Srimad Bhagavatam – 1.19.2 | HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj | ISKCON Chennai | Dec 27, 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 19 Verse 2.
ŚB 1.19.2
ध्रुवं ततो मे कृतदेवहेलनाद्
दुरत्ययं व्यसनं नातिदीर्घात् ।
तदस्तु कामं ह्यघनिष्कृताय मे
यथा न कुर्यां पुनरेवमद्धा ॥ २ ॥
dhruvaṁ tato me kṛta-deva-helanād
duratyayaṁ vyasanaṁ nāti-dīrghāt
tad astu kāmaṁ hy agha-niṣkṛtāya me
yathā na kuryāṁ punar evam addhā
Synonyms
dhruvam — sure and certain; tataḥ — therefore; me — my; kṛta-deva-helanāt — because of disobeying the orders of the Lord; duratyayam — very difficult; vyasanam — calamity; na — not; ati — greatly; dīrghāt — far off; tat — that; astu — let it be; kāmam — desire without reservations; hi — certainly; agha — sins; niṣkṛtāya — for getting free; me — my; yathā — so that; na — never; kuryām — shall I do it; punaḥ — again; evam — as I have done; addhā — directly.
Translation
[King Parīkṣit thought:] Due to my neglecting the injunctions of the Supreme Lord I must certainly expect some difficulty to overcome me in the near future. I now desire without reservation that the calamity come now, for in this way I may be freed of the sinful action and not commit such an offense again.
Purport
The Supreme Lord enjoins that brāhmaṇas and cows must be given all protection. The Lord is Himself very much inclined to do good to brāhmaṇas and cows (go-brāhmaṇa-hitāya ca). Mahārāja Parīkṣit knew all this, and thus he concluded that his insulting a powerful brāhmaṇa was certainly to be punished by the laws of the Lord, and he was expecting something very difficult in the very near future. He therefore desired the imminent calamity to fall on him and not on his family members. A man’s personal misconduct affects all his family members. Therefore Mahārāja Parīkṣit desired the calamity to fall on him alone. By suffering personally he would be restrained from future sins, and at the same time the sin which he had committed would be counteracted so that his descendants would not suffer. That is the way a responsible devotee thinks. The family members of a devotee also share the effects of a devotee’s service unto the Lord. Mahārāja Prahlāda saved his demon father by his personal devotional service. A devotee son in the family is the greatest boon or blessing of the Lord.
HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj:
So here Maharaj Pariksit is thinking. The previous verse showed how he regretted his action. So now he thinks I’ll get the result very soon, a very bad result. It’s also very difficult to overcome that bad result. Once the result comes, then he’s free from that particular sin. And then he doesn’t have to worry in the future. So the other day I spoke about atonement or prayaschitta, people generally try to avoid the future reaction by doing some counteractivity. And if we do that activity, then we don’t have to suffer the bad result. So Prabhupad here.. (says) you kill a Brahmin or a cow, then very bad reaction. So of course that normally doesn’t happen by intent, maybe accident someone’s driving on the road and they happen to kill a cow, still bad reaction is there. So then in order to get rid of the bad result, the driver will do some prayaschitta.
In this case, we see that, Parikshit Maharaj says, I won’t take that, I will just get the suffering, finished. And of course, the immediate result was that, he got cursed by the Brahmin son to die in seven days. Therefore he says, I will accept that and then I am free from all the sinful reaction. And not only he is free from the sin, then his family members are also not affected. So this of course is not just for devotees, even a person in the material world, could think in the same way. But in most cases, people don’t like to suffer, so therefore they want to do the Prayaschitta, instead [Laughs]. The devotees however are different. They don’t really care about the suffering. However, the Supreme Lord himself says, I free you from all sin. So our Acharyas particularly mention that if one is a devotee and he commits a sinful action, there is no Prayaschitta for that. Or we can say that Prayaschitta is, his continued devotional service.
