Srimad-Bhagavatam 6.12.7
Бхакти Вигьяна Госвами · Майапур · 2012
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Invocation and verse recitation
Oṁ namo bhagavate vāsudevāya, Oṁ namo bhagavate vāsudevāya, teva sudeva, Omna Bhagavata site Narayanama Sritya Srita Naramcha Narotam Didim sarasvati, ta tu dja mu draje, nashta praje šwadrišu, Mitya Bhagavat Syvaya,
Bhagavatam Sloki, Bhakti Rhati Nishtiki Yam prabrajantama nopetam paita krityam dvaypayana virahakatara Juhava, Utretitan Mayatayo Taravobinedustamsarvabu Thridayamuni Manatos Me. Hare Krishna.
So I was asked to speak on a topic of the qualities of a leader. And I, because there are so many different qualities of a leader, I decided to speak on one particular quality of a leader, that is determination.
And for this matter we pick it up the verse from the sixth canto of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, 12th chapter, Vritrasura's Glorious Death. Text number 7.
Eyutam, Iutam, Kutrachi, Krai, Atataiam Jaya Sada Eva Eva Oh sorry Ekatra Ekatra Na V paraatmanam vinam ekam putpati laya stiti ishwaram sarvagjam adjam purusamatanam Yayam kutrachi ta tayanam, Yay satam kutrachi ta tainam, sam. Jaksadaikatra navai paratmanam, ja sadai katramai paratmanam. Vinaika mut pati laya stiti shwaram, patilaya sti swaram, dinākamut pati laya stiti shwaram, Sarva Gamadam Purusham Sanatanam Purucham, Sarva Gamadam Purucham Sanatanam, Iutam Kutrachitadatainam, Djayat Sadhai Katranavai Paratmanam Saipatam, Vinayka Mut Pati la stihwaram, sarva gamadjam purucham sanataman. Next yutta prachitatainam, yutam Pyuttam putka chitatinam, sana, jayasadaikantra na vaiparatmana.
Pati layastatisparam, laikamupati layastatisvaram, samagyamadhyampur shamsanatana Ladies Der Sai Sadamadam Sadam Yuyod Satam of those who are belligerent Kutrachitrachi sometimes Atatainam Armed with Weapons Jay Victory Sada
always in one place of the subordinate living entities who work only under the direction of the super soul Vinana accept Ekam One Hotpati of the Creation Laya Laya Annihilation st and maintenance Ishwaram the
controller Sarvagyam who knows everything. Past, present and future. Past, present, future. Adyam the original. Purusam Enjoyer Sanatana
Verse translation and purport on duty
Eternal Translation. Vritasura continued. Oh Indra, no one is guaranteed of being always victorious, but the original enjoyer, the supreme personality of Godhead, Bhagavan.
He is the cause of creation, maintenance, and annihilation and he knows everything. Being dependent and being obliged to accept material bodies, belligerent subordinates, are sometimes victorious and sometimes defeated.
Purport by His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada. The Lord says in Bhagavad-gītā, Sarvasya cāhaṁ hṛdi sanniviṣṭo... mattaḥ smirir jñānam apohanaṁ ca.
I am seated in everyone's heart, and from me come remembrance, knowledge and forgetfulness. When two parties fight, the fighting actually goes
under the direction of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, who is Paramātmā, the Supersoul? soul? Elsewhere in the Gītā the Lord says: just doesn't work. Just doesn't work.
prakṛteḥ kriyamāṇāni guṇaiḥ karmāṇi sarvaśaḥ, that mark at the hand that head. The bewildered spirit soul under the influence of the swimmers of material nature seems itself the doer of materials.
That are an actuality carried out by nature, the living edit entingity works only under the direction of the Supreme Lord. The Lord gives orders for material nature and she aren't his facilities for the living entities.
The living entities are not independent, although they foolishly think themselves as truly. Victory is always with the Supreme Personality of God as for
the support of the living entities they file under the arrangements of the Supreme Personality or Victory or defeat is not actually theirs.
It is an arrangement by the Lord through the agency of material nature. Pride in victory or moroseness in defeat is useless.
