Srimad Bhagavatam – 10.65.32 | HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj | ISKCON Adelaide, Australia | March 2, 2025
ŚB 10.65.32
वसित्वा वाससी नीले मालामामुच्य काञ्चनीम् ।
रेये स्वलङ्कृतो लिप्तो माहेन्द्र इव वारण: ॥ ३२ ॥
vasitvā vāsasī nīle
mālāṁ āmucya kāñcanīm
reye sv-alaṅkṛto lipto
māhendra iva vāraṇaḥ
Translation
Lord Balarāma dressed Himself in the blue garments and put on the gold necklace. Anointed with fragrances and beautifully adorned, He appeared as resplendent as Indra’s royal elephant.
Purport
Anointed with sandalwood paste and other pure, fragrant substances, Balarāma resembled Airāvata, the great elephant of Lord Indra.
HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj :
This is a description of Balarama visiting Vrindavan. We know that after Krishna left Vrindavan, he didn’t return for some time, and everybody was very anxious. So, at one point afterwards, Balarama went there, and he somewhat pacified the gopis and the other inhabitants of Vrindavan, and he stayed there for some time. Of course, then he left [Laughs]. So, in this way, this chapter is describing Balarama’s visit to Vrindavan. This is describing his ornaments. So, the point here is that… Usually, we have a description of Krishna, and those descriptions are, we can say, traditional, set descriptions of Krishna, Krishna has a certain form, and similarly, we have the form of Balarama’s scribe..
I spoke last night that the form of God is controversial in many religions, and they don’t want to accept the form of God because their forms are material, forms are limited, etc. However, and even in India, not just other religions of the world, but even in India, the followers of Sankaracharya also say God has no form, because forms are limited. So, even half of India, more or less, accepts that God has no form. So, and probably the only group in the whole world [Laughs], who are spiritual, who say God has a form are the Vaishnavas [Laughs]. Nobody else really wants to say God has a form. So, we say out loud that God must have a form, and therefore the whole Bhagavatam is dedicated to describing the forms of the Lord, including Krishna and Balarama, and Varaha and Narasimha, etc.
So, we have all these different forms of the Lord, not only forms of the Lord, but also their activities, or their qualities. So, this is a unique contribution to the religions of the world. In universities, they have a comparative religion. That’s one of the topics they have in universities, to compare the religions of the world. Probably they don’t even get to the Vaishnavas, and they’re comparing all these other religions [Laughs]. But it’s the Vaishnavas who have this unique idea that God has a form, which nobody really accepts, and nobody else really accepts. So, this is quite unique, even for India. So, when they cover the world religions, they also say, God has no form, because that’s what Sankaracharya says [Laughs]. So most people, when they study Hinduism, they think that God has no form also, because they don’t know about the Vaishnava conclusion, which is in Bhagavatam, or other Puranas.
So, anyway, we do have to follow tradition. There are many traditions around the world, and there are also many traditions in India. And that’s why we get all sorts of different ideas in India itself. God has form, God has no form, etc. We have many different followers in different groups. Recently there was Kumbha Mela, and we have Sivaites over there [Laughs]. So, that’s one group of people. But that’s not the only type of people in India. There are so many other groups as well.
So, nevertheless, we do have to ultimately have some authority. And, of course, in India, traditional people will accept that authority. And what is that authority? Authority is the Vedas. There is a certain set of scriptures that everybody must follow [Laughs]. And then you are considered bonafide. So, in tradition, those who follow the Vedas, they get some acceptance. Those who don’t follow the Vedas, they are called nastika, which means literally atheists, but it could be people who are very religious but they don’t follow the Vedas, they are called nastika. No faith in the Vedas. Like Buddhism, they say they reject the Vedas. So, they are called nastika. So, those who have the accepted Vedas are acceptable. But unfortunately, even if you accept the Vedas, we have all sorts of groups who come to opposite conclusions – nastika.
So, we do have what are called the Sat-Darshanas, the Six Darshanas, like Sankhya, Vaisesika, Yoga, Vedanta, Karma mimasa, Nyaya, Logic. These are considered quite prominent groups of people following the Vedas in ancient India. What’s the problem? They follow one scripture Vedas, they accept the authority of the Vedas, but opposite conclusions [Laughs]. In fact, some of them say there is no God [Laughs], Karma mimamsa, no God [Laughs]. Sankhya, no God [Laughs]. Others will accept impersonal God, Brahman, I think, like the Logicians, Kanada and a few others. Yoga, there is some sort of God, but no form. Only in one section of Vedanta we will get the Vaishnavas who accept, yes, God has a form, but everybody else no.
And even in Vedanta, Sankara’s Vedanta, no God again [Laughs], no form [Laughs]. So, only a very small section of the people who follow the Vedas will accept God has a form. So, it’s very peculiar [Laughs]. We follow the Vedas, but we get opposite conclusions. So, we do have to have some, even if we accept the Vedas, we do have to have some sort of idea about how to come to the correct meaning of everything.
