SB 2.7.14 – Nrsimha-caturdasi

Giriraj Swami: Hare Krishna. We welcome you on the most auspicious occasion of Lord Nṛsiṁhadeva’s appearance anniversary. 

Devotee: We welcome you to Houston, Maharaja. 

Giriraj Swami: It is a great pleasure to be here with all of you on this auspicious occasion. So, we will read a verse from Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam about Lord Nṛsiṁhadeva.

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

Please repeat.

TEXT 14

trai-piṣṭaporu-bhaya-hā sa nṛsiṁha-rūpaṁ

kṛtvā bhramad-bhrukuṭi-daṁṣṭra-karāla-vaktram

daityendram āśu gadayābhipatantam ārād

ūrau nipātya vidadāra nakhaiḥ sphurantam

TRANSLATION

The Personality of Godhead assumed the incarnation of Nṛsiṁhadeva in order to vanquish the great fears of the demigods. He killed the king of the demons [Hiraṇyakaśipu], who challenged the Lord with a club in his hand, by placing the demon on His thighs and piercing him with His nails, rolling His eyebrows in anger and showing His fearful teeth and mouth.

PURPORT by Srila Prabhupada

The history of Hiraṇyakaśipu and his great devotee-son Prahlāda Mahārāja is narrated in the Seventh Canto of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. Hiraṇyakaśipu became very powerful by material achievements and thought himself to be immortal by the grace of Brahmājī. Brahmājī declined to award him the benediction of immortality because he himself is not an immortal being. But Hiraṇyakaśipu derived Brahmājī’s benediction in a roundabout way, almost equal to becoming an immortal being. Hiraṇyakaśipu was sure that he would not be killed by any man or demigod or by any kind of known weapon, nor would he die in day or night. The Lord, however, assumed the incarnation of half-man and half-lion, which was beyond the imagination of a materialistic demon like Hiraṇyakaśipu, and thus, keeping pace with the benediction of Brahmājī, the Lord killed him. He killed him on His lap, so that he was killed neither on the land nor on the water nor in the sky. The demon was pierced by Nṛsiṁha’s nails, which were beyond the human weapons imaginable by Hiraṇyakaśipu. The literal meaning of Hiraṇyakaśipu is one who is after gold and soft bedding, the ultimate aim of all materialistic men. Such demonic men, who have no relationship with God, gradually become puffed up by material acquisitions and begin to challenge the authority of the Supreme Lord and torture those who are devotees of the Lord. Prahlāda Mahārāja happened to be the son of Hiraṇyakaśipu, and because the boy was a great devotee, his father tortured him to the best of his ability. In this extreme situation, the Lord assumed the incarnation of Nṛsiṁhadeva, and just to finish the enemy of the demigods, the Lord killed Hiraṇyakaśipu in a manner beyond the demon’s imagination. Materialistic plans of godless demons are always frustrated by the all-powerful Lord.

COMMENT

So, on the face of it, the description that we just read is quite ghastly. And in the transcendental science of rasa, or mellows, “ghastly” is one of the indirect mellows. There are five direct favorable relationships, and seven indirect or unfavorable. The direct relationships are neutrality, servitorship, friendship, parental affection, and conjugal love. And the seven indirect relationships can be combined with direct relationships and they support it, or they can just be indirect relationships, which are unfavorable. For example, one of the indirect mellows is hāsya-rasa, which is humorous, or as Srila Prabhupada says, laughing ecstasy.

So, we can understand in an ordinary situation, if you laugh at someone, that’s not very favorable, it’s the opposite. It’s a very mean thing to do or demeaning thing to do. But laughter can also be favorable if it’s in the context of a direct relationship. Just like you see a child do something cute and you laugh. So, that laughter is not condescending or demeaning, but it’s affectionate, probably in the mood of some sort of parental affection. 

So, in this case, the scene is very ghastly, and even seeing a picture of Nṛsiṁhadeva can raise questions if people don’t know the history of Nṛsiṁhadeva.

