Srimad-Bhagavatam 1.10.5
Bhakti Vijnana Goswami · USA · 2004
Chapters
Reading Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam on kingly governance
Reading Shrimad Bhagavatam Kent first chapter number ten Departure of Lord Krishna for Dwaraka Text five Nandya Samudragi Raya Swanaspati Virud Palant Sadaya Sarva Nvritu Tasyavai Nadya
Rivers Samudra Oceans, Yira, Hills and Mountains, Savanaspati, Vegetables, Virudhaha, Creeper, Palanti, Active, Osodaya, Osodha, Draks, Sarvaha All Kamam Necessities Anvritu Seasonal Tasya for the king.
Why certainly translation. The rivers, oceans, hills, mountains, forests, creepers, and active drugs in every season, paid their tax quota to the king in profusion.
Purport by His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda. Since Mahārāja Yudhiṣṭhira was under the protection of the Ajita, the infallible
Lord, as above mentioned, the properties of the Lord, the properties of the Lord, namely the rivers, oceans, hills, forests, etc., were all pleased, and they used to supply their respective quarter of taxes to the king.
The secret of success is to take refuge under the protection of the Supreme Lord. Without his sanction, nothing can be possible.
To make economic development by our own endeavors on the strengths of tools and machinery is not all.
The sanction of the Supreme Lord must be there. Otherwise, despite all instrumental arrangements, everything will be unsuccessful. The ultimate cause of success is the daiva, the Supreme, the Supreme.
Kings like Mahārāja Yudhiṣṭhira knew perfectly well that the king is the agent of the Supreme Lord to look after the welfare of the mass of people.
Actually, the state belongs to the Supreme Lord. The rivers, oceans, forests, hills, drugs, etc., are not creations of men.
They are all creations of the Supreme Lord, and the living being is allowed to take use of the property of the Lord for the service of the Lord.
Today's slogan is that everything is for people and therefore the government is for people and by the people.
But to produce the new species of humanity at the present moment on the basis of God consciousness and perfection of human life, the ideology of godly communism, the world has to again follow in the footsteps of kings like Mahārāja Yudhiṣṭhira or Parikshit.
There is enough of everything by the will of the Lord, and we can make proper use of the things. To live comfortably without enmity between man or animal and man or nature. The control of the Lord is everywhere.
And if the Lord is pleased, every part of nature will be pleased.
The river will flow profusely to fertilize the land, the oceans will supply sufficient quantities of minerals, pearls and jewels, the forest will supply sufficient wood, drugs, and vegetables, and the seasonal changes will effectively help produce fruits and flowers in profuse quantity.
The artificial way of living, depending on factories and tools, can render so-called happiness only to a limited number at the cost of millions.
Since the energy of the mass of people is engaged in the factory production, then natural products are being hampered, and for this the mass is unhappy.
Without being educated properly, the mass of people are following in the footsteps of the vested interests by exploiting natural reserves, and therefore there is acute competition between individual and individual and nation and nation.
There is no control of the trained agent of the Lord.
We must look into the defects of modern civilization by comparison here and should follow the footsteps of Mahārāja Yudhiṣṭhira to cleanse men and wipe out anachronisms.
Śrīla Prabhupāda. Tīrvudha phalanty oṣadhayas sarva-kāmān ṛtu-tasyavai
Surrender to God as societal success
The rivers, oceans, hills, mountains, forests, creepers, and active drugs in every season pay their tax quota to the king in profusion.
So Śrīla Prabhupāda explains in this purport how everything it depends ultimately on the consciousness of the king, The king who is in charge, the leader of the society, who is in charge of the society.
By taking charge of the society in a proper way, by surrendering himself to the will of the Lord, make sure that everything is proper. Make sure that everything is going on nicely.
And this is the principle which is being neglected: the principle of surrender. Ultimately the secret of success, as Prabhupāda explains, is to surrender to the will of the Lord.
