Bhagavatam tenth canto study 13 – 10.2.37-42 Why the unborn Lord is born is both inferable and inconceivable

Alone that you can be known. So, Srimad Bhagavatam, text 37 over here, in the chapter 2 of the 10th Canto, which was prayers by the demigods for Lord Krishna in the womb, Garbha-stuti section, celebrated section from the Bhagavatam. And what is going on over here? The devatas are talking about how the Lord mercifully appears in this world for our well-being.
And in the previous verse they said that you can be known only when we spiritualize our consciousness by the practice of bhakti. So, śruṇvaṅgruṇaṁ saṁsmarayaṁ ca cintayaṁ, nā mā nirūpāṇi ca maṅgalānite, kriyā suhyas tvaccharanārvindayor āviṣṭa-cetāna-bhavāya kalpate, śruṇvaṅgruṇaṁ saṁsmarayaṁ ca cintayaṁ. So, śruṇvaṅgruṇaṁ, hearing, accepting, contemplating or reciting, saṁsmarayaṁ, remembering, cintayaṁ.
And remembrance is one thing, but deep contemplation is another thing. Nā mā nirūpāṇi ca maṅgalānite. In the Tenth Canto, there are so many places, there is such beautiful rhyme over there.
śruṇvaṅgruṇaṁ, cintayaṁ is rhyme, nā mā nirūpāṇi, maṅgalānite is rhyme. Your names, forms, they are all so auspicious, O Lord, that by reciting them, by remembering them, what happens? kriyā suhyas tvaccharanārvindayor kriyā suhyas, when one is engaged in the activity of serving your Lotus Feet, āviṣṭa-cetāna-bhavāya kalpate, āviṣṭa-cetāna-bhavāya kalpate. In this way, when our consciousness becomes absorbed in you, nā bhavāya kalpate, there is no more return to material existence.
This is a theme that is repeated in the Bhāgavatam again and again, that by rendering devotional service, we can transcend material existence. And that theme is talked about here once again. āviṣṭa-cetāna-bhavāya kalpate, by being absorbed in you.
So now the Bhāgavatam, in a sense, walks its talk. That means the Bhāgavatam tells that by doing this, one can go beyond material existence. And the Bhāgavatam also shows how Parīkṣit Mahārāja goes beyond material existence by hearing the vow of the Lord.
So that Lord who is transcendental, makes us transcendental if we become absorbed in Him. Śuṇvaṁ gruṇaṁ, we hear about Him, we speak about Him, we remember Him, we contemplate Him. So that’s why actually the Bhāgavatam itself is so important.
Because apart from the Bhāgavatam, where else will we come to know about Bhagavān? Where else can we become absorbed in Bhagavān? It’s so important for us. If you want to think about a subject, how will we do it unless we connect with that subject at all? Suppose the nature of our mind is that whatever comes in the forefront of our perception, that is what slowly starts remaining there. And it’s like sometimes some people may learn a language, but if for many years they go to a foreign land where nobody speaks that language, then when they come back, their ability of that language becomes a little rusted.
They’ll still be able to speak, but not that easily. What will happen is, they will not be able to… now, what to speak of a language, at least we have spoken for many, many years. In the case of our devotion, we practice it for some time, but then most of the time we live in the material world, where there are so many material stimuli that attract us to various, various things.
And we also have to function in this material world, so again we have to think about so many things. So therefore, it’s natural that our thoughts will be directed towards matter. And when our thoughts are directed towards matter, from there, if we are to redirect them towards Krishna, we need some substance.
Without that substance, we will never be able to redirect it. Substance means that we need to have some deep connection with Krishna, we need to regularly hear about Krishna. Without hearing about him, where will we get the substance for our thoughts? It’s like if you consider food.
Our body needs some food to be input so that we can have some energy. But if the food that we have eaten gets exhausted, then what do we do after that? We need to eat again. If the food has got exhausted, the energy coming from the food has got exhausted and after that we will not be able to do much.
We will have to come back again. We will have to eat food. So similarly, if we consider that we take in some spiritual input, so what we need to do is we need to actually move towards Krishna.
Kriyas, we just have to recognize that unless we hear about him, we cannot move towards him. So, of all living beings and you give fearlessness to all of them. So here the point being made is that there are so many that you have come to do good to this world that you have bring auspiciousness all this is there that you have you have full they started by saying Satyavrata, my dear lord you have kept your promise to us that you will come but then they are saying that you know, you’re not obliged You are transcendental Even if we pray to you, you’re not obliged to come.
So why have you come? Actually our prayers is not the reason for your descent Your descent is ultimately Beyond the reason it is transcendental. We now we know them. It is just for your pastimes Prahlad Mahadasa in his prayers says to Narasimhadev, my dear lord, you are coming Because your pastimes are so sweet you’re coming to perform those sweet pastimes Such a important thing that now for us, of course, we don’t expect the lord to descend as avatar for us but When we sometimes pray to him and he reciprocates the prayers some problem gets solved At that time also we should understand that it is not Our prayer that forced him to come It is he by his Magnanimity Chose to come and that is his greatness He had no reason to come But somehow he chose to come So such is his greatness And actually everything in this world can be maintained simply by him It’s simply our fortune that he has come And everything in this world is maintained by this material world’s energy and he now that he has come what is our fortune because He is the fearless shelter for all souls he is the supreme Shelter and now he has come now.
