Srimad-Bhagavatam 3.24.13
Бхакти Вигьяна Госвами · Ришикеш · 2026
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Recitation of invocation prayers
Om namo bhagavate vāsudevāya. Om namo bhagavate vāsudevāya. Nārāyaṇam namaskṛtya naram caiva narottamam devīṁ sarasvatīṁ vyāsaṁ tato jayam udīrayet naṣṭa-prāyeṣv abhadrēṣu nityaṁ bhāgavat-sevayā bhagavaty uttama-śloke
We're reading Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam Canto 3, Chapter 24, Renunciation of Kardama Muni, Text Number 13. evaṁ śuśrūṣā kāryā pitari putrakaiḥ bāḍham ity anumanyeta guror vacanaṁ gurave guror vacanaṁ guror vacanam.
evaṁ śuśrūṣā kāryā pitari putrakaiḥ bāḍham ity anumanyeta guror vacanaṁ gurave guror vacanam. evaṁ śuśrūṣā kāryā pitari putrakaiḥ bāḍham ity anumanyeta guror vacanaṁ gurave guror vacanam.
evaṁ śuśrūṣā kāryā pitari putrakaiḥ bāḍham ity anumanyeta guror vacanaṁ gurave guror vacanam.
To this extent exactly service ought to be rendered pitari to the father, putrakaiḥ by the sons. Bāḍham iti. Accepting, yes, sir. Accepting, yes, sir. Anumanyeta.
He should obey gurave, with due deference, guruḥ, of the guru, vacahā, commands. Translation
Duty of obeying spiritual authority
and purport by His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Śrīla Prabhupāda ki jaya! Sons ought to render service to their father exactly to this extent.
One should obey the command of his father or spiritual master with due deference, saying, "Yes, sir."
Two words in this verse are very important. One word is pitari and another is guruḥ. The son or disciple should accept the words of his spiritual master and father without hesitation.
Whatever the Father and the Spiritual Master order should be taken without argument. Yes. There should be no instance in which the disciple or the son says, "This is not correct, I cannot carry it out.
When he says that, he is fallen. The father and the spiritual master are on the same platform because the spiritual master is the second father. The higher classes are called Dvija, twice born.
Whenever there is a question of birth, there must be a father. The first birth is made possible by the actual father and the second birth is made possible by the spiritual master.
Sometimes the father and the spiritual master may be the same man, and sometimes they are different men.
In any case, the order of the Father or the order of the spiritual master must be carried out without hesitation, with an immediate yes.
There should be no argument that is real service to the Father and to the Spiritual Master. Visvanatha Cakravarti Thakura has stated that the order of the spiritual master is the life and soul of the disciple.
As a man cannot separate his life from his body, a disciple cannot separate the order of the spiritual master from his life.
If a disciple follows the instruction of the spiritual master in that way, he is sure to become perfect. This is confirmed in the Upaniṣads.
The import of Vedic instruction is revealed automatically only to one who has implicit faith in the Supreme Personality of Godhead and in His spiritual master.
One may be materially considered as an illiterate man, but if he has faith in the spiritual master as well as in the supreme personality of Godhead, then the meaning of scriptural revelation is immediately manifested before him.
His sons ought to render service to the Father exactly to this extent. One should obey the command of his father or spiritual master with due deference, saying, "Yes, sir."
Nama oṁ viṣṇu-pādāya kṛṣṇa-preṣṭhāya bhū-tale śrīmate bhaktivedānta-svāmin iti nāmine Namaste sārasvate deve gaura-vāṇī- प्रचारिणे nirviśeṣa-śūnyavādi-pāścātya-deśa-tāriṇe
Creation and Sankhya philosophy context
mūkaṁ करोति vācālaṁ paṅguṁ laṅghayate girim yat-kṛpā tam ahaṁ vande śrī-guruṁ dīna-tāraṇam Sri Krishna Chaitanya Prabunditananda Sriadvaita Gadata Srivasta Bhikobrabta Vrinda Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare Hare Ram Hare Ram Ram Ram Hare Hare Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare Hare Ram Hare Ram Ram Ram Hare Hare Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare Ramare Jamandesya prayata shaftesra bikisparateni brahmah vidaya dika mu kentyasura Te Jovaim Bridam Yathani Mayoga Pratrisarbam Vish Dhamma Svina Sadhani Rastapuhakam Satyam Paramti Satyamu Satyambarambi mahi bapishamavashi maprastu sansji vaja kiva sati daraksw Pramandama bagathi purusai, saszastavaswasjakalapasidambi gudani, sivamik pó So
Shiva Prabhupada once again is stressing the need to understand very acknowledge in a very specific way.
