19940726 Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 5.18.8

The following is the lecture given by His Holiness Jayapatākā Swami on July 26th 1994 in Bangalore, Karnataka, India. The class begins with the reading from the Śrīmad Bhāgavatam 5th canto, chapter 18, verse 8.

This is Sanskrit prose, so we chant word by word.

oṁ namo bhagavate narasiṁhāya
namas tejas-tejase
āvir-āvirbhava vajra-nakha
vajra-daṁṣṭra karmāśayān
randhaya randhaya tamo grasa grasa
Oṁ svāhā;
abhayam ātmani bhūyiṣṭhā oṁ

Translation: I offer my respectful obeisances unto Lord Nṛsiṁhadeva, the source of all power. O my Lord who possess nails and teeth just like thunderbolts, kindly vanquish our demonic like desires for fruitive activity in this material world. Please appear in our hearts and drive away our ignorance so that by Your mercy we may become fearless in the struggle for existence in this material world.

Purport: In Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam (4.22.39) Sanat-kumāra speaks the following words to Mahārāja Pṛthu:

yat-pāda-paṅkaja-palāśa-vilāsa-bhaktyā
karmāśayaṁ grathitam udgrathayanti santaḥ
tadvan na rikta-matayo yatayo ’pi ruddha-
srotogaṇās tam araṇaṁ bhaja vāsudevam

“Devotees always engaged in the service of the toes of the Lord’s lotus feet can very easily become free from hard-knotted desires for fruitive activities. Because this is very difficult, the nondevotees — the jñānīs and yogīs — cannot stop the waves of sense gratification, although they try to do so. Therefore, you are advised to engage in the devotional service of Kṛṣṇa, the son of Vasudeva.”

Every living being within this material world has a strong desire to enjoy matter to his fullest satisfaction. For this purpose, the conditioned soul must accept one body after another, and thus his strongly fixed fruitive desires continue. One cannot stop the repetition of birth and death without being completely desireless. Therefore Śrīla Rūpa Gosvāmī describes pure bhakti (devotional service) as follows:

anyābhilāṣitā-śūnyaṁ
 jñāna-karmādy-anāvṛtam
ānukūlyena kṛṣṇānu-
 śīlanaṁ bhaktir uttamā

“One should render devotional transcendental loving service to the Supreme Lord Kṛṣṇa favorably and without desire for material profit or gain through fruitive activities or philosophical speculation. That is called pure devotional service.” Unless one is completely freed of all material desires, which are caused by the dense darkness of ignorance, one cannot fully engage in the devotional service of the Lord. Therefore we should always offer our prayers to Lord Nṛsiṁhadeva, who killed Hiraṇyakaśipu, the personification of material desire. Hiraṇya means “gold,” and kaśipu means “a soft cushion or bed.” Materialistic persons always desire to make the body comfortable, and for this they require huge amounts of gold. Thus Hiraṇyakaśipu was the perfect representative of materialistic life. He was therefore the cause of great disturbance to the topmost devotee, Prahlāda Mahārāja, until Lord Nṛsiṁhadeva killed him. Any devotee aspiring to be free of material desires should offer his respectful obeisances to Nṛsiṁhadeva as Prahlāda Mahārāja did in this verse.

Thus end the Bhaktivedanta Swami translation and purport to verse 8 chapter 18 canto 5 of the Śrīmad Bhagavatam in the matter of the prayers offered to the Lord by the residents of Jahnudvīpa

Translation: I offer my respectful obeisance’s unto Lord Nṛsiṁhadeva, the source of all power. O my Lord who possess nails and teeth just like thunderbolts, kindly vanquish our demonic like desires for fruitive activity in this material world. Please appear in our hearts and drive away our ignorance so that by Your mercy we may become fearless in the struggle for existence in this material world.

abhayam abhayam ātmani bhūyiṣṭhā oṁ kṣraum.

