SB 7.8.53

Giriraj Swami:

TEXT 53   (ŚB 7.8.53)

śrī-kimpuruṣā ūcuḥ
vayaṁ kimpuruṣās tvaṁ tu
mahā-puruṣa īśvaraḥ
ayaṁ kupuruṣo naṣṭo
dhik-kṛtaḥ sādhubhir yadā

TRANSLATION

The inhabitants of Kimpuruṣa-loka said: We are insignificant living entities, and You are the Supreme Personality of Godhead, the supreme controller. Therefore how can we offer suitable prayers unto You? When this demon was condemned by devotees because they were disgusted with him, he was then killed by You.

PURPORT by Srila Prabhupada

The cause of the Supreme Lord’s appearance upon this earth is stated in Bhagavad-gītā (4.7–8) by the Lord Himself:

yadā yadā hi dharmasya
glānir bhavati bhārata
abhyutthānam adharmasya
tadātmānaṁ sṛjāmy aham

paritrāṇāya sādhūnāṁ
vināśāya ca duṣkṛtām
dharma-saṁsthāpanārthāya
sambhavāmi yuge yuge

“Whenever and wherever there is a decrease in religious principles and a predominant rise in irreligion, at that time I descend Myself. To deliver the pious and annihilate the miscreants, as well as to reestablish the principles of religion, I Myself appear, millennium after millennium.” The Lord appears in order to execute two kinds of activities — to kill the demons and to protect the devotees. When the devotees are too disturbed by the demons, the Lord certainly appears in different incarnations to give the devotees protection. The devotees following in the footsteps of Prahlāda Mahārāja should not be disturbed by the demoniac activities of the nondevotees. Rather, they should stick to their principles as sincere servants of the Lord and rest assured that the demoniac activities directed against them will not be able to stop their devotional service.

COMMENT

So, in this verse, we find three words. Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam is so poetic. One word is kimpuruṣa, insignificant living entities. Another word is mahā-puruṣa, the Supreme Person. And the third is kupuruṣo, the most sinful person. The living entities are insignificant, but when they are puffed up with false pride, they think that they are independent and can do whatever they like, and thus they transgress the laws of God and inflict pain upon other living entities, even devotees. And thus, they become kupuruṣo. Hiraṇyakaśipu was such a powerful demon that no one within the universe could stop him. And therefore, the Lord Himself appeared as Nṛsiṁhadeva and killed him.

We find a similar verse in the Ninth Canto of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam that describes how Ravana and his forces were killed by Rama and His army. The verse says that because Ravana was condemned by the curse of mother Sita, he and his dynasty lost all of their power, and were vanquished by Lord Ramachandra and His band of devotees, soldiers. So, we find both principles, that if one wins the favor of the devotee, gains the favor of the devotee, gains the mercy of the devotee, then the mercy of the Lord will follow, and similarly, if one gains the disfavor of the devotee or devotees, the Lord will be displeased and take suitable action.

I remember when the devotees in the Soviet Union were being persecuted by the government. Things came to the point where the devotees were arrested and put into prisons and psychiatric hospitals and labor camps in Siberia. It was a terrible situation. One devotee, a very saintly devotee, named Saci Suta, he died in prison. Of course, in a very Krishna conscious way, but he died in prison. One pregnant mother, her child died while she was in prison. So, the authorities there not just persecuted the devotees, they actually tortured the devotees.

And when I mentioned this to one of our friends in Bombay, Dr. N. D. Desai, Sri Nathji dasa, he immediately said, “Then the Soviet Union is finished. Krishna will not tolerate.” And at the time, no one could imagine that the Soviet Union could be finished. They were so powerful, the main rival of the United States. And then fairly soon, they actually were all stunned by the news that they were going to revolt in Moscow, and the government fell.

There was a similar incident on a smaller level, but in principle with the same type of situation. In Juhu, there was one demon, named Mr. Nair, who tried to cheat Srila Prabhupada and the devotees of the Juhu land. In brief, Srila Prabhupada had to pay earnest money to buy the land, and on some pretext, Mr. Nair canceled the agreement, putting the blame on ISKCON for failing to fulfill one of the conditions. But as they say, possession is nine tenths of the law, and we had possession.

In fact, practically the first thing Srila Prabhupada did when he got possession of the land was to bring the Deities of Sri Sri Radha-Rasabihari there, because he suspected there might be some trouble later. He felt as long as the Deities were there, no one would be able to take the land away. But still, Mr. Nair tried, and he would do things like turn off the electricity, turn off the water. He hired one sort of tough, south Indian guy named Ramu.

There were a lot of coconut trees on the property, so he hired Ramu as the coconut wallah to take the coconuts down from the trees to harvest them, but the real idea was that Ramu should intimidate the devotees, and frighten the devotees. So, he would brandish this big knife, a machete, or something that he would use to cut down the coconuts, and really look in a very menacing way at the devotees. And he would also stand near the temple in the evening, when it was time for sandhya ārati and Bhagavad-gītā class, and try to scare people away from coming to the temple.

And as it is, the land could be very hot in Juhu, and there were mosquitoes and rats, literally this big, a special breed. And the thing about them is that when they would bite you, you couldn’t feel it. The devotees would be asleep and the rats would bite them, and they’d wake up, and they’d see there is blood on the floor, their own blood. So, Mr. Nair did his best to intimidate us, and harass us, and induce us to leave, but we didn’t.

So, one day, Mr. Nair suddenly died of a heart attack, and Bali Mardan Prabhu was visiting in Bombay at the time. He took the initiative and phoned Srila Prabhupada in Australia, and Prabhupada almost never took phone calls, but Srutakirti Prabhu took the call, and Bali Mardan Prabhu gave him the message and Srutakirti related it to Prabhupada. And the next part is a little confidential but. . . So, Srila Prabhupada, as we heard later from Srutakirti Prabhu, said, “He was causing too much pain to the devotees.” Prabhupada could not tolerate that he was causing so much pain to the devotees.

So, although saintly persons, sadhus, are by nature merciful and personally, they don’t take offense, but if a demon is causing pain to others, but specifically devotees, then even sadhus, who are so saintly by nature and so merciful by nature, they may condemn the person, and then the person’s future is not very bright in the material sense, in the sense that the person will be vanquished by the will of the Lord. Although spiritually, anyone who comes in touch with the Lord in any way gets some benefit, and the demons who are killed by the Lord correctly are purified by the touch of the Lord.

In the case of Mr. Nair, of course, the devotees were jubilant upon his death. And Srila Prabhupada wrote a letter to one of the congregational devotees, who had written Srila Prabhupada also to inform him. And Srila Prabhupada wrote back, “If it is true that the demon Nair is dead, it is an occasion of great jubilation.” And then he quoted from Prahlada Maharaja’s prayers, which we’ll be reading soon, that even saintly persons take pleasure when a snake or a scorpion is killed. So, the devotees were very pleased, just like here, devotees throughout the universe were pleased, because the Lord had killed the great demon. And the same was true in Juhu, the devotees were very jubilant.

But afterwards, when one of the devotees asked Srila Prabhupada, sort of in the mood, “Now he should suffer for all the pain he caused.” He would suggest that he might have taken birth as a snake. Nair would have taken birth as a snake because he was so envious. But Prabhupada said, “No. He would have taken birth as a human being.”