Let's first talk about the place Place of this verse in the whole context of Srimad Bhagavatam and then get into the intricacies of this verse of The Sarkant of Srimad Bhagavatam is describing Srishti of creation.
And it is being described in a very special way, basically by explaining the philosophy of Sankhya,
how this whole creation is being made, but the philosophy of Sankhya practically literally word by word is repeated twice in the third canto of Shrimad Bhagavad.
First, in the beginning, in the conversation between Maitrey and the dura, and the second time by Kapiladev to his mother Devahuti. And by reading the verse from the second section. So, what is the difference?
Why is there need to repeat the same philosophy twice?
Of course, it's a very important philosophy and we all have to understand and the repetition may serve this purpose. The repetition definitely helps us to assimilate and understand the knowledge better.
But there is slight differences in presenting the same philosophy in these two occasions by Maitreya to Vidura and by Kardamuni to Devahuti, and
therefore, while analyzing the structure of the third candle, the Acharya said that the first description of the creation, Srishti, is Bada Srishti. How this creation bounds jiva, how the jiva becomes Badha Jiva.
And therefore, the story of Hiranyaksha is there. The story of Hiranyaksha is a very glowing example of somebody who is totally bound by this material creation, by the glittering light of this material creation.
In fact, Hiraṇyākṣa, the very word Hiraṇyākṣa means hiraṇya means gold and akṣa means eyes. It's not that he had golden eyes, it's it means that only thing which he sees in this world is gold. He's looking for gold.
He wants to enjoy with the gold or with the false glitter of this material existence.
And this desire to enjoy the glitter, the effulgence of this material existence with all the enjoyments which are there is the cause of entanglement.
Therefore, the specific idea behind this first description of the world is to explain how the living entity gets entangled in this material world,
Dual purpose of material creation
ultimately with the purpose to help us to understand how they get out of this entanglement. And basically, there is a dual purpose behind creation. The creation is made by the Lord with two purposes in mind.
One purpose is to give us freedom and to let us enjoy to the fullest extent, to give us the experience. Basically, it's not the idea of the Lord to give us enjoyment. We want enjoyment.
But the Lord wants to give us experience. And we all know, for the most part, this experience is quite miserable. From beginning to end, from the very appearance of a little baby in this world till the death.
So basically the Lord wants us to give the freedom. Yes, you want to enjoy, no problem, enjoy, but pay the price. And it's a heavy price. It's a really heavy price. And it's being done to educate the jīva.
Actually, this world is a huge educational institution. It's a big academy. And we all have to graduate from this academy and to go to the spiritual world.
But before we go there, we have to get some education and basically means some experience, practical experience.
And therefore, the first part is explaining exactly this, and it ultimately culminates in the 15th chapter where the description of the spiritual world is there.
The existence of material world would be completely useless if there was not a different area of creation of spiritual world.
The existence of material world is only justified as much as there is the existence of spiritual world and therefore the beautiful description of spiritual world is also contained in
this first part of the third canto of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. But the second part, which
is again starts describing the creation of the material world from the scratch, from the very beginning, from creating of mahat-tattva and agitating the guṇas of material nature, creation of mahat-tattva and then creation of ahaṅkāra-tattva and ahaṅkāra-tattva creates all kinds of senses and body and mind and intelligence.
So again, the same round of explanation is given, but with completely different purpose in mind. The purpose this time is mukti-sṛṣṭi. How to use this material creation to get liberation.
And that's the second purpose of which the Lord has in his mind while creating this world.
The first is to facilitate our enjoyment and to get to give us facility to get experience to educate us, and the second purpose is to help us to get the full liberation.
