Srimad Bhagavatam 2.1.39 | HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj | ISKCON Chennai | 12 April 2026
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 vāsudevāya
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 2 Chapter 1 Verse 39.
ŚB 2.1.39
sa sarva-dhī-vṛtty-anubhūta-sarva
ātmā yathā svapna-janekṣitaikaḥ
taṁ satyam ānanda-nidhiṁ bhajeta
nānyatra sajjed yata ātma-pātaḥ
Synonyms
saḥ — He (the Supreme Person); sarva-dhī-vṛtti — the process of realization by all sorts of intelligence; anubhūta — cognizant; sarve — everyone; ātmā — the Supersoul; yathā — as much as; svapna-jana — a person dreaming; īkṣita — seen by; ekaḥ — one and the same; tam — unto Him; satyam — the Supreme Truth; ānanda-nidhim — the ocean of bliss; bhajeta — must one worship; na — never; anyatra — anything else; sajjet — be attached; yataḥ — whereby; ātma-pātaḥ — degradation of oneself.
Translation
One should concentrate his mind upon the Supreme Personality of Godhead, who alone distributes Himself in so many manifestations just as ordinary persons create thousands of manifestations in dreams. One must concentrate the mind on Him, the only all-blissful Absolute Truth. Otherwise one will be misled and will cause his own degradation.
Purport
In this verse, the process of devotional service is indicated by the great gosvāmī Śrīla Śukadeva. He tries to impress upon us that instead of diverting our attention to several branches of self-realization, we should concentrate upon the Supreme Personality of Godhead as the supreme object of realization, worship and devotion. Self-realization is, as it were, offering a fight for eternal life against the material struggle for existence, and therefore by the illusory grace of the external energy, the yogī or the devotee is faced with many allurements which can entangle a great fighter again in the bondage of material existence. A yogī can attain miraculous successes in material achievements, such as aṇimā and laghimā, by which one can become more minute than the minutest or lighter than the lightest, or in the ordinary sense, one may achieve material benedictions in the shape of wealth and women. But one is warned against such allurements because entanglement again in such illusory pleasure means degradation of the self and further imprisonment in the material world. By this warning, one should follow one’s vigilant intelligence only.
The Supreme Lord is one, and His expansions are various. He is therefore the Supersoul of everything. When a man sees anything, he must know that his seeing is secondary and the Lord’s seeing is primary. One cannot see anything without the Lord’s having first seen it. That is the instruction of the Vedas and the Upaniṣads. So whatever we see or do, the Supersoul of all acts of seeing or doing is the Lord. This theory of simultaneous oneness and difference between the individual soul and the Supersoul is propounded by Lord Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu as the philosophy of acintya-bhedābheda-tattva. The virāṭ-rūpa, or the gigantic feature of the Supreme Lord, includes everything materially manifested, and therefore the virāṭ or gigantic feature of the Lord is the Supersoul of all living and nonliving entities. But the virāṭ-rūpa is also the manifestation of Nārāyaṇa or Viṣṇu, and going further on and on one will eventually see that Lord Kṛṣṇa is the ultimate Supersoul of everything that be. The conclusion is that one should unhesitatingly become a worshiper of Lord Kṛṣṇa, or, for that matter, His plenary expansion Nārāyaṇa, and none else. In the Vedic hymns, it is clearly said that first of all Nārāyaṇa cast a glance over matter and thus there was creation. Before creation, there was neither Brahmā nor Śiva, and what to speak of others. Śrīpāda Śaṅkarācārya has definitely accepted this, that Nārāyaṇa is beyond the material creation and that all others are within the material creation. The whole material creation, therefore, is one with and different from Nārāyaṇa, simultaneously, and this supports the acintya-bhedābheda-tattva philosophy of Lord Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu. Being an emanation from the glancing potency of Nārāyaṇa, the whole material creation is nondifferent from Him. But because it is the effect of His external energy (bahiraṅgā māyā) and is aloof from the internal potency (ātma-māyā), the whole material creation is different from Him at the same time. The example given in this verse very nicely is that of the dreaming man. The dreaming man creates many things in his dream, and thus he himself becomes the entangled seer of the dream and is also affected by the consequences. This material creation is also exactly a dreamlike creation of the Lord, but He, being the transcendental Supersoul, is neither entangled nor affected by the reactions of such a dreamlike creation. He is always in His transcendental position, but essentially He is everything, and nothing is apart from Him. As a part of Him, one should therefore concentrate on Him only, without deviation; otherwise one is sure to be overcome by the potencies of the material creation, one after another. It is confirmed in the Bhagavad-gītā (9.7) as follows:
sarva-bhūtāni kaunteya
prakṛtiṁ yānti māmikām
kalpa-kṣaye punas tāni
kalpādau visṛjāmy aham
“O son of Kuntī, at the end of the millennium every material manifestation enters into My nature, and at the beginning of another millennium, by My potency, I again create.”
