SB 2.4.22 – Receiving Transcendental Knowledge from a Bona Fide Disciplic Succesion

Giriraj Swami: So, my dear devotees on Zoom, as far as possible, I would request you to put on your cameras, so we can see your moonlight faces, it will be more personal. Thank you.

So, we are reading from Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, Canto Two, Chapter Four, “The Process of Creation,” Text Twenty-two.

oṁ namo bhagavate vāsudevāya

oṁ namo bhagavate vāsudevāya

oṁ namo bhagavate vāsudevāya

TEXT 22

pracoditā yena purā sarasvatī
vitanvatājasya satīṁ smṛtiṁ hṛdi
sva-lakṣaṇā prādurabhūt kilāsyataḥ
sa me ṛṣīṇām ṛṣabhaḥ prasīdatām

TRANSLATION

May the Lord, who in the beginning of the creation amplified the potent knowledge of Brahmā from within his heart and inspired him with full knowledge of creation and of His own Self, and who appeared to be generated from the mouth of Brahmā, be pleased with me.

PURPORT by Srila Prabhupada

As we have already discussed hereinbefore, the Lord, as the Supersoul of all living beings from Brahmā to the insignificant ant, endows all with the required knowledge potent in every living being.

COMMENT

So, the Lord is so kind that as the Supersoul, the Paramātmā, He resides in the hearts of every living entity. As Srila Prabhupada says, from Brahma to the insignificant ant, He accompanies the living entity as His best friend in whatever species of life the living entity enters. The Upanishad give the example of the individual soul and the Supersoul to be like two birds sitting on the same branch of a tree because Supersoul is sitting next to the individual soul within the heart. So, they are likened to two birds sitting together on the branch of the tree and the individual soul is busy tasting the fruits of the tree, and some are sweet and some are sour. And the Supersoul is just waiting for the individual soul to turn to Him and revive his relationship with Him.

PURPORT (continued)

A living being is sufficiently potent to possess knowledge from the Lord in the proportion of fifty sixty-fourths, or seventy-eight percent of the full knowledge acquirable. 

COMMENT

So, Srila Rupa Gosvami in the Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu has analyzed the Lord to have sixty-four qualities and the living entities possess fifty of those sixty-four qualities although not to the same degree. This is Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’s sublime philosophy of acintya-bhedābheda-tattva, inconceivable simultaneous oneness and difference. The Lord and the living entities are one in quality but different in quantity, because the Lord is infinite and the living entities are infinitesimal, whereas Srila Prabhupada would say infinitesimal. So, the living entity has more or less the same qualities as the Lord at least fifty out of sixty-four. but in a much smaller quantity.

PURPORT (continued)

Since the living being is constitutionally part and parcel of the Lord, he is unable to assimilate all the knowledge that the Lord possesses Himself. In the conditioned state, the living being is subject to forgetting everything after a change of body, known as death.

COMMENT

So yes, the living entity forgets even in this life, he forgets many things, especially from the earliest days and months of his or her life. And definitely, at the time of death, after leaving the body, the living entity forgets everything but there is a continuity from one life to the next. So even though the living entity forgets, the Lord within the heart as the Supersoul reminds him so that he can begin where he left off in a previous life.

PURPORT (continued)

This potent knowledge is again inspired by the Lord from within the heart of every living being, and it is known as the awakening of knowledge, for it is comparable to awakening from sleep or unconsciousness. This awakening of knowledge is under the full control of the Lord, and therefore we find in the practical world different grades of knowledge in different persons. This awakening of knowledge is neither an automatic nor a material interaction.

COMMENT

So yes, the living entity leaves his body and he takes birth again to continue his journey in the material world, and to continue from where he left off in the previous life, the Lord from within the heart will remind him. And as Srila Prabhupada writes in the purport, this awakening of knowledge is neither an automatic nor a material interaction.

PURPORT (continued)

The supply source is the Lord Himself (dhiyāṁ patiḥ), for even Brahmā is also subject to this regulation of the supreme creator. In the beginning of the creation, Brahmā is born first without any father and mother because before Brahmā there were no other living beings. Brahmā is born from the lotus which grows from the abdomen of the Garbhodakaśāyī Viṣṇu, and therefore he is known as Aja.

