The Bhagavatam’s glory revealed in its concluding verse – PURE acronym

[Bhadra Purnima class at ISKCON, Hillsborough, USA]

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Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
So if we talk from a purely functional perspective, whenever people live in the world, it’s always difficult to live life. Life is never easy.
And suppose we are going on a journey, then if we are carrying some baggage, now we would want to carry as less bag as possible. Of course, we won’t be tempted to carry a lot. But if it is we who have to literally carry it, then we’ll think if we don’t have any trolley or any porter, then we’ll try to cut down our baggage as much as possible.
So if we consider a journey across generations, then people, at least at the physical level, life was much tougher than it is now. Even to get some simple water to drink or to get fire, to work so much physically. So at that time, if something, if some stories, some book, some wisdom has been preserved by people for generation upon generation, for century after century, and it must have had some serious value for those people.
The human mind can come up with so many stories. Now, writing books is easy. But still, even if books was not writing was not easy, still, spinning up stories is not difficult.
Anybody can come up with a story. And sometimes even that person forgets the story after something. They don’t want to remember what stories I had written.
There was a poet. He is a British poet. And he would write very complex poetry.
And moments of insight, he’d write a poetry, write a poem. And then the British Royal Society was, they liked his poem and poem called, his name was Browning and his poem Sardella. Wanted to give an award for that.
And they found that one particular passage in the poem was very difficult to understand. So then they said, we want to award this poem. But can you explain what you mean by this? And then he read it once.
And he read it a second time. And then read it a third time. And then he said, when I wrote this, God and I knew the meaning.
Now, only God knows the meaning. So, sometimes we may write some things which even we may forget. What did I mean by it? So many times, sometimes we tell a story.
And then at the end of the story, what are the moral of the story? What are the point of the story? I just remember the story. It becomes like that. So, if something has been remembered, something has been replicated, it must have had some serious value for people.
So, even if we don’t consider from a devotional perspective, we don’t consider from a religious perspective, we simply say, consider from a rational human perspective. The stories from the past, which have been preserved for thousands, hundreds and thousands of years, they must have contained something because of which they survived. Why did people choose to remember them, replicate them, teach them to the future generations? That’s because they offered some value.
Now, what is the value that the Bhagavatam offers? So here, I’ll try to view two subjects together to talk about the relevance of the Bhagavatam. And the main theme will be the glory of the Bhagavatam, but I’ll try to view it with another angle about the relevance. See, why do bad things happen to good people? This is a question which everyone has.
Recently, I was in Canada and one small boy, maybe six-year-old boy came and he asked me, why do bad things happen to good people? So now, whenever somebody asks that question, especially in a one-to-one meeting, I don’t answer it at a philosophical level. First, what bad thing do you have in mind? Without that, I cannot answer, so what happened? So he said, today morning I was eating my biscuit in my milk. When I put the biscuit in my milk, the biscuit fell into the milk.
So, at this age, I lost my biscuit. That’s a bad thing happening to a good person. So, that’s a question which everyone has.
Why do bad things happen to good people? And there are different ways in which the answers can be given. Now, karma is one answer. And the Bhagavatam acknowledges that but doesn’t emphasize that.
The Bhagavatam’s speciality is that what it stresses is not why do bad things happen to good people, but what do good people do when bad things happen to them? And it gives us stories across millennia of bad things happening to good people. And then how do they respond? So, the central narrative is that itself. Parikshit Maharaj is not just a good person, he was a great person.
He was protecting dharma, he was serving competently. And then what happened? He just, for one small mistake, he was cursed to die. It was, in today’s term, you know, capital punishment.
And for what? Just disrespecting some sage a little bit. Had no malicious intention, it was just circumstantial. Now, he could have railed against destiny and the unfairness of it all, but he did not.
But still, even though he had that grace to renounce the world and focus on the Bhagavatam, focus on transcendence. But still, what happens is that for all of us, there is a, when we start following a particular path, there is an expected response that we are meant to have. There’s an expected way we are meant to behave.
And even though we may be broken inside, but we often try to act strong. It’s not a facade. We also want to become strong.
But there can always be when something terrible happens to someone, some amount of resentment, some amount of anger, some amount of disheartenment. None of this comes out in Parikshit Maharaj’s speech. He’s very graceful.
But what Srimad Bhagavatam does, what Shukdev Goswami does through the various stories of the Srimad Bhagavatam is, tell Parikshit Maharaj, that you are not alone in your suffering. And it’s one thing, say, if everybody is healthy, it’s a, say, if all of you are supposed to go for a yatra to India or to New Vrindavan or somewhere like that, and one of you falls sick with fever. Everybody is going and I’m not going.
I feel especially miserable. And especially then they go there and on Facebook they put photos of how they are going and then you see them and you feel even more miserable by that. But suppose you’re going somewhere and then you find that there’s an epidemic and everybody is sick.
Then it is not that we want others to be sick. But what we want is we don’t want to be suffering alone. So it’s best if nobody suffers.
But if I’m suffering, why should I be singled out? That’s what we feel. So what Parikshit Maharaj has shown throughout the Bhagavatam is that you are not alone in your suffering. And there have been others also suffered and they also suffered just as unjustly as you have.
And look at how they responded. Can you think of some stories in the Bhagavatam which talk about this theme of characters suffering unfairly? Dhruv Maharaj. Yeah, the five-year-old boy, just the natural desire of a child to sit on his father’s lap.
He was rejected. He was neglected by his father and he was severely criticized by his stepmother. And we have Prahlad Maharaj.
He was the one who is meant to be the natural protector of a child that was attempting to assassinate him. Why? What’s going on? So how could anyone do like that? Somebody curses you to die in seven days or to have your own father wanting to kill you. It’s unconscionable.
So who else? Pandavas, of course. Their whole story is of suffering. Any other characters? Subhadra.
Oh, her son. What are the central stories in the Bhagavatam? I’m not talking of general scriptural stories. Gajendra.
