20250614 Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 3.16.24

mūkaṁ karoti vācālaṁ paṅguṁ laṅghayate girim
yat-kṛpā tam ahaṁ vande śrī-guruṁ dīna-tāraṇam
paramānandaṁ mādhavaṁ śrī caitanya iśvaram
hariḥ oṁ tat sat

Oṁ namo bhagavate vāsudevāya
Oṁ namo bhagavate vāsudevāya
Oṁ namo bhagavate vāsudevāya

Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 3.16.24

tat te ’nabhīṣṭam iva sattva-nidher vidhitsoḥ
kṣemaṁ janāya nija-śaktibhir uddhṛtāreḥ
naitāvatā try-adhipater bata viśva-bhartus
tejaḥ kṣataṁ tv avanatasya sa te vinodaḥ

Translation: Dear Lord, You never want the auspicious path to be destroyed, for You are the reservoir of all goodness. Just to benefit people in general, You destroy the evil element by Your mighty potency. You are the proprietor of the three creations and the maintainer of the entire universe. Therefore Your potency is not reduced by Your submissive behavior. Rather, by submission You exhibit Your transcendental pastimes.

Purport: Lord Kṛṣṇa was never reduced in His position by becoming a cowherd boy or by offering respect to Sudāmā Brāhmaṇa or His other devotees like Nanda Mahārāja, Vasudeva, Mahārāja Yudhiṣṭhira and the Pāṇḍavas’ mother, Kuntī. Everyone knew that He was the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Kṛṣṇa, yet His behavior was exemplary. The Supreme Personality of Godhead is sac-cid-ānanda-vigraha; His form is completely spiritual, full of bliss and knowledge, and it is eternal. Because the living entities are His parts and parcels, originally they also belong to the same quality of eternal form as the Lord, but when they come in contact with māyā, the material potency, due to their forgetfulness their existential constitution is covered. We should try to understand the appearance of Lord Kṛṣṇa in this spirit, as the Kumāras pray to Him. He is eternally a cowherd boy at Vṛndāvana, He is eternally the leader of the Battle of Kurukṣetra, and He is eternally the opulent prince of Dvārakā and the lover of the damsels of Vṛndāvana. All His appearances are meaningful because they show His real characteristics to the conditioned souls, who have forgotten their relationship with the Supreme Lord. He does everything for their benefit. The force exhibited in the Battle of Kurukṣetra by the desire of Kṛṣṇa and through the agency of Arjuna was also necessary because when people become too irreligious, force is required. Nonviolence in this respect is rascaldom.

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Jayapatākā Swami: This Lord Kṛṣṇa is expressing a lot of humility. But the four Kumāras did not become bewildered by this behavior. So Kṛṣṇa has all the good qualities and so His every action is meant to uplift the fallen souls. We have fallen in the material world. As a result, we are misidentifying our body with our self. As a result we are trying to use our five working senses to enjoy. Many years ago, a journalist from the BBC had come. I took him on a boat ride. That is one of the downfalls of knowing Bengali! Hear all the nonsense they speak! So that journalist, he took shots of what we do in Māyāpur to show on the BBC. So somewhere in our discussion I talked of the evils of sense gratification. So he said, what is wrong with that? That is the purpose of life! So, we have five senses that acquire knowledge - our eyes, nose, ears, tongue and the sense of touch. So, actually we cannot avoid a certain type of sense sukha, enjoyment. So we eat prasadā, we see the beautiful Deities. We hear kīrtana and the class, and we smell the beautiful flowers and incense offered to the Lord. Those who are gṛhasthas, they use their sense of touch to produce Kṛṣṇa conscious children. So, in this way, we have indriya, sense enjoyment but it is dovetailed with kṛṣṇa-sevā. In the recent horrible plane crash in India in Ahmedabad, one person survived! Everyone else died. Now the plane crashed into a building. In the building I don’t remember exactly, but I think five died. And sixty were injured. In the different debris and things left, there was a Bhagavad-gītā As It Is! And everyone was surprised because everything was burnt and destroyed but only the Bhagavad-gītā was left intact! Who knows, this Bhagavad-gītā may have been distributed at the Kumbha-melā by any devotee from Māyāpur! So, the senses can also have suffering, duḥkha.

