Prahlad M prayers 4 – Krishna is more than a desire tree

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
So, we start with this section on the spiritual master. So, Prahlad Maharaj is now shifting the focus. We discussed in last verse about what blessing can I ask in this material world.
So, the theme was, we discussed about how the living entity tries to control matter, but it is very difficult for him to control matter. Even if he controls matter, that doesn’t make him happy. And he gives the example of Hiranyakashipu for that.
And therefore, what to speak of controlling matter, matter controls us and matter gives us great misery. So, we discussed this verse, Ashesha Rujam Viroha. Therefore, I don’t want this.
What I want is, actually this verse is like a concluding verse of the previous section. So, in the previous verse, he mentioned that I want association. I want your association of your devotees.
So, first he will tell us on one side material life, whatever we get, it is ruined and destroyed in one moment. But in spiritual life, what we get is something extraordinary. That he is going to describe now, what one gets in spiritual life.
There is one of the most beautiful verses in Prahlada Maharaj’s prayers. Where am I? I am born in Rajoguna, Tamoguna. Not only Rajoguna, but even Tamo, Adhika, worse than Tamo also.
I was born in such a Suraitarakula, that means not the Surakula, Asurakula. But what is the mercy that you have bestowed upon me? This is the mercy that you have bestowed upon me, is something which you have not bestowed on Brahmaji, not on Shiva, not on even the Goddess of Fortune. What is that? You, many of you may have seen that picture of Lord Narasimhadev, putting his hand on the head of Prahlada Maharaj.
So you offered me such an extraordinary blessing. So here is another facet of humility. In one sense, he is acknowledging that you have given me something extraordinary, which you have not given to anyone else.
So does that mean that one is lacking in humility? Actually, humility doesn’t mean that we become blind to the gifts that we have been given. Gratitude is a fundamental aspect of humility. In what sense? Humility means I am fallen, that is true.
But by Krishna’s mercy, despite my being fallen, I have been given something precious. And recognising what we have been given is not lacking in humility. To recognise that I have been given something very precious, which so many other people have not been given.
That is not an absence of humility, but that is a presence of gratitude. So when I start thinking what I have been given is mine, then I will become proud. But when I understand that what I have been given is not mine, but it is Krishna’s and Krishna has causelessly given it to me, then that will not only protect my humility, but that will also grant me gratitude.
So he is saying that that mercy, which you did not give to anyone else, you have given to me. So actually, gratitude and greed are opposites. How is that? See, greed focusses on seeing all that we don’t have.
Greed focusses on seeing all that we don’t have. And gratitude focusses on seeing what we have. So if you see our modern society, the whole advertising industry is based on showing us all that we don’t have.
And when we keep seeing what we don’t have, there is practically no possibility left for gratitude. Because gratitude can arise only when we see what we have. But the whole modern capitalist economy runs on our trying to acquire what we don’t have.
That is exploiting and fleecing the consumers. So therefore, in our society, it is perpetual dissatisfaction of the consumer that is the fuel of the economy, the perpetual dissatisfaction of the consumer. So as long as the consumer is dissatisfied, so then he will be consuming products.
And when he’s consuming products, the economy will keep running. But that is a very unsustainable way of running the economy. Because most of the things that are advertised for are generally luxurious.
Very few times do we see advertisements for rice, dal, sabji, chapati. Because these are necessities, these will only be purchased by people. So most of the greed, if we see, is not for necessities, it is for luxuries.
And when we start focussing our attention on luxuries, which we don’t have, then it is almost impossible to deeply appreciate what we have. So our society specialises in sort of inciting greed in people. And when it incites greed in people, then people can never be satisfied.
And if they’re never satisfied, there’s no question of their being grateful for what they have. So we as devotees, to some extent, live a fragmented existence. Fragmented in the sense that we are trying to practise spiritual life, but we are in the material world.
And traditionally, Sushila Prabhupada envisioned two ways of practising Krishna Consciousness. Not, I’m not talking about Brahmacharya Ashram and Rajasthashram here, talking about two different ways. One is that as devotees, we create a separate devotional culture.
And we live in our own communities in our own culture. So to some extent, the farm community that is being created here, or we have in Gokul Dham, we had in Nivrindavan earlier, that means have nothing to do with the materialistic culture, just form our own culture, have our own community and live together, separate from the world. And the other model is, we live in the mainstream culture, but we form a devotional subculture within the mainstream materialistic culture.
That is what we are trying to do in our city temples, city temples and the city communities that are built around those. So that means, if you imagine this big circle is the mainstream materialistic culture. So now our values are different from the values of the mainstream culture.
The mainstream culture considers greed and lust as gateways to happiness. And not only that, they consider that achieving lusty and greedy enjoyments as signs of success. So that is completely antithetical opposite to our values.
So now when this is the mainstream culture, we have two ways. We just withdraw from that culture completely and live separately. Like in the early days, the devotees had farm communities.
The other way is that we form our own devotional subculture. So now from a practical point of view, for most devotees, this first option is not very feasible. And to some extent, ISKCON has also not succeeded much in providing a viable option, viable model for the first alternative.
Still, Srila Prabhupada said, Varanashram is a project that I have completed only 50%. Much is to be done. So if you see, most of the devotees that are there in our movement are trying to live within a devotional subculture within the mainstream culture.
So I hope these terms are not very difficult to understand what I am saying, subculture and culture. That means we are outside Radha Gopinath temple. We have all these hoardings with all the nasty images and all the materialistic allurements.
But we come into the temple and we suddenly feel it’s like a different place. It’s a different culture over there. It’s not just because of the presence of the deities.
It’s not just because of the chanting of the holy names. But it’s also because of the consciousness of the people who are there and the consciousness that people are trying to cultivate over there. So this is the example of a subculture and we can experience a tangible difference within the subculture as contrasted with the main culture.
So most of us, our preaching, our family life, as well as our profession, they are going to be within the mainstream culture. So when we are living within the mainstream materialistic culture, it is difficult for us to protect and what to speak of, then propagate our devotional values. It is always a challenge.
So for this purpose, what happens is as devotees also the mainstream culture’s value of greed starts influencing us at first at a subtle level, then it becomes a level also. So as devotees, ultimately all of us need to feel valued and to some extent appreciated and respected. That is not a matter of ego.
That is a matter of basically human emotional reciprocation. That means that if somebody is one of the problems with living in a city filled with millions and millions of people is that people start feeling that, you know, does my existence have any value? There are so many millions of people there on the streets, in the trains, in the vehicles, just crushed together. So we start feeling, does my existence have any value? Do I really make any difference to anyone? Does my existence contribute to anything? We sometimes start feeling an overwhelming sense of insignificance when we see the huge materialistic culture that is there around us.
So at that time, and if we are trying to live against the values of that culture, sometimes the influence can be overwhelming. So that is why the devotee association is what connects us with the subculture. It is what connects us with the devotional subculture.
And as I said, we need to feel valued, appreciated, to some extent respected. So either we get this from the devotee circle or we will seek this from the non-devotee circle. Now if we seek to be valued, appreciated, respected in the non-devotee circle, then we will have to start doing what they like, what they appreciate.
So the non-devotee circle appreciates wearing the most fashionable clothes, fiddling around with the most trendy gadgets, and doing all the materialistic things which, from the spiritual point of view, have no real lasting value. If we seek to be valued, appreciated, respected in the devotee circle, then we will start practising devotional service in a serious way. So for us, in one sense, this materialistic culture and the devotional culture, they are always side by side.
And we can go this way or we can go this way. It’s always a temptation. Now it’s there for everyone, but especially when we are living in cities.
You know, actually the fundamental difference between Kaliyuga and especially modern times and the previous ages is not that in the previous ages there was no sinful activities happening, not that everybody in the past was a pure devotee. No, always there have been virtuous people and always there have been sinful people. But the great danger of Kaliyuga is that in our modern times, sin is glamorised as if it is fashionable.
Sin is glamorised as if it is fashionable. This never happened in the past. When Ajamil saw the Shudra and Shudrani embracing, that Shudra and Shudrani were not portrayed as film heroes and heroines whom thousands of people would consider as models.
They were what they were. There were people like that, but they were never glamorised. So the language also reveals this sinister cultural bias.
Sinister means that is subtle, but it is very dangerous. If there are movies in which there are sexually explicit scenes, actually that’s an exhibition of shamelessness. But the way it is called, it is called bold scenes.
