19800412 Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 4.20.14

(Disclaimer: The following is a machine-generated transcript and may contain errors or inaccuracies. It will be reviewed and verified against the original audio soon.)

The following is a lecture given by His Holiness Jayapatākā Swami Mahārāja on April 12, 1980 – in New Orleans, USA. The lecture begins with a reading from Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 4.20.14.

So here Lord Vishnu is advising Maharaj Prithu how to be a successful ruler of his citizens. It is understood that if one performs his duty as given to him by higher authorities in disciplic succession that by performing one’s service perfectly one is able to achieve the highest perfection of life. A king’s duty is not only to levy taxes, punish miscreants but it is also his primary duty to see that the citizens are Kṛṣṇa conscious, are God conscious. Without that then the kingdom becomes simply a trouble for the king and for the citizens. It becomes a trouble for the citizens in this life. And it becomes a trouble for the king in this life and the next. Because in this life there’s all kinds of indiscipline.

And in the next life he has to accept one sixth of the sinful reactions of his puaja, his citizens. The presidents of the United States. I don’t know if this is any but it always seems that they age so much immediately after being in office. I mean if there was a before and after picture I am sure that anyone could see. I just. Of course I have not seen them in person. But from the photographs it seems that they go through tremendous changes. The rulers of this world need to know Kṛṣṇa conscious principles. They are being put on the frying pan. They are accepting one sixth of all the sinful activities of this nation and of the nation they rule. They do not know what they’re getting in for.

And they don’t because of sectarian state, so called sectarian state where there’s non sectarian meaning to say. They don’t encourage the Praja, the citizens in any kind of religious activity. Therefore everything is in a very critical state. You might be interested to know how Rūpa and Sanatan when they were the prime ministers of the kingdom of the empire of the Hussein Shah, the Muhammadan emperor of the united kingdoms of Bengal and Eastern India. That of course we know that how humble they are. And mainly in Caitanya Charitamita we understand their humility describing themselves as so fallen to be employed in the service of a Mohammedan. However, there was one devotee, Chaitanya Das who went with his teacher when he was just a student, you see. And this Chaitanya Das he described, Chaitanya Das is the father of Śrīnivas Acharya. There’s two Śrīnivas.

One is Śrīvas Prabhu who is in the Panchatapta and the other is Śrīnivas Acharya who is disciple of the Stiks of Gopal. Bhaṭṭa Goswami, student of Jīva Goswami, who is a great preacher. So this Caitanidas, he went with his teacher to see the prime minister. Why would teachers go to see these prime ministers? Because you see Rūpa Sanatam, Goswamis, when they were ministers, they were running the whole government. Actually the king, he didn’t have anything to do but declare war, whatever, just have a good time. He didn’t have too many problems. He could spend his time in the conquest or whatever he wanted to do. Because the actual whole government was being run by Rupensanath. So what did they do? They built their own court a bit away from the king’s court, just a few miles, in a place called Ramakili.

And there they reconstructed a Vrindavan situation. They dug a Rādhā Kunda, Shamakunda Kundas for the sakhis, the other sakhis, Madhumangala and all the eight main sakhis, they dug the kundas and they had Rādhā Madana, Mohana, deities which were regularly being worshipped. And every day countless scholars were coming, pandits, devotees. And they were always discussing the Bhāgavatam, hearing the lessons of Bhāgavatam, discussing Kṛṣṇa Kotha and giving profuse charity to the Brahmanas for their Kṛṣṇa conscious and scholarly work. So as a result, factually, the whole culture, the whole Vedic culture in that kingdom. Why was Navadip flourishing? Because of the. Because of the just rain cloud like charity of Rupeesonatan. This is the inner secret why, One of the reasons why the culture was kept at such a high type. Because of their charity. And when.

