Bhagavatam study 23 – 1.6.1-7 – Even when our disposition changes, our position may not change

Thank you. So as this conversation is going on, between Narada and Yasra, at the transition from one chapter to another, there is a shift in focus, where the camera is stepping back to tell us about the framing conversation within which this conversation is happening. So while Narada and Yasra are discussing, this discussion is being reported by Suta Goswami to the sages of Nainisharanya.
So here, as the camera steps backward, Suta, watch, Suta Goswami is speaking, and he speaks this, evam nishamya bhagavan, upon hearing this, nishamya bhagavan, devarshe janma karmachuha, so janma karmachuha, upon hearing about His birth and His activities, so here bhagavan is referred to as, bhuya prapachitam brahman, again paprachuha is asked him, tam brahman, Vyasa, who is a later incarnation, Vyasa Satyavati, who is a son of Satyavati. So after hearing briefly about the activities of Narada, devarshi, Vyasa again asks him some questions. Vyasa Vacham, bhikshubhir vipravasite, vigyan desh trubhis tava, vartamano vayasyadi, tathakim akarod bhavan, bhikshubhir vipravasite, bhikshubhir, those who were sitting alms, that means the mendicants, the word beggar has a pejorative connotation, where people are poor, unemployed, indigent, where the focus is on the fact that they have no money, the word mendicant refers to one who has voluntarily accepted vows of austerity, of simplicity, poverty, so that one can focus on higher spiritual cultivation, bhikshubhir, so the word bhikshu is used always in a positive connotation and that positive connotation Shri Prabhupada conveys by using the word mendicant for referring to those who are renunciates, but who are in one sense poverty stricken, but they are, they have voluntarily chosen that and it is interesting the Sanskrit word which is used, they are defining activities bhikshubhir, they are referred to as bhikshubhir, now we may say their focus, if they are, they have renounced the world and they have accepted poverty for the sake of, for the sake of spiritual cultivation, the nubhai is the activity of bhikshu, given so much importance that they are named by that activity, normally if we say that, now whatever a person does, the defining activity of that person, okay somebody is a driver, somebody is a mechanic, somebody is a pilot, so normally when a person is given a name as per the vocation of that person, then in that case the vocation is usually the defining activity of that person, so a pilot is, a person’s defining identity is a pilot, so that’s why the person is called the pilot, so is it that begging is the defining activity of the mendicant, of the renunciates, that’s why they are called as bhikshubhir, actually it is, here also the word bhikshu as it is used in the scriptures, for example the Chetan Charita Amrita also the word bhiksha diya, bhiksha karaila, so this word in contemporary usage has got a lot of negative connotation, where a person is begging, if you say somebody is begging, he or she is a beggar, so that means, the point is that there, today the word is using a negative connotation, whereas in the past, in Chetan Charita Amrita it is said that, for example Saro Bhaumavattacharya invited Lord Chaitanya to come to his house for accepting bhiksha, that means the point is that bhiksha there is not considered in any way a negative activity, certainly not a derogatory activity, the idea of bhiksha is that there is a primary focus on honouring the renunciate by offering the renunciate some food and that those who have devoted themselves for higher spiritual purposes, that if they accept something from those who are householders, then that is considered to be an honour and that is considered for the householders to be a privilege and that is how by serving those who are in the renounced order, the householders make spiritual advancement, that is one of the ways and so the word bhiksha has a substantially different connotation in the Vedic context than what it had in the past devotional context or spiritual culture context than what it has today and it is used for the word bhikmangnaya, begging, so these renunciates, these saints, they offer the opportunity for householders to make spiritual advancement by giving them the opportunity to give alms, so it is a privilege, it is a privilege bestowed on the householders by the renunciates and in this sense bhikshubhi, somebody who is a bhikshu, that is the idea of compassion, is there that the person is accepting charity otherwise how to accept things from people who are entangled in the world that acceptance itself can cause entanglement, acceptance itself can cause suffering, misery and such accepting things and entanglement if somebody is voluntarily accepting that not for the sake of oneself’s gratification but for serving others then that is considered to be merciful thing that they are doing and that is why the defining activity is that they are offering, they are being compassionate and are willing to accept alms, so bhikshubhi, when that word is used, it is used in a very positive and respectful sense, so bhikshubhi vipravasate, so here the word bhikshubhi refers to those in the previous chapter when Adibhuni was describing his previous life when he was a boy and those mendicant saints had come there in the vicinity for the sake of feeding for Chaturmas they stayed and then they went, so those spiritualists, Prabhupada translated them as Vedantists then they left, so it is they who are being referred to as bhikshubhi vipravasate, when they departed for other places then at that time vijnana, that knowledge, systematic knowledge which they had given which in part is to be vartamano, so how did you spend your life? vartamano, vayasyadhi, so from the time when they departed till your present birth in the entering duration what did you do? tatah kim akarod bhavan, bhavan, oh