Bhagavatam tenth canto study 80 – 10.14.13-18 – Brahma contextualizes his bewilderment in terms of his and others’ past bewilderment

Next session Srimad Bhagavatam canto 10 chapter 14 Brahma’s prayers to Krishna text 13 Jagatrayanto daldisam plavodhe Narayanasyodarana bhinalat vinirgato jasthvo itivaan na vaidusha Kintu eshwar tvann vinirgato smih Jagatrayanto daldisam plavodhe jagatraya out of the three words when there is destruction anto daldisam When there is complete deluge and everything is destroyed because of the overflowing of water. Narayanasya udar nabhi nalat.
So Narayanasya udar, from the abdomen of the Narayan, there arises the navel, udar nabhi, navel that is there in the abdomen, nalat. What arises is a lotus petal. Vinir gato ajas tvati dvaan na vai mrusha.
Comes out, aja, Brahmaji is born over there and iti, dvaan, the words, these are not false. Kintu eshwarat vanna vinir gato smi. So that, he is saying that, it’s interesting the way Brahmaji is speaking here.
And what he is saying essentially is that, my dear Lord, there is a particular way in which Brahma appears every millennium and have I not appeared from you in that way, oh Lord. So he is continuing the theme that, I am like a child who has come from you, who is, in the previous verse he said that a mother doesn’t take offense, the child kicks, or the child has some childish conceptions about the structure of reality. So similarly, my dear Lord, please don’t take offense at whatever I may do because I am just, I have been born from you in that sense, I am your child, I came from your abdomen, although that’s not exactly the same way a normal child appears, but still similar.
And it’s interesting, he says, these are not false words. The point is that, although he had a false understanding, but that doesn’t mean all his understanding is false. Sometimes when people have one wrong conception, doesn’t mean that all their conceptions are wrong.
Prabhupada would quote Chanakya Pandit saying that, we can take gold even from a filthy place. And similarly, we can take some wise insight even from a person who might otherwise make some foolish statements. Even if their overall life orientation is foolish, still there, they might have something valuable to say.
So he is saying that, this particular statement which I made, Brahmaji is not, Brahmaji is saying that I was born from you is not a false statement, even if my other understandings were false. And thus, it continues, text 14 now, नारायनस्तम्हिल् तम्नहि सर्वधेहि नाम् आत्मास्याधिशाखिल लोक साक्षि नारायनो अंगम् नरभु जलायनात् तच्छापि सत्यम्न तवैव माया नारायनस्तम्हिल् तम्नहि सर्वधेहि नाम् My dear lord, are you not, for all embodied beings, the supreme shelter, how, आत्मस्याधिशाखिल लोक साक्षि. You are the आत्म, you are the super soul present within all the bodies.
अधिशाखिल, you are the controller and you are the supreme witness. लोक साक्षि, you witness everything. नारायनो अंगम् नरभु जलायनात्.
नारायनो, from the supreme personality, you who are the supreme shelter, the shelter of all Naras, अंगम् नरभु जलायनात्, from you emanates, you are the manifesting source of everything. तचापि सत्यम् नतवैव माया. That this is the truth and anybody who has a conception apart from this is in Maya.
That you, that Lord Narayana is not a product of Maya. Lord Brahmaji is continuing to elaborate on the right understanding that he has, the right understanding on which he is going to base his subsequent actions. And that right understanding centers on understanding that Narayana is the supreme reality no matter what happens.
And thus he is saying that this Narayana is not a product of Maya. My conception of Narayana right now is also not a product of Maya. And thus let me surrender to him.
And the point here is that you are like the mother and I am like the infant. And just as the mother should forgive the infant’s offenses. So my dear Lord, this understanding of mine about our relationship and your position within that relationship is not a product of Maya.
It is the right understanding. Therefore, O Lord, please forgive me for any offense that I may have committed. And please give me intelligence by which I can remember this position and act properly in the light of this position.
So text 15. My dear Lord, managing our inner software. So we all have certain conceptions of life that help direct how we operate in the world.
And these conceptions we hold sacred even if not in a religious sense. Even atheists hold their atheism sacred, sacrosanct. And they defend it very vigorously against attacks.
And understandably so, we need some map for functioning in the world. And suppose while driving, if somebody started tearing up our map, we would definitely fight against them to protect that map. Similarly, our conceptions are like the map with which we operate in the world.