So, of course, Veda Vyasa is very famous, because he did not write the Vedas. He simply recorded what was there. He didn’t make anything up. What he had heard, he wrote down that’s all. So, the Vedas are actually said to be eternal, eternal sound. At the beginning of the day of Brahma it appears, the Vedas appear. When Brahma disappears, it all disappears. When Brahma appears, another Brahma appears, in another universe, the Vedas appear again, same Vedas. So, even Brahma doesn’t write the Vedas, it simply comes out of his mouth and it’s repetitively, it keeps appearing in the same form all the time.
So the Vedas are there, but they also have to be transmitted properly and there are some techniques for maintaining the transmission. Of course, one is transmission of the sound itself. You can just memorize all the Vedas and all the sounds and whatever with that, fine. But, important is we have to get the meaning, the proper meaning. When we don’t get the proper meaning, then what’s the use of memorizing all these sounds? So, not only the meaning has to be transmitted, but also the meaning of the Vedas and then it has to be transmitted, person after person after person like that. So, therefore we get what is called a tradition or Amnaya. This is a general term. It means, you know, just traditional customs, etc. It also refers to the Vedas itself. It’s called Amnaya. And it also refers to this process of handing down the Vedas generation after generation after generation so that the meaning is intact. Not just the Vedic sound, but the meaning also is there. That is Amnaya. So that is very important. So, we see even in Bhagavatam, everything is transmitted by hearing. Somebody is questioning, somebody is speaking, another person is hearing, and then he gets the message and he passes it on. So, even in Bhagavad Gita, this whole process is carried on again. Bhagavad Gita is transmitted in that way.
In the modern world, we may say, well, you just have the books, take the books, and we can read the books. Why do we need people to transmit? Or, even now, we don’t need any books [Laughs]. We got everything recorded and whatever, we have recordings of all the sound and you have your iPhones and whatever, you can look at an iPhone like that and why do we need people to transmit anymore [Laughs]. So that seems like a simple solution that cuts out the idea that we need transmission at all because it’s all there, electronic media. But, there is also a good reason for this transmission from person to person, which we can also say is one of the controversies in the modern world with you know artificial intelligence, etc. It isn’t really knowledge that you are getting transmitted when all the computers are doing everything for you and giving you knowledge.
Is it real knowledge at all? We don’t know. In ancient times, they were actually more advanced than us, so if they wanted, they could have had electronic media but that was considered to be very vulgar [Laughs]. They had a different way of transmitting [Laughs].
You memorize everything and hear it and then it goes in and then you should transmit it properly [Laughs]. That was considered to be a more effective means of transmitting the knowledge, not just sound [Laughs]. So, that’s the system in ancient times. One person would speak, another would listen, and that person would observe it and he would give it to another person. And we see in the Bhagavatam this is what happens when we have Krishna instructing Uddhava, in 11th Canto Vidura speaks to Uddhava, in 3rd Canto Maitreya teaches Vidura in 3rd Canto, etc., all of these are transmissions of knowledge. In fact, in the beginning of the Bhagavatam, also, we have Suta instructing the sages of Naimisaranya and they are curious so they ask six questions and then they get answers gradually and then that is expanded to make the whole Bhagavatam.
In the first canto also Narada gives instructions to Vyasa because Vyasa wrote Puranas, Mahabharata, Vedanta sutras and he compiled all the Vedas and still he was dissatisfied so that Narada Muni gave him instructions and Vyasadeva, he instructed Sukadeva, Sukadeva instructed Pariksit. So, transmission is there from person to person. And through this we get our disciplic succession of the Parampara system based on transmission of knowledge, Amnaya, etc.
So, this is the transmission line that you see in the Bhagavad Gita mentioned which is traced back, it’s in the Bhagavad Gita, it’s in Bhakti Siddhanta Saraswati’s books and it goes back to Kavikarnapura in one of his works given this succession of people. Of course, we have some of the modern ones here with the addition of Bhaktivinoda Thakur’s work, Gaura Kisora dasa babaji, Bhakti Siddhanta Saraswati’s Thakur and Srila Prabhupada. So, we get again this transmission of knowledge which is actually separate from Diksha. This is the transmission of knowledge.
So, why it’s important is, because we want to keep the knowledge intact and the best way of doing that is person to person. In spite of that, the material world is such that it’s not a perfect system [Laughs]. Time is the destroying factor of everything. So, over time, your whole system, even your Parampara, gets broken. As Krishna says in Bhagavad Gita. The whole system is broken now. I’m teaching you because the science appears to be lost. So, in spite of this precaution, again things can get broken up. The line gets somehow lost. We see that in India, the Vedas were transmitted orally, particularly the Vedas by the Brahmins. And it’s remarkable that this is from 5,000 years ago, they have lines, they trace lines up until the present day. The father taught son, son taught son. It goes down for thousands of years like this. What they do is, they memorize the whole Veda inside out, all four parts of the Veda with all the svaras, etc. And then they have to learn the meaning of the Veda.
