Nrsimha-caturdasi Celebrations—Evening

Giriraj Swami: Hare Krishna.

Devotees: Hare Krishna.

Giriraj Swami: We welcome you to the auspicious celebration of Sri Nṛsiṁha Chaturdasi- the Appearance day of Lord Nṛsiṁhadeva. I will read and discuss one or two verses from Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, Canto Five, Chapter Eighteen: “The Residents of Jambudvipa Offer Prayers.” And before I come to those verses that I will discuss, I will read a verse that sets the scene or provides the context. This is Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, Canto Five, Chapter Eighteen, Text Seven.

oṁ namo bhagavate vāsudevāya

TEXT 7 

Śukadeva Gosvāmī continued: My dear King, Lord Nṛsiṁhadeva resides in the tract of land known as Hari-varṣa. In the Seventh Canto of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, I shall describe to you how Prahlāda Mahārāja caused the Lord to assume the form of Nṛsiṁhadeva. Prahlāda Mahārāja, the topmost devotee of the Lord, is a reservoir of all the good qualities of great personalities. His character and activities have delivered all the fallen members of his demoniac family. Lord Nṛsiṁhadeva is very dear to this exalted personality. Thus Prahlāda Mahārāja, along with his servants and all the denizens of Hari-varṣa, worships Lord Nṛsiṁhadeva by chanting the following mantra.

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.

PURPORT by Srila Prabhupada 

In Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam (4.22.39) Sanat-kumāra speaks the following words to Mahārāja Pṛthu:

yat-pāda-paṅkaja-palāśa-vilāsa-bhaktyā

karmāśayaṁ grathitam udgrathayanti santaḥ

tadvan na rikta-matayo yatayo ‘pi ruddha-

srotogaṇās tam araṇaṁ bhaja vāsudevam

“Devotees always engaged in the service of the toes of the Lord’s lotus feet can very easily become free from hard-knotted desires for fruitive activities. Because this is very difficult, the nondevotees — the jñānīs and yogīs — cannot stop the waves of sense gratification, although they try to do so. Therefore you are advised to engage in the devotional service of Kṛṣṇa, the son of Vasudeva.”

COMMENT

So Srila Prabhupada’s purport to this verse in Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam is very beautiful, and he gives a very nice example. These material desires are like waves which keep coming without cessation. So how can one stop the waves? And then Srila Prabhupada gives the example that the waves of a river will flow to the ocean without cessation, but sometimes at high tide the ocean will over flood the waves of the river that are flowing to the ocean. And Srila Prabhupada explains that although the waves of desire for sense gratification keep flowing without cessation, those desires can be overpowered by the desire for the service of the Lord just like the high tide of the ocean can over flood the waves of the river flowing into it.

So that is the whole secret to replace material desires for sense gratification with spiritual desires for Krishna’s satisfaction.

PURPORT (continued)

Every living being within this material world has a strong desire to enjoy matter to his fullest satisfaction. For this purpose, the conditioned soul must accept one body after another, and thus his strongly fixed fruitive desires continue. One cannot stop the repetition of birth and death without being completely desireless. Therefore Śrīla Rūpa Gosvāmī describes pure bhakti (devotional service) as follows:

anyābhilāṣitā-śūnyaṁ

jñāna-karmādy-anāvṛtam

ānukūlyena kṛṣṇānu-

śīlanaṁ bhaktir uttamā

“One should render transcendental loving service to the Supreme Lord Kṛṣṇa favorably and without desire for material profit or gain through fruitive activities or philosophical speculation. That is called pure devotional service.” 

COMMENT

So this verse is the paribhāṣā-sūtra verse of Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu. The paribhāṣā-sūtra verse means the verse that governs all the other verses in the work. And this verse has been analyzed by different acharyas including Srila Jiva Gosvami and Srila Visvanatha Cakravarti Thakura. And Srila Visvanatha Cakravarti Thakura makes a significant point. So, anyābhilāṣ-śūnyaṁ would mean without any desire, without any other desire. But why has Rupa Gosvami kept the suffix ‘ita’? And Visvanatha Cakravarti Thakura explains that anyābhilāṣitā-śūnyaṁ means that under ordinary circumstances a devotee has no other desire, he will not pray for his own personal benefit. But ‘ita’ means in extraordinary circumstances the devotee may do so.

