SB 5.18.8 – Sri Prahlada’s Surrender

Giriraj Swami: 

oṁ namo bhagavate narasiṁhāya
oṁ namo bhagavate narasiṁhāya
oṁ namo bhagavate narasiṁhāya

Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, Canto Five, Chapter Eighteen: “The Prayers Offered to the Lord by the Residents of Jambudvipa.”

TEXT 8

oṁ namo bhagavate narasiṁhāya namas tejas-tejase āvir-āvirbhava vajra-nakha vajra-daṁṣṭra karmāśayān randhaya randhaya tamo grasa grasa om svāhā; abhayam abhayam ātmani bhūyiṣṭhā oṁ kṣraum.

TRANSLATION

I offer my respectful obeisances unto Lord Nṛsiṁhadeva, the source of all power. O my Lord who possess nails and teeth just like thunderbolts, kindly vanquish our demonlike desires for fruitive activity in this material world. Please appear in our hearts and drive away our ignorance so that by Your mercy we may become fearless in the struggle for existence in this material world.

COMMENT

This is a very auspicious prayer praying to the Lord to appear in our hearts and vanquish our demonlike desires for fruitive activities. When Lord Nṛsiṁhadeva appeared to kill the demon Hiraṇyakaśipu, He was so furious that no one could pacify Him. One after the other so many great personalities came forward to try to pacify the Lord but no one could get His anger to subside. In fact they themselves were afraid to come forward. Then Prahlada who was only a five-year-old boy came forward and offered many beautiful prayers to Lord Nṛsiṁhadeva. In one of the prayers he says to the Lord that even saintly persons take pleasure when a snake or a scorpion is killed. Now what is the purport of this verse? The meaning is clear but the purport is that Nṛsiṁhadeva appeared and killed the demon Hiraṇyakaśipu but Hiraṇyakaśipu was Prahlada’s father so he might have thought that Prahlada might have been upset with the Lord for killing his father or other relatives and members of the dynasty of Hiraṇyakaśipu would have been upset with the Lord. So thinking that they might be upset with Him, He remained agitated, He remained disturbed transcendentally. So Prahlada replied that even saintly persons (sadhus) take pleasure when a snake or scorpion is killed. So don’t worry. Even the most saintly of persons will be jubilant on account of your killing Hiraṇyakaśipu and eventually the Lord became pacified.

Now this verse has significance in the life of Srila Prabhupada as a grihastha he went to visit his guru maharaja Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura in Mayapur and there was a snake, and Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura ordered that the snake be killed and Srila Prabhupada then, as a relative newcomer to the association, he was surprised that, “Oh, guru maharaja ordered the killing of the snake,” because generally devotees are nonviolent. They won’t even kill an insect, but then later Srila Prabhupada said he came across the verse in Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam that even a saintly person becomes happy when a snake or scorpion is killed.

I had a somewhat similar experience, not exactly the same, but when the demon Mr. Nair who had owned the Juhu land and tried to cheat Srila Prabhupada and drive not only the devotees from the land but drive the Deities from the land. . . In fact once he became so angry he really began shouting right in front of Srila Prabhupada saying, “I will smash your Deity!” So it is a long story but moving ahead I was walking on the street in Bombay and in Bombay and in India there are vendors on the street and they have newspapers lying on the street for sale. So I was walking around Metro and I saw a huge banner headline in big, bold, black letters, “A. B. Nair is Dead!” with a big picture of him. He actually was such a powerful person, he owned one of the three English daily newspapers in Bombay. That was the one he owned and the other two had similar headlines. I felt jubilant, I felt like dancing right there on the street near Metro cinema and I thought to myself, “Is this proper? We are trying to be devotees, we are trying to be saintly persons, following Srila Prabhupada in such a great line of saintly teachers, there may be something wrong.” 

And then one of our devotees, Bali-mardana, he wasn’t part of the Juhu project but he very early in ISKCON had been one of the main managers and he phoned Srila Prabhupada who was in Australia and Prabhupada’s servant got on the phone and he said, “I have a message for Srila Prabhupada.” Srila Prabhupada was taking his massage, he didn’t come to the phone, but the servant gave Prabhupada the message that Mr. Nair was dead. And Srila Prabhupada folded his hands and said, “Thank you. Thank you.” And then he said that he’d prayed to Lord Nṛsiṁhadeva to do something about Mr. Nair because he was giving so much trouble to the devotees. It is said that the Lord takes more offense when His devotees are offended than when he is offended directly. And yes, that was outrageous that Nair said that, “I will smash the Deity.” But Prabhupada’s comment was that he was causing too much pain to the devotees and therefore he had prayed to Lord Nṛsiṁhadeva.

