The questions reveal the questioners level SB – 1.4.1-13

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
thank you the speaking the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the yadAha bhagavAn shukaha so sūta sūta so sūta sūta mahAbhAgao sūta you are very fortunate the repetition indicates ecstasy repetition indicates reverence vadano vadatAm vara vadano please speak this vadatAm vadatAm means those who are capable of speaking vara you are the best among those who are capable of speaking kathAmbhAgatim punyam so kathAmbh is however but kathAmbh is story so here is kathAmbhAgatim punyam the pious story of the bhagavatam please recite it he is saying yadAha bhagavAn shukaha that as it was spoken by bhagavAn shukaha just as shukadeva Goswami had spoken it earlier please speak it now he said so we are moving from the background discussions which were happening so there was the overview of the bhagavatam in the process of in terms of how it how the process of devotion services is the topmost process and how it works that was discussed in the second chapter and a third chapter discussed the object of devotion the various incarnations of the Lord and it indicated also Krishna supreme position so now Jnanak Rishi is asking please speak about the bhagavatam as it was spoken by Suta Goswami kasminyuge pravrtteyam sthAnevAkena hetunA kutah sanchoditah krishnah krutavAn samhitaM puniH muniH kasminyuge pravrtteyam so in what period sthAnevAkena hetunA so in what time and what place was it spoken kutah sanchoditah krishnah sanchoditah means inspired by from where was he inspired krutavAn samhitaM puniH so now he’s talking about two levels of origination of the bhagavatam one is in terms of a conversation and the other is in terms of literature so the bhagavatam as a conversation took place between Shukdev Goswami and Parichit Maharaj and as a literature it was composed by Vyasadev so here he’s asking the second level origination he says where did Vyasadev get the inspiration to compile this and where and when did he actually do it so it is said that a wise person has six friends who what when where why and how and these can teach us all a lot so accordingly it is said over here that here he learned like this so he’s similarly here Sanatoshi actually asking where and when it’s a natural human interest when we hear when we hear about some incident we want to know it’s it’s locational time and space that gives us some orientation to grasp it so if we hear bomb has exploded and you don’t know where did it happen when did it happen or if we hear that no particular book has won the Nobel Prize in literature who wrote it where was it written when was it written so no place and time helps us gain some routing in grasping the complex reality of this world and in navigating the complexities of this world Tasya putro maha yogi samadrun nirvi kalpaka ekantam tirun nitro gudho mudha iveyate so here it is Tasya putro maha yogi Tasya Vyasadev his son was a great yogi maha yogi samadrun nirvi kalpaka he was equipoised towards everyone and he did not have any did not see any vikalpas he did not see any alternatives so vikalpa is alternative nirvikalpa means not seeing any alternative that means seeing only one thing so he was absorbed in oneness ekantam tirun nitro was fixed in one reality his consciousness was fixed unnidro beyond ignorance nidra is ignorance here and gudho mudha iveyate he was very deep unexposed and he moved around like a fool so now sometimes when a speaker asks the question when a person the audience asked the question under the first question that comes in the speaker’s mind is how much does the does the speaker questioner know that is at what level should I answer the question is the questioner also a seasoned person who knows knows the fundamentals very well and know some advanced stuff also or is the questioner a neophyte and I have to start from the basics so now Sona Krishi is asking a question where and when did this happen but then he’s also telling that it’s not he’s indicating that he’s not utterly ignorant about Shukadeva Swami he knows he is the son the details is mentioning he was the son of Vyasadev and he was himself a advanced yogi who was fixed in impersonal realisation and he acted as if he was a fool when he was moving around in the world dhrishtvanuyantam drishim aatma jamapyanam anagnam devyohriya paridadhurna sutasya chitram tadvikshya prishyati munau jagadusthavasthi sripumbhidanatusutasya vivikta dhrishthe this was described as incident which is repeatedly cited to demonstrate or to drive home the comparative positions of Shukadeva Swami and Vyasadev Vyasa and Shuka so he said that dhrishtvanuyantam drishim aatma jamapyanam anagnam so earlier while offering obeisances to Shukadeva Swami, Suta Goswami had said how when Shuka left home his father went after him and called him but only tam Vyasa sunum upayami munum muni so he had said that only the trees responded that means Vyasa’s son did not respond at all to his father’s call he was so utterly detached now that same that same incidents continuation described here that as Suta was going away Vyasa followed him and then he came to a place where dhrishtvanuyantam was following the aatma jamapyanam son anagnam now Suta was completely detached and sorry Shuka was completely detached and he was not wearing any clothes whereas Vyasa was wearing clothes devyo riya paridhidhur nasutasya chitram devyo riya so the ten beautiful damsels who were there riya avrashayanis paridhidhur they covered themselves but nasutasya chitram but Suta had referred to Suta Goswami but here Suta refers to the son so when his son had gone they did not cover themselves tad vikshya pruchyati munau jagadus tavasthi seeing this he asked them munau jagadus and they replied tavasthi in you