SB 3.18.1 – The Lord’s Punishment to Devotee-Demons

Giriraj Swami: Reading from Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, Canto Three, Chapter Eighteen, “The Battle Between Lord Boar and the Demon Hiraṇyākṣa,”

TEXT 1

maitreya uvāca
tad evam ākarṇya jaleśa-bhāṣitaṁ
mahā-manās tad vigaṇayya durmadaḥ
harer viditvā gatim aṅga nāradād
rasātalaṁ nirviviśe tvarānvitaḥ

TRANSLATION

Maitreya continued: The proud and falsely glorious Daitya paid little heed to the words of Varuṇa. O dear Vidura, he learned from Nārada the whereabouts of the Supreme Personality of Godhead and hurriedly betook himself to the depths of the ocean.

PURPORT by Srila Prabhupada

Materialistic warmongers are not even afraid to fight with their mightiest enemy, the Personality of Godhead. The demon was very encouraged to learn from Varuṇa that there was one fighter who could actually combat him, and he was very enthusiastic to search out the Supreme Personality of Godhead just to give Him a fight, even though it was predicted by Varuṇa that by fighting with Viṣṇu he would become prey for dogs, jackals and vultures. Since demoniac persons are less intelligent, they dare to fight with Viṣṇu, who is known as Ajita, or one who has never been conquered.

COMMENT

So, Hiraṇyakṣa did not give any heed to words of Varuna deva. He was so overwhelmed with pride that he could not appreciate the warning given to him by the Lord of waters. So the difference between the devotees and the demons is that the devotees pay heed to the warnings of the Lord or other devotees, whereas the demons do not. Of course, sometimes the devotees are covered, and they also do not pay heed, and then the Lord will punish the devotees so that the devotee comes to his senses and realizes what the Lord or the others were trying to say.

One good example took place when Ramachandra wanted to cross the ocean to Lanka. So he stood at the shore of the ocean, but the ocean did not pay heed to him. And when the ocean did not pay heed, the Lord became angry, and His eyes became red with anger. Looking at the ocean, the Lord’s red-hot eyes began to burn all the creatures within the water. Finally, the ocean realized that she had been neglectful of the Lord, and then she came and fell at the feet of the Lord and asked to be forgiven for her offenses. She appreciated the fact that the Lord had burned her by saying that because she was covered, she could not appreciate the presence of the Lord, and therefore she welcomed the punishment of the Lord, which was necessary for her. So in the purport, Srila Prabhupada explains why even devotees of the Lord face punishment. The reason is that when they are covered, when their intelligence is covered, they cannot appreciate the presence of the Lord or heed the instructions of the Lord. Therefore, out of the Lord’s causeless mercy, He punishes the devotee so that the devotee comes to his senses. But the demons, they generally remain stubborn to the end, and they never change. Even up to the point of being killed by the Lord, they don’t change.

Another example of a devotee who could not recognize the Lord was Jambavan. Jambavan was actually one of the monkeys who assisted the Lord as Ramachandra in His pastimes. But later, during the appearance of Lord Krishna, he could not appreciate the fact that Krishna was the Lord. When Jambavan came in possession of the Syamantaka jewel and Krishna went to retrieve it, He had some fight with Jambavan. The fight went on for many days because Jambavan was very powerful, and of course, Lord Krishna was most powerful. But in their pastimes, Jambavan could not defeat Lord Krishna, and Lord Krishna did not defeat Jambavan. For many days, they went on giving blows to each other. Then finally, Jambavan realized that he was fighting with the Lord, that no one but the Lord could be so powerful as to give him such blows and to be able to resist his blows against him. So then he realized that he was fighting with the same Supreme Personality of Godhead whom he had served previously as Lord Ramachandra. Sometimes the devotees become comforted, and then being punished by the Lord or chastised by the Lord, they come to their senses and recognize that actually they are dealing with the Lord and then they surrender. But the demons, they never change up to the end. Even being killed by the Lord, they don’t change.