For example, if someone is being threatened, being attacked with deadly weapons, he may pray for protection. So under ordinary circumstances he wouldn’t pray for protection but under extraordinary circumstances he may do so. And that is not against the principles of pure devotional service, that is included within anyābhilāṣitā-śūnyaṁ.

PURPORT (continued)

Unless one is completely freed of all material desires, which are caused by the dense darkness of ignorance, one cannot fully engage in the devotional service of the Lord. Therefore we should always offer our prayers to Lord Nṛsiṁhadeva, who killed Hiraṇyakaśipu, the personification of material desire. 

COMMENT

I will read that again.

PURPORT (continued)

we should always offer our prayers to Lord Nṛsiṁhadeva, who killed Hiraṇyakaśipu, the personification of material desire. Hiraṇya means “gold,” and kaśipu means “a soft cushion or bed.” Materialistic persons always desire to make the body comfortable, and for this they require huge amounts of gold. Thus Hiraṇyakaśipu was the perfect representative of materialistic life. He was therefore the cause of great disturbance to the topmost devotee, Prahlāda Mahārāja, until Lord Nṛsiṁhadeva killed him. Any devotee aspiring to be free of material desires,

COMMENT

Which should include all of us. 

PURPORT (continued)

Any devotee aspiring to be free of material desires should offer his respectful prayers to Nṛsiṁhadeva as Prahlāda Mahārāja did in this verse.

COMMENT

So now we come to Text Nine, which will be the main subject of our discussion.

TEXT 9

svasty astu viśvasya khalaḥ prasīdatāṁ

dhyāyantu bhūtāni śivaṁ mitho dhiyā

manaś ca bhadraṁ bhajatād adhokṣaje

āveśyatāṁ no matir apy ahaitukī

TRANSLATION

May there be good fortune throughout the universe, and may all envious persons be pacified. May all living entities become calm by practicing bhakti-yoga, for by accepting devotional service they will think of each other’s welfare. Therefore let us all engage in the service of the supreme transcendence, Lord Śrī Kṛṣṇa, and always remain absorbed in thought of Him.

Please repeat. We will do one phrase at a time. 

TRANSLATION

May there be good fortune throughout the universe, and may all envious persons be pacified. May all living entities become calm by practicing bhakti-yoga, for by accepting devotional service they will think of each other’s welfare. Therefore let us all engage in the service of the supreme transcendence, Lord Śrī Kṛṣṇa, and always remain absorbed in thought of Him.

PURPORT by Srila Prabhupada 

The following verse describes a Vaiṣṇava:

vāñchā-kalpa-tarubhyaś ca

kṛpā-sindhubhya eva ca

patitānāṁ pāvanebhyo

vaiṣṇavebhyo namo namaḥ

Just like a desire tree, a Vaiṣṇava can fulfill all the desires of anyone who takes shelter of his lotus feet. Prahlāda Mahārāja is a typical Vaiṣṇava. He prays not for himself but for all living entities — the gentle, the envious and the mischievous. He always thought of the welfare of mischievous persons like his father, Hiraṇyakaśipu. Prahlāda Mahārāja did not ask for anything for himself; rather, he prayed for the Lord to excuse his demoniac father. This is the attitude of a Vaiṣṇava, who always thinks of the welfare of the entire universe.

COMMENT

In this connection I call to mind an exchange that my godsister Jahnava, she was there in the Boston temple when I joined in 1969; an exchange she had with Srila Prabhupada. She said to Srila Prabhupada, “When I chant Hare Krishna should I think of the welfare of every living entity?” And Srila Prabhupada replied, “Oh you can think of every living entity. You just think of Lord Chaitanya and He will think of every living.” 

PURPORT (continued)

This is the attitude of a Vaiṣṇava, who always thinks of the welfare of the entire universe.

Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam and bhāgavata-dharma are meant for persons who are completely free of envy (parama-nirmatsarāṇām). Therefore Prahlāda Mahārāja prays in this verse, khalaḥ prasīdatām: “May all the envious persons be pacified.” The material world is full of envious persons,

COMMENT

Actually we are in the material world because of our envy of Krishna first, and from our envy of Krishna follows envy of everyone else. So we are in the material world due to envy and we can be released from material bondage if we become free from envy. And here Prahlada Maharaja is kindly praying for us to become free from envy so that while we are here we can think of the welfare of others and ultimately be liberated.

PURPORT (continued)

The material world is full of envious persons, but if one frees himself of envy, he becomes liberal in his social dealings and can think of others’ welfare.

COMMENT

At one stage, 1970 in Surat, I was grappling with the problem of envy. I perceived envy within my heart and I didn’t like it. And I thought of many reasons why envy is harmful. It affects my attitude towards others, especially devotees and thus it can affect my relationships with the other devotees. And if it doesn’t feel good it just is a bad feeling, but still it was there. So I approached Srila Prabhupada in Surat and I asked him what to do about envy. First he said, “Can you think of any reasons why you should not be envious?” And I had gone through that exercise. And so I replied, “Yes.” Srila Prabhupada continued, “Then envy means that you don’t like someone. And that not liking someone should not be directed towards devotees but should be directed towards demons who are making life difficult for devotees.”

I didn’t at all think of it at the time, but later I became aware of an experiment that was done with High School students. And each student in the class was told to choose the other student that he or she disliked the most. And then for one month they had to be very nice to the student whom they disliked the most. And at the end of a month when asked, all the students answered that they now liked the person whom they disliked the most at the beginning of the month. Now usually we think that if someone is nice to us we like them but this experiment showed that if you are nice to someone else, you will like them. Of course, it may happen in the course of your being nice to the person the person might be nice to you or not.

So reflecting on Srila Prabhupada’s statement that okay, envy means that you don’t like someone, so that not liking should be directed not towards devotees but towards demons. So we hope to be fortunate enough to like all the devotees but if there are some that we don’t happen to like that much we can try being nice to them. And in the end we might find that we like them. You probably will.

PURPORT (continued)

The material world is full of envious persons, but if one frees himself of envy, he becomes liberal in his social dealings and can think of others’ welfare. Anyone who takes up Kṛṣṇa consciousness and engages himself completely in the service of the Lord cleanses his mind of all envy (manaś ca bhadraṁ bhajatād adhokṣaje). Therefore we should pray to Lord Nṛsiṁhadeva to sit in our hearts. We should pray, bahir nṛsiṁho hṛdaye nṛsiṁhaḥ: “Let Lord Nṛsiṁhadeva sit in the core of my heart,

COMMENT

We sing this every day.

PURPORT (continued)

killing all my bad propensities. 

COMMENT

That is the purport of Hṛdaye Nṛsiṁha.

PURPORT (continued)

Let my mind become clean 

COMMENT

That is saṅkīrtana, ceto-darpaṇa-mārjanam.

PURPORT (continued)

Let my mind become clean so that I may peacefully worship the Lord and bring peace to the entire world.”

Śrīla Viśvanātha Cakravartī Ṭhākura has given us a very fine purport in this regard. Whenever one offers a prayer to the Supreme Personality of Godhead, one always requests some benediction from Him.

COMMENT

Srila Prabhupada explained the ideal format for a prayer. And that is first one states the glories or the qualities of the person to whom one is praying, then one states one’s own disqualification and then one prays for mercy. And I always think of Narottama dasa Thakura’s prayer that, “You are the most merciful and I am the most fallen, so please save me first.”

PURPORT (continued)

Whenever one offers a prayer to the Supreme Personality of Godhead, one always requests some benediction from Him. Even pure (niṣkāma) devotees pray for some benediction, as instructed by Lord Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu in His Śikṣāṣṭaka:

ayi nanda-tanuja kiṅkaraṁ

patitaṁ māṁ viṣame bhavāmbudhau

kṛpayā tava pāda-paṅkaja-

sthita-dhūlī-sadṛśaṁ vicintaya

“O son of Mahārāja Nanda [Kṛṣṇa], I am Your eternal servitor, yet somehow or other I have fallen into the ocean of birth and death. Please pick Me up from the ocean of death and place Me as one of the atoms at Your lotus feet.” In another prayer Lord Caitanya says, mama janmani janmanīśvare bhavatād bhaktir ahaitukī tvayi: “Life after life, kindly let Me have unalloyed love and devotion at Your Lordship’s lotus feet.”