And they were so humble, although they were so powerful, generally people become very puffed up, proud. But they were so humble. Even when they were the prime ministers, they were so humble, they were very kind, they were very considerate and they were very exacting in their judiciary skill. They took the advice of Brahmanas, but they were very penetrating in their own expertise for managing. Therefore they could finish their business very quickly and they could maintain the maximum time in Kṛṣṇa Kotha Kṛṣṇa worship. So to see this court of Rupan Sanātana, when they were the ministers, this Caitanya Das, for his whole life, he couldn’t forget that what tremendous qualities they had. It’s the duty of a ruler, you see.

Actually, of course, their destiny was not to remain as prime ministers, but their duty was to become of course, the great preachers for Caitanya Mahprabhu to discover all the hidden tirthas of Brindavana and to write Bhakti shastra scriptures upon devotional principles. So of course one time when Lord Caitanya was going to Vrindavana, he went through that Ram Kheli. And at that time there were literally hundreds of thousands of people gathering around Lord Caitanya. He was dancing ecstatically and engaging everyone in Sankirtan. Hearing about the proximity of Lord Caitanya, Karoop and Sanātana were very eager to go to him. Of course the king at some point in time he asked, what about this? Lord Chetan said, oh, he’s just a sentimentalist, don’t consider it really seriously because they didn’t want him to become obsessed with Caitanya Mahāprabhu. He might create some obstacle.

So the two of them, they went to see Lord Caitanya and when they went to see Lord Caitanya, they put a straw in their teeth and from a great distance they fell down and they were offering stuti prayers. When they got up, Lord Chaitanya started to approach them. They said, please do not come near us. We are the most fallen. We are in the mlecha meat eating community. We are the most fallen people. We are to accepted service in this community. Do not come near us, we are so sinful. And although they were always reading the Bhāgavatam, they were pure in every respect. They were daily worshiping Raha Madana Mohana just because they had accepted the task as politicians, as prime ministers for the Hussain Shah. They were taking such a humble position that Lord Chaitanya said, stop.

You are breaking my heart to hear this humility. You are great devotees. And of course, so he gave them instruction what they should do. And of course very soon they made their escape and went off to Vrindavan, which of course you know that story. So we can see here of course that it’s a duty of a ruler to first of all be Kṛṣṇa conscious. Then everything goes well. The Hussain Shah might have wondered how things were going well. They’re going well because of course, because things were Kṛṣṇa conscious. Of course Lord Caitanya was present. Rpa Sanatma were also protecting by their Kṛṣṇa conscious ruling Judas. Dear Maharaj, when he was present, things were so well run that one Brāhmaṇa, his son died before him. He could approach and say, what is this? What kind of king are you?

My son has died before I have. This means your kingdom is completely in disorder. This is against the natural order of nature. How can a son die before his father? You must be removed for this injustice and we hear this, you know, people have to laugh or scratch their head or complete bewilderment because we’re in a world where people claim to be advanced, where yet everything is in such disorder in terms of natural harmony with nature, harmony with each other. That is inconceivable that someone could dare complain to anyone that his son is dead before he is here. Where, you know, volcanoes blow their tops, where tidal waves, you know, and hurricanes are every other month coming, more genocide and wars, hot, cold, lukewarm are the continuous situation where suicides, what to speak of the suicides in one part of. Where was I?

I was just in one city in Chicago. Within a few block radius, there’s one of the most wealthiest suburbs in America. They have the record, they have achieved the highest record of suicides of teenagers. And their block, 30. 30 suicides within not one block, but you know, like three, four blocks their neighborhood. Within one or two years, 30 suicides. They’re dropping like flies, so to speak. So this is the progress because people are told that if you are materially successful, that is your success. They’re born successful. What are they going to do? Those people are born, you know, with their car and with the money, with the bank balance and you know, but they’re completely frustrated because that’s not the goal of life.

