20100501 Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 5.18.7

mūkaṁkarotivācālaṁ
paṅguṁlaṅghayategirim
yat-kṛpā tam ahaṁvande
paramānanda-mādhavam
śrīcaitanyaīśvaram

Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 5.18.7

hari-varṣecāpibhagavānnara-hari-rūpeṇāste; tad-rūpa-grahaṇa-nimittamuttaratrābhidhāsye; tad dayitaṁrūpaṁmahā-puruṣa-guṇa-bhājanomahā-bhāgavatodaitya-dānava-kula-tīrthīkaraṇa-śīlā-caritaḥprahlādo 'vyavadhānānanya-bhakti-yogenasaha tad-varṣa-puruṣairupāsteidaṁcodāharati.

hari-varṣe—in the tract of land known as Harivarṣa; ca—also; api—indeed; bhagavān—the Supreme Personality of Godhead; nara-hari-rūpeṇa—His form of Nṛsiṁhadeva; āste—is situated; tat-rūpa-grahaṇa-nimittam—the reason why Lord Kṛṣṇa (Keśava) assumed the form of Nṛsiṁha; uttaratra—in later chapters; abhidhāsye—I shall describe; tat—that; dayitam—most pleasing; rūpam—form of the Lord; mahā-puruṣa-guṇa-bhājanaḥ—PrahlādaMahārāja, who is the abode of all the good qualities of great personalities; mahā-bhāgavataḥ—the topmost devotee; daitya-dānava-kula-tīrthī-karaṇa-śīlā-caritaḥ—whose activities and character were so exalted that he delivered all the daityas (demons) born in his family; prahlādaḥ—MahārājaPrahlāda; avyavadhāna-ananya-bhakti-yogena—by uninterrupted and unflinching devotional service; saha—with; tat-varṣa-puruṣaiḥ—the inhabitants of Hari-varṣa; upāste—offers obeisances to and worships; idam—this; ca—and; udāharati—chants.

TRANSLATION

ŚukadevaGosvāmī continued: My dear King, Lord Nṛsiṁhadeva resides in the tract of land known as Hari-varṣa. In the Seventh Canto of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, I shall describe to you how PrahlādaMahārāja caused the Lord to assume the form of Nṛsiṁhadeva. PrahlādaMahārāja, the topmost devotee of the Lord, is a reservoir of all the good qualities of great personalities. His character and activities have delivered all the fallen members of his demoniac family. Lord Nṛsiṁhadeva is very dear to this exalted personality. ThusPrahlādaMahārāja, along with his servants and all the denizens of Hari-varṣa, worships Lord Nṛsiṁhadeva by chanting the following mantra.

PURPORT

JayadevaGosvāmī's ten prayers worshiping the incarnations of Lord Kṛṣṇa (Keśava) contain His name in every stanza. For example, keśavadhṛta-nara-hari-rūpa jayajagad-īśa hare, keśavadhṛta-mīna-śarīrajayajagad-īśa hare, and keśavadhṛta-vāmana-rūpa jayajagad-īśa hare. The word jagad-īśa refers to the proprietor of all the universes. His original form is the two-handed form of Lord Kṛṣṇa, standing with a flute in His hands and engaged in tending the cows. As stated in Brahma-saṁhitā:

cintāmaṇi-prakara-sadmasukalpa-vṛkṣa-
lakṣāvṛteṣusurabhīrabhipālayantam
lakṣmī-sahasra-śata-sambhrama-sevyamānaṁ
govindamādi-puruṣaṁ tam ahaṁbhajāmi
 [Bs. 5.29]

"I worship Govinda, the primeval Lord, the first progenitor, who is tending the cows, yielding all desires, in abodes built with spiritual gems and surrounded by millions of purpose trees. He is always served with great reverence and affection by hundreds and thousands of goddesses of fortune." From this verse we learn that Govinda, or Kṛṣṇa, is the ādi-puruṣa (the original person). The Lord has innumerable incarnations, exactly like the innumerable waves of a flowing river, but the original form is Kṛṣṇa, or Keśava.

