19860930 Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 4.22.8 (Cc Antya 11.12-25)

The following is a lecture given by His Holiness Jayapātāka Swami on September 30^th 1986 at New Pānihāṭi Dhāma in Atlanta Georgia. The class begins with a reading from the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 4.22.8.                

jaya jaya śrī-caitanya jaya nityānanda
jayādvaita-candra jaya gaura-bhakta-vṛnda

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 laṅghāyate girim
yat-kṛpā tam ahaṁ vande śrī guru dīna tāriṇam
paramānanda-mādhavam śrī caitanya īśvaram

ŚB. 4.22.8

kiṁ tasya durlabhataram
iha loke paratra ca
yasya viprāḥ prasīdanti
śivo viṣṇuś ca sānugaḥ

Translation (by His Divine Grace, Śrīla Abhay Charan Bhaktivedanta Swami Śrīla Prabhupāda):  Any person upon whom the brāhmaṇas and Vaiṣṇavas are pleased can achieve anything which is very rare to obtain in this world as well as after death. Not only that, but one also receives the favor of the auspicious Lord Śiva and Lord Viṣṇu, who aCc.ompany the brāhmaṇas and Vaiṣṇavas.

Purport: The brāhmaṇas and Vaiṣṇavas are the bearers of Lord Viṣṇu, the all-auspicious. As confirmed in the Brahmā-saṁhitā (5.38):

premāñjana-Cc.hurita-bhakti-vilocanena
santaḥ sadaiva hṛdayeṣu vilokayanti
 yaṁ śyāmasundaram acintya-guṇa-svarūpaṁ
govindam ādi-puruṣaṁ tam ahaṁ bhajāmi

The devotees, out of their extreme love for Govinda, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, always carry the Lord within their hearts. The Lord is already in the heart of everyone, but the Vaiṣṇavas and the brāhmaṇas actually perceive and see Him always in ecstasy. Therefore brāhmaṇas and Vaiṣṇavas are carriers of Viṣṇu. Wherever they go, Lord Viṣṇu, Lord Śiva or the devotees of Lord Viṣṇu are all carried. The four Kumāras are brāhmaṇas, and they visited the place of Mahārāja Pṛthu. Naturally Lord Viṣṇu and His devotees were also present. Under the circumstances, the conclusion is that when the brāhmaṇas and Vaiṣṇavas are pleased with a person, Lord Viṣṇu is also pleased. This is confirmed by Śrīla Viśvanātha Cakravartī Ṭhākura in his eight stanzas on the spiritual master: yasya prasādād bhagavat-prasādaḥ. By pleasing the spiritual master, who is both brāhmaṇa and Vaiṣṇava, one pleases the Supreme Personality of Godhead. If the Supreme Personality of Godhead is pleased, then one has nothing more to achieve either in this world or after death.

Thus ends the Bhaktivedanta purport to Text 8, Chapter 22, and Canto 4.

Jayapatāka Swami: One is able to please the spiritual master who is both brāhmaṇa and Vaiṣṇava, then one pleases the Supreme Personality of Godhead. One pleases the Supreme Personality of Godhead, then after that, what is the next thing that he has to achieve? Who can say? So, one can achieve anything which is very rare to obtain in this world as well as after death, if one pleases the brāhmaṇas and Vaiṣṇavas. Not only that. By pleasing the brāhmaṇas and Vaiṣṇavas, the Lord pleased.

Cc. Antya 11.12

dine nṛtya-kīrtana, īśvara-daraśana
rātrye rāya-svarūpa-sane rasa-āsvādana

Translation: In the daytime Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu engaged in dancing and chanting and in seeing the temple of Lord Jagannātha. At night, in the company of His most confidential devotees, such as Rāmānanda Rāya and Svarūpa Dāmodara Gosvāmī, He tasted the nectar of the transcendental mellows of Lord Śrī Kṛṣṇa’s pastimes.

Cc.. Antya 11.13

ei-mata mahāprabhura sukhe kāla yāya
kṛṣṇera viraha-vikāra aṅge nānā haya

Translation: Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu very happily passed His days in this way at Nīlācala, Jagannātha Purī. Feeling separation from Kṛṣṇa, He exhibited many transcendental symptoms all over His body.

Cc.. Antya 11.14

dine dine bāḍe vikāra, rātrye atiśaya
cintā, udvega, pralāpādi yata śāstre kaya

Translation: Day after day the symptoms increased, and at night they increased even more. All these symptoms, such as transcendental anxiety, agitation and talking like a madman, were present, just as they are described in the śāstras.

Cc. Antya 11.15

svarūpa gosāñi, āra rāmānanda-rāya
rātri-dine kare doṅhe prabhura sahāya

Translation: Svarūpa Dāmodara Gosvāmī and Rāmānanda Rāya, the chief assistants in Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu’s pastimes, remained with Him both day and night.

Cc. Antya 11.16

eka-dina govinda mahā-prasāda lañā
haridāse dite gelā ānandita hañā

Translation: One day Govinda, the personal servant of Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu, went in great jubilation to deliver the remnants of Lord Jagannātha’s food to Haridāsa Ṭhākura.

