Srimad Bhagavatam 2.6.18 | HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj | ISKCON Chennai | 27 September 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 6 Verse 18.
ŚB 2.6.18
सोऽमृतस्याभयस्येशो मर्त्यमन्नं यदत्यगात् ।
महिमैष ततो ब्रह्मन् पुरुषस्य दुरत्यय: ॥ १८ ॥
so ’mṛtasyābhayasyeśo
martyam annaṁ yad atyagāt
mahimaiṣa tato brahman
puruṣasya duratyayaḥ
Synonyms
saḥ — He (the Lord); amṛtasya — of deathlessness; abhayasya — of fearlessness; īśaḥ — the controller; martyam — dying; annam — fruitive action; yat — one who has; atyagāt — has transcended; mahimā — the glories; eṣaḥ — of Him; tataḥ — therefore; brahman — O brāhmaṇa Nārada; puruṣasya — of the Supreme Personality; duratyayaḥ — immeasurable.
Translation
The Supreme Personality of Godhead is the controller of immortality and fearlessness, and He is transcendental to death and the fruitive actions of the material world. O Nārada, O brāhmaṇa, it is therefore difficult to measure the glories of the Supreme Person.
Purport
The glories of the Lord, in the transcendental seventy-five percent of the Lord’s internal potency, are stated in the Padma Purāṇa (Uttara-khaṇḍa). It is said there that those planets in the spiritual sky, which comprises the seventy-five-percent expansion of the internal potency of the Lord, are far, far greater than those planets in the total universes composed of the external potency of the Lord. In the Caitanya-caritāmṛta, the total universes in the external potency of the Lord are compared to a bucketful of mustard seeds. One mustard seed is calculated to be a universe itself. In one of the universes, in which we are now living, the number of planets cannot be counted by human energy, and so how can we think of the sum total in all the universes, which are compared to a bucketful of mustard seeds? And the planets in the spiritual sky are at least three times the number of those in the material sky. Such planets, being spiritual, are in fact transcendental to the material modes; therefore they are constituted in the mode of unalloyed goodness only. The conception of spiritual bliss (brahmānanda) is fully present in those planets. Each of them is eternal, indestructible and free from all kinds of limitations experienced in the material world. Each of them is self-illuminating and more powerfully dazzling than (if we can imagine) the total sunshine of millions of mundane suns. The inhabitants of those planets are liberated from birth, death, old age and diseases and have full knowledge of everything; they are all godly and free from all sorts of material hankerings. They have nothing to do there except to render transcendental loving service to the Supreme Lord Nārāyaṇa, who is the predominating Deity of such Vaikuṇṭha planets. Those liberated souls are engaged incessantly in singing songs mentioned in the Sāma Veda (vedaiḥ sāṅga-pada-kramopaniṣadair gāyanti yaṁ sāmagāḥ). All of them are personifications of the five Upaniṣads. Tripād-vibhūti, or the seventy-five percent known as the internal potency of the Lord, is to be understood as the kingdom of God far beyond the material sky; and when we speak of pāda-vibhūti, or the twenty-five percent comprising His external energy, we should understand that this refers to the sphere of the material world. It is also said in the Padma Purāṇa that the kingdom of tripād-vibhūti is transcendental, whereas the pāda-vibhūti is mundane; tripād-vibhūti is eternal, whereas the pāda-vibhūti is transient. The Lord and His eternal servitors in the transcendental kingdom all have eternal forms which are auspicious, infallible, spiritual and eternally youthful. In other words, there is no birth, death, old age and disease. That eternal land is full of transcendental enjoyment and full of beauty and bliss. This very fact is also corroborated in this verse of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, and the transcendental nature is described as amṛta. As described in the Vedas, utāmṛtatvasyeśānaḥ: the Supreme Lord is the Lord of immortality, or in other words, the Lord is immortal, and because He is the Lord of immortality He can award immortality to His devotees. In the Bhagavad-gītā (8.16) the Lord also assures that whoever may go to His abode of immortality shall never return to this mortal land of threefold miseries. The Lord is not like the mundane lord. The mundane master or lord never enjoys equally with his subordinates, nor is a mundane lord immortal, nor can he award immortality to his subordinate. The Supreme Lord, who is the leader of all living entities, can award all the qualities of His personality unto His devotees, including immortality and spiritual bliss. In the material world there is always anxiety or fearfulness in the hearts of all living entities, but the Lord, being Himself the supreme fearless, also awards the same quality of fearlessness to His pure devotees. Mundane existence is itself a kind of fear because in all mundane bodies the effects of birth, death, old age and disease always keep a living being compact in fear. In the mundane world, there is always the influence of time, which changes things from one stage to another, and the living entity, originally being avikāra, or unchangeable, suffers a great deal on account of changes due to the influence of time. The changing