Bhagavatam study 31 01.7.22-29 Krishna relieves from the dangerous fire – literal and metaphorical

Thank you Srimad Bhagavatam 1722 So here Krishna is being beseeched by Arjuna for guidance when Arjuna sees this blinding blaze charging towards him and although Arjuna has used has himself used the Brahmastra before and has the Brahmastra directed towards him the weapon that is now coming is the Brahmashira which is actually even more powerful than the Brahmastra and it’s coming without any warning so Arjuna is going to ask for the identity of this so Brahmashira is the most powerful manifestation of the Brahmastra of the weapon of Brahma so here he says Krishna Krishna Mahabahu O Krishna you are all powerful Mahabahu O supremely powerful one Bhaktanam Abhyankara You make the devotees fearless Bhajahuremana Shindanandana Abhyacharanaravindare You make the devotees fearless Bhaktanam Abhyankara Tum eko dahyamananam You can make the blazing fire of material existence apavargo si samsmritah You can make people free from the misery of material existence apavarga so we have pavarga pavabhava these represent the various stages of material existence parishram fe bhaya bandhan pavabhava bandhan bhaya and vityu so apavarga means that state which is beyond this stage apavargo si samsmritah for those who are burning in the fire of material existence you alone oh lord are the liberator so this dahyamananam and there is both a literal and figurative meaning over here the literal meaning of course is that the fire is coming and the fire can destroy at any moment and can destroy completely whereas the other meaning is that dahyamananam is there are miseries in material existence material existence sometimes compared to an ocean and sometimes it is compared to a forest fire so here the metaphor of the forest fire samsara davanal so that we sing it regularly in the while glorifying the guru so davanal dahyamananam so forest fire of material existence and all living beings are burning within the forest fire so you oh lord can grant fearlessness you can lift out of the fire of material existence so he prays to him that way next text 23 somebody may get the question how exactly will Krishna be able to liberate anyone from material existence what can Krishna do how can Krishna do it so the fire is coming it is coming towards Arjuna it is coming towards Krishna also so Krishna is a person sitting next to Arjuna and how will he be able to liberate so Arjuna reveals the position of Krishna and he states that that you are the original supreme person there is no one as powerful as you you are the original person who is you are the controller and you are beyond prakriti so even when Krishna is situated in the world in the universe even when Krishna is situated in the material world the material world and the universe is situated in him as we see sometimes when he reveals the vishwa rupa or when he shows mother yashoda the vishwa in his mukha in the vishwa darshan pastimes so Arjuna is aware of Krishna’s position he is not misled by thinking that Krishna is also another person who is just situated on the war field on the chariot next to me and maya that you have given up maya although all the living beings here are under the covering of maya Krishna is not under that covering he is situated in the transcendental position means that he is actually the supreme being he is situated in spiritual energy which is chit shakti the antaranga shakti sometimes called of the supreme lord sometimes called as the chit shakti so maya chit shakti and he is situated in his own spiritual self and is situated in kaivalya, kaivalya is the state of liberation, it is the state of transcendence, it is the spiritual level of existence so here Arjuna is reinforcing the prayer of his previous verse that Arjuna Krishna can free him from the blazing fire of mortal existence because Krishna is situated in transcendence so each of the lines in this verse is actually conveying Krishna’s transcendental position he is he is as we sing in the Brahma Samhita that he is the he is beyond material nature he is not he has given up the illusion of maya mayam vidha sa chit shaktya kaivalya sthitaatmani this is the speciality of Krishna while all living beings are situated in material nature Krishna is situated far beyond material nature 24 sa eva jiva lokasya maya mohita cetasah vidhatse svena viryena sreyo dharmadi lakshanam sa eva jiva lokasya maya mohita cetasah so in this material world jiva lokasya for the living entities who are in this world maya mohita cetasah for those who their consciousness is deluded by maya and for them what do you do vidhatse svena viryena you by your own potency you execute sreyo dharmadi lakshanam you execute the principles of dharma for the dharma means here refers to the dharmarthakaamoksha for bestowing sreya upon them so based on the previous verse which states Krishna’s transcendental position Krishna’s position beyond material nature the question may come up that why is Krishna situated in this world what is he doing here if he is beyond material nature he is shvara prakrteh para then he is adipurusham then what is he doing in material nature he is setting an example for all of us avatara avatarthiti avataras avataras is the manifestation of the lord who descends to the transcendental level to the material level of reality sa eva jiva lokasya so in this conditioned material in this world which is full of conditioned living entities where everyone is deluded how will they know how to become free from delusion suppose if people are in a prison and they don’t know any they have completely forgotten anything about life outside the prison they will never be able to come out for them to be able to come out at least they should have some recollection of the life out of the prison and there should be someone who tells them that life outside the prison is so good and if you act this way, this way, this way you will be released from the prison so normally people themselves will not want to go out of the prison but when they are offered the opportunity then they will surely they are told about it they are given the opportunity and they are given the process then if they are attracted they will go out, so Krishna comes and uses the message of the transcendental world and tells us how to live in such a way