How the Bhagavatam is the means of conquest in material existence – Meditation on narayanam namaskrtya verse

[Bhagavatam class on 1.2.4 at ISKCON, Alachua, USA]

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Om Namo Bhagavate Vasudevaya Vasudevaya Om Bhagavate Vasudevaya Om Namo Bhagavate Vasudevaya Om Bhagavate Vasudevaya Om Namo Bhagavate Vasudevaya Srimad Bhagavatam Canto 1, Chapter 2 Chapter 4, the text 4, Narayanam namaskritya Naram chaiva narottamam Devim saraswatim yasam Patojaya mudhiraye Narayanam namaskritya Naram chaiva narottamam Devim saraswatim yasam Patojaya mudhiraye Narayanam namaskritya Naram chaiva narottamam Devim saraswatim yasam Patojaya mudhiraye Narayanam namaskritya Naram chaiva narottamam Devim saraswatim yasam Patojaya mudhiraye Narayanam namaskritya Devim saraswatim yasam Patojaya mudhiraye Narayanam namaskritya Naram chaiva narottamam Devim saraswatim yasam Narayanam namaskritya Naram chaiva narottamam Devim saraswatim yasam Patojaya mudhiraye Narayanam namaskritya Naram chaiva narottamam Devim saraswatim yasam Patojaya mudhiraye Narayanam The personality of Godhead Namah Srutya After offering respectful obeisances Naram chaiva And Narayan Rishi Narottamam The super most human being Devim The Goddess Saraswatim The mistress of learning Yasam Yasadev Taha Thereafter Jayam All that is meant for conquering Mudhiraye Be announced Translation purport by His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta, Swamiji Before reciting the Srimad Bhagavatam, which is the very means of conquest, one should offer respectful obeisances unto the personality of Godhead Narayan and to Nar Narayan Rishi, the super most human being and to Mother Saraswati, the Goddess of learning and to Yasadev, the author, purport.
All the Vedic literatures and the Puranas are meant for conquering the darkest region of material existence. The living being is in the state of forgetfulness of his relationship with God due to his being overly attracted to material sense gratification from time immemorial. His struggle for existence in the material world is perpetual and it is not possible for him to get out of it by making plans.
If he at all wants to conquer this perpetual struggle for existence, he must establish his eternal relation with God. And one who wants to adopt such remedial measures must take shelter of literatures such as the Vedas and Puranas. Foolish people say that the Puranas have no connection with the Vedas.
However, the Puranas are supplementary explanations of the Vedas intended for different types of men. All men are not equal. There are men who are conducted by the mode of goodness, others who are under the mode of passion and others under the mode of ignorance.
The Puranas are so divided that any class of men can take advantage of them and gradually regain their lost position and get out of the struggle for existence. Srila Suta Goswami shows the way of chanting the Puranas. This may be followed by persons who aspire to be preachers of the Vedic literature and the Puranas.
Srimad Bhagavatam is a spotless Purana and is especially meant for them who desire to get out of the material entanglement permanently. Srimad Bhagavatam is a spotless Purana and is especially meant for them who desire to get out of the material entanglement permanently. Srimad Bhagavatam is a spotless Purana I’m grateful to be here.
I’d love to speak of the Lord Sri Radhasananda Krishna Balram and seek the blessings of all the Srila Vaishnavas that I can speak something on this very important invocatory verse of the Bhagavatam. So I’ll speak today on the topic of what is the means of conquest. Tato Jayam Udhirayet So Ud Jayam, to conquer, Udhirayet is spoken.
So I’ll tell this in three parts. First is what is it that needs to be conquered. Second is what is the process for conquering and how does the Bhagavatam assist us in that process.
All of us, we live in a world of struggle and competition. The world itself is very competitive. Financially there is competition.
Socially there is competition. And inside us also there is conflict and competition. Krishna talks about the three modes, how they’re constantly pulling each other up and down.
So we’re sometimes reflective, sometimes impulsive, sometimes passive. Based on the goodness, passion, ignorance are affecting us. And in this process, the most important, we have so many battles to fight.
But Shri Prabhupada writes in the Seventh Canto, Parpot, that we should always keep ourselves healthy and stout in mind and intelligence to distinguish the purpose of life from a life full of problems. It’s a profound statement. To distinguish the purpose of life from a life full of problems.