The human life, however, is an opportunity to get out of this repetition of creation and annihilation. It is a means whereby one may escape the Lord’s external potency and enter into His internal potency.
Thus end the Bhaktivedanta purports of the Second Canto, First Chapter, of the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, entitled “The First Step in God Realization.”
HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj:
So the injunction or order given in this verse which is the last verse of this chapter is that one should worship the Supreme Lord who is the ocean of bliss. And one should not be attached to anything else. Because if one is attached to anything else one will fall into the material world. So why should we worship the Supreme Lord? Because He is the source of everything. He is the cause of all consciousness. And thus if we concentrate on that supreme consciousness we can also attain the same state.
So Prabhupada mentions in the purport that people may concentrate on the material energy of the Lord. And this is maybe the most common way in which people exist in the material world. And many people will say, what’s wrong with that? But Prabhupada at the end of the purport says, the problem is that you go into continual creation and destruction. So no matter how attracted and fascinated we are with this material creation, how much we study it, it gets destroyed. And we get destroyed.
So better we strive for some permanency. Of course in one sense everything is permanent. We know that the jivas are eternal. Prakriti is eternal. However Prakriti continually changes. In other words we have material energy in itself being eternal but it keeps transforming. The jiva is eternal like Prakriti but conscious. Supreme Lord is eternal and conscious also. What is the difference between the jiva and the Supreme Lord? So the jiva becomes attracted to the manifestations of Prakriti.
And as Prabhupada mentions here, it’s like a dream. And though in that dream you identify completely with everything in the dream, ultimately it is insubstantial. So it cannot give any satisfaction to the jiva. So this dream is a type of ignorance. And this ignorance cannot give bliss. Supreme Lord is not at all attracted to this material energy. So this is the difference between the jiva and Supreme Lord. Supreme Lord is eternally fixed in His supreme consciousness.
So the jiva in the material world as I said is under ignorance or like in a dream and consequently this cannot be real happiness. When he wakes up from the dream then he can be satisfied. So how does he wake up? So Srila Prabhupada mentions here that ultimately the ability of the jiva to know and to do is ultimately caused by the Lord. And thus if the Lord gives us mercy, we can recover from that ignorance.
So how do we recover from that ignorance? So in the beginning of course we cannot come to the realization, I am not the body, we cannot realize the form of the Supreme Lord. And we cannot concoct our own process. So the Lord gives us different methods. These are the methods mentioned in the scriptures..And as we see in Bhagavatam and in Bhagavad Gita, Krishna mentions karma yoga, jnana yoha, astanga yoga and bhakti yoga. And in this chapter Sukadeva Goswami is explaining the process of astanga yoga. And what do you have to do? You have to meditate on Supreme Lord. And this is the process by which gradually we can realize that Supreme Lord. We can get out of the ignorance by following this particular method.
So we have meditation on the Supreme Lord as the universal form. We have meditation on the Supreme Lord as Paramatma. Of the two, meditation on Paramatma is superior. So this is part of the astanga yoga process. Superior to this is meditation on the form of Bhagavan. So this is the process of bhakti yoga. So this is the most direct way in which we can overcome that illusion and ignorance. And this is the main message that Sukadeva Goswami is communicating to Pariksit Maharaj. Of course, he mentions the indirect process, meditating on virat rupa, meditating on Paramatma. So these are steps leading to meditation on Bhagavan.
