Srimad Bhagavatam 2.2.36 | HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj | ISKCON Chennai | 23 May 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 2 Verse 36.
ŚB 2.2.36
tasmāt sarvātmanā rājan
hariḥ sarvatra sarvadā
śrotavyaḥ kīrtitavyaś ca
smartavyo bhagavān nṛṇām
Synonyms
tasmāt — therefore; sarva — all; ātmanā — soul; rājan — O King; hariḥ — the Lord; sarvatra — everywhere; sarvadā — always; śrotavyaḥ — must be heard; kīrtitavyaḥ — glorified; ca — also; smartavyaḥ — be remembered; bhagavān — the Personality of Godhead; nṛṇām — by the human being.
Translation
O King, it is therefore essential that every human being hear about, glorify and remember the Supreme Lord, the Personality of Godhead, always and everywhere.
Purport
Śrīla Śukadeva Gosvāmī begins this verse with the word tasmāt, or “therefore,” because in the previous verse he has already explained that there is no auspicious means for salvation other than the sublime process of bhakti-yoga. The bhakti-yoga process is practiced by the devotees in different methods like hearing, chanting, remembering, serving the lotus feet of the Lord, worshiping, praying, rendering service in love, becoming friendly, and offering all that one may possess. All nine methods are bona fide methods, and either all of them, some of them or even one of them can bring about the desired result for the sincere devotee. But out of all the nine different methods, the first one, namely hearing, is the most important function in the process of bhakti-yoga. Without hearing sufficiently and properly, no one can make any progress by any of the methods of practice. And for hearing only, all the Vedic literatures are there, compiled by authorized persons like Vyāsadeva, who is the powerful incarnation of Godhead. And since it has been ascertained that the Lord is the Supersoul of everything, He should therefore be heard and glorified everywhere and always. That is the special duty of the human being. When the human being gives up the process of hearing about the all-pervading Personality of Godhead, he becomes victim to hearing rubbish transmitted by man-made machines. Machinery is not bad because through the machine one can take advantage of hearing about the Lord, but because machinery is used for ulterior purposes, it is creating rapid degradation in the standard of human civilization. It is said here that it is incumbent upon the human beings to hear because the scriptures like Bhagavad-gītā and Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam are made for that purpose. Living beings other than human beings have no ability to hear such Vedic literatures. If human society gives itself to the process of hearing the Vedic literature, it will not become a victim to the impious sounds vibrated by impious men who degrade the standards of the total society. Hearing is solidified by the process of chanting. One who has perfectly heard from the perfect source becomes convinced about the all-pervading Personality of Godhead and thus becomes enthusiastic in glorifying the Lord. All the great ācāryas, like Rāmānuja, Madhva, Caitanya, Sarasvatī Ṭhākura or even, in other countries, Muhammad, Christ and others, have all extensively glorified the Lord by chanting always and in every place. Because the Lord is all-pervading, it is essential to glorify Him always and everywhere. In the process of glorifying the Lord there should be no restriction of time and space. This is called sanātana-dharma or bhāgavata-dharma. Sanātana means eternal, always and everywhere. Bhāgavata means pertaining to Bhagavān, the Lord. The Lord is the master of all time and all space, and therefore the Lord’s holy name must be heard, glorified and remembered everywhere in the world. That will bring about the desired peace and prosperity so eagerly awaited by the people of the world. The word ca includes all the remaining processes or methods of bhakti-yoga, as mentioned above.
HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj:
So this is actually a very famous verse. It’s often quoted to show what the process of Bhakti consists of. So all these different processes, Karma Yoga, Jnana Yoga, Astanga Yoga and Bhakti Yoga, consist of different activities. So for Karma Yoga, we have various varnashrama duties one has to perform. For Jnana Yoga, you have to study the Upanishads. And the Yoga practice was described in this chapter, in which you have to meditate, control your senses and breath. So similarly, Bhakti Yoga has activities also which define its very nature. So though there are many activities, the activities are all centered on the Supreme Lord. And therefore, in this verse, it talks about bhagavan srotavyah, the Supreme Lord must be heard about. He must be glorified. He must be remembered.