Okay. Yeah, he was just having a cool time and suddenly life became very hot. So, yes, Chitraketu.
He had no malice in his heart. Just astounded at seeing Shiva and Parvati together. And he laughed.
He was cursed for that. Cursed to become a demon. Then apart from that, Naciketas.
Naciketas. That’s in the Upanishads. Okay.
Yeah. So one important story you could say Ambarish Maharaj. He is fasting and then a sage comes and he drinks some water.
And the sage wants to have him burned, cursed for that. And if you consider that even Krishna’s own life, even before he’s born, somebody’s out to kill him. So we see that time and time again, this is the same thing.
And through all this, the theme is that how do all these great people respond when bad things happen to them? So with this broad storyline, let’s put this verse which I discussed, Srimad Bhagavatam, Puranam Amalam Yad Vaishnavanam Priyam. Puranam Amalam. So Puranam Amalam means this is pure, spotless knowledge.
Now, what do we mean by pure knowledge over here? You could say that sometimes the impure, the opposite of pure could be impure. But we could say the opposite of pure is contaminated or the opposite of pure can also be diluted. Contaminated means that it is no longer healthy.
But diluted means, like if somebody has given a strong medicine to those, they can’t take it. Then you dilute the medicine. So both the various scriptures that are there in the Vedic canon and outside the Vedic canon, they often give an impure understanding of life.
It is in the sense of contaminated or diluted, depending on your perspective. What is this impure understanding? There was one philosopher, you could call him phoulosopher. Why? Because he was nihilistic completely, rejecting all traditional values, traditional wisdom.
And he said, if we actually just take our blinkers off, if somebody thinks seriously about the nature of life, it’s very gloomy. He said that existence is suffering. Therefore, the only philosophical question worth asking is whether to commit suicide today or tomorrow.
Now, you may say what kind of depraved mentality this is? But actually, if you just look at the naked reality of life, distress can attack us in so many different ways. And why should we live? Life has so much suffering in it that we need some sense of meaning to make that suffering worthwhile. And especially in the modern or you could say in the postmodern times, where all grand narratives are neglected, rejected.
There is no God, there is no other world. Why should I go through all this life? So, existence is suffering. This is a defining reality.
Now, we might number ourselves to this reality by many, many distractions, entertainment or even our occupations. And but that remains the reality. That existence is suffering.
Now, the impure knowledge or you could say impure in the contaminated or diluted is that, okay, existence is suffering. But by various material means, you can mitigate that suffering. So, material means could be, oh, you, you, you worship God.
There is dharma, artha, kama. And moksha comes gradually. So, you worship God and then you will have a good life.
God will bless you with wealth. God will bless you with good family and you will live happily. That’s a good life.
Now, yes, certainly, worshipping God and living religiously is much better than rejecting God and living irreligiously. Definitely, no doubt. But still, ultimately, whether we are religious or irreligious, death doesn’t discriminate.
Death takes everyone away. So, the religious scriptures which talk about how by, by living religiously, you can live happily in this world. They are, the Bhagavatam says, they are, they are diluted.
So, the Bhagavatam doesn’t do this. It’s Amal Purana means it doesn’t say that you worship God and you’ll be happy in this world. Now, of course, by worshipping God, we will be happier than what we would be otherwise.
But that doesn’t mean, it’s like, just because we are happier doesn’t mean we are happy. Just because somebody is very sick and they are healthier than what they were earlier, doesn’t mean they are healthy. So, life has lots of distresses.
And this is not a pessimistic view of life. It is a realistic view of life. And this is not, again, as we move forward, it’s not meant to create gloom and doom.
But the idea is the Bhagavatam does not varnish the truth. And there is a contextual as well as an eternal reason for this. The contextual reason is that Bhagavatam is spoken to Parikshit Maharaj, who has decided to embrace death now.
That has come and he is not trying to counter it. So, then for that purpose, it’s told to him, don’t, don’t distract yourself. Just focus on transcendence.
Focus on the world beyond. And Bhagavatam says how? It is only by worshipping the Lord, by making ourselves attached to the one who exists beyond the bad and beyond the good of the world, that we can get relief from the world, that we can get release from the world. So, this pure knowledge that ultimately this world has to be transcended, no material means can improve things in this world.
Dukhaushadam tadapidukham atadyaham Bhuman Brahmamivadhametavadasyayogam Another verse in the Prahlad’s prayers, which actually summarizes the nature of material existences, this one. Yasmat priya priyaviyogasanyogajanma shokagninasakalayonishuddhayamanaha That he says, we all want that which is dear to us, priya. We want the priya and that which is a priya, which is, which is unlikable, we want to be away from it.
We want union with the likable and we want separation from the unlikable. But life does the opposite. We have union with the unlikable and separation from the likable.
And because of this, we are all in distress. Dukhaushadam tadapidukham atadyaham Bhuman Brahmamivadhametavadasyayam But the worst thing is, when there is union with the likable, that often causes even greater distress. When we get what we want and we get attached to it and then we lose it.
The story of Chitraketu and Harshashoka is that he got a son and then he lost even greater distress. Dukhaushadam tadapidukham atadyaham Bhuman Brahmamivadhametavadasyayam Therefore, this is Prahlad playing the Narasimhadev. My dear lord, I have wandered in this material existence for a long time, trying to get the likable, trying to avoid the unlikable, but now I understood it is pointless.
So now, please instruct me, how can I serve you? So amidst the likable, the unlikable, whatever it is, I want to serve you. Vadhametavadasyayogam And that is the same mood of the Bhagavatam. So it’s amala in the sense that now it’s pure, it’s uncontaminated, it’s undiluted.
Now, most people will not be able to take this undiluted. So existence is suffering. I can’t accept that.
It’s not true. Yeah, it’s not always true. But eventually existence gravitates towards more and more suffering.
As we grow old, as we get deceased and ultimately as we die. So this is not so. So for those who cannot take that, then there are scriptures which dilute the dose.