One should fully depend on the Supreme Personality of Godhead who is responsible for the victory and defeat of all living entities. The Lord advises: Nityam kuru karma tvam karma jyāyoh akarmanas hy akarmanah.
Perform your prescribed duties for action is better than inaction. The living entity is ordered to act according to his position. Victory or defeat depends on the Supreme Lord.
Karmāṇy evādhikāras te mā phaleṣu kadācana. You have a right to perform your prescribed duties, but you are not entitled to the fruits of action. One must act sincerely according to his position.
Victory or defeat depends on the Lord. Vritrasura encouraged Indra, saying, Don't be morose, because of my victory. There is no need to stop fighting. Instead, you should go on with your duty.
When Krishna desires, you will certainly be victorious. This verse is very instructive for sincere workers in the Krishna consciousness movement. We should not be jubilant in victory or morose in defeat.
We should make a sincere effort to implement the will of Krishna, or Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, and we should not be concerned with victory and defeat.
Our only duty is to work sincerely so that our activities may be recognized by Krishna. Śrīla Prabhupāda. So I will also read the translation So
the previous verse says: Having dropped the thunderbolt from his hand in the presence of his enemy, Indra was practically defeated and was very much ashamed. He dared not pick up his weapon again.
Vritrasura, however, encouraged him, saying, Take up your thunderbolt and kill your enemy. This is not the time to lament your fate.
And this verse says, Vṛtrāsura continued: O Indra, no one is guaranteed of being always victorious, but the original enjoyer, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Bhagavan.
He is the cause of creation, maintenance, and annihilation. And he knows everything.
Being dependent and being obliged not to accept material bodies, belligerent subordinates are sometimes victorious and sometimes defeated.
Nama oṁ viṣṇu-pādāya kṛṣṇa-preṣṭhāya bhū-tale śrīmate bhaktivedānta-svāmin iti nāmine. Namaste sārasvate deve gaura-vāṇī-pracāriṇe nirviśeṣa-śūnyavādi-pāścātya-deśa-tāriṇe. vāñchā-kalpatarubhyaś ca kṛpā-sindhubhya eva ca patitānāṁ pāvanebhyo vaiṣṇavebhyo namo namaḥ. kripa-sindhubhya eva cha patitanam pavanebyo vaishnavebhyo namo namah. Jaya Sri Krishna Chaitanya Prabhu Nityananda Sri Advaita Gadadhara Srivasadi Gaura-bhakta-vrinda. Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare.
Ajanulambita-bhujakah. Kirtanam, first of all, I would like to ask the blessings of all the senior Vaishnavas who assembled here.
Unconditional nature of devotional service
I am very humbled to speak in their presence but by their blessings I may hope to say something useful This description of the glorious death of Vritrasura is one of the lakshanas of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam.
We know that in Agni Purana it is stressed that Śrīmad- Bhāgavatam is Purana which describes the glorious deaths of Vritrasura.
So it's a specific characteristic of this particular Purana and it actually signifies the meaning of this story.
The meaning of this story is very instructive because here we see Asura, demon, who was born as a demon, who had all the habits of a demon.
He was actually not even following four regulative principles. He was a meat-eater. Not only meat eater, he was, he was eating, he was a cannibal, he was eating human beings.
But Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam glorifies Vritrasura for his devotion.
And the significance of this is that devotion or bhakti, devotional service, does not depend on our births, does not depend on our habits. It's completely, totally independent.
And this is the most valuable and the most glorious quality which one may have. And all other qualities are coming from this essential quality.
One may or may not have some other good qualities. But if he has this essential quality of bhakti, of devotion to the Lord, of complete surrender to the Lord, he is glorious.
And that's, uh, the instruction of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, that's the essential teaching of uh Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam and Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu.
And here we can see, uh, the encounter uh, of somebody, uh, who is also a devotee, Indra. You know, he's, uh, bhakta, he's a devotee, and Asura, demon, who is proving himself to be much more glorious than his enemy Indra.
In the story which is described here about the fight between Vritrasura and Indra. Vritrasura he is temporarily victorious. But not really so.
Because in the previous verses it is described that Indra by his Vajra by his divine weapon which was given to him cut off Vritrasura's right hand. The blood gushed out of Vritrasura's hand.