There is nothing bold in that. It’s just shameless. But what happens is, this is one way.
Now, if anybody will say, I want to be bold, who wants to be called cowardly? No, but just the way language is used subtly affects the way we value and see things. So where there is sexual glamorisation and that is called as boldness. So what happens in Kaliyuga is there was always sin and virtue.
The two parts were there always. But in Kaliyuga, especially when in Kaliyuga, in our modern times, sin is glamorised. Sin is culturally glamorised and that’s why the appeal of sin becomes very strong and sometimes it appears even irresistible.
So in such a situation, when we have to choose the devotional culture, our connection with the devotional culture has to be very strong. So that connection comes through devotees and through our service to Krishna. So actually, our mainstream culture will create so much greed within us, because that is the value that is cherished.
That is the value that is glamorised. And as devotees, the whole idea of, we have the idea of appreciating each other, encouraging each other, that’s not something which is flattery. That is something which is essential for us to continue on the spiritual path.
So our connection with the devotional subculture is not just intellectual. Intellectual is important. It is not only devotional.
Yes, we want to serve Krishna. So there is intellectual, there is at the spiritual level, there is devotional, but it’s also emotional. Emotional in the sense that the whole counsellor system that we have, that means every devotee should feel emotionally valued and cared.
When that happens, then the devotee can advance in Krishna consciousness and resist the temptations that are constantly coming from Maya’s side. So here, Prahlad Maharaj is expressing his gratitude. Now, I’ll just reverse the paradigm and we can put it another way.
Prahlad Maharaj can look at it in an entirely different way and he can say, my father was the world’s unrivalled ruler. My father was the world’s unrivalled emperor and if only I had not been a devotee, all that enjoyment could have been mine. So Prahlad Maharaj could have seen because of my bhakti, what all I had to lose.
I had to lose everything, all the enjoyment of the world. But Prahlad Maharaj is not seeing what he lost, he is seeing what he has got. So the material point of view, okay, somebody came and touched his hand on my head, what is so great about it? But the material point of view is very incomplete.
That somebody is not just somebody, that is Krishna and Krishna touching his hand is the ultimate blessing. So the values are very different. And Prahlad Maharaj is expressing gratitude for what he has been given.
In one sense, he had to give up his own kingdom, he had to risk his own life for the sake of his bhakti. All that he had to do was, okay, om Hiranyakashyapave namaha, accept Hiranyakashyapu as the master and the kingdom would have been his. But he didn’t do that, not only was he lost all the royal opulence, he was also threatened, tormented, tortured, insulted, but he tolerated it all.
And he is not telling Lord Narasimhadev, see how much I sacrificed for you. See, in material life, actually there is, again the difference between material and spiritual values, I will talk in two ways. In material life, as soon as a person sees someone, he thinks, what can this person do for me? In spiritual life, whenever a devotee sees someone, what can I do for him? Whenever Srila Prabhupada would see anyone, he would think, how can I engage this person in devotional service? So, material values versus spiritual values.
So, material consciousness means, what can this person do for me? What can I do for this person? So, this is the starting motivation in forming the relationship. Okay, what can I get out of this person? But further, if we, Prabhupada writes in a purport, he says that whenever a pure devotee sees anyone, he thinks, how can I give Krishna to this person? How can I give Krishna to this person? That is the primary motivation of a devotee. So, this is the starting.
We are talking here about relationships, how relationships are formed. So, starting motive is, why should I talk with this person? Is there something you can do for me? Otherwise, no need to talk. Sometimes we will see, nowadays as cities are becoming more and more commercialised and westernised, the neighbours also don’t care to talk with each other.
Of course, they feel, what can this person do for me? If he can’t do much for me, why should I talk with him? Why waste my time? That is the idea. And further, the sustaining motive. Sustaining means continuing.
What have I done for this person? Or rather, what all I have, or rather I will put it another way. I have done so much for this person. And this person has done so much for me.
That means, Vishisila Prabhupada, when he would tell his disciples, all of you are helping me in spreading Krishna Consciousness all over the world. I am so grateful to you. So, this is actually a huge difference.
I have done so much for this person. So, material consciousness is, I have done so much for you. How can you not reciprocate? Are you so heartless? But a devotee sees, okay, this person has done so much, not for me in the sense, I am trying to serve Krishna.
This person has helped me in serving Krishna. So, this is actually the consciousness which always creates this material consciousness. It always creates a scarcity mentality.
Scarcity mentality means, oh, there is so much missing in my life. There is so much missing in my life. There is so much missing in my life.
Whereas, the spiritual consciousness creates an abundance mentality. Abundance means, if I want to get something from someone, then I can never be in control whether that person will give me, whether that person will not give me. But if I want to serve someone, I can always serve.
So, what happens is, the material consciousness always makes us feel inadequate, makes us always feel incomplete. But the spiritual consciousness makes us feel complete. In general, in material life, people form relationships so that they can get something from someone.
Just like when, say, a boy and a girl come to their puberty and the boy feels incomplete without a girl and the girl feels incomplete without a boy. So, they form a relationship because both, so the boy expects some bodily gratification from the girl and the girl expects some emotional gratification from the boy. And they form a relationship.
So, the basis of the relationship is, what can I get from the other person? But when Srila Prabhupada went out and started preaching, his motive was not, he was a pure devotee, he did not want anything material. What could these hippies in America give him? His motive was, what can I give to these people? What can I do for these people? So, the underlying as well as the sustaining, the starting and sustaining motives are very different. And actually, the first consciousness, which is what is created by the current society, it always creates inadequacies in relationship and that leads to conflicts.
That leads to conflicts because if I am always thinking about what the other person is doing for me or what the other person should do for me, then nobody can live up to our expectations. It’s not a problem of that person because ultimately we are looking for a relationship with Krishna. And when we come to this world, we try to find a substitute for Krishna.
And then we expect whoever it may be, our spouse, our parent, our relative, our counsellor, we think that they should satisfy me in the way that Krishna originally satisfied us in the spiritual world. And that is never possible. So, then that creates dissatisfaction, discontentment and that leads to disruption of the relationships.
But when there is an attitude of service, then the relationships can go on steadily. So, here Prahlad Maharaj is recognising, my dear Lord, you have given me so much mercy. So, now how do we actually cultivate this gratitude? Gratitude, you know, all the qualities that we talk about, we can talk about humility, we can talk about gratitude.
So, these are in one sense, the stars in the sky. Now we want to become humble, we want to become grateful, we want to become tolerant, but sometimes they feel so far away from us. So, actually there are the stars, but there are also the stairs.
The stairs are the steps by which we will go to the stars. That means stars are our ideal, ultimate goals. The stairs are the immediate tangible steps or measures.
So, sometimes we may just idolise these qualities. Yes, humility is very good, tolerance is very good, but that is just like stars in the sky. Along with the stars, we need to have stairs.
Now, we may say stairs can never reach to the stars. That is true. But only when we start climbing up the stairs, we show Krishna that actually I want to develop these qualities and then Krishna will lift us up and help us acquire these qualities.
So, these stairs are the immediate tangible measures that we can take. So, if I want to cultivate gratitude, now because of the mainstream culture’s influence, there is no doubt some greed and we always tend to see who has got a better car than me, what kind of handset somebody else has, mobile somebody has, how big a house somebody has. We may even say, okay, I have these deities, somebody else’s deities are bigger than mine, more beautiful than mine.
So, we will always have this consciousness coming up. But this and we can’t just wish this away. We may say I don’t want this, but it will come.
It’s just the momentum of the past going on. So, then how can we cultivate gratitude? One is that at a tangible level, just we count our blessings. Radha Gopinath was telling that song.
Count your blessings, name them one by one. Count your blessings, see what God has done. When upon lies bellows, you are tempest-tossed.
When you are discouraged, thinking all is lost. Count your blessings, name them one by one. Count your blessings, see what God has done.
So, I was in a convent school. I had learned that song at that time. So, after many years, Radha Gopinath spoke that, I just remembered it.
So, I say, count your blessings, name them one by one. Count your blessings, see what God has done. So, actually, we often have a habit of counting our problems, not counting our blessings.
So, all of us have problems. As devotees, non-devotees, all of us will have problems. But it is something which is to be consciously cultivated.
