Srimad Bhagavatam 3.25.21 | HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj | Sydney, Australia | 26 February 2026
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 3 Chapter 25 Verse 21.
ŚB 3.25.21
titikṣavaḥ kāruṇikāḥ
suhṛdaḥ sarva-dehinām
ajāta-śatravaḥ śāntāḥ
sādhavaḥ sādhu-bhūṣaṇāḥ
Synonyms
titikṣavaḥ — tolerant; kāruṇikāḥ — merciful; suhṛdaḥ — friendly; sarva-dehinām — to all living entities; ajāta-śatravaḥ — inimical to none; śāntāḥ — peaceful; sādhavaḥ — abiding by scriptures; sādhu-bhūṣaṇāḥ — adorned with sublime characteristics.
Translation
The symptoms of a sādhu are that he is tolerant, merciful and friendly to all living entities. He has no enemies, he is peaceful, he abides by the scriptures, and all his characteristics are sublime.
Purport
A sādhu, as described above, is a devotee of the Lord. His concern therefore is to enlighten people in devotional service to the Lord. That is his mercy. He knows that without devotional service to the Lord, human life is spoiled. A devotee travels all over the country, from door to door, preaching “Be Kṛṣṇa conscious. Be a devotee of Lord Kṛṣṇa. Don’t spoil your life in simply fulfilling your animal propensities. Human life is meant for self-realization, or Kṛṣṇa consciousness.” These are the preachings of a sādhu. He is not satisfied with his own liberation. He always thinks about others. He is the most compassionate personality towards all the fallen souls. Therefore one of his qualifications is kāruṇika, great mercy to the fallen souls. While engaged in preaching work, he has to meet with so many opposing elements, and therefore the sādhu, or devotee of the Lord, has to be very tolerant. Someone may ill-treat him because the conditioned souls are not prepared to receive the transcendental knowledge of devotional service. They do not like it; that is their disease. The sādhu has the thankless task of impressing upon them the importance of devotional service. Sometimes devotees are personally attacked with violence. Lord Jesus Christ was crucified, Haridāsa Ṭhākura was caned in twenty-two marketplaces, and Lord Caitanya’s principal assistant, Nityānanda, was violently attacked by Jagāi and Mādhāi. But still they were tolerant because their mission was to deliver the fallen souls. One of the qualifications of a sādhu is that he is very tolerant and is merciful to all fallen souls. He is merciful because he is the well-wisher of all living entities. He is not only a well-wisher of human society, but a well-wisher of animal society as well. It is said here, sarva-dehinām, which indicates all living entities who have accepted material bodies. Not only does the human being have a material body, but other living entities, such as cats and dogs, also have material bodies. The devotee of the Lord is merciful to everyone — the cats, dogs, trees, etc. He treats all living entities in such a way that they can ultimately get salvation from this material entanglement. Śivānanda Sena, one of the disciples of Lord Caitanya, gave liberation to a dog by treating the dog transcendentally. There are many instances where a dog got salvation by association with a sādhu, because a sādhu engages in the highest philanthropic activities for the benediction of all living entities. Yet although a sādhu is not inimical towards anyone, the world is so ungrateful that even a sādhu has many enemies.
What is the difference between an enemy and a friend? It is a difference in behavior. A sādhu behaves with all conditioned souls for their ultimate relief from material entanglement. Therefore no one can be more friendly than a sādhu in relieving a conditioned soul. A sādhu is calm, and he quietly and peacefully follows the principles of scripture. A sādhu means one who follows the principles of scripture and at the same time is a devotee of the Lord. One who actually follows the principles of scripture must be a devotee of God because all the śāstras instruct us to obey the orders of the Personality of Godhead. Therefore sādhu means a follower of the scriptural injunctions and a devotee of the Lord. All these characteristics are prominent in a devotee. A devotee develops all the good qualities of the demigods, whereas a non-devotee, even though academically qualified, has no actual good qualifications or good characteristics according to the standard of transcendental realization.
HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj:
This is a very famous verse describing some of the qualities of the devotee such as tolerance and mercy and friendliness, etc, peacefulness following scripture. The second characteristic of bhakti is called subhada which means bhakti bestows auspiciousness and in the meaning of auspiciousness, sometimes it means bestowal of good qualities. So it’s not that we cultivate qualities independent of the process of bhakti. In fact, in Nectar of Devotion, Rupa Goswami makes it very clear, cultivating good qualities is not an anga of bhakti. But at the same time we see all the devotees have so many wonderful qualities. So the meaning is that, by performance of bhakti good qualities manifest not separately but as part of bhakti itself. So we don’t cultivate good qualities.
