20060107 Bhagavad-gītā 4.11

(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 January 7, 2006 – in Coimbatore, India. The lecture begins with a reading from the Bhagavad-gītā 4.11.

Bhagavad-gītā 4.11

ye yathā māṁ prapadyante
tāṁs tathaiva bhajāmy aham
mama vartmānuvartante
manuṣyāḥ pārtha sarvaśaḥ

Translation: As all surrender unto Me, I reward them accordingly. Everyone follows My path in all respects, O son of Pṛthā.

Purport: Everyone is searching for Kṛṣṇa in the different aspects of His manifestations. Kṛṣṇa, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, is partially realized in His impersonal brahma-jyoti effulgence and as the all-pervading Supersoul dwelling within everything, including the particles of atoms. But Kṛṣṇa is fully realized only by His pure devotees. Consequently, Kṛṣṇa is the object of everyone’s realization, and thus anyone and everyone is satisfied according to one’s desire to have Him. In the transcendental world also, Kṛṣṇa reciprocates with His pure devotees in the transcendental attitude, just as the devotee wants Him. One devotee may want Kṛṣṇa as supreme master, another as his personal friend, another as his son, and still another as his lover. Kṛṣṇa rewards all the devotees equally, according to their different intensities of love for Him. In the material world, the same reciprocations of feelings are there, and they are equally exchanged by the Lord with the different types of worshipers. The pure devotees both here and in the transcendental abode associate with Him in person and are able to render personal service to the Lord and thus derive transcendental bliss in His loving service. As for those who are impersonalists and who want to commit spiritual suicide by annihilating the individual existence of the living entity, Kṛṣṇa helps also by absorbing them into His effulgence. Such impersonalists do not agree to accept the eternal, blissful Personality of Godhead; consequently they cannot relish the bliss of transcendental personal service to the Lord, having extinguished their individuality. Some of them, who are not firmly situated even in the impersonal existence, return to this material field to exhibit their dormant desires for activities. They are not admitted into the spiritual planets, but they are again given a chance to act on the material planets. For those who are fruitive workers, the Lord awards the desired results of their prescribed duties, as the yajñeśvara; and those who are yogīs seeking mystic powers are awarded such powers. In other words, everyone is dependent for success upon His mercy alone, and all kinds of spiritual processes are but different degrees of success on the same path. Unless, therefore, one comes to the highest perfection of Kṛṣṇa consciousness, all attempts remain imperfect, as is stated in the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam (2.3.10):

akāmaḥ sarva-kāmo vā
mokṣa-kāma udāra-dhīḥ
tīvreṇa bhakti-yogena
yajeta puruṣaṁ param

“Whether one is without desire [the condition of the devotees], or is desirous of all fruitive results, or is after liberation, one should with all efforts try to worship the Supreme Personality of Godhead for complete perfection, culminating in Kṛṣṇa consciousness.”

Thus ends the Bhaktivedanta Swami translation purport 4^th chapter 11^th verse of the Bhagavad-gītā As It Is transcendental knowledge.

Hare Kṛṣṇa how many of you know English? How many need Tamil translation? Gather them in one place. What shall we do word by word? Anyway you translate the verse. Who’s going for the ladies?

It.

Andapakam. Hare Kṛṣṇa. You can just do it off the board. This is the translation. Translation. It’s on the board.

So.

This is a very important verse. It has significance materially, spiritually, in every sphere. According to how we surrender to the Lord he rewards us accordingly. If someone approaches God as a light, as impersonal truth then he reciprocates and he only reveals Himself as a light. Where is the translation going on? Men, where is the translation going? You sent some people there, So who’s translating for them? They go there in the middle of them. What are you doing one side? How they will hear you? Those who know English move out from that area only come over. It’s not here. Those Tamil speaking go around him. If somebody thinks the Lord is super souled then he reciprocates like that. When somebody approaches the Lord as supreme person then he reciprocates. This is the same for Hindus, Christians, Muslims, for anyone, all religions, Jews.