So one of the first qualities of Bhakti mentioned in Nectar of Devotion is, it destroys all sin, it destroys all suffering. Ultimately, all karma is destroyed. So we destroy all the sins of this life and all the sins you commit in this life and all the sins from past lifetimes. So in Karma Yoga, sin means each sin you commit, you have to do a Prayaschitta. There is no Prayaschitta to cover all your sins. So I mentioned that if you commit accidental sins every day, then you have to do the Panchamaha Yajna every day. So every day people are walking on the road, they are lighting fires, they are sweeping the floor, they are killing insects. This happens every day. So every day you have to do the Panchamaha Yagya. That’s your atonement [Laughs]. So there is no one atonement to cover everything. But Bhakti is there and with Bhakti everything is destroyed. So it is the one atonement that covers everything. In fact, even if it isn’t real Bhakti, it is accidentally chanting the name of the Lord, still it has that effect. So this is a very astonishing power of Bhakti.
And it doesn’t look possible. Because, we will ask the question, if that happens, why do people do all these Prayaschittas just to get rid of their sinful activities? We see people going to all the holy Tirthas, bathing in the Ganga, bathing in the holy rivers, etc., etc., to get rid of all their sinful reactions all the time. Of course, it is also said that you can bathe in the Ganga, but in order to get rid of your sins, it means constantly you have to keep doing that. Bathing in the Ganga, bathing in the Ganga, bathing in the Ganga [Laughs]. But we get a much greater effect, simply by seeing the devotee [Laughs]. Or by chanting one name of Narayana. Therefore, it looks a little bit impossible. How can this happen?
So, Haridas Thakur, he was glorifying the name, and of course he also knew scripture, so he was saying that, it is Nama-abhas, even accidentally chanting, you get free of all sins and you can get liberation. And then one Brahmana got very angry and said, this is nonsense. How can this happen? We know from scripture that if you commit sins, then you have to do so many Prayaschittas and whatever to get liberation. Jnanis will have to do Jnana for a thousand years. How can this be true? If it’s true, my nose should fall off. And he left the place in anger. Obviously, he did not believe in Haridas Thakur or the scripture. And scripture says, the power of bhakti is much greater than prayaschittas and karma yoga. So, because of this Brahmana’s offense of thinking the holy name’s glories are exaggerated, and because he insulted Haridas Thakur, few days later he got leprosy and his nose fell off.
So, though these statements are in scripture, people read them and some people don’t believe them. So, even though it’s a very easy process everybody should do, many people don’t. They may be ignorant of these statements of scripture. Or even if they know that they’re in the scripture, such statements are in the scripture, they don’t believe them. So, they prefer to do all of these prayaschittas.
We will see in the Bhagavatam that such atonements for your sin are actually rejected. And the reason is explained. You do the sinful activity, you do the prayaschitta, but yes, the result, the reaction is removed, but the desire to commit the same sin again is not removed. So, therefore you do the same thing, then you have to do another prayaschitta. So, this is compared to an elephant bathing. The elephant goes to the river, sprinkles water all over itself and becomes very clean. Then the elephant goes out of the river, goes on the bank and rolls in the dust. And then he has to go back in the river to get clean again [Laughs]. So, in this way, the atonements or prayaschittas do not give permanent destruction of all sins – past, present and future, they only remove immediate sin. But because some people are very afraid of the results of this sinful activity, they will do all these prayaschittas. However, there is the easier method of bhakti and particularly chanting the holy name.
So, in general, the devotee does not have to worry about sins anymore, because bhakti destroys all the sins. But that does not give an excuse to the devotee to say, now that I get free of all my sins, I’ll do more sins and then I will do more bhakti. That is kind of like elephant bathing [Laughs]. So, one should not use the process of bhakti like other atonements. Like keep doing atonements, doing more sinful activities and doing more atonements [Laughs]. So, this has opposite effect. Instead of getting rid of your sinful actions, you get more sinful reactions. But not only that, because it is an aparadh, then your bhakti starts to go away. So, we get a much worse effect. We get worse sinful reaction and we also get destruction of bhakti. So, therefore, the devotee has to be careful. Even though bhakti is so powerful, he does not use it to commit more sins. So, in the same way, Krishna says, even if you are the most sinful person, you are still my devotee. Then the devotee shouldn’t think, well Lord accepts me, therefore do more sin. Lord will accept me again, shouldn’t think like that, then it becomes aparadh. So, in this way, the process of bhakti is very very powerful. And instead of resorting to all sorts of other methods to get rid of sins, bhakti automatically does it.