But in both cases, this knowledge is very important in both cases, and in both cases, before explaining
this knowledge, knowledge of Sāṅkhya. Sāṅkhya, one of the explanation of the word Sāṅkhya, san means samyak, samyak-rūpeṇa. In a complete vein, khya means to explain, khyā means to tell.
So Sāṅkhya is the very exhausting explanation, very detailed explanation of reality, how the reality is created.
Methodology of receiving Vedic knowledge
So and we need to know this before we go further, before we go to this fourth canto of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, fifth canto of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, we have to really understand in a very detailed way how this world is created.
So in both cases, in baddha-sṛṣṭi and mukti-sṛṣṭi, before explaining Sāṅkhya philosophy, in Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam the methodology of understanding Vedic knowledge is being presented.
Because you will never be able to get the knowledge, to grasp the knowledge, to assimilate the knowledge, and to use the knowledge unless you know the methodology.
And therefore, in the beginning of the first part of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, ṣaṣṭha-skandha, there is the description of relationship between Maitreya and Vidura.
And again, there and here there is a description of Kardama Muni and Brahmā, and then the description of relationship between Kardama Muni and his wife Devahuti and then the description of Devahuti and Kapila Dev.
So basically the same idea, disciple and guru, guru and disciple.
Because without establishing this relationship, working relationship, Guru Disciple relationship, there is no chance, there is no possibility of understanding this knowledge properly. You may understand the theory.
You may be able to give the lecture, you may understand or get by heart all the mahā-tattva, ahaṅkāra-tattva, jñānendriya, karmendriya, this that but it will be useless because ultimately Vedic knowledge is practical knowledge.
Therefore, it's called vidya. Vidyā, there is jñāna and there is vidyā. Jnana may mean theoretical knowledge. Vidya means applicable knowledge, applied knowledge, knowledge which you have to know how to apply.
And we all know, even in the modern world, which is very much secular and is not very the idea of guru disciple relationship is not very popular in the modern Western world and because everyone is equal.
Everyone is supposed to be equal. So disciple is supposed to be equal with the guru. And in the Western world the students they behave in a very obnoxious way towards the teacher.
And the teacher has no right to discipline the students. But that's completely ulaṭā. It's upside down, the totally completely perverted understanding of what is the preliminary condition of understanding the knowledge.
And even in this modern world, if it comes to a practical knowledge, to applied knowledge, still you have to get trained by an experienced teacher.
You cannot really become a surgeon unless you become the student of an experienced surgeon. Of course you can become a surgeon, but probably nobody will want to get cut by you.
Because unless you are trained, and training means humility, you will never be able to understand how to apply the knowledge.
Theoretical knowledge you can get, no doubt about it, no problem. Theoretical knowledge you can get from Google Guru. He is the Maha Guru, he can give you all kinds of knowledge.
But he cannot really teach you how to apply this knowledge in your life.
Because ultimately even if you know the theory, but you don't know how to use it in the critical moment of your life, which is junction between life and death, this whole knowledge will be useless.
Ultimately, this is all to prepare us to meet the last test, the death, in a proper consciousness, with the proper consciousness. Because the last moment of our existence determines the next chapter of our existence.
So, therefore, in both cases, in Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, the description of this methodology is being made how first vidura is being sent by Uddhava. Uddhava does not dare to teach Vidura in the presence of Maitreya.
Both Maitreya and Udava were present when Krishna was leaving this world and was giving the last instructions. So they were both equally qualified, but the etiquette is being taught.
If there is somebody who is senior, you have to go to somebody who is senior. Even though the junior person may be equally qualified.
Or at least the junior teacher has to get the permission from the senior teacher to teach somebody. It's a very strict etiquette. The disciple cannot teach anyone in the presence of his guru.
If the guru is present you cannot really manifest your ahaṅkāra by disciplining somebody. So this is ridiculous. So this is very important lesson which is there. And then Vidura, he obediently follows Uddava.
He wants to hear from Uddava. He knows that Uddava is the recipient of the last instructions of the Supreme Lord, but still he folds his
hands and he goes to Maitreya. He says, Yes, if you tell me to go to Maitreya, I will go to Maitreya. I will learn from Maitreya because this is what you want, and you're my teacher.
