Srimad-Bhagavatam 1.1.19, 1975
A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada
Chapters
Recitation and translation of Srimad Bhagavatam
Oṁ namo bhagavate vāsudevāya. Oṁ namo bhagavate vāsudevāya. Oṁ namo bhagavate vāsudevāya. Number nineteen. vayaṁ tu na vitṛpyāma vitṛpyāma uttama-śloka- vikrame yac-chṛṇvatāṁ rasa- jñānāṁ svādu svādu svādu pade pade. Vayaṁ
tu na vitṛpyāma, vayaṁ tu na vitṛpyāma, uttama-śloka-vikrame, uttama-śloka-vikrame, yac-chṛṇvatāṁ rasa-jñānāṁ, yac-chṛṇvatāṁ, rasa-jñānāṁ, svādu, svādu pade pade, svādu, svādu, pade pade.
Uttama-śloka: the Personality of Godhead who is glorified by transcendental prayers. Vikrame: adventure. Adventure. Yac-chṛṇvatām: by continuous hearing, by continuous hearing. Rasa: rasa, humor,
humor. Jñānām: jñānām, those who are conversant with. Those who are conversant with. Svādu: relishing. Svādu: palatable. Pade pade: in every step. Translation:
“We shall never be satiated even though continuously hearing the transcendental pastimes of the Personality of Godhead, who is glorified by good prayers.
Those who have developed the particular humor of transcendental mellow do relish in every step such descriptions of the pastimes of the Lord.”
Transcendental nature of spiritual sound vibration
So this is the difference between material and spiritual. Na vitṛpyāma. There is no satiation. It's like any material thing. We are chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa. Now, if we are advised to chant “John, Mary”,
“John, Mary, John, Mary, John, Mary”, how long can we chant? Hare Kṛṣṇa: Kṛṣṇa and Harā, and His energy. Similarly, if somebody says—they say that we can chant any name. The Ramakrishna Mission says like that, rascal.
“They are all right.” You chant “John, Mary, John, Mary, John, Mary”. How long? It is a—that person. You can chant one hour, two hours, then, or one day, two days, then, no, it's happy. You cannot do that.
This is practical, you can see. You chant this "janmary janmary", how long it is, you know. But this Hare Kṛṣṇa mantra, you go on chanting for life, still it will be pleasant. Still it will be pleasant. New.
You take so many bunch of papers daily, new news, you read it, after one hour you throw it. And Bhagavad-gītā, for the last since five thousand years, everyone is sitting, still going on reading, reading, reading.
These are practical. You cannot stop. There may be some rascal commentaries are coming. But they are reading. Nobody says that we have discussed this book for the last five thousand years. What is the use of discussion?
Bring something new. Similar is the mantra. These are transcendental literature. And if one also becomes transcendental, then to go on continuous, no tṛptimā, there is no satiation.
Unlimited beauty and bliss of Krishna
Kṛṣṇa is unlimited. Yad uttama-śloka-vikrama, and His vikrama, His activities, His pastimes, they are just unlimited.
It is described in the Caitanya-caritāmṛta that Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa... by Kṛṣṇa seeing, by Rādhārāṇī seeing Kṛṣṇa's beauty, she immediately becomes more beautiful.
And as Kṛṣṇa sees, "See, Rādhārāṇī has become more beautiful," He becomes more attracted. But again, Kṛṣṇa is more enthusiastic, Rādhā more beautiful. And as He is more beautiful, she is more enthusiastic.
Now it is increasing. That is spiritual. That it will increase. Ānandāmbudhi-vardhanam. Here we have no experience that any sea, these salty seas, they increase, no. They increase a little more, again go down.
That is the material. But in spiritual atmosphere, the ocean of bliss increases. That is the test. When you feel that you are increasingly, increasingly—this is the constant—then we are making real advance.
If we are becoming tiresome with our happiness, that means we have not tasted the spiritual bliss of some else. This is another. You can go on for a hundred years, you can go on describing Hare Krishna.
We can never say that now we are tired. No. Bhaktir bhaktimatām. Hearing of the transcendental pastimes of Krishna. Svādu svādu pade pade. That is called... unless... yeah.
Oh, Brahmanas will come on to all, be young, put the God in each of you.
Human life and the struggle for existence
This was the advice given by Rishabh to his sons.
My dear sons, this human form of life, nāyaṁ deho deha-bhājāṁ nṛloke, in the human society, this human form of body, na kaṣṭān kāmān arhati viḍ-bhujāṁ ye, simply for eating and sleeping and mating and defending, to work so hard like hogs and dogs, this is not good.
The modern civilization, they are teaching to work harder and harder. What is the purpose? Eating, sleeping, mating and eating. Why one should work so hard? Every city you are going anywhere, east or west, doesn't matter.
People are engaged. Hard work. From morning in London we have seen. So you go for morning walk. Immediately, so many men are going to work. This is in Montreal, I'd say.
No consideration, man or woman must attend the office, uh, the workshop at a certain time, and uh, they're coming from the other island, what is it, Long Island, and crossing that bridge, then again waiting for the bus and then going to the office, then really work hard there, again come back and going at home at night at ten o'clock.
So they might have come out in the morning at four and return at four. And what is that? Huh? That is also not very satisfactory. Somebody is drinking wine, having a dog, that's all.
This working so hard is not even able to satisfy his senses, that is done without any difficulty by the cats and dogs. Without any difficulty. The cats and dogs have no difficulty for supplies for eating or mating.
There are no problems.
