SB 10.70.38 – Attaining Peace

Giriraj Swami: So since we have a number of visiting sages I don’t want to miss the opportunity to interact with them even though we only have a few minutes. So, I would like to ask you, any of you, if you have any questions or anything that you would like to say. Yes.

Devotee: What is your favorite sweet?

Giriraj Swami: What is my favorite sweet? Rasagullās, but sweeter than rasagullās is the holy name and pastimes of Krishna. So if I could relish the sweetness of Krishna’s holy names and pastimes I would leave aside the rasagullā. Yes.

Devotee: What is your favorite pastime?

Giriraj Swami: What is my favorite pastime? Well, there are unlimited pastimes and they are all absolute, and then there is Krishna’s pastimes, there is Lord Chaitanya’s pastimes, there are the pastimes of our acharyas. What is your favorite pastime?

Devotee: When Krishna killed Pūtanā.

Giriraj Swami: When Krishna killed Pūtanā. That is a very significant pastime, and in fact, you might have heard that Śukadeva Gosvami was liberated within the womb of his mother before he was born and he didn’t want to come out. I hope this biology is not too advanced for this group. So, Krishna didn’t want to become entangled with maya, with the material illusory energy, so Krishna promised him that if he came out Krishna would protect him. And as soon as he came out he wanted to leave the house. He had no interest in living with his family and enjoying material life. So he left, but he hadn’t heard Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, so Vyasadeva sent I believe he sent two disciples to catch up to Śukadeva Gosvami to bring him back. But they could not bring him back by physical force, they could only bring him back by spiritual attraction, and so they recited two verses from Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam to attract his heart. One was about the beauty of Krishna and the other was about the mercy of Krishna. And the one about the mercy of Krishna refers to the pastime in which Krishna killed Pūtanā.

And the author, Uddhava, the speaker, he says, “Alas, how shall I take shelter of one more merciful than Krishna? Although Pūtanā, the she demon, came with deadly poison to kill Krishna, Krishna while sucking her milk took out all the poison from her and elevated her to the position of a mother in the spiritual world. So who could be more merciful than Krishna? Who could be a more merciful master than Krishna?” And Srila Prabhupada explains that it is the quality of a great person to magnify the good in others and minimize the bad, to see the good side, the bright side, and not take the dark side. So although she had deadly poison in her breast and she came to kill Krishna, Krishna didn’t take the dark side but He took the bright side, that she came to feed Me her breast milk and so she is like My mother. And seeing the good side that “she served me like a mother,” he granted her liberation and gave her a position of a mother to him in the spiritual world.

So that is a very important pastime, very significant pastime.

Devotee: Who is Pūtanā in the spiritual world?

Giriraj Swami: He asked who is Pūtanā in the spiritual world. Krishna has only one direct mother who is mother Yasoda, Yasoda Maya, but there are many other elderly gopīs who have a maternal relationship with Krishna. One of the prominent ones is named Ambika, she is Krishna’s nurse. But all the elderly gopīs have that maternal affection for Krishna. And so I have not found any reference to what her particular name is in the spiritual world but she is in that relationship of being a nurse or an assistant to mother Yasoda in taking care of Krishna. So we can aspire to have a relationship like Krishna’s mother or father, to be in that mood of service to Krishna, but we cannot aspire to be mother Yasoda or Nanda Baba because that would be impersonalism. Just like we can’t become Krishna so we can’t become His special personal associates, but we can have the same mood of service that they have and assist them in their service.

Any other questions or comments?

All right, well, these were very good questions and I will let you continue with your morning program. Thank you very much. Hare Krishna.

TKG Academy, ki jaya!

Gaura-bhakta-vrnda, ki jaya!

So we will read from Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, Canto Ten, Chapter Seventy, “Lord Kṛṣṇa’s Daily Activities,” Text Forty-two.

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

TEXT 38

tavehitaṁ ko ‘rhati sādhu vedituṁ

sva-māyayedaṁ sṛjato niyacchataḥ

yad vidyamānātmatayāvabhāsate

tasmai namas te sva-vilakṣaṇātmane

TRANSLATION

Who can properly understand Your purpose? With Your material energy You expand and also withdraw this creation, which thus appears to have substantial existence. Obeisances to You, whose transcendental position is inconceivable.

