Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 3.15.35

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The following is a lecture given by His Holiness Jayapatākā Swami Mahārāja in Kolkata, India. The lecture begins with a reading from Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 3.15.35.

Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 3.15.35

teṣām itīritam ubhāv avadhārya ghoraṁ
taṁ brahma-daṇḍam anivāraṇam astra-pūgaiḥ
sadyo harer anucarāv uru bibhyatas tat-
pāda-grahāv apatatām atikātareṇa

Translation by His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda: When the doormen of Vaikuṇṭhaloka, who were certainly devotees of the Lord, found that they were going to be cursed by the brāhmaṇas, they at once became very much afraid and fell down at the feet of the brāhmaṇas in great anxiety, for a brāhmaṇa's curse cannot be counteracted by any kind of weapon.

Purport: Although, by chance, the doormen committed a mistake by checking the brāhmaṇas from entering the gate of Vaikuṇṭha, they were at once aware of the gravity of the curse. There are many kinds of offenses, but the greatest offense is to offend a devotee of the Lord. Because the doormen were also devotees of the Lord, they were able to understand their mistake and were terrified when the four Kumāras were ready to curse them.

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So the four celestial Brahmana who went from the material world to the gate of the spiritual world, when they were entering the gate of the spiritual world, they were stopped by the doormen of the spiritual world who didn’t find them qualified to enter. But since they had a great desire to enter and see the Lord in their spiritual world, they felt very angry that why we’re being stopped. They felt perturbed why we’re being stopped by these people when we want to see the Lord, why he’s not allowing us. So obviously they don’t belong here in the spiritual world. They belong in the material world. Because in the material world everyone sees people as friends and enemies. In the material world you have this is my friend, this is my enemy, I love this, I hate this.

There’s a duality but in the spiritual world everything is one. Everything is in oneness and harmony. So there are no such negative feelings. Vaikuntha means no anxiety, no stress. Yesterday one lady came and she was crying. It’s her first visit to the temple, she was crying. I said why you are crying my dear lady? And she said that I am feeling stress in my day to day life. I have been here in the temple the whole day and I felt no stress. This is a stress free zone. But now I have to go out and again tomorrow I will be working and in my job they will put a lot of pressure on me and I will be feeling lots of stress and just feeling fearing the stress. She was stressed out. She was stressed just thinking about how she was going to be stressed.

So the material world is very anxiety prone place. People come to India for vacation from the west in order to get relaxation, see something different, get free from stress. But the Westerners have contributed to India stress. All the outshoring that comes to India. The workers that are working here for the Western companies, they’re under heavy pressure. They had to meet deadlines. So the Western stress, they have transferred now to India. And so this poor lady is crying in stress. So you tell that you chant. This Hare Krishna Maha Mantra relieves one of stress also. Not only that’s just one of the very minor side benefits. So they were expected to go to the spiritual world. And they find that these gate guards seem to be stressed. They’re fearing. They couldn’t understand why to fear anyone must not be very busy job for the gatekeepers.

Not too many demons get to the door of the spiritual world. But potentially some demon could get there, I guess. So they keep them out. But the Brahmana boys, the Kumaras, they were not demons. They were also devotees. So there was no reason to stop them. So because they got stopped, they decided to curse these two, to go into the material world because to teach them a lesson so they will better in the future. Offending a devotee is the biggest offense in the spiritual life. If we offend a devotee, then it sets us back. Because anything in connection with the Supreme Lord, If you offend it becomes a spiritual offense, which stops our spiritual progress or reduces it. So since the devotees are persons who are dedicated to serving the Supreme Lord, by offending them, then Krishna is more displeased.

Especially because in this world, it’s the devotees who are serving. The Lord’s confidential service to deliver the conditioned souls and bring them back to Godhead. So if you offend them, then Lord is very upset, very much offended. He can forgive his own offense, but his devotee’s offense, he doesn’t forgive easily. We are reading in Nithyananda’s glory how Nithyananda delivered Jagay Maday. So Lord Chaitanya said, you had to beg forgiveness from Nithyananda. If he forgives you, then only you can be forgiven. But both of them were begging forgiveness from Nithyananda. So then Nithyananda, by forgiving them, they got delivered. There was also another pastime. Someone else offended Nithyananda. And he was directed. You had to beg forgiveness from Nithyananda Prabhu. So if you offend the devotee, you had to beg the devotee forgiveness. So that’s what’s happening in this verse.

The doorkeepers are begging the Brahmana forgiveness. If there was any offense, They were able to understand they made a mistake, that these were devotees and now they are being cursed. And there is no way of counteracting a Brahmana’s curse. Even the gatekeepers in the gateway of spiritual world are afraid of Brahmana curse. That’s pretty significant. Human being. It’s not always Brahmana. A human being can become a Brahmana. Brahmana means someone who knows that he is of the spiritual nature. If he or she knows that they’re the spiritual nature and they’re duly initiated into the spiritual process, they can become a Brahmina or Brahmini. It says that in this we’re the seventh level planet in the universe. Out of Chota Bhuvana, we’re the Saptam, we’re in the middle Borlo. Then above us Bhuva Swarga. Then there’s Maharluk, Jana, Lok Tapa, Lok Satyaluk.

Seven higher ranges of planets. Each level is higher than the next. Within that there are many subcategories. The Swargalok, the Devas have thousands of more, maybe tens of thousands million more power than a human being. But Indra has hundred times more than the other demigods or Devas. The Christians call devas as angels, but they’re very powerful. But more powerful than Indra, who is the king of all the angels. King of all the Devas is Brahma, who is the creator. He’s got thousand times more power than Indra. He creates the whole universe. But even Brahma says that he respect the Brahmana, that the Brahmana are more powerful than he is because they are dear to the Lord, that even the Lord Vishnu respects the Brahmana. So here in this verse we can see how great is a Brahmana.