But who’s telling them you go to the church to play bingo and see the marriage of two priests who are homosexuals. So what is the goal of life? Who can figure it out in the modern society? Therefore people are completely bewildered. So therefore we can see that Śrī Prabhupāda said that in previous time he would go and convince the king. And when the king was convinced, then he would make his whole kingdom just like india. Mahārāja Ashoka before he was converted to Buddhism. Buddhism couldn’t make any progress when he was converted. He could have made the whole India Buddhist. Later he was driven out. So of course after some time Buddhism had to stay in the other nations nearby as Bard became smaller. But this is the situation. So today it’s democracy for the people or by the people, whatever of the people.

It’s a question whether it’s for the people. But anyway, it’s supposed to be by the people. So who can the people blame if they vote you bogus people to rule them. So therefore Śrīla Prabhupāda said we have to educate the masses about what? What are the real values of life? You see, then they can demand we want honest, God conscious administrators, rulers in our government. Right now the people do not have any real standard in such a big nation. Biggest democracy. Most powerful democracy in the world. United States of America and the presidential election. They’re fortunate if 50% of the people even bother to vote. People are apathetic. They know this one or that one, what’s the difference? They’re not interested. So basically these systems are not successful because they’re not inducing the people to become God conscious. Therefore they don’t care anymore.

So many people don’t care. Caring comes concern, responsibility. When we realize that I am eternal, that how I act will affect me not only in this life, but in future lives. Sure. What is the world then he can understand. So these things have not been taught. They don’t realize their relationship with Kṛṣṇa. So therefore we distribute books, we go preach them, we cultivate congregations to bring them to the platform of understanding. Actually, the devotees, their lives are completely different. Devotee is always absorbed in Kṛṣṇa consciousness, you see. In fact, just like there’s a prayer that says that the Gauriyas, the devotees of Lord Caitanya, their life and soul is Śrī Rādhā Madana Mohana, Śrī Rādhā Govinda and Sisi Rādhā Gobinath. So the devotees of Caitanya Mahprabhu, they have accepted as their life and soul these three deities.

And these deities, of course, their worship was first expanded by the Goswamis in Vrindavana, the deity of Govindnaji. You see, when Rūpa and Sanātana went there were no deity that they could. I mean that they had to worship. And Rūpa was Rūpa Ra. I believe Sanātana is Rādhāi Bhavinda, isn’t it? Sanātana Goswami. He was feeling very much Rūpa Rādhāgobinda, right? Sanātana is Samantha. And Rūpa Gosami was feeling very dissatisfied because there was Vrindavan, there was his service, he was chanting everything. But where was Govinda? Where there’s Vrindavan without Kṛṣṇa. So he was very eager to find Govinda. So one time he was absorbed in that kind of a separation from Lord Govinda. Suddenly, one elderly Brāhmaṇa Brojivasi came up. I said, why are you looking so sad? I said, I want to find Govinda. What is Vrindavana without Govinda?

And he said, well, there’s one place where a cow, every day, most beautiful, celestial looking cow comes and just spontaneously waters the ground with her with milk from her milk bags and goes away every day. And I forget the name of that place. Gavi Javan or something. And you just meditate on that point and think what it means. Then that Brāhmaṇa disappeared. Not in the ordinary way, but poof. And then Rūpa Goswami took that this was something very special. So naturally, it didn’t take him too much to think on that subject. Immediately he ran to that place. When he got there, no sooner did he get there, immediately he started to erupt in transcendental emotion. And he practically fell unconscious by the side of that place. And he knew that Govinda is here. So he got all of the people from around they’d come.

Govinda is beneath this earth here. So everyone came and they started to carefully excavate. And there they found Govinda. And they had a huge festival, you see, for installation of Lord Govinda Abishek, cleaning him, the wonderful ceremony. Everyone was rejoicing that Govinda is here.

