20080305 Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 3.9.19

The following is a lecture given by His Holiness Jayapatākā Swami Mahārāja on March 5^th, 2008 in Chicago, Illinois, USA. The lecture begins with the reading from Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam Canto Three, Chapter Nine, Text Nineteen.

Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 3.9.19

tiryaṅ-manuṣya-vibudhādiṣu jīva-yoniṣv
ātmecchayātma-kṛta-setu-parīpsayā yaḥ
reme nirasta-viṣayo ’py avaruddha-dehas
tasmai namo bhagavate puruṣottamāya

Translation: O my Lord, by Your own will You appear in the various species of living entities, among animals lower than human beings as well as among the demigods, to perform Your transcendental pastimes. You are not affected by material contamination. You come just to fulfill the obligations of Your own principles of religion, and therefore, O Supreme Personality, I offer my obeisances unto You for manifesting such different forms.

Purport by Śrīla Prabhupāda: The Lord’s incarnations in different species of life are all transcendental. He appears as a human being in His incarnations of Kṛṣṇa, Rāma, etc., but He is not a human being. Anyone who mistakes Him for an ordinary human being is certainly not very intelligent, as confirmed in Bhagavad-gītā (9.11): avajānanti māṁ mūḍhā mānuṣīṁ tanum āśritam. The same principle is applicable when He appears as the hog or fish incarnations. They are transcendental forms of the Lord and are manifested under certain necessities of His own pleasure and pastimes. Such manifestations of the transcendental forms of the Lord are accepted by Him mostly to enliven His devotees. All His incarnations are manifested whenever there is a need to deliver His devotees and maintain His own principles.

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Thus ends the Bhaktivedanta Swami translation and purport of the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 3^rd canto 9^th chapter, 19^th verse in the matter of “Brahmā’s prayers for creative energy”, spoken today in Kiśora Kiśorī Mandira, Chicago, Illinois, USA, on the western side of the Ganges, in the second prārabdha of Lord Brahmā. And today according to Christian calculation it is, today is the 5^th of March, 2008 and in the year of our Lord Caitanya, 521^st Gaurābda.

Jayapatākā Swami: Gaurābda, we have this GA. In future, we have this BC ‘Before Christ’ and ‘After Christ’, now we will have a new calendar which will be established in the future it will be ‘After Gaurāṅga’. So, it is 522 Gaurābda the years After Gaurāṅga when the whole world is Kṛṣṇa conscious.

So, Brahmā is offering his prayers to Kṛṣṇa, to Viṣṇu. Brahmā is the oldest creation, created entity in the material world. He is the creator of the material world, creator of the human beings. That’s what it is like.

Yesterday went to the church service with my former family mother and so they are reading some of the verses. So, some of the verses, they read, “O all glory to You, God who is the creator of the material world. Who is the creator of mankind”, like that. So sometimes, some of their prayers are little bit like. It could even be Brahmā that way they don’t… could be Brahmā or it could be also Viṣṇu. Viṣṇu, but sometimes it presents in such a way that it sounds like Brahmā. So, we have names of the Lord which are more you can say transcendental. Talking about the rūpa, the form, the guṇa, the qualities and the līlās. So, here the Brahmā is talking about form of the Lord and He comes as a human form and animal form and a demigod form, angel form.

But He is not a human or animal or any God, He is the Supreme Lord. So, some of these descriptions are about His form and some is also about His līlā that He comes into the material world, but He is not part of the material energy. So, these are described also by Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura in His works and other - the rūpa, guṇa, līlā – the form, pastimes and qualities of the Lord they form different kinds of names. So, the Vedas, the different names that are given are very specific to invoke the presence of the transcendental Lord.

Once there was a sage who was praying, “May the Supreme Lord come, the Lord of the universe.” So, Lord of the universe is also Brahmā is Lord of the universe. Śiva is also a Lord of the universe. Viṣṇu is the Lord of the universe. All the three came. “So, what do you want?” He was not specific what Lord of the universe? So, all the Lords of the universe. So, like that he got their blessings. So, we should, we are very specific that we know the Lord has at different forms and some of them are different partial incarnations of the Lord. So here, these incarnations that come into the material world, like the Matsya avatāra, He was the fish incarnation, and He came to save the Vedas. So that time there was a big flood during the Svāyambhuva Manu, so he took the living entities army on a big ship and then he was saved by Matsya avatāra from the floodwaters. And then Vedas were given by Matsya to different sages. So, this sounds something like Noah in the ark. You know I did not do a very comparative religious study on it, but very similar. So these different pastimes are there.