And if someone starts tearing up that map, we are naturally concerned about it. Still sometimes the real lived experience of life is such that we need to put aside our, we are shown that our maps are wrong. And whereas we may respond violently to someone tearing up our maps.
But when reality shows us that our map is misleading, then we may ourselves become willing to tear it up. So here, Brahmaji has had his map, his conception of life, conception of the structure of reality, be challenged and falsified. And he is now explaining how his conception was wrong, even though his conception was derived from experience.
So then he says, tachchel ilastham tavasaj janadvapuhu, that if you are situated in the, if your vapu, your body is the source of the, shelters the universe, and you are situated in the cosmic waters, jalastham, then kimme na drishtam bhagwans tadaiva. And why was I not able to see you when I was searching all over the universe for you, right at the beginning of existence? I was trying to figure out what is happening and thus I was searching for you. So why couldn’t I see you at that time? kimvasu drishtam rudhime tadaiva.
So kimnosapad deva punar vedarshi. So I was striving to see you, but I couldn’t see you. And then suddenly you reveal yourself to me.
How is that? So he’s giving his past experience of encounters with the inconceivable nature of the Lord’s form and the unpredictable nature of his appearance. He said that, my dear Lord, I couldn’t perceive you earlier, even when I tried to. And when you decided, you showed yourself.
So the idea is, he’s remembering past experiences when something similar to what he’s experiencing now has happened then in the past. Our past is always the foundation on which we build our present. So our present experiences, if they are completely divorced from our past, become incomprehensible.
So Brahmaji is trying to make sense of his present experience of how the Lord exhibited his mystic power by recollecting a similar experience of mystic power that he has seen earlier. When the Lord, though present, was invisible and the Lord, though he tried to see, couldn’t see him, but then the Lord showed himself. So when he’s asked him, it’s a rhetorical question to explain that it’s because you, O Lord, are omnipotent and we can’t see you by our own efforts.
There, certainly, you are the subduer of maya. You keep maya under control. Avatare.
Even when you descend to this world, maya doesn’t have any control over you. It’s you who have control over maya. Just as Krishna is known as Kaliya Dhaman, so here maya dhaman, maya dhaman.
That you are the subduer of maya. So in this material existence, which is externally visible, which is manifested so widely in the outer worlds, still, it’s interesting that Brahmaji is now recollecting a pastime, which Krishna had done in Vrindavan of revealing to his mother the entire universe within her body, within his mouth, in fact. So, Brahmaji knew about that, but when the moment, the desire to, just as we often know how giving into some kind of indulgences may be bad for us, but still, when the temptation comes, we succumb to it.
So, our memory fails us at that time. Similarly, he’s saying over here that his memory had failed him when he desired to test Krishna, and now that he has been outwitted by Krishna, outclassed completely by Krishna, so now he’s realizing I was such a fool to try to test Krishna. And he is remembering that incident also.
So mayatvam evam prakati krtam te. So mayatvam, that your bewildering potency, how it can bewilder anyone, you have demonstrated when you showed the whole universe in your mouth. And similarly, O Lord, now you have bewildered me also.
So he’s acknowledging, again, correlating present experiences with past experiences to make sense. He’s talking about one past experience which he himself had, and another incident which he has heard about, that Krishna did with Yashoda. So you are the Lord of Maya, and you can deploy your Maya to bewilder anyone.
I am not to show one. Others have also been bewildered because your Maya is so powerful. Yasyak takes 17 now.
Yasyak ukshavidam sarvam sattvam bhaatiya thadatha tattvai apiha tat sarvam kimidam mayayavinam So yasyak ukshavidam sarvam, that this universe which is once inside your abdomen, sattvam bhaatiya thadatha, is now manifested along with you. Bhaati, now, thadatha, as it was there, it is now here, tattvai apiha tat sarvam. That which is inside is now outside us.
Kimidam mayayavinam, how is all this possible except by your Maya? To some extent, we all need to recognize the power of Maya. If we don’t recognize that power, then we stay powerless. Or we stay, if not powerless, at least in the constant danger of being overpowered by Maya.
