Srimad Bhagavatam 11.11.28 | HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj | ISKCON Chennai | 20 May 2021
Oṁ namo bhagavate vāsudevāya
Oṁ namo bhagavate vāsudevāya
Oṁ namo bhagavate vāsudevāya
nama oṁ viṣṇu-pādāya kṛṣṇa-preṣṭhāya bhū-tale
śrīmate bhaktivedānta-svāmin iti nāmine
namas te sārasvate deve gaura-vāṇī-pracāriṇe
nirviśeṣa-śūnyavādi-pāścātya-deśa-tāriṇe
jaya śrī-kṛṣṇa-caitanya prabhu-nityānanda
śrī-advaita gadādhara śrīvāsādi-gaura-bhakta-vṛnda
Hare Kṛṣṇa Hare Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa Hare Hare
Hare Rāma Hare Rāma Rāma Rāma Hare Hare
Reading from Srimad Bhagavatam Canto 11 Chapter 11 Verse 28.
ŚB 11.11.28
tvaṁ brahma paramaṁ vyoma
puruṣaḥ prakṛteḥ paraḥ
avatīrno ’si bhagavan
svecchopātta-pṛthag-vapuḥ
Synonyms
tvam — You; brahma paramam — the Absolute Truth; vyoma — like the sky (You are detached from everything); puruṣaḥ — the Personality of Godhead; prakṛteḥ — to material nature; paraḥ — transcendental; avatīrṇaḥ — incarnated; asi — You are; bhagavan — the Lord; sva — of Your own (devotees); icchā — according to the desire; upātta — accepted; pṛthak — different; vapuḥ — bodies.
Translation
My dear Lord, as the Absolute Truth You are transcendental to material nature, and like the sky You are never entangled in any way. Still, being controlled by Your devotees’ love, You accept many different forms, incarnating according to Your devotees’ desires.
Purport
The pure devotees of the Lord propagate devotional service all over the world, and therefore, although separate from the personal form of the Lord, they are considered to be manifestations of God’s mercy and potency. As stated in Caitanya-caritāmṛta (Antya 7.11): kṛṣṇa-śakti vinā nahe tāra pravartana.
The Lord is like the sky (vyoma) because although expanded everywhere, He is not entangled in anything. He is prakṛteḥ paraḥ, or completely transcendental to material nature. The Lord is fully self-satisfied and is therefore indifferent to the affairs of the material world. Still, because of His causeless mercy, the Lord desires to expand pure devotional service, and for this reason He incarnates within the material world to uplift the fallen conditioned souls.
The Lord descends in selected spiritual bodies to please His loving devotees. Sometimes He appears in His original form as Kṛṣṇa. And even Kṛṣṇa Himself appears in different forms to special devotees so that they may fully develop their loving sentiments for Him. Śrīla Jīva Gosvāmī gives several examples of the Lord’s special mercy upon His devotees. Lord Kṛṣṇa personally went to the home of Jāmbavān and there displayed a form with slightly angry glances. In that form, the Lord enjoyed a fight with His devotee. The Lord displayed His form as Dattātreya to Atri Muni and similarly bestowed special mercy upon Lord Brahmā, the demigods, Akrūra and innumerable other devotees. And in Vṛndāvana the Lord displayed His most beautiful form as Govinda to the fortunate inhabitants.
Śrīla Madhvācārya has quoted from the Prakāśa-saṁhitā as follows. “The Lord accepts different spiritual bodies according to the desire of His devotees. For example, the Lord agreed to become the son of Vasudeva and Devakī. Thus, although Lord Kṛṣṇa has an eternal, blissful spiritual form, He appears to enter within the body of His devotee who becomes His mother. Although we speak of the Lord’s ‘taking on a body,’ the Lord does not change His form, as do the conditioned souls, who must change their material bodies. The Lord appears in His own eternally unchangeable forms. Lord Hari always appears in the forms that are especially desired by His loving devotees, and never in other forms. However, if one thinks that the Lord, in the manner of an ordinary person taking birth, becomes the physical son of Vasudeva or other devotees, then one is victimized by illusion. The Lord merely expands His spiritual potency, causing His pure devotees to think, ‘Kṛṣṇa is now my son.’ One should understand that the Supreme Personality of Godhead never accepts or rejects a material body, nor does He ever give up His eternal spiritual forms; rather, the Lord eternally manifests His blissful bodies according to the loving sentiments of His eternal pure devotees.”
Śrīla Jīva Gosvāmī mentions that the word vyoma also indicates the Lord’s name of Paravyoma, or the Lord of the spiritual sky. One should not misinterpret this verse to mean that Lord Kṛṣṇa is impersonal, like the material sky, or that the form of Kṛṣṇa is merely another selected incarnation equal to any other. Such casual and whimsical speculations cannot be accepted as actual spiritual knowledge. Śrī Kṛṣṇa is the original Personality of Godhead (kṛṣṇas tu bhagavān svayam), and the Lord has explained elaborately in Bhagavad-gītā that He is the original source of everything. Therefore, the pure devotees of the Lord are eternally engaged, in full knowledge and bliss, in loving service to the Lord’s original form as Kṛṣṇa. The whole purpose of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam is to arouse our love for Lord Kṛṣṇa, and one should not foolishly misunderstand this great purpose.
HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj:
So here Uddhava is praising the Lord. Now the previous verse he was asking about the different types of devotees and the different types of bhakti. But in order to get an answer, he should please the Lord. So here he appreciates the Lord, understanding the Lord’s position. So the Lord has many qualities and therefore we can praise Him. So the common way of praising the Lord is to describe His great qualities. And we’ll see this in the Bhagavatam, in Bhagavad Gita and in the Upanishads and even in other religions. So He’s full of all knowledge, He’s full of all powers.
So of course, He’s also completely separate from the material world. So that is described here in the first few lines. Oh, the Lord is like a star. So the analogy is used to show the greatness of all-pervading feature of the Lord. And also to show that just as the sky pervades everywhere but is not affected by anything. So the Lord pervades everywhere but is not affected. But the sky of course has no particular form. So we should not take that as part of the comparison because the sky has no particular form, the Lord has no particular form. We have to reject that. So the Lord is completely, He pervades everything, He’s bigger than anything and at the same time He’s untouched by anything. So that is one aspect of the Supreme Lord.
The other aspect is His sweet qualities. So the second part of the verse talks about trying to or coming under the control of His devotees. And because of that, He appears in the material world in different forms. Of course, some of these forms He shows. But that He responds to His devotees in appearing in this world, that is the aspect of His sweetness. Although the Lord comes to kill the demons and establish dharma, the main reason is to please the devotees. However, the different devotees are pleased by different things. So some devotees are pleased when the Lord shows great power. And therefore, in many avatars, the Lord shows great powers. For instance, He appears as Varaha and He lifts the whole Bhu-mandala out of the Garbhodaka Ocean. So that is impossible for other people to do. And when He does this, everybody is impressed by the Lord’s great strength. So in many of His forms, the Lord does show great powers. And in killing demons, often there is a great power. So that aspect of the Lord is very pleasing to many devotees. Now, sometimes the Lord comes and He displays His knowledge. So as Hayagriva, all of the Vedas come out of His mouth. Or as Kapila, a great sage, He also gives knowledge. Or as Vedavyasa, He explains the Vedas through the Mahabharata and Puranas. So by doing this, He also pleases different types of devotees. So these aspects are also included in Krishna.
So Krishna also shows great power. He kills many demons in Vrindavan. He lifts Govardhana on the little finger of His left hand for seven days. So Krishna, like others, also displays great power. Great knowledge. He learned all of the knowledge from His guru, Sandipani Muni just by hearing it. And of course, here He is speaking knowledge to Uddhava and in Bhagavad Gita, He gives a whole book of knowledge. But the special quality of Krishna is the relationship with His devotees. So of course, the Lord is controlled by His devotees, even in other form. But He is more controlled by His devotees in the form of Krishna. So He is completely under their control and all. And thus, He gets tied up by Mother Yasoda. And He is willing to do anything for His devotees. So we find in, when He was in the gurukul, then He would go out and collect firewood for His Guru. He becomes the charioteer of Arjuna. So in many ways, Krishna shows how He is controlled by His devotees in the most extraordinary ways. So this aspect becomes most prominent in Krishna.
So in other forms, the power aspect is more prominent. In Krishna, particularly in Vrindavan, the sweetness aspect is much more prominent. But because He has more sweetness, that doesn’t mean He has less power. So not only does He show more sweetness than any other forms of the Lord, He also has powers. We see in His first eight years of life, He killed many, many demons in Vrindavan. And we don’t see that in the other forms of the Lord. He showed to Brahma that He is the manifester of all the Vishnu forms who create all the universes. So though we call all the forms Bhagavan, we distinguish Krishna from the others by calling Him Svayam Bhagavan. And that is the main theme of Srimad Bhagavatam.
So when we read and study the Srimad Bhagavatam, we should understand everything in relation to this principle that Krishna includes everything. Though He takes many forms in the material world, this is the we can say most complete form. He displays everything that all the other forms of the Lord display, plus more. And that is the purpose behind Rupa Goswami enumerating 64 qualities in Krishna and 60 in Vishnu. All the forms of the Lord have infinite qualities. We cannot say 60, 70, 80, 100, 200, 5000, million. All the forms of the Lord are one and they are all unlimited. But still, in each form, there are a varying amount of qualities. So therefore, we say other forms have 60 qualities, Krishna has 64 qualities. But that is only to show the superiority of Krishna. So though the Lord has many, many forms, still, we also understand that the Supreme form is Krishna.
Hare Krishna.
Q & A :
1.) Hare Krishna Maharaj, dandavat pranam. Maharaj, we see that the Lord appears based on the prayers of pure devotees like Sri Prahlada Maharaj and though Prahlada Maharaj didn’t specifically pray for His appearance, at the same time we see the Lord appears for the prayers of devatas. Generally we hear that devatas are considered to be devotees with desires. So how to understand this difference Maharaj?
