BG 3.10 – Krishna Has Given Us All the Facilities

Giriraj Swami:

oṁ namo bhagavate vāsudevāya
oṁ namo bhagavate vāsudevāya
oṁ namo bhagavate vāsudevāya

We shall read from Bhagavad-gītā As It Is, Chapter Three,

TEXT 10

saha-yajñāḥ prajāḥ sṛṣṭvā
purovāca prajāpatiḥ
anena prasaviṣyadhvam
eṣa vo ‘stv iṣṭa-kāma-dhuk

TRANSLATION

In the beginning of creation, the Lord of all creatures sent forth generations of men and demigods, along with sacrifices for Viṣṇu, and blessed them by saying, “Be thou happy by this yajña [sacrifice] because its performance will bestow upon you everything desirable for living happily and achieving liberation.”

PURPORT by Srila Prabhupada

The material creation by the Lord of creatures (Viṣṇu) is a chance offered to the conditioned souls to come back home – back to Godhead. All living entities within the material creation are conditioned by material nature because of their forgetfulness of their relationship to Viṣṇu, or Kṛṣṇa, the Supreme Personality of Godhead. The Vedic principles are to help us understand this eternal relation, as it is stated in the Bhagavad-gītā: vedaiś ca sarvair aham eva vedyaḥ. The Lord says that the purpose of the Vedas is to understand Him. In the Vedic hymns it is said: patiṁ viśvasyātmeśvaram. Therefore, the Lord of the living entities is the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Viṣṇu.

COMMENT

Krishna is the Supreme Personality of Godhead. There are many demigods mentioned in the Vedic literatures, but they are all servants of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Krishna. Vedic literatures say, īśvaraḥ paramaḥ kṛṣṇaḥ; īśvaraḥ means controller. There are many īśvaraḥs or controllers, but the supreme īśvaraḥ or the supreme controller is Krishna. Brahma and Shiva and other demigods are also īśvaraḥs, but Krishna is the supreme īśvaraḥ. Ekale īśvara kṛṣṇa ara saba bhṛtya, only Krishna is the supreme controller and all others, including great demigods like Brahma and Shiva, are His servants.

When Srila Santana Gosvami met Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, he put some very important questions before Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. The first question was, ke āmi, who am I? And he also asked, “Why am I forced to suffer within the material world?” Every living entity within the material world is forced to suffer, janma-mṛtyu-jarā-vyādhi-duḥkha-doṣānudarśanam, and an intelligent person or a learned person should be aware of the miseries of material existence. So every conditioned soul within the material world is forced to suffer birth, disease, old age, and death. Although the scientists would lead us to believe that they are making progress in solving the problems of life, the real problems of birth, death, old age, and disease are not even touched by scientist. They have tried to control birth, but they cannot control birth. Every day so many babies are born. They have tried to control birth by artificial methods like contraception and abortion. Such activities, contraception and abortion, are extremely sinful. They interfere with the laws of God, and abortion in particular is considered to be on the same level as murder. So these political leaders and the scientists are actually leading the people more and more into sinful activities, and therefore the people are forced to suffer more and more. But still, they cannot stop birth, it is increasing day by day.

Similarly, they cannot stop disease. They may have reduced one disease, but then so many new diseases are increasing. For example, they may have reduced tuberculosis, still tuberculosis is there but not so much. But now there is cancer and AIDS. Such diseases were not there a hundred years ago or they were not even prominent fifty years ago. So, they may control some disease on one side, but then on the other side more diseases are coming. And the final result is that there is more disease now than ever before. If the scientists were actually able to stop disease, then the hospitals should become empty. All the patients should go home, the doctors should be out of work, the nurses should be out of work, the hospitals should be empty. But we find that disease is not decreasing, it is actually increasing and there is always a demand for more doctors, more nurses, more hospitals, more beds. So, diseases actually increasing. And old age, the scientists do not even pretend to be able to do anything about stopping old age, nor do they do anything or even discuss anything about stopping death. You might have heard the name of Walt Disney. He was a famous entrepreneur in the entertainment industry and he was a very rich man. So he thought that the scientists would be able to save him from death. So he put in his will that before he dies, his body should be frozen, and then when the scientists discover the cure for his disease, the body should be taken out of the freezer, and he should be cured. So the family put his body in the freezer, but after some time they understood that as long as the body was in deep freeze, Walt Disney was not dead, and they could not claim their inheritance from him. So they decided to pull out the plug from the freezer.