This is a very important thing. And for the devotees of Kṛṣṇa according to how they have a desire, the Gopīs, they want to serve Kṛṣṇa in a particular way so Kṛṣṇa reciprocates with them. Jisoda, Nanda, Maharaj want to serve Kṛṣṇa as a parent so he reciprocates with them and becomes their child. Śrīdhar Subal they want to be with Kṛṣṇa as a friend so Kṛṣṇa reciprocates with them as a friend. The others want to serve the Lord as a servant like Hanuman. So they serve the Lord as a servant. So everyone approaches the Lord according to their particular desire and nature and understanding and the Lord reciprocates with them. So that’s. Very important to know. That’s why you find so many different people with different understandings about God and they all feel that God is reciprocating with them.

Because he promises I reciprocate with all of them as they Approach me. Ultimately the Lord, he reveals himself according to their faith. So just like in a village, there were some people and they had never seen a train before. So they decided they are going to go to the train track and the station. And they are going to find out what is the train. They all want to have train realization. So the three are waiting and the train is coming in the distance. And one can see.

Aha.

I see. There is a light. Train is a light. Nothing more to look for. I have realized train. He went back to the village. Train is a light. Train is a light. Nothing but a light, Jyoti. Nothing more. Because he saw in the night the light coming from the front of the train. But the other person waited. And he saw that there was a whistle. And there was a form. Said I have realized train. It has some visible aspect, some black steel. Just saw the front of the engine of the train. And he thought that’s everything. So he went home to the village. I have realized what is a train. It’s a light and a form and a whistle. I have realized train. But the third one, he waited and the train pulled into the station. All aboard. Slowly getting up, getting down.

Gītās are there. Getting their people’s money, giving their see the vendors are there. Coffee. Coffee. Coffee. Apple. Apple. Apple. Those are. Those are. A train. It’s a engine. And so many. There’s cabins, babogies and many passengers. And many vendors. So many people. And they’re selling things. So he saw the train, many more things. He went back to the village. He said, no, I realize train. It’s all of these things. Each one had a different realization about shame. What is the difference? Why they have different realizations? Who can say? She said. Limited intelligence, their desire. They didn’t wait to see the entire thing. Each one. The other two had a partial realization. They also true what they saw. Chain is light. Light is there. It’s not only light. But they only waited to see the light. And he went. So somehow they think absolute truth.

Param Satya Dhi me. It’s only light. They don’t wait to find out if there’s anything. Faith comes later. They didn’t wait to find out. The second man, he waited a little longer, but he got excited. This is like the Paramātmā realization. First the light is like Brahma Jyoti realization. The second, the form and the bell and the whistle is like the Paramātmā. But the food train with passengers TT form so many different things happening. This is a crude example like personality of Godhead. So we are trying to that people should have a desire. Wait for the full realization. Don’t get off the train early. Don’t run off. Oh, one elderly lady told me, why you worship deity? Why you do Ras Yātrā? Don’t you know everything is impersonal light? Because she doesn’t know. She only came to the first level of God realization.

In the Śrīmad Bhāgavatam it said God has three Paramsatya has three forms. Brahmaeti, Parvatmi, Ti, Bhagavān, Idya, Sabhyati. There are three forms. Impersonal Brahman, localized Paramātmā and personal Bhagavad, Śrī, Kṛṣṇa, Stu, Bhagavad, Swayam. So the Bhaktas they realize Bhagavān. The Hatha yogis and Ashtanga yogis they can realize Paravatma. And the Gyanis they only realize the impersonal Jyoti. So we are trying to let people should desire to go the full distance to the personal realization. Personal realization is the perfection that is Sat Chit, Ananda, Vigraha, Brahma, Saṁhitā, fifth chapter, first verse. If we take from Brahma he has realized the full personal aspect of the Lord. We have also realized in a limited sense. We at least theoretically understand that Kṛṣṇa is a person. But we are not so pure to see his personal form. That personal form is not material.

