SB 3.23.13

Giriraj Swami:

TEXT 13

sarva-kāma-dughaṁ divyaṁ
sarva-ratna-samanvitam
sarvarddhy-upacayodarkaṁ
maṇi-stambhair upaskṛtam

TRANSLATION

It was a wonderful structure, bedecked with all sorts of jewels, adorned with pillars of precious stones, and capable of yielding whatever one desired. It was equipped with every form of furniture and wealth, which tended to increase in the course of time.

PURPORT by Srila Prabhupada

The castle created in the sky by Kardama Muni may be called “a castle in the air,” but by his mystic power of yoga Kardama Muni actually constructed a huge castle in the air. To our feeble imagination, a castle in the sky is an impossibility, but if we scrutinizingly consider the matter we can understand that it is not impossible at all. If the Supreme Personality of Godhead can create so many planets, carrying millions of castles in the air, a perfect yogī like Kardama Muni can easily construct one castle in the air. The castle is described as sarva-kāma-dugham, “yielding whatever one desired.” It was full of jewels. Even the pillars were made of pearls and valuable stones. These valuable jewels and stones were not subject to deterioration, but were everlastingly and increasingly opulent. We sometimes hear of castles thus bedecked on the surface of this earth also. The castles constructed by Lord Kṛṣṇa for His 16,108 wives were so bedecked with jewels that there was no need of lamplight during the night.

COMMENT

So, here in the purport, Prabhupada deals with the skepticism of one who hears of a castle in the air. The idea of the phrase, “The castle in the air” is like what we would say here, “A pie in the sky,” something which is impossible. But actually, what Kardama Muni did is possible, and the logic is that if Krishna can float thousands of planets in the sky and each planet has thousands of castles, why could not Kardama Muni float one castle in the sky?

The idea is that the living entities are parts and parcels of Krishna, and they have the same qualities as Krishna in minute quantity. So, just as Krishna has mystic powers, the living entities also have mystic powers, but in a smaller quantity than Krishna. Srila Prabhupada has explained that the mystic powers are distributed among the different species of life. And thus, we find that birds can fly, just like mystic yogis, or ducks can float on water, just like we hear of mystic yogis who can walk on water.

So, whatever mystic powers Krishna has, the living entities have the same potential, but the mystic yogic develops the potential, whereas the living entities in various species have mystic powers naturally. One of the basic principles of Krishna consciousness is that life comes from life, and matter also comes from life.

And there too, Srila Prabhupada gave the example of the ocean. The ocean, of course, is a huge body of salt water, but where did it come from? Krishna. But how? So, Srila Prabhupada gave the example that even an ordinary person can produce water in the form of perspiration in a small quantity. So, Krishna can produce water in a large quantity. A fruit tree can produce citric acid in a small quantity, and Krishna can produce chemicals in large quantities.

So, we have the same potential as Krishna, just in smaller quantity. And the yogis develop their potential for mystic powers, and therefore, they can do more or less the same things that Krishna can do, but just on a smaller scale.

Once, I met, at the time, he was one of the richest men in India. I didn’t really know much about him because he was Punjabi and most of our friends in Calcatta are Bengalis. But anyways, I went to meet him, and it turned out that he was an avid follower of Satya Sai Baba. He was so devoted to Satya Sai Baba that he reminded me of an ISKCON devotee, except instead of focusing his attention on Krishna, he was absorbed in Satya Sai Baba. He had a nice temple room with a big picture of Satya Sai Baba, he would offer his food to Satya Sai Baba, he would sing bhajans to Satya Sai Baba. He was a vegetarian and he seemed like a decent person, but his energy was directed towards Satya Sai Baba. So, I wasn’t quite sure how to understand him.

So, I asked Srila Prabhupada, and Srila Prabhupada replied, “If he is genuinely a devotee of Satya Sai Baba and he thinks of Satya Sai Baba at the time of death, then he will go to Satya Sai Baba. And if Satya Sai Baba has gone to hell, he will follow him.”

So, of course, the Īśopaniṣad gives a warning to people who want to take the position of God. That was to me, but on other occasions where Prabhupada was asked in a more public forum, Prabhupada would say, “People are enchanted by Satya Sai Baba’s magic, but we are enchanted by Krishna’s magic.”