COMMENT

So we pray for service. We pray to Krishna, to Radha and Krishna to accept us in Their service. Srila Prabhupada says that is the purport to the chanting of the Hare Krishna maha-mantra. When we are chanting the names of Radha and Krishna and if They respond, “Yes, you are calling, what do you want?” So what will we answer? Well, “We want to be engaged in Your service. We want You to accept us as Your servants.”

PURPORT (continued)

When Prahlāda Mahārāja chants oṁ namo bhagavate narasiṁhāya, he prays for a benediction from the Lord, but because he is also an exalted Vaiṣṇava, he wants nothing for his personal sense gratification. The first desire expressed in his prayer is svasty astu viśvasya: “Let there be good fortune throughout the entire universe.” Prahlāda Mahārāja thus requested the Lord to be merciful to everyone, including his father, a most envious person. According to Cāṇakya Paṇḍita, there are two kinds of envious living entities: one is a snake, and the other is the man like Hiraṇyakaśipu, who is by nature envious of everyone, even of his father or son. Hiraṇyakaśipu was envious of his little son Prahlāda, but Prahlāda Mahārāja asked a benediction for the benefit of his father.

Hiraṇyakaśipu was very envious of devotees, but Prahlāda wished that his father and other demons like him would give up their envious nature by the grace of the Lord and stop harassing the devotees (khalaḥ prasīdatām). The difficulty is that the khala (envious living entity) is rarely pacified. One kind of khala, the snake, can be pacified simply by mantras or by the action of a particular herb (mantrauṣadhi-vaśaḥ sarpaḥ khalakena nivāryate). An envious person, however, cannot be pacified by any means. Therefore Prahlāda Mahārāja prays that all envious persons may undergo a change of heart and think of the welfare of others.

If the Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement spreads all over the world, and if by the grace of Kṛṣṇa everyone accepts it, the thinking of envious people will change. Everyone will think of the welfare of others. Therefore Prahlāda Mahārāja prays, śivaṁ mitho dhiyā. In material activities, everyone is envious of others, but in Kṛṣṇa consciousness, no one is envious of anyone else; everyone thinks of the welfare of others. Therefore Prahlāda Mahārāja prays that everyone’s mind may become gentle by being fixed at the lotus feet of Kṛṣṇa (bhajatād adhokṣaje). As indicated elsewhere in Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam (sa vai manaḥ kṛṣṇa-padāravindayoḥ) and as advised by Lord Kṛṣṇa in Bhagavad-gītā (18.65), man-manā bhava mad-bhaktaḥ, one should constantly think of the lotus feet of Lord Kṛṣṇa. Then one’s mind will certainly be cleansed (ceto-darpaṇa-mārjanam). 

COMMENT

So this is Krishna consciousness, to always think of Krishna, to fix the mind on Krishna. The verse from the Bhagavad-gītā on which Srila Prabhupada spoke most was 7.1, which begins, mayy āsakta-manāḥ pārtha. That your mind should be attached to Krishna. That is the whole process of Krishna consciousness. 

PURPORT (continued)

Materialists always think of sense gratification, but Prahlāda Mahārāja prays that the Lord’s mercy will change their minds and they will stop thinking of sense gratification. If they think of Kṛṣṇa always, everything will be all right. Some people argue that if everyone thought of Kṛṣṇa in that way, the whole universe would be vacated because everyone would go back home, back to Godhead. However, Śrīla Viśvanātha Cakravartī Ṭhākura says that this is impossible because the living entities are innumerable. If one set of living entities is actually delivered by the Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement, another set will fill the entire universe.