that we can pursue transcendence and when that is done then naturally people pursue transcendence and they attain transcendence and thus Krishna does the Shreya, the long term good for all living beings Tathayam Chavataraste 25th text Tathayam Chavataraste Bhuyo Bharaji Jihir Shaya Swanam Chananya Bhavanam Anudhyanaya Chasakret Tathayam so then that link which was pointed to in the previous verse is now being explicit that because you descend for the Shreya Dharma to do the long term good for all living beings so Tathayam Chavataraste thus you have manifested in this avatar Bhuyo Bharaji Jihir Shaya Bhuyo is the earth Bharaji Jihir Shaya to remove the burden of material existence Swanam Chananya Bhavanam and especially that is Bharaji Jihir Shaya means it removes the burden of the world by teaching people about by destroying the demoniac Pinasaya Chidushkrtam but that is only one way to remove the burden of material existence the lord comes primarily for those who are devotional Paritranaya Sadhunam Swanam Chananya Bhavanam those are his own people those are his own devotees those are his friends they are Ananya Bhavanam they are devoted to him with under with unalloyed attention Anudhyanaya Chaksakrit so Anudhyanaya so they are meditating on him continuously Asakrit so for them Krishna descends and how does he descend? he delivers them from material existence by by the consistent process of by giving them the substance for meditating on him and thereby by becoming attracted to him so this is the beauty of the process of Bhakti and that is what Krishna is offering to all of us when he descends to this material world now Arjuna will come down to the specific question in the 26th text kim idam kuto veti deva devana vedmyaham sarvato mukham aayati tejah param dharunam so kim idam kuto veti what is this and where is it coming from deva devana vedmyaham oh god of gods I do not know about this sarvato mukham aayati sarvato mukham it’s consuming all directions effulgence that is spreading all directions and causing a blinding effect in all directions tejam param dharunam it’s not just blinding in terms of the light it’s blinding in terms of the heat also param dharunam is extremely dangerous so what is this effulgence spreading all over oh lord I don’t know what it is please tell me and please tell me where is it coming from so even while asking an eminently practical question Arjuna perceives it with prayers to Krishna and this is the mood of prayer you may wonder how does he have the time but the point here is for a devotee there is something called a devotional reflex action and those devotional reflex actions happen even without thinking so the Bhagavatam depicts Arjuna not just in a fraternal mood with Krishna but a devotional fraternal mood and even before he remembers Krishna’s supreme position if he had not remembered Krishna’s supreme position if he had been thinking Krishna to be just an ordinary person then he may not even have asked Krishna what is this effulgence coming because he would think I am a Kshatriya, Krishna is a Kshatriya and it’s unlikely that he will know so he is not seeing Krishna Krishna is not another Kshatriya he is seeing Krishna as the Supreme Lord and being the Supreme Lord he asks him appropriately first glorifying the supremacy of the Supreme Lord and then seeking questions Sri Bhagavan Vacha text 27 now Krishna will reply here on words Vithedam Dronaputrasya Brahman astra padarshitam naivasaveda samharam pranabadha upastite so Vithedam you should know it to be from me, what is this Dronaputrasya by the son of Drona Ashwatthama Brahman astra padarshitam so Brahman astra this is the this is the weapon of Brahma, the Brahmasheera Brahmasheera padarshitam he has exhibited this he has discharged it naivasaveda samharam although he doesn’t know how to retract it he has discharged it pranabadha upastite because he feels his life is threatened so now for example Prabhupada in his word to word translation compares this with the Brahmastram he uses nuclear weapon so Prabhupada wrote Prabhupada wrote his purpose at a time when the fear of a nuclear holocaust was very much there in people’s minds, the atom bombs that had been dropped in Hiroshima and Nagasaki had created such unimaginable, unbearable horrible devastation of a magnitude and longevity that would have been unimaginable earlier and that had triggered terror in the public imagination all the more so because there had been a third world war fear due to the cold war tensions between between the two super powers USSR and USA and in that atmosphere the threat of annihilation of the whole world because of a nuclear confrontation was a very real threat and nobody really knew when the world might be destroyed so in such a situation what Krishna does is Krishna focusses on or rather Prabhupada makes his message relevant by comparing the Brahmastra to a nuclear weapon and now also although in the public there is not so much fear of nuclear weapons causing a mass destruction of the world today the greater fear is probably of terrorist attacks destroying innocent people but there is always the great concern that if there are some hotheads who get hands on nuclear arsenal anywhere they may cause unimaginable, unprecedented havoc in the world so that is what is the fear over here for in the case of Ashwathama because Ashwathama is a hotheaded person like that, he has discharged the weapon although he doesn’t know how to withdraw it so normally when we unleash destruction if we don’t know how to control it then the destruction can go off far more than what we might want so for example if we decide even in using ordinary bombs there are what is the military euphemism called, the governmental euphemism called as collateral damage that means that you want to bomb one place but the bombs fall somewhere else or some other civilians get killed while as unintended consequence so especially when the unintended consequence is likely to be very large then discharging a weapon is considered irresponsible even brutal so Ashwathama has done like that and Krishna is underscoring that irresponsible behaviour of Ashwathama by stating that that he doesn’t know naivasaveda samharam he doesn’t know how to retract it but still in despair wanting to save his life he has done this pranavad upasthite then Krishna further that