We need to purify our senses in order to realize that personal form. That purification comes to devotional service if we serve the Lord. I want to serve you, Lord. Lord Jeanchetamam Prabhupāda Prapadyante Tangsta Taibajamyam can reciprocate with us. You want to serve me, then I  will accept your service. One way that this is happening is Rath Yātrā. The Lord has come as Archa avatar. He’s come as Daru Brahma as the wooden form of the Lord. When we serve the Lord in this wooden form, then he reciprocates with us and he revealed himself. When Caitanya Mahāprabhu was performing Radh Yātrā festival that time he was dead before the Lord. One time he was going, he wanted to know because he was in the mood of Rādhā whether Jagannath loved me or not, whether he notices me or not.

Lord Caitanya was in the mood of Rādhā and he was feeling like that. So sometimes he would dance in front of Jagannath very beautifully. Jagannathumi, Jai Jagannath, Jesus. And sometimes Lord Caitanya would go on the side. So it was Hard for Jagannath to see. So then Jagannath would slow down. And then sometime Lord Caitanya would go behind out of sight. Then Jagannath would stop the car. And even no matter how much everyone was pulling, he wouldn’t move. So that way. Then Lord Chaitanya. Aha. Okay. He’s thinking about me. He stopped the car. Then he came forward again dancing.

Sa.

So like this Jagannath was sometime going forward. Sometimes slowly, sometime quickly, sometimes stopping all reciprocating with the love of Caitanya Mahaprabhuki. Maybe he didn’t do that for us. Because nobody had so much love. Nobody had this idea. Rādhārāṇī’s love is so great that Kṛṣṇa, he reciprocates. If our love become very great with the Lord, then he  will reciprocate very deeply. According to how much we love him, how much we serve him, how much we depend on him, he reciprocates with us. So this is very important. Prabhupāda said that if you depend on the Lord and you serve him very dutifully, then what Lord  will do? If you are serving him as a matter of duty is he  will serve you. He  will reciprocate. He will protect you as his duty. How many want protection of Ka?

So if you serve him as a matter of duty, he  will also protect you as a matter of duty. The devotees, they need to work together cooperatively. The Prophet said that how much you love me, you can show me by how well you cooperate together. If I want things from the Lord, then it’s not a selfless Bhakti. It’s a Bhakti mixed with some Karma Khanda, some material desire. If I want mystic power for my service, then it’s Bhakti mixed with yoga, with Siddhi desire. If I don’t want anything but the pleasure of the Lord, that’s what the devotees want. And Kṛṣṇa  will reciprocate with that. Sometimes someone thinks they’re devotee but they’re having many other desires. So they have to be careful. Sometimes our material desires, Kṛṣṇa does not fulfill immediately. Because it may not think we’re ready yet.

Maybe if he gives us the material desire, we  will forget Him. We  will become materialistic. So he waits for us to become stronger spiritually. Then he gives. Just like Dhruva Maharaj. When Dhruva was mature, he revealed himself. Then he gave Jhuva a kingdom bigger than his father’s powers. Insurpassable. But he was protected by the Lord. So this is what we need to do. We need to be fixed in serving Kṛṣṇa. This is our goal. He will reciprocate. But even if someone has other desires, we should still serve the Lord. But such devotees  will not be fully satisfied. Because even when they get their desire fulfilled, then we also afraid of losing that. Sometimes the worries come. We have to be careful how we desire things. Sometimes householders are not having children. They want blessings to have a child.

I said you shouldn’t ask to have a child. You should ask to have a devotee child. A good child who  will be a devotee. That you can train up to be a pure devotee of the Lord. Bhakti Vinod Thakur and his wife, they prayed to Jagannath. Give us a ray of Vishnu. Give us a pure devotee child who can make a difference in the world. Who can make the world a better place by giving people spiritual light and guidance. And therefore they got a child. Bhakti Siddharth O Vishtupad Sila Bhakti Siddhānta Saraswati Thakur. And he was born in Jagannath Purī. In the day of the Rath Yātrā, the chariot. The Ratam stopped in front of their house. So the mother passed up the baby. Just like people are passing up bananas, passing up coconuts. She passed up her baby offer to Juggernaut.

