19791023 Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 6.5.21

 The following is a lecture given by His Holiness Jayapatākā Swami Mahārāja on October 23, 1979 in Śrī Māyāpur dhāma, India. The lecture begins with a reading from Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam Canto Six, Chapter Five, Text Twenty-one.

nama oṁ viṣṇu-pādāya kṛṣṇa-preṣṭhāya bhū-tale
śrīmate bhaktivedānta-svāmin iti nāmine
namas te sārasvate deve gaura-vāṇī-pracāriṇe
nirviśeṣa-śūnyavādi-pāścātya-deśa-tāriṇe

śrī-kṛṣṇa-caitanya prabhu-nityānanda
śrī-advaita gadādhara śrīvāsādi-gaura-bhakta-vṛnda

Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa, Hare Hare/
Hare Rāma, Hare Rāma, Rāma Rāma, Hare Hare

Oṁ namo bhagavate vāsudevāya
Oṁ namo bhagavate vāsudevāya
Oṁ namo bhagavate vāsudevāya

nārāyaṇaṁ namaskṛtya naraṁ caiva narottamam
devīṁ sarasvatīṁ vyāsaṁ tato jayam udīrayet

mūkaṁ karoti vācālaṁ paṅguṁ laṅghayate girim
yat-kṛpā tam ahaṁ vande śrī-guruṁ dīna-tāraṇam
paramānanda-mādhavam śrī caitanya īśvaram
hariḥ oṁ tat sat

Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 6.5.21

iti vyavasitā rājan
haryaśvā eka-cetasaḥ
prayayus taṁ parikramya
panthānam anivartanam

Synonyms

iti — thus; vyavasitāḥ — being fully convinced by the instructions of Nārada Muni; rājan — O King; haryaśvāḥ — the sons of Prajāpati Dakṣa; eka-cetasaḥ — all being of the same opinion; prayayuḥ — left; tam — Nārada Muni; parikramya — circumambulating; panthānam — on the path; anivartanam — which does not bring one back again to this material world.

Translation: Śukadeva Gosvāmī continued: My dear King, after hearing the instructions of Nārada, the Haryaśvas, the sons of Prajāpati Dakṣa, were firmly convinced. They all believed in his instructions and reached the same conclusion. Having accepted him as their spiritual master, they circumambulated that great sage and followed the path by which one never returns to this world.

Purport: From this verse we can understand the meaning of initiation and the duties of a disciple and spiritual master. The spiritual master never instructs his disciple, “Take a mantra from me, pay me some money, and by practicing this yoga system you will become very expert in materialistic life.” This is not the duty of a spiritual master. Rather, the spiritual master teaches the disciple how to give up materialistic life, and the disciple’s duty is to assimilate his instructions and ultimately follow the path back home, back to Godhead, from whence no one returns to this material world.

After hearing the instructions of Nārada Muni, the Haryaśvas, the sons of Prajāpati Dakṣa, decided not to be entangled in materialistic life by begetting hundreds of children and having to take care of them. This would have been unnecessarily entangling. The Haryaśvas did not consider pious and impious activities. Their materialistic father had instructed them to increase the population, but because of the words of Nārada Muni, they could not heed that instruction. Nārada Muni, as their spiritual master, gave them the śāstric instructions that they should give up this material world, and as bona fide disciples they followed his instructions. One should not endeavor to wander to different planetary systems within this universe, for even if one goes to the topmost planetary system, Brahmaloka, one must return again (kṣīṇe puṇye martya-lokaṁ viśanti). The endeavors of karmīs are a useless waste of time. One should endeavor to return home, back to Godhead. This is the perfection of life. As the Lord says in Bhagavad-gītā (8.16):

ābrahma-bhuvanāl lokāḥ
punar āvartino ’rjuna
mām upetya tu kaunteya
punar janma na vidyate

“From the highest planet in the material world down to the lowest, all are places of misery wherein repeated birth and death take place. But one who attains to My abode, O son of Kuntī, never takes birth again.”

