19860926 Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 5.10.10

Following is a lecture by Jayapātāka Swami on September 261986 at Detroit, Michigan. The class begins with a reading from the Śrīmad Bhāgavatam 5.10.10.

Translation (By his Divine grace Abhaya Charan Bhakti Vedanta Swami Śrīla Prabhupāda): Fatness, thinness, bodily and mental distress, thirst, hunger, fear, disagreement, desires for material happiness, old age, sleep, attachment for material possessions, anger, lamentation, illusion and identification of the body with the self are all transformations of the material covering of the spirit soul. A person absorbed in the material bodily conception is affected by these things, but I am free from all bodily conceptions. Consequently I am neither fat nor skinny nor anything else have you mentioned. 

Purport (by Śrīla Prabhupāda): Śrīla Narottama dāsa Ṭhākura has sung: deha-smṛti nāhi yāra, saṁsāra-bandhana kāhāṅ tāra. One who is spiritually advanced has no connection with the body or with the bodily actions and reactions. When one comes to understand that he is not the body and therefore is neither fat nor skinny, one attains the topmost form of spiritual realization. When one is not spiritually realized, the bodily conception entangles one in the material world. At the present moment all human society is laboring under the bodily conception; therefore in the śāstras people in this age are referred to as dvi-pāda-paśu, two-legged animals. No one can be happy in a civilization conducted by such animals. Our Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement is trying to raise fallen human society to the status of spiritual understanding. It is not possible for everyone to become immediately self-realized like Jaḍa Bharata. However, as stated in Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam (1.2.18): naṣṭa-prāyeṣv abhadreṣu nityaṁ bhāgavata-sevayā. By spreading the Bhāgavata principles, we can raise human society to the platform of perfection. When one is not affected by the bodily conceptions, one can advance to the Lord's devotional service.

naṣṭa-prāyeṣv abhadreṣu
nityaṁ bhāgavata-sevayā
bhagavaty uttamaśloke
bhaktir bhavati naiṣṭhikī
(ŚB 1.2.18)

The more we advance our freedom from the bodily conception, the more we are fixed in devotional service, and the more we are happy and peaceful. In this regard, Śrīla Madhvācārya says that those who are too materially affected continue the bodily conception. Such persons are concerned with different bodily symptoms, whereas one freed from bodily conceptions lives without the body even in the material condition.

Thus end the Bhaktivedanta Swami translations and purport of 5.10.10 of the Śrīmad Bhāgavatam.

Jayapatākā Swami: Jaḍa Bharata has been insulted. At least the king thought he was insulting Jaḍa Bharata by calling him various names, to encourage him, or chastise him for not carrying his palanquin properly. The king was telling Jaḍa Bharata (5.10.6):

How troublesome this is, my dear brother. You certainly appear very fatigued because you have carried this palanquin alone without assistance for a long time and for a long distance. Besides that, due to your old age you have become greatly troubled. My dear friend, I see that you are not very firm, nor very strong and stout. Aren't your fellow carriers cooperating with you?

In this way the king criticized Jaḍa Bharata with sarcastic words, yet despite being criticized in this way, Jaḍa Bharata had no bodily conception of the situation. He knew that he was not the body, for he had attained his spiritual identity. He was neither fat, lean nor thin, nor had he anything to do with a lump of matter, a combination of the five gross and three subtle elements. He had nothing to do with the material body and its two hands and legs. In other words, he had completely realized his spiritual identity [ahaṁ brahmāsmi]. He was therefore unaffected by this sarcastic criticism from the king. Without saying anything, he continued carrying the palanquin as before.

Jayapatākā Swami: As before means when he was carrying the palanquin, he was very concerned not to get any karmas. He just did what he was told. He was told to carry the palanquin so he was doing it. But when he was walking, he saw that there were some ants on the ground. So to avoid stepping on the ants, he was hopping and stepping. But apparently the technique for carrying a palanquin is everybody has to walk in step – left right left. So he is walking left right right left left right right left. And so the whole thing is going this way and that way. So then the king is becoming completely shaken up and he is afraid that he’s possibly going to fall down or something. So he became very angry and said (5.10.7-10),

You rascal, what are you doing? Are you dead despite the life within your body? Do you not know that I am your master? You are disregarding me and are not carrying out my order. For this disobedience I shall now punish you just as Yamarāja, the superintendent of death, punishes sinful people. I shall give you proper treatment so that you will come to your senses and do the correct thing.

(In other words the king was very angry.)