Jayapatākā Swami: His Divine Grace Śrīla A.C Bhaktivedanta Swami Śrīla  Prabhupāda, the A stands for abhaya. This abhaya feature is very important. In this material world, everyone is fearful. The nature of animal life is to be very fearful. You see a bird, bird is always looking, animals are looking, they are fearful. Are you going to do something? This way, the pakṣī-tīrtha the bird when they come pakṣī-tīrtha. They don’t look fearful, they are unusual birds.

But normally, everyone is fearful. In this material world, there’s always a doubt "What will the future hold, what will happen?". So naturally one feels apprehension, fear. And there is really no solution because no matter what arrangement we make, there is no sure-fire, absolute secure solution.

padaṁ padaṁ yad vipadām

There’s danger at every step. The only fearless condition is achieved by serving the Lord.

bhavāmbudhir vatsa-padaṁ paraṁ padaṁ
padaṁ padaṁ yad vipadāṁ na teṣām

For those who don’t take shelter of the Lord, for them there is danger every step. But if you have the shelter of the Lord, then you can be abhaya.

Bhajahū re mana śrī nanda nandana abhaya charanara vindare

If we fully surrender to the Lord, then He will take care of us. That is His promise. In this way, we can be fearless. No matter what happens, Kṛṣṇa is protecting us. To do that, we need to connect with Kṛṣṇa, surrender to Kṛṣṇa.

So, Narasiṁha deva, He is called vighna-vināśana Narasiṁha. Gaṇapati, Vināyaka got the blessings of taking away the vighnas by worshipping Narasiṁhadev and Lord Kṛṣṇa. So, the Vaiṣṇavas, to get rid of all the obstacles on the path of our devotion to Radha and Kṛṣṇa & Kṛṣṇa and Balaram, they worship Narasiṁha Deva.  

With the blessing of Guru and Narasiṁha we can cross over all the obstacles. Narasiṁha deva is a form of Kṛṣṇa. Kṛṣṇa assumed this form to protect his devotee Prahlāda. Unique form, very ferocious, very dynamic, very kind to his devotees, bhakta-vatsala.

About 300 years ago, there was an unusual thing happened. In our disciplic succession, there is one ācārya who is disciple of disciple of Caitanya Mahāprabhu. He was the disciple of Gopal Bhaṭṭa Gosvāmi. He came from Śrīraṅgam. His name is Śrīnivāsa Ācārya. And he was entrusted with the duty of bringing back all the books to Bengal, to get them duplicated, copied and then to give them to the Vaiṣṇavas and from there to distribute all over India.

So, there is a long history how he was passing through a kingdom, where the King as a sideline business used to have, some of his secret agents rob the pilgrims. So, some astrologer told them that there was a priceless treasure which is going to be passed into his kingdom worth more than all the jewels in the world, all the gold, this was the most valuable treasure. So, he became so inspired. And he told his police, his secret agents, and told them; you have to get this box. Someone is bringing a box, bring it here.  Don’t open it up.  I would award each one of you 1000 coins, gold coins.

So, they stole the box in the night from the sleeping sadhus which contained all of the books of Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu’s sampradāya. Which they had been written in Vṛndāvana. So, when the sādhūs woke up, they were really concerned, they were practically mad with anxiety.  With all the great ācāryas of Vṛndāvana have entrusted with these books and now they were stolen.

So, Śrīnivāsa Ācārya, because he was the principal one who was entrusted. He came and looked everywhere. So, he finally went to the king, turned out that there was a kind of competition between him and the King’s guru.

And he was told to give Bhāgavatam class. But since he didn’t like the king’s rāja-guru's Bhāgavatam class. But then he gave such a nice class. Everybody was overwhelmed and the king wanted to find out who he was. Brought him to the back, asked everyone to leave and asked who he was. Then found out that he was looking for the books. Now when the King had brought this box to his treasury, locked all the doors, opened up the box to see what the treasure was. He was so frightened that even if his own people saw they might get greedy and harm him. He didn’t want anyone else to see. When he opened it up, he found that they were books.  It was a treasure, worthwhile and everything, but it was a literary treasure. It was a spiritual treasure.

