SB 7.8.34 – A Devotee Is Fortunate in Any Condition of Life

Giriraj Swami: 

oṁ namo bhagavate vāsudevāya

oṁ namo bhagavate vāsudevāya

oṁ namo bhagavate vāsudevāya

We read from the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, Canto Seven, Chapter Eight: “The Lord Slays the King of the Demons,” Text Thirty-Four. Please repeat after me.

TEXT 34

tataḥ sabhāyām upaviṣṭam uttame

nṛpāsane sambhṛta-tejasaṁ vibhum

alakṣita-dvairatham atyamarṣaṇaṁ

pracaṇḍa-vaktraṁ na babhāja kaścana

TRANSLATION

Manifesting a full effulgence and a fearsome countenance, Lord Nṛsiṁha, being very angry and finding no contestant to face His power and opulence, then sat down in the assembly hall on the excellent throne of the king. Because of fear and obedience, no one could come forward to serve the Lord directly.

PURPORT by Srila Prabhupada

When the Lord sat on the throne of Hiraṇyakaśipu, there was no one to protest; no enemy came forward on behalf of Hiraṇyakaśipu to fight with the Lord. This means that His supremacy was immediately accepted by the demons. Another point is that although Hiraṇyakaśipu treated the Lord as his bitterest enemy, he was the Lord’s faithful servant in Vaikuṇṭha, and therefore the Lord had no hesitation in sitting on the throne that Hiraṇyakaśipu had so laboriously created. Śrīla Viśvanātha Cakravartī Ṭhākura remarks in this connection that sometimes, with great care and attention, great saintly persons and ṛṣis offer the Lord valuable seats dedicated with Vedic mantras and tantras, but still the Lord does not sit upon those thrones. Hiraṇyakaśipu, however, had formerly been Jaya, the doorkeeper at the Vaikuṇṭha gate, and although he had fallen because of the curse of the brāhmaṇas and had gotten the nature of a demon, and although he had never offered anything to the Lord as Hiraṇyakaśipu, the Lord is so affectionate to His devotee and servant that He nonetheless took pleasure in sitting on the throne that Hiraṇyakaśipu had created. In this regard it is to be understood that a devotee is fortunate in any condition of his life.

COMMENT

So, this pastime, and this verse in particular, is very wonderful. As Srila Prabhupada quotes Srila Visvanatha Cakravarti Thakura, great sages and rishis build beautiful thrones dedicated with mantras and tantras for the Lord, but the Lord does not sit on their thrones, but He did sit on the throne of Hiranyakasipu, who was the greatest of demons. The reason is that Hiranyakasipu had previously been the Lord’s gatekeeper in Vaikuntha named Jaya. We actually have two gatekeepers here; Jaya and Vijaya. And there’s a history of how Jaya and Vijaya were cursed by four brahmans, whom they denied entrance into Vaikuntha. And that’s the reason, on a certain level, that Jaya and Vijaya took birth as Hiranyakasipu and Hiraṇyakṣa. But there’s a deeper reason, which is that the Lord is the origin of everything, janmādy asya yataḥ. That means that everything in us exists originally in the Lord. So, just as we have a fighting spirit, which is sometimes manifested in favorable or unfavorable ways, the Lord also has a fighting spirit. But who can fight with the Lord? The Lord was thinking, Who can fight with Me? Who’s powerful enough to fight with Me?

So, Jaya and Vijaya, being the gatekeepers, bodyguards. . . Bodyguards are generally big and strong. So, Jaya and Vijaya, understanding the Lord’s desire, thought, We are big and strong. So, who else would be better than us to fight with the Lord? So, that was the Lord’s inner desire, and that was Jaya and Vijaya’s inner reciprocation with the Lord’s desire. And then, as a līlā, or pastime, the four brahmans, the four Kumaras, came to the precincts of Vaikuntha, and Jaya and Vijaya prevented them from entering, and they became angry and they cursed Jaya and Vijaya. And they were given a choice; they could take birth for three lifetimes as demons, or for seven lifetimes as devotees. So, they chose three lifetimes as demons. One reason was they wanted to return to their service in Vaikuntha, but the other reason was they wanted to facilitate the Lord and His desire to fight.