But despite of this, you know, can you imagine how you would feel if your right arm, right there in the battlefield, was cut off. But Vritrasura was not at all bewildered.
He just took his iron mace and he just, you know, slapped Indra in his jaw. And it was a mighty slap. So much so that Indra dropped his weapon, Vajra. And Indra became completely morose and practically defeated.
Here we see somebody with his arm cut off and he's totally completely you know confident about himself.
And Indra, who just got a little slap on his cheek and lost his weapon, and he's bewildered and he's morose. In fact, it is said there that he was dejected. He was in complete depression after this defeat.
He felt that's it. And his enemy, Vritrasura, is standing in front of him and saying: it's not time to be morose. In the previous versie specifically, he says Jahisha Jahis Vashatrum Navishada Kalaha.
He uses this Sanskrit words Navishada Kalaha. It's not proper time to be morose. You're fighting. What kind of nonsense you are?
You know, if you're fighting, it's not proper condition or frame of your mind to be morose or dejected. You have to fight.
And it doesn't matter whether you will be victorious or not. Just depend on the Supreme Personality of Godhead.
Material conditioning and cycle of defeat
And this is his instruction to Indra and to all of us. Somehow or other, as a conditioned living entities, we hope with our conditioning of uh think Thinking that we are the Supreme Lord.
We hope to be victorious all the time. We kind of count on it. It's a subconscious mentality of every living entity. We just want to be victorious. And when something goes wrong in our life, we immediately become dejected.
And because it always goes wrong, something always goes, then we always deject it. It's a normal condition. This, you know, we know that Bhagavad-gītā starts with this Arjuna Viṣāda-yoga, the yoga of dejection.
And this state of dejection, state of complete desperation, the desperate state of depression is more or less the sthāyi-bhāva of the material world.
Every living entity has this bhava or emotional mood of dejection because something always goes wrong. It's a test—this microphone is a test for my determination. Something always goes wrong. That we can be sure of.
If there is one thing we can be sure of is that something will go wrong. Something will go against our wish, against our desires, against our interest, against our understanding of how it should be.
And the reason for this is very simple: because we are not the supreme personality of Godhead. It's a very sad reason, but it's it's a very real reason.
So we can be hundred percent sure that we will not be victorious all the time. And that's exactly what Vṛtraśura is saying. He says that you are para-atma, you're dependent on others.
The very fact that we have this material body means that we are dependent. This, in fact, has been described in the story of Vṛtraśura as well, that we always depend on somebody else.
We always depend on food, we depend on air, we depend on other people. So much so that we even depend, we are always dependent even on the emotions of other people. It's amazing. Okay.
It's amazing to really understand, depend on the microphone, depend on so many stupid things.
But it's amazing to see, you know, to which extent sometimes we don't understand this and don't realize this, but it's amazing to see to which extent we are dependent.
I, somebody, you know, has some, not a very joyful mode today and he looked at us with some strange look. You know, it's enough to spoil our mood for, you know, for one week. What did he mean? What is this?
And that's that's a proof of our dependence. We're dependent on so many things, you know.
Cultivating complete dependence on Krishna
Somebody didn't say us something nice or said to us something, something which is true: that you are a fool. You know, and that's that's enough to completely destroy our stamina or our mood.
But here we see Vritrasura being the devotee. He's explaining to us what is the mentality or the mental framework of a real devotee. He says you have to understand that you're always dependent.
And if you are dependent, if you have to be dependent, if you're anyway dependent, why don't depend on the Supreme Personality who got it.
And if you depend on him, if you really establish this connection and you always depend on him and on him only, then you will be victorious.
In fact, Śrīla Viśvanātha Cakravartī Ṭhākura comments on this verse and he says that everyone will be defeated sooner or later, but just one person who is always dependent on the Supreme Personality of Godhead.
Our defeat is in fact is the consequence of our attempts to depend on others. This is a very important point of this verse.
Unless and until we are trying to depend on others. Until we have this false notion or false idea that by depending on others we will gain something in this world, we will be defeated.