Cc. Antya 11.17

dekhe, — haridāsa ṭhākura kariyāche śayana
manda manda kariteche saṅkhyā-saṅkīrtana

Translation: When Govinda came to Haridāsa, he saw that Haridāsa Ṭhākura was lying on his back and chanting his rounds very slowly.

Cc. Antya 11.18

govinda kahe, — ‘uṭha āsi’ karaha bhojana’
haridāsa kahe, — āji karimu laṅghana

Translation: “Please rise and take your mahā-prasādam,” Govinda said. Haridāsa Ṭhākura replied, “Today I shall observe fasting.”

Cc. Antya 11.19

saṅkhyā-kīrtana pūre nāhi, ke-mate khāiba?
mahā-prasāda āniyācha, ke-mate upekṣiba?

Translation: “I have not finished chanting my regular number of rounds. How, then, can I eat? But you have brought mahā-prasādam, and how can I neglect it?”

Cc. Antya 11.20

eta bali’ mahā-prasāda karilā vandana
eka rañca lañā tāra karilā bhakṣaṇa

Translation: Saying this, he offered prayers to the mahā-prasādam, took a little portion, and ate it.

Purport: Mahā-prasādam is non different from Kṛṣṇa. Therefore, instead of eating mahā-prasādam, one should honor it. It is said here, karilā vandana, “he offered prayers.” When taking mahā-prasādam, one should not consider the food ordinary preparations. prasādam means favor. One should consider mahā-prasādam a favor of Kṛṣṇa. As stated by Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura, kṛṣṇa baḍa dayāmaya karibāre jihvā jaya svaprasāda-anna dilā bhāi. Kṛṣṇa is very kind. In this material world we are all very much attached to tasting various types of food. Therefore, Kṛṣṇa eats many nice varieties of food and offers the food back to the devotees, so that not only are one’s demands for various tastes satisfied, but by eating prasādam, he makes advancement in spiritual life. Therefore, we should never consider ordinary food on an equal level with mahā-prasādam.

Jayapātāka Swami: That’s why, when one takes mahāprasāda on the plate, they’re supposed to finish all of the prasādam, not leave any. One has to be very careful not to take more than one can eat. Exception is the guru; he is supposed to leave something of each preparation for the disciples. Prabhupāda, he was very careful. Even if something was burnt, generally he wouldn’t mention it till later. After the prasādam was gone, he’d call the cook and say, “Why that preparation was burned? You should be more conscious.” System is that in the presence of prasādam, we don’t offer criticism. We can take it that this is Kṛṣṇa’s mercy. It’s not different from Kṛṣṇa. So when in front of the Deities we don’t discuss other topics. Nor do we give critical observations in front of the deity. We simply chant the Holy Name. These are all important aspects of Vaiṣṇava etiquette. Actually Bhaktivinoda Ṭḥākura and the ācāryas, they have written various songs for us to sing while we take prasādam. At the beginning of the meal we say,

śarīra avidyā jāla, jaḍendriya tāhe kāla,
jīve phele viṣaya-sāgare

tā'ra madhye jihvā ati, lobhamaya sudurmati,
tā'ke jetā kaṭhina saṁsāre

kṛṣṇa baḍa dayāmaya, karibāre jihvā jaya,
sva-prasāda-anna dila bhāi

sei annāmṛta khāo, rādhā-kṛṣṇa-guṇa gāo,
preme ḍāka caitanya-nitāi

But also, throughout the entire meal, there are various prayers which have been written, but we are not always chanting those. When you eat vegetables, there’s a prayer to chant – eka dina śāntipure, prabhu advaitera ghare śāka… the rest I forget. But there’s a prayer for that time that you’re supposed to say. So someone could be there just remind to us. We all say it in the beginning. Just at the time when the devotees are taking the vegetable - eka dina śāntipure, prabhu advaitera ghare - and you read out the prayer. Then there’s another prayer when you get to the sweet preparations. There’s three, four prayers like that. So that throughout the meal you never forget that this is Kṛṣṇa-prasādam. You are always thinking of Kṛṣṇa. If you think that it is ordinary food, it’s an offense. So while sometimes we are invited to big feasts where all Vaiṣṇavas attend, we are also there, even though not worthy of being called a Vaiṣṇava; then at that time we found that while taking prasādam, in between the prayers, the few minutes in between the prayers, because prayers are coming, it only takes 10 minutes to eat this. One prayer every three to four minutes, fifteen minutes take prasādam, honour prasādam. Then at that time, sometimes someone yell out, “Sādhu sāvadhāna!!! Sādhu sāvadhāna!!! Hari Hari Bol! Hari Bol! - Be careful, O devotees, be careful!” In other words, don’t forget this is prasādam you’re honoring. Don’t think it’s ordinary food. Chant the name of Hari. Hari Bol Haribol.