So the Lord appears for many purposes. So the devatas may pray and then the Lord appears. So therefore Krishna appears because the devatas went to Brahma and Brahma prayed to Krishna. That’s one reason. So then, of course, the Lord appeared for other reasons as well. So one of the other reasons, the important reason is He wants to satisfy all those devotees who want to serve Him in Vrindavan. So Krishna fulfills all the different devotees and their desire.
2.) Hare Krishna Maharaj. Is that a sadhaka can take up worship of Hayagriva in order to get knowledge about Krishna and love Him?
Well, Hayagriva is worship for knowledge. In the material world, they worship Saraswati for knowledge. The Madhvas, they worship Hayagriva for knowledge. However, the followers of Lord Caitanya, they worship Srimad Bhagavatam for knowledge. Sukadeva Goswami.
3.) Hare Krishna Maharaj. Next question is about the description about the Lord being bound by His devotee. So in one sense, devotees generally never desire to control Krishna. They desire to please the Supreme Lord right. But there comes a binding aspect. So how to understand this?
Well, we can say that Krishna comes under control of the devotees. That’s a symptom of bhakti. It’s not the goal of the devotee. So that particularly manifests at the stage of prema. So the devotee desires prema in order that he can serve the Lord. But because of the intensity of that service, then the Lord comes under control of the devotee. Similarly, the devotee wants to serve the Lord. So the Lord gives him a spiritual body and puts him in spiritual world. So the devotee doesn’t desire to go to the spiritual world to get a spiritual body. These are results of his service. Similarly, the second quality in prema mentioned in Nectar of Devotion, besides this coming under control of the devotees, is intense bliss. But the goal of the devotee is not that he simply wants bliss. His goal is to please the Lord. And the result is the Lord is blissful and the devotee becomes blissful.
4.) Maharaj, we see that there are 64 qualities in full or displayed only by Vrajendra Nandana or Krishna in Dwaraka and Mathura also displays that 64 qualities?
Well, to some degree in Mathura and Dwaraka these qualities are displayed. So He still has a very beautiful form though it is a little bit less sweet than the one in Vrindavan. And He is surrounded by many different types of devotees, sakhya rasa or dasya rasa or vatsalya rasa or madhurya rasa. But that is mixed with Aishwarya. So the sweet aspect is a little less. And of course, pastimes. He has pastimes in Mathura and pastimes in Dwaraka also. But the sweetest pastimes are in Vrindavan. So in the Bhagavatam there is an elaborate description of Krishna with the queens in madhurya rasa. But it is slightly less than the madhurya rasa with the Gopis in Vrindavan. But Krishna doesn’t play His flute in Mathura and Dwaraka at all.
5.) We just heard that the Lord appears for the pleasure of His pure devotees. But we also see that the pure devotees are eternally present with the Lord in the eternal abode. So why Krishna comes here in the material world for the pleasure of His devotees?
There are some devotees who are performing sadhana and approaching prema in the material world. They feel great separation. And the Lord responds to that. For instance, we find that the sages of Naimisaranya prayed to develop the mood of the Gopis. So they became Gopis and the Lord came in the material world and fulfilled their desire.
6.) Maharaj, there is a statement, what does meditating upon Guru, your devotee, as your swarupa mean?
HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj: Where is that stated?
Devotee: This was an online question Maharaj.
HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj: [Laughs] So we have to see the context. May be you mean that the swarupa of the Guru or the Guru in his true swarupa? I don’t know.
7.) Maharaj, how can one practice raganuga sadhana in lower stages to attain raganuga prema?
So the Nectar of Devotion says the qualification is a great greed to follow after and develop the same sentiments as the people of Vrindavan.
8.) Maharaj, regarding that previous question which was asked online. It’s referred from SB 11.11.28, basically and it’s from Sarartha Darshini. That’s the context from which they asked.
HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj: Saririka Bhashya. Well, that’s, that’s Shankaracharya [Laughs].
Devotee: It’s Sarartha Darshini Maharaj.
HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj: Oh, Sarartha Darshini. Which one, which text?
Devotee: 11.11.28. Same verse. 11.11.28. Same verse Maharaj.
HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj: Oh, okay. 11.11.28. You’re saying that’s his, in a commentary.
Devotee: Yeah, from the purport.
HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj: I’ll have to look it up and see.
9.) We see that Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu has visited the temples in South India where other forms of, forms other than the Supreme Lord are worshipped. So how to understand this? What was the purpose?
HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj: What is that?
Devotee: When Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu travelled in South India, He visited temples where other forms of the Lord or forms other than the Lord are worshipped. Like the devas.
HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj: [Laughs] Yeah.
Devotee: So how to understand this?
HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj: So we understand that the other forms are servants of the Lord. So there’s nothing wrong with worshipping the devatas as servants of the Lord.
Devotees: Grantharaj Srimad Bhagavatam ki jai!!! HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj ki jai!!! His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Srila Prabhupada ki jai!!! Nitai Gaura premanande Hari Haribol!!!