Of course, sometimes, perhaps mistakenly, devotees they read scriptures and they read Bhagavad Gita and they read the qualities of tamo guna and rajo guna and sattva guna and then they think, well, we have to all cultivate sattva guna qualities then we can do bhakti properly. But that is a contradiction to the statement of Rupa Goswami that cultivating good qualities is not an anga of bhakti itself. Or either you do separately or as part of bhakti, it’s not an anga [Laughs]. At the same time, we see that the qualities of the devotee are praised as in this verse. So how do we resolve that contradiction? So the idea is that, bhakti itself manifests good qualities without separate cultivation. So just as bhakti destroys all bad qualities and karmas and ignorance, lobha and etc, it also manifests all good qualities. But they are not separate from bhakti. So in other words, we don’t have to separately cultivate destruction of anger and lust. The process of bhakti does it. Now if we have faith in other processes like karma or jnana or yoga, then we will practice other things to control the mind, to control anger and lust and greed and destroy these things, whatever. So we have sadhanas for that in karma, jnana and yoga. But we do not depend on those cultivations and those methods when we’re doing bhakti.
So some people may think, well, I’m doing bhakti yoga, but I should follow karma yoga because then I can control my mind and avoid sinful activities, etc, etc, etc. But actually, bhakti is independent. And whatever you achieve through karma yoga, jnana yoga or astanga yoga that’s achieved by bhakti yoga. So for instance, we see that chanting the holy name, nama, name of Krishna, is cintamani, which means, let’s say it fulfills all desires. And similarly, we see that, Bhagavatam says that, the vedas are desire tree, kalpa vriksha which means they fulfill all desires somehow or other.
So if we practice karma yoga we fulfill some desires. We can get money. We can get position. We can go to swarga loka. And if we practice jnana yoga we can get liberation. So these are the results of following different parts of the veda. It fulfills your desires. If we do bhakti, all of those things can be achieved. But more can be achieved also [Laughs]. And if we want these other things through bhakti, then it’s called mixed bhakti, which we also reject [Laughs]. If we do pure bhakti, then we don’t desire any of these things, even though bhakti gives them. And instead we concentrate on Krishna prema.
So the name, chanting the name is nama cintamani. It gives everything. If you want, you can chant Hare Krishna and get a car or get a house or whatever [Laughs]. Or you can get liberation also. Or you can get yoga siddhis. But bhakti can give those things. It’s much easier than doing karma yoga, jnana yoga or astanga yoga. Ajamila chanted name Narayana accidentally and he got liberation immediately. If you want to practice jnana yoga to get liberation you have to practice for a thousand years or so [Laughs]. If you want to practice karma yoga to get liberation you cannot get it at all. You can just stay within the material world upto Brahmaloka [Laughs].
So by practicing bhakti, then all these things are automatically achieved, but not necessarily desired and accepted by the devotee. It’s also said that, if a person practices bhakti, then material benefits and liberation beg the devotee, please let me engage in your service. I want to give you something [Laughs]. But the devotee kicks all these things away as being useless [Laughs] because they create impurity in his bhakti. So therefore, in the cultivation of devotional service all the good qualities which are cultivated in karma yoga or in jnana yoga or astanga yoga are automatically manifested within bhakti itself without separate endeavour. So we don’t have to resort to other methods. Bhakti itself should produce these things. So that’s the main principle.
The main principle of bhakti itself is that, we have all these different qualities like tolerance, mercy, etc. The main quality is surrender to the Lord. If all the other qualities are there and that’s not there, useless [Laughs]. It is something like cultivating the qualities in karma yoga or jnana yoga. So the central quality is surrender to the Lord and that produces all the other qualities.