There was an occasion in the very early days of ISKCON in America where one of the devotees saw the picture of Lord Nṛsiṁhadeva and was horrified. And Srila Prabhupada had to explain that this is an incarnation of Krishna. And sometimes, when we preach to new people, it may be a little difficult.

Again, a very early incident in the history of ISKCON, an important person came to the temple and saw the picture of Nṛsiṁhadeva and was quite shocked. So, the devotee had explained, “Well, this shows the triumph of good over evil,” which is certainly true. But for devotees, this sight of Nṛsiṁhadeva is very pleasing, because the Lord is absolute. So, any one of His forms is pleasing to the devotee.

And it’s described that when Krishna comes home from the pasturing grounds in the late afternoon, His body is powdered by the dust that the cows raised when they walk on the roads or through the fields. And the gopīs and other residents of Vrindavan, they see that Krishna’s beauty is enhanced by the dust from the hoofs of the cows and calves, and He may have beads of sweat or perspiration, and every element enhances the beauty of Krishna.

And similarly, when devotees see the fearsome face of Nṛsiṁhadeva splattered with drops of blood from Hiraṇyakaśipu, they think that splattering of blood enhances the beauty of Nṛsiṁhadeva. Just as the gopīs see the beauty of Krishna enhanced by the dust raised by the cows and calves.

So, the relationship between the devotees and the Lord is very beautiful. And we can see from this incident how seriously the Lord takes an offense to a devotee. By his austerities, severe austerities, extreme austerities, Hiraṇyakaśipu became most powerful. Other than Brahma and Shiva, he practically subdued all the demigods and demons in the universe. He was so powerful, and he created so much havoc. But still, the Lord did not appear. But the Lord appeared when Hiraṇyakaśipu was torturing the Lord’s pure devotee, Prahlada.

I recall a small incident in Juhu when we got the news that the authorities in the Soviet Union were torturing devotees. And so, one friend of ours in Bombay then, Sri Nathji das, I’ll never forget it, we were walking from the lobby of the guest house at the Juhu temple, into the temple area. And when he heard about how the authorities in Russia were torturing devotees, he commented, “This is the end of the Soviet Union; now they are torturing devotees; Krishna will not allow them to continue.”

And it happened, not that long afterward, because the Soviet Union seemed invincible. And then I remember, I was in Cape Town, South Africa, and there was this news that there was a takeover, that there was a rebellion against the authorities in the Soviet Union and that the rule of the Kremlin was crumbling. And we couldn’t believe it.

His Holiness Bhakti Charu Swami was in Cape Town at the time also, and so, he arranged for us to see the news reports on CNN. And I had never heard of CNN because when I joined, there were just three main channels and then one local channel. I never even heard of CNN, and I didn’t know whether it was permissible to watch television. But I thought, Well, anyway, he is a pure devotee, so if he is watching, then I will also go in and watch with him.

It was inconceivable, the Soviet domination was so strong, it was inconceivable that it could fall. And then I thought of Sri Nathji’s words, “Now they have gone too far, they are torturing devotees; this is the end of the Soviet Union.”

So here, although Hiraṇyakaśipu was giving great distress to the demigods and other living entities, it was really when he was torturing Prahlada that the Lord incarnated and finished the demon.

I’ll tell just a little of the history. Of course, Srila Prabhupada explains that in response to Hiraṇyakaśipu’s extreme austerities, which were disturbing the universe, Lord Brahma came to get him to stop performing these severe austerities that in and of themselves were disturbing the universe. And Hiraṇyakaśipu’s goal was to become immortal. And so, he asked Brahma to make him immortal. Brahma said, “I, myself, am not immortal, so I cannot make you immortal.”