But it’s very hard to find a deity of Matsya. We were traveling in South India, and we found the Bhū-Varāha that Lakṣmī and Varāha are in many places. One of Lakṣmī forms is Bhū-Devī, and from Bhū-Devī comes Bhūmi or the Earth. So, Varāha saves the earth. So, the earth because saved by Varāha, touched by Varāha. So, she becomes the wife of Varāha. So, in South India they have a few temples of Bhū-Varāha. But then the Varāha made usually show up just in the form of four-handed Nārāyaṇa. There is one temple called Nitya-kalyāṇa Mandir, which is Bhū-Varāha deity, that is near to Chennai, halfway between Chennai and Mahābalipuram. So they say that Deity there, that Bhū-Varāha was established.

And then there was a sage who was living nearby. And the sage had a beautiful daughter, who was a devotee. Then the sage, he passed away, went back to Godhead before he got his daughter married. So, then she wanted to go back with her father. She started doing tapasya and chanting and everything to go back. The Nārada Muni only came and said, “You cannot do that. You have to be married through this particular yajña that you are doing. So, a married woman will follow the husband, go back to Godhead. So you should get married and you can go back to Godhead using that method.” So, she went around and asked different brahmacārī sages who were meditating. “Will you please marry me? I need someone to marry me so I can give back to Godhead easier.” So, finding one sage, a devotee, “Can we practice Kṛṣṇa consciousness together?” So, they got married. And then according to the marriage, you have to do the garbhādhāna-saṁskāra. So they did that and she conceived. Then she gave birth to 360 daughters which probably would be Guinness World Book of Record. [laughter] I don’t think anybody ever did. And the father was freaked out about what a responsibility. I got to marry 360 daughters, I going to get them married. What a huge duty even just to bring them up. So, they grew up a little bit. And then the wife wanted to go back to Godhead. So, she is been finished. Now she is married. She finished her tapasya, went back to Godhead and she is all over the 360 daughters. Wow! Sometimes you don’t know what you are into when you get married, right? So they grew up. Then he didn’t know how he was going to get married.

And one very handsome rich man came. He said, “I will marry all your daughters. In those days multiple marriages were allowed. And since he said, “Don’t worry, I have no financial problem, I can marry all of them and maintain them. So, then every day for one year they had a marriage. So, finally He married all of 359 of them. And the last one was there to be married. So that day they had final marriage. At that time that man turned into Nārāyaṇa, and the last daughter turned into Lakṣmī. That they were actually all expansions of Lakṣmī. And this gṛhastha, this sage, he actually brought up Lakṣmīs as his children. And all the other 359 Lakṣmīs merged into the one Lakṣmī had a big Māhā-wedding. So, because for one year the Deity had wedding. So they observe every day wedding ceremony for the Deity. They bring the utsava Deities and get them married.

So, this is called Nitya-kalyāṇa. Kalyāṇa means marriage every day. Nitya means eternal, also means daily. Always, always marriage going on. So many people go there. Like the blessing, to get married. So, then they award the brahmacārīs. You better be careful. Don’t stay here too long if you don’t want to get married. [laughter] Because it’s Deity, especially giving marriage blessings.

So. like there was another Bhū-Varāha who’s supposed to be the brother somehow connected to the Tirupati Tirumala. There the Lord, one sage, he had Lakṣmī as his daughter. So, the Lord came this time as an old man and said, “I want to marry your daughter.” He thought, “Why should I marry my daughter to an old man?” It’s not good, you know. So he tried to make some excuses. “You know, my daughter is very young. She is not well trained, not through her household duties yet.” “Sometimes. What do you mean?” “But sometimes she forgets to put the salt in the bhoga, the prasāda.” “So that’s okay. Even I can marry her without salt. But I want to marry her”. So then he was pressing. And somehow the sage in his heart, he felt something. Then he said, “Okay.” Then after everything was agreed, then the old man turned into Nārāyaṇa. And the daughter was Lakṣmī. So, they got married. And now they’re in a temple in Kumbakonam. And the name of this temple in Tamil is the “No-salt temple” So he said, “Since I promised to marry even without salt, so I won’t take any salt.” So that temple is illegal to bring salt. If anybody tries to sneak in salt in that temple, they get cursed.