I want to offer my baby to Juggernaut. That he will be a servant of Juggernaut. I don’t think we have. This rat is very tall. So somehow they took the baby and they put at the feet of Jagannātha Swami. And his garland fell down and went over the baby. So that was taken as a special blessing. Jagannath is blessing the child. So he started a mission 64 branches and sent Prabhupāda 41 years ago to America. Prabhupāda in 1965 he reached to America to establish the Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Preaching also Prabhupāda’s efforts. He had many great desires to serve Prabhu, to serve Kṛṣṇa and serve his Guru Maharaj. So Kṛṣṇa reciprocated with that desire to give him this Kṛṣṇa conscious movement. So it’s very important that the devotees should purify their desires. They should desire the right things.

There’s nothing wrong with Vihasta wanting to have a child. That’s quite natural and that’s alright. But being a devotee, we should want a devotee child. We want a child who can serve Kṛṣṇa. There’s two kinds of good children for devotees. One is like Rhea, Vishnu, some great crya or Some avatar or some kind of very elevated spiritual person who  will come and be a leader, a great Acharya or something prophet. The other kind is someone who was doing yoga before who couldn’t finish their job of yoga practice. So they’re born in a family of yogis and they take up again where they left off. So they can take to Kṛṣṇa consciousness very easily. Because in their previous life they were also doing spiritual life. So these two kinds of children iron good.

But for doing that, then Grihasta, they go to the temple in the morning when they want to have a child. They pray to the Lord that We want to have your devotee child. We want to have someone that we can who’s a Raya Vishnu that can be a great spiritual leader. Or at least a devotee that we can help to go back to God. Yet in this lifetime, even if we pray for something that might appear a little material, if it’s done in the right way, then it won’t be a problem. But sometimes we have to come. Please give me a blessing. We want baby. Baby is not good enough. Maybe you can get all kinds of babies. You don’t have to go into all the categories. Suputra, Bhakta, this is the category. Or Bishnu Vishnu Rai, Vishnu Angs. Some Vishnu Re.

So how we serve the Lord. How we praise the Lord. All these things are very important. So this Radhyatra festival and also the reciprocation of the Lord with his devotees coming forward. We want to thank all of you devotees for coming forward. For being such nice to Lords. Many of you have come from different places. Who’s here from Tamil Nadu? Who’s from coimbatore? Who’s from kerala? Who’s from salem? Anyone from salem? Who’s from hussor area? Who’s from taylor? Andhra pradesh. Who’s from Karnataka? Who’s from bengal? Who is from other parts of India? North India. Who is from foreign countries. I am from my airport. So let’s give everybody who is listening here a big honey bowl. Welcome Honey boat. What’s the rest program tonight? Any other speakers? Questions? Paper? Anybody has a question? Any doubts? Can I complain? Can I explain? Complete surrender.

He’s saying no. He’s asking me to explain. All the things we think, we should try to think for Kṛṣṇa. All the things we speak, we should try to speak for Kṛṣṇa. All the things that we do with our body, we should do for Kṛṣṇa. The top rung of the Sannyāsī Ashram is called Paramahamsa. And they’re supposed to use their thoughts, words and deeds in Ka’s service. But when in the Bhāgavatam, it also mentions how Prithu and his wife is Archie. They went back to Godhead at the end of their life. And all the devas and the wives of the devas were offering prayers.

That.

They have defeated us. We cannot go back to Vaikuṇṭha. At the end of our life, we take birth as human beings again. Or we have to wait for the end of the universe. But in the middle of the universe they went back to godhead. So they were considered as grihasta paramahamsas. And throughout the Bhāgavatam you will find people like Advaita, Charya and others. They were also grihasta paramahamsas who did everything for Kṛṣṇa. So we need this kind. Of course, it’s very difficult to be a grihasta paramahamsa. But if someone can try as far as possible, we need some of those. Because in the Kali Yuga, very difficult to be sannyāsī, not so many  will be. So we need also some exemplary grihastas who are serving Kṛṣṇa very dedicatedly. Full surrender is such a thing. Rādhārāṇī is the personality we think of.

