Nrsimha-caturdasi

Giriraj Swami: . . .Therefore, he refused to accept anything for himself. Lord Nṛsiṁhadeva was begging him to accept benediction but Prahlada Maharaja refused. He said, “My dear Lord, I have not served you to get anything in return. If I was serving you to get something in return, then I am not serving you but doing some business. So, I am not a business man, so don’t try to induce me to take something. I am a [Unintelligible 00:00:50] and I am simply serving you simply for sake of pleasing you, without any other desire.” Later on, when Lord Nṛsiṁhadeva insisted Prahlada Maharaja to take something and ask something. Prahlada Maharaja said that, “My dear Lord, I request you to please deliver my father Hiraṇyakaśipu.” Even though Hiraṇyakaśipu was trying to kill Prahlada Maharaja by so many ways. He had become inimical to Prahlada but Prahlada did not become inimical to Hiraṇyakaśipu. Prahlada remained his well-wisher and therefore, Lord Nṛsiṁhadeva delivered the Hiraṇyakaśipu.

So, this is the quality of a Vaishnava. He doesn’t approach the Lord for anything personal or anything material for himself. But if he asks for something, he will ask the Lord to show the mercy to fallen souls suffering in the material world. That is the greatness of a Vaishnava. And he will ask the Lord to sit within us and remove sinful desire within us like lust, anger, greed, envy, illusion, and madness. Bhaktivinoda Thakura praying in the same way in Navadvipa dhāma. Bhaktivinoda Thakura reveals as Lord Nṛsiṁhadeva killed Hiraṇyakaśipu, he came to Navadvipa dhāma and want to take rest. So when the Lord rested there, all of the demigods, including Lord Brahma and Lord Shiva, Lord Indra and other demigods they all came to Navadvipa dhāma and build houses or Vishwakarma build palaces so that is the association of Nṛsiṁhadeva while living in this world in Navadvipa dhāma. So, the place where Nṛsiṁhadeva took the rest is called Narasinghapalli or Devapalli because all demigods came and took rest there with the Lord.

So, Bhaktivinoda Thakura says that even though [Unintelligible 00:04:00] Lord Nṛsiṁhadeva and praised the Lord because he has so many evils within his heart. Bhaktivinoda Thakura is a pure devotee, he has no evils in the heart but he is showing by his own example for us. So he says, I have so many evils in my heart like lust, enemies headed by lust and then hypocrisy and duplicity and the desire for position. So he says, “I will go to Nṛsiṁhadeva and pray to him that he should kill these desires, which is like demons, and he should make my desire to serve Krishna very strongly.” And then pictures that how he came in front of the Lord Nṛsiṁhadeva, how he offered obeisances to the Lord, how he would pray with great sincerity and great prejudices to the Lord to remove the evils headed by the lust and the other. And make one desire to serve Radha and Krishna very strong. And then he pictured that he is honest and earnest enough to respond to his prayer and tell him, “My dear child, you remain in the dhāma of the Lord Gauranga, you relish the holy name of Krishna and you worship Radha and Krishna. All obstacles will be removed by the grace of my devotees. So, you remain Navadvipa dhāma and you relish the beautiful exchanges between Radha and Krishna.” Then Bhaktivinoda Thakura says that his desire will be fulfilled to fall in the dust and roll in the dust of Navadvipa dhāma and see the Nṛsiṁhadeva. And experience the blessings of the Lord in the form of Krishna.

Now, someone might ask that a devotee is not supposed to ask for anything from the Lord, so how could the Prahlada Maharaja ask for something even if it was not for himself, even it is for others?

PURPORT (Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam—5.18.9)

Śrīla Viśvanātha Cakravartī Ṭhākura has given us a very fine purport in this regard. Whenever one offers a prayer to the Supreme Personality of Godhead, one always requests some benediction from Him. Even pure (niṣkāma) devotees pray for some benediction, as instructed by Lord Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu in His Śikṣāṣṭaka:

ayi nanda-tanuja kiṅkaraṁ
patitaṁ māṁ viṣame bhavāmbudhau
kṛpayā tava pāda-paṅkaja-
sthita-dhūlī-sadṛśaṁ vicintaya

“O son of Mahārāja Nanda [Kṛṣṇa], I am Your eternal servitor, yet somehow or other I have fallen into the ocean of birth and death. Please pick Me up from the ocean of death and place Me as one of the atoms at Your lotus feet.” In another prayer Lord Caitanya says, mama janmani janmanīśvare bhavatād bhaktir ahaitukī tvayi: “Life after life, kindly let Me have unalloyed love and devotion at Your Lordship’s lotus feet.” When Prahlāda Mahārāja chants oṁ namo bhagavate narasiṁhāya, he prays for a benediction from the Lord, but because he is also an exalted Vaiṣṇava, he wants nothing for his personal sense gratification. The first desire expressed in his prayer is svasty astu viśvasya: “Let there be good fortune throughout the entire universe.” Prahlāda Mahārāja thus requested the Lord to be merciful to everyone, including his father, a most envious person. According to Cāṇakya Paṇḍita, there are two kinds of envious living entities: one is a snake, and the other is the man like Hiraṇyakaśipu, who is by nature envious of everyone, even of his father or son. Hiraṇyakaśipu was envious of his little son Prahlāda, but Prahlāda Mahārāja asked a benediction for the benefit of his father. Hiraṇyakaśipu was very envious of devotees, but Prahlāda wished that his father and other demons like him would give up their envious nature by the grace of the Lord and stop harassing the devotees (khalaḥ prasīdatām). The difficulty is that the khala (envious living entity) is rarely pacified. One kind of khala, the snake, can be pacified simply by mantras or by the action of a particular herb (mantrauṣadhi-vaśaḥ sarpaḥ khalakena nivāryate). An envious person, however, cannot be pacified by any means. Therefore Prahlāda Mahārāja prays that all envious persons may undergo a change of heart and think of the welfare of others.

