Srimad Bhagavatam 10.78.29-30 | HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj | ISKCON Japan | November 15, 2025 |
jaya rādhā-mādhava kuñja-vihārī
gopījana-vallabha giri-vara-dhārī
yaśodā-nandana vraja-jana-rañjana
yamunā-tīra-vana-cārī
Hare Kṛṣṇa Hare Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa Hare Hare
Hare Rāma Hare Rāma Rāma Rāma Hare Hare
Jaya Prabhupāda Jaya Prabhupāda
Prabhupāda Jaya Prabhupāda
Oṁ namo bhagavate vāsudevāya
Oṁ namo bhagavate vāsudevāya
Oṁ namo bhagavate vāsudevaya
nama oṁ viṣṇu-pādāya kṛṣṇa-preṣṭhāya bhū-tale
śrīmate bhaktivedānta-svāmin iti nāmine
namas te sārasvate deve gaura-vāṇī-pracāriṇe
nirviśeṣa-śūnyavādi-pāścātya-deśa-tāriṇe
jaya śrī-kṛṣṇa-caitanya prabhu-nityānanda
śrī-advaita gadādhara śrīvāsādi-gaura-bhakta-vṛnda
Hare Kṛṣṇa Hare Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa Hare Hare
Hare Rāma Hare Rāma Rāma Rāma Hare Hare
Reading from Srimad Bhagavatam Canto 10 Chapter 78 Verse 29.
ŚB 10.78.29
hāheti-vādinaḥ sarve
munayaḥ khinna-mānasāḥ
ūcuḥ saṅkarṣaṇaṁ devam
adharmas te kṛtaḥ prabho
Synonyms
hā-hā — “alas, alas”; iti — thus; vādinaḥ — saying; sarve — all; munayaḥ — the sages; khinna — disturbed; mānasāḥ — whose minds; ūcuḥ — they told; saṅkarṣaṇam — Balarāma; devam — the Supreme Lord; adharmaḥ — an irreligious act; te — by You; kṛtaḥ — done; prabho — O master.
Translation
All the sages cried out, “Alas, alas!” in great distress. They told Lord Saṅkarṣaṇa, “O master, You have committed an irreligious act!
Text 30
“O favorite of the Yadus, we gave him the seat of the spiritual master and promised him long life and freedom from physical pain for as long as this sacrifice continues.
Purport
Although Romaharṣaṇa was not a brāhmaṇa, having been born of a mixed marriage, he was invested with that status by the assembled sages and thus given the brahmāsana, the seat of the chief officiating priest.
HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj:
So, even though Balarama is the Supreme Lord, the brahmanas said, Oh, you committed a sin [Laughs]. This, of course, sounds a little bit contradictory. How can the brahmanas who recognize the Lord, say the Lord is doing something wrong, when He is always perfect [Laughs]? So, the reason for this statement is that, they are upset. And in that next verse, verse 30, then they explain, well, we made a promise to him that you would live a long time and have no pain, etc., and then you go and kill him. So [Laughs], now our promise is broken.
Although he was born of a lower varna, nevertheless, the brahmanas appointed him [Laughs] as the head person, the chief person for that yajna. So, Balarama then criticized Romaharshana and says, why is he sitting in this high seat in front of brahmanas, because he is a low caste. How can he do this [Laughs]? And the brahmanas said, Oh, it’s not his fault, we put him on the seat [Laughs]. Of course, they did so, because he had some sort of qualification. He was a disciple of Vedavyasa. And Vedavyasa assigned him to teach the Puranas and Mahabharata. So, even though he may not be perfect, and he was of low caste, Vedavyasa himself recognized him and appointed him. And because Vedavyasa had appointed him, then sages thought, apparently he must be very elevated, so let’s put him on the Vedavyasa’s seat and let him speak.
And nevertheless, Balarama saw a fault in him. He saw that Romaharshana had some faults. So, what this teaches us is that a person may be appointed because he is qualified. Nevertheless, he can still have faults, or even if he had no fault, later on, he can develop faults. It is very rare that, we are going to find a perfect human being. So here we see a case where Vedavyasa gave him charge of that because he was qualified, nevertheless, he did have faults. So, therefore, we can expect in this material world that people are not going to show perfect character. Nevertheless, if one is in a responsible position, it is expected he has to follow the proper conduct and display the proper knowledge. In this case, Balarama took extreme measure, he killed him [Laughs].
