SB 7.5.12 – House Program

Giriraj Swami: In Bhagavad-gītā, Lord Krishna says, evam paramparā-prāptam imaṁ rājarṣayo viduḥ, that this supreme knowledge was received through paramparā but the Lord detected that in the course of time, the paramparā [Unintelligible 00:00:30]. Therefore, the Lord spoke about the Bhagavad-gītā again to reestablish the paramparā. Paramparā means one after the another. So perfect knowledge begins with Lord Krishna and it comes down to us through paramparā. In our disciplic succession from Krishna to Brahma, Brahma to Narada, Narada to Vyasa, and Madhvacharya and down through the line, Madhavendra Puri, Ishawar Puri, Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, the Six Gosvamis and the further down Srila Jagannatha dasa Babaji Maharaja, Bhaktivinoda Thakura, Srila Gaura Kishore dasa Babaji Maharaja, Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura, our Srila Prabhupada and we are following in that line. So just as perfect knowledge descends through paramparā, service is offered through paramparā. We offer our service to Srila Prabhupada. He offers it his guru Maharaja, and offers to his guru Maharaja. And that way the service is offered up through paramparā. Srila Prabhupada gives the example of a viceroy of India. And people would make presentations to the viceroy. But the presentations were not meant for the viceroy as such, but they were meant for the Crown. And so the viceroy would accept the presentations, but he wouldn’t treat anything for himself. He would deliver all of it to the Crown. So in the same way, whatever presentations I offered to us, devotee just pass it on through paramparā to Krishna.

I thought of reading a little about qualification we make to one another as devotees. Reading from Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, Canto Seven, Chapter Five, Text Twelve, “Prahlāda Mahārāja, the Saintly Son of Hiraṇyakaśipu”

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. 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.”

COMMENT

So every living entity of the constitution is eternal servant of Krishna as Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu says, jīvera ‘svarūpa’ haya — kṛṣṇera ‘nitya-dāsa’, that the spiritual position of living entity is eternal servant of Krishna. We all, every one of us, are eternal servants of Krishna, and therefore we are not an orphan. Krishna gives very nice instructions how we should relate to one another.

PURPORT (continued)

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. 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. 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. 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. 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.” This misconception is described in this verse as bheda-gatāsatī. 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?

COMMENT

Now we come to the conclusion, please listen carefully.

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 always wants competition. He also explained the difference between transcendental competition and mundane competition. In transcendental competition, one appreciates the good qualities of service of the other person, but still one wants to excel in that, in order to give more pleasure to the guru and Krishna. This is transcendental competition, whereas in mundane competition, one does not recognize the good qualities and service of other devotee, but rather one tries to minimize their value.

PURPORT (continued)

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 here, we come to the interesting. . . [Unintelligible 00:16:30]

PURPORT (continued)

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. 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

Again, here the principle of unity is stressed. [Unintelligible 00:19:05]

“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.”

Grantharāja Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam ki jaya!

My dear devotees, do any of you have any questions or comments? Yes.

Devotee: Thank you very much. I was reading [Unintelligible 00:20:30] says, we have to be able to see undivided spiritual nature in all existences in order to become at that state of goodness at least. Now, I am not talking about that. Forget about the karmis, I am talking about the devotees. Sometimes there are exchanges between devotees, and they are very harsh and unkind to each other. So how do we still see the undivided nature in all these people, devotees?

Giriraj Swami: Yes, well, Srila Prabhupada says, everyone should [Unintelligible 00:21:25]. Everyone should appreciate everyone’s service, one should not proud of one’s service. So we should be very kind and there are twenty-six qualities of the devotee. One such quality is to be kind, and we should certainly be kind to devotees, we should be kind to everyone, but especially we should be kind to devotees. And I also recommend that devotees who are in book distribution, when they go out to meet ordinary people and see what they are like. And when they come back to the devotees, they appreciate the devotee more, seeing the difference between the devotee from the ordinary people out there. So yes, it was too much only for the devotees to see them in a mundane way. But if we go out and, as we should in any case, to reach the people, then you can see the difference between ordinary people outside and devotees, and appreciate devotees more. Yes.

Devotee: [Unintelligible 00:23:25].

Giriraj Swami: Well, my expectation, which is what Srila Prabhupada desires, is that you taste Krishna consciousness and you share Krishna consciousness. We should relish Krishna consciousness and share Krishna consciousness. You might be aware of bhajanānandī and goṣṭhyānandī. So, bhajanānandī is one who take pleasures in his bhajana. And goṣṭhyānandī is one who takes pleasure in sharing Krishna consciousness with others. So, Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura says that the best goṣṭhyānandī is a bhajanānandī who preaches. In other words, someone who relishes and preach Krishna consciousness to other. And that is what you should do. And we want to relish Krishna consciousness and share it to others and we want them to experience happiness. That is for every devotee who is in Krishna consciousness.

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

So what comes next?