Bhagavatam-daily 282 – 11.13.15 – The Kumaras are exalted souls eminently qualified for enlightenment

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Thank you Maham Sautar answers the questions of the sons of Brahma shivdhavacha yadatvam sanakadidhyo yena rupayena keshava yogam adishyavam itad rukham icchami veditum so uddhava is asking here yadah yadah means when yadatvam sanakadidhyo yena rupayena keshava in which form was it done oh lord yogam adishyavam itad when did you instruct to him rukham icchami veditum i wish to know about that one of the fascinating features of the puranic canon is their nested conversations those of us who have written computer codes may know the idea of nested loops nested loops means there is one operation and within that there is one subset and another subset nested conversation means there is one conversation going on and within that the conversation is quote another conversation and then they quote another conversation and like that things go deeper and deeper so now let’s see what level of nesting of conversation is here the outer level is of course between Vyasadeva and the readers then there is Suta Goswami and Vishwanakadi rishis then there is Parikshit Maharaj speaking to Shukadeva Goswami and that’s the third level.
Now fourth level is Krishna speaking to Uddhava so in that narration of the past time by Shukadeva Goswami so Krishna’s past times are nearly over and at this level Krishna is primarily speaking about how one should disentangle oneself from this world and attain his eternal abode so in that connection he speaks here and in this he is going to quote now another conversation that is written from the chapter title how Hamsavatar instructed the sages Sushanakadi, Bhiog the four Kumaras they are very much present in the Bhagavatam. They are prominent characters who appear repeatedly right from their first appearance in the time of creation their extraordinariness is seen that like Shukadeva Goswami was utterly renounced right from his birth wherein he did not desire he did not want to come out of the womb also. As soon as he came out of the womb he renounced the world because he did not want to get entangled in it but only when the supreme lord himself came and assured then Shukadeva Goswami sort of came out of the womb and then after that also he left.
that when Vyasadeva was calling him trees were echoing. So like that the four Kumaras they were born from Brahma and as soon as they were born there was no playfulness in terms of frivolousness in them they were renounced and when Brahmaji asked them to get married and to get children they said no and Brahma was shocked now with respect to marriage which is such a serious decision that here the candidate has the right to deliberate deeply and even differ from the spiritual master of course nowadays the spiritual master will not interfere so much as to directly tell the disciple you marry this person or you marry that person but in general it is a very serious decision and we see that for the Kumaras Brahmaji was both their father and their spiritual teacher and yet they said no so right from their birth renunciation is seen thereafter we see their further renunciation in the sense in which they completely went beyond material existence not only in terms of not being attached to it but also in terms of being physically able to go beyond it they heard about the abode of Vishnu and they were able to go to Vishnu’s abode directly one extraordinary potency that is required that they go there and not only do they go there but there they have the potency to curse the Pandavas to curse the guards of the lord, how can they curse the guards of the lord actually they cannot curse actually it is all the lord’s arrangement but Jaya and Vijaya fell so it is one thing to have the power to go to Vaikuntha, it is another thing to cause those who are in Vaikuntha to fall so that was the extraordinary power of the curse of the Brahmanas the Kumaras, then in the fourth canto they appear again and in the fourth canto they actually act as spiritual masters of Prithu Maharaj, it is very significant that Prithu Maharaj has been described in the previous chapters in the fourth canto itself as such a great soul incarnation of the supreme lord he has actually pleased Vishnu through the sacrifice, not just the activity of doing the sacrifice but actually sacrificing within the sacrifice that means he sacrificed the hundred sacrifice he could have done hundred sacrifice and that would have threatened the position of Indra and so Indra was disrupting the sacrifice the hundred sacrifice and then at the request of Brahma Prithu Maharaj gave up the aspiration it was a noble aspiration he gave up that aspiration to perform hundred sacrifices that means he exhibited sacrifice, the spirit of sacrifice within the activity of sacrifice and that was so pleasing to the lord that he himself appeared, lord Vishnu appeared there and blessed him personally with his darshan and yet after that Prithu Maharaj receives instructions humbly from the Kumaras going back to the third canto actually it comes the Kumaras, they occur prominently in the second, third and fourth cantos, so going back to the pastime of their going to Vaikuntha so actually the point is that there is so much there is such a complexity in the pastime and different Acharyas interpret it in different ways and the lord describes over there that for the sake of Brahmanas I will cut off my own arms so he is ready to let even his own guards fall because they have apparently displeased the Brahmanas such is the exalted status of the Kumaras the four Kumaras, now interestingly the lord praises them so much but after this the Kumaras don’t praise themselves, the Kumaras say that actually we committed a mistake and they also seek forgiveness from the lord you know whenever any misunderstanding is there and something unfortunate happens because of the misunderstanding if the parties in the misunderstanding stay arrogant then a small issue can become very big but if the two parties can be humble then even a big issue can be resolved gracefully and people can actually be relieved of unnecessary complications, so the Kumaras have phenomenal prowess but despite having the prowess they don’t have pride and that is very special, the Bhagavatam at one level exalts the position of the Brahmanas but it doesn’t fight shy of depicting Brahmanas also in uncharitable light when they behave in less than honourable ways for example when Durvasa Muni has pride it is described how he is Ambarish Maharaj Ambarish Maharaj Vidya Vinaya Sampanne the qualities that Krishna talks about in the Brahmanas those qualities, he talks about this in a different context while talking about the equality of vision knowledge and humility and later also Shambhavadamastupachochitam talks about the qualities of Brahmanas either way the point is that the Kumaras were extraordinary Brahmanas they had the kind of potency that was astonishing and when they got the fragrance of the lotus coming from the Lord Kinjal Kamishritulasi Akrandhavayi when they experienced that fragrance, relished that fragrance then they gave up all illusion and they actually illusion in terms of attraction to Brahman and they developed irresistible attraction to the Supreme Lord so just as Shukdev Goswami is an exemplar of someone rising from impersonal liberation to personal devotion from impersonal conception to personal conception which is one of the essential themes of the Bhagavatam the Kumaras also address those things and demonstrate that of rising from the conception of impersonal liberation to the conception of personal liberation and such are the exalted Kumaras to whom they are such exalted personages and it is to them that the Lord instructed. Now Dawa having lived in that culture knows about the glory of the Kumaras and he also knows that if they have been instructed who would have instructed them it must have been a very very special person and special manifestation of the Lord must have been there what was the instruction that were given for example if two people are cricket fans and they hear that there is a conversation between two top cricketers may be they are two very expert cricket commentators and there is a talk between them so there is a natural curiosity because those people are considered experts so if we want to learn, we want to learn from the experts so people will want to know what were the things that they discussed in the cricket commentary now of course cricket is a very mundane subject as compared to Bhagavatam but the point is that when we are eager to learn then that eagerness manifests especially when we come to know that experts are discoursing on a topic that is of interest to us so Dawa naturally has interest in transcendent subject matters all the more so when he knows that the Lord is going to depart and he will have to take shelter of that knowledge alone and even more so when he is hearing the same knowledge has been spoken to such great personalities so he wants to know what was spoken and he is saying that I am eager O Lord when was this spoken and which form did you speak this now he is a contemporary of Krishna and he more or less knows where Krishna was what Krishna did, so he knows that Krishna couldn’t have spoken this or the Kumaras are much older and therefore he is asking O Lord in which form did you speak this knowledge and in this way Uddhava sets the stage through his question for sharing transcendental knowledge