So, he thought he could become immortal indirectly. So, he placed so many conditions; that he wouldn’t be killed during the day or night, he wouldn’t be killed inside a building or outside a building, he wouldn’t be killed on the land, on the water, or in the sky, he wouldn’t be killed by any weapon. So, he thought that by placing all these conditions, he could become immortal, and then he could enjoy forever, enjoy the senses forever, and he would be invincible and bad, so he could dominate and control without any limit, and enjoy without any limit.

So, Hiraṇyakaśipu had a son named Prahlada, who was a devotee, and this is the essence of the conflict between the father and son. The father was a demon; he was against Vishnu. And the son was a devotee of Vishnu. And in this cosmic history, Hiraṇyakaśipu had a brother named Hiraṇyakṣa, who was another big demon, tyrant, and he was disturbing the world. And so, the Lord incarnated as Varahadeva, the boar incarnation, and killed Hiraṇyakṣa. So, Hiraṇyakaśipu was extremely angry at Lord Vishnu for having killed his brother. And so, he considered Vishnu to be his enemy.

He was a great politician and diplomat, and by the logic, “The friend of my enemy is my enemy.” So, when he discovered that Prahlada was a devotee of Vishnu, he took Prahlada to be his enemy. But still, he was a father, there was natural affection. Even demonic people, they have affection for their family. Even what we read about the mafia - they have their family affection.

So, one day, Hiraṇyakaśipu asked his son, “What is the best thing that you have learned in school?” And Prahlada replied, “śravaṇaṁ kīrtanaṁ viṣṇoḥ smaraṇaṁ – devotional service to Vishnu.”

So, when Hiraṇyakaśipu heard this answer, he became furious, but not at Prahlada. Prahlada was just a young boy. He became furious at the boy’s teachers. And so, he called these two brahmans or brahma-bandhus, and he said, “This has happened to my son, I entrusted him to your care, and now his consciousness has become polluted. You have betrayed my trust, and you are to blame. You have taught him devotion to Vishnu.” And they said, “No, we have not taught him devotion to Vishnu.”

Then, Hiraṇyakaśipu said, “Well, then you have allowed demigods or Vaishnavas, in disguise, to enter the school and pollute his consciousness.” And the two teachers said, “We have not allowed anyone to enter and infiltrate.” So, Hiraṇyakaśipu said, “Then how has he become devoted to Vishnu?” And they said, “We don’t know, he seems to be naturally devoted to Vishnu, you better ask him.”

So, the demon called his little son and he said, “How did you become devoted to Vishnu?” And Prahlada replied, “One cannot become devoted to Vishnu by one’s own efforts.” By one’s efforts means by mental speculation. “One cannot become devoted to Vishnu by the combined efforts of oneself and others. By having meetings of great assemblies, one cannot become devoted to Vishnu, and one cannot become devoted by the efforts of others.”

So, it seemed impossible. You can’t become a devotee by your efforts, you can’t become a devotee by others’ efforts, you can’t become a devotee by the combined efforts of yourself and others. So, how do you become a devotee?

So, Prahlada gave the answer,

TEXT 32

naiṣāṁ matis tāvad urukramāṅghriṁ

spṛśaty anarthāpagamo yad-arthaḥ

mahīyasāṁ pāda-rajo-’bhiṣekaṁ

niṣkiñcanānāṁ na vṛṇīta yāvat

COMMENT

That only by bathing oneself, abhisheka, by consecrating oneself with the dust of the lotus feet of a pure devotee who is free from material desires can one’s inclination towards Krishna be awakened.

There are actually several verses on this, giving a very condensed summary, but indirectly, he was saying, “You don’t have to worry about becoming a devotee because you are too proud. You’ll never bow down to any devotee’s lotus feet, so you don’t need to worry about becoming a devotee.”

Now, this does raise an interesting question. Where did Prahlada get the association of a devotee by which he became a devotee? Because according to the teachers, they didn’t teach him. They were not devotees and they did not allow any devotees to enter the school. So, this mystery is explained that during the fighting, because when Hiraṇyakaśipu began his campaign to conquer all over the universe, the demigods resisted. So, there was a lot of fighting between the demons and the demigods. Demons means against Vishnu, and demigods means devoted to Vishnu or servants of Vishnu.

