SB 1.16.19

Giriraj Swami: 

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

Reading from Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, Canto One, Chapter Sixteen, “How Parīkṣit Received the Age Kali,” 

TEXT 19

dharma uvāca
kaccid bhadre ‘nāmayam ātmanas te
vicchāyāsi mlāyateṣan mukhena
ālakṣaye bhavatīm antarādhiṁ
dūre bandhuṁ śocasi kañcanāmba

TRANSLATION

Dharma [in the form of a bull] asked: Madam, are you not hale and hearty? Why are you covered with the shadow of grief? It appears by your face that you have become black. Are you suffering from some internal disease, or are you thinking of some relative who is away in a distant place?

PURPORT by Srila Prabhupada

The people of the world in this Age of Kali are always full of anxieties. Everyone is diseased with some kind of ailment. From the very faces of the people of this age, one can find out the index of the mind. Everyone feels the absence of his relative who is away from home. The particular symptom of the Age of Kali is that no family is now blessed to live together. To earn a livelihood, the father lives at a place far away from the son, or the wife lives far away from the husband and so on. There are sufferings from internal diseases, separation from those near and dear, and anxieties for maintaining the status quo. These are but some important factors which make the people of this age always unhappy.

COMMENT

The background to the present verse is dharma in the form of a bull was wandering on the Earth, and he came upon the personification of the Earth in the form of a cow, and the cow was miserable and anxious and dharma inquired why. So here, he begins to enumerate some of the causes of misery in the age of Kali. People in Kali are mostly unhappy, and they suffer in so many ways. So here, two of the ways are mentioned: family members and friends are separated. Even parents and children are separated. Husbands and wives are separated, and they always think of the person whom they love and who is so far away, and they lament. Similarly, in Kali-yuga, the people are almost always diseased or suffering from some ailment. There are so many miseries that afflict human beings in Kali-yuga.

The bull himself was suffering because three of his legs had been broken, and he was really standing only on one leg. But even though he was suffering, when he came upon the cow, he became concerned for her and inquired about the cause of her suffering. The bull stands on four legs, one of which is religious principles, and one of those legs is mercy. The bull is actually concerned about the cow, even though he himself is in a miserable condition. A human being should naturally feel concern and compassion for another person who is suffering, even if the person himself is also suffering. But in Kali-yuga, we become so selfish. We don’t care about others; we just want to see that we are happy. If we are happy, we rejoice; if someone else is unhappy; we don’t really care. Similarly, if we are unhappy, we lament, and if someone else is happy, we don’t care. We just want to see that we are happy. But we cannot be happy unless we follow religious principles.

Here is a great lesson in Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam in the present Chapter: unless we follow religious principles, we cannot be happy. In Kali-yuga, people do not follow these principles and are obliged to suffer in so many ways. Once Srila Prabhupada was visiting in Boston; he passed by a hamburger joint and stopped. He commented that until you stop killing animals and eating them, there cannot be any peace in the world. War is one of the greatest causes of suffering, but the wars themselves are a reaction to the sin of killing animals and eating flesh. People do not know the subtle laws of action and reaction, or cause and effect. They don’t know that by slaughtering animals and eating meat, they are causing so much suffering, not just to the innocent creatures whom they kill, but to themselves and to human society, which suffers the reaction to animal slaughter in the form of wars and other calamities. The system by which people are taught religious principles, to follow principles of varnashrama-dharma, dharmeṇa hīnāḥ paśubhiḥ samānāḥ, that without dharma, without religious principles, varnashrama-dharma, there is no difference between human beings and animals.