Unless and until we surrender to the will of the Lord, there is no way to achieve success. We may depend on many artificial means for our success and we are dependent.
But the problem is that because we are dependent on our limited capacities, on our limited mental strengths and intelligence, ultimately everything will be frustrated.
This was the observation of Albert Einstein, who said that you cannot solve the problem by the same mind which has produced or which have caused this problem.
All the problems which we have ultimately is the production of our mind, our imperfect intelligence and our mind is the cause of all the problems in this society.
And then when the new problem comes, when the problem comes, we try to solve it with the same mind, on the same level of mentality. But it's not going to work.
Because you can only produce new problem and new problem and more severe problem. And you make a solution, but the solution for the previous problem is the problem in itself.
And it creates new problem and new problem and new problem and it's a snowball because people are only dependent on their intelligence which is by definition limited because the intelligence is so limited we cannot really uh solve our problems and the solution is given here.
Solution is to depend on the perfect intelligence, the perfect arrangement of the Supreme Lord, who is perfect by the very definition. But of course for that uh you need uh the leaders like Maharaja Yudhisthira here.
And it's basically impossible in the modern setup, because the modern setup is the democratic setup. And in democracy you vote for somebody who promised to you more.
You know, they're unscrupulous people, and in order to get more votes, they promise crazy things to people.
Like in Russia uh there is one very famous politician and he made his political career because he promised that, "When I come to power, every one, every man will have a bottle of water on his table every day.
So that was his political program. Because they go low. That was actually the observation of Socrates. Socrates was explaining that democracy has the inherent flaw.
Because the democratic system is dependent on the votes of the you know mass of people and because
the consciousness of the mass of people by definition is not very elevated, then the leaders become degraded, degraded, and degraded because they're dependent on the votes of their voters, and therefore the whole society goes to hell.
It's basically inevitable because you have to play with the needs and interests of these people with low consciousness.
Whereas, you know, strong rulers like Maharaja Yudhisthira may not necessarily take the popular measures but because they're guided by the higher principles uh ultimately the ultimate result is successful. Everyone is happy in such a state.
But democratic system means, you know, you make a lot of noise. What is the election campaign?
The election campaign is, you know, you make a lot of noise, and the more noise you will make you will be elected. This is how the propaganda works.
There was one scientific researcher and she was researching the life of the wild monkeys, gorillas, in African jungles.
jungles. And monkeys, they also live in, how you say, in flocks; they flock together. And they also have some kind of system. And they also have leaders. And modern leaders, of course, are something like monkeys.
And the system which monkeys have for electing the leaders is somewhat similar with the modern democratic system. So she noticed she was investigating how they elect the leader.
Because leaders they usually have some privileges. You know, monkey leader has so many female monkeys and therefore everyone wants to become monkey leader, right?
So she was investigating and discovering how the election process is going on when the old monkey leader dies or loses his position, how the new one is elected.
So she came to a very amazing conclusion that the flock of monkeys get together and they make noise. And the monkey who makes more noise is being elected as the leader of the so
she noticed that one clever monkey when the time of election came, uh He took some empty cans which some tourists left somewhere, you know, these metal cans, which tourists left in the forest.
And the monkey started, you know, banging these metal cans, and unanimously he was elected as the leader because the noise he produced was enormous. So the same system is going on in the modern society.
The modern society, so called human society, because there is no leaders basically, no leaders are being elected on the basis of their strong principles.
The ultimate foundation of the success for human society is that you have to elect or you have to put, place the leader who is guided by the higher principles. And if it's not there, the whole society goes to hell.
Qualifications of selfless spiritual leaders
This whole society is being destroyed. And Mahārāja Yudhiṣṭhira, of course, the ideal king described in Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam.
And it is also very strongly emphasized in the Vedic literature that the leaders of the society are those who are capable of taking charge of other people.
Actually if we look at the modern leaders, most of them are not capable of being leaders because they only take care of themselves.
In Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa said that only kṣatriyas and brāhmaṇas can be the leaders of the society. Why? Because their consciousness is wide enough to take interests of other people close to their heart.
Vaishyas they cannot do this. They only have immediate interests of their family. And Shudras, they don't even care about the family. They mostly care about themselves.
So the consciousness of the leader is the consciousness of someone who can take responsibility for other people.
And basically you are more capable of being the leader, the more capable you are of being the leader, uh the more capable you are of taking responsibility for others. Which is of course difficult and nobody really wants it.
But the proper training uh of uh the leaders is necessary to produce good society and to produce good leaders. There is a story about Mahārāja Yudhiṣṭhira's youth to show how the proper leaders have to be trained.
It is said that once Mahārāja was studying in the gurukula under the guru and minister of the king came to inspect this gurukula. He wanted to see the level of education of the children which are being studied there.
And he asked different children what do they know? What did they learn? And different children would say, I learned this and I learned this and I know this.
And then when the turn of Mahārāja Yudhiṣṭhira came, who was a young boy at the time, he was probably seven years old or eight years old.
So the this minister, minister of the king, asked young Mahārāja Yudhiṣṭhira, what did you learn? And Mahārāja Yudhiṣṭhira said I learned only the first sentence of the of our school book or ABC.
I I I don't know anything else. And this minister was initially he was shocked. He said, how is that? You are here for a long time and you only learnt one sentence.
And he said, Yes, what can I do? I only learned one sentence. But then the minister was pushing and pressing. He said, It's not possible. Just one sentence. What about the second one?
He said, Maybe I know a little bit about the second sentence, but not more, for sure. So then ultimately this minister became very angry.
And he started beating Mahārāja Yudhiṣṭhira. And he was beating and beating and beating.
And but then you know after some time he kind of became a little afraid, you know, after all he's the heir of the throne and he may become the king. And he thought maybe I'm doing something wrong here.
But then at that time he saw the school book which was open. And the first sentence in this school book was never get any and never get bitter no matter what happens with you. So that was the first sentence.
And then he looked at Mahārāja Yudhiṣṭhira and saw Mahārāja Yudhiṣṭhira was smiling. So he said, and then he looked in the second sentence, and second sentence was saying, uh, always say truth and nothing but truth.
So and then he understood what Mahārāja Yudhiṣṭhira meant when he said that I only know the first sentence and he you know he folded his hands and he said, please I beg your pardon. Uh please forgive me for this.
Maharaj Yudhiṣṭhira said, no, no, you're right. You were beating me correctly. Because when you were beating me, ultimately uh I started kind of you know bitter about you and angry at you.
And therefore, I understood that I don't even know the first sentence in the school book. What to speak about the rest of the book? So mainly the training of the leaders is the training of a certain qualities.
If the certain qualities are there, if the certain qualities are there in the leaders, then only you can have a normal society. Otherwise the society will depend on the factories. Śrīla Prabhupāda was joking.
He would say that, you know, you cannot eat nuts and bowls, you know, produced in the factories. You have to eat fruits. And of course, modern fruits are not much better than the nuts and balls.
You know, they're produced. They're like plastic.
Illusion of happiness through industrialization
And people are so much, you know, trying to create this artificial civilization and depend on artificial means instead of depending on the Lord.
And ultimately, because the leaders of the society are not dependent on the Lord. This is the reason. The thing they will be happy.
Ultimately, because uh the whole setup of the modern civilization is artificial, nobody is happy. I remember, and this is just modern propaganda. I remember when I was a child, uh, it was some 40 years ago.
So at that time people started producing plastic. It was a new thing, you know, at that time the plastic was something new.
And I very much, you know, it's very much still clear in my consciousness that the propaganda at that time was that very soon we will produce so much plastic and everyone will be so happy because of this plastic production.
You know that there will be houses made of plastic and there will be this made of plastic and that made of plastic. And I was thinking, you know, far out, this is so good, everyone will be so happy.
