Srimad Bhagavatam – 11.11.23~24 | HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj | ISKCON Chennai | May 16, 2021
Om Namo Bhagavate Vasudevaya
Om Namo Bhagavate Vasudevaya
Om Namo Bhagavate Vasudevaya
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
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 śrīmad bhāgavatam Canto 11 Chapter 11 Verse 23-24.
ŚB 11.11.23-24
श्रद्धालुर्मत्कथा: शृण्वन् सुभद्रा लोकपावनी: ।
गायन्ननुस्मरन् कर्म जन्म चाभिनयन् मुहु: ॥ २३ ॥
मदर्थे धर्मकामार्थानाचरन् मदपाश्रय: ।
लभते निश्चलां भक्तिं मय्युद्धव सनातने ॥ २४ ॥
śraddhālur mat-kathāḥ śṛṇvan
su-bhadrā loka-pāvanīḥ
gāyann anusmaran karma
janma cābhinayan muhuḥ
mad-arthe dharma-kāmārthān
ācaran mad-apāśrayaḥ
labhate niścalāṁ bhaktiṁ
mayy uddhava sanātane
Synonyms
śraddhāluḥ — a faithful person; mat-kathāḥ — narrations about Me; śṛṇvan — hearing; su-bhadrāḥ — which are all-auspicious; loka — the entire world; pāvanīḥ — purifying; gāyan — singing; anusmaran — remembering constantly; karma — My activities; janma — My birth; ca — also; abhinayan — reliving through dramatical performances, etc.; muhuḥ — again and again; mat-arthe — for My pleasure; dharma — religious activities; kāma — sense activities; arthān — and commercial activities; ācaran — performing; mat — in Me; apāśrayaḥ — having one’s shelter; labhate — one obtains; niścalām — without deviation; bhaktim — devotional service; mayi — to Me; uddhava — O Uddhava; sanātane — dedicated to My eternal form.
Translation
My dear Uddhava, narrations of My pastimes and qualities are all-auspicious and purify the entire universe. A faithful person who constantly hears, glorifies and remembers such transcendental activities, who through dramatic performances relives My pastimes, beginning with My appearance, and who takes full shelter of Me, dedicating his religious, sensual and occupational activities for My satisfaction, certainly obtains unflinching devotional service to Me, the eternal Personality of Godhead.
Purport
Those who have faith only in the impersonal effulgent aspect of the Supreme Lord and those who have faith only in the localized Supersoul, the perfect object of mystic meditation located in the heart of every living entity, are considered to be limited and imperfect in their transcendental realization. The process of mystic meditation and impersonal philosophical speculation are both devoid of actual love of God and therefore cannot be considered to be the perfection of human life. Only one who places full faith in the Supreme Personality of Godhead becomes qualified to go back home, back to Godhead.
Lord Kṛṣṇa’s pastimes of stealing butter from the elderly gopīs, enjoying life with His cowherd boyfriends and the young gopīs, playing His flute and engaging in the rāsa dance, etc., are all-auspicious spiritual activities, and they are fully described in the Tenth Canto of this work. There are many authorized songs and prayers glorifying these pastimes of the Lord, and by constantly chanting them one will automatically be fixed in smaraṇam, or remembrance of the Supreme Personality of Godhead. The Lord exhibited His opulences upon His birth in Kaṁsa’s prison and at the birth ceremony subsequently performed by Nanda Mahārāja in Gokula. The Lord further performed many adventurous activities, such as chastising the serpent Kāliya and killing many other demons. One should regularly take part in the ceremonies commemorating Kṛṣṇa’s pastimes, such as the Janmāṣṭamī celebration glorifying the Lord’s birth. On such days one should worship the Deity of Lord Kṛṣṇa and the spiritual master and thus remember the Lord’s pastimes.
The word dharma in this verse indicates that one’s religious activities should always be in connection with Kṛṣṇa. Therefore, one should give charity in the form of food grains, clothing, etc., to the Vaiṣṇavas and brāhmaṇas, and whenever possible one should arrange for the protection of cows, who are very dear to the Lord. The word kāma indicates that one should satisfy one’s desires with the transcendental paraphernalia of the Lord. One should eat mahā-prasādam, food offered to the Deity of Lord Kṛṣṇa, and one should also decorate oneself with the Lord’s flower garlands and sandalwood pulp and should place the remnants of the Deity’s clothing on one’s body. One who lives in a luxurious mansion or apartment should convert his residence into a temple of Lord Kṛṣṇa and invite others to come, chant before the Deity, hear Bhagavad-gītā and Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam and taste the remnants of the Lord’s food, or one may live in a beautiful temple building in the community of Vaiṣṇavas and engage in the same activities. The word artha in this verse indicates that one who is inclined toward business should accumulate money to promote the missionary work of the Lord’s devotees and not for one’s personal sense gratification. Thus one’s business activities are also considered to be devotional service to Lord Kṛṣṇa. The word niścalām indicates that since Lord Kṛṣṇa is eternally fixed in perfect knowledge and bliss, there is no possibility of disturbance for one who worships the Lord. If we worship anything except the Lord, our worship may be disturbed when our worshipable deity is placed in an awkward position. But because the Lord is supreme, our worship of Him is eternally free of disturbance.
