20160527 Śrīmad Bhāgavatam Class 10.2.25

20160527 Sbhag Class 10.2.25 Los Angeles

Om namo bhagavate vasudevaya

Om namo bhagavate vasudevaya (devotees)

Om namo bhagavate vasudevaya

Om namo bhagavate vasudevaya (devotees)

Om namo bhagavate vasudevaya

Om namo bhagavate vasudevaya (devotees)

brahma bhavas ca tatraitya

 munibhir naradadibhih

devaih sanucaraih sakam

 girbhir vrsanam aidayan

brahma — the supreme four-headed demigod; bhavah ca — and Lord Siva; tatra — there; etya — arriving; munibhih — accompanied by great sages; narada-adibhih — by Narada and others; devaih — and by demigods like Indra, Candra and Varuna; sa-anucaraih — with their followers; sakam — all together; girbhih — by their transcendental prayers; vrsanam — the Supreme Personality of Godhead, who can bestow blessings upon everyone; aidayan — pleased.

Translation:

Lord Brahma and Lord Siva, accompanied by great sages like Narada, Devala and Vyasa and by other demigods like Indra, Candra and Varuna, invisibly approached the room of Devaki, where they all joined in offering their respectful obeisances and prayers to please the Supreme Personality of Godhead, who can bestow blessings upon everyone.

Purport:

Dvau bhuta-sargau loke ’smin daiva asura eva ca (Padma Purana). There are two classes of men — the daivas and the asuras — and there is a great difference between them. Kamsa, being an asura, was always planning how to kill the Supreme Personality of Godhead or His mother, Devaki. Thus he was also Krsna conscious. But devotees are Krsna conscious favorably (visnu-bhaktah smrto daivah). Brahma is so powerful that he is in charge of creating an entire universe, yet he personally came to receive the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Bhava, Lord Siva, is always jubilant in chanting the holy name of the Lord. And what to speak of Narada? Narada-muni, bajaya vina, radhika-ramana-name. Narada Muni is always chanting the glories of the Lord, and his engagement is to travel all over the universe and find a devotee or make someone a devotee. Even a hunter was made a devotee by the grace of Narada. Srila Sanatana Gosvami, in his Tosani, says that the word narada-adibhih means that Narada and the demigods were accompanied by other saintly persons, like Sanaka and Sanatana, all of whom came to congratulate or welcome the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Even though Kamsa was planning to kill Devaki, he too awaited the arrival of the Supreme Personality of Godhead (pratiksams taj janma).

JPS: So Devaki was carrying the supreme personality of Godhead in her womb. So all these great personalities of the universe Brahma, Siva, great rishis like Vyasadev, Narad Muni and others like Indra, Candra and Varuna, the all came to offer their obeisance’s to the supreme personality of Godhead. Remember bhumi in the form of a cow came up to Lord Brahma and expressed her frustrations that there are so many          demoniac kings with so many demoniac military powers that the earth was filled with soldiers and military forces and this was causing her distress and people were being displaced from their spiritual duties.

So Brahma with all the devas went and meditated on the sound of the milk ocean and he got the response that the supreme personality of Godhead would appear, and he also told that some of the devas would take their births in the vrsni dynasty and in that way be a part of the pastimes. So now the Lord had come. He was in the womb of Devaki and he was able to bless and solve all the problems of the Devas. So he was able to bless and solve all the problems of the devas. So it’s said that Krishna could bestow his blessings on everyone.

I remember that when Prabhupada was preaching in India, at that time the government job was very attractive because less hours, more perks. So many people liked to work for the government. Now there is  a switch, people like to work for the IT companies. So Prabhupada gave an example. Just like the Indians like to work for the government, so we are all working for the supreme government, we are working for Krishna, that’s the best job we have, eternal. You never get laid off. Just like it is said here, the Lord can bestow blessings on everyone. So we can get the unlimited blessings of the Lord by serving.

So Prabhupada uses examples, one of the unlimited examples that you can use. In the history of Lord Caitanya, it is also stated that the devas, when they approached Mother Sachi when she was carrying Lord Caitanya in her room, an interestingly they prayed that here that you are coming down in this avatar to give freely the love of Krishna.

So we don’t want any material benediction from you.  We have enough material opulence’s,        in fact we only have two problems, one is that we attacked occasionally by the demons and the other is that we have so much material sense gratification that we forget about you and we don’t engage in your devotional service. But now that you are giving out Krishna Prem don’t forget us, we need your mercy, we don’t want anymore material sense gratification, we want mercy.