* * *

Jayapatākā Swami: So, here we see, the preaching of Śrī Nārada Muni, one of the original spiritual masters in our disciplic succession. Prajāpati Dakṣa had instructed his children that they must go to the forest, perform tapasya for accruing pious activities or puṇya in order to produce hundreds and hundreds of children to populate the universe but Nārada Muni instructed these sons in spiritual knowledge that their duty is not to their material father. As every birth we must have a material father and mother, even in the births of dog and cat. But since they have obtained the highly elevated human birth, even on a higher planetary system, that their responsibility is to finish up this material business and go back to home, back to Godhead.

Now Prajāpati Dakṣa, he was so angry that actually on two occasions Nārada had preached to his sons and caused all of them to give up materialistic life. That Dakṣa cursed Nārada. He cursed Nārada that, “You will not be able to remain in any place more than a few days. You will have no fixed residence.” So, of course, Nārada Muni, he took it as a boon. The curse became a boon where he had to always be on traveling saṅkīrtana to preach the message of Lord Kṛṣṇa.

The message of Lord Kṛṣṇa is such that one does not come back again to this material world, that is a special quality. So, Śrīla Prabhupāda said that when he made so many devotees in the Western world, all their parents have cursed him. Therefore, he was, although he had so many big palatial temples, he could not stay in any one temple more than maximum a week or two. Actually Śrīla Prabhupāda has so many big temples, but he always had to move.

So, in Vṛndāvana in 1977, Śrīla Prabhupāda said that he wanted that now he was transferring his curse to all of his sannyāsīs. Therefore, his sannyāsīs would have to travel and preach to take this curse from him. So, in this way we see that most of the sannyāsīs of our movement are always engaged in traveling and preaching. This is paramparā, as we can see.

The karmīs are very interested in having lots of children and in making material advancements. The more children they can have, they are thinking that this is very wonderful. One time, Śrīla Prabhupāda went to a rich man’s house in India. And the man brought forward, “This is my eldest daughter. This is my second.. my eldest son. This is my second daughter, second son, third daughter, third son, fourth daughter, fourth son, fifth daughter, sixth daughter, seventh son, eighth son.” In this way he introduced the children. “That this is my brother’s son. Brother’s daughter, brother’s second son, second daughter. This is the other brother’s son, daughter, son, daughter, son, son, daughter.” (laughter) In this way he introduced all the children and got blessings.

And then Śrīla Prabhupāda, after he left, then he asked Acyutānanda Swami, “What do you think of that? There is a big family.” He said, “Simply sex. They are showing off how much sex they have. Every child is only produced by sex. They are simply showing how much sex they are having. They are thinking the whole big family. What is a big family? Simply sex. The more sex, the more family.” So, material life simply means sex. This material life means sex. So, what did Nārada Muni tell them? He said, “You give up sex. You go out and you chant. You do your bhajana to Kṛṣṇa. You surrender to Kṛṣṇa. You do not go in for this family life.” So, they went out and they simply followed Nārada Muni’s instruction.

For this, of course, the father is very angry. This is natural. Even today, anyone wants to come to the āśrama. Generally, the parents are always angry, “Why you will join āśrama? You practice in your home. Everyone will sing. We will give you nice Deity. We will give you nice wife. You practice here and here.” Of course, in this Kali-yuga, people are so fallen that even after living in the āśrama that they are attacked by so many material desires. So rather than fall down in illicit sex, it is better to be married in Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Then there is still chance for one to make advancement. One should not be artificial.

But Nārada Muni, seeing the spiritual advancement of his disciples, the Haryaśvas, he instructed them, “Give up this.” That is up to the spiritual master to understand what is the level of advancement which his disciple can immediately accept. So, the karmīs, they are only interested in increasing material enjoyment. Increasing material enjoyment means increasing material entanglement. The more one is entangled, the more that he forgets about Kṛṣṇa. The more he forgets about Kṛṣṇa, the more he gets entangled. Therefore, it is a vicious cycle. One falls deeper and deeper into the pit of material life.