But no matter how much plastic you produce, nobody is happy. And vice versa. On the contrary, you produce so much plastic and everyone is just, you know, suffocating because of the overproduction of plastic.
Because it's not that the plastic makes you happy. The clean heart makes you happy. And the modern civilization, the setup of the modern civilization is just to make your heart dirty.
And because your heart becomes more dirty and more dirty and more dirty, people become less happappy and less hy and less happy. And this is the you know the vicious circle of the modern civilization.
You cannot really do this. And of course, in these verses, again and again, Prabhupada emphasizes the responsibility of the leader.
We have to really very clearly understand that everything everything depends on the leader. Whoever has the leading position it's a heavy responsibility because everyone else's welfare depends on him, his principles.
Ultimately his integrity, his way of life, his honesty and the principles which he is guided by. And as I said, the first sign of the leader is that he is selfless. Leader has to be selfless.
Leader has to, you know, take care of the interest of others first and then only about the interest of everyone else. His own interests.
You know, like I don't know how it is in America. Of course we know this Bill Clinton and his moral principles which are highly glorified all over the three worlds.
But in Russia, you know, the whoever becomes the president, he immediately becomes corrupt. Immediately. And not only in Russia, everywhere, you know.
King Jānaśruti seeking Raikva Muni
In India, whatever country you take, you know, generally because of this system leaders are corrupt and because leaders are corrupt uh they cannot properly lead others and the whole society is suffering because of this.
Like in Chāndogya Upaniṣad, I believe, and there is a story of the king Jānaśruti which actually shows how important it is for the king to possess proper qualities. Yeah, I think it's Chāndogya Upaniṣad.
The story is quoted by Madhvācārya and by other commentators on Vedānta-sūtra to prove that your position in the society is dependent not on your birth, not even on your education, and not even on your pious activities. Your position in the society is dependent on your qualities, on your internal qualities which are very deep there in the heart.
So this story about King Jānaśruti describes how this king was very pious, was extremely pious king, and he was feeling poor, and he was making universities, educational institutions. And because of that he became proud.
And because he became proud he became attached. Because the pride is the you know the link for attachments. It's actually uh what makes us attached.
And he became proud, you know, I'm such a pious king. And everyone is so happy being under me. And he became attached. And because he became attached, he actually lost his position, proper position of the leadership.
But at the same time he was an illusion I am the greatest king, I am, you know, doing so much pious activities. Everyone is so happy under me.
And two ṛṣis, two sages who were there in his country, they decided to deliver him from this situation which he was in.
And they were, you know, discussing with each other: Look what this king is doing! He thinks he's so good and he has such a good ancestor and he is fallen, you know. Of course, you know, according to our standards, this king Janasruti was not fallen at all.
He was a really pious king. But according to the highest standard, he was fallen. They told: He's fallen. So they decided to make a trick.
So they with King Janasruti — they took shape of the swans and these two swans they were flying in the sky and King Janasruti was sleeping on the roof of his palace.
And he was, you know, going to bed and he was very happy and he was thinking: How pious I am and how good I am! And so, and then he heard two swans were flying over him.
And one swan told another swan: Be careful. We are approaching King Janasruti, and his piety is so big that if you fly over him, he will burn you. And when he heard this, he became very pleased.
He said: You know, see, I am appreciated even by the animals in my kingdom. You know, even the animals are broadcasting my glories. But then, and basically the meaning of this, it was a sarcastic remark.
The meaning of this was that you know don't come close to this king because this king is so proud. And if you don't flatter him, he will just burn you, he will just punish you.
But he took it literally and he became very happy. And then another swan told: You know, who is this king? He is nothing. He is just mud. He is just, you know, he's the lowest of human beings. He thinks he's so great.
He thinks he's getting all the pious activities, but he doesn't know that all the pious activities which he is doing, the credit is not going to him. The credit is going to Raikva Muni.