effects of eternal time are conspicuously absent in the immortal kingdom of God, which should therefore be understood to have no influence of time and therefore no fear whatsoever. In the material world, so-called happiness is the result of one’s own work. One can become a rich man by dint of one’s own hard labor, and there are always fear and doubts as to the duration of such acquired happiness. But in the kingdom of God, no one has to endeavor to attain a standard of happiness. Happiness is the nature of the spirit, as stated in the Vedānta-sūtras: ānandamayo ’bhyāsāt — the spirit is by nature full of happiness. Happiness in spiritual nature always increases in volume with a new phase of appreciation; there is no question of decreasing the bliss. Such unalloyed spiritual bliss is nowhere to be found within the orbit of the material universe, including the Janaloka planets or, for that matter, the Maharloka or Satyaloka planets, because even Lord Brahmā is subject to the laws of fruitive actions and the law of birth and death. It is therefore stated here: duratyayaḥ, or, in other words, spiritual happiness in the eternal kingdom of God cannot be imagined even by the great brahmacārīs or sannyāsīs who are eligible to be promoted to the planets beyond the region of heaven. Or, the greatness of the Supreme Lord is so great that it cannot be imagined even by the great brahmacārīs or sannyāsīs, but such happiness is factually attained by the unalloyed devotees of the Lord, by His divine grace.
HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj:
So actually these verses, series of verses are the paraphrasing verses from the purusha sukta. So the purusha shukta is the description of the Supreme Lord as the creator of the material world. And because he is the creator of the material world he is indicated to be supreme. So that supreme person is called the purusha. So we often hear of the purusha avatars. And this refers to Maha Vishnu, Garbhodakasayi Vishnu and Kshirodakasayi Vishnu. So these forms of the Lord have a particular function of manifesting and maintaining the material world. This is one function of the Lord but the Lord has even a more important function. And that other function of course is to manifest and have pastimes in the spiritual world.
So the of course from the material perspective we like to think of the Lord as the creator of the material world and therefore he becomes, put in an exalted position. So thus we have the whole purusha sukta devoted to showing how the Lord manifests everything in the material world. So the purusha sukta describes how the Lord creates all the planetary systems. He creates all of the living beings. He creates the different varnas like kshatriya, brahmana and vaishya and sudra. Still he is completely separate and superior to all of that. So in this way the greatness of the Lord is established. So this of course is veda establishing this. And this is supported by puranas like bhagavatam and therefore we’ll have these verses referring to the purusha sukta of the vedas.
So the Supreme Lord is completely distinguished from the material world. And as is indicated in this verse one of his distinguishing qualities is amrita which literally means deathless. Of course the jiva also is deathless. He has no creation and destruction. However he can be subject to material bodies and the material bodies die. So when we refer to the Lord being amrita we actually mean that he never takes a material body. On the other hand the jivas can take material bodies. And once they have material bodies it’s very difficult for them to escape from those bodies. So consequently they are afflicted by birth, death, old age and disease. The Lord is never in that state. He is the master of this amrita state. Because he is the master of this state he can also bestow this state upon the jivas. So by the mercy of the Lord the jiva who’s stuck in material body can get out of that position and then he no longer has to take material bodies. Since the Lord is the master of this amrita he is the one that bestows it to the jivas. And thus we always say that the Lord himself gives liberation and none of the devatas can do this.
Of course that amrita state is also special. Amrita of course means deathless which means liberated. Amrita also means nectar, sweet. So not only does the Lord get the jiva out of the material world and liberate him, he takes him to the spiritual realm where he can experience sweetness. So in other words the Lord takes the jiva beyond mere liberation and gives him prema. This is part of the definition of bhagavan. So of course bha stands for bhadra which means he sustains and nourishes the jivas. And ga stands for gamayata which means he makes the jiva attain spiritual body and spiritual world and prema. In the material world the conditioned jiva does not have a spiritual body, does not have prema. So the Lord bestows this upon the jivas who perform bhakti. And va means vasa, to live. The Lord lives in the devotees. Which means the devotees are always thinking of the Lord. And vasa also means the devotees live in the Lord. This means the Lord is always thinking of the devotees. So in other words this Supreme Lord, he supplies everything to the jiva so that he can exist eternally in the spiritual world.