COMMENT

Now this point was discussed with Srila Prabhupada at the Ardha Kumbha Mela in Allahabad in 1971. I happened to be in Srila Prabhupada’s room (room means in the tent) and a gentleman asked him that what if everyone becomes Krishna conscious who will do the work?

And Srila Prabhupada asked me to reply. I don’t remember exactly what I said but probably something that the material world is like a prison, and if all the prisoners are released from the prison that is a good thing. But I was really eager to hear what Srila Prabhupada had to say. And Srila Prabhupada replied that the problem is not that too many people will become Krishna conscious, the problem is that not enough people will become Krishna conscious. And he gave the example, to illustrate the foolishness of the man’s concern, he gave the example: it is like worrying, if everyone becomes rich who will be the chauffeur. So is anyone not going to try to become rich because if everyone became rich who would be the chauffeur? No, naturally everyone will try to be rich. So in the same way we should all try to be Krishna conscious and it won’t be a problem again that too many people are Krishna conscious. The problem is not enough people will be Krishna conscious.

So yes, by Srila Prabhupada’s mercy we are here in this beautiful temple in Mountain View on the auspicious occasion of Nṛsiṁha Chaturdasi. We owe our lives, we owe our souls, we owe our spiritual lives to Srila Prabhupada and who has brought us all together, given us these beautiful books and purports, and engaged us in devotional service so we can do good for ourselves and do good for others.

So thank you very much. I am not sure exactly of the schedule because I think I was supposed to end at seven and it is one minute before seven. So I don’t know if there is time for discussion. I am okay either way.

Devotee: Till 07:15.

Giriraj Swami: Oh, we are good till 7:15?

Devotee: Only offering [Unintelligible]

Giriraj Swami: Offering at 7:15.

Devotee: Yes, we can stop at 7:10. It takes us five minutes to get in place. Molly correct me if that is wrong. And somebody who is up front please serve Maharaja by moving his mic down by about an inch and a half please. So thank you. And a little closer.

Giriraj Swami: So we have ten minutes.

Devotee: Yes Maharaja.

Giriraj Swami: Very good. So do any of you exalted Vaishnavas have any questions or comments or reflections to share? 

Oh yes.

Devotee: Hare Krishna Maharaja, daṇḍavat-praṇāmās. Thank you for the wonderful sessions. Maharaja In the morning we talked about transcendental competition and now about envy. Now because of our neophyte stage sometimes transcendental competition may end up into some form of envy, I mean ideally not, but because of the neophyte state at least that I am in. So where do we draw the line or how do we look at it so that inadvertently what is supposed to be a forum for encouraging everyone should not become otherwise.

Giriraj Swami: Yes, in the morning we discussed transcendental competition and mundane competition. In transcendental competition, one recognizes and appreciates the good qualities and service of the other person but still one wants to excel that service to give more pleasure to guru and Krishna. Whereas in mundane competition, one does not recognize or appreciate the good qualities and service of others but rather denies them. And that is due to envy. And it is like what Bhaktivinoda Thakura says that if you blaspheme a devotee, with the same tongue that you use to blaspheme the devotee you should glorify the devotee. So I would suggest to overcome envy or whatever little trace of envy there may be., we should practice appreciating the devotee and expressing our appreciation either to the devotee personally or to others about the devotee. And that will cleanse our heart and purify our relationships. 

Devotee: Thank you, Maharaja.

Giriraj Swami: Hare Krishna. 

Yes, there is Advaita and then at the back. Okay we will start here and then we will go back. No, we will start there and then we will come here.

Devotee: Hare Krishna Maharaja.

Giriraj Swami: Hare Krishna.

Devotee: So I would like to ask that Prahlada Maharaja gave no benediction he asked to Nṛsiṁhadeva. But in Nṛsiṁha Kavacha prayer when you recite, there is one passage: putravan dhanavan loke, and he is saying: yam yam kamayate kamam, tam tam prapnoty; so that means he is asking, utravan dhanavan loke dirghayur upajayate.

So Bhāgavatam say something but the Nṛsiṁha Kavacha prayer is saying that Prahlada Maharaja is asking benediction or give me sons, give me wealth, give me long life, so how do you see those contradictions Maharaja?

