Srimad Bhagavatam | HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj | ISKCON Chennai | 21 Jan 2025
ŚB 1.12.23
पितामहसम: साम्ये प्रसादे गिरिशोपम: ।
आश्रय: सर्वभूतानां यथा देवो रमाश्रय: ॥ २३ ॥
pitāmaha-samaḥ sāmye
prasāde giriśopamaḥ
āśrayaḥ sarva-bhūtānāṁ
yathā devo ramāśrayaḥ
Synonyms
pitāmaha — the grandfather, or Brahmā; samaḥ — equally good; sāmye — in the matter; prasāde — in charity or in munificence; giriśa — Lord Śiva; upamaḥ — comparison of equilibrium; āśrayaḥ — resort; sarva — all; bhūtānām — of the living beings; yathā — as; devaḥ — the Supreme Lord; ramā–āśrayaḥ — the Personality of Godhead.
Translation
This child will be like his grandfather Yudhiṣṭhira or Brahmā in equanimity of mind. He will be munificent like the lord of the Kailāsa Hill, Śiva. And he will be the resort of everyone, like the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Nārāyaṇa, who is even the shelter of the goddess of fortune.
Purport
Mental equanimity refers both to Mahārāja Yudhiṣṭhira and to Brahmā, the grandfather of all living beings. According to Śrīdhara Svāmī, the grandfather referred to is Brahmā, but according to Viśvanātha Cakravartī, the grandfather is Mahārāja Yudhiṣṭhira himself. But in both cases the comparison is equally good because both of them are recognized representatives of the Supreme Lord, and thus both of them have to maintain mental equanimity, being engaged in welfare work for the living being. Any responsible executive agent at the top of administration has to tolerate different types of onslaughts from the very persons for whom he works. Brahmājī was criticized even by the gopīs, the highest perfectional devotees of the Lord. The gopīs were dissatisfied with the work of Brahmājī because Lord Brahmā, as creator of this particular universe, created eyelids which obstructed their seeing Lord Kṛṣṇa. They could not tolerate a moment’s blinking of the eyes, for it kept them from seeing their beloved Lord Kṛṣṇa. So what to speak of others, who are naturally very critical of every action of a responsible man? Similarly, Mahārāja Yudhiṣṭhira had to cross over many difficult situations created by his enemies, and he proved to be the most perfect maintainer of mental equanimity in all critical circumstances. Therefore the example of both grandfathers for maintaining equanimity of mind is quite fitting.
Lord Śiva is a celebrated demigod who awards gifts to beggars. His name is therefore Āśutoṣa, or one who is pleased very easily. He is also called the Bhūtanātha, or the lord of the common folk, who are mainly attached to him because of his munificent gifts, even without consideration of the aftereffects. Rāvaṇa was very attached to Lord Śiva, and by easily pleasing him, Rāvaṇa became so powerful that he wanted to challenge the authority of Lord Rāma. Of course, Rāvaṇa was never helped by Lord Śiva when he fought with Rāma, the Supreme Personality of Godhead and the Lord of Lord Śiva. To Vṛkāsura, Lord Śiva awarded a benediction which was not only awkward, but also disturbing. Vṛkāsura became empowered, by the grace of Lord Śiva, to vanish anyone’s head simply by touching it. Although this was awarded by Lord Śiva, the cunning fellow wanted to make an experiment of the power by touching the head of Lord Śiva. Thus the lord had to take shelter of Viṣṇu to save himself from trouble, and the Lord Viṣṇu, by His illusory potency, asked Vṛkāsura to make an experiment with his own head. The fellow did it and was finished himself, and so the world was saved from all sorts of trouble by such a cunning beggar of the demigods. The excellent point is that Lord Śiva never denies anyone any sort of gift. He is therefore the most generous, although sometimes some kind of a mistake is made.
Ramā means the goddess of fortune. And her shelter is Lord Viṣṇu. Lord Viṣṇu is the maintainer of all living beings. There are innumerable living beings, not only on the surface of this planet but also in all other hundreds of thousands of planets. All of them are provided with all necessities of life for the progressive march towards the end of self-realization, but on the path of sense gratification they are put into difficulty by the agency of māyā, the illusory energy, and so travel the path of a false plan of economic development. Such economic development is never successful because it is illusory. These men are always after the mercy of the illusory goddess of fortune, but they do not know that the goddess of fortune can live only under the protection of Viṣṇu. Without Viṣṇu, the goddess of fortune is an illusion. We should therefore seek the protection of Viṣṇu instead of directly seeking the protection of the goddess of fortune. Only Viṣṇu and the devotees of Viṣṇu can give protection to all, and because Mahārāja Parīkṣit was himself protected by Viṣṇu, it was quite possible for him to give complete protection to all who wanted to live under his rule.
HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj:
So here the brahmanas continue their predictions about the good character of Pariksit. And the first good quality mentioned here is samya, being equal and calm in all cases. So of course, it also refers to control of the mind. If the mind is not controlled, we get disturbed. And then we cannot be calm and peaceful. In the Yoga practice, in the Yamas we have ‘Sama’ and ‘Dama’ and this of course is mentioned in Bhagavad Gita also. So ‘Sama’ refers to control of the mind and ‘Dama’ refers to control of the senses.
We see in the 2nd chapter of Bhagavad Gita, Krishna emphasizes that you have to control the mind. Arjuna of course says it is very difficult I cannot do that. Nevertheless, some people try, these are the yogis. They can succeed but it takes a very great endeavour. However, Krishna also says, “If you don’t control the mind, you cannot succeed in spiritual life.”
He gives the example of uncontrolled mind. With our senses we will see objects in this world and we begin to meditate on those objects and we desire to enjoy them. And we will make actions to get them, and if that is interrupted, we become angry. As a result of that we lose our intelligence. And particularly the intelligence guided by scripture. In other words, we forget all good advice. This will lead us to perform all sorts of sinful activity. This will lead us into ignorance. If we continue to do this, we end up with lower and lower bodies. And all because we cannot control the senses.
And Arjuna says, “oh it’s too difficult”. And what does Krishna answer? Practice! So this is what the yogis do, they practice. And then Krishna also says practice and vairagya. So you don’t associate with sense objects. So this is also what the yogis do. At the same time, Krishna also tells Arjuna, You cannot be a yogi, you cannot renounce. So what is Arjuna supposed to do [Laughs]? So Krishna gives the clue when he says that you have to get a higher taste. So taste for sense objects in this world, getting material enjoyment is lower taste.
So the Jnanis and Yogis will stop the lower taste by stopping the senses. So we can control the lower taste with great endeavour but the alternative is to get higher taste. Objection will be we engage our senses and sense objects obviously it is lower taste, we have no choice, we have to degrade ourselves. So we should engage our senses in spiritual objects. But the argument will be spiritual object means Brahman, Brahman has no form, no qualities, how can we engage the senses in something with no form and qualities? So the answer to that is, we do not engage our senses in meditation on Brahman, we engage our senses in serving Krishna. The argument will be, well Krishna has a form and qualities that’s all material. So we can say ‘no’, these are spiritual forms, spiritual qualities. But how do we know? Because scripture tells us.
So Krishna tells Arjuna you concentrate your mind on me, you serve me, you offer your respects to me, He is saying you concentrate on this form of Krishna. And what happens? We get free of all karma, get free of ignorance and we go to the spiritual world. So, if we serve the form of Krishna and we get spiritual results, how can that form be material? It has to be spiritual. So the way in which we get mind control, controlling our mind is not simply stopping the mind from engaging in material objects. Rather in bhakti we engage the mind in Krishna.
So this is quite different from normal conception of spiritual life. Instead of sitting silently like a yogi, the devotee is still to engage all of his senses in serving Krishna. And why? Because very easily he will surpass the Yogi. So, with great effort, Yogis and Jnanis, they reach the sense of ‘Sama’, controlling the mind. But it takes great endeavour. The devotees like Pandavas and Pariksit are devotees so they concentrate on the Lord, that is how they get their ‘Sama’. And that surpasses the ‘Sama’ of the Jnanis and the Yogis. So it is natural that Pariksit would have this wonderful quality because his whole family like Yudhisthira had this quality. Because Pandavas were devotees and Pariksit was a devotee, they will naturally manifest all good qualities.
This is the second unique quality of bhakti mentioned in Nectar of Devotion. That is ‘subhada’ – to get all wonderful qualities. The yogis and the jnanis want to destroy all qualities. Why? Qualities are material. Good and bad, compassion, ignorance, all these things are material things. If one is to attain liberation, one has to give up all qualities. The devotee by practicing bhakti does not give up qualities, he begins to manifest qualities. But these are not material qualities. The jnanis and the yogis they become like Brahman – no quality. And the devotees, they develop all qualities just like Krishna has all qualities.