So, of course, we have other processes of Bhakti, nine process of Bhakti, or 64 angas of Bhakti, it’s all aimed at pleasure of the Supreme Lord. And in other processes, that is not so. So previously, the Yoga process was described. It was not centered on the Supreme Lord. And if we do Karma Yoga activities also, they are not centered on the Lord. Furthermore, with their activities centered on the Lord and these involve our senses. So srotavya, hearing, involves the ear. Kirtan involves the voice. Remembering involves the mind. So this, of course, is actually the definition given for Sadhana Bhakti. The definition of Sadhana Bhakti is engaging the senses to attain Bhava, realization of the Lord. So, we see that the process of Yoga described was quite opposite. It was not concentrating on engaging the senses, it was stopping the senses and stopping the mind. And in that Yoga process, you begin to merge your senses into the elements, and the elements into Prakriti etc.
So, in Bhakti Yoga process, there is never any directions to merge your hearing and your voice into Prakriti or anything. If we merge everything, then there is no activity at all. The devotees, on the other hand, do not give up using their ear, or their voice, or their mind. Rather, that Bhakti process is eternal and in the spiritual world, they also use their ear, their voice and their mind. So, in the second line, it talks about, you should do this sarvatra and sarvada, everywhere and at all times. So, we do it when we are in the material world, we also do it in the spiritual world. The activities of Jnana Yoga, for instance, of studying Upanishads, continue until we get to Brahman. When we get Brahman, we give up those activities completely. When we attain perfection through Jnana or Yoga, we give up those processes. They are not eternal. We do Karma Yoga to get to Swarga loka. When we get to Swarga Yoga, we don’t do any Karma Yoga [Laughs]. So in this way, these processes for the individual do not continue eternally. When you get perfection, you give them up. When we do the process of Bhakti, when we get perfection and Prema, we do not give up the activities at all. And when we give up the material body, we go to spiritual world, we get a spiritual body, we continue the activities. So, the activities continue, they are eternal. And they are practiced everywhere.
This cannot be said of Karma Yoga, Jnana Yoga or Astanga Yoga. All of these processes require a particular place. And they require a particular qualification of the people. So not everyone is qualified for Karma Yoga, Jnana Yoga or Astanga Yoga. So there is always limitation on these processes. But the process of Bhakti Yoga is for everywhere. No limitation of place. We can do it on Earth, we can do it in hellish planets, we can do it in heavenly planets, we can do it in spiritual world, everywhere. And in fact we see that Bhakti is done everywhere.
And on Earth planet, we have Earth planet, we have different Varshas, we have different Dwipas. So Bhakti Yoga is present on all the Dwipas and all the Varshas. So apart from that, it is available for all types of people. Of course, we see there is different divisions. We have rakshasas and asuras and danavas and gandharvas and apsaras and kim purushas and satyas and kinnaras and devatas and human beings, all sorts of entities, they can all do Bhakti. And among human beings, the mlecchas and the yavanas and the swapachas, the dog eaters, as well as all people in Varnashrama can do Bhakti.
Our Acharyas also say, even the animals can do Bhakti [Laughs]. So they give the example of Hanuman and Garuda [Laughs]. So available for all types of people. And the people throughout their life can do. So we have people doing it in the womb. We have Prahlada hearing in the womb. And Dhruva worshipping the Lord as a young boy, 5 years old. And we find old people doing it, young people doing it, people dying also do it, as we see in the case of Ajamila.
So the process is for everyone in all ages, everywhere in this universe. And more important, it continues in the spiritual world. And all these activities are concentrating on the Supreme Lord. Of course, concentrated with anukulya, favourable attitude. We know that Sishupala remembers the Lord, but it’s hatred. He remembers in hatred, not favourable. So certainly even that is favourable, in one sense or it’s beneficial, but it gives different results. And thus it is said in 7th canto, that one can approach the Lord with hatred or anger or fear or whatever, and still you get some benefit. But we don’t call that Bhakti. Which means if you do Bhakti and you have favourable attitude, you get better result.
So this process is the only process that you can do everywhere at all times. So it’s eternal in the material world and in the spiritual world. But of course, that’s as far as the practice is concerned or the action. But the result is what is most unique. Sadhana Bhakti leads to Prema. Karma, Jnana and Yoga do not lead to Prema. And if you do remembering of the Lord, but in hatred or fear or whatever, you get some result, but you don’t get Prema. But if you glorify the Lord, hear about the Lord, remember the Lord with that favourable affectionate attitude, then you get Prema.
So in this way, Sukadeva Goswami, though he has described the process of Yoga in some detail in this chapter, he is concluding the whole chapter by glorifying Bhakti Yoga instead. We see that originally Sukadeva Goswami was more or less a Jnani. So he knows all about liberation etc. But then he gave all that up on hearing Bhagavatam. And he became a great devotee.