Sometimes a king, he’ll have a wrestler to wrestle with, because who’s going to fight with the king? No one would dare fight with the king. But sometimes the king wants to wrestle, so he’ll have a wrestler. Similarly, sometimes the king will have a jester, because who’s going to joke with the king? But the king also wants to enjoy that mood, so he’ll keep a jester, and the jester can mock the king, and the king enjoys it. If anyone else were to do it, he would be punished, but the jester is allowed. One king had a jester. So, the king asked him, “What is the difference between you and a fool?” So, the jester measured the distance between him and the king, and he said, “Three feet.” [laughter] So, anyone else, that was an insult, he would be severely punished.

But in this life as Hiranyakasipu, Jaya, or Hiranyakasipu, was a great demon, and he considered the Lord to be his bitterest enemy. He didn’t show any devotion, as Hiranyakasipu, he showed only animosity. And not only toward the Lord, but toward the Lord’s devotee, Prahlada, who was his own son. And as we discussed, the Lord takes offenses against His devotee more seriously than He takes offenses against Himself. But still, the Lord sat on the throne of Hiranyakasipu, considering that in his previous life, he was Jaya, he was a devotee and servant of the Lord.

So, this is very encouraging to us, although we should not take advantage of it in the wrong way. But, Srila Rupa Gosvami defines pure devotional service as continuous.

anyābhilāṣitā-śūnyaṁ
jñāna-karmādy-anāvṛtam
ānukūlyena kṛṣṇānu-
śīlanaṁ bhaktir uttamā

So, anu means continuous, it also means following. And śīlanaṁ means cultivation. It’s a continuous cultivation. And there are many verses in the Bhāgavatam to the same effect, ahaituky apratihatā yayātmā suprasīdati, that devotional service, which is unmotivated and uninterrupted, can completely satisfy the self. We may engage in devotional service, but if we have some material motivation, we won’t feel satisfied. Or if our service is interrupted, it means, “I’ll do some service but I’ll also do a little mental speculation and enjoy a little sense gratification,” that also will not fully satisfy the self. So, pure devotional service is ānu-śīlanaṁ, a continuous cultivation without any interruption.

But from a certain point of view, Jaya’s service was interrupted. But still, the Lord is so kind and affectionate to His devotee, that He didn’t consider the period when Jaya was acting like a demon. I mean, He dealt with him as a demon, but He remembered that he was His devotee and servant, and therefore, He accepted to sit on the throne of Hiranyakasipu. And that is the Lord’s mercy, that He gives more importance to the service that we render than to the interruption of the service.

Now, the last sentence is very significant, it’s the conclusion. The last sentence of the purport is the conclusion, “It is to be understood that a devotee is fortunate in any condition of his life.” Now, sometimes, based on the mind, we distinguish, usually on the basis of sense gratification or mental speculation, or maybe even in relation to devotional service, we distinguish what is fortunate and what is unfortunate. But we may not really know what is fortunate or what is unfortunate. The Lord knows, but we may not know. And therefore, the best course for a devotee is to surrender to the Lord and trust in Him.

There’s a story, I have told it before, of a farmer whose horse escaped. He had a horse, and the horse escaped and went into the forest. So, the neighbors came and said, “Oh, how unfortunate! Your only horse escaped from the coral and is gone.” And he replied, “What is fortunate and what is unfortunate is very hard to say.” So then, after a while, the horse came back from the forest with some other horses. So, the neighbors said, “Oh, how fortunate! You had one horse, now you have five horses.” He said, “What is fortunate and unfortunate is very difficult to say.” So, the new horses were wild, and so his son had the task of breaking them in. So, one of the horses was so wild that he threw the son and the son broke his leg. So, the neighbor said, “Oh, how unfortunate! Your son has broken his leg.” And what did he say? “What is fortunate and unfortunate is very hard to say.” So then, the king’s army came through, and they were looking for young men to enlist in the army to join the forces in battle, and they heard that there was a young man in that household. So, they came to take the son into the army, but they saw he had a broken leg, “He’s useless, we can’t take him.” Then the neighbor said, “Oh, how fortunate! The army didn’t take your son.” And, “What is fortunate and unfortunate is very difficult to say.”

