Srimad Bhagavatam 10.62.10 | HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj | ISKCON Japan | May 3, 2025
Om Namo Bhagavate Vasudevaya
Om Namo Bhagavate Vasudevaya
Om Namo Bhagavate Vasudevaya
nama om vishnu-padaya krishna-preshthaya bhu-tale
srimate bhaktivedanta-svamin iti namine
namas te sarasvate deve gaura-vani-pracharine
nirvishesha-shunyavadi-pashchatya-desha-tarine
sri-krishna-chaitanya
prabhu nityananda
sri-adwaita gadadhara
shrivasadi-gaura-bhakta-vrinda
Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare,
Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare
Reading from Srimad Bhagavatham Canto 10 Chapter 62 Verse 10
ŚB 10.62.10
tasyoṣā nāma duhitā
svapne prādyumninā ratim
kanyālabhata kāntena
prāg adṛṣṭa-śrutena sā
Synonyms
tasya — his; ūṣā nāma — named Ūṣā; duhitā — daughter; svapne — in a dream; prādyumninā — with the son of Pradyumna (Aniruddha); ratim — an amorous encounter; kanyā — the unmarried maiden; alabhata — obtained; kāntena — with her lover; prāk — previously; adṛṣṭa — never seen; śrutena — or heard of; sā — she.
Translation
In a dream Bāṇa’s daughter, the maiden Ūṣā, had an amorous encounter with the son of Pradyumna, though she had never before seen or heard of her lover.
Purport
The incidents now described will lead up to the fight predicted by Lord Śiva. Śrīla Viśvanātha Cakravartī Ṭhākura quotes the following verses from the Viṣṇu Purāṇa, which explain Ūṣā’s dream:
ūṣā bāṇa-sutā vipra
pārvatīm śambhunā saha
krīḍantīm upalakṣyoccaiḥ
spṛhāṁ cakre tad-āśrayām
“O brāhmaṇa, when Ūṣā, the daughter of Bāṇa, happened to see Pārvatī playing with her husband, Lord Śambhu, Ūṣā intensely desired to experience the same feelings.”
tataḥ sakala-citta-jña
gaurī tām aha bhāvinīm
alam atyartha-tāpena
bhartrā tvam api raṁsyase
“At that time Goddess Gaurī [Pārvatī], who knows everyone’s heart, told the sensitive young girl, ‘Don’t be so disturbed! You will have a chance to enjoy with your own husband.’”
ity uktā sā tadā cakre
kadeti matim ātmanaḥ
ko vā bhartā mamety enāṁ
punar apy āha pārvatī
“Hearing this, Ūṣā thought to herself, ‘But when? And who will my husband be?’ In response, Pārvatī addressed her once more.”
vaiśākha-śukla-dvādaśyāṁ
svapne yo ’bhibhavaṁ tava
kariṣyati sa te bhartā
rāja-putri bhaviṣyati
“‘The man who approaches you in your dream on the twelfth lunar day of the bright fortnight of the month Vaiśākha will become your husband, O princess.’”
HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj:
So this chapter and next chapter concerning the marriage of Usha with Aniruddha. So, ofcourse related to this is the let say the curse given to Banasura, Usha’s father. So, Bana came in a family of demons. His father was actually Bali Maharaj, but Bali Maharaj also belonged to a demon family. So we see that even in demon families, sometimes we get great devotees like Bali. But then again his son was a demon [Laughs].
He was also a great devotee of Lord Shiva. Shiva actually became the guardian of his city. And by the blessings of Shiva, he got a thousand arms. But Bana was dissatisfied. He wanted someone to fight with. Then he requested to fight Lord Shiva, which is very offensive because, Shiva was the one who gave him all the blessings. When demons get blessings, they often misuse those blessings. So, that of course is because demons have more interest in their enjoyment then they have devotion to any Devata. Of course, the Devatas are liberal, and especially Shiva is very liberal and generous. So even if they are demons, he will give them benedictions.
It’s for this reason that the Vedas are kept secret. If unqualified people get this information, they can misuse it and thus, in Vedic society the guru would choose who to give knowledge to. Anyone who trust to get knowledge independent of the teacher then he is condemned or criticized. And thus there is always an emphasis upon taking a teacher or a Guru and getting knowledge through him. And so the Upanishads say that we have to give worship to Guru, if we respect the Guru properly, then we get knowledge.