ŚukadevaGosvāmī refers to Nṛsiṁhadeva because of PrahlādaMahārāja. PrahlādaMahārāja was put into great distress by his powerful father, the demon Hiraṇyakaśipu. Apparently helpless before him, PrahlādaMahārāja called on the Lord, who immediately assumed the gigantic form of Nṛsiṁhadeva, half-lion and half-man, to kill the gigantic demon. Although Kṛṣṇa is the original person, one without a second, He assumes different forms just to satisfy His devotees or to execute a specific purpose. ThereforeJayadevaGosvāmī always repeats the name of Keśava, the original Personality of Godhead, in his prayers describing the Lord's different incarnations for different purposes.

* * *

TRANSLATION

ŚukadevaGosvāmī continued: My dear King, Lord Nṛsiṁhadeva resides in the tract of land known as Hari-varṣa. In the Seventh Canto of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, I shall describe to you how PrahlādaMahārāja caused the Lord to assume the form of Nṛsiṁhadeva. PrahlādaMahārāja, the topmost devotee of the Lord, is a reservoir of all the good qualities of great personalities. His character and activities have delivered all the fallen members of his demoniac family. Lord Nṛsiṁhadeva is very dear to this exalted personality. ThusPrahlādaMahārāja, along with his servants and all the denizens of Hari-varṣa, worships Lord Nṛsiṁhadeva by chanting the following mantra.

Guru Maharaja: The purport for the next verse. Hari Om Tatsat.

So, this verse is like the introduction to the next verse, and in … so, in Andhra Pradesh there is many temples to Narasimhadeva. Of course there is the Aholabam which has nine ancient temples and one more recent temples of Narasimhadeva, and then there is the so many thousands and thousands of temples of Narasimhadeva, of which the temple in Vijayawada and Visakhapatnam are found… the Vijayawada temple has the Pana Narasimha, that temple is how many kalpas older. The worship goes on every year, every yuga in different ways. In satya, treta, dwapara yuga, each yuga they offer some different… offering.

Like in Dwapara yuga I think it is milk, in treat yuga it is… in all the yugas it is like nectar, and in Kali yuga it is what they call pana, which is water and jiggery or molasses. So, in that yuga you climb up hundreds of steps, they have this Narasimhadeva, you offer the pana in this yuga to Narasimhadeva, he drinks it … did you heard him drink it, and he spits out half back into your conch shell. So, then you get the mahaprasad directly from his mouth, and thousands of people go every day, and there is gur everywhere. And normally if you see like a gur shop, a jaggery or this molasses, its filled with flies but there is no flies. It is amazing. Then you go to the Vishakapatnam temple. There they have Varaha-Narasimhadeva. Prahlada said, I saw you Narasimhadeva, but I didn’t see the form that killed my uncle, Hiranyaksha. I would like to see that form of you as a Varahadeva. So, there lord Narasimhadeva became Varahadeva. So, it is Varaha Narasimha temple, and the head of Varaha, it is like part Varaha, part Narasimha, part human. Narasimha is half lion, half human. So, that is another interesting temple. That deity is covered all year long with sandalwood pulp, and the peanuts they have forty-five kilos more, and by the end of the one year it is like huge two three hundred like over two hundred kilos of sandalwood, and the for twelve hours the deity is uncovered. So, you can imagine for those twelve hours, the whole year you can see the deity without sandalwood, there are lakhs and hundreds and thousands of people who line up for hours, eight hours a day just to see this deity for a few seconds.

So, I was once… I was enticed, ok we will get you a special permit to see the deity if you come for our temple inauguration.

Ok, ok…

On that day, so there we were, we did the ground breaking ceremony in the temple, and then we went up to the hill. So, we had a special pass. We could go through all the exit gates one after another missing the huge queue on the entrance gate, and then we got up into the temple, the last gate, and there was a big temporary wall which was made out of like century of fencing, and there the … I have no time for this… oh no, …. All the thing, the last thing…we want to see you. So, somehow the temple climbed over the fence, and saw the executive officer, and he let us in, and somehow I walked behind all the queues, and then I was in the deity room, there with, I was like seeing the deity as far away as I tried to, and for a long time, they didn’t have time, they were like quick, quick, next next, come on next, everyone gets like five seconds, and I was there for like twenty minutes. Hey what you are doing there? He grabbed me, pulled me out.

