Srimad Bhagavatam – 10.63.26 | HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj | ISKCON Japan | May 12, 2025!
Om Namo Bhagavate Vāsudevāya
Om Namo Bhagavate Vāsudevāya
Om Namo Bhagavate Vāsudevāya
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
jaya 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 Bhagavatam Canto 10 Chapter 63 Verse 26.
ŚB 10.63.26
कालो दैवं कर्म जीव: स्वभावो
द्रव्यं क्षेत्रं प्राण आत्मा विकार: ।
तत्सङ्घातो बीजरोहप्रवाह-
स्त्वन्मायैषा तन्निषेधं प्रपद्ये ॥ २६ ॥
kālo daivaṁ karma jīvaḥ svabhāvo
dravyaṁ kṣetraṁ prāṇa ātmā vikāraḥ
tat-saṅghāto bīja-roha-pravāhas
tvan-māyaiṣā tan-niṣedhaṁ prapadye
Synonyms
kālaḥ — time; daivam — destiny; karma — the reactions of material work; jīvaḥ — the individual living entity; svabhāvaḥ — his propensities; dravyam — the subtle forms of matter; kṣetram — the body; prāṇaḥ — the life air; ātmā — the false ego; vikāraḥ — the transformations (of the eleven senses); tat — of all this; saṅghāṭaḥ — the aggregate (as the subtle body); bīja — of seed; roha — and sprout; pravāhaḥ — the constant flow; tvat — Your; māyā — material illusory energy; eṣā — this; tat — of it; niṣedham — the negation (You); prapadye — I am approaching for shelter.
Translation
Time; fate; karma; the jīva and his propensities; the subtle material elements; the material body; the life air; false ego; the various senses; and the totality of these as reflected in the living being’s subtle body — all this constitutes your material illusory energy, māyā, an endless cycle like that of seed and plant. I take shelter of You, the negation of this māyā.
Purport
The word bīja-roha-pravāha is explained as follows: The conditioned soul accepts a material body, with which he attempts to enjoy the material world. That body is the seed (bīja) of future material existence because when a person acts with that body he creates further reactions (karma), which grow (roha) into the obligation to accept another material body. In other words, material life is a chain of actions and reactions. The simple decision to surrender to the Supreme Lord releases the conditioned soul from this futile repetition of material growth and reaction.
According to Śrīla Śrīdhara Svāmī, the words tan-niṣedhaṁ prapadye indicate that the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Lord Kṛṣṇa, is niṣedhāvadhi-bhūtam, “the limit of negation.” In other words, after all illusion is negated, the Absolute Truth remains.
The process of education may be succinctly described as a way of eradicating ignorance through the attainment of knowledge. Through inductive, deductive and intuitive means, we attempt to refute the specious, the illusory and the imperfect and elevate ourselves to a platform of full knowledge. Ultimately, when all illusion is negated, that which remains firmly in place is the Absolute Truth, the Supreme Personality of Godhead.
In the previous text, the Śiva-Jvara described the Supreme Lord as sarvātmānaṁ kevalaṁ jñapti-mātram, “pure, concentrated spiritual consciousness.” Now the Śiva-Jvara concludes his philosophical description of the Lord by saying in this text that the various aspects of material existence are also potencies of the Supreme Lord.
Śrīla Viśvanātha Cakravartī mentions that the Supreme Lord’s own body and senses, as implied here by the word tan-niṣedham, are nondifferent from the Lord’s pure spiritual existence. The Lord’s body and senses are not external to Him, nor do they cover Him, but rather the Lord is identical with His spiritual form and senses. The full Absolute Truth, unlimited in fascinating diversity, is Lord Śrī Kṛṣṇa.
HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj:
So in the previous verse, this Śiva-Jvara offers his respects to Krishna. And in doing so, he described the Supreme Lord. So we describe Him as the cause of creation and destruction of the material world. We also describe Him as being pure consciousness. And as a possessor of unlimited Shaktis. So implication is that there is a Supreme Lord who is real and has form and has activities. And he creates a real world. So this verse 26, describes that real world. So here we have long list of things that constitute this world. And though this is a demon speaking, he’s got a lot of knowledge. Because he has a very correct understanding of what makes up this material world.
First line he gives five elements or whatever in the material world. These elements are very subtle. They are not a substance like, you know, Prakriti and Mahatattva, and Ahankara and gross material elements. They’re very subtle. They’re not gross elements. So, they are part of maya, they are part of the material world. So, our Acharyas has divided this maya into two sections, or material world, that is this subtle aspect, and then the gross aspect, which we call ‘dravya’, or substance.