She has the most surrendered and she feels that she is not fully surrendered. She feels I still have to surrender better and more. So full surrender means when we’re always trying to surrender more and better. But it’s become 99.9 like that. It’s becoming very high level, 90 plus. And that’s considered fully. We may get back to Godhead with less than that. But approaching doing everything with that one motive of serving Kṛṣṇa. Any other question? Yes. Do the desires arise from the mind or the soul? Usually these desires are in the intelligence in the mind. It’s being produced. And the soul identifies with some desire and confirms it. But soul also has the feature of feeling, thinking and desiring. So the soul can also desire. But that’s when we have a desire to serve Kṛṣṇa that is considered to be a desire of the soul.

When we have the desires for the body that we’re identifying with the body, then it’s usually through the senses and through the mind. So we’re trying to awaken our spiritual desires, which is the desire to serve Kṛṣṇa to reciprocate loving service with him. That desire is a desire of the soul because it doesn’t gratify the mind or the senses. Everything  will be gratified, but in a higher sense. From our translator. I can’t hear. It’s a lot of fans here. Buzzing. When you do material activities, you do sin.

When we do. When we do material activities.

I understood what she said. I am thinking how she got this conclusion to reduce the activity. That’s taking me by surprise. Because Bhagavad Gītā tells everyone understood the question. You can repeat the question for them.

The question is when we do material activities, we commit mistakes which  will become sins. And when we do spiritual activities, Kṛṣṇa conscious activities, we also tend to commit mistakes which  will become offense. So is it better to reduce activity or what?

Then do what? Less sin and less offense. The point is that. What we do, we get the karma in material life. Why it’s called mistake. People in the western world and India, now modern India, many people, some big leader said in a newspaper today, I don’t say that I am a saint. I flirt with women, I do so many things. I want power. But I am an honest man. I am not a hypocrite like others. They’re doing the same thing, but they are cheating everyone. At least I am honest about it. I am a materialist. This is a. So he doesn’t think he’s making mistakes. He thinks he’s doing the right thing. He thinks he’s better than the others. So when we do things in the mode of ignorance, that tends to be sinful.

When we do things in the mode of goodness, tends to be punya and things in the mode of passion, that can be mainly neutral or sinful. If you depend, nothing is pure. So it depends how it’s mixed. Passion, goodness, passion, ignorance. So if someone is very much in the mode of ignorance then doing less, sleeping more or something. The only advantage for them is less sin. But whenever they are awake, they are doing sin. So the real thing is that we should do as much devotional service as we can and try to get the good score. There may be a few bad scores, but the vast majority should be the good we should avoid. If we do sacrifice, we can burn up any negative reactions.

If we try to avoid the negative reaction, if we don’t sin at the strength of our sacrifice, If we make a mistake, we should apologize, we should repent. We should say, lord, I made this mistake. I didn’t want to do. Wasn’t my desire, but by bad habit, by foolishness, by some way I did it. So please give me strength and I don’t do it again. In Bhakti yoga, our process is we had to be very straightforward with the Lord. We can Cheat Kṛṣṇa. We can’t be. We have to be honest. If we are materialistic, we say, that’s what I want. Okay? Don’t be a hypocrite. I have any material desires. I want all these things. And we serve the Lord so He will give us those things. In due course we will get some reaction also. Maybe these are the pious people.

But if we are pure devotee, then we want to regulate our material activities. We want to contain them within the parameters that Kṛṣṇa allows us to do. We may have desires. Someone may want to eat nice food, but he wants the offers to Kṛṣṇa. You have Jagannathiris who can offer 56 preparations a day. Chapun Bhuk, Someone has to eat all those remnants. So if you like to eat nicely, you just have Jagannath and feed him very nice. He will give you lots of Mahā Prashad, as much as you can cook. So those things are alright. Better to reduce our sinful activity and reduce our offenses, but not reduce our devotional service. I don’t mind. It’s a devil’s workshop. Inactivity does not counteract these things. Rather, being more active at purifying ourselves, we’re going to make a few mistakes.