So the qualities look similar to the qualities generated in karma yoga through sattva guna but the origin is different. And therefore the qualities must be different. So you can develop sattva guna qualities like the brahmana, qualities of a brahmana described in Bhagavad Gita which look very favourable and when we see the things, oh, they are the same qualities, so therefore we should develop those nice qualities in sattva guna [Laughs]. But these qualities are not a result of sattva guna, are not a qualification for bhakti. First we have to be in sattva guna and then we do bhakti. No, that’s maya [Laughs], it’s apa-siddhanta because that means that bhakti is caused by the gunas. And it’s not. So even sattva guna cannot cause bhakti. It may be favourable, but it does not cause bhakti. So bhakti itself produces qualities. So these are not sattva guna qualities. Nevertheless, the person in sattva guna is tolerant and merciful and friendly to all living entities and in happiness and distress he is equal. That’s sattva guna also. So it looks like the same quality but it’s not [Laughs] because these qualities arise from surrender to the Lord and therefore they are part of bhakti itself and bhakti is not in the gunas, it’s beyond the gunas. Of course, we can also analyze the tolerance and mercy shown in sattva guna. It is directed towards living entities, we’re tolerant of conditions in living entities, we’re merciful to other living entities, etc. But it’s devoid of the Supreme Lord [Laughs]. There’s no Supreme Lord there.
The devotee also is tolerant in his conditions, tolerant of other living entities, merciful to all living entities. Looks the same [Laughs]. But as Prabhupad just mentions in the first line, the first sentence of the purport, the devotee is interested in delivering all the fallen souls. That’s why he’s merciful. So his mercy is different. It’s connecting everybody to the Lord. His tolerance is in relation to serving the Lord. Whatever wonderful qualities he shows is somehow connected with the Supreme Lord.
If we look closer, we see that, of course, wonderful qualities are intrinsic to the devotee. They’re also intrinsic in the Supreme Lord. So the Supreme Lord is full of all wonderful qualities. And those qualities are not sattvic also. So he’s also tolerant and compassionate and friendly to all living entities, etc, etc. He has 64 qualities, Krishna. But they’re not material [Laughs]. So a devotee, by association, develops a similar quality. So he is like the spatika [Laughs] or like the glass here [Laughs]. The glass up here, does it appear blue? Kind of, because it’s near the blue cloth. Yeah, it’s blue. See [Laughs]. I put it near the brown cloth and it turns brownish [Laughs]. I put it near the orange flower, it becomes orange [Laughs]. So even in the material world, it is said that by association of another person, you develop their qualities. So if you associate with sattvic people, you become sattvic. If you associate with tamasic people, you become tamasic. Just like the spatika or the glass. And similarly, you associate with a spiritual person, you become spiritual. So you associate with Krishna, you develop Krishna-like qualities [Laughs]. You associate with Rama, you get Rama-like qualities. You associate with Vishnu, you get Vishnu-like qualities. So, according to your association, then you develop similar qualities. You associate spiritually, you get spiritual qualities. You associate with material world, you get material qualities, here, tamo, rajo or sattva.
So, the devotee practices bhakti and bhakti by its definition is cultivating a relationship with the Lord. It is Krishna sanga [Laughs], associating with Krishna [Laughs]. So therefore, automatically, you develop all those wonderful qualities. Or at least, majority of those qualities. 50 out of 64 qualities. So those are spiritual qualities which are eternal, not material qualities which are temporary. So, we have these list of qualities of devotees, and we should never equate them with the material qualities.
In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna discusses the people in tamo guna, rajo guna and sattva guna, and He definitely says the people in sattva guna are superior to the people in rajo guna and tamo guna. They have better qualities. So, as far as material world, yes, it is sattva guna and its qualities are praiseworthy. But when we talk about the devotee and his praiseworthy qualities, we should not think it’s the same qualities at all. The origin is different. And that’s why Rupa Goswami says we’re not cultivating good qualities, we’re not cultivating sattvic qualities or whatever. We’re simply doing bhakti, and this produces all wonderful qualities. So that’s the basic idea. Now, in these qualities, it’s interesting to note that when Rupa Goswami discusses this quality of subhada as a special quality of bhakti, he also says that, of course, it means bestowal of good qualities. And he quotes this verse, which Prabhupad also refers to, the devotee develops all the wonderful qualities of the devatas, etc [Laughs]. But then devatas are sattva, and they have sattvic qualities, we will say. Well, that’s one, true, but at the same time, devatas are also devotees of the Lord. So it looks like sattvic qualities, because they’re you know in sattvic planets, but actually they’re also developing spiritual qualities [Laughs]. But anyway, in that discussion, he says, okay, one quality is to develop all wonderful qualities. Another definition is that, the devotee is merciful to all living entities. And then in the purport, it is said, well, being merciful is also a quality, so why are we separating it out, giving a different definition of subhada, that the devotee becomes merciful to all living entities. And the answer is, yes, it is just another quality, but it’s the principal quality [Laughs], so therefore it is singled out.