(Side B of the Cassette)

Abishek cleaning him, a wonderful ceremony. Everyone was rejoicing that Govinda is here. So of course Rādhā Madhav is non different from Govinda. According to the Rādhā Madhav is another name for Lord Govinda. Because there are three different moods of the Lord. Rādhā Madana, Mohan Rādhā. Of course each deity is not different because they are Kṛṣṇa. But each deity is different in that they are Līlā Bishesh. Every deity has got his own relationships and own pastimes with his devotees. Just like Kṛṣṇa would expand and he would be the husband of Rukmiṇī, husband of Satyabhāmā, husband of Kalindi. Though his relationships with each queen was different. Similarly, we can understand from the Shastra that each deity has a separate reciprocation or relationship with his own devotees. Therefore, just like that young Brāhmaṇa who went with the old Brāhmaṇa to Vrindavana.

And then the old Brāhmaṇa was so pleased with his service that he said in front of Lord Gopāla that I am going to give you my wife, excuse me, my daughter, to be your wife. And then they went back to Orissa. But then, due to so many politics, the family members, they said, oh no, this is not possible. He wanted to give his daughter, but his wife, the elder son, they’re all against it. Because he’s a poor Brāhmaṇa. He said, you should give your daughter to a rich Brāhmaṇa in marriage, not this insignificant poor Brāhmaṇa. So in the face of all the pressure of his relatives, he could not. He prayed to Govinda how to save me from this. But he couldn’t face up to it. He said, no. Where is the proof that I said this or something. Some he avoided the issue.

And so then the Brāhmaṇa said, well, if I go, I will Gopal is a witness. If he gives witness. And then they say, oh yes, because all the other relatives who are not so faithful. Yes, if your Gopal comes here and give witness, then we will give the daughter. So just see the affection of the Lord to his devotee. That the Brahmin walked all the way back to Vrindavan and prayed to Gopal that you were the witness. You must please come and testify that what the old Brahman has said. Otherwise his religious principles are going to be ruined. He’s a Brahman. He’s lying. How can I go there? I am a deity. How can a deity talk? If you can talk, you can also walk. So you should come. So well, I will come, but I will walk behind You. But if you look then I will stop there.

You cannot look behind how I am walking. You will just hear that I am following you by my ankle belts. So of course the young Brāhmaṇa began on his journey and Gopal walked off with him all the way down to Orissa. And you’re probably knowing this. And when he got there, of course he became at the end he could not bear to not look. So he turned around and there immediately Gopal outside the village he stood in his Mūrti form. And he testified on behalf of the young Brāhmaṇa that yes, this elderly Brāhmaṇa has said this. But of course everyone can see that what a great devotee that the Lord has walked by foot all the way from Vrindavana just out of the affection of his devotee. And still today the deity of course of Sakhi Gopal being worshipped.

So in a similar way, you see, Govinda didn’t have any Rādhārāṇī. Do you know how Govinda was united with Rmat Rdhr? You see, in a similar way a long time ago Rdhirani had separated from Govinda, you see, somehow. And she was in Orissa being worshipped by one devotee by the name of Brihat Banu who had a relationship with Rādhā Rani, that she was his daughter and he would worship her and take care of her just as his daughter. This was that relationship. Like Vishabanu also of course has that relationship with Rmat Rādhārāṇī. There’s nothing unusual about these things exist in a spiritual world. But after he disappeared and gradually the Seva Pūjā, the deity worship became deteriorated. And the local people, they no longer knew exactly the real nature of this deity. They knew the deity to be a Lakshmi.

And so they were worshiping Rdh Rani as Lakshmi. So what happened was the Goswamis, they wanted to have Rdh Ranis but they were thinking how to do it. The eldest son of Maharaj Prataparudra, whose name is Jagannath Jannah, he had a dream where the Lord told him to provide deity for Govinda and said that Rdh came to him, I believe, and told him that I am in such and such a village and they know me as Lakshmi. But actually I am Rādhārāṇī and I want you to send me back to Vrindavan to be with Lord Govinda. So of course Jagannath Jana was very excited. He ran down to that place and saw that the deity that the people worshiping as Mahalakshmi was actually two handed Rādhārāṇī. And so he took the necessary steps in a big ceremony to transport Simothir Adharani to Lord Govinda.