And one of the things which we recognise sometimes, but not always, is the value which Prahlad Maharaj is going to talk about, the value of association of devotees. So, actually, in one sense, Dhruva Maharaj, when he sees the Lord, what does he ask for? He says, my dear Lord, I was foolish to ask for a kingdom. I don’t want the kingdom.
But he says, I want something. What is that I want? I want the association of devotees. Now, what exactly happens in the association of devotees? So, I will talk about this by talking about the contrary principle.
We could talk about what happens in the association of non-devotees. Then we will see the opposite of that and see whether that is happening in the association of devotees for us. So, in talking about gratitude, the association of devotees can seem a very abstract term, because there are so many devotees and association is a concept.
But we may have certain devotees whose presence we value very much. So, if we think about them, then we may feel, yes, I have my spiritual master, I have some senior devotees whom I can confide with, whom I can unburden my heart with. So, that is something which you can tangibly count.
So, our mind, like you were asking this question in the morning about material habits getting reinforced. But what happens is our mind very easily remembers material impressions and material memories. But our mind very easily forgets devotional impressions and devotional memories.
We often have to cherish those memories. For example, maybe 5-10 years ago, we had gone for some party with some friends and certain incidents happened over there. Or we saw some cricket match and somebody hit a sixer or something.
I don’t know, different people have different memories. But material memories get imprinted quickly on the mind. Devotional memories, sometimes we go for yatras and there is very beautiful darshan or very ecstatic kirtans.
Or we have some very special moments of exchange with some devotees. So, what happens is, that our mind tries to wipe off these memories. So, whenever we have some enlivening devotional experiences, it is very worthwhile to write them down.
Because writing down becomes like a stored intelligence for us or a stored memory for us. Because in material life, for example, if we are walking on a street and if we see some image, that image sort of has a glue on the mind and just stays over there. But that doesn’t happen with devotional life.
But if we write some things down, and then whenever we are feeling down in our spiritual life, we look back at those memories. That gives us a lot of strength and inspiration. So, it’s not that we have not had devotionally inspiring events in our life.
We have had. But in the day-to-day struggle of life, we tend to forget them. We tend to forget them.
So, it’s very difficult, in one sense, to feel grateful. Okay, I have air to breathe. You know, I feel grateful for air.
I mean, theoretically air is valuable. But to feel grateful for air, it seems very abstract. But say if I was drowning underwater and somebody pulled me out and then I got air.
So, at that time, I feel grateful for the air. I feel grateful for the person who drew me out. So, association of devotees in one sense is like the spiritual air for us.
It is the spiritual air without which it’s very difficult to practise bhakti. It’s almost impossible. But when it is normally available, it’s very difficult to value it.
It’s not so easy at least. But there are some special moments in our life when we have some special interactions with devotees. So, at that time, those are the moments when we value the devotee association.
So, if we note them down, then they can become the basis of our gratitude. So, I talked about this at three levels. First is, we can talk about blessings of many things, the stars in the stairs, the association of devotees.
But association of devotees is an abstract thing. So, within the association of devotees, association of specific devotees who inspire us. And within the association of specific devotees who inspire us, the memories of special touching moments with those devotees.
So, when we write this down. So, gratitude for association. So, first I said general association of devotees.
So, then beyond that is association of specific devotees, specific inspiring devotees. And beyond that is special touching moments with those devotees. So, if we cultivate these memories, maybe by writing down and refreshing them whenever we feel a little down in our spiritual life, then it helps us in sort of regaining our fuel for our spiritual journey.
So, I’ll give an example of this from my life. I was introduced to Krishna Consciousness by Radheshyam Prabhu in Pune. And Radheshyam Prabhu’s shiksha guru is Bhaktira Samrath Maharaj.
So, I always had a lot of respect for Bhaktira Samrath Maharaj. And I had a few interactions with him. And then recently by Krishna’s mercy, I got an opportunity to do some major service with him.
We are working on making a series of educational documentaries on our philosophy. Basically, like we have the seven day course in Bhagavad Gita. So, if you could make the whole Bhagavad Gita course into documentaries, then it would be a very, it would be a very powerful preaching tool.
So, then I have been serving with him for the last one and a half years. So, maybe two years, two and a half years almost. So, about a year ago, I had a, I had an accident in Juhu temple.
I slipped and fell and I badly fractured my leg. So, then I was taken to the hospital. And I was supposed to meet Bhaktira Samrath Maharaj in a few days.
Then I called him and told him that, I got this fracture and Giriraj Prabhu is telling that we’ll have to do the surgery immediately, either the same day or the next day. So, Maharaj immediately, he said, he just talked with me for a few minutes and he said, okay, we’ll talk later. Then immediately, later on, Giriraj Prabhu told me that, actually, Maharaj called me immediately, Bhaktira Samrath Maharaj called him after that immediately.
And he talked with him for almost 30-35 minutes, asking all the details, how, okay, what is the fracture, what is the nature of the surgery, what are the possibilities of recovery, what will be the possibility of mobility after the recovery. And then, Bhaktira Samrath Maharaj told him that, I feel, I want to come there and be there when the surgery is there. But I have got a major programme here, I can’t come.
But Giriraj Prabhu, you know, you treat the surgery as if you are treating, as if you are doing the surgery of my own son. So, when I heard this, tears came out of my eyes. And later on, I told Bhaktira Samrath Maharaj that, you know, to hear these words from you, I feel I can go through thousands of accidents like this.
Thousands of accidents like this I can go through. So, it was a, for me, it was a very touching moment. And even now, when I remember it, I feel so enlivened by that.
So, all of us, this was intense, and these are not, these moments are not going to be everyday. But there are times when we have some sweet and intense interactions. So, we have to cultivate those memories and cherish them, maybe write them down, refresh them.
So, that way, we start feeling grateful. Otherwise, on a day-to-day level of interaction, it’s difficult to always feel grateful. Because in life, we have ups and downs, we have our problems, we have immediate circumstantial necessities.
So, that’s why I was talking about this. General association, associated with specific devotees, and specific moments in that association. So, specific moments, how it is, our emotions are evoked not by general principles, but by specific objects.
Our emotions are evoked not by general principles, but by specific objects. That means, Sri Prabhupada gives the example, God is great, God is all-pervading. It’s okay, the sky is also great, the sky also seems to be everywhere.
But can I really offer my heart to the sky and feel devoted to the sky? No, it’s a general principle. It’s very difficult to feel emotions for a general principle. Our emotions are always towards specific objects.
So, yes, Krishna is all-pervading, but when we see the beautiful deity of Krishna, at that time we can feel some emotions. So, that’s why the more specific our reasons for gratitude, the more genuine and authentic will be the gratitude. And the more it is general.
I love the association of devotees so much. Devotees are so wonderful. Wonderful is one of the most overused words in our devotee vocabulary.
Everything is wonderful, isn’t it? But it is so overused that sometimes the word loses its emotional value. It just becomes an overused word. So, it is good to say like that, it is good to also feel like that, but it’s difficult in general.
So, when the more specific incidents are there, the deeper is the feeling. So, here Prahlad Maharaj is not talking about what all I did for you, Lord Narasimhadev. It is what you have done for me.
You have done something so extraordinary, which you have not done for anyone else. He could very easily have took it other way. He said, actually, no other devata did for you what I did.
You know, all those devatas covered down before Narasimhadev, before Hiranyakashipu. I alone didn’t cover down. Now, you should recognise what I have done for you.
But that attitude of telling another person what I have done for you, that can never lead to a deep relationship. Actually, only when we appreciate the other person, then there can be a deep relationship. So, then now, then Prahlad Maharaj says, this is the verse which we discussed today.
So, he is asking, you know, my dear Lord, why did you bestow such mercy upon me? This is the mercy that you did not give to Shiva, to Brahma, to Lakshmidevi. Why did you give to me? Surely, you are not partial. So, you are not even partial to me.
There is no idea of somebody being higher, somebody being lower. In you, you are equal. You are the surdas tathapi.
You are the well-wisher of everyone. Then how is it that you bestowed so much mercy for me? He says, sevānurūpaṁ udayo na parāvaratvam. Sevānurūpaṁ, depending on how a person renders service, you reciprocate.