Obeying orders without cheating propensity
And the same thing, we see the same dynamic we see here in this scenery where Lord Brahmā glorifies Kardama. And in the previous verse,
he glorifies Kardama for a very specific quality, which is very important for our understanding.
He says, you were following my order without any deception. And Prabhupada explains that this tendency to deceive the cheating propensity is the property of every living entity. We're all a little hypocritical.
There is some not very straightforward, and we want basically we want to present ourselves better than we are. But to understand knowledge, we have to correct this propensity
because if we are cheaters, we will never be able to understand the truth. The cheaters are destined to be cheated. The cheaters exist here to be cheated.
And if we remain cheaters, if we insist on remaining cheaters, we will never be able to understand the proper knowledge.
So nirvyalikais, Lord Brahmā says that, uh, nirvyalikatāh, without any cheating you followed my order. Without any cheating, you accepted the position of a disciple.
We may accept position of a disciple for some ulterior purpose. Somebody is a great guru, and I want to you know reflect the effulgence of my guru and I want to be glorified because I have such a big guru.
Or so many other reasons can be there, I should be accepted in the society of devotees, I should get a beautiful name and for that I need guru. No, you need guru to become humble. That's the only reason why you need guru.
And that's the only reason why you need living guru. There is a huge movement within ISKCON or whatever which says no, no, you don't need a living guru. Just need the ṛtvik. No problem.
Just need a representative, the formal representative. Yes. You may get a formal representative, but then your uh education will also be very formal. And ultimately you will not get the essence because you will remain proud.
It's only in front of the living guru who is present in front of you and whom you gave the right to tell you "You are a fool." he may not use the right, but still you have to give the right to him.
Or he may call you a fool in a very polite way. That's another story. But nevertheless, you have to have a person who is entitled to teach you, who is entitled to discipline you, because this is what education means.
Education means anusasana. You have to be disciplined. The verbal root from the word shastra means shas, shas means to discipline.
Shastra means something who is disciplined and shishya means somebody who is being disciplined, he's shishya. He, he, he allows to be disciplined. He says, Yes, I'm here to be disciplined by you, please punish me.
So that's a very essential principle which is very difficult to understand in the modern mindset. People with the modern mindset, it is very difficult. Who are you to teach me?
Story of Chandrasekhar and Eddington
Who are you to say something to me? There is a very interesting story in this regard. I don't know if you heard it. It's about one great Indian scientist, Chandrashekaran, who is a Nobel Prize winner.
It's a very funny story, very interesting story. So, but it really gloriously shows the power of Vedic culture. He's an educated man and he goes to Britain for graduation for his postgraduate studies and whatever.
He's a very talented bright man and astronomer.
And in a ship, while traveling to Britain, he just, you know, calculates something and he figures something out that with the Einstein's theory of relativity, how the stars will behave when they have mass, more than mass of sun.
It's details, I will not get into the technical details of the story. But anyway, he he's making the huge discovery. Later on, many decades later he will be Nobel Prize winner for this exact discovery.
He's doing it just in his free time, in a ship, just making some calculations.
He goes to Britain and he gets his guru in Britain, Sir Eddington, who is the greatest astrophysicist of the time, greatest, by far greatest astrophysicist.
And they started talking and he started studying under him and and he shows him his calculations. He shows him you know his understanding and whatever it is and his teacher says yes, yes, very nice, very nice, very nice, very beautiful. And then the time comes for him to defend his thesis or whatever to explain to the greater audience of the scientist what it is, and he starts explaining this, and all of a sudden, his guru stands up and starts blasting him in front of everyone.
This is ridiculous. This has nothing to do with reality. Stars cannot behave in this way. It's complete nonsense. He's just saying this and he is humiliating him in front of everyone.
And uh you know and before there was no even hint that his guru disapproved his work. Whatever he would hear from his guru was yes, yes, very nice, very nice, very nice. And then all of a sudden he's just doing this.
And then not only this, this Sir Eddington he continues blasting him everywhere, writes a special article, "This is nonsense, this is ridiculous, how is it possible," you know, he's saying this.
But the reason why I'm saying this, and ultimately at the end of the day, the disciple is right and the guru is wrong.
