20220413 Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 11.29.6

The following is a class given by His Holiness Jayapatākā Swami Mahārāja on April 13th, 2022 in Śrī Dhāma Māyāpur,India. The class begins with a reading from the Śrīmad Bhāgavatam 11.29.6.

mūkaṁ karoti vācālaṁ paṅguṁ laṅghayate girim
yat-kṛpā tam ahaṁ vande paramānandaṁ mādhavaṁ
śrī caitanya iśvaram śrī-guruṁ dīna-tāraṇam

Oṁ namo bhagavate vāsudevāya!
Oṁ namo bhagavate vāsudevāya!
Oṁ namo bhagavate vāsudevāya!

♫ Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 11.29.6

naivopayanty apacitiṁ kavayas taveśa
brahmāyuṣāpi kṛtam ṛddha-mudaḥ smarantaḥ
yo ’ntar bahis tanu-bhṛtām aśubhaṁ vidhunvann
ācārya-caittya-vapuṣā sva-gatiṁ vyanakti

♫ Translation: O my Lord! Transcendental poets and experts in spiritual science could not fully express their indebtedness to You, even if they were endowed with the prolonged lifetime of Brahmā, for You appear in two features — externally as the ācārya and internally as the Supersoul — to deliver the embodied living being by directing him how to come to You.

Purport (by Śrīla Prabhupāda): According to Śrīla Jīva Gosvāmī, Lord Kṛṣṇa is ten million times more dear to a devotee than life itself. And according to Śrīla Viśvanātha Cakravartī Ṭhākura, even by rendering devotional service for the total duration of one thousand universal creations, a devotee cannot repay the debt he feels to the Lord for having awarded him loving service to the Lord’s lotus feet. The Lord appears within the heart as the Supersoul and externally both as the spiritual master and as His literary incarnation — the supreme Vedic knowledge of Bhagavad-gītā and Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam.

Jayapatākā Swami: So, this verse tells us that we should be grateful that Kṛṣṇa, He has helped us in so many ways, As spiritual master, as śāstra like Gītā and Bhāgavatam, antaryāmī like Supersoul. This way, Lord Śrī Kṛṣṇa is helping us. So we should be so much indebted to Kṛṣṇa and the different forms. In the case of Śrīla Prabhupāda, he also translated and gave his purports to Bhagavad-gītā As It Is and the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. If Śrīla Prabhupāda had not gone to the West, then they would not have been able to know anything. So Śrīla Prabhupāda, he was so merciful, he took so much trouble to go to the West. So I was just in New York and I had the shoes that Śrīla Prabhupāda was wearing on the Jaladūta. And we were lucky to have those shoes touched on our head. Śrīla Prabhupāda, his shoes were very worn. And the shoes were held together adhesively by tape. And that he was wearing those shoes in the winter. And New York’s winter is very cold. So, Śrīla Prabhupāda had undergone so much austerity to give us Kṛṣṇa consciousness. He was chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa, teaching how to chant and follow Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu. And he also translated the Bhagavad-gītā As It Is. He had an old typewriter. First, he was writing on the typewriter. Later he had a dictation machine. So, our spiritual master, our founder-ācārya had gone to great lengths to establish Kṛṣṇa consciousness all over the world. In 1970, he sent me to India. And several other devotees ahead of me. So, initially he wanted a center in Māyāpur and Vṛndāvana. Then the Deities in Los Angeles, they ordered Śrīla Prabhupāda to preach in India. So he was preaching all over the world and in India. So he established a temple also in Mumbai. And he established a temple in Hyderabad. Some of his followers established temples in Delhi. Like that now, we have many temples all over India. So all over the world, in India, everywhere, Śrīla Prabhupāda established Kṛṣṇa consciousness. From his guru-dakṣiṇā, he gave some monthly stipend to Bangladesh, Nepal and other places. This way he endeavored to establish Kṛṣṇa consciousness throughout the rest of Asia.

So, this verse tells us that we should be grateful that Kṛṣṇa, He has helped us in so many ways. As spiritual master, as śāstra like Gītā and Bhāgavatam, antaryāmī like Supersoul. So Kṛṣṇa comes in different forms to help us. We should try to develop our love for Kṛṣṇa. Now this love of Kṛṣṇa has been distributed by Lord Caitanya in a very easy way. So, we should take that mercy of Lord Caitanya and awaken our natural love for Kṛṣṇa. There is a verse in the Caitanya-caritāmṛta:

nitya-siddha kṛṣṇa-prema ’sādhya’ kabhu naya
śravaṇādi-śuddha-citte karaye udaya
(Cc Madhya 22.107)

So we can awaken that simply by chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa. Haribol! In the Harmony Farm in Michigan, USA, they protect the cows and they do not send them to the slaughterhouse. So the cows there are very peaceful. And they give people what they call as cow cuddling. 40 dollars an hour. That means Rs. 3000 an hour! Haribol! And the cows are very peaceful, and the people are very happy. The people promise they will never eat cow meat again. Haribol! Many of them say that they will become vegetarian. Haribol! I was thinking that see, in Nepal our devotees got cheated. Someone said give us your cow and we will use it for farming. But the minister of cow protection he investigated and found that these cows were smuggled into India and then to Bangladesh. And in Bangladesh they are slaughtered, killed, murdered! I was wondering how many of our Nāmahaṭṭa devotees and other places, they sell the old cows off. And you should know that if you sell your cows they may probably be slaughtered. So we are for go-rakṣa. We don’t want to see our cows slaughtered. And cows give milk almost for their whole life. Maybe the last couple of years they stop giving milk. Our Gośālā has a section where they make medicines from cow urine and cow dung. The cow is always useful. And as we take her milk, she is our mother. And the bullocks plough the fields and they are our father. So we should be very careful not to allow our cows or bulls, bullocks, to be slaughtered. So why we don’t have cow cuddling for our cows? Because our cows are slaughtered and they are not peaceful. Otherwise in America they can go to any farm but the cows are agitated, they only go to ahiṁsā farms. Rs.3000 an hour, to pet a cow. Because the cows are peaceful. So, just as we are grateful to Kṛṣṇa that He comes as guru and śāstra, so Śrīla Prabhupāda used to tell us that the cow milk gives finer brain tissue to understand spiritual things. Haribol! Buffalo milk does not have the same quality.