So quite often, we don’t really know what is in our ultimate best interest, but our mind reacts, ‘Oh, this is good, this is bad, this is good, this is bad,” accepting and rejecting. So, this is very important, “It is to be understood that a devotee is fortunate in any condition of his life.” “Oh, I lost my job! How unfortunate!” But when one is surrendered to the Lord and under the Lord’s protection, any situation is fortunate for a devotee, because he can use it for further advancement in Krishna consciousness, to take more shelter of the Lord.

And here, I thought of two devotees, who like Jaya, they got other bodies, but ultimately, they were still fortunate. One example is Vṛtrāsura. Vṛtrāsura was one of the fiercest demons ever. There’s a history, of course, there’s always a history to everything, but in short, King Indra had a priest named Visvarupa. And there was always this fighting between the demons and the demigods. So, King Indra had a priest named Visvarupa, who was performing sacrifices and offering oblations to the demigods. Actually, he gave Indra the Narayana Kavacha. It’s a mantra, but it acts as a shield, very powerful. Visvarupa, it’s a peculiarity of his birth, that his father was a demigod but his mother was from a family of demons. So, he also had affection for demons. So, along with offering oblations to the demigods, on the side, he was secretly offering oblations to the demons. And eventually, Indra found out, and he became very angry and he killed Visvarupa. And then, after killing him, he felt sorry. I mean, he killed a brahman, which was not a good thing to do.

Visvarupa’s father, Tvashta, performed a yajña to produce a person who would kill Indra. I mean, these brahmans were very powerful. But the Vedic yajñas' sacrifices are such that the mantras have to be pronounced very perfectly. Otherwise, it can have a contrary result. It’s not so in our line of devotion, in bhakti, because bhāva-grāhī-janārdana, Krishna accepts the mood of devotion. In one talk, fairly early in the movement, Srila Prabhupada commented that the devotees were mispronouncing the word guroh in vande guroḥ śrī-caraṇāravindam, and saying something like garo, which means cow. So, literally, they were saying, “I offer my respectful obeisances unto the cow.” But Srila Prabhupada quoted bhāva-grāhī-janārdana, that Krishna accepts the mood. And so, he accepted that as offering obeisances to the guru, even though the word was mispronounced.

But in the Vedic yajñas, if you mispronounce a word, it can have serious repercussions. So, when Tvashta was performing the yajña, he prayed for someone who would be the enemy of Indra, but he slightly mispronounced the word, and what he got was someone who was Indra’s enemy. In other words, he wasn’t inimical to Indra, but Indra was inimical to him. So, anyway, this Vṛtrāsura came out of the fire, and he was huge, fierce, fearsome. And so, he and the demons fought against Indra and the demigods. And at a certain stage, he hit Indra’s elephant with his club. It was so powerful that the elephant moved back fourteen steps and fell. And Indra, he was so discouraged, he didn’t even want to fight anymore, and Vṛtrāsura encouraged him. He said, “You’re thinking you’re the doer, but actually, the Lord is the doer. Gain and loss, victory and defeat, these are all in the hands of the Lord. You should just do your duty and depend on the Lord.” They had a whole philosophical discussion.

I brought the book because these words of Vṛtrāsura are so beautiful, they’re almost like the Śikṣāṣṭakam. And once, I met a very prominent follower in the Vallabhacharya sampradāya in Bombay, and he referred to these verses, he was very excited. He’s a very pious man, he was very excited about these verses. And then, when I came back to Juhu, I told Srila Prabhupada about it and got out the Bhāgavatam and read these verses. For the sake of time, I won’t read the Sanskrit, but I will read Vṛtrāsura’s prayers.

TEXT 24

O my Lord, O Supreme Personality of Godhead, will I again be able to be a servant of Your eternal servants who find shelter only at Your lotus feet? O Lord of my life, may I again become their servant so that my mind may always think of Your transcendental attributes, my words always glorify those attributes, and my body always engage in the loving service of Your Lordship?

TEXT 25

O my Lord, source of all opportunities, I do not desire to enjoy in Dhruvaloka, the heavenly planets or the planet where Lord Brahmā resides, nor do I want to be the supreme ruler of all the earthly planets or the lower planetary systems. I do not desire to be master of the powers of mystic yoga, nor do I want liberation if I have to give up Your lotus feet.