So, we know about time. Time is very subtle, time is material, whatever, but it’s not a substance, it’s very subtle, even scientists can’t explain what it is. In scripture it is defined as the agitator of Prakriti. And when Prakriti is agitated, then it turns into Mahatattva, Ahankara and all the elements. So, it agitates Prakriti, and then we get Mahatattva, Ahankara, senses, material elements, all these coming out of Prakriti. Then we have ‘daiva’, which we say is also karma, the ability of actions to give reactions in future lifetimes.
So, this law of karma is also not a substance, but it’s kind of a principle that operates in the material world. Like we have the law of gravity or whatever, all these different laws in physical science, they’re not a substance, but they govern the workings of matter. So, we have the word karma here also, it’s not really explained, it’s the same as daiva, which it usually is, but of course, karma means action in general. So, we see that living beings do actions, and even material elements do actions. There’s all sorts of activity going on in the material world. It’s not a substance, but somehow it exists, so it’s also an aspect of the material world. So, when these actions happen, they produce a certain result. So, if water gets hot, then it evaporates. This is a little different from the law of karma, which is, we can say, ethical law. You do sinful activities, you suffer, and if you do punyas, you enjoy. So, this has nothing to do with ethics at all for the human being. It’s just reactions within material nature.
And then we have the Jiva. Of course, the Jiva is very different from subtle prakriti and all that. It’s also different from time and karma, which are also part of maya. But it’s in the material world, this Jiva. And without it, the material world doesn’t operate, so it’s included here. ‘Svabhava’ is sometimes defined as vasana, or impressions. So, previous experiences influence the present life. So the propensity to carry on experience of the Jiva over many lifetimes is called svabhava.
So these things are, as I said, very subtle, they’re not substances as such, but they operate within the material world, and they don’t operate in the spiritual world. And then we get a list of all of the substances, dravya. So, we have the material body, we have the pranas, we have the ahankara, and all the transformations of that.
So when they discuss ahankara, it’s described that ahankara begins to divide up into sattva, rajas, and tamas. And from sattvik ahankara, we get mind, manas appearing, and the sense Devatas. The sense devatas, like the sun, the direction devatas, the Asvini kumaras, that govern the senses. And from rajasik ahankara, we get buddhi, intelligence, and the ten senses. The ten senses, of course, are the eye, ear, etc., plus the action senses, like hands and feet and whatever, voice. Jnanendriya and karmendriya, two types. And from ahankara and ignorance, we get sense objects and five gross material elements. Such as sound is the sense object and ether is the gross element. Or touch and air. And we have form and fire. We have taste and we have water. And we have smell and earth. So all of this constitutes material world. This makes up our gross body, our subtle body. And then the Jiva is there. And unfortunately, the Jiva is in ignorance. So the Jiva does activities and he gets karma. So over time, he does the karma, and later on he gets results, he gets another body.
So the combination of the first line of the subtle things are there, and the gross things, this which pushes the Jiva from body to body. And the example is given here of seed and sprout. So the seed sprouts, the sprout grows, makes another seed, the seed plants, there’s another sprout, there’s another tree, there’s another seed. And this keeps going on forever. And so just like the river keeps flowing, or the waves of the ocean keep coming in, we keep getting body after body after body. So the Jiva, with a subtle body, goes from gross body to gross body. And all this operates through time, and karma, and impressions, etc. But all of this is maya.
So in the last line it says, this is all your maya, it belongs to you, you control it all. And he concludes here that Supreme Lord himself is the opposite of all of this. So the Supreme Lord exists, but He’s not subject to time, and karma, and impressions, and material elements, and subtle body, and gross body. So this Śiva-Jvara, he says, ‘I surrender to you. If I surrender to you, I can destroy maya.’ So this world niṣedhaṁ, ‘niṣedhaṁ prapadye’, I surrender to you who is the negation of all this maya. So if I surrender to you, then I destroy maya. But Lord is not destroyed, Jiva is not destroyed. So the Lord remains as described in the previous verse, he says absolute truth etc., full of all knowledge etc., full of all shaktis.