The symptom of material desire is one is very proud. He is very proud. He does not like to listen to anyone’s instructions. He does not like to surrender. He likes to remain very proud and stubborn. This is the symptom of a materialistic person. Therefore, Lord Caitanya said:

tṛṇād api sunīcena
taror api sahiṣṇunā
amāninā mānadena
kīrtanīyaḥ sadā hariḥ
[Cc. Antya 20.21]

One must become humble, tolerant, surrendered, and always chant Hare Kṛṣṇa. If one does not remain fixed up in his humble attitude, then he will fall down. The symptom of fall down is pride. Pride means one keeps to himself. He does not associate with other Vaiṣṇavas on a spiritual platform and gradually his mind takes control and the mind gives more and more nonsense ideas. And when one is chanting, he is not properly hearing. And due to his pride, he has not realized that step by step he is grasping, going away from Kṛṣṇa. Before you know it, he is completely bewildered and in Māyā. And then he starts to think about so many materialistic things. So, this is the dangerous position.

Just like we say that the spiritual path is sharp like a razor’s edge. So, here we have one line of marble stone. Mark, You can walk from that end of the veranda to here, only stepping one line of marble? From the beginning I can step, I can. No, just now if you walk from there, you can walk on this one marble. Can you walk? It is not so difficult, is it? But you just imagine that on each side of this marble there is two-thousand-foot drop. Now you walk hundred feet like between two buildings, Empire State Building. Then it becomes more critical but the same path, but it becomes more. This is actually the spiritual path.

When we say sharp is an edge. Razor’s edge means that the path is broad and straight. But if you make just broad enough to walk, just broad enough. If you walk straight you will reachbut if you go a little bit left, poof! little bit right, finished blue. Sunk in the pit of ignorance. On one side is Māyāvāda. On other side is sahajiyā, the straight is Kṛṣṇa consciousness, sahajiyā means take everything cheap thinking, “I am already great devotee,” being very careless about chanting, hearing, serving. That is sahajiyā. When one is very advanced in sahajiyā then he thinks that, “I am as good as Kṛṣṇa” and he starts to engage in illicit activities.

Māyāvādī, he also thinks, “I am Kṛṣṇa.” Everything is one, void, nirākāra, “You are God, I am God, everybody God.” This is Māyāvāda, “Why we are in māyā?” “When Māyā is removed then we become God.” This is what Māyāvādī says. “Why we are in Māyā?” They say “We are part of Brahman covered up.” “So how can part of Brahman be covered?” “Then we are a small part and Māyā is bigger because Māyā is able to cover.” “How can Māyā cover Brahman?” Therefore they are saying Māyā is God. Therefore Vaiṣṇava calls him Māyāvādī. So, this Māyāvāda, like Śaṅkarācārya and his followers, the various aṅgas, they are giving us this ekaṁ brahma ādityaḥ nāsti in a twisted version. Brahman is all, but Parabrahman Himself is Kṛṣṇa, they are saying, as ekaṁ brahma ādityaḥ nāsti, “You are Brahman.” How we are everything? In this way they make their mistake.

So, the spiritual path is straight, we can easily travel but if we make a slight mistake this way or that way by neglecting the orders of the spiritual master and Kṛṣṇa, then it is very dangerous. So, we should not think that.. we should not be careless. Just like we are walking down this tile, actually we may be careless and just step this way that way, actually on two sides is false bottom. If one missteps, finished. So, we should be very careful not to make any mistake.

So, Mahārāja Dakṣa, he was Prajāpati Dakṣa. He was very proud. Therefore, he could not understand what is the teachings of Nārada. So Nārada did not try to instruct Prajāpati Dakṣa, but he instructed his children. In the same way, often we may not preach to the parents to give up, they are too attached, pāka bā̃śa, ripe bamboo can not bend. kā̃cā bā̃śa can bend, the green bamboo. So Prajāpati Dakṣa does not, he was too far gone. Nārada did not waste time with him but his children he preached. They may be very materialistic people, but their children may be able to be brought to the path of bhakti.