Srila Prabhupada tells one story that demonstrates how stubborn people can be, even at the cost of their lives. He told the story of two men who were on a boat and they were having an argument. One man was stronger than the other, so I forget the detail, but the stronger man was saying one thing, and the other man was saying that the thing was a scissors. So, they were arguing. Eventually, the stronger man got angry and he pushed the weaker man out of the boat. The weaker man was drowning in the water, and as he was going down under, he stuck his hands up and made a motion like this, like he was still sticking to his point that it was scissors. So, the demons are like that, they will stick to their point that they are greater than God or that there is no God and they are supreme. Even when they are being killed by the Lord and at the time of death, the demons always have to face the agents of Yamaraja, the agents of the God of death who come to punish them. Even though they see them coming, they don’t surrender to the Lord unless they are dragged from the body by the agents of Yamaraja and taken to be punished.

There are many examples of famous materialists who must have seen the agents of Yamaraja at the time of death. It is said that the great American inventor, Thomas Alba Edison, who invented the incandescent light bulb, at the time of death he was lying on the bed and suddenly, just at the last moment, he raised himself up and opened his eyes very wide as if he was seeing something, and then he died. So we may presume that the Yamadutas were coming for him. At the last minute, he saw them and he was startled and frightened, but there was nothing he could do because probably he didn’t know what to do. But the devotees, even if they neglect the Lord or disobey the Lord, they can always rectify and beg the Lord to forgive them and accept them again. Generally, the reason we neglect the Lord is because of false pride. Just like Hiraṇyakṣa, it is described with the word mahā-manā. Manā means pride, mahā means great, as like we say, amāninā, without pride, māna-dena, ready to give honor to others. So he was mahā-manā, very proud, and because he was proud, he couldn’t accept the supremacy of the Lord. He thought that he could defeat the Lord. Sometimes we also think we can defeat the Lord, not necessarily by physical strength, but we think we can defeat the Lord by cheating. We think that we can do things that the Lord really wouldn’t want us to do, but we think we are so clever and so intelligent that we can cheat the Lord, and He will be defeated. He won’t know that we are cheating, but actually the Lord is supreme in everything, and He is supreme in cheating also. So if we try to cheat the Lord, we can be sure that in the end we will be the ones who will be cheated and not the Lord.

There is one incident of guru Maharaja ji. Guru Maharaja ji was claiming that he is God, Bala-Yogeshwar, Boy-God. And when Srila Prabhupada went to Hong Kong, there was a press conference at the top of the Hilton Hotel. One reporter asked him, “What do you think about guru Maharaja ji, do you think that he is god?” Srila Prabhupada replied, “Well, we have to consider whether he is God or whether he is dog.” And then he said, “He is cheating the people, but he doesn’t realize that Krishna is even a greater cheater than he is. And when he meets Krishna, then he will know Krishna will take everything away from him.” Actually, it happened that guru Maharaja ji had a big meeting in the Houston Astrodome, and thousands of people came into the big stadium there. The ISKCON devotees also went to distribute books. The followers of guru Maharaja ji, or maybe guru Maharaja ji himself, could not tolerate the fact that they had organized such a huge program and the devotees were taking advantage of their program to distribute their books. So they filed a court case.

As the judge started to hear the testimony, he began to become convinced that actually the devotees were innocent, that there was no reason why they couldn’t distribute their literature. He became convinced that the followers of guru Maharaja ji had broken some laws. So the judge threw out the charges against the devotees and rather accepted some charges against the followers of guru Maharaja ji, convicting them. Then guru Maharaja ji, he fell in love with his American secretary who was supposed to be many years older than him, at least she appeared to be many years older than him, and he actually married her. Guru Maharaja ji’s mother in India was not pleased. The family had an institution in India, something like Divine Life or Divine Light. The mother was so upset with Bala-Yogeshwar that she rejected him. She announced that she had made a mistake when she declared him to be God and that actually her younger son, Bala-Bhagavān should be accepted as God and as the leader of the divine light society.

There was a big article all over India on the front cover of The Illustrated Weekly of India. His whole reputation was lost. He lost his institution, and at least in India, he lost his reputation. There are many other examples, so we should not think that we can cheat Krishna because Krishna is too intelligent. In the end, we will be cheated if we think that we can cheat him. The way we will be cheated is that we will miss the opportunity to make advancement in Krishna consciousness. That is cheating—by trying to cheat Krishna and missing the chance to become advanced in Krishna consciousness, we are actually cheating ourselves. Trying to cheat Krishna means that we are actually cheating ourselves. We should always remember that Krishna is more intelligent than we are, and actually, we cannot cheat Him. He is everywhere. His eyes, hands, and legs are everywhere, so He sees us wherever we are and whatever we do. We shouldn’t think that because the deity doesn’t say anything to us or do anything to us that he is not conscious of what we are doing or not doing. Srila Prabhupada says that the deity may not protest if we commit some offense, but the protest will come in the fact that we cannot make advancement in Krishna consciousness, in spite of so many years of effort and so many attempts, we won’t actually be able to become advanced. That is how the Lord will express His protest.