So, some special mercy. Like that they have the Narasimha temples all over South India. They got a new temple which was built only five thousand years ago by Yudhisthira Maharaja. It was brand new, it was just only five thousand years. That is the Laxmi Narasimha temple. That is in Vijayavada, and then one temple in Melcote, Karnataka. Prahlada was trying to meditate. It was Satya yuga. So, the process was of meditation. But Narasimhadeva said, you don’t know how to meditate. You are not… because he was born in the family of demons. So, they didn’t teach him how to meditate very well. So, he said, I will show you how to do it. So, he took the yoga posture, and he showed Prahlada, this is how you should meditate. And so that is yoga Narasimha. So, like this there is so many Narasimhadeva’s. Each one has some lila.

There is one Narasimhadeva. I forget he is Narasimha or Varahadeva. Maybe Varaha. And this one they say, he is famous that every day he is married. 365 days in a year he is married. So, they say, you want to get married? You go to that temple. So, I said to the brahmachari, quick, get out quick, unless you want to get married. Otherwise, but if you want to get married that is the temple to go. That’s right next to our temple in Chennai. So, like this they have so many Narasimhadeva’s in South India. Each one with some picture, some history.

In Aholam what strike me is… kind of neglected. It has Hanuman-Narasimhadeva. Like you don’t expect to see Hanuman. So, Hanuman said, I am only devotee of Ram. So, I want to see…. Unless you are Ram, I don’t care for you. So,that Narasimhadeva appeared with arrows in the form of Ram, and then Hanuman was convinced, this is Lord Ram, ok I worship you. So, it is Hanuman and Narasimhadeva with bow and arrow,

Raghupati Raghava Raja Ram Patita Pavana Sita Ram.

Like this it is very interesting to see the ancient temples of Narasimhadeva all over, especially South India. Of course Lord Caitanya also had his Narasimha… Narsimha Brahmachari or Narasimhananda…

So, he was a devotee of lord Narasimhadeva, and I think he was making very nice roadway for Lord Chaitanya to walk to Vrndavana. He was doing a manasa puja. But he couldn’t take Lord Chaitanya further than the … Kanai Natsala. So, then he said, well He will go upto Kanai Natsala, and then he will go further. So, there in Kanai Natsala Sanatan Goswami told him, going like this with thousands of people to Vrndavana is not the correct mood. If you want to go, try to go with a few devotees, and do your parikrama, visit the holy places.

So, Lord Chaitanya he agreed. He said, Ok, I will go back to Jagannatha Puri, and later I will go to Vrndavana, just a few devotees. So, like that there is a Narasimhadeva is a very aspect. Of course, I was remembering that Prabhupada was sick. Initially we didn’t chant the Narasimha prayers. But Prabhupada, he became sick and so all the devotees were worried. So, it was, we were chanting, especially for the health of the spiritual master. And before we would chant, for the health of the spiritual master,