But if we are doing purifying activities, that  will make our heart pure and that  will allow us to get rid of this tendency to make such mistakes. Okay, thank you very much. Hare Kṛṣṇa. Hare Kṛṣṇa. Hare Kṛṣṇa. Hare Kṛṣṇa. Hare Kṛṣṇa.

Hare Kṛṣṇa. Now after this, the Elvik Nashadam.

He wants the last question.

Yeah, last question.

Which is the higher cause? Serving Kṛṣṇa in a spiritual boat or serving him here in the material world? You see, when we’re here in the material world, what we can do, we can only serve him here. So the best service we can do is preaching, helping people to go back to Him. But why Kṛṣṇa wants to get purified? Why? He wants his devotee to remain here forever in this sinful place. So he will take us out of here and bring us back to His Eternal Leela. Some devotees stay for a long time here to help Him. There are such devotees. But generally it’s considered desirable to want to serve the Lord. In any case, the devotee prays to the Lord. I want to serve you wherever you want me to serve you. We leave that up to Him.

If he wants us to serve him here, we will serve here. If he wants us to serve him in the spiritual world, we will serve him in the spiritual world. We leave it up to the Lord. We just want to serve him nothing more, nothing less. Since we’re here now, let’s deal with the situation where we encountered. Serve him here. Hare Kṛṣṇa. Thank you very much Hare Kṛṣṇa. Please take nice prasadam. You know it’s one of the duties that when you have a Rath Yātrā you have to take some Jagannath Prasad. Someone can pack me a little Jagannath Prasad also. I just came. I was at Malaysia 4 Rath Yatras and 4 Initiation Ceremony and won 108 Kunda Yagya Inaugurating their second phase Rādhākṛṣṇa Temple phase construction.

Then I came back to Māyāpur for a short time went up to the Rath Yātrā in Assam in the Brugar North Assam seeing the Himalaya foothills. Then I went from there to there. I went to Myapa. Then from there I went to Australia. I was in Melbourne for the San Yātrā. They have very big Boxing Day after Christmas they call Boxing Day. I don’t know why, but that’s what they call it. That’s English England, subsidiary countries they call it. And that’s a holiday. So that day there was a lot of people came days. Jagannath Bala days, Subhadrā. I was cooking also in the kitchen. Chira Dahi, yogurt Chira and Kira. Then I went to Sydney. They purchased a resort which can hold 100 guests with individual beds. And they rent that out to yoga groups and other different groups to bring.

And they use it for retreats. So people coming there, they also get Prabhupāda’s books and learn about Prabhupāda, about Bhakti Yoga. So the idea is try to reach out to all these Westerners who are practicing Yoga now. But they don’t know about Bhakti Yoga. But we had a Bhakti fest for three, four days. So I was there for three days. Then I went to Auckland, New Zealand where on 31st of December everybody goes out in the street to wait for the New Year. So were chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa. Many of these New Zealanders and foreign tourists they were chanting with us and dancing. And this way we brought in from 10 o’ clock at night from 9 till 11 I did a Namhat program. Then 11 till 2 in the morning were chanting in downtown Auckland.

Then we had the January 1 special Yagya and some initiations at the Akwin temple. Then I went for the final festival in Brisbane area Nugovardhan temple where they have Rādhā Giridhari, Kṛṣṇa Balaram and Gordon Thai deities. And there we had a festival and I gave seminars then I now came back. Yesterday I inaugurated Balaram Desh in the Middle east. Had a new center. So I inaugurated the center. Then My flight was four hours delayed. Supposed to leave at 10 o’, clock, it left at 2 and the next flight was also delayed. Supposed to leave at 8:55, it left at 11:30. So finally I got here at 1:30 to the temple, attended the Rath Yātrā. So I am very happy to be here. Somehow by Kṛṣṇa’s mercy these are delay the Indian airline flight so I could get here even a little late.

At least I could get here. And for the 14 years being for 14 Ratha-yātrās. Thank you very much. Hope I can make it next year for the 15^th.