20240817 Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 3.9.1

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

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

Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 3.9.1

brahmovāca
jñāto ’si me ’dya sucirān nanu deha-bhājāṁ
na jñāyate bhagavato gatir ity avadyam
nānyat tvad asti bhagavann api tan na śuddhaṁ
māyā-guṇa-vyatikarād yad urur vibhāsi

Translation: Lord Brahmā said: O my Lord, today, after many, many years of penance, I have come to know about You. Oh, how unfortunate the embodied living entities are that they are unable to know Your personality! My Lord, You are the only knowable object because there is nothing supreme beyond You. If there is anything supposedly superior to You, it is not the Absolute. You exist as the Supreme by exhibiting the creative energy of matter.

Purport by Śrīla Prabhupāda: The highest peak of the ignorance of the living entities who are conditioned by material bodies is that they are unaware of the supreme cause of the cosmic manifestation. Different people have different theories regarding the supreme cause, but none of them are genuine. The only supreme cause is Viṣṇu, and the intervening impediment is the illusory energy of the Lord. The Lord has employed His wonderful material energy in manifesting many, many wonderful distractions in the material world, and the conditioned souls, illusioned by the same energy, are thus unable to know the supreme cause. The most stalwart scientists and philosophers, therefore, cannot be accepted as wonderful. They only appear wonderful because they are instruments in the hands of the illusory energy of the Lord. Under illusion, the general mass of people deny the existence of the Supreme Lord and accept the foolish products of illusory energy as supreme.

One can know the supreme cause, the Personality of Godhead, by the causeless mercy of the Lord, which is bestowed upon the Lord’s pure devotees like Brahmā and those in his disciplic succession. By acts of penance only was Lord Brahmā able to see the Garbhodakaśāyī Viṣṇu, and by realization only could he understand the Lord as He is. Brahmā was extremely satisfied upon observing the magnificent beauty and opulence of the Lord, and he admitted that nothing can be comparable to Him. Only by penance can one appreciate the beauty and opulence of the Lord, and when one is acquainted with that beauty and opulence, he is no longer attracted by any other. This is confirmed in Bhagavad-gītā (2.59): paraṁ dṛṣṭvā nivartate.

Foolish human beings who do not endeavor to investigate the supreme beauty and opulence of the Lord are here condemned by Brahmā. It is imperative that every human being try for such knowledge, and if anyone does not do so, his life is spoiled. Anything that is beautiful and opulent in the material sense is enjoyed by those living entities who are like crows. Crows always engage in picking at rejected garbage, whereas the white ducks do not mix with the crows. Rather, they take pleasure in transparent lakes with lotus flowers, surrounded by beautiful orchards. Both crows and ducks are undoubtedly birds by birth, but they are not of the same feather.

Jayapatākā Swami: So today we are reading from the third canto, chapter 9, text 1, Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. Lord Brahmā did penance and meditation for one hundred years after that Lord Viṣṇu revealed Himself. So he is saying that every human being should be searching for the Absolute Truth. And thus if they find that the life would be a success. Most of these people they are influenced by the illusory energy, māyā. Māyā is Kṛṣṇa’s external potency and it has the power to bewilder the human beings or living entities. People see the external world as the only truth. And the scientists and others are completely thinking that there is only this external energy.

Lord Caitanya, when He understood Lord Nityānanda had come, He told the devotees to please find Him. The devotees searched all day but they could not find Lord Nityānanda. Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu said you cannot find Him by searching, I will find Him! Actually, Bhagavān, by searching for Him, is not found. He has to reveal Himself. We should still look for Him, but when He wants He will reveal Himself. Lord Caitanya found Him. Because the Lord can find the Lord! So, Kṛṣṇa is the original Personality of Godhead. So, Lord Caitanya is Kṛṣṇa but He came as a devotee. So, Lord Caitanya is Lord Kṛṣṇa Himself but in the form of a devotee. Lord Brahmā saw the Viṣṇu form and He was very happy. Because when Brahma, he saw the form of the Lord, he realized that this was the most beautiful object. When we see Lord Caitanya we know that He is the Supreme Lord Himself in the form of a devotee, Lord Nityānanda is His first expansion and Advaita Ācārya is His incarnation. Gadādhara is His internal potency. And Śrīvāsa and all the other devotees are separated jīva-śakti, pure devotees. So we understand how Kṛṣṇa, He is the original Personality of Godhead and Nitāi and Advaita are coming from Him!

You see, Kṛṣṇa in Vṛndāvana, He enjoys with the devotees there. The devotees in Vṛndāvana, they don’t worship Kṛṣṇa with awe and reverence, they serve Him out of love. So this is why Kṛṣṇa likes it so much! So, if we worship Kṛṣṇa because He is original Personality of Godhead, because He is all-powerful, we worship Him for His transcendental qualities, then He is not so much satisfied. By that worship one can reach the Vaikuṇṭha planet. But to go to Goloka, one has to be in love with Kṛṣṇa.