So, he sent back the same, some secret agents to try to again find out the sādhūs from whom he had taken it. If not, I’m finished. He thought that if I steal from the pilgrim people, then later I would just listen to the Bhāgavatam and I would free myself from sins. But when he stole some sadhu’s books, he was really frightened. "Oh, now I will never get forgiven".

Actually, we should never sin and then think that by doing some holy work, we will get forgiven for the sin. That type of calculated sin is an offense. And if that calculated cheating propensity, if Kṛṣṇa cheats us, He doesn’t free us from our sins. Accidentally if we commit a sin, we can get freed from it by performing various spiritual activities.

But we shouldn’t consciously make an effort to sin, thinking that then later on, I will just do this prāyaścitta and get free from it. Now, this is a very long story, so I am just giving you the overview.

Because I want to tell you another story which is very interesting. Śrīnivāsa Ācārya got back all the books and turned out that the King accepted him as the new rāja-guru. Took the dīkṣā from him.

Śrīnivāsa Ācārya established, was worshipping the Madana Mohana Deity, very powerful Deity plus he had his own personal deity. The king built another temple for Madana Mohana one for his rāja-guru temple. And then that whole kingdom became Vaiṣṇava. And every descendant in that line, of that reign, they erected a new temple, established a new Rādhā-Kṛṣṇa temple.

So, there was about 12 or 13 Rādhā-Kṛṣṇa Temples in this capital city of Viṣṇupura. So, we took the devotees to Viṣṇupura this year and saw these Deities and the temple. And then they told us, showed us, he took us, one of the guides took us to a canon.

He said, “Go and take darśana of the canon”.

Why would we want to see a canon? What spiritual significance does a canon have and they told us a very amazing story. 300 years ago, just before the British at the end of the Mughal period. That time apparently, the Mughal empire was not so strong and some Maharashtrian kings became very powerful, I think at that time Shivaji became.

So somehow into Bengal, there were group of Maharashtrian raiders under the leadership of one dacoit king called Bhaskar Rao. He was celebrated as Bhaskar Bandit. And he had over 10,000 soldiers.

But somehow, he was a bit demoniac type. He would always persecute the brāhmaṇas and Vaiṣṇavas and loot their villages. So they had to flee away and go and wherever we went in Bengal, studying the history of Caitanya Mahāprabhu’s movement. After few hundred years we came, we heard of this Bhaskar Rao, he had driven out these brāhmaṇas, had looted the place of Vaiṣṇavas. So they all deserted and they went off to some other part of the kingdom of the empire.

Apparently this Bhaskar Rao, he has been attacking 13 kings, in the line from the disciple of Śrīnivāsa Ācārya many times. 4,5 times he attacked, but he was not able to defeat him. So, one time now he had a mass, very big army of 10,000. He built up. He was controlling quite a big area in Bengal; He had carved out his own domain and apparently the emperor also could not control him.

Do you see why the British were able to come in and control us?

We kind of weakened up.  In any case, this time when he was attacking the king, he got some inspiration.

He said that, this time, for 24 hours, we are not going to fight. I want the entire kingdom simply to chant the mahamantra.

Hare Kṛṣṇa Hare Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa Hare Hare
Hare Rāma Hare Rāma Rāma Rāma Hare Hare

No one should lift their arms day and night, would chant 24 hours Hare Kṛṣṇa. By the effect of the holy name would drive away this demon, dacoit. So everyone was chanting.

So, in the middle of the night, there was the sound of canons going on. Bom boom bomm bom bom[Guru Mahārāja making sound].

When this canon is going off again and again and again, and creating a huge explosion. The king said, "what is going on?