Of course, even Bhagavatam is knowledge, but it’s also kept secret. However, it’s a little bit different because this is Purana. Vedas are Vedas, Vedas are more exclusive. So the Vaishyas, Kshatriyas and Brahmanas are qualified to study the Vedas. But first they have to get teachings from a Guru. Puranas, Mahabharata, etc. are free. It doesn’t require you to be a Sudra, Vaishya, Kshatriya, Brahmana or no caste at all. And you can also study those works. However, still, one has to be qualified to get the real meaning.
So Bhagavatam has a special way of protecting the meaning. If you are a real devotee, you can get the meaning and if you are not a devotee, you will not get the correct meaning. Of course, we say that Bhagavatam is the highest fruit on the Vedic Tree of Knowledge. It gives us the sweetest fruit, etc. But not everybody is qualified for that. So, many people may think, “Oh, I’m hearing Bhagavatam, I go to Bhagavat Katha, etc. I relish Bhagavatam, I know the meaning.” They may think like this. But Bhagavatam is compared to Mohini Avatar.
Mohini Avatar means the Avatar of the Lord who is very bewildering. So what did Mohini do? She bewildered the demons. So, the demons stole the nectar when they churned the milk ocean, they got nectar and they had the pot of nectar and when they saw Mohini, they became bewildered. So, Mohini asked the demons for the nectar and surprisingly, the demons gave her the nectar. How could they give her the nectar, because they were all bewildered. She asked for the nectar, and they gave it, because they trusted her. But Mohini took the nectar and gave it to the Devatas. So Bhagavatam is like Mohini. It cheats the demons and the materialists of the real meaning of the Bhagavatam and it gives the real meaning to the devotees. So the materialists can read the Bhagavatam, but they will not get the essence of the Bhagavatam.They will think they know the meaning of Bhagavatam, because they may have great learning, but actually they do not get the essence. So the meaning of the Bhagavatam is available to the devotees.
But the Bhagavatam is the highest fruit and the sweetest fruit on the tree of the Vedas. So how do we reach that fruit? You can look at it, throw rocks at it, and try to make it fall out. However, that won’t work. If the fruit falls off, it will fall and splatter on the ground. It will be useless. So only a very skilful person can climb that tree. So we can climb to the top of the tree, and we can get the fruit, and we can enjoy it. But they make a special arrangement, so that the people on the ground can also enjoy. So they pass the fruit down to another person, who passes it on to another person, who passes it on to another person, and finally it gets to the base of the tree. So what this means is that the meaning of the Bhagavatam is appreciated by the great devotees, and they pass that meaning on to others. So we have parampara.
So we have two ways in which the Bhagavatam is protected. One, of course is, you have to be a devotee. Second, it should come through parampara. So in this way, we get the proper meaning. So in this way, the knowledge is protected. So the protection of knowledge, of course, is always there, and we don’t give knowledge to the wrong people because they misuse it. Even at the end of the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna says, do not teach the Bhagavad Gita to people who don’t have faith and who are envious. And we even apply that to the Holy Name, Nama Sankirtan. Don’t preach to the faithless. So one of the reasons is the knowledge is always protected. It goes to the wrong persons, they misuse it, or they offend it, or whatever. And as we have many examples here in the Bhagavatam of some demon who gets knowledge and then he misuses it to harass everybody. So, here we see Bana gets blessings from Shiva, and he wants to fight with Shiva. We see Brahma gave blessings to Hiranyakasipu, and Hiranyakasipu tries to control everybody, and he defeats the Devatas and everything.
So at the end of the Bhagavatam, the 10th Canto of the Bhagavatham, there is a question, why is it that the devotees of Shiva are so wealthy, but Shiva looks like he is penniless, and the devotees of Narayana are penniless, Vishnu has got all opulence in Vaikuntha. They look opposite. The answer is, the Devatas give blessings for material things, but those material things are often very dangerous. The devotees of Vishnu are not interested in material things; they want Prema. The Lord also realises that material wealth can also be an obstacle, so He may not give it. The Lord realises that wealth can be dangerous. And the devotees often take wealth as a curse, and poverty as a blessing.
For instance, Dhruva gets the kingdom of his father, and he has to rule for thousands of years. Why does he have to stay in this material world and rule for thousands of years? Or we see the case of the Avanti Brahmana, he lost everything, and he says, oh! this is very good, now I’m completely detached from my family members and my wealth, I can practise spiritual life. So therefore, Vishnu and Krishna are very different. They are very discreet in how they give blessings.
So similarly, the devotees also have to be discreet and use their judgement. If the devotees want to preach, they have to consider what is going to be most beneficial for this particular person. And then they have to decide what is the qualification of that person, what kind of knowledge they should get. Like the Supreme Lord, the devotees are all merciful. But that mercy will manifest in different ways for different types of people.
Okay. Thank you, Krishna.