Thinking himself a king, King Rahūgaṇa was in the bodily conception and was influenced by material nature's modes of passion and ignorance. Due to madness, he chastised Jaḍa Bharata with uncalled-for and contradictory words. Jaḍa Bharata was a topmost devotee and the dear abode of the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Although the King considered himself very learned, he did not know about the position of an advanced devotee situated in devotional service, nor did he know his characteristics. Jaḍa Bharata was the residence of the Supreme Personality of Godhead; he always carried the form of the Lord within his heart. He was the dear friend of all living beings, and he did not entertain any bodily conception. He therefore smiled and spoke the following words.

The great brāhmaṇa Jaḍa Bharata said: My dear King and hero, whatever you have spoken sarcastically is certainly true. Actually these are not simply words of chastisement, for the body is the carrier. The load carried by the body does not belong to me, for I am the spirit soul. There is no contradiction in your statements because I am different from the body. I am not the carrier of the palanquin; the body is the carrier. Certainly, as you have hinted, I have not labored carrying the palanquin, for I am detached from the body. You have said that I am not stout and strong, and these words are befitting a person who does not know the distinction between the body and the soul. The body may be fat or thin, but no learned man would say such things of the spirit soul. As far as the spirit soul is concerned, I am neither fat nor skinny; therefore you are correct when you say that I am not very stout. Also, if the object of this journey and the path leading there were mine, there would be many troubles for me, but because they relate not to me but to my body, there is no trouble at all.

Fatness, thinness, bodily and mental distress, thirst, hunger, fear, disagreement, desires for material happiness, old age, sleep, attachment for material possessions, anger, lamentation, illusion and identification of the body with the self are all transformations of the material covering of the spirit soul. A person absorbed in the material bodily conception is affected by these things, but I am free from all bodily conceptions. Consequently I am neither fat nor skinny nor anything else have you mentioned.

Jayapatākā Swami: Touche. So the king got more than he bargained for. He was a person very proud. Thought he was a king. He is in the bodily conception of life. He thought, “This is a coolie. This is a peon. And he should be doing what my service. He is one of my subjects and I’m his lord.” And when he wasn’t doing his job, he got angry. He thought, “I’m the controller and this person is not being controlled properly. Therefore, to control this person, I have to insult him, and deflate him, and threaten him, and get him to subjugate his consciousness to mine.” So, of course Jaḍa Bharata, after already being through two different births – after being the emperor of the entire world and then renouncing, and then getting attached to a deer and becoming a deer in next life, and this time totally being self-realized, he was ready for anything. He had already gone much more serious things than this. He had been kidnapped by the pūjārīs of Bhadrakālī. Then taken, and bathed, and put a white cloth on. Put right on the sacrificial altar and was ready to have his head chopped off. He was just chanting; he was just meditating on Kṛṣṇa. He was ready for whatever happened. Didn’t make any difference to him. He simply was somehow or other keeping his mind on Kṛṣṇa, waiting, for this time when he would leave the body, he wasn’t going to think of anything else. If he was going to leave by getting his head chopped off, that was great. Because he was thinking of Kṛṣṇa the whole time, waiting for the axe to come down. He was ready for anything! He was just clinging on the lotus feet of the Lord. After completely messing up, thinking of a deer when he left his body, taking deer birth living near saints, he was having remembrances of the 3 births. This time he was totally fixed that he wasn’t the body. After taking birth as a deer, and you have your human remembrance. This time he takes another birth. So he was very sure that he wasn’t that body. He was very sure, remembering the 3 births, that he wasn’t the body. So when the king was threatening him and everything, it was actually his mercy. So before when he was ready to get his head chopped off, of course then being such a great devotee, Bhadrakālī herself manifested out of the deity along with her piśāca associates and proceeded to decapitate all of her pūjārīs, showing that the devotee of Kṛṣṇa is more dear, more dear to Kālī, more dear to Śiva, than her own devotees. In India, this is actually an important point. People, they spend so much time worshipping śakti. Worshipping Śiva. They don’t realise that the dearest to the Lord, the dearest to even Kālī or Durgā, is Kṛṣṇa’s devotee. Dear to Śiva, than anyone, is the devotee of Kṛṣṇa. That’s why Lord Śiva came out of his own lake in Kailāsa when the Pracetās where there and said, “Because you are devotees of Kṛṣṇa, you are very dear to me. Therefore I’m going to give you spiritual knowledge.” Then he taught them his stotram, or prayer, glorification of Kṛṣṇa.