Prabhupāda personally told me that one of our practices of devotion is to take prasādam together, to sit down and take prasādam together. This is where we associate. We don’t have to associate, it may not be possible to associate every time with all of devotees, but one of the times we gather together is to take prasādam. It is also important.  Even Kṛṣṇa, we find in his kīrtana,

bhaja bhakata-vatsala śrī-gaurahari
śrī-gaurahari sohi goṣṭha-bihārī

In one of the songs there is that, He is sitting, sari sari base. He’s sitting in a line with His friends and they’re all taking prasādam. Even we find in Pānihāṭi, Lord Nityānanda, He took prasādam along with all of His associates and put a place there for Lord Caitanya. The system is to take prasādam in the association of all the devotees. The American way of fast food, “Drive in! Get in the car! Deliver to the car!” Eat! Run! Move! Walk! Standing! Even you can get place where you can take food standing there, just standing, no time to sit. Next thing they’ll have is you can eat while running on one those machines, doing workout and eating at the same time. But this is not the actual system for honoring prasādam. Actually one takes sitting down. Until one’s finished, one normally doesn’t get up, unless there’s some emergency. That’s a detail. But the most important thing is to honor the prasādam and not forget that it’s Kṛṣṇa. And it’s good if one has the opportunity, if the devotees are there, that they take prasādam together. And serving prasādam is not the job of the bhaktas. It’s the job of the more advanced devotees. Actually, the brāhmaṇas normally do the service of prasādam. Some Manipur devotees come and give a feast for the GBC or Prabhupāda’s disciples, then the brāhmaṇas are the one who give out the prasādam, the more senior devotees. We follow here in Māyāpur, this is the system. In India where you have different varṇāśrama, if brāhmaṇas serve, everyone will take. If the non-brāhmaṇa serves, then brāhmaṇas they won’t take. Of course, you can take prasādam from anyone’s hand, but technically you shouldn’t take foodstuff from uninitiated people. Sometimes some guest walks in out of the street, you don’t know if he is clean, if he has washed his hands. He is given the pots to serve out prasādam. In one sense it is nice he is being engaged in Kṛṣṇa’s service. But then would that be the proper honor to prasādam? He might give out the plates or give out something, or clean the floor, do some type of service. But actually the prasādam, it is nice if given out by devotees as far as possible. If it is not possible then… So as we don’t consider anything equal or greater than Kṛṣṇa, we don’t consider ordinary food to be equal or greater than mahāprasāda. Even if someone brings in nice, wonderfully prepared food made in some sweet shop with all pastry and everything, but we won’t consider that equal to mahāprasāda.  Any kind of mahāprasāda is considered to be unlimitedly times more valuable and important. So the devotees, they are not eager to go out and eat sumptuous food from some rich man’s house, but they are very happy if they can get some mahāprasāda of the deity from the temple.

Cc. Antya 11.21

āra dina mahāprabhu tāṅra ṭhāñi āilā 
sustha hao, haridāsa — bali’ tāṅre puchilā

Translation: The next day, Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu went to Haridāsa’s place and inquired from him, “Haridāsa, are you well?”

Cc. Antya 11.22

namaskāra kari’ teṅho kailā nivedana śarīra
sustha haya mora, asustha buddhi-mana

Translation: Haridāsa offered his obeisance to the Lord and replied, “My body is all right, but my mind and intelligence are not well.”

Cc. Antya 11.23

prabhu kahe, — ‘kon vyādhi, kaha ta’ nirṇaya?’
teṅho kahe, — ‘saṅkhyā-kīrtana nā pūraya’

Translation: Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu further inquired from Haridāsa, “Can you ascertain what your disease is?”

Haridāsa Ṭhākura replied, “My disease is that I cannot complete my rounds.”

Purport: If one cannot complete the fixed number of rounds he is assigned, he should be considered to be in a diseased condition of spiritual life. Śrīla Haridāsa Ṭhākura is called nāmācārya. Of course, we cannot imitate Haridāsa Ṭhākura, but everyone must chant a prescribed number of rounds. In our Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement we have fixed sixteen rounds as the minimum so that the Westerners will not feel burdened. These sixteen rounds must be chanted, and chanted loudly, so that one can hear himself and others.

Jayapatāka Swami: At times people say, “Can we chant the holy name mentally?” Of course, there is chanting mentally. Haridāsa Ṭḥākura would chant 100,000 names loudly, 100,000 names softly and 100,000 names mentally. So after you finished your 64 rounds loudly and 64 rounds softly, then after that you can chant, remaining rounds you do you can chant mentally. We also allow. But since you are doing only 16 rounds, those you have to do loud. (laughter)

Devotee: Should we chant all before maṅgala-ārati?

Jayapātāka Swami: Loudly means you can hear it.

Devotee: No, before maṅgala-ārati?

Jayapātāka Swami: That question again.

Devotee: Like four-four rounds?

