SB 10.9 – Damodara-lila

Giriraj Swami: Hare Krishna. So we welcome you to the celebration of the Deepavali here at the Radha-Nilamadhava temple. Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam explains that the absolute truth is realized in three features; Brahman, Paramātmā, and Bhagavān. The last word in God realization is Bhagavān, the Supreme Personality of Godhead called Krishna. But Krishna expands Himself into His Paramātmā feature of the Lord within the heart. Not only within the heart but within every atom, and in the space between the atoms. And further she has a spiritual effulgence that emanates from His transcendental form and that is the brahmajyoti. So by jnana-yoga the impersonal philosophers desire to merge into the impersonal light by ashtanga-yoga, yogis aspire to realize the Lord within the heart. But devotees, they aspire to realize the Supreme Personality of Godhead and enter into an eternal, loving relationship with Him, and only that loving relationship can completely satisfy the self. Even the impersonalists who merge or try to merge into the brahmajyoti, they eventually fall down because they have no shelter. Just like a rocket ship can go into the sky, but ultimately unless it finds shelter it will come back down. And the yogis also, even if they realize the Lord within the heart, they must go further to realize Bhagavān in His original feature and enter into a loving relationship with Him. So the Brahma-saṁhitā explains rāmādi-mūrtiṣu kalā-niyamena tiṣṭhan, that Krishna expands Himself into various incarnations. And the example is given of a candle; that from one candle you can light a second candle, from the second candle you can light a third candle, and the third candle you can light a fourth candle. And they all may have the same strength, the same candle power, but still there is one original candle. So that original candle or original Personality of Godhead is Krishna or Govinda, and Lord Rama is one of His expansions.

So this day of Deepavali or Diwali, celebrates the return of Lord Ramachandra to Ayodhya. Many of you may know the history which is related in the Rāmāyaṇa, but Lord Ramachandra was banished into the forest for fourteen years, and while He was in the forest, His wife Sita was abducted by the demon Rāvaṇa and carried by Rāvaṇa to his kingdom of Lanka. Rāvaṇa is the personification of lust. He wanted to enjoy that which was not meant for him to enjoy. The truth is bhoktāraṁ yajña-tapasāṁ. Lord Krishna is actually the only enjoyer because everything emanates from Him, everything is His energy, everything is His property, and therefore everything is meant to be utilized in His service, for His pleasure. And as soon as we tried to take Krishna’s property or Rama’s property for ourselves to enjoy, we become illegal. And so Rāvaṇa is the personification of that lust, of that desire to enjoy Krishna’s or Rama’s property. And the result was that he was killed by Lord Ramachandra, and that event is celebrated in the festival called Rama-Vijayadashami or Dussehra.

So after Lord Rama killed Rāvaṇa, He installed the Vibhishana on the throne. He did not fight Rāvaṇa because he wanted to enjoy the kingdom of Rāvaṇa, but he wanted to show that evil cannot succeed. And so he installed Vibhishana who was Rāvaṇa ‘s brother who was a great devotee as the king. And then he returned to Ayodhya because the fourteen years had also come to an end. So Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam is considered the ripened fruit of the tree of Vedic literatures. If one reads Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam there is no need of reading any other scripture. And within Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, is a summary of the Rāmāyaṇa. You can get the Rāmāyaṇa by reading Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. So I will read a few verses that describe Lord Ramachandra’s return to Ayodhya, and then a very important verse about what Lord Ramachandra did after he assumed the throne.

So this is Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam Canto Nine, Chapter Ten, “The Pastimes of Lord Rāmacandra”

 TEXT 32

After giving Vibhīṣaṇa the power to rule the Rākṣasa population of Laṅkā for the duration of one kalpa, Lord Rāmacandra, the Supreme Personality of Godhead [Bhagavān],

COMMENT

That word Bhagavān is used in the Sanskrit but for the sake of time I am not reading the Sanskrit.

TEXT 32 (continued)

placed Sītādevī on an airplane decorated with flowers and then got on the plane Himself. The period for His living in the forest having ended, the Lord returned to Ayodhyā, accompanied by Hanumān, Sugrīva and His brother Lakṣmaṇa.

