Srimad Bhagavatam 2.3.18 | HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj | ISKCON Chennai | 8 June 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 3 Verse 18.
ŚB 2.3.18
तरव: किं न जीवन्ति भस्त्रा: किं न श्वसन्त्युत ।
न खादन्ति न मेहन्ति किं ग्रामे पशवोऽपरे ॥ १८ ॥
taravaḥ kiṁ na jīvanti
bhastrāḥ kiṁ na śvasanty uta
na khādanti na mehanti
kiṁ grāme paśavo ’pare
Synonyms
taravaḥ — the trees; kim — whether; na — do not; jīvanti — live; bhastrāḥ — bellows; kim — whether; na — do not; śvasanti — breathe; uta — also; na — do not; khādanti — eat; na — do not; mehanti — discharge semen; kim — whether; grāme — in the locality; paśavaḥ — beastly living being; apare — others.
Translation
Do the trees not live? Do the bellows of the blacksmith not breathe? All around us, do the beasts not eat and discharge semen?
Purport
The materialistic man of the modern age will argue that life, or part of it, is never meant for discussion of theosophical or theological arguments. Life is meant for the maximum duration of existence for eating, drinking, sexual intercourse, making merry and enjoying life. The modern man wants to live forever by the advancement of material science, and there are many foolish theories for prolonging life to the maximum duration. But the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam affirms that life is not meant for so-called economic development or advancement of materialistic science for the hedonistic philosophy of eating, mating, drinking and merrymaking. Life is solely meant for tapasya, for purifying existence so that one may enter into eternal life just after the end of the human form of life.
The materialists want to prolong life as much as possible because they have no information of the next life. They want to get the maximum comforts in this present life because they think conclusively that there is no life after death. This ignorance about the eternity of the living being and the change of covering in the material world has played havoc in the structure of modern human society. Consequently there are many problems, multiplied by various plans of modernized man. The plans for solving the problems of society have only aggravated the troubles. Even if it is possible to prolong life more than one hundred years, advancement of human civilization does not necessarily follow. The Bhāgavatam says that certain trees live for hundreds and thousands of years. At Vṛndāvana there is a tamarind tree (the place is known as Imlitala) which is said to have existed since the time of Lord Kṛṣṇa. In the Calcutta Botanical Garden there is a banyan tree said to be older than five hundred years, and there are many such trees all over the world. Svāmī Śaṅkarācārya lived only thirty-two years, and Lord Caitanya lived forty-eight years. Does it mean that the prolonged lives of the above-mentioned trees are more important than Śaṅkara or Caitanya? Prolonged life without spiritual value is not very important. One may doubt that trees have life because they do not breathe. But modern scientists like Bose have already proved that there is life in plants, so breathing is no sign of actual life. The Bhāgavatam says that the bellows of the blacksmith breathes very soundly, but that does not mean that the bellows has life. The materialist will argue that life in the tree and life in the man cannot be compared because the tree cannot enjoy life by eating palatable dishes or by enjoying sexual intercourse. In reply to this, the Bhāgavatam asks whether other animals like the dogs and hogs, living in the same village with human beings, do not eat and enjoy sexual life. The specific utterance of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam in regard to “other animals” means that persons who are simply engaged in planning a better type of animal life consisting of eating, breathing and mating are also animals in the shape of human beings. A society of such polished animals cannot benefit suffering humanity, for an animal can easily harm another animal but rarely do good.
HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj:
So, here we have a verse describing the value of human life. And it does so by taking negative examples. So, instead of praising the great sages and the great yogis or the devotees, it instead condemns the other human beings who act like animals or plants. So, long life is generally considered to be auspicious. And people mostly they don’t want to die, so they try to prolong their life. But simply living a long time does not make a better person. And the examples given here, the trees, the trees are living for much longer than human beings but it doesn’t make them better.
So, of course, even among human beings, simply because you live longer does not make you a better person. So, we should not measure the excellence of a life by the age of a person. So, Prabhupada gives the example of Shankaracharya living 32 years or Lord Caitanya 48 years. They lived a short period of time but it doesn’t make them any less because they had a shorter lifespan.
So, when we come to spiritual life, of course, we can also not judge based on age. So, we see Prahlada at a young age was such a great devotee. We see Dhruva at a young age was a great devotee. And we have many old people but they may not be devotees at all. They may be fools. So, we cannot judge older devotees as better devotees and younger devotees as inferior devotees. So, age is a material factor and spiritual life is not measured by those standards of material life. So, age is not a consideration.
