Why does Brihaspati face no consequence when he did a grievous misdeed as described in the Bhagavatam ninth canto?

From Anuj Agarwal

Recently I was reading in 9th canto the story of Brhaspati forcing  himself on his brother’s wife. It seems he had no remorse over his  action and also he was not punished for such abominable act. In other stories, when great commit personalities commit some mistake they suffer some reaction or they are remorseful and do some penances. I am not able to understand this story. I request you to kindly clarify.

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Question from Anuj Jagarwal Prabhu In the Ninth Canto of Srimad Bhagavatam Brahaspati It is described that he forced himself on his brother’s wife It seems that he had no remorse over his action And also he was not punished For such a viminal action In other stories when great personalities Commit some mistakes They suffer some reaction Or they are remorseful to do some penance I am not Able to understand this story I request you to kindly clarify Answer Vishwanath Chakrathakur In his commentary describes That this whole Past time Whatever happened Was primarily meant To ensure that Bharat Maharaj Who by his karma was not Supposed to get a son But still he did yajnas to satisfy the demigods They got a son eventually If we look at the Context of the Ninth Canto The primary Focus of that narration Is The dynasties That lead up to the Appearance of Lord Krishna So Lord Ram has been described in Chapter 10 and 11 And then basically the Akshatriya dynasties Yaduvamsya, Raghuvamsya are being described So now here Shukadeva Goswami is heading straight Towards the description of Ultimately the appearance of Lord Krishna Which will happen in chapter 24 So The previous chapter was Yayaati 9.20 and this Description comes in 9.19 was Yayaati 9.20 This description comes in 19.20 and then 9.21 goes on Dynasty of Purudh, dynasty of Bharata and it goes on Dynasty of Ajami Dynasty of sons of Yayaati and ultimately it comes to Krishna’s appearance So the point is that the Bhagavatam Is not necessarily describing This past time As a part Of its core Or instructive narration When the Bhagavatam describes Various activities It is not that all of them Are demonstrating the principles of Paradharma, of pure Transcendental religion Now the past time of Prahlad Maharaj Is Describing say principles of pure devotional service But within that also Hiranyakashyapu is not acting in a devotional way So even within past times Of pure devotional service There may be And there will be in fact Anti-devotional characters And beyond that The Bhagavatam While it is building up its particular storyline Its emphasis So the emphasis is 10th canto, the appearance of Krishna But the Bhagavatam basically starts By describing Swayambhu, Manu and everyone else From that time onward The various Manus go on So now it comes to Vaivasvath Manu In the 8th canto In that Manu Manvantara, Manu’s time The various King’s actions are described As briefly Where king’s lives are described briefly Sometimes just mentioned As to ultimately lead to the appearance of Krishna So the heart of the Bhagavatam Is the appearance of Krishna And the past times of Krishna which are described in the 10th canto And everything else is a prelude To that in many ways So what is just a prelude What is just a passing reference Is not The primary instruction So now If we Consider a parallel example In the 9th canto itself There is the story of Pururava In the 14th chapter But it is just simply described that Pururava became infatuated by Urvashi He lost her and then he Regained her and then he again lost her And then he did yajnas and then He went to the heavens Where he got her So now this story In and of itself doesn’t describe Anything spiritual we may say So the purpose of this narration Is at one level Of course spiritual to describe That how even great king Can become infatuated And totally Captivated By the By the spell of lust So now the Sequence to this past time actually comes In 11th canto in a different context In the 11th canto there is a chapter Called Aila Gita Which is actually a part of the Uddhava Gita So Krishna is instructing Uddhava about Detachment From the world And then in that context He tells How Pururava got detached from his infatuation In captivation That is 11.26 that is the Aila Gita So Here if we look at the way the Pururava past time is described The primary focus is not to give a complete story The primary focus is to Describe a brief Outline of events To lead to the appearance of Krishna So similarly the Brihaspati past time is not Described fully And what Brihaspati did was definitely wrong And What Atonement he did How he went through because of that None of that is described over here Because that is not the focus The focus is the Dynasty of Bharat Maharaj And how Bharat Maharaj got a son When he was not ready to get a son When he was not ready in the sense Not karmically ready to get a son So Through the particular event that happened In the higher realms So Brihaspati And Mamta eventually They got a son and that son Neither of them wanted it Because of the circumstances And then that son was given over To King Bharat And he was known as In this context Bharadwaj So The point here is How Bharat Maharaj got a son It is not the moral actions of Brihaspati that are being described Now still Shouldn’t this be a matter of concern Yes, now we have to see Depending on whatever is told What is the lesson that is to be Learned over here. The point is that Even a person as Elsewhere we know that Brihaspati is certainly an extraordinary person And