But the reason why I'm telling this story is that this Chandrasekharan, whenever he would speak, he would speak with such a reverence and such a respect and such an adoration about this Sir Eddington.
He's the greatest astrophysicist, he is my guru. This whole story didn't change his mindset to the slightest degree. Till the very end, during his Nobel Prize speech, he
was mentioning that everything which I done, I done only because of my teacher.
So this is how deeply it is inculcated in this very culture and how people who belong to this very culture, how they assimilate this, because they understand if I want to really understand the knowledge, I really have to I really have to have a guru.
And therefore this whole glorious philosophy that you don't need a living guru. You just need the representative of a guru.
It basically means if you don't need a living guru, you don't need living knowledge. You only need the representation of the knowledge. You only need the shadow of the knowledge.
Knowledge ābhāsa, vidyā ābhāsa, not the real knowledge. So that's why it is so so strange that so many people accept this this kind of philosophy.
Consequences of undigested spiritual practice
Because what is important, what is happening in this relationship? Knowledge to be used properly, to be utilized properly, to bring some benefit to us has to be really digested and assimilated.
There is a beautiful subhashita, I may not remember exactly how it goes, but it basically, uh, tapo jīrṇa, no, anyway, it is said that there is a very beautiful concept of ajīrṇa. You may know what adjirna means.
Ajīrṇa means indigestion, failed digestion. And in this subhasita it is said that anajīrnam, if undigested food, is a result of cholera.
Cholera, a very heavy disease, which is deadly disease, disease which can think about death, is a result of indigested food and this undigested food becomes the breeding ground of all kinds of bacteria.
From the modern medicine point of view, the cholera is caused by bacteria, but some people get cholera and some people don't get cholera.
Whereas bacteria, they're everywhere, they know people. So why some people get cholera? Because there is this breeding ground for these bacteria, and therefore you get heavy disease, and ultimately you may die.
So, but this ajīrṇa may happen with tapasya, the ajīrṇa may happen with knowledge, and ajīrṇa may happen with your kriya or with your with your uh activities.
So in this subhashata it is said that if your tapasya is ajīrṇa, if you cannot really, if you didn't digest your tapasya properly, you're doing austerity, you're trying to purify yourself, but if you didn't really do it properly,
if you didn't digest it, then the result will be krodha, the anger. Instead of purification, the, uh, the tapasya, the austerity will bring you ruination because you become angry.
And of course, the glorious example of this is Durvasa Muni. He is very austere. He's Durvasa. Durvasa means the one who is always eating Durbagrass. And Durvasa means that he is closest, not very elaborate.
Durvasa basically means naked. So he's a very austere person, but he's also a very angry person.
So when the austerity and we may know some people may, some devotees may fast on Ekādaśī, but at the end of the day, they become very angry at everyone.
So therefore, the Subhashata says if your if your austerity is not assimilated properly, digested properly, then you become angry. That's the side effect of unassimilated austerity.
And the implication here, as much as the undigested food, instead of bringing some strength to you, instead of bringing you some power and nourishment, the undigested food becomes the cause of your death.
In the similar way, undigested austerity becomes the cause of your ruination instead of bringing about purification to your mind and to your body. And then it is said very interestingly that the
result of undigested knowledge, jñāna-jīrṇa, ahaṅkṛti. The result of undigested knowledge is a hunger. You become very proud. Yes, you know you have the knowledge. You can you can use all kinds of verses,
terminology, you know Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam by heart, and this by heart. But if this knowledge is ajīrṇa, then it's not going to bring you good result. It's not going to bring you spiritual nourishment.
It will become the cause of your death. It's a very radical conception. Knowledge is good, but if knowledge is not digested properly, your ahaṅkāra will become bigger. And believe me, we don't need bigger ahaṅkāra.
Our ahaṅkāra is already big enough. We don't need to have it bigger.
So the undigested knowledge becomes the cause of your ahaṅkāra and the ahaṅkāra is the cause of your bondage. It's the cause of your bondage in this material world.
You are you know you are creating one false identity after another false identity to prove how great you are. And very interestingly, it is said that Kriyā-jīrṇa, if your achievements or your uh your yeah,
your activities, your whatever it is, ugly. The result of this kriyā-jīrṇa, undigested kriyā, or the activity is parīndā. You become very critical. You become envious of achievements of others.