Jayapātāka Swami: That way Lord Caitanya’s name is thousand times more powerful than Kṛṣṇa’s name. So then if you chant twenty-five times the name of Lord Caitanya, then I’ve chanted sixteen rounds. (laughter) All these things are… one cannot speculate like that. That this time of day that name is more powerful, then I chant less. You promise the spiritual master that you will chant many rounds. If we chant more powerful rounds, it makes it easier to chant the remainder. Whatever number of rounds that person is assigned, he should finish that. Prabhupāda promised us that if someone chant sixteen rounds, takes initiation, follows the system, then they will achieve perfection. Because some people are not even able to chant sixteen rounds. So to encourage them we say, “Alright, you fix the number of rounds whatever you can chant and chant that. Then gradually you increase it up to sixteen.” Once someone is doing sixteen though, they shouldn’t reduce. They should vow and chant the same number of rounds every day.

Cc. Antya 11.24

prabhu kahe, — “vṛddha ha-ilā ‘saṅkhyā’ alpa kara
siddha-deha tumi, sādhane āgraha kene kara?

Translation: “Now that you have become old,” the Lord said, “you may reduce the number of rounds you chant daily. You are already liberated, and therefore you need not follow the regulative principles very strictly.

Purport: Unless one come to the platform of spontaneous love of God, he must follow the regulative principles. Ṭhākura Haridāsa was the living example of how to follow the regulative principles. Similarly, Raghunātha dāsa Gosvāmī was also such a living example. In the Ṣaḍ-gosvāmy-aṣṭaka it is stated,

saṅkhyā-pūrvaka-nāma-gāna-natibhiḥ kālāvasānī-kṛtau

The Gosvāmīs, especially Raghunātha dāsa Gosvāmī, strictly followed all the regulative principles. The first regulative principle is that one must chant the Hare Kṛṣṇa mahā-mantra loudly enough so that he can hear himself, and one must vow to chant a fixed number of rounds. Not only was Raghunātha dāsa Gosvāmī chanting a fixed number of rounds, but he had also taken a vow to bow down many times and offer obeisance to the Lord.

Jayapātāka Swami: In other words, how many thousand times he would offer obeisances every day. Someone wants to do aerobic or something, they just take a vow of bowing down 108 times or 1008 times to the deity, and automatically they will get advantage of bowing down to the Lord, and simultaneously they will get exercise. Dancing in kīrtana should be the first exercise. After that, other things can follow if needed.

So all these great devotees, of course they were on the spontaneous platform of love of Godhead, but they followed very strictly the regulative principles far more than others. But generally they all showed a very exemplary standard of following regulative principles. When they reached very advance stage, they were doing some other specific service which was considered to be important.

Lord Caitanya, He would sometimes advice devotees; just like Haridāsa Ṭḥākura, he was told, “You just chant. You chant and describe the glories of the name.” He wasn’t cooking. He wasn’t doing Deity worship. He wasn’t doing other services. He was chanting. That was his service. There was another devotee called Bhāgavata Ācārya. His service was to read Śrīmad Bhāgavatam, practically twenty-four hours a day. That’s all he would do, apart from taking a little rest. Other time he will simply sit and read the Bhāgavatam. Lord Caitanya gave him the Bhāgavatam and said, “You sit here and you read the Bhāgavatam.” Some devotees might be given some service to do. So by doing that service, that includes everything else because it is the order of guru, you see. Prabhupāda would also give services like that. Sometimes, here in Māyāpur he wanted us to build the buildings. He didn’t want us to do anything else that time. Just chant our japa and build the buildings. Then I asked once if we can read some books. He said, “You think that reading my books and building my buildings are different? You think one is material?” So Prabhupāda, he would sometimes engage a particular devotee in specific services like that.  But of course other devotees, they might not understand it. Don’t know how this is going to be done in the future.  Whether the GBC will give some devotees specific services or whether they will authorize the advice of the gurus of future disciples. What is the system they are going to follow, I don’t know. But this is the system someone might be given specific service to do and that service is considered the practice of regulative principles. Right now, at the present time everyone follows the general theme of regulative principles and does their service. Sometimes there would be exceptional cases in the history of this movement, where a person might be given a specific service and was to concentrate totally on that service as their regulative principles.

Cc. Antya 11.25

loka nistārite ei tomāra ‘avatāra’ nāmera
mahimā loke karilā pracāra

Translation: “Your role in this incarnation is to deliver the people in general. You have sufficiently preached the glories of the holy name in this world.”

Purport: Haridāsa Ṭhākura is known as nāmācārya because it is he who preached the glories of chanting Harināma, the holy name of God. By using the words tomāra avatāra (“your incarnation”), Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu confirms that Haridāsa Ṭhākura is the incarnation of Lord Brahmā. Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura says that advanced devotees help the Supreme Personality of Godhead in His mission, and that such devotees or personal associates incarnate by the will of the Supreme Lord. The Supreme Lord incarnates by His own will, and, by His will, competent devotees also incarnate to help Him in His mission. Haridāsa Ṭhākura is thus the incarnation of Lord Brahmā, and other devotees are likewise incarnations who help in the prosecution of the Lord’s mission.