your good self, Prabhupada translated bhavan, bhavan is a respectful second person, so Prabhupada translates it as you are good self, Narguni is asking now, Narguni is being asked here, yes you told me about your previous life in which you were the son of a maidservant, so now the question here is being asked is that, so what happened thereafter? how did you, from there how did you come here? now you have become an exalted saint, so how did this journey take place? please tell me about it, third text now, swayambhu kayavritya vartitante paramvaya katham chedam udashra krushi kaale prapte kalevaram swayambhu kayavritya, swayambhu, so here now to emphasise that now Narada is in a very different position, very elevated, exalted position, earlier he was the son of a maidservant, now he is the son of the primaeval creator of Brahmaji, so swayambhu kayavritya, oh you now who are the son of Brahma, kayavritya, in what occupation did you, vartitante paramvaya, how did you spend your life thereafter? paramvaya, katham chedam udashra krushi, katham chedam, so how did you spend your life and how did you quit a body? kaale prapte kalevaram, so kaale here refers to time prapte, is having attained the time, the time of kalevaram, udashra krushi, that means the time of departing from the body, so what is asked here is, how did you spend your time thereafter in that life and then how did you depart from the body? so if we are hearing the story of someone, say somebody has been travelling and that person has come, say to New York and now that person is in Vrindavan, so that person tells some extraordinary incidents in one’s life by which, the end of which was that the person ended up in New York, so now the question will come up, okay how did you come from New York to Vrindavan? what did you do in New York? how did you take off? how did you take a flight? or how did you depart from Vrindavan? and how did you end from New York? and how did you end here in Vrindavan? so like that the story which Narada has told in brief earlier, that story ends with Narada being, still in the previous body, still in a maidservant’s body, still relatively not at a very advanced stage and from there to come to a very exalted stage of becoming a devarushi, how did that happen? so now in that transition, it’s clearly this Narada is different in terms of having a different body, so the question comes, how did it work out? how did things work out? that how did, from there to here, how did you come? what was the process that was, that’s the question being asked over here, so at the passage of a kalpa or what happened in the previous kalpa, whatever subject is there, that memory is lost, smriti is remembrance, munisattama or best of the sages, and yet in your case, your memory has, there’s no difference at all in your memory, that means you remember things, when everything else is being destroyed, how is your memory being preserved? so in the bhagavad-gita, Arjuna asks Krishna that, Krishna you are saying that you gave this knowledge to Sun God in 4.4 years, so how is it possible, the Sun is older to you? Krishna replies that both of us have gone through many births, but I have forgotten, I remember those births, where else you have forgotten them? the point there is that normally we forget our previous lives, and Krishna is God, so Krishna doesn’t forget, but what about the rest of us? how have we, now Marguni is not God exactly, he’s a great devotee, but he’s not God, so how has his memory not been annihilated? how is he still remembering? that is the question that is being asked over here of Narada by Vyasa, narada vacha bhikshubhir vipravasite vijnana deshtabhir mama vartamano yasyadhe tad etad akar so Narad Muni here uses more or less similar words as were used by Vyasa while describing his own situation, so Narad Muni states that bhikshubhir vipravasite, that the same word is bhikshubhir and vipravasite, when those bhikshus departed and vijnana deshtabhir, after giving me systematic knowledge, mama vartamano yasyadhe, so I passed my life in this way, in this way means what? whatever they had taught I started applying it, and that he will be describing, tad etad akarsham, doing those activities which were told, see what it is, ekatmaja me janani, yoshin mudha chakinkari, mayi atmaje ananya gatao, chakre snehana bandhanam, so ekatmaja me janani, ekatmaja, so I was her only son, me janani, my mother, yoshin mudha chakinkari, and she was a woman, and by that she was mudha, she was not very intelligent, chakinkari, she was a maid servant, mayi atmaje ananya gatao, and she saw I was her offspring, and she had no other shelter apart from me, chakre snehana bandhanam, and thus chakre, she did what? snehana bandhanam, she bound me with her affection, often even after we get knowledge, our conception may change, our disposition may change, but that does not mean our position will automatically change, that means that if we associate with some devotees, if we hear from some spiritual teachers, our conception and our disposition may change, we may understand, okay, this world is temporary, I need to transcend this world, I need to attain eternal life, and for that purpose, I need to practise a spiritual life seriously, but even after our disposition changes, still after that also, actually our circumstance, our position may not change, and then others who may still be attached to us, and others may still expect us to reciprocate with them the way we were reciprocating earlier, relating with them in material ways, so in such a situation, one has to be very careful and sensitive about how one deals with such situations, so Narad Muni, a Narada boy at that time, he had become wise, he had become enlightened to some extent at least, by the instructions, by the knowledge that the mendicant sages had given him, but he still had some relationship, he had a spiritual relationship with him, and he had a relationship