in fact He is the He is the teacher of the demigods So for him to Succumb to something like this Is Certainly jarring And we learn from this That actually speaking one should not That one should Be very very careful about the About the Power of lust To delude Anyone No matter what the position of that person So when the Bhagavatam talks about Brahmaji Being attracted to his wife It is said that he when he realized Not to his wife rather to his daughter So it is described that when he realizes That What he has done Then he feels ashamed and he gives up his body So actually that is a subtle body and he is going through a process Of changing his Body while maintaining A continuity of consciousness And a continuity of identity also As the process Of creation is evolving So now in that case Because the focus Of description is on creation So then Events are described fully And even at that time the focus is not So much on Brahmaji getting attracted It is on the process Of creation and within that it is described That how powerful is the power of illusion That even Brahmaji can get tempted So In general When such things happen With people Who are otherwise known to be great Then We Should not Generally pass a moral judgment About those people rather we should Focus on the moral Lessons that we can learn from it There is a difference between the two The first is A statement about the character of that Particular person The second is An inference about What we can learn So the first It is best that we not do Because in this case As I said we don’t know the complete story It may well be that Brihaspati realized what he had done And he Atoned for it He repented for it Or it may be that this whole thing Happened because this was Some inconceivable way by which The demigods and ultimately the lord wanted to Fulfill the desire of Bharat Maharaj That is what Is indicated by Vishwanath Chakra Thakur in his commentary Now again this doesn’t justify Brihaspati doing something like this But that means Brihaspati had certain desires And when he did something Specifically He Now that his desire Was used By other agencies To fulfill Some other purpose also So the point is not to condone the actions Of Brihaspati but to understand their Context and because we don’t Know the context largely here In this case so therefore It is best that we don’t Pass judgment about this situation But we can sure So we may wonder if we are not meant to pass judgment Then what is the point of this past time coming in the Bhagavatam And the point of the past time Is to help us Learn a moral lesson Ourselves not just from The see moral lessons can Be learnt in two ways When certain actions Lead to certain consequences Then we understand that Oh this action Should not be done because It will lead to terrible consequences So that Is not really the focus of the Bhagavatam Bhagavatam is not really talking about Karma and karmic reactions over here That has already been talked about In the other literature In the Aparadharma literature That means If we do this action we will get this reaction That is lower level religion Karma Kanda And here The Bhagavatam also mentions it briefly in the 5th canto When it talks about the hellish planets But in the 9th canto The focus is not so much on Giving up temptations Because they will lead to They will lead to Karmic reactions But giving up temptations Because they will distract us from Spiritual advancement So if you see the three stories Come in the 9th canto itself Which talk about the distracting power of lust The story of Ayati The story of Pururava And the story of Shaubhari Muni So Ayati and Pururava are kings Respected kings In exalted lineages And still they become As we say dancing dogs Because of being infatuated by lust And Shaubhari Muni gives up his Renunciation and penance Phenomenal renunciation To live underwater And then he becomes captivated by not one but 50 women Or rather he takes up 50 women So that he can enjoy with them That’s how much he becomes captivated by lust So now again in these cases The focus is not on the karmic reactions The focus is on The distraction So the Bhagavatam at this level is talking about How one can get distracted Surely the fact that their actions have consequences That there are karmic reactions That is true But when something like this Happened to great people Who are known to be great from other contexts Then we should reserve Judgment in terms of Passing Passing a statement about their moral character And we should focus On what we can What What is the moral lesson that we can learn So at this stage the Bhagavatam is leading up to the 10th Canto description of the pastimes of Krishna And everything else is just a build up For that So this is not a comprehensive exposition of This particular Event which involved Which Involved Brihaspati doing something Which Which was wrong But it is focusing on Just that something happened By which Bharat Maharaj got a son So Whatever we can learn From this particular pastime That we should learn That these are the sort of things That lust can tempt anyone No matter how exalted And that is how we should be careful But because we don’t know the full context We shouldn’t pass a moral judgment about Brihaspati’s character He is a great soul and he deserves to be respected And we learn This is Brahma he deserves our respect Even if he is temporarily attracted to his daughter Similarly, Brihaspati deserves our respect This doesn’t mean that That particular action is to be condoned at all It simply means that We all have to be cautious In living in this dangerous material world Filled as it is with temptations