In the ultimate sense of this world. We will be defeated, that's for sure. But the recipe or the formula for success in this world is to be always dependent on the Supreme Personality of Godhead.
And this dependence itself gives us a complete total determination. And as Srila Prabhupada says, we should not be concerned with victory or defeat. If we are dependent on the Supreme Personality of God, this is victory.
And if we are trying to depend on somebody else, this is the defeat. This is the definition of defeat according to Vritrasura.
And if we are only dependent on the Supreme Personality of Godhead, we can be sure in the ultimate victory. We can see how how acharyas manifest this glorious quality again and again and again.
Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura, before coming here to Navadvīpa-dhāma. He has been trying for many years. Somehow or other it didn't work.
You know, finally, when everything was prepared, when everything was ready for him to come here to Navadvīpa-dhāma, and he knew there will be some mission for him here. And so many impediments were there.
And finally, when he was about to come here, there was a severe case of malaria. For 40 days he was fasting.
And then at the end of this malaria, he wrote in his diary, so many impediments. There must be something good out of it. If there is so many impediments, there must be some good result which is coming from this.
And Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura Prabhupāda, he he gave he gave another indication of the same principle. Once Just doesn't work. It's over there. It's over there. So what shall I do?
Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura Prabhupāda, he gave this principle. He said once somebody complained to him.
See, somebody complained to him and that we are meeting so much opposition, we are preaching and so many people are opposed to our preaching work.
And Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura Prabhupāda answered this is good. This actually means that you are taking the right course, that you are in the right direction. This is the indication that you are doing something right. If there will be no opposition, it means that you are doing something wrong. So that's the mentality of a real devotee.
And we know Śrīla Prabhupāda, how many impediments did he have? And he said, My only, you know, my only achievement was that I never gave up.
We know that when he was in America he would come, you know, in the beginning years of America preaching when there was no real success, he said,
I would come often to this India steam ship office and ask when is the next ship to India? And he would come and they would say, you know, next ship is there. And he said, okay, yes, I'll take note of it.
But he never used his return ticket to India by Scindia steamship. And uh we know that ultimately this is the formula for his this was the formula for his success. He was not dependent on success.
We are dependent on this feeling of success, like Prabhupāda says in this purport, that we become very jubilant when there is success and we become very morose when there is some defeat.
But Prabhupāda and real devotee is never dependent on this feeling of victory or success. He's dependent on the Lord and he knows that everything is within the hands of the Supreme Lord.
And we are, as His servants, have to just serve. And that's it.
Prabhupada's example of transcendental detachment
And by serving Him, we are victorious. This is our victory.
And there is a very nice story which is one of my favorite stories of Śrīla Prabhupāda. I read uh this story in in an interview uh uh of uh Hari-śāstrī Mahārāja with Satsvarūpa Mahārāja when Satsvarūpa Mahārāja was um collecting uh the memories of different devotees for uh Śrīla Prabhupāda's Lilamrita.
And the stories go like this, Srila Prabhupada was in Bombay and there was a crisis in that time in the society.
And you know, three of his disciples more or less declared themselves gurus and they all had followings and followers and uh they were all very strong and charismatic and at the same time there were some problems
in Germany, the police took over the castle and there was some arms uh stored in this castle and there was a court case and, so many devotees were put in prison. So it was a crisis time.
It was a very critical time, and practically every hour some bad news would come to Srila Prabhupada. Bad letters, telegrams, you know, telex, phone calls, you know. And Prabhupada visibly was affected by this.
Visibly he was concerned by all this serious situation which is going on in the movement. And I guess then Maharaj said that every one of
us who was the entourage of Śrīla Prabhupāda was totally, completely dejected. We just, we were completely, we just didn't know what to do. It was so bad.
And then at one point Prabhupada he dismissed everyone from his room. He said, just get out of here. And the devotees they stood outside of his room wondering what he will do.
And somebody was looking in the in the little hole which was there. And what they saw, and they saw something amazing. Prabhupada lay down on the floor. Nobody was there in the room.
There was nobody to, you know, to make a show. He laid down on the floor and he started laughing. He just started laughing and laughing and laughing. And it was like you know the rose petals were pouring from the sky.