PURPORT by Srila Prabhupada

Śrīla Prabhupāda explains Nārada’s realization as follows: “My dear Lord, by Your inconceivable potencies You create this cosmic manifestation, maintain it and again dissolve it. It is by dint of Your inconceivable potency that this material world, although a shadow representation of the spiritual world, appears to be factual. No one can understand what You plan to do in the future. Your transcendental position is always inconceivable to everyone. As far as I am concerned, I can simply offer my respectful obeisances unto You again and again.”

The word sva-vilakṣaṇātmane also indicates that Lord Kṛṣṇa has His own unique nature and characteristics. No one is equal to God or greater than God.

COMMENT

So, to understand this verse in context I will read the preceding few verses.

TEXT 34

After Nārada had accepted the seat offered to him, Lord Kṛṣṇa honored the sage according to scriptural injunctions and, gratifying him with His reverence, spoke the following truthful and pleasing words.

COMMENT

In the last days we have discussed about vāco vegaṁ, controlling the urge to speak, and in general, these should be the qualifications of one’s speech. They should be truthful and pleasing.

TEXT 35

[Lord Kṛṣṇa said:] It is certain that today the three worlds have attained freedom from all fear, for that is the influence of such a great personality as you, who travel at will throughout the worlds.

TEXT 36

There is nothing unknown to you within God’s creation. Therefore please tell Us what the Pāṇḍavas intend to do.

TEXT 37

Śrī Nārada said: I have seen many times the insurmountable power of Your Māyā, O almighty one, by which You bewilder even the creator of the universe, Brahmā. O all-encompassing Lord, it does not surprise me that You disguise Yourself by Your own energies while moving among the created beings, as a fire covers its own light with smoke.

COMMENT

And then he speaks the present verse.

TEXT 38

Who can properly understand Your purpose? With Your material energy You expand and also withdraw this creation, which thus appears to have substantial existence. Obeisances to You, whose transcendental position is inconceivable.

COMMENT

So the pastimes of Krishna when He appears on earth and plays like an ordinary human being are very difficult to understand. And therefore, students are advised to study the first Nine Cantos of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam before they come to the Tenth Canto so that they can understand who Krishna actually is without being bewildered by His human-like pastimes. Krishna is certainly omniscient, omnipotent, all-knowing, all-powerful, all-pervading, but to enjoy transcendental mellows or relationships with His pure devotees He plays like a human being. And as a human being, although He is not a human being, but playing as a human being He worshipped Narada because Narada is a brahman, more than a brahman, and Lord Krishna was playing the part of a king or prince or kshatriya, and it is the duty of those in lower classes to offer respect to those in higher classes. So even though Krishna is the Supreme Personality of Godhead because He was playing the part of a kshatriya, so He received Narada Muni as one would receive not only a guest but an exalted guest, and offered him a nice seat, and spoke to him in a truthful and pleasing manner.

But Narada Muni did not become illusioned by Krishna’s human-like activities, but rather he glorified Krishna as the Supreme Lord who creates and maintains and destroys the entire cosmic manifestation which is illusory but appears factual by Krishna’s supreme potency. This is the difference between the devotees of Vrindavan and the devotees outside of Vrindavan. The devotees in Vrindavan are not concerned whether Krishna is God or not. They love Krishna in a pure spontaneous way without any conditions; no condition that if Krishna is God I will love Him, and if Krishna is not God then I may not love Him. But their love for Krishna is pure and spontaneous and they are not thinking of Krishna as God but they are just thinking of Him as their dear most friend, or the darling son of Yasoda, or their handsome young man of the village, and they are attracted to Him spontaneously in different ways. And they are aware of the demigods. When Krishna would kill a demon for example demigods would come and shower flowers. Sometimes when powerful demigods would become illusioned by Krishna’s human-like pastimes in Vrindavan, they would commit offenses like Lord Indra did when he sent torrential rains to take revenge on Krishna and the residents of Vrindavan for stopping the Indra yajña, or as when Lord Brahma did when he stole the cowherd boys and calves who were enjoying their picnic lunch with Krishna.

So the cowherd boys would see the demigods come and even bow down to Krishna, offer prayers to Krishna. But that appreciation of Krishna’s opulence and position did not affect their mood in relation to Krishna. They still considered Him their equal as their cowherd boyfriends. They never allowed Krishna’s opulence and majesty to overwhelm their consciousness but their consciousness always remain absorbed in their own personal, intimate, loving relationship with Krishna. But here in Dvaraka we see that Narada is fully conscious of Krishna’s position as the Supreme Lord, and although as a matter of external formality he accepted the honorable seat from Krishna and he heard the praises from Krishna, but he wanted Krishna to know that he was not bewildered by Krishna’s human-like activities but that he was well aware of Krishna’s greatness. And we also should be fully cognizant of Krishna’s greatness because if we are not aware of Krishna’s greatness and grace, we will not have faith in Him.