So I mentioned yesterday that the Lord has all Shaktis. So of course, we have the material Shakti, which creates all of this maya. All of these things mentioned in the first three lines, except the Jiva, are from this Bahiranga Shakti, external energy of the Lord. So the Jiva, by surrendering to the Lord, he can get rid of all of that maya shakti. However, the Lord exists, and He still has His Antaranga Shakti. So in that Antaranga Shakti, we have spiritual world, we have spiritual forms, we have spiritual activities. So it even looks like the material world, because it looks like there is time there, there is activity there. There are bodies there. So there are senses there, all these things look like the same thing. But it is all from internal energy of the Lord, not the external energy. So we get opposite results.
In the material world, we go from body to body to body. In the spiritual world, we do activities, but we don’t go from body to body, no karma. The bodies are not born, and they don’t die. So in that sense, the bodies and the senses are one with the Atma itself. In the material world, the Jiva is completely different from subtle body and gross body. So we have matter and spirit in the material world. In the spiritual world, there is no duality like that, the Atma is there, but he has his body, but it’s not material, it’s spiritual.
Ok. Any question there?
Q & A
1. In the spiritual world, everything is spiritual, everything is Brahman. But all functions are different, form, sense, each sense is different. But are the senses of Jiva also like Krishna in the spiritual world ? Krishna is ‘aṅgāni yasya sakalendriya-vṛtti-manti’. For the Jiva also is it the same ?
All the senses can do the functions of the other senses [Laughs]. So such statements are made to show that the Lord’s senses are not limited like our senses. We say that the lord can eat with his eyes [Laughs]. Of course, he doesn’t even need the eye to eat. He can just say, I want to eat, and he can eat like that also [Laughs]. Eat with his mind [Laughs]. He can also just eat with his mind. He doesn’t even have to eat with his eyes [Laughs]. He can eat with his mind [Laughs]. But we see that Krishna does eat. Mother Yashoda feeds him, he takes the food in his hand [Laughs], and he chews it with his mouth [Laughs]. So though he doesn’t have to use any particular sense. He doesn’t have to eat at all, actually [Laughs]. But he carries out activities like activities in the material world. So he sees with the eye, he eats with the mouth, etc [Laughs]. So all of this creates some variety, and in that variety we get pastimes, or lila.
So the body is with the senses are there so that there can be interactions between the individuals and then we get the pastimes. So, the Lord by nature is bliss. And he is atmarama, he can have bliss within himself, with nothing else [Laughs]. He doesn’t even depend on body or senses for that in the spiritual world [Laughs]. So, he doesn’t even need the spiritual world [Laughs]. But then it becomes like Brahman [Laughs]. Only the Lord exists, and he is all blissful in himself, and nothing else happens [Laughs]. So, bliss is expressed through variety, and through interchange between different persons. So, through the Lord having senses and body, and the Jivas in the spiritual world having senses and body, then we get rasa, and then we get bliss.
2. Maharaj in all these prayers throughout Bhagavatam, it starts with similar titles. Everybody prays like..
HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj : You are the supreme [Laughs].
Devotee : But in other ways, like Krishna knows this, right? So why do they speak the same? Everybody speaks the same way.
HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj : Do you hear the question? In Bhagavatam, there are many prayers. Many practitioners pray.
So, in offering prayers, they have to express the identity of the Lord, otherwise the prayer would be rather fake [Laughs]. If they think the Lord is a material being with a material body, etc., then the prayer would be fake. So, usually, when they do offer prayers, first they offer respects, and they identify who is that Supreme Lord. After doing that, then they may make some request [Laughs].
So, of course, we have very simple prayers also. I just offer my respects to Krishna, who is a cowherd boy [Laughs] living in Vrindavan [Laughs]. That’s proper, if we understand who is that cowherd boy, who is that Krishna [Laughs]. But, if we don’t understand that, and we just think he is offering respects to Krishna, he is a cowherd boy living in Vrindavan, he has a material body, etc., then the prayer has no meaning [Laughs]. So, to identify the Lord and put him in the highest position and describe all of his eternal qualities, to take that step, actually, is a big step [Laughs], especially for a demon [Laughs]. So, when they say, I offer my respects to you, I surrender to you, the meaning, actually, is, I offer my respects to you, because now I understand that you are in the highest position, you are eternal, you don’t have a material body etc.
3. Maharaj in the first paragraph of the commentary of Srila Prabhupada, it says the simple decision to surrender to the Supreme Lord releases the conditioned soul from its futile repetition of material growth and reaction. Is this happening immediately?
HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj : [Laughs].
Devotee : Like we surrender, okay I am yours. But still we see the body going through so many different conditions, problems, etc. Is this happening, the release in the end of your life or is it immediate release?
HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj : Repeats question as the translator devotee could not hear it.
Of course we see in the Bhagavad Gita at the end, what does Krishna say? Surrender unto me, I free you from all sinful reactions [Laughs]. Of course we have in the Ramanuja Sampradaya, they have the idea of prapanna [Laughs], so you simply surrender and that’s it [Laughs], you’re saved [Laughs]. So, yes, in one sense it’s absolutely true. However, even the followers of Ramanuja understand that it doesn’t mean we just surrender and then we don’t do any bhakti [Laughs], so they also do the bhakti. So to explain it in another way, we could say that the decision itself is the beginning. If you don’t make a decision, nothing’s going to happen [Laughs]. So therefore, in Caitanya Caritamrta, Lord Caitanya says, the Jivas are wandering about in samsara. But by the mercy of Guru and Krishna, they get the bhakti lata bija. And with that seed, then they eventually get out of the material world. If they don’t get the seed, then they’re going to continue to wander in the material world [Laughs].
Devotee : But Maharaj, it’s not so easy to surrender. Because if you think that, okay, you’re a spiritual master, whatever, authority, and then you think, I know better. Why are you going to listen to this guy? So are you going to work out?
HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj : Then it’s not surrender. It’s not surrender then [Laughs].
So, of course, surrender can be in various degrees. Just as faith is in various degrees. So beginning, the faith is flickering. But by practice and knowledge of scripture, then it becomes firm. So by practice, then eventually the faith and the surrender and the bhakti becomes stronger and stronger. But if we’re not willing to put in that work or labor [Laughs] to continue the process, then it’s not going to happen. So that’s why we say it’s a combination of faith and effort [Laughs]. Like the man drowning in the well. So he calls out for help. So another person hears him and he comes along and he sees him and he puts a rope down. So the man is yelling, help, help, help. Please help me, I’m drowning [Laughs]. So the man on top says, well, hold on to the rope, please. So if we don’t hold on to the rope, the other person can’t pull you out of the well [Laughs]. So a devotee can give the knowledge, he can encourage, but if you don’t want to practice, what can be done [Laughs]? So we cannot only depend on the mercy of others, we have to do some work ourselves [Laughs]. So of course it is said in Caitanya Caritamrta that the mercy of Guru and Krishna is there, by that you get the seed. But after you get the seed, you have to be the gardener and cultivate. If you don’t cultivate, the seed will die [Laughs].
Devotee: Like you said, by decision, we can say surrender means decision ?
HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj : Yeah.
Devotee : Then by decision we can grow spiritually.
HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj : Yeah.
Devotee : But by decision, also like you said, faith, also different degrees.
HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj : Yeah.
Devotee : Also decision, decide, but again fail, decide, fail.
HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj : Yeah.
Devotee : Put on the switch, but not only one time doesn’t work. Many times, we have to every day switch on.
HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj : [Laughs] So decision of course, I guess that’s related to determination.
Devotee : Like I said decision means determination.
HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj : Its like you can decide many things in the material world, but if you don’t repeat that decision, it’s a daydream [Laughs]. As they say in the material world, you can get a goal, but if you don’t push ahead and think of it every day, think of it once a year, it’s not going to happen. It’s just a daydream [Laughs]. So you really have to persevere [Laughs]. So that’s why it is said in Bhagavatam that the real devotee is one who is experiencing suffering and karmas and whatever then he accepts, okay, that’s self-inflicted pain due to my karma, but he continues his bhakti in any case and by doing that, he gets the mercy of the Lord.
4. When the Jiva soul comes to the material world, they don’t have any seed of bhakti, because Jiva was actually in the spiritual world. But when they come to the material world, they don’t have any seed, and then they have to get it from Krishna.
This is a big debate in ISKCON. ISKCON and other groups. Because we do have the statements that Guru and Krishna planted the seed of bhakti, which means it wasn’t there before [Laughs]. So therefore, is bhakti inherent in the Jiva, or it has to be planted at a certain point? So in one sense, we can say our acharyas, they just take it as, at a certain point you get mercy, and then you can develop bhakti, otherwise you don’t develop bhakti [Laughs]. However, that may be so, at the same time we can say that all Jivas do have a propensity for bhakti. And thus great demons also can become devotees. So therefore, the capacity for bhakti is there in all Jivas. So whether it’s there or not there is not really a question [Laughs]. So maybe the question is, how will that bhakti be awakened [Laughs]? So it’s mercy of Guru and Krishna.
