Srimad-Bhagavatam 1.8.8-9
Бхакти Вигьяна Госвами · 2004
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Recitation of Srimad-Bhagavatam verses
Warrichman Bhagavad came to first chapter eight prayers by Krim Kunti text number eight and nine Gandam Krita Madir Brahman Krita Madir Brahmana Varatam Rahamasti, Varahamasita, Pade Vididhavantim Utaram Bayham
Udama Uttaravacharavacha Pahi Bahi Mahayogi Mahi Ma Yogi Devane nevava jagat, Nanyantvata Bhayampas, Yatramrityu Parasparam, Just deciding to start. Just deciding start. Kritamati. Having decided. Having decided.
Brahman Brahman O-Brahma Dvārakām Dvārakām towards Dwarata Dvarata Ratham Ratam On the Chariot On the Cherit Hastidha Astidha Seated Upaleb Upale So Abhidhawanti Abhidhavanti Coming hardly coming hardlyttaram Uttaram Uttara
Uttaram Bayariwalam Bayari Overwhelmed by Fear. Overwhelmed by fear. Translation by Silva As soon as he seated himself in the chariot to start for Dvaraka, he saw Uttara hurrying towards him in fear.
All the members of the family of the pondaras were completely dependent on the protection of the Lord. And therefore the Lord protected all of them in all circumstances.
The Lord protects everyone, but one who depends completely upon him is especially looked after by the Lord. The Father is more attentive to the little son who is exclusively dependent on the Father. Awesome, nice verse.
Pahipahi Mahavidin Deva Deva Jagatpatinandya Vajampashiya Tamriti Parastana. Uttara said, Oh Lord of Lords, Lord of the Universe, you are the greatest of mystics.
Please protect me, for there is no one else who can save me from the clutches of death in this world of duality. This material world is the world of duality in contrast with the oneness of the absolute realm.
The world of duality is composed of matter and spirit, whereas the absolute world is complete spirit without any tinge of material qualities.
In the dual world, everyone is falsely trying to become the master of the world. Whereas in the absolute world, the Lord is the absolute Lord, and all others are his absolute servitors.
In the world of duality, everyone is envious to all others, and death is inevitable due to the dual existence of matter and spirit. The Lord is the only shelter of fearlessness for the surrendered soul.
Uttara's desperate plea to Krishna
One cannot save himself from the cruel hands of death in the material world without having surrendered himself to the lotus feet
of the Lord versus Gantun Kritamatir Brahman Varakam Ratamasti Upalebi Didavantin Utaram Bali as soon as he seated himself in the chariot to start with Varakam. He saw Uttara hiding towards him in fear.
Pahibah Mahayagin Devadeva Jagatpatanandim Twadayam Pashyatamiti Paraspam. Uttara said, the Lord of Lords, Lord of the Universe, you are the greatest of mystics.
Please protect me from for there is no one else who can save me from the clutches of death in this world of duality. So in this first verse, it is said: Gantum kṛtamatir brāhmaṇaḥ, Dvārakāṃ Rathamastitam.
Kritamatir literally means making up his mind. Kritamatir.
When the Lord finally decided to go to Dvārakā and He finally, after so long time staying in Hastināpura and being with his devotees, he finally decided to go back.
This incident happened, when Aswadhamari's Brahmastra and Uttara is running towards him begging for protection. And as if so, she again wanted to delay the Lord for a few more minutes.
And that's a fact that this reciprocation between the devotee and the Lord works like this.
In Bṛhad-bhāgavatāmṛtaṁ, Sanātana Gosvāmī explains that there are two kinds of dangerous situations in which the devotee finds himself in.
One is the dangerous situation which is created by the Lord for the devotee. So that the devotee would feel closer to him and would feel more surrendered to him and would feel more need to ask him for protection.
So, and uh, we all know these kind of dangerous situations, uh, when we are forced to surrender to the world.
When everything is fine, when the sun is shining, we feel confident and we feel you know karta ham, it everything depends on me.
But when everything is falling apart, we you know we fold our hands and say, my dear Lord, why are you doing this to me?
But in fact, this is the mercy of the Lord because He creates these situations to bring us closer to Him.
And, uh, Queen Kuntī, of course, was will be praying about this, that this is the feeling which I have when I'm undergoing all these difficulties.
But Sanātana Gosvāmī says that there is another kind of dangerous situation in which the devotee sometimes may find himself. That is the dangerous situation which the devotee himself creates for himself in order to bring the Lord closer to him.
So sometimes the devotee wants to bring the Lord to save him, and Sanatana Goswami says that, you know, when Nārada Muni was coming to Pandavas, the Pandavas were, you know, scratching their heads and singing, you know, what kind of dangerous situation we can create now so that the Lord will come here.
Shall we provoke some other king to attack us? Or what shall we do? To force the Lord come closer to us.
This is the mutual attraction, and somehow or other in this world of duality, where the danger is awaiting us at every step, Padam padam yad vipadam na teṣām.
In this world of duality, this is in fact it's a pastime, it's a game, it's a play of love.
When the devotee, being afraid — and this is a dangerous place, there's no doubt about it — is approaching the Lord, and the Lord is approaching the devotee to save him.
And this is a special sweetness of this Lord, which doesn't exist in the spiritual world, because in the spiritual world there is no danger.
Of course, in a lila, in a pastime world of Krishna, there is a concept of danger. But there is no real danger. Here the danger is real because one can forget the Lord at every step.
Krishna's special care for devotees
So, this dangerous situation, this fear is employed by the Lord and in fact by the devotee to come closer to the Lord.
And Prabhupada explains in the first purport that actually the Lord is impartial and He protects everyone.
But even though He protects everyone, He is especially protective and He's especially keen to protect those who are completely, totally surrendered unto Him, or dependent on Him and not on anyone else.
And in the initial stages of our devotional service, this is actually the rehearsal or the kind of training for us to become more and more dependent on the Lord.
Because the tendency will always be there, and Krishna beautifully describes this tendency in the Bhagavad-gītā. He says that the conditioned soul will always depend on himself.