And as Srila Prabhupada describes in the purport, once the Lord bestows this on the jiva, they remain in that position eternally. So he makes a promise to the jiva and he fulfills that promise. He bestows upon the jiva and does not take it back. Because the Lord he can bestow or not bestow. But because he is all merciful then once he bestows it, that remains eternally with the jiva. So in this way the Lord is in the supreme position but he is also the most compassionate. And he is without fault. So therefore he never falls from that position. If he would break his promise and send the jivas back to the material world again then he would be at fault. And thus he never breaks his promise. So this Lord is completely unaffected by anything in the material world. And at the same time completely blissful in the spiritual world.
But what is the cause of the bliss? It is said that the main quality of the Lord is bliss. But what causes the bliss? So the Taittiriya Upanishad explains that ultimately the bliss is caused by rasa. And rasa means it requires Lord and devotee. Rasa requires two entities. In other words any relationship means there must be two. You can’t have a relationship with one entity. So of course the Lord is independent in that sense he is self manifesting and self blissful. But greater bliss results from rasa. And thus we have not just the Lord but we have other living entities. But these living entities though they are jivas and thus little small, in one sense have to be equal to the Lord otherwise how can there be a relationship? And thus the scripture describes that in attaining the Lord one becomes like the Lord. So the Lord is sat-cit-ananda, the jiva becomes sat-cit-ananda. Lord has spiritual body, jiva has spiritual body. Lord is eternal, jiva is eternal. The Lord is unaffected by anything in the material world, that jiva in the spiritual world is unaffected by anything in the material world. So in a sense they become very similar. And that similarity allows for rasa, relationship. And the relationship will give rise to bliss.
So the whole spiritual world with the dhama and all of the devotees and all the rasas is an expression of the Lord’s bliss. So it is a natural expression of the Lord. And it is all manifested through the internal energy of the Lord, antaranga shakti. The name, form, qualities and activities of the Lord are manifested through the sandhini shakti. The perceptions in the spiritual world, the awareness, etc. is caused by the samvit shakti. And the experience of bliss is caused by the hladini shakti of the lord. So these shaktis gradually begin to manifest in the jiva when he performs bhakti. So when performing bhakti and the jiva reaches asakti stage and then he reaches bhava stage then he gets some samvit shakti, so he can perceive the Lord. And he gets a portion of the hladini shakti so he can experience bliss in relationship with the Lord. And when these two shaktis become firmly established in the jiva and manifest fully then it becomes prema. So when the jiva becomes endowed with these two shaktis then he becomes very similar to the Lord himself. And the Lord himself becomes eternally attached to those jivas. So everything in the spiritual world is eternal. The Lord and his form is eternal. The jiva and his form is eternal. And their relationship is eternal.
So this spiritual world is self-contained. Everything is spiritual. And everything is eternal. And it is free from the influence of material energy and time. So thus it is said here the Lord is the Lord of fearlessness. Fear is created by material energy and time which destroys everything. And spiritual world is completely free of all of that. So it is the Lord who is the Lord of these things and he bestows this on the jiva. So this illustrates the greatness of the Lord. That is described here as the mahima which is duratyaya, immeasurable greatness of the Lord.
Hare Krishna!
Q & A :
1.) Hare Krishna Maharaj. Maharaj, you are saying that the rasa needs two persons to explain the rasa. But in the scriptures we see that the Lord is atmarama, he enjoys himself, he doesn’t need anybody. But it is quite contradictory, these two statements. Because for rasa he needs to depend on jiva to explain the rasa. But then how will you explain the atmarama?
One way of explaining this is that the internal energy, though it is shakti of the Lord is non-different from the Lord. And thus bhakti and prema themselves are part of the Lord. So when we say the Lord enjoys in himself, of course we can mean that the Lord enjoys independently or it can also mean that the Lord enjoys through his internal energy. Now, these forms appear separately just as Radha appears separately from Krishna, so the Jivas in the spiritual world also appear with separate forms. But they are intimately entwined with the internal energy. So, we can say the bliss of the Lord arises through his internal energy, which is non-different from himself. So, therefore, he is Atmarama.
2.) Maharaj, the relationship between the Lord and the Jiva. So, we see, when Jiva goes from here, from material world to the spiritual world, and we say that the relationship is eternal. How can you say the relationship is eternal? Eternal means which is always there, but the Jiva who is going from the material world is not there. It is established after doing sadhana. Then how can we say that the relationship is eternal?
So, time and aspects of non-eternal are part of the material world. And if you go to the spiritual world, that time with past, present and future does not exist. So, therefore nothing can be traced to having a beginning. So, from our point of view, a jiva at a certain point after getting prema enters the spiritual world at a certain time. But the perception of the spiritual world he’s there eternally. That, of course, seems to contradict our conceptions. And that’s because our conceptions of time etc are also very limited.