So therefore, we’ll see in most of these descriptions of the devotee, this idea of compassion and mercy is quite prominent, karunika or kripa, or various words, anugraha, etc., are used to show how the devotee is merciful to all living entities. This actually is a reflection of Krishna’s quality. So Krishna also has so many qualities, but one of His principal qualities is, He’s very merciful to everybody, all living entities [Laughs]. So therefore, it’s just a reflection of Krishna’s quality. So the devotee has this merciful nature. It develops because Krishna has the same merciful nature. So whatever the qualities the Lord has, are manifested in the devotee, whatever activities the Lord does, the devotee also does. So therefore, the devotee, one of his principal qualities is this eagerness to distribute mercy to other living entities.
In the Madhurya Kadambini there, Vishwanath Chakravarti talks about the devotees of the Lord. So, the Lord is merciful and He’s, of course, sama to everyone, He doesn’t hate anybody, but He shows favour to the devotees. So He’s more merciful to devotees than to other people. He is merciful to devotees according to their degree of surrender. So if you have a little bit of surrender, the Lord is merciful to that amount. If you’re more surrendered, more merciful [Laughs].
So we have kanishthas, madhyamas, and uttamas. Kanishthas are at the bottom, and they’re not really practicing pure bhakti at all. It’s nama-bhasa and bhakti-abhasa, and all sorts of ignorance and whatever, but they worship the Lord. So Lord is a little merciful to them. The madhyamas are true devotees practicing pure bhakti, and they do have knowledge of scripture, they associate with devotees and they understand the difference between pure bhakti and mixed bhakti, devatas and Supreme Lord, etc. So they’re well on situated on the path of pure bhakti. So the Lord is very merciful to them. The uttamas, of course, are in may be advanced bhava or prema, so they’ve removed the anarthas and everything. They completely surrender. So obviously the Lord is completely dedicated to them, and therefore we see the final quality of the six qualities mentioned in the Nectar of Devotion of bhakti is, the last one is, Krishna-akarshini. Bhakti attracts the Lord. Of course, we say bhakti is with kanishtha, madhyama and uttama. He’s attracted to all, but in prema, that’s the uttama devotee, the Lord is controlled by that devotee. He’s so attracted, He becomes a servant of the devotee. So that’s a characteristic of prema. So, in other words, the Lord shows most mercy [Laughs] to the prema bhakta. However, it is also said that the prema bhakta makes no distinctions. He may be in the material world with the material body, but he sees no necessity of preaching because everybody’s in prema already, even the demons. He sees, his vision is so absolute that everybody’s a wonderful devotee [Laughs]. So why we have to preach [Laughs]? We just [Laughs] exist and worship the Lord. So he says that the main preachers are the madhyamas who make distinctions. They see the devotees, the demons, the innocents, and whatever, and accordingly, they avoid the demons, they preach to the innocent and to the kanishthas. These are the main preachers. These are the main people that give the mercy in the material world, the madhyamas. They’re not the highest, so they don’t have the most mercy. They’re not like the uttamas. But nevertheless, the Lord favours these madhymas, gives them bhakti and mercy, and then empowers them to give out that mercy to others. So that much He’s willing to do [Laughs]. He doesn’t say, okay, devotees, you have to do this and distribute mercy here or there. Let the devotee do it. You do whatever you want. You’ve got the mercy. You spread it out everywhere [Laughs] according to what you feel, according to what you choose. So He gives independence to those madhyma devotees to distribute the mercy of the Lord. So that’s His, Krishna’s mercy. He just allows the devotee to do what he wants [Laughs]. And he’s not even the highest devotee.