COMMENT

And this one is especially sweet.

TEXT 26

O lotus-eyed Lord, as baby birds that have not yet developed their wings always look for their mother to return and feed them, as small calves tied with ropes await anxiously the time of milking, when they will be allowed to drink the milk of their mothers, or as a morose wife whose husband is away from home always longs for him to return and satisfy her in all respects, I always yearn for the opportunity to render direct service unto You.

TEXT 27

O my Lord, my master, I am wandering throughout this material world as a result of my fruitive activities. Therefore I simply seek friendship in the association of Your pious and enlightened devotees. My attachment to my body, wife, children and home is continuing by the spell of Your external energy, but I wish to be attached to them no longer. Let my mind, my consciousness and everything I have be attached only to You.

COMMENT

So, this pastime was described by Śukadeva Gosvami to Maharaja Parīkṣit, and after hearing this pastime, Maharaja Parīkṣit said to Śukadeva Goswami, “Out of so many living entities, one is a human being. And out of so many human beings, one is civilized, one is a follower of Vedic culture. And out of so many followers of Vedic culture, one is a transcendentalist. And out of so many transcendentalists, one is a devotee. A devotee is so rare. So, how could this demon be a devotee? It’s bewildering.” And then, Śukadeva Goswami explained the history of Vṛtrāsura, that in his previous life, he had been King Citraketu. And King Citraketu had everything except a son, he felt everything was useless because he didn’t have a son. So, anyway, he confided in a sage, and the sage gave him a benediction, and gave him a way to have a son. So, he had a son, and he was very jubilant, everyone was very jubilant. But the co-wives of the wife who had the son became envious. So, they poisoned the son, and then the king was so depressed that he didn’t see any point in living, he was so disappointed.

So then, the same sage, Aṅgirā Muni and Narada Muni, came to console him, and they gave him philosophical instructions. I mean, all of these instructions are so valuable for us, because we always get caught up in this duality of happiness, “Oh, how unfortunate! He doesn’t have a son.” “Oh, how fortunate! He has a son.” Oh, how unfortunate! The son died.” So, it’s really important that we read, because we always need to be reminded, and especially in this mundane atmosphere of Kali-yuga, everyone is totally caught up in the bodily concept of life and concepts of good and bad based on sense gratification and speculation.

So, anyway, they consoled him, they gave him transcendental knowledge, and they gave him a prayer, a mantra to say. And they even brought his son back to life, temporarily. And the son, he also preached to his father, “Why are you lamenting? This is a bodily concept of life and you should surrender to Krishna. Your real relationship is with Krishna, not with the body and the by-products of the body.” And then, the son went back to his destination.

So, King Citraketu, he became enlightened, and he was reciting that prayer. And eventually, the Lord appeared, and he offered prayers to the Lord. And he lost interest in the kingdom, and so on. And so, he had an aerial aeroplane. Yesterday, we were hearing about the aeroplanes from Naikatma Prabhu and Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. So, he had an aerial aeroplane, and he would fly with his wives. They also regretted that they poisoned the boy, they also became enlightened. So, they were chanting, just flying about and chanting the glories of the Lord. And they used to have a boat in Hawaii, they used to travel and chant. So, he had an airboat, an airship, they were chanting and traveling.

So, while traveling, they came to the abode of Lord Shiva, and Lord Shiva was sitting with Parvati, His wife, on His lap, with His arm around her, and was addressing a whole assembly of sages and saintly persons. And Citraketu was struck with wonder. He thought, He’s in an assembly with so many sages and saintly persons, and He’s sitting with His wife on His lap and He’s embracing His wife? And just seeing that irony, he laughed. And Parvati heard him laugh and she cursed him. So, the plane came down, he got off the plane, and he accepted the curse without any protest. I mean, he glorified the Vaishnavas. And one verse in particular,

nārāyaṇa-parāḥ sarve
na kutaścana bibhyati
svargāpavarga-narakeṣv
api tulyārtha-darśinaḥ

How wonderful are the devotees of the Lord who have taken shelter of Lord Narayana. They are equipoised in every situation because they consider the heavenly planets, hellish planets, or liberation all the same. And Srila Prabhupada explains they’re the same because the devotee doesn’t live in heaven or hell or anywhere; he lives with Krishna. So, as a result of Parvati’s curse, Citraketu became the demon Vṛtrāsura. But he only had the body of a demon. He had the consciousness of a devotee.