So there are three types of sufferings – ādhyātmika, ādhibhautika, ādhidaivika – miseries that are inflicted by our own self, then the miseries inflicted by other living entities and miseries caused by natural disasters and the hand of God. This Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam is called the natural commentary on the Vedānta-sutra. Kṛṣṇa, He was exemplary, He was always acting in the perfect way. He treated Sudāmā brāhmaṇa or other devotees with great respect. They knew that Kṛṣṇa was Bhagavān, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, but Kṛṣṇa embraced Sudāmā vipra! Actually, Kṛṣṇa acted in such a way that He made the devotees more attached to Him. In this way, He acted so nicely. Actually, we are the same in quality as Kṛṣṇa, but quantity is miniscule. So one of the names of Kṛṣṇa is, Triyuga, so He only comes in Satya, Tretā and Dvāpara yugas. When He comes in Kali-yuga, He comes as a hidden incarnation, in a confidential way. Advaita Ācārya thought that these people are so conditioned and fallen, I can award them liberation but I cannot cause the change of their hearts. Then He prayed to Kṛṣṇa for His descent, for His arrival. He worshiped the śālagrāma-śilā with Ganges water and tulasī-mañjarī and started praying and crying for Kṛṣṇa to come. So His name was Advaita which means, non-different. So, He was crying and fasting, He wanted Kṛṣṇa to come and deliver the fallen souls. He is also a viṣṇu-tattva. But, Kṛṣṇa is the original viṣṇu-tattva. Balarāma is His first expansion. And Mahā-Viṣṇu, He is one of the Viṣṇu avatāras, the first one. So, Lord Caitanya is Kṛṣṇa Himself and He came on the call of Advaita Ācārya. Lord Caitanya reiterated many times that because of Advaita, He had descended and Advaita Ācārya  had caused His descent. We heard how the caṇḍāla who is eating dog meat can also be purified by hearing the holy name. So, Lord Caitanya taught us that we should chant the Hare Kṛṣṇa mahā-mantra and that way we can be purified and delivered. So by Śrīla Prabhupāda’s mercy so many fallen souls have been delivered! And Śrīla Prabhupāda was just following the order of Lord Caitanya, as it was handed down in the disciplic succession. What is now required is that everyone with great enthusiasm and eagerness should follow the order of the Pañca-tattva.

Everyone in India and around the world, they were shocked by this airplane crash. So, I remember that in the ‘70s we asked Śrīla Prabhupāda what if the Soviet Union sends a nuclear warhead over New York - what should we do? What do you think? That is what Śrīla Prabhupāda said – Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa, Hare Hare/ Hare Rāma, Hare Rāma, Rāma Rāma, Hare Hare! When the airplane was going to crash, the pilot said, “May day! May day! We are dying!” I wonder how many people were chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa?! Gaurāṅga!

Lord Caitanya came to spread Kṛṣṇa consciousness all over the world. He only preached in Navadvīpa, in Jagannātha Purī, in South India, West India and North India. He also went to Bangladesh. At that time, it was part of India. So, how did He expect that His teachings, His holy name would spread over the whole world? What do you say? Like in Bengali it says, if you rub mustard oil nicely in your nose and go to sleep it is not going to spread all over the world! So His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Śrīla Prabhupāda took the message of Lord Caitanya. Our Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in Navi Mumbai said that when most of the people retire at the age of 70, Śrīla Prabhupāda went preaching to every corner of the world! And he wrote and translated the Bhagavad-gītā, Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, Caitanya-caritāmṛta, Nectar of Devotion in English. His Holiness Bhakti Cāru Mahārāja translated it into Bengali, His Holiness Gaura Govinda Mahārāja it into Odiya. Like this, the books are available not only in all the Indian languages but also international languages as well. So, in this way, we are trying to serve Lord Caitanya and Śrīla Prabhupāda. Very enthusiastically, we should serve! One thing I can say, anything they asked me to do, I did with enthusiasm! That is why in Montreal, I was the third temple president and became a president - within one year I was the Temple President. Then, I had been president for about six months, then I was sent to open a temple in Toronto, Canada.

I have read many times the Caitanya-caritāmṛta. But then I thought, it has been a long time since I read the Teachings of Lord Caitanya. Śrīla Prabhupāda had written this book before he wrote the Caitanya-caritāmṛta. So like this, everyone should read the books, everyone should write the books, whoever can, and do serve, enthusiastically!

We are reading here how the four Kumāras went to Viṣṇuloka and Svetadvīpa and all the things. These are very great souls! In this Navadvīpa dhāma,we see so many pastimes of Lord Caitanya Mahāprabhu. Lord Caitanya was here, starting the saṅkīrtana movement! After 5000 years, which matches up with Śrīla Prabhupāda, he brought Lord Caitanya’s teaching to the West, a ten-thousand year a Golden Age is to come. Actually, if the devotees are very enthusiastically doing devotional service, then they naturally feel very happy! Just as Kṛṣṇa and the different viṣṇu-tattvas have these wonderful qualities, also Lord Caitanya and His associates had these wonderful qualities. Gaurāṅga! Nityānanda! Advaita Ācārya! Gadādhara, Śrīvāsa, ādi-gaura-bhakti-vṛnda! Hare Kṛṣṇa!