And they say, yeah, you do this, your life will be better. You do this, your life will be better. And yes, it will be better.
But unless one is devoting oneself to God, there is no ultimate solution. This is a pure amalam. And then the second line was, so what are the acronyms we’re discussing? So, pure understanding of renunciation and ecstasy.
Yes, thank you. So, the first line is pure. Srimad Bhagavatam Puranam Amalam Vaishnavanam Priyam.
Second line is Yasmin Paramhamsam Ekam Amalam Param Ekam Amalam Gyanam Param Giyate. That, this is the knowledge that is cherished and sung by the Paramhamsa. This is their understanding.
Now, Paramhamsa is a term that describes human nature by drawing a metaphor from nature. So, Hamsa is a swan. And the swan is a special bird which can take the milk, separate the milk from the water.
So, you get a contaminated thing and just take out the milk, leave the water. So, Paramhamsas are those who can similarly take the milk out of the water of the material world. So, what is the milk here? Milk is the absolute truth.
Milk is Krishna. So, again, it’s not said that the world is to be rejected. The world, we have to see how the world can take us to Krishna.
How the world can become a path for us to Krishna. So, we don’t accept the world, but through the world, we accept Krishna. If we accept the world, we stay in the world.
But if through the world, we accept Krishna, we see Krishna through the world, then we go toward Krishna. So, that is the knowledge that the Bhagavatam gives us. Paramhamsam ekamamalam jnanam param jiyate.
So, the Bhagavatam, if you’ll see, although it is a world transcending book in its ultimate purpose, but it also uses the world as a tool for meditation. And broadly speaking, there are three sections of the Bhagavatam which give three different visions of the world as a tool to the Lord, to the source of the world. In the second canto, there is a description of the universal form.
The third canto, there is the teaching of Sankhya, which Kapila gives to his mother, Devahuti. And the fifth canto, there is cosmology. Now, all these, if you look at the beginning and the end of these sections, it’s all, not the specifics are important.
The purpose is important. That the whole idea is envision the whole universe to be like a body of the Lord. And by that, what will happen? When you look at the universe, you can think of the Lord.
So, that is, the chapter over there is called the first step in God realization. Why? Because, over there, most people think of bigness in terms of big size. Somebody is very wealthy and they’re living in a small apartment.
Are they really wealthy? See, they should be living in a big house. So, when God is big, people think of that bigness in terms of size. Universe is his body.
The mountains are his bones. The rivers are like his blood vessels. The lakes are like the, like the water in his navel or the pores from his body.
The sweat coming from the pores of his body. Like that, there are various visions given. Now, this is, this is more a conceptualization.
There is no such place called Virat Roop Loka. There is no place where the universal form resides. But it’s a conceptualization.
When we see the world, instead of forgetting the Lord while looking at the world, we see the world and see the Lord in the world. So, this is a first level meditation. Just look at the big things in the world and be reminded of the biggest being in the world.
Now, another way of looking at the world is to deconstruct the world, to analyze the world. So, what is this world made up of? That is done through the 24 elements analysis in Sankhya. But again, the purpose is, after we analyze the world, we understand that there is all this world which, why do we need to analyze or deconstruct? The purpose is, the purpose is to de-romanticize the world.
We have a romanticized idea of this world is such a wonderful place, this world is such an attractive place. So, but actually, ultimately, no matter how attractive something looks, it is just made of earth, water, fire, air, ether. If there is a delicious halwa, I hope there is no halwa after the program.
I don’t want to spoil your relishing of that halwa. Of course, it’s not just halwa, it’s Krishna manifesting, it’s Krishna Prasad manifesting as halwa. But if instead of halwa, if we see a delicacy like halwa, dessert, our mouth, our tongue might water.
But if somebody gives us some grain and some sugar and a stove and a pan, our mouth will not start watering. If we are hungry, probably our eyes will start watering. When will I get some food? Isn’t it? So, when we consider a thing in terms of its components, we deconstruct it, its charm goes away.
So, the world looks very attractive, but it’s analyzing the world in terms of its elements is a way of deconstructing it. So, of de-romanticizing it. But it’s not just to de-romanticize and it is ultimately to also divinize it.
That actually all these elements, they themselves may not be attractive, but they come from the Supreme. So, this is the understanding that you look at the world, but you remember the Lord. These things may look attractive, but they are just a combination of stuff and that stuff comes from the Lord.
So, the third meditation is on the cosmos. When many people, they look at the sky, they look at the stars. Where did all this come from? How magnificent this is! So, now, how the cosmos can be a tool for us to meditate on the Lord.
There have been, in Indian tradition itself, there have been many different models of the universe. The Jyotisha Shastras have a different model of the universe. The Bhagavatam has a different model of the universe.
And our Acharyas never had a conflict between them. It’s only the Bhagavatam is right and Jyotisha is wrong. So, ultimately, reality is very complex.
All that we can get is models of reality. So, science also offers us one model of reality. The point is, the Bhagavatam talks about the whole universe in a way to describe how dharma and devotion pervade the universe.
In this loka, these people are there, they are worshipping. That loka, those people are there, they are worshipping. That loka, they are worshipping.
So, the idea is, this whole universe, when you look at the stars, it’s just beautiful. You understand that everywhere there is the Lord and worship is going on. Now, Prabhupada was asked once that, is there life on other planets? And Prabhupada said, obviously.
Why would Krishna waste so much space? Now, through science, what we can say is that life as we know it has not yet been discovered on other planets. But we are not, life as we know it is not the only life that exists or that can exist. But anyway, the point is, this is the understanding, pure understanding.
So, pure is the idea that ultimately we have to transcend the world. But the understanding, we don’t just reject the world, but we connect the world in various ways with the Lord. And that’s why the devotees, because even the devoted are also living in this world.
So, Paramahamsas are those who take the milk from the water. So, like that, they take Krishna from the world. You look at the world, but don’t just look at the world.
Look at Krishna through the world. That is the second line. Third line now talks about is, So, renunciation.