And another example is King Bharata. He was very advanced, it’s described that he left his kingdom and paraphernalia, just like someone leaves the stool room after finishing his business. But while in the forest, performing his worship, a pregnant deer was crossing the river near his hermitage, and just then, a lion let out a very loud call, and the mother deer became frightened and she bolted and prematurely gave birth to the baby deer, and she went to the other side of the river, and then she died. And so, King Bharata, out of compassion for the baby deer, took the baby deer to his ashram and took care of it. And the deer was his constant companion. And gradually, he developed a mundane attachment to the deer.

And once, the deer didn’t come back. It was wandering somewhere, it didn’t come back. And Bharata Maharaja was really worried. He was condemning himself that he wasn’t taking proper care of the deer, and he was looking for the deer. And he also fell and died, thinking of the deer. And so, yaṁ yaṁ vāpi smaran bhāvaṁ, whatever your thoughts are at the time of death, you attain to that state. So, he attained the body of the deer. But again, this is the Lord’s affection and appreciation for His devotee, that He allowed the deer to keep his consciousness from his previous life, ordinary people don’t. We don’t know what we were in our last life, and most of the animals around probably don’t remember what they were in their last lives. And so, that deer was blessed with the recollection of his past life.

So, when he was old enough, he left home, left the other deer, and he went back to the place where he had his ashram before, a holy place. And he just stayed there. He didn’t want to get entangled in any sort of sense gratification or material attachment, even as a deer, and he just waited for the time of death to come. And then, in his next life, he took birth as a brahman. But still, he remembered the previous two lives, and he was very careful to not get entangled in any sort of material attachment or relationship. It’s a long story, but eventually, he attained complete perfection in devotional service.

So, these are examples that a devotee is fortunate in any condition of life. And so, we shouldn’t be bewildered, or confused, or distracted by the body, because bodies have different natures, and sometimes one acts in a certain way because of his nature, because of his body. But what really is important is the consciousness, bhāva-grāhī-janārdana, the mood of service.

Once in Juhu, eventually, there were devotees, and they got married and they had children and the children grew older. So, one day, a group of the children came into my office, about five or six. And there were one or two, they were the spokespersons. And they were sort of complaining about the way the older devotees were treating them. They were treating them like children and not as devotees. So, they were so intelligent, so mature, really. So, one of them said, “We have children’s bodies, so sometimes we act like children, but we’re also devotees, and we should also be treated like devotees.” They were really wise, really mature.

So, we should be like that, see the devotion. I mean, it’s not like we’re unaware of people’s natures based on their bodies, but we see the devotion, and we don’t discount anyone because of their bodies or conditioning in a certain body or lifetime. And again, although we should really try to practice devotional service continuously, we should be afraid of falling down or deviating or having any interruption to our service. But we do.

Okay, these are larger interruptions, but we have little interruptions. When we’re chanting the holy name, we’re trying to hear the holy name, our mind is somewhere else. So, that’s an interruption. I mean, of course, that’s a very subtle one, or a small one. But however big or small it is, we just have to come back to Krishna, and Krishna will accept us. And the same for others. If someone has gone astray and comes back, we should be like Krishna, we should welcome the person back and not be focused on the interruption, but rather be focused on the service.

I think there is a verse in the Bible, something to the effect that if you don’t forgive others, how will the Lord forgive you? So, we should be like that. But at the same time, try not to deviate, and try to help those around us also not to deviate. Because you can come back and the Lord will accept you back, but in the meantime, you suffer. So, to avoid that, it’s better to be very careful.

So, this is really the Lord’s merciful nature. There’s also the example of Krishna and Putana. You may know this story, that Putana was a demon, but she put poison on her breast and she changed her form. She was really a very horrible-looking demon, but she changed her form to look like a beautiful goddess. And so, she entered the home of Yasoda, and because she was so beautiful and charming, they let her enter. And then, she took baby Krishna to feed her breast milk, which was actually poisoned, to kill Him. And Krishna closed his eyes, and it’s described He sucked her milk, and He also sucked out her life. So, she died and her horrible form as a demon was revealed.