Kartāham manyate. Āhaṅkāra-vimūḍhātmā, because we have this false identification with matter, because we're falsely proud of ourselves. We will always say, I only depend on myself. I shouldn't depend on anyone else.
You know. The proud men say, I am not a yes man. Right? So we say the same to Krishna. Krishna, I'm not a yes man. I don't want to depend on you. I'm on my own. I will protect myself.
But in order to actually experience the sweetness of the Lord's protection and Lord's love and Lord's reciprocation with us. Sometimes we are put in a dangerous situation.
And in this situation, again we have the choice what we will do, whether we will depend on the Lord or not.
Like there is a little story in this regard about one brāhmaṇa. This brāhmaṇa was living in a village and he was as it is a custom of brāhmaṇa was taking baths in the village pond three times a day because it's necessary for changing diatri so that the gāyatrī would bring any effect, one has to be really clean.
Clean inside, clean outside, otherwise gāyatrī will not bring any effect.
So he would go to this pond, and he would do all this elaborate ritual, changing all the mantras for the internal purification, external purification so that he could be pure.
This is the basic quality of brāhmaṇical culture to be pure.
So once he was taking a bath in this pond, and on the bank of the pond there was a śūdra, and the śūdra was a washerman, and the śūdra he was you know he was washing the cloth in an Indian style you know he was picking the cloth and the big rock. So and the śūdra was angry. Somehow rather he was totally completely dissatisfied with life and with everything,
and wife was quarreling with him, so he was especially angry that day.
And he saw this brāhmaṇa, and the brāhmaṇa was standing uh in in the pond and he's chanting mantras and he's you know doing ablations to the sun by this water and you know worshipping this and that and śūdra became even more angry. Who he thinks he is, you know, pretender.
So hypocrite.
So when the brāhmaṇa was coming out of the pond, śūdra he especially you know with a special force he just hit the rock with the with his clothes and the water the dirty water from this splashed all over the place and it splashed on the brāhmaṇa. And the brāhmaṇa became contaminated again.
So the brāhmaṇa, being the tolerant and being you know humble and meek, he went again, he took the bath and you know he again made ablations and chanted the mantras and looked at the sun and and he again felt good because he was purified again and he was coming out and śūdra said, hey, see. And again, all the water and drops of the water was all over his body.
And then brāhmaṇa was like, this is getting obnoxious, you know. But you know somehow or other he went again and he made the bath again and took a bath again
and then and then he's coming out and śūdra is already looking at him. He's already trying to find a proper place to heat the rock so that the water would definitely attack the brāhmaṇa.
And then the brāhmaṇa he started praying to the Lord. He said, My dear Lord, you know what I do to me?
Everything depends on you, the śūdra. You are in the heart of the śūdra. Why do you make this śūdra so obnoxious? My dear Lord, please protect me from this, you know, obnoxious śūdra. I I'm not doing it for myself, I'm doing it for you.
And he said that at that moment, Nārāyaṇa it was already a little late because it took some time for the brāhmaṇa.
So Nārāyaṇa was already taking his meal in spiritual world with Lakṣmī and then he heard this prayer of the brāhmaṇa and he hurried to to save him, to protect him from the śūdra somehow or other. And the Lakṣmī was surprised because he just got up and you know without taking the meal and run somewhere. And then a few seconds later he came back and Lakshmi said, My dear lord, what happened to you? Why did you run and why did you come back?
He said, you know, I saw that brāhmaṇa is seeking for my protection. But then when I was about to protect him, he somehow
rather without you know after praying to me, he started quarreling with the śūdra. And he started saying, You śūdra, you you don't know your place and this and that, and then you know I thought it was a brāhmaṇa and then I saw that this is actually two śūdras are quarreling with each other.
That's what I saw. So I came back. I don't I'm not inclined to protect those people who are actually, you know, kind of of a double mind. They pray to the Lord and they say, please protect us.
And then the next moment they're trying to protect themselves.
Śrīla Prabhupada explains here that the Lord protects everyone. Prabhupada explains here that the Lord protects everyone. But one who depends completely upon the Lord, is especially looked after by the Lord.
And this is the crux of the issue because in order to experience this sweet protection of the Lord, one has to be completely dependent on Him.
When we are half dependent and half surrendered, then Yayatamamprapaya Tetam Satanya Vajanyaham. The Lord is also, you know, half protecting, half not protecting.
There is this mixed kind of situation and in this mixed situation you will not experience fully this reciprocation which you could have experienced.
And that's what exactly is explained in the Bhagavad-gītā by the Lord Himself and He says, Ye yathā māṁ prapadyante tāṁs tathaiva bhajāmy aham. I am just reflecting the mood of my devotee. I'm like a mirror.
And if a devotee wants my full protection, I will give him full protection.
But he's when he is not really decided in this, when he's not really sure whether he wants or not, whether he trusts me or not, then well, you know, I will not be in a hurry to help him too.
Cultivating exclusive devotion to Krishna
So it really depends, very much depends on us.
And uh I was also speaking a little bit last time here when I spoke in the previous verse, that uh this is the quality of a devotee which is called as ekānta, that the devotee has to develop this chastity towards the Lord.
Ekānta means ekānta. It means that I have only one goal. I don't have any other goals. Ekānta means that I will only take protection from the Lord and nobody else.
Because sometimes we are we find ourselves in this situation. We do believe in God, right? You know, theoretically, philosophically we believe that there is God.
Philosophically we believe that He is in our heart and in the heart of every living being. But still in practice, when it comes to practice, we are not really so much into it, we don't really believe.
And we try to seek protection from somebody else. Ekānta also means this chastity towards the Lord means that we are not taking anything from anyone else. Which is tough.
Ekānta or chastity means if the Lord wants to give me something, I will take it, whatever it is. If it's a chastisement from the Lord, I will take it with grateful heart.
If it's the protection of love from the Lord, I will take it. But from somebody else I will not take anything. And that's difficult because, you know, if somebody else gives us something, why not take it?
But or sometimes we think you know, God is too far away. And if somebody else can protect me, or if I can get something which I need from somebody else, why not take it? Why not take the protection from somebody else?