So, the seventh canto of the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam starts with the theme, is Krishna partial or is he impartial? So, the 7.1 chapter is, the Supreme Lord is equal to all, that means he is impartial. So, in the Bhagavad-Gītā, Prabhupāda will quote this verse also in one of the purports here, Krishna seems to say that he is impartial, but in the same breath, he says, I am partial also. In 9.29, he says, samoham sarva-bhuteshu, na me dvesho sthina priya, ye bhajan tito māṁ bhaktyā, maite teshu chāpyaham, samoham sarva-bhuteshu, I am equal to everyone, na me dvesho sthina priya, I am not averse to anyone, nor am I attached to anyone.
But, he says, ye bhajan tito māṁ bhaktyā, one who serves me with devotion, maite teshu chāpyaham, Krishna doesn’t say, I am dear to them or they are dear to me, he goes even deeper in the emotional sense, they are in me and I am in them. It is a very deep expression, they are in me and I am in them. So, how do we reconcile these two statements? On one side, Krishna is saying that I am equal to everyone.
On the other side, he says, if somebody loves me, actually, I am in them and they are in me. So, Krishna is impartially partial. Now, what does that mean? Is Krishna impartial or is he partial? Krishna is impartially partial.
Now, what does that mean? I will explain once again. See, Krishna is surely partial to his devotees. He will go out of his way to fulfil the desires of his devotees, to protect his devotees, to help his devotees.
So, then he is partial. Then, how is he impartial? Because he allows everyone to impartially become his devotee. He doesn’t put any barrier on anyone becoming a devotee.
So, he is impartial in allowing everyone to become a devotee and when somebody becomes a devotee, he shows his partiality. So, in that sense, Krishna is impartially partial. He is impartially partial.
So, an example to illustrate this point. The idea of a neutral person may sound theoretically good, may be intellectually also appealing. Yes, somebody is neutral, somebody is not partial.
But the idea of a neutral person can never be emotionally appealing. The idea of a neutral person may be intellectually appealing, but it is never emotionally appealing. For example, say, if there is some person and we go and speak nicely with him and we tell him, I like this about you.
Suppose, after this class, some of you come and say, I like this class and if I just maintain a stone face, I don’t speak anything. And what happens is, there is no further growth of relationship over there. So, relationships require not neutrality, but reciprocity.
Relationships require not neutrality, but reciprocity. Yes. So, if somebody takes forward and talk something, okay, I like this point.
And can you tell me a little bit more about this point? If I just stay absolutely neutral, no emotions, no responses, there’s no possibility of the growth of relationship. So, reciprocity is what leads to development of relationships. So, neutrality is actually an impersonal ideal.
Be neutral to everyone. But the devotional ideal is not neutrality, it is reciprocity. So, Krishna is not a heartless, emotionless, stone-like, neutral object.
Krishna is a person who reciprocates. And that’s what is his beauty. So, in that sense, Krishna is not partial, he is reciprocal.
He is reciprocal. And what is the verse which talks about this? As all people surrender unto me, I reward them accordingly. I reward them accordingly, Krishna says.
So, this is the same principle of surat Aror. If we go and ask, desire a tree for rasgulla, it will give rasgulla. If we go and ask for a palace, it will give a palace.
If we go and ask, whatever we ask, we’ll get that. So, similarly, if we approach Krishna with karmakant motives, Krishna will give us material desires fulfilment. If we approach Krishna for mukti, Krishna will give us mukti.
If we approach Krishna for prema, Krishna will give us that. So, Krishna is reciprocal. What we approach Krishna for, Krishna will give us that.
So, before continuing with this point, Prabhupada would often say that ISKCON is the manifestation of Krishna in this world. So, ISKCON is also reciprocal. In the sense that, if I come to ISKCON for prestige, then I’ll get prestige also.
You know, even if in material life, I become very famous, people may respect me. But in material life, nobody is going to offer obeisances to me. Isn’t it? So, if I am looking for prestige, I will get more prestige than what I got in material life.
If I am looking for power, sometimes, if some devotees start thinking, this person is a very senior devotee, the way they follow instructions, we can get so much power. If somebody comes for money, Krishna has a lot of Lakshmi, there can be so much Lakshmi that somebody can get. And on the negative side, if somebody comes to ISKCON for controversy, he can get more controversy than in material life.
So, even ISKCON in one sense, ये था मां प्रपद्यन्ते. And if we come to ISKCON for Krishna, we will get Krishna also. So, ultimately, some people may say, you say ISKCON is a spiritual movement, but there is this court case happening in this place, there is this scandal happening over here, there is that happening over there.
Is that what you want in ISKCON? That’s what you will get. Yes, that is happening because ISKCON is an institution in the material world. And it is not filled with pure devotees.
It is not filled with pure devotees, it is filled with aspiring devotees. If we think, I will look for a movement which is filled with pure devotees. First problem is, we will not find such a movement in this world.
Such a movement is only there in the spiritual world. And second problem is, if we find such a movement, we will not be allowed there because we are not yet pure devotees. So, therefore, it ultimately depends on what we are looking for.
So, yes, there are controversies within ISKCON also. But that’s just because ISKCON is an institution in the material world. What do I want when I come to ISKCON? When I come to the temple, I can come and hear gossip about so many different people.
If that’s what I want, I will get that. But if I want Krishna, I will get that also. So, surataro rivate is just like a desire tree.
So, now, Vishwanath Chakravarti Thakur, in his commentary to this 9.29 verse, Samoham Sarvabhuteshu, he expands on this analogy of surataro, of the desire tree. He says, this analogy of desire tree is okay. It may illustrate Krishna’s reciprocity, but it does not illustrate the complete dimensions of Krishna’s relationship with his devotees.
And he says, there are two additional aspects. One is, when a desire tree gives a blessings, gives some gift to somebody who approaches it for it, the desire tree doesn’t become attached to the person who has approached it. But when a devotee approaches Krishna, Krishna becomes attached to that devotee.
And second thing he says is, that if a desire tree may give a blessing to somebody, but that person who has approached the desire tree, if that person has an enemy, the desire tree doesn’t become the enemy of that person. But when the Pandavas took shelter of Krishna, Duryodhana became the enemy of the Pandavas. If you see, throughout the Mahabharata, till the time when Duryodhana tried to arrest Krishna, till that time, Duryodhana did not directly do anything against Krishna.
He did not do anything directly against Krishna. But still, before that only, when Krishna came as Shanti Doodh, even before the arrest was attempted, Krishna told Duryodhana, because you are inimical to Pandavas, therefore there is no real friendship between us. So he says, a desire tree doesn’t become enemies of those whom it blesses.
But Krishna, your relationship with your devotee is so deep, that you become the enemy of those who become your devotee’s enemies. So Krishna’s relationship is not just reciprocal, it is more than reciprocal. We say that when we take one step towards Krishna, Krishna takes a thousand steps towards us.
So there is reciprocity, but it is not proportional reciprocity. It is not proportional. You do this much, I’ll do this much.
Krishna’s reciprocity is disproportional. It is massive. So there is a South Indian poet who says that Krishna is sitting in our hearts.
If we just lie down and while lying down, chant the holy names of Krishna, Krishna sits up and starts hearing. At last this soul is chanting my holy names. If we sit up and chant, Krishna stands up and starts hearing.
Oh, this devotee is chanting my holy names. If we stand up and chant his holy names, Krishna starts dancing in ecstasy. And if we start dancing and chanting the holy names, Krishna embraces us and takes us back to Godhead.
So that is Krishna’s disproportionate reciprocity. He is not just reciprocal, he is disproportionately reciprocal. So this is the beauty of the relationship that Krishna has with his devotees.
And we shouldn’t think that we are, we may not be a devotee. Yes, we may not be pure devotees, but we are aspiring pure devotees. And all of us have a relationship with Krishna.
And all of us need to value our relationship with Krishna. We need to value our relationship. That means, earlier I was talking of one dimension that we either we have to seek respect in appreciation, respect in non-devotee circle, or I have to seek appreciation, respect in devotee circle.
But still that is quite external. That means I will behave very nicely when devotees are around me to see. I may not behave very nicely when nobody is around.
Because I think now my image is not in danger. But if we value our relationship with Krishna, then even when nobody is around, whatever we are doing is affecting our relationship with Krishna. Even when I am alone, nobody is watching every single thing that I do.
It’s not like Krishna is a judge who’s out to find faults with us. Krishna is not a judge. He’s a coach.
What is the difference between a judge and a coach? A judge’s business is to pass sentences and punish. A coach’s business is to help us improve. So Krishna does see what we have, and he also sees what we lack.