One who engages in hearing, glorifying, remembering and dramatically recreating the pastimes of the Lord will soon be freed from all material desire. Śrīla Jīva Gosvāmī mentions in this connection that one who is advanced in Kṛṣṇa consciousness may specifically be attracted to the pastimes of a devotee in the spiritual world who serves the Lord in a particular way. An advanced devotee in this world may desire to serve the Lord in the same way and thus may take pleasure in dramatically reliving the service of his worshipable devotee-master in the spiritual world. Also, one may take pleasure in spiritual festivals, performances of particular pastimes of Lord Kṛṣṇa, or activities of other devotees of the Lord. In this way, one can continually increase one’s faith in the Personality of Godhead. Those who have no desire to hear, glorify or remember the transcendental activities of the Lord are certainly materially polluted and never achieve the highest perfection. Such persons spoil the opportunity of human life by devoting themselves to fleeting mundane topics that produce no eternal benefit. The real meaning of religion is to constantly serve the Supreme Personality of Godhead, whose form is eternal, full of bliss and knowledge. One who has taken full shelter of the Lord is completely uninterested in impersonal speculations about the nature of God and uses his time to advance more and more in the unlimited bliss of pure devotional service.
HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj:
So in these two verses, we got a description of direct bhakti. So I described yesterday how you can offer the results of your work to the Lord. But that is considered to be a lesser type of activity than this direct bhakti. So we do the activities of Varanasram and we get some results offered to the Lord. So the activity is a Varanasramic activity, but we are altering it by offering it to the Lord. So there is nothing wrong with that. That is always beneficial to use everything for the Lord.
At the same time, the activity itself, its whole purpose was designed as a means of approaching bhakti. So within that system, there is a goal of material enjoyment. So the main goal is not surrender to the Lord. So the essence of Karma Yoga or Varnashram is not bhakti / surrender. Certainly there are elements of bhakti within that system. But the whole system is designed for people who do not have faith. So the whole essence of that system is not bhakti. But we can purify those activities, spiritualize those activities by offering them to the Lord.
So now we come to direct bhakti. So as mentioned in this verse, we have activities like singing the glories of the Lord or remembering or hearing the glories of the Lord. So these are called direct bhakti. The activity does not have to be converted to make it bhakti. So the process of bhakti is formulated for giving pleasure to the Lord.
The goal of Varnashrama is to give pleasure to your senses. So the two processes are quite different. But within Varnashrama, of course, you worship Vishnu or Krishna also. And then within bhakti, we do archana, we worship the deity form. So they would say Varnashrama means worship of the Lord, So it is same as bhakti. But NO ! the goal of worshipping Vishnu or Krishna in Varnashrama system is different. That worship is to help them attain their material goals. Of course, when we start Nishkama Karma Yoga and then we also worship the Lord, this is getting very close to real bhakti.
On the other hand, we do have the direct angas of bhakti, but we can contaminate them also. So we can perform worship of the Lord, hearing and chanting, but we can have some material desire to fulfill through that. So this is not pure bhakti. So this impure bhakti can be compared to the bhakti within the Varnashram system. However, a little difference is there. In the Varnashram system, bhakti there is a minor element. So it assists the karma. If we do bhakti, this is the main element. And of course, we may have some material desires. So of course, we say that it is better to do pure bhakti than this mixed one. Once we are doing this bhakti as our main process, we can also do the Karma Yoga in Varnashrama system. But if we bring material goals into it, then this will contaminate the bhakti.
So therefore, in this verse here, I think verse 24, second of the two verses, it says, you do the Dharma and the Kama and the Artha on our day for the Lord. So we’re trying to give up those material desires, even if we’re doing the Varnashrama activity. We can do pure bhakti and we can do the Karma Yoga activities also, as long as we don’t have material desires mixed into those activities of Karma Yoga.
If we start to mix in the desires for material enjoyment also, then this will contaminate. We can do the bhakti without the Varnashrama. But we can still make it impure, because we can have material desires to achieve even in bhakti itself without doing Varnashrama. So therefore, the point is, not whether we do Varnashrama or don’t do Varnashrama, but rather that we don’t mix the material desires.
