Srimad Bhagavatam 10.86.49-52 | HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj | ISKCON Japan | 27 April 2026
jaya rādhā-mādhava kuñja-vihārī
gopījana-vallabha giri-vara-dhārī
yaśodā-nandana vraja-jana-rañjana
yamunā-tīra-vana-cārī
Hare Kṛṣṇa Hare Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa Hare Hare
Hare Rāma Hare Rāma Rāma Rāma Hare Hare
Jaya Prabhupāda Jaya Prabhupāda
Prabhupāda Jaya Prabhupāda
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 10 Chapter 86 Verse 49.
ŚB 10.86.49
sa tvaṁ śādhi sva-bhṛtyān naḥ
kiṁ deva karavāma he
etad-anto nṛṇāṁ kleśo
yad bhavān akṣi-gocaraḥ
Synonyms
saḥ — He; tvam — You; śādhi — please order; sva — Your; bhṛtyān — servants; naḥ — us; kim — what; deva — O Lord; karavāma — we should do; he — oh; etat — having this; antaḥ — as its end; nṛṇām — of humans; kleśaḥ — the troubles; yat — that; bhavān — Your good self; akṣi — to the eyes; go-caraḥ — visible.
Translation
O Lord, You are that Supreme Soul, and we are Your servants. How shall we serve You? My Lord, simply seeing You puts an end to all the troubles of human life.
Text 50
Translation
Śrī Śukadeva Gosvāmī said: After hearing Śrutadeva speak these words, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, who relieves His surrendered devotees’ distress, took Śrutadeva’s hand in His own and, smiling, spoke to him as follows.
Purport
Ācārya Viśvanātha comments that Lord Kṛṣṇa took Śrutadeva’s hand and smiled as a gesture of friendship, to tell Him, “Yes, you know the truth about Me, and I also know all about you. So now I will tell you something special.”
Text 51
Translation
The Supreme Lord said: My dear brāhmaṇa, you should know that these great sages have come here just to bless you. They travel throughout the worlds with Me, purifying them with the dust of their feet.
Purport
Śrīla Śrīdhara Svāmī explains that Lord Kṛṣṇa thought Śrutadeva had shown too much reverence to Him and not enough to the sages, and thus He turned the brāhmaṇa’s attention to them.
Text 52
Translation
One can gradually become purified by seeing, touching and worshiping temple deities, places of pilgrimage and holy rivers. But one can attain the same result immediately simply by receiving the glance of exalted sages.
Purport
Rather than remaining in seclusion and concentrating on their own perfection, Vaiṣṇava brāhmaṇas of the highest order dedicate their lives to sharing the benediction of the Lord’s devotional service. In the words of the sons of King Prācīnabarhi:
teṣāṁ vicaratāṁ padbhyāṁ
tīrthānāṁ pāvanecchayā
bhītasya kiṁ na roceta
tāvakānāṁ samāgamaḥ
“Dear Lord, Your personal associates, Your devotees, wander all over the world to purify even the holy places of pilgrimage. Is not such activity pleasing to those who are actually afraid of material existence?” (Bhāg. 4.30.37) And Prahlāda Mahārāja says:
prāyeṇa deva munayaḥ sva-vimukti-kāmā
maunaṁ caranti vijane na parārtha-niṣṭhāḥ
naitān vihāya kṛpaṇān vimumukṣa eko
nānyaṁ tvad asya śaraṇam bhramato ’nupaśye
“My dear Lord Nṛsiṁhadeva, I see that there are many saintly persons indeed, but they are interested only in their own deliverance. Not caring for the big cities and towns, they go to the Himālayas or the forest to meditate with vows of silence [mauna-vrata]. They are not interested in delivering others. As for me, however, I do not wish to be liberated alone, leaving aside all these poor fools and rascals. I know that without Kṛṣṇa consciousness, without taking shelter of Your lotus feet, one cannot be happy. Therefore I wish to bring them back to shelter at Your lotus feet.” (Bhāg. 7.9.44)
HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj:
So Srutadeva had praised the Supreme Lord. And though the Lord accepted the praise, now the Supreme Lord is praising the brahmanas who accompanied the Lord. And He says, they have come to give you mercy. And their only purpose is to travel throughout the world, purifying people. So in other words, Krishna is praising the devotees because they are spreading the message of the Lord. Of course, the Lord also does this, He teaches Bhagavad Gita to Arjuna. And when He comes as avatar, He often gives teachings. And these teachings are supposed to continue even after the Lord disappears. However, that is not sufficient.