Of course, meditation on Bhagavan means, of course, worship of Bhagavan. All types of bhakti are ultimately to always remember the Lord and never forget Him. So hearing, chanting, remembering, etc, all these different processes, ultimately so we can meditate on the Lord. And if one can constantly think of the Lord, what happens? One attains the Lord. So this is the process by which we can get out of this ignorance and illusion of the material world.
Of course, then we have within this Bhakti Yoga, we also have hierarchy of processes. And in Bhagavatam and in the teachings of Caitanya Mahaprabhu, then we see that Nama Sankirtan is the highest and most powerful process in bhakti yoga. So all processes of bhakti are glorified, but ultimately we are recommended to follow the process of Nama Sankirtan. And to emphasize that, then Lord Caitanya says, only Nama Sankirtan, nothing else. No karma yoga, no jnana yoga, no astanga yoga. Of course, it is very similar to what Krishna says in Bhagavad Gita, give up all dharmas, just surrender unto Me.
So, in other words, the ultimate process is bhakti yoga, and in the process of bhakti yoga, chanting the name of the Lord is the highest process. All the names of the Lord are absolute. All the forms of the Lord are absolute. Nevertheless, Bhagavatam points out that the form of Krishna and His pastimes are the highest. And similarly, we can chant all the names of the Lord, but ultimately the highest name is Krishna.
So people say, why only Krishna’s name? Why are you chanting only Krishna’s name? So, of course, this is Lord Caitanya. But then we see, not just Lord Caitanya, the scripture itself is saying this. So, at the end of the Vishnu Sahasranama, there it says that a thousand names of Vishnu are there, but one name of Rama is equal to a thousand names of Vishnu. So, thus, the name of Rama is superior to the names of Vishnu. But then, in the Brahma Vaivarta purana, it says three names of Rama equal to one name of Krishna. And thus, name of Krishna is supreme. And thus Lord Caitanya recommends that we chant the name of Krishna. Of course, by doing so, He does not forbid chanting other names of the Lord. But we mainly concentrate on the name of Krishna, in order to realize Krishna.
So, though realization of Krishna is very rare, it becomes easy by chanting the name of Krishna. So, this becomes the easiest way of meditating on Krishna. And thus, it is the easiest way in which we can implement this instruction given in this verse.
Hare Krishna!
Q & A :
1.) Maharaj, you were saying that the dream is a product of the ignorance. But we see in the dream also, sometimes people get medicine, herbs and sometimes people get the mantras. So, can you also say that these are also kinds of things coming from the ignorance? You know, dream is a product of ignorance. But sometimes in the dream, they get the medicine, mantras and other things. And how can you say that it is also out of ignorance?
The normal dream is part of your sleep process and sleep itself is part of ignorance. We see that Maha Vishnu is lying on the ocean, karana ocean in yoga nidra. He is also sleeping, but that’s not ignorance. So, that is called samadhi. So, it may look like sleep, but actually it is quite different. So, great devotees in prema also may look like they are sleeping, but they are actually in samadhi. And therefore, their so-called dream is actually spiritual vision. People in the material world, however, are subject to dreams which are under the mode of ignorance. Devotees who are not in prema, but who are practicing devotees, may get some inspiration from the Supreme Lord in a dream. Or they could get it in a waking state. In either case, it’s not under ignorance.
2.) Maharaj, you were saying that, this one name of Rama is equal to thousand names of Vishnu, and one name of Krishna is equal to three names of Rama. And we are making some differentiation here. But we know that Lord’s name is absolute. All the names are absolute. And how this differentiation is, where it is wrong. Can we make differentiation? Because all are absolute. And if we give this comparison, some people might ask, how can you compare the Lord’s name? Because all are in absolute platform.