And in fighting, sometimes one party gets the upper hand and sometimes the other party gets the upper hand. So, at one stage, the demigods had the upper hand and they took possession of Hiraṇyakaśipu’s wife, who was pregnant with Prahlada. And they were very afraid, “He is such a powerful demon, his son is in that womb. He could also become another powerful demon and create havoc.” But Narada, great sage, who is trikāla-jña who knows the past, present, and future, said, “No, the child in the womb is not a demon, he is actually a great devotee.”

So then, the demigods, they circumambulated the boy. Demigods means they have faith in the  sages, and so they accepted the words of Narada, they circumambulated the boy and left the mother. And so, Narada took the mother to his ashram and kept her there while the fighting was going on. And in his ashram, he instructed the mother in devotional service. And Prahlada in the womb heard those instructions. And the fact that his soul was covered by a small body of, you would say, an embryo, and then beyond that, covered by his mother’s body, it didn’t impede the transmission of the transmission of the transcendental sound and the message of Godhead. And so, from within the womb, he accepted Narada as his spiritual master and became a devotee. And so, when he came out, he was already a devotee.

So, when Hiraṇyakaśipu heard Prahlada’s answer, then he was determined, “Okay, now I have to kill this boy, he is against me, he is taking the side of my enemy, so I have to kill him.” And he tried in so many ways, many, many different ways to kill Prahlada, but he was unsuccessful. Nothing he did could kill him. Not only that, nothing he did could disturb Prahlada because he was always absorbed in remembrance of Vishnu. And Prahlada said that the best thing he learned in school is śravaṇaṁ kīrtanaṁ viṣṇoḥ smaraṇaṁ—hearing, chanting, and remembering Vishnu.

And different devotees have achieved success of devotional service by different of those processes, and Prahlada himself is the example of perfection in smaraṇam. Because whatever happened, he always remembered Vishnu. And so, he was always calm and peaceful and fixed in devotion to Vishnu.

So, after a while, his father became perplexed. He was able to subdue all these warriors amongst the demigods, and this five-year-old boy, he couldn’t touch him. Practically, none of his attempts have any effect on him. So, he asked Prahlada, “Where do you get your strength, where do you get your power?” And Prahlada said, “I get my power from the same place you get your power.” And that also made Hiraṇyakaśipu angry because he thought, No, I got my power from my austerities, what austerities did you do? Then, Prahlada said, “I get my power from the same source you get yours—from God.” And that was not what Hiraṇyakaśipu wanted to hear.

Everything was just making Hiraṇyakaśipu more and more angry. And then he said, “Oh God, okay, where is your God?” And Prahlada said, “He is everywhere.” So, there was a pillar at the entrance to the palace or the assembly hall. So, he said, “Is your God in this pillar?” And Prahlada said, “Yes.” “Okay, I will kill your God.” And he took out his sword, and he slashed the pillar with his sword. And out of the pillar came this ferocious half-man, half-lion form of Nṛsiṁhadeva.

Sometimes when I tell the story, I make a very loud, roaring sound. But I don’t want to disturb you gentle souls. I know it’s improper in front of the Deities, but the tremendous, crackling sound breaking the pillar asunder, and then roaring like a lion, it could be heard throughout the universe. So then, there was some fighting, it was like Lord Nṛsiṁhadeva was playing with Hiraṇyakaśipu, but Hiraṇyakaśipu was so intoxicated with his strength and his illusion that when the Lord let him go, he thought, Oh, now this form of the Lord is afraid of me. He is not able to defeat me.

So, He played with him like a cat playing with a mouse, but in that intoxicated state, he thought, Okay, I’m going to get Him now. And then finally, Nṛsiṁhadeva picked him up, put him on His thighs, and with His nails, tore open his chest and took out his heart and his intestines. It was another very beautiful, ghastly scene. And that was the end of the demon.