In other cases, we will see that, not such extreme measures are taken, and you try to correct the person. We have the example of King Vena, he was coming in the line from Manu, so then naturally he should be the king [Laughs]. Of course, everyone could see from childhood he had completely opposite qualities, he wasn’t really qualified. Nevertheless, because he was coming in the family of kings and there was no one else, everyone agreed, okay, let him be the king [Laughs]. But later on, they found he was not a very good king, so they came and they tried to correct him. Then after repeated attempts, because he was so wicked, then the brahmanas killed him [Laughs]. So, because he was so unqualified, finally they took the same step as Balarama and they killed this Vena [Laughs]. But when, we take such extreme action to solve one problem, we get another problem. So, by getting rid of king Vena, they stopped this adharma but then there was no ruler, so then the whole country became full of thieves and lawlessness [Laughs]. So then the brahmanas had to solve the problem [Laughs]. So, they produced another king, Prithu from the limbs of Vena, so they were again, same dynasty, descendent of Manu, but this obviously, Prithu was an avatar of Supreme Lord, so he could rule nicely. So, in this way, they preserved the line of kings descending from Manu. And they had a qualified king.
So, in this case where Balarama killed Romaharshana, then we have a problem. Balarama got rid of him, He killed him because he was acting with adharma. But the brahmanas at the sacrifice needed a head priest where someone to speak, and he was killed [Laughs]. And furthermore, they promised him long life, now that promise was broken. And all this happened by Balarama [Laughs], Supreme Lord did all this [Laughs]. So how to make the promise of the brahmanas not be false [Laughs] and be true, how to continue the sacrifice? Though the sages speak in this verse, in previous verse, they do recognize Balarama as the Supreme Lord, and that’s shown in the next verse. So in other words, the Lord had somehow created this problem for the brahmanas, the brahmanas are asking, please solve the problem [Laughs].
So the Supreme Lord is perfect, and He hasn’t got any faults, He cannot commit any mistakes. But some of the Lord’s action appear as if there’s a mistake or there’s a fault. So the Lord should try to correct that mistaken idea, that He has a fault. And it is not difficult for the Supreme Lord. Why? The Lord has all knowledge. So in the material world, these problems look difficult to solve. We have different people, they all have their own needs, their own interests, difficult to satisfy everybody simultaneously [Laughs]. So Balarama had to do His duty of stopping adharma, brahmanas have their need to carry on the sacrifice [Laughs]. So the Lord is the best person to solve such problems. So, we should never lose faith in the conduct of the Supreme Lord. There is a saying about Nityananda. If Nityananda goes into a liquor shop, you shouldn’t criticize Him [Laughs]. So materialists think He is going into a liquor shop, He’s going to get intoxicated against the regulative principles [Laughs]. But Nityananda’s purpose is to save all the fallen souls [Laughs].
In the first canto, Bhishma Dev says, we cannot understand the plan of the Supreme Lord. So, even great devotees have difficulty understanding why does the Lord act like this? Why does He do this [Laughs]? Why didn’t He stop the battle of Kurukshetra [Laughs]? Why didn’t He prevent the battle from taking place? Why did He allow the Pandavas to suffer banishment for 13 years [Laughs]? So, even devotees get puzzled by the actions of the Supreme Lord. However, a devotee who has great faith will not be disturbed by these actions. And of course, by having deep understanding, they can realize why the Lord does all these activities. So, we can never fully understand the plan of the Supreme Lord. [Laughs] That is natural, because He is the Supreme Lord, we cannot understand everything about Him [Laughs]. But the devotee accepts whatever the Lord does.
Hare Krishna!
Q & A
1.) Maharaj, you said that, it is difficult to understand the activities of devotees also, but how to understand this ? As the devotees are in material world, and they are doing only sadhana, so it should be easier to understand their activities.
Such a statement particularly applies to a person in Bhava or Prema. So they are simply performing their activities by the will of the Lord. And people who are in the material world expect everyone, including a devotee, to follow normal rules.
But those devotees in Bhava or Prema are beyond rules. The rules are there in scripture for people with material bodies, but these devotees are beyond the material body. They are not aware of the material body. So those devotees may not follow the normal rules everyone is expected to follow. They may not bathe every day. They may neglect everybody, ignore everybody, not follow social rules [Laughs].
