SB 7.5.12

Giriraj Swami: Hare Krishna, my dear devotees. I will begin by singing the maṅgala-ācaraṇa prayers and leading a short kirtan, and then I will speak on Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam.

So, my dear devotees, we shall read from Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, Canto Seven, Chapter Five, “Prahlāda Mahārāja, the Saintly Son of Hiraṇyakaśipu,” Text Twelve. Please repeat.

oṁ namo bhagavate vāsudevāya

oṁ namo bhagavate vāsudevāya

oṁ namo bhagavate vāsudevāya

TEXT 12

sa yadānuvrataḥ puṁsāṁ
paśu-buddhir vibhidyate
anya eṣa tathānyo ’ham
iti bheda-gatāsatī

TRANSLATION

When the Supreme Personality of Godhead is pleased with the living entity because of his devotional service, one becomes a paṇḍita and does not make distinctions between enemies, friends and himself. Intelligently, he then thinks, “Every one of us is an eternal servant of God, and therefore we are not different from one another.”

PURPORT by Srila Prabhupada

When Prahlāda Mahārāja’s teachers and demoniac father asked him how his intelligence had been polluted, Prahlāda Mahārāja said, “As far as I am concerned, my intelligence has not been polluted. Rather, by the grace of my spiritual master and by the grace of my Lord, Kṛṣṇa, I have now learned that no one is my enemy and no one is my friend. We are all actually eternal servants of Kṛṣṇa, but under the influence of the external energy we think that we are separately situated from the Supreme Personality of Godhead as friends and enemies of one another. This mistaken idea has now been corrected, and therefore, unlike ordinary human beings, I no longer think that I am God and that others are my friends and enemies.

COMMENT

Reading this, I think of my dear godbrother, Bhurijana Prabhu’s statement, that everyone is walking around with the idea to clear their throats and say, “Excuse me, I have an important announcement to make. I am the center of the universe, and everyone should do what I want.” So, that’s the underlying psychology of the conditioned soul.

And he also said that most people envision life as a drama or a movie in which they are the hero or heroine, and everyone else is the supporting cast. So, I think I’m the hero, you are the supporting cast, but you are thinking, No, no, I’m the hero, and you are the supporting cast. So, there is bound to be conflict and differences.

PURPORT (continued)

I no longer think that I am God and that others are my friends and enemies. Now I am rightly thinking that everyone is an eternal servant of God and that our duty is to serve the supreme master, for then we shall stand on the platform of oneness as servants.”

Demons think of everyone as a friend or enemy, but Vaiṣṇavas say that since everyone is a servant of the Lord, everyone is on the same platform. Therefore a Vaiṣṇava treats other living entities neither as friends nor as enemies, but instead tries to spread Kṛṣṇa consciousness, teaching everyone that we are all one as servants of the Supreme Lord but are uselessly wasting our valuable lives by creating nations, communities and other groups of friends and enemies.

COMMENT

I’ll read that again because it’s such an important instruction.

PURPORT (continued)

A Vaiṣṇava treats other living entities neither as friends nor as enemies, but instead tries to spread Kṛṣṇa consciousness, teaching everyone that we are all one as servants of the Supreme Lord but are uselessly wasting our valuable lives by creating nations, communities and other groups of friends and enemies. Everyone should come to the platform of Kṛṣṇa consciousness and thus feel oneness as a servant of the Lord. Although there are 8,400,000 species of life, a Vaiṣṇava feels this oneness.

COMMENT

It’s quite a powerful statement.

PURPORT (continued)

Although there are 8,400,000 species of life, a Vaiṣṇava feels this oneness. The Īśopaniṣad advises, ekatvam anupaśyataḥ. A devotee should see the Supreme Personality of Godhead to be situated in everyone’s heart and should also see every living entity as an eternal servant of the Lord. This vision is called ekatvam, oneness. Although there is a relationship of master and servant, both master and servant are one because of their spiritual identity.

COMMENT

As Srila Prabhupada has explained the sublime philosophy of Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu as acintya-bhedābheda-tattva, inconceivable simultaneous oneness and difference. We are one in quality, we are all spiritual, but we are different in quantity, because God is infinite, and we are, well, as Srila Prabhupada pronounced it, infinitesimal, or as we would say, infinitesimal. So, because we are both spiritual, the Lord and the living entities, we have the possibility of having a relationship. And because God is infinite and we are infinitesimal, the relationship is that He is the master and we are the servants.