So, in this way, the devotees will show mercy to other living entities. And what is the mercy? The mercy is to spread the bhakti. It is not simply to fix a broken leg or whatever, cure a person of disease or whatever. It’s actually to spread the message of bhakti to all the fallen jivas in the material world. And then we have examples like Haridasa Thakur and Nityananda trying to spread everywhere, and then Jagai and Madhai attacked them or whatever. But they’re trying to distribute the mercy everywhere. So this is the typical activity of the madhyama devotee to distribute that mercy which the Lord has given them. So they just channel it and give it to other jivas in this material world. So that’s one of their main qualities. And that’s particularly prominent in Caitanya Mahaprabhu’s movement.
Of all the different forms of the Lord, Krishna is svayam bhagavan. So therefore, He has the most mercy, and He even kills demons and makes them into devotees and takes them to Vaikuntha or whatever [Laughs], which other avataras do not do. So Krishna is all-merciful. But Caitanya Mahaprabhu is non-different from Krishna. But at the same time, He’s also got the mood of Radha. And Radha is more merciful than Krishna. So therefore, Lord Caitanya is more merciful than Krishna also [Laughs]. So that is why Lord Caitanya likes to give up mercy freely. So even in the aparadhis, He wants to give mercy to the aparadhis, even though scripture says don’t do it. So Lord Caitanya even says to the aparadhis, I will give you mercy, whatever, like that. So Lord Caitanya, very, very merciful, more than merciful than other forms of the Lord. So that permeates Lord Caitanya’s movement. The devotees are always trying to uplift people in this world. So that’s the unique quality of Lord Caitanya’s movement, because Lord Caitanya is filled with that mercy, so the devotees are also filled with that mercy.
Okay. Hare Krishna!
Q & A :
1.) Maharaj, you talked about the preaching at the end. And you also mentioned that, the mercy of the Lord is enabled to the madhyamas so that they can permeate that around. And so does that mean that the kanishtha can’t give mercy, doesn’t do any preaching or he is not supposed to do preaching?
Yeah, the definition of the kanishtha is, he worships the Lord in the temple. [Not clear]. Finished. Doesn’t appreciate devotees, doesn’t do anything else [Laughs]. And he’s got this kind of impure bhakti, not really understanding who is Supreme Lord and whatever, but he worships the Lord, so he’s kind of a devotee. But he doesn’t associate with other devotees, he doesn’t appreciate spreading bhakti at all [Laughs].
2.) So we see that, particularly starting from Bhaktivinoda Thakur and Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur and Srila Prabhupad, this emphasis on preaching is very heavy. And you know, even to the level of Prabhupad reducing the number of rounds from 64 to 16 because to do sadhana [Not clear]. So how do we understand because we being a kanishtha adhikari, within ISKCON movement, does that mean that everybody is asked to preach, book distribute, and everything is geared towards that preaching. So how do we understand that aspect, that is being emphasized for everybody, regardless of qualification within our movement?
Well, of course, everyone who joins ISKCON is no longer a kanishtha.
Devotees : Laugh, Jai.
HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj : Because automatically we’re associating with devotees and we’re getting knowledge. So Prabhupad’s Bhagavad Gita is there, we’re distributing the Bhagavad Gita, hopefully you’ll read it also [Laughs]. So we don’t have any confusion about pure bhakti, mixed bhakti, devatas, Bhagavan, it’s all quite clear to everybody. So in that sense, and there Prabhupad said, ISKCON is for, you know, shelter for devotees [Laughs]. So obviously the people who are in ISKCON are not kanishthas in that very strict sense of the term. They may be less advanced, but they’re definitely not the kanishthas that are spoken of in Bhagavatam.
3.) Hare Krishna Maharaj. It was a wonderful class. Maharaj, you mentioned that, we can chant Hare Krishna and we can ask for some material thing and Krishna will still give you. And that will be considered as a nama aparadha or offense to the holy name?
HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj : What’s that? What’s that? Nama aparadha?
Devotee: Like if we chant and we ask for material things like a job, I need a material thing.
HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj: Is it aparadha? Not exactly, it’s mixed bhakti. The definition of pure bhakti is anyābhilāṣitā-śūnya. No other desire in our bhakti except to please Krishna. So if we’re asking for things, then that’s kind of an impurity, so it’s no longer pure bhakti.
Of course, Krishna says there are four types of devotees. Those who pray for material benefits, those who want to get rid of their miseries, those who are inquisitive and those who actually know Krishna [Laughs]. He says, I accept them all. So Krishna accepts all these as devotees, but the dearest one is the one who actually is practicing pure bhakti. So they get more mercy [Laughs]. And if you don’t pray for anything, still Krishna will give you things [Laughs]. But you shall not explicitly pray for it.