Namaste Narasimhaya …

So, I remember we started… what you remember Srivasa Prabhu…

But since then we have been chanting every day. It would be good to… with some particular chant maybe for the sankirtan devotees or there are so many devotees, need the blessings. So, in any case, Narasimhadeva is a form of Krsna, that was … but he is very protective of his devotee, and there is a whole… when I was sick, sicker, I … I went to the what they call the Puna yatra of Radhanatha Swami, and so there they showed a drama of the how the Mayapura Narasimhadeva he came. It was quite interesting for me to see such a drama. So, to get in a short form, they went many times to the stapati, to the artisan, but he refused to make the deity. He said, this deity is only put only in certain out exteriors of temples. He is so ferocious, he is Narasimhadeva and he comes out of the column, he is sthanu narasimha, he is so angry that he just bristling with anger, where is that demon that has tortured my devotee? He comes out, I can’t make that. He is more ugra than ugra. Ugra is already bifurcating, that is ugra, but this is just coming out. So, he said, I won’t make, I won’t make. And so again and again they are going, we want this deity, I don’t know why but… so, then he approached his guru, and his guru said, well, because… that’s what this verse says. They worship Krsna. So, Narasimhadeva is also Krsna. And because they are in Lord Chaitanya’s dham, there Lord Chaitanya’s is the merciful incarnation of Krsna. So, if they worship Narasimhadeva, they will see him as Krsna in that form, and he will be in the mercy dham. So, it is ok, they can worship that. So, then he made the deity of the Narasimhadeva, Sthanu Narasimha, but he was… I don’t know why, but he was delaying in delivering the deity. So, then lightning struck his workshop and caught on fire, and the whole workshop went down except the Narasimha deity. He was… ok, take him, take him…like that, so they gave the whole history of how… and since before that we were attacked a few times, since Narasimhadeva came we were never attacked, and some… Of course some miracles happened. But this Narasimhadeva, you don’t want to mess around. Like there is some guy he stoles something, and he went and hid it behind the temple, and buried that. And they asked me, well, you can’t find the stuff. So, without the goods you couldn’t prove that he had stolen it. And then I just walked in the back of the temple and I saw one leaf was covered by some dirt. I said, look there. Please don’t get covered by dirt. And within like three minutes we found the money and the camera stuff he had stolen. So, that was after Narasimhadeva I think. So, like this Narasimhadeva also… there one devotee came to Narasimhadeva and asked that, the doctors said that I will be blind. So, this maybe my last darshan. You are gradually fading out. So, I just want to my offer my…darshan to you and my prayers to you. Well, Narasimhadeva came in a dream, and told him that they switched my eyes. I normally have red eyes, arona locana, but they made me green eyes. It is like I am peaceful, he is fired up. So, he said, if you get back my red eyes, I will give you back your eyesight. So, she told the pujari, and they made a big ceremony, and gave back his red eyes, his aruna lochana, and then she got her eyes back, and she is still seeing. The lady from Switzerland, she is there. She said… so, like that there are other lilas, but also Narasimhadeva, he was flying over the millions of years before he was flying over I think Nabadwipa dham, and he saw, oh this is my eternal abode in Nabadwip dham, and so he landed there. And there all the devas they came and they lived in little huts as … it is called as Devapalli or Narasimhapalli, and there they cooked the devas wives, cooked and they could serve Narasimhadeva. So, this was a special opportunity to get close to Narasimhadeva and to actually worship him. So, that temple is still there. Of course there is all kinds of history of that temple. But there is a temple there of Narasimhadeva. Temple in Narasimha Palli. So, like this Narasimhadeva is a very part of our, in Iskcon he is more than other deities. He is very special because whenever we are in … you can say in dangerous position we remember Narasimhadeva, we remember Krsna coming as Narasimhadeva for protecting his devotees.

So, we chant Narasimha prayers, and like this Narasimhadeva, he is very merciful. They say that my recovery was also a mercy of the Narasimhadeva. They put in Tirupati one Narasimha shaligram in the water for bathing and he floated. Now Shaligram shila generally don’t float, they are stones, but this one Narasimhadeva floated. So, like that they say there are some signs of Narasimhadeva that I was going to recover. Otherwise, I had people, like neurologists who were… their whole life as neurologists, and they never saw anybody with my kind of stroke recover. They considered me some miracle case. When I asked them to put me on the fast track like… I don’t like to see the hospital. And the doctor said, I will put you on the slower track, in the slowest track because we don’t get survival cases like you. So, we are going to make sure that when you leave here, we don’t see you again. We want to see you, but not as a case… so, I was put on a slow track. So, of course this… so, Narasimhadeva, his … this verse says that he is krsna, but krsna appears in the different forms. Now like in South India people don’t understand, they think Lord Krsna is coming from Narayana, some… they don’t really understand what is the relationship between Krsna and this different avatars. We understand that Krsna is the original. He appears in ananta rupam. In unlimited forms. Sometimes as Narasimhadeva, sometimes as Varaha, Matsya, Kurma, whatever. But originally we worship with the bija mantra to Krsna, all this avatars. Of course, so many avatars have their own bija mantra, but you are allowed to use the Krsna mantra also. So, generally we use the Krsna mantra, and sometimes we use the other bija mantra.

So, for us, Krsna, we have the evidence in the sastra that he is the original, and that he appears in so many different forms. Actually in the Padma Purana it says that this lila of Narasimhadeva happened several times, like every… so many days of Brahma. One or maybe every day, I am not sure.

One Narasimhadeva he appears. So, they gave three different Hiranyakashipu-Narasimha lilas. It is slightly different. We have one in the Bhagavatam which is from this yuga. But in other yugas they have Narasimhadeva who came in one yuga. Hiranyakashipu did worship Brahma, he worshipped Siva, and he told Prahlada, listen, accept that I am god. He said, I cannot accept.

Ok, at least accept that Siva is god.