the danger of the weapon here is being conveyed in the next verse, 28th text naivasya nayatamam astram pratyavakarshanam jahaiya astrateja unnadham astragyonyastrateja saham naivasya anyatamam kinchid so this weapon cannot be countered by anyatamam by any other weapon astram pratyavakarshanam pratyavakarshanam means as a counter, so there is no other weapon to counter this weapon but jahaiya astrateja unnadham so the astrateja, the effulgence the glare of this weapon unnadham, it is formidable, it is fearsome astragyonyastrateja saham so there is no other weapon to counter it, so implied in that is that what is the way to counter it this weapon is only the way to counter it so he has discharged a brahmastra and you should also discharge a brahmastra that is the saving grace for that brahmastra which is not there in the case of nuclear weapons you know, if say one country sends a nuclear weapon against another country, the other country can very well send nuclear weapon back to destroy the first country, but the two nuclear weapons cannot counter each other and that’s why the nuclear weapons are extremely dangerous and we do not have that level of control right now to counter a nuclear weapon if nuclear weapon can somehow be interrupted along the way before it reaches the destination, that is different but if that doesn’t happen, then there is there are sometimes other kinds of weapons which can counter one weapon so for example, if a missile is being sent then there can be anti-missile charges that can be sent to intercept the missile but apart from that not much can be done but this is a sophisticated weapon, which one weapon is formidable, but it can be it cannot be countered by any other means except one and that is using the same weapon and this Krishna Shalya Arjuna this requires expertise, but you no have that expertise because you are astragyon astragyon gyon is to have knowledge, astra is weapons you do have knowledge of weapons oh Arjuna therefore use your knowledge of weapons and astate jasa counter counter the effulgence of this particular weapon it takes 30 so the vision is going backwards in terms of the narrative Krishna and Arjuna were discussing, so as long as their words are being discussed, Krishna said this, Arjuna said this is being said, but now their actions have to be described so the narrative focus moves back a little bit and it is Suta who is narrating the events on hearing the words spoken by Bhagwan Krishna so falguna is the name of Arjuna he was he was capable of defeating of overpowering of destroying the opposing hero he immediately touched water, water has to be touched for invoking mantras and he quickly did a parikrama of Krishna and and and with the blessings of the supreme brahma brahmastra he released so here there is a very poignant play of words brahmastra and brahmam brahmam so interestingly that the word the brahmastra is not the weapon of brahmaji although sometimes it is used in that sense normally we say we might say indraastra or vayuastra but actually if we see usually we do not use a name like that indra shaktiastra or shivajwara we may use like that brahmaji is more in the mood of brahmana than a kshatriya he is a brahmanical advisor and he rarely gets involved in fights and the word brahma can’t be related with the person brahma, the word can also be related with the with the varna brahmanas and it can also be related with the param brahma or with the brahma, brahman the spiritual reality so usually when the word brahmastra is used it is used in the sense of not referring to brahmaji it is not the weapon of brahman but brahman is the it is not the weapon of brahma but rather the brahman is the supreme just as the brahman is the supreme reality in all of existence similarly brahmastra is considered the greatest weapon in all of existence and in this particular case the person who is the who is the supreme being, krishna is the param brahma, he is the brahma personified so brahmam brahmastram sandate brahmam brahmastram sandate so what it means here is that although the brahmastra was coming towards krishna and arjuna both but another brahmastra was going to be discharged by arjuna to counter it and this so there was one brahmastra which was coming which had been discharged against the will of the supreme brahman but this brahmastra was being discharged according to the will of the supreme brahman and there is a prophetic implication over here through the alliteration that this brahmastra would counter the other brahmastra so so everything comes from the divine but everything doesn’t take us to the divine everything that is there in this world that comes from krishna but does it take us towards krishna that we have to see time, place, circumstance sometimes we may end up using the gifts of krishna and go away from krishna just as a person eats a lot of prasad, prasad is krishna’s mercy but overeating prasad can cause degradation in our consciousness and agitation of the senses which can cause fall down similarly even the beautiful things of this world come from krishna but they are meant to be used in krishna’s service, they are meant to remind us of krishna but instead if we try to, we get captivated by them themselves and we use them against krishna’s will that they may take us away from krishna and they may take others away from krishna, people have intelligence and they are meant to use their intelligence to move closer to krishna but many times non devotees for example, atheists especially atheists who propagate against god or materialists who propagate who use their intelligence say in godless sensual advertisements, they are using their intelligence to go away from god and to take others away from god so brahmastram brahmastram sandadhe so here the point that is being made is that the divine weapon is you being used according to the divine will by arjuna and that is the purpose and perfection of the resources of this world so we all are meant to become like arjuna not like ashwathama where we use the resources and the intelligence coming from the divine in defiance of the divine rather than doing that and bringing heavy karmic penalties on oneself we need to use the intelligence coming from the divine for the purpose of the divine and that will elevate and ultimately liberate us from material existence thank you