So here the King, he was in his bodily concept of life. So he was chastising Jaḍa Bharata. Actually, in the Bhagavad-gītā (13.12), the Lord gives 20 factors of knowledge. There it mentions that to be free of bodily concept of life is one of the factors of knowledge. And that false ego or identification of body as the self, one should be free of that, because that’s one of the aspects of ignorance. So this king is in ignorance and Jaḍa Bharata is in knowledge. Normally people in ignorance, one fears to give them knowledge. They become angry. In this case, Jaḍa Bharata, he is so free from the bodily concept of life that he doesn’t have any duplicity. One of the other factors of knowledge is known as simplicity. Simplicity means that you can tell the truth even to an enemy with such straightforwardness, without duplicity. Jaḍa Bharata, he was so simple that when he was chastised with all these things, he simply gave his reply without considering anything else. Just telling, “This is the truth”. He just told it. Someone might, in a bodily concept of life might be afraid that if I say something like this to the king, he’s going to come down and really beat me up. But Jaḍa Bharata was actually completely free from the bodily concept. We cannot imitate that cent percent. His position was very unique. Like say a devotee is accosted in saṅkīrtana, one can take actions to protect the body, even though one may not consider himself the body. So long as one is using the body as a vehicle, one can take steps to protect the body.

Just as Nitāi and Haridāsa, when they went and preached to Jagāi-Mādhāi. And Jagāi-Mādhāi started to chase them. Then Nitāi and Haridāsa, they started to run. Jagāi and Mādhāi were saying, “Beat them! Who are they, telling us to chant Hare Kṛṣṇa. We are going to give them a lesson. Beat them! Get them!” So then Haridāsa and Nitāi were running. Wasn’t that they were in bodily concept of life. Just that they were protecting their body for further service. Haridāsa Ṭḥākura was a bit older. Because of his age, he was being hard pressed to run from Jagāi Mādhāi. So he said, “I don’t know how much further I can go!” So then Nitāi and Haridāsa, they finally went into one little alleyway and hid behind a trough for feeding horses. Jagāi-Mādhāi looked. Didn’t see them. Went on. This way they escaped. So here Jaḍa Bharata, he is directly telling the king that what you are saying is contradictory. These things are correct, these things are incorrect. So he goes out to give more instructions which are very illuminating. So the conception of course in America, or in the Western world, is very much in tune with the king’s perception. People are very much absorbed in the bodily concept of life. And therefore, these things mentioned here have the reverse effect. Fatness and thinness – people are very upset. If someone is too fat, too thin, they get all worried. Show some kind of bodily distress, show a picture of a Sudanese, I don’t know what they are. Ethiopia or something. People become very distressed to see the bodily distress. To see thirst or hunger. They identify so strongly with thirst or hunger, that if they see that, they become very affected. Of course, even Vaiṣṇavas don’t want to see anyone suffer. Vaiṣṇava has a broader vision. The bodily suffering is due ultimately to our identification with the body. One should not simply think how to end the immediate distress but rather how to permanently end it, by giving spiritual knowledge. Sometimes people say they are not afraid of death. But Śrīla Prabhupāda explains that this is totally artificial. Everybody is afraid of death. Some danger comes then immediately there is disagreement – arguing between two people. This is very prevalent in the bodily concept of life, because each body has its own set of senses and the field of the senses have different type of desires. So it’s never that two bodies are exactly in tune. Even though husband and wife, by fire sacrifice they are united together and they become one. But if the goal of life is kept as satisfying the senses, then there is bound to be conflicts. In India its customary that people come up and they want to touch the feet of a guru. They want to get āśīrvāda or blessings. But then if you ask, “What blessings do you want?” then they say, “My husband has got an ulcer. Please bless that it goes away”, or “My son has got final exam coming up. Please bless that he will pass.” Something. Always ask some material thing. You know even the most pious ladies who are there attending all the functions and everything, they come and say, “I don’t want anything from Kṛṣṇa. I’m totally selfless. The only thing I want is that my family will be very happy. For myself I don’t want anything. May my family be all peaceful and happy. May they all have plenty.” And what is the concept of peaceful and happy? Totally all material happiness. They’ll all be peaceful and happy if they are Kṛṣṇa conscious. But that concept they don’t have.