So, again, we come to the same point, that the living entity may develop mystic powers by the grace of God that are similar to God’s, but just on a minute scale compared to God’s scale. But if someone becomes puffed up thinking that by developing mystic powers, he has become God, or he becomes cunning, he can cheat innocent people by falsely presenting himself as God just because he has some mystic powers, that, of course, is very offensive. It’s very offensive, and a person will lose his mystic powers which he has achieved by the grace of God, as we know from the story of the yogi and the mouse.

So, people need to know who God is. And therefore, Srila Prabhupada’s books are so important because they explain who God is. I mean, to my knowledge, Satya Sai Baba never did anything like what Kardama Muni did, floating a castle in the sky, but even that, compared to Lord Krishna, is insignificant because even when Krishna was on Earth, Kardama Muni provided one nice castle for his wife, which was his duty under the circumstances, but Krishna provided 16,108 palaces for His wives in Dvaraka.

And not only that, He expanded Himself into 16,108 forms so that He could personally be present in each palace with each queen. And the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam describes that every morning, all 16,108 Krishnas or forms of Krishna would come out of the 16,108 palaces, and then They would all become one form of Krishna and enter the Sudarma assembly to deal with the affairs of the state.

So, yogis can expand themselves also into multiple forms up to about eight, but only Krishna can expand Himself into 16,108, and beyond that, He expands Himself as the Paramātmā within the hearts of every living entity, and within the atoms in the spaces between the atoms, inside the atoms. So, Krishna can expand Himself unlimitedly. And Srila Prabhupada explains that the yogi’s expansions are just forms of the same yogi, but they cannot act independently. He gave the example that an artist may perform on television and the image of the artist may be seen on so many television screens, but all the images are doing the same thing because they are just basically images of the original form. Whereas in the case of Krishna, He could act independently in each and every palace, and that was observed by Narada.

When Narada came to Dvaraka, he visited Krishna in His different palaces, and he saw that if in one palace Krishna was taking some refreshments, in another palace, He was in the garden, and in another palace, He was with Vasudeva and Devaki, and so on. So, an ordinary person, hearing the description of Kardama Muni and the castle he created, might think, I wish I had a husband like Kardama Muni. Why could I not have a husband like Kardama Muni who could give me such a wonderful palace? But why think, Why could I not have a husband like Krishna? And it’s like when Vasudeva and Devaki in their previous life prayed that they wanted a son like Krishna, so they actually got Krishna as their son, because who could be like Krishna except for Krishna?

Once, one devotee asked Srila Prabhupada, “Does Krishna have only 16,108 wives in the spiritual world?” And Srila Prabhupada replied, “Oh! You want to become Krishna’s wife? You can pray like that.” So, there are unlimited possibilities in Krishna consciousness. Of course, pure devotees have no material desires, they only want to serve Krishna, but even if someone does have material desires, who can fulfill such desires better than Krishna? So, we should go to Krishna in any case. But in the case of a sincere devotee, Krishna will not indiscriminately fulfill the devotee’s desires, but He will only fulfill the desire in such a way that they are favorable for the devotee’s Krishna consciousness, and He can do whatever He thinks is the best.

It’s like a loving parent will do whatever is best for the child. Sometimes the father will embrace the child, and sometimes the father will spank the child. Sometimes the mother will give the sweet candy to the child, or sometimes the mother will give a bitter medicine to the child, depending on what’s best for the child. But in every circumstance, the parents always act for the benefit of the children. So, Krishna does the same.

We had one life member in Bombay, Dr. Narendra Desai, Srinathji dasa. In fact, on Saturday, we saw the film called, “Your Ever Well-wisher,” the film biography of Srila Prabhupada, and Srinathji dasa was interviewed there. So, it’s very interesting because his father was a very shrewd businessman, Mr. D.D. Desai, and he became a prominent industrialist in India and a member of parliament, and in fact, he helped some of the ISKCON devotees like His Holiness Jayapataka Swami to get an Indian visa.