So we see persons like Sukadeva Goswami or Jadabharata. So people think, oh, they are insane. But they are completely absorbed in supreme Lord. So those devotees are difficult to understand by people of this world.
2.) Can you apply the same rule to Sadhana bhaktas?
Well, of course, all devotees are respected. Because they have anarthas, they may actually have faults, or show faults. Nevertheless, a devotee understands that they are doing Sadhana Bhakti, eventually the faults will disappear. So, they don’t unnecessarily criticize and fault find.
Nevertheless, we also have to be realistic and understand they are not in the highest level, so therefore they may have faults. So we find faults in a Prema-bhakta, that may not be faults at all [Laughs]. If we see faults in a person who does Sadhana, they could be real faults [Laughs].
3.) Eventually the faults will go. In Bhagavad Gita, we see that soon he becomes a righteous, ascetic. But this soon can be in any lifetime, not in this lifetime? So will the faults disappear in this lifetime or later? That’s the question.
It will depend on the particular devotee. If he is very seriously practicing, then quickly, within this lifetime, the faults will disappear. The more the devotee advances, the less the faults will be there. If nothing happens and he has the faults later on, it means he is not advancing [Laughs]. So when Krishna says, even if one is doing sinful activity, you are still my devotee, that means that the devotee continues his serious bhakti.
And because he is doing serious bhakti, then the faults should eventually disappear. So that statement of Krishna in Bhagavad Gita, even the most sinful person is still my devotee, means a devotee commits a sin, but continues bhakti and he doesn’t do the sins again. But if he continues to do sins like everybody, then that same statement does not apply. And in fact, it can become the 7th offense of the Holy Name [Laughs]. And so the sins become even worse because of that. It becomes an offense.
4.) How about sometimes devotees are mentally sick?
Yeah, if devotees are mentally sick, again, we cannot really consider them normal person. Even the government I think if they commit a crime, they get different punishments from normal people. So, therefore, the person who is insane they don’t really hold them accountable.
But again, we cannot use that continually as an excuse every time we do a sinful activity. I’m mentally insane. I’m mentally insane. So we can’t use that excuse. I think sometimes in the courts they use that argument [Laughs]. Can’t put him in jail even though he murdered a person because he’s insane [Laughs].
Devotee: Maharaj, if a devotee is really mentally sick, and other devotees are also requesting to adjust with him as he is sick, so how much we can tolerate ?
HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj: Tough question [Laughs]. So as for how much we tolerate that, fine. If he actually is mentally sick, then maybe we have to put him in the mental hospital or something [Laughs] or at least isolate him from other devotees so that he cannot disturb people.
5.) Devotees don’t seem to have common sense sometimes, Why?
There could be different reasons for this. One of course is that, it could be slightly mentally ill [laughs]. So there are different types of personalities. And some personalities, they cannot seem to function properly in society, not just the devotee society, any society. So they’re not technically classified as mentally ill probably, but they’re kind of borderline cases.
So if those actions become repetitive for a long time, then obviously there is some block in his mind [Laughs]. So normally devotees are expected to show certain good qualities. And if someone continually shows opposite qualities, then we have to question their sincerity or their faith, etc.
6.) Today your Divine Grace mentioned that a devotee in Sadhana Ishtar, it is highly likely that he may do some offense or something. But few classes back, your Divine Grace mentioned that pure devotees can also be categorized in the Sadhana Ishtar. I mean the devotee in Sadhana Ishtar can also be considered as pure devotee. So would you like to redefine the definition of pure devotee?
So Rupa Goswami classifies pure bhakti into three categories – Sadhana, Bhava, and Prema. So we practice pure bhakti in sadhana, when we have anarthas. And in the beginning, we may have more anarthas, and when we get to practice, we have less anarthas. And in the anishtitha stage, when there are still more anarthas, one of the qualities was sometimes you lose the battle with maya [Laughs]. And at the stage of Nishtha, one of the qualities was absence of kashaya, which means absence of bad habits [Laughs].
So these are different stages of sadhana bhakti. So a person, who is practicing these principles of ‘anya abhilasitha-sunya’, etc., but he still has an anarthas. And at the beginning, more visible, and in Nishtha, less visible.
Hare Krishna !
Devotees: Grantharaj Srimad Bhagavatham Ki Jai!!! HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj Ki Jai!!! Srila Prabhupad Ki.. Jai !!