Q&A
1) What about, you said, Brahma gives blessings to Hiranyakashipu. Hiranyakashipu misuses, they destroy, disturb the people. In this case, Brahma does not get any reaction from the responsible deities.
We see that Brahma actually was quite careful. Hiranyakashipu wanted immortality, no death. And Brahma said, I can’t do that, I can’t give that [Laughs]. And then, of course, Hiranyakashipu tried to be very clever and asked for all sorts of other blessings. With these blessings, he was able to conquer and exploit and enjoy. But it also provided an opportunity for the Lord to appear and kill him. So the blessing had bad effects because Hiranyakashipu exploited everybody in the world, but it had a good effect because the Supreme Lord appeared [Laughs]. So in that sense, there was no fault of Brahma giving the blessings.
In the case of Shiva also, certainly the blessings gave bad effects because the demons misused the blessings. But in the end, we see these demons also suffer. So in other words, the blessings that Lord Shiva gives also are a great teaching to the asuras. The material blessings if misused lead to the demon’s destruction.
2) Thank you very much. Hare Krishna Maharaj, may I ask a question? Thank you for the wonderful class, Maharaj. I really like the point that you mentioned that only devotees have access to Vedic literature, especially Bhagavatam and others.
Can you tell us more about it? Only devotees have access to Bhagavatam. Yes, and if you see Caitanya Caritamrta, Krishnadasa Kaviraj says [quotes sloka] . So here, he mentioned that unless one is favoured by a pure devotee, one cannot attain the platform. If we see the example of Srila Prabhupada, then we can see that the importance of the person Bhagavatam is more important than the book Bhagavatam. In the initial day, there was no Bhagavatam, no Caitanya Caritamrita, and no literature. But devotees become pure devotees just by the association of Srila Prabhupada. So we need the blessings of a pure devotee in our life, to access all these literatures. But a few months back in the Mayapur class, we mentioned that Srila Prabhupada is our deliverer and he is our real special master. So how can I understand that Maharaj? If you can explain that.
Maybe the misunderstanding here is that we’re talking about pure devotees, etc. So what is the definition of a pure devotee? Most ISKCON devotees, or many ISKCON devotees, when we say pure devotee, that means uttama adhikari. Uttama adhikari means one who is in prema. So it is this person who is able to deliver us. So if we want deliverance, we have to accept an uttama adhikari guru. And of course, Srila Prabhupada is uttama adhikari , so he can also deliver us in this way.
However, usually when we speak of guru, we think of a living guru. However, this idea of living guru is also a little bit vague. So we have a guru, we accept initiation, he is our diksha guru, shiksa guru, then he disappears. So what happens, he is no longer a guru, we need another guru? It doesn’t make sense. So whether guru is present or not present, still he can be guru. That’s my idea.
So therefore, Srila Prabhupada can be guru for everyone, even if he is no longer physically present. However, of course, scripture also indicates accepting guru, etc., means that you actually have a physically present guru to take initiation from, etc., so we cannot deny that also. So therefore, we’ll have several gurus. So we’ll have our present guru, who may be physically present, and of course if he’s not physically present, he’s already passed away, we’ll still have him as a guru, plus we’ll also have Srila Prabhupada as our guru.
But a question may arise, I have my present guru, is he a pure devotee? Of course, we don’t want an impure devotee as our guru. But, is he Uttama adhikari? So, we may assume, because we’re taking gurus and who is a pure devotee, that he must be Uttama adhikari. However, that logic is not proper. That is because, as I said in the beginning, who is a pure devotee? So the definition given in Nectar of Devotion by Rupa Goswami is, one who practises pure bhakti becomes a pure devotee. So the beginning of Nectar of Devotion, Rupa Goswami gives the definition of what is pure bhakti. And anyone who follows that is called a pure devotee.
But then he gives three types of pure bhakti. So we have Sadhana, Bhava, and Prema. So you can be a pure devotee in Sadhana, Bhava, or Prema. So that’s when we say that we must get instructions from a pure devotee, he could be sadhana, bhava, or prema devotee.
And it’s most likely that there will be a person practising pure bhakti in sadhana. So those pure devotees in sadhana are what we call the Madhyama Adhikaris.
The definition of Kanishta is, he worships the deity in the temple with faith, but he doesn’t really have knowledge, and he doesn’t preach. He doesn’t recognise devotees. So he’s not even a real devotee. So it’s not being pure bhakti. So it’s the Madhyamas who practise pure bhakti. So people doing sadhana become Madhyamas. So most of the devotees who are active gurus will be in this category of Madhyama.
3) Even the Madhyama, they have a different level, right?