And it’s also a characteristic of the Lord that He always upholds the word of His devotees. So, Brahma was a devotee, and he gave all these boons. And Lord Nṛsiṁhadeva killed the demon while keeping all of the boons intact.

Hiraṇyakaśipu was given the boon he wouldn’t be killed inside or outside, so he was killed just on the threshold between the inside and outside; he wouldn’t be killed on the land, on the water, or in the air; he was killed on the Lord’s lap; he couldn’t be killed during the day or night, so he was killed just at twilight. So many conditions. And he couldn’t be killed by any weapon, any man-made weapon, so he was killed by the nails of the Lord. And so, the Lord upheld all of the benedictions granted by Brahma and still killed the demon.

So, however intelligent we are, we are not more intelligent than the Lord. And however we think we can outsmart Him, outsmart the laws of nature, we cannot be successful. So, it’s better to surrender from the beginning. I think we all have a bit of that Hiraṇyakaśipu spirit in us, that we want to be the Supreme, we want to be the controller, we want to be the enjoyer, we want to be the proprietor.

Officially, of course, we are devotees. We know the philosophy, but because of our conditioning since time immemorial, we have the demonic spirits that we want to be Krishna. We want to be the Supreme and we don’t want to worship Krishna, we want people to worship us. We don’t want to glorify Krishna; we want people to glorify us. So, we have that in us to some degree, and especially when we make the effort to chant and hear and to chant the holy name with attention. And we see what thoughts come up in our consciousness. And if we analyze those thoughts, they generally come in the category of wanting to be the center, wanting to be the proprietor, wanting to be the controller, wanting to be the enjoyer. So, that’s there.

And there are some beautiful prayers in the Fifth Canto of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. The Fifth Canto describes different planets that are headed by great devotees, different regions that are headed by great devotees and how they worship the Lord. And so, Prahlada, he leads his associates in offering prayers to Nṛsiṁhadeva. And in one of his prayers, he asked that the Lord vanquish his demon-like desires for sense gratification in this world.

So, there are external demons and internal demons. We cannot defeat any of them on our own, but we can be successful only by the grace of Nṛsiṁhadeva. So, pray to Nṛsiṁhadeva to vanquish both the external demons and the internal demons. And we pray that Nṛsiṁhadeva is everywhere, and we say, hṛdaye nṛsiṁhaḥ, He is in our heart. So, we need that Nṛsiṁhadeva in our heart, to purify us. The great devotee, Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakura, a great devotee of Radha and Krishna, he also prayed to Nṛsiṁhadeva to remove all impediments within his heart and make his desire to serve Srimati Radharani and Sri Krishna strong.

So, we cannot do anything on our own. We really can’t even take a breath without the mercy of the Lord. We can’t take a heartbeat without the mercy of the Lord. And sometimes it happens that someone is unable to breathe and someone’s heart stops beating. So, at every moment, for every aspect of our existence, we are dependent on the mercy of the Lord. And so, it is complete folly to try to compete with the Lord; to try to think that we can be independent of Him when we are totally dependent at every moment, at every step.

So, we have another almost twelve hours before dusk or sunset, but even then, it will still be Nṛsiṁha-caturdaśi. So, we have another twenty-one hours or so until sunrise, so we can take advantage of the sacred occasion to purify our hearts and glorify the Lord. Although the first is śravaṇam, śravaṇaṁ kīrtanaṁ viṣṇoḥ, but Lord Chaitanya says, “Of all the processes, chanting of the holy name is the most effective.” And so, we should fill our day with Krishna consciousness one way or the other and especially chanting.

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

Are there any questions or comments from this assembly of wise sages and saintly persons? Yes?

Devotee: Hare Krishna.

Giriraj Swami: Hare Krishna.

Devotee: Thank you for the wonderful lecture. I just wanted to [Unintelligible 00:53:30].