So Gaura Kiśora dāsa Bābājī, as soon as he became known that he was a siddha-puruṣa, that he was someone who had mystic opulence, he had pure devotion, then everybody from far and wide were coming to him. India is a very pious place. Just like when we heard last night from Ātmā-tattva dāsa who is not here right now. He was telling in Jagannātha Purī when they have the annual cart festival, the carpenters come from thousands of miles, practically wrestling each other anyway they can, to be able to participate in building the ratha cart. Because for every nail you hammer in that ratha cart, you get one less birth. So they want to go there to be able to hammer as many nails in the ratha cart as they can. And he explained that even in the ratha cart, there are far more joints and nails than needed. Because they want to take advantage of the opportunity. So people have a piety to get dharma, artha, kāma, mokṣa. They are very enthusiastic. Just like Mādhavendra Purī. When it was revealed that the deity had stolen the kheer for Mādhavendra Purī, then everybody wanted to come and see who this great devotee is. Then they get his blessings. He ran off first, so he wouldn’t get bombarded. Now it’s not so bad. Even if someone knows a pious person, Kali-yuga has set in a little more. In all the places they are not so eager. But still that tendency is there. But that time, even a 100 years ago, people were more pious than today. So Gaura Kiśora dāsa babaji was being literally plagued by so many people coming. Not one person was asking, “Give me the Harināma! Why you’re so great? What is your secret? Tell me.” They were simply saying, “Give me your blessings. Oh You’re great. Give me your blessings. I want to have a good husband.” Anything. He was kind of disgusted by the whole thing. So he went and he used to chant japa right next to the public urinal. Even today in Navadvīpa, the public sewage system has not been changed. It’s all open air and runs by gravity system. So it means for a few miles while gravitation is slowly moving the night soil and things, you get the aroma on the side of the road. So Navadvīpa is famous for having its own brand of incense. The devotees when they go there, they are able still see the this this kind of natural system. So the public urinal was no better. It’s not like the public urinal in the okay camps or something in America, or the rest house. Public urinal means that simply a place everybody goes and relieves themselves, and the urine just kind of sits there. And the sun dries it up. And that’s about it. And they don’t put even any kind of DMT or anything like that on it. So it was a very smelly place. So nobody likes to go there for very long. They want to go do their business and get out. So anybody that was in the bodily concept of life, they are not going to go there. So then Gaura Kiśora was a bit smart. He said, “Alright. I’m going to sit here. So if somebody’s not in the bodily concept of life, they don’t care what it smells like, they are going to come here and get spiritual knowledge. But all those people who are going to come to me for some material benediction, because they are going to see this is a materially bad place, they are not going to come here.” So he was doing like kind of trick. Prabhupāda said the he had actually a very great sense of humor. So one time one very big, kind of like a small king, a zamindar, came to him and said, “I’m going to have a big dharma-sabhā. And I’m going to have all so many religious people come there and speak. So I want you to come there and be the president of the assembly.” 

He said, “No you simply want me to go there to enhance your own name and fame. If you get some big, famous sādhūs there you will become more famous as a pious man. So you want to simply exploit me. You want to take me and use my name for your own name and fame. What’s the use of me going there?”

“No no no! Not that. I’m simply coming as your disciple.”

“Disciple means he follows the orders of the spiritual master. Not that he just takes the spiritual master and uses for his own name and fame.”

“No. I’ll do whatever you say. I’m your disciple, I’m your servant. Whatever you say, I’ll do it.”

“You’re just saying it but you won’t actually do it.”

“No no. whatever you say, I’ll do.”

“Alright. If you will do whatever I say, then you just stay here with me and chant Hare Kṛṣṇa.”

“Ha ha ha… Hare Kṛṣṇa… Haribol… hehe… please don’t mind.” *chuckles nervously and goes away*

So, he was very clever. It wasn’t that Gaura Kiśora wasn’t a preacher. But he wanted to preach pure devotional service. But he was very humble. Because he was not educated, didn’t know how to read and write, he was bit humble. But one time someone criticized Bhaktisiddhānta and said, “Why you are a goṣṭhyānandī? Your Guru is a bhajanānandī. You should also be bhajanānandī.” He was another so-called bhajanānandī who was criticizing him for being a goṣṭhyānandī.

“You think my guru is a bhajanānandī? Then how has he inspired me with such a desire to preach? He has inspired me to spread this movement of Caitanya Mahāprabhu. He is not a bhajanānandī. He is a goṣṭhyānandī. He desires the whole world to be Kṛṣṇa devotees.”

Actually, Gaura Kiśora dāsa Bābājī, he was totally out of the bodily concept of life. He would eat out of a skull. He would eat out of a skull just to remind himself how he wasn’t the body. He was doing very severe austerity. Some devotees of Lord Caitanya are very austere some. Some are very opulent. Different types of devotees are there. Different types of characteristics.