And all the bhoga that’s offered is cooked without salt. But it tastes very good. They use a lot of other spices, so you hardly miss the salt. I had some spiced rice there and it was spicy. Spicy. You did it with the salt burning too much. They had also this little what they call Muruku which is a kind of South Indian Pretzels, rice flour, pretzels. And that was also very tasty. So I went because I am on a low salt diet. So I have had this temple and I should see it to keep down my blood pressure. I don’t take much salt. So we had prasāda. They said this temple is very popular because the Deity gives lots of blessings. So this is also Bhū-Varāhadeva.

There is also the Kūrma temple where Lord Caitanya went to the Kūrma-deśa and saw the temple. And before that, temple was being worshipped as a Śiva-liṅga. Because Kūrma, Kūrma is a tortoise. So, he has a round back. So people thought that he was a liṅga. It’s kind of a strange-shaped liṅga instead of being like an octopus down. But then Rāmānujācārya went there and told him it is not a śiva-liṅga. He has got four legs and a head. It’s a tortoise incarnation. Then they realized that on the side there were legs and head. And so then there is a new worship. The Śaivites left and gave it to Rāmānuja. So, then he, his followers were worshipping there since over a thousand years. So Lord Caitanya went to see that temple of Kūrmadeva.

There was some pastime, but I don’t remember the pastime. But somehow Kūrmadeva was facing to the West. I think he turned around to bless the devotee or something like that. But I am not so sure. So, I don’t know. But they have in that temple they have two Garuḍa-stambhas. Normally they lead the temples facing to the East. So on the East side, you have the Garuḍa-stambha for the Deities facing to the West. On the West, they have another Garuḍa-stambha. This is the only temple I think in the world that has two Garuḍa-stambhas.

Recently in Tirupati, I was there for the installation of the Garuḍa-stambha, where they have Jagannātha, especially Viṣṇu Deities. They consider it to be essential to have a Garuḍa-stambha. It’s like a big flame pole, but it’s so big and it’s designed in a particular way that in the middle it has three sections. And that’s supposed to be sattva-guṇa, rajo-guṇa and tamo-guṇa.

Also, that whole thing is supposed to be aniruddha of other forms of Viṣṇu. And then the top is Brahmā, Śiva and Viṣṇu. There is Brahmā, Viṣṇu and Śiva. So many different. There are fourteen planetary systems. In the bottom there is a Garuḍa. In the middle there is a place where Garuḍa sit. At the top, they put prasāda to rebate from the Deities and the base, so Garuḍa can come and eat it. They say that Garuḍa-stambha, removes all the obstacles for the temple. If there is people who have some bad sentiment for the temple or few unfortunate things happen in the temple, this protects it. In fact, even when you take the bhoga to offer to the Lord, sometimes some spirits, some pretas, some bhūtas or something, they look at the prasāda and spoil it.

But if you have the Garuḍa-stamba, then the Garuḍa keeps away all the subtle entities. So, it’s considered very important. Any major Viṣṇu temple has to have a Garuḍa-stamba. We have, interestingly, have a Garuḍa-stamba. Here you had a space in the front going up, only about 6,000. Around $10,000 for a huge one. Little smaller and cheaper. I don’t know what the shipping cost would be. That is a copper one. Very interesting. We did that ceremony. All the priests were there. They had one of these lifts that they use, you know, on the highways for the municipal workers to go up and change the lights. So they had one of those and I went up and it’s really scary, though it was very jerky and going way up 40ft. This little basket on this lift, this forklift type thing, this crane.

And then we did an abhiṣeka of the Garuḍa-stamba from up there, puṣpāñjali ārati, different things. [laughter] I said, “I am going to go up there.” So we showed that we had a miniature one. So they said that whole temple is inside the Garuḍa-stamba and it’s like a replica of the temple and that was protected by Garuḍa. So like this, all these temples are also considered like bodies of the Lord. This temple, this is where the Deities are, is the head. The entrance is the feet. The Garuḍa-stamba is supposed to be the backbone. Like that. There is different parts of the temple. So, the whole temple is also like a form of Viṣṇu. So when we are in the temple, whatever part of the temple, we should behave very properly. So like this.