Jayapātāka Swami: Haridāsa Ṭhākura is actually incarnation of Lord Brahmā. When he had offended Kṛṣṇa by stealing His calves and cows, cowherd boys in Vṛndāvana, and then after he came back Kṛṣṇa revealed unlimited Nārāyana forms, and how every calf and cow was non different. So when he came back and Brahmā saw that after one year gone, he saw that here Kṛṣṇa is with all the cowherd boys and calves. He said “I just stole them. How He still has them all present?  Maybe He has taken them from the cave. He saw by meditation that they are still in the cave, hidden. Then he looked. “No but they are here. Exactly the same.” He compared the two. They are the same. He said, “Maybe by Kṛṣṇa’s mystic power, when I am looking here, He takes them from the cave. And when I look there, He put them back. Maybe these are duplicate. Or maybe…” His brain couldn’t figure it out. How the same boys are simultaneously present in two places. Whether it was illusion or true. At that time each of those boys who are actually non different, Kṛṣṇa’s own expansion, they start manifesting Brahmās, Śivas and Viṣṇūs and everything coming out, unlimited Lakṣmī and so on. So then Lord Brahmā, he became very astonished and offered his obeisances. So Lord Kṛṣṇa forgave him. But after that he was feeling really bad. “I am such a rascal. I steal from my own Master because of my false pride.” So he went to Navadvīpa-dhāma, and there he did worship of Kṛṣṇa as Gaurāṅga form or Lord Caitanya form. Wherever Lord Brahmā sits, it is called the center of the lotus. The center of lotus is called antara. So the place in Navadvīpa-dhāma where Lord Brahmā sat is called Antardvīpa. Then there are those are the servants of Antardvīpa in this world, you see. So Lord Brahmā was sitting there in Antardvīpa doing his worship, and finally Lord Caitanya appeared to him. He became so jubilant. He was jumping up and, “Haribol! Haribol!”, he was paying his obeisances. He was jumping up, he didn’t know what to do. He was so excited to see the beautiful form of Caitanya Mahāprabhu. His lotus eyes, His lotus feet, His broad chest. So then at that time he prayed to the Lord.

The Lord said, “What is it you want?”

He prayed to the Lord that “My Lord, I want to be Your devotee. But I am so proud by being a Lord Brahmā that I committed offenses to You. I get infatuated by this mode of passion and my controlling position. Half my life is already gone. Other half is remaining. So still I am not purely Kṛṣṇa conscious, so I need your mercy. That I can become and remain completely pure in Kṛṣṇa consciousness in your devotion and that I may not fall down again into illusion.”

So then Lord Caitanya said, “Tathasthaḥ - so be it!” 

But other question, one thing Brahmā ask for, “Also I know You are coming in the Kali-yuga in this beautiful form and You are giving out freely mercy love for Godhead to everyone, so I would like to come to participate in Your pastimes as Your servant.”

So Lord Caitanya said, “Yes, let it be. You are going to come before Me. You are going to take birth in a yavana family - in a family of meat eater. Because of this, you will be forced to be humble by being born in this type of lower caste in terms of Vedic culture. Every day you will chant three hundred thousand times the Holy Name of the Lord. And this chanting is so powerful that, by this chanting here in this world with Me for that period, you will become completely purified. You won’t have the danger of falling down for the remainder of your life. You will also be known as Haridāsa, and you will be one of My associates at that time.” Then He disappeared. So He told Lord Brahmā, “Now You go back to your place and you come at appropriate time.”

So he went back to Satya-loka for five thousand moments. So he went there for maybe, not even one of his day. May be a few hours or few minutes. Went back, got everything organised, came back.

On māyā: So the point is that that until we leave the body practically, or as long we have material body, material thoughts can enter the mind, material desires can pass through the mind. Like Prabhupāda said, somebody said to Prabhupāda, “I have no lust. 

Prabhupāda said, “What is wrong with you? (laughter) You got some physical defect or something? (laughter) He said, “Even I have lust! But I am too busy to think about it.”

The point is that pure devotion means that one stays so busy in Kṛṣṇa’s service. He works so hard during the day. When he come home at night, he just wants to just hit the sack. No energy for anything else. Stays so busy. Just like when Māyādevī, in the form of a prostitute, came to Haridāsa Ṭḥākura, she said,  “I need to be satisfied.”

“Yes, you just wait I have to finish my rounds.” (laughter)

So he is so busy chanting that time just went up. So māyā comes knocking, “Is there any service I can do?”

“You just wait I have to finish my service.”

