20080616 Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 8.21.5-8

The following is a lecture given by His Holiness Jayapatākā Swami Mahārāja on June 16^th, 2008 in Towaco, New Jersey USA. The lecture begins with a reading from Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam Canto Eight, Chapter Twenty-one, Text Five to Eight.

Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 8.21.5

brahmādayo loka-nāthāḥ
sva-nāthāya samādṛtāḥ
sānugā balim ājahruḥ
saṅkṣiptātma-vibhūtaye

Translation: Lord Brahmā and all the predominating deities of the various planetary systems began to worship Lord Vāmanadeva, their supreme master, who had reduced Himself from His all-pervading form to His original form. They collected all the ingredients and paraphernalia for this worship.

Purport: Vāmanadeva first expanded Himself to the universal form and then reduced Himself to the original Vāmana-rūpa. Thus He acted exactly like Lord Kṛṣṇa, who, at the request of Arjuna, first showed His universal form and later resumed His original form as Kṛṣṇa. The Lord can assume any form He likes, but His original form is that of Kṛṣṇa (kṛṣṇas tu bhagavān svayam). According to the capacity of the devotee, the Lord assumes various forms so that the devotee can handle Him. This is His causeless mercy. When Lord Vāmanadeva resumed His original form, Lord Brahmā and his associates collected various paraphernalia for worship with which to please Him.

Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 8.21.6-7

toyaiḥ samarhaṇaiḥ sragbhir
divya-gandhānulepanaiḥ
dhūpair dīpaiḥ surabhibhir
lājākṣata-phalāṅkuraiḥ

stavanair jaya-śabdaiś ca
tad-vīrya-mahimāṅkitaiḥ
nṛtya-vāditra-gītaiś ca
śaṅkha-dundubhi-niḥsvanaiḥ

Translation: They worshiped the Lord by offering fragrant flowers, water, pādya and arghya, sandalwood pulp and aguru pulp, incense, lamps, fused rice, unbroken grains, fruits, roots and sprouts. While so doing, they offered prayers indicating the glorious activities of the Lord and shouted “Jaya! Jaya!” They also danced, played instruments, sang, sounded conchshells and beat kettledrums, in this way worshiping the Lord.

Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 8.21.8

jāmbavān ṛkṣa-rājas tu
bherī-śabdair mano-javaḥ
vijayaṁ dikṣu sarvāsu
mahotsavam aghoṣayat

Translation: Jāmbavān, king of the bears, also joined in the ceremony. Sounding his bugle in all directions, he declared a great festival for Lord Vāmanadeva’s victory.

* * *

Jayapatākā Swami: Okay, after that it goes into what the demons thought about it. That is another subject. So, this ends the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam Canto Eight, Chapter Twenty-One, Text Five, Six, Seven and Eight, translation and purports by His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda in the matter of Bali Mahārāja arrested by the Lord spoken today the 16^th of June 2008, which is also the 522^nd year of our beloved Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu.

Yesterday, the Brahmā washed the Lotus feet of the Lord with his kamaṇḍalu. The Lord also burst the border of the universe. And also, the Lord assumed the form of Vāmana.

Now, He took back from His big Universal Form, then He took His normal Vāmanadeva form, small dwarf form and there was pūjā, arghya, pādya, madhu-pārka, ācamana, all these different that we use every day for worship. This was done by Brahmā and by the great rulers of different planets, celestial planets. There was dancing and incense and lamps and fused rice. You know what fused rice is? Fused rice is what they call khoi in Bengali they call it laja in Sanskrit it means it is like popcorn. It is popped rice, not puffed rice, but popped rice. And then… so that is considered auspicious for pūjās, people. Some ceremonies, you sprinkle that around, it is called fused as compared to popped. Popped means it keeps its round shape, fused like popcorn. Like popcorn, fused like corn. I do not know why they use the word fused but it does not make any sense to me. (laughter)

Anyway, so, these are all auspicious things. Unbroken grains that would be… unbroken grains would be like paddy and wheat and barley and so many… and then fruits, roots, sprouts. Sprouts are also considered auspicious. Interesting, because naturally they say the sprouts have more vitamins and things. And they were chanting kīrtana, shouting, “Jaya! Jaya!” dancing, playing instruments, singing, sounding conch shells, kettledrums. So, like this there was a big celebration. So, they were also doing some kind of kīrtana.

And then finally Jāmbavān. He was playing with his bugle. He must be living a long time. He is in.. he is also in Rāmacandra’s time. This is Satya-yuga. (laughter) I mean, we never heard about his departure. So, he is a very special personality. He has all this. That is interesting. (laughter) A curse. Why curse? Not considered curse. Everybody in the material world wants to live a long time. Do not consider that a curse, it is some blessing, but from a spiritual point of view, you might think, cannot go back to Godhead. But he is seeing the Lord’s all incarnation, personally associate with the Lord. So, he is at the ārati, blowing his bugle, chanting. He is a very special personality – a bear, like a bear. And his daughter is married to Kṛṣṇa, Jāmbavatī. He is more a devotee of Rāma. He did not know that Kṛṣṇa was the Lord.