What it means is that there are many, many problems and simply solving problems is not the purpose of life. Of course, when problems are there, they have to be dealt with appropriately. But life is full of problems.
The purpose of life is not to just deal with this relational issue, deal with that emotional issue, deal with that physical issue, deal with that emotional, that financial issue, deal with that national issue. Because these will keep coming. One social commentator has talked about news.
He says, what is news? He says, news is simply old things happening to new people. So, essentially, in the world, there is not much new. Everybody grows old, everybody gets deceased, and ultimately, everybody suffers and dies.
So, in that sense, there is not much new in the world. And because of that, each one of us has to find out, what is the purpose of life? What is it that is really important? What is it that counts in life? And, to the extent we recognise that, to that extent, we can focus on that. So, the Bhagavatam tells us that, ultimately, we have to transcend material existence.
In fact, the Bhagavatam’s main story is of, or the main context of the story, is in two ways. We could say, both of them are pessimistic. In one way.
Kali Yuga is coming, and it is the age of Kali. It can’t be stopped. That is the outer storyline, that outer setting for the storyline.
Chhuta Goswami is speaking to sages, who are concerned about the effects of Kali. And then the second setting is, Parikshit is being addressed by Chhuta Goswami. And Parikshit Maharaj is cursed to die.
So, the degradation at a social level caused by Kali, and the destruction at the physical level, that is going to befall Parikshit Maharaj. Both of these are considered to be unavoidable. And, what is the point of anything? If we had some movie in which, at the beginning it was, the hero is cursed to die in seven days.
And then usually, most movies, they centre on the idea of a great escape. At the last moment, in the nick of time, the person escapes. But suppose at the end of the movie, the hero dies.
What is the point of the movie? So, the point of the Bhagavatam is to tell us, that through both of these, just as at the social level, the effects of Kali Yuga can’t be countered, at a personal level, the curse is not to be countered, at a physical level. But both are going to transcend. So, Parikshit Maharaj, by absorption in Krishna, as offered by the message given by Shri Krishna, and by leaving the Bhagavatam for all of us, they are all offering us the opportunity to transcend the material existence, to raise our consciousness above matter.
And, now, how does this really help? Because we still have to live in the world. We may say, OK, at the end of my life, maybe I’ll be delivered, I’ll go to Krishna. But throughout my life, I still have to suffer and struggle.
So, what is it? How can I conquer? Actually, here, how much we are affected by something, depends on how much we are attached to something. The Bhagavatam is about shifting our attachment from the world to the Lord. The idea is not simply detachment from the world, but attachment to the source of the world, attachment to the one who is the purpose of the world.
And as we become attached to him, the world’s ups and downs affect us lesser and lesser. If somebody has five dollars, and that is all that they have, if those five dollars are stripped away from them, they’ll fight with their life to keep it. But suppose somebody has five million dollars, and somebody takes five dollars away from them.
It’s still a loss, but it won’t be that big of a loss. So, whatever we have in the world, it’s like five dollars. Our relationship with Krishna, our devotion for him is like five million dollars.
And when that five dollars is taken away from us, what happens? We are forced. What else do I have? Especially when we just can’t stop those five dollars from being taken away from us. Now, of course, the five dollars don’t seem like five dollars for us.
They seem like five million dollars for us. But when they’re taken away, that’s when we are forced to look at what is there for us. And this is the theme of the Bhagavatam again and again.
We see the prayer of Kunti Maharaj, that let calamities befall me again and again, because they help me to remember the Lord. Again in the Bhagavatam, Krishna and Yudhishthira are speaking, and Krishna tells Yudhishthira that, for one from whom I take away everything, for them, nothing except me is left. This can seem very sobering and even scary.
We may lose everything. But the idea is not what we lose, but what we are already losing because of holding on to other things. That actually we have an eternal treasure in our relationship with the Lord.
And that we are losing as long as we are holding on to other things. So Krishna, this is the way to conquer. It’s not trying to hold on to things in the world.
Yes, we need things in the world, and it’s important to have them. But what we live with is not the same as what we live for. Live with is resources, the things of the world.
Live for is our purposes, that is ultimately Krishna. So, the Bhagavatam puts us in a situation, or depicts characters in a situation where, for most people, if the things of the world are taken away, what is the point of living? But Parikshit Maharaj is losing everything. He is a warrior, and warriors are usually not accustomed to losing.