The service just never finishes, so māyā is always waiting. Eventually māyā becomes so bored waiting, that she goes away. But until that time māyā is there. She is always ready like a shadow. But we are not looking to māyā, we are looking to Kṛṣṇa. Kṛṣṇa is like the sun. If we look to the sun, you don’t see the shadow. Look away from Kṛṣṇa, then you see the shadow. So the point is that one may have different desires, but then one should try to satisfy those desires in a regulated manner, according to the regulative principles. In this way by dovetailing those desires, Kṛṣṇa said if the person has sex desire, then they should get married. And as a product of their sex, they a have a Kṛṣṇa conscious child, and then their service to Kṛṣṇa try to make the child a devotee. They are so many souls in the world being born varṇa-śaṅkara kind of relationships. So some souls get opportunity to be born from a Kṛṣṇa conscious parent, then there is a good chance they can get liberation this lifetime. When we do the anna-prāśana, we see what is the tendency of the child from the previous life. They pick money, book or something. That shows what was their previous tendency. That doesn’t mean that in the future they cannot still be pure devotee. Simply shows that what their previous tendency, when they were just young like only six months old.  Because their previous life impression is somewhat there. We give the proper environment so that the children can be God conscious. If everybody has idea that, ‘I won’t have any children because it is too much trouble, i will be attached to the child. It’ll be māyā. Instead I will just hold as long as I can, not have any sex until I get really agitated. Then I will just fall down and I just hide it from everyone and continue to go on.’ This is total bogus. Artificial. The point is that either a person is able to remain so occupied with devotional service, that even if material desire comes in the mind, you can say, “Please wait! I have no time now.” And it goes on waiting until it goes away. Or if the desire is so strong, the thought is so forceful that it is going to drag our senses away, then one is supposed to try to become more responsible and be a Kṛṣṇa conscious gṛhastha and then have a child. Even though you may say it is attachment, but you dovetail that attachment by learning what it is to be responsible. Then you will learn first-hand. Because by having that desire, you are going to have to take birth again. There is no doubt about it. So see first-hand what is birth. Whether we get married or not, whether we are going to have a child or not, we are going to experience birth. We are going to experience childhood, as long as we have this tendency to have illicit sex. So better to have Vedically authorised sex and then experience child birth through someone else, in another words our child. We can see the child born. We can give a chance for that child to go back. By that austerity one learns to become very responsible. Actually, the gṛhastha life is more responsible, more material responsibilities are there. But those material responsibilities are dovetailed in a Kṛṣṇa conscious way. So in this way one can be peaceful. If one is being disturbed and agitated and they are not peaceful because of too much sex life, desire for sex life, then they can be peaceful in this way. There is no peace in the material world anyway. But to whatever extent one can be peaceful, if one will be peaceful by having sex, then that can be had in this regulated way. Ultimately there is no limit. No matter how much you eat, you want to eat more. Just simply that we get filled up we can’t eat. Otherwise, the Romans were taking the regurgitation method, just going on eating and eating. So like that every senses demanding more and more. That way if we try to unlimitedly just provide our senses whatever they want, we just waste ourselves and we don’t ultimately achieve any satisfaction anyway. The senses are never satisfied. But like we learn to control the senses by taking Kṛṣṇa-prasādam. Similarly, by having regulated sex life on a Kṛṣṇa conscious way, that gives us the opportunity to bring things under certain control, under certain routine. We can tell the mind.  If we  say “No, never!” The mind revolts, “Yes!” You say, “No, next month.” So that helps to control. Just like we follow Ekādaśī. We know that next day we take grain so alright, this day I’m fasting. If someone says you have to fast to death, then we get frightened, right? But if it is just one day, “Alright!” Even people are doing this fast for their health. One week fast, they are going on. So similarly, these systems are there that we follow certain regulative things with our sensual activities to purify them. We engage them in Kṛṣṇa’s service. And the composite nature of this is that we can fix our mind gradually more and more in Kṛṣṇa. Whether or not we go back in this life or the next life, we should try to whatever extent we can, to do as much service to Kṛṣṇa as possible. Kṛṣṇa has given us different ways to serve Him, you see. Whether renounced order, whether married order, whether in the temple, or whether in a gṛhastha-ā­śrama. One should take advantage of whatever alternative Kṛṣṇa has given, and do that which is more suitable under the guidance of guru for a particular person.

Even Ajāmila, he was so sinful, but last breath he said Kṛṣṇa’s name, he got delivered. So there’s never a loss of hope. Of course we shouldn’t think that ‘Ajāmila chanted one time, so let me do sin my whole life, let me do anything I want, then at the end I will chant Kṛṣṇa.’ That won’t be very effective. That won’t be recommended. But we should try, and even if we are not cent percent perfect, it simply means the odds are different. The odds of Ajāmila chanting Kṛṣṇa’s name at that moment were like one in a million or something. It was very poor odds that he would chant. Still there is always some chance. So he chanted. Prabhupāda said if you are cent percent Kṛṣṇa conscious, then there is hundred percent chance you will chant Kṛṣṇa’s name. If you are ninety percent Kṛṣṇa conscious, then ninety percent. Like that. But up to seventy percent Kṛṣṇa will still deliver you. That’s almost guaranteed. Although we shouldn’t try for seventy percent, then we may get only forty or thirty-eight or something. We should try for hundred percent. But there is a little bit gap. Just like we try to get straight A’s. But if you get a C, you pass. Even you get D, you can pass. Main thing is at the end who passes. You pass with A level or you pass with just-pass-fail. Somehow if you can pass that’s your credit. Even if you don’t pass, you get to sit in the class again. One more chance. Some people, just as a mercy case, even though they may be thirty percent Kṛṣṇa conscious, they may also pass. There is a certain quota there. Kṛṣṇa has that. So you should never give up hope. We should always try. But try to increase your possibilities for being delivered. Make it easy for Kṛṣṇa to deliver you. The more you are Kṛṣṇa conscious, the easier it is for Kṛṣṇa to deliver.