Here the next example is given of the bellows. So, the blacksmith has these bellows and he puts them together like this. Air comes out to make the fire stronger. So, in this way, they seem to be carrying out the same functions as a person who breathes. But obviously, the bellows is not living at all. On the other hand, the plant does not breathe but it is living. So, human beings are breathing and so we say they are alive. But then, if a person actually does not take to spiritual life, then even though he is breathing, he is considered to be dead. So, he is living because he is breathing but he is dead because he is not using his life properly. So, therefore, we have to consider how actually to use our life, not simply to breathe.
So, human beings, besides breathing, they eat and do so many other activities. And plants cannot do so many activities. But the animals are doing the same activities as the human being. So, simply because you eat does not mean you are better than the plant or whatever because animals are also eating. So, Srila Prabhupada often points out that animals are eating, sleeping, mating and defending. Human beings are also eating, sleeping, mating and defending. So, the only difference is okay, they eat different food. Their sleeping arrangements are different. But, nevertheless, essentially the same activities.
So, we see that in the varnashrama system, one starts out very simply as a brahmachari. And then, as a gr andhastha, one can make things more complex and live in a comfortable bed, have comfortable food, etc. But then, when the person gets older, they take vanaprastha and sannyasa, again they start making everything very simple again. And so, we see the life of the renounced person is very similar to the life of an animal. They are supposed to sleep on the ground and just eat the fruits and the roots of the forest [Laughs]. So this is what animals do [Laughs].
So, the Vedic literature realizes that living comfortably is not the distinguishing factor of an advanced human being. Rather, they act as obstacles to advancing spiritually. So, along with the renunciation and vanaprastha and sannyasa, we also have more cultivation of spiritual life. So, this is what distinguishes the human being from the animal capacity to practice spiritual life. And because it is important, the other animal propensities – eating, sleeping, mating, defending – are reduced and reduced and reduced. This, of course, seems to be the opposite direction than modern society.
Modern society is interested in increasing eating, sleeping, mating, defending for the human being. So, for many people and many governments, this is the goal – to increase eating, sleeping, mating, defending [Laughs]. And consequently, spiritual life is not one of the priorities. So, therefore, society may look like it’s advancing, but actually it’s becoming more animalistic. So, this is the great illusion of civilization. The more the civilization advances, the more it considers eating, sleeping, mating, defending to be the objectives.
Of course, in ancient India, they also realized that most of the people are not going to be spiritual. So, they supplied karma yoga, from, they get their eating, sleeping, mating, defending through karma yoga. So, the benefit of karma yoga is, though it is tempting people with eating, sleeping, mating, defending, at the same time, it recognizes that ultimately you cannot separate all of this from spiritual development. And thus, there are some restrictions on what you can do.
So, the eating, sleeping, mating, and defending is restricted by the laws of dharma. And the laws of dharma are arranged in such a way that eventually you get to a pure state of sattva, where you inquire spiritually. So, though we often condemn karma yoga, at the same time, it is definitely better than no dharma. We see implicit in the systems of dharma, there is an understanding that you go from body to body. And because of that, there is a long term plan to purify you life after life.
But in other civilizations and countries, they don’t have an idea that you go from body to body. So, you cannot even think of a better next life, what to speak of getting out of the material world. You can only think of living this life and enjoying [Laughs]. So, all rules and regulations are simply for enjoying in this life [Laughs]. This is not a new philosophy. In ancient times, we have persons like Charvaka. He had same theory. What is atma, atma is body. So, what’s the goal of the body? Enjoy. That’s all [Laughs]. So, ancient times they had such persons, modern times they also have similar.
So, somehow or other, people who are fortunate realize that just eating, sleeping, mating, defending is not sufficient for the human being. And for such human beings, we can give knowledge by which they can get answers. So, the ultimate knowledge we will find in Srimad Bhagavatam. Of course, there are many scriptures, but Bhagavatam is considered to be the essence of everything. So, if we take the essence of Bhagavatam and we give that to people, we are giving them the most valuable thing in their life. Instead of continuing to pursue eating, sleeping, mating, defending, they can completely change their goal.
So, for many people this is a big discovery. Of course, some people have some inclination already. But still, they can’t, with their own intelligence, figure out what is the real goal in life. So, Bhagavatam gives us some direct answers about that. Sometimes people are disgusted with material life and they think, okay, we have to do some spiritual life. But they can’t define what is that spiritual life. So, to help us, we got very clear definitions given in the scriptures like Srimad Bhagavatam.