He sees what we have, and he sees what we lack. But that is not with a fault-finding attitude. That is with a compassionate, helping attitude.
So just as a coach, when he’s training an athlete, he needs to know, okay, the coach is training a batsman, okay, you can hit balls like this, you can hit balls like this, but when a shot delivery comes, you can’t play. So he has to be aware of that so that he can help the batsman improve. So Krishna is aware of our shortcomings, but he’s also aware of our potential.
He sees that we are all his parts and parcels, and he wants all of us to be elevated. So he sees our potential, and that is what he focusses on. So when we value our relationship with Krishna, we understand that everything that I do, whether people are with me, whether I am with devotees, whether I’m not with devotees, it is affecting my relationship with Krishna.
Because Krishna is seeing, if I do something that will please him, then our relationship is deepening. So our motive is not so much that Krishna finds out, then Krishna will punish me. No, Krishna is not a vindictive God who is out to punish us.
Krishna is a compassionate God who is out to help us. And we want to please Krishna. So when we value our relationship with Krishna, then at all times, we will try to act in a way that will please Krishna, and then that will deepen our relationship with Krishna.
So surataro rivate prasadah, that you are like a desire tree. So Baldevidya Bhushan, in his Vishnu Sahasranama, gives a very beautiful example. In the Vishnu Sahasranama, there is a verse, Gurur gurutamo dhama, nimesho nimesha svagri, vachaspati rudharadhi.
So he says, nimesho animesha svagri. Gurur gurutamo dhama, satyam satyam parakramaha, nimesho nimesha svagri. So nimesha means one who blinks his eyes.
Animesha means one who never blinks his eyes. So two contradictory names are coming there at the same time, nimesha and animesha. Nimesho, nimesha is svagri.
So he goes on to describe other qualities. So why he says, two contradictory names, one who blinks his eyes and one who never blinks his eyes. So Baldevidya Bhushan gives one of the most beautiful explanations I have ever read of any of the names of Vishnu Sahasranama.
He says, nimesha, one who blinks his eyes. He says, when a devotee who is sincerely trying to serve Krishna commits some mistake, Krishna blinks his eyes. Krishna blinks his eyes and overlooks the mistake.
Animesha, when the devotee is trying to serve Krishna and he renders him a small service to Krishna, then animesha, Krishna unblinkingly takes notice of the smallest service. Nimesha, animesha svagri. And the example is, when Putana came along, actually her motive was to kill Krishna.
But still, she was also trying to, she was also feeding her breast milk to Krishna. So what did Krishna do? Nimesha. He blinked his eyes.
He closed his eyes and he saw only the good in Putana. She has come to serve me. Let me give her.
She has come to be like my nurse. Let me make her my nurse in the spiritual world. And animesha.
So most of us know that incident when one time in Indraprastha, Arjuna and Krishna were there. Sudrapati came there and she brought some fruits for Krishna, for them. And she was about to go at that time and Krishna started cutting the fruits.
And I was cutting the fruits. Then I slipped from his hand and a little blood came from there. Now Krishna’s body is spiritual.
No blood can come from it. But Krishna is not interested in proving to the world. You know, my body is Satchitanandana.
No blood can come. Krishna is interested more in reciprocating love with his devotees. And if for reciprocating love, he needs to manifest blood, he will manifest blood also.
So blood came from his devotee. When Draupadi saw it, she was so pained by that. So she immediately, without looking here and there, just took her silk saree and ripped it and made a bandage and started applying it on Krishna’s finger.
And she was in anxiety, seeing Krishna bleeding. But Krishna was smiling. Krishna was smiling, seeing her heartfelt intensity to serve him.
And he told her, Draupadi, I will repay you for this service. And when did you repay? During the Vastra Haran. So this is not just reciprocity.
She offered a small piece of cloth, but this is disproportionate reciprocity. He offered her unlimited saree. So this is Krishna.
And this is the Lord whom the Bhagavatam is revealing to us. And this is the Lord we learn about through the prayers of great devotees like Prahlad Maharaj. Any questions till now? Yes.
Yes, please. I’ll repeat it. This such type of thing is going to take place and Draupadi is going to be lost in that gamble.
And finally, you know, he has to help and all this type of thing. Okay. The question is, did Krishna know everything that Yudhishthira gambling and then Draupadi being dishonoured and Krishna coming to save? Is everything arranged by Krishna? Does Krishna know everything? So, if we consider the Leela of Krishna, there is a very fascinating and mysterious interplay between Krishna’s divinity and his apparent humanity.
Krishna is not a human being, but he acts like a human being. And before answering this question, I will tell from the Mahabharata what happens. Actually, sometimes we may see Mahabharata serials, and we may say Krishna standing over there and Krishna raising his hand from his hands, coming out.
But that is not how it happened over there. Actually, nobody saw Krishna over there. All that Dushasan saw was that saree was being pulled and pulled and pulled and was not getting exhausted only.
So, nobody understood how it happened. Now, Draupadi knew that she was calling out to Krishna and Krishna had saved her, but nobody saw Krishna over there. And later on, when the Pandavas are exiled, at that time, Krishna comes to meet the Pandavas.
And then Krishna and Balram, everybody of them is very angry. He said, this was cheating, this was insult, very angry. So, at that time, Draupadi goes to Krishna and she tells him, Krishna, you know, I am your devotee, I am your relative and I am your friend.
So, on all these three counts, I deserve your protection. But how is it that you didn’t protect me? Krishna doesn’t reply. Do you doubt my protection? He doesn’t reply.
Krishna gives a very disarming reply. He says, and actually, Shalva had attacked Dwaraka and he had devastated practically all of Dwaraka. And I was completely caught up in fighting with him and protecting Dwaraka.
And as soon as I destroyed Shalva’s aeroplane and killed him, I got the news that this had happened. I immediately come to meet you. So, here, Krishna is reciprocating with Draupadi, not as if he is God, he is actually talking as if he is a human being.
He says, I was there, so I couldn’t come here. Now, we may say, is it? God can be everywhere at every time. Why can’t he be there like that? And interestingly, Draupadi accepts this reason.
Draupadi says, you are God, you can be at two places. So, actually speaking, when there are the leelas of the Lord, the very word leela, Prabhupada translated as pastime. Now, the pastime has a slightly negative connotation in English, if we talk about it outside the way it is used by devotees.
The word pastime is equivalent to time pass. It’s just you are doing something, but time passes, isn’t it? That’s how if you look in the dictionary, the word pastime is not equivalent to the way we understand it. It’s just, okay, you’re passing time in some way.
But the word leela has no English translation, because in the Western religions, there is no concept of leela. So, there is no linguistic or philosophical equivalent in the English language. So, what exactly is leela? Krishna is omniscient.
Krishna as God knows everything. But although he knows everything, when he wants to reciprocate relationship with his devotees, he covers his omniscience. He covers his omniscience, just like there might be a billionaire.
You know, everybody bows down to him and respects him. Now, when he has an intimate family get together, at that time, he may decide that we will have a drama, and in that drama, I will play the role of a beggar. And then when he’s playing the role of a beggar, he says, please give me something to eat.
I have not eaten for the last three days. Now, he has eaten three times in the same day. But when he’s speaking that, if he is to relish the drama, and if all the other participants and audience are to relish the drama, he has to enter into that mood.
So, to the extent he can enter into that mood, to that extent he can relish the mood of that particular drama. So, Krishna leela is like a drama. It is God at home.
God in an intimate get together with his devotees, who are like his family members. So, this person is a billionaire, but he’s acting like a beggar. Why? Because he wants to have fun with his loved ones.
So, like that, when Krishna performs leela, he is covering his divinity, he’s covering his omniscience, and he’s playing a role. He may be playing the role of a child, he may be playing the role of a lover, he may be playing the role of a friend. So, in these situations, if Krishna acts omniscient, that will spoil the rasa of the drama.
If Krishna wants to steal butter, now he’s searching, where is butter? So, he’s searching, looking here, looking there, looking there. Now, he thinks, I am God. Actually, I know where the butter is.
What do I need to know? Actually, the whole universe is in my mouth. So, butter is already in my stomach only. Then there will be no pastime of stealing butter and eating butter.
So, Krishna covers his omniscience, so that he can reciprocate rasa with his devotees. So, same way, in these pastimes, Krishna, at one level, Krishna knows everything. But at another level, when Krishna is entering into the pastime, he covers his divinity.