Anyway, in the Kūrma-deśa, they had this Kūrma Deity. He went on a Safari. [Aside: You were there right?] In Kūrma-deśa, we got 200 devotees, 150 devotees. So, they said that Kūrmadeva gives the special blessing that if anybody has some bad genetic, spiritual karmic problem from previous life. It removes that. So, everybody was buying this Kūrmadeva yantras, little kavacas to get protected from previous life problems. [laughter] Probably. Any of you ever think you might have a problem coming from a previous life? Any kind of Māyā’s attack, sometimes. So, Lord Kūrmadeva gives special protection. So, when Lord Caitanya went there, then He was in the house of one brāhmaṇa. And this brāhmaṇa, he approached Lord Caitanya and said that “I am actually quite wealthy. I have money, I have cows, I have land, I have house, wife, I have children. But I am not happy. So, I am thinking I should renounce everything and be a sannyāsī and travel with You. Take me with You.” The Lord Caitanya said, “Never! I do not want to hear these words from you again. Don’t say these words.”

yāre dekha, tāre kaha ‘kṛṣṇa’-upadeśa
āmāra ājñāya guru hañā tāra’ ei deśa
[CC Madhya 7.128]

He gave that famous instruction. “Whoever you meet, tell them about Kṛṣṇa. On My order, you be a guru, deliver your country people.” He also said by doing this “I will live with you, and I will also come back and be with you.” The idea is Lord Caitanya said that someone is married, we will get married. Everyone thinks that they’re going to be very happy. But they are all ups and downs. It’s not always so simple. So, someone wants to renounce everything because his family life or her family life is not perfect. That’s an artificial type of renunciation, according to... We choose at some point in our life which way we are going to go. Will be a brahmacārī, sannyāsī for our life. Okay, that we choose that. Otherwise, we will be a gṛhastha. As a gṛhastha, we should wait until we get older, take broader process, do it in a gradual way. When we actually become detached, when we actually become. It takes the... just materially fed up. Then what happens? You see, sometimes people, then they. They go, they get. They leave their family. But then later they meet someone else again, they get married. Then there is a disgrace, a little bit of a disgrace for sannyāsī, not many good things better he stays Kṛṣṇa conscious. But that defeats the point. So just because things don’t good materially, that is not a good enough reason to be lost. We should actually have a taste for spiritual life.

So, if Lord Caitanya was saying, whether you just give your every last thing, use your influence, your money, your profit, whatever you have, use it for Kṛṣṇa. Sometimes, people want to renounce everything. And they give all their property, the family. They come empty-handed. That’s not at all good. Something should go for the family. Something should be for emergency. Something should be for Kṛṣṇa. Rūpa Gosvāmī renounced everything. So he gave 25% to his family. But he was quite wealthy. 25% he kept for emergency which he used for paying for the escape of Sanātana Gosvāmī when he was in jail. And 50% he gave to the Vaiṣṇavas. So, like that Lord Caitanya gave this instruction to the Kūrma-deśa. It’s interesting to go to these different temples mentioned here.

Varāhadeva, there is also a temple of Varāha Narasiṁha at Siṁhācalam. We went there also. You remember there also that temple the Deity is in about 245 kilos. It’s like about 500 pounds of sandalwood paste. Every three months they add hundred pounds more. So by the end of the four times a year. So by the end it’s almost four or five hundred pounds. Then one day, in April, they remove all the sandalwood, do a special pūjā. Then they put on again 400 pounds or 45 kilos. So, when we went, it wasn’t that always. Only one day in a year. We saw Him that day. You really feel his presence, and when you walk into the Deity room. When you go around the Deity. Somehow here, you don’t have a circumambulation. It’s not there. You can go in front of the Deity, go around counterclockwise and meditate you are going around the Deity, Śrīlā Prabhupāda told us, it is a secret problem for temples that don’t have that path to go around. But in this temple, you can go around. They let you go in the Deity room. There’s like a big altar, which is like a storehouse, you can go around on the side. I got to go on this one day, the Deity is open. Hundreds of thousands of people, like maybe 3,400,000 people, queue up 12 hours all day long the way. So, I was bright to go there by the temple president. They had a special arrangement to go without waiting in a long queue and go on the exit doors all the way up right to left. So went through about 10 different checkpoints and showed our pass, got to the last gate there. The policeman was so frightened we gave him our pass.

He said, “I don’t care too much hassle, I am not going to bother with this. So we thought, “Oh no, we are not going to see the Deities.” This wasn’t on the Safari, just with few other people. But then the President pined over the barricade went and saw the head officer and then he came and opened the door with us. And I was very fortunate to go right next to the Deity. He has the head of Varāhadeva and the body of Narasiṁhadeva. So he is like partial boar and human because Prahlāda he said that, “My uncle Hiraṇyākṣa he was killed by, he was liberated by Varāhadeva. I never saw your form as Varāhadeva. I just saw Your form as Narasiṁha liberated my father. So could I see Your form as Varāha.” So, then He turned into Varāha and He gradually switched over from Varāha-Narasiṁha and then like that. So, they have a form of the Deity partial Varāha, Narasiṁha and human. Narasiṁha is of course half human. So, this is really interesting. Somehow, they let me right in the Deity a little bit like just five feet from the Deity and they was there for like 20 minutes and I realized I wasn’t. So got some special mercy.