They fight, and he was a great hero. He would win wars. But here, this was one war, he just couldn’t win.
But he could win by raising his consciousness above. So the Bhagavatam is talking about victory, even in the presence of great gloom and doom. There is death for Parikshit Maharaj, and there is the degradation of Kalyuga.
Although both are unstoppable, but both can be transcended by raising our consciousness. Now, that is, the means of conquest is, that we raise our consciousness toward Krishna, we become attached to Krishna. Then, what is the process? Here it’s interesting, generally, whenever any, the Bhagavatam talk starts, or anybody, a character starts speaking, often they offer prayers, and that is the general mood of a devotee, to seek blessings before doing anything auspicious.
But it’s also significant whose blessings are being sought. So the previous verses, there is obeisance, the obeisance is offered to Shukadeva Goswami, who is Shukadeva Goswami’s preceptor. And now, it’s interesting, he is offering obeisances to Narayana Namaskritya, Naram Chaiva Narottamam.
So, this is broadly understood by the tradition, by the Acharyas to be referring to Nara Narayana Rishi. And, Devim Saraswatim Vyasam, and then Saraswati Devi and Vyasa is there. And offering all those blessings, seeking the blessings of all of them, offering obeisances to all of them, and then speaking.
If we consider, in the Bhagavatam itself, there is not much reference to Nara Narayana Rishis. Only one place, their pastime is described, and that also is a very brief description. Then, why should Nara Narayana Rishi be invoked, for speaking the Bhagavatam? And certainly Saraswati is, she is a goddess of learning, and devotees seek her blessings.
But still, Saraswati is also not mentioned much. Of course, Vyasa, you know, is the person who wrote the Bhagavatam, so that’s important. But all the other characters, whose blessings are being sought, they are almost like not present in the Bhagavatam afterwards.
As compared to the sheer expanse of thousands and thousands of verses, the verses devoted to them are very few. So, why is that? Actually, here, the Bhagavatam is in a setting of austerity. Parishad Maharaj is going to fast for seven days, and all the sages also, whom Suta Goswami is addressing, are performing austerities.
So, among all the various manifestations, avatars of the Lord, Nara Narayana Rishi, especially, symbolises austerity. They perform austerity for the purpose of human well-being. And interestingly, this is the, you could say, the only dual incarnation of the Lord, where one is a human, the other is divine, and yet, both are considered twins.
They are twins, and both of them perform austerities together. So, the mood of austerity, which is required for doing, for studying, for studying is very important. In Vidura Niti, which is spoken by Vidura to Dhritarashtra, he says, he says that, विद्यार्थी न सुखम् लवेद, सुखार्थी न विद्याम् लवेद.
He says, if you want learning, then you can’t have pleasure. If you want pleasure, you can’t have learning. Now, of course, you can say there is pleasure in learning.
That is true, but that doesn’t come immediately. If somebody has to study, that requires sacrifice, that requires austerity, that requires foregoing of pleasure. Just surfing news or watching some videos is much easier than applying authors to study Shastra.
So, you might say that is pleasurable, and I have to forego that pleasure to focus on studying scripture. So, the idea here is, there is an austerity to be performed in hearing the Bhagavata. And this particular form of the Lord is being invoked because He is the model of austerity.
And there are three things. There is the model of the Lord who demonstrates austerity, and then the austerity can be performed for various purposes. But when we perform austerity, in this case, the austerity is to gain knowledge.
The knowledge that will attract us to the Lord. The knowledge by which we can become absorbed in the Lord. And the goddess of learning is Saraswati.
And therefore, she is being offered prayers because we want to perform austerity, but after performing austerity, we want to gain learning. And she is the goddess of learning. At one level, devotees don’t worship any Devatas.
But the more precise understanding is, the devotees don’t worship Devatas as substitutes for worshipping the Lord. If the worship of a Devata can aid in worshipping the Lord, then we need and seek all the help that we can get in worshipping the Lord. The Gopis worship Katyayani so that they can get Krishna.
And similarly, here, the blessings of Saraswati are sought so that learning may manifest in the heart. And then, there is Vyasadev who is being invoked. Why Vyasadev? Because he is the model of learning.
He is the person who has assimilated all this knowledge. So the Lord who demonstrates austerity, the goddess who bestows learning, and the person who has manifested the supreme learning. All these three are talked about in this way.