Once they got that one Veda, okay, you got one degree. And if you’re proficient, you can start two Vedas, three Vedas, four Vedas, and you can become Caturvedi [Laughs], learn all four Vedas [Laughs]. But they would carry this on, memorizing, and then giving it to their children and disciples and whatever. And they would, this is how they did it for thousands of years. All in the mind and in the [not clear]. I don’t have to memorize it all like that [not clear].
But, lines get broken. So even let’s say 100 years ago, Rg Veda may have had like 100 still intact transmissions. 100 years ago, today there’s maybe 10 left [Laughs]. They’ve died out from the last 100 years. So many have died out. No more sons to transmit. Sons go off and work someplace, go to America or wherever [Laughs]. They don’t learn the Veda anymore. They’re no more because they can’t get to make money that way.
So, things die out. So the Parampara systems also seem to have this problem because of the nature of time. So this is a problem how to counteract time and keep the Parampara from breaking. Vyasadeva had this solution. He used this 5,000 years ago. He understood that people could not learn all the Vedas so nicely. So he divided one big Veda into four parts. Give one part, one quarter of the whole Veda to one person rather than all the Vedas. So, this is made a little easier. And then he gave this to his disciples and they made some Paramparas around them like that. So, this way, the whole system was carried on. And this is described in the first chapter of the Bhagavatam.
So, as I said, the Vedas are too vast so that’s why Veda Vyasa divided one Veda into four so he wouldn’t have such a problem. He only had to memorize one quarter rather than the whole thing if he wanted to learn one Veda. But, what the Vedas is that they have each Veda has four parts also. So, you have to learn all of the parts, to learn one Veda you have to learn Brahmanas, Aranyakas, Upanishads and Samhita sections. Even that is a big task.
So, Vyasadeva understood that people in Kali yuga are less intelligent so this is one of his means to make it a little bit easier by making smaller Vedas. So, the Vedas are there. Even one quarter of the Veda, you get Rg Veda or Yajur Veda or whatever is a little easier.
But, the meaning is also difficult. People scratch their head even today over the meaning of some of the statements in the Vedas because they know what it means.
So, Vyasa had another solution. Let’s simplify the grammar. Simplify and make the meaning more direct for people. So, he wrote one Brahma Sutras to give the essential knowledge of the Upanishads. He wrote Mahabharata in which we get Bhagavad Gita and the Puranas. So, these are simple. Language is simple. Available for everybody. No restriction of caste or whatever. So, whatever birth you didn’t hear Bhagavad Gita and Mahabharata and Puranas, etc. And, it’s full of nice stories that keep people’s attention. So, he wrote puranas, for instance 18 Puranas. Out of mercy, he said, OK, some people are in Tamoguna, some people are in Rajoguna, some people are in Sattvaguna. So, they don’t have the same interests. So, I will attract the people in Tamoguna by writing six Puranas for them. And, what do I do? I will select for them an object to worship Shiva because he’s in charge of Tamoguna. So, let them worship Shiva. So, he wrote six Puranas for the people of Tamoguna in which Shiva is glorified as Supreme. For the people in Rajoguna, he selected Brahma because Brahma is in charge of Rajoguna, in charge of creation. So, people in Rajoguna can worship Brahma. And, for people in Sattvaguna, worship Vishnu. So, in this way, different Puranas are saying, Brahma is Supreme, Shiva is Supreme, Vishnu is Supreme [Laughs], because applying to different people.
So, he wanted to make it simple for people. So, not only Vyasa was thinking of the people, other sages also began to write things for people to make it practical. So, we have a whole series of Smriti Sastras, about 19 different works written by great sages like Manu, Yajnavalkya, Atri. And, these are systems and rules of Varnashrama, how everybody should conduct themselves, how the Brahmanas should act, how the Vaishyas should act, Sudras, Vaishyas, Ksatriyas , how they should all act, how kings should act, how they should govern proper, all these detailed rules are there for them. But, Vyasadeva also thought, well, that’s too many works now, we’ve got too many things [Laughs], we’ve got 18 Puranas, we’ve got Mahabharata, and Valmiki has written Ramayana, we’ve got the four Vedas, we’ve got Brahma Sutras, we’ve got Smriti Sastras, too much. So, that’s where Narada Muni came to Vyasa and said, okay, it’s too complicated for people in Kali yuga, you’ve given too many things for them [Laughs].
So, let’s simplify again. So, he said, you write one work with one object of worship, don’t give them options, okay, worship Shiva, Brahma, Vishnu, they all get confused [Laughs], just one object of worship, Krishna, that’s all. So, then, Vyasa wrote Srimad Bhagavatam as the final authority, which, it has the meaning of the Vedas, the meaning of the Upanishads, the meaning of the Brahma Sutras, the meaning of the Puranas, the meaning of the Mahabharata, all that condensed into one work, so you don’t have to learn all of these works, four Vedas, the Upanishads, the Mahabharata, and all the 18 Puranas, and whatever, just one work, Srimad Bhagavatam. So that was the work of Veda Vyasa, which gave the conclusion of everything in the simplest possible manner. And therefore, we don’t have to go to all these different works, we just take the conclusion from Srimad Bhagavatam. So that becomes the authority.