there is tripum vidha nathusutasya vivikta dhrishte in you there is a differentiation of man and woman but nathusutasya vivikta dhrishte but in his hand he is utterly purified and he does not see the difference between man and woman so women are often so much subjected to wanted and unwanted male attention that they over time develop a conscious or subconscious radar by which they can sense the motivation underlying the male attention so for example if a man is externally La Saudi Mary culture but actually is internally lascivious then over time certain glances certain voice intonation certain dublin tindars all these convey and women also are sharp enough to pick that up so that way here these women they are not just beautiful but they were shrewd with respect to understanding motivations and they said that but they saw Vyasa they saw Suta they saw that he you know there was just no lust in his eyes at all so just like when a small infant is there and then the infant actually drinks milk from the mother’s breast and the mother falls off does not feel shy when exposing her breast to an infant and similarly when children are very small children may themselves be unclothed and they may go to especially when small babies are there or little grown up are there the children may just walk into that woman’s chamber and the woman may also not be properly dressed they may be just have come from bathing or they may just be dressing but the women don’t feel shy they don’t feel the need to cover themselves nor do the children feel anyway affected by that because you know the lust is not entered into the equation only at that age so like that these young women the beautiful damsels who were there they were beautiful women they did not feel the need to cover themselves when Suta went by sorry when the Suta of Vyasa that is Shuka went by but when Vyasa himself went then they saw now Vyasa was a very respectable person he was a sage and it’s not that he had lust within him but the point was they felt that he is just like Shukadev Goswami is just like a child and we need to not bother about anything with him whereas Vyasadev is a respectable person and we need to be careful in the way we deal with him that’s why they covered themselves so this example conveys that although Shukadev, Shuka was the son of Vyasa but still he was actually at a spiritually much more exalted level than Vyasa so the spiritual level we will be talking about it in various ways here it is talked about in terms of utter detachment from the world and that utter detachment was seen by how not only did he have no lusty desires but even those observing him did not feel any sense of embarrassment when they saw him so we will see later that Vyasa himself heard from Shuka and Bhagavatam was spoken so so how was he recognised? Lakshad is characteristic that which helps us to recognise so how was he recognised by the citizens? Puri is city so Paurai is those who reside in the city when he reached the various provinces the provinces of Kurujangala so he act like the man Mukha is Mukha is one who is dumb the word dumb can mean one who is foolish or dumb is also one who can’t speak so overall he was acting like a Prabhupada translates as stunted who was acting like a like an unintelligent person when he moved around in Hastinapur so now it is in the previous verse it was mentioned that Shuka left his home and went away so now the question is raised where did he go? and what happened when he went there? so he went to various places Kurujangala provinces he came to Hastinapur so how did people receive him over there? that’s the question that has been asked by Sanak Rishi so here Pandava not the word normally it is used to refer to the sons of Pandu but here it is used in the generic sense to refer to the descendants of Pandu and there is another specific descendant that is Parikshit so Parikshit is the great grandson now of Pandu but just as the word Kaurava became a generic reference to refer to the various descendants of Kuru so similarly here the word Pandava is used in a generic sense to refer to all the descendants and within that a specific descendant so how did this Pandava A.S. that Pandava that is Parikshit so how did this Rajarishi meet this Muni? and that’s what made the Samvada possible Tata Tata is affectionate form of address Prabhupada uses his his translational creativeness to render Tata as a darling so it’s a not just a formal academic relationship between Shuddha Goswami and Sanak Rishi they are teacher-student but the teacher-student bond was also one of affection not just of remuneration I pay you remuneration and teaching no it was affection so affection is Tata you see that when we are talking about just technical subjects even then sometimes a bond is formed between the teacher and the student but when the subject we discuss is actually close to our heart that means the closer the subject is to our heart the closer is the bond that is formed between the speaker and the audience if somebody is just explaining the instruction how to operate a particular new machine is coming company and then the representative of that company has come and giving a training seminar to educate the employees about how this machine works and that is not really related to the immediately in a personal sense related to the speaker’s life or the hearer’s life of course if the speaker has passion for that particular product and then that speaker may touch the that speaker’s passion may touch some of the hearer’s like hearer’s hearts but if the speaker is a motivational speaker speaker speaks some things from one’s own life experiences and then that creates a greater bond between the speaker and the audience greater means not just intensity but in terms of more of intimacy also so now when we