Just like there is another devotee who I mentioned. We have a temple at his birth place. Puṇḍarīka Vidyānidhi. Puṇḍarīka Vidyānidhi was a very great devotee of Caitanya Mahāprabhu. In fact Lord Caitanya would feel separation from him sometimes. He would call out for him, “Puṇḍarīka, Puṇḍarīka!” When he saw Puṇḍarīka, He would embrace him. He would accept him as a senior devotee. Of course, Puṇḍarīka Vidyānidhi was actually the father of Rādhārāṇī come again to assist Lord Caitanya – Vṛśabhānu. He became the guru of Gadādhara. He was very wealthy. When he moved about, he moved about with so much wealth, and pomp, and palanquins – the whole thing. People thought that, “Well he is just a materialist.” But if he saw anything that reminded him of Kṛṣṇa, he would go immediately into separation and faint. If anyone sang a song about Kṛṣṇa or something; as soon as he remembered Kṛṣṇa, he forgot everything. He was totally detached. He was so fixed in remembering Kṛṣṇa. Mādhavendra Purī was like that. Actually, Mādhavendra Purī, when he was travelling about, that time Advaita Gosāñī was praying that how we can get all these people who are so materialistic, how we can get them into pure devotional service. He was desiring like that. But he felt that without Lord Caitanya personally coming how is it possible. Without Kṛṣṇa coming. He was thinking at that time very urgently how to deliver all these people. At that time Mādhavendra Purī visited the house of Advaita Gosāñī. And Advaita Gosāñī could see that Mādhavendra Purī, you know like you say, “How is the weather?” or something. People look and say, “Today’s overcast or cloudy.” Mādhavendra Purī wasn’t like that. If you say something, then he would look at the clouds and say, “Oh the cloud is the colour of Kṛṣṇa.” Anything he’d look at, he will start thinking of Kṛṣṇa going in a separation and start glorifying Kṛṣṇa. I mean, whatever he saw, he saw Kṛṣṇa, and then he would say, “Today the cloud does look like Kṛṣṇa.” He was totally Kṛṣṇa conscious to the maximum degree. Although he was physically visible in this world, he was totally in the spiritual sky. Practically speaking. His consciousness was. So Advaita Gosāñī, he got great transcendental bliss in associating with Mādhavendra Purī. He gave him a very good reception and he decided, “I want to take mantra from this guru because he is purely Kṛṣṇa Conscious.” So Mādhavendra Purī gave initiation to Mahā-Viṣṇu, in His form as Advaita Gosāñī. In fact when Lord Caitanya visited Advaita Gosāñī one time in Śāntipura, at that time it happened to be the anniversary of Mādhavendra Purī’s coming to Śāntipura. So he had noted the day when Mādhavendra Purī had visited his house. And every year on that day he had a special pūjā for Mādhavendra Purī. As soon as he told the devotees, Nityānanda said, “Ohh!!” He grabbed some candana and he started to… everyone started into it. They just started, all spontaneously preparing a festival for commemorating the visit of Mādhavendra Purī. Just like we have a festival commemorating Prabhupāda’s coming to America.

This is a common thing, that in India, wherever Lord Caitanya visited, if they know the day, that day will be celebrated as a special day. They call like Gaurāṅga āgamana, su-āgamana. The arrival of the Lord on this day. For instance, the Pānihāṭi festival, the ciḍā-dadhī mahotsava, the time when Nityānanda arrived to Pānihāṭi and they had that festival, they keep that date and every year they’re holding that. Or there is another festival which comes again in October which is called the arrival of Gaurāṅga – when Gaurāṅga had come to Pānihāṭi personally on His way to Jagannātha Purī. They celebrate that coming. They keep the date. So, for some temples, Prabhupāda only visited once. Some temple Mādhavendra Purī came once. But they’re celebrating every year. We have an annual celebration of Prabhupāda’s arrival in Atlanta, where he came twice: once in the airport, once to the temple. And devotees for hours and hours discuss every little thing. We bring in devotees who were there at that time from different temples and they mention every little thing, every move that Prabhupāda made, how the devotes were preparing for his arrival, what was the circumstances involved, what were the different māyās that were eradicated. It’s amazing how each devotee has so many realisations even at that time even when they had few days’ association with Prabhupāda. The intense realization of different things.

So Mādhavendra Purī, he was such a devotee who was totally in Kṛṣṇa consciousness. He had no bodily consciousness, and because Advaita saw that he was prideless, that he was totally fixed in Kṛṣṇa, he took shelter of him. And that became an annual festival. You would be interested to know that even to this day, the sevaites or worshippers of that temple of Advaita Gosāñī, known as Advaita-pātḥa or Sītānātha-pātḥa, they still have that annual festival of the coming of Mādhavendra Purī. It’s actually mentioned in the Caitanya-Bhāgavata how that festival is performed.