So if we’re thinking of what should we do, study the Srimad Bhagavatam, and maybe then we can get the proper conclusion instead of having all these sad-darsanas and atheistic philosophy or whatever, impersonal philosophy, you get the proper conclusion from Srimad Bhagavatam. So, this is why Caitanya Mahaprabhu selected the Bhagavatam as the main object of study. We see when he was in Puri, every day he would be reading and hearing recitation of Srimad Bhagavatam, Gadadhara and others would be reciting and relishing Bhagavatam. Not Vedas, other Puranas or whatever, just Bhagavatam.
In the Bhagavatam itself, Krishna has glorified and consequently, Bhagavatam is considered to be the highest fruit on the desired tree of the Vedas. All the Vedic literatures and they all give fruits. You can get different results from the Vedas on the Vedic literatures. But, Bhagavatam gives the best fruit, the highest fruit on the tree. Why is it the highest fruit? Because it is Krishna [Laughs], Radha Krishna. It’s the sweetest fruit of all. And that’s what makes it the highest fruit of all. So that is the contribution of Srimad Bhagavatam. It’s described in Bhagavatam itself, the first canto, the third verse. It’s the highest fruit on the tree. It’s the sweetest fruit on the tree. It is without seeds and without skin. Drink it [Laughs]. You don’t have to chew it and drink it through the ear [Laughs]. So that’s Srimad Bhagavatam. So when we trace our parampara, we’re actually tracing the conclusion of Srimad Bhagavatam, its coming down like this.
And so we see that Srila Prabhupada also concentrated on commenting on Bhagavatam. When he was in India, what was he doing? Writing commentary on Bhagavatam. And then he managed to publish the first canto in India, in three volumes. And then he took that in a trunk [Laughs], on a ship, and brought it to America [Laughs]. So this was his attempt to carry on the Parampara properly by translating the Srimad Bhagavatam and making a commentary. We see that out of all the works, Bhagavatam is very popular. Caitanya Mahaprabhu instructed the Goswamis in Vrindavan to write works to support Bhakti. So Sanatana Goswami wrote a commentary on the Tenth Canto. Jiva Goswami wrote a commentary on the Tenth Canto. Later on, Baladeva Vidyabhusana wrote a commentary on the tenth canto, and Srila Vishvanatha Chakravarti Thakura wrote a commentary on the whole Bhagavatam, not just the tenth Canto. And then, following that Srila Bhakti Siddhanta Saraswati, he did a commentary based on the previous commentaries on the whole Bhagavatam, and then Srila Prabhupada also went up to the 10th Canto Chapter 14, before he passed away. So there is great concentration on the knowledge of Srimad Bhagavatam [not clear]. So in this way our Acharyas tried to preserve the meaning, not just the work but the meaning.
Of course, because we have printing presses there were institutes by the British into India preserving the work was not so difficult anymore. Previous to that the way of preserving it was palmleaf manuscripts [Laughs] which is not a very permanent way because like paper palmleaf manuscripts also decay overtime or whatever like that and you have to write manually [not clear] atleast the paper in printing press you have many copies but in palmleaf manuscript one person has to write everything and it is very thick so we have piles and piles for Bhagavatam and we may have a whole room [Laughs] [not clear] and then perishes eventually. Not available for everybody, just a wealthy person or a great king will have these palmleaf manuscripts. So the printing press became a little easier because they can take multiple copies and distribute more freely to people and keep them in the library or whatever, still ofcourse they are perishable.
A little bit of system of at least preserving the text, and the commentaries. So, that’s how our commentaries are coming down. First, palm leaf manuscripts, like Goswamis [not clear], later on, they put them into prints, especially Bhakti Siddhanta Saraswati thakur, he had all these printing presses in his temples [Laughs]. They were preserving it. [not clear] Commentaries of our Acharyas, Bhagavatam and other works.
There are other ways of preserving knowledge in Bhagavatam. We’ve got the whole Bhagavatam condensed in four verses. Catuh sloki of the Bhagavatam. We can say, well, how can Bhagavatam be condensed into four verses? I would rather read four verses than read the whole Bhagavatam. It’s easier [Laughs]. Unfortunately, yes, the whole Bhagavatam is so condensed that most of us cannot access it. So that’s why it’s been expanded. But it’s like a shortcut. And if you already know the Bhagavatam, you can figure it out in four verses. You can expand the Bhagavatam back. So anyway, this is a way of preserving the knowledge by condensing it into shorter forms.
Another way, of course, is mantras. Everything can also be within a mantra. The whole Vedas, all of the Vedas are condensed into a Gayatri mantra. That’s why the Gayatri mantra is passed down from father to son. And it becomes a qualification for studying the Vedas because it’s the whole Vedas in a very condensed form. And if you were to realize the meaning of Gayatri mantra, then you would realize all the Vedas also [Laughs]. So, that’s another way through mantras.
Of course, we also have Pancharatric mantras, which again are a concentration of knowledge. So, we have Vaishnava Diksha. And through Diksha, you get Vaishnava Pancharatric mantra. So we get a Krishna mantra. So that is such a deep condensation of all knowledge again. If you chant this mantra, you realize Krishna. Krishna is everything. It’s complete knowledge. So this is one way of transmitting the knowledge through Diksha.