We often talk about Yukta Vairagya. Now, Yukta Vairagya is very good at engaged renunciation. But we cannot really have Yukta Vairagya without having some Vairagya.
If you want to engage the world in Krishna’s service, engage worldly things in Krishna’s service, that’s good. But we have to have some attachment to Krishna and we have to have some detachment from the world. You may say, I want to engage the world in Krishna’s service.
But if you’re not careful, the world will engage in Maya’s service. So, we have to look at our Adhikar, at our level and then function accordingly. So, a certain amount of renunciation is required.
Now, how does renunciation come about? There is a difference between frustration and renunciation. I gave a whole class on how aversion to commitment is not detachment. Aversion to commitment is not detachment.
There are three modes. There is tamas, rajas and sattva, ignorance, passion and goodness. So, in passion, there is attachment.
I want this and I want to enjoy it. So, say one person gets attached to somebody else and then they want to have a relationship and have some happiness in that. Now, detachment would mean they’re not so obsessed with anyone, not so infatuated with someone.
So, basically detachment is when we understand that this, there is no real happiness in it or if there is any pleasure, it’s not worth the trouble. The trouble is more than the pleasure. So, that gives detachment.
Now, so detachment or renunciation, you could say. That is when I understand that the pleasure is not worth the trouble. But when there is frustration, so you consider aversion to commitment.
Aversion to commitment is where it’s not that there is no pleasure here. There are so many options for pleasure and I don’t know which to choose. So, I’ll keep all the doors open.
So, that is not detachment. That is not detachment at all. That is, that is such an attachment that you cannot even decide what you are attached to.
So, similarly, the difference between renunciation and frustration is everybody gets frustrated in life. Why? Because life is frustrating. That things don’t work out the way we want them to work out.
Now, when this frustration comes, what do we do? The Bhagavatam gives us a vision of how great souls responded. Now, bhakti is very good in the sense that anyone, any way they are practicing bhakti, that is good. But if somebody has vairagya while practicing bhakti, then that bhakti can move forward steadily.
We are too attached to the world, then our devotion gets shaken when there are any storms in the world. So, what the Bhagavatam shows is, throughout its various stories, that how great souls were greatly devoted. One of the themes of the Bhagavatam is Parikshit lived very virtuously.
But there are souls who were far more virtuous and devoted than him. And even they suffered. So, sometimes you can try to find a specific cause.
Why is this happening? But sometimes we have to just accept the generic cause. This is the nature of the world. It’s the nature of the world and we just make the best out of it.
Now, for example, recently there was this hurricane. Hurricane was there. You can try to find out why did this hurricane come over here? Well, okay, you can try to find out maybe this atmospheric imbalance over here and this air pressure and because of that came.
But ultimately, if a particular place is prone to that, it’s prone to that. I was in New Zealand and I was giving a class and suddenly everybody started shaking. I said, what? I noticed I was also shaking.
I said, what happened? He said, earthquake. Earthquake? My heart started quaking. Everybody was cool.
He said, no, once or twice a week we have earthquakes here. Really? Because most of them are so small, they’re so weak that nobody notices them also. Sometimes you just barely notice them.
So, now what is happening, something is just the way it is, you accept it and you live with it. So, well, what the Bhagavatam does is, Virag Saitam. Oh, Parikshit, something similar has happened to many, many people in the past also.
So, this is the nature of the world. Don’t get too caught in specifics. There are times to look at specifics.
Why did this person speak like this? What did I do that made this person do like this? So, sometimes you have to analyze and learn. But sometimes there’s just nothing to learn over there. Just things have gone wrong and that’s it.
So, then we just have to, we don’t learn about that specific interaction, but we learn about the generic nature of the world. And Virag, some amount of detachment comes up. The Bhagavatam stories are very much intended to infuse detachment.
So, got a third thing, renunciation. The acronym is pure understanding for renunciation and ecstasy. Now, all this might seem very, as I said, very pessimistic.
It’s very gloom inducing, you know, life is suffering, everybody has suffered. It’s not that. That is not the message of the Bhagavatam.
The message of the Bhagavatam is a message of hope and joy. And that is described in the last line. So, when we hear the Bhagavatam and contemplate in the Bhagavatam, then what happens? By that paro bhaktya, devotion to the Supreme Lord comes up.
The idea is that, yes, this world is a place of distress, but beyond this world is the Lord of the world. And he’s not just beyond this world, he’s also within our hearts. He’s in this world with us.
And we are meant to direct our heart toward him. So, the overall theme of the Bhagavatam, if you want to summarize in one sentence, it would be that greater than the world’s power to hurt is Krishna’s power to heal. Parikshit Maharaj is hurt.
At the body level, there is no redemption, no release from that. But the power to heal, Krishna raises his consciousness upwards. So, now, Krishna is always there in our hearts, but we can’t experience him because we are too caught with the world.
We are too caught. This will make me happy, that will make me happy, that will make me happy. Now, of course, we have to do our responsibilities and certain situations are definitely much better than other situations.
So, if we can make some changes, we should. But we don’t have to invest all our hopes and our attention in that. We focus on the turning our consciousness toward the Lord.
To the extent we do that, to that extent, the Bhagavatam reveals a vision of God, which is extremely loving and lovable. So, God is talked about in different traditions, in different ways. The Bhagavatam also, what it does, this is a, actually, I have a whole series of seminars on the structure of the Bhagavatam.
So, one I talked about how, it’s vision of the world. In others, it’s vision of God. So, first of all, God is like the universal form.
Then God, you have these huge or strange incarnations. You have Varaha, you have Narasimha, you have all these incarnations. But as the Bhagavatam moves forward, its depiction of divinity also becomes more and more intimate and endearing.
So, Ram is again a very personal manifestation of God. And beyond that is Krishna. Krishna is the most intimate.