On Brahmā: How do you know Lord Brahmā has best memory in the universe? Is there anywhere that number of heads increase memory? Rāvaṇa had 10 heads but he couldn’t remember that he shouldn’t fight against Viṣṇu. Kṛṣṇa, when He comes, He is always coming, why? More than every day. In a day, He is coming so many times. But sometimes He comes as a boar, sometimes as a fish, sometimes as a tortoise, sometimes as a half lion. Each different times He is coming in a different form. Sometimes you have to think even, ‘Is this Kṛṣṇa??’  When Kṛṣṇa came as a boar, He came out of the nose, just a small little speck in the ground from Brahmā’s nostril. All of a sudden, He became bigger and bigger and filled the whole sky. So Brahmā is hard put to sometimes recognize that this is Viṣṇu. “This is Viṣṇu? Yes it must be Viṣṇu.” They finally realized. He comes in so many forms. He comes as Kṛṣṇa. Kṛṣṇa then He is a little boy, He is playing. Is it the same Kṛṣṇa? Somehow Lord Brahmā, he thought He was Kṛṣṇa, but he wasn’t sure. Then he thought, ‘Let me play a joke.’ Then he thought, ‘Why am I playing a joke?’ Like that, sometimes you walk in to your guru’s room and offer some suggestions as if you are the guru, then you think, ‘Why did I do that? I shouldn’t have done that.’ These things happen. So Brahmā had some idea, then he did it. Then he thought, ‘That’s not the thing to do.’ Then he came back. Then he was really bewildered about Kṛṣṇa. Just for a moment. He just did the thing for a moment. He thought this is Kṛṣṇa, otherwise why He took the cowherd boys. But he wasn’t cent percent sure. (Indistinct) No, He must be Kṛṣṇa, then I am really in trouble. Then I go back.  So Lord Brahmā has a day but his is quite a long day. Its action packed. Most of the day we are spending, in the material world people spend half asleep anyway. Brahmā is fully awake. That means every second he is seeing everything that is going on. Although his day is a day, but at the same time he is more conscious in that day. He is conscious. One day he can fill in more things that we fill in so many lifetimes. Also he is in the mode of passion. So in the mode of passion, you become very impetuous, very impulsive, very creative, very genius. Imagine all these things are there.  So that in passion, being the Lord in the mode of passion, sometimes it affects him. He has the idea of doing, without thinking he might do it to that extent.

Read the second canto Bhāgavatam shows how he creates this world, how he does his work. He is so powerful. By willing!  He knows the technique.  If you want to know how to do it, you have to be a Brahmā. If you ask me how to build the Sony tape recorder, I can’t tell you. You ask me how to build the universe? That we can tell you from Bhāgavatam. This is how he does it. Basic, step by step. How to take down an engine. First thing is to open up the hood, right? Then you loosen the screws. It’s there step by step. But then even if someone gives you the step by step, if you try to do it, you go there and… just like I told one devotee in the airplane, “You just put the bag up on the, you just put the bag up the thing over.” He goes there, everyone is laughing. He is going, he is putting. He’s got his fingernail on the crack trying to open up. I didn’t tell him you have pull the little handle and then it opens. So he’s, ‘Ok first thing put bag in overhead rack.’ He is trying to open the overhead rack. You may tell someone, “This is how you fix the  car. You first have to open the hood.” He just sits there hammering it. (laughter) Doesn’t know you have to open up inside the car, you open up the compartment and pull the switch, and then the hood comes. He is trying to open away, you see. It gives the system; this is how it happens. If you want to know the technique, how he does it, definitely some technique is there. That’s why he is Brahmā. (laughter) It is no small joke. How he takes things from mind and makes in to ether, how from ether into…  that we know that is how he does it. Now you do it? We give you some ether now. You are not Lord Brahmā! Basic how it happened, what is happening, they are giving an overview. But the technique, he knows that. That is why he is an empowered incarnation – guṅāvatāra. He is given that quality. He is sitting, meditating, the whole universe is coming about. That is how powerful is meditation. We sit and work like anything, but nothing happens. This is called lazy intelligent. He just thinks and everything is happening.

More on Māyā: Well, falling back into māyā - the question does not arise until we get out of māyā. Have to get out of māyā to fall back in māyā. So if you get out of māyā, then there’s no worry to fall back in māyā. Kṛṣṇa says nāpnuvanti mahātmānaḥ (Bg. 8.15). If you get out of māyā, you don’t fall back. Birth after birth is that, if you don’t get out of māyā, then you have to continue serving to get out of māyā. So you don’t regress. You come at the same position. Unless of course you started at the same position, then you have to develop from there. And if you achieve Kṛṣṇa, then you don’t fall back into māyā. It is the general rule.