So, birth, old age, death and disease cannot be counteracted by any material means. Such problems can be solved only by Krishna consciousness. So, when Sanatana Gosvami asked Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, “Why am I forced to suffer the material misery?” Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu replied, “The cause of your suffering is forgetfulness of your eternal relationship with God, Krishna.” So the material world is the chance offered to the conditioned souls to revive their eternal relationship with God or Krishna and make a permanent solution to all life’s problems. And what is our relationship with Krishna? Lord Chaitanya taught, jīvera ‘svarūpa’ haya — kṛṣṇera ‘nitya-dāsa’, the constitutional position of the living entity is, he is the eternal servant of Krishna, and the Krishna consciousness movement teaches people how to revive their eternal relationship with Krishna and thus be liberated from all miseries of material existence.

PURPORT (continued)

The Lord created this material world to enable the conditioned souls to learn how to perform yajñas (sacrifices) for the satisfaction of Viṣṇu, so that while in the material world they can live very comfortably without anxiety, and after finishing the present material body they can enter into the kingdom of God.

COMMENT

Now someone may raise the question, how can we perform sacrifice in the present age? Actually, traditional Vedic sacrifices are very difficult to perform in the present age. So much ghee and grains have to be offered into the sacrificial fire. And even now, finding pure ghee is so difficult, what to speak of tons of cow ghee required for sacrifices. But another sacrifice is recommended for the present age. And that is the saṅkīrtana-yajña of chanting the holy names of Krishna. 

Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam says,

kṛṣṇa-varṇaṁ tviṣākṛṣṇaṁ sāṅgopāṅgāstra-pārṣadam

yajñaiḥ saṅkīrtana-prāyair yajanti hi sumedhasaḥ

That the intelligent person in the modern age of Kali-yuga, will worship the Supreme Personality of Godhead by performance of saṅkīrtana-yajña. Saṅkīrtana-yajña does not cost any money, involves any expenditure. It only requires what God has already given us; our tongues and our ears. With our tongues and ears, we can chant and hear Hare Krishna. And with our hands, we can clap and with our feet, we can dance. We don’t need anything else. And by performance of saṅkīrtana-yajña, we will be happy in the present life and end of our life, we will go back home back to Godhead. We will enter into the spiritual kingdom of God, Goloka Vrindavan, and live eternally with the Supreme Lord Krishna. So everyone should chant the holy names:

Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare
Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare

Are there any questions or comments?

Devotee: [Unintelligible 00:29:50]

Giriraj Swami: He has raised a very good point, and that is, there is way to chant Hare Krishna to achieve the best result. The method is taught by Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu Himself. Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu is actually Lord Krishna, comes in the guise of the devotee to show us the way to be devotees. Although He is God Himself, Krishna but He acts as a devotee to teach us. Just like a teacher will write on the board “A B C,” the teacher does not need to practice “A B C” but the teacher is writing on the board to show the students. Similarly, Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu did not have to practice the activities of a devotee, but He showed the activities of a devotee for us. And He taught, tṛṇād api su-nīcena, one should be more humble than the straw in the street; taror iva sahiṣṇunā, one should be more tolerant than the tree; amāninā, one should not demand any respect for oneself; and māna-dena, one should ready offer respect to others, kīrtanīyaḥ sadā hariḥ, in such a state of mind, one can chant the holy name constantly.

So, this is our goal, kīrtanīyaḥ sadā hariḥ. But in order to be engaged in chanting the holy name, we should become humble and tolerant. But becoming humble and tolerant is not easy. We should try and at same time chant the holy name. If we chant the holy names without offense, gradually all of the good qualities will manifest. We don’t have to make separate effort. If someone is chanting the holy name, he should be considered saintly even if all the good qualities have not yet manifested. If he goes on chanting the holy name, eventually all good qualities will manifest. So we should be patient and go on chanting Hare Krishna. Now we will practice chanting responsively. As we did before, first I will say, and then you will say. When I chant, you all hear and when you chant, I will hear, śravaṇam, kīrtanam. So, everyone should raise his hands also.

Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare
Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare

Now, we will do four words at a time. Some people are not chanting yet. Everyone should chant. If I asked you to chant and you thought you might lose something, then you could think whether to chant or not. But here there is no question of losing anything and the gain is very great. You will get kṛṣṇa-prema and Krishna. So, everyone should join. If you notice any of your neighbors are shy, you can encourage them to join. We should help each other.

Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare
Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare

Very good. So, now we will do eight words at a time, and the other devotees should come to the stage because soon we will begin the kirtan. Now we will do eight words.

Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare
Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare

Now, we will do all sixteen words.

Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare
Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare

Now, do all of you know all sixteen words by memory? If you don’t, raise your hand. Okay, we will call upon a few of you to demonstrate.