There is a story in Puranas in about Ambarish Maharaj. Actually this this point of ekānta or ekāntatā bhakti very very strongly was propounded by the Rāmānujas and Sri sampradāya. They're very fanatical about this.
So much so that they, you know, they're so chaste towards the Lord because they are following Sri. And Sri is Lakshmi. Sri is the goddess of fortune who is the spouse of Nārāyaṇa. She is supremely chaste.
So they are developing the same mood as uh goddess of fortune Sri being chased to Nārāyaṇa and there's so much so fanatical about this that uh you know they they even don't go to to the temples of Lord Shiva.
Like in in Kanchi, there is Shiva Kanchi and Vishnu Kanchi, this holy place, Kanchipuram, is divided into two parts, and in one part there is only Shiva temples and another part there are Vishnu temples.
So these Vaishnavas who live in the Vishnu Kanchi they would never go to Shiva Kanchi. They would not cross the border. They would consider themselves unchaste if they would go to the part of the city
which is devoted to Lord Shiva. Not to speak about going to the temple of Lord Shiva. For them it's Mahā-aparādha because uh for them it's kind of hint or uh you know intention to take something from somebody else.
They will not take anything from anyone else. Like in Śrī Sampradāya there is the story about Ambarīṣa Mahārāja and once Ambarīṣa Mahārāja was worshiping the Lord, Lord Krishna, and Lord Krishna wanted to test him.
He wanted to see his you know sincerity. And Ambarīṣa Mahārāja was praying and praying and praying to the Lord, and then the Lord Nārāyaṇa himself he took the shape of Indra and Garuda took the shape of Airāvata.
So the Lord came in front of Ambarīṣa Mahārāja and Ambarīṣa Mahārāja was doing prostrations and he saw this Indra, his eyes all over the body and huge big you
know Airāvata wild elephant and Indra was sitting there very majestically and Indra said oh my dear devotee you know you're doing this fine austerity, which benediction do we want? What do we want?
Ask from me, whatever you like. And that's of course Nārāyaṇa and Garuda. And Ambarīṣa said, who are you to offer me the benediction? Why are you so obnoxious? And what is this insect on which you're sitting?
What what is this, you know, what is this cockroach he's seeing on this huge elephant, very proud of himself. This is just an insect, you know. Get out of here. I don't want to see your face, you know.
Why you have to offer me something? And then Narayan he smiled and he became Narayan and Garuda. And then Ambarīṣa said, oh sorry, this is you, my lord. From you I will take.
From this guy I will not take anything. I will not I'm not going to do this because again, uh this is This is the prerequisite to experience the sweetness of the relationship because in our relationship we have to be extremely chaste.
Therefore, Śrīla Prabhupāda explains here that the father is more attentive to the little son who is exclusively dependent on the father. Whose dependence is exclusively on the father and only to the father, and
therefore this is this mood is so important that we only want to take something from the world and we don't want to take anything from anyone else.
Material duality and fear of death
Because actually, this is the problem when the unchastity of our consciousness is actually the problem of our material conditioned existence.
Śrīla Prabhupāda beautifully explains in this next purport of the next verse. It's such a beautiful purport. It's a short, but the whole essence of our philosophy is within this little short purport.
He says that because of our consciousness or our mind is unchaste because we are living in this world of duality. And ultimately this is the root cause of all the problems.
And the duality is coming from this original duality. This world is split into the spirit and matter. And everything else, all other kinds of duality is coming from this original split.
And ultimately there is this duality of birth and death. The death is the natural consequence of this original duality and
because we are living in this world of death because the eternal spirit soul is living in the world of dead matter and because the eternal spirit soul voluntarily made himself a slave of matter, we are destined to die.
And because we are destined to die, we are always and uh we're always suffering in this material world. There is no peace, there is no happiness. And we're destined to die.
And the only way to be protected from death, or from this duality, from this original duality, from this attachment to matter, to death, that matter, is uh the surrender to the Lord.
Uttara, she's pitifully crying. You know, you can even almost hear her voice. She's saying: Pāhi pāhi mahā-yogin pāhi pāhi prateka Pāhi pāhi mahā-yogin deva-deva jagat-pate nānyaṁ tvad abhayaṁ paśye.
She says, "No, I don't see anyone else who can make me feel this. I don't see. I don't see anyone else. Yatrāmṛtyu-parasparam in this world of mṛtyu, of this world of death, the duality is spread all over the place.
You know, nobody else can save me from this duality and from this fear of death only you devadeva jagatpate you are the you're the lord of the lords you are the lord of the universe pahi pahi you're the mystic you can save me with all your mystic powers and this is this is the sincere prayer of surrender which is coming from this heart.
You can always almost feel what she feels. Nobody can save me from this. And this is the main thing which we have to be saved.
And nobody else, there is no one else, no one else in this world who can save us from this duality. But the condition, the prerequisite to be saved from this duality is to be surrendered. And this is what we don't want.
We want to be saved, but we don't want to be surrendered. Because again, we are conditioned, uh, to to be the master of the Lord.
In the dual world, you know we we want we want to eat the cake and to have it, as they say in English, you know, we want the benefits of being in both worlds.
We yes, we want to be safe, we want to be peaceful, we want to be happy, but at the same time we want to be the Lord of this world.
Śrīla Prabhupāda says in this dual world, everyone is falsely trying to become the master of the Lord. Whereas the absolute world, everyone is the Lord, is the absolute Lord, and all others are his absolute servitors.
So this is the problem and this is the hindrance why we cannot surrender. After being I myself have been trying to practice this Krishna consciousness for 20 plus years, 24 years,
and I still see very clearly in my heart this desire not to surrender to the Lord. Because why? Just because I do not want to be the absolute servitor. Because still the desire to lord it over remains in the heart.
You know sometimes we think that surrender is just you know I surrendered. You know, 24 years ago I surrendered. Forget it. I didn't surrender. I'm trying to surrender.
And this fear, actually, what is explained here when the devotee has complete faith in the Lord, he doesn't have any fear. But when the devotee doesn't have this complete faith in the Lord, then he is fearful.