It was so beautiful and he was laughing. You know, he was completely, totally unaffected. He was happy.
As he says here in this purport, he says, you know, we should be only concerned of doing something for the Lord so that we are recognized by the Lord.
And it doesn't matter whether whether it is victory or defeat, it's really doesn't matter. It's not really substantial. It's not really important.
You know, the main thing is that we have this chance to do something for the Lord and that should be our main consideration. Everything else is not important.
And if we have this mentality, then whatever we will do, we will be ultimately successful.
As it is said in the last verse of Bhagavad Gita, Yatraya Geswara Krishna, Yatrat Parthada Nurdara, Tatra Shiva So you know Sanjay assures us that there will be victory. Don't worry about this. Victory will be there.
Don't be concerned with the victory.
Queen Kunti and true auspiciousness
Be concerned with your service because this is the most important thing which you can do. And we also know the glorious example of Queen Kunti. Usually people come to the temple and they pray to the Lord.
And what do they pray? What do they pray from the Lord? Please give us some peace. Please remove obstacles from our path. Please make me successful, please give me something.
And Queen Kunti, she's standing in front of the Lord and she's saying, please send us obstacles. Which is completely crazy. It's totally absolutely crazy. Why?
Because the devotees have a different definition of auspiciousness. Everyone comes to the Lord and everyone prays from the Lord to send him some auspiciousness to make his life auspicious. Right?
This is what the Lord is for. He has to make our life auspicious. And sometimes as devotees, we have this idea, which is actually a hidden agenda. You know, we became devotees and we're supposed to serve.
But really, we became devotee to get something from the Lord. And if He doesn't give us something, our faces are deeply fallen.
I have seen how devotees react, they say, you know, what is the use of being a devotee if the Lord doesn't help you, but in reality it means only one thing that we have uh this uh hidden motivation.
We are not devotees because we want to be devotees, because we understand that this is our constitutional position, that we will always be devotees, that we always remain servants of the Lord.
But we became devotees to more or less, you know, use the Lord to be the Lord. Use the Lord to manifest or to exercise our inclination to control and to enjoy.
And here Vritrasura, he very clearly says that it is the Lord who is Purusha. He is the enjoyer, not you. He's looking at Indra and saying, you think you are an enjoyer. Forget about it.
Your moroseness is the manifestation of this enjoyment spirit, not anything else. It's the manifestation of your desire to lord it over, to control and to enjoy.
And if you are the real servant, you have to have this complete unshakable determination just to serve and be happy because you have this chance to serve, because you can serve.
And this is the real teachings of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. So Queen Kuntī, she's praying of the same thing. She's she's saying, vipadaḥ santu tāḥ śaśvat, please give us this vipada.
And vipad in Sanskrit it means obstacle, but it also means poverty. Vipad is actually in Sanskrit is an antonym or the opposite meaning of in Sanskrit is for the word sampat. And sampat we know is wealth.
We know about Daivī Sampad and Āsurī Sampad in the 16th chapter of Bhagavad-gītā. So sampat is the wealth.
And in reality, Queen Kuntī she is saying that my sampat, my wealth, my only wealth, is the vipats which you sent to me. In other words, she gives this very amazing definition of auspiciousness.
For devotee, anything Anything which reminds him to remember about the Lord is auspicious, is devotional. And because the impediments help us remember about the Lord. This is our success. This is our happiness.
This is our fortune. Sometimes when we want to get fortune, we think that you know fortune means you know we get followers and we get wealth and we get everything. No. No.
And she's saying a very important thing about why Kṛṣṇa sometimes is so harsh to the devotees. Sometimes, you know, not sometimes. All the time. We join and we think I joined because I wanted to be peaceful.
And Prabhupāda he said this, you know, wonderful slogan: chant Hare Kṛṣṇa and be happy, right? And yes, we chant and chant and chant. Why?
Because we have this understanding that happiness means that everything is fine according to material standard.
No, you know, there's I I you know, you we chant and Kṛṣṇa sends us so many problems and we should be happy. And the more problems are there, the more happier we should become. This is the slogan of this Sangha.