However, in that definition, it is said anyābhilāṣitā-śūnya, not abhilāṣā-śūnya, abhilāṣitā-śūnya. So our Acharyas explain why? Why abhilāṣitā-śūnya? So explanation is that, when we put the ‘ta’, abhilāṣitā, this is desires in general. So you shouldn’t have desires by and large. Which means that sometimes you can have desires [Laughs]. So he gives the example. If you’re in danger and say, Krishna save me. So this is obviously a desire to protect our own body, not for serving Krishna. Nevertheless, it is tolerated by Krishna. And still, even if you do that, Krishna says you’re still doing pure bhakti. As long as it’s occasional. It’s not every day you’re saying Krishna save me. Krishna save me every day and that’s one of your prayers [Laughs]. So in certain circumstances, yes, there can be some prayer for your own benefit or whatever. Save yourself or whatever. But it shouldn’t be constant. And then one can still be said to be practicing pure bhakti.
Devotee: Maharaj, just a extension of this question. We, atleast I basically pray that my children also take up Krishna consciousness and I want them to serve Prabhupad. Is that considered as a material desire or is that?
HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj: No, because we’re praying for devotion for others, then it’s. If we can pray that everyone becomes a devotee in the material world, it’s a spiritual prayer, not a material thing. So it’s not for our benefit as such. It’s for serving Krishna [Laughs].
4.) Hare Krishna Maharaj, Dandavat pranam. You said that by practicing bhakti, we will automatically get all the good qualities. Even in Bhagavad Gita, Krishna said that, I’ll preserve what you have and I’ll give you what you don’t have. So just a general question. If someone by birth or by nature, if they don’t have a sense of music or if they are not creative. Even after practicing bhakti, I don’t see them, developing that quality. So how to understand this Maharaj? Is it limited to that 64 qualities or?
Well, there’s all sorts of qualities. Now, of course, we have to distinguish between material and spiritual qualities [Laughs]. So as long as we’re in this material world, then we’ll still have a material body. And it also has limitations [Laughs] accordingly. However, even then, as is stated in Bhagavatam, even the dog-eater who by karma has got very low body with all bad qualities [Laughs], if he chants the name of the Lord once, he’s better than a brahmana. So suddenly he’s developed all good qualities [Laughs]. Not just good qualities, better than a brahmana. Transcendental qualities manifest. So it’s possible, at the same time, it may not be sudden, if one has committed some aparadhas. So therefore, the manifestation of good qualities and also the destruction of bad qualities may not take place suddenly, as in the case of Ajamila. It may be more gradual. So it may take time to get rid of bad qualities and develop good qualities because of previous aparadhas or whatever like that. In the case of Ajamila, he had no aparadhas. So then suddenly when he said, name Narayana, all of his karmas were gone, all of his vasanas were gone [Laughs].
5.) Maharaj, you mentioned about how the devotees advance in Krishna consciousness acquire good qualities. And in the Nectar of Devotion, we have these 6 things that are divided by levels. The first two manifest in kanishtha, the second two manifest in madhyama and so, the last two.
HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj: Sadhana, not kanishtha.
Devotee: Sorry ?
HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj: Sadhana, not kanishtha.
Devotee: Oh, okay.
HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj: It’s pure bhakti. Yeah, yeah, so they are actually madhyamas.
Devotee: So this subhada is more of a bhava level?
HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj: No, no. The first two are sadhana. Second two are bhava. Third two are prema.
Devotee: So subhada, the good qualities when does it start Maharaj?
HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj: It could start or it could start after. It may be irregular. Sometimes people will first manifest good qualities and then they’ll destroy bad qualities. Sometimes they first [Laughs] destroy bad qualities and then manifest good qualities. So it may be a little bit irregular according to the particular person. In some cases, it may not even look like it’s there, as in the case of Ajamila. It did not look like he developed any good qualities. He remained exactly the same sinful person till he died, or till the yamadutas came [Laughs]. Actually he was completely free of all of his karmas and all of his vasanas. But there was still an appearance that was arranged by the Lord. So sometimes it doesn’t look like anything has happened, but it has happened [Laughs]. We don’t know.