So Parikshit Maharaj asked him, what should a person do when he is dying? And this verse gives a nice answer. So you hear about the Lord, glorify the Lord and remember the Lord. So though he described Yoga, ultimately he is not much interested in that. And though he was in a liberated state, he knows all about liberation and Jnana and Yoga etc, and he has just described it, he has no interest in it. So by that, he shows the superiority of the process of Bhakti. And that is his conclusion here.
Hare Krishna!
Q & A :
1.) Hare Krishna Maharaj. Maharaj, I heard in one class, I just want to get your confirmation on this. That the first living entity of the universe is lord Brahma and whatever heads he has, is the dimension of that universe. For example, we have, Brahma has 4 heads, so this material world has 4 dimensions. X, Y, Z and 4th is time. So the other person was speaking that if the Brahma has 10 heads, then the dimension of the universe is 10. The universe has 10 dimensions. So is it correct Maharaj?
HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj: 10 dimensions?
Devotee: [Not audible].
HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj: Oh, not stated anywhere in scripture [Laughs]. So if he has 4 heads, we have 4 dimensions? Is that what you are saying?
Devotee: [Not audible].
HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj: No.
2.) Hare Krishna Maharaj. Thank you for a wonderful session. How you brought this, explained this verse in context of the whole chapter Maharaj. Maharaj, there is this section in the purport where Prabhupada is writing, when the human beings give up the process of hearing about the all-pervading personality of Godhead, he becomes victim to hearing rubbish transmitted by man-made machines. Machinery is not bad because through the machine one can take advantage of hearing about the Lord. But because machinery is used for ulterior purpose. So what is Prabhupada referring to at, what 60s, 70s when Prabhupada would have written the purport? And what can we compare it with? Is it like in our times, is it the mobile phone we can use it for this and we can use it otherwise?
So in Srila Prabhupada’s time in 1960s and 70s, the extent of machines was much less. Tape recorders were about this big. We see Prabhupada traveling and somebody is carrying this big case. That was the tape recorder or the dictaphone or whatever [Laughs]. So later on, in the late 1970s, they got a little bit smaller. And in the 1980s, they became this, what we call transistor or whatever, tape recorder, small pocket things you could have, about this big. So that was the advancement in recording and hearing. But as far as communicating, even in the 1980s, it took you one day to make a telephone call from Bombay to Calcutta. You had to wait there and book a call and wait and wait and finally the call would come through and it was half broken anyway. That was the 1980s. So often Prabhupada would communicate by telegram. I don’t know if telegrams even exist nowadays but they [Laughs] had telegrams [Laughs]. That was [Laughs] communication in India. And if you want visuals, that was movie, film. In 1980s, they developed videos instead of movies. So since that time, the machines have progressed an awful lot. And thus everything is much more convenient as far as recording, hearing, visuals, etc. So it becomes convenient for us for hearing and remembering. So in that sense, it is useful for us. However, that’s not the primary goal of producing these new things. Somebody’s goal is making money somewhere [Laughs]. Money by manufacturing these things so people will buy them is one thing. And then using those devices to sell other things. And thus people become the victim [Laughs]. They get exploited by these things. However, if we use them for the proper purposes, no problem. But we should be careful not to get distracted by them. So we have processes like hearing, chanting and remembering mentioned here. So we should not let the machines replace that [Laughs]. So instead of remembering, we let the machine remember [Laughs]. Instead of hearing, we let the recording [Laughs] record it [Laughs]. So that we do have modern machines, we don’t replace these processes of bhakti in any way.
3.) Maharaj, you also gave the example of Prahlada. We notice that Narada Muni stopped Indra from kidnapping Khayadu. And he made a point that, there is a great devotee there inside and he did parikrama. But we hear that he heard Narada Muni and became a great devotee. So was Narada Muni referring to the future of the child or was the child already an exalted Vaishnava and in this birth he accepted Prahlada‘s teachings?
So of course, he was special. He is not just an ordinary jiva. And I think some of our Acharyas consider him a nitya-siddha. And thus, Narada Muni would have taken interest in him because he had special capacity.
4.) Maharaj, after a devotee crosses Sadhana Bhakti and then he crosses Bhava Bhakti and then he attains Prema Bhakti. Only after attaining Prema Bhakti, will he be able to reach Goloka Vrindavana or spiritual world?