And Raikva Muni, he is there, he is under the cart, he's somewhere sleeping under the cart. So whatever this king is doing, the credit is not going to him. It's going to the Raikva Muni.
Because he knows he has the spiritual knowledge and this king is ignorant. So when this king heard this, it was like the sharp arrow pierced his heart. He couldn't sleep.
He was just, you know, he was so painful for him because he thought, you know, how is that possible?
I'm such a good and nice and pious king and, you know, some Raikva Muni is taking all my credits and somebody is greater than me. He was totally devastated.
So the first thing which he did, he got up early in the morning, he couldn't sleep, he had a sleepless night. He got his servant and he said, You go and find this Raikva Muni, I want to speak with him.
And the servant went around and he was trying to find some muni, but he couldn't find. And he came and he said to the king, You know, my dear, your majesty, uh, there is no Raikva Muni here. I couldn't find him.
And then he said, you go back. And unless you find this Raikva Muni, don't come back. Otherwise I will, you know, punish you and put you in jail.
So this assistant he was, you know, running and running and running everywhere.
Ultimately he came to the outskirts of the city and he saw some, you know, cart and he saw some man lying under the cart and he was like, you know, scratching his body. He was he looked really you know strange.
He was uh lying under the cart and you know scratching like this.
And of course the meaning of the scratching is that what he wanted to say, he wanted to say, you all scratching and scratching and scratching, you all engage in sense gratification.
And I'm lying there and I can scratch myself here. I don't I'm not dependent on this. So the servant of the king said: you should go to the king. And he said, Who is this king? Who he thinks he is?
He should come to me if he wants to see me. So this servant ran back and he said, Your Majesty, I found this Raikva Muni, but he doesn't want to come to you. You have to go to him.
And King, because he was properly trained and he was the man of the Vedic civilization, he knew that he has to go to the sage. So he went to the sage with a very, you know, humble mood and with his folded hands.
And at the same time, his whole heart is panic. And he's lamenting because, you know, his his false ego is hurt by this remark on the part of the swans. So he comes to the sage, and he says, My dear Muni, can you give me spiritual knowledge?
Because I heard that whoever has the spiritual knowledge, he gets all the credits of all the pious activities. And I don't have spiritual knowledge.
And this Raikva muni looks at him, and he says, You śūdra, get out of here. I don't want to look at your face. Get out of here. You know, and he said, Why are you a śūdra?
Because the definition of a śūdra is the one who laments. You know, and the king came and he doesn't have a face, you know, he's the he's lamenting.
He said, You śūdra, get out of here. Because the cause of lamentation is attachment. And because the king was so attached, he degraded to the position of a śūdra.
And this Raikva muni, he said, I don't even want to speak with you. You know, unless you get rid of your śūdra mentality, of your śūdra nature, don't even come close to me.
It is said that actually, śūdras, Madhvācārya explains, commenting on this story, he says that śūdras are prohibited to study Vedic literature. Śūdras, they cannot study Vedas, because when they study Vedas, what they will do?
When the śūdras study Vedas, because they're so self-centered, they will distort Vedic knowledge. They will explain it in such a way that it will serve their interests.
Instead of explaining the truth, because they are so selfish, they will just, you know, distort the Vedic knowledge, therefore they cannot do this. It's prohibited for them. This is, you know, very common, common thinking in modern society, that you know śūdras, they become so-called spiritual leaders and they distort uh the knowledge of the scriptures.
You know, Prabhupāda, his glory was that he was giving everything as it is. He was not distorting. He was not trying to adjust the scriptures to his own self-interest.
Like there is a there is a famous story about one Muslim, and this Muslim was a devotee and he was leading a good life, you know, he was drinking and having women and you know he was a first-class debauchee.
And a mullah came to him, and the mullah said, My dear son, what are you doing? Don't you know that in the Holy Quran it is said that if you live this kind of life, if you just, you know, eat, drink, and you know, do all these kind of things, you just go to hell.