I cannot accept Siva as the supreme god. He is also a devotee. Only Vsnu is supreme. So, like that. Then Hiranyakashipu tried to kill Prahlada. So, in the case of one lila he said. He didn’t ask, I came out to kill inside outside, he didn’t think, he has more or less other things. But inside outside he didn’t ask. And then he said, I will give… you said god will come here. Ok, to save you get up at six o clock. If you don’t get up at six o clock, if you don’t come here by six to save you, I am killing you. Like in the cowboy movies they have, sun down, shoot out. So, six o clock. I don’t know they had watch, but they can tell six. So, it is said that Narasimhadeva, he came flying through the city and Hiranyashipu he made a big air conditioned stadium. It was so big, it was like hundred and fifty miles, yojanas, I forget. It was like huge. Like inside jets could fly, it could hold millions and millions of people. He had also a big exalted stage to sit. Went inside, and everybody came there, no sickness, there was as much food on the side as you wanted. Big sense gratification. You felt healthy and nice. So, people would go there as a place of pilgrimage to see Hiranyakashipu and he will worship him,

Hiranyakashipu ki jaya…

I don’t know, they do arati.

So, there was Hiranyakashipu, but everyone worshipped him but his son. His son said, no, you are not god. Vsnu, Krsna is god. So, then he said, ok you got till six o clock. So, it is said, Narasimhadeva came in through the city, and then went into this big what do you call it, big stadium. So, there… but maybe I should not reveal all my lilas before Narasimha Caturdashi, well, ….(inaudible)

(inaudible)

Ok, I am not going to … should I finish this lila.

Devotee: You can finish that, but save some of them.

Ok. So, Narasimhadeva, I won’t tell all the lilas, but he went into the… into the big stadium, and there he was flying. So, Hiranyakashipu said, what is this, we don’t allow any beast in here. No beasts. You tell him to go back, otherwise shoot him down. So, he sent his airforce. So, they went. please go back, otherwise we will shoot you down. So, Narasimhadeva, he could care less. So, they came in… so, he spread out his mane, and the hairs were spread out, and once one airplane would touch his hair, it would be like those insect burners, turned into ash. And then like that pretty soon all airforce of Hiranyakashipu was turned to ashes. So, then Hiranyakashipu started to send missiles at him. So, he had all kinds of … missiles. I won’t tell you want. Stay tuned.

All kinds of … missiles, and then he had the final, his trump card is his supreme missile, and he shot that at Narasimhadeva, and Narasimhadeva took it, threw it down, nothing can stop him. And then Hiranyakashi came up and started hand to hand combat with the Narasimhadeva, until exactly at twilight. So, he couldn’t be killed in day, night, and this and that. And so, he killed him, he sat on his throne… killed him. So, there he was not on the doorway, he would sit on the throne of Narasimhadeva. Of rather Hiranyakashipu. And so, but I wont tell all kinds of details. So, what happened, Laxmi is not what you expect, but I won’t tell, I will save some, I got the order from Swavasa prabhu.

So, and like this Narasimhadeva, he appears several times, and each time is something unique and different, although similarities are there. So, in our pastimes we have Prahlad Maharaja. Prahlad is alwaus there, Hiranyakashipu is there, maybe the atmas are different, I am not sure. But Prahlad is maybe the same, I don’t know actually.

So, Narasimhadeva he appears and there he is on the asana, and that huge place, and then everyone worships Narasimhadeva.

Namaste narasimhaya song…

So, message is, Narasimhadeva is Krsna. He assumes this form to please his devotees, and to satisfy the boons of Brahma, Siva, whoever gave boons to Hiranyakashipu. So, like this there is different forms of the Lord. He appears at different times, and of course we don’t know all the forms. Just that he has ananta rupam.

So, in the Bhagavatam, first canto, there are about how many, about twenty-four incarnations. Jayadeva, he is saying about ten. You look in some English dictionary, they would say, well Krsna is the eight of the ten. They don’t… you know that is a very superficial way to look at the things. Chronologically may be Krsna appeared eight out of those ten, but that is not, that is no t … issue. Krsna is the Jagadisha, he is the Lord, he is Jaganatha. And so, we worship all the different incarnations as the part of Krsna, and just because Jayadeva is saying about ten, doesn’t mean that there are only ten incarnations. And just because Krsna appeared eight, doesn’t mean that he is the eight incarnation of Vsnu. He is the original, and all the other incarnations are coming from, originally coming from Krsna. So, that’s how we understand, that is how Lord Chaitanya taught. He said, ekala isvara Krsna, ara sava vrtya, that one Lord is Krsna, and all the other are incarnations, are his servitors, everyone else is his servant. So, we worship Krsna as the original, that… actually everyone worships Krsna as original except the Laxmi sampradaya. They worship Narayana as the original. That is their slight difference, because that is what Laxmi knows.