Devotee : Is that an analogy?
HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj : Well, he doesn’t say [Laughs] Lord Caitanya gives out analogies. Yes, it is an analogy in one sense, but based on that, we can interpret it in different ways [Laughs].
Devotee : [Laughs] Sounds like everything is solved.
HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj : Of course we can ask, why does the Jiva accept the seed of bhakti? If he doesn’t accept it, it’s not going to work. So then the explanation is, if the field is fertile, it will sprout. So what that means, if the Jiva has faith, then it will accept bhakti. So then the question comes, where does the faith come from [Laughs]? So faith doesn’t come from nowhere, there is also a cause. So the general cause is, mercy of devotees in previous lives [Laughs]. So we have a dependence on mercy in any case [Laughs]. So we have various types of mercy given by various types of devotees also [Laughs].
Devotee : So he says, you know, sometimes the people who have a very strong seed can give to anybody, right? If the seed is very strong. But in other ways, the person who is receiving may be really ready.
HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj : Yeah, and some are less ready. So there are various degrees of faith, various degrees of seeds coming in. So in the presentation I gave, Bhaktivinoda Thakur says that if a person has prema, they can deliver anybody and raise them up to prema [Laughs]. And if you have bhava, you can raise a person up to bhava if they’ve already had some bhakti previously. And if we’re lower than bhava, that is like a Madhyam adhikari or whatever, they can raise people up to inspire them to do their sadhana properly.
Devotee : The seed’s power will go. Like Srila Prabhupada was more powerful, right? As we progress in ISKCON, as the generations go, this power will reduce. So it should remain the same, right? The mercy of…
HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj : Prabhupada’s mercy, that will depend, again, on the person receiving. So we have receptors, and we see in Prabhupada’s time everyone is there. Some people left [Laughs], even then [Laughs]. So it depends on the people receiving. So later on, five generations later, we can still get the mercy of Prabhupada, but maybe a little more difficult because people are interested in personal things like that. But if it’s sincere, they could have direct mercy and get that result and advance nicely. So this becomes a little bit, maybe, critical because people say, ah, it’s Ritvik philosophy [Laughs]. Well, actually, the Ritvik philosophy is not so much that. It’s not about the mercy. It’s about Diksha.
So we maintain that you have to get your mantra from a living guru. So mercy comes through teachings, and of course, we’re going to keep the books [Laughs] of Prabhupada here [Laughs] for 10,000 years or whatever. So that mercy is always there. So already GBC made a statement that Prabhupada is our primary Siksha guru, so that’s a guru [Laughs]
Devotee : So his purport is really to help us. So that’s Prabhupada purports.
Devotee : He was reading the first canto of Bhagavatam, and he says, unless you become that level of Sukadeva Goswami, you have no qualification to speak about Bhagavatam.
HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj : Yeah.
Devotee : So that’s impossible.
HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj : Yeah, so that’s the high level. You have to be the most transparent or whatever, transparent medium, to communicate the highest teachings. So similarly, we say, OK, it’s best to have a Prema bhakta as your guru. But practically speaking, we accept whatever we can get [Laughs]. So therefore, Prabhupada also says, OK, everybody is a guru. Everybody go out and preach [Laughs]. So obviously not in the highest level, but at least the essential things are being taught. So this allows us to advance practicing pure bhakti to a madhyama level. If we need guidance to go further, Krishna will make arrangements.
Devotee : So by reading Prabhupada’s purport, it’s like we are reading the message from Sukadeva Goswami through Prabhupada.
HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj : Yeah, so what happens is, we have Sukadeva Goswami speaking to Pariksit, but we see that from the very beginning of Lord Caitanya’s movement [Laughs], we have the Goswamis making commentaries. And the reason is that some of these words can be misinterpreted to come up with some opposite meaning. So we have some very intelligent people, scholars who know Sanskrit inside out, they read Bhagavatam, and what do they conclude? Brahman is the highest [Laughs]. After reading the whole Bhagavatam [Laughs], they are scholars and whatever [Laughs]. So to read Bhagavatam, we need devotion, we also need intelligence. So the commentary is for Acharyas there to keep the meaning straight.
Devotees : Thank you very much.