Why is he the most intimate? Because in Krishna as God, there are none of the symbols of Godhood overtly there. So, God conceals his Godhood, so that love can reign supreme. The Bhagavatam depicts God as a vulnerable child, as a vulnerable child who runs in fear from his mother, whose mother fears, oh, if I don’t feed this child, he will die.
There is, basically, when we are to know God, there are two aspects of God to be known, his greatness and his sweetness. His greatness brings, knowing the greatness about someone brings submission. Say, suppose, you know, you have some devotee with you, you are discussing and there are some Bhagavatam words.
You may say, it means this. And that devotee says, this means this. And you are discussing, discussing and it’s going on.
And then suddenly somebody tells you, actually, that devotee is not just another devotee. That devotee has studied the Bhagavatam for last 35 years. I have done Bhakti Shastra, Bhakti Vaibhava, Bhakti Sarvam.
Oh, really? Maybe I should hear them submissively. So, knowing the greatness brings submission. And knowing the sweetness brings affection.
And devotion requires both submission and affection. So, now, how do we experience the sweetness of someone? It’s just, they may be sweet to talk with, sweet to deal with. That’s one way of submission.
That’s one way of sweetness. But a very endearing way when sweetness comes into a relationship, and this is the way we all can practice. If there is coldness in any relationship, and you want warmth, you want sweetness, it is by exhibiting vulnerability.
Vulnerability is a very great power which often we don’t tap. The world is a tough place. And it’s cruelly competitive.
And any weakness in anyone will be exploited by others. So, most of us cover our weaknesses. And to some extent, we put on a mask in front of the world.
And actually, the heaviest burden is not what is carried on the back. It is what is carried on the face. Often the mask that we put on is the heaviest burden.
But this burden can become completely exhausting. And we need some people with whom we can be ourselves. We can put down the mask.
So, imagine there is some very big, powerful person, and they always solve everyone’s problems. Any problem, you do this, you do this, you do that, they fix it. And then we also have seen them in that mood, always fixing problems.
But then, say one day, they tell me, actually this problem is there, I am very worried about this. I don’t know what to do about it. Now, if we are like, we simply have an idealized conception of them, where we treat them, we are like a fan of them.
Then what happens is, we think, oh, I thought you were perfect, you are not perfect. I thought you know everything. We might be disillusioned.
But if they tell it like this, actually, it indicates a certain level of trust. If somebody is telling I have some problems, what does it indicate? That person trusts us and that’s why they are lowering their mask before us. And then we also feel, oh, you trust me so much, then I will try to be worthy of that trust.
I will reciprocate. Generally, if you want to come close to people, it’s not just by how much time we spend, but it’s by how much we put down our masks. So, here the same principle is applied by God.
Although God is supreme and invulnerable, in every relationship, relationships have various dimensions to them. We want to feel respected in the relationship. We want to feel loved, cherished in the relationship.
But there’s another need, we want to feel needed in the relationship. We want to feel needed. If we don’t feel needed, if we feel redundant, a person might respect us.
But if we don’t feel needed, then we feel that relationship is not fulfilling. So, similarly, Krishna, he wants his devotees to relish the full spectrum of emotions that are there in relationships. And he wants his devotees to feel needed.
And that’s why he puts down his mask. Of course, for him, it’s not a mask. He is God.
But you could say he puts on a mask. That’s why it’s Yogamaya. Yogamaya is the illusion that increases devotion.
Normally, the illusion decreases devotion. But this is the illusion that increases devotion. So, he plays a role, he assumes a form where he acts vulnerable.
And when he acts vulnerable in this way, that captures the devotee’s heart. So, Yashoda thinks of Krishna constantly because even when he’s not there, she’s thinking, if I don’t feed him, he’ll fall sick. He may even die.
So, how can I feed him the most nutritious food? So, this vision of God, who loves to be loved, who longs for not the reverence of people, but the intimacy of people. That is such an endearing vision of God that if we can understand, if we can appreciate it, we cannot but become captivated by it. So, this is the revelation of God that the Bhagavatam takes us towards.
And we heal the vila of Krishna with this understanding of how God loves us so much. He wants to be loved and he wants us to enter into his intimate sweet circle of love. Then, our attraction to the Lord will increase.
And the more the attraction to the Lord increases, the more the detachment from the world will come up. And that’s how we will attain life’s perfection. We’ll become absorbed in the Lord.
And in a sense, Parikshit Maharaj left home when he was, when he was cursed and he went to the banks of the Ganga. But at the time of death, a devotee doesn’t leave home. A devotee goes home.
Home is not just the place, it’s a physical structure. Home is the place where those whom we love stay. So, for a devotee, devotee loves the Lord the most.
And Parikshit Maharaj left home to go home. And that journey of leaving home for going home, leaving the temporary home for going to the eternal home, that journey is the journey of Shrimad Bhagavatam. And we all are on that journey at different stages.
We might be inside our door, just peeping inside our home, just peeping out of a window. What else is there outside? Or we might have opened the door and started on that journey. And we are all at different stages and the Bhagavatam can empower us, empower us with detachment and ecstasy.
Ecstasy because we understand how sweet, how absorbed the Lord is. Ecstasy is not just how high somebody dances in kirtan. That’s nice.
But ecstasy is also how much one is absorbed. And that absorption is so overwhelmingly pulling the person that he just transcends the world. So, our Acharya described that through the external vision, a snake came and bit Parikshit Maharaj and his body exploded in fire.
So, the snake bite became like the natural funeral pyre for him. But Parikshit Maharaj had already left the body. By absorption in Krishna, he had already left the body.
So, what was burnt was not Parikshit Maharaj. His soul had already gone. So, actually, did Krishna, the same Krishna who protected Parikshit in his mother’s womb, why would that Krishna not protect Parikshit at the time of death? He did protect, but just in a different way.
He protected by releasing his soul from the body before the body got destroyed. And that is what the Srimad Bhagavatam offers to each one of us. If we learn to treasure and cherish the Srimad Bhagavatam, not just by worshipping it, not just by keeping it in our home, by gifting it to others, but by ourselves studying it, by appreciating its special, devotionally potent message, then it can infuse detachment and devotion in all our hearts and it can make our journey through life less stormy and eventually more successful, more successful.