And in Vrindavana, of course, there again they were united. And who can express the transcendental joy that reunion. And all the Vrajbhasis were of course very ecstatic. So this Rādhā Govinda, as I was telling Swabbas yesterday, that they’re very dear to the Gaudiyas, actually they gave the order to do book distribution to one of the great devotees of Lord Chaitanya, the Śrīnivasa Crya. He actually was sent Narottam Thakur as a prayer where he prays that Lord Caitanya, you have so many energies who have come down to help you in your pastimes. Just like RUP and Sanatan, they have been empowered by you to write transcendental literatures. And other devotees like Śrīnivasacharya, they have been empowered to distribute these literatures and to spread the knowledge of these literatures. So I pray to simply always be engaged in the servants of your servant. Servants like that.

There’s one prayer Narottam Das has sung. Of course, Narottam himself is a great preacher. So after a tremendous ordeal where Śrīnivasacharya was actually very sad because he had never seen Lord Chetan yet person. And he was always just very unfortunate in the sense that whenever he would go to meet some personality like Lord Caitanya, just before he got there, he would disappear, you see. Of course then he met Gaddadhar. He went back to get something again. When he went to see Gaddadhar, he had just disappeared. When he went to see Nitaingu and Adhaita, they had just disappeared. Of course he would always go into tremendous spiritual separation at that point. Sometimes he’d think that I should just leave my body. He’d be rolling in the ground, smashing his head, thinking how useless his life was. But this was history.

Finally when he got to Vrindavana, he wanted to meet Rupin Sanatan. He got there and as he was just bathing in a river, some Brahmanas came by and were lamenting the fact that now that Rupen Sanatan had left the world, everything was empty. And heard that and he just went mad, just, you see. And he was practically. He was lying unconscious in the temple of Rādhā Govinda just thinking that he should take his life. What should he do? There’s no one he could study the Bhāgavatam from. All the associates of Lord Caitanya had disappeared, you see. At that time Lord Caitanya, Roop and Sanātana came in a dream both of Jīva Goswami and Gopal Bhaṭṭa. Goswami told Jīva Gosami, you go to the temple, you will find him. You can recognize this young Brāhmaṇa, Sinivas Acharya.

And you make sure that he takes initiation from Gopal Bhaṭṭa Goswami and learns from you the science of the Bhagavats. Take care of him. His duty is going to be to preach my Sankirtan movement all over. And he told a similar dream to Gopal Bhaṭṭa that this person will come and you should accept him as a disciple. He has suffered spiritual agony too much. So much. So Jīva Gosami went to the temple and saw that while arities were going on, that Śrīnivasa was off in one corner, just collapsed, crying. And he could understand, this is Śrīnivas. And he picked him up with his own hands and embraced him. And Śrīnivas, when heard who this was, he fell down and grabbed his lotus feet. And then Jīva Gosami took him to his ashram, to his little place where he stayed and took care of him.

And eventually he took initiation from Gopal Batta Goswami. So making, you know, long story shorter. What happened was that, you see all the Goswamis, they had written so many literatures. Caitanya, Charita, Amrita was being written at Rādhā Kunda by Kṛṣṇa Das Kovidaj. Different, you know, literatures and Tikkas commentaries were all being written there. But these had not been transported to Brinda, to Bengal, to Gormandal Bhumi. They were all practically drying up, waiting to get the nectar from Vrindavan and to preach it. So this was the situation in time. One day everyone was present in the Rādhā Govinda temple. When Govinda suddenly spoke. He said that told to Jīva Gosami that you give the power to Śrīnivas to take the devotional literatures to Bengal and distribute them to my devotees. That’s all he said. And he dropped his garland.