6.) Maharaj, when we talk about this tṛṇād api sunīcena verse, it looks the other way around, you need to have humility before you can chant the name or chant constantly. So how do we understand that verse in this context that we need to do bhakti. So does the bhakti give humility or humility gives bhakti?
We can say that those qualities mentioned in that verse are actually intrinsic to bhakti itself. If you don’t have those qualities, you are not doing bhakti [Laughs]. If you don’t have any humility, it means there is no bhakti because automatically you’re not even a servant of the Lord. You have no humility to surrender to the Lord. So how can it be real bhakti [Laughs]?
7.) Hare Krishna Maharaj. In the first class, you were talking about mind. Mind, if controlled it’s a friend and if it’s not controlled, it’s an enemy. Just on that, day by day in kali yuga, the challenges are increasing with our existence, like it’s getting very difficult to do everyday things because now with the advent of AI, there’s so much risk to the job and all these things, hearing our mind gets very agitated Maharaj. How to keep the mind not agitated and focus on bhakti?
Well, as is stated here, there will be so many obstacles to the path and then you’re supposed to be a titiksha, very tolerant [Laughs]. Which means that, if one is a devotee, our peacefulness and our pleasure come from our relationship with Krishna, which is internal. And thus whatever happens in the external world is not too significant. So we’re not so attached to whatever happens in the material world. And thus we don’t get bothered by it. So here we have this titiksha and santa, very peaceful, very tolerant. Why? Because he understands this is the material world, material body, karma, whatever like that. And so jiva and relationship with Krishna are eternal. And that’s more valuable. So the more one practices bhakti, the more one realizes that. And therefore the more indifferent he is to his material circumstances, whatever they are. So we may think kali yuga very bad, but any yuga has its problems [Laughs]. So we see even in satya yuga, the demons come and they destroy everything. Krishna is there and the demons come. Balarama is there, this demon comes and destroys the sacrifice or whatever. So the sages have to call Balarama, you kill the demon for us [Laughs]. So in every circumstance there is, even in the most peaceful satya yuga, there is still problems. And even if you go to Brahmaloka, Brahma gets problems also [Laughs].
8.) Maharaj, just now we have heard about the satya yuga and how the demons are there, but we have also heard statements that, Prabhupad said in satya yuga, everybody is a paramahamsa. So if everyone is a paramahamsa, then how is it that we have demons as well in satya yuga?
Well, everyone is , not an absolute statement. So obviously, the material world is there. And you see the description of the creation of Brahma. And when Brahma creates, he creates demons. And [Laughs] he creates devatas [Laughs]. So from the very beginning of Brahma’s day, we have these two forces there. Sometimes they don’t manifest so much. So that’s satya yuga. And as we go on, they get more powerful and they start attacking more. But even in satya uga, there are demons. They’re going to be there [Laughs]. But we will say the prominence of sattva is there, so they don’t cause so much disturbance. But they’re present there, just like the gunas are always there. And so we have brahmanas, prominently sattvic. But they’re not pure. They do have some tamas and rajas also. And sometimes those things will manifest, and the brahmana makes a mistake [Laughs].
9.) Maharaj, is there any way of analyzing our own self on whether we are progressing properly to surrendering to the Lord, is there any things that we can check on?
Well, I think in one place, Bhaktivinoda Thakur says, every ekadasi, you should [Laughs] analyze yourself and see how much you’re progressing [Laughs]. And see how much attraction you have to Krishna, how much anarthas have dissipated like that. So he says, you should analyze yourself. Just like we have the plant growing and we have the gardener. So the gardener has to be a little bit, not this completely optimistic, throw some water on and say, oh, the plant’s going to grow nicely because it’s bhakti. He has to very carefully look at the plant and examine and see if there’s a little bug on it [Laughs], see if there’s a spot on the leaf [Laughs]. Then he may have to see, well, where did the spot come while it’s there? He goes to the internet and finds out which kind of disease the plant has. And says, okay, it’s this disease, so then I have to use this cure to get rid of that, whatever. So the devotee also has to be a little introspective and see just what anarthas are there, just what weaknesses are there and try to improve the situation so that the bhakti can grow nicely.
Okay. Hare Krishna.
Devotees: Grantharaj Srimad Bhagavatam ki jai!!! HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj ki jai!!! Srila Prabhupad ki jai!!!