Because the Bhagavatam will unite us with Krishna. So, I’ll summarize. I spoke on the theme of what is the speciality of the Srimad Bhagavatam based on one of the last five, six verses in the Bhagavatam where the glory of the Bhagavatam is talked about.
So, I talked in terms of an acronym. What is that? Pure. Pure understanding for renunciation and ecstasy.
So, if a book has been preserved for thousands of years, it must have had some value for the people who preserved it. So, what was that value? Rather than discussing the old fashioned or irrelevant books, we need to understand its value. And that value, especially for the Bhagavatam is that not why do bad things happen to good people, but when bad things happen to good people, what do good people do? So, pure means it is not contaminated or not diluted.
So, most scriptures, they dilute the truth that the world is a place of distress. And they give contaminated solutions that, okay, you do this, things will be better, you do that, things will be better. And they can be better, but they don’t offer an ultimate solution.
The Bhagavatam says, no, this world is dukkhalaya and we have to transcend the world. And often the solutions become bigger problems than the problem themselves. So, rather than wandering in the world, trying to avoid the unlikable and gain the likable, focus on the transcendental.
And that was pure. And understanding was, this is not just like a frustrated rejection of the world. Rather, it’s a philosophical contemplation on the world to go beyond the world.
So, param jiyate, param hamsin, it is a knowledge for the pure devotees who, like the swan, take the milk from the water. So, similarly, the Bhagavatam helps us to see God in the world. So, we don’t reject the world, but we go through the world to God.
I talked about three things in the Bhagavatam. The second canto, universal form, for those who think of God in terms of greatness, just think of him as the whole universe is his body. Then for those who are maybe too captivated by the world or those who are analytical, deconstruct the world into its elements so that it loses its captivating potency and then see all those elements as coming from God to again divinize the world.
And then, those who look at the universe, to give a model of the universe that can tell us how dharma and devotion pervade the whole world, whole universe, whole existence, in fact. And thus, how we can also become devoted. And then, R was renunciation.
Renunciation means that we may all practice bhakti, but unless there is some amount of renunciation, there won’t be much stability in bhakti. We talked about how the difference between frustration and renunciation. Frustration is inability to enjoy.
Renunciation is disinterest in enjoying. And aversion to commitment is not attachment. So, renunciation means our shelter is not in Krishna.
But all this might seem very world-negating and life-denying. But the Bhagavatam is essentially life-affirming because it reveals such an endearing conception of God at the Vibhag. That Shunvan Supatant, that when we study and meditate on it, then what happens? Bhakti Paro, the supreme devotion, the ecstasy comes up.
Why? I talked about it. It gives such a lovable conception of God that God, who is the supreme invulnerable, exhibits vulnerability so that he can have intimacy. And when we understand how lovable Krishna is, by cherishing the past tense, the Bhagavatam, we become absorbed in him.
And thus, we can go beyond this world. And at the time of death, Parikshit Maharaj did not leave home. Or rather, he left home to go home.
And that is the journey on which Bhagavatam guides all of us. Bhagavatam reassures us that the world will hurt us. But greater than the world’s power to hurt is Krishna’s power to heal.
Thank you very much. Krantaraj Srimad Bhagavatam Ki Jai! Bhadrapurnima Mahamotsav Ki Jai! Do we have few minutes for questions? Any questions? So, he had a question yesterday. I’ll answer that.
It is said that on Bhadrapurnima, if we give a Bhagavatam and a golden throne to someone, then we will attain the spiritual world. We will become liberated. We will attain Krishna Prima.
So, how do we understand this promise? So, is it that anybody who gives a Bhagavatam, they don’t know, what does it mean? They didn’t chant Hare Krishna, didn’t know his sadhana has failures, automatically go back to Krishna? Not like that. See, there is scriptural promises. There is one way of taking it entirely literally.
And the other is to take it entirely poetically as exaggeration. Literally, this is what has been promised. This is what has to happen.
And then why is this not happening? Why is this not happening? So, we might have that question and take it. Oh, it’s all these people just exaggerated things. And this person, no, it’s actually neither entirely literal nor is it entirely hyperbolic.
Hyperbolic. It is what? These promises indicate the magnitude of Krishna’s mercy. The eager, the promises are expressions of the heart of Krishna as manifested through his devotees.
And they are possibilities that Krishna can be this merciful. But that day, whenever the Lord speaks with the heart, if somebody with great affection, they say, no, I love you so much. I will do anything for you.
And the next person says, OK, put all your estate and property in my name now. What? No, that will be complete rasabhas. Isn’t it? You’re expressing affection over there.
And somebody, so when somebody is expressing affection and the other person does calculation. So then you don’t have proper reciprocation over there. So the promises are expressions of the Lord’s heart.
And they should be reciprocated with our heart. A compassionate heart and a calculated, a calculative head. That is a rasabhas.
So a compassionate, when the Lord’s compassionate heart manifests, our repentant heart should manifest. Our devoted heart should manifest. What that means is that this is the extent to which the Lord can be merciful.
If you look at the mood of the Bhagavatam itself, you know, there are so many places Parikshit Maharaj is told by Sukhdev Goswami, that those, if you hear the story of the killing of Putana, then you get love of Krishna. Or somebody who just chants, like the Ajamil story, you just chant the name of the Lord once, you’ll get liberated from all sins. Now Parikshit Maharaj doesn’t say, hey, why am I sitting down for seven days and hearing Bhagavatam? I’ll just chant once.
That’s not his mood. His mood, and the Acharya Sukhdev Goswami’s own mood is that, for example, if you consider the Ajamil pastime, there, in that pastime, Ajamil just chants once and he is saved from the Yamadutas. Now what is Sukhdev Goswami’s lesson over there? What he says is, just see how potent the name of the Lord is.