What happens when the Lord is not there? So the Lord appears in every yuga cycle. But even for the shortest yuga, that means after half a million years [Laughs]. So during that time then, there is, no one there teaching. Of course, the Lord’s teachings remain. But even the teachings tend to get lost. And even if they are not lost, they get misunderstood. Therefore, we need other people to carry on the teachings with the correct understanding. So if the Lord isn’t there, who is there? Human beings. But not all human beings are qualified to carry on the message of the Lord. So those who are qualified to carry on the message are the devotees. And thus the Lord glorifies the devotees because they are carrying on His message when He is not there.
One of the qualities of the Lord is He is very merciful. But when the Lord is not present personally, then the devotees are the mediums for the Lord’s mercy. So this is the normal way in which the Lord’s mercy is distributed in the world. And thus, one has to give proper respect to the devotees. Without the devotees, then we have no connection with the Lord. So the devotee is the medium for the Lord’s message. So in one of his writings, Prabhupada says, a devotee is the transparent via media [Laughs]. So here transparent would mean that the message goes on with no distortion.
Devotee: With no distortion, distortion?
HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj: Yeah. The message is transmitted without distortion.
Devotee: Yeah, distortion means?
HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj: Just like sometimes you turn on the radio and the reception is not good, so you could not hear the music or the talking very well, it’s static and so much is there and you can’t get the right message. Or similarly, if there is a concert, but the microphone is not working properly [Laughs], then the singer is singing, but we get some distorted sound. Of course, if you are watching television, television is not working properly then the images are all distorted. So we have to have a proper transmitter [Laughs]. So the devotees are the proper transmitters for the Lord’s message and mercy.
We often talk about the mercy of the Lord. However, when we analyze carefully, we see that mercy is usually transmission of knowledge. So Sukadeva is merciful to Pariksit Maharaj. How is he merciful? He speaks to him. Narada Muni is merciful to Vyasadeva. Why? Because he gives instructions. So when we say that the devotee is transmitting the Lord’s mercy, he is actually transmitting the message of the Lord. So one devotee transmits to another devotee, that devotee transmits to another devotee. So in this way we get parampara. But this is, parampara based on teachings, so we call it the siksha parampara. So through this siksha parampara, the teachings are transmitted over time for hundreds and thousands of years, intact, with no change.
So in this way, the mercy of the Lord continues by a parampara system. So of course, there may be instances where the Lord directly transmits knowledge, but that is like Krishna to Arjuna or [Laughs] whatever. But the normal method is one devotee transmits to another devotee. But when a devotee transmits to another devotee, that new devotee, he actually gets connection with Krishna. So therefore, the devotee connects with another devotee, but through that he connects to Krishna. So in this way, the teachings are transmitted for thousands of years. So this was the traditional method of preserving the teachings.
So long ago, the teachings were transmitted without even books. So teacher would recite scripture, student had to memorize it [Laughs]. So it was a big effort just to memorize a veda [Laughs]. So there’s no way of learning the veda unless somebody speaks it to you. However, not only one has to learn the veda, one has to learn the meaning of the veda [Laughs]. Later on, of course, then they wrote everything down with books, but still the method of learning the whole veda still continued.
So one could also use the written veda, but primarily they depended on the transmission from a teacher. And though the veda was written down in a book, the meaning was not written down in the book, so therefore the teacher had to explain the meaning. So there was always necessity of the teacher. And to accept the teacher, we have to give proper respect. One has to be a qualified student. So it was up to the teacher to decide who he would accept to give the teachings to. In order to carry out the teachings, he had to select qualified students. So in this way, there was a parampara through teachings.
So in the modern world, of course, we have books much more available. And by their mercy, Acharyas have also explained not everything, but some of the meanings. So we may think, well, I’ll just take the book with the commentaries of the Acharyas. I can learn in that way. We have the text. We have an explanation. So why do we need a teacher? So it may sound logical to come to that conclusion. However, as I mentioned, the student had to be qualified to accept the knowledge.