So that’s the process. If you have Prema, it means there is no more obstacles, no contamination at all. And that’s the condition for getting to the spiritual world. And thus the normal process is, we go through Bhava, which still has a slight contamination, then we get to Prema in this material world, then we get to spiritual world. But we get cases of people who don’t have Prema, they get to the spiritual world by doing mixed bhakti, something like that, but again they have no contamination.
5.) Hare Krishna Maharaj. Maharaj, is it ok for a Sadhaka to have the desire to go to the spiritual world someday?
Of course, it often says in scripture, you practice Bhakti Yoga and you go to the Parampadam or whatever, you go to the spiritual world, you go to Vaikuntha. But as Bhagavatam says, that’s not the main goal. So if the Lord gives a devotee the spiritual world without service, he refuses it. And thus some devotees pray, may I serve you eternally, doesn’t matter whether I go to spiritual world or stay in the material world or go to hell. However, usually the Lord takes the devotee to the spiritual world to engage him in devotional service, so getting to the spiritual world is part of his service.
Devotee: So Maharaj, daily morning we sing mora ei abhilāṣa, vilāsa kuñje dio vāsa [Tulasi Arati Verse 3], Tulasi Arati Maharaj, we will express that desire, so how to understand that?
HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj: Yeah. So expressing desire to go to the spiritual world, but that’s not separate from serving them. So then it also says there that I request that I be qualified for service, so we can’t separate the two things.
6.) Hare Krishna Maharaj. These Upanishads are mainly dealing with the Jnana Kanda and the essence of the Upanishads is Brahma Sutras and the natural commentary of the Brahma Sutras is Srimad Bhagavatam, which is the essence of Bhakti. So how do you explain this Maharaj?
So the Upanishads are called Jnana Kanda, but our Acharyas explain, within those Upanishads we also have explanation of Bhakti. And finally of course, Bhakti predominates. And thus in the Brahma Sutras the final conclusion is Krishna is the Parambrahman. And that’s the conclusion of Bhagavatam.
7.) Hare Krishna Maharaj. In purport it’s mentioned that, in Bhakti process hearing is very important. Also it’s mentioned that, without hearing sufficiently and properly, no one can make any progress. So what is, please enlight us about this sufficiently and properly hearing Maharaj.
Yeah, so of course here the first word used is srotavya, so you must hear. And it’s often regarded as the first step in Bhakti Yoga. We don’t hear anything, we don’t know about Bhakti, so how can we do anything? So without some knowledge we cannot do Bhakti Yoga properly. So hearing means we have to hear the proper scriptures, so we hear Bhagavatam. And we have to hear Bhagavatam with proper conclusions, so we take Bhagavatam with the commentaries of our Acharyas. Through that we get a clear definition of who is God and who is Jiva and what is Prakriti. With that knowledge we practice pure Bhakti. So that is one of the purposes of hearing scripture, some, say method by which we can come to the level of pure Bhakti.
8.) Maharaj, in this chapter why is that Sukadeva Goswami describes how to follow Astanga Yoga process in detail to Parikshit Maharaj first and then he describes Bhakti Yoga. Though Sukadeva Goswami describes about Astanga Yoga process in detail, he clearly suggests to follow Bhakti Yoga only to Parikshit Maharaj. Then why he has to describe Astanga Yoga process first, though Sukadeva Goswami knows that Parikshit Maharaj is a pure devotee.
So, yes, the main process is Bhakti and Bhagavatam and that we discussed, about we can ask the same question, why ultimately doesn’t Sukadeva talk about Krishna until the 10th canto? Why do we have to go through all the other cantos? Or similarly in Bhagavad Gita, why does Krishna have to talk about Karma Yoga, Jnana Yoga and Astanga Yoga before he talks about Bhakti Yoga in chapter 7 [Laughs]? If we look at scriptures, we see that, generally they don’t confine themself to just one topic, Bhagavatam, all the Puranas will discuss everything. They will discuss Jnana Yoga, Karma Yoga, Astanga Yoga and Bhakti Yoga. And we find even in the Vedas itself, all these things are discussed. So therefore, Bhagavatam is reproducing what’s in the Vedas, but bringing out the conclusion more directly.
Devotees: Grantharaj Srimad Bhagavatam ki jai!!! HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj ki jai!!! Srila Prabhupada ki jai!!! Nitai Gaura Premanande Hari Haribol!!!