PURPORT (continued)

A devotee should see the Supreme Personality of Godhead to be situated in everyone’s heart and should also see every living entity as an eternal servant of the Lord. This vision is called ekatvam, oneness. Although there is a relationship of master and servant, both master and servant are one because of their spiritual identity. This is also ekatvam. Thus the conception of ekatvam for the Vaiṣṇava is different from that of the Māyāvādī.

Hiraṇyakaśipu asked Prahlāda Mahārāja how he had become antagonistic to his family. When a family member is killed by an enemy, all the members of the family would naturally be inimical to the murderer, but Hiraṇyakaśipu saw that Prahlāda had become friendly with the murderer.

COMMENT

So, Hiraṇyakaśipu’s brother was Hiraṇyakṣa, and Hiraṇyakṣa was killed by the Lord, Vishnu, in the form of Varahadeva. So, Hiraṇyakaśipu was surprised because Hiraṇyakṣa was Prahlada’s uncle. And one would think that Prahlada would become inimical to the murderer of his uncle, but instead, Prahlada was favorable to the murderer. So, this is a very big problem for Hiraṇyakaśipu.

PURPORT (continued)

Hiraṇyakaśipu asked Prahlāda Mahārāja how he had become antagonistic to his family. When a family member is killed by an enemy, all the members of the family would naturally be inimical to the murderer, but Hiraṇyakaśipu saw that Prahlāda had become friendly with the murderer. Therefore he asked, “Who has created this kind of intelligence in you? Have you developed this consciousness by yourself? Since you are a small boy, someone must have induced you to think this way.” Prahlāda Mahārāja wanted to reply that an attitude favorable toward Viṣṇu can develop only when the Lord is favorable (sa yadānuvrataḥ). As stated in Bhagavad-gītā, Kṛṣṇa is the friend of everyone (suhṛdaṁ sarva-bhūtānāṁ jñātvā māṁ śāntim ṛcchati). The Lord is never an enemy to any of the millions of living entities, but is always a friend to everyone. This is true understanding. If one thinks that the Lord is an enemy, his intelligence is paśu-buddhi, the intelligence of an animal. He falsely thinks, “I am different from my enemy, and my enemy is different from me. The enemy has done this, and therefore my duty is to kill him.”

COMMENT

That is a demonic mentality that is described in the Sixteenth Chapter of the Bhagavad-gītā—īśvaro ‘ham bhogī, “I am the Lord of everything, I am the enjoyer.”

PURPORT (continued)

The actual fact is that everyone is a servant of the Lord, as confirmed in Caitanya-caritāmṛta by Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu (jīvera ‘svarūpa’ haya — kṛṣṇera ‘nitya-dāsa’). As servants of the Lord, we are one, and there can be no questions of enmity or friendship. If one actually understands that every one of us is a servant of the Lord, where is the question of enemy or friend?

Everyone should be friendly for the service of the Lord.

COMMENT

I’ll repeat that, and this paragraph gives us very important instructions about how we should relate to one another.

PURPORT (continued)

Everyone should be friendly for the service of the Lord. Everyone should praise another’s service to the Lord and not be proud of his own service. This is the way of Vaiṣṇava thinking, Vaikuṇṭha thinking. There may be rivalries and apparent competition between servants in performing service, but in the Vaikuṇṭha planets the service of another servant is appreciated, not condemned. This is Vaikuṇṭha competition.

COMMENT

So, Srila Prabhupada has explained the difference between transcendental competition and mundane competition. Srila Prabhupada himself encouraged transcendental competition in book distribution and other areas of devotional service.

So, in transcendental competition, one acknowledges the good qualities and good service of the other person, but still, one wants to excel or exceed the other person to give greater pleasure to guru and Krishna. That is transcendental competition. In mundane competition, one does not acknowledge or appreciate the good qualities or the good service of the other person, but tries to put oneself up by dragging the other person down, and that is mundane competition and not at all favorable for devotional service or Krishna consciousness.