Giriraj Swami: Well, they are not necessarily contradictions because they can all be used in the service of the Lord. We may pray for some facility and if we want it for our personal comfort or sense gratification that would not be a proper prayer. But if we prayed for the sake of service it would be a lot permissible.

For example, we have one devotee in Santa Barbara named Giridhari Priya. And Giridhari Priya was looking for a house and he wasn’t finding a suitable place. And he said he didn’t want to pray for it because it was like praying for something. And I said, “If you reconceive of the use of the house to house your deities, to host devotees, to have programs, then you could pray to find that house as a facility for devotional service.” And then when he started to pray along those lines he got the house very quickly after that. So yes, it depends on the use, what we are praying for. If we are praying for it to use in Krishna’s service, then that is fine.

Hare Krishna.

Advaita.

Devotee: Hare Krishna Maharaja. Thank you for today’s class. In Srila Prabhupada’s purport that we were reading today he said that you can’t fully perform devotional service without being freed from material attachments. But also in his analogy he said that with the river and the ocean, that the only way to be freed of material attachments is through devotional service. So my question is, how do I be freed of material attachments by doing devotional service if I still have material attachments? Does it make sense?

Giriraj Swami: Yes. The answer is by devotional service. You gave the answer in the question itself. Yes, by engaging in devotional service. I mean the ideas, the desire, that our desire to serve and please Krishna should become stronger than our desire for sense gratification. And then it is like the tide of the ocean over running and overflowing the waves of the river, which are like the waves of desire for sense gratification that flow without cessation. So yes, and in that process I should add that association is very important. Srila Prabhupada said that 90 percent of Krishna Consciousness is association. So when you associate with devotees who have strong spiritual desires, that will encourage you in your spiritual desires. That is why I like to stay at your house, I get to associate with your mother and father.

Yes.

Devotee: Hare Krishna Maharaja. Maharaja, you were talking about when Srila Prabhupada said you have to use the envy for non-devotees, I was just thinking that we only have one mind, and we have to train the mind not to feel envy, not to feel. So then how do I put that in practice what Prabhupada was saying that you should not be envious of devotees but you can be envious of non-devotees?

Giriraj Swami: Well, in the context of my question he was saying that being envious means not liking. So that not liking should not be directed towards devotees but it should be directed towards non-devotees, demons in particular who are causing so much havoc in the world. And so you can do that, that is not difficult. Yes, keep devotees out of it and just direct that not liking to the demons. 

Yes? We need a microphone at the back.

Devotee: Hare Krishna Maharaja.

Giriraj Swami: Hare Krishna. 

Devotee: When we were reading from Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam the last two lines were—if one set of devotees leave this universe after becoming Krishna conscious another set of backfills. One might think then okay, we can sit back. That is why we have to put effort in making others Krishna conscious. So I was contemplating on it. I was thinking, only one thing which came into my mind that we still put effort for our own purification plus also trying to help others become Krishna conscious. That one thought came to my mind but I was thinking to get some of your thoughts Maharaja on that; what are the other things?

Giriraj Swami: What you said is right. We should make efforts to become Krishna conscious and help others become Krishna conscious. The fact that if the universe becomes vacated because everyone goes back to Godhead there will be another set. That shouldn’t discourage us. It is like saying if all the prisoners get reformed and are released from prison there will be another set of prisoners to come. But still we want the set that is there to be reformed and freed. So it is unlimited, our service is unlimited because the living entities are unlimited.

I think I will conclude with one anecdote. Srila Prabhupada has a disciple named Bhavananda. Now the word bhava means the material world, as opposed to bhāva which means ecstasy. So Srila Prabhupada gave him the name Bhavananda, the bliss of the material world. And so Bhavananda was concerned what Srila Prabhupada was trying to say by giving him that name. And Srila Prabhupada replied that the devotees bliss is experienced through Krishna’s bliss. And in the spiritual world there is no preaching because everyone is already Krishna conscious, whereas in the material world we can preach and give the greatest pleasure to Krishna by bringing the fallen conditioned souls back to Him. So that is the bliss of the material world, that we can preach.