Giriraj Swami: You are asking what the indirect relationships are? So, there is adbhuta, that means wonder. We also sing adbhuta sringa; so, wonder, amazement. And of course, bībhatsa – ghastly, and hāsya — laughter. There is fear. Kaṁsa, he was always afraid of Krishna. He was thinking of Krishna but in fear, not favorably. So, that’s not considered bhakti. And who else can think of some?

Devotee: Vīra.

Giriraj Swami: Vīra — chivalry. There is Bhīṣmadeva who was a great devotee of Krishna, but due to circumstances, he was fighting on the side of the Kauravas, and of course, Krishna was with the Pandavas. You seem to know the story, but anyway, Krishna picked up a broken chariot wheel and rushed towards Bhīṣma as if to kill him, so that’s vīra-rasa—chivalry. What else?

Devotee: Why it took so much time to kill Nṛsiṁhadeva? He was a little boy, he had to go through so many atrocities, why didn’t He make a decision quickly?

Giriraj Swami: Well, Krishna says, “Time, I am the destroyer of worlds.” So, the time factor is also Krishna. And by allowing Hiraṇyakaśipu more time to try in different ways to kill Prahlada, He showed the glories of Prahlada more, that he couldn’t be killed by poison—all the different things, throwing him in a pit of poisoned snakes and throwing him off of a mountain. It was for the further glorification of Prahlada, that in every situation, he just remembered the Lord and the Lord protected him.

The Lord could have killed him at any stage, but He wanted to increase the glories of Prahlada and also give us more to talk about. Because the Lord appears to create subject for us to talk about so we could glorify Him.

Prahlada didn’t suffer at any stage; he was totally fixed in remembrance of Krishna. He was in ecstasy during the whole thing. And he is compared to, or Haridasa Thakura is compared to Prahlada, because he was also tortured. He was taken to twenty-two marketplaces and beaten and he also didn’t suffer, Haridasa Thakura, he was protected by Lord Chaitanya. And he always remained absorbed in remembrance of the Lord, so there is similarity between Prahlada Maharaja and Haridasa Thakura.

Devotee: [Unintelligible 00:58:18].

Giriraj Swami: Yes, that’s true. He mentioned fear. Kaṁsa was always afraid of Krishna. But karuṇa-rasa, that’s compassion, and that can be favorable, but it could also be like you pity someone. It means you think you are superior, like a materialist – “Oh, I pity you people, you shave your heads, you dance around like monkeys, you don’t have a good job.”

In Lord Chaitanya’s pastimes also, the materialistic people of Navadvipa where all these Vaishnavas, they stay up all night shouting because they can’t fill their bellies, they are feeling pangs of hunger, so they stay up all night crying. So, pitying someone in a negative sense could be a very condescending attitude. So, in that sense, it can be indirect. But karuṇa-rasa, compassion, that can also be very favorable to want to relieve someone’s pain.

Yes, Rasikendra Prabhu?

Devotee: I heard it said that Prahlada Maharaja was waiting to see if the law was one of neutrality. He is decisive and is an example of śānta-rasa. It seems here the Lord is very affectionate, almost like a child towards Prahlada. And Prahlada depends on the Lord like a child.

Giriraj Swami: Well, that’s true. The mood is dāsya-rasa, like a child to a father is dāsya-rasa. But throughout the whole ordeal, he was doing service in the sense of smaraṇam and he was preaching to his classmates. In that sense, he was doing service, but he wasn’t doing direct personal service, direct relationships. So, he wasn’t doing direct personal service to the Lord, but he was remembering the Lord, which is dāsya-rasa. I am just responding to what you said.

Alright, so we’ll end here. I’ll be around the temple room for a little while longer, but we can end here and we’ll meet again later.

Nṛsiṁha Bhagavān ki jaya!

Prahlada Maharaja ki jaya!

Granth-raja Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam ki jaya!

Gaura Premanande!