We can take greater shelter of him because he’s become more accessible to us by his descent So text goes on now text 40 So the they are saying that this is not the first time you have come oh lord You have come before also Chaitanya They are saying we offer obeisances to you lord you that same lord who has Come first is Matsya That lord has come as Matsya who has come as the horse incarnation As you could say who has come as the tortoise Who has come as the half man half lion as the varaha as the boar incarnation as the swan So you sometimes come as the king in the form of lord ramchandra and other kshatriyas you come in the form of brahmana like Vamana Yeah, you have actually Appeared among the enlightened beings also In this way you descended so many times My dear lord Please save us oh lord You who are the protector of all the three worlds Dinesha Oh lord now you save us you’re a controller Please remove the burden of the earth You have attained and descended in this world as the best of the yadu dynasty You please deliver us from the burden of deliver us by removing the burden of the earth so actually Suppose we go to a doctor And we are sick now if you remember the doctor has cured us of many past diseases Then that gives us confidence to take the medicine of the doctor more determinately more wholeheartedly and Similarly, they’re saying that oh lord. You have delivered us so many times in the past So, please deliver us again Mathias That You lord have descended so many times And so many ways you have delivered us. So, please deliver us again We offer obeisances to you The two more verses here She So now towards the end They are recognizing that the lord has appeared not just Anywhere he appeared in the womb of devaki and therefore devaki is also a very special lady And now they are offering They’re directing her words their words to her now, of course Their purpose Is no, we don’t just respect the lord We respect the lord.
We respect everything that is related with the lord also Oh by fortune In your womb It’s by fortune that in your womb That supreme lord has appeared With His energies That means in his full potency has appeared That lord has personally appeared Was naturally fearful Of kamsa because so many of her sons had earlier been killed by that Kamsa, but they were assuring her now Now you do not need to fear That And actually it is not your time to fear has ended it is now the time for Kamsa’s fearing to have again, of course kamsa had always been in fear But it is not the time for your sons to be killed now it is now the time for the killer of your sons to be killed Therefore there’s let there be no more fear In fact your son will be the protector not just of you But of the whole Yadu dynasty bhavita he will become so they’re assuring him devtas when They come to the world actually They come for various purposes They sometimes come to accept the sacrifices which have been performed by The kings over here. They sometimes come to observe what is happening over here So supervise they sometimes come And the lord descends to observe his pastimes to pray to him to participate sometimes in his pastimes also as much as they can and in the cosmic hierarchy the devtas Are reside at a level higher than the manavas so therefore what happens is That because they reside at a higher level than the manavas So it is but natural that they Will be Giving some kind of words of advice or words of guidance or some blessings to the manavas Now from the from the material hierarchy the humans are lower than the gods the devotional hierarchy Those like vasudevaki and vasudev they are intimate associates of the lord and they are higher than the gods but during the descent often they act according to the Cosmic hierarchy in this world So therefore the devtas who have appeared they have given assurance to Vasudevaki they do not fear your time of fear your time of terror Has come to an end now That that lord who is the shelter of all living beings who is paraha puman Your dark night is going to end for devaki it was indeed a dark night That She was arrested she was a royal lady. She was a princess now you know when a when a woman gets married and is about to go to her groom’s her husband’s home It’s it’s such a it’s a tender-hearted moment for her And she hopes that a joyous new chapter will begin in her life She will have a new family.
She will have her own children and There is such a wonderful life for her and at that time Her whole life had turned upside down There was a because of one prophecy. She had done nothing. Suddenly the prophecy came And her own brother turned to kill her And then actually one after another her sons were being killed It’s a nightmarish situation for her She’s telling that Mahabodh Bhayam do not fear Do not fear because Now that lord who is a deliverer of all living beings He has come to deliver you Now it is Your sons will not die.
It is the killer of your sons who will die text 42 She is In this way after offering Is that is where the praise stuti is praise It’s the wise verses are composed in a composed in praise So abhishtuya means in this way after offering praise purusham Under that supreme beings Whose form was transcendental So brahma is lord shiva is Of course brahma is lord shiva With brahma and shiva leading the devatas They return to their heavenly abodes so thus this This amazing chapter of the second the 10th canto the second chapter ends this whole chapter sends on Yeah, what krishna is going to do will be described in detail in the Subsequent chapters, but here the stress is on How beings high this is no by no means an ordinary human being because beings higher than human have also Descended here and they have also Actually given us an opportunity to become Beings higher than humans have come and they have given an opportunity for a us to glimpse into the dynamics of the universe of how things happen in the universe and how we all can relish that rare rare event When a being higher than the heavenly when the being higher than the gods the supreme god descends to this world And gives us an opportunity to access the supreme reality So devatas come offer prayers And it said that the foremost among the devatas were in the lead It started also with brahma and bhava being described and here also brahma and ishana They’re described because you know, they are the foremost of the gods And their being their being present indicate that somebody Greater than them is present over here. So These prayers are offered collectively by the gods Now sometimes our acharya has described for example in the gopi gita jiva goswami describes that a particular prayer is offered by a particular Gopi but then each gopi when she is offering a prayer she is Representing as she is expressing her heart as well as representing the Will representing the whole group So in that sense there is unity in diversity So similarly here it is said that the devatas offer prayers when devatas offer prayers actually it is Is offered in one voice, but while offering the prayers in one voice the stress is given on Offering Those prayers to the lord, uh that they are collectively Expressing their devotion to the lord and thus they are enabling us to move towards him So such is The divinity such as the transcendence of the lord And it is that lord who has descended to this world and his pastimes. We’ll discuss In future verses in the next chapter