Here Srila Prabhupada wants the devotees should see that the deity is actually Krishna. The greatest offense takes place when we think that the deity is stone. If we don’t actually think that the deity is Krishna and therefore are neglectful in our service, if we think that the deity is stone, then we actually have. . . Srila Prabhupada quotes one verse that says that if someone thinks that the deity is stone, he becomes a resident of hell. We know that the Lord is eternally situated in the spiritual world and the temple is supposed to be the spiritual world. But if we think that the deity is just stone, we won’t actually be living in the spiritual world; we will be living in hell. We have to first of all see that the deity is Krishna personally. Although we might know it in theory and we might say it in theory, we actually have to act in that understanding. Otherwise, although superficially we might say that the deity is Krishna, we don’t really believe that the deity is Krishna, that the deity is a person who has feelings and who will respond favorably if we do nice service or who will become angry if we commit offenses. Even small things are noticed and appreciated if they are done nicely, or they become the source of dissatisfaction if they are not done nicely.

I can give one example from India. At one stage, the devotees were not offering nice flowers; the flowers were dry, they weren’t fresh. Srila Prabhupada chastised the devotees and said that the deity is a person, just like the spiritual master is a person. Now, if you offer the spiritual master a dry flower, is he going to be pleased? In the same way, if you offer Krishna a dry flower, is He going to be pleased? Another time, the devotee who prepared the ārati tray for Srila Prabhupada’s guru-puja arranged the flowers very nicely on the small dish. There were maybe three varieties of flowers. The biggest one was put in the middle, and then the two smaller ones were put around the big one, alternating. It looked very nice. Srila Prabhupada was so pleased that right in the guru-puja, he stopped and asked the devotee who was offering the ārati who made the ārati tray, who arranged the flowers on the plate, because he could see that there was so much care and attention put into the arrangement of flowers on the plate. Even a very small thing, if it is done with devotion, can be very pleasing to Krishna or to the spiritual master.

Another incident in Bombay when Srila Prabhupada was staying in the unfinished house of one life member because we didn’t really have the Juhu land yet. It was unfinished, but finished enough that Srila Prabhupada could stay there for some time before the man moved in. Srila Prabhupada was sitting in one room on the top floor, the floor above the ground floor, and he was speaking with some people. Suddenly, one very ordinary labor class person somehow came into the house. There was no one downstairs; he just came up the stairs, walked right into Srila Prabhupada’s room where he was meeting with some people. In India, the labor class, like menial labor, can be distinguished very easily. They wear just some little cloth, not even down to their knees, just a little white cloth, and it is usually torn and tattered, and might be dirty, and they might not wear anything on the top. He was dressed like that, with a dark complexion and dressed with a little white cloth. He walked right into the room when Srila Prabhupada was talking to his guests, walked right up to the table, and put some flowers on the table. Then he bowed down and walked out.

Srila Prabhupada was so pleased with that humble offering that he couldn’t think of anything else for several minutes. He just kept talking about the man, how he was just an ordinary man and how he knew that Srila Prabhupada was there. That the Srila Prabhupada was a saintly person. We don’t know, but somehow, he went and picked the flowers, and he put them all together. He offered them and offered his obeisances, and Srila Prabhupada just went on talking about him and saying how just such a small offering, patraṁ puṣpaṁ phalaṁ toyaṁ, and he was so pleased. And then he said Krishna is the same way. We can just imagine how Krishna feels because He also says, patraṁ puṣpaṁ phalaṁ toyaṁ, that even the smallest offering, if it is offered with love and devotion, is so much appreciated. But even a big offering, if it is not made with sincere affection, is not pleasing, and the Lord may not even accept it.