COMMENT

“Ja” indicating to take birth like jamna, and “A” means “Not.” So, Aja means Unborn.

PURPORT (continued)

This Brahmā, or Aja, is also a living being, part and parcel of the Lord, but being the most pious devotee of the Lord, Brahmā is inspired by the Lord to create, subsequent to the main creation by the Lord, through the agency of material nature.

COMMENT

So the very beginning of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam describes Lord Krishna as, tene brahma hṛdā ādi-kavaye, He enlightened Brahma, tene brahma hṛdā, from within the heart with knowledge.

PURPORT (continued)

Therefore neither the material nature nor Brahmā is independent of the Lord.

COMMENT

But we are all dependent on the Lord for everything and we benefit when we recognize our dependence on the Lord. And we suffer when we imagine ourselves to be independent.

PURPORT (continued)

The material scientists can merely observe the reactions of the material nature without understanding the direction behind such activities, as a child can see the action of electricity without any knowledge of the powerhouse engineer. This imperfect knowledge of the material scientist is due to a poor fund of knowledge.

COMMENT

A poor fund of knowledge is a polite way of saying ignorance. This imperfect knowledge of the material scientist is due to a poor fund of knowledge or ignorance.

PURPORT (continued)

The Vedic knowledge was therefore first impregnated within Brahmā,

COMMENT

tene brahma hṛdā ādi-kavaye.

PURPORT (continued)

and it appears that Brahmā distributed the Vedic knowledge,

COMMENT

In fact, Lord Brahma is the original guru in our paramparā. We are in the Brahma-Madhava Gaudiya Vaishnava sampradāya, and our paramparā begins with Krishna, then Brahma, then Narada, then Vyasa, then Madhvacharya, and so on down to Madhavendra Puri, Isvara Puri, Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, the Six Gosvamis, and then down down down to Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakura, Srila Gaura Kishore dasa Babaji Maharaja, Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura, Srila Prabhupada, our founder acharya.

PURPORT (continued)

Brahmā is undoubtedly the speaker of the Vedic knowledge, but actually he was inspired by the Lord to receive such transcendental knowledge, as it directly descends from the Lord. The Vedas are therefore called apauruṣeya, or not imparted by any created being.

COMMENT

And this is a very important point that the Vedas are coming from God directly and they are not created by any living being.

PURPORT (continued)

Before the creation the Lord was there (nārāyaṇaḥ paro ‘vyaktāt), and therefore the words spoken by the Lord are vibrations of transcendental sound. There is a gulf of difference between the two qualities of sound, namely prākṛta and aprākṛta.

COMMENT

prākṛta means material and aprākṛta means spiritual or transcendental.

PURPORT (continued)

 The physicist can deal only with the prākṛta sound, or sound vibrated in the material sky, and therefore we must know that the Vedic sounds recorded in symbolic expressions cannot be understood by anyone within the universe unless and until one is inspired by the vibration of supernatural (aprākṛta) sound, which descends in the chain of disciplic succession from the Lord to Brahmā, from Brahmā to Nārada, from Nārada to Vyāsa and so on. No mundane scholar can translate or reveal the true import of the Vedic mantras (hymns). They cannot be understood unless one is inspired or initiated by the authorized spiritual master. The original spiritual master is the Lord Himself, and the succession comes down through the sources of paramparā, as clearly stated in the Fourth Chapter of the Bhagavad-gītā.

COMMENT

evam paramparā-prāptam imaṁ rājarṣayo viduḥ, this knowledge was passed down through paramparā, and in that way the saintly kings understood it.

PURPORT (continued)

So unless one receives the transcendental knowledge from the authorized paramparā, one should be considered useless (niṣphalā matāḥ), even though one may be greatly qualified in the mundane advancements of arts or science.

COMMENT

So this niṣphalā matāḥ is taken from a verse in shastra which says that any mantra that is not received in a bona fide sampradāya through paramparā, the chanting of that mantra is niṣphalā—fruitless, useless.