Here we see that some people look for Kṛṣṇa, they are like the swans. Śrīla Prabhupāda said the swan likes the clear lake and lotus flowers. And the crows, they look for the garbage piles. I was in Calcutta and I once spat on the road and immediately a crow came and ate it! Crows and swans may both be birds but they are not at all alike. Those who want to realize Kṛṣṇa, they are like the swans. And those who want to enjoy the material world are like the crows. The devotees who have gathered here, they are all swanlike devotees.

This human form of life is for the realization of the Absolute Personality of Godhead. Here, many people have come because of the mercy of Lord Caitanya. Lord Caitanya He wants to deliver all the fallen souls. Some may go to Vaikuṇṭha but especially blessed souls will go to Goloka!

So today the devotees are taking part in this Jhulana-yātrā festival and performing different services. So they get a chance to do some personal sevā for Rādhā and Mādhava.

Today is a very special day for worshiping Śrī Śrī Rādhā Mādhava. And today is the disappearance day of Śrīla Rūpa Gosvāmī. Yesterday Mādhava Hari dāsa and his team of devotees brought the Haṁsa-vāmana here. So there was a very ecstatic observance. After that, in the evening there was a special worship of Śrīmatī Lalitā devī. And yesterday was the Putradā Ekādaśī. If one observes that, they may have a child. Of course the king who had no child, he, his ministers, his prajā, they all observed the Ekādaśī and they offered the results to him. Then he had a child. So today, I hope you all broke your Ekādaśī fast today. 5 am to 8 am is the time. We take a few grains of Jagannātha prasāda. Now it is late but still if you want you can try to break by taking a small piece of grain. Now the Pañca-tattva are giving Their darśana to distribute the transcendental holy name of the Lord and by chanting you can be delivered. You can practice this yourself and encourage your friends, your family members, your relatives, neighbors, to chant Hare Kṛṣṇa and in this way all will become very happy. So in this way by serving Lord Caitanya, you get His blessing. And the whole of India has called for a strike today, because a doctor was murdered in a hospital. They want hospitals should be safe. But in this material world, where is there any place that is safe? By chanting the mahā-mantra, chanting the Pañca-tattva mantra, we are being saved. Even if we have to leave our body, we will go back to Kṛṣṇa!

So Lord Brahmā, he is the founder of our guru-paramparā. Kṛṣṇa gave instructions to Brahmā and Brahmā handed it down. The scientists, some of them, say that life comes about accidentally. But we don’t accept that theory. Just like Lord Brahmā, he realized Lord Viṣṇu and he created the world on the instructions of Lord Viṣṇu. All the Upaniṣads, say how we have the jīva-śakti, the consciousness. And the consciousness doesn’t come about by material arrangement, it comes with the soul. We have a spirit soul, therefore we have consciousness. And by Lord Caitanya’s mercy if we chant Hare Kṛṣṇa, chant Pañca-tattva mantra, then we go back to Kṛṣṇa. And when we are in this material world, we derive great bliss by chanting the holy names, the Hare Kṛṣṇa mahā-mantra. I am an old man but you can chant in front of the Deities and taste the bliss.

I was seeing on the Ratha-yātrā how people were raising their hands and chanting! Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa, Hare Hare / Hare Rāma, Hare Rāma, Rāma Rāma, Hare Hare! I said Hare Kṛṣṇa in English! You see, Kṛṣṇa is not different from His name. Somehow, we don’t realize that just by saying Hare Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa is present. Are there any questions or comments?

Question: Here it is mentioned that Brahmā has done austerities for hundred years and then the Lord gave darśana. But I have heard that Brahmā only lives for hundred years, so isn’t Brahmā supposed to die after 100 years? How is it that he recited the Brahma-saṁhitā and how does that matter?

Jayapatākā Swami: You see Brahmā lives a hundred years and each day of his life is millions of years long. So in one day of Brahmā, he spent a hundred years of ours meditating, by our calculation. Millions of years. A thousand catur-yugas is one day of Brahmā. So it is difficult for us to ascertain, when it is said that Lord Brahmā was meditating for 100 years, it cannot be his years, it must be our years. Because his life is a hundred years. So it cannot be his hundred years. Now, just the last day of Brahmā, he was 50 years old. His first fifty years is called eka-parārdha. Now he is in his second parārdha. Anyway, we heard that now Brahmā is in his second parārdha. His one day is something like 320 billion years. And scientists have realized that the sun lasts that long. So, if you say 100 Brahmā years, then I don’t know what to say!

Hare Kṛṣṇa!