So, this is an important point, maybe this is the point with which… Correlation to 5 or 5.30? 5? Okay, I’ll just explain this point. This is an important question you have read about. In Krishna Leela, so, Krishna is the actor.
Then Yogamaya is the director. Yogamaya is the director. In the start of the Rasa Leela, first time, what is described? Yogamayam upasnitah.
It is said that Krishna took shelter of Yogamaya. The whole 10 cantos of Srimad Bhagavatam are to describe how Krishna is the ashray of everyone. But that Krishna, who is the ashray of everyone, is taking ashray of Yogamaya.
How can he take ashray of Yogamaya like that? And if you think about Yogamaya, this word itself is puzzling. We as devotees, who are connected with the Gaudiya Vaishya Sampradaya, know that Yogamaya is the internal energy of Krishna. But if you just think of the word from the Sanskrit point of view, Yogamaya as a word is what in Sanskrit is called as, what in English is called as oxymoron.
You know, oxymoron is a word, it’s a compound word in which two words have opposite meanings. If I say, this person is an intelligent idiot. Now, how can somebody be an intelligent idiot? Either you are intelligent or you are idiot.
If I say, this person is a courageous coward. How can somebody be courageous and still be cowardly? Isn’t it? So, oxymoron is a word in which it has two parts and both parts have contradictory meaning. So, if you look at the word Yogamaya, the maya is that which makes us forget Krishna and yoga is the process to remember Krishna.
So, what is Yogamaya doing together? You know, one is to cause forgetfulness of Krishna, the other is to bring remembrance of Krishna. So, when two come together, what happens? It’s a very mysterious concept. So, what does Yogamaya do? When devotees come under Yogamaya, by yoga, they are remembering Krishna.
But by maya, they are forgetting the Godhood of Krishna. So, the Gopis are Krishna conscious but not God conscious. The Gopis are Krishna conscious but not God conscious.
They know, okay, there is a God, that God is Narayan, but that God really doesn’t matter to us. Who matters to us is Krishna. So, even when they see Lord Vishnu, they offer obeisance to Lord Vishnu, please tell us where is Krishna? Isn’t it? So, they are not really conscious of God, they are conscious of Krishna.
So, similarly, just as the associates in Krishna’s pastimes are not conscious that Krishna is God, they just are conscious that Krishna is so beautiful, Krishna is so loving and lovable, that’s all that they are conscious of. Similarly, Krishna himself in the pastimes, because of Yogamaya, forgets his Godhood. He forgets his Godhood.
So, now, if Krishna forgets his Godhood, then how can he be God? God cannot forget anything. God cannot forget anything. So, how can he be God? So, in one sense, when I say Yogamaya is the director, the actor acts according to what the director wants.
So, Yogamaya Upashrita, when the Bhagavatam says, that means, Krishna takes shelter of Yogamaya, Krishna acts according to Yogamaya’s directions. When Krishna acts according to Yogamaya’s directions, then Yogamaya is in control. And how is Krishna God? So, there is a special twist to this.
Krishna is the actor who is dancing according to the tunes of the director, that is Yogamaya. But the director is directing the drama according to a script. And Krishna is the script writer also.
So, Krishna is the script writer means, Krishna is in control, because ultimately all the pastimes are happening according to his will. So, this is Achintya Bheda Bhed in the realm of Leela. Krishna is in control and Krishna is not in control also, because it is ultimately his script that is happening.
So, he is in control. But once that script is to be enacted, Krishna is acting according to the director’s direction. So, therefore, he is not in control.
So, Leela is actually a very profound concept. It’s a very profound concept. And we can understand Leela at different levels.
So, at the highest level, it is just pure reciprocation of love between Krishna and his devotees. And that’s all, it’s just relishing. Become a rasika and just relish Bhagavatam.
But along with that highest level, where everything is just the reciprocation of love, at another level, we can also understand that we can learn some lessons. So, we can learn some valuable lessons. So, that means we can learn that we should not gamble.
Sometimes people say, Yudhishthir was such a great dharmic person, he gambled. Then why can’t we gamble? Actually, the lesson of the Mahabharata is exactly opposite. It is even if a dharmic person like Yudhishthir gambles, he gets into trouble.
So, if I gamble, what will happen to me? The lesson is exactly opposite. So, we can, for our purposes, learn some lessons from the pastimes. But at a higher level, ultimately, it’s the reciprocation of love.
So, I’ll give an example for this. That now we know when Krishna was dancing with the gopis, at that time, the gopis became proud. And then Krishna disappeared from their midst, along with Radharani.
And then, it said Radharani became proud. And then Krishna disappeared from her also. So, now, at our level, we can learn that if Krishna can leave even the gopis when he becomes proud, then what will happen if we become proud? So, we should not become proud.
But Anand Vrindavan Champu, written by Kavi Karnapur, gives a higher level understanding of this. He says that actually, when the Rasleela was happening, all the gopis knew that Krishna loves Radharani the most. And Radharani loves Krishna more than all of us.
Radharani loves Krishna more than all of us. So, they, all the gopis, wanted Radha Krishna to be united, so that Radharani’s supreme love above all of them could be established. And therefore, they acted as if they were proud.
So, they were not acting out of pride. They were acting to glorify the love of Radharani. And then Radharani and Krishna went alone.
And when they were going along, Radharani was very happy, yes, I am with Krishna. And then suddenly she started thinking, see, I am so happy with Krishna, but Lalita, Vishakha, all my sakhis, they must be heartbroken because Krishna is not there with them. How can I enjoy when all my sakhis are heartbroken? So, she started thinking, what should I do? She thinks that all these sakhis, they must be searching for me.
But Krishna and I, we are going so fast into the forest that they will never be able to find me. She started thinking, I must think of some ruse, some trick by which I can slow Krishna down. And then all the sakhis will be able to catch up with us.
So, therefore, she tells Krishna, Krishna, I am very tired. I cannot go any further in the forest. If you want me to go any further, I cannot walk any further.
So, then apparently Krishna gets angry and Krishna says, because this is the forest, I cannot get a palanquin to carry you. Therefore, you climb on my back and I will carry you. And Krishna angrily says that and Radharani is looking at Krishna, suddenly Krishna disappears.
And then Radharani is heartbroken. Krishna has gone away from me. Krishna has become angry with me.
So, then all the gopis come together and initially the gopis are feeling, oh, who is this special gopi with whom Krishna has gone all alone? But when they see that this gopi is also separated from Krishna, then they also feel sad, oh, she is also suffering like us. So, the point is, the motivation for Radharani is also not right. Radharani has not become proud.
She was thinking, what about my other Sakis? So, at our level, we can understand we should not become proud. But at a higher level, the dynamics of reciprocation of love are so inconceivable that many times we cannot even comprehend them unless the Acharya has revealed them to us. So, therefore, we see Leela at both these levels.
If we can learn some valuable lessons, we learn lessons. But at a higher level, we also understand that it is a reciprocation of love between Krishna and his devotees. Okay.
Any other questions? So, yes. Is it working? Not related to what you spoke. But I have this doubt in my mind always that Bhishma was a great warrior and he was one of the Mahajans and he knew the Shastras very well.
But why is it that he didn’t protest at the time when Draupadi was disrobed? If he could want, he could have stopped that immediately. Because he was the senior most person there and everybody would listen to him. And Vikarna actually said you should not do that.
But he was the only one. Vidura also spoke. But why Bhishma didn’t do anything even though he was a Kshatriya and he had all the powers to stop it? Yeah.
Why did Bhishma not stop the disrobing of Draupadi when he had the seniority and the power to stop it? Again, this is understood at two levels. At the highest level, his whole pastime is demonstrating that no matter how many protectors we have in this world, we don’t have anyone except Krishna. So in that sense, Bhishma was inspired by the Lord within the heart to not do anything so that Krishna could bring about the protection.
But at another level, what Bhishma did was a Niyamagraha. How is it a Niyamagraha? It is very simple. When Draupadi is lost, Duryodhana sends his court attendant Pratikamin to go to the female quarters and get Draupadi.
Pratikamin is trembling. He is a cultured person and he sees what is happening. He is so savage and uncivilised.
So he is trembling and he tells Draupadi surprised to see him over there in the female quarters and then he tells her what has happened. So then Draupadi tells him, you know, go and ask the assembly that was Yudhishthir my master when he staked me? Because Yudhishthir had gambled himself first before gambling Draupadi. So he said, was he my master? Did he have the power to gamble me when he had already gambled himself? So Pratikamin goes and asks this question.