More on Brahmā: That’s why he has four heads! You try to fit it all in one head it will break up. Don’t think his head is one head like our head. It is not a meat head, or a fish head. His body is also not made of this gross, what you call it? Plasma or something. Cells and celluloids. I forgot all the terminology. But his body is not made of earth. He is not an earthly. He is not human. He is beyond human. He has all the human qualities, but more than that. His body is made of far more durable substance than this fleshy bodies. That is why he is not visible to the human beings, unless he wants to be visible. So then if we try to fit in with our brain, even just try to figure out simple things, people are cracking their brain. So no one should try to do Brahmā’s job for him. Try to do your job. Somehow you can become Kṛṣṇa conscious, even with a feeble human brain. But if you try to create a universe with this brain, then it will crack. For that you have to have a Brahmā brain. But animal brain can’t understand Kṛṣṇa, neither can it create universe. Human brain may not create a universe, but it can understand some basic understanding that’s enough that you can go back to Kṛṣṇa. That is the wonder of human life. You don’t have to be a Brahmā to be Kṛṣṇa conscious. But if you want to create the universe, you want to know the details exactly how to do, then you have to be a Brahmā, because Brahmā has got that much intelligence. Just like if the man is working on the assembly line, he says that “Just for one day, I want to sit and become the chairman of the board.” But he is not going to be able to deal with all the takeovers from other companies and this and that, income tax, various things. He only knows how to tighten up the screws. So that is the thing. So even if a person can eventually be the chairman of the board, but then he has to increase his intelligence. So if you want to be Brahmā, you have to increase your material intelligence. That involves going through a few changes of body. Moral of the story, the yogī, he wanted to bite off more than he could chew. Instead of wanting to become Kṛṣṇa conscious or God realized, he was all involved in all these other things, totally abstract. So he got a blessing. Maitreya Muni had the power to give such a blessing. But he couldn’t anticipate what would be the result of that. Just like you say, “What is that atomic explosion like?

“Well, you know…”

“No, no, I just want to see it. Just make one right here. (laughter)”

You all sitting there. *boom!* After that you’re all finished. You asked for it! But you didn’t ask that first give me such a body that can handle it. So you are over load. This is why you should avoid speculation, ‘What is it like to be Brahmā?’

Devotee: Or Brahman. (laughter)

It is not just having four heads. It's got much more than that. We should try to understand what it like is to be a pure devotee of Kṛṣṇa. Try to you serve Kṛṣṇa and achieve that. Devotional aspect of Brahmā, that we can achieve. But creational aspect of Brahmā, just like a little person has IBM PC. Wants to know what is it like to be a computer, like they use to send off  those challengers and rockets to outer space. If you have a computer and you try to load too big a program, the whole thing freezes up. It’s beyond its capacity. To run the entire material universe, to create it and see that everything is going, that requires some special material intelligence. We don’t need that material intelligence to function on this planet. You need a little more material intelligence to be able to drive on the highways than you need to drive a bullock cart. But spiritually the person driving in the bullock cart may be far more advanced than someone driving on the freeway here in America. So we should try to develop our spiritual intelligence and those aspects of Lord Brahmā where he advises us about the spiritual truth for our education, we can understand that because that is something comes from the soul. The soul can start to realize that. Human life means we are not so covered up that we cannot understand these things. We can understand because we are less covered than the animal life. But the demigod, they got more material intelligence. That is also a liability. They got so much material intelligence, ability and power that that also becomes a distraction. They get involved in all those controlling aspects. So they think they are on top of things. Just little bit aloof from gross kind of suffering. Their suffering is very less, very different type, very subtle, just subtle anxieties and things. As you go higher up, they don’t get generally disease and things like that. Old age comes just one day for many of them, different categories are there. So that is also liability. You may have so much material things in your mind. They not only have to think about Kṛṣṇa. They have to think about the whole universe. But if they are doing it as devotional service, then that is perfect. That is the problem. How to do everything as devotional service. Whether you are managing director of a big company, whether you are a street sweeper, whatever you are, you have to do it for Kṛṣṇa. Things become more and more complicated, then you have to be more conscious of Kṛṣṇa.  It is easier to forget, the more complex things are. When very simple, it is easier to remember Kṛṣṇa.

So Prabhupāda said that the devotees in a society they have to concentrate in their particular service. The managers, they may have to deal with so many things. But each individual devotee they should deal with their particular service. Don’t have to worry about global problems and the zonal problems and things like that. They just have to deal with their own devotional service. That is the fallacy of the modern democracy. Every person is reading the paper trying to figure out what should our relations be with this country. And they are only getting the distorted news from the paper. They are not getting full. The President makes his decision based on the CIA, National Security Council, Secret Service, FBI and so many... What we are reading in the newspaper is some speculation some guy writes, a few things. And we are supposed to judge whether it is the right decision or not. So instead of being Kṛṣṇa conscious, we are all controlling the world through our newspapers. So it is actually distraction, a waste of energy. What’s needed is that we should use our energy to be Kṛṣṇa conscious. To whatever extent something concerns us, we should be involved. If it doesn’t concern us, we should just do our service. Not get distracted. Okay?

Hare Kṛṣṇa!

Verified by your humble ever Servant  

Vinoda Gopīkeśa Dāsa
04-01-2025
Māyāpur India