Overcoming the psychological fear of surrender
And why do we not want to surrender? Why is it so difficult? We should ask this very important question ourselves. Why is it so difficult for us to surrender? Because we are afraid. Proud.
We are proud, but we are also afraid that we lose control. Because we want to be controllers. And if we surrender to the Lord, it means surrender to the Lord means we are not controllers anymore.
And you know, who knows what he will do with us, right? If we're totally not in control. And this is of course ridiculous. This is totally ridiculous proposition.
Like I was recently listening to a lecture of uh Pridananda Prabhu and this lecture, he says, you know, our desire to control is something like you know you're flying on a jet plane.
And the jet plane somehow or other goes down, crashes, you know, and in this moment you're you're holding your you know your um how you how you say this in in this and you're you're trying to pull it up right you know the jet is is crashing down and you're trying to save yourself by pulling out the handles in your seat.
So this is this is our situation. We are totally helpless in this world. We were not in control in this world. But still subconsciously we're fearful to lose the control.
In other words, there is a very interesting explanation of this. Philosophically, we accept the Lord, but psychologically we are not accepting Him. Philosophically, we're not atheists. Atheists.
We're not, you know, following the atheistic philosophy, so to speak, but psychologically we're still atheists.
Psychologically we still want to be in control psychologically. We still want to be the lords of this material nature. Whatever little control we can have, we still hope. We still don't want to surrender.
Don't want to surrender to the Lord, don't want to ask Him for the protection. And this can go on for a long time. Like it's somehow or other it's very difficult for us because we're still self-centered.
To be surrendered to the Lord means to put the Lord in the center. You know, and we don't want it. Because we like to be the center still, somehow or other.
We want to be, of course, you know, because we are devotees and we worship the Lord and we try to worship the Lord, yeah, he's somewhere there in our life.
If you take that uh you know normal people or so to speak, normal religious people, uh uh There is not even question uh in their agenda to surrender to the Lord completely.
Thank you to Śrīla Prabhupāda. He explains this in very clear terms so that we will not be able to escape this philosophy. At least theoretically we understand what's wrong with us.
But we have to understand this very clearly because in the mundane religions there is not this clear conception and the people what they do what is mundane religion
mundane religion basically means that the Lord is an aspect of your life right the religion is the aspect of our life.
I have my life and I have my job and I have my business and I have my wife and I have my religion, right? So the religion is one aspect of my life.
But to be surrendered to the Lord means that we become the aspect of Lord's life. That's a completely different ball game. You know, it's not that the Lord is aspect of my life.
I have to be, I have to become the aspect of his life. He has to be the center of my life as well. And I am just one aspect of his enjoyment, of his life. That's what it means to be absolute servitor.
Absolute servitor means that he is absolute lord and I am absolute servitor. An absolute servitor means I'm not in control at all. Whereas we don't want this.
We still want, we still envious to a certain extent even though theoretically we accept the Lord but still we want to be somewhere you know we want
to have the Lord somewhere in our life, we have this and this and that and now we also have Kṛṣṇa, yeah.
Pandably beginning there, they're very conveniently standing there, and sometimes we just you know close the curtain and that's it. You know, they're there and they're here. No problem. So this is this is what it is.
Whereas to live as the Lord as the person and constantly surrender to him, it's very difficult. You know, like sometimes people they have these deities at home.
And to have deities at home, you know, it means that you have person at home. And to have person at home means to surrender to him and means to, you know, if you have a wife at home.
It basically means that you have to surrender to your wife, right? Because to live together with somebody means to take into consideration his desires. Why people have such a difficult time to live with each other.
Because you have to take into consideration somebody else's desires. You know, and this is difficult because I have my desires. And to live with the Lord means to take into consideration his desires, right?
But you know, but we have a very good device there. We have the curtain, you know, so we don't want to see him but not want to have him so close to us. We just close the curtain and that's it.
He's just one aspect of my life. But to be surrendered, which is that's why it's so difficult. To be surrendered means you know he is the center, and I'm absolute servitor. And that's what's so difficult.
To be absolute servitor, to be servitor to a certain extent, it's okay. When I'm a servitor, yeah, it's fun. I serve a little bit and then I go on vacation. I don't serve anymore.
But to be the absolute servitor is tough, is difficult. And that's basically the struggle. That's the problem and that problem can persist for years and years and years and we don't actually want to surrender ourselves.
Where the devotional service means that we have to surrender, that we have to try to surrender practically every day, every moment of our life. It's our chance, it's our choice whether we want to be surrendered or not.
And of course sometimes Krishna he arranges the situation where we have to be surrendered, like in this situation, where we have no other choice uh than uh to be surrendered to the Lord.
King Muchukunda and Kalayavana's destruction
And in this way, you know there is this um it it it's interesting actually. It's an interesting I was thinking about it because the other day Srivananda Sadasiv asked me about this Muchikunda and King Kalayavna.
So I was reading this pastime and I was thinking about this pastime. And there's a very interesting uh purport to this story because Muchukunda he was the brother of Ambarish Maharaj.
And as I told, Ambarish Maharaj was totally, completely surrendered to the world. But Muchukunda, greedy audience, he was.
And being the brother of Umbarish Maharaj still it seems like he had to undergo little training from the Lord, a little lesson from the Lord.
So the story about Muchukunda was that once Lord Indra asked him to come to heaven to fight with the demons.
And Muchukunda was fighting and fighting and fighting and fighting and fighting with the demons and finally you know Kārtikeya appeared and Kārtikeya took part in the fighting and Muchukunda wanted to retire.
He was so tired, you know.
This devotional service is too heavy and this is you know it's a struggle and you know you have to fight and fight and fight with demons who are around you to protect your right from devotional service and sometimes you're tired like anything.
So Indra wanted to give the benediction to Muchukunda.
But somehow Muchikunde was a little you know suspicious about this benediction because sometimes people, they do give benedictions in order to, you know, to buy you and to buy your favor and you know to ask, in order to, you know, to have you again there for their service.
So this Muchikunda was was kind of you know tired. So when the demigods approached him, and Indra approached him for benediction, he said, I want to sleep. You know, give me this benediction so that I would sleep.