So at that time, Duryodhana laughs at it and he says, tell her that she should herself come and ask this question to her husband and Pratikamin again goes back and he tells the answer. So Draupadi says that, no, this whole assembly is there and I have asked a question to the assembly. He says, I am in my period and I am wearing a single cloth.
I cannot come now. So first tell him to answer the question, then I will come. So Pratikamin goes and answers this and Duryodhana tells, tell her to come again.
Now Pratikamin is very afraid to go. Seeing him trembling, Duryodhana tells Dushyasana, you go and Dushyasana is almost as demoniac as Duryodhana. So he just charges into Draupadi’s assembly and Draupadi when she sees Dushyasana coming, she gets scared and she tries to run towards Gandhari’s palace to ask her for something, but Dushyasana runs after her and catches her and he tells her, you wretched, I am in my period, I am wearing only a single cloth, I cannot come now.
So Dushyasana laughs savagely and he says, whether you are wearing a single cloth or no cloth, you are our slave now, you must come, you must obey the king’s commands and he drags her practically by her hair and then he hurls her into the assembly, she falls crying and then she gets up and then she asks the assembly, he says this is assembly of all learned and royal people, he says such an injustice is happening over here. So I am asking all of you this question that if Yudhisthira had already gambled himself, was he my master? How could he have gambled me? So she starts looking at everyone and then her glance finally falls. So Dhritharashtra, his eyes are closed, he doesn’t speak anything, she glances at everyone.
Then Bhishma speaks and Bhishma says, oh Draupadi, the ways of dharma are very difficult to understand. He says a woman is always said to belong to her husband, but at the same time, if a man has gambled himself away, then he has no possession. So knowing both these things, I don’t know what is the answer to your question.
Therefore, I cannot answer it. And when he speaks this, she looks around to everyone. She looks at her husband, her husband, their heads are unfurled, their crests fallen and then finally Vikarna gets up.
He says this noble lady is asking the assembly for an answer. If we don’t answer the question, we will be culpable. Please answer.
So nobody answers, everybody stays silent. And then Vikarna says, if nobody is answering, then I will answer this question. And he says, men are prone to four vices.
He says intoxication, gambling, womanising and hunting. That’s basically the four regulatory principles. And when they are under the influence of these four vices, they lose all good sense and they do things that should never be done.
And therefore, actions that are done under the influence of these four vices should not be taken seriously. Therefore, I feel that what to speak of Draupadi being gambled, the whole gambling match should be annulled and the Pandavas should be returned their kingdom. If not, at least Draupadi has not been gambled because what a person does under the spell of gambling is not to be taken seriously.
So when Vikarna speaks this, everybody in the assembly starts cheering him. Everybody starts cheering him because there are many kings who have come there and there are many other ministers also. On one side, they are afraid of Duryodhana.
But at the same time, they also are virtuous. So hearing this, Karna becomes very angry and Karna jumps up and he beckons everyone to become silent. And then he says, I have seen many improper things happening in this assembly today.
But the words of this fool Vikarna are the most improper things that I have seen. He doesn’t think Draupadi’s disrobing is improper. He doesn’t think Yudhishthira’s being robbed of everything in daylight is improper.
He thinks Vikarna’s speech to defending is improper. That is Karna’s perverted morality. Sometimes people portray Karna as a very virtuous person.
But he might have been virtuous, but Duryodhana’s bad assume completely spoiled him. In fact, it was Karna who proposed to Duryodhana, now Draupadi is your maid servant, why not bring her and strip her naked for you and all the assembly to enjoy. So what Kshatriya will do such a thing? So then Karna says that Yudhishthira was not forced to gamble.
He voluntarily gambled and throughout the gambling match, he had the freedom to not gamble. He had the freedom to end the gambling match at any moment. Nobody forced him to stake anything.
So he voluntarily staked whatever he staked and what he has lost, he has lost it. So when Karna speaks this, everybody becomes silent. And especially because Dhritarashtra does not speak anything.
His silence is seen as a sign of consent. So at an external level, you know, there is the spirit of the law and there is a letter of the law. So from the letter of the law point of view, Bhishma was correct.
Yes, it is difficult to decide. A woman always belongs to the husband. So she is always with the husband.
But at the same time, if a husband has lost himself, how can he gamble the woman? So from the legalistic letter of the law point of view, it is a complex, it is a question that cannot be answered. But ultimately, the letter of the law is meant to protect the law. And there is no ambiguity about whether a cultured royal lady should be disrobed in the public assembly.
So Niyamagraha means one is giving up the rules and Agraha is sticking to the rules. So the whole assembly over there and Bhishma’s answer as it reveals to us, he stuck to the letter of the law and got caught up without being able to dissolve the moral issue. So that’s why along with the letter of the law, the spirit of the law is very important to understand.
Otherwise, the things which for us from retrospect, it appears so uncivilised and savage that something like this was allowed. But there in that moment, the legality, the Niyamagraha caught all of them. Does that answer the question? So thank you very much.
Shall we stop here? So thank you very much for your kind attention and very thought provoking questions. I’m very grateful for you for giving me the opportunity to speak about Krishna. Let’s thank His Grace Chaitanya Charan Prabhu by loudly chanting Haribol three times.
Haribol. Thank you so much. Now we have Krishna Ravindra Prabhu with us.
He is in charge of our cow products manufacturing unit here. He would like to make a small presentation for a few minutes. If you’re interested, please stay back.
Just 10-15 minutes. Hare Krishna. I offer my humble obeisances to all the assembled devotees.
So this is a small presentation. This is not a health seminar or some seminar on cows. But this is a basic awareness about the cow products, which many of the devotees in the temple congregation has been using.
So this is just to give an awareness because as far as outside cosmetics and medicine industries are concerned, they have a lot of advertisement. But as far as the cow products and whatever the 10-12 products we are making, so there is not so much of awareness. So just to give that awareness, we are giving a few minutes presentation.
So this is not possible. So like the importance of mother cows. Mother cows are very important in our life.
Like Prabhupada says in Nectar of Instructions that a cow and a piece of land is sufficient for a human being. Like Krishi Goraksha it is called. Like how these two are interdependent on each other.
Like the land, it gives us food grains for the human beings, for the animals, for all 84 lakh species, including mother cow. So and mother cow gives cow dung, cow urine, which is the best type of fertiliser for the land. And when she gives the fertiliser, the land grows the grains and grass which the cow eats.
So there is an interdependence on the land and the cow. Like recently we were making some curd out of the milk. Like we put one spoon or less than that in the milk for making it into curd.
And that is called culture I think in English. So we had no culture to convert the milk into the curd. So then what we thought we will boil it and we will use it another day morning.
So when the another day came, so the milk was not good because it is the summertime. So it became into cheese. So then what we did, we filtered and we made into a sweet called Kalakand.
Then we were thinking that how powerful this one product of the cow is, that is milk. Like milk itself is such an important food material that it can give you all the nutrition. And when that milk, like all the people cannot digest milk.
Milk is sometimes heavy to digest. And when the milk is converted into the curd or chhaas, so that is a tonic that cures the stomach. The milk which is not good for the stomach in some cases, the same milk in the form of curd or chhaas can cure our stomach.
And if that milk gets spoiled, it is still not a waste. We cannot throw into the dustbin. We can make paneer, we can make Kalakand and many other sweets, as you must be knowing.
So we were thinking that how important, how powerful this milk is. What to speak of milk, if you consider cow dung. Cow dung is also so important, so powerful.
When the cow gives cow dung, cow dung can directly go to biogas. And biogas we get methane, CH4 gas, which we can use in the ignition. And cow dung itself, without making it as a fuel, cow dung can be burned in the chulas for ignition.
Like Prabhupada in one purport says that the best fuel for making food is cow dung. Number one. And after that comes wood.
And third is gas. And last is the heat, electricity, cooking on electricity. Why? Because the cooking on cow dung, the burning of cow dung is very uniform.
It is very slow heating. So that is why cow dung is considered to be the best of fuels. One more advantage is that when we put the cow dung on the walls, like previously people were not mad, but they were the real scientists, they knew everything.
They used to put the cow dung on the walls. And what this cow dung used to do, it protects the people sitting inside the house from harmful radiations coming from the sun. So that is one more advantage.