You're not satisfied with what you have achieved according to your capacity.
And because you're not satisfied, because you didn't really properly digest what it is, you always look at somebody and you want to point out the false, the fault-finding tendency, parininda. You become very critical.
Oh, you know, why you're glorifying this person? He is nonsense. This is nonsense. That is nonsense. And this is going on in social media.
So this whole parininda, which is proliferating in social media, is a result of uh kriya-jirna, if is a result of kind of not understanding properly what is your duty and how you should perform your duty in a very humble way?
So, and then of course, cholera becomes a result of anna jirna. So the point here is very important.
You have to digest, you have to digest your food, you have to digest your tapasya, you have to digest knowledge, and you have to digest your activities. To digest it you need enzyme.
If your digestive system works properly, the particular enzymes are being produced to help you to assimilate or to digest to break down the food into little blockages and then use the blockages to build up your body.
So in a similar way, the enzyme which is uh which we need to digest everything, tapasya, knowledge and our activities, uh, this enzyme is called humility.
Without the enzyme of humility, without the little fire of humility, you will never be able to digest knowledge, you will never be able to digest tapasya, you will never be able to digest your own achievements.
Role of humility in digesting knowledge
Instead of getting some nourishment and spiritual nourishment from all these things, you will be ruined by the uh not properly by the failed digestion of these very important things. And therefore Guru is so necessary.
And therefore that was introduction to this verse. Now the verse starts anyway. I will not. It was a joke.
Therefore, it is Śīla Prabhupāda is explaining very beautifully here in the verse that yasyā deve parā bhaktir yathā deve tathā gurau, tasyaitai kathitā hyarthāḥ prakāśante mahātmanaḥ.
Only those great souls, mahātmās, who have devotion to the Lord, parā bhakti, parā bhakti. Parabhakti means the highest bhakti. Param Bhakti, the one-pointed devotion, very you know very strong devotion, Yasyadeve Parabhaktir as much as you are completely
devoted to the Lord, Yatha Devetha Guru. And then the same sort of devotion has to be developed towards the Guru.
Yasyadevet uh parabhakti, yathadevetatha guru, tasyay kathita khyartha, then uh for him the artha, the meaning, the purpose, the inner implication of the knowledge of this katha, prakashant, will be revealed.
And Śrīla Prabhupāda makes a very amazing point in the purport. He says that even if you are illiterate, you may be not very knowledgeable in the intricacies of this Vedic knowledge. Even if you are illiterate, but you have devotion to Guru, the meaning of the scriptures will be revealed to you.
And vice versa, you may be very, very educated and very uh knowledgeable and intelligent, but if you don't have humility it will all be useless. It will all be you know, you will only create uh all this monsters
like Durvāsā Muni created in relationship with Mahārāja Ambarīṣa. Mahārāja Ambarīṣa was very humbly standing there and saying, Yes, punish me, I deserve it. But ultimately he was saved, and Durvāsā Muni had a hard time.
So basically this is the point which is being made in this section of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam and therefore it is said that therefore it is said that the disciple has to say yes sir. The disciple has to become yes man to his guru.
Yes. Badha. How is this yeah? What is this? It says yeah, Badhamiti uh Anopamyana. Bāḍhāmity anupāṁyayā gauraveṇa with utmost seriousness, gauraveṇa.
One has to take the order of the spiritual master and try to execute the order of the spiritual master.
And of course, Śrīla Prabhupāda gives in the purport his favorite example of Viśvanātha Cakravartī Ṭhākura's statement from his commentary to Bhagavad-gītā to the vyavasāyātmikā buddhiḥ verse, where Viśvanātha Cakravartī Ṭhākura says that the voice of spiritual master is the life and soul of a disciple.
And Prabhupada beautifully explains that as much as you cannot separate this life from your body, the disciple cannot separate himself from the voice of his spiritual master.
Guru Mukha Padmavakya Chitta te koriya kya, please make me one with your words. Please make my chitta, my heart, one with your words.
Make my chitta, my heart, to be beating synchronically in synchrony in harmony with your words, and then only I will have knowledge.