More devotees, happier devotees. Happier devotees means devotees with a lot of obstacles, a lot of problems. You know, this is the hidden meaning of this slogan of Śrīla Prabhupāda, chant and be happy.
It means that Krishna will send to you impediments. For sure, don't worry about this. You don't have like Queen Kuntī to ask him to do it. He will do it. But uh but uh in reality she
explains why he is doing this, because he is jagad-guru. She is saying, what jagad-guru, or teacher of the whole world, he is teaching us this very important lesson of dependence on Him.
By sending all these obstacles, all these problems to our life, He is giving us the most essential teachings which is there.
Purpose of material miseries in growth
And once Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura Prabhupāda he in a lecture he gave a very amazing statement very important and amazing statement he said that sometimes people wonder why there are so many problems in this world? Why there are so many miseries in this world?
Why?
And he said he quoted the famous verse from the tenth canto of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam tat te 'kampaṁ su-samīkṣamāṇo bhuñjāna evātma-kṛtaṁ vipākam hṛd-vāg-vapurbhir vidadhan namas jīveta yo mukti-pāde dāya-bhāk. Mastid Jiveta Yomukti Padesadai Bhak.
And he said that the reason why there are so many problems in this world is that by encountering these problems the living entity may develop the feeling that something is lacking in his life.
And this feeling of lacking is extremely important for our spiritual development. By encountering all these problems and miseries, we can develop this feeling that something is lacking.
It means that my position is not natural. He says that normally living entities are trying to be connected with something which is limited.
And this desire to be connected with something which is limited is the source of innumerable miseries in our lives.
Our desire to be connected or to be somehow rather in contact with something limited is actually the grievous mistake which every one of us does.
But he says that by developing this feeling, Lord Krishna mercifully arrange this world in such a way that by developing this feeling that something is lacking, we may understand that what is really lacking in my life, the contact with unlimited. I am separated with this unlimited which is my natural, which is unnatural for me, and that is the reason of all my problems.
And as soon as this desire to come in contact with something unlimited becomes very strong. You know, that's the real auspiciousness. And that's why the Lord sends all these problems and uh impediments in our life and that's why that's His mercy. That's His real mercy.
His real mercy is not to give us money and followers and prestige and position and so many other nice things. In fact, this is not mercy. This is His curse.
Because there is a good chance that we will forget about Him by having all these things. And we will become proud. But He sends to us all these problems to make us humble.
And when we are humble, in this humble state of mind, we may remember about Him.
Remaining humble amidst constant challenges
And this remembrance about Him is the most auspicious thing which may happen to us.
And as leaders of this Krishna consciousness movement we have ample mercy of the Supreme Personality of Godhead in the form of unlimited problems. I know it because I'm coming from Russia.
As they say in India, from Russia. So I am from Russia. And this is the place of unlimited problems. And sometimes I think, what am I doing in this condemned place? Not sometimes, every day.
Every single day of my life I think about it because there are problems after problems after problems. You know, all you know Bhagavad-gītā court case, now there is an appeal case.
And yesterday we got the news that the deputy of prosecutor General in Russia spoke against Bhagavad-gītā. It basically means that the court case was supported or endorsed.
He came somehow or other by some coincidence. He came to Tomsk now, you know, just before this court case is about to start, this appeal court case, and he spoke again by coincidence with the journalists.
And he said, you know, that this is extremist move, you know. You know, and you know, sometimes I some not sometimes, all the time. I think will there be an end? And the answer is always the same no. It will remain the same.
But uh we have to really understand that this is the mercy, that this is real mercy. And ultimately if we manage to remain humble, to remain servants of the Lord, and to keep ourselves in this position.
The victory will come, but we will not be too much jubilant when it will come. Because the eternal joy of the soul will shine in our heart even before that.
Just by this attitude of humble service to the Supreme Personality of Godhead.
And this is the quality which naturally comes to somebody who has surrendered himself to the Supreme Personality of Godhead and we have to learn this glorious quality or this glorious manifestation of bhakti from our teachers and spiritual masters.
Thank you very much. Śrīla Prabhupāda. I guess there is no time for questions. His Holiness Bhakti Vijnana Goswami Maharaj. Sri Keshava.