We can raise the same objection to say, why Krishna form, form of Krishna is superior to the form of Rama or Vishnu? Because all Bhagavan are absolute. And ultimately, they are Bhagavan, and there is only one Bhagavan. So, it is meaningless to say that this Bhagavan is superior to that Bhagavan, because there is one. However, the Lord, by His inconceivable shakti, has manifested different forms. So though the Lord is one, He has different forms. So, we cannot say that the form of Narasimha Dev is exactly the same as Krishna. It’s different. So, one Bhagavan with different forms. Similarly, in each of these forms, the Lord manifests different amounts of qualities. So very prominent in Narasimha Dev pastimes is His ferocity. We do not see such ferocity in Krishna or Rama, even though they also kill demons. So, therefore, the Lord is one, but He manifests different forms, and in these different forms, He manifests different amounts of qualities. And of course, because it is one Lord, we cannot say that the qualities are absent in one and present in another. They have all the qualities, but in that particular form, they don’t display. So, even though the Lord is one, because there are different forms manifesting different amounts of qualities, we can class those forms according to how many qualities they manifest. So, because Krishna manifests all the qualities, we put Him at the top. Because Rama manifests almost the same qualities, we put Him next. So, in this way, though the Lord is one and He is absolute, we can categorize the different forms of the Lord according to amounts of qualities they manifest. And by chanting the name of Krishna, you can realize Krishna manifesting all the qualities. You chant the name Rama, you can manifest Rama with slightly less qualities. But because they are all one Bhagavan, the jiva can choose any of these forms and be completely satisfied.
3.) Hare Krishna Maharaj. Thank you for the class Maharaj. Maharaj, at the end you were mentioning that chanting is the best way of meditation on Krishna in this age. So Maharaj, we see that everyday chanting we do regularly but this meditation part does not happen much. So, how does these two go together Maharaj?
So, it says in kirtan, it is not just kirtan, we also have sravanam and smaranam. So, when you chant the Lord’s name, you also hear it, you also remember the Lord. And the more you can remember the Lord when you chant, the more successful you are. At perfection, you chant the name of the Lord and the Lord manifests. So, He spontaneously appears before the devotee. So, that meditation on the Lord is a precursor to the manifestation of the Lord.
4.) Hare Krishna Maharaj. Maharaj, there are different avatars of the Lord, Bhagavan, and all are called Bhagavan. So, you said devotees are attracted to each form according to their taste. But we also see that Bhagavatam, Vishnu purana, these comes in the sattvic purana. But Vamana purana comes under rajasic and likewise Matsya and Kurma comes under tamasic. So, although they are also Bhagavan, why do they come under rajasic and tamasic purana?
So, the puranas are classified according to gunas, according to the prominence, of subject. So, puranas which prominently glorify Shiva and Agni and pitras are classified as tamasic puranas. Those which glorify Brahma are called rajasic puranas. Those which prominently glorify Vishnu are called sattvic puranas. But even in tamasic puranas, we will find glorification of Vishnu.
5.) Maharaj, there’s a sincere devotee who does seva very sincerely. But right now that devotee’s position is very critical. That devotee is not physically well and because of this problematic situation, the devotee has gradually lost faith in Lord also. So at this time period, how can we help that devotee?
So, if a person loses faith, then ultimately he loses his enthusiasm to perform bhakti. And he loses his taste for serving. And the only way he can improve is by increasing his taste. And the increased taste comes when he performs more bhakti. So in that position, it’s a little bit difficult bht atleast he should not commit aparadhas. And one can give him some good association.
6.) Hare Krishna Maharaj, this is from yesterday’s class. Can we say that āropa-siddha bhakti and nishkama bhakti both are same?
Nishkama bhakti? No, no. Āropa-siddha bhakti is not bhakti in itself but it’s modified. Nishkama bhakti or pure bhakti is bhakti itself. Hearing, chanting, remembering, etc, it doesn’t need any modification.
Devotees: Grantharaj Srimad Bhagavatam ki jai!!! HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj ki jai!!! His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Srila Prabhupada ki jai!!! Nitai Gaura premanande Hari Haribol!!!