So we get a Diksha parampara. Of course, our parampara, we don’t trace a Diksha line, we’re tracing a Siksha line. But you can trace Diksha lines. Lord Caitanya took Diksha. He got a mantra, ten syllable Krishna mantra from his guru in Gaya. Nithyananda, he got ten syllable mantra from his guru. Advaita acharya got mantra from his guru, and they pass it on to other people. So we get a parampara of carrying on the Diksha mantra also, which is condensed knowledge. That’s one way of doing it.
So these are all ways of guaranteeing the parampara. Lord Caitanya, however, he emphasized what revolutionary means. What is that? Nama Sankirtana [Laughs]. This is the essence of knowledge. What makes it revolutionary is you don’t even require Diksha. Everything is in Hare Krishna [Laughs]. Complete knowledge of everything, because it’s not different from Krishna, but it’s more easily accessible. It does not need the qualification of other things.
If you want to get the brahma gayatri, you have to be qualified. You have to be a brahmana or whatever. If you want to get Vaishnava Diksha, again, you have to be qualified. You may have to wait for five years or ten years, and then guru will give you the mantra. You may have to write a few examinations also. Get some testimony from temple president [Laughs]. So it’s qualification necessary for Diksha and getting the mantra. But chanting Hare Krishna, no. We tell everybody, you chant Hare Krishna on the street, whatever. We don’t say you that have to take a test to get the mantra. We give it up freely to everybody. But it’s not less. Again, it’s the concentration of Krishna.
Bhagavatam, of course, is Krishna. The Diksha mantra is Krishna, and Hari Nama is Krishna also. But more accessible. Why is it more accessible? Because it’s more powerful [Laughs]. We see the name of Vishnu was such that Ajamila didn’t have any faith. He didn’t believe in Vishnu. But he chanted the name Narayana, and what happened? All of his sins were finished. All of his karma was gone immediately. Yamaraja did not touch him. And so the name of the Lord is very, very powerful. And it doesn’t require anything. Even accidental can have such power.
So if we chant it intentionally with faith, of course, it has more power than what was given to Ajamila. So this is the way of Lord Caitanya, spread the name of Krishna everywhere. And why it’s so powerful is because of course, Krishna is the supreme form. As we know in Bhagavatam, He is Svayam Bhagavan. He is the most attractive form. He manifests more qualities than any other form. He has more mercy than any other form. He has more attractive qualities than any other form. So we worship Krishna.
But the name Krishna itself is the same. So by chanting the name Krishna it doesn’t require any qualification. You can realize Krishna. So the name of Krishna itself is very, very powerful. This is from Padma-purana. This verse of Nama is, that is the name of Krishna is Cintamani. And Krishna is Cintamani. Cintamani means it’s a touchstone. What is a touchstone? If you have this nice jewel and you wish for something, you get it [Laughs]. So you wish for a million dollars or something, you get it. You wish for a golden car, you get a golden car. You wish for a big house, you get a big house. That is a desired stone or touchstone, like a desired tree. So Krishna is the ultimate touchstone. Whatever you want, you get from Krishna. If you want material things, you can get it. This, of course, is not just chanting the name of Krishna you can get to Prema. Of course, if you want material things, you can get material things as well. [not clear]. But devotees want Prema. So by chanting the name of Krishna, you get Prema. Nothing else is necessary. Non-different from Krishna.
Krishna is Caitanya Rasa Vigraha. Form of Rasa. Why Rasa? Rasa means through Rasa, you experience bliss. So if you get Rasa with Krishna, you get bliss. But not material Rasa. Caitanya Rasa. Spiritual Rasa. If you establish spiritual relations with Krishna, then you experience bliss. But you can give that to the name. Chant the name, you get Krishna Rasa, and then you get bliss. So like Krishna, the name is full, complete, 64 qualities instead of 60 qualities. All the qualities will manifest of Krishna in the name. It is Suddha. It is not a material sound. Krishna hasn’t got a material form. His name also is not a material sound. And it is Nityamukta. Krishna appears in the material world, but not contaminated. Name appears in the material world, not contaminated. We can hear the name with our ear, but actually it’s not a material sound at all. It’s not subject to the goodness. Completely different.
So this is the name. This is how we transmit the knowledge in Kali yuga. As said in Caitanya Caritamrta, one does not have to undergo initiation Diksa or executing activities required before initiation as purusharya, different activities you do, like tapasyas, etc, to get certain results from your mantra. One simply has to vibrate the holy name with his lips, thus even a man of the lowest class in Chandala can be delivered. So this is the way of deliverance in Kali yuga. No restrictions there, open for everyone. So even an accidental chanting can give so many good results.
However, though anyone can chant the holy name, if we deliberately offend, devotees, or Krishna, or the name, it’s not good for us if we don’t progress, so nama-aparadha is not good. Nama-abhas, like in Ajamila’s case, gives effect, but not complete effect. Chanting with devotion, pure devotion, anyābhilāṣitā-śūnyaṁ, we chant with no desires for material benefit or liberation, just Krishna, that is called Suddha-nama. And with that, we get quick progress, and we can get to Prema.