speak about Krishna then Krishna is the closest object to our heart as speakers and when there are sincere seekers then Krishna is the closest object to their heart also and naturally so when someone when there is the sharing of Krishna between a speaker and audience that is no longer just formal didactic kind of sharing it actually leads to the greatest level of intimacy between the two but it leads to great intimate bonding between the speaker speaker and the hearer and if the two already have an affectionate relationship then that affectionate relationship becomes even deeper Krishna also refers to Arjuna as Tatha and that is the address from the Bhagavad Gita also and now it is coming here also so there is an affectionate relationship between the two yatraisha sattvati shruti so sattvati shruti is that which is sattvata that which is situated in truth sattva is truth sattvati is that which is right in the truth sattvati shruti so that literature which is the topmost truthful literature so how was it that speaking became possible because of their meeting so how did that meeting takes place so here he speaks another feature of shuka’s detachment earlier he said that he was so detached from women that he did not even see the male-female difference now another thing is specifically the question is raised that how did him speaking the Bhagavatam must have taken some time and how how was such a prolonged between between shuka and parikshita possible because shuka was famous for not staying at the house of householders for long so as much time as was required for milking a cow that much of the time those who are householders are attached to householders like shukadeva avaikshati that much time he would wait mahabhagas tirthikurvam sadashramam and even during even during that much wait he would transform their resistance residence into a place of tirtha so there was this enormous potency by which just by staying at a particular place he would purify that place that was Shukadeva Goswami for us that is the glory for him all of us to know but at the same time he would not stay so if the milk had already been milked then he would just take the milk and he would leave but if the milk had not been taken from the cow then he would just wait for them to give out the milk for them to get the milk from the cow and he would honour it and he would leave so a person who would leave so quickly how did such a person stay for so long as to speak the Bhagavatam to a person like Parikshit Maharaj now all the Parikshit Maharaj was not a Grahamedhi but still he was in the Grihasta Ashram he was a householder and Shukadeva would not spend much time with the Grihastas and further ninth text Abhimanyu Sutam Sutam Rahur Bhagvatottamam Tatsyajanam Mahashcharyam Karmani Chakranheenaha Abhimanyu Sutam Sutam so here the poetic repetition of Sutam Sutam and Suta in such a repetitions bring beauty and aesthetic appeal to the Bhagavatam and but the two Sutas are used they juxtapose together but the two Sutas refer to two different things Abhimanyu Sutam refers is one word compound word which refers to the son of Abhimanyu that is Parikshit and Suta refers to Suta Goswami Abhimanyu Sutam Suta Rahur Bhagvatottamam so now here we see Shana Krishi is not an informed questioner he also knows and he is telling his background where he comes from so that Suta can answer the questions accordingly and he is saying that yes the question is how will the two of them meet Parikshit and Suta Suta now is telling he is giving some background of Suta of Shuka sorry and now he is giving some background of Parikshit also so Rahur Bhagvatottamam it is said that about Rahur it is said about him as Bhagvatottamam he was the topmost of the Bhagvatas Tatsyajanam Mahashcharyam and he was not just a great devotee but his whole life his birth itself was Tatsyajanam Mahashcharyam how his birth was amazing greatly amazing that will be described later in the Bhagvatam the lord himself intervened to protect him Karmaniche Grunihinaha and his activities are also Karmaniche they are also wonderful so please tell us about that also so while telling about the meeting between how the meeting took place between these two great people please tell us about how he was how his birth and activities these two Sasamrat Kasyavahetoh Pandunam Manavardhanah Prayopavisto Gangayam Anadrutyadhirat Shriyam so Sasamrat Sasamrat he was a great emperor Kasyavahetoh that person who had sovereignty over the whole world Kasyavahetoh with what intention with what objective Pandunam Manavardhanah he who was actually enhancing the glory of the Pandu dynasty Pandunam Manavardhanah Prayopavisto Prayopavisto so he sat and fasted Prayopavisto is a vrata of fasting to death so why did he took that that vrata Upavisto Gangayam went close to Ganga Anadrutyadhirat Shriyam Anadrutya Anadrutya means so in one sense Aadhar is to disrespect so here it is used not in sense of disrespect but neglect he had royal opulences and why did he give up those royal opulences Adhirat Shriyam which he had acquired the kingdom Shriyam with great opulence normally if somebody has a flourishing business then that person will give up the business for some greener prospects but suddenly that person has a big business and the business depends on that person why would such a person give it up he is asking this question about Parikshetra Namantiyatapadanyake Tamatmanah Shivayahaniyadhananishatravaham Kathamsaveerah Shriyamangadustyajam Yuvaishatots Shatotsrashtum Ahosuhashubheem Ahosahashubheem Sahasubheem Namantiyatapadanyake Tamatmanah Namantiyatapadanyake so unto his feet others would bow down Atmanah so he now he is analysing why would a king leave the kingdom is it that someone else conquered the kingdom and this king had to flee to save one’s life it’s not