Bhagavatam-daily 5 – 11.06.44 – Hearing about Krishna is auspicious and delicious

Bhagavatam here is recommending us to do. Thank you. 11.6.44 Uddhava is glorifying the pastimes of the Lord.
Your pastimes, which are like plays. Uddhava, with Krishna, O Lord Krishna, Nrunaam is general people, for them they are supremely auspicious, and they are not just auspicious, that means they bring joy in the future, but they are also delicious, delicious means they bring joy right now, they are very tasty right now. Karana piyusham asadya, piyusha is nectar, but it is nectar for what? Normally, you may think of nectar as drunk with the mouth, but this is nectar drunk with the ears.
Karana piyusham asadya, having tasted that, the result of that is special. Normally, when people drink nectar, it tastes good and the heavenly nectar is supposed to also give energy and health. Now, this nectar, people on drinking this nectar with the ears, they give up anyaspruha, they give up other desires, desires for everything other than Krishna, they give up.
So, is it that this nectar is de-energizing? The nectar, heavenly nectar brings energy, is it that nectar of Krishna katha de-energizes? No, it actually energizes us so much for Krishna, that automatically whatever distracting energies might be there in our consciousness, distracting energies caused by attachments to other things, they are lost. So, normally giving up these distractions is very difficult and the yogis and the jnanis try for lifetimes and even after that find it very difficult to give up their attachments. Bhagavatam says that just like the coast may become dry, but then next time when the tide rises, the waves come and wet it again.
So, waves of material desires wet the consciousness of the jnanis and the yogis, but that is not the case for bhajavasilevam, those who worship the Lord. So, here the Bhagavatam is stating that those desires which are very difficult to give up, those desires get lost. Actually, one is able to give them up and that is the miraculous result.
And of course, implied is that that is not that a devotee becomes dried, but the devotee becomes energized by the desire to serve Krishna more and more. The process of bhakti is not emptying the mind of maya, it is the filling the mind with Krishna so that maya automatically gets forced out. You don’t focus on forcing maya out of the consciousness, you focus on filling Krishna with consciousness and then other desires will go away automatically.
So, often we think that right now I have a lot of desires, right now I have a lot of passions. After I become purified, then I will focus on bhakti. So, let me just engage with my desires right now.
But often those desires when we engage with them, they tend to grow, not go away. So, if we focus instead our energies on hearing about Krishna, irrespective of what we can or cannot do about our desires. We may have not sinful desires, but we have desires for doing ambitious things in this world and we may or may not be able to give up those desires.
But without worrying too much about that, we can decide that I am going to regularly hear about Krishna. And if we just allow, give ourselves time, make sure that whatever time we have for our ambitions, our aspirations, we can keep that time. But we also make sure that we give time for our hearing about Krishna.
And when we do that, in and of itself, our attraction to Krishna will increase. Our other desires will get contextualized. That means, we won’t necessarily have to give them all up physically, but they will have to give up their hold on us.
They will not be able to dominate us. We will be in control, deciding how to balance our material and spiritual lives. Now, how exactly does hearing about Krishna do all this? Tavaikriditam krishna nudama paramamangalam That it brings about the supreme auspiciousness.
How does Krishna do that? How are they supremely auspicious? Because when we hear about them, they increase our attraction to Krishna. Now, how exactly does our attraction to Krishna increase by hearing about him? It’s at multiple levels. Firstly, that just Krishna himself is attractive, supremely attractive.
And his pastimes reveal that attractiveness. And that itself attracts. So that’s why, even when some pastimes of Krishna are depicted through some Amar Chitra Katha or some TV cartoon shows or movies, even that in and of itself can attract.
At a cultural level, at an emotional level, whatever. But beyond that, if we hear the pastimes of Krishna from his devotees, from either the Acharyas or from those who are committed to serving the Acharyas, then that also helps us to see Krishna not just as an interesting object, as just an interesting and attractive object, but we see him as the supremely all attractive object, as the object who is supremely interesting, who is the source of whatever we find interesting in all other objects. And therefore, he will be the source of all the fulfillment, whatever it may be that we get from other objects.
So devotees reveal to us both the philosophical understanding of Krishna’s position and devotional charm of his pastimes. When we understand that this person who is performing, who is lifting this mountain, who is stealing this butter, who is being tied by his mother, this person is God. And how amazing that God is doing this.
And then, we understand the extraordinary nature of the pastimes and we understand how extraordinary it is that Krishna allows himself to be conquered by love, that the Lord, ajita-jitopya-sitra-istri-lokyam, as Brahmaji says in his prayers, that that Lord who is unconquerable in this world becomes conquered by devotion. So, we see how much the Lord is given to love and then that inspires us to also want to direct our love towards such a wonderful person and to enter his world of love. So, not just at a level of entertainment, Krishna’s pastimes become attractive, but they become the ultimate object of entering and attainment for us.
And in that way, our desires become redirected from this world towards him. So, when we turn towards the Bhagavatam and hear the Bhagavatam in the association of devotees, therein the charm of Krishna becomes revealed in a heart-transforming, life-transforming way, not just a mind titillating way. And that’s what is what our ultimate aspiration is.
And Uddhava is speaking this that your past, you were, you descended to this world, you performed these pastimes, you have left a legacy, you benefited not only the world when you came there, but even after you go, you have left a legacy, lasting legacy that will benefit people for all time to come. And that legacy is your wonderful pastimes. These pastimes people can hear and relish and thereby they can for all of eternity find their way out of this darkness and illusion of material existence to the light and reality of your supreme love.