So, Bali lost... with His two steps, (the Lord) He took all his land and now he (Bali Mahārāja) is arrested by the Lord. Demons are already unhappy about that. But actually, the Lord is showing some special mercy to Bali because in the end he gives them a planet greater than the heavenly planet. And He is his personal guard there. So, they are having a vacation in Sutula. They do not have to worry about anything. Also, the two-way vacation for Bali and vacation for Indra. They do not have to worry about Bali (laughter) because Bali was one of… not-so-many people could defeat Indra, Bali was one of the few who was able to do that because of doing viṣṇu-yajña. Rāvaṇa did it because of Śiva. He worshiped Śiva, did a lot of śiva-pūjā. Do not know so much about what Rāvaṇa did to get all his powers? We hear that he was in different places, there is that he was worshiping always Śiva. He wanted to take this one mantra, this one deity who they call ātma-liṅga, some special liṅgas that is not different from Śiva in a very high sense.

But then there were some conditions, and he did not meet the conditions. So, he tried to pull that liṅga by force, but he could not. But he was so strong that the liṅga actually got stretched out in the shape of a cow’s ear. So that became known as Gokarṇa. In Karnataka, near the Goa border, there is a deity of Śiva called Gokarṇa because the śiva-liṅga was actually extended by Rāvaṇa’s strength. But it would not move, did not move became stretched out – Gokarṇa like a cow’s ear but did not move, still there.

Then in Navadvīpa parikramā, it also says that there was a nīla-lohita-śiva in Rudradvīpa. This was a special red-blue liṅga which is so powerful that when Rāvaṇa worshipped that liṅga, he got all these powers to defeat the universe. So, now we do not know where that is. We do not see that in Māyāpur, just described by Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura that it is there somewhere. But maybe he is too powerful, so some other demons would get the blessings (laughter) so like that, but here we see the whole universe they are celebrating, and Brahmā comes with all the universal demigods.

This was happening also in the time of to some extent in the time of the Pāṇḍavas when they had the Rājasūya sacrifice, ṛṣis and devas from other planets came and were attending as special guests. Here in America, they have their world cups but just the sporting people come. Maybe sometimes some VIPs, some national leader will come from some other place. But, generally speaking, it is a local thing. But consider they had some kind of an event that was so great that the leaders of other planets came. Here, the leaders from all over the universe, including Brahmā, came to show their respect to Vāmanadeva, to congratulate Him, to worship Him. So, the people, of course, seems like this was in Indraloka. But we do not have too much access there.

But during the Pāṇḍavas’ time, the general people could see the residents of other planets, the leaders of other planets that was how Prabhupāda was illustrating that human beings were so elevated at that time that they could hold this type of yajñas. But now the devas do not come here to the earth planet even just to relieve, to pass urine or something. They do not come here. What is the point? People are so much degraded. But then when we have these big kīrtanas, sometimes devas, they actually attend the kīrtanas. He said once Nārada Muni came to the New York temple. I do not know which one, I mean they shifted around a few times. I could see what year that was.

He said that the first time he came to the New York temple, and he was observing the devotees. He was very happy how they were all chanting and dancing. Yeah, Prabhupāda was unhappy, you know, we do not know what happened after but actually, he had mentioned that he wanted his samādhi, his puṣpa-samādhi, samādhi on top of that building. I mean how important that was to him. Somehow, we did not know about that. But because of that, these five temples were established from that one. Three? I thought five. Lake Huntington. No, there may be three left. There was Brooklyn, there was this Towaco, there was Lake Huntington. Only three. I thought there were five. Three temples. Prabhupāda was very proud. Now that building is worth a lot. Once we sold it, it became very expensive. It was a big... GBC, we had to go infront of Rādhā Govinda and apologize. But such personalities, we do not know who comes for these Ratha-yātrās and festivals, which some universal personality. 

But we cannot normally see them. Nārada Muni, when he comes to the temple, probably sometimes, we feel very ecstatic kīrtana. Maybe some extraterrestrial celestial being is there to watch the kīrtana. But we are not able to see in normal conditions. But when the Pāṇḍavas did this yajña then people, everyone could see. There is Brahmā, there is this one, there is that one. So, such as this is that kind of occasion. I mean, maybe people did not know who Vāmanadeva was. But after He showed His universal form and covered the whole universe, then everybody knew that this was Vāmanadeva. So, then they came and worshipped Him. The Lord can come down in different forms.

When Lord Caitanya was here as a child, it is said Mother Śacī was sitting in her courtyard on the veranda and Lord Gaurāṅga as a small child was maybe like a toddler, two-three years old. He was probably two. He was playing around a little, crawling a little, walking, maybe less than two, probably. And He was in the center. Then all of a sudden, that courtyard filled up with celestial beings wearing armor and some having more than one head and different, all different kinds of personalities, rulers from different planets. And she wanted to call her husband, like “Wow, what is going on here?” But she could not make any noise. She was totally blocked off. She could not move also, she was frozen, but she could see. Then they put a big abhiṣeka plate, table in the middle, golden with jewels, and put Lord Caitanya on top. They performed abhiṣeka to the child. And when the baby started to walk, so He was just walking. And they did a big abhiṣeka, so did a pūjā.

