SB 10.52.38~40 by HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj on Dec 9, 2024 @ ISKCON JAPAN
ŚB 10.52.38
kā tvā mukunda mahatī kula-śīla-rūpa-
vidyā-vayo-draviṇa-dhāmabhir ātma-tulyam
dhīrā patiṁ kulavatī na vṛṇīta kanyā
kāle nṛ-siṁha nara-loka-mano-’bhirāmam
Translation
O Mukunda, You are equal only to Yourself in lineage, character, beauty, knowledge, youthfulness, wealth and influence. O lion among men, You delight the minds of all mankind. What aristocratic, sober-minded and marriageable girl of a good family would not choose You as her husband when the proper time has come?
ŚB 10.52.39
tan me bhavān khalu vṛtaḥ patir aṅga jāyām
ātmārpitaś ca bhavato ’tra vibho vidhehi
mā vīra-bhāgam abhimarśatu caidya ārād
gomāyu-van mṛga-pater balim ambujākṣa
Translation
Therefore, my dear Lord, I have chosen You as my husband, and I surrender myself to You. Please come swiftly, O almighty one, and make me Your wife. My dear lotus-eyed Lord, let Śiśupāla never touch the hero’s portion like a jackal stealing the property of a lion.
ŚB 10.52.40
pūrteṣṭa-datta-niyama-vrata-deva-vipra
gurv-arcanādibhir alaṁ bhagavān pareśaḥ
ārādhito yadi gadāgraja etya pāṇiṁ
gṛhṇātu me na damaghoṣa-sutādayo ’nye
Translation
If I have sufficiently worshiped the Supreme Personality of Godhead by pious works, sacrifices, charity, rituals and vows, and also by worshiping the demigods, brāhmaṇas and gurus, then may Gadāgraja come and take my hand, and not Damaghoṣa’s son or anyone else.
Purport by the disciples of Srila Prabhupada
The ācāryas comment as follows on this verse: “Rukmiṇī felt that no one could obtain Lord Kṛṣṇa by the efforts of a single lifetime. Therefore she earnestly pointed out the pious activities she had performed in that life and previous lives, hoping to convince Śrī Kṛṣṇa to come.
HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj:
So here Rukmini is saying that, well, she’s expressing that, one can only approach the Lord, take the Lord as a husband, if one has done sufficient pious activities in previous lifetimes.
However, we also know that pious activities are not the qualification for bhakti or prema.
So here, actually, she says that, she’s actually done worship of the Lord in her past lives. So she worships the Lord by performing different punyas, different sacrifices, different vratas, etc.
So actually, there’s two ways in which you can worship the Lord. One is through the direct activities of bhakti mentioned in nectar of devotion, such as hearing, chanting, deity worship, etc. Sixty-four types of bhakti are there. And in that list, we don’t have things like charities and rituals and pious works. They’re not mentioned. So all these activities are actually part of karma yoga. And we know that the goal of karma yoga is artha, dharma, and kama. So the activities themselves are not bhakti. However, to get results from pious activities etc, we do need a little bhakti. If there is no bhakti, no result.
If you want to go to Svarga Loka, by doing punyas, pious acts, you cannot do it, unless you also worship the Lord. So, within the pious works and sacrifices etc, there will be a provision for worshipping Vishnu. So then we can say, well, that’s bhakti, then, worshipping the Lord. Just call it bhakti [Laughing].
The difference is, the goal of Karma yoga is different. So, yes, worship of the Lord is there, but it’s worship is for going to Svarga Loka. And though bhakti is there, bhakti is only assistant to get you to Svarga Loka. Ultimately, the goal of Karma Yoga is to surrender to the Lord, but it’s indirect. So thus, we distinguish Karma Yoga from Bhakti, even though there is a little Bhakti in Karma Yoga.
If we keep doing our Karma Yoga, gradually, we get less and less material desires. So then we call it Nishkama Karma Yoga. So we continue to follow those rules for purification. Then, the person doing Nishkama Karma Yoga, if he is intelligent, then he’ll also offer all the results of his Karma Yoga to Supreme Lord.