Then Lord Caitanya would have the shadows of the devas visible to Sachi and she would think …21.30-33… she started to chant, “ugram viram maha vishnum- Narsasingh mantra”

So the devas said, “OH! she sees us around, she is not supposed to see us, we are supposed to be invisible, here the Lord is playing some trick on us and then they flew off.”

And then we see that in the pastimes of Lord Gauranga, the devas appeared as the associates of the Lord. That Brahma became, in fact after he stole the calves of Krishna and the cowheard the boys and after he was humbled by Krishna he felt embarrassed. The Lord will come in the next Kali yuga and give out love of Krishna. So we wanted to be part of the Lord’s pastimes. So he came to Nabadwip Dham in the centre island known as the antardwip and began to chant, “Gauranga ! Gauranga! Gauranga ! Gauranga! Gauranga ! Gauranga! Gauranga ! Gauranga!

Gauranga ! Gauranga!”,

I don’t think you want to see him very bad. Come really chant, “Gauranga ! Gauranga! Gauranga ! Gauranga! Gauranga ! Gauranga! Gauranga ! Gauranga!

Gauranga ! Gauranga!” and the Lord appeared. “Why are you calling me?”

He said, “My Lord!”, he offered his obeisance’s and he saw the beautiful form of Lord Caitanya. I saw it back to his ears almost, his arms going down to his knees, beautiful golden colour and his gentle smiling face. So it reminds us how people so proud of their personal appearance in Kali Yuga even though they have fudgy arms, round eyes, I don’t know what call the eyes, they are not lotus eyes.

Anyway he was standing up paying obeisance’s, overwhelmed, but then he gathered himself, he said, “my Lord! Half of my life is already over, I am in dvitiya …25.47… second part of my life and still I have envy. So I want to be free from this tendency to offend you and I want to get pure Krishna prema, I want like to be your associate in this pastimes.”

The Lord said, “tathasthu, so be it!”

So then he said, “you will appear in the family of a non-hindu. This will teach you humility and you will chant 300,000 names daily and the Hare Krishna mahamantra. This will purify you from the tendency to commit offences and give you pure love and you will be one of my associates and you will be known as Hari Das Thakur.”

Hari bol.

Hari bol (everyone)

That’s how Hari das Thakur is actually Brahma Hari Das and then Gauranga disappeared. So Brahma went back to Satya loka and got ready and he appeared here as Hari Das.

Advaita is Siva and Maha Visnu combined. Narad Muni is Srivas Thakur, Brihaspati came as Sarvabhuma Bhattarjee. Like that different devas and different rishis came as the associates of Lord Caitanya and participated in the pastimes.

I was thinking that how great it is to be a part of the Lord’s pastimes and the Lord when he does his pastimes many people really don’t know who is but they just love him like in the Srimad Bhagavatam we read in the 10^th Canto. So this is just the appearance of Krishna and for 16 years he was in Vraja, and he was in Mathura and then in Dwaraka. So like in Dwaraka sometimes different Brahma’s from different universes would come….30.00… sun god Vivasman, and various personalities. It was nothing to see some devas walking down the street waiting in line to see Sri Krishna in Dwaraka. This is new Dwaraka, how many devas are coming to see the deities here every day? We don’t know. But Prabhupada would see them, one time Prabhupada saw them and he said, “Narad Muni came and he was so happy to see the deities” How they were taking up Krishna bhakti.

What my God brothers said he was driving back Prabhupada from a ratha yatra in San Francisco in L.A and he was driving behind the wheel and Prabhupada just sat in the car and turned and said, “did you see how nitai-gaur were dancing with the devotees?” (laughter), of course he had no words to say.

So in the Brahma Baivarta Purana, Krishna in Dwaraka was approached by all the sacred rivers and sarovars, and they had pushed Ganga as a spokesperson. So she said that the symptoms in the world show that soon you will leave and Kali Yuga will begin. People will be very sinful and they will dump their bad karmas on us, so please take us back with you. We don’t want to stay here and be overwhelmed by bad karmas.