So, name is there, open for everybody, gives some results for everybody. But, if we want Prema, Suddha-nama. How do we get Suddha-nama? Knowledge. We get that Bhagavatam knowledge. We have to know who Krishna is. We have to avoid the offenses. We have to have pure devotion, not mixed devotion, etc. So even with the name, we have a tradition, and we have to have proper knowledge coming down in the tradition. So we still need this parampara in one sense. The name has to come from the right source. In modern Kali Yuga here, we have of course, Prabhupada went to the west and established kirtan everywhere, so it became popular around the world. Now we see many groups are doing kirtan, and they’re not even devotees. They’re maybe mayavadis, or impersonalists, or yogis, or whatever. Many yoga groups are doing kirtans [Laughs]. But if you want to get the highest effect, if you want prema, you should come in a parampara and have the proper knowledge. You know, who is Krishna? Who is Bhagavan, etc. So we should still preserve the parampara.
So, therefore, we need the teachings, the scripture, along with everything. So Lord Caitanya was emphasizing Harinama, but it was simultaneously emphasizing scripture. In the modern world, we see many people are not interested in scripture, and many gurus come to the west and they preach no scripture. They don’t mention scripture at all [Laughs]. And our movement is quite different. It’s full of scripture [Laughs]. We’re emphasizing books all the time. Nobody else does that. Very unique movement. But why? Because this goes back to Caitanya Mahaprabhu. He was emphasizing also that we have to have a basis.
So, Bhaktivinoda Thakura, he was very interested in preserving everything. That’s why he translated so many things. He was researching and he found different scriptures. He published them. He made it simpler for people by explaining it nicely for modern minds. His work was continued by Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakura, printing presses, continually printing works, etc. At the time of Bhaktivinoda Thakura, he would ask people, Have you seen a Caitanya Caritamrta? And everyone said, No, we’ve heard about it. We’ve never seen one. It was not available. There were some written manuscripts, maybe, on palm leaves somewhere. And one person said, Oh, well, I think I have one passed down in our family sitting in the closet somewhere else [Laughs]. But he had never read it also. So even to get a Caitanya Caritamrta in Bhaktivinoda’s time was very, very difficult to get. Nobody had seen one [Laughs]. So therefore he actually discovered one. He began to print a and wrote commentary on it, everything. So this was the condition of things. So our Acharyas have tried to preserve things and hand it out very nicely.
And of course we have Prabhupada in the present. They also do the same thing, continuing that knowledge. So we see that when he was traveling all over the world, he had a servant with a tape recorder and a dictaphone [Laughs] and all this [Laughs]. And he had all these books. And every morning he would be dictating the commentaries. And then the BBT would take from the published books. So in this way, knowledge gets preserved and carried on.
We have other places also. The Bhaktivinoda Research Center in Calcutta. So they are preserving these Vaishnava works. Some of them have rare manuscripts, etc. And the old books, they’re preserving all these books, collecting everything, and preserving it very nicely. We have the Bhaktivedanta Swami Charity Trust, which goes around and preserves the sites, the different holy places of the associates of Lord Caitanya in Bengal, in Orissa. There’s Uddharana Thakur’s Sripat [Laughs], his birthplace. They’re all falling apart [Laughs].
There’s no roof for anything there. So they help repair these different places like that.
So, in the Nectar of Devotion, it says, a person who is skillful in scripture and logic, completely firm in his belief, with deep faith, is considered qualified as uttama in Vaidhi-Bhakti. So, if we can guarantee that people have the proper knowledge, they’re in the Uttama category as a practicing devotee doing sadhana. So that’s why we do have things like ministry of education, Bhakti-shastri, and all these different courses [Laughs], to guarantee that people get a certain level of knowledge within our society.
So the ministry of education is, of course, knowledge isn’t everything [Laughs].
So we should not think that we get a degree in Bhakti-shastri or Bhaktivedanta, that we know everything also. Because knowledge is there, but it has to be accounted by devotion. And if we just have the knowledge aspect based on logic, we have this [not clear] apratisthanat, Logic is insubstantial. My logic can prove the opposite also. So you can just argue even on Sastra with your logic and come up with crazy conclusions. So we have to be very devotional in our approach to knowledge. So, even when there’s a little taste for the topic of bhakti, you can understand it. He who tries to understand bhakti by dry logic cannot understand it, because logic is insubstantial. So, logic is necessary one time for Uttama bhakti, but at the same time, we do indeed need the devotion there. So that we get proper. Okay.
So, we have Harinam as the main process now, but we do need scripture to get pure bhakti. So we need the process of hearing, and we need the tradition of our acharyas, that is the parampara system. Okay, fine.
Any questions? …
Q & A
1) How do we stand on our own point that Krishna has form ?