She said, “Well, what is going on?”, and then they took Lord Caitanya off that āsana, that table. And He was walking. He walked up on the veranda of the house as He was walking, although He did not have any ankle bells on but the ankle bells sound was coming, ting, ting ting. Then He turned to the devas. And then He told them, “You chant and dance.” So, they did a big kīrtana. And they were chanting and dancing and Lord Caitanya, then He started to also dance on the raised veranda. When Mother Śacī saw and it was too much and boom, she fainted. Somehow when she fainted, Jagannātha Miśra heard that he came out and found her unconscious and woke her up, asking, “What happened? What is wrong?” And then she saw her husband, started crying and told him everything that happened and then she looked around. 

There little Nimāi is playing in the courtyard, crawling around. And then she told all the things that happened, and it is a dream, or did it really happen? And then she looked around. There was no sign of a big abhiṣeka or many people there. So, they were like, that must be a dream, you know. And then while they were talking, but then they hear this, “Ching, ching, ching.” They look and they see Lord Caitanya as a toddler He is walking and there is no ankle bells on His feet. But it is making that sound. (laughter) So, what do you think? It really happened? (laughter)

So, they also had that kind of worship for the Lord when He came down, did a big worship in pūjā and everything. So now somehow the Lord is been revealed. So, all the universal leaders came, and they are doing a big worship, Jāmbavān and everybody all this formal pūjā. So, if the Lord… we want to receive the Lord in our heart they had… it sounds like a description from arcana-paddhati, pādya, arghya and everything. So that is interesting. So, this was the system how they received the Lord with all these auspicious articles.

The Deities open at 7 or 7:15? So anyway, we can also try to receive the Lord in our heart. Offer Him all the respect. Here all the devas, they are already happy, at the Lord’s victory, Lord’s great show. About the demons, the next verse, the demons are really unhappy. They thought that he is cheated, Viṣṇu cheated our master Bali. He was honest guy. He gave three steps, and He cheated him. Anyway, it is not cheating. We do not want to fall into that demoniac kind of critical, negative mindset, devas are showing us the true mindset. And Bali also accepted, he gave his word, he could not keep it. He finally put the third step on his head. So that was yeah, by fully surrendering, he became mahājana. He is actually glorified. So, he is glorified by the demons that do not appreciate, he did not ask them, but he certainly would not want them to attack. Everything was played by the rules. Very interesting pastime. Vāmanadeva actually gave more mercy to Bali. The mother of Indra wanted to get her son back in his position as the king. But comparing, who got more mercy, Indra or Bali. Bali got more mercy and got association of the Lord. Hare Kṛṣṇa. Any questions?

Question: (not clear)

Jayapatākā Swami: We do not know whether the Lord just to show some pastimes put Him in a little illusion, so that keep teaching Him a lot of lessons. If He did not do the pastime in Vṛndāvana of all the rain, there would not be govardhana-līlā. So just like Arjuna was a little bit put into some illusions so He could speak the Bhagavad-gītā. We do not know whether it is just something spontaneous. Indra, a little bit help was given by Kṛṣṇa through His illusory energy. He had some pride in things there. So that made Him humble. Generally, He is always serving the Lord. But these devotees, the devas, are considered sākāma-bhaktas. They are not fully selfless devotees. They are having some desires, of course for them, but maybe illicit for us. In their position, soma-rasa is not considered like drinking wine or something that actually burns away the bad karmas. It has some special quality.

So, some of the things they do, but heavenly planet means lots of enjoyment. So, many people want to go to heaven and enjoy there but the devotees, they are not interested, the pure devotees, the niṣkāma-bhaktas, they are not interested in going to heaven and enjoying, they want to serve Kṛṣṇa eternally. So that is why the niṣkāma-bhaktas go back to Kṛṣṇa. But Indra, he is there until one is there for the life of Manu. There is also a lot of different Indras. Not all the things in the śāstra... are the same Indra, they switch. But Indra, yes, sometimes Indra has fallen into certain... More than that.

Devotee: (not clear)

Jayapatākā Swami: I heard that Indra is the same. Not same, but same period. Because it said that during the two Indra is from now, I mean Manus from now, Bali will be the Indra. So, from that I understood that his, what you call tenure, his whatever his period is the same like the Manu. But I did not ever see like an exact breakdown. But I saw that this becomes that. It seems that they say Indra, this Manu did not say the first, the second or the other. That was my assumption. You read anything when it does change every four. I do not think every four yugas. Thank you all. I hope I did not offend anybody. So nice to get all your associations. So many nice devotees. We connected with some of the… and a few others that are here serving. Some of my disciples also doing pūjā. (audio abruptly stops)