And we all, we all learning, assimilating spiritual knowledge is never an easy process. And we need all the help that we can get. So this verse talks about how these blessings are being sought of these great personalities.
Another understanding of this verse is that this is a vision of Badrikashram. That Badrikashram is the place where the, you could say, the terrestrial and the celestial realms meet. That is the place where often the gods come, descend also.
So here, Naranara and Rishi perform austerities over there. The river Ganga flows, river Saraswati flows over there. And the god and the, and Vyasadev performs austerity over there.
So that place where divine learning manifested in the past, that place is being meditated upon. So now, if we consider Naranara and Rishi, they are, as I said, twins. And both of them are performing austerities.
This is interesting. We could say the humans perform, humans have to perform austerity to purify themselves. Why does God have to perform austerity? You see, God descends to this world and when he descends, he demonstrates for us what to do.
So as I said, the Lord teaches Yuga Dharma, Shaitanya Mahaprabhu teaches Harinamsa and Kirtan. So like that, we could say the Lord is teaching austerity. But it is interesting, both of them are doing it.
And both of them are doing it together. So that, so the second part of us, what is the means of conquest? We are seeking the blessings of those who are, those who are higher than us. And the model and the example of the Bhagavatam offers is of the sages hearing from Suta Goswami, or Parishad Maharaj hearing from Shukdev Goswami.
So broadly speaking, there are two aspects. Like we have the Damodar Leela, in which there is the human endeavour and there is the divine grace. And both need to combine together for the manifest for spiritual success, for victory.
So I will talk about four quadrants and then that will be the major part of this, last part of this class. That we can have no endeavour, no grace. We can have endeavour, but no grace.
Grace, but no endeavour. And endeavour and grace. We could have four possible quadrants.
And if we consider the first quadrant, no endeavour and no grace. What that would mean is, that the person is not trying to change themselves at all. I was in Canada a few months ago and one devotee came.
He says, finally, after years, I have developed renunciation. I said, oh really? Interesting. He said, what happened? He said, I was trying to develop renunciation and just couldn’t succeed for many years.
And then what happened? He says, finally I developed renunciation, toward renunciation. I have given up trying to give up. This is the way I am, I am not going to change.
Well, yes, we may not succeed, but if we give up, if we lose faith in our potential to improve, is the greatest loss. We may not succeed in improving, but every one of us has potential. Each of us is a soul who is a part of Krishna.
And we are a part of Krishna, but we are apart from Krishna. And if we go closer to Krishna, our potential will manifest. There are some areas in our life where changing ourselves might be very difficult.
And we might just feel so apathetic, so disheartened by that. But we can choose our battles. Okay, this area, I am not able to change myself, let me work on other areas.
Each of us has conditions of different strengths, and sometimes certain conditions are difficult to change. So we may decide, I will not fight certain battles, which is fine. But that is not the same as just giving up the battle, giving up the war itself.
Srila Prabhupada says how, when a spiritual master gave the instructions to share Krishna consciousness in the West, Prabhupada said he couldn’t do it. So Prabhupada told Giriraj Maharaj that, Giriraj Maharaj, Prabhupada told him to write some, write some articles for Back to Godhead, but he had not been able to write, because in India at that time, there was a big Pandal festival coming, and devotees were busy in organising that. And then Prabhupada asked him after a few months, have you written anything? He said no.
Prabhupada said why? And he explained that the temple authorities had told him all these services, and they said this was urgent, you can write later. So Prabhupada said yes. You can postpone the instructions of the spiritual master, but you cannot reject the instructions of the spiritual master.
So Prabhupada said, my spiritual master told me that, I always was meditating on it, but I couldn’t do it for many years, and finally I did it toward the end of my life. So the point I am making here is, through this example that, sometimes, situation is such that we can’t fight certain battles. And that’s fine.
Even if we can’t fight certain battles, doesn’t mean that we give up the war. So if we stop endeavouring, and we feel the situation is unfavourable, then if we stay in this first quadrant, there will never be any change. Actually that’s not true.
Change is always there. It is, if we try to stay in this first quadrant, we will change for the worse. Because Kali Yuga is always acting, our mind is always acting, and we will be dragged down.
So this is a very degrading quadrant to be. No endeavour and no grace. Then you might say, I am endeavouring, but I am not getting any grace.