So in our sampradāya we have these devotees, these great ācāryas. And some of them are very active in travelling all over the world and preaching all over the world, and some may have even stayed in particular place and appear to be more absorbed in bhajana. But actually the disciplic succession is one of devotees who are very interested in seeing the number of devotees expand – it’s basically goṣṭhyānandīs. Maybe here and there a few side branches of some bhajanānandīs. But the devotees they want to expand the movement of Lord Caitanya Mahāprabhu. Sometimes people misconstrue that the 6 gosvāmīs were actually bhajanānandīs – they are only doing bhajana. But Narottama Dāsa Ṭhākura, he clarified that. He said that Lord Caitanya is Himself the Supreme Personality of Godhead who has got unlimited energies. Just like in the Śvetāśvatara Upaniṣad it states parāśya śaktir vividhaiva śrūyate - that the Lord has got different energies. Like that, Lord Caitanya is Kṛṣṇa and He has got different energies. Some of these energies write books, like Rūpa, Sanātana, Bhaṭṭa Raghunātha, Dāsa Raghunātha, Gopāla Bhaṭṭa and Jīva Gosāñī – the 6 gosvāmīs. They wrote so many books. There are other energies like Śrīnivāsa Ācārya, they distributed those books. Śrīnivāsa Ācārya. Narottama Dāsa Ṭḥākura assisted him, Śyāmānanda Paṇḍita assisted him. They took the books written by the gosvāmīs and they brought those to the eastern part of India, at that time Bharat, in Navadvīpa. Encountered thieves and other problems. They got the books back even after they were stolen. They got books copied and they distributed the books to different paṇḍitas. They convinced the paṇḍitas that these books are the absolute truth. They give the clearest understanding of the ultimate purpose of the Vedas. And after those paṇḍitas were convinced of the books, they themselves again continued to expand it. And in this way the movement spread like anything, based upon the books. Narottama Dāsa Ṭḥākura explained how these 2 types of energies are there – those who write books, and those who print books and distribute them. So of course, it’s not that the 6 gosvāmīs were bhajanānandīs and simply thinking about their own personal worship. They may have been totally absorbed in bhajana. A real goṣṭhyānandī also is in bhajana. He is also worshipping Kṛṣṇa. He is intimate. It doesn’t mean that the devotee who is desiring to do the intimate service for Lord Caitanya, and satisfy His desire, is not able to realize the highest level of Kṛṣṇa consciousness. They certainly are. Bhaktisiddhānta said “prāṇa āche yāra, sei hetu pracāra”. That those who have got spiritual compassion in life, those who have got real spiritual quality, they preach out of a desire to satisfy the Lord. Preaching is not a material activity. It’s actually a very intimate service. So these gosvāmīs are doing the greatest preaching.

Prabhupāda used to complain about it when he travelled a lot it was hard for him to write. He would go and stay one place for 2 months and would write. If you’re travelling a lot, it will be difficult to write. So they didn’t travel a lot. After Lord Caitanya left the planet, they went to Vṛndāvana and sat and they wrote all of these books. And they left the planet. They gave the duty to the next generation to distribute the books. Śrīla Prabhupāda is just astonishing because he embodies all these qualities. He simultaneously wrote the books, got the books printed, organized the distribution, did everything. During his life time, over a 100 million books had already been distributed because of his pushing, his preaching. Same time he was writing the books. So that’s unique. Entire disciple succession from Lord Caitanya on, apart from of course Bhakti Vinoda Ṭḥākura and Bhaktisiddhānta – that particular quality is very unique. Of course, Bhakti Vinoda Ṭḥākura wrote, and also printed and distributed his books. But then he didn’t make temples so much. He made a temple at the birth place of Lord Caitanya. And Bhaktisiddhānta further expanded that and made printing press, books, temples. But Bhakti Vinoda Ṭḥākura had the Nāmahaṭṭa which Prabhupāda told us to do, to expand the varṇāśrama. The different previous ācāryas did – some did more one thing or another. But Śrīla Prabhupāda did something of all of the different aspects. Therefore, he is completely, you can see how he totally embodies all of the great qualities of the previous ācāryas. It’s very evident. Therefore this Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement is dedicated to preserving Śrīla Prabhupāda’s teachings; preserving his message and to spreading it all over the world. For the next 10000 years it’s predicted Lord Caitanya’s movement would become the world’s religion, world way of life. So we are dedicated to first implementing that and then maintaining it. Of course, Prabhupāda, he left us when we were in a very infant stage. Actually, when Prabhupāda was in Vṛndāvana, I remember one day a group of very big industrialists, they are the heads of the Vishva Hindu Parishad. One of them, his father was a very close associate of Gandhiji. So very big people with government, with politics, with the Hindu movement. They came to Prabhupāda and asked him, “Who is going to be the next?”