PURPORT (continued)

Śukadeva Gosvāmī is praying to the Lord, by dint of being inspired from within by the Lord, so that he could rightly explain the facts and figures of creation as inquired by Mahārāja Parīkṣit. A spiritual master is not a theoretical speculator, like the mundane scholar, but is śrotriyaṁ brahma-niṣṭham.

COMMENT

So, that Sanskrit phrase, śrotriyaṁ brahma-niṣṭham, is part of a description or definition of the spiritual master or the acharya as given in the shastra. And śrotriyaṁ means, that he has heard from authorities, like Krishna says in the Bhagavad-gītā, tac chṛṇu, hear from me. So, śrotriyaṁ brahma-niṣṭham, and brahma-niṣṭham means that he is fixed in brahman or a spiritual realization. And so yes, we cannot really understand without the help and guidance of the spiritual master. And therefore also in the Fourth Chapter of the Bhagavad-gītā, Text Thirty-four, Lord Krishna instructs,

tad viddhi praṇipātena
paripraśnena sevayā
upadekṣyanti te jñānaṁ
jñāninas tattva-darśinaḥ

Tad vidhi, that means to understand, say the truth, tad vidhi. tad viddhi praṇipātena, praṇipātena means to surrender; paripraśnena, to inquire submissively; sevayā, to render service. So, Srila Prabhupada explains that these ingredients are required when approaching a spiritual master, and that is surrender, service, and submissive inquiry. And in fact, Srila Rupa Gosvami in his Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu lists sixty-four items of devotional service and ten are preliminary. And the first preliminary items are, ādau guru-pāda-āśraya, to surrender unto the lotus feet of the spiritual master, śikṣyeti—to take instruction from him, dīkṣyeti—to take initiation from him. And then the fourth item is to inquire. So, inquiry is a part of the process of devotional service or bhakti-yoga. So, all those elements combined in this verse,

tad viddhi praṇipātena
paripraśnena sevayā
upadekṣyanti te jñānaṁ
jñāninas tattva-darśinaḥ

And we are fortunate that directly or indirectly, we have come in touch with His Divine Grace Srila Prabhupada. And he has made this knowledge which by and large was you could say locked up in the Sanskrit language. And he has spent countless hours translating these scriptures from Sanskrit into English or in the case of Śrī Caitanya-caritāmṛta from Bengali into English so that we now have access to this knowledge that in essence was originally imparted by Lord Krishna to Lord Brahma, tene brahma hṛdā ādi-kavaye.

So, we are blessed to have these books and we should take advantage of them, and read them, and study them, and apply what we have read in our lives. While we were sleeping, Srila Prabhupada was awake translating. So we should make his efforts bear fruits by studying his books and applying what we read in his books in our lives. And of course, as Srila Prabhupada writes in Śrī Caitanya-caritāmṛta, the basic principle of vidhi-sādhana-bhakti is to always remember Krishna and never forget Him. Smartavyaḥ satataṁ viṣṇuḥ vismartavyo na jātucit, that one should always remember Krishna and never forget Him at any time. And all the other positive injunctions are just servants of the one positive injunction, to always remember Krishna. And all the negative prohibitions are just servants of the one negative prohibition, to never forget Krishna.

In the purport, Srila Prabhupada explains that there are many activities in the Krishna consciousness movement such as distributing books, and making life members. We have so many different services in ISKCON. And as Srila Prabhupada says that in all of those services, we are meant to remember Krishna. But then he says, to be able to always remember Krishna, one must chant a minimum sixteen rounds daily. Srila Prabhupada writes in purport, of all the instructions of the spiritual master, the instruction to chant minimum sixteen rounds daily is most essential. And so although all of our activities are meant to help us remember Krishna or we are meant to remember Krishna while engaged in all of our devotional service, but to actually be able to always remember Krishna never forget Him, we should chant our of sixteen rounds minimum. Of course, not everyone can begin with sixteen rounds and so the authorities have recommended that we keep some minimum and chant that minimum number without fail. And if by chance, we happen to miss then we make up the next day, and same with the sixteen rounds. So yes, we should be very vigilant and intelligent in chanting our rounds and always remaining engaged in devotional service. In one talk in Los Angeles, Srila Prabhupada said, “If you have got time, chant Hare Krishna, don’t speak nonsense don’t waste time, chant Hare Krishna.”