I am trying, I am trying, I am trying, nothing is working. So what do we do at that time? When, for us to succeed, we have to, we want to endeavour, but our endeavour alone is not enough. So whether it is to deal with some inner issues we have, outer issues we have, whether it is to develop our love for Krishna, whatever it is, our inner endeavour, our endeavour, if it is not accompanied by grace, it may seem that there are no results.
However, it’s interesting that, actually in the process of bhakti, there is, the endeavour at one level itself is the result. How is that? You see the Bhagavad Gita has two settings, like the Bhagavatam has two settings, the Bhagavad Gita has two settings. One setting of the Bhagavad Gita is Krishna is speaking to Arjuna.
The other is Sanjay is speaking to Dhritarashtra. And, now, we could say Krishna speaking to Arjuna was successful, in the sense that Arjuna was confused, and Arjuna became enlightened. But Krishna’s, but Sanjay’s, repeated the same message to Dhritarashtra, and that was not successful, in the sense that Dhritarashtra had no change of heart.
But, the last five verses of the Bhagavad Gita are immensely significant, 1874 to 78, which is Sanjay speaking. And in 1876 and 77, Sanjay states that, So he says, that my dear lord, that, oh Dhritarashtra, I am remembering the form, remembering the message of Krishna, and the form of Krishna. And by this, I am jubilant, I am delighted.
So, although there is no external transformation in Dhritarashtra, just by speaking the Bhagavad Gita, there is internal transformation, in Sanjay’s heart. Sanjay is feeling alive, he is feeling thrilled, because he is absorbing the remembrance. So, if we are endeavouring, and there seems to be no grace, then it’s quite likely, we are looking for grace in the wrong direction.
Yes, Dhritarashtra’s heart was not to be transplanted. And Sanjay had been looking for that, that was not going to happen. But Sanjay looked inward, and he saw, yes, that, I am feeling enlivened by the remembrance of the lord.
So, when we feel there is no grace in our life, quite often it is, we are looking for grace, in a place, where it may not be there, but it is there somewhere else. Otherwise, if grace doesn’t seem to be there at all, then we just need patience. Patience means, that sometimes, the lord works, as per his own time scale.
Once a person went to Brahma, and he said, Oh, Oh Brahma, please give me some benedictions. He said, what do you want? He said, just as time varies, so, he says, wealth also varies. He says, for, for us, a million dollars is nothing.
For us, it’s a big amount, but for you it is nothing. He says, for you it’s just like one paisa. So, he says, like one penny.
You give me one penny, it will be like a million dollars for me. So, Brahmaji said, Sure, I’ll give it after one moment. Now, Brahmaji’s one moment is millions of years for us.
So, we often need patience. Krishna says, and, now let’s look at the third part, where there is grace, but there is no endeavour. Now, when there is grace, there is no endeavour.
That means, that there are many things right in a person’s life, but the person themselves are not doing anything. A tiger or a lion might be given a very formidable body with sharp jaws, but, even with that, a deer is not going to come into the mouth of the tiger. The tiger has to chase, the tiger has to plan, the tiger has to catch.
So, if we don’t endeavour, then, good things cannot happen in our lives. And we see, actually, Prabhupada often talks about dependence on the Lord. And Prabhupada was dependent on the Lord, but Prabhupada was also diligent.
Prabhupada was striving constantly. Even when he was endeavouring constantly. And, some other Gaudiya Vaishnavas, they felt that Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’s prediction is there, well, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu will fulfil it.
It’s his prediction. But Prabhupada took it as his responsibility. So, our endeavour is important.
It’s the Lord’s grace, even if it comes in our life, if we are not endeavouring, then we can’t get it. And the last quadrant is, that our endeavour, endeavour and grace come together. And, that is where, if we are situated, then, bhakti is su-sukham kartu maulayam, su-sukham kartu maulayam, it is joyfully performed.
Because we are endeavouring, we are doing our best, and the Lord is also reciprocating in a way we can perceive. Now, if we feel that, if we are in the second quadrant, as far as we are concerned, we can’t, we can’t force the Lord to give His grace to us. But, we can endeavour.
So, what we can do is, we can avoid being in the first and the third quadrants. Sometimes we may feel we are in the second, sometimes we may feel we are in the fourth. But, if we are endeavouring, then, the Lord’s grace is sure to come.