That's a great science, the science of Parampara, where you try to meditate on your spiritual master and try to try to get his vibration and to by getting his vibration to assimilate knowledge to to get the revelation of the Vedic knowledge through this process.
And for that we have to be very sincere or not nirvyalika, which should not be we should overcome our cheating propensity.
Whereas if we maintain our cheating propensity in this relationship with the spiritual master, we will be cheated. Nobody else will be cheated.
Their self will be cheated by the cheating propensity which is the unfortunate nature of every living entity. Anyway, so thank you very much and we will be too late here.
Overcoming bad habits through sadhana
Śrīla Prabhupāda ki jaya. A disciple should be humble, the disciple should be humble.
But perhaps sometimes what happens is that due to the quality mode or due to the three modes of nature, I may know that this thing is good for me and that thing is bad for me, but still I have a tendency that I keep on repeating the same mistakes.
Or for example, choosing mobile, my chanting, I know this is wrong, but even after trying, my hand goes, so how can it come out of this tendency to commit the same mistake again and again and again and again and not being able to come out of the store.
Read during Sandhi Fist the second and third verses from the 15th chapter of Bhagavad-gītā.
And the fourth verse reads, Nirmāna-moha jita-saṅga-doṣā, first is nirmāna moha, we have to get rid of this moha, moha we have to get rid of this moha, which is illusion, which is created by man, by our pride.
That's the preliminary condition. You can only learn something if you get rid of this nirmāna-moha, this mada-māna, I am great.
But then jita-saṅga-doṣā, the next verse, the next word which Krishna uses, and Śrīla Prabhupāda explains it as a sequence of our sadhana.
He says, jita-saṅga-doṣā, you have to overcome the doshas, the faults which are natural for us, due to particular Sangha or particular association with certain modes of nature. That's exactly what you're asking.
So, yes, we developed our nature, our svabhāva, due to association, very intimate association with the same, saṅga-doṣa. But then Krishna says jita saṅga-doṣa basically means that you have to endeavor to overcome it.
It's your onus, the onus is on you. Jita means you have to become victorious over it.
And it basically means, and then atmana-vinivṛtta-kāma, it basically means that you have to overcome the bad habits by developing good habits.
And this is where your work is, you know, you should not expect I'm so humble, and because I'm so humble, all the bad habits will just disappear from me in a miraculous way. No, no.
Humility is needed for you to understand what is a bad habit and what is a good habit.
But as soon as you understood that this is a bad habit by looking at your mobile while chanting, then you have to work on getting rid of this habit. And uh habits uh there is English saying all habits die hard.
You know, if this is a very old habit, You need some time to get rid of it. So again and again and again you have to practice it and there is no other way.
And that's exactly why we have to practice it, because we have so many bad habits. If we didn't have bad habits, we would not need to chant Hare Krishna so many times. Just once is enough. Mahā-mantra.
But because we are habituated, because there is this Sangha dosha, the faults of our habitual association with particular modes of nature, we need to practice it again and again and again.
So I'm sorry for bad news, but there is no other way.
Necessity of a living spiritual master
Yes, yes, no. Thank you Maharaj for such a wonderful class. Mahārāja, my question is that, as you mentioned, that we need a leading group for who always, whose instruction can humble us.
But in response now, we see that our gurus may not be physically available to us. So in that situation, what is the way to have association of a leading group so that we become compelled in the accessibility.
Even though they may not be available for our physical association, still we've been in their association. We know what it means. Kind of get the feeling.
I mean there is no doubt about it that you can get education without association with living guru. And of course, glorious or maybe not so glorious example of it is Ekalavya.
Ekalavya didn't have association with Dronacharya, he was associated with his mūrti. But his devotion was so kaṭhora, so intense that he actually excelled Arjuna in his skills by learning from mūrti.
So in one sense there's no doubt about it you can learn from a guru by just by meditating on him.
But the point is that your meditation has to be very intense, and the association with living guru helps to intensify your meditation.
Whereas if you are completely deprived of this association, your meditation may or may not be very intense. Your meditation will be kind of lukewarm.