If the Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement spreads all over the world, and if by the grace of Kṛṣṇa everyone accepts it, the thinking of envious people will change. Everyone will think of the welfare of others. Therefore Prahlāda Mahārāja prays, śivaṁ mitho dhiyā. In material activities, everyone is envious of others, but in Kṛṣṇa consciousness, no one is envious of anyone else; everyone thinks of the welfare of others. Therefore Prahlāda Mahārāja prays that everyone’s mind may become gentle by being fixed at the lotus feet of Kṛṣṇa (bhajatād adhokṣaje). As indicated elsewhere in Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam (sa vai manaḥ kṛṣṇa-padāravindayoḥ) and as advised by Lord Kṛṣṇa in Bhagavad-gītā (18.65), man-manā bhava mad-bhaktaḥ, one should constantly think of the lotus feet of Lord Kṛṣṇa. Then one’s mind will certainly be cleansed (ceto-darpaṇa-mārjanam). Materialists always think of sense gratification, but Prahlāda Mahārāja prays that the Lord’s mercy will change their minds and they will stop thinking of sense gratification. If they think of Kṛṣṇa always, everything will be all right. Some people argue that if everyone thought of Kṛṣṇa in that way, the whole universe would be vacated because everyone would go back home, back to Godhead. However, Śrīla Viśvanātha Cakravartī Ṭhākura says that this is impossible because the living entities are innumerable. If one set of living entities is actually delivered by the Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement, another set will fill the entire universe.

COMMENT

So Prahlada Maharaja is the best example of a Vaishnava who thought of the benefit of others, welfare of others. The Six Gosvamis of Vrindavan are also same example. dhīrādhīra-jana-priyau priya-karau nirmatsarau pūjitau, they were dear to the both the gentles and the ruffians, because they are not envious of anyone. A dhīra is the sober person who knows that he is not the body, and adhīra is the opposite, someone who identifies with the body. He is practically like animal. But Six Gosvamis were dear to both dhīra and adhīra because they were not envious of anyone. They wanted to do good for everyone, and actually, they give, and you must all follow because they are not envious of anyone. They are worshipable by everyone because one cannot be free from envy unless he is Krishna conscious.

Therefore, Prahlada Maharaja prays here that everyone should get free from envy so that they can think of welfare of others. Like Krishna conscious devotee like Prahlada Maharaja, Six Gosvamis and Srila Prabhupada. Because they were Krishna conscious, they think that everyone is part and parcel of Krishna. Every living entity is by nature pure, and living entity is meant to serve and be happy in Krishna consciousness. So because they had the universal vision of Krishna consciousness, they wanted to do good for others, and do good means to bring others to Krishna consciousness. Therefore, the devotees feel helpless and incapable to do the difficult job of bringing people to Krishna consciousness themselves, and therefore they praise the Lord for help. They pray to the Lord for mercy. “Let all the envious people become pacified so they can think of the welfare of others. In other words, so that they can become devotees, and those devotees think of the welfare of others also. So these are some examples of how we pray to the Lord Nṛsiṁhadeva for the benefit of others, for the benefit of the world. And purify our heart from sense gratification and to replace the demon-like desire with a strong desire to serve Radha and Krishna, because the worship of deities of Gaudiya Vaishnava is Radha and Krishna. So we praise the Lord Nṛsiṁhadeva to help us worshiping Radha and Krishna.

So, we thank you all for coming here for this auspicious occasion and hearing some Krishna-kathā of Supreme Personality of Godhead consciousness. Now we will see tonight’s drama about Prahlada Maharaja and Nṛsiṁhadeva and then we will honor the remnants of the feast offered to the Lord Nṛsiṁhadeva.

Sri Nṛsiṁhadeva ki jaya!
Prahlada Maharaja ki jaya!
Srila Prabhupada ki jaya!

In that way, although there may be different disciples of different spiritual masters, ultimately everybody is serving Srila Prabhupada. Everyone is following Srila Prabhupada’s instructions, everyone is assisting Srila Prabhupada’s mission, and everyone is part of Srila Prabhupada’s family. In this way, even in the presence of many disciples, many initiating spiritual masters, we can live very peacefully and harmoniously under the shelter of Srila Prabhupada’s guidance.

Now we would just like to request our Partha-sarathi Prabhu to give his blessings to all the new initiates because he is a very senior disciple of Srila Prabhupada. He is also a spiritual master, therefore he is confident to give blessings, and we ask you to do so. From the beginning of the South African, and he was here when Srila Prabhupada came in 1975 and personally served him and helped arrange the big programs that became the forerunners of the tenth campaign, which has been very successful all-over South Africa throughout the years. In Srila Prabhupada’s biography, all alternative space could be given to Srila Prabhupada’s visit to South Africa, but we are hoping that Partha-sarathi Prabhu will draw upon his personal experience with Srila Prabhupada here and give us some transcendental literature of Srila Prabhupada.