Srimad Bhagavatam – 1.18.23 | HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj | ISKCON Chennai | Nov 28, 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 1 Chapter 18 Verse 23.
ŚB 1.18.23
अहं हि पृष्टोऽर्यमणो भवद्भि-
राचक्ष आत्मावगमोऽत्र यावान् ।
नभ: पतन्त्यात्मसमं पतत्त्रिण-
स्तथा समं विष्णुगतिं विपश्चित: ॥ २३ ॥
ahaṁ hi pṛṣṭo ’ryamaṇo bhavadbhir
ācakṣa ātmāvagamo ’tra yāvān
nabhaḥ patanty ātma-samaṁ patattriṇas
tathā samaṁ viṣṇu-gatiṁ vipaścitaḥ
Synonyms
aham — my humble self; hi — certainly; pṛṣṭaḥ — asked by you; aryamaṇaḥ — as powerful as the sun; bhavadbhiḥ — by you; ācakṣe — may describe; ātma-avagamaḥ — as far as my knowledge is concerned; atra — herein; yāvān — so far; nabhaḥ — sky; patanti — fly; ātma-samam — as far as it can; patattriṇaḥ — the birds; tathā — thus; samam — similarly; viṣṇu-gatim — knowledge of Viṣṇu; vipaścitaḥ — even though learned.
Translation
O ṛṣis, who are as powerfully pure as the sun, I shall try to describe to you the transcendental pastimes of Viṣṇu as far as my knowledge is concerned. As the birds fly in the sky as far as their capacity allows, so do the learned devotees describe the Lord as far as their realization allows.
Purport
The Supreme Absolute Truth is unlimited. No living being can know about the unlimited by his limited capacity. The Lord is impersonal, personal and localized. By His impersonal feature He is all-pervading Brahman, by His localized feature He is present in everyone’s heart as the Supreme Soul, and by His ultimate personal feature He is the object of transcendental loving service by His fortunate associates the pure devotees. The pastimes of the Lord in different features can only be estimated partly by the great learned devotees. So Śrīla Sūta Gosvāmī has rightly taken this position in describing the pastimes of the Lord as far as he has realized. Factually only the Lord Himself can describe Himself, and His learned devotee also can describe Him as far as the Lord gives him the power of description.
HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj:
So, Suta Goswami is here explaining that according to one’s capacity only, one can describe the Lord. This means one cannot describe the Lord completely. Of course, it is famously known in scripture that the Lord cannot be approached by mind or words, so what to speak of anybody describing the Lord? At the same time, we have descriptions in Bhagavatam and other scriptures, it says that, yes, devotees can describe the Lord, but still there is no end to their description. So ‘ananta’ with all of his thousand heads can describe the Lord, but it will never come to an end. So he can describe, but there are infinite other qualities of the Lord.
Of course, there is the famous chapter in the Bhagavatam, in the tenth canto, that is chapter 87, which is the prayers of the personified Vedas. And so the question is asked there also, how can the supreme entity – Brahman, Paramatama, Bhagavan, be described by words? Scripture is words, how can scriptures be described? Because they are also words. Of course, this becomes extremely logical to say this, that it is impossible to describe the Lord, because if we take impersonalism, the Lord has no qualities at all and no form, so how you can describe Him at all? But if we take Paramatama or Bhagavan, they do have qualities, they do have forms, so in one sense we could describe them, but then how can we use material words? So, in that sense, yes, you could not describe the Lord by material words or material mind. So, we can describe the Lord by spiritual words. So, that is what scripture is, it is not a material word at all, it is spiritual. So, we don’t have to think about it, we just accept the words.