Everyone, just as suddenly, the deity started speaking. Everyone went wild. And the Me Pujari tears in his eyes. He picked the garland up and he garlanded Śrīnivas Acharya. And he started to pay his obeisances, overwhelmed and crying. And so then immediately everyone got prepared. All right, now we have to send the books and they made the date and prepared the bullock card and everything to carry all these literatures all the way to Bengal. You see, this was the situation. So actually, Rādhā Govinda, we can see that they’re very much behind book distribution. Actually, they initiated this because they were the first books that were really written by our Gauḍīya devotees. And he sent Śrīnivas to go and distribute them. Narottam described that some are empowered to write, some are empowered to distribute.

These are both confidential services to the Lord to preach to other devotees. These are confidential services. So of course, Śrīnivasacharya, he was not alone with him. His associates were like Narottam Thakur, Shamananda pandit, so many other Ramachandra. Ramachandra Kovidaj was his disciple, actually. And of course, when they went to Bengal with these books, they went into a country of Bankura, which is in Bengal. And there the king, in order to make his treasury full, he had a side business which was called dacoity, or armed robbery. He had a special team of trained troops who were actually nothing else but robbers. And he had an astrologer who would study astrologically that who was coming on the road. So the astrologer study that the most valuable treasure is coming and it’s being carried by simply some sadhus.

They have a huge box and it’s filled with some valuable treasure which I cannot understand, but I can from astrological. It is the most valuable thing. So the king, he said, this is very good news. So he sent out his robbers. And that night, of course, they are sleeping our great previous acharyas. And the robbers come and say, here are some jisanyasis, some preachers. This is like taking candy from a baby. They just came in, took the box and left. No one even knew what happened. They woke up in the morning, all the scriptures are gone, all the books are gone. Sinivas is again, he’s just smashing his head, pounding. I mean, the others, they just went off different directions because it was too much. Began preaching with Śrīnivas. He said, I have to find these books.

Practically, he almost left his body and the anxiety. So then he finally went to here and there. He finally got to this king’s courtroom. And there he saw all the Brahmanas are sitting trying to figure out what is the meaning of these books. And they’re giving this interpretation and that. And he comes in and says, these people appear to be Brahmanas, but they don’t know what they’re saying. So now a statement like that is a very big challenge. And so the king immediately said, so you think that you can know what they say better than them? If you cannot, then it may cost your life to challenge all these exalted Brahmanas in this way. So no, by the mercy of my spiritual Master I can try to explain to you what these mean.

And what had happened was the Caitanya Chalameta was on the bottom when they were carrying the books. But it came to the top the box because it is the most exalted literature in our Sampradāya. Prabhupāda described it as the postgraduate study of devotional service. So then he began to preach from these literatures and everyone was amazed. They couldn’t stop listening how he was explaining Caitanya Mah Prabhu, how was he explaining Rādhā Kṛṣṇa? How he was explaining devotional service, this everything. And so the king came off his throne and then he fell down at his feet and begged you, please accept me as your disciple. You must be the king’s guide for this whole kingdom and guide us how we can advance in our spiritual life. So then at that point Śrīnivasacharya became the Rajguru and that whole kingdom, even today there are so many.

We make many devotees from Bankura district. There’s ancient temples of Lord Caitanya there. That is where the wooden deities, beautiful wooden deities are all carved in Bancora district. Many of them, the best beautiful deities I have seen are carved there. So by the preaching you see to the. Of course to this ruler, converting him, the whole kingdom was immediately made Caitanya Mahāprabhu Sankirtan movement, Kṛṣṇa conscious. And of course, nowadays who do you approach? Even if the democratic leader is convinced, he can’t say anything to his constituents because they will just knock him down, take him off the vote. Therefore we have to preach to the intelligent people, to the massive people and convince them. The leaders are separate situations. They should also be convinced or removed by the people for better leaders.