Now another is cow urine. Now if we see materially, this cow dung and cow urine, they are the waste products of mother cow. Means from the point of view of milk or curd.
But they are also so important. Like previously, people used to consume cow urine. In the villages, people used to consume.
Now also, people consume cow urine. And what is the basic property of cow urine is that it increases the immune system of the body. It purifies the blood and it helps in increasing the immune system of the body.
Now people who are in villages, they have access to cows. They have cows. But the people in the city, they don’t have access to cows.
So what we do, we distil that cow urine, distillation process. After distillation, it can be preserved, it can remain for more than one and a half to two years. There is no problem in that.
Now this is called gomutra arka or distilled cow urine. The basic advantage is that it increases the immunity and it purifies the blood. How to use is that we have to put two teaspoonful of arka in half cup water.
Maybe five times water of the two teaspoonful into warm water and we can consume it half an hour before our meals in the morning, that is breakfast. So it helps in balancing the three doshas. Like when you go to Ayurvedic doctor, so he checks this vein and he tells that your pitta is more or your kapha is more.
So all the bodily, body stimulation, bodily function is based on these three kapha, vata and pitta. So this cow urine also balances the three. Now the another important thing is that who can take and who cannot take.
Like people who have more heat or pitta, your Ayurvedic doctor or veda can tell you that whether you have more pitta or you have kapha. So people who have more pitta, if they consume the cow urine, their pitta can increase. It is not very harmful, but their pitta can increase, their heat inside the body can increase.
So it is advisable to consult your vedya. Vedya means Ayurvedic doctor. This is another product.
This is ganvati. When we distil the cow urine, one part is what is distilled and what remains, we add some more cow urine and heat it and it becomes tablets. This is called ganvati.
Ganvati is cow urine tablets. It has little bit different functions because of little bit different properties than cow urine. Like it is good for stomach problems or liver problems.
And if both are taken simultaneously, cow urine and this ganvati, it gives the complete advantage of gomutra, which the villager consumes directly in the village. A city people can consume distilled cow urine and ganvati. The most important thing, why cow urine is an ingredient in the Ayurvedic products is because it enhances the efficiency of the other herbs.
Like if you go to Ayurvedic doctors, if you see many of the products, many of the medicines, they have cow urine as one of the ingredients. Because when cow urine adds with another herbs, so it enhances the efficiency, the quality of the herbs and gives a good product. The ingredients for cow urine arc, gomutra arc is only cow urine itself, nothing we add.
In many medicines, Ayurvedic people add something to the cow urine. And ganvati, only thing we add is arjun powder. Arjun powder is added with the tablets so that it does not stick with each other.
Next is tooth powder. Like if we see the basic, this paste from outside, which comes from outside, what is the problem is that they put many harmful chemicals. Like we have a complete presentation on that.
One of the chemicals I will tell you briefly is SLS. SLS is a chemical which is used as a cleansing agent in many vehicles in transports. So that chemical is very harmful for our health when it goes inside.
So for that, like in villages before the urbanisation, before the industrial revolution, there was no toothpaste. So people used to do two things. One is they used to brush with neem stick or babul stick.
Another is they used to brush with the coal of the cow dung when they burn in the fuel for cooking. That somebody might be knowing. Somebody knows in the villages, somebody has seen villages using that.
So that is another one. And this cow dung ash, we add around eight to nine ingredients, which makes into a very good tooth powder. Like we are using here from last more than two years.
We are using no paste, no outside paste. Advantages, one is brushing the teeth. Actually how to use is that we have to apply it on the gums.
Because what we have to strengthen is the root of the teeth. Now the teeth are already strong. So we have to strengthen the root of the teeth, that is gums.
We have to rub it on the gums and slightly on the teeth. And it also is effective if somebody has gap in the teeth or if somebody has toothache. In the normal toothache, when we apply it on the affected area and keep our mouth closed for 10 to 15 minutes, it gives a relief.
I don’t assure you that if the toothache is very severe, it may not help so much. But when there is a normal toothache, it gives a relief. These are the eight, nine types of ingredients.
Because generally when we say that price is 20, 25 rupees, people think that they have just put the cow dung ash into it. So it is very cheap. But if you see compared to outside toothpaste, which is filled with chemicals, what we are putting is just natural and which is very good for your teeth.
Next is Angarag. Angarag is the Sanskrit name and Upton or Utne is the Marathi local name for this product. Like cow dung, when powdered, when dried and powdered, it has a property to clean the body, to clean the pores of the body.
And to give a smoothness to it, we add Multani Mitti, that is one more ingredient. Chandan powder and many other ingredients, which will be on the next slide. Now this is the most important use is bathing.
We can use this Angarag for bathing purpose instead of soap. It does not give any foam, lather. Like many devotees when they use in the beginning, they say that we are not satisfied because we are not getting that jag.
So they think that it is not cleaning our body. But if you see, it actually cleans the body and you will feel that the body is very fresh after using this Angarag. One more use of the Angarag is, if when we are tired coming from the office or we are coming from outside, our head is heavy and we are feeling stressed, then we can make a paste with water and we can apply on the forehead.
So it gives relief from that also. How to use is, we have to take some powder, half spoon, make a paste with water and apply it on the body. These are the different ingredients, Cowdung, Multani Mitti, Chandan powder etc.
Next product is incense, Dhoop. What is the advantage of the Dhoop? Like one of the ingredients is Cowdung and one is Ghee and many other ingredients. When Ghee and Cowdung, these things are burnt, the smoke which is coming, it purifies the atmosphere.
Like earlier, the Rishis used to do Yagya. They used to do and Cowdung and Ghee were one of the prominent ingredients, putting in the Yagya. So why they used to put? Because the smoke coming from burning Ghee and Cowdung purifies the atmosphere.
And this smoke is good for eyes. And this smoke when enters in the body, it does not harm, it does not make any harm. Whereas the Dhoop or incense which has been put chemical is not good for our system.
These are the different ingredients we put in the incense also, which is not only Cowdung or Chandan powder we put for fragrance. These are all the ingredients. Cowdung cake is a normal, like suppose you want to do a Havan, small Yagya in Bombay, in your flat.
So the space is very limited. So you can take one earthen pot and put some pieces of Cowdung cakes and lit the fire and the Yagya is ready. So this is Cowdung cake.
One more advantage is that the smoke coming from the Cowdung cake or Dhoop also, it drives away the mosquitoes. Here it drives away, I don’t know the mosquitoes about Bombay, in Bombay. Pachanamrit is good for Pachan.
You have acidity or some problem or you have had some feast in ISKCON, frequently we have feast. So you should have one Pachanamrit in your pocket. Anytime you go for your council meeting or Sunday feast or any other programme you can, and you can serve other devotees also making this.
You have to put a pinch in half cup warm water and drink it immediately after the heavy meal. So this is balm, pain balm which gives relief from headache, joint pain, muscle pain, basic. These are the ingredients in the balm.
Hair tonic, chemical free hair tonic. Many devotees don’t feel it very comfortable because it gives some smell of cow urine after you use it. If you have no problem with the smell, you can use it.
And if you want to use this also and don’t have smell also, then you can use it and after using it you can have the normal shampoo which you get from outside. That may take, that will take away the smell of cow urine. Many people gave, especially some Matajis gave feedback that their, what you call, the hair fall has reduced by using this.
That’s it. And the most important product is ghee. Like ghee is very good for eating and ghee should be put in hot items.
But there is one more advantage of ghee is that it can be put in the nose. That this is cow therapy. This is a part of Ayurveda.
Actually I should have told this statement before the presentation only. I forgot. So there is Nasya.
Nasya means you put in your nose. It gives relief from many problems like headache, any septic in the ears, any problem in the eyes and generally ENT problems. You have to heat the ghee.
Heat the ghee means the ghee is in the small glass bottle. You have to put the glass bottle in the warm water, heat it and then put 2-2 hot ghee drops in your nostrils while sleeping. So if somebody is not has problem in sleeping sufficiently also, he can also use.
Thank you. Any questions? Okay. Thank you very much.
Hare Krishna. There is a stall outside of cow products which have been described. If you want, you can look.
Thank you very much, Krishna. So now it is free time for devotees. Matajis can go for swimming till 6.15 and prabhujis can go for swimming from 6.15 to 7 o’clock.
I am just dividing this slot half. And you can, if you are interested, you can go for Goseva, adventure sports,