And of course, then you could ask, why we should accept the scripture? you are saying, it is spiritual, but how do we know? So, this is where faith is important. Based on our faith, we make a certain choice of what is scripture. So in that sense, people can criticize, yes, your whole idea about God and Bhagavan, etc., is based on faith. So, yes, there is a certain faith in scripture. At the same time, we do have to use our intelligence. In other words, we use our faith in everything, and then accept all scriptures, that doesn’t make any sense either. So, part of the faith itself is based on use of your intelligence as well. So, in that sense, using our mind and intelligence is not completely useless, even though we say, you know, you can’t approach the Lord with the mind. If you want to learn the Vedas or any scriptures, then you have to use words, if you have to use words, then you have to understand grammar, etc. so, you have to use your intelligence. So, we do not reject the use of intelligence and mind. And this is exactly what Rupa Goswami says in Nectar of Devotion. Yes, using your material mind is useless, you cannot understand scripture just by your intelligence. Nevertheless, we can also use our intelligence, we can use logic, as long as it does not contradict scripture.
We see the whole of Brahma Sutras is an exercise in logic, to explain Upanishads using logic. And all the commentaries of the Vaishnava acharyas and even Shankaracharya are using logic to establish what is the truth of scripture. So, therefore, intelligence and logic and mind do have their place even in our study of scripture. So, we have scripture and this scripture will give us descriptions of form of the Lord, qualities of the Lord, activities of the Lord. So, it is words, it is sound. And of course, generally sound is material. But then we will say, Veda is not material sound, it is spiritual sound.
So, how is it possible that we can hear that sound? We have material ears. So it is true, yes, many people will hear the Vedas, it will be material sound for them. A person who is more spiritually advanced will hear the spiritual sound. That is why the Vedas are not for everybody, not everybody is qualified for the Vedas. So, ultimately, yes, the sound of the Vedas and scripture is spiritual, but if you have gross material ears only, you will not get the right meaning, you will get material meaning only. And that is why it is said, unless you do have faith and devotion, you cannot understand the devotional scriptures, you will come out with a material conclusion.
So there is a qualification necessary for understanding even Bhagavatam. Broadly speaking, of course, qualification for studying or hearing Bhagavatam or Bhagavad Gita is much less than studying the Vedas. Sudras are not allowed to hear or utter the Vedas at all. But Sudras and Melacchas can hear Bhagavad Gita or Bhagavatam. That does not mean they are not spiritual, No, they are spiritual, but qualification to access the spiritual knowledge is less, so they are allowed to study and hear. Still, we see in Bhagavad Gita, Krishna says, ‘Don’t preach the Bhagavad Gita, don’t give it to people who have no faith, who are envious, etc.’ So, even though it’s available for everybody, still that person should have some faith. But even if you have faith, but you are a Sudra or a Melaccha, you cannot study the Vedas. So, therefore, the Puranas and the Mahabharata and Bhagavad Gita, etc., are spiritual, but available to wider audience. And of course, these scriptures are available for the people of Kali Yuga.
But nevertheless, as Prabhupada points out in the purport, the delivery of this message also is according to one’s realization. So, some people have a little faith, so they can recite and they can give Bhagavad Gita and Bhagavatam to other people. Other devotees have more knowledge, more realization, so they can give greater knowledge of Bhagavatam or Bhagavad Gita. By the mercy of the Supreme Lord, He empowers the devotees, the Madhyama devotees, to distribute spiritual knowledge. So therefore, these Madhyama devotees have the mercy and they do have the power to spread Krishna’s mercy everywhere. But, those Madhyama devotees, of course, are on different levels. So, we see there is Bhajana kriya, Anartha nivrtti, Nistha, Ruci, Asakti, these are basically the Madhyama devotees. And he can describe the Lord and His pastimes and His qualities and His form according to his level.
In the Nectar of Devotion there, Rupa Goswami, he also describes three levels of faith. So that faith increases with our increase of knowledge. So then we can say, well that means very necessary to get more knowledge, so we have more faith. If we have more faith, we can give faith also. So, in other words, the devotee who has more knowledge and more faith can be a better preacher. So, the Kanistha devotee is one who has little knowledge. And consequently, little faith. Because he has little knowledge, when he preaches, people can always argue. And because of these arguments, his faith may also waver. He cannot defeat the other person, and his faith becomes weak. The Madhyama has more knowledge. Therefore, he has deeper faith. So, when others argue with him, because he has stronger faith, his faith does not waver. But because his knowledge is not too much, he cannot also defeat the other person. The Uttama devotee, who is also still in Sadhana Bhakti, he has deep knowledge of scripture. Combined with logic. And his faith is very deep. And therefore, if arguments come, he can defeat the arguments and he can convince other people. So, because of that deep knowledge, then he is able to convince many people.