One of course is, which scriptures are people willing to accept? Most people you talk to don’t know anything about scripture in the first place [Laughs]. So they’re just basing their idea on what somebody else said. Maybe their guru could maybe they read another book, like a textbook or a high school textbook or something [Laughs].
So, first we have to understand that we should have a scriptural basis, but then we need a good scripture to follow. Of course I could say Vedas, but unlikely that anybody’s read the Vedas in the modern world. So, we do have to be particular. So, if a person is willing to accept, for instance, Bhagavad Gita, then very easily we can show that Krishna has a form[Laughs]. If they’re not willing to say Bhagavad Gita, okay, then we have a serious problem. They don’t accept Bhagavad Gita, they don’t accept Vedavyasa, what do they accept? But most people aren’t even at that level, they don’t know what they’re accepting.
Now of course, Sankaracharya also wrote a commentary on Bhagavad Gita, which is ultimately impersonal [Laughs]. So even if you take a word, which for us is obviously personal, by interpretation, you can come up with opposite meaning. As I said, by logic, you can come up with opposite meaning. So it is possible. So that’s why we should also have not only the scripture, like Bhagavad Gita, but with Acharya Parampara, so we can get the correct meaning. Some of our people say, well, you’re following your meaning of the Bhagavad Gita, why that’s the only meaning I have, my meaning [Laughs]? So, there are principles of how to get meaning in the Vedas, in the Vedic knowledge.
It’s not you can just get any meaning you want out of anything. There should be consistency, and there are rules in the Vedas on how you can get the meaning. So we should follow those rules. One of the rules is, as much as possible, we take the direct meaning. We don’t interpret the word and make it mean something else. The direct meaning is called abidah, and the indirect meaning is called lakshana.
So sometimes, we have to take indirect meaning. The example is, there is a village on the Ganga. So, we take that literally. There’s a village floating in the Ganga, middle of the Ganga. That doesn’t make any sense. We have to take lakshana in that case. It’s not the real meaning. The real meaning is, there’s a village on the bank of the Ganga. What we say, on the Ganga, for short. So we’re interpreting the word on the bank of the Ganga. So that’s the reasonable interpretation. It’s not the direct meaning, but it’s reasonable because it makes sense.
But, when we take lakshana, where you can’t take the direct meaning, because it fits our philosophy more [Laughs], that is not correct. So, if we take Bhagavad Gita, and we have Krishna talks about his form, etc. We can say, okay, Krishna has a form, he’s on the battlefield, he’s speaking to Arjuna, and Arjuna says, I don’t like that terrible form. Can you show me your peaceful form [Laughs] or like that ? We can take the direct meaning. That’s simple. If you’re an impersonalist, you don’t want to accept the form of God at all, so then you have to start interpreting that to mean something else. So that’s what we call unnecessary interpretation of things.
So, that’s how we get all these debaters, and we get all these different philosophies, some of which are completely impersonal, because they end up with the wrong meanings, because they’re interpreting the Vedas, or taking only sections of the Vedas, not the complete conclusion.
2) Saratha Darsini , commentary by Vishwanath Chakrwarthy Thakur on Bhagavatam, what’s the dialogue between, how did that happen?
Where we get a question, somebody asks a question, well, why is it like that? And he answers, well, thats you will find that even Sridhara Swami does the same way. And also, even in the Brahma Sutras, this is a common thing.
We put the plural paksha and then we get the answer. So it’s a common way of presenting an idea, so there’s a statement there, and then there’s a counter-statement, or whatever like that. So this is the answer to a certain doubt, or whatever like that. So it’s a common way of explaining why certain statements are like that, in response to some certain doubt.
3) Maharaj, pramana, normally in mundane language, when we say pramana, means evidence. And we have seen evidence. So here, when we see that Bhagavatam is the chief pramana for the followers of Caitanya Mahaprabhu, so what type of evidence we are talking?
Okay, by the word pramana means evidence, we can say it also means scripture, because scripture is evidence [Laughs]. So, we want an authority, authoritative proof of a statement. So we say, Krishna is God.
Well, we need a pramana for that. So we go to scripture, and then we’ll say, ‘Krishnas tu Bhagavan svayam’, in Bhagavatam. So that’s the pramana. Bhagavatam is the pramana, and that particular statement is the pramana. It’s the proof. It’s the authoritative statement that supports my particular statement.
So we have pramana, that’s scripture in general, Vedic scripture in general, and ultimately we say, Bhagavatam is the ultimate pramana, is the ultimate evidence for us, that we can take our, refer to that for our, any statement we make, if it coincides with it.
4) Srila Prabhupada quotes Sridhara Swami quite, right now, at least. Is Sridhara Swami also from Parampara or different ?
He’s not considered to be a pure Vaishnava, because some of his commentaries tend to be a little impersonal, in the sense that he’ll take the direct meaning of things, like in Bhagavatam, like example, atma, or something.
Or Paramatma, or Krishna. He’ll just take it as Brahman, or whatever, like that. Of course, he also has sometimes he’ll say, atma means Paramatma as well. And of course, Bhagavatam is about Krishna, so therefore he says Krishna is Bhagavan also. So it’s not blatantly impersonal, but then in certain verses, he may give a more impersonal interpretation, whereas Srila Vishvanatha Chakravarti Thakura will make it all into [Laughs] a very personal thing.