The sons of India soil, they are actually being misled by their leaders, by their parents, by their teachers. Just like Prajāpati Dakṣa was actually misleading his children with materialistic ideas. Although he was telling them to do puṇya, to do good works. No doubt he is a pious man but Kṛṣṇa consciousness is beyond piety. It is beyond sin; sa guṇān samatītyaitān, brahma-bhūyāya kalpate [Bg. 14.26] Bhagavad-gītā explains how bhakti-yoga is above the guṇas. It is on the level of Brahman – puṇya and papa, piety and sinfulness is in this material world.

So, today, just like Nārada Muni, we have to approach all the young at heart, all the open-minded and even if they are political leaders, even if their parents, even if their school teachers object, we have to steal them away from Māyā and bring them to Kṛṣṇa consciousness. We have to risk their curses but we cannot compromise and preach bogus ideas. This will not help anyone.

If we were to preach that we want to open up hospitals, do social relief, we would get lots of money, just like so many missions are getting. But such missions are not giving any spiritual life to their followers. Therefore, never mind. We may not get so much sentimental money from rich philanthropists who have no spiritual understanding but we will actually save those people who are suffering in material life and give them the real happiness of Kṛṣṇa consciousness and for this work, we are sure that eventually Kṛṣṇa will help more and more. As He sees, we are distributing purely His message in spite of the curses of so many materialistic guardians.

So, this Māyāpur Candrodaya mandira is simply for taking fallen souls out of the material world. It is like a big trap. We have made it as a trap with Lord Caitanya’s message, with so many guest houses, buildings, projects but the idea is that when the rat-like living entities, they are coming in looking for sense gratification, they are looking for a good time. But we have to give them the bait in such a way that when they take it, they are fully poisoned by Kṛṣṇa consciousness. So that they can never be happy again in material life, which is actually a source of misery. One can only be happy in material life if he is in complete ignorance.

So, everyone that comes here, we have to be so expert that they get spiritual knowledge. Otherwise, what is the use of building all these buildings? If the people who come here do not leave with an understanding who they are, who is Kṛṣṇa, what is this material world, what is the purpose of this Kṛṣṇa Consciousness movement?

So, unfortunately, many people come here, but ninety-nine percent of those who come here leave as little acquainted with what we are doing as when they come. All they know is what they hear from Gopāla rickshaw-wālā. Because they come here, throw two paisā at the Deity, take a spin around the grounds, and leave. And as yet, we have not been able to give them a proper program for explaining to them what is actually the purpose.

So, I have seen the Mormons and other different groups, how they have made their propaganda so that everyone who visits their information center for an hour and a half gets taken on a full tour with movie slides, live exhibits, personal talks by followers showing important buildings and the drama, how it was built and all that. And as a result they are the fastest growing religion in the Western world. Every year they get three, four million converts. So, none of our temples in the West get so many visitors as we get here on a regular basis. We get as many and more visitors than the Mormons. They get only three, four million visitors at their main information center. We get much more than that. We have no program for teaching the people when they come here what we are about.

So, I am hoping that very soon we will have all the arrangements so that when someone leaves here he will know who is Śrīla Prabhupāda, who is Lord Caitanya, what is the Hare Kṛṣṇa movement, what is the main teaching of Bhagavad-gītā, Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, and Caitanya-caritāmṛta, and how ISKCON is spreading this all over the world.

And this will get the special mercy of Nārada Muni, as we are able to help people get out of materialistic life. That is the special feature of our sampradāya. The Brahma-sampradāya is known for taking people out of materialistic life and sending them back to home, back to Godhead by giving them spiritual knowledge. Brahmā is known as ādi-kavaye, the original poet, the original knower of the Vedas. So, this is our program - give them Kṛṣṇa knowledge of pure bhakti and send them back to their original spiritual position of eternal blissful knowledge. So, this requires the enthusiasm and dedication of everyone in preaching and in printing books and distribution. Without this desire to satisfy Nārada Muni and the previous ācāryas, then the advancement will be very slow.