I have not been sleeping, I was serving so hard. I want to sleep now. And you should give me another benediction: that if somebody would disturb my sleep, I would look at him and he would be burned to ashes.
And he actually meant Indra himself. His initial intention was if you will ask me again to come, then you better not do this because if you wake me up, I will look at you, if you disturb me in the sleep,
I will look at you and will be burned. So you give me this benediction so that I have protection from my further service. And sometimes you know we also can f we feel something like this
because in fact the devotional service is the struggle. It's a glorious struggle when we have to really surrender ourselves, when we have to develop these bodily qualities, when we have to try to really completely
totally get rid of our foolishness, which is the main hindrance for our surrender. And the foolishness is the result of our sinful activities because we are so sinful, because we
still have these sinful tendencies, you know, long cherished sinful tendencies within the heart. Therefore we become foolish. And this foolishness uh does not give us the chance to surrender completely.
Like Krishna also himself says, that you can only conquer over the lust within your heart. The only possible means of conquering over the lust within your heart is to have the higher intelligence which is guiding you.
Because your intelligence is not strong enough. Your intelligence is dull. Being sinful as we are, we are becoming dull. And because we are dull, because we are so foolish, we cannot really surrender to the Lord.
So and sometimes you know because we're struggling with this foolishness,
with all this impediments, with all this anarthas which we love so dearly, you know, we love each and every anartha which is within our heart because it's mamatā, you know, it's mamatā, this is my pride, this is my lust.
How can I, you know, give it up? It's mine. I love it. That's part of me. So sometimes we become really tired of this problem, and sometimes we think, would it be nice to sleep for a long time.
Would it not be nice, you know, to stop all this useless struggle, you know, because it's anyway, you know, somehow or other, despite of all this struggle, you know, it's not getting better you know the same problems are there in the heart but it's not because of despite of my struggle it's despite of my laziness you, know, they're there because we're not determined enough to get rid of them.
Anyway, sometimes we have this desire, why don't I sleep? You know, for a long time. You know, sometimes I feel like this, you know, get up for a long time, every day, this is too much. I have to sleep.
And if somebody disturbs me, then I will show him. him. You know, if somebody dares to disturb me from my sleep, this is actually, uh, this is the philosophy of Buddhism.
This is actually uh this is the philosophy of Buddhism. The philosophy of Buddhism because they're so tired, tired of being the person and tired of being imperfect person. They want to become nothing.
And to become nothing, you cannot become nothing. You're already something. And you cannot get rid of your something-ness. Nobody can kill you, even God Himself. Of course, maybe He can, I don't know.
But you're already created as a soul, as a part of God. You know, to kill yourself means you have to kill God. Because you are a part of God. You cannot really get rid of your eternal quality.
But sometimes people being tired of struggling in this world they want
And this is Buddhistic philosophy, I want to become nothing, you know, śūnya, oh, maṇipadme hūṁ, oh, you are who is the, you know, the jewel of my heart.
I don't know what they mean by this, but basically they want to become nothing. So this Mucukunda, he was in this situation, you know, to become nothing. nothing.
And then Krishna, he's very intelligently thinking how to help his devotee and how to help the demon who is harassing him.
At the same time, you know, for a long time this Mucukunda was sleeping in the cave many, many, many, many years and hundreds of years, and actually what happened to him, one cause of his frustration was that while he was fighting for the demigods on the heavenly
planets, so long time passed here on the earth, and therefore all his relatives died.
And he thought, you know, I was, I was fighting for this Indra day and night, and, uh, besides that all my relatives and all my friends died. What will I do here on the earth?
So he, he said, give me this vara, I want to sleep, you know, I want to be in this cave for a long time.
And he was sleeping for a long time. But Krishna also knows that within his heart he's a great devotee. He's the brother of Ambarishma Raj. He's he's a great devotee, but he somehow rather he had this foolish idea that they want to sleep.
And sometimes this is for us also, because we do not want to surrender to the world.
We prefer to be placed in this psychological condition of sleep of tamas or whatever, you know, this is different games which we play with the Lord.
Sometimes we are in Hare Krishna temple and sometimes we chant Hare Krishna for years. And at the same time, w we're not, you know, we don't have time. We're so busy, you know, we're so busy sleeping in this world.
We don't have time to really analyze what is going on within our heart. We don't have time to really think about Krishna, about his past times. We're busy, we're serving Krishna.
We're so busy serving Krishna that we forget about Krishna altogether totally. You know, this computer and this and that and internet.
You know, internet is such an important thing that you can't see it in front of this screen 24 hours a day.
Some people even die from hunger and thirst because they are totally oblivious of their physical existence being absorbed in this internet which is the big huge cobweb of you know that the cobweb has a special quality accumulates the dust, accumulates the dust so this internet is just huge cobweb you know which accumulates the mental dust of of this creation and
we are you know we are surfing in this map. And this is all of course for the service of Krishna, right? So that's the point.
Sometimes instead of really serving Krishna, the name of serving Krishna by sleeping and we want to sleep. And we also have the benediction.
You know, if somebody disturbs our sleep we will burn into ash. If somebody comes to us and says, you know, come on, get up. What are you doing here sleeping? You should try to surrender to the world.
We say, no, no, Prabhu, you know, I have this special benediction. You better watch out. I will now, you know, burn you to ash. So what happened next in the meantime?
This Kalayavana and this uh this barbarian king from from from the forest, he was worshipping Lord Shiva.
And because he was worshiping Lord Shiva, Lord Shiva came, he was a rival of Yadu, family, Yadu dynasty. He wanted to conquer over Yadu.
So he asked Lord Shiva, yes, my desire is: give me the benediction that I will conquer over whoever is from Yadu dynasty. And well, Lord Shiva said, tathastu, tathastu, yeah, no problem.
You conquer over whoever is from Yadu dynasty. So this king Kalayavna became so happy and so proud about it and he immediately challenged Krishna. Immediately went to Madhura and said, hey Krishna, here I am, you know.
And Krishna he of course he led away. And then you know when the Kalayama came again, Krishna, he saw Krishna. And Narada Muni explained to him how Krishna looks like.
And Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam describes how Krishna was beautiful, how he was beautiful.
He had these curly hairs and hairs and you know big eyes and long arms and he had four arms and this Kalayaman was looking at this Krishna and instead of surrender to him instead of really totally surrender to him and he said, you know, that must be him.
This is how Narada Muni described him. Narada Muni said he had four arms and this guy also had four arms. Now, you know, if you see somebody with four arms, at least you have to be a little suspicious, maybe he's God.
But this guy said, no, I will chase him, I will kill him. And in Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam with this specifically said that even though he saw the Lord,
he had this the same foolishness in the heart because of being sinful. The past sinful activities didn't give him the chance to surrender to the Lord, even though he saw him face to face. He didn't want to.
He just he started chasing the Lord. He said, I come here, we will fight. I have the benediction of Lord Shiva. And the Lord, being so humble, you know, he wanted to fulfill the benediction of Lord Shiva.
So he was he was running away from this guy, from this fool, and this fool is chasing him and saying, I stop, let's fight. And he was actually very proud. He saw that the Lord doesn't have any weapons.
So he decided, I will also give up my weapons, because I anyway have this benediction to conquer over him. So he was running, running, running.
And the Lord, you know, he came to this cave and he hid himself in the cave and this, you know, Kalayama he became brilliant. He said, you know, she's trying to hide from me in this cave.
And he came within the cave, and because he didn't see the Lord so clearly before, the Lord was far away.
He was just, you know, sometimes he would disappear, sometimes he would appear somewhere on the horizon. So he saw some big figure laying there. He thought that must be the Lord.
And he came and he said, you know, you guys, you you you were running from me, I'm tired, and now here you are sleeping. You know, he was really, really indignant, you know. He he made me so tired and now he is sleeping, you know. So he approached the Lord and he kicked him.
Oh, sorry, he approached the Muchukunda who was sleeping there and he kicked him. And of course Muchukunda is slowly, slowly because, for a long time he was sleeping there.
He slowly opened his eyes and he looked at this Kalayavana and he said, You disturbed my sleep. Kalayavana, he felt a burning sensation all over his body, and all
Krishna's arrangement to awaken dormant devotees
of a sudden the internal fire, Vaishnava, which is there within the body, started burning and very soon he became a pile of ashes. And the Lord came to Muchukunda and smiled at him.
And of course the purport, the little purport of the story, if you are sleeping too long in your devotional service, if you're devoted at heart, but you are sleeping, the Lord will arrange for some demon to kick you up.
Some demon will come to you while you're very sweetly sleeping. And he'll kick you. And you say, you know, what are you doing here? Who do you think you are? And you will wake up.
But actually, this is the arrangement of the Lord. The Lord is arranging this to wake us up. And ultimately, if we don't want to wake up ourselves, if we don't want to surrender to the world, then something will happen.
We will wake up. Some danger will happen or something will happen and the demons will wake us up. But this is all mercy of the Lord. This is not his cruel nature.
This is his extreme compassion towards all the living entities, those foolish living entities who try to forget him by all means. And by the way, devotional service can be the means of forgetting the Lord.
Believe it or not. Like also in this chapter of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam about King Muchukunda, it is said that sometimes people harass the Lord, harass Krishna in the name of religion. And we can see it. Sometimes people do this.
Today we will show this slideshow. But it will be very clear that sometimes people they harass God on the name of religion. And sometimes people forget the Lord on the name of religion.
And sometimes people, you know, they use the religion as an excuse not to surrender to the Lord.
But the real religion, Dharma Kaitava Projita, Paramanya, Matsaram Satam, you know, this kaitava dharma which is prevalent within our heart is not to surrender to the Lord under any possible excuse.
But the real religion is this religion of absolute Lord, who is the absolute Lord. And we should become His absolute servitors. At least we should try.
And if I try it, then we can be sure that the Lord will arrange something for us to help us in our attempts to surrender to Him when we will be put in the corner and we will have no other way to save ourselves.
And therefore and actually the how it manifests when we are surrendered and how we how we should know because sometimes our mind will tell us that I am so surrendered.
The mind will always tell us I am such a such an almost absolute servitor of the world. But the sign of this is that the sign of real surrender is that we always remember about the Lord.
And if we forget about the Lord, it means we're not surrendered. It means that he's still somewhere, somewhere, you know, in a back corner of our consciousness. But he's not there in the center.
And therefore, uh, Prabhupada stresses here very much in the end of the purport.
He says one cannot save himself from the cruel hands of death in the material world without having surrendered himself at the lotus feet of the Lord.
So if we want to be safe from this world of duality, from this world of death, mrtyur parasparam, which is the natural consequence of our stubborn desire to remain the master within this world.
The only means to be safe from the death is to surrender. Means to surrender our desire. First and foremost, to relinquish, to give up this desire toward it over, which is not an easy thing to do.
Accepting Krishna's mercy through others
Okay, thank you very much. Imagine about this trust it is your devotee is not taken from anybody else, only from Krishna. But uh also Krishna might give through others. How is that to be?
Yes, Krishna might give through others and if we if I understand that this is ultimately Krishna who is giving through others, that's fine. This is actually the question of our understanding.
If I understand that this is all arranged by Krishna, if we very clearly see that this is coming from Krishna, and if we see that our gratitude should go towards him, then we can take.
But if we still have this Beladrishti or separatist mentality, if we uh see Krishna and some others, you know. It's it's actually a question of how we see it.
If we see that this is coming from Krishna, yes we can take it. But whether we really see it or not, that's another question.
We can take many things for the service of Krishna and understanding ultimately that this is coming from Krishna. Actually we cannot serve Krishna. How we can serve Krishna? We cannot serve Krishna.
What we can do for Krishna? Our mind is material, our body is material, our Krishna is not material. How we can serve transcendental Lord with material things.
But the Lord, you know, He mercifully engages us in all these activities and gives us everything to elevate our consciousness. Anyway, so that's that's basically the question of our understanding.
If we understand that this is if we really understand that this is coming from Krishna, that's fine. But if we attribute any other source of it or if we try to propitiate somebody else to get something.