Krishna smiled. You know just hearing about a pure devotee is purifying and to see one and hear one what to speak of touch one. So you wait for 5000 years, let sinful people bathe in you, I will send someone- a devotee who will spread Krishna consciousness all over the world and he will give pure bhakti and the chanting of the holy name, he will give all over the world. So he and his devotee will bathe in your water and you will be recognize him because he will be chanting the Hare Krsishna mahamantra. So this will bring in the golden age of the ten thousand years and the whole planet will become Krishna conscious and many devotees will come and bathe in your water. So after this 10,000 years, then the worst dark part of kaliyuga begins, then you can go underground like the saraswati river and wait till satya yuga comes, and also in the Caitanya Mangal by Locan Das, it describes Lord Caitanya in Golok Dham, that he decides to come down to the bhumandal and he will preach Krishna conscious, the hari nam sankirtan all over the world but he says that there are people that he doesn’t reach and he is far away. After 500 years of my coming I will send a devotee who will preach all over the world. He would be my senapati bhakta or the commanding devotee. So I was thinking that this is non-different than Srila Prabhupada and that’s why I came here to be a part of the Prabhupada festival and I wanted to say this realization during the festival but could resist  . (laughter)

And I repeat myself. We could be part of Lord Caitanya’s pastimes but this are his extended pastimes.  There is a verse in Caitanya Bhagavat that says that Lord Caitanya is still doing his pastimes and those who are fortunate will be able to see. Sankirtan book distribution, the expansion of our congregation all these are aspects of Lord Caitanya’s pastime. We are very fortunate to directly have association of Srila Prabhupada with those who had association.

Also Bhaktisiddhantha Saraswati Thakur he wrote to Srila Prabhupada that …38.23-25… those who will help you  they will also get such mercy. So here how many would like to help Srila Prabhupada?

Hari Bol (everyone)

You want to do that, do that by distribution his books, keeping the temple well maintained, by cooperating, by expanding the congregation, by having festival, and so on. There are various ways of helping Srila Prabhupada, you will also get blessings. So this is a great big fortune that we have. We don’t know how much mercy there is in Lord Caitanya’s holy name. I

I met some person, he told me he was chanting 16 rounds for 26 years but he didn’t feel any bliss. So then I asked him do you chant the Panchatattva matra? He said, “No, I was in another sampradaya, I won’t mention the sampradaya over the loudspeaker, you want to know I will tell you later.” (laugh), but anyway there are many sampradayas in India, they chant the name of Krishna, so he was one of this.

So I gave him the panchatattva mantra, “SriKrishna Caitanya Prabhu Nityanda Sriadvaita Gadadhara Gaur Bhakta Vrinda”, and three months later he left that place, he saw me from a distance, he ran up to me, “what mantra did you give me, hat mantra, now when I chant Hare Krishna mantra I feel so much bliss.”

Hari Bol (everyone)

He bowed down touching my feet.

It’s just what Prabhupada gave us. Chant the Panchatattva Mantra and then chant Hare Krishna. So this verse tells us how different devas, they approach Krishna when he was in the womb of Devaki. That reminds me that in the pastimes of Dwaraka, Parikshit Maharaj was hearing the Bhagvatam from Sukhdev Goswami and Sukhdev was telling different pastimes and at one point Parikshit Maharaj imagined he was fasting from water and food for seven days. Now he is on the 10^th canto out of 12.

Must have been five or six days, what we would do at that time, “water ! water ! food ! food !”

“what else wonderful did my Lord do, tell me, what else wonderful did my Lord do.”, he was in such ecstasy that he was not even thinking about food or water,  he was thinking, “what else wonderful did my Lord do?”

Sometimes you know we have read the Bhagavatam so many times, but we pass over this days, then we realize how Parikshit Maharaj was so much enjoying hearing the pastimes of Lord Krishna. How much happiness he was receiving. We should taste at least a drop of that happiness. Then recently the B.B.T released his Brihad Bhagavatmrita, and there it tells a lot of pastimes of Dwaraka, where Rukmini and Satyabhama they are discussing the sadness of the residents of Vrindavan. Balam is also there. Somehow Krishna at that day he didn’t come out, but then he was out of sight and he heard what they were talking and he asked, “Balaram, is it true, Balaram is that true?”, the residents of Vrindavan are in so much separation and then Krishna fell down and started crying. When Krishna was crying then everyone was crying. Balaram was crying, Rukmini was crying and then when they heard this crying in the dharma sabha of the rishis Ugrasena and all they came running, and they saw Krishna crying and then they started crying, then this …45.53… came in the sky, Brahma came down. When Brahma came he started crying, and he thought somehow I should return things to normal. That tie in Dwaraka they had a replica garden made by Viswakarma. They had the pastimes of Vrindavan. They had dioramas of Nanda, Yasoda and Radharani selling in the shop. I will take Krishna to that part, I think he is in Vrindava and everything will be normal. Like this that is a beautiful pastimes and Krishna was in total ecstasy, but then Krishna is thinking, “Well if I go back to Vrindavan, they won’t also let me leave, like this …47.16…”

“If I go and then leave they will be more in separation”, but the whole Dwaraka is going crazy, Krishna is crying, Balaram is crying and Krishna was dressed as a cowherd boy, he became so attractive that even the wife of Ugrasena, Padmati she became attracted to Krishna. She is just as old as his grandmother. So Rohini tackled her, it will ruin the whole ecstasy. Interesting!