But we have created... we are in an advanced scientific era, advanced civilized human beings, we have created difficulty even for the primary necessities of life: eating, sleeping, mating, and defending.
Which is free by nature. It is free to everyone by the laws of nature.
You see, early in the morning, the birds, they immediately... kitch-kitch, kitch-kitch, they go and jump over a tree and there's immediately food and eat, and no problem.
Have you seen any cats and dogs and birds and bees dying from starvation? But there are... it's really that he, by standing on the road, he'll be murdered. He cannot go even to walk on the street. You are after Sri Ram.
You are revolution, "Sri Ram" chanting, "Sri Ram" revolution. But you cannot walk freely on the street. This is not... this is a disease. This is demonic activity. Most condemned life. Most condemned life.
This is not civilization. Civilization is that people, they are trying, they are trying, as soon as one becomes rich, he does not work. But he must have engagement. What is that? Nightclub. Nightclub.
Whatever money he has, that whole thing is spoiled there. The real thing is happiness now. He has earned much money. Now he does not know how to spend money, how to enjoy life.
He goes to the same carvita-carvanam, the same sex life and the nightclub, that's all. They have become hippies, they have given up everything, but the fair sex is going on. They cannot... they cannot be there.
That is going on. A little intoxication, that's all. This is... this is our civilization.
Finding contentment through spiritual advancement
The civilization is that one should be so advanced in spiritual life that they will sit down in any place and simply by chanting Hare Krishna you'll feel content and peace. Just like Haridāsa Ṭhākura.
Uh, he was chanting, uh, three hundred thousand. So life should be... life, that is success of life. This life is not meant for working so hard. Even the cats and dogs, they do not work so hard as we are working.
And they have no problem for eating, sleeping, mating. And we are working so hard. It's the problem: so many unemployment, so many frustrations, so many confusion, war, fight, so many things.
But still people are not satisfied. This is our civilization. This is demonic civilization. We are thinking that we are advanced, but it is just...
So this Naimiṣāraṇya, the forest of Naimiṣāraṇya... We are proposing, uh, that in God, chanting about Krishna's pastimes, we shall never be... uh, this is also another thing. But here is ānan-dāmbudhi-vardhanam.
Just like in the material world, they are not satisfied. They are working more and more. But there is no ānanda, there is no pleasure. Here, that's the opposite.
Here also they say, "Go on chanting Hare Krishna, go on chanting Krishna's pastimes." But svādu svādu pade pade, but we are getting very nice, so nice, so that is the difference.
That is the difference between mundane stories, fiction, history, and transcendental pastimes of the Lord.
It is for this reason only that the old history of the whole universe is inculcated with reference to the pastimes of the incarnations of Godhead.
Rāmāyaṇa, Mahābhārata, or the Purāṇas are histories of the bygone ages recorded in connection with the pastimes of the incarnations of the Lord, so that the reading matter would remain ever fresh, even by repeated and repeated readings.
For example, let us take the matter of the Bhagavad-gītā or that of the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam.
Anyone may go on reading these transcendental books repeatedly for the whole life and, still, he will find in them new information, new light of information.
Mundane news are static, whereas the transcendental news are dynamic. As much as the spirit is dynamic, whereas the matter is static.
And those who have developed the humor for understanding the transcendental subject matter shall never become tired of hearing such narrations.
One is satiated by mundane activity, and nobody is satiated by transcendental or devotional activities. Uttama-śloka means the literature which is not meant for the nescience.
Mundane literature are tamas, or in the modes of darkness or ignorance, darkness of ignorance. Uttama. This is derivation of ut. Just like Kṛṣṇa. Ut. Ut means surplus. Transcendent. Uttama. Tama means darkness.
Contrasting material darkness and spiritual light
This whole, you know, material creation is dark. Therefore, there is a necessity of sunlight, moonlight, electricity. Because naturally it is... just like the sun is little our backside, immediately darkness, night.
Sun is there, but it is simply because it is on my backside, therefore in front side I see darkness. Darkness means absence of function. So this world is by nature dark, tamas, and ignorant.
Not only dark, but also every one of us ignorant in it. We do not know what is the value of life. Under the illusion of māyā, we are working hard day and night. That is called tamas.
And Kṛṣṇa is uttama, is not of this world. Nārāyaṇaḥ paro 'vyaktāt. It's transcendent. Param. There is another nature. This nature is dark. That nature is light. That nature is light.
Because two things are there: light and darkness. So if there is darkness, this world of darkness, there must be one world of light. That is spiritual world. That is spiritual world. Why should it not be dark?
Because as here in this material world, we have got one specimen sample of bright planet, the sun planet. All other planets, they're dark; when they are reflected by the sunshine, then they illuminate, just like the moon.
So here we have but one sample. Therefore, that is why Śrī Īśopaniṣad the sun planet. Because this is an example of the spiritual world. And in the spiritual world, all the planets are like the sun planet.
Therefore, there's no need of sunlight. It is stated in Bhagavad-gītā: there is no need of sunlight, there is no need of moon, there is no need of electricity.
Now you can think over nature or the sky where there is no need of sunshine. Yes, Devi. That is explained in the madhurya-bhāva. That nature is eternal. This nature is on appearance without any body.
At a certain date, and it's become vanished; at a certain date, whole cosmic manifestation. It is created. This, it is not created, the scientists say.
But the simple thing is that this body, these materials, my body, your body, it has a date. Of this hand, it has a date of this. Similarly, anything in this material world, it has a date of the birth, of the sun.
We get experience every day. So how can you say it is going on? No.