Like also I heard that once there was a story in ISKCON when there was one very severe demon in a guard of a priest in one of the European countries, and he was making so much trouble to the devotees.
So a special tantric yajna was performed for this priest to be quiet. And this tantric yajna works. But I don't think it's proper. I was this year I was in Kerala. Kerala is a very traditional state.
Of course it's one of two states in India where the communist rule. That's not very traditional. But still, the culture is very much, the original Vedic culture is very much there.
And the part of this culture is actually Atharva Veda, or Yajur Veda practice, no Atharva Veda, sorry, Atharva Veda practices which describe the black magic and they are very
much in the in the customs among the people and they have these temples of Kutichatan. Kuti means small and chat means chatn means the spirit and this different different kutichakas, basically it's some kind of evil spirit
who you can employ for your own service and he can do some dirty work for you. If you please him with your little puja here and there you can sacrifice him little you know hand or whatever little
something you give him and then and then there is a special tantric process for this.
And uh they you know these temples they have the whole list of all different services that this particular Kutichatan can do for you. He can kill your enemy, he can you know he can destroy his business, he can you know this the service is with different, you know, with the it's uh priceless.
What they can do for you and what is the price, what kind of puja you should do.
So and the custom among the people there in Kerala, you know, if they have some problems, some material problems which they want to solve, they go to one Kutichatan temple and they say this is my enemy, please take care of this enemy, you know, and uh this is your puja.
But the problem is that the enemy goes to another temple and he has the protection of another Kutichatan. He pays something and then two Kutichans they start fighting with each other and whoever is more...
It's like you know it's like mafia, you know, if you want protection, you're doing some business, you go to one mafia group and you say you please protect me and take care of my uh competitor. Your competitor goes to another mafia and then the mafia they start fighting with each other.
So it's basically the same principle. You can go to Kutichan, you can go to Mafia.
But as devotees we shouldn't go to Mafia neither we should go to Kutichatan, even though it may sound as a very practical proposition, but we should not do this. Actually I was tempted to do this.
Once we were driving in the road and it was beautiful temple and um I was driving with somebody who was making pictures and filming and he said, let's go, this is a beautiful temple.
And then when we came, they found out that this is Kutichatan's temple. It's a beautiful, very sättvik kind of place, very clean. And then this Viṣṇu-māyā his name was. He supposedly the son of Lord Shiva and some and Lord Shiva had some romantic affair with some lady, tribal lady, so the son was anyway, I don't know.
So so when I was working he was, you know, filming and you know making pictures, you know, very excitedly.
And I I started speaking with the head priest and the head priest he opened his you know price list and he said, What do you want? This is what we can do for you. This is this magic cost.
And immediately I remembered about all this strange people which were trying to make problems for the Krishna temple many more. For some time I entertained this, but then I decided no. This is not proper.
We should not do this. We should we should only ask Krishna for protection. And in our purpāri further and the first prayer of Queen Kunti will be there.
Actually before the first when Queen Kunti approaches Krishna, she is called Sati. Sati means chaste, chaste woman. And Prabhupāda gives a long purport to this verse explaining this very point of sati.
And he said there in this purport that she is called chaste, not because she was chaste to Pāṇḍu, but because she was chaste to Kṛṣṇa. And her chastity to Krishna was exactly on this point because she
was not asking for protection from anyone else. She was only asking the Lord for protection, not anyone else. Sometimes he says that if the body didn't ask for protection, he knows already,
he just tried to use this, uh, how is this, you know, it depends. It very much depends on the on our devotion to the Lord. Sometimes we don't even, uh, want to ask the to bother the Lord about the protection, but actually
because it is said, anyābhilāṣitā-śūnyam, we're not coming, we're performing bhakti for protection. But in fact, it is explained if you do ask for protection,
it's not in a special circumstances, it's not a disturbance for bhakti, it doesn't disturb the pure nature of your bhakti. And in fact we can see that Vrindavan
devotees, they went the fire is there, they run into Kṛṣṇa and they say, Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa, mahābhi-sāra, save us, save us, so there's nothing wrong with this, and
we should not be too, you know, too much, of course we shouldn't, uh, ask the Lord for some petty things, but if we're really in the circumstances where there is no other way, we can ask the Lord, please protect us from whatever.
But we shouldn't bother him otherwise. We should try to serve rather than get something from him. But for protection we can ask him.
Exclusive dependence shown by Srivasa Thakura
Yeah, okay. Well, so there are these two limbs of surrender, which is considered a goptṛtva and a tṛtīya, and the one to consider. is the difference?
The difference is that ākiñcanya also means that you only ask the Lord to save you. You only ask the Lord for protection. And even more elevated limb of surrender is that for maintenance you also only ask for the Lord.
Maintenance means goptṛtve, goptā. Goptā means protector. And goptṛtve means you're totally dependent in your maintenance.
It basically means that, and basically means that you know that everything which is coming for you is also coming from the Lord. Protection means some special circumstances, more or less, right?
Because you know, in normal circumstances we may not need protection. Of course, we always need protection from the forgetfulness of the Lord.
But um Goptia Varanam Tathan means that he's the only one who gives me a Vaisikha. I know that. Whatever I get I get from him. It it's this special limp of surrender. And this is this was manifested by Śrīvāsa Ṭhākura.
You know the story in Caitanya-bhāgavata when Lord Chaitanya came to him and said, Śrīvāsa, how do you maintain yourself? You're supposed to be begging and I never seen you begging. You know, how come you're still alive?
And how is that your family still alive? Because I've never seen you earning any anything. And he was like who said, I don't know how, but somehow well it's all coming without me even begging.
And it just goes like this, if I need something, I go like this. One, two, three. And Lord Chaitanya asked, what is it does it mean? One, two, three. He said, yeah, just do like this. One, two, three.
And if uh on the third count, the thing which I need doesn't appear, I would go to Ganges and I will drown myself. That's it. But so far I didn't have to do it because it would appear. One, two, three.
But that's his exclusive dependence.
And the Lord himself that Lord Chaitanya was so pleased with him with his surrender. He said, I'm not going to bother about myself, you know, I'm I'm serving the Lord and everything else which I need will come automatically.