So, bhakti yoga is more prominent. In Bhagavad Gita, Krishna says, whatever you do, whatever you offer, you offer it to me. So, this is the best type of Karma Yoga. Still, we do not call it bhakti yoga. So yes, we offer the results of our pious activities, karmas, etc. to the Lord but still, the activity itself is different from the activities of bhakti – hearing, chanting, etc. That’s direct bhakti, still indirect [Laughing]. So, we still don’t get the same results.
Of course, within bhakti itself, we have a more profound modification of vows, etc. so they become real bhakti. We change these charities and vows, etc. and then they become bhakti itself. So, therefore, we can attain Krishna and Prema by vows. What type of vows? Ekadasi, that’s a Vaishnava vow, so that’s ok. We fast on the Lord’s Day, Ekadasi, to attain the Lord.
So, charity means giving. So, give to devotees, serve devotees, give prasad to devotees, so that’s pure bhakti. So, in this way, some activities, we may call them, you know, vrata, etc., but actually they are pure bhakti.
But, we should distinguish these type of activities from the karma yoga activities of punyas and vratas etc. They are originally constructed for artha, dharma, kama, not for prema. So, we attain the Lord by direct activities of bhakti. And, if we do vrata
as for bhakti and they are part of bhakti like Ekadasi or Janmastami etc., then no problem, by that we can attain the Lord. But, by the normal activities of karma yoga and varnashrama, we do not attain the Lord. So, we should always make that distinction.
So, Rukmini refers to doing these activities which are a form of worship of Krishna, so we should think of them as direct angas of bhakti, not the angas of Karma yoga. In other words, by doing bhakti in past lifetimes, we will qualify to get Krishna in this lifetime. In the 11th canto, Krishna tells Uddhava, “I am not so much attracted to Karma yoga, charity, vratas, Jnana, Sankya etc.”
Okay, Hare Krishna.
Q & A
1)So, Mahārāj, the main motivation of Rukmini to marry Kṛṣṇa was to serve him and to give him and not their own personal gratification.
If we desire to get our own enjoyment, then that disqualifies us. So, if we want to serve Kṛṣṇa in Prema, then it is always without desire, it is Anya abhilāśita śūnya. So, the queens of Dwāraka and the gopīs in Vṛṇdāvan, their desire is not that they want to enjoy, but they want to give enjoyment to Kṛṣṇa . Of course, in these pastimes, they have marriages, etc. So, they look like material marriages. But, the relationship is purely spiritual. The relationship is based upon Prema, not kāma.
2)But, in the pastimes of Kubja, was she a pure devotee, or she was influenced by her own desire to enjoy Kṛṣṇa ? Because she obtained also a wonderful desire, just by desiring Kṛṣṇa , to enjoy with Kṛṣṇa .
So, because she was directly related with the Lord, she could not have any material contamination. However, our ācāryas place her at the bottom, among all the different personalities that have Mādhurya Rasa, she is kind of in the bottom category. So,that Prema, with complete dedication to Kṛṣṇa etc, is much weaker. So, sometimes it is called Kāma Praya, almost Kāma.
But, even for the gopis, their bhakti is called Kāmānuga . It is also called Kāma in a sense, but there we mean Prema, we don’t mean regular Kāma. So, we have Rāgānuga Bhakti, and if you want to follow after with the gopī, they call it Kāmānuga, but it’s not material Kama.
3)The question comes to the mind, because of course we are still influenced by the body. So, for a girl, maybe it’s very easy to be attracted to Krishna, because he is a male, and she is a female. But, what about the man? How can I be attracted to Krishna? I am a man, and he is a man. Ok, I am attracted, but not with Prema, not with love, not with feeling of, like I want to embrace you, I want to kiss you.
So, with Kṛṣṇa , we have a choice. You can have Mādhurya Rasa, or you can have Vātsalya Rasa, or Sakhya Rasa, or Dāsya Rasa. So, in most of those cases, it would be a male. You don’t want to be a female? Be a Sakha, Be a cowherd boy, Be a servant
4)We do Ekādaśi, serving devotees and all these activities of bhakti with a desire in our heart to get Krsna Prema. Is it not conditional to keep this desire while doing the acts of bhakti or is it okay to keep the desire?