But He elevated her to the position of a mother in the spiritual world. And this is considered the Lord’s extreme mercy, that even though she came as an enemy to kill Him, Krishna didn’t take the dark side, “She came to kill Me,” but He took the bright side, “She came to feed Me her breast milk, so she’s like a mother.” And so, he gave her liberation and elevated her to the position of a mother in the spiritual world. So, this is the extreme mercy of the Lord.

And so, we should have faith in that mercy. We don’t want to be mixed; we want to be pure. But even in that case, if we are mixed, the Lord, out of His compassionate nature, will see the good more than the bad, and He will help us by creating a situation in which we are purified. But that too, we also have to cooperate with the Lord’s merciful arrangement and not rebel against it. But if we remain surrendered to the Lord. . . A devotee is fortunate in any condition of his life. And so, what to speak of us here, in the body of human beings, in the association of devotees, with the Deities, with the books, with the holy name, with the opportunity to render service and preach. I mean, how fortunate can we be? So, we should take advantage of it and help create good fortune for others. Hare Krishna.

Devotees: Hare Krishna.

Giriraj Swami: So, are there any questions or comments?

Another example is that of Ajamila. Ajamila was born in a brahman family, but then later, due to bad association, he became involved with a prostitute. He had a very beautiful, qualified brahman wife, but he got so bewildered that he left her for the prostitute, and to satisfy the prostitute, he engaged in all sorts of sinful activities and earned money by all sorts of nefarious means. And then, at the age of eighty-eight, he was on his deathbed. And he had a small, young boy named Narayana.

So, at the time of death, the Yamadutas, the agents of Yamaraja, the God of death who punishes the sinful living entities, they came to take the soul from the body to be punished. And when he saw these fearsome, ghastly-looking creatures, he panicked, and he just started to shout for his son, he was very attached to his son. He started shouting, “Narayana! Narayana! Narayana!” and immediately, the Vishnudutas came, the messengers of Lord Narayana, because he had called the name of Lord Narayana, even though he was intending to call his son. So, they intervened, “Halt. You cannot take this soul.” “Why not? He’s sinful.” There was a whole discussion on who had jurisdiction over the soul of Ajamila. And the conclusion was that because he chanted the holy name of the Lord offenselessly, he was free from sinful reactions, and he was not punishable. So, he was allowed to continue to live.

And then, by the association of the Vishnudutas and hearing their discussion, he left home, he even left his son to whom he was so attached, and he went to Haridvara and engaged in devotional service. And then, when he was perfect in devotional service, the Vishnudutas came again and carried him back home, back to Godhead. So, that was an interruption. I mean, considering the course of a person’s life, it was a pretty long interruption. But even then, he had that good fortune. Some saintly person advised him, “You should call your son Narayana.” And in the end, that saved him.

And one of our godbrothers, who later went astray, he reported an incident. We were at the Ardh Kumbh Mela in Prayag in 1970, and this devotee was working so hard. I mean, the conditions were so primitive, and it was really cold there, and he was cooking almost non-stop, on just wood. He dug a little pit and put wood in it and lit the fire. And he was cooking for the devotees and cooking for the public, as Prabhupada wanted a big prasāda distribution for the public. He was working very, very hard.

And one day, he walked into the pandal, and Srila Prabhupada was speaking about the story of Ajamila. And this devotee was way at the back, he’d just come. And the way he describes it, Prabhupada looked at him and said that Ajamila had performed a very, very pure devotional service in his youth. And even though later he became entangled in sinful activities, because he had rendered very, very pure devotional service in his youth, he was ultimately delivered. And so, this devotee, he was struck that Prabhupada was looking right at him. He was a sannyasi at that time, and later he left sannyasa. But he thought back that maybe Prabhupada knew, or in any case, Prabhupada gave him a very important instruction, that because he had rendered a very, very pure service in his youth, ultimately, he was delivered. Alright, so we will let you go. Hare Krishna.

Devotees: Hare Krishna.

Giriraj Swami: Srila Prabhupada ki jaya! Nitai Gaura premānande!

Devotee: His Holiness Giriraj Swami Maharaja ki jaya!