And the Bhagavatam is that, now Parikshit Maharaj, at one level, it is Shukdev Goswami who was endeavouring in terms of speaking, but Parikshit Maharaj was also endeavouring in terms of hearing, hearing constantly, hearing to become absorbed in. And what happened is, by this, at one level, if Parikshit Maharaj had been looking for grace at the physical level, the snake bird came and bit him, and there was no grace that protected him. Now, is it that the same Lord who protected Parikshit in his mother’s womb, now our Acharya has described that Parikshit was not only hit by, no, Parikshit was actually killed by Ashwathama’s weapon, and the Lord revived him.
So, that Lord who protected him in his mother’s womb, did that Lord suddenly become powerless when this curse of a Brahmana was coming, the Lord could not protect? No, that Lord had power, but the Lord also had his own plan. And his plan was, Parikshit Maharaj’s consciousness was raised, so the Acharya has described that when, the arrow, when the snake bird came and bit, at that time, Parikshit Maharaj had already transcended bodily consciousness. His soul had already departed from the body being absorbed in the Lord, and what the snake bird bit and burned was a mere shell.
Parikshit Maharaj had already departed. So, Parikshit Maharaj was delivered not just from the snake, of Brahmana’s curse, but the snake-like material existence by the Bhagavatam. And similarly, for all of us, if we endeavour to serve Krishna to the best of our capacity, in whatever situation we are in, grace will surely manifest.
For instance, if you look at Prabhupada’s example, that grace took some time to manifest, just 30-40 years. Now, we don’t know why. Now, Prabhupada, Krishna could have, Prabhupada was endeavouring and Krishna could have given Prabhupada success immediately.
But, it took a long time. Krishna has his plans. Now, in retrospect, when we see, we understand that actually this glorifies the Prabhupada more.
That Prabhupada got no support from any of his god-brothers, Prabhupada got no support from the Indian government, Prabhupada got no support, Prabhupada was old and alone and practically penniless, and yet, Prabhupada succeeded and dramatically succeeded. So, in retrospect, when we see, we see that actually, this, Prabhupada not getting much success for a long time, it enhances Prabhupada’s glory. Now, we see, how great was Prabhupada that he never gave up and at an advanced age, he was able to do something so stupendous.
So, that is something which we can see only at the end. And, unfortunately, right now, we can’t see the future. We look at the present and we plan the future.
Krishna looks at the future and plans the present. He looks at the future and plans the present. And that’s why it is very difficult for us, when we are going through the phase where we are endeavouring and no grace is coming, how to survive that? That survival is where faith comes in.
So, when we are endeavouring and apparently grace is not coming, we need to hold on to faith. And faith we can get by studying Shastra, by looking at the example of Parichit Maharaj, looking at the example of Srila Prabhupada and Devi Parasimha. If we make sure that we are not in the first or third quadrant, even if we are in the second, we will gradually move to the fourth.
And even if Bhakti is not joyful now, it can still be purposeful. We can still be practising Bhakti, trying to serve and please Krishna and doing our best and eventually, Krishna’s mercy will manifest in a way that we can perceive. And thus, our devotion will be vindicated and Jaya Mudhirayet.
As Parichit Maharaj is victorious, we can also be victorious in the struggle against material existence. I’ll summarise. I spoke on this theme of what is the means of conquest.
We started by talking about how Prabhupada says we need to discern the purpose of life in a life full of problems. Instead of trying to simply deal with problems, we need to raise our consciousness and become attached to the Lord. And for doing that, this verse offers the meditation that we seek the blessings of the Lord who is modelling austerity, of the Goddess who gives learning as the fruit of austerity, and of that celestial, of that divine being, Vyasadeva, who is demonstrating full knowledge.
And while we are pursuing spiritual knowledge thus, if there is endeavour and grace, if there is no endeavour, there is no grace, we will not only stagnate, but we will degrade. If there is endeavour but no grace, then either we are looking for grace in the wrong place or we just need to wait for the grace to manifest. If there is grace but no endeavour, then even God can’t help those who don’t help themselves.
And if there is endeavour and grace, then we’ll find that bhakti becomes joyful. Just as Shri Prabhupada endeavoured and in due course got grace, similarly we can also endeavour and Krishna will give his grace to all of us in due course. Thank you very much.
Hare Krishna. Any questions or comments? Thank you for your wonderful questions and welcome to our lecture. I have two questions.
What is your definition of grace? Okay. What is the definition of grace? Krupa, basically it can manifest at multiple levels. Ultimately, the highest mercy is absorption in Krishna.