So that’s also a desire. Anya abhilāśitaśūnya means one shouldn’t have any desire. But it says no other desire. So we should always desire to serve Kṛṣṇa . But desire for liberation, material benefits, that is all excluded
5) What about in terms of the relationship with guru? If in indirect process, we follow karma yoga, then switch the process such as jñāna yoga , aṣṭānga yoga and bhakti yoga. According to different process do we change the guru?
HH Bhanu swami Maharaj : Ohh [laughing ]do we have a karma yoga guru? So ofcourse this is probably in different lifetimes. So we have gurus who teach karma kāndā. They become smārta brāhmanas etc. So we have many gurus who are teaching different things and in order to learn we have to get proper qualification.
6) In the Bhagavad Gītā, Chapter 3 Sloka 9,
yajñārthāt karmaṇo ’nyatra loko ’yaṁ karma-bandhanaḥ
tad-arthaṁ karma kaunteya mukta-saṅgaḥ samāchara
Kṛṣṇa has given a pinnacle of instruction that everything we do, we should do for the satisfaction of viṣṇu. If we don’t do, then that makes entanglement to the material world. So this is a wonderful sloka. So in one of your lectures, you mentioned that the perfection of Karma Yoga is Bhakti Yoga. And in 3.9, this itself is Bhakti Yoga, because everything we are doing and Kṛṣṇa is in the center. Anyway, so my question is, my feeling is that Karma Yoga is most closer to Bhakti Yoga. But if we see the yoga ladder, then Karma Yoga is in the bottom, then jñāna Yoga, then aṣṭānga Yoga, then Bhakti Yoga. Why is that? Because Karma Yoga seems closer to Bhakti Yoga. But in the yoga ladder, it’s at the bottom. So can you kindly comment on that, Maharaj? Or is there any ascending order or descending order? Or is it just a different sort of yoga?
If we’re doing karma yoga, the explicit goal, as I said, is material, go to Svarga Loka or Brahma Loka. Jñāna yoga or aṣtānga yoga, the goal is liberation, beyond Brahma Loka. Liberation is superior to Brahma Loka, so therefore those processes are superior to karma yoga. So, bhakti yoga’s goal is prema which is beyond liberation, so it’s in the highest position.
So, in karma yoga, yes, we should worship Viṣṇu, there should be some bhakti there. Even in jñāna, there should be some worship of Vishnu. So, by that, gradually we can elevate and come to bhakti yoga, but that’s a slow process.
Devotee : Thank you Maharaj for such a wonderful explanation that clears my doubt
7) In Bhagavad Gītā Chapter 2.40,
nehābhikrama-nāśho ’sti pratyavāyo na vidyate
svalpam apyasya dharmasya trāyate mahato bhayāt
We see that, so here we get an understanding that even if someone does some special activity or devotional activity, he can get the credit and that can continue in the next life. But in Srīla Prabhupāda’s līlāmṛta, when we study, we see that Śrīla Prabhupāda was telling to the hippies, that, I mean, some hippie asked Srīla Prabhupāda, , how we get the position of serving Kṛṣṇa or serving Guru, because we are very in abominable condition. Then prabhupāda said that it is not that your fortune, it is me that who creates your fortune. So, it’s a pure devotee, they can create our fortune. In that case, this 2.40 and Prabhupāda’s statement is little confusing. So, would you kindly clear the doubt, like, is it like bhakti is a continuous process or like pure devotee, they can start the bhakti process at any moment, at any time to a particular person.
So the results of bhakti are not depleted, they don’t become less because we experience the bhakti in next life and we continue to do our bhakti. When we do puṇya, when we get the result in the next life, we enjoy and then the puṇya is gone. However in this process there is also mercy of devotees. If one has no bhakti and little faith and he has the mercy of devotees, he can start the process of bhakti. Or if we already have bhakti and we get the mercy of devotee, then we get more bhakti. So by mercy of devotee, since he himself has bhakti, he can inspire you with bhakti.
8) In text 41 in the word gadāgrajaḥ, who is gadā?
He was another son of Vasudeva and Devakī.
Devotees: Grantharaj Srimad Bhagavatam Ki.. Jai ! Srila Prabhupad Ki.. Jai !! HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj Ki.. Jai !!