with his mother, it was because his mother was serving them, that’s how he was able to serve them, so it was through his mother that he got the opportunity to associate with devotees, and it was because his mother was devotionally inclined, that he also got the opportunity to be devotionally inclined, so now although Narad Muni wanted to devote his life and heart to the Supreme, but he wanted to follow in the footsteps of those Vikshudis, of those mendicant sages, and he also wanted to utterly devote himself to the Lord, but he did not do so, the reason was not just that he was a small child, and he felt I cannot practise, these austerities are too difficult, no, his concern was different, his concern was for his mother, and he thought that what about her, I have to take care of her, she has no one apart from me, the Prabhupada we see in his own life, that when Bapusan Sudhakar told him to preach, at that time Prabhupada had just got married, and he had got his first child, and he felt that now I cannot renounce the world, it would be a great injustice if I do that now, so if we are in a particular position, our disposition may be focussing on transcendence, but still we cannot act on that immediately, we have to act purposefully, responsibly and gradually, so Narada did not renounce, reject his mother, because he had responsibility to her, because firstly, when he knew she was his mother, secondly that he did not have anyone apart from him, and further, she had also been in one sense, at least his pathpadarshi guru, it was because she was serving the Lord, she had some devotional inclinations, she had some cultural respect for the sadhus, that’s why she served the sadhus, that’s why Narada got the opportunity to serve, so here now he is looking with Shastra Chakshu, and by looking with Shastra Chakshu, he is recognising that yes, she is mudha, again the word mudha, foolish is not used in a derogatory sense, but it is in the sense of being used with Gyan Chakshu, from the ultimate spiritual point of view, anybody who is attached to temporary worldly things, without cultivating spiritual knowledge, that person is a fool, so here it is said that she bound Narada with her affection, she had no one else, she was her only self, ekatmaja, so she bound Narada with her affection, and as his spiritual practise, he could not do it in the way that he wanted to do at that time, he felt that he will have to do things gradually, sasvatantra na kalpasid yogakshemammam ecchati ishasya hi vashe loko yosha dharumaiyatha so sasvatantra na kalpasid, so asvatantra, she was not independent, she did not have any consistent means of livelihood, she did not know in what way, although she loved her son and she wanted to take care of her son, but still she was not able to do so, na kalpasid, she was not able to, yogakshemammam ecchati, yogakshema, compound word comes most famously in the Bhagavad Gita 9.22, yogakshemam vahamyaham, the preservation of what we have and the provision of what we lack, those things Krishna says that I will do it for you, for my devotees, for those who are unflinchingly devoted to me, undiviatingly focused on me, for them I will take care of you and Krishna, so while we are in this world, Krishna’s provisions often come through his representatives, even if those representatives are themselves either aware or not aware that they are representing Krishna, so our parents, our loved ones, they provide for us and is Krishna providing through them, but sometimes because of the, it was recognised that his mother was trying to provide and because of the worldly situations she was not able to provide very well, and ishatehi vasheloko, one of the Upanishads is called Ishopanishad, Ishavasya Upanishad is also called Ishopanishad as we say, and everyone is controlled by the Supreme Lord, and all moved by the Supreme Lord as puppets, so here the example of puppet does not imply that we have utterly no control, rather we have control but our control is limited, whenever an example is given, no example is exhaustive, examples are indicative, they point us towards the concept, and in this way they help us move closer to an understanding of the concept, so here the puppet example which is often used, that in the scripture there are other places also where it is said that now it is up to you to do what you can do, now deliberate and decide what you are going to do, so here if we see in such examples the point is that we are ourselves dependent, and we are also having some initiative, some independence to choose, so certain examples are meant to stress the point that we are not the ultimate choosers, and the ultimate decision is in the hands of someone else, certain examples are meant to drive home the point that it is our responsibility to choose, and remember that in chapter Krishna says that therefore one who thinks that I alone am the doer, that I alone am going to bring about the results, such a person is an illusion Krishna says, such a person needs to be corrected of that misconception, such a person’s consciousness is not properly focused, so here the point is Narada Muni is describing his own existential situation, and he is describing how there are factors beyond his control, which first curtailed his spiritual activities, and then later on freed him so that he could engage in spiritual activity according to his heart’s content, so the point is here being stressed that there are different levels of different situations, and according to context we need to understand what is the point being made, so the point of the puppet over here is that yes she was not the ultimate controller, Narada himself was not the ultimate controller, and the Lord was by his own supreme will going to bring about something, some event which will bring about a drastic change in their lives, so what that event was, how it brought a drastic change, that we will discuss in our future talks.