PURPORT (continued)

There may be rivalries and apparent competition between servants in performing service, but in the Vaikuṇṭha planets the service of another servant is appreciated, not condemned. This is Vaikuṇṭha competition. There is no question of enmity between servants. Everyone should be allowed to render service to the Lord to the best of his ability, and everyone should appreciate the service of others. Such are the activities of Vaikuṇṭha. Since everyone is a servant, everyone is on the same platform and is allowed to serve the Lord according to his ability. As confirmed in Bhagavad-gītā (15.15), sarvasya cāhaṁ hṛdi sanniviṣṭo mattaḥ smṛtir jñānam apohanaṁ ca: the Lord is situated in everyone’s heart, giving dictation according to the attitude of the servant.

COMMENT

So, we are all individuals, and we all have our individual ways of serving the Lord, our preferences as to how we can most effectively serve the Lord and please the Lord. Such individuality is natural. The Lord, ye yathā māṁ prapadyante tāṁs tathaiva bhajāmy aham, He reciprocates with the devotee, and according to how the devotee wants to serve the Lord, the Lord will reciprocate and give him or her the intelligence of how to serve the Lord in that particular way. So, the Lord is always ready to help us in our desire and attempts to serve Him. That is His mercy.

PURPORT (continued)

Since everyone is a servant, everyone is on the same platform and is allowed to serve the Lord according to his ability. As confirmed in Bhagavad-gītā (15.15), sarvasya cāhaṁ hṛdi sanniviṣṭo mattaḥ smṛtir jñānam apohanaṁ ca: the Lord is situated in everyone’s heart, giving dictation according to the attitude of the servant. However, the Lord gives different dictation to the nondevotees and devotees. The nondevotees challenge the authority of the Supreme Lord, and therefore the Lord dictates in such a way that the nondevotees forget the Lord’s service, life after life, and are punished by the laws of nature.

COMMENT

This is also the Lord’s mercy. He does not interfere with the minute independence of the living entity, and if someone wants to turn away from Him, the Lord allows the person to do so and suffer the consequences.

PURPORT (continued)

But when a devotee very sincerely wants to render service to the Lord, the Lord dictates in a different way. As the Lord says in Bhagavad-gītā (10.10):

teṣāṁ satata-yuktānāṁ
bhajatāṁ prīti-pūrvakam
dadāmi buddhi-yogaṁ taṁ
yena mām upayānti te

“To those who are constantly devoted and worship Me with love, I give the understanding by which they can come to Me.” Everyone is actually a servant, not an enemy or friend, and everyone is working under different directions from the Lord, who directs each living entity according to his mentality.

COMMENT

So, the Lord directs the devotees according to their particular desires to serve Him. And this creates the situation of unity in variety. Srila Prabhupada often spoke about the principle of unity in variety.

The unity is that we all want to serve Krishna, or in ISKCON, we all want to serve Srila Prabhupada, and the variety is that we are all different as individuals. And Srila Prabhupada actually said that the GBC, during their annual meetings, should discuss the principle of unity in variety, and how to apply it in ISKCON. So, there is unity because we are all servants of Srila Prabhupada and Krishna, but there is variety because we are all individuals.

But in spite of the variety, as Srila Prabhupada said so nicely,

PURPORT (continued)

Everyone should be friendly for the service of the Lord. Everyone should praise another’s service to the Lord and not be proud of his own service. This is the way of Vaiṣṇava thinking, Vaikuṇṭha thinking.

COMMENT

So, my dear devotees, thank you for listening so patiently and attentively. And now, if any of you have any questions or comments, any reflections you would like to share. Yes, can we get a microphone there?

Devotee: Hare Krishna, dear Giriraj Maharaja. I have a question. No one is the devotee’s friend, and no one is the devotee’s enemy. At the same time, we are encouraged to have friendship with like-minded devotees. Now, I’m wondering, because friendship for me must be unmotivated. I’m not your friend because I want something or this helps me to advance if I’m your friend, or I must do this to follow the Vaishnava codex. But friendship seems to be something more spontaneous that is not there for motivation. So, how to bring the two together? That you are not my friend, Giriraj Maharaja, but I’m acting as your friend because otherwise, I make an offense or do not make advancement. I’m sorry, you know what I want to explain. So, can you please speak on this?