Well, that is all well and good but what about me feeling joyful, practically dancing on the street corner? Meanwhile Prabhupada had a few very good friends in Bombay, two especially, Mr. Sethi who we heard about this morning from his son, and Mrs. Singhal. So Mrs. Singhal, she or her husband, Dr. Singhal, had written Srila Prabhupada about Mr. Nair and Srila Prabhupada wrote back quoting the same verse, he said, “This is very good news that the demon Nair is dead,” and then he quoted the same translation that even saintly persons take pleasure when a snake or scorpion is killed. So then I thought that my spontaneous reaction was justified according to scripture.

So whatever we read or hear or witness—dramatic performances of the killing of demons like Hiraṇyakaśipu being killed by Nṛsiṁhadeva or Rāvaṇa being killed by Ramachandra, Kamsa being killed by Krishna—we take pleasure. I don’t know much about it but from what I hear there are video games that are very popular and basically what the children do is they just smash things. . . I don’t know what they are—people, cars, animals, monsters—but they are just constantly clicking buttons or something and smashing and obliterating things. If they were hearing the pastimes of the Lord killing the demons or seeing dramatic performances of them they would feel even happier than what satisfaction they get by obliterating the things on the screen and they would be purified. Their consciousness would be uplifted and that is something that we all can feel. We were feeling it right now just by thinking about Lord Nṛsiṁhadeva, talking about Lord Nṛsiṁhadeva, remembering Him not only in terms of His activities millions of years ago when He killed the demon Hiraṇyakaśipu, but even His more recent activities. So it very purifying, very uplifting, and that process itself cleanses our heart—ceto-darpaṇa-mārjanam—chanting the glories of the Lord cleanses the heart so that these demonlike desires in us are washed away. It is so easy. 

Once I asked Srila Prabhupada, he said that we don’t fight maya directly but we surrender to Krishna and He fights maya. So we just glorify the Lord. We don’t even have to worry about our anarthas, we don’t have to worry about our advancement, we don’t have to worry about becoming fearless. It all happens automatically by glorifying the Lord and serving the Lord. Prahlada Maharaja was not afraid and he didn’t really do anything to protect himself but he just adhered to the lotus feet of Nṛsiṁhadeva always chanting the glories of the Lord even preaching to his demonic schoolmates and the Lord took care of him. So that is the life of a devotee, he just depends on the Lord, he serves the Lord, follows the instructions of the Lord, glorifies the Lord, spreads the message of the Lord and the Lord takes care of him.

But still, it doesn’t mean that we don’t take normal precautions. As Srila Prabhupada said being a devotee doesn’t mean that you challenge the laws of nature, that, “Okay, I am a devotee so I’m going to put my head in the mouth of a tiger.” No, we don’t challenge the laws of nature, we take normal precautions—we lock the doors at night and we take normal precautions—but we know that ultimately life and death are in the hands of the Lord, our protection depends on His mercy.

There is another prayer of Prahlada and Nṛsiṁhadeva where he says that sometimes a person will drop his wallet or purse on the street or leave it somewhere and he may remember and go back and two seconds later it is gone or he may go back a day later and it is still there. It all depends on the mercy of the Lord. We are not in control. So this is the descending process, we just serve the Lord according to His instructions, His mercy descends. He protects us. Just like a child is not afraid, he is protected by his parents. 

So it is a very auspicious day. It is a jubilant day. Nṛsiṁhadeva killed so many demons but even better than that in a sense better for us is that He can kill our demonic desires in our hearts and we become fearless (abhaya). Prabhupada’s name was Abhay Charan. His parents gave him the name Abhay Charan. Carana means “lotus feet,” abhaya means “fearless.” So Krishna’s lotus feet are the source of fearlessness and one who takes shelter of Krishna’s lotus feet becomes fearless. Everyone is always full of fear, full of anxiety, always. And when he was initiated Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura gave him the name Abhay Caranaravinda dasa, almost the same, just added “aravinda,” Abhay Caranaravinda dasa. So if we take shelter of Srila Prabhupada and through him of Lord Nṛsiṁhadeva and the Pancha-tattva, Radha and Krishna, we will become fearless. We’ll know we are not the body that the source. . . Prahlada here asked to be free from avidya or ignorance. Basic ignorance is we identify with the body but if we know we are not the body we have nothing to fear because no one can touch us, the soul.

So it is a joyous occasion and it is made even more joyous by the presence of all of you. The Lord is pleased when devotees gather to chant and hear about Him and remember Him, and by giving pleasure to the Lord, we feel pleasure. 

In Kali-yuga the Lord comes as Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, His mission is a little different from previous incarnations. Paritrāṇāya sādhūnāṁ vināśāya ca duṣkṛtām: He would descend to kill the demons and deliver the devotees but in Kali-yuga as Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu He doesn’t kill them physically but He kills their demonic propensities and makes them devotees and that He did with Jagai and Madhai and to some degree or other He has done the same thing with us and we should also be instruments of the Lord’s mercy and help others become Krishna conscious and free from these demonic propensities that are causing them and others trouble. Hare Krishna.