Yeah, Madhyama. Well, we hope they are on nistha, not on Kanishka .
4) Devotees distribute thousands of Bhagavatams and Bhagavad Gita to many people without discrimination, it looks like whomever purchased these books or ordered these books will get some benefit. You said that the demon can’t understand, the people can’t understand unless it is explained by the devotee, but the devotees are distributing the books to everybody without discrimination. So are we preaching to the non-devotees that way and committing offence?
Generally, when we distribute books, as Vaiseshika Prabhu says, we look for people and we look for the most favourable person. We don’t look for the person that’s really look tamasic or whatever like that, so we are little discrete in who we even approach and not everybody takes the book and the one who takes the book and give some sort of donation whatever, he has some sort of favourability usually. Otherwise, he wouldn’t even look at the book, he would run away Or some of these people may not have faith, accepting the book or giving a donation is an ajanta sukriti, which will give them a little bit of faith.
5) In Japan, people who go out to drink and get a little drunk are more likely to open up and buy the book. So, we give them a little drink. What will happen to that?
That is also a type of ajanta sukriti.
6) What about non-book internet reading? Nowadays, we mostly read on the internet. So, how that reading will give the ajanta sukriti?
So, whether it’s internet or book, same thing, knowledge is the same. So, we may get a book from a devotee, internet we get from a computer [Laughs] or a mobile phone. But some devotees put it on the internet. So, there is some connection with devotees, whether it’s distribution on the internet or in book form.
Of course we know that internet has some limitations. It’s good because we can get to contact more people. The negative point would be that we contact more people, but the contact is somewhat superficial. So, therefore, it’s up to the devotee, after the contact, he must somehow make the contact a little deeper.
7) I have another question, Maharaj. You said the qualification of the definition of the pure devotees. Then you said at least Nishtha. But my understanding Nishtha is the Brahma Buddha. This is my understanding. This is correct or not?
Well, there are different interpretations of this verse.
Viswanatha Chakravarti takes it as a person practising Jñāna, who is about to get liberation [Laughs]. In Nishtha, the devotee would have steadiness and bhakti but he still has anartha, but they are not enough to disturb the bhakti, this is from the bhagavatham and Madhurya Kadambhini. There is little anartha even in Bhava stage. So, there’s more anartha in Nishtha, but at least they don’t disturb the Bhakti.
Devotee: Disturbance means?
HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj: Well, we can continue Bhakti, we don’t interrupt the Bhakti, we do everything regularly.
8) Maharaj Jagai, Madai didn’t have faith but still Nithyananda prabhu went and gave them mercy so, the Nithyananda Prabhu or Caitanya Mahaprabhu can do like that. But in our case, we say don’t go to faithless people. Here’s a question.
So, Jagai and Madai were apparadis and demons, etc. They got purified by the presence of Nithyananda. So, we can say that by His presence, that was their ajnata sukriti…His presence and then they began to develop faith after that. So, a powerful devotee may be able to, by His presence, give a ajnata sukriti, so a person can develop faith. So, of course, Nithyananda and Haridas tried to preach before they had faith, and they got attacked [Laughs].
Devotee: Demigods are also not pure devotees but Mohini murti gave nectar to them?
HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj: So we often criticize the devatas, but at the same time, they are also pure devotees. We often talk about Suras and Asuras, so demons and devotees. So, some of those, Devatas do have some Anarthas. And even Brahma should have Anarthas, because they are still in the material world. But the Lord gives them, or has enough faith in them, trusts them enough that He actually empowers them.
Devotee: They are like, exactly like you mentioned, the stage of the Nishtha. They are pure devotees, but still they have Anarthas.
HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj: Yeah.
9) We want to purify the people. We want to give opportunity for the purified. Sometimes, small things, we should not give, you know, neck beads, tulasi neck beads. We should not give to people eating meat, or they don’t follow the regular principles, they don’t chant. We should not give. Some devotees say, you should not give to, you know, Tulasi should give to, you know, other, you know. What is your opinion on this?
Well, the best thing we can give is, they should chant the names. We should not give to people who are not qualified. Though, in Pancharatra, of course, the rules are strict. And, of course, the Lord Chaitanya’s movement we’re more liberal.
And because of the name, the name has no rules attached to it, therefore we can be a little more free in our preaching. If all these things, the Tulsi Mala, etc., are an accompaniment to chanting the name, then we can say it’s kind of permissible.
Devotee: Is that favourable?
HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj: Yeah, by association of Tulsi, they increase their bhakti [Laughs].
Devotees: Grantharaj Srimad Bhagavatham Ki Jai! HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj Ki Jai!