Giriraj Swami: Yes, the word friend can be used differently in different contexts. So here, a friend is used in opposition to the enemy, and for a devotee, there are no friends or enemies. He sees them all as eternal servants of Krishna. But for us as devotees, definitely, we want to have friendships with devotees. In fact, Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam describes how a devotee will relate differently to the Supreme Personality of Godhead, to other devotees, to the innocent, and to the envious.

And the Bhāgavatam says prema-maitrī-kṛpopekṣā. So, prema means we should give our love to the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Maitrī means we should make friendship with devotees. Kṛpa means we should give mercy to the innocent by preaching to them. And upekṣāḥ means we should neglect the envious. Although Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati comments that although we neglect them in the sense that we don’t preach to them because they’ll just become more inimical, we can pray for them. Will you be my friend? Any other questions or comments? Yes, here.

Devotee: Thank you, Guru Maharaja, for a wonderful talk. The first line of the translation stood out for me. I don’t have a question; that was my reflection. The first line of the translation says that when Krishna is pleased with the devotional service, then the equanimity of the vision is revealed to the devotee. And earlier this morning, at the japa session with Vaisesika Prabhu, he had read out Srila Prabhupada’s japa meditation, which said that if you hear the chanting, if you simply hear the chanting of the holy name, then everything will be gradually revealed to you.

And then the very next reflection was about the Bhagavad-gītā verse on surrender, sarva-dharmān parityajya mām ekaṁ śaraṇaṁ vraja, and it took me a while to understand surrender. I thought I had faith in Krishna since I was little, so I am surrendered, technically.

But then I always go back to your first email you wrote to me, in which you quoted Bhaktivinoda Thakura’s words, marobi rakhobi—jo iccha tohara. So, whether I have a hard time materially or spiritually, I go back to those words, and I apply that concept of surrender. And then I understand, as I make spiritual progress, how perfect the process is, that now I understand what surrender is. So, it’s encouraging that Krishna revealed the meaning of surrender to me. It was an aha moment for me, so I wanted to share that.

Giriraj Swami: Okay, nice, beautiful, wonderful. What was the last thing? Somehow, I missed the very last thing.

Devotee: About surrender, that thankfully, Krishna revealed to me, because I had a hard time truly surrendering, in a practical day-to-day life, whether materially or spiritually.

Giriraj Swami: Okay, jaya! Over here, Naimiṣaraṇya Prabhu.

Devotee: Hare Krishna, Maharaja. In the verse, it says, “Every one of us is an eternal servant of God, and therefore, we are not different from one another.” So, even though we are in devotional practice, why does it happen that sometimes we are not able to get along with some devotees? And if it does, do we need to try to correct it and try to become friends with everyone?

Giriraj Swami: We should be friendly with all the devotees. We may not be as good friends with some devotees as we are with others, but we should be friendly and favorable to all devotees, and that will be good for our spiritual lives.

Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakura, in His Harināma-cintāmaṇi, discusses the ten offenses against the holy name, and the first is sādhu-nindā, to blaspheme the devotees who have dedicated their lives for propagating the holy name. And he lists different grounds on which one might think one is justified in criticizing a devotee, and then he explains, one by one, how those grounds are not substantial. For example, a devotee’s low birth, a devotee’s previous sinful activities, the traces of sinful activities even after becoming a devotee, these are not grounds to justify sādhu-nindā. And he also says that by chanting attentively, all the other offenses will be eradicated, and that by being inattentive while chanting, one allows the other offenses to flourish. So, we should be attentive.

I have, on occasion, facilitated japa retreats and workshops, and some of them with Mahatma Prabhu. And he has commented that devotees have become very expert at using their left hands, because while their right hand is in the bead bag, with their left hand, they are tidying up, they are checking their emails. So, we shouldn’t be like that. And he also quoted one devotee who said, “I used to think that my japa was coming in the way of my life, but now I think my life is coming in the way of my japa.”

So, any other questions or comments? Oh, yes, back there. Well, okay, I mean, I saw someone else, but okay.

Devotee: Hare Krishna, Maharaja. Please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada. Speaking on the point of being friendly towards devotees, on the japa walk today with His Grace Mahatma Prabhu, he mentioned a similar point, where we should be friendly with the devotees, and humility is when we are not envious towards them and their experiences and all that.