In fact, animals are better than human beings when human beings do not follow religious principles. For example, animals generally do not kill their own children, but when human beings become irreligious, they kill their own children in the womb, and it’s legal. So people do not know what to do and what not to do; they are ignorant. Another great peril is they engage in so many sinful activities, and the whole world is polluted with the sinful reactions of the fallen age of Kali. Almost all of us experience the symptoms mentioned here in the pages of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. Ignorance is the cause of sin. Sin means to violate the laws of God. So ignorance is the cause of sin, and sin is the cause of suffering. We may try to remove the suffering by different material methods, but such methods are actually just treating the symptoms of the disease. They are not actually treating the disease or cause of the symptoms, and therefore the symptoms persist. Eradication of ignorance, or in other words, education, is the actual cure for the disease. Therefore, great sages from thousands of years ago until the present day have determined that educating people in the principles of sanātana-dharma, in the eternal principles of religion or Krishna consciousness, is the best approach or welfare activity to relieve the sufferings of human beings and all living entities.

We are learning from the sages, and we are attempting to follow them and serve them. ISKCON is actually a great educational institution, and it teaches people what are the principles of religion, what are the means to be heard. The Vedic system of knowledge is that the student not only hears from the teacher but also renders service to the teacher. In fact, in any sphere of life, if one receives something from another person, it is honest to offer something in return. So in Vedic civilization, when one receives knowledge from the teacher, he is obliged to reciprocate and offer something back to the teacher.

What he is meant to offer back, or what he is meant to do to reciprocate or make at least an effort to repay his debt to his teacher, is to share the knowledge that he has received with others. So we come here, we get knowledge from Srila Prabhupada, from his books, and from his students, and we are obliged to reciprocate by sharing the knowledge we get from him with others, either by repeating the same knowledge or by bringing people to others who repeat the same knowledge or distributing books of knowledge. By doing so, we can help alleviate the suffering of human beings in the age of Kali, and we can also help to elevate our own selves, to elevate people from animal consciousness to human consciousness, and then from human consciousness to aspire to be elevated to godly consciousness.

Today, we also heard from Sahavas Prabhu who was reading from the book called Nectar of the Holy Name. We cannot actually revive varnashrama-dharma in Kali-yuga. Of course, within the varnashrama, the most important is the brahminical culture, which protects the bulls and the cows, which protects the principles of religion and therefore, can create a peaceful, happy, and prosperous situation in society. But still, to completely implement the varnashrama system is challenging. We also have our images of what the wife should be act with husband. We have an idea that the wife should be very submissive and so many things. Similarly, the husband should be spiritually advanced and loving. He should be someone who can lead, and he also needs to be qualified.

We also have our images based on our culture, which is all fine. But ultimately, we are individuals, and as Srila Prabhupada said, we can’t really recreate varnashrama-dharma. Our husband might not be the emblem of the perfect husband and wife that we imagined from the scriptures. We can’t remake or remodel them to suit what we imagined we would get. Yes, what we imagined would have been favorable for our Krishna consciousness, but basically, we may have imagined something for our own happiness, not in the mood of service, but to help the wife become what she should be or to help the husband become what he should be, we should not be in the mood of demanding, “This is what I want, and you have to become that.” If they don’t become that, then they are not what we want. We have to make whatever evaluation we need to before entering a relationship, but then, whatever it is, enter the situation in the mood of service, better to help serve Krishna. But actually, like the bull and the cow, the bull only had one leg and was only standing on his own leg, but he was in the mood of serving the cow. He was concerned about the welfare of the cow, even though he was only on one leg. The cow didn’t say to the bull, “Why are you asking me? You are standing on one leg and asking me what my problem is; you have your own problem.” No, there was actual care. Even though they were both suffering, there was actual care.

They had the knowledge and intelligence to understand that the real solution was Krishna consciousness. The real reason for their suffering was because Krishna had left the face of the Earth, and the influence of Kali was expanding. In the same way, if we are suffering from the influence of Kali, which we probably are, we can counteract it by invoking the presence of Krishna through sharing Krishna consciousness, chanting about Krishna, and reading Srila Prabhupada’s books, chanting holy name of Krishna.

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

That will be the ultimate solution.

Hare Krishna.

If anyone wants to come up and speak, they are welcome.