3.) Hare Krishna Maharaj. Maharaj you have mentioned Lord never breaks his promise. If he breaks he is faulty, this is on tattva vichara Maharaj. But when we see on rasa vichara, he breaks promise when Bhishma Dev. How do we understand this?
So, the ultimate obligation is to the devotees. And among the devotees, of course, there are lesser devotees and higher devotees. So, the closer the devotee, then the more likely the Lord is to maintain that promise. And though the promise to a lesser devotee may look like it is broken, ultimately, that also is not really broken. So, in other words, the breaking of that promise is ultimately part of the pastime to increase their prema. So, for instance, Krishna left Vrindavan and he said, I’ll come back in, very soon, three months. So, he didn’t come back. So, in one sense, he broke his promise. But then that’s also a contradiction because the devotees from Vrindavan are the highest devotees. So, that is explained in two ways. One is he did come back, but in an invisible form. So, then there’s another aprakata pastime taking place where he returns. The other is that he did stay away a long period of time, but that also had a purpose. And that was to show the strong prema of the devotees of the Lord, so they never gave up the hope that he would return. And then, after some time then, he did return. So, in one sense, we could say, yes, the promise was broken. Another way, no, it wasn’t [Laughs].
4.) Maharaj we see jiva is the tatastha shakti, marginal potency which has not been in the spiritual world before. That means, did we see Krishna before? That’s what my question is Maharaj. Have we ever seen Krishna in the spiritual world before?
So, if we’re in a conditioned state in the material world, we cannot see the Lord. Now, the Lord may come as avatar, but if we’re in a conditioned state, even then, we look at him and we don’t see him as the Lord. So, when we’re qualified to see the Lord, we may see him in his avatar form, but even if he doesn’t appear in the avatar form, we see him internally.
5.) Hare Krishna. Maharaj one of your previous classes, you said that one who is in the stage of Prema, he doesn’t know that he’s in the stage of Prema. He’s so engrossed in that. At the same time, Maharaj, we see in our life, we started somewhere, our devotion. We are still beginners, but we see from our many years of whatever little service we do, there is some little improvement in our, I think, in our behavior although long journey has to be crossed. So, at which stage, Maharaj, that jiva forgets his position? So, at which stages, he still knows that he’s progressing? And at Prema stage, he’s not aware that he’s in Prema. So, at which stages, he knows that he’s progressing and later he comes out of this?
It is the capacity of the madhyama devotee to identify his stage and how he progresses. And this will determine his progress. In other words, if he has no idea what stage he’s at and what’s the next stage, then it is very difficult to progress. And to maintain and to progress, he puts effort into it. Once we realize the Lord, that effort is, we could say, almost nothing. So, it’s not called sadhana anymore in Bhava. The same activities are there, but they manifest spontaneously as expressions of their Bhava. And having reached that Bhava’s stage, his awareness and attachment to the material world is almost zero. And then from that stage, he progresses to more intensity and that is called Prema. And in that stage, his awareness of the world is very minimal, zero. And there’s no striving for any goal.
6.) Hare Krishna Maharaj. What is the difference between the spurti, which these advanced devotees see Krishna internally, and the sadhana devotees see internally during meditation?
So in sadhana, we may practice meditation or smaranam or whatever, on a form of the Lord, but it’s mental image. During bhava and prema, we have spurti where the Lord actually appears. Of course, he may appear internally, we can say in the mind, but by that time, the mind is completely spiritualized. And ultimately, we say it manifests in the jiva.
7.) You were saying in the beginning of the class that, this is part of the purusha sukta, and purusha sukta normally deals with this material world, creation, maintenance and destruction and all the everything. And this purusha sukta is a part of the Vedas. But can you also say that Lord is hidden, especially his eternal pastime is hidden in the Vedas?
You’re saying the spiritual paths in the spiritual world, how are they described in the Vedas? So to some extent, we’ll have descriptions, but not in detail. But we do have pastimes of his appearances, avatars, like Vamana avatar, it’s described in the Vedas itself.
8.) Maharaj, in this world, we are affected by three gunas. And we have to come out of these three gunas, we have to attain suddha sattva. From suddha sattva, we can get samvit, sandhini, hladini. So we can understand in that way Maharaj?
So the word suddha sattva is used to describe the Lord and everything else in the spiritual world. So it definitely is quality, but spiritual quality.
Hare Krishna!
Devotees: Grantharaj Srimad Bhagavatam ki jai!!! HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj ki jai!!! Srila Prabhupada ki jai!!! Nitai Gaura Premanande Hari Haribol!!!