So, in this way, here in these verses, Krishna is instructing Uddhava to do the process of pure bhakti. So, he doesn’t mention all of the activities, he just mentions a few of them. So, he mentions hearing and chanting and remembering. And these have to be done with faith. If we do the activities without faith, then again, this is not pure bhakti. So, we do have to do these activities in the proper way, then we get the proper result. If we do them in the proper way, then we get the proper result, which is Prema. If we do mixed bhakti or anything else and contaminate it, we do not get that.
So therefore, we have to follow the process as instructed by Krishna himself. If we follow that process, we get niścalā bhakti, eternal bhakti, permanent bhakti. If we follow a different process, we do not get that same type of bhakti.
Hare Krishna !
Q & A:
1.) Maharaj, how do we know the level of faith? Because you said with faith and without faith. How does a sadhaka understand his level of faith?
Well, if we do not have faith, it will be very difficult for us to practice bhakti very long. Certainly we can practice bhakti for some time because we are getting some material result so it can be we have some impetus to worship. Then after sometime we can think okay for quick results let me worship Lord Shiva or Ganesha or somebody else .If we do that means we have no faith. So the sign of faith is that we can steadily perform bhakti.
2.) Maharaj this is with reference to the Lecture in Srimad Bhagavatam 2.9.2 – 2.9.3 given by Srila Prabhupada. In that Srila Prabhupada refers to eternity. I will just read out the phrase – “Generally those who are living with Krishna or Vaikunta, never fall down, but those who are in effulgence of Krishna, in the impersonal Brahman, they fall down. Because it is the propensity of the living entity to enjoy. But one cannot enjoy . There is no ananda. Those who are merging in the Brahman effulgence, they are getting the department of eternity.” So the question is, what does that eternity mean in this message?
We know that the Lord is Sat-Cit -Ananda. If we realize Brahman, we can realize the Sat or the eternal aspect. But we do not realize the form, qualities or activities of the Lord. But we realize the eternal existence of the Lord.
3.) Maharaj, pure karma yoga, that is offering all the results to Krishna and yukta-vairagya, are they one and the same?
Offering the results of karma if we are in the Varnashrama system then we get some results for the things that we offer. If we are a devotee, we may be practicing varnashram or we may not be practicing varnashram. But if we get items, we can utilize them for the Lord. So it is quite similar.
4.) Why nishkama karma if not higher than jnana yoga. Because it is mentioned that through nishkama karma, that a sadhaka attains jnana yoga and then bhakti whereas in nishkama, there is worship of personal form of the Lord. So why nishkama is not higher than jnana yoga?
Ofcourse Nishkama karma yoga will have three levels, but it is still within the varnashrama system. So there is no direct practice to get liberation. So certainly there is very little desire but still some desire remains. So Jnana Yoga attempts to get rid of all those material desires completely. His direct goal is liberation. So the Nishkama Karma Yogi can also aspire for liberation. When he does so, that he will transform his activities into Jnana Yoga.
5.) Giving up completely material activities may be difficult to most of the people. In such situations how to make them get attracted to devotion?
As these verses now we are studying explain, you can do the activities in Varanashram but you offer the results to the Lord. So you don’t have to give up family, work and society. But we try to engage everything in Krishna’s service.
6.) Maharaj, how to bring those who don’t have Shraddha to Krishna Consciousness? As in translation it’s mentioned, those who are faithful will listen to the pastimes of the Lord. So one who doesn’t have that Shraddha, how to bring them?
All we can do is expose them to things related to Krishna. So they can hear the holy name , take prasadam and see the deity. When they get enough exposure then they can get some faith.
7.) Maharaj, both the translation and purport of today’s verse elaborated the different ways in which one can be engaged in Devotional service. Since all of this is not possible to do for an individual all by himself can we conclude that devotion is best practiced in community of devotees with different propensities?
The emphasis of this verse is we should do hearing, Chanting and remembering. And if you are following Varnashram or even not following Varnashram, somehow you should engage all your activities for this purpose that’s all.
8.) Maharaj, why Nishkama Karma Yogi move from personal worship of form to impersonal worship in Jnana Yoga?
The person may go from Nishkama Karma Yoga to Bhakti. He doesn’t have to go to Jnana. But one can perform bhakti from any level like karma yoga, Jnana yoga , astanga yoga or nothing at all. So, if one has to do Nishkama Karma Yoga, so there is a little Bhakti there and perhaps you offer your results to the Lord, whatever. But that Bhakti can also continue even in Jnana. And you can do Jnana Yoga and you can also worship Krishna to get liberation.
Devotee: Thanks a lot, Maharaj. Thank you so much. Hare Krishna, Maharaj.
Devotee: Granthraj Sri Srimad Bhagavatam ki Jai. His Holiness Banu Swami Maharaj ki Jai. His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Srila Prabhupad ki Jai. Nitai Gaura Premanande HariHaribol.