So in terms of works like Bhagavatam, qualification is devotion. Then if we don’t have devotion and we study the work and the commentaries, we’re not going to come out with the correct meaning [Laughs]. So ultimately, the words of scripture are not material. So even if we have explanations, still we need some level of realization and devotion to get the correct meaning. So the teacher is the person who has a certain level of devotion and realization. So he can be authorized to teach. And then he will judge who is qualified to hear.
So even in the modern world, though we do have books and commentaries, etc., we still carry on this process of learning through parampara. So the speaker has to be a devotee. And we have devotees on many levels. In one sense, all the devotees have some qualification to preach and speak. But then we also see that, those with a higher level, they are better preachers. So I mentioned about the transmitter, the transmission should be clear [Laughs]. So the more advanced the devotee, the clearer the transmission. The less advanced devotee also can transmit, but more static [Laughs].
Devotee: What’s static?
HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj: Unclear [Laughs]. Of course, because he’s a devotee, even that person with his transmission, it has some value [Laughs]. Thus, even if the static is there on the radio and whatever, we hear the song, still we will listen to it even if it’s not so clear [Laughs]. So in this way, all the devotees act as transmitters, but some are better transmitters than others. And though we respect all the devotees and all the transmitters, still those who are transmitting clearly, we give more respect. And thus we give most respect to the Acharyas and then we respect other persons less. So in this way, we carry on the message that Krishna gives, we distribute the mercy of Krishna.
Hare Krishna!
Q & A :
1.) Dandavat pranam Maharaj. Thank you very much for the wonderful class. Maharaj, my question is based on this verse where Prahlada Maharaj is requesting Lord Narasimha Dev that I would like to, like he would like to preach throughout, so that the poor souls can get benefited. So Maharaj, I have a question like, Lord is Paramatma, He is sitting inside everybody’s heart, so, and He comes also every, ages and ages, so why not he gives directly His own love, I know [Laughs] like people, we also have, souls have their own way of thinking, but if Krishna understands that we are the one who will be only happy, only by associating with Him, and so He can directly transmit this, his own prema bhakti to everybody, all the souls and you know [Laughs]. Why doesn’t he do that? And secondly Maharaj, one more follow up question on this, why, yeah, it’s related to that, sorry sorry. So, and why not any devotee prayed in history, I mean, I don’t know whether any devotee prayed in history for this, like, Lord, why don’t you directly give your own prema bhakti to every living entity.
So, I mentioned the other day that yes, Paramatma is with all the jivas, but unfortunately the jivas are pretty deaf and blind [Laughs]. So, even we say, don’t preach to the faithless people [Laughs]. So, if a devotee is at a certain level of devotion, then yes, Lord internally also gives guidance. But a person who is not a devotee cannot hear that advice at all, even if he gives it [Laughs]. Just like in this world, you may give advice to people and tell them this is very good, do this, this and this, they don’t listen [Laughs]. And we also see, even Krishna comes in the material world, not everybody becomes a devotee. And in fact, when Narasimha Dev appeared, Hiranyakasipu fought with Him and got killed [Laughs]. He didn’t become a devotee at all [Laughs]. So, the Lord is willing to teach, but one has to be qualified. And Paramatma functions to witness the activities of the non-devotees [Laughs]. And Paramatma is neutral. If one becomes devotional, then the Lord can also speak, but He’s no longer Paramatma, He is Bhagavan in the heart [Laughs]. And in Bhagavad Gita, Krishna says, I give you intelligence by which you come to Me. So, even though we do have Bhagavan in the heart, able to teach once you become a devotee, still we have the external devotee as well. So, we have the external guru, the external devotee and this is the usual method by which people are able to advance.