So Krishna has a spiritual form, Krishna has spiritual qualities. They are not a cause of material entanglement, nor are they caused by material elements. The qualities of Krishna manifest through his spiritual energy, His Svarupa Sakti. They do not create bondage, rather they create bliss. So the devotees by worshipping Krishna also develop wonderful qualities. Of course, it is said the number of qualities of the Supreme Lord is infinite, not even Anantasesha with all of his thousands of mouths can finish glorifying the qualities of the Lord. Of course, in Nectar of Devotion Rupa Goswami mentions 64 qualities of Krishna. And Jivas can manifest 50 of those 64 qualities. So by the devotee worshipping the Supreme Lord, he develops spiritual form and he develops spiritual qualities. And these are all useful for serving the Lord. So therefore the devotee just by practicing bhakti, serving the Lord develops wonderful qualities which are spiritual.
One of the great qualities of the Lord is His mercy. Similarly, Siva, who is also a form of the Lord, also a great devotee, has a great quality called mercy. And similarly the devotees develop this wonderful quality. In mentioning ‘Subhada’, the second quality unique to bhakti then of course the general definition is wonderful qualities. But then another definition is that the devotee shows great attraction and affection for all living entities. So of course Acharyas say, well anyway it’s also one of the development of good qualities, so developing compassion and mercy is one of them, but it’s singled out because it’s one of the primary qualities of the devotee. So that sense of mercy, is inherent in bhakti itself.
In the Siksashtaka, where Lord Caitanya is talking about chanting the holy name, there He says the devotee if he wants to chant constantly should give respect to all living entities. Of course the special quality of the devotee is he gives mercy to the living entities so they can begin the process of bhakti. In fact the Lord himself generally does not manifest in this world except when he comes every Yuga maybe, or once in a while, so he empowers the devotees to give out his mercy. So he empowers the madhyama devotees to give out mercy so that other Jivas become devotees. So one of the qualities of the madhyama devotee is that he likes to give mercy to the innocent Jivas. So what does a Kanistha Jiva do? He is also a devotee, he worships the Lord in the temple. But he does not care about giving out mercy [Laughs]. And what about the Uttama? Uttama sees the Lord everywhere, he sees devotion everywhere. He sees the whole world filled with the Lord’s mercy, so he doesn’t have to give any mercy [Laughs].
Jiva Goswami gives the example of the Gopis. So they don’t consider the trees and things like that to be low, because they say, ‘they are great devotees, they are better devotees than we are.’ So they don’t have to give any mercy to the trees and the flowers etc [Laughs]. So anyways, the devotees as they develop as madhyamas, then they show this quality of being compassionate and they give out mercy. And that mercy is not just helping people but giving teachings of bhakti. But they cannot give that to the faithless people. So they give mercy in the form of teachings of bhakti to those who have faith. They give out mercy to others who have no faith by exposing them to bhakti.
So here the other quality mentioned here is the shelter of all living entities. So as I mentioned, one of the qualities of bhakti is ‘Subhada’, the devotee develops all good qualities. So one quality of course was that they have affection for all living entities. And then another definition of ‘Subhada’ is that all living entities have affection for the devotee. So they naturally take shelter of the devotee. So, in this way a devotee like Pariksit naturally develops these wonderful qualities.
Hare Krsna!
Q & A
1) Hare Krishna Maharaj, how do we understand that these qualities if in case we develop these qualities, these are spiritual qualities and not material qualities?
In the state of Sadhana, it’s hard for us to distinguish. And the quality, the spiritual qualities that develop may also look like sattvic, material qualities. The difference is that these qualities of the devotee develop in relation to their relationship with Krishna, whereas the qualities that develop in sattva guna have no relationship with Krishna [Laughs]. They are manifestation from sattva guna itself.
So the qualities that a devotee develops are all in relation to his relationship with Krishna.
Devotee: Thank you Maharaj. Maharaj, one more question. When we read Bhagavad Gita, Krishna talks about these qualities quite a number of times, like in 12th chapter there is so much detail He mentions. So is it proper to cultivate these qualities also along with cultivating bhakti or we need to focus only on the nine angas and these qualities we shall wait for natural development?