possible Namantiyatapadanyake Shivayahaniyadhananishatravaham so they recognised him to be so powerful that they would offer tributes even that even his enemies would come and offer tribute why because they knew that he was such a Shivaya it was not because of force that they would offer they knew that he was such a great king that that by surrendering to him it would be for their own benefit such a great hero Shriyam he had opulence, he was heroic Anga, Anga is referring to Suta Goswami such a Shriya, wealth is very difficult to renounce Yuva he was in full youth yes kings are expected to renounce the world when they become elderly that they take the vanaprastha but he was doing it in Yuva and Aishatam so these are all desirable things which he had Utsrashtum, Utsrashtum means he gave it all up and then Ahos, it’s an exclamation of amazement Sahashubhi so why did he want to give up everything including his life so he is talking about the various qualifications of Parikshit which in one sense the previous was talking about his spiritual qualification that his Bhagwat Uttamaha now this text is talking about his the few verses ago the spiritual qualification he talked about, this is talking about his material position and material qualification enemies were going down to him, he was young he was wealthy he had a long life before him and why would such a person renounce the world it’s the most unlikely of events, normally say if a cricketer is at the top of the sports and then and he is not even old, maybe the cricketer just started playing at the age of 17, 18 and has come to the peak by 25, 26 and then that is not the time when anyone retires, when people go to 35 or 40 when their performance starts going down and their energy level starts going down then that is the time they retire but if it’s someone at the age of 25 or something then one will not retire at all so why did he retire at such a time this question is something which naturally will come to a person and that is the question which is being asked here by Shukadev by by by so 12th text so further qualification of Parikshit having described that when he was living he was not living for himself, he was living for others he was doing benefit auspiciousness for the people they were flourishing that their material and spiritual development was going on and he was a person who was devoted to now he is further talking that this is general characteristic of those who are devoted to they do not live for themselves they live for others so when like this when they are living for others why would anyone want to actually give up one’s body so yes if one is entangled and one wants to renounce that is understandable but if one is not entangled one is actually living for the sake of others Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita has told Arjuna that do not renounce the world set an example for others so that is what Parikshit was doing so why would such a person renounce 13th verse so we know that you can clearly explain all this that whatever you have questioned you can explain all that you can explain the meanings of words subjects the import of the words you are fully acquainted except some portion of the Vedas so he is telling over here that in some of the Vedas the recitation is considered very important the potency is considered to be present in precise recitation of mantras that is one of the main differences between the Shruti and the Smriti Shruti is heard and the idea of hearing means that there is precise recitation that is required whereas Smriti is that which is remembered and that indicates that one understands the import and then explains the meaning according to time, place, circumstance so here he is asking we feel that you are quite qualified to explain the meanings of the subjects that we have discussed that we have raised over here and so we are asking you to speak and your relative expertise in in in the precise metric recitation of some sections of the Vedas that is not important because that is not the relevant subject over here so in some cases some of the Vedic sounds especially the Rig Vedic sounds are considered to be like formulas to the extent the sounds are precisely recited to that extent the power is present in them but the Smritis especially the Bhagavatam its essence is not in the precise recitation its in the semantic assimilation semantic assimilation means that one has to understand the meaning and convey the meaning and so here the reference to Shuddha’s disqualification is actually done to point out that to underscore that it is no disqualification because this is a different subject somebody is speaking in physics and within physics that person is more into theoretical physics and even that person doesn’t know about the latest applications that have been developed and in terms of that person doesn’t know how this particular application works that person is not an engineer but if theoretical physics is being discussed engineering physics doesn’t really matter at that time so similarly here it doesn’t matter what exactly is happening in terms of Shukadeva Swami not knowing a particular subject because that is not relevant over here and in general if we want to understand and transform our lives not just develop the power through recitations precise recitation, precise recitation can give us some power but actually the real transformation of the heart happens when there is reorientation of our world view and that happens when there is assimilation of the world view, so for that assimilation transmission of meaning is important and that transmission of meaning is what Swamiji is reassuring that you are qualified for doing that because you understood the meaning and you can convey that meaning to us we will continue in our future discussions