I said no one should lift any arms. Why they are firing?" Canons were just going on like that for some time, hours, more. King sends out, go find out who is doing this. When they came back, they went out, they found out that the entire army, of this Bhaskar bandit, he was completely massacred. All the bodies were lying everywhere. No survivors.

He said who did this?

Some eyewitness was there, he said that, the Deity came out with one canon under each arm and the canons were just automatically firing. And just wiped out the entire army. And they went to the temple to see, the canons were lying, smoking. Then they went into the temple and the from there the Deity was all with gun powder smell was coming.

So, this Deity became very famous, how He protected His devotees with canon. So, one of the canons is still kept there. Quite a big canon. Near to that. (Not Clear 20:24) this much 12 to 15 feet long canon.

Recently the archaeologist, of course they said wow! Recently the archaeologist was excavating and they found these Maharashtrian coins showing that there was this battle and there were so many remnants. So that’s why we are reading how the Deity is very powerful and the Deity of the Lord is the arca-avatāra or installed incarnation of the Lord.

Generally, the Deity doesn’t move or talk. But sometimes if He wants to, He can. There are many histories of Deities talking. Rāmānuja’s secretary was worshipping the Deity of Śrī Varadarāja in Kanchipuram. Deity used to talk to him, give him blessings.

Like that, so many Deities are there. We know Udupi Kṛṣṇa, turned around from one side facing the other side, so that he could have darshan of what is that devotee’s name? Kanakadāsa.

No one moved Him. He just turned Himself. In Orissa, here is this Deity, Sākṣī Gopal, who walked in Vṛndāvana. to give testimony to His devotee.

The Deity at Remuṇā stole a pot of condensed milk to give to His devotee. Here is this rare case where this Deity took canons and blasted out the entire army. So, the devotees may become fearless by depending on the Lord. Generally King would go out and protect the Deity. There are cases where the Deity protected the king.

But it seems that because this Bhaskar Rao has been persecuting so many brahmanas and Vaiṣṇavas, Kṛṣṇa had a personal score to settle with him.  One thing was to go and rob and be ruler. But the way he harassed the brāhmaṇas and the Vaiṣṇavas, this was intolerable for the Lord.

Innocent people, just like Prahlāda was an innocent child, Narasiṁha Deva came to protect. So, the devotee always feels himself dependent on the Lord and the Lord is protecting. So, devotees, they easily get free from the knots of material existence by serving the toes of the Lord’s Lotus Feet.

yat-pāda-paṅkaja-palāśa-vilāsa-bhaktyā
karmāśayaṁ grathitam udgrathayanti santaḥ

Serving the Lord is so transcendentally fulfilling that one can lose the hard knot that is tying us down to fruitive desire. It’s untied. Those who are not devotees, you see

tadvan na rikta-matayo yatayo 'pi ruddha-
sroto-gaṇās tam araṇaṁ bhaja vāsudevam

For them, jñānīs and karmīs, it is very difficult to get free of this desire. You see, the jñānīs are saying jagat mityā, brahma-satyaṁ. But then they are opening so many hospitals. If jagat is mithyā, then hospital is also mithyā, schools are mithyā. Everything is mithyā.

So why they are opening schools and hospitals, if everything is false. Because this fruitive desire to be respected in society is very strong. Although they say give up the whole world, they come back and do some social work, which is within what they are saying is all false.

Devotees they are not saying that the mundane world is false, they are saying it is temporary and illusory. We shouldn’t become too attached to it because it is temporary. We should use it in moderation and utilize it in the service of Kṛṣṇa and actually allow our attachments to grow for Kṛṣṇa. Because by having attachment to Kṛṣṇa, that is what will bring us back to Kṛṣṇa.