So Prabhupada said the Kṛṣṇa Conscious movement was to make Brahmana. All over the world. But if somebody, even if they get initiated as a Brahmana, they shouldn’t be proud because the nature of Brahmana should be humble. They should benoya humble. So this is. Indirectly this is glorifying the position of Brahmana. What this also does is that after this happens, the Lord himself comes to solve the problem. There’s disagreement among his devotees, the gatekeeper devotees and the visiting devotees. This verse is very important, this chapter, because it’s the only description you get so clearly by some visitors from the material world who using their mystical powers, they went to the spiritual world without dying, without leaving their material bodies. And they’re experiencing what is the spiritual world. And they’re describing it the kingdom of God. There’s a very interesting description.

Now they are still at the gateway. So they are just describing all this alteration with the gatekeeper who is wondering why these people from material world should enter. But they are very special people, so they were allowed to enter. So then they entered and they saw the supreme Lord and they saw the spiritual world. And they saw how everything is intelligent there. Everything is alive in the material world. There’s dull matter. Just like this is dull. If I hit, doesn’t protest. But if you hit a person, it protests. Why are you hitting me? This energy is static, but living energy is dynamic. So in the spiritual world everything is dynamic. So the dynamic spiritual world is revealed in this chapter. Chapter 15. Stay tuned. Study it. You get an idea what the spiritual world is like.

These Sanskrit etchings reveal the nature not only of our universe, but what lies beyond the universe. So this is a very interesting and very important lessons we can get. Also we learned something about the nature of the Lord. He is very soft, He is very gentle. He is very polite with his devotees. He resolves the problem that is arisen in a very gentlemanly way. So it’s very interesting. So being a human is very insignificant. But if you take the opportunity of being a human and become a Brahmana or become a spiritually awakened person, then you can have unlimited potency. Many people are doing yoga nowadays. But they don’t know the purpose of yoga is to develop Brahminical powers, to develop Brahminical understanding. Instead, they do yoga only for health and miss the point.

So Kṛṣṇa conscious movement is to train people to become real Brahmana, to become real devotees. The best of the Brahmana is a Vaishnava. So we hope that all of you  will be Brahmana. Some of you are Brahmana. Brahmana works for the welfare of the conditioned souls. He is poradukaduki. He works for helping others. Poro. Hito. Poro means others. Hito means benefit. To work for others benefit. Mostly people in this world are businessmen. Businessmen work for his own profit. Sometimes they make alliance with other businessmen. You make profit, I make profit. But without profit, they don’t do something. But the Brahmana, they’re working for the profit of the other person. They want only that spiritual benefit. Let them help others to get liberated from this material world. Let others get freed from that suffering.

In this way, the Brahminical culture is based like a doctor is supposed to help to cure others from their diseases. Lord Chaitanya said that Vaishnava, he’s Paradukkaduki. He is sad to see others suffering. Chaitanya Mahaprabhu Nithyananda Prabhu’s culture the founders of the Hare Krishna movement It said by following their principles, the people in the material world get freed from their suffering and illusion of material life. And they get pure devotion for Kṛṣṇa. Which leads to the ultimate liberation or which is the ultimate liberation. These two features are there. So we want that all the devotees should get the mercy of Gordony Thay. We’re trying to help other people who are seeking for the answer. What is the purpose of life? Why we have come here? What are we meant to do? Why are we forced to suffer even though we don’t want to?

Why we are forced to die? What is before birth? What is after death? So many existential questions are there which are answered in these pages of Srimad Bhagavaatam. These four kumaras, in their visit to the spiritual world before, they were spiritually awakened people. But they were not devotees. They became devotees upon visiting and seeing the Lord. Then they became spiritual masters of Bhakti Yoga also. So they got converted from a Jnana yogi or impersonal yogi, into a personal yogi. They realized that the personal form of absolute truth is more complete than the impersonal form. It contains bliss. How many of you want to experience eternal bliss? Emmanuel wants eternal bliss. Okay. So this eternal bliss is gotten by practice of Bhakti Yoga. So we thank all of you for being here and practicing Bhakti Yoga, learning about it.

We have a class here every morning. You can hear about Bhakti Yoga. We also do Japa chanting Hare Krishna. Hare Krishna. Krishna, Krishna Hare. Chanting the mantra delivers us and brings us close to Kṛṣṇa. Brings us in contact with Kṛṣṇa. So chanting, hearing the class, also taking Prasadam and worshiping the Lord. So we worship the Lord’s deities. We take the prasadam. Everybody is worrying about breakfast around this time of the day. So this is a time to engage our senses in different ways. In Ka’s service, Bhakti Yoga means we use all the senses to serve Kṛṣṇa. Jnana Yoga is we use the mind to speculate about the absolute truth. But Bhakti Yoga, we use the mind, we use intelligence. We use all the senses in serving the Lord. In this way, we get pure devotional service. Thank you very much. Any question? Yes.

When someone commits an offense for devotee, that devotee forgives the offender. Then he’s free from the reaction of that person. Like in the case of denying David. Free from the action, committing offensive. Forgive them. But in this case,.

Before they got forgiven, they’d already been cursed. Once you get cursed by Brahmana, you cannot take the curse back, but you can change the nomenclature of the curse. So they were told to take only three births in the material world. They could come back. They had a choice. Seven births as devotees, three births as demons. So they wanted to get back quicker. So they took three births as a demon. They became the biggest demons in history. Prashad from Mujane.