That if somebody chants even once and not even intending to chant the Lord’s name, if they are so much benefited, if we chant diligently, and Prabhupada’s purpose is, if we chant diligently lifelong, surely we will be delivered. So the mood of a devotee is not that the devotee demands the literal fulfillment of every promise in the scripture. The devotee says, this is possible, the Lord can do it.
But devotion means a devotee doesn’t demand from the Lord. Rather, a devotee commits to the Lord. Devotee devotes oneself to the Lord.
So if we are demanding from the Lord, then we are demanders. We are not really devotees. So which is also okay, at least come to the Lord instead of going anywhere else.
But a devotee’s mood is that this is the extent to which the mercy can come. Therefore, let me follow the process. And so, if we help Krishna in the form of the Bhagavatam to come in our own house or to someone else’s house, then that’s a remarkable step forward in their spiritual journey.
And if we have been a part of that, Krishna will help us, Krishna will bless us profusely. Now, how exactly will he bless us? That the souls, none of this. Now, if Krishna makes his promise, why can’t he fulfill this promise? Then why do you say it’s only a possibility? It’s not a necessity.
This is where we have to understand that Krishna is the supreme controller. But Krishna is not the sole controller. He is the Parameshwar, but we are also Ishwara.
We are also controllers and controllers means we all have free will. So, no scriptural promise can override our free will. Our free will is like an inviolable reality.
Even God does not violate anyone’s free will. So, if somebody gives a Bhagavatam and then they go back to Krishna’s abode and in Krishna’s abode they will ask, what’s happening between India and Pakistan now? Or they will ask, what is the latest baseball score? Or what is happening here? What is happening there? If our interest is in this world, even if we go to Krishna’s abode, there everybody is interested in Krishna. So, we will get bored over there.
So, we have to develop our attachment to Krishna. So, it’s not that Krishna doesn’t want to fulfill his promise, but Krishna doesn’t override our free will. So, now it can happen that if you just give one Bhagavatam and we are enriched, our heart is enriched with devotion to Krishna, then that will take us toward Krishna.
That one act can also take us toward Krishna if our heart is enriched with devotion. Even if Krishna is not the only desire of our heart, if our desire for Krishna is stronger than our desire for anything else in this world, that also will take us to Krishna. But that strengthening our desire for Krishna is something we have to do.
Now, when we give a Bhagavatam to the Lord, what happens to the Bhagavatam to someone? Two things happen. The Lord reveals his attractiveness more and more to us. So that if we want to, we can become more attracted.
And the Lord also, you could say, decreases the force of our conditions or decreases the lure of the world. And then you don’t get so captivated by it. So, the Lord can help us make the better choice.
But it is for us to choose. And when we do any potent devotional activity, the Lord makes the wiser choice easier. But still it is for us to make that choice.
Thank you. So, are Krishna’s promises like a bank lock where you need two keys also? So, Krishna’s mercy as well as our endeavor. Yeah, that’s a good example.
There are so many promises in scripture. Let’s look at some of them. Let’s look at one promise which Krishna repeats in the Bhagavad Gita.
Or rather, one verse which he repeats which also has the same promise. 9.34 and 18.65. So, 9.34 is manmana bhava mad-bhakto madhyaji mam namaskuru mam evaiśyasi yuktvayivam ātmānāṁ mad-parāyanaḥ So, Krishna is saying, manmana bhava mad-bhakto. These four standard things.
Fix your mind on me, give your heart to me, offer your worship, bow down to me and offer your homage to me. And if you do this, mam evaiśyasi yuktvayivam, if you are engaged in this way, then ātmānāṁ mad-parāyanaḥ, with your whole being devoted to me, then you will attain, mam evaiśyasi. So, here there is a promise, mam evaiśyasi, but the stress is yuktvayivam ātmānāṁ.
Do all this and through all this, you offer your whole being to me. Be engaged in me. That’s the stress over there.
If you consider 1865, what is happening there? manmana bhava mad-bhakto madhyaji mam namaskuru mam evaiśyasi satyam te pratijāne priyosine It says, the first half is the same. You will come to me, that promise is also same. But here Krishna is moving in assurance, satyam te.
Really you will come to me, I assure you this is the truth. Why? Because pratijāne priyosine, declared to you that you are very dear to me. So, what is the difference between these two verses? See, it’s a difference in stress.
So, for example, I will come to your place tomorrow, if I say that. Now, if I say, I will come to your place tomorrow. I will come to your place tomorrow.
So, in one case it’s will, that is the emphasis. In another case, I will come to you. But in the next case, not today, tomorrow.
So, there can be different emphasis. So, in the first 934, what is the emphasis? Krishna says, suppose we are signing a deal. You know, say, if we are selling our house to someone and then you say, you know, you have to fill this form, you have to give this deal, you have to give this much money.
If you do this, then if you do this, this, this, then I’ll give this house to you. I’ll give the keys to you. I’ll sign the deal in your name.
Now, imagine if we are desperate to sell the house. Then what will happen? You will say, no, if you do this, this, then I will do this, I will do this. So, what is happening? In the first part, Krishna is emphasizing what we need to do.
In that 934. In 1865, what Krishna is doing? Krishna is emphasizing what I will do. If you do this, I promise you I’ll do it.
So, in a sense, Krishna is becoming desperate with compassion. He says, don’t turn away, don’t lose this opportunity. I promise you I’ll do this.
So, Krishna is also eager for us to come to him. So, yes, as I said, God helps those who help themselves. So, we have to help ourselves at least in a small way by trying to turn toward him, by trying to develop our desire for him.
So, the scriptural promises, they indicate how eager the Lord is for us to come to him. So, if the activity, basically, whenever we do any devotional activity, like we hear the pastime of Krishna killing Putana or whatever, then sometimes this activity is an expression of devotion. You already have so much devotion, you express it by hearing about the Lord, by worshipping the Lord.
Or sometimes it is an expression of our desire for devotion. I’m not attracted right now. I don’t feel my heart overflowing with love, but I want this.