But we should not make destruction of the sins, the goal of bhakti. It is a side effect of bhakti. So, devotees often say, okay, you surrender to Guru, when you get Guru, then all your sins are destroyed. Of course, accepting a Guru is also part of devotional service, but that devotional service, you destroy sins. But that is not the purpose or goal of bhakti. That is not the goal of accepting a Guru [Laughs]. Furthermore, even without accepting a Guru, just by doing bhakti, chanting the holy name, all your sins are destroyed, as in the case of Ajamil. So, when we perform bhakti, even not real bhakti, abhash, as in Ajamil’s case, wasn’t real devotion [Laughs], still you can destroy all your sins. And, of course, it’s not the goal of bhakti that we want to destroy sins, but it’s an automatic effect that happens even for non-devotees chanting at home. And thus, accepting Guru and destroying sins is there, but it’s not very significant, because actually you’re already destroying your sins by doing bhakti before that [Laughs].
So, as I said, the process of bhakti, and particularly chanting the name, accomplishes everything. So, in karma yoga, people have many goals, and they’re doing many activities, and they’re trying to destroy their sins, they’re doing all sorts of activities. In jnana yoga also, goal is mukti, and they’re also doing all sorts of activities. If one does bhakti, all the results you get from karma yoga, all the results you get from jnana, are automatically achieved, even though they’re not the goal. So, everything is achieved by the process of bhakti. A person doesn’t have to do anything else.
Hare Krsna !
Q & A:
1.) Once Lord Nityananda visited a village, the leader of the village disrespected him and offended him due to which the entire village suffered. So how to understand that because leader made an offense hundreds and thousands of people suffered. Is it their karma? How to understand this?
So, in general, there is a responsible person, like a father or head of a village. If somebody commits a sin in the village, he also bears some of the result. And if the children commit a sin, then the parents have to bear the result also. If a disciple commits a sin, the Guru also bears some of the result. Now, if the leader commits a sin, what happens to the people following? Do they get the result [Laughs]? Definitely, if they support the leader, then they should get some result. So, in that case, we see there is some sharing of karma. In the case of the village, we don’t know the details, but possibly the people in the village were also [Laughs] supporting the leader, so therefore they all have to bear the karma [Laughs].
2.) Regarding Pancha maha yajna that Maharaj mentioned in the class. Even the very process of yajna could probably involve some small insects being killed. So which means in the process itself there is possibility of some sin being committed.
So, every action in the world involves some accidental sin, unavoidable. So, when you cook, even if you are cooking for the deities [Laughs], some accidental sins are taking place.
So in the case of doing pancha maha yajna also, okay some accidental sins taking place, but that also gets absolved by action itself. Those actions give absolution from whatever sins committed in the acts plus all the acts committed throughout the day. But not for the acts committed in the previous days [Laughs].
3.) Hare Krishna Maharaj. Maharaj, we heard just now that when the disciple commits the sin, the Guru suffers. So, now how do we understand this in terms of a society like ISKCON, when the Guru and the disciple are all practicing bhakti, and we hear that bhakti takes care of all the sinful reactions?
Of course, this is a statement which is found in the scriptures, and it’s not just applying to Vaishnava Gurus. And, of course, for Vaishnava Gurus, bhakti itself destroys the sin, so we don’t expect such results. But, the statement is given in the Hari Bhakti vilas with the intention of saying, therefore, you shouldn’t take many disciples [Laughs]. Because, even if you don’t get the sin because you’re performing bhakti, still responsibility becomes too great, if you have too many disciples.
4.) We are talking about the prayaschitta and how Vaishnavas need not do prayaschitta.
So, we also know about Srila Bhakti Siddhanta Saraswati Thakur that once he ate a mango which was not offered, and then he takes a vow that for the rest of his life he did not take mangoes. So, like such kind of vows, is it okay? How do we understand this?
So, that was not a regular sin and a prayaschitta. That was in relation to the deity. So, therefore, we say it’s a deity aparadh. So, therefore, he did this in response to that. So, of course, how to atone for aparadha? So, for namaparadhas, of course, we have particular ways we atone for that. Which generally involves, one of the elements is, of course, to continually chant the holy name [Laughs]. But then, it may involve, as in the case of Vaishnava aparadh, you go to the person and you offer apologies. And you show repentance. So, Bhakti Siddhanta’s act of not eating mangoes for the rest of his life is also a show of his repentance. So, this is an atonement for deity offense.
Devotees : Granthraj Srimad Bhagavatham ki Jai !!! HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj ji Jai !!! Srila Prabhupada ki Jai !!!