If Krishna is not all powerful, then what can He do for us? If He is really like an ordinary human being, what can He do for us? And so we won’t be able to put our faith and trust in Krishna, and we will think we have to make our own arrangements to protect ourselves or to maintain ourselves. And then where is our Krishna consciousness? So it is very important that we understand Krishna in the proper way from the very beginning and have faith in His existence first of all, not that He is just an imaginary figure in a story that we have faith in His existence, and in His power, and in His mercy, and then we can be peaceful. Bhoktāraṁ yajña-tapasāṁ sarva-loka-maheśvaram suhṛdaṁ sarva-bhūtānā jñātvā māṁ śāntim ṛcchati, Bhoktāraṁ yajña-tapasāṁ , one who knows Krishna to be the supreme enjoyer. sarva-loka-maheśvaram, who knows Him to be the Supreme proprietor of all the planetary systems and the demigods, suhṛdaṁ sarva-bhūtānā, and one who knows Him to be the best friend of all living entities can attain peace. Very few people have peace in this world, not individually, and not collectively. So we have to know that Krishna is the enjoyer, we are not. We enjoy when we assist Krishna in His enjoyment, but when we try to enjoy independently which is the project of every conditioned soul, we suffer. So that is the first thing, that Krishna is the Supreme enjoyer and we cannot enjoy independent of Krishna. Our enjoyment can come properly only when we try to assist Krishna in His enjoyment.

And sarva-loka-maheśvaram, He is the supreme proprietor of all the planetary systems. That means this planet, that means our homes, our paraphernalia, our family members, our wealth, and our very selves. Nothing belongs to us, everything belongs to Krishna, and therefore, it should be engaged in Krishna’s service. But although we know this philosophically, we conditioned souls tend to harbor within us the desire to at least have a little part of Krishna’s creation that we can call our own. As Ravindra Svarupa Prabhu put it, and I don’t know if he was reading the mind of devotees or if some devotee actually came out and said it, but Ravindra Svarupa Prabhu represented the devotees’ thoughts, or maybe even statement that, “Yes, I agree that everything belongs to Krishna and it should be enjoyed by Him because He is the creator of everything, but I just want one woman that I can call mine, you can have all the others, but I just want one for myself.”

So, although we hear the philosophy and we know the theory, we do have that little desire within us that everything belongs to Krishna. “Yes, I don’t want much, He has all of creation, all I want is just one house, one wife, a few children, a few hundred thousand or million or billion dollars, and what is that for Krishna? You should have everything else now, I will preach it, I will tell everyone that I just want a little for myself.” So we have that within us and that has to be purified, and that can be purified by hearing the narrations of Krishna with faith. And by hearing the narrations of Krishna along with suffering the reactions of material nature, we come to loosen that grasp on Krishna’s property which is very good for us to do.

I remember when I first came to the Boston temple there were two of us who were coming then. The movement had fairly recently just come to Boston, and they just had a small storefront as a temple, and the basement of the storefront was everything, the men’s ashram, and the bathroom, and everything. So this other boy who was coming, I believe his name was Rick, so one evening, maybe I had been coming for three days or five days, he was in such a blissful mood, and just out of spontaneous enthusiasm he approached me and he said that, “Everything that we have, that we think is ours, actually belongs to Krishna and the sooner we return it to Krishna the better it is.” And then, as I recall, he took out his wallet from his pocket and he said, “This is just a burden, this is not my property, the sooner I give it back to Krishna the better it is.”

So Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura says that as soon as we come to Krishna consciousness or actually surrender to Krishna, we become freed from the false burden of enjoyment. It is actually a false burden because we are not meant to enjoy. Again, during that period, not even then, but even before then when I was a student in the Boston area, there was always a competition especially on the weekend, who could enjoy more. Who could enjoy with girls more, who could go to the better parties, or better restaurants. And it was a burden because I didn’t particularly like those things, but it was a competition and if you weren’t doing what the other people were doing then there was something wrong with you, you are a loser. So when I met the devotees and then I heard this statement that you become freed from the false burden of enjoyment, I actually did feel relieved, I don’t have to try to compete to enjoy.