But when we say knowledge, we are not meaning non-devotional use of logic etc., in other words, simply memorizing the whole Bhagavatam, that is not actually the knowledge we are talking about. So, yes, he does know Bhagavatam, but also, because of his practice of Bhakti, then his understanding, his realization of those words is much deeper. So, therefore, there is a correlation between faith and knowledge.
So, I mentioned that it is not just memorizing verses, that is one type of knowledge. So, we can read scripture, but we also have to have some understanding. So, if we read Bhagavatam or Bhagavad Gita, ok we understand Krishna is Supreme Lord, Krishna has form, Krishna has quality, Krishna has pastimes. No one is equal to Him. So, this we are understanding with our mind, which we can say is material. But, of course, the whole work is spiritual knowledge. So we are using our so-called material mind, but we are getting spiritual knowledge out of that. And, without that knowledge, it is impossible for us to perform Bhakti Yoga, purely. We don’t know anything about Krishna, and we don’t know who He is, how can we do Bhakti Yoga? So that type of knowledge is very useful for us. And, with that knowledge we can practice pure Bhakti, if we practice pure Bhakti, we can get Prema. So, in this way, we can go through the whole of Bhagavad Gita, the whole Bhagavatam, and get knowledge.
However, there is a higher type of knowledge also. That we call realized knowledge. So we have Jnana and Vijnana. And both are necessary. So the Jnana is necessary, so that’s why we have scriptures in the beginning, so everybody read scriptures from the beginning. But, that knowledge that we get, Krishna is Supreme, Krishna has a form, Krishna has qualities, should turn into a realization of Krishna and His form, qualities and pastimes. So that realization is measured in terms of, we do Sadhana, where we get the basic knowledge; Bhava bhakti, where we get first realisation; and then complete, not really complete, but more or less complete realization in Prema. But, we cannot get to Prema unless we first get that knowledge, in other words, that Jnana. So, if you don’t have knowledge of Bhagavatam, Bhagavad Gita, you cannot get Prema. So, if we have that Jnana, we should progress to get that Vijnana, because the goal, Prayojana, is Prema. So, to strive for the knowledge, but not for the Prayojana, is useless also.
So, therefore, the devotees who are Madhyamas, they are progressing through Bhakti, and they get more and more knowledge, and they also get more and more realization, till they get a realization in Bhava, and then in Prema. So, according to their knowledge and their realization, then they preach. And through that, we get the spiritual shakti manifesting. So that is the general procedure for receiving knowledge and getting knowledge, and also distributing knowledge.
Hare Krsna!
Q & A:
1.) Hare Krishna Maharaj. Maharaj this knowledge that we are talking about, can we say that it is the samvit feature of the Lord?
Yes, of course, as I said, scripture itself is spiritual, so, and then we have in the spiritual world, we have knowledge obviously, so all that knowledge in the spiritual world comes from the samvit shakti.
So, all awareness in the spiritual world, if you see something in the spiritual world, it has to involve the samvit shakti [Laughs]. So, your body, and your senses, and everything around you, dhama is established by the sandhini shakti. So, this is, we can say, it manifests everything into existence, that’s the sandhini shakti. But, if these things are there, that’s not enough [Laughs]. So, you have a body, you have senses, what do you do with the senses? You have to see things, be aware of things, all this is samvit shakti. So, all of this, of course, it also combines with hladini shakti to give us what we call, experience of bhava and prema. In the Nectar of Devotion what is it? śuddha-sattva-viśeṣātmā, it’s described. And then Acharyas say, this means, in bhava stage, the bhava or the sthayi bhava, that initial experience of you know, Krishna, is a combination of hladini and samvit shaktis. So we could say that the scriptures that manifest in the material world are manifestation from that samvit.