So, by serving the Lord, we get attached to Kṛṣṇa easily. How do we get attached to serving Kṛṣṇa? By serving Kṛṣṇa. It’s not that you have to do haṭha-yoga to get attached to Kṛṣṇa. Or you have to do tapasyā to get attached to Kṛṣṇa. You have to serve Kṛṣṇa following rules and regulations. And by doing so, gradually you will become attached to Kṛṣṇa. In your heart, you naturally want to serve Kṛṣṇa.

But in order to get that type of attachment to Kṛṣṇa, it is recommended that we should serve without any desire for material gain, either knowledge or sense gratification. If we are serving with the desire or with the motive, then Kṛṣṇa would fulfill our motive but we would not get so much attached to Kṛṣṇa.

But if we are serving without motive, then we get deeply attached to Kṛṣṇa. The more we are attached to Kṛṣṇa, then Kṛṣṇa also reciprocates with us more and more.

So, these material desires, they are actually the obstacles. We have to get free from those desires. So, how to get free? Here the solution is given.

Narsiṁha Deva who killed Hiraṇyakaśipu who is the personification of material desire. Hiraṇyakaśipu wanted to control everything, enjoy everything. So Hiraṇyakaśipu was delivered by Narasiṁha Deva.

Similarly, by blessing of Śrī Narasiṁha Deva, we can worship Kṛṣṇa. First, we pray to Narasiṁha Deva to remove all the obstacles in the path of our worship of Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa and Nitāi-Gaura, Kṛṣṇa and Balarāma.

To get the blessing of Narasiṁha Dev, just like devotees, they get the blessing of Lakṣmī and Nārāyaṇa. Because, by Her blessing, we can also get the opulence to worship the Lord. We can get the blessing of the Lord and we are allowed to worship Him. We go to the Lord through His energy.

Now, when we come to the Lord, the devotee is not afraid of anything. But the devotee is afraid of getting entangled again in material desire. So, a devotee avoids things which would bring us back to material entanglement. The devotee is afraid of committing offences.

Devotee is afraid of material desires. Devotee is not afraid of death. A devotee is afraid of desires. So, when we do our devotional service, we should be very careful not to commit any offenses to the devotees. To the Lord and to use all of Kṛṣṇa’s property, all of Kṛṣṇa’s possessions in Kṛṣṇa’s service. We shouldn’t break peanuts, groundnuts with the śālagrāma-śilā. You know that example.

Śrīla  Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur used to use this example quite a lot. He called it śālagrāma diya bādāma bhāṅgā. Once there was a rich man, he had a temple, a personal temple. In the temple, he had a beautiful deity, a śālagrāma-śilā.

So, he hired one brahmin purohit to do the puja. But it turned out that this particular brāhmaṇa was an atheist. He didn’t believe in God. But because of economic necessity, he took the job as pujārī and went through the rituals. But actually, he didn’t believe in God, in Bhagavān. He had no faith in any of this. One day, one bhakta came and offered from the field, nice basket of moong-phallī in the shell. What do you call in kanada? Kallikala… kadalaikal. One basket of Kadalaikai, groundnuts. He likes Kadalaikal very much. He was eager to eat some of the kadalaikal.

He closed the temple door and thought now how can I break a kadalaikal? He didn’t know what he could break it with. Inside śilā was there, Nārāyaṇa. But he had no faith in Nārāyaṇa. It was just black stone.

So, he thought stone is good for breaking kadalaikal. He took the worshippable Deity, the Nārāyaṇa-śilā from the altar and he started using it to smash the peanuts. Chick chick chick, chick chick chick [Guru Mahārāja making sound of breaking].

So, by the Kṛṣṇa's arrangement, the owner of the temple he happened to come by. Inside he was hearing the duk duk duk, smashing sound. He looked through the window. "Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh! Ohhhhhhhhhh! [Guru Mahārāja is shouting]

What you doing? You pāṣaṇḍi! You demon! Athiest!

Get out from here. What you doing?"

Taking śālagrāma-śilā and smashing kadalaikai? [Devotees laughing] 

He went to the temple, put the shila back in the temple, pounding the guy, drive him out of the temple. Rascal, nonsense, etc etc. So breaking kadalaikai with śilā, now for devout persons, this is such a drastic horrible thing.