So and therefore it is said that you know you have to keep the distance because sometimes too short distance may also spoil your meditation on the spiritual qualities of your guru. So there is there should be some healthy kind of balance in it.
And yes, there are there are glorious examples of you know disciples who become perfect without too much close association with
guru practically no association like Yāmunācārya was basically the guru of Rāmānujācārya, but they didn't interact physically. Still Rāmānujācārya became perfect.
But he was learning under the disciples of Yāmunācārya and so many other examples are there. I'm not so much familiar with this philosophy which I criticized.
Maybe the may implies some sort of very strict meditation or whatever, but ultimately the usual process. This is exception. There are exceptions, but exceptions does not deny the rule.
Executing instructions with proper attitude
The rule is that you have to have living guru, and by having living guru and being in his association for whatever time you could will help you to meditate intensely on the desire of his heart and to make his desire your own desire.
So can you imagine uh correctly emphasize the product with the model basically?
Um my question is then uh from your praccetical experience now scenario, how we can practically apply that humility or how to follow humility.
Because most of the basic problem is we don't want to disclose ourselves before pool so that we can make operation. Because we have many short things, but we also have that hand file that you don't want to, uh, submit and don't have to open up.
So how do we do that? We don't need to, uh, manifest our shortcomings. First of all, they will manifest anyway, one way or another.
But uh the very fact that in the presence of your guru you want to show your best kind of nature is already humility.
Because when you're proud, you may just, you know, But in front of the Guru you, you, you are manifesting the best qualities, the you know the best version of yourself. So that's itself is humility.
But even more important than this, as far as the manifestation of humility is concerned, is the point which is being made in this verse.
Your humility is the main manifestation of our humility is that you're ready to do what your Guru wants you to do.
And in the process of doing this, by consciously meditating, I am doing this because my Guru wants to do it, you become perfect and the knowledge is being revealed to you.
I have a friend from America and he wants he's a very knowledgeable person, disciple of Lokanath Maharaj. Very knowledgeable, very senior devotee. And he respects Śrīla Rādhanātha Mahārāja very much.
But once, he didn't challenge him, but he very humbly asked question which may not sound very humble.
Because he is very knowledgeable in all the intricacies of siddhānta and this and that, and he said, Mahārāj, I respect you very much and you're very devoted, no doubt about it. But in your lectures you present very simple points usually.
Why you're not explaining all these beautiful details of our Siddhanta? And Śrīla Rādhanātha Mahārāja smiled, he thought a little bit, and he said, this is was this was told me by this devotee himself.
He said, because I think this is what Śrīla Prabhupāda wants from me now. That was his answer. Because I think this is how Srila Prabhupada wants me to present the philosophy for the audience I'm preaching to.
So that was his answer. Not because you know he didn't try to justify whatever, but because this is this is the result of my meditation on the desire of my spiritual master.
And as a result of this, I behave the way I behave. So that's the humility. I behave the way I behave because I try to follow the order of my spiritual master and I try to understand what he wants from me.
And that uh that becomes my life and soul. And Śrīla Prabhupāda, he externally may not be very humble. He has these pictures, but he's humble because he's following his the desire of his guru.
And whatever is necessary to fulfill the desire of his guru, if it's necessary to do it like this, he'll do it like this. Not because I'm proud myself, but because I'm following the order of my spiritual master.
And that's how he says this is the secret of becoming perfect. Yes. During management of when you are guru and therefore management is So
Guru may tell you to do certain things, but you think that he can tell you suggest something and when the guru says that this is such a good but you do it this way and you do you accept it.
So is that okay or yeah definitely. I mean there are there are absolute things and there are relative things and you know you can suggest something to Guru and Guru encourages you to do it.
Guru himself says this is your responsibility, do it in the best possible way, how you understand it.
You may suggest something to the Guru. It doesn't mean that you're rebellious against him, you are still following his order in spirit, but you may suggest something.
Like Prabhupāda said, Prabhupāda said that my guru told me to preach to the English speaking world and I myself came back to India and preaching to Indians. My Guru didn't tell me, but that's my project.
But still it's in the spirit of the same in the same line as the order which he received from Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī. Alright. Thank you very much. Śrīla Prabhupāda kī jaya. Thank you very much.