Anyway, the father suddenly passed away when he was in Malaysia, somewhere, and suddenly, Srinathji dasa became the heir to the industries that his father had developed, and somehow, Srinathji dasa had the reputation among the people of being sort of simple and good, but that he won’t really be able to manage the family’s estate. But anyway, we didn’t really know, we just tried to help him spiritually. But something amazing happened after his father left. He was completely empowered in every way. He would get up so early in the morning and chant sixteen rounds, or he’d have maṅgala-ārati at home and chant sixteen rounds and read Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam every day, and he got so much power and so much intelligence from chanting and hearing and being Krishna consciousness that he expanded his father’s business many times over.

And people were astonished, and he became a good example for us to preach because there are very few people who want to give up their material life. Most people want to preserve their material life and add Krishna. So, he was a great example that you can be Krishna conscious and still have material success, and that was the way Krishna chose to deal with him and engage him, and he supported many projects with his income.

But sometimes Krishna will do the opposite. If He feels the devotee will benefit by having his material opulence taken away from him, then Krishna can do that also. There, Srila Prabhupada gave his own example. He was a successful businessman, and one astrologer predicted that he will become the richest man in India, which in a way he did become, but initially, Srila Prabhupada had problems with his business, and his own workers plundered him when he was away, and his wife didn’t cooperate with his desires to preach. It seemed that everything was falling apart, and then, as Srila Prabhupada described, he came across the verse in Bhāgavatam 

TEXT 8

yasyāham anugṛhṇāmi
hariṣye tad-dhanaṁ śanaiḥ

COMMENT

Where Krishna says that when He is especially mercifully disposed to His devotee, the first installment of His mercy is He takes everything away from His devotee so that the devotee can dedicate himself fully to the service of Krishna, which is what happened in the case of Srila Prabhupada. And then, Krishna gave Srila Prabhupada everything, including Himself, to the stage that Prabhupada said that not even the richest man in India had the opulence that he had of having so many palaces all over the world and so many servants in every palace, and white servants too, not just Indians or blacks.

Srila Prabhupada said in India, it was a matter of the greatest prestige to have a white servant. And he said that when Jawaharlal Nehru was living in London, he kept a white servant at great expense just for the prestige of having a white servant. So, Srila Prabhupada said he had palaces all over the world with so many servants, including white servants, and he didn’t have to pay them anything, and they would serve him day and night without any remuneration. And he said, “Even the richest men in India could not enjoy such opulence.” And the whole thing developed in a matter of ten or twelve years.

So, that is Krishna’s mystic power. And therefore, devotees don’t try to cultivate mystic powers separately like yogis, but they just depend on Krishna, and by Krishna’s mystic power, He can give them any number of palaces and servants and opulence.

There was a minister in West Bengal, Tarun Kanti Ghosh. Actually, his family were great devotees of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. In fact, when we would see him and say, “Hare Krishna,” he wouldn’t say, “Hare Krishna,” he would say, “Jaya Gaura.” They were good devotees of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, but they were influential. His grandfather started a prominent newspaper in Kolkata called Amrita Bazar Patrika that actually advertised Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakura’s project to build the temple in Mayapur and go door to door, house to house, and beg alms. Then, his father, Tusharkanti Ghosh, continued the newspaper. And being wealthy and influential and aristocratic, Tarun Kanti Ghosh went into politics and he was successful.

So, one afternoon, he came to visit Srila Prabhupada at the Calcutta temple, and he had gone to some yogi or sadhu who had some mystic powers, and the yogi had materialized an apple and given him an apple. So, Tarun Kanti Ghosh was quite impressed. And Srila Prabhupada made the same point, “Yes, he can produce one apple. But what about Krishna? Krishna can produce an apple tree that will produce so many apples, and within every apple are so many seeds, and each seed can produce another apple tree, which in turn will produce so many apples and so many more seeds and trees, and then, so many apple trees on the one planet we have here, and we have so many planets. So, that’s Krishna’s mystic power.”

And then he said, “If we make friends with Krishna, Krishna can give us any number of apples.” And then, he said, “Practically, that is happening in all of our centers. We have so many centers all over the world with so many devotees and so many guests coming every day, and every day, we are offering and distributing so many apples. And where are the apples coming from?” And he said, “Our devotees are not going to the factories or to the office to work. Where are the apples coming from? Krishna is giving them.”