But again, even though we may have those realizations, our material conditioning may come back to haunt us in subtle ways, not as gross as before but in subtle ways. And to really give ourselves fully to Krishna and really love Krishna like His eternal associates do, we have to give up all those subtle attachments and desires to enjoy independent of Krishna as well. And the point of being maintained by Krishna, because in the Bhagavad-gītā Krishna says, “Those who worship me with undeviating absorption,” yoga-kṣhemaṁ vahāmyaham, “I maintain what they have and carry what they lack.” Of course, one has to have that faith and that love.

So, Lord Chaitanya, after he took sannyasa, he went to Rama Keli and met the brothers Dabir Kas and Sakara Malik who later became Rupa Gosvami and Sanatana Gosvami, and then he went to Kanai Natashala, and basically, he was walking along the Ganges and he was visiting the homes of different devotees to please them and fulfill their desires. They are pure devotees so their desires were all spiritual. So, at that time he came to the home of Srivasa Pandita in Kumara Hatta. It is said that after Chaitanya Mahaprabhu took sannyasa he felt so much separation he couldn’t bear to continue to live in Mayapur so he moved to Kumara Hatta. And Chaitanya Mahaprabhu visited him, and so at one stage he said to Srivasa Thakura that, “I see that you do not make any effort to earn your livelihood. You don’t go out and work, and if you don’t work how will you maintain your family? How will you even maintain yourself?” So Srivasa Pandita said, “My Lord, I do not have the ability to work, I cannot work.” Then Chaitanya Mahaprabhu said, “Well then at least you should go out and beg alms, otherwise, how will you feed your family members and yourself, now or in the future?”

And Srivasa Pandita said, “My Lord, I also cannot do that, I cannot go out and beg alms.” Then Chaitanya Mahaprabhu said, “Well if that is your position then you should take sannyasa.” He said, “My Lord, that also I cannot do.” Then Chaitanya Mahaprabhu said, “Well then what will happen? What will you do if you don’t get food?” And Srivasa Pandita replied in a very surprising way. He went, “One, two, three.” And Chaitanya Mahaprabhu said, “What does that mean? One, two, three?” And Srivasa Pandita said, “If for three times I have to fast, if no food comes for three times, then I will take a pot and tie it around my neck and fill it with rocks and I will drown myself in the Ganges.” And then Chaitanya Mahaprabhu said, “Srivasa Pandita, you will never go hungry. This is my promise to you and to any devotee who surrenders to me. You will never go hungry even for one day.” And he said, “Even if the goddess Lakshmi becomes poverty-stricken and she herself has to go begging, but you and none of your family members, no one in your entire household will go hungry. I will personally bring food to you.” Yoga-kṣhemaṁ vahāmyaham. And he was so pleased with Srivasa Pandita. Srivasa Pandita had a younger brother named Rama Pandita, and Pandita, and he called him and he said, “You are very dear to me, I love you and your whole family, and you have nothing to fear or worry.” And then he said, “Serve your older brother, Srivasa Pandita. By serving your older brother you will be serving me directly.” So in this way he bestowed his immense mercy and love upon Srivasa Pandita and his family.

So, by hearing these narrations, although we may feel that that state is beyond our present ability to reach immediately, but we should hear these narrations and by hearing these narrations we can develop faith. We can develop a desire to experience what these exalted devotees are experiencing in loving reciprocation with the Lord Krishna or Sri Krishna Chaitanya. So reading is very important, hearing is very important, śṛṇvatāṁ sva-kathāḥ kṛṣṇaḥ puṇya-śravaṇa-kīrtanaḥ. Just hearing will make one pious and hṛdy antaḥ stho hy abhadrāṇi vidhunoti suhṛt satām, and Krishna when He sees that a devotee is eagerly and patiently hearing His message, Krishna from within the heart will cleanse the inauspicious things, the dirty things from within the heart so that we can loosen our hold on material existence. And that trying to hold on to material things is also completely futile because the things will be taken away from us anyway. And at the time of death everything will be taken away. Mṛtyuḥ sarva-haraś cāham, Krishna says that at death He takes away everything. So we are going to lose it all anyway, but by hearing about Krishna offenselessly and chanting offenselessly, all those dirty things in the heart become cleansed and we can give up these false attachments that are really holding us down and then we can be firmly and happily situated in Krishna’s service.

Hare Krishna.

So thank you for coming and listening. Do you have any questions or comments?

All right, thank you very much.

Hare Krishna.

All glories to Srila Prabhupada.