So, when Lord Chaitanya was in Srirangam for the rainy season, at that time, some of the brahmanas, they asked him, why do you worship Krsna, why don’t you worship Narayana? He said, well, I can do that but I have two questions to ask you. One question, if Krsna is not the original, if Narayana is the original, then Laxmi, she would be the consort of the original. Why did she do tapasya to enter into the rasa lila of Krsna? So, they didn’t have any answer. My second question, why… if she says he is the supreme, why after doing tapasya, still she was refused, she is not allowed to go into the rasa lila? …. No answer.

So, Krsna is the original. Krsna and Narayana are the same, but Krsna has four qualities according to Parsurama, Parasara muni… Parasara Muni, the father of Vyasadeva. He studied all the forms and he found that, well, Brahman have fifty qualities, Siva had fifty-five, Vsnu had sixty, only Krsna had sixty-four. So, his neutral study let him to believe, like Krsna is the original personality of godhead, and that Narayana and all the other are his expansions. So, this is how we understand it, and this is how we worship. Of course, Prabhupada like said that if the Sri Sampradaya or our sampradaya, they only depends that they think Narayana is the supreme, we know that Krsna is the supreme, anyway Narayana and Krsna are the same. But only difference is that Krsna is the original. So, in that issue, they are still considered as bonafide, and we don’t make a big issue.

The … in many ways the Sri Sampradaya is very similar to our sampradaya, in other because we get a lot of our sampskaras from Gopala Bhatta Goswami, and Gopala Bhatta originally came from the Sri Sampradaya. He was the son of Venkata Bhatta, the chief priest of the Srirangam temple. So, he was sent to … he was rather given to serve Lord Chaitanya, he became Lord Chaitanya’s disciple, and he was sent to Vrndavana to join the others, and he became one of the six goswamis. So, like that many of our… he wrote the samskara dipika. And it tells the different samskaras for the grihasthas, for the sanyasis. So, we follow that samskara.

So, our samskaras are a lot in line with the Sri sampradaya, but we worship, but there is some differences. Slight. So, in any case, we are very much connected with all the… it is said that there four sampradaya, if you get your mantra from the four, this mantra will take effect, otherwise mantras will be nisphala… so, the four are rudra, brahma and Kumaras.

So, there is the verse in the Padma Purana that states this.

So, this are four bonafide sampradayas.

In the temples established by our param gurudeva, Bhakti Siddhantha Saraswati Thakura. They are on the four corners, they have this four sampradayas. So, there is some sastric prediction that bhakti… that someone will come and unite the four sampradayas, and he will be born in Jagannatha Puri. So, generally it is considered that Bhakti Siddhantha Saraswati Thakura, he united the four sampradayas.

So, … and like this we connected through this other sampradayas, we are directly in the Madhava, we are connected to the Sri Sampradaya, and to some extent we have the… also the kumara in the Vsnu swami, the Rudra. That’s the pusti marga in Gujarat. Here in America there are a lot of Gujaratis, they like to say, Sri Krsna sharanam mama, I surrender to Sri Krsna. So, they also accept Krsna as the supreme.

The Kumaras, they also, there is the Nimbarka Acharya, he accepts Krsna as the supreme, the Madhava worships Krsna deity. So, other three they also accept Krsna as the supreme.

The Alwars of the Sri Sampradaya, they also chant bhajans to Krsna. It is very interesting, most of them chant bhajans to Krsna, and they accept Krsna as Narayana. So, … they also accept Krsna. But like some people in our Hyderabad temple, one time I ask.. someone visited. He said, this is Krsna, I am a devotee of Balaji, he was scratching, don’t you know Balaji and Krsna are non-different. So, Prabhupada, he said, Balaji means child, that this is the child form of Krsna. So, originally Srinivasa Balaji, he was the incarnation… last Kali Yuga he had two arms, later Ramnuja asked him to show his four handed form. So, he took the four hands. But all these deities, we see that there is some connection, some…

We have in the base of the Tirumala hill, in Tirupati we have Radha Govinda and the Astasakhis. So, there the guards heard in the night… like the ankle bells dancing inside the deity room. They said, What is going on here? He clearly heard, he called the President… like this they say that Balaji comes down and he has his Vrndavana pastimes in the Iskcon temple. Haribol.