Anyway, this are the pastimes of Krishna.

How sweet they are, and how the devas they are coming down and offering their prayers, but once Krishna appears, He is the supreme personality of Godhead, He can do anything. He amazing pastimes where he teaches Brahma, Indra various lessons. So Srila Prabhupada gave us unlimited nectar.

Hare Krishna

Any Questions?

Question: Maharaj, thank you for your wonderful class. Can you think of anybody who is confirmed by Srila Prabhupada as being the associate of Lord Caitanya (laughter)…49.43-45... tells the story.

JPS: I don’t know (laughter) I heard some rumours (laugh), I asked once Srila Prabhupada to say that … home minister of West Bengal came to see Srila Prabhupada and he commented that this devotees with you, and he pointed to many of the devotees, I think that they were previously born in India and they must have been devotees before. Prabhupada said, “Yes, that I also think.”

Then more or less everyone left, and there were one or two of us with Srila Prabhupada. I said Prabhupada, “I am so fallen, how could I have been a devotee before?”, Prabhupada became very stern, “don’t doubt the word of the spiritual master.”

So I know that I took birth before, but don’t know what I was… in India as a devotee, I am not the only one that Prabhupada said that to.

When I was walking in Golden Gate Park in 1968, I heard devotees chanting, I walked over there and I saw a circle of devotees, they seemed to be wearing bedsheets. One devotee looked at me, had tilak. All the hairs in my back stood up, just turned around and ran and ran for like two miles and then I was thinking why am I running, why this strange reaction, then I turned back and then I reached the place. So much time had gone by that they left, and I was looking for them where are the devotees, and I saw  sun- festival of the chariots and in the bottom it said,  vegetarian meals- 25 cents donation and gave their address- 450 Fredrick Street. So I went there, but anyway having this reaction, and then Prabhupada said, “I was a devotee, I must have seen that tilak before, otherwise why did I get so frightened to see him?”

I don’t know if others would have that reaction.

Q: Did Prabhupada say anything after that? Did Prabhupada respond to that ?

JPS: He told me that you were a devotee, don’t doubt my words, what to say after that! (laughter). Yesterday we were saying that Prabhupada could be very stern and very soft. When he became stern he wouldn’t speak, there was no reply that they were doing.

Sometimes Prabhupada was very stern with me in Mayapur, then later he would say, “How do you tolerate such a spiritual master like me?”

“Then we became worse.”

Then I was saying, “Now it is my fault.”

Any other question from the lady?

Question:  Madhu Dosa also saw shadows when he was leaving his body

JPS: Madhu Dosha was very dear to Srila Prabhupada. I don’t doubt that there may have been some devas accompanying him. It reminds me that there is one family, the whole family is initiated but the husband, he was always against.

“This is a waste of time”, then he got diagnosed of cancer and he had the fourth stage. So that’s very hard to cure from that point and so then he was in his bed and he saw some people walk through the wall, carrying some kind of rope, bare upper body, hairy, fangs

“No, no, no, no” , and they walked through the wall and went out. After that he called his wife, “I want to hear the Bhagavat Gita, I want neck beads, I want japa”

And he spent the last stage just chanting. (laughter)

Prabhupada also said that you know for the supreme personality of Godhead, it’s like in the government, the social workers and the police, they are all seen by the government as the agency of the government and they are equal for all but for the criminal you don’t like the police. They may like the social workers sometimes but the police they don’t like.

So Prabhupada said we are just like the social worker, we are just giving out charity, we are giving people tickets back to Godhead and the yamadutas and others have a different function. Somehow this father, it appeared that he saw Yamadutas. After that he changed completely. I want to hear the Gita, I want to chant, he didn’t see the Yamadutas again, he didn’t wat to see and by Krishna’s mercy you won’t see.

Thank you very much

(applause)

Transcribed by: Sadananda Krishnaprem Das.

Mayapur.