We are worshipping śilā and think that someone is taking and smashing something, some mundane thing like breaking peanut, it’s like a night mare. We cannot, makes your hair stand on end, so horrible.

So Śrīla  Bhaktisiddhānta Ṭhākura used such a graphic example to really drive home the point to his sādhu disciples. When they are living in the temple āśrama, they should not use the Deity things for their own sense gratification.

If they did, he would say, you are breaking peanuts with the śilā.  The temple things are for Deities sevā. He followed it so strictly that once in his childhood, he ate a mango which was not offered. And his father told him, that mango was bhoga meant to be offered to Kṛṣṇa and you have eaten it!

You have committed an offense. Although he was only 6, 7 years old, he took it so serious, he took a vow, in his whole life, he never ate ripe mango. Even 40 years away, he won’t take mango. Because he had eaten the bhoga of the Deity.

He was very strict on his point, not to take anything that which is meant for Kṛṣṇa, not to use Kṛṣṇa, we have so many nice facilities here. But it is for preaching.

Devotees want simple living, high thinking. Want to use whatever facilities they have for Kṛṣṇa’s service and not for sense gratification.

That is also Śrīla  Prabhupāda made the system, when we collect, turn in all the collection to Kṛṣṇa. Then, whatever the devotee may need for their fooding, clothing allowance, they get from temple. But they don’t take from the, they don’t take even a pie from the collection. Also, it is said that when someone donates, they are also giving up their karma.

If someone takes directly from that donation, they also have to take the karma of the person. That’s why gṛhasthas, they are not supposed to live by begging. If we beg, we take the karma of those people. Only the brāhmaṇas beg, only they are allowed to beg, but then they are supposed to offer to Kṛṣṇa. Even the brāhmaṇas, they would be very selective whom they beg from. Only from pious people.

The Vaiṣṇavas, they are giving everything to Kṛṣṇa. Kṛṣṇa is the repository. Then after that, whatever minimal needs they have, they are getting from Kṛṣṇa, so they are free of any karma. We need to be very careful in their day-to-day dealings.

Devotee is not afraid of death, not afraid of material things. But they are afraid of this desire for sense gratification, they are afraid to do something which will be offensive to Guru and Kṛṣṇa. For that there are apprehension, but not afraid of material future. Whatever may happen, we depend on Kṛṣṇa.

You know in this material world, there may be so many dangers, but we simply depending on Kṛṣṇa. But what we are afraid if anything that comes in between our relationship with Kṛṣṇa. That we don’t want.

Our friendship, our devotion, our servitude to Kṛṣṇa. We don’t want anything to interfere with that. And that is the fear that devotees have. Nothing can come in between our relationship, except for our own offensive attitude or if we are somehow turn our back to Kṛṣṇa and desire sense gratification. So, the devotees are afraid of this sense gratification and they are afraid of offenses. Otherwise, they are abhaya. They are fearless.

So, Kṛṣṇa is very kind. He gives us the system how we can live in the material world. How we can regulate our activity and not get entangled into sense gratification. And the key secret given here is to always be engaged in the Lord’s service.

Our lives should have, beyond our regular duties whatever we have to do to should be filled with devotional service, so there’s no room for material desires.

Prabhupāda explained that if a cup of water is full, then there’s no more room. You can’t put anything else. Only if the glass is empty, you have more room. So, the devotee keeps filled up with devotional service.

Someone may say, oh it is so difficult, I don’t have the time. After my work, after my studies, very little time to chant my rounds. But, if our time is filled up, we have to do whatever our duties, regular activities. What we call the maintenance activities, we must do. First time we should fill it up with devotional activity.  Even the maintenance, we are doing for some higher purpose in the end, for devotees who live outside the temple.