In any case, so, that’s what the main aspect of this purport is, that we should see that all the incarnations are different forms of the same supreme Godhead. We believe that there is only one god, and that he has various forms, various names. So, we worship Krsna as the original amongst, and he has taken so many different forms.

Jaya Bhagavan Sri Krsna ki…

Jaya Rukmini Dwarkadish ki..

Jaya Jagannatha Baladeva Subhadra ki..

Jaya Gaura Nitai ki…

Nitai Gaura Premanande…

Hari hari bol…

Devotee: So, Maharaja I want to ask you a question.

Does that mean that normally as devotees we have been instructed through the years that… really that the platform that a devotee should take is not to pray to Krsna for anything but just to serve Krsna.

So, are we saying in one sense that in this form of Narasimhadeva we can pray to him for relief of stress, anxiety and so many sicknesses and illness? Is that appropriate to approach to Narasimhadeva, that we can please be relieved of our stress and our anxiety and our suffering?

Guru Maharaja: of course, … even when we pray for the help of Srila Prabhupada, we also would put a what you call a writer, like a statement, if it so pleases you, if it is your will, something if, if it is your desire, that please allow our guru to gain his health and be present.

So, we don’t want to ask anything from the Lord purely for our own material sense, but if it is pleasing to the Lord, then we would like to see our guru, our … some devotee. So, we have this little statement, if it so pleases you.

Because we don’t want to make some kind of business, that we are serving Krsna, and in reciprocation we want a, b, c,d, you know, we want our gift cart from hallmart, cosco, you know, so, but obviously this devotees, they want, they have some concerns sometimes.

In one case there was a child who was sick, and he was in Mayapur. He was Sujendriya, I remember his name, he was sick, so everyone was… wanted this child to survive, but they said, he had a tumor, he had a cancer, so, we were praying, but we prayed with this, if it so pleases. Of course if Krsna wants to take him back to godhead, but we accept whatever Krsna wants, but if its all…58.30… if it is… and something amazing happened. The day when he was going to be operated, at that time, the doctor, he came bursting out from the operation, look here, look here, I have the x-rays, it says there is tumor, why I opened him up there is no tumor there, it is all gone. I am going to speak to the college of physicians in U.K, how is it possible. Here the MRI shows he had a tumor, and all of a sudden no tumor. Nothing there, clean, healthy. Humbug. What is this? He walked out.

Jaya jagadisha hare…

So, sometimes the Lord, he listens to our prayers, but we don’t want… we ask in this way, if it so pleases you. We want… of course our plea to the Lord is that we get love of Krsna, and we can … now it is alright to pray for spiritual things like I want to overcome all the obstacles in my spiritual path, like particularly what question you asked, I want to relieve my stress… I mean you got to connect it somehow to devotional service.

I was in Silchar one time, and one lady came and she tried to grab my feet, oh gurudeva, o sadhu baba, give me your mercy, tell me that you are giving your blessings.

And then I suspected, I don’t know this lady, I said, well, what blessing you want?

I got a stomach ache. [Laughter]

So, we want to have bhakti, we want to have love for Krsna. Of course sometimes we get some sickness. So, then we pray, O Lord, if it pleases you that I become healthy so that I can do my service to my guru, to the Vaisnavas, to Krsna. If he wants us for some reasons to be sick, ok, we can, we don’t anything like just kind of directly materially benefitting us, we want to ask it with this, if it pleases you. But we can directly ask for Krsnapreama and spiritual things. But we don’t ask for stress and other things, unless we can connect with Krsna, I am too nervous, in distress, I can’t do your service properly. So, if it pleases you, please maybe f …62.10… you know, that… you could ask in that way. Something which you can connect with… otherwise it becomes like a rasabhasa, it becomes distasteful, mixes rasas. That Krsna I love you, please help me that I can get my car. But if you connect it, that I can’t do sankirtan anymore, so if it pleases you know, so somehow it should be connected. If you can connect it to Krsna, then it is not going to be very krsna conscious. So, these kinds of things Lord Chaitanya would, it gave so much distress … if someone wrote something that was a rasabhasa, that he had Swarupa Damodara first clear it, it is ok to read, otherwise don’t want to read.