So, just one last note about Tarun Kanti Ghosh. So, after the discussion in Prabhupada’s room, Prabhupada was going to a program to give a lecture, and Tarun Kanti Ghosh wanted to accompany him. So, we all got in the same car, and Srila Prabhupada was in the front with the driver, and I was at the back with Tarun Kanti Ghosh. So, Tarun Kanti Ghosh was asking me that he doesn’t know what to do about his political career. Sometimes he thinks that he should get out of politics and just concentrate more on devotion, but then, sometimes he thinks he can use his position in politics to serve Lord Krishna and Chaitanya Mahaprabhu.

So, I didn’t really know what to say. I was just a young man. So, I was saying, “Well, it could be good if you can use it to serve Krishna, but then again, it could be bad.” Sort of like that. And Prabhupada overhead us from the back and he turned in the front seat and said, “No, politics is a dirty game. You should get out.” So, from that, I don’t know why I am saying it, from that, I definitely got the idea that Prabhupada didn’t like politics. Certainly, we should avoid it.

So, anyway, Srila Prabhupada was very expert in dealing with people, and at the same time, he was completely in love with Krishna and completely convinced about the value of Krishna consciousness. And the combination of Srila Prabhupada’s realization and conviction about Krishna consciousness and his love and care for everyone enabled him or empowered him to preach in such a way as to engage so many people, you could say innumerable numbers of people, in Krishna’s service. And he had personal realization of the benefit of Krishna consciousness, and by following him, by following his instructions, we also had realizations. That’s probably why we all are here.

In the morning, I was struck how many senior devotees are exemplary in the morning program and their spiritual practices. I have seen that has come from realization. That’s also a sign of their attachment for Srila Prabhupada, but it’s also an indication of their realization that by getting up early, attending the morning program, chanting sixteen rounds, and working together to serve Srila Prabhupada and Krishna, one gets the benefit that far surpasses any benefit that one could get without Krishna consciousness. So, thank you all for being such good examples of Krishna consciousness in service to Srila Prabhupada and Their divine Lordships. Hare Krishna.

So, I think we have five minutes. Are there any questions or comments? Yes?

Devotee: [Unintelligible 00:33:59].

Giriraj Swami: That’s true. Many of the so-called yogis in present day India haven’t got caught and exposed, but still, their followers adhere to them. I was shocked. I mean, their followers adhere to them. But I believe Satya Sai Baba does have some mystic powers too, because once I met him. That was also a funny situation, but our auditors, and we really needed help with our accounts, so we were very dependent on our auditors. Anyways, he was the chairman of the Satya Sai Baba charitable trust, and according to him, he was responsible for the expansion of all the charitable activities of Satya Sai Baba.

So, anyways, his daughter was getting married at the Satya Sai Baba ashram at Andheri, which is near Juhu, and Satya Sai Baba was going to be present for the occasion. So, I wasn’t very keen to go, but at the same time, I wanted to honor the invitation. So, I came at the very end, and there was Satya Sai Baba out on the lawn. They were introducing people to him. His devotees were very eagerly introducing people, and he would immediately go like this. And it’s true, he had long sleeves and he would go like this, and then the ashes would fall into the eager newcomers’ hands and he would motion, and someone would bring a handkerchief and he would wipe his hands.

So, I thought, If he had such mystic powers that he can just make the ashes appear, why can’t he make the ashes on his hand disappear? Why does he need someone to bring a handkerchief? So, that part didn’t make sense. But at the end, when he sort of left the lawn and retired to his quarters, my mind was sort of overcome by a sentiment, and I knew it was his mystic influence. With my intelligence, I certainly had no intention of following what my mind was saying, but what my mind was saying was, He is wonderful. I just want to follow him. I just want to give my life to follow him.

So then, I thought that he probably does have some mystic power to influence people’s minds. That is one of the eight mystic perfections. And using that and coupling it with some magical tricks, I don’t really know, he might have had some mystic powers to materialize things earlier, but because he became so corrupt, he might have lost his powers. But I don’t know. This is speculation.

But, yes, what you say is true. There are many magicians who can do exactly what he does and outdo him. But even then, we are still captivated by Krishna’s magic, and so we don’t care that much, one way or the other.

Okay, now, for the magic of devotional service and book distribution,

Nitai-Gaura premānande! Srila Prabhupada ki jaya!