So, we should take this great opportunity as shown in this slope today, to get the mercy of Śrī Nārada Muni, by freeing all the innocent children of the materialistic parents and leaders of this materialistic misdirected society, freeing them from material ignorance and giving them the light of Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Thank you. Are there any questions?

Question: Could you please explain some specific ideas that you have for preaching?

Jayapatākā Swami: I feel that there should be tours. The sign in the front asking people to wait in. The Mormons have a new tour every ten minutes. They have five or six tour people who take turns once a week. They serve for one half day. So, in this way, either every half hour, twenty minutes, fifteen minutes, depending on the number of visitors and number of preachers available.

And the tour guide would take them, show them the grass hut, explain how this is where it began, explain to them who is Śrīla Prabhupāda, how he was born in Bengal, how he took initiation. Just to give a brief thing how this project started. Take them over down to the temple, on the way they may stop and show, “This is a place where every year on this stage all the people come like this.” There be different stop points where you speak for two, three minutes. To the temple, show them the mūrti of Śrīla Prabhupāda, take them, show them the Deities, show them the book table, then take them over to the exhibit, show them the photo exhibit, explaining and then have some room set up where there is like a road show or already programmed, either a cinema or a slideshow, where they sit down in the middle of the exhibition. Exhibition have rooms set up, group of ten or twenty people. They sit down, watch the show for fifteen minutes, go on, maybe even have two, three shows.

What the Mormons do is after their routine thing is over, then they say that, “If you like to, we have some secret things which you are not allowed to see. We do not want to, we do not force anyone but if you had like to see these things, then you come in the next room and we can show. So, because they said, “We do not force anyone”, then they take you to the next slideshow, it is a super hard heavy shell, if you do not become a Mormon, then you are fried, and if you become a Mormon, then you are immediately purified. So, we could even have like that, because they say, we are, we do not force anyone, this is perfectly voluntary. So, when you go there, and they give you a hard time, and you complain. Well, but that one, you have no complaint because you went there voluntarily and then they give a card out where people write in if they want to become a Mormon.

The whole thing is designed so that one is forced to think whether I should or should not become more dedicated in my religious life, or whether I should or should not become more so. In the same way, initially giving more information, but in the end actually bringing people to the point of forcing the issue to make that they have to decide.

So, this way, one hour or hour and a half each day, each say, morning, a person would go through maybe two or three tours. In this way, the devotees who do not go out preaching, who are here at the āśrama, once a week they could take a turn and that would allow them to preach and to speak about the glories of the temple. Yes?

Devotee: (inaudible)

Jayapatākā Swami: I am going to make change of body. Faith Studios is supposed to set up in Māyāpur to make the next exhibit. It is going to be in New Delhi. If they set up here, then we will mass-produce the dioramas and ship them all over the world. So naturally they will also be here. [Aside: So, very good. Chant your japa.]

Question: “What is the meaning of Candrodaya?

Jayapatākā Swami: Māyāpur Candra – Lord Caitanya. Lord Caitanya’s udaya, this is not Candrodaya mandira. This is Mayāpur Candrodaya mandira. Māyāpur Candra means Lord Caitanya. Śrīla Prabhupāda said, “You can call this Caitanya-candra-udaya or Māyāpur-candra-udaya.” This means that this temple, the activities or līlā of Lord Caitanya, His karma (work) is rising and as the preaching of this movement through this temple increases, one will be able to see Lord Caitanya personally present here in this temple. You understand?

Jaya Śrīla Prabhupāda kī Jaya!

Jaya Śrīla Viṣṇupāda kī Jaya!

Jaya Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam kī Jaya!

Jaya Śrī Śrī Rādhā-Mādhava kī Jaya!

Nitai Gaura premānande hari haribol!

Devotees: Śrīla Ācāryapāda kī Jaya!

Jaya oṁ viṣṇu-pāda paramahaṁsa parivrājakācārya aṣṭottara-śata śrī-śrīmad Jayapatākā Swamī Mahārāja kī jaya