Kṛṣṇa was very merciful. Kṛṣṇa could have completely smashed Indra. If Kṛṣṇa wanted to Kṛṣṇa could have said, “This Indra is getting heavy against Me. I am just going to turn him into ashes!” But Kṛṣṇa doesn’t do that. He is very merciful. Kṛṣṇa knew that, “Indra is also My devotee, but he has become mis… become too proud.

So, if I cut down his pride, then automatically, because at heart he is a good person. He is a good devotee. Just he has got a little puffed up now, then he will… he will mellow out. He will be ok.”

So, then Kṛṣṇa manifested His pastime of lifting the Govardhan hill by which He pleases all the residents of Vṛndāvan. He shows everyone His transcendental potencies. He cuts down the pride of Indra and brings him back onto the track. And this way so many pastimes are happening… through one pastime.

In fact, there are thousands and thousands of details mentioned by different Purāṇas and different acharyas about this one pastime, that there is practically no end.

People all over India, all the Hindus know very well about the Govardhan līlā. This is a very major pastime of the Lord.

In one sense see, if someone… even if someone lifts up a hill, you’re looking at all the roots hanging down and things, you know, you might feel fearful whether, “Should I go under the hill?

What if it falls?

What if it slips from Kṛṣṇa’s hands?”

You know. I mean… “What if the hill breaks in two pieces, we all get crushed.”

One might feel all kinds of hesitation…

So, what the devotees of Kṛṣṇa did by going under… they also completely took their confidence in Kṛṣṇa. I mean if Kṛṣṇa slipped, they will all be finished.

So, they also completely surrendered to Kṛṣṇa, they are completely depending on Kṛṣṇa’s power. And that’s one of the aspects of the devotional service - that we should totally surrender to Kṛṣṇa, we should depend upon Kṛṣṇa completely and not have any other shelter.

So, the residents of Vṛndāvan stopped worshipping the devas, they simply worshipped Kṛṣṇa. Even the devas got angry, and wanted to punished them for giving up his worship, but Kṛṣṇa protected all of them.

So, after that pastime happened, Indra surrendered. And we know that the Surabhi cow came and sprayed Kṛṣṇa with his… with her milk, and Airāvata… the… was it Airavat? Airāvata, the elephant of Indra… What’s the correct pronunciation?

Aairavat… (from audience)

Gurumaharaj: Aairavat

Aairavat sprayed the water on the Indra from the Yamunā. Afterwards the Surabhi cow came here to the Surabhi kuñja… just in Godrumadwipa.

And there the Surabhi cow of Kṛṣṇa līlā is eternally residing, but we are not able to see her with the mundane eyes because she is a transcendental Surabhi cow from the spiritual world. But she is there and Bhaktivinod Thakur could see her. When we go there, we can get her blessings. It’s very close to the Gurukul, that’s just always looking across the Surabhi kuñja. And that’s where the Namhatta was, headquartered by Lord Nityānanda.

So that’s an important pastime for devotees. We go every year to Surabhi Kuñja on our parikramas. So that līlā is also connected with this pastime of Govardhan līlā.

The whole month of Kārtika is a big opportunity for householders and for celibates and for hermits and for ascetics and for all kinds of devotees to perform the spiritual activities in the month of Damodar and come close to Kṛṣṇa. This is the special month.

By performing devotional service in this month, the devotees become close to Kṛṣṇa. They are not… Other months may give liberation, they may get very dear to Lord Viṣṇu and… but this month of Damodar is especially the month that brings us close to Kṛṣṇa. This is month of remembering Kṛṣṇa’s pastimes, His līlā as a cowherd boy when He was tied by mother Yaśodā around the waist, showing how Kṛṣṇa can only be tied by pure love, not by any material means.

Also, this is the time when we have our Govardhan Pūjā, when Lord Kṛṣṇa lifted the Govardhan hill. Many different pastimes and festivals occurred in the month of Damodar, many acharyas have left the planet in this month. And tomorrow our founder acharya, His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupasda’s tirobhav utsav is going to be celebrated here.

Śrīla Prabhupāda Ki… Jay (everyone)_

This festival was very dear. Prabhupāda would come to Vṛndāvana, usually. Once he came also to Māyāpur.

Usually, he comes to Vṛndāvan in the month of Kartik. Even this is the month also recommended by Bhakti Vinod Thakur, good for doing Nabadwip Parikrama. May be in the future we will organize another Nabadwip Parikrama. This is very… it’s not too cold, it’s not too hot, it’s a good month for walking around the nine islands of Nabadwip dham.

Just like we have Vraja maṇḍala parikrama in this month, we can have another… especially another Nabadwip Parikrama for people who have come to India this time.

So, even Kṛṣṇa told Satyabhāmā that she became his queen because in her previous life she observed the Damodar Vrata very carefully and she observed all her ekādaśī vows. Because of these two vows of ekādaśī and Damodar vrata she could become His queen. So… very effective to get closer to Kṛṣṇa. How much closer you can get to Kṛṣṇa?