So, Jiva Goswami, in his Sad sandarbhas, he says, yes, we will accept Sridhara Swami, because some of those things are very reasonable, but other things are a little bit impersonal [Laughs], so we don’t accept those [Laughs].
5) Maharaj, [not audible] some people just recite the vedas without knowing the meaning, what is the effect of it ?
If you just recite it without the meaning. Well, for Vedas, it is said unless you know the meaning, it’s useless [Laughs]. So you can recite all the Vedas and whatever, you don’t know the meaning of what it means, that the real shakti of those sounds is not going to come out properly. That’s for Vedas. Name of the Lord is different. You can chant it without knowing the meaning, like Ajamila, not thinking of Narayana at all, thinking of his son, but you still get a nice effect. So the name is very, very powerful.
6) Maharaj, you are talking about holy name which is most powerful, it could be just recited as it is without knowing the meaning, but you have also said to chant suddha naam, we need to have proper knowledge received from parampara, so for a neophyte devotee what type of knowlege is required to advance properly ?
So the name in any case has power, as we see in Ajamila’s case, he can destroy sins or whatever. If we want Prema, then we do require some knowledge. So therefore we can say, okay, chant to people and we don’t insist you have to read all scriptures, but you just chant and it helps to destroy your karmas and whatever. But when they become more serious, then we also say, well, you should read Bhagavad Gita, whatever. So the reason for that is that we can chant the name of Krishna, but we should not offend Krishna in the process, and we should also understand who Krishna is.
So many people will say, okay, I’ll chant Krishna’s name and then they’ll look up on the internet and find, okay, Krishna means he’s one of the ten avatars and he’s like a devata or something. So then they’ll think, okay, Krishna is some devata like, you know, Indra or something like that. So we’ll chant Krishna’s name, but, you know, he’s just like a devata.So that’s like also one of the offenses to the name, to consider the name of Vishnu like the name of Shiva or Brahma or whatever. So we tend to be an aparadha if we have this ignorance. So we have to know the actual identity of who we are worshipping when we say the name Krishna. That’s one thing.
The other thing is, when we say the name Krishna, you can have different goals. Everybody has a goal when they chant, whether they’re doing it for peace or they’re destroying their suffering or maybe they want to get money [Laughs]. So we have different goals, but we’re trying to tell people that the highest goal is not material, it’s not liberation, it is prema, pure service to Krishna. So to understand that requires a little bit of knowledge. To have unconditional love for Krishna is a very high concept, so but it gives the best result. So we have to convey that to people also, otherwise they start chanting for other reasons, and they can get those things because the name is the Cintamani, so it can give you all these minor things, but if you want to concentrate on prema, then we need to have specialized knowledge of what is prema. So that type of knowledge is necessary for prema.
7) Other religion people like they eat meat and it is also approved in their religion, will they also go back to Godhead ?
HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj : All people are eating meat in their own religion. Well, even in India, people following the Vedas, some of them are eating meat also [Laughs]. But, of course, we say that this is not proper. It’s a lower system, and Prabhupada also says that our provision for eating meat, you can worship Kali or Durga or something offer the meat, and then you can eat it or whatever, but at least there’s some restriction there. So that’s for some people.
On a lower stage, they could eat meat under certain restrictions. So we see in Islam and in Judaism, you could eat beef, but there’s certain restrictions on that. You have to kill it in a certain way, this and that, it has to be purified, whatever. So there’s some restriction there. So that, we can say, is a little positive aspect. Like, if you want to eat meat in the Vedic system, then you have to offer to Kali or whatever, like this, or do animal sacrifice. So there’s some restriction there. So it’s very similar. But, of course, this is a lower type of activity. Restricting people who can’t avoid eating meat [Laughs], must eat meat. But higher is that you give up that, because we want to get to sattva, and from sattva we want to get transcendental.
So it interferes with the higher consciousness, so therefore we give it up completely. So people who are on a higher level in other religions, they may give up also. So, we do find that there are some vegetarian Muslims. There are some vegetarian Christians, because they also realize that meat is not good for you. But it’s more select. So similarly, we find that, yes, the Vedas say you can eat meat, but those who are more intelligent, they will also say, no, we’re not going to eat meat. But it’s minority again. But it’s for higher knowledge, higher religions, obviously. So people are on different levels.
Devotees: HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj Ki.. Jai !!
Devotee : So before ending the Bhagavatam, there is an interesting thing you can repeat. There are three goals defined by the Acharyas to all the devotees who are following the Caitanya Mahaprabhu footsteps. So you can repeat with me, there are three goals.
Number one: To attain the lotus feet of Radha and Krishna.
Number two: To increase our own devotion.
Number three: To attain Prema for Radha and Krishna.
So if you recite one time in the morning, one time in the night, it’s very useful. Our goal is sometimes its mixed with something else. So we recollect it. Thank you very much. Hare Krishna.
Devotees: Hare Krishna !!