So, my dear devotees, thank you for joining us and listening so patiently and attentively. And now, if there is time, we can take questions and comments.

Host: Hare Krishna, thank you so much Maharaja. So devotees, if you have a question or comment, realizations, you may indicate by using the hand emoji or your physical hand and you will be asked to unmute to speak. Hare Krishna.

Maharaja, I have a question and if possible, I would like to play a very short and brief video with audio because I would like to take my question from that.

Giriraj Swami: Okay. Again, my dear devotees on Zoom, as far as possible, please put on your cameras, so we can see your moon like faces.

[A video clip being played with narration]

“This pastime is recited by Hridayananda Babaji Maharaja, who was born in Radha-kunda and had been a pujari for seventy-eight years. He stayed in Vrindavan right next to Radha-Damodara Temple. Upon being asked if he knew Srila Prabhupada, he began to cry and said, ‘Never have I seen anyone do sadhana like he did. He worked very hard at Radha-Damodara Temple.” At that time, Vrindavan was austere, undeveloped, and very muddy with no facilities available. Prabhupada spread this Krishna consciousness, by the mercy of Rupa Gosvami.” Prabhupada used to pray to Rupa Gosvami, “You please give me your mercy.” And then he got that mercy. I know this because I saw somethings he did at the Radha-Damodara Temple. My room is still located in the same place as it was back then in 1964 or 65.

Many times, in the middle of the night at midnight or one or two in the morning, I would hear a voice crying from inside the courtyard by Rupa Gosvami samadhi mandir. That voice was calling out and crying but I did not know what it was because I was trying to take rest. But one night on the full moon, I heard that voice again. So, I climbed up to the roof of our house and looked down into the Radha-Damodara courtyard. I saw something very amazing. Srila Prabhupada was sweeping the courtyard of Rupa Gosvami’s samadhi. He was bending down with a small broom and as he swept the ground by the samadhi, he was crying out “Hey Rupa, hey Sanatana, hey Gurudeva, please give me your mercy, without your mercy, I cannot do anything, give me the mercy, give me the strength that I may fulfill your orders.” And then I realized that it was he who almost every night was calling out as he was sweeping like this. Hare Krishna.’”

Devotee: Thank you so much Maharaja for allowing me to play this short video clip. But my question is from this video in the sense that I might be wrong but my observation in ISKCON today is that slowly and gradually, lots of us as devotees are losing sight of the dependence of our gurus, that we do not depend on our gurus as much as we need to. Here we see Srila Prabhupada himself was crying out to his guru, he was crying out to Rupa Gosvami, Sanatana Gosvami. But my question is, what probably could be the reason that lots of us as second, third generations are not having so much dependence on our gurus, but most of us think that if we do our devotional service, if we chant our rounds, if we do this or that it is enough. But my understanding is that we may do whatever but if we do not have the mercy of the guru, we can’t go far. So, what may be the problem and what is the solution to this problem. Hare Krishna Maharaja.

Giriraj Swami: Hare Krishna. Yes, well, we find in the dāmodara-līlā, when Mother Yasoda was trying to bind Krishna with ropes, no matter how many lengths of ropes she joined together, the ropes were always two fingers to short. But eventually, she was able to bind Krishna. And Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam mentions two words or phrases in Sanskrit, one is pariśrama which means hard labor, our personal endeavor. And the other is kṛṣṇa-kṛpā, Krishna’s mercy. So, the Bhāgavatam describes that when Krishna saw Mother Yasoda’s pariśrama, her hard labor and personal endeavor, kṛṣṇa-kṛpā, he gave his mercy and allowed her to bind Him. So, in all of our activities, we require both of these elements—our own endeavor and Krishna’s mercy. And for us, Krishna’s mercy comes through the spiritual master. So, we do our duties, we follow the regulated principles, and we engage in the practices of bhakti-yoga, but to be successful, we also need kṛṣṇa-kṛpā or guru-kṛpā. And then our efforts will be successful.

Host: Thank you so much Maharaja. So, dear devotees, if anyone has a question, please you may do so before Maharaja leaves. Sunita devi, you may unmute.