The history how the Damodar… the month of Kārtika…it became dear to Lord Viṣṇu is also mentioned in Purāṇas that… During the time of… earlier period in this universe, before the Ganges came down into the world… unto this world from the heavenly planets… from the heavenly planets.

At that time, there was a demon born of the ocean called Sankachuda, and that demon did tapasya and got the blessing from Brahmā making him invulnerable to the control of the devas. But then he wanted to kill the devas, but the devas hid in the Mount Meru. And he was looking everywhere for the devas, he couldn’t find him.

So, then he decided that he will steal the Vedas. And if he steals the Vedas, then his strategy was that it will automatically cause the devas to be as good as dead. But without the Vedic knowledge, they are useless. They will die out.

So, he went to Satyaloka to get the personified Vedas, but when they saw he was coming they ran and they went into the ocean and dissolved himself so that they couldn’t, and he went into the ocean looking for them but they had dispersed themselves in the ocean water.

So, then he couldn’t find it. While Sankachuda was looking for the Vedas, Lord Brahmā and the devas, they came out from the hiding and went to the side of the milk ocean, and began to chant and dance because the Lord was asleep. This is the time when Lord Viṣṇu is asleep. So, he didn’t want to wake Him up rudely. Maybe He will be angry with them. So, they thought that they best way to wake Him up is that we all sing and dance and chant His holy names. So, they began to chant,

Hare Kṛṣṇa Hare Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa Hare Hare

Hare Rāma Hare Rāma Rāma Rāma Hare Hare.

So, when Lord Viṣṇu woke up, He saw all the devas singing and dancing, chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa He became very happy, “This is the happiest day of My life, and that time was in the month of Kārtika or Damodar and it was also the day of ekādaśī.

So, from that time ekādaśī became His favorite day and Karitika became His dear month. If anyone who sings and chants in front of the Deities, offers the lamp, performs the vrata on this month, chants My holy names they became very close to Me. Even by seeing them people get freed from sins. Just seeing such people who observe this vratas.

So, what to speak of those who observe it? So… so, whatever you are having in your mind you also fulfil.”

He gave orders to the different devas that all kinds of karma kāṇḍa results will be given to anyone who observes this vrata as well, and they would come to Him in the end.

So, then the Lord, He… they wanted that this Sankachuda be taken care of, so Kaśyapa Muni took hold of the water in his hands. A little teeny fish appeared on the hand, the fish got bigger and bigger, it’s too big to fit in his hand. He put it in a well, he got too big for the well, he put it in the pond, it got too big for the pond.

Finally, he put it in the ocean and it became a gigantic Matsya, and then …. the Sankachuda who saw the Matsya had a big fight and Sankachuda was liberated. And then Matsya avatar gave the different Vedas… extracted from the water… and gave to Lord Brahmā, who then turned it over to different rishis. And those rishis then became famous as being responsible for the different branches of the Vedic knowledge.

And then Brahmā went to Prayag, and performed big sacrifices for the purification of the universe…and that’s how ….(Indistinct)

So, month of Damodar is very dear to the Lord, but the special quality is that in this month we come closer to Kṛṣṇa which is why it is so important for the Kṛṣṇa devotees, because any Kṛṣṇa devotee wants to get close to Kṛṣṇa, dear to Kṛṣṇa. And Kṛṣṇa is pleased by observing this Vrata… the devotees do it to please Kṛṣṇa.

So, after the Govardhan pastime Sukadev Goswami… he composed this beautiful verse, summarizing the whole pastime, 10^th canto, 26^th chapter, 25^th verse.

deve varsati yajña-viplava-rusā vajrāsma-varsānilaijh

sīdat-pāla-paśu-striy ātma-śaranam drstvānukampy utsmayan

utpātyaika-karena śailam abalo līlocchilīndhram yathā

bibhrad gostham apān mahendra-mada-bhit prīyān na indro gavām

Translation:

Indra became angry when his sacrifice was disrupted, and thus he caused rain and hail to fall on Gokula, accompanied by lightning and powerful winds, all of which brought great suffering to the cowherds, animals and women there. When Lord Kṛṣṇa, who has only… when Lord Kṛṣṇa, who is by nature always compassionate, saw the condition of those who had only Him as their shelter, He smiled broadly and lifted Govardhana Hill with one hand, just as a small child picks up a mushroom to play with it. In this way He protected the cowherd community. May He, Govinda, the Lord of the cows and the destroyer of Indra’s false pride, be pleased with us.

Nitāi Gaura Sitanath Premānande Hari Hari bol……………

Devotees: Jai

Rādhā Mādhava Ki

Devotees: Jai

Giridhārī Mādhava ki………………….

Devotees: Jai

Nitāi Gaur Premānande ….

Devotees: Hari Hari Bol

Any questions?

Devotee: (Indistinct)

His Holiness Jayapatākā Swami: It’s kali yuga, it’s progressing, it’s gradually sinking into the earth. In the end of the 10,000… after the 10,000 years of the sankirtan movement are over, then Govardhan will also disappear in the earth. It was even bigger 5000 years ago when Govardhan was held by Kṛṣṇa, it became ecstatic and became even bigger.

19961113 Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 4.25.40

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