So, our time is filled up, no time for frivolous activities, no time for prajalpa, no time wasted in watching lot of TV. No problem, its better, it is ideal we don’t want to waste our time but rather use it always in Kṛṣṇa’s service, in the nine practices of devotional service.

Hare Kṛṣṇa Hare Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa Hare Hare
Hare Rāma Hare Rāma Rāma Rāma Hare Hare

 

Any questions?

Whatever knowledge we need to do our service is not an obstacle. The desire for, the jñānīs they want to know so much about different things, which are not needed or related to our devotional service.

Simply, an independent desire to be very knowledgeable without any devotional purpose is not exactly sense gratification in the gross sense. But in subtle sense, it is also sense gratification to be recognized as a very knowledgeable person.

There are so many big big paṇḍitas and scholars, but their knowledge is like theoretical kind of knowledge or it is a knowledge which is not utilized in devotional service.

So that type of unrelated knowledge which is not used in Kṛṣṇa’s service is what is being referred to here. That doesn’t mean that the devotee doesn’t have knowledge. A devotee is Vedanta, Bhaktivedanta. They understand the end of knowledge. Whatever knowledge is needed to know Kṛṣṇa. To understand side by side the material and spiritual world, so much knowledge is there.

But that knowledge for the devotee, it has a purpose, for preaching or for explaining or using in Kṛṣṇa’s service. So here the jnana is referred to unrelated knowledge, knowledge without any practical or devotional purpose, for serving Kṛṣṇa.

Question- (Not Clear 41:21)

Pardon. On our own, we cannot transcend anything. But by serving Kṛṣṇa, automatically we can transcend. Kṛṣṇa says,

mām eva ye prapadyante
māyām etāḿ taranti te.

I will deliver. Mayam etam taranti te. I will deliver. You just surrender. Our duty is to surrender to Kṛṣṇa. Kṛṣṇa, His duty is to deliver us. If we try to get out of the three modes by some type of physical or mental effort, how is it possible? But if we simply apply our mind, our words and body in Kṛṣṇa’s service, automatically, we are above the three modes.

mām ca yo 'vyabhicāreṇa
bhakti yogena sevate
sa guṇān samatītyaitān
brahma bhūyāya kalpate

When we are absorbed in bhakti-yoga, sa guṇān samatīta, we become guṇātīta, transcendental to the three modes. Because devotion to Kṛṣṇa is transcendental. Because Kṛṣṇa is transcendental. Everything in relation to Kṛṣṇa is transcendental. Kṛṣṇa is beyond sattva, rajas and tamas.

Although Kṛṣṇa’s expansion, the Viṣṇu  form is coming and overseeing the mode of goodness, but Kṛṣṇa in His Viṣṇu  form also is not implicated by that. He is always transcendental. Simply He is agreeing to do that out of his own kindness. But He is always sat cit ānanda, guṇātīta.

So, when we serve the Lord, actually we become transcendental to the modes of nature. There’s no other way to be transcendental to the modes of nature so easily. The impersonal meditation will eventually bring one above the two modes but we read yesterday how kleśa adhikatara, very difficult, filled with difficulties and suffering. But the process of bhakti in contrast is very joyfully performed, very easily performed, no difficulty.

Kevala ānanda kaṇḍa  – all blissful process.

So, by this process, we can get over the influence of the three modes, because this process is given by Kṛṣṇa. This is the method to do it. So, we follow Kṛṣṇa’s process and we can get over the three modes because He created the three modes, He created the way how to get out of the three modes. Yogas and dharmas are only given by Kṛṣṇa.

dharmaṁ tu sākṣād bhagavat praṇītam

Only Bhagavan can give us dharma. So, this dharma to get over the modes, to get transcendentally situated, then he is recommending most of all bhakti-yoga.

Hare Kṛṣṇa

Thank You

Second Level Proofer: Karuṇāpati Keśava das

Second Level Proofed on: 20-Feb-2021