If you can get attracted to Krishna, if you develop love for Krishna, that is the highest mercy. But mercy can also manifest in the form of, say, removal of obstacles on our path toward Krishna. Mercy can also manifest as providing us resources by which we can serve Krishna better.
Prabhupada would sometimes in his letters say that because you are endeavouring so nicely, Krishna is bestowing his mercy on you. That means Krishna may provide resources to build a temple, resources, ideas to distribute books or whatever. So, grace or mercy can mean different things in different contexts.
But basically, here we could use it to refer to the things that are not in our control working out in a way that is favourable for us. So, sometimes it could be in our inner territory. We are trying to control our anger, our hurt, our desires, but we are not able to control them.
And we keep endeavouring, keep endeavouring. And one time, purification manifests. That means those desires go away.
So, whatever we do in life, there is something in our control and something not in our control. That could be either in the outer world or that could be in the inner world. So, when the things in the, things that are beyond our control work favourably, that we could say is the broad understanding of the manifestation of grace.
Secondly, the example you gave, that Sanchaya got grace, his heart, he was feeling joy. Didn’t Dhritarashtra also get some grace at the end because he went to and he Yes, Dhritarashtra also got the grace, definitely. But it took a long time for him.
Dhritarashtra had to lose everything before he lost his blindness. This is metaphysical blindness because of attachment. He had to lose all his hundred sons.
So, he did get it but it took a long time for him. Speaking of the Bhagavad Gita, it didn’t affect him so much here in the Bhagavad Gita. That wasn’t the culmination of bearing the baggage, you think? You think that it took a long time? Afterwards, the whole battle took place and he still kept hoping that his sons would win and all his sons were killed and after that, many years passed before Vidura came back and during that time, Yudhishtira treated him like a father figure with great respect and then finally when Vidura came and Vidura spoke strong words, that’s when it affected him and then he was developed attachment and higher spiritual understanding.
You both, thank you for a nice talk. You said the Lord sees the future and plans the present. Yeah.
Can you explain a little bit more on that? It’s interesting. Okay. What do you mean when you say the Lord sees the future and plans the present? That means that the Lord firstly means he can see the far bigger picture than what we can see.
It’s like a child might be in pain because of some disease and then the child goes to a doctor and the doctor says you have to give him an injection. The child may say I am already in pain and you are causing more pain to me. But what the doctor is saying is this infection is going to become worse.
So then seeing the future prognosis for the child it’s just pain in the belly. I don’t know why is the pain? Get the pain to go. That’s all the child thinks of.
And sometimes the pain medication might also help to get the pain go away. But that cannot cure it. So the doctor because of the medical knowledge can see much further and see the prognosis and then what is going to come in the future prevent it.
So the big picture say we are going on a particular road there are two roads and one seems clear and the other seems to be crowded. So this road is so clear let me go this way. But then we go a little ahead and the road is blocked.
Say why is the road blocked? Now maybe the government knows that there is a river that has flooded over there or whatever. Those who are the authority they know the big picture. And here the road might seem very smooth and clear but here in the future there is danger.
And here this road is crowded but this is the road we have to go by. So when somebody has more has greater knowledge of the situation in one in some ways knowledge means we can see the future consequences of a particular action. Whereas ignorance means we just see the action divorced from any context or consequence.
So when Krishna has spiritual knowledge Krishna is omniscient rather that means he can see our future he can even see what is going to befall us in the future what kind of situations are coming in our life and he is preparing us for those. So sometimes some things which are our shelter in this world so we have we have ultimate shelter in Krishna and we have some shelters in the world over here and the shelters in the world they help us in our journey sometimes that journey will be toward Krishna sometimes that journey will be away from Krishna so wealth is a shelter health is a shelter social position is a shelter not that these shelters are bad but sometimes these shelters which can which can help us in our journey toward Krishna sometimes they may become a substitute to Krishna for us so what helps us in our journey toward Krishna can sometimes hinder us in our journey toward Krishna and then Krishna may take that away from us and why we may feel actually I was going toward Krishna and I was doing everything for moving toward Krishna and why is this being taken away so from our present perspective we may feel it’s terrible but from Krishna’s perspective because you can see the future you can say this is a help for you but this is going to be a hindrance in future so I’ll take it away from you so that’s how it is thank you