Devotee: Hare Krishna guru Maharaja. Please accept my humble obeisances, all glories to Srila Prabhupada, all glories to your divine grace. Guru Maharaja nice to have your darshan.

Giriraj Swami: Thank you for joining us.

Devotee: It is very good timing here in London six o’clock I could join and very nice topic guru Maharaja today. So, I had the same question what Prabhuji had; what do we do without our guru Maharaja, and you gave very nice answer. So, my question is guru Maharaja that I have few devotees in my circle. They are very confused to find the guru. So how can I help them, what do I do? Because passing all the tests, they are finding it very hard to go ahead with the guru-paramparā. So, how can we help them to direct them to a guru or how do how do we know which guru to direct to them or how to help them?

Giriraj Swami: I would say there are two parts to the answer. The first part is to ask them why they want to a guru. They should be serious in their desire to have a guru, because if they are not serious then they won’t find a guru because they are not really ready to accept a guru. So, that is the first thing I would do, I would ask them why they want a guru. As Srila Prabhupada said, you shouldn’t accept a guru just as a fashion because others are doing it, so I will also do it. And then if they are serious, I always suggest that they pray to Srila Prabhupada to guide them to which of his servants he wants them to take shelter. Because he is our founder acharya and he in a way takes responsibility for all of the members in ISKCON. So, I always suggest to devotees that they pray to Srila Prabhupada to guide them to which of his servants he wants them to take shelter. And of course, by chanting attentively, they can also get insights.

Devotee: Wonderful answer guru Maharaja. Thank you so much.

Host: I think Vijay Krishna Prabhu, do you have a question, please you may unmute to ask your question.

Devotee: Yes. Prabhu again, May you tell me your name?

Host: My name is Sahadeva dasa.

Devotee: Yes. Thank you very much Sahadeva Prabhu. You are most kind. Maharaja, can you hear me?

Giriraj Swami: Yes.

Devotee: Yes Maharaja, the quote from the purport, in order for me to ask my question goes as follows. “So unless one receives the transcendental knowledge from the authorized paramparā, one should be considered useless, niṣphalā matāḥ, even though one may be greatly qualified in the mundane advancement of arts or science.” So, based on this quote, my question is, I heard or I have been hearing from the devotees that Srila Prabhupada used to recommend in the following way, we should offer respect to these people. But here in this quote, I see that these people are considered not different from useless. So in accordance with the recommendation of Srila Prabhupada that we should offer at least some respect to people who are categorized as useless, my exact question is how far should we go with the offering of respect to these useless people?

Giriraj Swami: To whom did Srila Prabhupada said, we should offer respect?

Devotee: In order for me to answer your question, I don’t know to whom he said it but what stood out for me is that he said that we should offer some quantity of respect because these people did a struggle for at least some advancement in some field of knowledge. And because of that, they deserve to be respected. But I may have heard it wrongly. So, what I need to know from you as the disciple that you are of Srila Prabhupada, did you ever hear that Srila Prabhupada, maybe you even heard it directly from him that some quantity and some quality of respect should be offered to these useless people if I may put my question in such a way?

Giriraj Swami: But who are useless people?

Devotee: Niṣphalā matāḥ, people who refuse to receive the transcendental knowledge from the authorized paramparā although they may be very advanced in the fields of mundane arts and science. In this part of the purport, these people are being categorized as useless. So why should we offer respect to useless people? Maybe Srila Prabhupada didn’t say it. But I heard this in the past while in the association of devotees that because these people did struggle for making advancement in the mundane field related to arts and sciences, they do deserve some quantity and quality of respect from the devotees while related to the devotees dealing with these people, preaching to them or something of the sort. How far should we go by offering them at least some type of respect? Should we do it or not?

Giriraj Swami: I will say that we should because, first of all, they are ultimately pure spirit souls, part and parcel of Krishna, and then the Lord is in their heart as the Supersoul with them.

tṛṇād api su-nīcena
taror iva sahiṣṇunā
amāninā māna-dena
kīrtanīyaḥ sadā hariḥ

And we should be ready to offer respect to others. And when we approach people with respect, then they will be more inclined to hear our message. If we don’t show respect to the people whom we approach, then they will be discouraged and they won’t want to hear us, they wont to want to associate with us. And in fact, so yes, we should offer it in some respect. We should show them respect.