So, it was very difficult to get past to Swarupa Damodara. He would really analyze, if this is the proper rasa or not. So, like that.

We can ask Krsna for things, but we don’t want to ask anything which is just material. So, there is a way how to do it, as I said earlier.

Does that answer you question, or do you want to add something more?

Anything more today?

Any other… Prabhupada or senior devotees?

Devotee: I want to say a story briefly about lord Narasimhadeva. One of my daughters was struggling heroin addict, and one time in my life she was supposed to have open heart surgery. A doctor called me back, she had infection in her heart from drugs, and if she didn’t have a open heart surgery within three day, she could have a stroke and die. And through a friend at work she told me she would get me one of the best heart surgeons as …64.55… and I stayed with her overnight, and I put up pictures of lord Narasimhadeva and the deities, and when this open heart surgeon came to the hospital room, he looked around, how do you know about Krsna, and I told him about Hare Krsna and the temple, and he goes, Oh! I am a Iskcon life member.

Haribol.

So, we talked about Krsna, and then when we were doing free hospital tests for the surgery, then the next day he goes, this is amazing. This infection was in her mitral valve, and one of the valves in the heart, it was a quarter inch centimeter of infection, that if it doesn’t get removed she would have a stroke, she can die, it was very serious, and they were doing this pre tests before the surgery, and he had this look, I cannot believe this, this is like impossible, it is gone. What happened was through the drugs, of course it is lord Narasimhadeva, and he even said this is a miracle, this is the Lord doing it. Through the drugs, and through Krsna’s grace the bacteria just broke off, went into her blood stream, she did not need this surgery. Krsna protected her.

And this life member, this devotee said, Krsna saved her from open heart surgery, and after…. She was in the hospital for two and a half months with anti-ballistic heart drugs, and after she got released she went before the deities, she thanked Krsna, she knew that it was only krsna’s mercy from saving her from open heart surgery…

Haribol….

 I am trying to find out the miracles with Rukmini Dwarakadish. Oh here is one. Please keep it flowing.

Ok, anyone has a question.

On internet. Ok.

Hare Krsna…

Nandini Radha is asking, Maharaja, should we approach Lord Narasimhadeva directly or go through Prahlad maharaja.

Guru Maharaja: should we approach Lord Narasimhadeva directly or via… Well, you can always approach the lord via his devotee, the guru parampara, that is not, that is always a possibility and that is a good one, because through these devotees of the Lord, the Lord is more favorably inclined. Of course, you can also approach directly, there is nothing restricting us from approaching the Lord directly. Either way, but if you approach like it says if you approach Radha and Krsna, Rukmini Dwarakadish via the shakti.

Then if… she is generally more merciful. She will give the mercy easy. As she says to Krsna, please bless this devotee. You … Krsna,…

Jaya Radhe, Jaya Rukmini.

So, if you have some, that’s why we chant Radha Krsna, Rukmini Dwarakadish, LaxmiNarayana, Sita Ram. We always chant the name of energy first. And then that way we get the mercy. So, we don’t like to worship the Lord alone. We always worship him like Narasimhadeva with Prahlad or with Laxmi. We don’t worship just alone, Krsna with the cows, or with the Radharani or with the cowherd boys or with Balaram. We don’t worship like Krsna alone. We have like Jagannatha and Baladeva and Subhadra. You don’t see… some sampradayas, some temples, I don’t even say some sampradayas, they worship Krsna alone.

Prabhupada said this to be somewhat Mayavadi, to just worship Krsna without his any associate.

At the same time, we can’t directly worship Sita Ram or Laxmi Naryana, Prahlad Narasimha, we generally worship like that together. Or you can worship, you can directly approach, but then he will be more inclined, he will be more merciful if you approach via his devotee. That’s the general wisdom we are given.

Haribol.

So, we have some cookies Prasad.

Who made this?

Krsneshwari. The Rukminidwarakadesh pujari…

Thank you. Wonderful class.