And he said, no, no. My dear Mullah, you don't know Quran properly.
In Quran, it is said, eat, drink, and be merry. And mullah, when he heard this, he said, My dear son, that's correct. It is said in the Quran, eat, drink, and be merry. But don't you know what is said in the next line of this verse? It is said, It drink and be merry, and you will spoil your life and you will go to hell.
And this man said, you know, my dear Mula, nobody can follow all the scriptures perfectly. I follow the first line. Somebody else can follow the second line. So this is this is śūdra mentality.
Śūdra mentality is you adjust and you distort everything which would serve you. You cannot, you don't have integrity and mental or honesty to take the scriptures as they are. Because sometimes scriptures are heavy.
Scriptures must be heavy. So and therefore this Raikva muni he said, get out of here. Who do you think you are? And this king he became even more hurt.
Of course, modern leaders probably would put this Raikva muni in prison immediately because he would know he didn't respect him properly, but because this Janasaruti was the man of Vedic civilization.
He came back to his home and he thought, you know, what shall I do? You know, yes, I am śūdra. I'm śūdra because I lament. Yes, I'm śūdra because I have so much attachments. What shall I do now?
And then he decided, yeah, because I have so much attachment, he understood actually, deep in the heart, he said, yes, I am fallen. Fallen means I am attached. And then he decided, okay, I have last chance.
I have to get spiritual knowledge from this muni. And he took everything which he had. He put all his riches.
And he even took his daughter and he put it on the carts and he came to this Raikva muni and he said, My dear muni, you know, I know I don't have anything. And I don't have anything to offer to you.
But I do have some, you know, tiny riches and wealth and my daughter please take it and take this daughter and become husband. And you know, take whatever you want but give me spiritual knowledge because
he was trained properly because this desire in the heart because he knew that actually happiness depends on the purity of the heart.
The happiness depends only on this, on how your heart is pure and how you are capable of having or transmitting or you know realizing the spiritual knowledge.
And because he had this very clear understanding, this you know, this trick of the swans worked, he understood, I'm wrong, I'm mistaken, I think I'm great, I think I am such a great muni and such a great this and that or not muni King and such a pious creature.
Spiritual knowledge as true wealth
But ultimately I'm wrong because I don't have the most important thing. Actually this saints they would s they said that how it works that the pious credit goes to one who has spiritual knowledge.
They said that when you throw your dice and you play the game of dice, then whoever gets more, he gets everything. Because he got more.
So this sage said: whoever has spiritual knowledge, because spiritual knowledge is the highest thing in this world. Spiritual knowledge is the highest achievement. Whoever has this, he has everything else.
Everything else is included into the equation, it's already there. But if you don't have the spiritual knowledge, you're poor. No matter how much wealth you have, no matter how much pious activities you have,
the greatest riches in the heart is this Mahadhan, this greatest wealth which can be there is this Brahmagyan, this spiritual knowledge, knowledge that I am spirit soul, and ultimately I am the servant of Kisor Kishori.
And if one has this understanding, then only he can be the leader, then only he can give up this selfish mentality, self-centered mentality. And then only he can become happy himself.
And by being happy himself, he can make everyone else happy. Because this is how it works. You can only be happy. You can only make happy others if you are happy yourself.
And you become happy when your heart is pure, when your heart is clean. And this is the secret of success, success in our personal life and in the life of the society, and you know this is the universal secret.
You have to surrender yourself to the Lord. You have to take the will of the Lord as the main guiding principle in your life.
And if the will of the Lord is the main guiding principle, and the will of the Lord is of course expressed in Bhagavad-gītā, in Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, and it expressed through the mouth of his pure devotee, through the mouth of Śrīla Prabhupāda and his representatives.
So if you do this then your heart becomes clean. And when your heart becomes clean, you become happy because the dirt is the cause of pain so that's I think I should stop now. Thank you very much. Hare Krishna. Thank you.
Srila Prabhupada ki.