There is the incident from the Mahābhārata where Duryodhana prepared a big banquet, a royal banquet, and he invited Lord Krishna to come. Lord Krishna didn’t want to come because Duryodhana was very proud and arrogant, and he wasn’t really a devotee. So Lord Krishna didn’t go, but rather Krishna did go to the house of Vidura, who was considered to be a sudra and very poor. When the Lord went to the house of Vidura, he and his wife were so overwhelmed with joy and gratitude that they were just beside themselves. They didn’t know what to do, and they were so poor they wanted to offer something to the Lord, but the only thing they had were bananas. So the wife quickly brought the bananas, and in her ecstasy, she was throwing away the fruit and offering the Lord the skins. The Lord was eating them and appreciating them, saying that He has never had such nectar before. Actually, Krishna does not need anything. He doesn’t need to eat anything; he is not hungry. But he is hungry for the devotion of the servant of the devotee. Therefore, even banana skins, if they are really offered in ecstasy like Vidura’s wife did, then the Lord will accept them as the sweetest nectar. Even a big banquet, a big feast, if it is not prepared and offered with real devotion, the Lord won’t accept it. So we have to be very careful that whatever service we do is done in full consciousness that Krishna is present, that the deity is Krishna, and Krishna is present. At the same time, everything has to be done strictly according to the regulative principles. Rupa Gosvami has included one verse in Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu,

śruti-smṛti-purāṇādi-
pāñcarātrikī vidhiṁ vinā
aikāntikī harer bhaktir
utpātayaiva kalpate

That if one engages in so-called devotional service which is not executed in accordance with the injunctions of the scriptures, then he is actually making a disturbance. We are supposed to know the rules and regulations of deity worship, of devotional service, and we are supposed to follow them strictly. If we follow them strictly for many, many years, we may develop some spontaneous devotional service. But we cannot claim that we are on the platform of spontaneous devotional service without following the rules and regulations. After one has followed the rules and regulations for many years, and following the rules and regulations becomes very easy for the devotee, automatic for the devotee, then he may go to the next stage of spontaneous devotional service. Even when one is on the platform of spontaneous devotional service, he still follows the rules and regulations.

We shouldn’t try to imitate Vidura’s wife and offer the Lord banana skins as if we are on the platform of ecstasy. Rather, we should be very conscious of the regulated principles and try to do everything to the highest standard according to the rules and regulations given in the scriptures and by the acharyas. That will help us to please Krishna. To become advanced means that the desire to please Krishna becomes more prominent. That is the meaning of becoming advanced. When the desire to please Krishna becomes stronger and stronger, then we can actually please Krishna more and more. The more we please Krishna, the more Krishna reciprocates with us, and we become pleased. We do it because we want to please ourselves, but automatically, Krishna reciprocates with us, and He gives us some experience of transcendental pleasure. The Lord reciprocates with the devotee. If the devotee sees the deity as Krishna, then the deity can talk to the devotee. If the devotee sees the deity as stone, then the deity will remain stone for the person, and the person won’t actually feel the protection and reciprocation from the Lord.

I was just reading one book that was written by one priest from the Jagannatha temple in Puri, and the priest was revealing many interesting facts about the worship of the Lord in Puri. He said that there is one test that before any offering is given to the Lord, there is one test to see if the Lord is accepting it or not. When the foodstuffs are brought in front of the deity, the head priest puts some drops of water in his palm. If the Lord is accepting the offering, then the Lord’s image will be reflected in the water. If the Lord is not accepting the offering, then the Lord’s image will not appear in the palm. Usually, the Lord accepts, but if by chance the Lord’s image does not appear in the water in the palm of the head priest, then they immediately remove all the plates with the food, cook everything again, and try to understand what they might have done wrong that the Lord didn’t accept the offering. Then they cook again and make the offering again. We can’t assume anything, but if we follow the rules and regulations properly, and if we cook the food and offer the food with real devotion, then the Lord will be pleased to accept the offering.

Are there any questions or comments?

Devotee: [Unintelligible 00:45:55]

Giriraj Swami: We may not know Krishna, but we have the instructions of Srila Prabhupada. If you follow the instructions of Srila Prabhupada, then we know that Krishna will accept. Even if we don’t have the qualification, if we follow Srila Prabhupada’s instructions, then that is the qualification for us, and we can expect that Krishna will accept. Specifically, for Ratha-yatra, I think Srila Prabhupada said in one letter that we could offer sugar candy and distribute it during Ratha-yatra. There are various rules and regulations for the preparation of food in the kitchen. If you follow the rules and regulations, then that is the manifestation of our devotion in the beginning, how carefully and conscientiously we try to do things according to the standard.

All glories to Srila Prabhupada

Hare Krishna.