Devotee: Maharaj it is generally said that bhakti doesn’t depend on anything else. Or for example, chanting of the holy names itself is sufficient. So is that general? So someone, if they don’t read the bhakti sastras, in principle they could attain love of Godhead, but that’s rare? Is that what we understand?
HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj: So the holy name is independent. All bhakti is independent. So they don’t depend on other processes like karma, jnana or yoga. At the same time, we say that you can have namabhasa. If you chant in namabhasa, you do not get prema. But you can destroy all your karmas [Laughs]. So at least you get some effect. But if you want prema, then you have to have suddha nama. Similarly, bhakti is independent, but if you do mixed bhakti, you also do not get prema. So if you do suddha bhakti, you will get prema. So suddha bhakti and suddha nama will depend on knowledge.
So in other words, if we say name is independent of everything, it doesn’t mean scriptures are useless [Laughs]. Otherwise, why would we have all these scriptures we read every day [Laughs]? So it is in how a scripture is delivered through devotees. So, the kanishtha devotee is defined as one who worships the deity in the temple. So he accepts the form of the Lord, but he doesn’t associate with devotees, he has no knowledge. Thus his bhakti is bhakti abhasa or mixed bhakti. And if he chants the name, it is namabhasa. So yes, it is beneficial in the sense that Krishna also says there are four types of devotees. The one who is praying for wealth, one who is praying for freedom from misery, etc. Yeah, they are all acceptable by the Lord, but they don’t give the same result [Laughs]. So the madhyama devotee, he associates with devotees, he avoids the non devotees, he worships the Lord and he avoids offenses. He has knowledge of scripture because he associates with devotees, he practices pure bhakti. So it is pure name. So by his practice, then he becomes uttama and then he has prema. But the kanishtha cannot get to that prema by himself [Laughs]. He has to get to madhyama level [Laughs].
2.) Maharaj we have three kinds of devotees – kanishtha, madhyama, uttama. So how will we categorize this uttama? This is after bhava and prema or before that?
I think in one place in Nectar of Devotion, Rupa Goswami refers to a person in bhava as being a madhyama [Laughs]. So therefore, uttama would be upper bhava and prema.
Devotee: If we say that as bhava and who is in uttama as upper bhava, so then problem might come here that, although they have knowledge but according to definition, they see the sarva-bhūteṣu yaḥ paśyed bhagavad-bhāvam ātmanaḥ ( SB 11.2.45), they don’t preach, although he has the knowledge, then what is the use of the knowledge?
HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj: So, the uttama is in prema which means full realization of the Lord. So, that’s his vijnana. So, he doesn’t need anything else. So, he is just absorbed in realizing Krishna all the time. That’s all.
Devotee: Initially we see you know this, you are saying that madhyama, although he has the knowledge, but he cannot convince others.
HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj: Yeah, that’s a different madhyama. The kanishtha, madhyama, uttama are all at a lower level on that definition of faith.
Devotee: Can we say that madhyama in kanishita, madhyama in madhyama, madhyam in uttama ?
HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj: No, no. When we talk about the categories of faith, that’s all we can say within pure bhakti, which means within the madhyama category.
He accepts devotional scriptures, he has a little bit knowledge, so he is a kanishtha. But he is a madhyama. He is not a kanishtha like one who only worships in the temple anymore. So it is not that definition. So, he accepts scripture, he accepts devotees, etc, he avoids non-devotees, whatever. So, but he has very little knowledge, so we say he is a kanishtha. When he gets more knowledge, he becomes a madhyama. And when he gets great knowledge, he is an uttama. But that doesn’t mean he is in bhava even. He is still, you know. Yeah. Or a uttama madhyama [Laughs].
3.) Maharaj, see in the beginning you were saying that, you know, to study scriptures, one should have qualification. But, see, when you give Bhagavad Gita or any books to the new devotee, we don’t know if they have faith or not, or if they have qualification or not. So if they don’t have qualification by reading the book, can they understand?
Of course, we could ask the question, why would he even want to read the Bhagavad Gita unless they had some faith?
Devotee: Out of inquisitiveness to know what is there.
HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj: Yeah. Yeah. So, if they are simply inquisitive, they may have a little faith there also. It’s not just inquisitiveness from the point of view of atheism or something like that. If there is a little bit of favorability, then they get a little out of it. If they are reading it in order to disprove it or prove atheism or whatever, of course, then they get zero out of it [Laughs].
Devotee: Sometimes we hear, you know, some people say, you know, I know, I have read many books, but I think this Bhagavad Gita I didn’t read yet. I think I should go through once what is there to see.
HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj: Yeah.
Devotee: So it is like a bookworm, you know, that they read many books, but purpose is not to understand, to see what is there. So for them it will be very difficult to understand.
HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj: Well, we see, of course, Krishna says four types of people surrender unto me. One is the inquisitive person. But that’s of course, inquisitive, he is not completely atheistic or something like that. Little favorability is there. So he is a type of devotee.
4.) Hare Krishna Maharaj. So why don’t the jnanis, they develop faith or bhakti in the personal aspect of the Bhagavan, because they also go through so much of jnana, right? So with knowledge they are supposed to develop faith and bhakti for the Bhagavan aspect of the Lord, right? So why is that not happening for the jnanis?
Oh, when we talk about the jnani, we are talking about people practicing jnana yoga who are interested in liberation. They are not interested in prema. Many of them don’t even accept the form of the Lord. And therefore, it’s rather unfavorable. That type of jnana is unfavorable for development of bhakti. So they have knowledge of Brahman and they attain Brahman. So when we talk about knowledge, we mean knowledge of Brahman, Paramatma, Bhagavan. And mainly we concentrate on Bhagavan.
5.) Hare Krishna. Maharaj in the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna speaks about the four types of people who approach Him or surrender unto Him. So is it because of some past sukruti? Are they are our target audience? Sometimes I’ve heard speakers say, that these are our target audience. So is it that they have some kind of sukruti from the past life?
So they all have some sort of faith, so the faith would come from sukruti, they got some accidental bhakti in previous lifetimes. But of course, these are not pure bhakti. So therefore, they had an association, accidental association of some sort, but they also maybe had some other influence [Laughs] on their association, so it’s not pure bhakti [Laughs]. However, by association with devotees practicing pure bhakti, then of course it’s not so difficult for them to change.
6.) We generally see that in India, there are pious people. But then, with my own experience, with my own family, I’ve found that people who are very pious, they don’t take to Krishna consciousness. But then people who are totally from I mean, not pious backgrounds across the world, they take to Krishna consciousness much more easily. So how do we understand this phenomenon? On the one hand, these people have got some piety, but they don’t take to Krishna consciousness.
So the development of faith and pure bhakti does not depend upon your varna, your ashrama, your country or anything or your gunas even. If one gets enough ajnata sukruti, then one can develop that faith, whether it is in the Western world, in India or wherever. And that is why we say that, it’s not necessarily that because you have sattva guna that you become a devotee. Not necessarily. You may not become a devotee, you may become the opposite [Laughs]. You may get stuck in the sattva guna [Laughs]. Yeah, people in sattva guna are conditioned by that, so they don’t want to give that up.
7.) Hare Krishna Maharaj. Maharaj you made one statement that vedas cannot be heard or read by sudras even if they have faith. So, is that a qualification of modes which is necessary there? Because in general the brahminical class understands or believes in that, even now, that vedas is their right and not of the lower classes. So is it that apart from faith, because vedas cannot be read without faith, but that’s not the only qualification. So one has to be in modes?
So, that’s a general statement. So, we do see there are exceptional cases. And thus we do find there were women in the Brhad-aranyaka Upanishad, speaking Vedas [Laughs], speaking jnana actually [Laughs]. So, it’s a general thing which was applied and we can say the opposite is also true. You could be born as a kshatriya or a vaishya or brahmana and they could teach the vedas, but you may not understand anything also [Laughs] completely. It’s useless for you also [Laughs]. So it’s a useful standard, but not absolute.
Hare Krishna.
Devotees: Grantharaj Srimad Bhagavatam ki jai!!! HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj ki jai!!! Srila Prabhupada ki jai!!!