COMMENT

So although modern people have the idea that we are making progress, that civilization is making progress, but actually according to the Vedic perspective the society is becoming weaker and poorer. According to the Vedic perspective, there are different seasons in different ages, four ages, that rotate in cycles like the four seasons, and with each successive age the people become weaker and poorer. So because of our poor condition, when we hear that Lord Ramachandra and Sitadevi and their associates boarded an airplane decorated with flowers, we think that this is some sort of fantastic tale. People are prone to call the histories or the scriptures as mythology, meaning it is not real it is just some story that someone made up, may be very poetic with good principles for us to live by, but not factual history. And they think so because they are so limited. In Kali-yuga, people are so limited that their only conception of an airplane is made of metal, very gross and crude, makes a lot of noise and is very dangerous. But there were puṣpa-vimāna, airplanes made of flowers, but we can’t imagine it because we are so small. We are like little insects. Suppose there is an insect walking around the temple room, I hope there aren’t but there could be, or let us say your living room. That insect has no conception of the life that you live. If you were to try to explain to an insect in his language about your life, he would find it totally unbelievable, unimaginable. So we modern people of Kali-yuga, are like insects. We hear about these amazing phenomena and we can’t believe that they are true. We may have more faith in science but we can perceive through our senses. But our senses are so limited, there is so much we cannot see with our senses. Even with the most powerful microscope or telescope, which are actually just extensions of our senses, we really can’t see anything that is too small or too big. Our range of sense perception is very limited, and many of the other species, they can perceive things that even we can’t perceive. Like dogs, they can perceive a range of audio frequency that is higher than we can perceive. People have dog whistles; they blow the whistle and the dog can hear it but human beings can’t here it because the pitch is too high.

So we are so limited in what we can perceive through our senses, but we are so proud of our senses, of our advancement but what has our advancement brought us? We are like the civilization of Rāvaṇas and we are so lusty and greedy, trying to enjoy other people’s property. Probably every place has a similar history but I will refer now to the Island of Mauritius, which is between India and Africa. As recently as the 1980s when I first began to visit Mauritius, people even then were remembering their life when they were young, that no one would lock their doors. No one would lock their doors because no one would steal. And people had cows, and if someone wanted milk they would just give them milk. But now, if someone wanted some water you would hesitate to give them some water. So then people just give milk but now you have to lock the doors, and have security systems, and surveillance cameras, and watchdogs, and even that is not sufficient. The thieves are so cunning they find ways to circumvent all the protective measures, and in some cases the biggest thieves are the government. Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, they are like legitimate thieves. And this is not a statement about any particular country or any particular political party, but it is just a general phenomenon that people are very eager to come to power because they can make huge amounts of money when they are in power. Well I won’t go into detail but it is a fact.

When we first went to India, Srila Prabhupada, our spiritual master, told us that the Indian politicians are the most corrupt in the world, and that in those days you couldn’t even get a telephone unless you bribe the minister, otherwise, you would get on a very long waiting list. And it went from top to bottom; it is like a railway crossing, so there is the iron bar that comes up and down, unless you bribe the fellow who was looking after the railway crossing he wouldn’t lift the arm up so you couldn’t cross the train tracks, it is just like from top to bottom. But the same thing goes on everywhere because of this increase of raja-guṇa, tama-guṇa, lust and greed. In some places they are more open about it and in other places they are more subtle about it, but it goes on everywhere. So Lord Ramachandra, he wanted a devotee to rule Lanka, and Vibhishana was a devotee, because only a devotee can rule in proper consciousness. Unless one is God conscious, one will be overwhelmed by the influences of raja-guṇa and tama-guṇa which is manifest in lust and greed, and one’s mood is just to exploit. Rāvaṇa’s mood was to exploit; take the property of God and try to enjoy the property of God, Sitadevi.

So I will just read one verse. This comes from Canto Nine, Chapter Eleven, how “Lord Rāmacandra Rules the World.” And in the previous verse, Maharaja Parīkṣit enquired of Śukadeva Gosvami, “How did the Lord conduct Himself; How did He behave in relationship with His brothers for expansions of His own self? And how does His brothers and the inhabitants of Ayodhya treat him?” So this is very important as mentioned in this verse and in other scriptures, that Lord Rama’s brothers, Bharat, Lakshmana, and Shatrughna, they were also not ordinary living entities but they were plenary portions or direct expansions of the Lord. They were not ordinary human beings.

Śukadeva Gosvāmī replied: After accepting the throne of the government by the fervent request of His younger brother Bharata, Lord Rāmacandra ordered His younger brothers to go out and conquer the entire world, while He personally remained in the capital to give audience to all the citizens and residents of the palace and supervise the governmental affairs with His other assistants.

So someone might think that Lord Ramachandra was favoring the citizens at home because He stayed with them, and that His younger brothers who were ordered to go out was at a disadvantage. But as Srila Prabhupada explains in the purport, which I will read, he was actually showing them favor by sending them out. And this phenomenon exists in a spiritual sense even today with regards to devotees who just want to remain in Vrindavan or some holy place. In a way, that is service but there may be a greater service to be done. And just as Lord Ramachandra sent His brothers out to do a greater service, so sometimes a spiritual master will send a disciple out to do a greater service. And that was the case of Srila Prabhupada who received an instruction from his spiritual master to spread Krishna consciousness all over the world.