2.) Hare Krishna Maharaj. Thank you for the wonderful class. Maharaj, in Srimad Bhagavatam, we see that the greatest pure devotees like Prahlada Maharaj and Jada Bharat, they are entirely dependent upon Krishna’s mercy. When Jada Bharat was attacked by dacoits in the jungle, he didn’t do any over-endeavor, but he was dependent on Krishna’s mercy. And even the dacoits, they wanted to kill him, but he didn’t say anything. And then mother Kali, she came out from the deity form, and she killed the dacoits, but still Jada Bharat was dependent on Krishna’s mercy. But still Jada Bharat didn’t say anything. But in ISKCON now preaching has become a buzzword. It becomes something important, popular. So, we see there are millions of immature preachers in ISKCON. They don’t even have any foundation in devotion, but they want to preach. So Maharaj, if I feel that, I am not still situated even in vaidhi sadhana, then should I endeavor for preaching or I shall depend on Krishna’s mercy, that if Krishna desires, then he will send me some souls and I will try my best, but I should not over-endeavor for preaching. Is that a correct understanding Maharaj?
Jada Bharat is a special case because he was in prema. And as we know, the person in prema doesn’t see anything, there is no necessity of preaching in the material world because everything is perfect. For that reason, the usual preacher is the madhyama devotee. And madhyama devotees could be, start with sraddha and bhajana-kriya, anartha-nivrtti, nishtha, ruchi, asakti [Laughs]. And those madhyamas, they give nice instructions to the kanishthas. Of course, to teach the kanishtha, they have to be more advanced than the kanishtha [Laughs]. So, if one accepts pure bhakti and is seriously practicing, then, and he has of course knowledge of Bhagavad Gita or whatever, then he is a madhyama, though he could be at stage 1 or stage 5 or whatever. So, at any level as a madhyama, he could preach, but those who are more advanced and have more knowledge, they are better preachers. And we have to distinguish these devotees from other persons who do not have knowledge, don’t read Bhagavad Gita or whatever and may have a little enthusiasm for preaching and whatever, but they are another category [Laughs]. So, according to one’s understanding and level, then one can attract and develop other persons as devotees.
Devotee 1: Could you say again? Sorry.
HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj: According to one’s knowledge and level of advancement, then one can attract persons and raise them up to your level. So, to some extent, all of these madhyamas give some mercy to those who are in a lesser position. But how much effort they are going to make in doing preaching or whatever, that’s according to one’s own circumstances.
Devotee 2: Maharaj like what about preacher and his actual activities? Like he’s preaching but his behaviour is not matching.
HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj: So, as I said, according to one’s level, one can preach [Laughs]. So, if he says one thing and acts another way, then the people he’s going to attract are similar people [Laughs]. So, as I said, generally, if we’re a madhyama and we do have knowledge, etc., we’re in one category. If we have some attraction to bhakti and whatever, we have no knowledge, then we could preach so many things, but we’re going to get different crowd of people [Laughs].
Devotee 3: Maharaj one more point. Srila Prabhupada instructed us to distribute books, and many preachers in the beginning of Krishna consciousness say, we don’t know anything. Prabhupada instructed, okay you give the book, but don’t start to preach to people because you have no knowledge. So, just distribute books. What is the value of your preaching? Because if people can read one line of these books, there’s much more effect than half an hour of your preaching. So, from day one, we are preaching in the streets of the world, distributing Srila Prabhupada books. That is our preaching, according to my understanding. Is it correct?
HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj: Of course, that’s good, but then Prabhupada also said, you distribute my books, but you should also read them [Laughs]. So, we have devotees distributing books, but they are not following the instructions in the books. What good is that also [Laughs]? Of course, it is possible that people get the book somehow or other, they can get benefit, but if they have a nice example and a devotee who is following properly, then they are more inclined to take up the process [Laughs]. And then of course, we have people, they get the book and they read the book and they come back and say I don’t understand anything [Laughs]. So then they need a devotee to explain okay, this is what it means in simple terms [Laughs]. We see that, I think, in Mongolia, somehow, they got some books. And then they were reading the books, and then they began to chant, and they got some beads [Laughs], nobody knew they were there, but they were actually becoming devotees with our, just the books [Laughs]. Even in like Bulgaria, those two brothers [Laughs], they, they just got the books, and they started chanting and whatever like that on their own, then they met devotees later on [Laughs].
Okay, Hare Krishna!
Devotees: Grantharaj Srimad Bhagavatam ki jai!!! HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj ki jai!!! Srila Prabhupada ki jai!!! Nitai Gaura Premanande Hari Haribol!!!