So in the first section of Nectar of Devotion, talking about sadhana bhakti then Rupa Goswami says, developing good qualities / cultivating good qualities is not an anga bhakti [Laughs]. So of course, he is implying that trying to develop sattvic qualities is not part of bhakti. So the ‘Subhada’ naturally develops when bhakti develops. So there is no extra endeavour.
However, we can do activities which are unfavorable for bhakti and unfavorable for the development of bhakti. So deliberate lack of control of senses and mind and indulgement in sinful activities they will actually impede the progress of bhakti. So they are called unfavorable elements.
Other things however may be favorable to bhakti. So qualities of sattva / nature of sattva itself is favorable to bhakti, because it is peaceful. So, we would rather choose sattvic qualities, sattvic environment, sattvic food than tamasic environment, tamasic food.
But then better than sattva is spiritual. So instead of sattvic food we have spiritual food and instead of sattvic environment we have spiritual environment [Laughs]. So, through that spiritual environment etc., the natural spiritual qualities develop.
2) Hare Krishna Maharaj! Regarding the previous question, can we also say that to distinguish whether the quality is material or spiritual is that material quality will manifest and will stop manifesting if the change in modes is there. But spiritual qualities because they arise from the soul, so they would constantly manifest?
Yeah, we see that qualities from sattva rajas and tama are not permanent, they change. So the brahmana is in sattva, he has sattvic qualities. But we see brahmins also become angry [Laughs]. So we see in like the King Nirga’s story the brahmana got angry, I don’t want the cow, take back the cow… I don’t want anything [Laughs]. Or in the case of a Parīkṣit, you know, brahmana son curses. So sattva is not permanent also even for a person fixed in sattva. So they may call tamasic or rajasic.
So when we talk about spiritual qualities, everything spiritual is eternal. So that development is there and when you achieve perfection, you develop all these qualities they never change.
3) Maharaj, regarding these qualities the first one – ‘Samaye’, is as far as devotees are concerned with respect to whatever is happening in the material world. Probably it is much easier to remain sama, but usually devotees are heavily invested for example if you look at institution like ISKCON so whatever is happening within the society devotees usually are invested probably because of their attachment to the Lord, attachment to the guru, so then it disturbs that equilibrium of the mind. So is that disturbance in the equilibrium, does it show that they are not mature devotees and how do they overcome that?
HHBSM: disturbance caused by…?
Devotee: Maharaj, there are lot of things that will happen in the society, in ISKCON or for example in the temple, lot of things will happen which will create a disturbance, usually because there is lot of attachment to the guru, to the spiritual master to the deities, to whatever the teachings are.. and then people have different understanding, application of the same, so that may create disturbance one may think differently, other person may think differently, when they approach the same issue…
HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj: So genuine spiritual attachment is always praise worthy. If our attachment creates dissension and problems, then there must be some material element there. For instance, in the spiritual world, everybody has different taste, different rasas etc., and it’s very very strong, but they never end up having conflict. So the conflict that we see in the material world with devotees arises because of mixture with material attachments, material circumstances etc.,
4) Maharaj, can you please tell the main angas of bhakti for people outside the temple, so that we can nicely advance by engaging the senses and mind in Krishna?
So, the main anga is chanting the name of Krishna, this is supported by hearing Bhagavatam and that is supported by Sadhu Sanga, the devotees who speak the Bhagavatam. So those are the three main elements, not only for the devotees outside but even in the temple.
5) In Gita, chapter 4 the Lord says that a devotee even though faulty is to be considered saintly so is it possible that a devotee may perfect his devotion but not develop all the good qualities but only some of them?
So these unique qualities of bhakti such as Kleshagni and Subhadha etc, they don’t suddenly manifest they gradually manifest. So the good qualities gradually develop and the bad qualities and the sinful activities and the karma and the suffering etc., the anarthas will gradually disappear. So this starts in Sadhana Bhakti, these qualities become fully manifest in Prema Bhakti. So during the Sadhana stage, there will not be complete destruction of all the bad qualities, so some bad qualities may show and simultaneously not all the good qualities have developed. However, because that person is practicing pure bhakti even in Sadhana, he is in a special position much superior to anybody else practicing anything else. And Krishna also treats that person in a special way.
Devotees : Grantharaj Srimad Bhagavatam Ki.. Jai ! Srila Prabhupad Ki.. Jai !! HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj Ki.. Jai !!