Prabhupāda said, “All my followers they are going to carry on my message. All my disciples.” When they left Prabhupāda said, “They wanted to know whether I was going to appoint them. They wanted to be the sole authority in the movement.” They just came out of the sky blue, Hindu leaders. They were hoping somehow, they would be given the huge assets of ISKCON all over the world. So Prabhupāda called the GBC members to his side when he told them that he was going to leave the planet. That Kṛṣṇa was calling him. And at that time they said, “When Bhaktisiddhānta left the planet, he was very disgusted with his followers. So are you leaving us because you are disgusted with us? Because we’ve been so offensive?”

He said, “No. You’re all sincere devotees and you’ve been serving very nicely. I’m not leaving for that reason. Kṛṣṇa is simply calling me. Just like these people have come here and asked, there are many people who are going to try to stop this movement. The thing I fear is that the world there is like a kind of ocean with huge timiṅgila sharks and whales and all kinds of. You are all very innocent. You are all very naive. You are all very new. Any one of you can be bewildered by the material energy. It’s very complex. It’s very dangerous. You have to all stay united. If you don’t stay united, then anyone of you, by yourself, you can be misled. But I have confidence that all of you together, 20 of you, try to implement my desires. Then you won’t make a mistake.” Of course the key word there was “implement my desire.” That our only purpose is to implement Prabhupāda’s desires. Not to implement the desires of the mass of Americans, or Europeans, or anyone, or implement the desire of Indra or Gaṇeśa or anybody. Simply implement the desire of Prabhupāda. If we’re fixed on that particular ‘What did Prabhupāda want? What would he have done? What’s his desire?’. If everybody thinks that particular thought, then there is a better chance that we’ll come up with the right conclusion. So of course we see that in the movement there’s so many tests that come up. And that in preaching, Prabhupāda has advised us to watch out. He said that some overt dangers are there, some obvious dangers are there. In India, in Bombay, the municipality are trying to take over our property. Watch out for the government that they don’t try to take over our land. Here in America, we see how the so-called anti-cult groups are trying to take over the property of the Kṛṣṇa conscious temples in order to stop this religion, this spiritual movement. Those weren’t there when Prabhupāda was present. Otherwise he’d probably have mentioned that. But they were trying to take over our temple in Bombay. They had bribed police and done various subversive things. So he said, “Watch out for these things.” Then he said, “Watch out in Vṛndāvana. There are so many gosvāmīs who like to spiritually infiltrate and take over the movement by giving their ideas, rather than the ideas I have given you.” Then he said, “Watch out in Māyāpur, Navadvīpa. There are so many godbrothers. These god brothers, they are also very dangerous. They cannot do anything to help you but they can do a lot to harm you. They’d try to impose their concepts and take over the movement.” So Prabhupāda’s vision of how he balanced everything, how he could see very clearly what the previous ācāryas wanted and how he applied it to the modern time, in the most practical way. That vision is actually what we are all dedicated to further. Prabhupāda said that “Anyone who is my disciple is my disciple. Anyone who takes initiation from my any of my disciple is my grand disciple.” So everyone is connected with Śrīla Prabhupāda. They are part of his disciplic succession. And no matter what happens, we have direct connection with Śrīla Prabhupāda. And our only duty is ultimately, whether we are children, or grandchildren, or great grandchildren, or great-great grandchildren, or 50 generations from now, is to carry on Prabhupāda’s desire for spreading Lord Caitanya’s message, for establishing Lord Caitanya’s desire in the entire world. Prabhupāda doesn’t have his own desire. His desire was only to spread Lord Caitanya’s desire, as was manifested by the previous ācāryas.