There are so many amazing Deities in South India. We went to the Ramesvaram where they have the Rāma’s Deities. He is in the human form and then Śrī Raṅganātha where He is in also two-handed form lying in a bed of snake, Anantadeva. I was telling that devotees these deities are also avatāras.

Actually my New Orleans temple whenever my former mother from purvāśrama had come, she said, “Whenever I come to the temple, the yellow one, Subhadrā, why she is always looking at me?” Śrīlā Prabhupāda said that Subhadrā sees the devotee first and gives blessing and then Balarāma gives you blessing. And after you get the blessing of Balarāma then you get the blessing of Jagannātha. Somehow, she noticed Subhadrā was blessing her, looking at her she is like on this side of the temple and on that side, she is always looking at me. So, she had some līlā with Subhadrā.

But we have in Māyāpur there is a Jagannātha temple, and they have many different pastimes. There is a whole book on it. Some of you saw their book recently, there was the pastime. I don’t know if it made it into the book because it was just very recent, maybe a year ago or so.

One Muslim came in the temple but it’s not unusual there, we allow Muslims also because many of them are devoted. They come and give fruits and milk because they say they prayed to Jagannātha and got some blessing. So, he has got some Muslim devotees. But this particular Muslim, we don’t know he came up and they offered him a prasāda and he took the prasāda and threw it. But the pūjārī was surprised, “What are you doing? Why are you throwing the prasāda?” “I don’t believe in these things.” “Then why you’re coming here? If you don’t believe, don’t come. It’s for believers. We don’t mind. If you believe, what religion you are, you can come. But if you don’t believe then don’t come. Don’t be offensive.” He scolded him out. So, about next day he came again. This time he laid down flat in front of the Jagannātha, Balarāma and Subhadrā Deities. So, the pūjārī was surprised, “This guy yesterday was throwing prasāda, now today he is paying prostrate obeisances. What’s going on?”

Then he got up and he said, “Please give me some prasāda.” “What’s wrong with you? Are you crazy or what? Yesterday you threw the prasāda and now you are asking for prasāda, what happened? Why this change?” He said last night these three came in by dreams. Jagannātha, Balarāma and Subhadrā. He don’t even know the name, he just said, these three. He said, “The one with the white face He grabbed me by the neck and said “You threw my brother’s prasāda, I am going to finish you. I am going to beat you.” “And I was shaking, I was so he had so strong I couldn’t move.” And the one with the yellow face, she said “Get him! Get him!” But I would say by the one with the black face and the big smile said, “Oh no, it’s not such a big offense. Let him go this time if he does it again, you get it?” Something like that. So he saved me. So now I believe. I believe! So I want the prasāda. I will never throw it again. They are for real. I realized this.” So, he took prasāda and ate them and bowed down again. So, there Jagannātha, He is very active. If you mess around with him, He won’t play with you, so many pastimes like that.

So I told this pastime was in Bulgaria next to Serbia and asked them do they have anything with their big Jagannātha. So they told, “They gave the Deities two wood shoes. So they gave, you know, two shoes for Jagannātha, two for Subhadrā and two for Baladeva. But with Subhadrā, somehow, they gave her two left shoes. Then we got left-right but she got two left, so after giving his shoes then Subhadrā came in the dream of the pūjārī and said, “What you did? You gave me two left-shoes. I can’t walk” and she is leaping, you know. She said, “I can’t keep up with my brothers. They got run fast. What did you do?” But pujārī were freaked out. What a dream must not be true or something. But then she didn’t tell the president. Then again, after a few days all the Deities came. The brothers started chastising. Balarāma said, “Why do you give Our sister two left shoes? How she can walk? She doesn’t keep up. You better fix this quick, otherwise you know something going to happen.” Then she got frightened. She went to the President told this thing happened. “So, why didn’t they tell me?” So, then they got left shoe, right shoe for Subhadrā. Then after that, no more complaints. So, here you have some pastime of Kiśora-Kiśorī, of Jagannātha, Balarāma and Subhadrā, of Gaura-Nitāi? Should keep a record of any pastimes, any devotees if they had.