I’ll do this. So, if the particular devotional activity that we are doing is an expression of our devotion, then the promise can come upon us immediately. But right now, when we do the devotional activity also, it’s an expression of our desire for devotion.
Imaam Icchaatum Dhananjaya. Krishna says in 12.9 that if we keep doing sadhana bhakti, chittam samadhatam nashaknosi maisthiram abhyas yogi, to maam icchaatum dhananjaya, our desire for him will become stronger. When that happens, then we all will move closer and closer to him.
Is the Lord set? Is it given to the Lord? Is the attraction toward the Lord something which we can achieve by our endeavor? Or is it something the Lord bestows? It’s not necessarily digital logic that this or that. It is this and that. Our endeavor is important.
The idea is that if we have a little attraction, we need to act on that little attraction, whatever it is. And the more we fan that attraction, the more it will grow. And we might take small, small steps towards Krishna.
That’s also important. But Krishna can take giant steps towards us. That means by our practice of bhakti, by acting on whatever little attraction we have, we become attracted to him.
That attraction increases. But by that process, when the Lord is pleased, he reveals his attractiveness much more. So it’s a cumulative, it’s a combined process.
Like there is this old question, what came first, the egg or the chicken? Now, of course, we are vegetarians. But one way of answering this question is you begin with whatever you have. If you have a chicken, you begin with the chicken.
If you have an egg, you begin with the egg. So this is does our attraction to the Lord come first or does the Lord’s revelation by which his beauty is revealed come first? We have to practice bhakti. So begin with whatever you have.
So how does the impure mean contaminated and diluted both? So especially how does it mean contaminated? OK. So generally we use the word contaminated in the sense that something that shouldn’t be present is present only. So something is that with respect to say, if we consider that the Bhagavatam says that Paramashraya, the supreme auspiciousness is parabhakti, is pure devotion to the Lord.
Now, the Bhagavatam may also talk about something which is less than pure devotion. That is devotion that is diluted. That means, OK, even if you cannot make God the supreme love, you can make, you can have some other love.
You can have, but also love God. Akamah sarvakamohva mokshakamodarati. Tevren bhakti yogena yajet purushampar.
That is, you could say, it’s diluted in the sense that the full dose of serious practice, even if it is not there, or you could put it another way, that diluted is where you cannot practice intense bhakti. It’s focused devotion to the Lord. But contaminated means that there are other things, there are not just pure motive, but there are ulterior motives.
I’m worshipping God so that I’ll get this, so that I’ll get that. So if we are doing some service, say, if I’m giving a class, now the pure motive would be I just want to glorify Krishna. The contaminated motive could be that I want people to praise how clever I am or how devoted I am or whatever.
Now, in this case, the way to pure devotion is through contaminated devotion. We can’t start. How can we start purely? We need to first develop a relationship, then we can develop a pure relationship.
So contaminated is not in the sense that contaminated water cannot be touched. It’s not like that. In this case, because the contaminations are there in our hearts.
So let’s say the Bhagavatam also talks about bhakti in the three modes, goodness, passion, ignorance. So we cannot suddenly come towards bhakti in transcendence as long as the modes are dominating our consciousness. So it’s a gradual progression.
So contaminated means there are other motives. Diluted means there is not that seriousness. So either way, if it is there, that’s OK.
We’ll come from either from dilution, we’ll come to concentration or from contamination, we come to purification also. OK. Why has Krishna given us free will? It causes so much suffering.
Well, most of you probably have children. Do your children always listen to you? No. But have you ever desired instead of a child, let me have a robot? Should simply act according to my program.
You wouldn’t want that, isn’t it? Actually, it is just a robot. There will be no love over there. You might treat it like a pet toy or something.
But love requires the voluntarily choosing. And sometimes if you think about it, when we love someone, it is not just in spite of their weaknesses or defects. It is also because of their defects.
Now, we can all think of, say, if we could temporarily play God and we could re-engineer our child to remove all weaknesses. So, OK, the child is a little tall. You make them like a giant.
A child is a little weak. Make them the next bodybuilder. Make Mr. Universe or whatever.
Or if that person is not so bright, make them next Albert Einstein. Not that good looking. Make them like a Bollywood or Hollywood star.
Now, if you remove all that is, you could say, all inadequacies from the person, actually they become completely perfect and they don’t need you. It is vulnerability that creates lovability. It is that, now this I am talking about in terms of attributes, but the same principle applies to free will.
It is that the free presence of free will is what makes love possible. It is free will also means, like I talked some inabilities I talked about, but free will also means that somebody makes some wrong choices and then we guide them towards making the right choices. That’s the process of education.
Sometimes education proceeds smoothly. Sometimes it doesn’t proceed that smoothly. But that’s what life is.
So it’s a free will that makes love possible. And if Krishna had not given us free will, then you could, I give this example that Krishna is a supreme parent. Just as we would not want a robot as a child, Krishna also doesn’t want a robot for his children.
So he wants us to love him. And yes, we have to go through the process of sometimes misusing our free will. But misuse of a thing does not make the thing bad.
It is the misuse that is bad. And yes, because currently we have conditioning, so we tend to misuse the free will. But as we practice bhakti and become purified, it is we who will be, when we learn to love Krishna, it is we who will be experiencing the ecstasy.
And if we had no free will, then there would not be ecstasy also. It’s when we consciously choose to invest our consciousness in Krishna, that we get that absorption, that devotion, that ecstasy. But if we are robots, then no ecstasy again.
Just mechanically doing what we are programmed to do. So it is out of his love for us and out of his desire that we love us, that he wants our love and he wants us to experience the ecstasy of love, of choosing to love him, that he gives us free will. So thank you very much.
Shri Kantaraj, Shri Madbhagavatam ki. Jai. Shrila Prabhupada ki.
Jai. Gaur Bhaktavrinda ki. Jai.
Tai Gaur Premanande. Jai Prabhu. Shri Krishna Chaitanya Prabhu ki.
Jai.