So, my question is, how can we cultivate that mood, where devotees’ advancement in Krishna consciousness or devotees’ encouragement or just the experiences that devotees have, we don’t feel an envy towards them, we feel happy, we feel joyful that devotees are progressing, and not wanting to put them down, not having a mundane view of competition, but moving into the transcendental competition.

Giriraj Swami: I mean, Srila Prabhupada said that if one devotee in the temple is doing well, everyone in the temple benefits, and if one devotee in the temple is suffering, then everyone in the temple will also suffer with him. So, we are in the same boat together. And so, if someone is doing well, it’s good for us, and we should be happy. And if someone is struggling, it’s not good for us, we should try to help them.

I mean, once, I asked Srila Prabhupada about envy. I had been thinking about it, and there were so many reasons not to be envious. It would disturb my relationships with devotees. There is no reason to be envious because Krishna is unlimited and His service is unlimited, and there is enough service for me. It doesn’t matter what service the others are doing. But still, the envy wasn’t going away.

So, in Surat, I asked Srila Prabhupada about envy, and he first responded by asking me if I had thought of any reasons not to be envious, and I said yes. So then, he said, “So, being envious means you don’t like someone. And that not liking should not be directed towards devotees, but that not liking should be directed towards demons who create so many problems for devotees and the world.” So, we should like devotees. And if we have to not like someone, then it should be demons.

Yes?

Devotee: Hare Krishna, Guru Maharaja. Thank you so much for this class, enlightening us on being able to decipher and actually not decipher between friends and enemies, seeing everyone as a servant of Krishna. I had a question, kind of expanding on Sacinandana Maharaja’s question talking about devotees and relating with devotees.

And Krishna says in Chapter Nine, api cet su-durācāro bhajate mām ananya-bhāk, and I really sometimes struggle with how to properly understand this verse. I know in the purport, Srila Prabhupada talks about how someone should never be committing sinful activities on the strength of chanting. So, how can we decipher between or understand how to properly deal with someone who is committing sinful activities on the strength of chanting? I mean, how can we relate with that devotee who is also working, at least externally working, to surrender to Krishna? Sometimes I struggle to understand this verse and how to apply it.

Giriraj Swami: What exactly are you struggling with?

Devotee: So, just trying to understand how to apply this verse with relationships with devotees, and how to properly decipher, because maybe sometimes someone who’s externally a devotee might be committing many sinful activities on the strength of chanting. But at the same time, we should also be compassionate to that living entity, and even someone who’s senior. So, I was maybe asking you how can we properly see these scenarios that happen? How can we deal with that in a proper way?

Giriraj Swami: We should encourage every devotee. I mean, that api cet su-durācāro is more about an accidental fall down. Once, Srila Prabhupada said if you see Brahmananda smoking a cigarette on the street, you should still know that he is a great saint. So, we should encourage them to, of course, give up their sinful activities. But yeah, love can work wonders. And if they see we don’t reject them and we are standing by them and rooting for them and prepared to help them, they can respond and improve.

Okay, two last ones up front here.

Devotee: Hare Krishna, Maharaja. So, my question was Prahlada Maharaja says favorable toward Vishnu can only develop when the Lord is favorable. So, how did the Lord become favorable?

Giriraj Swami: Well, He became favorable to Prahlada because Prahlada was favorable to the Lord, ye yathā māṁ prapadyante. Despite all the harassment of his father, Prahlada always remembered the Lord. There are nine processes, śravaṇaṁ kīrtanaṁ viṣṇoḥ smaraṇaṁ, and so on. Prahlada was perfect in smaraṇam, always remembering the Lord.

There was. . . Okay, I’ll stop.

Devotee: Hare Krishna, Maharaja. My question is that Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 7.5.12 mentions that demons think like an enemy or friend, but Vaishnava thinks all others are God’s servants. So, my question is how to follow when anybody is destroyed?

Giriraj Swami: I’m sorry to interrupt you, but Her Grace Rasika Siromani dasi has informed me that our time is up, and I don’t want to offend her. So, I think we’ll end now, and I’ll come down, and you can ask me your question when I come down. All right, thank you very much.

Granthraj Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam ki jaya! Srila Prabhupada ki jaya!