So in the purport, Srila Prabhupada writes:

PURPORT by Srila Prabhpada

Lord Rāmacandra showed His favor to His brothers by ordering Them to go out. Many of the Lord’s devotees residing in Vṛndāvana have taken the vow not to leave Vṛndāvana to preach Kṛṣṇa consciousness. But the Lord says that Kṛṣṇa consciousness should be spread all over the world, in every village and every town. This is the open order of Lord Caitanya Mahāprabhu.

pṛthivīte āche yata nagarādi grāma
sarvatra pracāra haibe mora nāma

COMMENT

That means in every town and village of every country of the world, Krishna’s name will be preached.

PURPORT (continued)

A pure devotee, therefore, must execute the order of the Lord and must not gratify his senses by remaining stagnant in one place, falsely proud, thinking that because he does not leave Vṛndāvana but chants in a solitary place he has become a great devotee.

COMMENT

So in maybe 1990 there was a Kumbh-mela in Nashik. Of course the most famous Khumba-mela is in Allahabad, but there are Kumbh-melas in other holy places. And in that year there was a Kumbh-mela in Nashik. So while I was there, some devotees told me that there is a very nice sadhu, very advanced, and he would be happy to meet me and I would be happy to meet him. His name was Deena Bandhu Maharaja, he actually was quite an advanced devotee and he told me something that I had never heard before. He told me that he knew Srila Prabhupada in Vrindavan, and that when Srila Prabhupada was preparing to leave to leave Vrindavan to come to the west to preach, that Deena Bandhu Maharaja told him that he should not leave Vrindavan. He should stay in Vrindavan, study scripture, and give classes; ‘people can come to you and learn from you and you should not leave.’ But he left; he had the order of the spiritual master and he left. So then some years later, Srila Prabhupada returned to India with some of his American and European disciples, and Prabhupada went with a party to Nashik and there was a press conference and Deena Bandhu Maharaja came to meet Srila Prabhupada. So Srila Prabhupada asked him, why did you leave Vrindavan? You were telling me not to leave Vrindavan, “Why did you leave Vrindavan?” So Deena Bandhu Maharaja said that, “My guru Maharaja had an ashram in Nashik and he could not find anyone else to take charge of the ashram. So on the order of my guru Maharaja I left Vrindavan.” And Srila Prabhupada said, “Yes, now you see, you have experienced what it is like. So that is the point, that higher than any other consideration is the order of Krishna or the guru who is the representative of Krishna.

Srila Prabhupada continues:

PURPORT (continued)

A devotee must carry out the order of the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Caitanya Mahāprabhu said, yāre dekha, tāre kaha ‘kṛṣṇa’-upadeśa. Every devotee, therefore, should spread Kṛṣṇa consciousness by preaching, asking whomever he meets to accept the order of the Supreme Personality of Godhead. The Lord says, sarva-dharmān parityajya mām ekaṁ śaraṇaṁ vraja: “Abandon all varieties of religion and just surrender unto Me.” This is the order of the Lord, who speaks as the supreme emperor. Everyone should be induced to accept this order, for this is victory (dig-vijaya). And it is the duty of the soldier, the devotee, to impress upon everyone this philosophy of life.

COMMENT

So this order is meant for all of us. Now we don’t know with what purpose you have come here tonight. Different people here probably have different reasons for being here, but in the Bhagavad-gītā Krishna says that four categories of people come to Him; catur-vidhā bhajante māṁ. So some come out of distress; they are in distress and they want relief so they come; some come for economic development for material gain; and some come just because they are curious; and some who are considered the best, come to gain knowledge. They are considered the best because they have no personal motive but they are just seeking the truth, but they are all considered pious because they approach Krishna. So whatever your motivation was in coming here tonight, you have come to the right place. And so you should take the opportunity to understand Krishna, understand what He wants of us because that is for our benefit. Krishna has nothing to gain or lose if we obey Him or disobey Him, but we have everything to gain if we obey Him and everything to lose if we disobey Him. So we should take this opportunity to hear about Krishna. Take some books especially the Bhagavad-gītā As It Is. If you don’t have it and if you do then, Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, and if you have that then the full set. And make your human life successful, make your visit here tonight successful, and do real good to yourself and to others. And all of those ends can be achieved by offenseless chanting of the holy names.

Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna, Krishna Hare Hare
Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama, Rama, Hare, Hare.

Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna Hare, Hare
Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama, Rama, Hare, Hare.

So next on our program is the candlelight ārati; ārati means to receive the Lord. Sometimes people use the word darshan as if they are seeing the Lord but actually darshan means that we are presenting ourselves to be seen by the Lord. Srila Prabhupada’s spiritual master used to say, “Don’t try to see God but act in such a way that God wants to see you.” So we are presenting ourselves before the Lord to appreciate His beauty and grandeur and mercy, and offer ourselves in His service and we should be prepared to accept whatever order He gives us.

Hare Krishna.