So, therefore everyone should try to hear and study Bhagavatam very carefully and give that knowledge to others. In the context here of this chapter, all of these statements are being made just to show that this knowledge that Sukadeva Goswami will give is most important for us. And of course, the original question of Pariksit Maharaj is, what should I do now that I am about to die? But it’s not just a point of when you die, when you live and what you do is even more important [Laughs]. So, before they die, people should, long before that, have this discovery and start spiritual life.
Hare Krishna!
Q & A :
1.) Hare Krishna. Maharaj, in the Shad Darshan, which is given by the six philosophers, so Patanjali and others, and even Charvaka is also accepted their philosophy. So, if it is totally materialistic, how it is accepted? It is just to accommodate some views, it is accepted like that?
So, the Shad Darshanas like Nyaya, Sankhya, Vaiseshika, Yoga, Vedanta, they all accept the Vedas, but Charvaka does not accept the Vedas. So, it is considered to be Asat. Of course, Buddhism, Jainism also don’t accept the Vedas, they are also put in that category [Laughs]. So, whereas Buddhism and Jainism at least have some spiritual goal, Charvaka has no spiritual goal at all. It is simply material. So, the only proof is your senses [Laughs]. Shabda is not accepted as a proof. So, this is very similar to the beliefs of many people in the modern world. But it had a following thousands of years ago also with Charvaka.
Now, the Shad Darshanas are there, they accept the Vedas, but many of them also come to the wrong conclusion. So, in spite of accepting the Vedas, coming to the wrong conclusion makes them also worthless [Laughs]. So, whether it is worthless by accepting the Vedas or worthless without accepting the Vedas is very similar [Laughs].
2.) Hare Krishna Maharaj. Maharaj, in context of today’s verse and class. In SB 1.2.9 dharmasya-hi-apavargasya. So there it is stated that, the occupational duties should be performed for ultimate benefit, should not be performed for material gain and if there is some material gain it should not be performed to enhance sense gratification. So, sometimes we see that by performance of Bhakti, the problems reduce and material opulence presents itself to the devotee. But sometimes devotees do expand their.. they buy better cars, they buy better houses. So, they engage that Lakshmi which has come to them for increase. So, this is, we can say this is for serious devotees, pure devotees. I mean it is a guidance for them in context of today’s class because what should not be done and that well shows what should be done.
HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj: The instruction in the first canto is saying, how do we follow it? So, all of these instructions are according to qualification and by degrees. And even we have this in direct devotional service. Our definition is no other desire except pleasing Krishna. That is pure Bhakti. But then we accept that you have other desires when you are doing Sadhana Bhakti [Laughs]. So, if you are doing Karma Yoga, the better part of Karma Yoga is Niskama Karma Yoga. And the better part of Niskama Karma Yoga is Krishna arpana also, dovetailing everything with Supreme Lord. But when we talk about Niskama Karma Yoga, obviously they are not free of all desires [Laughs]. They are still within Karma Yoga [Laughs]. But at least they are giving up explicit Artha and Kama desires. So, we have instructions that you give up all your desires when you are doing these activities, but we can say relative [Laughs].
So, in the Bhakti Sandarbha, when it talks about Diksha, Jiva Goswami, he defines Diksha you know as getting mantra, so you can worship the deity. So, he says, of course, Diksha therefore is very useful for Grihasthas. But not the ordinary Grihastha, the wealthy Grihastha. And the reason why this deity worship gives the wealthy Grihastha an opportunity to spend, not all of his money, but a lot of it on worshipping the deity [Laughs]. So, it doesn’t mean that he gives everything to the deity, then he has no money at all [Laughs]. And this is speaking of actually people who could be practicing pure Bhakti even [Laughs]. And we see even in Lord Caitanya’s movement, there were wealthy people like King Prataparudra. So, okay, let them give up everything, but they were still ruling and doing so many things inspite of the fact they were completely dedicated to Krishna.
3.) Hare Krishna Maharaj. Maharaj, I have two doubts. So, first one is regarding yesterday’s class Maharaj. So, we see this sloka, janmāntare bhavet puṇyaṃ tadā bhāgavataṃ labhet. So, if we see that here, punyam refers to the material piety or ajnata sukriti?
HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj: When it talks about punya?
Devotee: Hmm.
HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj: Well, if we think of the punya as a qualification for doing bhakti, that’s never accepted, material punya. Because that would encourage people to come to devotional service, to do karma yoga and go to Swarga Loka [Laughs]. But that doesn’t seem logical. So, we can take punya in another way, that is simply, punya means pure, pure activities. Which means, we minimize sin, etc. Or we can take punyam itself as meaning bhakti, because bhakti is the best punya [Laughs]. It’s the most purifying. Or, if we want to take it literally as material punyas, we can say, it’s not an absolute condition, but it may be favorable. It may not be favorable sometimes, but it could be favorable.
In other words, one of the qualifications for bhakti is not to be too materially attached. So, if you do punyas and you get to sattva guna, you’re less attached. So, in that sense, it’s favorable [Laughs]. But to take material punyas as an absolute qualification is contradicted by Bhagavatam, or even Bhagavad Gita. So, in Bhagavad Gita, Krishna says, everybody, including the sudras, can take to bhakti, but sudras got low bad karma and less punya. So, how can I become qualified? And Bhagavatam talks about the dog-eater. The dog-eater has less punya than the sudra [Laughs]. But by chanting the holy name once purely, he’s better than the brahmana [Laughs]. So, how can it be if he’s the most, no-punya.
4.) When we see the darsanas, six darsanas, so the question is only uttara mimamsa is made by Vyāsadeva. Is that only darsana which accept vedas or the other five accept vedas?
HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj: No, all the shad darshanas accept the Vedas. We have the purva-mimamsa. They accept the Vedas, but they’re atheistic [Laughs], they don’t believe in God [Laughs]. Sankhya accepts the Vedas, but they don’t accept God. Also, they’re atheistic. So, these philosophies, superficially they accept, and they use them as authority, but of course, they give wrong meaning, wrong conclusion. So, therefore, they’re considered rejectable. Of course, we see even our Acharyas sometimes quote from them [Laughs]. Particularly, we find that they often quote Karma-mimamsa, Jaimini because his rules for interpretation of scripture are often quoted. So, they have useful elements sometimes.
Devotee: So, we see, Maharaj, though they are rejecting the God, but accepting Vedas, they’re not considered to be as nastika. Why it is so?
HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj: So, the definition of nastika is that they don’t accept the Vedas. So, because they do accept the Vedas, they’re called astika. But, they’re still atheists [Laughs]. So, atheism may be is not, saying nastika as atheist is not quite accurate. So, you can class Christianity also as atheistic or nastika, but obviously they have a belief in God, but they don’t accept the Vedic scriptures, so they’re called nastika also [Laughs].
5.) Hare Krishna Maharaj. A person doing nishkama karma is dovetailing it with bhakti. So, what is the difference between this person and a devotee who is doing a job and is doing bhakti?
So a person doing niskama karma yoga, offering the results to the Lord, is primarily doing karma yoga. Bhakti is a secondary element. So this means his goal is not prema. And may be he gets liberation as a result [Laughs]. The person who’s doing bhakti but he cannot do bhakti full-time and he also holds a job but if he’s practicing pure bhakti, then that’s his major sadhana. And he’s doing his job simply to maintain his body and to maintain his family. And his goal is prema.
6.) Maharaj, when we preach Maharaj, lot of people worship other demigods and other faiths also we are happened to preach to them. So should we preach directly about the pyre devotional service or we should tell them like, you can worship them also and you can worship this also. This is one. Second one, they have lot of material desires. So, should we tell them that, you can worship Krishna so that He will satisfy your material desires or we should introduce them to pure devotional service only?
All of this needs a judgment of a person’s qualification. And of course, if they are not even devotees, then we don’t preach to non-devotees. So if they are completely attached to their devata worship, we can’t simply say, reject your devata worship. They’re not going to listen to you. So for such persons, we can encourage them to take association of devotees and come to the temple or whatever like that. And eventually, if they give up their attachment to devatas, then we can preach to them. And the same is with a person telling them to fulfill their material desires by worshipping Krishna. Obviously, that’s not the final truth that Bhagavatam reveals. But at the same time, Bhagavatam says, whether you have all desires or no desires, worship the Lord. So we can inform them of Krishna fulfilling your desires, but we also inform them of the higher goal.
7.) Hare Krishna Maharaj. Maharaj, there is a famous pastime by Srila Rupa Goswami. We heard that when he was having the meditation, and actually he was meditating on the Lord, mainly Srimati Radharani’s pastimes. Then one devotee passer by, then we know that he laughed the pastime, he thought that his meditation has been broken. So how do we understand this pastimes Maharaj, because he’s not an ordinary person, he’s an exalted devotee. And secondly, how his meditation will be broken, because Krishna always says, I only see the intention of a devotee, not actions. So his intention is very good, he is very clear and he is very supreme. So how he has got through that level, Maharaj? How? How he has to, his meditation is broken by that level.
HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj: His meditation was broken by?
Devotee: Broken by that, because the devotee thinks that he’s actually laughing on him, but actually he’s meditating on the pastimes. And Krishna always says, I see…
HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj: So he didn’t break his meditation, he was laughing in the pastimes.
Devotee: Yes, Maharaj.
HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj: So then?
Devotee: He also said that, I didn’t have the taste. He has lost his taste after that, right Maharaj?
HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj: Yeah, after that.
Devotee: Yes, after that. So how he lost his taste, because Krishna always says, I see the intention behind the action.
HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj: So this is not a scriptural pastime or anything, it’s may be some tradition that’s handed down, so we don’t even know if it’s true. But anyway, the illustration is that, as long as you’re in the material world, even if you’re in prema, people can get offended by something or other in a devotee. And because they get offended, then it’s a type of aparadha, though it is unintentional. But even unintentional aparadhas will have some effect. So therefore, the effect was, he lost some taste. Of course, whether it actually happened or not, we don’t know. How could Rupa Goswami lose his taste, that also we don’t know. But anyway, this illustrates the fact that even unintentional aparadhas can cause some damage to your bhakti.
Devotee: Actually Maharaj, he is in the prema level, right? Rupa Goswami is in the level of prema. He is above, means he is very close to Radha and Krishna, he’s in the prema. He also has to go through this aparadha, this level, Maharaj? We normally see that one who is in prema is actually more liberated or more, he doesn’t have to go through this type of unintentional, only up to bhava. So, as you rightly said, may be there is another point that it may be that some other Acharyas have written this about the past time. It is not according to spiritual injunctions, Maharaj.
HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj: Well, as I said, we don’t know if this actually happened or not. So that we don’t know. So, nevertheless, if one, and this generally refers to people who are not nitya-siddhas or whatever, but they have prema, but they have a material body. So, it’s in the material world, it’s going to get affected by the heat and cold and whatever, and they have to die eventually. Obviously, a nitya-siddha never dies, but if you have a material body and you have prema, then it gets affected by things in this world. So, therefore, the possibility of accidental aparadha could be there with a slight decrease in their prema or whatever. But if a person is a nitya-siddha and without a material body, then we cannot say there actually is a decrease of prema, if it looks like this only for some pastime.
8.) When Supreme Truth is defined as Bhagavan by Parasara Muni, rasa tattva seems to be fully obscured. Kindly throw light.
Well, we cannot separate rasa from Bhagavan. So, any form of the Lord in the spiritual world, whether it is Vishnu or Rama or whatever, they all have rasa. When we get to Paramatma form, of course, then we can say that rasa is minimized. With Brahman, there is no rasa. We can also say that rasa is non-different from Bhagavan. So, when we say Bhagavan, we also mean rasa.
9.) How much should a devotee study the Bhagavatam before sharing this knowledge with others? Studying too little could lead to confusion when they share their little knowledge with others. On the other hand, when we study Bhagavatam for a longer duration, that requires immense dedication. So, before sharing this knowledge with others, how much should a devotee study Bhagavatam? What is the approach advised in ISKCON?
Well, Prabhupada praised the little girl Saraswati because she said Krishna is the Supreme Personality of Godhead, she is preaching. So, according to the amount of knowledge, if you have more knowledge, you can be a more effective preacher. If you have little knowledge, you can preach less effectively. But nevertheless, everybody can preach.
10.) Daily in Srimad Bhagavatam, sloka number 1.1.1. Should we read this sloka daily before reading Srimad Bhagavatam?
HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj: What? First verse?
Devotee: Yes, Maharaj. Should we read it daily before reading Bhagavatam?
HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj: You can. You can read it. It’s not necessary.
Devotee: There’s a series of questions. 2,3 questions related to this, Maharaj. In that first verse, the word dhimahi word appears. So, does that mean that we should compulsorily read that sloka?
HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj: Well, of course, the dhimahi word is there. It means, let us meditate. This is also found in the Brahma Gayatri mantra and other mantras as well. So, the verse is illustrating that Bhagavatam is also the essence of the Vedas because Gayatri mantra is the essence of the Vedas.
Devotee: Is there any sloka which we should recite before studying Bhagavad Gita?
HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj: There is no sastric rule.
Devotees: Grantharaj Srimad Bhagavatam ki jai!!! HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj ki jai!!! Srila Prabhupada ki jai!!! Nitai Gaura Premanande Hari Haribol!!!