So reading about these great devotees like Jaḍa Bharata who didn’t have any bodily concept of life, who were totally on the Brahman platform, totally on the transcendental platform, do their devotional service and how they would preach to the ignorant people. We can see that how we have to also then take these teachings Prabhupāda has given us. These books, these verses, these purports are actually his personal ecstasy. His writing wasn’t like someone who is writing and translating like you hire a translator. Actually his purports were his own personal ecstasy. “At the present moment all human society is laboring under the bodily conception. Therefore, in the śāstras people in this age are referred to as dvi-pāda-paśu – 2 legged animals. No one can be happy in a civilization conducted by such animals. Our Kṛṣṇa Consciousness movement is trying to raise fallen human society to the status of spiritual understanding.” Prabhupāda is writing this in a complete transcendental mood of compassion and ecstasy trying to bring the entire human civilization up. He wrote this so we can understand the perspective. That unless we are able to uplift the people to a spiritual concept to get them out of the gross bodily concept, they are never going to be happy. There can’t be any happiness. No matter how much donation they send to the suffering people in Africa, there is still going to be problems in the world, unless people get above the bodily concept, unless the human society is raised up to the status of spiritual understanding. So all these lessons are actually Prabhupāda’s special instructions for all of his followers so we can carry on the movement of Lord Caitanya Mahāprabhu. We can know what was His desire. So we need to read these things every day. Nityaṁ bhāgavata sevayā – we need to remind ourselves every day. Like a type of spiritual bath for every day, we read Śrīla Prabhupāda’s words and they fix in our consciousness. What is our purpose, what is our objective, what is the proper frame of mind to have in order to be free from bodily concept, to be fixed in devotional service and thus to be blissful. So it says that even if one gets one syllable from a guru, what to speak of a whole mantra, just to get 1 letter, one akṣara, one letter from a spiritual person, for that spiritual gift you become unlimitedly indebted. Here we are getting so many thousands of verses of Śrīmad Bhāgavatam with so many purports, which have thousands, and hundreds of thousands, and millions of akṣaras or letters. And everyone in the future who receives these books, how deeply they are indebted to Prabhupāda for what he’s given us. Therefore we labor in the Kṛṣṇa conscious movement, but this labor is not labor of the body. It’s a labor of love. Therefore by serving in Kṛṣṇa consciousness, if we keep our consciousness purified by chanting, we’re able to experience transcendental bliss with the labor of love. And we should work in that consciousness. If we start to see things in a different way when doing our service, it becomes a burden. Then we think that taking care of these Deities is a burden. Taking the spiritual responsibility is a burden. Then that means they are finished. Burden of love means it’s no burden at all. The mother carrying the baby she loves; she doesn’t consider it to be a burden. Everyone else, they can’t figure out why is the mother lugging around that bundle of whatever. But for the mother she loves her child. So for her it’s no problem. She likes it. At least in the civilized society.

So like that, the Kṛṣṇa conscious movement, we have to purify our consciousness so we see the things as labor of love, and when we see, then there is no difficulty is taking so much responsibility. Prabhupāda took the responsibility to deliver the entire world. But if we start to see our consciousness becoming affected, and we start to see things that, “Oh this is a burden. So many deities to dress, so many things to do…”, that means our consciousness is not developing properly. Then we have to start to take more care to the fundamentals and purify our consciousness, and root out any misconceptions that may be there. Root out these bodily conceptions. In the Bhagavad-gītā, in the Bhāgavatam, it says that whatever is bodily conception of life, that should be given up. Giving it up is knowledge. And maintaining it is ignorance. Tamaso mā jyotir gamayā – we should give up the ignorance and accept the knowledge. 

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

On the 1977 attack: Hari Sauri Prabhu is in Māyāpur is writing his memoirs of Śrīla Prabhupāda, his daily dairy. All the things, he has a very good memory. And he has a lot of knowledge. He’s also written how there was a time when Prabhupāda was in Gujarat. He was giving a lot of lectures on how we wanted to preach in the villages. I didn’t know at that time. When we had that attack on Māyāpur then I got the people organized. The communists wanted to close our temple and give it to another religion. So, I got the local people to become very active, and we had a big procession of about 25,000 people and about 168 kīrtana groups. And when we did that, then everything … We did a march right through the villages of the different religions that were creating some problems with us and everything became very peaceful after that. And the government they thought we would withdraw the case, the false case they did against us, that we and Bhavānanda had fired on innocent people, when in fact they had attacked us, and they were breaking the temple apart, and they had broken the arm of the headmaster of the gurukula. They wouldn’t have stopped if we hadn’t used force. Prabhupāda said that he was supposed to be in Māyāpur at that time, and that they were actually going after him,but instead we took the brunt. He was actually very pleased with the sacrifice that Bhavānanda made that time. They were all in prison. I had to go there and free him. And the police or judge said that they can’t free him since the village is not in their favor. So then I got all the villagers in our favor and we had a big procession.

Verified by your humble ever Servant  
Vinoda Gopīkeśa Dāsa
06-01-2025
Śrī Māyāpur, India