And Lord Chaitanya was so pleased, he said, then there will be an extreme situation of hunger, so much so that the goddess Lakshmi will have to go with begging bowl all over the place, asking for little rice.
Even in this situation you will be okay, Śrīvāsa. Even when goddess Lakshmi will have to beg you will not feel any need in in the material situation. So that's that's what it means.
The story of Akbar and Birbal
Render means we know everything comes from the Lord. Yeah, in your lecture you said more about the yes man. Yeah, I quoted you so
what that what does it mean Maharaj that means you you must uh We must come to Krishna and say Krishna from now on I am your yes man. Yeah. But in general yeah you cannot be like a yes man.
Oh you to the Lord you are a yes man. But uh in fact you know the story about Akbar and Birbal. Right? You know the story? No, I I heard many stories. A story about about Bhimgum, about Grijal.
Once Akbar was sitting and he had a very nice mood. Somebody brought him, you know, fried brinjals or eggplants. And he was eating. And he and Birbal was there. And he started glorifying brinjal.
So the eggplant is the best vegetable. It's so tasty and it sucks so much ghee inside and it's uh it's the best possible and it's also healthy. It gives you so much energy because you eat it and it feels so excited.
And he asked Birbal, Birbal, what do you think? And he said, Your Majesty, you're right. Eggplant. And he started glorifying eggplant. Eggplant is the best vegetable that is.
And you know, he gave even more elaborate explanation how it's the best and all these nutritious values and all these minerals which are there and vitamins and everything
so and everything was fine and the next day uh Akbar had another mood and he said, you know, this brinjal, this eggplant is useless, you know, there's such a useless, useless vegetable, you know, it's not healthy at all.
You know, why do they bring it every day to me? And he asked Birbal, Birbal, what do you think about this?
And Birbal said, Your Majesty, you're right, this eggplant is the worst possible vegetable that is, you know, it's unbelievable how they dare to bring you every day this, you know, low-class vegetable, this is ridiculous,
you know, and then Akbar asked, my dear Birbal, how come yesterday you glorified brinjals and you said that this is the best vegetable and so much nutritious value and vitamins and minerals, and now you said this is completely useless.
And Birbal, he folded his hands and he said, My Majesty, Your Majesty, I am your servant, I'm not the servant of brinjal. I'm not the servant of eggplant. I'm your servant. But whatever you say, I will say yes.
It doesn't matter for me. So sometimes it's it's good to develop this mood to be a yes man. It means that you know basically it means whatever Krishna does for me, I say yes, I say thank you.
And today he does something with me, and tomorrow he may say something, you know, today he glorifies me.
And if at this moment of glorification I dare to think that this is because of my glorious qualities, the next day he can push me totally down. And then if when he glorifies me I say, yes, Krishna, you're right.
And when he pushes me down, I say, Krishna, no, today you're wrong. That means that you're not his servant, it means that something is wrong. So whatever happens to you, you have to say to Krishna yes.
And as far as others are concerned, you don't have to be yes man for others, but if you are the servant, if you are in the position of the servant, position of the servant means you're yes-man, you're sage, you know, and
if you if you're surrendered servant, then you have to be S-Man. If you're not a servant, that's also fine. Then you don't have to be S-Man. But then where is the truth? The truth? Yeah. The truth is that Krishna is God.
But in general, then where is the truth? The truth is that, see, we cannot surrender directly to Krishna. We have to surrender to Krishna by surrendering to our spiritual master, by surrendering to so many other things.
And if we see and that this is all Krishna, I mean different manifestations of Krishna. Like they have also to surrender to the king.
It is said in the Vedas that, you know, the king is naradeva. He is the manifestation of God, right? It is also said in the Vedas that atithi-bhagavan, right? If the guest comes, you have to surrender to the guest.
You know, if the guest knocks at your door at midnight, you have to get out and you and therefore he's called atithi. Atithi means he comes not in time. He comes in a strange time.
So you have to get out and you have to serve him until he's totally satisfied. Because this is the Lord. To serve him means you know you do whatever he likes. You're totally yes man at this particular moment. Why?
Because this is the way for you to rehearse your surrender to the Lord.
In other words, in this world there are different positions of authority or different positions of power or whatever, manifestation, different manifestations of the Lord, and you have to surrender to Him, not only to the Lord.
Because sometimes people being stubborn and being insisting of remaining stubborn, they say, I will only surrender to the Lord, I will not surrender to anyone else.
And this is it, this is not a good excuse because the system of the Lord is that you have to surrender to so many different levels of authority which are manifestation of Krishna.
You know, the president or whoever it is, prime minister of Sweden, he is narrative. -> he is an instrument. You have to consider him as a narrative. -> You have to consider him as an instrument.
He may be militar, he may be a mlecha, he may be womanizer, -> He may be militaristic, he may be a mlecchha, he may be a womanizer, but still we have to surrender to him according to the Vedic tradition.
Because who put him on this position of Prime Minister? Who did itid was it Swedish people? -> Who did it, was it Swedish people? No. No, it's ultimately Krishna. Krishna put him in this position.
And you have to surrender to him. So if Krishna put somebody else over you, you just say yeah, I'm your servant, I'm your yes man.
I mean I'm not the yes man of Brinjal, I'm your yes man. -> I mean I'm not the yes man of everyone, I'm your yes man.
But in Bhagavad then uh if uh the king or if somebody Oh yeah, if he goes astray, yeah, yeah, of course there is this.
If he harasses Brahmanas, if he if he violates the course of behavior, yes. -> If he harasses brāhmaṇas, if he if he violates the course of behavior, yes.
But it's also you see the Brahmanas in this story with King Vena for so long time they -> But it's also you see the brāhmaṇas in this story with King Vena for so long time they were tolerating him because they were respecting his position.
It's not that you know he did something little and they immediately you know pronounced. No. They were trying to employ other means and then all other means didn't work. Then only they employed this means.
So that means we have the uh freedom to think about that. Yeah, we do that. Yes. We do. Okay. Anyway. Silakrabadiki. -> Śrīla Prabhupāda-kī jaya!