Unless we learn to recognize how parvizhu, the potency of the Lord to delude is, we stay vulnerable to being deluded by him at any moment, in any way. And if we don’t want to be deluded by this, we have to cultivate a healthy and deep respect for his illusory potency. Prabhupada would often say to his disciples that the only regret is that they are not sufficiently afraid of Maya.
What this means is that they don’t recognize how dangerous Maya can be. Unless we are extremely cautious, if we are casual, we will be casualties. If we are not on guard and we stay on guard by taking shelter of Krishna in a mode of serious service attitude, then the desires to catch Krishna, the desires, tempting desires will soon overwhelm us.
Kimmidam maya yavina. So sometimes when we are bewildered, rather than fooling, rather than beating ourselves up for how stupid we are, we can acknowledge how brilliant Maya is and recognize that to overcome the brilliance of Maya, our own brilliance will never be enough. We need the brilliance of Krishna.
And that means we need to take shelter of Krishna with resolute determination. If we can develop this humble acknowledgement of our own limitations and a heartfelt acknowledgement of Krishna’s, our need for Krishna, given Krishna’s glory, given both the power of Krishna’s Maya and the power of Krishna himself, then we won’t stay lackadaisical about our devotional practices, but we’ll take those practices extremely seriously. Adhyayivadadritesya kimmam na te maya tum adarshitam.
Eko si prathamam tato vraja-suhrut vatsatsam samasthapi. Tavanto si chaturbhujas tada khilai sakam mayopastitas. Tavante eva jagante abhusta damitam brahma dvayam shishyate.
Adhyayiva. Today, Tvadritesya kimmam na maya tum adarshitam. Today, apart from you, kimmam na te maya tum adarshitam.
Have you not demonstrated to me your inconceived potency? Eko si prathamam tato vraja-suhrut vatsatsam samasthapi. First you showed me yourself, alone manifested, and then you showed me you as the expansions of all, you as having expanded as all the Gopas and the cows, which is suhrut, vatsaha, samasthapi, all of them. Tavanto si chaturbhudas.
And then you showed, and you showed those manifested and they were all chaturbhujas. Tada khilai sakam mayopastitas. And upasitas, they were all being worshipped, including by everyone in the universe, including me also.
Tavante eva jagante abhus. Therefore, O Lord, there were many, many universes which had manifested from you. Amitam brahmaadum shishyate.
You have now again become a singular manifestation with all those manifestations having disappeared. So Brahmaji is now placing his vision in context that what I saw, how do I make sense of what I saw? By recognizing that what I saw is similar to the patterns of illusion that others have seen in the past. And that means he is acknowledging that what he saw, although it’s stunning, is not unprecedented.
It’s something which by the Lord’s grace has been demonstrated earlier and the Lord has the power to make a demonstration like that. So let’s deconstruct or let’s play step by step. What are the nature of the illusion that Brahmaji saw? So he came back and he saw all of Vrindavan as it was.
That means he had created a disturbance and not a slightest of disturbance had happened because of that. So that Krishna had expanded all the Gopas and the cows. Itself was amazing.
Then he couldn’t figure out what had happened. The Gopas he had taken were still asleep in a cave and yet in a mystic slumber and still they were seem to be here. So which of these Gopas are real, which are false? I was just trying to figure it out.
So Krishna’s expansion of the Gopas was the first level of bewilderment. The second was all the Gopas and cows transformed into Vishnu murtis. And then he was astounded to see these Vishnu murtis.
And not only were the Vishnu murtis there, the whole universe was worshipping them. Upasitha, as it explained over here. That was even more astonishing.
And then he saw himself also among the worshippers of that Vishnu. So he realized that that vision of Brahma worshipping Vishnu, which he had seen within Krishna, within Krishna’s revelation, indicate that that was his constitutional position where his present action had been because of his conditioned delusion. Because of conditionings, because of having sort of become proud of his post, because of his desire to see the potency of the Lord.
At one level he wanted to see it and another level he wanted to check it, whether all the hype was for real. He wanted to check that. And either way, he ended up checking and getting deluded.
And then he saw Krishna back alone with none of the Gopas and Krishna alone with that same morsel of food with him. And now it is before that Krishna, in front of that Krishna, that Brahmaji is offering these prayers. So thus, Brahmaji makes sense of his bewilderment by placing it in context that how in the past the Lord has displayed many mysterious visions and has bewildered many in the past.