Devotee: Yes Maharaja, if we offer them respect then our preaching may be more successful.

Giriraj Swami: Yes.

Devotee: Yes. Thank you very much, Maharaja. Hare Krishna.

Giriraj Swami: Hare Krishna.

Host: Anyone else with any question? And thank you, Maharaja for the answer. And Vijay Krishna Prabhu, thank you for your question also.

Host: I think what Srila Prabhupada was saying simply may be understood in this way. That if we are having a problem with our laptop, we do not go to the accountant for help because the accountant cannot fix the laptop problem. We have to go to a technician. So if we seek spiritual knowledge, physicists, whoever cannot help us, we have to go to someone in the transcendental field, especially those coming from the paramparā. That is what Srila Prabhupada was trying to say. They are useless in approaching them for spiritual knowledge. But Srila Prabhupada was saying that they are totally useless in all fields. Srila Prabhupada, himself, we all know that he was using electronic device to publish his books and just as revered Gurudeva has answered, we can use anything and everything in the service of guru and Krishna. So thank you, Maharaja.

Giriraj Swami: That was a good answer Sahadeva Prabhu.

Host: Hare Krishna. Thank you. Anyone else with something else to share before Maharaja concludes?

Maharaja, I have had this question which is not directly related to today’s text, but we all hear that Maharaja Parīkṣit, by whose grace we are enjoying Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, is a very devout disciple of Śukadeva Gosvami. But I believe that before Maharaja Parīkṣit met Śukadeva Gosvami, he already had a spiritual master. He was a spiritualist, but we don’t hear about this guru. We only hear about his guru, Śukadeva Gosvami. This makes me think about sometimes we tend to overlook help that we might have received from somebody. Now, in order for us to get to this level, somebody helped us somewhere to get to where we are. And I think sometimes, we need to give recognition to such people who helped us get to where we are now. But if you have something to share on this, like who was the guru of Maharaja Parīkṣit before he met Śukadeva Gosvami? And how much honor and respect we have to give to such a personality? Hare Krishna Maharaja. Like I said, it is quite outside today’s text, but I also feel that we need to give respect and recognition to people who have helped us in a little or in a big way. Hare Krishna.

Giriraj Swami: Well, what you said is correct. The principle of feeling appreciation and gratitude towards anyone and everyone who helped us along the spiritual path is important. We have benefited from so many devotees and we should appreciate the help that we have gotten from them and as far as practical, express our gratitude to them. As we have learned over the years or over the decades in ISKCON, there is a dīkṣā-guru who gives initiation, but there is also the śikṣā-guru who gives instruction. So, we should appreciate not only our dīkṣā-guru, but also our śikṣā-gurus. And we can have so many. According to shastra, one can have only one dīkṣā, but one can have many śikṣā-gurus. And Srila Prabhupada has encouraged us to appreciate the help that we have gotten even from our godbrothers and godsisters. And he said, we can also regard them as gurus.

Host: Thank you so much Maharaja. So, it seems the devotees are already satisfied with your presentation and are no more hungry to get more from you. [laughter] So, on this note, if devotees agree, we may all be asked to unmute and chant the loudest Hare Krishna maha-mantra and ask Maharaja to blessing on us all. So we are going to handle requests off to unmute with this please. And like Maharaja said, if possible, please turn on your cameras, so Maharaja can see our mouths move with the Hare Krishna maha-mantra.

Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare
Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare

Thank you, thank you, guru Maharaja.

Giriraj Swami: So, we are ending, some have done it on their own, we should conclude with Vaishnava praṇāma.

Let us offer our respectful obeisances unto all the Vaishnava devotees of the Lord. They are just like desire trees who can fulfill the desires of everyone, and they are full of compassion for the fallen conditioned souls.

vāñchā-kalpatarubhyaś ca kṛpā-sindhubhya eva ca 

patitānāṁ pāvanebhyo vaiṣṇavebhyo namo namaḥ

Devotees: His Holiness Giriraj Swami Maharaja ki jaya!